I think we’ve all had a day where we’re ready to kill all the other drivers around us. Road rage is definitely real and even the nicest person can get stressed out. As I’m preparing to take my family on a road trip this week, I was thinking about all the idiot drivers that I’ll have to contend with on our nine hour drive. My big conclusion? The best way to fix the problem of jerk-driving is to try and be courteous and to communicate.

Courteous:

You’re probably thinking something like, That’s one of the first things they teach you in drivers ed. That may be true, but I’ll bet it’s one of the first things most people forget.

I try to be a courteous driver with little things as well as big. If I’m driving down the road of a semi-busy street and notice a car trying to turn left onto that same road, I check the spacing of cars behind me. If it looks like there’s an opening for that car trying to turn, I’ll speed up so that they have a better window to turn left on that road.

And if I’m on the freeway, I pay attention to how fast those around me are going. (Especially if I’m in the left lane!) I generally drive at a decent speed, but if I’m going slower and some cars are lining up behind me, I’ll change lanes to get out of their way. If that’s not possible, I’ll even speed up a little until I can change lanes. Why do I do this? Because if I were to stay in the left lane going five MPH slower than the other cars in that lane, it can cause traffic congestion. It can also influence the impatient drivers to make some stupid risks to get around me and possibly cause a car accident.

You don’t believe me? The next time you’re on the freeway, pay attention. There’s plenty of times when this kind of situation happens. There’s a reason why there’s a fast lane, slow lane, and middle lane. They designed the freeway like this to accommodate the different kinds of drivers and vehicles to prevent accidents.

This applies to every place you drive, including parking lots and school pick-up. (Don’t get me started on the crazy drivers I’ve encountered while trying to pick up my son from school!)

So, bottom line? Don’t get self-righteous if you’re going the speed limit and the others behind you are stuck until traffic thins out. You’re actually making things worse.

Communicate:

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been a passenger and the driver gets frustrated when they’re trying to make a lane change, but can’t find any openings. I always suggest that they turn on their blinker to let the other cars know that they’re trying to get in. It doesn’t always mean that people will let them in front of them, but at least drivers are prepared if the person I’m with has to get aggressive and weasel their way into the other lane.

If we could use our turning signals, horns, and lights to communicate better instead of complain to the other driver that we don’t like the way they drive, it would be a lot easier to drive through heavy traffic.

Conclusion: be a courteous driver and do your best to communicate to the other cars around you! Let someone in front of you if they are trying to get in your lane instead of slamming on the gas so that you can stay in front. If we all tried to help each other out on the road more, it would make for less road rage and smoother traffic.

Well, off to my road trip now. Wish me luck as I try to be a good driver!

 

If you’ve never met me, let me tell you a little about myself. I’m an easy-going, laid-back kind of person. I like to meet new people and socialize.

I’m also direct and very honest. Almost to a negative degree.

A friend and I were talking today. She is a person who doesn’t speak her mind and tries to be a people-pleaser. We’ve always gotten along just fine and I never really thought of us as being very different, until she said something to me today. “I wish I had as much courage to tell people what I’m thinking. You’re so amazing that way!”

Sounds flattering, right? I suppose the proper response should have been a polite thank you. But my response? I laughed. “If you only knew how many people I’ve unintentionally offended with my honesty,” I told her.

And thus, I am lead to write a blog about being honest. Because honesty is a good thing, right? We’re always taught that we should be honest in all that we do… except we shouldn’t tell that lady that her hair color is wrong for her complexion. And if someone comes to you and asks, “Do these jeans make me look fat?”, we should lie through our teeth if they look fat, right?

Well, like I already told you, I’m a pretty direct person. However, I’ve learned to curb my bluntness through my life and have tried to develop more tact. So do I tell people exactly what I’m thinking? Not if it’s going to come out as rude. (well, sometimes it does come out rude, but that’s never intentional!)

However, if someone asks me a direct question, I’m not going to lie. If those jeans don’t look good on you and you ask my opinion, I won’t say you look fat. But I will say something like, “You know, they’re not very flattering on your thighs. Maybe we could look for a different pair that would give them a better slimming effect.” Is that rude? Perhaps.

But, hey, when my friends want to ask something and not have the answer sugar-coated or danced around, guess who they turn to? Yep, I’m that friend. The one they come to when they don’t want to hear the BS they know other people will give them to try to make them feel better.

There is a downside to my open and honest personality, though. Which is that I simply rub certain people the wrong way. They don’t like how abrasive I can be (again, I’m really not trying to be like that) and steer clear whenever they see me. So it’s true that I don’t get along with everyone. I hold no grudges. I understand why someone wouldn’t want to talk to me when I’m being blunt. I really do try to censor myself around people I don’t know that well, but I’m still me. So don’t worry, I don’t take it personally if I’m not your favorite person!

So that’s me in a nutshell. What about you? Would you prefer to take the more diplomatic strategy and tip-toe around things so you don’t hurt anyone’s feelings, or do you like to tell it how it is.

What do you think the pros and cons to either side are? I’d love to have a fun discussion about this.

 

Now that I have a daughter who loves to dress as a princess and LOVES to watch the Disney movies to see the “pretty princesses”, I’ve had a LOT of experience watching Disney movies (over and over, again). I noticed a general trend with the Disney princesses: Most of them don’t have a mom. Or if they do, they’re an evil stepmother. So, like any curious person, my next thought is why?

As an author, I understand that it’s great to give characters adversity, and losing your mother certainly falls into that category. But for almost all the princesses? Isn’t that getting lazy with giving the character a background of tragedy?

Or perhaps it gives the character ample opportunity to be rebellious or take charge in a way that they wouldn’t be able to if they had a mother? I don’t really know – just speculating here.

Of course, it’s been mentioned that these stories are based off of fairy tales from a different time when women generally didn’t live a long life span. While this is true, I must also point out that Disney has adapted many of these fairy tales to their own versions. I’m pretty sure that, had there been a Princess Jasmine in the original story of Aladdin (there wasn’t), she wouldn’t have been so snarky and independent. And I know they changed around The Little Mermaid. The original version has Ariel turning into sea foam while Prince Eric marries another. So, they could certainly change the parental dynamics of they chose to.

What I’m hoping is that everyone will just agree that mothers are so essential in a child’s upbringing that if the mothers had been in the picture, they would have been able to solve the princesses’ problems early and then ruin any chance of a story filled with tribulations for the princess to overcome. Right? Maybe…

Maybe not. Let’s be honest here; women are more dramatic than men. Much more emotional. I think that having a mother in the story could bring an interesting element to the story. Possibly make it that much richer.

But, I suppose we should keep this simple, right? After all, they are Disney movies meant for young kids. So it’s not that big of a deal.

Now that I’ve given my two cents, what do you think? Does it bother you at all that most of these stories are young women without moms? Or with evil female influences?

Beauty and the Beast: There’s no mother in this story.

Cinderella: There’s no biological mother, but an evil stepmother.

Aladdin: There’s no mother in this story.

Snow White: There’s no biological mother, but an evil stepmother

Sleeping Beauty: Princess Aurora is estranged from both parents and raised by fairies – the closest to having a mother, or at least a positive female role model.

Tangled: Rupunzel is estranged from both parents, raised by an evil witch mother-type. One does wonder how her character turned out to be so nice with such a bad influence!

The Little Mermaid: There’s no mother in this story.

Mulan: She has both parents! No wonder she’s one of my favorite Disney characters. 🙂 But seriously, this story is one exception to the unspoken rule that a Disney princess must come from a broken home.

Pocahontas: There’s no mother in this story.

The Princess and the Frog: She does, in fact, have her mother! Though her father died, whom she was close to. So still just one parent while the other died.

Brave: Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! Not only does she have both her parents, but the storyline is about her relationship with her mother. My friend said they made this movie solely because others have brought up the same points I did in this post. Either way, they did make the movie. Unfortunately, it’s not one of my favorites…

We’ve all grown up hearing about vampires. The most common depiction of these creatures stems from Dracula. When Interview with the Vampire came out, it shifted slightly to something more attractive. Then, with the Twilight movies, the idea of vampires has become two opposing views of romantically sexy, or just a big fat joke.

So you want to hear some facts about vampires? Well, first thing I can tell you is that since they’re fictional, there are no facts about them! Everyone likes to make up their own version of what vampires are capable of and how to kill them. Since there’s such a wide variety of vampires from all over the world, I thought I would give you five facts about vampires from The Blood Inheritance Trilogy. These are facts from the books, but can be applied to the general cliche of vampires as well.

 

1~ They drink blood to survive.

Obvious one, right? Well, the vampires in Dissension (Book 1 of Blood Inheritance) definitely follow this, but there’s a slight difference: If they don’t drink blood, then The Hunger will take over their mind and their body and feed from a victim in a most gruesome and brutal way.

2~ They each have special powers.

The powers that vampires develop over the years are usually some kind of psychic power. The immortals (sworn to hunt down and kill all vampires) also develop similar powers. Very rarely will a vampire have a physical power that is unique from their fellow vamps.

3~ They can’t fly.

The vampires have amazing strength and agility. When they jump high, it can appear (at least to a human’s eye) that they are flying. But the fact is that they can’t fly – not like Superman. It’s more of “falling with style”.

4~ They keep their souls.

There’s some speculation that one is turned, they lose their soul and become a different person than when they were alive. Not so. When someone becomes a vampire, they keep their same personality they had in their human life. Of course, the compulsion to drink blood and new abilities can change anyone. But they still choose how their new life affects them.

5~ Everything is heightened.

All five of their senses are heightened, so vampires can see, hear, and smell a lot more than humans can fathom. But it doesn’t end just there. People often forget touch. Vampires feel everything with more sensitivity, making pain all the more intense, as well as pleasure. And we must not forget taste! They can taste things so much more than we mere mortals ever dreamed of. So yes, vampires may be snobs when it comes to fine dining, but if you could taste everything to the tenth degree as well as feel the textures over your tongue so profoundly, I imagine you would feel the same. But don’t let their persnicketiness fool you; they love to enjoy delicious, gourmet food!

Sound intriguing? Does it make you want to become a vampire? I suppose it has its allure… but everything comes with a price! 😉

I just got back from a writers retreat. It was three days in a large cabin high in the mountains in Utah. It’s the second one I’ve been to and I feel so blessed that I’m able to attend these.

It started because a gal in my critique group has access to this cabin through her father. So we don’t have to pay to stay at this grand place. Since most of the people in my critique group are married with young kids at home, it’s still difficult to get away – even if the cabin is free. But we all got so much work done at the first one that we decided we would make it happen twice a year.

The one this last weekend was amazing! Not only did I get a ton of work done on my final book in the Blood Inheritance Trilogy, but I got to talk to other writers who feel the same passion about books and writing for three whole days! It was so fun to sit quietly at the table (It seats 12, so there’s plenty of room!), and one person would get really excited and share this major epiphany they just had about their story. I did it myself when I wrote a battle scene at the end of the book. (I can’t tell because I don’t want to give anything away, but it was an exciting development!)

Most of us are discovery writers, so it really was living the story as we wrote it out, and I rarely get to jump up and exclaim about this awesome part that just came to me as I was writing. So that part was really fun.

We didn’t work the entire time. We took breaks at the end of each night to get junk food out and watch a movie. I mean, a bunch of women in a big cabin all to themselves without any obligation to kids or spouses? Oh yeah, we definitely had fun! There was hiking and air hockey and a pool table. There was so much to do that we didn’t have time to do it all (like I said, we accomplished a lot with our writing too, so we weren’t playing… the entire time.).

So why am I telling you all the boring details of my writers retreat? Because I realized this weekend that stuff like this is incredibly therapeutic on many levels. The most obvious one is that it helps as a writer because I’m able to get more written in three days than I can usually do in a month. But it was also a great escape from life in general.

My wonderful husband is a great father, so I didn’t have to worry about him or my kids while I was away. I got to take a mental (and physical) break from the whole stay-at-home-mom gig and came home ready to jump back into life again. It really is important to take time for yourself.

So am I saying that everyone should go on a writers retreat? Well… they are really fun, but no – that’s not what I’m saying. I guess the point I’m trying to get across is that it’s a good thing to take time out for yourself every once in a while. Even if you can’t get away overnight, you could still go out on a girls night (Or guys night. Sorry men – I’m not trying to exclude you. It’s just as important for you to get a break as it is for us women!) or something. Whatever your escape may be, it’s healthy to get it in two or three times a year. And if you can do it more often than that, consider yourself truly blessed!