guest appearances are super cool

Some people are flexible.  Some people are able to consider multiple perspectives and have different shades of feelings on topics, even if said topics are close to the heart. 

I'm not some people.

I will admit that I tend to make quick decisions, follow my gut, and infrequently alter my viewpoint.  First impressions stick with me, and when those impressions are reinforced more than once, my opinion begins to solidify, most especially when the issue is one that I hold dear.  Take books for example.  I've had a few best friends in my almost-35 years, through multiple moves in childhood and the separations of adult life.  But books?  They've been a constant, from way back.  To hear my mother tell it, I apparently was already a proficient reader in the womb, but I think it was more like the preschool years in reality.  There's the act of reading- the immediate joy in translating the little marks on papers, signs, boxes, anything, into meaningful ideas and messages.  I'm the person who reads the backs of toothpaste tubes and the bottoms of Kleenex boxes, just because there's something there to be read.

Then there are my beloved novels.  Oh, the escape and the joy and the tears and the laughter and the wonder that I've found in countless fictional stories over the years.  The feel of a book in my hands is surpassed only by the realization later that I had been transported, for five minutes or three hours, from the world as we know it to somewhere else, somewhere first imagined in another's head.  And that's the reason why authors are total rock stars to me.  They create new worlds.  They imagine, describe and flesh out people in their minds and then miraculously discover the words to put down on paper to move that image from their heads to ours.  Incredible.

Before I even had a concept of cliche, I had the dream that I would one day write the Great American Novel.  My mind's eye could even visualize the dedication page, which would be to my loving and supportive parents, of course.  When I was young, I had no idea what the book would be about, but I felt it in my soul that my name would be splashed across a book cover in gigantically pretentious letters.  Someday.

In college, I took that freshman creative writing class with hope in my heart that it would signal a beginning, a semester that would be looked back upon by the instructor years later as he purchased my latest bestseller at the college bookstore.  Ahhhh.  But.  As Fantine sings so beautifully, there are dreams that cannot be.  Unfortunately, these images in my mind would not come to fruition, because although I voraciously consumed books, creating them was a completely different story.  My ideas were weak, and my attempts at fleshing out characters from my imagination were pitiful, at best.  I saw a lot of red ink that semester, and although I eked out an A-, I'm pretty sure it was because the instructor wanted to recognize my tenacity at rewrites.  I knew in my heart that I was not a fiction writer.

Boo hoo hoo, yes, but in the long run, I think that realization only made me love reading even more, because my respect, admiration and awe for the men and women who did indeed successfully create stories for our enjoyment skyrocketed.  Years later, as I have had opportunities to come face to face with some amazing authors, I still cannot get over that awe as I look at these people who seem regular enough, but possess that magical power to create fiction.

So where am I going with all this?  Well, remember how I said that I tend to fall on the side of strongly held opinions on topics dear to me?  Now that you have a sliver of an idea of how passionately I feel about books and authors, it shouldn't be difficult to predict how I feel about movie adaptations of books.  I'm happy to have had the opportunity to be interviewed by Erika Olson of Redblog on this very topic, as they're talking about adaptations all this week.  Yesterday, she talked with my 5 Minutes for Books editor, Jennifer, who's opinions are more open and flexible than mine, and as a result who sounds a lot more sane than I do in today's post. 

But one last thing, in my own defense.  (Yes, I realize I could be on trial for sounding like an extremely crazy fanatic in that post.  I'm acting as my own defense here, so that just goes to show you how much I'm living up to that assessment.)  I have such trouble watching a movie that makes changes to an author's original ideas, because those ideas were the genesis of the story.  The story wouldn't exist without those ideas, so changes to them are an insult to the story itself.  (See?  CrAAAzy.)  And when a book has become a part of me, one that I've read more than once, one that I feel has affected my life and the way I see the world, my passion on this topic only multiplies.  (See two particular titles mentioned in the interview that fit this description.)

So, crazy me gets to make an appearance on a big time site and display my (ahem) strong opinions to a larger audience than my silly little blog pulls in, and I'm feeling pretty happy about it.  Venture over to the interview if you'd like, and feel free to blast me in the comments.  That would be totally okay.


Always willing to blab on and on about books,