Dance Mom, Former Mainer, Alyson Pelletier Seegmueller
00:00 / 00:30:08
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Hey! Welcome to a bonus interview episode of Dogs are Smarter Than People, the usually quirky podcast that gives writing tips and life tips. I’m Carrie Jones and with me today is Alyson Pelletier Seegmueller, a dance mom who is used to driving 14 hours every day but now she’s stuck at home because of Covid-19, I think.
A former Mainer living in Pennsylvania now and her motto is basically, “I can’t, my daughter has dance.”
In every post Allyson has, it’s super obvious how much she loves her family.
I asked her if she thought there was a certain vulnerability that happens when you love someone so much? Check out her answers and more.
“Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.” – Barbara Kingsolver
“[Motherhood is] the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It’s huge and scary—it’s an act of infinite optimism.” – Gilda Radner
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.
So, sometimes I wake up and this is what’s happening, and it has nothing to do with writing, but you’ll forgive me, right?
Marsie the Cat: Shhh! Act like I wasn’t just kissing your muzzle.
Sparty the Dog: Does this look natural?
Marsie the Cat: No! Look like you want to eat me!
Sparty the Dog: Like this?
Marsie the Cat: You are the worst actor ever.
Sparty the Dog: We all can’t be Santa Paws, you know. We all can’t be Lassie.
Marsie the Cat: Santa Paws was hot.
Sparty the Dog:
Marsie the Cat: You know he was.
Sparty the Dog: Baby, you know how to hurt a dog.
Despite Marise the cat’s totally hot-i-tude for Santa Paws, Sparty the dog sleeps with his paw touching her.
He’s all, “I keep you safe all night long, baby.”
I am starting to feel like the odd-species out. You know? Like when your best friend gets a significant other and you all do stuff like go to the beach or a concert, but they are always kissing and making cutie-faces and you’re just sort of … Um, hey? Anyone want to talk about existentialism?… but nobody does because they are too busy sucking face?
That’s what it’s like. Only it’s like that in my house on my bed.
And on the couch.
And on the floor.
Pretty much everywhere, honestly.
And the thing is? All that love is beautiful.
“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.” — Audrey Hepburn
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.
I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should.
Ah, yes, the archetype. Last week we talked about the misfits and the mavericks because they are sexy as hell.
Again, Merriam-Webster says archetype are:
“The original pattern or model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies.”
Good ole Merriam-Webster
Archetypes, according to Tami Nantz, help us understand what makes our characters tick. She says to ask:
What does he fear?
What motivates him?
What does he care about most?
Tami Nantz
And while I’m afraid to talk about this on the podcast with Shaun because his mind goes . . . places, this week we’re talking about the seductress.
Over on the Reedsy blog, the seductress is explained pretty well.
“I’ll give you whatever you want,” is the refrain of the seductress — a character that comes in all shapes, sizes, and genders. They might offer power, sex, love, money, or influence but remember, these things always come with strings attached. If a seductress is involved, the moral of the tale is almost always, “Don’t believe anything that’s too good to be true.”
Strengths: Allure, charisma, lack of morals.
Weaknesses: The emptiness of their promises.
Desires: Control.
Examples: Mephistopheles in Faust, Delilah from Samson and Delilah, 90% of the female characters in The Odyssey.
Reedsy blog
Some more examples would be Mystique in X-Men and Meg in Hercules.
The Seductress cares deeply about being in the spotlight. She loves attention and the way people fall head-over-heels for her.
But most of all, she loves being the most admired woman in the room.
Valeria Black
Why?
Because, if you dig deep enough, she is a child and a dreamer at heart who craves constant stimulation in the quest for her one true love.
This hidden quest for lasting love is the main reason why it seems like she strings people along. But in reality it’s because she just gets bored quickly.
And this is so cool to think about if you have one of these characters or one of these people in your life. And I think we all know one of these seducer or seductresses, the person who is all about the sexual and physical validation, and doesn’t know what to do without it. Their self-worth comes from capturing as many admiring looks or hearts as possible. They are dependent on other people’s affection and attention. And that makes it hard sometimes for both them and their friends. Their dark side is like the femme fatale like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, right?
That same Reedsy blog has some really great advice about archetypes:
For authors, character archetypes are a useful concept to understand — if only to save you from tying yourself in knots, trying to create stories and characters completely unlike anything that’s come before. Every story has already been told, so focus on what matters most to readers: creating rich, specific worlds populated by people living specific lives, whose struggles are so grounded in realistic human behavior that their stories become universal — no matter where the reader is from.
But the thing is that this is true about life, too. When you understand those three questions we talked about in the beginning, you can understand your friends, family, and enemies a lot more. What motivates the people you love?
Also, Shaun is totally not cool with the gender bias implicit in this archetype, which gets him bonus points from me.
Sparty is worried about archetypes
Writing Tip of the Pod
Think about the motivations of your characters. Is there a seducer in your story? Maybe there should be.
Dog Tip for Life
Living for other people’s validation is a really hard way to live. When you are all about capturing as many people’s affections for your own self-worth, what do you do when you are rejected? For many of us, being sexy only lasts so long, right?
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
DOG INSPIRATION
Every weekday, our dogs have inspirational or motivating tweets on Carrie’s Twitter. Go check it out and be her Twitter friend.
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.
I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should.
So, given the massive amount of people in my family who have left the mortal plane (also known as croaking), I am now feeling kind of family-less.
It is no fun being without a family. Okay. It is much more affordable to not have to buy Christmas presents and Hannukah presents and birthday presents and Father’s Day and Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day presents and stuff, but who wants life to be affordable really? I think it’s much better to have to buy your dad a random tie or something.
Not like I would have bought my #1 dad a random tie. He would just have used it to tie back a lilac tree that had low-lying branches or something like that anyway. My dad was a little Hobbit. He appreciated food presents and tweed hats from Ireland and postcards from Hell (a place in the Caribbean – not the Lucifer hang-out). My mom just pretty much appreciated anything. My grandmothers were cool with flowers and vases and porcelain things. My grandfathers were a bit? Um. One was an adorable jazz drummer. The others were a bit. Cough. Odd.
I have already imported a grandfather, Devyn Burton, who is totally cool as a grandfather despite the fact that he is like 25 or something.
But there are a lot of other openings.
I always wanted to be from one of those super huge families that had 12 kids in it. But in my family everyone else was a lot older than me (14 years, 15 years and 17 years were the closest) so I felt like an only kid.
I still kind of feel that way.
And I always thought that I’d be one of those people who had like five kids to make up for it and I would live on a mountain in a log cabin in a field and somehow not have allergies. I would trade those allergies in for goats or something and a grizzly bear would visit and we would be friends and the grizzly would not want to eat any of my offspring.
Yeah. That didn’t happen either.
But I thought I’d at least have family barbecue events for forever (our at least after Covid-19) and people sending me birthday cards and calling me at inappropriate hours (prior to noon) to just say hi and complain about things like everyone else in the family.
So, if you would like to put in an application for sibling status, parent status, or kid status, or grandparent status, feel free. I promise to send you dorky birthday cards and the religious holiday of your preference cards. You have to do the same though or I’ll pout and tell all the other family members that you’re blowing me off and not invite you to Thanksgiving or something.
*Much thanks to Marie Overlock for once pretending to be my mother during my Subaru crisis. And to Devyn for always being my grandpa. And to Christine Allard Bristol for volunteering to be my sister.
FAMILY APPLICATION QUESTIONS:
1. Family Member Position you are applying for:
2. Reason for applying
3. Do you promise to never tell Carrie to stop snorting pixie dust?
4. Do you promise to never accuse her of taking the bigger piece of birthday cake? Or bowl of ice cream?
5. Do you promise to not think she’s a freak if she cries at pretty much every movie ever? If she can’t make it through WAR HORSE? Or any novel read on an airplane? Or, hell, any Charlaine Harris novel either?
6. YAY!
7. Do you promise to love her even if she says “YAY!” far too much for an old person?
8. Do you like dogs?
9. Do you promise to try to be more about loving people than be defensive about who you are?
Someone very kind won something from someone else very kind and gave it to my dogs just because I post picture of those dogs here on weekdays.
And that kindness?
That need to help, to grow, to help others, to lift each other up and recognize it when good happens? I
t’s not schmaltzy. It’s brave. It’s beautiful. It’s love. And it’s how us humans are meant to be.
I am so grateful to Jack Russell and Megan Smith and to all of you cool humans who are so kind to me and who try to grow, evolve, love, encourage and change.
Here’s my painting from today. Love to all of you.
Brave towards mountains
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.
I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should.
How Cosplay & Book Boyfriends Make You Brave: Bonus Interview with Vivian Garcia Rodriguez
00:00 / 00:25:19
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Vivian Garcia Rodriguez is a secretly the queen to pixie Astley from my NEED series, but we’re not really going to tell anyone, right? Sadly, fate currently has them in different worlds but luckily for us, Vivian is in our world today! Math tutor, cosplayer with a flare for everything, I’m so psyched to have Vivian with us today.
Vivian talked to us while she was in lockdown because of Covid-19 and in her home in Puerto Rico. We talk about how cosplay makes her more confident and forces her not to pick the farthest seat away from the board at school and how different books help build up people and friendships.
So many apologies for not posting a bonus episode. I (Carrie) have epilepsy and I had a bit of a seizure last week after a really long time of no seizures (Yay!) and posting a bonus podcast was the thing that had to fall off my to-do list.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
So, stories tend to need that internal motivator/quest/motivation to keep their plot chugging forward and to keep the reader engaged. As you know, I talk about desire lines way too much, which are all about the emotional through-line for the characters in our stories, but another way to think about the internal motivation is to think of it as the Big Wonder or Big Question.
Tom French calls this the engine of the story. And it’s these questions that make the readers keep reading.
In a mystery, it’s obvious: Who did it?
In a thriller, it’s usually: Will they survive?
In a romance, it’s often: Will they bang and will they bang forever?
Or it can be a how question. How will Captain America stop Hydra because you know he will.
How will the people in those 50 Shades books hook up now because you know they will.
Those essential plot questions keep us reading and going because humans like answers. We like winners and losers and to know things in definite ways. That’s why sports are so popular. Almost always, one team loses or one person wins.
But back to stories.
When you are writing, not only do you have the big plot, you oftten have subplots and their questions, which are like the baby engines that keep the story edging forward. They are like back-up generators, I guess. I’m not the best with mechanical allusions, honestly. Sorry!
In each subplot, there has to be something important at stake. If you have a book, divided by two narrators of equal importance, they each need to have a question that happens in their story and a stake.
So, a good thing to do is to look at your story that you’re working on and ask yourself:
Is there a big question going on right here?
Is the answer super obvious?
If the answer is super obvious, will the how of what happens be a wee bit less super obvious?
If you have subplots, do those have questions, too?
Good luck writing, writers!
And if you think about your life, does it have those big wonders? Are you moving towards the things that motivate you? Do you already hold them in your hands? Do they shine through everything you do? You’re the hero of your own story so make sure that you’re going towards those big wonders, too.
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.
Last week’s bonus episode with Anne Marie Pace, author of Vampirina Ballerina.
COME WRITE WITH ME!
I coach, have a class, and edit things.
NEW BOOK OF AWESOME
I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should.
A lot of writers use archetypes in their stories. Sometimes we don’t even realize that we’re doing it, actually.
There’s something really compelling about the heroes that don’t quite fit in especially the mavericks. The Huck Finns and Han Solos of the world and/or universe.
For whatever reason, the mavericks have turned away from civilization. Maybe it’s to find out what happened to their missing mom. Maybe it’s because their own elite family oppressed them and their quirks. Maybe it’s because they are doing a Thoreau and they wanted to see what it was like to be Spartan and nonconformist in a society that stresses conformity above all else.
Literary critic, Northrop Frye wrote about mavericks as heroes in novels in the U.S. and said,
“Placed outside the structure of civilization and therefore represents the force of physical nature, amoral or ruthless, yet with a sense of power, and often leadership, that society has impoverished itself by rejecting.”
Northrop Frye
To conform or to not conform has often been the question. Apologies to Shakespeare. And it’s been a question both in American society and in its books, right?
How the main character fits into mainstream society is often the subject of some really good and compelling books like Gone With the Wind or To Kill a Mockingbird. They reject conforming. They strike out on their own.
The maverick is a character archtype.
Here’s the definition of an archetype from studiobinder.com
“An archetype is a consistent and typical version of a particular thing. It can be human, an object, or a particular set of behaviors, but the point is that it fits into a time-tested mold that embodies a pure form.”
studiobinder.com
Anyways, though that site is about scriptwriting, I think it has a lot of great information about writing characters.
It asks:
“Why do character archetypes exist?
“Human beings tend to find their place within a group dynamic based around their strongest personality traits.
“You may have a group of friends with similar interests…
“But often one will be the “social butterfly” while another will be the “homebody.”
“Your friends will begin to identify each other by these consistent traits.
“You’ve now defined yourself by a character archetype.”
studiobinder.com again.
The maverick archetype is obviously one of many, but what of their key motivations is the act of self-preservation. They break the rules to get their goals. Brave. Competent. Sometimes a bit snippy. Their temper is a bit fiery.
That pull between convention and autonomy has the possibility of making a story truly stick out as something extraordinarily special. Don’t be afraid to lean into it.
I (Carrie) am not a fan of Gone With The Wind because I couldn’t stand Scarlett and the racial tones that happen throughout, but the characters are iconic and are a good reference point for us writers when we think about maverick characters.
Are you a maverick? Do you write them? What’s your archetype? We’ll be looking at different ones the next few months. It’s fun.
Writing Tip of the Pod:
Don’t make all your characters mavericks, but don’t avoid them either. Have you mixed up the archetypes in your story?
Dog Tip For Life:
It’s okay to cultivate your own inner maverick.
Dog Tweets of Love: Gabby and Sparty. Sparty is food focused. We’re sure you can’t tell.
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.
This week’s episode link if you can’t see it above.
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
Dog Inspiration
Every weekday, our dogs have inspirational or motivating tweets on Carrie’s Twitter. Go check it out and be her Twitter friend.
COME WRITE WITH Carrie!
I coach, have a class, and edit things for you. It’s super fun. I promise.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
A long time ago, I got new eyebrows. That’s right. I did the eyebrow shaping thing. If you know me in real life, you will realize that this is stunning news. I’m going to write about that eyebrow event today.
And yes, I could post something intelligent about the anti-multiple plot point aesthetic in young adult novels, or how discontinuities and detours excite me, but noooo ….
It’s all about eyebrows and taking chances. I have a really hard time doing certain things:
Sitting still
Looking at myself in the mirror.
Spending money on myself.
Let me tell you, this was a big-deal thing for me at the time because you have to sit still while professionals pluck your eyebrows and they do it in front of a mirror and they charge you, so grooming my eyebrows was hitting all those three things. In good news? I look A LOT better with new eyebrows. And it DID NOT HURT.
The nice eyebrow professional lady smiled at me as I checked out her lovely eyebrows and avoided looking in the giant mirror.
I said, “I do not want old lady non-existent eyebrows. I do not want penciled-in eyebrows. Please do not do that to me.” She said, “I hate those.”
I whimpered.
“It’ll be okay,” she said. “Is it going to hurt?” I asked.
She nodded. “Probably.”
Then she put the goop on and yanked and it was SO ABSOLUTELY FINE! “That didn’t hurt,” I said. “I used the small strips.” “That’s amazing,” I said as she showed me the hair she yanked off.
Then I started to giggle like I was, um, five years old and just saw the bottom of the cutest kid in kindergarten.
I could not stop giggling the entire time she did it, which was … probably four minutes at the most.
She said, “I love it when you come in.”
I giggled more.
She said, “You just kill me.”
Then she showed me my eyebrows and I bounced up and down.
And for some reason, I never went back again! I know! I know! It’s because I’m cheap. I couldn’t get over that part.
But the thing is. We can’t grow if we don’t take chances, if we don’t rip out our extra, ugly spots and examine them. We can’t grow if we don’t scrutinize ourselves and invest in ourselves.
That’s important because I know we all want to be the best people we can be even if that means checking out our reflection and seeing bits of ourselves we don’t want to see.
Take a chance. Scrutinize. Invest. Love yourself enough to grow yourself, weird eyebrows and all.
WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.
Last week’s bonus episode with Anne Marie Pace, author of Vampirina Ballerina.
COME WRITE WITH ME!
I coach, have a class, and edit things.
NEW BOOK OF AWESOME
I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should.
Over the years, I’ve talked about the time my dark-skinned dad and I were fishing at a stream in New Hampshire and white men surrounded us, got aggressive, and called my dad the N-word. I was eight or so. I am very white and I had never seen overt racism before. When I was a couple years older, I volunteered for Jesse Jackson and saw it again and again and again, so much so that they wouldn’t let me do doors with the other workers because they were protecting me, the random, little, white kid.
I have always been shocked at my white friends’ shock that racism exists in big ways and small, in our society and ourselves.
That’s it. Because this is not about me and it damn well shouldn’t be. It’s about learning, growing, and doing what we can do to be active allies in making our communities and our selves better, united, equitable, and just.
It’s Be Brave Friday and here is a work in progress because aren’t we all works in progress?
Be brave, friends. I am so sorry when you are forced to be brave and proud of you when you choose to be.
Here are some links where you can help, many of which come from Inside the Kandish (linked below)
