For many of us, there's a snap of gratification in discovering shared thoughts, tastes, experience of any kind. There's an extra zing, as least for me, when I discover a shared insight with someone smarter than I am. I got that zingeroo today, when reading peake's riff against a definition of science fiction.

Back when I used to lurk at SFRA meetings--this is way back--one of the Hot Names was Darko Suvin. His tastes and his approach to the genre intersected rarely with mine, so my interest was confined mainly to trying to figure out why Suvin's thought seemed so insightful to many. In the essay linked above, peake hits the same ripple I did--a precise definition of 'cognitive estrangement.' I listened to one or two papers on Suvin back in the mid-eighties, when his name was batted around a lot, and learned some interesting things about Suvin's ideas running parallel to some of the modern playwrights, and how he'd been inspired by Russian literary criticism. But it always seemed to me other than a (perhaps implied) connection to New Criticism and the infatuation with isolation and alienation of the fifties and sixties, there wasn't enough of a definition of 'estrangement' to be useful.

Estrangement is not confined to worldbuilding, or paradigm clashes. Nor is it confined to the old fist-in-the-air-fervid "what the future will be like Progress continues . . ." or the dark and threatening "what the future will be like if X continues." There's personal estrangement, familial, kinship, cultural, and emotional. There's estrangement from one's own childhood, from one's own body caused by catastrophic illness. You can look at Kafka's Metamorphosis as literal, which gives you a spectrum of estrangements, or metaphorical, which changes everything. Or does it?

peake goes on to give an example from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (which I have not read in its entirety), referencing his idea of family resemblances when we use words or concepts. I really like this example because while peake goes on to give us various facets of one understanding of 'sport' there is (especially to all childhood readers of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time) another set of meanings for the word 'sport.' How many of us read L'Engle and thrilled to her definition of a sport being the odd one, the special one? How many of us launched madly into science fiction looking for just that connection, because we felt like sports in our daily life? And that sure as heck didn't mean having anything to do with locker rooms, games, and running sweatily around being pounded by large specimens of phys ed pulchritude while being shrilled at by whistle-blowing coaches.

For me, this 'sport' phenom represents the tension between what is generally understood as mainstream fiction and what is generally understood as genre: Margaret Atwood can say that her sports are all organized teams that just happen to have elements of . . . [carefully avoiding any definition that might lead to spec fic] . . . to the extent that she labors hard to reinvent the rules of oddball 'sports' that the oddballs have grown up internalizing, which makes her work seem to be well-written retreading of familiar landscape. Whereas new genre writer X over here claims that her work is not the least bit sporty--not cliche and predictable like all that science fiction and fantasy that everyone else in genre is writing--but she's got this great idea about organizing her characters into these things called teams . . . and so she earnestly re-invents the rules of organized playing that others have grown up internalizing, having read Austen, Sterne, Meredith, Joyce, dos Passos, Rebecca West, and so her work seems stylishly written retreading of very familiar ground.

peake also takes a brief swipe at the tendency toward taxonomies in some critics. My own feeling about taxonomies is that they are interesting even when I don't resonate with the divisions, because it shows me how someone else perceives patterns in how fictions fit together. I tend to distrust taxonomies that attempt to reduce works in order to dismiss them as "just another example of this type of story" but I really like the ones that open the subject up to perceived patterns, because that, at least I think, helps one to see a larger pattern in how writers dialogue with one another's ideas as they all contribute to building this mirror to civilization called literature.

It was a long drive to Manchester, what with roadworks and traffic and - allegedly, according to the road signs - 'Animals on the road' (over a distance of several miles) and, most of all, simply being aware that we had a deadline to meet and a plane to catch. And, because this is how these things are organised, there was a long wait at the airport, during which we ate at a restaurant called 'giraffe' (as in 'I like giraffes, but I couldn't eat a whole one') good food and charming service and eventually we were called to the gate just as the setting sun was turning the hazy sky apricot.

We waited in the plane as darkness fell, then took off into a red sunset and flew over a countryside wearing black silk embroidered with gold sequins. As we flew northwards it grew lighter, until there was daylight above the clouds, and then sea below them. Our first real sight of Iceland was of a low expanse of black - what? There was nothng to give any sense of scale, but it could have been rocks, or treacle, with a pale scum (or maybe lichen) floating on top. (Turned out to be lava, and moss so thick it looked as if it had been oured on from a jug, but I would never have guessed that).

We landed at Keflavik by daylight, with a low sun lighting fires behind all the windows of the terminal building. The shuttle from the hotel drove us through the twilight to the Northern Lights hotel, past the sculpture of an egg from Bosch's Garden of Earthy Delights, through verges which - after that first sight - were astonishingly green, and thick with drifts of blue flowers: could they possibly be lupins?

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reveriemedia3/~3/usoSLn6dX9U/books-on-shelves-eyes-like-stars.html

I thought I'll start doing this little feature since I LOVE scouring bookstores and finding book when they release or when I am finally able o find it.

This week I was super GLEE over Eyes Like Stars hitting shelves because it was soooo pretty! And because Lisa Mantchev is awesome and best of all it's out early!!!!




Isn't it gorgeous??? LOOK at that BLURB!! Suzanne Collins!!




Among some great company!



And we found a few more Debs..







Found!!!! BLUE MOON!!



And please don't yell at me but i did some stealthy work.... *scared and hiding under bed*

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reveriemedia3/~3/FNJRUmm5vyc/i-set-up-shop.html

As I do these mini shoots I see that many have shown interest in the pictures. I love to do these book photo shoots and at the same time make them available to you. So I have set up an online store where you can buy prints from shoots like Prophecy of the Sisters or Eyes Like Stars and even Beautiful Creatures later.

Here's the thing... depending on how this goes as time goes on I will add more prints. Not only that but I will be shooting more. If there's any prints you would like to see in the shop let me know.

Buying prints will help me fund more of these shoots and I make them even better. Because there's nothing cooler than seeing your book come to life.


So check out Vania's Life Captures Online Store for more details.

What do you think?

http://www.blackholly.com

1. Yesterday we bought a new refrigerator. At last. After much teeth gnashing and worrying over the colors and sizes and whathaveyous. Got home from ordering it, remeasured, and the built-in that we have isn't as deep as what we bought. It will stick out into the pathway several inches. Instant crash and burn for me. We were going to cancel it but the built-in built-ins are $7K to $8K. Unreal! And less space and less feature and poorer ratings. So we are going with the original choice and will now have a fridge sticking out into the narrow pathway. Hey, it will match the microwave that sticks out on the other side of the kitchen. Remodeling the kitchen is such a pipe dream compared to all the other things that need doing around this house that I need to accept that what is, is. It is on its own wall, at an anle. We can't push it back any farther unless we want to remodel the bathroom and take out the countertop. Which we do, but not right now.

2. We went to multiple stores yesterday looking for a decorative but HEAVY chain to hold up the antique chandelier we bought, oh, a year or more ago. We can find heavy chains that will hold the heavy chandelier but they look like the ones you use to tow a car. And I am sure that when the electrican goes to hang it he is going to find more a problem in the ceiling. It's just the way it goes with this house.

3. The bird bath in the backyard overflows, which is good, to water the fern/wetlands area near the patio. However it does not flow the direction one would think, as in down the steeper incline. It flows toward the patio so much so that we now have a bog. Which is not good. We have played with multiple solutions and while they MIGHT work, none of the strike me as ones that WILL work for sure which is realy frustrating.

4. We have lived in this house for over two years now and the living room still does not have any furniture or a purpose or a hint of a purpose that would help me figure out what to do with it. It's a funky design that makes it even more difficult. So basically you walk into the house and see a junky room which is, let's face it, rather depressing.

5. I am trying to find a handyman or a carpenter or someone to build us sturdy garage cabinets, ones that don't have particle board shelves that will warp as soon as you put a can of paint on them, but they don't seem to be anywhere around.

6. Okay so those are only five things that are frustrating me but it frustrates me that they are bugging me so I'm counting that as number six.

I'm wrapping up this week by offering up some thoughts on what to do you you decide you really do need the services of a book doctor.  The most obvious way to find someone is to ask fellow writers if they can recommend someone.  Publishing is a networking business, and especially if you get an encouraging rejection, it's perfectly okay to ask the publishing house editor if they might recommend a freelance editor you could work with.  

I have also asked writers outside of children's and young adult fiction if they might know someone who wouldn't mind reading a text (for a nominal fee).  Just last fall I asked Blas Falconer, a professor at Austin Peay State University and an award winning poet if he would read something for me.  Blas is amazing, and I had the honor of teaching some young adult students with him last summer. He wasn't sure about the young adult audience so asked a friend, Curtis Crisler to give it a look.  As is turns our Curtis published a critically acclaimed young adult poetry book Tough Boy Sonatas with Wordsong (one of the imprints of Boyds Mills Press), so we shared the same editor.  I would have never asked Curtis to read the manuscript because I was too intimidated.  But small world.  Curtis gave me a terrific critique in exchange for a small fee, which he used to buys YA fiction. 

If you feel you really just don't know anyone, then take a look at the web site of the IEG or Independent Editors Group.  This is a group of New York based professional book doctors who practice in many genres and with many different processes and fees.  The one thing they all have in common is that they are experienced and ethical in how they work with clients.  They have been together for ten years and have worked with clients like Stephen King and Maya Angelou.  These editors are not inexpensive, but they know what they are doing.  

As we're still occupied with the Big Office Move Because Nobody Has Paid Their Outstanding Invoices -- Outstanding to Us.  So we no longer felt we dared keep paying rent on the office space.

But I'm going to make potato salad, at least, anyway.

For one thing, for the first time since last summer, it seems the sun is out all day here!  It. Is. Not. Raining.

Also the city moved the fireworks display back to our side of town for the first time since 9/11.  Maybe we'll manage to catch some of the fireworks.

                     

By the way, this weekend the price of watermelon changed from an average of $.49 @ lb. to $1.05.  Is this a great nation or what?

1. Birthdays.  Mine, kmessner 's, my friend Ann's, the country's, Tom Cruise's.  Fun times!  Cake!!

2. "Twilight Zone" marathon on the SciFi Channel, where you can pick up valuable information for how to act in a crisis situation.  I will illustrate with a brief quiz:

Your daughter has mysteriously disappeared from her bed in the middle of the night.  Who do you call first?
A.) The police
B.) Her friends' parents
C.) A physicist

3. Three day weekend.  'Nuff said.

http://janette-rallison.blogspot.com/2009/07/gettysburg-address-edited.html

In honor of July 4th, and because I'm currently going through my editor's 345 comments on the third draft of my manuscript, I thought I'd try to find this funny version of The Gettysburg Address I saw years ago. I think the title was called something like, If Editors Had Been Around When Lincoln Wrote the Gettysburg Address, and it was Abraham Lincoln's speech with red marks scrawled all over it. For example, next to the phrase:

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here

the editor had written, "Then why mention it?"

And you just had to laugh because it was funny to see editorial comments like that on what is thought to be one of the greatest speeches of all time.

I'm not sure if the funny version ever made it to the Internet. I couldn't go through all the 1,540,000 links that came up when I wrote, "Gettysburg Address Edited" in the search engine.

But I did find one interesting link. The The Abbeville Manual of Style website actually did edit The Gettysburg Address. Like, they thought it needed editing and so they did it. At the end their new and improved version they wrote, "From a bloated 271 words and 1,452 characters (with spaces) we’ve carved out a svelte, rock-hard 143 words, 804 characters."

And then they challenge readers to see if they can do even better, which begs the obvious question: What the heck is wrong with you people? And a few other related questions as well, such as: Do editors just refuse to enjoy good writing? Do they really think trimmed down = improvement?

Sorry all of you ultra-editors out there, the world loves The Gettysburg Address just the way it is. The world will little note, nor long remember your version.

(And yes, I do expect someone to come along and edit this blog now.)

This Independence Day, we are all just a little more free.

Dear Posterity

You think John Hodgman is PC?

Watch this and tell me why he should not moderate at least one of the 2016 Presidential campaign debates.



kalintcha, Hodgman can be added to the waiting list of clever chaps you'll get around to crushing on two years after I've pointed them out on this LJ and querldox, why wasn't that you asking the tough questions, and just out of curiosity, how many did you answer off the top of your head? I was batting 100% until the Dune three-parter.

I walked along the sidewalk to the supermarket this morning, and overhead the birds were flying back and forth in the trees, and the sunlight was shining through their wing feathers and their tail feathers, and those wings and tails were looking like sunlit fans.

No sooner did I think that than at my feet, a feather with a golden shaft (photographed here not in situ but back at home).


So pretty. ( the goldenness of it )

At the supermarket, I walked alongside the canal-like ditch that runs beside the parking lot. There were frogs singing there, sounding like plucked rubber bands. (Also one bullfrog, whose song sounds like very, very deep bagpipe notes.)( 42-second video of frogsong )

Then, home through some long grass. Walking through long grass that's thick with dew is like wading in a stream--it was as fresh and cool and, in the end, got me as wet as walking up a stream.

There are levels of thickness of water, I think:

Water in still lakes and becalmed oceans is the thickest of all.

Water in fast rivers and streams, or on stormy seas, is somewhat thinner. The speed at which it's moving thins it. Also, it's not just water; it's water + tumult.

Next is dew on long grass: the water and grass and wildflowers together make waterlace, waternets.

And then last is water in clouds--the thinest water of all.

http://www.darcypattison.com/asides/quotable-ira-glass/

http://www.darcypattison.com/?p=2102

“Stories are the back door into a very deep place inside of us. A place where reason doesn’t always reign.” – Ira Glass

No related posts.

Rain predicted for all day, which will certainly cast a literal damper on the festival observances.

Just over 1500 words on my day off Friday. Wednesday was actually 1340, better than I thought when I estimated.

Not sure how hard I will work today. Want to write, but also need a little free time, since I'll be at Readercon next weekend and RWA the week after that.

Finished reading Pirate of the Far East 811-1639 by Richard Turnbull last night and then read the bibliography, which is horribly tempting. I want his Fighting Ships of the Far East. I don't expect to resist for long. yhlee understands this desire, right?

It took Sarah Palin 18 rambling minutes to basically say, "I'm taking my ice cubes and going home." Or something like that. Which has helped me realize how great a country we live in. We have the freedom to elect morons to positions of power. We can put philanderers and thieves in state capitals. We can elect mayors with drug habits and senators who think that pork is a birthright. But, unlike the folks in Iran, we also have to power to get rid ourselves of these leaders without shedding blood. It can take a little while. We might have to wait until the next election. In extreme cases, we can impeach. More often than not, it is the free press that greases the wheels by shedding harsh light on misdeeds. So, we are often a mess, but we are a free mess. Our system might not be perfect, but it is nearly always interesting. Happy Independence Day. Be careful with those fireworks. And those ballots.

Firecracker angst last night. King grew restless and tried to crawl into my lap as I worked. I cleared junk off the couch so he could lay beside me, but that didn't work for long because he wanted to rest his front legs across my lap. Then he wanted to stand behind me and climb over the back of the couch, and that wasn't going to work, either. He finally settled in behind the couch.

In the meantime, I had invited Gaby up on the couch in the interest of fairness. She curled up beside me, and things stayed quiet until the boomers got real loud and King awoke and tried to crawl in my lap again. I finally fled to my room and closed the door. Bumping and scraping were heard as both dogs settled down in front of the door. The hall was dark cave-like enough that King settled, and I managed to work for a couple of hours.

The odd boomer again this morning. King is again behind the couch. Woofs have been heard. Dreaming.

Gaby, meanwhile, paced from bed to bed, then stood in front of the couch and stared at me. I moved the tissue box--allergies--and up she came. Curled up in a couple of different spots before finding the right one. She's fast asleep, too. I have a feeling I will regret letting her get away with this, but. If they do something once and they like it, it's a tradition.

1. Ebay prep
2. Laundry
3. Catch up bookkeeping
4. Find a home for kaleidoscope*
5. File!
6. Read Saltation submission draft
7. Break early enough to watch another episode, or play Scrabble, or something


Hope everyone has a lovely Fourth of July, whatever that means for you. It'll be a working day here in the soggy north, where we're promised a warm day with fog and a chance of thunderstorms.

Scrabble likes the new desk arrangement; there's room for her to sit just to the left of the screen, so she can watch me type, or stalk the cursor, or steal the lizard from its perch on the top of the screen. It's all good.


*Who would like to adopt a kaleidoscope? I've had it for many years (ever since I happened to be in an art show as the artists were setting up, and I heard the male helper of one of the artists say, in accents of Broad Disgust, "Oh my god, you didn't bring THOSE, did you? Nobody's going to buy them." The artist wilted, but left the pieces up, good for her. Later, when the show opened, I put a bid on one and brought a couple people over to look. She didn't take home a one. I wish I'd been around at break-down to hear what the helper had to say about that.)

In any case, Hexapuma knocked it off the top of the old radio a couple weeks ago and one of the lead straps broke. I can't fix it, but I know several of y'all are stained glass artists, and/or know stained glass artists. I've had many years worth of pleasure from the piece, and it's time for someone else to enjoy it.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Happy Birthday America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDA9NbPAK8o

Not so typical 4th-type weather. 60s, with rain possible. A couple of the strawberries look pickable, and the tomatoes have exploded--nothing close to ripe yet, but those Adventures in Canning that I was anticipating so eagerly may come to pass after all.

And now to work...

Dear Posterity

It just hit me that the time is ripe for a remake of John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Not because it needs remaking, since it is possibly the best western ever made and almost certainly the best acting performance from John Wayne recorded on celluloid.

But I'm thinking that due to its being shot in black and white, it doesn't get shown enough and maybe a remake directed by someone like John Sayles and starring Tom Hanks, Duane Johnson and Steve Buscemi would be interesting at the very least.

Okay, I'll get my coat.

A very good friend has just stepped from the halls of nonfiction and short pieces to her first novel, from Chanter Press in the Texas hill country. It's a story about fathers, daughters and sons, and how two strangers discover that although their fathers had secrets that they told to no one, sometimes a trail of clues will lead to the truth.

I recommend it. Anyone who likes WWII stories will probably love this book. Cheryl has a gift for just the right phrase, and tells a story that brings truth and new beginnings from mistakes and heartbreak. We have a WWII German solder, a late 20th century Air Force Colonel, and a young woman who is both observant and loves a father she never really understood. This will make a great gift.

Here's from the launch party at Facebook:

AVAILABLE BEGINNING JULY 4, 2009 FOR $12.00 (+s&h) FROM:

Chanter Press
Lulu.com

COVER COPY:

"Lives are often stories not yet written down. Not always ended, either, which can fuse the living and telling into a path not always clear. Some tales take a long time to tell, especially when they start in 1944 and flow into 1996, and the characters weave in and out across those years without knowing one another.

Retired Colonel Matthew Rankin’s sudden death at a party in 1996 leaves a gap in many lives. Deepest, perhaps, in that of his daughter, Manda, whose grief is overwhelming as she realizes how little she knows of who her father was. His strict and formal way kept Matthew at odds with his daughter.

The coincidental arrival of Pieter Becker, a man following a just-found trace of his own father’s World War II disappearance, sets the two of them in motion to solve the puzzle of their fathers’ connection. At first, the only clue they have is a photo taken of the two men together in Grand Central Station in 1975 by Willi Prang, a garrulous former WWII POW who says he knew Pieter’s father.

In 1975, Matthew Rankin was an on-the-rise Colonel in the United States Air Force, successful and devoted to doing the Pentagon’s bidding.

The other man in the photograph is Pieter’s father, Franz Becker, according to Willi Prang, whom Pieter meets at a reunion of ex-German POW’s.

But Pieter’s father died in World War II.

Or did he?"

Wow. I just watched the ISS pass overhead. There's a Twitter feed (overVancouver) that gives time, location in the sky and the apparent magnitude of various orbiting bits, and it's the first time I could catch the ISS. Wow.

I didn't know when I read Norwegian Wood that it was nutsy popular in Japan. I read this on the advice of Rkimedes, and it was one of the most cold readings I've done in a long time.

It's an interesting book, full of opposites and the the people who bridge them: men and women, life and death, city and nature, sanity and insanity ... irresponsibility and maturity. Despite the bleakness of so many of the situations, the writing was light and enjoyable, and it was only the fact that I've been crunching for a month that I didn't finish this in just a few days.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if I knew more about the music and novels alluded to in the book, they would be Very Big Signposts -- I mean, big clue: he took a copy of The Magic Mountain to visit a woman staying in a sanatorium in the mountains. If I were reading this book for a college class (and it's very similar to books I read in college), I'd absolutely have a list of referenced books and lyrics. I thought it was notable that all the references were of Western media, but no one else seems to think it was odd, so maybe that's just the way college was in Japan in the late sixties and early seventies.

[2009 #28]

One of the things that bothers me sometimes when looking at world-building is the way people don’t think about where objects come from. What is the industry that fuels the region? Where does all that paper come from in Battlestar Galactica?

So this essay on the origins of a pencil tickles me no end, and not just because it’s written in first person. What I like about it is that it points out all the different jobs that you don’t even think about which are required to make a pencil.

Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye—there’s some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser.

Just as you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so is it impossible for me to name and explain all my antecedents. But I would like to suggest enough of them to impress upon you the richness and complexity of my background.

So next time you’re doing world creation, think about where all those objects are coming from. Even if you don’t put that detail down on the page, it can add a richness to your fiction.

Mirrored from SFWA | Comment

Who would vote for her when she leaves without even finishing her term.

Okay never mind her cryptic nonsensical "i'm out of here speech" where she claims to have given reasons and then quotes a magnet about friends not needing a reason and enemies never believing them.

Who would vote for ever again?

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConfessionsOfABibliovore/~3/zhfV_uyGZMI/varigated-glee.html

It's Friday again, which means that we need more glee!

• Jen Robinson Tweeted this one: You Know You're a Book Blogger When . . . Um. Guilty.
• Doubtless you've heard of the uproar over Francesca Lia Block's Baby Be-Bop and one Wisconsin group's determination to see it burn. A teen reacts, most marvelously. Thanks to Liz Burns for the informative Tweet.
• And it just wouldn't be a Friday Glee post without some manner of Twilight bashing. But this . . . is just fantabulous.

I'll really write them up properly but I just wanted to say that I saw Crush and Blush and Antique. I really liked them both.

Crush and Blush is about a young woman who's had a crush on one of her high school teachers for years- so long that she became a teacher and goes back to pursue him. But he's married, with a daughter...and an interest in another teacher.She's a bit off, as is everyone else...and what happens is a comedy I didn't expect to like. Often funny in a wrong sort of way, the characters are likable enough that the darkness doesn't overwhelm....even if its wrong at times.

Antique is based on Japanese manga about a straight guy who hates cake opening up a cake shop with the guy who lusted after him in high school as the chef. Comedy food porn film with cute guys and musical numbers. Sure as hell isn't one of the best films of the year but God Damn it has made me smile from ear to ear the three times I've watched in pieces or in total. I love the characters and the silliness. How can one be unhappy when one eats cake?

I'm mentioning this because they are good enough that I wanted to say something since its going to be not until tomorrow night at the earliest that I review them.

As a writer, sometimes I get impatient with people who say, I want to write, but I can’t think of anything. I want to tell them to go home and take up scrapbooking. Or classical guitar.
Writing is more about craft than concept. If you’re a writer, stories are everywhere. You just have to recognize them when they bite you on the…um…toe.
Perhaps they are setting their standards too high.Imperfect stories can be compelling, too.
I like to take walks around my subdivision in the afternoons. It’s not exactly your colorful city neighborhood, peopled with diverse characters, exploding with gritty drama, but it has its moments.
Take yesterday, for example. As I walked between the manicured lawns, I saw two boys crouching on the devil strip, their attention focused on the ground. As I got closer, I saw they were corralling two half-grown chickens.
I said, just to be sure, “What are those?”
“Chickens,” one boy said, looking up over his shoulder and rolling his eyes. “This one’s a hen, that one’s a rooster.”
Chickens in the ‘burbs. “Oh,” I said. “What are they doing here?”
“Well,” the boy said, “Mostly eating, sleeping, and pooping.”
I guess that falls into the ‘ask a silly question’ category. But what I meant, was: What’s the story? Several possibilities had already popped into my head.
Later, I saw a young girl approaching me on a mini bike—a very small, motorized bike. She was gangly—almost too big for it, her long legs nearly dragging on the ground. If I had to guess, I’d say she was about eleven. She wore a camouflage shirt and pants, and what looked like a combat helmet, though maybe it was a stand-in for a bike helmet. Over her shoulder was slung a toy machine gun, the business end pointed at the sky. She buzzed past me and on up the street, a solemn, combat-weary expression on her freckled face.
There’s a story there, I’m sure of it. I just don’t know what it is.
But I can make up a dozen or more.

Probably too little and too late, but do any of you Bostonian types want to go see the fireworks over the Charles (Cambridge side) tomorrow?  All my usual suspects are out of town or uninterested or otherwise already booked.  I may well just trundle on down by myself* and that'll be fine, but unusual suspects are welcome if anybody wants to come (or wants to let me play tagalong)...!

* I may also end up falling asleep an some absurdly early hour the way I did last year, or mistiming my trip down and ending cold and cranky enough to bail before the actual show starts the way I did the year before that.  I'm not sure what happened the year before that--think I was with the Quaker house crew for the rehearsal concert on the 2nd or 3rd, but no idea where I was on the 4th.  But never fear: my chances of dramatically screwing up are significantly lower if I have somebody else to think about!

I don't talk about work a lot, but um - this is sort of driving me a little bit crazy, and I know that a lot of people who might query me do look at this livejournal (why, I am not sure, since I so rarely update it, but... whatever. That's not the point of this post. Quit looking at me with those accusing eyes!)

OK. So. Here's the deal.

I cannot overstate enough how important it is to me that you follow our simple guidelines when you send me a query.

* Put the word "QUERY" somewhere in the subject line.

* Cut-and-paste the first 10 pages of your book in the body of the email.

* NO ATTACHMENTS.

Pretty simple, yes? And all of it for a reason. If you don't follow these directions, your manuscript will not get labeled. It will probably be deleted. And if for some reason it is not deleted, it will likely get lost. Today I found something that I requested at a conference six months ago - it did not have the word "query" in the subject line, and it had an attachment, so it went into some folder, buried under tens of thousands of other emails, never to see the light of day again except by happenstance. AND I was very sad, because it might have been something that I really wanted to rep - but now it is too late, cause I took so long that she found another agent. *cries*

Yep, even from a conference, submission guidelines hold true. Do note "SCBWI NE conference" or whatever IN ADDITION, but don't neglect the original guidelines. Just cause I met you, doesn't mean I want to accept unsolicited attachments from you.

Also, FYI, I only rep kids's books and YA. Not erotica. Not thrillers. Not adult scifi/fantasy. Not Pulitzer-winning narrative nonfiction. Not cookbooks. Not cozy mysteries. Not books on botany or neuroscience. Not memoirs by politicians or prostitutes. ONLY BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS.

If you send me anything that is NOT for children or teenagers, I will revel in the deleting of it.

I have to delete more than half of my many many queries per day because they either do not follow the directions or are wildly inappropriate. ARGH. Don't be one of them! These aren't hard directions! Please!

OK. *deep breath* I feel better. Thank you.

Going to play with kitty now.

I know it's been, like, forever since I mentioned new manga around here, huh? Well, two or three of you on my f-list recced Otoyomegatari (Young Wife's Tale), and I finally got a chance to sit down and read the first four chapters that have been scanlated and OMG AWESOME.

It's set in the 19th century, in the central Asian steppes. Amira, the young wife of the title, is a 20-year-old woman who was married to a 12-year-old boy, Karluk, from a different tribe. The first four chapters set up the family dynamic, with Amira just starting to fit in and Karluk slightly embarrassed and nervous about the whole deal. The age difference is handled so far in a sensitive manner, with a few cute moments of sexual panic on Karluk's side when he thinks he might be called upon to do something he's not yet ready to do. What looks to be a main source of conflict for the future starts when Amira's original family decides that they want to marry her to someone else instead, and send her brothers to get her back. (Um, Azer? Her eldest brother? Kind of my type. Here's hoping he doesn't end up a total jerk.)

How much do I love that there's a random anthropologist staying with Karluk's extended family? Or that it's a story set in Asia with a young woman marrying into another family, and they LIKE HER? And she has NO CONFLICT with her mother-in-law? And that she's an awesome hunter and herder and her husband and new family LIKE HER FOR IT? There is also a kickass grandmother in chapter 4. And elaborate, detailed clothing!

And the artwork? GORGEOUS. GORGEOUS. GORGEOUS. GORGEOUS. Well, it's the mangaka of Emma, so you'd expect no less. :D You know how in Emma she'd spend many panels on a simple act like Emma putting on her glasses? She does the same here with hunting, woodcarving, herding, and other acts.

In conclusion: READ. READ NOW.

In my new favorite site -- lovelylisting.com -- one of the recent entries was considered post-worthy because the real estate photos of the site had lurking clowns. Now, I'm not particularly wigged by clowns, but I will say that these clowns were creepy. And that's before you look around the actual listing and see the other weirdness going on in what looks like a normal suburban home. Clowns and scythes and heads and industrial-sized fire extinguishers are arranged fairly seamlessly around to the nice, neat, modular furniture.

In the comments, someone made a mention of a company that purports to cure clown phobia. But, in fact, that company is actually selling the cure to ANY phobia. Which is fine, fine. Except the phobia-curing company has someone who walks the weird, shadowy corners of the internet, looking for people talking about their fears, and then they post their plug for curing whatever phobia is being discussed, cut and pasted with the ( currently discussed phobia. )

Because the Internet is vast, if you do a search, you can find comments telling people their secret phobia will cost them tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars if they don't address it. Just from the first two google pages are the grim financial setbacks of: Emetophobia (fear of vomiting), arachibutyrophobia (fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth), kolpophobia (umm, girlie bits), lutraphobia (OTTERS!), ...

Actually, I think it's a good that someone with the more unusual fears can know that they have hope of a cure. I just find it interesting to think of ways a fear of peanut butter on the roof of your mouth might hit you in the wallet. But hey.

So, thank you, Mr. Phobia Cure Guy, for making my internet just a little bit weirder.

at the edge of a driveway, two pairs of rain boots, left out. Small ones, with handles to help the wearers pull them on. But now they've got water at the bottom. Frogs may hop inside these boots next, or herons may fish in them.

The bookshop had a Gothic section! Complete with a series with titles like Alice, the Desperate and Ilene, the Superstitious. There was a complete list on the inside cover, but sadly the shop did not have Rachel, the Possessed.

Every single Gothic had a cover with a girl and a house. Some variations included a nurse, a doctor, and a house; a girl, a zombie Abraham Lincoln-esque figure, and a house; and, in the exoticized ethnicity category, a girl and the Taj Mahal, and a girl and a casa (according to the back cover.)

I now own...

The Satan Stone, by Louise Osborne. The great isolated mansion of Penetralia loomed bizarre and forbidding...

(There's no way that isn't deliberate, right? Right?)

Return to Darkness, by Willo David Roberts, author of many charming children's books including the seminal psychic kids novel The Girl With The Silver Eyes. Her Gothic heroine is a private duty nurse.

The Veil of Night by Lydia Joyce. Recced by Oyce as a sweet revisionist Gothic. Some desires flourish only in darkness...

Seimaden # 1 by Higuri You. What becomes of a man who spends his life in the underworld for a love that lasts beyond the grave?? This sounds Gothic, but it's actually manga, and very '80s-looking manga at that.

Two children's books, The Battle for Castle Cockatrice by Gerald Durrell and The Tiger's Apprentice by Laurence Yep.

Anyone ever read any of these?

-Jeaniene Frost

http://averageme-bookandmoviereviews.blogspot.com/2009/07/vampire-diaries-extended-trailer.html

The Vampire Diaries, a new series from Kevin Williamson, the creator of Dawson's Creek and Scream and based on the best selling novels by L.J. Smith, will air on Thursday evenings starting this fall at 8 o'clock, the pilot tenatively set for September 10th.

http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/outrage-of-the-week-mom-arrested-for-letting-kids-go-to-the-mall/

http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/?p=601

Readers: This article makes me so angry, I’d love us all to start thinking what we can do to change a society where danger-hallucinating authorities persecute and prosecute those of us still sane. Suggestions welcome.  This piece originally appeared in Brain, Child. 
By Bridget Kevane
On Saturday, June 16, 2007, I was charged with endangering the welfare [...]

Some of the sky was blue, but some was dark gray--there were billowing clouds of white and gray, and blowing in front of them, fragments of clouds of darker gray. I was walking along, and from a patch of deep gray cloud, across a patch of white cloud, I saw a sharp flash.

I thought, it's like a shooting star, but it's bright daytime, so it can't be that. But it's too fast and disappeary for an airplane.

And then there was a thunderclap, and I knew I'd seen a lightning arrow--a sharp, straight dart of lightning that flashed not from earth to sky or sky to earth, but straight from cloud to cloud.

I took a picture, after the fact, of the origin cloud:


Then there was the sound of rain before the sight or feel of rain, and then down it came, and for a few seconds I could walk between the raindrops, but then there were too many of them. Then there was a torrential downpour, and now, it's stopped, and in a minute it will be sunny again. It's an exciting day for weather. The power's gone out twice as I try to write this.

The rain makes me think of this lovely part in Cloud & Ashes, which I just read:

She stooped and flicked a pebble up the stream. It skipped and started, skipped and sank. And at each leap--O wonderful, beyond all hooping--worlds began. As in her glass, enhaloing and interlaced. A skein of stories.

She was happy; and in shadow.

And yet more worlds, unbidden, came. There. And there. Outspreading. How--? Ah, rain. She heard the pattering on leaves. The river dimpled with the dint of rain.

I read, first, "beyond all hoping"--heart soars as worlds are created. But "hooping" is right, too.

My 13-year-old son just gave me one of my favorite birthday presents ever.

No fancy perfume for this mom.  I got...



Ever the practical kid, J ordered these because I've been lamenting the fact that bugs are eating my roses.  Not any more.  Within a few weeks, the literature says,  this egg case will hatch "about 100-200 tiny mantises, all at once."  I especially love the way Gardeners Supply Company describes the praying mantises' promise to wreak havoc on garden pests. 

"Being strictly carnivorous, they'll eat almost any insect of a size they can overcome.  Waiting in quiet ambush for hours at a time, when an insect comes wandering by, they suddenly jump out and attack -- always biting the neck first."

How cool is that?

We attached the egg case to the rose bush this afternoon.



Watch out, aphids!  The Terminators of the insect world are on the way.