Current Smarts: Voting
My dad is Patriotic. Wait, I should have written it like this: CAPITOL P-atriotic. He used to read excerpts from newsletters written by Dobson and Schlafly at the dinner table. He sent me to John Birch camp. He gets tears in his eyes when he talks about the founding fathers. No, I’m not saying you have to be a die-hard Republican to be patriotic. I’m just saying my dad is both.
I can’t tell you how many times we talked about how great America was because it was a democracy and the people got to make the choices that shaped the direction the government went. And I believed it. Pretty much all of it. Until something happened. I turned into a teenager. And because I associated my father with being Republican, and based on that alone, I couldn’t support them anymore. I started watching the debates on TV and I didn’t like them. I turned into a Democrat just to be rebellious.
Somewhere in my mid-twenties, while married and living abroad, with my (then)husband fighting the wars and skirmishes that I had no control over (even as a Democrat!) I spent a year or so hating Clinton and wishing for a Republican president. The Germans didn’t want us there. We didn’t want to be there. As far as I could tell, we weren’t doing any good there and I didn’t understand what took so long for us to downsize our presence there. And then, we were downsized and it sucked even more than before because we had to drive twice as long (2 hours in no traffic) for just about any military type service. There was just no pleasin’ me. But, as I understand it, we still have a presence there and probably always will, just like we will in every country we put our people in. We are the friends that don’t know when to go home.
Somewhere during the 90s, I got a bad taste in my mouth about our government and how it worked. Or, didn’t work. I didn’t like the futility I felt in wanting anything to change. I didn’t see how anything could be changed. And I just kind of turned myself off. It didn’t seem to matter who was president or running the house.
In the late 90s, I had a very personal experience with our healthcare system when I tried to get help for my waning mental condition and found that in order to get well, I’d have to move out of California and continually debate my way to proving that I was incompetent in order to qualify for help. Which I eventually did. But it was dehumanizing and for months my depression was mostly about not feeling like a whole or worthwhile person after repeating just how incompetent I was day after day after day. Thankfully, I got the help I needed and am one of the lucky ones. However, my anger and frustration with our government and its Systems is pretty overwhelming. And then you have this war. And Bush being reelected. And why do I even get out of bed in the morning?
All of this is to tell you: I’m not a voter. The last time I voted was in 2004, and I hated it so bad that I immediately tried to purge it from my memory. It feels so WRONG and CONDESCENDING to find out at 1pm that your state has already been counted for one candidate or another when you haven’t even VOTED YET. Futility. But, I still went and cast my vote for the losing team.
By the time a party-approved candidate gets elected to any government position they have made so many promises, accepted so much money from special interests and scratched so many backs that it just seem so altruistic and naive to believe they are still working ‘for the people.’ How could they possibly? And if my only choices are two people that have been ‘party-approved’ and I don’t believe in them, where is my recourse? Why is it always the guy I don’t like or the guy I don’t like more?
I’ve been so ashamed to talk about this. Partly because of the way I was raised and partly because I do so appreciate living in a country where we have a certain amount of freedom. And I think the thing that my soul bridles against is that it feels to me that this whole voting thing we do is a charade, a game, a way for the powers that be to placate us (the little people) into thinking we are doing something, anything, when really we are just spinning our wheels. I also believe that if you are going to complain about something, you better be prepared to do something about it. Stop whining and change it. But in this case, I can’t figure out how to change anything, which has created some kind of immobility on my part. But, if the entire country was filled with people like me, nothing would ever get done and there would be no hope. So doing what I’ve been doing, not voting, can’t be the answer.
I went looking online to see if I was alone in this. I mean, I know that one of the main refrains we hear is that half of America’s people don’t vote and a close second is the youth of today don’t vote. Remember Sean Combs and the Vote or Die/Rock the Vote campaign? He got an additional 4 million voters in that demographic to come out and vote but everywhere you listened, they talked about how that campaign did no good and it was a waste. An additional 4 million votes were a waste? Then what good does my one vote do?
This guy thinks that voting is actually un-American. This guy is celebrating not voting 42 times. . I can see their point, but I don’t agree. Author Jane Haddam has some interesting views in her series. James Clingman wrote something wonderful in the Baltimore Times Online. A few years ago the Center for Voting and Democracy held an essay contest. Here is what the ‘youth’ had to say about why we don’t vote. Steven Hill, in 2002, writes that the youth not voting has nothing to do with them being apathetic, since the trend is for them to be more involved in the community than ever before. This article/class outline talks about how important each vote is going back as far as the election in 1824-25. Here is a frustrated Conservative. Proving that this is in no way a new problem, here is an article from 1976 which includes a nice breakdown of percentages for the time. Also, I didn’t realize that you were fined in other countries for not voting. Australia had a 97% voting turnout (in 1972) in part to avoid paying a $15 fine each. Youth Noise is trying to entice the younger voter. Apparently you can text your friends with voting messages. And they have edgy taglines:
“These are edgy attempts to raise awareness and bring young people into the site and get a better understanding of why it would be important to vote in the midterm elections,” said YouthNoise CEO Ginger Thomson of the ad campaign. By edgy, she means taglines suggesting young adults don’t vote “Because I like rich, old, white men telling me what to do,” “Because I like 90% of my paycheck going to taxes,” and “Because I’m so homophobic I can’t even touch myself.”
There is good information on the AARP’s Don’t Vote site by state. And if you live in California, Easy Voter has your info.
Do you vote? Why or why not?
Party Pooper + Two Things
I don’t like Halloween. I know. Shut up.
Pretending to be someone I’m not is not fun for me. I tried for years just to figure out how to be myself. But beyond that, I don’t like to be scared. And there, my friend, goes pretty much all of the fun of Halloween. I try to be supportive. I want my kids to have a good time. But holy hell, I don’t do a very good job. You know that guy? That smells something bad? And you know it and even if he says, ‘Nope. I’m only smelling roses right now. Are you kidding me?’ you just know what he’s smelling is BAD because his face is in a grimace and his nose is squished and the look on his face says: This Smells Bad. That is me, people. That is me around Halloween. And no matter how much I try to pretend that I’m 100% behind the ghoulish mask my son wants to wear or the only slightly-not-slutty skirt my daughter wants to wear with the thigh-high tights (but there is a bow in my hair mommy! and a cane! it’s a bo beep outfit, not a streetwalker!), I just can’t deliver. I will never be a famous actress. Please wake me up around November 3rd after people have had a chance to take down their asinine decorations. I seem a bit petulant in this area. I cannot disagree with you.
1. Have you met M. Kennedy? I love her. And she is hijacking the entire month of November simply because she can. NaBloPoMo is your blog’s way of saying Wake Up! Write Me! I Love You! You might notice that I am not committing to the month long love fest but that is only because I am petulant and lazy, as noted above. But you might not be able to refuse her. She has badges. Badges!
2. Suebob wrote about a site the other day and I could not stop thinking about it. Who wants to help women? Me. Who wants to do what they can, even if it is >30$ a month? Me. Who cares about the state of the world? Me. Go check out Women for Women International.
Hello. My Name is Leah and I'm an Addict. (Hello, Leah.)
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but what the hell, that’s what I do here. I’m a total addict. In previous years, I managed to keep my compulsion to a lower level, maybe needing a fix only once a week or so, but right now? It’s nightly.
Every late afternoon, I start to feel the creep. My mind starts doing the checklist of how long until I have the opportunity to ‘get right’ again. And then 8pm rolls around, Primetime starts and all is right with the world. I exhale a slow, long breath and put the gun away. I blame my crisis on being forced to relax and be in bed for weeks. Morning programming was the gateway drug and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to shake my nightly routine at this point. Thanks a lot, The View! I’ve given up. What’s the saying – Let Go and Let God? Yes, I’m sure He’s watching Dancing With the Stars, too. Can’t get enough of that crazy Jerry.
Here are my favorites and even my not-so-favorites that I must continue watching because I know what’s going on, and how often does that happen?? Heroes is THE best show. I don’t think I can express how much I love it so you’ll just have to tune in for yourself. Lost is pretty great this season. I didn’t watch it that much in previous years, but apparently, this is the magic year for me. Six Degrees, The Nine and Brothers and Sisters* are examples of shows that are not that great but since I like some of the actors and I happen to know most of the characters’ names and where they fit in with each other, I must keep watching. Studio 60 and 30 Rock, both based on SNL, are both good. I think it’s the best thing Alec Baldwin has ever done. Last night his character set up Tina Fey‘s character on a blind date with a woman. By the end of the episode, Tina agrees to someday do the sex stuff with her new friend, even though she’s straight, because she doesn’t want to lose her friendship with a female she can connect with. And what straight, single, middle-aged woman hasn’t thought about that? You’re older. You’ve learned to make compromises in your life. You’ve outgrown most of your childhood friends and it feels great to have a woman your age to go get coffee with. If you have to make out or use a strap-on to ensure you always have a date to the movies, then so be it.
Also on the roster are Gilmore Girls, which I really do feel has lost something since the creators have gone, the writing is just not quite right and I bet they don’t make it another season, and Grey’s Anatomy which is just as bad as ‘those afternoon stories’ and a good example of how crack kills because I usually have drool dripping off my chin by the end, and Ugly Betty, a surprise to me how much I like it, but America does such a great job in the lead role.
My Name is Earl and The Office are both awesome as per usual. The Biggest Loser, Dancing with the Stars, America’s Next Top Model and Desperate Housewives are Commercial Shows. Are you familiar with that term? No? Well, for those of us that don’t own a TiVo** and also hate commercials, it is imperative to have a show to turn to during the commercial breaks before your ears start to bleed. These are shows that you wouldn’t actually watch on their own per say, but because people are doing something semi-dramatic-interesting and in the case of ANTM, there are frequently portions of fighting and the rubbing of underwear on other people’s beds, it makes it worth a quick peek for 2.2 minutes at a time. More than that and you just might have to carve your brain out of your ears, so be careful.
Boston Legal keeps me captivated. The writing sometimes steps over the boundary of ‘you are a smart audience’ into ‘we are so clever! aren’t we so clever!?!’ which is a turn off, but most of the time James Spader and William Shatner make it all worth while. Especially Denny Crane’s new relationship with the midget. I kinda like Men in Trees. I know, right? Who would have thought. But I do. I have no explanation for you. Medium is almost back and that makes me happy. I know there are the unbelievers out there who don’t like Ms. Arquette for most of the same reasons I do like her.
I have no great ending to this post. I blame my addiction. My brain is full of over-dramatic and trite subplots that can be quickly wrapped up in 24 minutes or less. Let’s try this: What’s that? What do you mean? What are you saying?? There are dishes? In the sink?? That need washing?? And yes! I’m the only to get them done! I know! *sobbing* No! Don’t worry about me. Really. I’ll do them. *Sigh* Because in the pursuit of a cleaner kitchen and world peace, I must, I know. And I will! And when Veronica comes home from the hospital after getting her reconstructive surgery (made possible by body parts donated from the man that killed her mother two years ago while on safari) because of the plane crash she survived on the way to her honeymoon (when her new husband, Brock, died right after changing his will, which his first two wives will surely contest (and bring up the past when Veronica was put in the mental hospital (after she believed she could fly) ) ) and finds out the baby she gave away for adoption 10 years ago is now living next door (with her high school sweetheart who may or may not be the child’s real father) my kitchen will be clean and I’ll bake her a cake. A special cake! MMmmmm. Cake.
*Isn’t it nice that the Thirtysomething actors are showing up again? I loved that show.
**I haven’t even included in this list HBO shows like The Wire which totally rocks it and Entourage, which single handedly changed my mind about Mark Wahlberg (and holy hell if you aren’t watching them you better start) because I can watch them at any time On Demand. Yes! Kind of like a TiVo!
Rhoda
My sister and her daughter came for the weekend. My niece and my daughter have the same birthday two years apart. We try to get together every year. I’m wondering what year it will be when their 2-year age difference won’t be noticed by them. Over 20? Although this year was much easier than last year. 14 and 16 are closer than 12 and 14.
This is the best visit Rhoda and I have ever had in many ways. Almost the entire time was spent catering to the girls because that is the point of the get-together, but the little amount of time we did find to catch up, we spent disagreeing on almost everything. We don’t agree on religion or politics and when you are raised a Mormon in a small Utah town, religion and politics are pretty much what you have. And country music.
The thing that was so wonderful was that it didn’t matter. Rhoda and I have been through the wringer together. She was all I had when I was growing up. She tried to protect me from everything bad and failed, since that is an impossible task. That made her feel guilty and try harder to keep me safe. Her entire life became co-dependant on mine. I was a mess. She fixed me up. We kept each other busy for years.
When I finally got well in 2002, our relationship kind of crumbled. She needed me to be sick and I wasn’t. And moreover, I refused to go back to that place where she felt comfortable. And even though she was happy for me to be well, she felt angry and alone after spending her entire life around my needs and then having me move out of that space and leave her there.
We went through some major growing pains together over the past few years. There were quite a few months that went by when we didn’t make any attempt to contact each other. I was learning how to stand on my own two feet and she was trying to figure out how to be happy I was well and also figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life now that I didn’t need her in the same way. We figured out how to be sisters in a healthy relationship and it only took us about 4 years.
So even though she supports Bush (which is so wrong) and believes that jumping through hoops will please God and give you special entry into heaven (don’t even get me started), it’s ok that we don’t agree. And she has figured out how to have a life that doesn’t include fixing mine. And I overlook the fact that she loves Toby Keith. And even though I drink alcohol and coffee, shop on Sundays and believe that people who love people that happen to be the same sex as them should have the same rights as I do, she’s glad to be my sister.
Pretty great.
Two Three Things
1. Here is my video interview with Arianna Huffington. You can tell by the rosy-red hue of my makeup that I’m positively tickled to get to speak with her about her new book On Becoming Fearless.
2. Cooper Munroe’s article is very compelling, as is the video she links to encouraging women to get out and vote. More info at the WomensVoices, WomensVote website.
3. Are you looking for more accurate reading material for you and your children to share at bedtime? Sweet Juniper! has you covered. So worth the read.
Alex Is Sweet 16
She is Sweet 16.
She got her license yesterday.
Today, she almost crashed her car.
I made her dress the night before her Surprise Casino Partaaay in 7 hours. It cost $48, 3 pinpricks of blood, a teaspoon worth of odorless, glistening sweat and 127 stress and fatigue tears.
Almost all the decorations were homemade. We used an iPod full of booty-busting R&B instead of hiring a DJ, which had me begging for a Frank Zappa song after 2 hours. Her brothers were the dealers and the bartender. Her cake was actually cupcakes all frosted together to look like a poker chip. My camera is broken so I only have the photos that my phone took. There is more to this story but it will have to wait for another day.
Oh Golly, Miss Molly
Alright, friends. It is that time. I’m finally ready, willing and able to put together that writers group we all got excited over a few months back.
Here is what I know so far:
I DON’T
1. want to be the president, vice president, secretary or treasurer of anything.
2. want anyone else to be president, vice president, secretary or treasurer of anything.
3. want to be paid or pay anyone else.
4. want strong or critical critiquing
5. want to feel pressured to perform at each meeting.
I DO:
1. want to show up on a bi-weekly to monthly regular basis.
2. want to drink coffee/brewskies.
3. want to spend a few hours per meeting with like-minded people.
4. want to have it be a relaxing and fun environment.
I DON’T MIND:
1. if I’m the one to set up the meeting place.
2. if I’m the contact person.
3. if we have writings prompts or themes as long as they aren’t mandatory.
4. if you buy me a coffee or brew.
5. if we have an official name of some kind like ‘Writing Creatives’ as long as it’s not stuffy or dumb.
Thoughts and ideas welcome. As soon as people let me know they are interested, we’ll find a location that is central to the most people. If you have any items to add to the lists above, let me know and I’ll update accordingly.
Shout out in the comments or send me an email. Let’s shoot for a first meeting the first part of November….?
xo
I'm This Charming
One of the benefits of becoming integrated is that most of the odd things that you used to do, routinely and/or compulsively, fade or become minimized. For example, if you were compelled to eat exactly 18 french fries with every meal (I really did know someone that did) then post-integration you may be able to eat a few meals sans fries or at least be able to change the ‘must ingest’ number to 8 or 23. You normalize on many fronts, possibly some you never thought possible.
One compulsion I’ve had ever since I can remember being alive is drawing with my fingers. I draw the shapes of everything. And when I say everything, I really mean it. When I’m watching TV, I’m also drawing the shape of the TV, the shapes on the screen, the shapes of the entertainment center, the shape of the wall, the plants, the window – everything. When I’m walking, it’s the sidewalk, the houses and whatever else I’m looking at. The only time it’s not happening is when I’m writing, painting or shooting photos, but some might argue that I’m still doing it even then, just in other ways. Also, when I drive a car, most of the time I’m not, but if I’m stuck in traffic or on an easy stretch of road, that is where my mind immediately goes.
The other morning, while being the passenger, I wondered if this was a problem. If it was anything I should worry about or try to change. Why didn’t it go away when I was integrated? Does it matter that almost all day, every day I’m drawing lines and shapes with my fingers? I spent the rest of the drive trying not to. I wondered what it would take to sufficiently trick my mind into just looking at what was in front of me, without drawing it. And I found I could not.
The drawings can become quite complicated. Most lines and edges have a left and right side that must be drawn. Large areas of color must be filled in. In my mind, my fingers can become very small drawing utensils or very large and wide swathes of color. There is an example of the double sided line in this very simple drawing.
11:11 is a theme that seems to run through my mind even when my eyes are closed. I tend to draw that one over and over and over when there is nothing else to draw.
Current Smarts: Online Gambling
Have you heard of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act?
Facts
Pro
Con
I started paying attention to the goings-on because my husband’s new job is with a payment company. Most interesting thing to note: his days off do not coincide with the rest of the world because those days are high shopping days and he must be at work to monitor things etc.
In any case, the large majority of their business is with retail but they do have a solid amount of companies that do wallet transactions, meaning, they remove money from your account and ‘hold’ it until you use it and then deposit it, in this case, at the gaming site. One of the main reasons these wallet companies exist is for online gambling.
Should online gambling be regulated or outlawed? What is wrong with the way things are right now? I’m not sure I see the problem. But if there is a problem, it makes much more sense to me to regulate and tax the gaming than to prohibit it. Didn’t we learn anything in the 1920s?
I hate Vegas because I can smell the desperation 30 miles out. It is a law in my family that we DO NOT STOP in Vegas no matter if you have to pee like a racehorse or if you are starving. I am not a gambler. I can count on one hand the times I have inserted a quarter, pulled a level and kissed my money goodbye. I have never signed up on an online gambling site and I have no plans to. I do not enjoy it and I do not see that changing any time soon.
However, I do see the propensity for problems with gambling. I am aware that there is a large amount of senior citizens in Vegas that gamble their entire SS checks the minute they get them every month. I understand that it can be an addiction. But to argue your point saying that 1 in 4 college-aged boys gambles online weekly and that we need to save them from themselves and then move from there to making it illegal makes no sense to me.
I think my main issue with the idea of making online gambling illegal is that this bill doesn’t actually do that. It is set up to penalize the ‘wallet’ companies that hold your money. This bill makes it illegal to be that company and do that act. The gambler will not get in trouble. But, the gambler may lose the money deposited in his account when the company he uses to hold his money gets nailed. If he does get it back, it will be after a long time.
My second issue is the hypocrisy of having a Lotto here in California that supports our schools, that is advertised on television and radio, that our government COUNTS on to subsidize costs to educate our children and then on the same coin passing this bill. So, it’s ok to gamble, but only if you do it the way we want you to. Is that the message? And if so, then regulating and taxing still makes more sense than prohibiting it.
Do you agree or disagree? What am I missing?
Why Do I Listen?
I can never get enough of public radio. I know where all the stations are in my area. I know when my favorite shows are on. I sometimes sit in the car for an extra 5-10 minutes after reaching my destination just to finish listening.
The end result of this is that I’m kind of sort of informed about a wide variety of subjects. A connoisseur of tiny tid-bits, if you will. I can carry one side of a conversation with someone that knows more than I do pretty well. It’s when I try to tell someone that has less knowledge than I do, about any certain subject that has caught my fancy, that we find ourselves in trouble, people, since I really don’t know what I’m talking about. I have, some people might say, just enough knowledge to be dangerous (and/or annoying).
What I notice, however, is that my feelings on the subject are not proportional to the amount of knowledge I have. For example, if I know 20% of all there is to know about immigration, shouldn’t I be 20% on the scale in how strong I feel about it? This is theorizing that there is a way to quantify the amount of knowledge on any subject that is to be had. But instead I find that I get passionate about some things right from the start and I want to ‘share’ my feelings and point of view with others. My small and puffy mind wonders if this is a problem for other people as well. Do the people in the public eye know more than I know? Do they spend the time to really know their subjects well, front and back, before formulating an opinion and going out on the path to support Pro-Choice or Pro-Life? There are times when I’m completely hot under the collar and spewing strong opinion and passion everywhere only to find out a few days later that I’m actually full of crap.
Since I am by nature an impatient person as well as slightly lazy, or at least drawn to comfort and ease as opposed to being driven, for the most part, to spend my days researching politics and current events, and because I have this public format that I am free to use any way I wish, I might as well spill my over-saturated, passionate feelings about subjects I don’t actually have all the facts for here. I need a name for these new recurring posts.
In this series, I will not even try to pretend that I know everything about the subject at hand. I will merely state my current opinion and hope that you, dear reader, will agree or not agree in my comments so that I can actually get a well-rounded and more full knowledge base on said subject. Look for the first installment this week.
I hope you are all having a wonderful Tuesday.
Regarding Foley
More than anything else we do in our lifetime, it is what the youth of today learn from us that creates our legacy. Notice I didn’t say ‘what we teach’ because what we teach and what they learn can be universes apart.
You can’t escape hearing about the Foley Debacle these days. It is everywhere and for good reason. With all the finger-pointing going on, it’s easy to ascertain that not only did people know about it for years, but so many people knew about it as to create the classic abused/abuser environment.
As an abuse survivor, it took me years to unlearn some basic truths that I learned as a child. These truths were not true in the socially acceptable circles out in the open. But on the most very basic levels of my Self, they were rock hard truths.
In a classic familial abuse situation, it is the children that learn to read the parents. They learn to assess the feeling of the room before even walking in the door. They learn to read their parent’s feelings and attitudes and intents to gauge the danger level. The children become parentalized and must watch out for their own safety and welfare because no one else will do it for them. Parents/adults can’t be trusted.
Let’s say that at some point, those kids get to a place where they are brave enough to tell someone what is happening. They hone in on an adult that can be trusted. They somehow find the words to speak the agonizing truth of the situation. And here is where they learn their next lesson: will they be believed? And, if they are believed, will they be protected? A child learns many truths about life in the aftermath of telling their secret.
In this Foley situation, the things that bother me the most, and there are so many to pick from, are 1) the kid(s) that came forward years ago were not believed to the degree that they should have been and if they were believed, their feelings and the danger of the situation were minimized, 2) the adults in control ‘stuck together’ and most likely shuffled off those particular kids to new places to keep them quiet, 3) new interns and pages were told that ‘this is just the way Foley is’ and it then became THIER responsibility to monitor what happened in this completely power-lopsided relationship, creating the illusion that children can control the abuse that happens to them, 4) immediately after being found out in the mainstream media, Foley’s camp turned to ‘he’s an alcoholic’ and ‘he was abused as a teen’ and ‘he’s gay’ in order to divert responsibility and 5) these kids and young adults are treated with less respect and have less protection than working adults do with sexual harassment statutes in place.
I find it indescribably sad that our youth are going to what should be an exciting and knowledge-packed place and supposedly having this spectacular experience learning how our government works and the ins and outs of how things get done and instead are learning the very worst kind of lessons about dysfunction, which apparently, is how our government works.
We can teach our youth all kinds of things that we wish they would learn, but it’s what we do and what we allow to happen to them and to this country that they will internalize. That is our legacy.
Every Day
I keep waking up in the morning and I keep having a day. And then I keep going to sleep at night. And then? The next morning I do it again. In this way I hope to eventually get to the morning when I want to wake up and I actually enjoy the day I’m having. But, by going the through motions, I know I’ll get there.
Friends, acquaintances, internet pals and complete strangers have written me lovely and kind notes. THANK YOU SO MUCH for your kindness. I keep thinking I’ll go back in my email and start replying to all of you but then I get stuck because I have no idea what to say except thanks for your caring nature. Please accept this virtual thanks from me to you.
For the past month, while on bed rest, I have been working on my book. I’m just about ready to hand it over to my agent. I’m thankful to have had the time to work on it because I don’t think I could have done it without being forced to. After I finished getting it up on Lulu last year, I swore I would never edit it again. For one thing, it is terribly hard to edit your own work. It’s hard to have perspective because to you, the writer, everything you’ve written is important. Add to that the fact that this book is actually my life. It has been so bizarre to have editors and my agent send me editing notes in emails about ‘the characters’ and ‘the story line.’ The format of the book being what it is has the potential to be confusing to some readers, so there has been careful attention spent on making sure that the transitions are smoother and easier to understand.
But the hardest part for me has been that my strengths in writing do not fall in the creating fictional dialog and characters categories. I’m strongest in retelling events that I have been a part of. And my book is basically just a retelling of my life. 9/10th of it was written by the personalities themselves and now that I’m integrated, those individual voices are gone. To have an editor tell me that ‘this scene isn’t working and needs more dialog between character A and character C’ or ‘let’s have a scene where you learn this information earlier through this particular therapist’ just makes no sense to me. I can’t go back and create dialog that didn’t happen. I can’t make up a therapist and then have events happen that didn’t happen. Maybe if this was a purely fictional book, I could. But I doubt it. I’ve never been that good at fictional writing. Even when I was publishing columns, they were slices of my life that actually happened.
This editing journey, if nothing else, has helped me understand my strengths in writing, which I’m thankful for. Also, I’ve learned how to be strong and assert myself when I’m not comfortable with changes being asked for and made. The end result is a final version of the book that I’m happy with and will have no problem speaking to people about.
And now that the bulk of that is done and I’m no longer required to be on bed rest, it’s time for two things: The gym and a new job. My first time going back to the gym was yesterday. All I did was walk the treadmill for 30 minutes at 4.5 MPH but from the way my body is screaming, you’d think I’d ran a marathon. It’s amazing how fast your body deteriorates.
It feels good to be active again. Another thing to be thankful for.
Two Things
1. New changes and updates over at Blogger Network. Thanks, Digital Pixie.
2. Have you seen the new JPG Mag? It’s a totally new way to appreciate your contributors. In my opinion, Derek and Heather are really on the cutting edge of the way things are going in online media to print. I love the new format of JPG and can’t wait to contribute. And, it’s not just photos. Are you a writer? Ya, they want that, too.
