updates: chattanooga/sparkfest/campaign edition.

Boy howdy. If I wasn't averse to cleaning before, I most certainly am now. On the upside, there's this neat little city in southeast Tennessee, practically (in fact, partly) in Georgia, and I live there now. It's called Chattanooga. Maybe you've heard of it.

There's this thing called the Choo Choo, and it sure was the swizz in 1941.

Dang. (This was also my only association with Chattanooga as a little kid. LITTLE DID I KNOW, HUH?)

Anyway, I hope you all are excited, because it's Sparkfest week! Meaning, pretty much, that a bunch of cool folks are going to spend a lot of time in the next several days telling other cool folks about the books that got them hooked on the notion of... all this. Stay tuned!

Here are some other important things:

1. The Chattanooga Library is HUGE. It's not quite as quaint/bright/user-friendly as my beloved Blount County, but it takes a close second. Definitely better than downtown Knoxville. Anyway, the point in all this: it's only about a block from where my husband works, as well as within a few blocks of both a local coffee joint and a Starbucks, and a park with free wifi (where I am right now). So, pretty much, I'm set.

2. This city is so... spacious. It's really not any smaller or bigger than Knoxville (not including their respective universities), but it's so much nicer. I could really get used to these wide, wide streets (you can always see the sky! Even in the middle of downtown!), this plaza, that place over there with really good coffee and super-nice baristas, not to mention the gorgeous library (complete with book sculpture/fountain*), and all the awesome things that aren't even in this little chunk of the city.

*a fountain that is a huge, metal sculpture of a pile of books-- but could also be read as books flowing out onto more books, which is a less organized version of what's going on inside, anyway.

3. I am going to gush about Chattanooga for a long, long time, so buckle up. You will want to visit, I am determined.

4. I did the two CRAZIEST things just now:
   4a. I signed up for Rachel Harrie's Third Writers' Platform-Building Campaign. It's like I suddenly grew a spine or something. I'm excited to meet other bloggers, for sure. I'm not as excited about/actually terrified of participating in the challenges, because, in case you haven't noticed, I don't really share what I write online. Too many eyes! Not enough clever! Oh the well. Can't hurt to stretch (my camp counselor is showing, isn't it?)!
   4b. I signed up (I think?) for NaNoWriMo. We shall see where this leads. It kind of doesn't make any sense, being as in-the-middle of a WIP (oh yeah, I started New Draft, finally) as I am, but I figured, What the hey? I need to write something other than this one story, over and over again, anyway. I'm thinking female MC. First person*. You know, something normal.

Ha.

*I actually did just throw down a bit of New Draft in first person, just for fun, just to see what it was like, and, uh, yeah. So much better. Surprise!

5. Because of all this, I've found myself staring down some new goals.
A of all: diligent, daily work on--and hopefully the completion of--New Draft, from now until October 31.
B: I'm shrinking my Booksplurge 2011 goal to 50, instead of 60. Bummer, I know, but I think it just has to be this way. And it will still be the most books I've read in one calendar year, if I get there (pretty shallow claim, since I've never kept track before. OH WELL).
And C: Um, the Campaign and NaNo.

So... wwwwwish me luck.

Okay!

(Edited to add: this isn't in English, is it? Ha!
Well, that's trying to watch youtube outside in the city without headphones, for ya.)

See you next time! We'll talk about my favorite book in 5th grade! And then my favorite book in high school! And then, you know, college, and why I started writing, for reals. And then maybe we can eat pizza, because Chattanooga has really great pizza (it matches all the other really great stuff). Ooh! And we can go to the Tennessee Aquarium, because it's awesome and I could walk there right now. (!)

Oh, wait, I did what? Set a ton of unreasonable, unattainable goals for myself that will pretty much take up the rest of the year?

Really?

Okay. We can go to the Aquarium in January, then. HAAAAAAA. (oh boy.)

signing autographs.

Last night, my husband and I sifted through and signed 24 pieces of paper, which means... we have a mortgage. Oh yeah. One of those things. So grown-up.

Our future house! Complete with mortgage, kitchen and basement!

Three really great things about this:
  One, obviously:  we are homeowners (buhh?).
  Two: I would be lying if I said I didn't pretend that I was autpgraphing books and/or playbills the entire time. It satisfied my daydream-impulse and made me unreasonably happy.
  Three: the word "mortgage" still makes me think of Senor Cardgage. There are certain things I will never outgrow. Homestar = love.

Of course, the most fun/least productive thing about moving is the inevitable furniture daydream. And, even though we won't really have room for one, behold:  the courting chair.

ODE TO A COURTING CHAIR.

Oh, gorgeous, glamorous courting chair.

How do I love (love!) thee?

Certainly not how I love human beings, but look! This one seats three!

(Disclaimer: the poem really goes downhill from here.)

I love thee in public in South America.
I love thee wrought from iron.

I love how your purpose stays the same, through all the different style-ron(s).

(*groan*)

(No more rhyming.)

Oh, to talk with you, love.

To hold your hand, here where the S bends.

To hold your hand and tell you-- in the parlor,

or the backyard...

I'll act like I'm not staring straight into your ocean blues, or pearly grays

(I'm not picky).

(I am, however, drooling.)

You, darling, belong on my back deck.

Even the Elves are doing it.

Okay, that got a little creepy in the end. Note to self: no more love poems about chairs.

Pardon me while I collect myself. 

Anyway, it's true. Courting chairs make me want to write about love. This is huge, people. Huge. (They might even kiss.)

*puddle*

summer! plus: what do we really want?

Ah, the perks of living in this part of the country at this time of year. Hot sun, heavy air (am I the only soul alive who kind of likes humidity?). Humming cicadas, glinting fireflies. The vibrant, almost oppressive greenness of every living thing. As long as I remain well-equipped with bugspray, sunglasses and the occasional coating of SPF 15, I have no complaints.

It's a good thing I'm a summer baby, because we're about to move where it's even hotter, though only a hundred miles away. Funny how mountains and valleys do that, huh? Yes, yes. It's official. We bought a house, like grown-ups do. Chattanooga, here we come. Please, please, please let your restaurants be vegetarian-friendly, your proximity to Georgia less mystifying over time,* and your library as fabulous as Blount County's.

The south shore of Chattanooga in the summertime. Photo from this site.

{*When I was a kid in Kentucky, Georgia was this big, far-away place where they made Coca-Cola and had the Olympics, once. We would drive through it on our way to Florida every summer, and the majority of my opinion of the state went as such: Takes forever to get to. Takes forever to go through. And now, I'll be living, like, ten miles from the state line. This blows my mind, for some reason.}

Speaking of the South and the summertime, this past week at camp was likely the most fun I've ever had there, which, after 7 summers of working on staff and three summers of counseling, is saying A LOT. I mean, I spent one whole day dressed, to some degree, as a pirate. What's not to love about that?

Another highlight of this past week was finding myself in several conversations, both with teenagers and adults, about YA. At lunch one day, a fellow counselor mentioned something about Twilight, and how she had to attend a meeting on the basics of the story, so as to better assimilate to the people she works with in Eastern Kentucky who talk of NOTHING ELSE. I am not kidding. I asked her what she thought, and she said, essentially, "Meh, the first book was a pretty good read. About all I expected, you know, since it's just a young adult book."

Boy howdy, did the hair on my neck ever prickle at that. I said, "Hey, now. There is plenty of young adult lit that is not only better crafted than Twilight, but also better for humanity and far more important. Like The Hunger Games, for instance." And I was off. There was a girl at our table who'd read the books, too, and she nodded vigorously, smile plastered, as I talked about how awesome and integral and significant those books are. I wore my t-shirt the next day and started even more conversations.

My HG t-shirt, pretty much.
I bought it at a Borders in Chicago.

I noticed something else, too: there are a lot of teens out there who really disliked Mockingjay. One of the girls last week described it, pretty much, as "the author going crazy and killing characters for funsies." I'd heard this before, from a couple other kids, and it spurned a thought: What do teenagers really want out of the books they read? A squirmy, sick corner of my mind wants to say, "Flowers and bunnies! Cute boys and no bad things, ever!" But I know that's not true. When I was 16, that's not what I read. I was obsessed with Lord of the Rings, then. The only bunnies in that were food, and the only flower I remember was the elanor. There were no cute boys, in particular (unless you count Aragorn? Faramir?), and plenty of bad things.

Him?

I don't know what it is. I won't claim that Mockingjay was an enjoyable and fun romp through literature, by any means, but it was very good. Perhaps I am just a cold heart, but if you've been reading a series about rebellion and war, what do you really expect to find at the end of it?

Anywho, I suppose that's all for today's soap-box. What do you think kids really want to read? Or, heck, adults, too. What do any of us really want in a book? Personally, as much as I enjoy light fare and humor, I think I love the difficult stories more. Should I not? It makes me sad to think that some folks only want a fair-weather friend out of what they read.  I need both sides of the coin.