I Never Metafiction I Didn't Like (Repost)

I originally wrote this post almost five years ago, but I felt like reposting it today. I'm off to LTUE tomorrow, and I'll report in when I get back. In the meantime, enjoy!

I've been pondering all things meta this week.

Well, not all things. But definitely many things meta-related-to-the-arts.

I've been playing a game inside my head as I've done the dishes or driven people to sports practices or tried to get back to sleep in the middle of the night after going to the bathroom for the fourteenth time.

(It's just one of the many crazy games I play all alone in this head o' mine, another being "List all the adjectives with the suffix '-id.'")

The game is this: list all the films about film. Now all the songs about songs. Now all the poems about poetry. Now all the theater about theater. And now (my favorite part) all the fiction about fiction.*

Ready? Go.

Films About Film
(or TV About TV)

The Player
Singin' in the Rain
The Truman Show
30 Rock
Studio 60
The Simpsons
Stranger than Fiction (borderline: a film about fiction writing)

Songs About Songs, Singers, and/or Singing

"Hey, Mister Tambourine Man" (The Byrds)
"Thank You for the Music" (ABBA)
"Sing a Song" (Earth, Wind, and Fire)
"I Write the Songs" (Barry Manilow)
"If Music Be the Food of Love" (Shakespeare/Purcell)
"Piano Man" (Billy Joel)
"Rock and Roll Band" (Boston)
"Killing Me Softly" (Roberta Flack)
"The Day the Music Died" (Don McLean)
"This is Not a Love Song" (Public Image, Ltd.)

Poems About Poetry

"Essay on Criticism" (Alexander Pope)
"Don Juan" (parts of it; Lord Byron)
"Ars Poetica" (Archibald MacLeish)
"The Uses of Poetry" (William Carlos Williams)
"There is no frigate like a book" (Emily Dickinson)
"The High-Toned Old Christian Woman" (Wallace Stevens)

Theater About Theater

All That Jazz (Well, okay. It's a film about theater.)
Kiss Me, Kate
The Taming of the Shrew
The Producers
A Chorus Line
42nd Street
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Hamlet
Picasso at the Lapin Agile
The Mousetrap

Fiction About Fiction (and this would be my wheelhouse, people)

The Princess Bride (William Goldman)
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Susanna Clarke)
Little, Big (John Crowley)
Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)
The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio)
Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (Italo Calvino)
Anything written by Jasper Fforde
The Neverending Story (Michael Ende)
English Music (Peter Ackroyd)
The Thirteenth Tale (Diane Setterfield)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
An awful lot of Kurt Vonnegut
And a whole bunch of that Pratchett genius
Leaf by Niggle (J.R.R. Tolkien)
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Lemony Snicket)
Atonement (Ian MacEwan)
The Dark Tower, etc. (Stephen King)
Possession (A.S. Byatt)
The Book of Three (Lloyd Alexander)
A Princess of Roumania, etc. (Paul Park)

What about you? Can you add to the lists?

*LDS readers, here's a fun study topic: revelation about revelation. And extra credit: revelation about Revelation.

Don't Fear the Reaper

"I’d lost sight of heaven, God, and everything good, but not Jordan. Some things

transcended both life and death. Some things never died."

Haunted by memories of her murdered twin, Keely Morrison is convinced suicide is her only ticket to eternal peace. But in death, she discovers the afterlife is nothing like she expected. Instead of peaceful oblivion or a joyful reunion with her sister, Keely is trapped in a netherworld on Earth with only a bounty-hunting reaper and a sarcastic demon to show her the ropes.

I do love stories about the afterlife, and Michelle Muto has written a good one. This novel is just how I like them--dark, but with the promise of redemption. Plus, the title rocks--Blue Öyster Cult's single is one of my favorite songs from my youth. (I'm also excited to read her latest book, The Haunting Season. I just downloaded it, and it is creepyyyyyy!)

Would you like a free e-copy of Don't Fear the Reaper? Leave me a comment, and on Wednesday, February 6, I'll choose one winner via random number generator. 

Interview and Giveaway!

The lovely ladies at Writing4Two asked me if they could interview me for their Feature Friday event, and I gladly agreed. Go over and read our conversation, then enter to win a copy of Dispirited. Tell your friends! 

The Long and Winding Road: The Best of 2012

My adorable baby girl ringing in the New Year (on NYC time)

2012 was perhaps the biggest year of change of my life. I had a novel published and had another accepted for publication; I got hired to collaborate on a video game. I spoke at conferences, English classes, and signings. I moved with our large family across the continent to a very different but wonderful new life. As I look out my window at the palm trees and sunny skies beyond my balcony, I marvel at how different this day is from 1 January 2012.

Let's get to the lists. 

Favorite Books Read or Re-read:

(I didn't rank books written by close friends, many of which were excellent.)

1) 11/22/63, by Stephen King

2) Flora's Fury, by Ysabeau Wilce

3) Pope Joan, by Donna Woolfolk

4) Acceptable Loss, by Anne Perry

5) A Short Stay in Hell, by Steven Peck

6) The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters

7) The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

8) The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin

9) Tuesdays at the Castle, by Jessica Day George

10) French Kids Eat Everything, by Karen Le Billon

Most Disappointing (not Worst) Book of the Year:

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

Best Music Purchased:

Ralph Vaughan Williams: On Christmas Day: Folk-Songs and Folk-Carols

Morten Lauridsen: Lux aeterna

Great Big Sea: XX

Gary Clark, Jr.: "When My Train Pulls In"

The Black Keys: "Little Black Submarines"

Favorite Movies Seen:

1) Moonrise Kingdom

2) Skyfall

3) Argo

4) Hitchcock

5) Life of Pi

6) The Dark Knight Rises

7) The Hobbit

8) Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

9) Brave

10) Frankenweenie

Best Meals Eaten:

Per Se, NYC

Jean-Georges, NYC

Patina, LA

Brenda's French Soul Food, San Francisco

Chez Panisse Café, Berkeley

Luscious Dumplings, Monrovia

Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles, Pasadena

Yarn of the Year: madelinetosh 80/10/10 MCN in the Grenadine colorway

Rose of the Year: Cramoisi Supérieur

Here's to 2013 being fabulous! Happy New Year, everybody.

A Chapter and a Chore

I feel blessed to be able to work from home and be with my kids all day. It's a great life, even though it's not all fun and games. I normally have a pretty good routine for housework and other necessary but unlovely chores.

But some days? I just don't want to do my life. Yet my life must be done. I don't know if you've noticed this, but moms can't take vacation days or go on strike. And sometimes that lack of potential escape gets me down. When I feel lethargic, apathetic, or am tempted to procrastinate, I turn to a tried-and-true method of self-motivation, a little process I call "A Chapter and a Chore."

Step One: I find a book that looks juicy and compelling--one that I know I won't want to put down, one that will tempt me to shove saltines and DVDs at my children so that I can just keep reading. Some days it might be a romance or a fantasy; other days it might be a mystery or a horror novel. Or one of my favorite writers might have recently released a book I've been dying to read. I might find it at the library, on my overloaded shelves, or at the Kindle bookstore. 

Step Two: I make a list of the chores I'm dreading. It might include decluttering the kitchen island or ironing or even (some days) writing. I love writing, but some days Resistance gets me by the throat, and I don't want to get my writing done. I can't explain it, but there it is. 

Step Three: I read a chapter of the juicy book I found in Step One. 

Step Four: I force myself to stop reading. This is the hardest step, but I MUST put the book down at the chapter's end.

Step Five: I do one chore on my list, or one part of a chore--depending on the length and complexity of the chore. I might iron one shirt, or declutter for 15 minutes, or write 1,000 words. I cross that task off my list once it's done.

Step Six: I go back to Step Three and repeat it and the following steps as necessary.

That's it. On days when my energy is low and my list is long, I am amazed at how much more I am able to cross off my list than if I had forced myself to plod through without any kind of carrot. 

But the beauty of this process--other than accomplishing loathed tasks in a timely fashion--is that my mood lifts. I'm reading a fun book! I think about what's going to happen next while I'm doing my chores (unless I'm writing), and the chores seem to get done faster, because I can't wait to get back to the book. 

You might think it would be better to do a chore first, but I find that once I've read a chapter and am excited to continue reading, I'm far more motivated to do that chore quickly and efficiently. It feels like an indulgence, and that helps me keep the martyr complex at bay.

Try it! Maybe you work all day, and when you get home, the laundry or the dishes or yard work seem too much to bear. Or maybe you've set a goal to write 5,000 words, and suddenly that seems horribly daunting. Or your two-year-old has dumped out all the toys from all the bins yet again and can't be expected to sort them all alone.

I'm betting A Chapter and a Chore might just get you through those moments with grace and ease. Or maybe it's just me. So if you DO try my method, let me know in a comment.

Now. My guest room needs cleaning, and I just downloaded the new J.K. Rowling novel. Time to get going!