Domestic Chaos

Awesomesauce on the Internet: February 25th

2012-02-25T13:05:00.000-06:00

I've concluded that I want to dedicate a day a week to links. I've seen a bunch of other blogs do it -- and I am nothing but a filthy copycat. Also, it gives me a chance to pimp the way-too-many blogs I follow in Google Reader. (Trust me. It's too much.) Since this is a new thing, it's going to take some some adjusting. This week is light, since I decided this yesterday. I don't even know how I feel yet.

This Week at the Cafe.

The writer's group here in Lawrence started a blog at the beginning of the year called The Confabulator Cafe, which is delightfully fun and tackles a different writing-related topic each week. This week we discussed how we tackle character development. It's interesting to see how a group of fiction writers all look at developing characters differently. Angela admits she has some trouble with villains. Rachel doesn't do character sheets but Sara does. Larry hates his characters, and Jason discusses people watching. And man, that's not even most of the posts. Have at it!

Okay, yes, I also wrote a post about how I'm just sort of stumbling around and will figure out the character more while editing.

Random Posts

How To Create a Notebook Design with CSS from CSS Tricks. It's a tutorial from a 14-year-old developer on how to create -- as the title suggests -- a block that looks like notebook paper. It's pretty slick. I may use it at some point.

Make your own homemade dishwasher detergent & How buying heirloom seeds defends our habitat from invasion from Offbeat Home. I find a lot of Offbeat Empire posts really interesting, and these two stuck out yesterday. Making homemade dishwater detergent sounds really cool, and I just know nothing about heirloom seeds. Both posts appeal to my dirty hippie side.

Music

Sometimes I just want to update the blog with YouTube videos of music -- there's a reason I have the egotistical tag "Ashley has awesome take in music." So, you know, I may as well do that now! Two songs today.

Wax Audio: Stayin' Alive in the Wall
Ever since I learned the phrase "mash up" from Glee (don't judge me, I hate myself enough) I've loved the concept. Love! Some of these mash ups offend family and friends -- Tik Tok Together is well-hated by Andy's ~~boyfriend~~ best friend, and every time it plays in the car he swears he's going to jump out. But this one is golden. As it Tik Tok Together, I don't even care.

Gotye - Somebody That I Used to Know
You've probably already heard this; it plays on our localish alt-rock station occasionally. I may have even already linked it, I don't know. I heard it once and loved the sound of it; I like the mellow mournful thing, like "I'm sad, but it's really a lot of fucking effort to get really upset about it." Opinion of the people in the car with me varies. (I do most my obnoxious music listening in the car. Seriously. I become a monstrous bitch the second we're on a road trip. If Andy and I ever divorce, the papers are going to say "Got into a fist fight over the MP3 player in the car.")

But more than the absolutely amazing sound, I actually think this is the most perfect story song I've heard in a long time. In a little over four minutes we're given all the story of a relationship we'll ever need. We don't know how long these two were together, but we know that he thinks they had that puppy love, deliriously happy phase -- and they undoubtedly did, when they first got together (Like when you said you felt so happy you could die, which honestly, says something a little strange about these people). We know that he is one of those people who can't abide a good thing, and is possibly that guy who self-sabotages relationships (You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness / Like resignation to the end, always the end.). He launches into this chorus about how after they break up she makes a break for it, gets her friends to get her things, and changes her number. That's some abnormal break-up nonsense. What the hell.

Except her verse talks about a very different relationship, at least by the end. In two lines, she undermines pretty much everything he says, all blame heaped on her by the chorus: Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over / But had me believing it was always something that I'd done.. Suddenly you have to look at everything he's said in a different light, especially the chorus. Was this an abusive relationship, or just a broken one?

Ladies and gentlemen, this song has unreliable narrators! Oh man, unreliable narrators are the best, and seriously: how often to we think about having an unreliable narrator in a song. I have a hard time expressing my feelings on this. It's just such a good song, and it's such a compelling story, and I cannot stop listening to it. I think Andy might be sick of it.

Feminism, Technology, and Chance Encounters with Men's Rights Activism

2012-02-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

I decided that I wanted to look up blogs related to feminism and technology, as I'm interested in both of these things. With the prospect of finding more varied work as a writer, I wanted some inspiration. I wanted to be reminded that I am great and in fantastic technological company. I was looking for something like The Ada Initiative, which describes itself perfectly:

The Ada Initiative is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing participation of women in open technology and culture, which includes open source software, Wikipedia and other open data, and open social media.

Hells to the yes. So I hop over to The Google and get my search on. What I encounter is first a website called Feminist Approach to Technology, which is great but isn't really a blog and is a group based in India -- I'm not sure I can identify with it culturally. And then I came across a website called "Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology." I sort of eyeball it -- is it saying that technology is inherently anti-feminist? So I click.

I am sorry I did. I'm not going to link to this website -- it is so against my values, with this simple thesis: "I’m a mens’ rights blogger that has realized that technology is the key to defeating feminism and their allies."

I've heard about Men's Rights Activists. I can even understand the mentality; it would be foolish to pretend that there aren't men taken advantage of in the world as well, or that there aren't subsets of feminism that do exclude them. We have a tall order in created a world where we're all equal without regard to gender. That said, I do genuinely believe that women have a lot more ground to cover in terms of equality in walks of life -- personal and professional. Also, there's a big difference between championing truly equal rights (which I'm for) and the toxicity I've read on a handful of these MRA blogs in the past forty-five minutes.

I'm just boggled. I could elaborate on it, I suppose, but I don't want to spread the hate. I do want to say that with all things -- be it feminism, parenting, environmentalism, or political -- we have to choose who we ally with carefully, be it by linking or by reading. For instance, not every parenting blog meets my ideals. Association says a lot about us.

In the mean time, I did find exactly what I was looking for: Geek Feminism. I'm looking forward to following the blog and seeing what I learn.

Adventures in Standing Desks & Dumpster Diving

2012-02-15T01:25:00.000-06:00

It's become obvious in the last couple weeks that working on my couch is no good for my body. It doesn't matter if I'm hunched over my laptop or sitting back with relatively good posture -- when I stand up I feel about 20 years older than I actually am. The bulk of the problem is that I sit cross-legged to support my laptop, and I'll sit like this for an hour before I get up to do something.

It's no good. We have a desk for my husband's computer, and occasionally I'll use it while he's at work or otherwise occupied, but overall the corner of the couch is my desk. Last summer I first heard of a standing desk in the form of a tutorial on Offbeat Home and was intrigued by the concept. We had just moved and our bookshelves weren't yet filled, so I gave it a shot. I didn't have it, but the bookshelf is in the corner (depressing!) and we really need the space; we'd already ditched a broken bookshelf in the move and I couldn't remove two shelves from the little space we had. I've experimented with it here and there, without much luck. My netbook does not lend itself the proper alignment when standing.

The topic came up again when someone on a freelancing forum I follow brought up that he was blogging his experiments. So I ran with it. I was creaking, my least favorite pants no longer fit my fat ass, here was the forum post -- sign from the universe to try this out for real. This was last Thursday. More TL;DR, if you're in the mood for an adventure of exhausting proportions. If you want the short version: it's been a couple days, and for the most part I'm digging it. I find I move a lot while standing. You can skip the rest without missing anything.

We actually had all the things I needed by sheer serendipity. When we visited my parents in January we brought my sister's old tower along to fix up and give them; she let me have her mouse and keyboard, since I wanted spare peripherals for the server and for when friends brought over their computers for repair. My buddy Josh had just given me a monitor that we thought had a bad power supply, and August had a TV of the same size that had a working power supply -- but thankfully before I started experimenting with power supplies, I used a spare power cable and discovered that the monitor actually works. It's a little picky about turning on and my distro refuses to recognize its native resolution, but it works great. (And I can tilt it into portrait mode, though I'm discovering no practical use for this feature.)

Then it was a matter of figuring out the right standing setup. When I was waffling, I put one of our folding chairs on the table and used the netbook. It was not really great, but I concluded that I wouldn't die. So I ventured out on my quest. I initially wanted to find some shelving unit or something to serve as a dedicated desk, rather than rigging something up on the table. Despite my general decision to avoid the Salvation Army, I swung by to see if they had anything. They didn't. I took a back route on my way to Cartridge World and as I was driving through this residential area I saw the most perfect handmade shelf thing sitting on the curb with a ton of other stuff. It's literally exactly what I needed. I drove by twice before working up the nerve to park (about a block away on streetside parking), walk over with Miles, knock on the door and ask if they were tossing it. I felt like a creeper (and said as much) but really it was a great victory, from a social anxiety standpoint.

They were cool with it.

It was bigger and heavier than I expected, but I managed to carry it braced on one shoulder while holding Miles' hand and walking to the car. Without a sidewalk. Victory! Except it turns out I overestimated the size of the RAV4. I spent an hour in 20 degree weather trying to get this thing in the trunk, tied to the roof, removed one of the backseats -- anything. I finally give in when I realize that Miles (being very agreeable in his carseat) was getting cold and I was rapidly losing any parental goodwill possible. But then I have to move the thing back to the curb. Miles was getting shivery and I didn't want to carry it, but I went for it. Thankfully once we crossed the street a nice guy walking by helped me carry it back. There were some kids outside doing the "Free stuff!" thing, and I just explained that I couldn't fit in my car. Later that night, after Andy was home from work I cleared out the back of the RAV entirely and drove back just in case, but it was gone.

I refused to let this stop me! I wimp out on a lot of things that would be better for me, and I refused to let this me one of them. It's really hard to live when you're cracking and popping and limping when you get off the couch, as it turns out.

While sitting around the apartment griping about how perfect this piece of shelving was, I look over at the dresser we keep our television and stuff on. (Super adult, I know.) It's got this track of space. I confer with Andy to confirm that it's not going to be too much of a hassle, and get everything set up. My netbook looks like Neo wired into the matrix with all the peripherals and the spare speakers connected to it, but it works. At some point this weekend I intend to drill a hole in the back of the dresser and put the netbook in the top drawer. And put the Nintendo in another drawer. Finally: another reason to use my drill bit!

The first night I didn't use it much, but enough to realize that standing barefoot for long periods of time is unpleasant. I folded up one of the many blankets to stand on, which is a sort of temporary solution. A decent pair of shoes or some sort of actual mat may be in my future. The second day I was in so much pain even when sitting I had no idea how I was even functioning. It took me about an hour of wincing every time I reached for my coffee cup before I realized that I was probably in paid because I spent an hour manhandling a heavy shelf. Whoops.

I'm finally starting to really get a feel for the thing. I think my keyboard and mouse could be higher, but I found I was getting antsy when I was just sitting on the couch with the other laptop -- I actually took it to the bathroom and finished writing my last post while standing over the washer. I find that when I'm standing here typing I spend more time shifting (and dancing) than when I sit. I'm still sore -- there's an awful lot of sedentary activity in my general routine, after all -- but I'm enjoying it.

Who Needs Classic Beauty When We Have Photoshop?

2012-02-14T22:24:00.002-06:00

I love classic nudes. I do! I love to look at classic nudes and see women. Sometimes disproportionate and anatomically dubious women, but still recognizable with the curves and changes that occur in most adult women. Particularly as a fat woman, I like that once upon a time a woman didn't need to be all hard lines and planes in order to be deemed beautiful and picturesque. And that doesn't mean they had to be fat either. They were simply natural.

from Wikipedia
Venus Anadyomene by Titian

That image is seriously beautiful. If I looked like that, I think I would be pretty pleased what I had going on under my t-shirt. However, artist, model, and actress Anna Utopia Giordano concluded that she could do it one better by taking photoshop to classic nudes and skinny them up. The quote that made me go from RAGE QUIT to RAGE BLOG was:

'Art is always in search of the perfect physical form,' Giordano says on her website. 'It has evolved through history, from the classical proportions of ancient Greece to the prosperous beauty of the Renaissance, to the spindly look of models like Twiggy and the athletic look of our own time.'

You can see more of these in the Daily News link above, but to give you an idea of the "athletic" aesthetic that Giordano is implying as the more "perfect physical form" she's given to these classic nudes:


Original by Velazquez	Photoshopped by Giordano


Original by Westal Richard	Photoshopped by Giordano

I'm pretty sure they're still rockin' the "Twiggy" look there, Giordano.

On Facebook a couple of my art friends pointed out the photoshop was bad and what Giordano does to anatomy with these pieces is criminal -- I defer to their expertise on that front. My rage is almost exclusively at the message in these photoshopped pieces.

The original pieces are not only beautiful, but they show us women that have our shapes being portrayed like goddesses. Their thighs and buttocks and stomachs can be round and heavy. They can have creases and wrinkles. Their breasts varied in size. Women were thin and fat. These pieces may as well be a beacon: "Look, women have looked like you for centuries."

Giordano gets her hands on a copy Photoshop and says, "These are outdated and don't reflect modern beauty. Let me fix that for you, renowned artists." And she removes the things that made these look like women -- in that they had a unique shape and mystique to them. She looks at this beauty and concludes that it's somehow inadequate.

Have you ever watched Nip/Tuck? If so, you've probably seen the classic scene in the beginning of the series where McMahon's character uses a tube of lipstick to show a woman all the things he would have to change about her body to make her a "perfect ten." This is absolutely no better, and it's just as disgusting.

Taking digital scissors to classic nudes may as well be taking actual scissors to real women -- it sends pretty much the same message. Because what this says is that there's only one beauty, and it better be lean and clean and tighten up those "properous" bits already.

Why I Took Pictures While Breastfeeding My Son

2012-02-13T01:56:00.000-06:00

I always wanted to have an actual, professional portrait of my son nursing, in the same way that I wish I hadn't let my body issues stop me from getting some form of maternity photography done. But at least I have those pictures we took at home. Pictures like these:

I know; super disgusting and inappropriate. I know this, because when I made the mistake of reading the comments on an HLN article regarding the Facebook Nurse-In, I came across a lot of comments like this:

what they FAIL to realize is that when they post pictures of their babies suckling, that is EXHIBITIONISM. Sorry but why oh why would you even take a picture of yourself breasfeeding? I understand that it is a natural thing, that's one thing, but to complain that FB is taking your pictures of you being an EXHIBITIONIST? Wow you have some warped logic if you are upset about that. If you are going to breastfeed your child, then have some decency about it and cover the child up - to do it in the middle of a store is just the same as posting pictures of yourself online breasfeeding - its indcent exposure in the eyes of most - I don't want to see your boobs.

I would punch this guy square in the dick if we were talking in person. Okay, I wouldn't. I'm not violent. But I would be super pissed off, because apparently he feels like he can identify a sexual desire based on pictures of a child breastfeeding, and that suckling is somehow indecent. I wonder if he would feel more comfortable if we set babies up at a distance as shot milk into their mouths -- then we wouldn't have to subject poor babies to dirty dirty nipples.

It's so hard to explain this to people who immediately see breastfeeding = exposure. I know it's all about how we view a woman's body on a cultural level, and we expect that if you're flashing a bit of breast at all obviously its just because you want people to look at you. Hell, another commenter said: "Theres a time & place to plop your tits out...like Marde Gra ...these gals are what give breastfeeding a bad rap..."

So, if you ever asked yourself why a woman would take (and post) a picture of her child breastfeeding, these are just a couple reasons she might have done it.

I took pictures of Miles nursing because it was a powerful and fleeting part of my life. My son is weaned -- he will not nurse again. While I'm glad to be done with that part of his life, I'm also sad. It was beautiful, it was empowering for me, and it helped me really come to appreciate and respect my body. It was an amazing experience.

I took pictures because I wanted to be able to look back and see what it was like, especially from an outside perspective. I'll never forget the way he looks when he rests content in the crook of my arm, but by taking pictures I can see what we look like together, what we were together rather than looking down at him. And sure, I want people see that and think, "Wow, that looks like love." I want them to think that when they see me walking down the street holding his hand, and I want people to think that when he graduates high school and I inevitably cry like a baby.

What I was not doing was going, "Man, I really hope someone is looking at my breasts. Are they looking at my breasts? Can they see all that sexy sexy breast?" Because exhibitionism is, according to the Great Wiki, "a desire or compulsion to expose parts of one's body – specifically the genitals or buttocks of a man or woman, or the breasts of a woman – in a public or semi-public circumstance, in crowds or groups of friends or acquaintances, or to strangers."

Contrary to popular belief, a picture of a mother breastfeeding her child is not a picture of a breast: it's a picture of a moment in their lives. It wasn't taken for you, it was shared with you because we want people know that this doesn't have to be a private thing. I shouldn't have to hide away one of the most memorable parts of my son's early years -- I shouldn't be told to take that in a bedroom or hide it under a blanket.

On the Topic of Crusading for Other People's Children

2012-02-08T10:35:00.000-06:00

On Twitter someone said that they didn't understand the act of rear-facing toddlers -- and I agreed. I fully understand the reasons to follow the laws regarding car seat safety (2 years rear-facing now, if I recall correctly), and making sure that car seats are installed safely. But fact is that taking kids to the grocery store is probably the most dangerous thing that we do with our kids in the day. Unless your kid juggles knives for fun.

This is pretext; I've got no interest in debating car seat choices or safety. But what this incredibly brief set of tweets led to was a single person doing what people on Twitter do best: assuming that everyone on Twitter is just one well-worded tweet away from converting to their side¹:

The video links to a crash-test video -- nothing sensational, but I wanted to reply that in the same way showing smokers images of black lungs and showing college campuses pictures of aborted fetuses does little to slow the practice of smoking or abortion, trying to convert via means of "Internal decapitation!" does not sway me in your favor.

There's this pervasive idea that we should not only protect our children from the world, but we should also protect every single child from the world and from their parents, if necessary. I think it's probably a good thing -- the idea that we value the lives of children and want to keep them safe -- but at some point there's keeping children safe and there's seeing danger everywhere.

Two years ago the topic of car seats came up on Offbeat Mama, and I subscribed to the comments when I commented. They have a strict "Fuck Your Drama" policy, but by virtue of that subscription I still occasionally see comments that basically tell the writer she was going to kill her baby -- and even comments that didn't get deleted can be condescending and rude. It's the same kind of safety-mongering that goes into the breastfeeding versus formula-feeding debate -- I must protect that baby's precious digestion from the evil that is formula! It goes into baby-proofing and intactivism and television-watching and candy-eating. They're all these issues that every parent is assured they're right about, everyone else's choices be damned! They just haven't read this Gold-Plated Study!

The end result combines my two least favorite things: people assuming I haven't weighed my decision and made it for a reason, and people telling me what to do. I don't know where exactly the balance is between having a well-meaning discussion about the merits of a decision and being a preachy douche, but I'm pretty sure it has at least to do with not being a stranger on the Internet. Even if the Internet were a civil place to start with, we lose so much context and tone online that otherwise civil people come off as condescending and unlikeable.

I always try to be open to the possibility that I'm wrong. That perhaps I let my child watch too much television and it's negatively affecting his naturally brilliant mind. That maybe I ought to better police what my child eats. But at the same time, I'm comfortable with those decisions and I'm not likely to change them because someone tried to write a really persuasive tweet.

1. I'm just as guilty of this as anyone else. I understand that need to defend your side of an argument, regardless of the logical part of your brain saying, "You can't win this."
2. Oh damn it, there are few joys in life like typos in the subject of the post. Fail, Ashley.

Worth Noting: Childhood Curiosity = Broken Stuff

2012-02-08T00:23:00.000-06:00

Miles has this incredible knack of breaking everything I love. I can't even get mad at him for it -- he's a curious and intelligent kid, and I'd hate to get in the way of that. Even though sometimes I could just fucking shake him.

His first casualty was my keyboard. He had pulled all the keys of my old laptop keyboard, but that keyboard was already missing pieces; I wasn't terrible heartbroken over it, though perhaps a little peeved. (Okay, if you read the post, I was probably more than peeved, but still.) It was perfectly repairable.

Later, desperate to get my Kindle out of it's very nice case, he wrenched it out so badly that it broke one connector off inside the Kindle and did some cosmetic damage.

The most recent victim was the book light I bought to replace the lighted case. It's a $10 light, and I can get a new one using my husband's discount at work -- but it's the principle of the thing! He took the clip and spring apart and I don't even know how.

And he just does this. He gets curious about how all these moving parts work, and he just decides that he's going to disassemble it.

Usually with force. And then hide a single piece. I once found the crank to my pasta machine in the trunk of his tricycle.

Boycotts, with a Side of Self-Righteousness

2012-02-04T11:12:00.000-06:00

I'm sure you followed the Komen and Planned Parenthood issue. If you haven't, it went something like this: Komen decides that after the existing funding for breast health screening at Planned Parenthood is done (about 13 months worth), they will not be allowing them to apply for additional funding because they're under investigation. The Internet splits in half, between "Good riddance!" and "Are you fucking serious, Komen?" People and companies decide to stop supporting Komen because of the decision. After a couple days, Komen says, "Just kidding, y'all; they can apply for funding when their current funding is done. Please give us money again."

It's not as though I was giving Komen money anyway, but I've now made the decision is an active one. I don't like the "pinkwashing" and I think that suing over the color pink and phrase "for the cure" isn't really a reasonable use of donor funds. I can't speak to what it takes to run a nonprofit from a financial standpoint, but I do find their financials a little dubious. But most of all, I believe the decision is counter to caring about women's health -- it's removing a source of breast health screening from women who cannot otherwise afford it. I can't see that as a good thing, regardless of the organization the funding was cut from.

Rod Dreher's Here Comes the Liberal Blacklist drove me particularly crazy. It's a post about organizations pulling support from Komen after their initial decision was announced. This quote stands out to me:

You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize this is a clarifying moment. Think of it! Three decades of service to women fighting breast cancer, and having raised and distributed [...] nearly $2 billion towards that goal, means absolutely nothing to these people now trying to destroy Komen. They could have denounced Komen’s decision, but in light of all Komen has done, and still does for women, turned their ire on the Republicans, the Religious Right, and so forth.

Dreher decides to give $100 to Komen because he feels it's right; he wants to support Komen in this decision. He's apparently decided "this is war" and knows what side he's on. Clearly, because by the time I read the post it had this addendum: [UPDATE: I've withdrawn the gift in light of Komen's reversal.]

Just so we're clear: if I disagree with the decision to stop supporting Planned Parenthood in their breast screening and decide to not support Komen from here on out -- it's part of "liberal blacklisting." I'm morally repugnant for not being able to look past it and say, "But Komen has done so much good." If Mr. Dreher rescinds a donation he already made¹ because he disagrees with their decision to consider working with Planned Parenthood in the future, it's what? Somehow a different and more noble decision?

This is my problem -- in general, not just with Mr. Dreher. It's not like he's the only guy who boycotts Komen because of their affiliation with Planned Parenthood, but it's somehow shocking and cruel when the other side does it. Komen can rearrange its funds however it sees it fit, but even if we remove the issue of Planned Parenthood, I still think it's wrong. They've pulled funding from communities that need it because the organization also provides abortions, because there's some knee-jerk terror that Planned Parenthood might be squirrelling that money into abortions.

A woman who walks into Planned Parenthood for a breast exam is likely already old enough to know what an abortion is and probably pretty well into her reproductive years already. I suspect shes already made her choices. It's not as though they're passing out a free abortion with every breast exam. Breast exams are not a gateway medical service.

I've heard complaint that "my" side sees Planned Parenthood as the only source of women's health, so let's address that quick before I call this post done. Say tomorrow I discover a lump in my breast; my grandmother survived breast cancer in the 90s, so it's not out of the question. The Planned Parenthood in Lawrence closed down sometime after we moved here in 2010. So I Googled it. I'm immediately directed to the local hospital's Breast Center -- which I cannot afford, as I do not have insurance. I'm also referred to the Heartland Community Health Center, but I don't qualify for help, being both too young and above the poverty line. I also run into KU's breast cancer prevention center.

Finally, after putting together the right keywords, I got to the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department, where breast screening has one reference, folded in under a "family planning exam." It does work on a sliding scale based on income. So, awesome. If I know where to look and have access to the Internet, I can find somewhere to get a breast exam regarding my lump. And it's still related to a family planning center, when there seems to be an awfully implicit meaning behind "Family planning services provide individuals with the information and means to exercise personal choice in determining the number and spacing of children."

Whew! Good thing I didn't have to walk into a Planned Parenthood though, am I right?

1. I didn't even know you could do that. 2. I realize this post is a bit late in relevancy, but I rage quit it a couple times yesterday.

Being Poor & Shopping Consciously

2012-01-31T15:54:00.000-06:00

It's funny how I don't know things. I realize how egotistical that sounds, but sometimes I do feel like obvious things slip past my grasp. For instance, in December I asked for some advice on Twitter regarding how I should explain to Miles that we were going to donate his old toys -- if I should explain it to him or leave it be. I mentioned taking them to Salvation Army; I figured this would be a good deed, considering I've gotten most of Miles's clothes in the past year at Salvation Army.

I was informed (kindly and by a person I respect) that Salvation Army has a pretty skeezy track recording regarding it's stance toward homosexuality and abortion. I tend to be a little more lenient toward religious organizations -- I get it. People and businesses are entitled to their religious views, and those don't always align with my own personal and religious views. But some of the nasty business surrounding their views on homosexuality bothers me more than I'm willing to overlook. Plus: I discovered they're Protestant. What kind of Catholic am I?¹

So. Now we need a new poor people shop, stat. Which got me thinking: when we've got a great big nation full of people whose wallets are getting thinner and thinner, how are we supposed to shop consciously and socially? I mean, let me be honest here: it's been an ugly couple of months for us, and most of my shopping is done on a "Where can I get this cheapest?" basis. This means WalMart and the Salvation Army.

There's great things about shopping at a thrift store: reusing, reducing demand for shipping new goods, reduced costs. All I have to say about WalMart is that if I shop carefully, I can get my groceries significally cheaper than anywhere else. If I'm not going deeper than that -- and I often don't -- then I can gloss over the fact that I'm giving my money to organizations that do not share my values. Because these organizations help me keep my family above water, so to speak. As my toddler goes through absolutely comical growth spurts, I buy his jeans from Salvation Army and his shoes² from WalMart and think to myself, Someday I'll do it better, when I have the chance.

During my brief stint in college I had to write and read an argument that WalMart keeps communities poor. Unfortunately I don't have the handout anymore, because fuck that Expos class, but I disagreed with it. While WalMart is most certainly an evil, its an evil that gives people jobs and more food than they'd get at the grocery store.

I love the idea of shopping locally, of sticking to goods that have been made in the United States, of shopping to my values within my means, but I think it's largely glossed over that this isn't always the most practical option. While you most certain can feed a family organically and locally without spending your entire paycheck on groceries, you do end up spending more time with your food than I believe the average poor person has at their disposal. Shopping consciously requires a certain amount of education -- not necessarily in the classic sense, but in that you need to know why it matters, you need to know why a particular shop is bad and another is good. You need to know how to shop and where to look.

I don't know how to make it better. I think that's what's the most frustrating. It was as simple as "If everyone did _____, it would all be okay!" then I could get behind it. But it's not. When we need to go pick up some household staples, we're going to head out to WalMart to do it because it's where we'll spend the least money. Because while my values matter, so does surviving -- and I need enough to feed my gigantor child.

However, I do have a solution for the toys: Freecycle. No one profits from it, it goes to families in my community, and I can feel like I've done a good deed. I haven't gotten around to doing it yet, mostly because I'm lazy as fuck, but that's the way I'm going to pass these toys on.

1. If it's your first day here: that's a joke. I don't know if it's a joke all Catholic families have, but for a laugh I should have one of my fathers-in-law share his views on Protestant whiskey.

2. He just jumped in shoe size from a 7 to a 9. I was flabbergasted. Also: children having growth spurts are expensive.

2. If you happened to see the big ol' block of text version, sorry about that; I'm trying out a different blogging client. I gotta stop doing that.

Fandom Thoughts: Sherlock, Women, and Readers

2012-01-29T16:23:00.002-06:00

This is actually two posts I wrote on Tumblr over the weekend while I caught up on Sherlock. Since I don't have any offerings right now, I thought I'd port it over.

I was rewatching A Scandal in Belgravia with friends tonight, and I realized that the way Irene Adler is written tells us a lot about the intended audience of the Sherlock Holmes stories when she was written.

I’m not claiming to be an expert or anything — and correct me if I’m wrong, please — but when these books were being written things were being written to men. While women of the time read, certainly, my understanding is that the majority of entertainment was not directed toward them. (The same way that entertainment was directed toward adults until the 1950s, again as I’ve been given to understand.)

So here we have Irene Adler (The Woman, though obviously not quite so much as she is the current BBC retellings) who is designed to be the absolute and only woman for Sherlock. She is this incredibly distinct character, making both parties in the relationship brilliant and desirable. But she’s unattainable.

Sherlock and Adler obviously never run off and have adorable babies in a London flat. To the men reading the book she is beautiful, brilliant, and available. Meant for Sherlock certainly, but hey — she ain’t dead.
This is, of course, assuming that readers got the same escapism and wish-fulfillment from books that we do now.

Comparatively, it seems to me that most popular literature now (and literature is used incredibly loosely in the following examples) is geared toward woman — specifically young women. The standard is totally flipped, though instead of given “available” we’re given husks of characters that serve as reader stand-ins. We have Bella Swan from Twilight; her perfect mate to whisks her off to
~~lock her away in a tower and never ever let her make a decision that he doesn’t approve of~~ a more desirable and exotic lifestyle. Countless dime store romances are designed around the idea of a modern, relatable female lead getting caught up with a larger-than-life, perfect male lead.

While I would never call book-Sherlock terribly relatable, we also never have to view the world through his eyes; we have Watson, who allows the reader to follow along and view Adler through a more understandable POV.

I don’t really have a thesis statement here or anything; I just thought it was an interesting flop in the way characters are written and perceived when the different is what — hardly more than a century?

The world is a strange place, man.

***
When I posted last night about how Irene Adler is indicative of Doyle’s target audience, I had only watched the first episode of the second season. I have since caught up. (That is a whole ‘nother post. Oh my fucking god.)

I feel like Molly Hooper accentuates this point, actually. I like Molly. I’m supposed to like Molly. She’s a stand-in for women who have had crushes on unattainable men. I think Molly exists pretty much for this purpose.

She’s endearing and sincere and nearly infuriating. She’s sort of hopelessly cute in the first season, and I downright felt for her in A Scandal in Belgravia. So when she starts off in The Reichenbach Fall by analyzing the way Sherlock is behaving, and then follows it up with, “I don’t count,” I’m left wanting to hug her and shake her.

While I’d take a hundred Molly Hoopers over one Bella Swan, she serves a very similar niche — a relatively young woman who pines after a superior and exotic male. When Sherlock goes to Molly for help, we’re not only feeling that pang of strange excitement for Molly, but for the very type of woman she represents.

Being Naked in 2012

2012-01-23T16:24:00.001-06:00

For every day that I see or hear someone say something negative and non-constructive about fat people in 2012, I'm taking a naked picture of myself.

As I get older I spend less and less time feeling bad about myself. I'm not going to act like I have stellar self-esteem now, but I'm at a point where I can look at my body and see the great things about it. I am not shaped to the current standard of beauty, but that does not mean I am beautiful. I'm not as healthy as I could be, but that doesn't mean I am not strong.

So for every time that someone writes or says something designed to make someone feel bad about themselves, this is going to be my counter. This is going to be my, "Fuck you too, sir."

I already do this, somewhat. It's not always been a concerted effort, but sometimes I read or hear something so absolutely terrible that I think, "I am more than this person's bullshit opinion. I don't need to take that shit." But it's been unofficial.

This is official.

I don't know what I'm going to do with these pictures, but I absolutely will not hide them. I may not share them here. I'll make this decision when it becomes relevant to my goals.

This is not part of some weight loss journey. I'm not trying to show off my body as good or bad. I just want to show that it exists and it deserves better than to be reviled.

I'm not going to search for these things; I'm not going to read YouTube comments or scour Twitter, because we'd just end up with 300+ pictures of me naked and getting increasingly more depressed as I remember that the anonymity breeds assholes.

This is not about pornography. I'm not going to show off my bits and pieces here; this is about my body, not my nudity. Nudity is just a function, because my clothes are designed to hide my flaws and lines and folds.

This is about being unafraid and uncowed.

Editing, Nuance of Phrase, and Undercutting Female Characters

2012-01-16T23:59:00.000-06:00

I rarely make a hard decision about a character's gender or sexuality for a particular reason. For instance, the main character of this year's NaNoWriMo novel was a woman because she came to me first. It just as easily could have been the leader of the compound, but it would have been a very different story.

I'm working on editing DREAMING OF EDEN (still) while the Internet is down at home, and I discovered a line that I first changed, and then stopped and really looked at:

Her hips swayed in a way that commanded attention...

I changed it to the way she moved, because I wanted her to appear confident (she is) and because the character isn't supposed to be a sexual one.

To be slightly fair to myself, at this point in the zero draft was only her second introduction -- her first being an offhand mention of a sexual encounter that wasn't described and where she didn't even have a name. It wasn't until a couple chapters from this line that her personality really showed in draft zero, and I realized she was not just someone to be looked at. She was actually important to my plot.

But I wrote this during NaNoWriMo in 2010 -- I was writing off the top of my head, as it occurred to me, and the first things I point out about her are the sway of her hips, and the way she commands sexual desire. In some ways it's simply a trope of fiction to build everyone as beautiful and desirable, but it bothers me what this says about me as a woman and as a writer.

It's not a secret that I went through my teens believing that I was only worth what I could offer sexually, that because I was not beautiful I had to be promiscuous to make up for it. So I do tend to create characters who are arresting, who bring in second glances and take people's breath away by the virtue of their beauty. At some point I have to admit it's about writing wish fulfillment. Hell, the particular character isn't even thin; I was creating her as plump and gorgeous because it felt good, and because I had that power. As though I could write those feelings away by removing them from the worlds I create.

Except I'm really just perpetuating the same misguided bullshit that made me so miserable as a teenager and young adult. I'm not creating a world where people aren't judged based on their looks. Instead, I'm reaffirming the belief in the reader that this character is worth noticing because she's beautiful. I realize it's egotistical and incredibly lofty to look at my novel and think about the hypothetical readers and how I might be affecting their world-view, but it's the little things. No one ever told me that I wasn't beautiful (okay, maybe once or twice) or that I had to be sexual to gain worth -- it was the implicit things that created those ideas in me.

Despite this character having strength beyond her looks, by having my viewpoint character denote her by the way her hips sway -- and then by having him note how he's not impressed -- I've undercut her. No matter what else I have to say about her, she's forever characterized by the sway of her hips. And it's not as though she's the only character I'm policing for bullshit stereotypes (beyond the scope of their character).

Editing this novel is an exhausting exercise in looking at myself.

A Status Update is Better Than Nothing (I think)

2012-01-08T00:46:00.000-06:00

Is it just me, or is it harder to update a blog the longer you let it sit? It's not for want of discussion topics that I left y'all alone out there in the big dark Internet -- I must've half-written five or six posts in the past month, and then set them aside as not enough in relation to how long I'd let the blog sit. Bad mojo all around.

So, I'm literally forcing a status update. It feels woefully inadequate, but it's something.

We had a great holiday. The holiday isn't actually quite over yet. As I write this I'm sitting in my parent's living room in Lincoln; tomorrow we get the family together to do our Christmas thing. It's nice to see my family again. It's actually not been that long since the last time -- my sister and I were here in September. But still.

I've done some writing over the holiday, but not nearly as much as I would've liked. Our computer cache has grown; I helped repair a couple of friends' computers, and in return got to collect some of their unused hardware. This includes an older Macbook actually -- still very functional, if a bit out of date. Once I get the OS updated I'll be able to talk a bit more about what I think of it, but so far I'm actually more pleased than I expected. It's a post for another day.

General winter sickness hit our home in mid-December and laid me on my ass for nearly a week, let up, then hit again. Andy's even been sick this past week. I think only Miles has escaped relatively unscathed.

Miles is officially and for-real-this-time weaned. I also intend to post about that. It's only been about a month (not even quite; I let him nurse briefly when I was feeling super-shitty in hopes of sparing him the cold) so I haven't had a chance to seriously process it, other than just be excited that it's done.

Other than that, it's been really quiet. Not boring or slow, but simply uneventful. I've had tons of thoughts, and I'm trying to get myself back into the habit of being present online.

Looking forward to 2012, y'all! :D

Info Dump!

2011-12-02T17:26:00.001-06:00

Sorry for the absence; I've been just busy out of my mind, and at some point I will tell you all about it. In the mean time, I did finish NaNoWriMo. I actually finished before Thanksgiving. I completed the novel yesterday. I wanted to get done in November, and just missed it due to apathy at the end. It's just over 65K, and I'm relieved to leave it alone for a while.

To make up for my absence, I have pictures from our farm visit today -- still on-going, I'm at the farm right now. I stole my mother-in-law's camera and took lots of pictures. My mother made the hat.

Lots of Words on Wednesday: Words!

2011-11-16T13:18:00.002-06:00

After that discussion of plot yesterday, I thought it would be fun to post word clouds for the two novels that I've finished. The first one (the trunk novel, as you may recall) was written over the course of forever, and while it wasn't my first novel-length project, it was my first original novel.

What's funny about that is the antagonist is named "Andrew Baker," when he was in fact "Anthony" in my original notes. I didn't noticed I had gotten the name wrong until I was about halfway through draft zero -- wherein I pointed out to my not-even-yet-boyfriend that I had transposed his name onto the last name of his ~~boyfriend~~ best friend. (He read this novel earlier this month actually -- he forgot his book when we went to the farm and it was on the Kindle -- and he said it was mildly disconcerting to have an evil character using his name, knowing that when I wrote this novel we were on shaky ground.)

You have, of course, heard of DREAMING OF EDEN (I love the caps; I feel like such an official liar). Of the three this is the only book that I feel is genuinely redeemable. I love this book. I love the above book too, but I feel like other people could love this book. It was the NaNoWriMo 2010 book. I'm not going to lie -- it maybe raised my hopes for this year.

~~Note: "like" does not appear to be a major word, unless I'm just missing it. Perhaps avoiding "like" is the key to not-shitty narrative when I write. :D~~ Edit: false alarm. It's to the left of "back," I just didn't see it due to the color. So, yeah. Maybe I can't blame "like" for my boring writing. :D

Then, of course, we had the current (still Untitled) NaNoWriMo novel wordle. I won't bore you with more talk, but here it is again for the sake of completion.

Worth noting: "just" is clearly a problem word for me, as is "like."

NaNoWriMo: Day 15

2011-11-16T01:39:00.023-06:00

Day 15 is a big day. We're halfway through the month, and everyone usually has an idea of where they're headed by now. The story is going strong, and even though everyone in the continental US is biting their nails as they look ahead to the frenzy that is Thanksgiving -- we're all remaining optimistic. Or entertainingly pessimistic.

I'm closing day 15 just a bit ahead of par:

50,000

26,302

A couple days ago I resigned myself to the fact that I was writing a romance novel that takes place in a sci-fi setting. It's a time travel romance, oh my god could I be more stereotypical? But there I was, working in these serious, half-intelligent setting details and letting my main character strap her awesome on -- but in the back of my mind I was always wondering, "Okay, is she going to notice that this guy totally wants her yet?"

So, once the denial passed I decided to roll with it. My MC (Vivienne, as you're about the discover) is going to be brave and awesome and work with her revolutionaries, but the romance plot is remaining more integral than intended. A part of me wonders if it got so out of hand because I chose to write from a female point of view; the last two rough drafts I wrote were from the POV of men, and only one of those novels had a romantic subplot. Though the other had this weird non-sexual bromance thing going, so. I don't know.

Maybe this was always how it was going be, so what the hell? May as well enjoy the ride.

So now it's Wordle time. The word "like" physically wounds me in this one.

Parent versus Child, Blogger Style

2011-11-14T10:31:00.001-06:00

I found myself in a conversation on Twitter a couple days ago about sleeping training. This pretty much breaks my only rule on Twitter, which is "Do not fight with people about their core parenting beliefs."¹ Thankfully, it could have gotten a lot more heated than it did and it ended pretty genially, or at least without any explosions.² It got me thinking, though.

Forgive me for generalizing, but the more I consider it, the more I suspect a lot of parenting bloggers sit down and do this every day because they consider themselves as furthering the rights of babies and children by appealing to and educating parents. That it a completely valid reason to blog. I've even made decisions I otherwise wouldn't have, based on things I've learned online. However, I wonder if the contention comes in from the fact that some of us aren't blogging for the sake of children, but for the sake of other parents.

Parenting bloggers come in more than one variety. We all have agendas. We all have goals. Unless the thesis of your blog is "All children should be ritually beaten at 9PM to prepare them for adult life," I sincerely doubt that you're wrong. I am a strong believer of grey areas, of middle ground and different strokes -- but everyone has their hill to die on.

I have issues that I consider my "child" issues. I believe all children have the right to a safe and healthy life, without wanting for any necessities or love. But I'm primarily a blogger for other parents, insofar as I'm a blogger for anyone. My issues lay with how parents are treated by society at large, how mothers are pressured and bullied into decisions, how certain issues are portrayed and passed along. And please don't think I'm implying that bloggers whose primary focus is children don't worry about those things either --- I just feel like they have a different perspective on how these issues play out and relate to parenting.

Lets look at this through the muddied filter of feeding issues. Some people view breastfeeding from a perspective of a baby's right -- all babies deserve the best start through breastfeeding -- as though breastfeeding happens in a vacuum. Some people believe that breastfeeding is at it's core anti-feminist, regardless of circumstances or personal choice. While I by no means support the false dichotomy of "formula feeders are selfish, breastfeeders are saints," those are viewpoints made from entirely different perspectives, concerning a totally different issue.

But we cannot unilaterally say that one party is more important than the other. My needs as a person are just as valuable as my son's needs as a person; when I make a decision as a parent, I need to keep both of these things in mind. Sometimes I will make decisions that are to his benefit and my detriment, because they're best for him; sometimes vice versa. I'm pretty sure that's just what parenting is.

When we have one person who believes that they're arguing for the best interest of a child, and another who feels they're arguing for the best interest of a parent -- no wonder we have these heated, awful fights that have no resolution. We're essentially teenagers fighting with our mom! Add the Internet to that mix? It's amazing that we manage to function at all.

1. I could probably just narrow this down to "Don't fight on Twitter." You may not know this about me, but I'm rather non-confrontational.
2. More than once I felt condescended to, but I couldn't tell you how much of that was real or imagined. And I'm sure more than once I was condescending, though I tried not to be.

NaNoWriMo: Day 10

2011-11-10T22:44:00.001-06:00

So last year when I was writing my novel, I felt really good about my plot. The draft still needs work, obviously -- tons and tons of work, as all drafts do. But it was still pretty good. I like it. I have a lot of faith in it as a book.

This year's book is nuts. I feel like it has some crazy mood whiplash. Today I went from the diary written by a character before she had most of her memory and skills erased from her brain, to a character being taken out on the town by her only real friend to party and drink and enjoy the future, to a date rapist who preys on tourists who don't speak the language. I have an idea of where I'm going, but I feel like I'm just making shit up as I go. I have no idea if this will ever be a redeemable, readable novel.

But at least I'm over target in word count.

50,000

17,898

There's an official word count meter on the sidebar now; it auto-updates with my NaNo profile, but I got kind of attached to this one. I mean, I made it.

There's a Better Solution Than Banning Books. It's Called "Thinking."

2011-11-10T06:00:00.000-06:00

I've never read the book Hold Still, but now I want to. Why? Because a couple parents and a church in Blue Springs, Missouri, decided that it ought to be banned from the Blue Springs School District. I admit my first reaction is simply Oh my god you're making the Midwest look bad. The kind of people that dump on the Midwest cite exactly this kind of issue -- they talk about how we're clinging to old ideals and hiding from topics that "scare" us. However, it's deeper than that. As a parent, as a writer, as a Midwesterner, everything about this pisses me off.

Given that everything I know about Hold Still is based on this article, I decided to look it up on Amazon. The bulk of the synopsis includes:

Devastating, hopeful, hopeless, playful . . . in words and illustrations, Ingrid left behind a painful farewell in her journal for Caitlin. Now Caitlin is left alone, by loss and by choice, struggling to find renewed hope in the wake of her best friend’s suicide. With the help of family and newfound friends, Caitlin will encounter first love, broaden her horizons, and start to realize that true friendship didn’t die with Ingrid. And the journal which once seemed only to chronicle Ingrid’s descent into depression, becomes the tool by which Caitlin once again reaches out to all those who loved Ingrid—and Caitlin herself.

I'm not going to sit here and wax poetic about how brave it is, or how brilliant it is -- because I haven't read it. I am going to say that exposing teens to viewpoints that aren't their own is good, and that the Young Adult genre features the word adult for a reason. It's a book written for teenagers on their way into adulthood, who are becoming adults every day and need reading material that caters to their dilemmas and lifestyles. We cannot clap our hands over our ears and eyes and pretend that a high school student isn't being affected by adult issues, because they are. It's happening even as we want to cling to their childhood, and we're not doing anyone a service by pretending.

A parent can and should know what their child is reading, but they do not have the right to say what other people's children can or cannot read. It's not the school's fault that they didn't look at the content of the reading list prior to encountering this book and come to more agreeable solution with the teacher. I don't think it's ever stated if the parents discovered this, or the daughter complained, but given that they're not parading around their daughter while she tells news outlets everywhere how traumatized she was by the word 'fuck' and how shocked she was by teenage sex -- I'm guessing she's probably not the one complaining.

When I was in elementary school I had a friend whose family was pretty strictly religious, to the point that as per her mother's request, she was excused from class when they approached topics that her mother didn't approve of her learning in school. I always thought it was really weird, but it allowed my friend to continue in school without offending her mother's values.

When I was in 7th grade I was reading dime store romance novels. My life was filled with Harlequin and Silhouette, and I could not be strayed from that course. A concerned teacher pulled my mother aside one day after noticing and pointed out that these books contained some very adult themes and concepts that she felt were inappropriate for a girl my age.

I don't even remember how I found out about this, because it wasn't by my mother summarily banning every paperback I owned. I continued to read romance novels until I got bored with them sometime in the 8th grade, and then I moved on to horror novels.

My point is -- my mother and stepfather were well aware of what I was reading. I read these books openly in the living room, at the dinner table, in the car -- wherever I was reading. They presumably made the choice for our family that it was okay for me to read those books. Another parent in the Blue Springs School District may be perfectly comfortable with their children reading Hold Still, may even be glad to see it as a talking point in the classroom. These individual parents have every right to ask the teacher or the principal to excuse their daughter from the reading assignment and let her do some alternative work -- have her research how teen suicide affects peers using a different source or something. But turning to their pastor and starting a crusade under the guise of PROTECT THE CHILDREN?

It's not their place.

Reading about something in a book is not the same as "pushing a lifestyle." The mother looks like a nice woman -- she really does. But at about a minute in she says, "Extremely inappropriate, very explicit in sexual relationships, just various topics that just should not be, you know, pushed -- in my opinion -- in a public school." (Emphasis hers in the video.) I promptly, irrationally hated her and everything she stands for.

Once I recovered from my urge to rage quit right there, I can say as calming as possible: a book written about a topic is not the same thing as pushing that lifestyle onto the readers. Can I emphasis this enough? It's not even glamourizing that lifestyle! In a piece of fiction I once posted to a group online, a character got wasted and got behind the wheel of a car -- and predictably got into an accident. (No one died, thankfully.) I was chastised by one reader for promoting such a dangerous choice as drunk driving. Other readers jumped in and said, "Dude, no. It's fiction, not a lifestyle guide."

In the course of my reading years, I've read books about serial killers, about rapists, about cheaters, about heterosexuals and homosexuals and asexuals, about polygamists, about the mentally ill, about soldiers, about teachers, about historians, about vampires -- and yet I am not a sexually-fluid serial killing rapist vampire with a mental illness who has worked as a soldier, teacher, and historian. Instead, I'm a straight woman and a mother who doesn't feel the need to read about other straight white mothers in her fiction. Holy shit! Call the presses!

What Mrs. Brown is saying there is, "This book talks about people who have different values than me, and I don't want my daughter exposed to that" and trying to say that the book is offensive because of it.

To quote cartoonist Zach Weiner, "'I'm offended' does not equal 'It's offensive'."

Teachers aren't just picking books off the shelf because they look cool. Teachers build their curriculum based around a lot of things, including school requirements and I imagine some of their own bias as to what they feel teenagers need to discuss and learn. Teachers, feel free to chime in here, but I'm decently certain that the teachers are aware of the content of the books their students are reading -- how else do they lead discussions?

Suicide is going to be a very real issue for their daughter's generation. When my sister told me her new school had an assembly because a student commit suicide back in 2005, I remember I was bewildered -- a teen commit suicide in Junction City? Surely that only happens in big places. Surely even the saddest teens (yo) are able to pick themselves up and find a reason to live.

Unfortunately, no. It's sad and it's a terrible fucking tragedy and I hate to say it, but the Brown's daughter is going to be touched by suicide at some point. A peer may do it. A friend may consider it. And I pray to God this is never ever ever ever the case, but she might even be the peer or friend in question. The act of calling it out and making it a discussion topic, instead of putting it on a high shelf and wrapping it up in taboo is a pretty smart decision on the school's part.

They've missed an opportunity for dialogue. They could have used this book as a jumping off point to talk about sex, suicide, depression, friendship, boys -- they could have used it to talk about their values regarding swearing, since that seems to be an issue for them. Hell, they could have used it as a chance to talk about shitty books. I'm by no means saying that they ought to have handed their daughter a condom and said, "Go fuckin' get 'em!" but they could have used this for education rather than attempting to shut out these issues entirely.

What do you think? Have you read the book -- is it an appalling mass of death and orgies and swearing that no teen ought to read? Should schools ban books due to parental bias? When should a parent take the issue to the school, and when should they keep it at home?

Creativity Under Pressure

2011-11-09T11:40:00.001-06:00

Andy's best friend is also a writer. Because I'm pushy and misery loves company, I tried a couple of times last month to talk him into doing NaNoWriMo and coming out to the write-ins. He's completely uninterested; it's okay, he's allowed to be wrong.1 But while talking about it the other day, he was saying (and I'm paraphrasing the exact words) that he thought writing ought to be a more organic endeavor, instead of hammered out to an abusive deadline.

I countered that I need the abuse because I feel like I have to be doing a million different things at any give time, and I always push creative writing to the bottom of my to-do list. For me, NaNoWriMo is a month to say This novel is the most important thing to me for the next 30 days. It's a beautiful reprieve from everything else going on in life.

However, he makes a good point: I assume most writers look at writing as tapping a creative part of their soul, and it should feel right. Natural. Organic. And no one is going to act as though every word written during NaNo sprang fully formed from their heart and is a perfect expression of their story. I wrote an entire section yesterday that blew big fat balls; it's awkward and forced and even as I was writing it I was saying to myself This is truly awful.

But it was written. I had barreled through that awkward and weird part of the story to move the character to something more relevant and interesting. When I edit, it'll be reworked or removed and replaced with something else -- but I don't need to worry about that right now. I was forced to get through that section of story by the threat of Write or Die2, and it's over. I added things to the story to get my character to another place, give her information she needs, and now I've got some interesting stuff to write about today.

I'm not arguing against his point or process -- for one, there is no singular process, and at no point did he say, "The way you write is stupid,"3 only that it wasn't how he writes. More important: if I wanted to argue with him, I know where he lives. I have his phone number. I could drive to his work and be like, "SELL ME STUFF WHILE I TELL YOU THAT YOU'RE WRONG." You get the idea.

What I am saying is that creativity can happen even up against the fervor of the NaNo deadline. That when you're sprinting to the word count, you can come up with things in a pinch that might not have occurred to you while ruminating gently over a cup of coffee. Characters come to life. Settings explode (sometimes literally).

I hate the expression "pressure makes diamonds" because honestly, I'm more of the opinion that pressure cracks foundations and crushes things -- but it's not like it doesn't also make diamonds, over a long time and under the right circumstances. Where NaNoWriMo might not be the right pressure for one person, it might be the diamond-maker for another.

1. He knows I'm kidding. :D Also; unlikely he's reading this. August, are you reading this? Stop reading this!
2. I was doing this sprint while Andy and August were in the living room, and as Andy was explaining the program by saying, "It deletes words if you stop typing." August responded, "Why would you use this program!?" It was pretty amusing, because I could not articulate that I simply need the abuse.
3. And believe me, he would say that.
4. I'm going to talk about parenting again some day, I promise. I've got things to say about it still. :D

NaNoWrimo: Day 7

2011-11-08T00:20:00.001-06:00

As planned, at the end of Day 7 I'm not only caught up, but not too far behind my projected goal for day 8.

50,000

12,777

I've finally got a feel for the main character, and I realized why. Yesterday I mentioned that I was finally starting to feel the story and the characters, and yet when I was writing today I still felt like this story was just treading around and not really doing anything. Then two things happened. The first was that Vivienne has spent the whole story up to this point reacting. Seriously, this is her arc so far:

Vivienne's sister calls, and Vivienne drives to see her dying aunt.

Vivienne's dying aunt makes a weird request, and Vivienne falls in a time hole as a result
Vivienne follows around the leader of this penal colony and the one guy who speaks English and reacts to their world
Vivienne starts asking questions -- this was where I started feeling her a bit.
Vivienne lets someone prod her for measurements, does some clinic work despite protests that she's not really a doctor, and makes dinner as directly when the revolutionaries finally show up -- and I lost her again.

I went to the regional forum to whine and I realized this. Thankfully, the introduction of the revolutionaries also brought the device that saves Vivienne from a life of forever doing as she's told: a device that allows Vivienne to understand other characters (though they still can't understand her), so now other characters are allowed to have a voice, instead of Vivienne talks, Avent translates, Singer talks, Avent translates.

So, that's my NaNoWrimo progress. I'm pleased with today. I spent a bit longer than I wanted to working on it, but being caught up is a great feeling.

NaNoWriMo: Day 6

2011-11-06T20:33:00.013-06:00

Day 6 of NaNoWriMo isn't over yet, but I still have a lot to do tonight, and I figure it's best to catch up now rather than later. I'm actually a little bit behind the projected word count for day 6 (10,000) but only just a couple of hundred words behind my nemesis. I should be caught up again by tomorrow, but hopefully tonight. I don't know, we'll see. Anyway, progress as of now:

50,000

7,479

As you can see, I haven't even gotten far enough to have enough colored bar to cover my word count. I'm right under 15% done, and about 16 pages in -- which is about as accurate as saying, "I'm 12 paragraphs in," but whatever. It took me until today to feel like I was finally connecting with the setting and the characters. The first 12 pages or so feel like I'm just treading water. I recognize now that it means I started the novel in the wrong spot, but that'd be chopping my stunted word count off at the feet to change it, so.

The novel doesn't have a title yet, but there is an excerpt on my profile.

This week I confirmed that the write-ins are necessary. We were out of town last week visiting family, and I got much less done in NaNo than intended, and missed the Thursday write-in.

I don't really have too much to say, other than November already feels like it's going way too fast. Still: I remain optimistic!

Also; if you're a novelist who needs to work on an existing novel rather than start a new one, Lauren of Hobo Mama set up NaNoProgMo -- it's not too late to bite the bullet and do that! :D

Adventures in Potty Training

2011-10-31T12:00:00.001-05:00

Miles fell asleep last night without a diaper -- skipped a nap, passed right out. Forever eager to get this child potty trained so that I can ship him off to the first preschool that'll take him, I figure what the hell. We'll see how this plays out. It's not the first time he's fallen asleep naked, but every time before he's wet the bed.

At around midnight he crawls into bed with Andy. This is early for the nightly journey to the parental bed, so I decide to check his bed. Dry. Very cool.

I check in at about 2AM. Everyone is still dry. When I climb into bed about an hour later, it's all still good. I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself and my decision to let the child free-ball it overnight. Actual potty training has to be coming around the bend. Hooray!

Miles wakes up angry at about 5AM. He tends to wake up grumpy, and he's demanding milk and I'm saying no, and he hits his head on the wall while thrashing in rage, all, "Boo boo! Boo boo!" After a minute he stops, takes a deep breath, and just says, "Water."

"Okay, sweetie, how about we get some water and go potty?" It's been gettin' on 12 hours since he's gone to the bathroom -- he's got to need to by now. We trek out to the kitchen, but while I'm getting his water he suddenly looks at his toes and just loses his shit, screaming about water.1

I pick him up and try to console him, and say, "Hey, Momma has to go potty -- let's go potty." While I pee he stands there and screams at me, holding his penis and crying about water. "Honey, you can go potty." He runs to the living room and proceeds to start that those huge, wracking, hard sobs. Still screaming about water. This time he'd managed to pull the middle cushion off the couch and spilled his cup of water. At this point no amount of rocking, cajoling, or comforting is calming him down. "Let's go lay down and have some milk," I say, resigned to my fate as the milk-giver once more.

No dice. I decide to go get a diaper, and he follows me, tripping over himself, and hits me while I'm putting together his diaper. I'm not sure he's taken a breath since he started freaking out. We head out into the hallway. I put the light on in the bathroom and try to say as soothingly as possible, "It's okay to go potty, darling." He slams the door and throws himself against it in some sort of bizarre baby rage that I cannot fathom. I carry him out to the couch to put a diaper on him; Andy actually comes out to help while Miles thrashes and freaks out about his diaper, his breath hitching and choked.

Finally, finally, he calms down while I sit with him on the couch. He freaks out again when I carry him to bed, but chills once he starts to nurse. We all fall back asleep.

Lesson learned: The sensation of having to pee in the morning turns my child into some sort of bizarre baby hulk.

No, I do not like him when he's angry.

1. This is a thing lately, and I hate it. If his food is messy, falls off his fork/spoon/fingers, makes his fingers dirty, dribbles down the front of his shirt, or levels him some imaginary slight -- I like to imagine his macaroni and cheese calls him names -- he absolutely freaks out. Everything is a boo boo, and it's very emotionally taxing. I try to keep it in perspective, though; at least it's emotionally taxing for both of us.

NaNoWriMo Prep Post #3: Stay Motivated

2011-10-31T00:48:00.001-05:00

This is it. Come midnight, it's time to get started. Maybe you're getting ready at a party (I am) or maybe you're going it alone at home. Either way, you can feel the tingling in your fingertips, the nervous mixture of This is going to be awesome and Holy shit am I really doing this?

This is the hardest part. Getting excited for NaNoWriMo is easy. Setting up your profile, glancing around your regional forums, plotting out your novel, meeting your fellow Wrimos -- this is the fun part. Even those first few days of intense novelling are exciting. Then life kicks back in. The word count starts getting away from you. This novel sucks anyway. Why am I doing this to myself?

Trust me. I know all about quitting. I did NaNoWriMo for five of the past six years and 2010 was my first win. The farthest I got before that was a little over 25K in 2006. In 2009 I didn't back up my novel and lost it all at 10K. Back up your novel. Based on my many failures and my one success, this is my insight into what made a difference.

Get Thee to a Regional Meeting

This was by and far the thing that helped me finish last year. I nearly didn't go. When I lived in Manhattan there wasn't ever really an ML or an organized set of meetings, at least not that I ever noticed, and I was surprised to discover that the Lawrence region does. (They're actually extremely well organized and very active. Score!)

I almost didn't go. I am the shyest extrovert I know -- the idea of going out and meeting new people fills me with a general and horrible panic. But Andy forced me out. It took me the better part of six months in the writer's group after NaNo before I felt really comfortable and not weird around my fellow writers, but I've always enjoyed their company and the camaraderie. We were strangers in the same boat. We were all exhausted and haggard and felt crazy for what we were doing. But we did it. And it was great.

I understand that I come from the privileged vantage point of living near the downtown area in a not terribly large city -- I could walk downtown if I didn't have a car, which I do. If you can't make it to the physical write-ins, find a friend or two online. Visit the forums. Start a chat room. Find someone, somewhere to be mutually accountable with.

Word Sprints & Word Wars

This is sort of corollary to the above. If you're alone, do word sprints -- set a timer and write. Just write. I know last year there were official sprints being managed by the @NaNoWordSprints account on Twitter, and they're continuing that this year.

If you're got two or more people, it becomes a word war -- see who can do the most in the allotted time. The #NaNoWriMo tag on Twitter is usually a fun place to see people setting up impromptu word wars (and support, of course).

What it comes down to is that competition is a damned fine motivator. I used Sam (@sammisan) last year to motivate myself. She's always been a more prolific writer -- she doesn't need my help to get to 50K and beyond. That said, we indulged each other with some of the smackiest of the smack talk (click to read the dirty mean parts):

This is where Write or Die was my savior. Sam and I did word wars in Write or Die, but I also found it better for word sprints. I really enjoyed Focus Booster as well, but it's... I need to be threatened. While I didn't beat Sam last year, it was close a couple times.

This year the local group is setting up nemeses -- optional for those of us who wanted them, and I did. I have a nemesis. It's a secret. It doesn't have to be, but I kind of like it. We drew them at random, so I have no idea who has me either.

Set Goals

Have goals. Say you're going to write for half an hour. Say you're going to write 1,667 words (or more) each night. Say you're always going to write from 8AM to 9AM. Say by the end of the week you're going to his 10K.

Say something. Say anything. (IN YOUR EYES.)

I tend to go into things with an attitude of, "Oh, it'll happen how it'll happen. Things will work out. I'll write when I can." No. That doesn't work for anything, and it doesn't work for the holy shit effort that is NaNoWriMo. It doesn't have to be a huge effort, it doesn't have to be extraordinary, but you have to do it.

There's really not much to say beyond that, at least not that I can think of. I'm sure there's millions more ways to stay motivated. Promise yourself something shiny at the end of the month, or tell yourself that you don't get that cup of coffee until you've written 100 words (sob) or whatever else helps keep you going. Have a friend or a significant other who won't let you quit on the 16th.

Don't get discouraged, and keep writing. Even if you're not going to make the 50K and you know it, keep going. NaNoWriMo is about a word count, sure, but it's more about writing a book. It's about telling your story, any story, and realizing the simple joy and excitement of the process.

Keep writing, wrimos. We're in this together next month.

Amended Opinion: yWriter

2011-10-29T03:11:00.001-05:00

In my post on Thursday regarding software and applications for writing, you may recall I mentioned not being able to get into yWriter as a plotting software. Well, in a fit of curiosity after seeing my sister's thoughts on the software, I decided to give it another go. I needed to plot out my novel, and Yarny was down for a move.

I change my mind. I understand why I didn't like it when I had a rough draft and was trying to go back and plug it all in. How horrendously overwhelming. However, now that I'm starting out by adding characters and concepts and all that before novel writing starts? I'm in love.

I like having somewhere to put together the characters, and I like that my character and setting notes aren't adding to the word counter. I did some writing in it for my big bang project, and while the interface for writing isn't my favorite, it's rich text and there appears to be an option for opening scenes in your rich text editor.

I'm definitely switching from Yarny over to yWriter. It's not as fluid or good looking, but there's so many things I can do. I can note character motivations. I can set deadlines. I can mark scenes as plot or sub-plot (among other things). I can add characters to a scene, or have yWriter add characters automatically. It's huge, but I don't have to use any of it. And better, I keep discovering new features when I can't possibly imagine any more.

Just wanted to drop in and amend my point.