Month: June 2014

Writing–And, Lo, Here Is the Fix You’re Looking For

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paperI’m not going to lie to you. The revisions/rewrites on The Timeless Man have been a slog, a real downer. I like the story, but I don’t. I like the character of Arthur Meadows, I like what Ivy is doing for him, I like the Blackout Wednesday parallel I worked, but the story is damn boring. I realize that I don’t need a mythological creature trying to kill people to make a story interesting, but dammit, something needs to be happening. And I have struggled all month long with that.

Until, like a beam of light straight from the Heavens coming down, washing me over with its brilliance, I think I found a way to make this story interesting.

Of course, it couldn’t come at a better time (she said sarcastically). After all, I’ve only slogged through this first round of revisions/rewrites and I’m almost to the finish line and I was so looking forward to putting this masterpiece away for a little while before I tried tackling it again. And for me to put in this fix, I’ll have to go back to the middle of the story and write in the new stuff, the new scenes and characters, which means I’ll probably end up changing part of the last third of what I wrote and probably the ending as well. So, here, when I thought I was almost finished (at least for now)…I’m not.

I am excited about the idea and I think the changes will improve the story greatly. I think it might actually save the whole mess from being a snooze-fest. This is a great, great thing.

However, I’m not thrilled with the amount of backtracking this change will require.

This is what I’m talking about when I keep thinking the more I write, the more fluid and less time-consuming the process will end up being. I keep thinking the more I do this in general, the less I will end up doing THIS, i.e. rewrites because I should have thought of this in the damn first place.

Oh, well.

All part of the gig.

Picture: Fat Girl in a Two-Piece

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Fat girl bikiniWhen I posted about my fat girl two-piece swimwear a couple of weeks ago, I was pretty torn on the idea of actually posting a picture of me wearing it on the interwebs. After all, this is the shit memes are made of. “A fat girl in a bikini? Let me caption this! LOL!”

Also, I am by no means popular, but this sort of thing is a magnet for assholes. “Here! Allow me to comment negatively on your body for no other reason than I like to make other people feel shitty as a means of a controlling them!” For real, that’s what you’re doing. Even if you do it nicely under the guise of being “real” or “truthful” or “helpful”, in the end you’re just propagating stereotypes and garbage knowledge because to allow this sort of thing to exist without comment would go against society’s grain and that would make you feel oogy.

But I said, “fuck it”, and posted it on Twitter and Facebook. And now here.

Isn’t it funny how a picture can bring out this sort of thing? Not just the insensitivity and the bashing, but the discussion of the social implications of me, a fat girl, a woman in general, posting a picture of myself in a swimsuit.

When I first decided to change my Facebook and Twitter profile pictures and use this image, I thought I should crop it to reduce the amount of skin showing. I didn’t want to make certain relatives and friends uncomfortable on Facebook and I didn’t want to appear as unprofessional on Twitter since I do hock my cheesy wares over there from time to time.

Isn’t that funny?

I worried about making people who are supposed to love me for who and what I am uncomfortable by putting up a picture of who and what I am.  Now that’s just stupid. First of all, that picture shouldn’t change their feelings. Second of all, I already make many of them uncomfortable because of who and what I am without displaying any fat rolls. The picture is of no consequence.

I worried about appearing unprofessional on Twitter because I have this thing about being respected and laws knows that a woman can’t be respected if she is at all comfortable with her body and displays it in any way she sees fit. By the power vested in my boobs, I’m already starting way down the respect ladder. And if I show them off in any way, knock me down a few rungs more. Ain’t that some bullshit?

It’s summer. My Twitter bio says I’m the Lincoln Land Cleavage Queen three years running (thanks for that, Carl). Why can’t I be professional AND have a profile picture displaying both of these facts? I think I can and I did. The picture won’t change what I tweet and won’t change the fact that I have always and will always demand the respect I think I’m entitled (I’ve got a real hang-up with it, kids, enough to warrant its own post).

Now, let’s take a look at the picture itself. Pretty nice, huh? Love the hat. The pose and the angle doesn’t really show off the full effect of my 240 pounds. The way I’m angled so you can’t see how wide my hips and shoulders are, the way the swimsuit sits so the fat rolls are subdued, the fact that my arms and legs are mostly out of the picture, it all sort of lies. I mean I do carry my weight somewhat well, but this angle makes me look better. This actually wasn’t my intention. My roommate Carrie said I looked like I belonged on the Riviera, so I posed as such.

From this angle, you also can’t see my bad skin, as it’s mostly on my right side and my back. The height of the bikini bottoms hides the stretchmarks on my upper belly. The bikini top hides the worst of my boob stretchmarks, but if you look sharp there, on the left side just above where that strap comes around my ribs, you can see one of my surgery scars. Snazzy, huh?

When I look at this picture, you know what I focus on? How great my rack looks in the bikini top. Seriously. The girls look fabulous.

You know what bothers me the most when I look at this picture? I’m not wearing lipstick. I wish I was sporting my berry color just to brighten up my face and give myself a little more glamour. Also, I wish I’d picked a different color nail polish. My pink or coral or blue would have been better.

Yeah, I’m  pretty vain like that.

Writing–My Writing Process

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paperThis post is part of the My Writing Process Blog Hop, which is  pretty nifty. I’ve never participated in a blog hop before, so I hope you’ll be gentle.

Anyway, I was drawn into this by my lovely, long-time internet friend Helene Kwong, a writer of novels, short stories, blogs, and reviews. Helene and I achieved internet buddy status through LiveJournal, Twitter, and NaNoWriMo. She’s delightful and I could hardly say no when she asked me to do this.

So the premise of this blog hop is to answer four simple questions and then tag three more victims writers to do the same. Groovy. Let’s go.

1.  What are you working on?

At this precise moment, I’m currently rewriting/revising my novella The Timeless Man, the second novella featuring my fat-girl private investigator Ivy Russell. I’m also prepping one of my old NaNo first drafts, (Vampires) Made in America, for revisions. It features another one of my frequent characters, happy-go-lucky vampire Stanley Ivanov.

2. How does your work differ from others of its genre?

I imagine it differs because I’m lousy at genres. My short stories are usually very easily defined as horror, but the longer the story goes, the harder it is for me to slap a nice, neat label on it. I suppose the one thing that sets me apart no matter where I’m at is that my female characters don’t necessarily end up with a male character, even if the story line would strongly indicate such a thing happening. If my female main character enters a story single (Kim Ales in Night of the Nothing Man, Ivy Russell in Cheaters and Chupacabras, Edda Blue in A Tale of Two Lady Killers), then she’s probably ending the story the same way.

3. Why do you write what you do?

When it comes to fiction (I’m still experimenting with non-fiction so I can’t really answer about that), it’s what comes to my head. It really feels like this is just what I was programmed to write. I seem to do better when there’s some kind of horror/paranormal/supernatural element to my stories. I’ve tried to write straight stuff and it doesn’t feel like it’s as good to me. I was not meant to write literary fiction, my friends. I just don’t have those chops. But if you want something quick and entertaining and don’t mind getting creeped out, I can help you.

4. How does your writing process work?

Slowly and sometimes with many hang-ups. I keep hoping that the more I do this, the more fluid and faster I’ll get, but so far, that hasn’t happened. I tend to do a lot of the first drafts for my longer works (novellas, novels) during NaNoWriMo because I’ve become incredibly disciplined in the context of that contest. For me, the worst part of writing is the first draft, so the quicker I get it all down on paper, so to speak, the quicker I can get to revising, rewriting, and editing.

There’s almost always at least two revising passes on any given manuscript and then a polish. Some stories I find don’t need a lot of work and some need tons. I probably revised A Tale of Two Lady Killers ten times over five years before I decided it was done. As a self-publisher, I’m a stickler for good editing, particularly the technical stuff, but when it comes to the story, I just know that I got it right and it’s done and I can stop revising. Then comes the polish, which is just correcting errors and spiffing up the word choice.

So which writers do you need to check out next week because they’re answering the same questions?

Johi Jenkins, who’s published Resurgence, The Thirst Within, and Margarette (Violet) (Volume 1) (with K LeMaire). She’s a Chicagoan and if you ask her, she’ll tell you that she writes young adult paranormal romances because she’s clearly immature. Ha!

Shana Hammaker,  author of creepy stories like Charlie (I love this one, so it gets shout out) as well as unflinching memoirs The Cookie Dumpster and Hieroglyphs. She writes shit, reads shit, drinks shit, and talks shit, and she does it all like a pro.

Lisa Fernandes is a long-time friend of mine. I think we’ve known each other around fifteen years or so (let’s not say longer, otherwise we’ll start looking our age). She and I have both struggled through this writing life together, walking different paths, but still in the same forest. In addition to fiction, she also does some really fabulous reviews.

Rerun Junkie–Guest Stars: Virginia Gregg

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

Guest stars are the underrated necessity to any TV show. Someone has to be a victim, be a villain, be a good guy, be a witness, be a friend, be a bystander, be a customer. In short, the main cast needs someone else to interact with on occasion just to keep things interesting.

I have a list of my favorite guest stars that I think are worthy of posts of their own. These are my people.

Virginia Gregg
http://www.virginiagregg.com

On any given day of the week, it’s entirely possible that I’ll see Virginia Gregg on one of my reruns. Sometimes it seems like she was on every show ever made for about thirty years. Sometimes it seems like I see her every day of the week.

Of course, this isn’t a bad thing.

It’s also not too far off from impossible.

When I played my Me-TV guest star game last fall, the only person that had more guest appearances on the shows of the fall line-up was Vitto Scotti. When I said Virginia Gregg was in everything, I’m not really exaggerating the truth by much.

Of the current Me-TV summer line-up, she’s in 72 episodes of 22 of the shows.

So, yeah, it’s not far-fetched to possibly see her every day in a given week on this one channel.

She was a favorite of Jack Webb’s so she was in Dragnet (both TV incarnations, two movies, AND the radio version), Emergency!, and Adam-12 (13, 8, and 6 episodes, respectively). With Westerns as popular as they were back in the day she did Gunsmoke (didn’t everyone?), Bonanza, Big Valley, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Wagon Train, The Rebel, Daniel Boone, and Rawhide. Detective shows? Try Streets of San Francisco, Mod Squad, Cannon, and The Rockford Files. She was on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Thriller, and The Twilight Zone. Perry Mason and The Fugitive. And lest you think she could only do drama, she was on episodes of Happy Days and Make Room for Daddy.

And those are just shows on ONE station.

You can witness her fabulousness on Mission: Impossible, Ironside, My Three Sons, Charlie’s Angels, Marcus Welby MD, Bold Ones: The Lawyers, Bold Ones: The New Doctors, The Virginian, Maverick, Alias Smith and Jones, and so many more (I just listed shows I watch).

www.virginiagregg.com
http://www.virginiagregg.com

Being on so many shows, she’s played a variety of characters. The easiest way to get a sample of her range is to watch her episodes of Dragnet ’67. She played a cynical journalist, a gypsy grifter, the wife of a wounded veteran police officer, a no-nonsense secretary, the head of a pyramid scheme, a robbed candy store employee, a widow attempting insurance fraud, a gambler’s wife, a business owner not impressed with crime prevention, and a woman trying to get two police officers in trouble, just to name more than a few.

My personal favorite of her appearances, though, was on an episode of Adam-12 in which she bashed her own car because she was mad at her husband for drinking all the time. She wailed on that thing. It was impressive. And fun.

And so is Miss Virginia Gregg.

Be sure to catch her. She’s on any given day of the week.

Fat Girl in a Two-Piece

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Two-pieceIt was a half-price sale that got my attention. I like the sound of things being half-price. It sounds like me spending money on things I wouldn’t ordinarily buy.

This half-price sale?

Swimwear.

I haven’t owned a bathing suit since high school. I think the last time I wore one was my freshman year during a band trip to Virginia Beach. At least that’s the last time I remember wearing one. After that, my swimwear was usually an old t-shirt and an old pair of shorts. This was mostly because I didn’t really go swimming enough to justify buying a new swimsuit. It was also because after my freshman year, my chest grew to such a size that finding a bathing suit that fit was incredibly difficult and even if I did find one, I wouldn’t want to be seen in it.

So here were are about twenty years later and I’m faced with a half-price sale on swimwear and I think to myself, “Man, I should really buy a swimsuit. I haven’t had one in years and Mom has a pool and this is just fate, really. I shouldn’t fight it.”

I looked through the offerings of fat girl one-pieces and wasn’t exactly thrilled with them. “Control panel” is a phrase I regard with some suspicion because I interpret it as “SQUISH!” and that doesn’t thrill me. All of the one-piece suits had this feature and it bummed me out because I didn’t want to smoosh my fat and internal organs just to possibly not offend some delicate snowflake that might faint at the glimpse of my pudge.

I thought I was out of luck, and then I thought, “Why can’t I just get a two-piece?”

Indeed, why couldn’t I? Sure, I’d been told by society at large, not to mention people I converse with directly under the guise of being friends and family, that fat girls weren’t allowed to wear two-piece bathing suits, that actually fat girls shouldn’t wear swimsuits at all, but if you insist, cover as much fat and skin as you can. But wouldn’t a two-piece be the answer to my “control panel” problems?

It would.

It would also be cheaper.

See, buying separates meant that I could buy the bottoms from the fat lady department and the tops from the non-fat lady department (thank you, breast reduction) and it’d be cheaper than two fat lady separates or a fat lady one-piece. Plus, more variety.

In looking through my choices of tankinis, another thought occurred to me.

“Why can’t I get a proper  two-piece and just let my fat hang out?”

Again, the only thing I could come up with was society not wanting to see my rolls. But they wouldn’t. I’d be in my mom’s backyard. Only, she, my nieces, my roommate, and maybe my stepdad would see my rolls. And they’ve already seen them. Besides, the cottage cheese would already be on display in the dairy section that is my thighs, so who cares about some rolls in the bakery? Really, what’s the big whooop?

In the end, I got what you see in the picture. A pair of bottoms, a tankini, and a halter style top. I was pretty excited about getting them, more excited that they fit, and positively thrilled at the fact that I think I look pretty damn spiffy in both top styles. Yes, even the one with my fat belly exposed.

Twenty years ago, when I was actually much thinner, I NEVER would have worn a bikini. I wouldn’t have done it seven years ago after I’d lost forty pounds. But today, at age 34 and weighing around 240 pounds, I now own the first two-piece swimsuit I’ve had since I was probably a toddler and I’ll rock it like a badass.

My fat rolls thank me for the freedom.

Writing–June Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

roseAfter a month of doing a lot of revisions and polishing…I’m going to be doing more of that.

I’ve decided to go ahead and tackle The Timeless Man. I still haven’t worked out all of the kinks I think need to be worked out, but I’ve got several of them figured out and I might as well get them down on paper (or laptop computer files, as the case may be). It’s quite possible that the act of making those changes will lead to me figuring out the solutions to my other problems (or deciding that they’re not problems at all; that’s always possible).

I’m also going to prep (Vampire) Made in America for revising. This mostly involves re-reading the manuscript, putting everything together in one file, and making notes on what needs to be changed. I hated this manuscript when I finished it for a NaNo win a few years ago but after finishing The World (Saving) Series, it occurred to me what I could do to fix (Vampires). So I’m going into this reading with an idea of what needs to be done, which should make the read easier.

This should be enough to keep me good and busy for the month, but I’m aware of a growing itch to write something new. It’s been a while.

Also, it’s time to publish my latest masterpiece. It should happen in the next couple of weeks. Which will it be? Novel or novella?

I guess you’ll have to stay tuned.