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    Whole30 Starts Tomorrow and I’m So Excited

    OMG you guys, my #Whole30 begins in less than 24 hours. Wait, let me backtrack. Recently – and by that, I mean over the past few weeks – I’ve started researching the concept of clean eating. I eat pretty healthy for the most part… or at least I thought I did. I don’t eat a ton of bread or pasta (hello celiac!) and I try to eat vegetables regularly and all that stuff. Then I started thinking about all the other not-wheat grains I eat. And the candy. And the ice cream. Before I knew it, I realized that while I wasn’t exactly shoveling carbs and sugar into my face…

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    Do You Want to Write Stuff? GOOD.

    I get a lot of messages from people who have questions about writing stuff, and often those messages are along the lines of “I want to write a book, what do I do?” And that’s a pretty legitimate question, actually. What DO you do? I mean, obviously, you write, but how exactly does that work? Getting started is often the hardest part. I might stew on an idea for months before I actually commit words to paper laptop. So I thought I’d put together a few tips that I’ve shared with people in the past about writing – obviously, these are not rules, but more of a guideline, and they’re…

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    High Expectations Are Your Friend

    A few days ago, Amazon announced that e-books with excessive content errors – spelling mistakes, formatting problems, etc. – will be flagged with a warning when a reader goes to download the book, and authors across Teh Interwebz are shitting themselves. According to a blog post on Goodreader, beginning on February 3, “Amazon will begin showing customers a WARNING MESSAGE on the Kindle store detail pages of books that contain several validated quality issues.” The post goes on to say that the quality control – and make no mistake, that’s exactly what this is – will be a two-stage system. If a book contains a few small errors, the warning…

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    For the Love of Fairuza Balk, “The Craft” is Not a Documentary

    I told someone during a conversation yesterday that I can always tell when the USA Network has aired The Craft for the 847th time because I start seeing an influx of emails from people who want to know how they can change their eye color with Teh Magicks. Usually what happens is I’ll say “Erm, no, you can’t really do that,” and then, THEN GUESS WHAT. Nine times out of ten I’m told I’m wrong, I’m lying, or I must not be a Twoo Pagan or I would clearly know better. DUH PATTI. Okay, Neve Campbell Jr., don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.…

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    Why I Don’t Read Vampire Romance

    This originally appeared back in 2011, but it’s one of my favorites, and I wanted to re-run it, because vampires. On Vampire Romance, and Why I Think It Sucks This is partly inspired by a college essay I wrote a zillion years ago, and partly inspired by the recognition that I must be the only woman in America who doesn’t dig vampire romance. I should state ahead of time that in no way am I telling you that YOU should hate vampire romances. Read ’em if you got ’em. I’m just trying to explain why I personally think they suck. At any rate, some thoughts on the whole vampire-as-sexxeh trope:…

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    Erotica That Doesn’t Suck

    I originally wrote this post back in 2012, when I was still working at the Big Chain Bookstore, because all the hullaballoo over 50 Shades of Grey was driving me batshit crazy. Not because people wanted to read erotica, but because 50SoG is SO FUCKING BADLY WRITTEN. No kidding, you guys, I have a three chapter rule, and I could barely make it that far. Anyway, so I’m re-running this because, in the almost four years since I wrote my original post, even more people are reading erotica and apparently I’m That Friend You Ask About Smut. If 50SoG is gateway smut, here’s some stuff you need to read that’s…

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    Meeting Other Pagans

    I get a lot of questions from people who lead in with “I’m the only Pagan in my town!” You might be, rabbit, you might… but there’s also a really good chance that there are a boatload of other Pagan-y types in your town – hell, maybe in your own neighborhood – who are thinking exactly the same thing. Keep in mind that since Paganism is not a single religion but a collection of thousands of different spiritual paths, there’s no clearinghouse list of all of the people who self-identify under this heading. However, there are a number of ways to find and meet other Pagans in your area –…

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    The Christians and the Pagans

    Random note: The Christians and the Pagans is one of my favorite holiday songs, by Dar Williams. Go listen to it on YouTube. Anyway, I’ve noticed over the past zillion years that there tends to be an awful lot of Christian-bashing in the Pagan community. Not all the time, but enough that it’s noticeable, and enough that I get emails like the one here: Do Pagans Hate Christians? A reader says, "I've been studying Paganism recently, and although I'm very drawn to it, there's one thing that really concerns me. I've met several Pagans who are pretty vocal in their hatred of all things Christian. I was raised Christian, I…

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    Stop With the Emotions, Laydeez!

    First, I need to preface this by saying I kind of struggled with whether or not I wanted to share my thoughts on this, and that’s because I know for a fact that several of my friends think the article I’m about to discuss is a really good one. I know this because they’ve shared it on various social media thingies. And then after about eleven seconds of waffling, I said, “Nah, fuck it, Imma write it anyway,” because, gentle reader, I have no internal monologue filter. So there’s this couple named Gary and Joy Lundberg who write articles about marriage, and I’ll be the first to admit I’m completely…

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    Celtic Paganism, and Stop Being Effin’ Lazy

    I get a ton of emails and messages and random smoke signals from people who want to learn new things. Learning new things is good – except when those people say “Well, I don’t have time to read, can’t you just teach me?” No, that’s fucking lazy. What makes you think I have the time or interest to teach someone I don’t know? Can we talk about #1 some more? If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to learn. You’ve got the same 24 hours in the day as everyone else. I’ve had to have this conversation multiple times lately with people who want to be…

Patti Wigington