Today I had the most free time I've had all month

and the smallest word count. I don't even know ~ writing is hard. 

You guys, I'm afraid my 'novel' has no plot. I'm afraid it is just witty banter between a bunch of random 12 year olds and a ghost, at this point; and (in all honestly) the ghost is not holding up her end of these conversations. Of course, that's what half the banter is about - "stupid ghosts and their cryptic, ridiculous, non-clue-ish clues" .  The other half of the banter is between two 12 year old girls who used to be best friends and then something happened.

 I am not being coy by writing 'something happened'; I legitimately do not know yet. Mostly they're just aiming little poison barbs at each other, with the kind of precision that only (pre)teen girls -and particularly girls who know each other very well - can manage.

I'm trying to decide whether it'll be more awesome if their friendship just sort of... dissolved or if it completely blew up. There's certainly going to be blowing up somewhere, but I think, from my own experiences, that it's more realistic that friendships just kind of... break up, piece by tiny piece, in such dribs *and drabs, so slowly that you hardly notice it, you just feel little twinges along the way, and all of the sudden .... everything's different.

Especially when you're twelve.  I feel like twelve/thirteen/fourteen was a whole 'how the hell did the earth shift out from underneath me' kind of experience, and that's the feeling I'm going for with their friendship.  Of course, people handle that kind of thing in very different ways, and one of those ways (at least in my experience/in this book) is to be super sarcastic to each other.  My main character is a snarky little demon, and the other girl - who was dealing with the same things, but dealt with it by just... moving on, instead of being hurt -  is, now that they're thrown together again (courtesy of aforementioned ghost) is now surprised and hurt by the main character's reaction, and trying to hold her own.

This sounds so ridiculous, trying to explain it like this.  My whole point was... seriously, plot: wouldn't you like to make yourself a little bit clearer, because we still have 33,000+ words to write, and - as much fun as it is to write the sniping scenes - I have a feeling they'll get old pretty quickly. 

Also - I don't know how many of you others are writing mysteries, but how hard is it to write a mystery that is hard enough not to be instantly solvable via Google, but still easy enough for your characters to eventually figure out?  I am having the hardest time, but I've never attempted to write a mystery before. I hope that I'm getting a little bit of slack since they're, you know, 12, but Dang: Google, you are making mysteries very difficult to write!

*isn't drib a word? at this point I might as well be inventing my own language, and we're only  nine days into NaNo!, but I could have sworn 'dribs and drabs' was a saying - Google agrees, Blogger, so you lose!

I'll share what I like, where I like, Google: You're Not the Boss of Me.

I know I just talked about how much my internet was bothering me, you know, yesterday, but I've got another internet related complaint that I want to talk about today: The loss of Google Reader's like and share functions.  I didn't use the Share in Reader option too often, only for things I was exceptionally excited/depressed about, but I miss it just the same.  Mostly because I could follow other people, and their shares were usually amazing and awesome.  And I miss the ability to like things, because I could just press L when I liked something, and my reader would remember it for later, and I had all these requirements for starring something vs. liking it, and Google has messed all that shit up, because now I have to "S" all the things, and that's just not right. (Whatever: doesn't everybody sort their feeds into a million categories?)  

Google tells the detractors to the new Reader that there's a +1 button, and that it's almost exactly the same as share and/or like, but there's one big difference: In order to +1, I have to register for Google Buzz.  In order to register with Google Buzz (in my experience, and what I've been reading about other's on the web), you have to forgo any shot at internet anonymity.  In other words, I have to use my real name.  My Google Reader was just initials, and I was able to share stuff with two separate groups of people: People who knew me IRL and knew my initials, and I told them how to find my reader OR people who knew my G-Mail through this website and found me that way.  So I could share things with people, without sharing ME with people.

So I'm stuck with not sharing, and not liking, and so I came here to tell you that I don't like the un-liking and un-sharing.  It's stupid.  But, because this is my blog and I can put anything I want here, here are some things I would have liked or shared, over the past little while. 

This AMA Reddit thread, where my favorite astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson answers questions  (Which, technically did not come through my Reader, but my Reddit & Twitter accounts, but still: Is too much awesome not to share.)  Example of said awesome?  When asked about things that blow his mind:

2) That Quarks come only in pairs: If you try to separate two of them, the energy you sink into the system to accomplish this feat is exactly the energy to spontaneously create two more quarks – one to partner with each of those you pulled apart.  

How cool is that?  And how cool is it that I know that now, something about quarks?  I won't forget it either, which is why I heart Neil deGrasse Tyson: He makes science relevant and interesting.


 This post by the Smart Bitches, where they're asking for recommendations for books whose main characters have disabilities.  Because I am constantly reading these kinds of books, and want MOAR, and because the Bitchery manages not to drag out a lot of tropes that I can't stand (Magical Cures: No, Thank You), or, for the most part, calls out the tropes when they see them... Exception to this rule - some people there have recommended books by Catherine Anderson, because the heroines have disabilities.  While that is the truth, they are just... not good.  I refer you this recent Goodreads thread,  but also, just to common sense: the only thing these books are about is that the character is disabled.  So that's all the author has to talk about as far as those characters go.  She is "Girl in Wheelchair", "Blind Girl", "Deaf Girl" (and always girl, never woman); it is the sum total of her characterization, and the result is some horrible stuff.  Anyways, aside from that, a lot of good recommendations (I've read some, added some to my TBR, and will go back to mine it again.)  I can post some of the best, or links to my Goodreads reviews of them, if anybody's interested in some of the better ones. 

(And that last item reminds me that I haven't talked about the return of Barbara Gordon as Batgirl.  Which I am definitely going to do, as soon as I read the first three issues of Batgirl, to see how I feel her return is being portrayed.  But I can say, even though I haven't read them yet, that I already miss Oracle.  And what she meant to a lot of readers with disabilities, and specifically me.) 

And speaking of comic books, there's this article, regarding what one writer sees as the hypocritically sexist 'neighborhood' of superheroines.  She makes some points that I think are valid:

Most of all, what I keep coming back to is that superhero comics are nothing if not aspirational. They are full of heroes that inspire us to be better, to think more things are possible, to imagine a world where we can become something amazing. But this is what comics like this tell me about myself, as a lady: They tell me that I can be beautiful and powerful, but only if I wear as few clothes as possible. They tell me that I can have exciting adventures, as long as I have enormous breasts that I constantly contort to display to the people around me. They tell me I can be sexually adventurous and pursue my physical desires, as long as I do it in ways that feel inauthentic and contrived to appeal to men and kind of creep me out. When I look at these images, that is what I hear, and I don't think I even realized how much until this week.

 and others I can't comment on because I'm not an avid comic book reader, but it was definitely something to think about.  Comments not recommended, by the way: horrid. 


 This quote  

Those are the best things about having kids, is just those everyday, really funny, weird moments that you could never predict, that completely change your mood and, you know, open up your heart.

  and this photoset of Amy Poehler, that sums up exactly why I want to have a family. Why you'd put up with the colic and the clutter and the "oh my sweet jesus, why are you not wearing clothes-we have to leave right now and you are suddenly naked for no reason" and the "holy god you are only eleven years old, you do not get to pretend you know everything already" moments, just for a "My pleasure" every now and then.

On a more serious note, there's this HuffPo piece by Eve Ensler, which sums up pretty much everything I feel about rape and rape culture.  I'm over it, too. And neither of us is alone: here's Amalah's post about Penn State (her alma mater); and how over it she is as well. 

And two webcomics to round things out.  First up, from  Cowbirds in love :

Cowbirds in Love is awesome, in case you were wondering.

And lastly, from I don't know where, and I hate it when a backlink disappears: , which basically sums up my entire life right now.