HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Nanner, neener, nano

It's almost nano time.

I'm going again this year and happily talked my mini-me, Lea, to do it too. And we've been discussing our plans and I started thinking that maybe it's time to let the universe guide me and not to plan at all.

I had an outline and character studies started for the story I intended to do but now I'm thinking no.

I'm considering going into this with no idea at all. Start writing and see what story decides to be told. It could be wonderful. It could be terrible.

It'll probably be crazy and frustrating and creative.

I've been working so hard to be a writer like all the other writers. To sell and be a little more successful and hell.... it stopped being fun.

Fun is when you write because the writing is what you want to do. Fun is when you don't care if it makes sense. Fun is when you laugh out loud at your own craziness.

Nano seems like a perfect time to have some fun.

Soulless by Gail Carriger

OMG! I'm reading this book the way I eat cheese popcorn. Big, greedy bites and reaching back in the bag for more.

I love this book and am seriously depressed that I'm almost at the end.

It's a steampunk that isn't really steampunk. It's funny. It's romantic. It's quirky. It's original.

This book alone was worth the price of a new Kindle. If you haven't read it, you must.

Seasons

Talking about the weather is a cliché, but I just have to. It was the most beautiful day here today.

My favorite seasons in the south are spring and fall. The temperatures are moderate in the daytime and cool to cold at night. In the spring it's a kaleidoscope of color, with azaleas and fruit trees bursting into bloom, along with the delicate yellow or white blossoms of the forsythea.

People have been planting more maple trees, so the fall colors range from brilliant yellow to dark red and every shade in between. Spider lilies pop up and bloom in unexpected places and the robins gather in flocks to weather the coming winter months before flying back north again.

But it's the weather that I love. Today the high was 74° under a hard blue sky - not a cloud in sight. Tonight it's going down into the lower 50's. The windows are open and so are the doors when someone's here. The fall comes into my home. I never sleep better than at this time of year.

It almost makes up for the heat and humidy in the summer.

Almost ...

R.I.P. Mrs. Penelope Wigglesbottom

My Kindle died.

I think it was Kindlecide.I 'll be questioning the suspects soon.

Authors Against Bullying

There are a number of authors today who are blogging in support of Standing Up Against Bullying. Carolyn and I are small small fish in the author ocean and weren't invited to join (oh dear) but I do agree with the sentiments and am joinging in with my own story.

Well actually, it's my daughter's story.

My girl is now  11 years old. She's beautiful, smart, funny as hell and obviously the apple of my eye. No... she's the entire fruit basket.  She's also a tomboy who keeps her hair super short, shops in the boys department for clothes and would rather die than wear pink or be considered girlie in any way. (Her girliness is really there though, but I never point it out. Scared of spiders, loves lotions and face masks....)

In third grade she developed a little crush on a school friend. A girl school friend. Third grade. 8 years old. Yup. Innocent as pie. Sweet. Adorable in fact.

Unfortunately my sweetheart told a friend. Who told a friend. Who.... you get the idea. In no time at all kids my kid didn't know were asking her if she was a lesbian. She didn't know what a lesbian was. A friend (?) of hers said he saw her putting her hand between another girl's legs. She was devastated.

Her crush wasn't sexual. She might or might not be a lesbian. It doesn't matter. This was an eight year old with an innocent crush who was being teased and treated badly because she told a friend.

We did our best to put a stop to it. The principal at my daughter's school was amazing and within a day the rumors stopped. I don't know what he did or who he talked to but it ended. Mostly. The problem is that the words were out there. The lies had already been told.

It's come up again. My baby has been approached by kids she doesn't know and asked if she's a lesbian. Does she like girls? Her answer is to walk away. But it hurts her. It's said to diminish her and trust me, it works. She feels bad about herself. She hurts because she knows logically that sexuality is undefined and what she decides in her life is her business and hers alone. She knows it. But it's hard to believe it when someone you don't even know is in your face asking if you like pussy.

I hope the rumor dies one day and never comes back. On the other hand, my amazing child is on the cusp of discovering more about herself and who she might one day find attractive. I worry that if she does come to discover that she's gay, how much others words will hurt her. I want her to be happy and I'd support her in any way. But other kids won't. And to see the child you adore wounded because she might have feelings that someone else doesn't understand is just heart breaking.

We need to fight bullying in any and all ways we can.

Do it for the kids.

A Fox in a Box Being Doxxed

Over here at Dear Author there's a fascinating discussion about Doxxing, i.e., outing the anonymous online trolls. And others.

It's a brilliant discussion and what I love about it is that it's really ambiguous. Do I believe in outing others? No. I don't. I think the asshats behind the GoodRead Bullies have shown us how random and stupid that is.

On the other hand.... a man who is well known on a popular board for starting boards to celebrate the sexuality of underage girls, the hatred of non-whites and the joys of punching a woman in the face... okay, I'm having a problem supporting that guy's anonymity.

So he was outed by Gawker and now he's lost his job and revealed as the major scum he is. Do I think he should have been outed? Well honestly, I do. Because I think predators can't act unless they're guaranteed silence and secrets. Take those things away and you might have one less man abusing a child or woman.

On the other hand, I don't think that a flaming asshole online (and God knows, there's millions of that species) deserves outting just for being a major asshole. And I know that happens also.

The problem is that Doxxing, right now, might be one of the only solutions to exposing people who like to prey. Unless women, as a community, could get together and rip those places apart. We're so damned powerful when we choose yet so rarely do we choose to go into those places as a tidy mob and rip those assholes wide open.

We're so good at fighting each other but so bad at fighting together those men who would find pleasure in subjugating and hurting us. Imagine the power we'd have if we took over those boards with our comments and refusal to allow men to victimize.

That's a lovely fantasy I'm having right now. Shame it's just a fantasy.

Comments Change

Right now we're changing comments not allowing anonymous only because we're getting someone spamming about 50 comments daily selling online drugs. Hopefully this stops the spam. If not, oh well.

Stop Judging, Start Listening

My brother is a Republican. He's a member of the NRA. He also supports same-sex marriage, pro-choice and keeping Medicare and Social Security untouched.

I'm a Democrat. Super liberal in many regards but I have HUGE issues with immigration (I sound totally right wing at times) and my beliefs about foreign policy are all over the board.

And we talk. What's surprising, especially to us, is how often we agree. We never used to but we've both been riding the tsunami of this recession, we've both paid for children and worry about our kids, we have a lot in common. And as we talk we discover that a Republican can have some very liberal views and a Democrat can be pretty stodgy about certain things.

In some of the places I like to go on the internet, I've been appalled at how much people try to silence other people because they disagree. The my way or the highway crowd are all out there. But more than that, there's no listening to other's views. There's no interest in respecting that just because a person doesn't have the same POV that you do, it doesn't make them wrong or a bad person. It just means they have a different perspective.

The haterz are the ones who quickly shame those who disagree. They're quick with labels, full of hyperbole and drowning in their vat of self-righteous, politically correct virtue that they can't hear anything past the pats they're giving their own backs.

You know who they are. They don't. They're shocked when someone takes issue with them or their perfect points. They fly off the handle when people disagree and they run to their blogs and buddies and point out everyone's wrongdoings.

God, start listening people. It wouldn't kill some of you to stop talking and realize that we're all different. Not everybody sees life the same way you do. We all have different influences in our lives that shape us and decide us. Learn more about others.

Listen.

You might learn something.

It's Hard to Write

I'm not speaking for Carolyn, only for myself. And I have to say that it's just becoming harder and harder to write. Hard to write posts for the blog, hard to write books, hard to write anything except the occasional three line email to Lea.

I don't know why the writing urge/muse likes to hide in her hole. Sometimes there's times the words don't stop. I had one day where I wrote 5,000 words in about three different sittings and none of it was pressure. And that was only about two weeks ago.

Now I sit and stare at my Word documents and think I'd rather take a nap.

You can't be a writer if you don't write. Maybe I'll be a napper instead.

Six Sentence Sunday

He followed me into the kitchen and I opened the freezer.

It was hysterical watching his face take on what I liked to call the guppy look: wide eyes, mouth opening and closing with nothing coming out.

“I wasn’t joking about having food in my freezer.” The foil packets were stacked like little aluminum soldiers, each carefully labeled with contents, date of preparation and cooking instruction. They were two deep on each shelf and even on the doors. I barely had space for my ice cream.

“You’d never have to leave,” Butch said. “Hell, why do you?”

**From Butch Cassidy VS The Zombie Girls

Writing Smexy

I'm working on two different stories and yesterday I was in the same place on both: at a love scene. In both stories the sex is an important part of the relationship: in the contemporary the H/h spar but they come together with heat and humor.

In the erotic romance they'll be using sex as a way to break down barriers between themselves and the world. The sexual encounters between them must advance the story and emotional arc.

I love writing sex but I hate writing sex at the same time. There's nothing more tedious than penis in vagina but ultimately, that's what sex is, right? Although there are a few other places the penis can go but you know what I mean.

So how does a writer convey heat and passion and all the great things that exist in the encounter but not have it sound like a sex manual?

What are some of the best sex scenes you've read and why?