Trading Yesterday – The Beauty and the Tragedy
Author: Autumn
I write 'n stuff.
Catharsis
Once, during a particularly stressful point in my life, I decided to get drunk. I chose an evening when I was alone and not likely to be disturbed, and settled in with my favorite bottles. After four shots of sugary liqueurs, my stomach called it quits.
I spent the rest of the evening hunched over the toilet.
I wasn’t miserable at all. It actually felt cathartic, to purge out all of the sorrows that I had endured in such a dramatic fashion. It was the only time I’ve ever experienced peace while vomiting.
Now, on those good days, when I can crank out over a thousand words in a comparatively short time, feel the same way: a cathartic purge. Those days help give me serenity and sanity with everything that follows.
Those days keep me writing.
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On Real People
I don’t base any of my characters off of real people, because, frankly, everyone I know is either so normal that it isn’t worth it, or so out there that I wouldn’t know how.
The thing about normal is that once you’ve met one, you’ve met them all. I already know what normal people think about every subject, because they all think and do the same things (quite deliberately, too). Hence, the whole normal part. If I write a normal character, he’s going to be based on the conglomerate of normal behaviors, rather than any specific individual.
Then there are the weirdos, who have wild anecdotes and even wilder beliefs. These are the people who are fun to talk to, because I don’t know what they’ll say or do next. That unpredictable element also makes them impossible to write, because I don’t know what they’ll say or do next. Can’t write what I don’t know.
All of my fictional characters are just that: fictional. I draw heavily from my personal study of psychology, but I never have any specific people in mind.
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Southern Cast Iron
I like to (semi)jokingly refer to myself as a fairy, given my penchant for wild mushrooms and secret acts of mischief kindness. I also have what I refer to as a curse when it comes to cast iron. Ergo, I am a fairy. QED. My logic is flawless.
Cast iron cooking is really yummy, so I’ve decided to make peace with my skillet. Yes, I know, I gave up on you and put you away in storage for a long time, but I couldn’t figure out why your seasoning kept flaking up. No, we aren’t going to talk about what happened to your predecessor.
I settled on this book, because I LOVE Southern cooking. I learned how to cook in the South.
The intro gives a basic rundown of cast iron care, and might have said some other stuff that I didn’t read, because nobody reads the intros. I found all of the recipes to be approachable as an amateur chef, though they definitely require more investment than mixing frozen foods with pre-made sauces.
I made the chicken pot pie.
I didn’t follow the recipe exactly. I brined my chicken before baking it, then used the meat drippings in the gravy. It turned out exquisite, but I definitely used a skill set that was not discussed anywhere in the book.
My complaint is that, although it’s supposed to be heirloom cooking, it calls for shortcuts like using frozen pie crusts. I would have liked to see recipes for pie crusts, biscuits, etc., considering that these are essential elements and have a huge impact on flavor. Seriously, pie crust only takes a few minutes, and Southern cooking is about feeding the soul. You don’t want a frozen soul, do you?
The desserts are even worse, using boxed mixes in lieu of any actual recipe at all.
3/5 starz
At this point, it’s still up in the air if I’ll manage to get along with my cast iron.
[Ed. note: the curse appears to be very real – somehow the contents of this (scheduled) post were transplanted onto a preexisting post, and retrieving it became quite the adventure.]
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Inner Voice
I have an extraordinarily loud inner voice, and I took it for granted that everyone had some sort of private dialogue with themselves, until I found out differently a few months ago. Read the title of this article, which says all you need to know. I still struggle with the idea, but it also explains why so many people have assumed that if I don’t say my thoughts out loud, my thoughts don’t exist.
I started off extremely shy, and once I was labeled as quiet, no one wanted to hear anything I had to say. However, that didn’t mean that I possessed an empty mind, so I’ve spent most of my life telling myself all of those thoughts that no one else ever bothered to listen to. In many ways, I was my only confidant during my formative years, and I suppose that my chatty brain is the natural consequence of that.
I often have a monologue going on in my brain. It doesn’t matter if I’m sewing or washing dishes, I’m always chattering away with myself in my head. I can even talk to my own fictional characters as if they were real. It’s one of those things that I don’t tell most people about, since they aren’t very likely to understand — I’m sure that a psychiatrist would have a field day with me.
Ultimately, that’s why I write: the Voice has to go somewhere. That’s also why I feel compelled to self-publish, instead of keeping my stories hidden away on a flash drive somewhere. At the end of the day, I’m still human, and I still want to feel like someone hears me.
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Love Triangles
Hate ’em.
My first exposure to the idea of two guys chasing after one woman was the TV series Christy. My mom watched it, and some years later when the movie, Choices of the Heart, was released, I was excited to watch it with her. I was partial to the reverend David, and found it disappointing when (SPOILER) Christy married Dr. MacNeill instead. C’mon! I didn’t like him at all!
Later, I realized that most love triangles have a clear winner early on, and the second guy is mostly just emotional gratuity.
In real life, the closest I ever came to unwillingly becoming the subject of attention from multiple guys ended so horrifically that it was a full five years before I associated with any non-family males again, and earned me the branding of “cold hearted bitch.” It was scarring.
As a married thirty-something, love triangles don’t do it for me. All I needed was The One, and I enjoy stories about people finding their One too, so I can reminisce and appreciate how lucky I am with my husband. It’s easy to spoil happily-ever-afters by wondering what would have happened if you had married a different guy.
I don’t pick teams or giggle when my guy scores points over the other one. I don’t eagerly tune in day after day to see which man the main character will choose. Despite the popularity of love triangles, I just don’t like them. I see them as a good way to alienate others and get hurt. Not fun. Not romantic. No thank you.
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Inspiration
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Poets of the Fall – The Sweet Escape
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Murder, She Wrote
I’ve been watching ‘Murder, She Wrote‘ in my downtime, and I’m currently halfway through season 2.
Occasionally I think that the main character, Jessica Fletcher, is too trusting. She hands high-priced items over to the police without ever once suspecting that anything less than honorable will happen to them, and she openly talks about her suspicions and plans to whoever happens to be nearby.
Of course, since it’s a TV show, she always has everything lined up perfectly whenever the bad guy tries to do bad things, and the day always ends with justice prevailing.
It annoys me deeply. Irritates. Vexes. Abrades. Perturbs. Etc.
Perhaps it’s a generation gap, or simply all too telling of many of my own experiences, but the amount of open trust without any negative consequences strikes me as implausible and naive. I want to grab Fletcher by the shoulders and shout, “KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!” The world is a dark and evil place, and there’s a murderer in your midst. Keep your wits about you, and maybe if you’re lucky you’ll survive into the next episode.
But that’s not the world portrayed in the series. That world is comparatively innocent and unrelatable for me.
That said, I do very much enjoy the episodes about writer culture. Them’s fun.
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The Hopeless Romantic’s Guide to Writing Captivating Characters
My Venus is in Pisces, which is the astrological way of saying that I’m the quintessential hopeless romantic. This was not a personality trait of mine that was ever supported during my formative years, and as a teenager I was frequently warned that I was setting myself up for disappointment; I was also told that I shouldn’t expect to get married.
When I talk about romance, I mean the earth-shattering, butterfly-inducing, dizzying, elevating, whirlwind of excitement sort. The kind that we’re constantly told doesn’t exist. That kind.
A major motivation behind reading is to enjoy stories that I can’t hear by simply talking to the neighbors (even if they are sordid and juicy). I like stories that are larger than life and inspirational; I just can’t find books like that.
Most romance novels are about an attractive, powerful, rich guy, and since I frequently indulge in that fantasy myself as a writer, I’m not going to knock it. It’s obvious why she would fall for him, but why does he fall for her? The heroines range from mediocre to psychotic harpies; with heavy heapings of selfishness on top.
That question, ‘Why does he fall for her?’ is often left unanswered, and that kills every chance of deeply capturing the spirit of romance. If I hate the heroine, I’m not going to empathize if she captures the attention of Mr. Mega Hunk. I usually declare, “This book is stupid!” and give it a bad review on Amazon. No vicarious butterflies, no point in reading.
When I write my female characters, I write them as someone that I could fall in love with myself, and I have zero interest in Anastasias or Bellas. Perhaps I relate to novels in the wrong sort of way, but I like to think that’s what differentiates me from the Mary-Sues.
My hope is that if I write a scene that gives me butterflies, others will experience that as well when they read it.
I am a hopeless romantic, after all.
By Autumn Rain 