Sonia Marsh - Gutsy Living

Life's too short to play it safe

Why do we let young girls dress like that?

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Have you noticed how more and more teenagers and tweens are dressing provocatively or is it just me?

In an article by Jennifer Moses in the Wall Street Journal, she poses the question, “Why do so many of us not only permit our teenage daughters to dress like this—like prostitutes, if we’re being honest with ourselves—but pay for them to do it with our AmEx cards?” This controversial article and interview has 280 comments since it was published on Saturday March 19th. Many of those who commented were angry at Jennifer Moses, however, she does have a point: the media is bombarding young girls with role models like Miley Cyrus and Paris Hilton and tween catalogs are advertising clothing as “sexy and flirty.” In another article entitled “Too Sexy Too Soon,” you can see how the fashion industry is putting pressure on tweens to look sexy.

There is nothing new to the fact that young girls want to be cute and flirty, however, I’ve seen some eleven-year-old girls dress so provocatively that you question, “What is their intention? Jennifer Moses asks, “What are they saying? I’ve got them, come and get them?” She admits that some mothers are better at guiding their daughters than others, and that she has had problems with her own daughter while trying to bond during a shopping trip.  Excuses like, “It’s no big deal mom, everyone is dressing like that,” or “Just cause I dress like that doesn’t mean I’m having sex,” are common. She admits that teenagers will drive you crazy, and you end up giving in.

There are some moms and dads contributing to this behavior by shopping with their daughters and throwing them parties at clubs. It’s almost like they’re saying, ‘Look how hot my daughter is.'” But why? One mother says, “It’s a bonding thing. It starts with the mommy-daughter manicure and goes on from there.” On the other hand, Jennifer Moses who grew up at the tail-end of the hippie generation, brings her own theory. She says, “It has to do with how conflicted my own generation of women is about our own past, when many of us behaved in ways that we now regret.” She continues, “We are the first moms in history to have grown up with widely available birth control, the first who didn’t have to worry about getting knocked up.”

When asked what about her message, Jennifer Moses believes we need to make kids aware of the following:

  1. TV is a fantasy
  2. We’re living in a pornographic society with a debased cheap culture
  3. You won’t get my credit card to buy stuff I don’t agree with.

If you’re a parent of a tween or teenager, to what extent do you think it’s the media’s fault? What can and should we do as parents?

How do you handle " impossible" requests from agents?

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Sonia is frustrated with formatting.

I have a problem that’s been keeping me awake at night; it’s called formatting.
For weeks, I’ve been researching, Googling, asking friends, basically bugging everyone I come across with this one question:  

  • How can I e-mail ten pages of my manuscript into the body of my G-mail account, within messing up the formatting? 

Am I the only person with this problem?  Not according to my Google searches.
For those of you who say, “Send it as an attachment,” the answer is “NO.”
Agents won’t open attachments.

Then there’s the copy and paste from Word into G-mail. Well, that doesn’t work, because manuscripts need:

  • double-spacing
  • one inch margins all around
  • Times new Roman 12-point
  • italics, for inner thoughts
  • indent first line of paragraph

And guess what happens. All formatting gets messed up when you copy and paste, and then try sending it to yourself and various friends, as a test, and it looks like you’ve had too much to drink.

So I’ve tried to copy and paste into Notepad, which eliminates the hidden codes, and then copy and paste that back into my G-mail, and guess what? I cannot get it double-spaced, I cannot get Times new Roman, and I cannot get the first paragraph indented.

Now if we’re talking a one-page Query letter, that’s not a problem, but imagine a ten or twenty-page manuscript sample! First, it doesn’t look professional, and second, it takes forever.

You might suggest I  e-mail straight from Word through Outlook, but quite frankly, I cannot seem to get Outlook to work, since I’ve been using G-mail for all my e-mails. Would using Outlook guarantee the agent receives my twenty pages in the correct format, just like an attachment or a pdf? That’s my question.

If you’re an agent or an editor, I’d love to hear if formatting issues via e-mail are common, and perhaps a reason to instantly reject an e-mail submission. If so, how can writers submitting to you overcome this problem? Can we write two e-mails and put the Query letter in the first, and the requested ten pages, synopsis and bio in the second e-mail as an attachment? That would eliminate formatting problems.

I downloaded Diane O’Connell’s Free E-Book, which I highly recommend called: 50 Ways to Avoid the Rejection Pile. Diane used to work as an editor for Random House and now works as an independent editor and publishing consultant.

I am open to suggestions and solutions. Have you had these problems?

Don’t be afraid to experiment like Colin Wright.

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 Colin Wright

I just got an idea while jumping from The Skool of Life blog to The Exile Lifestyle blog to this TEDx Phnom Penh. I know, I know; I cannot sit still and FOCUS, which is probably why I need to get Leo Babauta’s free 121 page e-book. (Please note on page 14, he asks a simple question that I can relate to, how about you? Here it is: “As you read this chapter, how many times were you distracted or tempted to switch to another task? How many times did you think of something you wanted to do, or check your email or other favorite distractions?”

Anyway, back to Colin Wright from ExileLifestyle. What I love about this young guy is that he lives a Gutsy Life: something I admire and could see myself doing, if I had an income. You know what he does? He polls his bloggers and asks them, “Where should I live for the next four months?” and then he moves to the country that received the most votes. That’s why Iceland is his next move. How cool is that? I could easily pack my bags and live that way. Can you imagine how great it would be to live in a place for four months and learn about the country, the people, nature, food and customs, and then move on. (Maybe that’s why I can’t sit still for too long.) It would be like a personal survey of each country, and if you don’t like it, you’ve only made a four month commitment, and you can always blame your “voters” for picking a lousy place.

Anyway, in case you don’t have time to sit through Colin’s motivational TEDx Phnom Penh speech, let me summarize what I found interesting.

  • Carry a camera with you daily, and take it with you wherever you go. 

This will add a “new light” to your life. Don’t be afraid to experiment. It will make you see things through a different “lens” and perhaps give you an “aha” moment as did the man on the bench with the chihuahua, in Colin’s case.

  • Make a commitment to blog about one photo daily for one year, and see where it takes you. 

It might even take you to attempting the “extreme lifestyle experiment” like Colin Wright. In case you’re wondering how he finances his life abroad, he runs an online business which he can do anywhere in the world, using Skype, except New Zealand. Strangely enough, Internet connections are terrible in New Zealand, according to Colin Wright.

Thanks to Srinivas Rao and his thought-provoking Skool of Life blog, where he states, “I’ve never been the type of person to fit in,” I discovered Colin Wright.

Is there something you’d like to try but haven’t had the guts to? Don’t be afraid to experiment.

Is 75 the new 45? Can you can do this?

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When I first saw this YouTube video, I was told it was Ginger Rogers at 92, dancing with her 29-year-old great-grandson. I couldn’t believe it!I told my friends at the gym this morning, “You’ve got to see Ginger Rogers and how well she can dance at 92.” Of course, I exaggerated how she was flung up in the air, landing with a back-flip…etc…

I felt motivated to push myself harder, do an extra set of leg extensions and leg curls and another fifty ab crunches on the ball.

“I have to share this with everyone,” I told my husband, and then it occurred to me, “What if it’s not Ginger Rogers?” After my Google search, I discovered that Ginger Rogers died in 1995, and this was a 75-year-old, Englishwoman Sarah “Paddy” Jones who took up salsa dancing after moving to Spain some years ago. In the clip, Sarah is dancing with her dance instructor, Nicholas ‘Nicko’ Espluos.

Disappointed, I thought, well at seventy-five, this no longer seem sensational. Had it been Ginger Rogers at ninety-two, this would be spectacular, but so what at seventy-five.

Then I started thinking about some of the fifty-year-olds at my gym, the ones I used to train as a personal trainer. Many huffed and puffed their way up the stairs, couldn’t get off the floor mat without grabbing onto a chair, and I changed my mind and decided: Sonia, you’re crazy! Sarah “Paddy” Jones is 75. She deserves to be praised for her flexible body and her Gutsy attitude. So what if she’s not Ginger Rogers. She’s “Paddy” and she’s amazing.”

The first minute of the video is a teaser, so please watch to the end. I guarantee you’ll be inspired to start moving, taking a dance class, yoga, or lifting weights, if you haven’t already.

If you’re inspired, please let us know, and share with a friend or someone who could use some motivation today.

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