Archive for the ‘Let Me Tell You About My Life’ Category

Thanksgiving 2013

Another delicious Thanksgiving completed! As always, everyone picked a favorite food (not the favorite, because what kind of boring person has just one favorite food? Someone who isn’t enjoying life to the fullest, obvs) and make a feast. This year went super well–I really liked the balance of flavors. Here’s the menu:

Mom Ladd: Cuban Salad (made by Mom, Me, and Rob)
Rob: Buffalo-style Meatballs (made by Rob)
Steven: Apple pie (made by Mom and Me)
Me: Biryani (made by Steven)
Dad: Homemade Bread (made by Mom)

Sorry I was too hungry to take many pictures

Sorry I was too hungry to take many pictures

Somehow Mom ended up doing a lot of the work this year, and Dad got out of doing anything(?) I assume that’s why everything tasted so good.

Here's the pie

Here’s the pie

Everything was delicious, and not too heavy. Can’t wait for next year!

Thanksgiving 2012 (what happened to this year?? I don’t know, how will I ever know what I ate when I didn’t take pictures?)
Thanksgiving 2011
Thanksgiving 2010

Halloween 2013!!!!

Sorry it’s taken me so long to post about Halloween! As you probably already know, it’s my favorite holiday! I love planning and making a costume, dressing up, and running around like a crazy person after dark. Candy’s nice too. Unfortunately after becoming an adult, Halloween has lost some of its appeal. An adult running around like a crazy person in a costume after dark is generally considered creepy for whatever reason, so I’ve had to restrict myself to halloween parties and greeting our nonexistent trick-or-treaters. Here is what I wore this year!

Princess Bubblegum in science mode!!

Princess Bubblegum in science mode!!

If you don’t know who Princess Bubblegum is, you should probably be watching more Adventure Time. Princess Bubblegum is ruler of the Candy Kingdom, and also an accomplished scientist. Possibly mad scientist. Sometimes she creates zombie hordes by accident:

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Who else am I supposed to be with pink hair? Plus, I already owned a lab coat (remember how I’m a master of science? It’s weird that I keep having to remind you). All I needed to do was make the crown, get some safety goggles, carry around a clipboard with SCIENCE written on it, and make a name badge for myself. Here’s a close up:

Handy when people inevitably didn't know who I was

Handy when people inevitably didn’t know who I was

Not that I didn’t have other options. Target had a particularly good hat selection this year:

OMG YES MY FAVORITE GODDESS GIRL

OMG YES MY FAVORITE GODDESS GIRL

RUFIOOOOOOOO!

RUFIOOOOOOOO!

Steven went to work in his costume, so opted for something it wouldn’t be uncomfortable to wear all day over something totally awesome:

He is handy with the white duct tape and scissors, though

He is handy with the white duct tape and scissors, though

I already can’t wait for next year!!!

Outer Banks, Fools

Last weekend I visited Roanoke Island again! But since I already solved the mystery of the Lost Colony, this time I thought I would just chill out with my peeps.

Like Queen Elizabeth!!!!!

Like Queen Elizabeth!!!!!

Did you not know that QE1 and I are BFF? And that she lives on Roanoke Island? They’re kind of obsessed with her over there–everything’s all Sir Walter Raleigh themed. This was in the Elizabethan Gardens at Fort Raleigh National Historic Park. They have hedges shaped like things, which is my fave.

And plenty of sculpted butts, which is Steven's fave

And plenty of sculpted butts, which is Steven’s fave

We also found this creepy sea gate, I don’t know:

This is where the ghosts of shipwrecked pirates stagger ashore, I guess

This is where the ghosts of shipwrecked pirates stagger ashore, I guess

Then there’s the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the most famous building in North Carolina:

I don't care if you've never heard of it, you would know if you lived here

I don’t care if you’ve never heard of it, you would know if you lived here

Unfortunately we couldn’t climb to the top because it was closed for the season, but we WERE able to watch a video ABOUT climbing to the top, which is like the same thing, but less sweaty. I wanted to get my picture in front of it while drinking a Cheerwine just to go for maximum North Carolinaness but we didn’t have any.

Oh well

Oh well

Book 2, Draft 3: Done

We talked about how much I hate the revision process like three months ago. Luckily Book 2 wasn’t so bad, and I finished yesterday! Well, with Draft 3. There are 3 major drafts in my initial writing process, which I will illustrate with gifs.

Draft 1

is all about building plot. Messy, funny, a little meandering. Sometimes the details at the end don’t exactly match the ones at the beginning, but that’s okay. It’s just important to get a vague shape of the story so you have something to knead into what you actually want. I am a rockstar at Draft 1, which is why my annual NaNoWriMo contest with James isn’t that much of a contest.

This is an accurate representation of my Draft 1 writing process. Including wardrobe. ROCKSTAR

This is an accurate representation of my Draft 1 writing process. Including wardrobe. ROCKSTAR

Right now I’m writing a series of 4 books (I guess a quartet, if you want to be fancy about it), and I wrote all four Draft 1s all the way through first. Partly because Draft 1 is the most fun, and partly because I needed to know the end before I could match it to the beginning. Next comes:

Draft 2

is all about rewriting the parts of Draft 1 that don’t fit together. Tightening up the plot, deleting anything extraneous, adding parts that need more explanation. It’s definitely the most work, because you have to think about every piece and how it fits together, if it’s saying the thing you want, and if it could do that better.

Not pictured: lying on the floor in despair. There's a lot of that too.

Not pictured: lying on the floor in despair. There’s a lot of that too.

Since I’m dealing with four different books, it’s often been at least a year since I worked on the draft I’m revising. This is actually awesome because I can look at it much more critically, with fresh eyes. I usually make a list of the big things I want to make sure to add, either in specific places, or throughout, and then comb through the story bit by bit. This is also when I add chapters breaks.

Draft 3

is solely about language. And any little things I may have forgotten in Draft 2. For instance, one of my notes for this book right before Draft 3 was “Didn’t Percy have a cool watch???” Yeah, and it’s going to be kind of a big deal in the next book, so I can’t forget to mention it a few times. Draft 3 is usually the fastest (proofreading is also a huge part of my day job), but it’s the one I hate the most. It involves a lot of thesaurus searches and fact checks.

Also sometimes I spend like an hour debating capitalization

Also sometimes I spend like an hour debating capitalization

After Draft 3, I print that sucker out (I still prefer physical books, like some kind of medieval monk, I know) and send it to people who may or may not actually be interested in helping me. Sometimes being my friend is tough. Hopefully they read it and tell me what’s up. And catch all the grammar errors I inevitably missed in Draft 3.

My biggest problem in Draft 3 (that I catch) is commas. I’m always missing like a million effing commas, which is weird because I generally know how English works. I’m not sure what my biggest problem that I don’t catch is, because I haven’t actually gotten any feedback from anyone on Book 1. I assume because they’re too busy sharing it with all of their friends. I know, guys, I’m amazing. Try to calm down.

Anyway, hit me up if you are interested in being a Draft 3 reader. There’s a chance to win fabulous prizes.

I'm not promising a new car, but I'm not NOT promising one either

I’m not promising a new car, but I’m not NOT promising one either

Not Changing My Name, Not Apologizing

I didn’t change my name when I got married. I didn’t even think about it. The first time it came up was when we were applying for a marriage licence and the clerk gave me a sheet with information about how to do it. I had a half a second of confusion, which was silly. Of course I know that’s what people do. Somehow I just never thought it could apply to me. It’s always struck me as kind of bizarre, like if someone asked you to tattoo your company’s logo on your arm after getting hired, or change your first name to “Mom” after having a kid. A tradition that forces name changes at different major life events might actually be kind of interesting–but why only for women? And why only at marriage?

I guess it doesn’t help that I don’t really see marriage as a major life event. Yes, my life now is way different than when I was single, but it’s virtually the same as my life two years ago when we were living together and not married. I guess to some people “marriage” symbolizes the big commitment you make to another person, but I made that commitment long before Rachel did the official pronouncing. I can’t tell you when, because that kind of thing doesn’t happen in a moment, it happens over a thousand different ones.

Not that this wasn't a good one

Not that this wasn’t a good one

I kind of get the whole “we all have to have the same name to symbolize that now we are a ~family~” but only because I’ve been socialized to. If you think about it, it doesn’t make any sense at all. You already have family who don’t share a name with you–in-laws, cousins, grandparents, whatever. There are people who aren’t biologically related to me who I consider closer family than most other Ladds in the world. Your family is who you decide they are, and you don’t need a symbol to prove it. Even the expectation that children share one or both of their parents’ name(s) is really only common in certain parts of the world. In other cultures, they don’t worry about it. You know who your parents are, right? So what does it matter?

I’ve never been able to seriously contemplate changing my name–first or last–because it’s part of me. Sure, sometimes I didn’t like being Patricia–which can be easily morphed into “Patrasha” if you’re eight and creative–but I’m not about to change it because it’s who I am. And I kind of resent random city clerks and secretaries in my apartment complex looking at me like I’m just trying to make a statement and being completely tiresome messing up their paperwork. I didn’t decide this because I want to make a big issue about the patriarchy keeping us down or not subsuming my identity to a man (although fuck that too). It was hardly even a decision–I barely considered it at all. Changing my name would be like changing who I am–and if someone wants you to do that, you probably shouldn’t be marrying them.

Steven and I had a total of one conversation about it:

Me: Would you change your last name to mine?
Steven: … eh, probably not.
Me: Cool. I won’t either.

It’s also weird to me that this even requires explanation anymore–Lucy Stone was raising hell about this back in 1855, so 158 years later the library should not just assume that Same Name=Married and Different Name=Library Bandit, trying to steal strangers’ holds.

Also, Lucy Stone was a 19th-century badass. I may have to do another blog post on her

Also, Lucy Stone was a 19th-century badass. I may have to do another blog post on her

Luckily for me it’s usually little annoyances like that, and not an inability to hold property or register to vote like Lucy Stone had to deal with. The proportion of weird looks has also probably fallen considerably since her time, which is nice. Someday it might be 0, which will be nicer.

laddforlyfe

Watercolor Round 2

Turns out, flowers are way easier than vegetables!!!

STEP ASIDE, MONET. There's a new flower-painter in town

STEP ASIDE, MONET. There’s a new flower-painter in town

Sorry, Rob, but Monet is literally the only painter who does flowers I know, and that is only because once I ended up at his house.

Book 1, Draft 2: Done

You know I’m writing a book, right? Well, four. I wrote them all the way through, and it took about two years. That seems like a short amount of time to write four books, I guess, but I’ve kind of been working on this story since I was 14, so I’ve had a lot of practice. Not that anything from back then is usable, for anything besides laughing sadly at how I thought the world worked, and the way I confused “lose” and “loose” constantly. Pretty much the only similarity between then and now is that a few of the characters have the same names.

Anyway, yesterday I finished Draft 2 of Book 1. Which, to me, is a bigger accomplishment than finishing any of them in the first place. First drafts are easy. I’ve been writing first drafts for twelve years. This is the first time I’ve ever written a second draft, though, so it feels like a big deal. It’s not like I’m done. I’m combing it over again, mostly for language this time, and then sending it off to different people for criticism (YOU??), and who knows what changes that will bring? And then there are three others that get the same treatment. But still. I finished a second draft. I didn’t get bored and frustrated and wander away to start something new. Not that I begrudge past-Patricia for doing that. None of those books she wrote were worth a Draft 2, and maybe she knew it. This one seems to be, though, so I’m happy. I know there’s still a long way to go, but I climbed a mountain I never thought I would so:

gif1

The hardest part was the beginning, of course. I know how important first sentences are, and it took me forever to write this one. Maybe a month, I’m not joking:

The day this started, I was eating kettle corn and watching a volcano.

Maybe it’ll make it to the end, I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like this process is some kind of ruthless contest where each sentence has to JUSTIFY ITS EXISTENCE and BE ALL IT CAN BE or risk being deleted forever. Sometimes I imagine them crying as I backspace through them.

Critical Hit! A sentence can't survive without its verb

Critical Hit! A sentence can’t survive without its verb

I don’t even care that I sound like a crazy person, I finished a second draft alright and that’s all that matters. Draft 2 is 224 pages, at least the way I like to write, with 1.5 spacing (I checked just for you, and it’s 290 double-spaced). Hit me up if you’re interested in reading them for beta review. Some of you will not have a choice and it will just ~appear in your mailbox as if by magic~ because that’s how I roll.

Go Big or Go Home: Art

So I’m terrible at art, and always have been. My mom would always tell me that it was genetic and I shouldn’t worry about it because she sucks at art too. I don’t know if that’s actually true or part of the trauma incurred when a bitchy art teacher told her to never take another art class again, but I’ve been hearing it my whole life. The last time I had an art class in school we were gluing pieces of tissue paper to other paper and drawing hand turkeys, so no real help on that front either.

I'm just going to leave this here as evidence

I’m just going to leave this here as evidence

I wish I could draw. It’s something I’ve wanted to change about myself for a long time. So this summer I decided to do something about it. I decided to take an art class. And instead of beginning drawing or whatever, I signed up for watercolors because, hey, go big or go home. This may have turned out to be a terrible mistake. The first day was fun, all painting squares blue. I can totally do that. Then the second day it became “draw this apple and make it look real with shadows and three dimensions and everything” and I felt like I had skipped a few classes. I’m still trying my best, but it’s hard.

My fruit has more mold than shadows, but that's realistic too, I guess

My fruit has more mold than shadows, but that’s realistic too, I guess

At least you can kind of tell what all these are, right? Unlike week three, where I spent a careful 30 minutes painting a gross green blob:

It's an artichoke, actually

It’s an artichoke, actually

But, really, when am I ever going to want to paint an artichoke? I’m okay with being bad at that. This week we start flowers!!

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