Author: Kiki Writes

Rumored to be a writer. Never hip. Land of Lincoln Cleavage Queen three years running.

A Love Affair with the Loveable Losers

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

I can remember being about nine or ten, sitting in the living room with my mom, summer sunshine pouring through the windows, fans going to beat the heat, and my mom just ranting at the TV because the Cubs put Paul Assenmacher in to pitch.

My mother absolutely despised Paul Assenmacher. You would have thought the man once kicked her grandmother the way she spewed venom.

“Oh, great! I guess we don’t want to win today! Damn, Assenmacher!”

Obviously, this is a clean version of my mother’s ranting.

 I grew up thinking that he was a terrible pitcher, but looking back on his stats now, he really wasn’t. I have no idea why she hated him. My guess is that he blew a game and my mom marked him for life.

I preferred to watch the games on TV. Mom listened to a lot of them on the radio because in the afternoon she’d be laying out in the backyard. I once asked Mom where Harry Caray went during the middle of the game. He’d leave for a couple of innings, but always be back by the 7th to sing the stretch. Mom said he was at the bar drinking beer. It turns out that he was working the radio. I wouldn’t have figured that out if Mom hadn’t listened to the games.

I can remember one of the few times I listened to a game as a kid, I took my little portable radio to the park so I could play and listen to the game at the same time. My radio died and I ran home like my pants were on fire so I wouldn’t miss any of the game.

My favorite players growing up were Andre Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, and Shawon Dunston. When I played ball, those were the players I tried to be. I started off in the outfield and I was Andre Dawson. I was even number 8. I worked really hard to have as good of an arm as he had. When I played the left side of the infield, I was Shawon Dunston. He wore my favorite number and I did my best to do him proud.

My last year I played summer ball, I played second base. You know I was rocking like I was Ryne Sandberg. I was never number 23, but worked my butt off to play like him.

I never had a favorite pitcher despite being a pitcher, too. Maybe if I had, I would have liked it better.

My first Cubs game came in August of 1994. My aunt and uncle took me, my sister, and several of my cousins. It was a pretty big deal. It was Ryne Sandberg Day, but he wasn’t there. Shawon Dunston didn’t play either. But I did get to sit on the first baseline, right in line with Mark Grace and watch him play. Sammy Sosa before he was Sammy Sosa and Glenallen Hill were in the outfield. We lost to the Marlins 9-8. It was an exciting game, but the loss was disappointing.

People still go on about the Fish killing our dreams in 2003. I still hadn’t gotten over this upstart team beating my Cubs nine years earlier. I’m just now starting to not resent the Marlins.

Between graduating high school, Kid K, and the home run race, I’ll never forget the ’98 season.

I couldn’t watch the 2003, 2007, and 2008 playoffs too closely because it was just too stressful. My heart broke each time, but my blood pressure returning to normal sort of helped the healing.

The second game I was supposed to go to was rained out. I finally made it back last September and watched my Cubs lose to the Giants 1-0. But I got to watch the game from the famous bleachers, yell at some disrespectful children during the National Anthem, and watch batting practice. Watching the pitchers shag balls in the outfield, particularly Andrew Cashner working with the bat boy, put me in a good mood that the rain delay and loss couldn’t dampen.

I’m going to do my best to make it back to Chicago this year. I don’t want to wait another fifteen years for my next game at Wrigley.

When people ask me why I’m a Cubs fan, there’s this implication that what they really want to know is why I’d torture myself rooting for a perpetually losing team.

For me, it’s not really torture.

And I don’t think they’d get it anyway.

Writing–The Reading Requirement

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

Stephen King says that to be a good writer you must read a lot and write a lot.

I believe that.  His book On Writing is like a bible for me. I respect the man. I enjoy his work and his advice (and his sense of humor; I have endured many a dirty look from a cat startled awake by my cackling). Uncle Stevie has yet to steer me wrong. He’s an influence on me as a writer.

Which is why it pains me to say that I’m letting him down.

I will be the first person to admit that I have terrible reading habits. I like to read. I do. I enjoy it. My parents started me young. I learned to read at three and trips to the library were the highlight of the week during the summer (we read in the winter, too, but we got to walk to the library in the summer, therefore bigger deal). But no matter how much I read, I never got a good rhythm established.

I read in bursts. I can read two, three, four books a month for three months and then read nothing by writing magazines for three months. Then I might spend two months reading a book that would normally take me a week. Then I’ll got a month without reading anything deeper than baseball news.

It’s terrible.

I’m horrible with time management and even worse about setting aside time to read.  It’s far too low on my priority list. Growing up, reading was a downtime thing. You did it when you got everything else done. You did it to relax. It’s a mindset I can’t get out of now.

Reading is part of my job as a writer, but I have trouble getting that through my thick skull. I can’t rationalize reading when I have this, that, and the other to get done. So, I put off and the reading gets done in inefficient fashion.

It’s long past time to establish a better habit and to move reading up on the priority list. I’ll do it like I do most things, gradually so I make sure it sticks. The thinking behind this is by doing it slowly and giving myself time to adjust, it also gives myself time to change the way I think about reading.

That’s the key.

Transforming reading from a pastime to a job requirement.

Stories By The Number

Submitted: 2 (“Such a Pretty Face” and “Another Deadly Weapon”)
Ready: 4 (“Husband and Wife”, “Elevator”, “Bigger Than a Squirrel”, and “Erin Go Bragh”)
Accepted: 1! You can now read “Summer Rot” on Suburban Fool!

Kiss Me, I’m Not Irish

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I’m not Irish. At least I’m pretty sure I’m not Irish.

I say this because St. Patrick’s Day is approaching and never will you meet so many people claiming Irish decent. I don’t know if it’s the green beer or the desire to be kissed, but suddenly everyone’s got a leprachaun hanging from their family tree.

So, yeah, I’m not Irish. At least I haven’t found any evidence to suggest that there’s any Irish in my family. I fully acknowledge that there are branches of my tree that haven’t been fully explored (and some that haven’t been well pruned or watered, but that’s another post for another day). Maybe I do have a few shamrocks in there. But until I see some evidence, I won’t presume anything for the sake of wearing green bowlers and Chicago dying their river a brighter shade of green.

From what I’m told by members of my family that had the tenacity to actually research branches of my family, I’m mostly Scottish and German. That’s on both sides, too. To simplify things I just say that I’m half-Scottish, half-German, though I know that there’s at least one Frenchman in there on my Dad’s side, and I’m not sure about part of my mother’s family.

My Dad’s family (those bearing the Haws name) crossed the ocean a long time ago. A long, long time ago. We’re talking the late 1600’s. As soon as Scotland heard that there was a new country open they put my family on the boat.

At least that’s one of the stories that’s told. The other popular story is that as sheep thieves, we had to leave to escape punishment (a similar story is told about why my family moved from Kentucky to Illinois: they don’t hang horse thieves in Illinois). No one really knows why my family immigrated since it happened so long ago. That story was lost to the erosion of time. 

I know that the family first came to Virginia before moving to Kentucky and finally Illinois. Living in the south during the time of slavery might lead some to fear that there are slave owners in their past. Not my family. I don’t think we’ve ever had a pot to piss in; I doubt they ever owned enough of anything to warrent owning a slave. I’m not entirely sure my family didn’t come over as indentured servants themselves.

On the other side, my mother’s side of the family (at least her dad’s side) hasn’t been in this country that long in comparison. Somehow a man from Scotland and a woman from Germany immigrated from their respective countries, met up in Ohio, got hitched, started a family, and eventually ended up in Illinois. Five generations later, here I am. It’s kind of wild to think that I’m not that far removed from the mother countries.

I’m not sure why that side of the family came to this country either. I’m guessing it was in search of a better life. That was the trend back in those days. I’m guessing they found one, though why anyone thought Central Illinois would be a good idea, I don’t know. It must have been a more happening place back then.

Scottish and German. That’s me. It’s not as sexy as being Irish, but I’m still proud of it.

It’s also a great excuse for my questionable taste in fashion. I mean, come on. Lederhosen and kilts.

I never had a chance.

Writing–Writing With a Day Job 2: The Revenge

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

My initial enthusiasm for the challenge of writing with a day job, essentially working two jobs, lasted all of a few days.  Everything went downhill pretty quickly after that.

In short, February was a disaster.

I didn’t edit one chapter of The World Saving Series. I had a list of short stories that needed work.  After struggling with rewrites on “The Guinea Pig” for a week in order to meet a deadline, I gave up when I finally realized that story just wasn’t going to do what I needed it to do. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t spent the week before that struggling with rewrites on another story that I ended up not rewriting.  Three short stories that I needed to review/revise got pushed into March, therefore really pushing the deadlines on those pieces.

February led me to question whether or not I really was committed to being a writer. With some of the urgency gone now that I have stable income, I was left to wonder if I was just writing for the money and now that I’m getting the money, would I eventually stop writing.

Maybe it’s just me wanting to believe the best in myself (which is pretty unlikely), but I don’t think that’s the case.

After all, I started this crusade in earnest when I was still working at my last job. I wrote for about six months while working part-time in retail with little trouble. The difference was the situation. Then I was working part-time and had only a few short stories that I was writing and revising. Now I’m working full time and I have probably a dozen short stories in the mix and at least three novels in various stages (that haven’t been lost to the two computer crashes that happened a year apart). The motive and goal is still the same: to establish a successful writing career. The situation is the only thing that’s changed.

I think it’s going to take some trial and error to find out what the right work load is now that I’m working full time. I’m also going to have to work smarter. I can’t spend so much time battling one story with no payoff. And I’m going to have to accept that I’m going to be tired sometimes after a long day in the cube and just get my writing done anyway. A little progress is better than no progress and I need all the progress I can get.

But the key is going to be the workload. I can’t keep scheduling my months like I’m not spending forty hours a week doing something else.

I need to meet myself half-way.

Stories By The Numbers

Submitted: 3 (just sent out “Another Deadly Weapon”; “Summer Rot” and “Such a Pretty Face” are still out)
Ready: 4 (“Husband and Wife”, “Elevator”, “Bigger Than a Squirrel”, and now “Erin Go Bragh”)
Rejected: 1 (“Spillway”)

Voice of an Angel; Motives of a Big Girl

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This past week the Chicago Cubs have been accepting applications for PA announcer. It was an open audition of sorts, as they invited fans to submit vidoes of themeselves reciting three scripts in an attempt to maybe, possibly, perhaps win a Cubs fan’s dream job.

I’m one of the many that applied.

If you’re anything like my roommate, then you’re first thought is probably, “But you already have a job!”

To you I say, you’ve got keen powers of observation. I do have a job. And I don’t see what that has to do with anything.

The reason why I’m doing this doesn’t have anything to do with getting a new job, though I wouldn’t turn it down if they offered it to me. It’s the idea behind the absolutely remote chance that I’d even make it on the finalist list, let alone get the gig, that made me do it.

Think about it.

If by some miracle of miracles I got the job, my life would be turned upside down. There’d be a mad scramble for me to quit my old job, find a place to live in Chicago, find a car that could actually make it to Chicago, move, get settled, get to know my new surroundings, and get set in my new gig. It would be crazy. It’s a big move. It’s a bold move.

It might be just be the move I need to make.

Most people do this sort of thing when they’re young, usually college. They move out and find out what it’s like to be on their own. They establish their own security and their own place in the world.

For too long I’ve relied on the security of someone else and for the past couple of years, it hasn’t been so secure. I’m long overdue to leave the nest and I know it. It worked out well enough when I was younger. I got to do things that I wouldn’t have been able to do had I had all of the typical grown-up bills to pay.

Now it’s time to take that last grown-up step. It’s a hard one considering I never wanted to grow up in the first place and paying for things like rent offends my penny-pinching sensibilities. Not to mention it’s a scarier prospect because now I’m actually old enough to know better. When you’re 18 or 20, you don’t think about failing. When you’re 30 bonus year like me, it’s called risk assessment. Failure is a real thing. At my age, you can’t go home again.

I’m using this as a tentative baby step to get used to the idea of turning my world upside down and shaking things up. This is the springboard to get me used to the idea, to make it exciting and challenging and thrilling like it should be, instead of overwhelming and scary and foreboding like I want to make it (and kind of have been making it for the past couple of years).

I’m better with change if I can ease myself into it. Now the scenario I described about getting the PA job wouldn’t be easing into it. But thinking about what I’d have to do to make that work is. It’s giving my brain the heads up. It’s telling myself that it’s time to switch gears. It’s time to get out of this complacent rut I’ve been in for far too long and start working towards something new. By the time I’m in the position financially to make that happen comfortably, I’ll be in the position mentally and emotionally to make it happen comfortably, too.

I’m all about my own comfort. That’s part of the reason why I’m still here and not…out there.

I know it makes me sound like a bit of wimp wanting to take this time to get used to the idea of doing something I should have done a long time ago, but I do believe we discussed that I’m cursed as a late bloomer. I also wasn’t exactly well prepared to make that transition to adulthood. So, yeah, I’m doing it on my own terms and at my own pace.

And if in the process of doing things my way I happen to score a gig with the Cubs and do end up turning my life upside down a lot sooner and faster than I planned, well, that’s okay, too.

Maybe I never wanted to grow up, but I did learn how to catch what life throws at me.

Music: Sunny Girlfriend by The Monkees

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I am a huge fan of The Monkees, show and music. It’s been announced that three of the four (as usual) will be going out on tour once again for the 45th anniversary.

To celebrate, how about a song that isn’t “Last Train to Clarksville”, “I’m a Believer”, “Daydream Believer”, or “Pleasant Valley Sunday” (not that they aren’t great; just looking for something a little less played).

Writing–March Projects

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February was a disaster in terms of productivity, but I’ll get to that let down next week. Instead, let’s look at what I can be expected to do (and hopefully, actually get done) this month.

I really need to get back to revising The World (Saving) Series. It needs to go back to being top priority. Bottom line, I’m spending my Ides with Stanley.

I need to review/revise a few stories, two of which are a hold over from last month. I need to review “Another Deadly Weapon” and “Erin Go Bragh”. I keep going back and forth on changing the ending of “Another Deadly Weapon”, but I think I’m going to leave it for one last submission. “Play Chicken” needs to be revised. I think I’ve left it alone long enough to gain some perspective on how to achieve the effect and pacing it needs.

I should also probably start work on another freebie story for the blog, but I’ve got some time so that’s pretty low on the priority list for the month.

Here’s to hoping this workload is more compatible with my day job than the last.

Stories By The Numbers

Submitted: 3(Sent out “Summer Rot”; “Spillway” and “Such a Pretty Face”are still out)
Ready: 3
Rejections: 1 (“Soul Sister”)

Bad Words: Damaged, Weird

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Damaged…Weird…

Aren’t we all?

I think those two words are the softest of the bad words because they do apply to everybody and they’re not necessarily bad. Everyone is weird in their own way. Everyone is damaged in their own way and the damage is almost never their fault. Weird implies unique. Damaged implies a victim of circumstance.

I come by my weird honestly. I was born with it. I’ve been weird for as long as I can remember. Everyone told me I was weird. It escaped no one’s attention. But it was a harmless weird. I ate cat food. It was that kind of weird.

I’m still that kind of weird. I quit eating a cat food a long time ago, of course. I matured and so did my weird. I’ve acquired strange number fixations. Odd hobbies. Random obsessions. Bizarre superstitions. Some might regard my love of pickle wraps up there with eating cat food, but pickle wraps are a family thing, so they don’t count.

My weird is harmless and I admit that part of my weird is a kind of coping skill. It’s how I deal with life. The other part of my weird is just how I interpret life. My view is skewed and has been since the beginning. Not a bad thing, just a thing.

Of course, it’s a subjective thing. In this society, it’s ideal to be unique while being the same. Whatever weird a person possesses, it should be a socially acceptible form of weird. Then it’s a quirk. And sometimes that quirk can become a trend. And a trend can be profitted from.

But if your weird is just weird, harmless or not, expect the side-eye. Expect the comments, muttered or spoken or shouted across a crowded place. My weird has earned me my share of disdain. It’s just another way people can complain about not understanding me. It’s another way to single me out, isolate me, make me feel defective.

When I let them.

I’m comfortable with most of my weird. It’s their hang-up, not mine. Weird is one of the few bad words that I’m not rushing to change.

From weird we get a little more serious.

I’m damaged. Like I said before, we all can say that we are. I like to say that every parent ruins their children in their own way and I don’t say it just to be witty; I really do think it’s true. Parents don’t mean to mess up their kids (for the most part). But raising a human being is hard. You have to do more than just keep them alive; you’ve got to teach them the rules of life and mold them into a somewhat functioning person. It’s not easy, mistakes are made. Some temporary, some last. It’s the nature of the game and the game is a rough one.

My parents did their fair share of damage to me, but the damage that I’m thinking of when I think of damage as a bad word is the damage I’ve done to myself.

To make a long story short, I went crazy when I was 21. Nothing too serious, just some major depression. Had I been honest about how serious the depression really was, I imagine things might have gone a little differently. But since I kept that bit to myself, I got the tools to fix the depression (I’m more cognitive-behavioral than Freudian) from my therapist and called the game after three sessions. I didn’t want to sit and talk about my mother. I needed to change my routine, change my mind, and vent in a healthy way. That’s all I needed to know. I declared myself, well, not cured, but on my way.

I duct taped my sanity basically. I made some happy changes to my mind. I started journaling regularly to help keep my emotions from bottling up and strangling me. I started exercising regularly to get those endorphins flowing.  I renewed my creativity.

However, I know the damage has been done and despite my attempts not all of it has been fixed. I’ve managed to fill a few of the holes. For the most part, though, what I’ve done is just a temporary patch job and sometimes the tape comes loose. Sometimes you can see the cracks in the paint if you tilt your head in the right light. And believe me when I tell you that lots of people do.

The damage they more easily forgive, though. Once they realize it’s damage.

The damage isn’t so bad and the weird isn’t too weird.

Those two words aren’t too bad for bad words.

It all starts to go downhill from here.

Rerun Junkie– Hawaii 5-0

~ Kiki Writes ~ 4 Comments

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I decided to watch the old Hawaii 5-0 because nothing else was on and ended up liking it. It has the two things I like best in a show: 70’s and cops.

Is the theme song playing in your head yet?

But it’s more than just a 70’s cop show. It’s blue cheese on a cracker, straight up.

You had Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord), the serious business man in charge with hair that doesn’t move no matter how windy it is. Dan “Danno” Williams (James MacArthur), his right hand man that had a fondess for monochromatic duds. Chin Ho (Kam Fong) was the token Asian good guy (since most of them were bad guys) who wore the same ugly tie throughout most of his run on the series no matter what suit he wore. And then there was the *insert token Hawaiian here* in the form of first Kono (Zulu), then Ben (Al Harrington), and finally Duke (Herman Wedemeyer). Of these three Duke was my favorite as he was actually on the longest, first in uniform and then in plainclothes. I have been known to give a prolonged “DUUUUUUKE” squeal at my TV when I see him onscreen.

I had trouble warming up to Ben as he’d guest starred on the show a couple of times before as a bad guy. Never could quite trust him.

Women? They had a few, but none you saw too often. Female officers were still a rarity in that world. However, they did at least have one that reoccurred for a few episodes. Baby steps.

The bad guys are the best. There’s actually some that are somewhat sympathetic or make an attempt at being sympathetic. And there are some that are just so over the top that they strain credibility. Wo Fat, the longest running villian on the show, is on the over the top side. He’s more like a Bond villian. His mustache is quite fetching, though.

Another stand out villian was Gavin McLeod as a dope-pusher named Big Chicken. He was pretty disturbing with the homoerotic undertones going on with his character, particularly in the prison episode in which most of the action too place in the shower. Maybe it was because they started off that episode with Big Chicken hosing off. I don’t know. I just know that I can never look at Captain Stubing the same way again.

Honorable mentions go to Ricardo Montalban as a Japenese guy (the make-up was questionable and the accent was all Ricardo) and the murding hillbilly family on vacation.

With villians like that you’ve got to have some over the top storylines. I think McGarrett was shot or blown up at least once a season. A couple of his girlfriends were killed, but since you didn’t really see much of his personal life, the deaths kind of lacked any impact.

There were snipers with hooked hands, derranged Vietnam vets killing his buddies’ wives, a guy who thought a comic book was real and killed people to protect the main character, lots of terrorists (most of them Latino), big government plots, a couple of convicts that use witness protection as an excuse to get married, marijuana that turns into heroin at some point during the episode, and much, much more!

The list of guest stars is pretty impressive, especially since most of them are bad guys. Along with Ricardo Montalban (on twice!) and Gavin McLeod: Richard Hatch, Meg Foster, Patty Duke, Harold Gould, Bruce Boxlitner, Donald Pleasance, Cindy Williams, Loretta Swit, Burt Convey, Robert Reed, and those are just the ones I can remember off of the top of my head.

But truly, the best part of this show was the fashion. Ugly shirts were required. The bad guys wore them. The good guys wore them. The good guys wore them when they were undercover so they could blend in with the bad guys.

And then there was McGarrett’s off-duty wear:

Steve McGarrett: Slave to Fashion

And that’s one of his tamer outfits, too.

It was by these powers combined that my day job-lacking afternoons were filled joy and entertainment.

I can’t lie. When two o’clock rolls around now, as I sit in my cube, I think of Hawaii.

Book ’em, Danno.

Where I Watch It

Writing–Deadlines: Breaking Them

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I don’t like to break deadlines, but I will. In some cases, it’s extenuating circumstances. I’m sick or I have to take my roommate to the emergency room or I suddenly find myself in high demand because if people didn’t respect my writing career as my only job, they sure as hell don’t respect it as my second one.

And then sometimes, it’s just me.

It doesn’t happen much with the first drafts. With first drafts I can just throw crap on the page knowing that I can fix it during revisions.

It happens during revisions more than I’d like. Part of that is because I’d like it to never happen. The other part of that is because sometimes I just don’t like a story. It’s hard to motivate myself if there’s no love. I’m more likely to give up on it all together than try to push myself through it. I don’t intend to write stories that I hate, but sometimes it’s during the revision process that I realize that the original idea wasn’t so great and I’m not sure I want to even bother with it. The deadline comes and I’m not too heartbroken about missing it. It’s a good excuse to put the story away until one day, maybe, I can find my heart for it again.

Sometimes I’m just sick of a story. I’ve seen it so much, put it through so many revisions, that the idea of opening it up one more time makes me want to slam my head in a door. “At 3:36” is one of those stories for me. I’ve revised it and revised it to the point that if I put it on my to do list (it’s up for review in March) that I cringe and put it off until the last because I don’t want to deal with it. I’ve broken a deadline or two for that story.

And then there are stories that I’m just plain stuck on. I have no idea what needs to be done to it to improve it, or I do know what needs to be done, but I just don’t know how to do it. Those are the stories that I sit and stare at and go to bed with and watch helplessly as the deadline creeps up, then looms, then passes me by, grinning as it goes.

Those are the worst. Those are the ones that make me question myself as a writer, question my talent and my dedication.

And then I make my next deadline by three days and I’m really pleased with the result and it totally erases the bitter taste in my mouth.

Thankfully, I make more deadlines than I miss so this sort of internal, self-inflicted drama is minimal. Best to save it for the stories.