Hey, guys. It's been a minute.

see i still love my gifs tho

For a while now I've struggled with being disconnected with this blog, and I think there's a reason for that. It's a perfectly good little blog, but it's no longer a reflection of who I am, and what I want to talk about, and of course it's going to be awkward for me to still try to fit into those perimeters. They're too small for me now. 

I know what you're thinking.

"She hasn't even been blogging lately! She's been posting every once in a while and missing more days than not and apologizing for it and then doing the same thing! She keeps promising that she's going to post more and then not doing the thing. What's wrong with her?" 

This goes back to me falling out of line with the blogging community. Falling out of touch with this blog. I don't know what it is anymore, I don't know what it's about, I don't know what I'm doing. But I want to figure it out, and I want to get back to this.

I think some things are going to majorly change. Maybe it'll involve a new look for the blog, maybe a fresh start in other ways. I'm working on that right now. But there are going to be some major shifts over this summer...and that's okay. I'm going to turn this into the thing I want it to be, something that better reflects who I am now and the thoughts I want to broadcast to the world. (I don't want to be boxed in by the things that I used to do and feeling like I need to keep that up.) We're going to restart and keep going, and maybe I'll lose some people along the way...but I want this to be a part of my journey and my process and who I am, and right now it's just not what I want it to be.

So...no more posts until I feel good about what I'm posting, until I feel like I'm going in the right direction.

The blog shall re-launch in June. I promise you that.

#aimeeout

Some thoughts and frustrations I've had lately. (Spoiler alert: there's many of them.)



So...a lot of the time, I'm not the biggest fan of the author/creative community. or just the twitter portion of the author/creative community.

Scratch that. Almost always, I'm not the biggest fan of the author/creative/writing community.

Almost always, it makes me deeply frustrated. There's a tiny part of me that just wishes everyone would shut up and write already.

I know that sounds kind of harsh, but hey, I'm a harsh person, so I guess everybody is just going to deal with it. And it's true. I just want us to shut up and do our jobs already.

Here's the thing: We spend a lot of time portraying ourselves as the saviors of the world. As the people who shape everything. As these prophets who bring wisdom to the un-intellectual and un-artistic and un-enlightened. We put ourselves and our job (yes, writing is a job) on a pedastal where we're important, and crucial, and we have a duty to reveal the truth to the people, when... we're just ordinary people, and it's not all that glamorous.

We spend an awful lot of time patting ourselves and our ~craft~ on the back on Twitter when maybe we should just be writing.

i have no context for this gif of nathan fillion, but it is a gif of nathan fillion and that earns it some credit.

To make something perfectly clear: I believe in the value and importance of art/stories. I believe that stories have power, and that art shapes society in a very significant way. I'll be the first person to scream that at you and throw a book at your face, probably, if you're talking smack about stories. But I also hate the pretentious -- yeah, pretentious -- attitude that the creative community tends to have right now, this whole idea that we have a responsibility to "tell the stories that matter" when really... 

AKA "Aimee's life is a trainwreck that she will now present for your amusement."

A post shared by Aimee Meester (@barricadeofbooks) on Apr 19, 2017 at 5:19pm PDT

I don't usually post about my life here, for the simple reason that...who even knows what my life is right now, and it's usually not #creativepersonaesthetic worthy. (I know I use hashtags in blog posts all the time, only sort of jokingly. I don't know why. We'll just deal with it together, I guess.)

This doesn't need a lot of explanation, honestly. Every so often someone asks me about my life, or wants to see some snippets of what goes down in a day in the life of Aimee, so I'm going to do ONE BETTER THAN THAT and give you an entire week of my life. Obviously the specifics vary by the week and they're not always consistent, because that's how life works, but this is the general flow of my week and all the creative/not-so-creative things within.

Take this how you will. This is, more or less, how a week in the life of Aimee goes:

A post shared by Aimee Meester (@barricadeofbooks) on Feb 16, 2017 at 7:31am PST

On Mondays I get home from work, crash for a little while, theoretically do some schoolwork or lowkey writing, and then I'm out the door again for karate, where I get beat up and punch a few people in the face and get all my inner aggression out. Not a lot of writing happens on Mondays -- it's late by the time I get home and usually I just force myself to drag out some words and do a lot of reading/plotting before I chill for the night.

(Most of my nights end with watching an episode of something probably Marvel-related with the little bro. We've worked our way through Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist in the past two months or so. It's a great end-of-night tradition.)

AKA my favorite day of ever and usually my most productive day.

channelin my inner fabulous hawkeye.

NONSTOP ACTION. The girl drags herself out the door earlier than normal, with a heavy backpack and a gajillion books. The girl tries to put everything in the car in a timely and sensical fashion. The girl...drops an entire stack of books into the back of the minivan, where they immediately slide all over.

The girl gives up and shoves her little brother in the car and drives him to his class, after which she immediately goes to meet up with a fren at Starbucks. Theoretically they study. In reality they drink sugary coffee and talk about superheroes and/or books or morality or criminal justice.

The Aimee goes to the library, where she jumps her read books onto the desk and immediately returns with a bajillion new books and a handful of new comics to add to her increasingly-huge pile. The girl is #suffering. The girl has no cares. She returns home and spends the rest of the day doing school and writing all the things and then working out to the sounds of a Ben Shapiro political podcast, which is surprisingly fiery. She goes to sleep.

The girl probably accomplished nothing but superhero talk today, let's be real.

Arguably my least favorite day, but whatever.

"This week is going great, I'm so productive, I'll get everything done this week!" I say, as I burst out the door on my way to work in the morning. I am happy. Paramore is blasting in the distance. I am unstoppable and everything is GREAT.

Four or five hours later I come home from work and nap for sixteen hours and watch another twenty hours of Netflix and lose myself in the void of technically-writing but probably just scrolling through Twitter getting involved in story-talk or drama. Sad violin music is playing in the distance. I don't seem to notice.

This is fine everything is fine what fun! Cute Instagram posts and definitely no messy hair and too-loud music. THIS IS FINE

Here is what we're going to say about Thursdays.

On Thursdays I most definitely put on my Captain America shirt and go to the gym, where I beat the crap out of a punching bag and mess around with some weights and other hardcore things like that. (But mostly the punching bag. Dang, I love that punching bag.)

On Thursdays I finish up my school for the week. I take a walk to the library closer to my house. Maybe I get some coffee on the way back. I have books, I have caffeine, I've worked out, I have music, everything is great. Schoolwork is getting done. Huzzah! Hurray!

Did I mention schoolwork definitely getting done? I really buckle down on it on Thursdays.

On Thursdays I also 100% definitely yup yup yup do a lot of writing. I write allll the words. I finish the week out strong with some solid story stuff instead of staring at Pinterest again. Wednesday is over and we're back to the grind.

This is my Thursday and it involves absolutely zero lying on the floor.

andy from parks and rec is the LEAST RELATABLE CHARACTER IN MY LIFE.

I probably went to work but I probably also Gave Up so there's that

"This was totally a practice week. Next week is a do-over. I'm gonna write ten thousand words, go to the coffee shop, and get things done."

*sleeps in*

*goes to the coffee shop, talks about Wolverine with the barista for half the time I'm there because it's slow and Wolverine, come on, how can you not talk about Wolverine with the attractive barista*

*watches a movie*

*goes to work for the rare "Aimee works the night shift" shift, doesn't come back till almost midnight, eats ice cream and falls asleep immediately*

The rare pressure-free reset day of peace. I regroup, go to church, probably hang with some people or at the very least eat out, come home, lay around in gym shorts and read books or watch shows. This is the one day where I refuse to feel bad for being lazy. I reset my bullet journal, plan the upcoming week, and pull myself together.

Because this week is definitely gonna be a good one.


Rinse and repeat. It's a weird week, but it's a good one.

A while ago I wrote a post. A...slightly aggressive and passionate post. Lots of people interacted with that post, both to agree with it and to very much disagree with it, which was cool and interesting and fun.

So I'm back for more, because I have a lot of thoughts on this.

Here is the number one thing a good story is: honest. It reflects the world, it reflects human nature, it shows you who you are (even when you don't want to see it), it hits you hard because it contains truth. Sometimes that means diving into heavy topics, sometimes it doesn't. But art tells us something that's true, and it makes us think about it.

Which is just one of the many, many reasons why "Christian" as a genre/mainstream of its own frustrates me. More often than not, somehow it rings false.

"But a lot of secular media is awful too, Aimee!" 

Yes. And as people who believe in the Ultimate Truth, as people who should have a better grasp on this...we need to have some higher standards. We need to get our act together. We need to stop being content with the mediocre, and we need to tell true stories, not ones that push a message.

I'm sick of message-pushing. I really, really am. I'm sick of watching a ~Christian~ movie and hearing them repeat the same message and watching the characters shuffle into a little line that fits them into that message. I'm sick of watching stories built around one little life lesson to take away, all wrapped up in a package of emotional manipulation and feel-good Newsboys songs.

It's just insult to injury that most of these stories aren't even original. They're remastered secular favorites with the "Christian" label slapped on the box and no cuss words and the message changed around a little.

Guys. Let's just. Not do that.

Christian media has its good bits, of course. It has its artists and songs and maybe even books (though I have yet to find one) that are genuine and truthful and powerful. There are some that I personally enjoy a lot, because they have value. But Christian media as a whole makes me angry, because it's a meaningless name. More often than not it stands for "replacements for secular things so you don't feel guilty or sinful while you're watching it" and that is not how it should be, it's not right, and if anything it's more insulting than anything else. When the big scary secular culture is into war movies, we add some more Bible verses and take out all the really gory parts and water everything down until it focuses around some moral lesson. When romance novels are popular we write books where the heroine has *gasp* fallen prey to a sensationalized sin and has to make her way back with the help of a stunningly attractive man but don't worry, the endless descriptions of him aren't lust, they're just the heroine appreciating God's creation, right? Christian media exists as its own niche because the secular media is bad, because blah blah bad messages, because "clean", because we want things that focus on Jesus, so the solution to that is to pull away from the culture entirely and create our own little bubble of things that create the same thrills without using quite as many F-bombs.

I really, really think we're missing the point here.

And I really think we've given up.

Christian media has become, I think, a way to escape from a culture and a media that's gotten out of our hands. The world has taken control of the loudest voices in the arts, and the arts shape the culture, and yes, what we end up with is a lot of sin-glorifying trash with no actual value to it. So, as good Christians, our response to those loud voices is...

To create our own little fun things and hide in the Christian corner instead of contributing our own voices, I guess?

Yes, the culture is against a lot of our values. And it's loud and trashy and screaming. But listen: why isn't our response to that to fight back? Why isn't our response to wade into the darkness and fight back, to bring the light, to refuse to bow to this? You're an artist. (I'm assuming. This an open letter to all my Christian artist friends, I guess.) Artists, no matter what kind of art you create, are supposed to be rebels. Bold. Revolutionary. The things you do are powerful and they can shape things. There's a reason God created art, there's a reason why he made words so powerful, why he let stories touch us so deeply, why there's so much beauty in a good song or a well-done painting. If your response to the artistic gift God gave you is to reserve it only for things that are "Christian", only for things that are comfortable and fit into the Christian Mainstream box we've designed for ourselves, if your version of being an artist is to hide with the things that make your group of people feel comfortable rather than charging into the fight and using your voice to fight against the voices in art and media that are wrong... I don't know, man, I'm just not totally sold on this whole Christian thing and the idea that that's what we should be doing and consuming.

Why are we content with mediocrity? 

Listen, I know it feels like truth is being smothered. And it is. I know it's easy to say that there's just not a market for it, or that there's just not enough money to make good Christian films (that's a stupid excuse, by the way) or whatever else you want to throw out there. I know. And it's a hard, uphill battle. But I think if we took the focus away from things not cussing and using as many Bible verses as we can...we'd start looking a little more toward actual truth.

I don't want us to write "Christian" things. please don't misunderstand this.

I want us to write true things.

I know you've found a story that rings true for you. I know you've read or watched or heard something that you could #relate to. It tore at you and it made you see the world in a different light and maybe it made you cry, because you saw yourself in it, because it was true. There are good and true things in this world that are constant, and the very best stories are those that find that truth.

Because God is truth. And if what you're creating is honest and true, it doesn't matter if there's a Bible verse in it. It doesn't matter if it's labeled under "Christian fiction". Listen, it doesn't even matter if it has some bad words in it or some scenes that are a bit more gory. Good stories are true stories and God is truth and so, in the end, shouldn't our focus be to make something good? 

Most Christian media, most things given the "Christian" label at the bookstore, are trash. I'm gonna say it again: they're trash. In a way, they're no better than secular pop, because they're empty. They're catchy and soulless and they're meant to spread a message, not talk about something true and higher. Again, not every story or song has to be C.S. Lewis. But even the lightest of stories can be true and honest and noble. And the best and most effective stories, the most Christian stories, don't spread a message. 

They tell the truth. And the truth speaks for itself.

Please, please let's stop pushing things. Let's stop being afraid that people aren't going to know that it's Christian enough if we don't talk about it constantly. Let's stop worrying that there's a problem with some ~mature content~ in a story, as if that inherently makes it bad. (More on that next week.) Let's stop worrying about pushing something, and let's worry more about creating good things. Stop worrying about particular labels, and just make art.

Be a voice to the world instead of hiding from it.

Just shut up and be honest already.



some examples/recommended reading, if you will*: 

[read] les miserables // red rising // a series of unfortunate events // bruiser 

[watch] daredevil // LOST // rogue one: a star wars story 

[listen to] twenty one pilots // typhoon // jon bellion // relient k 

*the listed things are not "clean". they are not labeled as Christian. in some cases, the creators themselves aren't Christian. but they're good stories that tell the truth and, as a result, point to something greater and higher, without message getting in the way. some of them have swearing and violence and sex in them. that doesn't take away from the meaning. one of them is star wars. i have no regrets.

Musicccc! Yayyyy!


If you're just coming into this, you should probably read this post first. The long story short of it: I decided that for the month of April I would listen to one new album every day, one I'd never heard before.

I actually stuck to it all the way through. I still don't know how. I do, however, know that I came out the other side with 30 new albums and some new musical interests/favorites to show for it, so I consider that a huge win. So, as you do...I'm going to recap the albums I heard because YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO ALL OF THEM.

it's always the appropriate time for a jefferson dance

16. Hymns (Anthem Lights) 27. Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! (Panic! at the Disco)
29. Habits (Neon Trees)
30. Coming Down the Mountain (Mipso)

I'm still alive, fam.

Yes, yes, I know, there hasn't been a wrap-up in forever. There haven't been a lot of posts in forever, either. I am hoping to fix that in May. Maybe. Hopefully. Have faith in me, if you haven't left already. I love youuuu. (This'll be a short wrap-up, but that's okay.)

my response to everything lately let's be real

So here's a little bit of what went down, more or less:

Yahhhh you know how this went down. There were some posts. There were mostly no posts. No explanation there, just gonna be real with you. I'm still trying to re-find the spark that makes me want to blog, and I'm still trying to get back into the habit of posting regularly and thinking of things to post. There's a lot on my plate and I'm working on juggling it. I posted about Lemony Snicket, however, so that's the most important thing you'll need from me for the rest of my blogging career.


I did actually read books! Yay! I've been working myself back into the habit of reading all the books and going/walking to the library regularly, something that's easier now that the weather is nice and I can drive more. Right now my TBR is towering, and it's a great feeling.

I re-read a good chunk of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Because I can, and because Lemony Snicket is my jam, and because I own them all now. SUE ME.

forever mood: tired matt murdock in sweatpants

I also worked on podcast things. Bright Eyes Project podcast things. There is space and aliens and I'm halfway through writing the season, but beyond that...

Words of wisdom from me to you so listen up, folks.


Here are some reasons why you shouldn't write a story.

Fear not, I haven't abandoned you yet, and today I'm going to talk about something different, because I can.

It's been a while since I've talked specifically about music, which is strange, because that's one of my favorite topics in the whole world and the history of ever forever amen. So that's what's going to happen today, and you can come along for the ride if you'd like.

i just rly love drums ???

I've been restless for some new music this year. I love the bands I have now, but what's the point of having Spotify Premium (the best use of my money right now) if you don't use it for holding alllll the music, instead of just a few albums? I tend to be a little bit set in my ways when it comes to music, and it's hard for me to branch out.

So I decided to do something scary.

*resists urge to rant about legion erry day allll day*

As I went into April, I decided on a whim that I was going to listen to one new album every. single. day. For the entire music. The idea being that I would have to find new things, and by the end of April I will have heard 30 entirely new-to-me albums. They couldn't be by bands I already knew, or be albums that I've listened to ever. They have to be fresh and brand-new. I've gathered suggestions from things I've wanted to listen to for a while, favorite albums from friends, suggestions from Twitter, and so on. And sometimes just random selection. VERY VERY VERY scary.