tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6951121880590527622024-02-07T21:52:41.142-08:00WyndedWordsSarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.comBlogger223125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-2301971645581395662013-03-15T08:57:00.002-07:002013-03-15T08:57:19.496-07:00Yes, I was seriousNew blog address: <a href="http://sarahwynde.com/">sarahwynde.com</a><br />
<br />
I suspect the design will be a work in progress for a while. Learning how to use WordPress is going to take some time.<br />
<br />
Ironically, I wrote a lengthy post over there and when I went to post it, it disappeared. Turns out that it was a Google Chrome problem. Considering that it was all about how angry I am at Google, I thought the software was probably reading my mind. I've now switched to Firefox and I know it's silly, but I miss the curvy tabs. Firefox just isn't as pretty as Chrome. But pretty is as pretty does, and since Google hates me, I hate it, too. <br />
<br />
Anyway, please, come join me over at my new site. I promise I'll be making it prettier as soon as I can -- plus, very exciting, once I learn how, I think I can set it up so that I can post stories and stuff directly on my site, which would be very cool, IMO. Not that I'm opposed to people paying me for stories, but I'm trying to cut back on my coffee consumption anyway. Also, it looks like I might be able to set it up so that my entire RSS feed can show up in a page on my site, so you could see all the random stuff I read. I'm not totally sure that will work yet, so don't consider that a promise, it's just an idea. But it would be kind of cool if it works -- like having a continually updating blogroll.Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-3007902616044566552013-03-14T08:48:00.000-07:002013-03-14T08:48:46.531-07:00Google Reader and Maps<br />
<div id="content">
<div class="chat out">
<div class="msg 1st">
Woke up to today to discover that Google is killing Reader. I'm shocked, dismayed, horrified -- and a little bit furious. </div>
<div class="msg 1st">
<br /></div>
<div class="msg 1st">
Google Reader, if you don't know, is an RSS reader. I use it to follow (as of today) 137 blogs. My bookmarks toolbar has a Subscribe button, which is a javascript. Every time I stumble across a blog that looks interesting, I click the Subscribe button. When I want to read blogs, I use the Next button, also in my bookmarks toolbar, and it takes me to the next item in my feed. My internet experience isn't that I check out a few news sites in the morning and randomly look up a few bookmarked sites. Instead I look at information that is exactly tailored to my interests, blogs on writing and cooking, self-publishing and book reviews, some games and fan sites, mommy blogs and people that I just think are interesting. </div>
<div class="msg 1st">
<br /></div>
<div class="msg 1st">
I used to use iGoogle for that purpose. I had a home page that was exactly what I wanted. And then Google decided to kill iGoogle. It took me months to get my web experience back to a place where it was comfortable. Losing iGoogle was like losing television -- or even more, like losing access to a telephone. I'd turn to a thing I needed, a basic tool that I took for granted, and it wasn't there anymore. Finally, finally, after months, I got settled into this new system with Reader. And now Google is killing Reader? </div>
<div class="msg 1st">
<br /></div>
<div class="msg 1st">
Well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times? Not going to happen. As far as I'm concerned, <b>Google is now officially untrustworthy</b>. </div>
<div class="msg 1st">
<br /></div>
<div class="msg 1st">
Google's killing Reader? Fine, I'm going to kill Google -- at least from my computer. </div>
<div class="msg 1st">
<br /></div>
<div class="msg 1st">
That means saying goodbye to Google Chrome. Okay, I can use Firefox. Saying goodbye to Google Drive. No problem, I'll go back to Microsoft. Moving my blog -- that's okay, lots of people say that WordPress is better than blogger anyway. Giving up gmail means changing my email address in lots of places, but that's okay, too. Maybe I'll get my own domain with an email address or two included. I'm fine with giving up Google shopping: I usually wind up on Amazon in the end anyway, so no regrets there. I use Google Talk, but I've used other chat options, I can live without it. I've never liked Google + at all, so giving that up is not a problem.</div>
<div class="msg 1st">
<br /></div>
<div class="msg 1st">
Google, of course, has an assortment of other tools, but I can live without them, too. Google is not essential for anything, even search, except .... Google Maps. </div>
<div class="msg 1st">
<br /></div>
<div class="msg 1st">
Which brings me back to the point of this post. I will be purging Google from my life in April. It's going to be a big project and I won't have time to tackle it until then. But when I do, how do I replace Google Maps? It's the one Google tool for which I can think of no substitute. Any ideas? </div>
<div class="msg 1st">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="chat out">
<div id="insert">
</div>
<div class="clear">
</div>
</div>
<div class="break">
</div>
</div>
Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-11932674736689859242013-03-10T18:54:00.000-07:002013-03-10T18:54:01.422-07:00Three times in my life I have been ridiculously sick. Not sick like major illness, scary life-threatening disease sick. Sick like ridiculous.<br />
<br />
The first time was twenty years ago. I got sick over Thanksgiving and I stayed sick until February. It was the first Christmas after my grandfather died. We spent it in Florida, and I can remember being absolutely miserable, trying to be a good tourist, visiting Disneyworld, shopping at flea markets and so on, but with the energy of a sloth. I went to the doctor when I got back home with a fever of 103. She told me I had the flu. I said, "but you don't understand, I've been sick for six weeks." She said, "you've probably caught every flu going around." Gee, that's helpful.<br />
<br />
The second time was the summer of 2000. We lived in a second-floor apartment. The laundry room was down the stairs, across the parking lot, and down another flight of stairs. I sat on the steps and tried not to cry between loads because I was so tired that the walk felt like a marathon. At one point during that summer, I called to make a doctor's appointment. I wound up spending an hour on the phone with the nurse, because she was very committed to the idea that I should go to the emergency room right away, and I was very committed to the idea that I was much, much, much too sick to go to an emergency room. After about two months of being miserable, I was watching television and saw a commercial for my allergy medication that said "side effects can include flu-like symptoms." I promptly stopped taking it. I promptly got better.<br />
<br />
The last time was in Santa Cruz, right before we moved to Florida. I got sick in March. I went away on a business trip. I got better. I came home, I got sick again. After about a month, I went to the doctor, was diagnosed with a sinus infection, started antibiotics, went on another business trip, got better. Came home. Got sick again. More antibiotics. Went on vacation, got better. Came home. Got sick again. Then got seriously sick with shingles.<br />
<br />
Some people apparently have mild cases of shingles. I was not one of them. The pain from shingles felt like bolts of electricity zapping my side. It was ... well, I did natural childbirth. I've got a pretty good pain tolerance. One time, I twisted my ankle and four days later a friend -- a former professional biker who'd quit because he'd injured himself so badly -- told me it was the worst-looking sprained ankle he'd ever seen and he couldn't believe I hadn't gone to the doctor. (I did after that; it was just a sprain.) I'm not really tough -- I hate pain, I do my best to avoid it. But I'm reasonably stoic while experiencing it. Not with shingles. Shingles was hell.<br />
<br />
After that, I put two and two together and figured out that my house was making me sick. We had a mold problem, I have allergies, it was a bad combo. We moved out, and I got better.<br />
<br />
All of this leads us to now. R and I have both been sick -- with ups and downs, but more lows than highs -- since he came home on New Year's Day with a cold. I am very, very tired of it. I'll be better for three days, start to feel like life is in my control again, and then, pow, back down. I'll have a day or two where I think, eh, I'm just a little allergic and then I try to get something done and have to take a nap halfway through. But it's most frustrating not to know for sure what the problem is. Is it 1) flu leading to colds leading to flu and back again, the viruses simply winning or 2) a reaction to my current allergy pills or 3) allergies or 4) something else entirely?<br />
<br />
We are both on antibiotics now. I have a horrible history with antibiotics, absolutely horrible. Emergency room visits and side effects that lingered for months. And yet I'm desperate enough to take the chance because in nine days, we are getting on an airplane and going to Belize. And damn it, I am not going to be sick.Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-19267234319750814302013-03-01T16:35:00.003-08:002013-03-01T17:24:45.962-08:00MenusLong story, but I posted a bad link on fanfic.net and it's going to take me a while to fix it and post a better one there. So in the meantime, just in case: <a href="http://menus.nypl.org/" target="_blank">Menus at the New York Public Library</a> (This is an incredibly fun site to browse if you're interested in food and history.)<br />
<br />
I'm having far too entertaining a time writing Doctor Who fanfiction. I suppose it's good that I'm enjoying writing in any way, shape, or form, and I should just be happy about that. But it does mean that I ought to start looking for a serious job. If what I need to write needs to be free, then I need to also figure out some way to eat. In three months, R finishes school and both of us are set free. In my case, for the first time in decades, my job doesn't need to be boundaried by his school being my first and foremost responsibility. In his case, the future awaits. Whee. Sort of. Change is always both exciting and scary, and this sort of change is about the biggest there is. I think it'll be ... interesting ... for both of us. Also, I think I'll pour myself another glass of wine before thinking any more about it.<br />
<br />
Random other note: <a href="http://blog.ted.com/2013/02/27/trust-people-to-pay-for-music-amanda-palmer-at-ted2013/" target="_blank">Amanda Palmer's TED talk</a>? Crazy beautiful. Also scary. I am not that brave. Just...not.<br />
<br />
<i>Edit: It amuses me that I used "free" to mean both without cost and without responsibility. They're both different and yet not.</i>Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-12207713459431224512013-02-20T19:24:00.000-08:002013-02-20T19:24:29.431-08:00The Rational Harry PotterIf you like Harry Potter and if you also like science, then you absolutely must read this: <a href="http://0.0.0.1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality" target="_blank">Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality</a>.<br />
<br />
It is brilliant. No, really -- incredibly, amazingly, scarily brilliant. It takes some of the history and most of the world of the Harry Potter series (the settings, the politics, the wizarding war) and gives them a twist, resulting in a totally different story. It's Harry Potter as if Ender Wiggins from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Enders-Game-Ender-Book-1/dp/0812550706/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361415502&sr=8-1&keywords=ender%27s+game" target="_blank">Ender's Game</a> was the hero.<br />
<br />
It is also incredibly funny. I laughed out loud, literally, more than once and a couple times so hard there were tears in my eyes. It's over 500,000 words long so a serious investment of time, but worth every single minute. It's the best thing I've read in...I don't know how long. <br />
<br />
A little tiny sample:<br />
<br />
<i>"I... see," Professor McGonagall said. "And if, perhaps, you were to discover the entrance to Salazar Slytherin's legendary Chamber of Secrets, an entrance that you and you alone could open..."<br />
<br />
"I would close the entrance and report to you at once so that a team of experienced magical archaeologists could be assembled," Harry said promptly. "Then I would open up the entrance again and they would go in very carefully to make sure that there was nothing dangerous. I might go in later to look around, or if they needed me to open up something else, but it would be after the area had been declared clear and they had photographs of how everything looked before people started tromping around their priceless historical site."<br />
<br />
Professor McGonagall sat there with her mouth open, staring at him like he'd just turned into a cat.<br />
<br />
"It's obvious if you're not a Gryffindor," Harry said kindly."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Yes, it's a Ravenclaw version of Harry. He calculates the odds, he thinks ahead, he uses reason and Bayesian probability and ... really, you should just go read it right now, because it is that good. No, even better than that. Really.Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-42376665640866394102013-02-14T14:19:00.001-08:002013-02-14T14:19:46.965-08:00Implicit memoryHave you ever tried to teach someone else to tie their shoelaces?<br />
<br />
Tying shoelaces isn't hard. Until you explain it. And then the whole thing falls apart. I never managed to teach R to tie his shoes. In fact, what happened was pretty much that I lost the ability to tie my own. He finally fumbled his way through figuring it out himself when he was about ten or so, and meanwhile I haven't tried to tie a shoelace in about a decade.<br />
<br />
I had the same experience with teaching him to drive, aka failing to teach him to drive. The more I thought about how to shift smoothly from one gear to the next, the more I couldn't remember how to do it myself. I finally made my dad give him a lesson and Chris an explanation of what was happening, and he worked the skill out on his own.<br />
<br />
I think the same thing is happening to my writing ability. I read a story last night that I wrote a year ago. I remember writing it. It took me about an hour. I didn't agonize, I didn't think. I just had an idea and I wrote it. I never revised it or even edited it. It's a darn good little <a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8087495/1/Tweet" target="_blank">story</a> (although if you've never seen <i>Eureka</i> you won't get the context.)<br />
<br />
All the reading about writing, learning about writing, thinking about writing, that I've been doing is just making it harder to write. Sure, I understand filter words and point-of-view now, I see repetitions and cliches -- but I used to just be able to tell a damn story and everything I'm learning about writing is getting in the way of *that*.<br />
<br />
Writing was an<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-declarative_memory" target="_blank"> implicit memory</a> skill for me. I need to stop paying attention to how I'm doing it and just get back to doing it.Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-27816194568472074392013-02-13T12:58:00.001-08:002013-02-13T12:58:11.133-08:00The mom, getting madder and madderI am now the mom, sitting at home, getting madder and madder. I'm not quite pacing the floor, but I've definitely wandered around a little more than usual, and I'm having to fight the urge to grit my teeth.<br />
<br />
R is an hour late getting home from school. He is not answering his phone and he has my car. He does NOT have my permission to be keeping my car.<br />
<br />
He called from a friend's house and wanted to discuss dropping economics. Um, no. No. That's not a discussion to have over the phone. That's not a decision to make because you don't feel like working for one afternoon. He's going away for the weekend, and he's behind in economics, so the simplest solution to him is to quit. Yeah, no.<br />
<br />
We're busy making all sorts of interesting plans: he's going away this weekend to visit a friend, we're going away together in March, he's making summer plans, and next year if I can get all the stupid paperwork arranged, he's going to have a hugely fun and exciting year, so I think he's suffering from an acute case of senior-itis. Unfortunately for him, he's a junior.<br />
<br />
I don't want to be the authoritarian dictator saying 'if you're not getting As, you're not going out,' (for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that I believe the right time to screw up is now, not later) but at the same time, I'm frustrated when I see him making decisions that seem short-sighted. I suppose that every parent goes through this.<br />
<br />
Hmm, I just realized that part of my frustration is because I'm getting over-invested due to dealing with all this complicated paperwork. Maybe I should be making him do that. It's his year, after all. But I don't think he even can: it all calls for my signatures.<br />
<br />
If we were birds, he'd be the baby bird sitting on the side of the nest and I'd be the momma bird screeching, "flap harder, flap harder, you're not flapping hard enough" while simultaneously trying to decide whether to give him the big kick out or grab on because he's just not flapping hard enough. Metaphorical birds, of course. I'm pretty sure real momma birds just fly away and leave the babies to figure it out on their own when they're ready.<br />
<br />Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-58521057978938760142013-02-08T12:30:00.000-08:002013-02-08T12:30:41.475-08:00ThinkGeek contestSo, Kathy from <a href="http://kabookpile.blogspot.com/2013/02/for-good-cause.html" target="_blank">Kindle-aholic</a> and <a href="http://www.stellarfour.com/2013/02/for-good-cause.html" target="_blank">Stellar Four</a>, posted links to a <a href="http://www.thinkgeek.com/blog/2013/02/project-geek3-needs-your-help.html" target="_blank">ThinkGeek</a> donation contest this morning. (Yes, I know that line was link-insane -- sorry about that!) If you're willing to give ThinkGeek your email address, you can pick a classroom at DonorsChoose.org. to possibly get a donation.<br />
<br />
I'm pretty sure that ThinkGeek is donating $1000 no matter what, so it's not as if giving them your address has any intrinsic advantage to the outcome -- someone's getting that money -- but I picked a classroom anyway, <a href="http://www.donorschoose.org/project/3-in-1-printer-for-bilingual-classroom/921625/?verify=1627207291" target="_blank">Mrs. DeVille's ESL elementary in Seattle.</a> If you're willing to let ThinkGeek have an address, her number is 1627207291, if you'd like to vote for her, too.<br />
<br />
Why did I pick her? Um, mostly, because I looked for a Seattle ESL teacher thinking I might find a classroom taught by a friend, and then found this one and really liked her name. Well, or had sympathy for her name, anyway. I wonder how many <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcdQk7JBPzQ" target="_blank">Cruella</a> jokes she's heard in her life? And yet she's listed as a "Mrs." which probably means that she changed her name, so I wonder what it was originally? Was changing it a hard decision or an easy one? Yep, questions like this are the kinds of thing I can ponder for hours. Anyway, it's a minor thing, but it only takes a minute to vote, and she, poor teacher, posted her request in November and is almost out of time, with the entire amount to go. And a printer is really a pretty nice thing to have.<br />
<br />
I can't decide whether this is mean of me or not. If you're from the northern US and in the midst of a major blizzard, you probably want to stop reading now. But I rearranged my bedroom and this is now the view from my bed.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmWZ5YiRNEUQPdOTQi84GPVAJfb5a8wStk8LzFiTX_UBnQyhS051N28FBbqffXIdA72-1ssBn5dLpjxnrlF2AmuWUOT-jjqGZpaohWWXz3S87UhqwITNIIiUYraRbSGJlngW907BFLjCI/s1600/Bedroom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmWZ5YiRNEUQPdOTQi84GPVAJfb5a8wStk8LzFiTX_UBnQyhS051N28FBbqffXIdA72-1ssBn5dLpjxnrlF2AmuWUOT-jjqGZpaohWWXz3S87UhqwITNIIiUYraRbSGJlngW907BFLjCI/s400/Bedroom.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
It makes me think that possibly I should be working a little harder toward finding a job that would let me stay in Florida. I've mostly been thinking that when R graduates from high school, I'd head off to someplace where I'm more employable. But I should stop taking my palm tree for granted.<br />
<br />
On February 7th, Ghosts reached a milestone on Amazon -- 100 reviews. I don't know why 100 is any different than 99, really, but it was somehow a thrilling moment in a pretty rocky week. Onward, upward, back to Time!<br />
<br />Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-59669318477007969232013-02-05T18:58:00.000-08:002013-02-05T18:58:28.025-08:00AnniversariesA year ago today, my best friend died.<br />
<br />
I don't actually believe in ghosts. I do believe in an afterlife. Quite firmly. I have solid reasons, reasons that are as convincing for me as the evidence of gravity that we all have any time we drop a glass and wind up with milk spread all over our floor.<br />
<br />
My grandmother had Alzheimer's. Long before her actual physical death, she had mentally left her body. She was alive but absent. And yet there were times when I felt her in my life, when I knew that even though she was actually trapped in a nursing home, a prisoner of a body that no longer worked, she was with me. I felt her presence in a room. And I knew it was ridiculous, because she wasn't there. But I felt her love for me, her affection, nonetheless. And then she died, and I stopped feeling her. She moved on.<br />
<br />
My grandfather died much sooner. But he left behind one of those plastic circles with a rough surface that you use to open jars. It held the name of his hardware store. It was a promotional thing, just a piece of plastic. Except when I couldn't get a bottle of pickles open, I could say--can still say--"Boomie, give me a hand,"--and the jar would open after having been stuck for minutes. Okay, sure, it's ridiculous. It's psychological. It's just some subliminal thing that lets me think that those words mean something. No one with any sense would believe that he's actually helping me. But I feel him with me in those moments and he is helping me. Sometimes he's laughing at me, not in a mean way, but in a loving way. So, okay, it's just some quirk of psychology. "I feel" proves nothing.<br />
<br />
My father-in-law, Malcolm, didn't believe in life after death. He was a wonderful human being. At his memorial service, people talked about what a curmudgeon he was. Yep, he was a curmudgeon. It didn't stop him from being wonderful. He was filled with energy, with life, with persistence, with joy. He wasn't perfect, but no one is. I think, if he could have gone back in time, he would have been a different kind of parent. But he did the best he could with the information he had available to him at the time that he had it. Malcolm was...oh, love is such a strange thing sometimes. Malcolm was technically my ex-father-in-law--I divorced his son. Realistically, he probably had lots of people in his life that he loved more than he loved me. Except I don't think so. Honestly, I don't think so. He had four sons. I think his life would have been different if he'd had daughters instead. He probably should have had daughters instead, but he loved me like a daughter. And I was lucky to have him, to know him.<br />
<br />
I'm not actually easy to love. I'm kind of a pain in the ass. I'm rigid, I'm stubborn, I'm opinionated, I tend to be sure I'm right. Malcolm and I had one final conversation, in which I said to him, well, we'll see. He knew that death meant dead, gone forever. I knew that he was wrong.<br />
<br />
The day after he died, I woke up to weird light. The sky was strange. I went outside and I didn't see it. I knew that something was odd, but I didn't know what. I went back inside. Then R went outside and called me to join him, his voice hushed. A double rainbow was spread across our house, starting at one side, ending at the other. I absolutely believe, one hundred percent, not a doubt in my mind believe, that Malcolm was responsible for that rainbow. That his spirit broke out of the shell that had been trapping him for so long and danced across the sky. That he found my mom--who had died exactly one month before him, to the day--and said, come on, let's paint her a picture. You don't have to believe that. It's okay if you don't. But I know, absolutely, that Malcolm and my mom painted me a double rainbow.<br />
<br />
Michelle died a year ago. I've felt her with me. And she's mostly exasperated with me. I can feel her kicking me. I know she's telling me to get over it. I hear her voice saying that I should use the time that I have. I know that's what she wants from me.<br />
<br />
But I miss her.<br />
<br />
I called tonight. I've been thinking of doing it for ages, weeks, months. Chris hasn't changed the voice mail. It's still her voice.Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-68171756576313194142013-01-29T08:36:00.000-08:002013-01-29T08:36:24.533-08:00Tactical mistakeI made a huge mistake last week. <i>Time </i>was going well. I knew what was supposed to happen and it was happening on plan.<br />
<br />
Why, why, why did I go back to the beginning?<br />
<br />
Actually I do know the answer. I finally figured out how Nat's gift works, and it's pretty cool. It's way more fun and interesting than it was in the beginning and it even has a touch of plausibility. I've been stuck all along on how it would be possible to see the future and not have the future be pre-determined. If you know what's going to happen, doesn't that imply that what's going to happen is fixed? I don't like determinism, I don't believe in it, but a logical proof of precognition would seem to require it. But I finally managed to wrap my brain around a way that Natalya could have foresight without violating the uncertainty principle, and even managed to bring in a nice use of the observer affect. Yay, physics.<br />
<br />
So I went back to the beginning to fix the early references to her gift.<br />
<br />
Gah. So much easier said than done. One little tiny change and yep, I've spent the past five days revising Chapter 1 for the ... I don't know how many-ith time.<br />
<br />
I really wanted to have this book written and ready for beta readers by the first week of February. Instead I might have the first chapter finalized. I keep telling myself that as long as I persist, I will get there in the end. In the long run, persistence is what matters. And it'll be a better book because of all this. But I am seriously missing writing fan fiction where if something didn't work, a new episode would change everything anyway.Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-32494486065034286202013-01-23T12:23:00.000-08:002013-01-23T12:24:09.852-08:00JoyI dropped my computer on Friday.<br />
<br />
It broke.<br />
<br />
I realized almost immediately that I'd cursed myself. I told someone in a comment or email that A Gift of Time would be ready in March or April as long as I didn't lose any more time to colds or flu or minor disasters. Saying something like that is like asking for the universe to start laughing. Whoosh. Have a cold. Ooh, and here's the flu. Almost done with that? Okay, next up, minor disaster...hmm...I know, broken computer!<br />
<br />
I'm so glad I specified minor.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, I appear to be up and running again, and it was indeed minor. I thought I might have broken the power jack on the computer itself, but I got a new power cord and it works. Yay!<br />
<br />
Several days without a computer though was...strange. I don't know that I would say that I'm addicted because that implies that it's optional in my life when the reality is that for me it's an essential tool for work and communication. I managed to do some useful household chores that I've been wanting to do--my bedroom has new curtains, which is something I've been intending to do for months--but I also spent a fair amount of time at a loss for what I ought to do next. Even my fallback entertainment options are linked to my computer. I read books on my computer, play games, watch television and movies, talk to friends. Anyway, I am quite glad to have it back and not just so I can start writing again.<br />
<br />
Speaking of that, though, I tried to write on paper. With a pen. And no. Just no, no, no. I've thought more than once when I felt stuck that I should try going offline and writing in longhand, but...No. Not gonna happen.<br />
<br />
This feels like a really boring blog post. I should probably title it that, for full disclosure early on. But I'm back online and wanted to type, so this is a little warm up to get me back to Natalya and Colin. :)Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-35038274270611828642013-01-18T15:03:00.002-08:002013-01-19T22:07:32.852-08:00QuietI've been pretty quiet for the past couple weeks: this is because January is off to a rocking start. (Not.) <br />
<br />
R whined to me the other day that it just wasn't fair that he was sick again. I responded matter-of-factly that often when you're sick, your immune system is depleted and it makes it easier to get the next virus that comes your way. That was before I caught his latest virus and holy cow, it's a misery. <br />
<br />
While the rest of the country wallows in coughs and sore throats, we're hovering by the bathrooms and discussing which foods might just possibly, maybe, not make us too much more miserable. My vast expertise in vomiting would be useful if I was willing to go to the grocery store to get us some nicer foods (popsicles! mint ice cream!) but meanwhile, we're debating the plain pasta vs plain eggs repertoire. Again and again and again. First time I've had a stomach virus that has lingered for more than 48 hours. I'm ready for my immune system to get itself back into gear. <br />
<br />
Every once in a while a list of the things that are piling up drifts into the back of my head and I start to feel a little panicky. It's not that anything has a deadline of tomorrow, but the number of small and mildly urgent errands that I should be taking care of seems to have gotten scarily long. I think next week I will make a literal list so that I can start crossing things off.<br />
<br />
Unsurprisingly my New Year's resolutions fell by the wayside. 20/10? What's that? 1000 words a day? Hahaha. But I decided today--possibly in a symptom of getting healthier, possibly just to relieve my sense of guilt--that I will start New Year's over again after Martin Luther King day, which is Monday. I sort of like the idea of MLK day being a day for saying, "Hey, you had great ideals and hopes, but they didn't quite work out the way they should have, now it's time to try again and do better this time." A fitting MLK quote: "Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle." Okay, so I'm quite sure that he wasn't talking about my personal struggle to get undepressed/motivated, but it still seems nicely fitting. <br />
<br />
Oh, and the real reason I decided to write something today--it's Zelda's 9th birthday. Nine years old! I hate that number, although I like it better than double digits. Here she is with her siblings, eight years and several months ago. Of course she has a ball in her mouth.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvIzK7-Xtfk1vs531ZAdX_B42R4G5ntDqzweOoIfbSyZqUqNhRxqIaNF3deHIDCJ3vIhWRxhoWW1rg6Jt47ScTvWs0PTQBV-CxCrzvdonYpey4HMrTb0PWM6Eu6WeAU_f2Ol8DSWdaIBM/s1600/More+puppies.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvIzK7-Xtfk1vs531ZAdX_B42R4G5ntDqzweOoIfbSyZqUqNhRxqIaNF3deHIDCJ3vIhWRxhoWW1rg6Jt47ScTvWs0PTQBV-CxCrzvdonYpey4HMrTb0PWM6Eu6WeAU_f2Ol8DSWdaIBM/s400/More+puppies.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
IRL, she's staring at me now, trying to tell me that it's time to get off the computer and do something. She'd prefer a walk, but she's going to have to settle for a greenie. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-23221820600473337292013-01-06T12:58:00.000-08:002013-01-09T06:15:24.926-08:00So many stories, so little timeI hit a point where I had to stop and think for a while in my writing today. I'm at an important scene, where the characters are emotional but also revealing for the first time the heart of the conflict between them, and I don't want it to wind up hokey. It's one of those times when the scene is so clear in my head that it's not creating, more transcribing, except I'm not getting it right. And it has to be right. <br />
<br />
So I take a break. I decide to nap for an hour. Sometimes naps are just pretend sleep, where I'm closing my eyes in order to better imagine my world and sometimes they become real sleep, but either way, it's a Sunday afternoon and I need a chance to think a little. <br />
<br />
Think a little about Natalya, that is. <br />
<br />
Somehow I wound up, half imagining, half dreaming, Grace and Rachel. What are they doing in Seattle? How do they know each other? Did they even meet when Rachel was in Tassamara? Grace wasn't at the diner that night. And wait, shouldn't Rachel be in San Francisco with her mother? <br />
<br />
But no, they're walking along a waterfront in Seattle. It's not Pike's Place market, but it's someplace I know. There's maybe a fish hatchery? A canal? I know it's familiar. The grass slopes down to a sidewalk and there's concrete and people and they're talking. Poor Rachel. She wanted a fresh start, but her D.C. neat perfection is an awkward fit in Seattle. Her clothes are wrong, her style is wrong. And she's at a school with boys, which is completely scary and strange. No one's mean to her, but it's like she's invisible. She might as well not exist. She can't ask her mom for help because she begged to go to public school. She can't tell her mom how unhappy she really is. <br />
<br />
Oh, I just realized. Dillon sent Grace. <br />
<br />
Huh. I wonder how? <br />
<br />
I wonder why? <br />
<br />
And mostly, I really, really wonder how Rachel and Grace wound up being the story in my head when I'm supposed to be thinking about Natalya and Colin?!<br />
<br />
(Grace, incidentally, decides that they need to pick the girl whose style Rachel most likes and hire her. Not as a friend, because that would be awkward and creepy, but as a style consultant. Shopping ensues. I think Grace likes shopping. I have never shopped at anything other than a thrift store in Seattle in my life, so it just might be that Rachel's style consultant/future friend is a thrift store kind of shopper. That would sure be a change for Rachel.) <br />
<br />
But what the heck are they doing in Seattle?<br />
<br />
An hour past the end of my scheduled nap time, so it's time to get back to Nat and Colin. Or maybe start thinking about dinner. But it occurs to me that writing a story set in Seattle makes visiting Seattle a tax deduction, as long as I do some research. <br />
<br />
Why Grace, though? Why not Akira? Well, no, she'd be useless. She's not good at making friends herself and she doesn't care about clothes much. And Sylvie...yep, equally useless. My subconscious got it right. <br />
Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-67129986666389989312013-01-02T09:48:00.000-08:002013-01-09T06:15:33.261-08:00January 3rd--Books FreeIt is an extremely weird and sort of surreal experience to be coasting through your RSS feed--which, in my case, is a very random conglomeration of science, politics, mommy blogs, writing, book reviews, friends, and World of Warcraft--and suddenly see your name in the title of a blog post. <br />
<br />
It's like the internet just yelled at you. <br />
<br />
Fortunately, for me, in this case, it was a nice yell. <a href="http://meanfatoldbat.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-gift-of-ghosts-by-sarah-wynde.html">Mean Old Bat</a> liked the characters, enjoyed the read, and gave it a C+, which from her is a solidly acceptable grade. <br />
<br />
Anyway, I decided to use a free day so that any of her readers could pick them up if they felt so inclined, so tomorrow, January 3rd, both books and the short story will be free on Amazon. If you know anyone who might be interested, please feel free to spread the word. Thanks!<br />
Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-14587627654612377902013-01-02T06:40:00.002-08:002013-01-09T06:15:40.047-08:00Happy New Year!My resolution of last year was pretty simple: be kinder to myself and others. <br />
<br />
I'd say I didn't really do so well at it. Not that I was unkind to anyone else, but then I'm generally not--it was more of a mental change I was looking for rather than an actual behavioral change. And mentally, wow, was I hard on myself last year. C'est la vie. I should probably keep trying, but it's not going to be my resolution again. <br />
<br />
No, this year, my mental goal is to try to appreciate the moment. I started with "remember to appreciate the moment," but that's very in-your-head. I don't want to be thinking, "Enjoy this, this day will never come again." Instead, I want to be enjoying it. So that's the goal. Appreciate where I am. (At the moment, the dog is licking my foot with deep concentration. It tickles.) <br />
<br />
On a few more practical goals, I'm going to start tracking word count. I made myself a little Excel spreadsheet. I've never done this before: I've never liked the focus. What good is it write 1000 words if the words go nowhere and do nothing? But in the interests of seriously cultivating better writing habits, I'm going to give it a try. (Resolution failure waiting to happen is when you say you'll "give it a try!" So maybe I'll be a little more specific--for the next two months, I will track my word count and if it's helpful to me, I'll continue.) <br />
<br />
I'm also going to try to do a 20/10 every day. (If you're not a #UFYH follower, that means 20 minutes of cleaning, followed by 10 minutes of rest.) Every single day. There's always plenty to do--there are some deep goals, like cleaning out closets and the spare room and the garage that I never get to because they seem so overwhelming. So this year, when things are in shape, I'm not going to say, "well, it looks pretty good, I think I'll skip today." That way lies the descent into "ugh, how did this place become such a disaster area?" Instead I'll use my 20 minutes to tackle one of those seemingly irretrievable areas and/or to drive to Goodwill and donate. <br />
<br />
Last, but not least, I'm going to really teach myself how to format ebooks. I've trusted in the software process so far, but I'm tired of never really feeling certain what's going on behind the scenes. I want to feel safe that my books are as perfect as I can make them and--okay, it's a little obsessive of me--I'll feel that way not by paying someone else but by knowing how to do it myself. <br />
<br />
Do I have writing goals? Probably. Finish <i>A Gift of Time</i> for March release, finish <i>A Gift of Grace</i> with less pain and suffering than Time has already caused. Maybe write a couple more Akira short stories for the fun of it. I have to think that their wedding ought to have some associated drama. But I'm not going to stress too hard on those. <br />
<br />
This year might be the very last year that R lives at home (or it might not, life is long and strange) and I want to be sure that my focus is on having a healthy life/family/work balance. I don't get these days back again. If I've spent them all grinding away trying to become a successful writer...well, honestly, I still think it seems really unlikely. Most writers can't earn enough to live on by writing except by making the 18-hour day commitment that JA Konrath and Bella Andre talk about. And for me, making that kind of commitment now means giving up something that matters more to me. Maybe it's worth it if being a professional writer is the only job you've ever wanted, but I've had plenty of other jobs I've enjoyed. Every job has trade-offs. The writer trade-off tends to be that it has to be the only thing you care about and for me, right now, that's just not how it is. Maybe in 2014--especially if R is living elsewhere--it will be. <br />
<br />
So! 2013, here we are! May it be a joyful and lucky year for all of us. Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-4000159564542341752012-12-30T08:18:00.000-08:002012-12-30T16:05:41.437-08:00Depression <i>This post has been sitting in my drafts folder for a month now. I don't know why I'm so reluctant to simply let go of it, one way or another, but I am. I want to keep it, to remember it, and I also want to get rid of it, to erase it. But I'm tired of being indecisive and I'm tired of seeing it in my drafts, so I'm posting it today, to let it finish out 2012, and tomorrow or Tuesday, I will write some nice inspiring "2013 will be all better" post to start off the New Year with a little more optimism.</i><br />
<br />
I left a comment on <a href="http://reinventingfabulous.com">Anne Stuart's blog</a> this morning and I've been thinking about it all day. I need to revisit it. And what better place to do that than here? <br />
<br />
Blogging is public, obviously, but my blog is also personal. Posts on this blog go back six years or so, long before I started writing fiction again, and I'm willing to bet that I'm the only person who's read some of the older posts. That's fine by me. For a long time, I posted words here but I never mentioned them anywhere else. This was literally an online journal--my memories, stored in the cloud. When I self-published my books and linked the books to the blog, I accepted that people might find it but I also never really expected that people would. I'm saying all this because I'm torn between my desire to write with honesty--for myself, for what I need out of writing at the moment, for my own experience--and my awareness of the possibility of an audience. Personal versus professional, I guess. So, warning: this is intensely personal and if you're only reading because you're hoping to find out when <i>A Gift of Time</i> will be available, it is absolutely okay with me if you stop reading and go do something more fun with your time.<br />
<br />
So here's how the story goes. <br />
<br />
R was unbearable last Sunday. Completely annoying. I finally snapped at him, "I'm done. Go away. I can't handle this. I don't want to hear it." <br />
<br />
He did the hurt look. <br />
<br />
I felt guilty. <br />
<br />
I said, "Wallow in your own room. In your space. But I am not up for this level of self-pity." <br />
<br />
He exited. Gracefully. I felt guilty. More than guilty. Evil. Mean. Bad mom. <br />
<br />
Eventually, probably at least an hour later, I wandered over to his bedroom doorway. He didn't glare at me. He gave me the stoic, "you have crushed my spirit and wounded my sensibilities" look. It's a good look and he does it well. All his life--or at least from the time he was eight months old, which is the first time I can remember this feeling--he's been a master at the expression that says, "you have failed me, but I forgive you anyway." It's a powerful look and someday I should write the story of the only time I spanked him and how quintessentially perfect it was for my parenting philosophy, but that's not today's story. Anyway...<br />
<br />
I said to him, "You have a genetic predisposition to depression. It is an illness. It is a chemical imbalance in the brain, a shortage of dopamine and maybe serotonin. It can be helped with drugs. And if you think that is where you're at, we can go to the doctor and get you medication and that's okay." <br />
<br />
He shook his head. <br />
<br />
I said, "That's fine, too. But what I'm hearing you say is that you feel overwhelmed and if you're overwhelmed, you still have options. I sort of think they're obvious. If you can't finish your English project, you tell your teacher, I can't finish, I need to work over Christmas break. And she says, well, I'll have to downgrade you a letter grade and you'll get a B instead of an A. And so what? You'll live with a B."<br />
<br />
He glared.<br />
<br />
I repeated, "So what? You'll live with a B." <br />
<br />
He glared more. Maybe added a nostril flare. <br />
<br />
I shook my head. "You have choices. You have options. It is not the end of the world or anywhere close if you get a B. Or worse. Nothing that you're doing is going to affect the fate of the world." <br />
<br />
The glare deepened. <br />
<br />
"Dude," I tried, "When I was in 11th grade, everything was desperately important to me. I felt like screwing up would be..." I couldn't come up with the words for what it would have meant to screw up in 11th grade. I shrugged helplessly. "I knew that I couldn't screw up. But I was wrong. It wouldn't have mattered if I did. And it doesn't matter if you do. You'll be fine. We'll be fine."<br />
<br />
"I'm not going to screw up." His words were tight and hostile. <br />
<br />
I sighed. Being a mom just sucks sometimes. You want to show that you understand but it doesn't come across that way. "I was desperately worried about disappointing people when I was your age," I said, trying hard to keep my voice even. "But you know what? It's okay if you disappoint me. I will love you just the same." <br />
<br />
His glare softened slightly. But only slightly. <br />
<br />
And inwardly, I wanted to roll my eyes. Great, I'd told him he could disappoint me. That wasn't really where I wanted to go with this conversation. He is--okay, I'm a little biased--the most amazing kid ever. He's never going to disappoint me. Not because of anything he needs to do, but because he is who he is. He could fail every class, and he would still be the gentlest sixteen-year-old you have ever met. He would still be a charm magnet for six-year-olds. He would still be himself. There is nothing he has to achieve to be wonderful. He simply is. <br />
<br />
So I persevered. "When I was your age, I felt like I had to be perfect. I thought I needed to be perfect. But that was an illness talking. That was the wrong amount of dopamine in my brain. You don't need to live that way."<br />
<br />
He looked away. <br />
<br />
"If everything is overwhelming and you can't handle the stress and what you need to do is stay home and play video games all day for a few months, that's fine. We can make that work. We'd figure it out."<br />
<br />
"I don't," he grumbled, still not looking at me. <br />
<br />
"Okay." I stood in his doorway feeling stupid. I'm not sure what I finished with. I don't know how I ended the conversation. But I walked away frustrated and worried and uncertain. <br />
<br />
The next day, he was sick. Sore throat, flu-ish, so I told him to stay home from school. He did the same the next day. Wednesday, he was back to himself, cheerful and positive and offering up quirkily random bits of information, like the fact that golden eagles were used as hunting birds in Mongolia. And then he said to me, <br />
<br />
"<b>The opposite of depression isn't happiness, it's hope. </b> You know you’re depressed when you’ve lost all hope, and you know you’re getting better when you find it again."*<br />
<br />
I think I said something along the lines of "Feeling better?" to which he said, "Yeah," and the conversation ended. <br />
<br />
But I've been stuck on the words ever since. <br />
<br />
My friend Suzanne asked me if I wanted to go to Belize a few months ago. I said yes. Since 1999, Belize has been number one on my list of places I wanted to visit. I still remember sitting in our dreary apartment in Walnut Creek, on the hand-me-down-down-down couch, and hearing the name of a completely unfamiliar country on a television show, probably <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoboomafoo">Zoboomafoo</a> and thinking "Where's that?" It was a place I'd never heard of, despite three solid years of major Model United Nations activity in high school, and it sounded wonderful. <br />
<br />
And now--I just don't care. I want to care. I think I ought to care. I keep reminding myself that I adore Suzanne and her husband and I love going to new places and I've wanted to visit Belize for over a decade. But I just can't find ... anticipation. <br />
<br />
I told R the words that I had quoted him as saying, and he said that he wasn't nearly so poetic about it, and that he just meant that he felt like normal life included lots of looking forward to good stuff and depressed life didn't have any looking forward. <br />
<br />
Yes. Exactly. Depressed life has no looking forward. I am living in the absence of hope. I am trapped in the inability to believe that the future matters. <br />
<br />
I don't want to go to Belize. I feel as if I ought to want to. But I just don't. And it is that way for everything in my life right now. I simply can't make myself believe in the possibility of tomorrow. All there is, is now. And now isn't very interesting. <br />
<br />
I stumbled across <a href="http://razorbladebellhop.com/2012/11/10/everyone-gets-sad-sometimes-this-is-what-depression-feels-like-tw-depression-suicide/">this post</a> the other day. I know it's long. But the part where she talks about feeling like you're living life through a television screen? I went to my favorite event of the year a couple of months ago with one of my favorite people in the world and that is exactly how I felt. I wasn't really there. I am not really anywhere. <br />
<br />
There's a saying, "Depression lies." Yes. It lies. But it also erases. Everything meaningful gets lost in a cloud of "so what?" <br />
<br />
<i>*This is the motivation post. It never really got to motivation. I am just not motivated these days. </i><br />
Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-8505527607945979862012-12-25T14:33:00.001-08:002012-12-29T12:15:41.663-08:00The Super Secret, Super Fun Project<br />
Dear Carol and Judy,<br />
<br />
After the two of you commented on my one-year-anniversary post, I decided that I wanted to make you something for Christmas.<br />
<br />
If you lived near me, I would have baked you Christmas cookies. I make really good cookies. I've got a long list of holiday favorites -- thumbprint cookies, molasses cookies, nut roll, cupcake cookies -- but my specialty is sugar cookies, the kind where you roll out the dough and sprinkle the top with colored sugar. I've made them almost every year since I was twelve or so. Even in the days before I knew how to cook, when my sauces separated and my rice stuck together like flannel pjs in midwinter, my sugar cookies were lovely. But I don't think they'd make it to New Zealand intact and I don't have the faintest idea where you live, Judy, but I'm pretty sure it's not down the street.<br />
<br />
So no cookies. Instead, I wrote you a story. (Or finished it anyway.) I thought I'd just post it here and that would be fun, but it got sort of long for that. Then I thought I'd make it a downloadable file, but that turns out to be complicated. You can't actually post a file to be downloaded at a blogger site, so I would have needed to get a real website. I was debating what to do--new website? email? dropbox?--when I remembered this summer, at my geekgirl presentation, describing Amazon as the biggest bake sale in the world.<br />
<br />
Amazon. Bake sale. Sugar cookies. Christmas stories.<br />
<br />
Voilá.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWBwVgPxU8Y0tkA3VrWFB5Ifx3NwvS_XIJeWtjoXpLHtipz1O_w4XRokZzjAagmJ_oApvUnix_76QiY_fTwM3A3sheO9MQCFNL1zF8okjyPNbZRfUbZ2N4SuHhKJq-8C24X9GpRdPcysQ/s1600/Christmas+cover-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWBwVgPxU8Y0tkA3VrWFB5Ifx3NwvS_XIJeWtjoXpLHtipz1O_w4XRokZzjAagmJ_oApvUnix_76QiY_fTwM3A3sheO9MQCFNL1zF8okjyPNbZRfUbZ2N4SuHhKJq-8C24X9GpRdPcysQ/s400/Christmas+cover-5.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Spirits-of-Christmas-ebook/dp/B00ASZC4JW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356474605&sr=1-1&keywords=the+spirits+of+christmas+wynde">A Christmas present</a> for the two of you. Free on Amazon for the next three days (December 26th through 28th), two days in reserve so in case you miss it, we can schedule a free day for when you can get it.<br />
<br />
I hope it makes you smile.Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-22800127260865681652012-12-24T20:58:00.000-08:002012-12-29T12:18:46.625-08:00I'm allowed...R and I went out for dinner tonight. We had Korean food, as we did last Christmas day, and the restaurant was amazing. I had exactly the same experience that I did last Christmas, though, which is that the food was so good that I ate too much and then I was uncomfortable and by the time we got home, I felt vaguely hostile to the restaurant. But really, the food was terrific: we had their Korean version of sushi for an appetizer, which was yum, and then they do little dishes of vegetables, including a pickled radish, sesame seed green beans, spicy tofu, a sweet potato thing that R decided was too good to share with someone who doesn't like sweet potatoes, fish cake, kimchi...and I'm not sure what else. But yummy food, which I say to remind myself, and which is not my story. <br />
<br />
So this is my story: when we got home, the dog -- the naughty, naughty, BAD dog -- had gotten into a bag of Lindt truffles. R saw the ripped up bag first and he was scolding her and upset before I even got into the house. The dog is, as per usual, completely insane with delight that we're home, madly excited, dashing between us, while R stomps around, mad as anything. It was his present to me, so he's upset that his present has been destroyed, but he's also upset because we've done this with Zelda before. This being the emergency vet visit, several hundred dollars, stomach pump thing. <br />
<br />
I'm looking at the bag and trying to figure out the math. This will be the fifth time that Zelda has gotten into chocolate, which might say that we're really bad dog owners, except that Zelda is a Jack Russell terrier who can get into anything. Seriously, she opens closed doors by standing on her hind legs and using her paws, she opens cupboards with her nose. She can leave the backyard any time she wants, through multiple routes, and the only reason she doesn't (most of the time) is that she knows I don't want her to, even if she doesn't understand why. The only object in the house that she hasn't figured out how to open is the refrigerator, which is a good argument for keeping all chocolate in the fridge, but it was a present. Who keeps presents in the fridge? <br />
<br />
So I'm working on the math. Six ounces, partially dark chocolate, and three ounces is the magically bad number for dark chocolate for a dog of her weight, but there's some left in the bag, and how many servings are there in the bag? Even as I'm trying to figure that out, I'm also trying to take her pulse. Racing heart beat is a symptom of chocolate poisoning for dogs -- that's how they die, really. But it doesn't feel that fast. It's fast, sure, but she's excited that we've just gotten home and bouncing around and...it's normal fast. <br />
<br />
I lean in and take a big whiff of her breath. Her breath is not lovely. It never is. But it doesn't smell like chocolate. Or like vomit. It was the vomit that I was trying to smell. On one notable occasion, she had her stomach pumped and only a day later did I find the pile of chocolate vomit under the bed in the spare room that would have told me the stomach pumping was unnecessary. I found said vomit because she went back to it for a snack--gah, dogs--and I smelled it on her breath. So I'm smelling but there's nothing there, no chocolate smell, no vomit smell. And she's settling down. We're home, that's good, and maybe she'll just take a little nap now that she can relax. <br />
<br />
But a dog in the midst of chocolate poisoning? Is not going to be taking a little nap. <br />
<br />
I finish my math. Ten truffles are missing. Presumed eaten. I go into the spare room to look under the bed. I don't get there. In the back corner of an arm chair is a Lindt truffle, half under the cushion. She didn't eat it. She didn't even break the wrapping paper. I start searching. Over the course of the next hour, I find eight of the ten missing truffles. One in her window dog bed, one in the dog bed under my desk. One in the couch in the living room, another in the arm chair. One in my bed, one under a pillow in the guest room. And so on. <br />
<br />
A 9th is, I am sure, in my closet. I can tell from how she's acting now. She keeps going into the closet but when I follow her in, she acts innocent and quickly leaves. She's figured out that I'm stealing her treats. I have no idea what that feels like from a doggie perspective. She did some perfectly good hunting, gathering, and storing for later, and her pack leader has screwed it all up. Does she think it's unfair? <br />
<br />
Along the way I find a bag of pills -- Vitamin C maybe? -- that she has also stashed. The citrus smell reassures me that it's nothing too scary but some guest in my house, I don't know who, lost a lot of pills at some point. Oops! <br />
<br />
By the end of the hour, I'm totally comforted that the dog hasn't eaten enough chocolate to be dangerous and the dog is sulking. And R is not happy. In fact, he's pissed at Zelda -- she ruined his present. Not cool. <br />
<br />
I point out to him that it was actually kind of fun in a way -- like an easter egg hunt. Been a long time since I got to do that. I didn't mind it and was amused by her creative hiding with the last couple chocolates. He says, "Oh, I should view this an as an entertainment value addition to my present?" <br />
<br />
I say, "well..." and then point out the real plus. When we got home from dinner, I thought the dog might die. I was faced with the real possibility that Zelda had eaten enough chocolate that we would lose her. On Christmas Eve. On CHRISTMAS EVE! The relief of knowing that no, that wasn't going to happen? Golden. The joy of realizing that the ridiculous dog had hidden chocolate all over the house? Priceless.<br />
<br />
R listened to this and nodded. And then he said, "So the perfect Christmas gift is for me to threaten to kill the dog and then not carry through on the threat? Handy. And cheap. I'll remember that for next year." <br />
<br />
I think he has not quite forgiven her. <br />
<br />
But it made me laugh. <br />
<br />
And I'm allowed to share it, because he told me just the other day that it was okay if I told stories about him online. Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-42643855532968521542012-12-24T13:00:00.000-08:002012-12-29T12:15:55.168-08:00Tomorrow's menuTomorrow's menu for four:<br />
<br />
Scandinavian smoked salmon on butter crackers. Highly likely to come in two varieties, one with cream cheese, a little minced red onion and a couple of capers; the other on a horseradish cream sauce, sprinkled with dill. <br />
<br />
Cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto, possibly drizzled with a balsamic glaze.<br />
<br />
A winter fruit salad, composed of mixed greens, topped with orange, grapefruit, red onion, pomegranate seeds and toasted almonds, with a vinaigrette dressing. I know I had a recipe for that, but now I can't find it anywhere, so maybe it was my imagination. That makes me nervous about the vinaigrette, so I'll probably spend too much time looking for the recipe later today. <br />
<br />
Break for opening presents, then I spend twenty more minutes in the kitchen while other people amuse themselves. It's my strategy for both enjoying the meal and still having hot food. We'll see how it works. Anyway, break followed by: <br />
<br />
Roast beef with a horseradish glaze, served with a cranberry horseradish relish. Yep, I'm continuing my experiments in spicy cranberry sauce. I'm sure I'll find one I love someday. <br />
<br />
Mashed potatoes. Per request, completely plain unvarnished mashed potatoes. No garlic, no blue cheese, not even a little feta or sour cream snuck in there. (It wasn't really a request, more of a mild statement of affection for traditional mashed potatoes, from the tolerant recipient of all of my food experiments, aka R.) <br />
<br />
Roasted green beans with lemon and garlic from <a href="http://www.divinecaroline.com/38/81973-amazingly-delicious-roasted-green-beans">this recipe</a>, which just totally sold me. <br />
<br />
Break for watching some televised Christmas special, followed by: <br />
<br />
Cherry fruit paste from New Zealand with two cheeses, a camembert and a brie, and more crackers. <br />
<br />
A dessert to be provided by my dad's wife, maybe Christmas cookies, maybe fruit pie (because R likes fruit pie.) <br />
<br />
I'm hoping I may have finally figured out how to make Christmas bearable. As a kid, the only food traditions I cared about were the cookies. Our traditions were presents and jokes and music and decorations and a schedule that had us moving from one relative's house to the next in the cold, snowy weather. Aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents; sharing a basement bedroom with my sister and brother, with our parents asleep in the room next door; whispered early morning conversations while waiting for Santa; and so much laughing. So much laughter. <br />
<br />
But I think my grandfathers were the sources of the laughter. And when they died, the laughter stopped. <br />
<br />
My paternal grandfather died first. He loved to tell jokes. He told jokes to strangers, made people in stores laugh, was just the warmest man imaginable. His humor had not the slightest speck of malice in it. You would never have known from his friendliness and compassion of the burdens he bore without complaint. His wife, my grandmother, was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic in her 40s. As she grew older, she lost more and more of her hearing until she was really entirely deaf. He was her link to the world. Endlessly patient with her. He was a devout Christian and the closest thing to a saint that I've ever met. Also, he just loved to make people laugh. If he hadn't made you laugh at least once in your interaction with him, well, he'd keep trying. And you would laugh, eventually, or at least roll your eyes with a resigned smile. <br />
<br />
Anyway, after his death, Christmas changed. His wife, my grandmother, had to be institutionalized. Against her will and via the legal system. I think it was hard and painful for all of the relatives in my parents' generation, but I don't know that they had any other options. <br />
<br />
We still tried. And for a couple of years, we sort of made it work. <br />
<br />
If my paternal grandfather told jokes, my other grandfather played jokes. Nothing made him happier than to give you a joke present that had you frowning down in confusion while he roared with laughter across the room. Well, except maybe giving my grandmother something that made her tear up with appreciation. <br />
<br />
We had one last good year, a Christmas in New York. The only bad note was that my grandfather had a back ache that wouldn't quit. It turned out to be bone cancer and he died that April. <br />
<br />
After that...we tried. We really did. Different places, different houses, different activities. We went to Disney one year, North Carolina once. I spent a Christmas in Seattle, another in Canada, another in Santa Cruz. My grandmothers and great-grandmother suffered through slow declines in institutions of varying levels of unpleasantness. (In a stroke of unfair irony, my aware and present grandmother lived the longest in the worst of them, while my grandmother with Alzheimer's spent her years unconscious in a much more comfortable, even almost pleasant setting.)<br />
<br />
But I guess I've never managed to recover from the idyllic childhood. Christmas has been making me sad for close to twenty years now, and losing my mom just made that worse. <br />
<br />
We'll see if making it all about the food makes it better. And meanwhile, I have a super-secret, super-fun project that I'm working on that I'd really like to have done tomorrow, so I had best get back to it! Merry Christmas! <br />
Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-66933529111573520572012-12-19T18:21:00.000-08:002012-12-29T12:18:05.742-08:00The looking-straight-ahead-awkward-conversationsR and I were in the car today. I'm not sure how often that will happen now, so I figured I needed to get my difficult conversations in while I had the chance. One that I had been thinking about was about his privacy, basically about how and when I talked about him online. This week, a mom's post about her child went viral and aroused a lot of controversy, including some harsh words on children's right to privacy. It made me think. It made me worry. <br />
<br />
So I started carefully. I wanted to set the stage. I wrote a ton about him when he was little, all on a board on AOL, and alas, most of it lost to the mists of time. The board shut down, I didn't have archives, I don't know what I said. I wish I did! But I've been more careful as he grew older. I actually started this blog to write about learning disabilities, oh-so-many-years-ago, but I never wound up doing that. He worked so hard, but his struggles felt private to me. <br />
<br />
Lately, though, I've been less careful than I used to be. I've used his real name a few times; my written-but-not-posted-post on depression features him heavily; I've quoted things he's said in comments on other people's blogs and here, too. I didn't feel as if I was being insensitive, but would I necessarily know? <br />
<br />
So I started talking. You know how sometimes when you know what you want to say but you don't quite know how you want to get there, you sort of wander around the point? I did that a little bit. R made a couple comments. I talked some more. <br />
<br />
Finally, he interrupted me and said, “Mom, I’ve read what you write about me. You make me sound smarter, funnier, and far more charming than I really am. Feel free to continue.”<br />
<br />
I laughed and laughed. <br />
<br />
Because you know what? I really don't. Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-32364636378519182962012-12-17T10:30:00.001-08:002012-12-29T12:18:10.907-08:00Driver's licenseWe are leaving the house in less than half an hour so R can take his driver's license exam and oddly enough, I am so anxious about it that I wish to throw up. But I'm not sure what I'm anxious about. If he fails, that'll be bad, but if he passes, he'll start driving my car. By himself. <br />
<br />
If he fails, he'll be sad and mad and disappointed and that will all suck. If he succeeds, all of our car conversations -- which really are some of our best conversations these days, because it takes about twenty minutes to take him to his friends' houses -- will come to an end. No more racing to identify the pop music on the radio, no more debates about philosophy, no more looking-straight-ahead-let's-talk-about-something-awkward opportunities. <br />
<br />
And having written it out, I feel much better. <br />
<br />
I hope he passes. And when he does, I will simply have to make sure that we still go places together sometimes. Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-68074721019654932382012-12-16T10:13:00.002-08:002012-12-29T12:18:35.242-08:00RewindOn 9/11, I was in California. By the time my alarm went off, the first tower had already collapsed. I heard at most ninety seconds of radio news before my five-year-old said, "What's a terrorist? What happened?" and I shut the radio off. <br />
<br />
For most people, the next few days were non-stop televised tragedy. For me, it was the completely surreal attempt to shield my boy from the entire thing. My most vivid memory is of watching his kindergarten class play on the playground while adults stole away to listen to radio reports in the school director's office as furtively as if we were shooting up in the bathroom. <br />
<br />
I asked him yesterday what he remembered. He thought about it then slowly shook his head. "Nothing. Not from when it happened. I remember a ceremony, some kind of memorial service, but I think that was later." Success! <br />
<br />
I didn't realize this at the time, but by shielding him, I shielded me, too. It was years before I saw and heard the sights and sounds of that day. I wish I had done the same this weekend. I know that whether or not I put up the Christmas tree has nothing to do with anything that's happening in CT, but it feels so wrong. <br />
<br />
Ironically, on Thursday, I was really happy. I'm working on a very fun secret project (not to be secret for long!), and I got my hot water heater fixed. It's been semi-broken for months, which is not that big a deal in Florida, really--cold showers are not usually a problem when it's 80 degrees--but oh, it was fun to have hot water again. I think I shall pretend to go backward in time to Thursday and work on being happy about hot water and being entertained by my secret project. Wouldn't it be nice if time could rewind like that? <br />
Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-29298632402316951582012-12-14T17:46:00.003-08:002012-12-14T17:46:56.731-08:00HonestlyI was in school to become a therapist before my mom died. You have to do a lot of self-analysis. In one course, we wrote papers about ourselves every week. My professor wrote a note on one of mine, almost at the end of the semester, that said, "Abused children can't." I think I stopped breathing when I read it. <br />
<br />
A while later, I said to my mom, gently, carefully, in the car, "Did you hit us a lot when we were little?" I don't know what I thought the answer would be. Maybe, "sometimes," maybe, "once in a while," maybe, "oh, when you were bad." <br />
<br />
She said, "Yes." <br />
<br />
Long pause. <br />
<br />
I wanted to know more and I didn't want to know more. I asked, "For what kinds of things?" <br />
<br />
She said, "Anything. Everything." She was staring straight ahead, not looking at me, and I could tell how painful it was to her. So I didn't ask any more. Within the month she'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and five weeks later, she was dead. <br />
<br />
Akira didn't come out of nowhere. Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-23331265015256863972012-12-09T17:51:00.000-08:002012-12-09T17:51:18.231-08:00One yearI told myself a week ago that I should do a numbers and facts post for the one year anniversary of self-publishing <i>A Gift of Ghosts</i>; how many copies sold, how much earned, best day, success of giveaways, that kind of thing. <br />
<br />
Have I mentioned yet that I'm sleeping a lot these days? Yeah, I knew I had. Anyway, writing that post kept seeming like a lot of work. Really, a lot of work. Amazon does nice little Excel spreadsheets that you can download every month, but it's probably been three or four months since I've bothered and even though it's just a click, putting them all together and totaling all the numbers...well, it feels like kind of a lot of work. <br />
<br />
(Side note: anti-depressants would probably be good for me. Caffeine is not cutting it. And no, Suzanne, I have not gotten R a passport. I feel guilty about it every day, though, which should count for something.) <br />
<br />
This morning I woke up and thought, "Today's the day, one year, I'm going to do that post, just as soon as I write 1000 words on Time." <br />
<br />
Twelve hours later, I have 400 new words on Time. That does not include the 81-word paragraph that I wrote ten different ways. If I included all of those words, I would easily have my thousand words, but since I cut most of them eventually, I can't. <br />
<br />
So no book numbers--well, a few approximate numbers. I don't know precisely how many copies I've sold or given away or how much money I've made, because to figure out would require math. Lots of math. And I don't have the energy. But I do know that I have sold more than 3700 copies, given away somewhere in the range of 45,000 and made over $9000. I spent $50 on CreateSpace's extended distribution (for both books), probably about $50 on paper copies to give away (not to reviewers, just to friends and family), and $20 on artwork for covers, although $10 of that was for the cover of <i>A Gift of Time</i>, which I haven't even finished writing yet. <br />
<br />
Economically speaking, self-publishing was undoubtedly the best investment I've ever made. If I was being purely economical, I'd have to calculate a value for my time, of course, but I wrote the books for fun and not because I ever thought I'd make money from them, so I didn't punch a time card and don't really have a sensible way of measuring dollars per hour. I should probably start trying to track hours, though, because it would be interesting to know if I ever start earning more than minimum wage on writing. At the moment, hmm...well, I might have. I didn't have a lot of days like today when I was writing <i>Ghosts</i>, so I very well might have made more than minimum wage on that one. <i>Thought</i>, probably not yet. And <i>Time</i>, ha. It's like a sinkhole of hours. But moving on...<br />
<br />
Emotionally speaking, it's been truly different than I expected it to be. My plan was then--and still is, really--to write a million words and then decide if I truly want to try to be a professional writer. I worked in publishing so I have no illusions: writing is a grueling way to make a living. A nice hobby, but a painful career. <br />
<br />
Posting <i>Ghosts </i> was a way to make it easy for the people who knew me to read it. Well, and for them to buy me a cup of coffee. It was Christmas and I was an unemployed graduate student with a fondness for Starbucks gingerbread lattes, so telling my dad and my brother and my sister and my closest friends to buy my book/me a cup of coffee seemed fitting. (Posting <i>Thought</i>, on the other hand, was meeting a commitment I made in the back of <i>Ghosts</i>--I probably won't be doing that again.) <br />
<br />
And <i>Ghosts</i>--well, I love it. I love Akira. I love Zane. I love Dillon, I love Rose. (Oh my, do I love Rose! She is, at the moment, one very disgruntled angel. But I digress.) Honestly, though, I never expected other people to love it, too. Akira is anxious. And cautious. And casual about sex. And only very, very reluctantly heroic. Zane -- well, he's a hero who didn't even manage to save the heroine's life. (Although maybe he did, one could definitely argue that the CPR keeps her alive until Natalya shows up.) <br />
<br />
As it turns out, I was wrong, and that has been such an unexpected pleasure for me. I was braced for the mean reviews, for the people who would not appreciate my geeky heroine or my slacker hero, who would criticize my commas and question my pacing. I told myself not to worry about them, people have different tastes, etc. But I was not remotely prepared for how much the nice reviews would make me melt or how I would savor them. "Well-researched" left me floating on air (thank you for noticing!), "delightful" is a hit of bliss on a gray day, "wish I could visit the town" makes me wish we could live there together. Nice reviews are like stars in a night sky, little dots of light in an otherwise endless darkness. Okay, maybe that's a little hyperbolic. Still, as of today, Ghosts has 52 five-star reviews, and 21 four-stars, Thought has 17 five-stars and 9 fours, and I treasure each and every one. They make me feel like the world has more potential friends in it than I would have ever imagined. <br />
<br />
So...enough sappiness...on the one year anniversary of publishing <i>Ghosts</i>, I can say a few things. 1) It hasn't changed my life and there is no overnight success story or million dollar publishing deal here. 2) It has enormously exceeded my expectations, both financially and critically. 3) I'm glad I did it. <br />
<br />
To you who are reading this, if you're a fellow writer, I don't have any secrets. "Write the book, let it go, write the next one" is the advice I'm following and it seems to be working pretty well. If you're a reader, thank you so much for sharing your free time with my world and I hope I can keep entertaining you. And if you're a real-life friend, then your name is Suzanne and I'm sorry about the passport thing. You might need to call R and get him to start nagging, because I'm just not managing to get it done on my own. Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-695112188059052762.post-65198103950181641832012-12-06T18:51:00.000-08:002012-12-10T08:59:54.110-08:00SherlockI walked into R's room and said, "I know you hate it when I rant about television. I know. But do you mind if I do it anyway?" <br />
<br />
He said, "What show?" <br />
<br />
I said, "Sherlock." <br />
<br />
He said, "Yeah, I don't like that one anyway. Go ahead." <br />
<br />
I said, "Forget the sexism. Take it for granted that Steven Moffat is completely insanely sexist, doesn't understand that women are human beings, whatever. Assume that and let it go. The show is still completely maddening." <br />
<br />
He wrote something on a note card. I think he was prepping for his drama class.*<br />
<br />
"It's like World of Warcraft, really. Irene Adler is a rogue. So, whatever, she's an evil female character, yeah, so what? Really, she's a rogue. Everyone hates rogues. They're annoying. But they are what they are and when they're played well, they kick butt." <br />
<br />
He says, "What are you talking about?" <br />
<br />
"I don't care whether Irene Adler is sexist. Yes, women tend to be rogues. They learn how to manipulate and back stab and stealth, because what the hell, those are useful skills when you're small and weak and somewhat defenseless. And they're really annoying skills when you're PVPing against them." <br />
<br />
He blinks. <br />
<br />
"I'm serious. Irene Adler is a rogue. Which is fine. Rogues suck, but it's a legitimate character class. But then -- then -- then he turns her into a pally. What the hell is up with that? Rogues don't act like pallies. Rogues don't do front-on confrontations. Rogues don't call people 'junior' and get all triumphant about defeating them. Rogues that do that kind of thing get their butts kicked." <br />
<br />
"What are you talking about?" <br />
<br />
"I'm saying that the ending of episode one of season two of Sherlock isn't annoying because it's sexist -- although god knows it's sexist -- it's annoying because it violates character class rules. It's annoying because it is absolutely crappy characterization. It's annoying because turning a rogue into a pally for ten minutes because it helps your script is lazy, lazy, lazy screenwriting." <br />
<br />
He writes something on his notecard. "Done?" <br />
<br />
"Yep. And I feel much better. Thank you." <br />
<br />
"No problem."<br />
<br />
I will probably have to give up watching television when my boy leaves home. <br />
<br />
<i>*He doesn't read my blog, but I was writing when he came into my room to say goodnight. It was government, not drama. Also, he doesn't think he said, "Done?" which he felt sounded pejorative. He thinks he said, "Feel better?" This could be true. But it would be unduly repetitive and he was willing to grant that it was okay as is.</i>Sarah Wyndehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02208314684112329427noreply@blogger.com4