Asking yourself why

There are so many guides out there that help you not give up when you’re trying to reach a goal. Article after article and blog after blog will offer all kinds of encouragement and advice on how to keep your courage up when the odds seem impossible. By this point in my life, I think I’ve read pretty much all of them.

The thing is, none of them work. Wanting to become a professional novelist is one of the stupidest possible things you could possibly do with your time, at least among the category of things that won’t potentially get you killed. Especially if you have any kind of anxiety or self-esteem issues, the idea that you would constantly put your heart and soul out there to get rejected seems mind-bogglingly insane. It’s like volunteering to be slapped in the face and pushed down the stairs over and over again, when literally no one is making you do this.

I’ve tried to ask myself why I do this a thousand times. On my good days, I have a whole, beautifully impassioned speech about hope, and passion, and how important it is to tell your story. On my good days, I could make you cry with how deeply I believe in the power of writing.

On my bad days, I get a single, bald-faced question in reply – “What the hell else are you going to do?” Because, like with any addiction, the only way you can be done with a game like this is to be 100 percent, slam the door done. I will have to accept with every fiber of my being that there is no possible way I could ever make this work, and I will have to let it go forever. I’ll have to put away the version of myself that I’ve lived with for the last three decades, and figure out whether there’s anything else out there I could possibly want to do with the rest of my life.

Even the thought of it terrifies me.

So I get up again, and I keep fighting. Because even if I die never having made it, it’s better than living the rest of my life accepting that I never will.  

On writing: You don't have to be crazy to work here

I’ve described my relationship with writing as something to close to those “Wuthering Heights”-style romances, where you can’t imagine living without each other but there’s also a 50 percent chance that one of you will be arrested for the other’s murder. I’d never put up with this level of obsessiveness and frustration in any sort of relationship with an actual human, but when it comes to writing I can’t seem to stop myself. The question of whether I actually enjoy writing is as irrelevant as whether I actually enjoy breathing. 

What I didn’t realize until recently, however, was the effect that watching my relationship with writing had on my sister. She’s a scientist at heart, but she’s got a wonderful science fiction universe set up where she gets to play with different alien races and the interaction between them. She’s mostly at the planning stages right now, but she’s sent me some snippets and they’re wonderfully entertaining. 

For years, however, she was too frozen by anxiety to really explore any of it. She’d seen me write for years, and had come to the conclusion that the only proper way to be a “writer” was to basically throw yourself in it and drown the same way I had. Since she wasn’t willing to devote an immense chunk of her brain to the idea, she decided that she couldn’t write any of it. 

When she finally told me all of this, I disabused her of the notion as thoroughly as possible. And if any of you out there feel the same way about some spark of a story kicking around your head, please let me disabuse you of it as well. 

Literally the only thing you need to be a writer is an idea and the vague thought that maybe you should write it down. You don’t have to be one of those intense “writer” types that often appear in popular media in order to qualify for the term. It can be a fun thing you do in your spare time, the same way another person might take up knitting (and believe me, there are some intense knitters out there, so pretty much every craft or talent has a sliding scale of obsession). 

And yes, there are a lot of “rules” out there for writing, but the truth is that those are mostly important when you’re thinking about having a wide range of people reading your work (or are hoping to get the attention of an editor or publisher). If you’re just writing for yourself, or for your family and friends, you don’t even have to stress about the “rules” all that much. (And even then, a lot of the “rules” end up not being all that true anyway.) 

So, if you’ve got a story idea you’d kind of like to write down somewhere, go and do it with my blessing. You don’t have to be crazy to be a writer. 

Some of us just do it anyway. 

The real heart of “Beauty and the Beast”

©Disney

I’ve always loved “Beauty and the Beast.”

It was an obvious choice for my favorite Disney movie growing up, since I had brown hair and a serious reading habit. I, too, was the girl with the “dreamy far off look” and “my nose stuck in a book,” and if I ever starred in a musical there would absolutely have to be a song where everyone talked about how weird they thought I was. I was also insanely curious, and just like Belle would have immediately investigated the creepy, shut-up part of the house I had been forbidden from going anywhere near.

I identified with the Beast just a much. No, I wasn’t extremely tall and furry, but I was angry and brooding and almost completely lacking in social skills. It was hard to see him as a monster when I could sympathize so completely with him, and it wasn’t like Belle needed the defense – when he roared at her, she yelled right back at him. And he was so eager to learn how to be a nicer person, even though he stumbled sometimes.

The only part of the movie that really tripped me up was the end. As much as I loved the Beast, I had zero interested in the human he turned into at the very end. I didn’t see anything that connected him with the guy I loved – he had a pretty face, and a soft voice, and he was never onscreen long enough for us to see any sign of the anger and awkwardness that had been so much a part of the Beast. Even though he’d been working hard to become a better person, things like that don’t just disappear the moment you get a makeover.

A lot of people see the transformation as the entire point of “Beauty and the Beast.” For them, the moral of the story is that love “fixed” the Beast, making him the metaphorical handsome prince instead of the supposedly scary monster. In its more dangerous aspect, it’s the idea that a good woman is enough to “save” a man (“Fifty Shades of Grey” is really just “Beauty and the Beast” in its most annoying form).

For me, however, I wish the transformation never happened. Or if it did, that the movie made it clear we were getting the same angry, awkward man in a slightly different body. The change that mattered had already happened, the slow transformation of an isolated man into someone who cares enough about others to put their needs before his own. That was the man Belle had already fallen in love with, the man that the weird, awkward dreamer inside her had recognized and responded to. She had been just as alone as he was, surrounded by people who couldn’t see past how different she was.

They were both beasts, in their own way, just like they were both beautiful where it mattered. What they looked like didn’t matter – the fact that they had found each other at all was the real happy ending.

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.   

Not quite human

Have you ever had anyone look at you like you were an alien from another planet?

And I know I shouldn't complain, not really. I'm white, and cis, and so I've never had hate speech tossed at me. I've never had to fear for my life. And on top of that, I have people who love me. In a lot of ways, I'm really lucky.

But there's a look, people get sometimes. It's not the same as the "oh, she's so quirky" look, or even the "you poor awkward thing, why did anyone let you out of the house?" look. The latter makes it clear they're slightly charmed, and the latter inevitably falls somewhere between amusement and pity.

No, the "alien" look is far more clinical, as if you're being genuinely studied. It's worse than an insult, sometimes, because the person honestly looks they have no idea what on earth you're doing standing in front of them. It's a look that says, at least to them, you don't quite pass as being human. And because they never actually say the words, you can't even fight it.

It burns. And it scars. Because no matter how many people are kind to you, who look at you and see nothing wrong, there is a part of you that will always remember that, in some people's eyes, you don't count.

To anyone who has ever looked at anyone like that, whether it's because of their race, their faith, their gender, their sexual preference, or the fact that they're the quiet kid in the back of the class who smells kind of funny, don't you dare think that you're any better than those people who hurl insults at them or try to hurt them. Don't you dare think your silence buys you any kind of civility, or that your thoughts don't condemn you just as thoroughly as your words would. Because you cut them just as thoroughly, your brothers and sisters who are just as human as you are (and how dare you even for a second think otherwise) and you should be just as damned for it. You are the reason the world is broken.

And if you've ever been looked at like that, by anyone, please know that they're wrong. The fact that they can't see you correctly is their failing, not yours, and I wish I could be there to punch all of them in the face for daring to be dismissive of your magnificence. Because you are magnificent. You are precious, you are beautiful, you are amazing, and whoever you are I know this to the very depths of my soul. I pray that each and every one of you find someone who looks at you and sees the wonder that you are, because you deserve it.

Local Authors and You event

I'll be signing books at this, as well as teaching a workshop on how to get started on all those fantastic novel ideas many of you have burning inside your heads. If you're in town, I'd love to see you there!

"Dreamless":calling all fan artists!!!

My new novel, "Dreamless," will be out next February, but it's currently without a final cover (the one currently attached to the book on Amazon.com is definitely not it). Sadly, I can't make the decision on what the final cover will be, but I can ask any lovely fan artists who are out there if they would be willing to dip into their creative stores and whip me up the cover of my dreams.

For inspiration, this is the back cover text for the book:

For most princesses, a sleeping curse means a few inconvenient weeks unconscious followed by a happily-ever-after with their true love. Seventeen-year-old Elena's curse, however, was designed without a cure, which means that she's getting a century-long nap for her 18th birthday whether she wants it or not. After years of study she's still no closer to finding a cure, even with the help of an undead godfather and an enchanted mirror-turned-therapist. 

With only a year until the deadline she's learned to accept her fate. Sadly, there's one prince who doesn't seem to have gotten the memo and who’s continually trying to activate the curse so he can be the one to wake her up again. Only slightly less annoying is Cam, her new bodyguard and former childhood acquaintance who disagrees with Elena at pretty much every turn. When the curse threatens to come early, however, stealing her consciousness at random moments, they both realize that fate is a lot more complicated than they'd ever imagined.

And this is the link to the draft version of chapter one I posted here all the way back in 2013:

http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com/2013/11/sneak-peek-exclusive-look-at-dreamless.html

Since this won't be the final cover, the covers will be in the category of fan images and therefore open to interpretation. I'm open to all kinds of art, from drawing to photo manips. The winner will be used in my marketing for the book (fully credited), and will receive a "Dreamless" eARC the moment I get my hands on them. 

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.

Adventures in wildlife, part 2

Photo courtesy of pbs.org

You know those moments when your gut tells you that something is happening, but your brain doesn't really want to deal with the complication and keeps deluding itself for a few more minutes?

Turns out I do that waaay more than I'm comfortable with.

I was sitting just outside the front door of my apartment on the darkened walkway, surfing the internet by the glowing light of my computer screen. It was inching on 2 a.m. and I really needed to go to bed, so I finally made myself surface and shut off the computer. That's when I looked over and saw this ... shape on the walkway not more than a foot away from me.

Staring at it through the darkness, I could almost hear my brain think the words "Oh, it's probably just a leaf." Now, this shape looked absolutely nothing like a leaf, and I knew that as I stared at it, but if it was anything else I would be forced to actually do something. So, still telling myself it was a leaf, I reached over to touch it.

It was warm and just a little soft, like the skin of a particularly fuzzy peach. I was forced to accept the fact that it was most definitely not a leaf.

As if in agreement with the thought, it chose that moment to chirp.

Well, the only thing to do at that point was to scramble upright, tuck my laptop out of the way of whatever was about to happen, and turned on the porch light. There, lying on my walkway, was the most adorable little brown bat I have ever seen. It was just plastered against the cement on his belly, and I was suddenly afraid the poor little thing I'd just heard the poor thing's final chirp when it started to move around.

Now, this was not my first encounter with local wildlife. I've hauled to safety several birds who tried to kill themselves in my hall closet, but this was different. The little guy wasn't imposing on me at all, but my apartment complex is full of idiot kids, even more idiot teenagers, and drunk people, all of which could easily show up before I got outside in the morning and none of which I wanted anywhere near this little guy.

So I Googled, the one information source that doesn't care what time it is. I desperately started searching on my tablet, standing outside on the off chance I could keep him from getting stepped on (in the city, drunk people can literally show up at any moment). Most of the information was about what to do if they were flying, but as my little guy was still plastered against the ground that was clearly not the issue.

Not that he wasn't mobile. I turned off the light, in case it hurt his eyes somehow, then jumped dramatically like a minute later when something warm and soft bumped into my foot. I immediately flipped back on the light (with apologies, of course) to see the little guy crawling along at a pretty impressive pace. It thought about going off the edge of the walkway for a few seconds (not a comforting thought – I'm on the second floor), then clearly decided against it and turned around.

By this point, Google was telling me that the best way to move the bat was to urge it to grab onto a stick and carry it around on that. I was short of actual sticks – there are very few convenient branches in the city – so I grabbed a very dull-edged decorative sword (yes, I know. The only excuse I have for grabbing that instead of oh, I don't know, a broom, was that it was 2 a.m.) and ran back outside to find that the bat had crawled about 2 feet up the brick wall right by my front door and settled in for the night.

Now, I was really tempted to let him stay – like I said, the little guy was adorable – but that was still very much grabbing height. So I tried to get him interested in the sword, but unsurprisingly he wasn' t having it. I found a grabbing arm with a nice metal pole, but he wouldn't grab that either. In the end, I got desperate and used the grabbing arm to gently urge him into an empty, lidless cool-whip container (apologizing the whole time). Then I carried him to the one strip of relatively protected green space for like five blocks and wedged him into branches a few feet off the ground. When I went back to check on him a few minutes later, the container was empty and he was gone.

I went back the next morning to check again, but there was no sign of anything (I shooed off a cat, just in case). Clearly, I'm getting a little bit of a reputation amid the smaller portions of the animal kingdom. 

Our Perception Makes Our Reality

Our sense of time passing is an illusion, determined largely by how quickly our brain processes what's happening around us. Color is another thing determined by our brain, each specific shade determined by the way our brain interprets information received from the cones in our eyes. Our taste buds actually do relatively little to tell us about the food we eat – instead, our brain takes the information received by our nose, adds in backup data from our tongue, and cooks up an entirely new sense known as taste.

Most of what we perceive as reality, in fact, happens inside our head. Even when other parts of our bodies are what's actually receiving the data, it's useless to us until our brain translates it into something we understand. And, unlike computers,  each set of neurons and stem cells is even more unique than our fingerprints. It's more than a cliché that no two people see the world in exactly the same way – it's scientific fact. And, when you're human, how you see the world determines how your world actually is.

That's even more true when it comes to less tangible things. If brain waves determine color, taste and even time itself, then they're definitely in the driver's seat when it comes to things like beauty, goodness and wonder. That's why everyone's taste is different – what one set of neurons sees a beautiful may not be what another set of neurons sees as beautiful. So if someone doesn't find you attractive, that's says nothing about how you look. It just means that their way of perceiving the world simply wasn't compatible.

It can't change the data of your life – horrible events will happen, no matter what our attitude is – but it can change how you translate that data. It's the inside of your head that tells you whether to focus on the good things or the bad things in your life, or if a particular challenge is something you're capable of overcoming.  You don't get to decide what happens to you, but you do get to decide what it all actually means.

It also determines how we see ourselves. Your perception of your own attractiveness has an effect on how attractive you actually are to people, because it changes how you carry yourself and the confidence you project when you interact with others. If you see yourself as brave, you won't get intimidated by challenges that come your way. You will, in fact, will yourself into bravery.

If you see yourself as stupid, you'll get easily frustrated by tasks and give up on things you decide are "too hard." If you see yourself as smart, on the other hand, you'll set yourself to the challenge of problem solving because you know you're intelligent enough to succeed. You'll be more likely to solve the problem simply because you were willing to use all of your energy and intelligence to tackle it. Your IQ and skill sets don't change, but the results do.

We can help program our brains, shifting our perceptions inch by careful inch. It's not easy, and sometimes you need help in order to make it happen, but you can literally change your life by adjusting your mind.

There's an entire world being built inside your head. Make sure it's the one you want to be living in.

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.

No shame in loving "dumb" movies

© 2015 CTMG, Inc.

I have to be very careful sometimes when I talk about movies I like.

When you’re in any group of “serious” movie fans, those of us who talk about awards season like people in movies talk about horse races, there are certain standards you’re expected to uphold. Anything that won a major award is usually acceptable – the Academy Awards or the Golden Globes are always safe, though you get extra points if you can get something slightly more obscure.

Even better is if the movie was nominated, but lost to something that wasn’t quite as “good” but came from a bigger studio. In general, your favorite films should be mostly dramas, though Wes Anderson’s movies (“The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Moonrise Kingdom”) get a special exemption.
Major blockbusters may be liked under certain circumstances, but only if they’re well made. It helps if you can spin some explanation of how, for example, all the explosions are really symbolic of the destruction of modern society. (It goes without saying that you have to say all of this with a straight face).

I’ve seen many of these movies, and there were some of them I actually liked. As a former English Literature major, I can talk about the thematic significance of nearly anything, which meant that even if I didn’t like a movie I can talk about it in appropriately serious tones.

But I’m tired of hiding the fact that there’s a part of me that absolutely adores dumb movies. Though I haven’t seen the sequel, I actually liked “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.” (I actually had to physically fight the urge to go back and delete that sentence out of embarrassment, or qualify it with something like “even though I know how stupid it is.” Truthfully, I’m still fighting it, and it’s hard enough that I’ll be amazed if this entire paragraph makes it online).

I love the most ridiculous action movies, the kind that defy both common sense and the laws of physics, and want to be able to gush about my love of “Furious 7” without apologizing for how wonderfully absurdist it is. I want to be able to watch Reese Witherspoon use a terrible Texas accent (at least, I think it was a Texas accent) and fall over stuff in “Hot Pursuit” without having to pretend I wished it were something like “Wild.”

I will admit that Witherspoon was really good in “Wild,” a tough, searching movie about grief and self-identity. But do you know one thing it wasn’t? Fun. And sometimes, all I want to do when I go to a movie is switch my brain off and watch idiots crash into each other onscreen.

So if you honestly want to see a movie, go no matter how many insults movie critics or your “serious” movie friends pile on its head. Even if I’m the one lambasting the movie, feel free to ignore me if that’s what you want. If you end up deciding I was right, e-mail me and we can trash the movie together.

But if it turns out that you love it – or even like it just fine – there’s nothing wrong with that. Shout your love from the rooftops.  No matter how “dumb” the movie is, there’s absolutely no reason to be ashamed.

Yes, even if it’s “Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2.”

My superhero (for a few minutes, at least)

Sometimes, the smallest things can have the biggest impact on people. You may never even realize that you've done anything at all.

I was at my second signing of the day for "Beast Charming," an independent bookstore that had barely anyone in it. The few people who were there couldn't have cared less about the book, a fact that become even more ludicrous when they insisted I still do a reading. The seats were absolutely empty, except for my best friend in the front and the one dude who'd taken over planning the event (which was no help. It was literally his job to be there.)

So I started the reading, feeling profoundly stupid and just trying to power through it. Occasionally someone would wander through the back, not even slowing down slightly on their way to wherever they were going. I kept going – the people who'd asked me here still clearly wanted me to do it, no matter how ridiculous it was – but I told myself I could stop whenever I just couldn't take it anymore. Every paragraph, I was sure I would give up at the next one.  

Then I saw a guy in the back – clearly following his girlfriend around – who actually sort of looked like he was listening. His girlfriend couldn't have cared less about the reading, her focus clearly on whatever book she was looking for, but the guy's head was cocked in a certain way that happens when you've got an ear on something that's not in front of you. And when she left, wandering on to another section of shelving, he actually stayed and listened. Not even halfway this time – body turned completely to me, focus on me, leaning a little against the edge of a bookcase like he'd settled in for the duration. 

I have no idea why – he was actually on the complete opposite end of the spectrum of the book's potential target audience, so I can't imagine he was actually interested. But the fact that he was there, honestly listening without being obligated to (another employee wandered over after he did), was such an immense shot of comfort and courage. I went all the way through the reading I'd planned, and it was all because of him.

If it hadn't been so wildly inappropriate – like I said, girlfriend – I would have hugged him. As it was, I hope he had an amazing rest of the day. He deserved it.

Night owls, sleep, and making peace with mornings

http://cliparts.co/sleeping-clip-art-free

Sleep and I have a complicated relationship.

I’ll admit, I’m much more fond of it than I used to be. Going to bed was the worst kind of chore when I was a kid, somehow worse than doing dishes or even weeding the garden. I had to lie there, close my eyes and do absolutely nothing, because if I talked or read or sang that meant I wasn’t sleeping. I thought that sleeping was the most boring thing in the entire world, and I resented giving up every second my precious evening I had to give up in order to sleep.

Now, though, there are some nights when I’m utterly, gloriously relieved to collapse into bed. When I don’t have the physical or mental energy left to do more than stare at walls (or late night television, which is only slightly more interesting than the blank wall at times), sleep can feel like a glorious reward for a job well done.

Still, that’s only on some nights. If I have any kind of energy left, I’d much rather be reading a book, catching up on the DVRd episodes of my favorite show, or talking to a friend. Sometimes, I’d even rather be cleaning, because there are some nights when 1 a.m. feels like the perfect time to scrub the sinks or sweep the kitchen floor. You might question the sanity of the thought the next morning, but it’s hard to argue with the fact that your house is now slightly cleaner

Like many night owls, I’ve even made my peace with having to be functional the next morning. We have all kinds of tricks to make it through the first half of the day, most of which involve snooze alarms, large amounts of caffeine, and trying to arrange your schedule so you don’t have to do any complicated thinking until after noon.

You also get good at narrowing your sleep schedule as far as you can get away with, sneaking out a few extra minutes of consciousness anywhere you can. I’ve gotten really good at knowing exactly how much sleep I need to be a reasonable facsimile of a human being, and mostly try to stay in that general area. As long as I sound relatively coherent, no one seems to notice.

The thing is, though, that I notice. Living like this means that, while I get to keep my nights, I’m sleepwalking my way through at least half my morning. There’s a lot of stuff you miss when you’re only at 50 percent capacity, or even 75 percent, and most of that are those nice-but-unnecessary things that help make life worth living. I’m convinced that nights are better than mornings, but what if that’s because nights are the only part of my life I’m fully awake for?

So maybe I’ll start considering sleep a priority instead of an annoying chore I’m forced to do. I don’t want to give up my nights completely, but if I hand over a little bit of them – by going to bed at midnight instead of 1:30 a.m., maybe – then maybe I’ll have a little more brainpower to experience my morning with. Only then will I really be able to judge whether sunlight is worth all the fuss everyone else seems to make over it.

Protecting our tough, fragile hearts

When we’re young, we think our hearts are indestructible.

We throw ourselves headlong into everything, without a thought for caution, sense or what might happen next. We date the boy who dropped out of high school to become a “famous rock star,” despite the fact that he wouldn’t know the first thing about getting an agent. We date the girl who is “too good for us” and knows it, and we spend every cent we have trying desperately to keep her attention. We tell our friends all our secrets, never imagining that we won’t be speaking to each other in just a few years.

We’re just as reckless when it comes to our physical health. Heart attacks are distant, imaginary things, as impossible to comprehend as depleted energy and failing bodies. We chow down on our triple cheeseburgers with gusto, joking about how we can “hear our arteries clogging” as we eat. Heart attacks are the things that kill grandparents, not us, and though we’ve heard the term “stroke” we’re not even entirely sure what it is.

We demand all this from an unassuming little organ about the size of a human fist, a tough but fragile thing that ancient Egyptians used to believe was the seat of the soul itself. We not only ask it to keep our bodies going for generations, far longer than we’d expect any human-built engine to keep working, but we insist on such things without giving it a second thought. As if time, or those triple cheeseburgers, won’t touch it just because we believe it won’t.

But when we get older, we realize that nothing is indestructible. This is especially true of our hearts, which never entirely rid themselves of all the marks we leave on it. We’re never quite the same person we were after falling in love with entirely the wrong person, whether it’s a lesson learned or a scar that never quite heals. Sometimes, we see ourselves differently. Other times, it’s harder to fall in love again. Even if we’re stronger in the end, we don’t bounce back in quite the same way we were before.

On a physical level, though, being careless with our hearts doesn’t just “work out in the end.” It’s said that each heart only has so many beats in it, a finite amount of strength it has to push the blood through abused arteries. The more we make it do in our reckless youth, the fewer beats we’ll have when we get old enough to appreciate them more. When we realize that time won’t just spin on forever, so we have to cherish every second we have.

The problem is, we can’t go back and grab all those heartbeats we wasted when we were younger. Faithfully taking your blood pressure medication and losing weight when you’re 40 can extend your life, but think how much further you could extend it if you lost that weight at 30. If you got a nice chicken sandwich instead of that triple cheeseburger, and maybe walked to places that were nearby instead of always taking your car. Maybe you could even put down those cigarettes and give those nicotine patches another try.

Hearts can break. Hearts can stop. We should all learn to be a little more gentle with the ones we’re given.

Secret Princess Training Camp, pt. 3

Parts 1 and 2 can be found here

000

Unsurprisingly, our first "secret princess" class looked a lot like those special seminars where you're supposed to learn the secret of success for three easy payments of $49.99.

"The only thing that's missing are smiling minions with name tags," I muttered under my breath, making a mental note that folding chairs were no more attractive or comfortable-looking in a fantasy world than they were in mine.

"You're letting your sarcastic internal monologue leak out again," Hortensia whispered, keeping an eye on Mother Gans as she poked me in the leg. Kate had taken over the job of drawing her attention, but the pig was right – I had to be more careful. "You have a point, though – this crowd is too well-behaved for there not to be minions lurking around somewhere."

Magical minions, probably, and the sudden thought made my stomach twist. I scanned the crowd again, hunting for any sign that someone was here who didn't want to be, but no matter where I looked there were only bright, shining faces. There was some whispering, but the women looked too excited to be plotting escape.

There was only one explanation.

Hortensia saw the answer in my face. "Mind control spells," she breathed, looking absolutely panicked.

She started backing up, her steps slow enough I wasn't sure she was consciously doing it, and I caught her arm before she could get very far and leaned in close to whisper into her ear. "They're probably not dosing everyone, or they'd be doing it at the door and we'd already be feeling it. That means they're likely targeting troublemakers. If we smile, play nice, and don't take anything they hand out, we should be fine."

"Unless it's in the food," Hortensia whispered back.

"Well, then we'll... we'll...." See, this is why I liked writing the action instead of living it. I was much better at coming up with clever plans when I had some thinking time and a backspace key. "You're just a ray of sunshine, aren't—"

"You were just telling me about that, weren't you, Jenniffer?"

I shot upright at Kate's suddenly loud question-slash-warning, pasting a bright smile on my face. "Sure!" Deciding that was a little too psychotically cheerful, I dialed it down a notch. "We're really excited."

The small headshake from Kate made it clear I hadn't guessed quite right, but it was close enough that Mother Gans only hesitated a moment before smiling again. "Of course you are, my dears." She ushered us toward the seats. "Now, if you'll just sit down, we can get started. I can get someone to—"

"Oh, there's no need to go to the trouble," Kate cut in, using a smooth, persuasive voice that she must have once used during her old happily-ever-after sales pitches. "I'm sure we can find an open spot somewhere."

We hurried to the chairs, tugging each other into position as Mother Gans headed to the stage at the front of the room. As the music started, Kate leaned over and whispered in my ear. "I think the seating attendants are holding small misters."

As a former Fairy Godmother, Kate has more experience with mind control potions than the rest of us. "Any chance there's a cure like there was for True Love?" I whispered back. I'd have made sure there was, if I'd been the one writing this, but since I wasn't at my keyboard there was no way to be sure.

Kate shrugged. "I don't know. Given the way she was smiling, Mother Gans might actually be spraying herself."

Onstage, she'd started into the pitch, a magic mirror projecting a fake ballroom onto the walls behind her. "...want to shift the nature of what is possible for each and every one of you. In your old lives you were forgotten – shopkeepers, scullery maids – passed over every day by dozens of people who saw you as boring. Ordinary. But I'm here to tell you that each and every one of you are special. You are...." She paused for emphasis as her hands lifted, the music providing the appropriate dramatic accompaniment. "Secret princesses!"

Wild applause erupted, which we joined an instant later. Tuning the sales pitch out, I studied the seating attendants who were positioned in the aisles. They were all average-looking women, clearly no warriors among them, and the fact that they needed the potions hopefully meant they weren't witches or sorceresses themselves. If it was anything like True Love, we'd be fine as long as we stayed out of spraying range, though that would eliminate any chance of being able to steal one for ourselves.

Which, now that I thought about it, might be the best idea. If the crowd was any indication, a good spritz of the stuff made you super compliant. If we gave them a dose of potion directly to the face, it was possible we could get a minion to actually lead us out of here....

"...deserve more than to be a bit player in someone else's story, appearing only in a few crowd scenes to fill out the background. You're all meant to be the heroine of your very own tales, sweeping princes off their feet with your beauty, charm and goodness. Who knows, maybe you all are lost princesses, trapped in the wrong life through a cruel twist of fate with no memory of the glory that you've lost."

The crowd cheered again, even more loudly than before, and out of the corner of my eye I could see at least one woman with tears streaming down her face. Next to me, Kate looked alarmed. "At first I thought she was trying to start the Fairy Godmothers, Inc. racket up again, but the truth is that she sounds more like you."

I just stared her, horrified by the thought. "Take that back."

She looked almost guilty, which only made things worse. "I'm sorry, but it's true. The whole 'everyone deserves their own story' thing? You were talking about almost exactly that last night."

Worried now, I paid more attention to what Mother Gans was saying. "The only thing holding you back is the tools needed to become the heroine of the story. The way to dress and the things to say that lets the story know that you are the one it should be paying attention to. The one who the prince adores, who always knows the right thing to say and just how to solve the problem. The one everyone listens to." She threw her hands up in the air, face once again alight with the crazy. "We will make the world beautiful with your stories, and when we're done no one will ever ignore us again?"

On my other side, Hortensia leaned in close. "Is it just me," she whispered, "or does this sound suspiciously like some kind of hostile takeover?"

I sighed, squeezing my eyes shut for a second. Only I would be dumb enough to create a reality where Mother Goose would get a taste for world domination. "It's not just you." I hesitated, thinking. "Are you okay here alone for a little while?"

She looked around, then nodded. "Don't be gone long, though."

"I won't." Then I leaned over to Kate. "We need to get outside. Follow my lead." I doubled over, clutching my stomach, then hobbled my way over to the aisle. Kate stayed next to me, a hand on her back and a concerned look on her face.

We'd barely left the row of chairs when one of the seating attendants moved to intercept us, hand slightly raised, and I kept an eye on the bottle while Kate spoke. "I'm sorry, but my friend is nauseous from something she ate before we arrived here, and we don't want to interrupt the beautiful presentation. Where are the bathrooms?"

The woman hesitated, hand half raised, and I lurched forward with a gagging noise. She jerked back, clearly afraid of being in target range, then waved us both to the exit. We hurried out, straightening only when the doors had swung shut behind us.

"This will go faster if we split up," Kate said. "One of us can check the perimeter while the other looks for our things."

I shook my head. "It also increases the chance of one us being caught and conveniently used as a hostage during a key narrative moment." I tried not to think or Hortensia, knowing that I'd left her in exactly that position. "Come on. Let's go look for your magic mirrors."  

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.