Write Stuff: April 2018

Monday, April 30, 2018

GIving up the fight

A short post today, because it's been a long school year, and somehow an even longer semester. So many things have left me angry, seriously just mad, frustrated, and with a fuse about the length of my pinky nail. As I work my tail off, with barely any breaks (and most "breaks" are actually still just more work), I just need some time off. Before I teach summer school, write papers, and tackle my massive amount of lab work that I have this summer...and about a million other things.

This may not be so bad if I weren't living in constant fear of what's going on at my university, where cuts are starting to hit home (ie, me, or at least potentially me, and that's scary AF, and also just makes me mad--how can I have wasted so much effort and my life at a place that doesn't give a single f*ck?). So, yeah, I'm just drained and done. I apologize for the random blog posts that have been spotty and pitiful. Don't even get me started on how bad I feel about not having been visiting other's blogs more regularly. I just don't have it in me. Maybe this'll change. Maybe I'll get a better job somewhere else. Maybe I'll just run screaming into the woods and never return ;)

I hope spring has found you wherever you are and life is treating you well! Hopefully I can work out of this funk soon, before it entirely consumes me.

After Reading: VERACITY by Laura Bynum #amreading

By: Meradeth Houston on 4:00 AM

Harper Adams was six years old in 2012 when an act of viral terrorism wiped out one-half of the country's population. Out of the ashes rose a new government, the Confederation of the Willing, dedicated to maintaining order at any cost. The populace is controlled via government-sanctioned sex and drugs, a brutal police force known as the Blue Coats, and a device called the slate, a mandatory implant that monitors every word a person speaks. To utter a Red-Listed, forbidden word is to risk physical punishment or even death.

But there are those who resist. Guided by the fabled "Book of Noah," they are determined to shake the people from their apathy and ignorance, and are prepared to start a war in the name of freedom. The newest member of this resistance is Harper -- a woman driven by memories of a daughter lost, a daughter whose very name was erased by the Red List. And she possesses a power that could make her the underground warriors' ultimate weapon -- or the instrument of their destruction. (Goodreads)

How about a normal ol' book review for today? It's been a while :)

So, this was a random pick for me to nab, as I don't generally read a whole lot of adult dystopian. Maybe that's because it can often depress me, or just make me angry (at the world in the book, not in general!). But, something about this made me curious--mainly the fact that the world is basically erasing words from the inhabitants. Shrinking their vocabulary down to the sparsest necessities. This drives home the fascinating fact that words are powerful, and that knowing a word with its accompanying concept is vital for freedom. I really enjoyed that concept and the way it was handled by the author. The story itself was okay--not great, but engaging enough to keep me going. Harper's naivete and weakness throughout most of the story, despite the opening where she seems incredibly driven and motivated, was a bit frustrating (although probably more honest in how a woman in that predicament might really act). The romance line was tossed in a little haphazardly and I wish it had been fleshed out more, as I think it would have benefitted Harper's characterization.

Another thing that I kept circling back to while reading this, and a topic that I've thought about before with other novels set in a post-pandemic world, is the loss of population base. We live in a world that needs a whole lot of people doing lots of little things to keep the whole operation moving. To lose them, or in this novel's case, to indiscriminately kill off wide swaths of people, means losing a great deal of infrastructure and ability to maintain many systems. This result was not really addressed at all, other than there being areas that were mostly uninhabited. Anyhow, what it boils down to is that in a world where there are fewer people, I honestly don't think killing off your enemies is the way people would go about keeping the population in line. There are definitely fates worse than death, and that's fearful enough, and then you still have working hands to keep things running. I don't know, just something random I was ruminating on :)

Do you have a favorite dystopian novel?

Mis-Mash of Random :) #authorlife

By: Meradeth Houston on 4:00 AM

So, I didn't get a chance to blog last week because, well, it was my birthday and I was out skiing and decided that it was just going to have to be okay to skip ;) This week I'm a bit at a loss as to what to write about, as honestly things have been a bit nuts around here, so it's going to be a list of utter random. Yay!

Content edits on Someone Else's Soul are pretty much done. Woot! I really enjoyed digging into this novel again, but am still paranoid that I left some glaring error somewhere.
I have a giant conference coming up this week with a crazy amount of work to do there. I will be SO glad when this is done and over and all my presentations (5! I am seriously masochistic!) are over. At least I get to get out of Missoula for a few days!
My lovely little pups have been majorly needy of late. I seem to be the pillow of choice (I'm trying to write this with one on my lap and the other laying across my feet). I love them both so much! Even when they wake me in the early morning by puking in my bed...

That's me under there somewhere, being "loved" by my pups!

Spring is tantalizingly close--except for the random blizzard we had last Thursday. I can't wait for summer (mostly because classes will be over and I can actually get some work done!). That, and we bought kayaks and going out on the nearby lakes or rivers is one of my favorite things on the planet and I can't wait to take them out and do it!

So that's a taste of my random life at the moment. Mostly just a whole lot of work and staring at a computer screen, or working with my students and wrangling their needs and projects and stuff like that.