Month: October 2013

books

not that smart

By on Wednesday, October 9, 2013

I read Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and as I’m reading, I think to myself This is a very modern Victorian novel.

Then I stop and think on my thought. Classifying something as a Victorian novel sounds like something smart that would come out of the mouth of someone who studies English Literature or Literary Criticism. It does not really sound like something that someone who studied Math for ten years and has maybe read one Victorian novel ever (The Woman in White) would say.

This morning I type in Americanah and Victorian into a search engine. First hit – Globe and Mail review of the book.

I nod. So that’s where my Victorian moniker came from. I’m really not that clever after all. What a relief.

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books

so, how many stars?

By on Friday, October 4, 2013

I read books. Probably more than average, but somewhat less than a lot of people I know with degrees in English or Information Sciences (i.e. librarians), etc. Still, I read a lot of books and, by definition, very few are my favourite. I read them, then I rate them on librarything and goodreads. (I only update my goodreads once a year and use librarything for my main book-listing-storage and don’t bother trying to get me to switch to goodreads full-time because of the social aspect. I am an antisocial person and reading is sort of the epitome of antisocial. If I could bring a book to the bus stop so as to never talk to Super-Mom again, I totally would, except that would be purposefully rude and I don’t know if I can do it. Damn socialization to be nice!)

So in reading a lot of books that aren’t my favourites, I read books that I don’t like much. That’s easy. Two stars or less depending on how much I don’t like them. Then I read books that are okay, so three stars, maybe three and a half. Books I like, four stars and up. (We are ranking out of five.)

But what do I do with books I didn’t like most of, but then the end sort of pulled everything together? Maybe the last twenty pages were a four, but the first four hundred were a one? A weighted average? Or the fact that the author managed to pull out of a nose-dive should factor in more heavily? Or a book that I thought was one of the most amazing books I had ever read about Central American death squads which then, in the last third, turned into a Jerry Bruckheimer action film and totally squandered any positive feelings I had towards the story? How do I rate that one? No one tells you how to rate those? Or the book of short stories that I internet-know the person who wrote it and I’m the only person who has it in their librarything list so whatever I rank it, she’ll know it was me and if it is a bad ranking, then maybe she’ll internet-curse me?

Maybe I just need to make lists and stop ranking. This is too much stress for easily-stressed-out me.

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this month I ...

september 2013

By on Tuesday, October 1, 2013

I read the following books:

My reading has slowed down with the addition of War and Peace to my reading repertoire. Basically, I read one chapter of War and Peace, then a contemporary book, then back to War and Peace. But most of the contemporary books I’m reading, I don’t have much interest in either, so it’s going slow.

Best book: Anastasia Again by Lois Lowry. I read all those books when I was a kid, and even then, especially some of the earlier ones, were dated, but reading dated books I read as a kid is comforting now. I remember wanting to be Anastasia Krupnik when I was ten. I still do. I’d love to have a house with a tower and parents who read and painted and an annoying but lovable little brother and have that whole part of my life to live over again.

I watched:

  • Community: Caught up on Netflix, even after Netflix sent me an email saying Yay Community! and then took down Season Four for six days.

  • Breaking Bad: But not the second half of the last season. I watched the first half of the last season on Netflix. This show winds me up too much. I get all nervous watching it and then I can’t sleep. I’m actually not sad it’s over. And I read the spoilers for the finale so I don’t even know if I’m going to watch the second half of the last season whenever it makes it’s way over to Netflix. Maybe I’m just not that interested in egotistical masculine anti-heroes who treat their wives like shit.

  • My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: Dear Netflix, please take My Little Pony off your service so I can convince Tesfa it is now time to watch something else. We are on our third run through.

  • The IT Crowd: Watching it with Geoff, who waffles back and forth as to whether he really likes watching The IT Crowd with me.

  • How I Met Your Mother: The more I hate myself, the more I watch this show, which makes me hate myself more, which in turn encourages me to watch more of this show. Why am I watching the most insidiously rape-culture enforcing show on television?

  • Mad Men: I like the theory that Annie Edision is Pete and Trudy Campbell’s granddaughter a little too much.

  • Parks and Recreation: I like Leslie Knope too much to actually let my feelings of disappointment about how much I did not really like the season premiere bubble up to the surface. But I did not enjoy the season premiere. Sorry Leslie.

I haven’t watched a movie in ages. I don’t have the time or patience lately. Actually, I might have watched Totoro this month. We watch Totoro so often that I can now tune it out and read a book while Tesfa is watching. This in now way impugns how awesome Totoro is. It just simply says that after the eighteenth time watching Totoro, I feel like doing something else.

I wrote: As I have said, my mentor is not digging Come From Away. I tell myself that this is good because it means I have a critical set of eyes helping me to overcome some of the serious structural flaws (if my story were a building, it would have those Do Not Cross Unsound Foundation signs they put on condemned buildings all over it). But, actually, I feel like why does no one love my story? and the dreams I have of getting up there at the the Governor General’s Awards and going to bookstores all over New Brunswick sticking those stickers on the cover that say Award Winner, those are proving very difficult dreams to let go of. So I’ve been in an awful mood, compounded by the amount of How I Met Your Mother I watch, the constant rain, and the fact that every day at the bus stop, I have to talk to a one-upping mother who is PERFECT and has UNIMAGINABLY PERFECT CHILDREN and who offers me unsolicited advice that I would need a time machine and an infinite amount of money to fulfill.

I also typed up some of the faerie story and wrote in longhand a story about Jersey cows.

On to October with my favourite holiday: Hallowe’en! No familial obligations, just eating candy until I vomit.

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fiction writing

jealousy

By on Tuesday, October 1, 2013

I’ve been feeling really jealous of a lot of other writers lately. Great and talented people are getting published in America, not even people I know but people I respect, and I sit here feeling all sulky when I could be doing what would get me published and known, that is, writing so that one day all my writing practice will segue into writing great fiction. I write dribs and drabs and then get annoyed and watch Netflix.

Someone I know wrote a book and I would love to hate it, except it is a good book (a little too much slut-shaming in some parts). So I write positive reviews for it on librarything and goodreads and sulk some more. I eat stale gingersnaps and cross my arms and stare out the window.

I go back and forth on giving up. I say I’ll take a break and then think of a story idea and write a short story about Jersey cows. I think Maybe I should stick with short fiction then spend six hours on two pages of Come From Away, which is now fifty thousand words, because I simply can’t let that one go. I tell myself YA is the way to go as my YA faerie story veers further and further from YA and into adult territory. I decide that listening to myself is not what I should be doing.

I read books by amazing writers. You know how they got to be amazing writers? I ask myself. Not by watching Netflix all day. Not by planning a birthday party for a five year old for more time than it should take to plan a birthday party for a five year old. Not by sulking how the receptionist at the car dealership wasn’t as friendly to you this time as last time. Not by still being hurt that a family member forgot their birthday when it is October and the forgotten birthday was in July and it’s a bit too late now to bring up forgetting their birthday. Amazing writers actually write stuff down. Then they rewrite and reframe and move all the parts around and get a story. That is what writers do.

So I should write. But oh my goodness, I found an advent calendar tutorial and I’ll likely distract myself with that instead.

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