Hearing about this, other authors lined up to appear started dropping out in protest, including Pete Hautman, Matt de la Pena, Tera Lynn Childs, and Melissa de la Cruz. Other authors like Chris Crutcher and Jane Yolen have said that they WISH they had been invited, so they too could drop out. The Internet is freaking out about it, but I’m surprised there’s been no mention of it in any newspapers (that I can find). I guess the H-Chron is only interested in stories about animals, and everyone else is pretty used to this sort of thing happening to Ellen Hopkins.

Which is really a shame because her books are awesome. They’re written in verse, and usually about subjects affect teens like sex, drugs, religious intolerance, and abuse. It’s obvious why parents would want to protect their delicate teenage flowers from this, right? IT MENTIONS DRUGS which clearly teens have never heard of until reading one of these books. But Hopkins’ books go nowhere near glamorizing drug use; if anything, they present a stark, real message of the consequences–but without the After School Special tone that so often makes teens dismiss such works. After reading many of her books, I feel slightly queasy and drained, just at the thought of being in the same situations as her characters. I think if I were five years younger, the effect would be even more dramatic. Ellen Hopkins gets letters all the time from teens saying her books made them realize they needed to change their lives for the better.

I really feel bad for the teens of the “few” (the reports never say how many) parents pushed to have Hopkins uninvited. It’s likely that just going to public school has made them more knowledgeable about the subjects in Hopkins’ books than their parents realize, but I hate for anyone to have to make life decisions (whether to have sex, whether to take drugs, how to deal with abusive relationships) with only vague ideas about details and consequences. It drives me crazy when people try to shield their kids from the outside world to the point of incompetence and an inability to function in the real world, but, as parents, that’s they’re choice. What’s NOT their choice is to do the job of other parents who might take a more pragmatic, open view. I’m glad when I was younger, my parents trusted me enough to make my own decisions about what to read, and I think I’m a stronger person for it.

To read more about this issue, here is the School Library Journal article and the Houston Press article. The comments are pretty entertaining on both. Also, Ellen Hopkins discusses it on her blog.

Okay, maybe that last one was a bad example because I still think that one of the privileges of independence is never being forced to listen to random strangers’ music again. But, anyway, my point is, it’s easy for seemingly small, inconsequential things to gradually become terribly annoying if left long enough. Natch the library is no different.

Annoying Thing #1: This is not the grocery store, give me your GD library card.
It surprises me that more than half of the patrons I deal with in any given day come up to me, stack their mountains of books in neat, time-consuming piles on my desk, and then stare at me like I’m an idiot. “This stupid newb librarian,” I imagine them thinking. “She should have started on the first stack while I was laboriously piling the second and third for her. I curse her and all of her descendants for holding me up.”
“Do you have your card?” I say politely.
“Oh!” they cry, surprised (that they would need such a thing? At the LIBRARY? Surely you jest!) and begin digging around in their purse.
This happens at least twelve times a day, mostly with people who seem to use the library regularly, so you’d think they’d know the drill. At first, this didn’t bother me that much. It was mean to just assume that everyone, even people who use the library regularly, would also know that I have to scan a card first before I do anything. Then, slowly, it started to annoy me because they seemed shocked that they needed their library card AT ALL. I didn’t give it to you because I love non-recyclable plastic, my friends. It’s true that a library card isn’t technically necessary for checking out books. I can look up accounts by last name. I guess it’s possible that library patrons expect me to know their names by heart so that I can look up their accounts the moment I see them to be rid of all this cumbersome card-producing business. My other theory is that people mistakenly believe the library is like a store, where they scan all your purchases and only ask for your credit card at the end. After all, children almost NEVER forget. This mollified my irrational anger, somewhat. But I still get irrationally annoyed when the 20th person in a day is shocked when I ask for a library card. I’m pretty lucky that this is my main annoyance.

Annoying Thing #2: Sorry, can I direct you to the nearest elementary school?
Another question I get asked a lot: “When does the class start?”
I pause, trying to remember if there’s any classes at the library today. Then, realization dawning, “You mean… toddler storytime?”
This by itself, not that annoying. Even being referred to as a teacher, not that irritating, if a little confusing. It’s when I have to field complaints like “I’m not sure my preschooler is learning to read from storytime. You aren’t doing a very good job of teaching phonics” or “How educational IS this craft about alligators?”. Natch any program at the library is going to be somewhat educational, but I’m not a reading teacher. I’m not even a school library media specialist. I am a librarian (sort of) and I will during story times I will teach your toddler animal noises and that puppets are shy and will only come out when you’re quiet. Storytimes encourage reading, they don’t teach it.

The Most Annoying Thing Of All: Shoes With Squeakers
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.
Is someone abusing a squeaky toy? Why is it coming closer? Is it a dog eviscerating a chew toy?
NO IT’S A CHILD WITH SQUEAKERS IN THE HEELS OF HIS SHOES.
I mean, I get that children get lost a lot, and these sure as hell make them easy to find. They are also possibly the single most annoying thing I have ever encountered. I assume the parents just stop hearing it after awhile, but for me each squeak is scraping away at my soul. People stare at me, silently ordering me to do my job and make the noise stop. I am not sure how to tell a kid to take off his shoes because this is a library. Seriously. If someone you hate has a child, this should be your baby gift. Except probably the parents will be blithely unaware of their mind-destroying powers, having already become immune to persistent, annoying sounds with the birth of their child, and will feel no shame at all in taking them to definitively quiet places like the library wearing these exciting new shoes. Then they will be shocked that they need their library card and complain about educational values in Curious George and I will die slowly inside.

FIRE!!

So there are these dumpsters about a hundred paces from my front door, and next to them is a strange fenced off little enclosure where people dump old mattresses or furniture. There are plenty of overhanging trees too.

When we first walked outside, the wind was up and we were getting hit with sparks.

Luckily Rachel is quickest on the cellphone draw and called 911. We found out someone already had. People from the Business and Professional Women’s Club next door were already gathering to take pictures with their cellphones stupidly close. Some other apartment dwellers, slightly more freaked out because, you know, we live here, started gathering and trying to move their cars. Joe immediately accused the guy holding a cigarette of starting the whole thing and returning to the scene of the crime.

Goodbye, unsightly fire hazard dangerously close to my front door

Luckily Carrboro Fire and Rescue showed up speedily

Which is good, since I haven’t had a detailed plan of what to grab while fleeing my house since I was about seven.

From our front porch

The fire was probably started by a tossed cigarette, but since almost everyone in North Carolina smokes, I doubt they’ll find out who is responsible. A policeman did come and talk to us, but of course we didn’t come outside until the fire was huge so we weren’t much help. Personally, I am suspicious of the Business and Professional Women’s Club. They always park in our parking lot and whenever I pass by, it’s just MEN hanging out outside. Where are the Professional Women? Is it just a front for something? I will continue to stare out my window with binoculars until someone is brought to justice or I am fined for being a total creeper.

This morning the air still smells like Smores.

Terrified
I looked around
For the Twilight photoshoot
But there was none

The next morning I woke up at 8
Annoyed about going to work on a Saturday
As I am every Saturday
I got dressed and went downstairs
I looked out the window

WHITE

I was not going to work today.

I ran upstairs and jumped on Steven.
“SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW!”
“mmrrrhhhmmmgoaway”
“GET UP! LOOK OUT THE WINDOW!”
“mmmrrrhhhdontwanna”
“WE’RE GOING OUTSIDE TO PLAY!”

I dragged Steven outside
He said he would get pneumonia
I told him it was good for him
Then I found a trash can lid and tried to sled.

Our solar panel is sad

The night it began I was at
Harris Teeter
Because Steven had discovered at the last minute
That our milk was bad
and he needed it to make tortillas.

There were so many people
(I parked across the street)
It seemed like everyone was a college student
Buying beer and wine
Or a mom buying cat food.

I stood in line for the self check out
With my one bottle of milk
In the middle of the shampoo aisle
When from the front of the store
We heard someone shout
“It’s snowing!”

And getting home was a bitch.

Food Lion was more crowded than I’ve ever seen it today
though still not in Florida Hurricane Preparedness Proportions.
It’s next to a sad Burger King, the wrong side of a disregarded exit
Off 54
Everyone was buying:
Their weight in cans
Bottled Water
Candles
Bread and Milk.
Children bundled tightly in snow suits, staring at the sky
Waiting

There was only one man ahead of me
In 10 Items Or Less
He was buying:
A container of chicken wings
A case of beer
Eight frozen pizzas.
He looked like a man who knew he was prepared
In a way the Weather Channel would never think to advocate.
I was buying:
AA batteries
Powdered sugar
Chocolate chips (the two things I’d forgotten for baking)
A giant candle in a glass holder with Arch Angel Michael killing some demon.
I know it was somehow Catholic, but they were the only candles left
It was either Michael or a dead Jesus
And I thought defeating demons was marginally more cheerful
Than to have the eyes of a sad Christ look on
As I try in vain to complete the World’s Largest Crossword after the power goes out
By the light of a candle meant for religion
But somehow next to beer and chicken wings and chocolate chips on the conveyor belt
Just the same.

That was my first clue. My second clue was when I looked at the academic calendar (for the first time ever, natch) and saw “JANUARY 11TH: CLASSES BEGIN” highlighted in red.

I can only imagine what would have happened had I decided to make breakfast instead of order textbooks (which I gave up on after discovering the sordid truth, btws). I would have taken the bus to school, complaining about the cold the entire way, wondered vaguely where the hordes of undergraduates were, and sat in an empty classroom for about half an hour before wondering if there was some kind of alphabetizationmergency I had missed the alert on.

I guess I just assumed that if I was going to work I should also be going to class. I’m actually hoping this happens more often because suddenly having another week of sleeping in and not doing boring readings about “What IS information?” is all the more awesome because of its unexpectedness.

So awesome that I decided to update my blog for the first time since being gripped by the ravages of Frozen North-induced flu. Don’t worry, I got better in time for presents. It was a Christmas miracle.

This graphic, the only semi-tangible prize, was SO WORTH IT.

Granted, my main memories of Thanksgiving are of writing 17,000 words in two days, but still! Look at this picture I won!!! In case you were wondering, the novel ends with the three different Patricias plus random historical/alternate time line characters teaming up to USE THEIR IMAGINATIONS to defeat the Plutonians. Apparently illogical thought processes are their one weakness, making Middle School Patricia the ultimate contender.

I can’t be bothered to post the entire novel on here, but here is the wordle art version of it:

I like how PATRICIA dominates. Just like always. Click for larger image (i.e. to read any words that aren’t PATRICIA)

2009
October
Start receiving “reminder” emails from the NaNoWriMo website. Roll my eyes.

October 24th
Read over “novel” from last year while procrastinating writing a paper. Feel bad about the lack of coherency.

October 26th
Decide to do National Novel Writing Month again, this time attempting not to fall back on random free association to meet word limit. I CAN write a 50,000 word novel that sticks to one plot. For varying definitions of “one plot”. And “sticks”. And “novel”.

October 30th
Convince James Fox to write one too in exchange for making him a character in my novel.

November 1st–10pm
Suddenly remember that it’s the first day of National Novel Writing Month. Stay up to begin novel. Decide it should be about Middle School Patricia traveling to the future by accident to meet me now. It can be deep and full of meaning and reveal things about my life and stuff.

November 2nd
Decide to occasionally write from Middle School Patricia’s Point of View to use up more words.
Excerpt:
What. The. Crap. This is the WORST day of my ENTIRE LIFE. First of all, we totally had a quiz in French I didn’t know about and French is like the easiest subject but I didn’t know any of the vocabulary and I know I got a C. I bet I got the worst grade in the class and everyone will make fun of me, even Kurt, because French is so easy and I could’ve passed if I’d remembered about it and studied instead of playing Monopoly with Thomas. I don’t even LIKE Monopoly and he always cries when he doesn’t win. THEN I ended up HERE somehow where it’s way too cold and everyone is super mean, especially this one lady who says she is me. I guess she looks like me so it must be true. But HOW can that be me??? She is WAY too old and weird. And a LIBRARIAN? How boring is that? I want to be a writer. I KNOW I can be a good writer, so she should be able to be a good writer too, right? I don’t know what happened. Maybe my mission is to try to convince her to change the boring awfulness of her life and become a writer like she’s supposed to. It will suck for awhile, she will have to get a less nice apartment and quit her job and never have enough to eat and maybe get some kind of disease like consumption. Also, she will have to break up with this fiancé Steven person. It doesn’t matter what he’s like, to be a writer you have to be lonely and miserable at first. THEN you become rich and famous and can have a nice house by the beach and travel to Europe anytime you want and go to book signings and live in a castle and find your ONE TRUE LOVE. So maybe if he is really her ONE TRUE LOVE he can come back then. I’m not sure if he is yet, I will have to look at him to know.
Okay, this sounds like a good plan. I will convince her that she needs to quit her life and become a writer. For my sake. And FOR ALL OUR SAKES. How can the world survive without the amazing things that we will write? I have already written lots of amazing things that could be published and make us famous and I am only thirteen. Clearly she would not have to try very hard to do the same thing. She’s old.

November 3rd
Decide to add another time traveling Patricia–”Old Patricia”–from the future to spice things up. She is apparently some kind of plaid obsessed alcoholic.

November 6th
Aliens attack. Specifically, Plutonians. Who look like giant dust mites, because those things are freaking scary. Also, they apparently control the Space Time Continuum? And are trying to kill all of me for some reason?

November 7th
James Fox introduced as character since the pipe he monitors apparently contains, among other things, The Space Time Continuum.
Excerpt:
“I was watching the pipe,” he said. “When I noticed a disturbance in the space time continuum.”
“The space time continuum? I thought there was just like hydrogen or something in the pipe.”
“THERE ARE LOTS OF THINGS IN THE PIPE,” James shouted. “Obviously the Plutonians were—”
“The PLUTONIANS?”
“Who did you think that was?” James Fox demanded as they reached the door to the stairwell. “I always TELL you the Plutonians are trying to kill you because they hate imagination but when you actually come face to face with them you can’t even jump out of the way! You are SO BAD at saving the world!”
“Yeah… well… your mom,” was my excellent comeback

November 8th
Old Patricia apparently knows ALL ABOUT the Plutonians since she fights them in the future. So they have come to the past to kill her Terminator style? We escape somehow to The Pipe and leap into the space time continuum.

November 10th
Decide the Plutonians are attacking because they are jealous that Pluto is no longer a planet? Or something? Mostly just enjoy messing with Middle School Patricia.
Excerpt:
“WHAT?” Middle School Patricia shouted again. “PLUTO’S NOT A PLANET?”
I patted her on the shoulder. “Sometimes the future’s hard to take.”
“I feel so lied to. And BETRAYED!” Middle School Patricia cried.
“So does Pluto,” Old Patricia said. “I think that’s where the Plutonians are getting most of their power.”
“So we need to somehow find out how to make Pluto not so bitter?” I asked. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Maybe,” Old Patricia shrugged. “They’ve always been jealous of Earth for our natural resources—like imagination—but declassifying Pluto as Not A Planet was the last straw. That’s when their full on attacks really began, to steal our natural resources. Why I remember back in the twenty second century when they decided to steal Stephen Hawking’s l33t math skillz and my imagination and we teamed up to take them down by dropping Mt. Etna on them and—”
“Twenty second century?” I interrupted.
“A THREE IS NOT A LETTER!” Middle School Patricia shouted at the same time.
“It is in the future,” James Fox told her. “Also, T-E-H has become the correct spelling of ‘The’.”
“NOOOOOOOOO!” shouted Middle School Patricia while James Fox and I high fived ineptly behind her.
“Gotta practice those high fives,” Old Patricia said. “One day, it may save your life.”

November 11th
Trapped in the past, Old Patricia tells us why she began her crusade against the Plutonians in a dramatic flash forward that is overly described to use up space. For effect, I decide to kill off James Fox in it.

November 12th
James Fox (in real life), pissed about his lame death scene, decides to rewrite it involving more explosions, polar bears, and sweet guitar solos. I include it afterwards to use up space.

November 13th
Decide to rewrite the same scene AGAIN from Middle School Patricia point of view.
In its entirety:
I stand in front of the library, looking dramatic and tragic at the same time in my awesome black high heeled boots and black lip stick. Like some kind of pale, ethereal dark elf where all you have to do is look at her to know that her heart has been BROKEN. She waits alone in the shadows. I mean, I wait alone in the shadows, watching the sun slowly rise in the east, watching the trees slowly lighten from foreboding shadows to leafy green.
She felt a shift in the wind, in the earth beneath her feet, in the air and the clouds. Something was coming. Something big.
She stiffened and stared towards the rising sun, drawing the slim sword from her belt she always kept concealed there. If it was orcs, she was ready for them. If it was a wizard or sorcerer, the blade was spelled to block their own charms. But no… it felt different. Alien somehow.
And then that annoying guy in the lame jumpsuit and bad haircut was running at her from down the street. She frowned, lowering her sword slightly. This could not be the threat she sensed. True, a threat to good taste he still was, but he was essentially harmless.
“They’re coming!” he choked out as he came towards her. “They’re coming!” He collapsed at her feet, barely able to breathe from his long run. He was bleeding from an arrow wound in his arm. “Run!”
“NO!” she shouted, and there was power in her words. “A seventh level librarian sorceress warrior princess mage DOES NOT RUN! She STANDS and FIGHTS against all foes! What is chasing you? What is coming?”
“It’s…” But he collapsed onto the Earth and was still before he could breathe another word.
“Fear not, noble plumber,” she said, drawing the mage sign for remembrance and peace in the air. “YOU SHALL BE AVENGED.”
The air began to shimmer and buzz as if the very molecules themselves were excited for the coming fight. The shadows began to move and coalesce until they formed the shape of four hideous monsters, all dripping fangs and pincers reaching out towards her. She felt the air around them heavy with magic, magic which they would not hesitate to use against her. She took a deep breath and reached into the magical wellspring within herself, the power the goddess had given her as her female warrior champion to protect all that was good.
She stepped forward, around the homeless man’s smelly and broken body. “STOP creatures of night!” she said to them in a strong voice that carried farther than it should have. The beasts stayed their advance and proceeded with more caution. “You shall come no further THIS NIGHT!” Totally ignoring the fact that it was dawn.
They tested her defenses tentatively with a small spell but she drew her sword up high and blocked them. They recoiled back with a hiss and began to separate to further encircle her. They wanted to have her surrounded. She grinned ruefully.
“There’s only four of you,” she said. “Hardly a fair fight. Here,” she offered. “I’ll close my eyes. Maybe that will make us more even.”
As if she needed such a petty contrivance as sight anyway. She could sense them with her magical eighth sense—THE OCHO—and reached out to them with the strong coils of her magic, entrapping their legs and causing them to trip and fall on the ground, screeching and squelching for help. The stars themselves saw her fight and rushed to her aid as she was a true daughter of the night and they had watched over her since birth. They fell from the sky in flaming snowballs of fury, striking the earth and smoldering, striking the bodies of the creatures with a vengeance that made them squeal in fright. But they were still not beaten. She lunged and slid her sword into the gaping maw of the nearest. It shrieked and shriveled, shrinking like a rotting plant in fast motion, down and down until it was about the size of a beetle. Then she stepped on it, crushing it into the ground with one black boot.
She whirled as she sensed one coming up behind her while she was thus engaged, parrying its attack with her sword, whose light flared and ebbed with her attack. She blocked another attack from one of its pincers, feeling its magic baring down on her. She raised her sword and held on even as the force of it pushed her backwards, almost into a tree. With one final burst, using all her strength, she pushed against it and then, with a final push, drove her sword into its eye.
It squealed like a stuck pig, limbs flailing and clicking and then lay still on the ground. She lowered her sword, panting, trying to catch her breath. But she had forgotten about the third creature.
It bellowed behind her, rearing. She couldn’t turn in time, the attack came at her twofold, magical and corporeal in the form of a giant, poison covered pincer that ripped her dress and cloak dramatically but not too revealingly but kind of revealingly. She was thrown backward against the ground and felt the poison burning as it went coursing through her veins. She knew she was going to die as the creature loomed over her.
“BACK YOU BEAST!” came a strong, confident voice from behind her. She could barely turn her head to see a dark figure threatening the beast with her fallen sword, picked up off the ground. The creature backed away, and even slipping out of consciousness she could feel the stranger’s strong magical presence. She heard the final squeals of the last creature before Mr. Snape Darcy was at her side.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m a potions master. I will save you if…” and here he paused dramatically. “You agree to reconsider the request I made two years ago.”
“I will never be your wife,” she whispered. “Not after what you said about my family!”
“But don’t you see, it was all a misunderstanding!” he insisted. “I was under a spell placed upon me by the Evil Bitsy Hassel who was jealous of my love for you and your own beauty and power. But when you defeated Bitsy in single combat it broke the spell and I’m free once more. Please. Say you care for me. Even a little bit.”
“Well, okay,” she said grudgingly. “If it means you’ll save my life. I guess you can be my boyfriend.”
With that he magically healed her wounds and helped her to her feet as if she were as light as a feather.
“Come back with me to my magical castle mansion by the sea,” Mr. Snape Darcy implored. “We will put this tragic event behind us.”
“No,” she said, pulling her motorcycle up and adjusting her revealingly ripped cloak around her. “You don’t understand. I ride alone.” With that she started the bike and rode off into the coming dawn, leaving him staring after her in awe.

Bitsy Hassel was my mortal enemy in Middle School, although I’m not sure she knew I existed.

November 13th
James Fox illustrates the above scene rather than working on his novel:

Middle School Patricia's motorcycle would definitely have pentagrams on it

November 15th
Characters randomly pulled into a fight between Robert the Bruce and William Marsh Rice, World’s Most Powerful Cyborg. William Marsh Rice decides not to kill them for his usual reasons of “too short” or “not crunk enough”.
Excerpt:
Meanwhile, Rice and Robert the Bruce were hurling energy beams at each other, and generally destroying all the buildings around the quad leaving each other and the statue unscathed.
“You’re just jealous,” William Marsh Rice shouted. “I have a UNIVERSITY named after me. AND a popular grain.”
“Rice isn’t named after you!” Robert the Bruce shouted. “It’s been around millennia before you were born!”
“TIME TRAVEL, BITCH!” William Marsh Rice punctuated this remark by throwing a chunk of Rayzor Hall at him.

November 16th
Because I can’t resolve subplots without just introducing more problems, Frost Giants attack!!

November 17th-19th
Middle School Patricia writes more fanfiction about Frost Giant attack.

November 20th
In attempting to repair a rift in the Space Time Continuum (while defeating the Plutonians?) the characters get randomly assaulted by people from history. And the future.

So that’s where I’m at now. This year has definitely been more ridic than last year, but I’ve still got about 17,000 words to go and 8 days. So… yeah. We’ll see if I can actually keep my vow to stick with (some form of) plot. For varying definitions of “plot”.

Hopefully this goes a little way towards explaining the various cop out posts I have been doing the past few weeks.