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

[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.

[jdemorae.livejournal.com]

She named her kid 'Trinity'?

Well, if she was Catholic, that makes *some* sense. I know some Catholic families where they had debates over how to name the girls in honor of the Holy Mother (which is how a very Irish girl got a very Italian-sounding first name). So 'Trinity' fits, if you wanted a religious-themed name but didn't like the traditional offerings. (Dozens of girls named 'Margaret', 'Mary', or 'Magdalene'.)

What's more disturbing is that I recall her dedicating one of the early books to Trinity. She dedicates a *horror* novel (okay, thriller authors do it, too) to her (then) very young daughter, then proceeds to render the series into mindless, mechanical porn. Not to mention how she skewered the man who fathered her child, not just in characterization, but that dreadful afterward, for her daughter and her daughter's peers to see.

Times may have changed, but I recall that whichever parent in a divorced couple gave in and bad-mouthed the other in absentia before the kid(s) was largely considered... negligent, not mature enough to keep adult matters between adults.

She's claimed more than once that her grandmother took the maternal role in her life--and used the woman's surname for the lead character of her swinger fae porn. (I know 'Gentry' can be a term for the fae... but if I had an older relative I cherished who had that surname, and knowing how explicit the stories would become, I'd have found another name. Pronto.)

Is it surprising that Mother's Day seems like more than she can cope with?

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

Not to mention, didn't she say somewhere that her 90+ year-old grandmother read everything she'd published right up until she died? Now that's a scary thought.

[saadiira.livejournal.com]

Well, some 90+ year olds can be cooler than you'd think (Had some of the coolest conversations EVER about things like reincarnation with my 90+ year old uncle).

I give my 70+ year old mother pretty much everything I read (and she does copy editing for what I write), though I've stopped giving her LKH, because they SUCK. She now gets Kim Harrison and Jim Butcher, and is a huge fan of both.

Don't see that in and of itself as that creepeh. The rest? Yeah.

-Dira-

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

True. As a general rule, seniors have pretty much Been There, Done That and are fairly unshakeable.

Not that I'd proudly display my gay elf porn to my 83-year-old grandfather, but still.

[polygonia.livejournal.com]

i kind of like that name...
but then the kids will laugh and call her 3.