Treat me like a stripe in your banner

Treat me like a stripe in your banner

I simply don’t fit in society’s life planner

When kids in school played being grown

I found peace and solace all on my own

 

Is this some part of the prudish thing

A short-lived phase that’s come to sting?

My time will come in the traditional way

But that time, make note, is not this day

 

So let me hang onto the tattered rags

That ravel from your gaily colored flag

Until arrives my one, true destiny

I’ll take this semblance of unity

 

I hope you get it, my favorite color

Has temporarily switched to another

So I can enjoy some solitude

This is my choice, I am a prude

Like a River Glorious by Rae Carson [Gold Seer Trilogy #2]

Like a River Glorious is the sequel to Walk on Earth a Stranger in the Gold Seer trilogy by Rae Carson.  In my review for the first book, I was raving about just how well Carson’s writing holds my attention.  While I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the last one, Like a River Glorious held my attention just as much; I finished it in approximately one sitting.

He’s Out There

I don’t often do poems with religious overtones, but here’s one. Enjoy?

Inside the depths of your little museum

Stay the greatest of artwork and artists

Ever to cross your corner of the world and

Ending where the allies drew her lines

You thought it’d be simple enough to hide

Over the hills, safe within Mother’s proxy but

Under G-d’s watchful eyes – He’s out there

Believe if you want to or hide in your anger

Underneath Siberia’s deep snow and ice

But I believe that He’s watching me too

splitting of the sea

it’s been 10 wonderful joyous years

but behind the joy lies a trail of tears

tears shed for misunderstandings

misunderstandings of you and me

 

for 10 glorious, wonderful years

i held back shedding all my tears

i held on to the memories of ours

ours to cherish of peace and love

 

but things can change in 10 years

people can change in 10 years

the girl i once was is no longer

the woman you want me to be

 

i stand before this pool of tears

collected in these 10 long years

years i took to craft this staff

the staff i’ll use to split the sea

 

and now it’s over

Book Review: Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry [MINIMAL SPOILERS]

Gathering Blue is one of four sci-fi / utopian stories by Lois Lowry, known informally as The Giver Quartet.  The Giver, I’d say, is the most well-known of these books, and for me, it was a mixture of disturbing, fascinating, and thought-provoking content.  The way it handled human emotions, even the beginnings of puberty, was delicate and unoffensive.  Whether you’re reading Number the Stars or The Giver Quartet, I feel like the most important message that Ms. Lowry conveys here is that progress and modernity do not necessarily equal the extinguishing of evil from the world.

The world of Gathering Blue is far more rural and (dare I say) backwards than the world of The Giver, but many of the social problems are the same.  The village people practice euthanasia, albeit a more “natural” type, where disabled or sickly people are usually cast out into the Field for “the Beasts” to devour, or to simply die of neglect and starvation.  Speaking of disabled people, ableism (discrimination in favor of “able-bodied” people) is a very big theme in this book.

The Friendship Genre (!!!!)

My lovely friend “Mage” made a phenomenal proposal for a new literary genre:

There should be a friendship genre, if there isn’t one already!

It would be a lot like the romance genre, but the focus will be more on the platonic bonds between the characters. Instead of struggling to get together with the person that they want to be in a relationship with, the protagonist would be trying to make a new friend over the course of the novel. Or, if they already have a friend in the beginning, the novel would be about keeping that friendship going despite all the rough patches that might spring up.

And, like the romance genre, it can take place pretty much anywhere! It could be about the budding friendship of a spaceship’s alien pilot and her human passenger. It could be about two friends surviving against the odds in a dystopian world where friendship is forbidden. It could be about two high school students meeting through clubs and discovering their identities together.

The possibilities are endless!

The best part is that it wouldn’t be restricted to books. There could be movies, TV shows and even podcasts that could all be classified as the same genre.

It would be such a wonderful genre to become immersed in!

I want to write this.  I want to read this.  I am all for this.  Who’s with me?!?!

 

10 reasons why I might not be a *real* writer

This is all quite tongue-in-cheek, of course. 😛

1. I don’t drink tons and tons of coffee.  I love the occasional iced coffee, especially if it’s a slushy iced coffee.  Occasionally, I’ll drink caffeine-free herbal teas to soothe my throat for my voice acting.
2. I rarely stay up late to write.
3. I’ve never won a real NaNoWriMo which requires 50k words in 30 days.
4. I don’t have an agent.
5. I don’t have stacks and stacks (or the ashes of) rejection letters from publishers.  I rarely enter writing contests.  I submitted a short story to a lit-mag and heard back from them once.
6. I’ve never read Stephen King’s On Writing.  I read a short story by Stephen King once for school, and thought it was okay.
7. I’ve never been a New York Times Bestselling author.
8. My books don’t have love triangles in them.  Well, not seriously, anyway.
9. I’ve never killed my darlings on-page. Not yet.
10. I think I’ve only sold, like, three copies of my first self-published book, and given copies to four or five other people.