Story of Paperclippe:

If I’m reading a book, which are at about a standard of 300 pages, give or take, and I find myself about one-third of the way through with no real emotion or curiosity for the rest, I put it down.  I let it go.  It may sound fickle, but there are So Many Books and So Little Time.  Obviously, I’ll give consideration if a book is 700 pages long, and if it’s less than 200 I’ll probably finish it at any rate, having only lost between 1-3 hours on it.

I am (was) reading two books, and feel nothing for them.

The first one is, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, The Black Death by John Hatcher.  As I mentioned before, it’s very dry, and distant, with very little character development.  Now, it’s a history, mostly, and I really like reading flat-out history texts, so I didn’t think that would bother me terribly.

But here’s the thing. The full title of the novel is The Black Death: A Personal History. There’s a five(ish) page preface which is pretty much just Hatcher ranting about how this isn’t just a flat-out history text, and that he wanted to get a story involved.  That there had been enough histories written.

Mr. John Hatcher, you have failed.  I’m sorry.  I’m over 100 pages in, and the facts are great, and the details of how this one tiny English village related to the rest of the world is just splendid, but everyone knows all of that already.  I am over 100 pages in and I. do. not. care. who. lives. or. dies.  And when there are actual, real characters involved, you sort of have to care.

In sum, it’s not a novel.  It’s a strong history, a weak story, and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about any of the characters involved.  So I quit.

The second book on my I Don’t Give a Damn list is An Arsonist’s Guide to Writer’s Homes in New England by Brock Clarke.

I wanted to like this.  I wanted to like this soooo bad.  The title is clever, and it is not a metaphor.  The author’s name is Brock Clarke.  Brock fucking Clarke.  That’s up there with Chuck Norris.  The narrative is clever, it’s witty, it’s a really great picture of a washed-up guy who made some mistakes and is turning his life around, it’s a really fresh look at the idiosyncrasies of suburbian life.

But I’ve read this book before.  It was called A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore, except Arsonist’s Guide lacks all of the fantasy, and… well, okay, the death thing.  But mostly the fantasy.  And the readability.

It tries way too hard.  It feels like it’s going for the joke.  There is so much crammed into one long, whining paragraph that it’s more funny if you skip half of it.  It wants to feel incidental and hap-hazard and it kind of does but not in the good way.  It just feels sad, and you’re constantly embarrassed for this guy, not in a “NO DON’T GO IN THERE” way or a “YOU DIDN’T JUST SAY THAT” way, but a “OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE YES I’VE HEARD THIS BEFORE NO I PROMISE I GET IT PLEASE STOP” way.

It’s on the nose, and the whole point was to be tongue-in-cheek, which is a completely different part of the human face.

So I quit.

Next time! Brisingr by Christopher Paolini!  Would have done it this  time!  But it really didn’t fit the theme of the post!  Because I like it!

If you couldn’t tell from my post about Final Fantasy XIII, you should know that I’m a huge fan of the Final Fantasy game series. But more accurately, I’m really mostly a fan of Final Fantasy VII. My mother bought me the game at the impressionable age of ten (the PC version, how tragic, and also, big mistake Mother) and since then I have logged over 1300 hours on it, bought two different versions of it for PlayStation, own Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, the four CD soundtrack, a Vincent Valentine action figure, a Shin-Ra suit, a Buster Sword (no, really, a real buster sword) the official sheet music book, and a deep and spiteful hatred of Yuffie and an abiding love of Roman numerals. Not to mention I actually lost my voice – completely lost – from screaming so emphatically at Video Games Live when they played One Winged Angel as an encore.

Now, I was surfing the internet, as one with the internet is wont to do, and it struck me that I couldn’t remember the exact year that Final Fantasy VII had come out (I was feeling old, what with there now being THIRTEEN of them, and that’s if you don’t count sequels and games like Kingdom Hearts), so I popped on over to good ol’ Wikipedia to check and see. After discovering the North American PC release (June 24, 1998, the day my life was over), I scrolled through the body of the text, where I saw a little paragraph about the PlayStation III remake of Final Fantasy VII that never was.

Whence I came upon this:

In March 2010, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada stated that they’ll be exploring the possibility of a remake.

If you couldn’t hear that, that was the sound of my fragile heart skipping a beat, my muscles locking, and my bank account groaning, because, well, I don’t OWN a PlayStation III.

And now I have to.

Yes, yes, I know, I know, before we get all up in arms I realize that this is Wikipedia and it did cross my mind that some desperate hopeful like me who based their entire mistrust of the oil industry on the allegory of Mako long before not trusting the oil industry was cool had put that there in the hopes that text on a page would make it true, and then I realized that there was a source. A VALID source, at that. That source being this link to Kotaku. Now, I’ll save you the trouble of reading the link and therefore the idiotic comments by informing you of this second heart-crushing caveat myself: Motomu Toriyama wants to direct this prospective remake.

He directed Final Fantasy XIII.

And it sucked.

In fact, it was like a cheap rip-off of Final Fantasy VII, at least loosely plot-wise, with way too many and far less interesting characters, and, oh, no Vincent Valentine. And Cloud was a broad.

Now, if they get Nobuo Uematsu on board for this one, I’ll probably buy the damned game just for the soundtrack just like I mostly bought Advent Children to see all my favorite characters in a higher resolution, oh, and, Steve Blum (who voiced Vincent and also has done such amazing work as Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop. That man has sooooo much of my money). I’m hoping that the sheer awesomitude of Final Fantasy VII in and of itself will carry this through to being realized and at the same time not sucking. Are my hopes a little more dampened than they were when this dream remake was itself just a fantasy? Perhaps. But knowing that a huge part of my childhood is important to enough people that 12 years later, they’re still continuing, revising, and honoring this story?

It kind of kicks ass.

I am ridiculously vain. I am unabashedly, unashamedly vain. I think I’m hot shit. I have big dark blue eyes and a little chin and soft hair, voluptuous breasts. I love to look at myself. People love to look at me. I’m cute as a button. I’m short. I have perfect legs.

I’m also fat.

I’m five foot and three-fourths of an inch tall, and I weigh between 150 and 160 pounds depending on how much water I feel like retaining. On the hilarious BMI scale, I sit comfortably on the hump between – now get this – overweight and obese. I wear a size 12 pair of pants (not that you’ll ever catch me in a pair of pants). I wear a 36DD bra. Modern society calls me fat.

And I could not care less.

Because both of those paragraphs are true.

I am beautiful. I am chubby. And there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it. And I wouldn’t, either.

The thinnest I ever weighed, after a terrible bout of a near-fatal illness, was 120 pounds. I was far from skeletal, I’ll tell you, but damned if once a day I didn’t have someone asking me if I was okay. It’s not a weight at which I look correct.

Remember that BMI scale? It thinks I should weight 113 pounds. It doesn’t know that I’m fabulous. I’m like mini Crystal Renn for fuck’s sake.

It might seem contradictory, then, that my one honest new year’s resolution is to complete a vigorous yoga routine daily, and indeed, through my entire self into the five forms of yoga.

Bull. Shit.

I want to be stupidly fit. I love the idea of being in shape. But I don’t care what it makes me look like or how to makes my clothes fit or what it makes middle America think about me. I value my health and my spirituality and my flexibility. I love to dance and to jump around and to sing. But this resolution? This resolution and my 150 pounds of awesome are gonna work together and make 2010 the best year ever.

And we are gonna be famous.

Happy new year, everyone, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Guys, I need your help.

Last weekend I visited my friend Colleen. She lives near where Chris and I are about to move and I was very excited to see her. When we got to her apartment, we found everyone on the porch, cooing and awwing at four little kittens, strays, which were playing in the alley.

It turns out that someone up the road had a female cat which they did not fix, and when she became pregnant they kicked her out of the house, so now she and all of her babies are strays.

I am going to take these cats in. I cannot bear to watch these creatures die in the snow because someone was too lazy and careless to get their cat neutered. But here’s why I need your help.

Currently, I am already living in a two-bedroom apartment with one cat. I am supposed to have no cats. In December, Chris and I are moving into the finished basement of his parents’ house. They love cats, but they also already have one. Now, I could probably (and am going to, probably) take one of these strays, if nothing else, but they will need homes.

Also, these cats have lived outside their entire lives. They’re going to need de-wormed and to get their shots. I’m willing to do this for them (because I can’t introduce them to my cat until they are all, at least, de-wormed), but if you can spare any small amount of money to help me out here, I would appreciate it to no end.

Two of the kittens are all-black and two are black and white. I believe the mother is also black and white. As I mentioned before, they’ve been around Colleen, and will let people pet them and hold them, so they’re at least partially socialised.

If you can help with money for their shots, please donate by clicking here.

If you can actually take one of these kittens, please email me as soon as possible. I’m willing to drive anywhere within an hour’s radius of Pittsburgh to bring the kitten to you, so don’t let transportation hold you back.

And if nothing else, please spread the word. I simply can’t take all of these cats (if I could, I wouldn’t be blogging this, I would be laying in a pile of kittens).

Thanks so much for all your help.

I know a lot of you seeing that work right now will shake your heads in adorable fashion and utter to yourselves, “Who did the what now?” (At least that’s what I’m picturing, leave me alone, I can believe whatever I choose.

And a lot of you will have strange and wonderful emotions stirred up when I mention to you that it’s mid-October and my handwriters should set to buying new notebooks and pens and my typewriters should get on stocking up on ribbon and my computerwriters should open their word procession programs and start fiddling around with default fonts now so you’re not screwing with them for hours in November, because, you see, my friends…

November is National Novel Writing Month! (Ooh, it’s a link.)

That’s write folks (ooh, it’s a pun), it’s time to get your creative juices flowing and crank out a novel.

So what exactly is NaNoWriMo? And what is the point? Well, in a word, it’s motivation. NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write a fifty thousand word novel in thirty days, from scratch. Sound daunting? It is. But it’s definitely doable. Last year, I didn’t get started until three days in and I still reached 49K. The only reason I didn’t hit 50K is because I got really disappointed with a plot device in my story, and even though NaNo is NOT about editing – that’s right, no editing! – or even accuracy, really, I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. So this year, I am starting that story over. From scratch.

Now, if you work some ridiculous amount of hours or have children or a really long commute or anything else that would make it virtually impossible to reach fifty thousand words unless you gave up sleep entirely, you’re allowed to set your own limits. If you register on the site, (and I encourage everyone to) obviously it won’t count as an official win, but a personal win is still a win. Remember, it’s about motivation. It’s about having a group of people to talk about writing with, and having a timeframe and a deadline to make your lazy ass (my lazy ass…) get it done. Or at least get it started.

SO WHO’S WITH ME!?

If you’re in, below are some useful links to help you on your November writing extravaganza!

Obviously, you’ll want to check out the official site. That’s where you’ll find all of the official information and rules, as well as getting yourself registered. Also on the site, and especially if you blog, I encourage you to check out the word count widgets to display to fellow Nanos how far along you are. However, sometimes these widgets are ‘down’, sometimes they’re ugly, and they don’t work if your goal isn’t fifty thousand. If that’s your shtick, there are a lot of other counters out there. Try this for a really basic one, and here for a few that are a little more involved (and funny).

Now, obviously you’ll need something to write with. Even if you type or hand write, you’re going to have to verify your word count at the end, which means you’re going to need to type up your story. For my Mac users out there, I recommend Scrivener. Yes, you have to pay for it, but not only is it totally worth it, you can get a 50% discount just for being a Nano participant! Just check out the special offers page. For Windows users, if you’re happy with Word, stick with it, but if you’re not, try yWriter or Celtx. I’ve heard good things about both, though it seems Celtx is more directed towards other forms of media. Now if you like Word, but don’t have it and can’t afford it, go with OpenOffice, every time. OpenOffice also works on everything: PC, Mac, and Linux.

So, you’re registered, you’ve got a program that works for you, and you’re writing, but sometimes you can’t get motivated. That’s when you need Write or Die. Write or Die is, according to the website, a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you’re fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences. And. It. Works. Even if you’re not doing Nano, give it a shot for paper writing or anything else you need to get done.

So that’s National Novel Writing Month according to me. I hope you’ll join me, and if you do, please let me know!