Mixed Feelings: When the author has a "past"

So I had a bit of a crisis of character while reading If I Was Your Girl. While looking for confirmation that this was an #ownvoices book (it is), I ran across a couple of news articles about the author. According to the articles,  (prior to transition I think) was accused of assaulting and abusing her wife at the time and there was a restraining order.

Now, here’s the thing.

Author Requests: Reviews on Demand (Blogiversary Musings)

Technically, I’ve been blogging since 2008, but there were a few years of starts and stops. But not only is October the month of my first blog post but it’s also my favorite month, so there you go. Sometimes arbitrary isn’t so arbitrary. Of course, usually it is.

Anyhooo… For the rest of October I'm posting about some stuff I’ve been thinking about over the past year as a reader and as a blogger. Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts if you want.

Author Requests: Reviews on Demand

I’ve read several books over the past year that were for “requested reviews.” For the most part, it worked out fine and I enjoyed the book and my subsequent interactions with the authors. Notable in these precious people experiences have been Terry Maggert (@TerryMaggert) and Rin Oliver (@koliver_writes). And I loved Santa Muerta by Lucina Stona. Really, the problem hasn’t been the books (though there are some exceptions to that, of course) the problem has been feeling like I HAVE to read the damn thing. And then feeling obligated to like it or say nice things about it and or to write anything at all. AND THEN! An author told me that my thoughts about a book were wrong, which honestly kinda pissed me off since she asked me to read the stupid thing in the first place and I didn’t even like it that much. 

Blogging is something I do just for fun and any element of AND NOW YOU MUST DO THIS annoys me, which sets up a bad vibe for the book from the jump. So, I’ve been thinking of just refusing books from now on. So what’s the problem with that, right? Well, all the books I’ve read by request are either books by underrepresented groups or are small press/ self pubbed. These are stories that need to be amplified because they might not be mainstream candy. I’m still working this out in my head, but I might set up some boundaries for myself so that I can at least feel differently about this whole experience.

I am looking forward to the last request I have agreed to, though. 

Do you have a way to keep “jobs” fun and interesting? Do you feel like you have to be different in your reviews that authors asked you to do?

Related Posts:

  

I’m Not Worried about Your Kool Aid (Blogiversary Musings)

Technically, I’ve been blogging since 2008, but there were a few years of starts and stops. But not only is October the month of my first blog post but it’s also my favorite month, so there you go. Sometimes arbitrary isn’t so arbitrary. Of course, usually it is.

Anyhooo… For the rest of my blogiversary month, I’m posting about some stuff I’ve been thinking about over the past year. Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts if you want.

I’m Not Worried about Your Kool Aid:

You know what it means to be up in someone’s Kool Aid? It means you are minding their business, worried about what flavor they are drinking instead of paying attention to your own stuff. Well, there are a LOT of book bloggers on the internet and some of them do this for a living or at least for fame and free books. They post almost every day. They run giveaways and blog tours and all kinds of stuff. I have some goals but they are loose and just to keep me motivated and meeting people. I try not to get caught up in the Book Blogger Business, but chill out over here with my little blog and books and just do my own thing. (Did you know that in Old English, the connotation for the word “business” was anxiety. I’m not sure that that is no longer the case. No Thanks.)

Link: Goals I set for myself this year

Have your blog goals changed over time?

How do you decide on your blog goals?

Related Posts:

  

Who Tells Whose Story? #WNDB (Blogiversary Musings)

Technically, I’ve been blogging since 2008, but there were a few years of starts and stops. But not only is October the month of my first blog post but it’s also my favorite month, so there you go. Sometimes arbitrary isn’t so arbitrary. Of course, usually it is.

Anyhooo… For the rest of my blogiversary month, I’m posting about some stuff I’ve been thinking about over the past year. Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts if you want.

who tells whose story?

I’ve written about this a couple of time. There are some books that are clearly #WNDB books. Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older and The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds, for example: racially diverse characters, POC authors, story lines set in diverse places with stories blending the rich cultural aspects of real people. Or The Great American Whatever by Tim Federle: gay author, a wonderful portrayal of gay main character that doesn’t feel contrived or stupid coming of age in a real- feeling world.

And look at these pictures? Am I crazy or are authors just more attractive than other people!

But what about stories of diverse characters in bland otherwise colorless worlds? Or written by non-marginalized (i.e., white, cis, male) authors. These can be great stories, too. I’m currently reading a Japanese story written by a white author that I’m really enjoying (The Monster on the Road is Me by J.P. Romney), or think about Soundless by Richelle Mead or The Girl with the Ghost Eyes by M.H. Boroson. I use these as examples because they are great books. I think the decision is easier if the authors are assholes about their subject matter. But these books show detail and consideration only achieved by research and experience. But do they count as diverse? They certainly aren't #ownvoice books.

And what about “diverse” authors that write white characters like Danielle Paige, who wrote the excellent Dorothy Must Die series? ... is that half a #WNDB sticker? ::sigh: Comment below on this because I love to hear other people’s thoughts on this. Here are a couple of my other related posts.

Link: What Makes a Diverse Book 

Link: My Diverse (but not too diverse?) Little Free Library  

Related Posts:

  

All pictures obtained from Google Search. I don't own anything!

Book Recommendations and The Stories of Mental Illness

I had hoped to post a blog with BookBloggers International for their Mental Health awareness month series. But, I totally dropped the ball. Ain’t that the way? Anyway, here’s the post I would have posted for them.

I thought it would be easy to write a post about a book or two that I have recommended to my patients to read about depression or anxiety or whatever other things are going on for them. And I think it would be one way to go with a Mental Health-focused post. But, that’s not what I’m going to write about, exactly.

Books are a great way to learn about individuals and their stories as part of a way to increase awareness, understanding, and perspective taking. But this post is really more about how you don’t want to get too caught up in just one story.

A Place to Start: What I Blog About

I post about a lot of different things. Below is just a way to organize in my head the kinds of things I post about. If I knew how to, these headings would probably be the tabs across the top of the page (updated: I think I figured that out! but am still not doing it) that lead you to different things around my blog. But I don't... or I do... but that seems like more work than this... so, here ya go!

Words mean things: Rant about diagnostic words

This is a rare post for me: one where I talk mostly about the mental health world that occupies most of my time. I tend to prefer to leave my bookish side separate. But this post is a rant about words, that happens to overlap with the other stuff.

I know that it's totally in fashion with The Youth to use extreme language. Everything is "the worst" or "the best" and you "love" everyone and you'd "rather die." Blah blah.

The words that really irk me are those that people use because they think they know what they mean but it's my job to really understand what they actually mean. Then I have to talk to them about why what they are describing is NOT actually what they are calling it... and then convince them to take action to make some sort of change in their lives.Not surprising, then, most of these words are mental health related.

Words I wish would fall out of mainstream usage:

Unpopular Opinions Book Tag

Found a book tag post that I liked over at in A Bookish World ! Yes, I understand that other people are supposed to tag me in book tags. But I do what I want!! 

1. A popular book or series that you didn’t like.

Usually if a book or series is super popular I won’t read it. It’s hard to live up to the social media hype these days. But I’ll say one book that seemed popular that disappointed me recently was Wuthering Heights. This crap fest is referenced everywhere and people are always all "OH, Healthcliff and Catherine" and I thought, "ok. I have to read this. High school English Lit can't be all wrong, right?" Now, I just want that endless time back. I was also WILDLY disappointed in Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia. Wildly.

2. A popular book or series that everyone else seems to hate but you love.

I don’t get to talk to people about books that much, so I’m guessing here. And really, it’s not that everyone hates it. It’s that everyone who read it as an adult (or teen hipster) hated it. One book I loved that continues to get a lot of flack was the Twilight series. I know it’s not great writing and I know that I want to punch all of the characters in the face. But, I have to give credit to any series that makes me run out and buy them all in succession.  There was just something about it. ::shrug::

Question for Readers: What Makes it a #Diverse Book?

Diversity matters. It does. Well, to be fair: diversity matters if you are interested in higher achievement scores, thinking processes, decision making, interpersonal relationships, enjoyment, and developmental outcomes for those involved. I guess if you don't care about any of those things, you might disagree that diversity matters and might argue that it's not important. 

This post isn't about talking anyone into believing that or about spouting off facts that make it true. I'm going to assume that we are all on the same page about that or that you don't need that underlying assumption to engage in a meaningful conversation about diversity in books. 

There's been a shift that I have noticed in the focus on making sure that there are diverse characters in books and other media. It may be that this shift happened 100 years ago and I've just opened my eyes to it. But I don't think so. At the very least, there seems to be a renewed interest in expanding what we think of as diverse characters (to include not just race and gender but also religion, class, sexual orientation, nationality) and to encourage and support authors who are from diverse backgrounds. Just go check out the #RepresentationMatters hashtag on twitter if you don't believe me. This is a THING. Writers who rely solely on homogenous, non-realistic/ representative characters are being called out for their ignorance and their seemingly purposeful attempts to thwart the benefits to all readers of seeing different points of view in their books and media. Interestingly, this shift is also happening in the job market, education, teaching, and training in higher education.

So, here's my diversity problem of the month. I've decided to add a little WNDB sticker to my book reviews for books that count as having characters or author's from an "underrepresented" backgrounds. But, what counts as diversity? I'm still working on this for myself.

Is it enough that a character is not explicitly described as being a middle aged, white, cis-male, heterosexual with a job? Does it count if a "minority" character is described and is the secretary or running a shop that is visited several times in the story but has no development of their own? How important is diversity and the descriptions of diversity if they characters are elves and trolls? I mean, can it be considered representation if the characters are all mythical but have different skin tones and same- sex partnerships? Does an author count as diverse if they are white- appearing but from Spain? What if! What if, there are characters who are described as diverse but the fact that they come from different backgrounds plays no role in the story, at all? If you can remove a person's diversity and it doesn't change the story, does it matter? You see what I'm saying?

So, without considering these things, we really are left with very superficially diverse stories and characters. I'm still working on my criteria, so right now it's really like the difference between porn and art: I know it when I see it. And some things are much more obvious than others.

What's your minimum criteria to consider a book a #diverse book?


Related post on this blog: Diversity and My Little Free Library

Related posts elsewhere on the interwebs:

• Where is the African American Harry Potter or the Mexican Katniss?
• Diversity in literature
• Messages for Parents: Talking to Children about Diversity
• Daniel José Older creates female black heroes to make fantasy more real

That Blog Life: From NaBloPoMo to Regular Posting

I'm trying to work out my "blog life." I mean, I know that I like blogging but I need to add some structure into the task for it to GET DONE. I just looked at the stats for this blog and it looks like I didn't post at all between 2011 and 2014. Of course, I was moving a couple of times, buying a house, starting a practice, increasing my time at my job blah blah blah, but I probably could have posted if I had really wanted to. But things come up, you know? When I was doing NaBloPoMo, it was helpful to think about how I was going to get the task done. That was an intense but short- term goal. Now it's time to think about how to sustain the "blog life." 

I'm actually a fan of structured problem solving and goal setting, because it's what I help people do for my living, probably... but it never hurts to reflect on what the hell you're doing. Right? If you don't know where you're going, you can't really know if you are on the right track. Or if you need to make a change. That reminds me of something:

Here are some questions I have for myself:

1.  Is your blog only going to be about books and bookish things?

a.   Mostly. But I think that there will be some posts that are more current thought/ event based. Primarily, I like doing the reviews but don't like the idea of only having review posts. I think that would be boring. My last few book posts have incorporated thoughts about the book along with some related real- life thing. I'm going to try to keep that up for review posts.

2.   Who are you writing to/for? Is this a Dear Diary sort of a thing or more of an open letter to an unknown reader sort of thing?

a.   I'm still working on that. When I blog, I think about "talking" to someone who knows me pretty well so the posts are pretty casual. It book review posts are partially to provide some information about the book to those who might be interested, but also to me, because I forget stories pretty quickly. 

3.   How often are you going to post? Or are you going to just post when the mood strikes?

a.   Aye. There's the question. I posted a twitter poll for bloggers and it seems like a common goal is to post about once per week/ at least several times per month. I actually have two blogs, one of which is super dead. My goal will be to post to each of them once per week. The other one is here, if you want to see it come back to life.

4.   What do you NEED: Space, materials, time, hardware?

o   I have a lap top but I don't really like my set up at home. For NaBloPoMo, I went to the library pretty often because I like their computers better. This is something to think about. 

Related prompt:

Name the five biggest distractions from your writing. I have posted about the things I do when I'm not posted. It boils down to:

1. Family
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. Work and Paperwork from my actual job
5. Extracurricular/ Volunteer work 

Links for blog posts ideas: 

http://selfpublishingteam.com/105-author-blog-prompts/

http://www.literaryrambles.com/2009/03/new-blog-topics-for-writers-blog.html

Oh Sweet Irony: How Twilight Zone is my life (#NaBloPoMo)

You remember that episode of the Twilight Zone where the guy survives a nuclear bomb, wakes up and realizes that there are no more people on the planet?

He he now has all the time in the world and access to all the books? And he's so excited about being able to read? And he sorts them and stacks them and prepares for a life long reading frenzy. And then right at the end he sits down, picks up a book and his glasses break?

That is pretty much me with finding a comfortable reading position four days after surgery.

I give money to panhandlers (#NaBloPoMo)

I give money to panhandlers. I do. Their story doesn't even really have to be that good. I'm pretty sure the guy at grand central station was not really the guy that directed the 1992 Blockbuster hit, Boomarang. But he asked me for a couple of bucks because he was down on his luck. I had a couple of bucks and my luck's not too bad, so I gave it to him. Because whatever. I was going to lose that two bucks, anyway.

Well, tonight there was a dude and his lady in the parking lot of Wallmart. They had a good story. They incorporated props. They had kids ages and the name of the shitty hotel they stay in. If you live in The Roc you know you don't want to hear about kids living in The Cadillac Hotel for Thanksgiving. They were asking me to help them out. I had just bought some crappy, useless tree ornament earrings. So, obviously, I went back into the store to get some cash back and grab a load of bread and some chicken because who doesn't like chicken? And the lady in Wallmart starts telling me how there's people out there begging all the time. "They don't want your food, they want my money." Not a news flash, they ASKED for the money. 

I know she thought she was protecting me from myself. And maybe I need that. I'm not rich, I'm usually broke, and I'm in debt to my eyeballs. But I have more than enough. I have enough to spend extra on useless crap. I have way more than enough useless crap, in fact. If I couldn't spare it, I would have just said no.

When I give money, it's not because the story is great, or heart wrenching, or even true. It's not because it's the holiday season or because I expect to get it back. 

It takes so little to give a little extra. I give because I love to give. Because I can give. Because that's why we're here. Because if we all do a little, no one has to do it all. I hope everyone can have enough. And can build a bigger table.

I did not give them a ride, though. Let's not get crazy.

This reRead is KILLING MY FANDOM-NESS (The Hunger Games)

I LOVED The Hunger Games when I devoured the series about 5 years ago. I rarely reread books but thought I’d give the series a shot since it’s available via audiobook. You know how I feel about audiobooks. I just started Book 2 and basically want to quit. The first book really disappointed my memory.

One problem: The sudden love for Gale despite having already said that there had never been anything romantic between them. I’m not saying that feelings don’t change. And I also recognize that Gale was hinting around about it all along, but it’s part of the boys- and- girls- can’t- just- be-friends- and- wouldn’t- a- love- triangle- make- this- whole- thing- better trope that is just so unnecessary. If Katniss had acknowledged ANY feelings for Gale before The Games, it would have felt less contrived. Apparently, my brain had contrived this addition.

Katniss seems so dense or naïve or something this time around. She’s not a completely uninformed narrator, a la Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, so why does she sound so dumb all the time!? She’s been living a hard life and still seems completely bewildered by humans. I understand that she is supposed to be one of those girls that is so clueless to her own fabulousness she doesn’t think anyone could love her. I understood it the first time, but this time it gets on my nerves. Her self- blinders seem like a well- beaten device for creating miscommunication between the characters.

Part of this problem is in the reader of the audio book. The person reading it is clearly not a teenager. It may be that we are meant to be hearing Katniss reliving the story as an adult, through the filter of age and distance. But the reader is pretty bland. She actually, sometimes, makes Katniss seem more clueless than even the words suggest in the moment. When I read her myself, Katniss is shrewd and calculating, but not due to ignorance and dullness, due to having lived in the Seam and being responsible for the lives of her family. She's strong and capable and doesn't fall apart so easily. She's sarcastic and little rough. She owns her flaws and scars and is less apologetic. She’s also less whiney.

I love Peeta more. This likely contributes to my increased dislike of Katniss since she’s basically taking him on a roller coaster of mood swings and intentions. If it wasn’t for him, I’d likely abandon my reread endeavor entirely.

Audiobooks Saved My Life

I have only recently, within the past year, gotten really into the audiobook thing. This occurred about the time I aged enough to realize that music and morning DJs on the radio SUCK. This collided with the discovery that you can download books directly to your device from the local library using Overdrive. Thusly and therefore, audiobooks saved me from driving my car off the road rather than listen to morning radio.

Now, I probably “read” somewhere between 3 and 5 books a month by just listening to them in the car while driving. I LOVE it. I am a believer. I have fully converted and proselytize wherever I go. There are some books that I know would never hold my interest if I read them through my eyeballs. For example, I hate reading books with too much random italic font (e.g., flashbacks, words in non-English) and books where the names of the characters are long, difficult for me to sound out, or too similar to each other. But audiobooks really help smooth out those little pains in the ass… and don’t you want your ass pain to be smoothed!? Of course, you do. Plus, I like when English stories have English- accents strewing from the speakers.

Of course, as with all things, there are many thungs that get on my nerves about audiobooks. Topping that list: missing junk. I first noticed that I might be missing out on something when I read a blog post about the cover of Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Book Store. Apparently, in some versions, the books on the cover glow in the dark. I LOVED that book and felt full and wholly robbed by not knowing that there was something special about the cover. Similarly, at book club last week, I learned that there is a map on the inside of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. I was less emotional about that one, but still felt that I hadn’t gotten the full experience of understanding Harold’s 600-mile journey across England. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of graphics and whatnot in Feed by M.T. Anderson that helps the reader understand the disorganized nature of the world; the audiobook used sounds and distortions to do it.

The way that a reader inflects or emphasize certain words makes a big difference in the book, especially when it comes to jokes. Timing is everything and subtle changes in the words can change the interpretation of meaning. I get a little distracted sometimes when there’s a speaking choice that I think was really misleading (Like it’s up to me, right!? My ego-mania knows no bounds). I’ve decided that audiobooks are the only way I’m ever reading memoirs, though I intend to make an exception for Alan Cummings if i have to. There’s ZERO possibility that Tina Fey’s book Bossy Pants, which she reads, would have been as entertaining through the eyes. Not that I don’t love her, but it’s because of her delivery and personality.

There have been a few books audiobooks that were read by someone with a voice that I was so intolerant of that I couldn’t even finish it. That’s been a rare occurrence. Though, in the second book of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, apparently they switched voices and I was righteously pissed until I forgot all about it.

If you want a great audiobook that puts it all together, get How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran. If you prefer stuff with adult main characters (and if you do, you should reevaluate yourself and your preferences) then go with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by May Ann Shaffer. 

 

None of the things I should be doing (2010, Updated 2016)

This post was originally posted in September 2010. And it was awful. Updates [the commentary in brackets] and graphics were added 2/26/2016].

None of the things I should be doing are getting done. In fact, many of them are things that I sat down to do. Even propped up the old getting work done pillows. Put up my getting work done lap table thingy. Settled the computer mouse onto its comfy mouse pad. Ahhh... What!!?? Where did two hours go? The internet is a trap or the Lotus Hotel.

The Lotus Hotel is a Percy Jackson reference. If you haven't read it... Just Do It! Especially if you are into Young Adult fiction. But even if you really aren't. [But whatever you do, do not, under any circumstances, see the movie. Just do not do it.]

Anyhoo. As is typical for me when I become motivated toward a new hobby, I have begun reading the blogs of others. Partly to inspire me about things to write about. Partly to kill time while I avoid other, more mandatory work. One conclusion that I have come to is that blogs are best done by people who have way too much damn time on their hands. But then, I guess that time and "doing things well" tend to go hand in hand. Perhaps one of my problems is that I engage in too many activities. So, then, I never have enough time to do any of them exceptionally. Is exceptional a goal? It seems that good enough has always been... well, good enough.

Speaking of hobbies. My book reading seems to have waned. [My goal for that year was to read 100 books, I only got to 96! So close, yet so far. Close only counts in horse grenades.] Which is disappointing because I have about 6 books checked out from the library that I actually want to read. I've started 3 of them.

The first is "The Things They Carried." Excellently written book about soldiers during the Vietnam War. I originally picked it up because its the Rochester Big Read book and there are several book groups reading it. But I'm pretty sure that all the groups I planned to attend are meeting on evenings where I'm booked for some child-related activity. Which really diminished my motivation to finish it. And it IS really good.

 

My second book likely to be abandoned is World War Z. A book recounting a Zombie war that threatened to wipe out mankind. I'm on page two. I really like it though or at least feel that I could really like it. [Update: I did actually abandon this book, which made me want to shoot myself after a while. I did not like the "oral history" account thing. I might actually see the movie, that's how much I didn't like the book. Serious.]

 

The 3rd book is Water for Elephants. I think I must have started it when the other two books were out of reach or something. I'm lazy enough to override my rule about starting more than one book at a time, apparently. The author has sucked me in. I really want to know what happens and how it ends. [Update: LOVED it, which obviously makes the movie OFF LIMITS. And is that Robert Pattenson. Urgh. No thanks.]

It would be awesome if the stories could just fly into my head. And speaking of fantasy, it would be great if that work would get done.


[book cover photos were taken from amazon pages. All other photos were found through general google search and may link to their sources.]

You're not talking about me. Are you?

Less than a year since my last post. Not too shabby.

I was thinking today about emailing a friend of mine. Now, what's the bid deal about that, you say? Well. In the last email he wrote to me, he was lamenting the curse of facebook. Ya know, there are people that you left far behind in your past and BAM!! There they are. Friend requesting you on some social networking hub and reminiscing about crap you NEVER meant to remember in the first place... and, now... I have to wonder if what he was really saying was that he's been trying to get rid of me for the last 15 years and I keep emailing him back. That's probably not it, though, right? I mean, he DID email me back last time... I'm sure I'm over thinking it.

I find myself completely over- scheduled. How do I manage to take on so much worthless crap? Not worthless so much as unpaid. Do other mothers who work full time struggle with over booking their volunteer- ready hours? Part of it is my guilt over throwing away all of the fund raising packets that come home. That fund raising shiz is for the birds, ya'll. Truth.

How Hard Could It Really Be?

I read a Chuck Palahniuk book today- Tell All. Not the best Chucky P book out there, in all honesty. But ok enough. I always feel like there are so many "good enough" books out there... and probably even more just plain crappy ones, that really, how hard could it be for me just to write one. All you need is a good story. Or, a good enough one. And some mastery of the language. And not even that, really.

But I get the sense that maybe it's not as easy as it sounds. Because people work so long on books. Really, what are they doing the whole time? Maybe I should just start something, anything, and see what happens... that was the basic premise of this blog entry... if you couldn't tell.

Other things that look easy but really aren't:

• Psychotherapy
• Taking artsy photos
• Making children do what you say
• Push-ups
• Running
• Cooking from scratch with or without a recipe
• Apologize when you don't think you're wrong
• Budget

Veruca Salt is a bad egg! Not nut!

So, today I woke up and turned on the TV... no news there. My 8 year old was with me and she wanted to watch Willy Wonka... not the good one, but that crap with Johnny Depp. And I love Johnny Depp... and Tim Burton, for that matter, but SERIOUSLY? What was with those weird oompa loompas that all look like each other? and the technicolor suites!? and the nut sorting squirrels!? Gene Wilder rolled over in his grave on that one. Is Gene Wilder dead?

Edit: 6/4/2016

I just reread the actual book and the newer Johnny Depp version is actually closer to the Dahl original. But I don't care. At all.