Leta Blake's Blog, page 81

Yay Husbands! #cwseed #husbands #tv

 

Husbands is back for a third season!!!

If you’ve never watched the first two seasons of Husbands, get on that! The third season is here and I’m so excited that I’m twirling around gleefully!

Barefoot Princesses #fairytales #kidsbooks

My daughter has several versions of the book The Twelve Dancing Princesses. It is a favorite of hers and the re-reading of the various versions of it are part of what led to the inspiration for Love’s Nest, Keira’s and my m/m romantica version of the tale. (Which is not at all appropriate for children!)

These illustrations are from Barefoot Books version, which is my daughter’s very favorite. I’m always impressed with how beautiful Barefoot Books are. I definitely recommend looking at them, especially for gifts for children.

BUY THE BOOK!

Taking Heart from Rifter Series #amreading #amwriting

Why, yes, this is more about The Rifter Series by Ginn Hale. Get used to hearing about it. I’m a little obsessed.

I haven’t read anything about how long it too Ginn Hale to write the series, but it had to be long time because it was definitely a behemoth. I can’t say anything bad at all about the series or how it ended, but I will say that the last 25% of the final book seemed to evidence a bit of writer’s fatigue. Just a smidgen. Not enough to make the series less than the masterpiece it is, but I felt it. Ginn Hale had been so incredibly thorough through the rest of the series. Every scene was paced perfectly and in the very last of the final book, I can’t say the scenes were quite as thorough.

But, here’s the thing, I couldn’t blame her. As a writer, I definitely experience fatigue. In fact, I’m in the middle of it right now. I’m so fatigued and feeling a lot of internal pressure to really press myself forward at a rate that isn’t right or fair to the story, mainly because I feel like it will never end. Reading through The Rifter books, I kept thinking to myself, “I bet right about now, she started to think, ‘WTF was I thinking writing this thing? I’m not even close to the end. It’s going to take the rest of my life and everyone will hate it, no one will read it, and what am I even doing?’”

Maybe the reality is that she never had those thoughts at all. If that’s the case, don’t tell me. Because I’ve taken a lot of heart from her slow and steady thoroughness, and the fact that she didn’t give up during my imagined moments of exhaustion, fear, and frustration. Thank you, Ginn Hale, for not giving up, by the way. Just in case you did have those moments.

Enough rambling. Go buy The Rifter Series. It’s worth every penny and she earned them.

My All-Time Favorite Book of Right Now #amreading #therifter #fantasy

My All-Time Favorite Book of Right Now #amreading #therifter #fantasy.

Yep, a few weeks ago, I was over at Darker Temptations talking about that contradiction in terms known as My All-Time Favorite Book of RIGHT NOW. Yep. Go read and see what it is!

In the meantime, have a picture. Maybe you can guess the book by looking at this.

Restless for Writing, or How Writing Ruins Everything #amwriting #beingawriter

A friend asked me the other night if I ever experienced a certain kind of restlessness that plagued her. She described it as a “grass is greener” sort of restlessness where if she’s alone, she wishes she had company, and if she has company she wants to be alone.

I don’t have that kind of restlessness, no. What I have is Writing Restlessness, and, unless I make a concerted effort to tame my thoughts and emotions, it can ruin almost anything. Basically, any time I’m doing anything that isn’t writing, there is an undercurrent of “should be writing, should be writing, wish I was writing, want to write” that burbles and churns beneath the experience.

Whenever a friend asks me to take a weekend to come visit them, I think, “I’d love to do that but should be writing, could be writing, will miss precious writing time, won’t be able to write that week, will have to pay for childcare for something other than writing, writing, writing, writing.”

Whenever a friend says, “Let’s have dinner!” I think, “That’s an evening I won’t be writing, that’s an evening husband will be watching the child and I won’t be writing. Maybe I should say no so that I can write.”

Whenever I’m on vacation, I’m thinking, “These are days of no writing. An entire week that is lost from writing.”

Writing is a demanding thing, an addiction, a driving force.

I have to take a breath and say, “This moment with my daughter is more important than writing. Put it aside.” I have to carve out a space in my mind and say, “You love your friend dearly, you’ll visit her on this weekend, and writing will wait.” I must tell myself, “My marriage is important to me and these hours with my husband are vital for maintaining it. Writing will be patient.”

That’s a lie, by the way. Writing is never patient.

I, however, can be, but I have to work at it.

So, no, I don’t have a restlessness of wanting to be with people and wanting to be alone. I have a restlessness that is always writing, writing, writing rushing in my veins, pumping through my heart, stirring up my brain. It’s constant and it can undermine my ability to enjoy my daily life unless I am strong and demand more of myself.

I guess that’s part of working to become a better human being, too.

Slut Shaming 101 — The Kiddie Version #parenting #feminism

A few days ago, Bird asked me, “Mom, what does the word ‘slut’ mean?”

I didn’t have to ask where she’d heard the word. We’d both just seen the Degrassi episode where Emma calls Manny a slut. (Oh, Emma!) So, it was no surprise that she’d want to know. I hadn’t given a lot of thought to how to answer this question, but I took a deep breath and dove in.

“It’s a word that people use to try to control women. It’s a word that is meant to make a woman feel bad about herself. It’s a word that is supposed to make a woman feel like she’s not a valuable human being. Specifically, it’s a word that means the person using it thinks you’ve had sex with too many people. But here’s the thing–having sex with people doesn’t make any woman less valuable or make them bad. There is no way for any amount of sex to make a woman worth less than some other woman who hasn’t had the same amount of sex.”

“A woman can have sex with however many people she wants,” Bird said. “If that is what she really wants to do.”

“Right. If a woman wants to have sex with many people, that won’t change whether or not she is a good, valuable, strong, smart, funny, lovable person. There are good reasons and not-so-good reasons to have sex, though, and when you are old enough to have sex, I want you to be smart about the reasons you have sex. I want you to have sex with people you trust, care about, and who treat you with respect. I want the sex you have to be safe and to make sure that you know how to prevent pregnancy and diseases. But if you have sex with only one person or with no people or with fifteen people, you will still be smart, funny, valuable, and lovable.”

“I know.”

“Again, though, the reasons you have sex with someone are important, and those reasons might change as you get older. That is something we will talk about a lot more as you grow up–what are good reasons for sex (because you care about the person, because you trust them, because you enjoy sex) and what are bad reasons (to prove something to someone else, to try to prove that you are sexy, to try to prove that you are lovable–because you are always lovable, and having sex won’t prove that if you’re doubting it). But we’ll talk about that a lot more as you grow up.”

“Okay.”

“For now, just know that people use the word slut to try to control women and that they don’t even use the word just to control them about how many people they’ve had sex with. In all my life, I’ve had sex with just one person–your dad–and I’ve had men and some women call me a slut. I laughed at them because they can’t make me feel bad about myself that way.

But obviously, the word had nothing to do with how many people I’ve had sex with. What it was about was trying to make me feel bad about myself, to try to hurt me, to try to make me feel ashamed of myself. And when we feel bad about ourselves, we are more willing to let someone else tell us what to do and how to behave. If we feel bad about ourselves, we might be willing to have sex with someone for bad reasons, or we might be willing to do something else they want us to do to “prove” to them we are not the bad thing, or we might allow them to treat us badly because we feel like we deserve it.

But if we understand that we always deserve to be be treated well, if we understand that we always deserve to be loved, then we won’t be hurt when someone calls us a slut. We’ll know that even if we’ve had sex with fifteen people, or more than that, it won’t matter and it doesn’t make us someone bad.”

“Got it.”

“And that word? Slut? It’s important that you never use it to try to control any of your friends. It would be unkind to try to hurt them that way.”

“I won’t! I would never use it!”

“I know because you have a kind heart. If you hear your friends use it on someone, or hear a boy use it, you can tell them that is a rude word and when you’re older, you can tell them that attempting to control women by using words like that makes them look foolish and that you wont fall for it.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome.”

And that was that. I’m sure a lot of it went over her head, but I don’t know–my kid’s a deep thinker. She’s pretty smart. So, that was our first conversation about slut shaming. I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Gimme Fanfic for The Rifter Series by Ginn Hale #amreading #fandom

Book One

I finished The Rifter Series by Ginn Hale the other day and now my mind is consumed with two questions:

1) Where is the movie deal/HBO miniseries?

2) Where is the fandom?

In all seriousness, though, where is the fandom for this book series? I went to AO3 and do you know how many fics I found for this amazing series? None. Zero. Nada. Zip.

How is that possible?

My mind is currently full of fanfic ideas that I want to read about. Let’s think them over.

ATTENTION!!! POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT!!!! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!!

1. PWPs. Hello? Fans? The sex scenes were basically all fade to black, y’all. Hit me with some gorgeous, intense, emotional full-on sexual intercourse between our heroes. Or make up some didn’t-happen-in-canon sex between our enemies. Whatever suits your fancy!

2. Rousma! I am obsessed with Rousma! First, let’s think about the Nayeshi incarnation who was left behind in the woods. What happened to her? Did she poof out of existence when Umbhra’ibaye burned and Jath’ibaye’s timeline of Rousma was not carried off by Khalil? What about her life in the meantime? She was so crafty. What did she do in Nayeshi? I’m imagining some morbid possibility where she finds a human body to inhabit.

3. Rousma in the Jath’ibaye timeline. Does she stay permanently a child since she was but a child when her soul was bound to her bones? If so, would she ever, I don’t know, creep into the body of a dead child and then go live with its parents’? Either because she liked the parents or because she wanted to be in a human body again? I mean, Rousma sort of shares Ravishan’s sharp edges, doesn’t she? I can see her doing something creepy like that.

4. Ah, man, the possible AUs! What would have happened if the note had said “Do” and Kahlil actually got it? What would have happened if they’d never received a note at all, and Kahlil and John moved into a different sort of relationship on earth? Under what circumstances would Kahlil have allowed himself to fall in love with John and, ya know, touch him? What about a genderswitch? What if John and Ravishan were female?

(I’m actually obsessed with how this entire book would read differently if every single character in it were the opposite sex. I’d love to see what that looked like. I mean, would I find Ravishan so incredibly awesome/adorable/amazing/charming/lovable if he were a woman? What would his actions look like from that point of view? What about Laurie? Were she a man, how would I react to her scenes? God, I really kind of want to find a way to read this book with the genders flipped. You know, after I read it again the way it is now. Do you think I could get a PhD on that analysis?)

5. Laurie and Fikiri. I would love to see more of what their relationship was like. I hesitate to criticize any aspect of these books because they are basically holy to me at this point, ha, but I admit that at a certain point, about 50% of the way through the last book, I realized that I wasn’t going to get what I wanted with regards to Laurie or Fikiri. I understood how and why they’d become so twisted, broken, and desperate, but I guess I wanted to see an evolution of that from the point of her rescue from Umbhra’ibaye to the end-game scenes. I’d like to know more about her relationship with Fikiri especially. He was in love with her, but what were her feelings for him in the end? I suppose the only way to communicate that to us would have been through a kind of info dump, but given Kyle’s last experience of Laurie was over bacon and eggs at a diner, it seemed like a conversation could have been had where we could have been shown more of Laurie’s story. But maybe I’m greedy and just want more, more, more, more of everything about this series! Thus! Feel free to write fanfiction about Laurie and Fikiri, about how they related to each other in the decades between the Umbhra’ibaye rescue and the end-game scenes. I’d read it! I promise!

6.. M-Preg. Because there is no fandom without m-preg, people! It is a true thing! And, fine, yes, I’ll cop to it, the idea of Ravishan knocked up by some weird Kahlil/Rifter magic is too hilarious for me to resist considering despite the fact that we all know m-preg is an abomination. Just imagine Ravishan (poor Ravishan) faced with such an abomination. And surely someone out there would write it? Surely. I mean, there’s no compliment to an author quite like loving her/his creation enough to go the whole damned m-preg route, am I right? Ha!

BUY IT!!!!

1. The Shattered Gates

2. Servants of the Crossed Arrows

3. Black Blades

4. Witches’ Blood

5. The Holy Road

6. Broken Fortress

7. Enemies and Shadows

8. The Silent City

9. The Iron Temple

10. His Holy Bones

Happy Birthday to My Girl, Rio! #happybirthday #duranduran

Dearest Rio,

Happy birthday to my sister-friend! May this year be filled with mountains, beauty, joy, peace, and loved ones clustered near-by! I love you dearly and am so happy to have you close again!

Oh, Rio, Rio, dance across the Rio Grande!

Love,

Me

The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery #amreading #anne

The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery.

When I was in college, I read some of L.M. Montgomery’s journals, but I don’t think they were this collection. This looks amazing. I’ll have to look into them!

All Missing Mama #peterpan #metric #fanvid

 

“You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you, Peter Pan. That’s where I’ll be waiting.” – J.M. Barrie. Visual Source: Peter Pan (1924) Vividcon 2013 Premiere. Music by Metric.

Fanvid by the always awesome lolawaldorf.