Attention Rebellious Jezebels

Hepme

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 07:08:37 GMT

Dear Internet,

Who among you has read and has copies handy of Pride and Prejudice and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and would be willing to assist me by answering some questions?

I can offer nothing for this service, but my appreciation of your efforts to assist the development of ~~science~~ my dissertation.

Sorted, thank you!

AND IT ALL LOOKS THE SAME

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:10:16 GMT

My friend Filmmaker Tom (homagenz) has left the windswept streets of Wellywood for the bright and very yellow streets of Hollywood, and blogs about his Adventures in LA, here.

I just want to point out that this made me laugh like a monkey on nitrous. It's ~~funny because it's true~~ Okay, it's funny even if it's not universally true!:

American money is ridiculous. Chief among the ridiculousness of American money is the continued insistence on pretending like physical bits of money carry value. In the Antipodes there's a clear sense that the money is in the bank and you can write a cheque or hand over an Eftpos card or - if you're backward - some bills, and that will communicate that the bank will recognise your purchase. But in America, everyone carries cash! As if the value of the money was in those little bits of paper! Not remote and universally accessible, like the trust of God, but immediate, weighty and materially-divisible, like the trustworthiness of Gold!

America, I love you, and you are my favourite ever country for roadtrips, but you have got to do something about that money thing.

Tom, I love you too!

Which readers?

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:16:45 GMT

So apparently sci-fi/fantasy book fan convention Readercon is advertising next year's con with the tagline, "This IS your father's Readercon."

The problem is that my dad doesn't read sci-fi. He reads westerns, sports biographies, historical fiction, and conspiracy thrillers.

He used to read The Phantom, and he might have seen Star Wars once.

I, on the other hand, have been consciously seeking out fantasy titles since I was nine years old and read The Lord of The Rings. Because I saw Eowyn, who laughed in the face of death that no living man might hinder and, and said, "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless!"

I watched Sarah tell the Goblin King that her will was as strong as his and her kingdom as great and that he had no power over her. I was with Laura Chant, rebirthing herself in the beginning place, as the bones of her skull shifted under her lover's hands. I smiled when Cordelia Vorkosigan ended a civil war by shopping in the capital. I grinned when Lioe wrote a new Game. I gasped when even death could not prevent the Sailor Senshi coming to the aid of their Moon Princess. I laughed when Molly Grue told Schmendrick the magician that he didn't know much about unicorns. I punched the air when Misty Knight declared there was about to be all kinds of kung fu up in here. I clenched my fists as Valerie Russell fought back addiction to do battle with the glass sword. I cried when Gemma Doyle stood at the ship's railing, for it was morning, and there was so much to see.

I was there. Not my father. Me.

And then I took all that I had seen and read and loved (and sometimes the things I didn't like about the things I loved) and wrote a book about a young woman coming to terms with the magic of her multicultural nation and walking through pain and death to find a way to make the slaughter stop. Not my father! Me!

But if this was my father's day of science fiction, Guardian of the Dead might not have my name on it. It might be by K. E. Healey, or Kevin Healey, or a name chosen from a marmalade jar. Or it might not exist at all, because I went to a con and did a workshop and that's how I approached my agent. If it was my father's day, I would not have been made welcome.

Those were bad days for women like me, and I'm a straight, white, able-bodied chick. They were even worse for women who weren't. And it's still bad! Hugo awards are notoriously gendered. Readercon attendees, this year, were reportedly 98% white (I don't know how many were female) and accessibility standards were extremely poor. That is, how we say, indicative.

I love books. I love reading books and talking about books and writing about the books I have read and talked about! And I've (obviously) got nothing against nostalgia. But I strenuously object to nostalgia that renders people invisible and unwelcome. I have my father's last name, and his ears, and his big toes, and his love and support. I don't want to go to his Readercon.

- - - - -

Janni Lee Simmer on the active anti-teen policy at Readercon.

Veejane on the experience and gender segregation in panels.

Readercon speaketh, having made some changes.

I am not a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 02:06:02 GMT

Five hours left to enter the Tuesday Giveaway!

Man, I can think of about ten thousand things I would rather be doing right now than wrestling an argument statement out of my second dissertation chapter.

Like... making gazpacho.

Mmm, gazpacho.

Tuesday Giveaway: With Lots of Love From Georgia

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:54:51 GMT

I loved giving away Graceling* so darn much that I looked at my bookshelves and said to myself, "Karen, you have many many books and few shelves. You are double-shelving right now. Perhaps you should make efforts to rid yourselves of some of these? And at the same time, increase the net happiness of the world!"

I feel that this is always a worthy goal.

So I will. Every Tuesday. Some books I am never ever going to give away because I hug them eternally to my BOSOM, but some books - while delightful! I will not give away books I don't like! - I could just about bear to part with if I screwed my courage to the sticking-place.

Today's book is With Lots of Love From Georgia, a book set in Australia by New Zealand author Brigid Lowry. My review is here but it has spoilers, so basically all you need to know is that fabulous Georgia fabulouses her way through some confusing mother times and and body issue times and boy times and writes hilarious lists like a 21st century Sei Shonagon**.

KAREN, you say, how do I get a chance to win this fantastic book?

1) Go to Artpad

2) In stickfigure form, answer the question "What is your secret superpower?" (Keep all depictions of your superpowers safe for work, please!)

3) Do the Save and Send thing (to yourself, if you like) and put the resulting link to your work of art in the comments here.

4) I will put the name of everyone who enters into a hat, or more likely a box, and draw the winner in 24 HOURS!

EXAMPLE SAMPLE OF AWESOMENESS: http://artpad.art.com/?kmrf4s19ncf0

It's a heavy burden, my power.

* I finished it the other day. WHOA that there is some major action. I couldn't stop to pee!

** Y'all know that I adore Sei Shonagon, who was blogging about a thousand years before the Internet was invented.

First Lines

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:49:41 GMT

There's a First Line meme going around for finished works and WIPs. My first lines are not super, y'all! I have trouble with the "making it sum up the whole thrust of my book, and draw the reader in and be intriguing" and like that.

But these all do fun plot thematic device things, so:

Guardian of the Dead: "I opened my eyes."

Summerton: "When I broke my arm, I was ready for it."

Kind to Snails: "Have a magical summer," said Ms. Tsang. (yeeeeah, that one's going to change)

Son of Lettery (with Robyn): "My father’s hands were rough and chapped from saltwater and sun, but they slipped through my fingers as easily as waxed fishing line."

My first line in that one is actually: "The first time I met my brother, I didn’t know he was my brother."

Schoolery (with Robyn): "When I saw Taver waiting in the hall, looking just like himself, I was so happy that I think I must have floated down the stairs."

The last one is my favourite, because 1) Taver does not always look like himself and 2) It is entirely possible that Elaku did in fact float.

Character crushes

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 07:27:11 GMT

I was thinking today about authors who crush on their characters, and authors who don't (which has nothing to do with quality of characterisation. This is not that kind of post). I crush on other people's characters all the time, but not my own.

I couldn't spend ten minutes in a room with Guardian's romantic lead (even though he is a very brave boy, with some very serious problems) because I would need to SHAKE him.

Also, he is (more or less) seventeen.

Which brings us to, of course, baby Chekov:

revena: Goddamn, he's got incredible abs
karenhealey: JESUS SHUT UP HE'S LIKE TWELVE
revena: He's 20!
revena: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/scarletlocks/happyanton.png\
revena: Loooook.
karenhealey: HE'S LIKE FOUR AND A HALF OH MY GOD

Do y'all have any GUILTY CRUSHES?

Once I spent ten weeks reading Emma and 3 Musketeers over and over and over.

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:21:40 GMT

Classics Karen Likes:

Pride and Prejudice
Emma
Northanger Abbey
A Tale of Two Cities
The Three Musketeers
Les Miserables
The Iliad
The Odyssey
The Frogs
Lysistrata
Most of Shakespeare's plays, except Titus Andronicus and A Winter's Tale, and the ones no one has read like King John because I also haven't read them.

Classics Karen Doesn't Like:

Mansfield Park
Juvenal's Satires, the ass
Everything else Dickens wrote
The entire catalogue of the modernist novel
ETA: Jane Eyre
Wuthering Heights

It seems to be included on the Likes list, one should include 1) humour and/or
2) swordfights, yo.

ETA 2: I forgot a MAJOR exception, which is Euripides' The Trojan Woman. No swordfights, no humour, complete downer of a story complete with child murder and female slavery and yet I love it the most.

Also! I got to make the donation to the Alannah and Madline Foundation! Behind the cut is proof of the collected donation. A number of people redeemed their pledges by donating separately, so the total of all donations was actually $1 381.

To me, that is big person money. Thank you all very much for taking part, and I'll be doing it again next year for sure!

Receipt details

Date: 11-Jul-2009
Receipt Number: 69BB6DB9-9CAB-937E-50278D312F5A9126
Reference Number: AMF-20090711-221326
Received from: Karen Healey

Donation amount: $781
Donation: Supporting the work of the Foundation

WINNAR

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:24:10 GMT

The winner of the random draw for Graceling is graveyardghosts, and her entry, here: http://artpad.art.com/?kmgjrirbihc

Personally I think that is pretty awesome!

I have no idea what this song is doing on my computer. Thanks, Genius!

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:02:56 GMT

Okay, y'all have twelve hours left to enter the get-a-free-copy-of-Graceling competition.

And if you've already entered and/or already own Graceling, check out some of those entries because good lord that is a lot of awesomeness right there.

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:34:21 GMT

Okay,hereI amtypingobna EEEEEE

KEYBOARD UNFRIENDLY YO

Definitelynota machinefor manuscripts.Shame.]

I'm right for the first time in my life.

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:16:59 GMT

Hi, Karen, how have you been a dork today?

Well, Alea tweeted that she was finding the abundance of Sarah Dessen boys confusing. Which was which? Perhaps she needed a chart?

DID SOMEONE SAY CHART? DORK SENSE TINGLING.

Mya produced a chart with actual content, that describes four Dessen boys.

I did... this. Now you need never be confused again!

(Dooooooork)

I should note that I haven't read Dreamland, but the boy's flaws are fairly obvious from scuttlebutt.

Baby's First Giveaway

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:00:52 GMT

One of the things I love love love about the teen lit world is that there are tons and tons of giveaways. Authors giving books and ARC*s to readers and teenlit bloggers! Teenlit bloggers giving away books and ARCs to readers and other teenlit bloggers!

It has been a MONUMENT OF SADNESS in my life that I have so far not been able to run one. I had a copy of Liar! ... which I sent to a friend. And a copy of Catching Fire, generously given to me by someone awesome (whose name I don't have permission to reveal)!... which I donated to make up the gaps in the 48 Hour Book Challenge prize packages.

BUT. DUE TO A MAILING ERROR. I have two copies of Kristin Cashore's Graceling when I only paid for one! Which OKAY came out months ago but I am dead certain someone wants it. Because it involves martial artist girls with swords and cultural conflict and DEADLY CONSPIRACIES. And I am going to send it to someone! Someone who enters this contest!

Here is how you enter:

1) Go to Artpad

2) In stickfigure form, answer the question "How have you been awesome lately?" (Keep all depictions of your awesomeness safe for work, please!)

3) Do the Save and Send thing (to yourself, if you like) and put the resulting link to your work of art in the comments here.

4) I will put the name of everyone who enters into a hat, or more likely a box, and draw the winner!

EXAMPLE SAMPLE OF AWESOMENESS: http://artpad.art.com/?kmfp46acd3c **

So don't be fretting about your art skillz.

I think that's it. Art! Fun! GRACELING!

* Advanced Reading Copies

** Karen, what the heck, you say? Okay, in World of Warcraft there is this one area where a GIANT AND SILENT dinosaur stalks around RANDOMLY STAMPING on players who are trying to do important things like collect seedpods or kill tar monsters. It comes out of nowhere and DESTROYS you. So last night, I realised I was probably at a high enough level to handle it, and I went back there and KICKED DINOSAUR TAIL.

That is how I have been awesome lately.

Tactics or Strategy?

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:54:25 GMT

I have to catch a plane at 6 a.m. Y'all are well aware of my aversion to mornings.

karenhealey: Man, okay, this is my plan.
karenhealey: I am going to go order dinner and a cocktail in the hotel bar.
karenhealey: Then I am going to come back to my room, order a taxi for 4 a.m., shower and pack.
karenhealey: THEN I WILL PLAY WORLD OF WARCRAFT UNTIL I PASS OUT.
karenhealey: THAT IS MY PLAN.
miggy: Good plan!

It has been a very good trip.

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:20:38 GMT

I am currently researching Summerton setting details on the West Coast, which is going very, very well, and incidentally providing a number of minor story solutions. I am travelling with my mother and sister.

I may have mentioned before that while I overthink things like whether to put my feet on the dashboard (WHAT IF we crashed right then and I dislocated both hips very badly and had to amputate?) my little sister is both fearless and hardcore.

Gina: Just got back from six days tramping and sleeping under the stars in the middle of winter. Karen: Can't go to sleep if her nose is cold.

Going anywhere with her tends to make things more adventurous.

Karen: Oh, look! This cabin has a little attic space with a mattress!
Gina: I WILL CLIMB INTO IT.
Karen: Do you want the ladder?
Gina: LADDERS ARE FOR LOSERS. WATCH AS I SWARM UP THE BUNK UNDERNEATH IT AND THEN HAUL MYSELF UP INTO THE GAP.
Karen: Please don't die!
Gina: CLIMBING DOWN WOULD BE TOO BORING. I WILL JUMP.

Karen: Oooh, pretty stones at the beach. I will take off one glove veryvery fast to collect them.
Gina: I AM GOING TO PADDLE.
Karen: It's like minus fifty gazillion degrees!
Gina: REFRESHING! I SHALL DO A JUMPY DANCE.

This stellar example might have led me to do what I did today, which was to encourage her to take "a quick walk" with me on a bush track as night was falling. As anyone who knows anything about the New Zealand bush knows, this is a really good way to kill yourself. We did not even have torches. I realised about halfway up the slope that I should have brought my iPod as light source, but evidently "iPod" and "bush" don't co-exist in my conception of the world.

SPOILER: We didn't die. Instead, we had a vigorous little jog up and down a hill, saw a beautiful tree-ringed tarn, and sauntered back with our night vision straining to catch the last bits of light. At one point something rustled a fern and I shrieked and Gina laughed at me, but nothing happened, so it was probably not the killer boar I had been imagining through the whole journey.

But really, what did I have to fear? Even if it had been a wild pig, I imagine it would have gone something like this:

Boar: *snort*
Karen: Augh!
Gina: MMMMMM. FUTURE SAUSAGES.

Poor piggy.

Top Five YA Girls

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:31:10 GMT

And now it's time for the girls I most adore, with bonus cheating:

5. Laura (Down to the Bone, Mayra Lazara Doyle)

Oh, Lauranita! So bouncy, so joyful, so confused! Laura's work to form her own identity is a noisy, beautiful process. She's so realistic, and genuinely lovely, and even her mistakes are kind of charming - the sort of thing you look back on and cringe at, but recognise as necessary steps in the road to being who you are. And by the end of the book, Laura is most definitely all herself, owing many, but beholden to no one.

4. Macy (The Truth About Forever, Sarah Dessen)

I am a sucker for a story where the protagonists start out pre-traumatised. In this case, Macy's lost her father, and carries grief and guilt with her. I love her rocky relationship with her mother, her eventual willingness to take risks, even in the face of her fears. I love that she's realistically burdened, and doesn't take action right away; that it takes time for her to change and grow.

I love best the strength that she doesn't, at first, recognise in herself. Oh, confused girls, come here so that I may hug you! There is nothing wrong with you.

3. Janet Carter (Tam Lin, Pamela Dean)

Karen, would you like to fall in love with a book-smart, sarcastic girl who cherishes literature and learning, who usually (but not always) manages to suppress her worst instincts in favour of her better angels, and then totally pulls off an amazing rescue at the last second AND THEN WRITES A POEM?

Why yes, mysterious interrogator, I believe I would.

2. Val (Valiant, Holly Black)

Your mother does something terrible. You end up on the streets. You start making drug deliveries.

OH HEY. TO FAERIES.

Val is one angry, angsty girl, and man, she has her reasons (some good, some bad) for that anger. I think I love Val because she makes so many bad decisions. Like umpteen billion of them. And yet, she manages to come through, to suffer through withdrawal to save her friends and her love, to recognise she doesn't have to be stylish or pretty or perfect - just herself, smart and furious and effective.

Bonus: SHE HAS A SWORD.

1. Laura Chant (The Changeover, Margaret Mahy)

Okay, so you're fourteen years old, and your beloved little brother has gotten very, very sick. You know it's vicious magic, but no one will believe you except the half-exciting, half-creepy older guy at school, and his definitely creepy mother and grandmother, who you can tell are witches. Do you sit crying on your bed and hope for a miracle? Or do you WOMAN THE HELL UP and demand assistance, risking your life in a transformation from halfway girl to fullblown magician, so that you can utterly destroy the evil spirit leeching your brother's vitality?

Laura Chant says Option B, and goes FULL SPEED AHEAD. While Janet is content to observe right up until the crucial moment, and Val flounders between action and addiction, Laura is absolutely focused. She knows what she is going to do, and she is going to do it HARDCORE. And that's why she is the most awesome. "We'll crush him between our smiles," indeed.

Cheat Number One: Scarlett Martin, from Suite Scarlett, by Maureen Johnson. Scarlett, who is a very together fifteen-year-old (you may be noting a bias towards competent, intelligent girls here) living in a crazy hotel owned by her slightly less crazy family and working for a very crazy guest, would totally be on this list were it not that her adventures are yet to be concluded. She might turn out to sell drugs to kindergarten kids. But probably not. Probably she will become even more awesome.

Cheat Number Two: Iris Tsang, from Guardian of the Dead, by, uh, me. OKAY, Karen, you say, it is the absolute height of solipsism to include one's own characters on these lists, and even if you're going to, should you not include the protagonist? Well, first... yes, but I genuinely adore her! And second, Ellie Spencer is indeed dear to my heart, but the fact is that she has several advantages Iris does not, like magic, and the ability to kick someone's teeth through the back of their skull.

Iris doesn't have those things. Iris looks tiny and pretty and nice, and she is. But under all that is a hard core of purest determination. (Minor spoilers, highlight to read): Play you're directing falls apart as you watch? HOLD IT TOGETHER WITH YOUR WELL-MANICURED HANDS. Boy you've loved for half your life finally admits that he's not into you? SADDLE UP AND BE THERE FOR HIM ANYWAY IN HIS TIME OF NEED. Half the nation under threat by mystical creatures? BANKROLL THE RESCUE MISSION. Iris allows herself exactly one moment of feeling weak and useless and small. Then she slips into her least ridiculous shoes, tosses her shiny hair, and prepares to step up. Because that is how she rolls.

Cheat Number Three: Mae, from The Demon's Lexicon, by Sarah Rees Brennan. Like Scarlett, Mae's adventures are not concluded. Unlike Scarlett, she is not even the main character in her book. But she is SUPER GREAT. The narrator of her book, (who is a sociopath) and his biased and usually hateful presentation of Mae cannot prevent it from being completely clear to the reader that Mae is the queen of the entire universe. The next book is all about Mae. I cannot goshdarn wait.

A Twist In The Tale

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:56:43 GMT

Occasionally I get bored and ask people to name fandoms I don't know anything about, and then I describe that fandom. I think my best effort on this was Star Trek, but of course now I know all about Star Trek* and my precious ignorance is gone for ever.

"Hmmm," I thought to myself. "Self, it is likely you will never run out of fandoms to be ignorant about, but let us expand our horizons. Of what other subjects is your knowledge frankly basement-level?" And lo, it came unto me like a thingy: Sports! I know nothing about sports. Except gymnastics, swimming, ballet, and netball, so don't say those.

Name a sport, dear readers, and I will tell you how that sport is played, based on what little I have managed to pick up from the very informative mass media. FUN TIMES.

* Okay, that is lies. Now I know about mirrorverse, tribbles, and Weird Dog. But these are the significant things!

Top Five YA Boys

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:22:49 GMT

So a number of awesome people have been writing about their Top Five YA Crushes and dear reader, I am in. Oh so hard to restrain myself to five! In fact, naturally, I cheated.

5. Felix Carnival (The Tricksters, Margaret Mahy)

He is possibly a figment of the protagonist's imagination. He is possibly a third of a ghost boy. He is possibly a character from her own secret novel, given flesh and life by her underwater dreams.

He is the most mysterious of all mysterious boys, but Felix's main function is what he does for Harry, which is make her be herself, splendid and strong, the word-enchantress she always suspected she could be. A boy like that, however fragile his existence, is worth a little crushing.

4. Thomas Lane (Tam Lin, Pamela Dean)

So Thomas is gorgeous. Goooooooorgeous. That is the first thing we, and Janet, notice about him. But then he is also intelligent, and funny, and he is intelligent and funny in the way I like best which is that he reads books and then jokes about them. At one point he improvises a riff on a poem, after a long bus trip, while carrying most of his worldly possessions, no less! Plus, he's a drama boy. OH LORD drama boys, always my weakness!

And then, with consummate bravery, he sticks his chin up and goes to what he believes will be a terrible, terrible fate. There is possible salvation, but will she come in time? He is reasonably sure she won't, and it makes his courage so remarkable.

Smart, tick. Funny, tick. Brave, tick. (Hot, tick.) Huzzah!

3. Owen Armstrong (Just Listen, Sarah Dessen)

Okay, the thing I like best about Owen is that he screws it up really bad like nine million times, and then he comes through in a TOTALLY BIG WAY. I mean, he screws it up before the protag even meets him! Dude is at Anger Management (and it is working, because Sarah Dessen does not go for cheap shots and I loooove her) for being a generally violent person. Owen gets angry. Owen needs to learn what to do with his anger.

So he does. He channels it into passion, for music, for speaking out, for always telling the truth. He's not perfect, but he's working on himself, all the time. Owen is a work in progress, like most teenagers need to be, but he's much more aware of it than most of them. And he's going to turn out great.

SPOILER (highlight to read): And of course it is not particularly cool to punch out your sort-of girlfriend's former rapist, but since the not-coolness was acknowledged and there were consequences, I am totes glad he did it.

2. Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter series)

Okay, stop snickering for a second.

No, really.

Okay, I'll just talk over you! I am not in the slightest bit crushy on canon!Draco. The Draco we see in the books is unattractive, whiny, racist, and nasty. His sole redeeming quality is his unshakable loyalty to friends and family. Really, he should have been sorted into Hufflepuff, where he would have been (eventually, once his folks got over it) a lot happier.

But oh, fanon!Draco. Fanon!Draco is smart, sarcastic, proud, ruthless, and hot. His flaws are exposed and reworked, and he often shows quite remarkable courage, even if it's in the pursuit of his own interests. He's quite a variable creature, to be sure, but he's ten times more interesting than the canon creation (which is fine. None of the books are titled Draco Malfoy and the Rocky Road to Redemption, after all) and I adoooore him.

1. Gilbert Blythe (Anne of Green Gables series).

Ohhhhhh, Gilbert. So smart! So faithful! So persistent but not in a creepy way! So falling in love with a girl when she retaliated against his taunting her! So ALMOST DYING OF TUBERCULOSIS AND ONLY THEN DID ANNE REALISE WHAT SHE HAD ALMOST LOST.

There's a bit from one of the later books that I particularly love, when Anne is worrying that Gilbert is giving up the promise of a city practice to suit her wishes of where they should live, and he's like, yeah, but you're giving up the promise of a burgeoning literary career to be a mom. We are both making compromises, and don't think I don't notice yours! I swooned! And decided not to get married if giving up writing was the price, although of course nowadays it is not, and probably two-thirds of the Tenners are writing in happy and well-supported wedded bliss.

I think maybe the most swoonworthy parts of Gilbert are that he is fundamentally decent, and that you get to see him grow in a way you don't get for most YA heroes, and so you are assured of his continuing decency. He occasionally makes mistakes, very human ones, and he suffers terrible tragedy (JOY! WAAAAALTER!) and he and Anne fight, as couples sometimes do, but they always come right again.

There's that final story in Anne of Ingleside where they've been scratchy and he's been distant and she's worried he doesn't love her any more, that they're just rubbing comfortably along together. It all comes right, of course, and then Anne, heart singing, goes to watch her children sleep, and repeats the words that an old acquaintance tried to make an insult only that very night: "What a family!"

In conclusion, I present Gilbert Blythe, my literary boyfriend.

Cheat Number One: Arnold Spirit Jr, from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie. I don't lust after Arnold at all. I JUST THINK HE'S TOTALLY AWESOME. He's talented and funny and driven and clinging so fiercely to hope. What a guy.

Cheat Number Two: Sorensen Carlisle, from The Changeover, by Margaret Mahy. Sorry would totally have a place on the actual list if I was compiling this list as "boys I loved the first time I read them". But sadly, later re-reading highlighted the boob-grabby bit. Sorry, Sorry, but boob-grabbers do not turn up on my most-loved list, no matter how tormented and sardonic and putting-broken-pieces-back-together they are.

Free Contents!

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:11:16 GMT

Sarah Rees Brennan, whose book The Demon's Lexicon you may have read, is offering free online content - a short story every week that her sales reach certain (modest) numbers which she won't tell us, but they are not big! Evidently sales have hit the first milestone, huzzah!

So if you would like to read a creepy story with all of Sarah's lyrical descriptive power and heartbreaking, quiet dissection of how evil happens, you should click here. And if you would like to see more stories, or, you know, read a dark and witty YA contemp fantasy, perhaps you would like to buy a copy of The Demon's Lexicon.

What do y'all think of free content, btw? Does it encourage you to buy? I ask for not entirely disinterested reasons.

Show Your Tabs!

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:08:20 GMT

I am sick*, which means my goals for the week have plummeted from "finish most of Summerton's backend!" to "write your way to the climax, at least" to "stay warm; try to get parents to bring McDonald's sundaes home, ostensibly because soft serve is nice for sore throats but really because NOM SUGAR".

I am not sure whether it is better to be sick in Melbourne, or sick here. Melbourne has central heating, but here has people who are inclined to baby me in a most delightful way.

Anyway, I am also bored, and what better than the internet to console me in my time of sneezy woe? It is time to, once again, show my tabs.

What Karen Looks At When She's Leaking From The Nose

Gmail
emeraldwoman's litcrit trekporn, Reading Against/Reading With: Mastering the Oppositional Discourse in Textual Healing (Adult content)
Chapter Twelve of Lilith Saintcrow's Selene (Adult content; serial online novels for the total win, y'all)
Googlesearch: McDonald's (I was checking the spelling)
My Twitter home.
Strange Horizons columns' archives (For a Thing, of which more later)
Wiki entry on the Flash TV series (I... do not know)
John Stewart's reaction to Colbert's Correspondence Dinner speech. Holy shit, indeed.
How not to respond to reviews in one simple example by (probably) Alain de Botton

Now it's your turn, flisties! Show! Your! Tabs!

* Not horribly so, so I haven't done the "informing authorities" thing yet although of course I have voluntarily quarantined myself. If this kiboshes my West Coast trip I am going to be very annoyed.

BLERGH

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:18:10 GMT

Karen: *wakes up*

Karen: Hmmm. My throat is rather sore.

Karen: *looks up "swine flu symptoms"*

Karen: *looks up "swine flu incubation period"*

Karen: HMMM. Is it paranoia if it really is a possibility?

truth more first than sun more last than star

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:08:12 GMT

SCENE: A bedroom, grey morning filtering around the edge of the curtains. A lump stirs under a satin embroidered duvet, covered in several blankets. There is a noise, as if from the hall.

LUMP: Daaaaaaad?

Hallway: *silent*

LUMP: Daaaaaaddy?

DAD: Yes?

LUMP: Coooooffeeee.

DAD: *pause* What do you want in it?

LUMP: Milk, one sugar. I loooooove you.

It's good to be home.

On the plane ride over I read Along For The Ride which I like a little more than Lock and Key and a little less than The Truth About Forever and Just Listen, but it's by Sarah Dessen so these are just mild gradations in my utter adoration. The main character is (character note!) named Auden, like the very prissy poet, so I thought about this for a while:

Poet surnames I might consider for my child's first name:

Saxon
Alexie
Larkin (Lark for short.)
Baxter

Poet surnames that are already first names and thus pointless:

Eliot
Spencer
Spenser
Hughes (sort of)

Poet surnames that will not do:

Plath
Bishop
Tuwhare
Tagore

Ahahahahahaha no:

cummings

This did not present me from reading a sonnet from the latter at my friend's delightful wedding ceremony on Saturday. I was apparently upstaged by a one-year-old, but my fun physical stagefright* meant that I didn't even notice. And then we danced to Meat Loaf at the reception. Win!

* I've always had it - I don't get intellectually or emotionally nervous, I just shake, to one degree or another. This time it was so bad I was desperately wondering if I was going to fall over.

You are just about to do laundry in a timely fashion!

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:56:29 GMT

Sometimes I think to myself, self, how have you been awesome lately?

This is a useful thing to think, because I have generally been awesome in some way. It doesn't have to be "You saved the world in your fantastic new purple shoes!" It could be, "You have remembered to do your ten minutes of decluttering before getting ready for bed every night for three nights!" or "You took notes from that book that was due back at the library so you could be done with it before you got a fine!" or "You bought a copy of the Big Issue!"

When I am frantically thinking about all the things that I haven't done yet and must do soon, it is enormously encouraging to take a moment to remember that I am really pretty awesome. It doesn't mean my to-do list gets any smaller, but it suddenly seems less insurmountable. Of course, it is hard to make myself do this when I am frantically etc.

Which is why I have I have just programmed the question into my iPhone calendar for tomorrow. Technology aids my self-esteem!

And, hopefully, yours too: flist, how have you been awesome lately?

Can't sleep; dissertation will eat me.

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:07:23 GMT

Oh my LORD, y'all. I forgot how very thoroughly a dissertation takes over. Even when I think I'm slacking off and not doing anything, my back-brain is busily ticking over paragraphs and muddling over connections and arcs.

Much like when I'm head down in a writing project, except MUCH LESS FUN*.

I have two more days to work like an ant, and then it is off to distant shores for a wedding, and family time, and novel research. I really want to see if I can pump out most of the back end of Summerton while I'm at my parents' house, where I anticipate spending a lot of time sitting by the fire and placidly awaiting the topping up of my wineglass.

Should be fun!

Oh, shoot, I bet I get the horrible bed again.

*I would say, "except with fewer explosions", but, well, superheroes.

How we count our blessings

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:43:45 GMT

Today I got up before 8 a.m., got my (expensive) seasonal flu vaccination*, and ate the most inedible Thai food it has ever been my displeasure to pay through the nose for. Ugh. Siam Kitchen, you are never getting my business again - I was chewing on scales and bones.

I also managed to write a bare handful of paragraphs on my dissertation and stagger mournfully through the day feeling like a useless waste of sludge.

On the plus side, I had a raspberry mocha with whipped cream, so all in all, the day was a win.

* Three different people reminded me that it wouldn't protect me against swine flu. Yes, I know. I pay some attention to the world! I was getting mildly irritated over this when I remembered that not everybody does and they probably had people coming in expecting the vaccine to protect them and told myself to 1) cool it and 2) go to bed earlier the next time I had to get up before 8 a.m.