Women, write your own rules

Repeat after me: you don’t have to follow other people’s rules.

According to the world, there are immense list of ‘rules’ for being a woman. We’re all expected to pour time and effort into meeting certain beauty standards so we’re suitably aesthetic for those around us. We’re expected to magically figure out what side of the work/family balance our neighbors expect us to be on, which can change depending on who you talk to at any given moment. Worse, we’re expected to keep that balance effortlessly, without any regard to the fact that we have only so many hours in a day and could really use a little help.

No matter how much we do, how much we give, the ‘rules’ are always asking more of women. We’re expected to be good, kind and gracious at all times, keep clean homes, make sure our kids have enough extracurricular activities, be nice to the neighbors, be involved in our communities and church groups and always stay skinny and so on and so on and so on….

No.

Those are the world’s rules, not yours. And honestly, the world doesn’t know anything about you, and what you have to go through in a given day, and anyone who hasn’t been in your shoes really doesn’t have a right to decide whether you’re doing things “correctly” or not. Some days, the fact that you’re doing anything at all is enough of a reason to stand up and applaud yourself.

You don’t have to live up to anyone else’s standards but your own. You’re the one who’s doing the job of living your life, which means you know better than anyone else what it takes to live it right. The world won’t give anything back to your for jumping through its hoops, so there’s really no reason to kill yourself trying to pull the trick off. No matter how loud they’re shouting at you, there’s nothing that says you have to go where they tell you to.

I’m not saying that there aren’t things we do have to do, both as women and people in general. We all have responsibilities, no matter what gender we are, and fulfilling those responsibilities is what keeps the world moving. Whether it’s going to your job, calling your mom, eating slightly healthier than you did yesterday, or making sure your kids get fed and go to sleep at a reasonable hour, we’ve all got a to-do list that sometimes feels like it’s five miles long.

But don’t let other people put things on the list that you don’t want to have on there. The church potluck will survive without you bringing anything, and if you feel guilty about not contributing something a bag of store-bought salad is just fine. If your kids have to make their own dinner for a few nights, the world won’t end. Neither will your husband, even though he might complain like he will. You don’t always have to be the one who stays and works those extra overtime hours at your job. You don’t have to dress the same way everyone else does.

You get to decide what it means to be a good woman, and the only test that really matters is how you feel about yourself at the end of the day.   

"Two Left Feet" available July 29!

My new e-book, "Two Left Feet," is finally up in various formats and available for pre-order. It's my take on "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," which has always left me so full of questions. Was it really so bad the girls wanted to go dancing every night? Was murder really the best option for all those poor random guys? Who got all 12 sisters to agree on all doing the same thing at the same time, even if it was just dancing? Why do most variations of the story make the hero the random soldier guy instead of, oh, I don't know, the actual princesses who the story is named after?

So, as is my usual habit when I'm left unsatisfied by a fairy tale, I wrote my own.

Synopsis:

What do you do when you're one of the 12 Dancing Princesses but are really, really bad at dancing? For Thea, it was a choice between boredom and accidentally maiming her dance partners, and she wasn't terribly fond of either option. But just as the nightly dances start to get interesting, their father hires someone to discover his daughters' secrets and stop their nightly adventures. Can Thea and her sisters figure out how to keep the party going?

Read or download an excerpt here

Pre-order now:

Amazon
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New Short Story: Dressed to Impress (AKA The Elves Are Coming)

www.aradanicostumes.com/elf_ears

The elves were coming.

Morena Montclair, whose husband had made his money in the magic mirror business, was in an absolute tizzy. No one in the neighborhood had hosted elves before, and if she pulled it off it would be a social triumph that would far surpass the fact that Gertrude's second cousin was a Baron.

She absolutely had to dazzle them. Morena spent a solid month getting ready, decimating the local potted tree supply in an attempt to recreate a forest in her dining room. She insisted that the cooks use only elven recipes, tasting and retasting them until they were as delicate and ethereal as she had always imagined elven food to be.

It was her outfit, however, that took most of her time and attention. It had to be perfect, elegant and magnificent all in the same breath, so these elves would know that she'd been born human only by accident. She was worthy to be one of them, and would be an excellent addition if someone happened to invite her to an elven party or two.

(She would also be an excellent addition if one of them happened to be looking for a wife. Leonard was perfectly pleasant, but also the sort of man one didn't hesitate to leave for brighter horizons.)

By the day of the dinner, she was resplendent. Her sleeves belled out four full feet, the leaf-green silk trailing on the ground behind her. She piled her hair on top of her head and wove small branches into it, though the bird was nixed after an incident that forced a thorough hair-washing and restyling. Elves didn't seem to wear a lot of jewelry, tragically, but she'd purchased two different sets of emerald combs to wear in her hair.

When they came, gliding in through the front doors like they were walking on air, Morena bowed so low she needed a maid's help to right herself again. "Honored guests, welcome to my humble abode."

When she looked up, the lead elf's expression was as placid as his waterfall of golden hair. Perhaps they simply hid their admiration better than humans did. "Thank you. Your husband said the meal would start soon?"

That was the most she could get any of the elves to speak to her, even after they sat down and started eating. Morena tried to engage them in conversation, asking them about the length of their sleeves and whether it was fashionable to wear small pumpkins in the fall, but they only gave her the briefest of answers before returning to some sort of business discussion with her husband. 

Finally, in the middle of the dessert course, one of the lesser elves turned to her. "I must ask - what is that fascinating accessory?"

Morena brightened. It wasn't the attention she'd hoped for, but she'd take what she could get. "Do you mean my headpiece?"

He shook his head. "No, the overrobes your staff wear." He gestured to one of the serving girls. "Those pockets would be most useful."

"'Overrobes?'" Morena stared at the serving girl, confused, then her eyes widened in horror. "You mean her apron?"

"Apron." The elf said the word slowly, as if committing it to memory, then nodded in satisfaction. "Most excellent. I shall have to see about acquiring one."

Immediately after dinner, Morena demanded one of the maids' aprons and put it on. No one commented on it. The following spring, aprons became a common fashion accessory for the more practical-minded elves.

When she heard the news, Morena refused to leave the house for a week. 

Being a teenager is terrifying

My hands shook all the time when I was a teenager.

It wasn’t because of a medical condition, and I never checked whether I had anything like anxiety disorder. The fine tremble was so familiar to me that I never even thought about it much, and when someone asked I would brush it off with a “oh, they always do that.” Never once did I think about how strange it was, and alarming, that an average day could make my hands do something a human body is only supposed to do at its most frightened or emotional.

The emotion and fear weren’t exactly new to me either, with every day a desperate effort to prove myself to classmates I was certain hated me and a father and grandparents who looked at me and wished for a different girl in my place. It was like every morning was the biggest test of my life, and I was dogged with the constant, terrible feeling I was failing no matter what I did.

Adults forget how terrifying being a teenager can be. It’s like inching slowly out onto an impossibly high diving board for the very first time in your life, Olympic-level judges critiquing your every step and hesitation. People are screaming suggestions and other critiques to you from both the sidelines and the water, along with dire warnings about what will happen if your dive isn’t absolutely perfect. There’s some encouragement, but it either gets lost in the shouting or makes it seem like you’re being a coward for not just jumping in.

When you get in the water, it’s always easier. True, we still have people shouting at us from the sidelines, and sometimes the other swimmers try to drown us, but it feels like there aren’t as many people paying attention. Even more importantly, the water is familiar to us now – even climbing back up and jumping in again isn’t as frightening, because we know what it feels like to fall. We’ve done it before, and we know what to do with our bodies.

If you’re still up on that diving board, it’s okay to be scared. Being young is incredibly overwhelming, and though those of us down below mean well we don’t really understand. Just be as good to yourself as you can be, and know that when you get down to the water you realize that the shouting doesn’t really mean that much. All that really matters is that you get down here without hurting yourself, and figure out how to keep your head above water once you’re here. The rest of it is just noise.

I don’t know when my hands stopped shaking – I only noticed the strange stillness afterward. But whenever something stressful or frightening has happened in the years since, I can’t help but look down at my hands. Surely this is bad enough to make them shake, I always think. Surely what I’m going through has to be scarier than just being a teenager.

But they’ve never shaken since. 

Older and wiser vs. younger and dumber

If a genie came along and offered to make me young again, I'd say no.

Admittedly, I'm not yet as old as I could be. I don't yet have to worry about aching bones and strange sleeping schedules, but gray hair is already a significant part of my life. My metabolism and energy levels are pale imitations of what they were in my 20s, as are my sense of adventure and opportunities to meet new people.

Your world starts shrinking when you graduate from college, right around the same time your waistline starts expanding. I stopped being anything vaguely resembling "cool" a long time ago, a fact that the use of the word "cool" no doubt confirms.

Technically, rewinding the clock would give all that back to me. I'd be skinnier again, with bright eyes and smaller shirts, and when I looked in the mirror I'd only see dark hair. I wouldn't have to worry about my blood pressure, cholesterol levels, or squeezing some extra exercise into the day. I wouldn't feel time looming over my head, reminding me every day that there's less and less of it left to accomplish the things I want to do. The world would be awash in a sea of possibilities.

I would also be clueless about what to do with any of them. I knew exactly nothing when I was 20, either about myself or what life was really like. I didn't appreciate my smaller waistline or my hopeful young face, always comparing it to the girls around me who were skinny and pretty and everything I thought I wanted to be. I had boundless energy, but not the slightest idea of what I really wanted to do with it. I was scared of things that I later learned didn't matter at all. I made myself bleed wanting things that I later realized I didn't really need.

There is nothing in the world that would tempt me to trade the mind I have now for the one I had when I was 20. The years I lived between then and now were full of irreplaceable lessons, experiences and insights that ended up changing my view of the world. They reshaped me into a smarter, happier person, more at peace with myself than I ever imagined I could be when I was younger. All of those lessons only came because I was in the right place at the right time to understand what was being taught. All of those lessons built on each other, reshaping me as they went.

Even if I could go back in time and tell 20-year-old me everything I've learned since then, I suspect  she wouldn't believe any of it. Even if she did, she wouldn't have known how to use any of it. Only time, and living, can teach you things like that.

So, even if someone could turn back the clock, I'd have to pass on that particular miracle. It took long enough to get where I am today – the last thing I'd want is to have to do it all over again.

New short story: Vampire Ball

Annabelle covertly adjusted her corset, wondering how it could still be so infuriating even though she technically no longer needed to breathe. She had been promised that, as a vampire, she would be a goddess among mortals, but she was quite certain that no goddess had ever stuffed herself into one of these ridiculous tubes and paraded herself around for strangers.

"I should have let Lionel bite me instead of you," she sniped, sweeping a glare over the dancing crowd before turning it to the tall, elegantly dressed gentleman standing beside her. "I could be out running under the moonlight at this very moment, free and gloriously naked."

Reginald, the gentleman in question, pursed his lips briefly in distaste. "With blood and entrails matting your fur, no doubt."

"I would not care, and the forest is blessedly free of pinch-faced busybodies who would insist on caring in my stead." She yanked the comb out of her hair, letting it spill down around her shoulders as she tossed the offending piece of jewelry into a darkened corner.  "We are creatures of the night, Reggie. I let you turn me to get away from ridiculous games like this. Forgive me if I'm horrified by the thought of being trapped in them for the next 500 years."

He gave a patient sigh at the acid in her tone, tucking an errant lock of hair behind her ear. "Lionel and his kin spend their time in the forests because biology demands it of them. They hunger for the dumb woodland creatures, the violence of the chase." He sniffed. "Savages."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "And which of you has the higher body count?"

"Irrelevant. When we vampires eat, we eat with dignity." He swept a hand out to take in the swirling dancers before them, lips quirking upward. "An entire buffet spread out before us."

Annabelle followed Reginald's gaze, the light slowly dawning. "Ah," she said after a moment, her own lips curving. "I take back everything I said."

He looked amused. "I thought you might."

Give me more variety in female characters

Copyright 2015 Disney

I came to the horrifying realization recently that most of my favorite characters were men.

This, of course, doesn’t count for my original characters, who are at least 50 percent men (and the women are all ever so slightly more my favorite – sorry, guys). But in other media, in the books, movies and TV shows that I devour in great piles, the characters I’m the most drawn to are nearly always men. Sam Vimes from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, Tony Stark from the Marvel movies, Dean Winchester from “Supernatural,” Malcolm Reynolds from “Firefly”….

These are all wonderful, beautifully created characters, and there is nothing wrong with loving them as much as I do. But I’m a woman, and I champion the need for more female characters in … well, pretty much everything. So why had I not given my heart to the handful of characters I had?

The truth is that I like every one of those women, and have a special place in my heart for Natasha (aka Black Widow from the Marvel movies). But the intensity of my love for any of them doesn’t quite match what I feel for the boys I listed, and I wondered if I had somehow failed my sex as a whole. Was it some sort of internalized misogyny that kept me from truly embracing them? Was I wrong, to love the characters I did and not these magnificent ladies?

Finally, I figured out that the problem wasn’t with me. It turns out that the characters closest to my heart are usually a very specialized breed of asshole, quick with a sarcastic comment and putting a brave face on the fact that they’re so desperately broken inside. I like the cons, the rapscallions, the ones who bend the rules until they're pretzel-shaped but deep inside are blood-loyal to their chosen few. I like the bastards who stomp through the rules, who shout at people and are convinced they’re not a good person even though they always try to help people. I like characters who are an absolute mess, but always get back up with a smirk and a good solid punch to the jaw.

Apparently, most writers don’t feel women can be like that.  The closest I’ve been able to find is my dear Black Widow, and though she’s a wonderful, damaged dork inside she usually masks it with a cool and collected exterior. I’m pretty sure I am physically incapable of being cool and collected, so as much as I love her I feel a little more affinity with “Mr. Cocky Swagger and Terrible Decisions” Stark.

Where are my female pirates? Where are my female thieves, for that matter? “Leverage” is the only show that’s ever given me lady cons, and I loved that entire team with an equal ferocity. Where are my female gangsters and monster hunters? Where are the snarky, grubby, sarcastic bastards that happen to be the same gender I am?

And why stop there? “Jurassic World” was good, but the main cast had exactly one token female. Unsurprisingly, she was the one in heels and a nice suit. Why couldn’t any of the security people have been female? Why couldn’t any of the people who worked directly with the dinosaurs have been female? Look around in zoos and wild animal parks, and you’ll see so many women working directly with the animals. No matter what the directors thought, it would be no different with dinosaurs.

Real women are lawyers, doctors, police officers, teachers, mothers, garbage collectors, drug dealers and everything in between. They are elegant, cruel, sarcastic, kind, gentle, anti-social, friendly, angry, loving, brave, tough, fragile, dangerous and everything in between.

Let us see the women we are onscreen. Let us be messy and unlovable. Stop insisting that we only come in a few versions, that all we are can be so neatly packaged. “Female character” is not a real category. “Strong female character” isn’t, either. There are an infinite variety of us, and you’ve barely scraped the surface.

“Ghostbusters,” “Cinderella” and “Maleficent:” Remade vs. reborn stories

Photo courtesy of Disney

There are only so many times you can tell the same old story.

Hollywood, unfortunately, can never decide whether it believes this is true or not. They announce an all-female “Ghostbusters,” bringing a fresh idea to a beloved franchise that would actually justify resurrecting it, then turn around and approve an all-male reboot that will just bring more of the same. Disney makes “Maleficent,” which transforms a classic one-note villainess into a powerful heroine, then re-makes “Cinderella” solely to give the titular character an even prettier dress
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But if we’re going to claim a story for our own, we can’t just slap a fresh coat of paint on it and tell people that we’ve created something. There’s already a perfect all-male “Ghostbusters” that exists in the world, and if someone is craving that all they have to do is pop in the DVD and listen to Bill Murray at his finest. Listening to Channing Tatum say the lines won’t make them funnier.

True, Tatum was hilarious in “21 Jump Street,” but that’s because the movie is nothing whatsoever like the original TV series.   An all-female “Ghostbusters” should exist because the change in gender automatically alters the entire dynamic of the movie. It gives audiences the opportunity to have a brand-new perspective with a story they thought they new well, giving them a fresh experience rather than trying to duplicate the old one.

The same is true for fairy tales. They’ve been retold so many times we’ve all memorized the traditional versions of the stories, whispered in our ears from the time we were little kids.  We all watched the original animated “Cinderella,” cheering on the ridiculously intelligent mice and enjoying how well the Fairy Godmother could rock a guest spot, and seeing it again in the live-action version was pleasant but dull. We already knew how that particular story went.

“Maleficent,” on the other hand, is nothing like “Sleeping Beauty.” It re-imagined the story, even more so than an all-female “Ghostbusters” would, and completely transformed a character who had been nothing more that a static (but incredibly cool) villain. Reversing her polarity like that made the story entirely different, and allowed it to go in directions that the original “Sleeping Beauty” could never touch. It’s not necessarily better or worse than the original – as with everything, your mileage may vary – but it’s worthy of standing on its own. The world is a better place because both stories exist.

That kind of new perspective was my goal with both “Beast Charming” and my previous book, “Fairy Godmothers, Inc.” Both books are set in a world where fairy tales aren’t special or exciting – they’re every day, practical occurrences, and the world responds to them accordingly. You can go to graduate school to become an evil sorceress, and you can make pretty good money selling anti-curse insurance.

In a world like that, there’s no guarantee that the story will work out the way it’s “supposed” to.  And happily ever after … well, that can mean just about anything.

Fight Like A Girl

Saying that someone “fights like a girl” is a pervasive enough insult that even we women have been known to use it sometimes. Everyone knows the unspoken images behind the words – a useless slap instead of a solid punch, ridiculous angles and no follow through. In popular culture, to fight like a “girl” means you’re no good at it.

But have you actually seen women fight?

 I’m not talking about female boxers and MMA fighters, though those women are awesome and terrifying in their own way. I’m talking about the struggles an average women goes through in her life, and the challenges she’s able to take on without breaking a sweat.

 Our bodies are wonders of strength and design, able to accommodate an entire other person growing inside of us without breaking or becoming permanently mangled. We’re such great survivors that our bodies know how to not only keep one person alive for months, but two. And we can do it again and again.

 It’s not just childbirth that shows how tough a woman’s body is. Studies have shown that women overcome brain trauma faster than men, taking less time to heal from concussions and other injuries. We outlive men by an average of about five years, at least in the United States, and are less likely to be obese adults as well.

 Inevitably, there are a few areas where men have the edge over us. National statistics show that we’re at a higher risk of developing strokes, and more women suffer from osteoporosis than men. Heart attacks are more of a concern for women than many of us realize or like to acknowledge. There’s also breast cancer, the most common cancer in women and second to lung cancer as a leading cause of death for women.

 But real fighters know that just because you’re down doesn’t mean you have to be out. The fact that breast cancer is so common, but still isn’t our leading killer, is proof that it’s possible to fight back against even the worst illnesses. Breast cancer survivors are some of the strongest, bravest women I’ve ever met, banding together to support each other and pushing a major outreach to make sure other women get tested. Even if they’ve been hit by the disease, they don’t want to see other women fall.

 We can combat other illnesses as well. Research shows that potassium lowers the risk of strokes in older women. Knowing the warning signs of heart attacks for women – which are different than they are for men – and pushing for early detection can lower our risk for that as well. Making sure your calcium intake is high enough can help you avoid having to deal with osteoporosis later in life. Screenings of all kinds are important.

 Sure, men may be physically stronger than you are. But strength is only one factor that matters when surviving a physical fight, and when it comes to the battles life throws at us it’s often the least important one. The ability to survive, to take care of yourself and others, and to heal and move on can be far more important. And we women excel at all of that.

So the next time you hear the phrase “fight like a girl,” tell the person that they’re using it inaccurately. Because girls are some of the best fighters I know.

Be loud

Be loud.

You can’t trust anyone else to remember that you have a voice. To care that you have a voice. Silence is seen as assent in today’s society, and even if it isn’t no one seems to remember the quiet person.

No, that’s not quite true. No one seems to remember the quiet woman. The quiet person of color. The quiet minority of any stripe. No matter what titles are attached to our names, no matter what work we’ve done, we will be forgotten by even the most well-meaning if we let ourselves. Because the world moves by those in power, and all their old instincts tell them that we are supposed to be quiet.

Don’t be quiet.

Speak up every single time you have something to say. You don’t have to shout, you don’t have to throw accusations, you don’t have to even be rude. But. You. Must. Speak. Up. When they have a meeting without you, step into it. When they try to make a decision without you, intrude on the conversation and tell them your opinion. Always make sure your name is counted, and you have gone on the record.

Force them, even if it’s only for a little while, to see you. To hear you.

They will be surprised to see you. You will hear it in their voices, see it in their faces. They had forgotten you were there. They may wish you weren’t there now.

But that doesn’t matter. You must walk into that room certain in the knowledge that this is your place. As if you had been told about the meeting. As if they are waiting for baited breath for what you have to say. Do not dare devalue your voice just because they do.

It may change nothing. In the immediate circumstance, it will probably change nothing. The world is still moved by people in power, and it is easy for them to forget we are here at all. Actually listening to us is another thing entirely.

But speak, even if no one is listening. Raise your voice, and every word you speak will be a testament that we are worth hearing. We are worth remembering. We deserve to be heard.