Tag: journal

About Writing

Pagan marriage advice

Autumn

As a romance author, I keep an eye on the trends for relationship/marriage advice. Most of it comes from Christian sources.

I once listened into a social audio conversation that was ostensibly about secular marriage, but the general consensus of the group was that, if you truly loved someone, you would go away so they could focus on their career. If I had a smarmy salesperson personality, I would have taken the opportunity to pitch my novels to them as romantic escapism, because that is some hardcore dedication to loneliness.

Anyway

I have a unique perspective, because while I grew up Christian, I married as a Pagan.

The overwhelming impression that I get from Christian sources is that the women are too picky when it comes to men. I guess they aren’t getting hitched because no one is good enough.

Once upon a time, during my early days of marriage, someone pulled out his Bible and read a lot of verses about the sort of wife I was supposed to be. Heck if I can remember much about it, but by the time he started reading about how I was supposed to earn extra money to help with the household finances, I knew beyond a doubt that I would have to develop a serious cocaine habit in order to have that much energy. I have never come close to being a perfect biblical wife.

Thank god I don’t believe in the Bible. (har har)

But lets go back even farther, to when I was a Christian teenager. This was when I really began to shine as a misfit, because when my church leaders advised me to date around a lot and aim to marry as close to perfect as I could, but I was more like, “Husbands are human beings, and marriage isn’t like buying a car.”

Yeah, I was bullied rather badly in church. Can’t imagine why /sarcasm.

But apparently, plenty of other women took that sort of advice to heart, and now the Christians are moaning that they aren’t getting married at all.

I think my husband is pretty great. I won’t go into slathering specifics, but he’s wickedly smart, he helps take care of me, and he plays with the kids — I can’t imagine wanting to be married to anyone else. He also doesn’t fit any of those bullet point lists that I was given in church during my teen years.

He cusses, he loves a good whisky, and he doesn’t believe in God.

Oh no!

But I fall short, too.

I go to bed with dirty dishes still in the sink. 😀

So we’re a couple of heathens who take our children to the park on Sunday instead of church. We’re happy.

Marriage isn’t shopping for a car, and you shouldn’t go out with a list of requirements, make comparisons, then pick the one with the most cup holders. Marriage is building a deep bond with another human being. A connection between souls.

And stop blaming women for being what you raised them to be.

About Me

Posture

Autumn

I’ve dun gone and murdered my foot through slovenly treadling at my spinning wheel.

Okay, so it’s mostly fine, but every now and then I get a stabbing pain if I step wrong. That would be the tendons screaming at me.

As a Millennial, no one ever impressed the importance of posture on me during my childhood. Quite the opposite, actually, since I was told that I held myself unnaturally straight, and was therefore uncomfortable to be around. In an effort to “fit in,” I taught myself to slouch.

Now that I’ve realized the reasons why people historically cared about posture, I regret doing that. Unfortunately, childhood habits like that tend to creep in the moment I stop watching. I wish that just one person has said, “Good on you,” back when sitting straight was easy, so I wouldn’t have felt like a freak for it. Could’ve saved myself from a lot of pain.

Anyway, I wasn’t paying attention to my foot on the treadle of my spinning wheel, and now after a mere year and a half of using it, the bad practice has caught up to me. I need to correct my errant ways.

Though in my defense, my learning materials never mentioned anything about peddling with your entire foot.

About Writing

Currently

Autumn

I had intended to post 1000-word installments of The Scions every other week, which seemed like an easy goal.

As it turns out, my life is currently a little too hectic to pull that off.

I’m not even averaging a 100 words a day.

More like, “I wrote a sentence and fixed up some word choices today.”

But that’s how it currently is. I don’t mind — it always feels like one of the largest miscommunications that I’m always struggling with is that other people don’t understand how much I love the journey. Life is too interesting for me to complain about how I don’t have the time or energy to write much these days. Besides, this is basically the reason why I don’t do deadlines.

The story is still very much on my mind, and I have no intention of abandoning it (not than anyone wants to read it anyway), it’s just coming more at a drip than a steady flow.

About Me

Dear Diary

Autumn

Heaven help me, the toddler has learned how to use doorknobs. Today she put on her shoes and tried to head out the front door to play, all on her own. Need to keep a close eye on that one.

The baby is two months old already. Time is flying by, yet I barely remember living without him. I love his smile.

Summer is in full swing. The freezer is stocked with popsicles and ice cream to help beat the heat, and the splash pad has been dug out from the garage. The children are running rampant. Surprisingly, the first sunburn of the season wasn’t mine (for once).

But I did get sunscreen in my eyes, ha ha.

Yeah, I’m kind of a dork.

There’s no such thing as too much potato salad.

Observations

Pollen

Autumn

It’s time for my seasonal allergies, and I don’t know if it’s socially acceptable to sneeze in public or not.

Will I get lynched?

I haven’t checked the news in like … two years.

About Me

11 Years

Autumn

For some strange reason, WordPress thinks that I registered on June 5th, 2011. The first post I made with this account is actually dated November 14th, 2010, so I haven’t the slightest clue where this “anniversary” came from.

In June 2011, my husband and I were living in San Diego. We had been together for about a year and a half, shit had officially hit the fan, and all of my prior friends and family were eagerly letting me know how much of an epic failure I was … Just in case you were wondering where my cynicism came from.

I have nothing good to say about 2011.

We were so far down on the nobody list, random strangers confessed their deepest, darkest secrets to us — I’m pretty certain they told us things that they wouldn’t even tell their therapists. This became a huge influence on the direction I ended up going with my life, and shaped many of my inner philosophies.

Southern California was hideously expensive, so we left at the end of July. We haven’t visited since, or even considered the possibility of vacationing there. I’m sorry, but the price of milk was absurd back then, and it’s only gotten worse.

I’m not even going to mention gas prices.

About Me

Dear Diary

Autumn

My lips are finally getting some color back, and I’m managing to make it through the day without a nap. Yesterday I had enough energy to put Baby Boy in the sling and bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

That’s the secret to getting anything done with a newborn, you know: Baby wearing. I like the carriers made out of soft, stretchy fabrics. The other secret is nursing pillows, for sit-down projects like knitting or writing.

I’m craving a slow cooked pot roast with plenty of potatoes and carrots, so we’ll aim for that next.

But no onion.

Onion always results in a fussy baby with a gassy tummy afterwards.

About Me

Dear Diary

Autumn

I finished off the liquid iron that I was on, and have since taken a small step backwards in my recovery — I lost enough blood during my last labor to leave me anemic. I’m mostly feeling a little more tired, and a little more out of it mentally.

I’m torn on continuing another round of liquid iron, but I hate the taste. I’ve decided to see how the chelated pills treat me, and I have no plans on physically exerting myself any time soon.

I also need to do a bit better on keeping up with my hydration, but the kids keep drinking all of my electrolyte stuff every time I mix up a pitcher, lol. Maybe I should get a bigger pitcher.

Baby boy likes having his hair stroked.

I spent some time poking around my crafting room yesterday, and I have Way. Too. Much. Yarn. Need to do something about that.

About Me

Live Grenade

Autumn

The best marriage advice I’ve ever been given wasn’t intended as such at all.

Actually, I overheard Some Old Guy warning my husband that being married to a woman was like having a live grenade in your pocket.

And I decided that I didn’t want to be the sort of wife who was remembered as the psychotic ex, turning her husband into a 60-year-old MGTOW and alienating her children.

Turns out, the simple resolve to not randomly explode has made me extremely atypical.

About Me

…

Autumn

I’m really glad that I wrote Alice and the Warden.

Since I’m expecting #6, I’ve been ravenously hungry for stories about pregnancy and babies. Heck, I even watched Bridget Jones’s Baby, even though I don’t remotely care for the subgenre.

Unfortunately, the majority of stories love to revolve around the “pregnancy is shameful and/or dangerous!” trope. Either female characters are moaning about how their life is over, or it literally comes close to ending because of some pregnancy related complication.

Aaaand it doesn’t stop there. After the baby is born, there’s the constant complaining about how a helpless human needs someone to care for it — as if being depended on is the worst thing that can happen. “Woe is me! I can’t be selfish all the time anymore!”

It’s so sickening.

Especially because I know women who are like that in real life.

Me? I’m the sort of person that wears jewelry that depicts pregnancy. I firmly believe in honoring the Divine Feminine, and rant about how our Christian-normative society demonizes the most powerful magic women possess: the ability to create new life. Not everyone thinks that the very existence of humanity is something shameful.

While the homebirthing community has plenty of women similar to me, none of them are writing novels. Too many of them have gone off-grid, I guess.

I’ve spent the last several months trying to find decent stories about pregnancy and babies, but now I’ve given up. I’m reading my own novel.

Alice is so sweet and loves her family so much, it’s like a breath of fresh air. Finally, a character who is full of hope and doesn’t hate everything about life.

In a very literal sense, I wrote that novel for myself.