Life in progress


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Research laziness

There are so many things I want to know! The minutiae of details I’d like to put into my stories require a vast amount of research. While I enjoy doing most research, it’s not all easy. For instance, I’d dearly love to know enough about horticulture so that I don’t have to search for pictures in order to name the flora I can so easily envision.

Like this:

hedge

I’ve been living with this hedge for three and half years and do I know what it is? Not a clue.

I’m good with researching things like diseases, psychology, historical eras and objects, sexuality, (okay, that one’s fun), culture, geography – all kinds of things.  But when it comes to botany…

hedge flowers

It’s just real purdy.

(I did just look up the difference between horticulture and botany.)

What do you have a hard time researching?


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The future of publishing crap

This probably won’t be a very popular post but here I go with it anyway. With the invention of e-publishing new writers are coming out of the woodwork. These days anyone can publish their own work without having to pay money to do so. ANYONE. Who can be held accountable for what goes out there? It used to be that when you bought a book there was at least someone out there who believed in it. Sure, there was still a lot of crappy writing, but at least if you didn’t like a book you could sell it at a garage sale and get some of your money back.

I may not be in a position myself to say what I write is good, or that I won’t eventually go the route of self-publishing, but I’ve been reading long enough to distinguish what’s good and what is crap and I am appalled at how unbalanced it has become in the wrong direction. Up until last year I had never failed to finish reading a novel, no matter how bad it was. This year alone I have thrown up my hands in disgust at no less than three novels on my e-reader. Nowadays everyone thinks they can write. Many of the people self-publishing have long forgotten what they learned in Grade 3 grammar, and I hate to think what novels would look like without spellcheck.

For me it came to the forefront with ’50 Shades of Grey’. The author, E.L. James, actually said in an interview she understands that people who read her books are people who don’t normally read. I can easily believe it. When I read it I thought to myself, great! If this can get published anything can. By God was I right. Everybody and their sister said the same thing! I’m sure editorial slush piles have never been bigger, making it that much harder for talented writers to get noticed.

Will we get to the point eventually where there are more writers than there are readers? The way it’s going now I wouldn’t be surprised. I copied and pasted the following from Kindle’s website. I think I can keep my tongue firmly planted in cheek and let this speak for itself:

Do I need any special skills to publish with Kindle Direct Publishing?
Kindle Direct Publishing does the basic work for you, but if your content contains a lot of special formatting, a bit of knowledge in HTML may come in handy.

In closing, if you’re serious about writing a novel and you want to publish it, take a class or two. Brush up on your skills first. Make more than the effort to learn HTML and learn how to write! Hold yourself accountable for putting out a good product. Perhaps we can keep future of publishing out of the crapper after all.


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Singular

Dandy
You are unique. I know you wish you weren’t. I know you don’t want to be thought of as different, but the fact is that you are.

There are not thousands of you, or even hundreds. There is you.

No one else thinks the way you do. No one looks like you or sees the things you see in exactly the way you see them.

No one even smells like you; you are sweeter than the rest.

When you go, the people who have known you will grieve, but they will also learn to smile. They will remember the joy with which you illuminated everyone around you.

Be proud to be unique. And know that the way you touch the earth is precious.


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Adventures on my Paper Route – What I wanted to say was….

I had help today! 😀

Slave... I mean Alex

Slave… I mean Alex

He even took some pictures for me!

His favourite

His favourite

But the real adventure didn’t start until we came across the lady playing catch with her unleashed dog.

Me: (holding Alex by both hands as the dog is running towards us) He’s afraid of dogs.

Lady: Oh, he’s friendly.

Me: But he’s afraid of dogs.

Bitch: (looking around me at Alex who is straining to see where the dog went) Does he want to pet him?

Me: (hanging on to Alex for dear life so he doesn’t run into traffic) No, he’s afraid of dogs.

Psycho bitch: But he’s smiling…

Me: (in my head) Hey fuckflap! Have you ever considered how shitty you would feel if a kid got run over by a car because of your friendly fucking dog that you won’t restrain because you obviously know my son better than I do? Wake the fuck up and listen to me! HE’S AFRAID OF FUCKING DOGS!!!

In reality I said nothing because the dog had run off again. I should have said something.

Shadow


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Private Thoughts, Private World – Part 7

We all have reasons why we write what we write. As I talked about in my blog post ‘To Pseud or not to Pseud’ there are just some things we need to get out of our systems, not all of which we believe our families and friends will appreciate reading or hearing about. But keeping our thoughts to ourselves isn’t just for fiction.

I was reading this post by my good friend at HarsH ReaLiTy and he brought up some excellent points about the dangers of writing non-fiction as well. To simply have an opinion can be not only unfavorable amongst those we know and love but also a very real danger to our well beings. Besides the things Jay (not his real name) mentions in his article such as the repercussions that can result in marital strife and the legal aspects of slander (whether intentional or not) there are also dangers that go from things as simple yet traumatic as internet fights and harassment towards both yourself and your family to the very real possibility of stalking and, Gods forbid, physical harm. Do we therefore stop writing? Hell no!

Hiding behind a pseudonym though can only solve half the problem. Since medieval times and possibly before (I’m no history buff) people have been writing and hiding their names to protect themselves. Our digital footprint, whilst being put into being to protect our children from pedophiles etc., makes it that much harder to conceal ourselves. So unless we go back to printing up leaflets upon which to get out our message we must choose carefully what we decide to share. While I don’t really want to get into the entire ‘freedom of speech’ debate, we still have to consider what our responsibilities, our boundaries and our level of comfort all are before we write publicly.

I read an interview with Sakurai Atsushi (get used to seeing that name on my blog) in which he said, “…I can’t really help who I am and what I create.”  That touched me profoundly. The absolute need for a dedicated writer to produce and to expel his or her thoughts is irrepressible. I believe THAT, not whether or not we have or ever will be published is what makes us writers. How much of that should be restrained or hidden from sight or just concealed from being affiliated with our real identities is something we have to be able to judge for ourselves. May our judgement be sound.


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Lunchtime!

I’m going to eat my last avocado. Wish me luck!


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Further to my post below this one

Dear Natasha,

P.S. When I told my son you were moving he smiled but his eyes glazed over. He turned away and tried to hide the fact that he had to take his glasses off to wipe his eyes. I imagine he’s upset because he remembers the two times, at the beginning when you allowed him to come over and play baseball with your kids, and because he’ll miss watching them have fun while pretending to ignore him for your sake, surreptitiously waving to him when you weren’t looking. I wonder if your kids wonder why they didn’t get to say goodbye to him.

I hope your kids rebel so bad…


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An open letter to the woman who lives behind me (a rant)

Now normally I’m not the vindictive type. I usually just let things go. But before my backdoor neighbour has a chance to move out (which she will any day) I’d love to be able to give her a little present in the form of a song.

Here is my letter:

Dear Natasha,

When I met you and became friends with you we had in common the fact that we both have children. You have six of them, which you repeatedly pointed out were little angels, I have a normal teenager who tends to swear (what teen doesn’t?) an autistic teenager who has tantrums, and a Deaf child who wants to be friends with your kids.

I didn’t really notice there was anything wrong with you until you commented on the fact that you’d traveled all over the world but would never go to a country like Japan because they weren’t Christian there. o_O

After a few weeks of summer break that year, and after having lent you all my DVD’s that teach kids how to speak American Sign Language in a fun way, you gave them back to me, saying that your children weren’t interested in playing with my son (they showed no indications that they felt this way) because of the way he showed his enthusiasm for actually having friends his own age by looking into your back yard and screaming with delight when he saw your kids doing something fun. You then went on to explain to me that I needed to teach him how to behave himself… after all, you didn’t have any problems making your kids behave.

So, Natasha, I leave you with this song. The heathen I am. And a big nakayubi to you.

No love,

Linda

To my readers:  Please note, when (and if) you listen to this wonderful gem, the chanting at around 2:19. Apart from the fact that I can imagine myself singing along at the top of my lungs exactly the way Sakurai Atsushi belts it out from on top of the table on my deck, my teenaged son and a few of his friends (if I have my way) would be trudging slowly around a bonfire in my back yard, fully cloaked in robes with pointy hoods. Please also note that the lyrics don’t matter. It’s the thought that counts.


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Why I write fiction

English: Icon for lists of science fiction authors (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was sitting here trying to come up with a blog post when I realized it. There’s nothing going on in my real life that’s worth writing. Whenever I came up with something, it was either something I want or something I imagine.

For instance, I was out on my paper route today, looking as I always do for inspiration, and there was this woman walking her dog. From a distance it was an odd looking dog, mostly because it was black and gray and the gray parts of the dog blended in so well with the sidewalk that parts of it were invisible. So, of course, my imagination took over.

What if I woke up one day and no longer recognized things that I should… as though I’d woken up in a different dimension. And what if I saw this dog on my paper route and *gasp* it had four legs?!? Everyone knows that animals all have two or three legs – except birds who of course have four. But imagine that! An animal that resembled a dog except it had FOUR LEGS!

So that’s my life. Dogs with four legs. Exciting stuff, eh?


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What is it with today?

All day, all this weird shit has been going on.

First my debit card was compromised – I lost almost $200 and would have lost more had I had more money in the account. When I called the bank the first thing they asked me was, ‘Were you in Puerto Plata yesterday?’ to which I replied ‘HA! I wish’. Anyway, they apparently tried 4 times to withdraw $200 from my account.

Second I get to the dentist’s office to pay my son’s bill for three teeth to be filled – $618. When I asked my ex to pitch in he simply told me he’s broke.  *sigh* …and I’m not. HA! again.

Third, I get home to find I’m apparently NOT a mother and so Mother’s Day didn’t apply to me – see the last comment on my About page.

Fourth, I was sitting in my living room and at exactly the same time my laptop shut itself off and my cellphone came on…except the cellphone doesn’t have a sim card in it. I just keep it around to set alarms on.

Fifth, I’ve tried 3 times to put a link code to my About page in this post and it keeps screwing up.

Is there a sun spot I’m unaware of?

I just…

Is it just me?