No NaNoWriMO

For the first time in about 4 years I’m not doing NaNoWriMo.

I am writing a new novel. I started it a few days ago after several months of plotting and replotting. I started it several times before this week, but threw it out as the characters and conflicts didn’t catch my fancy. I’m currently on version 4.5 I think or 4.7. I lost track because I stopped writing it down because it was changing so often.

Anyway, I thought about waiting til November 1 and writing it for NaNo.

But then I thought, I’m exhausted from work. I don’t always get to the computer (our fam. only has one computer). And pregnancy doesn’t always leave me wanting to be in a sitting position. I’m 15 weeks pregnant and have had 14 weeks of morning sickness so far- all day sickness there was no letting up until this past weekend.

Growing new bones and teeth and muscles and nerve cells is really exhausting. And my work is INSANE. I can’t even tell you. So writing isn’t exactly my priority these days.  I can’t see myself doing 2000 words a day every day. And I don’t want the pressure of it over me, because I know my past successes will make me push myself past what I’m capable of physically.

Failure is not an option when it comes to writing for me. Esp, NaNo.

Also, I don’t know if this story has 50,000 words in it. Second Chance Romance ended up gaining 10,000 words after NaNo. But, Summer Fling ended up being only a little over 40,000.

I’m trying not to let this be another flashback story like Second Chance. I didn’t want to do another story where the characters had old history. But, they forced me into it. Right now they are playing twenty questions at the bar. I have no idea where they are taking me, but I finally have characters who want a story. That’s good enough for me.

So many choices and the Vatican goes with this?

So many other things to say … and the Vatican chooses to point fingers at others and haggle over word usage.

Sex abuse rife in other religions, says Vatican

Only 1.5 to 5% of clergy were involved in any abuse and they weren’t pedophiles but ephebophiles. The different being the former victims prepubescent and the latter being post-pubescent.

Nothing like minimizing what was done. Any percent of clergy abuse should be unacceptable- these people are THE POWER THAT BE over so many people’s lives.

It’s like saying “i only beat that guy up, I didn’t kill him.” Hello? Still wrong people.

Oh screw it. The article comes Via Carnal Nation.

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The right way to do things

A lot of people I follow on Twitter are writers who talk about self-publishing and publishing and writing.

I followed a link the other day that talked about published (REAL) writers vs. unpublished ones.

Apparently I’m totally going about things the wrong way. I have a free blog I update infrequently. Also writing at night is bad. I should be getting up at 4 AM to write.

Of course, I’m not a real published author. I have a job and no big publishing agency is picking me up. Not that I want them to. Oh, I never published that post. Haha, another day then.

I hate reading all these buzz words. At least what I consider buzz words. Building a platform (sounds like a pedestal upon which to preach … just my thing). And a brand. Gotta have a brand now too.

The same blog as mentioned above had a post on how to write proper blog posts. I couldn’t tell if I was doing it right or not. The author cautioned against making titles TOO interesting. WTF is too interesting? Are my titles too interesting? Is that why no one is commenting?

And don’t write things too long. Nothing over 1000 words. I really don’t pay attention to word count. If I have something to say that takes over 1000 words, then I will write those 2000 words. And if you don’t want to read the whole damn thing, well that’s too bad. I needed all those words to get my point across. (Sometimes I later regret my point, as in the case of some stupid comments I made about the state of feminism and men … but ).

Small paragraphs are good as well.

Guess I lost you up there already.

No point in using the return button quite so often. Some of the great literary classics have long paragraphs. Anne of Green Gables talks in long monologues which lose my 7 year old, but is still beloved. If Internet readers are so easily distracted, that’s their problem. My blog is for me to express myself.

I don’t want to cater to a following. If you like or hate what I write, then comment and keep reading. Same thing on Facebook, Twitter and everywhere else online. I’m here for me. And I’m not ashamed to be selfish about it.

Debating Women’s Rights

I post this video on my Facebook recently. I cannot embed the video so you’ll have to watch it.

It’s an amazing 6 minute video about child brides in developing countries.

And this “guy” I knew from school, he was actually in a band with my brother, comments “that girl who set herself on fire, that’s crap.”

And I wasn’t sure how to take that comment. Was it crap that she felt that cornered in her life that she resorted to setting herself on fire, or is it bullshit that she really did or what?

My MIL messaged me and says, “your friend is an ass.”

So I questioned what he meant. ANd he replied, the husband should be blamed for the girl setting herself on fire.

Which results in a 10 point argument back and forth. Me saying that the girl had no choice in who she married, how much education she got and so on, and she felt she had no other choice but to try to kill herself (I presume) by setting herself on fire.

He replies: SHE DID IT. She’s to blame.

and

c’mon if you were in her situation, would you set yourself on fire?

I dunno, living here where I have a choice about who to marry, when to marry, if I get a college education or not and how many children I have and a TV costs a weeks worth of work, I have NO IDEA how I’d react if I were 15, married and broke a TV.

And then it went on a bit more with the same. and finally I had to remove him as a friend, because I was almost crying and definitely shaking with anger.

I don’t understand the comments.

Her husband didn’t set her on fire. This is true.

But, I know there is a world where girl’s are so afraid of their fathers/husbands/uncles/cousins/men-around-them that they will kill themselves rather than face these men. Where girls are routinely- sold, married as children, beaten, raped and then blamed for it happening and then often killed. Where they cannot choose EVERYTHING I take for granted- choosing HOW to live my life.

And it hurts me deep in my soul that ONE person would have to live like that.

I’m one lucky bitch.

In the name of fun

I came across from Help a Reporter Out a query for an article about parents who post TMI on their facebook statuses about their kids. And thus across, STFU, Parents a website dedicated to making fun of parents who post too much info on their kids.

Some of them were humorous- potty training exploits and the like. Some of them are reasonable status comments- like moms who love taking pictures of their cute new baby or talking about lack of napping with other mom friends.

Seeing as how this is what being a parent equates to and Facebook status updates are the minutiae of your life.

And all the comments allude to the posters/submitters being better than the parents who are posting on Facebook. Judging people.

Don’t you dare say anything about how offensive it is to make fun of your friends, because the website is ALL IN GOOD FUN.

Shenningans. Going behind your friends back and making fun of them is NOT FUN. That’s passive aggressive at best. Making judgements of people (which I”m guilty of doing all the fucking time) is not fun.

Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the insidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood.
~Tyron Edwards

When We Judge Others… (article) by S. J. Reisner on AuthorsDen (22 July 2009)

Judging is about making yourself feel better and someone else feel bad.  In this case, parents who post about their kids latest potty-training exploit should feel their lives are sad and pathetic, because the reporters don’t want to read/see that shit (literally).

Too bad. When you friend a parent on facebook (many of the submitters to the site claim “I don’t know why this person is on my friends list, I barely knew her … ” or something close to) this may be what you get. And if I friend other people I’m going to get all sorts of weird things- like right now a guy I knew in high school is posting at least twice a day that he’s bored. I don’t really care, but that’s his status so … on we go.

I try not to post things on my Facebook that other people won’t want to read. I try to make my life a little more witty than it really is.  I’m hyper aware of privacy issues stemming from Facebook- I try not to even post pictures of friends’ children unless I know they have done so themselves.

I have more thoughts on judgment to be posted later. Including, how I judge people.

The moral of the story is you will be judged on your Facebook or Twitter status. It doesn’t get much more shallow than that.

Recent writing

So I finished my second hockey novel. The first being Second Chance Romance.  Only it doesn’t have a title. I am terrible at titles. I don’t have the faintest clue what to title it. My friend who is my pre-reader is in Vegas and can’t help me. Anyone want a pre-read? Anyone good with titles?

I have this beautiful thing I’ve written most of. I love it (a little too much). I just don’t know how to end it. I’d love to share it.  I might share what I’ve done so far. I was listening to a lot of VnV Nation at the time.  It’s about a girl who ran away from her life and now 6 years later she meets the love of her life. I just have no idea WHY she ran away in the first place. It’s titled Colours of the Rain for the VnV Nation song that inspired it. (I’m oft inspired by music).

This video has quickly become an obsessive listen in our house.

And last but not least. For a wedding present we adopted a terrier/pug cross puppy from the local animal pound thingy. And it got parvo virus. It’s like the flu but deadlier.  A week later she’s back, costing us as much as a purebred puppy. But she’s so cute and we pledged to take care of her.  She’s quite skinny now but is energetic again. Here she is under the computer.

So now she’s sleeping at my feet and my husband is sleeping and the kid is gone off to Grandma’s, leaving me free to write smut.

Defensiveness

I am a very defensive person. If I even perceive attack I immediately go into defense mode.

It was caused by growing up with two rather angry parents.

But, that’s in the past. Whatever caused it, I have to take control and overcome it.

A few days ago I was talking with my boss, and I felt she was going to criticize me so I immediately justified my actions. And she immediately said, “I’m not criticizing, I just want you to be aware this is going on. And I need you to back me up on it.”

I still felt at ready for the attack. And for hours, no days now, after I’m still alternately justifying myself and feeling like I let her down. Neither of which are necessary. When I get up in it I repeat to myself, “I can let this go.”

I was trying to write yesterday and I couldn’t. (It turned out later it was because I had lost interest in the story). So I was just free writing in an open notepad file, and the defensiveness realization came out.

I am not sure how to overcome it quite yet. My life is as always a work in progress.

What types of traits are you holding on to from childhood? Is it hindering your life in anyway? Are you going to try to change?

Second Chance Romance, read my erotic short stories.

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Abortion

I clicked on a link on the wordpress homepage to an interview with a woman who had a late-term abortion from the recently murdered Dr. Tiller.

And then I accidentally close all my windows and lose the article. So I search it and find newsbusters.org who don’t even deserve a link.

I’m not sure if I’m stupider than all the Fetus People (not my word, I stole that from mahblog) commenting. Why? Because I”m reading all their comments and shaking my head.

It all comes down to the arguement that women suddenly decide that at 8 months pregnant, they don’t want the baby.Yeah right.  It’s a BABY.

From the above link:

I’m explaining this because remarkable numbers of people don’t seem to understand why defending a right to elective abortion in the third trimester is insane. No woman in her right mind willingly carries a pregnancy that far and then decides to abort. Doctors won’t perform such abortions, anyway. Even Roe v. Wade permits states to ban third-trimester elective abortions.

Some, many I suspect, of these women are having abortions because of medical issues either in themselves or their unborn babies.  Maybe these babies would live outside the uterus. No one really knows. These woman want to spare themselves and their baby any unnecessary pain. There’s a nice account of a woman here as well.

IF there is a chance for viability of the baby, y’know past that magic 24 weeks, and the mother’s health is at risk, they’ll try their damnedest to save the baby. My best friend had her baby 3 months early, he’s now healthy and at home.  Thank the Universe.  These women forced to choose are not so lucky.

The pro-life camp paints these women as uncaring, lazy people who just don’t feel like dealing with their pregnancy.

Again from this link:

However, I believed back in the 1970s that NARAL made a big mistake by not supporting some clear legal gestational limits for elective abortion based on the Roe v. Wade guidelines. Without such clear limits, the Fetus People have been able to market many urban legends about women in their ninth month of pregnancy suddenly deciding to “kill their babies” and terminate a healthy pregnancy. Most states eventually adopted gestational limits, but people are so confused about what’s legal and what isn’t that the urban legends seem credible.

And their doctors as for-profit, blood hungry evilness personified who just want to rip the life out of the women. I find it hard to believe that picture.

Having never been in the position to have to make such a decision, I cannot imagine the thought that has to go into deciding to have an abortion.

I thought about it once upon a time. I barely new the father, but 7 years later, here we are,a bout to get married.

I am one lucky bitch. My pregnancy was a breeze and my fiance is a dream.

And then we decided NOT to have any more children. Thankfully birth control has worked for me and I’ve not had to decide any more tough decisions.

I would love a world were all birth control worked and was available and women weren’t raped by men. Where all women were in happy relationships and then decided to become pregnant and have happy, healthy babies all the time.

I don’t live in that reality.

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Image by hessiebell via Flickr

I’ve been thinking this morning (I know thinking. In the morning?! On a day off work) about how much to put on-line about myself.

There are things about myself that I would like to express somewhere, but for many reasons I fear there could be reprecussions.

I know people who put everything out there. And I know people who hide themselves like they are in a witness protection program. Most people are in between.

Facebook is the worst culprit when it comes to privacy invasion, I think. But you can change your settings so only your friends can see. But, then you have to carefully keep track of your friends. But it’s easy to say too much anywhere and be found out and get into a lot of trouble.

I want to be one of those people who is like “to hell with what anyone else thinks” but I’m not. I like my job.  I don’t want my mother to be able to find out my secrets. Had that happen once when I was a neophyte Livejournal user. Oh so long ago.

So, how much personal infromation do you put out on your blog, twitter or facebook?

Read My Novel:

Second Chance Romance, read my erotic short stories.

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Creating Balance

I am beginning to feel a little compulsive about novelling. Plotting always being my priority. I was-am feeling unbalanced.

There are other things in life than writing. I cannot seem to remember them. Housework and most of life in general seem to fall by the wayside.

My priorities are: family > work > writing > Twilight > everything else.

Family includes meals, minimal housework that keeps life running, driving my daughter to her activities (preferably with a laptop so I can write and drive), and presently, planning our wedding.  I look forward to being Mrs. somebody, the planning is irritating.

Work means sleep and minimal personal hygiene and a little housework stuff. As well as my duties to my local Freecycle.

Writing, right now, is mainly ACTUAL writing. But, some blogging, social media and other forms of self-promotion.

Twilight, well … I already wrote about that little obessesion. It’s a fun book to read, movie to watch and the soundtrack is nice.

Thanks to Wii Fit and my job I’m getting a little sunshine and aerobics and lots of stretching (via Wii Yoga) into my day. Stretching is important to keep myself painfree. I have joint pain since I was sixteen for unknown medical reasons.

I am not sure what to change. Writing fills the cup of my soul up. I need it to fill my soul so I have energy to do the rest. Perhaps I just need to slow down with it. Keep writing on paper more often, journal more often. Change up the routine. Start reading fiction to have more than one character set in my head at a time. Usually I have several projects on the go. Narrow focus is making me a little crazy.

Getting rid of access to solataire would be good too.

What are your ways to keep your life balanced?

Read My Novel:

Second Chance Romance, read my erotic short stories.