The Past Week via Twitter: 2011-11-27
by V.E. on November 27th, 2011
filed under nanowrimo, twitter
- @LANoWriMo #LaCanada Flintridge Books #NaNoWriMo write-in right now! I have to write 3000 words to stay on top of things today… #
- @LANoWriMo I got almost 2100 words today at the #LaCanada Flintridge Books write-in! Just need 760 more to reach today's #NaNoWriMo par. #
- @LANoWriMo we're almost an hour in here at the #LaCanada Flintridge Books #NaNoWriMo write-in. two hours to go! come write in with us. ^_^ #
- actually NOT racing the clock tonight because–for once–I already wrote enough to meet today's #NaNoWriMo goal (35000 words). #writing #
- @anjalibahl good band name. #
- Gah! I'm suddenly behind 3 days! Stupid real life getting in the way of #writing Word count is currently 36000 & I need 40000. #NaNoWriMo #
- that's more like it: #NaNoWriMo word count is up to a healthy 43014. less than 7000 words to the finish line. gotta keep #writing #
- @Zekor I ended yesterday with 36274, today with 43000+ (we'll see, since the day's not over). #NaNoWriMo #
- @Zekor 7000 words in a day is par for the course when I don't have to do other things that I don't want to do anyway. #NaNoWriMo #
- woooooork. #ugh #
- @wldwmn64 hi! #
- Breaking Dawn; yes, I am. #Twilight is so #ridiculous .. >_> but Taylor Lautner is pretty to look at, so I can probably tolerate it. #
Holiday Card Call 2011
by V.E. on November 3rd, 2011
filed under fyi, personal, writing
This is my third annual Winterthing Card Call. (For reals!)
If you would like a holiday/winter card from me, please email me your real name and address and I’ll send you a card in time for some major holiday that’s coming up faster than I’d really like it to.
Send me your name and address and I will send you a seasonal card (I make new ones ever year… or have them made), complete with yearly update and all.
My email is iwasborninjuneATgmailDOTcom… but with the actual symbols, of course. Please put “Winterthing Card” in the subject heading so that I don’t delete your message as spam.
Out of country addresses are fine. (I live in the USA.)
Looking forward to hearing from you!
NaNoWriMo 2011
by V.E. on November 1st, 2011
filed under nanowrimo
Yes, I am participating in National Novel Writing Month this year! In fact, I’ve had to rush around and do a lot of stuff in preparation so that I can focus on writing a novel in November. (It’s… about as crazy as it sounds, actually.) Find me on the NaNo website under the handle ladyamedeus.
AND, I’m hosting not one, not two, but seven write-ins this year! Here’s the info if you want to chill write with me on Sunday afternoons or Mondays at midday.
[La Canada] Flintridge Books
Location: Flintridge Books & Cafe @ 1010 Foothill Blvd. La Canada, CA 91011
Date(s): 3 Sundays (11/6, 11/20, 11/27; NOT on 11/13)
Time: 3:00 – 6:00 pm (venue closes at 7:00 pm)
ALSO:
[La Canada] Flintridge Books
Location: Flintridge Books & Cafe @ 1010 Foothill Blvd. La Canada, CA 91011
Date(s): Monday, 11/7
Time: 12:30 – 3:00 PM
ALSO:
[La Canada] Flintridge Books
Location: Flintridge Books & Cafe @ 1010 Foothill Blvd. La Canada, CA 91011
Date(s): 3 Mondays (11/14, 11/21, 11/28; see above for 11/7)
Time: 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Details/Info about my write-ins: A bookstore and coffeehouse in La Canada at the crossroads of Foothill Blvd. and Angeles Crest Highway. Free internet, a few power outlets (I will bring a strip, but you should, too, if you can), and some great mocha lattes, hot tea, and blended smoothie-type drinks. (Please buy something and support an independent bookstore!) Street parking on Chevy Chase Dr. (side street) and there’s a small lot behind the shop as well. Please do NOT park in the Hill Street Cafe parking lot. I will have a table tent and a Mac laptop with a NaNoWriMo sticker on it. More info about the venue: http://www.flintridgebooks.com/
I’ll also be attending several other write-ins hosted by several other WriMos, so check out the “Los Angeles Novel Writing Month” general calendar.
Good hunting, everyone!
Writing as a Privilege
by V.E. on July 13th, 2011
filed under writing
I…think of writing as a privilege—as a gift that’s been given to me. Any day that I don’t get to write something—anything—is a day I have to spend being someone other than who I am.
—Larry Gelbart
(via)
Sweetbitter
by V.E. on May 15th, 2011
filed under personal, school, writing
Saturday started out a good day. I didn’t have work, I didn’t waste the day sleeping, I didn’t have to make breakfast (someone made it for me), and I actually cleared out some of the emails that have been languishing in my inbox for ages (“achievement unlocked!”). I managed to get to a dress rehearsal on time and didn’t complain about how long it was (three hours!). I got to hear Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity played live by a full orchestra and I fell in love with the music all over again. I shipped off a box of coffee to a friend (I hope she’s a friend, at least!) who writes great 1×2 fanfiction. I picked up a couple of (expensive! ugh) choral music folders so that my sister and I can stop borrowing from the school for every concert.
There was a moment while I was driving yesterday afternoon on Colorado in Pasadena and I had to stop for a red light. No big deal; I’m not in a hurry, I like people watching, and heaven knows that Saturday afternoon in Old Town is exactly the right time to be people watching. I just happen to be at a light that has a catty corner crosswalk—the type of crosswalk that allows pedestrians to walk diagonally across the street as well as at right angles. So the rhythm of the street light at that corner is: drive forward, stop and wait for cars to cross, all cars stop and wait for people to walk. I sat there in the midst of… so much life… watching people use the diagonal crosswalk and just felt… happy. It’s silly, I guess, but I really love the streets, being able to mingle with people even without knowing them, sharing lives for just a split second while waiting for a chance to cross. It reminded me of New York City and I thought to myself, “Maybe I’m starting to like this city the way I loved New York.”
I went home and had a good evening with my parents. We had soup for dinner and I baked banana bread with pecans for a family friend’s birthday (“See?” my mother said when she tasted it, “you are a cook!”—”Well, I can bake,” I said, “but I’m not really exactly a cook.”). We watched an episode of Keeping Up Appearances and then sat in amiable silence working on separate projects for maybe two or three hours.
After my parents went to bed, I finished up editing some accepted submissions for the June issue of Hippocampus. I started answering neglected emails and as the next couple of hours progressed, I’ve become more and more homesick. (I don’t think it’s helped that I’ve been listening to “Black Balloon” and “Iris” on repeat, either, since those tracks are especially nostalgic for me.) I think it started after I watched a great performance of the poem “The last love letter from an Entomologist…” though I wasn’t really thinking about it seriously until I realized that I was homesick.
I was confused at first; how can I be homesick? I already am home. Literally: I’m sitting here in the house where I grew up. I have my own room, the room that I painted dark blue (my mother refused to let me paint it black) with red trim during the summer between my junior and senior years in high school. I have shelves and shelves of books, my own bed, and a desk. I eat the food from the fridge and am happy to see my family when they get home (and when I get home). I don’t hate my job, and I even like my coworkers. I can’t be homesick; I’m already home.
But then I realized that stupid idiom is true: home is where the heart is. (Curse you, Pliny the Elder, for… for just knowing things in the first damn century CE!) I like it here, and I love my family, but it’s not where my heart truly is. My first thought was to Yager, one of my waterbrothers, whom I haven’t seen in more than a year and then only for less than a week and then I had to screw everything up like I always do when I love someone and that person has a significant other who doesn’t understand.
And then I thought of New York City, the mistress who damned me and left me to die. I thought of the catty corner crosswalk I saw last afternoon and realized I liked it because it was a tiny bit of New York, not because I was finally beginning to like the city in which I was already living. It had reminded me of New York, after all, why I hadn’t I seen it before?
I thought of another waterbrother, here where I live now, and I thought of picking up the phone—even at this late hour—and calling him and telling him I was heartsick. I know he’d come. He always does, when I need him. But I talked myself out it; I just hurt him when I need him like that, especially since I’m never able to return the gesture when he needs me in his own way. It’s amazing: a waterbrother who doesn’t understand his own position because I, sworn to him a tovarish forever, have failed at explaining it or making him feel it or communicating it properly in some way.
My heart is lost in a place where it can feel no heat. It hurts. If I am home and yet feel homesick, where does my heart really lie?
swallow the light from the sun
“Unruly Girls, Unrepenant Mothers”
by V.E. on April 5th, 2011
filed under recap/review, writing
At the end of March, my last review for Elevate Difference was published. I’m sad to say that the great reviewing website is shutting down operations and being archived. The founding editor was offered a work position she couldn’t refuse, but it meant sacrificing her work with Elevate Difference.
In an email I received on March 4, Mandy wrote (in part):
I have some bittersweet news… I can no longer give Elevate Difference the attention it needs to thrive, and after talking it over with the editors, I’ve decided to shut it down… I feel really fortunate to have had the opportunity to create such an amazing body of work with all of you… and I thank you for all that you’ve contributed.
I hope someone or some other organization steps into the gap that Elevate Difference will surely leave. Until then, I bid my explicitly feminist book reviews adieu.
Okay, seriously?
by V.E. on March 28th, 2011
filed under personal, writing, wtf
My body is mine. That means it’s not fucking yours, okay? That means don’t touch it; I can do whatever the hell I want with it; you can’t. That’s it. Done. The end.
I will get tattoos if I want. I will have an abortion if I feel like it’s necessary (and I won’t be sorry about it). I will star in pornography. I will cut myself. I will roll dice in the back alley at all hours of the night. I will take bets for illegal street car racing. I will get into fist fights after work and then get up and go to work the next day.
Just because I do what I want on my own time with my own godsdamned body doesn’t mean you have any right to say anything about it at all. Just because I look like a nice girl who’s patient and kind and generous doesn’t mean I’ll be any of those things with you.
I smile with my friends because I like them. I smile at work because I get paid to be cheerful. I’m not going to smile for you just because you think you have the right to whistle at me across the street and then call me a bitch when I ignore you. I am not a monkey trained to do tricks. At least not any tricks you‘d like, I’m sure. I can make it hurt, and with you, I want it to be as painful as possible.
Don’t call me “beautiful” or “honey” or “sweetheart” or “sugar” or “sweetcheeks” or “baby” or anything else you think might be endearing—especially when I already look angry. I am not in the mood for your misogyny. I am not the good girl you seem to think I am. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, but I have done them, and I own that. I’m not going to lie if a friend asks in all seriousness if I worked in pornography. But I don’t owe you anything. Actually, I owe you less than nothing.
I don’t need your permission. I don’t want it, either. And I sure as hell don’t need or want your approval. Who the fuck cares what you think? I don’t, and I never will.
I have never forced anyone to do anything truly not of their own choosing. All I ask in return is the same courtesy. If you don’t like what I’m doing, just look the other way. I’m not hurting anyone but my own self.
I’m so fucking tired of being the nice girl. I want to buy a motorcycle and have my entire body covered in tattoos and have visible scars so that you will finally see that I am not in the mood. My patience wears thin.
You are not allowed. No one is allowed. My default answer is always going to be “No”. And if you fuck with me, I will put your face into a car hood. (Seriously, do you not know the meaning of “Fuck off”?)
