#Tamaryn Does DC

As I write this, I'm sitting in a Cosi wondering about the intelligence level of the girl who handed me my quiche. I don't mean to be rude, but it's probably not the best idea to wrap up a hot quiche with melted cheese in paper and THEN aluminum foil. Maybe, and this is just a suggestion, wrap it in the tin foil first. #Justsayin'

Anyway, I'm in DC on a bit of a book sabbatical. I came here to do a bit of research (when I'm done at Cosi, I'm heading over to the Library of Congress). Not only am I going to get up close and personal with something that takes a major part of my book, I've also been lucky enough to secure a meeting with one of the curators at the Smithsonian museum who will aide me in my quest of finishing this crazy story idea of mine.

So I'm sitting here trying to suss it all out.

I've never been to Washington DC. Not even on one of those high school group tours the kids take. So I'm being all urban this week--traveling by metro, walking everywhere, and all that. So what's been my experience thus far??

I like DC. I didn't think I would, but I do. There's a lot about city life I don't like. It's noisy and you have to pay millions of dollars for a backyard. But I could like DC. It's freakishly clean. I've been to a lot of big cities and DC takes the cake on clean. I have not seen one piece of trash on the street since I've been here. Not one. Not even like a discarded Metro ticket.

There's a lot to do here. Like. A lot. You'd need years to see all this city has to offer. You could eat in a restaurant every night for ten years and not have to eat at the same one twice. Crazy. And seriously, hello museums and libraries and love of knowledge. Smithsonian. Library of Congress. Squeee!

So I'm really trying to live it up while I'm here. While also taking it very chill. All this walking is hard for an old girl like me. (I'm in my late-twenties, but I have the internal organs akin to an 80 year-old.)

Housecleaning:

I do plan on posting a video later today, so look for that.

And also, there's a good chance that I'm going to be moving this blog to something else. I haven't figured out the logistics of it, yet. But when that happens I'll let you know.

Now... I'd better get back to writing.

Ushering in 2010: Wherein I reflect and resolve

You may recall that my birthday is December 31st, and so it is with every birthday I reflect upon the great meaning of my life and resolve to make changes where changes need making.

A lot has happened to me this past decade!

On my 18th birthday, I partied like it was 1999 -- because it was.

Everyone remember Y2k? Well that year, I graduated high school and headed off to college.

In August of 2001, my Paternal Grandfather died. This was my first real experience with death, but it wouldn't be my last.

Just few weeks later, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center, 1 plane crashed into the Pentagon and another crashed in rural Pennsylvania. That's when I learned what "tragedy" and "fear" truly meant.

In 2004 I graduated College. A month later, my Maternal Grandmother died. Also during this year I moved to Chicago and I saw the end of my relationship with The Nomad. At a time when I should have felt most hopeful about my future I was so full of despair.

Early 2005, My Maternal Grandfather died and I was still dealing with my feelings for The Nomad. I also had moved back to Grand Rapids and taken a job in an in-house advertising and marketing group.

The next chunk of time between 05 and 09 were spent growing up still. I bought a condo started freelancing for myself. And it was during this time I really started to define myself.

At the end of 2008 I stumbled upon my book idea.


Now it's the end of 2009.

My book is not finished but it's going really well. It's the most exciting thing I've ever done for myself. I hope that one day everyone will have the chance to read it.

Also during this year I rekindled my love for Karate. In 2010 I hope to have made it to brown belt.


So now it's 2010. How do I feel? Hopeful.

I think 2010 will be the year of opportunity for me. I think I will have broken through the challenges I face in my career. I think I will have let go of the things holding me back, even if that means taking huge risks.

I hope that will have achieved more variety and more opportunities to be challenged.

I know that I will be well on the path to seeing my printed name inside a Barns and Noble.*


So raise your glasses to 2010, my friends. Here's to a year full of opportunity and promise. To taking risks. To being true to yourself. To writing what needs to be written and saying what needs to be said. To a year of handwork that will finally pay off. To making a name for yourself. To possibilities. To never being bored!


* I used to Freelance write for Anime Insider Magazine and would buy copies at Barns and Noble just to see my work in print.

Opportunity is knocking. Are you listening?

Opportunity can be like being the 50,000th customer and getting one of those giant checks, balloons, and confetti as door prizes. The right place at the right time. If you're anything like me, that never happens. I don't even score the free breakfast sandwiches in McDonald's yearly Monopoly game. (Which really sucks because those Sausage Egg McMuffins are addictive!)

I don't have time to see if I'll roll double sixes and land on Boardwalk. Just deal out the properties and lets get on with it! I abduct Luck; I have to make my own luck...or lead it where I want it to go.

Today, my Ranters, I'm going to teach you how.

Rule Number 1: Don't Be Afraid

Too often I meet people who don't try to cross the road without a crosswalk. They don't take risks. They're too afraid to let people see who they really are or what they want. They're too afraid to ask mom for a cookie out of the cookie jar.

How can you get anything sweet if you don't go for it? Maybe it's telling the hot guy that holds the door for you when you walk into the office in the AM, (you know the one...you don't say anything because you're too busy wiping up that spindle of drool hanging off your lip) that you like him. Maybe it's applying for that dream job your after--for the sixth time. Maybe it's sending the Facebook invite to your ex and attaching a personal note calling for a truce. Maybe it's none of those, but it's important to you.

The point is if you're too afraid to throw the line in, you're never going to catch any fish.

Rule Number 2: Don't Take No for an Answer

OK you told the hot guy you like him and he turned you down. OK so you didn't get the job you wanted--for the sixth time. And, OK fine, maybe your ex wrote you back and said "he's not giving you your unique collection of sea glass back (Because he used it to tile a table for his living room). Yes, those all suck. But you don't have to take 'em lying down!

Next time hot guy holds the door for you, walk through backwards shaking your head. Accessorize it with your, "see what you're missing out on" face. If he doesn't rethink his, no, he'll at least know you're making a statement. It might be the wearing white after Labor Day statement, but it's a statement. Hold your head up. Even the hottest guy in the world isn't worth looking at your feet.

If you didn't get that job you wanted. Try again. Keep trying until they run out of options. Don't be rude. Don't tell them they made a mistake. But keep on them! Don't give up. Show them you're not afraid of a little 'no.' Show them you're not embarrassed they rejected you. Rejection-smection. They'll either realized what they missed or in the process you'll discover another path that's even sweeter.

And if your ex used your sea glass to make a table, have one of your mutual friends "accidentally" knock it over at his next Super Bowl party. We both know he's lazy and won't go through the trouble to fix it. You'll have that sea glass back in no time.

Rule Number 3: Be Flexible

One of the best ways to make your own luck is to have 8 lobsters on the boil. Have more than one goal. More than one dream. Don't get stuck on one if it doesn't work out. Be open. If you're open to what the Universe is throwing at you, you'll start to see all the [metaphorical] $20 bills sticking out of the muddy puddle on the side of the road. Good things happen when you collect enough of them.

Hot guy my not be so hot in 20 years. Hot guy might someday be fat and bald. It happens to the best of them. But the really nice guy in Accounting (The one who needs a new hair cut and someone to burn his purple paisley shirt) is always going to be nice. And with a new hair cut and a green stripped shirt he might just be a super hot guy incognito.

And your ex? Let's face it. He wasn't treating you like his $2,000 golf clubs. More like the left overs he had for lunch--plus he forgot to wash the plastic to-go container. Gross! You didn't need to put up with him then any more than you need to now. The longer he's weighing you down...the longer it's going to take before you can get Accounting Guy a new hair cut.


In Short: Just be Happy...by any means necessary.

I confess! I have a Fan Fiction Addiction!

The last year or so I've really become addicted to fan fiction of a particular German television show. It's not the first time I've read fan fiction in fandoms, but this is probably the one that I've stuck around with the longest.

However, as much as I enjoy reading a good fan fiction there are things I absolutely abhor. Since I am a writer I thought I would share some of my thoughts on the pros and cons of fan fiction and the things that bug me the most.


Fan Fiction is a great way to test your writing skills. It's a genre of writing to find out how well can you craft a sentence, how well can you generate plot, how well can you describe, and how well you're able to show and not tell. It's also a great way to practice formatting and other areas of the writing craft.

However it also seems to be place were people ramble on for pages with absolute dribble. It's a place where people often spew out a plot that is absolutely nothing like anything resembling the source material. There's no excuse for this!

Writing fan fiction takes away a lot of the really hard stuff. Your characters are already developed. You already know what they look like and how old they are. You know what motivates them. You know this because someone else figured this out for you.

Now, I've seen some great fan fictions that have taken characters and put them in a whole other world and time period where the characters are different from the source material...because they have to be. However, the world is so convincing and well put together it doesn't matter how off the characters might be...they work in this new construct.

What doesn't work, however, is when you take a hard character and make him soft. When you take a soft character and make him hard. Now you're just messing with the foundations. I get that maybe you want to see (or read) these hard characters have a break... but if you're going to write it needs to be believable. There has to be a strong set up and strong motivation to change a character's core.

I cannot stand reading fan fiction where the characters I have come to know and love say things they would NEVER say and CRY at things they would NEVER cry about. Or just randomly CRY when they never would.

Fan fiction or not, I cannot stand writing where plots are forced. Plots should never be so bad I have to choke them down.

Last night, I was finishing up Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. There is a small hole in my wall where the corner of my book met with the drywall. I threw my book. Not because I didn't like the book, but because I was so invested in the book and in the characters and in the world that when I read chapter 103 I was SO PISSED at Dan Brown I hurled my book at the wall. That's good writing! To get that mad at an author means the author did his/her job. It means I cared. (And eventually, I cared enough to keep going and love Dan Brown again in chapter 112.)

There are VERY FEW fan fiction writers or REAL fiction writers who can accomplish this. It takes practice. PRACTICE. PRACTICE. It takes studying the craft and not just writing down a bunch of words. It takes writing sentences and not just a bunch of fragments that pretend to be sentences.


Fan Fiction (and fiction writers in general) HEED THIS ADVICE!


There's no excuse for bad formatting!

There is a proper way to write dialog. Every other way is wrong. Go to the library and get a writing text book. They're not hard to find.

Every time a new person speaks, they get a new paragraph. You cannot! have two people talking in the same paragraph. You HAVE to break it up. There are comma rules and quotation rules you need to follow.

Dialog needs to sound like the way people actually talk! And your characters need to sound like themselves. It's one of the few times where fragments are permissible.

Use transitions! There is a natural flow to story telling that people just seem to skip in their writing. Things have to flow from one thing to the next. In film they use visual cues or voice overs to tell you when there is a change. They'll do a fast cut or a ten second fade. In writing, you have to get your reader there with words. Again, and I can't say this enough, a good writing text book will help you with this.

SHOW DON'T TELL! There are times when you absolutely have to tell but that's not the majority. Don't tell me how a character is feeling. SHOW ME! Which is more powerful?

A) Christian felt sad.

B) In the darkened living room, Christian let his body drop heavily onto the couch. Letting out a deep sigh, he reached for a pillow in which to bury his face.

Just as it is in real life, actions speak louder than words.

EDIT!*

In a world with spell checkers and online grammar sources... your fan fiction should be near perfect, if not perfect, before you hit "publish." Know the difference between Two, Too and To. Know when to use their, there and they're. Use the correct words. Yes, I'll know what you mean... but I'll probably lose a little respect for you if you mix up loose and lose. Just sayin'



If you're going to write. WRITE.

If you're writing for you then... fine OK, you're allowed to write crap. But if you're publishing your fiction for an audience to read.............then put some effort into it. Ask a writer you respect for feedback. Put together a critique group. A good critique group is going to give you honest feedback without making you feel stupid.

And please, know your audience.

*I don't get worked up about this in an IM conversations or on sites like Twitter. That's a different mode of communication all together and just like the spoken English it's modeled after... it's not always perfect.

Electronics are revolting against me.

Yesterday morning, I was working on my laptop when suddenly it froze. It stayed that way, grinding, for fifteen solid minutes. It was stuck at 7:07am while the clock on my cable box had moved on to 7:17. Normally, I'd just turn it off. I couldn't this time. I didn't know if the document I had been working on was saved or not. It was something I couldn't loose. So when my laptop finally burps and unfreezes there are lines in the LCD screen. After I saved my document, I did a restart... yup the lines are still there. Great.

So today I reached for my iPod. Turn it on...scroll around the menu looking for some Lady GaGa when I notice a line going horizontal across the screen of my iPod. WHAT THE HECK ELECTRONICS?

I should maybe step back a few and explain that I may in fact have the touch of death when it comes to these sorts of things. I can't own a DVD player for more than a year because they break. I don't do anything to them! They touch me and die. Just ask my mom!

One time...my mom and I rented an Elvis movie Change of Habit (if you haven't seen it... YOU NEED TO!) I powered on the DVD player, ejected the tray, placed the DVD in and then pressed play. The movie played. My mom and I ate popcorn. Then when the movie ended I clicked the menu button on the remote and all hell broke loose. The DVD player froze. I waited a few minutes and finally my mom says, "just try turning it off." I did. It never turned back on.

So I'm actually starting to think that maybe I'm just one of those people whose electrons are more destructive than most. Maybe I need to wear rubber, electron-neutral gloves when touching things plugged into a wall?

Thoughts? Suggestions? Do any of you Ranters have this problem?
Leave 'em in comments!

Rats! Foiled Again!! Why can't manufactures make what I want?

I'm looking to purchase a new camera. I've been in need of one for an extremely long time. I haven't owned a camera since film was the norm. There's been lots of reasons why, from too poor to just hadn't found one I loved.

Then I found the one I loved... but a little too late.

I want the Nikon Coolpix P80. While it doesn't pack the Zoom that its replacement the Nikon Coolpix P90 boasts, it takes photos with much more "punch." The colors in the P90 are washed where as the color from the P80 are bright and crisp. Naturally I want bright and crisp. I don't need a camera that is also a telescope.

But alas, Nikon has discontinued the p80 and despite telling the guy at BestBuy I would kiss him if he found one for me, I haven't had much luck in finding one. I've come close. I found one online retailer who had a brand new one and could sell me the same warranty that BestBuy sells...only I was an hour too late.

Clearly, God does not want me to own this camera.

And so it is, I am still without a Camera.

*Shakes fist at Nikon!*

When are manufacturers going to understand that a) some people don't need a lot of "features" added to their camera. I don't need an HD video camera built into my stills camera *gives Sony the shifty eyes* and I don't want to pay for it. I don't want zoom that allows me to see the nose hairs on an ant--not if it sacrifices the picture clarity and color. Maybe other people want those things or are willing to pay for things they don't need, but I'm not them.

Now, I know I'm going to get a bazillion comments on how I should get an D-SLR. That's great. But right now, I don't want an D-SLR. I don't want to be bothered with changing the lenses. I need something quick. I need something that is ready to go if there's a humming bird drinking nectar at a hibiscus tree.

And yes, I want more zoom than a pocket camera (and a damn view finder!) but I will never understand why manufacturers have to go beyond what is necessary.

I may have found a cure...

If you've read my previous post, you'll know I die a lot in my dreams. Well...I think I figured out a cure. Night-lights. I started thinking about what might be triggering them and the nights during which I don't have dreams that wake me up in a panic. The pattern I started to see was lighting.

I have a pretty bad habit of falling asleep on the couch (laptop on lap). However, never during these nights do I have the kinds of horrific dreams I usually have. The only difference is that when I fall asleep on the couch the lights are on. Both my couch and my bed are insanely comfortable.

About a week ago, after I had dragged myself up the stairs and into my bed, I could not fall asleep. I was dreading the dreams I might have. Every movement of my sheet or itch of my skin sent death-dream signals to my brain. In an effort to sleep, I turned on the bathroom light. Worked like a charm.

Now, I'm not afraid of the dark. There isn't anything in the dark that is going to hurt me...but there is something calming about having a light on.

Then I started thinking back to growing up. When I lived in my parents house, my mother was notorious for staying awake into the wee hours of the morning. (A trait I inherited.) So all those nights I was trying to get to sleep 99.9% of the time the hall light shone through the cracks between my door and the door jamb.

The other day I purchased some LED night lights. I haven't had one bad dream or trouble falling asleep since. So...even though I feel a bit like a seven year old...I'm keeping them.