If you’re looking for something fun and light to read over the weekend, I highly recommend How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier. The basic idea is that everyone has their own special invisible fairy that helps them out in one way or another like a loose change finding fairy or a getting out of trouble fairy.
I’m pretty sure that I have a finding things fairy that only works to find things for other people. Like that time I found someone’s tooth in the snow after it got knocked out on the sledding hill in grade school and how every single day I find something that Barrett has been looking all over the house for in under thirty seconds. It is somewhat handy, but a clothes shopping fairy or just a general luck fairy might be nice too.
I hope no one is too disappointed that there are no cats in pajamas in this post. I do what I can, but the cats don’t actually like to wear pajamas. They do like to sleep on top of pajamas which could come up some time in the near future.
What I do have for you today are lots of super fun links. Yes, links!
Over at Tarts’ Wardrobe, both Janet and I discuss our weekends going to see Twilight. I drove all of the way to Washington for a more holistic experience and was happy to see that Oregon made it into the movie. You have to either know the area or watch all the way until the end credits to find this out as Oregon is doing a lovely job playing Washington and you’d never know otherwise.
On the fabulous Lisa Nowak’s blog, I guest blogged about, you’ll never guess, technology! Yes, it’s almost like I am an expert or something (instead of just living with one). But I have apparently picked up a thing or two, so check it out if you haven’t already read my most recent technology post here.
The blog comment challenge is almost over. Last time I checked I was about halfway to the 100 goal mark. Can I make fifty more comments before Wednesday?
Also, on Kim Kasch’s blog she has gorgeous pics of one of my favorite parks in Portland — Laurelhurst Park. Great city park feel.
The National Book Awards were announced recently and I was so disappointed not to have read the young people’s literature book yet! What I Saw and How I Lied is still being processed at my library, but I’m near the top of the list when they finally put it through.
Currently, I’m reading Chains. It is not a light happy bouncy book like I tend to recommend, but I definitely get what all of the fuss is about.
kt literary did the world of authors a great big favor by asking editors what they’re looking for in an author site/author blog. If you’ve been racking your brains trying to figure this out, you should definitely check it out. While I enjoyed finding out this information very much, I was stunned to hear that it seems as though a serious-ish blog might be preferred by some editor types. As I know editors work v. v. hard and are experts in their field and those editors I know I like very much, I feel I must comply.
Some things that will have to go:
Cats
Pajamas
Personal blatherings about trees and my great love for them
I will miss them.
A word that came up in the blog post was “professional” which got me thinking. Professional can mean a number of things one of which is that you are paid for your work and another refers to being sort of uptight like how I dress “professionally” for an interview by hiding all signs of cleavage both of the toe and upper regions. Leaning towards the getting paid for what you do angle, I decided to do some research.
What a random sampling of professional (meaning they get paid, not that they are hiding their cleavage) authors have posted recently on their blogs:
Meg Cabot — Outliers, Britney Spears, and her planned slumber parties at the White House.
I must say I like this form of professionalism. Not as binding as the covered up shoe/shirt type. I am especially fond of the pics of Holly Black’s demon cat. Still, that seems to be breaking some of the other rules. I’m not sure what to make of this.
But wait, there is a loophole! Some editors allow for “quirky funny writers” to have “quirky funny blogs” — how does one qualify for “quirky funny”???? Maybe more cats and more pajamas! I think both cats and pajamas and maybe even cats in pajamas are both funny and quirky.
Whew. I just finished Inkdeath. It is a fat fat book. I’ve always loved the Inkheart books and how they make you think about being a writer and a reader. This one has quite a few moments where the author gives what I think is an incredibly accurate view of what’s going on in a writer’s mind. Fenoglio is a character in the story who is the author of the book that all of the characters have gotten sucked into. Now the story seems to have taken on a life of its own and he’s trying to get it back under his control. He has the worst case of writer’s block and sometimes can write down nothing but questions — he has no idea how things should go. He finally gets some of the story down on paper, but things never work out quite the way he thinks they will. The events he’s written about happen, but other things he wasn’t expecting at all happen too. So it starts to seem like maybe the story exists all on its own and he’s just recording bits of it, instead of making them up (something he NEVER believes, even though as you’re reading you start to feel that way). A lot of writers believe that stories exist outside of themselves and their job is just to try and write them down as well as they can — Stephen King talks a lot about this in On Writing. Other writers disagree completely and feel like they’re in control. What do other writers think?
In other news, the weekend was super fun. The kidlit bloggers first drinks night was on Friday at the Lucky Labrador. So great to see everyone and meet new people. On Saturday, Barrett and I went to a volcano — Mt. Tabor right here in Portland. Who knew we moved to a city that had a real live volcano in it? It was fun and the view was great, but it wasn’t terribly impressive volcano-wise. I think we’re going to have to head to Mt. St. Helen’s for that. We also went to an island — Sauvie Island just out of town and a bit up the river. Very nice and peaceful. Lots of crunchy leaves and things. There were even some cows. Plus, of course, we did lots of reading and I finished up Inkheart. One of the other books I’m reading is that new Rapunzel book by Shannon Hale Rapunzel’s Revenge. If you like cowboys, twisted fairy tales, and lots of hair (even used as a weapon!), then this is just the book for you.
One week after Halloween, I’m re-sharing my vampire fangs photo for all of you who have told me how much you miss it. <<sigh>> The old days.
I miss it too.
Now in my new photo I’m just looking so so happy over there. And you all don’t even know why! You might think, oh, that Bridget, she’s always just so damn perky and full of cheer. But that is not why I’m smiling there. It isn’t general happiness/cheer at all. It’s specific happiness. Which I will reveal to you all here:
Isn’t that the most beautiful eclair, sunshiney day, and glass of lemonade YOU HAVE EVER SEEN???? I’m not just grinning like a fool for the usual reasons. It is about 30% usual joie de vivre, 20% sunshine, 10% lemonade, and 40% eclair.
It was a really good eclair.
I’m currently reading Bliss by Lauren Myracle and it is SO spooky. You get this feeling of dread as you’re reading it. I have to take breaks and read The Book Thief (for the second time) and Inkdeath which are both pretty scary in their own way, but I like to mix up my types of scariness so that no one kind can take hold and keep me up at night.
I’ve also been working on a not so secret project — a new bloggedy blog blog! My friend and fellow librarian/writer Janet and I decided that what the world needed was another blog! So if you are tired of reading about the trees and eclairs here to get to the part about the books, you can go to an all ya book talk all the time over at The Tarts’ Wardrobe. The name is taken from the Georgia Nicholson books — the tarts’ wardrobe is where the girls go to gossip and apply lippy etc. So you can see from the name that it is a very serious literary blog. And focused.
If you’re looking for something fun and light to read over the weekend, I highly recommend How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier. The basic idea is that everyone has their own special invisible fairy that helps them out in one way or another like a loose change finding fairy or a getting out of trouble fairy.
