Of Chuck Wendig and Meninism

My love of Chuck Wendig is no secret. Quotes like the following are the reason why:

Men who think they've been victimized by feminism are like burglars who sue the homeowners they were burgling because they stubbed their toe on a fucking coffee table.
-Chuck Wendig

YESSSSSSSS! Yes.

Yes.

Read the full post here.

Of Toddlers and Truisms

I follow a lot of different writers for a lot of different reasons. On social media, I mean. Not in an unmarked panel van down dimly lit streets or anything like that.

Don't mind me, I'm just chilling in my Stalker Van

Photo credit: djwudi via photopin cc

Some offer great craft advice, some are business savvy gurus, and some are living the type of career I want. Then there are a few who are just the entire package. For whatever reason, I can identify with what they're saying, whether it's about writing, business, or any of the random absurdities that make up life in general. One of the authors on my "must-read" social media list for precisely this reason is Chuck Wendig. His foul-mouthed, no holds barred approach to discussing writing, life, and the writing life works for me. One particular post had me rolling this morning.

Anyone who knows me knows that The Boy (my number 1 and only progeny) is a toddler. Actually, he'll be turning 2 in just under 2 weeks. Chuck has a child around the same age. Being the parent of a toddler immediately places you in community of toddler parents, or Parents of Toddlers, Stressed & Delirious (PTSD for short, and no the acronym is not an accident). We've seen the battle, been on the frontline for more tantrums than we care to count, and we have the battle scars and clothing stains to prove it. Those who have come before us, who've raised their respective offspring into adolescence, teenagerdom, or even adulthood remember the toddler years and sympathize, but they often do it through the rose-colored lens of memory and time passed. Or, they all-too-well remember the fresh trials each new phase of advancement brings and truly miss the simplicity of a 45 minute sobbing fit brought on because the doggie walked too close to the toy truck and in Toddlerlandia (where logic dare not go) this breaks all rules of decorum and is punishable by wailing. Wailing, incidentally, is the primary form of both punishment and torture in Toddlerlandia, and they have not adopted the Geneva Convention. Be warned.

What can I say, parenting is work. And while I truly appreciate the advice and encouragement of all those who've gone before, you can't help but feel a kinship to those currently laboring in the trenches beside you.

On March 24, Chuck posted 25 Things You Should Know About Life with a Toddler. If you have a toddler, have had a toddler, think you may someday want a baby that will inevitably become a toddler, or just know that you will be unable to avoid all toddlers for the rest of your life, read this post. It is hilarious. It is sadly and depressingly (in some places) true. One of the parts that struck me as most true is number 5:

5. Without Food and Sleep They Are Basically Hill Cannibals:
Two guaranteed meltdown triggers, however, are: hungry and tired. May the gods help you if both the SLEEP and FOOD boxes remain unchecked because I’m pretty sure that’s how you get the Reavers from Firefly.

Um, yes. This exactly. The Reavers may have been self-mutilating, cannibalistic , murder crazy ragebeasts without conscience or morals, but you let a toddler stay up too late and then fail to produce the requested sippy cup within moments of the screamed, repeated one word request (JUICE! JUICE! JUICE!), and by God that toddler will turn into a thrashing creature of violence and despair who makes Reavers look civilized.

Photo credit: Gretchen Stull

The toddler years are crazy, but they aren't all bad. They aren't even half bad, truth be told. There's something amazing about watching this little human being trying to make sense of a world that is all-too-often insensible. And for every lost moment of sleep and extra load of laundry and 800th re-watching of Elmo's Adventures in Grouchland (Mandy Patikin now haunts my dreams), there's an unexpected hug or an eerily accurate observation or something so damn cute you want to instagram it immediately for the world to see. I love my son and I can't imagine life without him. But even though toddlers can be fun, they are definitely exhausting. And I have learned to always, ALWAYS have snacks on hand.

Of Aspiring Authors and Good Advice

I'm an advice whore, I admit it. I like to collect advice, let it sink in, write it down in a fancy journal and ferret it away for later inspiration when things look dark and bleak. I especially like writing advice, because if ever there was a career path that throws people into the abyss and asks they make their own way out again, this is it. What works for one person doesn't work for another. What works for one book may not work for another, even when penned by the same author. Writing is a creative process and while it can (and should, by those hoping to make it a career) become a professional enterprise, it can't be managed in the same way a shipping company, or a widget factory, or a fast food restaurant is. Just doesn't work that way. There are no SOPs, no industry standard for "do A then B and then C and the Times Bestseller List is yours, mwahahaha!" Some practices work for some people some of the time. That's the closest to a definitive statement of success we writers have. That and "KEEP WRITING" of course.

So, in trying to figure out my own writer's journey (not to be confused with the hero's journey...the writer's journey has far more empty calories and coffee stained mugs littering its footpaths), I do turn to the advice of others who've gone this way before. A lot of the advice out there is pretty sentiment that's pretty much meaningless, but every now and then I stumble across something that really resonates with me. In fact, the latter happened just this morning.

While tooling around on Chuck Wendig's blog, I came across his post "25 Things I Want to Say to So-Called "Aspiring Writers." I adore Chuck, I adore his blog, and I love his no-nonsense take on just about everything writing related. What really stuck out to me, from this list of 25, was number 6 - Yes, It Always Feels This Way.

"You will always have days when you feel like an amateur. When it feels like everybody else is better than you. You will have this nagging suspicion that someone will eventually find you out, call you on your bullshit, realize you’re the literary equivalent of a vagrant painting on the side of a wall with a piece of calcified poop. You will have days when the blank page is like being lost in a blizzard. You will sometimes hate what you wrote today, or yesterday, or ten years ago. Bad days are part of the package. You just have to shut them out, swaddle your head in tinfoil, and keep writing anyway."

Now that is some great advice.

Check out the rest of Chuck Wendig's "25 Things I Want to Say to So-Called "Aspiring Writers" here.

Of Authors and Rockstars - A Must Read

"Step up into my biblio-crib, son. Over here, I got a bunch of human babies crawling around a terrarium. In that room is where I keep all my beta readers — yeah, that’s them, feeding each other figs and playin’ Naked Twister and shit."

As much as I wish I could claim rightful credit to the quote above, it is a product of Chuck Wendig's brilliant, if slightly twisted, mind. Why do authors need to be more like rockstars? Chuck lays it all out in Turning Writers into Motherfucking Rock Stars. Read it. Love it. Pee on something in public. (If you don't get the last one, you obviously haven't read the post yet. Go now!).