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Random Ramble
Aug. 6th, 2012 11:31 amGood morning every one! I'm a bit late this morning as I stopped for a coffee and chat with Mum, which turned into a relaxing frolic in the games with Small Fry. It was lovely!
Now, I had some ideas about blogging for today, and I even recorded them so I don't forget. However, we'll save that for the end of the post. You'll have to wade through the daily crap first LOL
On Writing
I have been re-reading Nick Mamatas's Starve Better, which is a rather fabulous little book of essays about writing and the publishing industry. Each of his essays are interesting and useful, and I've realised why I am not in love with my story that won the honorable mention from WOTF. So now I have a plan to fix it LOL and maybe then I will sell it! Yay sale! Well, yay potential sale!
However, now that the initial enthusiasm has gone (it's been an hour or two since I thought of how I want to fix the story) I'm getting cold feet. I mean, it's a good story. Why would I want to mess with it? What benefit could there be? Do I have to? I haven't even sold it, is this going to be a risk worth taking? But the end reason why I want to play with this story more is because it was never really in line with what I, as a writer, want to do.
One of Nick's essays discusses how short stories used to be a throw away story, where all the threads had to be finished because the magazine as a product was supposed to be a throw-away, something you'd be happy to hand on to a friend or leave in a public place for others when you were done. So if you had something excellent, people wouldn't pass it on as you'd want to keep the copy for later re-reading. With the advent of the internet, things are now reversed - once again writers need to PULL an audience, and so the works have to create a desire for more as well as satisfy the reader. I thought about it while I was on the treadmill and realised how I can change the ending to one that does all of what Nick suggests, but most importantly, it's more in line with what I as a writer want to do, which is to explore questions and concepts and play a little. The current ending is very much the way Nick describes the throw away story, with everything neat and finished and easy to dismiss from your brain. I'm going to try and start making my shorts a bit more... sticky... :D
On Food
OMG we had a 750g rib eye steak still on the bone for dinner last night. I seared it on both sides (salted and peppered) in butter, 3 and a half minutes each side and then popped it into the oven until it reached 56 degrees celcius and then let it rest for about 15 minutes. It was to die for. Soooo veryyyy goood. Did I ramble about the tequila bar the other day? I can't use the word 'restaurant' in relation to it any more, because it's totally not. It's a bar, full of tequila. I am getting unnatural urges again...
Party Party Party Pants!
I corsetted up for a Firefly party on the weekend! I uploaded a pic and it's up to 56 likes and 26 comments. Now I am wondering what I need to wear to get a hundred likes... Party was lovely, and every one did an amazing job at decorations and theme. It was great to see such effort, and it all looked so good! I am terrible at decorations - after all, every available wall in my house is already covered with book shelves, awards, books shelves, TV surrounded by book shelves, paintings, book shelves, and couch.
NAFF Fundraising
I am firming up my plans for the Wine, Cheese and Corsetry NAFF Fundraiser. or have I already mentioned that? :)
Deep thoughts for today?
I was thinking about activism again, and what do I do that counts as activism? How am I travelling on my 20 year plan, and will the things I do still affect my 1,000 year plan?
Uh oh. One question at a time. What do I do that counts as activism?
Well, these blog posts are an expression of activism. In that I am creating a space in which I can play, can critique, explore, challenge and nurture ideas, concepts, situations, and paradigms, and hopefully make my writing richer and my conversations more interesting. I raise my boys to be as considerate and aware as I can, and I am excited about future conversations we will have as they grow older and learn how to ask questions and see more of the context around us.
I try to be me as much as I can. I have a belief that to be less than I am is against the basic fundamentals of life. I am so very lucky to have everything I have, and to not try and be the most I can be? Would be detrimental and actually a form of harming those who have been so wonderful to support and love me and give me the gifts I have. The gifts I have are an ability to love and forgive, to communicate, inspire people, talk, create safe liminal spaces, read people, and my empathy. Oh my empathy.
I think those are my gifts. I may have missed some, but they will do for the purpose of this discussion. Things I have learnt that use those gifts... organisation, writing, talking/speaking, listening, and... um... well, that really does cover a lot. Fandom, writing, activism, speaking clearly and enunciating slowly... all are crucial things. :) So being out there and doing the best I can, and being seen to be trying, all of this is importan and I see as activism. The fact I get things wrong as much as I get things right is also equally important.
Bearing my heart is also a form of activism. When I talk about my miscarriages and my experiences with depression and other murky things that happen TO people, I am breaking silences down, and contributing to a collective body of knowledge.Maybe it means the next time the same silence has to be broken, it is easier. And the next time, easier again.
I think we're in a time of change, with the noise of a million voices starting to rise. More and more people are starting to be able to live beyond survival and start to look around and ponder on the life we have and the life we choose to live. And more and more people are starting to reach that luxury every day. I'm wondering how much noise do we all make, how long before we all make choices from the plethora of data before us, before we stop making choices based in fear and jealousy and start making choices based in sharing and loving?
How am I travelling on my 20 year plan, and will the things I do still affect my 1,000 year plan?
Well, the twenty year plan is actually going really well. I think this is the 6th year? Anyway, the original plan was to run a few Femmeconnes and then work from there trying to make social change, and I learnt a lot from the femmeconne process that I have incorporated into my every day. Femmeconne showed me one way of talking to people, but in the end without SarahX, it wasn't going to be a continual thing. Femmeconne was born out of our mixed energies, and I couldn't sustain it once she was gone. However I did firm up ideas on what I should be doing, in terms of the things I want to write about and whether people would be interested in the sorts of things i wanted to explore. I also feel drawn to smaller groups these days, and I think small groups of big personal changes are a bit more interesting than grappling with energy management of large groups while Sarah was gone. I think I may have explained that badly; when sarah and I ran femmeconne, we formed a gestalt, in that both of our energies were magnified while running the convention and during preparation. With out her, I don't have that gestalt which enabled me to meet as many people's needs for safe space discussions. I know I didn't meet every one's needs, and I'm sorry about that. However I did do a lot of good stuff for a lot of people, and I really liked helping and providing that space. The big problem, as ever, is money. A smaller group would still have to cover food and accommodation costs, so we'd be looking at a much higher price, plus it's time I started to get paid for the work I do.
I think I got distracted. So, the 20 year plan.. the first 5 was for me to sound things out and see how I felt, and I did. I sounded out the unconference idea, and with the loss of Sarah decided to instead funnel more energy into fandom and learning skills for communication (ie, writing.) So now is the cosolidation phase where I start to put my work out there and hope people like it. Launch and learn time, baby, launch and learn! I am thinking if I can't sell some of my stories, I might just launch them here and learn what happens the fun way. (With great terror?)
Have a great week!
Spelling checker says I spelled restaurant right ! Quite possibly the first time ever! Yay!
Now, I had some ideas about blogging for today, and I even recorded them so I don't forget. However, we'll save that for the end of the post. You'll have to wade through the daily crap first LOL
On Writing
I have been re-reading Nick Mamatas's Starve Better, which is a rather fabulous little book of essays about writing and the publishing industry. Each of his essays are interesting and useful, and I've realised why I am not in love with my story that won the honorable mention from WOTF. So now I have a plan to fix it LOL and maybe then I will sell it! Yay sale! Well, yay potential sale!
However, now that the initial enthusiasm has gone (it's been an hour or two since I thought of how I want to fix the story) I'm getting cold feet. I mean, it's a good story. Why would I want to mess with it? What benefit could there be? Do I have to? I haven't even sold it, is this going to be a risk worth taking? But the end reason why I want to play with this story more is because it was never really in line with what I, as a writer, want to do.
One of Nick's essays discusses how short stories used to be a throw away story, where all the threads had to be finished because the magazine as a product was supposed to be a throw-away, something you'd be happy to hand on to a friend or leave in a public place for others when you were done. So if you had something excellent, people wouldn't pass it on as you'd want to keep the copy for later re-reading. With the advent of the internet, things are now reversed - once again writers need to PULL an audience, and so the works have to create a desire for more as well as satisfy the reader. I thought about it while I was on the treadmill and realised how I can change the ending to one that does all of what Nick suggests, but most importantly, it's more in line with what I as a writer want to do, which is to explore questions and concepts and play a little. The current ending is very much the way Nick describes the throw away story, with everything neat and finished and easy to dismiss from your brain. I'm going to try and start making my shorts a bit more... sticky... :D
On Food
OMG we had a 750g rib eye steak still on the bone for dinner last night. I seared it on both sides (salted and peppered) in butter, 3 and a half minutes each side and then popped it into the oven until it reached 56 degrees celcius and then let it rest for about 15 minutes. It was to die for. Soooo veryyyy goood. Did I ramble about the tequila bar the other day? I can't use the word 'restaurant' in relation to it any more, because it's totally not. It's a bar, full of tequila. I am getting unnatural urges again...
Party Party Party Pants!
I corsetted up for a Firefly party on the weekend! I uploaded a pic and it's up to 56 likes and 26 comments. Now I am wondering what I need to wear to get a hundred likes... Party was lovely, and every one did an amazing job at decorations and theme. It was great to see such effort, and it all looked so good! I am terrible at decorations - after all, every available wall in my house is already covered with book shelves, awards, books shelves, TV surrounded by book shelves, paintings, book shelves, and couch.
NAFF Fundraising
I am firming up my plans for the Wine, Cheese and Corsetry NAFF Fundraiser. or have I already mentioned that? :)
Deep thoughts for today?
I was thinking about activism again, and what do I do that counts as activism? How am I travelling on my 20 year plan, and will the things I do still affect my 1,000 year plan?
Uh oh. One question at a time. What do I do that counts as activism?
Well, these blog posts are an expression of activism. In that I am creating a space in which I can play, can critique, explore, challenge and nurture ideas, concepts, situations, and paradigms, and hopefully make my writing richer and my conversations more interesting. I raise my boys to be as considerate and aware as I can, and I am excited about future conversations we will have as they grow older and learn how to ask questions and see more of the context around us.
I try to be me as much as I can. I have a belief that to be less than I am is against the basic fundamentals of life. I am so very lucky to have everything I have, and to not try and be the most I can be? Would be detrimental and actually a form of harming those who have been so wonderful to support and love me and give me the gifts I have. The gifts I have are an ability to love and forgive, to communicate, inspire people, talk, create safe liminal spaces, read people, and my empathy. Oh my empathy.
I think those are my gifts. I may have missed some, but they will do for the purpose of this discussion. Things I have learnt that use those gifts... organisation, writing, talking/speaking, listening, and... um... well, that really does cover a lot. Fandom, writing, activism, speaking clearly and enunciating slowly... all are crucial things. :) So being out there and doing the best I can, and being seen to be trying, all of this is importan and I see as activism. The fact I get things wrong as much as I get things right is also equally important.
Bearing my heart is also a form of activism. When I talk about my miscarriages and my experiences with depression and other murky things that happen TO people, I am breaking silences down, and contributing to a collective body of knowledge.Maybe it means the next time the same silence has to be broken, it is easier. And the next time, easier again.
I think we're in a time of change, with the noise of a million voices starting to rise. More and more people are starting to be able to live beyond survival and start to look around and ponder on the life we have and the life we choose to live. And more and more people are starting to reach that luxury every day. I'm wondering how much noise do we all make, how long before we all make choices from the plethora of data before us, before we stop making choices based in fear and jealousy and start making choices based in sharing and loving?
How am I travelling on my 20 year plan, and will the things I do still affect my 1,000 year plan?
Well, the twenty year plan is actually going really well. I think this is the 6th year? Anyway, the original plan was to run a few Femmeconnes and then work from there trying to make social change, and I learnt a lot from the femmeconne process that I have incorporated into my every day. Femmeconne showed me one way of talking to people, but in the end without SarahX, it wasn't going to be a continual thing. Femmeconne was born out of our mixed energies, and I couldn't sustain it once she was gone. However I did firm up ideas on what I should be doing, in terms of the things I want to write about and whether people would be interested in the sorts of things i wanted to explore. I also feel drawn to smaller groups these days, and I think small groups of big personal changes are a bit more interesting than grappling with energy management of large groups while Sarah was gone. I think I may have explained that badly; when sarah and I ran femmeconne, we formed a gestalt, in that both of our energies were magnified while running the convention and during preparation. With out her, I don't have that gestalt which enabled me to meet as many people's needs for safe space discussions. I know I didn't meet every one's needs, and I'm sorry about that. However I did do a lot of good stuff for a lot of people, and I really liked helping and providing that space. The big problem, as ever, is money. A smaller group would still have to cover food and accommodation costs, so we'd be looking at a much higher price, plus it's time I started to get paid for the work I do.
I think I got distracted. So, the 20 year plan.. the first 5 was for me to sound things out and see how I felt, and I did. I sounded out the unconference idea, and with the loss of Sarah decided to instead funnel more energy into fandom and learning skills for communication (ie, writing.) So now is the cosolidation phase where I start to put my work out there and hope people like it. Launch and learn time, baby, launch and learn! I am thinking if I can't sell some of my stories, I might just launch them here and learn what happens the fun way. (With great terror?)
Have a great week!
Spelling checker says I spelled restaurant right ! Quite possibly the first time ever! Yay!
