Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Scotch Post! Which includes a link to a man I would marry... which is saying something....

Yikies, I published that before I even wrote anything...

Yeah... you could say that the scotch was to blame but the truth is that I'm that computer illiterate... which is terrifying considering that I'm trying to be a successful writer ( as in 'published, paid to write' writer). Not that unpublished writers aren't successful. There are lots of forms of successful. I just want to be able to cut back on anything non-writing and focus on writing instead of throwing hay bales. Yes, throwing hay bales keeps me young... but it also damages my joints and even Red Sonia would have to face facts at some point (sorry guys, even super-sexy sword queens age a little) and I'm getting to one of those points... Not that I'm old, but lifting heavy things doesn't thrill me as it once did... beating the boys at every game doesn't enthrall me as it once did... now I prefer to recount stories of girls beating boys, rather than living them... At this point I would publish a picture of me looking fearsome and indomitable (fave word) but I only have this one... and I look a bit small next to the hulking fabulousness that is... someone who's hulking and fabulous, at DragonCon last year... BTW that's fenris, me doppleganger on the left... you know, all pre-prego and stuff...



And onto the link that contains a man I would marry... yeah, I bet that got you... He goes by Prince Poppycock and he makes my world go round, so check him out!

Turkey Herding...

So this is going to be a short post but I couldn't resist writing it. I'm on the iPhone again so if something is whacky that would bewhy. I'm sharing the car with my ma, code name Snow Bear, today and during the process of getting out of the house this morning I had an epiphany. This ocurred somewhere between being chased away from the coffee maker and being shooed out of the living room. The epiphany is this: having kids is like herding turkeys.

Yes, herding turkeys. I suppose I could say goats, but turkeys are funnier. Anyway, having kids is like herding turkeys and you're either god at it or you aren't. Sometimes you can learn to do it and other times you can't and the turkeys will scatter hysterically at the mere sight of you no matter what you do. Now some of you might remember the post where I wrote about losing 17 turkeys while housesitting. Yes I think it's safe to say that I'm not very good at turkey herding. Or chicken herding for the matter. Well, besides my beloved Demon Chickens. But I digress.

The point is that the turkey herders of the world, the moms, will always be what they are. You don't lose the skill. Sometimes your own kids leave home (ahem, sometimes they don't) and the moms end up mothering friends of their own children or kids in the area. Sometimes they mother their pets. And sometimes they don't mother anyone until they have grandkids to usher around. But a mom is always a mom. And sometimes they herd you like a turkey, like my own ma this morning. But where would we be without mothers? And yes, this post was also influenced by my ever-rounder sis Fenris, who's going to be a great turkey herder.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

The Meanest Thing Anyone's Ever Said To Me...

So I haven't been posting a lot recently. Mostly that's due to run of the mill stuff: sick ponies, sick kitties, heat waves, planting things, housesitting, a pregnant sis who's now beginning to run into things with her stomach, slide off of furniture (she's fine) and get frustrated over not being able to do the things she always does. Then I've had a few extra things, emergencies with friends horses, broken down vehicles, and other randomness.

But I've also been writing a lot. Really a lot. I'm in the last quarter of a WIP titled 'Amarok and the Gone Missing Girl' about an albino Athabaskan boy who finds himself caught up in a desperate struggle to bring a girl he doesn't know back from the brink of madness. I'm also still working on 'Thornbriar' my retelling of Beauty and the Beast and I've started a new WIP I'm calling 'Goody Two Shoes' about a girl who never does anything she shouldn't until one day she finds herself in the middle of a conflict involving demons and angels, a conflict against an entity so horrible that it makes the Devil look like a pretty nice guy. I also keep going back to a WIP called 'The Rook Thief' on and off. This means that I've been coming in from the farm (or wherever I've been depending on random emergencies) and working on writing until late. Then it's up with the birds to start it all over again. But I'm happy with how things are going (although I'd just flip if I could get involved with an agent in a good way) and I LOVE writing like I am. I'm excited about my sis's baby, and about being able to have a good influence on her once she's been born.

Which brings me to the meanest thing anyone's ever said to me. It's not the first time it's been said to me, but it seems like the older I get, the more it hurts. And it does hurt. Which is saying something because I've got Kevlar skin for the most part. Want to know what this horrible statement was? 'Grow up already.' That's all. Just 'grow up already'. I was told to 'grow up already' in regards to, well, pretty much everything. I work with horses, out in the dirt and in a situation where my physical capabilities (and their deterioration) can affect my job, instead of working in an office in a 'stable' position. I live with my parents because doing so allows me to have a job I love (which doesn't pay huge) and write in my free time while owning my own horses. And my goal is to write forever, theoretically for money some day. I don't ever WANT to do anything but write and/or work with horses. And apparently all of these life choices mean that I'm immature and wanting in the department of adulthood.

I loath the term 'grow up'. And if growing up means not daydreaming about things you want to do, giving up dreams you have, just because they aren't likely to come true, acting your age, and that kind of thing, well frankly it's the dumbest thing ever. Where do people get off telling me that I need to grow up? That I owe it to my niece to be to 'grow up' so that I can be a good influence? Seriously? I'm single - because I choose to be. I live with my parents and share a car because I don't NEED a place of my own, or a car of my own, and the planet doesn't need the bigger carbon footprint. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. I don't drink more than occasionally. I'm the girl who picks up the ten dollar bill and runs after the person who dropped it. I'm a prude and a happy hermit. But just because I won't give up writing and I insist on believing that one day my writing will get published, just because I still run around barefooted and play in creeks and ride horses by moonlight and sleep under trees with dogs and get joy out of squashing pennies on the train tracks, I'm immature and I should GROW UP ALREADY!

I've got news for people like those who told me that I should 'grow up already' (they weren't close friends or family or anything). They need to 'get a life' and get out of mine. People like them are EXACTLY why I love writing Young Adult books. I want kids to understand that they can be whoever and whatever they want to be. Their lives are their own, and no one can ever take that from them. In a world where kids are pulled in whatever direction the fad is at the moment, where kids are giving birth to kids and everyone is so busy growing up that most kids have never played baseball in a dirt lot or built a fort out of sticks behind someone's house, I think more people need to NOT grow up. I think telling someone that they need to 'grow up' is just an insidious way of informing them that they need to stop being different and see everything the same way that everyone else sees it. Growing up is a synonym for fitting in and aligning yourself with the status quo. Growing up is a filthy term for killing the child in yourself. You can be mature and responsible and still believe that there are fairies in your garden and that animals can talk and that there are doors to other places in your basement. You can conduct yourself as an adult in adult situations and still go lay on the bank of a creek and hang over the edge watching minnows and enjoy it. You can wear pumps and pinstripes to a meeting and still go barefoot in a rainstorm.

I will never grow up.