Sunglass Hickeys?

About a week ago, I got the following message:

“jody, i've thought of something that needs a word, and for some reason i just can't think of anything that would fit. have you ever taken off your sunglasses only to find those little red indented lines underneath? horrifying, i know, but i think it's just about time that somebody came up with a word for them...and i know your the only woman for the job.
Signed,
i believe in you. we all do. don't let us down.”

I feel so honored to be trusted with this charge. I have to admit, though, I’m stumped. I mean she’s totally right; we really do need a word for this phenomenon. It’s like discovering I’m a superhero, then failing miserably on my first mission.

So far I’ve come up with the following candidates:

Prong punctures
Shade marks
Sunglass hickeys

I don’t know, though. Somehow none of the above quite satisfies my yen for the perfect neologism. Help me! We all know what she’s talking about, we all know there should be a word, but what is it?

On Line Survival, by Terena

While on my quasi hiatus over the Summer, I collected several interesting articles about publishing, book marketing, and social networking. Here's one of the more interesting ones:

From Business Week - Book Publishers: Learn From Digg, Yelp—Even Gawker
Book publishing could keep itself vital by taking a page from Web 2.0 technologies, but it has a long way to go. Here are some lessons.

This article intrigued me because I am interested in the way the Internet and other forms of technology are changing business, especially the book business. Look at the Music Industry. For the last fifteen years Music Companies have struggled to retain control over their property, the bands they produce and the music those bands create. Anyone can download music for free with ease and share it with all of their friends, on-line and off. Plus, a band doesn't have to be "signed" anymore to find exposure and listeners. Thanks to I Tunes and My Space, your weekend garage band can be listened to by a world wide audience. However, with so many bands competing on line for your attention, how do they stand out from the white noise of the Internet?

Now it's the book industry's turn to figure out how to survive in a digital age. Some publishers are wondering if books are dead. If so, what's next? Many smaller publishers are only creating e-books because they believe e-book readers and on-line zines are the future. In ten years, paper books will be obsolete. The article implies everyone will be reading on a Kindle.

Rather than be afraid of all these technological changes and the impact they are having in the book industry, I want to learn and strategize so Medusa's Muse will survive into the future. So should every publisher.

Just like the music industry, the book market is flooded with books from small presses and self-publishers, all competing for the attention of a decreasing reading market. How can we find our audience? This article discusses that.

From the article:

Reading a book is an incredibly solitary experience. That's both a blessing and a curse. Like most busy professionals, I don't have a lot of downtime. What little free time I have could easily be filled by other pursuits—chiefly, time with a husband I rarely see. When I do commit to a book I love, I want to talk about it. This impulse explains why book clubs were all the rage in the 1990s.

There has to be a way for Web 2.0—a movement whose raison d'etre is to connect people—to meet the ongoing need for building community around books.

What's your online strategy?

Live a Little lives

My first 5 Spot book is out. I feel...the same. Okay, maybe a little thinner.

Here are some of the funniest reactions from people I know:

• "Omigod, where can I get it?" (Whispered under breath, as if could only be pubbed by extremely marginal, nay, illicit publisher.)
• "I bought it already! On Amazon! I pre-ordered it!" (Aiming for Best Fan. Is Best Fan.)
• "Did you get any, like, reviews?" (Self-explanatory.)
• "Is it pink?" (Fuuuuuuuck.)
  
• "Is it better than your other ones?" (Much.)
  
• "It's a comedy about cancer?" (Demoting me to C-list friend.)
• "Will you just give me a copy?" (If I was Danielle Steele, I sure would.)

Why I Wrote This Book by Kim

So, I was asked to write a blog post recently for a site that chronicles the origins of books. To clarify: How authors conceive their ideas.

I found thinking about this weirdly rewarding. That's probably because it ended up being all about, well, me.

Here's what I wrote:

Live a Little, or rather, Raquel Rose, the book’s fortysomething, frustrated heroine, emerged out of my own experience as a harried mom of two. Sometime around the thousand-odd days of parenthood mark, I started to realize that not only is parenting not about your (the grown-up’s) fulfillment, it’s actually about the complete abnegation of self. Kid need a toy while you’re in the first shower you’ve had in six days? No problem; hygiene is overrated. Sleep deprivation got you feeling paranoid or perhaps even homicidal? Read an attachment parenting book; it’ll explain that you’re just being selfish.

One day, while was stuffing my writhing offspring into my raisin-littered sedan while yet another writing deadline came and went unmet, I thought: What would a terminally unappreciated mother do to feel good again? How far would she go?

That’s where Live a Little came from. Now, maybe I’m a cynic, but I tend to think most of us are liars in one way or another. Maybe we just string together small fibs, or perhaps we’re more inclined toward the occasional whopper or self-aggrandizing feint and dodge. I think it is very possible for an otherwise ethical, normal person to spin a web of lies she can’t extricate herself from easily. This precept was the baseline for Raquel’s misadventure, and I demanded a lot from it (and, probably, my readers). I wanted to see how far I could take this idea and still make Raquel relatable (according to Publisher’s Weekly, not as far as I thought, but, hey, what do they know about pathologically lying moms with spare tires and a weakness for surfers with crooked teeth?).

That said, at its core, Live a Little is a suburban satire. It pokes fun at the trials and tribulations of married life, parenting, keeping up with the Joneses and raising high-end(!) children. Although I wouldn’t align myself with Raquel as a character in any specific way, writing this book was a way to shine a light on my own pathologies as a wife and mother. It was an exercise in approaching the challenges of marriage and parenthood with more levity and less zealousness. And, on those terms, for me at least—and I hope some of my readers—it was a success.

Did I Stutter?

by Jordan E. Rosenfeld

I am a social being for the most part, but at times I can become deathly shy or self-conscious, like when meeting new people I hope to impress, or when I'm presenting a workshop or class, bringing out a kind of super-chatty, "look at me" style of conversation that is over-eager and over-compensating and makes me slap myself on the head later for not being more myself.
When I get like that, I pull out this little line to save my ass: "I'm a writer, not a talker."

Now I get to use a brand new line: "I have a new baby" to explain away everything from shyness to my newly acquired stutter. Days and even weeks after giving birth I stuttered so significantly I worried that I had suffered a small stroke during labor, unaware that this was just my brain on total sleep deprivation. Even my worst night's sleep--college cramming, insomnia or stress related--didn't compare to the constant waking of a newborn baby every couple hours or less. Being articulate simply was not an option.

The only thing to cast aside my fears that I had lost a crucial set of brain pathways in the birth process was that I could still string together intelligible sentences when writing. The words still flowed, even though writing a paragraph was a major achievement.

As I've always said--thank god for writing, or I'd be a terrified mute with absolutely no self-awareness.

But it's worth it. See for yourself:

Twilight Saga: I'll Take Jake

So Breaking Dawn, the fourth book in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, hits stores Saturday, right? Although I know I’m in the minority here, I’ve got to add my vote to the fever-pitch riot of opinions popping up all over the internet about Edward and Jacob.

For those who haven’t read it, the series features a love triangle of sorts. We’ve got Bella, the main character, choosing between the stately, traditional, impeccably polite vampire, Edward, and this grease monkey kid from the rez, Jacob who, through no fault of his own, happens to be a werewolf. I know, it all sounds insipid to outsiders, but somehow Meyers makes it work.

The point to all of this is that I love Jacob, man. He’s funny, hot blooded, sweet and raw. He’s torn, faded Levi’s to Edward’s tuxedo. And let’s face it: I’m a sucker for a bad boy.

Although I’ve had mixed feelings about the series and about Bella as a protagonist, I’ve got to say I found it all compulsively readable. I never read a single word of the Harry Potter books, thus effectively missing out on a major cultural movement, so it’s been kind of cool to accidentally get swept up in this one.

My central theory about why the Twilight saga works so well is this: girls want to be worshipped. I know I do. Whenever I feel the slightest complacency from my boyfriend I’m like, “Listen, babe, I’m just not feeling the worship.” Bella’s insecure and clumsy, she’s totally human, yet she’s got two incredible, supernatural hotties worshipping her no matter what she does. Who can resist that fantasy?

I know I’m in the minority when it comes to loving Jake. Come on Cullen-heads, bring it on!

Hunter S Thompson Documentary - "Gonzo"

I went to San Francisco to see "Gonzo - The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S Thompson" with my dear friend Jane, another HST fan. It felt like a sort of pilgrimage because Jane and I had driven two hours from home to sit in that theatre and pay homage to the genius that is Hunter.

I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when I was a freshman in college. My first taste of Hunter. The wildness of the story held together with precise prose and blunt truths made an impact on my own writing and life. This was also the time I had discovered Dead Kennedies and was exploring punk. I was shaking off my small town immaturity and ideals, expanding my world view, and embracing that part of me that howled at the moon. My inner need for chaos was strummed by the writing of Hunter.

Since then, I've read most of his books and much of his writing, and his energy has stayed with me, imprinting on my concepts of art and politics. However, I have no illusions about him. My admiration is not romantic; he was a drug-addict, alcoholic, manic-depressive prone to violent outbursts and when he killed himself I was angry. It felt like a betrayal of everything he wrote. If only he'd had the courage to face the era of George Bush! What wondrous words he would have thrown at the White House!

The movie helped me understand a little better why he felt like he had to die. I saw the human behind the art, the troubled boy behind the angry man. I saw his goodness and compassion and I understood what drove him to ride that edge for so long. He lived his life peering over it until he finally lost the energy to hang on. Over he went, leaving behind his words and his ideas which will resonate forever.