I Finished!

So basically: deadlines are the most wonderful things ever invented.

I have officially, finally, thankfully finished a short story that I call 12. My first serious, completed bit of writing.

[Wait, you thought I had actually finished my book? Yeah, I'm going to get back to work on that...this weekend. I promise.]

A little smidgen of background: I mentioned 12 when I asked y'all to pick an idea for me to start working on. I don't remember why I put it in the running because I always planned for it to be a short story. But anyways. According to Microsoft Word, I first created the document on September 10, 2009. When I was avoiding More Blessed, I would open it up and write for a little while.

As of Monday, the word count was about 1,250.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the word count was about 3,900. First draft, finished! Now: editing!

As of Tuesday night, the word count was exactly 3,780.

The only reason that I was able to write more words in that one day than I had been able to over the past two years? A midnight deadline. I submitted the story to my school's student literary journal which is super exciting. I've talked before about needing motivation and/or deadlines to inspire me to write. I definitely get just how much I rely on procrastination to get things done. So hopefully this will help me actually finish other stories too :)

I can't post the story itself but I'd like to share more than that old, still mostly relevant summary. So here are some things that I had in mind while writing 12.

I'll be sure to let the world know [in April, I believe] whether or not the story gets published!

Why I Hate Chick Flicks

So I've been thinking about something a lot.

I am not a big fan of inspirational movies. Or stupid comedies. Or chick flicks, clearly.

This is a shocker, I know.

[I must admit that although I do own several movies that fit into at least one of these categories, I haven't even touched them in years. Thank goodness I got past my sappy middle school phase.]

I'm the kind of person who vehemently ridicules the Twilight movie trailers and snorts with derision at "love-at-first-sight-conquers-all" stories.

However, I absolutely LOVE a select number of films that are definitely aimed towards a female audience. Some of my favorites: Tangled, Once and Pride and Prejudice [I need to catch up on other classic-books-made-into-films]. I also have a soft spot for goofy telenovelas [umm, hello, they feature hot foreign boys!].

Why would you not watch this movie?

So because I need to be weird and analytical about these things, I thought up a few reasons for this seeming contradiction.

First, I can't stand bad acting. What can I say, I'm a film snob. [Well, okay, I'm generally fine with campy bad acting when it's done with a purpose. But the average rom-com movie is chalk full of really bland actors and I'm not paying money or wasting time watching their run-of-the-mill performances.]

Especially when you can watch performances like this. From people who aren't actors.

Secondly, I hate the normalcy these movies portray. Chick-flicks are typically set in some modern day city and feature some sort of plot premise that people can relate to - dating, miscommunication, kids, blah blah blah. Even the ones with an interesting hook are so formulaic. There's a limited number of ways to tell a love story and still make money. That's why the majority of books I read are not contemporary.

The exception: modern day somewhere else with really crazy story arcs.

Also, I think my own modern life is boring enough, so why would someone else's similar life be any more captivating? If I'm going to watch something set present-day, it has to involve the spies or musical numbers or explosions that I don't get to hang out with in real life.

Love stories are better with frying pans, thieves, singing and pretty lanterns.

Also, I'm a cynic. So maybe that's the reason and these other explanation are just me overthinking things.

The Game of Life

Well.

It's been a very long time since I last posted.

Not really sure why. I mean, my life hasn't been that crazy busy yet. I haven't started going on home visits for my internship so it seems like I'm only taking 10 hours right now. I haven't been reading a ton.

I have spent an entire weekend hanging out with my family - including my newborn baby cousin and my adorable toddler cousin.

Which reminded me of this one post that I meant to write. About a month ago. Back before school started and I was home. After a really silly game of Life with my littlest sister.

This story is best told in pictures, but before I get to that I should explain that my sister and I rarely play Life by the rules. The spinning [Well, okay, rolling dice because the spinner for our board is in Kentucky or something. Long story.] and buying and paydaying all go according to the instructions.

BUT, in the not-quite-new version that we own, there's a handy little intersection towards the end of the route where you're supposed to cross over to the bridge and go a little further and then retire.

I figure it makes more sense just to show you what I'm talking about.

We don't do this.

We jump back onto the part of the route that we already went over and go all the back around. And then, usually, we're ready to retire.

Our rationale for this cheating? It's not what you think - we don't want more money or a chance to switch careers or more LIFE tiles.

We want babies.

Lots and lots of babies :)

I did quite well on our first go round. So well that I had to have 2 cars. So well that I was thinking maybe we should just go straight to the end. My sister, not so much.  

Corinne: 5 kids [twins, boy, adopt twins]. Miss N: 0.

So we go around again. I think I started. And I immediately landed on the twins again. N has no kids. We keep going. I land on the exact same baby boy spot as I had the first time. N still has no kids.

Sneaky picture taking. She covered her car with her hands when she realized what I was doing.

We get to the point that there's only one baby spot left - the adopt twins one.

I am three spaces away. I joke, "I'm going to laugh if I get a three."

I roll a two and a one.

Notice the hand covering the board. And the warm color scheme of my cars.

N screams in frustration.

I pull out yet another car. I am driving the orange one, I let my husband drive the yellow one, and the first set of twins are driving the red one.

Then it's N's turn. She is four spaces away. She rolls a one and a four.

I knock the second dice over so it becomes a three.

N is finally not ashamed to show her car next to mine.

Final tally: Corinne: 10 kids [twins, boy, adopt twins + twins, boy, adopt twins]. N: 2 kids [adopt twins].

And in case you were wondering, I won. Landing on baby spaces 6 times gets you a bunch of LIFE tiles. Also, I stole traded for N's $100,000 salary card halfway through the game.

Where Ideas Come From

I've realized that not only have I not been writing, I also haven't been talking about writing. I guess those things sort of go together. This post was already half written, so if you were interested in how these weird story ideas end up in my head, hooray for you!

By far the easiest part of writing for me is getting that initial spark of an idea. I have dozens, possibly hundreds [I refuse to count them all up] of summaries, questions, characters, worlds, titles, scenes, etc. that could easily become their own story. Note I said story and not novel. Some of them are short story material, while I have only a few that would encompass a more lengthy series.

These have come from lots of different sources, all of which involve me spending a lot of time thinking and daydreaming and actual dreaming. Off the top of my head, I've been inspired by:

• Clouds (twice)
• Anthropology class
• A circling helicopter
• Other books
• Hypothetical questions
• Bizarre dreams
• Quotes
• Road signs
• The Russian Revolutions

I promise, this is the short list. I could go on and on. As one of my favorite authors, Maria V. Snyder, put it in this interview, life itself is fodder for stories.

Case in point:

[My mother walks into the room after retrieving the mail.]

Me: Is there anything good?

Mumsy: [pause while she sorts through all the junk mail] Manatees?

Me: [considering] How do you know they're good though? What if manatees were secretly trying to take over the world? Wouldn't that be cool?!

I need to mention manatees more often so I can justify posting adorable pictures.

Sometimes Most of the time inspiration strikes at the most random moments.

However, this little speck of an idea does not translate to immediate best-selling author status. First you have to wade through all of these bits and pieces to find the ones that will really work. [My dreams are especially iffy in this aspect. Some of them are just too weird to be useable.] And then you have to have the patience to sit down and piece them all together. I'm having trouble being that patient.

Hopefully, one day I'll get an idea that's so good that I need to sit down and write 60,000 words in a month. Fingers crossed.

EDIT: I would have been happy to finish a book in a month. This fabulous author gets it done in a matter of days. You should read all her books. [And her blog, she's rather hilarious.]

This I Believe... Food

This title has been sitting, lonely, for the past two months, just waiting for me to finally get around to articulating my thoughts on our nation's food practices.

And they aren't very positive thoughts.

I decided to write this post, way back in November, after watching the documentary Food, Inc. in my nutrition class. [Interestingly enough, some of the GM/Monsanto stuff I had learned in my sustainable textiles class last spring.] I've talked to a lot of people who've already seen it, but for the lucky ones who haven't, this is what you're missing out on:

I, honestly, don't want to know this kind of stuff about what I'm eating. I'd rather be blissfully unaware of animal mistreatment, the use of hormones and pesticides, unsanitary practices, etc. It's always easier not to know, and therefore not to care.

But now that I do understand just how messed up our food industries are, what am I doing different?

Not much.

The problem, as brought up at the end of the film, is that better food costs more. I certainly try to avoid fast food and actually eat healthy, but with a college-student budget I can't be buying organic food all the time. I try to avoid overly processed food, although I can't resist the temptation to eat junk food when someone else offers it to me.

If I could afford it, I would shop exclusively at places like Whole Foods and Central Market. How ironic it is that the people at the top of the corporations selling us cheap [in quality and in cost] food don't have to eat their own products.

It would be really nice if government agencies and policy ignored the industry giants and decided to really promote healthy eating. You wouldn't think the obesity epidemic would need to get worse for this to happen. If they subsidized fresh fruits and vegetables and organic or sustainable farms. If they supported farmer's markets and locally grown food. [When we were in Wisconsin, we toured a sustainable dairy farm. It was pretty cool and profitable. They even gave us free ice cream sandwiches.]

Of course, that would mean the government would have to care more about consumers [the 99%] than giant corporations and their lobbyists. I wish I could be optimistic about this - I mean, Obama is sort of a consumer-issues president, with the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - but I can't see the situation changing any time soon.

And besides, I won't be living here much longer. I suppose I should find out what the food practices are like in Eastern Europe and South America...

My Fictional Idol

Oh dear goodness.

This is the reason I read. The reason crazy people work crazy hard on crazy books and then deal with all the hassle and waiting and rejection that is publishing.

My darling sister once (recently) made fun of me for reading "silly" books. There's nothing wrong with reading literature or the classics or whatever you want to categorize as "not silly" books. But I can assure you - really assure you - that commercial/entertaining/silly books are just as meaningful and deep as those serious, esoteric novels.

I've read quite a few of these very well-done, highly intelligent books recently. Anna and the French Kiss, The Dark and Hollow Places, and Supernaturally aren't simply about kissing or escaping zombies or paranormals [kissing]. They're about finding a home, for the most part. They're also about the mistakes we make and the beliefs we hold and the people we meet along the way. Basically, about humanity. That's why I liked them so much.

And then we come to today. And oh my goodness the magic is just seeping through me making it impossible not to tell you how amazing The Goblin War is. MAGICAL. AMAZING. OMG. [I should remember this I-have-to-write feeling the next time I'm sitting not knowing what to write in my own book experiment...]

I've already mentioned how much I love this series and author. I love it for the plot and the world and Hilari Bell's awesome writing and the characters. The characters. I realize I may sound completely insane, but these people and goblins (the goblins!) are some of my greatest heroes. I wish so desperately that they were real so that I could meet them.

Most especially Makenna. [Yes, the one I'm naming my first kid after.] I didn't realize until just now, finishing this book, that my obsession with her is due to the fact that I'm just like her - or at least hope to be. She's [a misanthrope who saves humankind], uncompromising in her loyalty to her goblin friends/army, brilliant in her strategy, and always fights for those who don't have anyone fighting for them.

And she wins.

That's what I'm most afraid of in the future: that all my dreams and work and everything will have been useless. That I'll fail in attempting to finish my Personal Legend. (Oh, The Alchemist. Another inspiring book.) Sure, the attempt is worth a lot, but succeeding is worth so much more.

For Makenna's successes, I'm willing to put up with all the stupid happy endings literature has to offer.

I think it's good to have role models wherever you can find them - in real life, in gossip magazines, in silly books, in scholarly papers. Makenna, and all her literary and real comrades, is someone I know I can turn to for a bit of humor, a bit of steel, and a whole lot of dedication to my cause.

So I will proudly keep reading and writing silly Young Adult novels that mean a whole lot more to me than a bunch of intellectual tomes.

[My word count, for those of you keeping track, is still the same BUT I have been working on the book. In a non-writing way. While I get back into the swing of getting things done. And quit making excuses. I am also trying to figure out a way to put it in a sidebar so I don't have to keep tacking it onto the ends of all my posts.]

Big Brother is Already Watching

It's already the 11th? Yeah, still not turning on my laptop much. On the plus side, I've been reading and sleeping more than getting on the Internet.

Speaking of which - I think it's really creepy that these are the kinds of ads that show up on Facebook.

Even the game says "Beware."

The vaccine one I don't understand, but all the others are directly related to pages I like, my stated religion, and even this blog. Linking to my blog posts has tipped Facebook off to my publication aspirations (although they are several years ahead of themselves in advertising book publishing when I haven't even written one book).

Facebook should not know these things about me! Advertisers should not know these things about me! If I didn't rely on it so much to communicate and keep up with other people, I'd delete my Facebook in an instant. I've thought about it many times but never followed through.

I know the whole personalized ads thing is really old news, but it still bothers me.

There are a lot of things that I love about the Internet, things I say I can't live without. However, there's a big tradeoff to these - privacy. It terrifies me to think that people can easily find my address, phone number, hometown, school, social security number with just a little digging and clever hacking. Contemporary America is a scary, scary place.

Yet another reason I love reading (specifically fantasy) so much: people in books have an easier time reinventing themselves or disappearing without a trace.

More Blessed Word Count: 17,599