ARC Giveaways!

Oooo, more giveaways, and for some YA titles I'm looking forward to--Matched; Halo, Torment, and more. Exciting stuff. See link for more info!

How Would You Like to Win Some ARCS? I've Got 7

ARC Contests Giveaway Sites

I love getting my hands on advanced reading copies. Here's a contest site for some titles I'm looking forward too, merely from cover lust alone :)

Go here to check it out:
Summer Saradise 7 ARC giveaway!!

Night Thoughts, Life Thoughts

Can't sleep, and am trying to cut down on artificial sleep aids, so here I am at 3:19 in the morning. I spent all night reading some heavy crap-- Roland Barthes on semiotics, some of which is great, some of which is so f'ing dense! Then I read half of The Scarlet Letter, which I do not know how i have come to this point in my life and literary career without having read before. I love this book. I can tell it's going in my all time favorites list, maybe even top ten. It feels very much like Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis - so perfect in its psychological pictures in these people, and of course, some of which, I am so familiar with. I'm freaking crying through the whole novel, the useless guilt, the way people destroy themselves for nothing. And the beams of hope, and freaking awesome little Pearl jumping around like an elf, literally dancing on graves!

I've also recently read Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance and House of Seven Gables (I read them first), and they are so, so, so much LESS engaging than this first one. Some of his short stories have always stuck with me, most notably "Young Goodman Brown," but in The Scarlet Letter he was really able to do something extraordinary, truely amazing.

And so many other things going on, and I feel like a confessional poet in the middle of the night, bare my soul right down beyond the bone to the marrow, all the things I would trot out and line up in this public sphere. I just feel raw lately, like everything that happens in the day affects me so hard. There are these moments of clarity, wicked clarity, followed later by the dull, thudding sadness. I've been so godawful tired too lately with more bodily responsibilties and taking more care of the beautiful Joseph, my own beam of sunshine, perfection, wonderfulness, cuddlyness, wrapped-up-in-skin-amazingness. But tiring, and then the mountain of my own making of academic to-do's. Trying to be a person, really alive, every day, fresh, shaking off the molds of stagnation, expanding to understand all the knowledge and wonders I can't even comprehend today, the world is so fucking big and mind-blowing, and my small experience with ideas so limited. Today especially, I was just bowed over in awe and wonderment--there is so much to learn! so many amazing ideas that I haven't even encountered but are out there waiting. And all of these thoughts and intensities toss me back and forth between exhilaration and exhaustion.

Kerouac, joy, sadness, then joy again

What a strange, long, complex, filled up day. It started to early in an Ambien haze that still couldn't get me to sleep, me wandering around, shapes-shifting, on too few hours of sleep my necessary fuel, with all these impossible tasks banging at the door needing to be finished, a scholarly article and another abstract for another paper that I only dreamed up four days ago, due now, and all my straining at the bit, and my crap ass body that has just jumped ship on me lately, dragging around these leaden bones, and somehow, in a strange turn of events that never usually happens, I finished everything that needed finishing.

Picked up Joseph since D had class all night, already exhausted, but Joseph and me still had this lovely little evening together, eating pita chips and this to-die-for hummas, then eating broccoli and hummas till the whole little container was used up, used broccoli to wipe up the last little bits, me and him on the couch, munching down, watching Mythbusters. But ramping up the discipline too b/c he's been a little butt lately, and drinking a beer while he wailed his head off in time-out, then snuggling close again and doing I Spy before bed.

Then reading poor sad Jack Kerouac, bearing down on me hard he's so sad, watching him spiral down in Big Sur, but he's such a damn good writer, he takes you down with him. But that's not the place I want to be. I had to stop reading, even though it's due to be read by class tomorrow. Everything to him is frightening and terrors, sinister hills and mad drinking binges making his nightmarish images all worse. And then so much death, and this class has gotten kind of all conflated in my mind and emotions with this girl who killed herself midway through the semester. Sort of I feel like it's not even my right, my place, to talk about her. I didn't know her, had only spoken to her directly a few times. A bunch of other people in the class have been in the poetry program with her for three years. And when dear old Jack sees death everywhere, in his favorite cat, an otter on the beach, a mouse because he left the lid off the rat poison--I just... and I don't have a place to talk--I've had some hard stuff, but never the death of anybody close to me, I don't know what that means, I feel sacriligious like an outsider in a class full of grievers, but then I think about her a lot too. Alive, then not. It's something I can't wrap my head around.

Sad Jack, I can't bear you right now. I know there's a time for entering down into other people's sadnesses and the art too, but I've built my life around acknowledging grim reality while still building up a structure of meaning to raise my head up out and manage to tread water. Happiness. Positives. Comfort. John Green, a YA author I love, I came across a quote of his today, watching a videologue he'd done: the idea "that true love will triumph in the end, which may or may not be true, but if it’s a lie, it’s the most beautiful lie we have.”

Book Signing - Claudia Gray

I went and saw the lovely Claudia Gray tonight at BookPeople in Austin (she's a fun young adult author, for those of you out of the YA loop). Yes, she writes about vampires, but she does so more intelligently than others. Good plot and characters.

I love going to author readings, meeting them, getting to see a little of thier personality, ask them questions about the book, thier road to getting an agent and publication, thier writing process. I've been to about six or seven readings now, and it's so funny to see authors who you think are somber be funny, one's you think would be charismatic seem stilted, and others just going with the flow and having fun, like she was tonight. She also read really well - almost theatrically. It was a nice change from the last author I heard read.

It was fun, though I was sad more people didn't show up. I always want authors I like to do well, like I become emotionally invested in thier success! Book signed, to be read maybe this weekend. And now I'm off to sleep before my big day tomorrow (getting new tattoo! half-sleeve!).

Heather is alive again! And hence, not sleeping

Yeah, remember when I said a few posts back that insomnia was a good thing? F*%k that. Insomnia is the devil, pure and simple. So yes, I don't have insomnia as much when life is crappy and I'm living unconsciously and not very excited about waking up the next day. But when I'm back to my normal self, like now, I can't wait for the night to be over because I'm so frickin excited about all the things I want to do tomorrow. All these new ideas relating to literary theory are burning through my brain, dialogue for the story I want to get back to working on since it's spring break and I can have some head-space to write, but then also thinking I should get started on research for the term papers in my two classes, but then screw that, I want to write!

Turning on the light and writing down stray thoughts for research papers and story ideas. In the dark laying in bed, the brain just tick tocks back and forth between them, while usually I feel like the academic and the creative parts of my life are so disparate. Here in the silence space, I flip-flop back and forth, then think about the book I was reading, then about my in-laws leaving in a couple days, then how much I freaking love my amazing son, etcetera, etcetera ad nauseam.
Oh, and blog thoughts ;)

So, yay, ra, I'm a thinking, passionate about my projects human again. But damn, is this laying in bed for hours each night freaking worth it?! Ok. Rant over. Now that I've let some spillage seep out via 3 a.m. blogging, let's see about trying to actually SLEEP!

Jowls

I need to be sleeping, but instead I'm blogging. I feel revived after road-tripping like a teenager with the hubster (kid left with in-laws). I felt young and free, but kind of old at the same time, like when I look in the mirror and see new lines and saggy places and think eek! adult is written on my face now. There's no escaping it - soon will come saggy jowls and southward pointing boobs and wierd hangy neck skin. I've seen pictures of the women in my dad's family (who I favor in looks) as they age, and all of them grew to be ugly women. They were stout and jowl-y.

That's all I got. I was gonna try to expand on some of the thoughts I've been having lately, and some really interesting things brought up by conversations with friends, but I'm brain-fried from thinking through deconstructionist philosophy all day. Time for bed.