Tag: choices

Once Upon a Time, Bitches

On By Sherrie CroninIn courage, features and reviews, into a butterfly, women15 Comments

Today it is my pleasure to welcome author Branden LaNette and her self-help book Once Upon a Time, Bitches. Author’s description of the book:

That’s Branden on the cover. Yes, she has a boy’s name, a Mom bod, and her tattoos are not photo shopped. She doesn’t look like your typical author and she sure doesn’t look like the next self-help Instagram sweetheart.

However, besides being a wife, mom to six kids (plus others with fur), coach and business owner, Branden is the author of the new book, Once Upon a Time, Bitches. It’s a fast paced, in your face, expletive laced, nothing held back message to women everywhere: There is no magic fairy tale, but if YOU work at it enough you can come pretty close to creating your version with a happily ever after.

But first, no more whining and no more damsel locked in a tower, bullshit. Is it possible to design a fairy tale life? Control your destiny? Be the hero in your story? Branden thinks there is and she wants to help you.

A personal note from me:

I don’t generally read self-help books and I’ve never reviewed one. But given this a blog about empowering women, this particular book seemed a fine fit. I’m so glad I took the chance.

My Review:

In Once Upon a Time, Bitches, Branden LaNette has written a fast-paced, funny book so good you will hardly realize you’re being given advice to improve your life.

My own advice to you is to (1) read this book, (2) laugh while you do it and (3) wake up the next day with your life a little better on track. Then (4) buy a copy for someone you love.

Best things about this book:

1. It is solid advice told in funny and entertaining way.

2. There is just enough about the author to make you like and believe her and not so much that it becomes all about her, not you.

3. This should only be a 100 page book and guess what? It is.

4. Her humble I’m-no-better-than-you-are-at-this-shit approach is endearing and convincing.

The worst things I can say about this book:

1. The foul language is a shock. It reminded me of the musical “The Jersey Boys.” I spent the first minutes thinking wow, I didn’t know people could use the word fuck that many times in a sentence. Then I got used to it and loved the show. In a similar fashion, by about 10 pages into this book, I loved it, too. However, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I had to acclimate first.  

2. There is no giant revelation here, but that’s not the author’s fault. There really isn’t one to reveal. We know the secrets to a good life are the easy-to-say and hard-to-do things like take responsibility, forgive others, and love yourself. I, at least, struggle to do these things on a good day, so I certainly benefited from hearing them again, and appreciated them being stated so bluntly.

So, who would I recommend this book to?

Anyone who happens to be a human. Others need not bother.

About the Author:

Branden LaNette doesn’t look like a typical author but she has long ignored what she “should” do, say and look like. On her own at a very young age, Branden eventually found herself with the wrong guy, the wrong job, and a bleak future. The fairytale she was promised as a child never materialized.

Finally, Branden decided that she wanted something different for her life, and realized no one was going to do it for her. Prince charming wasn’t coming to save her—she’d have to save herself.

Step by step, decision by decision, through major trials and tribulations that would stop most people in their tracks, Branden learned how to turn heartbreak into happiness and self-judgement into inner joy.

Today, Branden LaNette is an entrepreneur, coach, speaker, wife, and stay-at-home Mom to six C-section babies (ages 1-16) and way too many f-ing pets. Somehow, however, she manages to juggle all of this effortlessly (a blatant lie) while pushing her way through the kinds of fear and self-doubts that whisper within all of us (totally true) to achieve her goals. Her most recent dream come true is this book, one that is destined to have a major impact on millions of women across the globe (or at least nine people in Michigan.)

Through it all, she has found her happiness, her joy, and more importantly, her voice.

Find her on Facebook  or on Twitter, visit her on her blog, and buy One Upon a Time Bitches on Amazon.

Yes, there is a giveaway.

Branden LaNette will be awarding a $50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift certificate to a randomly drawn winner via raffle copter during the tour.

Enter here to win.

This post is part of a tour sponsored by Goddess Fish. Check out all the other tour stops.

Enjoy this excerpt :

Ever since I was 8 years old, I dreamed of an easy life. The problem with my dream? I expected that fairy tale life to be handed to me. And when it wasn’t, I decided that fairy tales were bullshit. Not that you can’t have a fairy tale life—you can. What I understand now, however, is that to get a fairy tale life, you’d better be willing to work your Cinderella-ass off for it.

Still, I held on to the fantasy of having an easy life handed to me. I wanted to be saved. To be specific, I thought I needed a guy to be my hero. So I went about trying to find one.

I dated a lot of guys. Lots of guys.

But as they came and went, I always ended up disappointed. Not a single one of them ever made my life easier. Things weren’t going the way I’d planned. WTF? Hadn’t anyone read the fucking script? It was right there on page 43:

“Tall handsome guy with tight ass, great pecs and a 124-foot yacht named “Shitload of Cash” enters stage-left and sweeps Branden off her feet, and they sail off to Barbados.”

Even in my adult years, I would find myself just wishing—not just for prince charming to appear (which he eventually did in the form of my husband, minus the yacht and gobs of cash) but wishing for things in every area of my life. Even today, in my writing/coaching career, I find myself drifting into wish-mode: Why isn’t this easier? Why can’t things just take off and grow overnight? Is it always going to be this hard?

And when it comes to parenting, it’s the same thing. Why can’t parenting just be easy? And in my marriage, too: Why do I have to keep asking for things? Can’t my husband just read my fucking mind?

One day I—still 8 years old—had the most terror-filled realization in a simple yet profound truth:

No one is coming to save you.

Fuck. No one is coming to rescue me. Ever?

My heart broke. More like shattered. Yet, after taking some time to mentally digest this fact, I found this realization liberating somehow. Why was this liberating? Because it meant I could stop waiting for something outside myself for my salvation.

It put me in control. Newsflash, bitches: No one is coming to save you, either. Get it? No. One. Is. Coming. You’re going to have to save yourself.

And the winner, she is ….

On By Sherrie CroninIn women6 Comments

The world of science fiction has changed. When my father introduced me to his favorite books decades ago, there was not a female author to be found. Not long after, I discovered Ursula Le Guin, Kate Wilhelm and Vonda McIntyre on my own. So, women could write this stuff. Well then, that was what I was going to do someday, because I ‘d already been told my first career choice of becoming an astronaut was “not realistic.”

It wasn’t many years at all before women did go into space. As I grew into adulthood, the list of women who wrote speculative fiction grew by at least an order of magnitude. In fact, it has now increased to the point where five of the six 2019 Hugo nominees for best novel were women. Wow.

One of the presenters was artist Afua Richardson, comic book illustrator for Marvel’s World of Wakanda

Check out the list of nominees below.

It should also be noted that Artificial Condition by Martha Wells took best novella this year; If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again by Zen Cho won best novelette; A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies by Alix E. Harrow won best short story and best series went to Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers books. Yes, they are all women.

The Calculating Stars
Mary Robinette Kowal
Winner
Spinning Silver
Naomi Novik
Nominee
Revenant Gun
Yoon Ha Lee
Nominee
Record of a Spaceborn Few
Becky Chambers
Nominee
Space Opera
Catherynne M. Valente
Nominee
Trail of Lightning
Rebecca Roanhorse
Nominee

It’s hard to find a simple explanation for this change. One could guess it is because the world has become more welcoming to women pursuing dreams of all kinds. But that should result in something more like woman being half the nominees, not most of them.

It is true women that as a group tend to be more verbal than men.  (Yes, men tend to be more mathematical. I’ve no quarrel with statistics, only a quarrel with extending those generalizations into making assumptions about individuals, or to making assumptions about why the tendencies exist in the first place. Life is complicated.)

Anyway, today’s world of SFF writers could, in part, reflect the fact that women make up a larger percentage of the writing and the reading community in general.

Another theory is that society is more supportive of women then men who write variations of speculative fiction that shade into romance. This gives women writers (for once) a larger menu of styles and subject matter to chose from. I can see this perhaps accounting for a larger number of female SFF writers over all, but few if any of the female-authored pieces nominated for awards could be considered part of this hybrid romance genre.

Maybe it’s this simple. Most of the best SFF last year was written by women, and that’s that.

I was happy that my particular favorite, The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal, won best novel. For those of you not familiar with it, it is part of collection of stories (and two novels) set in an alternate world in which women were admitted into the USA’s initial space program. Guess you can see why I’d have a fond spot in my heart for this premise.

I watched Mary Robinette Kowal’s acceptance speech from my perch in the spotlights. (I was a volunteer running the spotlight for the show.) Astronaut Dr Jeanette Epps was on stage with her and it was a one of those weird maybe-all-is-right-with-the-universe-after-all moments. I loved it!

(Read more about my Worldcon adventures at An Irish Worldcon: I’m here!,  at Feeling at home, at A New Irish Experience and at Forward into the Past.)

 

 

Spending time

On By Sherrie CroninIn courage, into a butterfly, women4 Comments

“He asked me out again. I don’t really want to go. But maybe I should. What do you think?”

It’s a common conversation among women.

We continue to have a system in which he is more commonly the inviter, causing plenty of problems for him, and she is more often the invitee, causing another set of problems for her.

She deals with the invitation that never comes, or comes too late, and with finding creative and kind ways to decline the invite she is positive she does not want. Perhaps the trickiest one, though, is the chance to spend time with someone she’s pretty sure she’s not going to want to see more often, but …

This problem, of course, isn’t confined to dating. We’ve all had nice enough acquaintances who’ve tried to include us more, but we just didn’t see that much in common. We’ve been invited to be on teams or join groups that sort of sounded like fun, but weren’t really. It’s usually flattering to be invited, and for reasons of upbringing, personality or societal expectations, most of us find it hard to say no.

We shouldn’t.

Too many people spend too much of their limited free time doing things they aren’t all that interested in, with people they don’t particularly enjoy. I think it’s time we give ourselves far greater permission to treat our time as the resource it is, and learn to say “I don’t want to join you” in a way that is both kind and firm.

Yes, doing this requires a certain amount of courage.

A few days ago I found myself on the listening end of the conversation I started this post with, and was surprised at the vehemence of my answer. Maybe it was because she had just been telling me how hard she was trying to save money, and how poorly it was going. Something clicked.

“What makes you think your free time is any less precious than your spending money? It’s more precious. Hell yes, you say no if you don’t feel like going!”

Then I started to think about the words we use to describe both of these concepts. We have money. We spend money. We have time. We spend time.

Do we spend anything else? I don’t think so. Even our language acknowledges that time is a resource as precious as our wealth.

A few years ago, two former co-workers I hadn’t seen in years came to my home town and invited me out for the day. They seemed surprised and miffed when I declined. The reaction bothered me, and I remembered writing a post then about saying no to things you don’t want to do. I just found it and it’s called No, I actually don’t want to spend time with you.

I reread it and I stand by it. It’s never necessary to be rude. It is fair to be tired, over-committed, in need of some down time or just plain not interested. It is okay to try something, including an activity or a relationship of any sort, and decide this isn’t a thing you want to keep doing.

We go to great lengths to keep a thief from from spending our money. I think we’d be well-served if we were as vigilant about not letting others take over how we spend our free time.

(For more thoughts on how to use one’s precious time wisely, or poorly, see Live like you are going die?)

 

 

Choice. A good thing?

On By Sherrie CroninIn women1 Comment

I came across two wildly different pieces of information, and their juxtaposition sent my brain into cartwheels on the subject of having choices.

choiceConsider having no choice. I read the Economist most weeks, because it is one of the better ways to keep informed about the world outside my home country. If you’ve read my books, you’ve noticed that I am fascinated by the rest of the world. I also consider myself somewhat informed, so I read the following from the Feb 25 2017 issue of The Economist three times.

In a 2012 household survey … more than half [of Indian women] said they could not visit a shop, or even a friend, without someone else’s approval … and 52% thought it normal for a husband to beat his wife if she ventured out without telling him.

2012? Half the population? But I know women from India who live in the US, and my writing and the internet have combined to introduce me to women who live in India now as well. This doesn’t sound like their reality. The article adds

For wealthy and middle-class Indian women, freedoms have steadily grown.

Oh, right.  Those are the women with whom I have contact. In fact, those are generally the women with whom I have contact here as well. Both education and the influence of others work to increase a woman’s freedom. I wonder what percentage of poorly educated women in remote rural locations live a similarly constrained life here?

Then I came across this.

While people like having choices, too many options makes settling on one specific choice difficult. There is a technical term to describe this problem: the excessive choice effect (ECE). The ECE refers to the inverse relationship between the number of options and the ability of a person to make a choice. It is most famously related to a study involving jam. Authors Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper found that consumers more likely to purchase jam when presented with six choices than when they were presented with 24 choices.

jamIt was part of a newsletter from the American Association of Independent Investors. If you’ve read d4 you know that I handle stock investing for myself and other family members, and so I’ve subscribed to a wide variety of newsletters on the subject over the past decade or so. Most make money, but mostly for the people who write them.  However, the AAII aims to provide “unbiased, actionable investment education” often playing the role of a sort of “Consumer Reports” for the individual investor. Here, they were trying to help the non-professional navigate their way through mutual funds. (There are an awful lot of them out there.) So I checked out the jam story, and apparently it is true.

I have always believed that having no real choice about what you can do is the very definition of misery. The essence of happiness is the freedom to choose the alternative you believe is best. You may choose to defer your happiness, or to forego it altogether to aid or please another. You may choose to do something difficult; you may choose to take a nap. When circumstances beyond anyone’s control give you a lousy set of choices, that might make what you pick all the more valuable to you.

growing-bolder-8To artificially restrict anyone’s decisions (visit a sick friend and get beaten, or don’t) is to artificially limit their joy in life. No, you can’t study to be a doctor because we say so. No, you cannot try to run a marathon, because I don’t like the idea. This exertion of control, this limiting the potential of others with arbitrary rules, is of course not confined to the experience of women. However, women have far too often been on the losing end of it. On this blog and in my life, I cheer on the women who have found a way to regain their options.

But what an interesting idea that we also don’t like to have too many choices. At least when it comes to something trivial like what cookie to eat, a half dozen options are good. More important decisions like what career to pursue or what mate to choose presumably warrant having more than six to pick from. But can we suffer from choice overload even then?

Maybe what we all want is enough meaningful choices, in all aspects of our life. We don’t like being forced to pick among things that don’t matter that much to us. Ask anyone who has recently had to plan a wedding and pick from dozens of nearly identicle type-fonts. And yet, we rebel deeply against not being able to choose the things that matter most to us. Of course we do.

Funny creatures, aren’t we?

Mountains

On By Sherrie CroninIn women1 Comment

simply spiritual 1I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t want to climb Mt. Everest , although when I was young I never expected that it was something a girl from Kansas like me could ever grow up to do. Over the years I’ve learned that the world’s highest peak, known as Sagarmatha to those who live near it, has been climbed by the blind, the young (13 years old) and the elderly (an 80 year old holds the current record) and it was always a goal that was attainable by me if I had wanted it badly enough.

I’ve also learned that along with the risk of losing life and limb, such an undertaking involves a huge commitment of time, money and focus that a person might want to spend elsewhere. Guided tours have now commercialized the ascent somewhat, allowing those who can and will to spend more money in exchange for less planning and expertise. I was probably in my early 30’s when I acknowledged that I didn’t want to climb this mountain badly enough to do it by any of the ways available to me.

Dalai9Why is an author compelled to tell stories? One reason is to experience alternate lives, in which different choices are made and enjoyed. Once it became apparent to me that c3 would take place in the foothills of the Himalayas, I knew that the story had to involve a girl from somewhere near Kansas, who did have the drive and expertise to be that mountain climber.

It serves the story better for my climber, Haley, to ascend Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest peak. I enjoyed intertwining her training and preparation with the more somber travails of her friends, and near the end of the book when Haley finally stands at the top of the world, I got to stand there with her. As I wrote the scene, I actually cried because what I saw in my head was so beautiful. (It’s okay.  I cry a fair amount when I write.)

I hope any reader who has ever wanted to climb to the top of the world like me will enjoy reading this part of the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

(Please send a Facebook like to the pages of Simply Spiritual and the Dalai Lama Daily Quotes as a thank you for these great images.)