Desperate to lose weight, Chelsea’s decided to try some new diet pills.
Too bad she doesn’t know what’s in them…
Author: Stefanie Snider
Novelist, wife, vengeful harpy.
101 Tips for Writers
OnlineCollege.org has compiled a list of 101 Tips from the World’s Most Famous Authors. You’ll find everyone here, from Hemingway to Stephen King.
My favourite?
Dr. Seuss. Be responsible for your own success. “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”
What’s yours?
An Exercise in Madness: House of Leaves
Okay, so this is a novel that I’ve been meaning to talk about. It’s one that requires its own post, and even then I’m not sure I’ll do it justice.
Ready?
The story in House of Leaves (without spoiling) goes something like this:
There’s this guy, Johnny. He’s our narrator, in a way. He finds a manuscript by a deceased old man known as Zampano. The manuscript is a book about a documentary about a family who made a documentary about their house, which is considerably bigger inside than it is outside. Oh, and it’s growing. And there are growls in the dark.
So we’re reading a book about a book about a movie about a movie. Yep.
It starts when Will Navidson, the homeowner, finds a door where there wasn’t one before. It’s inside, but on an exterior wall: so if opened, it should lead outside. Instead it opens onto a pitch-black hallway that gets longer the further you walk it.
The typesetting in the novel itself is upside down, backwards, crossed-out, different colours, encoded. The book is heavily cross-referenced to books and articles that don’t exist. It’s maddening, and fascinating, and hypnotic.
You can read it with or without Johnny, with or without solving the code. It’s several books inside one big one, and if that wasn’t layered enough, there’s an album
It’s one of my favourites, by far, and up next on my re-reading list. I’ve only just begun feeling comfortable looking down dark hallways since my last read-through…it’s about time I scared the shit out of myself again.
Dreams Take Time…And Cash.
I’m in the midst of developing a Grand Five-Year Plan. It has glorious secrets, some of which I can’t reveal yet, but it also involves regular stuff like moving into a better house and having more money in the bank.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how it will all come together. The number one, very-most-important thing I need to work on is saving more money. For a number of my plans to come to fruition, we’ll need a sizable cushion in the bank. And I can’t count on us making more money for a while, so it’s all about budgeting and spending less.
I use Quicken already when I remember to. It’s moderately helpful, considering I don’t use half the widgets. The pie charts are pretty, though.
We use debit for most purchases. Debit isn’t necessarily the best move, because it lets you access your whole bank account ALL THE TIME, but at least it’s trackable when I remember to read the statements.
We’ve been getting better about the little things, like buying less drive-through coffee, but I still feel an unholy consumer lust when I see things like this.
Obviously, I need to get my financial shit together. And, being a word-person who can’t math, I’ll be diving into books for help. (Have any recommendations? I’d love to hear them.)
In the meantime I found some great blogs and websites that are geared to us artsy folks.
Movie Monday: Some Guy Who Kills People
I started watching this one thinking it would be easy enough to pick apart. I mean, seriously. Some Guy Who Kills People?
But I found myself just watching, entranced. I loved it. In fact, I absolutely adored it.
The dialogue is perfect: concise, punchy, subtly funny:
(Sheriff and Deputy, upon discovering a decapitated victim)
“This thing has no head, Ernie.”
“I know, Sir.”
“Most bodies have heads.”
“Absolutely.”
“Where’s this thing’s head?”
“Not sure yet, Sir.”
“Well we should find his head.”
“Good idea, Sir.”
It has the same candy-coloured, cute-horror, slightly-fifties aesthetic as Fido. The main actor (Kevin Corrigan) reminds me of a dark, damaged Mark Ruffalo (in fact, this movie is just like The Kids Are All Right, except it has less lesbianism and way more brutal violence). It has everything I love: comics, over-the-top violence, dark humour, a diner, a smart-ass sheriff, a foam ice-cream costume, crushing social awkwardness…
Are you watching it yet? You should be.
The Saddest Day is the Last Day of Vacation
It’s my last day of vacation. A lot happened in the past two weeks.
The floor is down in the new office:
(You may remember it looking like this.)
Some things I did:
baked, set up a home office, read, wrote, published, sold some work, took on an art job, slept for days, drank 500 pots of coffee, listened to hours of late-night conspiracy radio, watched cartoons, played with the cats, hung out with the husband, hung out with friends, worked on two novels, and applied for freelance writing work.
I wish I didn’t have to go back. I wish I could work from home instead.
I’d get so much done if I could work here. I’d use breaks so productively, on things like organizing the new spaces. And going on grocery runs. And doing the laundry, in our dark, scary basement…
Shit. Well, maybe that can be the husband’s job instead.
A Little Light-Hearted Saturday Fun
What with the big serious death post the other day, I thought I’d lighten the mood a little. Enjoy!
*
*I can’t find the photo credit for Cookie…anyone?
I Want to Believe
This one has spooked me for years.
Real Live Death
Most Thursdays I watch The First 48.
Being from a (very thankfully) low-violent-crime area, the show is shocking. It’s sad, and morbidly fascinating, as the cameras pan through bloodied crime scenes and show blurred corpses laying about. The past few seasons I’ve noticed the shows have been much more censored in terms of what we are and aren’t allowed to see. I respect that, in terms of protecting the family, but the show has lost a lot of the impact it had before.
Still, death is interesting. In fact, I’ve thought about doing crime-scene and decomp cleanup for a living. It’s interesting, the things that bother some people and not others. Gore bothers me, sure, but it doesn’t scare me at all.
The recent censoring begs the question: how much is too much? Should we be allowed to see real death on television? What if the death is self-inflicted?
Horrors of Home Ownership
As you know, my most excellent husband decided it would be good for me to have my own creative space. Someplace to write, and knit, and drink tea, and have brilliant thoughts.
“Wonderful!” says I, and we commence dramatic upheaval.
Upstairs goes downstairs. Downstairs comes upstairs. Once the furniture is in place in my swank new digs, I realize the carpet is pretty shabby. And nasty. And I figure, hey, we have hardwood under there (as evidenced by my horrible cats who pull at the edges). Let’s just rip up the carpet! Sweet! I never did like that carpet anyway.
So we begin cutting up the carpet. And rolling it back. The floor looks a little…iffy…but it’s a 100+ year-old house, it’s going to have issues. My dude gets it all pulled up and
WHAT THE DEAR SWEET JESUS IS THAT.
You know how some people maybe aren’t great at stuff? And how they should just own up to that fact, and maybe not do things they don’t know how to do? Yeahhh. The previous owners of our house took it upon themselves to GLUE carpet down, on what was at some point beautiful hardwood. That picture? Totally not the worst of it. I spared you. You’re welcome.
Unspeakable horrors have occurred on this floor. I daren’t speak of it, but I’m pretty sure it’s haunted.
Tomorrow: laminate-flooring shopping, then attempted installation. Pray for our fingers.
sniderwriter 