Girls Just Want to have Fun

It’s true – girls just want to have fun, but it’s also a song title. If you search for it, you’ll find this image. If you scan down the page, you can find the official video. I’m not allowed to share the link (copyright), but you can find it, and play it for yourself.

Part 1 – The Song  This is the cover for the single, Girls Just Want to Have Fun. It was Cyndi Lauper’s first big hit. She recorded it in June of 1983, and it came out on September 6th.

I remember hearing it back then . . . it was a breath of fresh air. It was pure fun. People everywhere agreed. It reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and it was a worldwide hit from the end of 1983 until the beginning of 1984.
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I also remember the music video. This is Cyndi’s cover for the single. It looks like they used still shots from that video. Without it, I don’t think the song or Cyndi would have done as well. 
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​Compared to other videos, this one was cheap – only $35,000. That sounds like a ton of money, but Cyndi got a deal with a cast of volunteers and free use of video equipment. The cast included her mom, her lawyer, her manager, her brother, and a bunch of secretaries from her record label. The equipment – borrowed from Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live fame. The best part of the video – watching Cyndi dance a conga through the streets of New York. It’s one of the best videos ever!

The song – written and covered by Robert Hazard in 1979, but it didn’t go very far. He wrote it from his own point of view. When Cyndi picked it up, she changed a few words, to make the song fit her style. Some think of it as a feminist statement. For me, it was a song about being young, and having fun. 
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Sources:  

Photo:  By [1], Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6575832
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Information:  Girls Just Want to Have Fun - Wikipedi

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Part 2 – How I Have Fun  ​
​It’s true – girls just want to have fun, but it’s more than a song title.
​When I think of fun, I think of three things:
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​ #1 Reading – It’s how I’ve had fun for as long as I can remember, and I still do.  I read everything – from t-shirts to road signs. I read on my kindle and in real books. I read emails. Some have links for jokes, or trivia, but most of all I love to read!

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​I love to escape into fantasy! It’s pure fun. I can travel to places I could never reach on my own. If I love a character, I’ll follow them all the way through a series.

If I love an author, I’ll follow their work. With Shanna Swendson, I followed her from urban fantasy into small town mystery. She’s a master at both. ​

​I love history whether it’s fiction, non-fiction, or biography. It’s fun to meet people I could never ever meet. To visit places and time periods I could never ever travel to. And it’s easy-peasy . . . all inside the pages of a book. 

​I read kids’ books too. It’s work, but I will never ever  read a book . . . if it’s not fun! When I get bogged down – I QUIT! But that hardly ever happens.

Take a look at these covers, and you’ll see two of my favorite categories. It doesn’t matter whether they’re a book for kids or adults. I still love fantasy and history. Kids’ books are usually pure fun, and you’ll often find animals and families in them.

Sometimes there are famous people in them, and you can peek at how they got their start. Nonfiction biographies are the perfect place to find them.

#2 Writing – I never, EVER wanted to write. Not as a kid . . . it was something I had to do. Not in high school . . . But for some reason I started crying my way through some of my college papers, out of sheer frustration. I wanted to get every word right. I wanted my A.
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But somehow as a teacher, I didn’t mind. Maybe because I wasn’t being graded, and I was writing newsletters for parents. I was telling them what we’d be studying in second grade. It was work because I was still picky about my words, but at least it wasn’t hard!
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​This is where/when I started to write for fun. I met a bat, the flying kind, in Germany in 2007. I didn’t think what happened to me was enough to write about, so I dragged in Herman the German.

​That’s also when revision became more intense for me. I was writing for children, and I wanted to get it right. Creating and revising – IT became fun!

Then these two stories found me. I’ve been working on the ants since 2012, and it needs a little bit of tweaking. Then it’s ready to go!

My safety story is even closer. I started working on it in 2016. Only a few teeny-tiny tweaks, and it’s ready too. However, if they find a publisher, I’ve heard there’ll be more tweaking to do. Practically perfect is the goal in publishing.

These two stories are ready too. One is about a baby, and the other is about a blue poison dart frog. I spent most of 2022 working on them. It’s fun to move the ball, to make those stories better. It’s also true, that practice makes everything better, including my writing. 

These are two brand-new ideas. I started working on them late in 2022, and they have lots of revisions ahead, but I’m ready for them. It’s fun to let a story show you where it wants to go. Sometimes it even changes direction. Your story tells you to take a different path, and usually it’s right. Here’s to my writing adventures in 2023, and to wherever they lead.
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​OOPS! I almost forgot to write about what I do every night . . . blogs and book reviews. Manuscripts that go to agents and publishers have to be practically perfect. I still push my blogs/reviews to sound good, to be well written for you, but when you spend 3 rounds of revisions in one night on a passage, there’s no way it can be as good as something you spend a year revising. These posts . . . I do for fun, for you and me.

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#3 Family – The best way to have fun is to spend time with my family. This is an old photo from 2011, when my daughter graduated from high school.

Special occasions like graduations and weddings, birthdays and baptisms are time to enjoy family. Back in 2011 I celebrated them as a mom. Today in 2023 I celebrate as a grandma.
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When I get pictures now, they’re private, because that’s what my family wants. But, I can show you the kinds of occasions that we celebrate, as a family.  

Holidays like Christmas and Easter have always been a great time for family. My children are grown so now we spend a lot of holidays staying with them. It’s fun to see how they’ve incorporated some of the things we did as a family, and how they’ve added new things to make it their own. 

Sometimes the most fun is in the moments of everyday life. Watching a TV show or movie together. Sharing meals and conversations, that’s how I get to know my grown-up children.
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I’m not a morning person, but I’ll get up at 6AM to spend time with my grandkids. I don’t see them often, so whenever I visit, it’s prime time with them!

This is one of my favorite places, our house on Norris Lake. There’s nothing better than spending time there, especially if it’s with family. It’s one of the things I’m looking forward to this summer . . . my kids and grandkids coming in and enjoying everything the lake has to offer. Here’s to the best kind of fun . . . with my family!