Change

Alas, it's time peeps to change blog carriers. EVERYONE I read says that Wordpress just works better for author blogging. More professional, more streamlined easier to set up as a real site once I make money etc... so I'm regretfully leaving Blogger for greener pastures.

If you adore what I post and want more follow me, go here and sign up:

http://indigograce.wordpress.com/

I have a new post today on Wonder Woman and the awesomeness of running.

Thanks to everyone who's been here and read.

"Badass" International Women's Day, March 8th

Considering that I celebrate and cherish badass female characters, I figured I should probably do my due diligence and write a post about International Women's Day, March 8th. Of course I'm late to the party, but whatever. Every day is Women's Day in my universe. Personally, I find it ridiculous that we even need to have an "official" day to acknowledge fantastic, intelligent, glorious women. Haven't we grown past the ignorant beliefs of inequality for all people yet? Maybe not because there is still the mindset out there by many that women are less than <<insert a plethora of assumptions here>>. So yeah, maybe we need to stand up and recognize women in all their glory.

I decided to think on this a little before I wrote, which is sometimes a rarity for me because I tend to be very off the cuff about my observations. I didn't want to sound like I was talking out of my ass, because really how badass would it be to go out there and spout wisdoms that make no sense? Not so much. As writer, I want strong female characters, not because they're female, but because they're interesting. They have flaws and make mistakes but persevere despite them and maybe because of them. Being a badass goes hand in hand with kicking ass and taking names, but it's really about inner truth, inner strength to face what life offers us and making it through the challenges that are presented to us. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. There are real women out there doing it every day. Real women who know who they are, honor their inner demons and turn that adversity into power. I chose four women, both dead and alive, who I admire for a variety of reason but mostly because of their inner strength and they way they live/d their lives.

Four Real Life Badasses in no particular order:

Pat Summitt is the winningest female basketball coach of all time. She is Women's Basketball Head Coach Emeritus for the University of Tennessee's Lady Vols program. Her challenging, "take no prisoners" and "give every ounce of your passion" style brought her teams and players to esteemed recognition at a time when women's sports were in their infancy. She carried on a tradition of excellence that inspired female athletes to break barriers and look deep within themselves to find courage, strength and fortitude. After 38 years and numerous championships, wins and statistics, she retired and announced her beginning struggle with Alzheimers. It's hard to not stand there and say what a tragedy it is that such a great mind, full of strategy and tough nurturing, will be lost to us. It's hard to not feel like someone so influential will be taken from us when we need people like her to keep us going––to help us believe in our own strengths  But in truth, she's already set the foundation. Her legacy lives on in the players' lives she's touched and the people like me, who've never played a sport, but know and admire her for the kind of person she is and all that she's achieved.
http://www.utsports.com/sports/w-baskbl/mtt/summitt_pat00.html


Katherine Hepburn was a trailblazer in a time when beautiful women were looked at as soft sex symbols and an illusion of what women were supposed to be. She was brassy with her deep, gravelly voice, her beauty equally as seductive as Rita Hayworth's, but she eschewed conventions. She wore trousers when all women were wearing nylons and skirts, she played men's sports like golf, smoked cigars, said whatever she wanted and carried on the most famous extramarital affair in Hollywood history. For 26 years, she loved Spencer Tracy and hid it from the scrutiny of the world. They were deeply in love yet maintained separate houses and were very careful to not be seen in public together. She never pushed him for a divorce nor did she want to be married again. She was quoted in her biography saying that she "liked the idea of being my own single self". In a time where women were supposed to be married and have a family, she remained fiercely independent. Even today, most women would classify her as a pariah and a home wrecker. She wasn't. Tracy's marriage had been a broken one for many, many years before he even met her. And seriously, if an independent woman can take care of herself and is strong in the notion of who she is, why be married to a man if it's clear he loves you? Any woman who's been married knows that having a husband around 24/7 is an issue unto itself. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, especially when he's not under-feet and pissing you off. Kate knew that, understood that and lived her life as her life. She did what she wanted and didn't care how she was perceived.

Hillary Rodham Clinton. In contrast to Hepburn, here is the most publicly "embarrassed", cheated on woman of the late 20th century. Yet, she and Tammy Wynette, stood by their man. Valiant or stupid? Who cares. Hillary is a woman of resources, unending strength, determination and fortitude. Was a woman of her character and drive really going to let her horndog of a husband make her look like an idiot? No. I would bet dollars to doughnuts those two have some kind of ironclad agreement. Probably had for years before the whole BJ scandal happened. Of course that's just my speculation, not anything steeped in fact. But, I believe that people of money and power live by a different set of values/beliefs/social mores. Whatever you want to call it, they conduct themselves, differently. She had a goal, a clear vision of where she wanted her life to go. She wanted it all and had the intelligence, ambition and wherewithal to do it. She was one of the three most powerful women of our lifetime, in esteemed company with Madeleine Albright and Condoleeza Rice. As Secretary of State, she held the most powerful position in our government next to the President. She was the face of foreign affairs and a critical advisor to President Obama in a time where the Middle East, notorious for their debasement of women, was and still is in tumultuous upheaval. While the country may not have been ready for a woman to rule the world, in many ways she still made her mark on it in a powerful way. For thirty years, she's been on our radar and a forerunner of change in politics  It is not the good ol' boys club it used to be. One day there will be a female president, and she will have Hillary to thank for burning out the trail to get there.

Jane Austen was a trailblazer in her own right, in a time where women had no means to do anything. They were not citizens, had no say in the course of their lives and couldn't own property. They were for all intents and purposes at the mercy of men. A young woman was expected to marry, birth children and take care of the household. Their morality was a reflection on their husband, their beauty a benefit to his wealth and her dowery, or rather what his financial gain from the marriage, a selling point in a union not based on love but monetary gain. How romantic. Yet, Austen wrote of love and passion hidden and buried deep within strict social customs and expectations. She was a great observer of the human condition, like Shakespeare before her. She understood her society with a clarity that set her apart from many of the women of her time. While her novels are mostly about young women and the men they fall in love with despite the challenges of their society and social levels, they celebrate women as passionately intelligent beings. Elizabeth Bennet and her outspoken demeanor, Elinor Dashwood and her steadfast determination to do the right thing, Fanny Price's faithfulness to her beliefs and her love despite being dirt poor. While Austen herself never married and remained under the protection of her family, she continued to explore the possibilities of love conquering all. And in the long run, she did what hardly any young woman of her time did, she published actual books. Written tomes of beloved literature that transcend centuries of change yet still speak to the nature of the human mind and heart.

Every woman has the potential to be who and what they want to be. We are trained in society to believe certain things, thin=beauty, smart=agressive, independence=aloofness. The only way to break a mold is to shatter it, change the inner perception of what it means to be a woman. Take vulnerability and compassion and make that a strength. Use intellect and strategy to achieve a goal even if its only important to you. Love yourself in spite of your flaws, perceived or real. Be a badass and a master of your own path. We only have one life to live. Celebrate being a woman who deserves to live it.

Namaste,
~Indigo

Can men and women be just friends?

Watson and Holmes

I was watching the latest episode of Elementary, the newest Sherlock Homes incarnation, and the "ship" didn't just graze me, but hit me square on. The boat t-boned me, listed to the side and grounded like a Italian cruise liner in the Med, or the Gulf (anyone else afraid to take a cruise lately?). Let me refresh your  memory or explain for those who haven't watched this episode. Oh and BTW, it took place on Valentine's Day so read into that however your little shipper heart desires. Watson has been lying to Sherlock and pretending she is still under the employ of Sherlock's father as his sober-companion. Well, Sherlock found out. Was she foolish enough to think the master investigator wasn't going to? Dumbass. But what she doesn't get is that the truth is: he doesn't want her to go. So he's challenged her with staying on as his partner, his companion, as his protégé of sorts. It was a scene full of subtle, raw emotion excellently played by both Lucy Liu and Johnny Lee Miller. Fantastic and it got my heart a twitter. Who knows if it was intentional, it probably is, because as we all know there can never be a purely platonic friendship between a man and a woman on a television show. And not like I'm really going out on a limb here, but there can never be a purely platonic friendship between a man and a woman in real life either. Unless one is gay or ugly. Can I get an Amen?

Shipper Royalty: Scully and Mulder

This is a theme that has fascinated me forever. Friendship between men and women. And more specifically love that grows from a deep friendship and understanding between men and women. I've loved it in numerous television shows over the last twenty years and it's what I explore in my own writing. It's the foundation of the 'ship' for me, more so than the unresolved sexual tension. Carter and O'Neill–Stargate, Mac and Harm–Jag, Picard and Dr. Crusher, Star Trek: TNG, and let us not forget the king of them all, Scully and Mulder–The X-files. Even more recent: Mary and Marshall, In Plain Sight. They however  didn't fall prey to the trope. But there's been a trend of late––the 'Hey, let's fight the Moonlighting curse and actually get them together': Brennan and Boothe–Bones, Olivia and Peter–Fringe, Annie and Auggie–Covert Affairs (I don't agree with that one. I ship for Eyal, so I'm really pissed that she left him in Amsterdam to go home and kiss Auggie because she's a big fat chicken and needs a security blanket, but I digress.) There are tons more that I'm forgetting and you get the idea. One of the things that drove many episodes and story arcs of those great shows revolved around the sexual tension between the Male and Female leads. It is an epidemic.

Why?

Because it's interesting and titillating and we can't help but feel the same way or wish that it was happening to us. Fiction needs to reflect life for it to be relevant  I would venture to say that most people have at some point or another been friends with a member of the opposite sex and had some kind of tingle in the heart and/or nether regions for them. It's nature, an unwritten law of the universe, there is no way around it. Because it comes down to psychology (emotions) and science (pheromones). Friendships are based on common ground, a sense of camaraderie  and above all trust. Good love relationships are also based on those same principles with the complication of sex thrown in. When we have trust, we feel close to that person and when we feel close to that person we share things that are intimate and private, whether it's secrets, feelings, truths or sex.

Now, I am no pyschologist, just an observer and explorer of the human condition. But I extrapolate a lot from my own life experience  I have had no less than 5 best friends who are male through the course of my adult life, not including the two men that I married. I have had sex with none of them, but I loved 3 of them, one of which was gay so that statement above of one being ugly or gay doesn't always apply. (That's a whole other psychology). One of them, no, not the gay one, I completely misread the signals and had my heart broken. Though I still would bet even odds that he was full of shit and just freaked out that the situation actually presented itself and just couldn't handle it. The third one, well that's more complicated than any of the above.

Carter and O'Neill

So why then does this intrigue me? I've tried to look at the answers over the course of my life and the mistakes that I've made. I've come up with a few answers. One is the challenge. I love a good challenge. When some one says I can't, my automatic response is,  "Oh yeah? Watch me." I pride myself on not being the norm. It's one of the reasons I love the idea of finding your inner badass. Don't tell me I can't do something. Another reason is I have often had difficult friendships with women because of petty jealousy and competition. Most women don't like me or find me threatening. Again, probably the competitive element and my badass ability to go after what I want, but not in a bitchy, let me step over you kind of way. I'm not like that, just confident in my capabilities.  But I think the ultimate reason is because there's something about sharing a friendship with a man that provides comfort. I think women just want men to talk with them as equals and understand them. We feel empowered when a man understands us––like we've been privy to the key to a really secret club. We should hope that this comes from our spouse or significant other. But sometimes it doesn't. Me, I've been very lucky. This time around the marriage arena, I've struck gold and he understands me perfectly clear. However, doesn't mean that I still don't relish in the understanding I get from my significant male friend/s.

George and Gracie

The Dear Husband jokes that I have a stable of men. And maybe I do, some more infinitely more important than others. Would any of them lead to an affair? In a perfect world with no consequences... where jealousy and territorial boundaries didn't exist... then it wouldn't be an affair, more a simple understanding that fundamentally human beings don't mate for life. Yes, I wholeheartedly believe this. Humans do not mate for life. The idea of soul mates is fantastic and romantic. And yes we can meet our perfect other half. However, what is never discussed is that as we grow and change through our life, we often take a different shape and need a different perfect other half. Why? Because we don't mate for life. Why else do you think that Ménage à trois books and the alternative lifestyle of swinging is coming to the forefront? And not just in the Mormon community. It's not just about sex with someone else. It's about loving more than one person, sometimes at the same time. We are not swans, gibbons, wolves, bald eagles, turtle doves or albatrosses. What is it with birds and the pledge of undying love, huh? Do they understand something that we don't? Not really. They are animals that aren't driven by emotional connections. We try to be dedicated to our one and only. But, in my whole life, I have only ever met one couple who were in complete and everlasting love until one of them died after nearly forty years together. And I'll give you a hint––they never had children. It was just them. (Again, a whole other psychology to explain that one). More than fifteen years after her death, he was still deeply in love with her. Like George Burns and Gracie Allen. It was sweet. And completely unnatural.

Their heads make a heart. Seriously? Stop mocking us.

Now that doesn't make me a cynic, just a realist. I am a dyed in the wool romantic. I love the idea of deep, soul crushing love. It's why I write romances. But I do believe that we can find that love multiple times in our life, if we're lucky and connect with the right people. Different people come into our life at times for different reasons. If we think of life as a predestined path, we meet people along that path who are there for certain reasons, many of which are unknown to us at the time. They are there to help us, guide us, teach us, and share parts of ourselves that others don't have the wherewithal, means or connection to do so.

How does this relate to the concept that men and women cannot be platonic friends? Well, if there is truth to the fact that we don't mate for life, we seek out or discover connections to others to fill something in ourselves. Sometimes is starts as a friendship and then it morphs into something deeper. Sometimes it starts as an attraction and then morphs into a friendship.  Depends on the pheromones and the boundaries or emotional state/needs of those involved. The pure fact that we can't have a television show where the male and female lead aren't flirting gratuitously, the sexual tension crackling on the screen is testament to that. We are excited by emotional connection. We love the build up and the evolution of a relationship, that ebb and flow of tension and release, the dreaded 'C' word–– Conflict. Relationships in books and television/movies without conflict, that fundamental something that keeps them apart, lack sizzle and the taboo of the 'want' and the 'need'. We strive for the ease of connection in our own lives because living in a state of continuous conflict is tiring and stressful. But we crave it in our entertainment because it's exciting and we flirt with it in our daily lives to make ourselves feel alive.

Mary and Marshall, BFFs for life

Do I want Sherlock and Watson to get naked and bump uglies? The jury is still out on that for me. He's a tough character to fall in love with. Yeah, I fell head of heals in love with House because of his complexities and vulnerabilities that he denied,  no doubt. He had infinite depth. Sherlock, the template for House, even in this modern incarnation, is fundamentally the same. Is he capable of loving someone who doesn't fill some sort of purpose for him? Is Watson his other half? She certainly balances him and like all good functional/dysfunctional relationships, they feed off of each other's needs. I'd love it if they explored it. But I'd also be thrilled if they took the trope and spun it on its head like they did in In Plain Sight with Mary and Marshall. Have the balls to do it differently. But then again, my little shipper heart wanted Marshall to pledge his undying love for her too and for her to accept it. He ultimately did, but not in the romantic way. It was quite beautiful.  It's still early for Sherlock and Watson. Elementary is sowing the seeds, that fabulous awkward confession was perfect fertilizer. The rest remains to be seen.

In the meantime, I will continue to explore this concept with my own characters. The Overwatch series is steeped in the idea of a man and a woman as best friends who fall in love. Their issues keeping them apart stem from the concept of 'duty over self'. In my upcoming sci-fi romance series, I will examine the concept again between a man and a woman who've fought a war together for years when suddenly they realize the other person is and has been their significant other the entire time, that their strength comes from within themselves, but is compounded by the support and love from the other. And in the continuation of the Overwatch series, I'm going to flip the concept inside out and take a look at what happens when you can't be with the one you love most. How do you reconcile that your other half has found their other half and it isn't you?

So may ideas, so many men, so little time...
Story of my life.
Namaste,
~Indigo

**All images are not mine and belong to others.

Overwatch Update

For like the two of you who have been waiting with bated breath about the status of Overwatch, you're gonna have to wait a little while longer. Book 1: Proving Ground is essentially done. Yay, but Book 2: Exfil Point, ooofah... It's in a major rewrite.

Nooooo!

Yup.

Exfil Point, after the mandatory fermenting period, SUCKS FESTERING MONEKY ASS. It needs a complete overhaul. I guess that's what happens when you try to splice two attempts to start a book into one mash-up and fingers crossed, hope it works out. The only, and I mean ONLY, people who are good at mash-ups are the song stylists at Glee. They are the masters of it. Me? Not so much. While it seemed like it was a good plan and that things flowed while in the midst of a summer induced haze of long days of just writing and drinking and more writing, it didn't fit together as much as I had thought. So it's back to the drawing board for me.

I axed almost 10k words from the end. Shaved it off like a Russian woman's armpits. The emotional content was limp, trite and I had already addressed the issues in it with a whole chapter insert about 6k words before. So chop went the blade. Then I reread it again from the beginning. And started hacking away at the stuff that sounded good but again wound up being forced and trite. Chop, chop. Pretty soon this thing started to look like an anorexic supermodel with a bad hair day. Good thing though? It had a great bone structure. The elements were there. Girl's living in Boy's house, pretending they don't want to just sleep with each other and abstaining for the greater good of the world. They have a deep understanding and friendship that gets tested when they open Pandora's box. (That Bitch Pandora should just keep her damn legs closed and save everyone from the trouble of her minefield of a box! and if you're not getting the box reference, please go check it out at urbandictionary.com) Things gets dicey in relation to their relations and decisions are made that effect the incidents in Book 3: Cold War. The romance stuff I had all down. I knew where I wanted to go, knew how I wanted it to end, shocked myself a little bit with how far I went with it, but it's good. Now that it's bald and a skeleton.

What it needs is some meat. The meat of the Mission that is - they are Spec Ops soldiers and spies after all. Enter the action plot. Oh the goddamn mission... Bane of my existence. And I kick myself all the time for wanting to write love stories about awesome action figure super spies and soldiers because seriously, who gives a shit about them if we never see them at work? Otherwise they should be dog groomers and let call it a day. So I struggle...

I'm not sure if it's because I live a 'do unto others' kind of existence. I try to live fair and equitable and don't treat people cruelly  but I have a really hard time coming up with motives for bad guys to do bad things with. If I have a beef with someone who wronged me, I cut you off my Christmas card list and de-friend you on Facebook while you're not looking. I don't plot world domination and human traffic your sister and her best-friend's cousin to get back at you. Therefore, I struggle with believable plots that would bring my sexy heroes and heroines out into the big bad world. Because again, who wants to read about kick ass spies if we neve see them at work?

How have a I fixed this problem? Ugh. I'm reading news articles and blogs from around the troubled hotspots of the world. Very depressing, man's inhumanity to man. We are a disgusting species. The Earth has every right to rebel and get us fuckers off the planet. I've found some pretty disturbing things with regards to the undercurrent of terrorism and the battle to establish a foothold in Africa.

But you know what else this whole devastation of the horrid mash-up has done to me? I've become a plotster. Gasp! Swoon and sigh. I never used to have to plan. WTF? I used to pull rainbows and sunshine out of my ass and it was fabulous. Yeah, well that was fanfiction. And fanfiction while a great proving ground for confidence that maybe your ability to write doesn't suck that bad after all, it's not all that intolerant of dangling plot threads and meandering experiments with slice of life prose. It's shit we wish we saw on our favorite television shows, but just didn't make the cannon cut. In publishable fiction, it's unacceptable to not have a plan. To not have a mid-point that doesn't sag, and a dark moment that doesn't actually give you the feeling that all will never be right again. Who am I using these terms? It's like the moment you realize you have to actually send 95% of your paycheck to pay bills and that you've become a grown up. For the most part I've done this instinctually. But now, with these freaking missions... instinct isn't going to cut it anymore.

This stretches my timeline out exponentially. I've got other series in the works that are begging to be written, one of which is a sequel series to Overwatch, another is a Sci-Fi Romance series. Not that I want to say goodbye to David and Jillie, but I want to publish this bitch and move on. Patience is not always my strong suit.

Alas, I will endeavor to try.

~Indigo

Irish Chic with a Chip on Her Shoulder

Ok it’s been a while since I’ve submitted another entry into the badass database but I was seriously lacking inspiration with the poor selection of badass women out there on television lately. But now that Burn Notice is back from its fall hiatus, I am once again inspired by the incomparable Fiona Glenanne.

She is the woman every girl dreams she can be: equal parts super hero, sassy, sexy, say anything, blow up things when you're pissed off complete badass chic.

Since the very beginning of the guilty pleasure that Burn Notice is, Fiona has been once kick ass first and take names later kinda gal. She shoots from the hip, knows her way around household chemicals – not to clean the kitchen floor but to make a bomb that can clean your clock better than a small pack of C4. And lets face it, she’s a fashion plate. Half the outfits she runs around in make you wonder if they have to duct tape it to her body so those flimsy little shirts stay on. Nevertheless, her long flowing hair and her high-heeled wedges makes her one sexy babe.

One of the things I totally love about her is that she’s no spring chicken. Gabrielle Anwar is 42 and a mother of three. I don’t think I had abs like hers when I was 8 let alone after kids.  Even though she’s a tiny little thing, she’s a brick shithouse. She is rock-solid lean muscle, golden tan skin and lithe like a panther. She carries herself with such confidence that you can’t help but believe that her character used to be part of the IRA when she met the love of her life, undercover CIA agent, Michael Weston.

The best parts about Fiona is that she’s a maniac. She is a great foil for Michael in the sense that she adds a level of crazy to the already insane things they undertake in the name of justice. Michael’s crazy, there’s no doubt. Sam’s his crazy sidekick and now Jesse has an element of loco to him that adds comic relief to an already balls-to-the-wall funfest. The boys come up with some wild plans but Fiona’s often the one that wants to go in guns-a-blazing, hell on wheels, collateral damage be damned. The guys are the ones that have to rein her in. She’s an explosives expert. Knows her guns like she knows her shoes, maybe better. And has no problem walking right in a punching a guy in the nose to cause a diversion. She uses her sexuality as just another tool in her arsenal and wields it like a weapon. Heaven help the bastard who crosses her path.

Her greatest vulnerability is Michael. She’s loved him since he broke her heart in Ireland. She’s only ever wanted to be with him yet he frustrates her beyond belief. His greatest desire is to find out who burned him. He never expects her to come along for the ride but she refuses to let him do it alone, no matter how much she tries to talk him out of it. He never sees her side and does what he wants anyway but her loyalty to him makes her follow him because if he died without her, she would never be able to live with herself. As the seasons progress, she matures a little, settles into her life in Miami and with Michael. She’s come to terms with her role in his life. It also helps that Michael’s finally realized he can’t live with out her and they are now in an official relationship. She’s even earned an upgrade in the teaser voice over from "trigger-happy ex-girlfriend" to "trigger-happy girlfriend". Things are looking up in her world.

I think her letter to Michael as she turns herself into the authorities at the end of Season 5 sums up how she perceives their relationship best:

“I loved you. Before I should have, I trusted you. Because I’ve always known your heart. You do what’s right no matter the cost to you. And I’ve learned that when you love a spy, you have to be willing to make that sacrifice too. At times your job has made it hard to be with you, but it’s never shaken my faith in you.”

It’s beautiful and poignant and heartbreaking. The anguish in Michael’s face as he realizes she’s sacrificed herself for him yet again. I think it’s a turning point for him. He’s finally faced with just how much he’s taken her for granted and how much he needs her to be complete. Now that he’s rescued her in season 6, he’s still driven by the need to avenge, but he does it with her as his partner. He consults her and considers her family. She feels accepted and while she’s come to terms with his career she still hopes for a life without it.

While she’s clearly the love-interest-eye-candy to that hunk of man in the testosterone fest, Fiona’s a great example of a woman who can hold her own with the men, do it while still looking like a hottie, and not break a nail as she cocks her shotgun before she blasts you away. She’s a woman you want on your side in an argument, because you don’t want to be on the wrong end of her Irish temper. You might get a spark plug projectile in the eye.

~Namaste.

Guest Post: Stella MT

Here's a guest post from my friend and sometimes critique partner (when she's not working on her doctoral program - sheesh, can't she just find a few hours to squeeze little old me in?) Stella MT from The Great Big Jump. She's been a great supporter of this blog and has some wise "You go girl" insights. I'm honored that she wanted to dabble in the badassery and examine when some femme characters fall short of that right. But, she changed her mind midstream and this is what she came up with. Please enjoy!


Stella MT's Post:
Originally, I had set out to write a funny article about network TV procedurals and their lack of convincingly bad-ass female characters, which could be attributed to several different factors that affect TV and film writing in general. I had it all planned out: who to snark on, who to blame, what could have been.

Then the news of Nora Ephron’s death broke out all over the Internet.

I admit that, outside of her most popular movies (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, even You’ve Got Mail and Julie and Julia), I’ve never really considered Nora Ephron as a “girl power” icon; all I know is that she’s a superb writer with a lifetime’s worth of snappy anecdotes to share, and I wish I had been able to truly develop my appreciation of her work before she passed away.

And yet, as the news of her passing flooded my timeline on Twitter, I found myself reading Ephron’s commencement speech at Wellesley College in 1996, where she spoke as an alumna of the school:

Many of my classmates did exactly what they were supposed to when they graduated from Wellesley, and some of them, by the way, lived happily ever after. But many of them didn't. All sorts of things happened that no one expected. […] The women's movement came along and made harsh value judgments about their lives—judgments that caught them by surprise, because they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, weren't they? The rules had changed, they were caught in some kind of strange time warp. They had never intended to be the heroines of their own lives, they'd intended to be—what?—First Ladies, I guess, first ladies in the lives of big men. They ended up feeling like victims. They ended up, and this is really sad, thinking that their years in college were the best years of their lives.

What does this passage have to do with good writing? 

Put it simply, a good story often begins with the choice that must be made by a character in response to an unexpected and difficult situation.  In the case of most female protagonists, the “unexpected” could be as simple as a bad breakup (see: Rachel Green in Friends and Jess Day in New Girl) or as overwhelming as working for an office that might as well be a frat house (see also: Brenda Lee Johnson in The Closer and Ziva David in NCIS).  These moments are filled with the realization that things will never be the way it used to be: all of the sudden, there’s no going back to the old house, the previous branch, the trust that was broken by that lying piece of shit.  Survival, in one form or another, becomes the name of the game.

And yet, not all female protagonists get to become heroines in their own stories.

I look again at all the characters I set out to mock, and it becomes clear to me that they were intended to be strong and sexy in their own way: handy with a gun, easy on the eyes, tough enough to turn the tables on a perp yet sensitive enough to do everything they can for the ones they truly love, be it their messed-up families or the team of crime-fighters in their squad. Yet, as time went on, I found that they’ve only become less compelling as time went on: sure, it may be “realistic” to show our heroines not getting their way, but does it always have to happen on a regular basis? It’s already bad enough to be stonewalled by bureaucrats and left in the dark by lovers and family members… but do they also have to be tortured by psychos every other season, too?

It’s as if the creators of their respective shows are trying to tell us, over and over again, that any woman who chooses to take the bad guys down has chosen a life of martyrdom. Choose that journey, they say, and you will be doomed to a lifetime of trust issues, bad sex, substance abuse, and abandonment from nearly every single person that you’ve ever loved. You may be strong enough for this, they’ll say, but you’ll never be a hero… not even to your own self.

 

In a way, characters like these are marks of lazy storytelling – and the writers are partly at fault for the inconsistency – but, from my point of view, the repercussions may be more serious than we think. At a time when the entertainment industry has gone completely global, these shows are now shown all over the world, in different cycles, and in every possible language. And not only that, but there is a major chance that these shows – and stories – are being watched, right now, by viewers in countries where women don’t have the same rights and privileges that we have in our comfortable corners of the world.

Is this the message we want to send to the rest of the world: that, even in a democracy, there is no point for an educated woman to stand up and lead the charge against injustice? Is it fair for everyone else to think that the only stories we have to tell about our women – all women – are the ones where they have to do only what is expected, if they want to survive without being victimized?

http://kidculture.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/the-best-countries-for-women-girls/

I don’t know about you, but I’d like to think that a true heroine would never choose to live her life like this.

A true heroine, in my opinion, does not need to blame “the system” for her lack of initiative. She doesn’t have to dress up and go to work: she chooses to dress up and go to work, every day, because choosing otherwise would only make her more restless. She doesn’t always make the best decisions, but she takes responsibility for all of them, and finds a little humor in every situation. She may have to work a little harder to get some respect, but she will earn it – win or lose – and the guys in the office better recognize if they knew what’s best for them. 

And while it may be possible for her to “have it all” – good looks, great job, wicked skills, maybe a family and/or a nice house – a true heroine knows where the real lines are drawn in the first place. Cute shoes are a luxury, the right connections are a privilege… but truth, love, justice, peace of mind? Those are non-negotiable rights, and our heroine will fight for them, to the bitter end.

Which then brings us, once again, to Nora Ephron, and her message to the Class of ’96 at Wellesley:

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim. Because you don't have the alibi my class had—this is one of the great achievements and mixed blessings you inherit: Unlike us, you can't say nobody told you there were other options. […] Did I say it was hard? Yes, but let me say it again so that none of you can ever say the words, nobody said it was so hard. But it's also incredibly interesting. You are so lucky to have that life as an option.

Right or wrong – and regardless of who gets to run “the show” – a true heroine gets to choose her own destiny. And that is always a story worth telling, for all time. 

~Stella

http://new.wellesley.edu/events/commencementarchives/1996commencement

Badass for Armageddon

Margaret, or “Maggie”, Falling Skies

I love Falling Skies. There’s something so inherently real about it. Yeah sure, the idea of aliens and space travel aside, what would actually happen if the Earth were invaded by a violent race? Would human beings be able to put aside our differences and unite to fight for our home? I’ve often wondered if we could bring it down to the core fundamentals of what it means to be human or if we’ve grown too self-aggrandizing to change. We are supremely stratified as a culture, in America alone. Across the world, even more so. In fact, I just saw an MSNBC show on a security company that fortifies billionaire’s homes with panic rooms and 12-gauge shotgun mounts hidden inside walls to kill intruders. The proprietor of this firm joked that the last people on Earth would be the billionaire and his family holed up in the mansion stocked full for Armageddon. Is that right? Or even fair? Why do the rich get to survive the Apocalypse?

And what about the Doomsday Preppers? Are they really that crazy or might they have the right idea? If what happened in the backstory to Falling Skies actually occurred and a race came to stripmine Earth of its resources and people then, yeah they sure did. These 'crazies' would be the people that might lead the rest of humanity to salvation. They’d be the regular guys, the hunters, the former military and law enforcement, maybe even criminals who’ve learned survival by any means. Throw in a few Call of Duty fanatics who learned strategic guerilla warfare by default and we might have a chance if our active-duty military is decimated. That is if we could just stop being selfish human beings for long enough to band together and organize. But it often takes millennia for humans to change.

The story of the human connection and the will to fight has always been popular. The underdog story, or the reluctant hero character trope. On Falling Skies, one of the most interesting personalities is a secondary character that came in quietly after the first few episodes and made her presence known. Her name is Maggie, we don’t know her last name, nor does it really matter, the conventions of society have gone to Hell. But if you look at it with a critical eye, she has no last name because she is just "Maggie", the young woman who has survived on her own recognizance and wherewithal. All she has is herself. She’s a total badass.

We first see Maggie as a member of Pope’s gang, a rival and antagonist to our educated and honorable hero Tom Mason. Pope is everything that Tom is not. But Maggie is painted in shades of gray. We don’t know where she stands or if we should trust her until she whips out her guns and shoots two of the gang members in the heart to help Tom and Anne escape. One was Pope’s brother. Turns out he’d been raping her since they took her in for ‘protection’. It was implied that they’d all molested her in some way, but never really spelled out. (Side note: rape as a character developer has come under much scrutiny in the prequel story of Tomb Raider and has many people in an uproar. I may or may not do a post on this as I find the whole notion of rape as entertainment abhorrent. But check this link out in the meantime.) 

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/06/12/the-victimization-of-lara-croft/

Nevertheless, her experience with the gang has added to her hardness. If you look closely and pay attention though, she was tough even before Pope’s gang. She was just biding her time. We find out later that she survived cancer in her youth and this is what actually made her the mature, world-weary young woman she is now.

Once she joins the 2^nd Mass, a regiment in the Massachusetts Militia, we see that Maggie is a skilled fighter. She can handle a gun as if she was trained to do so. She rides motorcycles and is a strong hand-to-hand fighter. Most importantly, she goes into battle without fear. She carries herself tall and with a brick-sized chip on her shoulder. This season, we’ve seen a bit of a lighter side with her smiling and teasing. Her sarcasm is right up front and center but she’s a good soldier and follows orders because she believes in the cause.

Of course, what badass on TV is complete without the gorgeous looks? She’s blonde and beautiful. She’s a tiny scrap of a thing but damn can the girl wear a leather jacket and motorcycle boots like a pro. She’s got tattoos on her arms and usually walks around with messy hair. I love this because seriously, there’s got to be a lack of hygiene products and water. These women don’t have time to worry about eyeliner or if their armpits stink. Aliens have invaded the planet. They've got bigger things to stress over. One of the coolest things about Maggie, played by Sarah Carter, is that sexy, gravelly voice. She's got “dirt” in her voice as Adam Levine once described Juliet Simms’s on The Voice. It’s raw and earthy and just does something to you. And I’m not even into girls.

This brings us to the love interest, or partner. Hal, Tom Mason’s son: cute, affable, boy becoming a man and a soldier way earlier than he should. He started out as impetuous and foolhardy but has grown into his roll of squad leader. He follows orders and is fiercely protective of his two younger bothers. He is often with Maggie on patrols, or scouting runs. They work well together. I think it’s supposed to be implied that she’s taught him a fair amount over the last few months (we’ve skipped ahead in time three months between seasons). But there’s a flirtation there in their jokes. They smile a lot at each other and tease one another. It’s one of the developing relationships on the show and I for one would like to see it happen. They compliment each other and I think that she could use a man who respects her enough to fight along side of her, who was loyal and who might even treat her like a girl every once in a while. Up to this point, he's denied that there's anything between them. We’ll see what happens, because Hal’s actual girlfriend is still lingering around, harnessed and under the control of the aliens. If she ever gets back, you can bet a triangle will exist.

I have to say, if an alien apocalypse ever occurs in my lifetime, I’d look to Maggie to save my ass. Or at the very least teach me how to save my own. We could all stand to figure out how to put our past behind us and find new ground to flourish. It doesn’t matter where we came from, it matters what we do now and the choices we make today. I won’t have a billion dollar panic room or 500 gallons of water stored in my basement. All I’ll have is me.

Pack your ‘go-bag’ and find your leather because you bet your ass when you’re fighting off zombies and aliens, you want them to see you coming and shiver in fear.

Happy Independence Day!

~Indigo

Chuck Wendig, Guru

Found this on my favorite writing advice/all things awesome blog today. Truer words cannot have been spoken.

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/06/06/the-secret-to-writing/comment-page-1/#comment-152159

Chuck gives it to ya straight, with a bitch slap for good measure. 

Get over yourself and just do it!

~Indigo

Black Widow, Marvel Avengers

Agent Natasha Romanov, Black Widow, S.H.E.I.L.D

I didn't grow up reading comic books. Wish I had. My experiences with super heroes came form the televised versions of The Super Friends Saturday morning cartoon, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk, Batman and the Superman Movies with Christopher Reeve. They were awesome and I never realized just how deep their past went. I never knew there was an entire universe of super heroes. It wasn't until I started teaching digital art and had a student who introdcued me to the fabulous art of Joe Quesada and the Kuberts that I really began to understand. I read the Death of Captain America and was introduced to Natasha Romanov. I have to admit at first I read it because of the artwork. But, then I liked the story and became interested. It wasn't until Ironman 2 that I realized they were the same character. I didn't like her that much in that movie. I think it was mostly because she seemed to be there to tempt Tony Stark. And dammit he belongs with Pepper. (The chemistry between the two of them is fan-tab-ulous, BTW) So, I ignored her.

Until the Avengers.

She is one badass chick.

Why all of a sudden did I like her? I think it was because she showed her vulnerability. Of course, she kicked ass and took names, but there were moments when her fear got the best of her. There are moments where we see her as a badass agent, gathering intel through an interrogation technique of being captured. We see her nervously retrieve Dr. Banner, the Hulk, with trepidation and concern that he may turn into the beast. And we see her use her vulnerability to get info from the Big Bad. But, what really got me was the friendship and connection she has to her partner, Hawkeye, Clint Barton. They have history. While I'm not sure what the Marval canon is, in the movie, they have been partner's for years, working ops together.

She understands him, calms him and grounds him. He supports her, understands her and respects her. Now, is there something more there? Because I'm always looking for that shipper angle, there very well could be. Right now, it's set up that they have a very close, almost symbiotic relationship. But as us romance writers know, that can easily be tipped in the non-platonic direction. There are a few moments of prolonged eye contact and a nice scene where they have a deeply supportive conversation as he recovers from an incident that took him away from her. There is a distinct connection between them and let's face it, Jeremy Renner is a hottie. I'd be friends with him too!

That said, let's look at her badass ability. What's really cool is that she's a regular human - no super powers. She's just highly trained. She's a skilled fighter. She's athletic, uses gymnastics in her fighting style, and kicks grotesque alien butt, multiple attackers at time. She carries a gun, a pistol and sometimes shoots two at a time. She's exceptionally good at espionage and getting intelligence. And, we can't forget that she wears a skin tight black leather suit and boots. With thigh holsters. Sweet. Signed, sealed and delivered - Total Badass.

To read more about Marvel Canon Black Widow go to the source:
http://marvel.com/universe/Black_Widow_(Natasha_Romanova)

Get your vengeance on.
~Indigo Grace