This mind can't contain all these words
I happy to announce the release of my short story anthology Yearly: A Collection of 12 Stories! Catchy title, huh? Just like a calendar has twelve months, this anthology contains twelve stories of the horror persuasion ready and waiting to unnerve you.
It’s available at Smashwords and Amazon for just .99!
I spent some time last month thinking about and sketching out the next Ivy novella. I need an idea of where the road goes before I start driving it, you know. And I admit that it didn’t come as quickly as I’d have liked. I had the basic idea, the very basic story. But the certain details I was needing, the points on the road that I needed to stop and visit, weren’t as immediate and clear as I would have liked.
All well and good. No need to rush. No need to panic. Plenty of time to let the idea boil a bit longer on the back burner.
So while I was letting this bit simmer, I got a sudden rush of an idea that needed to be written now. Here are the characters, here is the story, here is the dilly-yo, so let’s get to it.
Such is one of my biggest annoyances as a writer.
You’ve got your schedule. You are going to work on this. Everything is all nice and neat. And then BAM! Here’s this new, insistent, sparkly idea that looks so much better than the idea you’re working on, that you need to work on, that you should be working on, and wouldn’t you rather work on it?
Like a siren leading my deadlines and plans to the rocks.
Sometimes, when this happens, all I have to do is sketch it out a bit and the sparkly idea falls apart and I can move on with my original project without any guilt.
But sometimes, the sparkly idea doesn’t burst into a cloud of glitter. Sometimes it’s more than just pretty. There’s some real substance there. I can’t just ignore it. I’ve tried and it always ends up badly.
I don’t know what other writers do about this problem, but if I feel compelled to work on it, then I work on it. It’s my second project and it gets my attention as soon as I’m done with the primary project, the one with a deadline and schedule, is finished for the day.
It works out better for me that way.
Working on the second project doesn’t distract me from working on the first project and probably actually helps my focus on the first project because I want to get it done so I can move on to the second project.
And at the end of all things, I end up with the first drafts of not one, but two novellas (or short stories or novels or any combination of those), which gives me more to revise and polish, and more choices at the end of it all. It’s actually a good thing for me in the long run, these surprise ideas that end up doing battle in my head.
It’s still annoying, though.
Having done a whole bunch of revisions, both hard and easy, this month I’m looking to write something new.
It’s time to get the new Ivy novella down on paper. That is for sure. I’ve got it all sketched out. Okay, I’ve got it as sketched out as I need it to be. Good enough, time to go.
I also got an idea for another, unrelated novella that has been rather persistent and so I think I’m going to explore it as well. I’ve sketched it a bit. I think I can write it. I think I’m going to.
And finally, I got slapped with a short story idea that won’t take me but a couple of days to write, so I think I’m going to do that as well. I’ve actually had the idea for a while, but I couldn’t figure out just how to work it until recently. Now that I know, I want to get a draft done.
So, I’m looking forward to a lot of writing this month.
But, since Spirited in Spite didn’t take that much work to revise, I started reading A Tale of Two Lady Killers in preparation to revise it to completion, too, and I’m realizing that it’s not going to need a whole lot of work either. So it’s entirely possible that I might do some of the nitpicky revisions on it this month, too.
Short month doesn’t meant I’m short on work.
You may think that someone of my size couldn’t possibly know anything about fashion, let alone be in the position to give out advice, but let me assure you, I’m quite qualified.
Think about it.
I’m a person that society doesn’t want to even look at it. I’m not supposed to even leave the house and inflict my fat self upon them. But if I have to leave to do things, could I at least cover up in some sort of burka type ensemble so they can just see me as the shapeless blob we all know I am. (This is not a slight on those who wear burkas, by the way; just the only example of head-to-toe clothing I could think of at the moment.)
The fashion rules aren’t written for a person of my size.
But since the fashion “rules” are a made-up, bullshit concept to begin with, don’t you think you should be taking advice from someone who makes up her own? Damn skippy.
Lucky for you, I only have two rules to follow.
Rule #1-Dress for yourself
To head off any “buts” right at the beginning, I understand that sometimes you will want to dress for a partner or to attract the attention of a certain someone. Wearing your husband’s favorite outfit or wearing a shirt you look dynamite in to attract the attention of a cute girl is fine. So long as you are also dressing for yourself.
What I mean by that is wearing what you want to wear. That’s it. You feel more confident in clothes that you like, that you’re comfortable in, that you want to be sporting. And because you’re rocking out your way, you automatically look better than you would if you tried to wear stuff that society’s fashion rules tell you to wear.
When I was in my early twenties, I wore purple lipstick, pro-wrestling t-shirts over prom dresses, combat boots, had my eyebrows pierced, and colored my hair all sorts of colors. People said I did it to get attention and didn’t believe me when I said that I didn’t. No doubt I attracted attention. When you look like that, people notice. But I looked that way because that’s the way I wanted to look. I thought I looked good like that. It was the look I wanted to rock.
The picture at the top of the post? That’s what I look like today, right now, as I’m typing (okay, not as I’m typing as it is obviously a bathroom selfie, but you get the point). I’m wearing a bright red and orange flannel over a black cami, dark wash bootcut jeans, and combat boots (I love combat boots; it is a pure love). Yesterday I wore a blue cableknit poncho over a white longsleeved t-shirt (both of which my youngest niece picked out for me for Christmas).
I will wear skinny jeans. I will wear boots with my denim pencil skirt and tights. I will wear a bright purple scarf with my olive shirt dress. I will wear red owl socks with my gray owl sweater over a blue buttoned down shirt.
I wear it because I like it and that’s what I want to wear that day. I dress for myself.
Rule #2- Wear clothes that fit
I cannot stress this rule enough because it’s very important.
I’m not just talking about clothes that are too tight either. Honestly, I don’t know how that’s comfortable for anyone when their t-shirts are constricting movement and their pants are cutting off their circulation. This isn’t just for the big folks either. Just because you’re skinny doesn’t mean you get a free pass to look like you’ve swaddled yourself in a boa constrictor going in for the kill.
On the flip side, don’t wear clothes that are too big. I realize, particularly for big girls, people do this to hide their bodies because society has shamed them for their size. Well, let me put this in bold print and all caps: YOU ARE FOOLING NO ONE. You can throw a circus tent over an elephant, but baby, there’s still an elephant in that tent and everybody knows it.
Clothing should fit. Even if you’re just doing a t-shirt and jeans, they should FIT.
The ass of your jeans shouldn’t be sagging, they shouldn’t be dragging the ground, you shouldn’t be hiking them up all the time. They shouldn’t be so tight that you can’t sit down without unbuttoning them, that every ounce of fat from below the waist is spilling out over the top because it has no place else to go. You shouldn’t be in danger of your skirt falling down or hiking up.
Your shirt shouldn’t be so tight that it’s a twenty minute wrestling match to get it on and then you spend the rest of the day pulling it down. It shouldn’t be so big that a family of four could camp in it either.
Think skim. Your clothing should skim your body. Loose enough to be comfortable, but tight enough so you don’t look like a slob. Even if you’re slumming it in a ratty t-shirt and jeans that have more holes than a prairie dog village and stains from unidentified sources on them, you automatically look less like a lazy, dirty grub if they fit.
So if you weight 300 pounds and want to rock a belly shirt, by all means, do so, just make sure that shirt is the right size. Jeans, too. A good bra is also a must, but that’s another post (it’s a Holy Grail quest, fellas). All about the booty shorts? Terrific. Make sure that those booty shorts aren’t so tight that they’re squeezing the booty out of the top.
Remember the rules.
And don’t let anyone shame you for what you wear.
Those folks should be ashamed for being such assholes in the first place.
I’m in the process of revising Hatchets and Hearts and it’s been a pretty hard slog. I knew it would be. I knew when I was writing it that it wasn’t working the way that I wanted it to and so I knew when I finished it and tucked it away that I was looking at some serious rewrites/revisions.
Hard revisions are the worst.
I usually like revising because there’s something about stripping down a story and putting it back together to make it better that I really dig. But sometimes there are revisions I dread. Those I call hard revisions.
I guess they’re hard because they take more effort than usual. I don’t mind rewriting/revising extensively. It has to be done and most of the time I’m right there in it. But there are some stories that whatever revising I have to do is just plain work. Maybe I don’t like the story all that well at the moment or I’m not keen on the revisions I’m doing because I’m not convinced that they’re the right thing to do but something has to be done to get this show on the road.
That’s where I’m at with Hatchets and Hearts. The story isn’t what I want it to be and I’m not sure these revisions/rewrites are going to get it to where I want it to be and it makes me feel very meh and blah and uninspired. It makes me have to force myself to work on it, to do the bare minimum every day so it will get done. And then I chide myself for not putting out more effort to get more done so the whole thing gets done faster, but I just don’t have the energy for it, ya know?
And the hardest part is coming because I’m changing the ending and it’s going to be really hard because I don’t WANT to do this to the character, but I have to because the way I’m doing things, that’s how it has to go. It’s going to brutal and I’m dreading it and I think that’s part of my foot-dragging.
The thing is I’ll finish these revisions because I’ve become very good about finishing things and I’ll put this aside to settle for a bit. And when I come back to it, the next round of revisions are more likely to be easier because the slogging I did this time will pay off. There will be something better for me to work with so I can get the story closer to where I want it to be.
And that’s why I never whine too much about the hard revisions. I know it’ll be worth it.
When I first started my attempts at sewing by hand, I made pillows. They seemed like the easiest things to do. Sandwich two square pieces of fabric together, fold over the edges to hide the roughness, sew three sides, stuff it, sew the last side. Simple. It was actually a great way for me to hone my sewing skills.
The very first pillow I made was as a present for a friend. I’ve probably made at least fifteen or twenty since then. Most of them were white with a picture on the front (I used t-shirt transfers, printing out pictures on them and then ironing them on to the white fabric) with handkerchiefs as the backing. The way I folded them over made for a nice border. They were my thing for a long time.
As you may remember, my mother asked for kitty curtains and coasters made out of a particular fabric for Christmas. I fulfilled her request, but was left with a bunch of extra fabric. I asked her what she wanted me to do with it. She told me she’d like a pillow for the school room.
And so I went back to my sewing beginnings.
The pillow I made for the school room (it sits in my chair at the desk) was made basically like the ones I used to make back in the day. I sandwiched the two pieces of the leftover fabric together, folded the sides, sewed, stuffed, sewed.
Unlike my decorative pillows of yore, I didn’t want this one to be too stuffed. First of all, I didn’t have enough stuffing to stuff it that full anyway. Second of all, it was going to spend most of it’s time in a chair. It needed to me a little more squishy and malleable. Plus, it’s longer than any of the other pillows I did. I didn’t want a log.
It probably could have used a bit more stuffing, but I’m pretty pleased with it. Works well for my chair.
Not bad for my first pillow in years.
There’s something about writing in a notebook that makes me feel powerful.
Okay, I realize that sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it’s true. There’s just something about it that really gets to me.
It makes me feel productive in a way that for whatever reason typing on my laptop doesn’t. Putting ink on paper makes me feel like I’m actually doing something.
It makes me feel like I’m not half-assing it. That I’m being all committed and serious and important about my writing.
I think part of it is perception. When people see my typing on a laptop, I could be writing, I could be tweeting, I could be updating Facebook, I could be doing a lot of things that have nothing to do with actually writing. When people see me writing in a notebook, they KNOW I’m writing. That’s what a notebook is for, after all.
I use my notebooks for different things, ideas, outlining, first drafts. But it really doesn’t matter what I’m doing in the notebook. Just the act of writing whatever it is makes me feel more accomplished than doing the same thing on my laptop. In fact, there are certain things that just belong in my notebook and the idea of doing them on my laptop is ridiculous to me.
For example, I’m outlining the new Ivy novella that I’m calling The Timeless Man. The way I’m going about working it could easily (and probably more practically) be accomplished on my laptop, but that approach feels so wrong to me that it’s like you just suggested I chisel everything out on stone. This sort of thing needs to be scribbled down in my notebook.
In my notebook lies my power.
I can’t imagine that I’m explaining this well at all and most people reading this will think I’m some kind of nut (thank goodness I’m a writer; that sort of crazy gets excused).
But I’m sure there are a few people that will read this and know exactly what I’m talking about.
Notebook power!
So as I may have mentioned in my previous projects posts that one of my plans for the year was to revise Spirited in Spite to doneness and that I was going to start this month.
Here’s a little back story on Spirited in case I never mentioned it (which is entirely possible since I don’t talk about my projects with any sort of regularity):
It started out as one of my earliest NaNo losers under the title The Spinning Room. I can’t remember exactly how the loss took place. I think I ended up not finishing it during the month, but getting it done sometime afterwards. The original idea was for something straight horror, but at some point during the first draft, I realized I couldn’t keep my face straight that long. I think that’s part of what made it so hard to write during NaNo; I was doing it wrong.
When I decided to revise it with a lighter tone, it went a lot easier. I put together a new draft and revised it once more at some point and then left it alone to do other things.
Apparently, I re-read it sometime last year, but I don’t remember doing that.
I started doing the revisions on the second. I was done within a week. And that was going slow.
I had apparently done more revisions on this manuscript than I remembered doing. I certainly didn’t remember revising it down to novella length, but also didn’t remember revising the story to the point that it was so…finished. The revisions I ended up doing this round were of the nitpicky variety, partly because I was marveling at how little I had to do.
Now, this doesn’t mean I’m done. There are minor things that I thought about changing, but didn’t change because I’m not sure about those changes yet. I’m going to let it all rest for a little while and come back to it again.
But I’m no longer thinking that it’s going to take me a better part of a year to get this manuscript done.
Looks like A Tale of Two Lady Killers is going to get its shot, too.
I realize the month is about half-way over, but I think there’s still time for folks to start doing this, if they are so inclined.
This idea came across my Facebook at the very end of 2012. A friend of mine posted it saying that she was going to do it and I thought it might be a fun idea, so I also gave it a try.
All you have to do is take a jar and every day add a “good thing” to it, written on a slip of paper. The good thing can be anything you deem good: a blessing, a funny conversation, some kind of win, an observation of nature…really, anything. There’s no limit. There’s no definition of “good”. Just whatever you think needs to go in the jar. I dated all of mine, but I suppose you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to. It’s your jar. Rock it your way.
So, every day of 2013 I came up with something “good” to put in the jar. Several days featured more than one thing. For a few the best I could do was that I was still “vertical and ventilating”. Many are out of context and some I can’t remember exactly what brought them about. But the point of the challenge was to find, even on the worst of days, ONE good thing to put in the jar.
On January 1st, I read every slip of paper in the jar. I smiled the whole time. It was really neat to see all of the good things that had happened in 2013 that I chose to put in the jar. Some of them I’d forgotten about until I read them again.
I’m doing the jar again for 2014. Now that I’ve seen the results of it, I’m sort of hooked on it. And I encourage everyone else to give it a try.
There’s still time.
I turned 34 yesterday and I’m not exactly thrilled with it (not to be confused with the actual birthday part, in which I enjoyed myself very much).
It’s not the getting older part that I don’t like. I prefer that to the alternative (aka dead). And I’m not one of those people that protests their own birthday because of the whole getting older thing. Are you kidding? This is MY day! I can do almost anything on the basis that it’s my birthday.
No, it’s not any of that. It’s just the number. 34. It sounds like a drag.
I’ve talked before about my weird number quirks. I like 3’s and multiples of 3. I was really excited to be 33 because, holy cow, that’s TWO 3’s! Double your 3 pleasure! Better yet, 33 adds up to 6! A multiple of 3! An actual doubling of 3’s pleasure!
34…that’s not a multiple of 3. Worse, it adds up to 7. Everyone else raves about that number, but it’s my least favorite. In fact, it leads me to believe that my entirety of 34 is going to be a huge bummer, as opposed to 33, which I felt sure would be fabulous simply based on the 3 factor.
Okay, yes, I’m weird. Weird to the point that I’ve been thinking of just telling everyone I’m 36 for the next few years (I’m not sure I’m digging 35 just yet either), so I can avoid being 34, at least in spirit.
Hey, if age is just a number, I should be able to do that, right?
Saying I’m 36 might also give my perception of really spending the year being 34 a boost. I don’t have high hopes for the year because of that number. Maybe I can use the 36 magic to boost my spirits some and make it a better year than I anticipate.
You never know. Maybe that little number manipulation might make me change my mind and claim to be 34, really own it.
Sure, why not?
It’s all in the math, baby.
*I have been reminded of Internet Rule #34. I’m not sure if that will make my year better or worse, but it definitely made my view of it more interesting.
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