Can I get a W00T woot?

It's Columbus Day - the day to celebrate how Cristbol Colón came to the Americas with a band of pirates and decided to take over the land and indigenous peoples, bearing gifts of disease, slavery and religious persecution.

Ugh. Why do we still celebrate this day? By now, everyone should know that Columbus was NOT the first European to discover America. The Vikings were. Duh.

Lief Ericson never gets enough credit. Supposedly Oct. 9th was Lief Ericson day, but nobody knew about it. --_--

It may seem strange to some people because I am an English major and writing minor, but I don't like poetry. I don't. Although it can be beautiful sometimes, it's more often a pain in the ass, both to write and read.

I had to write a lot of poetry for my Creative Writing II class and Art & Poetry Collaboration class I took last year. Talk about a headache. Even after scribbling poem after poem, I don't feel like I've been able to improve much. Nor has my understanding of poetry grown. I mostly get lots at the leaping logic part, which I think is highly mislabeled. I am a very reasonable and logical person, but there is no logic in this leaping business my professors spoke of. It's nonsense.

At the same time, my inablitity to understand poetry half stems from the fact that I don't read poetry. How can anyone write well if they do not constantly look at good examples. I'm sure there are poets out there whose poetry I would like, but I'm not interested in it enough to get up and search out these illusive poets.

I don't read poetry because I have a hard time understanding it. I'm a blunt and often oblivious person who needs things spelled out for me. Hence, I'm not interested in reading a poem over and over again, trying to analyze and figure out what the hell the poet is trying to say. Sure it sounds pretty, but what does it mean?! It's so frustrating.

Thus I am stuck in a cycle. So why do I keep trying to write poetry every once in a while, for example, the Shattering the Silence Exhibit? Why do I torture myself?

Not another one....

Yup, it's one of those posts, where I give a short, random ramble because I forgot that I needed to post at the last moment. XD  Well, besides that, I've been doing a lot of writing, still trying to put out something decent for the "Shattering the Silence" exhibit about domestic abuse. So far, I brainstormed another 2 writing ideas and 3 photography projects. I started on one today, taking pictures around campus, but that's it so far. Anyway, not much else to report other than I'm currently reading Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood, which I like more than any of her other books I've read so far. And I should be studying for a literature exam I have to take tomorrow... but.... I've been horribly distracted and procrasting waaaay too much lately.

P.S.  Bad spelling and grammar makes me go on the rampage. RAWR!

Battle of the Bookstores

I love Borders.
Absolutely. They have a huge, diverse selection of books, comfy chairs to read and relax in, a fun section for kids to play and read, a cafe with food, drinks, and sometimes there's live music. And while you're relaxing with a hot beverage and waiting for others in your shopping party to decide what to buy, you can open your laptop and surf the web with Borders's free wi-fi connection. Borders stores also support local organizations with small fundraising events in stores. Plus my favorite authors often tour to the Chicagoland Borders, which makes me endlessly happy.

One of my favorite places in the world was a certain 4-story Borders in downtown Chicago. The basement level contained the children's section, Romance section, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror and Manga all in one level. It was heavenly. Sadly, that Chicago borders closed. *tear* BUT there are still 4 other Borders downtown, so I don't feel so bad. =D

Back in the day, I even followed Borders Inc. on the stock market for my economics class assignment. I learned quite a bit, including that the Borders Books Music & Cafe is reducing the Music-selling section because not many people go there to buy music anymore. It also doesn't help that the majority of people buy music online or simply pirate it instead of going out and purchasing CDs. On the other hand, I've noticed an increase in the number of books and the movies/tv show section has been growing over the past few years.

When I came back to Grand Rapids last year for college in the fall, I was super dissappointed to find out that the Walden Books (owned by Borders) at Woodland Mall closed and was replaced by a super big Barnes & Nobles. There went all my 40% off coupons. I was impressed by the amount of books in the new Barnes & Nobles, but not by the customer service. I've not had a problem at other B&Ns, but the people who work at that one are very rude.

I asked for help finding a display that was moved and the lady looked me in the face, said "I don't know where it was moved" stared at me a moment longer, turned around and left. No "I'll find out" or "you can ask so-and-so over there. He/she will be able to find out". Nope! Just the cold shoulder.
Another time I went back, my friends and I had recently seen Avatar in theaters (for the 3rd time) and walked into the Barned & Nobles to find a few displays with Avatar information books & figurines. Of course, we scuttled over there pretty fast and began going through it excitedly. Then this guy (an B&N employee) told us not to touch the display and mess it up. What the hell? We're obviously all over 21 and he treats us like a bunch of rabid 5-yr-olds! On top of that, it's illogical to tell us not to look at the books...at a bookstore... where the purpose is for people to browse books, chose one or more, and buy them. So stupid! That was the last time I went to a B&N.

Another complaint for B&Ns are the selection of books. The stores are much too picky about what types of books they have. For instance, my roommate wanted to buy and read a good romance novel because she had never specifically read one. She wanted it for entertainment purposes and as research for incorporating romantic relationships in a fiction story she'd been workin on. We get to the Romance aisle and what do I find? Tons of historicals! I do enjoy historical romance stories every once in a great while but really, they're not in vogue. As I've pointed out before, the paranormal/supernatural subgenres are highly popular, especially in romance.

My friend also likes paranormal-action novels so I thought I'd get her a romance novel that is in the paranormal-action subgeneres. You guessed it, I couldn't find much. There were too many historical and not enough paranormals (which is most of the romance market right now!). I eneded up getting her a romantica book, which had too much sex in it for her, which is fine. Not everyone likes to read 15 page long sex scense. My point is though, there wasn't much to chose from. B&N are prudes. They don't want certain romance books dirtying their store shelves. Ugh. So annoying. Borders has such better selections.

There is one thing I like about B&Ns and that is the stationary, journals, notebooks, umbrellas and such. They're pretty spiffy. Too bad for them I won't buy them because they're so damned expensive! Sometimes good deal are found at Barnes & Nobles. But there are always great prices at Borders.
Barnes & Nobles: pay for membership w/ sparse & crappy coupons.
Borders: free memebership w/ awesome coupons that are e-mailed out weekly.

I suppose that's enough to adequately explain my dislike for Barnes & Nobles. They just aren't as good, even if they might be a more profitable company. When I was much younger, my friend Sarah and I joked that we'd go into business and open a store that's half a bookstore and the other half an anime/manga store. I still think that's a cool idea, though I do not intend to follow through with it.

Distance and Perspective

I took a creative non-fiction workshop course last school year, which was a lot of fun. I liked the constructive criticism from my professor and peers which enabled me to further enhance my writing abilities. However, I soon discovered that creative non-fiction isn't for me. It's too personal.

I'm not a closed-off person, but I also am not comfortable being completely open. I don't think anyone is. Yet for whatever reason,when I went to write in that class, a lot of uncomfortable thought and memories surfaced that made it into my writing. It left me feeling exposed and exasperated because the issues I brought up don't have a neat and clear ending, like fiction. In real life, they just fade out, with or without closure and an exciting climax. I was exasperated not by the issues, but by my writing them. I thought (and still do) believe I am over those parts of my life. For the most part, they barely effect me. Yet when I brought them to be critiqued, my peers of course were curious to know the endings to these stories, to which I answered, there wasn't any clear ending. How bothersome.

Not that I blame them in the least, but this is one of the reasons I love fiction. I am able to pull myself away from the topic and be objective. For example, I'm still working on a few different pieces to turn in for the "Shattering the Silence" exhibit at school for Domestic Abuse Awareness Week. The subject of domestic abuse, violent or non-violent, is not easy for people to write about. Fortunately, I've experienced a minimum amount of abuse in my life. Perhaps this is why I find it easier to write about serious issues like emotional or verbal abuse, sexual abuse, etc. I realized that I have written a story and poem of that nature in the past.

I had not consciously decided for my writing to champion the cause of domestic abuse/violence awareness, however it seems to be happening on it's own in my writing anyway. I find this interesting and slightly disturbing. Still, someone's gotta do it. I suppose if I can, if I have words and the means to inform and explain this very grave problem to people, all the better.

Exercise: Dazzling Diphthongs

Recently, a friend set her facebook status to say "dazzle me with your diphthongs". I took that as a challenge and wrote a short story full of as many diphthongs as I could think of. It's a silly but fun writing exercise.

Outside the circus trailer:

The clown was cold to the touch. Crowds gathered around while lawmen ushered them back. From the masses, a detective with the face of a hound joined me. Eyes like a hawk, he stepped over the chalk drawing and prodded the body with the point of a pen.

I suggested he might’ve been  poisoned. The detective suspected the widow of wrongdoing and shouted for her to be questioned. She admitted to being disloyal but claimed no fault in clown’s downfall. The conclusion of death was asphyxiation because he choked on a crackerjack toy.

working on something new

For the past several weeks I've been working on the committee that's putting together AQ's Domestic Abuse Awareness Week. One of the new events we will have is an exhibit of artwork, poetry, and short stories about people's reactions to any form of domestic abuse. Although I had a large assignment due this morning, my mind was buzzing on this event, and I was inevitably sidetracked.

So today I started working on a short story that might be displayed in the exhibit. It's about the harmful cycle of verbal and emotional abuse, especially to children. In a way, I'll be re-writing the tale of Cinderella without the happily-ever-after. The hardest part of writing this is not the subject but how to go about making an strong but subtle impact throughout the story. That is, how to write about verbal and emotional abuse without specifically using crude and crass language dialogue. It's every writer's great challenge: show, don't tell. I'm generally not too bad at that, but subtly is not my strong point. I'm very much a blunt person and my writing generally reflects that. In this way, I think this short story is a good writing exercise for me. =)