June 13, 2013 · 9:54 am

High School as Hell: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This summer, I’m taking time to do something I should have done a long time ago: watch “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” I know, I know, I’m way behind on this one. The first season came out in 1997, when I was not cool enough to watch amazing television, apparently.

So I’m making up for lost time, thanks to the wonders of Netflix and the ability to binge-watch shows.

Years ago–probably when everyone else was busy watching good TV–I remember hearing Joss Whedon say his vampire-slaying, demon-fighting, world-saving show was actually about normal high school drama. I remember smirking and being all “pssh, whatevs. The only vampires in my high school are teachers who suck out our lives with too much homework.”

Well, Mr. Whedon, I finally get it, and I apologize for my teenaged smart-aleck sass. This show really IS about high school being hell. For every vampire-related monster-of-the-week catastrophe, Whedon folded in some kind of completely normal high school problem.

So, to distract me from the crop tops I’m developing an unnatural desire for thanks to this show, I’ve made a list. For your viewing pleasure, this is all the episodes of the first season; the monster story and it’s real-world allegory.

  1. “Welcome to the Hellmouth”– discovering a den of vampires/being the new girl at school
  2. “The Harvest”- group of vampires have some kind of prophecy/making friends
  3. “Witch”– body-snatching voodoo-working witch/dealing with parental expectations and fitting in
  4. “Teacher’s Pet”– teacher eaten by a mantis monster/struggling with schoolwork
  5. “Never Kill a Boy on the First Date”– pack of vampires are after you/struggling to balance dating vs. friendships
  6. “The Pack”-demonic hyenas eat the principal/changing friend groups and dealing with bullying
  7. “Angel”-falling for a vampire who claims he no longer feeds/developing a crush on and trusting a “bad boy”
  8. “I, Robot…You, Jane”– internet demon bent on taking over the world/online dating and the obsessive use of computers (guilty!)
  9. “The Puppet Show”– being bullied by your ventriloquist dummy/stage fright and mandatory school participation activities
  10. “Nightmares”– nightmares become literally real/test anxiety and fear of abandonment because of parents’ divorce
  11. “Out of Mind, Out of Sight”– invisible girl on a rampage/cliques and feeling like an outsider
  12. “Prophecy Girl”– fear of a deadly prophecy/not having a date to the big dance

Crop tops! So many crop tops! And ugly sweaters for Xander. At least Willow is *supposed* to look kinda dorky.

Not only is watching this show a lot of fun, it’s been helpful to remember these kinds of teen pressures as I start a YA story. I’m not much older than the YA audience, but those years might as well be decades in terms of how my priorities have changed (and hormones settled down!).

It’s also great to see a master creator like Joss Whedon develop his work. I’m a familiar Whedon-ite by now, and he was certainly already good in the Buffy days, but this show isn’t as developed from the get-go as some of his work. It’s nice to know that even the pros can learn and grow.

It’s also a helpful reminder that no great story is just about the surface level. If Buffy were really about slaying vampires–and only that–I wouldn’t be looking forward to season two. But there’s a lot of emotional depth beneath each monster fight because of this “high school as hell” subtext. Sure, she may be in a fistfight with an invisible girl, but really she’s dealing with feelings of loneliness and isolation. And I’m not much of a fighter, but I can relate to feeling invisible.

I look forward to the rest of the show!

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June 11, 2013 · 10:36 am

The Grammarian’s Five Daughters

I found this fabulous short story that uses a fairy tale/fable structure to examine the values of different types of words. It’s beautiful.

Once there was a grammarian who lived in a great city that no longer exists, so we don’t have to name it. Although she was learned and industrious and had a house full of books, she did not prosper. To make the situation worse, she had five daughters. Her husband, a diligent scholar with no head for business, died soon after the fifth daughter was born, and the grammarian had to raise them alone. It was a struggle, but she managed to give each an adequate education, though a dowry — essential in the grammarian’s culture — was impossible. There was no way for her daughters to marry. They would become old maids, eking (their mother thought) a miserable living as scribes in the city market. The grammarian fretted and worried, until the oldest daughter was fifteen years old.

Then the girl came to her mother and said, “You can’t possibly support me, along with my sisters. Give me what you can, and I’ll go out and seek my fortune. No matter what happens, you’ll have one less mouth to feed.”

The mother thought for a while, then produced a bag. “In here are nouns, which I consider the solid core and treasure of language. I give them to you because you’re the oldest. Take them and do what you can with them.”…

I’ll let you find out what happens next, but do go read it. It’s delightful.

It made me wish there was a similar story about punctuation. Maybe there is! I’m a fan of the way commas herd words together in small-but-appropriate-sized bunches, and the way periods are always there to give us a break. The interrobang (?!) is rare but mighty, and apostrophes help us cut the crap.

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June 10, 2013 · 3:33 am

Review: My So-Called Freelance Life

My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for HireMy So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire by Michelle Goodman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you are considering a freelance gig–full-time or part-time, and especially if it’s in a creative field–pick up this book. Goodman leverages her extensive background as a freelance writer and editor to explain the tricky points of starting your own business, and does it all in a friendly girl-next-door tone that is reassuring despite a sometimes-stressful topic.

The book is divided into three parts: Initial set-up (“You Fled the Cube, Now What?”), Getting Ahead (“Sell, Baby, Sell”), and general topics (“Your So-Called Freelance Life”), and each part is divided into chapters on particular topics, like setting your price or figuring out insurance. And she covers a lot–despite the fluffy fun title, starting your own business is serious work, and Goodman reflects that. She offers practical advice, a trove of books and online resources, real anecdotes from freelancers of all stripes, and some wit along the way.

It’s not just for creative professionals, and Goodman does a great job of creating examples for people of all industries–for example, in a section about why you might want to go freelance and still be able to pay the bills, she says “More often than not, your breadwinning work will help you fuel your enthusiasm for the screenplay, crocheted handbags, or life-size ceramic replica of Margaret Cho you’re chipping away at on the side.”

Interestingly, this book IS targeted to women freelancers, something I guess I was supposed to assume from the cover’s pink writing but honestly surprised me when I realized it 20 pages in. Nothing about the front or back cover (except the pink) says this is a no-boys-allowed book, and I don’t think it really needs to be. Despite the occasional mention of things that are slightly gendered, like childcare, I think a man starting out on his own would benefit from Goodman’s sound advice as much as any woman. (I’m pretty sure the IRS doesn’t come after female freelancers only, if you know what I mean).

While it does claim to help freelancers from the beginning up, I’m not sure it quite does. I would have liked to see a whole chapter related to “getting your business started,” beyond the nuts-and-bolts “what do I charge?”-type questions. Though she mentions that all freelancers she knows have taken some kind of temp job to support their freelancing, she doesn’t really explain, and you don’t get a sense of the reality of the beginning of a business except through cobbled-together snippets scattered throughout. While the chapter on time management (at the end of the book–I had to skip ahead and read it sooner because it felt pretty urgent to me) might help a phone-always-ringing professional like Goodman, it doesn’t offer much for a newbie, so you’re more or less on your own there.

Similarly, I plan on picking this reference up again as topics become more relevant to me: protection against lawsuits isn’t at the top of my list when I’m still figuring out if getting a business card is worth it.

Overall, this was a very helpful and inspiring book and I’m glad I found it before I got my editing business off the ground.

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Video

Grammar for Foodies

If you are what you eat, make sure you’ve got a healthy diet of good grammar.

 

Or something like that. …Cookies sound tasty…

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June 8, 2013 · 10:09 am
June 6, 2013 · 10:20 am

Small-town Girl, Livin’ in a Lonely World

First, go ahead and get the song good and stuck in your head. You know you want to.

Now that that’s taken care of, keep clickin’ and read this great list of the appeal of small towns as settings for a story. Basically, in summary, small towns:

  • Harbor undercurrents of deep emotion
  • Have lots of secrets (because anything that’s not a secret is common knowledge)
  • Are really interconnected
  • Are friendly but also distant toward new folks
  • Are an easy snapshot every reader has built-in
  • Have a limited number of suspects but lots of motives*

*I suspect the last part is why “Murder, She Wrote” worked so well!

I think this is a great post, but these things extend not just to a small town, but to any small community. I grew up in a big suburb, but it might as well have been a town of 200 because everyone at my church knew everything that was going on (or that they assumed was going on), and you couldn’t get away with anything. High school is often the same way; you’ve got a small population that is heavily involved in itself. (I’m finally watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and you can always tell when someone is going to die because they’re a new person to the cast for that episode.)

I did live in a small town, or two, and I think this list did leave a few things out. Small towns often:

  • Aren’t up-to-date on current trends (in other words, are “a little bubble of the past”)
  • Don’t have as many resources
  • Are small for a reason
  • The pace is slower, but the emotional stakes are higher

My observations have a lot less to do with people than Elizabeth’s, but can really inform the world and the options available. Unless it’s a really big crisis, the CIA aren’t likely to come to a small town in Wisconsin; the people there are just gonna have to handle their problems themselves, and they probably like it that way.

What is unique about your setting? What made you choose that place for your story?

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June 4, 2013 · 9:17 pm

What’s the Diff? Past vs. Passed

A quick visit from your friendly neighborhood grammarian, here today to explain an easy mistake that spellcheck won’t discover!

Past vs. Passed

As with many homophones–words that sound the same but mean different things and are spelled differently–it’s easy for your brain to say “past” and your fingers to helpfully write “passed.”

Quick reminder: Past means “things that happened before” (as in not the present nor the future); or nearby, as in “beyond”; or sometimes, “to be on the further side of”

Passed, on the other hand, can mean the opposite of failing on a test; the past tense of “to pass,” as in “to have gone by previously”

The definition you want will help make it clear which of the two you need.

Examples:

He passed his very important test. He was glad it was now in his past. In the first part, he did not fail the test, but got good marks (passed). The second sentence is about when the test took place; it is no longer in the future or the present (past).

Joanna walked past Betsy, refusing even to look at her; she passed her right by. Betsy, in return, looked right past Joanna.
Joanna walked on the other side of (past) Betsy, and she did it previously (she passed), so that sentence needs both words. Betsy uses a different meaning to look beyond (past), rather than at, Joanna.

Moving from the future into the past, time passed.
This might seem tricky, because both uses involve time, but it’s not so bad. The name we use for time that has already happened (the past) is the place that time, as a noun–that is, as a thing–is moving toward, so in this case it went by previously (passed).

 

So when you’re looking at a statement like “The black cat walked ____ Bryce,” how do you know which to use?

Look at the definitions, and try to fit one in.
-thing that happened before (past)
-nearby (past)
-to the other side of (past)
-to pass a test (passed)
-went by previously (passed)

“The black cat walked nearby Bryce.” The word you need is therefore past.

If the sentence were instead “The orange cat _____ Bryce,” the word “nearby” no longer fits. Now, “went by previously” is a better fit–“The orange cat previously went by Bryce.” That orange cat just passed him.

 

This can be tricky because your spellcheck won’t pick up on this mistake, so look over your text carefully to figure out which word you really need.

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May 31, 2013 · 10:30 am

Oxford Comma: What is it, and how do I use it?

I’ve had a lot of book reviews lately; sorry about that! I’ve gotten a lot of reading done lately, and that doesn’t even include my recent re-reading (via audiobook) of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as read by Stephen Fry (short version: it’s great!).

But a friend today was moaning over people who didn’t understand the merits of the Oxford comma, and I said “Aha!” When I worked in newspapers, I never used the Oxford comma–and I may have even snubbed my nose at it a time or two (it’s true! Forgive me!). But when I worked in academia, it was required, and I came to love that little bugger.

The Oxford comma confuses people, but it’s actually very simple: When making a list, include a comma before the “and” in front of the final list item. Example: “Buy apples, oranges, and bananas.” The sweet little comma between “oranges” and “and”? That’s the Oxford comma.

Some people don’t use the Oxford comma–AP style, used by media organizations, rejects it–and that’s fine, most of the time. As long as the list still makes sense, it’s ok to drop it. The list “Buy apples, oranges and bananas” still makes sense without the Oxford comma! As long as you are consistent in your non-use of that third comma, you’re fine.

Except.

Sometimes you really do need that last comma for the sentence to make sense.

This fun little graphic does a good job explaining it:

If you don’t get it at first, read the second version aloud, pausing to take a breath at the comma.

But this is my absolute favorite visual explanation of the Oxford comma. It’s… a little less safe-for-all-audiences.

This has floated around the internet so much, I have no idea of the original source. Whoever you are, thank you! This is my favorite grammar comic of all time.

Strippers JFK and Stalin are just so fabulous.

Anyway, that’s the gist of the Oxford comma. Use it to make your writing clearer, or use it all the time, if you like. It’s just a helpful little tool to keep your lists organized.

And if you need some advanced grammar or style help, you can always hire a pro.

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May 30, 2013 · 9:32 pm

Review: The Year of the Flood

The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam Trilogy, #2)The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Once again, Atwood demonstrates her incredible command of language as well as her abilities with speculative fiction with The Year of the Flood, a not-quite-sequel to Oryx and Crake (and presumably a not-quite-prequel to MaddAddam, which comes out in September). They’re all based in the same destroyed Earth, and some characters overlap, but the stories could potentially be read as stand-alone pieces.

The Year of the Flood follows two survivors of “The Waterless Flood,” a global pandemic that has wiped out most, if not all, of humanity. The two women, Ren and Toby, independently survive with luck, flexibility to circumstance, and their shared background in God’s Gardeners, an environmentalist cult that had predicted some kind of human-ending “flood” and preached that their believers would be the ones to populate and tend the “new Eden” to come.

Not only is The Year of the Flood an intriguing story, it also is a warning: about caring for our environment, treating our food sources with respect, the dangers of the growth of megacorps and the privatization of public entities, genetic modification, experimentation divorcing from ethics, and the divide between rich and poor. (All that, and probably a bit more, really is in this book. If you are a huge fan of processed chicken and cutting down trees, this really isn’t the book for you–or is, if you don’t mind changing your habits.)

Atwood’s extensive research shines when it comes to God’s Gardeners. Rather than traditional saints, the Gardeners have environmentalists, famous and lesser-known, as their totems. Atwood, through Gardener leader Adam One, creates sermons dedicated to some of these environmentalist saints, weaving the events of the novel in with the history of the real-world environmentalists. She even includes hymns written for these holy days–and you can buy the CD on her website.

She has also clearly done research on plant-based remedies, beekeeping (I wonder if she and Neil Gaiman bond over that?), general plant care, and endangered species. (Side note: I sort of hope the twisted-but-awesome “Extinctathon” game she included in the book becomes real some day, though I hope far fewer real animals get added to the list).

Her world-building is nothing short of epic…but that made the problems I saw all the more jarring.

(Spoilers below)

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May 28, 2013 · 9:58 pm

Review: The Inner Circle

The Inner CircleThe Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I listened to this book as an audiobook, and that may have affected my perception of it. I really wanted to like it–I loved the overarching mystery, and Meltzer clearly knows his stuff when it comes to little-known White House/Washington, D.C., history. But for every point in which he awed me with delicately folded in historical detail, there were two points where he had characters speaking or acting clunkily.
I mean, I know there needs to be an explanatory character in a mystery, just in case the audience really doesn’t get it, but characters who are otherwise repeatedly heralded as really smart cookies end up acting like total morons, with no apparent rational behind it. Additionally–and maybe this was just because of the audiobook that it stuck out more–but Meltzer uses the phrase “eyes locked” a gazillion times (I started counting, but the number got too big for me). Build the drama with another phrase, please!

As a writer, I found the unusual use of tense to tell the story very interesting: the main character speaks in present tense, while every other characters’ perspective is told in past tense. It took awhile to get used to, but ultimately allowed the reader (listener) to bond a bit more with Beacher, the lead character, while allowing Meltzer to continue with a broader omniscient view.

It was a great way to pass about 12 hours in a road trip, especially because I didn’t mind dozing through the stupid or boring bits. I feel like I know a lot more about the National Archive, and I loved the idea of a quiet detail-oriented archivist finding himself in the midst of a dangerous political intrigue–it just didn’t quite come together for me. I would recommend this book if you’re looking for a light political mystery and are a huge history nerd, but I won’t be giving the sequel my attention.

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May 23, 2013 · 11:15 am

Beyond the Great Beyond

What happens after we die?

Depending on your background, you will have a different answer. A biologist may say your body decomposes; you have no life after you are brain dead. A spiritualist may say you return to oneness with nature. A religious person may say you go to heaven (or maybe somewhere else). A zombie aficionado may say “hopefully you stay dead so I don’t have to shoot you in the head.”

But no one really knows for sure.

That’s why I found this article on “Consciousness After Death” so incredibly fascinating. A doctor and researcher specializes in bringing people back to life after their hearts stop. And sometimes, they say they’ve heard and seen things that defy the understanding of science.

The article says:

At the same time, experiences reported by resuscitated people sometimes defy what’s thought to be possible. They claim to have seen and heard things, though activity in their brains appears to have stopped.

It sounds supernatural, and if their memories are accurate and their brains really have stopped, it’s neurologically inexplicable, at least with what’s now known.

Chills, right? I mean, this whole idea sounds like it’s straight out of science fiction (and it inspires a good bit of science fiction, too). But these are real doctors, real researchers.

This is part of the reason I’m so inspired by science fiction. It’s the genre that best blends the line between real and fiction, in a way that fantasy just couldn’t. I mean, when 50,000 Leagues Under the Sea was published, no one thought we might one day actually have ships that could travel under the water and discover massive squid. There’s this fantastic interplay between fiction and reality, this great chicken-egg situation, that is so exciting.

But back to the article. What do you think: is there something beyond the electric activity in our neurons, something that sticks around after we die?

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