Things Found In A 2nd Grader's Backpack

 a photo by meoskop on Flickr.

This seems an appropriate photo for a brief lapse in reviewing. Since the household currently has three broken bones for two people, there will be a short recess. I'll be back as soon as the Vicodin wears off - it shouldn't be long. I only filled half the prescription.

Brief Thoughts About Genre

Our New Overlords, a photo by meoskop on Flickr.

I read all over the map, but the genre fences are strong for some. I was reminded of this by two events yesterday. In the first, a person I know well interrupted a conversation I was having with another reader.

"What? You're talking about romance?" Actually, Romantic suspense, but OK. "Oh, YUCK!"The person walked off, making the icky shudder faces well known to those acquainted with toddlers. I returned to my conversation. Now the first woman was uncomfortable. "I read other things too. I have a lot of Baldacci, I like history." I steer the conversation gently back to where it was, soothing ruffled feathers on the way. The subtext was "Please don't think less of me, please respect me." Eventually we get back on topic, but minor flashes of insecurity continue. I want to tell her it's ok to read books by women, it's ok to read books for women. It's ok to read something that isn't by men, about men, that isn't about punishing women or white women teaching black women how to rise to whiteness, or tragic or all the other things that are Acceptable Media when romance is not. She will say she knows. She will say it in the same tone a woman uses when you tell her that guy wasn't worth the tears "Oh, I know that" she says. But they don't.

The Romance Hater returns. I happen to know her favorite book is the Twilight Series and I steer the conversation into revealing that. Twilight has been made into a movie, it's been a bestseller, it's been on magazine covers, so Twilight is ok. My Romance Hater can love Twilight without the tarnishing brush of Romance because of it's elevation to Acceptable Media. (She also loved The Hunger Games, which is a dystopian romance at it's core, but is also Acceptable Media given it's adaptation into a film and it's YA status.) Her fervent love for these books, the things about them that appeal so strongly to her over other books she's read are not their romantic elements. They are not, because she does not like Romance. I don't know if that can create a lightbulb moment for my Romance Lover or not. I can only do so much.

Every book is a frog. Until you kiss it you can't know if it's a prince or not. Other people can kiss it for you but no princess ever got the crown by waiting for approval. Sometimes the frog can't be hidden by even the most determined elevation to Acceptable Media. Like an emperor without clothes, some readers find frogs in the most elegantly attired.

Yesterday a class of second graders had assigned reading. In the tale a young teacher is reluctant to accept a job transfer. She likes her school. She likes her students. She is happy there. Her husband has no patience with her judging the transfer without experience and drives her to look at the new school. The children were supposed to laugh at the teacher's misconceptions and cheer her discovery that new things can be better than the old, that new experiences can be worth exploring. The children were asked to identify the humorous elements of the tale. One student wrote "I don't think this story is funny. It is about a guy forcing a girl to go somewhere and do things she does not want to. That is not funny." The student went on to cite a passage where the husband orders the wife to get her shoes and get in the car as an example of his dominance and her submission. The frog in the story of male dominance overcame the student's ability to see redeeming aspects in the intended message of personal growth. For some readers, an elevation to Acceptable Media cannot overcome their personal response.

It's My Genre because I read it. Whatever I read, whatever media it falls into, the only genre that can ever matter to me is mine.

A Month In Books

I spent the past four weeks traveling by various methods, completely unconnected. No phone, no iPad, no laptop, just a number of books and a lot of sightseeing. 

I had preloaded a number of reviews for this blog, but I thought it might interest you to see what three weeks of reading looks like for me. In addition to magazines, I read the following. I won't review all of these, as I don't review everything. 

The Sony PRS-350 really outperformed the Sony 505 on the road. I think Baby's getting kicked to the curb. You'll have to forgive the lack of formatting, I'm still unpacking.

 

Summer Is All About Reruns

Mergers, a photo by meoskop on Flickr.

I'm still doing the whole get over cancer thing, so the TBR reviews will continue. Hm, I should phrase that differently because I am already over cancer. So over it. Over, over, over. Stick a fork in cancer, because it's done.   (I just need my stitches to get the memo.) It's also summer, which means there is a gazebo or two out there with my name on it. Maybe even this one. If there's a gap here or there, a lack of comments, a bizarre run of random reading - blame it on the folly. I certainly will.

A Brief Note From Our Sponsor....

I've got some reviews preloaded, but if there is a temporary lull please check back. We're taking another ride on the cancer train around here, so things may be erratic for a few weeks. No Worries, Righty Tighty.

Why Enid Went Electric....

I went digital.

I never thought I'd do it. It wasn't something I thought could happen to me. But there I was, just me and a Sony PRS-505. I looked at it's shiny red case and we ran off together. I would have left a note for MMP (that's what I called him - Mass Market Paperback just seemed so formal) but what would I write it on? How could I be sure that I wasn't writing on paper from the same tree as MMP? That would be like tattooing your goodbye note on your boyfriend's sister. Maybe it was cowardly, but I just slipped him into the local library's book return and went on my way. Surely he'd find someone else. Maybe they'd even put him into circulation.

Like any new relationship, I had ignored the warning signs. 505 had tried to explain his limitations. He had baggage. There was this thing he had going with Adobe, and due to DRM we couldn't just leave her behind. It was going to have to be a Modern Relationship. I sobbed that MMP had never done me like that. MMP let me run the relationship. I told him where to go and he just did it. Sometimes (and I hate to admit this) he'd let my whole family have a turn.

505 reminded me that he could do things MMP never dreamed of doing. His content went much deeper than MMP's and a little bit of Adobe in my life wasn't too high a price, was it? I decided he was right. No relationship is perfect. If I'd understood then that I was starting the long road toward stripping, would I still have done it? I'm not sure. It's too late now. Agency Five came along and 505 told me to do what I had to do if I wanted to stay with him. It's the compromises you make along the way that change you. I'm not sure I can ever trust 505 the way I did when he wooed me away from MMP. But I can't go back.

I've seen too much.

iPad says he can satisfy me he way 505 does. He's too flashy for my taste. Let's be honest - size does matter. I don't think iPad will fit in my purse. Kindle, now there's a guy who knows how to woo me. I tell him I like a slender companion? He takes off some weight. I tell him I won't go below a  6 inch screen? That's his smallest size. I don't know if 505 realizes that when we're together sometimes I'm thinking about Kindle. I try to hide it. After all, I've filled 505 to the brim and forced him to wear an SD card just to keep up with me. He's doing all he can.

505 and I made this little video in the giddy stages. He said he'd never show anyone, or use it against me - but how can I trust that? He'd probably claim Adobe did it. I'm not sure I can trust either one of them since Agency came into our lives. Kindle's all tied up with Agency too, but he doesn't seem happy about it. I'm going to think about it tomorrow. I just wish MMP would stop calling me. I know he's cheaper. I know he hangs out with Hardcover all the time. But we're so over. Why can't he accept that?

In Which Meoskop Comes To A Realization!

Once upon a time, while I was staring in shock at my internet bill, AOL offered me a position reviewing books. Free books and free internet?  Sold. Until one day the perfect storm of flat rate access and a heroine named Blueberry Hill sent me running. (My review was polite, but all these decades later I can still quote my private emotions. This book is an argument against English as a written language.)  Time passed. I was in a bookstore and saw Diane Farr's second or third regency on the shelf. The cover blurb seemed naggingly familiar, as if I'd ... written it. Go me. I waited for my reaction but I felt nothing. Well, nothing but an urge to read another Diane Farr novel. Life went on. I was still a Writer.

Instead of actually sitting down and writing a book, working out a plot, imagining characters, I thought there was some answer that would instill in me a desire to be an author. A desire I still didn't have. Could I do better than Blueberry Hill? Absolutely. Did I want to? It was time to figure this stuff out. Who better to ask about how to avoid Writing than authors?  I'm pretty sure I drove Edith Layton crazy. She explained a lot about the business while gently indicating that maybe I didn't really want to be a Writer? Nora Roberts told me to suck it up and do it, then promptly killed my brother off in a J.D. Robb book. I think she was annoyed. Kay Hooper suggested finding what I wanted to write about then letting the stories unfold. This was pre-Seinfeld, so I had no idea writing about nothing was an option.

Julia Quinn admired my shoe displays, envied my pretzel bites, and explained (on more than one occasion) that the desire to tell a story generally (but not always) comes before the desire to sell it. I told her I like to sell things, actually. She thought I should look into becoming an agent. I can't. I said, I'm a Writer. Everyone says so. We agreed that was a shame. I thought she was absolutely brilliant at selling things, and very fine indeed at telling stories. So I was almost there! Julia moved out of New England. Joe Wallace thought I should keep honing my craft, or something equally gentle. It began to dawn on me that annoying authors wasn't going to make either of us any happier. I kept reviewing. I'd go to this website, I'd go to that website. I told myself I was reviewing books to learn more about how they were constructed, which would lead to a better understanding of what sold. Once I understood what sold, I could work in that direction and not waste my time as a Writer.  (True fact, once you're an author you get letters from prison inmates. I already knew prison inmates. One more way I was building my portfolio!)

Along the way I lost interest in reviewing. Authors liked me, Publishers didn't mind me, but the fans hated me. Why wasn't I supportive? Why did I have to say such snarky things? Didn't I understand how hard it was to be a Writer? Of course I did! That's why I wasn't doing it! I stopped taking or asking for arcs. I didn't maintain a website. I'd put a thing here or there in my blog until Amazon asked if I wanted to join Vine. I dunno, I said - I've sort of done this thing before and I don't really get on well with RWA, and I think authors are just people and omg Blueberry Hill. Amazon told me it was ok, I could choose the books I wanted to read. Suddenly, I was reviewing again. I started reading review sites like Smart Bitches and Dear Author. It wasn't all daisy chains in the meadows and girl scout songs. Reviewing had changed. After a pleading letter where I promised to make a stop motion film and revealed an embarrassing incident from my past involving a toilet, 80's hair and an heirloom bottle opener the Smart Bitches gave me a chance to review an E-Reader . 

( I didn't actually know how to make a stop motion film.) 

Suddenly, I was talking about books again. For my blog, for Amazon, for random strangers about to purchase a copy of Twilight. My brother asked me if I had ever really wanted to be a writer. I realized I had not. Not even a little bit. I didn't want to hold a book in my hands that I had written or share a saga with someone or do a book signing or attend a convention. I just liked authors as people, I liked reading, and I like talking about books. So I am very sorry Mom, friends, customers, baggage handlers, that girl in fourth grade, teachers, and all the other people who want so very, very much to read my first book. I'm not actually a Writer. And I am sorry to all the authors I begged for the secret, who told me the same thing. Being an author is not something a person would choose to be. It's something they are.

PS - Mom, I'm also sorry I wasn't gay. I know that was important to you too.
PPS - If your heroine was the aforementioned Blueberry Hill, um, I'm sorry for bringing it up again and all, um, I'm sure that there were, um, really good parts about the book that I, um, don't remember anymore.

Meoskop, And How She Got Here

Once, a very long time ago (before they invented dirt) there were any number of people who felt I should become a Writer. I can't say I particularly wanted to be a Writer but it was the focus of so many people for so long that I supposed I believed I should want to be a Writer. I liked reading. I liked winning contests at school (the easiest way to do that was writing something bleak and referencing age inappropriate influences). My mother wanted to be a Writer. So I began writing. I wrote short fiction that cribbed heavily from Andre Norton. I embarked on a stunning amount of really bad poems. Then I ran away from home and put it all in my checked luggage. The airline promptly lost it. (It wasn't even proper luggage, more of a large plastic bag with a zipper).

I was so relieved. Sure, everyone else was upset for me. I made sad faces, I bemoaned fate - but now it was gone! All of it! I didn't have to try and edit it or worry about why I didn't love working on it. It was gone. Hands brushed, end of story, all done! A few months later they found it. The airline person that phoned me was very excited. Obviously, I must be heartbroken because he'd taken a look at my binders. I was a Writer, and my work was important. I made all the appropriate expressions of glee. It seemed wrong to take his big moment away by saying what I was really thinking. "Well, hell." Suddenly, I was a Writer again. Even the baggage handlers thought I should be one. Let's count - parents, teachers, friends, baggage handlers. (That's the whole world, right?) Every year from about age nine my mother gave me a copy of whatever that book was writers used to send out packages in exchange for rejection notices. I duly collected my notices while she reminded me that time was running out on My Goal of being a Young Author.

Having run away from home I was no longer under any obligation to collect the notices, so I stopped submitting work. I started working in retail. I liked it. Almost everything about retail was satisfying with the exception of the customers who said I was much too good for retail. So when they asked what my Real Job was I would tell them I was a Writer. It always made sense to them. They could tell I was a Writer! I found that a bit insulting, as I don't particularly care for Writers. I liked authors. Authors were people who grumbled under their breath, walked about in their pajamas and never talked about their work. Writers didn't have anything published and rarely talked about anything but their work. After my mother told me I had missed my chance to the be Youngest Writer it was important to her that I not lose my chance to be an Average Writer, although if I didn't get it in gear I'd have to settle for being a Late Life Writer. Maybe I could write a book for her, since she had much better ideas. Then she could edit it and change what I did wrong, and we could go on a book tour together. (Did I mention I'd already run away from home?)

Obviously, I was going to have to look into this Writing thing a bit more.