ajamaro.com

Becoming one of “those people”

Written By: AJ Amaro - May• 20•13

The first person I came out to about the possibility being transgender was a partner with whom I was in a relationship. It was late Spring 2011, and the thought had been heavy on my mind for the last couple of months.

Before then? Quite honestly, I didn’t have a concept of what transgender meant, at least as it applied to me. Oh, in some small way, I understood that the term encompassed a group of minorities that put the T in the now-familiar LGBT acronym. I even vaguely remember being pissed the hell off when I heard that HRC had put their support behind a non-trans-inclusive version of ENDA back in 2007, although apart from a self-righteous ideological sense of unequivocal unfairness, I probably couldn’t have told you why I was angry at the time. (more…)

Posted in Asperger's Syndrome, Gender variance, Me myself & pie |

Gender and the space in between

Written By: AJ Amaro - Apr• 27•13

Gender is too complicated for binaries.

This little rambling, which originally appeared on Facebook, is a response to The Star’s The Realm Between “he” and “she”.

A lot of my friends and family on here know I’m in the process of transitioning. For simplicity’s sake, I often term myself FtM (female-to-male) or a transgender man/transguy/some other variant of that. Many of you know I’m currently speaking to medical professionals about hormone replacement therapy and what’s known as gender reassignment surgery. Heck, when I accepted my offer of employment at my current job, I came out as transgender and unequivocally said I preferred male pronouns.

That’s not actually, really the case. So why did I say it? (more…)

Posted in LGBT, Personal |

Four things I resolve NOT to do in 2013

Written By: AJ Amaro - Jan• 15•13

San Francisco is one steep bastard of a city

I resolve not to face-plant down half of San Francisco’s hills in 2013…a second time.

I hate New Years resolutions, and not just because I suck at keeping them. I also find it kind of nonsensical that January ends up being the be-all and end-all month for implementing any sort of change into my life. January is a cold, heartless bitch of a month, and I would usually rather be curled up under an electric blanket (wth is up with San Francisco’s weather of late?!) than dealing with any of this month’s fresh-start crap.

Last year I resolved to do a bunch of self-improvement type things. Skate four times a week. Join a gym and actually go. Try to get back into theatre and acting. Write a novel of publishable quality (so, about that…). I’m not going to lie and say I failed at all of those things. I didn’t, for the most part. I just put so much undue pressure on myself to succeed that I ended up not really enjoying the process of getting through all of my goals.

A few weeks into 2013, I think it’s time for a REMIX. (more…)

Posted in LGBT, Personal, Randomness, Writing |

Back up your damn work

Written By: AJ Amaro - Nov• 28•12

This is a bit of a tangent, but sometimes I wonder about my own thought processes with these blog posts. I came up with a lot of these ideas months ago and just wrote a few lines summarizing what I wanted to get across in them when I actually wrote them.

For this one, all I wrote back in July (apart from the title): “just do it, you jackasses.”

ANYWAY. Kinda self-explanatory.

Having just returned from the NaNoWriMo annual event Night of Writing Dangerously a week and a half ago (which was a flippin’ blast and a half, if I do say so myself), I’m in a really writing-centric mood. And why the heck not, considering I crossed the 50K word count finish line at the event with a bunch of my WriMo comrades in prosaic perfection?

You know what would suck? Losing all of my work in an epic hard drive crash the next morning because I was too much of an idiotic fool to back up my crap, that’s what. (more…)

Posted in Software, Uncategorized, Writing |

Coming out author

Written By: AJ Amaro - Nov• 12•12

Over the weekend, I attended part of the Transgender Leadership Summit in Berkeley, CA. Hundreds of leaders and rising stars in the transgender community met in one place for a weekend of sessions targeted specifically toward the transgender community.

My community, actually.

I don’t talk about it much here, rarely relate how the LGBT-centric links and images I post to my Facebook author page relate to me personally. Again and again at this conference, speakers stressed the importance of being out and becoming a face of the transgender experience in your respective community. As an author of YA stories, do I even want to be known first and foremost as a transgender artist? (more…)

Posted in LGBT, Personal, Randomness, Writing |

Is NaNo a no-no?

Written By: AJ Amaro - Nov• 03•12

November is National Novel Writing Month, more fondly known as NaNoWriMo by novel writing repeat offenders like yours truly (we’re also known as “wrimos,” are you keeping up?). That means approximately a quarter of a million people worldwide are striving to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Utter insanity, right? It’s also an entirely amazing experience. Trust me on this.

And yet, this time around, I seriously considered skipping out. (more…)

Posted in Process, Writing |

Internet friends are the best kinds of friends

Written By: AJ Amaro - Sep• 17•12

I honestly don’t think what I’m about to say is going to really be met with very much disagreement. It might’ve been a decade ago, but times are changing, as are minds.

This also isn’t strictly writing related but I want to post it up here anyway. Better to write about something that’s been on your mind than try to force something out for the sake of marketability, right? (Hint: the answer is yes.)

I’ve lived a lot of different places in my life. I’ve met a lot of people during those times. And almost universally, the ones I’ve kept in touch with longest and to whom I feel closest have been those I initially met online.

Try not to look so surprised. (more…)

Posted in Randomness, Uncategorized |

Authorship: how far would you go?

Written By: AJ Amaro - Aug• 26•12

Just by virtue of what this website is, things are bound to get personal. I’ve been pretty good about not giving too-too many details about my offline life though, outside of how they relate to giving me the kick in the ass I need to be able to write.

But I just got back from vacation. There’s a lot going on my life at the moment (and has been for most of the year, point in fact). And lately, I’ve been thinking. About things. In excess.

So, basically, this post’s going to be a little different. (more…)

Posted in Writing |

Drabble daily (as in, do it)

Written By: AJ Amaro - Aug• 15•12

Those of you who saw the shittastically bewildering Monday morning I had on Facebook (hint: facewash does not go in armpits, and coffee cups should be placed underneath the coffee maker before flipping on the ‘brew’ switch) might find comfort in knowing it’s only gone up from there.

And by ‘up’ I mean I haven’t accidentally sawed off a finger instead of slicing up a pear for lunch, which is why I can type this post up so effortlessly now. Everyone’s a winner (except people who hate literacy, I guess).

After all those pleasantries above, I probably don’t have to tell you how much success I’ve been having with my writing endeavors this week. If you still need a clue, the answer starts with “lack” and ends with “thereof.”

Yet all is not lost, my cohorts in composition! Here’s why. (more…)

Posted in Process, Writing |

Writing apps: worth the bother?

Written By: AJ Amaro - Aug• 09•12

There are a lot of apps aimed at would-be writers out there in the online world. How do I know this? Simple – get stuck on your writing long enough, and you’ll turn to just about anything to find a solution.

Writing apps run the gamut when it comes to purposes as well. You’ve got your word counters, your timer kick-in-the-asses, your apps for organization, and ones to ward off distractions. Some cost money and come equipped with all the bells and whistles you could possibly want in a comprehensive writing tool. A few even have soundtracks (this is not a joke). Others are plain and straightforward.

Are any of them worth it though?

Personally, I think you’re asking the wrong question. And person. (more…)

Posted in Process, Software, Writing | Comments Off

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