The Irresistable Lure of Self-Knowledge

So I don't think it's anything new to mention that I don't find my job...terribly fulfilling. I try hard to make it so but, for the most part, I find myself going in, getting my work done but lacking that little burst of excitement I get when I'm enjoying doing something.

I do my work and I think I do it pretty well. I'm just a little bored. So, I find ways to make it more interesting. I mentioned some of these methods last week. I also have been on a quest to figure out what job I should have.

There are all kinds of methods for figuring this out. Just google "free career personality test". I've taken a few of them. They don’t take very long. They're a bit of a waste of time when you've been working for a while. For example, mine tells me I have a very strong creative drive and that I should be either an artist or writer.

I don't find this helpful. I already knew that. I think what I'm secretly looking for is a test that not only tells me that I should be a writer but also has a secret password that makes it suddenly possible for me to make a living as a writer. Really, they're a bit of a waste of time when I know, by now, what my skills are and how I can best apply them. The problem is we're in a sucky economy so knowing what you want to do or what you'd rather be doing isn't helpful when there simply aren't that many jobs out there.

As you can imagine, I got bored with these personality tests. So I decided to take another more personality…personality test. It turns out that I'm an INFJ. This means I'm apparently Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Judging.

Actually, I can't argue with that. I probably didn't need a test to tell me that but it's always nice to learn about yourself, isn't it? It's a human thing. At heart, I think we all want to know more about ourselves and who we are. It's the reason that personality tests exist in the first place.

I like what they say about us INFJ personality types:

"INFJs have a rich, vivid inner life, which they may be reluctant to share with those around them"

I definitely cannot argue with that. As you've probably figured out from my thought processes during meetings, I have a very vivid inner life. I tell you readers more about it than I do the people around me. This is mostly through fear that people will think I'm seriously insane as opposed to the cultivated air of British eccentricity I'm going for.

They also say:

"INFJs have vivid imaginations exercised both as memory and intuition, and this can amount to genius, resulting at times in an INFJ being seen as mystical. This unfettered imagination often will enable this person to compose complex and often aesthetic works of art such as music, mathematical systems, poems, plays, and novels"

I rather like that my imagination can amount to genius. I'm not sure how you find out if you're a genius but it's rather nice that I'm staying true to my personality type with the creation of novels and plays and things.

All in all, if you're bored or you want to know more about yourself, I highly recommend taking any of the free Meyers-Briggs type personality tests that you can find online. Just google it. Even if you think you know yourself, there's something nice about having what or who you are be affirmed by a clinical test.

Or, you know, maybe not if it tells you that you're a raving lunatic or something.

I don't think I'm a raving lunatic, fortunately. At least, none of the personality tests have told me so. Then again, I haven't found one that is called, "Are you a raving lunatic? Take this test and find out!" I'm sure there's one out there. If not, maybe I should create one. This would, however, lead to a philosophical dilemma. Are the factors that I feel contribute to a case of raving lunacy the same as everyone elses? What if what I consider to be lunacy isn't really…lunacy. I mean, in my opinion, anyone who thought Breaking Dawn, the final Twilight novel was actually good is a bit of a raving lunatic.

(side note, speaking of Breaking Dawn, here is a video that sums up exactly how I feel about it. It's short. It's funny. Go ahead, watch it!)

Seriously, though…I think that personality tests are a lot of fun although many of them are relative. Also, so many of them are so obvious that if you want a certain outcome, you can guide your answers that way. The thing I like about the Meyers-Briggs types of tests is they're really long. After a while, you realize you're being asked the same questions over and over but you get so braindead in answering them, you sometimes don't answer them the same way. This is actually good, I think. It helps you be more honest.

Anyway, for the record, I had no idea this is what I was going to blog about today. I had intended to sit down and write about the miracle of garlic. I was looking at a bulb today at lunch when I went home and realizing how amazing it is we have things like garlic. First off, who was the brave soul to think "Hey, let's try eating that?" How did garlic get to be garlic? I mean, it's such a nifty little plant thing. It's tasty, nutritious and..it's useful. It's just a tiny little miracle in a little white bulb.

I bet you're glad I didn't spend the whole blog just rambling about garlic, aren't you? I probably could. Maybe I'll save that until tomorrow. Unless I find a personality test that's called, "How Do You Feel About Garlic?"

Just kidding.

Happy Tuesday!

Tuesday Rant: Why I Hate Fanfiction

It's Tuesday. I'm giving up believing in weather forecasters. Part of me thinks we were more accurate before the days of Doppler 55,000 or whatever it is these days. Back in the days where shepherds used to tell the weather from the sunsets, when people relied on their bones to tell 'em it was going to rain....what's the difference really? Those shepherds probably got the weather right as often as the modern weatherforecasters. This morning, we were supposed to get an inch of snow. It's raining. Yes, I know that meteorologists can't tell the future but....you'd think they'd be a little more accurate once in a while.

Anyway, today feels like one of those days where I need a good rant to get me kickstarted since it's a soggy Tuesday morning, it's not light outside yet and my brain is still waking up. So, lucky readers, todays rant is all about Fan Fiction.

Are you familiar with fan fiction? I wasn't really until recently. It's one of those things I knew existed but I had no interest in it so I ignored it completely. Lately though, it's been crossing my path as I surf the web and I finally decided to figure out what it was all about.

Frankly, I'm slightly appalled at the amount of it out there. In short, fan fiction is written about already existing characters usually from TV shows, books, even theatre. It can be innocent fiction that basically fulfills someone's fantasies, allows unsuccessful writers to change their shows/books/movies/theatre storylines in the way THEY would do if THEY wrote for TV or it fulfills some rather twisted fantasies on the part of the writer.

I'm sure there's more to it than that. What I have figured out is that fanfiction writers have to honour the canon of the original material; they can't change what's happened already on the show, in the book, in the movie, or whatever. They can't change the personalities of the characters they write about just to suit their needs. They have to respect the parameters of the worlds that the real writers who created them have set up.

Some of it is fairly silly. Some fanfiction writers focus on what is called 'shipping. That is to say they take an existing romance on a tv show and write about those two characters. They also take two opposite sex characters who are not romantically involved and write romance between them. There's also alternate universe in which they find ways to change the history of the tv show/book or whatever and write a different version of events.

The one that disturbs me a little is slash fiction. I had no idea what this was until I looked it up on Wikipedia. This particular brand of fan fiction takes two same-sex characters and gets them romantically or sexually involved, regardless of whether they're gay or not. Usually, they're not. The more I read about it, the more disturbed I got. One of the most popular themes is Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Seriously, what is wrong with these people? Harry Potter started as a children's book. Yes, it got darker as the series progressed but it was still aimed at children. Nowhere in the book is there any scene with Harry and Draco having a romantic or sexual moment.

Here's the part where I give the obligatory "I'm not homophobic" explanation. I'm not. We can't help who we love and are attracted to. We can fight it but, ultimately, it's in our genetic makeup to be sexually attracted to someone, whether the same sex or the opposite one. I know that being gay is a lifestyle and all but in my mind, it still boils down to who's in your bed at the end of the day. I'm British with stereotypical reserve: Whatever someone does is up to them but don't make a fuss about it. It doesn't bother me who the heck someone sleeps with. I've never understood the need for gay people to "confess" or "come out". It's not like I'm running around saying "I'M STRAIGHT! I ADMIT IT!" It should just be something we are. Yes, I'm an idealist. Knowing is half the battle as my character, John King, would quote.

Anyway, enough of that. What I'm trying to say is that if J.K. Rowling had made Draco and Harry a couple, it would be different. It would definitely be a different sort of book but given J.K's genius, it would still be very readible, I'm sure. But she didn't. She wrote a book about a boy wizard who grows up, vanquishes the evil villain and falls in love with Ginny Weasley. There's plenty of fan fiction about Ginny and Harry too, by the way.

It's the same with TV shows. I love Grey's Anatomy even if I think it's on crack at the moment. But Meredith and Christina are NOT a couple. They are friends. Derek and Mark Sloan are also JUST friends.

You can tell, slash fiction bothers me. I think of it as a form of porn. I actually have no problem with porn, as it happens. It fills a need, some people consider it art. It's there if you want it.

Which makes me question why I'm so bothered by slash fiction. It's probably because it's out there for anyone to see. They do have a rating system so readers can make sure it's suitable. Yet it's out there. The best reason I can come up with is that becasue I am a writer. I find it offensive. I have a series of books, as I've mentioned, that have three teenage boys who are good friends. I know if it were ever to get published and get popular, slash fiction would be born and I'd be horrified. Those are MY characters- get your nasty fanfiction hands off them.

Yes, I'm a selfish writer. I have a moral beef with stealing other people's ideas. It's the same reason I refuse to read "sequels" to books like Pride and Prejudice or Gone with the Wind. Unless a sequel is written by the originating author, it's not really a sequel. It's fan fiction, regardless of the cover price, publisher or level of prestige that goes with it. There is NO way to know what a deceased author would have written about their character in a sequel and so it's not fair for another writer to assume they do.

I apply this logic to everything, even books I despise. There are 'alternate versions' of Stephanie Meyer's Breaking Dawn floating around, books that were written by angry fans who hated the way she wrote the ending of the Twilight series. As I've mentioned, I hated Breaking Dawn and thought it one of the worst books I've read in several years. Yet that doesn't mean that I have the right to change it. It's Stephanie Meyer's baby, her creation. Even if it is a self-indulgent, twisted piece of anti-feminist rubbish, that's the way she wrote it. End of story. Unless she decides that it is, indeed, absolute crap, recalls every copy she published and issues a better version, that's the way the series ends. No amount of fanfiction is going to change it.

I can hear the opposing arguments: At least fanfiction writers are writing, using their imaginations, finding ways to get through bad times in life. It's an outlet, a way to inspire creativity. Sure, that's fine, I suppose. Some of them are actually quite good writers and I can't help but wonder if, maybe, they applied the same energy to original stories with their own characters, we'd have less Breaking Dawns and more Harry Potter type novels.

I know that writing fanfiction is almost like a drug; a way to escape into a world that is more interesting than the real one around us. It's a way to 'talk' to characters that are loved, adored, hated, admired. It's a way to crawl inside those characters head's, to be a part of that world we've read about or watched. It's a way to be a part of it, to wrap ourselves up in the lives of the people we've only ever observed before, voyeuristically or otherwise.

So I get it. I do. I still hate it. I still hate the violation of an original idea. I still think the fanfiction writers should step outside of fantasy and project that creativity into the real world around them but, like any vice, I don't suppose they can help it, not really. I really have no right to condemn them and, really, I'm not. I'm just stating the fact that I, as a writer, and as Captain Monkeypants, do not really understand why there is so much fanfiction out there and why it's tolerated. I suppose imitation is the highest form of flattery which is why some of the "canon" writers don't mind but I can safely say, it would bother me if someone took my characters and used them for virtual sexual gratification. Whatever reason the fanfiction writers do it, I still don't like it. I suppose it's like shrimp; you either love it or you hate it. I, personally, hate shrimp. The taste is ok but the texture and feel in my mouth is vile. Fan fiction is like shrimp. I like the canon but I feel dirty when reading the fan fiction, like I'm commiting a violatation against the original writer.

I'm sure I'll offend with this post and I do, honestly, apologize. It's just my opinion. I have friends who like fanfiction, who even write it. Maybe there's more to it than I've ranted about here. Maybe there is something I don't get about it. If so, tell me because, as I said before, knowing is half the battle.

Happy Tuesday

Happy New Year!

It's New Year's Eve. I feel as though I should write a deep and meaningful blog, a reflection of this past year. Or I should give my best and worst for the year as other bloggers seem to be doing. There's nothing wrong with that. Ok, so I don't often agree with the choice for the best of 2008 but then again, once I find something I like, whether it be music or not, it becomes my 'best', regardless of what year it's from. For example, if asked what the best album of 2008 is, I would say "Green Day: American Idiot." Ok, so it was released in 2004 but it's still the album I listen to most and since nothing really came out that made me drop this from my 'best' list, then it's still the best.

So, that's why I won't do a Captain Monkeypants 'Best of 2008' list. Because my 2008 is your 2004 or 2005. And once something's the best, it's hard to top that.

Instead, I'll do what I seem to do best...ramble for a while.

New Years Eve has never been a hugely momentous event in my life. Many of my years have been spent quietly at home with my parents, drinking Baileys, occasionally champagne and turning off a movie to watch the ball drop. This may read like I'm pathetic. Perhaps I am. Yet the thing is, I adore my parents. They love me unconditionally and they're always there for me. I know the trendy thing to do is go to a party and kiss someone at midnight but if I don't have anyone I want to kiss at midnight, well, then a quiet evening in with my parents is actually a rather nice alternative.

Ok, so there have been times when there's someone I wish would kiss me at midnight but I've never been much of a romantic heroine and it never happens.

The odd occasion where I've been away from home for New Years have been interesting. One year, I had to go back to school early and my roommate and I tried to go to a New Years Eve party but by the time it was 11 p.m., almost the entire body of the party was either drunk or stoned. It was clear that the seeing in of the New Year wasn't going to happen unless the host of the party stopped throwing up enough to remember what night it was so we slipped out the back door, went home, grabbed a bottle of strawberry wine and went and watched the Midnight fireworks dance over the Ohio river. I have to say, that was a nice way to see in the New Year.

Another year, I was in Pasadena, crammed like a sardine into my friend's living room. That was a fun night. It was a houseful of people, all just relaxing. It was freezing and it was hard to stay warm. We crammed around a little fireplace, warming ourselves enough to go outside. We all planned on seeing in the New Year, watching the Stealth Bomber fly over in the morning, signaling the start of the Rose Parade.

Well, we did see in the New Year. Yet we all managed to sleep until we heard the bomber flying overhead. By the time we all sprinted outside, we'd missed it. We managed to wander up to watch the Rose Parade, a truly amazing spectacle. I don't think watching it on TV does it justice; the sight of a million flowers, wound into patterns, designs, ornaments, adornments....it's truly something to watch live.

Tonight, I've been invited to a party. I was excited to go to a real one. Unfortunately, though, my return to the Midwest from the moderate temperature of L.A. is playing havoc on my immune system and I'm coughing and sneezing and feeling generally unlike imbibing and infecting others with my germs. I may try to go but it may end up being a quiet New Year's after all. It honestly doesn't matter. To me, it's not what you're doing on New Year's Eve that matters but it's how you pass the following year that does.

2008 has been a strange year. It's been a year of loss, change, old and new experiences. It's been a year when I've learned that friends can also be family, that dreams don't die, they just strengthen and grow stronger. It's been a year when I've learned that the important things don't have to be huge, they can be tiny and still mean just as much.

I don't know if I have resolutions for the new year that I don't make every day. It's something to think about, I guess. The year starts anew and we're supposed to also but do we, really? Do we really become better people tomorrow because the year has started over? Do our slates really clean and give us a new chance?

What does the turning of a year offer us that we wouldn't have on any other tomorrow? It's all symbolic, that I know. Yet maybe there is something in the closing of the year that does make everything feel fresh, feel new. Maybe there is a reason to resolve to do things better, to try harder, to reach harder and grab tighter to the dreams we have in our hearts and minds.

Whether I celebrate as a group or I see the New Year in alone, it really makes no difference, I suppose. It will happen, regardless of what I'm doing. My friends in the UK will be in 2009 five hours before I am, my friends in California, three hours after. It's a strange time when midnight hits on New Years: time travel is actually possible. I like that aspect, it's exciting.

I suppose I should think about New Years Resolutions. Perhaps I should resolve to not be so mean about Stephanie Meyer. Although, since it's still 2008, I can safely say the WORST book of the year is definitely Breaking Dawn without breaking that resolution. I'll work on the rest.

In the meantime, no matter what you end up doing or who you end up with, I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year. Here's to 2009, a year of hope and newness.

-CM 12-31-08

Bonus Blog: Twilight...My Review

If you've read my blog on any given week, I have a tendency to rant. My favourite ranting topic o' the moment is Stephanie Meyer and the awfulness of Breaking Dawn. I'm also not much of a Meyer fan in general. I read Twilight a while ago, before I knew about the Twi-hards or (Twi-tards, as I prefer) and the Twilight moms. I thought it was an ok book, one by which Anne Rice should feel a little plagerized but I sort of understood why it reached teens. The rest of the series was bland and silly with the exception of Breaking Dawn which should never have been published without mass rewriting and editing.

My hatred of Breaking Dawn retroactively made me despise anything to do with Meyer and Twilight and so when the movie became the cover story for Entertainment Weekly on a regular basis or, at the very least, a huge space-stealer, I was irritated beyond belief. I was sick to death of the hype and still, to this day, can't understand why Entertainment Weekly and other magazines could not promote the far-superior Stardust movie last year with the same gusto. Stardust, based on the Neil Gaiman book, was cute, clever, romantic, hilarious and just a fun ride that makes me want to rewatch it over and over. The original book is a grown-up fairy tale, written with lyric and simplicity and worth ten of Twilight any day.

Yet, because I am a fair Monkeypants, I knew I couldn't complain about a movie without seeing it and so, I knew I had to see Twilight. After all, I'm a firm believer that you can't mock properly without having done your research.

I had no expectations. I expected it to stink. The previews had done nothing to prove otherwise. So I went into the theatre, expecting to snort with derision and emerge at the end, satisfied that I'd been right.

Truth is, that didn't happen. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a good movie by any means. It just wasn't as horrible as I expected. Given my earlier scathing comments, that's high praise.

Let's start with what I liked. I thought that the scene in which Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and Bella Swan (Kristin Stewart) are paired as lab partners was awesome. The look of revulsion on Edward's face was perfect. The problem was, it made me wonder how much cooler the books would have been if he had continued to loathe her. So much more interesting than puppy-love, don't you think?

Yet this scene made me feel differently about Robert's portrayal of Edward. I got a strong feeling that he was almost mocking the character as he portrayed him, that there was a snarky and bitter undertone in his performance that played perfectly on screen. I'm probably wrong but I felt like Robert didn't think much to Edward and that added a rather good layer to the character who otherwise is one of the wussiest, blandest vampires ever to grace the fiction world.

I also liked Billy Burke's portrayal of Charlie Swan, Bella's dad. In the books, the character has always been rather obtuse and uninvolved in his daughter's romantic entanglement with vampires. Even when she disappeared for months and then re-appeared as a vampire in Breaking Dawn, all it took was for a football game on TV to distract him. I get the feeling that the movie Charlie would kick that Charlie's arse. He's protective, wry and funny. Granted, the man is town Police Chief and he cleans his gun while drinking beer but he's funny and I loved the layers he gave a somewhat background character.

I also actually enjoyed the baseball scene. Set to Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole", the scene is fun and enjoyable. Then again, I've always liked Muse so maybe that was why.

So, see, I can be nice. But I can also be scathing. For example, though Bella Swan has always baffled me as to why Edward can love such a drip, Kristin Stewart's portrayal is beyond dull. She's very pretty and has good hair in the movie. However, she delivers Bella's lines in a monotonal fashion that show that she, like us, is bored with the character. The turning point in the movie in which it went from being decent to being bad was the scene where she confronts Edward and tells him she knows he's a vampire. Ugh. The way she says her lines: "Your skin is ice-cold and pale..." and all that stuff is cringeworthy.

Speaking of lines, there are some stinkers in there. The two worst, sadly, are taken directly from Meyer's book: "And so the lion fell in love with the lamb" and "You're my special brand of heroin". Really? I HATE the lion/lamb line. It makes me think of one of those high-school freshman who want to be writers journaling in their notebook, writing what they think is deep prose but really is a glorified diary entry.

Then there's the special effects. I know the budget sucked for the movie but it seems that they skimped on areas that should have had the most attention paid to them. We didn't need to see Edward jump and run up so many trees. The money spent on that would much better have been spent on makeup. Seriously, Carlisle Cullen looks terrible. You can see the pancake makeup piled on. Maybe it was the blonde hair but he looked washed out and unattractive.

The scene in which Edward shows why he can't go out in the sun (he sparkles- in case you hadn't read the book) was awful. He looked sweaty. He didn't look like "he'd been sprinkled with diamond dust" as the book so frequently and gushingly describes. He looked wet and sweaty.

And then there are the rest of the Cullens. Alice was pretty good, very accurate to the way she is in the book. Emmett was supposed to be strong and big but he looked like a lumberjack to me. Rosalie, played by Nikki Read, was over-acted and pretty terrible. And then there was Jasper. He stood there with a blank look on his face. He's supposed to be able to calm people's emotions, that's his Vampire Power. I now call him Jasper Scissorhands because his hair and facial expression are so much like Edward Scissorhands, he should be sued.

Overall, there were moments where I was entertained. I only cringed a couple of times. I won't mention the author's cameo in the movie. It irritated me, let's leave it at that.

I wouldn't recommend Twilight. It isn't good. It's the type of movie that, if it didn't have an army of militant fans, would probably have flopped and emerged as a DVD rental. It's ok. It's watchable but it won't explain to the non-Twilight readers what all the fuss is about. Harry Potter it is not but then, it doesn't even deserve to be placed in comparison with those books though I'm reading otherwise.

I had to review this movie since I've ragged on the subject so much. I think perhaps if it was viewed as a comedy, it'd be better. I can't help but think Robert Pattinson might like that. Yet, overall, it wasn't as painful as I expected. But it wasn't good. And that, for now, is all I have to say about that.

In which I Tried to be Nice but Failed Miserably (Sorry, Stephanie Meyer)

I promise I'm going to try to hold back from complaining about anything related to Twilight, Stephanie Meyer or anything resembling syrupy, unoriginal, annoying vampire fiction. At least for today. I think I need to read something else that's really bad; then again after I read The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown that sent me on a rant that still isn't quite over, even though it's been several years since I read it. To be fair though, Angels and Demons, the prequel to The Davinci Code. was much worse. I mean, that one had the self-proclaimed 'Harrison Ford in Tweed' hero, Robert Langdon falling from a high flying helicopter and he escaped with nary a bruise.

Here's a confession though: Sometimes I read Dan Brown's fiction because it's so bad, I relish it. There's still a couple of his books I haven't read and I'd like to think I can restrain myself. It shouldn't be too hard. After all the last one I read was so silly, I can't believe it got published. It was something like Digital Fortress or something. There's a couple of them that sound the same. All I know is that he started writing the book with a female heroine who was supposed to be smart but she ended up getting pushed to the sidelines because the men around her were much smarter. It was bad. Though the book had one of my all-time favourite "Don't Write Like This" phrases: "Her olive gaze was keen." To this day, I'm not quite sure whether he meant she had green eyes that turned everything around her green and keen or whether she had mysteriously replaced her eyeballs with pimento stuffed olives. Both of them make for an interesting visual, you have to admit.

Other than the Strictly Research Harlequin books I read, I haven't read anything bad since Breaking Dawn. I've read good books. I don't know if that's because I've just picked good books since then or because that book was so atrocious that everything else pales in comparison.

At the moment, I'm reading a popular fiction book: The Time Traveler's Wife. I wasn't sure about it at first. The time traveling was a bit confusing in the beginning but then it evened out and it got interesting. I also wasn't sure about it because I was afraid it was going to be some silly, too fictional to be real love story. Not that there's anything thing wrong with a love story but if the lovers in question don't at least have a couple of scenes where they're ready to throw knives at one another, it's not realistic to me. Then again, I am the person who couldn't get through Wuthering Heights. Talk about a couple of drips. They actually probably would have thrown knives at each other, come to mention it. Most of the time, it seemed like that hated each other. I think it was one of those grand passions that are so famous in fiction. Unfortunately, they were both so despicable, I really wished they'd both just ride off into the moors and get eaten by the Blair Witch or something.

Um, yeah, Captain Monkeypants may still be feeling a little snarky. Sorry about that.

Back to The Time Traveler's Wife. It was a loaner from a good friend who insisted I finish it. So I perservered even though I don't do well with the concept of time travel. To me, it's the same level of confusion as concentrating while trying to brush my hair in the mirror. I'm not terribly good at the whole reverse image thing. I get befuddled. Time travel befuddles me. All that paradoxical stuff in which future people can travel back and talk to past people but not be seen by their present people or whatever...it's all rather perplexing. It's one of those things I'd rather be perplexed by rather than have someone try to explain it. Like all things I don't understand, it's magic. That's good enough for me.

But this book isn't confusing now I'm into it. I'm intrigued. I'm almost done and I think I might have figured out how it's going to end and if I'm right, I don't think I'm going to like it but I might love it. I confess, sometimes I'm a skipper. This means that I cheat, I skip to the end of a book because I can't wait to see what happens. I'm trying to be better about that lately so I'm not skipping to the end of this book.

The reason I might not like it is that it's not going to be a completely happy ending. I might love it because if I'm right, it means the author did a brilliant thing in placing an almost throwaway scene strategically towards the beginning of the book and I almost didn't think anything of it. I love it when that happens. I love that I'd have to read the second time to see if knowing the ending spoils the book. I'm weird like that, I suppose but I love to reread a good book, particularly one with an excellent ending.

Endings are hard for writers. There are some writers I enjoy who cannot write a decent ending to save their life. Stephen King comes to mind. He falls into the trap of building it up so much that the ending is almost a complete letdown because there's nowhere to go. I think It is the best example of that. I loved that book until the end. The flashbacks were clever, the story built up, it was creepy and scary and then when you found out that the It in question was really just a glorified giant spider, it was a bit of a letdown. Pennywise the Clown was WAY creepier. Dean Koontz is also pretty bad at endings. I think horror writers have it hardest because creating the horror is much easier than explaining it. After all, it's really just a variation on the old saying that there's power in a name. There's a power in knowing in a horror novel. Once you know what the Big Creepy is, it's far less creepy. It becomes an object that can be confronted because it is known. It's the not knowing that's the scariest thing of all.

Stephen King's son released a novel fairly recently. His name is Joe Hill and the novel is Heart Shaped Box. For a first time novel, it was actually quite a good read. It definitely had some moments of creepiness. When he released it, he didn't publicize who he was but one look at his photo on the back cover and it was pretty obvious to anyone who spent vast amounts of their teenage years reading Stephen King novels that the two were related. They look extremely alike. It wasn't a mystery. Joe has a lot of similarities in his writing to the earlier Stephen King. I can't say it was the best horror novel I read but as a ghost story, it's definitely worth reading. But I will admit, the ending of that wasn't anything I really remember. I remember the hero and his unlikely love. I remember the ghost. I remember how the ghost came to being and I remember being very sad for the dogs. I just don't remember the ending very well. That's probably not a good sign.

I won't lie and say I'm great at endings either. They're hard. Really hard. The more you write the characters and the longer you spend with them, the harder it is. I've written eight novels now. Of those eight, there are five that are a series. I spent a couple of years with the main characters, my boys as I like to refer to them: John, Michael and David. They're all wonderful, even when they're evil and they do bad things. I killed one of them. Actually, no, I killed two of them. That was hard. I'd say that was a spoiler because nothing is ever what it seems, especially when I'm making up the details.

But the hardest part was writing the last book in the series and realizing that their story was done. Though I knew how it would end, getting there took a long time. I've rewritten the ending several times and I don't think I'm 100% happy with it. It needs to be edited more. It needs to be tidied up. It needs to be tighter. But I couldn't quite let go of them because I was afraid that would be it. Those boys would leave me and I'd have to move on.

Those boys haven't left me though. They're in my head all the time. I call it my literary schitzophrenia. They've been joined by a couple of other characters who've stuck with me but whose ending I had no trouble with. I usually don't start to write towards the ending until I know what it will be. Sometimes I know the ending before I know the beginning. Other times, I think I know the end but my characters tell me otherwise and I'm at their mercy.

I'd love to share my books with the world. I've dabbled with query letters but I haven't really jumped in feet first. I want those boys I wrote to get out into the world. I want them to grab the readers the way they grabbed me, their tale of good and evil, friendship and brotherhood and the sometimes brutal way they have to act to carry out their purpose in life. And I love how they take that purpose in life and stomp all over it.

But when I think about jumping in feet first, I think about poor Stephanie Meyer. She might be rich but there are always going to be people like me, brutally stomping on the ending to her Twilight saga and ranting about what a pile of crap it is. I'd like to think she was terrified to let the world read that, that it meant so much to her she almost didn't want to publish it because her heart was in that novel. But I've read it and as brutal as it sounds, there is no heart in there. To me, Breaking Dawn is just the self-indulgent whim of a writer who stopped remembering to let her characters tell the story and forced them into submission so she could write the ending she'd always visualized instead of the one that belonged to the book.

So, though I planned on finishing The Time Traveler's Wife tomorrow, I think I may stretch it out. The ending isn't too far off now and if it's anything like the rest of the book, it's going to make me think. Against my expectations, I like the characters and I like how unconventional they are. I especially like that though the time traveler and his wife are in love, they fight and argue like real people. I like thinking I know how it's going to end but knowing I might be wrong. I just hope that I'm not wrong about how good it's going to be. Endings are hard, in every sense of the word. But sometimes they can be as good as a beginning when it leaves you with a hope, a thought and a memory of how much it meant to have it, even for a little while. It's true for writing and it's true for life. It's always hard to say goodbye.

On that note, it is time for my ending for now. I know I said I'd be nice and not rant about Stephanie Meyer but, well, like I said, I can't always plan for how I write. It just happens. And I said I'd try. Clearly even the best of intentions go awry sometimes. I'll try to read something else awful so I can move on. Recommendations are greatly appreciated.

Happy Thursday, everyone.

There's always a Weatherly....

I am at a workshop all week. I think I mentioned that. Yesterday, I had to put in 13 hours of work. I'm playing two roles at the moment, one as a trainee which means I forced to cram a lot of information into my brain and the other as an employee of my company since they're providing the training. This means that I am expected to retain the learning.

I'm trying. I mentioned I wasn't good at meetings yesterday. I probably should mention today that I've never been particularly good at listening to lectures. I don't mind if it's a good lecture for which I have an interest in the subject but if it's remotely dull, I don't do to well.

This is not to say I don't keep trying. It just means that if the lecture is slightly dull or boring, i'm doomed.

Take yesterday for example. I had to learn some rather complicated stuff about how the software our company develops works. I managed to take in almost all of the first session. After that...well, it was spotty.

I did spend some rather interesting time observing people. I have learned in every training session, there's always one person whose head you wouldn't mind chopped off and served on a platter. Um, wait, maybe I should make that less barbaric lest you think I'm some kind of weirdo. There's always a person you would like to throw something at. Yes, much better.

In my session, we shall call her Weatherly for that is almost her name. Weatherly has used our software for a few years and thus, is an expert. Or so she claims. My first interaction came when I sat at her table for the obligatory welcome-and-introduce-yourself-by-saying-something-witty session. Bad idea. I didn't have a name badge on so she had no idea who I was. I got to listen to Weatherly talk about how tiny this training was compared to last year. I discovered afterwards that she hadn't been to the training last year and that she was thinking of a conference from two years ago. The conference is an annual event with over 200 people. Trainings average about 10-15 people. This one is 25 people.

She also managed to bad mouth several staff members who I know and like and respect. After a few too many moments, I reached across the table and introduced myself, pointedly. All this did was earn me a somewhat condescending sneer and meant that she began to whisper to her companion instead of talk full voice for the rest of the session.

She also likes to talk. A lot. Except it's never about anything useful, just very much about what a wonderful and fascinating person she is. She also likes to read the New York Times during the training sessions and then, during the exercises in which we apply what we've just learned, she spends the whole time asking the trainers questions because she's confused.

Fortunately, she's not the only distraction. We get a lot of breaks. I have a computer. This is dangerous as I'm a chronic surfer. I'm actually supposed to be listening but Weatherly just asked a question. She just arrived. 20 minutes late. She missed the discussion that would have answered her question. I'm trying to be patient but it's first thing in the morning. If the people who are from a time zone that's 3 hours behind can be here on time, I don't get why Weatherly, from a place within this time zone has to be late.

So I surf. I've read my Entertainment Weekly for the day. Normally, I like that website. Lately, it's been all about the Twilight movie. Once upon a time, I was curious about that movie. Then I read Breaking Dawn and I've retroactively reformed my opinion of the Twilight story. I hate it now. I'm so thrilled that teenage girls are fainting at the site of Robert Pattinson whenever they happen to catch a glimpse of him. He's playing the lead vampire in the movie, the swoony, perfect Edward Cullen. I say that with full sarcasm.

The funny thing is, in reading the Entertainment Weekly, I realized that Mr. Pattinson doesn't seem to care for his role much. Stephanie Meyer, the author of the novels, seems to think this movie is going to set him up for Leonardo DiCaprio levels of fame because it's such an amazing role. She makes a few slightly disparaging comments in the article about him disguised as compliments. I found that amusing.

More amusing, I found that both Robert and his costar, Kristin Stewart, don't seem to be taking their roles as seriously as both Meyer and the fans would like. They both seem to want to make sure that this isn't the defining role of their careers, that they'll be able to be actors without forever being able to be referred to as "Bella" and "Edward." I'm glad for them. It's quite a commitment they've made and neither of them seem to have known exactly how insane the fans and their mothers are.

So, seeing that they have teenage girls swooning before the movie comes out, makes me smile. I think it's good to have that sort of passion. It worries me a little in their mothers but...well...maybe it's a bonding thing. Maybe those mothers don't really fancy themselves a seventeen year old vampire. Granted, he's been 17 for a long time now but, well, that fictional character...he's still seventeen

Anyway, along with that surfing, I've also managed to read my email, make a move in my online scrabble-type game and read WAY too much on Facebook. And I still manage to get all my work done.

I'd say I'm proud of that but I'm really not. It's just the way I get through the day. I can't help it...I really want to be a good little student but I'm not. Not really. After all, I am the one who, in high school, tried to read Moby Dick, read the first page and then decided I could not read that book. I managed to do quite well in the discussion and on the paper; it's amazing how much deep thought you can make up when you read the back cover of a book. This is even before Wikipedia.

Anyway, I'm just babbling today because I don't have the usual time or brainpower to be able to write anything too funny or deep. Besides, Weatherly has sucked what little brain power I had away. She's currently asking why she can't connect to her home network on her personal laptop. My response would be much less polite than the instructors. Then again, her office only paid a few hundred dollars to send her here; why on earth would she need to learn anything?

Clearly, Captain Monkeypants is feeling snarky and crabby today. I apologize. I promise to be perkier tomorrow. Well, maybe not perky, perkiness in me is a little alarming. But I don't have to work quite so long today so maybe I'll this will help.

Then again, Weatherly is here all week. I can't wait.

Random Rants

I'm in the mood to randomly babble and rant today. I have no idea why. Well, actually I do. I just woke up, I don't feel like being a morning person today and I'm drinking the vile office coffee.

On the plus side, I did manage to get rather a lot of good Halloween chocolate, lollipops and candy at CVS yesterday at 75% off so I brought it into the office. I have learned that one of the cardinal rules of getting your coworkers to like you is to give them a copious amount of sugary items. These items are best when in the form of chocolate. However for those smart sucker-uppers like me, you have learned that there's always someone in the office on a diet. Thus, you bring in lollipops (about 1 weightwatcher point each) and Twizzlers- low in fat, high in sugar. I have learned that basic dieters (not the hardcore ones who are truly following a diet) will look at the fact that something has no fat, decide that's a good thing and eat it. I confess that I do this. In my world, when a food is low calorie/no calorie and low fat/no fat, it is good to eat it because it is healthy.

Yes, I am aware that this does not really mean something is healthy. Nor does it mean it's not having a negative impact on my digestive system. There are a lot of other things in food I should be worried about like fiber, transfats, sodium...all that. And, oh yeah, those carbohydrate things. The problem with that is my favourite foods are all high in carbs. I love bread. I love potatoes. I love pasta. So, I've found away around the carbs-are-not-good-for-me-obstacle: I just ignore them and rationalize why I can eat foods anyway. Bread has grains which are good for me. Potatoes are a vegetable and thus, by the Rule of "Because it's a vegetable, it's always healthy", they are good for me. Pasta...well, I usually try to put a tomato-y sauce on my pasta and so I invoke the rule of "Because it's a vegetable" again. By adding a vegetable to pasta, it automatically cancels out the badness of the carbohydrates.

And yes, Captain Monkeypants is fully aware that she is under a self-imposed spell of delusion. Captain Monkeypants is also attempting to be a professional writer and thus, delusion is a necessary survival tool to have in her armory.

I was planning on ranting about Twilight again and why the poster for the movie makes me cringe. So I'm going to. Now. Not to Movie Promoter People: Edward looks like he's about to fall asleep. Also, his eyes do not look like "liquid amber" as described so frequently in the books. They look like he might have had a few too many psychotropic drugs. Also, I know he's supposed to be pale but he's also supposed to pass for a human because otherwise, how could he have been going to school for, like, two hundred years or whatever? The poster makes him look like he's a zombie. It also makes me wonder what he's looking at down on the floor. Did he drop something? Did he spot a particularly juicy spider that he's thinking about eating since he's a 'vegetarian' vampire (only drinks the blood of animals so take that, PETA!)? And Bella...well, actually, she looks as boring as expected. I never could understand how such a drip could get someone like Edward but I suppose that's the point- ordinary girls can find extraordinary men to love them. It's been the premise of every successful romance from Cinderella to today's Chick Lit avalanche so, clearly, it's a formula that works.

Since not everyone has read Twilight, I'll stop now.

Also, the ladybugs are back. Not the same ones since I did end up committing genocide and leaving the poor little buggers (HA!) in my vacuum bag. No, their friends are here. I could hear the flapping of their wings when I woke up in the night. I tried to ignore the fear in me that they would decide to swarm in retailian for the fact that I'd murdered their friends. I was also afraid they'd enlist more jumping spiders to join in the fight. They didn't but the fear was there anyway and so I didn't sleep that well. I'm going to try NOT to vacuum this batch up. But I'm telling you, one indication that they're forming a Gathering and those things are gone.

At least it's Thursday. Thursdays are good. I'm a fan of Grey's Anatomy. Although, I just found out that ABC ordered the show to fire Dr. Hahn....well, actually the actress who plays doctor Hahn who was the lady from Silence of the Lambs who had to put the lotion on (It's way more effective when Buffalo Bill says that in the movie). It's something to do with the fact that the network doesn't like the storyline she's involved in because her character just came out and admitted she's gay. The storyline wasn't that compelling but it was actually pretty natural. It wasn't some ratings stunt but an organic progression of two women who started as friends and grew much closer. I suppose the show did go into a fair amount of detail about the sex between the women but it's on at 9 p.m. It's not like they showed it. I think the show has bigger things to worry about, honestly. I mean, Izzie is still on it. I can't stand Izzie. She's a self-righteous whiner who gets on my nerves.

I'm digressing. I already have a TV blog so I won't go into any more detail. If anyone's interested, it's http://captaintv.blogspot.com/. It's very TV heavy but I love TV so that explains that.

Anyway, that's my ranting for the day. I'm going to go to work now and attempt to put myself in a better mood. Maybe I should have some of the Twizzlers I'm bringing in. They're fat free! This means they're good for me.

Happy Thursday.

Friday, Food and Random Thoughts....

So, it's Friday and it's raining. I love that. I got to lie in bed this morning and listen to the rain. Granted, when I first woke up and hear it, it actually didn't sound like rain against my window; it sounded like someone was in my flat. As you can imagine, I was a little alarmed. I thought about reaching for my hammer. I keep a hammer by my bed as a weapon. It's probably not effective as a gun or even a baseball bat but it makes me feel better to have it so close by. The only slight problem with that is that I can't actually hit a nail when it's 6 inches from my face without missing so there might be a slight flaw in my self-defense mechanism.

However, that digression aside, it's Friday. I like Fridays. My favourite time is Friday evenings; they're my favourite day of the weekend because the entire weekend is in front of me and it's two whole days before I have to go back to work. I'm usually a bit of a lump on Friday nights. I watch a movie or TV, read and enjoy the fact that there's no work the next day. Sometimes I do go out but, mostly, I try not to do things on Friday nights except for a happy hour or something.

When I was younger, Friday nights were our family "Eating Out" night. The six of us would cram in my dad's car and go eat out. I used to love wondering where we'd eat. We had just moved from the UK and eating out was a novelty that we didn't have in England- it was WAY more expensive to have McDonalds or pizza there and, actually, was harder to come by. Nowadays, there is as much fast food there as here but back then, you actually had to hunt to find a McDonalds, if you can imagine. And I'm not even that old. So, when we moved to the U.S. and we got to eat out, it was a very awesome thing. I hadn't yet developed my affinity for more exotic foods like Mexican, Chinese, sushi or Italian (and when you had the palette that I did as a teen, Italian was exotic. Let's just say I was a picky eater). Most of the time, we ended up at Pizza Hut. My dad liked it. We'd order a big pizza, usually with pepperoni, maybe breadsticks and salad bar.

Then again, now that I'm thinking about it, when I do eat out with my parents, we still go to Pizza Hut the majority of the time and we order pepperoni pizza. Hmmm....my dad is definitely a creature of habit...

It's funny how things change when you get older. Back in high school, I loved eating out. Now, I consider it a treat to get to eat my mum's cooking. She's a fantastic cook. Her roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes is the best. Ever. My dad cooks too but he watches the Food Network a bit too much and has a tendency to think he's Maria Batali or Emeril. This is quite nice when he makes something from scratch but often, he likes to open a bag of pre-made something and fry it up. Then he watches you eat , eagerly waiting for feedback. It's hard to give good feedback on a bag of frozen Jimmy Dean breakfast skillet mix that is a bit revolting to begin with. Not to say that he can't cook because he can. He bakes the best bread. I'm hoping his affinity for breadmaking comes back around because that was my favourite of his cooking phases. But, when he does cook from scratch, it is usually delicious. So, in all my teasing, I have to say, I love eating at my parents'. Between my mum and dad, I always get fed nicely before I head home.

So, back to my original topic: my love of Friday evenings goes back many years. Which is why I'm happy it's a Friday evening tonight. It hasn't been a fantastic week. It hasn't been bad per se but it's been long and a little stressful. I'm still the New Monkeypants in town since I've only been in my new place/job for a few weeks. It can get a little lonely but I am lucky enough to have a good family and friends who are there for me. So, I'm hoping that it keeps raining for when I head home tonight. Then I can sit on my new sofa (which I love), turn on my fake-fireplace-heater thing (which I love) and watch a movie or two or read. I'm reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at the moment. It's the second time. Harry Potter is my security blanket; the movies and books are the best escape when life becomes too much of a reality. I'm enjoying the book. It's everything that Breaking Dawn isn't. J.K. Rowling lives in a world in which bad things happen, a world in which there is consequences for our actions. Her werewolves kill and maim and when a normal, good human becomes a werewolf, he hates the brutality within; he doesn't fall in love with a baby and live happily ever. I'd rather have the reality, thank you. Fairy tales are nice but even the Grimm brothers didn't always believe in a happy ending.

Uh, so...about that digression thing I do...If you can't tell, I didn't really have a topic for this blog. So it's random musing. Which is why the title is "Random Musings from Captain Monkeypants". And it's Friday. And my iPod has just reminded me that I have something way more embarrassing than Kelly Clarkson on it. I have the Jonas Brothers. And yes, they are the teen band du Jour, gracing the cover of Teen Beat as we speak. In my defense, it's a cover of "Yo Ho, Yo Ho, It's a Pirate's Life for Me" which I downloaded for a pirate-themed party and liked before I realized it was the Jonas Brothers. I forgot I had it. My iPod clearly didn't.

So, on this rainy Friday, I shall settle in to begin working, my cup of vile office coffee in my hand because I didn't get chance to make tea, my iPod selecting whatever it wants and be happy that in a few short hours, I can go home and relax. Because the other nice thing about Fridays it that they're the end of the week which means Monday will be a whole new week full of promise and hope.

I hope I see it that way on Monday.

Have a great weekend.

Rejection is not pretty...

This isn't going to be another post about Breaking Dawn. Sometimes, I just need a pick-me-up and spewing venom about BD is very good for that.

Then again, at the moment, I might need a pick me up. I got rejected again last night. The thing is, it's for a story that I know is good. I don't like to toot my own horn and say I'm a good writer and that everything I write is good. It's not. I've written some real crap in my time. I still write real crap. Quite often, actually. But sometimes, when I write something, it just clicks. I've given it to a few people to read, people who aren't likely to tell me it's good if it sucks and I've had nothing but praise and good feedback on this story.

And yet....rejected again.

It's times like this that I hate being a writer. I've been rejected a lot now. I've heard quite a few stories about famous writers and how many times they were rejected. I know that. I get that. I admire that. But it doesn't take away from the fact that rejection sucks and that, at the moment, I am being rejected. I know that all this rejection will make a success seems sweeter because I had to earn it. I write novels, mostly. I've tried to get a couple of them to agents and publishers but I haven't had any luck. I'm unpublished so far and this makes agents and publishers nervous. I don't think many of them like new writers with no credits, it's too much of a gamble. So I took the short story route. It's not my favourite format because I like to sink my teeth into a story, to let the characters unfold at their own pace- short stories don't allow for that quite so much. But I can and do write short stories and I write them about whatever I want. I tend to like stories that are....stories. I like something to happen, not for it to be a five-page musing about how barren the landscape is. There are a lot of those landscape stories being published by the literary magazines. There are also lots of stories about bad parents, bad events, sad histories. I don't like to write about those. I like to make stuff up. There's nothing I like better than a good piece of fiction. I don't necessary like all of the genres; while I like a bit of Harry Potter or Raymond Feist type fantasy, I get awfully bored with too much spec fiction. I like a bit of well-written Chick-Lit but not the over-sexed, Bridget-Jones imitations that have flooded the market. I like a good vampire story but ever since Joss Whedon gave us "Buffy", everything else tends to pale in comparison.

But when it comes down to it, the writers I love most are the ones who have succeeded against the odds, writers who defy literature and actually entertain me. When i look at my favourites: J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King (especially in his earlier days) and Orson Scott Card, i realize that none of them writes about the landscape or waffles on about the beauty of an endless summer night. Instead, they tell me a story; they don't trip up over word choice and, because of it, I think they're better writers. Neil Gaiman particularly can be very poetic and lyrical but I don't think he actually tries, I think it just happens because of the nature of his storytelling.

And that's the kind of writer I want to be. I want to be the sort of writer who has fans who get irritated if I don't publish a new novel when they expect it. I don't want to win a Pulitzer prize. I just want people to enjoy my stuff.

So maybe I should lay off Breaking Dawn for a while. Because when it comes down to it, Stephanie Meyer is that kind of writer too. She has fans and WOW, does she have fans. I've met them. They terrify me. But at least she has them. And though I don't care for her storytelling nor her writing, I admire that she is where she is and, above all, she gets young people to read.

And she's not getting rejected. I am. And maybe it's wrong of me to pick on her so much when it could all be construed as sour grapes on my part. Maybe I am jealous that she has the success she has because I'm tired of being rejected. I know rejection is part of the uphill climb and that when I'm at the top looking down, it'll all seem so trivial but for now, every step I take is thwarted and I sometimes feel like turning around and going back to the bottom of the hill and finding something easier to do.

But the climb is kind of fun and the obstacles of rejection just make it a little more interesting, I suppose.

If only they didn't sting so much.

Friends Don't Let Friends Read "Breaking Dawn"

So in my introductory blog, I mentioned that I will rant and rave and that I plan on doing it a lot. I think it only fair to begin with ranting about one of the worst books I've ever read in my entire life (and thus most likely spurn the wrath and argument of those that refuse to see the book in its true, non-sparkly light).

That books is Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer, a writer who I absolutely guarantee will probably get more than one blog entry here. Mostly likely, Breaking Dawn will get more than one entry here. I can't help myself. It's too easy.

Let me explain. I started reading the "Twilight" series on the recommendation of a friend who has rather good taste in fiction. Being an (early) thirty-something, I was intrigued at first. Granted, I could see the Anne Rice-isms. I could see that it wasn't exactly Pulitzer Prize quality writing but I was entertained. Though I'm jaded and burned from the men of my past, I could see the draw of Twilight. Who didn't want their own gothic hero when they were sixteen? What girl wasn't Bella Swann, awkward, clumsy and completely unsure of herself when she was sixteen? Though I couldn't get passed the fact that Bella was huge drip with no real personality, I kept reading because I still understood the draw. Then I got to Eclipse and realized that Bella was pathetic and even if I'd been sixteen when I'd read these books, I would still have thought so. She wanted to kill herself because her guy had left. Her life was over. Don't get me wrong... I got her despair, I got her depression. Stephanie Meyer did that part well- I competely understood how Bella felt, not knowing why life had any meaning, not knowing why she should respond to the continuing life around her. It sucks when that happens...but it does. But I HATE that it happened to Bella because of a boy. I hate that, at the age of sixteen, maybe seventeen, this girl felt that she couldn't live without the love of a perfect man.

I kept going. New Moon was silly. It made me laugh and not for the right reasons. Truth is, I can't actually remember what happened though I know it involved Edward, Jacob (Bella's alternate love) and some vampire daftness. It was mostly Bella wanting to give up her life to become a vampire and be with her Edward forever- romantic but kind of dumb when you examine her life in detail (Cliff Note version: Her life wasn't bad. She had too parents who loved her, human boys who (for undefined reasons) were crazy about her and the hope of an educated future).

Then came Breaking Dawn. And it was bad. No...it was horrendous. It was the indulgent whim of a writer whose agent and publishing company who forgot that a book was for the readers and, instead, saw dollar signs instead of the words. This post is getting long- WAY longer than planned- which means I'll have to continue later. However, here's the truncated version of Breaking Dawn.

• Bella marries Edward. It's perfect.
• They go to a perfect island that is on loan from Edwards 'mother', Esme. It's perfect .
• Bella is still human yet she is so beguiling, she talks Edward into jumping her bones. They have sex and though it is supposed to be amazing, perfect and incredible, it is described with all the detail of a Victorian schoolmistress.
• She gets pregnant despite the fact that vampires supposedly can't procreate. Edward is afraid and wants to get rid of the baby.
• Bella decides not to discuss this with her husband and, instead, enlists the aid of Edward's 'sister' who, up until this book, has done little but glower at Bella and resent her for being human.
• The narration suddenly switches to that of a previously secondary character- Jacob- even though, for the first three books, Jacob has been in the shadows. Jacob hates Edward. A lot. He says so. A lot. He loves Bella. He says that a lot too.
• Bella is perfect during pregnancy even though she suffers greatly. She suffers silently because that is what Bella does. Her unborn child is too strong for her and almost kills her
• The birth of the child begins with Bella spewing a fountain of blood and thus setting up a grisly scene. The child is fighting her way out. Bella is a weak human. She is dying from the birth but, fortunately, Edward is nearby and eats through Bella's uterus with his teeth to save the child (and yes, you read that correctly). How romantic, eh?
• Bella MUST become a vampire or she'll die because, uh, the love of her life ate her uterus with his teeth and she's dying. This perfectly eliminates all those pesky "I can't turn you into a vampire because I'll be killing you!" doubts that Edward had until this moment. It's all rather convenient and noble of him to save her life by turning her into a vampire.
• When she becomes a vampire, Bella suffers in a very noble silence while she feels as though she's burning to death. She's in great pain but our heroine doesn't want to be a bother and so she just lets herself suffer quietly. After a few days, she's fine and ready to be a vampire.
• Bella becomes absolutely beautiful upon her vampire transformation. This makes up for the fact that she has a half-vampire daughter and her husband ate her uterus. Also, she's a near-perfect "newborn", strong, fast and yet doesn't crave human blood much despite the fact that even the strongest member of the Cullen family had a few years of bloodlust in which he couldn't be around humans. Bella doesn't need no stinking human blood.
• Bella's husband gives her a perfect cottage in the woods for the happy vampire/half-vampire family to live. The cottage belonged to Esme, the giver of all places perfect. (see: Isle Esme)
• The family live happily ever after because Bella singlehandedly takes on the evil vampires that threaten her family/friends and destroys them. Because she's perfect. And strong.
• Oh, and despite the fact that history has no recollection of any vampire/human pairings, there are, apaprently, quite a few half-vampires living in rainforests and quite happily not killing humans. They just didn't reveal themselves until now. They pick the perfect time.
• Oh, and uh, yeah- so not only does Bella and Edward's child have one of the worst names in the histories of fiction- Renesmee- but, uh, yeah, her 'uncle' Jacob, seventeen years older, is karmically intended to be the love of her life and mate with her forever. Tell me THAT doesn't have creepy "uncle Ernie" overtones.

That's it, in a nutshell. I'll write more later. I haven't even covered the major plot issues I have with Bella's father and his reaction to her becoming a vampire. Oh, and yes, the (over)use of the word "perfect" in my breakdown is intentional.

Breaking Dawn exhausts me. It's a wonderful exercise for us non-published writers in what NOT to do when you get the chance. Then again, it's probably a good exercise in what NOT to do, even if you are a published writer. But here's a tip- if you're gonna try to be romantic, having your beautiful hero tear his wife's uterus with his teeth is not, um, exactly endearing. It's actually rather disgusting and putrid. For the record, pedophilia is also gross, no matter how quickly your child grows up. I don't completely blame Ms. Meyer- I actually blame her publisher and agent just as much. This is a book that should have remained in a drawer for a year, or at least for long enough for Stephanie Meyer to reread the first three books in the series that she'd written, long enough for her to remember the personalities of the characters. Because, in all honesty, Breaking Dawn, in the opinion of Captain Monkeypants, is a disaster. It is a self-indulgent, piece-of-crap effort that wants money but cares little for the truism of the characters. Shame on you, Stephanie Meyer- listen to your characters, let THEM tell their story, don't try to give them the perfect little ending that YOU believe is right. You started their story, you should have let them end it.

But I'm tired...I'll elaborate on that later.