Do you remember that old commercial for Calgon Bubble Bath? "Calgon, take me away!" Well, that's how I feel about stories. Reading or writing I want that feeling of being taken away from the everyday and living in someone else's world for a few hours. Karen Miller pretty much sums up that wonderful feeling in this essay. http://www.graspingforthewind.com/2009/12/16/a-love-affair-with-stories-by-karen-miller/
Jim C. Hines posted about "Girly Books" http://jimhines.livejournal.com/480974.html Books are books and they shouldn't have to be divided into boys vs girls. The very first books I bought for myself was a 50cent box of "boys" books at an auction my Dad took me too. For months I lived in the jungle with Bomba, attended Annapolis and West Point with Dave Darrin and Dick Prescott but the absolute best was getting to be a Junior G Man with stories by Gilbert Lathrop, Edward O'Connor and Norton Hughes Jonathan. It never mattered that boys were having all the fun because I got to go along on their adventures.
While I don't stop by every day, I do click over to the Storytellers Unplugged site on a regular basis. http://storytellersunplugged.com/ There were three essay that I really enjoyed from this week's offerings.
"Alternate Reality" by Bev Vincent is all about walking in a character's shoes. Bev got to do this playing an alternate reality game based on Stephen King's book "Under the Dome".
"Sea Lions in Coffins, Getting Lost and Writing Without Words" by Thomas Sullivan is a look at how to keep your writing fresh and finding new ideas by putting yourself outside of your own comfortable world.
"But You've Never Been There" by John Rosenman. This is an interesting essay about writing places you've never visited and making them real.
2 comments:
There aren't really any books aimed at boys any more, but I'd argue there are definitely books aimed at girls.
Most action orientated books have a male/female couple, even if they hate each other, especially if they hate each other because it makes their blossoming attraction all the more exciting. Might not even be a couple, "love" triangles are aplenty as well. Hunger Games, I'm looking at you... (love those books BTW)
OTOH there are still a heap of romance and relationship books which no self-respecting boy is going to look at, regardless of what you think about gender stereotyping - it aint gonna happen.
Personally, Anton, I think a lot of this has to do with the overzealous PC police. When I was growing up there were always boys books and girls books but everybody read both. By forcing everyone to be PC in their writing, the stories are diluted into a bigger make-believe world than fairytales ever created. But that's just my opinion.
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