Mermaid in Chelsea Creek

I love it when a book inspires a story idea, except that the timing is usually inconvenient.  I am currently in the middle of writing my first novel, as well as a book chapter for an academic collection, as well as teaching, helping to run a writing center, planning an advanced rhetoric course, and dancing every day, so I definitely don't have time to pursue any ideas right now.  But -- I added this one to the folder I have in Google Drive with the many, many projects I'd like to pick up at some point.  Anyway -- Michelle Tea's Mermaid in Chelsea Creek is about a young girl who discovers that she has special powers and ends up training with various witches from different cultures.  The part that inspired me is that I am fairly sure Tea is of Polish descent, and one of the cultures she explores is the traditional magical practices of Poland.  Well, since I am of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, my ancestors also had traditional magical practices (I mean, all of our ancestors did, I just happen to have done some research on mine) and now I really want to explore that in fiction.  So I will.  Someday.

In the meantime, I plan to finish Tea's novel today, because guess what else will arrive today?  Grey!  E.L. James's latest -- Fifty Shades from Christian's perspective.  I am pretty sure I will have this book devoured within 24 hours . . . except now I'm also catching up on Season 5 of GOT, which might mess up that plan.  Oh yeah, plus the mountain of work I have to do and my daily training, but I suppose that goes without saying.

I also ordered the sequel to Mermaid, Girl at the Bottom of the Sea, so I will read that after Grey.

MacLean is the antidote to Reynard

So I finished the Gabriel's Inferno trilogy and I even read the sort-of sequel novella The Prince.  AND I ordered the sequel to that, The Raven.  What is wrong with me??  Fortunately, The Raven is the last of Reynard's books so far.  Because apparently these books are like potato chips -- I don't like potato chips at all, but once I start eating them, I can't stop.  BUT I am now on the third book of Sarah MacLean's Love by Numbers trilogy and even though, yes, these are fairly standard, predictable historical romance novels, I would call them feminist historical romance novels, because in all three books, the heroines are self-sufficient, plucky, and quite subversive.  Now, I have seen plenty such characters in many romance novels, but usually said characters are "tamed" by some man in the end.  Of course, in order to be considered a true genre romance novel, the main two characters must get married in the end.  So that still happens.  However, the women do not have to change in these books in order for these marriages to take place; the men essentially end up taking the women on their own terms.  So there is not this horrible "breaking" process that happens; the women get to remain intact, still spunky, subversive, and unique.  So I have no problem admitting that I am a fan of Sarah MacLean's work.

I was inspired by running across both of these summer reading lists last night:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariannarebolini/the-ultimate-romance-erotica-reading-list?utm_term=.ijAG1xbGO#.aiqQWqx0E

http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/books/2015/05/29/15-best-lgbt-summer-reads-include-anne-rice-kevin-sessums

I added all these books to my shelfari page (http://www.shelfari.com/shanascudder/shelf).  Obviously my shelfari page is a joke.  I have 3,286 books listed as "to read."  I think my Goodreads page is likely more realistic (https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1750471?shelf=to-read).  I was thinking last night as I was obsessively adding new books to my shelf that I don't actually know which I like more: reading books, reading about books, collecting book lists, or collecting actual books.  I think this is quite odd.

But I think it all goes back to the fact that what I want to do most of all is WRITE books.  I'm still working on that part, but I think seeing everything that's out there makes me feel like maybe someday a book by me could end up on one of those lists.