Stuck

Yep, I'm in a very stuck place right now.

It doesn't help that I've been pretty sick for a week (COVID-19? I don't know? I kinda hope so at this point because if not and I get that next I'm already worn out from this bout). I'm also hormonal so everything feels worse than it is. Disclaimer, I guess.

But none of that changes the fact that I've abandoned another story over 20K words into it (probably more, I don't really know) and I'm lost, creatively speaking.

I'm still at the writing job. So I'm still writing. In case you're not up to date, it's a job where I'm paid to write fiction, so...pretty amazing on a basic level. I'm a professional writer supporting my family with my writing. I'm incredibly proud of that and I feel very fortunate.

On another level, though, I'm really uneasy. I worry that the requirements imposed by this job are interfering with my own creativity. It's not all the job's fault, though. What it comes down to is that I can't decide what to write.

There's this idea I've had for a long time that I made two runs at. A Tower of Doors. A magical tower with thousands of doors leading to different worlds. I love that idea. I love the endless possibilities.

But I tried writing a hero/heroine's journey using it, and ended up stopping (I think at least 50K in?) last year when I was on the verge of getting hired by my current job because I wanted to write something quick for attention from that company. Inkitt. They have a Wattpad-like website. I wanted to get something up on it asap. So I wrote this short little romance/fantasy. It was fun, but not from my heart.

So then I got the job and was happy writing just for that for a while, and then things got frustrating and complicated as they do, and I realized it really was not enough. I had to write for myself.

So I started another Tower of Doors novel (also on the Inkitt website) and I had also really been wanting to try a "five man band." Except for reasons that aren't clear to me my five man band insisted on becoming a seven man band and it's unmanageable. And also unsatisfying because the characters are all 20-30 years old and something I keep coming back to is the need to write an older protagonist.

I can't seem to find a way to do that.

I like reading YA fiction. I tend to gravitate to it, in fact, I'm not sure why. What is it about YA that hooks me? Why can't I read books with 40 year old protagonists? Do they not exist* or am I just not looking in the right places for them? When I find one do I turn a blind eye without realizing it?

I'm also struggling with the question of whether the next thing I write should be another novel or a screenplay. I'm obviously much more comfortable with a novel. But maybe that's a reason to do a new format.

*I mean of course books with 40 year old protagonists exist. Just not necessarily with the kinds of stories I like. Fantasy/adventure stories. This is me, begging for recommendations.

I want to write a story with at least one Deaf character. Other characters with disabilities, too. But I worry I won't do it right. I had a Deaf character in the most recent Tower book, and I liked her. But would Deaf readers like her?

Representation is really important to me. I want to have PoC in my books. Someone on a forum recently said to me (she doesn't know me or anything I write) that if I cared about racism I wouldn't write PoC characters at all. That kind of gutted me.

I don't approach writing characters that are different from me arbitrarily. I research. But I get why someone would feel like that's not enough. It's just, if I don't include people with disabilities I don't have, people from cultures that are not mine, people who are of different races, or have other differences to me, then what kind of story do I end up with? The same white bread homogeneous crap I see way too much of already.

But I think this is contributing to my block. Because it's a tangle and I want to do right by people. It's fundamentally important to me. I can't just shrug and say "I'm not going to please everyone." I'm fine with not pleasing Nazis, and people like them. I do care about pleasing people from marginalized groups. I just do, it's part of who I am. And not because I want a cookie (though if I'm honest? I probably do, I just realize that's not helpful and try to squash it). Because I want to help change the world.

I think writing changes the world.

I think if you write white bread crap full of old tired tropes that have been shown to be harmful you're making the world a worse place. If instead you're creating fiction with new ideas, with suggestions of how the world could be, or with representations of how the world really is...that's positive.

But all these big ambitions aren't helping me come up with a story from my heart.

Paul Krueger, on Twitter, recently tweeted that you should really go ahead and write that super weird thing that's uniquely you because you'll find success that way. But like, I don't know what my super weird thing is.

What's your super weird thing? Have you written it?
Got any book suggestions for me?

#amwriting

I'm still working for Inkitt, though they are making some changes that may lead to my not being able to do that anymore. Hopefully at worst that's six months away, though. At best they'll alter course just enough that it doesn't come to pass. I really like this job and the way it is now, it fits really well for me and for my family.

It's been interesting, doing my own writing these days. I wonder if people in MFA programs and who write for TV have a similar experience...when you're in an environment where a lot of what and how you write is assigned. Because now when I approach my own writing, I'm not really sure how to go about it. The lessons I'm learning writing for Galatea are interfering (possibly in a good way in the end) with my own natural inclinations, and that means that I find myself staring at my screen, unsure of how to move forward, a lot of the time.

One reason I started making time for my own writing again, after the first few months of writing for Galatea, was that I wanted to be able to have more freedom with it. Galatea has a specific format. Each episode has to be between 1600-1900 words, for instance. This often creates a situation where I just don't get to include the details I want to include. So I went into my own story promising myself to wax on as long as I wanted and...I can't. I mean, I do probably add more detail than I would in a Galatea story, but not much. Because now it feels like it's slowing the story down.

Even before I took the Galatea job I entered a phase of my writing in which I started reading books on plotting and other writing topics, and watching talks, and my husband even got me a subscription to Masterclass, which I loved and no longer have any time for (keep meaning to pick it back up though). So I've really been loading my brain with a lot of rules about how to approach a story. I've gone from being a pantser (for decades!) to a dedicated plotter. And I feel like the current result (I don't think it's in any way permanent) is that my writing is in this awkward growth spurt where I no longer have a strong sense of character or of what I really want to see happen. I'm trying to think of all the rules and structures and such that I've read about and that have resonated with me.

Finding a balance is hard. My short novel, Wild Wild Witch, is a really good example of me privileging structure over character. I think it's a fun story but I'm also pretty sure that the characters, while likeable, aren't especially well-developed. In my new WiP, The Tower of Doors, I've tasked myself with continuing to use everything I've learned, but to also really digging into the characters. And... I'm finding it hard. Characters (mine anyway) that are well-developed tend to want to go off script. And I'm not comfortable with that right now. And yet, I think characters are what's most important to me, especially if you include setting as a character.

Anyway, if you want to support my writing in a really substantial way, you can FOR FREE, by going to Inkitt and reading The River and the Roses. I have a tentative plan with my supervisor at Galatea that if I get enough reads (measured by people clicking on "next chapter"), they'll develop River on the app. Which would mean royalties, y'all. It would be really, really exciting.

I also always appreciate honest reviews.

What's new for you?
Have you ever felt like you were in an awkward growing phase of your writing?
What do you think is most important (if you had to choose), character or structure?

Professional writer.

I'm a little surprised I never came here to update you about the new turn my writing life has taken; then again, I am pretty busy these days.

I got hired by Inkitt to be a "script writer" for their app, Galatea. Yes, I am now a full-time, self (and family) supporting writer, guys.

Galatea takes stories people post on Inkitt (it's similar to Wattpad) and has people like me adapt them to an episodic format. Then they have designers add on immersive elements like sound effects and music.

Yes, I write werewolf romance (usually--I did work on one thriller) professionally now.

I've been working for Inkitt since late April and, for the most part, it's been amazing.

There are moments when it is not amazing, but even on those days, I can still ask myself if I'd rather be doing anything else, and the answer is HELL NO.

I've even started carving out time here and there for my own writing projects... I'll be posting the first few chapters of a new novel on Inkitt soon. You can also read the short novel I wrote while waiting to hear back if I was hired here.

I'm learning a ton. We work in teams and collaborating is not always easy, though I've really come to appreciate it as a way to bump up creativity and get feedback. Just recently I was on a solo project and I actually felt kind of ambivalent about it. On the one hand, it made maintaining consistency across all of the episodes in the "season" (they use TV terminology for their stories) easier, but it also felt like I was missing that feedback and support.

Oh, and by the way, they are hiring, and you can work from home.

What new turns has your writing life taken in recent months?
Have you checked out Galatea?
What do you think of adding sound effects and music to something people read?

Finished my book!

Yep. I did. I finished the short novel, Wild Wild Witch, that I have been posting as I go on Inkitt. Happy dance!

I have a lot of fun with this book. It's a fantasy/western/romance with a little bit of horror thrown in for good measure. I set out to write a romance, and then I was like, "Hey, why not try a little genre blending... I'll make a western, too." Then I thought, "What's a story without fantasy elements? I like fantasy stories the most, so I'd better make it a romance-western-fantasy." And then as I was writing the last chapters the horror just made sense.

This book taught me a few things about my writing.

1) I am incapable of writing anything simple.

2) I seem to be compulsive about things my character does going wrong, as opposed to having a lot of external obstacles get in their way. In my next story, I'm going to try not to do that. Not that I regret anything about this story--I think it all works very well and is entertaining. But I feel like if this is my pattern I have to try to push myself outside of it. It comes from an anxiety that introducing external obstacles will somehow feel contrived. I'm not sure where this anxiety comes from.

3) I want to work on creating more layered villains. My two major villains in this book are hate sinks. I realized as I was writing Witch that I really am not instinctively interested in my villains in and of themselves, other than as hate sinks. I am very interested in my protagonists and supporting characters, but on some level the fact that my villains are villains makes me dislike them and I don't want to spend much time on them other than to make them hate-worthy. Which isn't to say I've never written layered villains--I have. I think Reister is interesting (more so than Finnarun, who falls more into hate sink territory again) and I don't even really consider Liut a villain despite what he does. But I think they developed into interesting villains not because I planned them that way but because the story called for it, if that makes sense. With my next villain(s) I will take time to really plan and try to give them redeeming qualities that make them more complex.

Who are some of your favorite villains in novels, films, and TV? Are they hate sinks, or more complex?

Inkitt: Publishing as You Go

I recently discovered Inkitt.com, which is, I gather, a lot like Wattpad. I've dabbled a little on Wattpad but never done very much. I decided to try out Inkitt a bit more thoroughly. Maybe it's the novel contest. I don't know. Does Wattpad have a novel contest? It's possible that everything I like about Inkitt is the same on Wattpad, I'm just not that familiar with that platform.

In the past when I've written novels I've hit walls where I've reached out to a friend and asked that they read what I have done so far, not for feedback, but because knowing someone is reading my stuff is a better motivator for me to finish the book than anything else I've come across. I know it's sort of ass-backwards. You're supposed to finish the novel, revise it, polish it, revise it again, and then polish again, and then send it out into the world to find readers. I may get to the point where that feels right to me. I certainly have some ambivalence about not doing it that way. But right now the reason I'm enjoying myself on Inkitt is because I'm posting each chapter as I finish it, and they have these cool analytics that show you how many people are reading. I've got something in the neighborhood of ten people reading my incomplete novel right now. It's so great for motivation! I imagine that these people have all read the latest chapter (the analytics say so, actually) and are eagerly awaiting the next installment. So I feel that push to deliver.

I'm on Chapter 16 and I think there are only a couple more chapters to go. The story is definitely winding down; I'm just not sure how long it's going to take to write everything. It's not going to be a very long book, in fact... barely a novel by word count standards. But I've been approaching it more in terms of episodes, with each chapter being an episode. I'm playing around.

It's one of the first things I've written with a thorough outline. With the WiP I set aside a couple of months ago (that I still hope to return to) I did a lot of outlining, but that is a huge monster of a book and I don't know how long it will take to write the whole thing. This one is much shorter. I wanted to try a few things. Romance, for one. It's a genre I have been wanting to have a go at for a while. Veronica in Paris is a romance, but it started out as a chapter of The River and the Roses so it wasn't like, "Hm, I think I will sit down and write a romance today." I've always been a fan of soap operas, and I wanted to see if I could capture some of the qualities of a soap that I love in a novel. And I wanted to mix genres: romance/supernatural/western/thriller.

I think when it's done it's going to be a fun little book. Nothing earth shattering, but I do think it's going to succeed at what I want it to do, which is show people a good time. I'm having a good time writing it.

What are your projects, these days? Trying anything new?

Masterclass: Figuring out what people need

I got an early birthday present: a subscription to Masterclass. So far I've watched the first three episodes of Shonda Rhimes's Writing for TV and the first two episodes of Steve Martin's Comedy classes. It's cool: you get four of Rhimes's scripts to download and you get a workbook with each class. I haven't explored what else you get with Martin's class yet. There are at least seven classes I want to take and Rhime's class has something like 30 episodes, I think, so I expect it to be the same for the others. So far, worth the subscription fee, which is $180 for the year, with access to everything.

The thing that struck me after watching the episodes tonight is that when Martin and Rhimes each talked about choosing ideas to pursue--in Martin's case for stand up routines, and in Rhimes's case when choosing what to write a show about--they both said the same thing. You have to get a sense for where people are at--in the world, in the nation, in your own community--and give them the opposite.

When choosing an idea, consider the current tone of tv, film, and reality. If the world is more optimistic, a pessimistic show will work. If the world is more pessimistic, an optimistic show will work.

Rhimes explained that under Bush, The West Wing, a very optimistic spin on the presidency, was popular because people wanted to escape the reality of how upsetting and frustrating the Bush Administration was. Under Obama, Scandal, a cynical show about “monsters” in DC, worked, because people were feeling a lot of hope.

Martin said something really similar. He said that when he was doing stand up in the late 60s and early 70s, he was dressing as a hippy and that everything was very political. You said the name "Richard Nixon" and it would immediately get a response in the audience. But he realized people were getting tired of it. The nation was. So he shaved his beard and cut his hair and put on a suit and became part of a new movement. Apolitical comedy. Because that was the void that needed to be filled.

It’s probably what separates people who are wildly successful from people who are just getting along. Are you addressing something that’s missing? Have you found a hole to fill? Are you giving people the opposite of what’s dominating the world right now?

On a political level, it seems to me that what’s dominating the world right now is this evil cruelty--anarcho-capitalism, profit at all costs, fuck everyone who isn’t going to make money for the 1%. But there’s also a strong presence of the opposite: people demanding recognition of wrongs: the #MeToo movement, outrage over displays of cruelty and racism, etc.

We have plenty of escapism, too. So many superhero movies.

So what isn’t being addressed?

What is: heroes, good and evil, the end of the world, fear, hatred, xenophobia, survival of the fittest, wealth as virtue. Sensitivity, triggers, introversion. Everyone loves dogs. Many people vocally love cats. Coffee is essential. I love all those things, too. I am happiest on Twitter retweeting a cute cat video, while making a joke about coffee and implying that my introversion has once again gotten in the way of the success of some social interaction I attempted. This is where a lot of us are at. Should creatives be trying to find the opposite of that? What is the opposite of that?

Are shows and films giving us dogs and coffee, though? Maybe dogs and coffee already is the opposite of what shows and films are all about these days.

I mean, people would probably enjoy being free of extreme politics.

I know I’d like to not have to worry about the end of the world (no offense to The Umbrella Academy, which I very much enjoyed--but yeah, the part with the moon was like the most terrifying thing I've ever seen and it's all related to the real terror of what is going to happen to our world if we don't get it together as a fucking species). I think if I'm really looking for escapism, I'm going to look for a show that's not terrifying me with an apocalyptic scenario.

A show that's trying to give us the opposite of our reality right now would have:
People behaving with logic. Facts being facts. Fake news having no power, because it is once again possible to have irrefutable proof.
A story where people really are who they say they are. Cheers would be appealing. Regular people, no one is fake, everyone is who they say they are. No one is cruel or has more power than anyone else. And also no one has any significant trauma or issues, for those on the other side of things who are fed up with that.

Which, I mean, is great if you want to write Cheers, but I don’t.

What would a show look like that was trying to be fundamentally optimistic, in opposition to the absolute shitstorm that our collective reality has become? Look at the stats on the increase in depression and anxiety disorders since 2016. Speaking for myself, every time I hear about kids in cages I feel like real life has become every dystopia, every nightmare I've ever thought was terrible but could never be real. Oh sure, it happened in the past, but that's history. I studied history because I found it fascinating, and without realizing it, I thought the things I was studying were safely in the past. But they most certainly aren't and it's horrifying.

And people justifying these atrocities are the worst part.

Didn't we all grow up on the same stories? Didn't we all learn that the empire is evil? That no matter who is doing it and why they say they are doing it, putting babies in cages is fucking evil?

Nothing makes sense anymore.

So, yeah. A show or a novel or whatever medium, would have to present a world where things make sense. Evil is recognized by everyone as evil. Good triumphs. None of those we count on in power turn out to be compromised and/or spineless and incapable of stopping the evil and bringing it to justice.

No wonder superhero movies keep coming out.

But I think the intriguing thing is, because there are so many superhero movies, that implies that the void to be filled is something else. Just as Steve Martin recognized that even though people reacted to his mentioning Richard Nixon, they were tired of politics in comedy, I see people coming back, over and over, to superheroes--but people are tired of superheroes. It's like, yes, we want this, we need this, this story where things make sense and counter everything that sucks about our world, but we've been coming back to it for years and years now. What's the thing we don't even know we want?

What do you think it might be?

Not Nanoing

As Nanowrimo passes me by this year, and my prescription for my SSRI has run out without refills because I don't have a doctor locally yet, I am struggling with inertia, frustration, and feeling a little lost.

Kauai is not an easy place to live, despite being a wonderful place to have an amazing time. I have had more fun in the months since we moved here--more unadulterated joyous fun--than I had in the last ten years, easily. I love the ocean, I love waves, and I (newly) love boogie boarding. It's heaven, in that respect.

Yesterday there was a sea turtle sunbathing on the beach. It's the third one we've seen doing that since August. I mean, flipping AMAZING.

It's the most beautiful place I've ever lived. And I've lived in some beautiful places, and I even feel disloyal to those places saying it, but let's be real. There are flowers everywhere. In the bushes, in the grass, on the trees, in people's hair, everywhere. Rainbows are almost a daily occurrence. I'm not even exaggerating, I think it might actually be daily. I love the wild chickens, trailing chicks behind them peeping, and the flamboyant roosters everywhere. Geckos--some bright green--on the walls. People don't dress as tacky. I mean, I'm not the fashion police (like, at all). But give me Hawaiian prints over hot pink zebra stripes any day.

But everything you heard about it being expensive is true. It's oddly not the way I expected, somehow, though I didn't have a clear idea anyway. But Jeff and I are both working full time, and we borrowed several thousand dollars from family to move, and now I'm really stressing because we barely make ends meet and we have to pay these people back. I cannot live with not paying them back in a timely manner, I just can't deal with it. They were so generous to help us and we're eating ramen and quesadillas most nights and we are overdrawn in one bank account. It's overwhelming.

Getting a new driver's license is going to be a mountain to climb because I'd let my CA one expire so now I have to go through the whole process--road test, learner's permit, the works.

I have yet to get all my paperwork in to the Hawaii DOE for my job and I'm afraid that when I do they'll dock my salary because of sticky details that shouldn't make a difference but probably will.

My job has these wonderful aspects and these super annoying and stressful aspects that I won't go into detail about. All I'll say is that I'm very grateful to be working with the co-teacher I'm with. He's awesome.

And Jeff is seriously considering applying for PhD programs so it's likely we'll move at the end of this year. Which, considering all the things that make living here hard, is probably going to be the best thing in the long run. But it's more uncertainty and another hella expensive and challenging move... my three year old regressed on potty training with the Kauai move--will he be in diapers in Kindergarten if we move again?

I'm venting. I started out writing this post as a way to feel like I am writing even though my WiP is sitting in a digital drawer gathering binary dust instead of moving along in the Nanowrimo flow. I miss the Nanowrimo flow. I miss having more than a half an hour to write once a week when I should be lesson planning.

Anyway... are you doing Nano this year?
What uncertainties are you staring down these days?

Wow, it's been a year!

Jeez, guys! I'm sorry I've been so MIA. I didn't realize so much time had passed.

Last year was busy and in many ways a great year. I really enjoyed my teaching job and got to do a *lot* of new projects which is probably one of the main reasons I let this blog sleep for so long. Then this summer several not-so-great things happened which definitely cramped my writing style both in terms of any blogging that might have happened and any novel writing. But that led to an amazing new chapter in my life: we moved to Hawai'i--the Garden Isle of Kaua'i, to be precise.

There's been a bumpy adjustment period. Many things have changed. For one thing, I'm now teaching middle school math! I really enjoy it, but it is very different from what I was doing before (one of the bad things that happened is that the district closed my school--I'm heartbroken about that). I've started a blog where I'm going to explain how to teach certain math lessons. It's mainly for the parents of my students to use, but you can check it out here, if you're curious.

There's a writer's conference locally in November and I really want to go! One of my goals for this new WiP, which is not set in any of my previous universes, is to attempt to go the traditional publishing route. I make no promises. I may lose patience with that very quickly. One of the reasons I indie publish is that I am a control freak so it really suits me to do everything myself. But I've decided I want to give it a shot, just to see what happens.

I'm snatching little moments here and there to work on the WiP. Like, sometimes only 15 minutes. It's better than nothing. And honestly I'm totally out of the habit of writing for long stints. I stayed home from work one day and could have written for hours and could only manage an hour or so.

For the current WiP I've been doing a lot more planning, outlining, etc. than ever before. I used to be such a pantser. But it's been a gradual process over the last few years propelled by the challenge of not having regular time to write. Now with my writing time in ever more brief snippets, the outline and brainstorms and character descriptions and everything are absolutely essential. There is no way I'd keep track of anything without them.

I have 29K words done and I wish I thought I could do NaNo this year. Maybe I'll try to set myself a more attainable goal and go for it.

How about you, where are you at with your creative projects? How have things changed for you over the years? Let me know in the comments!

Long Overdue Update

Hi everyone! It's been several months. I figured I should check in for those who may have been wondering whether I fell off the face of the earth. I have to be quick, though--the whole reason I've been so bad about posting is that I only get these short snippets of time when the younger boys are both napping and I use that time to write my novels--or, currently, to world build.

Anyway, I went into the summer with no job, after getting laid off from my teaching job. My husband
handled this by letting me take time almost every day to write. I finished the first draft of the third novel in the Raud Grima trilogy! It's 200K words! Yikes! I tackled 4 POVs at once, something I've never done before and decided I love to do. One beta has already gotten back to me (thank you, Rick!).

I got hired back to my old job, which is great! But they also piled on twice the work for no increase in time. Not so great. But I'm teaching English now in addition to social studies and it made me realize how much I actually do like to teach English. So that's really cool to know because I'd decided I didn't like it a while back and wasn't really looking for English jobs when I'd do searches in other areas. Now I will. I also continue to have a good relationship with my administrator, who is adding to my schedule with hourly assignments (meaning I'm paid hourly; it doesn't increase my FTE) and she says she wants to increase my percentage next year (which would increase my FTE) and that makes me want to stay. I'm also doing some awesome projects with my students and a professional film maker, involving a documentary about substance abuse in our county and another one concerning the deaf community in our county.

On a horrifying note, however, one of my former students and someone I considered a friend was murdered by her ex last week. I had just invited her to a writing group I started, too, and was waiting to hear back from her when I got the news. I've been thinking about her a lot.

But anyway. I started a writing group and the people involved are awesome and I'm so happy about that! I'm currently world building for a new novel. That's going to take me a long time, as I'm using Patricia Wrede's fabulous list of world building questions* (it's 30 pages long before you start answering them, folks). I plan to do them not just for one setting, but six, as the book will have stories starting in six different countries in this world I'm calling Temel. I started in August and am not done with the first country yet, to give you an idea.

I also discovered the Heroine's Journey which, I say without reservation, is the only thing I've ever encountered that seems to be an authentic and accessible cure for toxic masculinity. I will be using it in the Temel book and probably many times afterwards. It was created at first for use in therapy by one of Joseph Campbell (of Hero's Journey fame)'s students, and the link above takes you to the mythcreants site where they have explain it in terms that work for writing. I was galvanized by this discovery--I never considered that there might be a female counterpart to the Hero's Journey. I just thought it was applicable to both male and female characters (which I still assert that it is). But reading the Heroine's Journey (also applicable to any and all genders) made me realize what I've been missing. Check it out, seriously. And call everyone you know in Hollywood and TV and make them use it.

So anyway, I have to get back to the world building.

What's new with you?

Image courstey of Andreas Bogdain [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
* This link opens a Google Doc. You can also find Wrede's questions on her website.

Today I step into uncertainty

Today is my last day at my current job. Back in March I got a lay off notice. I was completely blindsided. I've often complained about this job (teaching social studies in a continuation high school) and I've wanted to move on to something else, but I also have been doing this for seven years. I never anticipated getting laid off. There are parts of this job that I really love. There are parts that have been incredibly difficult. This year we got a new principal, though, and it made a big difference--a lot of the problems I had in previous years were due to extremely poor management. Back in January I helped write the WASC report for the school, and my colleagues and I were full of great new ideas for new offerings and ways to expand, because the school is doing really, really well. Too well, apparently. We have drawn too many students away from another school in the district, one that is the pet of the superintendent, and he decided to cripple my school. I won't go into the details, but he sat down across from me and essentially told me this exact thing, so you'll have to bear with me. I know it sounds melodramatic. A LOT of things that happen in this district seem to belong on tv dramas, not in reality.

I wanted this blow to turn into something good. "You've been talking about moving on to something new for years, Sophia," I told myself. "This will be the push that makes it happen. Onward and upward!" My husband (also a teacher) and I applied in several places, some out of state. We were offered jobs at a high school in Tucson. My job was going to be to teach American history and "Criminal Minds," which looks at criminals in literature and history, with elements of forensic psychology. How cool is that? But the pay for teachers in Tucson is very low, and we have two sons who are not yet school age. Between the cost of child care and the 11.4% they take out for retirement, we would have been left with $2300 a month (from both our checks) for rent and everything else. We couldn't do it. I was devastated.

Since then I've applied to more places. I've tried to make jobs come together through various local possibilities. So far, nothing has coalesced.

So today, as I clean up my classroom for the last time, I face going into the summer not knowing where I'll be in the fall. I may be filing for unemployment. One of these options I've been trying to make happen may finally come together (or maybe even more than one). Jeff and I may get jobs somewhere else and have to move. I even applied for an administrative job with the county office of education, though I think that one's a long shot.

That uncertainty is exhausting. All the work I've done coming to nothing is also very discouraging. At this point I don't feel like I can make anything happen, and it's better to just give up and float on the wind like Forrest Gump's feather. But I'm scared of what will happen if I let go--if I end up on unemployment, that lasts six months. And then what? How will we pay for groceries after that runs out?

"More time to write!" you say. Well, no, not really. When I'm at home my boys take up all my time and energy. We're keeping them in daycare for a while this summer, so yes, during that time I am definitely going to push to finish the WiP. But if nothing comes together for me, we're going to have to stop paying for daycare. I'll be a stay at home mom. I know some people love that. I do not. I already have some issues with the yellow wallpaper, and that's working part time. The idea of being a full time stay at home mom has me doing the Scream thing. And let me tell you, the number of people who have clapped me on the back and said, "Hey, you'll get to stay home with your kids!" like it's this great thing I've always wanted... oh my god, people. Check your damn assumptions.

There's also all the cheerful people who bounce up to me, "So, what're your plans?" like clearly I must have something fantastic and exciting lined up. Yeah, I did. It fell through. Nothing else has come together. No, I don't know what I'm going to be doing.

And inevitably, "Well, have you tried this? Have you applied here? How about there?"

Yes, yes, and yes, for the love of all that's holy. I also applied there, there, there, and there, and I spoke to so-and-so about this and that, and these other people, too, and there still isn't anything. You know, between the international teaching jobs I applied for this winter and all the jobs I've applied for since the lay off, I have applied for over 100 jobs. Seriously. One fucking hundred. It should not be this hard.

"Oh. Well. Good luck." And I swear they side-eye me like they think I'm just being negative.

So anyway, at this point something is either going to fall in my lap or I'm going to be unemployed and looking at working at the local hardware store when those checks dry up. I hope the former. Send me good thoughts.

Writing again, despite fatigue and lack of time!

I've been going nuts for months now with inspiration for new stories and ideas for the WiPs (mainly the third Raud Grima book, tentatively titled Masks in the Glow). And up until the winter break I just couldn't find the time or the energy, except for occasionally rereading already written passages of Masks and tinkering with them. Then over winter break we got me a new laptop (the kids smashed the old one) and I carved out two chunks of time for writing. Since then, I've managed to write several more times, mainly in the evenings while dinner's cooking and for a little while after. Historically evenings have never been my writing time. Too tired out by the day for any kind of good concentration. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

So I'm very slowly making progress on Masks, which may end up not being called Masks because it's looking like it's going to be upwards of 200K words and therefore will have to be split into two. If that's how it works out (I'm not sure because I devised a way to shortcut the story and I haven't decided whether I want to go that route or not) then probably the fourth and last book will get the Masks title and book three will have to go by something else.

This series is definitely shaking out to be weird in a lot of ways. First just going with the dystopian decopunk angle, which you don't run into very much. And certainly not often with the Fritz Lang inspiration so central. So there's that, to begin with. I mean from the start I've run into people who just scratch their heads at the whole concept of robots in an art deco city.

I chose from the beginning to challenge myself to write scenes that make me uncomfortable. I address one of my greatest fears in the book--the loss of a child--which probably doesn't weird anyone out. But I also pushed myself to write sex scenes, which is not something I'm generally comfortable with. And I wanted them to be real, with heat and in some cases disturbing elements. So yeah, that has certainly colored both The City Darkens and After the Fall and based on the few reviews I've gotten, people either appreciate what I was trying to do or are really put off by all the sex.

Then, in After the Fall, I switch narrators. I knew that was unconventional and would probably put people off. It's not like it's never been done before or anything, but it's a risky thing to do. I did it because I couldn't figure out what to do with Myadar. I wanted to keep talking about this city that's going through a revolution and there was no good reason for Myadar to get in the middle of that. At least, not right away. So I thought about what I wanted to talk about--I wanted to have the books progress a bit like the decades that comprise dieselpunk--City was the 1920s, Fall was the 1930s (sort of--certainly with a look towards what was happening in China at the time), and Masks would be the 40s. In no way am I trying to tell a history of America or even Earth, though. I just want parts of the setting, the events, the things people do, to resonate, like, "Oh, I see what she's doing there!" Anyway, so Fall was going to be about survival, first and foremost. How does an ordinary person survive a cataclysm in her city? What would that survival look like? Who threatens it? I thought of my graduate professor of African history talking about the role of young men, packs of violent young men, in unstable environments. And since I was also reading about grimdark at the time, and the ways people were (perhaps) mishandling violence in fiction, particularly sexual violence, I wanted to try my hand at that, and see if I could pull it off in a way I could live with. And I allowed Ginna to embody my own struggle with the necessity of violence. To top it off, I believe that the second installment in a trilogy (which is what I intended this series to be) should end badly. So the result was a novel that's really not very satisfying to some readers.

And now, Masks will be different yet again. For one thing, it has four POVs. For another, so far, no sex. And in it I'm trying to resolve both my conflicted feelings about using violence in fiction and Ginna's conflicted feelings about using violence to win the war. I am also really focused on characters that are not inherently good (Ginna is, though). Plus my original idea was to go very dark and flirt with atompunk, and though I may still have an element of that (inspired, perhaps, by Akira), the aesthetics of light decopunk like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow are still really appealing to me. So I've revisited what one of the big threats will be and I've reimagined it, and it's probably going to strike people as even weirder than robots in a deco city. I guess we'll see.

Masks is already 100K words and even if I do the shortcut I mentioned, I'm probably looking at at least another 40K. So I'm leaning towards writing the long version, seeing how many words it is, and deciding based on that whether to split it.

If you were reading a series, would you rather that the last book be very long, or that what you thought would be the last book ends in a cliff hanger and you have to read yet another book to finally get the resolution?

Does it bother you when books in a series have different POVs?

Would you be frustrated if the first books had several sex scenes and the last had few to none?

What do you think of violence in fiction?

Exhaustion, Fear, Sorrow and Rage

All getting in the way of my writing.

What can I say, the election was certainly historic.

A personal friend was the victim of a Trump-fueled hate crime.

I am swinging between each of the titular emotions I listed at any given time. It's definitely getting in the way of my ability to concentrate. But today I am going to write a paragraph into the first chapter of Masks in the Glow that is directly inspired by the election. And I will continue to work on this WiP with this election in mind. After all, The City Darkens didn't come out of nowhere. I just didn't think we'd have our own dystopia unfolding within a couple of years of its publication.

I don't know what this means for the future of my writing--I had plans for the next novel(s), and they were not dystopic. And I may still go forward with the main idea--I was going to try to create a beautiful world, one that I would enjoy escaping to. Which was actually the plan with The City Darkens but then it didn't work out that way at all! But maybe now my readers need it more than ever, and I certainly will be seeking out such worlds to immerse myself in, as I choose the novels I will be reading.

"Escaping the Dome," by yumikrum on wikicommons

But I also feel like dystopia may well be the way to go. I only have so many ways to try to warn the world, to try to stop the tide--and it may be futile. Hell, it might be like painting a target on my back. I know this comes off as melodramatic, but the man asked multiple times why we don't just use our nukes. We are in a melodramatic age.

I plan to join some progressive groups locally and I have another plan I'm following through on but it's going to be a few months before I get a sense of whether it's likely to come to fruition.

No matter what, I have to get back to writing. I am not really well unless I'm writing--at least not in times like these.

No Nano this year...

At least, not the real 50K deal. My quiet goal is to work on my current WiP every day, or as close to it as I can. I know last year I embraced the challenge Kristen Lamb threw down to MAKE TIME. And I'm hoping next year that'll be possible, maybe. Sigh. This year I just don't see it. Between actual demands on my time and the exhaustion that some days makes it impossible to concentrate, it's too much. Do I sound like I'm arguing with someone? I am. I am arguing with the part of myself that only cares about my writing. That part is like, DUDE. IT'S NEVER GOING TO BE EASY TO SCHEDULE WRITING TIME. But right now I'm a nursing a baby parenting three kids under five part time teaching trying to keep the house from exploding machine. I'm just hoping next year, it'll be more doable. The eldest will be in school, the middle will be in preschool, and the littlest will still be napping. BY GOD HE WILL STILL BE NAPPING.

Anyway. I'm working on Masks in the Glow, the third book in the Raud Grima trilogy. The other day for the first time in months I did some work on it, rereading most of the sections for one point of view (I ran out of time but the goal was to read them all) and improving them. One of the things I'm really focusing on in this novel is voice--I have four points of view that I switch between and I really want each to be so distinct you'd have no trouble reading a couple of lines and figuring out which character it is.

Oh, and pretty cool news:

On November 18 I'm going to be interviewed on S. Evan Townsend's Speculative Fiction Cantina program on the Writestream Radio Network. He says to prepare to read a 5 to 8 minute section of one of my books (PG-13 rated). Um. This makes me really nervous. I'm going to have to practice reading it about fifty times. I don't know what to choose, either. Suggestions welcome!

Guest Post: "Six Movies That Never Should Have Been Remade" by Isa

Well, everyone, the baby came 4 weeks early! It was a big surprise, as I'd convinced myself he was going to go all the way to term (there were signs that wasn't going to be the case, but I decided they were just false alarms). I'm very happy to say he's doing really well. But as a result, all my writing and social media time has pretty much vanished. What luck that Isa from Culture Coverage contacted me to propose that she contribute a guest post to this blog! I'm very pleased to present her post on six films that should never have been remade. Enjoy!

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Movies are more than just entertainment; they are a form of art. As such, it's everyone's duty to put on the hat of the critic from time to time. I would like to express my appreciation to sophia-martin.blogspot.com for affording the opportunity to do so with this post. When you're finished reading, it's worth checking out some of the other content on this site!

Some movies are way ahead of their times. They’re done with limited resources that couldn’t possibly do the film justice—made too early. Filmmakers frequently look to past films for ideas, sometimes completely remaking them. At times, it goes well; the recent Batman trilogy is an example of just how successful this kind of ideology can be. Some films are just worth waiting for.

But then there are “those” movies. We’ve all seen one before; they’re remakes of movies we once loved. Even if the originals lacked the technology, were horribly campy, or deviated hugely from their source material (in the case of films based on books), there was something we loved about them. But the remakes often fail to capture that spirit.

A few remakes were done so poorly that the fans of their basis have mentally distanced themselves from them like a bad memory. Those are the films we’ll be looking at today.

Psycho (1998)

Movie remakes usually hope to bring something new to the table. Whether they tweak the story, add new special effects, or update the setting to reflect a more modern and relevant feel to audiences, there’s usually something distinctly different. This is not the case with the 1998 remake of “Psycho.”

For some unknown reason the remake of "Psycho" is virtually shot for shot identical to the original piece from 1960. True, there are a few differences; the movie is shot in color with a higher quality playback rate on the audio, and the cast is entirely different. But the actual scenes haven't changed at all.
In fact, a lot is lost in transferring the film to color. Without the dim, dark environment (and no special effects to help instill that same feeling in color) the film is abjectly inferior to the original. The cast also lacks the authenticity of the original actors, particularly Norman Bates (now depicted by…Vince Vaughn?...) whose character was designed to start off very innocent, almost non-offensive.

Perhaps had the film brought something new to the table, it would have fared better. Ironically the next movie tried to do exactly that and was even worse.

Godzilla (1998)

Oh my goodness gracious, I just don't know where to begin. There is so much wrong with what fans have come to know with disdain as "Godzilla '98" that it could use its own government-backed study.

To begin with, Godzilla has always been a franchise of very mediocre acting; there’s plot in each film, but the focus is really on the kaiju (the big monsters). Whether Godzilla is facing Rodan or King Gidorah, the movie is about him. And for a monster that was created by nuclear radiation that destroys cities (exclusively in Japan) he often ends up depicted as the hero.

The American adaptation captured very little if any of Godzilla’s essence. Instead, he’s just a big angry lizard destroying New York; “he” also lays a ton of eggs that are an essential plot point, although a confusing point at best.

Besides rarely actually showing Godzilla in the film (perhaps due to budget limitations), the film is distinctly about the people with Godzilla used merely as a plot point. He also has no atomic breath, a huge disappointment to fans. Perhaps the film would have done better had it not tried to tie itself to the Godzilla franchise and just been called “Big Lizard in New York.”

The Haunting (1999)

The remake for “The Haunting” can only be described as a victim of 1999. It tried to take the original films concepts and make them grander. The sets are huge and detailed, and the plot goes out of its way to try and mislead the audience. Both efforts amount to naught.

Instead of a creepy haunted house that is depicted in the original, we’re presented with a mansion that looks like it was constructed by hundreds of skilled artisans. Its over-the-top attention to detail actually distracts from the whole point of the setting: it’s a scary haunted house.

But the film also tries to convince you the house isn't haunted…but it is! Surprise! Unfortunately, the well-paid cast does little to help carry the movie's inept script. Without the uniqueness between characters, we're faced with a bland and uninteresting variety of the same person dressed in different clothes.

Besides being an unnecessary remake, “The Haunting” remake goes one step further by just being an all-around bad film. And not just a bad movie, but a PG-13 film—in the 90s. There's nothing more to be said because there's not much going on with this movie. At least it made money.

Guess Who (2005)

The original film, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” touched a very sensitive nerve for its time. In 1967, interracial marriages were still a very controversial thing [Sophia's buttinsky, here: they still are, if that Old Navy ad controversy is any indication]. When the story’s couple comes home to meet mom and dad, they are understandably shocked. But at least their daughter has managed to catch herself a wealthy foreign doctor.
The modern rendition seen in the remake titled “Guess Who” hopes to flip the premise on its side; instead of a white woman (Katharine Houghton) bringing home a black man (Sidney Poitier) to her white folks (Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn), you have Zoe Saldana returning home with Ashton Kutcher meet with Bernie Mac and Judith Scott.
While the film isn’t as awful as some of the others we’ve gone through, it fails to capture the essence of the original. It’s thoroughly inoffensive, barely pushes any bounds, and does little to inspire any sort of conversation regarding racial politics. It’s just another film that simply wasn’t necessary.

Footloose (2011)

By all accounts, the original "Footloose" was set up in a way that should have yielded a terrible movie. Instead, it became an American classic long remembered for its fun dance scenes, good acting, and believable plot. Its focus on dance makes plenty of sense, being a film in the early 80s.

Having not learned from the mistakes of the “Psycho” remake, the movie again attempts to recreate (including in dialogue) many scenes from the original but does so poorly at it that one can hardly justify the film’s existence. The actors are less believable, particularly Ren who is depicted by Kenny Wormald and no longer looks lost, confused, or even well…young.

The dances have been updated to reflect the period, but that does little to help the movie along. Instead of the more innocent dances of the 20th century, we’re treated to the waist-to-waist grinding of modern dance that would make any Reverend protest, a plot element sadly wasted by the remake.

Total Recall (2012)

Everything I say here I must first preface by admitting this one bias: I am someone who thoroughly enjoys cheesy Schwarzenegger films. And by all accounts, the first "Total Recall" did virtually no justice to its source material. It was truly an adventure of its own making; it was an 80s sci-fi shoot’em up complete with corny one-liners, explosions, and bad acting galore.

But what the original had in spades, the remake lacks by all accounts. With none of the original's fun, the remake sets about creating a plot with nearly identical key points depicted in a slightly different way. Instead of being largely on a Mars Colony, the film is portrayed on post-apocalyptic Earth.
The change in secondary antagonist is equally questionable. The original featured a slew of “named” bad guys all going after Quaid, the protagonist. The remake replaces most of them with Quaid’s wife, leaving us with a decided shortage of characters to care about and a glut of faceless nobodies.

In some ways, the sets of the new film capture the feel of a "futuristic" society better, but there's just something very…forgettable about it all. While the memory of the original lives on well into the present, the remake has already faded into obscurity. Alas, another wasted opportunity.

Sequels and remakes are always a topic of debate. If you feel differently about one of these films or would like to discuss a different remake, post it in the comments. We’d love to hear from you!

About the Author: Isa is a critic in her own right, frequently blogging about her most and least favorite films. When not discussing entertainment, she spends her time writing about internet security and advocating online safety. To read more of her work, visit SecureThoughts.com or CultureCoverage.com.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled program for: Pre-Eclampsia Survivor Rant

Okay, folks, I'm going to apologize in advance, because this is a rant and it has nothing to do with writing or fiction or anything else this blog is usually about. It's coming at you now because of two experiences I had this week, one on Facebook and one on Twitter.

So, for context, some facts up front:
I am pregnant. This is my fourth pregnancy, but the second one was a loss. In my first pregnancy everything was hunky dory until about week 27 or so when I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia. In short, that meant I had dangerously high blood pressure (that's not all there is to it, but that's the main thing I was dealing with). Ever watched Downton Abbey? Sybil died because she had eclampsia--what develops from pre-e if it's allowed to. Basically to avoid that you have to have the baby earlier than the due date. My son was induced at 37 weeks (normal pregnancies go to 40 weeks as a rule). Very luckily for me, we both came through without harm. Seizures were a big concern for me for the duration of those weeks, and I was put on bed rest and eventually magnesium--it was not a fun time.

No one knows what causes pre-e. Some of the most recent research suggests that not eating enough protein in early pregnancy may be a factor, but I have no way of saying if that was the case for me. I mean, I ate meat probably most days. But it's true that protein requirements for pregnant women are significantly higher than for the general population. Was I getting enough? I don't know.

Anyway, some things that have not been proven to cause pre-e are: being overweight, having high blood pressure when not pregnant, having blood sugar problems, whether or not you exercise, whether your diet is high in fiber, vegetables and fruit, and whether your diet is low in fat. But today on Twitter, I saw an account devoted to pre-e education that said this:

Okay, so I thought, are they talking to someone specific about their issues with their pre-e, or just everybody? So I tweeted them and asked.

To which they replied:

With the following infographic attached:

Now, I'm sure this person means well, but honestly, fuck them.

Because the original tweet might have been helpful if they were speaking directly to someone they knew with pre-e who actually had bad blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, etc. Otherwise it's just a shitty thing to say. Why? It implies that people who get pre-e have some kind of control over it.

They don't.

No amount of dieting and exercise can protect a woman from developing pre-e. Dieting is really controversial these days and it's just plain stupid to go around telling people they need to diet. That's a conversation people have with their doctors. Stay out of it.

In my case I have naturally low BP when not pregnant. I have never had a problem with blood sugar, even while pregnant. My cholesterol is normal. All of it is normal. I am a size 20, though, so clearly I need to go through some sort of weight loss plan to be thin before I should consider having more kids. Because we all know what the outcome rates are for people who do weight loss programs. So what you're actually saying, Twitter twit, is that fat people just shouldn't have babies.

As for the oh-so helpful graphic, thanks a lot for all the stats telling me I'm going to die and develop terrible diseases. That's so helpful and good for my stress. It's not like I don't already worry about this pregnancy's impact on my body, now I have to worry about a pregnancy that happened five years ago, too. Fabulous.

People keep "liking" and retweeting the tweet with the infographic and that, dear readers, is why we are here.

Just in general, please don't tell fat people they need to lose weight. Don't you think most of us would go ahead and shed the pounds if we could? Don't you think we've tried? Actually, many people don't think fat people have tried, they think fat people are lazy asses who never try to do anything healthy. Truthfully, I have stopped trying. I maintain my weight at 220lbs. Why? Because the last time I tried, like, really tried to lose weight, I spent four months drinking two slim fast meals a day and having one actual meal. I also worked out every day for a minimum of an hour and half. I went down to 175lbs after three months and that was it. No more weight loss after that. I tried decreasing my daily intake of calories from 1400 to 1200. I tried adding a half an hour to my daily workouts. Nothing. The scale did not budge. And you know what? I was exhausted and miserable. So I went back to eating like I normally do, which is pretty healthy. I never drink soda or eat fast food. I eat a lot of vegetables, avoid overly processed foods with high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fats, etc. I make most of the food I eat from scratch. I exercise some, though not as much as I'd like. I've tracked my eating and basically I eat 500 calories a day more than the recommended amount, so that's why I'm heavy. But when I cut those calories out, we come back to the situation described above. What's the point? I'm not going to give myself headaches and feel wrecked and shitty every day so I can drop maybe twenty pounds and maintain my weight at 200lbs instead of 220. I'm just not enthused by that idea and considering my blood pressure is typically 110/70 and I don't have any signs of blood sugar issues... it's just not something I think about much anymore.

So that was Twitter today. A couple of days ago, there was Facebook.

I made the mistake of commenting on an NPR article that was warning pregnant women to wear long sleeves and long pants and bug spray because ZIKA IS COMING TO GET YOU.

And maybe it is, in Florida, I haven't checked the news stories recently. But here's the story I told in my comment on the article:

A couple of months ago my husband, two sons and I went to what is essentially a zoo nearby. When I was there I noticed the most unusual mosquito--it had stripey legs. Of course we all got bitten. When I got home I googled it and found out it's one of the two main types of mosquitoes that carry Zika. Now, I'm in Northern California and when I told my husband this he was like, "Meh, Zika happens in tropical places." But then a day or two later he and my older son both got sick, with flu-like symptoms and bloodshot eyes. Guess what? That sounds like Zika. So I told my OB about it. He was very nice and not at all condescending, but he basically told me I was being paranoid. At that time there had been no cases of people getting Zika in California or Oregon. All cases of Zika were people who had caught it elsewhere and traveled here.

I concluded my story by saying that I thought the NPR article was fear-mongering, and we shouldn't let these sorts of fears get the best of us, or something to that effect. So this guy answered me telling me I shouldn't blow off the risk and good luck with my pregnancy because I had probably been exposed to Zika.

I responded to him saying I don't need luck. I've had several ultrasounds (for completely unrelated reasons) and they've measured the baby's head multiple times and he's growing just fine.

To which several people then replied in so many words that clearly my ultrasounds were flawed and didn't pick up the birth defects and my baby would no doubt have microcephaly. One went so far as to say I would no doubt have to have a late-term abortion at 30 weeks. (As I write this I am 31 weeks.)

It was so important to those people to cling to their fears about Zika and their need to police pregnant women that they told me, a real person who is pregnant, that her baby is going to die at 30 weeks.

By the way, if I did get exposed to Zika and my baby was harmed, you know what can be done about it? Absolutely nothing.

But the thing is, I really don't believe that I was. I know my baby is okay. And I also know it probably wouldn't be good for him if slather myself in pesticides because I'm afraid of catching the Zika virus in an area of the world which, as far as I know, still hasn't had any local cases.

Okay I feel better. Thank you for reading this whole thing, it's a bear. But these are just two examples--people police pregnant woman all the time and it is SO TIRESOME. After several pregnancies, in some ways being preggo does get easier, but in others, NOT SO MUCH. Like when people think they are being helpful when they tell pregnant women how to live their lives.

Have you ever dealt with this sort of "well-meaning" bullshit?
Do you feel entitled to tell pregnant women what to do and not to do to have a healthy pregnancy?
Please, comment and let me know, though be careful if your answer to the second question is yes. I have pregnancy hormones and I know how to use them.

Embracing the "Ugly" as Beautiful: Melisandre in Game of Thrones, Season 6

My husband and I watched the first episode of Game of Thrones season 6 last night. There were several moments that shocked or surprised me. The big reveal at the end of the episode was not one of them.

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SPOILERS AHEAD.

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It's not that I somehow secretly suspected that the Red Woman, AKA Melisandre, is actually centuries old. It's that I don't care. I mean, really, unless her removing the necklace actually leads to something plot related (will she die? will the necklace somehow resurrect Jon? will Thorne find it and put it on, then get strangled by it? I'd like to see that). However, the Twitterverse is all... atwitter over it. People all over the internet are extremely excited about this new TWIST.

From an article on e-online:

Plenty of other articles were tweeted announcing their intention to discuss this big twist.

How is it a twist? To me, a plot twist means something that significantly impacts the plot. So she's old. I mean, seriously. She has wrinkles, she's got saggy breasts, she's lost most of her hair. Okay. And?

Which brings me to the other reason people are all freaking out: OMG, the Red Woman is actually old and NOT HOT.

The shock of the reveal...

Yes, that's Sam from Supernatural. It was actually a gif cycling between his face and Dean's equally horrified face.

And my personal favorite:

Because it's totes cool to pull your pants down for the young Red Woman, who advocates burning children alive.

Let me get something out of the way. I get it. We as a culture are so flooded with images of "perfect" women's bodies that it must be a big surprise and shock when a show gives a rare glimpse of a woman's body that doesn't fit in. But come on, people. Not every body you see has to be evaluated for sexual attractiveness.

I like all kinds of bodies for different reasons. There are certain female bodies I find sexually attractive. The elderly body of last night's episode is not one of them, but in all sincerity, that didn't even enter my mind when I looked at her. Young Melisandre took off her clothes and I admired her beauty (though the character has always seriously creeped me out and I don't find her sexually attractive as a result), and then she changed into the crone, and my thoughts were along the lines of, "Wow, they found an elderly woman with very smooth features, much like the younger actress."* They did. The elderly woman shown wasn't hideous by any stretch of the imagination. People on Twitter have had to go find images from other movies and shows to express their horror at the change.

The fact is, elderly Melisandre may not be sexually attractive, but she's also not disgusting. She's just old. Her body has no blemishes. Okay, the sparsity of hair on her head isn't pretty, but it's not horrifying. She's clean. And I would go so far as to say, she's even beautiful--not in a sexual way, not in a hot way, but in terms of being a beautiful example of an elderly body. The slump of her shoulders and her facial expression convey deep sadness and disillusionment--the power of the emotions they show is beautiful.

But then, I tend to love things like this:

Camille Claudel, Clotho, 1893

This sculpture is by Camille Claudel, a female artist who hit her peak around the turn of the 20th century in Paris. I studied her quite a bit some years ago because I intended to write my master's thesis about her. She had a fascinating, tragic life, and this sculpture is one expression of her experiences. It represents Clotho, the fate who spins the thread of human life--not even Atropos, the one who snips the thread and ends lives. Claudel saw the spinner of life as this twisted, withered crone caught in her own threads, which also seem to be her hair.

Claudel eventually became paranoid and reclusive. Ultimately her family institutionalized her for the last 30 years of her life, though whether that was an ethical choice is a matter of serious debate among those interested in her.

I find this statue of hers beautiful and powerful. Obviously, Clotho as Claudel depicted her is not sexually attractive. But she is an expression of pure suffering--a work of art that succeeds vividly in what it attempts.

Melisandre's old body isn't even close to as twisted and withered as Clotho's in Claudel's interpretation, and it shouldn't be the same, because what's being expressed isn't the same. Claudel's Clotho is a personification of Claudel's rage and confusion at life--and possibly gives hints at Claudel's mental illness, though in 1893 she wasn't exhibiting obvious symptoms yet. Elderly Melisandre conveys the character's grief and despair at the way things have turned out, not according to her visions at all. She is a personification of loss of hope.

I actually did find one article, at theatlantic.com, that addressed the scene the way I felt it needed to be addressed:

The issue I'm having with the more common reaction, I think more than any other, is that the response most people on Twitter are having to seeing Melisandre's elderly body completely misses this point. They are so focused on "OMG NOT HOT" that they aren't asking themselves what the scene actually means. Why has Melisandre chosen to remove her necklace? Is she giving up? Is she going to die? Does this mean Jon is doomed? Not to mention his allies at Castle Black, who talk specifically about how powerful Melisandre is moments before the necklace scene.

In the e-online article I excerpted above, they do ask what it means, but then they ask what Melisandre has been doing on order to stay young, and how old she really is. They then actually state that they've never been so interested in Melisandre subplots not involving Jon Snow. Are you serious right now? I mean, sure, it's great when female characters are interesting without being props for male characters. If you've read this blog at all you know how into that I am. But how many separate character plots are there in GoT these days? It's getting to be as bad as later seasons of Lost. I would really prefer if Melisandre's role in the show remained tied to the established plotlines she's already attached to, and that pretty much means I want one question answered about her: is she going to raise Jon, or is she going to die/fail somehow? If we're going to focus on female characters, I'm just fine with Sansa, Arya, Cersei, Brienne, Margaery, Osha, and Daenerys getting the deeper storylines. I really don't like Ellaria, so she's off the list, too. I don't care about the larger picture when it comes to her or Melisandre. I have enough characters I do care about--and some of my favorites are male, so my list is actually even longer than the one in the sentence above. That's a lot for the show creators to keep track of without adding more.

Anyway, my point is this. I wish people could stop flipping out about a non-perfect body long enough to look past its supposed imperfections. They might appreciate it for what it does show us in a powerful way, and they might also start asking much more interesting and relevant questions.

How about you, were you shocked/horrified by the elderly Melisandre reveal?
What do you think of art and other mediums that show elderly female (and male, why not) bodies?
Can things typically seen as "ugly" actually be beautiful?

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* It has occurred to me that they simply aged Carice van Houten's face, but that doesn't address the parallels with her body. I'm not saying they are the same by any stretch of the imagination, just that they had a similar smoothness.