#this kind of feels like a nyt bestseller list a little bit

[liminalweirdo]

How many have you read?

The BBC estimates that most people will only read 6 books out of the 100 listed below. Reblog this and bold the titles you’ve read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein 3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 11 Little Women – Louisa May Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffeneger 20 Middlemarch – George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis 34 Emma – Jane Austen 35 Persuasion – Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne 41 Animal Farm – George Orwell 42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving 45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding 50 Atonement – Ian McEwan 51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel 52 Dune – Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens 58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens 72 Dracula – Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses – James Joyce 76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal – Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession – AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel 83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks 94 Watership Down – Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

34 in completion, 47 if you count the ones I started and didn't finish

original post

[notebookmusical]

What's your opinion on her having not read the source material and writing a retelling anyway? Do you think people are justified in their anger or overreacting? I just think it's hilarious she said reading percy jackson made her qualified enough to write about this and that she thinks the Internet will forget, on the other hand people are way too quickly angry and should give more things a chance without jumping on the hate train immediately

good afternoon! i think that this conversation actually is a little more complex than just "are people justified in their anger or overreacting", and i've been trying to figure out how to respond to this ask for a while now (sorry it took so long). i'll preface this answer with the fact that i haven't looked into this book/this author too much, but i went and skimmed through the original interview that you're referencing for the sake of answering this ask. i also think that if the book had been marketed as "inspired by" rather than "a retelling", we'd be having a different conversation!

my thoughts under the cut because this got very long!

do i personally think that authors should read the source material before writing a retelling, a remix, etc.? yes, very much so. i don't think that you can subvert a classic and do it justice if you're not also addressing the original themes. it's why i have a problem with most (if not all) austen retellings i've read, because very few of them include social commentary and just focus on the romance, when social commentary was a large part of austen's works. (and also why i am constantly disappointed with the retellings i've read). do i think this got blown out of proportion/do i think people made this just about this specific author and interview when there is a larger conversation to be had (and when other authors have done the same)? also yes.

"I read a lot of the stories within The Odyssey, because they’re in things like Percy Jackson, and those little books of mythology you get as a kid, but I actually started and finished writing without sitting down and reading the whole thing. I have various translations; there are parts that are very beautiful and readable, but it’s so long, and written in a ‘prose-y’ way that’s kind of impenetrable." "Largely mythology has bypassed YA, which is why this is quite fun, because I love Greek mythology and YA, so it’s a little fun melding of my favourite things." (x)

i think the way people on twitter/instagram talked to/about this author (back when i was more active on twitter) was incredibly unnecessary; there's no reason people should be sending hate, and i feel very strongly about this. and i think that it's easier to target one person/one incident, rather than have productive conversations about how publishing doesn't want to tell stories of color, or how publishing fails to support authors (whether it's with media training or marketing), or how publishing fails to support their own staff, or how publishing rewards white mediocrity, or how publishing is a huge cesspool.

i think that there are several layers to this: the first, being that this author is now a new york times, indie, and international bestselling author. which is great for her, especially as a debut author — that's going to open up a lot of doors for her, and ultimately it is a huge triumph! from what i've seen (just from scrolling twitter/feed osmosis, really), her book had a pretty significant marketing budget (or at least, more than some other debuts, given that they had personalized ARCs), which i'm sure also helped a lot. i'm also going to say that the NYT bestseller list is a bit of a scam, but that's a different conversation. she also got a movie deal for this book, but i never really think too much of movie rights being sold until casting has been announced. by all of these metrics, it seems like (from my limited outside point of view) the author's career hasn't really been affected by people's "anger or overreaction", as you put it.

i can't help but wonder how this would be different if the author was a person of color. there's another (longer) conversation on which books and authors publishing sets up to succeed in terms of marketing budgets (and how many authors aren't really given any help, how authors are being thrown to the tiktok wolves, author burnout, etc.) to be had as well.

i also can't help but think of how authors of color are constantly told that they don't know their own stories/culture etc. well enough, or that publishing already has one book that is vaguely similar (and by that i mean 0.0000001% similar). and then you get this author, who is able to not just publish her book (and become a bestselling author) by rewriting a story that she didn't read entirely (i won't speak to how well she knew the bit of the story she was inspired by, because i 1) don't know the odyssey that well & 2) have not read her book), but also reach such levels of "success". i remember seeing on twitter that people were talking about how authors need media training (which is true), but also that i only ever see the "authors need better media training and support" argument when we're talking about white authors.

something that i personally wish people wouldn't do though, is rate books on goodreads a 1 star (with a comment about not having read the book) for the sake of giving it a 1 star without reading it, because then it makes it harder to see reviews that properly criticize the writing/plot/etc. and people aren't able to make as informed of a decision when picking up a book. and this goes for all books, not just this one.

i definitely have more to say on this, but i'm going to cut myself off here since 1) this answer got really long & 2) if i don't i'll never hit post

[carriejonesbooks]

So one day I was driving Em to school and Bob and Sheri, this talk show, was on the radio and they were having callers talk about what was a huge turn-off. You know, what is it that happens when you are on a date that makes a great big red light flash in your head and you go: WHOA! THIS DUDE/DUDETTE IS NOT FOR ME!

I’ve had a lot of these moments. *Cough. Cough* However, I’ve decided to make a top five list. Yes, I am limiting myself to five.

TOP FIVE THINGS POTENTIAL LOVE INTERESTS HAVE DONE OR SAID TO ME THAT MADE ME GO ICK! *Note: All of these have actually happened to me before. 1. A CRIMINALLY Abusive Past

Finding a restraining order under the front seat of his car on your first date when he is out of the car pumping gas. Actually, my dog found this and I had to take it out of his doggy mouth. Let’s just say protection orders are never good to find under the seat on a first date.

He ended up stalking me for awhile.

2. General Freakyness

He has an apartment with absolutely no pictures on the walls, no knick knacks, no litter, no nothing. Nothing says serial killer like this. Honestly, I was looking for big, blue tarps and duct tape.

3. MESSY And/or Loud Eating

They possess the inability to get food in their mouth and instead gets it in their hair, my hair, their chin, the table, the floor, etc…. It’s just gross. Plus, it’s a waste of food.

4.Putting on the Passive-Aggressive compliments.

Telling me I look like a bag lady. Not charming. Even if you add in ‘cute,” as in…. Hey, you look like a bag lady if bag ladies were cute.

To be fair, though, I was wearing a lot of clothes. Seriously. Maine is cold in winter. Sometimes you have to layer. A lot.

5. Being A Horrible Human Being

Telling me that I look like a good breeder because even though I don’t have hips, I’m pale and I have blue eyes? Sorry. Racists and guys who think of women as ‘breeders’ are not a turn on. Ever. Also, you don’t know what lurks in my DNA.

Hint: I’m not as white as I present, but man? Do I present as really white? I truly do. Is that my race? Yes, it is. Unless, you’re a eugenist and then… no.

So what about you? Have you ever been on a date where you were like: Nope. Nuh-uh. Never again.

ICK!

And as I was thinking about this, I realized that there are ways books do this to me, too. Everyone’s turn-offs are different, but here are my current top five.

The love interest is abusive and it’s supposed to be a romance. 

Yeah. No. Enough said.

Everyone is white and straight and rich and able bodied. 

Because… well, I like books that are creepy.

Really, really bad grammar AND SPELLING.

Stuff like:

‘Your a villain’, he sayid.

‘No freakin’g, way, in a million years” ! she said,

Characters that don’t sound like people.

You know what I mean, right? There’s a super famous, multi-million dollar book that became a movie that’s a first person narrative and I swear the main character sounds like a pretentious 50-year-old man who wears a lot of tweed and only drinks craft scotch while rowing. To be fair, I think I’m the only person who feels this way because all my friends adore this book.

Or the books without contractions and everyone sounds like a computer-generated scam call. I’m totally not into that unless it’s on purpose for a specific character and they get called out on it.

Incest

Yeah. No. Again. It’s not something I can handle.

GIRLS WHO LOOK IN THE MIRROR RIGHT AWAY

I don’t care about what the character looks like enough to read a paragraph about her looking in the mirror and talking about what she looks like AS IF SHE HAS NEVER SEEN HERSELF BEFORE!

I can about what the character does, thinks, says, feels, but her looks? His looks? Not so much.

Marsie only cares about whether or not people will feed her. And also if they pet her. Not how they look.

How about you? What are you biggest people turn-offs? Your biggest book turn-offs? Teach us all what not to do! And how does this have to do with my Monday Motivation theme? Knowing what we don’t like? It helps us to go after and experience what we love.

If you enjoyed this post, I’d be so super grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook or Pinterest. Thank you! I know it’s a super small thing, but it means so much to me.

WRITING NEWS AND STUFF

Okay. I hope you don’t mind me sharing this, but I earned out my picture book biography of Sara Emma Edmonds!!!!

This is such a huge thing for me that I can’t begin to tell you how cool it feels especially since it’s with this picture book. Sara was this cool woman who dressed like a man so she could fight in the U.S. Civil War, but then her superiors asked her to dress like a woman and spy on the other side. So, she was a woman dressed like a man dressed like a woman and taking names the entire time. So amazing. Thank you so much to everyone who bought it!

  THE CLASS AT THE WRITING BARN

The awesome 6-month-long Writing Barn classthat they’ve let me be in charge of!? It’s happening again in July. Write! Submit! Support!is a pretty awesome class. It’s a bit like a mini MFA but way more supportive and way less money.

PRAISE FOR CARRIE JONES AND WRITE. SUBMIT. SUPPORT:

“Carrie has the fantastic gift as a mentor to give you honest feedback on what needs work in your manuscript without making you question your ability as a writer. She goes through the strengths and weaknesses of your submissions with thought, care and encouragement.”

I swear, I did not pay anyone to say that. I didn’t even ask them to say it. The Writing Barn just told me that the feedback had intensely kind things like that.

FLYING AND ENHANCED – THE YOUNG ADULT SCIENCE FICTION SERIES

These books are out there in the world thanks to Tor.

What books? Well, cross Buffy with Men in Black and you get… you get a friends-powered action adventure based in the real world, but with a science fiction twist. More about it is here. But these are fun, fast books that are about identity, being a hero, and saying to heck with being defined by other people’s expectations.

This quick, lighthearted romp is a perfect choice for readers who like their romance served with a side of alien butt-kicking action–School Library Journal

TIME STOPPERS THE MIDDLE GRADE SERIES OF AWESOME

Time Stoppers’s third book comes out this summer. It’s been called a cross between Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, but with heart. It takes place in Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine. I need to think of awesome ways to promote it because this little book series is the book series of my own middle grade heart. Plus, I wrote it for the Emster. Plus, it is fun.

Time Stoppers Front and Back Covers – US versions

Five Things That Make Me Go “Ick” – My Biggest Book Turnoffs and People Turnoffs So one day I was driving Em to school and Bob and Sheri, this talk show, was on the radio and they were having callers talk about what was a huge turn-off.

[purelyfrivolous]

Before throwing last year into the mental trash bin and letting ourselves get lost in looking forward, I thought it’d be good to stop and reflect on the things in 2017 that weren’t terrible.

Unfortunately it’s true that – while a grouping of 365 days can be neither good nor bad, as they’re just days – many uncomfortable and unfortunate things did cover last year in a bit of a deep fog. On a personal level, it was one of the darkest periods of time in my entire life. BUT, there was light and there was hope. AND WE MADE IT.

The death of my father and the worsening of my mother’s cancer brought me closer to my family and made me realize, deeper than ever before, that we cannot take anything for granted. The sudden passing of a former color guard student, in whom I saw so much of myself, caused me to take a look at my mental health and begin reaching out instead of turning in towards myself. The onset of a deeper-than-normal depression and a heightening of my anxiety led to a reevaluation of my priorities and allowed me to take a step back to regroup. Following my gut and doing what I felt was right instead of what I felt was required of me turned into one of the best summers of my life, full of laughter, growth, and joy – which, sandwiched between the difficult beginning and end to the year, was made even sweeter.

And, there’s no getting around the fact that the world is a little unhinged. That can sometimes make getting out of bed in the morning even more challenging. There are reasons to get up, my friends. There are things that are worth it and there always will be, if we make sure to continue looking for them.

So here I am, writing this post (the first of three) with some of my favorite things from 2017. This one is dedicated to some odds and ends as well as the two current books that I read last year. The next will feature the music that kept me going, and the last will contain the movies and television that made an impact on me.

Without further ado, here are a few of my favorite things that 2017 had to offer (in no particular order)!

Turtles All The Way Down, John Green & Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng

The Voice & Addison Agen

“Call Me Mother” on SYTYCD by Mark Kanemura

Football?!

Santa Clara Vanguard, “Ouroboros”

Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us

Museums

Theater (and NYC!)

The Lonely, Swimming Pygmy Sloth from Planet Earth II

“The Hilarious World of Depression” Podcast / John Green / VlogBrothers / NYT Article

The Costumes and Production Design of Film and Television

Turtles All the Way Down & Little Fires Everywhere

Of the 20 books I read last year only two of them were released in 2017. They both ended up being phenomenal. John Green‘s Turtles All the Way Down was released this fall when I was amidst the darkness of losing my former student to suicide and dealing with my own inner demons. It was a little beam of light that helped illuminate the path forward. While the plot is sometimes head-scratchingly strange (the Tuatara, anyone?), it is the honesty with which Green brings OCD and anxiety to life through the main character, Aza Holmes, that sticks with me. There were moments while reading this book that I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone else understood a little part of my brain that I’d long believed no one else could. As Aza falls into her “though spirals” and picks away at a literal open wound she paints a picture of what it’s actually like to live mental illness on a day to day basis. I identified so strongly with this young woman that whatever issues arose in the plot didn’t matter. John Green is a brilliant writer and for those who often feels lost in their youth, still trying to find themselves, he is a kind of comforting truth. Turtles is a sometimes difficult read but it is one that will stay with me for a very long time.

If you escaped 2017 without seeing Celeste Ng‘s novel Little Fires Everywhere somewhere, you’re possibly a hermit. It was everywhere: Amazon’s “best novel of 2017,” New York Times Bestseller, Goodreads Readers’ Choice Award winner for Fiction, and the top of numerous other “best” lists. I’m naturally inclined to avoid such items as they surely cannot live up to the hype. For some reason I was drawn to this book nonetheless, and it did not disappoint. The titular fires became, for me, two of the central characters’ spirits. Along the way you’re introduced to a couple of women with spunky personalities that are unpredictable and endlessly interesting. Two families collide in surprising ways and there is an exploration of family dynamics that creates numerous meaningful moments. This novel isn’t exciting in an eventful plot kind of way but after a slow ignition, the metaphorical flames burn bright and enrapture.

The Voice & Addison Agen

I’d given up on The Voice after Season 4 for numerous reasons, most importantly the mammoth time commitment to catch each of the many hours that were broadcast each week over multiple nights. Occasionally I’d hear something I liked or a name would pop up on social media and I’d take note again for a second, but I’d largely moved on. For some reason I had to see what Jennifer Hudson was going to bring to Season 13, so I reluctantly tuned in. What a fulfilling choice that ended up being. The talent this past season was astounding. It is rare for me to watch a reality competition of any kind and like more than a small handful of contestants, but I constantly found myself loving a majority of the performances week after week. A core group stood out from the beginning – Chloe Kohanski, Brook Simpson, Noah Mac, Davon Fleming, and youngster Addison Agen – and astounded with each song in their own unique ways. It was the last in that list, 16-year-old Addison, that seized my attention. As with an actor that I’ll mention later in the list, Addison’s performances did something to me. She hit a nerve that cannot be explained. While she was on stage I couldn’t take my ears and eyes away. She, unlike many of the the most seasoned performers in the world, feels the music and conveys those emotions to her audience. She lives the notes. I truly believe that there is an enormous career ahead of her if she gets the right people around her and makes the kind of music she began leaning into throughout the course of The Voice. (“Tennessee Rain” is a legitimately wonderful track!) It is rare that someone comes along with the entire package – the voice, the stage presence, the songwriting skills, and the adorable and genuine personality. Watch out for this one. She is a superstar.

“Call Me Mother” on SYTYCD by Mark Kanemura

So You Think You Can Dance was another show that I’d sadly given up on following but found my way back to in 2017. The format had changed a bit since I’d last watched and I’d found it to be more exciting and than ever before. The all-stars brought so much to the show (I will watch Robert Roldan dance anything, anytime, forever) and the choreography was off the charts, not to mention the immense talent of the Season 14 contestants. The highlight of highlights however was a group number during the Top 8 episode that was choreographed by SYTYCD alum Mark Kanemura to the song “Call Me Mother” by RuPaul. Talk about a convergence of favorite things! Kanemura is a staple in my daily social media life with his hilarious Instagram antics (and obsession with Carly Rae Jepsen) and RuPaul is one of the most amazing humans on the planet, so when this number began my heart paused as to not interrupt the magic of it all. The unique choreography style that Kanemura has doesn’t always land, and his Gaga-dancer-days show up in certain moments, but this was the rare convergence of right song/right time/right moves/right performers. It all just worked, and it did so because of the bold (brave?) choices that Kanemura makes. He’s a person filled with unbridled energy and in this case his “go big or go home” style made for a hugely entertaining success. #YouRideThatTrainGurlllll

Football?!

Immediately following the dance number above, this seems an unlikely entry in the list. It’s as surprising to me as it is to most of my family and friends when I say that one of my favorite things from the last year was sitting down and voluntarily watching professional football. I’d avoided watching sports on television for most of my life, hiding out in my room while my father and brother took in game after game, but a joke interest in the Seattle Seahawks turned into a legitimate love of the NFL. I became a “fan” of the Seahawks because I liked their uniforms. My favorite color combination (my “wedding colors” as I’m annoying known to say) is bright green and navy blue and the northwestern vibe of the logo is an interesting departure from the mundanity of the rest of the NFL logo lineup. I watched a few games and began paying a little more attention to their coach and some of the players, and ended up finding myself getting more invested than I’d anticipated. I’d become a legitimate “12” and picked up a “backup team” along the way, too (Go Panthers!). It turns out that there’s a lot to appreciate in the game – and the athleticism, strategy, and philosophy behind the sport aren’t really that far away from my alternate universe of marching band & drum corps. Who knew?!

Santa Clara Vanguard, “Ouroboros”

Speaking of that alternate universe, one of the things that gave me immense joy in 2017 was the show “Ouroboros” by the drum and bugle corps Santa Clara Vanguard. The mythical snake-eating-it’s-tail idea was turned into an impeccably designed, cohesive, exciting, and original production that was performed at an unbelievable level. The uniforms (with their supper body serpent detail and scale-effect circular pattern), the musical selections, the gorgeous flag designs, the ridiculously effective choreography and movement, and those brilliant props! It all coalesces into one of my favorite drum corps shows of all time. Second place has never looked (or sounded) so good.

Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us & Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale

As with Addison Agen earlier in the list, there is something unexplainable about the actor Sterling K. Brown and the performances he gives. A standout in The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, he burst onto the scene and began picking up awards at every turn, but it is his stunning portrayal of “Randall Pearson” on This Is Us that establishes him as one of the best actors working today. I can’t pinpoint what exactly he does that makes me feel the way I feel when I watch him on screen. He, like Addison with music, strikes that nerve. He finds layers within a character and he manages to bring them all forward. A look, a tear, a monologue…he breathes life into the story and elevates it in a special way. Each week I tune in and find myself with tears in my eyes, saying, “I love him so much.”

Similarly, Elisabeth Moss astounds in every single second of her time on Hulu’s accolade-stealing hit, The Handmaid’s Tale. The show is a masterpiece (episode four is one of the most gorgeous, haunting, brilliant episodes of television I’ve ever seen) but it is vaulted into the atmosphere by the central performance of Moss as “June Osborne / Offred.” It is not an overstatement to say that she can command a scene and say paragraphs with only her eyes. She is beyond gifted as an actress and there is no denying that she is also one of the best in the business.

Museums

During my time at Iowa State University this past year I began looking more closely at museums and expanding my already large interest in art and exhibitions. I began the year with an internship on campus at the Textiles & Clothing Museum. It was a wonderful experience that forever changed the way that I look at museums and the objects they contain. With more knowledge of the behind-the-scenes process I developed a deeper appreciation for a good museum and all that it can offer. On the surface museums offer a place for the public to explore the treasures of the world and expose us to animals, paintings, sculptures, clothing, science experiments, and minerals that we otherwise would never get the chance to view. But they are so much more. They are institutions of learning for the most educated individuals doing research and for children on class field trips, and everyone in-between. They are a form of artistic expression in their own right, each having a specific vision and mission statement, and each working to enrich the world in a different way. Over the course of the year I made stops at many superb places including: The Des Moines Art Center (“Drawing in Space” was a phenomenal), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (what can you say other than WOW?), Cooper Hewitt (so unique and interactive – the future of the small museum!), The Museum at FIT (a tour with the curator of “Paris Refashioned, 1957-1968” was so enthralling that I came back only hours later to tour the whole museum), MoMA (Seeing Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night in person was so moving that I walked away to avoid crying in public), The Field Museum (an interesting look at the history of the tattoo was a highlight), the Joslyn Art Museum (gorgeous building!), the State Historical Museum of Iowa (where I kept gravitating back towards “Hollywood in the Heartland“), as well as Taliesin (Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio in Spring Green, WI.), and the zoos (Which are considered museums! Fun fact!) in Des Moines, IA., Madison, WI., Indianapolis, IN., and Chicago, IL. (Lincoln Park).

Cooper Hewitt, NYC

Joslyn, Omaha

State Historical Museum of Iowa

DSM Art Center

Theater (and NYC!)

I love theater. I especially love musicals, but anything on a stage will do. I attend a handful of productions each year but this year I outdid myself. Aside from the shows on national tours (Mamma Mia!, Fun Home, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nite-Time, Something Rotten!, Shaping Sound Co. (dance), and The Color Purple) my husband and I went all out during our vacation to NYC in March and in one week we saw 6 more productions! The Glass Menagerie was our first-ever play on Broadway and it featured Sally Field, Finn Wittrock, Joe Mantello, and Madison Ferris. The sparse staging and unique direction from Tony Award-winning director Sam Gold made for a polarizing production that ultimately failed to win over many of the critics and the most ardent theater-goers. Overall it was an unforgettable experience and quite the way to kick off our week in the city. Sunday in the Park with George was such a draw for us that we moved our trip back a few days so that we could catch the show before it closed. We couldn’t have made a better decision. It’s hard to describe how it felt to be sitting in that theater watching Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford sing some of the most incredible songs ever written for the theater. I wasn’t a super fan of Stephen Sondheim, though I had enjoyed Sweeney Todd  and Into The Woods, but this experience changed everything. Like Menagerie, there was a minimalist approach to the set design so the music and the performances were even more exposed than usual. I had expected to be distracted by Jake, being such a ginormous movie star, but I found myself unable to take my eyes off of Annaleigh. They were both remarkable (!!!) but there is that “something special” about Annaleigh and she was captivating. The whole show moved me so much more than I had expected. It was absolutely one of my all-time favorite theater moments.

Broadway Backwards was a last minute splurge for us in an attempt to avoid the unexpected cold and snow that accompanied a surprise winter storm during our “spring break” trip. While technically not a Broadway show, it was a stage production that took place in the area and had numerous Broadway actors, so it counts! Josh Groban, Cynthia Erivo, Julie White, Sierra Boggess, John Glover, Andrew Rannells, Santino Fontana, Carolee Carmello, Kathleen Turner, Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Jay Armstrong Johnson, as well as many other, performed songs written for the “opposite gender.” It was a once in a lifetime BLAST. We loved every moment of it. Then, there was the real reason we had made the trip to NYC: Dear Evan Hansen. I can’t say anything other than it instantly became my favorite musical of all time and Ben Platt’s performance will forever be seared into my mind. He was beyond words. I honestly cannot describe it without getting worked up and babbling endlessly. If you have not seen it, you must find a way. Even without Ben in the lead, it must not be missed. Seriously.

The same day that we saw D.E.H, we scored cheap tickets at the last minute for The Great Comet. It was the most complete theater experience I’ve had. From the moment you walked through the front doors into the lobby area you were transported to another time and place. The dilapidated walls adorned with Russian propaganda and the harsh fluorescent lighting in the “bunker” catch you off guard but, more importantly, they create a contrast that becomes apparent when you finally enter the main theater. Inside it is a velvety-red Swarovski fantasy. With 20,000 Swarovski crystals on the (gorgeous) starburst chandeliers, and another 110,00+ on the costumes, the entire room sparkled nearly as bright as the comet at the heart of the show. The immersive staging took everything up a notch and created an experience unlike any other. I didn’t always follow the famously complicated story line nor did I enjoy ever tiny aspect of the musical’s book, lyrics and score, but my goodness, what a production! Lastly, we finished out our week in Manhattan with a show that we had planned to see a year before when it first opened, Waitress. A change in plans meant that we had to wait to see Sara Bareilles’ heartwarming, hilarious, brilliant music come to life on stage. It was worth it. Christopher Fitzgerald and Drew Gehling made me laugh so hard I was in tears. Jessie Mueller demonstrated why she is one of the best on Broadway. We got to see the show again when it came to Des Moines on tour and it was just as wonderful the second time around. I wish I could bottle the feeling I have when I leave a theater after watching a show and keep it on hand for when I need a little boost in life. It is my therapy.

***OH! And, Caroline Rhea sat directly in front of us (a few rows behind Josh Gad) and took a selfie with us. So, basically, the BEST DAY EVER.

CAROLINE RHEA!

The Lonely, Swimming Pygmy Sloth from Planet Earth II

By far the weirdest entry in my list, this little guy stole my heart and I smile every time I think about him. A Pygmy Sloth is shown looking for a mate on an episode of Planet Earth II, and it is must-see television. It is narrated by David Attenborough and that spectacularly written script is key to the cuteness factor of the video (sadly the video below does not contain that narration). We learn that he hears a female across a body of water so he swims his little self across, only to find that the object of his affection already has a baby and is unable to mate. It. Is. So. Ridiculously. Adorable. Do yourself a favor and watch the entire series, which is astounding, and get the full version of this slothiest-sloth thing that has ever been.

“The Hilarious World of Depression” Podcast / John Green / VlogBrothers / NYT Article

The phenomenal book of John Green’s that I talked about at the top of this 3000-(and counting)-word post tied in with a set of other things that were extraordinarily important to me this past year. John appeared on a podcast that I’d fallen in love with called “The Hilarious World of Depression.” It solidified my appreciation for that podcast and made it something that I look forward to on a weekly basis. There’s something to be said for hearing people talk openly about the things that society has told us we should be ashamed of. I have spent my whole life feeling like my anxiety and depression were secrets that I had to mask and pretend didn’t exist. With this podcast you’re able to see that funny, famous, “important” people also have these issues, and we shouldn’t shy away from discussing them. It is only through bringing these things into the conversation that we will begin to remove the stigma, and possibly save lives.

John and his brother, Hank, also have a YouTube channel called “Vlogbrothers,” and I have grown to love their quirky uploads that explore a vast array of topics. Recorded as messages to each other, Hank and John shed light on different subjects but, more importantly, show us who they are as human beings. They are open and genuine, both qualities that aren’t currently overflowing in the social media world. It’s refreshing. Again, seeing them deal with their demons makes it just a little bit easier to deal with my own. Speaking of which, the last random part of this entry in the list is an article from the New York Times that came into my life at that darkest of dark times. It was called, “Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?” and I had never read anything that discussed certain parts of my past in the way that this piece did. I missed a very large chunk of elementary school when I got sick at school and subsequently could not go back. I had a meltdown and became so afraid that I’d get sick again that I refused to leave my house. It was a terrible experience, working with someone to help me get in the car…then drive to the school…then get out of the car…then go into the school…each as their own step, over multiple days. I’d always held that somewhere deep within me, ashamed and absolutely convinced that my experience was complete unique. This article, published 24 years after my struggle, finally showed me that what I had gone through had a name – emetophobia. They describe it in this article as, “a fear of vomit that can be so debilitating that people will sometimes restrict what they eat and refuse to leave the house, lest they encounter someone with a stomach flu.” It turned out that I wasn’t crazy, and other people had dealt with similar things. I found myself in so many of the people described in the piece. It rang true and gave me the courage to finally reach out and begin my journey towards a life in which my mental health no longer controls me. It will be a struggle, but I’m grateful for this assortment of authors, podcasters, and vloggers that have already made it easier.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/magazine/why-are-more-american-teenagers-than-ever-suffering-from-severe-anxiety.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=299DF44B0602F2616509623F61F4A9D7&gwt=pay

The Costumes and Production Design of Film and Television

Lastly, some of my favorite things this past year were costumes and sets in television shows and films. As an apparel-minded person I’ve always been drawn to costumes but my interest in the production design, cinematography, and the overall design of the entertainment I consume is new. I’ve opened my eyes to the whole product instead of just focusing solely on what the characters are wearing. The costumes have more purpose now and they are more meaningful because they exist within a complex world that has layers of meaning. Each detail comes together to tell the story and that makes for a richer viewing experience. Some highlights of the year were: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (which I have discussed briefly here), The Shape of Water (a bit about the production design here), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (even though I did not care for the film itself), The Crown, Wonder Woman, Beauty and the Beast, The Greatest Showman, Will & Grace, Riverdale, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Schitt’s Creek.

The Perfect Pink (©Amazon)

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ©Amazon

Sally Hawkins & Richard Jenkins in The Shape of Water

“Sally Hawkins in a scene from Shape of Water. The window arch was directly inspired by one in 1948’s The Red Shoes” ©Kerry Hayes/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

GotG Vol 2. “Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki)” – Photo: Film Frame/Marvel Studios

GotG Vol 2. “Mantis”

Elizabeth and Philip – The Crown ©Netflix

Princess Margaret – The Crown ©Netflix

Wonder Woman

Beauty and the Beast 2017. Designs by JACQUELINE DURRAN – Photo ©EW

Rebecca Ferguson – The Greatest Showman

Hugh Jackman and the cast of The Greatest Showman

Fendi Jacket from Will & Grace

Will & Grace Christmas Episode ©Chris Haston/NBC

Riverdale ©Diyah Pera/The CW

Scene from The Handmaid’s Tale ©Hulu

Costumes from The Handmaid’s Tale ©Chris Chapman

Schitt’s Creek

    SaveSaveSaveSave

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

Faves From 2017 (It Wasn’t Completely Terrible!) Before throwing last year into the mental trash bin and letting ourselves get lost in looking forward, I thought it'd be good to stop and reflect on the things in 2017 that weren't terrible.

[animator19]

Interview with Alex Hirsch from after he had finished Gravity Falls

https://www.themarysue.com/alex-hirsch-interview/ 

Alex Hirsch: My main goal after Gravity Falls was finished was to take a vacation a BIG one and I spent about a year doing everything I couldn’t do while I was serving solitary confinement at Disney. I visited Hawaii, Japan, Portland, Burning Man. I did conventions in New York, Russia, Rio. My goal was to say “yes” to anything that wasn’t work. Sort of like Grunkle Stan on his worldwide boat tour with Ford, I needed some time away from the shack. But GF is a weirdness magnet after all and I can’t resist its pull forever.  When Disney asked if I’d want to do Journal #3 I said yes immediately. It’s the number one thing I’d want to read if I was a fan, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Kaiser: Was the Journal done in stages? i.e. was the original draft for the black light version, or did you have to come back and do that once the sales proved viable?

Hirsch: Definitely stages, the very first thing I asked when they brought up the possibility of doing a journal was whether we could include the black light messages, but we were told that it would be way too expensive and to just try to forget about it. Then when the book came out and was topping the NYT bestseller list, Disney Publishing agreed to release a special edition for the superfans and give me my dream of black lights.

The challenge then was to try to fit the new messages over the old pages as though they always belonged. But these are fun challenges. Probably the hardest part was on the “Floating Eyeballs” page—there’s a spot where you see text coming from under a Polaroid. But in the Special Edition Journal, the polaroid is finally removable, so I needed to think of sentences that would credibly end with the words you’ve already seen

Kaiser: On that subject, Disney never seemed particularly keen on releasing much GF merch. Has the success of Journal 3 re-opened the conversation on things like the BluRay set?

Hirsch: The day that Disney bought Star Wars (AFTER buying Marvel) was the day I knew my merch dreams for Gravity Falls were basically toast. The company is too huge and we’re barely a blip on the radar to their consumer products division. Luckily the enduring popularity of the show has resulted in a few departments within the company sticking their neck out and trying cool experiments like journal 3. Everyone was surprised by the success of the journal except the fans. Their appetite for more continues to impress even this long after the end of the show. I’m hoping those numbers increase our likelihood of getting a DVD but I can’t make any promises.

Kaiser: Were you involved in getting The Mystery of Gravity Falls (@TheMysteryofGF) permission to do what is (according to them) small batches of sanctioned merch like the stone Bill figure and Grunkle Stan bobbleheads?

Hirsch: That guy is like my guardian angel. He’s some kind of brilliant, crazed super-fan who understands the show better than Disney ever did. Honestly, I don’t know how he contacted Disney and got the sanctioned merch—he’s some kind of wizard. I hope he runs the company one day.

[Note: I reached out to @TheMysteryofGF to check on this. Turns out I was slightly incorrect in my question. They have worked in conjunction with Disney on at least one occasion, but for the most part the merchandise they’ve made available has been of their own initiative, sometimes with help from an outside contractor. They also work with Bioworld, who provides the GF license to Hot Topic, in creating certain items.]

Kaiser: How did you approach fan interaction during the series? The codes are obviously built into the show from the get-go, but did you think it would catch on like it did? Did the response require you to adjust planned fan engagement on the fly?

Hirsch: The scope, size, influence and presence of fandom culture has gone through a complete and total revolution between now and when I first pitched Gravity Falls in 2011. Keep in mind- my first job was on Flapjack back in 2008-ish. Back then, you would release a cartoon into the ether, and it would basically disappear into a black void after airing. There’d be maybe two drawings on DeviantArt, maybe a message board with a few comments, and that was it.

That was the entirety of online feedback between cartoons and creators at the time. (And even those paltry scraps of feedback were still huge compared to fandoms when I was growing up. There was nobody in 1991 willing to die to make sure that their ship of Tommy Pickles and Reptar came to fruition. At least no one with a way of getting that opinion in front of Klasky-Csupo)

Tumblr’s rise happened just around the same time as Gravity Falls‘s premiere in 2012, so I was totally unprepared for the level of passion and engagement and fan art that would happen. I had to evolve along with all this in real time as it happened.

Kaiser: I always found it curious that you’d hold Twitter Q&As, but then delete the answers within a day.

Hirsch: Probably the best formats for answering questions were Reddit AMAs—I enjoyed doing two of those—and interviews. I occasionally answer questions on twitter when the mood strikes me, but Twitter is a TERRIBLE place for meaningful discourse.

Twitter has an ephemeral conversational glibness built into its core, but it ironically also has this incentive to cast every word said in bronze and isolate it from its context. It’s like if everything you said at a dinner party with every guest was carved into the wall and permanently became part of the house decorations. I’ll frequently prune my twitter posts to keep my feed clean from the residue of 100 little back and forths. Even if I tried to leave everything up, it disappears into the feed anyway. No matter how many times I say “There is no Season 3” people will never stop asking.

Kaiser: Obviously, that’s got to be a trial and error process. Any regrets?

Hirsch: I honestly don’t have many regrets from my engagement with fans, because everything that happens, positive and negative, is a learning experience and teaches me something about our world and the culture we live in. And overwhelmingly it has been positive. Back in the pre-fandom-culture days I never could have imagined I’d get such an overwhelming tidal wave of creative, kind, validating responses to my work. It’s every creator’s dream. It’s absolutely worth any weird prickly trolls or growing pains that come along with it and I’m insanely grateful.

Kaiser: The Cipher Hunt had to be an enormous undertaking to put together. How’d you go about organizing it? Did you ever take part in any ARGs (Augmented Reality Games) yourself that inspired you?

Kaiser: The Cipher Hunt was the most fun thing I’ve ever done.

I’ve never been part of any real-world treasure hunts, but as someone who grew up with games like MYST I love puzzles; the idea of doing one in the real world was too tempting to pass up.

The entire thing was organized by me and my buddy Ian Worrel, Gravity Falls‘ Emmy-winning art director. I’m a restless idea guy and he’s this master executor/craftsman—we were both totally in love with the idea of using our newfound free time to put something together totally for the fun of it, to build this strange Rube Goldberg Device and then watch how the fans would interact with it in real time.

Kaiser: Did you split up duties as far as where to put what? Who made the statue?

Hirsch: The statue was made by a brilliant props/effects fabricator in LA, Fon Davis of Fonco, a friend of a friend who was willing to make something weird for a price. Ian did most of the intellectual legwork in terms of figuring out which clues would lead to where, and I wrote all the actual codes. We took a road trip up to Oregon together to hide some of the final clues and had a lot of fun.

I hid the clue in Russia personally, which was a little terrifying. I knew if I got caught trying to hide a tiny magnetic capsule with a code scroll rolled up into it, Putin might not take to kindly to the optics of that. But Bill Cipher was smiling down on me that day and it went without a hitch.

Kaiser: Shifting a bit to the series itself: I recall you mentioning that the writing for season 2 had to be somewhat rethought because so many people had figured out the Author’s identity. Did that change how you wrote Ford’s arc? Were there other things you wanted to explore in general, given more time?

Hirsch: The truth is, no matter how many grand plans you have in your head, no matter what tentpole plot points or ideas you imagine, everything changes when you actually sit down to write. You discover what the show is as you make it through collaboration, trial and error, and what feels right.

In your question, you say season 2 had to be “rethought” but that implies that there was this already finished season 2 totally written out in our minds. But that’s not the case. All we knew after Season 1 was over was “Ford comes out of the portal. Bill probably creates the apocalypse. Dipper & Mabel complete their arcs. Fun stuff happens in the meantime.”

Figuring out how it all fits together in the writers’ room, discovering new things and surprising yourself—that’s the fun part of writing. We didn’t really know who Ford was, from a personality perspective, until we sat down to try to write him. The same is true of Dipper, Mabel, Grunkle Stan, and Bill. You learn as you go.

Kaiser: Fascinating! I suppose I must’ve heard about very early discussion, and extrapolated … as GF fans are wont to do. How embarrassing.

Hirsch: Casting also hugely affects a character. You have an idea of what a character is like in the writing room, but then when the actor comes in, everything can change. We cast JK Simmons as Ford late in the process. He was instantly perfect, but changed how we thought about the character. Regarding things I would love to explore if I could go back in time, I would definitely add a full episode about Wendy if I had the chance. We always wanted to give her more, but we never quite cracked a story that worked for us. But I do think she deserved more!

I deliberately tried to give her more of a role in Mabelcorn and Weirdmageddon Part 1 to make up for the lack of Wendy elsewhere. Linda Cardellini was amazing to work with. She gave the character such a grounded performance. Really was exciting to watch her work.

Kaiser: One of the issues around the show was representation/diversity, and there were a lot of rumors about what Disney would/wouldn’t allow—the little old ladies falling in love in “The Love God” is probably the most famous example. Any comment?

Hirsch: Definitely. If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll know I’ve never been shy about discussing my frustrations with Disney’s censors and this was one of the most frustrating incidents of all. Back on “Love God” there was a scene in the script that described a few random couples in a diner falling in love in through the power of cupid’s magic.

When one of our storyboard artists presented the scene to me, she’d made one of the couples two lovable old ladies. It was sweet and casual and I knew INSTANTLY that it was going to turn into a huge fight with Disney. So naturally I left it in. The note came back immediately “The scene of the two old ladies kissing in the diner is not appropriate for our audience. Please revise.” I responded with a one word answer: “Why?”

This basically broke the censors. The couldn’t think of a single way to phrase an answer to that question so they made me talk on the phone so there would be no paper trail. They were terrified of sounding like bigots—but I honestly don’t think they were bigots, I think they were cowards. They basically admitted that there was no good reason why I should change it, but that they get complaints about this stuff from various homophobic parents and would rather avoid the headache, and couldn’t I just drop it?

I said that if we did that we were basically just being held hostage by bigots and screw that, lets rise above this crap and just pull the trigger. The worst thing that can happen is that we get some letters. Who cares? Disney’s a giant company, we can survive some letters from some cranks. I don’t think they necessarily disagreed—but there’s no incentive in their job to say yes to things. But I kept going back to them.

We probably had 6 or so conversations about it. It’s one of the only times I had a face to face meeting with the censors. I didn’t want to go back to my board artist and tell her that I lost this fight. I wanted to win, and I wanted to set a precedent, and I argued that little things like this could mean the world to people and that anyone who was pissed off deserved to be pissed off. But despite my greatest efforts it finally came down to “change the scene or we’ll cut it out of the episode ourselves.”

I felt awful reporting to the artist that I’d lost this one. But I didn’t stop trying. In the last episode, I had the two police offers, Blubs and Durland, flat out say they loved each other, and I didn’t get a single note. I think the censors were finally less scared of complaining parents than they were of having to deal with how annoying I am again.

Since then, times have thankfully changed. I hear that Disney has allowed same-sex couples in Star Vs the Forces of Evil, and the Nickelodeon has done the same in Loud House. Both studios are way behind CN and what they’ve done with Steven Universe, but progress, slowly but surely, is being made. I would love to see a new Disney animated show have the guts to show a proper same-sex kiss on air. One of these networks is going to do it—I encourage Disney to keep growing and be the first.

[Note: We now enter the portion where I completely gave into my fannish id for a second. I hope you’ll all forgive me.]

Kaiser: Two things, purely to satisfy my curiosity as a fan: A) did Pacifica stay with her parents post-series? It seemed like a seriously bad situation, guardianship wise. B) what WOULD Bill have done if Ford had decided (that is, been dumb enough) to take him up on his offer?

Hirsch: I think a lot of fans read more than I meant into the awfulness of Pacifica’s parents. I never imagined them as being abusive, just very controlling—living vicariously through their daughter, treating her like a prize more than a person. I grew up in a town with some rich families and it was something I witnessed more than once—parents trying to make their kids extensions of their own reputation. Pacifica is still only a kid, so I think she’d continue to live with them, but I think she’d start to have a very needed rebellious phase to discover who she is outside of her family name.

I definitely imagined Pacifica getting a side job at Greasey’s Diner working with Lazy Susan after the family lost their mansion. I think learning the value of a dollar and having to interact with the town riff-raff would be good for her.

Re: What Bill might have done, like all things that happen off camera, that question has no true canon answer. But if I had to speculate, in my gut I think Bill would have incinerated Ford on the spot the moment he got the formula to shut down the barrier. I don’t see Bill as a romantic, sweet, or charitable character. He’s a psychopath who takes what he can get. He sees people as toys and when he gets bored of playing with them tosses them aside. I think at that point he was done playing.

Kaiser: Makes sense. There’s a decided inclination to read Bill as being sincerely impressed with Ford on some level because that’s the trope (i.e. Q in Star Trek), but it’s not quite in keeping with how things shook out, is it?

Hirsch: That’s not how I imagine Bill. I see him as a serial manipulator. While he’s “seducing” you with flattery his brain is somewhere else imagining playing ping-pong with a severed head. But people are free to imagine any headcanon they like! I’m genuinely excited by other people’s interpretation of the characters–but I never forget my own.

Kaiser: Is there a story behind that doodle you and Roiland (the creator of Rick & Morty) did of Rick and Stan? That’s a crossover that’s never coming, I’m sure, but I love the cross-show elements.

Hirsch: There’s been a lot of hay made out of the little winks about Gravity Falls in Rick & Morty, and vice versa, the truth is just that we’ve been friends since before we had TV shows, and enjoy messing with people. Although if we WERE planning something big we’d definitely deny it—so I guess you’ll never know!

Kaiser: You left one seriously huge plot thread open with Bill’s coded message in the finale and then the secret Axolotl page of the Choose Your Own Adventure book. Is that something you might come back to, or just a mystery for the fans to chew on?

Hirsch: In terms of Bill’s secret message … I like stories that complete their emotional arcs, but still leave some lingering threads to chew on. It gives the fans something to theorize on, and it gives me a window back into that world if I ever choose to return to it.

Kaiser: Do you have a medium you’d prefer? Or would it just depend at the time?

Hirsch: All depends on my schedule—and the creative urge. I’m involved in a number of projects right now, so it’s hard to say. Comics are definitely a possibility. And maybe a special one day. Honestly my dream would have been to do a Gravity Falls theatrical feature—Disney discussed it with me for a while, but ultimately (and probably rightfully) determined the show wasn’t big enough to warrant it. But if some lunatic wanted to give me 50 million dollars to make a Gravity Falls movie I’d probably do it!

Kaiser: Is there anything you can say about your other project (the one you publicly announced for Fox, or anything else), or is it too soon?

Hirsch: It’s too soon to say anything specific. I will say that Gravity Falls opened a huge number of doors and opportunities for me but I’m being careful not to announce anything until the time is right. (And most of the announcements and leaks you’ll see online about various things I’ve been involved with have been either inaccurate or premature) I can say that I have been working on a feature project that hasn’t leaked online (if you think you know what it is, you’re wrong!) that I’m very very excited about, but owing to the nature of the parties involved I can’t say anything. I’m counting down the days until I get to announce what it is.

Kaiser: As a closer, you published a series of tweets not long ago about the stigma against being allowed to fail that animators face. Do you have any advice for them?

Hirsch: Haha! Oh, that. My latest tweetstorm was specifically about a trend I see in animated series development, where executives will “develop” a show to death and waste time, money, and goodwill trying to come up with a risk-proof TV pilot. But every creative act is inherently risky. The key is to create an environment where risk is encouraged, and failures have as small a cost as possible. I believe failure is the first step to success. The key is to fail as quickly as possible and try again. To treat failure not as a terrifying ending but rather as an opportunity to learn something.

[chucksauce]

Talking about writing

Soooo, if you go in for that sort of thing, feel free to play along at home. Otherwise, skip it. No hard feelings.

Since the very month before starting that patreon, I have struggled with whether or not it’s the right thing to do, putting Under-London up on that platform. Not because of the platform itself, but because what that means for all my hard work: I’ve just near-definitely ruined any chances of it being picked up by a major publishing house.

I am thankful to every last patron for every last bit of what I make on my patreon, and I am thankful for every last person that so much as leaves a ‘like.’ (Because I think, to date, I’ve gotten maybe (?) five comments on posts altogether, let alone chapter updates)... The Trouble is, I’ve stalled on my ability to grow it into something I can actually *support* us with, given all the fucking time and effort I put into all of it.

Plotting? That takes time. Drafting? That takes time. Waiting for my CPs to get back to me? That takes time. Editing? Revising? Proofing three more times just to make sure? Posting it on patreon? Sharing that link on three social media websites, two of which require sharing it on multiple accounts? Researching to find the best practices for that, and discovering that I’ll have to do it multiple times daily but in such a specific way as to keep from turning into one of those spamtastic twitter accounts that everyone ignores or unfollows or blocks, in order to share my wares as best as possible in the vain hopes that it’ll draw people in? Then actually doing every last little bit of that implementation, and constantly researching for improvements? And for what apps will make the process easier?

And how about, building said social media accounts (only for there to be like, zero following lol)? Building a website from the ground up, then loading up every last chapter of everything I’ve written? Realizing there is a better way to have done it, and having to start ENTIRELY  from scratch? Then a year later have the exact same thing happen again? Researching better practices and theory for graphic designs for social media, and for the story stuff itself? Actually making every. last. piece. of graphics for every. last. chapter. and. piece. of. social. media. From scratch, as needed? And then let’s not forget all the research I need just to write my story as best I can, with regard to the accuracy of elements in the story.

AND, finding the best ways to improve my perks on patreon: what do people want that I can actually do? (Turns out, this list is insanely limited, since I need to sleep and see my children every now and then. As it is, most of my friends are online and I can eat while sitting at the computer. And never really leaving the house means who cares about pajamas or stupid things like hygiene for the average “workday”?). Oh, and now that I’m three books in and starting the fourth, I really, really need to figure out a way to fit in revising each novel in turn (since they were posted WIP-style, like fanfics), making the graphics for covers, formatting the books, and setting up venues for e-pub and, probably only according to my very wildest fantasies, finding the best option for print-on-demand so that maybe someone can get a physical copy if they want one. (Although, if subscriptions to my website, general traffic patterns to said website, or social media following are anything to predict this necessity by, it’s completely unnecessary).

I am so, so, so fucking swamped, especially for all this effort only to yield $100/month. At this point, I have to fight off actual anxiety and guilt when I do things like step away from the computer to spend time with my family and friends, or when I force myself to do something like dick around on twitter or other things most people count as leisure activity.

I have to believe that it’s just my lack of knowledge on how to market myself that’s gotten me stalled. If I don’t, I spiral really quickly.

I’m tired. I’ve spent the last year and change doing what I can to press onward, since these things take time to build. But how can I tell when it’s become a sunk cost, all that I’ve done? Has that already happened, and I’m just too stubborn or unobservant to have noticed?

Goddamn it, I *want* to be on the NYT Bestseller list at least once, for ten minutes at least. I want to be the kind of author that gets invited to do book signings that even one or two people show up for. I want traditional publishing, and I want validation. And despite what I keep telling myself, those wants ain’t going anywhere anytime soon.

You know, for a long time I insisted to everyone (especially myself, lol) that, “The money or whatever doesn’t matter. I just want to make something that I like, and that hopefully other people like, too.”

That’s true on some level? But it’s also some seriously pretentious bullshit that people who are afraid of rejection (me) say to make it sound like they’re Above It All.

So I’m admitting it to myself. I’m saying it officially. I want to be a famous author. I want to make my bread and butter based on my ability to words, and goddamn it I want to make a good bit of bread and butter in the process. I want to make the kind of book money that makes it insane not to have a home office, or a good space at an office co-op. I want to make the kind of money that drags my ass out of debt in ten years. (Lol fat fucking chance but whatever these are my dreams, yeah?)

I want all the awards. I want accolades. I want tv and movie options and speaking engagements at local colleges (or shit, *not local* colleges!), people contacting me on various social media with some amount of awe because of how much they love my work. I want to be an authorial fucking rock star that True Fans actually recognize in public and want to take pictures with but are lowkey worried about annoying me. (I doubt I’d actually get that way, most of the time. I am, after all, an attention whore, and for the first time in my life, I’m okay with admitting that, too.) Shit, I want my stuff to be so well-loved and brilliant that it gets taught in lit classes.

I fucking hate doing the patreon 99% of the time. Writing, yes, good, but the rest of it? Putting ALL that fucking effort in for such a disproportionately minimal return? It’s fucking insane. And yet I keep doing it. Because it’s a devil I know, rather than ones I don’t.

The devils I don’t know:

Is it worth risking that $100/mo to potentially be rejected by every agent forever? I’m jobless. That’s a shitton of money.

Can my person/ego/pride/sense of self-worth handle potentially knowing that my shit just ain’t good enough? Hashtag fear of rejection eff tee double-u.

So at this point, I don’t know. I’m tired and I don’t know. And this doesn’t even touch on the constant paranoia as to the actual quality of the content I’m creating. But that’s a post for another time.

I don’t know what to do. *sighs*

Does anyone--whether you’ve ready the Under-London stuff or not--have any ideas?

[afoolsingenuity]

Looking Forward // February 2017

Looking Forward is a regular feature on the blog where I let you know which books I’m looking forward to in the month. They are all books I’m looking forward to being released and want to know if you’re excited about them too?

This month is great because I know I can put in a request for a few of these books for my birthday at the end of the month… although I’ve already pre-ordered two of them… I may not understand the concept of budgeting.

Long Way Home (Thunder Road #3) – Katie McGarry

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Release Date: 1st February 2017

Unconventional – Maggie Harcourt

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Release Date: 1st February 2017

Seventeen-year-old Violet has always been expected to sit back and let the boys do all the saving.

It's the code her father, a member of the Reign of Terror motorcycle club, raised her to live by. Yet when her dad is killed carrying out Terror business, Violet knows it's up to her to do the saving. To protect herself, and her vulnerable younger brother, she needs to cut all ties with the club—including Chevy, the boy she's known and loved her whole life.

But when a rival club comes after Violet, exposing old secrets and making new threats, she's forced to question what she thought she knew about her father, the Reign of Terror and what she thinks she wants. Which means re-evaluating everything: love, family, friends…and forgiveness.

Caught in the cross hairs between loyalty and freedom, Violet must decide whether old friends can be trusted—and if she's strong enough to be the one person to save them all.

Lexi Angelo has grown up helping her dad with his events business. She likes to stay behind the scenes, planning and organizing...until author Aidan Green - messy haired and annoyingly arrogant - arrives unannounced at the first event of the year. Then Lexi's life is thrown into disarray.

In a flurry of late-night conversations, mixed messages and butterflies, Lexi discovers that some things can't be planned. Things like falling in love...

Why Am I Excited?

I know Katie McGarry often writes overly dramatic and slightly angsty YA which is always a little crazy but her writing is so insanely addictive. I am always there for her latest release because there is something about her books which hook you. I know the first time I read Pushing The Limits I was rolling my eyes and thinking I’d never go back to one of her books and then I ended up wanting to reread a year later and loved it. She’s an author who just gets you somehow and I love it.

Also, it’s a little bit like Sons of Anarchy for a younger crowd and I love Sons of Anarchy.

Why Am I Excited?

Honestly, I don’t even know. I guess it’s mostly for the fangirl in me who is excited about this book. I think I need a new book to feed that fangirl side of me and what better way than a book about a convention? It is just the perfect sounding fun YA and I want to read it. Is that so wrong?

A Darkness Absolute (Casey Duncan #2) – Kelley Armstrong

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Release Date: 7th February 2017

Wintersong – S. Jae Jones

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Retelling

Release Date: 7th February 2017

The follow-up to #1 NYT bestseller Kelley Armstrong’s acclaimed City of the Lost, Rockton town detective Casey Duncan makes a terrible—and dangerous—discovery in the woods outside of town.

When experienced homicide detective Casey Duncan first moved to the secret town of Rockton, she expected a safe haven for people like her, people running from their past misdeeds and past lives. She knew living in Rockton meant living off-the-grid completely: no cell phones, no Internet, no mail, very little electricity, and no way of getting in or out without the town council’s approval. What she didn’t expect is that Rockton comes with its own set of secrets and dangers.

Now, in A Darkness Absolute, Casey and her fellow Rockton sheriff’s deputy Will chase a cabin-fevered resident into the woods, where they are stranded in a blizzard. Taking shelter in a cave, they discover a former resident who’s been held captive for over a year. When the bodies of two other women turn up, Casey and her colleagues must find out if it’s an outsider behind the killings or if the answer is more complicated than that...before another victim goes missing.

Casey Duncan returns in another heart-racing thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong.

All her life, Liesl has heard tales of the beautiful, dangerous Goblin King. They’ve enraptured her and inspired her musical compositions. Now eighteen, Liesl feels that her childhood dreams are slipping away. And when her sister is taken by the Goblin King, Liesl has no choice but to journey to the Underground to save her. But with time and the old laws working against her, Liesl must discover who she truly is before her fate is sealed.

Why Am I Excited?

I may be new to the Kelley Armstrong fanclub but that doesn’t mean I’m not committed to reading all of her books. I mean, I’ve been looking forward to this book ever since I finished City of the Lost. I have just been making grabby hands at computer screens and wishing for it to arrive sooner so I am so excited for this release! I had actually contemplated requesting this for my birthday at the end of the month but that is so far away I don’t think I’ll make it! I may sneak this into my basket (don’t tell anyone).

Why Am I Excited?

Well, first of all, is this an honest to God standalone fantasy I’m seeing? Second of all, it sounds awesome. I’ve heard this being compared to Labyrinth but considering I’ve never seen that film I don’t actually care. I just want to read the damn book. I even have it preordered for Kindle (dedication on my part).

Pretty Face (London Celebrities #2) – Lucy Parker

Genre: Romance, Contemporary

Release Date: 20th February 2017

A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic #3) – V.E. Schwab

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult

Release Date: 21st February 2017

Highly acclaimed, award-winning author of Act Like It Lucy Parker returns readers to the London stage with laugh-out-loud wit and plenty of drama

The play's the fling

It's not actress Lily Lamprey's fault that she's all curves and has the kind of voice that can fog up a camera lens. She wants to prove where her real talents lie—and that's not on a casting couch, thank you. When she hears esteemed director Luc Savage is renovating a legendary West End theater for a lofty new production, she knows it could be her chance—if only Luc wasn't so dictatorial, so bad-tempered and so incredibly sexy.

Luc Savage has respect, integrity and experience. He also has it bad for Lily. He'd be willing to dismiss it as a midlife crisis, but this exasperating, irresistible woman is actually a very talented actress. Unfortunately, their romance is not only raising questions about Lily's suddenly rising career, it's threatening Luc's professional reputation. The course of true love never did run smooth. But if they're not careful, it could bring down the curtain on both their careers…

The precarious equilibrium among the four Londons has reached its breaking point. Once brimming with the red vivacity of magic, darkness casts a shadow over the Maresh Empire, leaving a space for another London to rise. Kell begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. Meanwhile, an ancient enemy returns to claim a crown and a fallen hero is desperate to save a decaying world…

Why Am I Excited?

Erm, did you see my review for Act Like It? I need to know if that was a fluke or not. I mean, I highly doubt it was, I doubt it so much I have it pre-ordered and have a review copy, but you never know.

I do have to say if her first book is anything to go by Lucy Parker is destined to be a firm favourite of mine and I cannot wait to dive into this book, just two other review copies to conquer first! I wasn’t actually going to include it here because I have a review copy but I am insanely excited for this book so I want to keep shoving it in your faces.

Why Am I Excited?

I may not have read the second book yet but that makes me no less excited for the release of this one. I am ready for a good old binge read of all three. To binge read a series is one of my favourite things to do and this one would definitely be worth it.

Since I have read the first book I can say that based on that alone I would be buying this. I mean, I just loved it so much and Schwab proves time and again that she is an author worth keeping an eye on as she seems to always deliver an interesting read.

  Special Mentions

These three books are also books I’m excited for this month but I have review copies on them which I’ve not read yet and so can't say if I want to shove them in your face or not. They are books I’m interested in and I am aware are being released. Let me know your thoughts on these if you have read them. I’m currently reading Our Own Private Universe and like it so far but we’ll see about the rest.

And there are my picks for February. Have you read any of these or are you looking forward to them as well? And are there any books I’ve missed and absolutely need to include on my list?

from Blogger http://ift.tt/2kk5IN9 via IFTTT