What is going on with the Bluestocking Society?

Hello All! I was wondering if we still were going to keep up with this Society of literates or if it is going to fade away. Let me know because I would like to get this up and running. But to keep it up and running we will need participation. So if you are with me then let’s get this ball rolling.  And get started with some discussion about Naked Lunch.

The Most Annoying Noise

Wake up. The most annoying noise is ringing in my ear. That fucking alarm clock wakes me the fuck up every fucking weekday at seven fucking fifteen fucking a.m. on the fucking second. It is fucking guaranteed as my next work is going to be fuck. I am going to hit the snooze.

Nine minutes later on the second my ears are ringing once again. This time no snooze, it is time to get up and face the day. My day will go as monotonous as the past year of my life. It is as consistent as my alarm clock going off at seven fifteen on the second every weekday.

Untitled

Awake, never quite fully asleep, I see the light starting to creep through the curtains covering the window behind our heads. The curtains give the air a yellow hue and make me feel as if I’m swimming in perpetual twilight. It’s Monday. I have to assume my position. I slip myself out of Aaron’s sweaty grip and put on his old, dirty sweatshirt and his boxers. I rifle through his pants pocket for his pack of cigarettes and slide one out, placing it between my lips. I pad my way down the hall and let the dog out of her crate. I let her into the back yard and throw a cup of her food in her bowl on my way to the front door.

The Cartographer

Ben was a cartographer. If I say nothing else about him throughout this whole damn thing, he was a cartographer. I think that this may have been the one fact that he would have wanted to be remembered by, regardless of his real job, regardless of his family, and regardless of me. I know the truth when I see it, and I’m ok with being second fiddle to a drawer full of maps.

Book 1: NAKED LUNCH

Only 5 people voted in the runoff election, but 3 to 2, Naked Lunch has won.  Since we’re already a bit behind schedule we’ll just go with that.  If you don’t have the book yet, no worries, we’ll start book discussions (posted here) next Monday, May 11.  Read something around the first 70 pages.  I don’t have the book yet either, so when I get it I’ll let you know an exact break.  I’ll do the first posting, and then out of whoever is actively participating, hopefully someone will offer to do the next round of questions and commentaries.

Please leave a comment to let me know who is on board for this book!! (You don’t have to say anything profound, just leave a comment.)

Runoff election for Book 1

The runoff poll for the selection of book one is now posted on the page, “The Board Room.”

Go vote!  Elections will close on April 1, with results announced shortly after.

Book 1: Vote!

Go vote for Book 1 in the board room!!

I’ll be closing the vote for this book on April 30

That way we’ll have enough time to recruit more people, go get the book if you don’t have it, and read the first section or chapter in time to get things started.

How often do you think we should have book discussions?  Is once a week good?  Do you have a day preference?  I think we should post conversation topics and questions on Mondays, and then everyone will have until the weekend to respond, with downtime to read the next part.  I’m a slow reader, but I would assume that most of you aren’t.  How many pages do you think is reasonable with your schedules per week?  50?  or 100?

If no one responds to this, I’ll go with posts on Mondays, once a week, reading something like 70 pages per week (or the chapter amount equivalent).  If this is the plan, then the first book conversation will start on May 4, 2009.

P.S. the name of the book club is “Bitches with Books”

Twitter

Do you have a Twitter account?
I think Twitter would be a good way to make the book forum/conversation here a little easier, and to engage group participants with each other. If you use Twitter, post your username in the comments section, and people can connect. Also, I’ll let you know if we start a book feed there. (That will only happen if enough people in the group are using twitter.)

Attribution

How would you like to be referred to on this blog?

I will be tagging your published works with your names (real names, unless you tell me something different), and using your names in post references.  However, this is a public site, so if you would like to remain annonymous or use a surname, let me know via a comment or email, and I’ll do that in the future.

RSS feed

For those of you who would like to participate actively, I would like to request that you make an RSS feed to this site.  This can be done one of several ways.

1.  On the bluestocking home page, scroll down to the “Meta” menu on the right-hand margin.  There, click on “entries RSS”

That RSS feed will notify you every time a new post is published on our site.  You can also subscribe (in the same place–”Meta” menu) to the comments.  That will notify you every time someone has commented on the site.

For Firefox users, you can also go to our home page and click on the blue square with signal waves inside. This is located inside the web address bar (where you type site addresses to go to them–I don’t know what it’s called).  If you simply scroll over this, it will say “Subscribe to this page…”  This will do the same as the entries RSS, and notify you upon each new post.

If you don’t want notifications or a live bookmark, you can opt for a simple bookmark.  But, if you do this, make sure you are active about checking the site!!!

P.S.  please also join our Facebook group, since we’ll probably make some use of that as a forum space.