artsy musings of a bibliophile

the musing mind

The Musing Mind: The Thing About Goal Phobia

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Ponderings with little bursts of cartoon art.

goal phobia [/ɡəʊl/ /ˈfəʊbɪə/]: An act of avoiding goals like the plague because they’re scary and useless.

Hi, I’m a goal-phobic!

I’m also perfectionist which is awesome and great!

Err. I’m also a procrastinator which doesn’t make for a good combination with perfectionism. (It takes me hours to do what you can probably do in a half).

Oh, and that’s not all because I’m also passionate which means that if I’m motivated enough, I can read a book in under 4 hours.

As all of that is relative, what you can take away is that goals don’t always help you in not losing focus. Or maybe that’s just me because I’m usually all ‘in your multiple faces, goals.’

The yellow bird knows stuff. (Source)

Step One is Easy

Setting goals for yourself is the easiest part; staying focused and wanting to achieve said goals doesn’t come so easily. Especially when you’re known for your impulsiveness like I am.

Back in 2014, I was foolish and crazy (I’m still foolish and crazy, it’s just a different year so bear with me) when I wrote down ten bookish goals. Naturally, I failed in accomplishing all of them. It’s a real glass half full or half empty situation going on here.

That’s what I’ve been saying! (Source)

Let’s focus on the fact that I’ve been wanting to read 100 books in a year since 2011 or so but I keep failing because that’s just how I roll. 2015 is the year that I’m finally not aiming for 100 in the back of my mind. I’m going for 75 and I’m sticking to that number and I might just fail again.

(Despite just proclaiming that I’m a goal-phobic).

Obviously, I’m not a goal-oriented person that I once aspired to be. It’s just that I like to push myself in at least one aspect of life. With goals. Ew.

You see, that’s the problem. Right now, I’m pretty positive about finishing series because I managed to finish five last year. I’m clearly one of those people who rely on their past accomplishments for the likelihood of future success. Yet when I set an actual goal of let’s say finishing ten series, you’re damn right I’ll fail. And fail so hard because I can’t handle quantification.

Tending Towards Failure

Every year in January, the one thing I get really, really excited about is setting up my Goodreads challenge (and anticipating what color it’ll be because that’s important). In other aspects of my life, I’m mostly with this squirrel.

I feel ya, squirrel. (Source)

But then time passes and I go from feeling giddy over the feeling that I’d be able to accomplish my goals to procrastinating and losing all the patience and the passion I had for the goal. I end up feeling irked at myself and that’s no fun. It’s like I’m the squirrel again.

Both, but don’t pay attention to that. (Source)

However, as the year closes in, I remember all the things I set out to do and go about trying to achieve them in the time frame that I originally went for. And let me tell you this, that never works because procrastination is better.

And sleeping. Never forget that. (Source)

Shaking it Off

It all boils down to the fact that I can’t take a challenge as a casual thing. Other people set a goal, go about accomplishing it and ta da, it’s done. For me, for the most part, I focus so much on the gotta-get-it-done-gotta-get-it-done part than the fun part is non-existent. I finally had a custom bookshelf made last year (that took me a week to paint). But that’s not really an accomplishment to me because I’ve been wanting one ever since I was eleven or so. To me, the time it takes to accomplish a goal takes out all of the feelings associated with it y’know.

Shut it, turtle. (Source)

So yes, ideally I’d like to cut goal phobia in half, before it cuts me in half. But I guess I’m still learning.

Encore. (Source)

The Musing Mind: Flawed Isn’t (Necessarily) Bad

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Ponderings with little bursts of cartoon art.

character flaws [ˈkariktər flôs]: Stuff that make up characters that we end up having complicated feelings for.

I was scrolling through Maggie Stiefvater’s tumblr the other day (it’s become somewhat of a habit ever since I started reading The Raven Cycle series last December), when something grabbed my attention. A sentence that stayed with me hours after I read the post. Someone had asked Stiefvater her thoughts on Vladimir Nabokov’s stance that a good reader is one who is impartial to the story and the characters in it. Along with her response regarding what she expects from a good reader and what she thinks about Nabokov’s stance as a writer herself, Stiefvater went on to point out the things that makes a good reader. She said, ‘remember that a flawed character is not necessarily a bad character.’

That sentence resonated with me. There’s so much talk about wrong things that characters do because they’re just bad, bad, bad and must be hated because of those things. But they aren’t bad, they’re just flawed. Being gullible doesn’t make a character bad, only flawed. There are countless flaws in the gene pool of characters that aren’t necessarily bad unless they’re portrayed to be. Moreover, most of it is associated with female characters. Readers tend to chalk it up to more bad than flawed which I find hard to swallow. A flawed character makes the story interesting while a bad character just leaves a bad taste behind. This is not to say that flawed can’t be bad, it can be. But more often than not, the opposite is taken to be true when it isn’t.

Garfield only be a troublemaker of sorts. (Source)

Flawed is Just More Interesting

A perfect human being doesn’t exist however, there are ideals who exist on earth and on the page. We know what makes us good and what makes us bad but we don’t know that about anyone else. Sometimes we don’t even know what makes us good or bad, let alone anyone else. Yet it’s much easier to get a good character than a bad one. It’s easier to be bad but it’s harder to understand their reasoning. It’s harder to be good but it’s easier to understand their reasoning. If a character wants to save the world, we accept it because damn, the world needs all the saving it can get. Yet we can’t seem to indulge a character who wants to destroy it because we think they should just go die instead.
Life is flawed by design and each one of us grow up with some sense of judgement that’s not always black and white. All of us have baggage that we bring with us whenever we read a book, then there are our perceptions that shape the way we look at characters and judge them. I’ve always tried to keep an open mind when it comes to books because preconceived notions along with my baggage and perceptions is just too much to handle.

Everyone has those. (Source)

Duality is Key

The difference between a flawed character and a bad one is that a bad character has none of the duality and all of the patheticity. Their flaws go deep and their lack of remorse deeper. There are many facets of flawed characters and not all of them end up on the same level of flawed. I like a rebellious character but I can’t handle a meek one. I’m much more likely to tolerate a callous character than a fickle one. It all comes down to what Stiefvater calls a ‘biased, emotional reader.’

Lazy is not a flaw, it’s someone else’s idea. (Source)

How to Characterize?

I don’t think it’s necessary for a bad character to have a good side if they just had a good reasoning for being bad. Or maybe not even then. It’s just that I’d rather read about flawed characters who create tensions, go after trouble, make mistakes, and may or may not manage to redeem themselves. I like characters who are sarcastic, blunt, intolerant, obsessive, anxious, and bold. It doesn’t really matter to me if they’re good or bad, flawed is good enough. I can even handle characters who are repulsive. But nice and bland is just dull and no.

Say yes to smartass. (Source)

So yes, flawed isn’t (necessarily) bad but flawed is engrossing and it makes the reader uncomfortable which is subjective and may not be everyone’s thing. While bad is just bad, flawed is messy and complicated and also many not be everyone’s thing (especially the deeply flawed). However, what Stiefvater says is also true, ‘there’s as much universality in emotional resonance as there is in style preference.’

The Musing Mind: Struggling… Struggling is Pointless

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Ponderings with little bursts of cartoon art.

pointless struggle [ˈpointlis ‘strəgəl]: the state between wanting to stuff one’s face with a book  (or a series or a genre or a- you get it) and booking a flight to Antarctica to get away from said book (or a series or a genre or a- you get it). 

Also, being a reader.

Being a reader is hard and me being a reader is harder. I may not be Nemi but Nemi is pretty much me.

See, it’s pointless. (Source)

There are all kinds of feelings associated with reading and as the years pass, so does the need to extend the feeling of anticipation. Of prolonging the foretaste. I would know this since I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows two years after its release (which means I read it five years after Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince). That’s some struggle, huh.

Also, muggles everywhere. (Source)

However, it gets complicated because the more books I read, the more books I want to read. And so the struggle begins. And never ends.

Pretty much. (Source)

What is better, though? Reading a book for the first time ever and falling in love with it or rereading it over and over and over?

Seriously, which one? (Source)

If a book is good, the first instinct is to keep reading it until it’s all over. However, when it is all over and it was phenomenal, then a feeling creeps up on the reader. The feeling that it was all over so soon and I should’ve waited and oh my God, what did I just do? Cue book hangover and the aftereffects of pulling so many facial muscles.

Cyan: What are you reading? Nemi: My diary from the 10th grade.
Words just got superfluous. (Source)

Sometimes the struggle is all about a genre. Can’t get enough of a genre? No problem, just embrace it in any way possible.

Books infiltrate everything. (Source)

We struggle when someone questions our love for fictional characters because their existence is irrelevant.

Nothing is typical when we heart eyes characters. (Source)

However, it’s a good idea to not interrupt a reader when they’re reading because then they probably struggle with doing something much more vicious than Nemi. Trust me, you don’t want to add to it.

Some people never listen. (Source)

Sometimes we are the books.

Too many books will do this to your brain. It’s awesome. (Source)

But we love our books. Sometimes a little too much.

Avoid? You mean deprived. (Source)
This kind of struggle is also real but it’s a beautiful kind of struggle and it never fails to fascinate me.

Can’t say this enough. (Source)
What kind of struggles are pointless for you? Don’t you just love Nemi? I know I do.
P.S. Yes, the title is all Tangled.

The Musing Mind: Character One-Eighty and the Love-Hate Relationship

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Ponderings with little bursts of cartoon art.

character one-eighty [ˈkarəktə wʌn-ˈeɪti]: a character’s personality makeover by the end of a book or series.

Take a deep breath and relax because everything is alright in the world. Why? Well, because the characters you love either died of plot device or changed beyond recognition to drag the plot forward. Meaning that if they are dead then let’s sob into oblivion together, but if they are unrecognizable then I volunteer as tribute to off them the hell off myself.

Choose one and I’ll oblige. (Source)

Wait! I’m definitely not exactly the person I was a year ago so why are we offing characters who’ve changed? Isn’t it their prerogative?

It is and I’ll walk with them towards that prerogative unless they’re a mere plot device. Then I’ll sure as hell will figure it out and probably hate it, too. Imagine where would Gansey be without his obsession of dead old Welsh kings, Celaena without her badassery, Peeta not in love with Katniss, or Snape choosing to die for Harry James Potter? Nevermind, scratch the last two off.

Thing is, plot-driven personality makeovers are just that. Scenarios put in place so that the end result could be achieved. Could be why I prefer character-driven stories over plot-driven ones, because then personality makeovers seem legit. More on that later. Changing a vital element of the story to fit the said story’s goal seems nothing more than a convenient way to tie everything up with a neat little bow.

Like this. (Source)

One of the main reasons why I hated Evertrue was because a certain character went through such a huge attitude makeover and to what end? As a reader, I spent so much time stressing about who’ll give up because the solution seemed close to impossible. And then for it to be solved by changing a character’s outlook on the whole thing? Not okay. Never okay. Never recovering.

When characters do a number on us, 180 to be exact, it has to be because they took our genuine lapse in not judgement to their advantage. Or because they grew up. Or because they are so well-crafted as plot devices that we notice it a little too late. The Hunger Games is a plot-driven series and yet Peeta’s personality makeover does not feel forced. It helped quicken Katniss’ character development, shook her into a reality that was unlike anything she had experienced before and during the games because there was no one left to share the horror of the games with her.

Only Cinderlla did really want to marry. (Source)

Am I saying that character one-eighties are only good to go in character-driven stories? Not… exactly. It’s more about the way they are handled than anything else. It’s the way of admiring Severus Snape by hating him one second and just being in awe of him the next. (Or in my case, just plain hating him). He’s so sadistic and loathsome that you just don’t know whose side he’s freakin’ on till the end. It would either make you go ugh or ah and it all depends on the why of it all. The journey from ‘Ah, yes. Harry Potter. Our new – celebrity‘ to ‘Always’ is seven books long of which I loved. Every. Single. Moment. Of. (Even if I hate the character to no end).

Are character one-eighties something you wish would happen more? Less? Not at all, please and thank you?

The Musing Mind: Why Serial Distress is the Worst

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Ponderings with little bursts of cartoon art.

serial distress [sɪriəl dɪˈstres]: suffering caused by finishing a book series.

Things are serie-ous (pun intended) when there’s no term for something and I kind of, sort of, have to invent one. It’s not like my default reaction to discovering a new series isn’t, ‘Yay, at least three more books to read in the future!’ because it totally is.

However, discovering isn’t reading and reading is this really simply thing:

Source
Err yeah. 
So I’ve an issue with letting go of book series and only book series because yes to binge-watching TV shows and movie sequels forever. Let’s start off with how many series I did finish in my life because my suffering cannot be that distressful and I cannot be that lame. Right?
I was a normal kid so I managed to read the first six books of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter like a normal Potterhead person by the age fifteen. However, I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows four years after that, in 2009. This should have been the first signal that something is going to go wrong with me. Then I read and re-read Sarra Manning’s Diary of a Crush trilogy countless of times because once upon a time, re-reading was my thing.
Then I went paranormal and read all of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight in a span of two months in 2008 around Twilight’s movie release. I got obsessed with it and then I hated Breaking Dawn because whiny Jacob and ew plot twist.
Come to think of it, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games is the only series that I was dying to read because I miraculously reached the it’s-better-to-shoot-myself-then-live-in-a-Katniss/Peeta/Gale-less-world-for-another-day stage. I finished the trilogy back in December 2012. It was glorious and I cried. Obviously.
Lastly, I binge-read the first three books in Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy in fall 2013 and then promptly died. My ghost, Eve and other Twitter/blogging friends somehow convinced me to finish the series and so I did. In fact, I spent my New Year’s Eve finishing it. It was also glorious.
Five series comprising of 23 books in 23 years of my life.
Considering reader statistics, it is an ordinary number but, us bookish people are not ordinary, which makes it a pathetic number. I now know how I manage to suck so hard. What am I even doing with my life?
Oh yeah, I’m spending my life running away from series enders. ‘Also, who wants to throw me out that window?’ But- but- I’ve legit reason to do just that because after I finish a book series, I’m like this:
Source
Rather, I’m like all of those because I’ve no idea what to do with myself. If I try hard enough, I’ll be able to give a description of why I feel like side-eyeing like Side-Eye Bob on bottom right. Or why I hunch my shoulders like Tall Bob towards upper middle-right after I finish a series.
Yet, it was getting ridiculous because who needs to be in the middle of roughly 80 series with no end in sight. I wanted to get ahead while I can and so I finished Brodi Ashton’s Everneath series last week. I hated finishing it. I thought it wouldn’t matter if the series turned out to be the worst or the best ever. But it does because it made me want to simultaneously curl up and die a slow, frustrating death and rage forever.
So no, I don’t want to cry my eyes out reading Patrick Ness’ The Ask and the Answer because of too many feels, I’m nervous to read Veronica Roth’s Insurgent and Allegiant because something is very wrong with it and I don’t want to know what. I’ve more or less lost interest in continuing Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments. Clearly, I’m in the I-don’t-ever-want-to-finish-a-series-again mode but I know I’ll revert back to I-want-to-read-all-the-series mode as soon as I start a mind-blowing one. Argh.
Do you like finishing series or do you suffer from serial distress? Also, do you think I need de-stressing therapy? No, don’t answer the last one. I’m fine or will be. I think.