Input Wanted!

Out of curiosity, I am wondering how much you, the people who take their time to read this blog, are interested in me continuing to write some reviews on lesbian themed movies from around the world. (Okay, mostly form Asia.) I was thinking about this after I watched a great movie tonight, and am thinking that I should share it with all of you tomorrow when I have time to do so.

I always want to share more reviews of movies I watch, but it's difficult for me to find the time to do so. I usually watch these movies when I am performing chores online and around the room, so when they're finished I'm usually busy right away with other things. By the time I have the, well, time to write out a review, I often forget most of what I wanted to say. Then I reach a point where I'm not sure I should take out even more time because it might not have much of audience.

There are other great blogs out there that review lesbian themed movies, so I'm not sure if my opinion matters much in that regard. But if any of you are interested in my recommendations and why, let me know! If there's enough interest then I may add the topic to my need to update this blog more.

"LOVE MY LIFE," A Beautiful and Sweet Lesbian Film From Japan

Taking a break from my first-drafting to talk a little about one of my favorite Japanese movies I've discovered this year, "LOVE MY LIFE." Rippin' the summary straight from wiki:

"Ichiko Izumiya is an eighteen-year-old woman who goes to language school in university and works part-time at a music store. She lives with her father, Housei Izumiya, who translates English novels into Japanese for a living. Her mother died seven years before the story begins. Ichiko also has a girlfriend named Eri Joujima. When she comes out as a lesbian to her father, her father shocks her by telling her that both he and her mother are also gay. They had wanted to raise a child, and had agreed to marry in name to raise a child in Japan, while mutually being in their own relationships. The rest of the story shows Ichiko meeting her parents' lovers, her daily life and love with Eri."

 That's the basic gist of it, although the story also heavily centers around Eri's insecurities with her own family and the rift it eventually creates between her and her girlfriend. There's also a subplot about one of Ichiko's gay (male) friends and his depression.

It's very rare for me to find a lesbian film from Japan that not only completely normalizes a lesbian relationship, but also celebrates the fact and, gasp, has a happy ending! Most of the films I've seen, such as the iconic and always remade "MANJI," basically comes down to "lesbians are deviants and will hack your balls off, bro." I also appreciated that this wasn't a "fall in love" story like most are want to be: Ichiko and Eri are well into a relationship at the start of the film. Instead, the film is an explanation of the lengths some queer people go to in order to achieve a "traditional" and happy life.

It's low budget (I laughed every time they were in a completely empty including devoid of staff restaurant) but the acting is superb. It even has a cameo from the great 80's idol Kyoko Koizumi! I was also pleasantly surprised to see that Asami Imajuku, the actress who plays Eri, also appeared in the lesbian film "BLUE" as a minor character. Hmm, think that means anything? ;) All I know is that young lady likes kissing.

The movie is very PG13, with almost no foul language, and very little nudity (only at the end.) The main characters are depicted as having sex occasionally, but nothing about it is graphic. (In fact, if you're looking for HAWT LEZBO SEX you will probably be disappointed.) But I find myself continuing to watch this movie every couple of weeks, as it remains one of the best films I've seen in the genre yet.. Why isn't everyone watching this?

Here is the trailer, sadly, without any subtitles.

 

You can also watch the first ten minutes on youtube, with subtitles! (Might be NSFW, since the opening is a weird pass-the-gumball scene that you see in the trailer above.) The rest of the movie missing, however, unless you rent the whole thing from youtube, buy it off Amazon (with subtitles) or probably Netflix it. Or, I'm sure you'll find...some way...of watching it. *COUGH*

 

I'm always looking for new Japanese lesbian films to watch (or manga to read) so if anybody knows of anything good, let me know! Except MANJI. That's the stuff of weird-ass nightmares.

DAISUKI BLOG TOUR DAY 5: Review Over at Vanilla Hearts

Day 6 takes us over to Crystal's blog at Vanilla Hearts where she's left "DAISUKI." a very nice four star review. I've been getting a lot of great feedback this past week, and I appreciate every single comment!

Come back on Monday for the final day of the Daisuki Blog Tour! Tomorrow will be a regular blog post, full of the usual grumbling and AAAAAAHHH that I usually spout.

BOOK REVIEW: "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was first exposed to Amy Tan when I was a child and the movie "The Joy Luck Club" made its repeated runs on HBO. I found it fascinating from a cinematic point of view, and loved it so much to the point I asked for the DVD some Christmas. But even though I knew it was based off a book, I never got around to reading it until I needed to write a book report in high school and it was on the list of "acceptable materials". I've since bought my own copy and re-read it every couple of years.

"The Joy Luck Club" is both Amy Tan's debut work and her best. In it are seven narrators depicting the lives of eight people (one of the older women, Suyuan, is deceased at the time of the overarching story and her daughter June tells her story instead.) Four of them, Suyuan, An-Mei, Ying Ying, and Lindo, are immigrants from various parts of China, and the other four, June, Rose, Lena, and Waverly, (respectively) are their American born and raised daughters. Each tells their own story in first person (aside from Suyuan who is deceased) in a total of two chapters each across four parts.

While it's not the longest read, it's a heavy one. The "mothers" (collectively called so in this review) have each been through their own personal hells both in China and America, with varying triumphs mixed in (such as out-witting bad families, enduring abandonment and physical/emotional abuse, losing family members, for vague examples). Throughout their horrors, struggles, and eventual triumphs in a land not kind to the status of women and young girls, the mothers all agree that their daughters will have an easier life in America. But what they discover is that their daughters have become more American than Chinese, and they fear that they won't be able to convey their "hopes and dreams" to the daughters who have different ideas and sensibilities from their own.

Meanwhile, the daughters all tend to agree that their "overbearing" Chinese mothers have each made their lives/childhoods hell in some way shape or form, either from pushing them too hard, to seemingly not understanding what they want, to feeling that they constantly put them down. From the reader's perspective we're able to see things from both sides, but of course, the characters cannot.

Amy Tan paints a beautiful picture of the lives these women live, and the relationships between them. From the rivalry between Lindo and Suyuan that extends to their daughters Waverly and June, from the "ghosts" of Ying Ying and her daughter Lena, and to the leaps of faith between An-Mei and Rose, it's easy and clear to see why Amy Tan is lauded for her depictions of mother-daughter relationships. And as someone who has a loving and strong relationship with her own mother who has had her own hardships in the past, it's near impossible to read any of these relationships without self-reflection.

Of course, there are differences between the book and the movie, but they are mostly negligible. The movie largely cuts out Ying Ying's first chapter during her childhood and jumps right into the dirty business of young adulthood; the movie conveniently leaves out An-Mei's half-dozen other children and what happens with them. But for the most part it's true to the source and can be enjoyed on its own with a great cast backing great characters. (And the clothes are so hilariously 80s.)

I tend to use TJLC as a barometer for people I know - if you've read it and felt absolutely -nothing-, then odds are we are not going to get along. It's an amazing book that's going to be one of my personal classics probably for the rest of my life, and I can only aspire to write as honestly as Amy Tan does.

View all my reviews

I'd Rather Feed the Trolls

Do it.

I've been on the Ye Olde Internet for going on ten years now.  While that's not as long as a lot of "veterans" I know, I have been online since about fourteen or so, which is quite a formidable amount of my life. (Almost one half by this point, and certainly a majority of my self-conscious life.) In all that time I have seen a lot of trolls. And like any other young teen on the Net, I've been hurt by a lot of trolls. (Never forget the day somebody said my website sucked! Forever in my fiery heart, SailorCurious!) The thing is, for the most part, unless they're saying something super triggery and just generally heinous a la SVU, trolls are pretty easy to ignore the more you hang out on the internet.

As writers, we get trolled a lot. One day we're just beep-boopin along, and then suddenly somebody comments on a piece of flash fiction or a novel excerpt and lets us know just ~what they think~ in a nice array of SUPER flattering text.

Example: "omg you call this fiction?!!?! more like dumpster trash lololol"

okay, so that's a crappy example. Forgive me, been a long work day and I should go crash soon. Anyway, at first you think "Wow, that sucks. Thanks for ruining my day, bro," but then you think "bwahahaha they probably didn't even read it."

It's kind of the same with some bad reviews, especially from random strangers. Of course, genuine "bad reviews" are not fun at all, but many see them as learning experiences if it's applicable. It never feels good to have something you worked so hard and long at be treated like crap, but it's usually easier when it comes from a stranger, or a troll.

Then there's the bad reviews from your fellow writers. I don't know about you, but those are the ones that strike through me the hardest.

We writers are critical. We're hard on ourselves (or at least should be) and tend to be hard on other writers. It's why the beta process can be so important. We need our fellow writers to be critical, both in terms of what works and what doesn't.

Thus, it hurts doubly when they hate something we've done than when Joe Schmoe goes on a tangent.

Let's face it, y'all writers, deep down we all compete with each other. Perhaps not always monetarily and with sales, but at least mentally - we will always compare ourselves to every writer we come across. We'll bite our lips when somebody does something we've always wanted to be able to do so well, and we'll smugly think "haha I would never do that at least!" we see something we don't like at all. And of course, there's that pang of jealousy whenever somebody lands a book deal when we're still struggling. But of course we'll happily congratulate them and share in their excitement. Most of the time.

These aren't bad things. They're human nature. (Well, you could argue that it could be bad because it IS human nature..) But they're real. And it affects the way we interact with each other. It's easy to disregard somebody's writing as trash on days we're particularly down on ourselves and looking for validation. But I digress.

I apparently need to close up this blog entry now because I am making less and less sense (or just getting more and more tired) as time goes on: but basically, "trolls" are easy to write off (haha get it!!!) because ~what do they know~? But writers man, writers hatin' on your stuff is like a punch to the back of the head. Because what if they're right? and oh no we might have to make serious changes omg!!

This post is brought to you by a good idea I had that's been tainted by a 12 hour work day and even less sleep to back it up. I'm off to rectify that last point right now. Goodnight~  I am so happy I didn't attempt the queer characters post tonight oh man i am dyin'.

Is there any one kind of review you just can't deal with even on a good day?

Best Reads 2011 Blog Hop

EDIT: I have no idea what happened to the formatting in this post. I've tried fixing it multiple times now and nothing's changed. Oh well~

Over at the The Bathroom Monologues, John is encouraging bloggers to write about the best books they read in 2011. Okay!

2011 was the year I kinda-sorta got back into reading. After high school and college, I just never, as in really rarely, read books for pleasure. It just kinda stopped and wasn't a priority anymore. Reading is also a huge emotional investment for me and I just didn't have the spoons to spare until about 2010. Last year I read a total of three books for pleasure - Kushiel's Chosen by Jacqueline Carey, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami. And that was more novels that I had read for pleasure in a half year than in all of college combined.

This year was much better, with the first few months languishing in unemployment and the rest doing so much travel for the job I eventually got. I had a lot of time to read. In total I read eight books this year, most of them huge fantasy tomes from one or two series. For those I just picked my favorite of the series I read this year to talk about.

1. Kushiel's Avatar by Jacqueline Carey
Also read: Kushiel's Scion

It's pretty safe to say by now that the Kushiel's Legacy series is one of my favorites ever, even after a really rocky start with Kushiel's Dart, the first in the series. And although it took me over a year to get around to reading the next two novels, it was a well-worth wait. The novel here in particular is the best I've read so far, the last of the first trilogy in the series. Watching Phédre's journey from love to loss again, being divinely sent into the bowels of Hell to save her nemesis's son, traveling into the heart of Africa to learn the Name of God and then off to the English Channel to save her childhood friend was thrilling and moving unlike most books I've read, in fantasy or otherwise. Even though I affectionately call this series "The BDSM Porn Novels" they really are much more than that. Setting aside Carey's inability to jump into a story, some irksome style choices, and taking way, WAY too long to explain the history and religious systems (and I'm a religion scholar, so damn yo) it's a great fantasy series that I totally recommend to those with a strong sexual kink stomach. I've started reading the next trilogy in the series, and it's okay so far. But I have a feeling this one will be my favorite out of them all.

2. A Storm of Swords by George RR Martin
Also read: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Feast For Crows

I make it no secret that I think Martin is a pretty horrible writer with incredibly problematic situations in his novels, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy them at all. I must if I've read them all up to the latest installment. I bought the first novel on a whim in a Japanese English Bookstore in Nagoya   I watched the show alongside reading the first book, and it was the merits of the show that kept me reading the series even though I raged at the crappy writing more than once, and in public, no less. (Look, I don't give a crap if people are dying all willy-nilly because you're a Badass Up In Here, but when women are getting raped every single page because LOL IT'S WAR your penis-privilege is showing.) Anyway, this novel is the best of the series thus far. So much drives the plot forward, and on more than one occasion I had a OH NO YOU DIDN'T moment. (Mostly, the epilogue. Hoshit. Red Wedding? Not so much. It was written horribly and anticlimatic.) Also it has the best cover. So yeah.

3. All the Weyrs of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

This is especially poignant considering McCaffrey's death recently. I used to be a big fan of hers when I was a bb author in middle school, and I picked this up, one of the few early Pern novels I had yet to read, at the airport before blasting off for Japan. It's very McCaffrey. It's a good thing I had read the previous novels because there are SO MANY CHARACTERS with little to no development that, had I not known any of them, it would've been awful.  The story is kinda interesting. I had read the novels before and the couple after, but not this one in-between, so it answered a few questions I had during The Skies of Pern years ago. There isn't much to say about this novel. It was a short read, not the best one, but very nostalgic for me nonetheless. I will be damn glad to never read anything about the basic-ass Jaxom again, though. (Also, it's really weird to realize years later that F'lar is abusing Lessa, but hey who cares right. ~It's from another time*)

4. After Dark by Haruki Murakami

Another airport pickup. The premise of this seemed interesting, but Murakami is a HUGE hit or miss for me. And this was a miss. Again. I just can't get into his style, thanks. This book was just too weird even for me. I had no idea what he was doing or why and I am honestly okay with being ~left in the dark~ ohohoho. Whatever, I only read it because I'm a Japanese Studies graduate and to weeaboos he is the only author to ever happen in Japan. Actually, I really liked the Chinese prostitute/love hotel subplot, and the Denny's bickering was hilarious at times, but the whole thing with the MC's sister and..whatever...the hell...was going on with that (it was never explained) was enough to drive me away from this novel. So, this is probably the worst novel I read in 2011. But it's still on the best list because I didn't read that many different things. :(

Hopefully with my new Kindle Fire I can read more than 8 novels this year, ha. I usually read one in 2 weeks - month, so here's to 12! 

South Coast Writers Conference: Report

I said a couple days ago that I would attend and report on the 16th Annual South Coast Writers Conference in Gold Beach, Oregon.  Started the day late and got there just as the first session was starting (and I got lost, of course) but I still made everything aaaand took notes.

Session 1: Publishing Short Fiction
Presented by Bruce Holland Rogers

The selection for session 1 did not appeal to me much (mostly poetry and memoir stuff) so I ended up signing up for publishing short fiction even though I don't usually write short stories thinking that maybe anything I learned could apply to other things as well.  Originally the session was supposed to be taught by someone else, but she canceled due to a family emergency and Bruce was brought in instead. 

The session mostly dealt with the obvious:  tips and facts about submitting short fiction to journals and anthologies for publication.  For anyone looking to perhaps do something like this one day this was pretty invaluable information, especially coming from a man who has had dozens of works published over the years (ie, he knows a thing or two about getting it done.)  Not only did he go over "journal shopping" to find one that most matches your work, but he also talked about the ethics of multiple and simultaneous submissions, handling rejection, and how to write effective cover letters.  I found the cover letter part pretty amusing and even wrote down something he said about backing off on puffing  yourself up that I just had to share with everyone:

"Even though your manuscriptis going to a job interview, you're no.  You're just writing it a letter of recommendation."

As someone who's been job hunting for the past year or so, definitely appreciated the analogy.  Actually, that's probably why I found it so funny.

Session 2: Nail the Ending
Presented by Jessica Page Morrell

This was the session I was looking forward to the most, especially since I'm in the midst of writing the climax to CROSS//Rebirth at the moment and am sort of struggling with some things.  First though, I'd like to say that this is where I know absolutely nothing about The Wizard of Oz, apparently.  Then again I've never read it nor watched it, so uuuuuuh.  HEY, pop culture only teaches you so much about these things.  Off that tangent, this was another pretty helpful session.   Jessica Morrell is a professional free-lance editor as well as author so she effectively knew what she was talking about.  Can't really reproduce any of the discussion here since it mostly included graphs and flow charts depicting the structure of a novel, but I will say that I was quite pleased with a couple breakthroughs it helped me have.  Although at the beginning she asked us how many of us were unhappy with our endings and I raised my hand essentially going "MEMEME LOL" and she said I was brave. /trollface.

THEN LUNCH. Mom got me chicken for lunch.  It delicious.  I binged on soda to help me keep awake in the afternoon.  Didn't really work.  Like at all. (I only slept 2 hours the night before, okay.)

Session 3: Editing Your Own Fiction 
Presented by Sheila Simonson

If you've ever been to college, you probably spent a majority of a writing class grading/checking other paper's in the professor's efforts to make U WRITE MOAR BETTER.  That's pretty much what we did for the first hour.  We were given a few pages of texts from real, printed works and asked to find out what was wrong with them.  Most of it was point of view issues.  The lesson in this was that  in this day and age we have to rely more on ourselves to edit our own stuff.  Oh, and make sure you know what your tics are.   It's okay, I already know:  my characters are notorious for always furrowing their eyebrows.


Session 4: Making Readers Swoon 
Presented by Naseem Rakha

I hear stuff happened in this session, but by that time the soda had worn off and my body/brain was shutting down.  I took everything I learned in college about appearing awake in class when you're really asleep and put it to good use here. 

I didn't stick around for the door prizes so I grabbed my mom afterwards and headed home. And then slept for like 12 hours.  And then wrote this. Productive!