whoot

Thanksgiving, et cetera

Well, I'm not going shopping today, except for a little Christmas tree from eBay. The last of the leaves have finally fled, and the whole world is gray outside. Matt, on the other hand, is hitting the malls, since he's much better than I at braving crowds in the name of savings.

Thankgiving was very nice, and quiet, since there were only five of us around: Matt, Atanu, Philip, and I, along with Choo Choo, the adorable, incredibly polite shelter mutt whom Atanu is dog-sitting for someone in his department. Having Choo Choo around really made Marion Street feel like a home, which is sad because they're not allowed to have pets. The turkey came out well, and the stuffing even better. I think we all have a lot to be thankful for this year.

Speaking of thankful, here is a video of a very thankful penguin:



I have definitely felt that way before.

nostalgia, or the opposite?

Why does looking at old photographs make me so sad?

Ahahaha

Ha ha ha.

worst line of NaNo yet

In her head, Maddey thought of myriad possibilities that seemed to branch out like branches from a tree.

I...I can't believe that came from my brain...Gah I hate my novel. ><;

Girls just want to be lovesick?

Note: If I've been posting a lot lately, it's mostly to avoid working on my disaster of a novel.

If you've been in a bookstore lately, you've surely seen the glossy cardboard ad-stands in black, red, and white. A cursory glance will tell you three things about the Twilight series, by Stephanie Meyer. It's dark fantasy, it's being made into a movie, and it's massively popular. Basically it is about a high school girl who falls in love with a vampire, and it is a huge phenomenon that arose completely unbeknownst to me, which makes me feel somewhat out of touch. Girls are reading it by the millions. But I have never read any of these books, and I don't plan on it. Many critics compare the appeal of Twilight to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and suggest its popularity could grow to Potter proportions. However, having read the above article, it disappoints me that something like this could be the next Harry Potter. Why? Because it represents a huge step backward for girls' search for fantastical role models.

As a fantasy fan who has often had to latch onto male protagonists to get my fix of inner conflict and peril, I like the idea of girls having a main character (who is not a princess) that they can roleplay without gender bending. As we speak, I am trying to write an ordinary young heroine who captures the same kind of je ne sais quoi that attracts me to young male leads. Unfortunately, Twilight's Bella Swan is really a lame heroine. LAME, I say. Here's why.
The whole premise of the book is based on Bella's obsessive love for Edward the vampire, who, despite being immortal, gorgeous, and brilliant with two Harvard degrees, is posing as a student at her high school. Worse, Bella is, as we fiction writers say, a Mary Sue -- devoid of personality, she was designed for reader self-insertion, a pair of empty shoes. The effect of this is that every reader, and the writer as well, places themselves in the position of an adoring girl swooning over this perfect (if undead) man. It seems profoundly anti-feminist in a way that even those fantasy sagas with few female characters are not. Eowyn and Galadriel, the only strong women in Tolkien's LotR (Arwen's heroism being largely a movie creation), would scoff at the LAME.

Compare Bella to Buffy. From what I've seen of Buffy, she, not the vampires she battled after school, was the main attraction. She was awesome. Yes, she fell in love with a vampire too, but the point was that she was a born slayer with inherent powers that set her up for internal conflict as well as just being kickass. However vapid the series could become at times, none would argue with the fact that Buffy exemplified a strong heroine girls could -- and did -- want to be.

Girls want to be Bella Swan, too. But why? I'm not saying Bella has to have magic powers or something to be worthwhile. But I have a feeling that if I read Twilight, even as a goth-leaning fifteen-year old, I would not be able to relate to Bella. Ironically, even though her void character is deliberately written to be a stand-in, I don't think I could do it. So maybe it's just me -- can I somehow not relate to an ordinary girl? It's not as though there have not been female characters whom I identify with. In Harry Potter, though Harry's story arc naturally resonated the most with me, I personally was able to identify equally with Hermione Granger, who impressed me by being a nerdy know-it-all who was nevertheless primarily defined by her daring rather than her smarts. This is no small feat. And Lyra Belacqua, an ordinary girl at the start of Phillip Pullman's Golden Compass is wonderful and drew me in immediately. There were the American Girls. And don't forget Disney's Belle, who originally was motivated not by desire for a man, but by longing for adventure and escape, as well as devotion to her father.

But from what I've seen of Twilight, Bella is no Belle, and she's certainly no Hermione. Yet apparently, most teen girls want to be her, which really just means they want to be loved and protected by the creepily perfect Edward. Does anyone else find this disturbing? Twilight at its core is neither fantasy nor horror, but romance. It bothers me that millions of teen and pre-teen girls are obsessing over romance novels, especially ones that seem so devoid of original interpretations of gender roles. I'm starting to sound like a militant feminist now, which is hilarious. That's how annoying these books are to me.

Nothing against romantic love, of course. We know how I feel about this subject, don't we? For that matter, I don't have anything against romance-centric fiction; I've even written some of it myself over the years, featuring characters who are by no means mine to feature in such a manner (my sincerest apologies to their creators). I would have no issue with these books if it weren't for the tremendous hype around them. Many romances, I'm sure, are much worse. It's just that the minds of girls are being led into a fantasy world in which their primary existence for being is to love this unrealistic male ideal. As an alternative to Hannah Montana and High School Musical, Twilight seems aesthetically appealing. But is it any more empowering? The message of Twilight's mass popularity seems to be that the ultimate thing a typical girl wants is the perfect man. Not saving the world. Being adored by Mr. Popularity.

Ew.

I really dislike my new novel this year. It is hard to explain why. For one, it is a story that has been ripening in my head for over four years now, ever since my first dig. Although this makes the plot easier to get down on the page, it definitely feels stale. I'm not obsessed with it, and the characters do not live in my mind the way I had hoped they would. Constantly I am hit by flashes of other stories I could be writing that speak to the aesthetics that currently inspire me. This work is not a work of my soul. It feels, far more than the last, like schoolwork. Not the least because it concerns archaeology, and because it dredges up a time in my life in which I was unhappy. Even though the story is light and intended for young readers, which was refreshing at first, it does weigh me down, and I find it lacks the sense of whimsy and wonder necessary in children's literature. I am still a day behind, grasping blindly towards the 25,000 word mark. This is supposed to be the hardest part of the month for everyone, so hopefully once I pass 30k things will have become easier again. It was very easy at the beginning of the month. But that does not mean it was any good. I fear I might simply have waited too long to write the thing. I'm determined to finish, though, because if I can't do this now when I could do it last year, then I'm completely useless.

Also, the California fires make me very sad. California has done nothing but disappoint me lately.

It's going to be winter soon. Thoughts of Christmas keep me warm.

Cabinet of curiosities

Would John Kerry or Hillary Clinton make a better Secretary of State? I think Kerry is more qualified, I guess. Both of them deserve something for all the work they did to pave the way for Obama. We won't miss either of them in the Senate, since Massachusetts and New York are only gong to put up more Democratic candidates.

And what is this I hear about bailing out the auto industry? Um...no. When an industry ignores the public good for so long, as American cars have done with their disregard for mileage standards, it's their own fault if they get left in the dust. Notice Toyota is doing fine. Finance is a special case, but why is it the government's job to make sure GM stays afloat? I guess to save jobs, which I can support, but still. Am I and my paltry understanding of economics wrong about this?

Whatever, news. I'm going running.

Things I need to do

1. Sleep at night, write in the morning (not vice versa!)
2. Eat less sugar
3. Stop watching cat video

heeeeee

November November

I just got back from a NaNo write-in at our local ABP, where I saw some familiar faces over pumpkin soup in a bread bowl. Good times. I finally crossed the threshold of 20,000 words, and the more important one of hating my novel and moving forward anyway. It's hard for a language-driven, introspective soul like me to write a plot-driven story. Luckily, when I ran out of ideas my characters pulled some unexpected tricks and got the narrative ball rolling again. I've basically been exactly one day ahead this whole time, consistently.

I still don't know what I am going to do with my life, but I know that being in love is the most amazing thing.

Further insight into Prop 8

This doesn't change my position about the issue by any means, but it is an interesting perspective I had never even considered. Basically, a black lesbian argues that for most blacks, gay and straight, the marriage issue is largely a white issue; that as a black, one is faced with inequality on so many more urgent fronts that marriage simply seems borderline irrelevant. Rich white gays don't see that because marriage is the only freedom they are being denied.

I don't buy it: just because there are other problems to address regarding racism is no reason to vote to ban gay marriage. By which I mean to take away basic human rights. Gay marriage should be a non-issue by now, and if only we could just accept it and let it go, then activists could direct their attentions toward the other socioeconomic inequalities that plague the state and nation. Ugh. But still, it's interesting.

Obama and the Dawn of the Fourth Age

I knew I was noticing something oddly familiar as I read this article on "The Fourth American Republic". I kept wanting to call it The Fourth Age.

Obviously I am being silly. But not really that silly. It is the beginning of a new era. Obama has probbaly done more for America's international reputation by getting elected than Bush has done in eight years.

But as we all know, Obama will have no time to rest on his laurels. He has inherited a broken world. And closer to home, literally, is the sobering fact that Proposition 8 won. We have work to do.

On a side note, listening to John McCain's concession speech was almost moving. You could see a trace of the old McCain, the one who winced visibly at his supporters' booing when he congratulated Obama. You could tell he knew that when he sold out to the Bush brigade, he let them turn him into something unrecognizable from the man who ran eight years ago. He carries the blame, not Palin, for the train wreck of his campaign. But in that speech I saw him as a tragic figure, fully aware that he has brought upon his own downfall by compromising his integrity. Too bad, John. But in another sense, McCain never stood a chance in the first place. It is Obama's time.

Thank you, America

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

Alright, nation, let's do this.