Two things - a contract and rebranding

First up.
Not only do I have a contract (anthology) signed, sealed, and delivered, but I also have our book cover to show off! I'll announce again when the book is actually *out* but Footnotes to a Lesson, described as my 'thinking man's zombie' story is appearing in the 'Dead Worlds' Anthology, eta July 2009.

The story, which was the first one I waved at my new tutor after xmas has been highly praised but really *really* hard to place, because the protagonist isn't a traditional inhabitant of a zombie tale - and to be completely honest, I do some fairly gross, and unexpected things to her.

But it's in this anthology - under my pen name 'Sabrann Curach' (I hope!) which is really cool. Mama got a book contract ;)

And onto point two - I'm in the process of a massive shakeup of all of my 'stuff'. As I have stupid amounts of 'stuff' scattered all over the web (I am the proverbial spoiled child in a candy store because I can write, code and design quite readily - in other words I've got no barriers to creation - just upkeep!) it's taking me a while, but it got me thinking about rebranding.
As a starter, before I start sharing links and stuff, cause this will be a topic I'll be on for a while, do you have a brand? Are you at a point where you could start bringing stuff together and create a solid concept brand or are you scattered like me?
Is there anything YOU need ideas to get to or brainstorming? Stick em in the comments and we'll see what we can do ;)

WOW, Twitter and writing

Talk about title stuffing huh, but that's the kind of attention span I have at the moment.
Anyway...
World of Warcraft is eeeebil. With four capital E's. For a start, I'm finding it very difficult not to stand up and scream 'Pwned' at the top of my lungs in creative writing board meetings, and for seconds, I'm trying to find a way to incorporate writing and WOWing. And it' isn't happening.
The thing about World of Warcraft is it's repititon on an ever increasing difficulty slider, but it's more like this buzz tooth scale, cause for a little while, at your new level, you're a 'harder' target for most mobs (non player characters, controlled by the program, that you have to kill). It's a bit like writing really - in some ways at least. You write up the scale, 'level' and then things are easier for a bit, till you tackle the next 'boss'.
Screaming PWNED at your manuscript won't win you points though.

Twitter is one of those things I'm now discovering is an intregal part of my 'day'. Since I got myself a very shiny G1, it's easier to do social networking basics, like tweet, so my feed has become just as innane, but updated no matter where I am, so it's slightly more random. No Pwning (ok, I'll stop it now), but plenty of silliness abounds. The great thing about the updater I use is it does my facebook and myspace feed - the downside is 'is ' is three outta 140 characters, so I miss it off most of the time, so my Facebook looks kinda wierd.
I'm looking for more people to add to my feed though, so if you're there, feel free to @kaiberie me and I can add you (and you can add me, if you like ;))

Writing on the other hand, unless you include my tweets and WOWage has gone....interestingly. I'm still halfway through my degree, and it's kinda hard to keep focus, to be honest. I'm constantly tired, and headachey, and have been coping with the snow on top of that, but lately, I'm finding that my non creative writing stuff (psychology and crime) is making me write more fiction. Poetry is intermittently sucky, depending on whether I'm focussed enough or not (usually not) and blogging is a complete non starter at the moment.

And that's my round up. Now, I'm curious, as ever. If you had to choose three words to sum up your week, what would they be, why and what slant can you put on them?

And This is Why I Can't be Super-WAHM Every Day...

Or, "This is Why I Can't Stick to a Schedule"

It seems like it never fails: I craft my plan for the day or the week, carefully including all the different aspects of my busy week, then something derails it.

Some days I have monumental plans for being the ultimate writer, a model of efficiency, speeding through first drafts as if there was a fire sale on verbs. Then it happens: the interviewee is out of the office all day despite our scheduled appointment, or the school calls and I have to pick up my daughter, or the dog is sick and I have to haul out the carpet cleaner immediately or we'll have a weird green stain by the back door. (Okay, the last part was TMI maybe.)

Other days, the homemaking side of my life is at the forefront of my plans. I'm going to wash, dry and fold 7 loads of laundry, get $300 worth of groceries for $75, and finally repot that poor, wilting houseplant. Then the washer breaks, or the email dings with a rush assignment or, as is the case today, my favorite couponing site is kaput.

I'm not very flexible, really. Or maybe I'm just stretched so far that even ElastiGirl would snap under similar circumstances. Whenever a monkey-wrench is thrown into my plans, it takes me some time to wrap my head around this new course of events and switch over to a new groove. (<--That paragraph, my dears, is pure genius use of cliches and mixed metaphors. Not to be attempted by mere amateurs! :P )

Not every day is like this, of course. It's just that for every day that being a work-at-home mother seems to be the ideal lifestyle, there's a day when getting up early to shower, dress and commute seems easier.

I know it isn't true, but it's a nice little fantasy that wahm-types occasionally indulge in. It's ironic, then, that when I had an office job, I dreamt that being a writer working from home would be all rose petals and chocolate.

This has been another installment of the ongoing whine that can be heard across the Internet. :) It's not really all that bad - it's just that my $75 might only buy me $75 worth of groceries today.

"I" is Interesting

My gentle high school English teacher Mrs. Callaway spent the first several months of my senior year striking all of the "I"s out of my literature essays. She was one of my favorite teachers of all time - she was strict but encouraging. (I can still see her face, stricken with the joy of epiphany, whenever she read one of my essays. It wasn't that I was really that awesome, I suspect. She was just thrilled anytime one of her students showed genuine interest.)

After a year in her class, basking in her praise and sweating under her tutelage, I finally managed to write something without the word "I" in it.

But Mrs. Callaway couldn't have predicted the breakout trend of blogging. And that's why I don't feel any tremendous amount of guilt for rejoicing like a heathen when I read How Freelance Writing Almost Destroyed My Blog. Rebecca Laffar-Smith, an Australian freelance writer and author of the Writer's Round-About blog, explains how site stats finally convinced her to make her posts more personal. And that means using "I" once in a while.

"I" couldn't be happier. And "I" didn't need more convincing. But if you want more proof - complete with graphs and bullet-points - check out SelfMadeChick.com's post: The One Word That Helped My Blog Grow to 800 Subscribers in 17 Weeks

Obviously, there are blogs that do quite well by giving readers useful, helpful information without a lot of navel-gazing. But you know, when I think about the blogs in my feed-reader, I can't think of ONE - even technical ones - that isn't written in first-person.

"I" is interesting. And I really don't think Mrs. Callaway, if she were alive and reading blogs today, would disagree.

Can you step back from your online life?

Image by uomoelettrico via FlickrI'll be honest with you, I've spent the last two weeks soul searching and wondering what I'm supposed to do with myself because of an accident that occured this last September.
I've always been a fairly independant, sharp articulate woman. I could always spell just about anything (other than my i before e's - and when my fingers go slightly faster than my brain) but at the moment, I'm finding it difficult.
My memory is shot - and there are definitive gaps where stories, characters, and plotlines used to reside - I think. The only reason I *know* the stories are missing are because I have notes that otherwise make no sense.

So the soul searching is kinda hard. I know that I have some sort of brain damage - though, I have to say, it fees really bad to say that. Like I'm belittling that kind of injury, because I'm almost as functional as I was. But I've been going looking for a lot of approval lately.
My partner noticed it first. I stopped writing and wouldn't continue till he told me it was 'all right'. Normally I have to beat him and other freinds off with metaphorical crowbars and they have to distract me to read anything that isn't second to last draft.
I did it again later in the week. I wouldn't continue with the story I was narrating till someone told me to and got REALLY frustrated, because I couldn't say what I was waiting for.

And that brings me full circle. I AM waaaay reliant on other people's opinions - and to be honest, I think that many writers and bloggers are. We seek approval all over the place, and when we don't get it, some of us start to wilt. I never used to 'need' approval, or at least, so I thought, but reading back some of the stuff that I've said and done this last year, because a freind said that I wasn't doing as 'they' expected, or because someon had attacked one of my principles, I'm beginning to wonder if that's part of the deeper problem that's taking hold. I wonder if I'm being 'wierd' like this because I've got nothing left to relate to and need to restart with *just* writing.
So I put my websites on 'dark'. It'll give me a chance to write, and find myself again, as a gift for Christmas. And to be honest, from some of the emails I've had, I think some of you need to do the same.
Give yourself the gift of joy this year and don't keep putting 'it' off. I did and I'm not REALLY regretting it. I might get a second chance, and just watch me, I'm already just itching to grab it with both hands and never let go.

I Am A Lost Writer, You Want To Know Why?

I am a lost writer right now. I feel a part of me is missing. Today (actually last night DH informed me), my electrical cord for the laptop decided to stop working. I could not believe it. As I plugged in my laptop, I noticed the battery wasn't charging. At first, I thought it was nothing because I thought it would take a minute or so. It didn't, the battery kept losing life until the laptop died.

I played with the cord. I wiggled it. I even put tape around certain parts thinking if it had stronger support, the currents would reach the laptop. Nothing worked, so when DH called me today, I told him about my laptop. He told me it actually happened last night after I went to bed. Then why didn't he tell me that today??
Instead, I had packed my laptop with me to my parents' house, instead of having a productive afternoon on the laptop, I had a dead laptop. Oh the irony of all this. Um, I am not exactly what the irony is but I felt like putting that in this post.

So DH says that he will get me a new laptop cord. I know he will, but it totally feels weird without my laptop.

You know how some writers love pens? I do, but I also love my laptop.

Is Being A "Muslim" or "Arab" an Insult in U.S. politics?

This year we have seen some of the most interesting political campaigns in the U.S. Many are cautiously watch this election, wondering exactly who should we vote for, and what happens if you don't want to vote either of them.

I am not gonna tell you who you should vote for and why. What I want to tell you is that I am kind of disturbed how many see being a "Muslim" or being an "Arab" is a bad thing. Why should that be? Don't you see that this is a form of racism? With this type of mentality, you are oppressing Arabs and Muslims, when in fact you and they can benefit or learn from each other.

About one week ago, a lady tells John McCain that she didn't want Barack Obama to be president of the U.S. because he is an Arab. Ummm...what is that supposed to mean? We are living in 2008, not 1868 or even 1968. I thought we have come a long way from that kind of thinking.

Many people will say, yeah but Faten, look what happened in 9/11, etc. I say ok, but you can't hold every single person from that same ethnic group responsible. It is not fair or realistic. Then every human on this planet would be just as guilty. Now tell me what a child had to do with a tragedy? That is what I thought.

A fantastic article I think every person should read is Commentary: So what if Obama were a Muslim or an Arab?. I give Campbell Brown kudos for this awesome piece that she wrote. I appreciate her attempts on educating the public on deconstructing the myth of equalizing Arab and Muslims with insults and "bad". Good job Campbell--you just gained a faithful reader.

Followers, time keeping and my biggest WAH bugbear

I noticed recently that blogger released this 'nifty' function called 'followers'. I'm wondering how different it is from things like myBloglog, because, to be honest, I'm not so worried about who is reading any of the blogs I work on (though, I, and everyone else at MNABC adore you all, it goes without saying) - but who is commenting, and more importantly, why they aren't. It's nice being able to see how many readers a blog has, but I think that metrics, like statistics, are fairly pointless. I've got a PR6 blog (it used to be PR9, and I...ahem...ignored it for a while) that has thousands of readers daily, and dozens of comments, but I write it simply because I want to). Most importantly of all, I'm always most interested in knowing people are enjoying themselves, but that's another one of those 'goes without sayings'.
The thing I love about social networking, blogging and everything that groups into that 'medium' is that it's always moving forward, which, at the moment I'm not.
I'm in the process of testing out yet more time management tools, now that I've discovered I spend 'oh my god too much!' time on email (it's coming out as my top 'task' at two hours every day!). I've been looking at goals and goal setting, specifically for writers, so I'll have lots of fun observations to share. Sorry, did I say fun, I meant, soul numbingly depressing that I didn't work it all out sooner.
Heather's also already hit on my biggest WAH bugbear. It even comes behind people not taking me seriously - spam.
I hate being 'spamvertised' at by people that should otherwise know better. And it's kinda sad to say, but since joining Haro, as that's an address I only USE for Haro stuff, I am getting spammed. Haro's owner has said that he'll take action though, so I might start forwarding the spam instead of deleting it out of hand.
Given my email is my biggest time drain though, it's really not helping my second goal....

So - anyone else got anything they want to get off their chests? Any bugbears? Disagree that spam is worse than not being taken seriously? Don't care about spam? I'd love to hear from you!

Give it your best shot: Rewrite these cliches

There's a reason cliches (where's that accent character for the "e"?) became cliches. I posted about this at my other blog today for my newly-declared Corny Cliche Saturday.

I admit to being a little fond of them. Usually they are succintly-worded universal truths that we do well to heed. Think about the first time you heard, "Stop and smell the roses." Well? Isn't that good advice? I have a doo-hickey in my kitchen that says "Take time to smell the coffee." (I bought it as a gift for my husband who is a coffee aficionado.)

But as much as I like them, there is a good reason for us as writers to avoid overused phrases. The message that is really quite important becomes dulled with repetitive use and what was once a revelation soon becomes "yeah yeah I know."

How would you rewrite these sayings to bring life back into their meaning?

"They grow up so fast."
"On your deathbed, you won't wish you had spent more time at work."
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

And if you have some corny cliches you love anyway, feel free to post them in the comments. I'm going to need some more next Saturday. :)

Review: WAHM Magazine

WAHM Magazine - The only content-driven digital magazine for work at home parents

If you're a work-at-home parent or thinking about becoming one, this just may be your magazine. WAHM is a bi-monthly digital magazine covering all the different facets of being a work-at-home parent.

Erika Geiss, founder and publisher of WAHM Magazine, envisioned a magazine dedicated to "the whole enchilada" of working from home. It doesn't just focus on business, but also parenting, personal and professional relationships, health and fitness, time management and more.

(Hey, kind of like Mama Needs a Book Contract, but with editing.)

Ms. Geiss allowed me a peek at a sample of the premier issue, and I like it.

At first, the digital format drove me crazy, with scrolling and zooming troubles, until I discovered that I could resize the window to fit my screen. Then I had few problems, and could settle in for an enjoyable read. (I'll admit, I wish it were available in a print version, but that isn't in the plans right now and won't be unless it can be done in an eco-friendly way. It's just that this is the kind of magazine I'd like to grab and read on the couch, or take a highlighter to, or throw in my bag to read in the pediatrician's waiting room.)

Articles range from cute shorts to helpful features. The premier issue includes a Q & A with Stephanie Gruber (work-at-home-parent and founder of BabyTalkBio.com and FrunchyMama.com) tax-time tips from an expert, and service pieces on beating work-at-home isolation, feng-shui for the home office, and clutter-busting strategies. A section called "Stories from the Trenches" gives first-person accounts of those who are doing it, and the "My Time" articles focus on gardening and relaxation. This issue's "Nitty Gritty" gives the scoop on virtual conferences, and "Health and Fitness" goes beyond the page with two podcasts.

Yes, podcasts! I guess that's one advantage a print version of the magazine could not offer.

I have to say that I am impressed, and I'm not easy to impress. There are a lot of print and web magazines out there competing for my attention. WAHM is the kind of magazine I wish the rest of them could be: smart, relevant, useful, and serious without being full of itself. (Hey, when you are a work-at-home parent, you can't take yourself too seriously. We giggle with our toddlers one minute and hit send on a pitch the next. And it's just hard to get on an ego-trip when you smell like peanut butter.)

And speaking of not taking yourself too seriously - my favorite humorist, Amy Mullis, will have a column in WAHM. That has to be worth the price of a subscription in itself.

So what is the price of a subscription (and what does it include)? $24 per year includes 6 bi-monthly issues, full access to WAHM archives and forums, webinars and podcasts, and 10 e-newsletters per year.

I think I'll spring for it. :)

Summary from the WAHM Media Kit:

Feature Sections
 Voices—a featured interview with a work-at-home parent, ideally a well-recognized figure who has achieved success as a work-at-home parent
 The Nitty-Gritty—a section devoted to work-at-home business issues
 Parenting—from being a work-at-home parent with babies and toddlers to 'tweens and teens and beyond
 Relationships—those with significant others/partners, business partners and associates, and friends and family beyond what would be covered in parenting
 My Time—a section devoted to relaxation, rejuvenation and personal time
 Health and Fitness—a column by Craig Pepin-Donat, International Health & Fitness expert, and author of the Big, Fat Health and Fitness Lie (Waterside 2007)
 Humor Column—a column by Amy Mullis, the “New Erma Bombeck.”
 Stories from the Trenches—a section devoted to creative non-fiction

They take submissions from freelancers! Here's a link to the submission guidelines.

All the News that's Fit to Print...

Sometimes you know you want to post something, but you have too many random ideas to come up with a cohesive blog post. Really great bloggers write these ideas down, develop them into posts, and save them up for times when they'll be unable to work for some reason. Other bloggers (ahem) just make a nice list of random, disjointed facts.

Random, disjointed facts:

1. Did you know you're supposed to use a relevant title for blog posts so the search engines can figure out what the heck you're blogging about?

2. Here's a happy fact for ya: Sometimes editors and others who want you to write for them Google your name. I know! Intimidating, right? It's like public speaking, but you can't picture them in their underwear when you don't even know who they are!

3. My laptop cord broke. Then my replacement laptop cord broke. If I can ever force myself to wait on hold for an hour, I will try to get my money back. But I don't know if they will reimburse my overnight shipping expenses. Somehow I doubt it.

4. Fact number 3 makes me want to cry. But I won't. Instead I will try to drum up some righteous indignation for that phone call. Their hold music and repeated, recorded attempts to assure me that they are committed to customer satisfaction will help immensely.

5. I took a break from writing about overcoming procrastination to post this.

6. Fact number 5 is the dirty little secret no one ever tells you about writers. (Hint: They don't always take their own advice.) Oops. I wonder if I was supposed to let the cat out of the bag?

7. "Let the cat out of the bag" is a cliche. (a) You should avoid them in good writing. (b) Using them in blog posts, however, is perfectly acceptable!

8. Fact number 7(b) is a matter of opinion and therefore not really a fact.

9. It isn't always easy to come up with relevant blog post titles - nor relevant blog posts, for that matter. And that, my friends, is a fact.

10. Fact: 10 points in a list is really better than 9.

Fear and Doubt in Calgary

Recently I mailed off the contract, author's questionnaire and a headshot to my new publisher, Storey Books.

After the thrill of two weeks of back-and-forthing between publishers, I had the contract. It was in the mail. Then it was in my hands. Then there was signing and reading and a questionnaire to answer... a headshot to have printed. Then it was done.

75K

Half due on Feb 29/08. The rest due in June.

And now is when the fear begins to take hold. Because Holy Crapola I'm Writing Another Book And Surely Now They Will Find Out I'm A Big Fake. Yes, I've ushered over 200 articles through to completion, yes I've written a 50K non fiction book already, yes I have good chunks of the book already written and researched....

But now it is all IN WRITING.

Now it is an expectation and (thank you, dad) what I fear most is not meeting someone's expectations.

Hello dear publisher/editor, if you are reading this, please ignore. This is normal. I used to do this with each article too but I got them done and done well thankyouverymuch.

I know that Shirley Jump has talked about being afraid during the book writing process. I Googled shirley jump fear (in case, dear Shirley, you wonder why that search string showed up in your stats) and I found this article:

Projecting Confidence When You're Terrified

My favorite is number five:

Believe in Yourself (Even if You're Pretending): "When I want to project confidence, I pretend that I am my worst competition. I envision myself as the most qualified, beautiful, and well-spoken candidate for the job," says writer Sheri Wallace. If necessary, talk to yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that you are a good writer.

That's what I do. Feel the fear, do it anyway, freak out on the inside. Really, whenever someone says I'm "accomplished" or that I've done a lot, I think "you really should see things from in hear because we're not sure what's going on and the hamster is about to run out of water".

But, again, I go back to Shirley, who is not old, but who is wise. She wrote Keep Doubt From Stealing Your Dreams.

In it she featured the quote:

"Doubt is a thief that often makes us fear to tread where we might have won."

I really think doubt is a thief. There's that evil, mean, nasty voice inside our heads that is constantly telling us that we aren't good enough. That we are just faking it, that we really have no business doing what we are doing. That voice? That voice really makes me angry.

If you ask my husband, he'll tell you that I do not like to be told what to do. He gets to sometimes because we're a team and that means sometimes you let someone tell you what to do. (I know, not the technical definition of team, which is somewhat more warm and fuzzy) But others? Oh no. You don't tell me what to do and more importantly, you sure don't get to tell me what NOT to do.

So now, instead of telling myself "Heather, you are a great writer!" My self-talk is more along the lines of "Look you evil, nasty little voice inside my head. You sit down. It's not your turn. It's my turn, I'm doing it. You can go pound sand because this book is being written and written well and you get no say in it. While you are sitting down there, you just worry about something else, like keeping your job. You know your cousin 'intuition'? She knows when to talk and when to shut the heck up. Read a page from her book, would ya?"

It's all peace and love in my head, can't you tell?

Contract Gripes

Ok. First, a warning: I'm a little hot under the collar. Second, this has nothing to do with my current contract. Third, this has to do with Canadian freelancers in particular.

There are some crappy contracts floating around in some of the media organizations in Canada. They suck. There's no way around that. They are "rights grabbing"... asking for everything they can get including all rights, moral rights and no extra pay just to pour some salt in that wound.

(You know, the one you have from opening up a vein on the page."All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." Red Smith)

But here's the thing. Or, rather, here are the things that are in my craw:

a) It's business. No business in their right mind seeks to pay more if they don't have to.

b) It's up to you as an individual to not sign it and not sell your work to that publication if you want to erradicate the contract.

c) No one is forcing you to sign. Nope, no gun to your head.

So what's a writer to do?

One word: DIVERSIFY.

Write for other markets, do different types of writing (ghostwriting, corporate, magazine, book), learn a supplemental trade (editing, desktop publishing), be smart with your money (plan for feast/famine) and stop whining.

Yes, you heard me. And don't go making that face because one day the wind will change and your face will stay that way!

These contracts are out there because there are writers who will sign them. Become a writer who will not sign them. Be smart about being a business, because as a writer, you are a business. You can't wait for the environment to get any friendlier for you because it won't. The strong survive here, baby. Deal with it.

/rant

It takes a lot of wires to go wireless...

Ugh. I can't believe I'm doing this!

But in a way, it was kind of fun. I realized that I like my office, even though it isn't what anyone would consider a dream office, I'm sure.

Hey, another cool thing about posting these pics? Now someone else gets to see my wall of "Awards and Stuff." (I mean, that's why you frame 'em, right? To show someone?)

My office wouldn't fit in one frame, so here is the first side:

You'll see the millions of wires it takes for me to use my wireless equipment. There are some papers on the right hand side that I have to go through. This is what I get for not being on top of it - Heather wouldn't let us clean up first!

DH installed the counter. It's supported in part by a file cabinet you can't see in the pics. But he did a nice job.

Here's the other part that wouldn't fit in the first shot:
Look at my crappy printer/fax machine. One of these days, I'll either have a decent fax, or technology will have sped past this era.

Technology hasn't completely eliminated the need for a typewriter, though. It's still the only way to fill out hard-copy forms. I don't even know if you can still buy ribbons for these, though. I hope mine never runs out of ink!

My Desk - Heather

I am issuing a challenge to the Mamas on MNABC.

Show me your undewear.

Ok, not really... but almost worse.

Show me your desk. I'll go first.

Let me give you a little tour of The Desk That Shall Not Be Conquered.

1a - My fancy color printer scanner thingy that I had to buy in my last month of writing Rookie Reiner when my daughter knocked over the old one.

1b - The super-fast black and white printer that spit out at least four versions of a 50,000 word book and whose drum is still at 85%.

2 - The November calendar. Strangely blank. Not so strange if you consider that I ripped off "October" just today... um, I'm a little behind. I keep deadlines listed on this sheet, but lately I haven't had very many.

3a - A pile of "to be filed" papers

3b - The little file holder thingies where I can stick more "to be filed" papers and pretend that they are kind of filed.

3c - A pile of "to be filed when the other pile is empty".

4 - Binders for a variety of things: an old photo album from high school, my Pampered Chef binder, my company's record book, blank binders looking longing down at the piles of paper they could be holding if I could figure out exactly how best to use them.

5 - A camera bag with no camera in it because that camera is sitting on my desk next to the lamp. (You can see the strap)

6 - The craziness under my desk. Very tempting to babies who seek to zap themselves. Or turn my external hard drive offonoffonoffonoffonoffon until it has kittens.

7 - Magazines. Waiting to be read. Some are from Spring 2007. *hangs head*. But in my defense I sometimes like to look through magazines to get ideas (no, not STEALING)... for example, I've I'm thinking about an article on horse health, I may look through Self magazine or some human equivalent to spark some parallel thoughts.

8 - I couldn't tell you what is here without looking... it's a place where paper goes to die I think.

9 - Ahhh the bookshelf. Last count, about 800 books. Again, not all of them read. Currently it also serves has holder of the baby products and Fun Toys aka The Books on the Lower Shelves.

So there you go. This is the desk I wrote my first book at. Sometimes I wrote it at the kitchen table on the laptop, but most of it was here... blasting Pink until I was practically a Democrat, cursing photographers who wouldn't send back their permission forms and trying to block the baby from crawling under the desk with my knees.

When You Need A Laugh...

When you need a laugh, Amy Mullis is good for it. I don't know how she does it so reliably. She has that Southern gal humor thing going on with just the right amount of silliness.

If you like punny (and I do), check out Amy's blog, Mind Over Mullis. I just had to tell you about it, because it's so much fun to see what inventive ways she's going to describe something next.

Here, I'll give you an example. This is just a random snippet I stole* from her blog:

"Sending that boy back into the house is like watching an Infomercial for the Thighmaster and waiting for plot development."

That mama will get a book contract one of these days. I'll be standing in line to preorder my copy.

*I didn't realize you could LOL at a copyright notice!

Where's the Good News?

Following up from my post the other day about controversial writing. I had another comment on the article.

In short, I criticized border guards because of some poor behaviour of a few. I received this comment:

I could go on forever about all the superb work my fellow officers and I do every day Heather, but that isn't quite the sensationalism you were striving for. So instead I'll just proudly put on my uniform and go to work Heather, and I hope I can stop the bad guy from getting in to your community tonight.

It falls into a common trap. If 99% of a group is doing good, how come it's the bad guys that get the headlines.

The short answer?

That's the way it works.

If we didn't publicize the bad behaviour of a few, then we'd very likely be accused of either hiding something, covering something up or having a strong bias. I kind of thought I was being just the slightest bit brave by criticizing a few people in an organization I think does a pretty good job. But just because I respect 99% of people in uniform, I'm not going to let the 1% go uncriticized.

However, when I criticize the 1% suddenly people assume I'm criticizing the 99%. No, that's not how it works.

Unfortunately, people like the commenter above don't come to news (MSM or not) looking for a headline that reads "Today Everyone Did Their Job and No One Got Hurt". It would be nice if that one popped up, but it never does.

Would an article about border guards doing a great job have made the news? Nope. Because editors and readers would assume a bias. Not every organization has every employee working at optimum status. The fact that you do your job is expected, not newsworthy.

When it comes to anyone in uniform, I admit my bias: I want to follow what they say. I want them to be the good guys. I want them to win.

And that's why it peeves me off when people within their own ranks disrespect their fellow workers. Yes, it does cast doubt on the group as a whole. Yes, I shone a light on that. I want them to pull their bootstraps up and kick the idiots out. Because I expect better.

But no, the good news that no police officers died today or no border guards were injured or no firefighter was killed... those things don't make the news. But they happen every day. And I'm glad.

Feminists could have just stopped like, one or two steps sooner.

Oh, go ahead and flog me with a wet noodle, but I'm only kidding. A little.

Lately I've developed a reminiscence for an era I never experienced (and that probably never existed in reality). After two weeks of tight deadlines and other stuff I needed to do but can't remember anymore, I LONGED for the days when my biggest challenge would have been trying to vacuum in my high heels.

Of course I'm a huge fan of equal rights for women. The idea that women can't do something because they're women is stoopid. But when feminists said we could do anything, did they have to keep talking? Just stop right there: "We can do anything."

But oh no, somebody somewhere started saying we could have it ALL! Not just anything - now we have to do EVERYTHING!

And I don't blame men. It's not their fault they can shoot baskets all day long and still miss the hamper and the potty. That's genetic. What's more, they don't care if we clean up after them or not. That's US feeling like we have to do it. (Yeah, 'cause we don't want to live in a pigsty.)

Disclaimer: Actually, my husband is one of the new, improved kind of men. He made dinner twice last week (without me asking) and bailed me out of a few other things when I had to work. (He is the primary breadwinner in this family, but he's not afraid of a little housekeeping.) Which is great. I am so thankful!

So no, not complaining about him.

I'm just not a multi-tasker. Well, I am for specified periods of time, but then I'm brainless during a short recovery period. That's when I usually look up at the clock and ask, "What can I make with 5 spaghetti noodles and this shiny brown apple?"

I want to be the perfect housewife. I know women who are. Even women who work. (Oh wait. I forgot again that I work too. It's easy to do when there's no steady paycheck coming in!)

Ah, but I'm am so gloriously happy sometimes, though. I would never want to have to choose between all the things I get to do. Sigh. I suspect it isn't the feminists' fault after all. It's me who wants to do everything.

I just wish I were better at it!