Uncreated Conscience

According to this this test, I average about 1200 words per minute when it comes to reading. This means I can read War and Peace in about 8 hours, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in about 1 hour, and various and sundry other things quickly.

Good to know I was born to be an editor.

Lawdy, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged isn’t it? Many things have been going on, but I haven’t had the time to sit down and give y’all a thorough update on what’s going on in my life, both professionally and personally. Everything’s all good!

Anyway, one of the pieces of news I forgot to mention is that I’ve now joined the ladies of Pub(lishing) Crawl as a contributor, so expect to see posts about the industry from me once a month there!

Today I blogged about the acquisitions process (complete with all the GIFs I stole from Tumblr), so head on over there to check it out!

• CALVIN: They say the world is a stage. But obviously the play is unrehearsed and everybody is ad-libbing his lines.
• HOBBES: Maybe that’s why it’s hard to tell if we’re living in a tragedy or a farce.
• CALVIN: We need more special effects and dance numbers.

Calvin and Hobbes pretty much defined my childhood. And y’all wonder where White-Harp came from…

• INTERVIEWER: If you had a coat of arms, what would be on it?
• PHILIP PULLMAN: A bird of the raven family with a diamond in her beak. This is the storyteller: storytellers always steal their stories, every story has been told before.

I shared this adorable story of one Matt Smith (not the Doctor) dressed as the Doctor (as played by another Matt Smith) proposing to his girlfriend at the Doctor Who Experience with my Whovian coworkers and got this response.

• TERRA: Wouldn’t a part of you but just a LITTLE disappointed that it’s not the other Matt Smith?
  TERRA: When they get married, I hope she looks deep into his eyes and sees another Matt Smith standing inside, waving.

I’m dead.

Dead.

3. The black Power Ranger was black and the yellow Power Ranger was Asian because…we were so completely ahead of our time and beyond the capacity to even think in terms of something as inconsequential as race that… uh… I don’t know. Casting directors were racist in the nineties.

I beg to differ; casting directors are still pretty racist, actually. At least there was an Asian Ranger and a black Ranger back then.

Otherwise, the rest of this article is actually pretty hilarious. Tamagotchis! Beanie Babies! “I really, really wanna zig-a-zig ahhhhhhhhh.”

Books win their audiences for a reason. Most popular books wear their artlessness on their sleeve: Stephenie Meyer, the author of the “Twilight” series, is an awkward writer with little feeling for construction, but the intensity of emotion with which she imbues her characters is enviable. You never doubt her commitment to the material, which is half the battle won. So to say that Paolini is an unskilled narrator and a derivative mythmaker is more or less beside the point. What is it, then, that makes the books enter kids’ consciousness?

First, kids experience them as mythologies more than as stories—the narrative sweep is, curiously, the least significant part of their appeal. [...] The sheer invocation of a mythology casts a deeper spell than putting the mythology on its feet and making it dance. If you talk to an Eragon reader, you will see why the introductory seven-page synopsis of the mythology is necessary. The synopsis is the story.

A really interesting article about what makes fantasy so appealing for young adults. Recommended! I especially like the analysis of Twilight and Eragon as heightened versions of what kids experience everyday.

First and foremost, you love yourself some books. Some people have porn, you have that scene where Beast reveals to Belle the library that he is now giving over to her, as he knows it’s what she would love more than anything in the world. No human being will ever romantically live up to you in your life now, as no one will be able to present you with an 8,000 square-foot Baroque library in the middle of a French castle to use at your discretion. You also have a soft spot in your heart for provincial France, Stockholm Syndrome, teacups with tiny chips on their rim, and furniture that springs to live to give you fabulous dating advice. Essentially, when you dream and go to that happy place, you are Belle.

I wish these lists had broken these Disney films into Pre-Renaissance, Renaissance, Post-Renaissance, and Pixar, because I definitely have favourites in each category. But I suppose you had to make me choose, then Beauty and the Beast is the hands-down winner. And the thing about book porn is totally true.

My vocabulary is apparently about 37,700 words large. I wonder if my score would be different if I had chosen English as my second language. It is, technically, but I do consider myself a native speaker of English.

I BLOODY WELL GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE OXFORD COMMA.

I’m sorry, but there’s a world of difference between:

I’d like to thank my parents, Harry Potter, and Jesus.

and

I’d like to thank my parents, Harry Potter and Jesus.

CLARITY. IT IS IMPORTANT.