Chick Lit

Time gets away from me when I'm in the library. I get anesthetized by the delicious musty-worn smell of thousands upon thousands of books with their technicolor covers and plastic protective casings. A calm washes over me as I stand in the middle of an aisle, perusing all of the uncharted territory I've yet to discover: all the new adventures, romantic yearnings, sexploits and murders I've yet to dive into and immerse myself in. I liken it to perhaps what herbal tea drinkers experience at the end of a long day, curling up with a steaming mug of sleepytime. Being a maniacal coffee addict, I can't relate. But it must be nice.

Anyway, usually I love my library time. It's one of the only things I get to do by myself (Lily does often come with me, and sometimes even collapses into a beanbag chair with an easy reader, but once the childrens' librarian yelled at me for leaving her alone in the kids' section b/c she was too young to be unattended. Fucking Christ. I could SEE her from where I was standing. And it's not like creepy child molesters hang out in public libraries. Wait...Nevermind), but yesterday I found myself getting ornery as I languished up and down the aisles, noticing that more and more of the shelves were stuffed with books fall into a newly popularized category people call "Chick Lit".

Maybe it actually isn't THAT new. But Chick Lit, as a genre, annoys the hell out of me. Encased in candy-apple red or fuck-me hot pink book jackets, a lot of these literary morsels are nothing but formulaic, uninspired dreck disguised as 'writing for women'. Titles such as "Don't Make Me Choose Between You and My Shoes", " See Jane Date", "Friday Night Cocktails", and a series called "The Shop Til U Drop Collection" irritate me to the core.
I don't consider myself to be a scholarly writer by any means, and I'm far from established or successful, but if "White Bikini Panties" can get shelf space at the local library, then by god, why shouldn't the carefully documented journal I kept of my daughter's bowel movements for her first three months of her life?

All right, that's not fair. Not all Chick Lit books are crap. I know this. I'm really just letting off steam. I think it's because I'm feeling like I want to take my writing to the next level somehow. I love to blog, but I want to see my own book on a frickin library shelf some day. Hell, even if it's in the clearance bin at Barnes and Noble, I don't really care, as long as it gets published. Truth is, I'm kinda scared. OK, terrified. There. I said it. Happy?!