Meme stolen often

I hear that this meme has been stolen many, many times and I wanted to continue this thievery.  I got it from Amy. 

Marriages – 1

Proposals – 1
Divorces – 0               

Surgeries – 4
Tattoos – 0

Piercings – ears only

(Does all make me sound dull?)

Ever:
Shot a gun – A few times as a kid.

Quit a job – Yes, on friendly terms as I went back to school for a teaching degree.

Been on TV – a couple of local shows.

I'm not in this picture, 

but it's the right era!

Fallen in love – oh, yes

Driven cross country – Once as a child, well I rode.

Hit a deer – No, but in the car when Nick did.

Watched a birth – Not human, but I worked for a vet so lots to dogs and cats, cows and horses. 

Ridden in an ambulance –Never and I don’t want to.

Sung karaoke – Please, I have some pride.

Ice skated – I think I have, but I honestly can’t bring an image of it to mind.

I'm sure it would have looked like this.

Been surfing – Nope, haven’t tried that.

Seen the ocean – Atlantic and Pacific.

Ridden a horse – Took riding lessons as a kid and loved it.

Almost died – Not that I’m aware of.

Been punched – Nope.

Punched back – Punched first once as a kid. Stupid boy held my wiggling puppy out a second story window. I walked away quietly, but as soon as the puppy was back in and safe, I punched the kid.

Are you:

In love now – I sure am.

Can 'others' ever understand Spanking stories?

I’m heading to a writer’s convention next month. I definitely have mixed feelings about going. I’m leery of anything that smacks of a formal meeting – a hangover from school days. Add to that the fact that I spent my life as a math teacher, not as an expert on English composition. I have confidence telling Cassie’s stories, but no confidence as a ‘writer’. So sometimes I feel like I don't belong.

I’m not fishing for compliments; I know many of you really enjoy my books and God bless you for it. I’m just telling you how I feel around other writers. When I walk in with my ‘spanking books,’ in my mind, the others in the room have written things like Moby Dick, War and Peace, Gone With the Wind and To Kill a Mocking Bird. Chances are none of the authors of these books will actually be there, but that doesn’t change how I feel.

So I head in with that feeling on my mind and then we go around and tell what genre we write and then I most definitely feel like the red-headed, step child. We go around the room and I hear what others write telling that they write, Gothic, Regency, Science-fiction, Mystery… and they get to me and I say, “I write domestic discipline – basically spanking romance.” There is a moment of silence, then a mixture of slight laughter and disapproving looks. After all they’re all writing about ‘strong’ women.

But, damn it, so am I! If I had a good fifteen minutes I could explain it to everyone there. Whether we practice it or not I understand domestic discipline in my core and I understand that only a truly strong woman would ever think of giving the gift of submission to the person she loves. There is so much I could explain, but after a brief eye-roll, they quickly move on to the next person and I can’t help feeling ostracized and alone and somewhat defensive. 

To get through this I often picture a group of loyal Cassie and Cal and Jenny fans standing around the edges of the room encouraging me while at the same time looking like they may well attack some of those sneering. And, of course, if I need to bring out the big guns Cassie and Sue are sitting right there with me.

Some of you might wonder why I’m going in the first place if this is the way I feel. I was invited by someone I love dearly who loves these things. She is convinced I'll learn to love them too. I hope I’m pleasantly surprised at this conference. I hope I learn a lot about writing and promoting and other aspects of the business that I haven’t even thought about. Wish me luck.

Writing and retirement

Maybe I should change this to a retirement blog. I think I like retirement nearly as much as spanking. And with retirement I get to enjoy it all the time. I’ve tried to come up with the best thing about retirement, but there are so many things to choose from. Getting up when I want to is near the top of the list. When I got up to take Mollie’s cat to the vet the other day it was dark! I don’t want to get up in the dark. Since Nick leaves for work before five am I got little understanding or sympathy from him. I also don’t like showering in the dark. When I complained about this to Nick I got a bland look and the suggestion that I turn on the bathroom light. HaHa. He knows what I mean, we have a solar tube in the shower and I love the light that floods in during the day. That’s when I like to shower.

But I guess for me it’s having the time to write is that I love best. I’m still not as disciplined as I’d like to be. I think I’d get a lot more writing done if I’d turn the internet off when I sit down to write. I’m bad to hop over and check FB or the blog or emails. But I do try to get in several hours of writing a day. I’m not sure whether writing is a career, a hobby or a way to waste time. As for a career – well, I’d hate to try and live on what I earn. Although everything I have made has thrilled me and gone way beyond anything I thought I’d make through writing. I should say it’s more than a hobby, maybe I should call it a lifelong passion. I was about twelve when I day dreamed of writing Cassie’s stories.

A way to waste time? Nick said something that made me feel good the other day. We were discussing the possibility of him retiring. He knows how much I like it, but I’m not sure he would. He likes being active. And I told him, “I don’t know if you’d like it as much as I do. I like sitting around doing nothing, but you don’t.” He replied, “I wouldn’t call writing nothing.” Just a simple statement but it made me happy that he felt that way and that he'd said it.

I could see how someone might think otherwise. Have you ever watched someone write? Yes, sometimes I’m pounding the keyboard like it’s on fire. But there is so much of my writing time spent staring into space. What I’m actually doing most of that time is listening. Sometimes I’m sitting with my eyes closed. I know Nick has to think I’m sleeping – but I’m not, I’m watching.  I don’t snatch words from the air. I’ve spent more time in the room with Cassie and friends than I have anyone in real life. For Cassie, especially, I don’t create scenes and dialogue. I watch the scene and listen carefully to what everyone says so I can type it later.

It’s so nice to have my characters do the work for me. This is a little harder for me with Cal and Jenny, but as I get to know them better it’s getting easier. I start out with a skeleton of an idea and hand it to my characters. They fill in the guts as well as the muscles and skin and everything else. Sometimes they even make changes to the skeleton. That’s why I love series, I always want to know what happen next. I have ideas for stand-alone books but knowing me if I ever get around to writing them, I’ll try to turn it into a series. I just can’t create characters to toss them aside at the end of the book.

I’m going to keep writing as long as anyone’s reading. Actually, I’m going to keep writing whether anyone’s reading or not. Be it a career, a hobby or a waste of time it’s an important part of my life and it always will be.