7 Reasons You Should be Watching Cult

1. It's a TV show about a ... TV show. Yeah. Every time I try to explain it to someone it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it's not. I tend to get sucked into TV shows I love ... just a little bit *cough cough* and I love that they took this idea and spun a whole mystery around it.

2. Matthew Davis. Okay, so I admit that he is the only reason I started watching this show. I loved him as Alaric on The Vampire Diaries and I was so sad when that character had run his course. So as soon as I heard he was going to be in a new show I was all over it. I practically had my DVR set before they even announced the premier date. Not only is he easy on the eyes, but I love the character he plays in Cult as well. It's actually a fairly similar part, but his tortured past, missing brother, and bulldog tenacity makes him someone you can really root for.

3. The show is smart, clever, and interesting with a mythology that keeps getting more and more intricate - but stays away from the paranormal or the supernatural which is a nice change of pace.

4. It doesn't take itself too seriously. The show pokes fun at itself, at fans, at other genres of shows - it's serious, but just light enough that it actually makes it more believable.

5. It's actually fairly believable. With what little I know about TV fandoms online, I can absolutely see a cult developing out of a TV show with fans willing to kill (literally) to be considered "true believers." My Dad and I started watching The Following, but after a few episodes it had crossed over into such unbelievable territory that we couldn't take it. It was also a lot more gory. Cult has a lot of similar elements, but the premise is something I'm much more willing to swallow. And it's a little lighter on the "horror" side.

6. The relationship between Jeff and Skye. From the minute these two meet there is a great chemistry. And I love that they have developed a friendship, but that the show creators don't seem to be dragging out the romantic side of it. Only 5 episodes in and there is already a definite movement toward something more in their relationship. Not that I like things to move quickly just to move quickly, but it can be crazy-making when you know the two main characters are going to get together eventually, but it takes like 4 seasons for no reason whatsoever.

7. The "other" TV show - also called Cult of course, and also put out by the CW (ha). I love the way we get snippets of this other show. Alona Tal and Robert Knepper play the girl who escaped and the cult leader SO well. Plus, getting to see them as actors and actresses "behind the scenes" is just such a fascinating construct for a show!

So there you have it. Here's one fan who is holding her breath and crossing her fingers that we get another season (at least)!

Stagnant and Terrified

How's that for a post title for the first time I'm blogging in oh nigh unto forever.

Yes, I've been busy. Super busy. But then again who isn't?

Yes, I'm juggling multiple chainsaws. But then again who isn't?*

The truth is, I've let my voice get stolen by all the "things" going on. The old paying the bills, trying to get the training to move to a career I will love, spending time with the important people in my life, make sure I stay current on all my favorite tv shows thing. And all of those things are important. And all of them need to get done (okay, so the tv thing doesn't need to get done.... but that's another post altogether).

And little by little in the last two years or so I've just let all these things eat away at this part of me that I didn't even think I would really miss. This little thing called writing. I've been writing papers and essay prompts and exams and e-mails and even managed to post over at our Booksellers Without Borders NY blog.

But it really isn't enough and I had NO idea it wouldn't be enough until this past week.

Last year I wrote a NaNoWriMo rough draft. And I was obsessed with the story. I fell in love with the story and the premise and the characters and I had absolutely no idea where on earth it was going. So I shelved it.

And then I decided that I couldn't write it until I had worked out the plot so I read Save the Cat which blew my mind and I sketched out a beat sheet and I did all this great worldbuilding in my head and I didn't write a single word.

I kept making excuses and it kept haunting me.

And this year I had this "great idea" for NaNoWriMo and I couldn't write anything. I think I bashed out about 2,000 words which was actually just rewriting the first scene about six times.

So I threw in the towel and said I'm just too busy with grad school. I'll get around to writing more one of these days.

Then last week I happened to be online when Miss Snark's First Victim put up the submission details for the Talkin' Heads critique. I was in the middle of a homework assignment and I felt absolutely compelled to drop everything and enter something.

I opened my WIP document and almost almost closed it up and went back to doing what I was "supposed" to be doing. But I couldn't. I couldn't do it. So I dug around and I found a passage and I tweaked and trimmed and revised to get it to fit the word limit and I entered it and I got in.

And then I went back to my homework.

And then Monday I almost forgot about it, until I got the e-mail and I started doing some critiquing - the whole give-and-take if you entered you needed to comment and it was fun and I skipped around and read a lot and commented some and I was absolutely terrified to see what people had said about mine.

But you know what? People liked it. The phrases and dialogue that I loved they loved too. And the turn of phrase that gave me chills gave someone else chills too.

And they offered constructive criticism that made me roll my eyes at my own ridiculousness because of course they were right about this thing I always forget to do.

And I opened up the document and I wrote the first scene and for the first time in over a year I felt completely alive.

And the next night I wrote the next scene.

And the next night I wrote the first scene from the other character's perspective.

Yes because I felt validated that this is something I can do, that this is something I am good at.
But mostly because I HAD to write. I HAVE to get Evva's and Devvon's story on paper (metaphorically speaking of course).

I have always been one of those people that liked to write, but wasn't really driven. If I didn't write for a month or so it didn't bother me. But I don't think I can ignore it anymore. Maybe I'll only write 100 words a day. Maybe it will take me 5 years to finish this flooding** book. But it doesn't matter. What matters is I have to write it.

And somehow, I managed to get all those other things in too. And turn my homework in on time. So there.

*Actually, if you are really juggling actual chainsaws I think I'd like to see that. Or not.
**btw this is Devvon invading my brain

I'm Still Alive!

Oh my good gracious but the dust that has piled up on this blog.

I miss blogging, I really do. But it's just not in the cards for me right now. But I am always happy when I think about the blogs and people that I met here.

Here are some things I have been doing instead of blogging:

1. Reading like 300 pages of articles a week for my library classes. Werd. And I thought that being an English major was bad.

2. Teaching and grading and molding freshmen minds mwa hahahahaha

3. Learning how to live on about 4 hours of sleep a night without dying.

4. Eating brownies. Occasionally.

5. Working at a bookstore helping crazy people find books.

6. Having a mental break down over writing a grant proposal, but then figuring it all out and doing well on the assignment.

7. Watching a little too much tv.

8. Reading some stuff that I want to read. Even if it's just a page at a time.

9. Listening to as many audiobooks as I can during my commute.

10. Being a crazy geek with other crazy geeks and loving it.

So what have you been up to?

Teaching Joys

So I have commenced my career as an adjunct professor. Having two years under my belt from the amazing TA experience during my Master's program, I feel so much more confident and relaxed as I approach the classroom this semester.

I'm teaching 1 section of English 1201 and 2 sections of English 1202 and I am loving it. There are definitely days when I want to pull my hair out, but I've had a couple of days that went so well I felt like I was walking on air.

In one 1201 class I split the students into two groups and assigned each group a side to take on whether a liberal arts education was beneficial or not. The debate got so heated a couple of times that I had to literally stand between them and shout a little to get them to calm down. The discussion of ideas and the nuance of arguments that began thrilled my soul!

And then this past week I taught one of my favorite visual texts - the alphabet from the New England Primer. After we analyzed and annotated the image I had groups of students come up with their own primer.  They got really into it, even developing rhyming couplets to explain each word and got in a little one-upmanship as they tried to outdo each other with cleverness. So much fun.

Meanwhile in 1202 I had one of the best in-class discussions ever in a class when we started digging into gender roles and stereotypes in connection to The Glass Menagerie. In both classes the students (almost all of them) had so much to say, so many opinions and they debated back and forth with a minimum of guidance from me. Referencing specific moments in the play and referring back to the non-fiction framing texts I used to set up the drama unit. It was amazing.

And on Thursday I asked groups to summarize a scene from Twelfth Night, the Shakespeare play for the class, but I put a spin on it and told them they only had 140 characters: like a Tweet. Some of them struggled with it more than others, but they all managed to get an entire scene, and then the entirety of Act 2, boiled down to such a short phrase. Some of them even got into the Twitter aspect and had @s and hashtags that made me laugh out loud.

The camaraderie in all three classes has been fantastic and, while a lot of it is the luck of the draw and I have great students, I think a lot of it also comes from the fact that I'm more comfortable in my own skin.

But the one thing this has definitely shown me is how much I love teaching these classes and how blessed I am to be doing something so fulfilling.

It's Ba-ack! Retail Wednesday Fall Preview

Okay, so not a preview, but an actual post. I'm just caught up in all the excitement over the fall TV line-up and I got carried away.

Ahem.

Starting at a new store meant that almost none of my coworkers knew I had this blog. But slowly word spread in various ways and once again I have other booksellers coming up to me every week and saying - "you've gotta write this one down; this customer was ridiculous" and I happily comply. So it's a good week for y'all.

Close But No Cigar Award:

A customer came up to coworker P and asked if she had a book by "Ajran."

P admitted that she didn't know who that was and tried looking it up, meanwhile asking if the customer knew the title of the book. The customer shrugged and replied that it was something like "Leatherbound."

Suddenly it hits P and she looks at the customer in disbelief asking, "Do you mean The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand?!"

This just goes to show that all booksellers are in fact mind readers to some extent.

Overheard Award:

One of my coworkers was walking through the store when two small children, both under the age of 6, ran past her and started looking at the bargain books. The one girl picks a book up off the shelf and holds it up saying "Ooh! I bet Mom would like this one!" The title? How to Look Younger.

Private Amusement Award:

Another coworker, E, was approached by a teenager who needed to find a book for school. The only criteria was that it had to have been printed more than 10 years ago. The girl waved rather frantically at the bargain section and asked, "Is this where you keep the old books?!" Stifling a smile, E commented that most of the books she was pointing at were classics that had, in fact, been printed more than 10 years ago.

The scarier thing is that most of my college freshmen
don't have a clue what I'm talking about
when I mention this movie

Books That Scare Me Award:

When reshelving books I came across this title, which doesn't so much scare me as completely creep me out:

Just no. No.

I know.

Phone Freak Award:

Once again I made the mistake of answering the phone. If only there was a way I could avoid doing that.

Man: About a year ago, you guys had a book in your store that was the first part of a trilology (no I did not mistype that, he actually said trilology) and since it was about a year ago I was wondering if you got the second book in yet. The first one was called Fall of Giants.

Me: (looking up the book) Oh, you mean the book by Ken Follett?

Man: Yes, that's the one. Do you have the second one.

Me: Okay, well Winter of the World is the second book and it comes out later in September.

Man: NO. Not Winter of the World!!!!!!!!! FALL. OF. GI. ANTS.

Me: ummmm. Winter of the World is the second book in the trilogy.

Man: oh. I'm sorry. I misunderstood you. So when does it come out?

And that's enough of the retail freaks for the week! Thanks for stopping by :D