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March 2, 2020

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At the Office: I Just Like to Complain

Listen, there aren’t really a lot of things that annoy me, but the things that do annoy me are so annoying that I am pretty much constantly annoyed.

In case you were unaware, I answer phone calls as part of my job all day every day. There are several things that peeps do on the phone that drive me completely bonkers.

Thing Number One: “How are you?” Look, when someone on the phone asks you how you are, they don’t actually want to know. I promise you that they do not care. They’re just trying to sound extra polite. Listen here, friend, I don’t have time to exchange meaningless polite noises with you. “How are you?” “I’m good, how are you?” “I’m good, thanks for asking.” WHY. WHY IS THIS A THING. It’s completely pointless! What does this accomplish other than wasting time? It’s also a complete lie. I’m almost never “good,” I’m usually tired or hungry or bored. Sometimes I might be excited or happy or in love. But I’m not gonna tell you that, am I? Because we both know that neither of us actually care. I just… don’t get it.

Thing Number Two: Please just say goodbye. It really annoys me when people say something like “have a good day” and then hang up directly after. That leaves me to say, “thanks, you too” to the dial tone. When you leave off the goodbye, I end up talking to nobody.

Thing Number Three: Please stop asking. I just get so tired of answering the same questions with the same thing day after day. Especially when someone already knows the answer. You call me nearly every day, you should know our mailing address by now. I try to be nice. These peeps are probably required to ask every time if we have a reference number when we have never had reference numbers. I literally told you that exact thing five minutes ago (this sounds like an exaggeration, but it is not).

That’s it. Those are all my phone complaints. I know, you thought there’d be at least several more items on the list. I could certainly rant about phones for ages, but these are things that have been particularly annoying to me lately. And those first two can apply to any phone call, so I figure those of you who don’t do phone calls all day still get what I mean.

I don’t mind if people ask me how I’m doing, but only if they really want to know and aren’t just trying to be extra nice or polite or whatever. I really don’t like empty conversation where people just say stuff because they feel like they have to say stuff. If we’re on the elevator together, I’m totally good with companionable silence. You don’t have to talk to me. It’s fine, really.

Of course, when peeps do talk to me on the elevator, I end up saying the same things about the weather or how happy I am that it’s almost Friday or how busy our department is or whatever. It’s like I only have four or five responses and I can’t come up with anything more meaningful. I’m usually busy thinking about what I’m going to have for dinner that night (if I’m going home) or what kind of fools I’m going to have to talk to that day (if I’m on my way to my desk).

If I remember correctly, I read somewhere that this is an introvert thing. We don’t like small talk, but prefer meaningful conversation. I don’t mind small talk, necessarily. It’s just kind of pointless. I am part of the problem because I engage in it just as much as anyone else. It’d be rude not to respond to peeps, you know? And what am I supposed to say other than, “I can’t believe it’s only Tuesday!” I kind of think busting out with something like, “I’ve been thinking a lot about reincarnation lately. I really believe that we keep coming back until we get it right. What do you think?” is a little bit too much for a two minute elevator ride.

In conclusion, I have problems. No, wait. In conclusion, small talk is awkward and I always wonder why I say the things that I say even when they are completely benign. My brain still manages to make me believe that I somehow screwed up when I said, “Wait, it’s Thursday? I really thought today was Wednesday hahaha!” (I don’t know if I ever actually said that, but you get the idea.)

Post Script: Remember when I complained about not being able to wear my badge on my pocket? Well, they changed the policy and now it’s allowed! Can I tell you how happy this makes me? SO happy.

Post Post Script: Yes, I’m trying to bring these At the Office posts back. What can I say, I spend a lot of time there.

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January 16, 2020

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Lord, I Was Born a Ramblin’ Womaaaaaaan

What is this place? Is this some kind of blog or something? I have no memory of such things.

Listen here, I have a lot going on in my life and just about nobody reads my dang blog anyway. So that’s my whole excuse right there.

So what have I been up to since April?? Well, honestly, not a lot. I did do some traveling, though, and since that almost never happens, I felt it was a good idea to document it briefly in a blog. (I say “briefly” because I could write a lot more, but I didn’t. Even still, ’tis not brief.)

In October, I got to go to London with my aunt and cousins. It was my first time being there, of course, and it was amazing. It was so cool to be in the city that is the setting of so many books I’ve read. Also I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many fancy cars in all my life. I think just everyone in London drives a Bentley.

I got to experience the classic afternoon tea at Fortnum & Mason’s which was delicious. That place has about fifty floors. Okay, so it’s more like five, but still, that’s a lot, okay? You know I bought a nice selection of loose leaf to bring home. I don’t remember when I made the transition to loose leaf, but it’s amazing what a difference it makes. At the tea, we each had our own pot, so they did it the traditional way, which involves just putting the leaves straight in the pot to brew. So when you pour it, you have to use a strainer that sits on top of the cup to catch the leaves. Normally, I use an infuser because I’m generally only making a mug of it, you know. So it was a fun experience.

Then we also went to the oldest bookstore in London, which is called Hatchard’s where I obtained a couple of books. I mean, tea and books, what more do you really need? I wandered around the store for quite a while before I finally landed on a book I knew nothing about. It was in the fantasy section, prominently displayed as though it was a famous book everybody knew about. EVERYBODY BUT ME, APPARENTLY. I’ve never seen this book on the shelves in any bookstore I’ve been to and I have spent hours haunting the fantasy section of bookstores. I don’t know if this is because I wasn’t looking for it, so I just didn’t notice it or if it’s just not as well known here. It was actually three books in one and together they are called Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake. I really feel like this oversight was my own fault somehow, but I swear on my life I’d never heard about this trilogy until I saw the behemoth sitting on the shelf at Hatchard’s. It caught my eye because it had such a cool cover. What can I say, I’m totally guilty of buying books just because they look pretty. But in this case, I actually looked it up before I purchased it. I was just going to buy the one book, but then I spotted a Haruki Murakami novel I didn’t have yet, so I grabbed it on my way out. I mean, was I really expecting myself to only buy one book? Laughable.

We also saw Hamilton, which was just as amazing as everyone says it is. I cried through the entire second act even though I already knew what was going to happen. This was not surprising to me because I always cry at plays/movies/concerts/weddings/commercials/moving Youtube videos/random Thursdays. It doesn’t take much is what I’m saying.

There were a lot of little quirky things that were just different because I was in London. Obviously everybody is driving on the other side of the road, which wasn’t as disorienting to me as the drivers sitting on the other side of the car. I mean, what is going on with that?

There were also those red telephone boxes everywhere. I wonder if they’re still around because they’re so iconic and people like to take pictures with them. I doubt many people use them for actually making phone calls anymore. Then again, we’ve still got a few pay phones around, so who knows?

And I really loved how soda came in a little glass bottle. It was so cute, I was like can we have these in the U.S., please? I just like cute things, okay. Also food-wise, I can now say I’ve had fish and chips in London. Twice, even! I also had pheasant, which was so good.

We went to Buckingham Palace, but they only do tours in the summer, so we just stood outside and took some selfies. We did get to go inside Kensington Palace, though. They had an exhibit about Queen Victoria, who lived at Kensington as a child. Guys, Queen Victoria was tiny. They had a few of her dresses on display, ones she wore as an adult woman and they looked like they were made for a little girl.

We also happened to be there when they were doing some historical vote about Brexit or something, which was cool because there were a lot of protesters. They were mostly just walking around with EU flags and shirts and stuff, but it was pretty neat to see.

I could carry on about London – we were only there for three days, but I saw so many things, I could probably write another several paragraphs.

In December, I went to Georgia to visit my sister for Christmas. It would have been great if we didn’t all get sick about halfway through the week. First I got a terrible cold and then I got double pink eye. I haven’t had pink eye since I was a little kid. Holy crap. My eyes were just producing pus like you wouldn’t believe. It was dripping down my face. And they got so swollen, I couldn’t open them all the way. It was terrifying because I looked like some kind of goblin. It was also annoying ’cause I had to wipe the gunk from my eyes every two seconds and even then I could still barely see. Needless to say, we went to an urgent care and they gave me some drops, which cleared things up in a couple of days. Thankfully!

However, it is now the middle of January and I am still coughing. I feel fine otherwise, but this cough just won’t go away. It’s terrible and annoying, especially at night when I’m trying to sleep, dang it!

It was really great to see my peeps, though. Georgia was nice and warm. I haven’t been in a warm place for Christmas since we lived in California. That was back in the nineties. So we’re talking like twenty something years, yo. Though December is supposed to be less humid than the summer, but my hair was still a massive ball of frizz. I basically kept it in a braid the entire time because it was just POOF.

Also, people in Georgia are super nice. When I went to the urgent care, the nurse and doctor felt so bad for me they kept saying “bless your heart”. And not in that way that implies they think you’re slow, but like a genuine expression of sympathy. It was adorable. I can’t tell you how many people just waved at us or said hello or just starting talking to us. I always get nervous around friendly people because they’re so nice and I love it, but I’m so awkward. I feel like it makes them think that I think they’re weird or something, but really I just think they’re great, which makes me more awkward. I know, I do it to myself by overthinking. Alas!

Anyway, I’m home now, obviously. Cleocatra spent an entire hour meowing at me when I got back from Georgia. It started as it always does, every day of my life, which is where she stands by the front door and when I come inside, she stands there and yells at me for a bit. I always say it’s like twenty minutes, but it’s really more like two. I thought she’d stop after the initial two minutes, but no. I went into my bedroom to unpack my stuff, so she followed me. She has a little bed that’s like a cave and she crawled into it so she could sit inside and meow at me from within. Just constant meows. I finished unpacking and went into the kitchen ’cause I was hungry. So I was microwaving some food and I could hear her, still in the bedroom in her bed cave, meowing. I wasn’t even in the room! I finally sat down on my bed and she emerged from her cave, meowing still. She finally stopped after she crawled into my lap. Then for the next few days, she would meow whenever I left the room, even if she followed me out of it. Like, okay, I’m not going anywhere, calm your buckets!

Now everything has settled down, mostly. Though I have Things going on, but I’ll write about that later. I feel like this blog is long enough as it is. Needless to say, I wish to travel some more when I can. It might be a bit, though, since I totally wiped out my PTO with all that traveling this year. Oops! I regret nothing.

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April 4, 2019

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Love & Inspiration

Oh heeeeyyyyyy… it’s been a while, huh?

Look, I have a life, you know! I mean, I definitely do not spend most of it sitting alone in my house playing video games or reading NOPE NOT ME.

Anyway, I’m here to give you an update on that thing I’m always talking about, you know the one. It’s been awhile because life stuff. Like dang life you so crazy!

Okay, so writing. What am I even working on anymore?? I am working on A Novel. It doesn’t have a title. It doesn’t even have a real working title. I’m calling it S&S right now, which makes no sense unless you’re me, so I guess let’s call it Novel S.

I actually started the very beginnings of Novel S two NaNoWriMos ago. Not last year, but the year before, I started with almost nothing. I wrote about 13,000 words that year. Then I kind of messed around with it for while until NaNo came around again.

Last year’s NaNoWriMo was by far one of the best I’ve ever done. I actually wrote 50,000 words!! That almost NEVER happens! It got kind of dumb toward the end, though, when all my characters got super formal and stopped using contractions.

So yeah, I wrote a ton that month. I’ve also finally figured out how my process works, which is something I never fully understood until now. This was mostly due to my belief that all books must be written the same way. As in, you need an outline and character sheets and you should write a little bit every day and don’t start over and then when you’re done you revise and so on and so forth.

Rubbish, I say!

I am NOT an outliner. Character sheets are useless for me, too. This is because I will write out all their info before I start writing, but then as I write practically everything about them changes. I’m way too lazy to go back and fix all the stuff in the character sheets, so they just remain forever inaccurate, which I think kind of defeats the purpose.

I also don’t write every day. My junk needs time to simmer in the pan that is my brain. It’s like I spend several days cookin’ up hash browns so I can sit down to a mountain of seemingly endless inspiration. Mmm yes hash browns.

My point is, I’ve figured out the right way for ME and that’s what matters. Everybody is different. Everyone will find their own way. I had to realize that I didn’t have to do things the way someone else says I should. In the end, who would even know? As long as I finished with a book, who cares how I got there, right?

Another thing I do is rewrite. I do start over. I have to! My process actually DOES NOT WORK if I don’t start over. The trick is learning when to stop starting over, but don’t worry, I’ve finally figured that out, too.

Right now I’m working on the restart. I’ve got another goal of 50,000 words, but I’m doing it in three months instead of one.

I MEAN MAYBE?

I was PLANNING on three months, but guys I’m writing SO MUCH. It’s insane. Depending on how long this lasts, I might be done with 50k in less than a month.

This is it, I think. I feel like I’ve arrived. I feel like I’ve been riding the train for almost twenty years, but I kept getting distracted by other people’s stations instead of getting off at mine.

I’ve rambled about writing in the past and I’ve written a lot of blogs that said stuff like THIS IS IT and I FEEL SO GOOD ABOUT THIS BOOK GUYS and I’M ACTUALLY GONNA FINISH THIS ONE. And then none of it was true.

So I’m like, yo, no expectations for Novel S. The only way for me to really feel like I can write something I enjoy, something that I will finish, something that I can be proud of is if I have no expectations for it. If it gets published one day, that would be great, but if it doesn’t, that’s also fine. You have to fail before you can succeed, that’s just how life works. So why stress about failing to the point where I can’t even finish something? That’s really just another form of failing, anyway. If I never finish a book so that it never gets rejected by potential publishers/agents/readers, isn’t that worse than failing?

What matters to me right now is that I’m doing the thing that I love. I’m spending my time writing instead of feeling guilty about not writing. I’m doing it because I enjoy it. I’m doing it because when I see it starting to take shape, I get so excited it’s like I’m floating. I’m doing it because I love that feeling of being a Word Wizard who casts Spells of Fiction.

I found a quote recently that blew me away with how relevant it was to this feeling I’ve been having.

“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” -Ella Fitzgerald

I’ve always believed that to be true. Now I’m actually applying it to my life. I’ve got the love and the inspiration, so you better believe I’m never giving up.

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October 12, 2018

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At The Office: Muzak

Okay, I know I was writing weekly office posts, but man, not enough happens for that to be a thing. So now they’re just random At The Office posts.

Everybody knows about muzak, right? It’s that weird pseudo jazz music that’s also called “elevator music”. The word comes from a company that was called Muzak whose name came to stand in for all such musical stylings. Except that they never actually made music for elevators. So perhaps that’s why I have NEVER heard music of ANY kind in ANY elevator EVER.

Maybe I’m just not in the right kind of elevator? What elevator do I need to ride to experience elevator music? I don’t know.

What I do know is where I have heard muzak, often and for long periods of time.

While I have occasionally heard it in retail stores, most of the places I find myself in these days play some kind of radio.

However, I recently encountered the more common location of muzak: being on hold.

The printer I always use at the office ran out of ink. Instead of putting more in ourselves, we have to call the printer people and have them send out an ink changing dude to do it for us. I can only assume this is because changing the ink in those printers is impossible without the correct training and/or tools.

So I called the number. And I got to listen to muzak. For twelve minutes.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if the recorded lady voice didn’t keep coming on to say ALL REPRESENTATIVES ARE CURRENTLY BUSY PLEASE STAY ON THE LINE FOR THE NEXT AVAILABLE REPRESENTATIVE. Every time the muzak cut out to deliver this message, I got excited because I thought someone was finally answering my call. It took at least five minutes of this message happening every thirty seconds for me to stop getting excited.

What I’d really like to know is whyyyyyy??

I don’t understand the reasoning behind the horror that is hold music (this is the only exception).

I think it’s some kind of creepy, subliminal reason. I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that people buy more stuff when listening to music of some kind. Mostly I just want to hang up the phone to spare myself the continued agony.

Unfortunately, I had to stay on the line because we print stuff all day every day and we need that sweet sweet toner. (I don’t know why they call it toner instead of ink. It’s another thing I could Google if I cared at all. But I don’t. So I won’t.)

I think I’ll try to take the elevator as often as possible and maybe one day I’ll find one that plays muzak. However, if I go to my grave having never experienced elevator music, I will neither care nor be surprised.

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September 29, 2018

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I Am Not Tolkien

Anyone who knows me can tell you how Tolkien obsessed I am. I know all the weird little details. I get annoyed by inaccurate Tolkien memes. I have read the books and seen the movies multiple times.

However, when it comes to writing, I avoid Tolkien like the plague.

Lemme explain.

Tolkien was a linguist and a historian. He was an academic. This is why he was able to create his own languages, his own detailed world history, even his own religious mythos. He was already an expert in these areas.

I’ve seen a lot of memes that poke fun at Tolkien for starting his story by creating an entire language for his elves. (By the way, there are fifteen elven languages and dialects. The language of the dwarves was based on Old Norse and for men I think it was Old English, so not entirely made up, but still requiring years of previous study.)

So now fantasy writers feel like they have to do all that junk and that’s why we end up with fantasy stories that are all based in a made-up-but-medieval setting with fake words and usually at least one of the fantasy races (i.e. elves, dwarves, hobbits, etc.).

It actually really irritates me when people do this. Lemme tell y’all a secret… you do NOT have to create a new language in order to write a believable fantasy setting. In fact, you probably shouldn’t do that unless you, like Tolkien, are a linguist and have intensely studied how languages work. There are many ways of indicating language without actually writing the language. (Names of countries and such like are obviously the only exception.)

I would continue to argue against elaborate languages by saying that it pulls readers out of the story and mostly annoys them. Think about it. What do you, as a reader, do when you come across a word or name that you can’t pronounce? You skip it. You don’t try to sound it out in your head. You just skip right over it.

History is a little different in that I don’t believe you need to be a historian to create a backstory for your world. However, I do think that instead of actually trying to do this, people just go with the Tolkien Template. Medieval-era swords & sorcery, a past struggle against the Darkness, and general animosity between obvious races (i.e. elves & dwarves).

Anyway, my point here is that I found it very intriguing that I’m such a huge Tolkien fan, but when it comes to my writing, I tend to do nothing the way he did. There is no doubt that everything I’ve ever read, seen, or done subconsciously influences what I write. So Tolkien may be lurking in my writing without my knowledge. But I am not Tolkien. I do not try to write like him.

Which I suppose is not all that unusual, when I take a moment to think about it. The truth is that I am not any of the writers that I read and admire. When I sit down to that blank screen, all those writers and their works may be behind me. They may be the foundation from which I built my understanding of the craft. But in the end, the words that I put together to create stories are my own. When I write, I try to write like me.

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June 19, 2018

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Body Positivity, Life

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Body Positivity: Truth, Fear, & Judgment

I’ve written about being fat before. I was angry because I had only just learned that I don’t have to hate myself or my body for being fat. I was angry because I felt like the world had been feeding me lies for my entire life.

I’m still a little angry, but not as angry as I was. I want to talk about how body image is more than just “love your flaws”.

Here’s a question: why does it matter what our bodies look like? What is the function of our bodies? Our bodies do not exist for the viewing pleasure of other people. That is not why we have bodies. We have bodies because we need something to hold our souls and our minds. We need a vehicle to move through this world in. We don’t have bodies so they can look nice for people. I really think if that was the case, we would’ve been created with eyestalks so that we could look at ourselves easier. (Not that I think snails or crabs have eyestalks for this reason, but you get my drift.)

Here is something else: it is not easy to start loving something you have been taught to hate. You don’t just wake up one morning and say, “You know what? I love my fat! I love my acne! I love my crooked nose!” It doesn’t work like that. You have to be honest with yourself. These things are so ingrained in us, I think most of us don’t realize we’re even doing it.

The first step is realizing that you don’t have to hate your body. The first step is to realize that your body was designed to take care of you. And everything it does, it’s doing it because it’s trying to keep you alive. That’s what our bodies were made to do. They have programming left over from when food was hard to come by. Nowadays, food is everywhere if you live in America. But our bodies are still afraid of famine, so they hold onto it, just in case. They’re trying to protect us.

The second step is doing all those things that you’re afraid of. This goes for more than just body image, of course. If you don’t like the way you look in shorts, wear shorts. Wear the hell out of those shorts. And when it doesn’t kill you, when it actually makes you feel more comfortable in hot weather, when it makes you feel free, then you will have the confidence to do it again. You can’t build confidence by doing nothing or just by thinking about it. You have to do the thing you fear.

The third step is to stop judging. I see a lot of “who cares what other people think!” type of stuff and while that’s really a great sentiment, let’s be real. We obviously care. If we didn’t, it wouldn’t be an issue. The real problem is that other people are making judgments about you and most of the time, they are uninformed. Most of the time, they don’t even know your name. They look at you and they judge you based on appearance alone. And usually, their judgments come from a place of shame and fear.

So start with you. Don’t judge people. Easier said than done, right? We judge people instantly and this, too, is left over from our bodies not keeping up with our changing world. We’re made to do this kind of thing in order to survive. But you have to train yourself to stop. Because guess what? That fat girl standing a couple feet from you is not a threat. You don’t need to protect yourself from her, so there’s no reason to judge her at all.

I’ve been trying really hard to do this in many ways. I used to judge myself by saying, “Why can’t I do *this thing*? Everybody else has no problem doing *this thing*!” And then I’d stop and say, “Wait. How do I know that? Do I know everybody else? Do I know anything about how everybody else handles *this thing*? No.” Another situation I’ve been doing this with is in the car. When someone does something stupid, my instant reaction is, “Idiot! What a jerk!!” Then I stop and say, “Wait. I’ve done that totally by accident. That person probably didn’t mean to do it.”

Everybody makes mistakes. Ain’t nobody perfect. And I’m dang grateful for that ’cause how booooooring would we all be if we all had the same perfect bodies and lived the same perfect lives. SNORE.

In summary, your body is trying to keep you alive, do the things you fear, and stop judging peeps. Loving yourself is not easy. It’s not going to just click one day and then BAM SELF LOVE ALL OVER DA PLACE. It’s a journey. Just like everything else in life. So I’m gonna leave you with my favorite quote ever, from my favorite haiku poet:

“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” Matsuo Basho

Also here are some amazing body image related Ted Talks:

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May 18, 2018

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Office By Day, This Week

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This Week At the Office: The Frigid North and Tiny Earthquakes

Let me begin by saying my lanyard is officially broken. You can read all about that in one of my previous posts. My last attempt to keep it together lasted for two weeks, which isn’t horrible, but isn’t good, either.

Now, here’s the weird part. I found another lanyard that I’ve never used in the backseat of my car. You see, my car happens to have been recalled by Nissan due to dangerous airbags that basically shoot shrapnel into you when they expand. So I had to take my car to the Nissan dealer to get them replaced. I wasn’t sure if it was going to take an hour or a couple days or a few weeks, so I decided to at least get all the trash out of my car, in case they needed to keep it for a bit. Turns out it took about an hour. But at least my car is somewhat clean and if I hadn’t done that, I never would have found this other lanyard!

The Rule at the Office is that you must be wearing your badge around your neck. This is why the lanyard is so important. If left to my own devices, I would just clip my badge reel on my pocket, like I used to do when I worked for the Post Office.

Today’s title is brought to you by Air Conditioning and Construction.

I have no explanation for why it feels like the Frigid North in this place. I’m always cold here, so I keep a blanket in my cubicle. I use it on my lap daily. However, the last couple of days have been freeeeeezing. I spent most of this morning with the blanket over my shoulders and wrapped around me. It’s a little bit better this afternoon, but still way too cold.

The rest of today’s title is brought to you by Construction.

They are building a parking structure across the street. It has at least one lower floor, but it feels more like fifty lower floors. I don’t know how exactly they’re drilling or whatever, but it rattles our entire building. Every few minutes, it’s like I’m getting a mini massage. And all the tchotchkes on my computer tower move just a little bit each time. The shaking has been likened to small earthquakes.

When I was around seven, I was in a major earthquake. We lived in Southern California, so it’s not like it was surprising. In L.A., where the earthquake hit, freeways were broken in half, buildings were falling down, and people were suffering from general mayhem. Where we were, which was much farther from the epicenter, a couple plates fell over and all the water splashed out of our pool, but we were unhurt and our house didn’t fall apart. It happened in the middle of the night. I would have slept through it, but my mom actually came up the stairs to get me because she was afraid the top floor would fall. All the power went out, so we listened to a battery powered radio for news.

The power came back on and we all went to school and work as usual. And there were about abijillion aftershocks. SO MANY. They happened at home, at school, in the car, on the toilet, and I’m not even joking. You just never knew when one would rumble through.

Earthquakes are less like everything is shaking due to nearby jackhammering and more like the ground has suddenly decided it wants to be like the ocean. There are waves.

However, this feels more like the aftershocks because they’re small and random.

In conclusion, I wish someone would turn down the a/c.

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May 10, 2018

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Books, General, Life, Office By Day

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Embrace the Audiobooks, Friends

Since absolutely nothing of interest happened At The Office this week, I decided I’m going to write about audiobooks instead. It’s related because I listen to them… at the office.

I happen to be blessed with a job that is mostly mindless. Since that is the case, I get to listen to stuff while I work. Sometimes I listen to music, but mostly I listen to audiobooks. Do you have any idea how many audiobooks I go through in a month? My best guess is an average of five.

As a Book Person, this fills me with joy.

I also listen to audiobooks when I’m crocheting. I listened to the Complete Sherlock Holmes while crocheting various things. It was like 58 hours and some change. Read by Simon Vance, who is one of my favorite audiobook narrators.

I’ve been listening to audiobooks at work for about six years. I’ve had this job for five years, but before that, I had a job where I could listen to audiobooks, too.

It used to be, back when I first started listening, that people would consider listening to an audiobook “cheating”. I was always cautious about telling other book people that I had listened to the audiobook of whatever book we were talking about. They either didn’t care or they considered it cheating. I would say that it is likely these people never actually listened to an audiobook. If they had, they would know there is no cheating involved. My mind is just as active, just as engaged with the story, sometimes even more so. When I read, I live the story. I see the settings and the characters. The same thing happens when I listen to an audiobook. So as far as I’m concerned, if you listened to the audiobook version of the latest bestseller, you have still read the book. It’s the same story, just received differently.

Nowadays, people don’t say that as much. At least not to me and not lately. So I’ve become less cautious about it. I think this is because online streaming has made audiobooks more accessible. You no longer have to carry around a million cassette tapes or a thousand CDs. All you need is your phone. Or a web browser.

I would actually describe myself as a poly-book-formatist. Yeah, okay, I obviously made that up, but what I’m trying to say is that I don’t limit myself to any one format. I listen to audiobooks, I buy books on my Kindle, and I have at least a couple hundred paper books on my shelves at home. I love them all.

I would recommend audiobooks to anybody. Since I get to listen to so many, it really helps me keep my love of reading and books alive while still working a full-time job. They make me laugh, they make me cry, they make me want to scream in frustration, just like all books do.

“But wait,” I hear you saying. “If you’re such a book person, why don’t you just read more?”

If you were real, I would slap you. Fool!

I work eight hours a day. When I get home, I write. Haven’t you been reading this blog at all?? I’m a writer! I can’t write and work at the same time! I only get to write at work when I have no work to do. That happens sometimes, but not very often.

The thing is, I do read at home. I read all the books I have that aren’t in audio format. It takes me a lot longer because I don’t get to read for four hours. At work, I get to listen to about four hours of audio each day between answering phone calls and sending out faxes. At home, I get maybe a half an hour – an hour tops – unless it’s the weekend.

This is because I write. I’m working on my dang novel, yo. The thing about writing while also having a full-time job is that it doesn’t leave you very much time to read. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make to work on my story. I’m just dang lucky that I can use audiobooks to offset that a little bit.

In conclusion, I love audiobooks, I recommend them to one and all, and if anybody says it’s cheating, I will be sure to inform them that they are wrong.

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May 7, 2018

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All About That Process

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What My Novel Is About

There is a question that I get asked every time someone is told that I’m writing a novel. It is always, “What’s your novel about?”

I used to have very strong feelings about this question. Basically, I hated it.

I have been working on a novel of some kind since I was fourteen. I’m going to be thirty-two in a couple weeks. For a large chunk of that time, I suffered from social phobia. It was a dark, horrible place. Talking to people at all was a struggle, let alone trying to answer that question of horror.

The reality is that novels are complex beasts and since I’m always in process and never finished, it’s actually really difficult for me to summarize what I’m working on.

This is probably different for every writer, but for me, it’s practically impossible to tell you what my novel is about. It’s not because I don’t want to share it with you. It’s because I don’t actually know.

The trick is usually trying to figure out if the person I’m talking to is someone I can trust with the information that I don’t know what my own novel is about.

When I was young and terrified, nobody could be trusted with that information. I wouldn’t willingly hand it out. So what did I do? I usually tried to get away with saying what genre I was writing. “Oh, it’s a fantasy novel.” If that didn’t work, I tried to summarize. And I failed. And then I felt like an idiot. And then I probably resolved never to talk to that person again out of shame.

So I think you can see why I hated this question back then.

Nowadays, I’m not as scared of people or what they think, so I find in most cases I can go ahead and tell them that I don’t know what my novel is about. It’s actually the perfect mechanism to change the subject from what my book is about to how I write. Since the next obvious question is something like, “How can you not know?” or “Are you some kind of idiot?” Then I can answer, no, not exactly, I’m just a discovery writer. I find my story as I go along. See? Now we’re talking about my process and I no longer have to attempt to summarize the slush that is currently my novel.

I loooove talking about my writing process. I could talk about that mess all day long.

And since I no longer hate and fear the dreaded question, I can instead appreciate the person who asked for being interested in my writing at all.

I find in most cases, gratitude can change your outlook on anything. Something I used to hate is now something I can be grateful for. I know that people who ask aren’t trying to make me feel anxious or stupid. I know that they simply want to get to know me. So instead of telling them what my story is about, I tell them why I don’t know what it’s about.

So if you ever ask me what my novel is about, you can be sure that I won’t give you a direct answer. Even if I had some kind of summary to provide, it would be meaningless. If you asked me the same question a week later, the entire summary would be different. This is how I work. My creative process is a mess. It works, but that means my story is also a mess and thus summary is impossible.

In conclusion, I am grateful to anyone who expresses genuine interest in my writing, no matter what questions they ask. Just remember that I’m dodgy and don’t be offended if I don’t actually attempt to summarize my novel for you. I’m still happy you asked about it.