All I can say is, What the hell are these women thinking?!

Okay, I know that a wedding is primarily the woman’s show, but pre-planning without regard to your (future) man’s personality and style is just stupid. A wedding is not something you can plan to only your specifications and then slide into the program whatever man comes along to marry you.

Ladies, I know your future wedding is a big deal and you probably want things a certain way. Daydream away. But please, don’t actually plan anything until you have a man to plan with. 

Baby Caveman is only three months old right now, so I have a long time before I have to seriously think about his schooling. But that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it from time to time. See, I have been seriously disenchanted with the public education system in the United States for the past few years.

It seems to me that the poor teachers who teach in our schools these days have to spend so much time and effort tying to teach to the test in order to get higher scores and therefore better funding. But learning and education shouldn’t be about getting the best scores and being able to memorize facts just long enough to put them down on a standardized test. I feel like doing things this way, we are stifling our kids’ ability to actually learn things. **

Which is what leads me to think that, when the time comes, I will be homeschooling Baby Caveman. I just feel like it is easier to tailor an education to the needs of the child when it is done in the home. If we were to start right now, we would probably work a core program that centers on reading and history, such as Sonlight, and then incorporate a more hands-on approach to math and the sciences and such. But, again, we are not starting right now, so there is plenty of time to think about that.

I know a lot of people think homeschooling will turn a kid into some kind of social pariah who doesn’t know how to interact with his peers. And, sure, I suppose it could if he never learns how to socialize with other kids, but there are places other than school for him to get that interaction, so I am not at all worried about that.

Pretty much I am just rambling along and getting my thoughts out of my head and into the world. And I liked the idea of using x-y-l-o-c-a-r-p for my X post.

*bonus points to the first person who tells me what on Earth this has to do with the rest of my post.

**Teachers are wonderful and amazing people and I love them for what they do. None of this is the teachers’ faults. It is the fault of the crappy way that the government has decided to fund public education.

I am feeling a little ramble-y today, so before my actual RTW post, I am taking over the blog for a quick (uh…maybe) ramble session.

Hey – it’s my blog and I’ll ramble if I want to.

First, I have been sick this week. My wonderful geek husband thought it would be kind to share his cold with me. I think I need to teach him that we don’t have to share everything. I really am okay if he keeps some things from me. Really. So, my body is now dividing its energy pretty equally between fighting this cold and growing a baby (and, um, if you aren’t family and don’t follow me on Twitter – surprise I guess), which leaves effectively NO energy for normal day-to-day functions. I mean, I was in Target for a whopping 20 minutes yesterday to get cat litter and almost fell asleep in the checkout line.

Geek Husband finally finished Mockingjay Sunday night so I finally picked up The Hunger Games to read. And then I just finished Catching Fire about 20 minutes ago and it is taking all my will power to not just say, “screw you!” to the rest of the day and read Mockingjay instead of doing anything productive.  I am really glad I decided to wait to read them, because that year wait might would have killed me.

Okay, the end of my rambling is near. Eve’s Fan Garden has a guest post today by Aprilynne Pike talking about censorship and good parenting (and how they don’t go hand-in-hand). THIS is what I try to express whenever the topic of censorship comes up. And THIS is what I never, ever say as well as Aprilynne did. Seriously, go read it. She is amazing.

Alrighty then. Is anyone still here to read my Road Trip Wednesday post? This week, YA Highway wants to know:

If you could travel back to any historical era for research purposes, which would you choose?

Wow. Talk about a question with about a zillion different answers. If I had a working time machine (and this is important, because I don’t want to get stuck in the past, which is always what seems to happen when time machines are involved), there are a TON of different eras I would like to experience and events I would like to witness (some from afar). But where when would I go to for research purposes? Hmmmm.

Most of my projects take place in modern times and little-to-no historical research is necessary. But I do have one book that takes place fairly equally in the past and the present. Okay, well mostly in the present, but the scenes set in the past are incredibly important. So, I guess if I were to travel in time for research purposes, I would go to:

New Bern, North Carolina in the 1870s.

My main character’s first life happened in the aftermath of the Civil War (in fact, she was born as the Battle of New Bern was being fought in the background). It would be great to be able to go and experience first-hand what life and culture was like then. To really get a feel for how things would have been for Becca and Hank. To learn the different manner in which people of that time and place speak, eat, move, interact. Because while the emotion of people hasn’t changed, and I can write that just fine, the custom of how we act has, and I would LOVE to really be able to experience the old customs.

What about you? If YOU could travel in time for research, where would you go?

While I was working today, my mind drifted to the realms of writing and reading-as it often does. I got to thinking about the “Fairy Tale Ending” – the warm, fuzzy Happily Ever After.

Stories with romance at the core of the plot – or even as a strong subplot – often end in this way. After all the struggles a couple goes through, they finally end up together and live happily ever after. Perhaps we get to see the wedding before the fade out, but we often don’t even get that much.

This doesn’t make sense for me on so many levels. The first, and most cynical, is that sometimes happily ever after is really happily until the honeymoon period runs out, the two people let their guard down, not everyone is on their best behavior, and they realize the don’t really like each other orhappily until someone falls in love with another person. I don’t like any of these scenarios, but let’s be honest here – they are realistic.

What really gets me about the happily ever after ending though is that is cuts things short. The most exciting, wonderful, happy things about a relationship come after the happily ever after. Sure, it is exhilarating to follow the courtship and see the awkward first date, but there is so much more than that! I want to see a Fairy Tale where the wedding takes place a third of the way through and we get to see what happens in their life together! (Kudos, by the way, to Stephenie Meyer for putting the wedding scene at the beginning of Breaking Dawn instead of waiting for the end.)(Oops…should I have spoiler alerted that for the three people who have not read that book?)

Writers: Don’t cop out with a neat little and they lived happily ever after. Show us what happens-good or bad.

Rambling Out.

(Full Disclosure: this is the only part of Meet Joe Black I have ever seen.)

So, what with me feeling like I was hit by a car–er, two cars, there will be no real blog post today. Sorry, friends, but thanks for stopping by anyway! What? Is that chicken noodle soup? How thoughtful of you.

Don’t you fret, though. The Personality Toolkit series will continue tomorrow. (I know I am sick when I spell tomorrow incorrectly. Twice.) AND, since I am not posting today (no, really, this is all an illusion*), there will be a Saturday post this week. How ’bout that?

*Since even an imaginary post is not a post without some fun linkage, I leave you with this: because a little nostalgia always makes the day better.

Also, this is a must read post. I have been asked many times why I write young adult (and even a couple times when  I was going to write a “real book”). Someday I will address why I personally write YA. Until then, I am going to just say “what she said” to Mary Pearson’s thoughts on writing YA.

Now, finally, my intended post:

I have been reading a lot lately about the publishing industry facing impending doom (haven’t they been facing impending doom for, I don’t know, forever?). Well, if you have been paying attention to the movie business (and I will forgive you if you haven’t-it is not everyone’s job to stay on top of it), you know movies are still doing well. Movies just had their biggest summer of all time.

What do movies have that books don’t? They are both escapist, so that isn’t it. Movies do have the beautiful stars, but with a book you can imagine anyone you want in the roll. Books may be more expensive (if you don’t live in a big city), but they also last much longer. So maybe it isn’t a matter of what movies have that books don’t as much as it is a matter of what books have that movies don’t.

Returns. The publishing industry allows returns. This means if a bookstore WAY over-orders on a title, whatever they don’t sell to the public can be sent back to the publisher for a refund. I don’t know of any other industry that allows this. I think the publishing industry can learn a lot from the movie business.

***Disclaimer: I admit to knowing relatively little about the inner workings of publishing and returns. I don’t claim I can fix the system. These are just my rambling thoughts.***

What publishers can learn from movie studios

Let me break down for you how a movie is placed in a theatre (this is general-things are different in different situations, but this is basically it):

1. Theatre decides what film it wants to play.
2. Theatre orders the film from Studio.
3. Studio charges Theatre a guarantee-this money must be paid before the film is shipped to Theatre.
4. Studio presents the terms (percentage of Theatre’s revenue to be paid back to the studio).
5. Theatre grumbles about the terms being unfair.
6. Negotiations ensue.
7. Terms are finalized-generally they are exactly what Studio originally offered.
8. The film is shipped to Theatre. Theatre plays it for the adoring public and makes their money.
9. Theater sends Studio their percentage of the sales.
10. Everyone is happy.

So, let’s put this all in perspective:

Fabulous Cinemas in Fabulousville, Maine wants to play The Time Traveler’s Wife. Their booker calls up the Warner Brothers salesperson and says, “we need to date Time Traveler in Fabulousville for next Friday”.

“Great, I’ll put you in,” says the salesperson, “terms will be 51.5% with a $1500 guarantee.”

“Not a chance! That is not a 50% film.”

They argue. In the end, terms are finalized at 51.5% (this is a trend-Studio rarely budges).

The fabulous people at Fabulous Cinemas send Warner Brothers $1500, and in return Warner Brothers sends them the movie.

Fabulous Cinemas plays The Time Traveler’s Wife for all the fabulous citizens of Fabulousville. They rake in the dough.

At the end of the movie’s run, Fabulous Cinemas send 51.5% of all their profits to Warner Brothers. If they didn’t sell many tickets, well bummer, the studio is not going to cover that!

So, how does this apply to publishing?

Well, for all I know, it can’t. But, just for fun, let’s pretend it can. Here’s how that would look:

1. Awesome Bookstore in Awesometown, Illinois wants to sell Paranormalcy.
2. Awesome Bookstore orders their copies of Paranormalcy from HarperTeen.
3. HarperTeen charges Awesome Bookstore a guarantee-this is the cheapest level they can sell them to the store.
4. HarperTeen presents the terms (the percentage of each sale Awesome Bookstore has to give to HarperTeen)
5. Awesome Bookstore grumbles about the terms being unfair.
6. Negotiations ensue.
7. Terms are finalized-they are exactly what HarperTeen originally offered.
8. HarperTeen ships the copies of Paranormalcy to Awesome Bookstore. The citizens of Awesometown, Illinois rush to get their books and Awesome Bookstore makes their money.
9. Awesome Bookstore sends HarperTeen their percentage of the money.
10. Everyone is happy.

Notice how there is no #11 saying “Awesome Bookstore” sends any copies that didn’t sell back to HarperTeen. HarperTeen eats the cost of unsold copies.” That is because returning the books to the publisher is not an option! Awesome Bookstore is now held accountable for their rampant over-ordering.

Will this model work for publishing. Who knows? I certainly don’t.

And I have officially rambled for way to long. Anyone still reading this?

Bueller…Bueller…Bueller?