I Watch All The CSIs (So What?)

I remember the first episode of CSI (Las Vegas) that I ever watched. My husband turned it on and I came in late. I don’t know where I was that he was watching TV but he had to explain to me what was going on. NickStokes was new and Gil Grissom was training him.  They were investigating the disappearance ofa woman and her husband was the person of interest. I was fascinated with how they could find blood by spraying something and shining a light. Nick and Gil discovered more blood under the carpet and flooring and the man was arrested for murder of his two wives.

After that I was addicted. I thought ER had become boring (George Clooney left, what was the point?) and so my substitute became CSI.  

I remember when CSI: Miami started because I was not interested. I was not a Caruso fan because of his hoity-toity behavior with NYPD Blue (which, interestingly enough Kim Delaney moved to after leaving CSI: Miami!)  and just didn’t want to see him in another police role. I was excited about “Jenny” being on the show but it wasn’t enough.

I actually started watching CSI: Miami about five years ago because our XXYY group created a bit of a hullabaloo over an episode about a boy with an extra Y chromosome, and they called it “the aggressive gene,” which was nonsense, of course. I watched it to see what all the fuss was about and loved it! My favorite character is Calleigh but she’s been a bit of a drag the last couple of seasons (she was pregnant in real life and they gave her a lot of time off and less active storylines).

CSI: New York was never on my agenda. I was already watching CSI and CSI: Miami and I thought that was plenty (I also like the Law & Order series—that was really my addiction for a while) but my daughter’s friend got a part as an extra (she also did How I Met Your Mother!) and so we started watching it to get an idea of what the show was like. That was an easy addition to my already fueled addiction to the other two CSIs (and I was desperately in need of more CSIs to watch (right!) because I had already watched all the shows I had ever missed of both.

It cracked me up in the movie The Town when Ben Affleck said, “I watch all the CSIs,” as an explanation for his knowledge of police behavior and protocol for bank robberies.

Because, yeah. I watch all the CSIs.

Book People

I am a “book person.” If you are also a “book person,” then you know what I mean. If you are not, let me explain:

I love books. I love the smell, the feel, the weight in my hands, the words on the page. I love ebooks too, but when I love a paper book then I keep a copy to have because I might read it again. The books I doubt I will read again I give away. This is the key to “book people.” When they give you a book they will say one of two things.

1. When you are finished go ahead and give it away for someone else to enjoy.
2. When you are finished please RETURN IT TO ME!!!!!

Chances are very good that if I want it returned I have written, stamped, stickered or possibly engraved my name, address, SSN & phone numbers, etc.; JUST so you will return it to me.

If a “book person” loans you a book PLEASE TAKE GOOD CARE OFIT! That means you do not bend down the pages to mark your place. That is what bookmarks are for. If you need a bookmark I have plenty, but really a SHEET OF TOILET PAPER WORKS JUST FINE TOO!

Also, don’t get the book wet or drop it in the mud or we might accuse you of being Gaston, or in other words, “Positively primeval.” And No, that is not a compliment.

If you have had the book for a while we might ask you about it, casually, but really we’re freaking out because you have had it long enough for us to have read it about four times. So to not look too freakish we ask, “So how’s XXX book coming? Did you like it?”

Do Not Say; oh, I borrowed a book?  Also, do not say, Oh, You wanted that back?

We Made That Point Very Clear. Especially if my name is written/stamped/stickered/engraved on the inside (by the way, Yes, I have a book engraver, my mother gave it to me) that is a sure sign of wanting it back.

Many “book people” will not loan out their books. It only takes one or two of the, Gee, I think I put it on my bookshelf somewhere… Or, the borrower moves away.  With your book. …to get a “book person,” to stop loaning out their books.

Personally, I don’t keep as many books that I have already read as you might think. I have a lot of books but most of them have not been read and that is why I still have them. I have a couple of collections (Jennifer Crusie, The Little House Books, The Anne Books, some Judy Boltonmysteries) but for the most part once I have read a book I am done with it. I do not re-read them because I remember them. If I LOVED it then I will keep it, i.e.; Jennifer Crusie. No. I don’t lend those out. Anymore.

…just sayin’

Happy New Year!

New Year’s Resolutions

I do not believe in New Year’s “Resolutions.” I believe in goal setting. I love setting goals and many of them I do and have achieved. I also believe in constant self-appraisal and self-improvement. When something does not work for me I am on the search for a new idea, method or solution. A lot of times I will tweak a current method that is not working and if it still doesn’t work I keep tweaking and trying and tweaking and trying. As a result I am ALWAYS reviewing my goals.

What I like about setting goals at the beginning of a new year is that it feels like a New Beginning and that always provides encouragement for me. I have no idea how many times my “leaf” has been “turned,” but I am still not perfect (enough for me anyway, and I’m sure there are many that will off their opinions of my perfection level—lol) so I keep plodding away hoping the next thing I try will click.

My first year away from home at college I took a religion class at the LDS Business College and one day our instructor’s son came and substituted. He gave a lesson I have NEVER forgotten about priorities and goal setting. I have also read Franklin/Covey’s books about time management and habits for successful people. So I have combined these ideas to create my own way of goal setting.

First, my priorities, which are based mostly on relationships:

1. God
2. Family
3. Church
4. Career (school)
5. Other

Based on that I can reflect on what is important and what needs focus or improvement.

According to Covey we need to Daily “Sharpen the Saw,”

Spiritual

Physical

Mental

Social/Emotional

And figure out our “roles,” which I use the above priority list for.

I have also read The Courage to Be Brilliant in which MartaMonahan discusses how to slowly improve ourselves by perfecting five things at a time.

This year my goals are simple:

1. Improve my relationship with God (Spirituality) by Praying daily (am & pm), Reading my scriptures, Journaling (that is hand writing on paper) and keeping a Gratitude journal where I list five things each day that I am grateful for.
2. Improve my physical state by eating right and exercising daily. I don’t care if I dance crazy for 20 minutes with my kids; I need to MOVE MY BODY! Also, to eat right for me. That means a low-carb diet for my crazy imbalanced metabolism, fat loving body.
3. Cleaning my house. This is for my family (and me) to keep us all happy and organized. It has to be done. Putting it off just makes it harder when it’s out of control (…yes dear, I’ve been listening…)
4. Writing: blogging, web content, fiction. This is separate from my journaling. I want to be a “Writer.” Writer’s write. I want to get in the HABIT of writing every day so that I can get to the point where writing 2,000 words a day is just expected. Whatever that produces monetarily or not is what it produces. It is who I am.
5. Serve. Outside my family. I would like to do this daily, but serving OUTSIDE my family is a time-challenging thing for me to do.

For some these goals may seem to high or too low but I know myself. I know I can do these things. I know I am capable. (Honestly, the house-cleaning thing is the most dreaded—lol.)

These are not my “resolutions,” but my goals for 2012, which I am hoping is a MUCH better year than 2011!

Happy New Year to you too!

My Literary Theory

Occasionally I am excited about a piece I write, particularly my non-fiction, but I wonder if it's suitable for the masses--lol especially those that don't read non-fiction much. I try to keep them short and sweet but that is not always possible. 


So this last month my class was on Literary Theory and Criticism and for my final last night I had to write my personal Theory based on the critics we've studied over the course. Here is my piece: 

"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance (Pope, 204b)." This couplet implies that those who express themselves in sincerity will have an easier time with the task.

Pope gives some practical advice to "wanna-be" writers and poets, and this short bit is the best in the piece because it speaks of sincerity and truth. I believe if a writer expresses themselves with genuine feelings those things will be conveyed to the reader and they will be drawn to it.  How an artist creates their art, or a writer creates great literature, is known from a critical viewpoint as an Expressive theory. After reading several critics I feel comfortable with what I believe is the best creative process.

Truth, sincerity and integrity in writing is the key to a great piece of literature. While doing this, however, it is important to keep your own personality out of the quotient. Eliot explains that the writers element in the process should be, "inert, neutral, and unchanged (Eliot, 540a)." "The more perfect the artist," he writes, "the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates; the more perfectly will the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material (Eliot, 540a)." This seems an unnatural process for a writer to approach but the truth is that the less personal the literature is the more universal it feels for the reader.

Eliot explains, "The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unit to form a new compound are present together (Eliot, 540b)." This technique seems atypical for what might seem to be less personal really turns out to be more personal for the reader. For example; sometimes when you hear a speaker you believe they are talking only to you, in reality you are among a crowd and any number of people feel the same way. This is the gift of a great speaker. The same can be said for a beautiful piece of literature that seems to be universal in nature because the writer took himself out of the process. He let the words and phrases and images that have been storing up for years in the recesses of his imagination finally come forth in a manner that is cohesive to the story but not necessarily reflective of the author.

The reason this method works is because of integrity, as Virginia Woolf explains it. "What one means by integrity, in the case of the novelist, is the conviction that he gives one that this is the truth. Yes, one feels, I should never have thought that this could be so; I have never known people behaving like that. But you have convinced me that so it is (Woolf, 604b)." This integrity is what helps give a piece the cohesive feeling of, "the relation of human being to human being (Woolf, 604a)." The expression of a writer can and should be more sincere when their feelings and personality are removed. This does not and should not mean that real emotions are not involved, they definitely are, but on a level so unique as to make a reader feel that they too are feeling those emotions and they believe the events that are written, even if they are fictional.

To "learn to dance," as Pope suggests, means to me that a writer has learned this process as described. Possibly it is an internal gift, to be able to express the truth or rather the integrity of emotion, by removing themselves and spreading the emotions from their mind onto a page. Those feelings are then transferred into the minds and hearts of their readers. This creates great art in literature, in my opinion.

Richter, David A. The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006.

A Roundabout Letter to Santa on a Particularly Chilly December Evening

In deciding what to write about my mind often wanders. I have a Dude Ranch story I’ve been working on for over 20 years. Then I recently started my mom’s life story, but that could be touchy because, well honestly, she’s still alive and I’ve already gotten stuff all screwed up. That doesn’t really matter though because it’s fiction. So my dilemma? I also have an LDS trilogy I’ve been working on for about 15 years, I think? It started out as a vague, trite romance. Then I added AIDS and Lupus (for fun?), eventually that segued into a two part and because Nora Roberts is one of my (writing) idols I decided to do a trilogy ala Nora. Her formula is easy to figure out so I copied that idea and came up with my own threesome, or six-some, and have a helluva story brewing, but I almost never work on that one because honestly… (yes, I’m forthright) there is no market.

And the bottom line is the bottom line some days.

Tonight I’m reveling in probably getting another A in a 300 level Lit class. Always comforting. So I think I can write. Then I decide to read for a bit and start one of Charlaine Harris’s “Dead” series (HarperConnelly). I’ve already read ALL the Sookie Stackhouse books and have the LilyBard series somewhere, then I “accidentally” came across this one and I. Am. Hooked! Yay! She is a wonderful writer and since it’s fantasy? Horror? Sci-fi? I enjoy the change of pace from Romance and Classic Lit.

I really need to get my hands on another Susan ElizabethPhillips, but I don’t know which one. I am also excited to read Debbie Macomber and just discovered her Angels series.

:::sigh:::

I *need* a Kindle Fire. Or a tablet. Or an Ipad. Something. So I can read this all in bed without too much light to bother the hubby. Books are hard to light, and my laptop is too big.

Yes, Santa, I want a Kindle Fire.

Thanks a million.

Love ya lots.

Okay. Gonna read some more and then maybe write something. Maybe.