It's a good thing I don't have a long driving commute, a Random WriMo Wrednesday

If I did, I would have to have some kind of voice recording device.  Otherwise I would be a total traffic nuisance, jotting down random ideas every few minutes on whatever scrap of paper (old parking pass, raffle ticket, window flyer, kleenex) I could find.  I drove into Corpus Christi this morning, and by the time I got to my first stop, I had a piece of paper (old parking pass) that looked like this (click to embiggen):

The front passenger seat of my van, with a scrap of paper and pen

A closer view of the front passenger seat of my van, with a scrap of paper and a pen

A close view of the piece of paper on the front seat of my van

I’ll decode that for you, with an explication of each entry, shall I?  I shall.  When I turned on the radio, it was tuned (miraculously) the the local public radio station, which was transitioning from Morning Edition to First Hour (local classical music), with a stopover at Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.  Got that?  

1. “Sesame Street”  One of Keillor’s entries noted that today is the anniversary from 1969 of the first broadcast of Sesame Street.  In particular Keillor discussed the audience testing the show did on children to determine that conversations between people and muppets held children’s attention the longest, and so those conversations became a main feature of the show.  Later studies also determined that children who watched Sesame Street did better on standardized tests.  Happy Birthday Sesame Street. 

2. On First Hour, the host began by wishing Happy Birthday to the United States Marine Corps, which is a little older than Sesame Street.  Then he played a rousing rendition of “Semper Fidelis.” Happy Birthday Marine Corps. Which led me to remember that…

3. Tomorrow is Veteran’s Day here in the U.S.  “Love you Bro/Fam” I’ve been posting 25 Days of Thanks on my Facebook page (you’ll see it here later this month).  I decided tomorrow’s thanks should clearly go to veterans, but in particular I wanted to post some love to veterans I’m connected to on Facebook.  Like Partner (Air Force), my brother (Army Reserve) and others (Navy, Coast Guard, Army).  And to those of you out there who are veterans of the armed services of the United States, a hearty thank you for the commitment and sacrifices you made to serve.  The payback does not always justify what you gave/give, but for this day, I hope we can do right by you, and remind society and government to do right by you always.   

4. “donut!” Um, I didn’t want to forget to get myself a donut.  Which I planned to eat when I met my NaNoWriMo writing goal for today.  I couldn’t decide between Pumpkin Spice Cake Donut and Chocolate Cake Donut, so I bought both.  I ate the pumpkin spice after I’d written 2100 words, but was starving.  A short while ago, I made my 2500 word goal for today, and thus crossed the halfway point of NaNo.  My total word count is now 25,139. Hence the donut celebration.  I shall soon consume the chocolate (now that I’ve remembered it).

5. “lean of bike on crosstown” I had a short crush on the guy on the motorcycle who was behind me almost the entire trip across town.  He drove the bike in such a confident and relaxed and non-jackassy way.  In particular I was totally in love with the way that the bike leaned over to the left on the rising curve of the exit from Crosstown Expressway to SPID (that’s South Padre Island Drive for you non-Texas-Coastal-Benders).  Is there anything sexier than that lean, that just looks so dangerous and yet holds itself together?  

6. “traffic nuisance”  That would be me, with the pen and scrap of paper. 

7. “glassy bay” That would be the incredibly still water around Corpus Christi’s North Beach when I drove into the city.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen the water so still and smooth and bright.  Beautiful.

On the return trip, I added lyrics from two songs that I wanted to look up (not pictured), “Gulf Coast Romance” and “when she rocks she rocks.”  I haven’t looked up either of them yet.  Feel free to enlighten me in the comments if you know them.  

A List of things that don't exist

I’ve been full of snot for a few days. All of the writing ideas apparently get tangled up in the snot, so I’ve spent a lot of time either passed out on the couch or cleaning off the desk in the hopes that if I found a pen I’d write something. 

All I have to show for it is a clear desktop, rearranged computer peripherals, and a bag of used tissues. These are some of the things I might have written, if any writing had happened in the past four days. 

*A review of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, which I finished reading on Sunday. 

*A pondering on my preparations for NaNoWriMo. That might have included my tinkering with a romance in a video store, a murder mystery in a Las Cruces apartment building, a comedy about two friends who only see each other at work, and an existential rambling about whatever came out of my fingertips into the keyboard.

*A rundown on the Halloween costume plans that are in the works here. Normally I am involved in a great deal of sewy, crafty goodness in October, but the Sonars are taking that job from me. 

*A list of all of the inspiring, instructional, cool writery encouragement that I’ve stumbled upon recently. 

Alas, none of these things exist except in a mist of thought in my clogged head. Keep your fingers crossed and maybe some of these things will emerge soon. Or maybe not. 

I’ll leave you with the funniest line I’ve heard all week. Partner, contemplating the apparent irony of his personal politics relative to his profession, recently claimed that he doesn’t usually start things and he doesn’t usually join things.  When asked what he Does Do, he replied:  Mostly I sit at home and question my complicit participation in a patriarchal structure. 

He knows the way to my heart.

Programs, phone books, obituaries: where I find names for my characters

I look for names everywhere. Partner is so aware of this search for names that he regularly tells me about interesting names he hears at work.

Anyone can look in a baby name book, but those names feel so sterile. They’re connected to definitions, but they lack life, they feel too contrived sometimes. The telephone book is a great source of names, of course, but they tend to feel like lifeless words on a page too. I like the phone book best for the name of a minor character. I use it like a random name generator. Flip it open to any page and point without looking. Do it twice, once for first name, once for a last name. Bam. Bam. Colleen Figueroa. That can be the name of my character’s workplace friend. A minor character involved in one important conversation.

If I want to find names that feel more rich, that feel like they have history and messiness, my favorite place to look is the obituaries of my daily newspaper. Go ahead and think it’s weird. You may think it’s morbid. But those obituaries are printed there for a reason. They are remembrance and celebration of lives that have ended. Friends and family want the obituaries read or they wouldn’t put them in the paper. They want their loved ones to be remembered. I live in a small town, so I’ve never used a whole name from the obituary section; I tend to look for just first or last names. The style of names sometimes sound more old-fashioned, but characters come in a whole range of ages. These names, attached to real people, feel alive to me.

The stories in the obituary section can also offer other kinds of inspiration. Need ideas for how to build an extended family for a character? Want to have a range of causes of death for your mysteries? Want to consider the range of euphemisms for dying to help build honest-sounding dialogue? Sometimes the obituaries include very detailed biographies of different life experiences and activities, clubs and accomplishments. You never know what might inspire you in there.

I intend absolutely no disrespect by reading the obituaries for inspiration. It’s a way of celebrating and reviving bits of a life lived.

If I’m looking for names for very young characters, my favorite source is school lists. Each spring, the newspaper prints a list of high school graduates, but with a high school administrator in the family, we also tend to accumulate programs from different events. I skim through them for interesting first and last names and rearrange them until I find things that work for my characters.

How do you come up with the names for your characters? What is your favorite character from a story you’ve written or read?

No one wants to be a puppet, the ethics of opportunity

In 1997 I lived in San Antonio, Texas for one year.  Fresh from New Mexico State University with two degrees (Biochemistry and English) and university honors and tangible working experience as a tutor, a lab tech, and a slinger of electronic media.

UN-gainfully UNemployed.  UNcertain what the heck I was going to do with my life.  UNderstandably worried.  Partner was responsible for our location, and thankfully he was employed.  New schoolteachers in Texas then and now do not get paid very well, though, so there was a certain pressure for me to unseat all of those UNs.

I spent a lot of time with the classified section of the Express-News.  I put out applications for just about everything that was even remotely related to my training and experience and a great deal that was not.  I was hoping to do better than bagging groceries or checking out videos, but was willing to do almost anything that would get a little positive cash-flow going.

One day I got a call from a law office.  This was the sort of law firm that is named after only one person and advertises on the back of the metropolitan phone books of several cities in Texas.  Those ads featured a cowboy hat and boots, and their TV commercials were filled with folksy truisms, a bushy mustache, and a drawl.  I remembered applying to this firm.  They were hiring for several different positions, and I was hoping only to be considered for an intake receptionist.  After all, I had NO legal training of any kind.

Color me surprised then when they wanted to interview me for a different position.  A New position within the firm.  A Very Important position.  And yes, they believed I had the perfect qualifications.  I’d like to say I was cynical, but I was so glad to get a bite for a job and so flattered by the charming voice on the phone that I didn’t blink when he said he wanted to talk to me about being their new Ethics Officer.

Let that sink in a minute.

I was completely terrified and had nothing appropriate to wear.  Almost nothing.  I ended up wearing a shirt and tie with these cheap, sort of dressy, sort of feminine suspendered slacks, and heels.  Everything was brownish.  I was sure I’d fall down with every step.  I thought I’d throw up in the car on the way there.

My interview consisted of thirty-seconds of hateful scrutiny by a receptionist, a ten-minute chat with the venerable proprietor, and five minutes with each of his lawyers.  I had expected to be interviewed by an office manager or something, and was really surprised to be interviewed by the boss.  Mr. Lawyer, esquire, wore a necktie and suspenders and heavy cufflinks.  His suit jacket and cowboy hat hung on a rack next to his office door.  I can’t remember a single thing about that interview except that I was intimidated and nervous and sure that I’d fall down when he led me on a tour of the office.  I remember thinking that MY suspenders were stupid compared to HIS suspenders.

The other two or three lawyers were mostly unmemorable except that none of them seemed too sure what sort of questions they were supposed to ask me or what I would be doing.  They were all white men over forty-five.  All of the staff that I met were hispanic women under thirty.  One lawyer was a retired Navy JAG so freshly installed in the office that half of his law books were still in boxes and his razor haircut was still fresh.  He looked uncomfortable there.

On the trip home the adrenaline rush and fear started to fade into headachy fatigue, and my skepticism and cynicism woke up.  Part of me hoped that they would pay me a lot of money.  Part of me knew that I would have no idea what I was doing in that job.  I had no background in philosophy or ethics or the law.  I didn’t even think I was particularly old enough or wise enough to offer any kind of credible advice about anything morally questionable.  That part of me knew I’d be nothing but a rubber stamp for that slick dude.  A young woman, easily ignored or patronized by the boss.  In that office, I suspected, an Ethics Officer was merely an empty rhetorical device to flash at critics of the morals of that style of law practice.

Still, I thought, it was a job.  I could probably overcome my moral compunctions for a job that didn’t involve videos or grease or even a name tag, right?

They called me the next morning with the job offer.  I declined before the phone call ended.  I think he was surprised, which gave me a thrill.  I eventually found a job in a souvenir gift shop, making almost no money at all, and went off to grad school the next year.  You’d think I’d be remorseful about passing up that job in that law office.  That it was a Good Opportunity, right?

I’ve regretted a few missed opportunities in my life, but missing out on being an Ethics Officer will never be one of them.

Bounce Control, a runner's journey through athletic lingerie

I went shopping for a new running bra today.  In the first store, the selection of sports bras was really limited.  They were mostly labeled “low impact.”  A few were labelled “cross training,” which turns out to mean stuff like lifting weights and doing yoga, though it took me a little while to catch on to the system.  Not really what I was looking for. 

The second store had a huge selection, multiple brands, colors, low, medium, high, and super high impact ratings.  “Super high impact” strikes me as an odd phrase for a bra.  Like someone is going to be smacking me in the chest or something.  Also odd is “bounce control,” though that one seems so much more accurate than the “impact” things.  

The best though (and you can be certain that I’m using the term “best” with drippy sarcasm), was the “high impact push-up bra.”  I know that when I’m sweaty, and bright red, and sometimes a bit queasy during a run that I want to be sure I have lovely cleavage.  But no bounce.

Update on Tuesday, September 28, 2010 at 9:31AM by Eglentyne

There are apparently only four acceptable colors for sports bras too.  White, some shade of pink, black, or royal blue so intense that it might damage your retinas (I think that’s a new choice).  I would have been happy with black and white, but had to settle for the closest choices in duct-tape strength: shell pink and retina-burning blue.  And I haven’t even mentioned the choices in high-tech fabrics. Meshy, wicking, breathable, cool-max, supplex, spandex, lycra.  

One of you will have to go explore the elastic-based supporters for men and report back here.  Do jock straps come in different colors?