The Uneven Body Quirk

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Aloha!Nobody is perfect and no body is perfect, either. Definitely not mine. I’ve been rather forward with all of my short comings.

Today, I want to point out a very specific body quirk that never fails to baffle and amuse me.

It’s a reasonably known fact that when it comes to body symmetry, things can be slightly uneven. Typically, the dominate side is slightly bigger simply because it gets worked more. Though, my friend Haley told me that while most women have one boob bigger than the other, it’s usually the left boob that’s bigger regardless of the dominant side. She brought it up because she wondered if that were true for me, since I had breast reduction surgery. It turns out, my left boob was bigger both before AND after surgery, though  the size difference after surgery is much less notable.

But I digress a little (you people know so much about my boobs…).

An example of my body symmetry being off with my dominant side, in my case the right side, being bigger can be seen in my calves. My right calf is bigger than my left, though it’s not immediately noticeable. Lots of people have body symmetry like this. It exists, but you only really notice it if you look.

This is not true for my upper arms.

Of all of the body parts I have available to cause me insecurity, my upper arms are the part I have picked to worry the most. I started doing certain weight lifting exercises to strengthen, tone, and shrink my upper arms, and they’ve been working! But one little thing remains.

My right arm is significantly bigger than my left. Like immediately noticeable, ridiculously bigger.

arm fat

This should give you a decent idea of the size difference, but you can really tell when I spread my bat wings (which I don’t have a picture of). It’s a thing of unsymmetrical awe.

I have no idea if I keep doing these exercises if I can get my right arm to shrink down closer to the size of my left, but it certainly won’t hurt anything to try. And if it never happens, if my arms remain lopsided forever, well, I can live with that, too.

I’ll use it as a conversation piece.

Writing–Back Into Print

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Yearly special editionThe very first self-published thing I did was print. There was something very exciting about holding a physical book, even if it was self-published. It was a real thing with weight and dimension that contained my words.

And then it didn’t sell and the luster faded and I decided that eBooks were they way to go. They were easier to format, with fewer distributing requirements, and they were cheaper. They didn’t cost me anything to do whereas the actual books required me to buy a proof copy and verify everything was golden if I wanted wider distribution. As cheap as it sounds, I didn’t always have the money to do that.

However, when I realized that Yearly was selling well as an eBook and it wasn’t a fluke that it was selling well (by selling well I mean relative to the meager sales of my other works, not like selling well I can buy a yacht), I started thinking about print again. I wondered if a physical copy would sell as well as the digital one.

I think I already know the answer to this.

But!

There’s actually something egotistical about print copy. I can SIGN a print copy. I can scribble my name on the inside page with some not-nearly-clever-as-I-want dedication. I can actually physically hold this thing as I look at someone with crazy Gloria Swanson eyes and say, “Have you read my boooook?”

There’s also something about the physical form of a book that pushes me to be more of a salesman. Let’s face it, as an indie author, it’s just me trying to hock my cheesy wares out here. And I’m not very insistent about it. I’m very uncomfortable with forcing a product. I was a shitty up-saler in retail and the fast food industry. Nobody got the credit card or the extra nachos for sixty-nine cents. But if I’m going to build a fanbase (and more and more that’s what agents and publishers want to see, that you’ve already got people ready and waiting to buy your shit), then I need to learn to be a little more involved, I suppose.

The eBook of Yearly sells itself.

The special edition print version is going to have to be sold by me.

So watch this space for details.

Writing–Reading Goals Update

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

booksSince we’ve accomplished half of a year already, I figure it’s time to check in to see how I’m accomplishing my reading goals.

As you may or probably don’t remember, this year I laid down the gauntlet of reading 24 books in total, 2 books a month, only 4 could be re-reads. The object of these goals was to get me into the habit of reading steadily. I also hoped that I would continue reading widely, which was what my reading goals emphasized last year, even though I put no restrictions on what I could read.

So, according to this, six months should equal 12 books. Let’s check the math. Here are the books I’ve read so far:

1. The Badge by Jack Webb

2. The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations edited by Alex Ayres

3. Jaws by Peter Benchley (re-read)

4. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore

5. Mortuary Confidential: Undertakers Spill the Dirt by Kenneth McKenzie and Todd Harra

6. Don’t Look Back, We’re Not Going That Way by Marcia Wallace

7. Ron Santo: A Perfect Ten by Pat Hughes and Rich Wolfe

8. Horns by Joe Hill

9. Just Farr Fun by Jamie Farr

10. The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb

11. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

12. Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian

Looks like I’m right on target. Decent mix of fiction and non-fiction. Even got some chick-lit and a classic in there. It hasn’t always been easy getting in my reading time every day and I admit to being lazy about it sometimes, but I’m meeting the challenge pretty well. Reading two books at once helps.

The best part about this is that I have a pile of books waiting to be read. I won’t need to be scrambling for something to read any time soon.

PSA: Stop Saying “Being Fat Isn’t Healthy”

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

stopThis is going to be short because I want to be able to use it as a reference for people every time they make this comment. I want to be able to link to it and call it all good.

Three reasons for you to stop saying “Being fat isn’t healthy.”

1. You can’t tell the state of someone’s health by looking at them. If you could, then doctors wouldn’t need to go to school for so many years because anyone could be diagnosed with a glance (which is, unfortunately, how many doctors do diagnose fat patients). And if all it took to be healthy was to be thin, then Mary Tyler Moore wouldn’t have diabetes, Weight Watchers would be a cure-all, and there’d be no tragic articles about people who did all the right health things and still got cancer.

2. The lack of affordable healthcare in this country, the fact that healthcare is considered a privilege, the fact that healthcare is a for-profit business has contributed more to the state of my and many other’s health than weight ever will.

3. NO ONE IS OBLIGATED TO BE HEALTHY ANYWAY. For real. Fuck off.

So the next time you feel the urge to come at a fatty with the pseudo-concern blather of “being fat isn’t healthy” refer back to this list.

Particularly the last two words of number three.

I Wish I Could Do My Life Like My Hair

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Dark HairI got my hair cut and colored last week. No big thing. I try to go in every six weeks because by then my hair is getting shaggy and the color has faded from red to a copper. This last time, though, my stylist Tammy asked if we could do something different with the color.

She put in the red lowlights like always, but wanted to do something other than leaving the coppery remnants from the previous colorings. She asked my permission and I said sure. I’m always game to do something different with my hair.

Tammy mixed up the color, but didn’t tell me what it was. I didn’t ask. I just let it ride.

I was a little surprised when she washed it all out and it ended up being so dark, but I like it. I think it looks good. I can’t wait to see what happens when the color starts to fade.

I have this tendency to be quite cavalier with my hair. When I went from long to shoulder length in my late 20’s, I told the stylist to do whatever she wanted, just cut it off. Really. When I decided to get the pixie cut, I basically quit coming up with reasons not to and just said, “fuck it”. Every time I’ve colored my hair, it’s been with the idea of “let’s see what happens”. I’ve done it all with a spirit of adventure and an understanding that I could deal with the fallout later if I didn’t like it.

I just wish I could be so free-spirited in the rest of my life. Most of my decisions are made based on taking very little risk. It’s all about being practical and mature, very security-conscious. I’ve always been a rather conservative risk-taker in my life, but there have been times, most notably in my early 20’s, when I was just like, “Hey, whatever. Let’s ride. I’ll deal with any consequences later. I want to enjoy what’s going right now and see how far it can go.” And I’ve paid for it. And in ways I’m still paying for it.

But I’m also paying a heavier price for being so cautious, I think. It’s sort of puts a cramp in my life, living responsibilities first, always. It’s hard to have a good time being so hung up on being safe. I can’t just say “let it ride” anymore because I’m always too busy thinking about the next thing. Part of it has to do with the instability of my income and my overwhelming need to pay the bills. But part of it is because I’ve become very complacent in my 30’s and I don’t want to bust out with something rad because it might mess up my sleep schedule.

And that’s a drag.

I need to live my life more like I do my hair.

At least, maybe, a little bit.

Writing–July Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paperIt’s official. I am burned out on revising.

This revision/rewrite of The Timeless Man has been most successful. I think I’ve fixed most if not all of the major story problems that were plaguing it. It’s not nearly as boring now! Everything in it now has a purpose. The only thing left hanging right now is the ending. It needs to be changed, yet be the same, if that makes any sense at all. Don’t worry if it doesn’t. I’m not exactly sure how to work that either.

But since I’ve had my revising, I’m going to take a step back from that and focus some energy elsewhere.

The read of (Vampires) Made in America continues (I got a late start on it last month and I measure out the reading so I fully digest what I’m I’m dealing with). The ideas I had for fixes going into the reading are sort of not going to happen at all. It seems that the first draft was a better than I remembered it being, so far story-wise. There are some changes that need to be made, but they’re not nearly as big as I thought they’d be.

I’ll be honest with you. When I got to the end of the first chapter, the last line made me laugh out loud. Now that doesn’t mean I’m fucking brilliant or anything, but it did signal to me that maybe this story wouldn’t be so bad after all.

To counteract my revising fatigue, I’m going to write something new. Sure that seems counter-intuitive since I’ve already got a huge list of projects that need revising and duh, stupid, why are you adding to it? But I need to flex my first draft muscles more often than just in November. The idea is for a longer short story, possibly novella, something that I’ve been kicking around in my brain for a while. I think it’ll be nice to just take the month and play in that world for a while.

And finally, I’ve decided to journey back into print, at least for a while. I’m going to put together a special print edition of Yearly featuring Gone Missing. I may throw in the first part of Night of the Nothing Man, just to see if I can’t drum up some interest in it. If this project goes well, I might look into giving other projects the same type of treatment, most notably A Tale of Two Lady Killers, since it is a novel. It’s going to have sell a more than a few more copies before I commit to that, though.

I’m really looking forward to shaking things up in July. My brains need the break.

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.