Category Archives: Writing

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Who Doesn’t Love a Good Spoiler?

No one. No one loves a good spoiler. At least when it effects them.

For instance, when the videos of the guy yelling at people waiting in line for the “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” went viral. Were the people in line rightfully angry at the yells of “Snape kills Dumbledore”? Oh yeah. Did it make for hilarity for those people who may not have been very interested in Harry Potter? Yes.

Social media has made spoiling movies and television shows a bit of a sport for the trolls and those who tend to not think before typing words out on their social media accounts. (Which, I suppose, is a good majority of people on social media.) They don’t care about the effect that those words have on other people. If they did, bullying wouldn’t be a thing. It’s awful that you have to avoid the outside world until you see a movie or a popular television show because there’s always that 1 guy.

Was I upset that someone yelled “Snape killed Dumbledore” before I had read the book? No. I actually found it hilarious. I’m a hypocrite like that. Now if someone read the “Winds of Winter” before me and spoiled it, I would probably hunt them down and make them suffer things that they have only dreamed about in nightmares. I’m vindictive like that.

The moral of the story? Don’t be that guy. I know your life may be so sad and pathetic that the only joy that you get is from upsetting the masses, but don’t do it. If you need that much attention in your life, I recommend getting a puppy. They give you so much attention that you can’t even go to the bathroom in peace. Plus, they don’t talk. So you can spoil movies for them and they won’t care. In fact, you can just spend your time venting whatever troll impulses that you have on them. Because they will love you anyways.

Unlike people. People won’t love you anyways if you spoil things for them.

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The Fear of Facts

I think that we are born with a fear of facts, especially facts that we don’t want to see or don’t agree with. For instance, you don’t want to check your grade on a paper for school because you’re afraid of what you will see. There’s a good chance that you’ll see exactly what you want, but what if you don’t? Ignorance is bliss and that seems to be a motto that we were born into. But why do we have such a fear of facts?

For instance, the president described late term abortions as “putting babies into blankets to await their execution”. That’s not an abortion; that’s infanticide. I’m not debating the morality of abortion or whether or not it should be legal; I’m debating that this is a blatant lie for the sole purpose of fear mongering. I’m saying that there is an alarming amount of people that have now taken this blatant, exaggeration to turn it into a cause without questioning how logical that statement even is. That argument is just as ridiculous as the idea that a cop is just waiting to shoot someone without an excuse. Does it happen? Maybe, but that would be a very rare exception to the general population.

Elizabeth Warren is no more Native American than most of the Caucasian population. That’s a fact. Did she contort this fact? Evidence seems to say that she did, so that she could get some benefits from it. I’m an equal opportunity fact-police. Her group of followers is okay with that lie; refusing to acknowledge it. This further proves the point that a politician’s base doesn’t care about facts. They just hop on a bandwagon and follow blindly. I don’t follow blindly, unless it’s the smell of a Moe’s Wrong Doug stack with extra cheese. I will follow that blindly anywhere. Why is their queso so good?

Facts are different from opinion. Facts are different from exaggerations that only serve a purpose to further an agenda. I like facts. Facts make me feel nice and cozy inside. When my now husband convinced me that we should actually get married and not stay engaged forever, he gave me facts. Having 1 health insurance would be cheaper, plus he had great dental insurance. He didn’t pull at my heart strings to tell me about everlasting love. He gave me evidence of factual reasons why being married was more beneficial to us. Facts. They matter people.

Today, let’s do an exercise of not just believing everything someone tells us. Maybe today, instead of just trusting your favorite politician or pundit, you take the time to take in some actual facts about a topic. Educate yourself. They want you to just follow blindly because that’s how they get control of the masses in every dystopian novel out there. Let’s not make the real world the next “Farenheit 451”. Let’s have a revolution; a rebellion against misinformation from both parties.

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Some Miscellaneous Ranting

Every now and again I have some random thoughts, that separately won’t make enough of a blog post. Today is one of those days. From politics to my own writing life, here are today’s random rantings.

Politics

Alright, so I can’t be the only one tired of all of this right? I keep seeing memes about how people need to be held to the same standard, but at the same time keep talking about things like “witch hunts” and “snowflakes”. Let’s talk about fair for a moment. Think about this: What if President Obama didn’t release his tax returns? Wouldn’t the right think that was suspicious? What if a terrorist-linked company pulled the same thing Russia did to get Obama elected? Wouldn’t the right want to investigate that? Because I would be really concerned in both of those situations. I thought that Hilary should have been investigated more closely to see if she compromised security or sold favors to foreign governments/organizations. Maybe I’m just crazy. Or, maybe I’m one of the few that actually thinks that everyone should be held accountable for the same things.

If you sexually harass or assault another person, you should be held to the fullest extend of the law no matter your race, economic status, or political affiliation. The same applies if you commit any crime. There are some shady areas where I would make exceptions. Like if you walk into a room to see someone assaulting your child and you beat the crap out of that person, I would find that very reasonable. But please, don’t start talking about double standards if you also accept double standards. I think that only guilty people hide things and when you are at the level of being a president, you allow the door to be opened to this extra level of scrutiny.

What’s Next for My Goals

After gaining acceptance to a short story anthology, I’ve been working hard towards other goals. I have started to figure out a setup for a podcast, but I’m still undecided on the details, such as what to talk about or how often I should do it. I’m thinking once a month, but the topic is still uncertain to me. I have some ideas for new books, including a new children’s book, which I have started to write up. Also, that comic is coming along slowly as I’m trying to get my bearings on doing this. It’s a bit of a struggle shaking out my artist rust, but I have faith in myself. Until then, freelancing and streaming to get myself out there is on the table. I have also come up with the concept for my next NaNoWriMo attempt, also a horror novel. This one I feel more comfortable with, so I’m very much looking forward to it.

That is it. Those are my short rants for today. I’m very much open to suggestions for podcasts if there is something that you would find interesting to hear about.

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Standing Up for Journalistic Integrity: Even You Can Do It

Over the weekend on my social media, I did something that was questionable in nature. As a ghostwriter, you’re not supposed to really talk about your projects. In this case, the work around to this in my head was that since I refused to do the project, I wasn’t necessarily locked into the secrecy of it. The important part is.. that I refused to do this article. Was that money that I wasn’t going to be getting? Sure, but as I mentioned here, it was probably only about $4 that I was saying “No” to. Would that have mattered? I’d like to think that I would have said “No” even if it were more than that.

I wrote a small little 35 page book called “How Not to be a Bully“. I didn’t write this to make a fortune off of it. In fact, I’m fairly certain that I mostly wrote it to get those thoughts off of my chest about how awful things had gotten in America at that point. I wrote it around when the Trump election happened, not because I was so emphatically against him that I needed to insult everyone associated with him. It was because I was so disgusted how people were treating each other on both sides of the party lines. People were downright hateful to one another. It was appalling to me. Did I agree with his politics or think that he should be president? Absolutely not. (It’s a shame that I have to point this out, but I also felt the same way about Hilary Clinton. I didn’t think either were a good choice for America.) But, I respect the office. I respect that this is America, and everyone has their right to their own opinion.

Since then, I’d like to think that I have made my blog a statement on anti-bullying. That I was clear that people need to stop being toxic to each other. That we as a country need to do better. To do anything other than this would be hypocritical of me. It would ruin my journalistic integrity to do so. My platform is one of acceptance across the board, from political parties to whatever consenting adults do with their lives. If it doesn’t effect my life, I don’t care. You do you.

So when I was asked to write an article that was supposed to be for the sole purpose of insulting another human being, I refused. Did I agree with this Democrats thoughts and ideas? While there are some that I think are articulate and make sense, on a whole absolutely not. She goes too far. Does this mean that I’m going to write an article about her being an idiot for the sole purpose of belittling her for entertainment? Again, absolutely not. I will not bully a person of any political party… or any person in general, just to entertain people. I won’t. I would never. That goes against who I was raised to be. I’d like to think that my parents raised me with a little bit more respect for others than that.

I didn’t write the article. The mainstream media may be all for tearing people down who they don’t agree with, but I don’t. I have the one thing that these so-called journalists lack: integrity. Had the article been about disproving her political stances, or nabbing her on policies, I would have written the hell out of it whether I agreed with that or not. But the minute that you ask me to publicly insult someone for sport, I won’t do it. Maybe this can start a small trend of other people standing up for what’s right.

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The Ugly Side of Freelancing

There are so many positives to freelancing from sites like Upwork (full disclosure, this is where I freelance from). You can earn some money on the side to earn an income. If you’re really lucky, like I have been a few times, you can find clients that will pay you as much as a part-time job. The plus side is that you don’t have to worry about daycare. They market to this group of people. The ones that need extra money to help make ends meet. Some sites, including soon Upwork, charge for the services of finding a job. Though I may consider ending this relationship, should they also take a cut of my earnings in addition to helping me find work. Because that’s double dipping and I’m not sure that I’m okay with this.

The main reason why this is a problem is because you’re essentially paying someone to not do anything but process payments. You’re paying someone for work, only so that the clients can not pay you without any repercussions. There are no payment protections for freelancers, unless you get the coveted hourly paying job. In those cases, you can sometimes get protections so long as you are logging the hours and not putting them in manually. These are sites that are meant to benefit the organization that connects the freelancers and their clients. These are meant to benefit the clients. They are the ones who get to literally pay pennies for work, while expecting $15 an hour worth of work. You can’t have it both ways. Or you can, because who’s going to stop you? This is a system that isn’t a level playing field where both parties gain a benefit.

For instance, I have a client that pays about $2 per 500 words. It’s ghostwriting so not only do I get paid only $2 per 500 words, I also don’t get credit for the work to build up a portfolio to show my experience. I get emails sometimes at 7 or 8 at night, expecting the work to be done that day. Sometimes I have to write 4000 words in only a few hours because that’s when I have to go to bed. Or I don’t get full instructions or any instruction then I have to rewrite something that if they had offered instructions, I would have given them exactly what they wanted. Best part of this gig? Sometimes I go 3 or 4 months without getting paid. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Because there are more clients like that than not.

That isn’t to say my entire experience on this site is terrible. I have found some amazing clients on this site, one of whom I still work with and is easily one of the best clients ever. Another one paid very well and was also very generous, but they didn’t need freelancers anymore. But the bad experiences make me hesitant to find more clients, despite the fact that it would be extremely helpful if I could find something great again. The main point is that there aren’t enough protections for freelancers when they do get stuck in terrible contracts. If they just leave, they get a bad review that hurts their rankings. Considering I’m a Top Tier freelancer, that would hurt my amazing rating on the site. But that doesn’t help the fact that sometimes clients just don’t feel like paying so they don’t. Which is insane when you think about it. Because you know that some clients are getting paid $15-$20 an article, paying you only $1-$2 per article, while they earn the “big money”. It’s essentially a pyramid scam that you think will work out for you.

With the high amount of the workforce that is currently freelancing, you would think that something would change. But there is no regulation, likely because it would be a logistical nightmare to try. Instead, I get to make myself feel better about the ugly side of this industry that could have so much promise for people like me who need to be at home with their kids. Those who may not have any marketable skills outside of the arts, also like me. Freelancing sites need to do better about protecting their freelancers and making sure that they get the money that they earned, without feeling defeated.

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Watching Things Grow

I’m a creator. I like putting my time and effort into things and watching them grow or taking the shape of something that I envisioned. I like to sculpt and the challenge of working towards a design in my mind. I like to draw, watching these images in my head get translated in a mediocre way on paper. I like to write and watch that writing turn into a complete work. I especially like it when my hard work gets noticed, even accomplish a specific deadline or goal with it. I particularly love the reactions I receive. Maybe this is why I enjoy parenting.

It’s always great to see what your hard work and determination can accomplish. I love the thrill of seeing your hard work pay off, especially when you get the exact outcome that you were hoping for. That’s one of the best things about being an artist. You agonize over every detail, just hoping that you will get a product that you will be proud of even if you had to make a few pivots along the way. That’s the great thing about art though. You take it where it leads you, throwing away whatever plan you may have had.

I can’t wait to share some upcoming good news with you guys on new projects and the like. But for now, I can hold my head up high knowing that maybe I am on the right path after all.

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Sorry, But I’m Not Really Sorry

Whenever someone stops by and sees my house, looking like a bomb went off in it, I instantly apologize. Instead of saying “yeah, it’s called my children/husband/dogs, and honestly I was too tired to deal with it”, I apologize and just say that I wasn’t feeling well. Sure, it’s a half truth. The real truth: I’m not sorry. I’m not really even embarrassed. I honestly, don’t really care. Some days, you are going to come into my house that looks professionally cleaned. But most days, you’re going to find a disaster. And honestly, if you have a problem with it then that’s more on you than me. If that dictates how you view me as a friend or a mom, than I’d rather you not come over anyways.

It’s the normal thing to do right? To apologize for a mess? To apologize for anything? I know people can tell I’m not really sorry when I’m really not, but I say it anyways. Because honestly, I don’t think that they care if I mean it. I think they just want me to say the words. I’ll concede that. It’s what we’re trained to do. But I’m not sorry. I really don’t even care.

Mom’s have a lot to do. Stay at home moms, moms who stay home and work from home, moms who go out to work. It doesn’t matter. We all deal with the same struggles of having a list longer than there are hours in the day. We’re on the clock 24/7. I get up at 5:30am, and sometimes don’t get to sleep until 1 or 2 am. That’s not counting the 10000 times that I wake up in the middle of the night for anxiety/kids/dogs/general body not cooperating things. I have my to-do list. I’m not special or a supermom. I’m just a barely average mom. Maybe even a mediocre one.

Stop apologizing for not meeting other people’s standards. You’ll feel much better about yourself if you don’t. Own your mess. You are your own person and if they have a problem with that, they know where the door is. It’s that thing hidden behind the mass amount of recycling that has amassed in your dining room that they barely made it through when they entered in the house.

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More Props to the Teachers

When I was growing up, I could tell you all of the teachers that had a massive impact on my life. These are teachers that have my complete gratitude and admiration for everything that they did to help me succeed, even when I didn’t particularly care if I did or not. I remember them. I even hear their words in my head today, decades later, as an adult when I start doubting myself. They may not have known the massive impact that they had (have) on my life, but I know. A good teacher is someone that students will remember for a long time.

With all of my youngest child’s issues, I worried so much about him. I worried that teachers would see an IEP/504 and judge him before they get the chance to meet him. There’s a lot of clinical terms and concepts that they use to describe my sweet boy, but not a lot of them discuss the things that I think truly matter. Where they see “fidgety, inability to focus”, I see a child who’s focused on the things that matter to him. When they see “can’t control his actions”, I see a child who just gets so caught up in everything. I was always worried that things like his speech (now his writing issues) would mask how smart he was. That the teachers would dismiss him based on these perceived educational flaws and not focus on the bright and curious child that he is. Is he a handful sometimes? Oh, absolutely yes. But that kid is sharp and determined.

His first teacher was the one who actually helped write his IEP back in his first year of Preschool. She didn’t judge him. She figured out a way to teach to him. She remarked on how smart he was and encouraged other ways to work with him. His second teacher under the IEP, was the exact same. They were both sad to see him move on because he was a “smart and lovable little boy”. They got it. In Kindergarten, he still had some struggles with his anxiety issues but he seemed to be thriving. He was bullied, but the teachers seemed to take care of it anytime that I mentioned an issue. They were good to him.

This year was his biggest challenge yet, but I was fortunate to get a teacher that didn’t judge him on any shortcomings. She adjusted. She didn’t email me to tell me what to do or to berate me because she couldn’t control my child. She asked about what she could do to help him. We brainstormed ideas on how to approach him at school. She never once told me to change my style of parenting or what we did at home. She helped him get the help that he needed even before there was a 504 in place. And boy did she fight to make sure he got the help that he needed. Because, she took the time to get to know my son. She believed that this issue would prevent him from expressing what he knows, and that he was way too bright to be held back by this. She wanted to help.

Teachers want to help their students succeed. There may be some bad apples, but overall I have yet to meet a teacher that wasn’t willing to help my son out. They work tirelessly for our children and I think that they deserve the world for the things that they do for our children. I thank every teacher that has impacted my life and I know that anyone else who had that 1 teacher does too. Amazing teachers have an impact, not just for that year, but for the rest of their student’s life.

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A Much Needed April Fool’s Day

The day of pranks. The day where your favorite companies put out the most ridiculous ideas for the amusement of their fans. Sometimes their ideas are so ridiculous but so good that you can’t help but to want these plans to come to fruition. It was refreshing to see something so ridiculous that it couldn’t possibly be true and realizing that you weren’t actually reading the news. It was a great change for me.

But the day has ended. Now we are stuck reading news that is too ridiculous to be true but actually is. When your instinct after reading a headline is to check if it’s from The Onion or some other similarly hilarious news site. Where there is a Reddit dedicated to “NotTheOnion” news stories. There isn’t going to be a giant meteor coming down to destroy us; we’re doing an awesome enough job doing it ourselves. I don’t mean this as a compliment.

We are being pandered to and lied to and told that anyone who is against us are the enemy. The Russian investigation? A ploy by the sore loser democrats who are the enemy of the people. The bad media coverage? A ploy by our enemy, the media. Does AOC and Donald Trump get unfair coverage from the “other side”? Absolutely. But if you ask me, there shouldn’t be an “other side” when it comes to reporting. It should be facts, not opinion wrapped up in a box titled “facts”. The enemy isn’t the one correcting the facts; it’s the one that’s spreading misinformation and enjoying the ignorance in those who blindly follow.

Are there media outlets and pundits willingly misleading us? You’d be silly to think that they aren’t. These people aren’t in it for their journalistic integrity; that’s a thing of the past. They are a business. And the best business model right now is feeding into the misinformation and half-truths by offering more, not correcting the news.

It’s more important than ever to look at things from someone else’s point of view. To listen to each other. To be kind to each other. These people are only profiting off of us fighting about what’s fact and what’s fiction. We can change it.

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When You Start Cutting Special Needs Funding

The idea of cutting slashing special needs funding is appalling to me. This is the group that arguably needs their funding cut the least. It’s easy to dismiss this if you never had to sit through IEP meetings or worry about how your kid is going to succeed in school without receiving services. “Those are kids that would never make it anyways, so what does it matter?” is a sentiment that makes me cringe. This isn’t just going to affect those kids who may have severe disabilities, who deserve the dignity of going to school and learning and interacting with other people. Cutting this type of funding affects a broad range of students that you may look at and not believe that they receive services. But they are. And cutting those services will only hurt them.

It’s apparent that there is already a budget issue with funding special needs programs. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. My son’s early intervention services ended at 3, at which point I would either have had to hope that he got into this preschool program that offered these services or I would have to cough up money that I didn’t have. (Which I would have figured out, because that’s what you do.) When doing the evaluations, they met several difficulties along the way. First of all, he was still basically nonverbal just shy of his 3rd birthday. Secondly, he doesn’t have the focus or attention span to be bothered with testing. The tests came back inconclusive. That was a very bad sign that this nonverbal 3 year old was not going to get into a program that he really needed to get into. I was fortunate enough where that special needs team came together and realized there was a need, even if they had to really strain to get him into the program (he made it in for “self-control” issues).

The gamble paid off as the next year he did qualify for speech services. After getting those speech services? He just took off and not only did he start speaking very well, it turned out he could actually read. Which we wouldn’t have known had he not gotten these services. Had this team just dismiss him. They recognized that he was a bright child and that they needed to intervene to ensure that he could succeed in life. After he left preschool, he was out of these services. I thought I didn’t have to worry about it again. Until I did.

Again, in the meeting it was a struggle for the team. While they used a few technicalities as answers, it was needed otherwise my son wouldn’t get the services that they agree he needed. I’m lucky that I didn’t have to fight. Other parents aren’t that lucky. Those are the parents that suffer because the budget is already so tight for these kids. These kids are arguably the most vulnerable in the school system, especially for those “normal” kids like my son. Those kids where people don’t even realize that they are receiving services. Without receiving these services, my son could have easily become a statistic. He could be on the track of disciplinary issues or even eventually drop out because they are frustrated or dismissed as “unworthy” by a school system that values students based on testing and meeting a specific grade on unfair standardized tests. But for now, he is going to be fine.

That is until funding starts getting cut. Cutting the Special Olympics funding because “rich people will keep it afloat”? Are we seriously trusting fancy rich people do to things that don’t benefit their bottom line? But charter school funding remains untouched? Why not count on the rich people to put their money into those charter schools? Why cut services like the ones for those on the autism spectrum? Do you think rich donors are going to cover that too? It’s disgusting and appalling. These aren’t just issues that affect low income people. These are issues that the middle class are dealing with and the moment you ignore that, you are disproving anything that you have ever said about caring about the middle class. My son needed noise cancelling headsets to be okay in school. It took nearly 2 months to find a pair from someplace that was willing to share it because they didn’t need it at the time. The schools should be able to have those accommodations for the kids who need it. But hey, let’s cut funding to the special needs programs that kids rely on to succeed.

Make broad cuts that are necessary. If charter schools are really that great, parents can make that choice themselves. Don’t take money from public schools who actually need the money to improve. The special needs programs need more funding to keep up with the growing need, not getting cuts and forcing these school systems to refuse even more services than they already do for kids in need. If I didn’t have an excellent team supporting us, my son would’ve lagged behind. And if I need to, I will make it my mission to ensure other kids like him are taken care of. And I’m one hell of a fighter.