No NaNo content today. None. That must make some of my readers happy, I’m sure.

So, I want to write about Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, which is this amazing book that My Australian Book Fairy sent to me, and that I put in my shelf for weeks (or possibly months) before reading it, mostly because it’s about American football and that is the stupidest sport on earth, save baseball. Or so I thought.

I am Swedish, and here the big sports are football (European style), ice hockey and handball. There is softball, but it’s not common and members of the extremely few American football teams are basically scoffed at because, you know, this isn’t the United States. Possibly that’s just in the very small town I’m from, where the general sentiment is “tro inte att du är nåt”, which can be translated to “don’t think you’re something special”.

All small towns are the same.

Anyway. This book is about fifteen-year-old D.J. Schwenk, whose family runs a dairy farm, but they’re also really into football, except for D.J., who is a girl, so obviously she can’t play. So, when her dad hurts his hip she’s the only one who can take care of everything because all her brothers are busy playing, and there’s also a huge rift between her dad and two older brothers, so they’re not coming home anymore.

And then a guy from the next town over is sent to her by her fake-uncle who is a football coach, and they start playing together between the endless farm chores. And then D.J. gets the idea that she can do this too, except that there are numerous obstacles in the way.

In short, there is a lot of football talk, and halfway through the book I found myself going to Wikipedia to look it up, because I wanted to figure out what each of the positions do on the field. In Swedish the word for “defender” is “back”, so the terms “quarter back” and “line back” really confused me.

The best part about it, though, is not the football. It’s how distinct D.J.’s voice is. They’ve kept some of the things that redneck people (for lack of a better term) often say, while tossing some of the more annoying expressions of theirs, and it’s very much… teenage speak.

A small excerpt in case you’re still not convinced:

Now. Let me first of all say that I am not completely unfamiliar with trash talk. For one thing I play basketball with Amber Schneider, who can make a point when she wants to. And I know how rough it can get on the football field. From the stories Bill tells, I’m surprised fights don’t break out all the time. And I know all about getting patted on the butt. Heck, if Dad squeezed Mom like that she’d act like he’d given her flowers. You watch pro ball and those guys spend so much time with their hands on each other’s rear ends, you’d think they were feeling for diamonds or something.

THE WHOLE BOOK IS LIKE THAT.

Seriously, if you read one book this year, this should be it.

Originally published at Jumbled Words. You can comment here or there.

Title: charcoal and innocence
Author: tigriswolf
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: none
Pairings: none stated
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 102
Point of view: third
Prompt: Harry/Draco, secret meetings before sides are chosen


"You know, you're actually not half bad for a mudblood," Draco says, trying to loom over Harry's shoulder.
 

I have never written this fast on my own before. It’s surreal. And when I say “on my own” I mean that the only way I’ve managed this much before is by having the prompt of having a co-writer, always giving me a paragraph to go on, reactions, narration, all that stuff.

This project is half easy as pie, half tricky and complicated. Because while I can spout off 2,000 words of Polly narration in an hour or two, writing her twin brother is SO MUCH HARDER. Although, I have to say that I am extremely amused that he turned out to realise that he was gay about ten chapters too early. Anyone who knows me knows that half my characters turn gay, or, you know, straight when they’re supposed to not be, and so on. I don’t think I’ve written a story in my life which was entirely heteronormative. Which is a pretty awesome quirk to have, I must say.

So, since my boy, turned gay so early I was directed towards Glee and the awesome gay kid in it. People have told me from the start that I would love this show. And I become anti, and I don’t watch it because everyone tells me I have to and in the end I LOVELOVELOVE it about a million years after everyone else.

So, yeah, here I am. You were right, damn it. All of you.

I have to say, though, that as much as I love Awesome Gay Kid, Evil Coach and all the others… I love Mercedes the most. She’s not only gorgeous, but curvy and fun and just… plain amazing. I keep replaying her numbers, just because she looks so amazing wearing real clothes, as opposed what you normal do with people of size on TV.

Sadly I can’t find a decent version of her song Bust Your Windows on YouTube. This one is the best I can find, which is like, really bad audio because I think the person is actually, um, FILMING THEIR COMPUTER or something.

Damn it. I wasn’t supposed to write about this today! Ack, poor Dairy Queen waiting to get reviewed.

Originally published at Jumbled Words. You can comment here or there.