We meet again, my old enemy.
My Archnemesis
The Fiction Vendetta
(Speaking of that essay: When the author makes the faux-concession statement that those high culture / low culture thinkpieces require, about how at least this plebby non-literature is getting the uncultured masses to open a book, the author name-drops a TV show. Slate thoughtfully links the Amazon page where readers can immediately purchase it. With an affiliate link. Hilarious.)
Labyrinth Society: The Versailles Vendetta
Female-authored fiction for a young, female audience is often disparaged by calling the characters all Mary Sues. (Among other ways, I mean, like calling them beach reads and airport novels, and other things that mean well, if you have the time to waste, I guess you can enjoy it. Oops, got sidetracked, this isn’t a post on all the ways that novels written by women for the enjoyment of primarily women get downplayed!) Mary Sues have something to do with wish fulfillment, they’re too awesome, their dialogue is too snappy and their luck is too good, like we don’t all read books to see interesting characters doing exciting things.
This is a short novel about three adopted girls, who live in a mansion full of exotic, and usually enchanted, relics that their foster mother, a strangely ageless archaeologist, has collected. They travel through time rescuing historical artifacts, usually racing against unscrupulous antiquities dealers. Also there is an handsome British groundskeeper, loads of secrets, magic time-travel jewelry, and also a pair of glitter Chucks. It it exactly the kind of story I would dream up when I was supposed to be paying attention in middle-school classes, and I mean that in the best way.
Sure, there’s a lot of time-traveling escapism, but at the same time, the novel’s about chosen family and female friendships, telling the story of a prickly third foster-daughter joining a home that’s both a great deal happier than her previous houses but also so full of secrets. And instead of one female sidekick along on the typical adventure team, we have three girls with different personalities working together to save history.
Read it for yourself, if you’re intrigued by magical teenager historians, and a teen novels without the obligatory love triangle, or just to be the coolest Auntie or Uncle to the middle-school girl in your life.
I received a copy of Labyrinth Society: The Versailles Vendetta
Posted in Books, Chapel Hill
Tagged Angie Kelly, eARC, LABYRINTH SOCIETY: The Versailles Vendetta, Netgalley, oldtobegin, travel
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Waypoint
Starting to work on this collection has been constantly surprising me.
I want to post, with modest amazement, about all the talent I’ll get to work with, which is something I always jealously read editors posting, but mostly I’m angrily amazed at the weirdly mis-targeted resumes I’m getting. I mean, I’m not asking for resumes at all, but sure, send it along if you think it’s important.
I definitely wasn’t expecting all the generic form letters applying for writing gigs (First place to the guy who said he was inspired to apply for POSITION because of COMPANY’s outstanding reputation in the industry.), and I’m not entirely sure that everyone who applied had read the posting. There are a lot of Dear Sir letters, or promises of SEO-friendly articles on any keyword. I mean, it’s not like I’ve even offering a lot of money, where it would make sense to apply even
There are people who submit work, and email angrily a few hours later to ask why I’ve not responded yet, and some who seek out my personal email because their question is too important to go to the inbox I’ve set up for this project. The whole thing is terribly confusing for my impostor syndrome, dealing with entitlement as a potential editor, when I tend to approach all opportunities nervously. Is this for me? Am I any good at this? Am I wasting everyone’s time with my silly questions? So it’s definitely a learning experience for me.
Anyway, right now I have four pieces that are delightful and amazing and I can’t wait to share them with you, and a few more in the process of editing. I also have about a hundred SEO-optimized pieces on generalized gaming, and a thousand spun articles with gaming-related keywords, so there’s that.
Preparing To Film
Getting ready to film. (Not pictured: Coffee, my awesome coworkers, more coffee, and many, many rounds of script edits)
Hello Kitty Amigurumi
Hello Kitty Crochet
My friend Jennette came over to help me try out this book of Hello Kitty crochet patterns, and I was pretty excited for crafting and wine night. I’ve crocheted simple things, mostly, like scarves or wristlets. (I’ve been meaning to try Bethany’s crocheted Hello Kitty hat, and now that I happen to have bunch of Hello Kitty-colored yarn left over from amigurumi…)
Anyway, my point is that I like to crochet, but I did not realize quite how much stitch-counting was involved in making my project look more like Hello Kitty and less like a misshapen blob. Fortunately for me, Jennette is not just a crochet hobbyist, but secretly also an amigurumi expert!
I mean, I have crochet hooks in multiple sizes, but it turns out Jennette is a complete amigurumi expert!
Hello Kitty required more attention that than straight rows of a blanket or scarf, because you have to keep track of stitches and rows to get her cute little head to be the right kind of adorably round, or to make her cute little kitten ears. But it wasn’t difficult to do, and it didn’t take very long.
I did have to resort to a YouTube tutorials for the magic circle. If you (me) just cast on for crocheting scarves and blankets and so forth, I’d recommend watching someone else start a magic circle before trying it yourself. It’s really easy to copy someone doing it, and quite difficult to get it from a description.
My favorite Hello Kitty persona is when she is wearing a kimono. Something about the simple, bold cuteness of the Hello Kitty face with the delicate patterns and colors of a kimono is just so perfect. I looked at my Hello Kitty kimono minis for inspiration, and copied the dress for my doll. I was just going to make a coordinating stripe around the body for a obi, but then I got carried away making the obi knot in the back, and the kimono sleeves, too.
My Hello Kitty!
I decided to finish Hello Kitty Kimono with black button eyes, which gives her more of a cuddly rag doll look, instead of sewing them on. I planned to get some yellow embroidery floss to finish her cute little nose, but I found a perfect little yellow button for her nose at The Scrap Exchange, so she has an adorable little button face now.
I received this copy of Hello Kitty Crochet from the publisher to review.
More Cute Hello Kitty Crochet:
Posted in Books, Chapel Hill
Tagged amigurumei, amigurumi, Hello Kitty Crochet, Instagram, Quick Books
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The Summer Queen
The Summer Queen shines with complex version of historical characters. Louis was trained for the church before the untimely death of his older brother made him the heir, and it’s clear that he would have prefered to become a monk than be a husband. This puts a lot of strain on their marriage, what with Louis constantly on pilgrimage or doing penance or observing a saint’s day, or basically coming up with a thousand religious reasons to avoid Eleanor. He’s not painted as an evil villain, even though his goals are at odds with Eleanor throughout most of the book.
Our heroine Eleanor, is a loyal daughter of Aquitaine, an intelligent and educated ruler, but it’s her flaws, specifically her yearning for home and love for one her vassals, that make her most sympathetic to the reader. Even more minor characters, like Petronella, have personality and depth.
In the author’s note at the end, Elizabeth Chadwick explains why she found the possible Eleanor / Raymond romance unlikely. Mostly because an incestuous affair seems like a bizarre and destructive choice for a woman who was so intelligent, while cooking up rumors of an incestuous affair, seems like a logical choice by enemies in court, looking for ways to discredit the queen. The “affair” seems like a pearl-clutching mock-horror to show complete depravity, and a pretty unsurprising response from certain men in court who were terrified by a powerful woman, with enough scandal to have it repeated by bored courtiers and shocked commoners alike.
The novel is the first in a (planned) trilogy about Eleanor, so it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. I mean, it’s not clickbait, but this is the story of a woman who was queen of two countries, and the novel ends before she gets to England. I’m looking forward to reading the next part of her story.
I received this eARC from the publisher to review. (Thank you!) Opinions are my own and free books have never stopped me from snarking about a bad novel before.
Originally written July 2014, for a section of Yahoo! that’s since been canned. Freelancing is awesome.
Posted in Books
Tagged Book review, eARC, Elizabeth Chadwick, historical fiction, Netgalley, The Summer Queen
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Kind of A Hurricane
Really pleased to tell you that I have a new short story, coming out in Kind of A Hurricane’s next anthology, Switch (the Difference)
Slightly embarrassed to tell you it’s about an overlooked writer who has a chance to be horrible to her romantic rival. So there’s that.
Posted in Chapel Hill
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More Than Just A Princess
I’ve been supporting GoldieBlox since their first Kickstarter, so I got an email announcing their new video this morning.
Sure, this is a product launch announcement, but it’s also about creative play for girls, fashion, and pink packages. This is part of a larger conversation about how we shape girls’ lives with our expectations, and how we can all do better, and just, man, it was really good to see this video this morning. I really needed to see all the comments about “disrupting the pink aisle” too.
Studio Selfie
At work, about to record a tech story for the kids.
Just The Writer
The other day, some college students came to take a tour of the studio, and for once I didn’t mumble a little about how I’m just the writer and how I guess I worked a little bit on this game that you’ve probably never heard about, and anyway, don’t you want to go talk to someone more exciting? This time, I actually described my work, and talked to the students about what goes into our gaming content for children and why it matters. It didn’t hurt that my coworker brought the students in and described our room as where all the creativity happens.
Next time I might actually ask the students about their majors or something. (Maybe.) It kind of confuses me to see young people trying to act mature and responsible because they’re around adults who matter to them, and then realizing that I am that adult.
