Maggie Anderson's Blog, page 2

Fitness Mentality - Fight!!

A couple weeks ago I posted on Facebook about my routine Alarm Clock Rage, and it seemed like I was not alone. And then last week I had a wonderful in-person experience at my gym that, again, demonstrated that I'm not alone in the fight! So, here I go again, because this is not just a battle - we're talking about eternal fitness antipathy, folks! The problem is two-fold, as I see it, the need for sleep and the need to get up and exercise. I've always been a morning exercise person, and despite ACR, my exercising is happening in the morning or not at all. Those who exercise after their work day is done are probably battling the need for couch (or to make dinner and get on with your life!) and the need for exercise. To recap ACR - so, despite the fact that I have been exercising regularly since I was, oh, 13 or 14 years old, I wrestle each workout morning with getting out of bed. If you're working out before work, guys, you're getting up early! And probably, you didn't get enough sleep. And you know this. You are acutely aware the sleeping did not happen enough. The alarm goes off, and whether it's beeping or a song or anything, it soon becomes the most awful, grating, torturous sound you've ever heard. Don't choose a favorite song for an alarm song, it'll be ruined forever! Even though it's probably been over a decade since I used the radio as my alarm clock, my eyes still pop and my heart tightens at the evil, fuzzy, popping sound of a radio turning on. ARGH!!! A good deal of the time, I respond to my alarm clock with piratey expletives. It does sort of help, I think. Then I will move my alarm forward one more hour; that takes the edge off. Then I let myself relax and sort of pretend I'm going to sleep for another hour, while I mentally go on the attack. I berate myself, reminding myself that fitness only happens if you keep doing it over and over and that I'm going to be really annoyed with myself all day at work if I don't do it. Then I try a positive spin - you will feel really good with all those endorphins pumping through you, and then all day at work you'll be so glad you got your butt out of bed! My pirate talk oscillates with some whimpers and near-sobbing as I quickly progress through the phases of ACR. Most of the time (not all, folks), I get past this mental trickery step, and turn off my alarm for good, and get out of bed. I don't get out to go to the gym, exactly, but to get on some comfy gym clothes. After I get on my comfy gym clothes, I am rewarded with a mocha from my Nespresso machine. By the time I'm dressed with my mocha, everything is basically downhill. At this point, NOT going to the gym, is just unthinkable. I just dragged my butt out of bed in the worst way; I'm no way going through that torture for nothing! And at least for me, the actual spin class, weight lifting, or kick-boxing is relatively mentally easy for me to accomplish, and I feel great afterwards. But no matter how many times I accomplish this wonderful feeling, the ACR does NOT go away. So I'm here to say that you are not alone if you're experiencing something like this. There are those crazy people (my husband), who have no troubles whatsoever getting out of bed super super early to go to the gym (WHATEVER), but a lot of us will be like me and it will never go away, but that doesn't mean we can't conquer! And accepting that it is what it is (a mental fitness battle each day!), is the first step. And this brings me to my awesome moment at spin last week. I went through my morning battle, and was walking into the gym at like 5:57, and class starts at 6am. A blonde girl jogs in the door right ahead of me and goes to the front desk, inquiring about the location of spin class; this is her first time. I tell her I'm going there too, and I'll show her the way. She excitedly tells me, as we walk up the stairs, that this is the very first time in her whole life (she seem my age, mid-30s) that she's gotten up to workout in the morning. So yeah, it's a big deal! She said that she somehow managed to screw-up her reading of the bus schedule on her app, and she missed the bus, and she was like, 'No way, not today. I'm not getting up this damn early and missing the flippin' class!' Or something like that. So she said she just took off running down Broadway! 'Not today!' Just inspiring, gotta say. :) We get to the locker room, and I take forever (as usual - I get that from my dad) taking off an outside pants layer and changing into biking shoes. Then a brunette comes bustling in, 'You guys going to spin?' She's all rushing and stuff because it's 6am now. We say 'yes', and then the blonde says excitedly to the brunette, 'I'm so proud of myself! This is the first time I've ever gotten up to take a class before work!' The brunette immediately cheers, sincerely, 'Way to go! That's awesome!'. I say, ' Ya know, way to go to all of us. We're all here. We all got up!' Haha, I guess I wanted some cheering to go my way! The brunette heads out and the blonde is ready and I thought they'd all left, but as I close my locker, I see the blonde is waiting for me. She jogs out the door, and she turns the wrong way (it really is confusing to find the spin room!). She gets directed into the right direction by me, as well as by the brunette who'd actually been waiting just outside the door around the corner for her! So all three of us delinquents rush into spin, late, but feeling mighty cheery and buoyed by fitness lady camaraderie. And that's what I want to simulate here, that fitness fellowship (I just love me some alliteration). Whether you've worked-out regularly your whole life, do it in fits and starts, or are managing it for the first time - we can all share in that never-ending battle, the eternal antipathy that we conquer each time. Please share your story so we can see we're not alone!

Wheel of Time Encounter

This is a story about reviving my hope in humanity, haha. ;) Last night, while on a business trip to Tampa, Florida, I ended up sitting at the bar next to Benton. Benton told me that he had what I would call a 'real job', but also was part-owner of a Brewery - Southern Lights Brewing Company. Check it out next time you're in Tampa, folks! I told him that I too had both a 'real job' as well as an endeavor, involving fantasy writing and blogging. He was very nice and supportive about that. He then tells me that he is currently reading Knife of Dreams. He asked me if I had heard of it, and I replied regretfully that no, I had not heard of that one (though I was thinking that that sounded like a really cool book!). THEN Benton explains that it's Book 11 in The Wheel of Time. And I was of course like, 'WHAAATT?? Oh my Gosh! You're kidding me!' etc etc. If you refer to my earlier blog post about what I am reading, you might not be surprised to hear that I am currently reading Book 9 of The Wheel of Time. So, it was just too fun to nerd-out at the bar and talk over all the characters we like or don't like or parts we like or don't like. Discuss the pronunciations of weird words, the likely ethnicity of certain characters and what they probably looked like, and such. It was fresh in both of our minds, and we were both currently jazzed about the series and achieving the same goal - to finish the series by this coming summer. So, he said he made a first attempt to read the lengthy series in the mid-1990s, when he was at a book store and got a FREE copy of Book 1 - The Eye of the World. How cool is that? I think that would be a cool thing to do to introduce your series and get people reading your stuff. Neato! However, what he failed to notice at the time, was the text at the very top (look at the image below). Notice 'The First Part of Book One....'. Also, see the other picture below of the inside of the book where it says 'Chapters 1 through 18'. He didn't catch that little hint. So, the book was so great, Benton bought Book 2, and was a bit confused. Like, sort of like you'd be confused if you skipped several hundred pages of a book and kept going! But he ended up backtracking when he figured that out, and re-read all of Book 1, and went on from there. However, somewhere around Lord of Chaos, Book 6, he ended up just losing track of the series. For some reason, Thanksgiving of 2017, Benton decides he's going to get back into the series, start over, and read the whole thing. He's got books 1 through 6, but he needs the rest. He ends up walking into a used book store somewhere in Florida to see if he can find some, and the guy working at the store tells him that this is mainly a sci-fi/fantasy used book store. So Benton is like - well, that's cool. Benton asks him if he happens to have any of The Wheel of Time. The book store guy says that he's sorry, but he only has one single copy of one book from the series. It's a hard-cover cop of Crossroads of Twilight, Book 10. AND, it's autographed by Robert Jordan himself! Holy Cow!! See the photograph at the bottom of the blog. Benton gets it for 50 bucks. I say that's a deal! I'm obviously very impressed with this story, as I imagine few people could be, except that he happened to bump into somebody currently embedded in the world of Robert Jordan. And we both totally are, which I'd say is fairly inevitable when you're reading a series like this and you've gotten this far. So of course, we both belong to multiple Wheel of Time Facebook Groups, and share one common group - The Wheel of Time Facebook Group. Therefore we were able to discuss the stupid things people post that we don't agree with. And, most importantly for me, Benton said that he totally disagrees that these later books of Robert Jordan's are slow. Without spoilers, he just said that there is a lot of interesting character development that occurs, and that I may come to like people that I don't currently like. I'm cool with a slow-burning character story (or I wouldn't be reading this series), so I'm sure it'll be all good. Phew! My biggest fear is relieved. So, I guess my point might be that you never know who is around you, and maybe it's not horrible to be a little friendly to a stranger. You never know when you might be sitting next to a special sort of nerd, or artist or athlete, or whatever you happen to be in to. Not all strangers are jerks or creeps, some are cool. And if you're a bit of a pessimist and judgmental about people (which I can admit I am, especially about people down south!) - well, maybe lighten up and nerd it up a bit and you will find that actually a lot of people around you are pretty awesome folk. :) Thanks, Benton, for the photos!

Ogres and Goblins and Trolls, Oh My! - Part 2

I've been looking forward to this all week. It's Goblin time!!! Down Down to Goblin Town! I have had this song stuck in my head all week, ever since I finished writing about ogres and knew that goblins were next! Because The Hobbit is, like, my absolute favorite book, I kinda love goblins. In that special sort of way you can love toothy, big-mouthed nasty monsters who live beneath a mountain in the pitch dark and will most certainly want to eat you if they find you lost and wondering in their tunnels! I mean, you know you're up against something wicked-awesome when playing Riddles in the Dark with Gollum is preferable. Unless of course you have Orcrist the Goblin-Cleaver in your hand! In that case - have at 'em! By the way, I just love the goblins' creepy song. What a great move by Tolkien to have the goblins singing, and it totally works in the movie too. That 1977 The Hobbit cartoon totally withstands the test of time! OK, here are the lyrics: Clap! Snap! the black crack!
Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down down to Goblin-town
    You go, my lad! Clash, crash! Crush, smash!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, far underground!
     Ho, ho! my lad! Swish, smack! Whip crack!
Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!
Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,
While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,
Round and round far underground
     Below, my lad! If you are writing a fantasy novel, I totally recommend considering some songs or poems; it's a classic move. And don't limit it to elves, keep your mind open. OK, so let's see if there is anything else to know about Goblins that I didn't learn from the Hobbit. Goblin females are called goblette. Huh, never heard that before! The word 'goblin' was first seen in the 14th century. It probably came from the Anglo-Norman, 'gobelin', which most certainly came from Old French, 'gobelin' (yes, same word) - this Old French term was seen in the late 12th century. In the early 12 century, 'gobelinus' was seen in a Medieval Latin piece (yup, that totally looks Latin to me!) and the term referred to the daemons haunting the Normandy countryside. In any case, not quite as ancient as ogres (see my blog, Part 1). Goblins are usually described as rather small, and can range from being a bit mischievous to being the epitome of nasty-evil! They are often described as greedy, wanting gold and various treasures (who doesn't?!). And across the board they are ugly fellas, grotesque even. They also have historically had magical powers, like daemons or fairies. Huh. I think it is definitely a cool idea to write in some sorcerer goblins! I really like that concept. If anybody knows of a good fantasy story with a sorcerer goblin, please let me know! If not, I will have to write one soon. So, remember how ogres are very similar to giants? (see my blog, Part 1!) Well, goblins have some relatives on the fantasy evolutionary tree as well! A ton of relatives. Dwarfs is one, which I think is insulting to dwarfs, but there it is. Also: brownies, gnomes, imps, kobolds, and duende. The duende is one I haven't heard about before. Duende are from folklore originating in Latin America, the Philippines, and Iberia (parts of Spain/Portugal). Um, aren't these places far apart? Hmmmm. Makes me think, the fact that these duende are known across the world in all these separate places, well, it kinda provides some credence. Just sayin'. Let's do a side paragraph for duende. So, in Iberia, they - get this - wear big hats and sing magical songs to lure little children into the forest. There's a lesson for you kiddos! Don't go wandering into the forest! I just love all the creepy, threatening children's stories from back in the day. In Latin America, duende are a bit kinder, but still live in the forest. They actually might help you get unlost from the forest. Soooo, does that mean the Latin Americans are encouraging their children to go into the forest alone? Hmmm. Oh, and important detail - these helpful duende have no thumbs; yeah, that's important to know for some reason. In Mexico and the American Southwest, the duende are known to - get this - live inside the walls of children's bedrooms! Ahhhh!!! Unkempt children who don't clip their toenails will have their toenails clipped by these duende in the walls, while they sleep. Ahhhh!! And sometimes, these clumsy duende accidentally clip off a toe. Whoops! I prefer the thumb-less duende to these toe-collecting duende! In the Philippines, the duende dwell in caves or trees, or in the dark recesses of your house! So, sort of like bats. They may also live in anthills or termite mounds (and if you step on their mounded homes, they will curse you!). These are some flexible duende; they'll live almost anywhere. They may be good (the white-skinned ones) or evil (the black-skinned ones). These Filipino duende like to play with children, who are the only ones who can see them. At the Mariana Islands (east of the Philippines), the duende like to hide and then, like, leap out and steal little children! They hide in the remote areas of the jungle, and you have to ask their permission to go in. And they can be pretty nasty if you don't respect nature. So, these environmental activist duende, I can get behind them, well, apart from them stealing the children. Back to goblins! So, there is a pretty famous variety of goblin called hobgoblin. They were originally created as the helpful, nice, sweet versions of goblins. Though, some have messed around with that over time (as we do!). Puck from a Midsummer Night's Dream was a hobgoblin. The 'hob' part is another way to say 'elf', so these are like, elf-like goblins. And 'hob' can also be a word that implies a sort of rustic goblin, like, a goblin that lives in the countryside. These hairy little human-like sprites like to do house chores while people sleep! Great! I want one! So when you hear that 'Dobby' is actually a synonym for hobgoblin, you will all be immediately thinking of - Harry Potter! So, Dobby's name is really the term for his species. It would be like a person's name being 'Human'. Poor Dobby. Hobgoblin is a term you will also find in Marvel comic books. The Hobgoblin was first created in 1983 as a villain in The Amazing Spider-Man (#238). I should of course then also mention that the Green Goblin is the original archenemy of Spider Man and also first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man (#14), but back in 1964! So, the main folktales that involve goblins were not familiar to me, whereas a bunch of ogre folktales were. So, I thought, let's at least look into one of these. As a nod to my sister-in-law Inga, I will choose to research King Gobb! King Gobb is from Moldovan Gypsy folklore! *much time passing* Um, actually, I sadly can't find any details, oh no! Inga, do you know? I'm not sure how much time you may have spent as a child, swapping stories with the gypsies around their campfires. Well, instead of telling you who King Gobb is (which now I really want to know!), I will mention the Anglo-Scottish folklore about redcaps, which are murderous goblins who dye their hats red with human blood! Ok, now we're moving into horror genre. Still, if you need a good villain in your fantasy book, you might want to go this way. Redcaps live in castle ruins, which is very cool. I'm thinking, maybe these redcap goblins should be sorcerers. Wizard types like good hats after all, and I think they also like to live in old castle towers, so it all fits together. Oooor, castle dungeons. I always picture goblins down in the dark. Anybody here love The Hobbit cartoon? Do people like the nicer Dobby-like hobgoblins better than the creepy goblin hoard types? Did anybody already know about duende? Do you think you will start telling your children to stay out of the forest and clip your toenails - or else?

Ogres and Goblins and Trolls, Oh My! - Part 1

So, as I've mentioned before, writing fantasy involves a lot of really fun research into pretty cool topics. And while you might think - hey, I know all about ogres and goblins and such, they are monsters, they do mean things, I get it. Do you really? Do you know enough? Can you know enough? Let's all get sucked down that rabbit hole together. Let's start with ogres (females are ogress, btw) and word origin. It's French (yeah, it looks French with the 're' at the end instead of an 'er'), and derived from the god Orcus, who liked to eat human flesh (Eating human flesh? Geeze, what's that about? Please reference my first blog post in Fantastic Finds - Cannibals.) Ogres like to especially eat babies; I mean, of course they do. The earliest known mention of 'ogres' is in a 12th century Old French poem, of all things. However, older versions of ogres exist in different spelling varieties - one famous example is the Old English poem, Beowulf, which references orcneas. By the way, Tolkien used this root word and was inspired by Beowulf to create his nasty orcs. Side paragraph for Orcs. While Tolkien was inspired by Beowulf and additional ancient ogre mythology, he definitely created his own unique thing in Lord of the Rings. Dungeons & Dragons, Warcraft, and others have copied him since. So if you see 'orc', it's basically a nod to Tolkien. So, orcs are considered to be cannibals as well; they will eat other orcs or, of course, man flesh! Though I must say, I can't recall any baby-eating from the books, so perhaps that is one of the differences between ogres and orcs. Orcs are somewhat man-shaped with bowed legs and long arms. They are filthy and have a variety of skin colors - sallow green to brownish to even occasionally black. They are violent, crude, and generally dumb, which makes them good minions. The only real redeeming feature is they get to ride wargs and other cool creatures into battle. Ok, back to ogres, the real deal ancient first O-word brutes. In the 1600s, ogres are mentioned in French fairy-tales by at least two authors. Soon after, the very first ogress (female ogre!) comes along in Sleeping Beauty, which was first published at the end of the 17th Century. Wait wait, what? There was an ogress in Sleeping Beauty? 'Um, I missed that part...' Yeah, perhaps that's because we all watched the Disney version, and didn't read the Brothers Grimm version. Well, the original Sleeping Beauty had a Part Two where the Prince's mother was an ogress, and she wants to eat Sleeping Beauty and their twin children. So yeah, eating children is a big thing for ogres. To be authentic as a fantasy author, you really should have some children getting eaten by an ogre, or at least in danger of getting eaten. In classic ogre mythology, ogres are often described as giants or are somehow muddled with giants. Let's say, they are close on the fantasy evolutionary tree. Ogres are taller than humans and very strong, with big heads and lots of hair. So, we're learning some important physical differences with orcs. With ogres you should picture hideous giants; with orcs you should picture sort of disproportionate humans. There was a famous giant in Jack and the Bean Stalk, a fairy-tale that has had many versions over the years and began over 5,000 years ago with The Boy Who Stole Ogre's Treasure. Oh that is not a typo, folks. Five thousand years ago! That's wicked old. Anyways, you may recall that the giant in the story wanted to eat Jack. A very ogre thing to do. The giants in The Pilgrim's Progress (which I haven't read, but I've heard of) has a ton of nasty giants, and a quick skim shows me that some of them ate people. Anyways, as a writer, it might be a good idea to give giants some ogreish tastes and give ogres some giantish proportions. It would be in keeping with a long history of ogre mythology. Very legit. I know you all have been thinking the same thing throughout this post. You are wondering - where is my favorite ogre? Why is she not mentioning him? Shrek!! Shrek first appeared in a 1990 picture book by cartoonist William Steig. This book was the inspiration for the 2001 film that made Shrek world famous! Shrek is rather large, a sallow green color; however, he does not eat babies. But that's ok! He's a good ogre! Folks, this is fantasy. We can bend all sorts of rules. Also, while I am not familiar with the fairy-tale Puss in Boots, I've read that there is a shapeshifting ogre that in some versions of the story is a shapeshifting giant. We should not be surprised that an ogre and a giant share a role over the years. We are learning! A giant could totally be an understudy for an ogre, and vice versa. The story originated as a 16th century Italian story, but was later redone in French and then everywhere else. But gotta say, the best part of all of this is the fascinating skew from the norm - shapeshifting ogre! How cool is that? I think all fantasy authors should consider a shapeshifting ogre. I looked into it, and shapeshifting ogre was done again in an early 2000s book series which became a 2008 movie - The Spiderwick Chronicles. I haven't read it and can't opine on it, but I gotta give a big thumbs up for working in the shapeshifting ogre. Well, if you get anything out of this post at all, I hope you can remember that ogres are much bigger than humans (and orcs) and they eat babies. From there, just use your imagination and see where it takes you. Pull a Tolkien or Puss in Boots and spin your own thing! Own it! Anybody out there become a fan of ogres after reading this? Anyone out there have a favorite ogre story that didn't get mentioned? Anybody interested in seeing the sequel to Sleeping Beauty? Yikes!