I am going to participate in A Month of Letters in February. The idea is pretty simple, each mailing day in February you mail something out via snail mail. I think it’s fantastic — who doesn’t love receiving things in the mail?

In my case, I’m going to ready something to be mailed each day and then actually, physically mail them once a week because the walk to the post office is nice enough on a warm day, but if we get a cold snap there’s no way I want to do it everyday. Plus, there’s the time it takes… So yeah. I’ll be mailing something for everyday in the month, but it will all go out in about 4 shipments.

If you want to participate check out the website –> http://lettermo.com/

If you don’t want to participate but you’d like to be one of the people I mail something to, leave me a comment with your mailing address, or if you’d rather, just email it to me (rhonda@jofigure.com). I make no promises about -what- exactly I’ll send you, but it will be something.

I’m looking forward to this

I found a dead bird today, a magpie. Where I grew up, in rural Alberta, magpies were reviled. They were infamous for stealing dog food and being able to ‘smell a gun from a mile away’. I listened to many conversations about the best way to kill them (usually involving poison and the aforementioned dog food) and how horrible they were. Frankly, I thought it was the people doing the plotting that were horrible, not the birds. I love birds. Even magpies.

I know magpies aren’t angelic, I’ve seen them swarming to pick on a weaker bird, or squirrel, and I’ve heard stories about them ganging up on cats, but I guess that sort of falls under the whole ‘circle of life’ or ‘nature is cruel’ thing. I think they are beautiful. Their black and white feathers, their silhouette when they fly overhead. They are super-smart, and I freaking LOVE how they talk with two voices at the same time. Someday I’ll write a story with that in it, someday.

Not today. Today my story is about one particular magpie that won’t ever speak again, in any number of voices.

I left my house, intent on dealing with some mundane errands. I was feeling a little bit sorry for myself because a had a bit of a headache and the scale this morning said I’d gained 1/2 a pound overnight. I left my yard and started walking down the sidewalk toward the mall, and I saw it. A feathery bundle laying still on the sidewalk. Right in the middle of the sidewalk. It was unmistakably a magpie, even from a distance, it’s coloring and shape told me that much. I couldn’t tell if it was alive or dead, there was a light breeze and it was ruffling its feathers just enough to sustain the possibility of breath. I was frozen in place for a moment, trying to figure out what could have happened — because it was just laying there. There were no scattered feathers, no other birds or animals, no sign of any struggle, just a bird, obviously dead or dying, laying in the middle of the sidewalk.

When I finally walked toward it, I hoped it was dead. If it was suffering I knew I wouldn’t be able to find it within myself to kill it, nor did I have the faintest clue who to call. There was something about it’s posture that told me if it wasn’t dead it soon would be, so I didn’t think even if I -did- call someone they’d be able to help. So I wanted it to be dead. And I felt bad for that, but dead > suffering without hope.

All those thoughts swept through me in the time it took to reach the magpie, all those and several theories about what could have killed it.

Because it was very definitely dead. I realised that before I’d reached it. When I did get to it and look down, it looked beautiful. He had no wounds, no blood, his body wasn’t twisted or unnatural looking. Snow had fallen on him (from the trees above him, I presume) and then melted, leaving tiny droplets of water that sparkled on his feathers. Looking at him, my heart ached, and yet, I had the thought ‘I should photograph him, he looks gorgeous.’ I dismissed that thought as soon as it occured to me, but really, he was that lovely, even in death.

I took off my glove and reached for him, then stopped and put my glove back on. I don’t know why I’d taken it off in the first place, because his feathers looked so soft? Because I wanted to brush the water droplets off him? I don’t know, but a childhood of repeatedly being told ‘Don’t touch that, it’s dirty and it’ll make you sick’ put my glove back on before I picked him up. But I did pick him up. What choice did I have? I couldn’t leave him laying there. Couldn’t make him someone else’s problem, or leave him for a neighbourhood kid or cat to discover.

I brought him home, and then, swallowing back tears the whole time, wandered around my yard, trying to figure out what to do with him. I couldn’t bury him, the ground is frozen and covered with snow, plus I had errands to run before Danica got home from school. I couldn’t just throw him in the garbage because… well, I just couldn’t. I thought about putting him on top of the compost pile, where he could get covered with snow and decompose untouched over the winter (somehow compost doesn’t equate to garbage in my brain), but that wasn’t safe. Not only could the neighbourhood cats potentially get him, so could my dog. I didn’t want to have to deal with that. I thought about putting him in our shed until spring when I could bury him, but I couldn’t get the door open (it was frozen in place).

In the end I left him outside, up off the ground with a crate covering him to keep him safe from scavengers. I’ll leave him there until Jo gets home to help me make a decision. It could be that there’s someone with the city I can call to deal with him, if not, he spend the winter quadruple bagged in my freezer until spring. Or that Jo can get the door to the shed open.

Whatever happens, he touched my day and my heart and I felt compelled to write about him and share my story.

Rest in peace, Magpie.

Truth is the slipperiest creature I know. I just wrote a long(ish) blog entry, complete with pictures and nostalgia, about my favourite ever Christmas present. Then I deleted it.

It’s so tricky when you write about real things, about real people. Even if you’re saying nice things about them, it’s never quite clear what you should share and what is best kept to yourself. Or at least, it’s never clear for me.

We were pretty poor when I was a kid. That’s a fact. We never went hungry, but money was tight and there are a lot of stories in there, but are they mine to tell? Is it really fair for me to talk about what it was like growing up? That doesn’t just affect me, but my whole family. Just because I feel comfortable talking about that, does it mean I can? That I should? What about my siblings? My parents? My extended family? When I tell my story I’m also touching on theirs.

In the case of the blog entry about my favourite Christmas gift, I loved the present because I could see how much love and thought had gone into buying it for me. I could see how proud the person giving it to me was because they thought they’d gotten me the thing I wanted most in the world. They were wrong, they’d misunderstood what I asked for, but it didn’t matter to me. In that case it really was the thought that counted and that ‘wrong’ present meant more to me than the ‘right’ one ever could have because I saw the love behind it. Still, I’d never told that person they’d bought me something other than what I asked for. If they read this blog and found out, would it hurt their feelings or would they be happy to know I saw their motivations, their love, on thier face and it made that gift mean the world to me? I didn’t have the answers, and I don’t want to hurt anyone, so I’m keeping that story to myself.

But then, what if I want to tell a story, a different story, about when I was a kid? What if I want to talk about elementary school, or junior high? What if our family situation touches on those things (because dude, how could it not?) how do I know what’s okay? How do I decide when it’s okay to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and when to pretty it up a bit? What if I want to talk about the less than shiny parts of our family? No one’s perfect, and certainly no family is. That’s part of my story, is it okay to share it?

I don’t know the answers, but I’m starting to ask the questions. I think, for now, I’m just going to have to keep feeling my way through, one story at a time and really take a hard look at my motivations for sharing each. I don’t want to hurt anyone, so that’s the only way I know to go. But in the end, it’s my story too, so I think I have a right to share if I want to.

Mostly I write fiction, so this doesn’t become a giant problem, but who I am, what I’ve known and expierenced, they all inform my writing, so even in fiction, it’s important, I think, that I consider these things.

Cheerful thoughts leading into Giftmas, eh?

I suspect the holidays are greatly to blame for my thoughts heading down this road, as is work on CONSEQUENCE which takes place in a small town much like the ones where I grew up in.* Sure, we didn’t have genies, but in a way, small towns are like families. They have secrets, they have truths and they have ways of functioning that are unique to them. I’m not trying to re-create anywhere I’ve lived for CONSEQUENCE (okay, that the last time I’m writing it in all caps ) but I’m definitely finding myself thinking about them a lot these days. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Families, small towns and truth. I could get lost thinking about them, but then I’d never get any writing done. So maybe I am, as usual, just overthinking things what I really need to do is stop the thought merry-go-round and just freaking write.

/ramble

*and, it should be noted, never fit into

A friend of mine on LiveJournal posted the list of what she wanted Santa to bring for her as a blog entry last week. I thought it was a fabulous idea because it really gave me some insight into who she was. My list, below is being shared for the same reason. Please don’t think I’m actually asking anyone who is reading this (except you Jo :-p) to get me these things — I’m writing to Santa.

Dear Santa,

I’ve been, well, if not terribly good at least not terribly bad this year. So for Giftmas, I would really love:

• A hot oil popcorn popper like the one we used to have when I was a kid. I can’t actually find that exact model anymore, I guess they don’t make them these days, but this one here is similar enough to satisfy my nostalgia and provide me with super duper yummy popcorn.
  
• I would also really love to “become a chimpanzee’s best friend“. Please. Pretty please?
• I’m all about the Sims 3 these days but I’m feeling a little limited with my options for ‘stuff’ at this point. I’d positively adore any of the expansions I don’t have yet, or even Sims Points so I can buy some of the ‘stuff’ collections they put on sale on the website.
• Lastly, if you were feeling super generous, Santa. I could also really use some baseboards and riser thingers for my bathroom and kitchen. If we don’t finish them up soon they are just going to blend into the background and we’ll never get them done. I’ve got the paint for both and I’d really like a chance to use it.

Thank you Santa.

Love,

Rhonda

In more directly writing-related news, Shadows is still coming along well. I’ve had a few bumpy patches in regard to ordering some of my scenes, but I still feel very good about this draft. I’m at 22,692 words and still going strong. Since I started working on it this time I haven’t missed a workday and the consistency feels good. Very good.

I wish I could say I’ve been as consistent with my #novpad this year, but I’d be lying. I have 9 poems, I should have 18. But it’s okay. I plan to keep going through the prompts, one at a time, until I finish them all, even if it takes me until January. For me the point of #novpad is mostly to be writing, and I’m doing that, even if it’s not one poem a day. I’m still pleased with my productivity, so it’s all good.

A couple years ago my friend BD did a personal challenge where she wrote for at least 15 minutes everyday for a year. I’m thinking about doing something similar. I don’t usually write on weekends, so I’d let myself off the hook then, but maybe expecting myself to write every weekday would be good for habit-forming and productivity. You know, assuming it’s not just setting myself up for failure considering the cyclical way my productivity works. This will require further thought, but I’m considering it, and if I do attempt it I’ll need moral support so if anyone else wants in let me know.

And let me know if you have a public holiday gift list. I’d love to take a look.

Today is my anniversary. Another year spent married to this guy. This is Jo. Jo rocks. We’ve been together for just over ten years now, married for seven of them. I love him more today than I did a decade ago and if I were to imagine my life without him it would be a dismal thing indeed.

He’s got his game face on in this picture — we were in the lab and he was pouring things into test tubes for me to photograph. He’s cool like that.

*Insert some sort of clever segue here between anniversaries and music*

Today I’ve got a guest blog over at Beth Cato’s blog. It’s all about music and stories. Check it out Once you’ve read my blog post poke around Beth’s site a bit more. I’m the third guest blogger she’s had there recently talking about music. Also, she’s just kinda awesome.

*Insert one more clever segue*

I’m working on a collaborative project with Jennythe_reader. We hooked up via 2xCreative (which I’ve mentioned before here). We’re actually doing a couple projects together. For the first, I sent her a poem I’d written and she is writing it out all pretty-like and then embellishing the paper. I don’t think my description does it justice, but you can hear her talk about it a little bit here. Anyway, I kind of wanted to do something more. Partly because my time investment was pretty small this month (I already had the poem written and only had to send it to her) and also partly because I wanted to do something different. Whenever I work on a collaborative project I provide words in some form or another. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but Jenny, well, Jenny is a fabric artist. It just so happens that I paint fabric. How could we not do something that combined those talents?

I dug out my fabric painting stuff from where it was tucked into a corner of the basement and painted three pieces. I will be popping these into the mail to Jenny this week and I’ll keep you updated about what she creates with them. I can’t wait to see!

In other, writing-related news, though I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year, I am doing the November Poem-a-Day challenge. My theme is going to be ‘Classic Horror’ with a focus (I hope) on ghosts.

I’ve also begun transcribing and revising Shadows. Right now I’m only working on the revision part (the first couple chapters were already transcribed), and I’m 4,785 words in. I’d love to use a word count meter of some sort here, but that’s tricky when you don’t know how many words you’re going to end up with LOL I think my last estimate was about 70k but at this point, it’s all a big question mark.

Finally, did I mention that it’s my anniversary? Happy Halloween everyone and Jo, I love you.

Pictures! Just cause. I took these at Jo’s work a couple weekends ago:

So, I need to write a blog entry this week, but I haven’t got the time. My solution? This is an essay I wrote for school. I’m going to share it in lieu of actually writing something fresh. I apologise, but it seems kind of appropriate because last week I edited a blog entry and handed it in as an essay for the same course LOL

Building a Reputation

So, you want to be a writer. I’ve got some bad news for you—getting published is easy, the tricky part to building a writing career is developing your reputation. Remember, you’re not just selling a story, you’re selling an idea about who you are. Each publication is a brick in the wall that will grow to become your brand and represent you as an author and the mortar between those bricks is your reputation.

Not only do you need to build a reputation with readers, but you will find that establishing one with editors will also affect your career. Every communication you have with an editor will flavor their impression of you. It’s important to set the tone of your future relationship in your very first email to a new editor. Make sure they know you aren’t doing anything as demeaning as submitting your work for consideration, rather you are offering them the use of it. Emphasize that you are doing this as a personal favor to them because your work is vastly superior to everything else they have published to date (even your mother thinks so, and she doesn’t usually read the genre you write in).

For example, it’s good to note that what is expected in professional correspondence is always changing. “Dear Mr. (or Ms.) Editor” may have been the traditional way to begin correspondence once upon a time but nowadays with the widespread use of email and texting, it is perfectly acceptable to start your email without a salutation. You may also skip the complimentary closing. Why bother with obsolete niceties? They take precious seconds out of your day.

If you do decide to include a salutation and address the editor by name, it doesn’t actually matter if you spell their name correctly, so long as they can figure out who you meant. Gender, also, doesn’t matter. If you address a letter to Mr. Doe and then discover they are actually Ms. Doe, at least you got the last name correct. In baseball batting .500 is fantastic. The same applies in publishing. Likewise, while it’s good to mention the name of the publication when you submit or query, if it has any unusual spellings, feel free to ignore them or, better yet point out the editor’s mistake in choosing to spell their magazine or publishing house the way they have.

You don’t need to bother making sure your work fits the genre of the publication you’re offering it to because it is so well-written any editor worth their salt will be happy to publish it regardless. If you happen to find an editor who isn’t willing to accept it because it “doesn’t fit their market” they obviously don’t know what they are talking about. Make sure you reply to their rejection letter and tell them so as emphatically as possible.

What’s more, don’t worry about following the editor’s guidelines for formatting submissions. You’ve formatted your story the way you have for a reason and they are called submission guidelines, which means they are more like suggestions than rules. On a related note, don’t worry about fixing typos or revising before you send your work in. That is the editor’s job. If you made it perfect before you sent it to them, what would they do to earn their pay cheques?

Finally, unless you want to be known as a pushover, once editing on your piece has begun it is vital you make sure the editor knows this is not an equal partnership. You are the boss. Make them fight for every comma they want to alter and absolutely refuse to budge on changing anything bigger than a single word or punctuation mark. It’s at this stage that phrases like “That’s my personal writing style” will serve you very well.

You can’t let editors mess around with your work or your style will be changed until it’s unrecognizable. Editors may say things like “This will make for a stronger story” or “But it’s nonsensical when it’s written this way” but don’t believe them. They aren’t trying to help you improve your work, they are dumbing it down and making it like everyone else’s.

You are not like everyone else. You are unique, special; like a snowflake. When you stick up for yourself, people, both readers and editors, will respect you. Don’t let yourself get pushed around and remember that no matter how many years of experience an editor has, when it comes to your work, you are the authority.

By following these tips you’re guaranteed to make an impression on the editors who work for you. That’s what you want, for people, editors and readers alike, to have an instant visceral reaction when they hear your name. That is what will help bind your work together and build a career, brick by brick, that will be beyond compare.

My grade, in case you are curious (and who wouldn’t be?) was 70% because my teacher couldn’t tell if I was being sincere in my advice or not. My original draft made mention about how editors talk to one another and compare notes, maybe I ought to have left that in to help clarify my position. Oh well. Next time I’ll make my tone a little more obviously sarcastic

Also, in case you’re curious. Yes. Every example up there has happened to me when I’m wearing my Editor hat.

Lastly, in writing-related news, I have a couple zombie apocalypse poems up at Dark Chaos this week.

Wow. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Did you miss me?

I unplugged and went here for vacation:

(in case that slideshow isn’t working for you, check out the pictures here)

It was lovely. I was unplugged, unstressed… relaxed. I learned a few things about myself and recharged my batteries and came home.

Then I promptly got sick.

Okay, so there was a little time in between the return and the sickness, but it wasn’t long, and I’m just now getting better… and re-recharging my batteries LOL

Such is life, right?

In between my last blog and now we also put out another issue of Niteblade:

It’s a fabulous issue. I say that a lot, and I’m never lying LOL This one is great and if you like fantasy and horror stories or poems (and if you don’t why are you reading my blog anyway?) it’s totally worth a visit. Just click the picture, it will take you there.

Right now I’m trying to catch up on my essay-writing course for school and I’m starting to brainstorm some ideas for this year’s NaNo novel (I’m thinking it may be a western O_o. I know, right?). In the next couple days I’m hoping to begin working on the layout for my zombie poetry chapbook and maybe some *gasp* edits.

And I sold a poem to the new Zombiefied! anthology

Also, I have a super schmexy new pen I need to take pictures of to share with you.

Oh! And I have some friends who will be doing guest posts here too.

The point I’m trying to make is, I’m back.

And I missed you.

I write my first drafts longhand on my bed. I transcribe them to my computer and revise and rework them on my laptop while sitting on my upstairs sofa.

This week we’ve been having a couple new floors installed upstairs which means my bedroom and the sitting room upstairs were off limits. Our floors are in now, but the sititng room is still filled with things which belong in the kitchen. Things like our fridge, the stove, the table — you get the idea. Jo has to work today and I’m not quite uber enough to move those things myself, but I also have a non-fiction column to revise before tomorrow.

So here I sit. On the sofa downstairs, trying to revise this. I am failing. I’m failing because it’s not right. The light is wrong, the tension in the sofa is wrong, the height of the sofa is wrong. It’s just wrong.

Wah!

Amanda Palmer made a commencement speech to the New York Institute of Art’s class of 2011. It is very much worth watching, or reading the transcript if you prefer. In it she talks about the Fraud Police. You know that feeling you have occasionally (or constantly) that you’re a fraud and someone is going to find you out? Yeah. That. That is something I can totally relate to — I bet we all can. I watched her speech and I thought ‘I ought to blog about that’ and maybe I will someday, but not today.

Not today because of three little words at the end of her blog (well, two words and a letter). Those words? Fuck plan B.

I <3 them.

For me they sum up a lot of things I find myself telling other writers, telling myself. Unfortunately, they are also very much open to interpretation, so let me tell you a little story about how I interpret them.

As far back as I can remember I’ve wanted to ‘be a writer’. Now, that definition of ‘be a writer’ was not ‘someone who writes’. It encompassed a whole lot more than that. It meant publication, it meant people liking what I wrote, it meant writing as my full-time job. I wrote all the time in school. All the time. My friends (and even the other students who weren’t my friends) and my teachers said I was a good writer, they said I had “talent”. I believed them, but I didn’t. I tried, in high school, to get published. I submitted a couple (terrible) stories to magazines. They were rejected. I said all the right things about those rejections, “It’s not me they are passing on, it’s the story.” “It’s a good story, it’s just not right for them.” “Get back on the horse.” Etc. etc. I even sent some of them back out again, and got some more rejections.

In the end, the only thing I published prior to 2006 were letters to the editor in my local paper and one in Canadian Gardening that was mostly fiction though I pretended otherwise. I was pretty pleased with that silly letter getting published though, don’t get me wrong. I was willing to take my victories where they came.

They didn’t come often enough though, so I became discouraged. I gave up on writing as a career and I moved on to Plan B.

Now, there was no pivotal moment, no light switch that got flicked and made me say ‘No, I’m not going to do this, I’m going to do that’ but it happened. Slowly, insidiously, it happened. I became certain my dreams, my Plan A, was impossible so I moved on.

Oh, how I regret that now.

In 2006 I was re-assessing my career, my life. I was looking for a new direction. My husband, Jo, said to me “Well, if you could do anything in the world what would it be?”

“Writing. But that’s impossible.” I replied.

“Why?” he asked.

I had no answer.

That was a turning point for me. Now I’m living my Plan A. It’s taken time (oh, how I bemoan the lost years when I could have been honing my craft instead of writing it off as impossible) and it’s tough. I still feel like a fraud, and I struggle, but it beats the hell out of Plan B. Hope beats surrender.

So Fuck Plan B.

I don’t mean that people should be completely irrational. You shouldn’t give up your fantastic job to go be a starving artist if you’ve never picked up a paint brush before. You shouldn’t drop out of school to make a living writing poetry. But you should aim high. Don’t give up on yourself or your dreams. You should start learning to paint and practicing on weekends. You should start writing poetry in the evening after you’re done your homework instead of watching American Idol. Fuck Plan B doesn’t get to be an excuse for doing something foolish, but it can be fantastic motivation for doing something awesome.

Working my way through fixing things post “hack” of my blog. This security clean-up is a freaking nightmare. A mind-numbing nightmare.

The audio files for Lost and Found aren’t up, and a lot of images are broken but I now have a generic (*sigh*) layout going and I’m fixing some pages, but mostly working behind-the-scenes to firm up the security as much as I can.

Please be patient with me.