Turning Your Life into a Fairy Tale: Andrea Johnson

As you  know, three people will get to have their lives turned into a fairy tale in the Tickling Butterflies universe. Anyone can win a ‘ticket’. Another way is to be approached. A few people who I thought were interesting have been asked to guest post and write a paragraph or two about their lives, something that can be turned into a fairy tale.

Each person contacted can invite three other people (and only three) to do the same. You just have to choose interesting people.

The following is Andrea Johnson’s story. You may know her as The Little Red Reviewer. She writes:

There’s nothing like having someone say “tell me about something interesting and important that happened to you” to make me realize how boring of a life I live.  I’m a bit of a homebody, I don’t go looking for adventure. I just happily live my life.

But I don’t live my life alone.

This is going to sound cliche and old fashioned, but the most important day in my life was the day I got married.  Sounds cheesy, right?

I wasn’t one of those girls who was raised to “find a man who could take care of me”.  I was never told I needed a boyfriend, or a husband, or a life partner of any kind. I was raised to be self sufficient and independent. I think my Mom fully secretly hoped I’d be the first unmarried female President of the United States (or better yet, Supreme Court Judge, as that president job is just a four year contract gig anyways. No long term career prospects there!).

Just because a person is self sufficient and independent doesn’t mean they want to be alone.

We’d known each other for years before we got married and I wholeheartedly recommend a few years of living in sin to all young couples. You learn a lot about someone by raising a cat together and sharing a bathroom.

Being a strong independent woman and being madly in love with someone, those two things are not mutually exclusive.  How do I explain what I went through without sounding like a 1950s girl who has been convinced she needs a man to have any self worth?  I had self worth up the wazoo before I got into the relationship, and I gave up nothing to continue the relationship.  Family members and friends suddenly had lots of advice to give me, advice about how I was too young to make a decision like this, that he was much older and just taking advantage of me, that our different backgrounds (both class and religion) would be a hurdle our relationship wouldn’t survive. What can I say? I was young and stubborn. But that doesn’t mean I was wrong.

I was raised to be strong and independent, and I didn’t want to be alone. I am a strong adult woman, and I don’t want to be alone.  In this, I can have it all. Getting married was a promise we made to each other that we didn’t have to be alone. Yes, we’re that nauseatingly adorable couple who holds hands in the grocery store and kisses each other while we’re making dinner together.

We’ll be celebrating eight years of blissful married this autumn.  Most days I still feel like I’m on my honeymoon. And I’m still very close with all those people who said it wouldn’t work.

Strength isn’t always physical.  Kick ass women are only stronger when their life partner loves them back.

This is an easy fairy tale to write: lonesome princess finds understanding prince, and they all lived happily ever after.

Thank you for sharing, Andrea. There are actually quite a few fairy tales in there, most not about a lonesome princess at all. But I’ll leave that to the readers for now.

Now you need to find three more people, Andrea, who are just as interesting…

Turning Your Life into a Fairy Tale: Lisa McCurrach

As you  know, three people will get to have their lives turned into fairy tales in the Tickling Butterflies universe. Anyone can win a ‘ticket’. I was thinking, why not turn to people I find interesting and ask them about a day, a moment, an event in their lives that’s important to them, something that I could later turn into an interesting fairy tale? I approached  a few people, asked them to guest post and write a paragraph or two. Their names will be added to the tickets list. And we can share in their lives and the magic.

Each person contacted can invite three other people (and only three) to do the same. You just have to choose interesting people.

Our first guest post is from Lisa McCurrach from Over the Effing Rainbow. She writes:

 

I will admit, when Guy asked me if I’d like to write one of these posts (and after some much-needed clarification, blame my woolly-headedness there), one thing alone jumped right out at me. This isn’t so much an admission that I live a really quiet life (I do) as that the event in question is, in my mind, the most important one of my life so far. It wasn’t surviving the hell that was my time at school to walk out six years later and never look back, though that one came a close second. And I haven’t chosen to write about this to be bitter, though even now it’s a little bit tempting. The most important and memorable thing that’s happened to me was finally giving up and ending a relationship that spent about ten years being more or less entirely destructive.

 

Not abusive. I should make that clear. The key word is destructive, because we both made a mess of things and we were both too stubborn to clean it up, until we had absolutely no other choice. Oh, everything was fine at first. Good, in fact. These things usually are. But sell-by dates are a good thing for good reasons, and we both spent most of those years ignoring ours. It’s only now that I’m looking back and seeing all of this for what it was. No one was hurting me but me, because I believed that being single (read: being alone) was worse than not. Turns out, I was very, very wrong. The world didn’t end with that relationship. Far from it, thankfully.

 

So of course I feel better now that I don’t do that anymore, and I hope he does too. At the end of the day, I can’t be bitter. It was ten years I can’t take back, but I can make up for them now. And you know what? I’ll be damned if I spend the next ten (or twenty, or however many I have left) stopping myself. There’s too much awesomeness out here in the world.

 

Considering Guy’s goal in asking for this post, I don’t know if there’s a fairytale anywhere in here, but I leave that in his hands. I’ll continue kicking my fears in their tender places, I think. I’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.

Thank you, Lisa. There are quite a few ideas for fairy tales there, but I’ll leave that to the readers for now.

Great Review for The Emoticon Generation at Dab of Darkness

The book tour continues! This time, the review site Dab of Darkness reviews The Emoticon Generation.

From the review:

In this collection are seven stories that I am excited to tell you about. Guy Hasson has mostly focused on near-future technology concerning artificial intelligence (AI) and the human quest for immortality. There’s also some emoticon humor mixed in, regret on past decisions, relationship problems, and the hunt for one’s origins.

Read the entire review here.

 

Guest Post: What Makes a Good Science Fiction Story?

As part of The Emoticon Generation blog tour, I guest-posted at Over the Effing Rainbow. I talked about what makes a good science fiction story and how science fiction can change the world.

Here’s a little taste:

There are many, many types of good SF, and there are many, many criteria that make a good SF story. But the more I thought about it, the more it became clear to me that through all the different genres, through all the different stories and books that I love, runs one common theme: Science fiction can change the world.

 

Read the guest post here.

Glowing Review for The Emoticon Generation at Over the Effing Rainbow

The Emoticon Generation book tour is off, and the first review is up at Over the Effing Rainbow.

From the review:

“[H]is writing style is clear and concise, while still keeping a moving lyricism about it that, altogether, make these stories well worth reading. For me, ‘The Assassination’ is the jewel in this particular crown.”

Read the rest of the review here.