Is "Change" a Dirty Word?

02/21/2011

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Baby wasn't the only one surprised.
Change.

Let’s talk about it.

I don’t much care for it. I know this about myself.

This got driven home yet again Saturday afternoon. ABC Family aired Dirty Dancing, which only happens to be one of my two favorite movies. Because I like to torture myself, I settled down to see how long I could stand watching it before being forced to change the channel.

Dirty Dancing is one of the few movies I know like the back of my hand. Watching it on non-premium channels is torturous because of the edits. I’ll never forget the time I watched it on VH-1 and they cut off the scene where Baby sees Johnny for the first time BEFORE she saw him. I was done.

Anyway, I assumed ABC Family would be doing the same. Oh, little did I know. I’m watching the movie. All is well. Nothing has been cut. And then…Baby sees Johnny kissing some random woman before she runs into his cousin carrying the watermelons. What the hell?!

I thought I was losing my mind. I whipped out my DVD just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten a scene of a movie I’ve seen countless times before. No, my mental faculties were still intact. In the studio version of the movie, she’s walking along with no sign of Johnny and runs into his cousin and offers to carry the watermelon.

I was thrown for the rest of the movie waiting for the other little “surprises” ABC Family had in store with their Dirty Dancing, Special Edition as they were calling it. I’m sure they thought they were giving us an insider’s look at the movie. To that I say, “Boo! Hiss!”

I want the same ole, same ole.*

It takes me a long time to adapt to change. I like the familiar. It’s comfortable and I know what to expect. Like they sing in the first High School Musical, I like to stick to the status quo.
OK, for all those still reading who didn’t disown me for referencing High School Musical, I say thank you. Ahem.

This is not to say I can’t handle change. I just don’t like it. I’m better when I can prepare for it, like going from elementary to middle to high school to college. It’s strange, but inevitable. There’s no point in whining about it because it’s going to happen, but when it smacks me in the face with its unexpectedness, that’s when I have the most trouble. I much prefer change on my own schedule.

Let’s talk about Twitter, shall we? A few months ago, Twitter started teasing the #newtwitter. I actually kind of got excited. When I finally got it, I wasn’t pleased. Things weren’t where I was used to them. Furthermore, they still had some bugs to work out because I’d click on something, but nothing happened.

I took my butt right on back to #oldtwitter. I wasn’t ready for this change.

A few weeks ago, I decided to give #newtwitter a try. This time, I was ready to give it a fair shot. I’d accepted that #newtwitter probably wasn’t the enemy trying to ruin my life. I adapted much better this time around. There are a few things I still don’t love, but I’ll live.

But Dirty Dancing, Special Edition? I hope to never see that again in my lifetime.

What about you? Do you throw the door open and let change in at every knock or do you make sure the deadbolt is securely locked?

xoxo,
Jamie

*The one funny thing is that Lisa, Baby’s sister, had a lot of lines that were cut from the final version. Oops for her.

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When saying "Thank You" seems insufficient...

02/17/2011

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I’m embarrassed about how long it’s been since I blogged, especially considering one of my New Year’s resolutions was to blog more regularly. But the way I figure it, I still have the majority of the year to get it together. Plus, the last month has been hectic. I became a homeowner for the first time, I became an officer in my local RWA chapter, and I was trying to Nano a book in January despite the fact that I kept freaking out because I didn’t know where the story was going. And I haven’t mentioned my two jobs.

Anyway...I needed to blog today because I want to say thank you to some people.

I won’t go into the details because they’re not important, but last week, I got some unfortunate writing news.

I tweeted something really dramatic about how a year had been lost. Trust me, it was way dramatic. lol. I’ve never thought of myself as being dramatic, but apparently, Twitter is where I go when I decide it’s a good time (and not only about writing stuff).

I realized this when I started getting tweets from people, including @beelie317, @maiseyyates, @JackieAshenden, and @Joanne_Coles asking if I was okay.

I want to thank them, @RoniLoren, @kailyhart, @JamiGold, @_ChristineBell, Irie Spice, Piper and all the other people at eharlequin.com’s message board thread Submission Care for reaching out to me.  

Everyone immediately made me feel better, and I realized people do care. And that’s priceless.

As a writer, a lot of times I feel alone. Writing is mostly a solitary endeavor – just you and your computer.  But writers really are the nicest people. In one sense, we’re competing with one another, but in another, we recognize and embrace the fact that we’re all in this together. We get each other and understand the highs and lows of being a writer and why we do it. Writing is fun and maddening and we love it. And we couldn’t do it without the support of other writers.

It’s a community I’m proud to be a member of.

So thank you from the bottom of my heart.

xoxo,
Jamie

P.S. If I forgot anyone, I apologize. I’m mentioning names from memory, but please know that I read every Twitter reply and Subcare.

P.P.S. I would also be beyond remiss if I didn’t mention the editor who saw my story at eharlequin.com and alerted the Kimani senior editor, Kelli Martin, who reached out to me the next morning. Thank you so much to the both of them.  

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