Hidden Figures

Saturday night, I went with a couple of friends and saw Hidden Figures. FINALLY. It's been out for a couple months and now is only playing in a few theaters around here. Heck, last Monday when we talked about setting this up, Google wasn't telling us about ANY theaters showing it after Wednesday. Which sort of surprised me, because reports were that it was still earning a lot of money.

So after we all got to the place a good half hour drive from my house, we settled in. The theater it was showing in was pretty small - like maybe 150 to 200 seats - and was mostly full except for the front rows that are about two feet from the screen.

And what an amazing movie! I think my favorite part is how supportive the families are - with some qualms and conflict, of course, but how, when it comes down to it, their husbands and friends and kids and parents are behind them. And Dorothy Vaughan "borrowing" the book on Fortran from the white section of the library and being the first to figure out the giant computer. And not only that, but teaching the other African American women "computers" how to use it, too, instead of all being laid off.

Some aspects of it were kind of facile and trying to hard to portray some of the white people as heroes of sorts just for being baseline decent and wanting to let the black women work for them. I'm still mulling this thought. Dissecting my white privilege is not really best done with a headache.

One interesting thing was that several people in the audience applauded at the end. As if the actors could hear them, you know? I mean, I can sort of see it on opening weekend, but it's really awesome, but slightly weird, to clap for something in its third month.

Also, it's quite interesting to read the Wikipedia article about it, pointing out the historical inaccuracies, fact-checking the movie (Like: Mary Jackson didn't have to go to court to take engineering classes *and* she was already an engineer by the year the movie is set in. And the Costner character is a composite and no one took a crow bar to the Colored Only restroom signs.). So the movie conflates time and events and people for the sake of drama.

Overall, it was a very good movie with laughing and crying and cheering (internally. This is not a sporting event. See above comment about applauding.). And thinking about the brilliant minds which are discounted and who battle for every step up. Whether it's constant racism and jingoism faced by minorities and new immigrants or all the belittling crap women have withstood since forever. Or the disdain and abuse faced by LGBTQ+ people. All the micro- and macro-aggressions out there can sure mess up your education and career prospects.

Or what came up this weekend:
Q: What did Watson and Crick discover?
A: Rosalind Franklin's notes.

And then multiply that by ten for every societal stigma and voting right taken away.

And celebrate the fierce, brilliant ones who lead the way, but also think about why white men are still the first to get hired and promoted. Just think a bit.

And leave a comment.

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ALSO, go out and buy my 17th century French romance/historical fiction.

Here's my Amazon page. 

And they're available from many, many other ebook publishers.

March coming in like a lion with a short attention span

For me, the lion is all in the tree pollen. And runny nose. And increased tinnitus. And headaches.

I assumed over the last few years that it's the cherries and peaches and all those fruit trees that make me sneeze, but apparently, it's fairly rare to be allergic to those as the pollen is bigger and less likely to be blown around. Apparently then, I'm allergic to whatever is blooming the same time as those. Pollen.com says Juniper, Alder, and Poplar/ Cottonwood are high right now. And hey look: my pine tree out front is pollen-ing away. Definitely a lion in my head.

So yesterday morning, I woke up at 4 am and nothing was going to get me back to sleep. I turned on my phone at about 4:30 to read a book and discovered that most of Ohio - the place that I am from, not where I live now - was having school bus/commute tornado warnings. That sounds pretty lion-y to me.

But out here in the Inland Valley of California, the weather has finally cleared up and it's spring. I had my teen boys drag my rubber tree plant outside yesterday, because the risk of frost is over.

Poor Whoops is in need of sun and water. Also note at the right: the big dump truck the neighbors' contractor has left in their driveway for a couple of months with the promise of paving the driveway, only it was too wet....So obvs they had to leave the truck there.

Anyway, new month. It's almost time to sign my big kid up for some AP tests. Junior Prom is coming in April, but he's made nary a peep about it. They should be signing up for next year's classes soon, too. Maybe I should start reading the school newsletter more closely.

I'm waiting for comments back from my critique partners on the last bit of my book.

My cat is shedding like cheap faux fur and has also developed dandruff of the back.

The bright sunshine is making me notice I realllllly need to clean my windows. (Or make my kids do them)

And as usual for the last few years, our health insurance situation that we thought was all worked out and seamlessly going from last year to this year, is still in the air. So that adds a certain level of tension.

So anyway, today I'm amping up the conflict between the friends in a book, not going for a walk (I need the exercise, but really don't want to go outside), and making French baguettes (AGAIN. It's been about a week since the last time and they turned out heavy and slightly wet inside). Plus, my daughter's having a friend over this afternoon. I might take them to a park, though I won't be able to breathe much when we're there.

So anyway. My whole work day's gone and so far I've applied for one job online and flitted here and there in my book, in the query letter draft, and on the internet. And still no exercise. And yet I still need a shower.

March came in like it has a short attention span.

Depression and writing

Well, it's been a crazy few months in the USA and inside my head. It's always crazy, but with our new "president" [political opinion redacted, but not exactly hard to figure out], I've been pretty much dragging through molasses ever since the election. And eating.

Now that Spring is Springing here in Inland California (brag...brag...watch out for flooding), I'm hoping to pull myself out of my writing slump and my editing slump and my exercise slump and my need-a-job slump and my everything slump.

The slumps are the hard parts. I have a history of depression and this time through hasn't been as rough as some, but it still left me in despair and reading a lot of comfort reads. (You should see my list of re-reads from the last 2 months!)

I'm about a month behind in the schedule I set for myself, so need to look at my goals again.

I'm almost through an editing pass of my Big Chill not-quite-a-romance-maybe-chick-lit book and my critique partners are reading it in sections as I finish editing. I'm going to be querying a bunch of agents who have said they're interested in New Adult and Chick Lit. I spent a few hours searching for them the other day and need to get my query letter in shape.

THEN I want to edit Françoise, which is book...uh... six? Yes. Book 6 of Châteaux and Shadows. The bones are there, but it's going to take some work.

ALSO, I should be getting my galleys and then planning my publicity for the Wild Rose Press release of Mélisande, whenever that happens.

I also want to edit Harriet (contemporary romance with a beta hero) to give her more conflict (sorry, Harriet, it's just too easy). That will probably be late March.

I'm going to be giving my critique partners a workout.

April is a Camp Nanowrimo and I really need to finish Dario (Book 7, Châteaux and Shadows), then put it on the back burner to percolate for a while.

And in all this, I REALLY NEED a job. With actual income. Right now, I'll take about anything full time, preferably paying more than minimum wage and preferably not on my feet the whole time, but something temporary so there is income while I'm looking for some other thing is fine.

The writing will take more time when I get a job, but at least I have goals.

And now that the fog of depression is lifting, I can probably do all these things. Let's get cracking!