There's good news and there's bad news

Bad news first (always).

Remember way back when Gayle Forman's "If I Stay" was published and I mentioned that I was upset about it because I'd had an idea for a book that was basically the same thing and she'd beat me to it?

Well. It happened again.

Sort of.

I give you: "Tempest."

While perusing Entertainment Weekly dot com, I came across this article.

This brand spanking new author Julie Cross has written a YA book with a time travel fantasy element. It's supposed to be full of excitement and danger and angst and drama and love story.

Guess what I have 21,000 words written of? Yep. Basically the same thing.

So that's the bad news.

The good news is this: Mine is better. (I really don't know this because all I've read is what's in that story, but based on that tiny bit of info, I say mine's better.)

Also good news: I'm not discouraged. I'm in fact encouraged because mine is different enough to be part of what could be a time travel trend and still be unique. I'm not super thrilled that now it's going to look like I'm riding coattails (assuming it gets any attention at all), but Dianna had a very good point -- this woman might have just made it easier for me to be paid attention to.

"If I Stay" was entirely too close to my idea for me to even develop it further. Maybe one day I can adapt my concept and try again. "Tempest" feels like something different. A launching pad? A gateway? I don't know for sure quite yet, but I'm going to stay positive and keep the thought that Julie Cross has done me an incredible favor and one day I'll have to thank her for it. :)

Also, in a moment of ego, can I just say that it's pretty cool that ideas I've come up with independently have been taken seriously by agents and publishers and a reading audience? I know I'm not the one having the success, but it feels like I'm on the right track. :)

Cosmo's flirting tips, a.k.a Ways for Stefanie to Feel Like a Jackass

While I was waiting for my car's oil to be changed I picked up the Cosmo that was on the coffee table and came across these ridiculous, I mean "irresistible," flirting techniques. Let's discuss:

Give him a long once-over from head to toe, then bring your eyes back up to his. Smile ever so slightly to let him know you like what you see.
Ppppfffffff.

Pull your hair loose from a ponytail holder or clip so he can watch your touchable tresses fall around your face.
No. If my hair is up, it's because it's hot and/or unmanageable that day. I would only scare a guy away if I unleashed the mane in those conditions.

Cross your legs and slowly move your top foot in circles. His eyes will be drawn to your gorgeous gams since men are used to focusing on movement.
I think this is called Restless Leg Syndrome.

Grin and hold his gaze for three seconds. Then bite the corner of your lip and look down.
So, like, one... two... three... and THEN bite, or one... two... and bite on three? (Sarcasm.)

While conversing with a cutie, lean in so you're about six inches from his face. Linger for three counts, then slowly return to your original position.
Hahahaha! That's not creepy at all.

Rub your shoulder like you have a painful crick, then gently sigh. Not only will he find this extremely sexy, but you might even score a massage.
I've done this genuinely before and never got a massage out of it. No feedback on the sexiness, either.

Walk past him, then slowly swivel your head halfway toward him, rest your chin on your shoulder and smile. This asymmetrical pose shows that he's hot enough to literally turn heads.
Oh, good Lord.

During conversation, touch his knee or hand for emphasis.
His knee??? WHY? Are we talking about his high school sports injuries?

As a hottie brushes by you, stop him in his tracks by saying, "Wow, you smell great."
If this is true, I have no problem saying it. I loves me some good cologne. :)

While standing in line, inquire if he thinks it's worth the wait.
If what's worth the wait? (Probably the actual response he'd give.)

Pull out a copy of the Kama Sutra from your bag and say, "Would you be interested in joining my book club?"
THIS would be HILARIOUS!

Stroll over to a bored boy and inform him that you're from social search-and-rescue. Your mission? To save him from a dull night.
Womp, womp, wooooooooooooooomp.

Compliment him with "You look athletic. What sports do you play?"
"Where do you work out?" makes more sense because then you can show up at that place and see him there. Duh.

Tell him he looks so much like a friend of yours that you just had to say hello.
This is awkward, but it might actually get a conversation started.

Proclaim that you're thinking about changing your name. Then say with a smile, "Do I strike you as more of a Sienna or a Bambi?"
What. The. Fuck.

Wander over to him at a coffee shop or bookstore with the event-listings section of the paper and ask for his suggestion on a fun activity.
Ha! This is a funny suggestion for many reasons. =)

At a clothing store, tell him the shirt or pants he's considering buying would look amazing on him.
Why the hell am I shopping at a men's store??

Say that you're trying out a new perfume, then hold out your wrist or expose your neck and ask his opinion.
I believe I've done this one before. It's not a bad ice-breaker.

Guys love to hear their names — throw his into conversation a couple of times, and he'll know you're into him.
Oh, you mean I should acknowledge the person I'm having a conversation with? Whoda thunk?

Make the most of a loud room and lean in close. Then whisper conversation in his nerve-packed ears.
I mean, if it's loud, how else are you supposed to talk?

Ask him if it's hot (or cold) in the room and put his hands on your cheeks or neck for a temperature check.
I am not his mother.

Ask your studly neighbor to stop by and help you move something heavy or change a lightbulb you can't reach. Then repay his services with a beer.
Well that's just neighborly.

Here's the thing: I'm all for attempting to flirt, but the situation has to be somewhat genuine or else I feel completely stupid. I'm not going to just execute a stupid pick-up line to a complete stranger.

A guy will know I'm into him when I listen to what he has to say, ask questions, laugh at his jokes (good or bad) and tell him that I'm having fun. The rest is really just bullshit.

Book Review: "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"

It's a mouthful, isn't it?

This book by aunt/niece team Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows is about a writer in WWII-era London named Juliet Ashton. She's on the search for a subject for a new book and can't seem to find inspiration anywhere.

She randomly receives a letter from a man named Dawsey Adams who lives on the small English Channel island of Guernsey. Dawsey has come into possession of one of Juliet's old books and the two start up a friendly correspondence. He reveals that he's a member of the GLAPPPS (how I will refer to it from now on, thank you very much). Juliet wants to know more. The next thing you know, all the members of the society are sending her letters.

The characters in this book are all charming, even the unlikeable Mark Reynolds, who tries to sweep Juliet off her feet. Their stories of their lives during German Occupation are harrowing, fascinating and heartbreaking. Juliet thinks so, too, and wants to share them (eureka!) in the form of her next book.

Juliet goes to the island to meet the people she's made friends with via snail mail. She becomes one of their own. In the end, she finds out that when you're not looking, you find the thing you were searching for. (And it's usually not what you expected it to be.)

My only qualm about this book is the format. Every single word is told by correspondence: Letters, telegrams, notes, found diary entries. It's too gimmicky for me. The worst part was that as soon as I'd get consumed in one person's voice and point of view, the letter would end and one from a completely different character would be next. It was like starting all over. It was jarring.

How does a group come to call themselves the GLAPPPS, you might ask? Guernsey because it's where they are. Literary because they invented a book club (and then had to really become a book club) when caught out after curfew by German soldiers. Potato peel pie because when all the rest of the food was gone, potato peels were all they had left to eat.

It sounds a lot more pleasant without the explanation, doesn't it?

5 foods I won't share with anyone

I totally hijacked this post subject. See the original piece here.

This is somewhat difficult, because the food I love the most is the food that's served on a grand scale: My dad's barbecue, my grandma's chicken mole, my family's tamales... all made in mass quantities to feed the dozens of us who gather for the occasion.

These are generic answers, but they're all I can think of:

1. Fries/tots

It drives me bananas when people pick fries or tots off my plate. I never let them know, because I certainly don't need to eat them all myself, but my instinct is to slap their hands away. MINE.

2. Milkshakes

If I shell out the extra $3-$6 for a quality milkshake, no, you cannot have a sip. Instead you have to endure watching me have the whole thing AND listen to the yummy noises I make while doing so.

3. Popcorn

I don't get this at the movies that often anymore, but when I do I want my own bag. There's something so gross about multiple people reaching their grubby fingers into a community bag.

4. Salad

This seems like a silly one, but there is logic at work: Odds are, if I've ordered this I'm going to be hungry again in about an hour. Please let me eat it all, and don't judge me for scraping up the last scraps of toppings, either. Hungry Stefanie is not fun.

5. Sushi

Same reasoning as salad. Anybody who claims to be full off of one roll is LYING. I always order sushi with either spring rolls or edemame or something to help fill me up. So, no, I will not share.

Halfway there

I'm about halfway done with my novel's first draft. Just thought you'd like to know. :)

Book Review: "The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors"

Every six or so months, my company has a giant book sale. Books come by the crate to our office, and the majority of them, I'd guess, go unread. I think some of the employees also donate books from home. They pile up in boxes in the office so that just before we move them to the sale space it looks like a band of children has built a fort to play in.

The sale is always a hit. Almost every book is priced at $1 and the proceeds go to various charitable, writing-related causes. (Part of this sale's proceeds are going to my cause -- the capital campaign for my college student newspaper. Yay!)

The point of telling you all that is that since the books are so cheap I feel I can choose one without knowing anything about it. I picked this one for the title alone.

It's the debut novel of Michele Young-Stone, who actually survived a lightning strike. The story flip-flops between Becca Burke, who is struck twice growing up, and Buckley Pitank, who has indirectly suffered the consequences of a strike and wishes to be directly struck to know what it's like. Interspersed with their stories are excerpts from the handbook itself (written, we come to find, by Buckley.)

Becca and Buckley's lives are connected but they don't discover it until they're both adults. The fun part of the book is knowing the connection before they do and waiting for them to find it.

The serious part of the book isn't about lightning at all. It's about these characters and how they shape their futures. They are special people, but it takes them a while to accept that. When they do, and when they finally figure out how to use what they've experienced over the course of their lives to their advantage, they realize that they've ended up exactly where they were always supposed to be.

It's a little formulaic, but I think for a first novel it's damn good. The characters are rich. The story is compelling enough to keep the pages turning. The ending is satisfying.

And it was only $1.

The hot dog story

I can't sleep. :(

Today someone referred to the hot dog story, which is everyone's favorite story of mine from my movie theater assistant manager days. I now share it with you.

So this older guy (50s or 60s) comes up to the concession stand and orders a hot dog. The person working the register gives him one from the warmer. He opens it up, touches it, says it's not hot enough and asks for another.

The cashier tells the supervisor, who I guess tries to tell the guy that they're all going to be the same, to no avail, because then she calls for me. I go over and tell him what they've already told him. He asks if it can at least be microwaved.

I tell the supervisor to get the microwave from the back and zap it. She's carrying the microwave to plug it in and drops it on the ground. Of course it doesn't work after that.

I go back to the customer and tell him the microwave is busted but there's a batch of hot dogs coming off of the grill and would he like one of those? He says yes.

I make it myself and do it so he can see me. I get a fresh bun, get the hot dog directly off of the grill and assemble it. I hand it to him. He opens the container again and feels it. He says it's not hot enough.

THEN HE GRABS MY HAND AND PUTS IT ON THE HOT DOG. "Does that feel hot to you?"

So. Much. Ew.

I was so mad, I made a fist and ruined the hot dog. Pieces of it squeezed through my clenched fingers. I raised my voice and told him that was the hottest hot dog he could get and if that wasn't good enough he could have his money back. As I was yelling, I rang up the refund and threw his cash on the counter in front of him. Then I stormed away without waiting for a reply.

I have so many stories about my time there, and almost all of them are something along the lines of me getting intense with customers, which I could have gotten in trouble for.

But dude, seriously. Don't fucking touch me. And don't fucking make me touch your hot dog.

Is college a waste?

It sounds to me like this guy just couldn't hack it.

Look, nobody was more lost, confused and discouraged in college than me. There I was, a high school honor student who never had to exert myself academically (except for AP English, which required actual brain cells) facing a full load of brain cell-required classes.

Even so, the academics weren't what ruined me. It was the real world, the individual freedom I had in college that I'd never had before. I'd always been part of something. I had a safety net. People to keep tabs on me and consequences for my actions. All of that went away when I went to college, and I went a little nuts. Having freedom when you've never had it before can be a dangerous thing.

When I dropped out after 2 years, it was because I was completely disoriented and was only wasting my time and my parents' money trying to figure it out. I needed to take a step back, focus and maybe try again. It took 2 years for me to go back. In those 2 years I worked my minimum wage jobs and did whatever else I wanted. And you know what? It felt empty.

When I went back, I eased in, starting part-time. Then I got involved in different organizations that not only gave me something of a support system, but also experience outside of the classroom. I realized I could learn from every situation I was in, and suddenly my life seemed to calm down and start making a little sense.

I get this guy's theory: No, a classroom education isn't going to provide all the knowledge a person needs to make it in the real world. But the academic side (especially for us liberal arts majors) is the very least of what we take away from the college experience. It's meeting and learning how to communication with different types of people. It's learning how to absorb information and analyze it on our own. It's having experts and research materials within arm's reach for a brief time, which will never come again (unless we go to grad school, which I have considered.) It's having opportunities to try things we'd never tried before without major consequences if we fail. And that's because even if we fail, we learn something.

A degree doesn't just represent academic achievement. It represents eagerness, willingness, readiness and most of all perseverance. That is what college is all about.

Book Review: "A Visit From the Goon Squad"

Jennifer Egan's Pulitzer-winning novel is hard to review because there are so many specifics in it that it's impossible to explain one part without needing to explain all the parts.

If I had to define what it's about, I'd say it's about growing up, changing and revisiting your past as a stranger.

Each chapter is told in a different character's point of view, and along the way we learn how the characters' stories are connected. This has been done before, but these characters are all so vibrant that it doesn't feel tired. There's also a really unique chapter presented in the form of slides a la PowerPoint. You wouldn't think you'd take away as much information or even the essence of the character from that kind of presentation versus a written chapter, but you do. (Don't tell my employers, who are currently obsessed with iPads and web site traffic and seem to have forgotten that their core product is a written publication.)

The last chapter is unsettling because it seems to take place in a time ahead, where almost all communication is reduced to "text speak" and human-to-human interaction is even less genuine than it is now. In this futuristic digitized world (unsettling because it doesn't seem far-fetched), an event occurs that is one of those "Do you remember where you were when..." moments. It rocks people (that is an excellent pun, if you've read it) to their core and sort of snaps them out of their digital fog for a second. It makes them remember what a person is capable of, as opposed to the capabilities of technology.

I think that's what Egan was trying to get across all along: No matter how advanced we think we are, we are humans first. And that alone makes us awesome.