November 2012 – Lena Corazon

Month: November 2012

3 Alternatives to Black Friday Madness

The Thanksgiving turkey in all his glory. Photo credit: LMRitchie via WANACommons on flickr.

This Thursday, Americans will be celebrating Thanksgiving and all of the wondrousness that goes along with it: feasting, family, and football. It’s the kind of thing that we look forward to all year, because who can go wrong with tryptophan-induced food comas and quality time with the people we love?

The day that follows stands in marked contrast to Thanksgiving’s laid-back relaxation. While Thanksgiving has been seen as the beginning of the holiday shopping season since the 19th century, according to this article from Time Magazine, the term “Black Friday” was coined by Philadelphia newspapers in the 1960s “to describe the rush of crowds at stores.”

These days, Black Friday’s appeal is intimately tied with Americans’ love of bargain shopping and discounts. Advertising plays on this fantasy of consumption, as George Takei’s recent commercial for Old Navy so aptly demonstrates:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oK6BbebwhWM

Shopping is fun! And delightful! And even better when we can start a midnight to get a head-start, right??? No one wants to miss a deal!

Not exactly.

The past few years have revealed that there’s a darker side to our mad quest for ever-cheaper deals and, simply put, stuff. Advertisements for Black Friday present it as yet another shiny delight for shoppers to enjoy, but a closer look reveals the ways in which this invented holiday has come to typify the nasty underbelly of American consumption, one that showcases greed in all its forms.

Black Friday shoppers at Walmart (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are the crazed shoppers, ready to injure, maim, and even kill-by-trampling in order to snag discounted televisions or the latest “it” toy of the holiday season (this list of the most brutal Black Friday injuries and deaths sums up the horrors in all its lurid detail).

And then there’s corporate greed itself. Over the years, big box stores have been opening their doors earlier and earlier. 6 am became 4 am. 4 am became midnight. This year, however, Target, Walmart, Toys R Us and other stores will be opening as early as 9 pm on Thanksgiving night.

“Black Friday creep,” as the media has dubbed it, more or less shatters the Thanksgiving holiday for countless retail employees around the country. As the CNN article linked above discusses, employees have been fighting back with online petitions and, in the case of Walmart workers across the country, coordinated walkouts. According to labor professor John Logan, the Walmart walkout is part of a larger string of protests that began in October

to protest inadequate wages and benefits and the company’s pattern of illegal retaliation for union activity – or, in the words of one WalMart worker, for ‘consistent hours, better pay, and simple respect’ at the workplace.

Black Friday, in other words, has become a veritable sh*tshow, one that not only infringes upon the labor rights that Americans have fought for over the generations, but contradicts the very foundation of the Thanksgiving holiday itself. Not cool, folks.

So what can we do to avoid the Black Friday madness? Here are three alternatives to consider:

Buy Nothing: In the words of Susie Lindau, “boycott the madness!” Stay inside, stash your wallet, eat leftovers, and watch football. Or, if the mood should strike you, spend a few hours volunteering at a local charity, homeless shelter, soup kitchen, or other community organization. Thanksgiving and the holiday season are about gratitude and giving, after all.

Buy Handmade: Online retailers like Etsy feature countless products that are either handmade, vintage, or “upcycled”: repurposed vintage items. The plus? Not only are you supporting individual artisans and small businesses, practically everything you’ll find on Etsy is unique and one-of-a-kind.

Buy Local: One of the best things about shopping local? Knowing that your money is directly supporting small business owners and the community, as this video demonstrates perfectly.

The “buy local” trend has steadily been gaining traction, and this year, countless cities across the country will be promoting alternatives to Black Friday. Examples include “Little Boxes” in Portland, OR, “Small Business Saturday” in Phoenix, AZ, “Shopapalooza” in Tampa, FL, or “Plaid Friday,” which originated in Oakland, CA and has spread to cities across the country.

Is “Black Friday creep” going to affect you or your family? How will you choose to spend the holiday weekend?

ROW80: The Highs and Lows of Literary Abandon

November 17, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 11 Comments

As all Wrimos know, National Novel Writing Month bills itself as “30 days of literary abandon.” This year, I’m finding that “literary abandon” is something akin to “playing in the sandbox with full permission to get my clothes dirty.” I’ve given up all hope of plots, plans, or outlines. I don’t even think I have a stable list of characters anymore. Instead, I’m making it all up as I go along.

The result? Sheer chaos. And I’m loving it.

This is basically how I feel when I write with abandon.

I can introduce characters halfway through the novel if I want, ditch them if they don’t quite work, or keep ’em around if they do. I can write scenes out of order, mix them around, see where they fall best. I can be as outrageous as I want, and it’s okay, because I’ll go back one day and fix it up so that it’s pretty and shiny.

It’s a process of discovery, pure and simple. But of course, sometimes too much freedom translates into “Dear God, what the hell am I DOING???” sort of meltdowns.

This is what happened over the last week (hence the lack of Sunday/Wednesday check-ins), but I *think* it’s under control right now.

At the moment, I have a band of random characters journeying into the enemy country of Osgiliath (because when I can’t figure out names, I ~~shamelessly steal~~ borrow from Lord of the Rings), to track down a stolen Device that can wreak all sorts of havoc.

What exactly is the Device, you ask? I have no idea. How are they going to steal it back from the Enemy? I don’t know the answer to that either. But it’s okay, because this is NaNoWriMo, and my zero draft is allowed to have ALL the loose ends.

At least that’s what I’m telling myself. 😛

Here’s how the rest of my week has gone down:

Day Job: I’m slowly gathering the energy to start rewrites for my dissertation proposal. The soft deadline to my committee is mid-December, with an eventual meeting sometime in January. Once I get through NaNoWriMo, this will be my top priority.

Writing: I lost a few days mid-week, but I’m getting back on track. I’ve written just over 24k, and by the end of the weekend I’ll hopefully be half-way through. Scrivener tells me that if I write 2k each day, I’ll finish up on time.

Exercise: I’m on track, walking 4 days a week. Mom and I have decided to tackle our diet next, so I’m trying to slowly cut back on salty and sugary things, and incorporate more veggies. Portion control is also on the to-do list, but we’ll see how that plan goes once Thanksgiving rolls around.

Social Media: I haven’t gotten a chance to swing by any ROW80 blogs in a week or so (sorry, guys!), but I have read/commented on a couple non-ROW80 blogs each day.

Over on tumblr, I posted my first poem in almost a month (so good to get back to writing poetry). And here on Flights of Fancy, I got the chance to review a book written by Sebastian Orth, who did my first tattoo back in May. It’s a phenomenal book–part autobiography, part philosophical musing on the art of tattooing. I definitely recommend it.

Self-Care: I’ve gotten distracted from my early morning journaling + poetry writing sessions, and I also realized that I haven’t been reading nearly enough of late. Now that I’m catching up with the NaNo word count, I aim to correct all these things.

-oOo-

And that’s it for me, folks! I’ll be busy over the next few days with family–my sister and my grandfather are flying in on Tuesday, and I really can’t wait.

Be sure to swing by and give a hearty hello to the rest of the ROW80 participants!

Tattoos and the Otherworld: Reviewing “Many Stories” by Sebastian Orth

November 15, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 11 Comments

Today on Flights of Fancy, I’m excited to share a bit about tattooist Sebastian Orth’s recent release, Many Stories: The Point of the Needle (Escargot Books, 2012).

My initial interest in the book stemmed from the fact that Sebastian Orth did my first tattoo—a peacock feather quill with the phrase “Words have been all my life,” as pictured below.

We discussed a wide range of topics during the four hours that I was under the needle, everything from his upbringing on California’s Central Coast, the history of tattooing, the history of art itself. I was impressed with the breadth and depth of his knowledge, and thrilled to find that so many of these topics are covered in his book.

Sebastian Orth of Otherworld Tattoo, author of Many Stories.

Orth is a natural storyteller, and effortlessly weaves the autobiographical and the philosophical. His voice is engaging, and his descriptions are vivid, visceral, and compelling. The result is a beautifully written account of enlightenment, the discovery of self that is forged through pain, challenge, and discipline.

Like the book’s title suggests, Many Stories is a tapestry of tales: the first moment Orth discovers how to use ink and needle to create an indelible mark, his evolution as an artist, his struggles with epilepsy, and the development of his personal philosophy, among others. There are also an eclectic array of characters, the people who have come in and out of his life and shaped it in countless ways.

At the heart of all these stories lie the symbolism and deep meaning of tattoos. As he observes in the introduction,

Tattoos are not simply pictures in the flesh, fixed and static. They live with us; breathe with us and die with us. Each tells a story and each of those stories is personal and unique.

In the same way, tattooing itself is more than mechanical skill. Rather, it “can also be a form of magic, a timeless art and a door to the otherworld.” This link between body modification and the otherworldly is an ancient one, a tradition found in indigenous cultures around the world. Even today, both the act of tattooing and being tattooed can become a transformative experience, one in which past, present, and future meet and coalesce.

My tattoo, done by Sebastian Orth, May 2012

Many Stories is a unique book, one that touches on a range of genres. I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys reading memoirs and autobiography, as well as philosophical discussions of life and art.

To hear Orth in his own words, check out this short interview with him below:

For more about Sebastian Orth, visit Otherworld Tattoo, his shop in Santa Barbara, CA. Many Stories is available as an e-book from Amazon and Barnes and Noble; the paperback edition is forthcoming.

ROW80: NaNoWriMo Teaches Me Things, Week 1

November 7, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 14 Comments

Happy Wednesday, friends! We are 1 week into National Novel Writing Month, and I’ve gotta say, I am learning some serious lessons as I mash my keyboard towards 50K and tons of (imaginary) glory.

Lesson #1: Plotting is Awesome, But It’s Writing That Counts

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I spent a few weeks in October trying to outline, brainstorm, and plot my still-unnamed NaNo novel. I had a bit of success early on with characters and storylines, but at the last minute my muse jumped ship and went rogue, leaving me with roughly a half-dozen different directions and a whole lot of heartache.

Once November 1st rolled around, however, all that angst went out of the window… and that’s because my characters decided that they were going to take control. Hence Velda, one of my main characters, deciding that she wasn’t the mousy, timid girl I had met during my brainstorming sessions. Now she’s a grouchy, somewhat-bitchy 16 year old with a chip on her shoulder. And Helena Grey, the character I introduced in my last ROW80 check-in, wasn’t even supposed to be in the novel, but I started writing and lo! There she was.

English: Lower Rogue River, Oregon, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lesson #2: Go With the Flow

This is my 2nd November NaNoWriMo, but my 4th attempt at throwing down 50k in 1 month, if you count CampNaNo ’11 and ’12. I’ve reached 50k every time, but this is the first year that I’ve been really content to go with the flow. Instead of obsessing over potential storylines and plots, I’m picking one and following its lead. There will be things that need to be tweaked once I go back to edit, but I expect that these days. And that’s because I’ve learned….

Photo Credit: chrisinplymouth via flickr

Lesson #3: It’s All About the Zero Draft

…that I work best when I can vomit words all over a zero draft. This untitled tale is WIP #5 on my list, and the first one where I don’t feel stressed out or worried that my first attempts are imperfect. As much as I hate to admit it, my need for perfection not only slows me down to a snail’s pace but also sabotages my creative attempts. Instead of throwing myself into the writing process, I get tripped up with “right and wrong” (I am a horrible goody-two-shoes perfectionist) and end up paralyzed with indecision.

This zero draft is disgusting. It is dripping with cliches and repetition and really lame metaphors and tons of blanks spots, all flagged with my handy “[ins word here]” brackets. But my zero draft also contains the skeleton of what will eventually (hopefully?) become a beautiful, complex, multi-layered novel, plus tons of notes on the spots where I know I haven’t gotten it right. This is a win-win as far as I am concerned.

Lesson #4, Writing By Hand is the Trick

I’ve posted about writing by hand before, but this month it seems to have become my #1 solution for getting stuff done. I’ve been really distracted by practically everything for the last week, and the internet has been one huge shiny sparkly thing for me to poke at when I’m supposed to be writing. I’ve got it bad, you guys, switching windows when I’m half-way through a sentence because I’ve decided that looking at FB/G+/Twitter/a million other things is a really good idea.

At the moment, shutting the computer down to work through scenes by hand is the best solution I’ve come up with. It’s a little more work in the long-run, since I have to go and type everything up once I’m through, but it is exactly what I need in order to stay focused.

The NaNoWriMo notebook, and my writing implements of choice.

This morning I’m hovering around 12.3K. I didn’t do as much writing as Tuesday as I wanted (spent most of the day in the archive/watching election returns), so I’m glad I’ve got a wee bit of a cushion. My goal is to write roughly 2k each day between now and Sunday, just to get a little farther ahead. Provided I don’t run out of ideas (which is a distinct possibility), I should be able to pull that goal off.

So yay! How’s everyone handling hump day? Don’t forget to cheer on the rest of the ROW80 participants over here.

ROW80: November is Here!

November 4, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 12 Comments

It’s here, it’s here! November is herrrrre!

I’m not quite sure how November got here, because I was really enjoying October, but I have embraced this new month with open arms.

I have had my first taste of the Harney and Sons holiday tea that Barnes and Noble serves each year, and I’ll be getting my hands on a red Starbucks holiday cup before too long. I am gleefully giving in to the onslaught of holiday music–my playlist of jazzy Christmas tunes and choral music is all queued up and ready to go.

My sister and my grandfather are visiting for Thanksgiving, and my parents have agreed to get a real Christmas tree next month instead of the artificial one we’ve been using for the last few years.

This is all really, really good stuff, folks.

Better yet, I am hitting NaNoWriMo hard and taking no prisoners, except for my inner editor, who is currently drugged and hanging out in a shed somewhere. I’ll release her on December 1st but not one day sooner.

Here’s how the last week went:

Day Job: Lots of work in the archive, lots of notes, lots of thinking. I feel like the pieces of this dissertation are slowly being nudged into place, and it feels good not to rush the process. Spending at least 2 afternoons a week in the archive keeps me accountable, because it means I can’t allow myself to slack off for days and weeks at a time, and it also keeps the information fresh in my mind.

Writing: My October goal was to reach 75k on my fantasy novel by October 31st, before NaNo stole all my energy. I made it to a little over 68k–a bit short of the original goal, but 8k more than I had when this round began.

As I mentioned above, I’m hitting NaNoWriMo hard this year. One thing I’ve learned from past experiences is that I always sputter out mid-month, whether or not I’ve plotted obsessively or decided to pants my way through, and I’m sure the same thing is going to happen to me this time around. My current word count is 8,668, which gives me a couple days’ worth of padding. It’ll come in handy soon enough, because I am going to run out of plot very, very soon, and I’ll need to take a couple of days to sit and brainstorm.

For fun, here’s an excerpt from what I’ve written so far. This is (will hopefully be?) a steampunk/fantasy hybrid, set in the fictional kingdom of Vorewin. This snippet introduces Helena Grey, one of the country’s first female scientists. It is, of course, super rough, but I wanted to share. 😀

Some days, Helena Grey wished that being a trailblazer wasn’t so bloody difficult. Despite what she may have believed in her naive and prosaic youth, there was little glory in becoming a pioneer. Few people trusted pioneers and innovators, and even fewer trusted women who dared to stray from the well-trod path of marriage and motherhood. If she had been wise, Helena would have followed her mother’s advice and done just that: married a local boy, popped out four children in three years, and spent the rest of her days in matronly modesty. It might not have been joy divine, but it would have saved her countless tears and endless heartache.

As it was, she possessed the stalwart stubbornness of her father’s people, and an appalling lack of common sense. At least, that’s what her mother always said. “Disgustingly smart, and without a whit of common sense to go along with it!” were her exact words. Despite Helena’s vociferous protests, she was privately inclined to agree.

Especially on a day like today. If Helena had done as she had been told, she would be warm and snug near the hearth, darning socks or some other such rubbish. She would be safe. Protected. Predictable. Bored, most likely, but was to be expected.

Regardless, she would most definitely not resemble a human icicle, all stiff and frozen and blue, her fingers worn to the bone and her toes threatening to fall off her feet completely. She wouldn’t be bundled in seven layers of wool and cotton and fur. She most definitely wouldn’t be covered in grease, and she certainly wouldn’t be clad in men’s trousers.

Alas, all of these things were true, but as the assistant researcher in the great Dr. James Alexander’s royal laboratory, it was her job to get down and dirty with field tests…

Exercise: My mom, who is my walking buddy, has been a little under the weather, so we only walked 3 days last week. But I have dramatically cut back on all my snacks, and I’m trying to limit portion sizes too. Hopefully we’ll get back to our normal routine next week.

Social Media: I’ve had a fair amount of Facebook and Twitter action, but I haven’t really been at my desk too much in the last week. Once I feel like my NaNo project is under control, I’ll be able to get back to blogging, etc. I have a couple of guest posts that I’ve agreed to do this month, so that will force me back into gear.

Self-care: I’ve had lots of time to myself over the last few days, but I’ve spent most of it furiously writing. My body seems to think it’s in the middle of finals week; I’ve been staying up till the wee hours of the morning to write, waking up around 7 or 8, and starting up again. It definitely isn’t a sustainable way to spend the rest of the month, so I’m really going to focus on setting some boundaries for my writing time.

-oOo-

Is anyone else as excited to see November as I am? Any exciting plans for the new month? Let me know in the comments, and be sure to wave hello to the other ROWers checking in for the week.

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Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy