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.

Painting Again

So, I haven't touched my painting of "The Storm" (which my great-grandmother had painted a reproduction of, and I'd always loved staring at as a kid) since 2007. It's been sitting around gathering dust with the two figurines briefly painted out in blocks. Until a few days ago, when I decided I needed a project to distract me until classes start this week. So here's about where I left off two years ago:
And here's where I've gotten in the past few days. I figure, if I get thier faces done, I'll be inspired to finish up the rest and get it finished.

His face is still wonky, but I'm too tired to fix it tonight.

Heather's Best Reads of 2009

Okay, I officially need to get the hell out of my own head and stop overanalyzing things to death. SO! The post about my best reads of 2009! that I've been planning on writing since about August =) Beware, these are almost all young adult titles. I'm a giant nerd, and I keep a spreadsheet of all the books I read. I know this is extreme nerd behavior, and I wish there were adult merit badges, because that's the giddy sense of glee and accomplishment I felt everytime I added a book to the list. I read 133 books last year, and I'm pretty sure that's an all time high, except for maybe somewhere in seventh and eighth grade where I was an antisocial acne-covered hermit. Ahem. I digress. To the list!

THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH (I knew I was going to love this book right when I read the title. I think this is my vote for Best Title of the Year. It's about a zombie postapacolyptic future. I don't love the zombie genre, but I loved this. In a year of fluff books, this one stuck in my mind. I like the cover too =)

GRACELING & FIRE by Kristin Cashore These are two separate novels, only loosely connected, and the best damn books I read this year. They are high fantasy, which is not popular, but the characterization, themes, intelligence--I seriously can't say enough about how much I loved these books. Crappy covers though! Why coudln't they get better covers??? The UK cover for each book is a million times better.

WINTERGIRLS by Laurie Halse Anderson - there is no more lyrical YA writer of this generation. This is a book about girls with eating disorders. And it is the most beautifully written (as in, the poetry of language) book I read all year. Her book SPEAK is also one of my all time favorites.

WAKE & FADE by Lisa McMann - Two books in three book series, I think, and a fabulous read. As far as sit down and read in one sitting, good writing, exciting stories--these two books are tops. Grounded in gritty reality with supernatural elements and sexy love. Good covers too. I'm excited to read the last book that comes out this Feb!

PERFECT CHEMISTRY by Simone Elkeles - as far as straight, great hot sexy, teen love stories, I'd say this is the best and hottest I've come across. It's a lot smarter than it looks, with a Romeo & Juliet theme about two people from different worlds attracted to each other. Lots of good characterization, and my favorite element of all: melodrama. Cover, eh, okay. Oh, and I also read LEAVING PARADISE by her, and I really, really enjoyed it too.

SHIVER by Maggie Stiefvater - Okay, I almost bought this book for its cover alone. Then I read the flap - human/werewolf love melodrama. Oh yeah, ch-ching, and I was walking out the door with it. There's a lot of crap in the YA supernatural themed department. I'd know - I've read a ton of it! But this was intelligent, good writing, good story. I'm looking forward to the sequel out next year.

THIRTEEN REASONS WHY by Jay Asher - This book I'd heard a lot about before I read and was skeptical of. Girl leaves tapes after suicide, hence the titular "reasons why". I don't know - it sounded kitschy and over-sentimental. Turns out I was totally wrong. It was amazing - a story that has stayed with me and stuck out in my mind. Fabulous story, great narration by teenaged male protagonist, very real feeling characters, another thing that's often off in YA lit. It was great. If the time-line aspect of it bothered me a bit, the rest made up for it. I'm not a fan of the cover.

Has it become aparent yet that I ALWAYS JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER?!?!

So here are some where that bit me in the ass. In the category of Best Cover That Seemed So Promising And Stuck In My Mind So Much That I Bought An Illicit Advanced Read Copy Off Ebay:

Isn't it beautiful?! Doesn't it tell you exactly what kind of book it is and make you want to snap it up and salivate over the story late into the night?!? Tragically, the insides didn't live up. The male love interest (i.e. cover fallen angel dude) is a bastard, creepier than Edward from Twilight with the stalking and the almost killing the wimpy female protagonist.

Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system, let's move on.

THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX by Mary Pearson - again with the Fabulous Title. The cover drew me (at least for the hardcover, they just released a softcover version with different cover, and I think it's total crap compared to the first one. I'll post both below). Anyway - great storytelling, fabulous idea, slight dystopia which I always love. It stuck with me.

and then crappy softcover

but then, I really don't like white backgrounds on book covers. My preference: Black, simple concept covers, and matte, NOT glossy.

THE DARK DIVINE by Bree Despain. Another of my very few good finds for urban fantasy YA, which is the uber trend now, but rarely done well. I was drawn in by the cover, hooked by the flap. I liked the characters who didn't feel weakly drawn. Good story.

And now for my other big discovery of the year: Terry Goodkind and the SWORD OF TRUTH Series. I read all eleven books, but the first is still my favorite.

WIZARD'S FIRST RULE - I only read these because of how much I LOVE the show Legend of the Seeker in all of it's fantasy melodrama deliciousness. Usually I can't stomach male fantasy writers - it's all battles and crap with no sexy love. Goodkind amazes me with balancing both. I mean, everything about Wizard's First Rule (other than what I consider a dumb title) is absolutely flabergasting. This guy seriously affectected the way I think about writing, good storytelling, strong noble characters, beauty, and the surprising ability to keep the same characters interesting for the duration of a 11 book series, which I've never encountered before. Unfortunatly at the same time, some of the later books did get a little preachy with his obvious love for Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy, but just when I thought I'd throw in the towel, the next book in the series would blow me away again. But I'm still grumpy about what I consider a crap last book - I was fine with the ending for my beloved characters, but it meandered and wasted so much time without giving the proper page space to character's I'd grown close to and spent useless time on dumb shit. But I digress. Best books of the series, Books 1, 6, 9, 10

I still think about these characters and re-read portions from the books. That's how much I heart them.

And to finish off a post that's probably already too long, here's some more books I'll put in the category:
DON'T BE FOOLED BY THIER COVERS! i.e., they weren't nearly as good as I'd hoped they'd be. Beautiful Creatures was the best, but just didn't live up to the too high expectations I had before reading it.

I promptly resold each on Ebay.

Happy Reading in 2010!

Split Desires

All right, I know I said I wouldn't get all giddy and excited this time around with the novel, but here I am doing it anyway. Because I just sent out my first query letter and feel like several things are significantly different this time around. First off, the query letter was much easier to write, not just because I've got more experience at it now, but because I wasn't trying SO hard to make the query letter marketable -- because the novel itself is marketable. I don't have to find some magic query letter hook sentence. I just wrote the query letter in the voice of the book - the query letter itself presents what it is selling, which is: an interesting idea and a protagonist with strong voice. Also, the first ten pages I'm including - much more accessable, because again, the book, in present day first person, is just so much more relatable and easy to drop into.

Another thing very different - when I finished the final draft this time, editing is a short phase. Because as I was writing it this time, I spent more time and thought on the actual text, so "editing" finally doesn't mean "completely rewriting half the book"! This feels like writerly growth.

So I will zip my lip before I let out excited positive declarations about the future of the book, but at the same time, when I'm in it, like I have been these past few weeks, all my other dreams and goals fade far into the distance. This is what I want to be doing, much more than doing academic research and chasing a Ph.D. I feel split in two with these two divergent futures potentially in front of me. When I'm in school, all I can see is the academic future. But right now, all I want is the writing one. Well, all I ever want is the writerly future, but I know there's no real choice until I get a bite on a novel--that I have to return my focus back to school and writing conference papers and establish my credentials there so I can get into a Ph.D program. But for a little while longer I'll bask in the estatic delight of living as a writer and editing the end of the book.

Book almost done! ... Again ...

So my husband couldn't quite get as excited this time around when I'm jumping up and down telling me him I'm about done with the draft of the Persephone novel. Yep, because this is the FOURTH time, with a fresh new take on the old story, and my old versions. In this one, Perspehone lives in modern times and mythological drama ensues from there. But my husband won't be fooled again, because, yeah, the last ones went exactly... nowhere. I too have tempered my steam about finished product, locked and loaded and agent-hunt worthy. Because while with the last version I was all vim and vigor and misplaced surety, I look back now at it and think, hmm, yeah - it wasn't a bad story, but it wasn't like other things I read in the genre, and it definatly lacked voice, my catch-theme that I focused on with the latest version. Finally, it's first person, present time, teenage voice but not whiny. So I don't trust my own judgement, and don't quite know what to think of my novel, edging it's way towards completion.

But that never stopped me before! I think I should finish it in the next few days - it just has a few more scenes left, maybe 20 pages, and when I'm in go-mode, that gets pumped out. It will fall at a nice YA length, a little over 70,000 words. The rest is pretty polished, and I'll start querying agents again. I wouldn't call myself a glutton for punishment exactly - some of my bets have paid off like sending that random abstract for the conference and some of the short pieces I've published. Rejection doesn't drive me to despair, and, while you might want to punch me for my optimism, I feel like I've learned so much each time around and become such a better writer, I don't mind. And I do still have this vague indefatiguable confidence that I will get a book published eventually, if not this one, the next. Though I'm done with Persephone--if this version doesn't get picked up, I'll sow my seeds in a different story finally. Though who knows? Fourth time's a charm?

And here's a short story just published in Theaker's Quarterly Fiction. You can read it online, or order a print copy. My story, "Under the Blighted Tree" is kind of out there, but I wrote it after reading Goethe's Faust, and thinking about quest stories.

The Year in Retrospect

The cold weather has blown in (and I mean literally blown - the crazy hefts of wind have knocked over playscapes and a neighbors fence, not to mention stripping all the last of the stubborn fall leaves from the trees), and it makes me feel retrospective. Well, the whole Christmas season and upcoming New Year do, but the cold was like the last thing to click in place to remind me, wow, another year is finishing, and a new one starting. But January is the time to think about the newness - December is for remembering the old. Watching news shows recap 2009, I realize what a rough year it's been for our nation. Personally, it went from being horrible to being wonderful (last Jan I was working an office job and having health problems, by the end of the year I'm rockin' it and loving school).

It was definately a year that did NOT fly by, which is usually when things are new and exciting and one's world is opening up. That happened my first semester of undergrad - my first time out of the house, moved to Chicago, fell in love--those four months felt like a year. Likewise, my mind was stretched so much by the ideas I encountered in my first four months of grad school, I felt similarly like it couldn't have been just four months! And I've got the conference coming up, and waiting to hear back from a book anthology that is considering my essay proposal (the same Twilight paper as the conference), and then working on my own novel these past couple weeks since school has done - my world is opening up more and more and continuing to blossom. All the possibilities are thrilling, and I want to jump on every one of them, and wish I could be doing twenty things at once.

So thinking about the year in reflection is really amazing, because I had no clue I'd be at this place on the cusp of so much potentiality last December. And five years ago, I couldn't envision any future at all for myself, I was so horribly sick and incapacitated for months on end. At the time, I thought I'd be like that forever, that I'd never be able to hold a job or have any kind of professional career. I feel an awe and wonder about all the things I'm able to participate in now. And I don't mean to be cheesy or sound insincere when I say, and mean it, that I LOVE MY LIFE! Merry Christmas everybody, and a happy New Year.