controversial reading

It's been a weekend of bookish controversy.

I started keeping an eye on the Amazon-Macmillan school playground bullying fest when Jay Lake and John Scalzi mentioned it on their blogs. (If you want to get into the detailed meat of it,Tobias Bucknell does a good job of explaining it.) [Edit to add 1 Feb: John Scalzi has hilarious final words on this issue, but I warn you - salty language alert.]

Readers want affordable e-books. Authors want a reasonable income from the effort they've put into their writing, which hopefully would be boosted a bit now that e-books are becoming more and more popular (if you think writers make pots of money writing books and don't need day jobs...um, no; the J.K. Rowlings of the world are aberrations, not standards). Macmillan, as do other publishers I'm sure, wants more control over e-book pricing now that Apple has said it will give them more control over pricing in the iBooks store. Ideally, they want an e-book pricing structure similar to that for hardcovers, trade paperbacks, and mass market paperbacks. I'm not clear on whether the quality of the electronic file would reflect this type of price structure. Amazon wants more people to use the Kindle, especially now when there's a formidable competitor in the wings that will be released to the masses soon, so lower-priced e-books would help them do this.

Obviously, Macmillan and Amazon are engaging in this match for profit reasons. I doubt that the effect this has on readers and authors is top of mind for either company, despite Amazon caving. Here's why:

If e-book pricing was the issue, fine. Suspend the e-books only until it's worked out. However, Amazon suspended sale of print books by Macmillan authors as well (ie, directing people to third-party sellers). Pricing for print books by Macmillan authors was never the issue, so the print books should have been left alone. That Amazon started this on a Friday when it might have been less noticeable and, so far as I know, hasn't said why the print books were included in this suspension smells mighty funky. [Edit to add 1 Feb: apparently, Amazon also removed Macmillan e-books and print books from people's wish lists.]

I wonder if this makes self-publishing look like a better option to aspiring-to-be-published writers like me. Does anyone know if the self-publishing houses get involved in stuff like this? Or what about the smaller publishing houses? Are they/will they be addressing this issue?

It's certainly turned me off from buying e-books for awhile until I see how this plays out in the long run. At least the print books on my bookshelves are mine, and publishers and sellers can't mess with them.

***

I spent most of yesterday afternoon on the couch, under blankets, with a pot of tea and a fireplace put to good use nearby, reading Angel Time, Anne Rice's new novel. Rice is active on Facebook and Twitter, owing somewhat to poor health, which doesn't allow her to get out and about as much anymore, so social media help her keep in touch with readers directly. That's the main thing I love about social media - you can hear from people directly, rather than through the filter of journalism, which more and more has a bad habit of skewing things way out of context. Anyway. it was through her Facebook page that I first heard about Angel Time as well as more about her return to Catholicism after being an atheist for decades.

I've been a fan of her books since I was 17, when I first read The Witching Hour and was enthralled with the history of the thirteen witches in the Mayfair family (and I'd love to work for something like the Talamasca). She's a mistress of atmosphere - her writing is thoughtful, luscious, decadent, dark, and packed with historical detail (she's underrated as an historical scholar - she researches the hell out of topics for her stories). Her books are not fast reads, and she takes her time moving the story forward. I don't mind that a bit. I'd sooner meander through a good story than race through it and miss something.

Judging from the comments she gets on her Facebook page, Anne Rice writing Christian fiction has caused explosions all over the place. I don't know if it's because religion is such a touchy subject in the modern day or because it's her writing it, given what she's written before now. Could be both.

I was intrigued when I first read that she'd returned to the church, and also relieved that she wasn't going around shoving dogma down everyone's throat or shaking her finger at non-Christians and lecturing that everyone was going to Hell. Nothing turns me off faster than an arrogant, self-righteous, pompous attitude, especially when it comes to religion. Thankfully, Rice doesn't have that. She's not renounced her previous books, and hopes people will still enjoy them, particularly now that vampires are in fashion again (Interview with the Vampire was published nearly three decades before Twilight).

I've read little to no Christian fiction. I'm not against it as a genre. If I see a book on a shelf and it looks interesting, I pick it up to read the synopsis and flip to pages at random to read some of the story. If I like enough to buy it, I do. I certainly gravitate to certain genres, but that doesn't make others off limits. So when I've picked up Christian fiction books in a bookstore and gone through the above routine, the synopsis more often than not hasn't interested me, so I've not bought the book. This was not the case with Angel Time.

I like that Rice isn't shying away from darkness in her Christian writing. Toby O'Dare has a doozy of a past, as dark and complicated as any of her vampires had, so it's not surprising that he'd become a contract killer. He prays angrily and sarcastically for help. And he is answered. An angel gives him a choice, an opportunity to change things for himself and be of worthy service to others. Which isn't to say that things will be easier for him, but the despairing voice that's plagued him for years will have no more power over him. That in particular resonated with me. As one who has a history of depression and anxiety, I know that voice. It's an annoying and yet alluring little bastard. The way Rice describes it rings true.

Toby's not going in for conversion easily, however. There would be no story if he did. He doesn't believe in the angel at first. He thinks it's his own madness. He doesn't think he deserves to be saved - he's a contract killer, for crying out loud. He doubts. He questions. You're halfway through the book before Toby accepts what the angel is and what he has to do to begin to redeem himself. To get Toby to believe and to give the reader Toby's back story so that you understand his motivation, the angel reviews Toby's life. Rice manages what could have been tricky. When Toby and the angel first meet, the angel can read Toby's mind, so when the angel narrates Toby's life, he/she/it can describe what Toby thought and felt. Clever.

Angel time is very like traveling with the Doctor. There is no past, present, or future the way we think of it. All time is present time as soon as you are in it. Everything is happening at once from the divine perspective. When the angel takes Toby into 13th century Norwich, we are in classic Anne Rice territory - an historical setting for an adventure, which is always fun. And there's certainly tension and conflict and danger in Toby's first mission. The parallels in this adventure to Toby's own life are there to see if you look for them, and I'm not ready to leave off reading about him, which shows the success of the story if the reader can find sympathy for a former contract killer struggling with his own soul and conscience, so the set-up for the next book is satisfying and not surprising. I look forward to reading it.

...and then, the floodgates opened

[This post isn't just about the iPad. Scroll down if you want to skip this bit.]

I was keeping an eye on the live coverage of the presentation (thank you, gizmodo!). And…it's pretty. The touch-typing is nifty. The iBooks are intriguing. I get the concept. Stephen Fry even gushed philosophical about it, and I can see how it would appeal.

I didn't at first think "feminine hygiene product" when I heard the name "iPad." I thought of "note pad" and "scratch pad," but it was an all-too-easy leap after that. "Are you there, God? It's me, Marketing" is my favorite of the jokes. The runner-up is "Will future versions be larger, have wings and dry-weave, and be called maxiPads?" Giggles all around because I am still twelve somewhere in my head. Did no one at Apple consider the possibly unfortunate name? Then again, if it was an all-boys club that built this thing and came up with all the marketing, let alone the majority of the presentation, I guess it wouldn't be on their radar. If there is token female representation on their marketing team, I guess she was ignored?

For whatever reason, the iPad is not geared to women, despite the name, and despite the fact that half the population is female and surely at least some of us know how to use a Mac computer and/or an iPhone, and therefore could make our way around this thing with some degree of confidence. Yet if you watch the official promo video, it's all white males talking about it and using it. The only women or girls in the video are in a couple of pictures in photo albums and a woman sitting next to a guy who is holding an iPad and she gets to hit the play button - and that's a neck-down shot that draws attention to her chest. Seriously? That's the best they could come up with to appeal to the masses? Are we suddenly back in the 1950s?

Please. If you're going to be sexist, at least be subtle about it. This was so blatant as to be appallingly funny. Bust Magazine has a hilarious play-by-play of the video.

Despite the above-mentioned stunning marketing blunder, I might watch movies on it. I'd try out iBooks. I can even see using it as a music tool beyond iTunes. My cello teacher tells me there are instrument tuner and metronome apps available for the iPhone, which I assume transfer to the iPad. I'd love to see an app that would let me download cello sheet music and then prop the iPad right on the music stand and play from that, with the metronome app going in the background, after having used the tuner app. No more lugging music books around (although how would I mark up the pages?). And then I could zoom in on a particular section of the piece of music if that's what I wanted to work on. Oh. Right. No multi-tasking capability. Sigh.

I use my personal laptop for three things: creating and storing documents, communicating via e-mail/Facebook/Twitter/blogging, and wandering around the Internet. I do have a lot of documents on Google Docs, but I've had the occasional problem with being able to open or save a file, so I still have back-up copies on the hard drive and/or on a flash drive.

Would I be able to access and use all the documents I currently have or would I have to convert it all to iWorks? Does anyone actually use iWorks? I've never met anyone who does, and I’ve yet to work for a company that uses it as the main document software.

Ultimately, I like the idea of replacing a traditional laptop, but I'm not sure this is the replacement I want because I still need and want to be able to do what I currently do on my laptop in addition to watching movies, reading books, and using it as part of cello practice. I don’t think the iPad can do all that for me. At least not yet. I’m open to the possibility if they are. Just shrink the border a bit, okay? At least to three-quarters of an inch. Half-an-inch, preferably.

And what is it with STILL only going through AT&T? I refuse to switch to a crappy service just to use a product, which is why I’ve not gotten the iPhone yet. And the service will only get crappier with even more people getting on it to use the new toy. So yet another potential market barred from using it.

And another thing, @rantyeditor is right: Saying something is "half-an-inch thin" doesn't make it sound thinner, it just makes you sound dumber.

Finally, you are not your gadgets. But enough about the iPad.

In other gateway news, one of my pulses apparently blew a fuse, acupuncturally speaking.

Karen-the-acupuncturist thinks the culprit was a series of sinus headaches that I had earlier this week. I started battling sinus problems when I started taking Lexapro. I’ve been off Lexapro since last fall, but I still have the sinus problems.

Lately, sinus flare-ups lead to panic attacks. Being the medical writer that I am, I looked this up, and it’s not an unusual chain reaction. One of the main symptoms of panic attacks is feeling like you can’t breathe; therefore, a lower oxygen intake due to stuffy sinuses could ring alarm bells in the psyche. I also saw a new doctor on Monday and mentioned my history of panic attacks and that I’d not had one in awhile, so for all I know, I merely jinxed myself.

As usual, Karen took care of it with one point near my left ear. That’s it. Just. One. Point. It’s a gateway point, and I guess the lock was stuck. Karen got it open and things got moving. My sinuses suddenly cleared, and I felt a wave of…something…flow down toward my feet. Odd feeling. When Karen read my pulses after the one needle, she said they were flooded (in a good way). I left an hour later feeling as though I'd had a really good nap. Seeing as I’ve only slept for a handful of hours in the past few days due to nocturnal panic attacks, it was a relief to finally feel rested. I’d had to put off cello practice because I could barely keep my eyes open.

It is a ganglion cyst, by the way. On my wrist, I mean. The doctor didn’t whack it with a heavy book. She recommends aspirating it, and can refer me to a good orthopedic surgeon. She’d have done it herself, since she’s aspirated a lot of things, but she admitted the one thing she’d never poked with a needle is a ganglion cyst. Go figure.

I’m not keen on the idea. Large needle plunged into my wrist is ewww, remember? But there really aren’t any other treatments for it aside from not using my hand for awhile. And that’s impossible because it’s my dominant hand and I, you know, use it do to everything. Hell, maybe the orthopedic surgeon will bash it with a heavy book. Is it weird that I'd prefer that to a needle?

all-out strings

So you get another knitted object picture. Aren't you lucky?

It's a finished 16-button cardigan. (Count 'em if you like.) It fits well, and it's the first piece I've made in a long time that I really like and will actually wear. In fact, I'll wear it sometime this week after I've blocked it.

Onward to the next project, which will be this offset raglan. I've got some dark brown Cascade 220 worsted for it, and instead of the hooks, I'm going to add three large wood buttons - I'm getting rather good at buttonholes.

There are several other projects in this book that I want to make; however, I don't have much in the way of DK weight yarn, which is what is required for them, so that's my quest at the upcoming yarn party and Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I'll take pattern specs with me, which will keep me from buying on impulse.

I had a cello lesson today, and it's obvious I need to work on not having such a death grip on the fingerboard. My sore left wrist is testament to that. We'll see what the doctor says about it tomorrow. If it is a ganglion cyst, one of the more effective treatments is to whack it with a heavy book. Seriously. Even Dr Weil says so. I'll let my doctor do that if it comes to it - not the sort of thing one should try at home on one's own.

In more positive cello news, I've acquired some new etude books for kicks and giggles, I'm looking into a cello purchase (once the work bonus and tax refund come through), and Emily Wright is coming to the east coast for a cello tour! I'm signing up for a lesson with her. She also sent me a Google Wave invite, so wave at me, if you are so inclined.

let's call this one a check-in

It occurs to me that I haven't shown you a gratuitous knitting photo in awhile, so, um, here you go:

(That's my cello journal underneath it.)

It's the Yarn Harlot's One-Row pattern, which I've avoided trying for a long time. The pattern repeats over four stitches on every row. It sounds like the sort of pattern that would cause one to gouge one's eyes out with one's knitting needles out of sheer boredom. However, there's just enough variety in the pattern that before you know it, you've used up a whole skein of yarn and you're scrabbling to find another to add to it and keep going (that's the second skein in the photo). This will end up being about six feet long.

The yarn is Cascade's Venezia Worsted (merino wool and silk). No color name - Cascade only gives each color a number. This is 126. It's a smooth and soft yarn, so the stitch definition really pops out.

I'm also close to finishing a sixteen-button cardigan. It's a clever pattern - you knit the bottom of the body up to where the armholes start, then you put those stitches on a holder and knit the sleeves as flat pieces, then join all three pieces together, alternating blocks of stitches (front left panel stitches, left sleeve stitches, back panel stitches, right sleeve stitches, right front panel stitches) all on one needle, and knit the yoke across them all. So the only seaming to do is on the sleeves, from the bottom of the armhole down to the cuff. Love that!

I haven't picked out the buttons yet, which is just as well because I've run out of yarn twice for this thing, despite having done the math and gauge swatching ahead of time to make sure I had enough yardage, and of course, the yarn has been discontinued. I found someone on ravelry who had some left over, and she very kindly sent it to me. I have enough to finish the yoke, but I still have the button band and the buttonhole band to do, plus sew up the sleeves. Several people on ravelry who have used this yarn have commented that it seems like there's less yardage in the skein than is indicated on the label and that although it's listed as worsted weight yarn, it's a bit on the light side or more like a DK weight, so you'd end up using more of this yarn in a pattern calling for worsted weight yarn. It's irritating whatever the reason is.

I found two more people who have some of this yarn left over, and I've contacted them about a buy or trade. I was lucky the first time on ravelry in the hunt for more of this yarn because what the kind knitter sent me was a virtually identical match, despite being from a different dye lot. From the pictures, these other two potential sellers/donors also have a close match, but you never can tell from just pictures on the computer screen.

In other news, I'm still keeping up with morning pages and cello practice, although I've hit a snag in the latter. Lately, I can't do more than ten to fifteen minutes of practicing before my left hand really starts to ache. I have a mysterious lump on the top of my left wrist, and it seems like that's where the pain emanates from, both going up into my hand and down into my arm. I had this lump before I started playing the cello, and I only had occasional wrist pain, although lengthy crochet sessions would really do it in. Trust me to pick a new hobby that is exactly calculated to make things worse.

So instead of practicing straight through for thirty minutes to an hour at a time, I've switched to several shorts bursts of practice each day. Not ideal, and really screws up trying to make much progress musically, but do-able for the time being. Karen-the-acupuncturist thinks it might be a neuroma, and gottagopractice suggested a ganglion cyst. I've got a doctor's appointment on the 25th to get it checked out, which I suspect will lead to x-rays and referral to a hand specialist for official diagnosis. If it is a neuroma or a cyst, the main treatments are cortisone shots in the wrist and/or aspiration (eeewwww either way!) for pain management. Karen says there are other things I could try first before having to resort to that.

Of course, the easy thing to do would be to give up cello playing and knitting and typing.

But I'm not going to. So there, lump-on-wrist. I don't give in that easily.

...and on the gazillionth try, she succeeded

Ever heard of Morning Pages? First thing in the morning, every morning, you write three pages (8 1/2 x 11-size pages) in longhand of whatever comes to mind. You don't worry about neat handwriting or punctuation. You can make lists, you can whine and complain, you can plan and daydream, you can outline ideas, you can go from topic to topic and back again. The point is to keep your hand continually moving across the page until you've filled three pages.

Some call it Brain Drain or Clearing the Decks or Writing Warm-up or Free Writing or Pre-writing or Meditation on the Page. Others call it Hell on the Page because it's far harder to do than you'd think. Other than what's described above, there are no rules. Get a notebook you like, get a pen or pencil you like, start writing, fill three pages. That's it.

The obstacles often run along these lines:

• should I use lined or unlined paper?
• should I use a nice notebook and pen/pencil to write in even though it will primarily be dreck that comes out on the page, and isn't that a waste of paper?
• should I use a notebook and pen/pencil I don't really care about since it will primarily be dreck that comes out on the page even though I won't like using just any old notebook and pen/pencil?
• what if I can't think of anything to write?
• what if I don't like what I've written?
• what if I've come to the end of three pages and I have more to write?
• I'm not a morning person, can't I write these pages at some other time during the day?
• can I type my pages?
• can I come up with writing prompts and do more focused writing on topics?
• it takes as much as 45 minutes for me to write morning pages; do I really have to get up 45 minutes earlier to do this?
• I'm not a writer, I'm a painter/musician/dancer/sculptor/pilot/accountant/ executive/swimmer; isn't there some morning exercise I could do more related to my particular brand of creativity?

There are plenty more obstacles to this exercise, but these are the ones that come up most. Some are self-induced excuses. Some are fear of what might show up on the page. Some are just plain overthinking and making it harder than it is. The latter is a bad habit I personally have been trying to overcome for years - few people are more in their head and overthinking than I am.

I first came across this exercise when I was in college. I was at the bookstore, and saw a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I thought it was by Julia Margaret Cameron at first, since I was rather photography-obsessed in college, and I loved her photographs (still do, in fact), and it would make sense that she might write a book on creativity. When I looked through it, I realized it was a different Julia Cameron. It looked interesting, so I bought it.

Turns out, my photojournalism professor was also reading it. When I told her I had gotten the book, she thought it would be a great read for me. At the time, I was wrestling with an independent study project to learn Ansel Adams' zone system photography method - one of the best combinations of technical skill and creativity I've ever come across - and boy, was I thoroughly intimidated by it. She thought this book would help me work through my doubts/ bewilderments/frustrations with this endeavor.

I stumbled all over the morning pages thing right from the start. I couldn't get myself to do it on a regular basis, mostly due to the obstacles mentioned above, especially the last one. I was just in the process of changing my major from art to journalism, and didn't think of myself as a writer yet. Couldn't I take three morning photos everyday or something? At the time, three pages seemed like a lot of page to fill, and I often waited until I'd saved up enough to write about before actually doing a Morning Pages session.

Over the next 13 years, I'd start doing them again and then give up for long periods of time when I found I wasn't doing them regularly anyway. But I'd pick up the book periodically to re-read parts of it and get the urge to re-commit to Morning Pages because I liked the concept and the possibility of what it could do, although I still wasn't sure how to make it stick. In a way, it didn't help that the book author can do the pages in 15 minutes every morning, easy peasy, no fuss - it made me feel like even more of a failure at it. However, one of the lessons with this sort of thing, which is true of anything really, and particularly true of resolutions and goals, is that it is better to do them imperfectly than not at all. Each time you do it, it gives you a drop more power and momentum to do it again and do it a bit better. And even if a lot of it is dreck, gems appear, too.

Since I was re-committing to a morning routine of writing and exercise and cello practice this year, I thought it would be good to try Morning Pages again as a pre-writing exercise before diving into the story writing. I anticipated the usual resistance (see obstacles above)...but so far, none have appeared! I've gone eight days in row writing Morning Pages, which is better than I've done with any of my other revolutions so far this year. I'm writing in a plain-ish spiral notebook with a pen I really like. I'm averaging about 30 to 35 minutes to write three pages. Most of it is dreck - I whined so hard in the pages on Wednesday, the day I got really sick in the early evening. I actually look forward to writing the pages every morning. It's not feeling like yet another chore. Filling three pages doesn't seem so hard anymore. And I've already uncovered a gem - a reminder of a short story idea I had last fall that I set aside and forgot about.

I've no idea why it's working this time. And yes, I realize I'm only eight days into it (and we'll see if I'm still doing it at the end of the month), but my record in previous attempts was three days in a row before skipping a day or two. I can come up with a ton of speculations on this phenomenon (this is probably completely uninteresting to anyone reading this, but let me have my delight in success, okay?). The main possibilities are:

• I write more now, both for work and on my own, than ever before in my life, so I don't so much as blink at adding more writing
• I think of myself as a writer
• I've been working with the imperfection lesson for six months already with learning to play the cello
• I have a lot of dreck to get out of my head
• I'm more of a morning person these days
• I'm older, more experienced, maybe even overthinking a tad less than I used to and just plunging ahead with an action

Could be any or all of those or something else entirely. I don't really care. I'm doing the pages every morning with a fair amount of ease and little resistance. I'm not going to bother to analyze why.

Do you write Morning Pages or do something similar? Is it (ever) hard for you? What do you get out of it?

2010 revolutions

I suspect that because it's the beginning of a decade and because it's a nice round number, a lot of people have Grand Plans, not to mention a dire need to shake off the dust of the drudge and depression that marked a lot of last year and large parts of the last decade. I kind of have that urge too, moreso because I will be 35 this year, which is looking alarmingly close to 40 and makes me want to get more accomplished before then.

Still, I know myself well enough not to set overwhelming goals that would easily lead to failure, and thinking too far ahead makes me itch anyway.

So. I've got a few carryover revolutions from last year. Namely, getting the doll house in order, finishing Angel's babette blanket, losing some more of the lexapro-induced weight, and saving money for my trip to Paris in May.

Otherwise, my list of revolutions for this year is short, but perhaps a bit more broad:

• de-stash the yarn collection: I've got enough yarn for at least five sweaters and several scarves, shawls, and pairs of socks. I've only ever made one pair of socks in my knitting career, and they didn't turn out too well (wrong size and those damn ladders), so I may as well learn to make them better, especially now that I know the magic loop method, which is easier to deal with than double-pointed needles. I also need to make room for yarn from this year's sheep and wool festival at the beginning of May.

• re-commit to the morning writing, reading, exercise, and cello practice routine: I used to think that the day job came first and anything else I wanted to do came after that, and I couldn't understand why I felt so creatively stunted. Giving all my energy and effort to the day job just made me irritable. Lately, I've found that doing what I want to do before I go to the day job is more satisfying and puts me in a better mood, not to mention the page and skill accumulation. I just need to be more consistent with it. I'm a morning person anyway, so I should make better use of the early hours. Some of my fellow cellists are going to do weekly practice check-ins on cellobloggers.com, so I think I'll use that as a means to keep myself accountable.

• post a blog entry once a week: I place the blame for my lack of blog posts last year squarely on twitter. Quick bites are fine and almost too easy to do, especially for me because of the type of writing I do for the day job, which is all about extreme succinctness. However, that needs to be balanced with more thorough and lengthy writing, I think. Feel free to suggest blog topics.

• finish short story/novella/novel: Last week, I came up with a new story idea - the most complete one I've ever had. I thought it would be a short story, but the more I outline it, the longer it gets. I think it's going to be a more involved writing project than I had originally thought it would be.

• make a cello commitment: This June, I will have been playing for a year. I promised myself last summer that if I was still playing in a year, I'd buy a cello - either the one I'm renting now, or another one. I'm leaning toward upgrading from the one I'm renting. It's a big commitment, and I want a good cello to keep learning on, so I plan on taking my time (and pestering my cello teacher with "what should I be looking for" questions) to find the right one.

What do you think? Is that enough to keep me out of trouble this year? Do you have Big Plans for the year?