Ch-ch-ch-changes

So the Big Chimp and I have some pretty big changes coming up. Next month, we're moving. But not just to a new house or a new town. We're moving across the ocean, like this:

This won't be the first time I've done this, but that doesn't mean it isn't stressful and a little scary. I've lived in England for almost five years now, four of them with the Big Chimp. And if you include my junior year abroad during college, that adds up to about 60% of my adult life spent living in the UK. Even my accent has changed—I pronounce tomato to-mah-to and banana ba-nah-na. In short, I've pretty much forgotten how to be American.

And I'm excited, too. We're moving to my hometown, wherein resides the largest chunk of my family—my sisters, my aunt, my grandma and my unbelievably ancient cat, Timmy. I've got a niece and a nephew there, and childhood friends, and—stacked patiently in a cheap storage unit—all of my books. And there's sunshine there, and beaches, and Mexican food, and palm trees and avocados and the Pacific Ocean and all the other things that, in my mind, make up home.

It's a strange feeling, going back to a place that I left so long ago. But it's an adventure, too. When I came to England the second time, to do my MA, I only planned to stay a year. I arrived in Brighton knowing no one and now I have this whole British existence that I never could have imagined just a few years ago. Isn't life weird?

All experiences, big and little, contribute to creating and developing your personality. England is one experience that I'm so, so glad I've had, for so many reasons. But I'm ready for a new adventure now. And a little bit of sunshine.

June reads

I read a mix of things in June: a sprawling family saga, a Shakespeare play, a book on physics, a contemporary YA novel, and lots and lots of manga.

• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese—I read this on the recommendation of my mother-in-law, and I wasn't disappointed. It's a long, complex story centering around a set of identical twins born in Ethiopia in the 1950s to an Indian nun and a British doctor, but raised by neither. In-depth characters and a wonderful sense of place, but a bit too graphically violent for me at times.
• Fruits Basket, Volume 14 by Natsuki Takaya—I think I'm falling out of love with this series, because I didn't like this volume or the one that precedes it. I still love the earlier volumes of the series, but the newer ones (in my opinion) focus too much on uninteresting characters, and certain plots—like the Sohma children being rejected by their parents—are being done to death.
• The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare—It's Shakespeare! Yay! And this is a weird one—seriously troubling stuff intermixed with the usual Shakespearean comedy routines: disguises, gender swaps, weddings and trickery. Gives some unsettling insight into the extent of anti-semitism in Europe in the 16th Century.
• An Abundance of Katherines by John Green—A novel about a former child prodigy who's just been dumped by a girl named Katherine for the 19th time, and his quest to find a formula to explain and predict romantic relationships while on a road trip with his best friend. I learn a lot of interesting facts reading John Green novels, which is always a plus. That being said, this novel didn't quite do it for me. I did like a lot of things about it, but at times I found the main characters just on the wrong side of the line between funny and annoying. That being said, at 27 I'm not exactly the book's target audience—ten years ago I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more.
• Doll, Volume 1 by Mitzukazu Mihara—A creepy manga series of short stories set in a future where people keep humanoid animatronic "dolls" as servants, companions, and sometimes something more sinister. Unsettling and well-written—I really enjoyed it.
• Cardcaptor Sakura: Master of the Clow, Volume 1 by CLAMP—A manga about an elementary school girl called Sakura who has magical powers. My local library accidentally ordered this in for me instead of the original Cardcaptor Sakura. Since it was there already, I read it. I liked the characters but felt I was really missing something by not having read the original first.
• Uzumaki by Junji Ito—Another creepy manga, recommended to me by a Scottish dude I work with at the library. This one is about a town that's haunted not by a ghost, but by a pattern—the spiral. Super scary and horrific, with a few scenes of pretty graphic violence. Unsettling yet un-put-downable.
• Relativity: A Very Short Introduction by Russell Stannard—A short nonfiction book about Einstein's special and general theories of relativity. Lots of neat but pretty confusing facts about gravity and space-time. A quick read and worth it if you're at all interested in physics.
• Cardcaptor Sakura, Volume 1 by CLAMP—A fun manga about Sakura, a school girl who has to capture escaped magical cards before they wreak havoc on her town. Loved the characters, especially Sakura—a confident ten-year-old who is great at sports—but I felt the card-capturing scenes were a bit repetitive.
• Bakuman, Volume 3: Debut and Ungeduld by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata—I continue to enjoy this manga series about two young boys who are trying to make it in the manga business. Lots in here both about the creative process and the publishing process for manga, and in the course of the story I'm learning a lot about Japanese culture, too.
 

So, what have you been reading lately? Do you tend to stick with one genre or format, or are your tastes more eclectic? Let me know in the comments!

WIP 2: It's done!

Well, as of June 28th the first draft of Dyllan and Abigail is done!

To steal an idea from Sarah at Squidink, here is a word cloud representing a big chunk of my draft (it was too long to copy/paste the whole thing):

Apparently my characters look at stuff a lot?

Anyway, here are some statistics:

Genre: Young adult fantasy novel
Start date: November 1st, 2011
Time worked on: 7 months, 28 days
Word count: 120,556
Pages (printed): 899

I am so in love with this story right now. Yes, the draft is a bit all over the place, but it's also much cleaner and much more focused than the first draft of Water Magic was.  I'm putting it away for at least six weeks now, but I'm already excited for the drafting phase.

Now the question is: should I go back to drafting Water Magic, or write something new? I feel a dragon-centric novel begging to be channeled, and two or three children's stories that I put aside a while ago that want to be written.

Blog readers: what writing or reading milestones have you conquered lately, or what goals are you working toward? Let me know in the comments!

Hogwarts birthday!

Last weekend was my birthday, and as a super special celebration Big Chimp and I visited the Warner Bros Studio Tour: The Making of Harry Potter. Not only did this make me unspeakably happy, but it also served to remind me what a monumental task it is to create a believable world. I mean, the number of minute details in the sets, things you wouldn't even notice in the films, was mind-boggling. And it all pointed back to JK Rowling's amazing worldbuilding with the seven Harry Potter novels. The wizarding world in which Harry Potter, his friends, and his enemies reside is an entire world, with no vital detail left out—from Gringotts to the Ministry of Magic to the rules for quidditch to the history of Hogwarts. This world is deep, and intricate, and not only believable but also relatable.

The tour itself was very thorough, including a visit to the Great Hall, Harry's dormitory, the Gryffindor Common Room, Dumbledore's Office, the Burrow, and the Ministry of Magic. Between the two sound stages you visit is a coutyard housing the Knight Bus; Hagrid's motorcycle; Number Four, Privet Drive; and the Hogwarts bridge. There's also a little cafe that sells snack and, more importantly, butterbeer (delicious, super sweet, a bit cream-soda-ish with a hint of butterscotch)! The second sound stage focuses on animatronics, masks, and creatures, and the super impressive and detailed Hogwarts model, which I won't talk about too much because I don't want to spoil it for those of you planning on going, but trust me, it's amazing.

We got the audio tour, which costs a little more, but it's narrated by Tom Felton and has lots of cool extra facts and videos. The only trouble was the touch screen, which I kept bumping accidentally and skipping ahead.

I could go on and on and on about the tour, the films, the books, and what a hero Joanne Rowling is to me, but you'd rather look at photos, right? Right.

Waiting in line. Not too long a wait—about 10 minutes. You have to buy tickets in advance, and they give you a time to show up. Ours was 17:30.

Harry's cupboard.

Welcome to Hogwarts.

Dumbledore's office!

Ravenclaw's diadem in the horcrux display case. Note the engraving: Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure!

Potions classroom. Thousands of bottles with different ingredients, all hand labeled.

Hagrid's hut.

Magic is Might

Details, details.

Drinking butterbeer while driving Hagrid's motorcycle: life is good.

"Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."

Knight Bus!

Eeylops Owl Emporium, Diagon Ally.

Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, Flourish & Blotts, Fortescue's, Ollivanders, Gringotts <3

All in all it was an amazing experience, and I feel so lucky that I got to go!

Question time: have you ever been on a literary/art/music pilgrimage? Who and what and when? Tell me about it in the comments!

WIP Wednesday

Just a short update to say: the first draft of Dyllan and Abigail is almost done! At this point I think we're 10,000 words or fewer from the end. Yay home stretch! I'm hoping to finish in the next two weeks. The book needs a lot of work, but on the plus side I have a pretty good idea of what needs to change and how to tighten up the plot. I can't wait to get out my plotting notebook and highlighters.

Current total word count: 111,325

Random quote:

For a moment Davy’s head spun. The other side. That’s what people called the afterlife, wasn’t it? He had the horrible thought that he was about to die, and his brain was coping by coming up with this elaborate fantasy. Tears welled in his eyes. Maybe the next world wouldn’t be as strange and frightening as this one.

How is your writing/reading week going? Let me know in the comments!

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012)

I was sad to hear the news that Ray Bradbury passed away on Tuesday. I first encountered this author's stories in middle school with The Martian Chronicles. In high school I read and loved the short story "All Summer in a Day," about school children living on Venus, where the sun shines only once every seven years. It wasn't until last year that I finally read Bradbury's classic novel Fahrenheit 451, about a dystopia where firefighters exist for the sole purpose of burning books—a powerful, frightening book.

In 2010 I had the pleasure of attending a panel featuring Ray Bradbury at Comic Con International in my home town of San Diego. He looked very old, and he couldn't hear very well, but he seemed happy, and what he had to say was interesting and thought-provoking. He talked for a while about space exploration, and Mars in particular (the colonization of which is the only chance for the survival of the human species), and writing, and life, and learning, and happiness. I had my notebook with me that day, so that I could write down interesting quotes and facts from the panels we went to. I have three quotes from Ray Bradbury's panel that I still think of often. Firstly,

"When I was twenty-six years old, I graduated from the library."

Bradbury couldn't afford to go to college, so after he graduated from high school he educated himself at his local library, going there several days a week for four hours at a time. I just think that is so cool, so empowering. We so often get caught up in the idea of formal education that we forget that we can (and should!) educate ourselves. There's really no excuse for ignorance—at least not if you have access to a library (and the time to use it). This is especially true for those of us with the privilege of an Internet connection. Which brings us to the next of Bradbury's quotes; in response to the question, "Ray, what do you think of the Internet?"

"The Internet is one great big, goddamn, stupid bore!"

Which, you know, as a blogger/Tweeter/Facebooker/Skyper...I sort of have to agree with. A little bit. In some respects. I mean, I think the Internet is great for so many things, like meeting other people with the same interests as you, and talking about books, and keeping in touch with friends and family who live eight time zones away. But there comes a time when we all need to remember the real world and real experiences, and that they happen whether or not I remember to update my Facebook status. Meeting up with friends in real life, taking the dog for a walk, making dinner—there are so many great things about life that cyberspace (do people still call it cyberspace?) just can't compete with. Which brings me to the third quote I scribbled down that day in my notebook:

"I've had a pretty goddamn good life!"

You can't say fairer than that.

Rest in peace, Mr. Bradbury.

May Reads

Another month is gone! Can you believe it? Here in Britain we've finally had a few days of sunshine and warmth, but now we're back to freezing rain, just in time for HRH Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee (and yet thousands of Britons lined the banks of the Thames yesterday for hours to see Her Majesty float by on her royal barge—there's something strangely endearing about that).

Anyway, here is what I read in the month of May:

• Fruits Basket Ultimate Edition, volumes 1, 2, and 4 (and Fruits Basket regular edition, volume 13), by Natsuki Takaya {manga}: Going back to the beginning in my favorite manga series, which follows orphan Tohru Honda as she is taken in by the beautiful and mysterious Sohma family and soon discovers their curse—that twelve of them are possessed by the vengeful spirits of the Chinese zodiac. Afflicted family members turn into their zodiac animals when they are sick, weak, or hugged by a member of the opposite sex. I love this story, especially Tohru's indefatigable optimism—it just makes me smile.
• Songs to Make you Smile by Natsuki Takaya {manga}: Curious to read some of Fruits Basket author Natsuki Takaya's other work, I've been wanting this collection of short stories for a while. I liked the stories, particularly the title one, in which the slightly odd singer in a teenage pop band tries to make the bullied, troubled girl he has a crush on smile. It's super cute and heart warming. Some of the stories in the collection are older, and you can really see how Takaya's art style has evolved into the clean, polished drawing that we see in Fruits Basket. The only story I didn't like as much was the bonus chapter, which struck me as a bit creepy with its odd sexual references.
• 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson {YA contemporary}: Fast-paced, easy-to-read novel about Ginny, a 17-year-old girl whose free-spirited aunt bequeaths her 13 envelopes, each with a task for her to complete. Only when she completes the task can she move on to the next envelope. In the first envelope: a thousand dollars and instructions to buy a plane ticket to London; so begins an adventure that leads Ginny all over Europe. At first the novel seemed a disjointed series of events, and it felt like the author just wanted to take the reader along to all of the neat places she herself had visited. But toward the end the plot really came together, and I ended up liking the book. I did have a hard time believing that Ginny's parents would allow her to travel to Europe on her own for an unknown span of time with no cell phone or itinerary, and instructions not to contact home at all. But once I got past that, I enjoyed the story. I was pleased to find that, with the exception of Scotland and Greece, I'd been to all of the places that Ginny visits in the story, which really helped me to visualize her journey. A good, readable, if not especially deep novel.
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor {YA fantasy}: I'd heard great things about this YA fantasy, but still approached it with a certain amount of skepticism, since I haven't loved most of the YA paranormal romance stories I've read. The book follows 17-year-old Karou, an art student in Prague who has had a rather unusual upbringing, in that she was raised by chimaera—hideous magical beasts who are actually pretty nice once you get to know them. When the seraphim—the angels—arrive, bent on carrying on an ancient war between the two races, Karou finds herself caught in the middle of it. So, I've raved about the book here. It's one of the best novels I've read this year, and if you haven't read it yet, I recommend you do so post haste. Just be warned: the sequel doesn't come out until November.
• Hot Gimmick, Volume 1 by Miki Aihara {manga}: When high school student Hatsumi has to buy a pregnancy test for her younger sister, the housing complex bully finds out and threatens to tell unless Hatsumi becomes his slave. I really liked the art, characters, and story in this manga, but I'm upset by how casually the author/characters treat sexual assault.
• Nana, Volume 1 by Ai Yazawa {manga}: Two very different young women, both named Nana, are thrown together when they both move to Tokyo for a fresh start. For the first half of the book I felt a bit iffy—Nana number one struck me as a bit helpless, naive, obsessed with finding a man to complete her life, and into drinking, all of which make her hard to like. The second half focuses on Nana number two, a rock musician in a semi-popular band. This Nana is much more interesting, and I love that she's independent and yet still vulnerable. Having read much tamer manga up to now, I was surprised at the more mature content: sex, drinking, and smoking (I guess that's why it's rated Older Teen), but all of that was okay once I got used to it. Not hooked on the series yet, but I'll read the next couple of volumes to give it a chance—it has to be one of Japan's most popular mangas for a reason, right?
• Bakuman, Volume 2: Chocolate and Akamaru by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata {manga}: Ninth graders Moritaka and Akito continue their quest to become successful manga artists. I love the way this series focuses on the creativity and especially the hard work it takes to make a work of art, and I love the way it informs us about the business side of manga. I also enjoyed the introduction of a new interesting character, Eiji Nizuma, an eccentric high school prodigy who soon becomes the boys' biggest rival. I still wish there were more—and more interesting—female characters, but I like the series and will continue reading it. 

So that's it! What have you been reading lately?