I don't typically do film reviews, but I'll make an exception for Thirteen (2003).

I had never seen this movie before (as it goes with me and most movies... Hah. I'm a book reader.) but when my friend Lindee and I went on a walk one day, she suggested I check it out. She told me it sounded similar to Raising Women, so I went home that night, bought it, and watched it. She was right.

Thirteen follows Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), a thirteen year old dealing with her alcoholic mom, mom's addict boyfriend, distant father,  and trying to fit in. Then to make things more challenging upon starting the new school year, she notices everyone loves Evie, a girl who dresses hot, seems unconcerned with school, and into risky behavior. A girl very different from her. The girls get closer and escalate their risky behavior: sneaking out, hanging out with groups of boys into their own rough behaviors, and trying to seduce a man who's over eighteen. The girls start taking different kinds of drugs and piercing themselves. Additionally, Tracy cuts herself throughout the film as the pressure of feeling misunderstood grows. The visuals often feel intentionally casually shot, and the colors change as toxic behaviors and suspense increase.

While plot similarities between Thirteen and Raising Women exist (like self-destructive behavior and the desire to belong among other things), Lindee was more specifically comparing the two texts' audiences when she said this film and my book were alike.

On the surface, Thirteen may seem like it's targeted at teens. The plot primarily follows these thirteen-year-olds and the challenging experiences they have. Similarly, Raising Women may seem like it's Young Adult (and early conversations have shown that this is what some people identify it as just based on the blurb). Like Thirteen, Raising Women's main character is a teen going through her experiences in present day. Arguably though, these assessments are wrong.

There are subtle details that nod toward why teens are not the intended audiences. Regarding Thirteen, film critic Roger Ebert says, "Who is this movie for? Not for most 13-year-olds, that's for sure. The R rating is richly deserved, no matter how much of a lark the poster promises." Sure, the main characters are teens dealing with stuff teens may deal with, but the R rating wouldn't have allowed teens to see it in theaters - so they couldn't have been the intended audience. One of the things that helps this film lean away from a teen audience is Tracy's mother, Mel. While the movie doesn't focus on Mel's experiences like the girls', there are enough scenes that show the struggle she has with handling Tracy's behavior that make Mel an also important character, and for viewers to understand her perspective of her daughter's behavior. This supports the argument that instead of targeting teens, the film is aimed at adults, specifically women, who can commiserate with all of these characters and the various stages (teen girl, mother, friend) they are going through. This isn't to say that teens don't identify with this film (according to Lindee, it became sort of a cult classic that teens watched after the film came out on tape). It's just not the intended audience. Hardwick co-wrote it with fourteen-year-old Nikki Reed, but brought her own adult perspective to it.

Raising Women has similar audience overlaps. The Professional Writing Academy says, "First up, YA isn’t a genre: it’s an age range. YA fiction is aimed at a target audience aged 12-18." They then go on to list typical characteristics for YA, and most of them happen in Raising Women, BUT Raising Women's target audience isn't 12-18. Sure, teens can read this (I was reading Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, and Lolita in high school), but I wrote it for adults. More specifically, I guess you could say "unhinged millennial women"... hah. My intended audience is women who knew the girls in this book. These women like dark psychological stories. These women read coming of age tales, especially ones that aren't aimed at teens. I mean, first, Raising Women is set in the 90s/2000s, and it's not that teens can't read books set in different time periods, but as a contemporary fiction piece, setting a realistic fiction piece a few decades ago isn't trying hard to connect with them. Additionally, the primary characters outside of "you" (a teen) are both adults. The themes in this book are ones that women who have already grown up would identify with. The women I wrote this for are already pre-ordering this book. Sure, teens can read it, but I didn't write this for teens. I wrote it for women who want to feel like they're reading something real, and feel like they see themselves in that real thing they just read.

If you loved Thirteen, then you'll also love Raising Women. Both of these stories follow girls who feel lost and left behind, and nudged into figuring things out. Reader Xavier said, "The whole story has followed You creating an identity as a woman amidst an infinity of mixed signals and potential dangers, and these lines really take that to a deeper level by pointing at the fact that this is not exclusive to You." This is meant to make readers feel connected, but moreso the women who used to be the girls that got left behind and had to figure out how to be a women amidst an infinity of mixed signals. This is their story, just like I think Thirteen is the story for women trying to figure out how to be an adult that raises those girls.

Raising Women says, "Adults are supposed to know it all. They’re supposed to have all the answers, but no one ever gave them the answers. Who was the first adult? Who’s the one to have known it all?"

Order a signed copy of Raising Women here
Or purchase an ebook or paperback through most major retailers here

Are you interested in receiving an ARC eBook of Raising Women?? Sign up using this form now! You'll hear back at the beginning of the week of September 16. The book will be provided through NetGalley and will be available for a month.

📖 RAISING WOMEN:
🖋 Self-destructive decisions
🖋 Girls destroying girls
🖋 Womanhood
🖋 Reality (and when the lines blur)
🖋 Queerness
🖋 Interactive fiction

Ready to dive into a world where vulnerability meets edge? My upcoming interactive novel, Raising Women, is an immersive journey into the raw and real, and in addition to the book releasing in just over a month, I've got something else that's extra special for you.

Many women will remember cootie catchers (millennials will anyway. Maybe older or younger too? I'm not sure how much they did or didn't play this game). You'd write down colors and numbers and futures and ask your friends to pick, and then you'd all laugh at their tragic outcome. If someone was lucky, they might get rich. (Where are those girls at? I could borrow some money.)

In case you're out of the loop, cootie catchers are origami figures that are used as fortune tellers. The outer parts of the cootie catcher are typically labelled with colors or numbers that a player chooses from, and the fortune teller moves the little paper device, counting numbers based on what was chosen,and then land on the four inside flaps. One of those gets chosen and read aloud. There you go. That's your future, all predicted over the course of twenty seconds.

I'm excited to share that you can now download the exclusive cootie catcher inspired by the book for free! This cootie catcher will offer you predictions straight from the novel. The outer layer of the cootie catcher had a word related to the book, inside you get some numbers to choose from, then you finally get your fortune. This game is not just a trip down memory lane though — it’s a new way to engage with the heart of the story. With each fold and fortune, you’ll explore the darkly delightful twists and turns of your own journey.

Print this, cut it out, and enjoy!

And here are directions on how to put it together in case you forgot.

We're getting so close - just over a month away.
Pre-order here!

And check out the Raising Women site for downloads and other things.

I'm here to share with you the Raising Women book trailer.

We're getting so close - just over a month away.
Pre-order here!

And check out the Raising Women site for downloads and other things.

Video clips shot by the forever wonderful Lindee Robinson Photography.

I love experimenting, and playing with different forms. Last year I decided I wanted to write a piece of literary fiction that incorporated an interactive fiction form (I'll blog more about writing in this way soon). Then this last December, I just dove in and decided to do it - I started writing Raising Women. It wasn't planned; I had just finished a fiction workshop for my fall semester and had another one in the winter semester and was in the middle of writing other things, but for two weeks I just decided to write this. I knocked out most of the first draft then, then revisited it a few months later to finish it. Many rounds of editing and revising later, and I'm extremely excited to reveal the cover and announce that Raising Women will be released on October 11th!   Learn more about it here. Look out for more blogs about how I wrote this, what I love about it, and other fun freebies that are coming soon.

I'm excited to share that my one sentence story "Who Branded Jesus?" has been published over on Complete Sentence today.

This is one of those stories that was inspired by the title. I was thinking about crosses hanging from necks and rearview mirrors, fish stickers on the back of cars, and Jesus paintings and t-shirts. I asked myself, who branded Jesus? And then added it to my writing document, which then turned into this story you can read today. I did a bit of research before writing this, and combined what I learned with a contemporary character who would then symbolize my frustration and rage with America's growing ideologies, idolizations, and obsessions.

It's not a sweet story, but I never claim to write sweet stories.

Please enjoy my very long, one sentence story.

In my recent blog post, 5 Ways to Create Visceral Images in Writing, I talk about the five things I use or describe when trying to evoke strong, emotional images. As a teacher though, I think about how it's easy to say, "Using fruit and describing the fruit creates visceral imagery" but then sill have readers thinking, uhh... I also imagine the many ways people can even describe fruit and have it still be boring. 

In my first blog about this, I go over some examples in my own writing on how I employ the strategies I talk about. In this post though I'm going to give a few more examples from books written by other people, and then offer you a free worksheet that will help you practice using this type of language in steps so you can produce a visceral image on your own at the end.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

• "Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world" (1).
  

Here, McCarthy focuses on landscape and colors to describe the setting. I absolutely love the use of glaucoma because not only is this an unusual word to use here (which grabs readers' attention), but it really does a great job of of poignantly describing exactly what this world is looking like with no guesses.

The Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

• "The flames sawed in the wind and the embers paled and deepened and paled and deepened like the bloodbeat of some living thing eviscerate upon the ground before them and they watched the fire which does contain within it something of men themselves inasmuch as they are less without it and are divided from their origins and are exiles" (255).
  

In this quote, McCarthy uses such strong verbs like sawed, paled, an deepened. Again, this scene focuses on describing the natural world. By focusing on the nouns (flames, embers, and ground) and what they are doing by using these strong verbs, it's easy to picture what's happening here.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

• "She might be hurrying across a field, running practically, to get to the pump quickly and rinse the chamomile sap from her legs. Nothing else would be in her mind. The picture of the men coming to nurse her was as lifeless as the nerves in her back where the skin buckled like a washboard" (12).
  

I love that Morrison says, "Rinse the chamomile sap from her legs." In this quote, she utilizes both the natural world and the body, and words like rinse, sap, and legs really paint the setting and texture. To top it off, we've got "skin buckled like a washboard" and ahh! What a fantastic image. Again, the verbs and the simile! Utilizing language that is surprising (but still makes sense as a comparison) is a great way to create visceral images.

• "But to be looked at in turn was beyond appetite; it was breaking through her own skin to a place where hunger hadn't been discovered"  (138).
  

This quote focuses on the body - appetite, breaking through skin, hunger. Imagine what being looked at feels like here. This description is so palpable and interesting. It does so much more than just saying, "But to be looked at was needed." Right? Using the language of the body really amplifies the scene and the craving for human connection.

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis

• "Torri thinks Tiffany is coming and grinds her own cunt harder onto Tiffany's mouth, smothering her screams, but when I look up at Torri, blood covering my face, meat and pubic hair hanging from my mouth, blood pumping from Tiffany's torn cunt onto the comforter, I can feel her sudden rush of horror" (303).
  

Throughout the book American Psycho, many horrific murders are described, which provides many opportunities for visceral language, especially about the body. In a scene that is both sexual and violent, Ellis uses the destroying of the body to develop his character and themes. The way he describes the body's destruction is also very visceral. As I talked about in previous blog posts, destroying the body is especially transgressive, and now I'm showing you how it's also visceral! This image of a human's meat in someone's mouth is so animalistic that it immediately creates discomfort.

So how do you write your own visceral language? Language that provides your readers with the exact scene you want? Language that evokes emotion? Language that stands out as breathtaking?

This worksheet quickly reviews the five techniques I use when writing visceral scenes, and then offers scaffolded steps that will help you write your own visceral scene. First you'll brainstorm helpful words to use, then work on writing short scenes.

Download the worksheet below!

If you're interested in sharing anything you wrote, post it in the comments below.

Works Cited

Ellis, Bret Easton. American Psycho. United States, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010.
McCarthy, Cormac. Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West. United States, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010.
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road: Pulitzer Prize Winner. Ireland, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Spain, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2006.

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine walks the thin line of prose and poetry, using a collection of different text types to tell an overarching story that is inherently American. Through seemingly trivial, everyday occurrences, Rankine develops an understanding of many Black experiences. Vignettes paired with epistolary sources clearly highlight these lived Black experiences, often using second person point of view, allowing readers to go through those experiences for themselves.

Scenes include the narrator visiting a new therapist and mistakenly entering the wrong door get approached angrily, with the homeowner perceiving the narrator as an intruder. You hear the remarks, “Get away from my house! What are you doing in my yard?” The speaker then informs the stranger, the therapist, that she was her new patient, and the therapist, realizing her mistake, says, “I am so sorry, so so sorry” (p115). While for many this may seem like a mistake and not racist, the book layers story after story like this to help readers realize that these types of experiences happen over and over again. It prompts readers to wonder: at what point does someone get tired of experiencing this?

This racism, the kind that so many Black Americans experience regularly, in addition to more violent forms, get addressed in this text.

While this book is often identified as poetry and sometimes has poetic elements, I mostly found it reading far more as prose than poetry, and not quite poetic prose usually either. It does break many boundaries however, both in form and topics, so it made it a very easy text for me to analyze under the scope of transgressive fiction creating social change.

Last year, I began researching the things that create social change and looked into books that have, historically, influenced social change. I started to synthesize these ideas, and began working on a formula that would allow books to do that. Citizen does many things that align with my research on creating change. Some notable things it does include using second person point of view, providing performance/unusual form (through vignettes, incorporating news articles, photographs, etc.), and introducing positive contact (McRaney (2022) and Dovidio et al. (2009)).

I haven't done a lot of talking on the blog yet about the research I did regarding transgressive fiction and social change, but I'll introduce some of it now. This book is definitely transgressive, in both the topic and the way it's written. It is uniquely crafted, and it includes elements my research says makes social change, so it made me wonder why it didn't become successful at doing that.

In David McRaney’s (2022) book, How Minds Change, McRaney compiles evidence for why minds make decisions based on group identity, why people keep the ideas that they do, and what finally changes their minds. He spends time discussing the process of deep canvasing to explore a method that has worked in getting people to change their minds on typically controversial topics. In deep canvasing, a volunteer speaks to people at their homes with the goal of shifting those people's minds. The three steps to deep canvasing include the volunteer building rapport, describing his or her own relation to the topic, and finally, the homeowner telling their own story. The volunteer reflects feelings and asks probing questions that prompt the individual to reflect. Reflection is incredibly important because, oftentimes, the homeowner has never thought about it before. This process helps them realize the origin of their belief and reconsiders it. Providing facts isn’t what prompts the reconsideration, which is where many people go wrong when trying to change other's minds. I'm wondering if Citizen didn't build rapport well enough at first, or include room for the readers to reflect on their own stories. While I understand that was not the point of Citizen, it seems it may be one of the reasons the book didn't pick up enough wind to change society. I imagine that most of the people who read the book are people who are already on the author's side.

Citizen is an enlightening text that really invites readers into an emotional experience. While it has won awards, it is not a household name and did not pick up enough steam to create national outcry or change. I do think though, if you haven't read it, that you absolutely should. Citizen is a very important read that really offers insight into the (tragic) human experience, specifically the American experience, for many. This book can help bridge gaps and create empathy (probably more so if you are someone open to that opportunity, as opposed to someone who immediately gets defensive and shuts down). Rankine offers an exceptional opportunity with this book, so read it and see for yourself.