Check out the before

In case you were wondering about one of the many reasons I've gone MIA on this here blog for the last few months ...

A post in a picture

I have a mental countdown to freedom. Until then, enjoy some Instagrams. Looks like someone had a birthday ... (PS, that someone was me. Please don't ask me how that whole "30 by 30" thing went. Yikes.)

Friday reads

Hey friends.

January through March is always a little wacky in RuLand, and it's gone double for this year. But soon things will simmer down and I will return to blogging, reading, and writing. Won't it be grand?

In the meantime, I have a couple of reading recommendations for you all.

1. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

My first Gillian Flynn novel was Gone Girl--something I assume is true for most of you. I liked Dark Places almost as much and have definitely thought about it a lot more.

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice" of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

2. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Have I fangirled over Fangirl yet? No? Ugh, I'm remedying that right now.

I read Fangirl a few months ago and recently re-read it. I don't even know were to begin.

One, I want the Simon Snow books to be real. So bad.

Two, the romantic element of the book really did take me by surprise. By the time it crept up on Cath, it was also creeping up on me. How often are you actually surprised when two characters get together? I think this is the first book that has ever done that for me.

And finally, it's an awesome depiction of college life that you don't usually see: an (actually, not pseudo-ly) awkward girl who doesn't exactly know how to leave the nest. So many college-set books are really high school books or adult books set in an artificial setting -- meaning, everyone is either eating at the cafeteria or living in apartments, completely self-sufficient. Just, no. Where are all the college kids who seem like real college kids, I ask you?

They're living in the dorms with Cath, that's where.


If you haven't read it yet, you are missing out. Go! Do!


Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . .

But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

What have you been reading, people? Tell me, I'm so close to freedom I can taste it!

Guest Post: Characterization

Hey guys! So today I'm turning the blog over to the lovely Jolene Perry, who has new book out that I am totally stoked for. Take it away, Jolene!

 

Hi!

*waves*

So. I'm taking over for a day, and I thought I'd start by telling you what I ate for breakfast.

 

I know.

 

Bear with me. There is a purpose.

For breakfast I ate two bites of a waffle that had already been partially eaten.

 

I polished off a glass of milk - not mine.

 

I nibbled on a bread crust before I realized that sort of sucked and then dropped it in the dog bowl.

Two carrots.

 

A small handful of potato chips.

 

The final spoonfuls of fruit smoothie from the blender.

 

WHY did I just tell you this?

 

Because in a way it's totally insignificant, but in another way it says a LOT about me.

First off, my breakfast is usually whatever my kids don't eat for breakfast along with bits of their lunches.

 

There could be a million reasons for this, but the reason for ME is that I'm already making two breakfasts and two lunches. I value my time more than I value a breakfast that's made just for me. So. I choose to eat this random way in the morning. Also. It keeps my taste buds from being bored ;-)

 

And you know I have a dog, and that I like dogs or I wouldn't have given her a treat, but you also know I'm type A enough to drop her food in her bowl instead of hand-feeding her.

Again. WHY did I tell you this?

 

When I write, I try to know as much about my characters as I can. We can show HUGE things in short scenes. Here's the second scene for my character, Aidan, who I may or may not have a HUGE crush on...

Aunt Beth and Uncle Foster are at the breakfast table looking at me like they always do—like they want to say something, but have no idea how to start. Aunt Beth is the slightly older version of my mom, and it still throws me. We all have the family blue eyes and blond hair, but Beth’s hair is even cut in the same shoulder length hair as Mom’s, making them look almost like twins. I step into the massive kitchen and pull a bowl from the cupboard.

Everything for me now requires multiple steps. Open cupboard door wide enough that it stays open. Let go of door. Pull out bowl. Set bowl down. Reach back up to cupboard door to close it. Pull open silverware drawer. Let go of drawer. Pick out spoon. Set spoon down. Close silverware drawer.
One damn thing at a time. Three months without my arm, and there isn’t a second of the day I don’t think about it. The thing is, no one in this house has yet to comment on it. Not my cousin Jen. Not my cousin Will. Not my aunt. Not my uncle. There’s no way they’re not at least a little curious.

Not that I really want to talk about it, but I definitely don’t forget. It’s not like someone asking me what it’s like will make me suddenly remember I’m missing my arm.

THANKS A TON FOR TURNING YOUR BLOG OVER TO ME FOR A DAY!!!

~ Jo

www.jolenebperry.com

AMAZON

http://www.amazon.com/The-Summer-I-Found-You/dp/0807583693/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1392835288&sr=1-1

BARNES

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-summer-i-found-you-jolene-b-perry/1116819617?ean=9780807583692

And now for something cheerier

Are you a writer or editor type?

Are you Mormon, or at least Mormon-friendly?

You should sign up for LDStorymakers 2014. I'm going (in fact, I am TEACHING) and it will be a rocking good time! I have been to Storymakers twice and both times I was extremely impressed with the caliber of teachers, agents, and editors in attendance.

As a bonus, this year the conference is in my hometown's newer, richer sibling city, Layton! I'll show you all the cool, hip spots (mostly just the one burger place I really like, and the Surf and Swim, which will probably still be covered by a bubble dome in April).

Anyone signing up for Storymakers? Anyone thinking about it?

I've made a terrible mistake

People, you know how mamas are supposed to tell their babies not to grow up to be cowboys?

I'm here to tell you, don't move into neighborhoods filled with people who have too much time on their hands.

I have been reported to the city for having a messy yard.

My neighbor also threatened to sue me a few months ago. I didn't blog that one in detail because I was too angry and anxious at the time, but here's how the story goes:

I had the big trees ripped out of my yard today, at the suggestion of both my neighbors. It cost $2,500. My brother Charlie stayed at the house while I was at work and overheard my neighbors talking about how they're going to sue me because I didn't get their permission to have "heavy machinery" on their (read: OUR) driveway and the landscaper's cherry picker left a SKID MARK on the ground.

Repeat: on the ground.

So that night, when my neighbor came over to my house to yell at me because someday his cement might crack (in Utah, where temperatures freeze in the winter and boil in the summer) and that will be all my fault because a cherry picker once spent thirty minutes on his cement (and the fact that he parks two boats, a motor home, a F-250, and an SUV on it on the reg is apparently irrelevant), I told him to go ahead and sue me already.

Most lawyers, myself included, would recommend against encouraging people to sue you. Suing is, generally speaking, a bit of a hassle. But frankly, I was in no mood to be threatened with a bogus lawsuit. As my neighbor blustered about his "potential THOUSANDS in damages"* to his cement, I calmly pulled out the proof of the landscaper's million dollar insurance policy and told him to get off my porch.

(And then later panicked because OH MY GOSH, I JUST TOLD A CRAZY PERSON TO SUE ME.)

A week later, Hannah moved out of the house. I decided not to go camping over Labor Day weekend, as I'd planned, so I could help run interference with her and our neighbor. While we didn't actually end up having a fight, he did sit on his porch for fifteen minutes, swearing and yelling at us as we loaded up her aunt's truck with furniture.

That neighbor and I haven't spoken beyond "Merry Christmas" since this summer, but don't you worry, he finally got his revenge on me. Today, in fact.

When he called the city today to report me for failure to get a permit before knocking down the dividing wall between my kitchen and dining room.

Now, to be fair, I was supposed to get a permit. (I didn't know I needed a city permit for a cosmetic alteration to my own house, but that's a story for another day.) But the point is, my neighbor had to get on the city's website, look up my address, find out I didn't have one, and then call the city to report me. That's a whole lot of steps to take out of sheer spite.

Don't worry, it wasn't that big of a deal. I went down to the city this afternoon (I will be working quite late tonight to make up for that little detour) and two hours later I got my $200 building permit. And then out of curiosity, I checked the permit site myself, to see if my neighbors got a permit for their new fence. (They didn't. I won't report them though, because I am not terrible.)**

But seriously, it's a life lesson to us all.

Avoid people who have nothing better to do than mess with you.


* Spoiler alert: Speculative damages are not real damages. This message brought to you by law school.


** If you live in Salt Lake City, here's something you probably didn't know: You need a permit to do ANYTHING to your house other than paint the walls and carpet the floors. You want a new door? Permit. New fence? Permit. New windows? You betcha. Don't even get them started about tearing down a non-load-bearing wall.

And the thing is, while I understand that this is the sort of thing that drives otherwise normal people to become libertarians (joke: please don't come after me, libertarians), I'm not even annoyed with the city officials. The inspector and the folks at the permitting office were as nice as can be. They didn't fine me over my ignorance, though they could have (a fact I'm sure will rankle my neighbor), and very kindly gave me a day to fix the permit situation before citing me for my failures. 

So it's not the city I am annoyed with. What I can't understand is what drives some people to live their lives looking for an unearned payout and opportunities to dick people over. I am quite sure that no matter how long I live, I will never figure that one out.

At least it's good writing fodder.

Remodeling

The blog has been silent as of late, but that doesn't mean I am not learning life lessons all over the place. Oh, no.

Take this one, for example.

IKEA is great for many things -- inexpensive furniture and meatballs being the best examples. They are not great, however, at efficiency or accuracy.

Take my new kitchen remodeling project, for example. It took IKEA three tries to deliver all the cabinets and parts I'd ordered, and once I began opening boxes, I realized immediately that at least one was wrong.

The best part of this story was that I let the IKEA people sucker me into paying them $200 for them to design my kitchen, because that way, "Nothing would be wrong when you go to checkout."

Oh, IKEA. Oh, you kidders.

Or the countertops I ordered. They waited until I was about to pay -- having already planned and scheduled the remodel -- to tell me that the pale gray quartz I wanted was on back-order until February. (For the record, I paid IKEA in November and spent TWO sessions with their kitchen planners before they mentioned this. That's one long back-order).

I ultimately ordered the IKEA countertops, hoping there would be an update (or a miracle). There never was, and when I went back to the store for the fourth time last weekend to cancel my order it took a half dozen (no exaggeration) different employees to refund my money.

Of course, all this drama has to be balanced against the fact that IKEA is cheap as hell and relatively easy to assemble. But if you, like me, find the failure of others to do their jobs supremely irritating -- to the point of near-rage-blackout-levels -- maybe live with the 1960s-era kitchen until you can afford the custom job.

Why, is that beige and red checkerboard underneath your old yellow linoleum? Indeed it is!

But either way, stock up on face masks.