Name: I CAN'T DEAL WITH LIFE. WE ARE HAVING PEANUT BUTTER TOAST RECIPE
Prep time: 2 min
Cook time: 4 min
Total time: 6 min
Yield: 4 humans
Ingredients: 4 slices thickish bread (make it hearty, who knows when you will eat again); 4 tbsp peanut butter; 3 tbsp honey (It costs so much money. Try not to think about that. Just be psyched it isn't sugar and feel virtuous); 2 big bananas; 1 oz granola (if you have it. )

Don’t Let Them Make You Sit Down

A long time ago, our daughter Em was taking karate, which was the only martial art available then in our town.

She was eight years old and tiny.

The instructor was Shaun size – sort of – and bald, super intimidating. He had all the little ones line up and kick rectangular strike pads. Em’s kick was so unexpected and powerful that the adult holding the pad fell over.

Did they tell her, “Good job?”

Nope.

They made her sit down.

“What did I do wrong, Mommy?” Em asked.

“Nothing, buddy. Nothing.”

And a mom next to us whispered, “You were too strong. They don’t know what to do with women who are too strong.”

Em got called back up and got to join the group again. This time the kids were kicking the instructor’s shin. It was Em’s turn. She wound up and executed the kick perfectly. The instructor lurched backwards, held his shin, and told her to sit down.

Again.

Em was smaller than the rest of those kids in there, but she was powerful and they didn’t know what to do with that. They couldn’t even understand it. How could this perfectly behaved, tiny child be so strong?

And sometimes that happens with us throughout our lives and our writing. Our power surprises even us. We’ll wonder where it came from? We’ll wonder what it means. And sometimes other people will not know what to do with it. Those people might be our mentors, or our families, or strangers on the internet.

But here’s the thing.

Don’t let them make you sit down or sit out. If you surprise them with your power? That’s on them. It’s not on you.

WRITING TIP OF THE POD:

Don’t be afraid to dig deep to get your power.

DOG TIP FOR LIFE:

Don’t let the other dogs out-alpha you. Pick your battles. But win. Don’t give away your shot.

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.

The links below get you to the podcast episode that goes with these words! During it, I (Carrie) blow out my knee. Plus, we tell the story of Alexander the Great’s horse. Awesome stuff. 🙂

WRITING NEWS

NEED is on sale for Kindle sales on Amazon for a mere $1,99 this month. Snatch it up!

ENHANCED, the follow-up to FLYING is here! And the books are out of this world. Please buy them and support a writer.

The last TIME STOPPERS BOOK is out and I love it. You should buy it because it’s empowering and about friendship and bias and magic. Plus, dragons and elves.

HOW TO GET SIGNED COPIES:

If you would like to purchase signed copies of my books, you can do so through the awesome Sherman’s Book Store in Bar Harbor, Maine or the amazing Briar Patch. The books are also available online at places like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

For signed copies – email barharbor@shermans.com for Sherman’s or email info@briarpatchbooks.com and let them know the titles in which you are interested. There’s sometimes a waiting list, but they are the best option. Plus, you’re supporting an adorable local bookstore run by some really wonderful humans. But here’s the Amazon link, too!

ART STUFF

You can buy prints of my art here. Thank you so much for supporting my books and me and each other. I hope you have an amazing day.

A new episode of Dogs are Smarter Than People, the quirky podcast with writing tips, life tips and a random thought comes every Tuesday! Check it out, like and subscribe!

The Politics of Hope and Despair and Anger

This weekend one of my tweets was put in a Twitter Moment, which are ‘curated stories’ that someone puts together almost like a slideshow. And it was a little strange because while there were suddenly thousands of likes, there were also some random people saying that I made the tweet/interaction up.

And part of me was like, “Wow. They think I’m that clever! That’s so nice.”

And another part of me was like, “Wow. Humanity is pretty sad if people are grumpy about my tweet.”

And then there was a whole other aspect when a couple of people used my tweet to expose their hate about lesbians.

“Don’t look,” my friends told me. “Just don’t even read the comments. There’s nothing you can do.”

Hope and despair and anger.

In politics they can be collective movements, ways to band together. And right now many of my friends are full of despair and longing for hope. And a couple of my friends are full of hope. And some are full of anger. And I am full of all of those emotions and more.

And I worry for all of us.

“All we need is… all we need is hope and for that we have each other,” Andra Day sings in her song ‘Rise Up,’ which you should absolutely go listen to whenever possible because it’s a brilliant song by a talented woman.

Pluralism

Back in 1993, John Rawls talked about how in a pluralistic society with multiple points of views and desired outcomes, there can be no final consensus amongst us, its citizens.

My tweet was a little bit of evidence about that, but Rawls is talking more about government and political outcomes.

He argued that governments can’t make all citizens happy, so all we can expect is for the government to go after those main causes that almost everyone agrees on – human rights, to not discriminate, to make decisions in a democratic and rational way. Anything bigger than that? It’s impossible to achieve.

And this is sort of amusing now (in a bad way) because it seems that even those main causes are no longer agreed upon. I mean, I’ve been trolled for writing about sexual trafficking and human trafficking. It seems like ending human slavery would be one of those main causes that everyone agrees on. And yet…?

Self Respect

Decades before this, back in the 1970s, Rawls noted that the self respect is integral. A citizen of a society can only have self respect when she/he/they know that their country is committed to justice and fair treatment for them.

And that expectation – that they matter, that they won’t be discriminated against, that the laws are fair – is currently being dismantled for a lot of Americans and for many Americans, that expectation has been pretty fragile for awhile now because of race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, physical ability, and class. For some of the disenfranchised that expectation has barely existed ever. Yet, there needs to be hope that that expectation will exist and will be met, that we will all be heard, treated with dignity, be free and safe to worship, marry, vote, learn, and live without threat of bodily harm.

So how do you find hope?

Remember these things:

Younger generations are smart and charged up.
More diverse people are running for office
The more extreme people get, the more there becomes a call for the middle – and leaders for that middle. Consensus builders. We need consensus builders in a world of polarities.
The stripping away of belief in institutions and in our selves actually leads us towards a collective orientation towards hope again, towards something we can (or most of us can) work towards. Because all the good guys want rights, want respect, want others to be respected, too.

As Sam Dresser writes, “When political movements seek to rekindle hope, they are not acting on the assumption that individual people no longer hope for things – they are building on the idea that hope does not currently shape our collective orientation toward the future. The promise of a ‘politics of hope’ is thus the promise that hope for social justice will become part of the sphere of collective action, of politics itself.”

Hope and despair and anger? They can co-exist. They can lead to action. They aren’t definitive states. I despair that some people are evil and I’m angry at injustices, but I hope that I can take action and change things and that we can collectively rise about those things, and that I personally can become a better human. I hope you’ll do that, too.

My despair and anger can lead to hope and action and change. The emotions can overlap and coexist just like people do. But to do that, we have to ‘have each other,’ as Andra Day sings.

So, let’s do that. Let’s have each other instead of having at each other.

WRITING NEWS

NEED is on sale for Kindle sales on Amazon for a mere $1,99 this month. Snatch it up!

ENHANCED, the follow-up to FLYING is here! And the books are out of this world. Please buy them and support a writer.

The last TIME STOPPERS BOOK is out and I love it. You should buy it because it’s empowering and about friendship and bias and magic. Plus, dragons and elves.

How to Get Signed Copies:

For signed copies – email barharbor@shermans.com for Sherman’s or email info@briarpatchbooks.comand let them know the titles in which you are interested. There’s sometimes a waiting list, but they are the best option. Plus, you’re supporting an adorable local bookstore run by some really wonderful humans. But here’s the Amazon link, too!

Art Stuff

You can buy prints of my art here. Thank you so much for supporting my books and me and each other. I hope you have an amazing day.

A new episode of Dogs are Smarter Than People, the quirky podcast with writing tips, life tips and a random thought comes out tomorrow! Check it out, like and subscribe!

I can’t deal with life right now or it’s time for Banana Peanut Butter Toast

Sometimes, life seems like too much.

Sometimes, you’ve been trying to get your household to become vegetarians and you fail and you fail and you fail.

Sometimes, you want to quit all your volunteer organizations and maybe move so that you have a reason to quit that doesn’t make you seem like a quitter.

And so you make this.

I CAN'T DEAL WITH LIFE. WE ARE HAVING PEANUT BUTTER TOAST RECIPE

This recipe is adapted from the much saner version at https://www.wellplated.com/peanut-butter-banana-toast-granola-honey/

Course Breakfast, Dessert, dinner

Cuisine American

Keyword toast

Prep Time 2 minutes

Cook Time 4 minutes

Total Time 6 minutes

Servings 4 humans

Ingredients

4 slices thickish bread make it hearty, who knows when you will eat again
4 tbsp peanut butter
3 tbsp honey It costs so much money. Try not to think about that. Just be psyched it isn't sugar and feel virtuous
2 big bananas
1 oz granola if you have it.

Instructions

Look. Sometimes life is really hard to deal with.
And sometimes a writer just can't deal.
Because... life.
So get out a knife that is barely sharp enough to cut a banana and slice the bananas.
There! Good job!
At the same time, toast your bread.
To do this you need a toaster.
If you do not have a toaster or it is so full of crumbs that it's a fire hazard, you can toast the bread in a skillet over medium low-heat on an oven.
Admire toast. Toast is beautiful.
YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, WRITER PERSON. You might be having a cruddy day, but you are still amazing. Really.
Put the peanut butter on the toast and spread it out.
Boom. Beautiful!
Put those banana slices on top of the peanut butter.
Also, put the knife safely away, turn off stove if you used it. Unplug the toaster if you used it. We want safe, healthy writers here.
Drizzle that honey on top.
Sprinkle granola if you are totally wealthy.
Eat! Eat! Writers, need nutrition and calories!

MAN VERDICT

This makes me happy. What else are we eating?

DOGS’ VERDICT

PEANUT BUTTER IS THE BEST BUTTER!

Gabby the Dog Cooking with a Writer Recipes - Peanut Butter is Awesome — Peanut Butter is Awesome!

CARRIE VERDICT

I feel like I’m seven. I like that.

WRITING NEWS

NEED is on sale for Kindle sales on Amazon for a mere $1,99 this month. Snatch it up! :

Screen Shot 2018-10-01 at 3.56.50 PM — LINK TO BUYING THIS BAD BOY

ENHANCED, the follow-up to FLYING is here! And the books are out of this world. Please buy them and support a writer.

The last TIME STOPPERS BOOK is out and I love it. You should buy it because it’s empowering and about friendship and bias and magic. Plus, dragons and elves.

Timestoppers3_005

How to Get Signed Copies:

For signed copies – email barharbor@shermans.com for Sherman’s or email info@briarpatchbooks.comand let them know the titles in which you are interested. There’s sometimes a waiting list, but they are the best option. Plus, you’re supporting an adorable local bookstore run by some really wonderful humans. But here’s the Amazon link, too!

Art Stuff

You can buy prints of my art here. Thank you so much for supporting my books and me and each other. I hope you have an amazing day.

A new episode of Dogs are Smarter Than People, the quirky podcast with writing tips, life tips and a random thought came out Tuesday! Check it out, like and subscribe!

Writing Tip Wednesday – Subplot me up, baby

Subplots, it sounds sort of — lesser, doesn’t it? It’s not the real plot; it’s the plot beneath. It’s not the master plot. It’s the plot below.

Subplots are actually made of awesome. They make your story richer, denser, more expansive.

What do subplots do for your story?

They keep it interesting by adding detail, action, and character relations.
Make things more complicated.
Give the main theme and plot some backup.

Sub means ‘at a lower level of position,’ but the truth is that if you’re going to use a subplot in your story, you still have to pay attention to the evil thing and make sure that it has the same elements as your regular plot.

To have a successful subplot:

They have to influence the main plot eventually.
They have to connect to the characters in the main plot.
They have to show a variety of experience.

And there are three main kinds of subplots:

Conflict – Ouch. In Star Wars the fact that Obiwan and Anakin had a whole big history before he became Darth makes their conflict tastier. Same thing with Kylo and Han and everybody else.
Expository – The stuff that’s making your plot happen. Oops. Made some hamsters with super predatory DNA that also enlarges them to the size of elephants at HAMSTER WORLD? Yep. There’s a subplot. Some evil guys want to use those hamsters for weapons because one of them was once had a beloved hamster killed by a raging cat? There you go.
Romantic – If you’re worried about your main characters getting together or maybe some secondary characters having that big sexy moment? You’ve got a romantic subplot.

Elizabeth Sims writes, “Think of subplots as simply strands of stories that support or drive the main plot.”

In a Writers Digest article, she details ways to add subplots.

The Seven Ways to Add Subplots are Basically:

1. The Isolated Chunk – a side trip

2. The Parallel Line

3. The Swallowtail

4. The In-and-Out

5. The Bookend

6. The Bridge Character

7. The Clue

There you go – a subplot primer. Run with it, writers! Master those subs!

WRITING NEWS

NEED is on sale for Kindle sales on Amazon for a mere $1,99 this month. Snatch it up! :

ENHANCED, the follow-up to FLYING is here! And the books are out of this world. Please buy them and support a writer.

The last TIME STOPPERS BOOK is out and I love it. You should buy it because it’s empowering and about friendship and bias and magic. Plus, dragons and elves.

How to Get Signed Copies:

For signed copies – email barharbor@shermans.com for Sherman’s or email info@briarpatchbooks.comand let them know the titles in which you are interested. There’s sometimes a waiting list, but they are the best option. Plus, you’re supporting an adorable local bookstore run by some really wonderful humans. But here’s the Amazon link, too!

Art Stuff

You can buy prints of my art here. Thank you so much for supporting my books and me and each other. I hope you have an amazing day.

A new episode of Dogs are Smarter Than People, the quirky podcast with writing tips, life tips and a random thought came out yesterday! Check it out, like and subscribe!

Dogs Are Smarter Than People Podcast – Stupid Writing Tips are Stupid

Everyone gives advice in life and in writing and you know that they are usually intending to be helpful and all that, but sometimes you just want to scream at them to shut up.

I know! I know! That sounds harsh. But the truth is harsh.

Sometimes it’s hard to listen to people giving you advice when you know that they’re cheating on their wife or are a pathological liar or are just a really bad writer. Yet, these people almost always are still super assured of their RIGHTNESS, in their own brilliant advice, and their confidence and sometimes condescension makes you want to give them the finger.

You know we’re right. You know these people.

And sometimes these people are just repeating these edicts or mandates because they’ve heard them forever and they don’t think about them anymore, they just accept them as truths.

They aren’t truths.

So, here is a piece of writing advice that drives Carrie crazy.

DON’T USE ADJECTIVES OR ADVERBS. EVER.

Writing Tip of the Pod:

Use adjectives, adverbs, made-up-words. Use whatever you please, but make sure it sounds good.

Adjectives and adverbs are not the antichrist and there are places when they come in handy and make things beautiful. Like here:

“Below the knee, the hairiness came to a halt, and his legs narrowed into tough, bony, almost fleshless calves, terminating into shiny, cloven hooves, such as one might find on any billygoat.” – Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses

That sounds pretty damn good, doesn’t it?

But in a excerpt like this next one? Not so much.

His icky hair stopped right under his ugly knees. His narrow, bony calves ended in shiny hooves.

The point is to know what you’re doing. Find your style. Define it. Command it.

Dog Tip for Life:

You get to define you. Not others. Advice? Take it or leave it. Whenever something is presented to you as an absolute truth, take a moment and think about it. Question it. Question everything.

Here’s the Podcast! YOU CAN LISTEN HERE!