Is this thing on?

Blogger stats informs me that more people are looking at this blog on a daily basis than at my actual blog. Suspicious creature that I am, I suspect it's mostly spammers (especially given the number of spam comments in my moderation box o.O), BUT if there really are people lurking out there in the corners of this blog still, well, HELLO THERE. IT IS NICE TO SEE YOU.

So here's the deal that will let me know whether this blog is still live or not (because clearly the frequency of authorial posting has nothing to do with a blog being 'live', or this blog would have died MANY A TIME). If I can have three - just three! - comments on this post - just a hey will do - then I may be convinced to cross post things back here, at least for a bit, and as a nod of respect to long-time lurkers, will post the cover of my up-coming release, To Dust, three days earlier on this blog than my official one.

Ha.

So. Anybody out there?

This site is no longer in use. Amy's blog is now at www.amylaurens.com/blog.

Giveaway Winners

Thanks everyone who entered :o) It was fun to be able to give away so many books! I'll announce the winners in a second (or you can scroll down now...), but I just wanted to note a few housekeeping things.

1) This blog will be tidied up with a shiny front page and what not, and will be linked to from my website as the 'for writers' section.
2) The Declutter Manifesto blog will be linked to from the website as my blog.
3) Any announcements about give aways, new releases, and book-related stuff will be blogged directly to the website on the front page.
4) I think - think - that when I come back to writing, I will do so without the intent to seek traditional publication, but with the intent of self-publishing strictly as a hobby. That way I still have the fun of sharing with an audience, but without the pressure - and I'll not be doing it to try to run it as a business with all the associated promoting and schedules. Just. For fun. Like, only one step above, you know, publishing everything I write on the blog :P :D

So. That's me. Now the winners. The random generator has spoken and has even managed to choose four different winners for the four different books, which is happy :D Without further ado...

Krispy will receive the ebook Create-a-Plot Clinic
Andrea will receive the ebook The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs
Michelle will receive the preorder of The Raven Boys
and
Mirja will receive Paranormalcy!

I'll be in contact with you all to confirm details. Yay!

Farewell Giveaway!

Edit: Yes, giveaway is open internationally ;)

Okay. So. First of all, just because I am closing this blog, it does not mean I shall be non-existent on the interwebs. I still have twitter, facebook, and the website (which needs updating - schedule that on the to-do list :P), and as hinted at the previous post, a new blog. If you want, you can come hang out with me at http://decluttermanifesto.wordpress.com/.

Two things about that: One, I chose wordpress just so I didn't have to keep logging out of my email (gmail) all the time if I wanted to have it not connected to the profile I use on here, which I do, just because. And two, please don't be freaked out by the title. "Declutter" doesn't mean it's a cleaning blog. If that was the case, there'd be like one post on it EVER, outlining my tempestuous relationship with cleaning and leavning it at that :P No. It's about decluttering my HEAD as much as anything else, and it's a completely ecclectic bunch of stuff - basically whatever I'm reading/thinking about on the day. Rah.

Okay, next up, books. I have three books to give away: NYT BS Kiersten White's Paranormalcy; Holly Lisle's Create-a-Plot Clinic (ebook); and a pre-order of also-bestselling Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys, because OHMYGOSHYOUGUYS, this book is awesome. Edit: Oo, oo! And because my book The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs has just been released, I'll throw in a copy of that, too :D (ebook)

To enter, leave a comment with your email address and which book you'd like to win (you can choose more than one). Or, if you don't like leaving your email in public places, form is below (feedreaders may need to click through). Entries close on August 25, so you have a week. Good luck! And thanks again, you guys. It's been great.

Making the Beginning WORK

(Note: this post was composed about a month ago and lost in the deep dark depths of my harddrive.)

The beginning of anything is often the hardest: you have to overcome the intertia of not doing whatever it is you're about to start, and often you can be plagued by doubt or fear. What if I do it wrong? Can I actually do this? What will people think?

I've been writing for long enough now that beginning a new draft doesn't scare me so much any more. Where I used to prefer editing to drafting (my perfectionism was happy that it finally got a chance to make things RIGHT!), I now enjoy the freedom that drafting involves; it doesn't MATTER if I get it wrong, as long as I'm having fun :o)

That doesn't mean that beginnings are perfectly easy, though - they're just difficult in a different sense. As the Twitter peeps among you might have seen, I'm editing Sanctuary right now. Sanctuary is a YA fantasy, and I drafted a tentative blurb/query for it yesterday:

Moving halfway across Australia to Nowra, capital of nowhere, is the worst thing to ever happen to Edge. Three months on, she has no friends, the world’s most horrible bedroom, and no one to celebrate her fourteenth birthday with. Maybe that’s why she starts hallucinating that the butterfly is talking to her – though her dog seems to think the fairy is real enough.

Sure, finding out she’s a Traveller, able to cross between worlds to Sanctuary, home of the fairies, is a definite bonus. Making a new friend and realising that Sanctuary might be everything she misses from home is pretty great, too. But then the shadows appear, ominous and blacker than black. Edge is determined to find out where they’re coming from – until she’s dragged from Sanctuary into the land of death and almost killed by them. Now Edge must decide if her new home is something worth fighting for – or if, you know, running away to the circus might be the saner option.

But I'm editing! How does this relate to beginnings? Because it's in edits that beginnings are now brain-pretzeling difficult. The internet is full of really good advice about how to begin your story: begin in the middle of the action, show your character's voice, avoid excessive backstory, avoid shock-for-the-sake-of-shock lines, show your conflict, and so forth. However, while this advice is all great an necessary, it's not what I'm struggling with (though, granted, there is currently ALL THE BACKSTORY eating up my first page, which is not so good >.<). What I'm struggling with is something that not a lot of people seem to talk about: the themes.

See, the first draft of Sanctuary ended REALLY WELL. I'm completely in love with the last handful of lines, and they never fail to generate that 'Awww!' feeling, which is what I want. But in order for them to work, they have to be set up in the beginning.

The beginning has an epic amount of work to do: it has to hook the reader, establish the action, set the scene, introduce the plot conflict - and it also has to introduce the thematic conflict. It has to give a taste of what's going to matter in the story, what the MC's main drive is, what they're fighting for. And that, right now, is what I'm struggling with.

Quitting and Proud

It's time. It's been coming for at least the last 9 months, but the time is finally here: I'm done. I'm quitting writing. Please understand, this is not said with the slightest trace of bitterness, regret, despair, or anger. A few days ago it might have been, but not now. Now it's said with a sense of freedom, liberation - and excitement.

I'm growing up, you see. Learning that I'm the one in charge of my own life, and if I don't take charge now, I'll wake up forty-five with schoolkids, stuck in a rut I didn't create for myself. I refuse to be a part of that future, and claiming my future means claiming my now. And my now of the last year or so involves far too much angst, over everything - evidenced by the fact that I saw the ear/now/throat surgeon yesterday, and while there are definitely operable structural issues (HOORAH, I WILL BE ABLE TO BREATHE), a large part of the problem is that I grind my teeth - and I grind my teeth because of stress.

It's been a slow and gradual process, a culmination of many, many conversations and blog posts and things read and seen and observed. It's knowing I spend far too much of my evenings on the computer; it's knowing that I'm spending the majority of my time dealing with urgent and not important; it's knowing that I can't physically, mentally or emotionally cope with everything I've set up as 'have to do'.

It's being inspired by declutter blogs, finding the blogs of wonderful women who speak to the issues of my heart, who care about the things I care about, who struggle with the things I struggle with. It's recognising the I want to spend more time being happy and less time being worried; it's erasing 'should' and 'have to' from my vocabulary.

It's learning to be kind to myself, to love myself, to recite love letters to my body every night as I towel off from my shower, to make time to relax, time to sit, time to breathe, time to be. It's finding silence, finding the moment, finding me.

It's finally, finally, finally, being set free from everyone else expectations, real, imagined, whatever. It's learning to see how I measure up to my own expectations, my real, personal, own ones, not the ones that life has forced onto me. It's laughing more, smiling more, running more, even though I get sweaty and bright red and the ungainly bits of me bounce. After all, sweat is the skin's best cleanser, right?

Most of all, it's learning about what makes me me. I'm quitting writing because I need silence, this kind of silence, and at the moment my world is full of words from first-breath to last-breath, and I can't hear who I am through the noise.

It's not a break, because that implies a specific intent to return. But it's not necessarily forever-quitting. I love stories, I live stories, I breathe stories. I may be back. But if I am, it will be because I've remembered how to love writing - and not because I need yet another way to measure my worth in terms of thing done, quantity acheive, how quickly I can master something.

I was scared to quit for so long, because my house is littered with 'Amy projects', things started and incomplete after the first fervour of passion has died away. But it has finally occurred to me that all things in life are not equal. I've never quit things to do with my work, my family, my God. So if I start hobbies and drop them much like college boys change their underwear, SO REALLY WHAT? All it means is that I'm creative, doncha know? O:) :D

So. I'm still going to be blogging, but it won't be here, because I won't be blogging about writing and there's bound to be a whole truckload of TMI. If you're interested in following me to my new home, there's contact tab just up there ^ on the blog. Shoot me something - email, tweet, FB, whatevs - and let me know, and I'll give you the address.

Otherwise, thank you. Thank you for sticking it out with me this long, for watching me mature and grow in my writing - and my life. Thank you, because even though I don't know most of you, it's amazing to know that there are people out there reading what I'm writing, that I'm not talking to a void. So thank you.

I have a few books that I collected to give away on here, so I'll do that before the end of the week. There is also one or two more posts already scheduled, so I'll let those post too. But other than that, this is it: the end of an era. I'm going to wave goodbye, close the door, and leave you all to party. Last one out switch off the lights, m'kay?

~Amy.

The Declutter Mission: A Manifesto

So, decluttering. I mentioned this in the busyness post last week. It's something that's been on my mind a lot for I guess the last year, since about halfway through being pregnant. See, I like having things neat and tidy and everything in it's place, but I'm very bad at actually doing this. A large part of the problem is that we simply own too much stuff. So Declutter Mission Part One: Get rid of some stuff. Part Two: Find homes for rest of stuff.

Semi-relatedly, I had the opportunity to go the Sydney Opera House with Mum last month to hear Michael Pollan talk. I had already devoured The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defence of Food, both of which I adore, and I was keen to hear what he had to say. He didn't present a lot of new information, given I'd read his two most prominent books, but it was excellent to have a reminder about his basic principles: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. And also to hear some of his thoughts on sustainability. He is pretty much responsible for making me interested in eating sustainably. So, Declutter Mission Part Three: Eat more sustainably. And Part Four: Eat real food.

Related to that is the idea of consumption. The commerce class way back in year 10 was the first time my eyes were really opened to the problems of consumption and distribution, and I was shocked to discover statistics about India and its ability to grow sufficient food for itself (at that time, it could easily grow enough food as a country to support itself, but the wealth was concentrated in the minority and most food exported. I imagine this is largely the situation still today). Other things throughout the years have prompted me to continue considering the issue of consumption, and you've heard about it from me before (see here re clothing, for instance). So, Declutter Mission Part Five: Consume less <--> waste less. Part Six: Consume responsibly - know where my consumables are coming from and the true cost of their manufacture.

Finally, time. Oh, time: how I both love and loathe thee. We never have enough time, but on the other hand, we all have the same amount of time, and it's not like we can magically generate more. We can, however, maximise our time (not forgetting to remember that 'wasted time' is a very real necessity, and can be maximised by scheduling it deliberately). I talk about this a lot. Personally, I spend way too much time procrastinating for fear of not getting things done. Yes, I know how utterly absurd that is. I am an absurd person; what can I say? O:) But anyway, that brings me to Declutter Mission Part Seven: Spend time intentionally. And that includes some scheduled*, intentional frittering ;)

*Which is not to imply I'm going to schedule every minute of my day; that's just asking for Teh Guiltz. I am, however, going to strive to be intentional about what I am doing at every moment, to be in the moment, and to not get distracted so much *stares pointedly at the 11 firefox tabs, twitter, two rounds of beta-ing and my work email all currently open*

So. That's my Declutter Manifesto. And if you're thinking it sounds remarkably similar to The Year of Less rules (which you probably aren't, because you probably didn't know it existed), well, what can I say: a good idea is a good idea. :o)

Addendum to Busyness: Having Kids

My husband hates reading, loathes writing and has been known to sneeze at the sight of books. In spite of this, or, I secretly suspect, because of this, he occasionally comes out with some absolute gems. His metaphors are frequently mixed but often ingenius, and his observations insightful. One that struck me at the time and has subsequently stuck with me was something he said when the Small Person was about six weeks old - and it meshes nicely with the Busyness article from the other day.

I can't remember the phrasing, but the gist was this: everyone complains that kids make you busy, and to some extent that's true. But mostly, if you treat it right, kids are the world's best excuse for slowing down. Everything takes ten times longer, which can be stressful if you're trying to do as much as you did before. But if you treat parenthood as the opportunity to weed out everything that doesn't matter and just focus on what does, life becomes slower, and so, so much more meaningful.

One day, I'll make him read this. For now, suffice to say that I'm glad I married him. <3

Busyness: The Ultimate Curse

Oh look, it's been nearly two weeks since I posted... Actually, I wrote a great long post last week about teaching and curriculum and wotnot, and then blogger ATE IT and because I'd just been essentially free writing, I couldn't remember what I'd said. It was tragic.

Anyway, have been doing lots of internet reading outside my usual hangouts, lately, and this article on busyness seemed ridiculously appropriate, given my excuse for not posting was going to be, "I've been busy" O:) Definitely go read it for yourself, but the best quotes are extracted below.

It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”

[We] feel anxious and guilty when [we] aren’t either working or doing something to promote [our] work.

It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school — it’s something we collectively force one another to do.

Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.

[But] if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary. (That's a challenging one)

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets.


Conclusion? Life is too short to be busy.

Over the next month, I'm going to post here (sporadically, as always) about my goal for the rest of the year: decluttering, both my home, my head, and my calendar. Please feel very welcome to join me :o)

Updates

I know I haven't posted either League (LAOS) or Sockboy in a few weeks. Rest assured, I'm working on it - I know the events of the next League chapter, and I have the next few Sockboy episodes written. However, I've just returned to work, and life is a little more insane than usual. Any spare time and brain power is being devoted to the novel. Hopefully I'll have an update on one or the other for you next week :)

Also, because I am CLEARLY AND CERTIFIABLY INSANE, I'm doing a course on Fantasy and Science Fiction through Coursera that started this week. You can do the assessment tasks and wotnot and get a pretty certificate at the end, but hello, work, baby, writing, LIFE, so I'm mostly just there to watch the lecture vids as I can and see what ideas I can glean. Especially since the course reading is a novel a week o.O But anyway, if I find any interesting insights, I'll post here :)

To Tip The Scales of Justice and Mercy

The Small Person is in bed, again, at last, and I'm reading, again, but not books, because books can't hold my attention right now when I'm restless, and tired, and vaguely guilty for the fact that my house looks like it's lived-in and there are toys in the corner and folding on the lounge and unfinished paperwork on the table and dishes in the kitchen, though all the non-dishwasher dishes are clean and really I just need to unstack and stack. There's a basket of wet laundry waiting to be hung out on the line like flags, colourful flags that symbolise everything we are and have been, because we wear our clothes every day and they make us, and we make them, the caterpillar suit that belongs to Small Person that is my favourite, the shirt I should have thrown out months ago but that I love, the sheets that my husband and I bought together, lie in together, change together.

All of this is calling to me, but I'm sitting here reading, and my soul is full. I'm reading about courage, and hope, and change; I'm reading about things that outrage me, things that try to excuse themselves saying they 'didn't mean' to be offensive, and so therefore aren't - to which I silently, furiously, blood-boilingly disagree, because when you are the powerful one, you don't get to define what offends those in less powerful positions. And I'm reading about love, and life, and wanting to uproot everything you are and have and just get out, change, do something different because what you're living is so empty, so small, so nothing.

I, too, was raised under the unconscious message that bigger is better, that more is more, and I'm not talking about the world, about acts of greed and selfishness and plastered billboards and enchanting lights and beautiful people with beautiful drinks and cars that change your life and computers that sing and dance and long slim legs and long thick hair and sparkling eyes and full breasts in bikinis and clear skin and stuff and things and more-more-more. I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about other things, unselfish things, things that help and heal and minister. Things that change the world, that can only BE big because what can small do against a world of greed, a world of pain and hurt and envy and pride, large gaps getting larger and privilege and wealth and so much poverty that I never, ever see. I'm sheltered, spoiled, I don't even KNOW anyone who qualifies as poor, and we're not rich and we have bills but we also have a car, and a motorbike, and a house and new furniture, a dishwasher for Mothers' Day and fishing rods for Christmas, thousands of dollars of books and a flat-screen TV, and how dare we think that we need stuff in a world where people die so easily at the end of a gun wielded in a bar brawl, in front of their wife, with two small children at home?

And I'm doing nothing, or so it seems, because we're told that the only things that count are BIG, that if you're not serving overseas it doesn't matter, that soup kitchens and street alleys are the only places you can make a difference, that unless you're fighting to stay alive with everything you have your perspective isn't valid, doesn't count.

And I'm thinking all this because of what I'm reading, because the woman whose blog I'm reading has felt all this and I do too, and it's guilt, and it's more guilt, and I am so. sick. of guilt. Guilt is poison, a spider bite in the vegetable garden, a snake curled in the blankets of your bed, a fire-ant sting at a lavish summer picnic, ready to flood your senses without provocation, devouring, destroying, souring the taste of the cherries because cherries are expensive, and out of season, and you shouldn't be eating them because the cost to ship them here from America ought to be prohibitive, and people in the world are dying from lack of sustenance and you're eating things that cost a year's worth of food for these people, and you're enjoying it, and you must be perverse.

Sometimes, even big things aren't enough.

But I'm reading, reading, feeling and still reading, and a sentence makes me pause. In all of this, the quiet reminder that even if we don't feel like they do, the small things count, because we're not in this world to fix it, it's broken, it's crumbled, and one day maybe we will rebuild but for now there are just as many working against as there are working for and really, ultimately, there's nothing we can do. One day it will all be gone and we'll start over with everyone, everyone, who wants to see that, regardless of race colour creed size shape gender age. We will all be there, and then it will be fixed.

But now, here, we're not fixing things, no one can do that, we just can't, we're fighting against powers and principalities not of this world, and here, on Earth, it's a losing battle, though ultimately it's won. But I'm reading, and I know: that doesn't mean that what we do doesn't count. It's like the starfish, which has been retold so often it's cliche, but it matters, it still matters even if you've heard the story a thousand times, just like what we do. We do it so often, all that small stuff, that it becomes cliche, and we're inured to it, and we forget that it still matters, that even though we've never seen a smile of ours make a difference, that doesn't mean it doesn't. That giving a few dollars here and there still helps, even if it's boring, even if it's tiny, even if it's 'done'.

And I'm reading, and I find the thing I didn't realise I was looking for, the sentence that gives me hope. We're not here to fix things, we can't, it's too much. Instead, all we need to do it tip the scales. We're striving for justice, for mercy, at least I am, it's what I burn to do with everything that I am, every time I read something that makes my blood boil it's because I hate, I hate injustice and I hate unfairness and I hate that there are people in this world that think that privilege is okay, that power over others is God-given, that discrimination is alright. I long for justice; I ache for mercy. And in the end, that is what we are to do, all we are to do, everything we are to do: to tip the scales in their favour.

And I read this, and I remember: it only takes a grain of rice to tip the scales in the end. We don't need 'big', or loud, or bright or shiny or dazzley; we just need. Everything tips the balance, one way or the other.

It's Always Too Late (Though That May Be Just Right)

Why it is that just as we get the hang of one season in our life, the next one comes along? I suppose because we have learned what we needed to from the season. But sometimes, boy, it would be nice to learn a lesson from something and then sit back and enjoy.

I'm going back to work on Monday. Not full time - a 0.8 loading (1.0 is full time), which means 4 classes instead of 5 and two days a week where I only have to be a work for a couple of hours. But it is still terrifying. I'm looking forward to it so much - I adore my job, being in the classroom, teaching and learning and letting the kids laugh at me - but really, I want to keep looking forward to it for just another week. And maybe another after that...

Because of course, things have JUST gotten comfortable at home. Small Person is 23 weeks old and has settled into a routine (ish), but more to the point, I've learned how to cope when he doesn't. Right now, I'm standing up using my dresser as a table with the SP strapped in the front pack because he's only had 2 half-hour naps so far today. It's 4pm. He's tired. But he's still, now that the initial tears have passed, gurgling and chirping and smiling behind his dummy (pacifier). And so I am. Time was, I'd be frazzled to death because husband will be home in an hour and half and I've not done much today - but you know what? It's my last day at home with the kid for ten weeks (huzzah that I can say that, huzzah for teaching, huzzah for school holidays). And I've enjoyed being with him extra, even if it means he's grizzly. Because I don't just love him when he's happy, and ultimately, though it's my job to take care of him in every way I can, I can't actually make him be happy.

So today, I'm just enjoying loving him, knowing that he won't be **ALL MINE** again for another three months - and lamenting that, once again, I've learned the lesson just in time for the season to be over.


Also, Motherheard #2: Don't lick the floor, dear.

Productivity Is Now A Swear Word: A Re-evaluation

I've been doing a lot of non-fic reading the last week or so, and have come across some interesting things. These, plus a combination of various life factors, have prompted some thinking about this horrible all-pervasive guilt that is like a storm cloud over my life. I have this natural tendency to believe that OHMYGOSH EVERYTHING IS MY FAULT, and not in a melodramatic, woe is me sort of way, but a genuine crap, why was I not smarter/better/more observant/whatever in order to avoid this happening? And that applied to everything, including completely illogical things that have nothing to do with me whatsoever.

I also have this ridiculous belief that I must be productive every second of every day, which perversely ends up meaning that I am LESS productive, because I procrastinate more, because there is SO MUCH PRESSURE to be productive. Yes yes, I haz Issues, I know. But this means that if I'm not careful, my to-do list can blossom out of control. This is the main thing that has made writing a chore, because once things are on that to-do list, they fall prey to the Productivity Guilt - if I am not doing it, I am feeling guilty for not doing it, which makes me hate doing it, which makes me do it less, which makes me more guilty for not doing it, which makes me hate it more, which... Well, you can see where this is going.

BUT! All the readings, and a conversation with the Boyo, and a few other things mean I am now officially Changing My Attitude (and abusing capitals): Productivity is now a swear word. I will have TIME OFF, confound it all, and let the brain breathe. Oddly enough, sticking to this a few nights last week (i.e. shutting the laptop down at 8pm, regardless of how much I hadn't acheived, instead of futzing away on it, achieving maybe three sentences between then and bedtime) meant I slept longer and better than when I didn't. When you give your brain a break, you sleep better and function more effectively?! WHO KNEW?!?!

But anyway, I'm trying to get to a point here. All of this made me think about chores, and all those things that I HAVE to do. I had a conversation with the Boyo the other day in which he essentially said that he knew I wasn't a cleaner when I married him, that he never expected me to change, and that he doesn't actually expect a spotless house and dinner on the table every night (HELLO, HE IS MINE, YOU CANNOT HAZ).

Here was the very thing I’d been longing for, surely: the permission to NOT DO MY CHORES. He didn’t care if I did them or not (well, loosely speaking), and as I was the only other adult in the house… Why do them?!

Only, of course, I still had to do them. But there was that word again: ‘had’. I didn’t ‘have’ to do them. And so the epiphanic realisation: I wanted to do them.

LE GASP. I wanted to do the chores?? What kind of insane reality was this? And yet, there it was: friends were coming for dinner, or family for the weekend, or something, and I wanted a clean house to show for it. I wanted a clean house.

Behold, my intrinsic motivation.

So now, when I catch myself moaning about doing the dishes, or vacuuming, or hanging the washing, or whatever, I force myself to rephrase. Instead of, ‘Blah, I have to do the dishes’, it’s, ‘Hmm, I’d really like to have clean dishes to eat from tonight.’ It sounds so stupidly insignificant, but the shift in thinking that it represents is HUGE.

And with that, I can kiss goodbye to just a little bit of that guilt – because if I’m doing the dishes, it’s because I want to, and if I’m not, it’s because I don’t want to – not because I’m shirking things I HAVE to do.


The things I has been readings:
Good Job and Other Things You Shouldn't Say (Unless You Want To Ruin Your Child's Life)
The Case Against Grades
Five Reasons To Stop Saying 'Good Job!'
Bad Writing Habits
Rachel Held Evans: A Year of Interviews
Imagine: How Creativity Works

--You are not allowed to comment on the fact that this post was obviously composed in two pieces, and that one is decidedly more refined and coherent than the other. I edited for six hours today. Leave my brain alone. *poke*--

I'm Official!

Woohoo! I have an EIN! And I am here to testify that if you follow the instructions linked to in the previous post, the most trouble you'll have is understanding the operator's accent! *confetti*

Also, unrelated good news - the dog book, she is finished! I finally finished the MASSIVE AND EPIC re-edit (i.e. I rewrote 75% of the entire book from scratch >.<), it's been accepted, and it should be available in mid to late August. Yay!

Happy days indeed. B-)

Tax Info For Non-US Self-Publishers

Woohoo! We DON'T need ITINs anymore/after all! There is apparently a much simpler, easier way: EINs. For details, see this blog post.

YAY!

Randomly, Spirituality

Not something I've ever discussed here on the blog before, but I'm going through a massive blog-reevaluation and have been for the last year. Part of the reason behind my excessively-sporadic posting is that when I started this blog, it was about writing, and the further into it I got, the more I felt like everything that needed to be said had already been said, by people much better qualified to say it than I.

But. Given the purpose of the blog is, when you get down to it, to help promo the writing, it kind of makes sense that I need to being talking about things other than writing. Then the next struggle: what do readers want to hear?

Cue perfectionism paralysis, something that has killed off the vast majority of all of my other hobbies. My name is Inky, and I sew, quilt, cook, bake, decorate cakes, draw, play piano and write music, I breed Labradors and show them and train them, I, I, I...

The problem is, whenever ANY (read: ALL) of these hobbies get to the point where they might possibly start Being Something, the perfectionism takes over. If I'm going to do something, I have to do it right: this is Rule Number One in the brain of Amy, and it's not an especially helpful rule (I'm working on amending it ;)). So all of a sudden each hobby becomes a business, and business oriented, and before I know it, I'm not doing anything for fun anymore, and I'm killing myself trying to run too many things that might one day be viable businesses if I was only devoting time to one of them, rather than half-arsing them all.

Talk about the ultimate contradiction: my drive to do everything properly is what results in me doing NONE of it properly o.0 La.

ANYWAY. This is all a very long and roundabout way of saying that I am going to trial forgetting all about audience on the blog, and just write whatever I feel like at the time, without regard to the structure or meaningfulness or ability to extract a moral from-ness or ANYTHING LIKE THAT.

Hopefully, it will be fun, and I will actually blog more often. Even more hopefully, some of you will enjoy it and stick around :)

All of which culminates in this: I haven't talked about spirituality here on the blog before, partially from a fear of being controversial, partially from the whole nothing-to-say-that-hasn't-been-said, and partially in a (perhaps misguided??) attempt to keep the blog 'professional'. I still intend to attempt some degree of professionality; however, comments on spirituality, religion, and dare I say it, God, may be forthcoming. (Literally 'may'; I've no concrete plans about anything).

All of which raises the interesting question: Just why the heck DO I feel like I have to apologise for being Christian?? (This is not an antagonistic sentiment; it's something I genuinely feel when conversing with non-Christians, and not because of anything they say or do, but just... because. Hey, if I knew why, I wouldn't be asking the question :P)

Need an Editor?

I've been unofficially freelance editing since 2008, and I've finally decided to make it official (with thanks due to the Twinny One, Liana Brooks ;)). To that end, Line by Line by Amy is open and having a 20% off sale for all manuscripts booked for August and September - and if you're a self-publishing author and think you can't afford the rates, send me an email and make me an offer :) I hope I'll be able to help some of you out! :)

Line by Line by Amy - "Amy has a fine eye for detail, but also focuses on the bigger picture. Her skills will make any writer shine!" ~Michelle Davidson Argyle
http://linebylinebyamy.blogspot.com

LAOS: Chapter 3B

Welcome to my experiment in public drafting, otherwise known as a serial novel! Find out more about the L.A.O.S. here, including ways to join in the fun, or start from the beginning. Please remember, this is copyrighted material; you may quote a couple of sentences in a review, but otherwise all rights are reserved.

Chapter 3 Part B

I mooched into the room five minutes late with my school blazer itching unbearably at my neck. I ran a finger around my collar, feeling like I was going to choke at any second, and scanned the room for Megan. She was the only thing that would make this stupid day bearable. She was nearly the only thing that made joining the League of Extraordinary Losers worthwhile, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fracking cool to be able to walk through a door without opening it or, you know, rummage in someone’s schoolbag without unzipping it.

Not that, you know, I could do that around anyone but the Losers, because if anyone else saw me do it I’d a) land a detention (big woop) and b) probably be examined to within an inch of my life. Such was the joy of being a teenager with superpowers, even if they were ‘absolutely ordinary’ ones. I sniffed. Ordinary my bum. The other misfits could try to pretend they were ordinary if they liked, but I for one wasn’t the least bit afraid of being an individual.

A group of kids sans uniforms and ergo from one of the public schools crowded past me, sniggering as they went. I shrugged self-consciously inside my blazer. Stupid uniform. Stupid public school kids. Stupid Maths competition.

“There you are.” Megan grabbed me by the elbow before I even realised she’d appeared and dragged me forward through the crowd. “Greg thought you’d chickened out.”

“Of the E. James Downward Mathematics competition? Now why would I do a thing like that,” I said, grinding my teeth as Megan towed me past the public school contingent who’d sniggered at me before.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Megan said with the air of explaining something simple to a very stupid person. “Maybe because you’ve missed every practice we’ve had this week?”

I pulled my arm away and shook my sleeve back in place. “Yeah? And?” It was Maths, for crying out loud. I could do this crap with my arms tied behind my back, and wasting every lunchtime with the Dorkazoids in some musty classroom had lost its gloss once they became more concerned with practice Maths questions than the freaky cool things you could do with some basic scientific knowledge. Create wind currents, for example. School uniform skirts looked heavy, sure, but a well-placed draft could lift them like a tissue.

Not that I would do that. And definitely not to Megan. That one time, it was the draft from the window, I swear it. Because, like, I’d tell her if I discovered something else awesome that we could do. Truly.

But anyway, she dragged me over and plonked me down at our table up the front right as the presiding teacher tapped his microphone and launched into a long-winded and unnecessary explanation of what today was about, why we were competing, and who gave a fig in the first place. Which clearly wasn’t me. Greg muttered something under his breath at me, no doubt his usual charming hello, and I settled down to the serious business of ignoring him.

After far too long, just as I was about to die of boredom, Head Teacher who fancied himself Great Orator finally shut up, and the first round of questions was handed out. I let the League of Losers stress over it for a while – though Matt wasn’t doing a half bad job – before I snatched the question sheet out from under Greg’s elbow and began dictating.

Greg tried to protest, Megan launched into a tirade against both of us, Pip put her head down on the desk, and Matt, the only sensible person at the table other than myself, wrote down what I was saying.

“…and then it all equals seven,” I finished, putting the page back down on the table and nodding at Matt. “Right?”

He nodded back, capped his pen, and placed it on the finished answer sheet. “Right.”

“See?” I said, leaning back in my chair and folding my arms. “You lot just need to learn to chill.”

Megan angled her chair away from me and pointedly struck up a conversation with Pip. What was that all about? I’d done what she wanted, hadn’t I? Here I was, stuck at this stupid Maths day when I’d rather be doing just about anything else, and I’d given them all the right answers and everything, and now she was mad at me?

I shook my head. “Women,” I muttered under my breath.

Greg, sadly, heard me. “You’re a moron, Chris,” he said as he shoved his chair back. He grabbed the answer sheet and stalked to the judges’ table.

I rolled my eyes.

Three rounds later and I was just about comatose from the sheer excitement of it all. Problem after problem after problem, and they weren’t even that challenging. I mean, sure, a couple of times one or two of the others got the answer before I did, but I was distracted. It’s not like I was trying.

At long last we broke for lunch, and I hurried out of the room as fast as I could. Megan had barely looked at me all morning, and there was no way I was going to sit around with the Losers for forty-five minutes while everyone looked on and sniggered.

I was nearly to the exit when someone grabbed my arm, spinning me around.

“Where are you going?” Megan demanded.

“Out,” I said.

“You know we’re not supposed to leave the premises.” She put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow. Good thing she wasn’t a real superhero; a laser stare on her would be dangerous.

“I’m not,” I said, smoothing down my blazer and heading back towards the exit. “I’m getting lunch.”

“There’s lunch at the canteen,” Megan said, not following.

“I want real food.” I reached the door. Stupid Megan and her stupid morals. Stupid Maths day. Stupid lunch. If I wanted to go eat some real food, why should anyone care? It’s not like I was nipping out for a spot of vandalism before returning to win the Maths trophy, was it now? I set my jaw and phased through the door, knowing it would make Megan furious – maybe furious enough to come after me.

But I strode away from the building, shrugging out of my blazer and stuffing my tie into my pocket, and no one followed.

Amy Laurens (c) 2012   
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Sockboy #2: Super-powered

Behold, Sockboy #2. *grin*

As before, click through to read the whole episode.

Motherheards #1: Cow Bottoms

At the school where I work, the yearbook has a section called 'Overheards', which is dedicated to random and amusing comments overheard in classrooms and playgrounds throughout the school year (such as one teacher explaining that he doesn't wear pyjamas to bed - naturally, the remarks are all totally out of context, and that's what makes them funny). 


Inspired by Emily Casey's Things I Never Said Before I Was A Mother, I'm introducing Motherheards, which is - well, a combination of the two. You may or may not find them amusing. I don't care*. They amuse me, and some days, that's all that keeps me sane O:) :D


* I do hope you'll be entertained, of course.


I don't know why we'd want to change your bottom for a cow. It would make it very hard to sit down.