I ended YALLFEST by attending the closing keynote with Brandon Sanderson and Brandon Mull.
Brandon Mull is the author of the FableHaven series. He and Sanderson live up the street from each other and they know each other really well, so their dynamic was really entertaining.
They told stories about when they were little and man did I relate. Sanderson tried to start a detective agency after reading a bunch of mysteries, but after three whole days he had to close down because there were no mysteries. I did the same thing, only I decided to MAKE a mystery and finger painted the neighbor’s car with mud then offered to help them figure out who did it.
The police were called. It was bad. Really, really bad.
Mull was really into Narnia. One time, he went to his Grandmother’s house and realized that she was a mysterious, old person. So he went through her closets. In one closet he found a door in the back wall. Heart beating in trepidation, he opened the door, ready to step through to a new and fascinating world. Instead he found a small room full of canned peaches. But he went back and told his friends that he really did go to Narnia and told them all about his adventures there.
I once convinced my kindergarten class I was catwoman’s daughter. In second grade I convinced my babysitter’s kids that I was actually an elf who was going to die unless they believed in santa. I convinced my third grade class I had telepathy. In fourth grade I had baby twin sisters, until my mom put a firm stop to that rumor, and in fifth grade I matured enough to realize I could just write this stuff down instead of lying to everyone. It’s crazy, and probably a bit self-absorbed, how much of myself I saw in the writers at the conference. The way they talked to each other, the way they talked about writing, about reading, about their nerdy childhoods. That was me. Every bit of it was me. Except this one story.
Mull got a call from the Make A Wish foundation about a little boy who wished to hear the end of the series before he died. Of course he told the boy the ending, but the entire experience changed him forever because books are an escape for everyone, but he never thought about what everyone might be escaping FROM. And if the only thing his books ever accomplish is THAT, he’ll die happy.
They were both really amazing. YALLFEST was a great conference. I highly recommend it.
This is a somewhat recent movie, so warning, spoilers ahead.
Max opens with a slice of life of a Marine in Afghanistan. Kyle, Max’s person, and a group of soldiers search a town for a hidden weapons cache. Max finds it and everyone’s super happy.
The scene cuts to Loralie Gilmore, I know she has a real name, but I don’t feel like looking it up right now, talking in the fakest southern accent imaginable on the clearest computer screen ever. Seriously, it’s like Kyle is in the room with her. Grouchy grandma, oh wait, that’s supposed to be her husband. Sure. Is behind her, fixing a perpetually broken sink, and mopey teen is in the living room playing video games. Kyle recaps Max’s heroic feat, Mrs. Gilmore declares “Ya’ll botha desurve a mehdle or somethin.”
Why? Seriously, why? Why is hollywood incapable of realizing that not everyone with a southern accent talks like a caricature? Agh! I’m going to have to sit through an entire MOVIE of this.
Oh, wait, they’re in Texas. Maybe…nope, still annoying, still fake. Also, why is she the only one with an accent? Literally no one else in the movie had one?
Anyway, Kyle is interrupted by another soldier saying that the brass needs to talk to him right now. Turns out, some of the weapons they found are missing. It’s been going on for awhile. Kyle swears he just handles the dog and is excused from the room. On the way out he confronts his best friend from childhood, Tyler, and says he didn’t know what he was doing before, but he knows now and he can’t cover for him. Come clean, or he will.
That night, Kyle is sleeping, Tyler is ominously getting ready for something, and Max is watching. Always watching.
The next day, things go south when Tyler insists they ignore Max’s signal to wait, which by the way looks no different than his all clear signal. Thank goodness Kyle is there to interpret. Kyle agrees and sends Max forward for some reason when boom, bang, explosions. Kyle rushes into the fray, Tyler ducks behind a rock. The smoke clears and Kyle’s been shot and Max is going nuts. Tyler’s about to shoot Max when other soldiers come in and subdue the dog.
Cut to pouty teenager, apparently named Justin, pirating a video game. He gives the copy to his friend Chuy, and says he two-hundred for it. Grumpy Dad rounds the corner and Chuy takes off. Grumpy dad chastises mopey kid for not coming to work this morning, this incredibly awkward and poorly acted exchange is blessedly cut short when soldiers come to the door bearing bad news.
At the funeral, a group of marines come about midway through the service, and because being late isn’t bad enough, walk right up to the front row and apologize to Mrs. Gilmore for being late. Max is barking and going nuts and eventually gets free so he can curl up beside the coffin. I know it’s supposed to be a touching moment, but when Mrs. Gilmore nods at the paster, indicating he can continue the service, all I can think of is how rude it was that they literally just interrupted a funeral! Wait until the part where everyone is lining up to pay their respects like a normal person. I can see the dog getting loose from he back of the church, but what were they doing walking up to the front like that?
To make matters worse, while the family is trying to mourn, Max is resisting leaving the coffin. He’s barking and growling, but as he passes Justin, he grows strangely calm.
“Who are you?” A true idiot of a marine asks in a slightly amazed voice.
Yes, who could the child standing between Kyle’s parents be?
“Our son?” Mrs. Gilmore asks, gradually dropping the accent as the movie progresses.
“He must be able to sense it. Can you help us get him in the cage? I mean, I know it’s your brother’s funeral and everything, but it’ll just take a minute.”
So the family leaves the casket to walk the dog until he gets to his cage.
Look, I’m not saying the dog shouldn’t have come to the funeral, but why did they try to make him leave while everyone was still milling around? Like, it’s bad enough they got there late and disrupted the entire funeral once, can’t they just wait? Maybe the family wanted a minute? My god, have some respect.I mean, this family has been through enough. Do they really have to watch their sons dog cry and fight as he wrestled into a cage and muzzled?
The scene shifts to Justin pirating another game, but his heart just isn’t into it, so he goes to explore his brother’s room. His dad interrupts with a speech about how Justin has so much to learn from his brother about “being a man.” The two get into an argument, and my hatred for grumpy dad increases, because seriously, your son is allowed to mourn to. If you can’t manage to say something comforting, shut up.
Their argument is interrupted by Mrs. Gilmore telling them that “they’re going to kill Max.” Again, WHY would they even tell the family that right now? There son just died! It’s like the screen writers are trying to make this movie about mourning and moving on, only they’ve forgotten that death is something that needs to be mourned and moved on from.
Despite the dog being dangerous and unstable, the family gets approval to take him home. “Kyle’s gone,” grumpy dad snaps when Justin points out that he doesn’t want to do this. “This is your dog now.”
Please don’t eat me
Okay, but maybe he doesn’t want a dog. Maybe he doesn’t want HIS BROTHER’S dog. Even ignoring the fact that it’s a huge, unstable dog with flashing teeth that they have to keep chained up in the backyard so he doesn’t hurt anyone and that’s a hell of a lot of responsibility to lay at the feet of a child, there’s an emotional component there, a living, breathing reminder that this dog is somewhat nice around you because it basically thinks he’s his dead brother. Or senses something of his dead brother in him, or I don’t know. Dead brother. Like, it’s a lot. And I’m not saying he shouldn’t keep the dog, but it’s really disturbing to me that Justin doesn’t have a voice in this. That his grief and his feelings aren’t respected.
Also, not cool having your dog chained up in the front yard in the heat of a Texas summer. No.
The next day, Justin goes off with his BMXing group of friends and meets Chuy’s cousin, Carmen. She got kicked out of her house because she got a tattoo. She’s not impressed with anyone. She has a snarky answer for everything. And she’s a dog training expert. She’s also really hung up on respect. Respect your dad, don’t let him disrespect me, respect Max. It’s like her buzz word. I want to like her as a character because given proper development, she could be interesting, but she’s just this over the top caricature. I don’t know that it’s her fault though? It may just be that she’s the only character that has a laugh track. Every time she says anything, there’s a group of boys in the background going “ooh! Dang!”
Cue dog training montage. Max makes progress, yay! As a thank you, Mrs. Gilmore invites Carmen to THE most awkward family dinner ever. First Mrs. Gilmore cries because she overcooked the food because she was distracted thinking about Kyle, then when Carmen reveals she knows so much about dogs because her father and brother trains pitfalls, Grumpy Dad goes “to fight?” “Um, no, jerk. He rescues them.”
I feel so bad for her character. She just keeps being put in SUPER awkward situation after situation.
Also, commentary on family dynamic. The parents feel like they should be set in the fifties. Maybe sixties. Like maybe they’re the generation that raised Kitty and Red Foreman. But the kids are “modern” only it’s actually like they’re an old person’s idea of what kids are like these days. All sulky and disrespectful and pirating video games on giant screens with complex codes and numbers flashing by. Carmen is your modern girl that doesn’t need anyone’s approval but her own, tough as nails, tons of attitude who by the second act of the movie is following Justin’s lead and wearing dresses and makeup.
Who the hell are you?
Anyway, Tyler randomly shows up. Without calling. After dark. In the middle of dinner, to pay his respects and asks “I’m sorry, who are you?” to Carmen when she asks a really logical question about him being discharged. Does no one have manners? Max goes nuts and lunges at him. “Dogs are pretty good judges of character,” Carmen points out later, just in case we didn’t get the piling heaps of hints that maybe Tyler is a bad guy.
The next day, Justin and Max go on a bike ride, seeming to be relaxed and happy, and settled in a routine. They head to their biker friends and Justin flirts with Carmen and shows off what an awesome bike rider he is.
Their happy mood is dashed when they get home to find a huge metal cage in the middle of their yard.
“Your father doesn’t want to argue about it,” Mrs. Gilmore says as she scrubs dishes.
Why would anyone argue about putting a dog in a metal box in the middle of a sun filled yard in the heat of a Texas summer. What is wrong with these people?
The scene shifts to a Fourth of July Parade. The parents are having a moment of quiet grieving together while Justin realizes that maybe the dog that has PTSD and can’t stand the sound of explosions or gun shots may have a reaction to fireworks and rushes home. In a truly touching moment, he climbs in the cage with Max and there’s this sense that they are there for each other. Which is good. Because Justin’s parents sure never stopped to think that maybe all the military pride stuff might make their other son think about his dead brother.
I think this is one of those thinks that bothers me because I’m a parent. I could have enjoyed this movie so much more pre-Bella, but now that I’ve had her, I have to look at things from a parent’s perspective, and I just can’t help being mad at them. I can’t imagine the grief they’re going through, I honestly can’t. It’s too terrible to think about. But it’s like the narrative never even acknowledges that Justin might feel it to beyond a passing moment of sadness when someone mentions his brother. Actual grief. Like, it would be okay if at any point in the movie the adults acknowledged “we haven’t really been there for you, I’m sorry,” but they don’t. And the narrative treats that like nothing odd happened.
The scene shifts to Tyler who is now working for Grumpy Dad. Grumpy dad listens to Tyler and has a more real conversation with him inside five minutes than he’s had with his son the entire movie. It’s because they’re both real men.
Tyler implies that Kyle died because of Max, so in a truly ridiculous move, Grumpy Dad goes home and tries to kill Max. To his credit, he tries to take him somewhere else first, but when Max doesn’t comply, he pulls out his gun and gets ready to shoot.
“Dad? What are you doing.” Justin demands.
“Go inside.”
Right. Because it’s totally cool to shoot the dog your son has bonded with as long as he’s INSIDE the house. The dog that senses something of his brother in him, his dead brother. The dog he’s been responsible for and worked hard to train.
“It’s his fault,” the dad explains. And I get its grief, I do. But…
Justin talks him down, pointing out that Kyle would never put people in danger by working with an unstable dog (I mean, YOU would totally put your family, your son, and your neighbors in danger by bringing a dog you KNOW is unstable to our house than not sticking around for five minutes to make sure your chain can hold when Max lunges once (it didn’t, for the record)) But KYLE would never do that.”
Dad relents with…and here’s the thing I can’t forgive him for “If he messes up ONCE, he’s gone.”
YOUR SON JUST LOST HIS BROTHER. This is ALL he has left of him and he didn’t even WANT the dog! And now you’re going to put THAT kind of pressure on him! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!
Anyway, Justin knows something is fishy about Tyler’s story, so he seeks out the funeral interrupter and asks for the scoop. Tyler was discharged by the administration, not because of a medical issue though, he’ll look into it. (Aren’t these records supposed to be private?) And he gives Justin a classified DVD to watch.
Justin takes the DVD to Carmen, figuring it’s dog training tips from the army or something, and instead is treated to a montage of amazingly filmed footage between his brother and Max, from puppyhood to adulthood. It’s ridiculously gorgeous and sentimental, and Justine wasn’t the only one getting weepy during it.
BTW, cue another super awkward situation for Carmen.
This is a gorgeous shot. The colors! Wow!
Then Emilio shows up and ruins the moment by demanding more pirated video games. He insults Carmen, basically implies that it’s a good thing Kyle is dead, and takes a phone call from…Tyler.
Justin demands his money up front, and as soon as Emilio drives away, uses the money to give Max a scent to follow. They ride through the forest and find Emilio, Tyler, a Deputy, and two members of a Mexican drug Cartel talking about a weapons exchange. Tyler is selling weapons across the border. Color me surprised.
Two dobermans catch on to the fact that they have company and chase Max and Justin through the woods. Max leads the dogs away from Justin. Justin crashes his bike and leaves it behind, getting to the highway with Max and catching a ride to the vets office to treat Max’s bite wounds. When he gets home, the police are waiting to take Max away for biting that deputy. Justin starts to object, but Kyle takes him to the side and after an actually deeply interesting exchange that implies that if Justin doesn’t keep his mouth shut his whole family is going to die.
“I’m just a small fish in a big pond. The big fish sell weapons all over the world and then send wide-eyed hicks like me and your brother over there so we can get shot and killed by ’em so they can cry their crocodile tears, salute the flag, and then sell some more.”
I actually liked the dynamic they had between Justin and Tyler. There was a bit of the cliche “you’re just like me,” but more than that, there was a sense of fear. This is a kid. He’s what, nineteen? And he’s in way over his head with scary people who will kill entire families to get what they want. What he’s saying to Justine isn’t from a place of being evil, it’s from a place of fear. And it’s an interesting departure from his role in the movie so far as the cartoonish villain trying to kill the dog before it can “tell” on him. I wish they’d approached it like this from the get go.
They take Max away to euthanize him, but he escapes once he gets to the pound. Meanwhile, Grumpy dad catches on that something is amiss with Kyle when he catches Kyle and the Deputy taking a bunch of guns out of a storage unit. Dad is kidnapped, but manages to call home and tell his wife “I’m hanging out at the hunting cabin, don’t worry.”
“We have a hunting cabin?” Justin demands.
“No. We do not have a hunting cabin,” Mrs. Gilmore explains.
Cue a wild and crazy rescue mission with Max, Carmen, Chuy, and most importantly Grumpy Dad and Justin working together. Mrs. Gilmore gets a shining moment when she yells at the police for tearing up the neighborhood looking for a missing dog when her husband is missing and they won’t even consider looking for him until he’s been gone over forty-eight hours. Other shining moments she had include when she finally pointed out to her husband that he should ask what’s going on with his son because she doesn’t want to lose another one. I’m actually kind of glad Justin didn’t open up to him though, because that would have been really unrealistic after the way he’s been raised. She also has a moment where she tells Justin she’s “been keeping the peace between you and your father for too long,” that felt realistic, yet annoying, because her husband is clearly the one in the wrong. Yes, the kid is sulky and has a bad attitude, but he’s not even treated like a person, so who can blame him.
For a minute it looks like the dog dies. SPOILER, he doesn’t. And we get a touching moment with Justin talking to Kyle’s headstone.
It wasn’t an awful movie. In fact, according to Bella, it was “The goodest movie ever! I didn’t know you could walk a dog without a leash or ride a bike with your dog.”
But the weird out of sync with time feel, the flat characterization, and the ineptitude of the parents left a lot to be desired. If you want the feel good highlights without the angst, watch this instead.
From Dothraki to Drones: Sci-Fi Fantasy Mashup was easily the coolest panel I attended during YA Lit Fest. This panel featured Marie Lu, Richelle Mead, Brandon Sanderson, Brendan Reichs, Scott Westerfeld, and Mindy McGinnis. I’ve talked about most of those authors before, but let me tell you, listening to Richelle Mead, Brandon Sanderson, and Scott Westerfeld talk is amazing. Listening to them talk TO EACH OTHER is a level of Epic I didn’t know my life was lacking.
About the authors:
Richelle Mead wrote the Vampire Academy series, the Bloodlines series, the Glittering Court, Gameboard of the Gods, the Georgina Kincaid series, the Dark Swan series, and she just released a book based on eastern fairy tales called soundless. She was another person I was super excited about seeing at the conference. I did get her to autograph my copy of Vampire Academy, but unfortunately I chickened out on asking her to sign my notebook because she was on her way out the door and there was a line.
Brendan Reichs wrote the Virals series, which I know nothing about. He was hysterical though, so I may have to check it out. But it’s related to the Bones series, which I really wasn’t a huge fan of (book wise) so maybe not.
Mindy McGinnis wrote Not a Drop to Drink, in a Handful of Dust, and a Madness so Discreet. I haven’t read them, but I’m loving the titles! She had a funny story about how she had a lightbulb moment when she realized that her world could have any animal on it she could imagine. It didn’t even have to be carbon based life forms. Literally anything she could imagine. So she made domestic cats the size of tigers.
I’m going to be honest, I spent most of my time reveling in the fact that I was breathing the same air as my favorite authors, but I did manage to get a few notes down.
Brandon Sanderson said the way he writes such amazingly long books is that he treats each book like it’s a trilogy. So he basically writes three books then writes an anthology of short stories that get woven in, and then during edits everything gets smoothed over and perfected. Sanderson also talked about his laws (check out Sanderson’s laws if you’re interested in world building or magic systems at all, it’s worth the read) and the strange attractor, where you take two familiar things and combine them in a way that makes them unfamiliar.
They talked a lot about setting and how in Science Fiction and Fantasy the setting is basically a character and as a writer they have to figure out what the setting wants when they world build. They need to figure out what is the thing everything needs to get by, like in Dune it was water. Figuring out the limits of a setting makes you get creative. The physics of that world have to follow the scientific method, including the magic systems. One difference they mentioned between “magic” systems in sci-fi and fantasy is that magic cares who does it, science works for everyone. So in Star Wars, the force = a magic system, plasma blasters = tech. Science fiction is implausible, fantasy is impossible.
Both genres reflect contemporary issues, like I’ve said a million times, if you want to know what a society fears, read their stories. Fiction is the truth inside the lie. Only in sci-fi and fantasy those contemporary issues are set against the backdrop of implausible new landscapes.
Best panel ever. I really can’t even capture how I felt listening to it. It was amazing.
Another panel I recently attended was ‘Once Upon A(nother) Time: Fairy Tales Retold. Here’s the authors and a bit of what they talked about.
Danielle Paige wrote the Dorothy Must Die series and the television show Hemlock. She was the moderator of the panel and made sure all the authors had a crown or tiara. I had two chances to get her autograph, and both times chickened out because she was on her way somewhere, and there was a moment of eye contact and hesitation like she was silently asking “Did you want me to sign that,” and I missed both windows :(. She was very casual, very laid back, and very entertaining.
E.K Johnston wrote A Thousand Nights, as did Renee Ahdieh. Not co-wrote. They both rewrote the same fairy tale, which made putting them on the same panel kind of odd? I mean, if it was a Thousand Nights panel, that would be one thing, lots of different perspectives, but it was like everyone else on the panel had written about different fairy tales or approached it in a different way, and then there were these two authors, one from the culture that produced the fairy tale, one not, and I think she felt that. I think it made it hard for her to answer questions without feeling like she was stepping on any toes. It would have been like having the writer of Descendants and The School of Good and Evil at the same panel. They’re in direct competition.But maybe they aren’t, I don’t know. I haven’t read either book so they may be entirely different.
One thing I really noticed at the conference was how much I HAVEN’T read. In most circles, I can kind of pride myself on being on top of new releases and familiar with most books. Here, I was in a completely new league. For every author I knew absolutely everything about, there were three I’d been *meaning* to get to, but there’s so many books! So little time. Makes me wonder what else I’ve been missing out on.
Marissa Meyer is famous for her Lunar Chronicles, which I absolutely love. I really wanted to get her autograph, but she said she was on her way to another panel, so I didn’t get a chance to :(. She didn’t say much during the panel, which was a shame because I’m really interested in her perspective. She wrote such an amazing and interesting series.
Lockhart wrote We were Liars and has a fantasy anthology coming out next year. I haven’t read her book, but she had a wry humor which I definitely appreciated, so now I need to add her story to my TBR pile.
Soman Chainani wrote “The School for Good and Evil,” which I actually have checked out from my library right now. He was very anti-disney, and bashed The Little Mermaid, which I hated him for, and Pan, which I loved him for.
Seriously. Pan. I’ve never been so angry when watching a movie. That wasn’t Peter Pan! There’s an origin story for Peter Pan in Little White Bird, this didn’t just contradict everything ABOUT the source material, it changed Peter’s character into someone uncertain and scared and that’s NEVER been Peter. I liked the idea of making Hook and Peter friends but they failed to deliver because they weren’t each other’s foils. They were caricatures picked up from another story. And I’m not even going to go into TigerLily. Ugh.
Anyway….
Renee Ahdieh wrote The Wrath and the Dawn, which is also based on A Thousand and One Nights. I remember seeing her cover making the rounds before her book came out and thinking it was amazing. I’ll definitely be adding it to my TBR pile along with Johnston’s version. I found it interesting the different impact that fairy tales had on the author’s growing up. Chainani and Lockhart were exposed to the Grimm versions and the darker versions from a young age and kind of resented the sugar coating of those tales, whereas Johnston and the others were raised with the disney versions like myself and were willing to fight to the death to defend them. Personally, I’m a fan of both. Enjoy the magic when you’re little and revel in the darkness as you grow. There’s a lot of layers to fairy tales. Let them mean different things to different people. There’s always going to be something that resonates.
The next panel event I attended was an author chat with Meg Cabot and Melissa de la Cruz. I’ve already talked about Cruz, so I’ll talk a bit more about Meg Cabot.
Cabot wrote The Princess Diaries, the Airhead series, the Abandon series (which almost stopped me from getting published, but that’s another story), The Avalon High series and a ton of other middle grade, YA, and adult books. She’s impressive. I didn’t get as many notes from this one because there wasn’t enough room. Meg Cabot talked a bit about working with Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. Mostly she talked about her new middle grade series, Diaries of a Middle School Princess, though she did touch on the Airhead series, which made me happy. Most of the panel featured the writers answering questions from the crowd. It was really precious watching the little kids try to articulate their questions when they were so star struck! But I was most impressed with how much time and attention Cabot and Cruz gave each question. They were so sweet and so respectful and so kind. It was just really heartening to watch.
I got a wristband to get Cabot’s autograph, but every time I stopped by her line it was an hour deep, so I opted to go to panels instead, because while signatures are awesome, just listening to all these writers talk about their process was just amazing to me. Plus it was great exposure to new books.
I’m not going to go into much detail on this one because 1. It’s new and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone and 2. At $10 a ticket, I’m only going to be watching it once until it comes out on iTunes.
But man was it a good movie.
The Good Dinosaur is The Lion King meets Milo and Otis with DINOSAURS. It’s also a coming of age/boy with his dog story. The movie manages to cram a lot of theme work in despite long stretches of Pixar quality silence.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not UP. But it was a really good movie. Beautiful imagery, surprisingly intense plot, somewhat epic, at times genuinely terrifying for my six year old, (two words: Sky Sharks, you’ll get it when you see it) at other times it was heart wrenching (Stick Figures will make you cry, fair warning), and oddly lacking in comic relief, it’s definitely worth a watch.
People died. It happened. And more often than not, death wasn’t right or fair. I wasn’t going to twist myself into knots about it. But if I told Persephone how I felt, she’d attribute my lack of grief as divine callousness.
But here’s the thing. Humans were modeled after us. How else could they watch the news—a montage of war, death, and human suffering—over coffee then go about their day like nothing was wrong? People needed a certain level of callousness to get by without drowning in the horror story of life.
~Aphrodite
I’ve been pretty quiet on the Paris front. At first it was ignorance. I was at YALLFEST when the attacks occurred and in an effort to be more present in the moment, I wasn’t checking my phone or logging into social media much over the weekend.
But then I checked back into the real world and felt horrified at the violence I found there, but almost before I had a chance to process that, came the guilt. Social Justice Warriors united as one to condemn the mainstream media for their grief over Paris when so many OTHER places had suffered without an ounce of media coverage.
I wanted to react right away. I wanted to sit and write this blog and comment on every post I saw. But I stopped myself because engaging would only detract from the real issue at hand and that’s not respectful to all the Parisians who lost their lives. I also stopped to evaluate my feelings and make sure my knee jerk reaction wasn’t just me being defensive.
And mostly, it was. Because yeah, I feel guilty. There is a massive double standard when it comes to news from Western Countries as opposed to the rest of the world. Yes, it is problematic that trivial stories about celebrity gossip made the front page on days hundreds died in countries most westerners aren’t sure how to pronounce. But telling people when and who they should mourn is not the way to get that message across. Hijacking a tragedy to prove a point is never going to be respectful and it’s not going to change anyone’s minds. Worse, guilt tripping other people is slacktavism at its finest. Instead, DO something. Next time you want to share a Facebook post shaming people for not caring enough about a thing, anything, stop and make a donation to support that cause. I promise there’s a button to share the donation you made with a link to information about the issue you support and a way to take action.
As for the sins of the mainstream media, we live in the information era. Why limit yourself to mainstream media? Seek out news from a variety of sources. The mainstream media reports what they think people want to read. If you want to change that, be the person that doesn’t fit their algorithm and share the stories that you think people need to read. But do it in a way that doesn’t condemn people for what they do and don’t know or how much they do or don’t care. Because as messed up as it is, to some degree we have to cherry pick what we do and don’t care about because if we stopped to acknowledge every tragedy, even on identical scales, we’d never stop. And even for the tragedies we do stop to acknowledge, we’re never going to mourn enough. I had school on September 12th, 2001. I’m willing to bet that 90% of the people here in the states saw the news about Paris, read the story, forwarded the status and then went right back to work, saddened, but not on the level that death demands.
Unless we are personally affected by a tragedy, we cannot care enough. It’s not possible. And while that sounds like a horrible thing, it’s a survival mechanism we have to have in order to keep going. But making people feel guilty for the moment they did (and sorry, no matter how many caveats there were in all those statuses and articles about how we should still mourn Paris but we should mourn equally, doesn’t change the fact that at the core, people were being guilt tripped for caring), that’s not going to make them care more. It’s only going to make them more callous the next time around and the world we live in is callous enough.
My thoughts are with Paris. My thoughts are with the world. Want to make a difference instead of just talking about it? Click here to make a donation to Doctors Without Borders or The Red Cross or any organization you feel is making a positive difference in a place you feel needs it. A dollar goes a lot further than a like.
On Friday, I went to the YALLFEST. There were no workshops or anything on Friday, just signings, but because I only read eBooks, I had a problem. I’m a fan of 90% of the authors who attended YALLFEST. Not a small fan, like I’ve read everything they’ve ever penned, but I didn’t have copies of their books and their books are nearly $20 a piece. You see my dilemma? So I bought four books and a notebook for the other authors to sign with writerly advice.
A bit on the authors I got autographs from on Friday. Brandon Sanderson is 99% why I was there. I’ve said it more than once, and I’m not embarrassed to say it again. He’s a writing god. I love him, in a totally platonic way, I mean. So…less like love, more like I think I may worship him?
He wrote the Mistborn series, Elantris, and he finished the Wheel of Time series because he’s that amazing. He does a podcast called Writing Excuses where he talks a lot about his process, and as a human being he’s just pretty amazing. Example: Anytime he has a spare minute in an airport he goes to the bookstore nearest him and signs every copy of his books in stock so that the next person who buys his books gets an amazing surprise. He’s also pretty awesome to follow on twitter.
In person, he’s just as amazing. He signed my Mistborn book, my notebook of writing advice, and cards for members of my writer’s group when I mentioned how much they loved him as well and how we’re essentially his cult.
Here’s what he wrote in my notebook: Write what you love, finish what you write. You’re out of excuses.
Rae Carson was my next signature in the notebook. She wrote the Fire and Thorns trilogy, which I haven’t read, but I’ve been eyeing them on kindle for weeks now. I’m going to kick myself if I read them and they end up being my favorite books. But what can you do?
Her advice: Don’t waste time on projects you don’t love. Pursue passion.
Melissa De La Cruz is most famous for writing Disney’s Descendents, but she also wrote the Blue Bloods series among many other books. I think she’s also the mind behind Witches of East End? She was on every panel I attended and she was pretty awesome in each of them.
Her advice: Never Give Up!
Margaret Stohl is famous for her Beautiful Creatures series. I was not the biggest fan of that book, because while I felt it had a great message for young women, (Claim Yourself), it fell short when the dark/evil girl’s only defining “evil” feature was that she was promiscuous. Like prior to being evil she wasn’t? I don’t like the message that sends, that everything that matters about young girls is wrapped up in their sexuality one way or another. So I was fully prepared to dislike this author, but after listening to her talk at a few panels (more on those later) I really like her. I’m really interested in where she goes from Beautiful Creatures.
Her advice: Put your butt in the chair and do it.
It was an awesome beginning to a great conference. Just wait till you hear about the panels.
I’m not going in any official capacity. Mostly I’ll be there to completely fan girl over Brandon Sanderson and Scott Westerfeld and Gail Carriger, and Veronica Roth and, and, and….OMG!!! I’m so excited by the list of authors I might actually get to meet. But I’d be happy to meet readers too! Send me a message if you’re there. Maybe we can meet up.
The next day, Justin goes off with his BMXing group of friends and meets Chuy’s cousin, Carmen. She got kicked out of her house because she got a tattoo. She’s not impressed with anyone. She has a snarky answer for everything. And she’s a dog training expert. She’s also really hung up on respect. Respect your dad, don’t let him disrespect me, respect Max. It’s like her buzz word. I want to like her as a character because given proper development, she could be interesting, but she’s just this over the top caricature. I don’t know that it’s her fault though? It may just be that she’s the only character that has a laugh track. Every time she says anything, there’s a group of boys in the background going “ooh! Dang!”
Richelle Mead wrote the Vampire Academy series, the Bloodlines series, the Glittering Court, Gameboard of the Gods, the Georgina Kincaid series, the Dark Swan series, and she just released a book based on eastern fairy tales called soundless. She was another person I was super excited about seeing at the conference. I did get her to autograph my copy of Vampire Academy, but unfortunately I chickened out on asking her to sign my notebook because she was on her way out the door and there was a line. 
Kaitlin Bevis 