Lilith Saintcrow

First, check out Nathan Bransford’s excellent post on tropes and originality. This is why I tell new writers “be honest and the originality will follow”. The ring of absolute honesty will shine through a tired old story and make it new again; when it comes through your uniqueness as a filter it will be unique.

If you’re bored with posts about weight, body image, and food, you might want to skip this one. Just warning you.

Last Labor Day I started an exercise regimen. Slowly and carefully, I’ve dropped almost five sizes. I’m shooting distance from a size 16; 14 is my eventual healthy goal. It’s taken me months, mostly because I don’t want to yo-yo. I want to steadily get into the habit of being healthier and more fit. And because, well, I love food and see no reason to set up the nasty boomerang of denial and binge. I have enough to feel bad and guilty over, I don’t need binge to add to it.

I suppose that I could cook low-fat. I really could. But why? Real butter, real vegetables, real cream, all these things satisfy in a way ersatz doesn’t. A very small bit of the “real” will satisfy more than a ton of the ersatz. For example, a small square of high-quality, very dark chocolate will satisfy me more than three or four Snickers bars. A small serving of pasta with this roasted red pepper sauce made with heavy cream (Oh. My. God. Worth the work, I SWEAR) will satisfy me more than a pound or two of fettuccine alfredo from that chain Italian place down the street. The real may be chock-full of Bad For You fat, but I end up eating less–and less chemical preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, etc. etc.

But this is only working, I suspect, because of the other half of the equation. It’s hard hauling my ass up on that treadmill every weekday. The weeks that I get in five whole weekdays of workout are few and far between. I get three or four days in every week, and my energy level has risen to the point where I’m also getting in a lot more playing with the kids and going for longer evening walks. Five days a week of treadmill and shovelgloving is the goal–but like the Pirate’s Code it’s more of a guideline.

Some days I hurt. Some days I’m sick or there’s an Event or some kid is throwing up or having a Bad Day. Some days it’s the story burning up inside my head. Some days I just plain don’t wanna.

But most days, I do. When I’m ill and I can’t get the exercise in, I feel it. I suppose I’ve reached the point of being addicted to running. And addicted to swinging a sledgehammer around for fifteen minutes or so.

Now, I am never going to be a supermodel. I love food far, far too much and I have a sedentary job. Besides, have you seen supermodels these days? They look like shit.

I’m sorry. I really am. But “starvation” is not something I find attractive. I like a girl with a little flesh on her, just like I like easygoing men with a little flesh on them. And I have all sorts of problems with the persistent message from mass media that women need to starve themselves to paper-thinness. Our place in the world is already small enough, for Christ’s sake.

The more I don’t watch television, the less I find I have in common with a lot of advertising. I never realized how pervasive this crap was until I took a year and a half off the telly (way back when I was first dating the Muffin, lo those many years ago) and found I didn’t miss it. Not only did I not miss it, but my sense of proportion (ha ha) came back in a big way.

Another thing that’s dropped by the wayside: fast food. Cheap fast food…isn’t. In terms of community cost, health cost, and my pocketbook, cheap fast food isn’t. Once in a great while I’ll take the kids to a local burger chain, and the little dears are always very excited. But burger-and-fries doesn’t taste as good, and even the fries–I have such a weakness for fries, you would not believe–don’t move me the way they used to. It’s like soda–once I was off it for a long while, all I could taste were the chemicals when I tried it again.

This is turning into a foodie post instead of a weight post. Which probably means I’m avoiding the subject.

So, I’m spitting distance from a size 16. Dropping steadily through clothes sizes has meant getting new clothes, which I absolutely hate. If there’s anything I hate with a flaming fiery passion it’s clothes-shopping. Just the thought of it makes me shiver. I will buy six of something at a time just so I have a “uniform” and I don’t have to pick clothes every day OR shop for them again. I mean, why spend time on that when I could be reading? Or cooking? Or playing with my kidlings?

Along with the steady weight loss has come an unpacking of hurtful assumptions and trauma from growing up. Food has been an anodyne most of my life, and grazing on trash-cooking full of preservatives and corn syrup was the only thing keeping me reasonably sane during a large proportion of my young years. Food didn’t mock and it didn’t judge, and when I felt empty inside it provided a type of fullness. Like any substitution, though, it had to be paid for. And I did. Over and over again.

I’m also beginning to unpack the sense of security having a fat layer gave me. You can hide inside a mass of yourself, you know. For a girl who equated fisticuffs with attention and any attention, good or bad, with the only approval I could get, the extra poundage was a blessing. It absorbed much more than punches.

Which means that, as I’m slimming down, I’m having to face parts of myself and my life I frenetically ate to avoid. It’s probably no accident that I’m writing YA through all this and really remembering what it was like to be young. On the one hand, I wouldn’t be between twelve and twenty-five again if you PAID me. There isn’t enough money in the world to put myself through that again. But on the other, I can’t hope to achieve any sort of peace within myself without looking hard and long at these things and Dealing With Them. Dealing is better than Drugging Yourself With Food or Frantically Avoiding Dealing With Things By Chopping Off Bits Of Self Or Engaging In Crazymaking Behavior.

I console myself with the thought that the most awesome and stunning people I know had Bad Young Years and didn’t Find Themselves until their late twenties. Being forced to find resources within yourself pays off, if you survive long enough and intact enough. The layers of fat were a survival mechanism, one I am trying to teach myself not to need. It was good while I needed it, but now I don’t–and the price of poor health, acceptable while I needed the fat to preserve some kind of psychic integrity, is no longer one I can continue paying.

It was a good cocoon. It kept me safe and it kept me sane, and I’m grateful. But now I’m almost out of it, and spreading those papery, wet wings. Sooner or later this girl is going to fly.

That, dear Reader? Is the very best revenge at all. I wish I was a bigger person and didn’t need that for motivation. But I realized a long time ago that I wasn’t. And I’m taking what I can get. There’s a certain amount of freedom in recognizing that you may not be a bigger person, but you’re going to do what you can with what you have.

Over and out.

First of all, Deadline Dame Rinda has a hilarious post up about the Waiting Writer In Her Natural Habitat. You can also win a coffee mug and coaster, so pop over and share some commenting love. Also, if you’ve contacted me through Myspace or through my website for an ARC of Strange Angels, rest assured that I’ve passed your contact info on to Razorbill.

As for me, well, this morning I feel like an idiot.

This is a common occurrence. I feel like a dolt almost every day of my life. The instant I start feeling smart, the Universe whaps me upside the head with something I never even dreamed of. So I spend most of my time pretty happily considering myself an idiot.

For example, take the kitchen timers. I have timers scattered all over the house. They’re used for the kids’ schoolwork, for mouthwash (don’t ask), for writing, for cooking, for shovelgloving, and just recently (like today) for telling myself to get up every twenty minutes and stretch so that stiffness in my lower back doesn’t turn into full-blown-walking-like-Quasimodo. Left to my own devices I would probably write pretty much all day, only stopping when the need to visit the loo was intense or when I am almost faint and have a headache from hunger.

This is not good for me. Hence, the timers.

No, I am not obsessive-compulsive. I just use times so much that having one or two in every room except the bedrooms is…

Oh, God. Maybe I AM a little obsessive. (At least I am not a goat held on suspicion of armed robbery, though. It’s the little things that should make one grateful.)

I’m just a little forgetful, that’s all. The timers help to hold me to a particular task for a period of time, or remind me, like I said, to get up and stretch. I’ve reached the point in working out and getting fit where I NEED to stretch. The muscles are unhappy; my posture and the way I hold myself are both changing. The shoulder-hunching and slouching has GOT to go. So, getting up and stretching every twenty minutes is necessary.

I just feel like a moron because I can’t remember to get up every twenty minutes without the timer. I can’t keep track of time on a clock–I get INTO what I’m doing, no matter what it is, and the clock begins to fade in importance with each passing moment. I consider it a miracle that I am ready for dinner each day (but this only happens because I start fretting about it around noon). I also feel faintly ashamed of admitting my firm belief that a kitchen timer is one of God’s gifts to writers, for reasons I’ve already stated.

I’m also feeling like a dip today because I’ve gotten two very nice responses–one from short story editors on an anthology, and one from my editor at Razorbill. But I worry and obsess so much over every piece of work–will the editor like it? Oh God. They won’t like it and they’ll take the advance back and then we’ll starrrrrve and the sun will go out and everyone will hate me because it’s all my FAULT…

When I hear people are considering writing for a living my first instinct is to laugh nervously. Because the rejection and the worry are both soul-wracking. The early rejections make a writer almost pathetically grateful for any sign of approval, and most of us don’t need any help when it comes to the seeking-approval thing. (It is only natural and human to want approval, after all. It seems like one of humanity’s biggest needs.) Then fierce performance anxiety kicks in, at least for me.

So both nice responses were a huge relief, and I’m sure both sets of editors think I’m an idiot for worrying so damn much. My emails are full of caveats and “you might not like“s and “tell me where this is broken but tell me one good thing about it first, please God“s.

See? I am a total spaz today, and probably not doing much better in this blog post. I’m going to blame the lingering soreness and mucus from the flu (and THAT was a doozy, I don’t think I’ve ever had so many dehydration headaches in a 72-hour period) and give myself a day off.

The way I’m feeling, it can’t hurt.

I’m still sick and there was a minor emergency this weekend that we’re still dealing with the fallout from. Regular blogging will commence in a little bit.

Until then, however, check out Dame Kaz’s new post over at Deadline Dames, where she talks about deadlines for the unpublished. She’s giving away an ARC of the third Melissa Marr Faerie book, too. (It won’t be out until April, but you can win it there!)

All right. I’m about to submerge into a sea of cold medication and get a lot more stuff done. Catch you on the flip side, Readers.

Flu bug bit hard. Body aches, full nose, headache, sore throat, the works. Fighting it off with zinc cough drops and drowning it with fluids. Right now I feel like sitting and staring. Not even staring at anything in particular, just zoning out.

Back soon. In the meantime, check out Keri Arthur’s post today at Deadline Dames. Yes, there’s another giveaway. We are evil, aren’t we?

ETA: So my site hosting is having Problems, and the Deadline Dames site is having some troubles with Internet Explorer (though Firefox seems to be workin’ just fine). I do not think these things are connected…but it is enough to make me start twitching with annoyance.

Yes, happy, happy Monday–a day full of bile. For yes, Sir Pewksalot is living up to his name. I think it’s a combination of a little bit of a cold plus his already nervous-stomach.

On the bright side, we’ve caught everything in large bowls (which we are well-supplied with) and I have plenty of help home today. But oh heavens, waking up to puke kind of puts a damper on the day.

Yesterday we had the shoot for my author photo. I was made up and primped and actually felt kind of pretty, so we’ll see what happens. Cross your fingers for me–but you don’t have to keep them crossed for the week it will take for them to arrive. A couple seconds should be all the luck I need.

The Little Prince is sitting in front of some cartoons, all bundled up and with a bowl on his knee, with some toast and juice. Hopefully things will calm down a bit. In the meantime, have a happy Monday.