Trout Nation Posts

In case I haven’t mentioned it four hundred and thirty times, I’m going to be on The Steve Harvey Show tomorrow,  talking about body positivity. What I haven’t told you (because I was waiting for this post) is that I wasn’t the only woman out there speaking up for large ladies. Fifteen amazing, inspiring, brave women were there, too:

 

These gorgeous ladies were there as part of a life-changing surprise; I had no idea that they would be there, and that they had come because of my Huffington Post essay on wearing a bikini. I was told that I would be interviewed by Mr. Harvey, then take questions from the audience. Instead, after the interview, these fantastic women came out, to wear two-pieces for the first time, on national television, and to tell me that I inspired them to do it.

Look, y’all. I wore my bikini to an ice cold beach. They went on TV.

I better step up my game.

Fifth from the left, in the red bikini, is Michelle Landriault, a plus-size model and blogger from Chicago. She took the challenge, and became one of the fifteen women who made me weep on TV. Today, I’m welcoming her to Trout Nation, to tell us about her experience.

Michelle also interviewed me for her blog, and you can read that here.

So, get to know Michelle after the jump, and if you get The Steve Harvey Show in your area, check your local listings and tune in on Friday, October 17th!

I am a crush slut. I will crush on anyone, anywhere, any place, any time. Some of my crushes have passed into legend. Okay, well. One of them. We all know which one that is.

But the point is, I just have a lot of love to give. And that love is usually expressed through… erotic daydreams about unobtainable people. It’s not weird if they’re not real people, though! It’s not creepy if you want to bang characters who just happen to look exactly like people you would totally bang in real life. Or, people in books who you lovingly fashion into a mental facsimile of those aforementioned bangable people.

Let’s just start, shall we?

#1, Rupert Giles. Duh.

Where do I even begin explaining how much I love Giles? I seriously could write this entire post about him. First of all, if we’re ranking seasons, season six was when Giles was at his absolute hottest:

And he’s here to AVERT THE APOCALYPSE with A BUNCH OF MAGIC that he totally took on as a weapon even though dabbling with magic led to the death of his friends in his DARK AND TRAGIC PAST but NO BIG DEAL GUYS HE’S JUST DOING WHAT HE HAS TO IN ORDER TO SAVE THE WORLD.

Also, one time, he bought a magic store and spent part of season five in hot-dad-doing-weekend-chores clothes:

 

He’s also the cause of some absolutely shattering second-hand embarrassment:

But he will chainsaw through a haunted house to rescue you if you are… trapped in a haunted house.

I know that’s really specific in terms of attributes, but it’s important.

 

#2, Dr. Mindy Lahiri.

First of all, this is not a “girl crush.”Girl crush implies platonic, and I’m sorry, but I want to marry Mindy, or live with her in sin, either way. And I want to adopt a baby together that we would name Bailey and we would all dress up in themed family Halloween costumes like the Harris-Burtka family. And Bailey doesn’t mouth off as much as my actual IRL kids do. And she likes my family costume ideas.

Mindy and I would get along well because we have very similar lives.

We have the same pet peeves.

And we have oddly similar psych-up techniques.

If I were not already married to one of my soul mates, I would invent a machine so I could go into the TV and be with her. And I know you’re thinking, “But Jenny, Mindy Lahiri is into guys,” but I’ve got an imaginary machine that fixes that, too, so shut up and stop trying to tell me what to think about in the shower. You don’t know my life!

#3, Malcolm Tucker

As some of my dear friends might tell you, I’m a bit of a profanity artist myself. I am prone to grand, dramatic outbursts of obscenity when I’m angry. For example, two nights ago, while venting my rage about someone else to Bronwyn Green, and the least offensive thing I said about this person was, “Take your ancient vagina out to the ice flow with all the other mummified skanks, [awful person’s name].” The least offensive.

I have a crush on Malcolm Tucker because I find the idea of being able to let all of my bile just spew forth, like a toddler having a tantrum, to be very freeing. I have elaborate daydreams of getting into a shouting match with him, and saying the most horrible, disgusting things ever, and knowing that whatever I’m going to say is going to sound less assholeish than the stuff he’s going to say.

I’m also kind of a masochist, so I like hearing the shitty things people have to say about me.

I also feel a very strong kinship with Malcolm over one particular line:

Every time the Sunshine Sisterhood rears its adorably pink-cheeked face, I think of this scene. And I think to myself, “What would Malcolm Tuck do?” And then I don’t do that, because I want people to still like me. But I do imagine what it would be like to do what he would do, and the satisfaction is near-sexual in its intensity. I guess you could say that I don’t so much have a crush on Malcolm Tucker, as much as I have a crush on the idea of letting the awful, Malcolm Tucker-flavored bit of me just run (awkwardly) screaming through the streets.

So, those are three of my many fictional crushes. Who are the other Wednesday bloggers crushing on?

Bronwyn Green • Jessica Jarman • Kellie St. James • Kayleigh Jones

 Gwendolyn Cease • Kris Norris

Did anybody watch Doctor Who this weekend? Did it seem… shippy to anyone else? Because it seemed like they were trying to make it shippy. Like, an Amy choosing between Rory and The Doctor thing? Don’t mind me over here. I swear to God, it’s not a ship thing, the only Doctor/companion ships I’ve ever sailed were Eight/Grace and Ten/Rose, and those had canonical basis. Though I find Peter Capaldi unbearably attractive (well, really, only as Malcolm, because I’m attracted to incredibly grumpy, surly types of people–you should meet my husband), and you know I dig that May/December vibe, I don’t think I’m imagining this. Let’s go down to the tennis court and talk it out like yeah (and by “tennis court” I mean, “comments section”).

Chapter six of The Afflicted is available on Wattpad. If you’re new around here, I’m writing a New Adult/Horror/Historical novel as a serial on Wattpad, and the latest installment is here. If you’re a writer who has a project you really love, but you feel like you never have time to work on it or it will just never get out there in front of readers, Wattpad is a really good platform. It gives you a reason to work on the project steadily without feeling like you’re taking time away from the work you “should” be doing. Without Wattpad, this story would have probably just stayed on my hard drive until I got discouraged and deleted it.

@Mitzy247  crowned me the pope of Joelism, and @necrophidian willed it into being: 

Note the autographed sash. If you’re not following me on Twitter (@Jenny_Trout), this is the stuff you’re missing out on.

Set your DVRs for The Steve Harvey Show on October 17th! My BFF Jill did, and this is what she saw:

Oh, and I have a photo from the show that I’m allowed to share with you! Here’s me, on The Steve Harvey Show:

I hope everyone who gets the show in their area can check it out! And if anyone records it and wants to send me a copy, that would be rad, because I don’t have TV. I’m too cheap to pay for cable.

 

 

 

Merlin club is a weekly feature in which Jessica Jarman, Bronwyn Green, and myself gather at 8pm EST to watch an episode of the amazing BBC series Merlin, starring Colin Morgan and literally nobody else I care about except Colin Morgan.

Okay, I lie. A lot of other really cool people are in it, too.

Anyway, we watch the show, we tweet to the hashtag #MerlinClub, and on Fridays we share our thoughts about the episode we watched earlier in the week.

You heard right. November 22, 2014. That’s when you’ll have more Neil and Sophie.

 

Magazine editor-in-chief, bride-to-be, and soon-to-be-step-grandmother at twenty-six, Sophie Scaife is looking forward to married life with her fiancé and Dom, wickedly sadistic billionaire Neil Elwood. As they enter unexplored sensual territory, Neil leads Sophie to the very edge between pain and pleasure—and she discovers a surprising new side to her sexuality.

While Sophie balances her hectic work routine with her devotion to her unconventional family, Neil has to adjust to life as a retired mogul. With their big day drawing nearer, they have to forge through pre-wedding jitters, personal crises, and an unexpected houseguest to get to their kinky ever after.

But a decades old trauma still haunts Neil. When the private details draw public interest, Sophie learns that the scars of his past are greater than he let on—and he’ll need all of her love to heal them…

As ever, I’m relying on the power of asking to get the word about this book out there to readers. So, I’m asking you guys to share this link, recommend the series, share the cover, anything you’d be cool with helping me out with. I appreciate every bit of the word of mouth you guys send out there.

I’ll have more information about pre-order and paperback release date as it becomes available.

And so, it begins. I haven’t even posted a single recap, and already I’ve got people coming out of the woodwork to tell me what a big, giant mean person I am. Last night, I made the mistake of checking my email while I was drunk (which is a state I’ve only been in precisely once in the past three years. I only had a glass and a half of champagne last night). Author Abbi Glines dropped  by my Apolonia read-along post to stick up for Jamie and her book, which was a labor of love and should be protected from the harsh criticism I had yet to dole out.

Then she got on twitter and subtweeted about it, I got bitchy then blocked her, because I had dentist appointment this morning and I didn’t want go in with a bunch of cavities from saccharine-dripping “BE NICE” scoldings.

Since we’re starting off strong with a public spat, it might be a good time to make a FAQ for everybody that’s going to come here in defense of McGuire or the book.

Yes, I actually do have to criticize another author’s work to get people to read my blog. Well, some people, anyway. There are a lot of readers who come here for a lot of reasons. But a great, great many of them found this place when I took apart 50 Shades of Grey. So, yes. Recaps are a huge part of this blog’s popularity. So, it’s not an insult to say, “You have to do this to get people to read your blog.” It’s my job description. If WebMD stopped telling you that you have cholera of the butt crack, you’d stop going there.

But even though people found me through “tearing down” someone else’s work, many of them stay for mine.

How would I feel if someone did snarky recaps of my work? I’d be pissed off if they tried it and they weren’t at least as funny as I am.

Books are not babies, and nobody cares how hard you worked on them. I’ve written lots of books that I’ve worked super hard on, and they don’t sell well or get great reviews, for whatever reason. That doesn’t mean I get to tell everyone to stop talking about the bad parts of them. The only person who cares about how hard I worked on them is me. No one cares about the work that goes into something, they care about the quality. If you took your car to a mechanic and they were like, “Hey, here’s the car back, I worked really hard on it, that’ll be $1200 bucks,” and your drive shaft sheered off and pole-vaulted your car into a ditch a mile down the road, are you going to go tell people, “Yeah, you should totally go to Dan, he’s a great mechanic, he works really hard?”

Authors say all the time, “I worked really hard on this, so I’m excited to share this with you, hope you like it,”or “I worked really hard on this, but its failure disappointed me,” but it’s bullshit to say, “I worked really hard on this, so you can’t criticize it.”

Spite may have driven me to return to book recapping, but I’m still doing it honestly. My recaps are harsh, because I’m harsh when I’m reading a book. And it’s easier to be harsh when you just plain don’t like someone. It would have been easy to go, “Fuck it, everyone wants me to recap Beautiful Disaster? Fine.” And it would have been easy to tear that book to pieces, because so many people have told me, “Oh, it’s got so much abuse in it, it’s worst than 50 Shades of Grey,” etc. But I picked this book because I didn’t know anything about it and didn’t have any pre-formed opinions about the content.

The reason my recaps of 50 Shades of Grey were so harsh was that the books promoted misogyny, abuse, rape culture, and unsafe BDSM practices. It was plagiarized and poorly written. As long as this book doesn’t do any of that, then all this will be is a recounting of my honest thoughts when I’m reading the book–like talking back at the TV when you’re alone.

And who knows? Maybe I’ll really like this book. It seems a tad premature to be making judgements about mean I’m being to this book; as I write this, I haven’t even begun writing the first recap yet.

My recaps made at least a few more sales for E.L. James. Maybe not in any measurable sense that would be missed when compared to the amount of mountain of sales that were pouring in already, but they’re there. I’ve lost count of the number of people who have told me that they bought the entire 50 Shades of Grey series specifically because of my recaps. They’d never intended to read the books until my recaps.

So, slow your roll, Sunshine Sisterhood, put your “BE NICE” pitchforks aside, and shut your hablaholes.

So, let’s get started with chapter one of Apolonia, by Jamie McGuire.

I hope that wasn’t too harsh already.

Last month, I visited the lovely city of Chicago to film The Steve Harvey Show. It was a super awesome time, life changing thing for me, and I’m really excited for everyone to see it! Because it’s syndicated, you’ll have to check your local listings, but the episode airs on October 17th. I’ll also be sharing some fun stuff related to filming the show that I couldn’t share with you before now, and I’ll introduce you to another fantastic body positive blogger!

So, set your DVRs and stuff!

Lately, I have learned a horrible truth about myself.

I, Jenny Trout… am a hater.

After my post about Jamie McGuire and Dear Author, so many ardent McGuire defenders contacted me to inform me of my hater status. I’m apparently a common breed of hater, odium zelosus vulgaris, or, “the common jealous hater.” I guess it’s a kind of bird.

It isn’t. Sorry, I was just trying to impress you. I’m not a bird.

The truth is, I’ve never even read McGuire’s work. Maybe I’m missing out on something I would really like. Maybe it’s time for a read-along.

To those of you who have been begging me to recap Beautiful Disaster for the past year, I’m sorry, but today is not the day you get great news. See, I already know enough about Beautiful Disaster to know that I’m not going to be able to overcome my bias toward it. You’ve all told me about the horrific perpetuation of abuse and rape culture in that book, and since I’m already not impressed with the author’s behavior, it would be even harder to remain objective from page one. Also, I’ve already done my time on Abusive Crapfest Island, thank you very much.

So, what to do? Well, you’re in luck, because before yesterday, I’d heard literally nothing about McGuire’s latest release, Apolonia, aside from the title. I got really excited and bought it because I assumed it would be the POV switch retelling of Purple Rain that we all need and deserve. It’s not. It’s a Sci-Fi New Adult book with nary a mention of Morris Day in it. But this gives us an opportunity, dear reader, to experience this book together. It will be a magical journey, and who knows? At the end, maybe I’ll be a new fan.

If you’re planning to read with me, get yourself a copy of Apolonia. We’ll make this like a book club. Or, we’ll all get pecked to death by my gnashing beak and giant claws.

I may or may not have lied about being a bird.

Ever since I saw Amanda Palmer’s life-changing TED Talk about the power of asking, I’ve had a massive soft spot in my heart for indie projects. If I’d never opened my heart and embraced a new, independent path, The Boss would have never been written, let alone spawned an entire series. I’d still be waiting for an opportunity to come along for me, instead of making opportunities for myself. So, when Larry Wilson, producer and co-writer of Beetlejuice and writer of The Addams Family contacted me and told me about his independent web series project, Cindy, I was like, “Of course I’ll tell everybody in the entire universe about this, because you made Beetlejuice and gave my inner Lydia Deetz permission to weird out all over the place.”

Well, not exactly that. I didn’t want to sound like a weirdo. But whatever the actual wording was, it was juuuust about that creepy and fangirly.

So, let me give you the scoop on Cindy. Billed as a “happily never after” dark comedy, Cindy is a contemporary retelling of Cinderella set in a bleak world where reality television and magic collide.

Cindy is a foster child (read: servant/personal assistant/au pair) in a dysfunctional reality TV family. Her foster mother, Rayveen, is the star of a hit reality show. Her “handsome prince” is a marbles-obsessed middle-aged guy. She has horrible and annoying “step-shits.” And a production assistant wants to make Cindy the next breakout reality television star… by filming her interactions with her magic dust addicted fairy godmother.

I’m really excited about this show, guys. But I have to admit, after watching the promo videos on YouTube, the character I’m dying to see more of is Tuesday, one of the twin step-shits:

I honestly think this girl is going to steal the entire show.

So, here’s the thing: Cindy is independent. They’re running a Kickstarter to help with the costs of producing the first season. They’ve got twenty-four days left, and they’re a little under halfway to their goal. They’ve got some really neat incentives for lower level donations, and if you’re a film buff, you can get some awesome autographed posters. Or, if you’re a high-roller and are intrigued by the concept, you can donate at the upper levels and receive an associate-producer or producer credit on the series, or private lessons in film writing from Wilson himself. Just in case any of you out there really are high rollers.

I know that not everyone can donate to this type of thing, so if that applies to you, but the project intrigues you, do the cast and crew a giant favor and share the Kickstarter or promotional videos on social media.

So, yeah. This is me, selfishly saying, “Help this happen so I can watch it.” In an effort to downplay this shameless self-interest, I’m doing another “Big Damn Self-Promotion Post.” Go there and leave info about your projects, your kickstarters, your blog, whatever you want to promote. 

Okay, everybody! If you count time the way I do, we just did one of these “the other day” (keep in mind, I recently said that the Challenger disaster was “the other day”). But in real people time, it’s been a while. Use the comments section to promote your indie projects. Your bands, your blogs, your movies, your books, your Kickstarters, your Etsy shops, anything that you produce independently and want to share with Trout Nation, post it in the comments. Give us a few sentences or paragraphs so we know what we’re looking at it (no links just left out there in the raw, please) and promote all your projects in one comment.

Don’t have an indie project to share? Browse through the comments. You’ll find some amazing stuff, because Trout Nation is full of interesting and creative people.

Since I promote my own projects all the time, this time I’m going to promote an indie band, Overly Polite Tornadoes:

Mark Morris and Holly Klutts-Morris are already in another awesome indie band, Glowfriends (You may have heard their music on MTV’s Teen Wolf ), and they also happen to be my cousin and her husband, so I think they’re pretty darn neat.  You can download their album for $5 at the link above, and it’ll be worth every penny if you’re into introspective, chill music.

All right, everybody, GO!