Well, I'm almost on track to make a 10/27 deadline for Wandering April and the Little Yellow Parasol. I'm not really happy with my work, though. Too much of it is plot rather than character oriented. There's also a lot of telling rather than showing. But I think if I finish, I'll have a plot in place. Maybe then I can go back over it and rewrite the narration as scene.
And, you know, I really think it's going to be a really fun, cool book if I can nail those scenes. I'm already in love with the plot. But sometimes I question my own taste and judgment though . . .
I love the idea of middle grade books that children secretly check out from the library or buy with their own money without telling their parents. I love the idea of books that children switch the book jackets on (oh--ah this? It's Anne of Green Gables. Yeah, that's it, Anne of Green Gables.) or read with a flashlight under the sheets when they are supposed to be in bed. I love books that kids snicker over in the far corner of the playground or that inspire a brand of inside joke that would only get them in trouble if anyone actually knew. I love the books that kids read while they are pretending to play video games.
Every kid that does these things is totally giving the finger to censorship. And I love that.
But is this wise? Really, really popular books seem to have a high level of parental approval. I believe that parents are still the driving force behind their kid's reading habits. I mean, there's a reason why none of the other eighth graders in my class were reading The Painted Bird and The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. Just because my habits weren't monitored then doesn't mean that most kids don't feel the heat these days.
Outside of writing, I've been in turmoil. My husband and I watch two dogs once or twice a week and these dogs . . . are not Egon (See Below). One of these dogs has a great deal of potential, but the other--yeah, let's just say that I'm in turmoil.
Well yesterday, the other dog clamped on to this little dog and wouldn't let go. We were pinching her jaws, yelling, screaming, the other dog was freaking out, the whole neighborhood was there yelling . . . it was a bad, bad scene. I am completely shaken up.
And it's happened before. Many times. Not with us. But it has happened before. The dog is a habitual clamper.
And a habitual escape artist.
And a habitual rabble rouser.
And a habitual dog park ganger upper.
So after this happened, I did some research on the behavioral problems common to this dog's particular breed. By research, I mean that I clicked on and read the first seven links from Google. They all pretty much said the same thing.
No dog parks. No contact with other dogs. Exercise and train the dog as much as you can, but limit stimulation because this dog does a piss-poor job regulating adrenaline.
I could kick myself. I've noticed these things. She only drinks 10x more water when she's around Egon. She only pees the floor 60% of the time when she sees a bowl of food. And on a leash . . . she's beside herself. Every time she sees another dog she's pretty much ready to hang herself on her harness.
I think Google is right. Her owners are big advocates for treating her like a normal dog, with a normal ability to regulate adrenaline and pouring water on her head when she can't deal with normalcy any more. This is a bad idea on so many levels. Google is right.
This got me thinking about humans. Not that I think there are people out there that bite other people with jaws of death, but like how many people out there might have trouble regulating adrenaline and need a major normalcy intervention once in a while.
I mean, take advertising. Advertising is a normal part of modern life. Some people, even children and other highly vulnerable people, can ignore it or simply forget about it, but others . . . there are people that just CAN'T handle it. They go into debt and eat nothing but junk food because they are literally being assaulted on a daily basis. I know that a lot of people out there would attribute these negative consequences to a lack of self-control . . . but after dealing with this dog . . . I almost wonder if there's something going on with the nervous system of ad-vulnerable people.
And that makes me think about weight loss and genetics. I'm a size 0/2 and so is my sister. My mother was 85 lbs (@ 4'11") when she came to the US at the age of 27. So you would think that being thin is a family trait. Maybe.
My dad on the other hand is 6'2." Both of his parents had heart disease (and not just heart disease, wicked heart disease that started in their forties) and weight, along with cholesterol and blood pressure, seems to be a real issue in his family.
About a two years ago, my dad's doctor told him that he had to lose weight or that he would die. And guess what? He dropped more than 80 lbs in a year.
No gimmicks. Really.
He bought the Atkins diet book and grossly misinterpreted it. But instead of misinterpreting it to mean that he should eat nothing but bacon, he read it to mean No:
- cookies
- cakes
- chips
- soda
- ice cream
- candy
- pie
He started going to the gym 3x+ a week.
He still eats tons of fruit and white rice. He still eats bread, but it's high fiber and high in whole grains. And he still eats potatoes.
But what struck me about all of this is how well (I won't say easy because I don't know if it WAS easy) but how WELL he did all of this. And it also makes me think--hey, my grandmother also did a great job quitting smoking when she was in her 50's.
And when I was 18, I gave up soda without even thinking about it. When I was 21 I gave up TV. When I was 25, I cut out MSG. And strangely . . . there aren't any trans fats or high fructose corn syrup in this house at all. We don't even have table sugar. And come to think about it, we eat about one serving of meat a week.
And none of this was really that big of a deal. Really. I'm not suffering.
Well, not true. I'm in turmoil over a dog. But it's not like I need or want a soda at the moment.
So I was wondering if maybe it is genetically easier for some people to give up things that are bad for them. Maybe some people don't experience as much stress because they can't have something. It's like their nervous system can handle it better or something.
So you can try to stimulate them and advertise to them as much as you want. And it doesn't kill them.
But for other people, giving something up is a huge upward climb because it's like their whole body is fighting them on it.
And maybe . . . the dog's whole body is fighting her when it comes to being good. Maybe, because of her breed tendencies, her body just won't LET her be good.
So where does that leave any of us?
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