Read Life/Real Life

So let's talk about books.

Obviously, I like books.

I like F.L. Block books. They move me and inspire me and make me want to be and be more.

And there are so many fantasy books I love, too.

The Kushiel's Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey. So much adventure and strength and passion and love. The Sevenwaters books by Juliet Marillier. Softer, but still epic and tragic and romantic and beautiful.

I have a fascination with Stephen King books and I recently fell in love with Horns, by King's son, Joe Hill, which I will absolutely write about later on, not to mention his first amazing book, Heart-Shaped Box (which is awesomely creepy), and N0S4A2; also brilliant.

f.scott.fitzgerald.

I am aware, very much, that my obsession with fiction has led to a fairly skewed outlook on life.

Because I crave heart-aching romance and epic adventure and excitement, I'm particularly dulled to [what feels like] the lack-luster truths of reality.

Love is simple and can feel dull after long periods of time.

Pleasurable sex (for me) is rarely ever slow and "romantic."

Friends don't just float into your life then stick around without a lot of work.

Normal, everyday life doesn't feel magical.

At least

not when compared to books.

and I think this is where my version of the Mean Reds comes in.

My depression, which doesn't creep up on me slowly but pounces, throwing a shade over my eyes and a net around my thoughts before I even realize it's coming.

Even the beautiful sunsets and sunrises and skylines just don't... matter

when that shade comes down.

Then the dullness of my

relationship

work

friends

life

drains me.

Even things I don't think are dull or bad at all, all sink into this pit of the Mean Reds.

I get angry and scared and miserable and desperate.

I get lonely.

It should make me want to run, but it actually freezes me. I curl up and become stagnant and bitter because of it. Because of my lust for a fantasy life I resent my real one. It hurts.

But still we read, right? Still we comb through bookshelves and review blogs and other people's recommendations. Still we search for something new to read, or something good enough to read again.

I've spent long chunks of my life trying to pull myself out of my real-life-induced bitterness, reminding myself that there is no main character in the real world, everyone exists in the same way and no-one is excitedly diving into our adventure (or lack thereof) and that's a really strange thing to do. It's something like the reverse of convincing yourself you're not crazy. Instead, I convince myself that I am crazy-- that I need to let my romanticized expectations go and appreciate what I have.

That's what all the stupid aphorisms say, right? It's not so much... "life is always greener" as... "you will never have grass as green because there's no such thing as that green..."

It's... really depressing just thinking about now...

But how do we fix that?

How do we, as artists, creatives, travelers, and -- most importantly -- readers deal with -- truly deal with -- the world we took to the pages to escape? We all get thrown back into it, after all; that's what growing up is; so how do we consolidate the adventure, passion, and excitement of our fictional retreats into the adult world we have no choice but to navigate?

I'm on a journey to find fiction that doesn't circumvent my enjoyment and understanding of my life but encourages it -- facilitates it.

I want fiction that brings life up and says -- it's okay to be simple! it's okay to be plain! the real world can be interesting to and you aren't missing out!

you don't have to be the main character in the world's story to have your own! Live your boring little life and enjoy and explore and love your life.

A Stolen Quote

Perusing through FLB's blogger, love in the time of global warming, I re-stumbled onto this quote from Alice Flaherty, and fell completely in love. I'm pasting it here, but definitely check it and more out on this (old?) blog from Francesca Lia Block. She has beautiful poetry there that is so worth reading.

“Is it too reductionist then, to suggest that a major reason for creative writing is an abstracted version of the same biological urge that causes you to cry out in sorrow or anger? Let us call it the need theory of self expression. I cry out because some primitive part of me believes that when you cry out, someone warm and helpful comes. What do I need? It is not to have those tiny babies back. They were too small for me to remember; they have vanished like soap bubbles. I have two real children now. Nor do I want to return to the sunny, uniformly lit mental life I used to have, although there are aspects of that life that I miss.

In fact, during my postpartum break, I discovered a mystery: I loved my sorrow. It was as if I had been preparing all my life for that event, that I had entered into my birthright. When I was in graduate school, my husband and I lived in an apartment over a ruined garden that had a grapevine as thick as a child’s body, coiling up the fire escape to my window. At night I could lie in bed and reach out into the dark and pluck grapes to eat. My grief was like that, as if it had given me access to a shadowy world that lies so close to this one that when I concentrated I could push my arm into it and pluck dream fruit. It is a world where beauty cannot be separated from pain, and should not be, as when a scalpel is needed to expose the exquisite organs of the belly. A pen can be a scalpel too. 

I no longer know whether it is my children that I long for, or my sorrow. I have an irrational belief, left over from my sensible past, that if I tell enough people about this knot that is always pulled tight, someone somewhere will be able to loosen it. But my new self needs it always to be pulled tight. I don’t write toforget what happened; I write to remember. There are worse things in life than painful desire; one of them is to have no desire.”

Alice W. Flaherty THE MIDNIGHT DISEASE

This is from The Midnight Disease, by nueroscientist Alice Flaherty, which, of course, I had to look up. It's a [much debated] scientific look at the compulsion to write that many people feel.

Yeah, obviously I need to read it now. It sounds really neat.

And that many of the negative reviews say it was illogical and disorganized, incoherent and jargon-filled, doesn't hinder my desire to read it-- I like tangent-filled writing and psycho-babble (although it drives the editor in me so crazy) so I'm all in there.

I'll let you know how that goes...

Pinterest Contest for "A Study In Steel"

My Book!

Coming out this Sunday! My first novel!

I can't wait! I'm sorely excited to have this out in the world. If it's at all successful, I'm hoping to make actual prints next year. For now, cheek out the ebook!

"A Study in Steel", a new cyberpunk noir by Eliana Vale at Smashwords! 

Vera is a Search Engine; a private investigator driven to find the truth in a world of machines. When her client is murdered, she finds herself caught up in the sordid history of her city's past, and those trying to survive within it.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/393997

Check it out, and email me for a coupon code to get yours!

Inspirations :: Holly Golightly

Today's Inspiration Icon :: Holly Golightly

(Character) Played by: Audrey Hepburn

Movie: Breakfast at Tiffany's (book as well)

If there ever was an icon above all icons, both in personality, fashion, style, and lifestyle, it's Holly Golightly.

Played (beautifully) by Audrey Hepburn (another icon in her own right) and written by Truman Capote, Holly is not necessarily all that bright, but is fun, sleek, quick, fashionable, and oh-so independent.

"Holly (age 18–19) is a country girl turned New York café society girl. As such, she has no job and lives by socializing with wealthy men, who take her to clubs and restaurants, and give her money and expensive presents; she hopes to marry one of them. According to Capote, Golightly is not a prostitute but an American geisha."<sup>[1]" -- Wikipedia

“I'm very scared, Buster. Yes, at last. Because it could go on forever. Not knowing what's yours until you've thrown it away.”  -- Holly, book

The book and movie are certainly two different things. Not only is one literary fiction (book) and one a romantic comedy (movie), but Holly is definitely different in each. Also, details in the plot and ending are very different (In the book, Paul [no name] is gay-- though in love with her-- and *spoiler* they don't end up together)</sup>

"Capote: Holly Golightly was not precisely a call girl. She had no job, but accompanied expense-account men to the best restaurants and night clubs, with the understanding that her escort was obligated to give her some sort of gift, perhaps jewelry or a check ... if she felt like it, she might take her escort home for the night. So these girls are the authentic American geishas" --Wikipedia

Yet both the book and the movie are two of my favorite things in the world, with very different reasons for each; but Holly is still a strange, wild, delightful character to read, watch, and be inspired by. I really think, though, that this is not only because of how cool or glamorous or independent she is (she is all those things) but all because of her very real, very human flaws.

"there are a lot of major differences between Capote's 1958 novella and George Axelrod's screenplay to the 1961 movie. There's the setting (the 1940s, not the contemporary 1960s), the nameless narrator (called Paul in the film), Holly's age (she's still in her late teens in the story but played by 31-year-old Hepburn on-screen), Holly's fondness for marijuana (gone in the film). Holly's bisexuality (ditto), and the wistful, ambiguous ending (replaced in the film by a conventional romantic happy ending)."
-here

^"Holly likes to shock people with carefully selected tidbits from her personal life or her outspoken viewpoints on various topics. Over the next year, she slowly reveals herself to the narrator, who finds himself fascinated by her curious lifestyle." -- Wikipedia

Holly is kind-hearted, but also selfish. Desperate to be free, she leaves her family behind and chooses a life for herself. Brave and free-spirited move? Yes. But there are many times when Holly shows her occasional selfish, shallow side. Also, her... intellect? I don't remember if this was an issue in the book (I'll check), but in the movie she shows a very simple lack of knowledge in things such as books and the law and her interpretations of people and situations. There's also her depression and sort of... lack of direction, which I think is a very human touch; her Mean Reds.



"“The blues are because you’re getting fat and maybe it’s been raining too long, you’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of.”  " --Holly, movie

Yet despite these flaws she's still beautiful and fun and free, and kind of the very essence of a (admittedly lazy) modern woman who wants to choose her life and live it exactly as she likes wherever and whenever she wants to. She still feels out of place and like she hasn't found herself (or her home) yet, which is a theme that reoccurs in both the book and movie, but she continues to search. In the movie this is somewhat resolved with romance (of course) but in the book it's never really solved, perhaps because it doesn't have to be. Holly continues to explore the world and live as freely as she chooses, and I think it's a more empowering, freeing ending that allows us to remember that we can always continue on our journey. The romance is cute and all, but not exactly empowering.

""Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc -- it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.”" -- Holly, book

While Holly's leaving is remembered with melancholy, the book seems to say, in a way, that we never have to stop searching for ourselves if we don't want to. We don't have to settle down. We don't have to give in to what other people want. We don't have to be what other people want. We can live our own lives. Even as women. Even as someone selfish, vain, naive women; we can live our lives.

 




Related Reads:

Revelations about Breakfast At Tiffany's
Holly Golightly is my Guru
The Making of Holly Golightly
25 Things You Might Not Know...

Beautiful Books:: The Elementals

Currently reading FLBs "The Elementals".

It had a slow start, I think, but I've fallen in love. Very pretty. Very ... relatable, if that's even a word. In fact, I find it more relatable than some of her other books. 

There's just something much more relatable and understanding about a girl entering college after traumatic setbacks and feeling lost, alone, and grasping onto the things she finally finds magical. 

 "That was when I started to run. I ran and ran as fast as I could along the pavement. Sweat poured down my face, mixing with the tears that had started to come. I could run fast. But you just can't run faster than time, not faster than death and, as I'd find out, not faster than love."

-- page 8

Weetzie Bat led a beautiful life, but it's not one everyone gets, or understands, or even necessarily wants. But Ariel is so real and complex in her fears and desires that I see myself behaving much the same way as her in many of the situations she faces. Her fear and anxiety and loneliness and desire to find her friend (and herself) definitely reflect me back at myself in a sad, beautiful way. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

"I walked past groups of laughing frat boys in monster masks and sorority girls dressed as sexy cats, sexy witches or sexy fairies in accessorized leotards and tights. The homeless were out in full force as well but the Greek kids were ignoring them in the usual way, as if they were invisible, phantoms. But I saw. The woman with the wings held a skeleton mask over her face and her small companion was dressed head to toe in clothes that looked as if they had been dipped in blood. The man with dreadlocks had twisted them into horns. He approached me, mumbling and waving his hands. I froze. As he got closer he shouted, 'The end is near and the parallel universe is not near complete!' He kept walking past me and I resumed breathing. The air smelled of coffee and chocolate. I stopped at the corner and looked around. People were sitting in the cafe. It seemed so warm and cozy in there."

  -- page 29

It reminds me a little of Echo, in the searching, and Quakeland in its self aware anxiety, The Hanged Man in its views of life and the self, and Ecstasia in its lush sensory descriptions.

But all of these in a much more narrative, realistic, understandable way. I can see myself as Ariel in ways I couldn't with other characters. I don't aspire to be like her or in her life; I just could be. Anyone could be.

The story is part coming-of-age, part supernatural, and part crime mystery. It's lovely and touching and sad and scary, and reminds you of those times when you just want to run and jump and dance, dress up, play, light candles and kiss and write and sing and be alive as much as possible.

"Everywhere I went I imagined she was walking with me. I tried to see things through her eyes; it wasn't hard. I knew how she thought. The faces she would find beautiful or interesting, the scruffy and disabled dogs she would stop to pet, the jewelry she would life from black velvet on the street vendor's table, examining to see how it was made, the buildings she would want to live in."

--page 17

It's also incredibly grounded in its representation of love and fear and tragedy, and I swear it's a wonderful read, Teen-Fiction or not. 

It's amazing.

Writing Time

So, I've always wanted to post my writing up on here, but I'm always nervous about putting work I really care about out into the internet, where it can be snatched up, twisted, and spit back out as some mutant (or even identical) version with someone else's name on it. So with my two (and a half) novels, I've avoided putting more than a few clips up for blog consumption.

Today this changes!

I've created a blog for my newest project, which is something I'm working on slowly, and more for practice and precision (and to try a new genre-- one I'm not very good at; supernatural and sexy). While I still consider this my property and very much hope no one steals it  (pretty please?), because I see this more as a project than a novel-in-the-works, I've decided to serialize it in a blog.

I'm also hoping for as much feedback as possible (even if it's only a comment or two), and other than critique forums where that's all I'd get, this seems like a good outlet.

Anyway, if you're interested, it is  (as of it's inception, but possibly not as it comes out) planned to be a story about a succubus who is kidnapped and forced into rehabilitation.
Supernatural. Sexy. Dramatic.
Maybe even the possibility of some crime solving involvement, or a sort of magical Girl Interrupted subplot.

Sound any good?
We'll find out, I guess.

If at all interested, first chapter will be up this week:

http://cynwriter.blogspot.com/


Tell me what you think.

Beautiful Books :: Frenzy

The Frenzy

By Francesca Lia Block

(HarperCollins 2010)

"He would look into my eyes the next time I saw him ans sense that I had moved further away, become less like him." 

The Frenzy is s little different than the other FLB books I've read.
There's more of a plot, less imagery and metaphor/symbolism, and less steam of consciousness/quickly told sorry points. This one is slow -- a little repetitive-- and let's you admire the story-- one about love, loss, rage, being different, and finding yourself-- as it comes, without rushing you or overpowering your senses.

"May the river of peace flow through me. May the winds of calm blow anger from my mind. May love's fire burn away my pain. May the great mother protect me and may I know how to protect her as I go."

Plot-wise, I think this quickly became one of my favorites of hers, maybe just because after twenty-some books, little else but imagery and sensual writing, with light, airy plots--though usually steeped in an underlining layer of realism-- can get a little tiring, so a very straight forward, emotional, uniquely FLB, book like this was refreshing and lovely.

"The engine revved and roared like a beast as we took off into the night. Wind grabbed at my hair, flaring red strands around us. I held on tight to Corey's waist and I could smell his sweat-- a scent of adventure and hope and love."

Not to mention that throughout FLB's repetoiure of fantastical, lyrical, surreal and sensual texts, the characters in The Frenzy, somehow, felt the most real to me. The most solid.

"I let you down. I turned away from you. Without your love and acceptance... I could have been where you are now. Love is the only thing we have to save us."

 

Emptiness and Nin

I don't have anything clever to say today. I am sorry.

When you're in a good place, emotionally/psychologically, you forget how bad things are when you're not. You forget the empty feeling in your head that grows into a gnawing discontent, then a deep, aching misery. You forget how your soul just doesn't seem to accept joy anymore. Every possible pleasant or useful activity is more work than it's worth, because afterwards you won't feel any better. 

This, too, shall pass.

Right?

I have miles to go before I sleep.

I have, however, restarted the Diary of Anais Nin for... about the tenth time. I always start, fall in love, and then set it down after a hundred pages or so and get distracted for a few years.
It's very beautiful, and very much of the sensual, artistic (yet realistic) beauty that I love about Francesca Lia Block's stories, but through the words and thoughts and life of a person who actually did live and love and was kind of amazing. Anais Nin sought a life of both hard realism and truth, and also the beautiful, ethereal life of sensualism; love and fantasies and beauty.
Her many many journals record her (amazing) thoughts and feelings throughout her life, including about friends, lovers, and life in general. She is kind of my literary hero, and there's no (or at least very little) fiction to it.

To entertain you in my place, I present my favorite lines so far from The Diary of Anais Nin (Volume One, pages 1-46). The bold ones, of course, are my favorite favorites.

"I know that human beings place upon an object, or a person, this responsibility of being the obstacle when the obstacle lies always within one's self."

"I had a sense of preparation for a love to come."

"I want to prove that there is infinite space, infinite meaning, infinite dimension."

"I have days of illuminations and fevers. I have days when the music in my head stops."

"You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book ... or you take a trip, or to talk ... and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating."

"...then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death."

"I have always believed ... to write as one thinks, in the order and disorder in which one feels and thinks..."

"She was color and brilliance and strangeness."

"She lives on the reflections of herself in the eyes of others. She does not dare to be herself."

"'I will never know again who I am, what I am, what I love, what I want. Your beauty has drowned me, the core of me.'"

"'...if I love you it means we share the same fantasies, the same madness."

"...[we] have paid with our souls for taking fantasies seriously, for living life as a theatre..."

"She is a personality expanded to the limit."

"...she walked into my house and I was willing to endure any pain at her hands."

"Our love would be death."

"We were walking above the world, above reality, into pure, pure ecstasy."

"In his love for her he has endured so many torments that the lover took refuge in the writer."

"I have the power to burn like a flame"

"To be fully alive is to live unconsciously and instinctively in all directions..."

"All but freedom, utter freedom, is death."

"I go out into the world to seek life."

"She is so busy just BEING, talking, walking, making love, drinking, that she can achieve nothing else."

"She lives within chaos."

"You cannot possess without loving."

More to come, I'm sure.

Beautiful Books :: Daughter of the Forest

Beautiful Books

Daughter of the Forest

Juliet Marillier

I spent a while longing for the kind of book I love to read. Epic, sweeping books that pick you up and wrap you in another world, with a strong female that sweeps you off your feet with adventure and romance. After getting through the best of the Kushiel Legacy, and waiting patiently for the next (even though I knew it would never be as good as the first three) I was in a void for a sweeping, epic fantasy. 

But then I started going through my bookshelf, reading books off of a stack of random ones I've owned forever and never really picked up.

Daughter of the Forest was one of these. 

I've owned the book for years. Picked it up at some point as a teenager and just never really felt like reading it.

And now finally I did, and I will never regret it. It is amazing.

"When was the beginning? When my father met my mother, and lost his heart, and chose to wed for love? Or was it when I was born? I should have been the seventh son of a seventh son, but the goddess was playing tricks, and I was a girl." {page 4}

If you've ever heard the fairy tale about the girl who's brothers are turned into swans (sometimes ravens) and she has to stay silent and weave clothing for them for a number of years to save them, this is the story. But amplified, intensified, romanticized, and epic-ized to the power of ten.
It's strong, beautiful, epic, thrilling, and heartbreaking.

The writing is lush and beautiful, and the books that follow are similar in their wonderful details, even if they don't come nearly as close to the amazingness that is this first one.

"I have spoken of the keep where my family lived, a stark stone tower set deep in the forests, its walls pierced here and there by narrow window slits. Its courtyard, its hedges, its kitchen garden did little to soften the grim profile. But there was more to Sevenwaters than this. Without our walled fields, our thatched barns to house herd and flock over winter, our gardens with their rows of carrots, parsnips, and beans, our mill and our straw-rope granaries, we could not have survived in such isolation." {page 45}

The story starts off following the character as a child, and I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but after a few chapters, things pick up quickly, and once they do, events unfold quite suddenly and the intensity spikes like crazy.
This book will make you cry and scream and also, very strangely, make you want to stay very, very quiet.

"'But remember, you must not make a sound, you must not tell your tale, even to them, or they will be swans forever. The task will be long, Sorcha.'" {page 154}

At every moment, my heart ached for Sorcha, the beautiful storyteller, sworn to desperate silence. I was so invested in her strong, silent struggle that when someone interuppted my reading, I'd just stare at them for long moments, trying to regain my bearings in the real world, and having to remind myself that I could speak.

"As for me, I could hardly imagine a life without my brothers, for they had always been there, sometimes kind, sometimes gruff, always ready to help when I was in trouble. They were a part of me, and I of them. Now I was alone, and I must manage without them, for to fail in this task was to lose them forever." {page 157}

Watching Sorcha navigate through her test, her pains (which are, several times, very intense- you have been warned), and the entire struggle of it all was epic and wonderful and I couldn't even describe how much I loved it. Though, obviously, I'm using the words epic and amazing a lot; so there's that.
Even the romance was unexpected. Unlike many female-driven adventures, there is not a set, obvious love interest, and that was a little more beautiful for me as well. It sweeps you off your feet and makes it all the more intense.

"There was a pause. Perhaps only I knew how he used it to marshal his thoughts, to force his breathing to be slow and steady, to draw deep on his will so his voice remained confident. For the others, it was still just a tale, like all the tales we told, night by night, tales comical and strange, tales heroic and awe-inspiring, the tales that formed the fabric of our spirits." {page 526}

This is, by far, on my list of favorite books in all of the books I've ever read. And next to Kushiel's Dart, it's the most amazing epic adventure I've fallen in love with.

Worth reading? Holy. Frack. Yes.

See Also: Beautiful Reading Label

Nothing So Difficult

Beautiful Books :: A Certain Slant of Light

Beautiful Books :: A Certain Slant of Light

by Laura Whitcomb

I'm going to be lazy, here, and use my GoodReads review from this, with some lovely quotes added in.

I was really surprised by this book. I came in with no expectations whatsoever. I knew (assumed) it was teen fiction and about ghosts...it seemed. But I'm a sucker for pretty covers and I'd seen some buzz about this one, so I snatched it up when I saw it at the library.

"I was too fascinated to be afraid now. Everything was astounding. Being touched. Smelling people, their sweat, and perfume, and even the soap they used to wash their clothes as they gave me hugs goodbye. The power of all those eyes, shining right into mine. The weight of things, like punch in the cup. The weight of me as I stood and moved. I was lightheaded with curiosity. I wanted to run and sing and walk down a street where people would turn a shoulder to pass without colliding into me." [120]

I kind of loved it. It's not actually about teenagers, since the "ghosts" involved were in their late twenties when they died, which I think gives it some extra depth, but it also deals with some very normal, realistic teen problems that were pretty believable.

"I couldn't take my eyes off him. Like a dessert wanderer afraid of mirages, I gazed at my oasis, but he was real." [21]

The writing was very pretty, and I love overly descriptive prose, so that was perfect. Plus it had a nice blend of times that was also pretty believable, melding old and new.

"As light dappled across the forest of faces, I could watch them create inside their hearts each a different story from the same images. It was a shame the way modern movies smothered their stories with songs and loaded every moment with noises and words. Little was left to the imagination." [91]

I was very surprised by how much the story pulled me in, keeping me up late night after night to finish. It wasn't so intensely emotional that I cried at any point (I usually on cry when there's an epic scale involved, sorry), but I was definitely invested.

Another point that I liked was that although this does deal with a concept of heaven and hell, I was delighted by the idea that **SPOILER, sort of** escaping hell had little to do with forgiveness from "God", and pretty much everything to do with forgiveness from yourself, which was lovely.

Definitely enjoyed it, although some of that might be from my "no expectations" beginning. Still, very nice, very pretty. Worth reading.

Beautiful Books - Paint it Black.

Paint It Black

by Janet Fitch

I didn't like this book at first. It was pretty but long and drawn out. Emotional, but not really sad for me; it jumped into a pool of this girl's misery, without really taking me on the beginning of the ride first. I didn't have an emotional connection. I got bored.
But I loved White Oleander, which is by the same author. So when I sat down to really get reading this year, I picked it back up.
I didn't regret it.

"People thought beauty was bullshit, just a Band-aid slapped over the abyss, but they couldn't be more wrong. It was like Lola Lola had said, beauty mattered, it was the only thing that fed you when everything else turned to shit."

It turned out to be an interesting mixture of really beautiful writing with a story/character that went up and down in my approval. Sometimes she was interesting and complex, other times she was whiney, self-obsessed, and too worried about what other people thought.

By the end, I was eager to know what would happen, and though I was disappointed in some ways, it was still a pretty good book. Very pretty writing, very emotional and in depth. 

Also, really made me want to make mint tea all the time. And I did, actually, a lot, for a while.

Which, by the way, is amazingly easy to make. Take mint, give it a rough chop/tear, and throw it in a tea pot with hot water. Sweeten lightly and drink in an adorable tea cup. So yummy.

"Through the tall windows, camellia bushes twenty feet high strained noon's passage with their winter green. They were so old they had grown into trees, bearing white flowers, a few of which floated in a crystal bowl on the table. This was all she wanted, to be allowed to lie still and drift and listen to Debussy, hidden away from the clear light of day that stood you against a wall and frisked you like a cop. A little softness was all she asked for. A stopped clock."

Overall a very emotional book, beautiful in it's descriptions and raw feeling. Wether or not I liked the story itself is a little less clear, but I can say with certainty that it was very pretty.

Related Posts: Beautiful Books :: White Oleander

Beautiful Reading :: Wasteland

Book: Wasteland
By: Francesca Lia Block

"But the way I saw you was pieces refracting the light, shifting into an infinite universe of flowers and rainbows and insects and planets, magical dividing cells, pictures no one else knew."

-pg 4

I've only gotten half way through this book, and I'm still a little confused about it, but the words are still beautiful, just like FLB books tend to be. Like the quote above, images of light and music and the world around the characters, Marina, Lex, and West.
From what I've read in reviews, the story is a blend of a (controversial) romantic relationship between siblings Lex and Marina. From what I've read, this story falls behind, mentioned, implied, and described through the strange, building relationship between the two. But it's not the primary focus, which actually seems to be Lex's untimely, mysterious death, and classmate West's attempts to help Marina get through it.

"You remember the ones who die when you're a kid. You remember them because it's so out of control and it reminds you that it's not just old people even though you feel in a million years nothing could happen to you."
-pg 30

Like I said, I'm only half way through, and the plot is a definitely a little confusing, the point of view and timeline changing often, making it hard sometimes to tell what is going on, who is talking, and when it's happening. I'm thinking this may work better on a second reading, after I've been through the text and soaked in the story.
But the emotion is raw and beautiful, and the descriptions, as would be expected, are amazing. I'm not sure this will be among my favorite FLB books, but I definitely won't regret it, turning each page with a solemn ache in my heart for Marina's pain.

"My mind is like the Valley- this vast barren waste. Car lots. Malls.  Tract homes. I know there are other worlds beyond it-- of canyons full of coyote and monarch butterflies, squirrels, bunnies, purple and yellow wildflowers, of magical boulevards lined with palatial movie theaters and movie-star haunted mansions, of parks and palms and palisades, especially, especially, especially of the ocean, where it all ends and everything begins."

-pg 11

PS.

Are you ready for Christmas? If not an Xmas person, what other Holidays do you celebrate this time of year?

Wednesday

The wind is so cold it's like ice is caressing my face and pulling at my clothes. I pass the days without work, which are many this month, reading a girl's journey through the world without hope, written in beauty.

My Bible has lain stagnant, but I'm working to renew my inspiration and fill it with beauty and hope and life.

My totems are a pair of pink striped plastic heart earrings, a delicate silver heart necklace a family friend gave me a long time ago (to remind me to love myself), and a TokiDoki heart and crossbones necklace Dan gave me for my birthday (to remind me that I am loved by others).

College is officially done, and I have no desire to return in the coming years for a higher degree. Two bachelor's degrees are adequate for now.
But jobs aren't easy to come by, and without proper connections I can't imagine getting a real (good) job in the publishing world.
I'm looking though, and there are days when I come very close to praying to the gods I don't believe in.

I got two new FLB books this week. One-- Blood Roses-- bought off Amazon after a few weeks of considering, the other-- Wasteland-- stumbled upon at the local used bookstore. With the temperature creeping in through the foggy windows and nothing much else to do but clean, I'm sure I'll have them done soon.

Christmas is coming, and all of my presents are bought except for Dan's. The simple act of wrapping colored paper around boxes and books makes me feel busy and artistic and wonderful. I'd wrap everything in shiny paper and plastic bows if I could.
Every time I glance around my bland, beige apartment I consider buying more christmas lights-- some to string across the walls and wrap around the lamps like little colored reminders of theoretical happiness. But just the idea of going out into the night's 18 degree weather makes me curl up into a ball and go back to my books.

It's strange being content, yet still unhappy. Something about the world, or myself, right now leaves me unsatisfied
I want to write a new list of "How to Be Happy", a winter edition that takes into account frigid gusts of wind and foamy cups of cocoa and hot buttered rum. Lovers and Puppies cuddled on the couch, hiding from the cold.

"Just like any woman,...we weave our stories out of our bodies. Some of us through our children, or our art; some do it just by living. It's all the same.."               ~Francesca Lia Block

Beautiful Reading :: White Oleander

Book: White Oleander
By : Janet Fitch

"...I felt the warmth that flowers must feel when they bloom through the snow, under the first concentrated rays of the sun" (pg 7).

White Oleander is about a girl named Astrid who's beautiful mother is sent to jail for murder, leaving Astrid to fend for herself through miserable foster home after foster home. She bounces from place to place, always stuck in situations that lead to pain (physical-- like being shot in the hip, and mental-- like being abandoned) and deeper and deeper misery.

The writing is amazing. Descriptions and images that wrap you up in stars and make the world disappear around you, leaving you spiraling through constellations.

"I was afraid she would fly away, and I would end up alone, living in some place where there were too many children, too many smells, where beauty and silence and the intoxication of her words rising in the air would be as far away as Saturn" (pg 10).

Astrid's mother, Ingrid, raises her to value beauty above everything else, to be strong and proud and independent. When she's sent away, Astrid is only 12, and it's up to her to maneuver her way through foster homes and strange new environments.

"Beauty was my mother's law, her religion. You could do anything you wanted, as long as you were beautiful, as long as you did things beautifully" (pg 11).

There is an awkward romantic relationship between 14 year old Astrid and a man in his 50's (who, in the movie, was much younger and more handsome than his original counterpart), and a few sex scenes that are a bit more than beautiful, but other than that, I've found the book to be amazing. Everything is written so beautifully, and the world around her is written with such grace that I actually savor the pages.
I'm only just barely half way through, but as soon as I finish I will jump to find another book by the author. Her descriptions could go toe to toe with almost any Francesca Lia Block story (although food is decidedly absent most of the time) and the raw emotion in the story feels quiet but real.

"In the shade in the front of the house next door, our elegant neighbor was cutting some lily of the Nile, the same color as the jacaranda bloom. She was barefoot in a simple dress, and her feet and the palms of her hands showed pale pink against her burnt caramel skin. They looked ornamental, as if she came from a place where women dipped hands and feet in pink powder. She didn't smile. She was wholly absorbed in her shears, clipping a stem of rosemary, a stem of mint, in the dappled light and shade. A fallen jacaranda bloom clung to her dark hair, which was up in a careless French twist. I loved that one stray blossom" (pg 139).

Chronicle Haul- Comment for a chance to win!

Chronicle Books is doing a contest! Basically, one blogger (along with one of their commenting readers) can win $500 worth of books!
((omgosh pleeeeease me!))
Click the images to go to their Chronicle webpages.

Look HERE for details, and leave a comment for a chance to win with me!

Here's my wishlist haul:

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies :: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

tea & crumpets

Eat Me:: A Food Journal

Places To Check Out : Travel Journal

Moleskin 2011 Large Planner

Audrey Hepburn: International Cover Girl

Bitten: Dark Erotic Story Collections 

(FLB inside!)

Noodles Every Day Cookbook

Korean Cooking

Let's Cook Japanese Food!

Dim Sum : A Pocket Guide

1,001 Ways to Live in the Moment

Food Fight Trivia Game

Ultimate Bar Book : Over 1,000 Cocktails

Moleskine Folio Ruled Book A4

Moleskin Recipes Book Journal

Moleskin Passions Book Journal

Extra Large Plain Moleskine Volant Notebook/ Blue

New York Guide

A Year in Japan

DIY Fashion

Origami Craft Pad

I'm going to stop there; I'm exhausted!

Grand Total: $400.05

*deeeep breath*

Wish me luck!!

<3