Abandonment issues...

So this is under the writing process label because it really is part of the process. Abandonment...

The TBT post I pulled for today was from Practical Magic, a short story that came to me out of a really weird dream. It's fantasy so not my usual thing. But I liked it. I liked it enough to start writing it as a blog series. Then I kind of let it go. Then last year during NaNoWriMo I picked it up again and after a month of diligently working on it I had just over 50,000 words of story.  And right now I have...just over 50,000 words of story.

Pick it up September 2012. Put it down October 2012. Pick it up November 2013. Put it down December 2013. And yesterday was the first time I had read any bit of it since then. I have looked at the files. I have considered the massive amounts of editing that needs done and I have closed the files again.

I'm not saying that there isn't a good story there. I think there still might be. And I'm not saying I won't ever go back to it. I probably will. In fact after reading the post from two years ago I was reminded how much I actually liked Deeds and Cal. And they will probably start sitting in the corner of the "bar" casting small spells to try and get my attention. Or more likely throwing darts right past my head. That's more their style...

Anyway, that's the part of the process that drives people that know me crazy. I start stories. I don't always finish them. I have so many WIP folders and notes and just spaces in my head that it's sort of crazy. This morning our dental hygienist asked Brent if I was still writing children's books. Did you remember I tried that? Sent some to publishers. Heard nothing. File closed. I sort of pouted at him,"Well I think I'm talented!" I was playing around. Mostly. He said that she agreed and had really liked the stories I had shared. Which is always nice to hear.

But that's the other secret. There are a lot of talented people out there. And they are all doing what I did. Write, submit, wait. The ones that make it are either lucky or persistent. I've not been either. I've submitted a few stories to a few publishers but not nearly the volume that I could. And I've heard nothing. Which drives me a little crazy, send me a "not interested" email at least! I have zero urge to self publish. I watch friends who have made that choice and the amount of self promotion they have to do. It's almost constant. Across multiple platforms, in a variety of areas. Constantly reminding people that they have a book, they should buy it, they should tell their friends about it, there will be a signing at these locations, and books will be for sale there...it's overwhelming to even contemplate.

There is a line from Billy Joel's song Scenes from an Italian Restaurant  "Everyone said they were crazy, Brenda you know you're much too lazy. Eddie could never afford to live that kind of life."

Let's just say when I hear it I am glad that Brent isn't Eddie...

Because the really crazy part of all of it? I'm okay with it on a base level. I like sharing my little short stories with you all. I still put together other things in my WIP files and I still think at some point I will publish a book of either short stories or an actual novel. But even if I don't? I've written some pieces I'm actually really proud of. I've shared them with you. I've heard from other people that they liked what I put out there. I've gotten good feedback from people on things to change to become a better writer. And I have reached the point where I call myself a writer without even qualifying it.

Pick it up. Put it down. Pick it up. Put it down. It's almost like exercise when I write it out, and that's good for you right?

Let's go with that....

October catch up...

Looking at the number of blogs I need to write to reach my goal and I really need to step it up for the last 3 months of the year! So not like me to procrastinate. Oh, wait, that's totally like me.

So anyway, I can't really do a blog a day challenge for October. We are travelling a couple of times and trying to write while on the road is tricky. I don't lug my laptop around and writing on the phone is a huge PITA. So instead I am going to do 31 Blogs in October.

Same sort of challenge, just a little different. You math geniuses out there have figured out that means that there will be days with multiple postings. You are all so smart! Head of the class! Gold Stars and Cookies for everyone! This also means that I have no expectation of you all keeping up with each post. Not that I do normally, but you are even more off the hook for this go round. Bad enough when I do a blog a day to keep up, let alone multiple postings in one day right? So anyway...here we go! Thirty One Blogs for October!

So yesterday I wrote a quick short story and I said I would write later about where the idea came from. Guess what? It's later!

So first off, if you haven't already read the story from yesterday go and do that before you read the rest of this blog. I'll wait...

Do you ever dream you can fly? I know it's a pretty common one. I've never actually had that dream. Not real flying. The soaring above everything like Superman flying. But I dream I can glide a lot. And vividly. To the point where while I am dreaming about it I think to myself in the dream,"See? You knew you could do it." So what is the difference between gliding and flying? I dream that when I run I only need to take a few steps to cross a lot of ground. Like when I push off I could go through the whole house before touching ground again. Gliding. And the dreams are so real that I am sort of surprised the next day when I can't really do it.

The second part is with my insomnia often I don't sleep but I do deep relaxation. Sort of a self hypnosis thing. Relax your feet, relax your legs, that sort of thing. And I noticed that when I am really deeply relaxed I sort of melt in to the bed. Like the feeling of where I end and the bed begins is gone. Which almost then feels like I am floating. Not on the bed but above it. Just relaxing there.

So as I was drifting off to sleep the other night I thought to myself, "What if all of this time I hadn't been dreaming. I really could float and glide? What if it was just my conscious brain holding me down. What would that be like?"

And that's how the story started.

So I wrote it out. And as I was writing I went from being sure that she really was starting to float to questioning it. What if she was imagining the whole thing? Which would be worse really? And I put the story in to my "more later" file. Because though I had a story I wanted to tell with an ending I wanted to use as I wrote I realized I might have a different story in there after all. I went in and adjusted the end on the blog short story just a touch and then left it for later.

Which happens a lot as I'm writing. And it's really hard to explain. Because I'm the one writing the story right? I should be able to mold it and make it what I imagined. But sometimes the characters don't want to say what you think they should say. Sometimes the ending that you KNEW was perfect doesn't come about. Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of a story and have no idea where exactly it came from.

And you wonder to yourself. Am I a writer or am I just crazy...

Solid Ground...

She had gotten very clever at finding ways to anchor herself. A foot wrapped around a chair or table leg. A backpack with a few heavy books in it. Boots with heavy soles. She had a whole host of tricks at her disposal. She had learned quickly what worked and what didn't.

She remembered the first time it had happened. She woke up from a dream where she was in the Macy's Christmas Parade, not in a band or on a float but as one of the giant balloons. The people holding the ropes that kept her from flying away were tugging them unevenly so she would flip to the side then POP! back up as they realized they were pulling too hard. Weird dream. Then her husband rolled over in his sleep tugging the sheet covering both of them with him. And she tilted. It was right then that she realized she wasn't actually lying on the bed but about three inches above it. As she became aware of the floating she drifted slowly back down. She sat straight up in the bed, her heart racing. What the hell was that? Then she started to calm down and realized that it was just part of the dream. She had done that weird thing where you think you wake up but you don't and are still just dreaming. She laughed at her foolishness and went back to sleep.

Then it happened again.

She was brushing her teeth thinking about what she needed to get done at work that day. Her husband looked at her and asked why she was standing on her tip toes. She looked down and realized that she wasn't really standing on them so much as they were dangling free just above the ground. She drifted back down and stood flat footed again. "Just stretching."

She wasn't sure why she didn't tell him the truth right then and there. Probably because she still hadn't accepted it. How do you tell someone that you've started to float? And besides, she probably had just been standing on her tiptoes. Really that had to be the truth right? She just was tired that morning and her eyes (and toes) had played a trick on her. It was nothing to be worried about.

Until the day it happened in the car. She had been stopped in traffic listening to the radio and letting her mind wander while she waited for traffic to clear. Then her car started to roll forward. She had let up on the brake. Her foot had just drifted off of the pedal. She got it stopped before she hit the car in front of her but that was enough to convinced herself it was time to call a doctor. Luckily there was an opening that afternoon and she hadn't had to say anything other than, "I'm feeling just a bit off lately" to the receptionist to get booked.

The first news was her weight was lower. Much lower. She didn't have the heart to tell the nurse that it wasn't that she had lost weight but that she wasn't putting all of it on the scale. She was doing all she could to keep most of her foot on the ground, but her heels were already floating again. The next bit of news was that her doctor was pretty sure she was crazy. It didn't start out that way. But she knew the more she tried to explain what was going on the less her doctor was able to understand. And the worst part was she was fully grounded at that point. She tried to show her what was happening, but nothing. She tried to explain the floating and got, "So you have been feeling light headed?" no, not light headed, light bodied. She told her about the car incident and finally a light went on, "Muscle weakness? Feelings of light headedness? Hmmm..." Sure, close enough...

An MRI was scheduled.

"Please stay still and relaxed."

But as soon as she would relax she would begin to float.

"Please try to remain still."

Finally she suggested they strap her down for the tests.

The scans came back normal. Her doctor recommended a great psychiatrist that she knew.

The floating got worse.

That's when she started using tricks to anchor herself down. The books. The table legs. Not going outside on a really windy day. She never slept without a heavy blanket on her now. Which was going to work this winter but what would happen when summer came? She researched bed ties on the internet. Which led to an awkward conversation with her husband.

"Did you want to try something...umm...different in bed?"

"What?"

"Well I saw that you had been searching for, you know, restraints, and things, so I was wondering why. I know that everyone was talking about that 50 Shades book thing awhile ago. I just didn't think you were in to that?"

"No! Oh god no!"

"Okay, then..."

She changed the subject.

She still couldn't figure out how to tell him what was happening. How do you even start that conversation? What if he thought she was crazy as well? What if she was crazy?

Finally one evening at dinner he said, "Something's wrong. I can't put my finger on it, but I feel like you are drifting away from me."

Home Improvement...

Standing in the middle of the room I saw myself coming towards me. I had on a tool belt and was holding the leash of a big slobbering dog that growled when I got too close. As I passed I saw the lighter in my back pocket.

"Just where do you think you are going?"

"Where do I think I'm going? I'll tell you where I'm going. See that door there? I'm going out it. And once I do I am going to set fire to the bridge you just walked across. Then I'm coming back through the door and I am locking it. Then I'm going to feed the key to Rufus here. Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? Then I'm going to board that door up. After that, do you see the drywall and paint right there? Well I'm going to use that to cover that bitch up. I swear when I'm done with it when you look back, and you know that you will, you won't even be able to tell there was ever a door there."

"Don't you think that's a little extreme?"

"You tell me."

So I looked at where I was standing. I could see the path back to the door. Worn and aged. It had been walked so many times there was a groove in the floor. And I looked at the door. Not even closed. Just shut down a little. The crack of light glowing around the edges. Already looking tempting to me. Already calling me back for one more look at the other side. Then I looked ahead. Out of the room I was standing in. There wasn't a door. There wasn't even a wall. It was just an open field. No paths at all. Just...open.

I turned and looked again. I gave myself a small sad smile and a nod.

"That's what I thought. Just start walking, I'll catch up when I'm done."

Hovercrafts and bar people...

I had a dream last night that I went back to school. I wasn't in class in the dream. I was late for class and trying to decide if I should go ahead and go on in or just skip it. And as I was debating if I should skip it I was trying to decide when the last time I had actually gone to that class was and if that meant I was too far behind and should just look at dropping the class and picking it up next semester. When, I swear, I would go more often.

Basically a replay of my high school life, but without the option of dropping classes and picking them up later.

Though I did have a cool hover craft go cart thing that worked on land and in the water that I was racing back to the house in. And apparently I live at the resort in Hawaii we visited last February.

Oh and the public bathrooms have TVs and you watch the TV to see when your stall is open. Which is why I was late. I needed to pee and the channel wouldn't change.

Yeah. I don't know either...

Last night I also got a great couple of lines for a short story. And maybe that was the whole point? It was as I was racing back to the house, I drove (hovered?) past two girls talking on a porch. They weren't really in the dream, just background people. But as I flew by them on my hover craft I heard a snatch of conversation and it stuck with me. I've written that down in my notebook and will puzzle on those lines a little more. But I think my bar people were talking to me in my dreams. Probably because I've been busy lately and not listening to them while I am awake. Bar people are so pushy!

Sometimes I have a dream and it's completely obvious what problem my subconscious is chewing on. Sometimes not so much. Sometimes I get great short story ideas. Sometimes I get a completely random blog.

Either way it works out towards that number goal right? :-)

The F word...

"I like my women to look like women."

"Oh? And how many women do you own?"

"What?"

"Your women. I'm assuming that means you own them right? If they are yours?"

"That's not what I mean. I mean women around me."

"Oh, okay, so they are women you can potentially own?"

"No. Just women."

"So any woman you see should look a certain way so that they are women to you?"

"You're just being difficult. I am just saying I like a woman who isn't afraid to be a woman."

Yes. I'm being difficult.

Last Friday night Brent and I walked to dinner and then to the hockey game. I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, nothing special, nothing fancy, a hockey t-shirt, a pair of jeans. As we passed by two men we heard, "Mmmmhmmm." Brent gave me a little half smile, He knew there was a potential rant coming his way. Instead I said, "Well that was unusual."

Not that I got a comment when I walked past. That is normal. I have big boobs and a big butt, for some reason this makes people think that they are free to make noises, say things, or even gesture in my direction when I am walking by them. The odd thing about it was that Brent was with me. Generally if he is with me the guy on the corner (generic the guy, not the same guy) is quiet. Or on a few memorable occasions he compliments Brent on my attractiveness. Like Brent had something to do with it. The only people other than me you can compliment on my looks are my parents. It was their blending of DNA that did it after all. "Good job on the bodily fluid mixing there! She got a good blend of your DNA and it's pleasing to my sight!" But really unless you are a friend of mine you should probably keep your opinion about what I look like to yourself.

Then this past weekend Brent and I were talking about college aged kids and sexist comments that boys tend to make without really thinking it through. He asked what girls think about it in general. And I said that mostly they aren't all that bothered. They don't think it has anything to do with them. I said it's not until you are older and you look back that you realize that there is something majorly wrong with a society that thinks selling girls sweat pants with Juicy written across the ass is okay. That there could very well be a correlation between unequal pay for the same job and the attitude that girls are precious little beings who need protected by big strong men. And that there might very well be an issue when you are taught from a very young age that the important thing is to present yourself as a pleasing feminine vision instead of as a capable person. I said there are always a few who were ahead of the curve, who were already self identified feminists but not many. There were more who shunned the word, than embraced it.

And I have to admit until recently I even did. Feminism has gotten such a bad wrap. But see, words mean things, and the definition of feminism is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men." That's it. Political, social and economic equality to men. Not some sort of fucked up scary woman going to lock you away for being a man bullshit that is propagated by certain loud talk show hosts. Just equality. That's it. Simple right? If you aren't a feminist then what are you? Do you not think women should be treated equally?

Don't get off on the women and men aren't the same tangent. Because that's not what we are talking about here. Women and men are different. When you are looking at broad stroke items. For instance our garage door broke yesterday. With the spring broken I couldn't lift the door, couldn't even get it to budge. And I work my arms and back out at the gym. I'm vain about those muscles. But Brent? He lifted it without issue. He's got more innate upper body strength than I do without even trying. That's just a testosterone/estrogen difference. BUT...if he and I were doing the same job with the same experience and the same education level he shouldn't get paid more because he can lift a garage door and I can't. See?

I wouldn't get paid more because I can grow a human being right? And trust me that's hard shit. Though oddly enough that's one of the reasons people will mention for gender pay inequality. Women have babies. Which might work out if the pay inequality only happened later. Say, if a woman chose to take a few years off to have kids then came back. A woman and a man the same age wouldn't make the same because the experience levels wouldn't be the same. However, you see it straight out of the gate. At college graduation. At first jobs. When there should be no difference. Why is that? And why do we have to keep asking this question?

Income equality. It's really not that tough of a concept.

Political equality. How about that one? Oh boy are we in for it if Hillary Clinton does run in 2016. We will get as much gender bias hatred as we can hold. We saw it when she ran before. Remember the discussion about her pantsuits? How about when she was First Lady and wore the headband, god forbid, a headband! And then when Sarah Palin hit the scene. I had a lot of reasons not to like her. Political reasons. Valid reasons. And you know what people told me about why I didn't like her? Because she's pretty and I was jealous. Ummm...what? I didn't like John McCain either (heartbreaking for me as I really did used to like him and was excited when he first announced he would run again) and nobody said it was because of his looks. Nobody. I could validly dislike the male half of the ticket because of his politics but not the female half? And her looks were a reason to like her? I heard that a lot as well. "I'd do her" was a great political comment. Oh! Well thank god that's not a prerequisite for VP! (no offense, Mr. Biden, I'm sure there are plenty of others out there that would "do you" if given the chance)

And just political representation in general. How many women are in Congress right now? How many more will be elected? Are we close on that front? (Just so you don't have to look it up there are 20 in the Senate and 79 in the House) And should it matter? Does it matter? When you are looking at candidates does gender matter? I would say yes, it matters up until it doesn't any more. Confused? It matters right now because women are under represented. It matters because we are half of the population and less than 20% of Congress. I'm not going to vote for a candidate just because they are a woman, that's not equality, but I am going to pay attention to why that number isn't shifting. And I'm going to pay attention to what is being said about women who run for office. Just a hint, doable isn't a job requirement.

So then on to social equality. This one is the one where people get tripped I think. It's the one where you get the aforementioned screaming talk show hosts who are worried that somehow their manhood is threatened if they have to treat women with the same social respect that they treat a man. And this one is so much easier. Really it is. How I dress is my business. How I talk is my business. If I choose to smile or not smile in public is my business. I am in control of my own body. Keep your opinions to yourself when dealing with strangers.

I dress up. I wear makeup. My personalized ringtone on my husband's phone is Brick House. I know I look good. I know I fit all of the traditional overt feminine mores. I have a big butt (and I cannot lie), I tend to rock a lot of cleavage. But guess what? That's my choice. Has nothing to do with you. Nothing. You don't think your buddy wore his best suit so you could tell him how nicely he fills out that crease do you? Then why do you think I wore this dress for you to tell me how my ass looks as I walk away? If I am part of your social circle and we are going out and I am wearing something nice or have done something to my hair, or just happen to have a pleasing countenance on my face by all means say something. But if I am a stranger to you walking past you on a street corner do not tell me to smile because I would be prettier that way, do not make "yummy" noises at me as I walk past and by all means do not ever tell me exactly what you would do to me in bed. EVER.

If you wouldn't say it to your daughter/sister/mother why would you say it to a stranger? If you would be pissed as fuck if someone said it to your wife/girlfriend/daughter/mother why would you say it to a stranger? If you understood for a second that your "compliment" made the person you were supposedly complimenting uncomfortable or flat out scared would you still do it? Do you understand that the hooting and the hollering is just another form of intimidation? A way of keeping a woman in her place? You know, as doable.

So yes. I am a feminist. I believe that women and men should be treated as equals. Not the same. Not interchangeable. But equals. Socially. Politically. Economically. And if you aren't...

What is wrong with you?

UUFO....

So last month I took a long weekend break from posting on Facebook. I still commented on other people's posts. I still read everything that hit my feed. But I stopped posting. It was a quick impromptu experiment. And the results were interesting and unexpected.

What started it was my passion for a plethora of postings. Basically I talk a lot. So I post a lot. And at times people feel the need to tell me to knock it off. Which amazes me. Normally my response is, unfollow, unfriend, fuck off, all viable choices. But after getting more than my normal amount over a few weeks I was in a bit of a mood. Then a friend of mine posted that someone she knew had sent her a PM letting her know that instead of posting the things she normally does, stories about her kids, her practice, her day to day life, she should really be posting about IMPORTANT issues. Umm..what? I'm sorry but her kids, her practice and her day to day life are the IMPORTANT issues. And who the fuck are you exactly?

So those things together flipped a switch in my head and I stopped posting. Didn't say anything about it. Just stopped. And waited to see what would happen. I wanted to see if the people that bitch about my profligate posting problem would send me a PM saying, "Hey, good job" or "Glad you took what I said to heart and STFU already!"

But nope.

Weekend came and went and then I got a "Hey, are you okay?" message. Quickly followed by another, "Is everything all right?" post. And I realized that there were people out there who only hear from me through my superfluous status summaries. And they were worried. So I fessed up to what I had done and why. And thought, here now, those people who think I post too much will understand that they didn't even notice when I was gone. So obviously I am not taking up too much of their brain space after all.

But what happened instead were a lot of people apologizing for not noticing. Which wasn't what I intended at all. I don't expect people to notice everything I do and say. I really don't. I know that with Facebook algorithms even the people that we do want to see everything they do it sometimes slips through the cracks. And I also know that I read a lot more than I comment on. So even if it looks like I haven't "seen" someone I have. So I wasn't looking for people to tell me why they hadn't noticed and that they would from here on out. I really wasn't. I just wanted to make the point that people feel the need to tell you when you are doing something they find annoying but then never notice when it's not happening anymore. And it can't have been all that annoying if you didn't even notice when it was gone right?

But my experiment didn't work that way. I ended up worrying people who love me and like seeing my absolute abundance of assertions. People who hadn't noticed I was missing felt guilty. There were people who wanted to let me know how much they enjoy my posts, that I make them laugh or think or both. And then I had a few people who made me laugh. My son, for instance, said he had noticed I wasn't posting and as I was at hockey camp all weekend he figured there should be posts. When he tried calling Sunday morning and I didn't answer (hockey camp) he went to a relative's page and looked for comments from me, knowing if I was around I would have posted there. When he saw that I had he just sat back and waited for the story. Another friend of mine figured out right away it was some sort of experiment. She knows me well enough to know that I am constantly trying out something and if I stopped posting with no word, though she could see Brent still was and that I was with him places he was checking in, then I was fine and just sciencing...(It's totally a word. I wrote it didn't I?)

But the biggest thing I learned was to go back to my stance of unfollow, unfriend, fuck off. It's my page. I am going to post a lot. I talk a lot. I have things to share. Some of it you might care about. Some of it you might not. Just like a conversation in real life. And just like in real life if you are having a conversation you don't want to have you can walk away...


If I am excessive and exuberant in my exhortations you have been warned. I don't see it changing. Well, that might not be true...hockey season starts tomorrow...

Hawks Hockey Highlights Happening Hourly...


UUFO....