You excited for August? I’m excited for August. Here’s a little Spotify playlist and a Pinterest mood board to get you in the mood for all the angst Allyson Alexander has in store:
Category: Uncategorized
Zemblanity
Zemblanity (or a release date for early next month)
Allyson Alexander has always been a loner at heart, but not from lack of wanting. Whenever she cries, her tears burn anything they touch. When they hit the floor, shit hits the fan, and monsters come out of the woodwork to destroy whatever hurt her. She’s determined to make the world a better place by only crying around the people who deserve it.
All that changes, however, when the monsters start to show up unannounced. They feast unsupervised and leave her piles of teeth to let her know they were there. To make matters worse, their recklessness has attracted the unwanted attention of a man who claims to know what she’s been up to. She thought the monsters knew the difference between right and wrong, but the body count keeps rising, and she’s running out of excuses.
Unless Allyson can learn to trust herself and the man who has been following her, the world as she knows it will come to an end as the monsters destroy everything she loves.
***
It’s happening.
After six years of playing nicely with this baby, it’s finally happening.
ARC’s are out to people in exchange for reviews, a cover is being finalized, and I am halfway through the proof–which by the way I’m so glad I’m taking the time to read through because I’ve found a handful of mistakes that I missed before. Once I’m done with that, it’s off to be formatted, and then–!!!!!
Oh dear god, you have no idea how elated and terrified I am for this to be in the public. It’s the first full-length novel I’ve ever completed, and while a part of me will be glad that it’s out there, another part of me will be sad that the story is done. I’ve spent a lot of time with Allyson, and I’m going to miss being in her head more than I can put into words. Bittersweet for sure.
But hey, I wanted to give you guys a couple of things over here. Firstly, my lame attempt at TikTok teasers:
I will probably play with TikTok more as the release date gets closer.
But what’s even more exciting than basically a slideshow set to music, you ask? A fuggin cover reveal, that’s what! Take a look at this, babyyy:::
This looks so much better than what I could have ever imagined. It pays to go through people who know what they are doing, that’s for sure!
Zemblanity is set to come out on August 2nd. Between now and then, I’ll post little sneak peeks and cut content and behind the scenes over here. I’d ask if you are as excited as I am, but I legitimately don’t think that’s possible, haha. 😉
A Soft Explanation (or where i’ve been hiding)
Hey there, Void I scream into. I have a tendency to ramble, so I will try my hardest to keep this short.
You may (or may not!) have been wondering where I ran off to. My queue dried up months ago, and I haven’t had the drive to log on and give an update, let alone log onto my computer. True story–my web browser completely changed and updated since I closed it forever ago and all the sites I would go to have disappeared from my main page and replaced by generic bullshit. So download a better browser is definitely on my list.
(Stop rambling Manda)
I pulled Zemblanity and have been slowly working on editing it myself, then I will send it off to an editor, and from there either go through and format it myself or hire someone to do it for me, and self-publishing, here we come. My goal is to have it ready for publishing by the end of the year. I had hoped I would be farther along by now, but life has gotten in the way, and things like deaths and weddings have taken precedence, and I guess it is what it is on that.
I’m still reading, but I’m keeping my reviews to short little blips on Instagram. I think I’ll keep it that way, unless I have a metric fuckton to say.
I might give this website a facelift, or retcon and start fresh. I’ll let you know either way.
Annyyywayyyyyy, I wanted to keep this short and I managed to keep it long, so I’ll leave it off here. Zemblanity is still happening. Freelancing is still happening. It’s just a little bit slow going while I get my head on straight.
🙂
Why Do Good Girls Fall For Bad Guys (or an adventure with bat boys)
A Court of Thornes and Roses by Sarah J Maas was enchanting. I fell in love, despite myself, with the world and the characters. When it ended, I was shook. What would happen next? So, a burning credit card and several vaguebooking posts directed at Jeff Bezos later (all in good-natured fun, if the lawyers must know, haha), I had the second book, A Court of Mist and Fury, sitting in my hot little hands. It’s blue and a good deal thicker than the first, which makes for some painful bedtime reading because my hot little hands are small and my grip sucks (thank you, carpal tunnel), but I didn’t care. I pushed on and finished it in less than a week, a personal record for me.
Spoiler-Free Synopsis
We once again join Feyre in a bit of a predicament. She’s with Tamlin once again, but since the curse has broken, things have changed between them. Or maybe he’s the same, and it’s her who changed. Either way, their wedding day is fast approaching, and her anxiety grows with each passing moment. Does she still want this?
As she’s walking down the aisle to meet him, who else comes out of thin air but Rhys to call in on their bargain. He spirits her away to the Night Court before she can say her “I do’s,” and she is caught somewhere between hating him for it and being grateful. If nothing else, it gives her some time to do some much needed reflection.
Meanwhile, rumors are flying about another threat to Prythian and the wall between the mortals and the faeries. Feyre must choose to help Rhys destroy those who mean to harm them, or stay with Tamlin and watch it all unfold from the sidelines.
Embracing Expanding Horizons
I went out of my comfort zone for the second time for this series, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled about the whole thing. I always thought these sorts of books would be all world building and no substance past that, but I was wrong. I adore Feyre and Rhys’s banter, and I feel like Sarah J Maas handled Feyre’s PTSD phenomenally. I’m just so emotionally invested at this point that I went ahead and added more books to my Amazon cart that are the same genre as these (mainly so I can keep track of what I want to read next; I don’t make it a habit to order from them when brick and mortar stores are more up my alley, plus I like to support indies).
I guess what I want to say is that stepping out of what you normally read to experience something else can be eye-opening. I’m almost ashamed that I would bash on all those romance/fantasy books other people like to read. I had no idea what I was missing out on.
And it wasn’t just the faerie porn. But it helps. 😉
Final Thoughts
A Court of Mist and Fury was exceptionally better than the first in the series. I’ll give it a 8/10, respectfully so. I wish that the thing between Feyre and Rhys disliking each other was more drawn out. I live for the fights. That being said, I’m already reading the third in the series. I’m trying to slow down a bit so I can draw this baby out and enjoy the world a little longer. Hopefully it doesn’t end on the cliffhanger that the reader was dealt with A Court of Mist and Fury.
Fuck Your Censorship (and other bullshittery)
Hello, my name is Manda, and I consume entertainment.
All kinds. Movies, books, video games; it’s all there. My tastes are right up there with the psychologically fucked up and the sound of blade slicing through flesh like butter and resisting at the bone, unrelenting until it splinters.
I’m dark. I would say I was raised that way, but my other siblings turned out just fine. I think some of us were just born to see the beauty in things most otherwise shy away from. And that’s okay. You can bask in every Lifetime movie known to man and live to cry at every theatrical adventure. You can read a raw romance novel and have your mind flooded with every euphemism for penis known to man and lose yourself in fantasies of Fabio and sea-side infidelities.
I’m getting off topic. Our tastes are not what I want to talk about here. You know, in case you couldn’t tell by the title.
Censorship. It’s such a disgusting word to me. It takes something that’s raw and true and pours sugar all over it to make it seem better than what it actually is, what it was meant to be. It takes something horrible—let’s say a dead body found on the side of the street—and covers it up with a few choice flowers. But the people say, “Oh, I don’t see the dead body, but something sure does stink here,” so censorship digs in elbow-deep to the rotting guts of the truth, just to get to the soil underneath that, so they can plant a god damn rose bush.
Gross, right? But bear with me here. I’m getting to the point.
Think back to a song on the radio. (Do people even still listen to the radio these days???) I feel like there’s gotta be one of these on every station (minus I suppose Christian stations or something). You know the one. The one where the song is so diluted with extra sound effects or areas of so many lyric cuts that you sit there and wonder to yourself, “The fuck? Why are they even putting this on the radio if it has to be so heavily edited?” It could be a song you like or a song you hate, and it doesn’t matter, because the whole thing is filtered down to a couple radio-approved words.
You see where I’m going with this?
Here’s the deal. I’m not saying that fucking-god-damn-shit-ass-cunt should be on the radio. I’m just saying if you can’t play it in its entirety the way it was meant to be heard, why are you bothering playing it at all?
Same thing goes for any medium: art, writing, films, video games, whatever it may be. In fact, you may remember a book I reviewed where I had this same complaint. Tell it like it was meant to be told; show it like it was meant to be shown.
And here’s the trick: if it doesn’t feel right, reword it, reshoot it, redraw it. It’s a problem that can be solved by camera angles easily, and your audience will marvel at the way you handled the issue. Don’t slap a censor bar on it and call it a work of art. It’s not. It’s (god, dare I say it?) lazy.
Again: If it doesn’t feel right, adjust the camera angle. If you are writing a romance novel and you want to really convey how much the two people love each other, bring the camera out and up. Show it in the little extra movements aside from whatever is going on downtown. You know, where their eyes focus on, where their fingers trace, blah blah blah. However, if you’re writing porn, dude, exchange that big fancy camera for a cock ring camera (they make those homg they fucking make those what the hell) and just…yeah…let it go to town. Camera angles. Not censorship.
Camera angles.
Now, ready for me to be a huge hypocrite? Because through the years, I’ve gotten amazing at that.
I watched a movie about a year ago, and two scenes have stuck with me in a squeamish sort of way. Now usually, I applaud that sort of thing. Like, okay, my favorite horror movie of all time is Audition, and that thing is absolutely fucked up in so many ways. It got under my skin, but in a good sort of way.
The movie in question is called mother!, all lowercase and everything (if I remember correctly).
SPOILERS WITHOUT CONTEXT AHEAD
The first scene that fucked me up was a shot of a baby’s neck snapping. It came out of nowhere, which I’m not saying was a fault necessarily on the movie’s behalf, since the whole thing plays out like a nonsensical dream. The second scene was an up close and personal view of a woman being beaten almost to death. This did not come out of nowhere, in fact I had a feeling the movie was leading up to it, but the way they approached it just felt…wrong.
Two things come into play here that I feel made the movie fall flat, because otherwise, honestly, up until that point, I rather enjoyed it. The first thing is camera angles. The second is medium.
The same point could have come across without the shock value for the sake of shock value (which is what it came across as, for nothing in the movie was hinting at anything but psychological horror) with the help of camera angles. You can have the baby get lost in the crowd (alive) and then have the mother find the baby with it head at an odd angle (dead). The action of the neck snapping doesn’t need to be shown on camera. The audience can figure it out on their own.
Same for the woman being beaten. You can get the point across with a shift of camera that doesn’t make it feel like a body horror flick. Instead of having every punch and kick be up close and personal all the way to the bitter end, fade out and pan up. Show the crowd circle in above her, covering her, and when it’s done, fade back to her body, once beautiful, now broken.
Another thing to keep in mind is the medium in which it was brought to life. Despite what I said, I feel that if it was presented as a book, it would have been just fine as it stands. What works in one medium won’t necessarily work in another. Some things don’t translate well from audio to visual to written. Another example: Stephen King’s It. In the book, the infamous “child orgy” scene works for a number of reasons: the symbolism, the description, the way the topic is handled. However, if they tried to put the same scene in the movies, it would not pass the censors, and it would never see the light of day. What works in one medium won’t necessarily work in another.
Let me back up and say that generally, people dying in horrible ways doesn’t throw me off this hard (in fiction, obviously). My list of taboos is short by nature. I’m willing to sacrifice comfort for the sake of a good story (and trust me, there are some scenes in books and movies that are hard to get through). But maybe that’s what it all boils down to: a damn good story. In this case, mother! fell short. It flows through time and space like a dream, a nightmare. It floats from one event to the next, so when it spirals to dead babies and beaten women, it comes across like less a form of art and more a snuff film. It felt wrong, like something I wasn’t supposed to watch. But now I have, and no amount of bleach is going to get those images out of my memory.
But maybe I missed the point altogether and it’s actually a masterpiece. I don’t know. What I do know is that I think had camera angles been tweaked just a touch, it could have been spectacular. Instead, I just feel kind of dirty.
And maybe, just maybe, fuck what I have to say about it. Maybe had those changes been made, it would have missed the point the director was trying to make. Maybe all that snuff film add-ons were necessary to tell the story he needed to tell, unaltered, uncensored, right down to the gory details. Maybe my changes would have dug in elbow-deep to plant a fucking rose bush.
What about you? What’s your view on censorship in the entertainment industry? Good? Bad? Don’t care either which way? Let me know!
here we are now ENTERTAIN US
Ladies and gentlemen of the void! It’s been a while since a good-ol’ book review, hasn’t it? I mean, part of it is because of life happening, which, yanno, happens. But part of it is because of something as simple as this: some books you gotta take your time with.
Enter Prozac Nation.
This lovely piece of nonfiction literature was a trip and a half. It features a girl who is unforgivingly and unapologetically set in who she is for better or, mostly, for worse. Her emotions are raw and ugly and so fucking real.
And I couldn’t help but see a little bit of myself in her.
And I hated it.
The book is a memoir of the young life of Elizabeth Wurtzel, who deals with long bouts of depression that is more often than not absolutely debilitating. Wurtzel doesn’t waste time trying to romanticize the disease. Instead, she gets right down to the dirty details of what makes depression such an awful invisible illness. She dives headfirst into the terrible things she does to those around her, and the equally terrible things those same people do to her.
Every person in the book is a double-edged sword. Just when you think you might start to like them, SWIGGITY SWOOSHY they slice everything you thought you knew about them away to reveal the monster underneath. There’s something to take away from that, I think.
Let me back up a little bit and explain. Wurtzel, whom I most identify with, has a knack for being what some would call ungrateful. Hell, you know what? Wurtzel didn’t sugar-coat a damn thing in this book, so why should I? I think she was ungrateful for a lot of the things handed to her. Her mom put her through college, and my student loan debt is envious of that. She was able to go to London for a few months, and the lack of funds I have is super envious of that. She got to work somewhere where she wrote for a living and screwed off over half the time, and my life choices are uber envious of that. Like, the fuck, you have so much going for you that people like me can only dream about; why exactly are you depressed again?
But know what? That’s some class-A depression right there. You have a mountain of good but all you can focus on is the grain of bad. Or you can’t focus on any of it at all. You just exist, and it’s pointless.
Double-edged sword. She is ungrateful, and that makes her unlikeable, but she knows she’s ungrateful, and that makes her relatable. I can relate to her so hard in all of her seemingly selfish actions and obsessive mind acrobatics.
ESPECIALLY the obsessive mind acrobatics.
At one point in the book, she gets herself a boyfriend. A real, bonafide boyfriend (haha jesus christ) who is more than a one night stand, who is more than a few week fling. She’s got him, and they go steady together, and when she falls she falls hard and fast. I can’t judge her for this, mostly out of being in a different but vastly similar situation a time or two. I used to blame it on being young and stupid, but as I’ve grown into an older, adultier me, I think it’s less to do with being young and more to do with holding onto that one glimmer of happiness so tight your knuckles pierce through the skin (what a fucking image, am I right?). When you live in the dark for so long, the moment you get a ray of sunshine you chase it down and embrace it until it snuffs out of existence entirely.
Anyway, so they are going steady for a bit, and she tells him all the reasons why he shouldn’t be with her, and he assures her he’s going nowhere. Same lie that’s been told a million times by billions of people, mind you. But he’s convinced her illness is a quirk or a phase or adorable or some other atrocity, and she’s convinced he’s going to leave her forever the moment he lets go of her hand (a slight exaggeration, but the point still follows). She does the crazy girlfriend bit. You know the kind I’m talking about. Calling at all hours, showing up unexpectedly under the guise of surprise but everyone knows it’s because she just wants to keep tabs on him, getting lost in a whirlwind of negative thoughts about him and herself. It’s crazy. She knows she’s acting crazy. But the whole thing is compulsion; she just can’t stop herself.
I can relate to the same degree of obsessive compulsive behavior. Like I said, different situation, but same general idea. High school was a lonely, confusing time for me, and so I latched onto my best friend like she was a lifeline. At the time, I think she was more mine than I hers, and I don’t think it had much to do with her not liking me and more to do with I was smothering her. I won’t go into specifics on that, but I will say that one particularly bad day when I was left alone with my thoughts and my mind went dark, I called her house at least twelve times. This was before everyone had cell phones, so it was the landline, and her parents were home. A few times, her mother picked up, and assured me she would have her call me just as soon as she woke up. But another hour would go by, and I’d ring the line again, and again, and again. It was stupid. It was crazy. I knew it was crazy. But I kept doing it anyway.
Mental health is kind of funny that way.
Prozac Nation was an all around good book, but one that required lots of breaks in between the pages. That has nothing to do with the readability of it I don’t think. It all flowed well, and it held my interest from the first page to the last. I can only handle so much truth in one sitting. Overall, I loved it. It’s the best book about depression I’ve read to date. It gets a solid 10/10 for me.
So, question time: Have you ever read a book you had to put down because it was too close to home?
Manda and the Adventures of a Lifetime (or 2019: Go Big or Go the Fuck to Sleep)
Hey there, void. It’s ya girl.
You may have noticed that I skipped out on the last bi-weekly post. And you may have noticed that I came back expecting to be accepted back into your mobile devices with open arms. I have a reason for skipping. And it’s a good one, too. But, because I want to keep you suspense (and because I want you to read about the my awesome year and explain why things are going to slow down for a while) I’m going to wait until the very end of this post to tell you. You could cheat and scroll all the way down, but just…just don’t. Okay? Deal?
Sweet.
Let’s look at my past year in list form! Woot!
- January
Made our first big purchase as a couple. We got a couch and an oversized chair that is a bit too big for our apartment living room, but it was a huge upgrade from the couch we got for free from another random tenant we didn’t know, so bonus. - February
Went to see Panic! at the Disco with my bestie. We stood in line for what felt like a century and missed the first act of the night, but it was worth it for band merch. Our seats were high up in the air, so a little bit scary for a scurred little thing such as myself, but damn is it ever amazing how quickly you forget that one slight misstep will lead to your imminent doom when the show started. Awesome show all the way around. - March
Cool writing things month. I submitted the first chapter of my novel for a writing contest. I did not win, but I did find a few people who liked it and wanted to see more. I also submitted a short mobile-based story to an app called Peek’d. It was by no means my best work, and I did not have high hopes for it, but it did win first place! - April
Celebrated our 10th anniversary by going out of town and staying in a hotel and doing basically nothing. I think the only time we left the place was to go to the Squirrel Cage Jail in Council Bluffs (10/10 recommend whether you’re ghost enthusiast such as myself or a history buff or just if you want to see something as unique as a rotating prison). - May
Ren Fair with my girls. This time around I was a plague doctor and walked around with a balloon that said ‘Get Well Soon.’ Plus, I got to watch a hilarious rendition of Hamlet my bestie was in, including a perfectly-timed prop mishap involving a tombstone, wind, and a conveniently placed dead Ophelia. Everyone stayed in character, and me and my group died. Luckily I was there to save us. Yanno…with the balloon…eh? Eh?!? Eh… - June
Game Grumps Live, babyyy! We got VIP tickets, so some extra merch and early entry, which is good and all, but the part I was most excited for was the preshow where Dan and Arin came out and did a little Q&A with the crowd. The show itself is great, but the casual style of the beginning won me over. Sadly, Dan did not notice my Ghost shirt. In retrospect, that’s probably a good thing? If he did, I don’t think I would have known what to say back, and I embarrass myself enough without the help of people I admire, thank you very much. - July
Vegas trip with the girls. If I had to pick my favorite part, it would be the late night adventures we went on, buzzed and getting more lost by the second. It’s fun walking through the expensive ritzy areas and peeking through the shop windows without the expensive ritzy people rolling their eyes at you. I’ve been to Vegas a few times already, but it’s a completely different experience going with work friends as opposed to going with your significant other. Definitely a higher chance of getting into trouble. 😉 - August
It’s not very often a rock band comes into town from the big city, so when I heard that Trapt was going to do a show, I was all over that. I brushed up on all their songs, got all beautified with a fresh side shave, and practically ran to the front of the stage. And I got to say, after seeing them live…I liked the opener bands better. There was some technical issues with the equipment so the sound kept cutting out and I guess everyone was getting feedback in their speakers, but I think it’s all in how you handle it. The more local bands brushed it off and had a good time. The lead singer of Trapt was kind of douchy, as in yelling at the stagehands while they tried to fix the audio. I get it. It must have been frustrating. But cussing out your help is no way to win over your fans. Fuck that noise. I don’t consider this necessarily a highlight of the year, but it was a thing, so there’s that. Can win them all. - September
It Chapter Two came out in theaters. I saw it three times. For some reason I don’t own the physical copy yet even though it came out before Christmas? Eh, I’ll fix that soon enough. I think the second installment gets too much flack. While it’s not as scary as the first one, I don’t think it was meant to be. The Loser’s Club is all grown up now, and so their fears have evolved into normal grown-up fears having everything to do with abandonment and acceptance and nothing to do with fucked up flute lady and general clown nonsense. It was great. Richie crying at the end gets me every fucking time. Ugh the tears were real. Also, I took my sister out for her birthday and got her wasted. We could have gotten into some awesome trouble, but her husband met us and killed our vibe. Lamesauce. But a fun night all the same. - October
Wanna talk about a busy month? The first week, I took my mama to Denver to meet Joe Hill in person. I detail the experience in my post here. Couple weeks later, my boyfriend and I went to see Starset. For this one, we also did VIP, which included food, merch, an acoustic show where I played hide-and-seek with the drummer for a bit, and a photo with the band. Seeing them was just what we needed after the atrocity that was Trapt. If you ever have the chance to see them in concert, do it. VIP? Do it even more. It’s cheap for VIP, and there’s so much involved with it. The band is amazingly nice, and they have a doggo, so win. The last week of October, I celebrated my 30th with a Death Day celebration, a funeral for my 20s if you will. Immediately after that, I headed to the bestie’s for a couple days and saw Phantom of the Opera for the third time in my life. I’ve gotta say, every time I see it, it gets better. I was in tears when we left I was so happy. That show has and always will be my favorite, and I can’t wait to see it again. - November
Viva Las Vegas, yo! This time, I went with my boyfriend. While we were there, we went to SEMA (moreso his thing than mine) and to Lost Vegas at the Neon Museum (moreso my thing than his). And, of course, there was a hell of a lot of gambling. Gotta get it out of my system while I can, yo. We came out of it with a load of free shit and a good chunk of money left over. Highlight: Seeing a life-sized Robot Boy. I have the miniature version of him and I love him. J - December
Other than general holiday-ness going on, I got to spend a brief while with the bestie to have a nice little gift exchange and a lot of naps. ❤
2019 was absolutely amazing, and freakishly busy. You may be wondering, “Manda, that’s cool and all, but where is the reason for not posting? Where is the reason for the hectic?” Well, void, I have some news. Firstly, we are in the process of getting a loan to get a house, which is a lot of paperwork and a lot more stress. This is HUGE. It’ll be our first house and our first joint-loan. It’s kind of a special situation—I won’t get into the details right now—so we’ve been packing and cleaning both our apartment and the new place whenever we’ve had a spare moment between work and talking to the bank.
Secondly, as of the 23rd of December, I am engaged! After ten years of dating, we are official! We are going to take the whole marriage thing kinda slow because of the whole house situation, so we are looking at 2021 tentatively for a date. Rest assure, I’ll probably post updates here and there in between book reviews and other general nonsense.
So, there you have it. 2019, you were fun while you lasted. Lots of ups and plenty of downs. A few joyful hellos and a handful of heart-breaking goodbyes.
How was your year? Did you float on through or did you hold on by your teeth? Any advice for a new home owner and bride-to-be??? Leave a comment and let me know!!
Manda and the Time She Made Some Stupid Resolutions (and some cool ones too)
The year is almost over. The time for that final push is almost over. Resolutions are about to become failures. Let’s all point and laugh together, shall we?
- Losing ten pounds: This could still happen, or it could not still happen. The furthest I made it was six. And then I went on vacation basically all the month of October, and it got back up there again. But in the past week, I’ve lost three pounds. So there’s that. Just seven more pounds to go. Ugh. It probably won’t happen. But I’m not about to give up the lifestyle. Not fail, but not win. You feel me?
- Keep to writing and cleaning schedule: What I’ve learned from this is that I can indeed keep to a schedule. What I also learned is that when I fill up my schedule so much, when something unexpected happens, I have zero time for it. Then I’m staying up until three in the morning so I can cross off an item. So this past month, I’ve changed things up and given myself less to do every week. House has still stayed clean, and writings have still been written, both plus some. I need to stop expecting so much of myself. Give myself a break, yo. Check in the win category, though.
- Take a day every couple of weeks to do absolutely nothing: This has been on the decline by a lot. I can’t pinpoint when exactly it happened, but it’s definitely not there now. Bad job. Fail on all levels.
- Go on more dates: Like last time, it’s not in the traditional sense. We spend time together Sunday nights and eat something new and watch tv. HOWEVER! That may soon change come next year. More on that later. 😉 Win, btw.
- Do more social networking for writing and less for personal: I rule at this. For the most part. I have everything on a queue, so I do a bunch in a day and then I’m covered for the month. I’ve been working on interacting on posts to get new followers and sell some stories, but it’s still some pretty new territory for me, and honestly a little uncomfortable and pushy-feeling for me. I think once I have something worth pushing, though, I’ll be more apt to do it.
- Be more involved with family and keep track of birthdays: It’s been a while since we’ve done a dinner as a family. It’s a mixture of some funky schedules and some tension between certain members. Good ol’ family drama, ya know? But things are finally starting to smooth over, so here soon, it’ll get better. It can only go up from here. As for birthdays, I’m awesome at blowing up phones with nonsensical birthday raps. It’s definitely in the win category.
- Pay off credit cards and car loan: Fuuuuuuuuuck. It’s going down. I don’t know if it will be paid off by the end of the year, but it will be close. Both will be close. But ultimately, it is a fail on my part. A big, fat fail. I’m only a little salty about it.
- Go out of town to see friends more often just because: Since the last update, I did go up to see them on a random three day weekend I got. It was some much needed bitching time, with some booze and Mexican food in there for good measure. I want more days like this. I’ll call it a stalemate. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the worst, either.
- Take Jax (old grumpo) to good doggo classes: I didn’t do it. I’ve had the entire year and did not once set foot into a good doggo class. HOWEVER. What I did do is have my sister show me how to make him behave. Eh, let me take that back. She showed me how to be assertive with him, how to raise my voice when he’s acting up. Is he the perfect, most well-behaved dog? Of course not. But it has made a difference. He listens better than what he did in the past. Plus, there’s plans for him to meet some other animals in the works to put his listening skills to the test. If I had it my way, we would have done it already, but damn, dude. Everyone is so damn busy. At the end of the day, though, Jax being bossed around by my sister isn’t the same as going to an actual dog obedience class. Another fail.
- Take doggos for more walks: Almost every week when it’s not freezing or otherwise crappy outside, we’ve gone for a walk. Sometimes we travel for a nice long walk, but most times I take them separately around the block. Not only does it get more steps in for me, but it’s easier to control them when they are apart, which makes for a nicer walk for all of us. Plus, they are better behaved when they don’t have each other to feed off of. Winner winner.
- Declutter digital and physical files: I have the same old file cabinet (you know, because of the credit card thing), but the inside is anything but the same. Folks, it is cleaned out. It is organized. It makes my little neat-freak heart so damn happy. Digital files have kept clean for the most part. I don’t go through them as often as I should, but it wouldn’t take more than ten minutes to get through it all. That’s way better than the thousands it was before. Winning.
- Locate my self-esteem: You know what? It comes and goes. It’s like day and night. It’ll pop up and stay for a week or two, then be lost for several days, until I pick it up and dust it off and repeat the process all over again. No, I’ll take that back. What this is about is self-esteem. What I’m talking about is depression. Not the same thing. No, okay, I think I’m better about this for the most part. Most days, I know my worth and I know I’m a hot piece (oh god please don’t take me too serious). But you know what I mean. I know I’m smart and I’m good at what I do (not necessarily writing, yo) and I have good qualities about myself. I’m loving and caring. I’m empathetic. I’m a great listener. And typing this all out feels awkward, so just take my word for it that I know what I’m about. Win.
All in all, it’s not horrible. I’m at 7/12 for resolution success. I don’t think I’ll check in again with this one, but I miiiight let you all know what my plans are for 2020. Ya know. So you can laugh while I fail some more. It’s cool. Builds character.
So. How did your resolutions go?
Stranger Than You Dreamt It
If you thought I was done gushing about Joe Hill, hooboy were you wrong. I finally got around to reading Strange Weather, a book composed of four different stories, and I just…
Damn, dude.
Let’s get this started.
So first off, this is my first signed copy of one of his books. It stayed in a curio cabinet where I had the beginnings of a collection going (Stephen King’s End of Watch among the small stack that has since grown). I was not one of the lucky few who had a doodle sketched by his name, but it’s still special to me nevertheless.
The book is comprised of four shorts, each one taking place in a different season, and I use season loosely here. Each has its own tone, its own quasi sort of personality. It’ll leave you feeling scared of the unknown, then terrified of the world we live in. It’ll bring you up to the top of the clouds, then plummet you back to the world below without anything to break your fall but the cold, hard ground.
Friends. I loved this book.
The first story, Snapshot, follows a boy who after a brief altercation, has to watch his back against the man with the weird camera that snaps pictures of the past by sucking up memories. Hill has terror down to an art. I haven’t been so scared to turn the page since I read Heart-Shaped Box, another goodie written by Joe Hill. And god, the ending! A beautiful twist to an otherwise frightening tale.
Things take a turn in Loaded, when a terrorist attack isn’t all it appears to be. It was a total edge-of-your seat thriller where the villains are in the wrong place at the wrong time and the heroes have their own agenda. The story is not for the faint of heart. There is no happy ending, but like real life, there will be no happy ending until a solution to mass shootings is found one way or the other.
The third short, Aloft, plays with the question we’ve all had at one point in our lives or another: What if we could walk on clouds? A young man—unwillingly—finds out that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be after a sky-diving accident. He’s stuck a few miles in the air, and the only way off this ride is a suicidal jump to the surface. Freezing, starving, and oh so thirsty, will he have the courage to find a way out?
Rain takes place at the beginning of a dystopian future, where rain falls from the sky as long, sharp crystals that tear families apart—both figuratively and literally. A young woman’s girlfriend is torn to pieces by the needles right before her eyes, and she is determined not to let the loss break her. She must find a way to survive this new world and the anarchy around her.
What can I say? Each story had strong characters that you wanted to either watch succeed or witness their ultimate demise. The thought-provoking themes forced you to put the book down and process what you just read before moving on to the next. Some collections of short stories stay with you for a moment before floating on by, out of sight, out of mind. The collection in Strange Weather, however, stick. And yeah, it could be because there are only four stories in there, but I take into account that I finished this book almost a month ago before having the time to sit down and write out something other than word vomit (which this probably still is let’s be fair here), and I still remember what I read. I still remember how each story made me feel. That’s some good writing there.
All in all, I’d give this collection 10/10. Snapshot was hands down my favorite; I’m a sucker for supernatural horror. It was a damn fun ride, and I can’t wait to read his next collection (also sitting in the curio cabinet).
Have you read Strange Weather? Which one was your favorite?
Manda Kay Writes 