Character sketch - the heroine Cynthia 2:32 PM

Buffy Summers

Two of my favorite heroines are Buffy and Xena, not only because they are badass babes, but because everything doesn't just come easy for them. Season after season, they endure all kinds of hardship and come out at the end kicking (and swearing)--the phoenix rising from her ashes. Maybe they are emotionally, mentally and physically scarred, but they keep on keeping on despite the fact that they are abandoned by friends and family and...you know...die. Sometimes twice. It takes some real grit to keep fighting evil after you're dead. Twice.

Xena Warrior Princess

I've always appreciated a strong female lead and was impressed that when Joss Whedon was asked: "So why do you write these strong female characters?" he responded with "Because you're still asking me that question." Yeah Joss. That's why I watch all your stuff. Also because it's awesome.
When I was little, I was completely enamored with Wonder Woman. Because first of all, she's an Amazon princess. Then you add the invisible jet, magic lasso of truth and bullet-repelling bracelets.... Plus, in comic books her hair is blue! What's not to love?
Today there are myriad strong female characters spouting lines like: "Touch me and that hand will never touch anything again," and "So are you going to kill me or are we just making small talk?" Any guy (or girl) who's been shot down by a woman, knows nothing stings quite as much as snarky words from a hot chick.

Wonder Woman

Yes, we've come a long way, but we're still in that awkward transitory stage where women can be badasses, but they're still required to wear impossibly revealing outfits and stilettos while doing it. One of my biggest beefs with Star Trek: Voyager, is that when they rescued 7 of 9, they took her out of her leather armor and combat boots and stuck her in a catsuit and stilettos. That doesn't even make sense. I know it appealed to the target audience (pimply males) but c'mon. Wedges at least. The point is, we still have a ways to go.

Inanna

Side note: one of my least favorite things anyone has ever said to me is, "Women are supposed to be soft."
Psh. What? "Supposed to be" by whose decree? Inanna the Sumerian Queen of Heaven wasn't soft. She's been around since 2,000 BCE. She is the goddess of love, fertility and lust, but not of marriage (burn!). She isn't just a love-them-and-leave-them type of goddess. She's a black widow. She's also the goddess of war (double burn!). Years later, legend has it that the badass Amazons hacked or burnt off their right breast so it didn't get in the way of their bow-pulling or javelin-throwing skills. They fought in the Trojan War and popped in and out of history in their badass fashion. See Herodotus' account of the Amazons settling with the Scythians:

Amazon Warrior

"The Amazons (also called oiropatas -- man-killers) were taken captive by the Greeks and put on board ship where they murdered the crew. However, the Amazons didn't know how to sail so they floundered until they landed by the cliffs of the Scythians. There they took horses and fought the people. When the Scythians figured out that the warriors they were fighting were women, they resolved to impregnate them and schemed accordingly. The Amazons didn't resist, but encouraged the process which was complicated by a language barrier. In time, the men wished the women to become their wives, but the Amazons, knowing that they couldn't live within the Scythian patriarchy insisted the men leave their native land. The men obliged and a new land was set up. These people became the SAUROMATAE who spoke a version of Scythian adapted by the Amazons."

- Herodotus Histories 4.110.1-117.1

They moved in, let the men make their babies for them and then kicked them out. Sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

River Tam

Because I grew up reading about the Amazons, I have a hard time being impressed by any heroine who lapses into a coma when her boyfriend leaves, falls in love with the guy who beats her up or hides under laundry when things get rough. I'm trying to be subtle here, but you probably know which books I'm referring to.
I've compiled a list (in no particular order) of some badass heroines from movies, TV and books who make me want to put my stilettos on and kick a bad guy in the face. They're not perfect, but that's okay. That just makes me love them more.

Trinity

• Ripley from Alien (has no need for an upper lip)
• Thursday Next from The Eyre Affair (engages in clever wordplay while fighting crime)
• Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs (6th greatest protagonist according to this)
• Medea from Medea (yeah, some of the stuff she did was a little messed up, but hey, she got to ride off in the Sun god's chariot!)
• The Bride from Kill Bill (looks great in yellow)
• Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter (strong and silent)
• Sarah Connor from The Terminator (has great arms)
• Dagny Taggart from Atlas Shrugged (has this site dedicated to reasons she is cool)
• Charlene Elizabeth Baltimore from The Long Kiss Goodnight (just a lot of butt-kicking)



The Bride

• Scout Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird (start young and stay strong)
• Sarah from Labyrinth (I would have run screaming at the first "'ello".)
• Hermione Granger from Harry Potter (smart and strong)
• G.I. Jane from G.I. Jane (looks great bald)
• The Duchess from The Duchess of Malfi (what's a girl got to do to get some peace?!)
• Maggie Fitzgerald from Million Dollar Baby (serious badass)
• Una from The Faerie Queen (pulls the Redcrosse Knight out of his funk)
• Eowyn from the The Lord of the Rings (doesn't take no for an answer)
• Lisbeth Salander from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (I don't want to &@$% with her. Do you?

Related articles, courtesy of Zemanta:

• Wonder Woman Confessions [CARTOON]
• Scythian History
• Herodotus Histories
• Costumes & Characters: The Life and Achievements of Joss Whedon

Character sketch - awesomeness Cynthia 4:34 PM

Awesomeness can be inherent or learned. It can be real or delusional (and delusional awesomeness is hilarious/annoying). The most awesome people I know are awesome because they're not trying to be. They're just:

1. really comfortable in their skin 
2. really good at everything they do (and reasonably humble about it)
3. persistently amazing friends

If someone happens to be all three of these, well then he or she has been fortunate enough to reach  Awesome Trifecta Status (or ATS)--the Bermuda's Triangle of Awesomeness, where anything lame magically turns to awesome at the touch of his or her hands. This is a great place to be. I've heard.

I thought about including a list of people I know who are awesome and the numbers of their corresponding awesome building blocks as mentioned above, but I think this will only:

1. alienate my friends who are not awesome and just now finding out (just kidding, ALL my friends are awesome!)
2. single out those of my friends who are awesome, but who have not yet attained ATS
3. boost the egos of my friends who have reached aforementioned status, thereby invalidating the parenthetical portion of #2 and creating an Awesome Paradox

Suffice it to say that I have been blessed with many awesome friends and continue to meet new awesomes as the world tumbles along. This planet is filled with them--sometimes cropping up where you least expect them--but you can find them if you are open to it. Often we get so caught up in our quest for internal awesomeness that we forget to embrace external awesomeness when we see it. Embracing it will only enhance our own, so grab it whenever you can--even if it's only for a moment.

That being said, the Awesome Trifecta is hard to find in real life. #1 is the kicker, usually. People tend to be weirdly insecure, and their insecurities keep themselves from reaching ATS. Because of this, I rarely write characters who are truly awesome. I tend to write those who get caught up in delusional awesomeness instead. True awesomeness is as elusive as true altruism, and therefore seems like fiction. And we all know that people don't like their fiction to seem like fiction.


Blog off.

Penumbra Cynthia 1:06 AM

When I was in sixth grade, I read more than 200 books and saw my first lunar eclipse. I remember it from penumbra to penumbra, not just the way it looked, so three-dimensional and amber, bulging out of the night sky, but the way I felt when I saw it. I remember knowing I needed to capture that moment somehow, that it was too beautiful to let pass without some kind of memorial. I didn't have a camera, so I sketched it (badly) in pencil on notebook paper. I wanted to never forget.

There have been times when I've felt so inspired to write that I almost couldn't do anything else, and there are times when I've felt I had no words in me. During the wordless times, I turn back to my first lunar eclipse and remember the way it looked. And the way I felt. And then I build on that memory. I remember where I sat that night and sketched at the sky. I remember the field in Texas behind my house, filled with tiny flowers stretching out endlessly. I remember the thunderstorms and honeysuckle and prickly pear. I remember that the world felt unexplored.

This year has been busy in a good way. I've scrambled from event to event. I've accomplished a lot, but stared blankly at my computer screen, notepads and Delta drink napkins. Where there would have been words, there is a flicker, a line, a smear of wine. But tonight I am remembering that field in Texas. I'm going back to the eclipse.

To 'E' or not to 'E' Cynthia 10:45 AM

Pagani Zonda C12

Hamlet forever wonders "to be or not to be." That is his question. I ask his question minus the bilabial--"to 'e' or not to 'e'."

Hugh Howey

While there are many benefits to self-publishing an e-book, there are also many benefits to being an A-list actor, having a Top Ten single or owning this car. True success in any of these areas seems just as improbable. I hear self-publishing success stories often--like this dude, but he seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Intensive investigation (a Google search) shows the average take for an e-book is less than a grand a year. (See this link for absolute proof.) Of course a lot of self-published e-books suck because the authors think it's all right to edit their own stuff, but still, the numbers are disheartening.

I could say I'm only interested in writing for the art of self-expression, and the truth is, I will write until the day I die of a coffee overdose, even if only ten people (my children, my friends and the people who are too scared of me to say no) read what I write, but I won't pretend it's not my ultimate goal to make a living off royalties from my myriad successful novels, the subsequent movie rights and merchandise generated by said novels.

I'm just putting that out there.

Have a nice day.

NaNoblivion Cynthia 11:07 AM

Three days left for NaNoWriMo and I'm desperately scrambling to write the last 10,500 words of my novel. I'm no mathematician, but that's a fifth of the book in a tenth of the allotted time. I've figured that's 3,500 words a day, which is approximately 14 pages a day. It's called procrastination, my friends. It's called Thanksgiving weekend wasn't as relaxing as I had hoped. It's called staying up until midnight if I have to.

But I still believe I can do it. In fairness, I still believe my ashes will be scattered in space when die, so take that with a grain of salt. But I still believe I can do justice to McFee and my protagonist I've named Bertha just because I don't know what her name is going to be yet.

Tangent: Bertha's easy to do a find and replace on. Maybe I'll call her Hashtag instead. Yesterday I read that someone named their baby girl Hashtag: Hey, at least you're not named Katniss, sweetie. But four of your kindergarten friends will be. I say when you have a baby, you should have to spin a wheel at the hospital to randomly pick a name for your child. Why should we get to choose our children's junior high school mockery? We already gave them their DNA makeup, which is a crapshoot, since attractive parents can make hideous children and hideous parents can make attractive children. But name your kid Hashtag and I'm not sure it matters how cute they are--their name is Hashtag. Right?

Maybe I'll keep Bertha as my protagonist's name. Maybe I'll change my name to Bertha. It's kind of grown on me.

On Evolution: Cynthia vs. Jason Sherman Cynthia 4:00 PM

This is a column that was published originally in March 2008. It was written in fun and is not intended as an angry rant on either side. 

Cynthia:

Millions of years ago, an amoeba oozed around in the ooze until it had a good idea. It turned into a fish, grew legs, walked on the land, climbed a tree (meteor crashed, dinosaurs died), climbed out of the tree, stood on its hind legs and became a man.

Woman arrived via taxi wearing heels and a tasteful scarf to keep the primordial ooze out of her hair.

It’s never been a neck-and-neck race. Evolutionarily speaking, women have always been a couple of millennia ahead of the men who missed their stop on the punctuated equilibrium bus ride of life. We were the first to not have hair on our backs or pee on the toilet seat, we were the first to groom ourselves and ask for directions and we were the first to realize it’s not okay to spit in public.

Women use their opposable thumbs for turning book pages. Men use theirs for mashing X-Box controller buttons.

Women use their pinkies to fine-tune their eyeliner lines. Men use theirs to dig stuff out of their ears.

It’s just painfully apparent that in the evolutionary scale, men haven’t made much progress—except those metrosexuals who have reached some sort of tentative evolutionary high based on the fact that they act, dress, talk and walk like women—they wax their eyebrows, swallow their expletives, gel their hair, wear great shoes and have learned how to read. They are considerate of others and don’t smell funny. Fortunately for women, these evolutionary hybrids have allowed us to continue reproducing with little or no harm to ourselves.

Any man reading this column (congratulations on your ability to read) is probably offended, but be honest, are you picking at your ears right now or scratching your butt?

I spent too many years picking greasy laundry up off the floor, prying mashed Skittles off pocket change and wiping little after-shave hair bits out of the sink. I spent too many years involuntarily watching Max X and Fear Factor out of the corner of my eye—watching him drink straight out of the milk jug and turn all the clothes pink. And guys—as righteous as your indignation may be, he’s not the only one. You’re doing something gross right now. You just won’t admit it.

Yes, I’ll admit that there are various incarnations of man/woman, woman/man, man/man and woman/woman. There’s always an exception to the rule, but bear in mind—it’s an exception. 

But it’s not too late to play catch-up. Just wait around for the next catastrophic world-wide event, and make sure you go with the flow this time. Come on. It’ll be fun.

Then well have someone to talk to.

Jason Sherman:

Contrary to popular belief, evolution isn't something that actually matters. There's the scientific community who postulate that we evolved over millions of years, the religious community who argue that Adam was the first man created by God, the scientific/religious community who argulate that God used evolution as a means of creating man, and then there’s the rest of the population who simply don’t care.

I'm with those guys.

Argument and debate are great things, as they inspire thought about different points of view, but at some point this particular argument got way too fanatical for its own good.

Honestly—people go insane over this. For some reason, the question "Do you believe in evolution?" has become akin to asking "Are you an atheist?" or "Are you a Christian?" Seriously people—we're talking about something that, if it’s true, takes place on such a huge timeframe that there is no possible way it would have any effect on any human, ever.

By the time evolution crops up again as a valid point of discussion for humans (in a Why-is-my-face-melting kind of way), I’m fairly certain the human race as we now know it will still resemble itself in the way a FOX News story resembles something that actually happened: not very.

We will probably have gone through seven nuclear winters, four Zombie Apocalypses, and at least three million more seasons of American Idol before any living thing has actually visibly evolved, and by then, we won’t remember what we looked like now anyway. (Sorry; I ran into a sort of paradox of tense there.)

What began as a simple conflict of theories mushroomed into a completely irrelevant Science vs. Religion SmackDown 2008. You might as well argue about the exact orbital patterns of galaxies, or try to understand the plot of Syriana. It would take way too long to know for sure, and isn’t worth the effort.

Whenever someone comes up to you and asks the question, (and the answer’s not, "Of course I’ll marry you!"), try to change the subject as fast as possible, or better yet, simply give them a good, hard slap.

No amount of discussion is going to change either party’s mind anyway, and this guarantees that:

1. They’ll never ask you about evolution again and
2. That they’ll think twice before asking anyone else. And come to think of it, anyone walking around looking for an argument deserves to be slapped. Hard.

On finding directions: Cynthia vs. Jason Sherman Cynthia 12:32 PM

This is a little light reading for my followers and other random readers of my blog. It's from a column that was published originally in April 2008 called "The Battle of the Sexists." Keep in mind, it was written before smart phones with built-in GPS became a thing. It was also written in fun and is not intended as an angry rant on either side. While your comments are appreciated as always, please be nice.

Cynthia:

I get lost a lot. It’s frustrating and embarrassing.

I didn’t get the internal compass that tells me which way is north. I thought I just had a horrible sense of direction. I didn’t realize I was missing vital parts. It turns out there’s a reason.

Some people have natural iron deposits or something in their noses that helps them know instinctively where north is. Now that I know this, I want iron deposit implant surgery—it’s not cosmetic, it’s a necessary procedure. (Will my insurance pay for it?)

Well, according to theregister.co.uk, CALTECH scientists found that human noses have magnetite, the same thing that bats, homing pigeons, migratory dolphins and honeybees have, that helps them find their way through the earth’s magnetic field. It’s a tiny, shiny crystal of magnetite in the ethmoid bone, located between your eyes, just behind the nose.

I am apparently magnetiteless.

Because of this, I hate driving in new places—I take my directions in the flavor of right or left. North and south mean nothing to me unless I can see our familiar Utah mountains. I MapQuest everything, but still frequently find myself driving off into oblivion.

It goes like this:

“Hi, I think I’m lost.” I say into my cell phone after I’m already 10 minutes late.

“Where are you?”

“I...uh...just passed Snickerdoodle Street.”

“Snickerdoodle and what?”

“Snickerdoodle and 4th.”

“Snickerdoodle and...what? 4th North? You’re in the entirely wrong city! How did you get there?”

Substitute different street names and that describes any of a number of my ventures into the wilds of America’s streets and freeways.

My brother has the same problem I do. Apparently the lack of magnetite in the nose is hereditary. But he found a smart solution to his problem.

Global. Positioning. System.

It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced. See, you plug it into your car, input the address, and it tells you where to go. Literally. A magical voice tells you when to turn and which way. It even says things like “left” and “right”. If you overshoot your mark, it corrects for you and recalculates your path. I feel now like I can conquer the world via freeway. Then I found out that it cost money, and gave up on my dream. I went back to MapQuest and somehow made it from Ogden to St. George, to Las Vegas, around Las Vegas, and home again. I found out along the way you can send the MapQuest directions to your cell phone—a happy compromise.

So, no. I don’t have any sense of direction whatsoever, but it’s not because I’m a woman, it’s because I’m a Loveland. It’s my father’s fault.

Jason:

For Spring Break my pal and I sojourned to the slightly smelly ultra-consumerist neon Mecca of Las Vegas. Not to have my trip ruined by failing to find the place (which would actually be an accomplishment unto itself, considering the city is like a radioactive blemish on the face of the planet), I nimbly jumped to a computer and, in turn, the Internet to procure directions on how to reach the 500-mile distant societal scab.

And instead of a complex list of twists and turns, instructing me to merge onto I-9whatnot, which gradually becomes State Road 274563, taking the right-hand turn onto Jeb Podunkers dirt road after 72.695 miles to cut over to west-bound I-9whathaveyou, a mere eight-step list appeared nearly instantaneously, and four of them were telling me how to get out of my own neighborhood. Step numbers one through seven combined for a grand-total distance of three miles, and number seven was comical in its simplicity: Turn left to merge onto I-15 S/I-84 E toward Salt Lake; Continue to follow I-15 S; Passing through Arizona, Entering Nevada—460 mi.

These days, you have to be really trying hard to get lost. In an age where helpful technology (as opposed to unhelpful technology—Microsoft, I’ll have a chat with you later) flows like running water, no excuses exist for even the lowliest non-tech-savvy 20th-century Earthican to get lost (and mom, I’m talking to you here: The Internet isn’t broken; there’s a binder laying across the keyboard).

In fact, we did get lost when we got to Vegas. Here’s the situation: Two Vegas-newbs show up at two a.m. in a city neither of them has ever been in, the person were supposed to be staying with has turned off his phone, and we have no idea where he lives. However, unlike your abacus-using auntie, we didn’t simply find the cheapest motel and bed down for the night (we’re two dudes—that would be just weird anyway: Me and Chris spent a night in a cheap motel in Vegas. Kinda a party-stopper, that).

Being the MacGyver-loving future-nerds we are, we simply whipped out his laptop and cruised the dark Vegas residential roads, searching for... are you ready for it? ... An unsecured Wi-Fi connection. Yep, there’s actually a reason to password protect it! Anyhoo, after finding one and searching through several phone-book Web sites to no avail, and even signing up for one of those background-check services, we finally found the guy’s address by phoning back to Utah and waking somebody up (although we did find out an extraordinary amount of other information about him, such as his income and previous residences).


A quick Googlemaps search (note: Google is awesome: Street View anyone?) later, and we had pinpoint directions to the exact geographic coordinate from where we were. Actually, it was like a well-calibrated missile, (as opposed to that out-dated term, a well-oiled machine) ... (And if you couldn’t tell by now, I really like parentheses.) ... (And who cares? Threes no rule against excessive parentheses use!) ... (And for those who don’t like it, archaic grammar usage is simply another thing that changing to become more efficient, just like the advent of highly-effective technology. (Take that Ms. Biddix!))

A Scribble in the Margins Cynthia 6:26 PM

One of my bookshelves

When it comes to clothes, I'm pretty cool. When it comes to hairdos, I'm updated. When it comes to music, I can rock anything from Fun. to Simon and Garfunkel to Mozart. But when it comes to books I'm a grandma. I resist the e-book. I resist the move from paper to electronic.

When I moved in December, the first boxes I brought to the new place were full of books. Pounds and pounds of lovely books. Before we decided where the dishes went, or who slept in which room, the books all had a home on their shelves around the fireplace. I love my books. I love the way they smell. I love the way they feel. I love they way they look.

My friend gave me a Nook for Christmas. I accepted the gift gratefully, downloaded a bunch of free e-books and took it to the gym with me. Admittedly, it's easier to take on a plane than the hardcopy version of Duma Key, and easier to tote around the gym than Shogun, but I still wasn't sold.

See I'm a writer.I've known since I was eight years old that I would be 

published some day--that someone somewhere would hold my book in their hands and be as intrigued by it as I was by A Wrinkle in Time or The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Someone would dog-ear my pages and lovingly place my book back on their shelf when they were done. Someone would loan my book to their friends. My book.

But I find myself considering e-publishing. I have three books that are done and they've just been sitting around collecting dust. I'm pretty sure I'll do with A Scribble in the Margins, but I'm not positive yet. This doesn't mean I'm going to bypass an editor. I think that's irresponsible, but the idea of having someone e-hold my e-book in their actually hands has got me kind of excited. I'm considering some different marketing strategies and with the help of my friends, I think I can sell enough copies to make a splash.

Still I wonder. Am I evolving or giving in?