The Prairie

Yesterday I spent the day slumping around and being grouchy.
As the day continued, I became more and more defensive.

I was home alone.
But I was sure that when Travis got home he would be angry with me and I would have to defend myself, since I was also sure that I was right.
And I spent the whole day preparing my defenses.

You see, about a week ago Travis gave me 50 dollars and said "Don't use the debit card this week, just use the cash."

And I was probably supposed to spend it on groceries and things (which I did) but I was also not supposed to go shopping.
Or so one must assume.

But I went to the DI, (that doesn't count as shopping, right?) to look for a frame so I could finally hang up our blasted Proclamation to the World.
I am on a beautifying-my-home kick after going to my friend Suzanne's and finding it to be the most darling house I've ever been in (She is an interior designer -check out what she did in Nie Nie's house - SO cute, right?)
And as I was already at the DI i decided to wander through the other sections in case there was something I absolutely needed.

And there was something.
It was a 6 dollar box-set.
Of books that I already owned beautiful copies of.

But I bought it.
And then I felt guilty.

And then I was mad that Travis was mad (which he wasn't, because he wasn't home)and I might have hidden the box set so he wouldn't go "Where'd that come from?" and then I would have to say "The DI."
And then he'd say "But you already own those books."
and I'd say "But mine are antiques! Mine are too old for children to read, and they're kids books!"
And then we'd both be angry.


But when Travis got home he said "Did you go to DI?"
and I freaked out a little.
"How did you know that?"
"I just know things," he teased.
"How did you know I went to the DI?"

And then I remembered that I had looked up the address online and left the page up, and he had seen it.
"What did you buy?" he asked.(Conversationally, but to me it seemed hostile)
"A frame and ...mumble mumble..."
and I left the room quickly.

And he said, "Hey, what did you buy?"
"A box set of books," I said.
"How much was that?" he asked.
"Six dollars."
"That's not bad at all," he said. "What books?"
"Well, they're books I already own, but they're my favorite books so..."
"What books are they?" he repeated.
"The Little House books."

"That's awesome!" said Travis, "all the books for 6 dollars is not too shabby."


Oh, I love him.

Why am I so crazy and paranoid?


p.s. Look how cute, my grandpa signed his name in half these books as a little kid.

Wizarding Wonder

Sometimes as we are brushing our teeth, thinking back on the day Travis will pose a question.

And sometimes I will ponder that question for the next week, unable to come to an acceptable answer.

I have been doing just that this last week.

His question:

Who do you think would win in a fight, Dumbledore or Gandalf?

Curse you, husband. I do not know.

It is nearly impossible to say, and yet I can't stop wondering.

Whole Wheat

I am a lover of cookbooks.
Which is something I didn't know until I got married.
Since then, however, I've realized that I spend several hours every Thursday going through cook books and cooking blogs planning our weekly meals. (Thursday's the day for that)
Yesterday I spent a good three hours looking through the Seed Saver's Exchange online seed catalog.
And calling multiple people to say things like "There are over four thousand tomato varieties! FOUR THOUSAND. Tomatoes for slicing, tomatoes for drying, for canning, for salads, black tomatoes, green tomatoes, striped tomatoes!"
I've also been reading an absurd amount of books about food that aren't cook books.

They're making me feel hungry and a little guilty and also make me want to have a little farm.
I've been eating super well, which is amazing since usually people are like "Becky, I think you have scurvy, do you know what fruit is?" and I say, "I'll be fine, gimme some of that Lemon-aid, it'll cure me."

But all these food books make me want MORE cookbooks.
And one that aren't Cookies. (Which, by the way, is AWESOME.)
Mostly I want a book called Good to the Grain, because I'm trying to cook with whole grains, but just adding whole wheat flour into recipes that call for white flour doesn't work if you don't understand flour as a substance and taste.
So far I've managed to steal three recipes from Good to the Grain without actually buying it.
Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies from Food in Jars
Oatmeal Pancakes from Smitten Kitchen
and Spelt Flour Pie Crust from when I snuck into the bookstore and copied it out of the book without paying for it.

Farmer's Market starts this weekend in Provo and I'm about peeing my pants in anticipation.
Also, I'm almost done with Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, so get ready to hear hyperbole's like "The best book I've ever read."
Which it might be.
And that's saying a LOT.

Hey. Eat some good food today. I doubt you'll regret it.


* * *
p.s. this is a totally unrelated Tipping Bucket Video that Travis stayed up all freaking night making while I slept in my bed alone... *tears*
It must be pretty good then, right? Donate a dollar at Tippingbucket.org
ALSO, that's my voice at the beginning.

Other People

others have good things to say.

If I send you to a blog it's because reading made me feel emotions.

Maybe excitement and eekness: Uganda!!

Or that tickley feeling where I want to have a baby to love: Blissful Inspiration

Or horror: Tyra Banks announces she will pen a novel: Modelland

Or imaginative. by needing to imagine all the good things that could come of this: Fatty Contest

All I have to say today is what you guys are saying too.

clap your hands

I am trying to reconcile my beliefs.
More specifically, my religious beliefs and my Peter Pan beliefs.

Here's the problem: I may believe in the evolution of animals, but I think God created man as MAN. Now, If god created Adam and Eve as adults then the first baby ever born was Cain.
When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and THAT was the beginning of fairies.

Oh dear goodness. Was Cain, the first murderer and son of perdition also the creator of those wonderful little creatures?
How can this beeee?!
I hope God created Adam and Eve as babies. Then Adam's laugh could have been the beginning of fairies.
Come on Bible and Jame Barrie, BE MORE SPECIFIC IN YOUR RECORD KEEPING.

This is something I will have to ponder for a long time.
Probably while listening to Pogo's mashup of Hook, because it's awesome.

Kelsey N; I hope you read this

I loved my elementary school music teacher.
Worshiped. He was the coolest teacher ever, except (surprisingly) my gym teacher Mr. Kline who had a red beard and sometimes subbed for music class.
The two of them were equally amazing to me.

But my music teacher's name I don't remember. I do remember though that the name of his band was Waking Virginia. Which, as a 9 year-old was the best band name ever. I even remember that they called it Waking Virginia because they practiced late at night in the a garage and the street they lived on was Virginia Road (or street, lane, avenue, you know...)
I remember he LOVED the Beatles and he had us watch Yellow Submarine in class. I told myself I loved it because I loved him.
But really I thought it was confusing.

Now I think that it's not really for children, even if it's a cartoon.

But I never ever got caught reading in music class. That was the only class that I never got caught reading in.
Until reading week, that is, of fifth grade. (DUM DUM DUUUUUM)

It began like this, and my family will tell you that I tell lies or make things up and maybe as a nine year-old I exaggerated things (something I've outgrown) and have remembered wrong, but if I lie, I don't think I do. I remember the story like this, and it begins with one of the two Kelseys.

There were two girls named Kelsey in my grade. They were, of course, best friends for no reason other than their matching names.
One day, Kelsey N. said to me, "What do you do so that so many people like you?"
I said, always very self-righteous, "Nothing, I just do what I like. I like to read and I'm very good at it. Maybe people like me because I'm so good at reading."
This is the sort of thing that you think when teachers make you take a test and then go "Oh my! You read at a twelfth grade level!"
"Of course I do," you think to yourself, "I should be starting college next year I'm so smart."
Then you think that's probably why you have friends.

But Kelsey took that to heart. The next Monday was the beginning of Reading Week. You got to bring in a book and blanket and lie on the floor and read instead of work. It was the best week of the year.
Kelsey came in wearing a pin that said "I love to read." I thought, "that's stupid. Everyone loves to read."
Then she wrote on the white board with a red marker (I can still picture it exactly!) "It's I love to read week, so READ!!"
And I thought, "You're stealing my thing that I do, which is read all the time."

Throughout the week she carried around big looking books (that I had already read before, of course) and said things to people like "I love to read SO much," or "all I do all day is read," or "My mom has to ground me from books I like to read because I don't do other work."
and I thought "I will kill you, Kelsey N."
She got in trouble for reading under her desk.
Which was also MY thing.

Then one day, Scooter (a boy who I remember was named Scott) said to me, "Have you read the Harry Potter books?"
"Yeah," I said, "I read all three in just one day each over Christmas break" (back when there were only three).

"Wow," said Scooter, "You're almost as bad as Kelsey N."
And I blew my top.
Everytime Kelsey said, "I like to read" I would yell "I LOVE to read MORE THAN KELSEY N."
If Kelsey stayed in to read books instead of go to recess, so did I.
And when Kelsey pulled out her book secretly in the back of music class
so did I.

I remember how embarrassed I was when I was caught.
It wasn't like being caught reading in a normal class, because in a normal class I always felt secretly proud that I was reading under my desk.
But in music class I wanted to die. I wanted to curl up in a hole and die.
It was mortifying.
Because I loved my music teacher so very much.

And yet....
I wanted to be caught so that everyone would know, I was not almost as bad as Kelsey N.
Kelsey N. was almost as bad as me.

I think she outgrew that "reading" thing.
Sadly, I did not.
My mother often complains that she is the only woman in America who has to take books away from her children as punishment.
Jack has to get reading glasses because he'll read for so long that when he looks up he can't see anything far away.

The doctor said, "If you just take a break from reading every 20 or 30 minutes you wouldn't need glasses." But Jack said no.
Because in our family we read for 5-6 HOURS before taking a break.
Every twenty minutes?

How would you know what's happening in your book if you take a break every 20 minutes?

Imagination

I hate Milo and Otis.

It is the worst and most boring and full-of-animal-cruelty movie I've ever seen.

When I watched it and Milo was fighting a little crab that actually grabbed on to his mouth, I thought "That's mean, making a cat fight a pinching little crab,"
But by the end I was thinking,

"That's mean making that little dog actually fight that BEAR. That's mean making that cat actually go DOWN A WATERFALL in a wooden box. That's mean tricking these animals into hurting themselves constantly and fighting with bigger animals."

Then I moved on to "That's mean making us watch a cat give birth and now, oh HOLY CRAP! Watching that DOG give birth. And why do children love this movie where animals are fighting and a dry British SUPER boring man is narrating and doing all the voices of different animals?"

This movie was similar, I believe to The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. This is a book that all children believe that they love. But if you ask a child what the book is about they will say "A little boy and girl run away and hide in a museum."
Just like if you ask a child what Milo and Otis is about they will say "A puppy and kitty go on an adventure."
When in fact those are terrible descriptions of what happens in either. Kids like the imagination they personally have but must, I'm sure, hate the dry stupid adult narrating and they must hate The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and they must hate Milo and Otis.

At least they would if they knew what was happening.
And adults would hate them if they rewatched/read them instead of relying on their fond and incorrect childhood memories.

p.s. Every single person who worked on Milo and Otis, except maybe the narrator, was Japanese... I wonder what we can learn from that...

The Blue Bookcase

So, I love books.

(If you read this blog often you're probably laughing that I said that, since it's like me saying "So, I breathe oxygen." Yes, you're thinking, we already know.)

I found a book blog that I like! That, as you might NOT know, is a big deal since usually when I find a book blog it's like this:

Sloppy electric green background with words in some horrible unreadable color like purple.
One blog author who has one genre of book she reads, like Young Adult Fantasy.
Said blog author is pretentious and rarely likes books, but cannot give any real substantial reasons for disliking these books.
When she does like books it is again for unknown reasons.
She describes only one book every few weeks when she finishes reading them.
When "reviewing" books she uses words like "Believable" and "likable" and other words that end in "able."

Yes, I used purple to confuse and disturb you.

I hate these blogs. They make me feel sad.
SO when I found The Blue Bookcase, imagine my NOT sadness. In fact, imagine my joy!
Their blog is simple and pretty. They write clearly and positively about many genres of books. And yes! I'm saying THEY because it's more than one person writing reviews!
Check out the Little Blue Bookcase, and check out their book giveaway!

Week in Pictures: Blackberry Tarts and Free Audiobooks on iTunes!

I swore off writing, but I just can't help myself. There are literally 200 free audio books on iTunesU. All the classics and so many of my favorites! My sister in-law turned me on to them and now I'm filling up my hard drive with them.

Children's Books

Yesterday... nope.

Tuesday.

I can't ever keep days straight...

Anyway, on TUESDAY, which was not yesterday, I spent the whole day at UVU for the Forum on Children's Literature. I found it to be most awesome.

Here are some reasons:

1. I got a free pen.

2. I got a free water bottle.

3. My name tag said Rebeccah Pitcher. How cute is that? I love having Pitcher be my last name.

4. I got to meet lotsa authors, (real live authors!)

5. I bought a few books, and had them signed.

6. I got to have a professional author critique a chapter of my book. (Yes, so, it was Carol, but still: awesome!) Also, I had to try to spell critique many times before I remembered it had a Q in it.

7. I learned the step-by-step procedure for writing a picture book.

8. I learned it so well that I will now teach you.

For especially my mother, who keeps saying that she will write a picture book:

First, a picture book has 32 pages. (almost) Always.

Pages are divided thus:

pg1: title page
pg2: info, like copyrights

pg3: STORY BEGINS.

But think of it like this, or open up a picture book, pg1 is a single, and pg3 (your beginning) is technically on a double page spread, but its a single too, because pg2 has boring things on it. SO pg3 has to be self-contained. (At least as far as text goes)

pg3: Story begins, and you can introduce the topic. But picture books, like poetry, have natural pauses and breaks, and the places where you feel like pausing or breaking...

those are the places you turn the page. (I made a page-break here by adding an elipses! after breaking, didn't you pause? THAT's where you turn the page.)

pg3-6: You can introduce the topic, like this, over those four pages you can say "Kathryn's room was always neat and clean. Nothing was ever out of place... [blah blah blah.] Even her hampster's cage was always tiday. Except her bottom dresser drawer; it was filled with candy. She never shared it with anyone and no one knew it was there but her."

pg7/8: introduce conflict: "But one day when Kathryn got home her bottom drawer was open! Someone had stolen a piece of her candy!"

pg9-29ish: Try to solve the problem three times and fail. "Kathryn knows one of her brothers is stealing her candy, so she lays a trap to catch him, but falls asleep and wakes up and candy is gone! She hangs a cage from the ceiling, but it falls when she goes to get a drink and there's no one in it when she gets back. Too bad her hampster can't tell her who's been sneaking around. Finally Kathryn lures all her brothers into her room and pretends to leave, waiting to see which one will take the candy. None of them do! She looks over to complain to Marigold her hampster, but she's not in her cage!"

pg30-31: Solve the problem. "She's in the bottom drawer eating Kathryn's candy! It was her all along!"

The last page, though, always has to be an "Aha!" moment. You can't just solve it. Often times its in a picture only. Like a picture of Kathryn and Marigold the hampster eating the candy together. Kids know, even if grown-ups don't, that that means Kathryn isn't mad. Everything will be okay.

Or in Can't you sleep little bear? It's when he says "I brought you the moon," and the last picture is just of them standing, looking up at the moon.

or in Where the Wild Things Are its that line, "and it was still hot."

It's not enough that dinner was there, or that Max made it home. That is only satisfying.

Not "aha" worthy.

But dinner was still warm. On that last page, when you thought the story was through, and you thought, "at least he's back safe," then you can add "and things will be okay."

Now YOU can do it. Write a children's book.

But first look at these pretty pictures to inspire you: The Picture Book Report.

They're illustrating novels.

What a novel idea.

It wouldn't let me post any pictures.

Also, it keeps screwing with my spacing.

p.s. Love me inspite of my puns.

Photographer Becky

I am taking someones engagement pictures this afternoon (in like a half-hour, actually) and I feel neeeeervous.

I am still doing pretty much everything for free.

Sadly, I probably will for like another year.

When we went to Barnes and Noble on Monday I gathered a modest pile of books to carry around with me and pretend I could afford to buy. (Out Stealing Horses, anyone? I heard it was great. I want to reeeead it.)

After we left (sadly, with only one book --and not for me, even!) Travis said, "Just think, if someone paid you a hundred dollars, just a hundred dollars, to take their engagement pictures you could buy like 7 books!"

Woe is me. Who will pay me to take their picture?

Speaking, as I often do, of books: the only thing I love more than books are things that LOOK like books. Check out this awesome laptop case:

See more here and if you're wondering what to get me for my upcoming Birthday... I have a thirteen inch macbook and it totally needs a case.

Also check out this very awesome WALLPAPER. Whhat?! I had to use caps-lock because I keep NOT believing that it's papering. I saw a picture of it in someone's kitchen and thought it was books. For realz.

Of course, it had to be from Anthropologie. I just loooove me some Anthrolopologie Home Decor.

Six impossible things before breakfast:

Yesterday was a big day. Travis worked ALL day from 7:30am to 6:30pm while I cleaned the house from top to bottom and then babysat for some friends. At 7:00 we went to the hunger banquet and at 9:00 we went to see Alice in Wonderland. (After such a big day, I came home from church today and then fell asleep for FOUR hours! Thanks for letting me sleep, Travis!)

On the way home from Alice yesterday I was struck with a (hopefully) impossible thought: What if my children do not like to read?
I hope that cannot be. But I was so terrified by the idea that I cried the whole way home.
Then Travis and I snuggled up in bed and I read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter while he read A River Runs Through It. And I thought, of course my children will love to read, and if not, then me reading aloud to them for three hours a day until they leave for college will just have to do.
But back to Alice.

I really liked the Tim Burton version. I was worried that he would be remaking the Disney version, since Disney funded it, but with a few twists from Through the looking-glass, but Burton had created an entirely new plot, that (at this moment Travis is biting my arm) I found to be entertaining and not at all compromising to the books.
(Concerning his biting me, Travis says "False. Take that off. I know your password, I'll just go on and edit it if you don't.")

Anyway, I would recommend going to see the film, I thought it was well-made and the actors were great and the story line was compelling, and you all know how much I hate EVERY other Alice film ever made. I especially liked the use of poems and quotes by Lewis Carroll that were not strictly from the Alice books. It was all just a jumble of impossible things by a lovely writer.

Speaking of Alice, check out this Wonderland-themed underwater photoshoot by Elana Kalis.
I am crazy over the ones of Alice going through the looking glass: Alice in Waterland.
There are dozens more! Admire them!


***Edit: I'm adding more to this post because I keep thinking of Alice-y things I want to share and figure I'll just throw them all into one long post:

This is old, but I have been listening to it a lot this morning. Its very catchy.

And I found these pretty pictures on the blog See Hear Say, by Su Blackwell.

(So maybe this one is Peter Pan, but its pretty too)

Angsty Post

A warning to protect my friends: this post will be long (super long) and full of ranting.
You do not have to read it, but if you do, please leave a comment and give me your opinion on the matter, because I am interested to hear it, maybe.. ahem, yes... even if it is a different opinion from mine.

Here goes:
Every single time that I have ever told anyone that I want to write young adult fiction, without exception, they have said "So you want to be the next Stephanie Meyer, huh?"
That makes me want to claw their eyes out.
This is a violent reaction and that is because my hatred for Stephanie Meyer and everything she stands for is itself very violent.
I do not want to be compared in any way to Meyer, and that is because I feel that she writes rubbish and I do not.
Once someone close to me, who will remain unnamed, said, "You can criticize her when you've written a best-seller."
Movie critics do not have to be great directors. Food critics do not have to be great chefs.
I do not have to top the New York Times Best Seller List to recognize the worst books (please do not say literature) ever written.
I get very defensive when people criticize books like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and I practically snapped Travis's head off the other day when he asked why everything has to be nonsensical in the novel. (Not the garbage movie, folks, the novel.)
"It's about a little girl growing up," I said over and over again, "She doesn't fit, she's too big, too small. Adults expect things of her that are absurd. She doesn't understand what people want from her. Everything seems confusing."
"But why does the baby turn into a pig?" he asked. "Why do they play croquet with flamingos and hedgehogs? It doesn't make sense."
"Nothing makes sense!" (I think I was practically yelling at him) "Don't you remember being a kid and thinking absolutely everything around you was crazy and confusing and adults were nonsensical and you couldn't get a handle on anything because it was always changing? It doesn't make anymore sense than the real world!"
Don't even get me started on Peter Pan.
Too late. I am started.
I am sick and tired of me saying "I love Peter Pan. I think it is among the most wonderful and important Children's books ever written," and people responding with "James Barrie was super screwed up. His balls didn't even drop."
I do not care about James Barrie's balls. I care that he wrote a magical book about someone who could imagine the world into being as wonderful as he wanted it to be.
I do care about Barrie though, don't get me wrong, I used to --and sometimes still do-- wish that I was Barrie, merely so I could be the one to find Peter Pan, to understand him completely. I know Barrie's life totally sucked.
Sometimes I think it was worth it. I love Peter Pan more than words can express.

I know that I will not produce the next Peter or Alice.

But I like to think I'm a pretty good writer
(and yet I know as soon as I say that ever, even to my friends and family, people picture the kind of kid that is the main character in Gentlemen Broncos. A terrible writer who thinks they're Gods gift to literature, constantly asks their friends to read their work for them and hovers over them asking what they think.)
Why is saying "I want to write," looked at the same way as a short uncoordinated kid saying "I want to be the next Michael Jordan" ?
It's an unobtainable, laughable dream. Right?

And if you want to be a good writer, not just a popular writer, oooh boy. Keep dreaming.
Stephanie Meyer is the devil.
Her book of distopian, obsessive, suicidal, sexual-primitivism lust and "love" is just another bomb being dropped on literature.
Because I know that if I want to write and have people hear me I have to write something like Gossip Girl, Twilight, Shiver, garbage.
Because girls who want to read literature read Emma, or Wuthering Heights, or Pride and Prejudice.
And literature, real literature, is so out of fashion that no one knows what books have won the Printz award this year. And even the winners, which I normally really like, are not always the type of literature that mean.
I don't know any ten-year olds that would read and enjoy Peter Pan or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Maybe I feel angsty because I read so much YA lit. At least the angst is how I remember being a teenager, and can write about it.

So here's what it all boils down to, I think: All children know that adults absolutely do not remember being a child.
All adolescents are caught between being a "grown-up" and a kid and do not know how to behave and have absurd things expected from them, no matter their circumstances.
Even if these kids and teenagers have friends and close family, they're all going at it alone. They're all "coming of age" and you know, "finding themselves." They're doing all those cliche things that everyone does around that time between ages 11-19.
And I honestly feel that I have something important to do. I feel that writing can help.

Don't you remember those few friends, the ones who stuck by you no matter what? Don't you remember that they weren't girls in your grade or the young women in your ward? It was Anne of Green Gables. It was Francie from a Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It was Jonas from The Giver.
They were the only people who knew, exactly how it felt to be you, because they were SUCH a part of you.
I want to help people feel like someone knows how it feels to be them.
But the more YA lit I read, the more I feel like that is an immpossibility.
I want to do something important, but the world has decided (against my wishes) that it is not important. It is useless.
Teenagers read the soft porn of Twilight and Anne, sweet red-haired Anne Shirley, is forgotten in place of Bella Swan.

Stephanie Meyer

This a secondary post to the one above, even though I wrote it later.
Because I got myself all worked up.
And I didn't discuss fully how terrible a person and writer I think Stephanie Meyer is.
And I want to.
Because of my over powering angst.

I would like to address all of my problems with Stephanie Meyer separately, beginning of course, with the most common complaint of her:

She is a terrible writer: She does not obey any grammatical laws. She is repetitive and obnoxious. The story lines in every single one of her books begins 2/3rds of the way through, instead of, you know, at the beginning. Except of course, her last novel, in which the entire story arch is completely closed at the beginning when Bella and Edward FINALLY have sex, since that's all the books were leading up to. Then an entirely NEW plot randomly begins and Bella has a monster baby. This, of course, is completely unrelated to the previous books.

She is a terrible person: I honestly believe that you should try to convey your values in your literature. NO, I don't think that mean you have to write only Mormon books if you are Mormon. However, I cannot help but feel that all of her books are PRO-abortion and PRO-pre-martial sex. I would not even care about this, except that everyone in the world knows that she graduated from BYU.
An author came to talk to us once and said "Stephanie Meyer has done something great. Her first books were all against having sex before marriage and her last book was anti-abortion."
If you remember the first books, all Bella wants to do is bang her undead stalker. He will not let her because he doesn't want to go to hell. They fight about it all the time. She begs him repeatedly to please prove how much he loves her by doing the dirty. He keeps saying no. She is constantly depressed and angry because of it. Finally they decide to get married so that they can have sex without feeling guilty. Please do not tell me that story line is ANTI pre-martial sex.

Then in the last book, after finally getting married and doing it ONCE, Bella is knocked up with a creature like unto those from scary alien books. It eats her from the inside. Everyone around her wants to kill the baby because they think it is evil. Bella becomes crazed. She decided to let it live literally off her blood. It rips itself a hole in her stomach and crawls on out, leaving Bella to die. Psych, suddenly Bella is a vampire. Yay!
Stephanie Meyer should be embarrassed. I think somewhere she probably is.
Deep down, you know.

She has deprived an entire generation of happy relationships: Yes. Even on campus, where these people should be ADULTS, I have heard men say "I decided to read Twilight so girls will like me more."
I have heard women say "I asked my boyfriend to read Twilight so he could understand my needs better."
This is what men will learn: Be better looking. Hang out with girls with low self-esteem, but who are secretly hot. Creep into her bedroom at night to watch her sleep. Wear lip gloss. Follow her around and spy on her, even before you have officially become friends. What she thinks is not important, it is all about how she smells/looks. Protect her from things, she is helpless and easily confused. Deny her of any physical affection and she'll only want you more. Beat up other boys who like her and then be mean about it. Abandon her whenever and if you come back she will accept you, as most victims of abusive relationships do.

This is what women will learn: My personality is unimportant, as long as I am attractive. I should let men do things for me because if I do things for myself he does not love me. Stalking is not creepy, it is romantic. If I somehow make an attractive person love me I should do really nice things for him all the time and cry all the time because I do not deserve him. Love, lust, and obsession are all the same thing. If a man leaves me, I should kill myself. If I fail to kill myself before his return, I should take him back. He left me because he loves me. I should try to date as many men as possible, because I am ugly and clumsy and stupid. If I trick my man into doing me I will be happy and assured of his love.

(I'm not really done, but I have to rush to class, so that is all for now.)

Jack

I may be able to pose as Mary, but never as Jack, even though we actually look and act completely the same.
I love to talk to him on the phone, because it goes like this:

me: Why are you home?

Jack: I'm home sick

me: Me too. So what have you been reading while you're home?

Jack: ummm, I'm starting the Hunger Games.

me: I heard they were really good.

Jack: What have you been reading?

me: I just finished the Lightning Thief, so we can go to the movie this weekend.

Jack: The movie's okay. You know that scene where Annabell plays with Cerberus, though?

me: Yeah.

Jack: They took the whole thing out. It just like all of a sudden they're with Hades, in the
underworld. No three headed dog to get around.

me: That makes no sense, you can't just walk into the underworld!

Jack: YEAH! I know, its like anyone who knows anything about the underworld would be
expecting to see Cerberus. It doesn't make any sense. They're just like ZIP! We're in the
underworld, ZIP! now we're not.

me: That's stupid. What else have you been reading?

Jack: How to Train Your Dragon, which is nothing like the movie, at least what I've seen in the trailer. I mean, in the movie they apparently kill dragons, but in the book every kid has to catch a dragon when its a baby or you're banished, so this kid catches one, but he gives it to this other guy so he doesn't get banished. I mean, when movies take stuff out, I'm like 'Okay, maybe they didn't have enough time to make it right,' but it's so stupid when they take stuff out just to add different things that never happened!

I love it. When I was a kid I just wanted a best friend who cared about books as much as I did. After the midnight showing of HP6 (which we both went to separately) he called me and we talked for almost an hour about the changes they made and how we felt about them.
And I mean, RIGHT after. We were on the phone from like 3-4am.

The first book ever ruined by movies for me was Tuck Everlasting, and it was a devastating, heart-breaking time for me. I love having someone who knows exactly how it feels.
And has read all the exact same books as me.

It doesn't matter that he's only twelve. He's one of my best friends.

Night Ideas

Saul Bellow said "You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write."

I suspect that he was wrong, because oftentimes in the middle of the night I wake and scribble down something.

In the morning I find phrases like "Rabbit Feet" and remember that I dreamed about a girl who found a secret school in the basement of her actual school. In the secret school everyone is part animal. The girl discovers she has rabbit feet. How did she never notice?

I find a post-it that says "Bathroom Journal" about a girl who hides her journal in the library which is in a bathroom. Also, she writes lies in her journal. So half of the excellent book I could write would be her lying journal and the other half would be a third-person narrative about how crappy her real life is.

Seriously. I have about one brilliant idea like this a week. I wake up feeling happy and secure in the promise of a Printz award.
Then, a few hours later, I look back on what my dream was REALLY about.

Of course, the scene in Twilight where Edward sparkles in the sun came to Meyer in a dream...
Maybe Rabbit Feet could be the next best seller.

Mary and Jack

Last night while reading On the Shores of Silver Lake (a Little House book) I had to stop, set down the book, and go get some tissues. I sobbed on uncontrollably for a good ten minutes.
I kept gasping and asking myself (aloud, too!) "what is wrong with me?" But I couldn't stop.
Every time I tried to pick up my book and keep reading I would begin to again cry like crazy.

This is why: In just one chapter Jack, Laura's sweet old dog turns on his bed, goes to sleep, and never wakes up again. Then aunt Docia comes and takes Pa out west, leaving three girls and a baby alone. AND THEN Mary goes blind from Scarlet Fever.

I actually texted Travis "Jack died and Mary's gone blind from Scarelt Fever and I can't stop crying" before I remembered that I have siblings named Jack and Mary.

And maybe that's confusing.

Really I was so broken-hearted that I wonder if I would cry as much if my actual dog died and my sister went blind.
I guess I probably would.

I pledge to read the printed word

I am all over this.
There's an organization called Read The Printed Word, whose mission statement is thus:

We support the printed word in all its forms: newspapers, magazines and, of course, books. We think reading on computers or phones or whatever is fine, but it cannot replace the experience of reading words printed on paper. We pledge to continue reading the printed word in the digital era and beyond.

Just a few weeks ago my sister Mary called me in a panic. She had heard a rumor that Google was trying to digitize books. Not just to make them more convenient, but to save trees.
That could only lead to one thing (especially knowing how powerful Google is!): NO MORE BOOKS.

This was very upsetting.
I LOVE that this organization isn't being called Read the Written-Word, but PRINTED word.
So I pledge to read books. Real books.

Last week I finished rereading one of my all-time favorite books, My Anotonia. Actually, both times I've read it it's been for a class.

I'm currently reading On the Banks of Plum Creek. I guess I read the Little House books when I was a kid, but I have no memory of any of them. I LOVE them.

Last, but not least, I'm trying to read Ender's Game aloud to Travis, because I'm sure that he would love it, if only he had the time to read it.


Visit Read the Printed Word to get a "button" to put on your blog or facebook:

children's media

I know what I want to do.
I want to make Children's Media.

Whether that be writing books for middle grade and young adults, or if that be writing or editing films for middle grade and young adults.

That's what I want to do. That's what I care about. That's what, I believe, I am pretty good at.


Also, apparently I connect best with twelve year olds.
When the sixth Harry Potter movie came out I went at midnight, yes dressed up, and then I called Jack (who is 12 and also went at midnight) and we had a lengthy discussion about all the things that we noticed, that had been omitted, and that we appreciated were included.

Aaaand, I got my 11 year old brother-in-law Harry Potter books for his birthday, and nothing is more exciting than when he says, "Hermione was supposed to have bushy hair and big teeth, and Ron should have had a long nose. The movies got it wrong."
Oh, Tate. That makes my day. Please be Harry for Halloween.

p.s. I recently finished the Golden Compass. Talk about awesome.

will work for books

providing of course, that I don't have to pay for food, clothes, housing, internet, tuition, you know...

Yesterday I went to a poetry reading, and afterward I decided that I wanted to buy a book from the poet.
It was 28 dollars.
"Oh," I complained, "I wish that I had endless money to spend only on books of poetry!"
"Don't we all?" said my friend Niki.

Then today I wandered through the BYU book sale, and read through a dozen beautifully illustrated children's books.
"Oh," I said to myself, "all I want are hundreds of these lovely books for my children to read, and hold (and likely scribble and chew on)"

I continued walking through the sale and found a heavy book filled with mouth-watering photographs of chocolate.
"Oh," I may have actually said aloud, to myself, "I wish I had a million dollars to spend on cookbooks, and then ingredients, and cook tasty things for my family."

So. I need several million dollars to spend on books.
and bookcases.
and food.

Here are the three books that I've recently added to my I wish booklist:





l


So if you're thinking to yourself "I don't want to buy Becky and Travis bathtowels or kitchen knives for their wedding," then please feel free to buy us cookbooks (Julia Childs, Martha Stewart and themed cookbooks are my favorite. Theme examples: cupcakes, chocolate, or pies), or children's books, they're almost as pricey as cookbooks! ooor buy a beautiful book of your favorite poetry.

Love, love, love! books.