An Unfortunate Incident at the Gym

My husband and I recently joined a local gym, in an attempt to actually be healthier and not woefully out of shape, but it's been hard to find time now that he's back to work. Lately, we've found time only on weekends, but even if we do manage to go during the week, it's almost always at night, once we've finished whatever else we have to get done that day. (If it's this hard with just us and a puppy, I can imagine how people with actual children ever have time to go to the gym!)

So this past Saturday, we went around 9 pm. It's a great time to go, because it's not very crowded. My husband was using the lap pool to swim, and I was soaking in the hot tub, being lazy and not actually working out, because my neck has been sore on and off the past few days (probably thanks to my TMJ), and I just wanted to relax my jaw/neck/shoulder muscles.

And then this happened -

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[INT. Pool room at gym. GUY enters hot tub and sits near but not super close to ANDREA. GUY is maybe in his 30s. ANDREA is not wearing her glasses and can't really see him (or anything else). They sit without talking for a few minutes.]

GUY: Hot tubs are great, right? Best part of the workout.

ANDREA: Mmm.

GUY: Relaxing?

ANDREA: Yup.

[It is hard to hear, because the hot tub jets are LOUD. GUY persists in attempting conversation.]

GUY: So how are you doing tonight?

ANDREA: Fine.

GUY: So you work out earlier, or...?

ANDREA: Nah, I just came for this.

GUY: Oh yeah, I do that after soccer sometimes. I play a lot of soccer. I'll come here to relax after, use the hot tub and the sauna.

[ANDREA is trying to be polite, but also clearly doesn't actually want to talk to him.]

ANDREA: Mmm.

GUY: You got any other plans tonight?

[It is already 9:30 pm. ANDREA wonders what kind of people actually still have other plans after going to the gym at 9:30, even if it is a Saturday.]

GUY: Or this weekend?

ANDREA: Not really.

GUY: Not going out and hitting the bars?

ANDREA: Nah.

GUY: You don't drink?

ANDREA: Not much, no.

GUY: Don't smoke either, I bet. [Laughs.] Not that anyone smokes anymore.

ANDREA: Right.

GUY: So you don't hang out in bars? What do you do for fun? What's your hobby?

[ANDREA tries to think of most mundane, boring thing she does as a hobby, something that will get GUY to stop talking to her.]

ANDREA: [Shrugs.] I read.

GUY: Reading, okay, yeah. I read, too. I read a lot of books about soccer. And books about nutrition. But not fake nutrition. Real nutrition. What do you read? Fiction? Non-fiction?

ANDREA: Mostly fiction.

GUY: Yeah. Reading's so great. It's a great workout for your brain. I like to rest my brain, you know, relax.

[ANDREA wonders why GUY is mansplaining her own hobby to her. GUY goes on for a bit on vague benefits of reading, for no reason ANDREA can see other than to fill the silence he is uncomfortable with. GUY is just talking to talk.]

GUY: You're not very social, are you?

ANDREA: [Shrugs non-commitally, gives weak chuckle.] Heh.

[ANDREA notes silently that this is usually the time when someone would lose interest and/or pick up on the social clues she's been dropping like flies and stop bothering her. Especially since the hot tub jets are so LOUD and conversation is difficult to maintain. But GUY is persistent, and chooses to ignore her short answers and tone of general disinterest.]

GUY: I'm Jake.

ANDREA: [Reluctantly] Andrea.

GUY: Oh really? I have a cousin named Andrea. She spells it with an I. A-N-D-R-I-A. That's how they spell it in Europe. I bet you spell yours with an E.

[ANDREA marvels at the fact that GUY is actually mansplaining her own name to her now.]

ANDREA: Yup.

GUY: So, Andrea, I'd like to take you out sometime. We could go to Barnes and Noble, read a book. [Chuckles.] Or I'll take you to a bar, show you a good time.

ANDREA: I'm actually married.

GUY: Really? Where's your ring?

ANDREA: [A little annoyed that he doesn't just believe her when she says she's married/a little annoyed that he feels he is entitled to proof of her marriage.] I don't wear it in the hot tub.

GUY: Why not? Afraid you might lose it?

ANDREA: ...Yes.

GUY: Are you happily married?

ANDREA: [Now getting more than just a little annoyed.] Yes.

GUY: Are you sure? You don't seem happy.

ANDREA: [Now very annoyed. Wonders why GUY thinks he is an expert on ANDREA's feelings, after talking to her for five minutes. Still, she is a GOOD GIRL, and so tries to be polite.] I'm just tired right now.

GUY: Oh yeah, me too. I put in so many hours working. I'm a soccer trainer, I'm always working and playing soccer. Did I mention I am fit and play soccer? Are you sure I can't take you to a bar, loosen you up a little? You don't have your phone with you? I can't give you my number?

[It is still LOUD with the hot tub jets, and difficult for ANDREA to hear GUY, but it sounds like GUY really is still trying to ask her out. It is AWKWARD and more than a little BEWILDERING.]

ANDREA: No.

GUY: Are you sure? You don't look like you're sure.

-

Finally, finally, he left me alone. In retrospect, I wish I had been ruder to him. I wish I had given him the emphatic "NO, ASSHOLE, I DON'T WANT TO GO OUT WITH YOU, PLEASE GO AWAY SO I CAN ENJOY MY HOT TUB TIME" that he clearly needed to hear to get the hint. I wish I had been "more feminist", and expressed incredulity at his mansplaining and obvious sense of entitlement to not just receive answers to whatever question he wanted to ask, but also to receive the answers he wanted to hear. I wish that I had just gotten up out of the hot tub and left, and walked to the lap pool and gotten in and talked to my husband, and let GUY wonder/worry that I was talking about him.

Instead, I sat there. I let him keep talking to me. I actually answered his questions - shortly but also truthfully. I didn't have to give that guy the truth. I didn't have to answer him at all. I did, because I cared what he thought of me, or what others around the hot tub might think of me, if I were to act obviously rude. I did not want to be the one to cause a scene (never mind that the guy didn't care about doing that at all).

I do not often get hit on. In fact, I think this is the first time since I married my husband four years ago. Since I write and make my art from home, I don't often leave the house by myself. Usually I am with him. If I am alone in public, I always have my wedding ring on - unless I'm at the gym.

More importantly though, I give off that unsocial vibe GUY mentioned. I don't engage in conversation with strangers. When someone I don't know starts talking to me, I immediately put up my guards and give short, annoying answers. Even before I was married, even when I was in college, I was hit on maybe twice. In my entire life. People might try to start a conversation, but they give up pretty quick. They don't typically get around to the actual asking.

So in a way, it was kind of nice to be hit on at the gym. Not because it was flattering. Because it gave me a reminder of how awkward those situations are firsthand. A lot of times, it's hard to relate to feminist accounts on Twitter or Instagram or wherever, when they're complaining about catcalls and being hit on and trying to find non-misogynists to date in the real world. Those things don't typically happen to me. So it was nice to be reminded of why it's important to keep fighting the good fight.

And about the idea of why "hitting on someone" isn't flattering - because I feel I have to explain myself more - as women, we are brought up to think that it's supposed to be flattering. Especially for someone like me, who doesn't get that kind of thing a lot, and doesn't try to get that thing a lot, to be singled out and chatted up anyway, even when I'm not trying, is supposed to make me feel good about myself. Because above all, women are supposed to want to be desired. Men are supposed to want you, and women are supposed to want to be you. So it should "feel good" when a guy comes along and reminds you that there are guys who want you, right?

But it doesn't feel good. It feels awkward. I didn't ask for his attention, but he gave it to me anyway, and I was supposed to be flattered. He never once actually gave me a compliment - never once said I was beautiful, or that I must be smart because I liked to read so much, or anything at all.

The only thing he called me was "unsocial" which - I mean, honestly? That's not a nice thing to say. I don't like when it's pointed out to me that I'm being "too quiet" or "too shy" or "too anti-social". I already know I'm acting that way, I'm already upset about it, and I'm already worried that people think I'm being rude when I'm not intending to be (or, in this case, upset that I wasn't comfortable being ruder, and getting him to leave me alone). Telling me I'm anti-social isn't nice. It makes me feel more uncomfortable, and that was a situation in which I was already uncomfortable. I was in a gym (a place I don't know well), in a bathing suit (which like, I'm not terribly insecure about my body, but I'm certainly not used to going around in a bathing suit in public), without my glasses (which means I was blind and couldn't see any of his facial expressions or facial cues at all, or even the clock with the giant-ass numbers on the wall to know how long he'd been annoying me), and in an environment in which it was often difficult to hear what he was saying.

The whole thing was designed not to flatter me, but to make me uncomfortable. But Andrea, you might say, he didn't know you were blind without your glasses. He didn't know how infrequently you get chatted up by strangers, and how awkward that makes you feel. He was just trying to be nice.

But wouldn't a nice guy take the hint, and stop pursuing a conversation I obviously didn't like? Wouldn't a nice guy believe me when I said I was married, when I said I was happily married, and leave me alone at that point? Would a nice guy be so eager to "corrupt" a marriage, to encourage an affair, to take an unsocial innocent and get her "loosened up" at the bar?

I reiterate - the whole thing was designed to make me uncomfortable. So uncomfortable in fact, that I might "give in" to what he wanted, just because it was easier. I was supposed to be desperate, because I was alone in a public hot tub on a Saturday night with clearly nothing better to do.

I wasn't the fiery bitch I later decided I should've been, once I had more time to digest his words and the way he said them. But neither was I the desperate girl he was looking for.

I am not saying that guys shouldn't hit on girls (or girls shouldn't hit on guys). But there's a time and a place for it. And if one party is giving off "go away" vibes, stop it. And ESPECIALLY if someone says the word no, STOP IT. "No" does not mean "yes." "No" does not mean "convince me." No means no, even if it's said by a meek, awkward, near-sighted girl, in a way that doesn't seem entirely believable to you.

If she can manage to say "no" she can manage to say "yes." She chose not to for a reason.

Dramatic Sky

This 11"x15" watercolor is a loosely painted, high-contrast depiction of a stormy sky.

"Dramatic Sky" 11"x15" Watercolor Painting on Paper
Andrea Arbit

Purchase "Dramatic Sky" through my Etsy shop!

The color palette is dark blues and greens, offset by moments of light yellow-green and the white paper.

"Dramatic Sky" Watercolor - Detail

I think it almost looks like a Rorschach inkblot, with its nearly symmetrical composition, but maybe you find something different in these dark, stormy clouds.

Like other 11"x15" artworks I recently put up on Etsy (and blogged about here), this painting is also only $99. It was painted for my Watercolor II studio class in 2008.

Italian Gelato & Siena Boar

These next two 11"x15" watercolor paintings were created for my Watercolor III studio class in 2009. Each was based on a photograph I took while studying abroad in Italy in the summer of 2008.

"Italian Gelato" -

"Italian Gelato" 11"x15" Watercolor Painting on Paper
Andrea Arbit

Purchase "Italian Gelato" through my Etsy shop!

This painting of gelato is from a Roman gelateria that had plastic fruits on display on top of each flavor. You can also see the Italian words for the flavors in the translucent blocks at the front of the counter.

"Italian Gelato" 11"x15" Watercolor Painting - Detail

The color scheme is slightly muted to account for the view through the counter's frosted glass.

"Italian Gelato" 11"x15" Watercolor Painting - Detail

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"Oggi Porchetta (Siena Boar)" -

"Oggi Porchetta (Siena Boar)" 11"x15" Watercolor Painting on Paper
Andrea Arbit

Purchase "Oggi Porchetta (Siena Boar)" through my Etsy shop!

This painting is of a display outside a restaurant in the small Tuscan town of Siena. Siena is famous for its wild boar, and this cafe had a window display of a wild boar head wearing glasses, with white, orange, and green plastic garlands hanging down next to it.

"Oggi Porchetta (Siena Boar)" 11"x15" Watercolor Painting - Detail

"Oggi Porchetta" also has a bit of a muted color scheme, to mimic the light through the window glass.

These two paintings would look great hanging together, or separately. Because they are from early college studio classes, I've reduced the price to only $99 each. :)

Purple Chaos & Orange Chaos

These two watercolor paintings are from either Watercolor II or Watercolor III. The assignment was to use different materials - such as bubble wrap, wax paper, wrinkled plastic wrap, and tissue paper - to layer different textures and create an abstract painting.

"Purple Chaos" 11"x15" Watercolor on Paper
Andrea Arbit

Purchase "Purple Chaos" through my Etsy shop!

I would give the paper a wash of lightly colored water and then place one of the materials on the still-wet page, leaving it there while the watercolor dried, so that the pigment would dry in the crevices and create an interesting pattern. When I was finished, I played up certain shapes or colors by going over them with my brush, to make sure that the composition was interesting.

"Purple Chaos" Watercolor Painting - Detail

For "Purple Chaos," I chose a mostly cool color palette, focusing mostly on purples. Then, I added warm reds for emphasis. I also darkened the shapes near the bottom and kept the top of the paper light, to add contrast and focus to the work.

"Purple Chaos" Watercolor Painting - Detail

Finally, I added some white crayon in the negative space around some of the purple shapes to further increase the contrast, and add more texture.

"Purple Chaos" Watercolor Painting - Detail

The assignment was to make two of these paintings - one that had a cool color palette, and one that had a warm color palette. We were also encouraged to use more geometric shapes (sharp edges and angles) on one painting, and organic (curved, irregular) shapes on the other.

So the companion piece to "Purple Chaos" is "Orange Chaos," shown below:

"Orange Chaos" 11"x15" Watercolor Painting on Paper
Andrea Arbit

Purchase "Orange Chaos" through my Etsy shop!

This one uses lots of oranges, yellows, pinks, and red-violets, with just a hint of green in the background to add a bit of color from the cool side of the color wheel.

"Orange Chaos" Watercolor Painting - Detail

The same method of layering different materials into the wet pigment was used, but this time with an emphasis on organic forms.

"Orange Chaos" Watercolor Painting - Detail

These paintings would look great hung together or separately. I don't have mats or frames for them, but their size is close enough to the standard 11"x14" that it shouldn't be difficult to find mats and frames. I think classic white mats would look best, and really draw out the lighter colors in the backgrounds of each piece.

Because these are paintings from early college, I've reduced the price 50% of what I typically charge for 11"x15" size watercolor paintings. Each painting is only $99.

Earring Close-Up Watercolor Painting

I recently found some old paintings I created for college studio classes hiding in plastic portfolios in my art closet, and I decided to put some of them (the best ones) up for sale on Etsy.

"Earring Close-Up" 18"x18" Watercolor on Paper
Andrea Arbit

Purchase this painting in my Etsy store here!

This square watercolor painting was an assignment for either Watercolor II or Watercolor III. We had to choose a small object and focus on the tiniest details of it, magnifying it to the point of abstraction. We were also encouraged to have fun with the colors, using a color palette that was not true-to-life.

The image is of part of a heart-shaped earring my husband gave me as a gift. The light yellow-green part at the top (which casts a shadow onto the orange background) is the fishhook that goes through the piercing. You can see the little plastic piece that goes onto the fishhook to keep the earring in place - it's the darker green cylinder in the upper right corner. The rest is the actual earring - the heart shaped outer edge, and the curlicue plants and leaves that decorated the inside of the heart. I cropped it to just that top portion of the earring to further abstract it. You don't have to know that it's an earring to appreciate the sweeping lines of the composition.

"Earring Close-Up" Watercolor Painting - Detail

The actual earring was silver and gold colored, but for the painting I decided on a fun, candy-like color scheme, with greens and blues making up the parts of the earring and pinks and oranges for the background.

"Earring Close-Up" Watercolor Painting - Detail

Because it is 18"x18" square - which is a bit of an unusual size - you would probably have to purchase a custom mat and frame at a local frame or art supply store. But for the bright colors and interesting subject matter, the price can't be beat - for this piece and others from early college classes, I have reduced the standard prices by up to 50%. For a painting this size, I would normally ask $299, but because this is an early watercolor, I'm asking only $199.

This is not so much because the painting technique is of a poorer "quality" - they're still of excellent quality - but rather because it is not my typical style and because the watercolors used for these early paintings were "student grade." As you can see, even these "student grade" paints can achieve bright, highly saturated colors!

Why Are We Wasting Time Talking About the "Gay Gene"?

My husband and I were recently talking about the idea that sexual orientation could be genetic. Neither of us are geneticists or scientists, and we aren't saying one way or the other on the validity of that claim. Nor are we saying that it's something that should or shouldn't be studied, that the human genome should or shouldn't be mapped. What we did decide was this:

The question of whether nature or nurture contributes to someone's sexuality, while perhaps interesting from a scientific curiosity standpoint, should have no bearing on the debate of whether or not the LGBTQIA community deserves fundamental human rights.

Because you could use either nature or nurture to argue either for or against LGBTQIA rights. Which makes the entire thing pointless.

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Using Nurture to Argue Against LGBTQIA Rights

You could take the traditional Christian Conservative stance and say that to commit homosexual acts is a sinful choice, not unlike the sinful choice to murder or steal. Accordingly, it should be discouraged, if not outlawed completely.

But this fails to recognize two key things:

1) In America we have the freedom to be who we are as long as that doesn't infringe on others' rights to be who they are, and gay people aren't hurting anybody else by being gay (which makes homosexuality actually very different from murder and theft).

2) We don't make a distinction between the freedom to express who you are biologically (i.e. walking around with the skin color you were born in) and the freedom to express who you are by choice (i.e. using your right to free speech to spout rhetoric, or your right to assembly to choose to assemble).

This stance also suggests that somebody (preachers interpreting the Bible, the president, the Supreme Court, whoever) has the right to decide what are good choices and what are bad choices. And we all know how murky those calls can get.

Even things like murder that we globally agree on as being "bad" choices, we later make exceptions for. What constitutes "murder"? Is it okay to dole out the death penalty to criminals we've collectively decided are irredeemable? Is it okay to kill soldiers in the opposition army in times of war? I won't even get started on the topic of abortion, and what constitutes a "human life." For that matter, why do we make the distinction between different kinds of animals - deciding as a culture which animals can be raised for slaughter and consumed, and which are not to be murdered?

Do you really want to say that we need to be judged and tried on every choice we make - whether collectively as a culture, or individually in our bedrooms? And do we really want to give other people the power to do that kind of judging? What if we can't agree on which people to give that power to?

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Using Nurture to Argue For LGBTQIA Rights

You could argue that there is nothing that makes us who we are more than our choices, and that people should not be kept from exploring their options, or discriminated against for doing so.

You could even bring religion/philosophy into this and say that God gave us free will, or that free will is an important part (perhaps the most important part) of the human condition, and that to strip someone of their free will would be to strip them of their humanity.

One of my favorite quotes from the Harry Potter series is when Dumbledore says, "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." Of course, the presumption often is that choices expose us for who we are because some choices are "good" and others are "bad" - that in making the choices we do, we face certain consequences, and those consequences shape us and help us find out place in the world. In Harry Potter, Dumbledore is referring to the difference between Tom Riddle (Voldemort) and Harry - that one has chosen the wrong path, the path of evil, while the others has chosen the righteous path, the path of courage and love.

Which brings me back to my earlier point about the subjectivity of "right" and "wrong" and who should get to decide such things.

And it also begs the question - why would someone willingly choose to be gay, knowing that to be gay is to be denied certain rights, to be discriminated against, to be ridiculed, maybe even to be tortured or beaten or murdered? Did a trauma in their past "turn" them gay? Can changing aspects of their current situation "turn" them back to heterosexuality?

We can all try to change (or repress) things about ourselves that we don't want. And with any nurture argument, that's where we end up. If we look at being gay as a choice, that inevitably leads to horrible things like conversion therapy - which is why LGBTQIA activists often reject the influence of nurture on orientation.

When you're looking at nurture, it's too easy to see it as something that can be formed and molded like a sand castle. Once a society decides on those subjective "right" and "wrong" choices, anyone who does something that was deemed "wrong" faces their motives being questioned.

Of course, it's more nuanced than that. (Isn't it always?) How much of our choices are actually our own? A lot of what we do is influenced by the environment we grew up in, and the systems of privilege/oppression we're a part of (regardless of what side we're on). We can try to change our environment and dismantle those systems, but 1) that's a lot of work, and 2) isn't even always possible.

And then, what if we don't actually have free will at all - because something like God, or Fate, or Science has determined our destiny for us?

If nature and nurture work together and I'm genetically predisposed to having a shy personality, I'm never going to make it over to the Super Extroverted side of the scale, no matter how hard I try. I have some say over how much I let my timidity run my life, but I can't vanquish it altogether.

And that's the appeal LGBTQIA activists see in using nature to back up their ideas. If there's a "gay gene," and someone can be predisposed to being gay, how can you fault them for something that's outside of their control? They can try to repress it, or change it, but they'll ultimately be unsuccessful in deviating too far from what has been determined for them.

Which leads me to the nature side of the debate...

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Using Nature to Argue Against LGBTQIA Rights

You could argue that someone's genetics implies that they "deserve" discrimination. It's not a popular opinion - anymore - but it certainly has been popular in the past. Just look at the way "science" was used to historically justify racism.

Phrenology (the study of the shape of the skull, which was believed in the 19th century to reflect a person's character) was used to classify Africans as inferior to white races intellectually, culturally, and morally. Even Darwin's theory of evolution, which suggested that Europeans were related to Africans and that all humans were related to apes, saw the British at the top of the evolutionary scale of civility (source). Many Christian slave-owners argued that black-skinned people were biologically inferior - and that, because God decided our biology, they were merely upholding His will by subjugating these people to work their plantations.

It wasn't until after World War II that this so-called "Scientific Racism" was formally denounced; it undoubtedly still influences racist dogma around the world today. If the Holocaust hadn't happened, if Hitler hadn't been so systematic and obviously evil about the whole thing, this "scientific racism" (or, as the case is here, "scientific sexual orientation-ism") might indeed be the prevalent viewpoint, an undercurrent that impacts modern issues like the rights of gay people to marry or adopt children or live in the neighborhoods they want to live in. After all, gays were targeted by the Nazis and put in the interment camps with the Jews, and Gypsies, and others that were deemed "bad" enough to need weeding out of the genetic pool. If Hitler hadn't done it, would someone else have? Would we still be doing it (on a lesser, more internalized scale) today?

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Using Nature to Argue For LGBTQIA Rights

Finally, you could say that because someone was "born that way" (to use Lady Gaga's phrasing), they are not responsible for their discrimination.

But this does the danger of implying that those who are discriminated against for things that are not biological are responsible for their station.

This logic does a disservice to those who face discrimination for their current economic situation, their religious beliefs, or the kinds of clothes they choose to wear. If there are people who think only things that are biologically ordained need to be tolerated, wouldn't they also have to believe that poor people are the only ones to blame for their poverty? And that if someone should choose not to believe in what they think is the "right" God, they deserve to be judged poorly or even killed for that decision? And that women who wear short skirts - even when they know that doing so marks them as promiscuous - are welcoming that sort of attention and therefore deserving of catcalls or rape?

Never mind that things are never clear-cut about nature vs. nurture, and that they often work in conjunction. Genetics are influenced by the environment (that's the whole idea behind natural selection). And someone's environment is influenced by their genetics. A woman can't help being female, and a black man can't help being black, but because of those biological traits, they're going to struggle with the way society treats them and what society expects of them.

Isn't the whole point of dismantling racism and dismantling the patriarchy the idea that everyone, regardless of their genetics, deserves equal rights and opportunities? Isn't the point to remove genetic's influence on our society as much as possible, to say that we're above all that, to say that we have the power to choose to make a change, to go against ideas that have been ingrained in our cultures for centuries? So why would you fall back on an old historic argument to uphold your case - this idea that science (which is to us what religion often was to our ancestors) can be used to decide who should or shouldn't have privilege (or if there should be systems of privilege at all)?

Is it not possible for us be tolerant of everyone - whether they're formed by their biology, their environments, or a little bit of both?

-

Which brings me back to my point. The question of whether nature or nurture contributes to someone's sexuality should have no bearing on the debate of whether or not the LGBTQIA community deserves fundamental human rights.

It is our responsibility (all of us) to respect and protect our fellow humans. Regardless of whether we have similar physical traits, or share a particular gene in our extensive genetic code. Regardless of whether we can understand the environment they grew up in, or whether we agree with their choices and modes of self-expression.

As long as our decisions do not infringe on the ability of others to make their own decisions, everything should be fair game.

LGBTQIA individuals deserve fundamental human rights because they are human. End of story.

Manuscript Editing

I've started following authors and agents and accounts with writing tips on Twitter and I'm so glad that I did.

I saw mention the other day that descriptions of body language during dialogue is a big no-no for fiction writing. You know - sighing, staring, blinking, frowning, fidgeting, shrugging, breathing, rubbing chins, crinkling foreheads, biting lips, and the like. It doesn't add anything meaningful and a lot of people tend to skim over such descriptions anyway, focusing instead on the actual words being said.

When I write dialogue, it bothers me to leave that stuff out - the page looks too sparse with short paragraphs, quotation marks, and 'he said's/'she said's. But when I read a book, I prefer conversations that are quick and easy to follow.

I need to be thinking about the potential reader now. After going through two drafts and getting input from friends on content, characterization, and flow, my story is fleshed out enough that I can focus on this type of editing. So I've been going through my manuscript recently and "killing my darlings," as they say - finding all the places where I made those newbie mistakes and hitting the "delete" button a lot.

I copy-pasted my entire manuscript into a free text analyzer online to see what words/phrases I overused. In addition to those dialogue issues, I found that I'd made several other offenses.

Here are some of them:

1) First-grade adjectives like good, bad, happy, sad, warm, cold, young, old, kind, beautiful, afraid, large, small.

I'm trying not to use these words at all - nor any of their synonyms. I should be able to convey that emotion without coming out and saying that the character feels sad (or disappointed, or pessimistic, or destitute, or somber, or whatever).

2) Colors that are found in the Crayola-eight.

Why say "brown" or "red" when molasses, henna, bronze, cinnamon, raw hamburger, merlot, and even "recycled paper bag" paint such a clearer picture?

3) Unspecific nouns like people, someone, anyting, everything.

There has to a better way to say these. What kind of people are we talking about? Adults? Students? Babies? Firefighters? Southerners? Millenials? Dog lovers? Chain smokers? Feminists? Specificity is so much more interesting.

4) First-grade verbs like go, come, leave, keep, hit, give, eat, cry, bring, put, show, work.

Go/Come/Leave --> Advance, Proceed, Progress, Approach, Decamp, Withdraw
Give --> Contribute, Deliver, Donate, Provide, Dispense, Endow, Issue
Show --> Demonstrate, Exhibit, Reveal
etc.

5) Cliches and other extraneous/uncreative phrases.

- All on ... own: "The skin repaired itself all on its own."
- Fall to / down on / brought to ... knees: "He fell to his knees"; "She was brought to her knees."
- The world: "When the world is crashing down"; "His favorite possession in the world."
- What to do: "I can show you what to do."
- No idea why / Don't know why: "I have no idea why he's suspicious." "Why is he suspicious?"
- With a press of a button
- On the other hand
- On behalf of
- Without thinking / Without asking
- Particularly / In fact / The truth is / Actually
- Really / Very / Quite / Only / Just / Still - These are there for emphasis and are completely unnecessary.

I'm trying not to feel bad that I made such Writing 101 mistakes - and forgot to check for them before starting to send out query letters. Instead, I'm choosing to focus on the things I have to be proud of - that I started following the right accounts, that I listened to good advice, that I'm willing to go through my manuscript again to look for these things, that I'm not daunted by the task and eager to put forth the effort.

And thankfully, I only sent out four queries so far, so I have plenty more names to send my improved manuscript to once I finish making these changes.

Do Mats Matter?

I recently spent a bit of money to purchase several standard white mats - 5x7 mats with 4x6 openings for artwork, 8x10 mats with 5x7 openings, and 11x14 mats with 8x10 openings - so that I can include a mat with the purchase of any artwork of those sizes in my Etsy store. I always had mats for my colored pencil drawings, but now I have them for all my small watercolor paintings as well.

3 - 4"x6" Watercolor Paintings by Andrea Arbit (displayed in 5"x7" white mats)
From left to right: Pattern Organza, Pattern Eloise, and Pattern Roya
All are available on Etsy for $29 each: etsy.com/shop/ArtworkbyAndreaArbit

I think the mats help my work look more professional, and give potential buyers an instant understanding of how they could display my artwork in their home (or business). I'm not sure how well that comes across in the photographs on Etsy, but in person the difference is obvious.

5"x7" Watercolor Painting by Andrea Arbit (displayed in 8"x10" white mat)
"Pattern Cobalt in Blue, Pink, and Purple"
Available on Etsy for $39: etsy.com/shop/ArtworkbyAndreaArbit

Especially because most of my small watercolors are edge-to-edge patterns, they look like they could be almost anything without a mat. Are they tiny rectangles for wrapping paper? Dinner placemats or tablecloths for dolls? Coasters? Really wide bookmarks? But as soon as I put a mat on it, it elevates it. Now, immediately, it's obvious that it is hung on the wall, or framed and propped on a bookshelf.

3 - 4"x6" Watercolor Paintings by Andrea Arbit (displayed in 5"x7" white mats)
From left to right: Pattern Valencia, Pattern Aurelia, and Pattern Victoria
All are available on Etsy for $29 each: etsy.com/shop/ArtworkbyAndreaArbit

Plus, the crisp white mats look so fantastically sleek and modern with the pattern watercolor paintings - many of which have a lot of white paper visible, either in the background or the "negative image" of the pattern, if it is the background that is painted.

2 - 5"x7" Watercolor Paintings by Andrea Arbit (displayed in 8"x10" white mats)
From left to right: Pattern Emmeline & Pattern Turina
All are available on Etsy for $39 each: etsy.com/shop/ArtworkbyAndreaArbit

I don't know if including mats will increase my sales on Etsy or not. But if I were to ever take these to an art fair or try to sell them in a store or have them on display in a gallery or library or theater lobby or wherever - anywhere that someone could see them in person - I think the mat does make a huge difference in presentation.

And in the meantime, matting each painting makes them a lot easier to store, and makes sure to keep them flat and protected. :)

Well That Was Fast

It's official - I've gotten my first rejection from those query letters I sent out about my novels!

(screenshot of rejection email)

I honestly wasn't expecting a reply so quickly. It's only been a few days since I emailed them out, and most of the agents' websites I've been looking at say it might be 6-8 weeks before they get back to you (if they get back to you at all). I'm trying to be appreciative that this agent replied so fast - I wasn't left waiting around wondering for long! - but a tiny part of me can't help but wonder if that means my story/query letter was unbelievably bad, that the agent was able to make a decision so quickly.

Of course, it's also possible that I've been rejected because of reasons outside my control. This agent's roster was already full of projects like mine, she's decided she doesn't want any more dystopian novels right now, she doesn't like working with series, she doesn't have time to take on another first-time novelist right now, etc. etc.

Whatever the factors that went into her decision, with her reply I have officially passed a threshold. Now I think I won't be so anxious to send out more queries - because I've seen that rejection is survivable. Also, I feel like a real writer, now! Everything I've ever read about being a professional writer says to expect a million rejections before you finally get your "yes" - so with my first rejection under my belt, I'm clearly on the right track to literary superstardom.

#cliches
#positivethinking

Rose with a Hint of Purple

Yesterday I showed my step-by-step process for creating a 5"x7" colored pencil drawing "Rose with a Hint of Aqua." Because that one went so well, I decided to make a companion piece with the same process. I think they'd look great together in a room!

Two Colored Pencil Drawings by Andrea Arbit

Below you can see the finished product with my source photograph. Once again, I used a photo I'd taken at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, which I'd adjusted in Photoshop to be black/white monochromatic.

"Rose with a Hint of Purple" - 5"x7" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit

To start the drawing, I measured where the 5"x7" "boundaries" of the drawing would be. Then, focusing not on the lines but on the shapes in the source photograph, I colored in the white parts of the drawing.

Step 1: White Colored Pencil
"Rose with a Hint of Purple" - 5"x7" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit

Then, I turned to the shadows and colored in the black shapes of the drawing.

Step 2: Black Colored Pencil
"Rose with a Hint of Purple" - 5"x7" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit

So that it would match the coloring of the previous colored pencil drawing, I also added dark brown to the shadows.

Step 3: Dark Brown Colored Pencil
"Rose with a Hint of Purple" - 5"x7" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit

Finally, I added some purple to the flower. I chose a color that would go well with the aqua highlights used in the previous drawing. (Also, purple and aqua are two of my absolute favorite colors. So the choice of purple was really a no-brainer for me.)

Step 4: Purple Colored Pencil
"Rose with a Hint of Purple" - 5"x7" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit

And there you have it! I matted this drawing like the other one - in a 8"x10" white Crescent mat.

"Rose with a Hint of Purple" - 5"x7" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit

As seen on Instagram

You can buy this 5"x7" colored pencil drawing for $39 in my Etsy shop!

"Rose with a Hint of Aqua" & "Rose with a Hint of Purple"
Colored Pencil Drawings by Andrea Arbit

Rose with a Hint of Aqua

Today I am going to show pictures step-by-step of how I approach a colored pencil drawing.

"Rose with a Hint of Aqua" - Finished Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit
(shown with photograph source material and 4 colored pencils used)

First, I pick a photograph to use as a source material. This photo is of a yellow rose that I took in 2014. Every summer my husband's family goes to Sandbridge Beach (Virginia Beach) for a week, and last year I made sure to make time to visit the Norfolk Botanical Gardens one day so I could increase my personal stock of flower photographs. There's a Bicentennial Rose Garden there that is SO beautiful. I'd never seen so many roses in one place before. I took probably a zillion pictures. This is one of them.

Because I knew I would be making this colored pencil drawing on toned tan sketch paper, I adjusted the image in Photoshop so that it was monochromatic (only black and white). I didn't want the color of the photograph to distract me from being able to find the light/dark contrast I wanted to play up. I also knew that I wanted to add my own touch of whimsical color once the blacks and whites were down, and I didn't want my color choice to be decided by how the flower had actually looked in real life.

After all, if I'd just wanted a true-to-life image, I would have just printed out the photograph I'd taken. With creating art, we have the option to change things and make it our own. :)

Using the black and white photograph as inspiration, I started the drawing. I measured out a 5"x7" square and made markings in each corner so that I could be sure to fill at least that much of the paper.

I did not draw out an outline first. My goal with this drawing was to focus on shape rather than line. One of my drawing teachers once pointed out to the class that lines do not exist in the real world. There are edges to things - the edges of one rose petal to the next, for instance - but they're not lines. They're simply the space where two different planes or shapes meet - the plane of a table intersecting the air, or the area where my arm meets the armrest of a chair. We might use lines to represent them on paper, but in actuality they're fields of value, or fields of color.

This is what I think of when I do a colored pencil drawing. I look at the source photograph and try to pick out all of the places in the photograph where there is white. Then, on my paper, I color in those white shapes.

Step 1: White Colored Pencil
("Rose with a Hint of Aqua" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit)

Then, I look at my source photograph and pick out the shadows - the places where there are dark areas. And I color in those dark fields with a black colored pencil.

Step 2: Black Colored Pencil
("Rose with a Hint of Aqua" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit)

At this point, I often have to go back and revisit the white areas, to play up the contrast more. There are a greater variation of darks (dark-dark vs. only somewhat dark) that I can achieve with a black colored pencil on toned tan paper, but the white colored pencil is more limited. I have the first layer of white that I already put down - and now I go back and put a lot of pressure on the white colored pencil to make the whitest white highlights.

Step 3: More White Colored Pencil
("Rose with a Hint of Aqua" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit)

Now, my drawing looks more or less like my black and white photograph. So to add my "color whimsy" I bust out a fun aqua colored pencil. I use this in some areas of shadow and some areas of highlight, blending it with the black or white colors that are already there.

Step 4: Aqua Colored Pencil
("Rose with a Hint of Aqua" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit)

Finally, I decided that I wanted to darken the shadows a bit more - and that I wanted to use a brown instead of a black colored pencil to do so, to relate with the toned tan sketchbook paper.

Step 5: Dark Brown Colored Pencil
("Rose with a Hint of Aqua" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit)

Then, I post a picture on Instagram so I can get the validation of complete strangers "liking" my artwork. :)

When I'm all finished, I put a white Crescent beveled mat around the drawing. This helps me store these drawings better by keeping them flat and protected (the mats also come with plastic sleeves for storage), and it also makes them easier to ship, since the mat gives it a bit of solidity to keep it straight. Furthermore, if I were to take these colored pencil drawings to an art fair or similar venue, it would be easy to let customers flip through my collection of drawings, since they're so well-protected. And, of course, it means they're ready to be framed and hung by whoever purchases it, which is always a plus from a buyer's standpoint.

Finished piece (5"x7" artwork in white 8"x10" mat)
"Rose with a Hint of Aqua" Colored Pencil Drawing by Andrea Arbit

Ta-Da! :) The whole process takes about 2 hours. Maybe thirty minutes to adjust the source photograph in Photoshop and print it out, and 1-1.5 hours to draw the image. They certainly get faster the more I do them. You know what they say - practice makes efficiency!

I have found that I do some of my best work when I am working quickly. When the drawing or painting is too big and takes a lot of time and effort, I get in my head too much. I figure if I'm putting in that much effort, I'd better make it perfect. But with these little drawings, I don't have to worry if I make a "colossal mistake"... because there's no such thing as a colossal mistake! They're not colossal undertakings! If I were to mess up a drawing beyond fixing, I would have only wasted a small piece of paper and a few hours of my time. But colored pencil is actually a pretty forgiving medium (definitely more forgiving than watercolor), so it's easy to adjust or cover-up (or even erase, if the pencil is light enough and the paper strong enough) any little mistakes that might happen.

You can purchase this 5"x7" drawing for $39 at my Etsy store!

Query Letters

Last week I started sending out query letters to literary agents. For almost two years I've been working on developing a seven-book Upmarket NA (New Adult) Contemporary/Dystopian series. I have finished manuscripts for the first two and am currently working on the third book. I'm currently calling the first two books "Our Heroine" and "Our Outcast."

In case you're interested to hear what my novels are about, here is the short synopsis I've been including in my query letters -

-

Silvia Parrish – dream-recorder, Romanophile, and recent college graduate paralyzed at a precipice – is secretly writing the fates of three twenty-somethings living in a dystopian future.

“The Enterprise knows each of us by name, knows the entire personal history of our families and finances. It keeps a complete record of every daily confirmation – the date, the time, the location, the confirmer’s vital signs, and the medications dispensed – because the Enterprise cares.”

OUR HEROINE follows two parallel narratives. In the “real world,” Silvia has moved back to her parents’ house in suburban Ohio, where she takes on a job as a babysitter for a nine-year-old neighbor boy and learns that her old high-school crush is engaged to marry her best friend. In her fictional Enterprise story, Carbry Chrism, a young police officer, must find his missing girlfriend, a nameless heroine who desires to remove her wrist implant and explore the Outside.

-

If I happen to hear anything back from my queries, I'll make sure to update here. I've never sent out query letters before, so I really have no idea how long it'll take and what might come of it, but here's hoping I find some publishing success! :)

Weeding Out Negativity

The other day I was thinking about negativity - and how it seems to keep invading my thoughts, and how I always feel like such a failure when I realize I've let it return again.

Then I went outside to water some new trees we had planted in our backyard this summer and noticed that there were new weeds growing up through the mulch... even though we'd just sprayed for weeds a few days ago and killed most of them. And it hit me that negative thoughts are the weeds in the garden of my brain.

(I never promised this blog would be free from cliched metaphors.)

(Image from gardening.wikia.com)

No matter how often I might spray the weeds or spend time pulling them out of the ground, I never expect that I'll tame nature completely and never have to weed my landscaping again. I know they'll come back. I don't blame myself personally when they do. I also don't get too depressed about the futility of the exercise... I know nature's just doing what it does, and I'm just doing what I do as a conscientious human living in an American subdivision that has certain standards for its lawns.

Yeah, I'll be pulling weeds for the rest of my home-ownership days, but whatever. It has to be done. I often wait until it looks really bad - because I'm lazy, just like the rest of y'all - but when it gets to the point where I can feel my neighbors' judge-y stares on the other sides of their windows, I get to it. I know it's best for my lawn and my newly planted trees and my other plants and flowers if they don't have to compete with weeds for the resources they need, so I sacrifice some time and energy to get the job done.

If I'm willing to do that for my lawn - why is it so hard to prioritize and do for my mental health?

-

Side note/disclaimer -

I do not have clinical depression (though the term dysthymia has been tossed around in the occasional therapy session), and I'm not on any medication. I say this just to clarify that when I say "negative thoughts" I mean little anxieties and persistent worries - "I'm useless," "I got nothing done today," "All I do is self-sabotage and make life harder for myself," "Why can't I stop being so hard on myself?" "God, Andrea, you're the worst, hahahaha." It is nothing so serious as "God, Andrea, you are The Actual Worst, please go kill yourself."

I am talking about negative thoughts that can be conditioned to go away - or at least fade into the background. And I've been regularly seeing a therapist to help me do this. I am not advocating that what might work for me might work for anyone else. I am not a psychologist. Please refer to a professional if you need advice.

And if your negative thoughts are to the point where you're thinking about killing yourself, here is the suicide prevention hotline you should call (in the U.S.): 1-800-273-8255. Also, please know that other people love you, even if you're not quite sure how to love yourself.

-

Dandelions - (Image from Wikipedia)

So back to my weeds. There are two ways to get rid of plant-weeds - 1) preventative sprays, and 2) pulling the weeds out (at the root if possible).

Similarly, there are two tactics for trying to quell negative-thought-weeds - 1) training myself to be more positive, to prevent the negative thoughts from popping up in the first place, and 2) recognizing negative thoughts when they do show up, and convincing myself not to listen to them.

The thing with pulling up weeds (either kind), is that the longer I let them sit there before I address them, the harder they are to get rid of once I decide to get around to it. Their roots get longer and more established, they breed and produce more weeds, and they start clogging out the good things I want around - like flowers and positive thoughts.

What I really need to do is be more proactive. I need to use the first method more often - I need to give myself compliments and recognize when I've done something I should allow myself to be proud of, I need to breed positivity so that some of those negative thoughts won't come around at all.

And I also need to more consistently weed out the negative thoughts when they do show up. I need to recognize faulty reasoning and replace it with actual logic.

Instead of thinking: "This will never work. I'll never sell enough art to make a living at it; I'll never find a literary agent and get my novels published" - I need to think: "I've actually sold quite a few pieces already, and I have a lot of great marketing ideas that I just need to follow through on, and who knows what good might come from it? And there are many avenues to take - both to sell artwork, and to publish a novel - and if one avenue doesn't work, there are others I can try. And also, I really am a good artist and a good storyteller, and whether or not there is a market for the stuff I create has no actually bearing on the quality of said stuff, nor myself as a person."

If I pull up that particular weed enough times by examining it and convincing myself it has no real basis in fact, maybe eventually it will stop growing. Or maybe this is a particular insecurity of mine that won't ever really go away, and I'll have to keep pulling up the weed over and over again.

But if/when it does come back, I shouldn't blame myself for "letting it" return. I can't give it that kind of power. It's not my "nemesis." It's just a weed. And I can pull it up and discard it a hundred times if I have to. It's not that fucking hard. It's just a weed. I pull them out of my yard. I can pull them out of my head, too.

It's not an exercise in futility. It's an exercise in resilience. Positive people take the time to be positive. They schedule time to recharge, schedule time to do the things that make them happy. It's proof that they're prioritizing the right things.

So that's my goal. To go through and weed out my head - and my yard - on a more regular basis.

Projects In Progress

So lately I've been working on a few different art "series" -

1) Colored pencil drawings. Usually 5"x7" in size, usually on black paper, usually using flowers as a subject matter. I have literally hundreds of photographs of flowers I've taken over the years - from bouquets of flowers to gardens in Massachusetts, Virginia, Upstate New York, California, Michigan, Monaco, France, Italy, Greece, Croatia, etc. I use these photos as a basis for these colored pencil drawings.

"Yellow Rose" by Andrea Arbit - 5x7 Colored Pencil Drawing on Black Paper

Lately I have also started to branch out from that 5"x7" black paper medium, and have been working on 8"x10" drawings on black paper, as well as 5"x7" drawings on tan-toned paper.

2) Small watercolor paintings of patterns. I have a large collection of patterns I've created on my computer (in Adobe Illustrator). I print these out, trace them onto 4"x6" or 5"x7" or 8"x10" pieces of watercolor paper, choose a color palette (i.e. "blues and dark greens" or "oranges and yellows" or whatever), and paint them.

"Pattern Encarta in Blue, Pink & Purple" by Andrea Arbit - 5x7 Watercolor Painting on Paper

You can find several examples of these two types of artwork at my Etsy shop. Indeed, I've created these smaller pieces with Etsy in mind. They're cheaper than my larger works and easier to ship. They're great for home decor. They're not overly laden with meaning. (Yes, I think of my thesis and other previous works I've done that have used flowers and patterns when I create these new pieces. But no, that is not *necessarily* the interpretation I'm going for - nor do I usually intend much of an interpretation at all.) I'm just trying to make things that look nice - to help me hone my craft, to make a little bit of "quick money." (It's not really quick.) They're fun to make. They're fast to make, so I don't have a lot of time to get all bent out of shape about whether something is working or not.

3) I'm also working on those 2 larger watercolors of roses that I talked about in a previous entry.

2 Rose-Themed Watercolors in Progress by Andrea Arbit (each 15"x22" in size)

4) I recently purchased some 12" square canvases that were on sale at Michael's and plan to make some acrylic paintings with those soon. I have compositions already for that size that I created with scrapbook paper designs in mind, and I think they'll look great as paintings instead. I haven't done much acrylic since like freshman/sophomore year of college, but I did always enjoy it, and I'd like to get back to it.

5) I also have the idea swimming around in my head about making a memoir/graphic novel type thing. A book that combines artwork with my words - perhaps words taken from the journals I write and have written over the years. I have about zero experience with graphic novels, but there are some I've stumbled upon that I really enjoyed reading, like Marbles. I'm thinking of something like that, but not really cartoons and more of small-scale watercolor paintings or colored pencil drawings that capture the essence of what I'm saying - maybe by using flowers as metaphors for myself.

But that's still in its conceptual idea stage, and probably will be for some time, while I work on all those other projects I already have going.

Because ALSO, in addition to all that art, I've been writing a series of novels. So I'm a little busy. ;)

Why It's So Hard To Get Things Done

Why is it so hard to focus on the art and writing I want to do and actually have productive days?

In one word: Ginny.

Just look at that cute little face!!

Pay attention to me, mommy!

In several more words:

Okay, so I still had a "getting things done" problem before we adopted Ginny. But one of the reasons we adopted her is so we would have a "scape-puppy" - and so I intend to use her that way now. (Like a scapegoat, but she's a puppy. Get it? We're so clever.)

In all seriousness though, reasons for procrastinating include but are not limited to:
- No one holding me accountable for getting shit done, since I work at home on my own schedule
- Making the WRONG decision to wait around until "creativity" strikes and I'm in the mood to work
- Being paralyzed by worries that my painting won't turn out good, etc. - so why is it worth the time and effort that go into it?
- Convincing myself that no one actually cares about my paintings or my writing anyway - even if they do turn out good - and so why is it worth the time and effort that go into it?

Defeatism, basically.

And the only way to combat these things is to try holding myself accountable, try convincing myself to follow a schedule and do the work and put in the time, try telling myself that that's just my low self-esteem talking, and the painting probably will turn out good, and someone out there is reading this blog, and people do find the stuff I create and like it and respond to it - even if they don't respond to me and let me know.

So I try to acquire evidence. Quotes from people who have liked something I've done, sales receipts to remind me that people have bought my artwork in the past, etc. And then, when I get into a defeatist way of thinking, I pull out that evidence and make myself read it to remind myself that my negative thinking has no basis in the actual situation.

And also I play with my puppy. Because she's adorable and makes me happy. :)