megwrites

I don't have a lot of content to post right now. Because of mental health issues, which are actually improving but took a sharp dive last Friday. Short story: I had to be in the psychiatric ER again because I wasn't safe. But, new meds and some more coping strategies may be helping. It's early days.

But let's forget all that depressing (and rather boring) shit for a moment. Let's talk about how I have a dog who guards my books for me

( A very literary dog if ever there was one. Also, you'll see why she still gets snuggles even when she occasionally likes to show that she has good taste in literature in the sense of ERMAHGERD I LIKE TO TASTE UR LITURATURUH. )

So, there you go. Dog pictures. Isn't that way better than hearing about my boring old broken brain and stuff?

I'm sorry that I haven't gotten around to all the comments on my last post. I went out on Friday for Spouse Man's birthday and it went well, until I got really ill around eleven o' clock and got no sleep until 4am. At which point I woke up about three hours later with a respiratory system in full revolt.

Yesterday I made it from the bed to the couch and ate two meals and read a bit of a book and that was the limit of what I could do.

I'm feeling better today, but not 100%. Plus, I have two back teeth that badly need to be removed because they are killing me and laughing off the ibuprofen I took.

That said, let me make a list of things for people just checking in or coming in through links about that post:

1. I am a *white* woman. Read the profile for other descriptors of me. I am not a PoC and will never pretend to be. I am white. Yes, I am a white woman who vocally hates whiteness. I consider it a point of pride to be told I'm racist against white people or reverse racist or that I hate white people or that I'm a self-hating white person.

Whenever someone accuses me of hating white people, I know I'm doing something really right. I live for those moments, really, when I can really piss whiteness off and make it clear how much I intend to betray it and tear it to shreds as much as I can in this life.

Because fuck yes I hate whiteness. I hate white supremacy. If I had my way, I'd set white supremacy on fire by launching flaming bricks at it from a canon, bricks filled with pepper spray and pissed off wasps and then I'd take it's burning, flailing corpse, roll it in honey and berries, drag it to the zoo, stuff it in a giant picnic basket and throw it into the bear enclosure and watch the grizzlies have lunch. And just to finish off, I'd hang it's skeleton up in a public place and dress it funny. I'd have that fucker wearing an earflap hat, speedos, cowboy boots and Madonna's cone boobs for eternity.

2. The basic rule around here is, "You do not get to pick on the underdog. Picking on the big dog is fair game and greatly encouraged, however." Which translates to - if you have privilege, especially the kind that's intersectionally cumulative (ie - being white AND cis AND straight AND male), you better watch yourself very, very carefully around those without those privileges. Check it or wreck it, folks. And when oppressed folks point out the obvious and easily observed behaviors that a vast majority of people in your privileged group engage in that hurt them, you shut up, listen, and take notes. If you have to have a privileged person cry about it, do it privately and once it's out of your system, come back and re-read what is ACTUALLY being said.

3. It exasperates me how quick privileged white dudes on the internet are to jump on anyone who dares to connect their annoying, hurtful, dangerous, aggressive, or otherwise unwanted behaviors with their privileges. Sure, you can call a person a jerk, but once you point out that the jerkiness is like peanut butter to privilege's jelly, well then you're racist and sexist and then the wahhhmbulance turns on it's sirens and somebody's gotta make a call to Whine-One-One and it gets ridiculous.

4. I use the banhammer like a madam. I love it. I named it Smooshy. I like to take Smooshy out and give it exercise whenever I can.

5. Not enough attention is being paid to how cute my dog is. She. is. extremely. adorable. Seriously. LOVE MY DOG Y'ALL. LOVE HERRRRRRRRRRR. She knows how to sit and stay and even spin and touch my hand and she goes right in her kennel once I say "kennel up".

In case anyone has wondered what's up with the reviews and why the new format, I'm trying out a new way of reviewing books. I read over some of my old reviews and realized that they were very sloppy and probably not helpful to those who wanted to read criticism or reviews about a certain book.

I also made a list of some of the books I really enjoyed from the past year and decided that I'd finally get around to that massive review dump I've been swearing to do. After all, I probably read more this year than I have since college, and I felt it would be a good thing if I not only blogged about what I've been reading (especially genre wise), but also if I did so in a way that was more organized and easier to read.






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Title:Ink & Steel/Hell & Earth (The Stratford Man)
Author: Elizabeth Bear (matociquala, http://www.elizabethbear.com)
Genre: Fantasy
Page Count: 448/432
Publisher: ROC

( Review of Ink & Steel and Hell & Earth by Elizabeth Bear. Grade: A )

So, it's official. My words have been counted and at 57,638 words, I'm a winner.



This year's NaNoWriMo has definitely been a good experience, because it got my out of a rut, and it taught me to keep limber, not to get set in one mode of writing. It also taught me that you can have organized chaos in a novel and it works.

I don't know if this is a project I'll continue working on. I have comments trickling back in from those who are reading the Tower!Guy novel, and the positive feedback as well as the extremely helpful critiques have me thinking that it's something worth seeing to the end, the end being publication of course.

NaNoWriMo is always a worthwhile venture, I believe, whether you win or lose, because either way, you learn something. You try. You write.

Thing about writing is? It's one of the few things that's entirely human. More and more we learn that monkeys, dogs, dolphins, can do things that we thought only people were capable of.

But human beings are the only animals that I'm aware of that can take the worlds and universes and souls that live inside their head and externalize them, make them real, and invite others in to discover things that even the author didn't see.

Congrats to those who have already won, and a big "keep going!" to those who have yet to get to the finish line. You've still got plenty of time, and with determination, you really can do it.

To those of us who survived the month, who went full goose bozo, who displayed the necessary dodginess of mental health, I salute you!

nhw posted the popularity rankings of Shakespeare's plays by LibraryThing users.

Interesting list. And I'm surprised by some of the results, particularly that Romeo and Juliet came in third, not first - and that Julius Caesar came in as high as it did. I haven't met a lot of people who have professed to have a lot of love for that play.

I love it, even though it's a source of a lot of the misconceptions people have about ancient Rome and Caesar's reign and other such things (including the completely bogus theory that Brutus was Caesar's son). This, of course, makes me gnash my teeth because, ZOMG, six years of mah learnings let me show you thems - but, still, I love the play. If only for Antony's speech over Caesar's body, though I have yet to see it done as well as I think it's written.

Also, roflrazzi.com came through with hardcore lolarity:

Since about Thursday, the creativity faucet got turned on high hot and all the way. Since Thursday I have:

1. Picked up speed (finally!) on the Tower!Guy Story revisions. I rocketed through the end of one chapter, and will probably be done with another by the end of the day, and see no reason I'm not going to zoom through the next chapter.

2. Painted a picture. Not sure if I should scan it in and share it with anyone as I'm still in the process of getting my bearing with acrylics, especially since I started out learning to paint with oils.

3. Exercised my photography muscles by taking a bunch of pictures of assorted things in the psuedo-garden behind my apartment building. The pictures of the rose are my favorite. Although, I sort of risked life and limb to get the pictures of the rose. Because it wasn't like the damn thing was right in front of me. It was actually on top of a big thorny bush that was taller than me. So I had to climb on top of a somewhat dodgy ceramic planter (never again will I go into a garden wearing neon green flip flops) and sort of stick the camera in there and eyeball it. Still, I think my photoggery has improved. Especially since I've got The Boy's ultra-sweet camera to do it with.

The funny part of this had nothing to do with the pictures, though. The funny part was when I was walking back to my apartment and overheard a conversation through an open window and didn't catch on at first.

You have to understand that this neighbor, who I'll call Ms. J, is a woman in her late-60's maybe 70's. She's very quiet, reserved, looks a bit mean, and perpetually lives in her Hawaiian-flower nightgown.

So I'm walking through the alley by the apartment and I hear her talking to her daughter, who's very loud, typically New York voice I recognize:

Ms. J's Daughter: So, tell me about Linda. What does she do?

Ms. J: (mumble mumble something I can't hear)...Scrabble.

Ms. J's Daughter: Oh, she plays Scrabble. But what does she do all day?

Ms. J: (mumble mumble, still can't hear)

Ms J's Daughter: Well, did she at least give you a shower? That's the best part, when they give you a shower.

Me: o_O. *eyebrow raise*

And my first thought was, Sweet moses on the mount, I didn't know Ms. J was a lesbian. And what the hell kind of kinky stuff is going on if her daughter is asking if her girlfriend gives her a bath? Privacy much?. (Yes, I realize the irony of thinking this as I'm eavesdropping, but the window was open, and this lady was loud and it's New York City).

I walked away, and then after a few minutes of thought, realized that they were actually talking about the home health nurse that Ms. J has, because Ms. J suffered an unfortunate fall and broke her hip last year.

4. Thought up a great new idea that would make a fantastic Fantasy/Romance/Mystery story. It includes such exciting elements as: Princes In Disguise! Hundreds of Virgins, None of Whom Actually Are! Intrigue! Swordfighting Women! Important Social Discourse! And most importantly: Surprise Buttsex! Not sure what I shall title it in my head. I'm sure by now anyone who's checked out my tags realizes that my working titles lack any kind of elegance.

5. Revised and refined the UF!2Girls project such that I think it might stand a chance of one day getting to reader for an opinion of whether it, too, deserves it's turn on the Submission Wheel.

6. Wrote three poems. Eventually I'll get around to posting them, probably. Maybe. I really hate f%^king poetry, you know that? Grr. Argh. *Finger monster*

7. Finished off one of my paper writing journals and started a new one. It's a cute little red Miquelrius notebook. Yes, yes, I know. It's supposed to be Moleskine or bust for us writery types, but honestly? Moleskines are nice, but overrated.

Hey, sandramcdonald,





Welcome to the Big Apple! You can now be found on the New Release shelves in the SF/F section at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square. Sorry the picture is so crummy, but all I had was a cellphone camera on hand.

One day, I aspire to sit on the same shelf. But for now, congrats! It's quite an achievement.