This Ain't no Travelling Pants or Sparkly Vampires Book

You can even buy a sparkly vampires necklace.

What makes popular literature? Or for that matter, what makes a movie popular? Or TV? Or music? Judging by all the critics out there, you would think that what people read, watch, and listen too is actually pretty low quality. For all the folk that hate Nickleback or Justin Beiber and claim they are manufactured, formalistic, or have no talent, those artists sure have a lot of fans. I've often thought the Grammy's has done  great job of rewarding one hit wonders over the years. Smart TV shows struggle for viewers and always sit on the edge of cancellation while reality drivel permeates our living rooms. And a really lame sequel (or sequels) can make an awful lot of money off of a decent (or sometimes still crappy) original. They make some really great movies from unknown books but those books were often not best sellers before the movie. It takes a visual representation to make a book popular.

I, for one, have always been mystified by the popular. Uggs boots are nice? Really? I'm not one to jump on bandwagons and what other people think is cool, I often don't see the point. I've never been a Lance Armstrong fan. And yeah, Mark Cavendish is hot, but I prefer his side-kick Bernie Eisel by a long shot.

This is perhaps a long winded way of saying that I doubt I could ever write a best seller. I have too quirky off-centred a way of looking at the world for that to happen. But it would be nice to break even on this venture. And breaking even requires that I sell about 300 books give or take in this up-coming Kindle venture of mine with my novel So, Save Me. The cheapest I can sell the book for, given my copywrite settings for Amazon is $2.99 which is already a dollar more than I intended to sell it for.

I did a lot of research reading 6 years ago in the months leading up to writing this book. I recognize that I am supposedly mature now and too old for these books, but I found that the majority of the books written for teens out there were gimmicky drivel. When I was 14 or 15, I wanted to read stories about relationships and friendships but I wanted the heroines in those books to be less than perfect. It bugged me that they were all goodie-two-shoes and wouldn't dare drink or smoke or go a little farther than they were supposed to with the guy at the party. At some point in their lives most teens do something a little rebellious.

I also often think that my own romantic expectations got screwed with by reading these books. I was inevitably set up for relationship failure. The guy's in these books were always emotionally deep and had great communication skills and I expected this in real life.  Let's face it girls, teenage boys are emotional midgets that for the most part don't know what to do after they kiss you while watching SCTV on their cousin's basement floor even though they'd been hanging over you and teasing you for months before getting the courage. [True story, by the way, and not one that appears in the book.]

So I wrote a book about a very flawed girl who doesn't always make great decisions and is profoundly confused about sex. She happens to be 18 because her author (i.e. moi) seems to live well inside the head of an 18 year old. Well if you are 18 and you live in Winnipeg, there is going to be alcohol and bars involved because our legal drinking age is 18. This is problematic because we happen to have one of, if not THE, youngest drinking age in North America.

And I'm not very good at imitating popular so I wrote the book that I wanted to write and to hell with what was going to sell. You will not find a group of girlfriends of all different shapes and sizes that magically fit the same pair of jeans.   The Travelling Pants series is actually not a bad series as far as teen books go (the movies are hollywood and chiche) but it was not what I wanted to write. The Sloppy Firsts series is great, though -- and it is not a movie.

About 4 years ago and after I had already finished writing So, Save Me (and probably my second novel too) being a connoisseur of teen fiction, I got stopped 4 times while shopping in Costco with the complete Twilight series in my cart. This is before the movies were made. I heard about the series, I can't recall where, but why I was being stopped was because four different women independently felt the need to tell me how absolutely amazing the books were.

Complete strangers. In a big box store.

I was pumped to read them. And after I started reading them I kept waiting for the magic to hit. And I waited and I waited.  And I waited.

It never happened. In fact, I read the first two books and I had to stop reading because to be honest, I was kinda disgusted.  In the time since the movies have come out the series has become a ubiquitous pop culture icon and of course the criticisms of it have been pretty vicious at times as a result. The more it sells, the more people seem to hate it. It was never the criticisms of bland writing with meaningless images that disturbed me. Whatever. Is it perfect literary writing? No. Far from it. But the books do read well and it is a good story. It wasn't the fakeness of it that bugged me. Sparkly vampires and oversized Werewolves aside, there are elements of the story that are immensely creative and amazingly not predictable.  It was the whining and the moping (Bella in general). It was the fact that the two lead male characters were controlling (Edward) and passive aggressive (Jacob) and they were being idealized.

I mean you don't have to write likeable characters. What scared me was that these two "men" ARE likeable and they get away with some despicable behaviours that are justified as being for poor Bella's own good as if this is what it means to be loved AND is the best and truest version of love in a healthy relationship.

I'm so confused. Whiny. Moping. Controlling. Passive-Aggressive. What is a healthy relationship?

I'm not writing this to dis-Twilight. It fully deserves its success. It just kinda scares me sometimes what gets chosen by society as "successful" -- in general, I mean.

I had to re-read So, Save Me twice in the last 6 months. This is my book that I once thought was perfect and not a word needed to be changed. It has been over 6 years since I wrote it and the date on the last draft was somewhere around May of 2006. What do I think of it now? It's still good. It's great actually. It tries a little too hard in places, in particular in the beginning when I was still getting my writing legs back. I can see where I was imitating others at times. I abhor imitation that is obvious. I especially hate when I realize I'm doing it. I fixed a lot of that, I hope, in my recent edits. But the book is still fun. I am very much a character writer so you know exactly who these kids are and what drives them when the book is done. But some of it astounds me with the punch it packs. Did I write that? Yes, yes, I did.

What packs a punch for me isn't going to be what packs a punch for you so I won't go into the details. Just read it when it comes out. And remember, I didn't write it for adults.

It is nearly ready for upload. It is ready actually. As you'll see by the photo below, on the iPad view shows the author's name as "Unknown" -- I have no idea how to fix this. There is no tangible way of getting help. I've posted in forums but the forums have some kind of point system for number of answers and helpfulness of that answer so I've mostly only had trite responses that don't really tell me what to do to fix it. Soon.

You CAN Judge a Book By It's Cover -- I INSIST

Well, there it is. The choice. The very hard decision. The book cover image courtesy of Andrea from Tetro Design. (She needs no introduction.)  I'm happy. Very happy. Pretty excited although trying to be subdued about it. What do you think?

There is a long and interesting market study I did to come to this decision to pick the cover (I was presented with 2 options as you may or may not recall). I'm sparing you the entire story in favour of focusing on the important stuff this morning.

I've done a lot with the manuscript too. Last night I thought it was ready for upload so I put it into the preview program and there are a lot of things to fix. I have this cheeky idea that want it's publication date to be February 29th.

What's the book about? Here is the blurb, the same one I wrote 6 years ago, that will act as my Cover Flap sell, maybe with some edits.

Janey Gillis is a virgin, but would anyone believe it? She’s the kind of girl guys invite for a walk in the bushes but can’t be bothered to take to a movie. Her friends Gillian and Andrea, since hooking up with their boyfriends, have become clingy and whiny, have had twenty-five IQ points vanish from their heads, and now put their friends second. If that’s what it takes to have a boyfriend, Janey would rather stick to being the queen of making out. No commitments. But none of this stops Janey from fantasizing about the big romantic rescue – like some day she’ll find some guy she can save and maybe he’ll save her at the same time.

SO, SAVE ME, (a novel written for young adults ages 15+), is Janey’s hyper-reflective and introspective story about “love and friendship and screwing up.” While waiting to hear news about her friend Marc, who is in surgery following a motor vehicle accident, Janey flashes back over her summer after high school graduation when she’s invited to play softball with a new group of friends. Janey navigates a romantic relationship with Marc, a self professed “good French Catholic boy,” who grieves the recent loss of his mother from cancer in self-destructive ways, thinks nothing of driving after drinking, and pushes for sex as a way to feel emotion. After a period of awkwardness, Janey also develops a friendship with Colin, an injured former junior baseball star and one of Marc’s best friends. The problem? The previous summer Janey had an embarrassing encounter with Colin in the bushes at a bonfire party. And Janey senses there may be something about Colin that she missed out on when she pushed him away.

This is sorta surreal for me. Once I had the book uploaded in Kindle I could see it still has a lot of work needed. The indents are wrong, for one, and they are all over the place through the preview manuscript. I've been fighting with the friggen indents for days in Word. Somehow the table of contents became inactive in the transfer even though they are hyperlinked in the manuscript. Don't know how to fix that. Oh and the author is Unknown. Who the hell is this author?

Reality Check

I don't know about you but as much as I try for it to be otherwise, winter always makes me feel less productive. It seems like everything you do in winter is a hassle. Just the act of getting the kids out the door takes twice as long with ski pants, boots, jackets, mitts that are often missing or left in the car, hats, neck warmers. This winter thus far has been atypically warm but the hassles still exist.

I lead a complicated life, as most of us do, but a few changes in scheduling this year seemed to have increased the complications. I have my children more days a week. It being swim meet season, this means I also have them irregular weekends while their father is away at meets or coaching in town meets. My kids also are attending two different schools this year because middle school starts at grade 5 in the French Immersion program so that means my daughter is at a different school this year.

On top of it all, at work we are in a transition year. It is the last year for two of the programs I've been working with for the last 9 years and our new Baccalaureate program is in it's second year. This means I teach one of my courses 5 times over the academic year because my course runs this year in all three programs.  Because one of the programs runs on a different term schedule, I am never teaching the same material at the same time to any group. Half the time I don't know what I'm teaching, what stories I've told what group and what worksheets I've completed and what I haven't. I rely on my students to tell me. Presently I am in the classroom with 4 classes this term and am working with approximately, 300 students. I operate week by week on good weeks. Usually it is day by day.

It means I'm finding I have to let go of my Type A need to be everything to everyone, be perfect and show up to everything I want to do. It simply isn't realistic or fair to the kids and my sanity to try any more.

I rely on my parents a lot when it comes to the kids and getting me to work on time and allowing me to full fill my obligations there, and I am thankful they are willing and helpful. But I suffer a lot of guilt over what I feel are my constant requests for assistance. One and a half years to go and I have a 12 year old. I'm already prepping her psychologically to be prepared to be taking the city bus to and from school when the time comes.

And I miss my two hour workouts. A lot. That is one thing that has had to be sacrificed in favour of simplifying my life. I'm exercising like a "normal" person right now. I can rarely get to the gym during work hours these days. I would love to be bike commuting all winter. I've slowly been prepping myself to start doing that for the last 3 years. Two years ago I bought goggles and outdoor pants. Last year I bought the bike mitts. This year I bought the balaclava and a night light. Little by little I get ready. Now if only I could buy the time. Right now I have one day a week I can reasonably commute and this is on Tuesday when I have no classes and the kids are with their father so I don't have to get them to school. 

My winter commute time is about 40 minutes on average -- compared to spring and fall when it is 30 minutes. And that is just the ride time.  That doesn't included the bike storage and the shower and change time pre and post rides which is also significantly longer when all the gear is considered. When I teach class at 10:00 and drop my kids at school at 8:30, there just isn't enough time for a winter commute. 

So I have to be satisfied with half hour workouts, an hour at most, and skating with my kid down the river path has to count as a workout even though I barely break a sweat. And I'm despising the bike trainer beyond measure this winter. I'm ready to throw it in a snowbank -- if there were any snowbanks this winter that is. I have to accept my current state of non-competitiveness. That is what is realistic.

This all means that Actif Epica is not going to happen, as much as I might like it to. I can afford a few hours on the day to volunteer because that is what is realistic. It's not the fitness required for it, even with scaled back workout time, I'm still pretty fit. It is the detail required to organize myself to be prepared. The gear. The packing. The food planning. And the four hour training rides that I just can't do right now because the kids are here a lot on weekends and can't be left alone.

And the Barn race, which is today, couldn't happen either. And it looks very very cool. 

And then there is everything else: President of Tribalistic Triathlon, blog writing as infrequently as it occurs (which is an act of relaxation), the course I am taking has homework, my kids have homework, and getting my novel ready to publish on Kindle which has it's own frustrations. But this stuff is important to me and who I am. And you have no idea how much I would like to be writing something new. 

The latest book publishing frustration being readying the manuscript for upload. Microsoft Word formatting makes me want to punch the computer screen sometimes. It is worse with Microsoft Word for Mac. I can't seem to change the font size of a couple of individually selected words without it changing the entire document. Frustrating. And the Kindlegen program for Mac is a command line tool program. I have so much to learn and don't know who to ask. 

So thus is the state of things right now. Gosh there were two days this week when I couldn't even get to the store to restock the milk. We just did without.  My daughter just walked in and told me the white milk is out again. Such is my life. 

Making it a Visual Experience

When in the midst of writing my novel,  I had all kinds of delusions of grandeur about my book being turned into a movie. Those were in the good moments of writing. Writing, and maybe this can be said of any big project where your life and soul is consumed, can be a little bipolar at times; sometimes you feel you are worthy of fame and fortune, and sometimes you flat out suck.

And I'll admit, the moments you think you suck, far outweigh the moments of grandeur.

Even in the last few weeks since I set myself down the path to committing to self ePublishing this book, I've had a few bipolar moments. I love this book and I hate it too. It was the catalyst for a lot of change in my life. It is full of subliminal messages. I can see stuff about myself in it that I didn't recognize while I was writing. These things are hard to face now, six years later.

I had to re-read the book a few months ago so I could fix a few issues of temporality. I had a cell phone issue to deal with. While I tried to write the book to be somewhat timeless and something today's teenage girls could relate to, there is no denying that I was a teenager in a different era. So there was a scene where my heroine comes home to a phone message but later in the book we know she has a cell phone. If she has a cell phone why wouldn't the caller have used it?  I had to fix that. But it meant I had to read the book and that made me a little self conscious.

I'm very fussy about consistency in a book. I'm also frustrated when I'm reading a book and an author takes care of a problem with a "cheat."  In fact I finished reading a book last night that used a huge cheat. A character died from a brain tumour and I guess later in in the writing process, like 10 or 12 chapters later, the author created a plot twist that required that the family be in financial crisis. So low and behold, in a one-sentence write-off, the family was suddenly in serious debt because of the medical bills from the character with the brain tumour.  That's a cheat because it came out of nowhere. No foreshadowing, no warning. I think cheats are an insult to intelligent readers. And while, it was a small issue I had to fix in my book and perhaps would have gone by unnoticed by most readers, it would have bugged me for life so it had to be fixed.

Speaking of readers, my book has been out of the closet now for a little under six years. In that time I've pretty much indiscriminately allowed whoever asked to read it. I never offered it to anyone but I never said no if I was asked. Allowing people to read your novel can be scary sometimes but I was never afraid of letting people read this one. The vast majority of my readers have fallen outside my target audience however, meaning they've been older than 29 and some of them have been male. Only two of my readers have been in the right zone; one was the cousin of one of my best friends and one was the step-daughter of a co-worker.

When I was asked by my favourite designer ,who I put in charge of my book cover design, to help her by identifying key moments in the book, I sent an email out to some of the people I knew had read my book and asked what they remembered. I figured the best way to find out what was most memorable in the book would be to identify those scenes that stick in people's heads for a long time. You know how when you watch a movie or read a novel there is always one part that sticks with you even years after you last saw the movie? That's what I was looking for -- the moments that suck for my friends.

It didn't occur to me until after I hit "send" that maybe there was nothing memorable about my book and nobody would remember anything, and no one would reply (while sending the email was a moment of grandeur, the fear of lack of a reply was an I suck moment, to say the least). And I sent this email over Christmas holidays so it did take 2 or 3 days for people to start replying but, at last, the New Year came and the responses started to roll in.

Most remembered the "teenager" bits -- the making out and the parties and the drinking. A couple remembered the bonfire party scene. Some remembered baseball. Someone actually, five years later, remembered my heroine's name -- extra amazing because it is also a first person book and the only time you read her name is when another character uses it in dialogue.

Her name is Janey, by the way.

And one person remembered the long walk/run through St. Boniface in the dark. That person happened to be my longtime mentor Laurie and I'm sure he remembered that portion because it was agonizing for him to get me to write visual imagery. Not my strength as a writer -- describing shit, I mean. In fact, I'll confess, the way I remember it is that there was a section during that run scene that Laurie, for all intents and purposes, wrote for me.

What my readers didn't remember was the car accident (not a spoiler, by the way, you find out about that in the first chapter), the grieving theme, the love triangle (sorta), and the emotional bits of "coming of age." It isn't a visual book. I'm not a visual writer. It is an emotions book. That's who I am.

I shot my designer an email with a few mentions of specific scenes, an attachment with the book she wanted for reminders as it had been a while since she read it herself -- not to mention the narcotic factor as she read it initially while recovering from a nasty bike crash. I only had two no-no's for the image: No car crashes and no pink. But I knew I really didn't have to tell her that second one.

And I told her I thought she had the hardest job in the world. I couldn't imagine having to take someone's written word and put a visual on it. We write our books picturing everything in our own heads. We picture the locations, we may even be imagining a real place. We may picture our friends in place of our characters. I didn't write any character to be just one person in my life. Often my characters were an amalgamation of 2, 3 or 4 people I knew mixed in with the invented bits, so for me, a character might have 2, 3 or 4 different appearances.

She said she'd get back to me in two weeks. I freaked out because that was fast. And once the cover came in, it would be real, you know. I would have to go through with this.

She only took a week and a half..........

.........and dammit, she sent me two options. And they are both AMAZING and I have to decide. I think I have decided actually. I'm just taking a few days to keep it unreal a little longer.

The Life Cycle of a Novel

One day about 6.5 years ago I decided I was going to write a novel. It was easy. It was a spontaneous decision and I just went for it. I sat down at my computer and just began to type and the damn thing wrote itself. Then I made a couple phone calls, got an agent, and because the novel was really good and I was really talented, the agent found me a publisher overnight. That publisher offered me a half million dollar advance which I then used to pay off my house, all my debt, and buy the most expensive bikes possible and we all lived happily ever after travelling to California every spring to climb hills and wander along the ocean.

Yeah, I'm totally shitting you.

I was thinking the other day about the concept of talent. If you are talented at sports, everyone wants you on their team. If you are talented at a really popular sport like hockey or football or golf, scouts seek you out, everyone recognizes your talent, and you are invited to a team training camp or you are drafted (which has nothing to do with sitting behind the fastest guy in the peloton) or if it's golf you go to qualifying school. If you've worked hard and you are driven you are rewarded for your talents with a big contract and a lot of money.

But if your talent is something artistic, it isn't that simple. With artistic talent, you get classified within some genre or style that might be an acquired taste, and you have to meet a popular need. And with writing, a publisher has to think you meet enough of a popular need to make them money. They aren't interested in breaking even off you, they are interested in you making them rich. There are a lot of really popular authors out there who are shitty writers. No, shitty is too harsh. They can write, they just have some horrible lazy habits or formalistic plot generator writing mentality. Please don't make me name any of these authors. If you read, you can name your own.

There were a handful of truths in the lie of my first paragraph. Six years ago, I did write a novel. It wasn't easy and it didn't write itself but I am sorta talented. Everyone has one talent, and I'm grateful to be able to have identified mine, because I am sure that there are some people that never stumble upon what their talent is and most, spend too much time floundering around putting too much energy into a talent they don't actually have hoping talent will magically materialize. Like bike racing, perhaps. Or, like singing. I can't sing.

My novel I wrote didn't get shoved in a drawer. I finished writing the first draft sometime in November of 2005. I had a four year old and an almost-two year old who went to bed early (lucky me) and that's when I wrote. I ignored my marriage and that would be my contribution to it's demise (or part of it).  It was writing my book that was the gigantic turning point in my life, there was no doubt about it.

I applied for and gained admittance to the Manitoba Writer's Guild Mentorship program and started that in January of 2006. I worked for 4 months with Brandon writer Laurie Block who at the time was a 50-something poet. I went through great angst trying to figure out why the hell, out of the 60-plus applicants that submitted a proposal, he would be interested in me, 30-somthing writer of a girly teen novel.

But I do credit Laurie with saving my life and my lost soul in many ways but I've talked about that elsewhere. Many elsewheres, actually.

When the mentorship program was over, Laurie encouraged me to submit a proposal for a writer's grant from the Manitoba Art's Council. I got the grant.  I used the grant money, not only to live a little, but also to make a big push to get my novel published. I don't remember how many publishers and agents I queried and sent samples to but it was several dozen.

And they were interested. I had two agents request the entire manuscript and two or three that asked for chapter samples. I had two publishers also request the entire manuscript. They all eventually turned me down, (except for the second publisher -- 4 years later and I've never officially received a rejection). Why was it rejected? I was lucky enough to receive more than form letter replies in many cases and the message was always the same: While the writing is really good, we just aren't sure how to market this. It is too old for young adult and too young for adult.

When I sat down to write this book, I wrote the book I would have wanted to read at about 14 or 15 years old when I wanted to transition out of reading teen specific books but wasn't quite ready to read about the lives of 30 and 40 year olds in the traditional adult novels. So I wrote about an 18 year old girl graduating from high school and the the changes and thoughts that come along with that.

But I targeted Canadian publishers and Canada being the small market that it is, young adult means 12 year olds and up.  Twelve year olds shouldn't read my novel. The sexual content is too mature.  I didn't target American publishers because my book is very Canadian -- Winnipeg Canadian. There is a huge St. Boniface cultural effect in the novel and that atmosphere was very important to me. If you grew up in or hung around St. Boniface, Windsor Park, or Southdale in the late 80's or early 90's this book will feel very much like home to you. Large portions of the book take place in very familiar and in some cases, now defunct locations like Le Rendezvous, Le Canot, College du St. Boniface baseball fields and the characters work at the Safeway and Canadian Tire on Vermillion Road.

I gave the book a chance to be published mainstream for about 2 years. In the time I waited for the pile of rejections, I wrote a second novel. I haven't said much about novel number 2 but maybe I will in a future post. But that doesn't explain why I've let 4 more years go by since I gave up on ever holding this book in my hands in printed form or being able to wander into McNally Robinson and stare at it's cover on the store shelves. I always joked that it was going to be my goal to see my author picture up on the wall one day. Now that picture would have to be me on a bike.

In the meantime I've enjoyed spending the last four years beating the crap out of myself on a bike and I will continue to do that. And a lot of things have changed in publishing since I wrote my novel and tried to publish it the old fashioned way. Book stores are struggling due to big box mentalities. And Kindle and iBooks are beginning to take over.

And my first novel deserves better than it's place in the metaphorical bottom of the Tickle Trunk. So as an act of doing something lofty, I'm prepping it to be ePublished.  It's time and I hope I'm ready and I've procrastinated long enough. So for the next little while I'll use this blog to tell you my progress in doing that. I can tell you I am now a Registered Publisher, I can obtain ISBN numbers, I've researched how to upload to Kindle (the information on how a Canadian does that with iBooks has been a bit more difficult to find all in one neat and tidy place), and I've got my favourite designer on the job of bringing the emotional mood of my book to life on a cover image.

I even have some promotional ideas, hence my sudden interest in Twitter which I still don't get. And I hate tooting my own horn and selling myself. It feels like prostitution. Worse, actually, I'm standing on stage naked under the lights. I can't see the audience but it's all people I know, and they could start throwing tomatoes at any moment. But I'll see what I can do. There might be a reason why the time didn't become right, till now, for me to take action on ePublishing.

Most authors will tell you that their first book should never see the light of day. I don't think that's true in this case. I also don't think it was really my first novel.

Stay tuned in future posts. I have more to tell you about how I've been prepping this book.

The Rules: Six through Ten

Is anybody else bothered by the word "date?" This has been on my mind since I started writing this set of blogs.  Did I date before I got married? It was more like we all just hung out together or worked together and then eventually we paired off. My now ex-husband took me on dates when we first started going out but before that, I doubt it was that formal. The guy would invite you to a party or the bar, you met up with all his friends (or your friends), he drove you home and you made out in the driveway for a while before going back in your parent's house. Is that dating? It may just be that my fears of dating are derived from the fact that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing because I have never done it before.

So this is part III, of the Man Diet discussion and a look at Rules 6 to 10. Parts One and Two (rules 1 to 5) can be found at the links.

Rule 6 – Take a Break from the Games

You know the game, right?  Don't call for 3 days, take at least 30 minutes to answer a text, and longer for an email. I really don't know how to do this. If you write me an email and I get it, I'll answer it. Probably on the same day. Likely within the hour, assuming the day is going that way. If you text me, I'll answer as soon as I get it unless I'm driving my car, I'm in class, I'm on my bike, or my phone is off for some reason. To me, it seems like too much wasted energy to have to think about when I can safely answer without looking too eager. Don't you want me to be eager? Aren't you excited that I am willing to take the time to reply in an expedited manner?  Or is that a chick thing?

And the fact that we know people play these games on purpose is what, ironically enough, contributes to women thinking you still are interested in them when you really aren't. He's just not calling because he's waiting the required amount of time. He's playing the game. I'll just call him instead.  

I'm too old for games. I hope you are too.

Rule 7 – Do Not Pursue

The sad thing is, contrary to what I just said above. Playing hard to get, which is also a game, actually works.  It goes back to what I said in the first instalment: "You always want that which you cannot have and that which is unavailable is always most attractive."   Ever since my trauma in University in Philosophy class, I haven't been able to be the pursuer. And I have to confess, if I'm playing hard to get, I'm not doing it on purpose. It really is just because I haven't noticed you yet. It probably explains why, when you ask couples how they met their significant other, women in particular, usually say, "Finding a relationship was the furthest thing from my mind."  And if I look back on my relationship history, I would say the same thing. Virtually all the men I've had serious relationships with across my life from 14 to 40 I was not thinking about meeting someone when I did and I certainly was not the pursuer. It doesn't mean we were meant to live happily ever after but it was still a fun start.

And as much as most men support women taking on "non traditional" roles in other areas of their lives, they aren't quite ready to relinquish the fun of the pursuit of that which is evasive. The author of the book did research for a previous book where she interviewed dozens of men about how they felt about women making the first move. Most men were OK with it, 60% in fact if I recall correctly, so she tested the theory and started asking men out and keeping tabs. She found that the number of acceptances she got was nowhere near 60%.  So while men might be in favour of women being the pursuers in theory, in practice their behaviours don't match. This, my evolutionary psychologist friend would tell me, is the conflict between being socially acceptable in your opinions and the evolutionary unconscious drive of reality.

I’ve noticed this too, even in the online environment where I made the first attempt at contact about 4 times in nine months, only one guy has answered (25% response rate with a pretty low sample size) and the conversation petered out pretty quickly despite an overwhelming number of things in common.

And I’m not a supermodel but I'm a reasonably attractive woman. I’m athletic and a reasonable weight and I take care of myself. But it just ain’t that fun for men if there is no hunt. And to be perfectly honest. I enjoy being hunted.  So while I flirt shamelessly and often indiscriminately with men I'm comfortable with, I don’t make first moves. At least not early on.

Rule 8 – Take a Break from Internet Dating

Yes, this is now a no-brainer.  In addition to what I’ve written recently on the subject, and the book, coincidentally, uses the same words I used to describe the experience (catalogue, disposable), the book also makes one other additional good point. Too many choices are confusing. And when one woman doesn't work out, sometimes for the most benign of reasons or flaws or imperfections or deviation from the cookie cutter vision he has in mind, he shuffles on to the next one because the next time he opens up his email, there are 6 more women to look at.

I'm not sure if the book actually made this point or if I simply inferred it from the chapter. Isn't online dating like the definition of desperation and pursuit, for women? I can't speak for men. But it seems to me that if you make yourself that available, the man is guaranteed to not be that interested in the real you because you've already thrown yourself at him with your online plea and sales pitch. I'd like to be wrong about that but my experiences have shown otherwise. And I'd love to hear about men's experiences with online dating because they probably get some horrible stuff going on from their end too.

But as I wrote in that other entry, I’m out of the online environment as soon as my membership expires. It is a waste of my time and my money. I want to meet someone and be friends first because I intend for my next relationship to be with someone I consider my best friend.  

Rule 9 – Dwell on Your Sense of Self

The chapter tells many stories of how failure with men can overshadow your personal success in other areas of your life. As women we have been conditioned to believe that we are somehow lesser human beings without a man. Our friends and family don’t help matters by constantly prying into our dating lives, “So, anyone nice out there for you yet?” Sigh…  “In a relationship, everything is rosier, right?” – I was married once, I can tell you this is a myth. The number of friends and acquaintances that have spilled their marital woes to me since my own marital woes became known, tells me that relationship unhappiness is a plague.  You can still have, “warmth, validation, and ecstasy,” while single.  We are looking for a fairy-tale. Commercialism, dating sites, and jewellers prey on this desire for a fantasy to come true in advertisements.  Similar to how advertisements make us feel bad about our weight and appearance so that we’ll spend money, they make us feel bad about being single and lacking romance so we’ll spend money.

And if you are busy doing lofty things, you should feel good about yourself, because you are more likely to find someone you love by doing the things you love to do. 

Rule 10 – Know Your Obstacles

I admit, this is the category where I score a grade of F. I can’t tell when a guy is ready for a relationship or is suffering from that quiet vulnerability of one who is still seething from some past ex and needs some attention. They all look the same to me. Overly attentive in the beginning, a dream come true, and then as soon as you begin to have real feelings, they begin to slip away. Or maybe they don't look the same and I'm just good at ignoring the signs when I'm getting that, "Too good to be true," feeling. The book describes the men to avoid: Married and willing to cheat, Charming with no intention, Keeping the options open men (which basically means, "you'll do" to fill the void right now but you're gone when someone "better" comes along), Good looking and boring, Douchbags, Asexuals, Those with Ex issues, The networker, the evasive mystery man, and worst of all, all your past ex's.  I've experienced them all in one way or another, except for the ex. I can honestly say I've never "gone back" to someone I've dated in the past.

But really, in relationships there are only two obstacles. You and him. You can't settle for someone because you should like him because he's nice and treats you well but there's no spark, or because your friends like him. The only person who has to be excited about him is you. And he has to be meeting your needs. If he's charming as anything in your presence and ignores you in-between, or he says one thing, and does another or doesn't follow through, he isn't worth your energy and you are not his priority. And I'm really bad at that. I'm really bad at getting a soft spot for guys who are broken, and healing, and lost. I could write an entire post about my naivety. Maybe one day I will.

The Rules: One to Five

My last post, The WSM Fallacy,  talked about dating issues and how certain aspects of dating the second time around were beginning to get me down. Very down. And not just down, but downright anxious about putting myself out there and being judged, and discouraged enough to want to throw in the towel on many occasions. So I picked up a book called The Man Diet that promised to show me how to stop feeling bad about my experiences with men and to quit making men, or the lack there of, the central focus of my self-esteem. The book gave 10 rules for avoiding specific circumstances that contribute to eating away at women's sense of self in relationships.  It does not in any way help you find "the one"; the purpose of the book is to help you find yourself. 

I said in my last post that after reading this book, I decided that I wasn't doing half bad. So this time, I will talk about rules 1 to 5 and how I handle them.  So Let's get on with the rules and how to go on a Man Diet. (Who makes up these book titles anyway?)

Rule 1 – Refuse to Have No Strings Attached Sex

Alright, nothing like starting out big (no pun intended) by putting the potentially most awkward and personal rule on the table first. No Strings Attached Sex. Call it what you will, this means no fuck buddies, no friends with benefits, and no sex for fun without commitment. No sexting and no flirtatious chats with substandard male candidates that you know will never be life partners. Why? Because as fun as it is in the moment, it makes many women feel like shit in the days after.

You can plan for it, you can agree to it verbally with your "victim," and no matter what happens, as soon as the clothes come off, sex changes everything. That person, will become forever ingrained in your memory in some way (good or bad). And if you are prone to agreeing to have casual sex in the hopes that it will become more -- no strings sex is a bad idea for some women.

It all goes awry something like this: You begin daydreaming about the potential and wish he would call or email. He may have politely asked for your email or cell number on the way out the door, or you leave it for him on the bedside table. And that call never comes. And it sucks a little bit of your soul, because by asking for your number, or by leaving your number, you just got permission to start expecting something more. Bottom line: Don't have casual sex if you can't leave it in the moment for what it was. You asked for it, you wanted it (you were lying to yourself) and you agreed to it.  Not to mention the fact that, for women, no strings sex is often pretty lousy sex. Why the hell would you want to have lousy sex that makes you feel worse afterward? You are an emotionless, cold (Ok warm), orifice to some guy's penis. That's it. 

Do I sound like I am speaking from experience? I read a book remember. I can glean all kinds of experiences from reading books. I've never been to Africa either but I could write about that too if I read something about it. Be careful about assumptions. The book had some pretty vivid descriptions of the emptiness some women felt in the midst of No Strings Sex. 

I have to be honest here though. In my first draft of this section I initially wrote, "I’ve never had No Strings Attached Sex? Honest to God. Never."  I've had a couple days to reflect and I've decided that is a bit of a white lie. What I have never done is go to a bar or a lounge or a pub and pick up some good looking stranger and take him home with me. There is my holier than thou moment amongst the rules. I discovered early in my youth that you can't have some pseudo-sexual experience with some guy you just met and expect it to turn into a relationship. So if I was actually looking for a relationship, and I always am,  I would stay as far away from shallow encounters as I possibly could. 

It isn’t like I haven’t thought about it. A lot. Sheesh, I should be out there having the time of my life, sewing my wild oats. I just can’t seem to do it. Maybe I'm just too old for that kind of behaviour now.  And when I've tried, the inexplicable has happened. I've managed to find some nice guy who also only wants relationships and he's continued to hang out with me, sometimes without me being especially enthusiastic, in the weeks or months after. Go figure. There are exceptions to the stereotype. 

Once when I was in my early to mid 20s I got pulled into some bar radio contest. I don't know how it happened, but what I do remember is that I was cold sober. I remember this because one of the prizes I won was a drink and I had to go trade it for something else because I was driving. But the contest involved licking whip cream off some guy's bare chest as fast as I could. He was a great, totally attractive guy, as I recall, but I hated the whole experience. I have no desire to do something that intimate with someone I know nothing about, I've never had a conversation with, and I haven't developed a deep respect for. It has never been purely someone's looks driving my physical attraction toward him. 

As a final note: as much as the sexual revolution of the 60s did for women in terms of bringing awareness to female sexuality, desires, and the acceptability of premarital sex, a guy who sleeps with many women is still described as experienced and a total stud. A girl who sleeps around is still a slut. 

Rule 2 – Cut Down on the Booze

I like a good drink, but I could stand to cut down on the booze. Mostly because I am old and I can't handle the extra calories the way I used to. Nor can I handle the hangover. I sleep lousy if I've even had a couple of drinks, I feel miserable the next day, and the combination of poor sleep and a hangover (which appears with less and less alcohol these days) is when I've had some of my most negative thinking about my love life (or lack there of). There is nothing like a good bout of binge drinking to make you ruminate negatively about how things are going in your life and Gawddammit, I deserve better. Why does this always happen to me? And geeze, Universe, stop dangling carrots in front of my nose and then yanking them away. 

The book calls alcohol a problem because it is likely to contribute to unplanned sex, Facebook stalking, and negative ruminating. Not to mention it is tough on the bank account. Alcohol is the best, non-pharmacological anxiety killer in the market. And that is my biggest problem area. I've poured myself a beer, a glass of wine, or a gin and tonic while waiting for a date to pick me up, while waiting for a phone call or email, after a hard day at work, or during those moments when the kids are getting to me just a liiittle biiiit. And there is nothing like a cold beer on a hot day as the best recovery drink in the universe. I seem to have more friends than I ever had in my entire life and there is always alcohol around when socializing. Always. 

But in the name of losing the muffin top over the lip of my jeans, and on some days, my sense of self-worth, the booze must go. Or at least, I will cut back... yes, yes, I will. 

Rule 3 – No Facebook Stalking

All my Facebook friends are laughing right now.  Am I one of those famous people on Facebook?  Everyone knows every nuance of my life? Believe me I'm far less revealing on Facebook than it might appear. Usually I  just try and be witty and insightful and see what kind of response I'll get. There is lots of shit I don't reveal. Just ask my friends - I mean, the friends I see on a regular basis and actually talk to, in person and on the phone, and share my real life with.

My workplace doesn't block Facebook so I am on there virtually all day. Or at least the link is open. I'm not always sitting there monitoring everything that goes on. Do I check it a lot? Yep. But I have this little network on there. There is almost always someone talking to me about something and my phone is buzzing or I'm bored and I'm rotating through links and tabs while waiting in line or waiting for kids to come out of school. But 75% of my newsfeed on Facebook isn't people, it is cycling links. If I'm stalking anyone, it is pro cycling teams.

And I'm on it a whole hell of a lot less when I'm in a relationship. 

What I don't do on there is stalk my ex's -- much. Yes I have a few ex's that are Facebook friends. Occasionally they show up in my newsfeed.  There is a fortunate interesting trend amongst my ex's: They all have pretty low Facebook traffic so even if I was to be checking their profile activity repeatedly, there wouldn't be much to look at. Nor do I spy or much care about their current relationships.  And I've never asked a friend to spy on someone for me or hack into their boyfriend's Facebook account to spy on someone for me. No thanks. I don't need to know.  

OK, I will admit, that if I meet someone new and we become "friends" as part of the progression, I'll peek. Come on, everybody does it. Facebook, encourages it. That's how they hook you in. 

These are all scenarios that the book warns against.  The act of continuous monitoring of ex's and former dates, and potentials and partners can screw with your head. Seeing one tiny hint that someone who rejected you in the past is with someone else can be torture to watch and make it more difficult to let him go. And really, what you see on Facebook isn't real. It isn't a real person, it is simply a persona a person has created of themselves. No sense in beating yourself up over some read-between-the-lines statement that someone has made on someone's Facebook status. And if the guy is dating someone else instead of you, that isn't likely to change. 

Rule 4 – No Talking about Men

I have way too many friends and for a while I did way too much talking. The book suggests that constantly talking about your dramatic man stories and escapades can actually be emotionally draining rather than helpful and could contribute to you seeking situations that give you more dramatic man stories to tell. I suppose this is the female version of locker room talk.  The other problem with talking to your friends is that they are not likely to tell you when you are being an idiot. They are more likely to support and validate your opinion. And, trust me, you are not always making the best decisions all of the time and sometimes you shouldn't be validated but rather be given a good slap upside the head.

(By the way, if you think you need a friend to give you a good slap upside the head. I'm the one to talk to. I won't validate you, if you are being a dork.)

It was one situation and one situation only that got me to talk a few years back and it seemed at the time that I didn't have to do a thing to find myself retelling stories of conversations with this person that were, in a word, appalling. I wasn't creating situations to have stories to tell, they just seemed to land at my feet. I've mellowed a bit in the last couple of years. I have some friends I talk to about some things and other friends who hear different aspects of my life. In the end, it was never about the drama or the entertainment value or the plot that held my friends captivated. It was about their concern for me. 

Rule 5 – Do Something Lofty

Apparently, "lofty" does not mean riding your bike for 234 km in one day. That is, unless it involves a charity. Then it becomes lofty. Or maybe it means crazy. Take your pick.

I can find projects. I have more projects than I can possibly complete. I have books to write and training to do and research projects to plan. And kids to raise. There is no more loftier a project than children.

The first time I got dumped in an official break-up kind of way, I was 18. Prior to that boys just started ignoring me and hoped I wouldn't notice (That hurts more than anything, and as I've found out in the past 4 years there are still some 40+ year olds who think this is an effective dumping strategy as well).  But this dumping happened right as I started university and I did what any overachiever might do, I threw myself into my homework and got straight A's instead (except for that Philosophy course, remember. You know the one where I slipped my phone number to the guy before the final exam. Oh and Film Studies which got killed by going out and drinking every Sunday night and sleeping through Monday afternoon movie day). 

You know the phrase "go with the flow?" The word flow has scientific connections. It involves finding that zone where you are completely immersed in what you are doing with no other thought in your head. I equate flow with doing anything that makes me forget to check for messages on Facebook.  Sorta, kinda like now, when I am writing this. Except I don't think writing about relationships counts toward stopping your thoughts about them [ahem...  that's irony.]

Whatever works.

Coming up: Rules 6-10.... They just get better and better folks.