WordFlix

Ex Libris | Evening musings

As I continue to neaten and streamline this site for a kind of redeployment and repurposing sometime in 2012, I surveyed my reading lists from the past few years and noted two things: 1) I have read far fewer books this year than the previous two years, thanks to a much busier work schedule this academic year; 2) my recreational reading tends to be almost exclusively genre fiction -- specifically category romance. (I don't keep track of my professional or academic reading here, so the "On the Bookshelf" section in the sidebar doesn't reflect any of that.)

A friend laughs at me: "You have a B.A. and an M.A. in literature, and you have a Ph.D. -- and you read trash novels!" I might quarrel with her designation, but I get her point: I seem to have very little mid-range.  Classics or genre fiction -- but very little contemporary mass market fiction. It's not that I don't enjoy some of it when I do read it.  It's more that, when I want to relax, I want to relax completely, and with category romance I can do that.  I never have to anticipate the lack of a happy ending (it all ends happily). I never have to worry about outcomes (they're all positive).  

Category romances are my version of vegging out. Some people watch TV -- but I teach media, and so I can't always turn off my brain when I'm in front of a screen, large or small. I used to teach literature and writing, too, and when I'm reading literary fiction, I tend to go into analytic mode. Sometimes I enjoy that, of course. But sometimes I simply want to drift.

Perhaps because I was trained in traditional notions of literary canons but migrated into a field (film and media) in which definitions of art and popular culture merged, I find myself drawn to so-called sequels, prequels, and spin-offs of classic works of literature (hence part of my current fascination with all things Phantom of the Opera related). I relish the breaking of boundaries between high and low-brow culture, between original author and fan fiction, between text and context. I have yet to tap into the whole Jane Austen-inspired line of fiction and probably won't (I like Austen but I'm not passionate about her), but you never know:  I might.

In the meantime, I'm going to settle down with yet another category romance tonight, having put in a reasonably productive first day back at work on my POTO research.  Time to let the brain rest.

Ex Libris | Check out debut novelist Amor Towles' RULES OF CIVILITY

If you think you'd like to read about compelling, quirky characters and New York in the 1930s, hop over to my review of Amor Towles' Rules of Civility.

And don't forget to check out BlogHer.com's page devoted to this new novel!

Ex Libris | Fiction Review: Under Attack by Hannah Jayne

via www.publishersweekly.com

Congratulations to Hannah Jayne on the starred review in Publishers Weekly of her second novel in the Underworld Detective Agency series.  Rock on, Hannah!

Ex Libris | A Discovery of Witches: the (possible) movie + sequel title

A Discovery of Witches: the (possible) Movie + Sequel Title

I'm less excited about the prospect of a film than I am about the news of the sequel, titled Shadow of Night.

From the poking around I've done on the internet, we'll have to wait until summer 2012 for its appearance, however.

Ex Libris | Borders finds no buyer, moves toward liquidation - latimes.com

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

A shame, in my view. I worked at Borders years ago for a nanosecond and have always preferred its in-store ambiance to that of Barnes & Noble.

Of course, I prefer independent bookstores overall, but like the publishing world, the book-selling world is changing and sellers need to change with it. 

Ex Libris | Amazon Fights California Tax Collectors - NYTimes.com

Californians will have to start paying sales tax on their purchases from Amazon.com starting Friday after Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation earlier this week requiring online retailers to collect the tax.

via bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Ex Libris | Leisure reading

One of my strengths is that I'm very goal-oriented.  I set goals and I go after them. Sometimes I set too many goals, put too many irons in the fire, and some of them peter out. But on the big things, I tend to stick with a plan, modify it if necessary, and go after what I've set my sights on.

On the flip side of this strength is a weakness: I'm not very good at relaxing and simply being present in the moment.  Part of that's been learned: it was very rarely safe to relax when I was a child because something negative -- like, some really bad shit -- would usually happen sooner rather than later the moment that I did relax.

But now I'm a grown-up, I've just earned tenure and a promotion, it's summer, and I think it's time to incorporate a little chill time into my plans.  Yes, I want to -- need to, for my own clarity and sense of purpose and mission in life -- write. Yes, I want to hone my chosen craft and take a writing class, and that will begin July 5. I'm invested in the Venice project and need to make progress on that by Wednesday of next week so that I can submit a proposal to the dean and the chair.

But I also need to chill. 

So today's unexotic plan for chilling is to take my walk to make sure I hit the minimum daily recommended number of 10,000 steps for health. Then I'm settling down with my Kindle app on the iPad and continuing to read Carolyn Turgeon's Mermaid: A Twist on the Classic Tale.  

Turgeon did a version of "Cinderella" called Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story that was very dark and ultimately pretty disturbing in a way that did not sit well with me. But nothing could be darker than Hans Christian Andersen's original tale of "A Little Mermaid," so I think this may be more fortuitious choice on Turgeon's part of a story to recast as a novel.

We shall see.

Dolce far niente.

Ex Libris | Summer (?) reading

I never quite understand the penchant for lists of "summer reading" suggestions that appear in the late spring.

For the longest time I assumed the recommendations were about books that were deemed somehow appropriate for summer (like a pair of sandals or a sun dress), rather than (as I have now concluded) about the fact that people often have time for a vacation and may simply read more, period, than they do during their regular work weeks.

Certainly I do. My work life is such that I'm always reading and writing anyway, so recreational reading can be hard to squeeze in. Summer, fortunately, is a different matter.

My choice of reading matter usually remains the same, regardless of the time of year: I generally alternate between literary fiction and genre fiction (n the case of the latter, series romance). Once in a while a memoir will appear, sometimes a work of history, or a young adult novel.  Mostly, though, it's literary fiction and romance.

Last night I finished a romance and started Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. The only other novel of his I've read is Remains of the Day, and I'm looking forward to this one. 

I have a virtual stack of unread books metaphorically piling up in my Kindle application on my iPad. It's time to play catch-up.

Ex Libris | BrontëBlog: Jane Eyre's Husband. A Review

via bronteblog.blogspot.com

Despite the positive review (click on link above), I don't have great hopes for this book -- and yet I ordered it for my Kindle iPad application and paid $9.99 for it.  

I am hopeless and ridiculous and have no willpower when it comes to All Things Jane Eyre.

Ex Libris | 'Dick Van Dyke: My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business': Review - latimes.com

via www.latimes.com

The review isn't that positive, but because Dick Van Dyke was my first crush (even before Fred Astaire, whom I worship to this day), I took note of it.

If you've never read it, try Faith, Hope, and Hilarity: The Child's Eye View of Religion instead, which (as I recall) is DVD's recollection of his life as a Sunday school teacher. It was one of the funniest books I'd ever read. It'll be difficult to track down a copy these days, but a local library might have one.  That's where I first discovered it.

I just love DVD.

NapGirl

With the exception of attending the local meeting of Romance Writers of America this morning, of which I'm a member, I did absolutely nothing productive today. At the meeting, I committed to presenting a first chapter of my (category) romance novel for group critique in August.  

Of course, what I have right now is a ninth chapter, not a first chapter. However, one of my goals between receiving tenure and going up for full professor in another 5-6 years is to publish a romance novel (no, not under my real name, and not under this blogging name, either), and I figured I'd best get started.  

There's no time like the present, etc.

Once I got home this afternoon, however, I turned into Slug Extraordinaire, save for a 35-minute advising session by phone with a girl who'll be an incoming freshman this fall. God, she sounded young. After that, though?  It was Nap Central.

I'm blaming my fatigue on hormones (did I mention that I've been waiting for menopause since I was 13 and it still shows no sign of appearing?) and also to the fact that I need an iron infusion, which I've arranged for Monday. My ferritin has dropped to 9 (hey, it has gone as low as 5; normal is anywhere from 12-252), so it's time to hook me up to an IV for my semi-annual dosing.

It's a relief, really.  As I mentioned in a recent Twitter post, my husband has begun to call me NapGirl because I don't seem to be able to get through most days without a snooze.

Sure, it's a drag to spend 6 hours hooked up to an IV in an oncology center, but I'm always terribly aware when I'm there that I'm lucky to be there as a result of weight-loss surgery and malabsorption, not cancer. I'm truly one of the lucky ones.  And I'm always impressed by the patients and the level of care there.  It's really a wonderful place.

Note:  FC1 was, indeed, at the advising session yesterday, and I handled it, and her, well.  Better living through modern pharmaceuticals.  And my (tenure/replacement wedding) ring arrives yesterday, and it's more beautiful than the photo (It was also significantly less than the price now quoted -- they raised their prices in the last month! I lucked out.)

Tuesday -- counting down

Update: The trapping of feral kitties has not yet occurred.  See Twitter post in the lefthand sidebar. We'll hope for better things later this week.

But not today, as it's my long day on campus, preceded by a hematologist's appointment to see where my ferritin levels are at and to have a preliminary consult about whether she would support a prophylactic hysterectomy (my mother may have died of ovarian cancer, my two older sisters have had to have hysterectomies for benign tumors and cysts, I'm chronically anemic, and I. Want. Those. Parts. Gone).  I know, I know: some women want to hang on to them for dear life.  Different strokes for different folks. Not I.  

The appointment will be followed by a meeting on campus, four hours of office hours with students who are becoming increasingly freaked out by their grades as the semester starts careening to a close (classes will be over in just under four weeks now ... thankyoubabyjesus), and then teaching in the late afternoon and evening.  While my students watch a film tonight after lecture, I'll be doing some last-minute grading for my graduate seminar tomorrow.

I'm usually trashed by the end of Tuesdays.

This is the time in the spring semester when I escape -- in no particular order -- into film (usually viewing one obsessively, as has been the case with the new Jane Erye), or novels (ditto, only Bronte's original novel --my god, Mr. Rochester is a shit sometimes -- not a news flash, I realize), or Second Life. Mostly I don't have time for these entertainments and distractions so they occur late at night after a full day's work. 

No wonder I'm tired this morning!

Border Crossings

From a set of brief remarks I gave recently that were more of a blog entry than an academic presentation. Originally there was more to them than this, but when technological issues interfered with a PowerPoint presentation I had prepared on women in film history, I went with this very preiiminary, embryonic spiel as a kind of discursive bridge between the academic talk that preceded it and the presentation that followed by the authors of A Feminine Manifesta.  

Had the PowerPoint worked, it would have been a more substantial piece ... right now it's just some suggestive thoughts strung together in an essayistic, non-academic voice. Perhaps I'll do something with it later.

I have self-identified as a feminist since I became an adult.  Quite a change from the 10-year old child I used to be who declared to her older sister that it was wrong for her to keep her own last name when she got married, to work outside the home, and that she should “stay home and love George.”  (Those were my exact words, and they’ve been passed down in family lore ever since. My nieces, now adults, have heard this story that happened long before they were ever born and tell it with glee.)

My brother-in-law was a grad student in English at the time, and my sister tartly observed to me that if she stayed home to love her husband, they wouldn’t have food to eat.

But today I want to talk about a passage in the book A Feminist Manifesta that addresses something the autnors call “shadow qualities.”  These “are the traits we’d rather not admit we possess because we believe they make us unlikable or even unlovable.”  And I want to talk about them, as the authors do, specifically in relation to women,  and also about the way that these traits have become culturally encoded and represented in women in the media.

From their book:

 “Imagine standing with a microphone before an audience and announcing[AS I DECLARE TO YOU NOW] I am…  desperate, insensitive, insecure, slutty, weird, stupid, perfectionist, weak, backstabbing, bossy, lazy, bitter, stingy, phony, egocentric, sloppy, fearful or – a real zinger for us gals – bitchy, and you’ll no doubt experience an internal shudder of horror.” The Feminine Manifesta, p. 76. 

We all are all those things from time to time. I am all those things from time to time.

To that list of shadow qualities I would add “vain” – in my family culture it’s Not Okay for women to display interest in their looks.  Any interest in clothes, make-up, hair, nails, or appearance generally meant that you were shallow, trivial, stupid, and possibly on your way to becoming a slut.  At the same time, you were expected to fall within some culturally accepted definition of “normal” appearance.  It was most definitely NOT OKAY that I weighed almost 300 pounds by the time I was 18. Why not?  Was it bad for my health? Was that the problem?  No, it apparently was the fact that I Might Not Have Any Friends When I Went to College.  They might not like the way I looked.  (Actually, I made a lot of friends in college.)

It’s worth noting that I began to take an interest in clothes on the exact day my mother died when I went shopping for a dress for her memorial service. I have worn make-up since the 8th grade, have colored my hair continuously since I was 16 and watched in horror as it turned orange for the first time,  and have worn artificial nails for the past 25 years because my own break off.  Artificial nails are impractical, expensive, and involve chemicals that I suspect will cause me to grow a horn in the middle of my forehead one day.

“You don’t look natural,” my sister, who is 17 years older than I, a child of the 1960s, once told me when I was in my teens. 

 “Who said I wanted to?” I asked her in return.

 This “internal shudder of horror” toward  shadow qualities in women that the authors talk about is one that the media have often played to and evoked as they’ve portrayed women over the years.  Indeed, these traits in women have occasionally been most powerfully rendered in horror films. 

Remember that traits culturally encoded and represented (by the media, in this case} as negative in women are often positively reframed and identified with the masculine. 

 But it’s important to realize and claim the power that they represent as intrinsically feminine as well so that men and women alike can recognize their strengths and weaknesses and collaborate in building better worlds – and images of the world – as we move forward into the future.

Rise-and-shine Saturday

After pulling my Elizabeth Barrett Browning routine for the past few days, languishing in fatigue and bed periodically because of exhaustion brought on by godknowswhat, I'm up early today.  

I'm heading to campus this morning for an all-day seminar on global citizenship and the international rule of law.  It's an event associated with the Salzburg Global Seminar of which I was a part in summer 2009 -- once a participant, one is considered part of that community for life -- and I'm looking forward to seeing a few acquaintances and yes, even some of the networking that inevitably goes on.

The full schedule runs from 8:15 a.m. to 7 p.m., and I think I'll attend only the morning sessions; that should be about all I can handle and leave room for other activities.

What other activities?  That's the question, isn't it? I have plenty of grading and almost no desire to do it, as well as course prep and plenty of administrative work.  But it looks as if I will not need to go into campus on Monday (I don't teach and no meeting was called), so I'd like to have something of a real weekend. It'll include some work, but I'd like to do some other things as well.

• Like going to the local flea market where I took my brother and his family last week. We cruised past some stands that I'd like to examine more closely.

• And rereading Jane Erye.  I know. I'm obsessed.  I bought yet another copy the other day with a gift card, simply because I wanted to read a fresh version. I know whole sections of the novel by heart, and this is a way of making it new to me atgain.

• And possibly seeing the new film version Jane Eyre again.  Ditto re: obsession. I downloaded the score for the film, and I'm realizing how dreamlike both it and the film as a whole are. I'm rereading the novel in light of that interpretation. Certainly it's full of dreams, but I've always thought they were more of the nightmare variety. I'm thoroughly enjoying revisiting the novel that is dearest to my heart.

• And going for a bike ride, if the weather is warm enough. I want to go for another spin on my husband's battery-powered bike. 

• And beginning to investigate Adriatric, Aegean, or Mediterranean cruises.  To my stunned surprise, my husband -- the man who now loathes traveling because it is, let's face it, a drag these days in the post-9/11 world and who saw many places that I have not in his youth -- suggested yesterday that he and I might travel together to those areas sometime in the future by ship.  

Really?  

Well, not this year, he added hastily. Maybe for our 25th anniversary.  Oh, give me a break.  Try, say, 15th, I said.  That'll give us time enough to research, to save for, and to plan a wonderful trip while we're still relatively young.  I mean, that's only 4 years away.

Right now it's just a pie-in-the-sky thought.  But it's real enough that it gives me a good excuse to start perusing travel brochures and online options, which is always fun.

Anyway, as with most things, I'll probably feel most satisfied if I achieve a balance, in this case between some relaxation and getting some work done.  

Here's hoping that the worst of my exhaustion is over.  I'm going to try to do without allergy meds today and see if that helps.

Jane Eyre (Fukunaga, 2011)

Verdict?  Worth seeing for (tolerant) fans of Charlotte Bronte's original novel but probably not everyone's cup of tea.  

It's an earnest attempt at telling the story cinematically, though one gets the impression that a fair amount ended up on the editing room floor (e.g., whole scenes between Rochester and Jane, which are hinted at in the trailer but missing from the final cut).  

In fact, that's my chief complaint:  insufficient Rochester-and-Jane screen time. Also watered-down dialogue, no doubt in fear that Bronte's occasionally awkward conversational exchanges might not translate well to a 2011 audience. I suspect the filmmakers had a fair amount of trouble with the editing, and not simply because of the flashback structure that begins but is not well-sustained throughout the narrative.

What's good about it?  Its set, cinematography, costume, and sound design, and its acting are all good.

Because I'm a Jane Eyre addict, I may have to see it again. But really, it merits only a single viewing.

Added 4/3/11:  Saw the film again and liked it significantly better on the second viewing: I stopped comparing it to the novel and evaluated it on its own terms.  Er, may have to see it again -- but I repeat, I'm a Jane Eyre addict.

It's alive!

Or at least, I am.  A couple of weeks back it was The Cold from Hell, and then it was The Twisted Ankle. But today?  I'm good!

And this is me on a Thursday after the Monday-through-Wednesday routine that, until now, has left me feeling wrung out on Thursdays. So today it's all good.

I've done some work this morning (while my husband cleaned our disgusting bathrooms so that a plumber can come this afternoon to fix a few things without gagging at how filthy they are).  More work is arriving by email, and as usual, I feel guilty when I'm not working. I have films to watch and judge for an upcoming festival, I have two articles to peer-review for a journal, there's always grading and assorted advising paperwork to do, and then of course my own research and writing.

But I can piece out the work over the next few days, so I'm going to take refuge in a guilty pleasure this afternoon and indulge in some non-professional research into Laura Ingalls Wilder. Yes, she of the Little House series fame.  

The last time I went through a LIW phase was about 20 years ago when I was a Ph.D. student in Los Angeles and needed an escape from graduate work.  One of my nieces was a little girl at the time, and so she and her mother (my sister) and I (re)read the Little House books together.  Dark stuff in them thar books when you reread them as an adult. We even talked about taking a road trip to (godhelpus) De Smet, SD (ummm, the trip never happened).

Despite my interest in the Little House series, though, I've never actually read any scholarly literature about LIW, so I figure it's time. I'm not looking for the latest or greatest, so I simply browsed the stacks at my university library and found three books that focus on various phases and aspects of her life.

I may not read all the books, or all of each one, but for this afternoon, at least, I intend to check them out in some detail.

Yes, this is my idea of fun!

***

Afternoon: I thought I was going to indulge in some LIW research ... but work was the order of the ehtire day, as it turned out. 

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Because my new iPad has allowed me to rediscover the Kindle application (and it's also still winter break and so I still have the time), I'm rediscovering the joy of downloading free or almost free books that I've always meant to read but still haven't gotten around to.

I just finished Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle (I'd always meant to read one of his novels, and this is an alternate reality piece written in 1962 at the height of the Cold War).

And now I think I'm going to move on to The Diary of Samuel Pepys. At least I'll download it and have it on hand.  My mother, an inveterate reader, owned a very handsome full set of the diaries, read them, and loved them. They were expensive as I recall.  Now, with the Kindle application, you can get them for free.  Or, in my case. for $1.99 (I was hoping the one that cost something would be an edition that comes with notes, which I think I may need as I read the diaries a man kept from 1660-1669.  !7th century England is not my historical forte).

Once school starts again, I'll go back to reading light fiction almost exclusively because it's all my brain has the bandwidth for as the semester unfolds.

For now, however, I'll juggle both.

A fiction chick?

Tuesdays are not teaching days for me this semester, and on lucky Tuesdays, when I don't have other campus obligations, I can stay at home.

So the plan for today?  I have a set of exams to grade and I'm going to work on really basic edits of last year's NaNoWriMo novel The Master Gardener (TMG)

I should be working on my paper for Venice, but instead I'm letting that percolate still on the back burner. I think I'm going to have to go into major production mode on that this coming weekend.

We shall see how far I get today. Those basic edits to which I refer are, for the present, very basic as I navigate my way back into the manuscript of TMG. For one thing, as I've mentioned, I wrote it using some free word processing software (yWriter5) that was very useful for cranking out quantity and looks to be very good for generating plot spines and so forth, but I'm still far more comfortable writing in Word.  Fortunately I was able to take the yWriter5 file, save it as an .rtf document, and cut and paste that into a Word document, and now what I'm doing is cleaning that up a bit in preparation for revision.

In addition, there were parts of TMG that were simply placeholder text, so I'm going through, deleting those, and highlighting where I'm going to need to write entirely new sections. I'm trying hard not to think about what and how I will revise right now, other than acknowledging that I know that 11 of my 12 chapters are part of one kind of romance novel and the remaining one belongs in another, different kind. If I start thinking about the whats and hows at this point, I may talk myself out of it!

What's terrifying (but kind of exciting) is that, actually, this means I will have two novels in progress once I start the one en route to/in Venice (and I'm thinking that will be the one into which I incorporate the odd-man-out chapter from TMG.

Ohmygod.  Has it really taken me 50 years to realize that I can write fiction after all?

I'm so excited!

OMG - Internal shifts occurring

I'm doing it.

I've decided to revise my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel -- which, until yesterday, I hadn't looked at since pressing the 'send" key on the NaNoWriMo site to verify my word count and have myself declared a NaNoWriMo winner.

What's more, revisions are under way NOW.

My first step was to print out the .rtf file I had and put it all into a binder so I can read through it carefully in the near future.

My second step was to convert that file into a Word document.

And my third step is happening now: I'm simply making very basic formatting changes in preparation for real revision, chapter by chapter: double-spacing the single-spaced text, inserting page breaks between chapters, highlighting pure placeholder text, and so on.

Next will come the much more difficult process of actual writing.  But I'm half thinking of taking that first chapter, revising it, and submitting it to a contest within the romance writing industry. There are several, and ... why not?

AND it has also dawned on me that I want to start another novel.  Just ... start it.  In Venice. After I finish presenting my paper, of course, and not spending a whole lot of time on it at that moment because there will be other things to do -- but I have another romance novel I want to write, and I want to make sure I have a couple of irons in the fire.

In six years' time I'd like to be a full professor. And a published romance writer. And, if all goes well during this, my tenure year, I think those goals are realistic.

That's why god gave us pseudonyms. ;)

RWA - Update

So today for the first time I went to a local chapter meeting of Romance Writers of America (the RWA is a key organization for published and aspiring authors of romance), and to my surprise, I had a great time! There was a good mix of published and unpublished authors, the people were very welcoming and friendly, and I found myself volunteering to jury an upcoming competition (I'm not published in romance myself, but hey, they seemed to want the help).

As I mentioned in my previous post, I went with a former student in her 30s who's now an MFA student in another department, who's working on a novel, and we had a good time together. It felt REALLY great to plug into the writing side of myself that exists outside academia in some kind of structured way, and to have another outlet for creativity and friendship.

And as a amusing anecdote: three people did double-takes when they saw me, which I noticed but totally did not understand, until the third person said, "For a second I thought you were X" -- and named a big romance writer whose books I've read and liked. About all she and I have in common in the way of looks is short red hair, but I laughed and told them I'd take that as a good omen. :D

Romance Writers of America

Thanks to my former student and now friend M, I'm headed to a local chapter meeting of Romance Writers of America this morning. It starts at the crack of dawn (no, wait, that would actually be now), and runs until noon or 1 p.m. (they weren't all that clear about the end time).

Almost a year ago I wrote a series romance novel for NaNoWriMo, which accomplished a two-fold goal: I'd always wanted to try my hand at fiction, since I write nonfiction professionally, and I'd always wanted to write a category or series romance, as I've read literally thousands of them since my teens.

Now, the novel I wrote last year was perfectly dreadful, though when I squinted at it for the first time in nearly a year, i realized that bits of it weren't bad. The point is, though, that I accomplished my basic goal.

Well, I've also always wanted to check out a meeting of RWA, and when M mentioned that she was going to go to a local chapter meeting, I invited myself along. She's currently a grad student in our university's M.A. program in creative writing, I've read the draft of one of her category romances, and it was much more competent than mine. I figure I can learn from her, and we can both learn something from this meeting.

Because really? After I get tenure, I want to try writing one for real and get it published.

Still here

A month and a half later after declaring a blogging hiaturs (it feels longer), I'm surfacing to say I'm still here!

The tenure dossier has been filed, the fall semester is officially half over, and I'm exhausted. Mostly I think that's because I'm probably low on ferritin and due for an iron infusion (I have an appointment scheduled with my hematologist next week to check on that and determine a course of action), but there's no denying it's also linked to workplace demands and stress. But I'll just leave it at that, as to say more would be unwise.

Very recently I've missed blogging -- probably because I now have the mental bandwidth to miss it -- and I've been thinking about returning to it before the semester is over in December, as I had originally planned. In some ways I need the discpline it gives me. I have other writing tasks before me, most notably the paper for November's conference in Venice, but I think blogging could help indirectly with that. Still mulling it over.

And with November approaching, that means NaNoWriMo is in the offing. I participaqted last year, but because of the aforementioned conference and my level of fatigue, I won't be  doing it this year. Instead I'll shoot for April 2011's Script Frenzy. My schedule will be a little lighter, and I think I'll need the distraction because the tenure verdict will be due the following month.

So, aside from a certain level of fatigue coupled with burnout, I'm doing okay. Perhaps tomorrow I'll update my reading list ... I haven't read much in the last couple of months, but a former student and I are becoming friends, she's an inveterate reader and writer of romances, and she inspired me to return to the recreational reading of Harlequin romances in the past couple of weeks, which has been fun.

 

Nose to grindstone

With July 4 behind me (and an extra day off thrown into the bargain because, well, a lot of folks with conventional 9-to-5 jobs took it off), it's time to go back to work again.

July is going to be a week-by-week endeavor, with reassessment of progress at the end of each week and weekly strategies put into place.

This week? I need to make my way through two books that should help with a) prep for a new course in the fall; b) the two articles I need to produce by November and December (one of which I'd like to have a draft of by the time I return to campus in August, but we'll see).  I have a lot of laying of groundwork that I need to do for all those projects, and that's what I'm hoping this week is going to be about.

I realize I've kind of lost my Endurance Reading skills from my grad student days. I'm not talking about reading for pleasure, which I can still do for hours; no, I'm talking about the ability to make my way through dense theoretical material with my brain engaged for long periods of time.

It's not that my interest level has decreased since those days; it's that I know I read so much more actively when I knew I was going to be discussing arguments and methods with my peers in a seminar the following week.  I miss that, and I think I always will. 

This week my plan is to alternate between two different texts which I'm hoping will provide a kind of balance to each other and for myself. 

And I can do that at home or from a coffee shop, fortunately.

Happy July 4

Happy July 4 to one and all.  It's still early morning, but I'm already scanning channels to find Jimmy Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) -- you know it's playing somewhere!

(It wasn't until I was already an adult that my mother let drop the fact that her father -- a writer -- had screened a print of Yankee Doodle Dandy at his house in New York during the war with Cagney as a guest.  As usual, my mother was impressed by the literary folks she met through her father but not by any Hollywood crowd, so she simply didn't think to mention it to me.)

I see I've neglected my blog in the past few days. I got a little sidetracked as I reviewed a graduate student thesis for a couple of days, and also this was my lame little "staycation" week, so I spent a little less time in front of the computer than usual. I didn't remotely do all the things on my list, but I did go to Santa Cruz, do a lot of reading for pleasure, and see a few movies. All in all, a relatively relaxing time.

I rarely review books here, but if you're at all into Jane Eyre, check out Lynn Freed's The Servants' Quarters.  Equal parts Charlotte Bronte and George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion), it's a strange, dark, and wonderful book that is capable of standing alone on its literary merits, which probably isn't true of any other JE riff except Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea (with which it has very  little in common, by the way, other than themes of colonialism).  

I'm headed to my friend D's house this afternoon for a small potluck barbecue in honor of the day. At last check-in, the menu was very DS-friendly, at my suggestion (not so much for myself, as I'd happily eat junk today, but because I know D is doing Phase 2 of the South Beach diet, which is protein-rich and very light in carbs).  As far as I know, the line-up includes:

• Chicken
• Marinated Thai prawns
• Tri-trip
• Chili
• Corn on the cob
• Strawberries (to be served as shortcake for those who desire)

For DS patients, that's a 100% guilt-free menu!

Review | 'Walks With Men': All the way to a wedding with Jane

Walks With Men. Ann Beattie. Scribner. 102 pages. $10 in paper.

via www.miamiherald.com

Once again the BronteBlog alerts me to something I'd like to read.  I like some of Beattie.

Just downloaded it to my Kindle.

Editor's verdict

"I've now read your essay on XXX, and think that it is excellent – really fascinating, and completely persuasive. I think that you have got it exactly right ... Thanks for getting the essay done; the volume would have been very much poorer without it."

That's it!  NO REVISIONS!!!  How unusual is that?  Pretty unusual, that's how, though it's the second time it's happened in less than a year. 

I need to look up one bibliographical reference that I inadvertently missed. 

Wow. I could get used to this.

Stacks happen

Especially at the end of the semester.

The last day of classes at my university is this coming Monday, and I've already received one of three sets of term papers to grade. More to the point, I've begun to grade them, and so now my study is taking on its usual end-of-semester look.

Which is to say, one of moderate chaos.

I divide papers by course, then by graded and ungraded work ... and I further divide the ungraded assignments into batches to match daily quotas ...  as well as mini-batches (after each mini-batch I get to take a break).

It's the only way I know how to get through large amounts of grading.

Suffice to say that my piles are both multiplying and beginning to stack up.

Thankfully, this semester I have far fewer students than I did last fall (i.e., about 80 as opposed to 300), so end-of-term grading is less of a grading and logistical frightmare. No one I know likes grading, but I'm hoping that, contrasted with previous semesters, grading will go more painlessly than it has in the past.

So far so good.

Jacket Copy | Marilyn Monroe, in her own words | Los Angeles Times

 
"She was a great reader and someone with real writing flair," editor Courtney Hodell told the Associated Press. "There are fragments of poetry that are really quite beautiful, lines that stop you in your tracks."

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

I'd heard that Monroe was a big reader, or at least that she read a lot in order to improve herself (as the saying goes) and also out of interest.

I hadn't heard that she had any gift for writing.

I'll wait for the reviews.

And ... there are still some never-before-published photos of Monroe out there? Seriously?

BrontëBlog: Great literature demands continual reinterpretation

The Times publishes an article about the Brontë movies in the making and includes a first picture of Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre. Credits: Laurie Sparham. Picture Source.

via bronteblog.blogspot.com

Fabulous image!  I see all adaptations of Jane Eyre, being a JE freak, and I can't wait for this one!

BrontëBlog: Diagnosing Bertha

The Guardian reviews the recent BBC Radio 4 programme Madwomen in the Attic (still available online):

"Madwomen in the Attic" (Radio 4) was a spirited, none too earnest look at unstable female characters in classic novels. "Back-diagnosing psychiatric illness from the pages of novels – where's the rigour?" asked presenter Vivienne Parry, adding: "But it's so much fun, let's do it anyway."

Starting with the most famous of the lot, the imprisoned Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips said he feels everyone has her kind of attic in their own head – "at the top of the building, a sealed-off space you have to make an effort to get to". Dinesh Bhugra, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, gamely had a go at diagnosis. Most probably, Bertha, uprooted from Jamaica, was an early example of psychosis related to migration, he noted. If he were treating her, he'd try anti-psychotic medication, psychotherapy and occupational therapy: "and then she might not play with matchsticks".

Anne Catherick in The Woman in White and Emma in Madame Bovary also got restrospective assessments – "most probably a learning difficulty" and "possibly bipolar" – but the most convincing observation came from literary academic Sandra Gilbert. "Over and over again in these novels, the woman labelled mad is someone who has not accepted her socially established position in a culture that wants to subordinate her," she said. (Camilla Redmond)

via bronteblog.blogspot.com

By HD Silversmith

"Back-diagnosing" folks you can know only in print ... as I recall, it didn't stop psychiatrist Erik Erikson's famous treatise on Martin Luther.  Erikson didn't have much of a sense of humor about it all, however.

For the umpteenth time I regret that I cannot get the BBC radio programs I seek in podcast form. But at least this one is available online for the next six days.

It'll be my treat once I survive this week!

iPad's book-like touches may appeal to traditional readers - Los Angeles Times

 When Apple's iPad debuted on April 3, it was greeted in some quarters of the tech world by a chorus of critiques. With no phone, no camera and no multitasking, how could it be revolutionary? And yet, when it comes to the iPad's e-reader, revolutionary is exactly what it might be.

via articles.latimes.com

By HD Silversmith

Worth reading for anyone considering an e-reader.  It certainly does seems as if the iPad makes for a prettier reading experience than the Kindle, which is what I own.

I'm happy with my Kindle -- it's much less expensive -- but maybe one day I will start coveting the iPad for this and other reasons.

Um, that day won't come until after my 10% furlough pay cut is a thing of the past, however.

BrontëBlog: Reader, I Married Him (2010) - A Review

via bronteblog.blogspot.com

By HD Silversmith

Golly. An alternate "sexploitation" version of Jane Eyre.

Do I want to read it?

Well, yeah. 

Damn it.  Er, when, exactly do I think I'll have time for this?!

Bronte "biofiction"

via bronteblog.blogspot.com

By HD Silversmith

Oh dear. Here's another piece of Bronte "biofiction" for me to read.

I pre-ordered it for my Kindle.

Sigh. I do not have time to read the books I've already ordered!

Patience

By HD Silversmith

That's the virtue I'll have to develop over the next few weeks, as the very first opening with the tattoo artist I've decided to go with is not until April 22. 

So much for the fantasy of going back to work next week after spring break with a beautiful phoenix tattoo adorning my inner right forearm!

I was disappointed at first but the more I think about it, the gladder I am. The time gives me a chance to adjust to the idea of a major tattoo on my body in a visible place and to refine the elements that are most important to me. The artist and I talked for about 15 minutes, and he asked if he could keep the images I'd brought in with me, which I liked. I checked out his book, explained what I liked about certain aspects of his designs, even those that seemed to have no connection to what I wanted, and he seemed to get it.  I'm looking forward to seeing what he designs for me.

Although the idea of a phoenix tattoo came to my mind only within the past few days, I've been intrigued by the figure of the phoenix since I was a child and read E. Nesbit's The Phoenix and the Carpet. These days I suppose kids are more familiar with the mythical phoenix through J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but for my money, Nesbit's 1904 novel provides a more interesting take on it.

I'm getting excited!

13 small things to simplify your workday | Zen Habits

via zenhabits.net

By HD Silversmith

Once again Leo Babauta demonstrates that less is more.  I really need to take these 13 principles to heart.

Harlequin Presents ™: Hidden Object Of Desire Walkthrough

via www.bigfishgames.com

By HD Silversmith

Okay, I'm going to have to check this out.

I'm not a gamer, and the game itself doesn't exactly seem truly geared toward romance readers, but I'll have to read more about it.

(Talk about cross-marketing and upselling!)

The care and feeding of a blog

By HD Silversmith

My poor neglected blog.

I had the best of intentions of updating two to three times a week, using Writing Down the Bones as a way to organize my thoughts about my own experience of writing.  I used a similar approach last semester with a different book, and it worked (well, for me, at least, in that I wrote regularly and stayed in touch with that process).

This semester, though -- what's the deal?

This isn't going to be a satisfactory answer, but ... I don't know.

(Er, "I don't know" is not an answer I accept from my students.  "Okay, you don't know. What's your educated guess?  What do you think and why?")

My gut instinct? 

I think I'm battling a sense of severe constraint that's a product of three things: 

1. The budget cuts and the fallout across the university system (ongoing)
2. A certain amount of dysfunction in my department (I'll leave it at that, but that's ongoing as well)
3. The usual sense of stress and weariness that a faculty member feels anywhere during the year before going up for tenure.

As I think about each of those elements, it occurs to me that, yes, these are things that are getting me down, so to speak -- but they're also the exact reasons I push myself to stay focused on writing in and through the more pedestrian difficulties of The Day Job.

When I make time for blogging, and thinking about writing, and writing my blog, I feel better. More connected to myself and to the process.  It helps motivate other kinds of writing I have to do (that whole "publish or perish" thing of academia).

Natalie Goldberg talks about writing down the bones.  I have to talk about writing through the malaise -- and I also simply have to Do. It.

And I will.  Starting now.

February progress report: 2010 resolutions

By HD Silversmith

Here it is -- the monthly self-assessment (which I've back-dated  for the sake of chronology ... I'm actually writing this on March 7):

Work

• Practice saying no (to myself, to colleagues, and to students)  instead of yes as my default response.  Success: Still doing well on this front, though I said yes to a couple of things in February that have caused my March to look a little frantic at the moment.  Nevertheless, they're commitments which improve both my c.v. the quality of my teaching, develop my relationships at the university, and integrate theory and practice in my professional work.
  

• Limit time spent on work email. Moderate success: I've backslid a bit on non-teaching days.  Again, I need to check work email twice a day only, in the morning and evening. 
  

• Pick one class each semester to further my own research. Great success: my graduate seminar is proving to be very useful in my own thinking about my profession and my own research.

Health

• Stay current with lab work and medical wellness appointments. Moderate success: Still no  mammogram or GYN appointments --> Action items for March.  However, the results of my December labs are back at last, and for a DS patient at 4.5 years out from surgery, I'm doing well.  At the low end of assorted vitamins and minerals, which is to be expected, but my values were not as low as I'd expected. My surgeon recommended no change in supplements, though DS surgeons grant a wider latitude than I myself care for, and so I'm going to investigate additional DS-appropriate supplements ----> Action items for March.
  

• Establish relationship with dentist. Success:  My umpteenth trip to the dentist is scheduled for this week, this time for a simple teeth cleaning.  Then I think it's time for a permanent crown to replace the temporary one, and I'll be all caught up.
  

• Improve DS-specific nutrition. Moderate success: Since the start of the semester on January 25, I've reduced my refined sugar intake, upped my protein, and journaled my food daily. I've been better (but not good enough) about taking my supplements daily --> Ongoing action items for March.

• Incorporate regular exercise into my week. Only minimally successful --> Action items for March. Still a slug, except for the running around I do on campus.
  

Writing

• Revise/resubmit apocalypse article by January  8. Not successful --> now targeted for April, in view of the modified Heavenly Creatures deadline, below.
• Place Random Harvest article by September 1, 2010. Ongoing
• Write draft of Heavenly Creatures chapter by June 1. MODIFIED.  The good news is, there's now a signed contract for the book with a reputable academic press.  The bad news is, I have until the end of March to submit my draft.  But the other good news?  Spring break occurs during the last week in March.  Guess what I'll be doing over spring break?
• Read The Screenwriter's Bible and Save the Cat by March 31(as background). Ongoing
• Maintain and develop WordFlix. Not successful or in transition -- it's hard to tell which Clearly I'm posting here less frequently. I have some thoughts about that.
  

Two-plus months 2010, I'd give myself a B (last month I gave myself a B+). I feel as if the stress of the semester is getting to me, but still -- progress, not perfection, and all that.

Winter writing schedule, take 3

By HD Silversmith

This past Tuesday I got some good news and some bad news.

Remember that project I referred to in my January progress report on my 2010 New Year's resolutions as  Write draft of Heavenly Creatures chapter by June 1. Ongoing?

The good news is that the book for which it's slated has been accepted by a reputable press in the UK. Moreover, it shares a branch with a very fine university press here in the U.S., so the book will have an international profile. This matters in academia.

The bad news is that the editor wants chapter drafts done by the end of February. Not June. And I'm no where near done.

I'd put this project on the back burner because the prospects of publication seemed -- not slim, but not immediate. To be fair to the editor, he did indeed set the end of February as the original deadline. The contract hadn't been nailed down, though, and I've seen many a hopeful editor get shot down in flames, particularly in today's academic publishing market.

Suffice to say that I'd better get hopping. Since the volume doesn't go to the press until May, there's probably a tiny bit of wiggle room for me, but no doubt they'll want revisions between the end of February and May, and I have to allow them enough time for them and me to turn those around.

Naturally I get this news as my schedule for the spring becomes more hectic.

So I must remember one of my other resolutions as well, the one about prioritizing: Practice saying no (to myself, to colleagues, and to students)  instead of yes as my default response. 

I'm going to go stare at my calendar now and assess what can be done.

In the beginning was the word

By HD Silversmith on Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Natalie Goldberg)

Preface

I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories -- of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. (xii)

Story-telling. It's pretty much a bottom-line, ingrained human endeavor, American or otherwise.

Even when we write nonfiction (as I do), we're still telling stories. About other stories. Intepreting data, finding and constructing meanings, identifying what's important (to us, to others) and what's not.

Writers call worlds into being. 

There's a reason the Old Testament begins (in some translations) In the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was with God.

Writers are little gods, and the writers who set down the oral narratives that became the canonical books of the Old Testament knew this. Their views of storytellers and the roles that they played in society shaped the ways in which they communicated their cultures' ideas of deity and power.

There is nothing more powerful than language.

Fiat verbum. Fiat lux.

When in doubt, revise

By HD Silversmith

So clearly the whole casual-blogging thang (i.e., "two to three times a week," days unspecified) just isn't working for me.

Obviously, as I haven't kept to even that loose plan in the past couple of weeks.

I kept it open going into 2010 because, quite frankly, my schedule last semester was an unmitigated frightmare, and I (mistakenly) thought that holding myself accountable for writing every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday on some aspect of the writing process had made things worse.

It hadn't.  It made me more productive, and it kept me writing on a regular basis.  And I need that -- for my sanity as well as for my well-being as a writer.

Although the financial picture at my university has worsened (and will continue to do so through Fall 2020 at least), my schedule this semester has lightened up a bit, chiefly because I have fewer students (due to enrollment caps on classes mandated by the budget crisis).

I have no excuse not to be blogging regularly.

I seem to do best if I have something to inspire my posts about writing, so I've decided to use that as a reason to work my way through Natalie Goldberg's now-classic Writing Down the Bones (which I'm a little embarrassed to admit I've never read before!).

I'm going to be somewhat less structured about it than I was last fall with Eric Maisel's A Writer's Space and simply take a sentence or idea from what I've read each day and use it as a point of departure for my own musings. 

And for now I'll say Tuesdays and Fridays, with addition posts on other or related topics optional.

That's the (revised) plan anyway. Let's see how it goes.

Romance and "The Cultural Production of Disability"

By HD Silversmith

Once again, the blog Teach Me Tonight has a great post on recent academic work on the romance genre:

"Difference: The Cultural Production of Disability" was a conference held in Manchester this year from the 6th to the 8th of January. ... Included in it was a session on "Genre Fiction" which featured the following paper:

Sandra Martina Schwab, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Germany. "'It is only with one's heart that one can see clearly': The Loss of Sight in Teresa Medeiros's The Bride and the Beast and Yours Until Dawn."

The ability to see clearly and the loss of sight play an important role in the historical romances The Bride and the Beast (2001) and Yours Until Dawn (2004) by the American author Teresa Medeiros. While Yours Until Dawn features a blind hero, large parts of The Bride and the Beast are set during the night, and the darkness makes the heroine unable to see the face of the male protagonist. In both books the physical inability to see clearly is not only connected to a lack of recognition, but is also indicative of a lack of psychological insight. In Medeiros's two novels blindness thus functions as a symbol for internal problems the characters have to overcome in the course of the stories, namely their inability and unwillingness to face the truth about oneself and others. This psychological blindness also hinders the development of the love relationships. Therefore in both books the happy ending is dependant on the protagonists learning the same lesson the Fox teaches Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince: "It is only with one's heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye."

via teachmetonight.blogspot.com

Because I'm devoted to all versions and riffs of the tale "Beauty and the Beast," this abstract spurred me to search for, find, and download the two titles by Medeiros.

Two other abstracts are cited at the link above.

Happy reading!

'Jane Eyre' adaptation attracts cast

via www.hollywoodreporter.com

By HD Silversmith

I will watch any and all adaptations of Jane Eyre. O happy day.

Whose move? Amazon and Macmillan vie for position | Los Angeles Times

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

By HD Silversmith

The saga of e-books continues -- and will for a while, I suspect. Click the link above to read the latest.

January progress report: 2010 resolutions

By HD Silversmith

Inspired by a blogger who often takes monthly stock of his yearly intentions to monitor his progress, I thought I'd do the same this year.

Doing a monthly progress report isn't just about assessing where I am in terms of the promises I made to and for myself. It also provides an opportunity for me to tweak resolutions to suit current circumstances, ones that I made not have foreseen when I made the original resolutions. Adjusting goals is a way of keeping them alive and maintaining two things:  the commitments I make to myself and the progress I want to make in specific areas of my life.

Rather than recap the resolutions in their entirety, I'll simply deal with each one briefly indicate where I'm at:

Work

• Practice saying no (to myself, to colleagues, and to students)  instead of yes as my default response.  Success:  I'm abiding by the parameters of my office hours, turning down conferences and film festival invitations that would simply be redundant on on my c.v, and saying no where I can to power that seeks to maximize itself with no benefit to me.

• Limit time spent on work email. Success: I check work email twice a day only, in the morning and evening.  I return work calls when I decide the time is right, not when someone else decides that for me.

• Pick one class each semester to further my own research. Success: I assigned a book in my graduate seminar that I'd been meaning to read for some time.

Health

• Stay current with lab work and medical wellness appointments. Moderate success: I have yet to schedule a mammogram or GYN appointments, and I haven't received the results of my December labs --> Action items for February.  However, I did address my low iron and receive a six-hour iron infusion just before the start of classes, which has helped a great deal with my exhaustion and enabled me to deal with stress much more productively.

• Establish relationship with dentist. Success:  I've had three appointments this month that have included x-rays, diagnostics, a root canal, and three fillings, and I have another appointment scheduled for this week.  I'm also taking better care of my oral hygiene at home.
  

• Improve DS-specific nutrition. Moderate success: Since the start of the semester on January 25, I've reduced my refined sugar intake, upped my protein, and journaled my food daily. I've been better (but not good enough) about taking my supplements daily --> Ongoing action items for February.

• Incorporate regular exercise into my week. Only minimally successful --> Action items for February. The only thing I can say for myself for this month is that, by default, with the beginning of a new semester, I've become more physically active. I run up and down stairs at the university, make sure to get in a brief walk around campus on days that I'm there, burn a lot of energy in front of my classes.  I've lost two to three pounds But you couldn't call it regular exercise.
  

Writing

• Revise/resubmit apocalypse article by January 8. Not successful --> Action item for February.
• Place Random Harvest article by September 1, 2010. Ongoing
• Write draft of Heavenly Creatures chapter by June 1. Ongoing
• Read The Screenwriter's Bible and Save the Cat by March 31(as background). Ongoing
• Consider participating in April's Script Frenzy I'm eliminating this goal to focus on the more important writing projects above, so it will not appear on next month's list.
• Maintain and develop WordFlix. Success. Clearly I'm posting here less frequently, but on the other hand, I'm feeling more connected to what I'm writing.  It may not work for others, but it works for me!

Exercise, food, and battling my own insecurities about writing are my biggest challenges right now.

Okay, and handling work-related stress. 

But at 31 days into 2010, I'd give myself a B+. Progress, not perfection, and all that.

I'm beginning to act rather than react to challenges, and that feels pretty empowering.

The Apple-Amazon Ebook War Begins: Amazon Deletes Macmillan Books - Gizmodo

via gizmodo.com

By HD Silversmith

For those thinking about buying an e-reader, take note.

Just saying.

(For the record, I'm still loving my Kindle and not wanting an iPad ... though I work and play on both Mac and PC platforms, have an iPhone, and so on.)

It's Pretty Personal And All, But I'll Miss Salinger

via www.npr.org

By HD Silversmith

Click on the link above to read Susan Jane Gilman's homage and farewell to J.D. Salinger.

Teach Me Tonight: Guest Post: K. A. Laity on Joanna Russ on Slash Fiction

B

via teachmetonight.blogspot.com

By HD Silversmith

Really interesting post over at the blog Teach Me Tonight. Well worth reading for fans and scholars of romance, slash fiction, Star Trek, and popular culture.

More about e-readers

By HD Silversmith

A number of people have contacted me for more information and impressions about various e-readers out there. 

I continue to like my Kindle, but if you're seriously considering buying an e-reader, I'd suggest doing a systematic search of comparative analyses of the various products that are available. That way you can figure out which one may be right for you. They're all a little different. I've linked to one such analysis -- but it's only one.

You should read many to get a sense of the pros and cons of each device. In particular, you should check out the kinds of files and materials that are compatible with each e-reader.  These things vary quite a bit, and what one person wants in an e-reader another person might not like or need.

It's almost certain that e-readers will evolve -- they already have, really -- from being delivery devices for assorted printed matter to multi-purpose, multi-media devices.  The longer you wait, the more you're likely to get -- for less.

That said, I waited for the second iteration of the Kindle -- but no longer -- and I'm happy with it so far.  As I've already discussed, I had a very targeted kind of reading that I wanted to do on it, and it's been really great for that. I've read about 12 50,000-word novels so far on it -- books I wouldn't keep and would have trouble getting rid of if I'd bought hard copies of them -- and I've had no complaints.

Getting to know the Kindle

By HD Silversmith

So far, so good!

Since yesterday I've read two series romance novels on my Kindle (second generation), and I'm loving the experience.

• The display is extremely easy on the eyes, and you can adjust the size of print -- which is a real boon for  middle-aged people like me with rapidly changing vision.
• The navigation buttons are few in number, intuitively placed, and easy to use.
• The overall design is sleek and lightweight.
• The battery charge (as long as one has turned off the wireless system -- which you don't need when you're actually reading) appears to be phenomenal. Despite reading two novels (for approximately five hours), I see no decrease  in the charge indicator so far.

I was a little surprised to discover that the display isn't backlit in any way (so, in other words, in whatever situations you would require light to read a hard-copy book, you'll require light to read the Kindle).  On the other hand, that's one of the things that makes it much gentler on the eyes than, say, a computer screen or an iPhone display.

After the first half hour of reading and being very aware that I was reading on Technological Device, I moved past that awareness and into the book, and now it feels totally normal.  In other words, the technology does not interfere with my ability to enter the world of the book.

If anything, it may make it easier.  I'm a fast reader, and I think I may be reading even more quickly because the reading experience is more comfortable.  I'm not squinting at the pages as I do after hours of reading because the Kindle screen doesn't give me eyestrain.  That right there makes it totally worth buying for me.

I'm getting used to the various capabilities of the Kindle as I need them rather than trying to grasp them all at once, but agaain, its functionality seems relatively intuitive.  You don't have to slog through a manual to get up and running.

One quibble so far: it would have been nice if it had come with some kind of sleeve or cover -- no matter how cheap -- to protect it.  I already know I'm going to be slipping the Kindle into my purse on a daily basis, and I don't want it to get scratched.  As a result, I ponied up another $14.95 -- not to Amazon but to a third-party seller -- for a ruby red patent leather book-style cover that should arrive in the next few days.

Next? I'm going to do some online exploring of Kindle-compatible file sources -- above and beyond Amazon's, I mean.