Men are weird.

 I’m still laughing my arse off over this.

So I live in an old farmhouse (original foundation dates back to the early 1700s, current house was finished in the 1820’s) that has been divided up into 5 apartments. All us neighbours get along very well. We have a big front porch on which I have set up an outdoor sofa on one side. I also put up a nice curtain to shade the sofa from the sun, as it is west facing and I like to sit and read outside in the evenings. I hadn’t accounted for wind, so after a recent windy day, I bought some tablecloth weights to keep the curtain from slapping me about the face while I’m trying to read.

(these weights, to be precise.)

Hereinafter I’ll use initials for the neighbours.

So the other night we had a bit of a windy thunderstorm, and one of the weights blew off, unbeknownst to me. The next day, 2 of my neighbours (both men, R and J) found it beside another neighbour’s (a woman, D)’s car. They speculated over what on earth it was for about 20 seconds before deciding OMG IT’S A NIPPLE CLAMP.

-__-


Now since they found it beside D’s car, they didn’t know what to do. They did not want to embarrass her, nor make her feel judged—neither of them felt inclined to judge someone else’s kink preferences. But they also didn’t know how to tactfully make sure it was returned to her, so J went to ask his wife (A) for advice.

After she nearly died laughing, A tried to explain to J what it was. He did not believe her. At first he felt certain that she was just trying to cover for D. So he went running upstairs to confer with R and get a second opinion from R’s girlfriend L. L also nearly died laughing.

Despite both A and L telling them that it was a tablecloth weight, and definitely not a nipple clamp, R and J still refused to believe it.

I was at work while all of this was happening.

Eventually all 4 agreed to disagree and went about their day. A couple hours later, the wind picks up again, and while R and J were outside working on one of the many muscle cars R hoards in the garage, they hear a weird banging noise coming from the porch. They thought an animal had gotten stuck in one of the rubbish bins, so they approached cautiously. And discovered that the other tablecloth weight, still attached to my curtain, had blown over the porch railing and was rattling against the railing and the house wall.

J picked it up to get a better look and realised it was identical to the “nipple clamp.”

I got home about an hour after that, to find my curtain tied to one of the porch railings, and the escaped weight left on my sofa. I didn’t think anything of it until I got outside with my book and L came bursting out of her apartment to tell me about the whole thing.

Like really? You see that and first thing you assume is a nipple clamp???

Y'all dudes are strange sometimes.

YOU GUYS

Indulge me briefly my friends--this is a survey for all of you.

I would like to ask y'all about your dreams. Specifically, I want to know about houses.

For every home in which I have ever lived, there is an alternate version that exists in my dream-brain. Sometimes the dream version is only slightly different than the real life house, sometimes there are really huge differences--either way, these dream houses remain consistent from one dream to the next. 

My current apartment for example: the dream version is larger, and set in a completely different location. Same with Mumsy's condo when I was living in the basement: my basement space looked almost exactly the same as it did in real life, but the backyard outside the sliding doors was totally different (flat fields/farmland instead of the fenced in moss-and-grass). The dream version of my old apartment had a whole section of rooms behind the kitchen that did not exist at all in real life. The dream version of my childhood home had a crazy huge attic space that also did not exist in real life.

Do any of you readers experience this with your homes and your dreams? If you dream of your homes, are they different than real life? What about them is different? I want details.

And now the second half of this survey......

Lil Bro#2 and I had this discussion last weekend and it has made me very curious. Do you guys have a house--NOT a house that you ever lived in outside of your dreams--that shows up in your dreams over and over and over again?

I do. Lil Bro#2 does as well, and for some reason both of our Houses remind us of my step-grandparents' old house, and both of our Houses have a whole section of rooms (living room, bedroom, bathroom) accessible only via a secret hidden door.

Idk why my House reminds me of my step-grandparents' house, because my House is freaking enormous. Like complete with a belltower (the interior of which is only accessible via secret door) and a massive ballroom/library with two big curving staircases that lead to a balcony that encircles the entire room. I wish I could do like architectural drawing, but I'm pretty sure there are parts of the House that defy physics, so that might be kind of hard to illustrate...

This House has existed in my dreams for as long as I can remember, and it has not changed. Lil Bro#2 said the same of his House.

I've tried looking up what the *experts* have to say about houses in dreams, but of course everyone has a different explanation. Lil Bro#2 and I thought that the most likely explanation of the House is that it is basically a visual representation of everything you have ever retained in your mind. Like if someone took your brain with all of its knowledge and memories and weird personality traits and turned it into a building.

Which brings me to the second question--do any of you have a House that shows up frequently in your dreams? What is it like? Has it changed, or does it stay the same? Details!!!

Inquiring minds want to know.............

You know I wanted something pretty for my wife, but the judge frowned and sentenced me to life.

Occasionally I stop complaining and being sarcastic to tackle real issues. I shall try to do that again....

So gay marriage is legal now and we as a nation are all awaiting the moment that pastor sets himself on fire, like he promised.

I've talked about this before, but I have to say it again. I really just cannot understand WHY so many "Christians" get so bent out of shape over gayness. Even from the most extreme Bible-thumping standpoint, nowhere in the Bible does it say that homosexuality is worse than any other sin. In the New Testament, Jesus says nothing about homosexuality. He does, however, get pretty clear in His opinions about divorce. But no one gets bent out of shape over divorce anymore. It's Paul who condemns homosexuality in the New Testament, and Paul was an extremely devout Jew before he became a Christian, and believed homosexuality was as much of an abomination as eating shellfish (Leviticus 11:10). 

Last week, Warwick, NY had its second LGBT parade. Last year we had one lone protester. A bunch of us from Warwick Assembly of God were wandering around the parade handing out free bottles of water (because it was really freaking hot) and trying to spread the message that EVERYONE is welcome in our church. Our pastor gave the kind of pathetic-looking lone protester a water bottle and told him Jesus is love, not hate. This year, there were no protesters at the parade, and we handed out even more water bottles because it was even hotter than last year. We are the only church in the Warwick area to get involved in the LGBT parade. One out of like 20+. 

When I see photos or footage of people protesting gay rights trying to spread these horrible messages of "God hates gays," it makes me want to cry. It is nothing but hate, and hate does not come from God. Hate is the devil, because it is one of the surest ways of turning people away from God. All of those hateful protesters have not only unknowingly turned themselves away from Christ; by their words and actions and the example they set, they turn countless others away from Him as well. They are doing the devil's work under the guise of Christianity and it makes me sick.

Love one another. Over and over and over again in the New Testament, the same message. Love one another.

Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.

Have a good weekend, y'all. Try not to go around flashing a questionable flag in case someone gets offended. 

Did I mention I've decided to run for president?

I'm going to complain about rape culture now.

Last night, I sat outside in my beach chair to have a cigarette before bed. I heard what sounded like rustling in the bushes and waited to find out what sort of animal would emerge and how fast I would have to flail and make noise to scare it away before fleeing into the house.

But then the sound changed to shoes stepping over rocks. A person, not an animal.

And then some dude appeared from behind the neighbour's bushes and walked towards me.

Mum's condo is in an extremely safe suburban neighbourhood. But my first thought was not "oh hey a neighbour that's cool." My first thought was to consider how much damage I could inflict upon him before running and screaming. I had a cigarette and a lighter as my only weapons, and the sliding glass door is kind of difficult to open in a hurry.

It turned out the guy was not a serial rapist, just a neighbour two units down who noticed that someone else was smoking outside and decided to say hello.

I tend to turn a blind eye (or just find something else to do on the internet) when the issue of rape culture comes up in my Facebook or Tumblr feed. I know it's an issue, but burying my head in the sand keeps me from getting upset about it. Because in reality--as last night's incident can prove--there is no way to truly ignore it.

Last night was not an isolated event. There is at least one time every day of my life where I have to stop and assess a situation before I can feel safe continuing about my merry way.

Sometimes when I'm alone in the office, we get random male visitors (delivery guys, lost people looking for someone else's office, walk-in new clients, etc.) and there are times when I freeze and make sure I am ready to grab the scissors just in case the guy that walks in is dangerous.

Sometimes if I'm running errands and it's dark out, I will not park or get out of my car if there are no parking spaces left in the lit portion of the supermarket parking lot. I'll go to a different store.

I no longer go hiking alone, because a while back there was a news story about some girl getting attacked in Ramapo Reservation, which is what I would have considered the safest spot to hike around here if you're alone. Even before that, I went hiking armed with a hunting knife.

I stopped going out to pubs on the weekend with friends because there were too many incidents with guys getting overly aggressive and angry because I didn't want to give them my number or go home with them.

Remember in the past how I've panicked because someone bailed on a concert and I was left going into the city alone? Recently a guy acquaintance asked me why the heck I was so panicked about it. And he was serious. He actually didn't understand why I was so afraid.

And this is why I scroll past those stories in my news feeds and bury my head in the sand. Because this is how life is and I hate being reminded. Constant vigilance. Constant fear. Because I am female.

I've read people on the internet who say that all of the above is bullshit. That bothers me even more than the constant fear. I know what it's like to be chased home in the dead of night, your only thought an intense, almost crippling fear. I know what it's like to be cornered in a dark and empty hallway where there is no one nearby who will hear you cry for help. I know how awful it feels to have a complete stranger grab your ass or your boobs.

No one can tell me my vigilance and fear is just me being paranoid.

S is for Swearing

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R is for Retarded

I have mixed feelings regarding the use of the word "retard" as slang. I've used it myself on occasion. To me, the word doesn't have anything to do with people who have actual mental disabilities. Its use in slang phrases has changed its connotation.

The word itself, as defined in the dictionary, means slow, or to slow down. That is what we mean when we say something is retarded--we mean that it's stupid (i.e., slow). We don't mean that people with mental disabilities are stupid, and we're not saying "retarded" to insult them.

Downs Syndrome runs in my family. My cousin, C., now 20 years old, has it, and I have never treated her any differently than I treated the rest of my cousins. I've seen how other people react, so I know the difficulties she'll have to face for the rest of her life. She lives life as normally as she can. She's in a theater club (and is apparently a very good actress!), loves to watch TV (especially Coronation Street), works at a daycare center and is very good with small children, and wants to one day be a midwife. She actually goes down the pub now with her friends and with Anorexic Auntie (her mum).

A couple years ago, when a school counselor somehow brought up the fact that she has Downs, C came home in tears and asked Anorexic Auntie, "is there really something wrong with me!??"

If that counselor survived Anorexic Auntie's wrath, I would be very surprised.

Why do we need politically correct words for things that make us uncomfortable? Remember when it was still ok to call someone "handicapped?" But then that changed to "disabled." "Handicapped" used to be ok, though--it replaced "crippled," which was not ok. So how long before "disabled" becomes a bad word, and we come up with another term? We used to also refer to crippled people as "lame" way back when until someone decided that was offensive and so now it's generally only used for animals. We still use "lame" as slang and no one seems to care.

It's retarded.  

O is for Old Soul

Ever been told you have an "old soul?" I get that a lot. I don't believe in reincarnation. Even in my spiritualist/idealist college days when a bunch of my friends went through their Buddhist phases, I did not believe in reincarnation. Because no benevolent force would ever allow something so horrific. Living another life over and over and over after you die? As far as I'm concerned, that is the definition of Hell.

I know a number of other people who get the "old soul" comments, too. I noticed that we all have something in common: we spent a huge chunk of our childhoods surrounded by adults, without other children for company. After a while, you get used to this to the point where you prefer to hang around the adults even when there is a group of other kids to play with. I presume this is why I got along so well with the parents of some of my friends in high school...

Recently someone pointed out to me that some of my friendships are abnormal. I was reminiscing about the trips to Atlantic City I used to take with my friend Ch. (who is a huge hippie btw). I was stopped mid-story with a "....wait, you're friends with Ch.? I thought you were friends with her daughter?"

Lol.

Ch. has a daughter my age. We were bff's from like age 6 through age 14. We're not friends anymore--we just grew apart, and then the last time I saw her I realized I don't really like her anymore. But now I'm friends with her mother.

I have two other friends like this--I used to be friends with their kids, but now I hang out with the moms instead. Is that weird? I never thought it was. Age differences mean nothing to me. Biologically, we all stop maturing in our late teens. I know people who use their age to talk down to younger people--even if that younger person is in their 30s or 40s--and basically treat them like they're children (i.e., "You're only ##, you're a baby!"). I don't really understand that. Yes, I know there are 10 years between myself and my youngest siblings, and yes I remember changing their diapers and feeding them in the middle of the night, but they're still like my best friends now. You reach a certain age, and the age difference doesn't matter anymore.

I'm also really really awful at determining someone else's age. I hate when people ask me how old I think they look, because honestly I have no freaking clue how old you are. 20? 30? 55? 90? No idea. Perhaps this is payback for the confusion I apparently cause others--according to a number of acquaintances, I come off as much older than I am, but I look much younger than I am (yay!), and this is perplexing.

Everyone keeps telling me I'm going to be upset when I turn 30 in September. Are y'all kidding?? I can't wait. My 20s SUCKED ASS. Bring it on.

H is for Hippies

A disclaimer: I wrote the following post while extremely drunk. I do not endorse this sort of behaviour. 
(I am, however, quite impressed with the general level of coherency I managed to achieve.)


I don't even know where to start this.

Back in high school, everyone fit neatly into their labels. There were the trendy kids (I guess what would be the stereotypical *popular* kids?), the nerds, the jocks, and the freaks. And each of those had subcategories. I have no idea what sort of subcategorizations there were among the trendy, jock, and nerdy kids; but in the freak group, there were the goths, the hippies, the punks, and the metalheads. In general, everyone within the Freaks got along with everyone else. Clashes usually arose from one place.

Metalheads vs. Hippies.

....I was about to apologize for possibly offending anyone from this point onward but seriously if you've been reading this blog for this long you should know to never ever take me seriously.

A friend and I just had a long conversation about this. We realized that this conflict--Metalheads vs. Hippies--has defined our entire lives.

Hippies and Metalheads are like complete polar opposites. People accuse me of being a hippie a lot, and my instinctive reaction is to take offense. I never questioned this, and I should because I have some good friends who are definitely hippies, and I don't hold that against them (usually....... ok fine I make fun of them for it but we're still good friends). Like seriously, in high school the biggest insult my friends and I could hurl at each other was "F*CKING HIPPIE!!!"

M and I still use that as an insult. So yeah, when people accuse me of being a hippie because of the way I dress, I get offended.

I think it might be because I'm like a redneck-metalhead hybrid. I guess on the surface level we can appear very similar, but there is a large difference between hippies and rednecks. I shall illustrate this with a chart:

excuse me while I go burn my bra

The holidays are upon on us, and you know what that means!

And endless stream of mothereffing gift baskets and boxes of junk food.

This is officially the first of the season, it arrived today. So you can fully appreciate its size, here's a pic of the box with my hand in it:

That there, my friends, is a 20-minute decision-making process every time you want a piece of chocolate.

Nasimiyu posted a link to this article a few days ago, and even though I knew I shouldn't because it would just make me angry, I started browsing through the rest of that website. Everything they post is in a similar vein, with them hiding behind "oh we didn't mean it, it's satire, we're just being funny" whenever people get pissed off.

(I apologize in advance for the swearing.)

Now I am probably not what anyone would call a Feminist, mostly because I am too lazy to properly care. I believe in equality between the sexes, but I also do acknowledge that ladies are very different from gentlemen.

....not that anyone on returnofkings.com is a gentleman, but that's besides the point...

......also it really REALLY pisses me off that they have called their site "Return of Kings," because that makes me think of The Return of the King, and NO FRACKING WAY IN HELL should any of the douchebags responsible for that website EVER try to have anything in common with Aragorn. Because they don't. So from this point on, I shall re-name them Remaining Men Together.

....ok getting back to these idiots over at remaining men together dot com....

Women are different than men. Biologically speaking, we are hard-wired to play the mother/nurturer while the lads do the hunting/protecting thing. Does that mean that all women should become Susie-homemakers? Hell no. That's the beauty of the society we live in. While it is far from perfect, most of us do have a choice in what we want to do with our lives.

And then you get cretins like these people.

Let's take a closer look at this massive work of bullshit.

click to embiggen if the writing is too small

Oh and then there's the article on how all of these women's bodies are completely unacceptable because they are all fat:

Or the list of things women shouldn't be allowed to do.

Or this article about how we all secretly love "pretend" rape.

Or this one, a How-To guide for guys who want to turn themselves and their friends into walking talking septic tanks of venereal disease. 

I believe in freedom of speech, and what better place to exercise that than the internet? But I do not believe in this level of stupidity. There is nothing wrong with being a man, and enjoying your manliness to the fullest. (Please do, because I also very much enjoy manliness.) But the standards these idiots are supporting make the lives of women in the Old Testament look like a fucking picnic. With pony rides and prizes.

uughhh I can't even talk about this anymore.

Let's look at my cats instead.

Harley and Ivy are not amused.

You better take care of me Lord; if you don't, you're gonna have me on your hands.

Random(ish) ED/recovery update....?

I've been doing pretty well with the whole eating disorder recovery thing. I finally reached a point where I eat what I want when I want, don't over-exercise (or exercise at all, to be honest.......), and occasionally spend a Saturday eating a feckton of junk food with my friend C and don't feel bad about it afterwards. 

One day we're going to have a reality show, and it will be glorious. 

I haven't weighed myself since November, 2011. I haven't taken laxatives or ephedrine or any other starve/purge aids since about the same time. I don't feel a crushing sense of horror and doom every time I look in the mirror. 

And the biggest victory BY FAR: I do not spend every single waking moment thinking about calories and how many I've had and how many I'm allowed to have and how many I might have later and how I'm fat fat fat; and I have to say it really feels amazing to have my brain back.

[Yes, there is a "but" coming.]

I knew moving out of Mumsy's house would be a major adjustment, particularly in the area of budgeting my expenses. And I suck at that. But I've gone over the numbers repeatedly (in Excel, because I totally suck at math and Excel does the math for me) and based on what I make at my job, I can afford to pay all my monthly expenses (rent, electricity, car insurance, loan, petrol, cat food, getting my hair bleached, Netflix), with roughly $200.00 a week leftover for extra things. 

But because of all the bloody issues with the license/insurance/etc (among a couple other things, like my bank and Experian stealing my money) on top of all the expenses involved in the actual move, a massive dent has been put into my bank account. I cannot afford ANYTHING but the basics.

The main essentials, on a day-to-day basis, are cat food, petrol, and my food. Unfortunately, over the last month or so, they have been prioritized in that order.

I need petrol to get to work (it's an hour each way, so even with a car that is awesome on petrol, that's still quite a bit of money every week). The cats need to eat, and I love them like they're my babies. I absolutely will not underfeed them. 

And so the money left over for me to buy food for myself is not very much money at all. 

This both frightened me and didn't frighten me, at first. I can deal with this, I thought. Because of the eating disorder, I know I can keep going (physically) on much much less food than a normal person. I can eat just enough to stay conscious, keep the cats fed, and keep my car fueled until I can get back on my feet, money-wise. Also I'm not exercising anymore (I cancelled the gym membership entirely), so it's not like I'm overexerting myself. This will be totally fine.

It started out fine. I wan't thinking about weight loss--that never even crossed my mind. I mean yeah, I figured I'd probably lose some weight, but I didn't really care one way or the other. 

Until about a week and a half ago, when I was watching TV in bed (and probably frightening my neighbours because Tim Hawkins is seriously frigging HYSTERICAL), and I happened to notice how much my hipbones stick out when I'm laying down. 

I couldn't resist the curiosity--I got up and did something I have not done in over a year. 

I ran my hand down my back/side to check my ribs. 

But then I stopped and said NO IT'S EVIL, DON'T TOUCH IT and tried to put it out of my head.

Between then and now, two friends and Lil Sis made comments that I have lost weight. And a little dust-mote-sized demon crawled into my brain and laughed gleefully at this information. 

Cutting down on my groceries suddenly got easier. 

And then Monday I was texting back and forth with Stepmom and she said how great I looked in my David Bowie inspired outfit for 70's day at church on Sunday

me and the Bros, are we a f**king gorgeous family or what

I was complaining how I hate wearing pants (seriously I think every single person in church that day was like HOLY CRAP, ARE THOSE PANTS!?!??) because I still have some issues as far as hiding things like my thunder thighs

and then Stepmom goes, "oh don't worry you look great curvy, and you'll get a chance to slim down once you start going to the gym again."

oh

In fairness, Stepmom is the skinniest person I know and I'm pretty sure she's one of those women who thinks that barely eating anything ever and working out 10+ times a week is totally healthy, so her perception of "curvy" may be slightly off.

This has been a giant mess of brain feckery: am I losing a lot of weight? Then how freaking fat was I before I moved?? How fat am I now?!?!?

As I said in the beginning, I was doing pretty well with recovery, but not perfect. My biggest remaining issue is probably the mirror. 

I have NO IDEA what I look like. I look in the mirror, and most of the time I still see a whale, so I mostly avoid full-length mirrors.

.....and literally at the end of the day today, one of our clients walked in and said, "JESUS CHRIST you got so skinny!!!" with a semi-concerned look on her face.

SERIOUSLY HOW EFFING FAT WAS I BEFORE THIS?!?!

::deepbreaths::

I don't know what to do. I am definitely not anywhere near as crazy/disordered as before, and I am thankfully NOT slipping back into that awful depressive state that took over my life for the last year, but I DO know that this could be a problem. I don't want two years of working towards recovery to be for nothing. I CANNOT GO BACK DOWN THAT ROAD.

Advice? Thoughts? I fired my shrink because I'm poor, so I'll accept any thoughts or suggestions y'all got. 

You know, when I heard that Eddie was pregnant, I told her to abort! ABORT, ABORT, ABORT!

Some sneak-peek photos of the apartment (I'm not done decorating, and I am still in desperate need of more furniture):

the kitchen and living room, and the candles in my fireplace

And a close-up of the fireplace, because I rule:

.............................................................................................................................................

....I wasn't going to post this because I was kind of ranty and ravey when I wrote it, but I feel the need to say it.

Recently someone insisted on getting into an argument with me about abortion.

I don't like arguing. I especially do not like arguing about that kind of subject matter (where everyone has a very strong opinion and an equally strong belief that their opinion is infallible).

I am not pro-choice. I am not pro-life either. I am pro-we-should-never-have-had-the-need-to-invent-this-in-the-first-place.

But of course it's a bit late for that.

I guess I am also both pro-choice and pro-life. There are very valid points in the arguments for and against them, and I have seen extreme cases on both sides.

I know someone who was raped and had an abortion and felt totally fine with it and has since also gotten past the rape. I know someone else whose mother almost aborted him after she was raped, but changed her mind at the last minute, and his father (his mother's husband) has always treated him like a son and they have a great relationship, and his mom also managed to heal from it and accept him as her son and not her rapist's son.

I know someone who had an abortion because she had to choose between treating her leukemia or having a baby, and she ended up beating the leukemia and now many years later has 3 happy, healthy children and is still healthy herself. One of my best friends (since we were babies)

 is the daughter of a woman who was encouraged by all her doctors to get an abortion so she could begin chemo for her breast cancer. She refused, because she wanted her baby. She died only a few months after my friend was born.

I know several people who have had multiple abortions because they refuse to use condoms or go on the pill (this makes me so angry I can barely form words).  I know a girl who had an abortion because a pregnancy would have disrupted her plans of joining the army (which was the only way she would be able to go to college) and even though she had been totally ok with it and had considered all her options, she ended up sinking into an epic depression afterwards. 

I had a friend in college who got pregnant and her family kept telling her abortion was murder, but she was manic-depressive (among several other things), in an abusive relationship, and anyone who knew her could have told you that she would not have been mentally able to carry a child for 9 months and then give it away. She was already suicidal. So she had the abortion, and now over ten years later she is in a healthy relationship with a nice guy, and seems to be managing her emotional issues pretty well.

There isn't one right answer to this debate.

Do I want kids? F*CK NO. But could I have an abortion? Probably not. WHICH IS WHY WE USE CONDOMS AND BIRTH CONTROL PILLS. Or in some cases, the morning after pill, because accidents do happen, and there really is no need for them to turn into accidents that lead to you begging Lil Sis to push you down the stairs several months later.

In the cases of things like treating serious illnesses, that is no one's choice except the woman who MIGHT DIE if she does not have the abortion. 

And as for rape cases, it is my opinion that anyone who has not been raped should shut the fuck up.

Ok I'm done.

You can't cut the throat of every c*cksucker whose character it would improve.

I'm about to go on a long ramble about the fiction writing process, so feel free to skip this one if, you know, you don't really care. :)

I have to wonder, in writing my own stuff, how much J.K. Rowling had plotted out when she wrote and later polished the first Harry Potter book. Or any other author with a series that tells a continuing story (like Phillip Pullman(GREATEST BOOKS EVER READ THEM NOW), Neal Schusterman, Suzanne Collins, Brandon Mull). Did they have all the books in the series completely outlined before finishing the first? When J.K. wrote the Philosopher's Stone, did she already have a solid outline for the next six books? Or did the story grow as she went along?

Since starting this project in mid-September, I have written books one and two of the apocalypse series (anyone care to read book 1? because I'm kind of desperate for guinea pigs). I've got the first few chapters of book 3 done, as well as a long and detailed outline of the rest of it, plus a short and more vague outline for the fourth book. BUT, in trying to go about revising book 2 and outlining book 3, I now have a monstrous list of things that need to be tweaked in book 1. Like for example, certain characters who didn't have big roles in book 1 have much bigger parts in the rest of the books, and I feel the need to go back and add more character development for them in the first book.

BUT then the problem with that is that the first book is already reeeaaaallllyyyy long for a middle grade audience (it's well over 67,000 words; "average length" for upper middle grade fiction is 35,000-40,000 words). There are A LOT of characters in this series, and that's a tough thing to manage when it comes to introducing all of them and developing them well without confusing the readers. In order to go back and add some more chapters for certain characters, I know I need to cull the herd, so to speak, and get rid of some of the characters who currently have more "screen time" than they probably need in order to give more time to the characters who play the major roles in the next three books. But it's much more difficult than it sounds. If that's even possible.

Creating characters is a strange thing. The phrase "character development" gets thrown around a lot in the world of storytelling--books, movies, TV shows, etc. Within all these different mediums of storytelling, one of the biggest things reviewers and critics tend to focus on is a lack of character development. I do it myself. I've read some books and watched some films and TV programs that could have been beyond brilliant, but they end up falling flat because the characters are not well developed. They seem fake, two-dimensional, empty shells in person-suits. The story could be amazing, but because the characters don't have enough substance, the story ends up being just really good instead of amazing.

Take The Maze Runner series, for example: I really liked the first book--it pulled me right in with an interesting setting and plot, but even though I flew through the first several chapters, I slowed down a lot with the rest. And now with the second book, I find myself losing interest. Dashner has truly mastered the art of a gripping plot and a good pace, but it feels to me like his characters have no personality. And because of that, I just slowly stopped caring about them.

For pretty much everything I've ever written (or attempted to write and never finished), the plot does not stick to my original outline. Take the fairy book: the original story that I began writing and then outlined ended up being COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than the finished version. Why? Because of one character who got added as sort of an afterthought when I was already about 1/3 into writing the novel.

art by elk

Once I unleashed Charlotte, she took over. She even altered the plot of the third book and more or less created the fourth on her own (currently in the writing stage, about 3/4 done).

That's the crazy thing about creating characters. (Actual characters, not just altered/fantasy versions of yourself, which is probably what I did with 90% of my characters when I started writing hardcore in early college...)

That's also how you know whether or not you have created a strong character. You're not just making up a thing that uses dialogue and some action and tossing them into a story--you have to create a whole person. You need to know them inside and out--their past and present, their wants and needs, their moral code, their sense of humour, their favourite foods, their friends and family--you need to know absolutely everything about them. For most of the characters in my book projects, I have pages and pages and pages of notes on their lives, and most of that info will never ever actually make it into the books; it just gives me a really solid foundation.

The drawback to this is that once you've birthed a really really strong character, you lose a lot of control of the story. Going back to the fairy book--once Charlotte landed in it, she more or less burned my original outline to the ground and rewrote the whole book with herself as the bright shining center.

 The same goes with some of the characters of the apocalypse series--without me even realizing it right away, they snuck up and took over. Now they decide where the story goes; outlines be damned. So like I said, I need to add more of them to book 1, and that means possibly cutting out other characters.

It's really REALLY REALLY hard getting rid of a character. It's like losing a limb. Or like having your pet cat or dog forcibly taken away. Even with characters I don't like at all (another sign you've done a good job, if you absolutely loathe a character you made but need them in the story), I will cling to them and beg and plead and cry on the floor. It's worse than killing them off, because at least then they existed and had a life and a big part in the story.

Cutting them out of the story is just erasing them from existence. They just received the greatest of all smitings and no one will ever know they were there in the first place.

So naturally my current solution to this is to sit here not revising or editing or writing, but doing every other useless unproductive thing I can possibly think of. Like [after a combined 20+ hours of trial and error] finally getting a (possible) finished design for me and Lil Bro #2's tattoo adventure.

 (Hooray for sibling bonding that will probably end with Dadum and Stepmom lynching me in the backyard! :D)

god save the queen

Yeah so despite the fact that we actually went to the trouble of declaring war on England to get away from their monarchy, the royal baby was still all over the mf news on every station all bloody day on Monday.

I realize that this is a fun news story, but the fun was kind of destroyed by the non-stop news coverage.

After reading some of the snippets of stories from royal births past, I looked into England's whole tradition of Officially announcing the birth of the next king or queen. The whole thing with the signed note from the doctor and the notice outside the palace seems woefully boring.

Like seriously, if *I* was queen and had just birthed my heir to the throne, you better freaking believe I'd be sending the king out to the balcony where he could raise the baby up Lion King style, amidst cheers from the adoring crowd of my subjects.

There would be cannons and church bells to announce the baby's arrival. Holidays declared in his name (and mine), and feasting for a week.

Not a boring little sign on the bloody door.