In Which I Hide From Adult Responsibilities In Ridiculous Pipe Dreams

Tags

books, life, Twilight, writing

I like to hide from reality.

I mean, my reality is mess right now. I never know when I get up in the morning how much work/parenting I’m going to have to do. PH’s energy levels vary from “practically functional” to “zzzzzzz”. I almost always do the morning diapers/breakfast/clothes/school routine (although PH did handle things this morning, giving me the first sleep in I have had in many moons). Evenings, though, vary wildly. Sometimes he cooks dinner and puts the baby down. Other times I cook dinner and put both kids to sleep.

Then there’s work. I’m working part time at the vet clinic because I like a steady cash stream. But they’re always badgering me to work more. In dire circumstance, I agree, and then I feel guilty for putting more burden on PH. Other times, like today, I refuse and feel guilty and worthless for not being able to do my job.

On top of the clinic job, I’m supposed to be focusing on my dog training career. But I have extremely mixed feelings about my dog training. On the one hand, I enjoy teaching classes and helping people with their dogs privately… WHILE I AM DOING IT. The process of arranging appointments, booking appointments, calling back prospective clients etc etc fills me with crippling levels of anxiety.

So I haven’t been doing it much.

Instead of focusing on actually getting work, instead I’ve been focusing on a complete pipe-dream.

My book.

Remember when I first starting complaining about Twilight, and I made my Rowling vs Meyer rants? Well, for NaNoWriMo in 2012 I wrote a book which I intended to be a sort of Twilight parody, featuring a strong female character named Stella and a gentle zombie love interest named Howard.

But as I worked on it, it stopped being a parody and became a unique book in its own right. I got attached to Stella and Howie, and I realized that in order for it to be a true opposite of Twilight it would need to have a complex plot, three dimensional characters and so on. So I spent years and years achieving that.

After years of beta readers’ feedback and re-writes and re-re-writes and obsessive editing, I’ve decided to finally publish the thing. And so, when I should be out leaving flyers for my dog training business or working more hours at the clinic, I’ve spent it getting my book published.

It’s scheduled to come out in December. I have an author website, and a Facebook page, and an instagram account. I have it available for pre-order on kindle, and it’s listed on Goodreads. I’ve arranged a giveaway on The Militant Baker‘s website on November 30th. I am setting up advertising. I have it listed on Netgalley for review (hopefully they’ll be gentle – Netgalley readers are notoriously tough). I have mailed copies to the big pre-publication review houses.

Whenever I get a free moment I spend it on promoting my stupid feminist zombie book.

Because the thing is, what I really want to do is stay home and write all day. Not call people back about their dogs (as much as I love dogs) or work at a vet clinic. I love writing. That’s what I want to do.

Or at least, I think I do. So far, I have only gotten rave reviews on my book. I’ve emailed free copies to strangers and they have replied with enthusiasm. A complete stranger, who reviews books harshly from what I can tell from his Goodreads account, said my book “far surpasses what it was inspired by” and called it a “masterpiece” and that MADE MY DAY. Another, a children’s author who has won a bunch of awards from her book, said she stayed up all night reading it. And man, that got me through another day.

But if a rave review can make my day, what will a negative review do? Because I’ll get them. It’s a book full of swear words and feminism so some people out there are going to HATE IT. I like to think that I’ll be okay with it as long as people hate it for the right reasons (feminism) and not because they think I’m a hack.

I think that when it is finally published and more reviews come in, I’m in for an emotional rollercoaster.

But in the meantime, I am living in this dream world where my book could be adored by everyone and I could become a famous author and stay home and just write in a white room with a lovely view.

That makes much more sense than just, like, dealing with reality, right?

Life and Death – Meyer Gender-Reverses Twilight And Still Somehow Manages To Be Sexist

Tags

abuse, beau swan, edythe cullen, Life and death, reviews, sexism, Stephenie Meyer, TwiBashing, Twilight, writing

I found out recently that in her 10th Anniversary Edition of Twilight, Stephenie Meyer basically re-wrote it with everyone’s gender being reversed, and called it Life and Death.

So of course I had to read that.

As you probably already know, I have had a few things to say about Twilight, especially when it comes to sexism.

So I was intrigued by the idea of a gender reversed Twilight.

if you imagine a domineering, aggressive female love interest and a pliable and clumsy male love interest, well… Twilight would still be badly written and promote abusive relationship models, but you couldn’t call it sexist any more.

So I picked up a copy. Used. Because I’m not giving money to the publisher of this drivel.

Aside: Yes, that’s right, it’s the publisher I blame. I don’t hate Stephenie Meyer, or wish her ill. She is a mom who wrote a book, just like me, and she struck the jackpot. Good on her, and I should be so lucky. It’s just the message of her books that I don’t like, and her writing style, and basically everything. But I wish her all the best and I envy her, I really do. 

Aside Aside: On that note, my non-sexist, body positive, zombie-romance rewrite of Twilight is almost ready to be published. If you visit my author website before it comes out, you can sign up to get a free kindle copy of the book when it comes out. It’s like a preorder. But free. I’m not looking to get rich, I just want people to read my book. 

“Why are you reading that?” my husband asked when Life and Death arrived in the mail. “Why do you torture yourself?”

“Because – I will bet you money that even with all of the genders reversed, Stephenie Meyer will still find a way to make this book sexist,” I told him.

“Well, if you go into it with that attitude, you’ll find something,” he said. “Confirmation bias.”

He was absolutely right. and it’s easy to assume that every change I spotted was made for sexist reasons. Take this one:

Twilight:

‘Well, Billy’s done a lot of work on the engine – it’s only a few years old, really.’

Life and Death: 

‘Well, Bonnie’s had a lot of work done on the engine – it’s only a few years old, really.’

What, women can’t do work on their own truck’s engine? WTF?

But here’s the thing: I really wanted to be wrong. I did. I wanted to believe that Meyer had produced something that really stood out. I wanted to believe that I was holding the cure to the ills of the original story.

And you know what? It sort of worked. I think. Life And Death is a vastly superior story to Twilight. It is also a vastly different story.

I had been led to believe that Life and Death was just Twilight, with the genders reversed. But it isn’t. The two books are wildly different. Meyer didn’t just go in and do word-replaces. She changed a LOT of stuff, and a lot of that stuff made for a better story.

However, I can’t decide whether she changed it because she knew that it would make things better, or if she changed it because she’s really freaking sexist. 

Let me describe the changes, then you can decide for yourself.

New Year’s Resolution: Don’t Pursue Happiness

Tags

fitness, happiness, ideal self, new year's Resolutions, weight, writing

I have mixed feelings about New Year’s Resolutions. I feel like people make resolutions just to feel good for a while, and don’t really think about it. Most years I don’t give a thought to my resolutions until New Year’s Eve rolls around again.

But there have been exceptions.

Many years ago, I made a resolution to “SORT THE F&%$ OUT OF MY LIFE”. I was struggling in a relationship in which the same problems kept coming back, and no amount of arguments seemed to change or improve things. I was painfully aware of the fact that my best friend who lived on the other side of the country gave me more emotional support and interesting conversation than my significant other, and I felt that this was not how the world should be.

But I wasn’t sure how to change things. And as the year passed and I became increasingly worried about the fact that my life was NOT getting sorted out, I found the resolve to put down a foot, and say, “if X happens again, I am done with the relationship”.

It happened again. I ended the relationship.

I can’t say that it made me happier. Ending a long term relationship with someone you genuinely care about does not make life happier. It was painful and chaotic and I felt like my entire life had been turned upside down.

But I knew that nothing could get better until I did that. It was a necessary, if unpleasant, step.

Within six months I had started officially dating my best friend, and life was much better. It was unspoken from day one that we would get married. Sometimes you just know these things.

Things got sorted out, and I ended up happier in the long run.

So when I read this article about how the pursuit of happiness is a false God, it spoke to me. Specifically, it said this:

It’s the perpetual pursuit of fulfilling our ideal selves which grants us happiness, regardless of superficial pleasures or pain, regardless of positive or negative emotions. This is why some people are happy in war and others are sad at weddings. It’s why some are excited to work and others hate parties. The traits they’re inhabiting don’t align with their ideal selves.

The end results don’t define our ideal selves. It’s not finishing the marathon that makes us happy, it’s achieving a difficult long-term goal that does. It’s not having an awesome kid to show off that makes us happy, but knowing that you gave yourself up to the growth of another human being that is special. It’s not the prestige and money from the new business that makes you happy, it’s the process of overcoming all odds with people you care about.

He talks a lot about how people mistake pleasure for happiness, and how worrying about their own happiness can make them afraid to take important life steps which will, for a while, make them less happy.

And when I look back on it, the resolutions I have kept in the past were the ones that really mattered to me. The ones that were life changing.

And so, this year, I resolve to try to pursue my ideal self. I will try to make changes that align myself with the person I feel that I am inside, the person that I want to be.

Since that person is thinner, but dieting has never worked long-term for me, I am going to try to increase my exercise and make a conscious effort to eat along the lines of the diabetic diet I was on during pregnancy. I think that even if I don’t lose a lot of weight, I will feel better about myself if I am more active and make good eating choices more often. I will feel closer to my ideal self.

I think that losing weight would make me happier, but I am not going to make that a goal. I am just going to become the kind of person who COULD.

I am breaking out the old fit bit, and I am going to download Zombies Run onto my phone. I will listen to it while walking the dog, and we’ll see if that helps keep me moving.

Since that ideal self is also a dog trainer and a writer, I am going to focus on finishing and then publishing (through createspace if necessary) my dog training book, even if that means that I have to put my fiction book aside for now. Having that dog training book will help get me business, and help free me from the shackles of working as someone else’s employee.

Once I have done that, then I can play with fiction.

We’ll see how this goes. But something needs to change, and I am going to start now.

WRITE ALL THE THINGS

Tags

motherhood, writing

This blog is six years old now and I miss it.

I miss writing. I basically haven’t done any in months. During pregnancy my energy levels decreased to the point where I could barely even read at the end of the day. Heck, by the last month before the baby came I was taking NAPS in the afternoons.

NAPS.

I NEVER NAP.

If someone wrote a blurb-like description of me, they would probably include “can’t sleep between the hours of 11 am and 11 pm” (along with “drinks a lot of diet pepsi” and “spends way too much time explaining stuff to people.”)

And this was with my mother in law, and then my own mother, to help out around the house. Even with someone cooking my meals, washing my dishes, and playing with my son, I still couldn’t summon the energy to focus on writing.

Now, I have slightly more energy, and I am burning with a hypothetical desire to write ALL THE THINGS.

I want to write a book on dog training for my dog training business, so that we can be the dog trainers who wrote a book.

I want to finish writing my fiction trilogy that parodies Twilight but with feminism and zombies.

I want to write on this blog and tell you about a zillion things.

I want to do a whole other blog where I do nothing but heavily overthink things.

Do I have the time for any of this? No! Because, baby! And four year old! Even with my mother in law to help, the fact of the matter is that it is very hard to type on a laptop while holding a baby.

I never sit at the desktop computer anymore, because that has become PH’s refuge from all the hustle and bustle in the rest of the house. It’s not like my first mat leave where I was home alone all day at the computer. Now it’s every now and then at the lap top with one hand.

Even when I do get to put the baby down for half an hour or so, I have trouble writing with the knowledge that the baby could wake up and interrupt me at any moment. It’s like falling asleep – you need to feel like you aren’t JUST ABOUT TO BE INTERRUPTED.

But I’m going to try. Because I love writing and I need it. I have so much to say.

But when I get half an hour – which do I write first?

Fifty Shades of Oh, Holy F***, Why Can’t You Write?

Tags

criticism, e l james, fifty shades of grey, grammar, review, sexist, writing

I’ve been meaning to talk about the Fifty Shades of Grey series for a while now, since I’ve finally fought my way through the third book.

Oh dear lord, why is this famous?

I will reluctantly give it this – and those who haven’t read both series may be surprised to hear this – it’s BETTER WRITTEN THAN TWILIGHT.

Significantly, actually.

That doesn’t mean it is GOOD.

“Better than Twilight” is like saying “better than having your eyes removed with a melon-baller”. You could still be referring to a root canal or stepping on a piece of lego in your bare feet.

To briefly compare, let’s go over all the things wrong with Twilight, shall we?

Oh, right.

Okay, well, let’s briefly sum up the WORST things about Twilight:

1. Protagonist is dim witted and a terrible person.

2. Protagonist is a weak female who promotes all those unhealthy stereotypes of the fainting, delicate, door-mat princess who tries to look feisty by occasionally having an opinion about her own fate.

3. Love interest is a domineering, condescending, power hungry bad boy who repeatedly puts his own desires first.

4. Poor plot structure – story consists of purple prose romantic fantasy briefly interrupted by a random action climax completely unrelated to the previous 200 pages of story line.

5. Cardboard cut-out characters who often act against their directly-described characterization (e.g. a character is described as terse but then goes on long rambling diatribes).

Now, let’s compare that to its spawn, Fifty Shades of Grey (for those who might be unaware, Fifty Shades originated as Twilight fan fiction which took Edward’s creepy bossiness to a whole new level):

1. Protagonist seems aware of her surroundings and doesn’t repeatedly lie to her father, flirt with someone she is uninterested in for the express purpose of extracting information, or blow off people who try to be nice to her.

2. Protagonist is still a weak female who promotes all those unhealthy stereotypes of the fainting, delicate, door-mat princess who tries to look feisty by occasionally having an opinion about her own fate. Also, slight hints at an eating disorder.

3. Love interest is a domineering, condescending, power hungry bad boy who repeatedly puts his own desires first… but at least the protagonist recognizes that this is a problem.

4. Poor plot structure – The first book ends at the climax, and you don’t get the denouement until you pick up the second book. Then a random action sequence is inserted to create further tension in later books but seems constantly tacked-on to the main storyline

5. Protagonist and her love interest are actually surprisingly three dimensional. The rest of the characters are simply extras with no depth, however.

So, as you can see, it is MARGINALLY better.

If you put a gun to my head and said I had to re-read one of these two series, I’d pick Fifty Shades, hands down.

If you want, I can do a Twilight vs Fifty Shades series at some point, although it would sort of be like pitting Cow Pats vs Dirty Diapers.

Fifty Shades has elements that, in the right hands, could actually have made it good. It brought the world of BDSM into the light (albeit in ENTIRELY THE WRONG WAY), which is refreshing if also worrying. Although it’s also annoying because suddenly bondage is a fad and I’m like “lol wut?”

Either you’re into it, or you’re not, right? Why is it suddenly hot when previously it wasn’t? If women have been longing to be tied up all these years, why didn’t they just go to their husbands and say “hey, tie me up, would you?” And besides, the BDSM style it brought into the light was female-submissive, male-dominant, which single handedly took feminism back 100 years.

Anyway, the character of Christian Grey is actually interesting, if not likeable.

But then there’s the unalterable fact that it’s badly written. It provides a hideously unhealthy relationship example – remember kids, if he’s controlling, domineering, and seriously screwed up, you should put up with it as long as he’s good looking and says that he loves you – and it has creepy subliminal-messaging-style references to anorexia.

Check it out (spoiler warning – if one can “spoil” something that is badly written erotica to begin with):

Random Twilight Rant

Tags

facial expressions, humor, literary criticism, Twilight, writing

I am rereading Twilight, possibly out of self-hatred but ostensibly because I want to make sure that my Zombie Anti-Twilight story fully opposes it in every respect.

It’s mind numbing; I am reading it in bed at night only… to help me fall asleep.

What’s bothering me the most this time around are Edward’s looks. Bella, who forgets to breathe and doesn’t notice when she has come inside out of the rain, seems able to interpret the most complex facial expressions.

Like in the second chapter, when Edward looks at her with “unmet expectation” on his face.

Tell, me, WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE?

I keep twisting my face around trying to create this painfully specific expression, and I end up feeling like Joey Tribbiani doing his “I have a fish hook in my eyebrow and I like it” look.

And then, a couple chapters later, Edward looks at her incredulously, but his face is also “hard” and “defensive” at the same time.

I’ve been working on it. What do you think?

Hiding

Tags

depression, dreams, miscarriage, work, writing

Life is… challenging right now.

Perfect Husband is depressed. He has always been prone to it, and I think the miscarriage and the lack of support at his work and who knows what other factors have helped spur it on. I haven’t seem him this bad in years, so I am trying to give him breaks wherever possible. He does as much as he can, but he doesn’t have much emotional or physical energy right now. What he does have, I want him to devote to getting better.

Luckily, I think I started taking my antidepressants again in time, because I am not depressed.

But I am sad at times.

I get sad thinking about how, a month ago, we were happy and expecting a baby.

Now I have no baby to expect, and a damaged husband, and we are focusing on getting through life one day at a time. We’re short on money, because we’ve been eating out a lot rather than trying to summon the energy to cook. We’re trying to stay cheerful for Owl, but it exhausts us and when he is asleep we collapse into introverted silence.

I had a midwife appointment booked for today. In a parallel universe, maybe I will cheerfully attend it.

I am worried about my husband. I am worried I won’t get pregnant soon, that I’ll never have a second child or that Owl will be half grown by the time I get pregnant, when what we really wanted was a playmate for him.

I am worried that I WILL get pregnant but that PH’s depression won’t improve and I will be functionally a single parent with two kids.

Thinking about life scares me right now.

So I’m hiding.

When Owl is asleep, I spend a lot of time re-reading and editing my NaNoWriMo story, which is now complete with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Working on it helps me dwell in a dream world where I become a rich author, can stay home to write all day, and support PH so that he doesn’t have to go to work in that poisonous environment. Instead he could coach children’s soft ball and soccer teams, umpire sporting events, practice his curling skills, and do the other things he loves to do but has no time or energy for.

If I could just become a paid writer… do what I love and need to do and get paid for it… stay home all day on the computer…

So I dream.

Even though I know that it is just a kind of a joke of a story and unlikely to ever make me a penny.

What I should be focusing is on reality – washing the dishes that PH can’t wash, folding clean laundry so we can stop living out of a hamper, and pursuing new dog training clients to replace the money we have frittered away.

I need to stop hiding in dreams.

NaNoWriMo 2012, 20,009 words. Need Encouragement.

Tags

excerpts, fiction, NaNoWriMo, parodies, Twilight, writing

Another snippet from my Twilight parody. I hope it will make you smile.

I grabbed his arm and pulled him aside. I ignored the part of my brain that squealed girlishly at the excitement of actually touching him. It was just his goddamn shirt.

“Listen, I don’t know anything about dating or romance, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not normal to just tell someone ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to make you like me’. It comes across a little desperate, you know? That’s not so hot.”

“You do like me,” he replied frankly, meeting my eyes. “I know that. We have a lot in common. If I take meals at regular times I can keep up with you intellectually, and I’m the closest thing to a friend you have here so far. I know all of this. But I can’t make you feel more for me than that, and I don’t want to force you into anything you aren’t comfortable with. I just want to be helpful to you, to be useful to you, to make you more comfortable, and not less. I want to make your days better, and not worse. So I am telling you now – tell me to jump, and I will ask how high.

“Tell me to carry your books, fetch your lunch, sort your notes, and I will do it. Tell me to leave you alone and not talk to you any more, and I will do that too. Anything you ask… and I will do it. It’s not a plea, it’s not a bribe. It just is what it is, because I am what I am. “

He paused, and looked at me. He was so calm. Not desperate or crazy or anything, just serene and still slightly monotone. He held me with his eyes and I felt transfixed.

“Tell me,” he whispered. “Tell me what you want, anything, and I promise I will do it.”

This is the moment, I thought.

I could tell him “kiss me,” and he would do it. I could see it in my mind’s eye. The students getting off of their buses, the whoosh of cars driving by in the rain, all of that faded into the background. There was just me, and him, and his eyes.

I paused, trying to work up the words. I was trying to reconcile who I was with who I could be. No, Stella Blunt has never been a sap for boys with pretty words (mostly because no boys had ever approached her with pretty words). No, Stella has never done the kissyface stuff. Yes, Stella has always been the “ugh, get a room” type when passing people making out against a locker.

But Stella could change, right?

I opened my mouth, and I seriously thought I was going to be able to do it. My whole life, my whole sense of self was about to change. This could be a moment I would remember for the rest of my life. My first kiss?

Then I felt a spasm of panic and instead my mouth said, “so, what, like if I asked you to step in front of a speeding car, you’d do it?”

And the moment broke, and he smiled and stepped back, and while I was wishing I could grab those words and stuff them back into my mouth, he took another step back and

BAM

A car appeared where he had just been standing, and there was a shout of shock from all the people around us. I heard a wet thud as Howie’s body landed on the pavement.

Oh, SHIT.

13,000 Words In: Another Excerpt

Tags

NaNoWriMo, parodies, Twilight, writing

Hi folks,

I’m still alive, and for once I’m actually keeping on top of NaNoWriMo and enjoying it immensely.

As a “thank you for your patience” and a “please give me encouragement even if you have to lie”, here’s another excerpt from my magnum opus:

By the time I fell asleep that night, I was sure of three things.

1. Howie had some serious issues including, but not limited to, an apparent obsession for a girl he barely knew.
2. He had a medical condition, and I needed to be damn sure I didn’t catch it.
3. I had a crush on him any fucking way. 

NaNoWriMo 2012, Here I Come!

Tags

life, NaNoWriMo, writing

I’m attempting NaNoWriMo this year.

Even though I am exhausted.

Even though my anxiety is clearly still an issue – I spent all night having nightmares about being late for work (because we had a home visit euthanasia scheduled first thing in the morning) and then woke to Owl going “eight! Eight there, Mommy!” and exploding out of bed in a panic because it was 8:15 and I had to be at work in 30 minutes (by some miracle, Owl was highly cooperative and I actually made it).

Even though I may be picking up two new dog training clients this weekend and am experiencing so much anxiety about it that it makes me wonder why I do it.

Even though Owl’s sleep has fallen apart again and we’re having to make a formal sleep training plan again.

Even though we’re planning on potty training him soon.

Because I have had this story idea for almost a year, and I need something like NaNoWriMo to push me into actually writing it.

I’m hoping you guys like the idea – it’s a parody of Twilight, only featuring a heavy-set, intelligent, self-condident girl who moves to the big city of Vancouver and ends up in a relationship with a devoted undead servant, who considers her wish to be his command.

Basically, it’s Twilight the way I think it should have been written.

With zombies.

Here’s an excerpt from what I wrote yesterday. It’s the opening preface: 

Healthy young people don’t expect to die young, and I am not any different in that respect. When we do fear death, though, it tends to come in nightmarish forms – the monsters under your bed, the thing in the closet. Now here I stood, fearing death from the kind of terrifying, ravening monsters that haunt people in nightmares. Except that I was awake, and this was real, and I could very well be killed in a disgustingly gory way.

Maybe I should have gained some comfort from the fact that I was loved. Beloved. Adored. Worshipped, even. When you are in love, you are supposed to hold hands, and face death with serene acceptance. Maybe we could share a dramatic kiss as we died in the tradition of star crossed lovers everywhere.

“Fuck that shit,” I said as my chainsaw sputtered and then began to roar. “Let’s slice off some heads.”

—

What do you think?