Not to be controversial, but it is my firm opinion that:

There is no difference between “social media” and social interaction.

Prove it, you say? With pleasure. Here are the five (most important) reasons why interacting with people via Twitter, Facebook, blogging, or any other social media should be done exactly the same way one would interact with others face-to-face.

1. Be kind to others, and they will be kind to you.
2. Listen to what others have to say. Talking about yourself constantly is rude.
3. Be your own lovely, unique self. The minute you try to be something or someone else, everyone will see right through you.
4. Make sure everyone you care about knows you care about them. It makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside.
5. Follow your instincts, and beware of creepers.

If you would like more specific advice from people who know about it than I do, there are some really good links below, focused mostly on Twitter. Copyblogger is an awesome resource all around, by the way.

Writers Need Social Media by Joanna Penn
How to Build Your Twitter Followers by Cara Breeden
Twitter for Authors by Arielle Ford
How Twitter Makes You a Better Writer by Jennifer Blanchard

On a serious note at the start of a frivolous post, I hope everyone, regardless of where they’re born, is proud of their country. There are a million tiny reasons I’m grateful to be an American. Here are some of them:

There it is, friends. These are just the first things that came to mind—a short, lopsided, biased list of reasons why I love my country. And why I will not be pestering my French buddy to introduce me to all his single friends in the random hope of marrying a French guy.

This post is not about the glorious craft of writing at all. It’s not even about the heart-rending inspiration which lead me to write my previous, serious post about figure skating. This is all silliness. Let’s have fun!

As I was watching Ice Dancing on the Olympics the other night, I saw an American team, Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates, dancing in this:

Which is cute, to a certain extent. I’ve never really been a leather fringe kind of girl, but this isn’t a fashion blog. I wear blue shirts with jeans, who am I to judge? (By the way, if it’s a fashion blog you’re looking for, look no further than Go Fug Yourself.)

Then the music started. At first I didn’t think it would be that bad, because I’ve heard a few Dixie Chicks songs I liked. “Goodbye Earl?” Yes please. Then about a quarter of the way into the song, the Chicks sang:

“You cain’t afford no r-ii-ing…
I should be wearin’ white but you cain’t ‘ford no ring”

Oh, sweet Mother of Harmony. I’m assuming that in English, these lyrics mean, “I want to get married but you’re a broke loser.” No matter how well Samuelson and Bates skated, throughout their entire performance all I wanted was to do was either:

1. Call my friend who lives in France and beg him to smuggle me into his country and let me live in one of his friends’ wine cellars. You know, just until I get on my feet.
   
   OR

2. Put the damn tv on mute. I’m not good with authority, and I’m pretty sure that includes immigration officials. Also, I don’t have my friend’s cell number—he lives in France. We email.

So there it is. This has taken me so much time, I think I’ll save the actual lists for tomorrow: things that make me proud to be an American, instead of this. Which makes me want to live in a French person’s wine cellar.

A few words on Shen and Zhao.

I’m not an athlete, but I do love the Olympics. I can relate to those men and women, to their defiant optimism, faith, and passion.

This year Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo absolutely stole my heart. If you haven’t seen them yet, let me introduce you:

Their choice of music for the short program, “Who Wants to Live Forever,” tells their story. Here are the lyrics to this song, in prose:

…What is this thing that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us? Who wants to live forever? There’s no chance for us. Its all decided for us: this world has only one sweet moment set aside for us. Who wants to live forever? Who dares to love forever—when love must die?

But touch my tears with your lips, touch my world with your fingertips. And we can have forever. And we can love forever. Forever is our today. Who wants to live forever? Forever is our today.

Who waits forever anyway?

And what did this pair of soul mates decide, once they achieved the dream they’ve chased for eighteen years? To go home and have a baby. I hope that someday I’ll love someone that much.

Who wants to live forever? Who needs to live forever, when you can do so much with the time you have?

I have a problem.

I just wrote a story featuring a first-person female narrator and… werewolves.

What am I to do in our post-Twilight world?

I began Morgan in college. Originally it was a story about a girl who breaks her leg riding her favorite horse. She fights her way back to fitness and…snore. Two pages in I knew I was dealing with overdone material. But I liked my main character, with her tough name, and big truck. So I never gave up on her entirely.

Five years later I opened up the story and it screamed at me: “This is a werewolf story, stupid!”

Yes, my stories yell at me sometimes. Don’t feel bad for me. I yell back. I don’t generally write fantasy, but there was something about this story I just couldn’t resist.

I came immediately to two conclusions.

1. A story about werewolves is going to be in direct competition with Twilight. Especially since my heroine has a romantic link to one of the aforementioned loups-garou. (That’s French for werewolves, my darlings.) Another maddening, unintentional similarity is that my werewolves are good, not evil. Meyer did not invent the idea of the good werewolf, by the way. Just saying.

2. Twilight is no excuse for me to abandon this story, because apart from the superficial they’re nothing alike. No disrespect, but I happen to like my heroine a lot better than Meyer’s. Morgan is a strong, ferocious, kind, independent young woman. The story is about her facing all dangers directly, whereas much of That Other Series features the Heroine being shielded by either a Twinkly Guy or a Furry Guy.

(If I sound like I’m whining a little, I suppose I am. But truly, that’s not my intention. I have tremendous respect for what Stephanie Meyer’s done; she’s built an empire and I hope she rules it with an iron fist. I will not play the tall-poppy game with other women writers.)

I have every intention of sitting on this material for some time anyway. As I said, I don’t typically write fantasy. Since fantasy is, stupidly, still considered “genre” fiction, and I don’t want to be a “genre writer,” I’ll publish something non-genre first. When I finally get around to the publishing Morgan, the Twilight craze will have died down—if only because by then all the movies will be out and on dvd. It may be five years before I send this story out.

Okay, this is my point: I love my story enough to be protective of it. I don’t want it to be, “Oh, just another girl falling in love with a werewolf, you know? Only this time the werewolf gets the girl.”

Oh, and there are no vampires within a hundred miles of my story. Because vampires and I do not have diplomatic relations.

Being a review of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley.

I actually started this book a few months ago; I took it to read while I waited in line for a Hanson concert because it was small enough to fit in my purse. That day I only got through the wonderful introduction. I loved that Shelley spoke of reading over her text, and finding that certain passages reminded her of times by then already long gone. Whether she intended it or not, the introduction is a work unto itself. It speaks powerfully of the arc of a work’s creation (from idea to completion), and of the strong bond a writer has to his or her work.

I was fortunate enough to be totally unfamiliar with the movie versions of Frankenstein. I even thought “Frankenstein” was the name of the monster, not the doctor. So clearly I had no preconceived notions.

I had very little compassion for Victor Frankenstein. I found him to be a coward and a fool, two traits I despise possibly more than any other. I truly believe that if Frankenstein had only done what the “monster” asked—namely, given him a partner—none of the novel’s tragedies would have happened. I believe the monster would have been better than satisfied. He would have been whole. I could hardly bear to read the unprovoked cruelty the monster was treated with by everyone he met. But no one was as cruel as Frankenstein, who created him, abandoned him, and then refused to acknowledge him as anything but a demon. Reprehensible.

I would also like to say a word about the monster’s ugliness. Ugliness is a topic that fascinates me. How does our interaction with a person change once we decide that it is ugly? There a simplistic level to this, but I’m interested in the personal and spiritual aspects of it. What must it feel like to know without doubt that other people find you ugly? One of the great successes of Frankenstein is that it ponders these questions. The monster is not violent in any way until he is utterly rejected by human society. He is scorned only for his appearance. This cannot be stressed enough. Every single character in this novel assumes that Frankenstein’s creation is evil based solely on his looks.

There are precious few descriptions of what the monster looks like, and I’m sure that’s intentional. The biggest lesson I walked away with from Frankenstein was that NOTHING is so ugly as to deserve my hatred. I’ve read other critics who say that the monster is more human than Frankenstein, and before I read the novel I thought they were being extravagant. I was wrong. The “monster” is no more a monster than you or I would be in his place. It’s Frankenstein who deserves that curse, not his creation.

Recommended! And available here.

I’m no different from any other writer when it comes to starting stories. I start several at once, and most of them end up languishing in the “Unfinished” folder on my computer.

Naturally, finishing a story is a very big deal. It takes work, dedication, consideration. The first draft alone requires hundreds of hours of writing, several gallons of tea (each mug brewed individually), and a few pounds of popcorn.

The editing process takes at least five different highlighter colors, a week of sleep deprivation, an additional gallon of tea, and absolute silence from everyone on pain of death! (I’m not usually prone to melodrama, but there it is.)

When the excitement is over, after I’ve read the piece—no matter how long it may be— at least five times to catch all those pesky errors, I eventually have to step back and say:

Oh, my God. It’s done.

And then, my dear readers, a very real and scary abyss opens up before me. What am I gonna do now? I’ve finished the story. I can’t do anything I’ve been doing for the past six months. I end up wandering around stupidly like I’ve lost something and can’t find it.

Post-Story Depression, that’s what I’m calling it. It’s bloody inconvenient! I want it to stop now.

Disclaimer: I’m not making light of the very serious medical condition of Post-Partum Depression. Did I really need to tell you that?

This is a fantastic word! I like it so much I want to go back and add it to the story I just finished. (More on that later.) It is defined as follows by Apple dictionary:

eldritch |ˈeldri ch |
adjective
weird and sinister or ghostly : an eldritch screech.
ORIGIN early 16th cent. (originally Scots): perhaps related to ELF.

How can I possibly be such a big fan of Tolkien and not know this word? No matter—it’s mine now!

Being a review of Native Universe.

I bought this lovely book on a trip to the National Museum of the American Indian, which is part of the Smithsonian. I could write a lengthy post just about the museum, but since this is a writing blog I will try to restrain myself.

I have rather a large collection of books from museums. Unfortunately most museum books have rotten prose—in fact I often get the impression that it’s only there because the book looks “better” with prose than it would look if it were nothing but pictures.

Native Universe outshines every other museum book I’ve ever bought. There are huge, glossy photographs of artifacts that are in the museum, and many others that are not. But the biggest achievements in this book are in the prose. The book is split into three major parts: Our Universes, Our Peoples, Our Lives. Each part has about six pieces written by an individual tribal leader, scholar, or artist. There is a variety of subject matter, from history to ceremony to the evolution of ancient art forms in modern times. In fact, the healthy balance of traditional and modern material was what impressed me most.

Recommended! And available here.

…And guess what, my dear readers?

I’m perfectly okay with that! That may not be the usual reaction for people in my place. I’ve put a lot of hours into this blog, although the number of posts may not show it yet. I’ve mostly been trying to get it to look the way I want, but my dismal lack of html experience is holding me back in a big way.

Please do not be alarmed if you (you happy few) find this blog going through more metamorphoses than a patient’s diagnosis on an episode of House. Eventually I will figure it all out and it will:

Until then, once more into the breach, dear friends!