Big Girl's Broken Heart

A very serious topic...

So, Mrs. B., I was reading some articles recently and as a strong role-model and a librarian, I thought we should talk.

These two articles depress me:

http://www.themarysue.com/why-talking-about-character-gender-still-matters-even-though-it-shouldnt/

http://jezebel.com/5966528/want-to-be-a-writer-then-ideally-dont-be-a-woman

I always wanted to be a strong woman like my mother when I grew up and I always complained about the lack of strong female characters in the stories I wanted to read. Sure it was great that there were strong male characters, but for the most part, like in the Middle Earth stories, a strong female is far rarer than a weak one. It's part of why I started writing, to give myself that character archetype to read. Then, Buffy came out and I was so excited. But, there haven't been many since. Especially when you look and see how pervasive characters like Bella Swan are. The Katniss-to-Bella ratio is painfully small, and these are things our young women are reading and watching on the big screen. And I'm not okay with that.

It breaks my heart, but it's the reality of the thing is that whether you're talking games or books, those strong females are still mostly missing. Sure, you get to play as Fem-Shepherd in Mass Effect, but as the lady said, how often in a Sci-Fi setting does that actually happen? Fantasy games have been getting better at that, but more often than not the armor and weaponry are still unrealistic -- clad in little more than a chain mail bikini, your dungeon-bunny goes bouncing her unnaturally proportioned body through the Underdark, and by the power of Greyskull, manages to take hits that would put down a rhino. Or maybe it's the magic of that braziere.

And, trust me when I say, my sister the archeologist complains just as loudly about Lara Croft as she does about Indiana Jones.

As a female writer who loves reading and writing in a male-dominated set of genres, I'm not okay that this is the advice that almost is needed to be given in order to succeed in the field. We live in a different world from the one my mother grew up in. Even the one I grew up in. We've had female astronauts and female Secretaries of State. There have been female Prime Ministers. We live in a world emboldened by female scientific pioneers like Sally Ride, Jane Goodall, Marie Curie, and Ada Lovelace. And these are no longer whispers behind closed doors, but people that we know and can learn about.

Yet, we not only hesitate to give ourselves fictional heroines that live up to that light, we instead give ourselves the exact opposite; offer our daughters the exact opposite on a regular basis. Female genre writers are almost thrown back to eras past where women like Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley and others were relegated to publishing anonymously because the menfolk couldn't take the idea of a woman publishing a creative work.

I think I'm going to take February to give those stronger ladies I know some love and talk more about this.

Much Love,

-Odd.

Oh, Lydia... What have you done??

Alright, Mrs. B. We've talked before about just how ... excited I get about Pride and Prejudice. And how I've been following as much of the media for the Lizzie Bennet Diaries as I can.

So, while friends have been speculating on what's going to happen and when, I've been doing some speculating myself and waiting on tenterhooks for what comes next.

My patience can take it. I know .... Oh GOD when is the next one coming OUT?!

And then THIS happened. It was brought to my attention tonight.

Not what I was expecting, but bravo, LBD team. Bravo. Nicely played.

Catch up. The end game is here.

Happy New Year from Normand and Me

Adventures of Normadillo: September Brings The Horse

In September, Normand joined us on a trip to Assateague Island.

I, for one was really excited. I've been wanting to see Chincoteague and Assateague for years. How awesome is it that wild ponies roam freely over the island.

Normand, being the small 'dillo he is wasn't so sure he wanted to meet these little horses. He took some convincing to join us. He'd seen a horse at the end of August at the county fair and he wasn't convinced that they wouldn't try to eat him.

He did, however, like the idea of going to the beach. So, to the beach he went.

Assateague is a very low lying island off of the Delmarva peninsula. It's full of lovely beaches, salt marshes, and of course ponies. Being low-lying, there are some very interesting features to the island.

The campsites were very flat.

There are trees, but they've adapted to the climate.

Humans, on the other hand, have not adapted nearly so well.

This was a road that existed on the island before a big storm hit in 1962.
There had been plans to turn it into another Hilton Head.
Chunks of pavement like this are all that's left.

Instead, it's now a state and federal park, home to protected wetlands, birds, and of course the horses.

Sandpipers

Egrets

Osprey

Normandillo at the wetlands

The Ponies. Grazing. From afar.

But, the ponies didn't stay afar. They came closer to the campsites.

 And, then, once the sun went down....

They struck.

There's nothin' in this pic-a-nick basket, Boo-Boo!

The rangers warn folks as they come in, but not everyone listens to the warnings. The horses go where they want to. They know people have food. They will raid camps. (They will also bite and kick. Moral of the story, stay away from unfamiliar ponies and keep your coolers in the car....)

Normand enjoyed himself. He even made a few new friends.

Until next time.....

Another Old Book: Falling Over Jinxed....

So, I said some time ago that I was going to revisit the old books shelf, and on it I found an old friend that I had forgotten about sometime in the last several years. I remember being mad about this book, which is all the more hilarious, since I’ve said before things about romance novels from this era. But, I do remember there were like three or four I was absolutely head over heels for for various reasons and this was one of them. Finding I still had a copy, inspite of several moves and one blow-out garage sale worth of boxes I’d forgotten at my mom’s house was like finding a forgotten $10 in a pair of pants you haven’t worn in years and were planning on getting rid of just as soon as you tried them on one last time. 

I’m not kidding.

This book I’m gushing over is very simply an early Harlequin Romance about a girl who works at a toy factory. She is, for all intents and purposes -- although not explicitly said -- an engineer and a chemist. She is, quite possibly, the most highly educated character I’d read about up until that point. And she was in a romance novel. Bowl me over with a feather.

Jinxed by Day LeClaire was one of those books that I read first during a really formative period in my life -- I was probably in my mid teens when I got it, who knows from where, since it certainly wasn't your book, Mrs. B. It showed a woman, a highly educated woman, falling in love and finding happiness being who she was -- and who she was was a lot like me back when. And still now, although not the engineer part, or the falling in love with my boss part.... ::shudders at the thought of falling in love with any of the bosses she’s had lo these many years:: Still, my mom wasn't kidding when she said she should have named me Grace because then I’d have some.

Anyway, I’m tightly holding on to my copy of the actual book published in 1990, while still looking for the two or three others that I remember were also part of that clutch of books I loved. I highly recommend it if you can get a copy of the original story. Not so much the weird manga reprint they did sometime in the middle of the last decade.

Much love,

Odd