HELLO I AM CURRENTLY IN LOVE WITH ERITSENA'S HALF-BROTHER'S COUNCIL. LIKE CRAZY WITCH LADY AND CHARMING ASSHOLE BASEBORN COUSIN YES. THEY ARE TOO AWESOME AND I JUST WANT TO WRITE A STORY ABOUT THEM.
also I'm just going to do nothing but write until NaNo starts because gah I don't even know what this story is about even though I've detailed every moment of the main characters' lives dear god why
OK sorry random emoting had to go somewhere. We now return to your regularly scheduled program...daily post will be up at bedtime.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Progress
So over the past few days, I've been clearing up my jump drive so that I can use it as a backup for my documents. I was massively entertained to discover that, once I'd copied all of my jump drive over onto my computer, I had about 90% of the stories I'd ever written and saved as a text document.
In fact, I was so entertained that I decided to inflict the progress I've made over the last eight or nine years on my blog's casual passerby.
-
In the beginning... (2003-2004)
I discovered writing around the same time I discovered Neopets. This is a snippet from the first story I ever wrote, which I called "In Another's Eyes" and attempted to submit online. It never saw the light of day, thank God. I was about 11-12 when I wrote this.
“I’ll be back in a few hours. You’ll be all right?”
“Don’t worry! Go on, now.”
I was a nervous young owner, leaving my little Zaffie behind. I was only going shopping, but I was leaving my only-just-grown Zafara home alone for the first time.
Actually, that wasn’t why I was worried.
Zaffie057, known as Zaffie by her friends (well, by me), had a tendency to jump up and down on furniture when excited. And when some eighty pounds of excitable Zafara land on breakable items such as glass tables and lamps, they usually shatter. Just this month our doctor had treated a broken bone, several burnt paws, and various cut and scrapes; I, in the meantime, bought replacement furniture and healing potions for Zaffie.
-
August 2004
More Neopets stuff. This is actually the earliest-dated document on my hard drive, although I started writing "In Another's Eyes" earlier.
As you wander through a quiet park in Neopia Central, you spot a Christmas Zafara kneeling on the hard ground beside a bench, concentrating as though spellbound on the earth in front of her. Despite the fact that it is a mild autumn day, she is wearing a blouse and a pale blue skirt that falls below her knees. Curious, you walk over.
The Zafara is clenching a small grey stone in one hand; on the ground where she was just staring, several runes that you can not decipher are scratched in the dirt. Now she opens her palm and holds the stone out, flat in her palm, gazing at it intently, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth.
-
July 2005
The untitled "sequel" to the unpublished first story. I never wrote more than a few pages of this.
“Ren…um, Ren…Wake up, it’s kinda important…”
“Merphgle. I wanna sleep late for a change. Go ’way, Ask.”
“Ren…” Asdsdkdklsadfh prodded me. “Ren, it’s serious.”
“You’re just mad I turned off the water again,” I grumbled, covering my head with a pillow.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s the middle of the night, and I’m up,” remarked Aludari from the doorway as he flicked on the light switch. I winced at the sudden bright light, and because Asdsdkdklsadfh had poked me harder, on a soft spot of my back.
“Oww. Don’t do that.” I’m never very awake late at night, especially when someone interrupts me from a good dream.
-
February 2006
The last Neopets snippet. It's around this time that my writing goes from cringe-worthy to mildly embarrassing.
Crack, crack, crack. Drill after drill after drill. Sweat pouring down his neck and into his eyes. The burning sensation in his arms as the wooden sword jarred with another, again and again and again.
This was just how he liked things, a few hours of mindless whacking at other pets to let out the pent-up energy of another uninteresting day.
“And yer lesson’s up, lads!” The squawk rang out from the head of the room, breaking harshly into the endless rhythm of wood against wood, and the Academy students relaxed (a few ducking as their opponent realized it too late and swept a blow down at their head).
-
January 2007
Just a random piece. This features Mai (see the 2009 explanation), but I'm not sure what the context is.
Today was a sticky sort of day. Mai hoped it would rain.
Long, dark hair hung limply down as she leaned out her large window, eyes on the crowd below. How she wished to be there…from all the way up here, she could see hardly more than a ton of dust kicked up from the hard-packed roads. Dust and sand seemed more appealing to her feet than the pointy-toed, uncomfortable shoes she was forced to wear.
She heard a strange coughing noise from her bed and turned. A large dog was lying there, his fur tawny-gold in the sunlight that drifted through the window, splotched with black.
-
January 2008
This is from my Ridge universe. Ridge is a city where all the magical folk of New England gather: people with Talent, that is to say, mages; magical creatures; and the Nightstalkers, the criminals, unscrupulous, dangerously Talented, or unable to control their powers. I eventually gave the story up because it was full of whiny teenagers and bad paranormal romance/YA fantasy tropes. I still like the concept, though.
He should have known they’d be at the mall.
It was, after all, a Friday afternoon, and where else would three girls go when they wanted to hang out? He’d certainly passed a good dozen gaggles of teenagers on the way to his own shopping —
But somehow, Bane had a little trouble picturing his friends in the men’s department.
The three of them were whispering and giggling, heads together as they stood between the wall and a clothing rack; Bane recognized the close-cropped dark hair of one and the ice-blond waterfall of another. Mily and Aislin — so the plain-looking one in the stained T-shirt must be this new kid Ash had been going on about.
-
January 2009
A favorite character, who I've portrayed as demon, demon-hunter, various types of shapeshifter or animal, and ordinary human girl over the course of the years. In this bit she's a werewolf.
Stars glittered in a deep navy sky, gleaming down on the crisp night below. Tilting my head back, I could see them clearly; but it was not the sky that illuminated the world down around me. A lone streetlamp guarded the broken pavement of the street I was walking, somehow still fed electricity though it was god-knows-how-old; a faint buzzing noise accompanied its flickering, and I could tell that as long as it had stood sentinel, its time was nearing an end. Passing it, I walked into the cool darkness of a rural night – though I knew this hadn’t been so empty, once.
-
January 2010
From the transcript of the most awesome dream I've ever had. The writing's kind of icky, because I was trying to get the dream down before I forgot it.
Someone pounded on my door.
I froze, knowing instantly -- instinctively -- that this was something wrong. For some reason I'd been feeling all day that something bad was going to happen, and I knew in an instant that this was it.
Unwillingly, I rose from my seat at the kitchen table and entered the hallway. The pounding was cracking the wooden door, and I backed away, realizing that the person on the other side meant to break in. The door bulged, then broke with a loud crack. Hands gripped the remains and wrenched them aside.
It was an ordinary-looking man of extraordinary strength.
-
January 2011
Another dream transcript. Ditto the blech writing.
I stared down the hill at the mysterious school. It was a sprawling monster, miles across and probably dozens of stories high -- and yet it was hidden, out here in the middle of nowhere. The mages had done an excellent job to hide their secret.
Alexandria slanted her gaze towards me. "Almost time," she said. I nodded absently.
I had first heard of the mages six years ago. I was twelve years old at the time, a baby; but I was a street kid and I should've had some common sense. Instead I showed my first signs of a hero complex.
-
January 2012
A goofy little snippet I wrote when I stumbled across the phrase "Why are you injuring my horse?" It was one of those times where you wonder what situation on earth would call for that sentence.
Lucian whipped the bloody knife behind his back as soon as Kieran rounded the corner into the stall. The mare was black, but only a fool wouldn't realize she was injured; she had, after all, just let out a scream of pain and was refusing to put any weight on her left front leg. As her master entered she snapped at Lucian, who backed away hurriedly and only just missed losing his nose behind a click of large teeth.
"The hell, mage?" Kieran skidded to a halt. "Why were you injuring my horse?"
"I was not injuring your horse." Lucian didn't miss a beat.
-
Now
Here's a piece of an assignment I wrote for my fiction class. I ditched it because it's rather hard to follow, but I still like the concept. It features the same character, Mai, as the 2009 bit, but this time she's a demon-hunter.
Daybreak and you slant your eyes at us. Morning and we must be gone by eleven; we’ve done our job; the town would reclaim its façade of normalcy. Do you think we swallowed the night whole? Noon; we stop for lunch; you smile red paint, unflattering apron tied tight as if you could pinch yourself into a model’s body. I see you staring at the streak in my hair, old-woman white, and I leave you an extra tip for more blond dye. Three o’clock; winter evening nearing. I greet you; not my brother, with his puppy face and gentle voice; I would not disconcert you with kindness.
In fact, I was so entertained that I decided to inflict the progress I've made over the last eight or nine years on my blog's casual passerby.
-
In the beginning... (2003-2004)
I discovered writing around the same time I discovered Neopets. This is a snippet from the first story I ever wrote, which I called "In Another's Eyes" and attempted to submit online. It never saw the light of day, thank God. I was about 11-12 when I wrote this.
“I’ll be back in a few hours. You’ll be all right?”
“Don’t worry! Go on, now.”
I was a nervous young owner, leaving my little Zaffie behind. I was only going shopping, but I was leaving my only-just-grown Zafara home alone for the first time.
Actually, that wasn’t why I was worried.
Zaffie057, known as Zaffie by her friends (well, by me), had a tendency to jump up and down on furniture when excited. And when some eighty pounds of excitable Zafara land on breakable items such as glass tables and lamps, they usually shatter. Just this month our doctor had treated a broken bone, several burnt paws, and various cut and scrapes; I, in the meantime, bought replacement furniture and healing potions for Zaffie.
-
August 2004
More Neopets stuff. This is actually the earliest-dated document on my hard drive, although I started writing "In Another's Eyes" earlier.
As you wander through a quiet park in Neopia Central, you spot a Christmas Zafara kneeling on the hard ground beside a bench, concentrating as though spellbound on the earth in front of her. Despite the fact that it is a mild autumn day, she is wearing a blouse and a pale blue skirt that falls below her knees. Curious, you walk over.
The Zafara is clenching a small grey stone in one hand; on the ground where she was just staring, several runes that you can not decipher are scratched in the dirt. Now she opens her palm and holds the stone out, flat in her palm, gazing at it intently, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth.
-
July 2005
The untitled "sequel" to the unpublished first story. I never wrote more than a few pages of this.
“Ren…um, Ren…Wake up, it’s kinda important…”
“Merphgle. I wanna sleep late for a change. Go ’way, Ask.”
“Ren…” Asdsdkdklsadfh prodded me. “Ren, it’s serious.”
“You’re just mad I turned off the water again,” I grumbled, covering my head with a pillow.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s the middle of the night, and I’m up,” remarked Aludari from the doorway as he flicked on the light switch. I winced at the sudden bright light, and because Asdsdkdklsadfh had poked me harder, on a soft spot of my back.
“Oww. Don’t do that.” I’m never very awake late at night, especially when someone interrupts me from a good dream.
-
February 2006
The last Neopets snippet. It's around this time that my writing goes from cringe-worthy to mildly embarrassing.
Crack, crack, crack. Drill after drill after drill. Sweat pouring down his neck and into his eyes. The burning sensation in his arms as the wooden sword jarred with another, again and again and again.
This was just how he liked things, a few hours of mindless whacking at other pets to let out the pent-up energy of another uninteresting day.
“And yer lesson’s up, lads!” The squawk rang out from the head of the room, breaking harshly into the endless rhythm of wood against wood, and the Academy students relaxed (a few ducking as their opponent realized it too late and swept a blow down at their head).
-
January 2007
Just a random piece. This features Mai (see the 2009 explanation), but I'm not sure what the context is.
Today was a sticky sort of day. Mai hoped it would rain.
Long, dark hair hung limply down as she leaned out her large window, eyes on the crowd below. How she wished to be there…from all the way up here, she could see hardly more than a ton of dust kicked up from the hard-packed roads. Dust and sand seemed more appealing to her feet than the pointy-toed, uncomfortable shoes she was forced to wear.
She heard a strange coughing noise from her bed and turned. A large dog was lying there, his fur tawny-gold in the sunlight that drifted through the window, splotched with black.
-
January 2008
This is from my Ridge universe. Ridge is a city where all the magical folk of New England gather: people with Talent, that is to say, mages; magical creatures; and the Nightstalkers, the criminals, unscrupulous, dangerously Talented, or unable to control their powers. I eventually gave the story up because it was full of whiny teenagers and bad paranormal romance/YA fantasy tropes. I still like the concept, though.
He should have known they’d be at the mall.
It was, after all, a Friday afternoon, and where else would three girls go when they wanted to hang out? He’d certainly passed a good dozen gaggles of teenagers on the way to his own shopping —
But somehow, Bane had a little trouble picturing his friends in the men’s department.
The three of them were whispering and giggling, heads together as they stood between the wall and a clothing rack; Bane recognized the close-cropped dark hair of one and the ice-blond waterfall of another. Mily and Aislin — so the plain-looking one in the stained T-shirt must be this new kid Ash had been going on about.
-
January 2009
A favorite character, who I've portrayed as demon, demon-hunter, various types of shapeshifter or animal, and ordinary human girl over the course of the years. In this bit she's a werewolf.
Stars glittered in a deep navy sky, gleaming down on the crisp night below. Tilting my head back, I could see them clearly; but it was not the sky that illuminated the world down around me. A lone streetlamp guarded the broken pavement of the street I was walking, somehow still fed electricity though it was god-knows-how-old; a faint buzzing noise accompanied its flickering, and I could tell that as long as it had stood sentinel, its time was nearing an end. Passing it, I walked into the cool darkness of a rural night – though I knew this hadn’t been so empty, once.
-
January 2010
From the transcript of the most awesome dream I've ever had. The writing's kind of icky, because I was trying to get the dream down before I forgot it.
Someone pounded on my door.
I froze, knowing instantly -- instinctively -- that this was something wrong. For some reason I'd been feeling all day that something bad was going to happen, and I knew in an instant that this was it.
Unwillingly, I rose from my seat at the kitchen table and entered the hallway. The pounding was cracking the wooden door, and I backed away, realizing that the person on the other side meant to break in. The door bulged, then broke with a loud crack. Hands gripped the remains and wrenched them aside.
It was an ordinary-looking man of extraordinary strength.
-
January 2011
Another dream transcript. Ditto the blech writing.
I stared down the hill at the mysterious school. It was a sprawling monster, miles across and probably dozens of stories high -- and yet it was hidden, out here in the middle of nowhere. The mages had done an excellent job to hide their secret.
Alexandria slanted her gaze towards me. "Almost time," she said. I nodded absently.
I had first heard of the mages six years ago. I was twelve years old at the time, a baby; but I was a street kid and I should've had some common sense. Instead I showed my first signs of a hero complex.
-
January 2012
A goofy little snippet I wrote when I stumbled across the phrase "Why are you injuring my horse?" It was one of those times where you wonder what situation on earth would call for that sentence.
Lucian whipped the bloody knife behind his back as soon as Kieran rounded the corner into the stall. The mare was black, but only a fool wouldn't realize she was injured; she had, after all, just let out a scream of pain and was refusing to put any weight on her left front leg. As her master entered she snapped at Lucian, who backed away hurriedly and only just missed losing his nose behind a click of large teeth.
"The hell, mage?" Kieran skidded to a halt. "Why were you injuring my horse?"
"I was not injuring your horse." Lucian didn't miss a beat.
-
Now
Here's a piece of an assignment I wrote for my fiction class. I ditched it because it's rather hard to follow, but I still like the concept. It features the same character, Mai, as the 2009 bit, but this time she's a demon-hunter.
Daybreak and you slant your eyes at us. Morning and we must be gone by eleven; we’ve done our job; the town would reclaim its façade of normalcy. Do you think we swallowed the night whole? Noon; we stop for lunch; you smile red paint, unflattering apron tied tight as if you could pinch yourself into a model’s body. I see you staring at the streak in my hair, old-woman white, and I leave you an extra tip for more blond dye. Three o’clock; winter evening nearing. I greet you; not my brother, with his puppy face and gentle voice; I would not disconcert you with kindness.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Blog of brag
News flash: I'm a perfectionist.
If, you know, you weren't clued in by my obsessive desire to capture every moment of my characters' lives and every detail of the world they live in. I don't do things halfway. Usually it means I get lots of pats on the back and glowingness, but occasionally it turns into a dragon and melts down my self-esteem.
For some reason it's been hitting me hard this year. Not 100% sure why. Might be that I'm challenged by all of my classes and don't expect a 4.0 in any of them; might be, in particular, my workshop classes, which are giving me hard critique for my writing for the first time in years (if ever). Might be that I'm off-campus and fully out of the music world, which means I'm at a bit of a distance from a lot of friends. Might just be that I'm really, genuinely pleased with the way the year is planning out, and the lizard in the back of my brain is trying to drag me down from that before something turns out to be a disappointment.
In any case, yesterday I was wandering the web and stumbled on this post by the lovely MR Graham. (Read her stuff, by the way. She has a lovely way with words, and I'm amazed by her ability to switch between eras/writing styles/character voices.) I decided that this was exactly what I needed to perk up.
So, my own list of awesomeness:
- I'm good with words. Reading is my unparalleled love (sorry, fellow human beings) and writing has been my pastime of choice for the last decade. I have a good grasp of what makes writing solid, on a mechanical (i.e. grammar) level in particular, and I'm employed at my school's writing center. I can turn a good image, my writing flows, and I'm good at making people care about my characters: in my fiction workshop, the prevailing critique has been, "I don't like fantasy/I had no idea what was going on, but I really liked the images/characters anyway!" At first I was disappointed that my stories don't make sense (probably because I've been writing for myself for so long), but come to think of it, that's actually quite a feat.
- I'm a musician. I would probably be on my way to a college degree in it if music wasn't so intensely demanding of my time and passion. I have the voice, background knowledge, and pitch recognition to make a decent singer if I ever get some training. I play flute, recorder, and an eensy basic bit of piano. My primary instrument and love, however, is the oboe. Yep: I can play oboe without sounding like a duck. I make my own reeds, too. If you don't know how difficult that is, go and find an instrumentalist to explain. (You could ask me, of course, but then you're in for a ten-page treatise on the struggles of the double-reed player.)
- I'm an excellent student. This used to be something I couldn't brag about, since it stemmed mostly from natural aptitude instead of dedication; since I've started college-level work, however, I think it's fair for me to include it here. It's not just that I have the genetic component that makes someone a good learner (which I do). I'm able and willing to apply myself and to really take the time needed to learn whatever I want to learn. I can go beyond rote memorization or teacher instruction into the how and why of what I'm learning. And my own interest in learning -- slowly but surely -- is starting to rise up, now that I'm taking classes that challenge me without being overwhelming.
- I'm not someone who gets unduly worked up about things. You know, a cool head and all that. I'm the sort of person who starts laughing when I realize I'm lost on the road -- because, you know, you have to end up somewhere eventually -- and just kind of stares in perplexity when my friends start fighting about the silliest thing. On the rare occasion something bothers me enough to have an argument over, I stick to the topic at hand and avoid attacking the person: not because of my Superior Moral Standing, but because what's the point? All it does is build resentment and derail a perfectly good argument into a fight. I have a close friend who tells me she goes to me for things because I'm rational. It kind of makes me laugh because really, I'm just as messy and mixed-up as every other human being on the planet. But hey, I'll take credit where it's given.
- I'm not much into false modesty. See above. Actually, self-deprecation is a habit I got into when I first started college, and I'm still trying to break back into my normal arrogance. I believe firmly that a bit of an ego is a good thing, as long as you have a friend to knock you down to earth before you try to do something stupid, like jump off a cliff because you think your bones are unbreakable.
- For someone who's never studied it in a classroom, I like to think I have a pretty good grasp of the human psyche. First off, I'm a writer, and in order to write good fiction you have to have a basic understanding of How People Think. (That is to say, by my definition of "good fiction" - which may not match yours. You're perfectly entitled to disagree, but I personally get bored with fiction that doesn't show characters with some mental depth.) When someone comes to me upset about what so-and-so did, my instinctive response tends to be, "Well, they probably did it because of X, which tends to bother them because Y..." Lots of people don't appreciate that approach, but I stick by it (unless they honestly just need a vent). Understanding is the first step to communication, and communication is the only way to resolution. It takes a lot for me to get mad at someone - not just because I'm fairly laid-back by nature (which I am, mostly), but because about 80% of the time I can see where they're coming from. And if I don't know where they're coming from, odds are I've seen enough of their personality to know that it makes sense to them on some level.
-
So there you have it! A lovely, long, rambly post of awesome. It was easier than I expected, and it actually helped more than I thought it would! My list of achievements is nowhere near Ms. Graham's, I have to admit - but then, she's a degree and a half and a teaching career ahead of me. :P
If, you know, you weren't clued in by my obsessive desire to capture every moment of my characters' lives and every detail of the world they live in. I don't do things halfway. Usually it means I get lots of pats on the back and glowingness, but occasionally it turns into a dragon and melts down my self-esteem.
For some reason it's been hitting me hard this year. Not 100% sure why. Might be that I'm challenged by all of my classes and don't expect a 4.0 in any of them; might be, in particular, my workshop classes, which are giving me hard critique for my writing for the first time in years (if ever). Might be that I'm off-campus and fully out of the music world, which means I'm at a bit of a distance from a lot of friends. Might just be that I'm really, genuinely pleased with the way the year is planning out, and the lizard in the back of my brain is trying to drag me down from that before something turns out to be a disappointment.
In any case, yesterday I was wandering the web and stumbled on this post by the lovely MR Graham. (Read her stuff, by the way. She has a lovely way with words, and I'm amazed by her ability to switch between eras/writing styles/character voices.) I decided that this was exactly what I needed to perk up.
So, my own list of awesomeness:
- I'm good with words. Reading is my unparalleled love (sorry, fellow human beings) and writing has been my pastime of choice for the last decade. I have a good grasp of what makes writing solid, on a mechanical (i.e. grammar) level in particular, and I'm employed at my school's writing center. I can turn a good image, my writing flows, and I'm good at making people care about my characters: in my fiction workshop, the prevailing critique has been, "I don't like fantasy/I had no idea what was going on, but I really liked the images/characters anyway!" At first I was disappointed that my stories don't make sense (probably because I've been writing for myself for so long), but come to think of it, that's actually quite a feat.
- I'm a musician. I would probably be on my way to a college degree in it if music wasn't so intensely demanding of my time and passion. I have the voice, background knowledge, and pitch recognition to make a decent singer if I ever get some training. I play flute, recorder, and an eensy basic bit of piano. My primary instrument and love, however, is the oboe. Yep: I can play oboe without sounding like a duck. I make my own reeds, too. If you don't know how difficult that is, go and find an instrumentalist to explain. (You could ask me, of course, but then you're in for a ten-page treatise on the struggles of the double-reed player.)
- I'm an excellent student. This used to be something I couldn't brag about, since it stemmed mostly from natural aptitude instead of dedication; since I've started college-level work, however, I think it's fair for me to include it here. It's not just that I have the genetic component that makes someone a good learner (which I do). I'm able and willing to apply myself and to really take the time needed to learn whatever I want to learn. I can go beyond rote memorization or teacher instruction into the how and why of what I'm learning. And my own interest in learning -- slowly but surely -- is starting to rise up, now that I'm taking classes that challenge me without being overwhelming.
- I'm not someone who gets unduly worked up about things. You know, a cool head and all that. I'm the sort of person who starts laughing when I realize I'm lost on the road -- because, you know, you have to end up somewhere eventually -- and just kind of stares in perplexity when my friends start fighting about the silliest thing. On the rare occasion something bothers me enough to have an argument over, I stick to the topic at hand and avoid attacking the person: not because of my Superior Moral Standing, but because what's the point? All it does is build resentment and derail a perfectly good argument into a fight. I have a close friend who tells me she goes to me for things because I'm rational. It kind of makes me laugh because really, I'm just as messy and mixed-up as every other human being on the planet. But hey, I'll take credit where it's given.
- I'm not much into false modesty. See above. Actually, self-deprecation is a habit I got into when I first started college, and I'm still trying to break back into my normal arrogance. I believe firmly that a bit of an ego is a good thing, as long as you have a friend to knock you down to earth before you try to do something stupid, like jump off a cliff because you think your bones are unbreakable.
- For someone who's never studied it in a classroom, I like to think I have a pretty good grasp of the human psyche. First off, I'm a writer, and in order to write good fiction you have to have a basic understanding of How People Think. (That is to say, by my definition of "good fiction" - which may not match yours. You're perfectly entitled to disagree, but I personally get bored with fiction that doesn't show characters with some mental depth.) When someone comes to me upset about what so-and-so did, my instinctive response tends to be, "Well, they probably did it because of X, which tends to bother them because Y..." Lots of people don't appreciate that approach, but I stick by it (unless they honestly just need a vent). Understanding is the first step to communication, and communication is the only way to resolution. It takes a lot for me to get mad at someone - not just because I'm fairly laid-back by nature (which I am, mostly), but because about 80% of the time I can see where they're coming from. And if I don't know where they're coming from, odds are I've seen enough of their personality to know that it makes sense to them on some level.
-
So there you have it! A lovely, long, rambly post of awesome. It was easier than I expected, and it actually helped more than I thought it would! My list of achievements is nowhere near Ms. Graham's, I have to admit - but then, she's a degree and a half and a teaching career ahead of me. :P
Friday, September 14, 2012
Violence and Hatred
So I've been following the reaction to the anti-Muslim film/attack in Libya - not religiously - just reading the occasional article as it pops up in my Yahoo feed. I got to this article and had to stop reading it halfway through.
It wasn't because I was angry at the protesters. It wasn't because I found the violence particularly shocking. It was because all I could think was, How sad.
How sad that hatred governs the actions of so many people - and not just in the Middle East, not by any stretch of the imagination. I think it is deplorable that anyone would create a film with the express intent of denigrating a religious figure. Dislike of a faith does not give you the right to disparage it. To disparage a religion is to disparage the very foundation of a people's morality.
How sad that so many people feel the need to resort to violence. Maybe I am sheltered and misguided, but violence does not, to me, mean that something is wrong in a person's soul. It means that something is lacking - that these people do not have an outlet for their anger; that they have no other voice; that they do not understand what damage violence will do to their world. And I say their world - because violence within their homes will damage their children far more than it will damage ours, an ocean away - but I say also the world at large. Violence is what we resort to when we believe that it is the fastest route to safety, or that there is no other route. But as long as violence exists, safety can be nothing more than a fleeting dream.
And as I was reading, I also thought, This is what we write stories about.
Cultural and religious conflict shape the backdrop of my book. All of my characters are influenced by it in some way. Ker, as the son of a foreign slave, was alienated as a child because of his mother's religious beliefs. Lux faces disdain and mild abuse as a slave and a male mage in a country where magic is women's work. Eri's entire life is shaped by cultural conflict - she was born of a marriage of state, a fragile, doomed peace, and as a result has spent most of her life bouncing between cultures, not knowing where she belongs. All three characters come from wildly different societies, and their story takes place across a canvas of intolerance and war.
But I do not write about violence because I enjoy violence. I do not write about hatred because I believe that hatred is a healthy way of life. I write these things to understand them, and to, in some small way, impose my will upon them - to say, I can see an ending to this. I can make this end.
Even in stories where there is no happy ending - and I will tell you right now, there is no way that Ker's story can end happily - I will write for compassion. Because if I do not understand you who do these things, understand why you must resort to violence and slander and hatred, I will not do any better than you do.
So I will not say: I am angry. I will not say: I hate. I will say: I am sad, so very sad for the world that still feels these things, and for how little is in my power to change. I will make change where I can - in my home, in my world - not with anger, not with righteousness (because righteousness is blind), but with as much understanding for the world around me as I can muster. And I can only hope that this change will grow outward, and that someday it might touch at least the edges of places where hatred still reigns.
It wasn't because I was angry at the protesters. It wasn't because I found the violence particularly shocking. It was because all I could think was, How sad.
How sad that hatred governs the actions of so many people - and not just in the Middle East, not by any stretch of the imagination. I think it is deplorable that anyone would create a film with the express intent of denigrating a religious figure. Dislike of a faith does not give you the right to disparage it. To disparage a religion is to disparage the very foundation of a people's morality.
How sad that so many people feel the need to resort to violence. Maybe I am sheltered and misguided, but violence does not, to me, mean that something is wrong in a person's soul. It means that something is lacking - that these people do not have an outlet for their anger; that they have no other voice; that they do not understand what damage violence will do to their world. And I say their world - because violence within their homes will damage their children far more than it will damage ours, an ocean away - but I say also the world at large. Violence is what we resort to when we believe that it is the fastest route to safety, or that there is no other route. But as long as violence exists, safety can be nothing more than a fleeting dream.
And as I was reading, I also thought, This is what we write stories about.
Cultural and religious conflict shape the backdrop of my book. All of my characters are influenced by it in some way. Ker, as the son of a foreign slave, was alienated as a child because of his mother's religious beliefs. Lux faces disdain and mild abuse as a slave and a male mage in a country where magic is women's work. Eri's entire life is shaped by cultural conflict - she was born of a marriage of state, a fragile, doomed peace, and as a result has spent most of her life bouncing between cultures, not knowing where she belongs. All three characters come from wildly different societies, and their story takes place across a canvas of intolerance and war.
But I do not write about violence because I enjoy violence. I do not write about hatred because I believe that hatred is a healthy way of life. I write these things to understand them, and to, in some small way, impose my will upon them - to say, I can see an ending to this. I can make this end.
Even in stories where there is no happy ending - and I will tell you right now, there is no way that Ker's story can end happily - I will write for compassion. Because if I do not understand you who do these things, understand why you must resort to violence and slander and hatred, I will not do any better than you do.
So I will not say: I am angry. I will not say: I hate. I will say: I am sad, so very sad for the world that still feels these things, and for how little is in my power to change. I will make change where I can - in my home, in my world - not with anger, not with righteousness (because righteousness is blind), but with as much understanding for the world around me as I can muster. And I can only hope that this change will grow outward, and that someday it might touch at least the edges of places where hatred still reigns.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Why I don't believe in dream dictionaries
Hello, lovelies! It's time for another random non-writing blog.
So I'm a big fan of piecing together the meaning of my dreams - not because I think there's any kind of Answer to Life found in it, but because it tends to shed a fascinating light on my psychology and the way my subconscious connects ideas.
I am not, however, a fan of going to the Big Book of Dream Meanings and looking up the symbols in the book. Why? Because different symbols take on different meanings depending on the person's experience.
For example:
My first night in my new room at college, I woke up terrified out of a nightmare. In the dream, my "brother" (some random kid produced for the dream; at some points it was a female friend) and I were advancing through the levels of this sort of game, except it was real life. At the end of the dream, we turned to discover a woman behind us. She had been a sort of mentor of mine. I knew for a fact she was dead (I had in fact dreamed out her death, earlier). She was dragging along a sort of gold box on wheels (grated at the top) behind her. We tried to explain to her that she was dead, pointing out the fact that she was dragging this thing behind her (apparently it was her coffin, or it had her body in it) at which point she went into an insane rage and tried to kill us - the twisted psychology being that if she killed us, since we were the ones who had told her she was dead, she would be alive again. I twisted around the dream until I realized there was no way I could prevent my death, since there was a ghost witch after me, and this realization woke me up before my heart exploded or something.
First, let me analyze this dream according to my understanding of myself:
- I frequently have dreams about trying to avoid some person/institution/force that wishes me ill. I ascribe this to having a fairly high-anxiety, nonconfrontational personality. Because I tend to avoid problems/generate a lot of anxiety when I don't avoid them, I tend to have uneasy dreams where I'm running from/avoiding some antagonist.
- The whole "game" business represents order being imposed by some outside force: I have no control over order/chaos in the world of the dream.
- Ghosts, to me, represent the unknown, and because they are unknown, I have no way to defend myself against them. Basically ghosts = powerlessness in my mental shorthand. It's like a deux ex machina for my subconscious.
So a quick summary might be: This dream represents anxiety/avoidance stemming from a sense of powerlessness.
Now, let's look up these things in a dream dictionary (http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/):
Chase:
"To dream that you are being chased signifies that you are avoiding a situation that you do not think is conquerable. It is a metaphor for some form of insecurity." So far, so good.
Video Game:
"To see or dream that you are a character in a video game suggests that you are feeling controlled and manipulated by others. You feel that you have no control over your actions or are not taking responsibility for them." Pretty close. Two out of three!
Ghost:
"To dream that ghosts are trying to kill you implies that you are ready to confront your past and your repressed emotions, despite how painful it may be. You are ready to move forward with your life and leave the past behind." Hey, look! Three for -- wait, what?
So why does the last one not match up with my own analysis?
It's because the underlying meaning of the symbol is different for me than it is for the average dreamer. According to the dictionary, ghosts = history, presumably because ghosts are figments from the past. I've already explained how for me, ghosts represent something entirely different.
Anyway, this is actually the least disturbing of the three dreams I've had recently that I can remember. They all seem to feature rather twisted/violent character relationships. It's really rather odd because I'm a relatively cheerful/peaceful sort of person, and these sorts of characters wouldn't normally occur to my waking mind. (I mean, it's good story fodder, but still...) I can't seem to pinpoint a trigger for the dreams, either, except maybe a general vague worry about being able to keep up with my course/workload this semester.
So I'm a big fan of piecing together the meaning of my dreams - not because I think there's any kind of Answer to Life found in it, but because it tends to shed a fascinating light on my psychology and the way my subconscious connects ideas.
I am not, however, a fan of going to the Big Book of Dream Meanings and looking up the symbols in the book. Why? Because different symbols take on different meanings depending on the person's experience.
For example:
My first night in my new room at college, I woke up terrified out of a nightmare. In the dream, my "brother" (some random kid produced for the dream; at some points it was a female friend) and I were advancing through the levels of this sort of game, except it was real life. At the end of the dream, we turned to discover a woman behind us. She had been a sort of mentor of mine. I knew for a fact she was dead (I had in fact dreamed out her death, earlier). She was dragging along a sort of gold box on wheels (grated at the top) behind her. We tried to explain to her that she was dead, pointing out the fact that she was dragging this thing behind her (apparently it was her coffin, or it had her body in it) at which point she went into an insane rage and tried to kill us - the twisted psychology being that if she killed us, since we were the ones who had told her she was dead, she would be alive again. I twisted around the dream until I realized there was no way I could prevent my death, since there was a ghost witch after me, and this realization woke me up before my heart exploded or something.
First, let me analyze this dream according to my understanding of myself:
- I frequently have dreams about trying to avoid some person/institution/force that wishes me ill. I ascribe this to having a fairly high-anxiety, nonconfrontational personality. Because I tend to avoid problems/generate a lot of anxiety when I don't avoid them, I tend to have uneasy dreams where I'm running from/avoiding some antagonist.
- The whole "game" business represents order being imposed by some outside force: I have no control over order/chaos in the world of the dream.
- Ghosts, to me, represent the unknown, and because they are unknown, I have no way to defend myself against them. Basically ghosts = powerlessness in my mental shorthand. It's like a deux ex machina for my subconscious.
So a quick summary might be: This dream represents anxiety/avoidance stemming from a sense of powerlessness.
Now, let's look up these things in a dream dictionary (http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/):
Chase:
"To dream that you are being chased signifies that you are avoiding a situation that you do not think is conquerable. It is a metaphor for some form of insecurity." So far, so good.
Video Game:
"To see or dream that you are a character in a video game suggests that you are feeling controlled and manipulated by others. You feel that you have no control over your actions or are not taking responsibility for them." Pretty close. Two out of three!
Ghost:
"To dream that ghosts are trying to kill you implies that you are ready to confront your past and your repressed emotions, despite how painful it may be. You are ready to move forward with your life and leave the past behind." Hey, look! Three for -- wait, what?
So why does the last one not match up with my own analysis?
It's because the underlying meaning of the symbol is different for me than it is for the average dreamer. According to the dictionary, ghosts = history, presumably because ghosts are figments from the past. I've already explained how for me, ghosts represent something entirely different.
Anyway, this is actually the least disturbing of the three dreams I've had recently that I can remember. They all seem to feature rather twisted/violent character relationships. It's really rather odd because I'm a relatively cheerful/peaceful sort of person, and these sorts of characters wouldn't normally occur to my waking mind. (I mean, it's good story fodder, but still...) I can't seem to pinpoint a trigger for the dreams, either, except maybe a general vague worry about being able to keep up with my course/workload this semester.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
When the one bad egg ruins it for the others
Hi, all, that is to say, my dear blog of general invisibility. I'm currently hanging out on the opposite coast, in the (not) sunny state of (not) warm California. Touring San Fransisco for the weekend, which is gorgeous, foggy, and not the sort of place you want to wear capris. Anyway, I thought it was time for another random non-writing-related blog post.
So when I'm home for the holidays I work in the city, at a company that manufactures infectious diseases for research use. (Yes, you read that right: I work for a company that makes viruses. The human kind. Which is pretty awesome bragging rights, even if I'm just Paperwork Girl.) This company is located on the Medical Campus - not a college campus, just an area that has a lot of (bio)medical companies/facilities - which is an...unusual part of town, to say the least. On the one hand, you have all the doctors and interns and businesspeople heading to work, to lunch, to their car, etc. On the other, you have a bunch of, uh, interesting other types who live or work in non-medical occupations nearby. (Case in point: the time a coworker came back laughing from our labs next door because she'd seen a pimp carrying a cane. Or how a different one asks me all the time if I get freaked out walking the two blocks or so from the building to the lot, since I leave several hours earlier than anyone else and I'm always walking alone.)
Normally this does not bother me in the least. I mean, I'm crossing Main St., for goodness sake, and there's medical folk all over -- I'm reasonably sure that if something weird happened I could give a shout, and SOMEONE would notice and help me out. And I've always got my cell phone in my pocket.
But the other day, I had crossed the street and was headed toward the lot when this guy -- same side of the street, but with a parked car between him and the sidewalk -- starts talking at me. Started off with, "Hey, sweetie" and I basically tuned it out from there, because when someone addresses you like that, the nicest sort of thing you're going to hear will be massively objectifying. I just put my head down, pretended not to hear him, and kept walking, which (a) made me feel like a bit of an ass (despite the circumstances) because I don't particularly enjoy pretending people don't exist, and (b) was rather humiliating, because I very much would have liked to turn on him and inform him that no, he would not call me "sweetie," he had no effin idea if I was a sweetie or not, it was none of his goddamn business what kind of a person I was, and unless he had somehow become a member of my immediate family he would apologize IMMEDIATELY and never call me that in such a demeaning way ever again. Except, yanno, I'm a skinny stick of a girl and for all I knew that could have been his provocation to sling me over one shoulder and carry me off to murder me somewhere.
I could go on for hours about how that's wrong and an obvious example of misogyny in the world today, etc. etc. I think most decent people already know that, though, and my point is actually quite different.
Today I had to drop by Walgreens so I could pick up some contact solution (didn't have any travel size for the plane). As I was walking out of the store, I accidentally caught the eye of a random guy. I saw that he was unshaven and not well-dressed, which immediately classified him as Not a Tourist and therefore Potential Trouble in my head.
He smiled at me and said, "Hi, lovely." I was skeeved out, faked a smile, and dropped eye contact as quick as possible.
He stopped at the bus shelter I was walking past, and I saw him out of the corner of my eye as he held out a plastic shopping bag to a guy sitting there. I caught just a snatch of what he was saying -- "Yeah, here, I've got..." and realized suddenly that he must be homeless, and so was the guy he was talking to, and they were eating their dinner out of a plastic shopping bag under a bus shelter.
And then I thought back and realized that when he said, "Hi, lovely," he was not trying to pick me up or make a crass comment or otherwise take advantage of me. The eye contact, the smile, the tone of voice -- it was all too genuine for him to be an insecure ass trying to demonstrate his power over some random girl in the street. No: he happened to catch my eye and I seemed like a lovely person to him, so he addressed me as such. There's something simple and wonderful in that kind of sincerity -- pulling a word free of all its connotations and saying it exactly as it's supposed to be -- and I bet 95% of the world's population couldn't pull it off.
And here I had just scurried away from him like he'd been mocking me.
I wish I could say I went back and apologized and explained myself, but I'm not that brave. I stood on the corner of the road a few yards away trying to figure out what had just happened, until my dad pulled up to take me back to the hotel.
So there you go, asshole: the worst harm you did with your comments wasn't to make a random person going about her daily business uncomfortable, although they certainly did that. They prevented a real smile and a genuine "thank-you" from going to a guy who lives on kind words and spare change. Brilliant job.
And dear homeless person: I appreciate the compliment. I really do. I wish I'd stopped to tell you that, now, and I hope my reaction wasn't hurtful - although I'm sure it cuts deep every time a person judges you before they've even given you a full look. I bet you see a lot more than I do and know a lot more than you realize, and I hope you have a good night.
So when I'm home for the holidays I work in the city, at a company that manufactures infectious diseases for research use. (Yes, you read that right: I work for a company that makes viruses. The human kind. Which is pretty awesome bragging rights, even if I'm just Paperwork Girl.) This company is located on the Medical Campus - not a college campus, just an area that has a lot of (bio)medical companies/facilities - which is an...unusual part of town, to say the least. On the one hand, you have all the doctors and interns and businesspeople heading to work, to lunch, to their car, etc. On the other, you have a bunch of, uh, interesting other types who live or work in non-medical occupations nearby. (Case in point: the time a coworker came back laughing from our labs next door because she'd seen a pimp carrying a cane. Or how a different one asks me all the time if I get freaked out walking the two blocks or so from the building to the lot, since I leave several hours earlier than anyone else and I'm always walking alone.)
Normally this does not bother me in the least. I mean, I'm crossing Main St., for goodness sake, and there's medical folk all over -- I'm reasonably sure that if something weird happened I could give a shout, and SOMEONE would notice and help me out. And I've always got my cell phone in my pocket.
But the other day, I had crossed the street and was headed toward the lot when this guy -- same side of the street, but with a parked car between him and the sidewalk -- starts talking at me. Started off with, "Hey, sweetie" and I basically tuned it out from there, because when someone addresses you like that, the nicest sort of thing you're going to hear will be massively objectifying. I just put my head down, pretended not to hear him, and kept walking, which (a) made me feel like a bit of an ass (despite the circumstances) because I don't particularly enjoy pretending people don't exist, and (b) was rather humiliating, because I very much would have liked to turn on him and inform him that no, he would not call me "sweetie," he had no effin idea if I was a sweetie or not, it was none of his goddamn business what kind of a person I was, and unless he had somehow become a member of my immediate family he would apologize IMMEDIATELY and never call me that in such a demeaning way ever again. Except, yanno, I'm a skinny stick of a girl and for all I knew that could have been his provocation to sling me over one shoulder and carry me off to murder me somewhere.
I could go on for hours about how that's wrong and an obvious example of misogyny in the world today, etc. etc. I think most decent people already know that, though, and my point is actually quite different.
Today I had to drop by Walgreens so I could pick up some contact solution (didn't have any travel size for the plane). As I was walking out of the store, I accidentally caught the eye of a random guy. I saw that he was unshaven and not well-dressed, which immediately classified him as Not a Tourist and therefore Potential Trouble in my head.
He smiled at me and said, "Hi, lovely." I was skeeved out, faked a smile, and dropped eye contact as quick as possible.
He stopped at the bus shelter I was walking past, and I saw him out of the corner of my eye as he held out a plastic shopping bag to a guy sitting there. I caught just a snatch of what he was saying -- "Yeah, here, I've got..." and realized suddenly that he must be homeless, and so was the guy he was talking to, and they were eating their dinner out of a plastic shopping bag under a bus shelter.
And then I thought back and realized that when he said, "Hi, lovely," he was not trying to pick me up or make a crass comment or otherwise take advantage of me. The eye contact, the smile, the tone of voice -- it was all too genuine for him to be an insecure ass trying to demonstrate his power over some random girl in the street. No: he happened to catch my eye and I seemed like a lovely person to him, so he addressed me as such. There's something simple and wonderful in that kind of sincerity -- pulling a word free of all its connotations and saying it exactly as it's supposed to be -- and I bet 95% of the world's population couldn't pull it off.
And here I had just scurried away from him like he'd been mocking me.
I wish I could say I went back and apologized and explained myself, but I'm not that brave. I stood on the corner of the road a few yards away trying to figure out what had just happened, until my dad pulled up to take me back to the hotel.
So there you go, asshole: the worst harm you did with your comments wasn't to make a random person going about her daily business uncomfortable, although they certainly did that. They prevented a real smile and a genuine "thank-you" from going to a guy who lives on kind words and spare change. Brilliant job.
And dear homeless person: I appreciate the compliment. I really do. I wish I'd stopped to tell you that, now, and I hope my reaction wasn't hurtful - although I'm sure it cuts deep every time a person judges you before they've even given you a full look. I bet you see a lot more than I do and know a lot more than you realize, and I hope you have a good night.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
A bit of a side project
ETA: Reading it in the morning, this ended up a little more ranty and a little less pointed than I had intended. My point is this: even among people who are theoretically close to the ideal, the "the thinner the better" game and negative body-talk are pervasive. I can't speak for people who have faced problems because of their weight, but I can speak for people who SHOULD be happy with the way they look -- and how they are not. I'm always hearing people find a reason to dislike their body -- there will always BE reasons for everyone, btw -- and I can't say I've ever heard someone tell me, "I'm happy with the way I look."
Hi, lovelies, whatever few lovelies may occasionally check this page. I have been doing several thousand words of writing this week but haven't been blogging them because they were mostly handwritten.
Forewarning: long blog. Rant blog. Mostly unrelated to writing.
Today, while I was wandering around the interwebz, I discovered two things.
The first was this statistic, posted on Facebook: "42% of first to third-grade girls want to be thinner. 80% of ten-year-old American girls say they have been on a diet. 53% of 13-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies – a number that increases to 78% by age 17"
The second was this contest. [link]
The writing-related bit: I'll be sidetracking briefly from the novel to work on a story for this contest. I'm writing less in interest of winning a contest but because the more healthy female role models out there, the better.
The rant:
You know one thing that really bugs me? Body talk.
Before I go into why, let me make it clear that I am not in a real position of experience here. At twenty years old I'm still stick-skinny, and I'm generally pretty uninterested in the way I look. As long as I'm clean and relatively healthy, I don't especially care what I look like when I walk out the door. (And yes, I'm sure that's in large part because I've never struggled with my weight, but it's also because I don't pay a hell of a lot of attention to what people look like.) Body talk and body image has been on my mind a lot lately nonetheless, and I think I still have a right to talk about it.
There is a particular incident that got me thinking about how much girls talk about their weight, and how much of it is negative. A few weeks ago, somebody brought pie into work. I am a glutton for sweets at work, so when it was brought out I dived in shamelessly. A co-worker did the same, but only after saying with an embarrassed chuckle, "It's not like I need the extra calories."
Was this woman taller than me? Yes. Was she any heavier, proportionally? NO.
I don't understand why people seem to think that thinner is always better. Contrary to common expectations, I lost weight rather than gaining it my freshman year of college. And - although I never mentioned it at the time - it absolutely infuriated me when I went home and got a whole bunch of compliments about how I was skinnier.
Wait, what? I'm already MUCH thinner than the average twenty (then nineteen-) year old. Those nice pretty soft curves some women get? Not my body type. And yet, for some reason, I was getting COMPLIMENTS for losing weight? You'd think it would be a cause for concern.
I brought this up to my dad when he offered a compliment of his own. "It's not like I needed to lose it," I said.
He laughed. "Trust me. Look at some pictures. You had the weight to lose."
Okay, HOLD UP. Since when does "has weight to lose" equate to "needs to lose weight"?* I personally think that curves are VERY pretty - way prettier than the stick-shape that is the current ideal. And muscle? Healthy, attractive, and a sign (a WAY stronger sign than makeup, btw) that you're putting in effort to take care of your body.
Another comment I get a lot -- mostly from other girls at college -- is about how I can eat whatever I want, wear whatever I want, etc. since I'm so thin. This bothers me for two reasons.
First off: my size is NOT the most important factor in my eating habits or my fashion choice. If I eat healthy food, it's because I want to be healthy. If I eat junk food, it's because it tastes good and I lack self-control. My weight doesn't even enter into it. (And yes, again - I am lucky. I have never struggled with my size. It might be different if I was born in a different body - but I don't want to think so. I've never really understood the need to match an ideal independent of my personal values, physically or otherwise.)
The other problem: this is NOT a real compliment. It is ALWAYS a comparison, and it is ALMOST always a put-down. At best, people are complimenting me for matching an ideal shape through no particular effort of my own, which makes me feel like a fake and a sham. At worst, they are comparing me to their own (less skinny) bodies, and so making THEMSELVES feel bad about their size. Which I hate. My shape does not exist to make you feel guilty about yours. I appreciate compliments, but please understand that a comparison is not a real compliment -- it's a measurement.
Which brings me to the reason that body talk bothers me oh, so, much. People come in such a VAST array of shapes and sizes. Why are we all striving to look the same? Why do we have to match ourselves to one ideal? Why does X's curves have to be better than Y's, A's hair nicer than B's, Z's eyes so much more gorgeous than W's? Why can't we be happy with what we have?
Beauty is not in your makeup. It is not in your weight. It is not in your eyes or the way you do your hair. True beauty comes from a willingness to smile, an honest comfort with your body, and the simple charisma that comes from loving life. So screw the talk about how you could lose a couple pounds or how you really hate your new haircut. You are gorgeous just as you are.
And just to be totally clear, in case I've made you think I don't like my own body with all this talk about how I'm too skinny: I love my hair. I love my eyes. I love my face, and I love my hands -- even if my fingers are short and make playing music a pain in the butt -- and I love my feet -- even though I can never find flats that fit. Maybe I could have used a different nose or a curvier body, but you know what -- the body I have is MINE and I would never trade it for another one. Even if it means I will never match some standard of perfect, I would NEVER want to look in the mirror and see anyone other than me.
(*To be fair: the contrast wasn't so blatant in the actual conversation. It was a year ago now, so I only remember the gist of it.)
Hi, lovelies, whatever few lovelies may occasionally check this page. I have been doing several thousand words of writing this week but haven't been blogging them because they were mostly handwritten.
Forewarning: long blog. Rant blog. Mostly unrelated to writing.
Today, while I was wandering around the interwebz, I discovered two things.
The first was this statistic, posted on Facebook: "42% of first to third-grade girls want to be thinner. 80% of ten-year-old American girls say they have been on a diet. 53% of 13-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies – a number that increases to 78% by age 17"
The second was this contest. [link]
The writing-related bit: I'll be sidetracking briefly from the novel to work on a story for this contest. I'm writing less in interest of winning a contest but because the more healthy female role models out there, the better.
The rant:
You know one thing that really bugs me? Body talk.
Before I go into why, let me make it clear that I am not in a real position of experience here. At twenty years old I'm still stick-skinny, and I'm generally pretty uninterested in the way I look. As long as I'm clean and relatively healthy, I don't especially care what I look like when I walk out the door. (And yes, I'm sure that's in large part because I've never struggled with my weight, but it's also because I don't pay a hell of a lot of attention to what people look like.) Body talk and body image has been on my mind a lot lately nonetheless, and I think I still have a right to talk about it.
There is a particular incident that got me thinking about how much girls talk about their weight, and how much of it is negative. A few weeks ago, somebody brought pie into work. I am a glutton for sweets at work, so when it was brought out I dived in shamelessly. A co-worker did the same, but only after saying with an embarrassed chuckle, "It's not like I need the extra calories."
Was this woman taller than me? Yes. Was she any heavier, proportionally? NO.
I don't understand why people seem to think that thinner is always better. Contrary to common expectations, I lost weight rather than gaining it my freshman year of college. And - although I never mentioned it at the time - it absolutely infuriated me when I went home and got a whole bunch of compliments about how I was skinnier.
Wait, what? I'm already MUCH thinner than the average twenty (then nineteen-) year old. Those nice pretty soft curves some women get? Not my body type. And yet, for some reason, I was getting COMPLIMENTS for losing weight? You'd think it would be a cause for concern.
I brought this up to my dad when he offered a compliment of his own. "It's not like I needed to lose it," I said.
He laughed. "Trust me. Look at some pictures. You had the weight to lose."
Okay, HOLD UP. Since when does "has weight to lose" equate to "needs to lose weight"?* I personally think that curves are VERY pretty - way prettier than the stick-shape that is the current ideal. And muscle? Healthy, attractive, and a sign (a WAY stronger sign than makeup, btw) that you're putting in effort to take care of your body.
Another comment I get a lot -- mostly from other girls at college -- is about how I can eat whatever I want, wear whatever I want, etc. since I'm so thin. This bothers me for two reasons.
First off: my size is NOT the most important factor in my eating habits or my fashion choice. If I eat healthy food, it's because I want to be healthy. If I eat junk food, it's because it tastes good and I lack self-control. My weight doesn't even enter into it. (And yes, again - I am lucky. I have never struggled with my size. It might be different if I was born in a different body - but I don't want to think so. I've never really understood the need to match an ideal independent of my personal values, physically or otherwise.)
The other problem: this is NOT a real compliment. It is ALWAYS a comparison, and it is ALMOST always a put-down. At best, people are complimenting me for matching an ideal shape through no particular effort of my own, which makes me feel like a fake and a sham. At worst, they are comparing me to their own (less skinny) bodies, and so making THEMSELVES feel bad about their size. Which I hate. My shape does not exist to make you feel guilty about yours. I appreciate compliments, but please understand that a comparison is not a real compliment -- it's a measurement.
Which brings me to the reason that body talk bothers me oh, so, much. People come in such a VAST array of shapes and sizes. Why are we all striving to look the same? Why do we have to match ourselves to one ideal? Why does X's curves have to be better than Y's, A's hair nicer than B's, Z's eyes so much more gorgeous than W's? Why can't we be happy with what we have?
Beauty is not in your makeup. It is not in your weight. It is not in your eyes or the way you do your hair. True beauty comes from a willingness to smile, an honest comfort with your body, and the simple charisma that comes from loving life. So screw the talk about how you could lose a couple pounds or how you really hate your new haircut. You are gorgeous just as you are.
And just to be totally clear, in case I've made you think I don't like my own body with all this talk about how I'm too skinny: I love my hair. I love my eyes. I love my face, and I love my hands -- even if my fingers are short and make playing music a pain in the butt -- and I love my feet -- even though I can never find flats that fit. Maybe I could have used a different nose or a curvier body, but you know what -- the body I have is MINE and I would never trade it for another one. Even if it means I will never match some standard of perfect, I would NEVER want to look in the mirror and see anyone other than me.
(*To be fair: the contrast wasn't so blatant in the actual conversation. It was a year ago now, so I only remember the gist of it.)
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