Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 38

What's Sexy: R-E-S-P-E-C-T

It all boils down to this one thing, the recognition from a man that a woman is his equal. You see it in Pride and Prejudice. When Darcy first proposes to Elizabeth, the mistake he makes is not seeing her as his equal. He has to be humbled, yes, but only until he realizes what a fool he had been not to see her as his equal. Mr. Bennet is worried about Elizabeth's marriage because he doesn't want her yoked to someone who isn't her equal. And it takes a while for Darcy to realize the truth. Elizabeth isn't beneath him. He doesn't have to worry about his family embarrassing her. He saves her sister because he has realized that she is his equal. He fixes things with Jane and Bingley because he's realized they are equals, as well. And he writes her his letter about Wickham because he realizes she deserves to know the full truth. He trusts her with his sister's good name because he has realized she is his equal. That I when Elizabeth falls back in love with him, as he gradually shows her that he accepts her as his equal.

This is one of the reasons that romance is, in fact, the most feminist writing out there. Because all romances (or maybe only the ones I like) are based on the premise that a man must accept a woman as his equal in every way, and that is really quite revolutionary. It's not so much about a woman humbling a man as it is him being humbled by his own prejudice that he is above her in some way.

When I heard men talk about what they can do to make a woman think of him as sexy, I think so many of them are so wrong it is laughable. Wearing hot pants doesn't do it. Talking in a sexy voice doesn't do it. Watching a girl movie unhappily especially doesn't do it.

Doing the dishes for your wife isn't about a man being put down. It's about him showing her the respect that his time isn't worth more than hers. It's about seeing her life and doing a small thing that makes it easier, because he sees it is hard.

Watching a girl show with his girlfriend isn't sexy unless he shows the respect of liking the movie and accepting that it is every bit as good as any of the guy movies he has seen.

Fixing your wife's car isn't about doing something that she can't do for herself. It's about realizing that she hasn't had a chance to learn everything and that there are some things that no one ever taught her because she was a girl. And you can make her hard life a little easier by doing this one thing. And if she wants, helping her learn how to do it. Up to her. Because you respect her.

Taking her out to a dinner at her favorite restaurant shows her the respect of remembering what it is and not trying to tell her she is wrong.

Buying her the thing that she has been hinting about isn't taking the easy way out. It isn't being an idiot for not knowing something better to give her. It's showing her the respect of accepting that she knows herself and knows what she wants best.

The thing is, if you are a guy and you get that a woman craves respect most of all, you are going to have to see that the world doesn't give this woman respect very often. And if you see that, then you've seen inside of her for a little bit. And isn't that the best gift of all?

New interview with me:

What is your best writing advice?

Don’t let yourself blame other people for not getting it done or not prioritizing it. When other people don’t care about your writing, it’s because you aren’t prioritizing it enough yourself.

What is your best mom advice?
Well, besides making sure your kids have food, shelter, and don’t get hit, I think you just fill them up with love. That gives them all the energy they need to follow their dreams. And you just listen and let them lead you on the adventure of a lifetime. I think teens are wonderful! I love mine to death.

What is your best wife advice?

Really try to see things from the perspective of your spouse. Other people are different from you are. This does not mean they are wrong.

More here: http://throwingupwords.wordpress.com/

Sleep--You Need It More Than You Think

If you want to save time in your life, if you want to be a better athlete, if you want to be more alert, smarter, more able to remember material as a student, if you want to learn faster, be more at peace with the universe, have better relationships with your friends and family, eat healthier, play an instrument better, or just plain have a better life—sleep!

When I was in grad school, I noticed a lot of the other students would stay up all night studying for generals. They scheduled study sessions for generals in the middle of the night. They figured all the other students would be up until 4 in the morning studying, if for no other reason than to show how much they cared about their grades and how dedicated they were to the program. Well, I made a rule early on about this. I went to bed at 10 every night. I woke up at 6, exercised and I ate a real breakfast. And then I started studying. I studied all day and I told myself when I went to bed again that my studying was more effective. And honestly, there was a part of me that figured that if I had to give up all my sleep to get through my generals exam, then I didn't care if I was going to fail. Because I loved my sleep and my sanity more than I loved graduate school. I don't have a statistical analysis of everyone in graduate school who studied for the generals using different strategies, but I did pass. I didn't get the best grade, but I also finished my dissertation writing earlier than anyone else, and I call that a win. I suspect that I needed less recovery after generals and was able to move on to writing my dissertation more quickly.

My youngest daughter recently went to a church-sponsored “sleep-over” in which all of the girls made a pact not to sleep and to stay up all night for the first time. She came home grouchy, tired, and irritable, as you would expect. And discovered that I had never stayed up all night on purpose in my life (I did stay up three nights in a row in one horrible bout of insomnia, after which I got some sleep medication and started finally sleeping again). I was never a teenager who thought it would be fun to lose sleep because I was spending time with friends. If there were parties I wanted to attend, I would leave when I decided I would rather be sleeping. This still happens when I go to writerly events. I love my friends and I love spending time with them. Until I'm ready to go to sleep and I don't want to anymore.

So, when people ask me how it is that I manage to raise five children (11-19), be a nationally ranked triathlete, and have a writing career, I tell them one thing: I sleep 7-8 hours a night, every night. If I get 4-5 hours of sleep the night before a race because I'm stressed, I make up for it the next night by sleeping 10-12 hours. I don't skimp on sleep.

If you are regularly getting less than 5 hours of sleep a night, you are paying for it in a lot of ways you may not realize. If you don't believe, look at this article about the benefits of sleep: http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20459221,00.html. And it's not hard to find long lists of the problems caused by lack of sleep (try this: http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/excessive-sleepiness-10/10-results-sleep-loss), especially in our American society today. There are some really good arguments that our obesity problem is likely linked to our lack of sleep and the general tendency to work longer and longer hours, rather than any problems with our food or our will-power.

I used to skimp a little on sleep here and there when I was younger and I had little kids running around the house during the day. But I had really regular sleep hours. I always went to bed at the same time, and I tend to be a morning person. If you're a writer who stays up later to get in a few extra hours of writing time when the house is quiet, I would say to keep it to a minimum. And try to keep the rest of your life as healthy as possible. Eat well, exercise regularly, and don't abuse legal drugs like caffeine and alcohol. You may get away with a few hours of sleep lost a few times a week when you are young, like I did. But try not to lie to yourself. If you start having trouble remembering things or if you notice that you are not as productive in the hours you write as you once were, look at your sleep habits.

Honesty saves time, every time

I know that women in particular are told to be “nice,” to figure out nice things to say to people in every situation. Even if you don’t like them. Even if you really hate what they’re saying. Even if you think they are heading down the wrong road. Just nod your head, say something affirmative, and that’s the best course because you make friends that way, and no one wants to make enemies, right? It could come back to bite you.

Here’s the thing. I don’t think being falsely positive is beneficial to anyone. I don’t think making friends with people you didn’t really want to be friends with is a good idea. And even if you will generally attract more flies with honey than with vinegar, who wants to attract flies? Not me. In fact, most of the time, I’d be very happy if I attracted fewer flies. So I don’t tend to smear myself with honey.

I’m not saying that you should be mean to people for no reason. I’m just saying that there are ways to be polite without being effusive. And if someone asks you directly for your opinion, I recommend you give it as kindly as you can, but not to necessarily sugar coat it beyond recognition.

In the writing world, it’s no real help if as a critiquer, you tell someone a manuscript is great and then they send it off and no agent or editor is interested.

If you don’t have an agent and editor who tell you the absolute truth (again, kindly, with optimism if it is warranted), then how are you going to sell books to readers? Readers are not kind. Go to goodreads if you have any doubts there.

If you have friends who don’t tell you the truth about mistakes you are making in your life, you are going to just keep making those mistakes. Wouldn’t you rather live through a momentary sting and figure out how to do what you need to do? Isn’t that what a real friend does?

Love, encouragement, and hope can all coexist with honesty. I think they coexist best with honesty, in fact. So go be honest. Kindly honest, but honest nonetheless.

Nudity and Prudity

In the United States, any media which depicts the female body in its entirety or even the upper part is given a warning rating. Television programs broadcast nationally have strict rules on nudity, particularly female nudity. And there is a kind of distrust of European/Australian programming which shows anything more than what is considered normal here. We think that this is “perverse,” that it leads to sexual abuse and so on. I suspect that the exact opposite is true.

This week, I have been watching “Top of the Lake” on netflix. As part of the storyline, there is a place called “Paradise” where women come to retreat from the world, in particular to be healed from abuse by their husbands or boyfriends. And in one scene there is a rather joyful nude scene in which all of the women are playing around in the water, completely nude.

I wanted to explain, as a woman, how that scene changed me. So many times, the only near-nude images that we see in the United States are the heavily airbrushed and photoshopped ones that end up on magazine covers or in store windows or advertisement next to cars. Even though I know as an adult that these rarely have any resemblance to a real woman’s body, it was something else again to see what real women’s bodies looked like on a television screen.

These women had breasts that sagged. They had stomachs that were rounded or protruded. They had stretch marks and scars. They were short and tall, thick and thin, round and flat. In clothing, you might easily be able to point to which woman had the best body. But undressed, they were all just different. None looked bad. They were just variations on a type. And after seeing these images even briefly, I felt completely different about my body. “My body is normal,” I thought.

This is from a woman who is quite athletic and I am proud of how my body moves and performs in race situations. I think it’s a good body for a woman my age who has had 6 children. But even so, there was something remarkably affirming about seeing a variety of naked women who hadn’t been touched up to look better. And I can only imagine how it is for teenage girls who don’t have the confidence that I have.

We are so concerned with modesty, with keeping girls safe from predators, that we often give them the message that they should be hiding their bodies. But isn’t there also a safety to be had in seeing the truth about the real bodies that are around us? It is one thing to wear appropriate clothing in an appropriate venue, but it is another thing to make sure that we never see each other as we really are, only some whacked out idealized version of what we are “supposed” to be.

20 Universal Signs of Bad Writing

1. There’s no story.

2. There’s no pacing.

3. Too many adjectives and adverbs.

4. No subtlety.

5. No surprises for the reader, no subtext.

6. Viewpoint is used badly.

7. TMI.

8. Incorrect details.

9. Tell, don’t show.

10. Cliches.

11. Characters no one cares about.

12. Dropped threads

13. Purely evil villains.

14. Characters who disappear or die for no reason.

15. Same word 15 times on a page.

16. Scenes that have no point.

17. Using words other than said to excess.

18. Inadvertent rhyme.

19. Never letting the hero fail.

20. Eight beginnings, no middle, and a tacked on ending.

How I Find Time to Write

Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. It’s just a matter of choosing what you do with the time that you have. There are very few (possibly no) people whose lives are so busy they could not find 15 minutes to write a few words a day. And if you can get in 200 words in that 15 minutes, you will have a novel by the end of the year.

Things most people spend time on that I don’t.

1. Makeup and hair.

This is what I look like most of the time. I could look better. I don’t feel obliged to for the sake of other people. I’m not saying you’re bad if you choose to care about personal appearance. I’m just saying that it’s one of the things that goes on the chopping block for me. You may have other things.

2. Shopping. I have a delivery service for fruits and vegetables. I pay a little more for it, but I don’t have to go shopping. And I suspect I also save money and health by not buying the tempting crap at the store. Yes, I cook from scratch for almost everything. I tend to shop for clothes on-line if I possibly can. And I have this year moved to letting my kids get school lunch. Saves time and hassle.

3. Cleaning.

This is a photo I took just randomly going around our house. I keep a schedule for necessities, like dishes and laundry, and make sure those get done either daily or close to daily. But I’m not a clean freak and I don’t care if other people come to my house and see that it’s messy. I also don’t particularly find a clean house relaxing. (I grew up in a family of 11, so that is part of it). Again, I am not saying you are wrong if you love a clean house. But consider putting it on the chopping block.

4. Make my kids go to lessons that they don’t care about. I feel like there are a lot of parents who gain their identity from their kids’ accomplishments. I don’t think I’m like that. I enjoy my kids and I think they are amazing, but it’s not because I get to brag about them. If my kids want piano lessons, I’m not going to bug them to practice. They have to do it on their own. If they don’t want them enough to practice, I cancel them. My 17 year old who is now at music school sometimes complains I didn’t start her younger on an instrument. No, I didn’t. My strategy, to the horror of all music parents everywhere, was to threaten to take away her music lessons if she didn’t do her chores.

5. Volunteer for things I don’t care about. Look, I like to do things at the school that matter to me. I go in and do book talks or literature circle. But I don’t do parties anymore and I don’t join the PTA because they have aims other than mine. I really have to want to do something in order to volunteer because I have other things to do with my time.

6. Watch television/go out to movies. I allow myself to watch TV when I am working out on my treadmill or bike trainer, but not often otherwise. And if I am outside, I am listening to audio books, which I feel like is part of my job.

7, Answer the phone. I know this sounds rude, but when I am working in my office, I don’t answer the phone unless I recognize the number and it is one of my kids or my husband. I figure I’m at work, and people can all me when I’m at “home” instead.

So now that I’ve given some things I don’t do, I will admit that there are some things that I think I am very efficient at and I will try to explain about that.

1. 2 minute showers.The swimming pool I go to has the shower on a timer, so I have made sure I get my shower done in 2 minutes flat. It transfers to home. Occasionally, I take a nice, long bath (15 minutes), but not often.

2. 30 minute dinners. I do most of the dinner cooking at home, but I have a list of 30 minute dinners I can make with things I keep on hand, including enchiladas, homemade pizza, hamburgers/veggie burgers, quesadillas and beans, soup and toast, and spaetzle noodles with cheese.

3. Chores for kids. Your kids need chores. I know it can feel easier to do jobs yourself, but you are cheating them if you don’t give them the chance to pitch in and in a year or so, they actually become good enough to help you out. They can unload the dishwasher, vacuum, clean bathrooms, and so on.

4. Multi-tasking. I think some kinds of multi-tasking actually make you crazy, but I fold laundry while talking to kids or watching TV and find it soothing. I also like to knit/crochet while doing something else. It can help me focus at church or in other situations where I am seated and expected to be quiet.

5. Reward myself for completing tasks. I don’t like scheduling. It makes me feel rushed. But if I instead tell myself that I get x reward after I do y thing, I am often motivated to do y thing more efficiently and quickly, if it’s a writing related task or anything else.

On the 8th Anniversary of Mercy's Death

            I’ve always disliked the euphemism of “losing” someone to death.  But when Mercy died, I began to understand loss in a way that I never had before.  It is an aching emptiness where there should be something bright and deep, it is unfilled expectations, dreams of togetherness, and the hope of an imagined future.
She died before she was born, so there was a long list of things that I lost.  That wonderful moment of birth, when all the pains and frustrations of pregnancy are forgotten, when the agony of labor becomes light and precious.  The firsts: first smile, first step, first day of Kindergarten, first bike ride.
Forever now I will wonder who would she have been.  What instrument would she have chosen to play—violin like my oldest, Hope, or piano like Sage and Faith?  Or guitar, like Sam?  Would she have been good at math?  Would she have made me laugh in delight or scream with frustration?  Would she have liked peas or lasagna?  Or chocolate ice cream?
It is like those times when I am pregnant, and I look around and count my children and feel sure that I am missing one. Then I realize the baby’s there in my stomach, and don’t worry anymore.  Sometimes that even happens before I am pregnant.  I will see a little ghost of a child, running through the house, and realize it is the baby that is coming.  With Mercy, it is now that I feel that ghost of a child around me as I count noses.  There is one missing.
When people ask us how many children we have, what do we say?  Five or six?  When people ask about our girls names, Faith, Hope and Sage (for wisdom, not for the spice), do we tell them about the name that is missing from the set?  No.  And this is another way in which Mercy is lost.  Not spoken of, all her things put away, not even being included in the number of our family.  And she can only be a ghost as she walks with us.  A ghost of my heart.
She is missing, and that is why in the nights since that day, I have lived through so many searches in my dreams.  As if some deeper part of me still believes that if only I look hard enough, I will find her again.  And she will not be lost.
Right after the birth, I dreamed that a close friend of mine asked me to watch her baby, and then when she came to get her, I frantically realized that was she was gone, that I had no idea where she was.
Another night, I dreamed that my brother died and his dead body, purpling as Mercy’s was when we said our final goodbye, was all that was left of him.  Frantically, my dream self tried to wake him.  By slapping his face, calling his name, screaming, and simply trying to get his limp bones to stand once more.
And I dreamed that it was my husband I lost, that we were separated on a journey with the family, that somehow we couldn’t find telephones to communicate with each other.  I told myself in the dream that if only I’d had a cell phone, then it wouldn’t have happened.  He would still be with us.
If only.
Yes, if only for Mercy, too.  If only I hadn’t gone so late.  If only I’d been induced.  If only I’d had a heart beat monitor hooked to my stomach so that I could communicate with my baby constantly.  If only I’d stayed awake that night, and not fallen asleep so deeply that it wasn’t until morning that I realized she hadn’t kicked me for hours.  If only they could have revived her.
On the way to the hospital I remember thinking to myself that this couldn’t be real.  I had always been the kind of person who would think out the worst case scenarios and then try to prepare for them.  I’d already thought through what would happen if the baby died, and all the consequences that would come from that.  As if that would protect me from the reality of it.

SLCC 2013 Schedule

Thursday Sep 5:

4-5 Harry Potter

5-6 Middle Grade/YA books

6-7 Ender’s Game

8-9 Fairy Tales

Friday Sep 6:

4-5 Creating Characters

Saturday Sep 7:

1-2 Genre Bending

3-4 Women in Writing YA/MG

Writing Wednesday: Stop Talking About Your Book

I was thinking today about the ways in which writers sabotage themselves and came up with this. We writers like to get feedback about our ideas as immediately as possible. This happens most often when we talk to other writers about what we are working on. But what if doing this is actually counterproductive?

There are certainly times when you need to talk things out because you are stuck. You’re writing and you’re getting nowhere. OK, I can accept that. Maybe.

But consider this possibility: talking about your writing is stealing all your energy from actually writing the damn book! There is a reason that writers tend to be solitary people who only talk to the people who exist in our heads. Because if writers were happy, socially well-adjusted human beings, no books would ever be written. I actually believe that. (Mostly)

If you find yourself talking about your stories all the time and not getting around to writing them, consider the following challenge:

Do NOT talk about any project you are currently working on.

I would be very curious to see what happens for you. You may discover that you wake up in the morning that much more excited to sit down at the computer and express yourself. If that’s the only place where you have a chance to speak, maybe you will like it more. Maybe you will find that you stop making up excuses not to sit down and do the work. Because you need it more.

Talk about books that you’ve already written and published. Or you’ve given up on, if you must talk about books with other writers. But don’t mess with the chi of the current project. Let it have a special magic and a special place where only you can see how wonderful it is.