Walking Identity Crisis

Yesterday I said to Ed, “Dunkin’ Donuts is having a free donut for moms on Mother’s Day.  We should go.”

He replied, “But you’re not a mother yet.”

I frowned.  “Clearly I’m going to be a mother soon.  And who needs a donut more than a pregnant lady?”

Actually, I probably don’t need a donut, considering I failed my glucose test.  But as I thought about it, I realized that real mothers deserve the donut more than I do.  I am in that quasi-state of being a mother to the tiny alien that kicks me occasionally, but not to an outside-the-womb human being who demands constant attention.  I do not doubt he is in there – he lets me know more and more every day – but he doesn’t need much other than me to take care of my health.  When he makes his real-world debut, then I will really know what it takes to be a mom.

Moms get a bad rap a lot of the time.  Working moms are judged for leaving their babies at childcare, and stay-at-home moms are judged for not contributing to the family finances.  Nursing moms are judged (Time magazine controversy aside – I have not yet read the article, but I’m sure I will have an opinion on it when I do).  I have heard countless stories of co-workers of nursing moms put out because they could hear someone pumping in another room, or because those moms get “extra breaks” to pump throughout the day – thankfully, these stories haven’t come from my workplace, but they’re still disturbing.  Moms who nurse in public get dirty looks, and despite the recommendations of the World Health Organization, people are disgusted by moms who nurse past the age of 2.  Yet moms who don’t nurse are also judged, because breast milk has so many benefits.

And these issues are only the beginning.  Society questions parenting choices every day, from the time the baby is born to the time he or she goes to college.  I’m not saying I am not guilty of this – I am, just as much as everyone else.  But I am also sure that I will get dirty looks from people when my baby cries in a restaurant or at the library.  And I am also sure that I will make mistakes, because everybody does.  All of us are human beings, unless there is something you guys are not telling me and there are aliens among us.

So today, celebrate your mom and all the moms you know.  Forgive them for the “mistakes” they have made and be grateful for everything they did to bring you and/or their children into the world.  Even if they’re not biological moms – I cannot tell you how many children’s librarians I know who should be honorary moms – appreciate the sacrifices they made to be role models to others.  Get them donuts.  (And if you are upset because you’re not a mom and you don’t get one, go on June 1 – that is National Donut Day and everyone gets a free donut.  So there.)

Photo by pkingDesign via Creative Commons.

A friend of mine posted today about things you should never say to a pregnant woman.  First and foremost, you should never comment about how big she is or ask her if she is having multiples.  I agree with this statement.  For me, though, the question I’m having the most difficulty with is: “do you have a name yet?”  Answer: No.  I posted at length about this awhile back, and the answer still is: He will have a name when he’s born.  And as my friend Sarah said, it will be appropriate for a child of two geeks.  End of story.

I don’t want to say I’m annoyed by this question, because people certainly have the right to ask, and I know they are curious.  But it is very difficult to answer over and over.  Since I don’t have a name, I get to hear people’s favorite names, and then I have to react to them politely (that gets really hard when you don’t like a name, or you can’t use it because of a certain circumstance, etc. etc. etc.)  Some people react really emotionally, like they’re totally offended that my baby doesn’t have a name yet.  He’s not even done gestating! And even if we did have a name, I’m sure people would tell me what they think of it, making me second guess the choice.

So if you are one of those people who desperately wants to Call the Baby Something,  how about Mal Reynolds Dubiel?  James Tiberius Dubiel?  Charles Xavier Dubiel?  (I kind of like that one.)  Perhaps Ken Jennings Dubiel, or Alex Trebek Dubiel?  I like the idea of him being a potential 74-time Jeopardy! champion.  Not on the Teen Tournament, either – the real Jeopardy!  Or you could just go with Baby Godzilla.

The picture is from Thinkgeek.  Although I’m not making a profit on it, I bet they’re happy I’m helping to sell their super cool geek swag.

    I had the pleasure of hosting James Renner at my writers’ group earlier this month, after I read about his new book on a Northeast Ohio arts listserv.  At the time, I’d only gotten about 80 pages into the book, The Man From Primrose Lane, but I already knew I was going to need an uninterrupted day to finish it.  So I waited until today, when I had nothing planned, and I had not been wrong about my instincts.  I tore through the book, losing track of time, and before I knew it, it was over and I felt like my brain had been pulled out through my nose.

I am writing this before I can be influenced by reviews, so I don’t know how other people have described the book.  But I have to say that even before I finished it, I grappled with how I was going to talk about it without giving away key elements of the plot.  It starts as a straight mystery: crime writer David Neff is despondent after the death of his wife, Elizabeth.  We get the story of their life together, her suicide by driving into a Dollar General.  David is famous in Cleveland, having written a true crime book that made millions, but he’s been medicated since her death and hasn’t written in a thing in the interim.  Now a mysterious man who lived in Akron, known as The Man From Primrose Lane, has died, and David’s publisher wants him to research and write about the story.

I initially loved the atmosphere of the book, drawn in by Elizabeth’s presence as a character and David’s grief.  We see their courtship among places that are almost too familiar to me; David grows up in Garrettsville, the town next to Hiram, my alma mater, and goes to KSU, where I got my master’s degree.  The couple eats at the Evergreen Buffet, my favorite Chinese restaurant in Kent, and David does research at the main Akron library, where I’ve worked.  The pop culture references, too, hit close to home.  Elizabeth is obsessed with Christopher Pike, a 1990s horror/science fiction author who wrote for teens, and I read every single one of those books over and over again.  I still own quite a few of them.  This is also a telling detail that foreshadows what happens next.  Many of Pike’s books were about how the absurd can fit into the normal world.  After the initial set-up, this book goes off the rails, just like that.

I’m going to stop sharing the details there, but there are a few things you should know.  Straight mystery readers may be confused by the new direction the book takes.  The jacket copy doesn’t give it away.  I only knew because I read James’s initial description on the arts listserv.  There is genre-bending.  There is time travel.  Oh, how I love time travel.  Especially this kind.  The totally confusing kind.  The kind that makes you draw graphs and want to go eat something because your brain is working too hard.  And bent around all these plot conventions, there is commentary on the empty waste that is Cleveland, and the puzzle of what makes us do the things we do.

So I want to get this book into the hands of the right readers.  If you love crime fiction, get it, but watch some episodes of Star Trek first.  I can’t say which ones because it would give it away to the Star Trek fans, so just ask me and I’ll tell you.  If you love science fiction, and Christopher Pike, and Stephen King, get it, and be prepared to wait a bit before that stuff shows up.  For me, a person who loves both genres and has close ties to this region, this may have been the perfect book.  I have no idea what James is going to do next (he told my writers’ group it was something about conspiracy theories) but I’ll read the phone book if he decides to write that.

Cover image is not my own and is used solely to promote the author and his work.

This past week, the reference staff debated whether or not to discontinue our library blog.  No one is reading it, the staff doesn’t have time to update it, and the content isn’t fresh enough.  Then, today, I was on my Google Reader and saw that two of my favorite publishing blogs (linked in my blogroll – Ask Allison and BookEnds) will no longer have regular posts.  Are blogs becoming a thing of the past?

I understand how hard it is to keep a blog updated.  It takes a lot of time.  Last summer I committed to posting twice a week, but now that’s just not possible.  I work full-time and am scrambling to get everything done before the baby comes.  I can’t promise that the blog will be updated all the time, but the fact that I still have it is comforting.  If I want to post some musings (like right now) I can, and I can share it with my readers.  If I don’t, that’s okay too.  Bloggers shouldn’t have to apologize for not providing content on a regular basis – just having the outlet available is nice.  Same deal with the library blogs.  Maybe the main library blog will go away, but Beth and I need them to Share Long Things With You through our podcast notes, and we love to post recipes to the library’s cooking blog so they can be shared on Facebook and Pinterest.

I do plan to schedule some posts to go up while I am mired in the World of Baby.  I have lots of great galleys on my e-reader, but they don’t come out until summer.  So I will review them when I read them, and you’ll see the posts when the books are due out.  There are so many I’m excited to share with you (including the new title by my friend Amanda Flower!)  I don’t think I could do this without the blog format.

Some of our librarians noted that the world is becoming more ADD, with everyone turning to social media sound bites for news.  No one wants to read Long Things anymore.  I don’t really believe that.  I still love to look in my Google Reader for the latest articles and news on all kinds of subjects.  My new favorite blog is The Jeopardy! Fan, which posts recaps of every episode.  And heck, many of my posts here are about books, which are Long Things.  Books are still big, even if they’re in digital form and on e-readers.  We all still have the patience to sit down with a book every now and then, don’t we?

What do you think?  Are blogs just one more thing you have to worry about?  Are they easy to cut out of your life, or not?  What would you miss, or not miss, about blogs?

As someone who may or may not be getting ready to release a book to the hounds, I mean the Internet, I’ve been thinking about the way I talk about books.  And I feel somewhat guilty.

Generally, I am a sensitive person, so I tend to be sensitive to other people’s feelings.  I try not to be judgmental about other people’s choices.  But when it comes to books, I can be pretty vicious.

True, I don’t judge other people’s reading tastes.  If someone comes up to me wanting James Patterson’s latest book, I am not going to say, “I can’t believe you’re reading that garbage!”  Everyone is entitled to his or her own reading choices, and everyone likes different things.  We say this over and over at the library and on the podcast.  When you ask me what I think, though, I’m going to tear him to shreds.  I think his writing is juvenile, his chapters are too short, and if there is character development in the books, I missed it.  (Of course, I do not give this spiel to library customers.  I say he’s not my cup of tea.  But you know what I mean.)

James Patterson seems like he’s not even a real person.  He’s more like an entity.  I imagine his books springing fully formed from his head.  All he has to do is say, “Lo, I bestoweth upon you… Private: #1 Suspect!“  And there it is, on the library shelves to be scooped up by waiting customers.  So it’s easy to imagine that he has no feelings about what readers think.

But how can I assume that James Patterson really don’t care?  Maybe he’s at home reading his reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, crying for an hour every night before he goes and burns his money or whatever else he does with it.  Maybe he is contributing to reading initiatives for students because he secretly wants the world to love him.  Maybe all the money in the world isn’t enough to make James Patterson feel like a good person who has made a difference.

At the same time, as a reviewer, I do have an obligation to the reader.  If I spent time reading a book that I didn’t really love, I have to let the world know that.  But maybe I can be nicer about it.  More diplomatic.  Maybe, instead of saying that “the ending was horrible and didn’t make sense” I could say “the ending was disappointing.”

I’m not going to pretend every book I read is sunshine and roses, but I should probably stop assuming James Patterson don’t care.  Even he is a person (I think.  He may be a computer, or a group of twenty monkeys randomly typing 24/7 until something comes out).  I know that when my book comes out, it will get some vicious reviews.  I can only hope that some reviewers will be nice enough to leave me some constructive feedback without being mean.

I do not own the image in this post, and it is not used for profit.  I made it using diylol.com and a Google Image.

I don't know who to credit for this picture, so if you made it, tell me.

Game of Thrones started yesterday on HBO.  So for the second time in as many weeks, I was like a little kid on Christmas.*  Despite the fact that I feel guilty about having HBO when other people don’t – my husband works for the cable company, what can I say? – I was still wiggling with excitement all day.

Now last season, Ed and I started a tradition of eating popcorn every time the show came on.  This has now led to a Pavlovian reaction so strong that I also eat popcorn when I read the books.  In fact, I want to eat popcorn every time I see a trailer, a book cover, or an ad for the show.  But not just any popcorn.  Pop Secret Homestyle Popcorn.  So we made a special trip to Acme to get this.  (I checked the Sam’s Club website before we left, and it indicated that my popcorn was not in stock, so we didn’t bother going there.)

Acme didn’t have it.  There was an empty spot where the Homestyle variety was supposed to be.  The little tag was there with no popcorn.

We bought Jolly Time “Homemade” Popcorn instead.  The whole way home, I worried.  I worried that we should have gone to Giant Eagle.  I worried that this brand would not appease the Old Gods.  Would I be making another trip halfway through the show, my DVR on pause, as I wept into my steering wheel?

Thankfully, the Jolly Time Popcorn was more than adequate.  We watched the first episode of the season in relative peace.  And how was it?  AWESOME.  Except for this one part with a baby and killing, which is not good for a pregnant woman to watch (I covered my eyes).

*Time One: The Hunger Games.

I borrowed this picture from Pinterest, so I don't know who should get credit.

So, Pinterest.  I’m sure we all have opinions – it’s trendy!  It’s awesome!  It’s a time-suck!  I think it’s a little bit of all of those things.  I figured it would be like my Twitter: I’d use it for a few minutes here and there, feel like it was too much of a commitment, and never come back.  So far, though, Pinterest hasn’t been too stressful – it’s basically recipe hoarding in cyberspace.  I haven’t spent a lot of time looking through crafts and other ideas, although I certainly could.  Mostly, I’ve been pinning easy recipes that look good.

I haven’t talked much about food on this blog.  A short history of my weak cooking skills:  I did not learn how to cook before moving out on my own.  I was not interested.  My parents and grandparents excelled at cooking, and so did my sister, so it’s not through any fault of theirs.  I just wasn’t a foodie.  When I got my first apartment, however, I realized after 1. eating the plastic off my new pots and pans because I didn’t realize I had to wash them first and 2. cooking a frozen pizza with the cardboard underneath that I needed to figure out what I was doing.  So I learned how to cook basic dishes, mostly through trial and error.

My first librarian job got me interested in learning more.  Unfortunately, it also started the recipe hoarding.  Once I started putting Dewey numbers on all those shiny new cookbooks, I just had to browse through the recipes and copy them.  The problem then expanded to hoarding discarded old magazines.  Take my new subscription to Every Day with Rachael Ray and couple it with Pinterest, and you have the monster who writes this blog.

Even if I don’t have a lot of time for it, and I still mess up sometimes, I still like to cook.  I was looking forward to trying this recipe this weekend, since I had four days off in a row (doesn’t happen too often for us librarians!)  I also had an occasion, as my husband was entertaining a group at our house for Dungeons and Dragons tonight.  Yep, I fed myself and five men with this recipe, plus a salad and chips.  I’d call that a success.  Everyone enjoyed them, too.  They do come out a bit crispy – the original pinner didn’t bake them, but I wanted to get that little extra crunch, as well as the melty cheese.

Here’s what we did, based on my Pinterest find:

-Grease two 9×13 pans and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

-Cook one pound of lean hamburger (you could also use turkey).  Mix with two cans pre-made chili.

-Cook about 30 jumbo shells.

-Arrange shells in pans and fill with chili mixture.  Bake, covered with foil, for 20 minutes.

-Remove pans from oven.  Discard foil.  Sprinkle with cheddar cheese.  Bake another 5 minutes.

I have more Pinterest recipes in the queue for this week’s meals, including some crock pot recipes.  Stay tuned to see if they turn out!  Have you found anything exciting on Pinterest?

  So, where have I been lately?  I really have no excuses for not blogging, although I can tell you a lot of exciting things have been going on.  I found out my baby is a boy, my third mystery night play at the library was a success, and I’ve been finishing my Grapemo obligations.  Only a few more weeks and the novel I have worked on for the last two years will be done – the first draft, anyway.  I finally dug in my heels, pushed away other writing projects, and fearlessly drafted until now, the home stretch.

I know what I need to do next: create a product that shines, and I have a plan for revision and beta reading to follow.  (My readers know who they are!)  So my publishing decision is still far away, and will probably come after the delivery of my human project in July.  But I can’t help thinking about it, often when I’m at work and talking to patrons about the future of reading, especially with e-readers and tablets so prevalent now as a delivery device.  What’s the best way to get my book out there to readers?

At our last Sisters in Crime meeting, we watched this YouTube video from author Libby Fischer Hellmann, titled “To E or Not to E.”  A lively discussion ensued.  It is worth a watch if you want the basics, the pros and cons of why authors choose self-publishing or traditional publishing.  I left the meeting feeling conflicted.  There were enough reasons to pursue self-publishing as not to, and I was afraid that either way, I was going to compromise some of my beliefs regarding the current state of publishing in the world.

My most important problems remain:

I don’t want to be published with a publisher that doesn’t support libraries.  How could I query a traditional agent, go through all the blood, sweat, and tears involved in finding someone who wants to sell me and my work, and then say to him or her, “I only want to be published through an institution that sells e-books to libraries?”  This would eliminate five out of the Big Six, and I really don’t think an agent would go for that.

I’m not sure I want to support Amazon, either.  Amazon, with their DRM, exclusivity agreements, and privacy issues with libraries, is not my favorite company right now.  But if I do self-publish, I would never be able to sell anything if I didn’t make my book available on the Kindle.  True, with control over my work, I could make it available in as many avenues as possible, including B&N, Smashwords, and Apple.  I can potentially work with OverDrive to make it available to libraries, too.  But Amazon as a distributor would be getting a lot of my profits.

There’s still a huge stigma regarding self-publishing.  Despite all the “Kindle millionaires” out there, and the sales many self-published authors report, both the library world and the writing world still turn their nose up at self-published authors.  And with good reason – many of those books are poorly edited and low-quality.  I get plenty of solicitations in my e-mail and in my physical mailbox at the library, and even though I usually give those books a chance, it’s rare that I can read past the first page.  Even writers who have traditionally published works occasionally put out unfortunate products.  I know my book won’t be low-quality.  I understand that not everyone will love it, and there will be bad reviews.  But if it were self-published, I’d be hard-pressed to convince my peers that it’s worth a read.

I’m still thinking about these issues, but what do you think?  Have you contemplated self-publishing or done it – why or why not?  Is traditional publishing going to hold up in the future?

Photo from iamPatrick on Flickr via Creative Commons.

Photo by Ed Dubiel

  So, since I have been pregnant, people have been asking me a lot of questions.  Here are some   convenient answers.

#1.  When are you due?  July 30.

#2a and #2b.  Is it a boy or a girl?  We don’t know yet.  Are you finding out?  Yes.

#3.  What are you naming the baby?

This last one is pretty complicated.  How do you decide what to name a baby?  It’s not the same as naming a book character – this kid is going to have to live with the name for the rest of his or her life, unless he or she decides to change it.  Also, people can be really judgmental of names.  I know this because I am judgmental of names I don’t like.  I try not to be, and ultimately I know that every child’s name comes to fit his or her personality.  So we are not going to let anyone know the final choice until the day the baby is born.  If you see me in person, I might tell you names we are considering, but honestly, we might not even know what the name is until the day he or she comes.

I can tell you a few things that may or may not be happening, though.

No super-unconventional spellings or anything that’s tough to pronounce.  Like I said, I don’t want to be judgmental, but I don’t like names like Madysyn or Bryttney.  Cari is okay, but I have spent my life telling people how to spell it, and that is tough.  Also, my legal name is Carolyn, which confuses people even more.  I can’t guarantee my child won’t end up with a name he or she has to spell, though.  My last name is Dubiel.  If you don’t tell people over the phone “d as in dog” and “b as in boy” you end up with Bubiel and Buviel on your mail.  Also, no one knows how to pronounce it.  My father-in-law and husband pronounce it differently.  I just go with whatever comes out of my mouth at the time.  Two things that are important, though – it is not a long “i” (not Du-bye-ull) and yes, you do pronounce the “l”  (it’s not Du-be-ay).

Nothing super-common.  I like having a name few other people have.  Ed’s name is also pretty uncommon, although I think more and more kids are going to have it after this whole Twilight thing.  But since we already have an Edward, we’re not going to have a Jacob or Bella.

Speaking of Twilight… no combination names.  If I named my kid after her two grandparents, her name would be something awful like Cinrenee.  Or Rencindy.  A boy would be Jimike.  Shame on you, Stephenie Meyer.

We are not ruling out naming our child after a video game character.  Or a literary character.  In fact, a name of this nature is extremely likely.  But we will not choose a video game character with a very unconventional name.  I won’t subject a daughter to the name “Fredna” because that was my Warcraft gnome.  However, Ed has a human paladin named Leanne who has ended up in D&D, Old Republic and Warcraft, which is a good solid name for a little girl.

How about you?  How did you come up with your child’s name?  And if you have encountered judgment, how did you handle it?  If you don’t have kids, do you have any rules for naming your pets or fictional characters?

I’ve never been much of a fan of Valentine’s Day.  I guess I was overly bitter about it during my single years.  Even when Ed and I started dating, I didn’t love it because it was this big obligation.  We MUST celebrate our love today!  Everyone else is doing it!  There are flowers and chocolates and dinners out!  I remember one V-Day when Ed and I had a huge fight.  I don’t even remember what it was about, but I went to school the next day (I was in library school at the time) wearing all black.  Can we say overdramatic?  I definitely have an irrational problem with this holiday.

So unless Ed has other plans he hasn’t told me about, we’re not doing anything.  I work late, so by the time I get home, it will be time for the premiere of Top Shot, which Ed will watch while I read.  I’m currently reading The Rook by Daniel O’Malley, which isn’t a Valentine’s Day book at all.  But if you are in the mood for a love story, you may want to try I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella, which comes out tomorrow (I was lucky enough to have an advanced reader).  Or you can listen to our ABC Book Reviews Podcast special Valentine’s Day show, in which we plumb the differences between romance novels and love stories.

I don’t talk about the Kinsella book on the podcast, but it’s a great light romance.  It’s not even bad for those V-day haters among us.  The main character, Poppy Wyatt, goes through plenty of trials and tribulations, enough to show that the path to love is not always straight.  Oh, she may think she’s heading towards happily ever after – she’s engaged, with a handsome and smart husband-to-be.  But when she loses her phone to a street thief and then finds a new one in a garbage can, she ends up caught up in a relationship she didn’t expect.  The phone belonged to the personal assistant of a high-powered businessman, Sam Roxton, until the PA chucked it in anger.  Now Poppy has to manipulate Sam so she can keep the phone until she’s done using it.  But even when the phone has outlived its usefulness, she finds herself making excuses to keep it… because she’s falling in love with Sam.  (Surprise!)

This book is classic Kinsella – I’ve loved her ever since I sped through Confessions of a Shopaholic on a lazy afternoon while house-sitting for some friends.  I don’t know how she comes up with such laugh-out-loud situations.  Especially since I’ve been playing so much Words with Friends, I howled during the scene where Poppy is playing Scrabble with her potential in-laws.  They’re all doctors, so they’re making all these fancy words, and poor Poppy can only come up with “cat” and “cow.”  That’s sometimes how I feel!

Whatever you do for your Valentine’s Day, or whatever you read, I hope the day is pleasant.  Feel free to share your plans and/or the books you’re saving for the day.

Book cover image is not my own and is not used for profit, only to promote the author.