I'll have a better post tonight

about feminine fairy tales and folk tales with strong female characters. However until I get home tonight and can look up the quotes I want to include.... I'll start off the day with this.

I've always thought that Disney movies are detrimental to little girls ideas of romance. I truly think that reading so many fantasy novels (especially Mercedes Lackey who has lots of strong female characters) is what made me into the independent woman I am today. However I think some of them still paint unrealistic ideas of romance. Not of women but of romances. Because the guy doesn't always get the girl and not every unique independent girl finds someone who loves her for her. At least I still haven't. Do I have this unrealistic idea that someday a guy will fall madly in love with my weird quirks because of what I've read? Of course it sex (and therefore romance) sells. But I really like the novel I'm working on right now because my main character's romances are so messed up. It's her friendships that really get her through it. I think this is more realistic. What made me think of this is I was skimming over a book I've read a long time ago by Jennifer Roberson it was Track of the White Wolf.

--> Sidenote I got this book yesterday at the Used Book store and I'm pretty sure it was my book to begin with. I donated a whole bunch of my paperbacks years ago and I keep ending up buying them back through this used bookstore. I feel pretty dumb about it. lol.

But Niall the main character just so happens to get ship wrecked on this island and the daughter of the ruler there is wild and carefree. They fall in love blah blah blah. It was all just too perfect for me. Love is anything but perfect. More fantasy novels should reflect this. Jacqueline Carey on the other hand is one that I think really does a good job of making her characters suffer for love. I mean Phedre and Jocelin hate each other at the beginning you have no clue how they're going to end up together. She's a brilliant one that Miss? Mrs? Carey. I hope I meet her someday. Anyway I better get a shower and drive back to College Station (oh shoot me now). Only 11 more months until I get out!!

Brilliance has struck. BOO YA!!!

Ok. So I was randomly looking up writers like Mercedes Lackey and Neil Gaiman not that I was planning on using the treadmill journal alternative but I just wanted to do some research. Ursula Le Guin and Jacqueline Carey had talked about inspiration. Le Guin talked about writing about things she was passionate about like when she found out taoism had almost been wiped out in China under one regime. She said she didn't know hardly anything about the Chinese but she wanted to say something about it so she put it in a world she created herself with the same setup where a very old religion had been almost stamped out. And I can't remember if it was Lackey or Carey but someone said they just write about things they know about like animals and something else I can't think of. But anyway so I was chewing over all these things... what issues are important to me? what kinds of things do I know about? Which has kind of given me hope to really tell the world about all of those things I know and care about in my own way. Through my novels. Ok but that's besides the point. The story idea I came up with is this:

something that's always bothered me is the way the job market doesn't care as much about experience (like YEARS of it) than having a college degree. neither of my parents do and that's why my mom got fired when I was little and decided to become a housewife instead. (for which I'm forever grateful, but still.) also when I was around 12 I guess, middle school aged, my dad lost his job with a company he'd worked for for almost 20 years because of a merger then he went from one job to the next all of them way below the level he deserved to be working at. (at the other job my dad had been the chief safety inspector and in charge of that whole department. they got rid of the whole department during the merger, which is kind of funny for an oil company to not care about safety. lol.)
so this is an issue that's always bothered me (I wrote an essay in high school for u.i.l. ready writing about it actually). how could I turn it into a story? well the idea for the story and the idea of turning it into a story came almost simultaneously.
what if a court wizard got fired and replaced with a much younger wizard that had just graduated from wizarding college or whatever. I could imagine the scene perfectly with a "your services are no longer needed" and then this wizard trying to find a new job and meeting with more rejection until he ended up at some ridiculous job not worthy of his abilities. it would be funny right?
then I was telling my friend amanda about the idea and it struck me what if the wizard was MERLIN! because he's like the most iconic wizard figure of all. and then merlin tries to find another job somewhere else and gets rejected, it makes it 10 tens more ridiculous because he's friggin' Merlin! who wouldn't hire Merlin?
ok so that's all I have so far but I think it's damn good. it'll have humor but also really SAY something. and about something that matters to me. plus it's a one shot. just one story no continuation or anything. it'll be great. I'm super excited to get started. I almost don't want to go home tonight and stay here and write instead.