For those of you who have sent me blog auditions in the past three weeks, I'd like to apologize for the lack of response. I've been seriously busy lately. I suppose 21+ credit hours can do that to a person.
Anyhoo, you have not been forgotten, you are not being ignored, and I am (slowly but definitely) getting to critiquing blog auditions, giving every audition the time and attention to detail that it is due.
Some notes to remember, however:
* Please, please use proper spelling and capitalization as much as possible, at least to the point where if you break any rules, it's obviously very intentional.
* The pieces for blog auditions should be complete, not excerpts of larger works. When judging blog auditions, I need to know that you have a certain attention to structure and can tie stories or vignettes into a whole. It does me no good to see that you can start a piece.
* For maximum impact, if one of your pieces is an expository work (ie, primarily telling the reader something), make the other piece a narrative work (ie, primarily showing the reader something). While submitting two expository works will not necessarily knock you out of the running, it does make it a tad more difficult for me to judge whether or not your style is compatible with this blog. When uncertain, I am far more likely to say no than I am to say yes.
* Please remember to include an email address at the bottom of your blog audition, beneath your moniker. This serves two purposes: it tells me you can follow directions and let's me keep a running list of those who have auditioned. If you fail to include an email address at the bottom of your blog audition, no matter how redundant it may seem to you to do so, then your audition will be discarded without any further ado. I've already had to do this for several auditions. If you think your auditions may have been one of these, please rectify the issue and send it again.
All this information will be updated on the "Want to Write With Me?" page in short order, and you can look to see your critiques back in the next couple weeks.
1/11/12
Throwing the Canon Overboard
I am not a literature person.
Theoretically, I should be. I love books, I love to read, I love to write, and I love to appreciate good writing. But damn, I'm an English major, if that tells you anything.
But I just don't enjoy literature.
One of my professors loves to emphasize the pleasure of the literary canon. He describes the thrill of reading a story with the knowledge that thousands, tens of thousands of others have read it before you, the low hum of satisfaction in finding meaning in it, a meaning fractionally shared with that multiplicity of other people.
I've never felt that with the literary canon myself.
I pick up a book from the literary canon and I get through it, annoyed all the way, and wanting to brutally murder the narrator with a tea kettle by the end. For what I can gather, the main feature of canonical literature is a whiny-ass main character. Hamlet, Winston, Bernard, Frankenstein, Heathcliff.... Allow me to use my mastery of the English language to paraphrase these characters: "Bitch bitch bitch."
I'll grant that I enjoyed A Clockwork Orange and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and while I can't say I took pleasure in A Confederacy of Dunces, I did appreciate the masterful use of satire and footnotes (I really loved the wonderful break from Ignatius that the footnotes offered). And after spending a month researching paganism in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, I finally developed a sort of begrudging respect for the work.
But, on the whole, I don't really enjoy those texts that are typically defined as literature.
Listening to my professor describe the buzz one derives from literature, I realize that I have felt it before - while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And again, while streaming Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. And yet again, when I was tearing through the series Firefly, and later the film Serenity. I've felt it while watching Amélie for the six-billionth time, and when I was first introduced to Dr. Who, and How I Met Your Mother. I experienced it when I first discovered Anne McCaffrey's sci-fi/fantasy vision of Pern way back in elementary school, and when I took the time to peruse my first Draco/Hermione fanfic. The thrill of reading raced through my system when my best friend loaned me a few short novels by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, and again when I plucked Kim Harrison's Dead Witch Walking off a bookstore shelf. I spent hours poring over Christopher Moore's re-interpretation of King Lear, although I believe the power of the play to be greatly lost with Fool's very altered ending. Sarah Dessen's Just Listen continues to fascinate me, six years after I first laid hands on it.
Make no mistake. I've felt the "inherent pleasure" of literature. I've found the critical processes of English to be deeply beneficial, even natural, to me - when applying those methods to just about anything other than the standard canon. Literary criticism and analysis focused on Buffy are the main component of my "for fun" reading (I can't decide if Rhonda Wilcox or Joss Whedon is my biggest hero), and I frequently find myself drafting a mini-analysis for just about any text that crosses my interest. I love being an English major.
But I am not a literature person.
Well, not unless you'll let me throw the canon overboard.
Theoretically, I should be. I love books, I love to read, I love to write, and I love to appreciate good writing. But damn, I'm an English major, if that tells you anything.
But I just don't enjoy literature.
One of my professors loves to emphasize the pleasure of the literary canon. He describes the thrill of reading a story with the knowledge that thousands, tens of thousands of others have read it before you, the low hum of satisfaction in finding meaning in it, a meaning fractionally shared with that multiplicity of other people.
I've never felt that with the literary canon myself.
I pick up a book from the literary canon and I get through it, annoyed all the way, and wanting to brutally murder the narrator with a tea kettle by the end. For what I can gather, the main feature of canonical literature is a whiny-ass main character. Hamlet, Winston, Bernard, Frankenstein, Heathcliff.... Allow me to use my mastery of the English language to paraphrase these characters: "Bitch bitch bitch."
I'll grant that I enjoyed A Clockwork Orange and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and while I can't say I took pleasure in A Confederacy of Dunces, I did appreciate the masterful use of satire and footnotes (I really loved the wonderful break from Ignatius that the footnotes offered). And after spending a month researching paganism in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, I finally developed a sort of begrudging respect for the work.
But, on the whole, I don't really enjoy those texts that are typically defined as literature.
Listening to my professor describe the buzz one derives from literature, I realize that I have felt it before - while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And again, while streaming Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. And yet again, when I was tearing through the series Firefly, and later the film Serenity. I've felt it while watching Amélie for the six-billionth time, and when I was first introduced to Dr. Who, and How I Met Your Mother. I experienced it when I first discovered Anne McCaffrey's sci-fi/fantasy vision of Pern way back in elementary school, and when I took the time to peruse my first Draco/Hermione fanfic. The thrill of reading raced through my system when my best friend loaned me a few short novels by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, and again when I plucked Kim Harrison's Dead Witch Walking off a bookstore shelf. I spent hours poring over Christopher Moore's re-interpretation of King Lear, although I believe the power of the play to be greatly lost with Fool's very altered ending. Sarah Dessen's Just Listen continues to fascinate me, six years after I first laid hands on it.
Make no mistake. I've felt the "inherent pleasure" of literature. I've found the critical processes of English to be deeply beneficial, even natural, to me - when applying those methods to just about anything other than the standard canon. Literary criticism and analysis focused on Buffy are the main component of my "for fun" reading (I can't decide if Rhonda Wilcox or Joss Whedon is my biggest hero), and I frequently find myself drafting a mini-analysis for just about any text that crosses my interest. I love being an English major.
But I am not a literature person.
Well, not unless you'll let me throw the canon overboard.
1/2/12
Videre
The carpet was soft, freshly vacuumed and smelling of the clean sheets on the nearby bed.
Nervous, I attempted to raise my head.
"Get down!" she hissed, tugging at my hand. "There are too many windows! The Hunters will get you!"
I rolled my eyes and settled in beside her. The afternoon sunlight washed past the crevice between her lavender walls and her bed, painting her delicate bedspread with the pale golden-white of spring.
This was not how I'd intended to spend my Saturday.
"Okay, go," my friend whispered, crawling past me, grabbing a painted stick of bamboo from beneath her mattress.
I followed her, indulging her latest fantasy. The girl was a master at playing pretend; at times I wondered if she confused her constructs for reality.
She held out a hand, demanding pause, as we neared one of her many bookshelves. The bottom rung of this one held a thesaurus, various books on espionage, and two non-fiction volumes on Lord of the Rings: one on the films, the other on weaponry.
"Shhh!" she admonished me. "I think I hear something!"
"What?" I asked, confused. I certainly didn't hear anything.
"A tapping," she enunciated, articulating the two words with all her three years of drama camp.
"Huh?"
"They're shooting arrows at us!" Her eyes went wide with excitement and the simulation of panic. "Take cover!"
As though crouching on her floor to avoid the two walls of windows were not enough to protect us from the imaginary attack.
She leaped to her feet and pressed herself between the tall keyboard and the shelf, narrowly missing the windowpane.
I stood more slowly, feeling the pale green carpet grind against my toes. I didn't bother to avoid the window, instead leaning over the keyboard to peer into the front yard. The puff paint and the keys it decorated were a series of cool bumps under my palm, giving with clicks of protest.
The only things moving in the yard were the magnolia leaves as the wind scattered them on the lawn.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, words rolling out high and fast. "Don't be stupid!"
I ignored her, moving over to sit in the desk chair. The padding was thin, and I could feel the cardboard beneath the upholstery rub against my tailbone.
"He-ey!" came her whine of protest.
"There's nothing there, 'Lyta!" I exclaimed in exasperation, tracing my fingers through the pencil shavings that coated her desk, sending the scent of cut wood spiraling into the room.
For a moment, there was only the air-conditioner's hum to prevent silence.
The bed squeaked a little as she settled next to her pillows, pushing a stuffed animal out of the way as she set down her decorated bamboo stick.
"You're no fun," she complained.
I shrugged.
"We can't all live in fantasy."
Nervous, I attempted to raise my head.
"Get down!" she hissed, tugging at my hand. "There are too many windows! The Hunters will get you!"
I rolled my eyes and settled in beside her. The afternoon sunlight washed past the crevice between her lavender walls and her bed, painting her delicate bedspread with the pale golden-white of spring.
This was not how I'd intended to spend my Saturday.
"Okay, go," my friend whispered, crawling past me, grabbing a painted stick of bamboo from beneath her mattress.
I followed her, indulging her latest fantasy. The girl was a master at playing pretend; at times I wondered if she confused her constructs for reality.
She held out a hand, demanding pause, as we neared one of her many bookshelves. The bottom rung of this one held a thesaurus, various books on espionage, and two non-fiction volumes on Lord of the Rings: one on the films, the other on weaponry.
"Shhh!" she admonished me. "I think I hear something!"
"What?" I asked, confused. I certainly didn't hear anything.
"A tapping," she enunciated, articulating the two words with all her three years of drama camp.
"Huh?"
"They're shooting arrows at us!" Her eyes went wide with excitement and the simulation of panic. "Take cover!"
As though crouching on her floor to avoid the two walls of windows were not enough to protect us from the imaginary attack.
She leaped to her feet and pressed herself between the tall keyboard and the shelf, narrowly missing the windowpane.
I stood more slowly, feeling the pale green carpet grind against my toes. I didn't bother to avoid the window, instead leaning over the keyboard to peer into the front yard. The puff paint and the keys it decorated were a series of cool bumps under my palm, giving with clicks of protest.
The only things moving in the yard were the magnolia leaves as the wind scattered them on the lawn.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, words rolling out high and fast. "Don't be stupid!"
I ignored her, moving over to sit in the desk chair. The padding was thin, and I could feel the cardboard beneath the upholstery rub against my tailbone.
"He-ey!" came her whine of protest.
"There's nothing there, 'Lyta!" I exclaimed in exasperation, tracing my fingers through the pencil shavings that coated her desk, sending the scent of cut wood spiraling into the room.
For a moment, there was only the air-conditioner's hum to prevent silence.
The bed squeaked a little as she settled next to her pillows, pushing a stuffed animal out of the way as she set down her decorated bamboo stick.
"You're no fun," she complained.
I shrugged.
"We can't all live in fantasy."
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