You Can't Just Get an Apartment

As most of you know, in a few short weeks I will be moving from Chicago to St. Louis. This is mine and Casye's very first apartment and we're very excited to start on this new journey together. When I told my friends, their responses were almost always "I am so jealous." Many of my friends have since decided to either move out or start considering moving out in the near future. To those friends, I say: you can't just get an apartment, and certainly not a first apartment.

When you say "You're paying $360 a month for rent? I can totally afford that on my meager salary! I should move out!" I feel like you don't understand just how expensive a first apartment is. I want you to think about all the things you use every single day at home. Your bed, blankets, pillows. Your toothbrush and toothpaste. Your clothes, your dresser. Your food, your table, your chairs, etc. Now think about paying for all of those at the same time. On top of your first month's rent. This is your first apartment and I don't care how messy your room is, you do not have all the things you need yet. Your first apartment may be small and you won't need everything at first, but I don't feel like you understand just how many things you need. Now, in my situation, I was lucky because Casye and I have both been buying things and other people have been giving us things as well. That really helps. But even so, I've already spent some $620. And I'm not done yet. And these are just the things I feel like I need when I first move in, there are other things I'm going to get further down the road.

And don't forget, you'll also be paying for utilities. When re-watching an episode of Parks and Recreation today, Andy was talking about his newly acquired house and saying things like "you can use all the free electricity you want." Sometimes when I talk to my friends, I feel like they're saying the same things as Andy. You may not have had to pay for electricity before when you lived with your parents or when you lived in a dorm at school*, but you'll have to pay for it now. And water. And gas. I'm sorry, you wanted air conditioning in the summer? You have to pay for it. You may even have to pay for garbage. And get this, you have to pay for sewage, too. Yeah, you literally have to pay to use the bathroom in your own place. That shit ain't free.

You'll also have to pay for food. No more going to the fridge and grabbing whatever you want and no more texting mom to pick up some more ice cream bars. You probably don't realize how much you eat or how much it will cost you. When I first had this discussion, some of you thought you could eat on less than $100 a month. Please excuse me while I laugh at you, this will only take a moment. One really good resource I've found is the USDA's website, which calculates average costs for groceries, depending on your food style and how many people are in the household. And the thing is, for the first month, you'll have to buy a whole lot of stock items to start off your kitchen, like flour, sugar, and hot chocolate mix. There are things you are going to want on hand at all times, and then you buy your groceries on top of that.

If you really, truly want to get out on your own and move into your first apartment, I implore you to first create a cost analysis and projected budget. You need to know how much your rent & utilities are, how much you spend on groceries, and how much you spend on your other expenses, such as your cell phone, cable, internet, and very likely your student loans. Add all those together and subtract it from how much you make every month. Then you need to look at your savings and figure out if you have enough money to pay for all the things you'll need just to start, like plates and furniture. Once you've done all that, you can decide when you are financially capable of moving out. (Physically & mentally able are two entirely different matters, though)

Once you've taken all this into account, then you can start really looking at places. If you need any help, let me know.

*side note: stop telling me how dorm living is exactly the same as apartment living. It's not.

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Was there possibly any better book for me to read over the Christmas holidays? No, I think not.

I loved this book. It was a beautiful love story in that it didn't feel like a big love story, the kind where you know from the beginning that the characters will be forced together, even if you don't particularly think they belong together. This one felt real, innocent, lovely. It was a story where I sometimes wanted them together, sometimes thought it would be okay if they didn't, but loved the final outcome. I also loved Dash. I mean, really, really loved Dash. I think he's the boy in my head. But maybe that's just because he's one of David's.

I start Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List tonight.

View all my goodreads reviews

Carpal Tunnel Coping Tips

It's no secret that I suffer from chronic CTS and that I'm hoping to have surgery before the end of the year. Some of my friends, however, also suffer, though (thankfully) not to the same extent. Still, just because they can't get surgery, doesn't mean they don't suffer. So I promised to compile a list of tips for you, some are obvious and often repeated, some aren't often included on carpal tunnel pamphlets.

• The obvious: avoid activities that exacerbate the symptoms.
• If you can't avoid something (e.g. it's part of your job), try to find a different way of doing it. Maybe hold the controller a different way, or use your other hand as often as possible.
• Keep your wrist straight when typing. Adjust your keyboard. Use a wrist pillow. Keep your wrists up, like they taught you in school. Basically, keep your hand level with your arm. When you bend your wrist, it cuts off the tunnel more, hence the pain after hours of typing.
• If your hand/wrist/arm/elbow hurts, raise it to heart level or above.
• Ice, rather than heat. 30 mins
• Aspirin or other anti-inflammatory drugs. Whatever will reduce the swelling. Use these in moderation, of course.
• Massage the nerve running round your elbow.
• Stretch your muscles, but slowly, as if you're doing yoga.
• Avoid sharp, staccato movements.
• Avoid the salty foods. They cause you to retain water, bloat, and constrain the pathway through your wrist.
• Don't hold up books. Rather, place them on the tabletop and hold the pages down.
• If you can carry things by balancing them on your palm, rather than gripping them, do it. This is especially important when you've reached the same point as me, as dropping becomes a major concern.
• Take a warm shower.
• Use a splint or brace when it's especially painful. Using one at night is also quite beneficial.

Why Rose Tyler is a Fantastic Companion

First, we have the Doctor, who has come up with yet another brilliant plan that could save the world…but he hesitates. A war-torn timelord who has lost everything and has become a loner, a survivor, has found something to hold on to. He hesitates, because even with the entire world at stake, he just wants to save this one person, this one girl. And more than that, he tells her. He could have saved the world, or he could have saved Rose and everyone would have gone along with his plan, but instead he chooses to tell her why he’s hesitated. Basically, he’s opening himself up to her, telling her how much he cares about her.

And then Rose—beautiful, wonderful, fantastic Rose—tells him to save the world. Unlike the Doctor, she doesn’t hesitate. She just tells him to do it. She is so selfless and heroic. It doesn’t diminish what he’s doing by telling her, either. She recognizes that he’s saying he cares for her and she’s reciprocating by allying herself with his cause, by learning from him, by understanding what it means to be a timelord or a companion, what it means to be the savior. And she knows that no matter what, her life is not worth any more than the billions of lives they could save together. She doesn’t hesitate, she just tells him to do it.

Why River Song's Life Sucks

River has had such a terrible life. She’s kidnapped as a baby, we see her dying (and regenerating!) as a child, she spends the majority of her life in prison (even though she can break out whenever she wants)—but mostly her life is terrible because she hasn’t known her family and when she did, they didn’t know her.

When Rory shows up at the prison, she knows exactly who he is, but she doesn’t recognize him. I don’t think she’d met him yet, but here he was—her dad!—coming to get her…and he hasn’t the foggiest who she really is. All her life River has known about Rory, the Last Centurian, her father. All her life she’s been told that he would go to the end of the universe and stop at nothing to save her. And here he is, right in front of her, on her birthday.

For a split second, she’s excited: her dad is here! He came all this way to be with her on her birthday! But he didn’t; he’s not there to celebrate, he’s not even there for her, he’s there for the Doctor. It’s this crushing reminder that no matter how much she learns about her family or how much they will eventually know about her, she’s not a part of their lives and she lives out of order with those closest to her. Every day of her life she knows a little more, but everyone around her knows less: knows less of her. Slowly she watches everyone fall out of love with her, even her own father, even on her birthday.

Neil Gaiman Visits Second City to Promote City Underground Novel - Chicago Young Adult Fiction | Examiner.com

Neil Gaiman Visits Second City to Promote City Underground Novel - Chicago Young Adult Fiction | Examiner.com

2 chances to see Neil Gaiman in Chicago this week! Neverwhere is such a great book, it's possibly my favorite Gaiman book to date (but who could really choose?).

Also, check out my articles for the Chicago young adult literature section on Examiner.com!

Review: The Lover's Dictionary by David Leviathan

The Lover's Dictionary is a wonderful book that tells an ordinary love story in a unique way. The unnamed narrator has organized his tale in a series of dictionary entries, giving uncommon definitions for words through storytelling. It is a novel comprised of flash fiction, set up alphabetically as a dictionary. That sounds confusing, but to a logophile like myself, it's love.

I found this book via twitter, when the webpage suggested I follow @loversdiction. On this page I found a series of very short entries similar to the ones in the book, and I was hooked immediately. One of the newest entries at that point was "appendix, n.: In the body, it’s in the middle; in the story, it’s at the end. I say, let’s live now, and let the charts come after." and after I retweeted it, I knew immediately I had to have this book. It mixed together a love for words, an unconventional and unique form, a love story, and David Leviathan--a combination I knew immediately I would love. I admit that I bought it on impulse, which is the downside of being able to use Amazon at any time of night (1 am, I think), but I'm glad I did.

In this multi-formed novel of flash fiction, we hear a love story not in the way it would unfold—that is to say, chronologically—but in the way it is remembered: pieces at a time, overlapping and conjoining until the story itself takes form. Each word and moment unravels a little more of the story, each story reveals a little more of the people, each person adds a little more to the relationship. In this rare form, we get an idea about the relationship as a whole, not just the beginning, middle, and end. The story is real, ordinary and familiar, and that's why we love it. The characters are even more-so, realistic right down to their taste in music or way of thinking. I felt absolutely that the unnamed girlfriend in this tale was someone I knew, as well as the narrator. Often times I felt I was the narrator, despite the second-person point of view. The book is structured in that the reader should feel like the girlfriend, or perhaps a friend secretly reading these notes written to her (for they are letters, in addition to dictionary entries), but I connected with the boyfriend so much that at times I felt like I was him, which is incredible and not altogether common in anything aside from great Literature.

Overall, I think this is a great book that any lover and any lover of words will enjoy. Additionally, as it is comprised of flash fiction, it's a quick read. At the end, you'll be left wondering exactly what happened, but I think it's possible to draw conclusions, though opinions may vary on what those conclusions are and mean. Whatever you decide happens, I'm convinced that by the end of the last page--at the Zenith of the book--you'll be wishing there were more to read.

Audiobooks and Why I Avoid Them

(Crossposted from the 5NerdsomeWriters)

In a comment on Hilary's post from last Friday I mentioned that I have some deep-seated issues with audiobooks, but that I have been listening to them for school anyway. The only reason I do this is because I am currently taking six English courses and that makes for a lot of reading, reading I don't necessarily have time for; so I listen to audiobooks while I drive to make use of my 35 minute commute to school. Were this not the case, I'd continue my boycott of audiobooks.

Why? Well, for one, I feel they strip the reader of the experience of reading. If I can quote Rupert Giles here:

"Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a whiff of smoke, can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer… has no texture, no context. It’s there and then it’s gone. If it’s to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible. It should be, um, smelly.”

Reading is more than just a story, it's the simple act of turning scratches on a page into ideas, images, and memories in your head. There's something to be said for the small and the feel of a new book, an old book, a borrowed book; no two books are exactly the same.

Authors do a lot of cool things with text that you don't get to see when listening to an audiobook. We wouldn't get the same sense of anger or excitement from Junior in Sherman Alexie's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian without his random sentences in all caps. I fear that the majority of the magic (and horror?) of MT Anderson's Feed would be lost without the distracting "pop-ups." Shape of paragraphs is nonexistant. Heck, some novels even use certain fonts for a specific reason (like Westerfeld's use of Futura in So Yesterday).

Short story: some audiobooks just suck. A lot of how a reader/listener reacts to an audiobook has to do with the reader. I know Korianne has been listening to Stephen Fry read the Harry Potter books for class and that he really makes the story come to life for her. Hearing Sherri Crowther read Emma was good, but it took me a long time to be able to concentrate on her soft voice. Oppositely, Ruth Golding (Wuthering Heights) has a very rough voice and she tries to keep the reader interested by changing it slightly for each character, but this only makes it harder to listen to her at points. Honestly, I have no idea what she's saying whenever Joseph is talking.

Audiobooks can be read differently than you would read them. The reader may put emphasis on different words or read in a different tone than you would had you been reading the book. I find this is true when my creative writing teacher reads our work out loud to the class. I hear my poem and I recognize it as mine, but the tone is all wrong, that's not how I would read it at all. I want to tell him he's wrong, but essentially, he's not, he's just reading the text in front of him, albeit differently than I would. It's the same for audiobooks and because of this a listener can understand the book very differently had they read it for themselves.

Plus, they can be pirated so easily and it's part of what's killing the book industry.

So give me my paper and ink, when I have the choice. Or better yet, provide me with a way to read while driving or get me a chauffeur. A 25th hour would be nice, too, while you're at it. Thanks!

Related: My post on audiobooks/ebooks vs books in sales

Banned Books Week: 25 Sept - 2 Oct, 2010

It's almost Banned Books Week! Click the image above to go to the ALA website for more info!

The Importance of LGBTQ Books in Our Schools

Lately on the web there has been much discussion about the difference between Literature-Capital-L and popular literature and which kind should be studied in the classroom and why. Quite honestly, the best answer here is the easiest: both. Students, from middle school through university, should be studying a wide array of literature, including "The Classics," poetry, manifestos, short stories, plays, modern novels, and even young adult (YAL) and middle grade (MG) books. If all students are presented with are the Classics, then that's all they'll know. The same is true if they are only taught modern novels that are written for their specific age group. What we need is balance, and that doesn't apply only to the kind of books read and taught, but also to the content within the books.

The last few decades have been full of revolutions in the way literature has been taught, prompting authors and educators to integrate new voices and focus on minorities such as women, African American, Latino, Eastern and Oriental cultures, etc. Now is the time for the revolution in which LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, & Queer/Curious) literature is brought into the classroom as well. It may not be an easy change, but it is a necessary one.

Why should students study LGBTQ books, authors, and topics in the classroom? For the same reason they are asked to study any other books, authors, and topics: because the books have something to offer, because they represent a part of culture, and because they are needed to teach tolerance. Every day in schools students are teased, bullied, and in some cases even beaten, for not fitting into the "norm." The truth of the matter is, however, that having a student in class that identifies as LGBT is becoming the norm and statistically there is a very good chance that at least one of your students or classmates does identify that way. The norm is changing and so should class reading choices. Educators should create a sense of normalcy by presenting LGBTQ books to students so that the ones who do identify LGBTQ can explore their own identity through literature just as a heterosexual student would with any of the Classics or modern novels with a heterosexual main character, but these LGBTQ books will also provide a "window" (as Katherine Mason calls it) for heterosexual students to see into lives of LGBTQ members. Teaching these books can help all students relate to the characters in these books, not based upon a shared sexual preference, but upon the fact that they feel the same emotions, act the same way, and make the same mistakes as the reader. A good way to do this is to include a book that isn't necessarily deemed LGBTQ, but has homosexual characters or themes presented in them in a normal and respectful way, such as Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Leviathan. By presenting works of literature wherein homosexuality is normal, educators help to make it normal in the classroom as well, which may hopefully lead to less bullying against homosexual students.

Part of creating this sense of normalcy is to teach and make available LGBTQ books, but not just to throw them into the curriculum as the Token Gay Book, just like the problem faced with The Token Girl Book. So often it is the case in Literature classes that the curriculum is comprised predominantly of male authors and that authors like Emily Dickinson or Mary Wollstonecraft are tossed in as an afterthought, often in an awkward place, just so they can include a female writer. The same could so easily happen with LGBTQ books, that educators add them in out of a necessity to have at least one book of its kind, but never really integrate it into the curriculum. The way to fix this is not to think of the text as a Gay Book, but as a book that happens to have gay characters. Teach it the same way you would any other text: by talking about the plot, the characters, the writing style, the cultural significance--surely if professors take the time to read the books as books, they can find a way to teach them as such.

This is not to say, of course, that choosing to include books with LGBTQ characters or themes won't be met with opposition. Some parents may object and ask that you remove the book from the curriculum in order to teach something "more appropriate." The best thing to do here is to let that particular child study another book instead, but do not remove the book completely because one parent has decided to take a stance against it. A parent has every right to censor what their child reads and frankly, it is commendable, because it means they are taking an active role in their child's education. However, there is a difference between not wanting your own child to read a book and trying to take away the opportunity to read said book from the entire class or even the school. If you want someone to respect your choice not to read it or have your child read it, then you must also respect the choice of those who do want to read it and arguably should for the reasons listed above. In her article in the ALAN Review, Katherine Mason quotes a teacher in saying that representing books such as these is part of being a "democratic and culturally responsive classroom," an ideal educators should live up to, despite the beliefs of some parents.

Most of the time the controversy surrounding LGBTQ books has to do with what might be considered "The Usual" in book banning/challenging, i.e. sex, language, and violence. Generally The Usual complaints come out of a person not reading said books. In classrooms, high school and college levels especially, language and violence become less of an issue, if they're presented in literature. The main issue raised against LGBTQ books are that they are supposedly all about sex, and they'd have to be, because the main character is wondering about their sexuality or alienated by it, right? Not exactly. These books are no more all about sex than heterosexual books are. Some will have them, some won't, but generally this is not the focus of the book and many books of this nature do not feature sex at all or treat it like any other YAL book would. In the coming week many bloggers will be discussing this idea that a single sex scene or reference dominates a book in the eyes of a potential book challenger, as a part of Banned Books Week. Just as it is the case with books such as Speak, Catcher in the Rye, and The Color Purple (all challenged in 2009/10), the book in question is more than just sex and still sustains literary merit.

Sometimes educators and librarians, students especially, need to take a stand against injustice, both with the challenging of LGBTQ books and with the way they are excluded from curriculai. The way students are treated by their peers, and sometimes faculty members, for their sexual preference, is an injustice. Writing off an entire genre of literature as not worthwhile because of the themes it presents, is an injustice. In all of these cases, educators and readers can fight back and take a stand, just by integrating books with LGBTQ themes and characters into school curriculai and placing these books on the shelves of school libraries where students can access them, if they want to.

For more on this subject, read "Creating a Space for YAL with LGBT Content in Our Personal Reading" by Katherine Mason, from The ALAN Review, Vol 35, number 3, which you can find here.

On the Semenya Gender Dispute

Earlier today Caster Semenya, olympic running champion for South Africa, was welcomed back into the world of sports after eleven months of trials and tests to determine her gender and ability to race in the women's division. Many challenged Semenya's gold medal at the last summer Olympics because she ran so much faster and had a bigger muscular build than other racers, calling into question her gender. The truth was that Semenya had both male and female sexual organs, making her an intersexual* individual. I have been doing loads of research on intersex conditions lately, in preparation for my next novel, and I learned that there are different types of the condition, none of which should have kept Semenya out of the competition. Most intersex people identify strongly with one gender or the other and this is backed up by physical characteristics, such as genitalia, without being equally male or female.

What this athlete was exposed to was inappropriate, demeaning, ridiculous, and as I see it, unnecessary. If an intersex individual who is primarily female and identifies as such wants to represent her country in the world Olympics, she should be able to. And now that she has returned many question whether or not she had a surgery to make her body more female so that she could be considered one. If this is the case, I am royally pissed off and overall very disappointed in the world, based on their treatment of this woman. She is a person, a living human being, and to go through that kind of ridicule and trial is beyond what any person should have to deal with. Intersex people are people too and should be treated with the same kinds of respect.

Caster Semenya, on the other hand, has handled the situation very well and is an inspiration to intersex people. I plan drawing a little on her strength and her story when I write about Sky's dilemma in my next novel. Semenya, I am very sorry that you were treated the way you were, but you have my support in anything you do. Good luck on the race.

*Another term is hermaphrodite, but there is a slight difference.

Review: The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place by E.L. Konigsburg

I can be seen reading the same book for weeks, taking it a page at a time because I have other things to do that take precedence over the book, but that is not the case with The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place. I read the entire book in two days, even while working the front desk at my job this past weekend. I couldn't put it down, true to the history I have with E.L. Konigsburg books. And when I was done, I wanted more, as I always do.

Margaret Rose Kane, twelve years old and brilliant, goes to a summer camp when her parents go on an archeological dig in Peru--the third most preferable option for her summer. First, she wanted to go to Peru, the second, to spend time with her uncles Alex and Morris at 19 Schuyler Place, but neither of these options was afforded her, so off to camp it was. Eventually, after a few rough days at camp with a cabin full of girls who have it out for her, Margaret Rose is rescued by her Uncle Alex and taken back to Schuyler Place, where she learns of a terrible secret. The three beautiful and magnificent towers in the uncles' backyard—built over 45 years and consisting of pipe, glass, clock faces, and ceramic pendants—one of the things Margaret loves most—are being demolished. Unwilling to stand by and let such a crime be committed, she begins her work at saving these works of art by enlisting some unexpected help.

Konigsburg owns two Newberry medals for a reason: she's brilliant, undeniably and unequivocally. The first reason for this is that her characters are wonderful and memorable, people you can relate to and people you want to become your best friends. Margaret Rose provides for the reader both of these through wit, determination, and, above all, love. Margaret's heart goes out to her uncles, to their structures, and to Jake, the handyman/artist, and your heart will go out to her in return. The many different ways in which her character stretches is amazing and in addition to that, she feels real. She acts and speaks like a true twelve year old. And, honestly, the reason I first fell in love with this book is the portrayal of Uncle Alex in the opening chapters. He is clever and sneaky and fantastic and I wish I had a relative like him.

The second thing Konigsburg excels at in this book is the way it is told. Not linear, like most MG novels are, but rather more like a spiral, each time the circle is repeated with the events a little more is revealed, the story grows, and it continues. The way she plays with language reveals a certain cleverness about the author as well as her main character, telling specific parts of the narrative by breaking down phrases in previous sentences as a way of explanation. Konigsburg and Margaret also play with words and their definitions, which both aids the story and the learning of the reader.

Perfect for its age group, middle graders, but not to be overlooked by those who are older (much like myself), this book is beautiful, heart-warming, quirky, brilliant, and addictive. My God, is it addictive, but in a wonderful way. I highly recommend this novel to dreamers, lovers of both art and the English language, fans of dynamic main characters, and all of you who fell in love with Konigsburg's previous books.

I'm just going to leave this here...

In the digital era by ~Marco-art on deviantART

Doesn't that image/title just break your heart? Very powerful statement here, when you throw in that title.

Doctor Who: Science Fiction or Fantasy?

The following post contains spoilers for the newest episode of Doctor Who, 5x03: Victory of the Daleks, so if you do not wish to be spoiled, please refrain from reading. If you do not watch the show, however, you can still understand this post.

In "Victory of the Daleks," the Doctor's nemeses, the Daleks, show up during the London Blitz. Now that part I am entirely okay with, because Doctor Who is all about time and space and the crazy juxtaposition that could arise from someone like the Doctor being able to travel through and interfere with both. What I am not okay with is having WWII planes in space, attacking a space ship, with technology stolen from aliens. I feel like that crosses the line between science fiction and fantasy.

Within the genre of fantasy a reader can find hidden worlds, magic, and impossibilities; in science fiction the reader can find the same aura of wonder and amazement, but also a sense of truth and a million possibilities. Science fiction examines the world, where humanity stands, and all of the potential roads we could travel, and where they would take us. This genre stretches the imagination as far as the edge of space and approaches every "what if," all the while staying within the immense realm of possibility.

And that's the thing: science fiction has limits, regulations, guidelines. Sure, they're very loose sometimes, but they are there. In fantasy you can explain something by calling it "magic" and that's enough. In science fiction, you reveal the process or the machinations, you are forced to give an actual explanation. And, to an extent, this explanation must be somewhat realistic, or rather, scientific. Science fiction is a blend between the "science" of reality and the "fiction" of fantasy.

Philip K. Dick argues that "The real origin of science fiction lay in the seventeenth-century novels of exploration in fabulous lands. Therefore Jules Verne’s story of travel to the moon is not science fiction because they go by rocket but because of where they go. It would be as much science fiction if they went by rubber band."

While I agree with him, I have to point out that while spaceships are real and entirely plausible today, they were not in WWII. My suspension of disbelief lets me believe that The Doctor's TARDIS can exist then because it is a time machine. I cannot, however, extend that to cover RAF planes from that era suddenly being upgraded in a matter of minutes and then flying into space, armed with alien technology. I would have believed it, if they had gone by rubber band. The truth of history here is that the space race would not occur for another 20 years. Furthermore, are we supposed to believe that those planes could make it through Earth's atmosphere without burning? Or that the laughable gas masks worn by the pilots would allow them to breathe in space? I don't buy it. Come on, Moffat, you can do better than that.

Doctor Who has, for many decades, been seen as wholly science fiction, but when it begins to cast off the limits and rules of reality, I'd argue that it's crossed over into fantasy. And I like fantasy, but don't try to pass it off as science fiction, because there is a world of difference there. Fantasy approaches the impossible, science fiction approaches the possible, but not yet probable. If you want me to believe that mannequins can come to live or that someday humans will be living out our years on a space station while the sun burns away our beloved planet, that's fine. I accept that these are possible. When you want me to believe that a time before space travel had aircrafts more advanced than the ones we have now, 60 years later? That I cannot do.

So dear Stephen Moffat, please check your facts when reporting on history, and give us something fantastical, but believable. Give us the science fiction we've come to expect from Doctor Who. Oh, but for the record? I'm totally digging Matt Smith as The Doctor and I can't wait for the next episode.

Free Twilight Book: Generous Giveaway or Masterful Marketing?

Yesterday it was announced that Stephenie Meyer is going to release a fifth Twilight book, but it's not what you'd expect. Let's get the facts first: this is not Midnight Sun, it is a completely different book, a novella actually*, about Bree Tanner. Don't know who Bree is? You're not alone, I didn't remember her at first either**. Cut for spoilers: She is one of the (spoilers!) newborn vampires created by Victoria in the 4th book, the only one to escape the Cullens, and was later killed by the Volturi.

What I find particularly interesting about this book, though, is the way it's being marketed & distributed. First, starting on June 7th, the entire book will be available free online. Sounds generous, right? Well, it is—but only for a month. After that it will be printed in book form, $1 of which is going to be donated to the Red Cross. Still pretty generous, but it's also very clever.

The first clever marketing tactic here is offering the book free online, for a limited time only. Putting a book online gains readers you might not get otherwise, makes the book easily accessible, and the more people who read it, the more people who like it, the more people who are likely to purchase it later. The New York Times recently printed an article on this, about how offering an ebook for free can not only gain readers, but put your book on the bestseller's list, something that attracts even more attention.

So you tell all your friends to hurry up and read it online, creating a sense of immediate need, but what if you don't get it on time? What if you don't finish reading before it goes offline? How will you keep up with your fellow Twilight obsessed friends? No worries, you can buy the book in print! And a true fan will likely buy the book anyway, regardless of reading it online, so they can own it and reread it whenever they want***. The added bonus here is that you're doing a good thing, because $1 of your purchase goes to helping people through the Red Cross! Why is this important? It has to do with embedded giving, which I won't pretend to be the expert on, but here's the bottom line: By tacking on that donation, you are more likely to buy the book. You feel good about yourself, because you helped people, but you don't need to go out of your way to do it. You get to support change by doing something you were going to do already! When I think about this (thanks to one of my professors), I think about Product RED. You were going to buy that shirt or that laptop or that book anyway, but now you get the added bonus of feeling good about the purchase. It takes away some of the hesitation we might have for spending the money. What I'm saying here is that by putting that sticker on there that proceeds will go to the Red Cross, readers are more likely to pick it up. It's not as deceptive as this argument may first suggest, but it is clever.

An argument that's been raised over the past two days regarding this (largely by anti-Twilight people) is that Meyer is only printing a fifth book as a way to milk more money out of her fans. I don't think that's true. Surely she'll be making more money, but she's not making any thing off the free copies and honestly, I think she's sincere in saying that she wants to do something for her fans. True Twilight fans have been begging for a 5th book since the 4th one come out. If JK Rowling put out an 8th book, wouldn't you want to read it? Didn't you want to check out The Tales of Beedle the Bard when it came out? It's the same thing. There is a demand by the fans for more to read in the Twilight world, and Meyer's fulfilling those wishes. If she only wanted to milk the fans, she would have released Midnight Sun despite the leak.

Will I be reading the book? Probably not, but I'm not the biggest fan of the books. For the people who are, I can understand their excitement at having something more to read, I would feel the same way. And I really do think that Little, Brown is being rather clever here with the way they're marketing it.

*Although 197 pgs hardly sounds like a novella.
**actually, still don't, but I am trusting some of my friends who are die hard fans.
***This reminds me very much of another post I need to make, on the ethics & arguments behind downloading ebooks. I will get to that soon, I hope.

Review: Diary of a Wimpy Kid Dog Days by Jeff Kinney

It occurs to me that I have not done a very good job at keeping up my promise to review all of the books I read this year. I can blame this on the way I've been devouring books the last few weeks, the lack of internet last week, or the severe amount of schoolwork I've had, but instead I will just say that I am sorry, readers. I hope to make this up to you with FIVE reviews in the near future, starting with this one.

Dog Days by Jeff Kinney is the fourth book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. If you've been around here before, you'll know that I rather like this series and the clever way in which it weaves together prose and picture. This is not entirely like a graphic novel and not entirely like an illustrated book, either, but rather somewhere between. This book is no exception and continues that wonderful tradition that Kinney has throughout his books, something that (ideally) keeps the reader interested.

While I do love the series and I did enjoy the book, I found myself wishing there was something a little more to this installment. It has a solid plot, earning money to pay off a debt to Rowley's dad, and the same characters, but it didn't make me laugh in quite the way the first and third*. This isn't, of course, to say that I didn't laugh at all, because I certainly did. The best thing about this series, and Kinney's writing style, is the pure humour behind it.

I honestly don't have much to say about this book, but I did enjoy it and if you like the series, it's worth the read. If you haven't read the series, I highly recommend the first book, which was absolutely fantastic.

*I didn't hate the second, but I did find it to be the least intriguing book in the series.

The Novel: Good Days & Bad Days

My good friend Jordyn is also an aspiring novelist and together we press through all the hardships and celebrations that come with writing. Mostly hardships. And we listen to each other as we bang our heads on the table repetitively, hoping the words will leak out our ears and onto the page. We talk each other up and through things, and we realize that writing makes us bipolar. We will love it and we will hate it and none of that will stay consistent.

There are good days and there are bad days, and basically, this is what I sound like when I am writing.

On a bad day:
Aaaauuuugggghhhh. Just aaaauuuugggghhhh.

On a good day: (like today)
Jordyn: Yeah. I've planned a lot for this though, so I don't know. I feel like I'm kind of diving in through and it's like I don't quite know how to swim. You know?
Jez: I think that's kind of what writing a novel is like, honestly. It's undiscovered territory and we are without a clear map, so we have to experiment and take chances and hope the next step we take doesn't land us in a nest of scorpions or take us over the edge of a cliff.
Jordyn: Well that's terrifying.
Jez: But it's exciting, because we're the first humans ever to walk that path, ever to see that flower, ever to drink from that pure spring, untainted by chemical run-off. It's an adventure and we are explorers.

Also, if you're interested, you can follow Jordyn's journey through her recent novel (about spies!) here.

Amazon Release Dates & the Battle Against New Mediums

First, yes, I finished my first draft and met my deadline a day ahead of schedule, and that is why I am posting again. Sorry to not have told you sooner! Edits are pushed off just a bit, but I am reworking an old idea now, so no worries, I am writing still!

About a year ago, Garth Nix released the sixth book in his Keys to the Kingdom series, which ended in a dreaded cliffhanger, the lives of most characters hanging over the edge, their fates as unknown as the void of nothing. And that was the end of the book, with no conclusions and no certainty. It has driven me crazy for a year, let me tell you. But now, in March of 2010, the seventh and final book in the series, Lord Sunday is out, or coming out, depending on who you ask.

I, like most online consumers, consult amazon.com first when looking for quick facts, like publishing dates. Amazon lists Lord Sunday to come out next Tuesday, but borders.com shows it as having come out on the 1st of March, not the 16th. This means that Borders released the book more than two weeks before the shopping giant Amazon. What's more, Amazon shows the audio book being released a week before the book, which brings about another issue. Not only are sellers releasing items on different dates, making book birthdays hazy and confusing anxious buyers, but the audio books are available, adding to the shift we've already begun to see where consumers are favouring audio books and ebooks to hard copies.

Audio & ebooks already have advantages over real books, in that they are more compact, easier to carry and store, and easily distributed. They also tend to be cheaper, by and large. But with these new medias, you lose a part of what is so wonderful about books. You lose that sense of holding something real in your hands, the ability to imagine a character's voice for yourself, the eternal battery power of a book, and that new book smell. Books capture memories between their pages, little pieces of you, and other forms blend in with the rest of the medias we absorb every day. A page in an ebook has less effect, read between the hundreds of internet pages viewed every day; a chapter in an audiobook drowned out by mp3s and radio broadcasts. Still, the market is shifting, and if a reader is desperate enough for the book, they may be moved to buy an ebook or audiobook simply because it releases a week before the corporeal copy. This also loses publishers money, so I'm forced to wonder why sites like amazon would set up the dates as such.

I am reminded, of course, of the recent troubles with amazon and publishers such as MacMillian, where it becomes apparent that Amazon simply doesn't care about the publisher's rights, but even so, wouldn't they make more on an item with a higher price?

All of this said, I am buying my book from Borders, like I originally intended, and I will be buying a physical copy. I'm a little miffed that I was misled by Amazon's dates, as I could have been reading the climactic conclusion already, and all this anxious waiting over the past week could have been avoided. Unfortunately, I cannot wait for shipping, but I am forced to wait for a new in-store coupon to arrive in my email. We'll see if I'm able to hold out until then.

Coming Soon: reviews of Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson & Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney, a post on biographies prefacing novels, & the writer's journey as seen in Harold and the Purple Crayon.

Just a Note on Donating to a Good Cause

For the last few years, I've been learning. I've been learning from life, from all the hard lessons it has to teach me. The majority of those lessons come from being below the poverty line, and always just a few short stumbles away from being a charity case, literally. So, when I get the chance to give back to those like me and those worse off than me, I take it. Tonight I went through my closet, cleared out the clutter, and now I am donating two full trash bags of clothes. And chances are, the dresses that I got as hand-me-downs are also going to be donated, to a separate cause, that helps out girls in tight situations who can't afford prom dresses. And I don't need those dresses, I will never have a chance to wear them. I have one, that's enough.

If you have clothes you're not going to wear, or toys you don't play with, or things you need to get rid of to make space as you grow up, please consider donating them. My favourite charity is Juvenile Diabetes, but there is also Goodwill (which, for the record, is a great place to shop as well), and numerous other places that take donations. Just look into it. You're going to throw them out anyway, so why not? You don't have to do anything but drop them off--and even Salvation Army will come to your house for bigger things! Think about charity.

Truth in Writing

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—this is the immortal advice that Emily Dickinson has left us with. The end lines of the poem tell us that "With explanation kind, The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind—" This poem's brilliance cannot be ignored, so neither should its advice. Yes, this poem is generally interpreted as being about God, but why should that make it any less meaningful when applied to other areas? Why not apply it to journalistic and novelistic ethics? As writers we may come to a situation where we are put between a rock and a hard place, where we must decide if we should tell the whole story, or if we should hedge, omit, or even outright lie to cover for someone else. It's a decision we all must make for ourselves, and should be taken on a case by case basis, but perhaps, like myself, you can find help in Dickinson's words.

Lately I have written a series of personal narratives that have primarily been to work out issues in my life. Cathartic though they are in nature, I still wonder if I could do something with them, perhaps get these pieces published somewhere. I know that it may not work out, but I could at least try, though one thing stands in my way. These narratives are extremely personal, and although I have no qualms with telling the world these things about myself, many of them focus on my family and the current struggles we have found ourselves in. So while I am okay with having my story out there, my family probably doesn't feel the same way. I come from a very long line of proud people, the kind of people who brush issues under the carpet and will do anything to keep the image that everything is okay. To publish these narratives would be to destroy that façade, but should I not publish, or not write, something because of how it will affect them? I want to say I shouldn't, but I know that's a promise I wouldn't be able to keep. For me, writing is all about catharsis, getting the emotions on the page, no matter who reads it.

So do we write things as they are, the truth, bare for the world to see in its natural state, or do we maybe fudge a little, to protect others? Perhaps we tell all the Truth, but we tell it slant. We present things as they are, but we present it in such a light that it may not be as harsh when the judgement time comes. We will let it dazzle gradually, and try our hardest not to blind anyone.