I'm a work machine!

The puppies look like muppets in this picture, especially The Moo (in back)

I decided to do a little social experiment on myself this week.

I made a pledge that I would not access the internet at work. No Facebook, no Gmail, no Bloglines, no Wikipedia, nada, zip, zero, nothing. Only work email, because apparently I have to respond to that. I had a vague idea that I wanted to see the effect it would have on my motivation. I don't have issues with time management at work. I am not someone who runs around screaming "I'm so busy!" and complaining. Well, I complain. But not about not having enough time to do my job.

So, day one was pretty easy. Day two, a bit harder. Day three and four were really pretty intense. I felt like an addict needing my crack. "Just a quick search!" or "I could just Wiki that..." or "Maybe I should check my email". I stayed strong in the struggle until this afternoon when my boss told me to check out a job on a website and also, I had this really cute email with little panda pictures in it that I wanted to sent to a friend...

The final result is I was basically a work machine this week. I felt really productive and useful. Will I continue the experiment? Yes, but not for the same reasons.

I read a lot of blogs. I like the insight into other people's lives. I find it interesting and compellng. But I waste a lot of time reading about other people's lives that could be spent actually living MY life. I care a lot less about my blog reading this week. I want to spend my personal time on stuff that is important to me. Not other people's lives, not the tv and not always books (although I totally heart books forever and ever). This is a good lesson to learn.

I've been typing up my writing from my journals and I have about another 4000 words for my novel, so I'm doing pretty good. I'm really looking forward to NanNoWriMo in November! I've also been reading Memoirs of a Geisha which I'll blog about in my Sunday Salon post.

Well, I'm off to live my life.

The Yellow Wallpaper

I read a short story today. It is part of my reading for my Creative Writing course. The story is called The Yellow Wallpaper and it was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and first published in 1892. I had no idea the effect this story would have on me.

The unnamed protagonist is experiencing post natal depression and the piece is an exploration of her experiences in an isolated homestead, forbidden to get "excited" or do anything resembling work as this was considered counter productive to her "nervous condition". Her husband is a jerk, telling her that the way she feels is all in her head and treating her like a small child. By the end of the story she is almost insane. In the commentary that followed the story Charlotte Gilman said she had experienced depression periodically in her life, and after her child was born. She went to see a "noted specialist in nervous disease, the best in the country" who said there was nothing really wrong with her, but she should "live a domestic life as far as possible", "have but two hours intellectual life a day" and "never touch a brush, pen, or pencil again" as long as she lived. She said she did this for 3 months and almost went insane.

This makes me angry on so many different levels. How DARE men of that time and place - barely a hundred years ago - explain away how a woman feels as being all in her head. How DARE he suggest that any kind of creative expression was counter productive to "getting over it"? How many women did this doctor, and others like him, cut off from creative expression and treat like baby making machines with the brains of vegetables? 2000 years of human history and a hundred years ago this fucking idiot doctor was strapping women to beds, feeding them massive amounts of cream and prescribing no intellectual stimulation. What the hell was he thinking?

I dislike the medical profession intensely. I do not believe all they tell me. I don't follow their prescriptions and tests if I don't agree with them. I won't let their statements remain unchallenged. Their power base has been far too big for far too long. I won't help them maintain unwarranted control over my life, or the lives of others.

As for the descent into madness experienced by the lead character in The Yellow Wallpaper, I feel uncomfortable reading her words. I read The Bell Jar for the first time a year or so ago. I was in equal measures repulsed and attracted by the story. I remember telling a woman on my writing retreat in Guatemala that I felt like I could see myself in Plath's words and she said "Yes, I think that was the disturbing thing about that novel. We could all see ourselves in her".

So now I am uncomfortable and filled with righteous indignation at the treatment of women by the medical profession.

Who I wish I could be

I wish I could be someone who:

• Smiles more
• Feels bone deep contentment
• Believes in herself
• Doesn't work full time
• Enjoys her day job
• Is kissed often
• Is debt free
• Knows what she wants
• Doesn't feel jealous and envious of other people whose lives seem better than hers
• Creates good art
• Writes every single day

Sunday Salon: Week Whatever

I've had a few weeks off from the Sunday Salon, so I'm not sure which week I'm at. The past few weeks have been slow reading weeks for me. I'm still reading Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto, I have started and finished For the Love of Letters: A 21st Century Guide to the Art of Letter Writing and I am halfway through The Lost Slayer.

Let's start with For the Love of Letters.


I heard the author of this book, Samara O'Shea, interviewed on the Writers on Writing podcast (I seriously heart this show - it is available for free on Itunes and I find it is great for introducing me to authors and books I wouldn't ordinarily read) and thought this sounded like an interesting little book. O'Shea explores the world of letter writing in a unique way - she interposes letters she has written and received with famous letters from Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allen Poe and Emily Post. The result is a suprisingly deep exploration of the place of letters our lives now, and in the recent past. I have a lot of respect for how much O'Shea puts herself out there in this book - she trots out letters from ex-lovers, almost boyfriends, old friends and even the apology letter she wrote to her boss when she was fired as an intern from The Oprah Magazine. It's ballsy, and turned what could have been an abstract impersonal topic into something intimate and engaging. I also have to admit that I had no idea how much I would relate to this book - I thought it would be interesting in a nothing to do with me kind of way. Little did I know that I have written pretty much every letter in that book (heavy on the letters to almost-boyfriends...eek!). To top it all off, I dropped O'Shea an email to let her know how much I enjoyed the book and her reply was gracious and humble. Highly recommended.


The Lost Slayer is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer book. I imagine half of you stopped reading after that sentence. Oh well. This is actually an omnibus (God I love that word) of four books written by Christopher Golden which follow the same character arc. It's a meaty read, and I suspect it is vastly improved by compiling all four books together. The basic premise is this: Buffy makes a mistake that sees her propelled 5 years into the future into the body of 24 year old Buffy who has spent the past 5 years locked in a holding cell while the King of the Vampires takes over Sunnydale and LA (almost). When Buffy breaks out, everything has changed - Willow is heading up the military-esque organisation that is trying to stop the vampires from taking over LA, Buffy's Mom is dead, and so is Anya (killed by Spike), Oz is still around but he and Willow aren't what they once were and Xander. Poor Xander. He is bitter and scarred and doesn't smile anymore. Oh, and the King of the Vampires is...GILES! I almost dropped the book when that was revealed, but vampire Giles makes a great villain. I'm a little over half way through and I have to say I'm really enjoying my visit to the Buffyverse. I used to read all of the Buffy books (give me a break...I was 20-something. I'm almost 32 now, so obviously I can appreciate the books on more levels and with deeper wisdom and great insight etc. etc.) and Christopher Golden was the best Buffy writer - he really had the dialogue rhythm down and understood the characters. Good times!

Finally, as I said, I am still making my way through the meandering path and zen rock raking that is Untangling My Chopsticks. This is a book that is not the sort of book that shouts "READ ME NOW!!!!" It doesn't shout anything. Every now and then it politely whispers "Here I am. You can read me if you like. If not I'll wait." It's an interesting book, it's just that the art of learning how to cook the food that accompanies the Japanese tea ceremony is not urgent reading. It does, however, make me want to visit my favourite Japanese restaurant.

Happy reading Sunday Salon-ers!

Sunday Scribblings: Wedding

I hate this prompt.

I'm going to hate wading through other people's posts about the day they married their husband/wife. All very romantic stories, I'm sure. I'm not against marriage. It's just the older I get the more complicated the whole thing seems. I don't know if I could ever hand someone my heart on a platter. And I don't know what I would do if they served me theirs on a platter.

I went out to dinner a few months back and a woman I didn't know very well told me that she met a guy, they had two, like, awesome months together and then he left for a trip to Europe. There were many tears and promises (most of them hers I am guessing) and now she had just quit her job and was going to fly to Europe to holiday with him for a while before they both came back to start their lives together. Part of this hideously romantic tale was the line "Two weeks after I met him he said I was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with and he could see himself with me forever."

At this point I was ready to leave the table if she continued with "He said he could see his unborn children in my eyes". Luckily she stopped for a breath and I said "Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I'd run a mile if a guy said that to me." She looked visibly annoyed. I guess I was supposed to gush and giggle and look wistful as I told her she was the luckiest woman in the world and I was so envious.

Sorry, no. I'm not against relationships, love and romance. I like all three, sometimes mixed together. But I'm not willing to mortgage myself for something that isn't real, doesn't make sense and is based purely on emotion. Just because you love one another, doesn't mean it is going to work. Life leans much more towards the practical than the romantic and the various expensive weddings I've attended over the years have made me decidedly cynical about the whole thing. One in three couples who marry divorce. I think they should be made to give the wedding presents back, or offer a cash equivalent.

Friday Words of Wisdom

The lesson I am learning lately is that there is no waiting for the perfect time to start anything. There will never be a perfect time to:

start a business,

have a baby,

quit your job,

go for the job you want,

go back to school,

call that person,

paint those empty canvasses,

leave your comfort zone,

learn to surf,

travel to India,

write your book,

follow your dream.

There will never be the perfect time for anything, so you may as well begin now imperfectly.

- Words of wisdom from the remarkable Stacy over at Bella Wish.

Because sometimes photographs say it better than words...

Dark and damp and quiet

Because sometimes I just feel so darn insignificant

A friend in need can always be comforted by a Mollie paw

Believe

I am no longer sure

if I

believe

in

me

(or you).

Sunday Salon: Week 6

This week I have been reading Garden Spells, Cerulean Sins (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter # 11) and Coraline.

I wrote about Garden Spells last week, and as I finished the last 100 pages or so the assessment I made was pretty right on - it was an enjoyable read, but fairly forgettable. I read some reviews and a lot of people likened Garden Spells to the movie Practical Magic. It had been a while since I saw the movie, so I could only remember some vague similarities. However it was on tv last night and I watched it again and yeah, pretty much the exact same storyline. But the books is still a fun, light and fluffy read. You could do a lot worse than to pick up Garden Spells.


Next up was Coraline, which I had never even heard of until I read about it on Bookgirl's Nightstand. She thought she was the last person to read it, but as I hadn't even heard of it, I think she's safe. I added it to my list of books to read and then noticed it on the shelf at the library. I checked it out and wow, I'm glad I did. It's a young adult book, but it is genuinely creepy and all that business about the imposter parents having buttons for eyes is very weird and is creeping me out even as I type this. It's a quick read, but a wonderful fairy tale with a dark underbelly. *insert shudder here*

When I sourced an image for this book I heard that there is a movie being made based on the book. The image above is an early poster promoting the movie. Um...don't take your kids until you've read the book!


Finally, I started and finished Cerulean Sins, the 11th book in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. These books started out with a serious bang and to almost universal applause from critics and readers alike. Then around book 9, our heroine met with some...changes. From about book 10 onwards it has been nothing but hate from critics and readers alike. Amazon is populated with hundreds of 1 and 2 star ratings for books 11, 12, 13 and 14. Pretty much everyone turned on author Laurell K Hamilton and gutted her with a very long very sharp sword. Was this a great book? No, not great. But it was good, it was engaging and it kept me reading. Hamilton is gifted with a wonderful imagination and Anita is so very practical and real and solid. She's incredibly likeable, despite the fact that she kills monsters for a living and *gasp* sleeps with more than one man at a time. However, the finer points of plotting and story development are not really Hamilton's gifts. In the beginning books she was clearly heavily edited and the books were better for it. But like some other authors I can think of, as she became more popular and sold more books, her books got bigger and bigger and not necessarily better. Typos and grammatical errors (truly appalling ones, like the use of "isle" instead of "aisle" in a wedding setting) crept in and gave people who hated what Hamilton did to Anita Blake even more ammo to throw her way. And really, the publishers should be ashamed of themselves.

Anyway, the book itself was good. The plot was a bit thin, with a gaping hole in the middle resolved with a last minute tie up that was a bit too convenient. It was nice to see some development with Richard actually growing a pair and Asher finally getting back into Jean-Claude's (and Anita's) bed (at the same time! Shock! Horror!). Anita's character only moved forward marginally, but some of the scenes with her and Belle Morte/Musette were vintage Anita and really well done. Part of the reason I enjoyed this book so much was because it has been well over a year since I read Anita Blake number 10. I have discovered that a little Anita goes a long way. I have number 12 sitting on my bookshelf as we speak, but I'll be giving it at least a few months breathing room, maybe more.


Anyway, I'm one chapter into Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojurn to Kyoto which is a travel and food memoir. So far so good. I visited Kyoto a few years back and I can visualise the underground mall where the author is having her first meal of eel in Japan. It is so nice to be able to relate to the setting a book. It adds layers of meaning that you don't even realise are missing.

Happy reading and happy Sunday!

Sunday Salon: Week Five

This week I've been reading The Horse Whisperer, If I Am Missing or Dead, and Garden Spells.

Let's start with The Horse Whisperer which is the first of the books I'm reading for the Lit Flicks Challenge.


I saw the movie some time ago and will probably see it again, as part of the Lit Flicks challenge is to read the book and see the movie. The book was certainly engaging, but it also had its rough spots. Nicolas Evans has the bones of a great book here - girl and horse experience a horrific accident, career woman in crisis, lone wolf horse whisperer on a ranch in scenic Montana, bland husband...a perfect recipe for affairs, accusations, love, healing and redemption. Something, however, gets a bit lost in the translation. Maybe if the book had been tighter, about 50 pages less it would have been a really good book. It's a bit bloated and I got a bit sick of career woman Annie and her boring husband Robert and some of the other very one dimensional characters. By far the most intriguing character is the horse whisperer Tom Booker, closely followed by the daughter Grace. Anyway, I have to say that I was surprised at the end which is radically different from the end of the movie. I'd recommend the book, but I wouldn't say it was amazing or anything.



I have been waiting for Janine Latus' If I Am Missing or Dead since April, and when I picked the request up at the library on Friday I noted for the first time a marker that informed me the book was in "heavy demand" and there would be no renewal. I've been borrowing books from the library for about 20 years and I've never seen one of those markers before. I guess I don't read a lot of popular books! This book actually has quite a misleading title. Janine Latus' sister was certainly killed by her boyfriend, but this is Janine's story about her abusive relationship with her husband and the echoes of abuse in her family home as she grew up. Her father is painted as a complete and total pig, sexualising his daughters, groping their friends and telling inappropriate stories. It is hard to know what is true in memoir, but if half of this book is true, I think Janine Latus has had a very tough and sad life. Again the book is bloated - the fact that her husband is a jerk but they have a great sexual relationship is mentioned oh, about 100 times. It is an interesting side of domestic violence and not one usually explored, but it was overdone here and in the last 100 pages or so I simply couldn't understand why she wouldn't leave him. Her only defence seems to be "I was scared to be alone" which didn't seem to hold water to me. I'd recommend the book, but from the reviews on Amazon it seemed a lot of people were misled and thought this would be a "true crime" (a genre of books I personally hate) about Latus' sister Amy. So as long as you know up front it is Janine's story it's a compelling, interesting and ultimately tragic tale of a family mired by domestic violence.



Garden Spells is a lovely little book about the Waverly family who have an unusual apple tree in the backyard and a legacy of being "magical" in their home town. he book centres of Claire, and her sister Sydney (and Sydney's daughter Bay) who has recently returned home after a lifetime of running away from what it means to have the magic Waverly touch. I love the descriptions of the lovely food Claire cooks from the magic garden and her almost-relationship with the boy next door is sweet. I've read some scathing reviews of this book, and I think they were a little harsh. I once described a book as being like cotton candy - sweet, fun and good while you're eating it, but basically unfulfilling - and I think Garden Spells is another one of those books. I'm not quite done with it yet.

Next up will be something from the shelf...maybe the next Anita Blake book or even the last Harry Potter!

Happy Sunday. :)

Sunday Salon: Week Four

This week I've finished off Twilight and The Opposite House and started The Awakening (The Vampire Diaries I) Let's start with Twilight.



I mentioned last week that I bought Twilight well over a year ago when I was working at Borders in San Antonio. There were a lot of Dad's who came in to buy the latest sequel for their teenage daughters, which at that time was the third book Eclipse. I have a soft spot for Young Adult fiction and decided to give it a go. While I found the book quite readable and interesting I stopped at pretty much the most exciting part of the book and didn't pick it up again for a year. I started from the beginning and again, it's an enjoyable book but I can't say it is one of the best books I've ever read, or even one of the best Young Adult books I've ever read. I liked Bella a lot, but I agree with people who say that it was frightening to watch her become obsessed with Edward and lose sight of everything else in her life except for him. Is that the message I want to be giving to young readers, especially girls? Er...no. I found the brooding Edward to be a bit annoying too. That said, I'll probably give the second book a read but not for a while and I won't be buying it. I'm sure the library is chock full of copies. I might also watch the movie when it comes out, mostly out of curiosity to see how the book to movie transition goes.


I'm faintly surprised that I managed to finish The Opposite House. A strange little book that I came by via the Writers on Writing podcast (if you're reading this, you're very welcome for the link to the podcast Terri!) and I was impressed by the author's poetic turn of phrase and her youth (she's about 24 I think). I don't know quite how to explain or describe this book. It's an experience, not a journey. It doesn't always make sense, and in fact usually doesn't. I'm not sure it is supposed to. It starts somewhere, then goes nowhere but in a peaceful way. It's overblown, but incredibly subdued and small. It's a study in contrasts, I guess. I stated last week that I wasn't sure if it was incredibly brilliant and not able to be understood by the mortal mind, or if it was utter crap and we just think it is brilliant because we don't understand it. What is certain is that Helen Oyeyemi has a poets mind and some of her phrases are amazing enough to make me want to weep at her gift. This is "high literature" at a peak and I don't think I'd rush to read anything by Oyeyemi again, however this one will live on in my mind for quite a while methinks.



I read about The Awakening in someone's Sunday Salon post...I wish I could remember who it was! I think the discussion was about Twilight, which peaked my interest as I was reading it at the time and the blogger recommended this series over Twilight. I'm about half way through and it isn't shaping up to be a bad little book. The cover you see above is not the cover on my book - mine is a very early-90's horror cover where they have tried to do something clever with a crow and a vampire, but it just comes off looking cheesy. The book cover above reminds me a great deal of the Twilight movie promotional posters, which is probably the point. Perhaps these books will experience a comeback. There are certainly worse books out there - our heroine Elena (the Queen of her high school, orphan and all round supremely beautiful being) has the hots for the new boy in town Stefan who is (dum, dum, dum , DA!) a vamp with a mean brother. We seem to be building to something, and this is the first in a four book series so its on slow boil at the moment. I just wish there were more teen books about regular teenagers. Not the really popular ones or the really outsider ones. It gets a bit old after a while. Anyway, we'll see how it goes.

Happy Sunday!

Venice, Italy and Paris, France

Venice

Venice was my favourite place.

It seems like madness to build so much on a tiny scrap of land, but the Venetians were fearless in a way modern architects can never be

The rooftops of Venice

The canals of Venice

I feel like I lived here in another life, jumping from bridge to bridge and leaping from roof to roof.

Lots of people, pigeons everywhere, phone to call internationally at the top of the tower, gondola rides, doors that opened into the canals from houses that were built hundred of years ago, the courage it must have taken to build these buildings on a network of tiny muddy islands, the huge cruise ship, gelato, the book binding man, the North Africans and their rip off bags that look great, but you can get busted 2000 Euros if the police catch you buying one, cold drinks, too much heat, gondoliers balancing and shouting to one another, the Merano glass and the glass blower who wore extremely tight clothing and blew glass, handling it like a well practiced lover, my beautiful azure glass heart, a boat ride through the S canal, imagining what it must be like to see Venice underwater, imagining what two big gates to block out the sea would look like, pondering the thought of Venice becoming a dead city with the only industry being tourism, plotting and planning my return in the winter to ghost through the streets reliving something and imagining I might stealth over Venetian rooftops once more...

Paris

Long bus ride, rubbish flowing through the streets of Paris on the way to the Moulin Rouge, the fact that I am never sure to spell it "Moulin Rouge" or "Moulin Rogue" which are two very separate things, the talking dog, the acrobatics, the fancy costumes and bare breasts of the dancers, the tiny tables and cramped space, the huge line of people for the second show, the Louvre with its Da Vinci-esque pyramids upside down upright, the crowds of people, the incessant photographs, the irritating Mona Lisa, the unfinished works of Michaelangelo who I am sure would be horrified to have works in progress exposed to the prying eyes of tourists (this is how I would feel if people considered my first drafts of stories to be genius...how embarrassing) but whose works nonetheless look like they are resigned to life half out and half imprisoned in the marble, the Eiffel Tower with its views of Paris, Duncan McLeod's houseboat, walking down the steps of the Eiffel Tower after the most irritating man, buying a pink scarf emblazoned with PARIS, buying my pink bag and some pink nougat at the Louvre, the candles in Notre Dame, the life of Quasimodo (who only lived in Victor Hugo's head, but if I was deformed and had to live in a bell tower, I would choose the bell tower of Notre Dame), the new altar with its new age 12 apostles who looked very out of place, the weird hot dog in a bun with cheese on it from the vendor, crepes and ice cream with Lorna and Carlos, almost buying a Dior purse, seeing the Eiffel Tower lit up late at night and flashing its sparkling lights happily, taking a cruise on the river and watching the city of Paris light up.

I understand why people love Paris. I didn't think I would love it, but a part of me does. What can I say? It's Paris!

V-A-I-N

Well you had me several years ago
When I was still quite naive
When you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you.

- Carly Simon

Sunday Salon: Week Three

Featuring:

• The Golden Compass
• Book Lover
  
• Twilight
• Like, Mad
• Novelist's Boot Camp
• The Opposite House
  

I started this week by finishing off Book Lover on Monday. It turned out to be an oddly compelling sort of book. Even though indications weren’t good last week, the book was very easy to read and clearly I found something interesting in it, even if I’m not exactly sure what. The title of book refers to the main character’s habit of retreating to her bathtub and her books for days on end on a “book binge” when times get tough. I think the book is supposed to be about her evolution as a person and how she learns to deal with life instead of retreating into books, but I think the storyline is lost somewhere and the end judgment seems to be that reading too many books is bad, and dating a man who works in a bookshop and is writing a crappy play is also bad, because he isn’t the “real deal” and your cheating, workaholic, sometimes shallow ex-husband is. I certainly wouldn’t rush out to read other books by both or either of the authors of Book Lover and I’ll be selling my copy ASAP.

As promised last Sunday I finished off His Dark Materials aka Northern Nights aka The Golden Compass. I can’t remember why I stopped reading about 20 pages from the end in January, but I did. Obviously the ending had little impact as the rest of book had blurred a bit in my mind. In any case, I really did enjoy the book. I bought it after seeing the movie and after hearing from a number of people how good the books are. Unlike some people out there I enjoyed the portrayal of the church as a manipulative controlling monster. Philip Pullman has written a book about a child, but I don’t think it was written for children. His writing has a glorious timelessness about it, and I feel that this book could have been written 70 years ago instead of just 12. The concepts and relationships in the book (especially those of Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter and Iorek and his bears) are complicated and very adult. I think children could certainly enjoy the book, but the complexity of storytelling is subtle and the nuances compelling, seeming to exist for understanding by the adult mind. Very interesting and highly recommended. I also love one of the titles – His Dark Materials. It give me goosebumps! As I have the three book omnibus, I plan to move onto The Subtle Knife in the next few weeks.

Most of this week has seen me reading Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. I bought this book in February of 07 when I was working at Borders in San Antonio. I read about three quarters of it and for some reason stopped (this is clearly a theme with me…I wonder why?). So I’ve picked it up again and I’m starting from the beginning. It is extremely readable and the character of Bella is easy to relate to, even to a 31 year old woman like me. As I type this I am remembering that I found the angst of Bella and Edward’s relationship a bit annoying, so perhaps that is why I stopped reading. However I will persevere this time. At the writing retreat I attended in Scotland last month a 14 year old listed Stephanie Meyer as the author whose work had changed the way she sees the world, so there can be no doubting of Meyer's place in the heart of teenagers as a powerful and memorable author. Unless you've been under a rock you'll also know that Twilight the movie is due to be released in December 08.


I also picked up a funny book this week – Like, Mad – which was one of my Dad’s books. My dad died 4 years ago, so I smile to think of him as a 15 year old paying the cover price (35 cents) in 1960 at the local shop. I’ve taken a photo of the book below.


It hasn’t coped well with age (how would you feel if you were a 48 year old paperback?) and the pages are very yellowed and literally falling out of the book. There are also about 50 pages missing from the middle of the book, no idea where they went. I’m about half way through and it is a lot like reading today’s Mad Magazine, except sometimes I miss the pop culture jokes because they're 50 years old. One segment was on the invention of the “video phone” and how spouses could lie to one another about where they were and what they were doing. It’s a fun read.

I borrowed Novelist’s Boot Camp by Todd A Stone from the library this week. I’ve read a bit, but so far I’m not too impressed. Stone is a former military dude who believes that I need to “take command of my novel” and “plan and execute a writing strategy that’s in sync with my ultimate mission objective: getting published”. I’m not a huge fan of the military or military discipline, but I picked up this book at Borders a few weeks back and thought it might have a few good ideas so I put through a request for it at the library. I’ll keep reading for now, but I’m not sure I can be bullied into writing a novel. Seems like the wrong approach entirely to me. Then again, Todd Stone is published and I’m not, so we’ll see I guess.


Another book I want to mention is one I’m half way through and that is The Opposite House by Helen Oyememi. I found out about this book after listening to the author being interviewed on the Writers on Writing podcast. According to the book jacket, The Opposite House “is about the disquiet that follows us across places and languages, a feeling passed down from mother and father to son and daughter.” This doesn’t really do the book justice though. It is literally prose in the form of poetry. Oyememi is a poet and the way she constructs her sentences makes me want to weep at their beauty. She tells her story in images which are then written as words which are then conveyed with a mysterious sort of disconnectedness. I can imagine people gushing about this book because it seems to be smarter than we are – it exists on a higher plane of consciousness and the reader only gets glimpses as to what it really is. On the down side, it is difficult to read, requires total concentration and is best served in small portions. Sometimes we think something must be genius if we don’t understand it, but sometimes it is just not good writing. I am not sure which description fits Oyememi and this book just yet, but I will keep reading to find out.

And that’s me for this Sunday. Yay!

Sunday Scribblings: How I Met My Question Mark

I can imagine some of the responses to this prompt. People will write about the day they met their soul mate, or the day they met their baby. Heart rendering stuff, but also vomit inducing. There is only so many times you can hear “There is no love like the love you have for your child” or “When I met him, two became one”.

Yes siree, pass the bucket.

I’m a weird combination of a romantic soul and a practical person. I read Mills and Boons romances five in a row and then abruptly I decide it is all bullshit and I throw the paperback against the wall and deem the books stupid and misleading. Imagine if love really was like a romance novel? If you weren’t a slim 20 something virgin whose parents are usually dead or generally defective and you haven’t just met a stunningly handsome yet wounded billionaire, you’re out of luck. Sorry, sister. Love is not for the overweight, the self fulfilled or the poor. And then there’s the virgin thing… Of course romance novels have come a long way and not all of the female characters are virgins these days. But there are enough of them to illustrate a sort of trend.

In any case, what I’m driving at here is the fact that all of these soul mate and baby stories don’t seem entirely honest. I am thinking of one blog in particular that I read in the same way I read romance novels. Sometimes I melt a bit and think the heroine (ie. the writer of the blog) leads the perfect life with the perfect husband blah blah blah and the rest of the time I want to smack her across her beautiful face for being so self absorbed and lucky. Here is a woman who does a creative job working from an impossibly cute studio in her house where I’m sure she doesn’t have to worry about bringing in much money as her very handsome and perfect husband worries about that side of things. She swans around, typing out deep thoughts and obsessing over her life choices. Everything she writes about is virtuous. Even her flaws somehow come out as positives. I imagine her life to be wrapped in cotton wool. A protected, sterile existence where she is centre stage and the world worships at her carefully painted toes. She just doesn’t seem real to me. Doesn’t she ever wake up angry with the world? Does she never hold that anger instead of turning it into an entry in her blog whereby she worked through it, there was a sign from nature or the universe and her husband gave her a big hug and it was all okay again?

In short…is she really that perfect? A part of me is very envious. I’d love to have a husband to go out and make the “real money” while I fluffed around at home (this couple do not have children, so she really is fluffing around at home) writing little things and thinking deep thoughts and thanking all the people who make comments on my blog for giving me support and love and do they know how much they mean to me?

And we’re back to vomiting and obviously, I don't really want her life.

Perhaps it is just me, and whoever is reading this is thinking what a horrible bitch I am. I’m not. I’m a caring person, for the most part. I’m also scrupulously honest with myself and most of the time with other people. I don’t ignore the seedy underbelly of life. I like it, finding it infinitely more interesting than the warm fuzzies of life. I insist on making that underbelly a part of my “real” life. I’m not an angel. I don’t have wings and I don’t always see the best in everyone and everything. I get annoyed, envious and irritated. I lack patience sometimes. I’m a flawed creature. But at least I’m real. I’ll always give an honest and true answer. I won’t dress it up in its Sunday best and parade it before you with sweet words and patient insight that I think I’m supposed to feel as I show you how much I’ve learned and how much of a better place I’m in. I’ll get angry, I’ll beat it up and then I’ll reach a kind of war torn peace which I’ll share in the way survivors do.

I’m not afraid of the dark, or the wolves at the door, or the question marks in life. I think this is a good thing.

Sunday Salon: Week 2

I'm really enjoying being a part of Sunday Salon. I'm finding it is helping me make more time for my reading and that makes me oh-so-happy! It has been a wonderful Sunday. Despite the fact that we are still technically in winter, the skies were an achingly light blue today with nary a fluffy cloud in sight. The sun was very warm and I've been wandering around without a sweater for the first time in ages. I only wish Sunday did not precede Monday. Blah.

And now to the reading!

This week I finished up Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

It was a good read, and so much better than its immediate predecessor. Of course the "shock" ending has lost its impact as it is several years since the book was published and I knew what was coming anyway, just as I know what is coming with the final Harry Potter book. Two thumbs up though - it was a very enjoyable tale. I think Ron gets most of the best lines. Case in point:

Hermione: I heard Dumbledore say that it is easier to forgive people when they are wrong than it is when they are right.
Ron: Sounds like the sort of mental thing Dumbledore would say.

That seriously made me laugh for ages. And also this gem from Harry:

Hermione: It's alright for you, the Death Eaters would have you as a member. You're not a 'mudblood'!
Harry: Oh yes, I'm sure we'd get along really well if they could stop trying to do me in all the time.

I paraphrased a little, but you get the point. I love it when books make me laugh out loud.

After Harry Potter I gave some thought to moving onto Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and even cracked it open, but I was right in my assessment last week - I need a little breathing room between installments of Harry Potter.

While I was on my holiday I picked up an omnibus of the first two books in Meg 'The Princess Diaries" Cabot's Heather Wells series - Size 12 Is Not Fat and Size 14 Is Not Fat Either.

I bought the omnibus (such a weird word that...makes me think of a really big bus) for $5.00 at a book sale figuring it would be good light and fluffy reading for the plane and it was! I'm not a big fan of "chick lit" and technically these books don't fall into that genre, but they are certainly light and fluffy, with a mystery twist. Heather Wells is an ex-pop star (think a flash in the pan teen pop tart who sang in shopping malls a lot) whose label and boyfriend dropped her when she said she wanted to sing her own songs and her Mom ran off to Argentina with all her money. Heather is endearing, and I really enjoyed reading about a girl who battles weight issues and isn't afraid to order double whipped cream on her coffee. I also admit that I stayed with the books mainly because of Heather's sexy yet distant room mate Cooper. Anyway, I had to leave the omnibus in Scotland as a donation to the library at the Cathedral of the Isles as it was just too heavy to bring home. When I got back I checked into whether or not there were any other Heather Wells books and found "Size Doesn't Matter" (aka "Big Boned" in the USA. I have never understood why publishers change titles from country to country. Did you know that the book entitled "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the USA is actually titled "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" in the UK and Australia? Why?).

Anyway, I finished up "Size Doesn't Matter" this morning. It was probably the weakest of the three books and the ending was sort of bizarre. Without giving too much away, I would have settled for a kiss between Cooper and Heather, instead of the whole enchilada. I half expected to read "And then Heather woke up" it was all so picture perfect and out of place. Anyway, I read on Meg Cabot's official site there will be 2 more Heather Wells books next year so we'll see what happens. I don't know that I'd rush out and buy them in hardcover, but I'd definitely pick them up at the library.

Today I moved onto Book Lover by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack.

The review on the website of publisher Harper Collins Australia reads like this:
'Women do different things when they're depressed. Some smoke, others drink, some call their therapists, some eat ... And I do what I have always done – go off on a book bender that can last for days.'

Whenever she's in crisis – her marriage ends, her career stalls, her fantasy man shows signs of human frailty – Dora (named after Eudora Welty) escapes into not one, not two, but a carefully selected stack of books, shutting the door on the outside world until she emerges from her book binge strong enough to face her problems. Books have always been her saving grace, sheltering her during a difficult childhood and arming her with lessons and epigrams that are right for nearly every situation. But life is more complicated than a–book–a–day, and people – like her ex–alcoholic mother and judgmental sister – aren't as compliant as beloved characters in a novel ...

Whether she's being seduced by a quotation–quipping Quixote, or explaining death to a child by reading from 'Charlotte's Web', Dora is Every–reader, and her charming story, shot through with humour and humanity, will delight anyone who's ever sought solace in the pages of a book.

I'm about 50 pages in and I have my doubts. I actually saw this book on the shelves at Borders last weekend and made a note to request it at the library. I requested it earlier this week and it came in super fast. I picked it up yesterday and then had a weird feeling that I actually owned the book. I double checked my shelves and there it was. Weirdly, I am reading the library copy instead of my own (what's up with that?). Nothing much has really happened so far (the main character went to a bookstore, parked outside her old mansion where her ex-husband lives and had her sister come over to her condo). Maybe the problem is it's the product of two authors - how does that work? Does one do the grunt work and the other the polishing? Do they each write a chapter? Anyway, I was definitely drawn to this book as I love books and could easily retreat from the world and stay in a book induced coma for days... We'll see how it goes.

I'm also keen to finish His Dark Materials (aka The Golden Compass) as I have the 3 book omnibus (I swear I have only bought about 3 omnibuses in my life and I happen to be talking about 2 of them in this post...) and want to move onto the second book. Maybe I'll get to it this week, if not then next weekend for sure.

The final word goes to my golden retriever Hopie, who seems to have inherited my love of books!

The Hoper, contemplating the book 'Foods that Harm, Foods that Heal"

Happy reading!

Sunday Scribblings: Observation

This is the perfect prompt for me this week as I have been sifting through my holiday memories and making random observations about the places I visited. This post is about one of my favourite places in Europe - Lucerne, Switzerland.

Lucerne

The view at the top of Mt Stanserhorn in Switzerland

Lake Lucerne

Lucerne as seen from the lake

A lovely white swan going about its business on the lake

This post is a little different. I wrote things on Lake Lucerne - not snippets, not stream of consciousness, not tiny glimpses of memories. I wrote fully formed sentences, crafted paragraphs of sights and sounds and feelings... Here are some of my favourites:

The water of the lake is so achingly clear that I can see the rocks on the bottom. It is like looking through fluid glass. I hear a car revving, people talking Swiss-German as they walk past my kelly green bench. I hear the splash of someone diving into the lake. I see perfectly white Swans gliding across the glassy surface like they have swum out of a storybook and into the scene before my eyes. I hear rope clanging softly against the metal masts of the yachts bobbing gently before me. My raspberry painted toenails rest on my shoes which rest on grey gravel that crunches as people walk by.

I breathe in peace and breathe out worry and tension. It is like the top of my head has been lifted up and a stream of ideas and concepts and consciousness has flowed in. A key in a lock, the completion of something I didn't know was undone.

There are white fluffy swan feathers on the surface of the lake, floating like nothing will ever weigh them down and they will simply float on this lake as it ebbs and flows until the end of days.

Sunday Salon - First Week

I'm excited to be a part of The Sunday Salon. I stumbled across the Salon when looking for a writing group and it looks to be a lot of fun. You can find out more about it by clicking the link (go on...give a little linky love), but now is the part where I get to talk about the books I read today.

I started the day with a little Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. There's pretty much nothing I can say about this book that hasn't already been said, re said and turned into a movie and accompanying McHappy Meal toy. This is my first read through of the 6th Harry Potter book. I stalled on reading it for a long time as I really didn't care for Book 5. I felt like Harry was irritating and angry the entire book and it wasn't a great reading experience. However, I'm enjoying book 6 although the whole 'Hermione loves Ron' thing is really being done to death. I started the book on Monday and I'm about 400 pages in. I think I'll take a little break between book 6 and book 7 though.

I took myself off on a book looking expedition today. It started with the Save The Children book sale. I think the books had been very thoroughly picked over - today is Sunday, the last day of the sale, and opening night was Thursday. However, all the books were hald price today, so that was something. I picked up four books for $4.50 (I really wouldn't have minded paying full price!) and those books are:

Gladiator by Dewey Gram
The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans
Language Most Foul by Ruth Wajnryb
The Unburied by Charles Palliser

Gladiator is obviously a book adaptation of the film. I enjoyed the movie and I have a certain fondness for book adaptations of films, particularly where I really enjoyed the film. I find the book then lends a different interpretation on the whole thing. No longer do I have to reply on the actors ability to emote in order to work out characters.

The Horse Whisperer is a book I have heard much about, and again, I enjoyed the movie when I saw it which must be five or six years ago now.

Language Most Foul is a book about foul language and its origins. Language fascinates me (but I'm not one of those crazy linguist types who know the root source of all words and can't wait to tell you about it) and so does swearing, so I'm a winner all around here.

The Unburied just sounded interesting - it's apparently a murder mystery in a sleepy town. We'll see I guess. It isn't the sort of book that would usually attract me. But for 50 cents...



Then my book day progressed with a lunch where I read Page after Page: Discover the confidence and passion you need to start writing and keep writing no matter what! by Heather Sellers. I bought this book on Charing Cross Road in London when I was there recently. I knew I shouldn't - I could order the book from Amazon for half what I paid in pounds but I really wanted it. Really really. So I bought it and I'm not sorry. The more I read of it, the more I love it and want to give Heather Sellers a really big hug. Over lunch I read her take on people who are always saying "I'm so busy! I'm so stressed! I have so much to do!" I work with people like this. They drive me crazy. I worked out a while back and everyone is busy. It's ridiculous to tell people that you're busy. We know you are, because we are too. A Heather says - we all get 24 hours in a day, how are you going to use yours? She also wrote a whole bunch about treating writing like a lover instead of a mistress (or whatever the word is for women who have another dude on the side) and giving it attention and love and dreaming about it. Anyway, I love this book. I am reading it in small doses, digesting and completing exercises.

I'll be back next Sunday with another Sunday Salon post. I'm thinking I'll explore a different bookstore and see how I go. Maybe I'll even get some of my own writing done!

Rome, Italy

Rome

The Coliseum

The Vatican Entrance
The Pantheon

graffiti, ancient, awe inspiring, all roads lead to Rome, Julius Ceasar, posterboards with thick sheafs of paper built up over time as new posters have just been put on top of the old ones layer 'pon layer 'pon layer, hot, gelato, amazing Margherita pizza, fountains of fresh water, crumbling ruins, Popes, magestic buildings, gladiators, kissing Italians, roses, cheesy souvenirs, 3 coins in the Trevi Fountain, pushy modern day gladiators getting 5 Euros for posing with tourists - what a strange way to make a living, beggars and gypsies thrusting their twisted limbs and other maladies in my face so sure this gives them the right to money from strangers (maybe it does?), fields of sunflowers, Etruscan villages rising from stone plateaus, beauty within, dead popes, the beauty of the Sistine Chapel, Vatican stamps, olive trees, Under the Tuscan Sun, pasta.

Cologne, Germany

Cologne

The Cathedral in Cologne

The golden box where the bones of the three magi are said to rest

Arch upon arch upon arch...

Kolin, soot covered church, awesome sandwich with sundried tomatoes and creamed cheese, wasps in the pastry cabinet attracted to the sweetness of the cakes, the most amazing bathroom I have ever seen in my life, the fact that the bones of the three 'magi' (wise men) rest in the church, the fact that the 3 Wise Men were considered to be real people with bones, the couple dressed like extras from a Vin Diesel eastern European movie, the 11,000 (or just 11) virgins who were sacrificed in Cologne to Atilla the Hun.