Sommer Leigh

Terrible Yellow Eyes

Sommer — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:00:47 +0000

I’m not ready to talk about how the death of Maurice Sendak has effected me. Badly, is the best I can say. I spent most of that day running to the girl’s room to cry my eyes out. Everyone thought someone in my family had died, and those few who dragged the truth out of me were totally weirded out over my reaction to an author’s death. So I’m feeling a little jaded and also still very heartsore.

I will talk about it because Maurice Sendak means a lot to me. I just don’t want to talk about it yet.

Instead I’d like to share this site with you. It’s called Terrible Yellow Eyes.

Terrible Yellow Eyes is a collection of works inspired by the beloved classic, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

The contributing artists share a love and admiration for Sendak’s work and the pieces presented here were done as a tribute to his life and legacy.

Some Examples:

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad.

Sommer — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:00:03 +0000

You guys always like the weird stuff I post, so here you go. It doesn’t get a lot weirder than this.

From The Atlantic:

Somewhere between Henry Holiday’s weird paintings for Lewis Carroll and Edward Gorey’s delightfully grim alphabet fall Harry Clarke‘s hauntingly beautiful and beautifully haunting 1919 illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination—a collection of 29 of Poe’s tales of the magical and the macabre.

They are really, really, really disturbing.

You can sate your creepy curiosity here for the full monty. Everyone likes to be scared by Poe, though. Right? I mean, that man invented nightmares.

Cover Lust: Sci-fi, Supernaturals, and Steampunky Goodness

Sommer — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:00:49 +0000

I thought it was about time to shine some pretty lights on pretty covers, mostly because it’s been a while since anything got me excited. Is it just me, or does YA feel like it’s having a bit of a dry spell? I haven’t heard a whole lot of hype about any one book for some time, and none of the covers I’ve seen crawling off the shelves do our genre justice. There are still a ridiculous number of pretty dresses on pretty girls, but they are mixing it up because at least they don’t all look sad anymore. Now they don’t seem to have any particular expression at all! I’m so over this look. SO OVER IT. I can’t even bring myself to read the backs of them anymore.

High Class Put-Downs

Sommer — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:00:10 +0000

May Challenge Update!

As I blogged about before, I am participating in a May Writing Challenge over at the Bransforums. It is not to late to take part! Go throw your hat in!

So far my time looks like this:

5/1: 3876
5/2: 1002
5/3: 3771
5/4: 1005
5/5: 3720
5/6: 3110
5/7: 0 (I know. I KNOW. *sob* I cleaned the basement instead.)
5/8: 0 (too many people at my house last night)
5/9: 1042
5/10: 0 (although I did write blog posts for next week. That doesn’t count though.)
5/11: 648
5/12: 7879

May Total: 26,053

Remember my goal is 70,000 words, which I’m still hoping to make. I get a lot of writing done on the weekends because I’ve been packing all my stuff up and heading off to the coffee shop for 6-8 hours at a time to just work. Not having anywhere to go sort of forces work out of me, and I work really, really, really fast. Also, I’m drinking my weight in Moroccan Mint tea and skinny white mocha lattes. I’ve even been coming in enough that I’ve gotten over my territorial need to sit in the same seat every time. Which is good, because every time I lost my seat I spent the entire time plotting extreme revenge upon the interloper. So, you know, this is healthier in the long run.

(Don’t tell, but I’ve also been watching a lot of Community episodes. Thank god they are only 21 minutes long. I wander around now humming “Troy and Abed in the MOOORRRRRNNNINGGGGG.”)

How are you doing with your May goals?

I’m going to leave you with some High Class Put-Downs, which I swear to God I stumbled on when I was doing research. For once in my life, I was not procrastinating when I found this little corner of the interwebs.

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
-Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
-William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
-Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”
-Paul Keating

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.”
-Jack E. Leonard

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
-Mark Twain