The Secret Adventures of WriterGirl

Current Theme Song (aka what's playing on my ipod right now): The Middle by Jimmy Eat World.


You really don't have to travel far to find your own adventure. I keep finding that out over and over again. Like when I am driving through my neighborhood on a routine store run, I drive nonchalantly past a house and do a double take. Was that really a camel I just saw? Just standing on a front lawn? In my neighborhood? Why yes Heather. Yes it was.

I was already on my errand, but I pushed my car and myself as fast as was legally allowed. Hey - I really didn't want that camel to go away before I got back. It was already getting dark and I was afraid it was going to disappear with the sun or something. Camels are not natural in suburbia, even if you do happen to live in a desert.

But he was still there when I got back. And apparently I wasn't the only one attracted by the strange sight. Neighbors were emerging from all their hidey-holes and pausing on their evening walks. We all gathered round to see the baby camel.



It was only three and half months old, and a friend of this particular neighbor apparently raises these (and other) extotic animals. I got to pet him. He was so soft and gentle, and I loved looking into his soft, rich eyes. I wanted to take him home with me. (But that little guy really did like to go to the bathroom. I managed to avoid both spurts during the time I was there. It's all my superskills as WriterGirl). :) Even his back hump was incredibly thick and soft. It was an experience I couldn't have begged more for. He was such a sweetie.

Cosmo (my little camel friend) kept looking for his owner like he was his mother. It was really touching. He really didn't like being apart from him. Hey, this ties into my review so nicely with the middle east. I didn't even think of that until now. And it was so fun to see the neighbors coming out and smiling, laughing, and talking around this unusual but oddly beautiful sight.

Maybe all you need to bring a neighborhood together is a baby camel on your front lawn.

Current Theme Song (aka what's playing on my ipod right now): Still Alive by Lisa Miskovsky.


Oh wow. You know when you find something that says exactly what you feel but you didn't have the words to say it right? This article from the LA Times says what I feel but so simply, yet so powerfully.

Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow ourselves to merge with the consciousness of another human being. We possess the books we read, animating the waiting stillness of their language, but they possess us also, filling us with thoughts and observations, asking us to make them part of ourselves. This is what Conroy was hinting at in his account of adolescence, the way books enlarge us by giving direct access to experiences not our own. In order for this to work, however, we need a certain type of silence, an ability to filter out the noise.

Such a state is increasingly elusive in our over-networked culture, in which every rumor and mundanity is blogged and tweeted. Today, it seems it is not contemplation we seek but an odd sort of distraction masquerading as being in the know. Why? Because of the illusion that illumination is based on speed, that it is more important to react than to think, that we live in a culture in which something is attached to every bit of time.

Here we have my reading problem in a nutshell, for books insist we take the opposite position, that we immerse, slow down. “After September 11,” Mona Simpson wrote as part of a 2001 LA Weekly round-table on reading during wartime, “I didn’t read books for the news. Books, by their nature, are never new enough.” By this, Simpson doesn’t mean she stopped reading; instead, at a moment when it felt as if time was on fast forward, she relied on books to pull back from the onslaught, to distance herself from the present as a way of reconnecting with a more elemental sense of who we are.

Current Theme Song (aka what's playing on my ipod right now): Silver Lead and Snowy Tears by Superchunk.


First review of the diversity challenge! It is a lovely story and I am really excited to share it. (Oh and the hot and cold clue has to do with the location. Iran = very hot, but it also snows there which surprised me. It really shouldn't have. It snows here too, a lot more than you'd expect).



Anahita's Woven Riddle
Published: 2006
Current Amazon Ranking: #381,297

Book at a glance: Weaving a bit of fairy tale into her rich exploration of Persian life, Meghan Nuttall Sayres has written a debut novel that delights and fascinates. In this enchanting historical novel, a nomad in nineteenth-century Iran takes fate into her own hands when her father promises her in marriage to a man she dislikes. Anahita convinces her father to let her hold a contest in which potential suitors must correctly answer the riddle she has woven into her wedding carpet. A diplomat, a schoolteacher, a shepherd, and a prince compete in Anahita's battle of wits for the heart of this extraordinary girl.


First Line: "Baba, I have a riddle for you," Anahita said, standing among the pregnant ewes corralled for an early spring shearing.


Second Thoughts: This was a unique, lush, and vibrant book. It brought a different culture to life to me more fully than any book I can recall in recent memory. Not much is said about Muslim culture or the middle east, and hardly ever in a favorable light except where the character is trying to break away from the life they know. This rather extraordinary story told it not only from a perspective within that culture, but with tact and delicacy. Anahita does not try to break away from her culture or the traditions of her people, but moves within those bounds and finds a place in her world. This was enormously refreshing, instead of forcing western ideals into a place with different values. That was one of the highest nods I can give to Ms. Sayres, who seems to have a fairly intimate knowledge and relationship with this culture.

The other is the immersion of this rather foreign place. Often times I read of multi-cultural books who make a noble attempt to take the world they are trying to describe and make it relatable and understandable to an audience with possibly little to no knowledge of that place. Ms. Sayres accomplishes this naturally and fluidly. She does not describe the many unique pieces at great length, but refers to them organically, as Anahita would, and expects the reader to understand from the context (which works out very well). However, there is a glossary at the back, which I referred to more than once.

The history of it fascinated me. It takes place in 19th century Iran/Persia (about 1885, the author says in her notes). Russians were starting to invade (which I had no idea about), and the modern world was starting to creep in in the smallest ways. But so much of it still felt so ancient, like it could have been any time in the last thousand years. Reading this was like becoming lost between worlds, and that was absolutely enchanting and riveting experience.

Anahita, her entire family, and several of the suitors were very well developed, and each extremely unique. I loved them all. However, I had problem with a few of the other minor characters, namely her cousin and the main antagonist (the khan), the man she did not want to marry. He was very 2-dimensional, and in fact fulfilled several stereotypical roles of bad villains, including having a pet cat he carried everywhere and was the only thing he seemed to care for at all. Much of his dialogue was terrible as well. But luckily he did not feature much into the story except as a general unseen force. Her cousin I also wish had more complexity to her, since she was referred to often, but little was done to establish her as a character who could stand on her own.

I loved the sounding board her father acted as, and through his character we could see several faults in Anahita that were not readily apparent when reading close to her. One problem resolved itself too quickly at the end in a single self-sacrificing incident that was too sudden and absolute for me, but her character was good and genuine enough that it was not a major concern of mine. The absolute lushness of the history and the surroundings where it made you feel like you were really there more than made up for any minor faults the story might have had.


The Final Word: An absolutely rich and immersive story of a little-told culture/part of history which is well looking into. It is a world to get lost into, so much that you don't really notice any faults that you might find. Definitely worth reading.

Current Theme Song (aka what's playing on my ipod right now): Video Killed the Radio Star by Amber Pacific [remix].


I have made another giant leap in super-hero-dom. WriterGirl now can fight the evils of the world in style. Yes! I finally have a car of my very own after a year without (there have been tears, let me tell you). My beautiful first car, a complete clunker and the perfect college car in my opinion finally could not pass emissions anymore, and so I had to give him up (there were very real tears there. I loved my little faded red hatchback like no other). But he went to a good home, and now he is running again. I even see him in the neighborhood sometimes. He even has a CD player in him now, which he certainly never had with me. I'm glad he is there. I really couldn't bear the thought of him in a junkyard.

And being in a small college town, I could walk to mile or so to the grocery store and back without too much problem (or bum rides with very nice friends). And in DC, well, the metro is awesome. So I got by pretty fine, but now as I am back home in a much bigger city with a less awesome public transportation system, I needed a car. So began the four month scouring search for a (running) vehicle worthy of WriterGirl. And I found one. Boy did I find one. Batman, Wonderwoman, you've got nothing on this (and Spiderman, I have yet to have a genetic mutation, so you don't even count).



Isn't he beautiful? It's a 2002 Saturn, manual (I'm in heaven to drive a manual again). It's got a CD player, it's got four doors (that's new), and it has AIR CONDITIONING. Nothing against my gorgeous baby, but summers are not temperate here (desert, remember), and cold air feels so nice.

And guess what? I paid for him in full. I am so happy. I've never bought anything this big before, and you can tell I'm a little more than ecstatic about it. He's a salvage title, but hey I figure, all the best superhero vehicles have to be in at least one wreck, right? Where would the batmobile be without all those explosions? Not cool, that's where. It gives them character. So rock on, I'm now a part of a team now! We're going to be close buds, I can already tell.

Current Theme Song (aka what's playing on my ipod right now): Schindler's List Main Theme by John Williams.


ElaineG! Congratulations. I can tell you were very excited about this contest. I loved seeing all the amazing entries, and I'm hoping something like this can be done again. Please contact me by email with your mailing address within 48 hours, or I will pick the next most-voted-for winner. Thanks you guys for making this such a great contest.