Tasty Tuesday: Under the Tome

Under the Dome
Stephen King

The entire town of Chester's Mill, Maine, is suddenly and inexplicably encased in an invisible, indestructible dome one bright, beautiful October day. Will the residents get out? Will life Under the Dome be bearable? How long will supplies hold out? 

The story, as with all King works, is good. Well-crafted, well-researched, with painstaking attention to detail and foreshadowing. Anyone who's ever read a King novel will know what to expect, and you won't be disappointed. The cast of thousands, the gory descriptions of accidents, the eternal play of good v. evil. Yadda yadda, you know what you're getting. 

But I found the ending if not completely unsatisfying (coughTheDarkTowercough) then very - light, for want of a better word. I slogged through over a thousand pages of iffy character development (The bad guy is fat!) and rolling plot to get to a scant 15 or 20 pages of resolution. It was pat; it was convenient; it had all the hallmarks of a King lampmonster. Honestly, I carried around five pounds of book for three weeks for that? Really?

Because my time could have been more poorly spent, Under the Dome gets 3 out of 5 bacon strips. Yes, it was good; yes, I was engaged. But I could have pulled something hefting this tome around, and I don't believe for a second he needed every single word he shoved into it. Maybe it's because I'm a different generation of novelist, but there were extraneous words. Many extraneous words. I also think King is falling back on stereotypes as he gets older - seriously, the bad guy being fat was written as an honest-to-God piece of characterization. And other bad guys were stupid. And one was bad because he had a brain tumor. The good guy was in the Army, and had a secret. The good woman was a reporter who said things that definitely didn't sound Republican (because all Republicans are...what? Ignorant racists?). I guess I just like my people to be people, not walking collections of stereotypes, tropes, and tics.  

I think I'll stick to rereading the classics from now on. There's nothing like a little Tommyknockers or Carrie to make a King fan - and nothing like Cell or Under the Dome to unmake one. 

I Didn't Read Anything Tasty Last Week

Sorry.

So, I had a bad day yesterday. I started the school-year schedule, which includes waking up before God, and it just went downhill from there.

I started submitting query letters to literary agents, and I was all panicky and anxious, and somehow, all these fears of failure coalesced into hating my body all day long. I didn't want to get dressed, I didn't want to eat, I didn't even want my husband to hug me when he came home. I felt like a giant ugly blob of grossness, and all the relentless, negative tape-loops I thought I'd cleaned out of my brain were working overtime. Not only was I going to fail at getting an agent because my novel sucked and the market's full of vampires - no, obviously I was going to fail because I am a big, fat, toothy, ugly loser.

I'm not writing to get pity (though I'll shamelessly take compliments anyway.). I'm writing this down because it illustrates just how intertwined our bodies are with our everyday lives, with our emotions; and how body acceptance is a process that doesn't end. Fifteen years after I chucked dieting the first time, and I still have all that crap I grew up listening to in my head, waiting in the back of my brain until something else has me jittery and inattentive, and then it sneaks up and makes me feel like shit.

And I hate that my anxiety is so closely linked to my appearance, but that's how I was taught; that's how my mother wired me, right from the start. I was not a child who could leave the house in a tutu and rain boots: that would have reflected badly on my mother. In fact, the only thing that reflected well on her, as far as I was told, was looking perfect - perfectly matched, perfectly styled, perfectly brushed and curled and accessorized. Too bad I was so fat, or I really could have done her proud.

I understand her wanting me to start off on the best foot, to make the best first impression I could. But since I could never actually look good - just good for a fatty - the whole concept of first impressions, of appearances, just makes me stupid with anxiety. Even when the people I'm "meeting" can't see me, and have no way of knowing how big I am.

My writing should be able to stand on its own (and I think it does, or I wouldn't be trying for an agent at all), but the toxic tapes in my head told me that I'm fat, and therefore worthless, and therefore a failure before I even get out of the gate.

I've dealt with this most of my life by failing on purpose. If it's my choice to fail - by not trying, by dropping out - then it's not a judgment on me. It's not because my body is unacceptable - because I am unacceptable. It's because I didn't want to.

Fuck that. I've missed out on a lot of life because "I didn't want to". No more. Even if I fail, so what? I tried, right? I pursued a difficult and insanely competitive profession because I wanted to! I wanted to put myself out there, to do the only thing I've wanted to do since I was 10 years old. If my timing of the market isn't right, if my writing is truly awful, well, I'll figure that out.

I will have wanted to, and from where I'm sitting? That makes me a success, right out of the gate.

In Which I Propose An Awesome Comeback

So. Obviously, I haven't blogged in a while. I'm not sure why - my life isn't busy, and really, I don't have anything else to do. Probably I felt that I had nothing to say, which isn't true at all. I have more to say than ever, on every topic.

But I've been doing much more writing lately, both on my other blog, What You Pay For, and fiction that doesn't currently have an audience. I hope it will - I'm gearing up for sending my darlings out into the world - but right now, it's just me and the decidedly non-sparkly vampires in my troll cave under the stairs. And occasionally on a laptop in the kitchen, or in front of the TV. You know how much I love TV.

I'm not promising daily posts, but I will be more attentive, and I hope that someday I can turn this blog into All Things Baconsmom The Famous Author, and you all can say you knew my blog when.

Here's to discipline, opinions, and random fatshion rants!