A.M. Gray's Blog, page 9
January 31, 2017
What’s it called when the universe keeps throwing stuff at you?
No, not different stuff; the same thing - a name, a process, a song - that keeps popping up when you are sure you have never heard it before. Suddenly it’s everywhere.Synchronicity? No, that’s not it… *At any rate, the universe is throwing two things at me: Mata Hari and morning pages.It seems like every interview or podcast I listen to, people talk about doing their morning pages. Successful people. People who are at the pinnacle.Fine… I’m doing them, I’m doing them! **Mata Hari has me confused though. I lived in Indonesia for many years so I had certainly heard of her. I was surprised to find she wasn’t even a tiny bit Indonesian. She was Dutch. Her story is seriously tragic and it is now suspected that she was falsely accused of spying and executed by firing squad.Tragedy - the death of her child, evil husband, intrigue, world war, younger lover, execution by firing squad. It sounds like an opera libretto. (NO, brain!)I’m not sure how I can use this but I’ll research some more and have a think about it. Maybe it’s the basic plot line for a different character? Wouldn’t be romance though, eh? No happy endings there.
*Google tells me it is called Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Frowns at google. Uh huh.** morning pages are a daily ritual/habit from The Artist’s Way. Free-write three pages by hand. Reminders to call your sister, awful things you say to yourself, worries about your life, things that made you laugh… whatever. The idea is that if they are out of your head you can deal with them.
*Google tells me it is called Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Frowns at google. Uh huh.** morning pages are a daily ritual/habit from The Artist’s Way. Free-write three pages by hand. Reminders to call your sister, awful things you say to yourself, worries about your life, things that made you laugh… whatever. The idea is that if they are out of your head you can deal with them.
January 29, 2017
Cruel to be kind
Story seed #244 from 400 StorySeeds to Crush Writer's Block Kindle Edition
by M. KirinA $1 wedding dress Yard sales. They were her kryptonite, or maybe more accurately, her catnip. Irresistible.Cassie could not drive past a sign without taking a quick photo of it for later, or making a note and if there was one on as she drove past, she was stopping no matter where she had to be.On today, of all days, she should have been able to resist the lure. She was happy, elated, all of the good things. She didn’t need the high that finding a great bargain gave her, but somehow she headed out early and thought she’d just drop in and check the yard sale she had snapped a shot of recently. It was even on the way to the mall where she was meeting her best friend.She followed the homemade arrows until she could see the faded sun umbrella set up in the front yard. Card tables, a clothes rack, and boxes of yet to be discovered bargains were scattered about.Clutching her purse in her hand, she picked carefully though a box of paperbacks. Sadly, the only author she knew was for a title she already owned.The seller eyed her off and flicked cigarette ash into an ashtray. There wasn’t a price tag on the ashtray.Sidling over to another box, she dug around in it. Her tiki phase was well and truly over otherwise the hula dancing girl would have been perfect.The seller made a grunt noise. It might have been a question but if it was she had missed it.She shifted the hangers on the clothes rack and stopped at a garment bag. She unzipped it and peered inside. “What’s this?”“Wedding dress.”“Oh my gosh,” she squeaked before she could stop herself. It was too hard to haggle well if she was too eager and the seller knew she wanted something. “My boyfriend asked me to marry him last night.”The old woman dragged on her cigarette. “Bully for you.”“Can I open it?”A shrug she took as permission.The dress was champagne, not white, but it was perfect. She couldn’t find a stain or a tear or a missing button. No age marks. It was a figure hugging strapless dress, fitted at the front with a train at the back and a short cropped jacket that matched.She couldn’t guess at it’s age. The style was timeless classic. She also couldn’t see a tag to tell her the size. There were no labels at all. That made sense if it was handmade for a bride. “What size is it?”“It’ll fit.”She frowned, but there was nowhere to try it on unless she went inside the woman’s house, and she wasn’t offering.She hung it back on the rack, carefully zipping it back into the bag before moving on to look at some other items.Her eyes strayed back to the dress.Another young woman arrived and she had a moment’s panic that the new girl would steal her dress. Instead, the new customer bought the hula doll and left.She sighed with relief.“Did you want it?” The old woman asked.“The Hula girl?”“No, the wedding gown.”“I don’t know...”“It’s one dollar.”She stared at the seller. That just couldn’t be right. The garment bag alone was worth more than a dollar. The buttons, the material, and so on. “A... dollar?”“Yeah.”She hadn’t agreed but she was already moving over to the clothes rack.“That’s the deal.”“Deal?” She stopped.“You can sell it for a dollar when you’re done.”She wanted to ask, but didn’t. It felt like rudeness to ask what ‘done’ meant. When you’re married of course. Who needs a second wedding dress?She and Aaron had been talking about it for years. They lived together but it was always ‘when we’re married’ not ‘if’. He had finally asked her formally last night and that was why she was so happy today.It seemed like a sign to see the dress of her dreams today.“Is it a deal?” the seller pressed.“You have to tell me the real price.”“One dollar.”“I’ve got a hundred in cash.” First time she’d tried to haggle someone up.The woman held her hand up to forestall her. “One dollar; no more, no less.”“Is there something wrong with it?”“Do you want the dress or not. I’ve got customers.”She didn’t. “Fine. A dollar.”She had to dig in the bottom of her purse but eventually she handed over a crumpled note.The woman made her shake hands on it as if they really had made a deal. She hurried over to her car, fearful that the seller would change her mind. She waved at the woman as she drove off.Her dress. The perfect dress.At the corner she paused. If she went to the mall and left it in the car, it might get stolen. It would take her fifteen minutes to drop it off at home. She messaged her friend to tell her she’d be a couple of minutes late.It was hard to carry the long bag. She parked on the street rather than use the garage door, and went in through the front door. She heard voices as the door swung open.“Where’s your bride?” a husky female asked with a bitter laugh.“Out,” Aaron said. “We’ve got hours.”A sound like a smack and then a small yelp.“Can’t we use the bed?” the woman whined.“She’ll notice. We fuck on everything else and she’s too stupid to know.”“Boring,” the woman agreed.By then, her feet had taken her to the end of the hall, almost without her permission. She knew what they were doing. She didn’t want to see it, but she needed to. And she couldn’t stop. She even knew who he was with. His work colleague Jennifer. The woman he went away with on business trips. A whole lot of small things she had ignored clicked together into a larger, clearer mosaic.She clutched the dress hanger so hard her fingers went white. A strength came to her. She didn’t know where it came from. She stepped into the room. “Get out of my house.” She didn’t shout. She was loud and clear.“Shit!” Jennifer said.“Hey, don’t talk to her like that,” Aaron argued.“I was talking to you. Get out of my house, Aaron.”“This is our-” he stopped at the look on her face.“You told me it was your house,” Jennifer said to Aaron. She had collected her clothes and she held them in a bundle in front of her body.“You two can have this conversation somewhere else.” Pulling her phone out, she starting looking for a local locksmith.“I can explain,” Aaron started but she gave him the hand.She explained her issue to the guy who answered. “One hour? Perfect.”Jennifer tugged Aaron backwards. He was just staring at her. “Come on,” Jennifer encouraged.“I’ll be back for my stuff.”Throwing it out on the lawn would have been fun, but it felt too emotional. Something had changed, or broken inside her.When she heard the door slam she went to the garage to get some moving boxes. He’d be on her land for less time collecting his stuff if she packed it in a few boxes for him.*****A few weeks later after a lot of tears, tequila and bitching with her bff, she remembered the dress. It had been carefully hung in her wardrobe.She put it in her car and drove back to the house where the yard sale had been. The seller wouldn't want the dress back; they’d made a deal but she went anyway.A car pulled into the drive as she parked at the kerb.“Hi!” she chirped at the weary looking man as he pulled a suitcase out of the car. “I bought this at your yard sale.”He just stared at her. “Sorry?”“Yard sale.”“Jet lag.”“Huh?”He said, “I’ve been away for a month.”They both thought of it at the same time. Had he been robbed? He rushed to check, then unlock the front door“Nothing’s disturbed,” she said as stood inside the entrance. The house looked neat and tidy.He darted into the rooms and finally emerged looking confused. “A yard sale?” he repeated.She showed him the shot of the flyer with the address.“I don’t get it. I’m sorry, can I offer you a drink? All I’ve got is cold beer.” He smiled sheepishly. “After a trip it’s nice to get home and have a beer.”“Yes.”The dress hung over the back of a kitchen chair as she told him the story. She apologised for just barging into his home. He made a joke about it being rare.They opened a second beer.“So it kind of saved you?” he said.“I guess. She said, ‘when you’re done’. Is that what she meant? ‘Sell it for a dollar when you’re done.’”“Was it her dress, do you think?” he asked. “Was she married?”“I didn’t see anyone with her. If it was her dress, why did she use your house?”“Maybe it was her house. I’m renting from an agency. Or maybe she lives near here and noticed I was away.” He clinked their beer bottles together. “New promotion means no more travel.”“Congrats and yay.”“Is it a nice dress?”She nodded. “Perfect.”“Pity.” He reached for the bag but she stopped him.“It’s bad luck,” she argued.It was only bad luck for the groom to see the wedding gown, not some random guy she’d just met. But, then again, he wasn’t random. The dress had brought her to him.“I don’t even know your name,” he complained.“It’s Cassie.”“Neil.”They shook hands and it felt like she'd just made another deal; a better one.*****She wore the dress for her wedding and then sold it at their first yard sale. The clothes rack was set up almost exactly where she had stacked the boxes of Aaron’s stuff. Neil moving in had changed the house in so many ways. It was a different dress by then. (No, it really WAS a different dress. Now it had a pencil skirt.) She was oddly unsurprised by the alterations she’d had nothing to do with. She also felt half sorry, half excited for the young woman wearing retro clothes and red pumps who bought it.For one dollar, as promised.She bit her lip as the girl carried it off triumphantly.Neil kissed Cassie’s hair. “You did the right thing.”“I know, but I’m worried she’ll be hurt.”“Cruel to be kind. You never know what comes next.”“Or who comes next,” she added with a kiss.~~~~© AM Gray 2017
by M. KirinA $1 wedding dress Yard sales. They were her kryptonite, or maybe more accurately, her catnip. Irresistible.Cassie could not drive past a sign without taking a quick photo of it for later, or making a note and if there was one on as she drove past, she was stopping no matter where she had to be.On today, of all days, she should have been able to resist the lure. She was happy, elated, all of the good things. She didn’t need the high that finding a great bargain gave her, but somehow she headed out early and thought she’d just drop in and check the yard sale she had snapped a shot of recently. It was even on the way to the mall where she was meeting her best friend.She followed the homemade arrows until she could see the faded sun umbrella set up in the front yard. Card tables, a clothes rack, and boxes of yet to be discovered bargains were scattered about.Clutching her purse in her hand, she picked carefully though a box of paperbacks. Sadly, the only author she knew was for a title she already owned.The seller eyed her off and flicked cigarette ash into an ashtray. There wasn’t a price tag on the ashtray.Sidling over to another box, she dug around in it. Her tiki phase was well and truly over otherwise the hula dancing girl would have been perfect.The seller made a grunt noise. It might have been a question but if it was she had missed it.She shifted the hangers on the clothes rack and stopped at a garment bag. She unzipped it and peered inside. “What’s this?”“Wedding dress.”“Oh my gosh,” she squeaked before she could stop herself. It was too hard to haggle well if she was too eager and the seller knew she wanted something. “My boyfriend asked me to marry him last night.”The old woman dragged on her cigarette. “Bully for you.”“Can I open it?”A shrug she took as permission.The dress was champagne, not white, but it was perfect. She couldn’t find a stain or a tear or a missing button. No age marks. It was a figure hugging strapless dress, fitted at the front with a train at the back and a short cropped jacket that matched.She couldn’t guess at it’s age. The style was timeless classic. She also couldn’t see a tag to tell her the size. There were no labels at all. That made sense if it was handmade for a bride. “What size is it?”“It’ll fit.”She frowned, but there was nowhere to try it on unless she went inside the woman’s house, and she wasn’t offering.She hung it back on the rack, carefully zipping it back into the bag before moving on to look at some other items.Her eyes strayed back to the dress.Another young woman arrived and she had a moment’s panic that the new girl would steal her dress. Instead, the new customer bought the hula doll and left.She sighed with relief.“Did you want it?” The old woman asked.“The Hula girl?”“No, the wedding gown.”“I don’t know...”“It’s one dollar.”She stared at the seller. That just couldn’t be right. The garment bag alone was worth more than a dollar. The buttons, the material, and so on. “A... dollar?”“Yeah.”She hadn’t agreed but she was already moving over to the clothes rack.“That’s the deal.”“Deal?” She stopped.“You can sell it for a dollar when you’re done.”She wanted to ask, but didn’t. It felt like rudeness to ask what ‘done’ meant. When you’re married of course. Who needs a second wedding dress?She and Aaron had been talking about it for years. They lived together but it was always ‘when we’re married’ not ‘if’. He had finally asked her formally last night and that was why she was so happy today.It seemed like a sign to see the dress of her dreams today.“Is it a deal?” the seller pressed.“You have to tell me the real price.”“One dollar.”“I’ve got a hundred in cash.” First time she’d tried to haggle someone up.The woman held her hand up to forestall her. “One dollar; no more, no less.”“Is there something wrong with it?”“Do you want the dress or not. I’ve got customers.”She didn’t. “Fine. A dollar.”She had to dig in the bottom of her purse but eventually she handed over a crumpled note.The woman made her shake hands on it as if they really had made a deal. She hurried over to her car, fearful that the seller would change her mind. She waved at the woman as she drove off.Her dress. The perfect dress.At the corner she paused. If she went to the mall and left it in the car, it might get stolen. It would take her fifteen minutes to drop it off at home. She messaged her friend to tell her she’d be a couple of minutes late.It was hard to carry the long bag. She parked on the street rather than use the garage door, and went in through the front door. She heard voices as the door swung open.“Where’s your bride?” a husky female asked with a bitter laugh.“Out,” Aaron said. “We’ve got hours.”A sound like a smack and then a small yelp.“Can’t we use the bed?” the woman whined.“She’ll notice. We fuck on everything else and she’s too stupid to know.”“Boring,” the woman agreed.By then, her feet had taken her to the end of the hall, almost without her permission. She knew what they were doing. She didn’t want to see it, but she needed to. And she couldn’t stop. She even knew who he was with. His work colleague Jennifer. The woman he went away with on business trips. A whole lot of small things she had ignored clicked together into a larger, clearer mosaic.She clutched the dress hanger so hard her fingers went white. A strength came to her. She didn’t know where it came from. She stepped into the room. “Get out of my house.” She didn’t shout. She was loud and clear.“Shit!” Jennifer said.“Hey, don’t talk to her like that,” Aaron argued.“I was talking to you. Get out of my house, Aaron.”“This is our-” he stopped at the look on her face.“You told me it was your house,” Jennifer said to Aaron. She had collected her clothes and she held them in a bundle in front of her body.“You two can have this conversation somewhere else.” Pulling her phone out, she starting looking for a local locksmith.“I can explain,” Aaron started but she gave him the hand.She explained her issue to the guy who answered. “One hour? Perfect.”Jennifer tugged Aaron backwards. He was just staring at her. “Come on,” Jennifer encouraged.“I’ll be back for my stuff.”Throwing it out on the lawn would have been fun, but it felt too emotional. Something had changed, or broken inside her.When she heard the door slam she went to the garage to get some moving boxes. He’d be on her land for less time collecting his stuff if she packed it in a few boxes for him.*****A few weeks later after a lot of tears, tequila and bitching with her bff, she remembered the dress. It had been carefully hung in her wardrobe.She put it in her car and drove back to the house where the yard sale had been. The seller wouldn't want the dress back; they’d made a deal but she went anyway.A car pulled into the drive as she parked at the kerb.“Hi!” she chirped at the weary looking man as he pulled a suitcase out of the car. “I bought this at your yard sale.”He just stared at her. “Sorry?”“Yard sale.”“Jet lag.”“Huh?”He said, “I’ve been away for a month.”They both thought of it at the same time. Had he been robbed? He rushed to check, then unlock the front door“Nothing’s disturbed,” she said as stood inside the entrance. The house looked neat and tidy.He darted into the rooms and finally emerged looking confused. “A yard sale?” he repeated.She showed him the shot of the flyer with the address.“I don’t get it. I’m sorry, can I offer you a drink? All I’ve got is cold beer.” He smiled sheepishly. “After a trip it’s nice to get home and have a beer.”“Yes.”The dress hung over the back of a kitchen chair as she told him the story. She apologised for just barging into his home. He made a joke about it being rare.They opened a second beer.“So it kind of saved you?” he said.“I guess. She said, ‘when you’re done’. Is that what she meant? ‘Sell it for a dollar when you’re done.’”“Was it her dress, do you think?” he asked. “Was she married?”“I didn’t see anyone with her. If it was her dress, why did she use your house?”“Maybe it was her house. I’m renting from an agency. Or maybe she lives near here and noticed I was away.” He clinked their beer bottles together. “New promotion means no more travel.”“Congrats and yay.”“Is it a nice dress?”She nodded. “Perfect.”“Pity.” He reached for the bag but she stopped him.“It’s bad luck,” she argued.It was only bad luck for the groom to see the wedding gown, not some random guy she’d just met. But, then again, he wasn’t random. The dress had brought her to him.“I don’t even know your name,” he complained.“It’s Cassie.”“Neil.”They shook hands and it felt like she'd just made another deal; a better one.*****She wore the dress for her wedding and then sold it at their first yard sale. The clothes rack was set up almost exactly where she had stacked the boxes of Aaron’s stuff. Neil moving in had changed the house in so many ways. It was a different dress by then. (No, it really WAS a different dress. Now it had a pencil skirt.) She was oddly unsurprised by the alterations she’d had nothing to do with. She also felt half sorry, half excited for the young woman wearing retro clothes and red pumps who bought it.For one dollar, as promised.She bit her lip as the girl carried it off triumphantly.Neil kissed Cassie’s hair. “You did the right thing.”“I know, but I’m worried she’ll be hurt.”“Cruel to be kind. You never know what comes next.”“Or who comes next,” she added with a kiss.~~~~© AM Gray 2017
January 28, 2017
New rule for me
This Trump stuff is totally freaking me out.When kid 1 wakes up, he comes out and asks, ‘damage report’ in his Picard voice. Each time I tell kid 3 the next horrible law that they are passing, she starts singing, ‘oh Canada’.I get too involved, too upset, too angry… and there’s nowhere for it to go. I kept thinking that someone or something would stop this happening but at each stage the driver-less steam roller continues on. It stresses and depresses me. I do what I can. I have paid dues to organisations that will help where I can’t.To impose a ban on refugees on Holocaust Memorial day shows an ignorance of history I cannot fathom. The distinct lack of the word ‘Jew’ in the WH release must be deliberate. How could it not be?I’m Australian, this doesn’t directly affect me; at least until they start the next world war, but I am very worried about my friends and readers in the US. And this will affect the world.It won’t be solved in days, weeks or even months. I can’t write or work, like this. I also know I’m not alone in feeling this way. In the spirit of self-care, I need to focus on something that makes me feel good, and at the moment, that’s my stories. Call it escapism, I know that.So, for my own mental health I have made a rule for myself: no social media until after 2 pm.At least it’s socially acceptable to hit the wine cask after I have read a few news stories, freaked out for a while, and got closer to sundown.Other people have written on this more eloquently than I can.Links:My earlier post - people will dieRachael Herron - we riseChuck Wendig - no one’s coming tosave usJim C Hines - Highlights from Trump’s January 25 Interview
January 23, 2017
The patron saint of writers
Today is the feast day of Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers and journalists. A bishop of Geneva, Francis died in 1622.His most famous work is ‘Introduction to the Devout Life’ and unusually for the time, it was written for laypeople; ordinary people.I reckon that’s a good sign. The patron saint of writers wrote for everyday people. He encouraged dancing and jokes! The thought that normal people could experience holiness in their daily life was a new idea. You were only supposed to get this if you withdrew from daily life. He wrote his pamphlets and stuffed them under people’s doors.He persisted until he succeeded.Maybe that’s the best advice for writers: laugh, dance and keep writing.Thanks, Francis.
December 5, 2016
Rest rethink restart
After my nano crash I have also crashed a little. It’s a combination of things. December is not my favourite month. After breaking my walking streak, I haven’t been inspired to do my daily amount of steps. The device I use keeps a ‘longest streak’ not a ‘current streak’ so until I pass 300 days I can’t see any progress. That’s kind of disheartening.I usually listen to audiobooks as I walk. Often this encourages me to get out there when there is a story that I am eager to continue listening to. My current audiobook isn’t doing it for me so I am finding other reasons to stay inside.[I know the easy solution is to just dnf that book…]I’ve been messing with recording my time in an attempt to keep myself on target, and it isn’t working for me. I end up beating myself up because I wrote so little in so much time, or whatever fault my brain decides to pick on.[look how much time you spent on tumblr … I swear those pics of naked men are inspiring. I write erotic romance… ]I’ve said it before, the nanowrimo kind of word count thing works for me. I do NOT know why. It seems to be just enough of a step away from setting the target myself. I often do the camps where I set my own word target, so how does that inspire me… shrugs. But it does.This week I saw some writers on twitter singing the praises of another kind of word count app and I went to check it out. It’s free. Yay. And I saw more people rave about it today. So I will give that a go.I’ll let you know how it goes.Links:Toggl time recording appPacemaker word count app
November 30, 2016
I made the shot and I missed
Nanowrimo 2016.Well, that was a trip.Here is my chart for 2016. I missed the midnight cut off by 421 words.
421 words.Actually, it’s closer than that; when I tried to enter an update I was up to 49,696 or 324 words off finishing.Sighs heavily.It’s my own fault. I spent the first week paralysed by shock and horror at the trumperdink vote. I was unable to write a love story under those circumstances.I left it all to the last minute, as I often do, in my life. So on the last two days, I powered up. Twenty minute Pomodoro’s, too much coffee - just get the words down. I was punching out two thousand words an hour.And then I got some other curve-balls. Days wiped out through no fault of mine. A power outage at a friend of kid 2’s who then asked if he could hold the party he had all planned at my house. I said yes. He needed a hand in the kitchen and my desk is in the corner of the living room, so I didn’t get a lot of words written.Kid extra brought a friend home because of train cancellations. All disruptive.[After the party I was cleaning up. I looked at my step counter and said ‘what time is it? I have 280 steps to go’ as it clicked over to midnight and wiped out a 300 day run of goals. Kid 2 looked at my face, said, ‘I love you, mum’ and RAN.]In the last two days, even with all of that on, I started at 36,455 and wrote nearly 14 thousand words. The nano site is often glitchy when it comes to geography. It kept saying I still had two days to go when it hit midnight and froze me out. I could have lied, but I don't do that, either.I made the shot and I missed.But you know… all I had to do was write an extra 14 words on each day.That’s all. I could have done that amount on any day.And what I have now is a jumbled mass of words. It’s rougher than most of my rough first drafts, but it’s fifty thousand words. I got some blinding insights for some characters back stories. I sorted out my themes and my story arcs. I got some ideas for the next story in what is becoming a series.But man, am I pissed about those step goals.
421 words.Actually, it’s closer than that; when I tried to enter an update I was up to 49,696 or 324 words off finishing.Sighs heavily.It’s my own fault. I spent the first week paralysed by shock and horror at the trumperdink vote. I was unable to write a love story under those circumstances.I left it all to the last minute, as I often do, in my life. So on the last two days, I powered up. Twenty minute Pomodoro’s, too much coffee - just get the words down. I was punching out two thousand words an hour.And then I got some other curve-balls. Days wiped out through no fault of mine. A power outage at a friend of kid 2’s who then asked if he could hold the party he had all planned at my house. I said yes. He needed a hand in the kitchen and my desk is in the corner of the living room, so I didn’t get a lot of words written.Kid extra brought a friend home because of train cancellations. All disruptive.[After the party I was cleaning up. I looked at my step counter and said ‘what time is it? I have 280 steps to go’ as it clicked over to midnight and wiped out a 300 day run of goals. Kid 2 looked at my face, said, ‘I love you, mum’ and RAN.]In the last two days, even with all of that on, I started at 36,455 and wrote nearly 14 thousand words. The nano site is often glitchy when it comes to geography. It kept saying I still had two days to go when it hit midnight and froze me out. I could have lied, but I don't do that, either.I made the shot and I missed.But you know… all I had to do was write an extra 14 words on each day.That’s all. I could have done that amount on any day.And what I have now is a jumbled mass of words. It’s rougher than most of my rough first drafts, but it’s fifty thousand words. I got some blinding insights for some characters back stories. I sorted out my themes and my story arcs. I got some ideas for the next story in what is becoming a series.But man, am I pissed about those step goals.
November 14, 2016
People will die
I watched the American election results with growing horror. I’m Australian. We have compulsory voting which kind of solves voter suppression issues. You live here, you vote. If you don’t vote you get fined. If you want to spoil your ballot or donkey vote (number it from 1 down) go ahead. We also have preferential selection. Each party decides which other candidate their votes go to if they don’t have enough to win. To demonstrate, you could have made a third party protest vote to Johnson and then, if he gave his preferences to Clinton, they would count in her total.We also gave the world Rupert Murdoch and for that I apologise.As it is, Clinton won the popular vote and will probably not win the Presidency. The Electoral College system is unique. No one else in the world has copied this form of voting because historically, it’s based on slavery. I don’t know who the EC voters are, or how they are selected, but they hold too much power as anonymous citizens for this to be democratic. I have seen reports that some people are trying to lobby them. I fear that will not work. I don’t change my mind because someone shouts at me. Most other people don’t either.I do not know how Americans could vote for a man endorsed by the KKK, the US Nazi party, by North Korea and Russia. Daesh celebrated when he won. He is not a successful businessman. He seems functionally illiterate. A man charged with the rape of a child and about to appear in court for fraud. Almost the only group he hadn’t offended was Jews and he did that in the last days of his campaign. I thought his daughter Ivanka married a Jew and practiced Judaism. I am horrified that whole counties voted for him.I don’t get it. I don’t care if you think it was a protest vote against the establishment. From the outside, it looked like an easy choice: reason vs madness.My kids found me sobbing at my keyboard and all I could say was, ‘people will die’.It has already started. My twitter stream is full of reports of people who with this last straw have decided they can’t carry any more. They suicide because they are gay, or trans, or they feel their health bill will be a burden on their families. Then I am trying to comfort people because trolls tell them they made up the death of their friend.Maybe it’s because I follow and have befriended a lot of writers. Writers are what they are because they constantly think of ‘what if’ situations. They can turn a one sentence prompt into a whole novel.Writers are frightened right now. Often they use their words to generate income because they can’t hold down a nine-to-five job. They may be struggling with chronic illness, or mental health issues. I know people whose lives have been dramatically changed by the last eight years. They got married, they got Obamacare and with the extra income they have started new businesses or become full time authors and given up the day job; the one with the health insurance.I have friends who say without Obamacare, they will not get health insurance and they do not know how they and their children will survive. I have friends who are frightened to hold their spouse’s hand in the street. I have friends who are rushing to get long term contraceptives now before that choice is taken away from them.The people Trump has flagged to assist him are genuinely terrifying. They have already proved their inhumanity and incompetence, and he is giving them power.‘What if Trump is elected?’ was a scary enough proposition. But when people don’t get what they think they voted for, they get angry. America already has a problem with guns. Angry people with guns? More people will die.I don’t have it in me to be positive right now. I’m still angry and sad. I’ve been reading a lot to escape to other worlds; worlds where there’s a happy ending, where love wins, where different people are accepted. Today I am going to write. I signed up for Nanowrimo and my word count graph hasn’t moved in days. I need to fix that.I reckon the world is going to need more stories.
November 3, 2016
Dammit brain!
There are days when I despair of myself and my ability to knock ME off track.To explain: I’ve been doing the Artist’s Way workbook course. It’s a twelve week therapeutic drill-down course into yourself. One of the set tasks was to eat a favourite food from childhood. Being a good Aussie kid I chose fresh bread with butter and Vegemite.Sounds easy, right?Not for me.Did I go to the store and buy a loaf of fresh bread or a newly baked bun?Oh, no.I decided that I needed to make my own bread. I already do this. I own a bread machine and I have a giant Tupperware container that holds five kilograms of the bread mix.Did I choose that method? Oh, no.No, you see. I decided that I needed to make sourdough.I have never tried this before. I do not have a sourdough starter, nor do I know anyone who does that I could steal some culture from. It’s living yeast bread. You need a little bit of the starter yeast to feed and grow before you can start making a single loaf.So, I needed to harvest wild yeast from within the environment of my own kitchen. This is why sourdough from different places tastes different. Nifty, eh?This, naturally, took six days.Oh, AM… shake my head.But, after almost a week of feeding, weighing and crooning my starter was bubbling away. I’m sure the crooning to it was an essential part of this process even if the kids did look at me weirdly.Then to make the dough. This, also took more hours than I thought possible. Fold it over on itself four times, and only four times, cover and then leave it for half an hour. Do this for three hours.Wait… what?That was just one step in the daylong process. But, eventually, I made two sourdough loaves. They were crusty. They were bubbly on the surface, and they had big air holes inside. They were almost perfect, if just a little bit vertically challenged.
They tasted good, too.Did this work in the way the exercise was supposed to; to transport me back to a moment in my childhood? Of course not. You don’t think my mother would have had anything as odd as sourdough bread, do you?Links:The Artist’s Way by Julia CameronMake your own sourdough
They tasted good, too.Did this work in the way the exercise was supposed to; to transport me back to a moment in my childhood? Of course not. You don’t think my mother would have had anything as odd as sourdough bread, do you?Links:The Artist’s Way by Julia CameronMake your own sourdough
October 19, 2016
Anagrams and pseudonyms
One of my Smashwords works is in i-books jail. ‘Kissing Cousins’ has been marked as containing ‘inappropriate content’. Duh, it says it right on the damn title. I can try to appeal but what is the point?I’ve said this before, and had many a response on reviews about this. Australians do not have the same quasi incest thing that Americans have with cousins. We just don’t. Maybe it’s our English roots? Honestly, I’ve read a pile of Regency romances lately and people are always having sex with and getting married off to various cousins. I truly think it is America’s puritan roots showing.But regardless, being in sale jail is an issue. It means that your works do not and will not show up in search items, or ‘also boughts’ or any other of the viral kind of sales methods.Sighs…So.I was thinking…We all know how dangerous this is…But more than a few erotica authors have pseudonyms, often for just such an occurrence. If one of their series gets the tar and feathers treatment, then they can publish new works under another name.I was thinking about this, when I probably should have been doing a hundred other things. So what should my pseudonym be?And I plugged my full name into an anagram generator.I got the result: anagram.Bwahaha.
October 14, 2016
10 million total fanfiction hits
Some time ago, I realised that my fanfiction stats were fast approaching a huge milestone.And then I kind of forgot about it. I set a reminder in google keep with an alarm date on it, but obviously my math skills are deficient, and I was days late. I suspect I also forgot some of the more recent stories I had posted. They weren’t in the table and skewed the total in Excel.Today, I was tooling about and thought I’d just check because the daily read rates were higher than they have been for a while, and voila… my legacy story stats total is 10,032,027 hits.Whoa.
The top three stories make up 6 million of the total. They're the usual suspects. You know the ones. *grins*
The top three stories make up 6 million of the total. They're the usual suspects. You know the ones. *grins*
