And September winds down

This summer, the amount of traffic on my food blog (www.angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com) has doubled and I periodically see days where it quadruples from what I used to see as my baseline.

Yet while I updated that blog usually once or twice a day, I can't keep this one active or interesting.

I have completed 2 assignments for the internal communications office of USAID as the start of my eInternship at the department of state.

The first newsletter I laid out for the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group appears to have reached its audience successfully. This I credit to my template designer (Gayle Hendricks) and my contributors who have made the editing easy.

Meanwhile the honors thesis is taking shape-- rough but written. I have a mini proposal document my professor requested and really rough drafts of the introduction and chapters one through three.

In the midst of all this, I'm applying for jobs, working with freelance clients and wondering what written endeavors will come at the end of this year: academic or creative?

Current projects

This summer I agreed to take on the newsletter for the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group and the first issue of the redesigned newsletter went to the printer last week and I'm told it's in production. When it appears on the web site, I'll post the link.

My honors thesis is to the point where I should write a rough draft. I've done a draft of the introduction and started chapter one.

My big news is I got an "eInternship" with the internal communications office of USAID at the department of state. My first job was to write a labor day message. My supervisor approved and will share the edits with me soon.

Creative writing? Not happening right now... But I also have some new freelance clients, which could lead to some exciting exercise for my pen.

September around the corner

Note the generic headline. That means I have nothing on my mind and no idea what the heck I'm doing or writing about. Scary, eh? Blogging for blogging's sake.

School started for me and my daughter yesterday, which means I can expect my free time to either disappear thanks to economics homework or reappear since child heads to school each day. It's too soon to tell.

I have been tweeting more than usual these days, as some old friends have made some new use of the tool and somehow sucked me into it also. That's okay. I guess.

Between my iron deficiency, my child, my work schedule and my volunteer schedule, my writing time has been slim. But I've steadily been reworking the mythology of the novel I've been shopping to agents, Manipulations, book one of my Fashion and Fiends series. The more I work on it, the more I wonder if the friend who suggested to me marketing them out of order might be right.

Books two (Courting Apparitions) and three (Absolution) are definitely more exciting than book one, and since book three transitions one of the protagonists into the antagonist, I can't help but wonder if I should market book three first and leave books one and two for the story of how this all came to be...

Kind of like Star Wars.

That's lots of run-ons and fragments but... got my thoughts down.

Formulas

My brain is writing fiction even if my fingers are trying political theory. I have my first political theory paper due this week and my daughter's dance recital, the dentist and work. I'm not sleeping well, and I'm still recovering from not eating last month so I must admit, I'm tired.

My husband and I have been reading some books. We both started the Dresden Files, which my husband has committed to finishing the series and I'm more or less done after book two. I had series because they get so formulaic. The supernatural mythology in these books is what's fabulous but I've already sensed the formula. Murder + make wizard detective the prime suspect + put him in mortal danger so he has to solve the crime quickly and almost get killed doing it. What changes in each book is the supernatural creature. Which the author (Jim Butcher?) does a fabulous job constructing, I must say. But I'm bored as soon as I predict the formula because that tells me what's going to happen next.

Think about formula in the things you read or write. Do you read series? If so, is there a formula to that author's work?

Direction

Today was an amazing day. Started in it tears, ended it exhausted. My little girl had her first day of first grade. Six hours and 15 minutes of conformist brainwashing to make her one of the masses. I say that in jest but also in earnest. A German friend and I were discussing the educational system here and she couldn't believe how many hours American children put in and how little they achieve. It couldn't have felt too long as my daughter could tell me only the minimum. They did a craft. They had recess. They did a coloring sheet. And my favorite-- "We did a bunch of stuff we learned last year."

Today was also my first day of school, my fourth semester working on my second undergraduate degree. To complement my English/French studies my first time, and to augment my career in journalism, I am studying International Affairs (a blend of history, politics, business and foreign language).

(This will relate to writing, but in a round-about way.)

So, I went to my 100-level "History of the Modern World" class today expecting to be bored out of my mind. It's a survey class. Probably lectures. Boy, was I wrong! The teacher was young, a tad crazy, very energetic. I love her.

In my 200-level class on research methods, it looks like we'll be spending the bulk of the semester on one 12-page research paper, topic of our choosing. This should be easy. Especially since I think I know what I want to do.

Between these two classes, I met with my professor from my history colloquium last semester.

Why?

For "direction."

This is really no different than how we meander through plots as writers. As writers, one common comparison of writing styles pits those who plot (plotters) against those who fly by the seats of their pants (pantsers). I am 75% plotter with a touch of pants. In life, I am the opposite. I seem organized. I seem to know what I am doing. But the reality is, I'm flying.

Since I am also trying to slow down, have more fun and relax, this has led to some interesting conflict. I have financial resources that may or may not last now that I have been unemployed for five months. I have a child that has reached full school-age. But now my past industry (journalism) is dying...

And I want more education. Like a master's in French cultural studies and/or a doctorate in history (20th century French history).

Without getting into what my professor said, he said one thing really interesting which should apply to writers: "Tell everyone your aspirations." He meant everyone who could potentially help you. Reminder~ Network.

But he also caused me to look at my motivation. I love what I'm doing now, but maybe, by relaxing and enjoying the process I can keep talking to people and find something I enjoy doing (as a career) without immediately making that jump to graduate studies. Isn't that how our characters do it? They might say "I'm going to do BLAH."

But do they? They start to. They get distracted or diverted. They might eventually end up in the place they wanted to be, but we sent them on a dynamic journey to get from A to B. We didn't make it a straight line.

To consider this, I have declared this semester and next semester a time of exploration. I have 2-3 more years working on my degree. So the next one will focus on finding the options. Then I'll start choosing what items I need to do to fulfill some of them. I can take the GREs regardless of what exactly I plan to do. I can take a French class to improve my grammar even if it doesn't fit in my major. Theoretically I could take Spanish as I've always contemplated.

If I were a character, what would the author want me to have in my background, in my current life, to make me the person I need to be for the story about to be told?

Balance

Most writers will tell you to write everyday. I've heard it often recently and it's good advice. It promotes consistency in a manuscript and allows you to maintain a certain flow and ease of writing, at least until you hit a troubled spot.

In my former career as a journalist, at least post-baby, I did not write every day. It was not a question of time. It was a question of energy. I expended every word I had in me on that newspaper. I averaged 2-3 stories a day.

Was I writing? Technically, yes. Do school board stories and business features count? I doubt it.

The first semester I returned to school (this is my third), I had an intense history class that required a ridiculous amount of reading (I loved every minute) and an even more consuming paper (which I loved even more) and a 100-level politics class which required minimal effort.

No brain cells left for writing, yet I spent my spring break cleaning up my novel for pitch at GLVWG's The Write Stuff conference. I get requests for pages every year from agents.

I try to write during the summer, and last summer I revised almost eight chapters. Unfortunately, they didn't work.

Last semester, I had an economics course and a French class. I loved the French class, and it helped me fine-tune my characters. The economics class destroyed me. I ended up with a B+ in both classes but it was not easy. And I did not write.

This holiday break, I wrote a lot. I revised 7+ chapters. I like them. My critique group seems to like them. Those are the same chapters I revised during the summer. Now, I think they work.

My classes this semester, as mentioned last time, are Modern French Identities and Body Politics. Both require reading and writing, but I have already devoured two of the textbooks, one for each class. Both classes have inspired book lust in me, and have subject matter that relates to my novel.

And my academic endeavors have already planned the seed to alter the infamous "book four." That's the book that actually deals with the children of my characters in my current stories... So will I write? Probably.

What does our writing convey?

I almost forgot to write today's entry. School started yesterday for me, and usually, when the schoolwork starts, my time to write disappears. I have two classes this semester. Both are very interesting to me...

This will relate to writing, stay with me.

Last night I had my history colloquium, Modern French Identities. This afternoon, I had my special seminar in Values in Science and Technology on Body Politics. Having a French family in my novel and a fashion house... Well, it should be a fun semester.

My identity is full of contradictions. I'm an educated, bilingual feminist addicted to fashion. I'm not a naturally patient maternal-type, but I wish I could have been a stay-at-home mom. I have trouble, psychologically, how parents can leave their kids in daycare for eight hours a day. If they sleep ten, go to daycare eight, spend one in the car, another eating, another getting dressed/ready for bed, when do you get to enjoy your kid?

But that's another argument.

I also don't believe it's the mother's job to stay home with the babies.

Again, wrong argument.

But we talked a bit about women, self-esteem, body-image and cultural expectations today in class. We each had to draw a picture of our bodies and show it to the class, and rate our comfort with our bodies on a scale of 1 to 1o.

The one male in the class said 10.

The highest woman's score was 8.5. Mine was 8.

The teacher pointed out that in the years she's taught the class, no woman has EVER given herself a 9, and when the classes had a better gender ratio, the men never went LOWER than a 9.

We talked a lot about how society makes gender myths into reality, how we train women to be graceful, more petite. How men are strong. How a woman always needs to lose weight but a man always wants to be "bigger."

And we talked about the era of Photoshop and how the people in the pictures don't even look like the people in the pictures, not in real life.

And this made me think: What societal biases/ideals do we convey in our writing?

I write about a fashion house, and my fashion designer Étienne loves women, loves curves, and complains how thin the modern models are. His supermodel Adelaide is a Cindy Crawford body shape, and she has self-esteem issues. Throughout the first novel, she keeps comparing herself to the girl in the photos and thinking that she will never be that girl. And she's the top model! So, am I writing a satire? a commentary?

In book two, she accuses Étienne of hiring her only for her beauty, and he tries to deny it, but she does screw things up and he forgives her probably because she's pretty. ]

Next week's class will look at intersexuals, or what used to be called hermaphrodites. For instance, girls (as in genetic XX) born with enlarged genitalia that resembles a phallus. Many doctors will cut it off and not consult the parents. In some cases, this removes the infant's clitoris or disconnects the nerves. Now those who know me know I tend to go ballistic at the practice of circumcising the penis of a boy child, and I certainly wouldn't want them hacking body parts off my child without my permission. I don't care if my little girl had a full-blown penis.

Anyway.

The magic word was hermaphrodite. I read of one intersexual disorder: Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome I believe. With this disorder, a traditionally male fetus (XY genetically) cannot process testosterone and will exit the womb looking like a girl. In many cases with labia and a vagina. And potentially with an enlarged clitoris of like an inch. At puberty, the child will develop hips and other apparently female characteristics because of the estrogen produced even though the child does not have ovaries or a uterus. Despite the fact that the body DOES have testes and produce testosterone, the body cannot use any of it. In some cases, the person may be oddly hairless in the armpits and pubic areas.

Based on genetics, this person is male. He/she would appear and act female. The sex is male. The gender is female. Roll that around your mind.

The supernatural forces in my novel are based on masculine and feminine elemental magic. Sex rituals have profound power because of the interaction of masculine with feminine. Air and fire are masculine elements, and earth and water feminine. Your sex does not dictate your ability to do magic, but the magic itself has a gender. So regardless of your physical sex, your gender has to be balanced in order to master all four elements.

Wouldn't one of these women with AIS, then have the capacity to be the perfect witch? It's a woman with a Y chromosome. That's a unique form of balance.