The Wild Blog in the West

(If you don't know what I'm referencing, check out this video.  Actually, check it out anyway; it's a good song.) I don't normally go this long without posting my first update of the month.  Nothing is wrong.  The simple truth is that I have been swamped.  My business is growing, which means more time on client files and doing other legal work.  And with regard to my novel, I am in the process of chiseling it down to 120,000 words (at present, nearing 138,000... so a ways to go).  I am also still researching the sequel, and happily getting closer to feeling like I have enough research. This weekend, I realized I was exhausted.  I needed to vegetate on July 4 and 5.  July 6 I had to spend reading other peoples' works to prepare for my writers groups early this week.  This coming week is brutal, and the following week won't be fun, either. I hope I'm not whining.  I'm just letting y'all know why I haven't been posting as frequently.  Plus i

As I stated in my The Crimson Petal and the White review , I will be reviewing neo-Victorian novels that were written within the past 10 to 15 years.  I am interested in learning: (1) what aspects of the Victorian Era they incorporate; (2) what "modern" elements they bring; (3) what works and does not work; (4) how well they conform to expectations of "what will sell"; and (5) whether it's a good story. John Harwood's The Seance  (2008) was never a big best seller like The Crimson Petal and the White , but it was well received.  It is quiet in all of the ways that  Crimson is flashy, never trying to be about a big idea or a shocking premise.  Yet it still manages to be bittersweet and effective. The Seance is characterized as a "horror" novel, but I never read it as such.  Instead, I saw it as a novel interested in the supernatural, and in certain fads of that time period.  It uses that angle to explore the hopes and fears of the main charact

Needless to say, this post contains a few spoilers. By now, Game of Thrones  the HBO series has completed its portrayal of the third -- and arguably the best -- book of the  A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Storm of Swords .  It even dipped into A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons  story lines. As both a reader and a viewer, I can now sit back and make a measured assessment of each medium's strength and weakness.  Whereas before, I did a post comparing the book characters to their show versions, here I will look at which medium does a better job portraying important story moments. 1.  Ned Stark's Death Setting the Scene: Eddard "Ned" Stark, Hand of King Robert and primary POV of A Game of Thrones , has accused Queen Cersei of conceiving her children (including heir-to-the-throne Joffrey) through incest.  He is then locked up and informed that if he repents his claim, his only punishment will be banishment to the Wall.  Fearing for his daughters'

For my first look at introverts in the media, I decided to go with the popular stage musical,  Wicked . Wicked  is, of course, the retelling of The Wizard of Oz  from the point of view of the Wicked Witch of the West, with the intent of making her sympathetic.  It began as a novel called Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, published in 1995.  Eight years later,  Wicked  premiered as a musical in San Francisco, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz.  While the musical made several changes, the basic elements remained the same: the story was about Elphaba, a misunderstood misfit born with green skin. The Plot There be spoilers ahead! Elphaba's mother was the wife of the Munchkins' governor.  After the governor went away, her mother had an affair with a mysterious man, and out of that affair came Elphaba.  Scarred by her daughter's appearance, Elphaba's mother ate milk-flowers so that her second child would be normal

Coming soon to this blog: a feature where I examine certain media for how they treat introverts. Much like my Movie Musicals and Unpopular Opinions , I hope that this will be recurring.  Each time, I intend to look at a character (or an individual if the media involves real people), what that person does, how prominent that person is, and how other people view that person.  I think it offers a great opportunity to truly see how introverted people fare in the media, rather than fall back on assumptions or stereotypes. And though I don't exactly have a degree in behavioral science, I am going to try and do this in a structured manner.  First thing's first: Define "Introvert" Merriam-Webster defines an introvert as "one whose personality is characterized by introversion; a reserved or shy person."  Introversion is "the state or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one's own mental life." By

That's not a compliment. It's actually an insult to children, since I'm sure many have greater capacity for empathy than many adults ever will.  In school, we learn how to analyze math problems, science experiments, or motivations in literature, but strangely never everyday human behavior.  Only the most inspired teachers will set aside time to discuss human behavior, and with mandated testing, that time is smaller than ever.   Otherwise, attempts to understand human thought are relegated to specialized fields: psychology, anthropology, criminology.  We save our deepest fears for private therapy sessions rather than discuss and analyze them in a public group.  Of course it makes sense to want privacy in some situations, but by separating feelings from our everyday lives, by telling ourselves that certain feelings shouldn't "be there," by pretending that they don't exist, we risk painting ourselves and others as one dimensional. So we wa

Jane Austen was born in 1775 and died in 1817.  Most of her work was published between 1811 and 1818.  Yet she is repeatedly lumped together with authors from a much later time, such as George Eliot (1819-1880), Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), and Anthony Trollope (1815-1882).  Together, they and many others are referred to as "Victorian authors," even though Queen Victoria didn't come to the throne until 1837. The reason seems to be because these authors, and more, frequently set their works in the English countryside, where towns were small, life was slow, and old landed wealth reigned supreme.  Of course Victorian authors covered much more than that, as anyone who has read Charles Dickens would know.  And while the countryside did, in many ways, seem suspended in time throughout the 19th century (something I comment on in a Downton Abbey  post ), it still experienced fundamental changes.  Changes that were beginning during Austen's lifetime, but would be more fu