Category Archives: Personal

Personal, Two For Tuesday

T4T: Two Falls

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Alone - Photograph by Rhonda ParrishI haz a sad.

I’m going to copy part of this straight out of my fitness blog. This describes what happened when I went on a run Friday night with Jo:

I was running, and then, as I said, suddenly I was very much not. The first thing I was aware of was the blinding pain in my right knee, then the sound of my ipod skittering across the pavement in the dark. Then it was like the whole world slowed down so I could feel my face impact with the ground and scrape along behind my ipod. When time sped up again I was one freaking hurting unit.

My right knee was quite badly banged up and has a lovely assortment of scrapes and cuts, my left ankle had been twisted and was not happy, and the palms of my hands and the right side of my face had left DNA samples on the road.

Jo ran over to me and asked “What did you hurt?”. My answer was a pathetic and tear-filled “Everything”. Eventually I recovered myself enough for him to help me off the ground and back onto my feet and we started back to my parents again. I was so angry at myself for falling and not finishing the run that once we came to a well-lit part of town I ran through the pain. Mostly I wanted to feel like I’d finished the run, but Jo later pointed out that it was probably good I ran again right away, despite how much it freaking hurt, because otherwise I’d blow it up in my brain and be afraid to go running again.

I took the weekend off from exercise so that I could heal up, and by yesterday I was doing pretty good. I did a stretching workout in the morning and felt up to running in the afternoon. I had a nice run with Jo and Danica, then we stopped and stretched in the park. I felt fantastic as we were walking home, and then suddenly, for no reason at all, I fell. Again.

This time I twisted my right ankle (which is already my bad one) quite badly. I’m doing the RICE thing with it and trying not to feel too sorry for myself (or be too hard on myself for being unable to walk without injuring myself) but it’s difficult. I won’t be able to workout like I have been for probably at least a week, which especially sucks since I’d been doing the Couch to 5k thing with Danica and started P90x yesterday. That’s all on hold for a little while now, while I heal up.

*sigh*

It’s funny, too, how an injury to one part of your body will effect your body as a whole. It’s my ankle that’s hurt, and only my ankle, but I’m freaking exhausted today and completely unable to focus on anything. Well, anything other than my ankle LOL

It sucks. I fully recommend not falling down if you can help it, and especially not twice in four days.

Take care of you.

Hollow, NaNoWriMo, Personal

Writing is a Battle…

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Haunted Hospital, a photograph by Rhonda ParrishDear ________,

I’ve enclosed a photo I wanted to share with you. I call this shot “Haunted Hospital” and when I took it several weeks ago I had no idea it was going to become a very important place in my novel. But lo and behold, that’s exactly what has happened. Not only is it where the story begins but I expect it to continue to be a very important locale throughout, sort of like the sun that the rest of the tale rotates around. Very cool, no?

I wasn’t sure what I was going to write to you about today. I don’t like writing too much about my stories while I’m working on them. I find if I share too much (via blogs, or conversation or anything) I lose the sense of urgency to write the story. It’s like, as soon as I’ve shared it with someone my brain is pretty sure that my job is done and it’s time to move on to the next story. That means in order to get the whole thing out of my brain and onto the page I need to keep it to myself for as long as possible. That meant talking about any Hollow Children specifics was out of the question, and who wants to read a dry list of daily word counts? Um, not me.

Then I snuck over to Alison Stone‘s cabin today to say hi before I started writing for the moment. She asked everyone who stopped by a question, “What motivates you?”

I have a post-it note stuck onto my laptop where I’ll see it everyday. It’s been stuck there for months and is starting to curl up on the edges and lose it’s glue. When it finally gives up and falls off completely I will copy the words from it onto another post-it note and stuck it on my laptop. In fact, I’m planning on getting them tattooed onto my arm. Eight words:

Writing is a battle with impatience and inertia.

I don’t know who to attribute that quote to. I think I picked it up from a textbook but I haven’t gone back through the one I think it might be to see if I’m correct.

That quote, that idea, that reality motivates me. It says yes, writing is hard work, but you know what? Anything worth doing is difficult. It says yes, Rhonda, you’re feeling bleh and you don’t want to do anything but lay in bed and sleep, but no one is going to write your words for you. It says holy crap, dude, you’re not in a race to reach the end of the story, slow down and let it unravel at its pace, not yours.

Writing is a battle, and it’s one I’m not willing to lose. Some days, some weeks, some months are harder than others but if you just keep fighting eventually you will be victorious.

That’s what motivates me.

Well, this month it’s that plus watching the little bars move up on my stats page for Camp NaNoWriMo… but ya know, whatever it takes to get words on the page, right?

Best,
Rhonda

p.s. I hear they are serving us sushi here tomorrow. *squee* Best. Camp. Evar.

Pictures, Two For Tuesday

T4T: Danica’s Eyes

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I decided it was time that I set up a weekly recurring “thing” on this blog again. The problem is I struggle a little bit with consistency at the best of times so I didn’t want to constrain myself too tightly. For example, if I were sharing a photo a week, that would either begin to bore me after a while and I’d let it slip, or during a time when I wasn’t taking a lot of photos I’d have to use old content and that would bore you. That same basic idea applied to pretty much everything I could think of doing so I decided to keep things pretty open to avoid boredom while still forcing myself to post something on the same day every week. In the end I decided on:

Two for Tuesday

Starting today I’ll be posting two somethings each Tuesday. They could be anything. Two words, two pictures, two recipes, two quotes, two poems, two stories, two links — you get the idea.

It should be fun 🙂

I’m going to kick things off with two pictures. These are both images of Danica’s eye. I took the pictures within seconds of one another and then just processed them differently. They are some of of my favourit images (a’la moi) that I’ve done recently. If you like them, I invite you to pop over to my Flickr page to see more of my photographs, and if you use Flickr why not add me as a contact? I’ll be happy to return the favour 🙂

"Over There" photograph by Rhonda Parrish

 

Goals, Personal, Thoughts

Track and Field Day

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Warning: This post doesn’t have anything at all to do with writing. I have Danica’s permission to share this story about her.

This is Danica. This isn’t the most flattering photograph I have of her, but she looks angry in it, and that makes it the most appropriate photograph for this post.

Thursday was Dani’s track and field day. This is ungood for a few reasons

– Like her mother, Danica isn’t much into sports. That includes track and field.
– Dani’s birthday is in October, which means she has to compete against kids a grade higher than her
– We, as a family, haven’t really had a very active lifestyle until recently which means we’re all somewhat out of shape.

So, Dani was not looking forward to track and field day, but, like a champ, she sucked it up and was going to make the best of it. Still, she did call me from the track and field day to complain about the weather, and then again in the afternoon to tell me that the event had been canceled on account of snow (gotta love springtime in Edmonton, right?) and would be continued on Friday.

Then she came home and wanted to talk to me. There were tears in her eyes.

She cried as she told me about how the people who were measuring and raking for the triple jump event had made fun of her performance.

*sigh*

I was furious. Mean people suck. And people being mean to my kid, well, they suck even more than most.***

One of the worst parts of the whole situation was that she would have to go back to school the next day (Friday) and compete in two more events.

Could I force her to do that? Turns out the answer is no.

I know we can’t shelter her from everything, but I asked myself, what would she learn from going to the track meet that would make it worth the anxiety she’d feel and the potential for having to deal with insensitive people. In the end I couldn’t see any valuable lesson to be learned other than ‘sometimes you have to do stuff that sucks’. I decided she’d done that when she’d participated in the track meet on Thursday, I couldn’t force her to go back on Friday.

Jo and I discussed it and we agreed. We decided that if Danica asked to stay home on Friday we’d let her. She did, and we did.

My point?

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
~Plato

It’s something I sometimes struggle with** and maybe this was life’s way of reminding me, so I thought I might help spread the word, in case I’m not the only one who could use it.

~*~

On a sideways-related note*, Danica has decided to get into better shape and so she and I have commited to doing the Couch to 5k program starting today. Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be our running days. We know it’s really going to suck at the start, but we’re determined to stick to it.

That’s one reason why I’m making this blog post, actually. This is going to be hard. Super hard. I would have a difficult enough time keeping myself motivated to do this. Now, not only am I going to have to push myself to do this, I’m also going to have to push Danica.

Did I mention that it’s going to be tough?

Yeah. So I’m hoping by sharing this it will not only provide a little accountability, it will also give me a whole bunch of people who will be able to remind me that I’m doing the right thing. The right thing for myself and for my daughter.

Yeah. I’m definitely going to need that.

*The kids at the track meet were just the proverbial final straw, not the sole motivation for this. It had been a long time in the making.

**As evidenced, I suppose, by the fact that when I originally wrote this post I referred to the children who mocked Danica as jerks. Not very kind there, Rhonda, not very kind at all.

***It could be that those kids are actually good people who are usually very nice. It could be that they didn’t know she could hear them. But what they said was mean, and she could hear them so whether they know it or not, they really hurt her feelings. I grant you that there is a huge difference between intentional and unintentional meanness, but when I’m in ‘protective mother’ mode I don’t clearly see subtleties like that.

A to Z Challenge, Personal, Thoughts

You Asked…

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Beautiful DiseaseY is for questions that You Asked 😉

Last month I asked people to ask me questions that I would answer for letter Q. I’ve cheated a little bit and used them for Q is for Questions as well as I is for I Lied. I still have a lot of questions left over though so I thought I’d cheat again today (just a little, sheesh :-p) and answer a couple more.

Beth asked:

You juggle so many things at once right now. What is your favorite writing-related thing? What fills you with dread (other than rejection!)?

My favourite writing-related thing in the whole world is when someone reads something I’ve written and likes it. I know that sounds a bit cliche but it’s totally true. I treasure every comment and the couple times I actually received emails from strangers saying they liked my work (!!) I got all weepy. Acceptances are a close second on my favourites list, but approval from readers means more to me than approval from editors (sorry editors).

The thing that fills me with dread is the idea that someone will mistake what my characters think and say as being what I think or feel. I’ve got a homophobic character in a recent work, for example. A very vocal homophobe. I worry that people will read that story and think I am using him as a mouthpiece for my own opinions. I guess that’s actually rather unlikely given how vocal I’ve been known to be about gay rights and equality, but the idea remains the same. I don’t want people to think my characters are myself. But, that’s one of those things I can’t do anything bout, so *shrugs* I guess I better learn to let it go LOL

BD asked:

If you could only ever play one position again, would you DPS, heal, or tank?

^_~

This is a seriously bratty question and BD knew it. I have a lot of alts in World of Warcraft because I’m fickle. I want to play one role one week and a different role the next LOL

For those of you who don’t play MMOs, DPS, heals and tanks are the three different roles in a typical game. The tank is the person in heavy armor whose job is to keep all the monsters mad at them so they don’t run around and smack all the other people in lighter armor (the squishies). The tank is the person in charge, they maneuver the monsters, positioning them how they want and leading their group through the dungeon or raid. I tend to have control issues, which is why I like tanking. At the same time, I get frustrated if I have DPS who make my job more difficult and it’s a pretty high-pressure job. That’s great if you’re in a group of your friends who like you and won’t freak out if you make a mistake, it’s less great if you’re in a random group of people you’ve never met before and who have no expectation of seeing you again. That combination tends to make people be bigger jerks than they otherwise would be, and the tank is a great target for all that vitriol if things aren’t going exactly how they expect. If I could only play one role ever again it wouldn’t be a tank. I could get my tank-y fix by soloing with a tanky character 🙂

DPS classes are the damage-dealing ones (DPS stands for Damage per second). These characters are in lighter armor than the tank and their number one job is to avoid drawing the attention of the monsters you’re killing. Their second job is to kill it. Each class has different skills and abilities that they use to buff their party members, kill monsters and offer support to their team. DPS is the lowest pressure position in any MMO because there are more of them in any group so they can pick up the slack for each other if necessary (a dungeon group is 1 tank, 1 healer and  DPS, for example). I like being a DPS because of the lack of pressure but DPS comes with a whole different set of pressure — competition. People run meters that track how much damage they are doing and how quickly and they are very competitive. You don’t want to be the person who is doing the least, let me tell you.

That’s why, if I had to pick one role to play for the rest of my life it would be healing. It was a very tough call because I like DPSing, but I think healing wins. I think their role is kinda self-explanatory. The healer’s job is to heal everyone in their group to keep them alive and kicking. This is obviously a pretty high-pressure position, but it’s not high pressure in the ‘You’re in charge so if anythign goes wrong it’s your fault’ way, nor is it in the ‘Numbers matter above everything else no matter what the extenuating circumstances are’ way. It’s high pressure in the ‘If you don’t do your job people will die’ way and that’s the best possible way. It means you have very finite and obvious ways to measure your success. Is the boss dead? Are at least one of your teammates still standing? Congratulations, you win!

That would be my choice… I think.

Arlee Bird asked:

Why do you blog?

Ooh, good question. When I started blogging on Livejournal in 2002 I think it was partly because everyone else in my circle of friends was doing it, but mostly because of a bit of an exhibitionist streak. Then when I gave up my other job so I could focus on writing (ha! focus. I wish LOL) it seemed like it would be a good idea to have a website that represented me online, as well as a central place to list my publications. Thus, this blog was created. That’s why I started it, but I guess the reason I maintain it is a combination of professional obligation, to connect with friends and readers, and an exhibitionist streak.

So now I’ll ask you, readers, why do you blog? I know most of you do because I follow your links to your blogs every day LOL

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter Y. On Monday I’ll be blogging about something that starts with the letter Z. If you know me at all it’s probably not difficult for you to guess that that might be 😉

 

 

A to Z Challenge, April PAD, Goals, Niteblade, Personal, Thoughts

eXhausted

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It’s snowing again today. Not nearly as much as in that picture I took a couple weeks ago, but enough that it’s staying on the ground and ruining my weekend yardwork plans. The weather *sigh* whatcha gonna do, right?

So, I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. I honestly wanted to come up with an X word that wasn’t a cheat, but April has been an energy vampire and my creative gas tank is running on fumes right now. I have a very finite amount of emotional, physical and creative energy (which is likely thanks to depression.) and I took on far more this month than I should have. Let’s take a peek at what I’ve been doing this month:

– The Blogging from A to Z Challenge

– The April Poem a Day Challenge

– The Platform Building Challenge

– The NaNoLJers Anthology

– The Niteblade Fundraiser

But wait, there’s more! This is a busy Niteblade month because I need to have the table of contents for the June issue set and good to go by the end of this month, which means getting all the edits and paperwork and stuff done. I’ve also been managing to stick to my exercise goals despite the fact my weight loss has hit a plateau (how depressing is that? Ugh). Also, there’s all the ‘life’ and ‘wife‘ and ‘mother‘ stuff. And stuff. Yes. Lots of stuff :-p

Overall, I’m pretty stinkin’ proud of myself, but I’m looking forward to the month being over so I can have some recovery time.

Then Amber posted the sign-up form for Writo De Mayo (the annual challenge NaNoLJers hold in May) and I went ‘Oh. Shit.’ I thought about not signing up this year, but I think I should. If I don’t have some solid goals for next month I may well spend my days curled up in bed getting nothing done and turning into a lump. So I signed up, but I didn’t pick super challenging goals. Their job won’t be to stretch myself but just to motivate me to keep going.

Writo De Mayo goals for 2012:

  • Do the 200 Sit Ups Challenge (beginning on Week Two in Column Two) without straining or otherwise injuring my neck in the process
  • Stay on track for W1S1
  • Write the first draft of at least one new short story (not a poem)
  • Write the first draft of a query letter for Shadows and get feedback on it
  • Get back to the HTRYN course I’m using to revise Twixt (and that I’ve neglected all April)
  • If I’m not successful in finishing up all the prompts for the April Poem-A-Day Challenge finish up any I missed.

What are your goals for next month?

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and the letter X. Tomorrow I’ll be blogging about something to do with Y (actually, I expect to go with ‘Why?’ but, ya know, it’s the thought that counts) so pop by then to check it out 🙂

A to Z Challenge, Personal, See The Sky Again, Thoughts

W is for Woman

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This is my husband Jo. I call this picture of him ‘Gameface’ because when I took it we were in the lab and he was doing all sorts of science-y stuff with like test tubes and pipettes and stuff. I think Jo is pretty freaking awesome, (so much so that I commissioned a theme song for him a couple years ago for Christmas. Much of it won’t make sense unless you played WoW with us, but it’s still worth a listen :)). We’ve been married for about 7 years now and together for closer to 11.

We talk about a lot of things around our house but a theme that recurs again and again in our conversations is gender. The perceptions of gender, the portrayals of it in fiction and popular media, that sort of thing.

When I asked Jo to do a guest blog this month he said he had just the thing, and that it had something to do with chickens. Turns out, we don’t get to hear about chickens, but his post does include turkeys, which are almost as awesome, so that’s okay 🙂

~*~

I was asked to do a guest column focusing on the letter W, and I wasn’t sure where to settle. I am a scientist, a biochemist specifically, but my interests extend beyond that. The first thing that comes to mind (that is science related) with this letter is tryptophan. This is an amino acid—an essential amino acid famously mentioned on Seinfeld!(1)—but the relationship to the letter “W” comes from the shorthand notation we use to refer to it. As I often point out to student in my classes, biochemists are lazy and would rather write three letters—or maybe just one, if they can get away with it—instead of the full name for something. Tryptophan is typically written as either Trp or W (T was already taken by threonine)—and you can remember this if you pronounce the word “twyptophan”, as if you have some kind of speech impediment. Ha ha, such laughs we have in science! That said, the extent of my dialogue is only as long as a Kilgore Trout novel.

So that got me thinking about W in other ways. W is for “Woman”, both as the straight up letter thing, but also in a more obscure way. Tryptophan, as Seinfeld implies, is abundant in turkey, which leads me to the other way that W and Women come together. In humans, at the genetic level, women are homogametic (XX) for the sex chromosomes while males are heterogametic (XY); the Y chromosome is a degenerate version of the X chromosome and that of course leads to a wealth of joke material regarding remote controls and sexual relations in general. But in turkeys (also other birds, insects and other species) the males are homogametic (ZZ) while females are heterogametic (WZ). This has an immediate repercussion—particularly if someone makes a joke about roosters having inferior chromosomes based on them having an X/Y chromosome system instead of the W/Z. Not that I think hens are inferior to roosters because they have degenerate chromosomes!

Variations on this occur, which leads to one of my other interests regarding sexual ambiguity. It is never as simple as having two options—and in moths and butterflies the difference between females and males may extend from WZ/ZZ to Z/ZZ or WZZ/ZZZZ or further, Jo's Tattoomaking the situation much more interesting. The lines between woman and men are never as clear as we like to think, not even at the genetic level.

Kate Bornstein is one of my heroes, and if you have never read the book “Gender Outlaw” I can’t recommend it highly enough. I have loathed gender-based generalizations for as long as I can remember; awareness of the genetic spectrum as well as the phenotypic spectrum of gender/orientation is a huge eye-opener for tolerance and awareness. When I was a grad student I wore skirts regularly; I have never minded being mistaken for a woman; and although I have never identified as female I was always a little jealous of the clothing options (especially formal wear!). One of my tattoos revolves around gender ambiguity and combines male and female symbology as a core part of the design. I do not considered myself “straight” but as slightly bent.

So what is the end message here? “W” is for women—no matter what their chromosome composition—and I love them all.

References:
(1) Seinfeld script for episode 162 “The Merv Griffin Show” http://www.seinology.com/scripts/script-162.shtml
Kate Bornstein’sWeblog: http://katebornstein.typepad.com/

~*~

In case you didn’t catch the mouse over, that picture up there? That’s one of Jo’s tattoos.

Did you see how he ended his post with ‘I love them all’? He did that to drive me bonkers. Anytime someone says they love/hate/whatever all of anything (including groups of people) that I’m like ‘Argh! You do not! You don’t know them all! Rawr! Rage!’ Well, okay, not so much the rage, but definitely the rawr ;0)

Anyway, I love Jo’s point about how there is a spectrum of gender identities (and sexuality) even at the genetic level. You can’t just put people into box #1 or box #2 and expect them to fit. I feel like that idea is beginning to creep more and more into my work. For example, I had a lot of fun when I was working on See The Sky Again (an Aphanasian novel that is still very much a WIP) in taking the usual gender roles, standing them on their heads and then turning them inside out.

If you haven’t quite heard enough from Jo, you’re in lucky. Last night we went to the premiere of the documentary ‘Always Forward‘ by PhotonMotion. The documentary is about the Biochemistry department at the University of Alberta, which happens to be where Jo works and teaches. He’s featured in the movie (mostly near the beginning) with his super awesome 3d models making appearances throughout. I thought he looked a little un-used to being in front of the camera, but the footage of him lecturing his class really shows the Jo I know.

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by Jo Parrish and the letter W. I can’t believe the month is almost over (though I’m pretty thankful LOL). Tomorrow I’ll be tackling the letter X.

 

A to Z Challenge, Aphanasian Stories, Personal, See The Sky Again, Shades of Green, Shadows, Sister Margaret, Writing

Abbadon’s Curse

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This post is about video games. I was originally going to write about the video games I play these days, but then I had a better idea. Let me tell you about a fantastic video game that was never made.

Abbadon’s Curse.

Abbadon’s Curse is a game I wanted to create over ten years ago. I looked over the main game description document that I gave to the developers and it looks like it was created in early 2002 and I’d been working on stuff for the game long before I began that file.

Abbadon’s Curse was going to be fantastic. It was an MMORPG with all of the usual MMORPG-type things in it, but there were a lot of other cool things that I hadn’t seen done in games up until that point. Night and day, for example, with certain spells and abilities only being able to be used in one or the other. Capes which could be designed (like tabards are now in WoW) to have a unique look for each guild (or character). It was also going to be very story-centric, very lore-based.

The game was set in the world of Aphanasia. A place where, upon the death of her son in battle, she blessed that land so that any who died in battle would not remain dead but rise up once more to fight again. Unfortunately, despite the fact her intentions may have been good, in reality her blessing turned out to be more like a curse.  Dun dun dun.

Moonberrys were also very important in that world, as was the magical tree they came from. They were especially important to a race of lizard-men called the Urbagdú or the Reptar who used them in every part of their society. The wise men used the berries for medicines, the mages for magic and the warriors used shed boughs from the trees for weapons. Moonberries were even the closest thing the society had to a currency.

In developing the game and it’s storyline we focused a lot on the reptar because they were going to be our first set of adversaries (you know, after everyone was done leveling off rats, and moving on to wolves, and then…) and we needed to give them depth and story. We had several other races in mind we were going to use as spice in our first release and make more important in the future. The Reptar were found mostly in and around the swamp, but the mountains were home to a race of shadow elves, and pirates tended to prowl the coastlines. And of course, what kind of RPGMMO would be complete without vampires? We had them too… In fact, one of our important, named NPCs was a vampiric pirate 😉

In addition to our races and plots and maps and game design documents, we also had a series of gods for the denizens of Aphanasia to worship (the icons for each are along the bottom there). Abbadon, Calamyr, Rakkir (named after a character I used to RP with), Xaphan and the Dragon Gods.

Alas the game fell apart. I totally blame myself. I was the lead on the game, the story was mine, the bulk of the world development was mine, and it was my work that filled the game design documents, but I can’t program. Not even a little. I wasn’t able to provide strong leadership to the programming team and I think it was largely because of my ignorance in programming. I couldn’t set reasonable timelines or expectations and I didn’t know how to crack the whip.

I’m still very sad this game never got to become a reality, but I was determined not to allow the insane amounts of work I’d put into the world development for it to go to waste. That’s why, if you’ve read any of my Aphanasian stories, a lot of this stuff will sound familiar to you.

The moonberry tree got a bit of a makeover, and I set my stories in a time after Abbadon’s curse has ceased to exist (so far anyway LoL). I tweaked my races and my world to suit the world of fiction better than that of video games, but the skeleton of that world definitely comes from what I developed for a video game.

~ Shadows ~ Sister Margaret ~ Lost and Found ~ Shades of Green ~ There’s Always a Catch ~ The Legend of the First Reptar ~

All the above stories are set in Aphanasia, and most of them can be read for free, if you’re interested. It looks like the e-zine that published The Legend of the First Reptar is no longer in existence, but the other stories are all still available (except Shadows which I just finished LOL)

So, yeah. While I’m terribly sad that Abbadon’s Curse will never be a game you can download and play (barring a minor miracle anyway LoL) I’m pretty pleased with myself that I managed to continue to use the world I’d created for it, making it even more lush, detailed and populated than I had for the game.

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter V for Video Game. Tomorrow my husband Jo will be doing a guest blog. He won’t even tell me what it’s going to be about except that it has something to do with chickens. I hope you’ll stop by, it ought to be entertaining 🙂

A to Z Challenge, Newsletter, Personal

Questions

4 Comments

In doing this Blogging from A to Z challenge (which is more difficult than I’d expected) I was stuck for a topic to go with Q so I asked people to ask me questions I could answer. Thankfully people took pity on my pleading and asked me some questions. I answered the first couple on my “I” post (I Lied), and now I’m going to tackle a few more. I’m not going to answer them all though, because, um, well, I may need them for another post later this month LOL

Huushiita asked:

What are some of your WIP that you have? Do you even have any? lol

I have several. It’s actually kinda tricky to set a definite number because I have dozens of poem first drafts in notebooks that are resting before I revise, polish and submit them. If we don’t count them though, or the stuff I’ve started working on and then filed in my “In Progress” folder (likely) to be never seen again I have four novels in various states of done-ness, three short stories in desperate need of attention (two are unfinished and one is in need of serious revision) and two pieces that I don’t know how long they’re going to be when they are done. You could say that focus is not my strongest skill.

ETA: Apparently answering questions also isn’t my skill. I went to bed and then realised I hadn’t actually answered this question and worse, I knew I’d never sleep until I did.

So, to answer the question you asked (what are some of your WIPs) rather than the one I read (How many WIPs do you have?):

I’m working on Twixt which is a YA novel about a girl who is trapped in the land between this life and whatever comes after. I’m also working on a genie novel currently titled Consequence and I’ve got parts of my brain chewing away on another novel set around Krakatau right before it blows. That story doesn’t have a working title yet, but it does have a lot of awesome. I mean, a monster volcano and shapeshifters erm, that is, secret awesomeness.

On the short story front I’m struggling to work on a rather classically-styled ghost story, an Antikythera machine-inspired piece, and a couple stories about some sexy demons. I don’t know yet how long those last two are going to turn out to be… I’ll have to find time to start working on them some more to start figuring that out. I’m also working on a graphic novel with Danica that has a lot of fun (a lot of challenges too, as you can imagine) which really deserves more of my time than its getting.

This blogging challenge and the poem a day challenge are consuming all my writing time right now, but thankfully the subconcious keeps chewing away on things when I can’t devote all my attention to them LOL Come May my priorities are going to be Twixt and whatever else looks shiny when the time comes 🙂

Do you write with music on? If so, what is your go-to song/band/album? What music do you prefer?

It depends. When I’m writing poetry I prefer to have the radio on low and in the next room, it provides some background noise without actually being influenced by it. When I’m working on fiction, however, it’s anyone’s guess LOL Sometimes I need the low radio (I positively cannot work in silence) and sometimes I like having identifiable music playing. For example, when I wrote the last draft of Shadows my playlist was mostly Taylor Swift, but I also wrote a novel while listening exclusively to King Diamond.

Do you ever get cravings for ice cream from out of nowhere? What’s your flavour of choice?

Nah, not really. Ice cream isn’t my foodie weakness. Right now I’m all about stuffed jalapenos. Om nom nom. I did talk about ice cream in my previous question post though. You can check it out here, iffin yer curious.

Why must you be so damn bloody awesome? <3

I wasn’t sure if I should post this question or not LOL I don’t feel particularly awesome, but saying that feels like fishing for compliments, which I most assuredly am not. If I truly were awesome, I’d have had a super funny response to make to this question, but I don’t, I only have thanks, for making me smile 🙂

Ness asked:

what happened to your newsletter?

It fell victim to a combination of a bit of impostor complex (Who am I to have a newsletter? Does anyone even read this thing?) and a particularly bad depression that forced me to seriously cut back on the number of things I was doing. I’m feeling a lot better these days so perhaps it’s time I considered sending it out again. After all, there are still subscribers there… Hmm… We’ll see, we’ll see…

have you had ‘the talk’ with dani yet?

I honestly thought about making this it’s own blog post, I could talk about it quite extensively. However, I decided that I’d take the lazy way out and just address it here instead, in short form 🙂

Personally, I don’t believe in ‘the talk’. I believe in a dialogue, a continuous dialogue that takes place over many years. Jo and I have always spoken openly with Danica about sex, keeping our answers age-appropriate, of course. She knows she can come to us with any questions she may have (and she does) and receive non-judgemental, correct information in response.

In all honestly, the more difficult questions to answer are not about the biological / physcial things about sex. Much, much harder are the questions about relationships (romantic and otherwise). Emotions are so much trickier than mechanics LOL We try to answer those as openly as we can, giving Danica information, advice or sharing our own similar situations, but then leaving her to make her own decisions and act on them.

you’ve written a lot of things set in aphanasia. do you have more? how many more do you think you’ll write?

I do have more. A lot more LOL And I will write them, someday. Right now, however, I really feel like I need to take a little break from Aphanasia to work on a couple of the other stories that are tossing about in my brain. That being said, even now, when I’m trying to devote all my attention to revising Twixt I’m still occasionally struck with an idea for See The Sky Again, which is another Aphanasian novel I started working on a while back and plan on finishing someday (oh, and I didn’t include that in my count of WIPs. Sorry Huushii, I guess that makes it five novels).

Thank you guys for your questions 🙂 I’m going to tackle a few more in the near-ish future 🙂

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This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter Q. If you come by tomorrow I’ll be talking about Rejection. In the meantime, don’t forget about Niteblade’s fundraiser. I know I’ve said it before, but we really, truly need your help.

A to Z Challenge, Personal, Thoughts

Other Writers

10 Comments

I feel like I’ve been talking about myself an awful lot this month, and you’re probably more than ready for a little break from all the ‘Me, me, me’ stuff So…

See that photo? I took it while I was at a retreat for writers a while back. I flatter myself that it could be considered inspiring, which is what makes it the perfect image to go with this blog. You see, I’m going to talk about other writers. Writers I find inspiring.

In trying to decide who to include on this list I found that really it wasn’t all about what these people wrote, or even how they wrote it (though they are all super freaking talented and often inspire sparks of envy in me). The main reason I picked these people to share as the writers who inspire me was because they are good people. They inspire me to want to be a better person, not just a better writer.

In no particular order, let me share introduce you to some of the people who inspire me.

Beth Cato: She’s probably going to blush when she reads this, and that’s part of why I love her so much, she doesn’t seem to know how awesome she is. One of the things I like the most about Beth is that she sets goals and then she reaches them. It sounds so simple, until you think about it. It doesn’t matter what distractions, what obstacles, what things come up to try and make her stray from her path she doesn’t. She’s human, so I’m sure she’s missed deadlines on occasion, but it’s not for lack of trying.

I really got to know Beth after I published her story The Pacifier (which is freaking awesome, and you need to read it. Now. Go ahead, I’ll wait) and she’s become one of my dearest friends even though we’ve never met in person. Yet. I really can’t emphasize enough how inspiring and motivating it is to watch her pursuing her goals and accomplishing them, one by one.

Carrie Jones: Carrie is nice. No, she’s not nice in that that sugar-coated fake way that so many people are, she is honestly and sincerely nice. Carrie is the kind of person who will (and does) go out of her way to help a stranger. She’s got one of the biggest hearts of anyone I’ve ever *met* and also has an ability to really evoke emotion in her readers without slipping into the realm of melodrama — I suspect the two are related. She’s goofy, and fun, and, did I mention nice? One day I’m going to meet her in like, three dimensions, and that will be a good day. A very good day.

Jim Hines: Jim. What can I say about Jim? He makes me laugh and he makes me think — often both at the same time. I respect his no-nonsense straight talk about controversial issues, his ability to listen to other people’s opinions and respond thoughtfully, and his willingness to pose like women off book covers. He donates his time to charity auctions (and know from experience his critiques are incredibly valuable) and when Danica (a few years ago) sent him a piece of fan art for one of his goblin books, it made her month that he took time to send a personal reply. In my opinion he is made of win.

Kyle Kassidy: I know Kyle more for his photography than his fiction writing, but there is no question in my mind that he belongs on this list. I was introduced to Kyle through his blog on Livejournal, which is a complete adventure in itself. What I love the most about Kyle is how completely non-judgemental he is of people and the positive attitude he always seems to have. Also, he seems so. freaking. unselfish. It’s amazing. When I read his blogs or look at his pictures it almost always picks me up. When I grow up I want to be more like him. Truly. He once wrote ‘Make something beautiful’ and those words have stuck with me ever since. It’s how I’d like to live, making everyday into something special, and Kyle gave me that image, that ideal.

There are a great many other people I could have included, though, but this is only one blog post and I had to stop at some point. Maybe I’ll continue to expand on this list over the coming months as time allows.

Who would you have included that I missed? Why? Do they have a blog, or a book out, I’d like to get to know them if I don’t already 🙂

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This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter O. If you come back tomorrow I’ll be talking a bit about Poetry. Also, don’t forget to check out Niteblade’s Fundraiser. We really do need your help, and we want to give you goodies for offering it 🙂

A to Z Challenge, Personal, Random Fact

Kidnapped by Klingons

12 Comments

I grew up in southern Alberta. For the first half of my childhood we lived in the MD of Willow Creek, but when I was in grade four we moved to the County of Vulcan (it’s like the wheat capital of Alberta so I’ve totally got the wrong grain in that picture, but whatcha gonna do?). Around about the time I was in grade seven the county began a promotional thing — they started taking advantage of their name.

Suddenly there were Star Trek-themed paintings in every business’s windows, and on one corner of main street, right by the old town bell (they used to ring at curfew) one of those stand things where you could stick your face through a hole and look like you were a crew member of the Enterprise. The Home Hardware began to sell Vulcan ears, and I think they even had three-sided coins that were only good in Vulcan. Best of all, was Spock Days.

I understand that these days Spock Days are pretty big, there’s a rodeo and they get Star Trek-related celebrities to come hang out, but from what I remember of that first year it wasn’t quite as big a deal. In fact, the evening I have in mind may have been part of some sort of midnight madness-type thing rather than actual Spock Days.

A friend and I went to the pool hall, where all our friends hung out, and we were having fun. Shooting pool, listening to really, really outdated tunes on the juke box (Queen of Hearts anyone? Did I mention this was like 89-90ish?) when suddenly her parents came in. Not to kick us out, we were allowed to be there, but to embarrass the hell out of us. They were wearing Spock ears, acting dorky and making sure every single person in the pool hall knew they were her parents. Now, as an adult I think what they did was awesome, but to two teenage girls who cared very much about looking cool (though we’d have denied it with our last breath then), it was horrifying.

Mortified, we fled the pool hall and went to hang out on the street. Main street had been blocked off I think, so there was no vehicle traffic, but man, was there ever a lot of pedestrians out. And in costumes too! There were loads of random red shirts and I remember another friend’s mother was dressed up as Amanda Grayson (I remember because she was mortified that I didn’t know she was Spock’s mother and I got a 5 minute long “education” about his heritage), and the Klingons. There was a group of men who were dressed up in the best Klingon costumes you’ve ever in real life. I think they were actors who had been hired by the town to kidnap the mayor as part of the festivities.

My friend and I were just walking down the street, checking out cute boys, looking cool, and all those things that teenage girls do (or at least the ones I did when I was a teenage girl LOL) when the Klingons came up from behind us and swept us away. Neither one of us was very big and a Klingon just picked each of us up, tossed us over their shoulder and kept on walking. It was all in good fun, and flattering, of course, to be the subject of their attentions, so while we squealed and kicked a little bit, neither one of us actually wanted to get free. Where would the fun be in that? And besides, how many girls can say they’ve been kidnapped by Klingons?

…so, I should leave that story as it is, but I can’t. The truth is, while most of it is the truth, I’m not sure about the last paragraph. In fact, I’m pretty much sure that’s an outright lie. Here’s the thing. The line between truth and fiction is sometimes blurry, and this is one of those cases. I’ve told that story a lot. A lot. It’s a good story… but it’s a lie. My friend and I made it up (for whatever reason, I don’t even remember now), but I’ve told it so many times that I remember it. I remember it as though it really happened.

As frustrating as I find that in reality, it is that merging of truth and fiction that I’m striving very hard to reach in my writing these days. I’m learning how to weave reality with lies to make a good story. It’s been a slow trudge so far, but I think I’m getting it. I want my readers to know what they are reading isn’t true, but feel like it is. The same way I feel about the Klingon story. I expect this is sort of at the core of good writing, the balance between truth and lies, and it’s something I will be continuing to work on until the day I die, but I feel like I’m making progress, and that’s a good feeling.

Now if only my conscience would let me stop ruining my “kidnapping” story by telling on myself after every time I tell it and letting people know it’s part fiction 😉

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This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter K. Please come back  tomorrow when I’ll be talking about Lost and Found