Phoebe North's Blog, page 11
January 29, 2012
Just call me sparklebutt.
You know how I said in my last entry that Rainbow Brite is one of my style inspirations?
Well, my mother got me a sewing machine for my birthday (thanks, Mom!). First order of business? To make myself some obnoxiously loud leggings, inspired by these. But, you know, cheaper.
I'm pretty proud of how they came out. I feel, in fact, a bit like a superhero.
Be warned: I have ordered five yards of rainbow lame. More loud, sparkly stretch pants to come.
January 28, 2012
Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch . . .
Today I cherry bombed my hair. And the tub. And my fingernails. And my neck. And my ears.
Maybe you can blame Rainbow Brite–we were born in the same year, and I grew up thinking that life was not complete without splashes of bright, garish color (also without talking horses). Maybe it's all my big sister's fault, because one day when I was eleven, I came home and the whole house smelled like artificial grape, and my sister was soaking the long strands of her hair in a cup of boiling Kool-Aid. ...
January 27, 2012
Call me single-minded . . .
. . . but today this is all that matters.
Today–a half hour ago, actually–I finished the book that began as a story at Viable Paradise back in October. It started out as "Dehado" but lately I've been calling it TCAFOYPR, sort of. I am very much enamored with it.
And drafting is done! Done done done!
Now the real work can begin. 
January 26, 2012
You're not fooling anyone . . .
John Scalzi says that you're not fooling anyone when you take your laptop to a coffee shop. But yesterday, I did just that–tucked myself into a corner with a hot chocolate and a scone the size of my head–and banged out three chapters. Solid chapters, good chapters, too.
Today, on a cold rainy day spent mostly at home? Not a word. Nada. None.
Maybe sometimes the person you need to fool is not any single person watching, the cute barista or the radical who tries to invite you to a protest or the ...
January 25, 2012
Riddley Walker Time
It's strange how a book can irrevocably change one's world.
I was a year out of college when I read Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker . I was working in a college library, and I'd gone through a long, unhappy spat of reading "the classics," then a moderately less unhappy period of reading Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates and then, abruptly, I decided to read some sci-fi. I picked up A Canticle for Leibowitz first. Dusty and strange, I enjoyed the narrative–who doesn't love post-apocalyptic m...
January 24, 2012
Opa!
Pookie and I went out last night for Greek food. It was cold and rainy, and the streets of New Paltz seemed to glitter from the melted-down snow and the streetlamps. The restaurant was bright and warm, and everything looked blue–blue maps of Greece and a blue ocean scape painted on the blue walls and blue printed menus. I got pea soup thick as the fog outside and we gossiped and laughed.
I love the place where we live, halfway between the Hudson River and the Thruway. Last night, as always...
January 23, 2012
A Life with Dragons
After yesterday's post on photography, I've decided to try an experiment–to post an image a day, and a short blog post on that image. We'll see if it's something I stick with.
I received an envelope in the mail today from one of my Viable Paradise friends, Kelly Lagor. Inside was a very sweet card, and the last issue of Locus Magazine. My name was inside it–my name, inside of Locus.
And who was on the cover? None other than Anne McCaffrey. There's a certain eerie synchronicity in that.
I wrote...
January 22, 2012
Through a Lens Brightly
I used to love taking pictures.
Oh, I didn't harbor any illusions that I was a photographer. But ages ago, back in college, I carried a camera with me wherever I went. At first it was a little point and shoot digicam. It had no zoom and image noise under low light, but I found myself a little bit in love with capturing the way the world looked, and the way the world looked to me.
But then my camera broke. I couldn't afford a real camera back in those days–but I could afford a Holga. Holgas...
January 11, 2012
On YA, Insipidness, and the Dystopian Now
I should say that I wasn't going to write this post. I realize that that's a very ominous statement with which to open a blog post, but I feel like it's a necessary caveat here. I've been busy writing and I wasn't going to blog, for a variety of reasons that will likely become apparent, but the blogging thoughts are overtaking my mind. So, blog I must.
(It will make my friend Sean happy, in any case.)
The other day, Sean wrote a blog post about dystopian literature. In it, he wrote:
Most of...
January 6, 2012
My Goodreads Pledge
Goodreads. Oh, goodreads. I love goodreads, but it's been a tumultuous, scary place lately, for both writers and reviewers. Scarier still, I'm both—with four years of reviewing under my belt and a novel forthcoming in 2013.
A few people have asked what we can do to heal the damage that's been done over the past year or so in the YA community. Initially, I thought I might draft some ethical guidelines for community participants, some suggestions or pronouncements on behavior. But when it comes ...
