Already?

Yes, it’s already my first Blogiversary. Just one year ago today I was babbling on about how reducing books to ambiguities such as “Man vs. Man” and “Man vs. Nature” is disingenuous to the work and misses its point entirely. Or something.

Forgive me. I had no idea what I was doing back then.

That was the hardest part about starting up a blog. I jumped into it without much thought. I didn’t realize blogs should have—what’s it called?—focus. I’m not sure why, but I figured it was easier and more entertaining to post whatever popped into my head. It wasn’t until I started restricting myself (which, I admit, came months after the inception of the blog) that it evolved to something I think people like to read. Maybe? Please? I hope?

Has my blog improved in a year? Definitely. Is it at its best? Not yet. I’ll keep working on it.

But enough of that boring stuff. Here’s what you really want. A giveaway! Enter, be a follower and leave a comment below and you’ll be eligible to win either a twenty-five dollar Mastercard Gift Card or copies of both ACROSS THE UNIVERSEby Beth Revis and DELIRIUM by Lauren Oliver! Woot!

Unfortunately, this means it’s US only. I’m sorry about that : ( because there are some awesome non-US people I wish I could include. Again, sorry.

Please enter today! It ends next Thursday Monday (the 26th) at midnight. Don’t worry—I’ll be reminding you until then.

Usual rules apply. Comment so I know you entered and fill out the form at the bottom of the page. +2 entries for old followers, +2 if you Tweet about it (mention me, @jefishere, so I know) and +5 if you blog it.

Review: Brother/Sister

BROTHER/SISTER by Sean Olin is a Contemporary YA. The main characters are the titular brother and sister, Will and Asheley, who live in an affluent coastal Californian town with their mother, who is well known as the town drunk. Their father left the family years before and is respectively vilified and idolized by Will and Asheley. The entire book is, as Will states in the beginning, about why he had to “kill him.” Also, as he says, it’s complicated.

The story is told in chapters alternating between Will and Asheley. Occasionally, their stories overlap, showing the same scene in two conflicting lights. Neither of the two characters is what you’d call a reliable narrator, so you have to figure out which version (if any) is true on your own.

I have to admit, I thought there were some faults in the book. Will and Asheley’s voices were tough to distinguish at times, bad news considering how important it is they be distinct. I stopped in the middle of a chapter once and when I picked it back up, thought it was Asheley for almost two pages before Will’s name was mentioned. Not that this is a fatal flaw. I also thought some of the development of Will’s character was rushed in the middle. It didn’t flow perfectly and it seems like he goes from a kid with a bit of an anger management problem to a full on creep in only two chapters. Granted, some of the events in the book affected him, but it still came off a little improbably.

This book is definitely intense, and I suggest parents read it first because your kids might have some questions. It’s a book about love, neglect, jealousy and obsession, difficult topics under any circumstances.

Overall: I liked it and would recommend it, just know what you're getting into. It's not a book for everyone.

Requiescat in Pace

I had a hard time coming up with a post for today because it’s so hard for me to think about. Such violence and hatred…it makes me feel like crying.

Say a prayer for the past, but act for the future.

Language of Confusion: Ant-agony

The hero of our stories is called the protagonist while the villain is referred to as the antagonist. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to wonder what the origins of those words are.

Protagonist showed up in the late seventeenth century, after Middle English started to be replaced by Modern. Shockingly enough, it’s not Latin in origin but Greek, coming from protagonists which basically means main character. The prot- part of the word comes from proto—first—and the -agonist part comes from agonistes, which means actor. So literally, the primary actor.

Antagonist isn’t much of a surprise, although it did show up almost a century earlier in Old French. But the origin is easy: ant-, from anti- and meaning against. More interesting is if you look further back into the suffixes’ history. Agonistes is from the Greek agon, or contest, and it’s related to both agony and act.

Is there something deep and meaningful in that? Perhaps. Words are what we make them to be, what we need them to be.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

English Club’s History of theEnglish Language.

With additional information from Rice University’s Words in English: History.

The First Campaigner Challenge

Oh, yes. I’m liking this. As always, Rach Harriehas set up a flash fiction challenge for us campaigners. These are the rules:

“Write a short story/flash fiction story in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, including a poem. Begin the story with the words, “The door swung open” These four words will be included in the word count.

If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional), use the same beginning words and end with the words: "the door swung shut." (also included in the word count)

For those who want an even greater challenge, make your story 200 words EXACTLY!”

There's nothing I like better than a challenge. I was a little worried because the idea that came to me isn't totally made up on the spot. It's based off a brief memory of the main character in my WIP. Ember thought about what happened, but didn't go into detail.

So, here it is. Exactly 200 words, too. According to Word.

The Night the Monsters Attacked

The door swung open, the creek of the hinges lost under the sound of our neighbors forcing their way into the shelter. I was shoved, kicked, almost fell under their feet. By people so blind with fear that they couldn’t see an eleven year old girl struggling to hang onto her three year old brother.

I can’t be mad at them. I didn’t want to die, either.

No matter how hard I tried, I never seemed to get closer to the shelter. I called to my Dad, begged him to help. But his hands were full, tugging Aura and Kay.

Behind me, there was a scream. Loud enough to be heard over the cries of the crowd. It was roughly cut off. And then came the wet tearing of flesh.

I stopped fighting the crowd and it pushed me in with it. I searched for my father, saw him with Aura. But not Kay. She lay outside on the ground, face browned with dirt except for the whites of her eyes. Someone stomped on her hand, looked down on her, kept running. She reached out, for dad, for me, for someone to save her.

And then, the door swung shut.

TL;DR

Also seen as tl;dr, it means “too long, didn’t read” and is applied to posts/articles/comments that stretch on to a point where people grow bored and stop reading. Or maybe they looked at the length ahead of time and skipped over it.

Unfortunately, the internet has greatly decreased attention spans. I mean, look at Twitter. It’s made for self-contained 140 character posts. Have a random thought? People will read it if it fits on their iPhone screen.

I’m not getting into whether the decay of attention this is a good or bad thing. You can make arguments either way (You don’t take time to analyze the substance! You have to learn to evaluate quickly!). Things like this are shifts in society as a whole. You can’t alter it without making significant changes to the internet.

It’s happening and ignoring it won’t make it go away. With so much information available, in fact bombarding people from all sides, if you’re not direct and to the point, people will file you under tl;dr. Granted there are other factors, such as readability and the subject’s interest, but those are posts for another day.

What do you think about long articles/posts? Good or bad? Maybe a dying art?

Something New

First of all, hey Campaigning buddies! Great to meet you. I'm still getting around to all of your blogs so forgive me if I haven't commented yet. Uh...blame the hurricane. Yes, the hurricane did it.

Fair warning: you'll get a lot of that sort of thing around here.

Anyway, Friday is usually the day I do something about etymology. That's a big part of what I do here on the blog because the origin of words fascinates me to no end. Then on Sundays, I usually talk about writing/reading/publishing. But the occasional rant might be thrown in there because the only thing I'm worse at than keeping my mouth shut is stopping my fingers from typing. And on Tuesdays, I post helpful websites for writers. Or maybe just something fun.

So, did anyone else try out the new Blogger format? I gauge how good a change is by how long it takes me to get used to it. This one was pretty fast. Seriously, I'm used to it now and I've only just finished this post.

EDIT: Okay, I take it back because now it's annoying me. It says I'm not allowed to have an ampersand in my post labels but I don't have one! Apparently, it's real problem was with the apostrophe in Writer's Platform Building Campaign. I don't know what bugs me more, that it showed the wrong symbol or that now the label is grammatically incorrect. No, wait. It's the second thing.

That's all for now : ). If you're of a mind, tell me three things in the comment section so I can get to know you:
           1) Your name/pen name
           2) Your favorite book
           3) Your biggest fear

To be fair, I'll go first.
           1) J E Fritz (My name's Jeanne, but there's a similarly named writer out there so I'm sticking to the initials)
           2) HOUSE OF LEAVES by Mark Danielewski (I love a good horror story)
           3) Spiders. They have too many legs.