Scenes

This is a thing I used to do back in the days when I had a LiveJournal. I'm starting it again in the hope that it'll get me in the habit of writing more frequently.

[I am doing a shift on the door at a social dance. A couple approaches]

Guy: So, what is this?
Me: It's a blues dance night.
Guy: So, it's blues music, but you have to dance?
Me: Yes, essentially.

[The guy puts his head round the door to have a look]

Guy: Oh! So it's a dating event!
Me: No, it's not.

[He looks at me sceptically]

Me: It's really not. That's just what the dance looks like.
Guy: Oh, I see, so these are all established couples?
Me: No, people just come and dance with anyone.
Guy: So it IS a dating thing. Just going up to strangers?
Me: Most of the people here know each other. They come for the dancing.
Guy: It must be a dating thing. Like couch surfing.
Girl: What? What are you talking about?
Guy: We're going to go somewhere else.

[They turn to leave. As they go up the stairs:]

Girl: What do you mean 'it's like couch surfing'? What do you think couch surfing is???

on expectation

So a friend linked this article on Facebook. When I first saw it, the headline (they’ve changed it now, interestingly) was “Women Wear Too Much Make-Up Because They Mistakenly Think Men Like It.” How does one quantify “too much make-up?” From what’s contained in the article, the only definition of “too much” that makes any sense is “more than men would ideally prefer”. I also really don’t think the study supports the conclusion.

In essence, the researchers told some women to put on make-up for a night out, then produced 21 progressively more made-up pictures and asked people to judge which picture was most attractive. What the women weren’t told, unless the article is leaving out something vitally important, is to apply make-up to achieve what they thought was maximum sexual attractiveness. To equate “night out” with “trying to be sexually appealing” is not a sound and reasonable leap of logic. The study assumes its own conclusion in its set-up, thereby defeating the entire point of conducting the study in the first place. That’s a BAD study. Stay behind after class and do it again properly.

(Also, they took the pictures of night make-up in daylight, and they still concluded that women look best in 60% of the full night make-up, not actually natural or any of that shit, and that article is written terribly. So there.)

I’ve worn make-up for a lot of different reasons. I’ve worn it because I wanted to be all grown up like my cousin. I’ve worn it because I was insecure about my dark circles. I’ve worn it because I was a GOTH and I needed EYELINER, DAMMIT. I’ve worn it because I thought I needed it to make myself acceptable to the world. I’ve worn it because it was part of a costume. I’ve worn it because I thought if I had lipstick on, nobody would realise it had taken me three days to persuade myself out of the house. I’ve worn it because I discovered I could draw flames on my eyelids with eyeshadow.

Now I wear it to practice skills I’ve learned, to get me into a certain frame of mind, as part of a look I’m going for, for the tranquillity of an established morning ritual, because I am having a day of awesome and can’t be brought down by anything, for the sheer joy of having orange lips sometimes, or because my teen Goth self still gets excited over the fact that I can actually apply eyeliner properly now. Sometimes I don’t wear it, because I don’t want to, or can’t be bothered. And through all of this, through Day of Awesome make-up to Please Ignore The Fact That I’m Falling Apart make-up, men have been saying to me “You don’t need to do that, you know. Men don’t really like it. I prefer you without it.”

Well, thank you, stranger dude/dude who is my friend/dude I’ve been going out with for three years. That’s nice of you. But it’s not for you, and it’s not about you. You may have opinions as to how you’d prefer me/women in general to look; that’s fine. But please don’t share them with me. It doesn’t help me.

My first boyfriend used to look at me and my shitty self-esteem and say mournfully that he wished I could base my opinions of myself on what he saw rather than what I saw. Every time he said this, I told him that basing my self-esteem on someone else’s opinions was exactly what gave me shitty self-esteem in the first place, and I was never going to be secure in myself if I was clinging on to someone else’s opinions the whole time. He would nod and say that he understood, but he never did. He thought good things about me, so I should too, and then everything would be better. And when his thoughts about me turned towards the less good, he wanted me to share in that journey too.

These days my self-esteem is my own. It’s been really fucking difficult, but now it’s mine. I’m not interested in what people think of my self-presentation, I’m not interested in “what men like” (as though that’s even a thing. Different men like different stuff, because that’s how humanity works), I’m not interested in being reassured that my grooming decisions are OK. I can appreciate that, from both the men who’ve expressed views on this and from this poorly-conceived piece of research, there is a positive intention to liberate women from an expectation they don’t have to conform to. But a) it’s patronising, and b) it doesn’t do that. It’s still saying, “You don’t have to do this thing because men don’t want it”. This is not empowering, it’s not helpful, and it really fucking bugs me.

As does badly-done research.

So there.

NaNo day 5

I am behind. I have been word-warring.

In the last 500 words, I have used the phrase "Craig from Barnes" fourteen times.

Seriously. Fourteen times.

I have got to get a better grip on this novel.

NaNo 2013

(Regular blogging, you say, Jen? How's that working out for you?)

NaNoWriMo starts in two days. Since this'll be my tenth one I can't not do it, but I have three reasonably major problems:

1. This November is going to be possibly my busiest November ever. Working full time, busy at least three evenings during the week and at least the first two weekends are going to be a complete loss writing-wise.
2. I have not even the slightest ghost of an idea. I don't have a character, a setting, a scene, an image. Nothing.
3. And, oh yeah, I don't have anywhere to live. I am dependent entirely on the kindness and generosity of people I don't really know that well, and it seems a little unfair to sit in said people's houses and swear at a laptop for hours on end while demanding use of their WiFi to obsessively update my word count like a weirdo.

Somehow I'm going to make this work, probably through lunchtime word wars, table-hogging in Starbucks, and hanging around the office for hours after I should have gone home. But I would feel a lot better if I had a starting point. I've gone into NaNo with no ideas before, and essentially one of two things happens.

Scenario one: I find a name generator, get myself about half a dozen names, then write some people with those names having a good-natured argument. This will then generate itself into an easy to write piece of irredeemable fluff which is neither bad enough to be embarrassed about nor good enough to ever show to another human being. It's not fun to talk about writing these, because as soon as you say, "Oh, it's about a girl who meets this guy at her friend's wedding..." you look at the person you're talking to and you can see the brain make a hasty exit out through the ears. Also, last time I did this, I ended up using the line, "What were you doing that needed the character of the egg?" followed by about ten pages about egg performance art. I don't need that.

Scenario two: I switch my brain off and just see what comes out of my fingers. What inevitably comes out of my fingers is a politically-motivated mystery, which would be fine if I had any clue whatsoever what the mystery was supposed to be. But I never do. If I try to think about it or plot something out, I somehow lose all ability to write anything. What I then end up with is 50,000 words of vagueness, all of which scream "AUTHOR HAS NO CLUE WHAT IS HAPPENING" and all of which is terrible. The last novel I wrote using this method had exactly two sentences I didn't hate when I read back over it.

I've vaguely considered a few times trying to rewrite the novel I started in 2009. I didn't get very far with it, but in the 15,000 or so words I did write, there was some stuff that I thought was good (it's pretty rare for me to think my stuff is good enough to be pleased about). Reading back over it, I still think that stuff is good, but I hate the plot and don't quite know how I would change it. I don't know if, during a time-crunched and homeless month, I want to put myself under the pressure of trying to write something I'd be proud of. Also, when I wrote the good stuff there was a certain inspiration in my life, and when it disappeared I was left with a massive creative block that lasted... well, ages, actually. Essentially, I don't want to write shit, nor do I want to screw up my good stuff by surrounding it with shit. So what to do?

I'm making the following rules for myself:
1. I am not allowed to write a plot-driven novel if I don't know what the plot is.
2. None of my characters are allowed to mysteriously appear in a location they shouldn't reasonably be and then be all enigmatic about how they got there for a page and a half.
3. Nobody is allowed to be known by eighteen different names for no apparent reason.
4. I am not allowed to go off on tangents about any of the following: eggs, yoghurt, flamingoes, foot injuries, body fascism, queuing, or the proper way to care for a pet reptile.
5. I need to somehow not make my entire novel about blues dance, despite the fact that it has EATEN MY SOUL.

So, this'll go well, then.

space

He took his stuff, and he left space.

Big spaces in the living room, little spaces in the kitchen cupboards. Space I had prepared myself for, and space I hadn't expected. Space to be unnerved, space to read a little too much into every bump and every breeze outside. Thoughts began to settle in, unwind themselves and expand, to fill his position on the sofa and in my mind, to prod at me and do their best to unseat or unsettle me with suggestions that I might not, in some undefined and unquantified way, be able to cope without anyone with me in this space.

At first the emptiness was all I could see. I could feel his absence more than I could feel my own presence. I lay awake listening to noises that weren't there anymore. We'd shared this space, and now there was twice as much as I was used to, I didn't know what to do with it.

I'd asked him for space, a while ago. I asked him if we could make our lives just that little bit bigger so that I could stretch a little, breathe a little more comfortably. He hadn't understood. To him, space was a reason to shuffle in closer, curl around each other, pull the walls in that bit tighter. Space didn't work for him. He fought against it, and convinced me that was the logical thing to do. I learned, gradually, to distrust space, to be scared of it, to take our little bubble with me everywhere I went. I learned how to shut things out, to make the space smaller.

Today the space seems more normal. It's still not mine, but it's not his, either.

When we met, I lived alone, in my own space. Instead of moving in together, he moved into a space that was already mine. He fitted himself into my life, searching out places to put his belongings, his past, little bits of himself. We both grew, but not together, and when the time came he lifted right out of my life, almost as though he'd never really been there.

He took away the sofabed and the big TV. He took away the micowave and the knives. He took away a sense of comfort, and the dependence he'd needed me to have on him. He took away a closeness that was both too close and not close enough, at the same time stifling and lonely. He took away a fading camaraderie, a confused affection, a frustration and a fundamental misunderstanding that clouded everything we did towards the end.

He took his stuff, and he left space, but not emptiness. It's room to breathe, to move. It's space I needed, and used to have. I don't need to replace anything he took away.

He's looking for someone else's space. When he finds it, he'll slide in like sand, moulding himself to the shape of her life. She'll want that too, I hope. She'll be looking for the comfort that comes from knowing she can't fall, that he'll keep her close and safe, that he'll take care of her. She won't want to kick against him, like I did, to push him out of the way. She'll encourage it, and help him pull the walls in. They'll be strong together. That's what he's looking for, and I hope he finds it.

I keep looking over my shoulder, at the space behind me. It'll be mine, soon.

Actual quote from today's NaNoing

"How do you get the Prime Minister into a yoghurt shop?"
"Take... take the yoghurt out first?"

I don't even know anymore. 

NaNo to day three

Day one:
Word count: 3035
Sustenance: Boxes of Nerds
Unexpected development: Character on fire by page two

Day two:
Word count: 6236
Sustenance: Unhealthy amounts of milk
Unexpected development: Character breaks into dead man's office and throws up over an old sandwich

Day three:
Word count: 10241 (yes!)
Sustenance: Nothing. Must eat now.
Unexpected development: Character is full-scale brat. Must re-think plot.