A Little Something for the Ladies

Eloisa James, Duchess by Night and When the Duke Returns

Georgian romances, which makes them a break from my usual regencies, right?  Right?  Anyway.  Eloisa James is ahistorical as all hell, but I don’t care.  She’s funny, she’s charming, and she makes even nasty people seem convincingly sympathetic.  Also, despite her more than occasional lapses into “his throbbing member, her creamy skin” territory, she can actually write, which is a distressingly rare talent in the world of publishing.  Her early books were terrible–don’t read the Pleasures trilogy, you’ll lose your lunch–but she’s gotten consistently better with each series, and her Duchess books have been a delight.  Duchess by Night includes a cross-dressing duchess (duh), an endless house party, a little girl who calculates all the angles in her dollhouse, and a hero with the surname “Strange.” 

 

WHAT MORE DO YOU REALLY NEED FROM A ROMANCE NOVEL, PEOPLE?

 

I really enjoyed it, so long as I ignored the part of my brain that knows enough about British history to be appalled by the utter implausibility of it all.  Our heroine is a widowed duchess who gained the title through marriage; she gets with our hero, who is a mere Lord, and then–wait for it!–apparently plans to keep running her late husband’s ducal estate even after her remarriage.  She and hubby number one had no children, so she’s acting on behalf of her former husband’s underage nephew, which just makes the whole situation COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY UNREALISTIC.  She’s a duchess by marriage, not by birthright, so any claim she has to the title or the lands should cease with a new marriage.  The heir is not her child or any blood relation to her, so she has zero legal right to act on his behalf.  And even if his parents were totally cool with the dowager Duchess continuing to run things after her remarriage (unlikely, given all the money at stake), the fact that she’s supposedly getting hitched to the Most Notorious Man in England ought to give them pause.

 

Yeeeeeeah, turn the critical part of your brain off before you read this one.  OFF, DAMMIT!

 

When the Duke Returns was another fun romp, but it was slightly less enjoyable on account of it embodying just about everything I railed against in I Love My Dead Gay Husband More.  The hero practices some sort of bastardized Eastern philosophy called the Middle Way, which apparently leads him to fear the lust he feels for his wife (dude, he could have looked to Catholicism for that, I’m just sayin’).  The heroine is an Italian, and James spends much of the novel rhapsodizing about her exoticness and how different she is from English ladies and how much more sensual she is and blah, blah, blah, give it a rest.  The aura of difference is at least accurate to the period (I believe it’s The Monk that divides its list of characters into Men, Women, and Italians), but…god, lay off it, already.  I have an Italian grandma, so this shit is just creepy.  Spare my feelings, please.

 

Recommended for:  Anyone who is not too picky about their historical accuracy, anyone who likes the porn for the Ladies.

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Bah Humbug

Not really, I’m just feeling shirty because I don’t really have anything to say.

Unlike last year, when I went home and apparently downloaded an entire library into my brain, I really didn’t read much during my little winter break this time around.

Oh, I went through the two most recent books in Eloisa James’ Duchess series, and I caught up on Fables, and I even read something called The Explosionist while I was on the train.  But unfortunately, I discovered something that passes the time on trains much better than reading:  really, horrifyingly uncomfortable napping.

Seriously, guys, I woke up with a crick in my neck and a mouth as dry as the Sahara every time, and yet I still managed to sleep like, three hours out of six.  It was uncanny.  I’m not normally the sort of lady who naps–years of insomnia will do that to you–but on this trip, unconciousness was key.  It passed the time admirably, and without any eyestrain!

All of which is to say, I ain’t got no reviews right now, will try later in the week.  Although in the meantime, I have video of a pigeon wandering around Union Station pecking at things on the floor.  I mean, if you’re interested.  It’s pretty gripping stuff, really.  As is that video I took of my boyfriend’s cat, where she just sits there and ignores me a lot.

I am a woman of infinite talents, I tell you.

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I Lied

Professor Zaianya has provided us with the following cheat-sheet:

 

To assist you, I have come up with a handy list of terrible phrases, poor word choices, and adverbs.

-exquisitely
-like a thousand glittering tears (use this to describe stars, snow, or any body part)
-like it was being squeezed in an inescapable vice (usually applies to The Hero’s heart)
-dangerously (the hero/villain’s eyes often glitter dangerously)
-[any comparison to a feline of any type]
-[any comparison to any aspect of any type of snake]
-languidly (popular among HP fanfic writers)
-twinkled/glittered/gleamed/shone/sparkled (in relation to the eyes)
-twinkled/glittered/gleamed/shone/sparkled [adverb] (see above re glittered dangerously)
-like steel (to describe any one of the hero’s body parts)
-”[anything],” he/she said sarcastically.
-His/her face was grim.
-shone like silk
-”[anything],” he/she said with a smirk.
-[any breast over a C cup and any male reproductive organ longer than 7 inches]
-[blondes and redheads]
-[any speculation as to what the hero's hands will feel like on anybody's skin]

-Recite recognizable music lyrics in your prose (“Sympathy For The Devil” is particularly banned)
-Pale yet glowing skin (glittering pale skin falls into the same category)
-angrily
-strength in slender limbs (“Draco wasn’t muscular, but there was strength in his slender limbs”)
-flowing locks
-a cloud passed over his face
-his/her skin/face went white with anger/rage

 

I’ve written a snippet to illustrate just how awful the above tropes are.

 

Lily stood under a sky strewn with stars that gleamed like a thousand glittering tears.  “I thought you wouldn’t come,” a voice said dangerously from her left, and she whirled to see Raphael there.  His long, sinuous, snakelike form was dressed entirely in black, and his eyes shone malevolently in the dim light.

 

Lily felt as though the breath were being squeezed from her chest, but she still managed to say sarcastically, “Well, it’s not like I couldn’t come.  You have my mother, after all.”

 

“Oh, sweet Mary Sue,” Raphael said languidly with a smirk.  “No, I hadn’t forgotten her.”

 

“If you hurt her–” Lily said, taking a step forward involuntarily.  Raphael’s hand whipped out, snake-like, and grabbed her arm.  His grip was like steel.

 

“If I hurt her, you’ll do what, exactly?” he asked silkily.  “Cry all over me?”  Lily glared at him mulishly, but couldn’t think of anything to say.  She knew she was going to die; that was the deal, her life for Mary Sue’s.  A tear slipped from her eyes as she thought longingly of what Constantine’s hands would have felt like on her bare skin.  Now she’d never know.

 

“You make her cry, I’ll kick your ass,” Constantine said from behind them.  Raphael skin went white with rage as he whirled to face his enemy; for his pains, he was greeted with a punch to the jaw.  And then a kick to the groin.  “Was that really necessary, Lily?” Constantine asked, as Raphael moaned and clutched his crotch.

 

“Probably not,” she shrugged, making sure to trod on her enemy’s fingers as she stepped over him to reach her soulmate.  “Oh, Constantine!” she breathed breathily,  “I was so frightened!”

 

Constantine just stared at her for a moment, watching as her flame-colored hair shone, exquisitely, in the starlight.  Her flowing locks shone like silk, he thought, and her pale yet glowing skin emphasized her huge, violet eyes.  His face was grim as he pulled her against him, his heart aching like it was being squeezed in an inescapable vice.  “I don’t know what I would do if I lost you,” he said helplessly.

 

“And I you,” she said, reaching up to stroke his face.  Her full breasts strained against her tank top, and she could feel him looking, his eyes hooded like a hungry lion’s.  She smiled, and kissed him full on the mouth.  “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

 

He pushed her away without warning, and she gasped involuntarily; there was great strength in his slender limbs.  A cloud passed over her face as she asked, “What’s wrong, love?”

 

“Have some sympathy and some taste,” he said bitterly.  “Lily, we can’t be together.  I’ll lay your soul to waste.”

 

“Oh, darling,” she said softly.  “It’s too late for that.  My soul was yours the minute I met you.”

 

“Then we’re both damned,” he said grimly.

 

“I’d rather spend an eternity in hell with you than an eternity in heaven without you,” she said.  “You are my life, my love, my destruction.  I’m nothing without you.  Nothing!”

 

Constantine sighed and took her hands in his.  And that night, she didn’t have to simply imagine what his hands would feel like on her skin anymore.

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One More, and Then I Swear I’m Done

I decided to try my hand at writing a really awful vampire/demon hunter teen novel.  It’s harder than it looks–being this terrible takes some serious work, dude.

 

Lily Crane walked into the dim, pale yellow principal’s office and sighed deeply.  It was her first day of school—her fourth school in three years—but she never got used to the crush of new people, the overwhelming sensation of being stared at by hundreds of new eyes or, worse, being totally ignored.  She sighed again, more deeply, and timidly approached the receptionist.  “Hello,” she said softly, in (what she thought of as) her irritating, high-pitched voice.  “I’m, um, new here?  I need my schedule?”

 

The receptionist looked up, and Lily realized that he wasn’t a receptionist:  at least, he wasn’t the middle-aged, slightly frumpy woman she’d been expecting—he was a boy her age, and a cute one.  Not just a cute one; an astonishingly handsome one.  His eyes, when they met hers over the wood-grained countertop, shone like brilliant blue stars; his hair was a pale, gleaming white-blond that glowed incandescently under the fluorescent lights.  His face was sharp, his mouth full, tender.  “Can I help you?” he said, his voice like smooth, melted chocolate. 

 

“Buh,” Lily said in response.  The boy smiled, a brilliant, beautiful, cutting, cruel smile.

 

“I see we’re feeling very articulate this morning,” he said sarcastically.

 

“I’m new,” Lily said, reaching up to fiddle with her carotty red curls nervously.  “I, uh, I need my schedule.”

 

“Name, please?” the boy asked, suddenly all business.  His eyes were focused, laser-like, on the computer screen, his hands were poised, talon-like, over the keyboard.  Lily sighed involuntarily, thinking that she had never seen someone prepare to type so…gracefully.

 

“Name?” they boy asked, impatiently.

 

Lily sighed again, this time less rapturously.  “Delilah Fortuna Crane,” she mumbled.

 

“No, seriously?” the boy asked incredulously, looking up from his computer in bemused astonishment.  Lily hunched her shoulders miserably and nodded disconsolantly.

 

“My mother’s name is Mary Sue,” she sighed gustily.  “She wanted her daughter to be called something more interesting.  Please, for the love of God, just call me Lily and DON’T TELL ANYONE.”

 

The boy smiled slowly, lazily, seductively.  “Certainly,” he purred.  “But only if you make it worth my while.”

 

Lily blinked confusedly.  “Make it…what, like you want me to do your math homework for you?”

 

“I was hoping…for a kiss…”

 

Lily blinked again, slowly this time, and the boy laughed.  “Here’s your schedule,” he said, handing her a blue-and-white piece of paper with her classes listed in bold, square type.  “We have biology together, it looks like.”

 

“Oh, um…”

 

“You’re late to homeroom,” the boy said, his brilliant, sapphire eyes inscrutable.  “Not that it matters.  Mr. Lyle is a drunk anyway, he won’t notice.  See you around!” he finished cheerily.  Dismissed, Lily wandered aimlessly to the door.

 

“See you around,” she said listlessly.

 

“Oh, and Lily?” the boy said as she opened the door to the hallway.  “I think Delilah’s a beautiful name.”

 

Lily snorted.  “Yeah, only if you were born in 1867.”

 

The boy’s smile faltered, but Lily didn’t see it.  Embarassed by her own daring–how could she have spoken to such a beautiful, sarcastic, graceful, perfect creature like that!–she was already out the door.

 

Constantine watched the girl’s shapely form exit the room.  Her flame-colored hair hung in ringlets down her back, and swayed with her hips as she leisurely strolled into the hallway.  A woman who wouldn’t be hurried; Constantine liked that.  These modern girls, with their cell phones and their ipods and their premarital sex without the accompanying public shaming and miserable death in childbirth, they were always rushing hither and yon, usually to go reapply their whorish makeup in a public restroom or giggle about the size of their boyfriends’ members.  Constantine didn’t approve of modern girls; he liked good girls, clean girls, girls with milk-white faces free of makeup and the stain of sin, like this Delilah Crane.  Girls who looked properly downward through lowered lashes, at once seductive and yet so innocent, so pure.  “Delilah Fortuna,” he said softly.  “What a beautiful name for a beautiful, shy, proper girl.”  He liked the way her face had flushed a delicate pink when he’d asked her for a kiss; she was a good girl, a pure girl, and he realized with a pang that he was already halfway in love with her.

 

“She could never love one such as I” he said to himself, mournfully.  “One so tainted, so full of darkness.  I’ve seen so many things in my long years, done so many things that were necessary for the good and safety of the world, but they have stained me, harmed me.  I could never touch her, not without defiling her.”  A single, crystalline tear streaked down his perfect, smooth white face.  A face that looked as though it had been carved from marble by Michaelangelo himself.  “Why must I be so unworthy of her!” he cried out softly in utter anguish.

 

The principal poked her head out of her office, blinking owlishly at him.  “Constantine, are you monologuing again?”

 

“Yes, Miss Drescher.”

 

“That’s ten points from good conduct.  You know how annoying I find your teenage maunderings,” she spat, and slammed the door behind her.  Constantine winced, and thought darkly that no one would ever understand his pain, especially not the bitter, dried-up, middle-aged spinster principal.

 

“No one will ever understand my pain,” he whispered, fortunately omitting other commentary.

 

“Fifteen points!” a voice came from the office.  Constantine sighed, and since he was already risking his 4.0 GPA enough by expressing his inner pain, got started photocopying student records he’d let pile up over the last few weeks.

 

“Delilah,” he said rapturously, but so lowly that no human ears could hear.  “Oh, Delilah.  We will be together…soon.”

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaand I’m out.  God, I feel dirty just writing that.

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Further Tutorials

This weekend I read the second Cassandra Clare book, City of Ashes, which is equally, if not more, terrible than the first.  Clary and Jace continue to want to do each other, even though they’re related (or are they?); Simon mopes a lot and then turns into a vampire; Alec continues to deny that he’s gaygaygay even as he’s dating a 300-year-old warlock with hair like a glittering disco ball (Clare’s words, not mine); and Isabelle…doesn’t do much, now that everyone’s acknowledged there’s no chemistry between her and Simon.  All in all, very soothing.  But maybe I only feel that way because this weekend, my boyfriend needed to prune a tree.  And so he let me use a chainsaw.

Chainsaws?  Are very therapeutic, y’all.

But as I was chopping that poor, defenseless tree into little bite-sized portions, I thought about  exactly why The Mortal Instruments trilogy is so freaking bad.  It isn’t just the terrible writing or the predictable use of incest or even the fact that I consider it morally repugnant that Clare essentially owes her career to plagiarism–all of those things are dreadful, but what really sends it over the top is what I like to call the Buffy effect.

Now, don’t get me wrong:  I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it is a deeply flawed show, and one of its lesser flaws is its inconsistent characterization.  This was especially egregious during its earlier seasons, when Buffy was a straight-C high school student who was consistently shown to struggle with pretty much every subject she studied.  Someone was always tutoring her in history or French or something (although, thankfully, Joss et al never made math an issue for her).  She wasn’t scholastically inclined, and the only time you ever saw her with a book was when she was at school or in a study session.  And yet, she routinely made literary in-jokes–I think at one point, she actually referenced the theater of the absurd.  Two scenes later, though, she was completely thrown by a mention of The Cat in the Hat. 

Okay, it wasn’t quite that bad, but you’ve clearly got this very un-academic character–and a high school student, to boot–cracking jokes like a third-year undergrad in one scene, and then she’s back to near-illiteracy two scenes later.  Not.  Consistent.

They did much the same thing with Xander; he’s portrayed as this smart, quick-witted guy, but every once in awhile they have him behave like a semi-literate neanderthal if it serves the joke.  At one point, Willow spells out the word “bitch”; Xander reacts with a totally confused look and asks, “Bit-cah?”  Come.  On.  He’s supposed to be sixteen, not six.

Basically, if the writers had a joke that was funny, then they crammed the words into their characters’ mouths, regardless of whether it made sense to do so.  Cassandra Clare has a related problem, but it’s worse (of course):  all of her characters get to bite off a witty one-liner every couple of pages or so.  She tries to establish characterization–X is quiet! Y is shy!–but that characterization never comes together because she’s too invested in using her protagonists as vehicles for her hilarity.  And don’t get me wrong–she’s funny.  She’s witty.  But none of her characters really stand out, because they all kind of blur together into one big saracastic mess.

The lesson here, kids?  Firmly establish who your characters are, and then stick with it.  If you have a line that is so freaking amazing that it just about makes you pee your pants, that’s great–but if it doesn’t fit any of your characters, then don’t use it.  Your characters should be people, not sockpuppets.

Herein ends our lesson.  If you have an questions, I’ll be out back.  With my chainsaw.

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Schooled

Good morning, class.  It’s been awhile since our last lecture, but I trust you remember it and that you’ve altered your Regency romances accordingly.  Exams are due next Tuesday.  Study guides can be located here and here.  And Miss Quinn?  As always, you can suck it.

 

Now, for our last session of the semester, I thought we’d cover a very special topic:  how to write a novel that completely and utterly sucks.  I know, I know—most of you are probably thinking, “But Professor Mankiller, you’ve focused most of your energies this semester on non-fiction and memoir.  Also, you’ve never written a novel, so how are you supposed to be an expert?”  Au contraire, my tiny adorable students.  Everyone who reads as much as I do has at least one terrible novel under her belt.  Frankly, I can’t even remember how many I’ve written, because I did the right and godly thing and burned those abortions before any misguided publisher could have given them hideous birth.

 

In addition, although we’ve spent most of this year looking at memoir and other nonfiction (not to mention movies), we’ve also spent a good deal of time on some novels of…shall we say, dubious quality.  Remember Beneath a Silent Moon?  Or how about The Moonstone, Part II?  Or its sequel, The Moonstone, Part Seriously Phillip Pullman, Get Your Own Damn Ideas?  I think we’ve learned to know a bad book when we see one, but I don’t think I’ve ever clearly set out a definitive list of What Makes a Book Bad.  I’m about to remedy that, and I’ll be aided by the “novel” City of Bones, the first book in The Mortal Instruments Trilogy by Cassandra Clare.

 

Be sure to take notes, kids.  And as always, this lecture will contain spoilers.

 

Part I:  How to Completely Destroy Perfectly Blameless Prose

There are many, many ways to make your writing awful, ladies and gentlemen, but my esteemed colleague Professor Erika and I both agree that the simplest ways are to A.) use too much description; and B.) use similes that are completely ridiculous.  To demonstrate the dangers of both practices, here’s a passage from City of Bones :

 ‘Fine.’  He seemed awfully calm, she thought, not scary-calm as he had been before, but more contained than he ought to be.  She wondered how often he let glimpses of his real self peek through the façade that was as hard and shiny as the coat of lacquer on one of her mother’s Japanese boxes (139).

 

When you want to describe someone who’s closed off, describing them as hard makes sense…but shiny?  I get that she’s trying to say “glittering façade” without actually saying “glittering façade,” but really.  Don’t be creative.  Throwing more adjectives at the problem isn’t going to make you sound any less ridiculous.

 

And as for comparing anyone to a lacquered box…if I have to explain to you why that’s cheesy, then get out of my class.

 

Part II:  How to Create a Character by Ripping off Your Own Shitty, Plagiarized Fanfic

So in City of Bones, Our Hero’s name is Jace, and this is how Our Heroine, Clary, sees him:  “A ghoulish freckling of blood marked his face.  He still reminded her of a lion, with his wide-spaced, light-colored eyes, and that tawny gold hair” (15).

 

Now, leaving aside what we already said about the overuse of description, and adding in that it’s usually a bad idea to start comparing people to animals, let’s get to the part where Jace is all tormented and an orphan and shit.  One night, he decides to tell Clary a bedtime story about just how awful his childhood was.  Because that’s totally what you do when you have a crush on a girl.  Anyway, this is what he has to say:

 

‘Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck.  ‘I told you to make it obedient,’ his father said, and dropped the falcon’s lifeless body to the ground.  ‘Instead, you taught it to love you.  Falcons are not meant to be loving pets:  They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel.  This bird was not tamed; it was broken.” 206

 

Awww, that story’s so sad, Clary has to have sex with him now!  Otherwise, how will he ever learn to love?

 

Anyway.  I’m showing you this passage not only because it blows massive chunks, but also because if you’ve read enough shitty Harry Potter fic, it might seem familiar to you.  And it would seem familiar to you for a reason.  Cassandra Clare originally became a marketable professional writer through her work as Cassandra Claire, the author of an extremely popular Harry Potter fanfic usually referred to as the Draco Trilogy.  Well, parts of the fic were plagiarized, which didn’t seem to bother her fans none, but kind of makes you wonder how she ever got a publishing contract under her internet handle (probably cause her fans didn’t mind none).  In any case, when she finally finished the Draco Trilogy, she let people download it as a pdf file if they wanted to, and then had it pulled of the internet.  I’m sure that if I dug long and hard enough, I could eventually find it somewhere, but it doesn’t turn up easily anymore.  And as everyone knows, professors are incurably lazy.

 

But we have really, really good memories.

 

Yes, class:  to my everlasting shame, I used to read the Draco Trilogy.  I was a teenager, and I didn’t know it was plagiarized.  But having read it, what’s so striking about the falcon passage in City of Bones is that it, or a passage extremely like it, first appeared in one of the Draco stories.  Also, Claire’s Draco was a gorgeous, graceful boy given to witty one-liners and Hiding His Inner Pain.  And he was, per Rowling’s description, a blond.

 

Compare that to Jace, another blond with the Saddest Backstory Ever, who often says things like, “‘The meek may inherit the earth, but at the moment it belongs to the conceited.  Like me’” (Clare 86).

 

Cassandra Clare didn’t have the Draco Trilogy removed because she wanted to distance herself from accusations of plagiarism; that was old news, and obviously hadn’t prevented her from signing a book contract.  She had it removed because she didn’t want anyone to notice that she hadn’t bothered to come up with a new backstory for one of her main characters.  So nice, she used it twice!

 

But here’s the problem, kids:  leaving aside the moral or ethical problems with this approach, there’s also the fact that it’s creatively…well, it’s not creative at all.  If you are so in love with one of your creations that you can’t bear to part with him, but instead slap a new name on him and put him into new circumstances, then you haven’t created a character:  you’re in love with a stereotype.  You’re enthralled by some idealized, nonexistent type of personality, and that is interesting to no one but you and your therapist.  So if you find yourself grasping at straws, saying things like, “But they’re completely different!  One has white-blond hair, and the other is a golden blond,” then…stop.  Just…just, stop.

 

In conclusion, let fanfic stay fanfic.  And yes, that goes for original fanfic characters, too.

 

Part III:  How to Make Everything More Ridiculously Dramatic than It Needs to Be

Clare writes:

 

‘I may not believe in sin,’ he said, ‘but I do feel guilt.  We Shadowhunters live by a code, and that code isn’t flexible.  Honor, fault, penance, those are real to us, and they have nothing to do with religion and everything to do with who we are.  This is who I am Clary,’ he said desperately.  ‘I am one of the Clave.  It’s in my blood and bones.  So tell me, if you’re so sure this wasn’t my fault, why it is that the first thought in my mind when I saw Abbadon wasn’t for my fellow warriors but for you?’  His other hand came up; he was holding her face, prisoned between his palms.  ‘I know—I knew—Alec wasn’t acting like himself.  I knew something was wrong.  But all I could think about was you…’

 

Okay, two things:

1.      Barf

2.      “Prisoned”?  Is that even a word?

In conclusion, over-the-top much?

 

Part IV:  Incest, Incest Is the Best

Spoiler!  In a Darth Vader moment that everyone saw coming from like, the second we all found out Clary’s mom had been married to the Big Bad, it turns out that the Big Bad is Clary’s father.  Shocker!  But in an actual plot twist, it turns out that Jace’s father didn’t die:  he’s the Big Bad!  Making him and Clary siblings!  Who totally made out not fifty pages before!

 

Students, you know how I feel about incest:  it’s a lazy, cheap thrill for the author and a major annoyance to the audience.  Just Say No. 

Part V:  Mary Sue, How Are You?

Professor Erika recently reminded me of the Mary Sue Litmus Test.  Run Jace through it, and he’ll bomb it like a freshman in a senior seminar.  Or, I guess, pass it like an honors student in a remedial class.  I don’t know, he’s a goddamn Mary Sue:  perfect and wounded and beautiful, and he gave himself his own nickname to boot.  Clary doesn’t fare much better, since she clearly has a name based on the author’s handle and–like her creator–she’s a redhead. 

Kids, I know we’re all prone to writing wish-fulfillment:  we all want to be better, smarter, more beautiful, and live more interesting lives.  That’s fine.  There’s also nothing wrong with writing all that down.  But getting it published?  Guys, that’s just sad.  Way to shout to the world, “I think I am lame and boring and I wish everything about me were different!”  You don’t need to tell the whole world that.  Again, just keep it between you and your therapist.

Part VI:  In Conclusion

In conclusion:  don’t use too much description, don’t use crappy similes, don’t rip yourself off, don’t make everything more dramatic than it really needs to be, don’t have two siblings make out, and don’t create a bunch of Mary Sues.  All right, kids. Study hard, and make sure to get drunk after my exam.  Good luck!

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About Howard

During my senior year of high school, my sister and I decided to cajole my mother into getting a third cat.  Why?  Why in god’s name would anyone want a third cat?  Because our other two cats were total bitches who never wanted to snuggle.  Okay, Sonic never wanted to snuggle–except when it was extremely cold, in which case she’d crawl under your sweater and nest there–and Sophie only wanted to snuggle on her terms.  She’d get on your lap without a by-your-leave, but if you had the unmitigated gall to pet her, she’d let out a warning growl.  Sometimes, actually, she’d issue a warning growl without any visible provocation.  Who knows, maybe she was counting dust motes and they taunted her; she’s a fucking cat, it could be anything.  And the growling was bad enough, but since it was often followed up with a swipe of her raptor-like claws or a snap of her killing jaws, cuddling Sophie was…well, some might call it exciting.  We just found it terrifying.

A new cat, my sister and I declared, a new cat was in order.  And since one of my mom’s coworkers had happened upon a litter of kittens, it seemed as though the gods were smiling down on our plan.

Of course, it never dawned on us that the only nice cat we’d ever had had been about five years old when we adopted him; Sophie and Sonic, the Twin Terrors, we’d raised from tiny babies.  If we’d been thinking clearly, we would have realized that maybe, just maybe, we as a family are not cut out for this kitten-raising nonsense.  Of course, if we’d been thinking clearly we would have poisoned the cat chow and switched to keeping hamsters once we buried the evidence.

But I digress.

Anyway, we went to mom’s workplace and met The Babies; Catherine and I conferred, and decided that we wanted one of the two wee gray kittens.  Specifically, we wanted the one that was livelier, more active, and had spent the entire play session beating up his siblings.  “He seems more interesting,” Katie said.

Oh, god, was he ever.

All of my pictures of Howie-as-kitten are in a shoebox somewhere in the house, so I’ll just have to describe him.  He was soft, and tiny, and fuzzy, and had enormous brown eyes that were dwarved by his even more enormous gray ears.  From the moment Catherine brought him home, cuddled up to her chin in a blanket, he was her slave; everyone else could just eat shit and die.  As long as they let him sharpen his claws on them first.

He liked to climb up people’s legs, which wasn’t so bad when we first got him because it was still (just barely) jeans weather; within a few weeks, however, we’d all switched to shorts, but did that stop him?  Of course not!  He just sank his claws into flesh instead of denim and propelled himself upwards!  He loved jumping on things:  he’d tackle Sonic as soon as she came inside, and no amount of growling or swatting could keep him off Sophie, either.  I once dashed into the kitchen because I heard Catherine screaming with rage; “Get him OFF ME!” she howled as a now medium-sized gray puffball clung tenaciously to her derriere.

I tried, but I was laughing too hard to be of much use.  Sorry, Katie!

Howie, like all of our pets, quickly collected a raft of nicknames.  Only instead of being bizarre endearments like “Sophie-potato” or “Muffinbutt” (don’t ask), our names for Howard were more straightforward:  Horrible Howard, Horrible Horrificus, Howie of the Shit-Brown Eyes, My Furry Little Gray Turd, etc.  He was so dreadful to me in particular that whenever he was mentioned, I reflexively said, “He’s a little bastard and I hate him.”  I meant it, too.  Why?  Why did I despise this soft and fuzzy kitten?  Because he was, in fact, a little bastard.

Listen, people, that cat came into my bedroom every morning the summer between my senior year of high school and freshman year of college and tried to remove my eyes with his claws.  Seriously, he tried to rip my tender eyeballs out.  I am not even making this up.  I woke up every morning not to the shrieking of an alarm, but to the thud of my arm against his furry abdomen.  I would reflexively bat him away as I slept, but he was undeterred:  every morning, I had to hurl him a good three feet away from my bed before he got tired of our little death match and trotted off to go worry one of the ten million toys my mother had bought him.

Don’t even get me started on his toybox, y’all:  I swear, that animal had more toys than I did as a child.  Mom even sewed Howie a little stuffed animal, making sure to carefully weight its neck so that it looked realistically snapped; Howie was terrified of it and ran away whenever I “accidentally” retrieved it from his toybox.

Oops!

Anyway, he was a horrible kitten, and he grew up to be an even more horrible cat.  He didn’t speak for like, the first five months of his life; I could drag him out from under the couch by his tail, and he wouldn’t make a peep (have I mentioned that I’m not so great with kittens?).  But one weekend, we left him alone–when we returned on Monday, he would not.  Shut.  Up.  About how angry he was.  And he hasn’t since.

It’s been five fucking years, and that cat will NOT STOP BITCHING.

He bitches about everything.  He bitches if his boyfriend, the fourth cat (yes, we got a fourth, shut up), comes up and licks him; he bitches if his boyfriend comes up and swats him.  He bitches if you pick him up, and then he wails and screams when you put him down.  He runs through the house emiting a high-pitched wail for no discernable reason, and when I come home to visit, he spends half his time furiously scorning me, and the other half with his face buried in my dirty laundry pile.   He’s an indoor cat who periodically escapes to the great outdoors.  On one occasion, he crawled about fifteen feet away from the garage and sat under a bush and screamed until Katie came and got him; right before this Thanksgiving, he escaped for a whole night and apparently couldn’t wait to go back for more.  He was so eager to get back to the wonders of our backyard, actually, that I took pity on him and picked him up so he could see outside the front door.  When I tried to put him down because he was growling and fussing, he turned around slashed my face open.

Thank god he’s neutered, is all I have to say.

Oh, and thank god chicks dig scars.

In conclusion?  Get a dog.

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Waiting for Caruso

I continue to be immensely disinterested in talking about anything I’ve read, ever.  Ergo, a repost from one of my old journal sites.

 

Now, let’s get one thing straight:  I used to hate people who insisted that bad TV was the best TV.   I thought that they were snotty hipster poseurs—which, let’s face it, they are—and I wanted nothing to do with them.  What’s the point in watching TV if it’s bad?   I mean, why would you put yourself through that? 

 

I just didn’t get it.  Until, of course, I started watching CSI Miami.

 

I discovered CSI:  Miami in the same way I’ve discovered many other awesomely bad things, such as eating an entire bag of Reeses Miniatures in one sitting or making out with that one ex-boyfriend who just would not let go:   I was too sad to get off the couch, so it just kind of happened.  In this case, during December 2006 I was too sad to get off the couch, and my dad left the TV tuned to A&E, and there was (for some reason I still don’t understand) a CSI:  Miami marathon on.  Since I was too paralyzed by the crushing horribleness of the world to be able to even grab the remote, let alone change the channel, I was forced to watch the alleged “drama” unfolding in front of me.   At first, I was horrified—”This made it into syndication?!” I shrieked to myself—but after sitting through an episode or two, I began to find it strangely compelling.   I lied to myself and others about the reason; “I really like the scenery, Daddy, it’s pretty!” I claimed when my father tried to change the channel and I screamed at him like a banshee.   But that wasn’t it.  Oh, that wasn’t it at all.

 

The real reason I love CSI:  Miami?   Three words:  David.  Fucking.  Caruso.  Or, more accurately, David Fucking Caruso’s completely insane acting choices.

 

See, most actors get a big swell of emotion when something dramatic happens, and deliver completely mundane lines in a completely mundane way—but that is not the way of David F. Caruso.   No, not at all.  Instead, David F. Caruso delivers the throwaway lines with incredible conviction and power…and delivers the truly important ones in a voice utterly devoid of expression.

 

He is either totally insane or totally fucking with us.  Either way?   It’s completely fucking awesome.

 

The best part about Caruso’s “acting,” though, is the crazy shit he does with those damn sunglasses of his.   Whenever he makes a big dramatic pronouncement, he very earnestly (and pseudo-sexily) slooooooowly takes off his sunglasses and stares intensely into another actor’s eyes.   The result is something like this—

 

Other lameass actor:  So, can I have that piece of ham?

David F. Caruso (sloooooooooowly removes his sunglasses, stares into the other actor’s eyes for a moment, and then…) :  Yeeeeeeeeeees, Eric…you can have that piece of ham…

Dramatic scene change, possibly with some crazy techno music and definitely with carefully edited shots of Miami

Other lameass actor:  Omigod!   My mother’s just been shot!  Now me and my twelve brothers and sisters are orphans!  Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

David Caruso (completely deadpan, sunglasses firmly in place so that we can’t see his dead, cold eyes):  I am sorry for your loss.  We will get the bastards who did this to you and your ten million siblings.  (sighs loudly) Are we done with this episode yet?  Where’s my check?  I was going to be a major movie star once upon a time.   God, I’m so empty inside…

 

I can (and have) watched this show for hours, and not just because of Mr. Caruso—although really, he’s enough for any woman.   No, CSI:  Miami has many other things to offer.  After all, it’s the place where second-tier Roswell actors go to die (for serious, two of them have recurring roles), and I love watching those people slowly lose their will to live.   Also, like most crime procedurals, the actual crimes and their denouements are just plain ludicrous.  Everyone rushes around accusing everyone of everything, and M. Caruso’s character (Horatio Cane—how fucking awesome is that name?) has what I like to think of as Saintly White Man Syndrome.   Saintly White Man Syndrome is a common affliction in crime procedurals; it’s kind of hard to explain, but you’ll know it when you see it.  Basically, it’s when a middle- or upper-class white guy connects with everybody:  gangstas and hos and socialites and rape victims and puppies and kittens and little ducklings all trust him instinctively—even though really.   Come on. 

 

I find Saintly White Man Syndrome hilarious in a way that I can’t quite articulate, probably because it leads to totally absurd and completely unrealistic plot points.  For example, on Law & Order:  Criminal Intent, Vincent Donofrio’s Saintly White Man character was interviewing a rape victim who was coping with her rape by “identifying with her attacker.”  Which, if the actress’s portrayal is anything to go by, means that she was kind of whiny and really mean to everyone.   Anyway.  Donofrio needed to get some information from her, so he…yelled at her until she collapsed and cried in his arms.  And then they were best buds.

 

Not to stereotype or anything here, but…typically, if you’ve just been raped, having a large angry man yelling at you is not going to make you open up.  I’m just sayin’.

 

Although I can’t think of an example of Caruso doing something similar–simply because sometimes, the brain blocks out things that are too painfull to remember–CSI:  Miami is just as full of narrative wtfery as any member of the L&O franchise.  And between the absurdity, the bad acting, and the carefully edited shots of what people in the know assure me is actually a cesspool of a city, I’m sold.  I know what I’ll be watching this Christmas, and it sure as shit ain’t It’s a Wonderful Life.  Nope, it’s Miami all the way.

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In Which the Laziness Continues

Two of my shortest reviews ever.  Dude, it’s Friday.  What do you want from me?

 

Anna Godbersen, The Luxe

A soap opera in Gilded Age New York City.  Lessons learned from this book?  If you have sex with a guy, it will turn out that he doesn’t really love you.  Unless you’re a blond.

I will read the sequels, but only because I *heart* Victoriana.  Otherwise, mediocre at best.

Recommended for:  Gossip Girl fans who like their drama corseted.

Meg Cabot, Pants on Fire

Typical Cabot stand-alone:  main character is snarky and motor-mouthed and so boy-crazy that it’s actually downright embarrassing.  This was cute and enjoyable, but I definitely wouldn’t list it among Cabot’s best work.  Speaking of which, where’s the last Princess Diaries book?  I’m dying here, Cabot.

Recommended for:  Those going through Mia-withdrawal.

 

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Burned Out

So I sat on a train for…a lot of hours over the holiday, and during that time I read.  I read a lot.  I read three books on the way down, one while I was at home, two on the way back, and one yesterday just because I felt like keeping in practice.  During the last week, I have read:

Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

Anna Godbersen, The Luxe

Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter

E. Lockhart, The Boy Book

Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big in This?

Meg Cabot, Pants on Fire

John Green, Paper Towns

Oh, and before I left for Thanksgiving, I read An Abundance of Katherines, just for shits and giggles.  In conclusion, I’m going to go watch some damn TV now.  I’ll get back to you when my brain feels a little less mushy.

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