Just for fun

Just some thoughts on YA

Disclaimer: I like YA fiction. I enjoy it immensely. But this has been annoying me.

Why is it that 3/4* of the books I see written for teenagers these days follow the "outcast girl meets heartthrob boy, something paranormal happens, Big Bad is vanquished, they live happily ever after on a unicorn farm**" trope? I enjoy a good urban fantasy romance just as much as the next girl, but come on!

I like Girls Who Do Stuff books, like Tamora Pierce. Or Robin McKinley. Or Cassandra Clare. Girls who freak out*** about whatever they're facing and then put on their big girl panties and deal with it instead of waiting around for another character to come and sort things out for them, be it an emotional problem or the Big Bad of that particular story. Yes, Alanna gets a little mopey when she and Jon have a fight during the Lioness Quartet~ books. But she doesn't sit around for three months in a funk, she deals with the problem(s) at hand (evil sword, evil shamen, that sort of thing) while sorting through her emotional issues instead of drowning in them. In Sunshine by Robin McKinley, the titular character spends most of the book scared out of her socks about what she has to do, but does it anyway. I recently went to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I absolutely loved it. The Disney version has always bothered me because Alice comes off as this blonde little ditz who just kind of wanders around getting into trouble. But Tim Burton's Alice actually Did Stuff and Was Awesome. These characters acknowledge their problems, deal with them, and keep on going.

Yes, I've made a lot of pointed jabs at Twilight. I've read them, I own them, I enjoyed them before I realized how much of a whiney person Bella actually is. And Edward's completely a Captain Cardboard character. You can dream in whatever personality you want into him, because he doesn't really have one, at least not to me. Jacob, though he's annoying sometimes, actually has a personality to be annoying with. That's who he is. He's hard on Bella because he knows what'll happen to her if Edward leaves again, and he doesn't want her to end up this catatonic shell like she did before.

The "outcast girl meets heartthrob boy, something paranormal happens, Big Bad is vanquished, they live happily ever after on a unicorn farm" trope is all well and good, I'm just tired of seeing it.


---
*Not an accurate statistic, I'm just generalizing.

**Or married, or in a relationship, or whatever.

***Understandably+
+Wouldn't you freak out too if you were faced with a dragon/kraken/evil sorcerer or sorceress /actual vampire that does not sparkle?

~By Tamora Pierce. It's awesome. Read it.

Wreck

I got rear ended on Thursday, March 11 around 10:30 PM. The guy clipped my back bumper and back passenger's side tire, so I spent my Spring Break trying to get it all figured out and fixed and all my ducks in a row because the guy doesn't have insurance. He also attempted to flee the scene and is now in jail, pending bond, as far as I know. I'm fine, I was sore for a few days, but other than that I wasn't hurt.

My car is currently in the shop, and I'm waiting (still, this is day 3) for them to call me with the final damage count. The appraiser said it was not totaled, but they're getting a more comprehensive look by taking it apart. I'm pretty sure most of the back end will have to be replaced. The back passenger's side wheel is at an angle to the car. Here's hoping it gets fixed soon.

In Which I Met Neil Gaiman (And Spazzed Out)

So, on February 18th, I went to a reading. By Neil Gaiman. I have been waiting for this for months, since I found out that he was coming to the University of Alabama. He read some stories (which were awesome) and some poems (which were awesome) and answered some questions (which was really cool). The way they did the questions was that they (the theater people) handed out index cards and little pencils and had you write your question down and then they came by and picked it up and handed them to Neil Gaiman backstage.

He came out with a three inch stack of note cards. He just kind of looked at us, looked at the stack, and said that he normally got about this many (pulls out about 20) at a reading when he did this. If he had an enthusiastic crowd, he'd get maybe twice that. He didn’t get to all of the questions (we’d probably still be there if he had) but it was really cool that he was willing to answer questions like he did.
He was Twittering while he was backstage and after the reading was over, one of the ushers came back out and asked if the woman who had been Tweeting about getting a book signed for her six-year-old would come backstage so the book could be signed. I would have never thought that Twitter could give someone that opportunity.

After it was over, I stopped to talk with some of my friends and I had collected a couple of books that I was going to take to the reading the next day (Friday the 19th) to see if I could get them signed. They headed out because we were meeting at IHOP and the others went home. I stopped again to talk to an old teacher for a few minutes, and then started for my car.

The side door of the theater opens, and Neil Gaiman walks out.
The guy in front of me asks for him to sign the book he has, so I decide to wait. I got the books signed (I hadn't brought one for myself because I didn't think he'd be signing, they had told us he wouldn't), and then called my friend to tell her the good news.

I'm pretty sure I made her year. She almost ran off the road when I told her.

Friday morning, he did a Q&A session for MFA students and creative writing minors. I managed to get a ticket, even though I am neither, and it was, again, amazing. I managed to get my copy of the first volume of Sandman signed, along with a couple of other books for friends. He read a bit from The Graveyard Book (won the Newberry last year) and answered a lot of questions and was very interesting and now I want to go write things even though I have entirely too much school work to do to be goofing off and I MET NEIL GAIMAN. TWICE. He's a very nice person and made time to talk a bit with everyone.

(Photo credit to Morgan Higgins)

iPad Commercial

Book apps outnumber game apps for the iPhone/iTouch

I love my iTouch. I really, sincerely, truly do. I can carry a small library around in my pocket. I know there is no substitute for an actual book, with the smell of the paper and the feel of it in your hand, but with the Stanza app on my iTouch, I have 40 "books" in my pocket. I use the term "books" losely, as four of them are fanfiction stories (three of which should qualify as books by their length alone, not to mention the quality) and one is the instruction manual for the app. One of them is a piece of extribulum, Nameless by Sam Starbuck, but is actually a book.

Next month, Apple is going to release their iPad. With all these ereaders floating around, what about actual physical books?

They're not going anywhere. At least, not in my opinion. And not anytime soon.

Yes, the iPad is going to be awesome. There will be bugs, there always are. The nook and the Kindle and the Sony Reader and the iTouch are all still going to sell. But, to me, nothing is going to replace the actual book. These devices just make travelling with my favorite novels a little less bulky. (Too many cords, though.)

How I Would Love to Go to This

I wish I had the time to go to this. And the money. It's everything I'm interested in, all wrapped up in one big conference. Writing, publishing, all online. It would be absolutely amazing.

Here's one of the workshops that will be there:

FDW-1: The Future of the Book ($80; 9 a.m. - 4 p.m., with a break for lunch)
Coordinators: David Blakesley and Patricia Sullivan
with Special Guests, including Shirley K Rose

In 2003, the participants in the digital publishing workshop at Computers and Writing produced Digital Publishing F5|Refreshed (Parlor Press, 2003), one of the first multimedia ebooks ever cataloged in the MLA International Bibliography. To top that, this workshop will engage participants in the ongoing consideration of the future of the book, both culturally and in Computers and Writing, culminating with the publication of a new book on the subject produced and written during the workshop and published at the conference for the C&W community. Special guests, including press representatives and others active in articulating the future of the book will be on hand throughout the day.

This is the one that I'm most interested in going to see. There are also workshops for authors who want to publish in online journals and several workshops about Twitter.

The concept of extribuli is really getting out there.

I can't wait to see where we'll be in five years.

Posting from elsewhere

I'm posting this off of my itouch, just to see how it works. I'm exploring alternate ways of blogging, but I don't think I'm going to put it on my phone anytime soon. The phone doesn't have Internet anyway.

I'm keeping my ear to the ground, listening for anything on the ebook front. I've also joined Twitter, you can find me at http://www.Twitter.com/extribuli.