Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 212

2012 In Review: Out of the Comfort Zone

Welcome to the new year! I normally would have done some "year in review" posts between Christmas and the new year, but I spent most of that time at my parents' house, and then there was the weekend, and then it was New Year's Eve. But I can still review last year.

I had a wonderfully relaxing holiday that it may be difficult to come back from, as I seem to have grown accustomed to spending my days wrapped in a blanket and reading a book. That began on Christmas, when it started snowing about an hour after we finished Christmas dinner. I had my second-ever white Christmas. The first was when I was seven and living in Oklahoma and it snowed all day on Christmas Eve, with the snow remaining for Christmas. Ever since then, even when we lived in Germany, we might have had snow on the ground since Thanksgiving, but it would melt a day or two before Christmas and then wouldn't snow again until a few days later. But this year, it started snowing on Christmas afternoon (fortunately, after I'd traveled) and snowed into the night, so that before sunset we had a nice covering of snow on the ground. When you're out in the country, there's not much to do on a snowy day other than read, so that's what we did. It was lovely. The snow melted and the roads cleared in time for me to get home, and I rang in the new year with my friends.

As for my year in review, I didn't think of it this way at the time, but this was kind of a year for pushing my boundaries and getting out of my comfort zone. The biggie was entering the world of self publishing. Because I started out in very much the traditional mode and had been involved in a number of writing organizations, I had internalized the mindset that self-publishing was what you did when you couldn't get published. It brought to mind images of those people at library book festivals, sitting at their tables and trying to interest people in their memoirs or books of poems about their cats. The world has changed significantly since then, and it's now more something people do when they want to take control over their careers than something that indicates failure. Yes, there's still some poorly written and edited stuff being self-published, but I read a book last week that came from one of the big publishers that was so badly edited it was painful to read. We're talking barely literate teenage Internet post bad. But I finally got hit with the clue stick and realized that this was the only way I was going to get the rest of my series published in the US, and those books weren't doing anyone any good sitting on my hard drive. I haven't made publishing history, but I've made enough money so far that I broke even for the year, with as much money in the bank at the end of the year as at the start of the year, in spite of losing my major freelance contract (though I did get a fair amount of income in advances from the Japanese publisher). I think my ideal would be to maintain a mix of kinds of publishing, so as not to have all my eggs in one basket. If I can sell a book traditionally, that's great, but if not, I have other options, and I think the gulf between self and traditional distribution is shrinking as bookstores are closing. My city lost its two Barnes & Nobles at the end of the year, so we now no longer have a bookstore. If you're stuck shopping online anyway, how much does it matter if the books are in stores?

The other thing I did this year that I would have said you were crazy if you'd told me I'd be doing it was chaperone the youth choir trip. The thought of being a responsible adult in charge of a bunch of teenagers, sleeping in bunks or on the floor for a week and whitewater rafting in a boat full of kids would have been terrifying, but it ended up being a great experience. I formed a lot of great relationships and even had a couple of the teen girls wanting to sit next to me for the Christmas Eve church service.

In general, I feel very blessed. I saw a few of the Facebook whine posts from people who are single and far from their families, and that made me realize how full my life is in spite of not being in a romantic relationship or having a big extended family around me. In fact, I have so many people in my life that I occasionally have to shut down completely to get the amount of quiet time I need. I have a big group of crazy, fun friends and a few closer friends. I have my "family" in the choir, who all seem to have adopted me. I have small children who think I'm some kind of Disney princess superhero and teenagers who think I'm pretty cool for an adult. I have my ballet class support group/exercise buddies/girls' night out bunch. I have my neighbors and their dogs. Plus, I get to make a living, even if it's not an extravagant one, doing what I love and without answering to anyone or having co-workers. It's not a bad life.

Things have been tough in recent years, but they started turning around near the end of the year and there are some potential really good things on the horizon, so here's to 2013! But first, I really need to wash dishes.

Merry Christmas!

I can't believe it's actually Christmas Eve! I've spent a rather lazy morning, but now I need to get my act together to be ready for tomorrow. I have two services to sing for tonight, and then I need to be ready to get up and on the road first thing in the morning because there's a winter storm coming in. According to our local TV weatherman, the one who's a real weather geek, there won't be any frozen precipitation in the morning (I asked him directly on Facebook), just showers and maybe some storms, but those are more likely farther east. The car is gassed up, and I had the oil changed and all the other stuff checked last week, so I should be good to go. And, yes, Mom, I'll be sure to have a blanket, a Thermos of tea and a bottle of water in the car.

I've had a really good Christmas season so far, getting together with old friends I don't see often, as well as my current friends. I've gone to parties and looked at lights. I've watched way too many sappy romantic holiday movies. Last night was my annual viewing of The Holiday. Tonight I may watch last year's Christmas episode of Haven between church services (I don't have time for a full movie).

I leave you with a couple of views of one of the places I visited this year. Grapevine, a smallish (well, not any more, but the core of it is still "small Texas town") does the historic downtown up well, and here are some pictures I took. I think this will be the town that's attacked in my Christmas romantic comedy disaster movie.




Now to go do laundry, pack and wrap presents. I have to sing the Hallelujah Chorus twice tonight, so I need to save my voice (the soprano part can be kind of brutal). A very merry Christmas to those who celebrate!

The Apocalypse that Almost Wasn't

Well, it looks like we're still here and the Mayan apocalypse has been a bust. Not that I've been too worried. My understanding from what I've heard from actual scholars on the subject is that the doomsday stuff was based on a wild misinterpretation and possibly some drug-fueled pseudo mysticism. Though some of my friends are claiming that the Doctor saved the planet (again) without any of us noticing it.

I had my first experience of a Brazilian steak house last night -- one of those places where the guys walk around the room with huge chunks of grilled meats on skewers, and they slice bits off onto your plate. I may not eat red meat again for a week, but it was so very good. I had probably far too much filet mignon. And a little of everything else. I was having dinner with a former co-worker who'd moved away and was in town on business. I love having the kind of friend you can go more than a decade without seeing, and then you pick up as though no time has passed.

So, after half a cow and a very long chat last night, I suspect I may not be very productive today. This may be a day to get the house more or less in order so that I don't have chore-type stuff to do over the weekend and on Christmas Eve. There may also be reading because I'm way behind on my reading goal for the year. For some bizarre reason, I decided I had to re-read the Connie Willis time travel books, perhaps mostly because The Doomsday Book takes place at Christmas and there are Christmas scenes in Blackout/All Clear, but also because I hadn't re-read The Doomsday Book recently before the first time I read the WWII books, so I thought I'd read them all at once. I'm almost done with The Doomsday Book. I've realized that I'm picturing Connie's husband as Mr. Dunworthy, but the weird thing is that my mental image of the character hasn't at all changed, in spite of the fact that I just met him this summer. I get the feeling the character is largely based on her husband, but there's never any physical description of him that would have caused me to picture someone like her husband when I read the books. I guess it's like the way when I was in Oxford, whenever I got lost I kept ending up in the same place, and it's the same place the main character in To Say Nothing of the Dog keeps ending up when he's time-lagged and not thinking clearly. I suppose there are worse people to share a mental link with than Connie Willis. Now, if only I could link to some of her talent while I'm at it.

Oh no! What's that in the sky, coming right at us? AAAAHHHH! We're doomed!

Tis the Season for Christmas Movies

While I'm looking forward to the big movie coming out next week, I'm enjoying a lot of little movies. This is my favorite time of year, the season of the cheesy Christmas TV movies. I think I've figured out why these are my big guilty pleasure. So many of them are paranormal romantic comedies, and that's something the world is sorely lacking. Actually, these days romantic comedies are rare, and those that exist tend to be in the gross-out or overgrown man-child tamed by shrewish harpy vein. Most of these Lifetime/ION/ABC Family movies are actually real romantic comedies, with no bathroom humor and with adult men. Then they're set at Christmas, which adds to the atmosphere. And so many of them have fantasy or paranormal plots.

Of course, there are all the variations on the ever-popular A Christmas Carol theme, with a Scrooge being reformed (and finding love). Then there are the It's a Wonderful Life stories, with someone getting a glimpse at a world that might have been -- generally not the never-born world, but the what ifs of job, family and relationships in which they learn to be careful what they wish for. The Groundhog Day story, with someone living the same day over until they get it right, is becoming popular, with one Family movie last year like that and one ION one this year. And then there are all the movies where Santa plays matchmaker, is looking for a Mrs. Claus or has a son or daughter whose status as a Claus offspring causes problems. Oh, and ghosts, and not just the Christmas Past type, either. Plus magical mailboxes and Christmas ornaments that cause things to happen.

As I've been analyzing these movies (which counts as work, since I plan to one day write one), I've noticed that mostly the formula seems to be to take a popular movie and give it a Christmas twist. I mentioned the Groundhog Day ones, but there's also been a Working Girl variation (but without the fraud) in which the assistant to the credit-stealing boss and the boss's boyfriend fall for each other while working on a project together. There was a Meet the Parents meets Miracle on 34th Street film, in which a non-believing scientist and her non-believing son meet her new fiance's parents and discovers that they're Santa and Mrs. Claus. There was a Mannequin/It's a Wonderful Life twist, where the woman who wished her life were more perfect gets her wish when the store mannequin she identifies as her perfect man comes to life. There was a Sliding Doors, Christmas edition, where there are two realities, one in which the woman catches the plane to the exciting new job assignment and one in which she misses the plane, and her life goes in a different direction. So, to write one of these films, I need to find a favorite romantic comedy and give it a Christmas twist.

The other fun of watching these movies is playing the science fiction version of "Hey, it's that guy!" Perhaps because most of these are Canadian productions and so many of the SyFy Channel series film in Canada, there's a lot of crossover between SyFy series and these movies in casting. But it goes beyond that because there are even people from regular network genre series that don't film in Canada who show up. Most of these are playing very against type, and I play little games in my head in which I try to make these movies fit into the actors' usual roles. There was one in which the bad-girl Blutbad from Grimm ended up with Dr. Daniel Jackson from SG-1. The Mannequin one had the evil witch from Grimm, being disturbingly cute and bubbly, hooking up with Chuck's Captain Awesome. And then if you really want to have your head explode from the disconnect, we had our stoic, extremely reserved police chief from Haven playing Santa Claus's son, a very enthusiastic kindergarten teacher (and Santa and Mrs. Claus were Norm and Diane from Cheers).

In short, even when these movies are bad, they're awesome because the snark from the awfulness balances out the "aww" factor that manages to creep in. And since I finally have a weekend with no plans, guess what I'll be doing. I did have a moment of madness yesterday when I considered starting to work on a script for one right now (or else writing the story as a novel), but then I remembered how much else I have on my plate at the moment.

Countdown to Les Mis

The big thing I'm looking forward to next week isn't just Christmas. It's the release of the Les Miserables movie. I first learned about the musical my senior year in college. My roommate was a theater major and had the soundtrack. One night when she was out, I listened to it and fell madly in love. I first saw the show the summer after I graduated from college when there was a touring production in Dallas. My brother and I drove over for an afternoon matinee, and I was totally blown away. Since then, I've lost count of how many times I've seen it on stage. There have been a number of touring productions, and I've seen it on Broadway. I have the original London cast and the 10th anniversary concert on CD. In fact, the London cast recording was the reason I bought a CD player in the first place because the cassette was missing the first part of the show, and there was more on the CD. If someone in the cast keeled over, I could probably jump onto the stage and pick it up without missing a beat.

So, I'm excited about the movie but also a little nervous because it's easy to screw up. Now that they've released more teasers from it, I'm feeling a little better about it, but I suspect that after being so used to the theater recordings it will take some getting used to. One thing is that they're taking a very different approach to making a movie musical. As they explain in this extended first look, they're not trying to do it like a regular musical, where the focus is on getting the perfect sound. The singing is recorded live, not in a studio, and the emphasis is on the acting. This takes advantage of some of the things film can do that you can't do on stage. One is providing the scope and setting the scene. The other is intimacy. On stage, you have to play to the top of the upper balcony. On film, things can go very small and up-close. With this, they're not trying for the full theatrical voices. They seem to be going for singing the way they'd act the role when talking -- if someone is only a few inches away, they aren't aiming for the upper balcony, they're whispering; if in that moment their voice would shake or break, they let it. I suspect that I won't want the movie soundtrack on CD because it won't stand on its own to listen to, but just watching the clips in context brought tears to my eyes, and I think once I get used to the differences from my cast recordings, I'll love the movie and will buy it on Blu-Ray.

Here are a few clips from the movie. I'm putting them in the order I know of from the show, but I understand they've also gone back to the original novel in writing the screenplay, so some things may be different or moved around.

Here's the scene where Javert releases Valjean from prison. Russell Crowe is no Terrence Mann, but I think he's working out okay. He couldn't pull this off on stage, but he's got the character, and I think his voice is nice enough. I'd worried about Hugh Jackman because he can get nasal, but it seems like he's making an effort to channel Colm Wilkinson.

Then there's the "Who Am I?" scene, which shows that emphasis on acting over "performing." This is fabulous on stage, but I don't think doing it stage-style would have worked on film because this is such an emotional scene.

The "At the End of the Day" scene seems pretty close to what we've seen in the show, with a little more emotion. I can see why people are already engraving Anne Hathaway's name on the Oscar.

I'm seeing some criticism of Amanda Seyfried as Cossette, but at least in the "A Heart Full of Love" clip, I think her warble fits the character and the situation. This is a sheltered young girl who's run into her crush. I'd expect her voice to tremble. I'll reserve judgment beyond that.

I wasn't too worried about Eponine, since the actress has played the role on stage. Here's a bit of "On My Own".

Of course, when making a movie musical, there has to be a new song to have a song eligible for an Oscar. But it sounds like they also got a chance to do a scene that wouldn't have worked on stage. Here's a little feature on the new song.

This bit isn't from the movie itself, but it does reflect one of my favorite scenes and makes me feel better about what might be in the movie. Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe, just goofing off on stage at an event, do the Confrontation scene. I saw Hugh Jackman on one of the talk shows this week, and he joked that this is how Australian men argue.

Now for that other thing you can do in movies that you can't do on stage, here's a piece on the production design. There are some other features on the site, like this one on the costume/makeup/hair that gives a few other scenes from the movie.

In short, I'll be seeing this a week from now (if the weather cooperates and we don't get the possible winter storm). And then probably a few more times at the theater. Someone has suggested that some theater have a singalong event, and I'd be on board with that. I might have to gag myself to keep from singing along, though it looks like I could get caught up in the story and be weeping too hard to sing. I went through a whole tissue just watching the TV ads they have on YouTube.

Intimate vs. Epic Fantasy

I can't believe it's only a week until Christmas. I have my shopping mostly done, though there's still one gift I need another part for. I kind of have a sense of what I need, but nothing is jumping out at me as being the right thing. It might be easier if I actually went to a store, though. It's kind of hard to conjure gifts out of the ether. And this isn't something where shopping online can help. It's something I need to see in person. Otherwise, the necessary baking is all done. Anything else that comes up will be just for fun or because I need something to eat. I've almost given up on getting work done, other than research reading. My focuser isn't working very well right now, and it's hard to do revisions and editing when your brain is all "Reindeer!" (the Christmas version of "Squirrel!").

I've been talking for some time about what I call intimate vs. epic fantasy, and that subject came up again for me recently when I was reading a book in a fantasy series that I've been liking, and it just wasn't working for me, even though I really love the characters. I realized that it was an intimate fantasy that had gone epic, going from plots that were mostly about what mattered to these individuals to a "save the world" plot.

And then while I was thinking about that, Jo Walton had a post at tor.com about saving-the-world plots in fantasy. It's essentially another angle on my intimate vs. epic distinction. I can see how this happens because as writers, we're always told to keep upping the stakes. Something vital has to be on the line to motivate our characters, and we have to feel like something bad will happen if they fail. High stakes generally mean high tension, and that keeps the pages turning. The longer a series runs, the more likely it is that you're eventually going to get to a save-the-world story. Book one may be about the apprentice wanting to escape from his cruel master and stealing some household object to help fund his new life -- only to find out that his cruel master is an evil wizard and the object the apprentice stole is the source of his power. So his goal is to escape with his life. Book two is probably going to be about stopping the evil wizard from controlling the king, with the goal of saving the kingdom. By the end of the series, our former apprentice who's learned to use the source of power will have to stop the evil wizard from having the whole of creation sucked into the Pit of Despair for all eternity.

I never have figured out why these villains are so keen on destroying the world. The world is where the people are. It's hard to have ultimate power if everything's been destroyed. Even if you survive, you're left with no one to do anything for you. I guess they're suicidal and want to take everyone else out with them.

But in thinking of this, I've realized that you reach a point of diminishing returns on the stakes=tension equation. If the world won't literally come to an end if the heroes fail to achieve their story goal, then there's some doubt that they might achieve it, and that keeps the tension high. I have read books in which the heroes fail, in which the bad guys prevail, even if it's just temporarily (most often seen in series). The Empire Strikes Back is generally considered the best Star Wars movie, and the heroes' only real success is surviving to regroup and fight again. But if all of creation will be destroyed if the heroes fail, there's not much doubt that they'll succeed. I don't think I've ever read a book that wasn't a satire in which the heroes fail and the world is destroyed, the end. How they go about saving the world may be interesting, but there's not as much tension there because you know they're going to succeed.

I think there's also a case of some stories being too big for the world/characters. This is hard for me to articulate, but I think some characters are best on a smaller scale. It's okay to stick with surviving, maybe saving the town or the kingdom, finding the object, rescuing the dragon from the princess because it's hard to believe that these people could really save the world. Then there are the worlds where turning things global changes the world. I was thinking about this in regards to what happened in Buffy and Angel, where it got to the point they were having annual apocalypses (and you know you're in trouble when you have to worry about what the plural of "apocalypse" is). On Buffy, it just got silly, and they made a joke out of having to save the world again. On Angel, I think it ruined the world when they got too big. The fun of both those series for me was the sense that this was our world, and all these things were going on behind the scenes or underground. That worked with Angel, particularly, because they were out of the small town and into Los Angeles, and there were all the fun jokes about what the evil law firm was really into, which celebrities and world leaders were their clients, etc. But then they got on the apocalypse train, with things happening that everyone in Los Angeles noticed, that were on the news -- the sky going dark for days, rains of fire, everyone falling under the sway of a hell goddess. When they did that, it was no longer about the stuff that's secretly happening in our world. It became another reality, and that ruined the premise.

That's something I'm conscious of in my series because I want to maintain the illusion that this is our world and there's stuff going on that most of us don't notice. Katie may quip about saving the world, but they're really just saving one corner of the world. If they fail, there may be a big ripple effect, but the secret still wouldn't be out. So far, I think they're making this work on Grimm, where they're not trying to save the world, just deal with these individual cases. It may go up the chain with the royals being involved, but I hope we don't get into the global apocalypse sort of thing. With Haven, another "secret" world, they're keeping things mostly within this one town and covering everything up, with the newspaper editors and the police chief being in on the secret so that the national news hasn't yet had a whiff of what's going on in the town, and they just need to save the town, not the world.

Speaking of Haven, they've finally announced when they'll be showing the skipped episode. It and the finale (originally scheduled for this Friday) will be shown on Thursday, Jan. 17. See the SyFy web site for details.

Intro to Fantasy

I had yet another busy weekend. I met up with some friends at a nearby diner for breakfast on Saturday, then we went to see an early show of The Hobbit. I had to behave myself during the movie because I had a former student, one of the kindergarteners from my first year doing children's choir, sitting directly behind me.

I thought the movie looked nice, the casting was wonderful, and there were parts of it I loved, but I'm not sure that spreading it into three movies and adding so much padding was such a great idea. When you're padding Tolkien, you've got problems. It's such a relatively simple, straightforward story that you don't need to add all that impending doom stuff to it to make it work. They did extended editions of the Lord of the Rings movies, but with this one, I would kind of like the reduced edition, where they just edit together the parts that are actually in the book. There are some things in the movie I'd like to revisit, and I was surprised by some of the casting of actors I'm familiar with but didn't recognize, so I wouldn't mind seeing some of it again to see if I can spot them now, but I don't think I could sit through that movie again.

The Hobbit was one of the things that got me into fantasy. The cartoon TV movie version came out when I was in fourth grade, right at the time I'd gotten into Star Wars and science fiction. Today's corporate placement in schools seems to be about food, but then we seemed to get a lot that involved entertainment, if they could spin it as in any way educational. I remember a number of supplemental lessons or materials related to movies or TV movies, that I then felt compelled to watch because if they talked about it at school, then it was homework in my mind.

With The Hobbit, I'm not sure if it was some kind of corporate-provided lesson material or just the fact that my teacher was into that sort of thing, but I do remember hearing about it at school and then telling my parents I had to watch the movie because it was assigned (even though it probably wasn't). Every day after recess, my teacher would read a chapter of a book to us, and I think I can probably thank/blame her for me getting into fantasy because she read stuff like Roald Dahl's books, and she read The Hobbit. I would get frustrated with the chapter a day pace and get the book out of the library and read it straight through. I don't remember if I read the book The Hobbit before or after watching the TV movie, but I did read it around that time.

Come to think of it, that teacher may have been the first one to encourage me in writing. I recall having an assignment to write something about a picture in a book. Most of the kids were writing a descriptive paragraph, but something in the picture sparked a story idea, and when the teacher realized that I had pages written when it was time to turn it in, she let me take it home to finish the story I was writing, with no penalty for being late. I suspect my usual short story problem reared its ugly head even then, since I got pages and pages into it with no ending in sight and then just ended it abruptly rather than letting it turn into a novel.

I doubt this teacher is even still alive because I recall her being fairly old (then again, I also remember my second-grade teacher as being old, and when I found my diary from those years, I mentioned that we'd celebrated her 27th birthday), but if you're out there, Mrs. Johnson, thanks for nurturing that little spark and for introducing me to fantasy.

Back to Saturday, after the movie I went with a friend to a nearby town that goes crazy at Christmas, with the old Main Street like something out of one of those Lifetime movies. I think I've come up with my main plot for my disaster romantic comedy Christmas movie. The elves are out to get us.

Fun Holiday Links

It's a lovely gray day, and maybe I'll finally get some writing done. I've been so distracted all week. But first, there's a batch of cookies I need to make (well, okay, want, but I need some gingerbread to go with my Gluhwein). I even found part of my final Christmas gift in a very unexpected place. I still need one more thing and will go on a quest for it next week, if I don't stumble upon it elsewhere before then.

This weekend isn't going to be quite as busy as the last one because my Sunday is free, but I've got a group outing to see The Hobbit tomorrow and then plans with a friend tomorrow night. After that, I have the choir Christmas party Tuesday, which I'll pop into on my way to ballet class, and then we're having a ballet class "party" after class. Then my only remaining pre-Christmas social event will be a friend's birthday dinner. Unless someone comes up with something else. Which I may have to decline on account of already having plans, even if they are with myself. I'm way behind on reading this month.

My brain has kind of melted, so I'm going to share links instead.

First, I have a friend who does a really elaborate animated light display at his house. This year, he used a song that I thought was really good. It sounded like something from a modern rock-opera version of A Christmas Carol. But it turns out that it's a parody of a Britney Spears song (which explains why I didn't recognize it). So, I present "Ebenezer."



And then, for your Christmas shopping needs, I present The Hater's Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog. Caution: language alert. Don't click if four-letter words offend you. After reading this, I want to propose a "more money than sense" tax on all purchases made from this catalog. It could help balance the federal budget. But I bet I could sell my meringue mushrooms to these people for about $50 a batch.

Ballerina Power

After looking at yesterday's post and my calendar, I think I've figured out one big reason why introverts tend to have just a few close friends. If you've got several close friends who aren't also close friends with each other or else don't necessarily have the same interests or schedule as each other, then your calendar fills up quickly even if you only get together with each friend a couple of times a month. If you had a lot of friends, you'd never have free time. Between activities for all the groups I'm in and the few close friends I have that I do things with outside groups, I'm generally booked solid most weekends.

Today is going to mostly be a quiet day at home (I do have to make a post office trip) because I might have overdone it yesterday. I spent the morning with my brother, spent the afternoon geocaching, then had choir rehearsal at night.

I discovered while geocaching that ballet really pays off. I hadn't done this degree of tromping around in the woods, going down steep hills and generally climbing up, over, down or through things in years, and it was so much easier this time, in spite of me being quite a bit older, because my legs are so strong now. There were a few times when I was inching sideways across the steep slope of a river channel purely by the power of my thigh muscles, and the balance I've gained from dance helped keep me in place so I didn't fall into the river. My inner thighs are a bit sore this morning, but I'm not in the kind of pain I'd expect to be in from that amount of exertion. The book I'm currently working on has a ballerina heroine, and I make use of the physical abilities being a top-level dancer gives her -- she's strong, flexible and fast -- and now I can tell that I'm pretty much on-target with that, since I can see the difference it makes for me even at my level. Seriously, you don't want to mess with a ballerina. She may look delicate, but she's probably stronger than a lot of pro athletes.

This geocaching thing is a blast. For me, it's mostly an excuse to go tromping through the woods, getting way off the beaten path. Finding the caches is secondary, though it is fun to find something like this:



That was the first clue in a multi-stage treasure hunt that led to me doing all that crazy climbing around on the steep sides of a river channel (which turned out to be entirely unnecessary, but it was still fun). There were a lot of thorny vines in the woods, so my hands are all scratched up (note to self: gloves!) and look even worse because I put that liquid bandage stuff on the scratches, so I now look slightly leprous.

To recover from my exertions, I will spend the day working on my book with the kick-ass ballerina.

You May Be an Introvert If ...

I just thought I'd reached the quiet part of my holiday season. Things keep springing up. For instance, I'm about to go meet up with my brother for coffee (or some coffee alternative for me) while he's in town on business and between customer meetings. Mind you, I'm not complaining about people wanting to spend time with me, but I tend to freak out when my calendar fills up. I enjoy these things when I'm doing them, but at the same time I need some space.

While I'm going through my busy-season freak-out, it's funny that there seem to be so many articles about introversion coming out. It's mostly due to some very good publicity for the book The Introvert's Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy World by Sophia Dembling, who used to write for our local newspaper and who was on my media contact list when I was doing PR for the medical school. The latest article was on how to tell if you're an introvert.

Let's see how accurate it is:
#1 -- The more isn't the merrier -- that's mostly true for me. Unless I can find a small group within a big mass of people, I just freeze or I turn invisible. When I'm on my own at a big convention, I can quietly drift through a crowd without being noticed at all.

#2 -- Doing nothing is doing something -- YES! I consider plans I make with myself -- even if the plan is to stay home and watch TV or read -- to be just as valid as plans I make with someone else. I'm willing to break those plans if something better comes along, unlike anything I've committed to with others, but I also don't feel at all guilty for declining invitations because I've made plans with myself. It's my pet peeve when I decline something with "I have plans" and someone asks what those plans are. For one thing, it's none of their damn business and it's rude to ask, but for another, I know if I say what those plans are that they won't consider those plans to be "real" plans that are a valid reason for declining an invitation. This is part of why this time of year is so difficult for me. One of my favorite things to do during the holiday season is to sit at home and enjoy my decorations while reading, listening to Christmas music or snarking at Lifetime Christmas movies. I feel really freaked out if my schedule of going out starts to fill up and I don't have time for this sort of thing. That's one reason staying home until Christmas morning turned out to be such a great idea last year. Nobody's really around the few days before Christmas, so I get enough quiet time at home before I go spend time with my family.

#3 -- You feel like your head will explode -- I found this interesting because it's true, but I hadn't associated it with introversion, though it makes sense, and it fits with the Jung I've read. Since introverts are so internal, their brains are busy, and that's why sometimes external stimuli are just too much to add to the mix. I spend most of my days in total silence, not even playing background music.

#4 -- You hide in the bathroom -- I actually don't do this. I'd feel guilty hogging the bathroom at a party. I'm more likely to find a quiet corner of the room and just sit there and zone out for a while.

#5 -- You leave parties soon after arriving -- I don't do this, either, unless I don't manage to find a small group. I do another thing the author mentioned in this section, though, which is stay in one place and let the party come to me. I don't go out mingling but will mingle with others as they pass. See #4 about finding a quiet corner and staying there.

#6 -- You don't answer a ringing phone -- I generally do answer the phone, though I am often irked when it's someone who just wants to chat and I'm not up for it -- I'm getting better about not answering the phone when I really don't want to chat. However, I never place phone calls unless it's for a specific purpose -- making an appointment, planning something, conveying important news. Calling someone just to chat is utterly foreign to me. I've ended up ditching men I was dating because they didn't get the combo of this and #2. When I had a day job, I usually didn't go out on Friday nights because I needed the quiet time at home after being around people all week. If I declined a Friday night date invitation and the guy pushed to know why, it was strike one. If I explained and then he called on Friday night either because he was making sure I was home instead of giving him the brush-off to go out with someone else or because he knew I'd be home, then I figured he just didn't get me and there was no point in pursuing the relationship further. The first option was a red flag danger sign. The second, assuming that I'd want to talk on the phone when I needed a night to decompress, was the kind of cluelessness it's difficult to train out of people because if you even try, they take offense.

#7 -- You prefer one close friend over a lot of acquaintances -- yes and no for me, but that's probably because of the group I hang with. I have a large group of friends that's an actual organization (more or less a social club), and I often do things with the whole group, but I have a few close friends within that group that I socialize with beyond group activities. I don't know that I really have "acquaintances," other than people like neighbors or people I see at church but don't see away from church.

#8 -- You don't know what people find to talk about -- I have no problem with conversation, probably because most of the people I interact with socially are like-minded. I am, however, utterly baffled by the people who live on their cell phones all day long, who never seem to not be in a conversation, and who break out in a cold sweat if they have to go five minutes without texting. I don't know what they find to talk about. Even I would run out of things to say after that long. See also #6 about hating the phone

#9 -- You avoid audience participation events -- I don't really mind in performing arts situations, but I hate audience participation writing workshops where you share what you're working on. For one thing, I don't write on command. I need to think things through, not take five minutes to write a paragraph that will be shared with the class. For another, I don't like talking about ideas much until I've written them, and I certainly don't want to tell a room full of strangers what I'm working on, and yet it's a waste of time to go through the exercises with a hypothetical story I don't plan to write. Just tell me what the exercises are, and then I'll go home and work through them on my own. I don't need to show off by reading my work to the group.