My Writing Process

My friend Jess of Gluten Free Boston Girl recently asked me to participate in the "My Writing Process" blog tour, so today I'm pretending to be a writer (and not just someone who makes lists) and answering some questions.

1) What are you working on right now?

Self-control, mostly.

I'm also "working on" a book and by that I mean I think about it a lot and occasionally write some things down in the Notepad app on my iPhone when I'm feeling inspired (read: distracted from what I am supposed to be doing).  So far, I've come up with a title and a potential book cover and a list of the stories I want to tell.  I'm still working on that whole writing part.

You might be wondering what this "book" is about. No no, not cats. Though, I have considered putting in a photo insert of Boo or including a complementary cat calendar along with every purchase.  What it will be about is my dating experiences, mainly the weird ones, so basically all of them. Maybe you'll be in it!

2) How does your work differ from others of its genre?

Good question... I don't think I'm actually in a genre, so that's probably how it differs. Also, I don't write about running or blending all of my food, which definitely sets me apart from 99% of the internet. But then again, cats, so.

 3) Why do you write what you do?

I write because I love myself more than anyone else, and feel that everything I think, say, and do is worthy of being shared with the masses.

4) How does your writing process work?

Like everything in my life, my writing "process" is impulsive and disorganized.  I write when I think of something to write about, immediately and fervently and usually in an email which I will later send to myself, or on the aforementioned notepad app. I also tend to try my jokes out on people before I post them. I think my most golden moments have happened on Gchat.  On that note, would anyone read (aka buy) a book of just g-chat conversations?

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Next week, a few of my best blogging friends will be sharing their writing process with you. If you are not already reading their blogs, you must start immediately.

Katie Levans is my go-to when I have questions about litter boxes or dietary concerns. One time she sent me cookie butter in the mail. We have a lot in common, including but not limited to cats, dessert, and Beyonce. I feel like we would be best friends in real life unless she wanted me to do yoga with her.

Katie Ett is a food blogger, photographer, and romance novelist. The last part is not true, but ask her to describe a first date and you'll be surprised at how arousing holding hands with someone sounds. Katie is living the food-life I've always dreamed of. She is my guide to hot restaurants and hot men in NYC.

I know you've been wondering how I got THIS BODY, and the answer is Rob. (Also cheese fries. It's all about balance, you guys!) Rob is my former personal trainer and a new blogger. He focuses on actual health and fitness rather than just burning cals. I like that about him.

Keep an eye out for their upcoming posts. In the meantime, what is your writing process?

Wednesday Confessions

1. I am tired. Mentally and physically.

2. My blog is dying.

3. Read this instead:

Take Back the Name

or

Always Eat Dessert

or 

Comedian's Response to Criticism of Her Red Carpet Look

or 

The Myth of the Chubby Chaser

OR

4. Make me these donut muffins:

Hasta luego...

Things I learned this weekend

1. It's actually someone's job to sedate butterflies and put them in envelopes.

2. Men should be subjected to wedding showers, too.
3. I never thought I liked pepperoni before Friday night.
4. Whenever I have poutine, I imagine eating it with Drake.

5. You probably shouldn't shout, "Just live your fucking life!" out a window at the precise moment the oldest women on earth are walking by.
6. The Keytar Bear is back!

7. I will carry a nightstand for a mile so I don't have to pay full-price for a new one.

8. Daenerys knows what's up.
9. But, seriously, bring back the old Daario!

YES / NO.

10. I just want to go into a completely empty room and dance like a maniac to this song:

Link up!

Katie Que&A

Dear Katie Qué&A,

Two of my good friends have been dating for several years.  One year ago, while the girlfriend was visiting family for a few months, her boyfriend cheated on her with another good mutual friend.  After he told his girlfriend about it, she decided to forgive him and stay together.  But now she wants me to stay friends with both of them but ditch the girl he cheated on her with.  I still want to be friends with all three of them, and in my mind what he did was worse than what she did.  What should I do?  

Sincerely,
I wish I could bake a cake out of rainbows and smiles and we'd all eat and be happy

Dear "I wish I could bake a cake out of rainbows", 

Wow, man. I'm embarrassed at how stereotypically female this girl is being -- hating on the other woman, while forgiving her boyfriend. My first suggestion is for her to read my recent post about feminism. My second suggestion is for her to listen the Spice Girls' hit single "Wannabe" in which they recommend, "if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends." Technically, her boyfriend followed that advice, so. 

Girl Power

Furthermore, if this chick can forgive her boyfriend, then she should be able to forgive her friend. But, IRREGARDLESS, she has absolutely no right to tell you who you can be friends with.  So, I think you should tell your friend, "You better check yourself, before you wreck [all of your own friendships]". And then bake that cake and be friends with everyone. 

 Hearts & Stars,

 Katie Qué

Need relationship advice? Write to me at imyourkatieque@gmail.com.

My First

Today, I'm jumping on a blogger bandwagon and sharing one of my first social media experiences. I like this idea because it means I don't have to come up with anything new. Recycling my writing (as well as my jokes) is one of my favorite narcissistic pastimes.  Go green, you guys!

My first tweet.

This post is from a time when my blog was called "La Petite Critique" and no one cared about it. I was apparently exploring a french identity back then. I was also terrified of blogging because I thought it would some how get me fired. Now that I am old and complacent, IDGAF, obviously.

Anyway, here it is, my very first post*: 

While You Were Driving

This morning, my bus suddenly came to a screeching halt causing me to completely fall into the guy standing next to me and touch him in some inappropriate areas. It was kind of like one of those movies where the girl falls into the guy on a bus and blushes and then they start dating and a few weeks down the line one of them finds out that the other has a dark secret so then they get into a fight and then one of them decides to escape from the whole situation and runs off to the airport and then the other one goes to that person's friend and says "Where's that person?" and he/she says "Oh, you didn't hear? That person's moving to [some place located across the country and/or world]. His/her flight leaves in an hour." So then this person rushes to the airport, probably causing a lot of mayhem in the streets of a trendy city, gets there in the nick of time, somehow magically bypasses security (while some innocent mother of three is being frisked because she just happened to be the fourth person in line), reaches the other person just as he/she is about to step onto the plane. Then, they confess their love for each other and decide they can get over the dark secret and they live happily ever after (all with no concern about the fact that one of them spent hundreds of dollars on a plane ticket that will never be refunded). Yeah, it was kind of like that except slightly different: I fell into a small foreign man who said "is okay," blushed, and then made a conscious effort to avoid eye contact for the rest of the ride.

*...on Blogger.  Those of you who knew me in college know about my original, incredibly inappropriate blog.

Moving on up

In just a few weeks, Boo and I will be moving on up, literally, to a 2nd-story apartment [in the sky]. For the first time in over 4 years, we are actually going to live above ground.

I am very much looking forward to moving and living on my own, despite the very successful 8 year relationship I've had with my current roommate. (Wait, has it really been 8 years?)  However, I've been pretty much constantly panicking about the actual moving process. The thing is, I have to move out of my current apartment on May 31st, but I can't move into my new one until June 1st. Therefore, Boo and I are essentially homeless for that night. So is all of our stuff.

life partners.

The plan, currently, is for my dad to come up and stay at a hotel with me and Boo. I basically spend all of my time now envisioning Boo having a mental breakdown in the hotel bathroom and DYING. My friend pointed out that I'll "obviously sleep in the tub with him", so that should help.

life partners.

Also, thank god for my dad, you guys. He's all carefree about this move. Like, so confident in my abilities to lift and carry things. Perhaps he has forgotten about the majority of my childhood during which I cried and made him carry me everywhere.

Thanks Dad.

On the plus side, I own almost no furniture. On the downside, this will only benefit me up until the moment I'm actually in my new apartment and have nowhere to sit. FYI if you ever come over, it's BYO chair.

Things I do own:

• Bed
• Vacuum
• Plastic drawers
• Extra large Hello Kitty pillow
• Children's Bible dish set

My apartment is going to be CLASSY. 

Also, I can't wait for this to be over.

Are you for real [a feminist]?!

Feminism is all the rage now. Obviously, Beyoncé has had a lot to do with that.

Who run the world?

So do extreme right-wing conservatives, if we're being honest. When people say things like,

“What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.” [Rush Limbaugh]

and

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." [Todd Akin]

other people are like "... the fuck?" and then they rise up.

But as feminism has become more "popular" so has criticizing feminism. And much of that criticism is coming from other "feminists".  It seems to me that feminism's biggest enemy is actually women. Instead of coming together in the name of equality, we are spending our time determining each other's value as feminists. Let's briefly pause and consider the irony of that.

...

I keep seeing this pop up all over social media -- this debate about who is a real feminist and who is not, and whether feminism is just a trend.  First of all, I'm not even mad about the idea of feminism being a trend. Don't we want more people on board? I'd rather feminism be a trend than jelly shoes (which actually are a trend again... so scratch that).  At least feminism can be a productive trend, is what I'm saying.

It's like, no one can ever be satisfied. We feminists want to take away the negative stigma associated with that word, and then when we finally do, we have to put a new stigma on it?  We're then going to say feminism is trivial, superficial?

"Why should we care what, exactly, gets someone interested in feminist thinking, as long as they arrive there eventually?"  [Callie Beusman]

Then there is the ongoing argument of whether you can be sexual and also a feminist. Again, if we stigmatize something, if we make it taboo, then we are part of the problem. For instance, if we focus on Beyoncé's sexuality alone, we are sexualizing her. We're doing that. 

Recently, notable "good" feminist, bell hooks, blasted Beyoncé for being too sexual, for resorting to taking her clothes off to sell records, blah blah blah.  (She obviously has not listened to Bey's album.)

"hooks was, essentially, calling out Beyoncé as a 'bad feminist' – a popular feminist pastime during which we arbitrarily determine who is or isn't doing feminism right. 

Her concern that girls might singularly internalize the notion that their worth is intrinsically tied to their bodies – and the desirability of those bodies – is equally well placed. At some point, though, we have to differentiate between concern and concern trolling. We have to trust that women can be feminists, good role models and embrace sexuality. We have to believe that we can hold different points of view without labeling each other bad feminists."  [Roxane Gay]

I've already written about this, but I'll say it again:  Beyoncé, in particular, is very clearly in control of her sexuality - she owns it; she is proud of it. And good for her. There are many, many women who believe in gender equality and also like to have sex. If we feel like we have to hide that part of ourselves, aren't we just perpetuating the notion that sex is dirty and wrong and that women shouldn't be doing it?

We need to move on. These conversations are not helpful; they are hypocritical. (And I suppose so is this blog post, but I've already spent a lot of time on it, so it's happening.)

"But the danger, the fear and, quite honestly, the more likely outcome, is that designing a flat shoe or casting a single model of color in a major campaign won't translate to a consistently diverse, female-empowered runway. A few collections inspired by Pussy Riot won't help us to elect a female president. And when fashion treats such important issues as trends, we risk losing the fight when they slip out of vogue." [Allison P Davis]

Or, the danger is that we are spending all our time evaluating women's level of feminism, rather than supporting each other.  The fear, quite honestly, is that people want to be hip and will let that get in the way of a cause when that cause becomes popular.  

But, for the record, I just want to make sure everyone knows I was a feminist before it was cool.

Thing I learned this weekend

1. One way to feel really young and hip is to go to the grocery store on Friday night for a Lean Cuisine and cat food.

Are they talking about the container itself or the people who eat from it?

2. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing when you can hang out with someone you haven't seen in 10 years and feel like nothing's changed.
3. Brazilian waxes are so out. Diamond cuts are forever.

4. This is a trend I was unaware of:

Cowboy hat, cowboy boots, RACOON TAIL.

5. I might be giving up on the bartender as I cannot keep up with his many suitors. Last time I was there, a man left him his number.  Not only do I have to compete with beautiful women, I have to compete with the gays, too. It's impossible!
6. Mint.com has notified me that I also cannot afford to woo a bartender, so.

Over-priced.

7. I guess I'll just have to go back to meeting men on the internet. (Call me!)
8. Speaking of men on the internet, where can I get an Oberyn?

Seriously though, call me.

9. Did anyone else start screaming during the dragon scene last night?
10. Boo didn't do shit for me on Mother's Day.

SELFISH.

Link up!

Things I learned this weekend

1. I shamelessly hit on all of my male friends, which makes me wonder how I have any.
2. Margaret Atwood is 74 and as sprightly as ever.

3. The 1990 film version of The Handmaid's Tale is very 1990.
4. Thanks to the MBTA's extended late night service, you can go to Chinatown for 2 am dumplings.

Can barely look at this.

5. Thanks to 2am dumplings, you will almost certainly spend the next day throwing up.
6. On that note, Naked & Afraid must be a show about what it's like to have food poisoning.

7. I'm pretty sure I've been sick more times this [academic year] than I have in all the years of my life combined.
8. It appears *The Bartender* (as he shall be known) has a female following, so I have to deal with some competition.

9. Therefore, I chose to use the very limited time I had to talk to him to discuss paper drink umbrellas and MTV's hit show of the 90s, "Daria".

10. I'm obviously way ahead of the game.

Katie Que&A

Dear Katie Qué&A,

I bought a Groupon© for some flowers for my girlfriend a few weeks ago. We have been on the rocks lately though, so I have not given her the flowers. In the mean time, I met this really cute girl who works at the cafe by my house and we have been flirting hardcore. What are the guidelines for giving a girl flowers? Like, how soon is too soon? This girl is wicked cute, and the Groupon© expires in a week, please help me!

Sincerely, Disloyal in Dallas

She really doesn't know what's coming to her.

Dear "Disloyal in Dallas", 

Flowers die, dude, just like love. So, my suggestion would be to give the flowers to your current girlfriend, as you originally intended, with a note that says, "The life of these flowers is sure to fade, like that of our relationship." And then, once the flowers are dead, you're free! Hey, at least you're giving her fair warning (and you're getting 50% off!). I'm actually not sure why more people don't break up with their significant others this way. It's at least more polite than ghosting.  

Hearts & Stars,  

Katie Qué

Contributing Editor: Dan Fenner

Need relationship advice? Write to me at imyourkatieque@gmail.com.

Disclaimer: Katie Qué is not qualified to give advice on dating, or really anything, for that matter. She has never been in a serious relationship, unless you include that with fast food establishments, particularly Domino's. Please take everything she says with a grain of salt. Better yet, a slice of pizza.