I don't cook.

Honestly, I'm surprised I have to keep saying this. I don't cook. It's not some feminist agenda or a refusal to be in the kitchen.

1. I'm terrible at it.

2. It doesn't interest me. Given a choice of cooking dinner and mopping the floor, I choose the floor. Both are chores.

3. My husband is a good cook.

4. Getting takeout is supporting entrepreneurs and paying them for their ability to prepare tasty food.

Yet for some reason, other women think this is something I need to address. When I tell them I don't cook, we usually launch into a series of frequently asked questions.

1. Oh but it's easy! You just boil some spaghetti, season some shrimp, and toss them together with olive oil!

Again, I don't have any interest in cooking. I don't care to learn, because I equate it with learning floor mopping techniques. I appreciate the ability of others and am happy to pay them for their skills.

2. But, but, what do you eat?

Food. Prepared by others. My husband is very talented and can whip together a meal out frozen chicken strips and whatever happens to be growing in the garden. And he can make it delicious.

3. What does your husband say?

Nothing? I walk the dog while he cooks, and I do the dishes after.

4. Is he cooking tonight?

What part of this aren't you getting.

5. Who cooks on your anniversary and other special events?

Oh you didn't mention special events ! I suddenly develop a set of skills I never bothered to cultivate and put out an entire gourmet meal of braised ribs, red roasted potatoes, lightly seasoned snow peas, and ice tea not made from a can.

Seriously, what part of this aren't you getting?

It's actually a very easy concept. We divide chores based on our strengths. He doesn't like walking the dog. I do. He lets dishes pile up in the sink. I hate that, so I load and unload the dishwasher. I have a lower threshold for clean sheets and towels, so I do those. He mows the lawn, I clean the floors, he maintains the garden, I pay the bills, he vacuums the stairs, I handle all vet appointments, etc.

The same conversation with a man goes very different.

Me: I don't cook.
Man: Why are we talking about this?

Just more proof that women are harder on each other, and that gender roles are enforced by our own gender, not because men are forcing us into the kitchen. Some women find it simply unacceptable or completely remarkable that I don't cook.

Frankly, I'm kinda tired of it.

Book Review - Claim to Fame

I love Margaret Peterson Haddix, and will read a book of hers whenever I get my hands on one.

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6455481-claim-to-fame">Claim to Fame</a> is a book about a child sitcom star who developed the ability to hear everything said about her. Anywhere in the world, if someone mentioned her name, she could hear it.

Yeah okay, Haddix likes to make stories into learning opportunities and morals. I can see her writings being taught in schools. The idea here was that Lindsay Scott, as an actress, was too obsessed with what people thought about her and what was said about her, that she developed this super ability. And it nearly drove her insane.

Haddix does an excellent job with genetics and heredity that you start to believe this could actually happen to someone. It was a detailed, well-developed, thought-provoking read.

My only issue was that it ended too quickly. Once she mastered her power, Lindsay didn't have any goals beyond that. Go to college. Then what? Does she get together with Toby? How does Toby's story work out? There were a lot of good characters that could've made the book twice as long and me twice as happy.

One thing Haddix does that I like is anticipate reader's questions. If she could hear all this stuff, why doesn't the CIA recruit her?

One of the characters explained because she can only hear what's said about her. Then it went into a discussion how people are usually self-centered. Instead of being omniscient, we'd really only want to hear what our neighbors are saying behind our backs. It was a good philosophical discussion.

On the other hand, all the CIA would need to do is announce to the world they have physics listening. Then the terrorists would talk about the physics and bam, there you go.

Anyway, I like Haddix and I like <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6455481-claim-to-fame">Claim to Fame</a>. I just wish it were longer.

Amazon Lending Library; Firecracker

I decided to check out the Kindle Owner's Lending Library. Once a month, Amazon will let you borrow a book for free, provided that you bought and registered a Kindle.

According to their website, they have over 145,000 books available to borrow and 100 New York Times best sellers.

Well, even if I could find a NYT best seller on the list, I probably wouldn't want to read it. I scratch my head sometimes on what the world finds popular. 50 Shades of Grey? Twilight? Nora Roberts?

Anyway this isn't a blog post about best seller lists. I searched the Lending Library for a quick book to read to pad my stats on the Goodreads challenge.

The Lending Library isn't searchable. You select a genre and it displays the 6,000 books in that category. Sure you can find a romance! Here are a few thousand to scroll through! You can sort by highest rated or most recent, but that doesn't narrow it down too much. If you had a book in mind that you wanted to read, you aren't going to find it on the Lending Library. Not unless you scroll through page after page of results looking for it.

Eventually I got tired of that and settled on <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13498755-firecracker">Firecracker</a>. It was fine. I think it's a sub-published book because the publisher is listed as Amazon Digital Services.

Of course, everyone on Goodreads has given it 5 stars. I have to assume they are the author's friends and family. It simply wasn't mature writing. It was good enough to tell the story, but not enough for me to love it. If you want to read about pyrokinetics, read <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/97967.Mystic_and_Rider">Mystic and Rider</a> by Sharon Shinn.

Back to the writing, here's an example of what I mean. The first time the protagonists are attacked, the male hero has a flashback to his childhood from the last time he encountered the monster. Okay, but it takes page and pages to go through.
 
Then when we finally do come back to the present, it's right from where we left - the pounding at the door. Turns out it was just the landlady. However, we know the monster is around. The protagonists can sense it, taste it even. (it's bitter). The flashback and misdirection don't add suspense, they slow down the action. Here's an excerpt from the middle of the action scene:

CLICK-CLICK-CLICK. Like fingernails - no, more like claws - against that second car. An Oldsmobile, dark tan, big as a boat and as old as anyone's grandmother. Oddly enough, it was the car that had never moved. Not once during Cass's four year residence at the Amigo Apartments had that car left its spot. Two or three times a week, from dinnertime to midnight, a small gathering of her Hispanic neighbors would play the roles of mystic faith healers.....

You get the idea. A freaking monster made of shadow and claws is only  two cars away from her and the author is breaking to tell the reader about a damn car. It slows down the action, makes the scene feel less than life-threatening, and generally the car has ZERO role to play in this story. Two Kindle pages later and the Olds rocks side to side (finally). The next page they discuss running away. Two pages later the monster appears over the Olds. Three pages later she asks the monster why it hates her. The next page, the damn thing finally pounces.  

Really, really slow read. Especially for an action scene. Sentences should be quick, fast, full of tense emotion. It's sad because the plot was a good idea (love me some pyrokinetics), but the pacing was just terrible.

Anyway, I have a feeling this is the quality you get from the Amazon Lending Library.

Happy Memorial Day

Writing Characters

Up front disclaimer - I don't read Greg Rucka, but after an article he wrote about writing characters, I just might have to check out his work.

I think he's mostly known as a comic book writer for Marvel and DC. One of the questions he's most frequently asked in interviews is:

How Do You Write Such Strong Female Characters?

In this article,  he explains just how sad that question really is. It's a long article, and I know how most people feel about reading something lengthy on the interwebs, so here are a few excerpts I found extremely interesting.

I have two answers I tend to give, the Quick Answer and the Long Answer. Both are entirely true, for the record.
The Quick Answer goes like this:
Q: How do you write such strong/well-realized/positively portrayed women?
A: I don't. I write characters. Some of those characters are women.

I like this excerpt because no one has ever asked a male writer how he writes strong/well-realized male characters. For some reason, it's assumed men cannot write believable female characters, and when it does happen, it's such a shock.

And really, that's just sad. That's not doing the work of a proper author.

Writers write characters, and at our best, if we do it well and with care and with thought, we invest in those characters a spark of life, a realism and nuance that makes them believable and relatable. We seek to craft characters who inspire empathy, characters our audience will care for, and as a result, will care about what happens to them, and thus will share the journey we have charted. A story, after all, is the character's journey.

Asking "how do you write strong women?" is the equivalent of saying "we generally accept other authors don't bother to put the work into a female character, so it's surprising that you do."

...for many others, I think, it's not simply that they're asking How Did You Do This Thing? What they're really asking, I think, is this:
Why aren't more men doing it?
Why is it that so many male writers, when trying to write strong female characters, fail?
Why do they default to a shorthand, lazy equation, where strong equals bitch?

If other writers put a little more effort into understanding what makes their character tick, Rucka wouldn't need to answer this question very much.


...this is a matter of respect, for both the story itself and for the audience receiving it. The reader is smarter than you. The reader is always smarter than you. And the reader knows when you've taken a shortcut, or phoned it in, or are trying to pull a fast one. And the reader don't like it one bit.

Okay I've already taken more excerpts than I wanted to, but I've read this article three times and I keep finding more and more gems. I really recommend you read it, in it's entirety, and bookmark it. Hold it as the standard to which all characters should be placed against.

Alright, one more! Just as a conclusion.


World building is what writers do. The good ones, the really awesome kick-ass take-no-prisoners crafters of fiction, they're able to invest such honesty into their tales that you believe in them....That's world building. There's no secret to it. If a writer -– any writer -– wants to make their story worthwhile, then the characters deserve as much consistency and attention as the world they inhabit.

Happy birthday

Happy birthday to my husband, who turns 31 today. There's not much excitement in turning 31. He's getting a TV for the bedroom wall....but we have to paint it first so that sorta sucks. The TV is his main present, so I got him something little to open this morning. A pair of sandals because the dog ate his last ones.

Hey, they're nice sandals. Leather with arch supports.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to his 36th birthday because we met when we were 18. When we both turn 36 in 2017 I can say I've known him for half my life.

On the flip side, anything after 2017 is MORE than half my life, and I'm not ready to sound like I'm over the hill. Not before I'm 50.

I'm struggling to take something positive away from this. Because my husband had a birthday, we have to paint the bedroom and we're one year closer to sounding old.

Sandals and cake don't really make up for that.

Best bumper sticker ever

You know those location bumper stickers on cars? OBX, LBI, IRQ, etc. I saw this one in my work parking lot.

BEST BUMPER STICKER EVER!! I giggled the whole way home.


Get it?


You'd have to be familiar with Stargate.


Want a hint?


Keep close watch at the 50 second mark.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7s1BiL8GPqc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


Yes! It's the Stargate chevron for Earth. Take that all you silly terrestrial car decals. You go to OBX, I'll go through the Stargate.