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A weekly post about writing and life in general
You may have noticed the lack of anything going on over here. Don't worry! It's a good thing.
First, Thuy and I (and a few hundred thousand other people) went to Comic-Con in San Diego. It remains to be seen whether I will actually blog about all that. Stranger things have happened.
Second, we're moving! Yes, after 5 years on Blogger we will be moving to Squarespace. No need to update all your feeds etc. just yet. Soon, though! Everything at readnowsleeplater.com will actually remain the same; our new site will still be under the same name but look and feel very different.
Third, I have a bunch of web projects that I'm working on and will, hopefully, have up and running soon so I can tell you about them. But they are taking up all my time and energy at the moment so... I'd better hop to it!
If you really want to know what I've been reading and working on lately, head on over to
my Instagram feed.
In the meantime, we have a couple of blog tour posts coming soon before we head over to the new blog. Stay tuned for those...
Anyone waiting for raffle prizes, hang in there. I am aiming to get to the post office on Saturday.
So Slate posted a piece today about why adults should be embarrassed to read YA. I won't link to it; you can Google it, if you like. It's b.s. anyway. I don't want to give them the page hits.
Listen, there's things we should be ashamed of, and things that we really shouldn't be ashamed of.
For example, I am not ashamed (anymore) of having this on constant repeat:
I'm not a Miley Cyrus fan, but I do love Jimmy Fallon and The Roots, and this rendition of "We Can't Stop" is just freaking flawless. I've listened to it probably a hundred times in the last two days (I ran for about an hour with this as the only song on repeat, which is probably why my data usage was so high, but I digress), what of it? It makes me happy, and it doesn't hurt anybody, so why should you care?
You know what I am embarrassed about? I'm embarrassed it took me two weeks to find out about the hundreds of Nigerian girls kidnapped from a school (during a test, if that wasn't stressful enough) and that they have been sold into slavery/captive marriages and the knowledge that I am totally powerless to do anything about it.
You know what I'm not ashamed of? Ending sentences with prepositions, and punctuating incomplete clauses. The 15-year-old me would have been like OH HELL NO, whereas the 35-year-old me, who has taken linguistics classes, and writes a lot for both recreational and professional reasons, knows the rules and when to break them. Rule-breaking in this manner occasionally serves a purpose, whether it's rhetoric/stylistic, humorous, or otherwise. But being ashamed of reading children's/middle graders'/teenagers' books, or for that matter, feeling guilt over pleasure (which I believe was the point of the Slate article), serves no purpose at all.
"Live long and prosper." Isn't that enough anymore?
More things I'm not ashamed of as an adult:playing video gameswatching cartoonscollecting action figures and toyshaving crushes on celebritiesposting endless cat photos on Instagramswearing a lotI was molested when I was a child
Some things I am ashamed of as an adult:I often can't do anything tangible to fix giant problems like oppression in ThailandI associate with some people who are still sexist/racist/otherwise-prejudiced to a painful degree in this day and ageI'm 35 and I still don't have a driver's license (I can drive, just not legally yet)I'm terrible at budgeting (though I was really good at it when I was 12 and had an allowance that was something like $1 per weekday)I'm very disorganized (again, a skill set I seem to have let go since I hit puberty)
Look, I'm not angry. Everyone's entitled to their opinion; I just reserve the right to disagree. I'm sure we're just seeing the first of the angry rants and tweets about this. However, I also think the best of the backlash has already been written.
Bottom line: read what you like and don't hurt nobody.
Inspired by Pop Culture Junkie and The Story Siren,
Stacked is our sister-site's weekly post where we share with you the books that we've bought, borrowed or received for the week.
This is actually an Unstacked post since the ratio for books bought to books given away was 1:50 this week. As you may have read recently, my mom had a stroke and I went home to the Philippines to help out. My dad, brother, and aunt all work during the day, and my little sister isn't 100% capable of watching over our mom and doing all the chores etc. (Though she is a hero, since she figured out how to call for help when Mama passed out in the hallway. For someone who is considered to be fundamentally a toddler all her life, she's one smart cookie.)
Anyway, I was checking on my mom when I happened to open my dad's closet and notice that there were a ton of dusty, moldy books in the back. The closet had been built on top of a bookshelf in my mom's signature, just put it on top of everything else style of interior decorating.
I was really sad to see lots of my favorite books pretty much begrimed and crumbly due to the terrible sun/air conditions in Manila, as well as my family's low-level hoarding tendencies, but what can you do? Keep them in plastic tubs? (Actually, that's a good idea, but plastic tubs weren't exactly common when I left the books here.)
Anyway, I figured now is as good a time as any to let some stuff go. You can see some of my favorites in the Unstacked image above. My uncle has a school in the province, and my aunt is coming by tomorrow and will be passing the school, so I'm sending them away. There's some great stuff in there: classics like P.G. Wodehouse, James Thurber, Douglas Adams, and Chinua Achebe; the occasional anthology, random old ARCs. I saved one book from the pile:
A Woman Named Smith by
Marie Conway Oemler. It's so old that the cover has long since disintegrated. It's a fun romance and it used to belong to my grandfather, so I'm hoping it's not too far gone to repair, or reproduce in some way. If you're curious, you can get the
Kindle copy for free. (Yes, it's
that old.)
The one book I picked up was actually an eBook,
The Shadow Society by
Marie Rutkoski. The
Kindle edition was on sale for $2.99. Marie's new YA novel,
The Winner's Curse, is out now. I didn't particularly enjoy it, but I recognize that there will probably be quite a few people who will like it a lot better than I did. I like her writing style, but I didn't care for the plot and characters in
The Winner's Curse. I'm hoping that
The Shadow Society will be a bit more like my cup of tea.
It looks like I will be here a while, so I'll keep you posted regarding further hoard management and possibly a YA author
event or
two I will be attending. Anyway, that's it for me and book acquisitions/donations this week. If you want to catch up with what I've been doing in the Philippines, follow @
frootjoos on Instagram.
Last but not least,
Pasadena Teen Book Festival is coming up! We are now on
Facebook,
Twitter,
Tumblr,
Instagram, and you can still get free tickets at
Eventbrite. Blogger friends, more info on the upcoming blog tour is on the way, I promise! I was just really hard at work to get the tote bag design done so we can order them from the screen printers. The first 100 people to arrive at the event will get the tote for free :)
A weekly post about writing and life in general
It's been a while, I know. Life has been a little bit bonkers. My mom had a stroke and I hopped on a plane to Manila. A week ago I was worried that I had a lot to do to prepare for events in April, and now I might not be in Los Angeles by the time the events are supposed to happen. So it goes.
My mom is recovering, but only to prepare for more surgery a month from now, which also means... I'm gonna be here for a month or more.
It's not terrible, just different. I get to eat delicious food, hang out with my awesome family, and look after my Mama. I am not reading much (though I got through a good chunk of my book club title for the month while on the plane). I brought books anyway and am trying to refrain from buying anything. Ha!
Today I started laughing out loud because I was hurriedly trying to mop dog pee off the floor. My family has two cute-as-a-button, but also very messy, Shih Tzus--and relatives were on their way over for lunch. It was only then that it really struck me how calmly I am taking all of this. I was thinking about crisis modes and childhood. I thought about chores and culture shock. I thought about my love-and-not-so-much-love relationship with my mother country. I came up with about a dozen writing prompts and titles.
Possible essays:
- Keep Calm Because Panicking Really Does Nothing for Anyone
- Nothing Is Forbidden: Our Complex Relationships with Food
- Water Pressure: Unpleasant Showers and Other Consequences
- Don't Squash the Cockroaches and Other Advice I Never Thought I'd Hear
- My Mom's Tumor and What It May Have to Do with An Impending Giant Robot Battle
I can't wait to hunker down and write these. But they will have to wait until I've put away the dishes and chop up these mangoes for salsa before they go bad.
Who am I kidding; I'm tired and a bit jet-lagged still, so I'm going to go check
Instagram and call it a night.
Here is a fluffy dog.
His name is John Carter!
You can follow him, my girl cat Mars (Marceline the Vampire Queen) and her biological brother (and nemesis, apparently) Barnaby, on
Instagram at
#marsandbarsandcars (@
frootjoos)
For now, I'm off to make him another batch of kitten formula :/ he's so little he can't feed himself yet!
So it's not often that I find myself not-reading. I almost always am reading except when I'm too busy writing/listening/typing... I can't process words incoming and outgoing at the same time. It's just too confusing! No reading makes me pretty crabby.
The last couple of weeks, in all of my spare time I have been designing websites, which was... a lot of hours. Really a lot. I'm torn between sleeping (I've been averaging two hours a night) and prying my eyes awake to get through another 30 pages of print, a battle I have lost more often than I have won. Ah well! It's not a total loss, and the things I have been doing other than reading have been fullfilling too.
In the mornings I've been listening to this year's Printz award winner,
In Darkness by Nick Lake, which is a great, well-written book but very ummmm... dark? (Sorry, I'm very tired obviously.) It's a grim tale of a boy growing up as a gangster in Haiti, with his story linked to that of rebel leader Toussaint Louverture. It's just as well my commute is only 40 minutes long or I'd probably be a crying, sloppy mess from all the emotion in this book. And I know it's a form of "reading" or rather, being read to, but it's not quite the same as sticking your nose in a book.
Anyway.
Instead of reading
Siege & Storm as I SO want to do, I have been working on
yarncrawlla.com and
misstammywrites.com. Click through to check them out! Especially Miss Tammy Blackwell's site, because she's the author of the paranormal YA
Timber Wolves series, and
Victoria Faye just made her some super-cool swag!
Before:
Don't look too closely!
After:
I'm so happy with the way it turned out that I'm doing a giveaway!
The winner gets to choose one of these possible prizes:
That's the shirt. You get to pick the color!
Giveaway Rules:
- Open to US only.
- We are not responsible for items lost in the mail.
- One set of entries per household, please.
- If you are under 13, please get a parent or guardian's permission to enter, as you will be sharing personal info such as an email address.
- Winner will be chosen randomly via Rafflecopter widget a day or two after the contest ends.
- Winner will have 48 hours to respond to to the email, otherwise we will pick a new winner.
- If you have any questions, feel free to email us. You can review our full contest policy here.
- PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE ANY PERSONAL INFO IN THE COMMENTS. Sorry for the caps but we always get people leaving their email in the comments. Rafflecopter will collect all that without having personal info in the comments for all the world (and spambots) to find.
Good luck!
Which prize would you choose if you won? Tell me what and why in the comments!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
I have to work today so instead of an review, here's my cat and some books.
What?
:)
I try not to post much about my personal life here unless it has to do with books or author events in some fashion. So sorry for this departure. It's not all directly book related.
But if any of you guys know me at all, you would know that I hate drama. I hate starting it. I hate getting embroiled in others' drama. So when drama comes knocking, I retreat into my shell.
Not like this guy:
He doesn't like drama either, but he usually goes after it with a katana.
There's been a lot of drama in the last few weeks regarding ARCs, greedy bloggers, angry librarians, paid bloggers,
Goodreads bullies, indie authors... it's enough to turn me off blogging completely. Several times this month I've thought to myself,
What if I just stop? Wouldn't that be lovely? I could still see my author pals and read lots of books (actually,
more books! since I will not have to stop every so often to blog about them) and not read other blogs unless I know the author personally. It was really, really tempting.
*deep breath*
But the thing is, I was a bookseller for almost 14 years. You can't just turn something like that off. I can't just quit recommending books cold turkey. Connecting people with books and other cool stuff (like tv shows and artists and movies) makes me happy. Getting excited about stories and authors makes me happy. I can't let a few bad, overdramatic eggs spoil all that for me.
I have unfollowed some people that I think are just toxic to my environment at the moment. I'm sad because they are people I admired.
So, that's it. I'm going to keep on keeping on. I'll recommend books and bookstores and tell you in advance about cool author events. And if you have any drama for me, keep it to yourself, or else be studiously ignored by me.
Now back to your regularly scheduled blog ;)
Che
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By: alethea aka frootjoos,
on 6/30/2012
Blog:
Read Now Sleep Later
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Though it's pretty cute.
I slightly broke
Ann Stampler's website earlier this week, and am busy putting it back together.
Almost done! In the meantime, you can pay Marisa Calin a visit, since her site is pretty OK ;)
I know I'm running super-late on IMM now but I just had to share one more thing for the end of Children's Book Week:
"This animation, Crayon Dragon, was made by California Institute of the Arts student Toniko Pantoja as a second-year project."
Thank to my cousin TJ for drawing attention to this post on io9. I hope you love it as much as I did--if you like it, share it everywhere!
By: Read Now Sleep Later,
on 5/16/2011
Blog:
Read Now Sleep Later
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I've been a little distracted lately.
There's lots of stuff going on!
There's BEA (Book Expo of America -- but book peoples call it B.E.A.), to which I would go if I had a teleporter, or a TARDIS (note to self: get a TARDIS)
There's my final paper (and annotated citations, and ten multiple choice tests, and 30 multiple-choice questions I had to come up with myself) all turned in just in the nick of time (note to self: GET a TARDIS)
And there's--well, there's a lot of other stuff, that I don't really want to think about for the next day or so, because the text book I had to read for ten days straight sorely tested my love for the printed word, and the annotated citations in APA format made me want to poke my eyes out.
*breathe*
Anyway.
Reviews!
Podcasts!
YA in Bloom!
Oh, and there's this distracting thing that's probably going to occupy my mind every Saturday for several more months:
(note to self: GET A TARDIS
NOW tomorrow YESTERDAY!!!)
BTW, "The Doctor's Wife" was written by none other than
Neil Gaiman. Yes,
neilhimself. Author of
Coraline,
The Graveyard Book,
Stardust and other brilliant stuff. Yes, that bloke.
What, you thought I was going to let you go without mentioning books?
I'm off to listen to a bit of
John Green's
Looking for Alaska, read by
Jeff Woodman.
By: Read Now Sleep Later,
on 1/22/2011
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Just a teensy bit overwhelmed... school begins this week! Eek!
I'm going to post soon, I promise. I've been reading, just a little bit. But I also had the flu and it's finals for the summer session, so I'll see you guys in a few days! Meantime, head over here to sign up for the Linger Fan Art Contest, or sign up for the possible Clockwork Angel Midnight release party here.
omg the baby meows are sooooo cute!
He is so sweet. Thank you for sharing with us. It made my day :)
He is SO cute! Thanks for the smile - I needed that. :)