Weekly Update: 6-26-16: Shakespeare Season Begins

"Hunchback'd toad," they all did groan,

but Richard kept his face a grin.

He quick consumed his tadpole kin 

and leapfrogged up the British throne.

Free at Griffith Park

Life Update: It's Shakespeare season. Yesterday, my father, my friend Rita, and I attended the opening performance of Richard III as acted by the Independent Shakespeare Co. at Griffith Park. (Performances are free and run throughout the summer.) Although more traditional than other adaptions of Shakespearean plays done by this company,  Richard III included some fun modern-day twists, such as  a background track of electric guitar riffs and a montage of Richard shaking hands and kissing babies before ascending to the throne in a burst of confetti. The play took place in the evening. In the afternoon, Dad, Rita, and I visited the Getty Center, a ginormous (and free) LA art museum, where we viewed the Romantic landscapes of Rousseau, admired 18th century French furniture, and ambled through the beautiful gardens.

Getty Sculpture or the Isle of Lost Souls?

Writing Update: One of the rock sculptures at The Getty reminded me of the Isle of Lost Souls, a barren rock where sailors are shipwrecked by a sea dragon in the children's fantasy book I'm writing called Three Floating Coffins. Purely by coincidence, I happened to be editing the very chapter where the Isle of Lost Souls was introduced just a few days earlier. I wanted to edit my Coffins novel before Nanowrimo takes hold next week. In two weeks, I finished editing 3 chapters and got about halfway through 2 more. It's progress, I suppose, but I wish it wouldn't take so long. I'd really like to get Three Floating Coffins done by the end of summer, but between Nanowrimo, college, and all the Shakespeare days I'm taking, I've no idea how I will finish it all.

 Summer Tip: The Huntington Library is an awesome, awesome combination of museum and gardens. (I've written about it here.) Unfortunately, it's a bit expensive, with tickets costing up to $25. Fortunately, the museum has a monthly free day--the first Thursday of the month. Unfortunately, there is a limited amount of people who can enter, so you need to order tickets in advance. Tickets can be ordered on the website and printed at home. Tickets for July are already "sold out," but you can reserve up to 5 tickets for August 4th, starting from July 1st, 9:00 am. See website for details.

Book Review: The Scorpion Rules

Title: The Scorpion Rules (Prisoners of Peace, Book 1)

Author: Erin Bow

Genre: YA, Dystopian Science Fiction

(Note: This is one of two books my friend Rita—the queen of YA fantasy romance—gave me to help me relax after a stressful April. A big shout out to her for the recommendations.)

Summary

“Did you know the man who invented the atomic bomb once said that keeping peace through deterrence was like keeping two scorpions in one bottle?…All I did was invent the bottle.”

—Talis

World peace requires certain sacrifices. Princess Greta Gustafen Stuart of the Pan Polar Confederacy just happens to be one of them. A “Child of Peace,” she’s held hostage by the AI overlord Talis. Should her mother, the ruler of what used to be Canada, go to war, Greta will die. And war is coming. The broken remnants of America are in terrible need of water—water Greta’s mother has, but refuses to give. 

And then Elian arrives. The grandson of the general of the Cumberland Alliance, he ought to be her mortal enemy. But his infectious laugh wins her over and his defiant spirit awakens her to the injustice in their lives. Will Greta continue to accept the Scorpion Rules? Or will she find the courage to smash the bottle?

Review

I began reading with certain assumptions about YA Dystopian fiction in mind. This book blew them out of the water.  

Assumption #1: I expected shoddy world-building.

Or, not shoddy, per say, but vague. In my experience, Dystopian fiction is an excuse to mash-up advanced technology with a primitive way of life. That initially seemed to be the case with The Scorpion Rules. In a world with robot proctors and advanced healing technology, why do the children spend most of their day weeding gardens and tending goats?

It is perhaps a strange thing that the children of kings and presidents should concern themselves with the sex lives of a herd of milch goats, but come the end of August, it was time to do just that.

There are reasons, though—the same reasons, it turns out, that people are going back to organic farming. This is a world where over-consumption has damaged the earth so much that Talis, the AI overlord, has forced the people into a sustainable lifestyle. The Precepture—the bubble community of hostage children—is meant to be a model of “environmental rationalism,” so it possible that Greta and her friends are expected to live an extreme agrarian lifestyle most people don’t have to deal with.

Plus, I liked the goats. The Goat Wars was one of my favorite parts of the story. 

It turned out the nanny goats had nosed the gate open and were heading for the melon patch. Now, among the children of Peace, melons are almost everyone’s favorite, because of the way they have to be eaten as fast as they come in. …So everyone who was out was keen to protect the patch. …The cohort of fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds, who’d been waging war against the quackweed in the newly planted kale beds, picked up their hoes and headed over at the quick march, as orderly as a Roman legion.

As the plot progresses, it turns out that both the low-tech farm and the high-tech robots have pivotal roles to play. The world may seem contradictory at times, but it feels genuine and there is a reason for it. Elements of setting, in other words, are not cherry-picked for color. The world functions as a cohesive whole.

Assumption #2: I expected a love triangle.

And yes, this book has one.

“You’re royalty, Greta. A celebrity. Like—like Guinevere.”

 Da-Xie actually laughed aloud. “Guinevere!”

But it didn’t go where I expected. At all.

Elian swung the empty [potato] riddle in one hand and looked from Atta to Grego. “If she’s Guinevere, that makes you two Lancelot and Arthur. Which one’s which?”

It’s not just that I completely mis-guessed who Greta ended up with. The relationship itself was tested in ways I’d never have foreseen, and the future of Greta and her love interest was ambiguous. For those who want a neat little happily-ever-after wrapped in a bow… well, sorry, this isn’t for you. Love is a lot more complicated than that.

Assumption #3: I expected an action-packed ending. 

Don't get me wrong. There is fighting, violence, and high-stakes action that hits about the middle of the book. But the ending—the actual ending—was slow-paced, thoughtful, and character-driven.

We could have talked about any number of things—the work of the garden, the work of the classroom, the recent revolutions in Sidney’s part of the world… We didn’t, though. There are so few moments of quiet. And what is prettier than an apple orchard in summer? The grey and ordered trunks, the sharp-sweet taste of under-ripe apples… We let them conjure a mood of peace and tender-heartedness.

It was also unexpected. Not to say that the ending came out of nowhere or threw out a big twist. About three-fourths of the way through, you know what’s going to happen and it works with what’s been set-up. It’s just that, for me, as a writer, after reading the jacket and the first page, I already have ideas about where the story will go, and this time, I was dead wrong.

On the whole, I found the book to be a thought-provoking meditation on the nature of war and peace and the sacrifices we make. It was deeper and better researched than a lot of other YA I’ve encountered. At the same time, I did enjoy it. I loved the description of the world, I loved the characters, I loved the slow-simmering tension

…and I loved the stupid, stupid goats.

Weekly Update: 6-12-16 Final Jobs and New Music

Counting down the days 

Until summer. Few jobs left.

Grab them while I can.

Life Update: When I made my To Do List for the week, my brain was already halfway on vacation mode. I was thinking about writing, about marketing, about all the bothersome paperwork of higher education that I had put off. I did not expect to get subbing assignments for all five days this week. I was grateful to get them--in the last days before the drought of summer vacation, I needed to store up what money I could, and every day of work helps. My schedule got scrambled and certain things didn't get done. I wasn't heart-broken. In addition to work and writing, I squeezed in a dance class with my friend Ashley, I finished The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow, and I bought new music for my phone.

Writing Update: Rita told me she listened to love songs while she wrote, and this gave me the idea of constructing a playlist based on my characters from The Originals. I planned to do one for each of my point of view characters, but I only got one, for Mel, which consisted of "Heartless" (Kris Allen), "Twilight Galaxy (Acoustic)" (Metric), "All I Really Want" (Alanis Morisette), "The Hunger Games" (James Newton Howard), "Help I'm Alive" (Metric), "A Narnia Lullaby" (Harry Gregson-Williams), "Abraham's Daughter" (Arcade Fire). Yeah, a weird mix, but this is a character who's been tortured by the villain and is dealing with the ensuing trauma.

Lest you think, I did nothing but play around with music, let me add that I also got a total of forty pages written for both Counterfeit Diamond and The Originals, organized a list of agents, edited half a short story called "Lucidity," edited half a chapter in Three Floating Coffins, and thought of a new story after watching a documentary on glass. So a pretty good week.

Weekly Update: 6-5-16 Research

Research devours

my brain. Fuzzy-headed, I

read without restraint. 

Writing Update: I planned to brainstorm and research for Counterfeit Diamond and The Originals this week--just not quite this much. All Memorial day, I found myself staring at maps and pictures of old Batavia and reading wikipedia articles on Kota Tua Jakarta. All day. And then on Friday, I found a series on Netflicks called Ancient Black Ops, and I used that to get inspiration for battle scenes for The Originals. Plans to do many different things fell by the wayside as research consumed me. At least I was thorough.

Inspiration for the Setting of Counterfeit Diamond

Life Update: Hot weather rolling in has caused my sinuses to drain and ants to invade my newly cleaned counters, much to my great annoyance. I scored a couple of jobs, cashed a couple of checks, did my critiques for the Brea Library Writer's Group, and raked in $9 dollars for my weekly Thursday library volunteering. On Wednesday, I had dinner with my friends Michelle and Debra at Mendocino Farms, a new restaurant serving original sandwiches, and on Saturday, I went to Barnes and Noble with Rita. Today I'm going to have a picnic with the Pendragons. So life is going fine.

Weekly Update: 5-29-16 Potato Salad

Kitchen clean at last.

On sparkling counter, I mix

Potato salad.

Life Update: After letting my house go to pot for a month, I finally had the time to attend to my chores. I spent the week scrubbing, polishing and mopping the kitchen into an acceptable level of shine. Just in time, too; my cousin Mitchell was hosting a barbecue on Saturday. I whipped together my own concoction of warm potatoes, vinegarette, light mayo, fresh parsley, perfectly hard-boiled eggs, and the secret ingredient--raw, chopped apples soaked in cider vinegar and apple juice that gave it that surprise pop. It was the first time I'd been able to experiment with cooking for several months. Having spare time, I feel like I am discovering the simple pleasures of life once again.

Writing Update: Last week, I realized that Camp Nanowrimo, in July, was rapidly approaching, and if I didn't want to end up flustered and frustrated, I needed to start brainstorming now. In April, I wrote the first 50 pages of the second draft of Counterfeit Diamond, a trickster story of a girl with a diamond ring that can change her appearance. For July, I want to write the next 50 pages. As I brainstormed, I was amazed that the story practically plotted itself. I hardly had to do more than nudge it along. Also, for July, I want to type up a third draft of certain chapters of The Originals, the sequel to The Changelings. I'm currently hand-writing these chapters in my notebook. This week, one of my characters get into a battle of wits with the main antagonist. I spent Friday night re-writing said battle of wits 5 times before it looked remotely serviceable. To me, that's the definition of a fun Friday night.

Sorry for the Lack of Updates

Blame it on Cal-State Fullerton.

It's your fault!

The Spring 2016 semester sprang on me like a hungry tiger, and I reacted like a frightened rabbit, with sudden sprints and stops. Although my normal line of work is substituting, writing and its related activities keep me more than busy. Add in a full-time college work load, and I was scrambling just to keep up.

I'm now actively trying to become an English teacher. I have a BA in Creative Writing; what I need is a single-subject credential. Merely, to apply for the credential program in Cal-State Fullerton, I needed to assemble:

• An application to Cal-State Fullerton (with fees)
• An application to the credential program (with fees)
• Essays for both applications
• My college transcripts
• Passing CBEST scores (general knowledge proficiency)
• Passing CSET scores (specific area knowledge proificency)
• CPR training certification
• TB test documentation
• Fingerprint live scan
• Recommendation from 2 college professors
• Personal recommendation
• 4 Prerequisite courses with 45 hours of classroom observation
• Pass an Interview

The despair is real.

The Good News: After about 8 months of hard work and studying, I've finally put together everything I needed to apply to the credential program. I even passed my four prerequisite classes with straight As.

The Bad News: I botched my interview and didn't make into the credential program for the Fall 2016 school year.

Supremely frustrating, isn't it? But I have a few options. I can spend fall taking 2 more classes they recommend (but not require) students take before entering the credential program and get those out of the way. I can then apply for the Spring 2017 credential program and hope and pray I get into that. This time, I might not limit myself to applying only at Cal-State Fullerton. I may branch out to other schools.

And maybe someday I'll actually become a teacher.

Anyway, that's my excuse for not updating this blog for 5 months.

However, now that summer is here, I hope to be able to have some more time to write, to do fun stuff, to breathe. We'll see how it goes, but I will try to update more consistently... starting tomorrow.

Book Review: Shatter Me

Title: Shatter Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Genre: YA, Science Fiction (Dystopian), Romance

  

Summary

Four walls of an asylum and a small notebook make up Juliette Ferrars' entire world until the day a mysterious boy enters her cell. His name is Adam Kent, and he doesn't seem to remember Juliette--but she remembers him. They went to school together, back when the world was normal: before the food shortages and the nuclear bombs and the iron fist rule of The Reestablishment.

Juliette never fit into the normal world. A touch from her can cause a person to convulse in pain; if she holds on too long, they die. Now Warner, a young but ruthless leader, wants to mold her into a weapon for The Reestablishment. He'll use anything in his power to bend her to his will--including her budding feelings for Adam. It seems Juliette will only ever cause pain to those closest to her. Then Adam tells her a secret that will change everything...

Review

My friend Rita, who writes YA fantasy romances, ardently recommended this book to me. My reaction wasn't quite as passionate. I liked it okay. And I could see it's appeal. The book is beautifully written in a unique style that milks emotion out of every situation--good for romance readers. But the fantasy elements are unoriginal, the setting is vague, and the plot is thin.

Let's start with the good stuff.

Tahereh Mafi writes in a way I haven't seen before, crossing out lines that are too real, too raw, or too embarrassing, like one would do in a journal. But Juliette isn't writing in a journal, though it appears that way at first. This is happening in real time, and the crossed out words represents her self-editing mind.

     "What are you writing?" Cellmate speaks again.

     These words are vomit.

     This shaky pen is my esophagus.

     This sheet of paper is my porcelain bowl.

     "Why won't you answer me?" He's too close too close too close.

     No one is ever close enough.

I can relate to this. I'm always trying to stomp out weird thoughts that pop into my head. It gives me, the reader, a close connection to Juliette. I'm aware of even her subconscious thoughts. At the same time, Tahereh Mafi's blend of metaphor and hyperbole creates an atmosphere of heightened emotion. Every tiny action is supercharged with meaning.

     There are 15,000 feelings of disbelief hole-punched into my heart.

     His eyes are 2 buckets of rainwater: deep, fresh, clear.

     I step backwards and 10,000 tiny particles shatter between us.

How poetic

This unique style caught my interest from the start and kept me reading.

 

It had to, because for the first 50 pages, nothing happened. Juliette sat in her cell with Adam, feeling strongly, but hardly moving or speaking at all. Even after she gets out of the mental institution, she ends up locked with a boy again, for 150 pages this time.

Thank goodness that this boy is Warner, the green-eyed, gorgeous, 19-year-old psychopathic murderer who is obsessed with power, obsessed with Juliette, and obsessed with getting Juliette to accept her power. When I realized that Warner saw Juliette as more than a weapon--that he was actually sort of in love with her--then I began to flip pages quite quickly.

     "Don't you dare hate me so quickly," [Warner] continues. "You might find yourself enjoying this situation a lot more than you anticipated. Lucky for you, I'm willing to be patient." He grins. Leans back. "Though it certainly doesn't hurt that you're so alarmingly beautiful."

I know I'm not supposed to like Warner. Juliette hates him, is absolutely appalled by everything he does, calls him a monster to his face. And yet I sensed a troubled past and a pitiful desperation oozing from Warner's blackened soul. He needs so badly for Juliette to choose him, and this need makes him vulnerable.

At least I'm not the only one!

Was I crazy? Was this some residue of my adolescent longing for the bad boy? Rita assured me that I was, in fact, an astute reader, and that Warner gets a ton more development in the upcoming books. I'm glad. I'd hate to think I was falling for a creepy stalker for no reason.

I mentioned before that Tahereh Mafi makes good use of figurative language, and while this stirs the blood, it makes it very difficult to see what's going on around the characters. In no place is this more apparent than in the setting. I tried and tried to get a clear idea of the landscape, but the vague words left me with an impressionistic blur.

     The general population has been distributed across what's left of the country. Industrial buildings form the spine of the landscape: tall, rectangular metal boxes stuffed full of machinery. Machinery intended to strengthen the army, to strengthen The Reestablishment, to destroy mass quantities of human civilization.

     Carbon/ Tar/ Steel

     Gray/ Black/ Silver

This is what I know about the society Juliette inhabits. Ten years ago, it was pretty much our world. Then the atmosphere became poisonous, the earth stopped providing food, starvation broke out, and The Reestablishment came to power. Since The Reestablishment is evil, they set off nuclear bombs and created orphans and hoarded all the goodies for themselves. For some reason, there aren't any cars left--except when required by the plot.

Juliette's World

Basically, a generic Dystopia. You might as well ignore the setting altogether.

Shatter Me had hints of X-Men right from the start. It's hard not to compare Juliette to Rogue. Initially, I shrugged it off as coincidence and tried to put that comparison out of my mind. But the ending threw all subtlety out the window. It's X-men + YA Dystopia + Romance. The climax had a good deal of action and drama, but by the end of the book, I felt a little underwhelmed.

Rita tells me that the third book is the best of the bunch, that it ties everything up wonderfully. I'm not entirely sure I'll get to reading the other two books, though. Maybe if I get them for Christmas...

Weekly Update: 12-15-15 Too Many Books

During my cleaning frenzy of Thanksgiving break, as I crammed books into my bulging shelves, I vowed that I would limit my book purchases. For every book I bought, I'd have to get rid of one book on my shelf. Such choices are agonizing, but I can make them. The goal was to read the books I have before buying new ones.
  
Sigh. So much for that.

* * *

My last weekly (er, monthly) update, I mentioned leading an informal Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) group. Most of them were friends from the Brea Library Writer's Group, and no one aside from me had really tried to write a novel in a month before. I hosted various meetings at Panera to write together and show support. It turned out a core group of five kept coming to the Sunday meetings: me, Rita, Carmen, Sean, and Jen, who'd just barely discovered the writer's group before November began.

Well, Nanowrimo came to an end, and we decided to celebrate by going on a Used Bookstore Run for our next Sunday meeting, which was December 5th. The plan was this: start at 10:00 AM, pack a sack lunch, hit three used bookstores around Orange County, and be home by about 6:00. A quick Google search yielded a surprising number of bookstores. Unfortunately, few were open on Sundays, so I had to narrow it down.

* * *

STOP #1: Bookoff

Website: http://www.bookoffusa.com/

Sunday Hours: 10:00-8:00

2955 Harbor Blvd

Costa Mesa, CA 92628

Bookoff is actually a chain of used bookstores in Japan, and, if you happen to be in the country, it's a great place for accumulating cheap secondhand comics, CDs, and DVDS. The US chain also has a good many manga comics and anime DVDs, in both English and Japanese. It also had shelves of random paraphernelia, everything from bags to Japanese tea sets. 

None of that made much of a difference to me, though, as I barely had time to skim the Japanese offerings. My friends and I were lucky enough to land in the middle of a great sale, with beautiful books as cheap as $1.00. Carmen found a huge dictionary with colored pictures for $5.00. For the most part, I planted myself in the Children's Book section, skimming for gifts for my niece and nephew and trying to hunt down obscure books from my youth.

An hour and a half passed in a breathless rush. I had to force myself out of there, but not before buying all of about 8 books. Only one of those were for me, but still. I'd already spent half my cash, and I had a feeling I was not going to get any more responsible.

* * *

STOP #2: Camelot Books

Website: http://www.camelot-books.com/

Sunday Hours: 12:00-4:00

18838 Brookhurst St

Fountain Valley, CA 92708

Camelot Books was only a few miles from Bookoff, the total drive time less than ten minutes. I'd never been here before and had no idea what to expect. The bookstore was hidden in the corner of a shopping center, near "The Reptile Zoo," whose colorful signs intriguingly promised "Prehistoric Pets" and "Jurassic Parties." Sean especially wanted to investigate, but books came first.

The storefront of Camelot Books might have been boring and nondescript, but when we stepped inside, we entered a magical world. Shelves of books on knights and magicians greeted us, and then we saw the display of rare books in beautiful bindings stacked artfully near cages. Immediately, we knew that this was the place for our group picture and the owner kindly obliged. Rita grabbed a book on Celtic mythology off that table and promptly declared it hers.

There was a little kids corner with a table and toys that for some weird reason, we ended up taking over. The classic section was huge, with an entire wall devoted to Shakespeare, and I was really tempted. But in the end, I splurged on an Encyclopedia of Mythology, which was about $16, along with several books for my nephew. So much for cash--I had to swipe my credit card for this one.

* * *

STOP #3: Bookman

Website: http://orange.ebookman.com/index.shtml

Sunday Hours: 12:00-5:00

840 N Tustin St

Orange, CA 92867

Out of all the bookstores we visited, this was the only one I could definitely say I'd stepped foot in before. It's pretty close to my friend Ashley's house, and every time we go shopping together, I all but beg to make a stop here. Row after row of shelves crammed top to bottom with books, discount carts, nostalgic children's books, and non-fiction books I'd never heard of.
  
I told my friends we needed at least an hour for this one, and I was not wrong. We barely high-tailed it out of Camelot Books by 3:30 and got to Bookman just before 4:00. We stayed until after closing time, though the owners kindly did not kick us out. I thought I was doing well. I'd only picked up a copy of Persuasion for my cousin and all three of Shakespeare's King Henry VI for myself. But then I stumbled across The Great Encyclopedia of Faeries, filled with beautiful illustrations and stories, and, well, I couldn't resist.

We were all very tired by the time we arrived back, at 6:00, as promised. But my book splurge didn't end there...

* * * 

And Then, Volunteering 

Every Thursday, I volunteer at the Friends of the Brea Library Used Bookstore, which, consists of a walk-in closet full of books and about five carts of books and DVDs. We are not as big or as well-organized as the bookstores I wrote about, but we do sell books dirt cheap. Most used bookstores sell books at about half their cover price, with paperbacks going for $3-$4. Our paperbacks are $0.75 and our hardbacks are $2.00. On the bargain bin, they're half priced.

Obviously, this is a dangerous place for me to sit for 2 hours and on more than one occasion, I have yielded to temptation. But this last Thursday, they were having a fire sale on romance novels: 25 cents each or 5 for $1.00. I normally don't buy romance books, but I saw one I'd read earlier and given away, much to my great regret. And so I decided to buy it back.

Well, that just opened the floodgates, and soon, I'd picked out the 5 least corny-looking romance books I could find. But it didn't end there, because as soon as I closed the bookstore, the librarians wheeled out the free book cart. And you won't believe the books they were giving out free. Two thick, awesome Japanese-English dictionaries--I snatched those up--and a wonderful spread of classic books: Of Mice and Men, The Scarlett Pimpernel, Jane Eyre, books by Agatha Christie and Dashiell Hammett. I had a bookbag jammed with books and a stack in my arms up to my chin. You should have seen me trying to balance them all without spilling books on the driveway.

* * *

So now the fancy dining room table that we never use is jam-crowded with stacks and stacks of books that will not fit on the shelf. And I look at it and think, Becky, Becky, why do you do this to yourself? What am I supposed to do with all these precious books. I can't just get rid of them.

I guess I'll be doing some reading this Christmas break.