Obsessed With Death?

In interviews, I'm often asked what's with my obsession with death. Honestly, I never put much though into this until I realized four of my five novels have dealt with death as part of the main storyline, my favorite shows are Dexter and The Walking Dead, and I've started a collection of Day of the Dead statues from Mexico. On second thought, maybe I do have a thing with death. Okay, time to panic.

As pretty much anyone else would do with today's technology, I went on the internet with the intent to self-diagnose. Here are some of the signs I discovered:

1. Your favorite things to do are visit cemeteries to look at graves.

Uh, I seriously have a major issue with cemeteries, and have given my husband strict directions not to bury me in one. I think they're creepy, and that it's morbid to think you're standing over the rotting corpse of someone you love. If I want to remember someone, I would much rather do so with pictures from their happy times on this earth.


2. You have all the Faces of Death movies, and love to look at graphic images of real deaths.

I do enjoy a good zombie movie, though there are more often times than not that I have turned away when a scene become too gory. I usually have to remind myself that it's all Hollywood magic, just so I can continue to watch. I can't imagine I would be able to stomach one minute of the Faces of Death movies—I just Googled it out of curiosity, and about lost my cookies after what I found.

3. You wear black clothing and black makeup.

My daughter would tell you a majority of my wardrobe consists of black and white (she's trying to break me of the habit), but I have yet to don black Doc Martins with black pants and a black top. I do wear black eyeliner, but a very modest amount, like a perfectly normal woman who isn't so great with makeup does. Pretty sure I have a long ways to go until I resemble Winona Ryder's character in Beetlejuice.

4. You're afraid of doing anything for fear of dying or some other tragedy.

While the occasional thought of plunging to a firey death has come to me a time or two when riding an airplane, I would say I'm not fearful of doing things in general. Although terrified of heights, I still climbed part of Mount Rainier, zip-lined and parasailed in Cabo, stood on the top deck of the Empire State Building, and rode dozens of rollercoasters. Looking back, I'm starting to think that maybe I'm a bit too adventurous, and it wouldn't hurt to tone it down a bit.

5. Your favorite thing to write is poetry and journals that speak of death.

Okay, maybe it could be proved in a court of law that I'm guilty of this one, although I suck at poetry, and I stopped writing a journal years ago. But then again, there's the books...

So 4/5 negative answers must prove for something, right? At least I'm telling myself that. I like to think that as death is a natural part of life, I'm just extremely conscious of it, and not trying to pretend like the possibilities aren't looming over our heads. All I know is that I won't be checking into Death Junkies Anonymous anytime soon.

The Indie Bookshelf: Cheating Death by Jen Naumann

The Indie Bookshelf: Cheating Death by Jen Naumann: 4 Star Review by Laura Wilson

Sick-lit: What??

Today I came across a VERY frustrating article (click here to read). The journalist for a U.K. website went off on how "sick-lit" is becoming a disturbing phenomenon. At the top of the references was the book The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (if you haven't read it I highly recommend you do so). The journalist goes on to say, "While the Twilight series and its imitators are clearly fantasy, these books don't spare any detail of the harsh realities of terminal illness, depression and death."

I'm not sure what goes on this journalist's life, but it would appear that they live in a bubble.

 I've done the "raising a teenage girl" thing before with two stepdaughters who (thankfully) turned out to be intelligent, respectful, well-adjusted women. My daughter is about to turn 13 in just a couple of days (*sob*). I know there's some pretty dark stuff that can go on in a teen's life in today's society. My own slightly tainted childhood experiences include having a cousin die of cancer when I was just 8 and pulling up to his house just behind the hearse. If this journalist is suggesting we shelter our children from such literature because of these serious subjects, they're just living in serious denial. Terrible things happen. Young children die of cancer and commit suicide. Kids cut themselves to express their feelings. Small children are gunned down in their classroom by a madman. We know this from real life. If teens are reading books about these things, it's up to their parents to talk to them about these issues.

I read the same books as my daughter so I know exactly what goes into that intelligent brain of hers (she's an 'A' honor roll student). I'm going to have her read The Fault in Our Stars so she can see just what kids facing cancer have to deal with. I know it will make her a more compassionate person. She knows two kids in school who were very recently diagnosed with cancer. Would this U.K. journalist suggest it's better for my daughter to live in the dark and not understand the kinds of things her schoolmates will have to face? I promise you, there is nothing in this book that "glamorizes" cancer. It's a very sad, depressing book in which teens die. It's reality.

Tannith Carey of dailymail.co.uk really needs a wake up call.

**As as side-note: I certainly don't condone writing on these subjects to get higher sales. I don't think it was really a "trend" when John Green wrote this book.**