Writing Off the Edge: WEP October 2022 Challenge: Thriller

Writing Off the Edge: WEP October 2022 Challenge: Thriller: It's time for the October WEP Challenge, and this is always a fun month to write for. This month our prompt comes from the famous Michae...

Honestly, I can see where this scenario could happen. If anyone was to mess with me like that, I'd have grabbed something to defend myself with too. I was bullied all through school and I've also been sexually assaulted. People need to be careful about the "jokes" they play.

Monday Night Movie: The Virgin Suicides

 

Genre:

Drama, Romance

Content Warning:

Suicide

Rating: 

Four out of Five Stars

Buy Link:

https://amzn.to/3cycwGj

Disclosures:

The following is a copy of my review on Amazon for this movie with a few additional statements added.

I will receive a small commission from Amazon for any purchases made through the buy link.

This post contains discussions of suicide.

Ornery Review:

As someone who attempted suicide in my teens, I watched this movie with interest. I was raised Catholic like the female protagonists and became rebellious as a teenager. In fairness to my parents, they were not as ridiculously strict as the parents in this film, but we had a lot of arguments.

My heart broke for Lux, the character played by Kristin Dunst. The boy she trusted abandoned her. He was hell-bent on seducing her, and then when he got what he wanted he dumped her. The same thing happened to me and it was the straw that broke the camel's back as far as pushing me to attempt suicide. 

I really hated Trip for his behavior. When you have sex with someone and then your attitude is "after that it was weird and I didn't care how she got home," you don't have the right to say you loved that person again, ever. You don't treat people you love like that, period. 

Lux was in a vulnerable state. She had been drinking before she and Trip had sex, and then she fell asleep. He left her lying out on the football field alone. Anyone who treats another human being like that is trash. This character really made me angry.

After Trip dumped Lux, she began behaving in a hypersexual fashion, seducing as many willing guys as possible and having sex with them on the roof of the family's house. The film's narrator and his friends watch these liaisons through a telescope, making moronic comments.

What people don't understand is that girls who behave in a hypersexual fashion are reacting to trauma of some kind. Rather than showing compassion, these girls are called unkind names and exploited by men and boys willing to take advantage of them. The other boys were not as awful as Trip but still behaved deplorably acting like the Lisbon girls were prizes to be won rather than troubled human beings who needed a friend.

Girls and women are not objects to be ogled, prizes to be won, pets to be kept, or mysteries to be solved. We are human beings. The film does a decent job of expressing the sometimes extremely painful frustration of being a teenage girl. This is a commendable goal as teenage girls are the demographic whose troubles are least likely to be taken seriously.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Open Book Blog Hop + About Me Monday: Disappointment

 

Image by Glauco Gianoglio from Pixabay

Teenage me was nowhere near as pretty as the girl in the photograph, but she believed her life would be perfect if she could become pretty. 

I am not a pretty girl, it isn't what I do.

You may be wondering why I would post a picture resembling my teenage self's ideal appearance. 

Well, today's question for the Open Book Blog Hop is...

Do you think the child you were would be impressed by the person you've become?

Buckle up, Bitches, coz it's about to get real and it's about to get real salty. If you have a problem with profanity or with a frank discussion of topics such as depression and low self-esteem, the back arrow is your friend. I don't take kindly to people telling me how I should feel, what I should think, or whether I should pepper my speech with expletives. 

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

I tackle some difficult subject matter in this post, including:

Discussion of sexual assault

Diet culture

Eating disorders

Internalized fatphobia

If you think any of these points will be triggering for you, please approach with caution or avoid it. Whatever you deem best for your own mental health.

The child I was is disappointed in what I became, but she doesn't have much to say about it.

The teenager I was despises what I became.

So, what about me does my angry inner teen dislike so much about the woman I am?

I am broke and I am broken.

I became old without ever becoming fabulous first.

I have multiple health problems. These include endocrine problems. Thanks to a completely fucked endocrine system and decades of food insecurity both because of insufficient income to purchase adequate sustenance and because of being brainwashed into trying to hate myself thin, I was often in starvation mode. As Caroline Dooner says in The Fuck It Diet, your body doesn't know if you're in the middle of a famine or if you're trying to fit into a ridiculously small bikini. It reacts the same way.

The Fuck It Diet is the only diet anyone needs. I recommend it in conjunction with Health At Every Size. 

https://bit.ly/FIDCIE

https://bit.ly/HAESCIE

Yes, I digress, but I will never pass up an opportunity to help people escape the prison of diet culture for good.

My inner teen doesn't get that chronic dieting destroys the body's ability to lose weight, particularly if said body also has endocrine problems. She is outraged by my "allowing myself to get so fat." 

Yes, I use the word fat. It is a neutral description of a large physique with a high percentage of adipose tissue. I am an old, fat, disabled woman who lives in poverty. There is nothing wrong with any of this except for the poverty part. Nobody should live in poverty. A society that allows anyone to do so has failed. Because the little town where I live has a monthly food bank, my son and I have adequate provisions.

My son is not able to work a normal job either. He is high-functioning autistic and his sleep schedule is very irregular. He speculates that he may have a 25-hour circadian rhythm. He also has issues with depression and anxiety. He is not on disability because one of us needs to be able to amass savings in case of an emergency. People on disability are not allowed more than $2000 in savings. Considering that replacing a water heater, for instance, costs more than $2000, this is pretty fucked up.

Back to my inner teen. Considering that she hoped to become a beloved actress, a famous musician, a renowned writer married to a famous actor, musician, or fellow writer, or some combination of all of the above, I can understand why she is horrified at being stuck back in the early 1980s looking at me and knowing that I am what she will become.

I can understand why my inner teen despises me. I used to despise her too. I thought she was a horrible, spoiled brat who ruined my life. 

I no longer hate the troubled girl I used to be. In the past five years, I've started to understand why my life turned out the way it did. I craved acceptance but never found it. An older boy sexually assaulted me when I was fifteen, but I believed it was not a "true" sexual assault because there was no PIV penetration. It took me 40 years to realize that unwanted digital penetration is sexual assault and to understand why I started acting out following this incident.

My inner child and inner teen are still integral to my creativity. Even though I am more psychologically fractured than someone who was accepted by their peers and had a normal and non-traumatic childhood, I have managed to become someone worthy of my own respect although I may never find it possible to like myself.

 When I hear people saying you have to "love" yourself, that is such a strange concept to me and I think, no, I do not have to "love" myself. Attempting to do so feels forced and artificial. I need to respect myself and have compassion for myself, including all the fractured, wounded, broken bits. I need to realize that although I am not what anyone else would consider even remotely physically attractive, I am still worthy of being treated with common decency and respect and I will accept nothing less.

This is one of my favorite reasonably current pictures of myself despite the bloated "endocrine face." My Crowley doll makes my inner child happy. My inner teen wishes we had more time for writing fan fiction. Adult me realizes that I am a taskmaster when it comes to myself and I don't know if that will ever change.

I was still able to use Henna when this picture was taken and enjoyed changing the color of my hair every couple of months. Unfortunately, I developed an allergy to the Henna and my scalp became full of scabs and scales. It was itchy and unpleasant, so I gave up and went back to my natural gray. I'm not ashamed of my gray hair at all, I just had fun changing the color. My gray hair is very resistant to most dyes so regular hair dye won't work. I can't be arsed to color my hair at this point anyway.

Yeah, so that probably wasn't a pleasant read, but I'm not sorry. It's as real as it gets, and...

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Free use image from Open Clipart Vectors

https://daryldevore.blogspot.com/2022/08/daryl-devore-discusses-whether-kid.html

It would be a straight-up crime not to share the absolutely tan-fastic deep progressive house mix accompanying my writing on this fine day. 

https://odysee.com/@EnglishChannel:4/deep-progressive-house-mix-level-069:8?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

Friday Book Hop 15 July 2022

 

Buy link:

https://amzn.to/3OZ8957

I will earn a small commission from Amazon for any books purchased via this link.

“The study of psychological trauma has an ‘underground’ history. Like traumatized people, we have been cut off from the knowledge of our past. Like traumatized people, we need to understand the past in order to reclaim the present and future. Therefore, an understanding of psychological trauma begins with rediscovering history.”1

The author chose this quote from Judith Lewis Herman to begin her book. Considering the subject matter, it works perfectly.

1 Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2015), 2.

https://www.rosecityreader.com/

https://readingismysuperpower.org/

“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Laura selected this quote to begin Chapter 17. I would argue that there is also strength in knowing when to back off, to re-evaluate, to rest. I was one of those people who went to work deathly ill on more than one occasion. I always ignored health problems until they became critical. At nearly 60 years old, I am now learning to do certain things I should have been doing all along for my well-being.

http://www.fredasvoice.com/

Book Blogger Hop question:

15th - 21st - Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, do you prefer listening instead of reading? (submitted by Elizabeth @ Silver's Reviews)

I both listen and read. My audiobooks are essential for long drives when I'm alone. I live in the middle of nowhere and the nearest cities average 55-60 miles away. When I'm at home, I generally read e-books. If I listen without focusing on another activity, such as driving, I'll fall asleep. Not because I'm bored, mind, but because I start to relax. 

https://www.coffeeaddictedwriter.com/p/blog-page.html

Until next time!

Free use image from Open Clipart Vectors

Tackle It Tuesday: Breaking it Down Again

 

In truth, I tend to take a deist approach to these matters. I don't think God/the Universe/whatever gives enough of a fuck about me (or anyone else) to test me. I'd prefer to think the Universe isn't that much of a cunt, and I think that any personified higher power simply isn't that involved. The Universe behaves more like The Force in Star Wars. 

Karma is simply the energy of our actions plus our circumstances. Some shit is simply beyond our control. Other shit may be in our control but we may not to be able to act on it in the most effective fashion. I'm at the breaking point with most of it, so I'm going to break it down further.

When I was still working a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke), I was driven by anxiety. There was the anxiety that I wasn't going to get to work on time. There was the anxiety that I wasn't going to get enough sleep. There was the anxiety that I wasn't going to be able to get any writing done. I was bound and determined that working a J.O.B. wasn't going to stop me from doing what I really wanted to do.

All along, I gaslighted myself with Teh Big Dreem. You know the one. The dream where I become an overnight sensation, am able to quit my job, meet Teh Handsum Prints, and live Haplessly Ever After. Yeah. That one.

Today, approximately three years beyond when I was last able to work for someone else, the chickens have come home to roost. But these chickens are not gentle hens laying golden eggs of inspiration. Nor are they funny Foghorn Leghorns, cheering me on with cheeky comedy gems. Nor are they Little Red Roosters serenading me with smoky blues numbers. Nope, these chickens are the shadows of the shit I avoided dealing with for decades. They are fucking trauma vampires and they are fucking with my head.

All of my life, I had to fight against an enemy and my writing sustained me in the fight. When I was in school, the enemy was the fuckers who bullied me. I was determined that one day I would have my revenge on them by being successful and adored by the public while they rotted away in loveless marriages with ungrateful children, toiling away at dead-end jobs they hated.

Once I started working for a living (if you could call it living), my job became the enemy. My writing was going to lift me above the rat race and, depending on how much I loathed the job, I would either benevolently put in my two weeks' notice or I would burst into a rousing chorus of Take This Job and Shove It. Either way, my cruise ship to the High Life would come in, and for once I wouldn't be at the airport.

I actually did work at the airport for a while, first in a bookstore and then in a clothing shop. It was kind of fun at first. It started sucking pretty quickly. My boss at the clothing shop was bugfuck crazy and her son would have made the kid from the Omen pee his pants. The little monster was completely out of control. I literally had a headache anytime she brought him with her. I'm sure he went on to set fires to mailboxes or worse. Not even joking about that.

Currently, the U.S. disability system is the common enemy, but I don't know if I'm up to taking on the entire-ass corrupt system currently in place. I'm fighting it by exposing it, but I don't have the energy to do much else and I have my doubts that anyone is listening. 

Disability is even worse than working a J.O.B. in most ways. I don't have to punch a time clock and I don't have to answer to a power-hungry supervisor, but I do have to follow a set of unrealistic, Draconian rules. To break free of the clutches of the U.S. disability system, I would have to make an unrealistically large amount of money. I would literally have to become an overnight millionaire. 

Although the federal government sees the piddling amount that I make from book reviews as insignificant and allows me to claim the standard deduction, SSD doesn't see it that way. I have virtually given up doing book reviews for pay because I don't want to have to report that nothingburger to disability and risk having my benefits lowered. Most of the time I make less than $100 doing these reviews. It's a fucking hobby. It isn't a real job. But I still have to declare "self-employment income" from it. Fuck my life.

I'm trying to do better with the whole self-care thing, (I kind of hate that term, to be honest), but I'm so used to burning the candle at both ends and running myself to the point of exhaustion. Taking care of myself doesn't come naturally. Youth, stupidity, magical thinking, and self-medication used to mask the damage that I was doing to myself. 

Obviously, I'm no longer young. I may still be stupid as a bag of bricks, but I'm no longer able to gaslight myself with magical thinking. The only "self-medication" I do these days involves shit prescribed by the doctor. Antihypertensives, asthma and allergy medicines, diabetic medications including insulin, eye drops for glaucoma, anti-rosacea cream that makes my face feel like I've been mummified for several millennia, thyroid medication, and triglyceride-lowering medication just don't hit the same as booze, pot, and illicit pills. 

These days my idea of a party is seeing if I can find something that doesn't suck too much on Amazon Prime to watch while playing games on my smartphone to earn Amazon gift cards. I have people that I like but nobody I can call a friend because I always feel like I'm bothering people. I'm a loner by nature but sometimes I wish there was somebody that I could bounce things off. I honestly don't know how to be a friend because I don't trust anybody. I've got my reasons.

Well, it's party time. And by that I mean time for me to take the aforementioned medications. Are you jealous yet?

Spirit of the Universe, I'm trying hard not to give up. I'm trying to make it make sense. I'm trying to take responsibility for my health. Maybe I could have a win--just a small one? 

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Things Ornery can't do anymore

Free use image from Open Clipart Vectors

Resource Books:

52 Weeks of Writing

https://amzn.to/33sESxd

Self-Help Sucks

https://amzn.to/3sCWA9q

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This work is the intellectual property of Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp and Naughty Netherworld Press.

Reblogging is acceptable on platforms that allow it. Odysee’s reblog function is called repost, which makes things confusing since reposting is considered a no-no on most platforms. It’s fine to share the post using the repost function on Odysee. It is not okay to copy-paste the material into a new post.

Sharing a link to the post is acceptable.

Quoting portions of the post for educational or review purposes is acceptable if proper credit is given.

Come check out Readers Roost, the online book store featuring works by indie and small press authors. Discover your next great read at the Roost! It's the link you need when you wanna read.

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Fucking Around Friday: The Definition of Insanity

 

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

After several days of Stupid, we're back. I sort of know where I'm going with this, but there are a few topics I'd like to address. I've given myself permission to take as long as I need and write as much as I want. I've told my inner critic to fuck off. So, let's do this.

First, some questions from 52 Weeks of Writing. The link to purchase a copy of this book for yourself can be found at the end of the post.

What are your goals for the upcoming week?

Let's just take a page from my planner. It looks a little bit something like this.

Write a flash fiction for the Fish Flash Fiction writing contest. Maximum words 300. No limit on theme or genre. Does not need to be about fish. Deadline 28 February.

https://www.fishpublishing.com/competition/flash-fiction-contest/

Enter Women on Writing Flash Fiction Contest (Max words 750)

https://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/contest.php#FlashFictionContest

Deadline 28 February.

Submit poetry to Humana Obscura

https://www.humanaobscura.com/submit

Humana Obscura is now accepting submissions of poetry, prose/short fiction, and art for its next issue!

Submissions will remain open until the end of February 2022.

No politics, nothing rhyming, nothing longer than 75 lines. Haiku is preferable to Senryu. Previously unpublished only, no simultaneous submissions.

Poetry – 3 to 5 poems (or up to 10 haiku, tanka, or other forms of micro poetry, 5 lines or less), no longer than two pages each. Please include all poems in one document.

Short Prose/Flash Fiction – no more than 2 pieces, 1,000 words maximum (per piece).

Unpublished only, no simultaneous submissions.

Work on story for Dragon Soul Press Chance on Love anthology.

https://dragonsoulpress.com/anthologies/

Deadline: 31 March 2022

Anthology: Chance on Love

Word Count – 5,000 to 15,000

Theme – Everyone deserves a chance at love. Whether it lasts forever or ends up being temporary, these characters will fight for the chance at happily ever after.

Rating: R

Work on story for L Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest. Sci-fi, fantasy, or dark fantasy, up to 17,000 words. Deadline 31 March 2022.

https://www.writersofthefuture.com/enter-writer-contest/

Work on Cosmically Bonded (part of my ongoing serial series.)

Submit a piece for this month's WIP contest.

Have another look. Are you being realistic? If not, what would be more realistic?

On the surface, this looks rather unrealistic. But when I break things down, I don't think it is. I've already written the poem for the WIP challenge. I just need to put it in a post and submit the link. 

I can write a few Haiku for Humana Obscura. 

I can submit Lucina Entombed to the Chance on Love anthology, although there's a possibility it may be a little clean for their liking given the R-rating in the description. The story contains no descriptive erotic scenes and scant profanity although it contains adult themes. 

It took me a few months to write this 7500-word story. It's a combination of three fairy tales (The Buried Moon, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White) re-imagined in a sci-fi setting. I submitted it for potential inclusion in an anthology and never even received an acknowledgment of receipt. I attempted to contact the person compiling the anthology and heard nothing from them. I have given said anthology up as a lost cause. 

The story is a bit of an oddball and I'm not sure anyone else will want it. My policy is to shop out the stories that aren't part of my ongoing serial over the period of a year and then publish them myself. I'm thinking of compiling an anthology of my work at the end of the year and calling it something like C.L. Hart's Space Oddities Volume I. 

I feel like ideas of this nature make me sound extremely arrogant and self-absorbed. The truth is, I don't think that I will ever have much of an audience. I really like my stories but nobody else seems to. This hurts me more than I can convey. 

Also, I completely suck at promoting my work.

Image by Robin Higgins from Pixabay

Me promoting other people's stories

Me promoting my own stories

What can you do this week to make sure you achieve your goal(s)?

Not have my car battery conk out on me again, something I completely blamed myself for. I had a bit of a mental breakdown when it happened. I am in quite a vulnerable position. Living in the middle of nowhere I need my car to work 100% of the time. I keep up on maintenance. The battery has plenty of life left and there's nothing wrong with the alternator. So, what happened?

I only drive about once a week. Modern cars (even an older one like my 2011 Ford Fusion) have computerized gadgetry and an alarm system that impose a small chronic drain on the battery. I'm taking the car back to the mechanic next week so they can install a switch that will allow me to turn off the battery when I'm not driving the car. This disables the car alarm, but I live in a very low crime rate area and my room is in the front of the house. The car is nearly always in my line of sight. 

Also, we had a few very cold days last week and my car is parked in the open. The cold drained the battery as well. 

My anxiety was astronomical after this happened. I hated myself for allowing it to happen. I could not make myself write and spent several days just watching episodes of When Calls the Heart. 

Why was I unable to write you may ask? It wasn't as if I suffered an irreparable loss. My fucking car battery died. Boo fucking hoo. What a crybaby.

Back in 2013 when my car was hit by a wall of water as I was trying to get to work during the 100-Year Flood in Boulder, Colorado, I was unable to write for a month afterward. I felt like I didn't deserve the luxury of a "hobby" like writing. People had lost their homes. Some people lost their lives. How dare I think I should be allowed to engage in a fucking leisure activity? I'm always such a selfish bitch.

I suffered from (additional) PTSD following that incident. I have complex PTSD from chronic incidents of abuse throughout my childhood. When things are working normally, my anxiety is manageable. Put something out of place and I start to come apart. 

I know all about how people who can "go with the flow" are more likely to be successful. I have had to realize the fact that I will probably never be such a person. I am always teetering on the edge of disaster. I live in a house of cards with a sand foundation built on the San Andreas fault. I am always one huff or puff or seemingly minor disaster away from devastation.

The Spent module allows users to experience what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck. (In my case, disability check to disability check.) It isn't fun.

https://playspent.org/

I used to have such big dreams. Some really were unachievable. I can live with that. What kills me is the feeling that none of them are achievable because I am so awful at everything. 

Hold on to your hats as things are about to devolve into a bitch fest.

It's probably evident by now that I like to listen to independently produced relaxation music and electronic music such as deep house or trance while working on these posts. I saw some long mixes that I might have checked out except for one teeny problem. Rather than posting some nice pictures of, say, nature or candles or people dancing, the thumbnail images feature blatant tits and ass. 

How the hell it's supposed to be relaxing to stare at cleavage or butt crack is beyond me. Even if I was attracted to women, I wouldn't want to be staring at cleavage or butt crack. I'm attracted to men and I don't want to be staring at package shots or male butt crack. Fucking hell, just rename your channel Dudebro Haven. Tits and ass don't convey "positive coaching."

Anyway...

Spirit of the Universe, I am lost again. Please help me find my way.

~Ornery Owl is Searching~

Image by moonzigg from Pixabay

Resource Books:

52 Weeks of Writing

https://amzn.to/33sESxd

Self-Help Sucks

https://amzn.to/3sCWA9q

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This work is the intellectual property of Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp and Naughty Netherworld Press.

Reblogging is acceptable on platforms that allow it. Odysee’s reblog function is called repost, which makes things confusing since reposting is considered a no-no on most platforms. It’s fine to share the post using the repost function on Odysee. It is not okay to copy-paste the material into a new post.

Sharing a link to the post is acceptable.

Quoting portions of the post for educational or review purposes is acceptable if proper credit is given.

Come check out Readers Roost, the online book store featuring works by indie and small press authors. Discover your next great read at the Roost! It's the link you need when you wanna read.

https://bit.ly/ReadersRoost

Buy me a coffee

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Or buy me a coffee here

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Join me on Patreon!

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Get the latest literary happenings and slices of life in your inbox!

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Playlist for the Post

https://odysee.com/@M%C3%BAsicaElectr%C3%B3nica:3/LA-MEJOR-MUSICA-ELECTRONICA-POSITIVA---THE-BEST-ELECTRIC-AND-POSITIVE-MUSIC:d?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

https://odysee.com/@MUSIC-RELAX:e/musica-electronica-positiva108:e?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

https://odysee.com/@WKDsociety:8/WKDsociety-house-of-electronics-mix:9?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

WTF Wednesday: Where Did the Joy Go?

 

Image by John Hain from Pixabay

I had planned on getting a lot further in 52 Weeks of Writing by now, but the Crazy Train got derailed this month. I've struggled to complete a 5000-word story for potential inclusion in an anthology, and that isn't like me. Fuck it, let's get down to business.

Today's Question:

When you first started writing, how did it make you feel?

When I first started writing, I felt excited, free, happy. I was exhilarated. Writing allowed me to bring the scenarios I created in my mind to life. I felt unstoppable. With writing, the impossible became possible.

Do you still feel like that when you write? If not, what has changed?

When I try to write now, I feel lost. There are so many rules to adhere to. I have to think of what a potential audience will like rather than simply writing what I imagine.

My imagination is no longer free. Its wings have been clipped. It has been shackled and caged. The stories I want to write are not the ones that have priority. Most of the time they don't get written at all. 

I haven't believed in myself since I was a young child, and even then that belief was pretty shaky. In truth, I didn't really believe in myself, I believed in certain of my abilities. But I have been told time and time again that my abilities are sub-par. There are many who are far better than me at everything and it wouldn't matter a bit if I were suddenly erased. Nobody would miss me. Certainly nobody would miss my writing. I am a joke.

For far too long I have been craving the approval of others. The unhappy child wants to be told that she's been a good girl who has done a good job. 

Those of us who have been sexually abused are often chided that we should have told someone. The people saying this don't understand the power of shame. You don't want anyone to know such things were done to you. Some victims have been threatened. Sometimes the abuse is shrugged off when we try to tell or we are told that we are lying. We feel deeply ashamed of ourselves and want to be told that we aren't bad. But hearing this once isn't enough. There is a never-ending insatiable hunger for approval. 

At the core, I think this is why I was drawn to horror fiction and to vampire characters in particular even when I was a child. The vampire represents uncensored need, and with its superior strength, it can exact revenge on those who harmed it in the past. Vampires are seductive and dangerous. Those who fuck with a vampire come to regret it. 

By the way, I think writing programs can fuck off with their constant nit-picking about passive voice. Passive voice isn't always a bad thing. Kindly fucking go fuck yourself actively.

These posts are only lightly edited. I keep kicking around the idea of one day turning my ruminations into a book but I always end up asking myself who the fuck would read or benefit from such a book? I think I'll address the "who the hell do you think you are" question some other time.

I decided to watch Magical Mystery Tour on Odysee. This film reveals that no matter how normal he looks on the outside, Paul McCartney has a very odd imagination. (The film was primarily Paul's idea.) Honestly, I think that's a good thing. 

I've always thought that it would be nice if I could look normal on the outside. I wouldn't want to be stunningly beautiful because nobody would take my ideas seriously if I was. However, I've always wished that I didn't have to be stunningly ugly, which I am. It shouldn't matter, but it does.

Here is Magical Mystery Tour in case you'd like to watch.

Here is the link in case you can't see the player.

https://odysee.com/@Youtube-Archive:a/The-Beatles---Magical-Mystery-Tour-Full-Film:c?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

Spirit of the Universe, I thought I was doing better about not seeking approval but the need is insidious. My approval-seeking behavior is multi-headed like a Hydra. I cannot conquer it on my own. I am broken and I am tired of trying to cobble myself back together. Please help me learn to put myself first. Please help me revive the childlike adoration I once had for my stories. Amen.

~Ornery Owl is Seeking~

Image by vishnu vijayan from Pixabay

Resource Books:

52 Weeks of Writing

https://amzn.to/33sESxd

Self-Help Sucks

https://amzn.to/3sCWA9q

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)

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"Fun" With Sleep Paralysis

 

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

This is a response to a post by Amber Daulton featuring an excerpt from one of her books. The hero suffers from PTSD. He sleeps with a knife under his pillow.

https://amberdaulton.wordpress.com/2021/11/17/mfrwhooks-learning-the-truth-is-never-easy/

Yikes! I can only imagine that if I kept a knife under my pillow, I'd slice myself up. 

I suffer from bouts of sleep paralysis. One time my son happened to be passing my room and saw that I was in distress. To my relief, he woke me up. When I asked him if I was making any sounds, he said only vague muttering. I could have sworn I was shouting at the top of my lungs.

Dark Hearts Love Too: Small Flies and Other Wings

Dark Hearts Love Too: Small Flies and Other Wings:   Image copyright Brooke Shaden Surreal Photography The poem was also inspired by a painting called Small Flies and Other Wings by Indonesia...

This poem is a metaphor for my thoughts as a sexual assault survivor.

I've been told that I "need to get counseling" to "process my feelings" about what was done to me, but I found that counselors tend to be trained to try and make their clients "normal." I find this a flawed approach or at least one that doesn't work for me. I was never normal in the first place, and, as Thomas Wolfe famously said, you can't go home again. Once you have been sexually assaulted, you will never again know life as someone who hasn't. It's simply not possible. 

Also, I have no desire to revisit the events in question in a group setting. Yes, I know, by "not dealing" with what happened, what happened will deal with me, but it does anyway.

I actually am not abnormally afraid that someone will break in and sexually assault me. I'm not afraid to be out in the dark, although at this juncture I don't see very well when driving at night because of cataracts. Also, I live in the middle of nowhere, so there isn't anywhere for me to be going at night. I'm not afraid of men. I function as normally as anyone with my particular limitations, including physical, neurological, and psychological can.

My brand of weirdness manifests in a need to sleep in a somewhat confined space, up against a wall. Somehow, this makes me feel safer. I also bristle whenever I discuss the times that I was molested, even though decades have gone by. That will never stop. No amount of counseling with someone I'll never feel free to truly be myself with will ever change that.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Free Use Image from Open Clipart Vectors on Pixabay

Mes crazy expériences: WeWriWar 342: The House at the Crossing 50

Mes crazy expériences: WeWriWar 342: The House at the Crossing 50:   Hello everybody and welcome for a new Sunday of writing with Weekend Writing Warrior and Snippet Sunday !   How are you doing?   ...

Oh my gosh, if I had to deal with three crying babies plus seeing me from alternate universes appearing and disappearing, I think I'd lose what I have left of "it."

I live in a big old house in the middle of nowhere, which I really love. Unfortunately, the parts of myself and memories of my past that I don't really love followed me here, and I've been having nightmares.

Aurora Springer: Horrid memories - snippet from Bridget Bramble for...

Aurora Springer: Horrid memories - snippet from Bridget Bramble for...:   

Some memories remain no matter how much one tries to forget.

Mes crazy expériences: WeWriWar 333: The House at the Crossing 39

Mes crazy expériences: WeWriWar 333: The House at the Crossing 39:   Hello everybody and welcome for a new Sunday of writing with Weekend Writing Warrior and Snippet Sunday ! It's been a while since...

A fabulous bit of speculative fiction. 

Due to trauma in my younger years, I often felt that my personality was fractured, although not to the point of forming different personalities that took over.