Words Sway Me

I just finished reading a stunning and heartbreaking novel about what might happen if an EMP was detonated over the U.S. Very realistic depiction, in my opinion. I don't know what was worst; imagining this happening for real in my life, the deaths of the elderly, the cannibalism, the need to lock people up in asylums/sanitoriums again, or the death of a child due to lack of insulin. I could very easily turn into a survivalist if I think about it that much. Then again, I would head for my friend Shannon's house in the event of an apocalypse--she would have plenty of green things growing. And a catapult or trebuchet for defense. Plus, those Baker boys are something fierce!

My mother has always said that words are weapons for me. I can slice you to pieces without ever touching you. I try to use my power for good, but it doesn't always work. I guess it follows that words affect me in the same way. I cry much more easily while I am reading a well-written book than I do when I'm watching a movie.

There are books that I have been reading and re-reading for 10-15 years where the characters seem like old friends. There are books I can no longer read because of the deaths of those beloved characters. There is a book that haunts me, that I love, that was probably my introduction to the genre I most love; fantasy. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. It is such a book of humanity and haunting beauty. I want to read it again and again, to hold the words close to me. I can't bear it, though. The unicorn's story is too tragic. There is both great hope and great despair in the tale.

I marvel that this one story can absorb so much of myself. I marvel that this author has woven such a tale! Such a deft hand at the pen. Where does his story come from? I want desperately to have the same skill at writing a tale, the same power to bring tears, to have someone read and re-read my words fifty, a hundred times because of their weight, their aura, their transcendence. I fear that I have nothing so pure and amazing within me. I fear that I have that skill within me, but no story to tell. I fear that I have the story, but cannot find the right words.

Words hold me in their grip, tightly. I live my life along their edges. They susurrate over my tongue, whisper in my ears, grip my soul in both their hands and haul me under the deep blue of their gluttonous mouths.

When Being a Reader & Being a Writer Collide

I am an avid reader, and have been since before I could even read. My mother tells me that I used to sit at her feet and watch her reading. I am quoted as saying "I wish I could read." I was highly motivated to learn to read and learned as quickly as possible.

With my love of reading has followed a love of writing. I loved the characters in my books so much that I wanted to create my own characters. I began writing epic stories with no end in elementary school. I still have a notebook filled with a description of my imaginary world that I wrote some time in middle school. In 3rd grade, I was a finalist in a DAR writing competition about what the Constitution meant to me.

In high school, I discovered poetry. It was all I wrote for years. At college, I majored in English with an emphasis in creative writing. All but one of my workshop classes were in poetry. I really struggled with the one fiction workshop class that I took. My biggest issue was conflict. I didn't really have a lot in my own life, and a lack of experience led to a lack of inspiration for me. After college, I stagnated. I dealt with depression that sucked any interest in writing out of me.

Living in Los Angeles, I posted an ad on Craigslist for a writing partner. To my surprise, I found a great one! She was from Kentucky like me, and vegan where I was vegetarian. She liked my writing and really encouraged me. A year later, she and her husband moved back to Chicago where they had lived previously. I went out hunting for a writing partner again, and again was amazingly lucky. This writing partner helped me focus more on my goals as a writer and the fact that I start a million different projects and never finish anything!

Now I am a blogger mostly, with a few pieces of poetry and quite a few personal essays thrown in. I do a lot of thinking about writing a novel. I have done a lot of planning in regards to my novel. I've started more than one novel. However, I haven't pushed through any of them yet.

Then a funny thing happened. All that reading I've done about writing a novel started clicking into place while I was reading. The book I read the other day was a textbook example. Textbooks, though? Not so much fun to read. Textbook examples, ditto. I am seriously concerned that being a writer is going to ruin being a reader for me! It disappoints me that books are becoming predictable and formulaic. I don't want to have to give up one or the other of my pleasures for the sake of the other remaining interesting.

The End of an Era: Reading Rainbow

Being a reader and a teacher, I feel like I have to write something about the end of an era. Reading Rainbow started in 1983. I was 5 years old. I don't remember the first episode I saw, but I saw quite a few. I had a voracious appetite for books, even as a 5-year-old. I loved the section where there were kids sharing their favorite books! I hunted down quite a few of those recommendations to read myself, not to mention the featured books.

I loved LeVar Burton. He was a magnificent choice for a host. I did a fangirl dance when LeVar showed up on Star Trek:TNG (Oh, you didn't know I was a geek? Surprise! Card-carrying, thank you very much!) a few years after Reading Rainbow started. Geordi, LeVar, Geordi, LeVar. I couldn't get enough.

I haven't seen an episode for quite a while, but I'm very tempted to troll PBS for every episode that they have online from now until December when they cut off access to the show's website. I have no doubt that I will enjoy them as much now as I did when I was a kid. I feel sorry for the generations to come who will miss out on the book love that is Reading Rainbow.

Would it be weird to say that Reading Rainbow was a book review blog before there were book review blogs? In my mind, that's kind of what it was.

It just today occurs me to wonder if LeVar is as much of a reader as I imagine the host of a show about reading should be. Was he part of the impetus to start the show? How much of a hand did he have in creating the show? He is one of the people I follow on Twitter, and he seems to be an amazing person in real life. I think that he would be on my top 10 of famous people to meet. He has an amazing legacy! If I were him, I would be proud to have been host of such an influential show for a 26(!) year run. I think it should be at the top of his list of accomplishments. Then again, I'm a teacher in addition to being a book lover.

Take a look, it's in a book...

My Reading Habits

My friend Christina had this over at her site! I liked it, so here are my answers!

01. Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack?
No, because I usually read in bed! Every once in a while, I get the munchies, so I eat in bed, too.

02. Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
Write in a book??!! NEVER! I couldn't even write in my textbooks in college. It feels like I'm defacing the book.

03. How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
I get paint strips at the local Wal-Mart that I use as bookmarks! I also have quite a few bookmarks that I've picked up at national parks throughout the U.S. on my road trips. I do hang books over the drawer in my night stand sometimes, too.

04. Fiction, Non-fiction, or both?
A much heavier leaning toward fiction, but I love autobiographies as well. I like the idea of reading fiction, but I usually either buy or borrow a book from the library and run out of time to finish it. I like my reading entertainment!

05. Hard copy or audiobooks?
Hard copy, definitely. I don't have the patience to listen to someone read a book.

06. Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?
If it's holding my attention, I read to the end of the chapter. If I'm reading on the couch while I'm watching TV or something like that, I put it down whenever.

07. If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?
Honestly, I don't remember the last time I came across a word I didn't know during reading. If I did at this point, it would probably bother me enough that I would HAVE to look it up.

08. What are you currently reading?
A paranormal romance by Heather Graham. Getting ready to start an advanced reading copy of The Lost Throne by Chris Kuzneski that I am VERY excited about.

09. What is the last book you bought?
James Rollins' latest, The Last Oracle

10. Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?
Multiple books, usually. I try to focus on one at a time, but it doesn't always work.

11. Do you like re-reading books?
Only my favorites! Most books I read are one-timers, but I do have some favorites that

What makes a book YA?

My dad and I had this discussion last week. He said that he'd asked the library about the categorization of a book that he'd picked up. They told him that they categorized as YA when the main character was a young person. I can understand that, and I agree with it. However, the particular book that was categorized as YA had an adult as the main character. It did have some violence, although not gratuitous. There wasn't any sex or questionable content either.

Maybe there have been other discussions about this. I haven't come across any as of yet. If you know of any, please send me a link. Otherwise, I'd love to hear your thoughts. What makes a book young adult as opposed to children's or adult?

Dark Embrace by Brenda Joyce

I've read so many werewolf and vampire novels lately that this book came as a bit of a relief. I like books with telepathy and telekinesis better, to be honest. There was a bit of both in this book.

Aidan of Awe, also known as the Wolf of Awe, is a Master of Time, defender of the Innocent. His father, Moray, is a deamhon, and he is determined to turn Aidan to the dark side. He does this by killing Aidan's son, Ian.

Through the centuries, Brianna feels Aidan's pain. They met at a time when Aidan was in the year 2008 saving innocents, and a bond was instantly forged. Unbeknownst to Brianna, she calls for him after she feels his pain. He leaps through time and saves her from a gang of boys, only to take her back to his time with him.

Aidan has spent 66 years grieving over the death of his son. He has amassed an army composed of men who enjoy murder and mayhem and men who are demon-possessed. He has also been committing crimes of pleasure, draining women of their life force. Unlike most, he does not kill the victims of his pleasure crimes.

Brianna is determined to find the Aidan she once knew under the layers of anger, hatred, vengefulness, and depredation he uses as armor to keep people away. Together with the Masters of Time brotherhood that Aidan used to be a member of and the help of Brianna's psychically gifted cousins and friends, they search for a way to stop Aidan's father, Moray.

This was a supremely satisfying book. It was completely up my alley since I love psychic talents. Of course, men in kilts certainly aren't any deterrant for me! I didn't particularly like Aidan, to tell the truth. Brianna is a better woman than me in dealing with him. I really liked how the book ended. I was really happy with how the ends were tied up.

Be sure to look for Joyce's other books, Dark Rival and Dark Seduction!

2 More days left to enter my giveaway!

If you're new to my blog, I'm having my first giveaway. I've reviewed the book here, and the link for entering the giveaway is here.

Everybody likes free books, right? : ) All you have to do is tell me which book I've reviewed so far that you'd most like to read!

Welcome to Book Blogger Appreciation Week

Welcome to visitors as well as a welcome back to my "regular" readers. I think I have some. No one has been very chatty in the comments. I am proud to say that I have a writer comment on one of my blog entries! Very exciting for me. Please see the list of book bloggers participating here. Happy reading!

With that said, this is a very new book blog. I've posted a few reviews, but not all that many yet. If you have any suggestions for new books to review, I'd love to hear them. I'm going to start blogging a bit about my real, non-bookworm life.

I'm a special education teacher to pay the bills. I recently moved from California to Kentucky. Unfortunately, I moved too late in the summer to secure a permanent position. I've been keeping an eye out for positions opening. It happens--more students enroll or are identified as having learning disabilities. Teachers crack under the pressure and quit. However, no luck so far. My father teaches in an adjoining county, and said that there is a possible opening. I called the school and they said they would know about the position at the end of September/beginning of October. I don't really want to wait that long for a job, to have money coming in. I still have bills to pay.

I did apply and had an interview last week with a youth home. I'm overqualified for the position, actually. I'll take it if they offer it to me, but I'll quit for a teaching position in a heartbeat. The youth home position asks for nothing more than a high school diploma. I've got a college degree and further work in order to get my teaching certification. Teaching pays more, and I think it's probably got better benefits. My best friend called today and said that they'd called her for a reference. She said that she couldn't think of any weaknesses that I have, which was very sweet. They have to have at least three references, so that's all I'm waiting for. Maybe a background check as well. If you're the praying type, say a little prayer for me, please!