30 Things About Me

July 30, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

This is one of those Twitter trending topics, like 50 things about me and 100 things about me, that clogs up my Twitter stream like an unfortunate accident on the log flume ride at Six Flags. And while I’m egotistical enough to want to share 30 things about myself, I’m conscientious enough not to cram it all on my Twitter timeline.

Besides, someone might miss one.

30 Things About Me

1. I still have my tonsils. Despite repeated bouts of strep throat and tonsillitis, I never had them out.

2. I can touch my tongue to my nose. It’s a family trait. My mom and my cousin can do it, too.

3. I broke my dad’s index finger pitching to him when I was a kid. I played little league fast pitch and Dad insisted that I pitch three or four times a week. When your kid can hit 60 on the gun and you don’t have a proper catchers mitt, you sometimes get your finger broken.

4. I also broke a window and put a few dents in the siding while pitching. Mom was surprisingly okay with the broken window, considering she was standing right next to it, doing the dishes, when I broke it.

5. I taught myself to write left-handed. I practice by writing things on my day planner with my left hand. Pretty soon, my writing will be just as legible left-handed as right-handed (in other words, not very).

6. I prefer things in three’s or multiples of three. I don’t know where or why this fascination started. I wear three rings, prefer to wear three bracelets, wear three earrings in each ear. I had three eyebrow rings at one point. I eat little things in multiples of three (example: I’ll eat nine crackers, three cookies, fifteen chips, etc.). It’s not a have-to, but it’s definitely a preference.

7. I wrote my first story at the age of six. I made it look like a book. I folded the paper in half, drew a picture on the cover, and wrote the story inside. The story didn’t get finished and the spelling wasn’t that great, though I’m pretty pleased at the number of big words I used. I still have it.

8. I gave serious consideration to being a meteorologist and a marine biologist when I was in junior high. I’m still fascinated by tornadoes and sharks (the two things I wanted to focus on in those careers). In high school, I also gave some consideration to pursuing acting.

9. I “majored” in English, sociology, and psychology the three times I went to community college.

10. I’m a natural shot. I was eleven the first time I ever shot a gun and I was scared to death. Once I realized that I hit eight out ten at seven yards, I wasn’t scared anymore. I’ve shot several different kinds of guns including an AR-15. My favorite gun to shoot is my dad’s Argentine Colt .45.

11. I fractured my ankle when I was seventeen. Despite having insurance, I refused to go to the hospital because I didn’t want to listen to my dad bitch about how much fixing it would cost. I wrapped it up and gimped around on it for the rest of the summer, including working at my cousin’s daycare.

12. I’m terrible at remembering anniversaries. Not just romantic ones (one boyfriend had to remind me of our anniversary date because I could never remember it), but all of them. When I started a job, when I quit smoking, when I joined Twitter, when I joined Livejournal, how long I’ve known someone, the date of my first Cubs game at Wrigley, none of it sticks well in my head.

13. My scream is broken. I seem to only be capable of screaming if I’m really terrified, and even then it doesn’t always work.

14. The first movie I saw in the theater was E.T. The first movie I remember seeing in the theater was Return of the Jedi.

15. I’ve been thanked in the liner notes of a CD and in the dedications of a book. I’ve also had my picture in the liner notes of a different CD.

16. I don’t like hot dogs. Despite repeated attempts to like hot dogs, they make me gag (mind out of the gutter, kids). The last time I was successfully ate a hot dog that wasn’t a corndog (for some reason, that’s the exception), I was a senior in high school and the hot dog in question had been burned over a campfire and dropped in the ashes. Not kidding.

17. The first horror movie I can remember watching was Poltergeist. I was probably about four or five at the time.

18. We didn’t get a CD player until I was in 7th or 8th grade. The first four CDs my sister and I owned were Janet Jackson, Salt n Peppa, The Cranberries, and Warrant.

19. When I was a kid I could do a pretty good impression of Ursula from The Little Mermaid, particularly while singing “Poor Unfortunate Souls”.

20. I started a correspondence course in creative writing the summer before my senior year in high school. I finished it not long after I graduated.

21. I won second place in a state in a poetry contest my sophomore year of high school. I’m still bitter that my teacher made me change one line of that poem so it would have more “devices” in it. The poem that won state and ended up winning 2nd in national? Written by the girl’s mother. I’m still a little bit bitter about that, too.

22. I drive left-handed. It just feels more comfortable to me. When I smoked, I did it left-handed as well. Smoking while driving got interesting.

23. I’ve got a scar on my right shoulder that I have no clue how I got.

24. I share a birthday with a great aunt on my dad’s side and a second cousin on my mom’s side. I also share it with Kirstie Alley, Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Rob Zombie, Oliver Platt, and Marian Hossa. Yes, January 12th is a questionable date.

25. My high school graduation present was a 1974 American General mail Jeep. It was flat black, had sliding doors that locked open, no heat or A/C, and was right-hand drive. It cost my dad 200 bucks.

26. I’ve worn the same winter coat for over 15 years.

27. I once burned macaroni and cheese. Despite the vast improvements of my culinary skills, my sister (to whom cooking comes naturally) won’t let me forget it.

28. Kansas City, Missouri is the farthest west I’ve ever been.

29. I have a lot of trouble pronouncing some words. I can read them and can pronounce them in my head, but when I actually say them, they come out completely different and completely wrong.

30. I’m a fatalist. It’ll either kill me or it won’t and I don’t have much say in it no matter what I do.

It took a couple of hours to come up with 30 things. Thank goodness I didn’t pick 50.

Writing–Negative Reviews

July 25, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

It’s kind of blown up lately in the writing community concerning writers attacking readers because they leave less than favorable reviews on their books. If you Google “Goodreads negative reviews” you find all sorts of information and opinions on this business.

Now I’ve only had a few short stories published. I self-published a book of my short stories. I’ve posted some freebie short stories on my blog. Even with ALL of this material out there (I’m being facetious), I’ve never received a negative review.

I’ve never even been told that I suck, at least not in relation to my writing.

However, I have a feeling that I’ll be able to handle negative reviews. Why? Because I worked in retail.

Here are a few examples of how working in retail and receiving negative reviews are similar:

I can’t find anything in this store/Why did you move everything around = I didn’t care for the pacing/theme/characters/story. This is a constructive complaint. When people would complain about not being able to find things and moving things around, it didn’t bother me much. First of all, I heard it so much it no longer held any meaning. Secondly, I agreed with them. No one hated moving things around more than the employees because then we had to move it, had to remember where it was, and had to deal with the complaints.

Likewise, people that don’t like a character, pace, or theme of a story provide an alternative perspective from all of the people slobbering all over my work. “Like” is a subjective thing and I can’t please everyone. There might be something I can learn from the people I’m not pleasing, providing they can present their point intelligently. If they can’t, well then, it’s going to hold no meaning for me.

I’ll shop somewhere else = I don’t like anything you write. If you want to shop somewhere else, somewhere that pleases you, then by all means, go and do just that. Likewise, if you don’t like anything I write, then please stop wasting your time with me and go read something by an author that you’ll enjoy. I appreciate you giving me a try, but if things aren’t working out, then we need to go our separate ways.

The one big difference between these two scenarios is that if you don’t like anything I write, I admit I’m a little bummed that my writing to jive with you; if you want to shop somewhere else, please do, and take your attitude with you (though I know you and your attitude will be back next week).

You suck = You suck. Yeah, “you suck” and really any sort of name calling, trolling, or self-entitled whining are pretty much the same no matter what the circumstance. These negative reviews are as prevalent as the people that insulted me while I worked retail and for very similar reasons. On the Internet, a person can hid behind the mask of anonymity and be a raging jack ass without fear of consequences or punishment. Working retail, people think they can treat you like garbage because you work a crap job and the customer is always right.

Well, the customer isn’t always right (and no retail gig I’ve ever had has paid me enough to put up with personal abuse and I didn’t and when I didn’t, I was accused by said asshole customer of being rude, go figure) and neither is a reviewer.

Thankfully, through the virtue of slogging in retail for several years, that when my first negative review comes, I’ll be prepared and I’ll know exactly how to handle it.

I’ve got the coping skills already in place.

Let’s Be Brave

July 23, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

“Let’s be brave” is my new motto. It’s advice I received from the most unlikely source.

A couple of weeks ago, I dreamed about Michael Nesmith of the Monkees. He appeared to me in this dream as he looked back in about 1966, with the wool hat and the denim jacket and the young face with great sideburns. And in this dream he suggested to me that we stage a 1950’s fashion show. I don’t know why he wanted to do that, but I loved the idea of it. And I told him so.

He told me that I shouldn’t love the idea, but that I should love that he was brave enough to have the idea and share the idea. Then he looked at me and smiled and said, “Let’s be brave.”

I woke up in love with that sentence. “Let’s be brave.”

Too many times I’ve found myself holding back because I was afraid. Afraid of how I might be judged for having an idea and putting that idea out into the world. I don’t want to be seen as a failure. I don’t want to be seen as stupid. I don’t want my ideas to be judged as stupid.

This fear of being judged is keeping me from being brave. I can’t get anywhere, doing anything, be anything if I don’t make some bold moves and give my ideas the respect they deserve. First of all, no one else will respect my ideas or support them if I don’t put them out there. And if people don’t respect or support my ideas, than I’m getting the same amount of respect and support I’d be getting if I didn’t tell them at all.

The point is to be brave enough to own and accept my ideas for all the world to see.

I’ve made small steps in doing that already. I posted a novel chapter on the blog for people to read. This is something I don’t do because I don’t like anyone to see what I’m working on. I don’t like talking about it. I don’t want anyone to know.

Well, that’s silly. I’m a writer. I write. Here’s what I’m writing. Enough with this chicken shit.

Enough with the yellow-streak down my back that’s effecting more of my life that just my writing. Yellow is a terrible color on me anyway.

Let’s be brave.

Frontier All-Star Pictures

July 20, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Here are a few more pictures from the Frontier Home Run Derby and All-Star Game.

West Autograph Line — The West Division signing autographs.

East Division Autograph Table — The East Division signing autographs.

Home Run Derby champ Russell Moldenhauer of the Lake Eerie Crushers mashes one during the first round.

West Division first pitch — First pitch from the West Division.

East Division first pitch — First pitch from the East Division.

Rich Mascheri of the Normal CornBelters on the mound.

Joash Bodin — Frontier All-Star Game MVP Joash Brodin of the London Rippers takes a few swings on deck.

Fireworks — The Home Run Derby and the All-Star Game were sparkly good times.

Writing–Moving On Up

July 18, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Okay, the title of this post is misleading because in truth I am not going anywhere. What has “moved on up” is a couple of items now gracing the link bar up top right underneath my lovely banner.

Notice the additions?

Here, I’ll help.

First of all, I’ve moved the links to the stories I’ve had published from the sidebar to the top. They were buried down there like I was ashamed of them and there’s no telling how many people missed them because there weren’t prominently displayed. So now if you click on the “Read me” link above, you’re taken right to the list. And the freebies are listed first, in case you’re not ready for a monetary commitment (hopefully reading the freebies will convince you to invest a little green in my work, you know what I’m saying?).

The second change is the addition of a new experiment under the heading “Chapter One”. This is a feedback experiment. All I’ve done is posted the first chapter of one of my novel manuscripts and asked a simple question: Would you read more of this book?

This accomplishes two things. One, it satisfies my need for feedback, positive or negative. Writing is lonely and a lot of it is done without any sort of encouragement or acknowledgement of any kind. When you get to a point in which you wonder whether or not you should be spending all of your time on this project, a little feedback helps, preferably honest feedback.

Yes, I realize that I’m setting myself up for serious disappointment if a bunch of people tell me that they wouldn’t read any more of the book. However, that’s not going to discourage me from finishing the rewrites and revisions. I want it to be done and it’s going to be done. It might, though, seriously discourage me from trying to get it published. But that’s a bridge that I’ll cross should I get there.

I think the bigger possibility is that no one will read the chapter at all. Or they might read it, but they won’t comment on it. And that’s a disappointment I’m used to and it’s not going to dissuade me much from going all the way with this book.

There’s something fun and risky about putting this first chapter out like this. It’s something I don’t normally do. My roommate reads a lot of my short stories when I’m in doubt, but my novel manuscripts are rarely seen by any other eyes. Letting it go like this is a step for me.

I’m pretty sure it’s a step in the right direction.

Frontier League All-Star Game

July 17, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

While everyone else sat at home and watched the MLB All-Star game one night and then no baseball at all the next night, I joined some friends to watch the Frontier League Home Run Derby and All-Star Game.

The Home Run Derby was fun. For the first round, Haley and I sat behind the plate and watched guys hit dingers mostly to right as the wind was really blowing out. For the final round, we moved to the berm where Haley’s husband Matt and son Walker were trying to catch some of the homers. Walker managed to get one. We were very proud of him.

I’m not going to lie, it was scary out on the berm. First of all, these balls were crushed. There’s a dent in the side of the clubhouse to prove it. And I was having a hell of a time seeing the ball. Until twilight, as soon as it came off the bat, I lost it. Then there was the herds of people tracking the balls. I’ve never been in a stampede, but I bet it feels a lot like that.

Russel Moldenhauer of the Lake Erie Crushers won. And with good reason. He murdered many baseballs that night.

The next night we took in the East vs. West division All-Star Game. We were rooting hard for the West (the CornBelters division) and it wasn’t looking for them early as the East very quickly put up five runs. Apparently, they didn’t use up all of their home runs at the derby.

Alvaro Ramirez All Star Game — CornBelter Alvaro Ramirez at bat for the West.

The West rallied a few times, but couldn’t outscore their pitching. They ended up going down 9-6. I’m proud to say that one of those West runs was knocked in by a Belter (Pat Trettel).

Despite the loss, the game was a good one and we had a lot of fun. Reggie the Purple Party Dude, Corny, and the Fun Crew kept the fans entertained. Haley and I and our mad dancing skills made the jumbotron a few times.

It was a great two nights in the Corn Crib. Happy for our players that made the team: Pat Trettel, Pat McKenna, Alvaro Ramirez, and Rich Mascheri. Normal did a great job as All-Star hosts. Made me proud to be a Belters fan.

Get My Good Side

July 16, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m writing this post because I’m in the mood for a new Twitter avatar. I like to change it every couple of months. It alleviates boredom.

You would think this would be an easy task, however, I am one vain little fat girl. I want to look as pretty as I can in my pictures which isn’t always easy.

First of all, I’m limited with what DNA gave me. Filters and cropping only do so much. I’ve got what I got. And while I am fat and acknowledge that I’m fat, I do my best to make that fat look good.

Second of all, with this DNA configuration, I’m not exactly photogenic. You know those people that you can photograph while they’re wearing sweats, no make-up, haven’t brushed their hair in six days, and they’re hungover, but they still look really good? I am not one of those people. I’m also not one of those people that can’t take a good picture to save their life. You know those people. The ones that everyone says they look much better in person no matter when, how, and where the picture was taken or how much work the person put into their appearance prior to the picture being taken.

I’m somewhere in the middle. Some days I’m quite photogenic and with little effort I can take a pretty picture. Other days, it doesn’t matter how many pictures I take. From every angle, I’ve got only badness going on.

Then there’s the kind of picture I want to take. Am I in the mood for playful or serious or sexy? Do I want a solo shot, or do I want to pull a group shot from Facebook and use it? Much of the time, the picture I want to use is the picture I don’t have. Then when I try to take the picture I’d like to use, it doesn’t work out.

Sometimes I settle. Sometimes I wait until the timing is better. Sometimes I’m impatient which leads to frustration. All over a tiny little picture that most people don’t really pay attention to.

But I can justify a little bit. My Twitter is my main forum. Yes, I have a blog and a Facebook page, but Twitter is where I’m most active. I have over 700 followers now (what?). If I was going to brand myself, KikiWrites would be it. As such, the face on that profile is kind of important to me. It’s representing me. So I kind of have a right to be picky about the picture I put out there.

On the other hand, if I could let go of a little of my vanity, this would be a whole lot easier and I wouldn’t get so unnecessarily frustrated.

It’s not easy trying to be presentable.

Heat Wave

July 13, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

Last week temperatures in the Cornfield climbed to the 100-105 range. My house has two A/C window units, one in the living room and one in the dining room. In order to cool more of the house, my room is shut off. No A/C for me.

Usually this is fine. Ice water, periodic trips to stand in front of the A/C units, and cold showers at night made spending most of my time in my room bearable.

However, not everything in my room appreciated the heat. Apparently, there was a defect in one of my candles and this defect mixed with the heat and well…

I think a lot of us felt like that by the end of the week.

Writing–The Week I Didn’t Write

July 11, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Between a heat wave that pretty much obliterated most of my productivity and a small “what am I doing with my life?” crisis, I didn’t write for a week.

That’s right. I didn’t write.

Initially, I’d just decided to take a 3-day weekend from writing, something I hadn’t done in a while. Like I said, I was having a bit of a crisis and I needed to take a break and reset. However, with the heat (I don’t have A/C in my room where I spend most of my time and do most of my work) those three days stretched out to a week.

Part of my crisis was the doubt that I should be wasting all of my time writing. I’ve been getting frustrated with it, the lack of progress, the lack of motivation, the fact that it felt like work. I decided to take a few days off and see how I felt about writing. If I thought I could leave it, then I would. I didn’t know what I would do, but I’d find something.

As it turns out, not writing was actually a good thing. Oh, I still want to make my living as a writer and I’m still going to write. But not writing helped me gain some perspective on my situation.

First of all, just because I wasn’t writing didn’t mean I wasn’t still thinking like a writer. What I mean is even though I was on break, I was still getting ideas. Ideas for new stories, ideas for revisions, ideas for rewrites. I did a lot of jotting down while I wasn’t writing. It was nice having the ideas just come to me like that instead of trying to force them or beg them to come out of hiding.

And I still did other writing. I kept up with my blog posts and I wrote in my journal. I also scribbled on a couple of other goof projects, stuff that will never see the light of day. I could do it because I had the time to do it and I didn’t feel guilty about devoting twenty minutes to writing down a bit that came to mind.

I will admit that I was very bored without my writing. Yes, sometimes (lately most of the time) it feels like a pain and a chore, but without it, I was often left staring at my computer screen wondering what I should do. Sure I read more and of course I watched baseball, but that didn’t really fill the time like writing does.

In the end, not writing for a week helped me more than if I’d pushed through it and made myself write. I needed that time to reset, recharge, and re-evaluate what I was doing and how I was doing it.

I’m back to the grind again, working on a few different projects. It still feels like work sometimes. But it feels like the right kind of work now.

No Good Deed

July 9, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Shortly after my parents divorced, when I was living in housing with my dad, I decided to make a cake. It was a box mix cake because baking isn’t my strength and when I was 16 cooking in general was not something I had a handle on. I thought it would be nice to surprise my dad with this cake.

So I my cake-baking on, putting the mix in a bowl and getting the eggs out of the fridge. As I’m putting the eggs back into the fridge, I drop the carton. I can’t remember exactly how it happened; I just remember that every egg in the dozen sans the two I pulled out for the cake mix broke all over the floor.

They say not to cry over spilled milk, but I tell you what, I bawled over those broken eggs.

And that incident stands out in mind as the perfect illustration of me trying to do something nice for people. I pay for it in some way. It doesn’t stop me from doing it, but I admit, the price has sometimes been high.

I realize this can come off as whiny and bitter and I admit to being a little whiny and bitter about it, but I’m also fascinated by it. “No good deed goes unpunished” isn’t just a saying for me anymore. It’s a rule to seriously consider before I do something nice for someone.

If you believe in Karma (and I kind of do), then ideally, if you do good, you get good in return. I do good and I, well, I don’t get it back. In terms of Karma, it makes me wonder what bad I’m still burning off that I can’t catch a break.

I should clarify that I don’t do good things for people with the idea of getting good things in return. First of all, it doesn’t happen. Second of all, I do good things because I think they should be done and I want to do them. It’s not an entirely altruistic feeling. Sometimes it feels like a duty or an obligation and maybe that’s where I’m screwing myself. It’s a have-to, not always a want-to. Good things don’t come from obligations. That’s why they’re obligations.

But then you have to figure that it’s because I feel like I have to do nice things for people that I keep doing nice things for people. Let’s face it. You would think that at some point I’d learn my lesson and just stop doing anything nice for anybody to avoid the cosmic retribution that comes with it. But I don’t. I keep doing nice things knowing that a kick in the groin is most likely coming. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes I get nothing and I’m happy with that.

Nothing beats a groin kick any day.

I guess what I’m trying to say with all of this blathering is that I like to do nice things for people even if I get some not-so-nice things in return from the universe and it just boggles my mind how literally my life takes the “no good deed” saying to heart.

It’s just one of those things.