BlogFlog: Mother's Day

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

LKH: Emphasis
Me: Regular

We did our celebrating last weekend because Trinity is with her father this weekend.

I am probably getting the rarest gift of all for Mother's day. Time to myself.

I can't think of any custody arrangement wherein the child doesn't get to be with the mother on Mother's Day. I've heard of half-day arrangements. I've heard of combined Mother/Step-Mother celebrations. But not being there at all?

All I can think is that this is what she asked for - because ''the rarest gift of all for Mother's day. Time to myself'.

Considering she has dual custody of her child and thus doesn't have her child fulltime in the first place - what the heck is she talking about?

Also her child isn't a toddler who'll follow her into the bathroom and go 'Mommy can you get me a glass of milk?' Or a kindergartener who gets into mischief if left alone.

So what?



I bring this up not for the sole opportunity to bash LKH, but because this kind of selfishness and self-involvement seems to me to be part of what translates into her books and is why they suck and she can't take direction/advice/suggestion.

It also makes me think of Anita Blake (specifically) and the character's utter selfishness and how the world is seen through Anita's eyes.

I really wish it were possible if someone was messing up a franchise that someone else could write it better and get all the credit and kudos and money. Somehow it's just not enough to run circles around LKH in fanfiction. I'd love to see her truly threatened by someone else not locked into a selfish self-wanking point of view in exploring the universe.

It makes me wonder just how close could you get to mocking her in an original work? How close could you get to exploring a similar world? Would it have to be a strict parody? Or could you mention the brain-damanged Vampire Executioner who wonders the streets dirty and out of touch with reality and occasionally turning tricks on people with no scruples?

http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2007/05/happy-mothers-day.html

Comments

[shriekitty.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's all I have to say about this.

[belleweather.livejournal.com]

Yeah, as a parent that creeps me the hell out.

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

Let it be said, for the record, that I hate my own mother. We have never gotten along, and the gap is at this point irreconcilable.

That being said: Laurell, there are adult children who would give a year of their lives to be with their mothers for one more Mother's Day. There are mothers who would give up ten years of their lives to have their children with them for one more hour, on any day.

All I gotta say to this is thank you, Laurell, for solidifying my hatred of you as a person as well as your craptastic writing.

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

::realises, belatedly, the vehemence of her above comment:: Oh Lord, let me not bring the wank.

[saucyirishlass.livejournal.com]

Y'know, one day, Trinity is going to come across her mother's blog and learn about what a burden she apparently was. Not to mention some of the outright creepiness.

I'm sure we can think of something to do here at home.

Maybe my mind's just perpetually in the gutter anyway, but this sounds like a possible attempt at sexual innuendo.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I think that Trinity already knows how her mother feels about her. People can kid themselves that children don't pick up on these things. But they do.

[nimnix.livejournal.com]

She probably has come across it. What it means to her is anybody's guess. I would hate to be a mom like LKH. If I ever grow out of my utter selfishness, then I'll be ready.

Until then, I'll leave the baby-raising to people who actually understand what it takes.

[avierra.livejournal.com]

I am not conversant with LKH's living arrangements, but she did say she had celebrated with her daughter the week before. I am a mom, and I can understand her desire to have some time to herself, regardless of it's being Mother's Day or not. My own hubby took my daughter to the park for several hours yesterday, and it was great. I read a book, and watched TV and did other stuff I never get to do by myself otherwise.

It does bug me that she seems to have chosen her husband's company over that of her daughter.

But, I guess I am reluctant to ascribe selfishness to her for this incident in particular, much less read it into her characters' motivations.

Having said that, I intensely dislike the way her characters have been behaving in the last few books, and think their characterization has been raped.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2007/05/relaxation.html

This shows what she was doing last Sunday. It doesn't sound much like a mother's day celebration to me 'Each of us doing our own thing'. But maybe I too am disturbed that she seems to have chosen her husband's company over her daughter.

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

Well...copyright law allows for parody. Only a one-off, as I understand it, but it is legal. So you could write a truly vicious, insightful and hysterical parody of Anita Blake, Vampire Humper and it would be perfectly legal to publish it.

But no sequels for you!

[were-lemur.livejournal.com]

Anida Mann, Vampire Layer?

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

It makes me wonder just how close could you get to mocking her in an original work? How close could you get to exploring a similar world? Would it have to be a strict parody?

Well, I read the first one or two of the Charlene Harris books and I think they were partially a commentary/paradoy of LKH's Anita series. The were-dog, the rather inept vampire, the 'special' heroine who's a waitress, etc. etc. She did go on, as her work became independently popular, in her own direction but I'm pretty sure the first, if not the first couple, were parodies.

[summersdream.livejournal.com]

I've had the same thought about Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan- every once in a while something happens in those books that makes me think she read AB and went "I can do it better." And she did.

That's my hope for lkh's series: That they inspire lots of other writers to try and do it better.

[gray-ghost.livejournal.com]

Okay - that's just nasty. Trinity - go with daddy so I can boink your step-dad on Mother's Day. Ewwwwww....

[tonights.livejournal.com]

I feel so sad for her daughter. When I asked my mom if she wanted me to mail her gift, she said "No, just hold on to it, it's not Mother's Day until you come home anyway." To say that Mother's Day is best spent with time to yourself... I'm starting to think that Fuckhead LKH might need more serious therapy than she's currently receiving.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

I try my best to focus on LKH's writing. Because I can hold that in my hands. I don't really know anything about her homelife.

And yet lack of respect for her bleeds into so many areas and I end up thinking things like 'Is a lack of understanding about the true ties of family contribute to her writing?'

Or 'Is the lack of any true mothering impulse or skill part of why Anita couldn't mother or big sister Nathaniel?'

[sevariusjr.livejournal.com]

She named her kid "Trinity"?

How old is this child. Because so help me god, if she named her after the goddamn Matrix character, I will break shit.

Oh, and uh, yeah. I agree with the sentiment that Anita....I mean Laurell....doesn't seem to emotionally involved in spending time with her kid. That's something I find a bit perplexing, because I'm assuming that it's a shared custody situation, so it's not as if the kid is always there with her, so that "a day away from the kids" is a somewhat legitimate reward from the usual stress of being a full-custody mom.

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

I think Trinity's ten, or just about. Pre-Matrix, I believe. Doesn't make it any less stupid, though.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, I'm the world's worst daughter when it comes to Fathers/Mothers Day, because I generally do not get my parents anything. Ma's made it abundantly clear that neither my father, or I, should get her anything because she'll traditionally buy her own present...a pair of slippers.

Fathers Day, I just tend to forget, so...uh, my bad?

Philosophically speaking, I don't really agree with a Speshul Day set aside for parents, because well, shouldn't every day be a Fathers/Mothers Day where you appreciate your parental units? Okay, maybe in a Utopian society, this will happen.

But for the rest of us mere mortals that do not get along with their families like the Brady Bunch, this blog is grating in the worst possible way. Yay, LKH, you celebrate being a mom and raising a cool kid! You tout your love for how awesome she is and you are and...

No wait, I'm getting confused with Neil Gaiman again. And let's face it, he probably would make the world's awesomest mother.

[saucyirishlass.livejournal.com]

I've only recently jumped on the Neil Gaiman bandwagon, so I feel the need to say: hellz yeah, he'd make the world's awesomest mother!

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

Whenever LKH complains about the Trials and Tribulations of Motherhood, I think, Bitch, please.

1. She has one child. ONE.

2. This one child is in school for at least six hours a day, five days a week, eight months a year.

3. Going by traditional custody arrangements, that one child probably spends every other weekend with her father.

4. Since remarrying, LKH also has a partner to assist in parenting full-time. She is not a single mother anymore, and has not been for several years.

Granted, that is not to say that parenting even under the best circumstances is not difficult and demanding, but LKH has quite possibly one of the more ideal arrangements parenting-wise, so her constant harping on having to actually spend time with her daughter (diety forbid!) wears rapidly thin.

I badly want to believe that she is a good mother, she is, despite the vibes I get from her blog, for Trinity's sake. No one deserves to have an inattentive, resentful parent. I hope she's a great mom who loves her kid to death, and I hope that Jon's a terrific stepdad. I hope Trinity is happy and feels loved, despite being saddled with the name "Trinity" ('cause, seriously). But when LKH says stuff like this, I cringe a little inside.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

See, that's why I search for parallels in her writing. Because I do deal with an inattentive, self-absorbed, possibly border-line personality parent. So, I wonder about Trinity. I wonder a lot.

[myrrhmade.livejournal.com]

I actually saw that. I have to say, as a daughter who was abandoned by her own mother, this made me really sad. Maybe even more sad than I should have been. I mean, yeah, parents love to have their own time alone, both together and even apart, I -SO- get that, but... just... wow.

I'm not sure if this is Off Topic

[mad-troll.livejournal.com]

I really wish it were possible if someone was messing up a franchise that someone else could write it better and get all the credit and kudos and money. Somehow it's just not enough to run circles around LKH in fanfiction. I'd love to see her truly threatened by someone else not locked into a selfish self-wanking point of view in exploring the universe.

It makes me wonder just how close could you get to mocking her in an original work? How close could you get to exploring a similar world? Would it have to be a strict parody? Or could you mention the brain-damanged Vampire Executioner who wonders the streets dirty and out of touch with reality and occasionally turning tricks on people with no scruples?

..has anyone here read Kit Whitfield's "Bareback" ("Benighted" in the US-edition)?
Because the protagonist is female, somewhat short, with lots of scars and a bad attitude. And has other points in common with Anita that I cannot write 'cause.. SPOILER.

I just read the italian translation and it is..pleasant. Well conceived, even.

Re: I'm not sure if this is Off Topic

[catskin.livejournal.com]

I've read it. I didn't see any Anita parallels myself, but Whitfield often blogs about topics I think relate directly to LKH as an author. She's discussed "series fatigue" - as in, when an author should stop writing a series because they clearly don't have fresh ideas for it anymore. She's blogged about Mary Sues extensively, that sort of thing. It seems likely to me she's a former fan.

(Or should that be a negative reader?)

[kyalesyin.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, I used to take my sister shopping in town on mother's day so we could give my mother a break. I guess that was a little different though, because that was us giving mum some time alone after we'd done the wakeup and dodgy homemeade card thing. That wasn't her getting rid of us...

The more I read, the more it sounds like that woman has no maternal feelings whatsoever. She's reminds me somewhat of a seahorse...

[safrialailo.livejournal.com]

Some people shouldn't be allowed to have kids. Grrr As for mocking I have a work set in an alternate universe of our world, modern day, and my character constantly cracks jokes about how her life is far too like buffy's, so i think someone should tell her "at least your not anita blake."


As I said i might need to change the names, but considering that you can have your characters quote kipling and diss him why couldn't you do it with more current books?

[saadiira.livejournal.com]

Ya know, I'm not going to snark on her for this. A little alone time CAN be a great gift. It can also be how LKH might even be coping with NOT being the one to get Trinity for Mother's Day. (Instead of moaning because the ex did, saying YAY, alone time!)

I'm not happy with her books or her treatment of her original fans. That's for sure. Dunno though that we don't read too much, sometimes, into what she says about her kid, or doesn't say. And again...even with an older kid, some pure ME time can be the greatest gift (Let's face it, it still can be awkward to be intimate with the new hubby, I'm sure, when the kid's in the house!).

-Dira-