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Easter Reading

Yeah, I know Easter’s over. But you shouldn’t miss this seasonal fiction just because I was too lazy to link to it earlier, dammit! So go grab a few easter eggs (whaddya mean, you’ve got none left?? Go buy some on sale, and get your arse back here!), sit down, and enjoy.

Neither of these is mine, btw. But I think you’ll appreciate the dark humour. 😀

Buck, by Neil Beynon

Dangerous Skies, by Gustavo Bondoni

Do You Ever Realise You Forgot to Dress?

Yesterday was not a good day as far as personal grooming went.

I dashed out of the house at about 7am, wanting to get to work at a decent time so that I could get through as many of the bugs (documentation issues, for the non-IT-inclined) as possible that I should have done last Thursday but was too brain-dead. That sentence? Indicative of the state of mind I was in. ‘Stressed’ puts it mildly. I hate when my physical condition kills my concentration and I can’t work properly (this job is mega-mind-intensive most of the time). Halfway to the train station, I realised I hadn’t combed my hair. Halfway to work, I realised I hadn’t put on deodorant. Everything just kinda sucked. I hadn’t even had coffee. On the bright side, I got a good amount of work done and my boss did NOT fire me.

This morning, I was on my way to work from the train station – combed, deodorised, perfumed, and looking as though I own a mirror. A woman came running down the footpath fastening her shirt… and she was only a couple of buttons in. Other than the only-just-decent long white shirt, she wore opaque black tights, a pair of boots, and… ummm… that looked to be it.

I’m so behind the eightball in fashion. I didn’t realise skirts were OUT. 😀

Speaking of Rules…

… Holt Uncensored has a useful (if long) article about the ten most common mistakes writers make in their writing, and often don’t even notice:

The Ten Mistakes

Handy read! I’m wondering if I should find a utility to tell me which words I overuse in my writing…

(probably ‘fuck’ 😀 )

Writing, and Yawning

I’m amazed that I ever get any writing done, you know. What with health problems, a toddler, an almost-teen, a husband, a full-time job… life seems a little overfull at times as it is. But somehow I manage to maintain writing fiction as well. At the expense of housework or cooking, at times… meh.

One of the interesting things about my fiction is that the writing of it breaks several rules of writing. Or more to the point – if I followed the rules, I’d probably get nothing done.

Write one novel at a time

Wandered over to Nomesque Fiction recently? I’ve written pieces of three different (very) storylines in the last week or so – Deadish, a murder mystery in which the murderee plays a starring role, Life in a Fairytale, in which adult things do happen, and drunk fairy godmothers are not as uncommon as you might wish, and Maisy May, a slightly off-the-wall take on christian fiction, with a *gasp* possible gay character! Somehow, writing like this works for me. I get bored easily, you see, and this sort of ordered chaos seems to keep me relatively on-track.

Each update to a serial should be at least 1000 words, preferably more

Well, see, I have the attention span of a goldfish when I’m reading on-screen. Give me short, snappy chapters that are easy to read (chunky paragraphs only when absolutely necessary, thanks). And yes, I do tend to write for an audience like me, I’ve noticed. My stories are often short (500 words or so) and dialogue is spaced out from actions in a way that I wouldn’t expect in a paper-bound book. Hrmmm. I didn’t really mean to do that, it just happened.

Don’t give your work away for free – no publisher will be interested in it if it’s been published on the net

This one did, originally, give me a LOT of pause for thought. Then it occurred to me that maybe I’d be better-inspired to write if I just plonked everything online and got some comments from readers. Lo and behold, I was right. I’ve written more in the last couple of years of having Nomesque Fiction than I ever did before.

=====

So, what’s my point? Ummm, read my fiction, dammit! 😀 But also – if you’re just starting out as a writer, be aware that the ‘rules’ are often only guidelines. follow the grammar and spelling ones, please. But most of the others depend entirely on the preferences of the writer, and the reader. And you’d be amazed what some people will fall in love with 🙂

Offensive? FFS…

Actually, no. I can see why this might be offensive to some. Because it punched me in the guts when I saw a photo of it.

Wanna see what I’m rabbiting on about?

OK. Naked chick on a cross, looking very, very contented. Possibly because it makes her boobs look perky. And something about it just screams to me:

Well ain’t that the truth??

Maybe it’s the fact that after 2 decades, my feminist beliefs and my christian church involvement (note I didn’t say my christian beliefs) still tend to strike an uneasy co-existence that’s more of a ceasefire than a peace.

Maybe it’s the fact that I look around me and see the widespread belief – both in christian circles and outside them – that a woman’s life is largely out of her control, and that this is a reality she should be content with, because there’s not much point being discontent (nag, bitch, whiner).

Maybe it’s the fact that I lost interest in looking and acting ‘feminine’ a long time ago – partly because no-one could give me a definition of ‘feminine’ that I didn’t find both offensive and unbiblical. Hence, people both in and out of the church have been looking askance at me for years.

As a society, and as a church, we do tend to hold women back, teach them that they’re not as good, that they’re ‘different, that their brains are different, that they have duties and needs different from the other half of society, and that their bodies are the most important thing about them.

Yes, I do think it’s all crap. Now either I’m an example of why it’s all wrong, or I’m a man in a woman’s body. Jury’s still out, frankly, but I’m gunning for the first one. Because I don’t think I’m secretly a man. God forbid!

I do, however, think it’s bloody funny that people might find the idea of a crucified woman offensive because she’s taking the place of Jesus and therefore downgrading the position of Jesus. FFS, the whole point of the crucifixion was that it was a lowly, humiliating death.

Are women really that more lowly than thieves and murderers???

Vegetarian?

Morning AGAIN?

Well, not YOU, but let’s face it – in a city where bathing is considered optional (weekly), it’s easy to develop an attitude…

Communicating by LOLcat

Yes, yes, society is crumbling because people won’t speak in whole sentences, enunciate carefully, or write REAL LETTERS.

And in reply, I say: