Dear Reader,
I've spent half my day buried in a manuscript doing last minute line edits. I caught a lot of stuff on that last few rounds of editing but I'm still catching things on this round. I have lost count the number of times I have habitually misspelled some words by how they sound instead of how they actually are spelled. I am a bit annoyed, to be honest. Still, this means that I will have a theoretically clean manuscript to send off to the printers. I was hoping to have this done by last week but things keep happening. If I'm lucky I'll have it done by the beginning of next week.
Wish me luck.
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Finding free cover art is hard.
Dear Reader,
I've been trying to keep the covers of my books in keeping with a theme. That theme is setting where the principle action of the story takes place or major plot point location. I am hitting a point that the images are becoming more precise and I have problems finding just the right image that has all the permissions that I may use it for free. There is a lot of glorious artwork out there and a lot of people are just stealing it.
I do my best not to engage in that. I try to go through sites where the artwork is truly free. I try to use platforms where the artists are credited and paid for their work. I also do my best to give credit to the artist who produced the work. It's hard when your available budget for your books is close to zero. I honestly don't know how other people do it so well. Marketing is a challenge because you rely heavily upon word of mouth. One of the things that are key to a good marketing campaign is a great cover for your book.
I feel like mine are pretty meh. I find myself seriously considering changing cover art styles to hopefully something more eye catching. Then I look at the cost of such things and wilt a little. I consider making my own artwork for covers but then realize that it's beyond my scope. So, I just keep digging through different free websites and do my best to make sure that everything is on the up and up.
I almost think I want to attempt pitching something to a big publishing house. Then I realize that these book would likely not be eligible because I self-published them. Then I get angry about how the big publishing houses treat indie authors. At which point I decide, yet again, that I am going to go indie in my publishing process. And then despair a little over the prospect of how to market things and make my covers just right.
Full creative control is a lot of work. Nobody mentioned this to me when I was a kid talking about writing books for a living. The things you learn as you get into a project or three.
I've been trying to keep the covers of my books in keeping with a theme. That theme is setting where the principle action of the story takes place or major plot point location. I am hitting a point that the images are becoming more precise and I have problems finding just the right image that has all the permissions that I may use it for free. There is a lot of glorious artwork out there and a lot of people are just stealing it.
I do my best not to engage in that. I try to go through sites where the artwork is truly free. I try to use platforms where the artists are credited and paid for their work. I also do my best to give credit to the artist who produced the work. It's hard when your available budget for your books is close to zero. I honestly don't know how other people do it so well. Marketing is a challenge because you rely heavily upon word of mouth. One of the things that are key to a good marketing campaign is a great cover for your book.
I feel like mine are pretty meh. I find myself seriously considering changing cover art styles to hopefully something more eye catching. Then I look at the cost of such things and wilt a little. I consider making my own artwork for covers but then realize that it's beyond my scope. So, I just keep digging through different free websites and do my best to make sure that everything is on the up and up.
I almost think I want to attempt pitching something to a big publishing house. Then I realize that these book would likely not be eligible because I self-published them. Then I get angry about how the big publishing houses treat indie authors. At which point I decide, yet again, that I am going to go indie in my publishing process. And then despair a little over the prospect of how to market things and make my covers just right.
Full creative control is a lot of work. Nobody mentioned this to me when I was a kid talking about writing books for a living. The things you learn as you get into a project or three.
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Delays due to life happening again.
The book launch is delayed to next week at earliest because I have a sick kiddo. We've all been sharing this lovely norovirus. I think we should just NOPE the site from orbit. I'm hoping that my boys will be done with all of this being sick business this weekend. I've got plans for the family this weekend that kinda require them to be hale.
In the meantime, I have to go scrub more of the apartment with Lysol or something else stronger.
In the meantime, I have to go scrub more of the apartment with Lysol or something else stronger.
Friday, May 17, 2019
Coming Soon: Book 4 of the Umbrel Chronicles
Dear Reader,
Book 4 of the Umbrel Chronicles will be going to press in two weeks. It is novella length, so a bit of a quick read compared to the first three. In it, we get to see more of just what is going on under the Usurper's reign. Next week, I'll be posting pictures of the cover art and announcing the official title. I will also be kicking off the second trilogy of the Umbrel Chronicles with a bit of a contest, details to be announced next Wednesday with the cover reveal.
Book 4 of the Umbrel Chronicles will be going to press in two weeks. It is novella length, so a bit of a quick read compared to the first three. In it, we get to see more of just what is going on under the Usurper's reign. Next week, I'll be posting pictures of the cover art and announcing the official title. I will also be kicking off the second trilogy of the Umbrel Chronicles with a bit of a contest, details to be announced next Wednesday with the cover reveal.
AW: Morning post No. 12
I'm not calling the Camp NaNoWriMo project done. It is about half finished. But the part where I was conducting an informal experiment is concluded. I wrote 37565 words with a single papermate sharpwriter no. 2 mechanical pencil. That equates to 120 pages in the Norcom wide ruled composition notebook. I'm going to grab another mechanical pencil and fill up the rest of the notebook. I still have no idea where I am going with this thing. It is just word vomit from page three onward. The first two pages I sort of stuck to my plan to write happy fun erotica. Then I got stuck, so I decided to just write what ever my brain came up with.
Cue a rambling exploration of my history and a recitation of trauma. It is basically yet more therapy writing. I'm so tired of therapy writing. At the same time, the more I do it, the less problems I have. I have times where I lose time. Sounds a little weird. One therapist said it is because I have mood dependent memory issues. Another therapist said it was because I was dissociating due to my complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet another therapist refused to believe me when I said I was having memory problems because I keep a journal. I have gone through a number of therapists trying to make sense of what is going on in my head. It's hard to process things, it's hard to keep track of things, and it is hard to express things because I have a head full of noise most of the time.
Losing time is something that I describe as brain fog but that's really inadequate for it. I just don't remember. I am terrified of losing time. I am terrified of the memories that I don't remember clearly because the vagueness of it suggests that something bad was going on. I write in a journal but I don't remember to do it daily. I'll have my good spells where I write in there on a daily basis, even if it is just a few lines. Then I have my bad periods where I don't write much of anything anywhere.
During the bad days, my thinking is disordered. I can't remember what the hell I'm doing. I basically live in the moment with heaps of anxiety and panic. I'm doing better than I was a few years back. A few years ago, I basically spent most of my time depressed, struggling to get anything done. Depression contributes to my struggle to remember things. It makes me feel bad because I don't remember things like my kids first track and field event unless I have visual cues to remind me. Even then, the memory is fuzzy and feels like it belongs to someone else or some kind of fiction.
On my really bad days, I am trapped in this cycle of depression and derealization. I sit there and reality test damn near everything because I can't tell what is going on with me. I struggle to tell if my life is real or if it is an escapist dream where the reality is I'm living with people who made my life a living hell. The only things I find I am comfortably sure of are things that I can handle and manipulate. Like yarn and stuff that I can say "Yep, gravity is functioning. Water is still wet." I reality test viciously because I was gaslighted so much as a kid. It just became a coping mechanism. If I'm told something that my gut says is contrary to reality, I test it (even if it is in secret) and question the thing I've been told until I get to the root of what's really going on.
Thankfully, I have been out of that emotionally abusive situation for almost fourteen years, I have a partner who is always forthright and honest, and I have made a point of removing people who engage in toxic behaviors from my sphere of influence. But that habit of reality testing is still strong. And the long term effects of being told through my formative years that reality wasn't real still echo today. I don't know what any of this has to do with my writing. It's just word vomit. I probably should have saved it for my therapy journal. First, however, I have to find where I put the damn thing when I was last cleaning on a hypomanic spree.
Cue a rambling exploration of my history and a recitation of trauma. It is basically yet more therapy writing. I'm so tired of therapy writing. At the same time, the more I do it, the less problems I have. I have times where I lose time. Sounds a little weird. One therapist said it is because I have mood dependent memory issues. Another therapist said it was because I was dissociating due to my complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet another therapist refused to believe me when I said I was having memory problems because I keep a journal. I have gone through a number of therapists trying to make sense of what is going on in my head. It's hard to process things, it's hard to keep track of things, and it is hard to express things because I have a head full of noise most of the time.
Losing time is something that I describe as brain fog but that's really inadequate for it. I just don't remember. I am terrified of losing time. I am terrified of the memories that I don't remember clearly because the vagueness of it suggests that something bad was going on. I write in a journal but I don't remember to do it daily. I'll have my good spells where I write in there on a daily basis, even if it is just a few lines. Then I have my bad periods where I don't write much of anything anywhere.
During the bad days, my thinking is disordered. I can't remember what the hell I'm doing. I basically live in the moment with heaps of anxiety and panic. I'm doing better than I was a few years back. A few years ago, I basically spent most of my time depressed, struggling to get anything done. Depression contributes to my struggle to remember things. It makes me feel bad because I don't remember things like my kids first track and field event unless I have visual cues to remind me. Even then, the memory is fuzzy and feels like it belongs to someone else or some kind of fiction.
On my really bad days, I am trapped in this cycle of depression and derealization. I sit there and reality test damn near everything because I can't tell what is going on with me. I struggle to tell if my life is real or if it is an escapist dream where the reality is I'm living with people who made my life a living hell. The only things I find I am comfortably sure of are things that I can handle and manipulate. Like yarn and stuff that I can say "Yep, gravity is functioning. Water is still wet." I reality test viciously because I was gaslighted so much as a kid. It just became a coping mechanism. If I'm told something that my gut says is contrary to reality, I test it (even if it is in secret) and question the thing I've been told until I get to the root of what's really going on.
Thankfully, I have been out of that emotionally abusive situation for almost fourteen years, I have a partner who is always forthright and honest, and I have made a point of removing people who engage in toxic behaviors from my sphere of influence. But that habit of reality testing is still strong. And the long term effects of being told through my formative years that reality wasn't real still echo today. I don't know what any of this has to do with my writing. It's just word vomit. I probably should have saved it for my therapy journal. First, however, I have to find where I put the damn thing when I was last cleaning on a hypomanic spree.
Thursday, May 16, 2019
Novel Progress Update: LOLWUT?
In case you haven't seen it in my morning blog posts (which haven't been happening every morning, but I'm trying to make it happen every day), I'm stalled on book seven. I have this massive battle to write and the lead up to it feels like garbage. I kinda hate the whole manuscript and feel like I should delete it and start over again.
I felt that way about some other projects in the past which turned out to actually be pretty good. I think the problem is I am depressed right now. Writing while depressed makes everything look worse.
You may be wondering about the meme. This is my characters in a nutshell. I have been trying to stick with my plot and I have gone so far afield that I don't think there is anyway to rescue it. I don't know what the hell I'm doing and that has me really frustrated.
AW: Morning (somewhere) post no. 11
It's eight thirty-seven at night and I'm typing this. I'm sick with some kind of stupid virus that has me feeling nauseated and excessive heartburn. I slept terribly last night and slept for about half the day today. Right now my youngest child is fussy because neither his father nor I are budging on the matter of bedtime. My eldest child is attempting to comfort him, when he should just stop talking and go to sleep.
It's been a long day. Fortunately, my dear and loving husband has taken care of the dinner leftovers and sorted out the business of the kids' behavior right now. I'm not sure what to type aside from this running narrative. It seems like the country is a dumpster fire and I've got nothing positive to contribute because a bunch of reasons. All of them boil down to some manifestation of I'm too broke and too disabled to do anything beyond hammer away at my keyboard.
Shouting into the void only makes your voice hoarse. I may be somewhat depressed. Watching as we turn into the Gilead slowly and listening to people cheer this on disturbs me on a fundamental level. Listening to the inane blabbering of elected officials about impossible prospects (I'm looking at you, Ted Cruz, and your stupid ass 'space pirates'.) makes me want to NOPE out of social media. Not that I follow the guy, but he says something monumentally dumb and it pops up everywhere with people going WTF?
Beloved says that they're desperately trying to distract us. I'm sure they are. I just don't like the fact that my uterus is a gambling chit. I don't like the fact that the prospect of real war with Iran is a gambling chit. The list goes on. But the people in power don't give a damn about the real world implications of these things because they're not really going to have it effect them.
It's not their kids that go off to war. It's not their family that has to endure harassment because they're not cis, white, or heterosexual. They've got enough money to be insulated from the problems of the 'little people'. So, they don't give a good gods damn about any of it. It is all just abstract concepts that they can mutter jargon about with out a care in the world for the lives that they disrupt or ruin in the process of muttering that jargon.
I guess I did have something to natter on about. I'd say it was time to eat the rich but, honestly, I think they're so spoiled you'd get food poisoning. If it weren't for the fact that it wasn't a realistic thing, I'd say we take to the streets and scream until they listen. But they're not going to listen. They'll likely call the national guard to turn the fire hoses on us, if we're not dealing with gunfire and bayonets.
Cynical people would say to me that I have nothing to worry about. I'm by all appearances part of the privileged class of people. You look at me, the only thing that stands out about me as being 'other' is the fact that I cover my hair. Aside from that, I look like a 'normal' rural housewife with a 'normal' family. My disability isn't obvious. I've had people make smart comments about mental illness around me completely oblivious to how angry and hurtful it was to me.
But, somewhere, I'm on somebody's list of people who have got to go. Why? Because I'm disabled, because I'm not Christian, because I'm the mother of two autistic children, and because I'm an uppity woman. If it weren't for my social phobia, I would be out in the street screaming at the protests. I fear for the future with the greedy, self-absorbed, egomaniacs in power. This is a grim post, but the news is grim and you can't write horror to the level of what reality can bring you.
It's been a long day. Fortunately, my dear and loving husband has taken care of the dinner leftovers and sorted out the business of the kids' behavior right now. I'm not sure what to type aside from this running narrative. It seems like the country is a dumpster fire and I've got nothing positive to contribute because a bunch of reasons. All of them boil down to some manifestation of I'm too broke and too disabled to do anything beyond hammer away at my keyboard.
Shouting into the void only makes your voice hoarse. I may be somewhat depressed. Watching as we turn into the Gilead slowly and listening to people cheer this on disturbs me on a fundamental level. Listening to the inane blabbering of elected officials about impossible prospects (I'm looking at you, Ted Cruz, and your stupid ass 'space pirates'.) makes me want to NOPE out of social media. Not that I follow the guy, but he says something monumentally dumb and it pops up everywhere with people going WTF?
Beloved says that they're desperately trying to distract us. I'm sure they are. I just don't like the fact that my uterus is a gambling chit. I don't like the fact that the prospect of real war with Iran is a gambling chit. The list goes on. But the people in power don't give a damn about the real world implications of these things because they're not really going to have it effect them.
It's not their kids that go off to war. It's not their family that has to endure harassment because they're not cis, white, or heterosexual. They've got enough money to be insulated from the problems of the 'little people'. So, they don't give a good gods damn about any of it. It is all just abstract concepts that they can mutter jargon about with out a care in the world for the lives that they disrupt or ruin in the process of muttering that jargon.
I guess I did have something to natter on about. I'd say it was time to eat the rich but, honestly, I think they're so spoiled you'd get food poisoning. If it weren't for the fact that it wasn't a realistic thing, I'd say we take to the streets and scream until they listen. But they're not going to listen. They'll likely call the national guard to turn the fire hoses on us, if we're not dealing with gunfire and bayonets.
Cynical people would say to me that I have nothing to worry about. I'm by all appearances part of the privileged class of people. You look at me, the only thing that stands out about me as being 'other' is the fact that I cover my hair. Aside from that, I look like a 'normal' rural housewife with a 'normal' family. My disability isn't obvious. I've had people make smart comments about mental illness around me completely oblivious to how angry and hurtful it was to me.
But, somewhere, I'm on somebody's list of people who have got to go. Why? Because I'm disabled, because I'm not Christian, because I'm the mother of two autistic children, and because I'm an uppity woman. If it weren't for my social phobia, I would be out in the street screaming at the protests. I fear for the future with the greedy, self-absorbed, egomaniacs in power. This is a grim post, but the news is grim and you can't write horror to the level of what reality can bring you.
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
AW: Morning post 10(?)
I haven't had enough coffee to fully wake up yet. I'm already upset with the universe. Well, not the universe but the idiot politicians who seem to think that they can legislate women's health. And the anger just spills over into other areas. I have tried doing some spinning to calm down. It sort of works. All of this business about people placing a fetus over a living person makes me furious. Birth is a complicated and messy thing. Everything about pregnancy is complicated and messy. So is conception. But, for some stupid reason, these legislators seem to think they can do things like ban birth control medication and very important medical procedures 'for the children.'
My best friend nearly died from hemorrhaging during her period. She had to get a D&C to stop her from bleeding to death. I've been on some form of birth control for years to control migraines and the symptoms of PCOS. But we're all hussies who just want to have some morally bankrupt doctor vacuum out the babies that we are morally responsible for regardless of how they are conceived, the life circumstances, or the medical dangers of pregnancy. I am sickened with the wave of anti-abortion laws popping up in this country. It puts the lives of people with a uterus in danger.
I read a story of a woman who was in the midst of a miscarriage late in her pregnancy. The fetus was stuck. The fetus was very deceased. The doctor called a judge to get an order signed so that he could perform an abortion and the judge decided that this poor woman was not in sufficient danger of bleeding out and refused to sign the order. The woman laid in the hospital and bled for 18 hours. This damn near killed her. This was before Roe v. Wade. Now, this manner of barbarism is coming back into the picture.
I damn my social phobia for keeping me from being a more active voice against this pro-birth movement. These people claim to be pro-life but it is a straight up lie. They are doing nothing to help the infants born into poverty. They are doing nothing to help the orphans and other children who are in the foster care system waiting for families. They are not pro-life if they are advocating women who have miscarriages be treated like murderers in states where murder is a crime that carries the risk of the death penalty.
When the hell did people decide that A Handmaid's Tale was an instructional manual? What fresh hell is waiting for us tomorrow? The Georgia laws are turning women into chattel again. The very concept that they can be prosecuted for getting a medical procedure out of state is against the laws of the constitution that regulate interstate commerce. But, even more so, they are implying that women are the property of the state by denying them freedom of travel and bodily autonomy.
What's next? What is fucking next? Who needs a horror novel with all of this shit unfolding all around us?
My best friend nearly died from hemorrhaging during her period. She had to get a D&C to stop her from bleeding to death. I've been on some form of birth control for years to control migraines and the symptoms of PCOS. But we're all hussies who just want to have some morally bankrupt doctor vacuum out the babies that we are morally responsible for regardless of how they are conceived, the life circumstances, or the medical dangers of pregnancy. I am sickened with the wave of anti-abortion laws popping up in this country. It puts the lives of people with a uterus in danger.
I read a story of a woman who was in the midst of a miscarriage late in her pregnancy. The fetus was stuck. The fetus was very deceased. The doctor called a judge to get an order signed so that he could perform an abortion and the judge decided that this poor woman was not in sufficient danger of bleeding out and refused to sign the order. The woman laid in the hospital and bled for 18 hours. This damn near killed her. This was before Roe v. Wade. Now, this manner of barbarism is coming back into the picture.
I damn my social phobia for keeping me from being a more active voice against this pro-birth movement. These people claim to be pro-life but it is a straight up lie. They are doing nothing to help the infants born into poverty. They are doing nothing to help the orphans and other children who are in the foster care system waiting for families. They are not pro-life if they are advocating women who have miscarriages be treated like murderers in states where murder is a crime that carries the risk of the death penalty.
When the hell did people decide that A Handmaid's Tale was an instructional manual? What fresh hell is waiting for us tomorrow? The Georgia laws are turning women into chattel again. The very concept that they can be prosecuted for getting a medical procedure out of state is against the laws of the constitution that regulate interstate commerce. But, even more so, they are implying that women are the property of the state by denying them freedom of travel and bodily autonomy.
What's next? What is fucking next? Who needs a horror novel with all of this shit unfolding all around us?
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
AW: Morning (HAHAHAHA!) post No. 9
I feel guilty about not writing these entries daily. I am struggling to keep up in my notebook too. It's just been a difficult week. Last week it was food poisoning and dentist appointments. It was being depressed and going out to do stuff with the family. This week it is depression again and now I've got some kind of stomach bug. I feel miserable.
I'm trying to get back to blogging daily by any means. It is an uphill battle because scumbag brain is telling me that any entry I make is worthless and a waste of electrons. It is very frustrating. Still, I'm trying so I guess that counts for something. The weather today is awful. It is cold, rainy, and windy. I think we're somewhere in the mid 40s (Fahrenheit) at best temperature wise. I put my plants out on the back deck in the hopes that we were past the last frost. Now I am concerned that I have just about killed them with the cool temperatures.
I'm seriously contemplating giving up on attempting to garden. I have a hard time staying on top of weeding the small flower bed out front. I have a hard time staying on top of watering things out on the back deck. I haven't purchased any plants. I haven't planted any plants. I feel like I'm a fraud because what kind of witch can't keep a garden of any sort? Even my houseplants aren't doing too well.
I had this image in my head of how I was going to do things. I was going to grow up and have a job teaching. When I wasn't busy teaching, I was going to write books and sell them. At the same time, I was going to raise a family and keep a garden. Well, I'm not teaching. The books I write aren't really selling that well because I have no clue what I'm doing marketing them. I am raising a family with a loving and wonderful husband who supports me in everything. I can't manage to keep a garden going to save my life. I've tried for the last three years. It just goes wrong. Usually when I get depressed because I forget about the plants out on the back deck.
I am frustrated and kinda hurt because I keep falling short of goals. I know that this isn't because I am a bad person. I know that this isn't because I'm some how flawed. I know this is a consequence of the executive dysfunction that goes with my cPTSD and bipolar. It still hurts. I just don't know how to 'get over it' or how to live with it. It seems like every time I turn around, my brain malfunctioning is making problems in my life. I hate it. I hate how I can sit here and look at my piles of notes and have no idea where I was going with them because my mood is shit and I can't access the memories of what the plan was.
The bullet journal helps when I remember to write in it. But it doesn't seem to be enough for all of the writing I am trying to do. A therapist said maybe I should give some of this up. I used to keep seven blogs. I shut down two. I've got a third that I post so infrequently on that it might as well be shut down. I barely post on a fourth blog. I feel like I just don't have the spoons to do this anymore.
It hurts to write that. It hurts because I feel like I have had so much of my life robbed from me by the things that have caused me to struggle with writing. The creative injuries in my life range from having my journals read out loud and mocked to having my poetry savaged by someone I highly respected to as far as being physically hurt for not writing the 'right' kind of thing for someone and having my words written in my private journal used against me in an attempt to destroy my family.
And that therapist's 'well, maybe you shouldn't do it if it hurts' is just another knife in the back. That's like cutting off a painter's hands and telling them they should just go find another life. That's like breaking a dancer's legs and telling them that they shouldn't have attempted to dance to begin with. Writing is an intimate part of who I am. But scumbag brain brings that therapist's advice up now when I get really depressed. Scumbag brain brings up how I was hurt because I didn't write sexy enough erotica for a man who was sexually assaulting me on a regular basis at the age of 14. Scumbag brain brings up how my journal was used as evidence against me to paint me as a dangerous crazy person.
Scumbag brain is not my enemy, but scumbag brain is my enemy at the same time.
I'm trying to get back to blogging daily by any means. It is an uphill battle because scumbag brain is telling me that any entry I make is worthless and a waste of electrons. It is very frustrating. Still, I'm trying so I guess that counts for something. The weather today is awful. It is cold, rainy, and windy. I think we're somewhere in the mid 40s (Fahrenheit) at best temperature wise. I put my plants out on the back deck in the hopes that we were past the last frost. Now I am concerned that I have just about killed them with the cool temperatures.
I'm seriously contemplating giving up on attempting to garden. I have a hard time staying on top of weeding the small flower bed out front. I have a hard time staying on top of watering things out on the back deck. I haven't purchased any plants. I haven't planted any plants. I feel like I'm a fraud because what kind of witch can't keep a garden of any sort? Even my houseplants aren't doing too well.
I had this image in my head of how I was going to do things. I was going to grow up and have a job teaching. When I wasn't busy teaching, I was going to write books and sell them. At the same time, I was going to raise a family and keep a garden. Well, I'm not teaching. The books I write aren't really selling that well because I have no clue what I'm doing marketing them. I am raising a family with a loving and wonderful husband who supports me in everything. I can't manage to keep a garden going to save my life. I've tried for the last three years. It just goes wrong. Usually when I get depressed because I forget about the plants out on the back deck.
I am frustrated and kinda hurt because I keep falling short of goals. I know that this isn't because I am a bad person. I know that this isn't because I'm some how flawed. I know this is a consequence of the executive dysfunction that goes with my cPTSD and bipolar. It still hurts. I just don't know how to 'get over it' or how to live with it. It seems like every time I turn around, my brain malfunctioning is making problems in my life. I hate it. I hate how I can sit here and look at my piles of notes and have no idea where I was going with them because my mood is shit and I can't access the memories of what the plan was.
The bullet journal helps when I remember to write in it. But it doesn't seem to be enough for all of the writing I am trying to do. A therapist said maybe I should give some of this up. I used to keep seven blogs. I shut down two. I've got a third that I post so infrequently on that it might as well be shut down. I barely post on a fourth blog. I feel like I just don't have the spoons to do this anymore.
It hurts to write that. It hurts because I feel like I have had so much of my life robbed from me by the things that have caused me to struggle with writing. The creative injuries in my life range from having my journals read out loud and mocked to having my poetry savaged by someone I highly respected to as far as being physically hurt for not writing the 'right' kind of thing for someone and having my words written in my private journal used against me in an attempt to destroy my family.
And that therapist's 'well, maybe you shouldn't do it if it hurts' is just another knife in the back. That's like cutting off a painter's hands and telling them they should just go find another life. That's like breaking a dancer's legs and telling them that they shouldn't have attempted to dance to begin with. Writing is an intimate part of who I am. But scumbag brain brings that therapist's advice up now when I get really depressed. Scumbag brain brings up how I was hurt because I didn't write sexy enough erotica for a man who was sexually assaulting me on a regular basis at the age of 14. Scumbag brain brings up how my journal was used as evidence against me to paint me as a dangerous crazy person.
Scumbag brain is not my enemy, but scumbag brain is my enemy at the same time.
Flora & Fauna: WHY WON'T THE PICTURES LOOK RIGHT?!
Dear Reader,
Some people are fantastic artists. They can draw pretty much anything you can think of and a dozen things you haven't imagined. I'm not so great. I'm trying again to sketch out the bear root plant and I just can't get the root ball to come out correctly. I'm trying to sketch a few characters and I'm having a devil of a time trying to make the hands come out right, let alone have faces in the correct proportions. A part of me says I should go back to the semi-cartoonish style I was working in when I was at the daycare teaching and drawing portraits of the kids for them to color in when they got bored with coloring book pages.
I used to be pretty good with realism. Still life sketches are ok. It gets hard when I'm trying to get the shading of things right. It gets hard when I'm trying to draw intricate root structures (because it is as bad as drawing hands if not a thousand times worse). I am not giving up on the herbal/bestiary project that I have going as part of the legendarium for this series. I'm just taking a breather from drawing stuff because I don't think my notebook can handle more erasing and redrawing of material.
I had this wild dream of possibly doing these sketches in pen and ink. I even made sure to have a full set of dip pens for the project. I haven't touched them once. I'm afraid that I am going to have even less control over the ink than I do over water colors. Anyone with any suggestions for how to keep your ink from bleeding together, I am highly interested.
In the meantime, I'm going to go back to reading herbals to try to concoct some recipes that these theoretical plants would be used in. Culpepper is my friend right now. Middle English may be a bit hard to decipher at times, but it is easier than drawing hands or root balls right now.
Some people are fantastic artists. They can draw pretty much anything you can think of and a dozen things you haven't imagined. I'm not so great. I'm trying again to sketch out the bear root plant and I just can't get the root ball to come out correctly. I'm trying to sketch a few characters and I'm having a devil of a time trying to make the hands come out right, let alone have faces in the correct proportions. A part of me says I should go back to the semi-cartoonish style I was working in when I was at the daycare teaching and drawing portraits of the kids for them to color in when they got bored with coloring book pages.
I used to be pretty good with realism. Still life sketches are ok. It gets hard when I'm trying to get the shading of things right. It gets hard when I'm trying to draw intricate root structures (because it is as bad as drawing hands if not a thousand times worse). I am not giving up on the herbal/bestiary project that I have going as part of the legendarium for this series. I'm just taking a breather from drawing stuff because I don't think my notebook can handle more erasing and redrawing of material.
I had this wild dream of possibly doing these sketches in pen and ink. I even made sure to have a full set of dip pens for the project. I haven't touched them once. I'm afraid that I am going to have even less control over the ink than I do over water colors. Anyone with any suggestions for how to keep your ink from bleeding together, I am highly interested.
In the meantime, I'm going to go back to reading herbals to try to concoct some recipes that these theoretical plants would be used in. Culpepper is my friend right now. Middle English may be a bit hard to decipher at times, but it is easier than drawing hands or root balls right now.
Monday, May 13, 2019
Craft of Writing: Fuck Depression.
Dear Reader,
Some strong language for some strong feelings today. Or as some would say 'BIG MOOD'. I've been struggling with depression for months now. It is not severe and utterly debilitating. I can still get through a good chunk of my daily routine. It just sucks the life out of my creativity and leaves me questioning just what I was thinking when it came to being any sort of artist, author, or any other manner of a creative soul.
Depression is hard to write your way through. I never cease to be amazed by people who tell me stories of people they know who are writers that struggle with depression. These other writers with depression some how manage to keep working despite how bleak and hopeless it all seems. It leaves me feeling like a hack, to be honest. I know that feeling is yet more scumbag brain being a fucking ass but the difference between knowing and feeling is vast.
I try to allow myself time to sit with my depression and 'hold space' for those feelings like I was taught in therapy. I try to journal it out and make art to get it out of my head. It is like trying to dig a grave with a teaspoon. All the time I spend in silence, I feel guilty for not writing, not creating, and not doing more. I feel like I should be out there hustling like so many others despite their challenges.
I'm still making the attempt. I'm just fumbling and stumbling like a drunkard. I hate that I get like this. I hate that depression does this to other people. I wish that they could find a cure to the fucked up brain chemistry that causes this or some kind of vaccine. If there was some way to correct the chemical imbalance that makes me want to curl up into a ball, hide somewhere, and cry for no reason at all, I'd be shoving people out of the way to sign up for it.
Instead, I go through periods where I feel too worthless to share what is on my mind, any of my work, or even mention that I have actually self-published a few books. Scumbag brain goes "None of that counts. It's only a vanity press. You work isn't good enough to get any real traction. Just give up." It isn't just about my writing. That scumbag brain pops off over everything when I'm depressed. It ranges from regaling me with all of the ways I have screwed up in the past and how I am doomed to future failures to harsh condemnation for my not doing enough to keep up with my family.
So, I'm attempting to make this stuff happen. Scumbag brain keeps yammering about how I should delete this post because it has NOTHING to do with writing. That, however, is wrong. This post has EVERYTHING to do with writing and being creative.
Writing and being creative is hard work. It gets even more difficult on a asymptotic scale with each challenge thrown at you. There's a limit to how hard it gets. That limit is your breaking point. But until you hit that breaking point, remember you can do anything for just a few minutes. Even if it is five minutes of writing out "I FUCKING HATE MY BRAIN." repeatedly over the page. The trick is, depression is like a lot of other illnesses.
You will have periods where you are depressed and it will be very hard to be expressive. But, those periods will lift. Depending on the form of depression you are dealing with, you may have the good fortune of a permanent relief or the recurring challenge of relapses in to despair. In either case, the depression will ease at some point and you can get to do more of the work you love then. In the meantime, you keep trying because that keeps you in form to do the work.
Some strong language for some strong feelings today. Or as some would say 'BIG MOOD'. I've been struggling with depression for months now. It is not severe and utterly debilitating. I can still get through a good chunk of my daily routine. It just sucks the life out of my creativity and leaves me questioning just what I was thinking when it came to being any sort of artist, author, or any other manner of a creative soul.
Depression is hard to write your way through. I never cease to be amazed by people who tell me stories of people they know who are writers that struggle with depression. These other writers with depression some how manage to keep working despite how bleak and hopeless it all seems. It leaves me feeling like a hack, to be honest. I know that feeling is yet more scumbag brain being a fucking ass but the difference between knowing and feeling is vast.
I try to allow myself time to sit with my depression and 'hold space' for those feelings like I was taught in therapy. I try to journal it out and make art to get it out of my head. It is like trying to dig a grave with a teaspoon. All the time I spend in silence, I feel guilty for not writing, not creating, and not doing more. I feel like I should be out there hustling like so many others despite their challenges.
I'm still making the attempt. I'm just fumbling and stumbling like a drunkard. I hate that I get like this. I hate that depression does this to other people. I wish that they could find a cure to the fucked up brain chemistry that causes this or some kind of vaccine. If there was some way to correct the chemical imbalance that makes me want to curl up into a ball, hide somewhere, and cry for no reason at all, I'd be shoving people out of the way to sign up for it.
Instead, I go through periods where I feel too worthless to share what is on my mind, any of my work, or even mention that I have actually self-published a few books. Scumbag brain goes "None of that counts. It's only a vanity press. You work isn't good enough to get any real traction. Just give up." It isn't just about my writing. That scumbag brain pops off over everything when I'm depressed. It ranges from regaling me with all of the ways I have screwed up in the past and how I am doomed to future failures to harsh condemnation for my not doing enough to keep up with my family.
So, I'm attempting to make this stuff happen. Scumbag brain keeps yammering about how I should delete this post because it has NOTHING to do with writing. That, however, is wrong. This post has EVERYTHING to do with writing and being creative.
Writing and being creative is hard work. It gets even more difficult on a asymptotic scale with each challenge thrown at you. There's a limit to how hard it gets. That limit is your breaking point. But until you hit that breaking point, remember you can do anything for just a few minutes. Even if it is five minutes of writing out "I FUCKING HATE MY BRAIN." repeatedly over the page. The trick is, depression is like a lot of other illnesses.
You will have periods where you are depressed and it will be very hard to be expressive. But, those periods will lift. Depending on the form of depression you are dealing with, you may have the good fortune of a permanent relief or the recurring challenge of relapses in to despair. In either case, the depression will ease at some point and you can get to do more of the work you love then. In the meantime, you keep trying because that keeps you in form to do the work.
Friday, May 10, 2019
Book Review: Coyote Songs
Title: Coyote Songs
Author: Gabino Inglesias
Publisher: Broken River Books Date: 2018
This is another book that I wish I had a physical copy for my personal library. The Kindle edition is fantastic. The font was such that I didn't need my reading glasses. Again, this was a great thing.
I'm not sure where to begin. This book tells several stories all at the same time. Each of them is heart rending. Each of them is horrific. And yet, in the conclusion of the book, there is some form of solace in a curious manner. Mr. Inglesias's writing style is tight and fast paced. It was easy to get lost in the book because of how quickly he moves the story along. It is like being caught up in a river and next thing you know an hour's gone by and you can't put the book down. His deft handling of the very human emotions of the characters, even the most monstrous of them, makes just about all of them easy to empathize with. This is precisely why the plot twists are like a punch in the gut. Mr. Inglesias has an excellent sense of dramatic timing an keeps his readers on tenterhooks through out the entire wild ride.
10/10
Originally Published: 5/10/2019
The original post has a link to where you can purchase a copy. I whole heartedly encourage you to do so. I'm sure that we're going to see more amazing work from Mr. Inglesias
Author: Gabino Inglesias
Publisher: Broken River Books Date: 2018
This is another book that I wish I had a physical copy for my personal library. The Kindle edition is fantastic. The font was such that I didn't need my reading glasses. Again, this was a great thing.
I'm not sure where to begin. This book tells several stories all at the same time. Each of them is heart rending. Each of them is horrific. And yet, in the conclusion of the book, there is some form of solace in a curious manner. Mr. Inglesias's writing style is tight and fast paced. It was easy to get lost in the book because of how quickly he moves the story along. It is like being caught up in a river and next thing you know an hour's gone by and you can't put the book down. His deft handling of the very human emotions of the characters, even the most monstrous of them, makes just about all of them easy to empathize with. This is precisely why the plot twists are like a punch in the gut. Mr. Inglesias has an excellent sense of dramatic timing an keeps his readers on tenterhooks through out the entire wild ride.
10/10
Originally Published: 5/10/2019
The original post has a link to where you can purchase a copy. I whole heartedly encourage you to do so. I'm sure that we're going to see more amazing work from Mr. Inglesias
Book Review: A Slip of the Keyboard
Title: A Slip of the Keyboard
Author: Sir Terry Pratchett
Publisher: Anchor Date: 2014
ISBN: 0804169225
I wish that I had a physical copy for my personal library. That said, the Kindle edition was very easy to read and well formatted. I highly recommend it on the basis of the fact that font size was very easy on my eyes. (AKA I didn't need my new reading glasses to read it. It was great.)
The forward was written by Sir Pratchett's friend Neil Gaiman. It give a brief and intimate glimpse into the relationship between these two writers. It is also something of a peek at the man behind the phenomenon of the Discworld series through the eyes of someone who knew him closely.
The collected non-fiction essays and short works were a delight to read. I found Sir Pratchett's account of his life as an author on tour especially entertaining. His writings with respect to Alzheimer's disease were both heart breaking and inspiring at the same time. I couldn't help but be in awe of the fact that in the face of such a serious and degenerative disease, Sir Pratchett fought with words against the stigma of having Alzheimer's and for better care for people who had early onset Alzheimer's disease, like himself. It was especially moving to see how he noted his position of wealth allowed him better access to care and his demand that others not need to jump through so many hoops to get the care they need.
A Slip of the Keyboard was a relatively quick read. It was not the light hearted fare that one typically expects of Sir Pratchett's work but it gives a deeper look into the mind behind the Discworld series. That in turn illuminates the Discworld series and all of his other work to give one a better grasp of what Sir Pratchett was attempting to convey through his work.
Originally Posted: 5/10/2019
Edited to fix typos.
Author: Sir Terry Pratchett
Publisher: Anchor Date: 2014
ISBN: 0804169225
I wish that I had a physical copy for my personal library. That said, the Kindle edition was very easy to read and well formatted. I highly recommend it on the basis of the fact that font size was very easy on my eyes. (AKA I didn't need my new reading glasses to read it. It was great.)
The forward was written by Sir Pratchett's friend Neil Gaiman. It give a brief and intimate glimpse into the relationship between these two writers. It is also something of a peek at the man behind the phenomenon of the Discworld series through the eyes of someone who knew him closely.
The collected non-fiction essays and short works were a delight to read. I found Sir Pratchett's account of his life as an author on tour especially entertaining. His writings with respect to Alzheimer's disease were both heart breaking and inspiring at the same time. I couldn't help but be in awe of the fact that in the face of such a serious and degenerative disease, Sir Pratchett fought with words against the stigma of having Alzheimer's and for better care for people who had early onset Alzheimer's disease, like himself. It was especially moving to see how he noted his position of wealth allowed him better access to care and his demand that others not need to jump through so many hoops to get the care they need.
A Slip of the Keyboard was a relatively quick read. It was not the light hearted fare that one typically expects of Sir Pratchett's work but it gives a deeper look into the mind behind the Discworld series. That in turn illuminates the Discworld series and all of his other work to give one a better grasp of what Sir Pratchett was attempting to convey through his work.
Originally Posted: 5/10/2019
Edited to fix typos.
AW: Morning (nope) post No. 8
I'm sitting here and it is almost time to make dinner. It's been a long miserable day for me. I love the rain. The sound of it is so peaceful. But, I hate the rain because rainy days make my depression act up. It has been a day of alternating rain and mostly clouds. There was a little bit of sun when I was getting my youngest child off the school bus this afternoon, but not much. And since that front passed through, things are much cooler than they were yesterday.
I have been trying to push through the depression when it rolls over me. It has been very hard. I just want to sleep and I feel as though I should hide somewhere and cry when the weather turns bad. I'm not sure, but I'm starting to suspect there is some kind of trauma memory attached to this kind of weather. The thing is, I have lived through so much trauma, I honestly have no idea where to begin sorting that out.
I used to love storms with high winds. I have a mild fear of tornadoes, but the sound of the wind howling along with the thunder crashing used to make my blood pump and my heart go pitter-pat. Now, I feel this cold sense of dread. It is probably tied to what ever is the cause of my getting depressed when the weather is overcast, chill, and there's precipitation.
I don't know what to write, hence my rambling about this stuff. I don't have any forward momentum going on book seven. It has been languishing for a few weeks because I have written myself into a corner. I think I'll be deleting a big section and re-writing it. I'm just not happy with it and I find myself looking at it as terribly contrived. Deus ex machina is a thing but I try not to use it very much this way when I do use it, it has some effect. I try to make it so that the characters are in a position of awe and wonder when deities and demigods are around them. I don't want these characters to be ho-hum about the fact that there's a shape shifting dragon near by. I don't want them to get comfortable with the fact that there is a demigod in their company.
I feel like with this section of book seven, I have taken the awe out of these interactions and made them into something rote. I don't like that. It feels like a bad role playing game session where the dungeon master has decided to flex their might to force the players along a path for the sake of their convenience rather than allowing the story to develop on its own. I've never liked games where that happened. At one point, I had a DM decide that my character was going to get seduced regardless of if it made sense in the plot or if I wanted it to happen to my character. Rolls were made, and while that non player character was getting the benefit of natural 20s, I wasn't playing the reaction he wanted. My character loved the NPC like a little brother and not like a lover. The DM tried to push the issue and it was making me uncomfortable and angry. That was when I stood up to grab the fire poker in the joists of the ceiling of the room we were playing in to beat him literally. And that's when the game ended with the DM making lewd 'jokes' at me and insisting that I was a bad player for not going along with essentially my character getting raped.
I quit gaming for a while after that. But it gave me fodder for how to describe a scene like that and that guy was no longer a friend. When we met several years later, he tried to give me a hug and I told him if he laid one finger on me I was going to punch him in the face. He was irate. Called me a cold bitch before stalking off. I knew that he had a crush on me. I had been kind and polite when I turned down his advances because I was already with someone. Apparently, I should have just beaten him up to make clear that I didn't want that kind of attention.
He wanted to make a comic book at one point in time. He tried to get me to write stories for him. I wrote a few scenes and he was upset that there was nothing remotely sexy in them. I stopped writing scenes for him. That really should have been my first clue that he was going to get aggressive with his attentions towards me. My discomfort with the bad DM's attitude and sense of entitlement translated into discomfort writing erotica.
I haven't quite fully recovered from that. Doesn't help that [redacted] insisted that I write him erotica while he was stationed overseas (and it had to be of a specific sort that he preferred). [Redacted] insisted I write him things like that when we were dating before he joined the military. I was embarrassed by it but I wrote it because then he was less likely to hurt me or do something that would humiliate me to punish me for not doing what he wanted. [Redacted] was a world class asshole, to put it very lightly. I still kinda regret not letting him get hit by that truck when he was jaywalking.
I have been trying to push through the depression when it rolls over me. It has been very hard. I just want to sleep and I feel as though I should hide somewhere and cry when the weather turns bad. I'm not sure, but I'm starting to suspect there is some kind of trauma memory attached to this kind of weather. The thing is, I have lived through so much trauma, I honestly have no idea where to begin sorting that out.
I used to love storms with high winds. I have a mild fear of tornadoes, but the sound of the wind howling along with the thunder crashing used to make my blood pump and my heart go pitter-pat. Now, I feel this cold sense of dread. It is probably tied to what ever is the cause of my getting depressed when the weather is overcast, chill, and there's precipitation.
I don't know what to write, hence my rambling about this stuff. I don't have any forward momentum going on book seven. It has been languishing for a few weeks because I have written myself into a corner. I think I'll be deleting a big section and re-writing it. I'm just not happy with it and I find myself looking at it as terribly contrived. Deus ex machina is a thing but I try not to use it very much this way when I do use it, it has some effect. I try to make it so that the characters are in a position of awe and wonder when deities and demigods are around them. I don't want these characters to be ho-hum about the fact that there's a shape shifting dragon near by. I don't want them to get comfortable with the fact that there is a demigod in their company.
I feel like with this section of book seven, I have taken the awe out of these interactions and made them into something rote. I don't like that. It feels like a bad role playing game session where the dungeon master has decided to flex their might to force the players along a path for the sake of their convenience rather than allowing the story to develop on its own. I've never liked games where that happened. At one point, I had a DM decide that my character was going to get seduced regardless of if it made sense in the plot or if I wanted it to happen to my character. Rolls were made, and while that non player character was getting the benefit of natural 20s, I wasn't playing the reaction he wanted. My character loved the NPC like a little brother and not like a lover. The DM tried to push the issue and it was making me uncomfortable and angry. That was when I stood up to grab the fire poker in the joists of the ceiling of the room we were playing in to beat him literally. And that's when the game ended with the DM making lewd 'jokes' at me and insisting that I was a bad player for not going along with essentially my character getting raped.
I quit gaming for a while after that. But it gave me fodder for how to describe a scene like that and that guy was no longer a friend. When we met several years later, he tried to give me a hug and I told him if he laid one finger on me I was going to punch him in the face. He was irate. Called me a cold bitch before stalking off. I knew that he had a crush on me. I had been kind and polite when I turned down his advances because I was already with someone. Apparently, I should have just beaten him up to make clear that I didn't want that kind of attention.
He wanted to make a comic book at one point in time. He tried to get me to write stories for him. I wrote a few scenes and he was upset that there was nothing remotely sexy in them. I stopped writing scenes for him. That really should have been my first clue that he was going to get aggressive with his attentions towards me. My discomfort with the bad DM's attitude and sense of entitlement translated into discomfort writing erotica.
I haven't quite fully recovered from that. Doesn't help that [redacted] insisted that I write him erotica while he was stationed overseas (and it had to be of a specific sort that he preferred). [Redacted] insisted I write him things like that when we were dating before he joined the military. I was embarrassed by it but I wrote it because then he was less likely to hurt me or do something that would humiliate me to punish me for not doing what he wanted. [Redacted] was a world class asshole, to put it very lightly. I still kinda regret not letting him get hit by that truck when he was jaywalking.
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
AW: Morning blog No. 7
So, it has been an eventful few days for me. Saturday we spent most of the day visiting family. Sunday was a day of hurry up and get everything done that didn't get done Saturday. Monday was taking the eldest to the orthodontist to get his braces off. I also happened to have mild food poisoning that knocked me down Monday afternoon through Tuesday afternoon. So, either it was food poisoning or a 24 hour norovirus. Either way, I felt awful for most of two days.
I have replaced my writing time in my morning pages with writing time in my camp NaNoWrMo manuscript to finish it. I am not enjoying my morning writing sessions. I was busy running errands this morning. As such, I will be working on the manuscript this afternoon. I'm upset with the whole project. It feels like it will never end. It feels like I'm writing something that should never see the light of day. And I am miserable with it all.
I've had a therapist tell me that if you're not happy doing it then you should stop doing it. They don't get it. Once I start on a project, I have to finish it. It is not because I am on a deadline. That's passed and not coming back. I'm one of those people who once they start something they have to work on it until it is done before the move on to the next thing. Or at least that is how I am with big writing projects.
I'm currently stuck on two things and it has me feeling miserable. Book seven is just not resolving and getting to a point where I can wrap it up. The plot has taken so many sideways turns that I have no idea what I am doing anymore. And I just can't wrap my head around it. I feel like I've failed in that book to actually advance the major story arc of the entire series. It is a horrible feeling and I am half tempted to scrap it and start over again. But I know if I just scrap it, I'm going to scrap the whole series. Because I'm not going to come back to the books because I feel like a failure on that front.
I have noticed that I am an 'all or nothing' writer. I have to either do everything and have it all come out 'right'or I just drop the project and give it up. I'm a perfectionist. It is driven by anxiety and a large amount of emotional trauma that is unresolved. And yet, here I am trying to write and make some money with my writing.
But I haven't really made any money with my writing. I haven't figured out how to market anything. I'm writing some esoteric religious material for a niche group within a niche community. I think I have saturated that market with material and that is why I am not getting anywhere with my latest releases. And yet I still have more ideas coming up to write for that group. I am hesitant to follow them because the last few just fell completely flat.
I started writing because I have worlds inside my head that I need to get out. I started writing because I needed to process the awful things that happened to me over the course of my life. I started writing because I saw a need for certain things in the world and I was well posed to write and fill that need. There was no desire for money.
But, money is necessary to keep pushing the writing thing forward. I can't manage to meet my own deadlines. How on earth can I freelance write? And my writing style apparently isn't that great for freelance blogging. I mean if it was, I'd have more hits and more traffic. I am not a good example of SEO material. It is demoralizing to be in this position.
I have replaced my writing time in my morning pages with writing time in my camp NaNoWrMo manuscript to finish it. I am not enjoying my morning writing sessions. I was busy running errands this morning. As such, I will be working on the manuscript this afternoon. I'm upset with the whole project. It feels like it will never end. It feels like I'm writing something that should never see the light of day. And I am miserable with it all.
I've had a therapist tell me that if you're not happy doing it then you should stop doing it. They don't get it. Once I start on a project, I have to finish it. It is not because I am on a deadline. That's passed and not coming back. I'm one of those people who once they start something they have to work on it until it is done before the move on to the next thing. Or at least that is how I am with big writing projects.
I'm currently stuck on two things and it has me feeling miserable. Book seven is just not resolving and getting to a point where I can wrap it up. The plot has taken so many sideways turns that I have no idea what I am doing anymore. And I just can't wrap my head around it. I feel like I've failed in that book to actually advance the major story arc of the entire series. It is a horrible feeling and I am half tempted to scrap it and start over again. But I know if I just scrap it, I'm going to scrap the whole series. Because I'm not going to come back to the books because I feel like a failure on that front.
I have noticed that I am an 'all or nothing' writer. I have to either do everything and have it all come out 'right'or I just drop the project and give it up. I'm a perfectionist. It is driven by anxiety and a large amount of emotional trauma that is unresolved. And yet, here I am trying to write and make some money with my writing.
But I haven't really made any money with my writing. I haven't figured out how to market anything. I'm writing some esoteric religious material for a niche group within a niche community. I think I have saturated that market with material and that is why I am not getting anywhere with my latest releases. And yet I still have more ideas coming up to write for that group. I am hesitant to follow them because the last few just fell completely flat.
I started writing because I have worlds inside my head that I need to get out. I started writing because I needed to process the awful things that happened to me over the course of my life. I started writing because I saw a need for certain things in the world and I was well posed to write and fill that need. There was no desire for money.
But, money is necessary to keep pushing the writing thing forward. I can't manage to meet my own deadlines. How on earth can I freelance write? And my writing style apparently isn't that great for freelance blogging. I mean if it was, I'd have more hits and more traffic. I am not a good example of SEO material. It is demoralizing to be in this position.
Friday, May 3, 2019
AW: Morning blog No.6
I don't know what to write. I feel like I failed Camp NaNoWriMo because I didn't finish my manuscript. I feel like I am just a hack because I am just not able to go out there and make sales. I have never been good at sales. I am the type of person who just makes things and gives them away. I know I want a career in writing. I know that I have been working towards this for pretty much all of my life.
I also know that being disabled fucked up a lot of my life goals. I wanted to go back to school and get my teaching certificate. That got hosed. I wanted to just work in a school as a teaching assistant. That got hosed. Now I look at the situation with my books and I break out into a cold sweat and feel sick over the idea of being on social media. I almost get the feeling that the walls are closing in on me when I think about aggressively promoting my work.
I'm on medication for this. But it doesn't resolve the issues. It just takes the edge off of them so that I can at least stomach watching what other people are posing on social media. I feel like I'm nothing and nobody. It is awful. I know that this is because my brain is at a bad place right now.
A few days ago was the anniversary of my uncle's murder. It's been twenty something years. I still remember the way kids at school reacted to the Inside Edition expose on the crime. I had peers talking about how 'cool' it was that a teacher got murdered. No body except a few very close people in my life knew it was my uncle they were talking about. I wasn't allowed to talk about it, even with the school counselor because my parents were convinced that we'd become part of the media circus.
I was keeping a journal again by then. But I didn't really write about it because I had already had the embarrassment of [redacted] and [redacted] each deciding to pick up my journal and read it aloud to the study hall much to my humiliation. I just did my best to keep my head down and not be noticed. I was depressed and struggling with life at that point in time.
At seventeen, I was a shy, awkward girl who didn't talk very much. My peers decided it was a great idea to vote me most unique in our class. They thought it was wonderful fun. I didn't because these were the same people who had done everything from spit on me to shove me into lockers for not being just like them. One of them literally attempted to light me on fire. It was a mildly traumatic experience. Of course, my bar for mildly traumatic is far higher than most peoples' because of the level of trauma that I have lived through.
If I had been a 'normal' student then I would have rated that having someone trying to light me on fire in the middle of physics class and the teacher ignoring it rate pretty highly as traumatic. But the fact that they didn't succeed and the teacher eventually did say something once they saw that the lab bench immediately behind me was covered in burning alcohol made it less traumatic than the months of sexual assault I endured with a boyfriend that I had two years before.
I don't know why, but all of this stuff from high school has been coming up over the last few months. It has seeped into my writing and it's been impossible to write fiction. My Camp NaNoWriMo project was supposed to be an erotic fiction piece. I got two pages written and it completely changed into my writing about my personal history. I'm not at the half full point of the notebook. I am not sure what my word count is. I gave up on logging that and writing time daily because I wasn't writing daily. Depression and mixed episodes fuck up your plans. But I'm going to finish this damn manuscript this month.
I also know that being disabled fucked up a lot of my life goals. I wanted to go back to school and get my teaching certificate. That got hosed. I wanted to just work in a school as a teaching assistant. That got hosed. Now I look at the situation with my books and I break out into a cold sweat and feel sick over the idea of being on social media. I almost get the feeling that the walls are closing in on me when I think about aggressively promoting my work.
I'm on medication for this. But it doesn't resolve the issues. It just takes the edge off of them so that I can at least stomach watching what other people are posing on social media. I feel like I'm nothing and nobody. It is awful. I know that this is because my brain is at a bad place right now.
A few days ago was the anniversary of my uncle's murder. It's been twenty something years. I still remember the way kids at school reacted to the Inside Edition expose on the crime. I had peers talking about how 'cool' it was that a teacher got murdered. No body except a few very close people in my life knew it was my uncle they were talking about. I wasn't allowed to talk about it, even with the school counselor because my parents were convinced that we'd become part of the media circus.
I was keeping a journal again by then. But I didn't really write about it because I had already had the embarrassment of [redacted] and [redacted] each deciding to pick up my journal and read it aloud to the study hall much to my humiliation. I just did my best to keep my head down and not be noticed. I was depressed and struggling with life at that point in time.
At seventeen, I was a shy, awkward girl who didn't talk very much. My peers decided it was a great idea to vote me most unique in our class. They thought it was wonderful fun. I didn't because these were the same people who had done everything from spit on me to shove me into lockers for not being just like them. One of them literally attempted to light me on fire. It was a mildly traumatic experience. Of course, my bar for mildly traumatic is far higher than most peoples' because of the level of trauma that I have lived through.
If I had been a 'normal' student then I would have rated that having someone trying to light me on fire in the middle of physics class and the teacher ignoring it rate pretty highly as traumatic. But the fact that they didn't succeed and the teacher eventually did say something once they saw that the lab bench immediately behind me was covered in burning alcohol made it less traumatic than the months of sexual assault I endured with a boyfriend that I had two years before.
I don't know why, but all of this stuff from high school has been coming up over the last few months. It has seeped into my writing and it's been impossible to write fiction. My Camp NaNoWriMo project was supposed to be an erotic fiction piece. I got two pages written and it completely changed into my writing about my personal history. I'm not at the half full point of the notebook. I am not sure what my word count is. I gave up on logging that and writing time daily because I wasn't writing daily. Depression and mixed episodes fuck up your plans. But I'm going to finish this damn manuscript this month.
Thursday, May 2, 2019
Locales: Aldstone
Located in north-central Dakon-Bar, Aldstone is a village with a very long history. It is known chiefly for the mill which has been standing since the last great war. Aldstone boasts one of the largest mills in central Dakon-Bar and is situated at the side of one of the great rivers that run through the kingdom. In the north, this river is known as the Usiage-Ban, The White Waters, for its turbulent path through the mountains of Tarsus where it begins. As it reaches the rolling lowlands on the border of Tarsus and Dakon-Bar, it is known as the Wide Waters. It follows a great looping path down to the sea.
Aldstone is one of the large villages that is not quite big enough to reach a city status. This is mainly because of its close proximity to the more well known Dragonwood Keep, seat of the king of Dakon-Bar. The mill of Aldstone is under the auspices of the queen of Dakon-Bar and during the reign of the hero Erian Talisid, the queen was known to regularly come and visit the mill and the people of Aldstone. This is why it is sometimes known as the Queen's Village. Aldstone has not had the opportunity to grow to its full potential for several reasons.
The most unfortunate of them is the fact that after Askemb rose to power, the village was burned in an effort to quell an uprising. Astonishingly, the mill survived intact. Much of the population of the village died or fled into the forest. It is slowly recovering but strange tales of the Grey Lady make outsiders wary of taking up residence there. These folk tales speak of the vengeful spirit of the forest trying to reclaim Aldstone.
Some of Askemb's forces reside in Aldstone but they come to strange misadventures when they go into the forest to hunt with out a guide from the native people of Aldstone. Aldstone was not just burned once but twice. During the Great War, Aldstone was known as High Grove and a place where many people lived. High Grove had vast apple orchards in addition to the mill. The deamon prince Atroniac marched on High Grove for he had decided to root out all of the men who resisted him from the forests of Dakon-Bar. Atroniac's forces chopped down the orchards and burned High Grove to the ground. They were frustrated in their efforts to slaughter their foes for when they arrived at High Grove they found it deserted, as though all the people had vanished in the middle of the day.
Aldstone is one of the large villages that is not quite big enough to reach a city status. This is mainly because of its close proximity to the more well known Dragonwood Keep, seat of the king of Dakon-Bar. The mill of Aldstone is under the auspices of the queen of Dakon-Bar and during the reign of the hero Erian Talisid, the queen was known to regularly come and visit the mill and the people of Aldstone. This is why it is sometimes known as the Queen's Village. Aldstone has not had the opportunity to grow to its full potential for several reasons.
The most unfortunate of them is the fact that after Askemb rose to power, the village was burned in an effort to quell an uprising. Astonishingly, the mill survived intact. Much of the population of the village died or fled into the forest. It is slowly recovering but strange tales of the Grey Lady make outsiders wary of taking up residence there. These folk tales speak of the vengeful spirit of the forest trying to reclaim Aldstone.
Some of Askemb's forces reside in Aldstone but they come to strange misadventures when they go into the forest to hunt with out a guide from the native people of Aldstone. Aldstone was not just burned once but twice. During the Great War, Aldstone was known as High Grove and a place where many people lived. High Grove had vast apple orchards in addition to the mill. The deamon prince Atroniac marched on High Grove for he had decided to root out all of the men who resisted him from the forests of Dakon-Bar. Atroniac's forces chopped down the orchards and burned High Grove to the ground. They were frustrated in their efforts to slaughter their foes for when they arrived at High Grove they found it deserted, as though all the people had vanished in the middle of the day.
AW: Morning Blog no. 5
It is a wet and gloomy day out there this morning. As we were waiting for the bus, my youngest child and I watched a worm squirm its way across the sidewalk. I told him facts about the worm and we speculated where it could be going. My son was delighted in all of this. He was fascinated by the tiny creature. I suppose with the right approach, I can keep him from hopping in all of the muddy puddles along the front walk.
There are a few house finches, a pair of cardinals, and a blue jay squabbling over the bird feeder hanging right outside my window. The birds are not entirely happy but so be it. It looks like the highway department is trying to fix a hole in the end of the driveway again. It is right where the driveway meets the road. Every time it rains, gravel washes out. A few weeks back, the landlord hired somebody to fill in all the holes of the drive way with gravel and level everything out. The guy didn't do the job quite right so the hole are back.
I'm not sure why the highway department stopped to fill in that hole. I suppose if your landlord is the town supervisor, they can call in a few favors or something. I don't know. But they shoveled some gravel into the hole and then drove off. I wish that the landlord would spring to actually fix the problems around here. For that matter, if the dumpster could get moved away from my building that would be amazing. It isn't going to happen, though. The landlord has been talking about making repairs on this place and getting it 'ready for summer' which I think means he is going to try to sell the place again.
Last summer, I came out my front door to be met by some realtor with a couple of clients in tow stating that they were told they could look at my apartment. I had no phone call from the landlord prior to this. It was a shock and the whole affair sent me into a bit of a panic. Was the building getting sold? Were we going to have to move out? Was our rent going to go up? Lots of other similar questions came up as well. I was as gracious as I could be on being caught unawares and gave them a tour of the apartment in the state it was in. I answered their questions honestly, like the fact that the hole in the entryway ceiling had been there for almost a year.
The place didn't sell. We still have the same landlord. I'm not impressed with the guy. He apparently has a reputation as a less than stellar landlord in the community. All I want is for my damn sink to get fixed and we've gone through three landlords trying to get that resolved. The last plumber to look at the sink took the sink apart and now we can't put the drain plug in because they took the linkage away with them. So, my bathroom sink is even more broken than it was to begin with.
I'm frustrated and disappointed. I also feel fooling posting this entry. I don't think I'm doing these morning pages/blogs quite right. Almost all of them are ranting or some kind of journal like entry. I think I should be doing something more 'art' oriented but I can't come up with anything. I am struggling right now to make art or to write creative stuff. I'm not blocked as much as therapy things keep getting in the way and I can't kill things in effigy to help the process. I am going to attempt the poem a day challenge as I am working to finish my Camp NaNoWriMo project. Maybe some bad poetry will get the messed up thoughts out of my head.
I have started keeping an art journal again. I haven't done much on sketches right now. But I did do some basic art therapy prompts. I felt kinda stupid doing the two hands one. On one side of the page you draw your hand and list the things you need to let go. On the other side of the page, you draw your hand and list the things you need to gather into your life. Then you decorate it. I felt stupid doing this exercise. I don't think it did me much good. But I'm going to be doing this once a week for next several weeks. As long as I just keep working, I'll make progress at something, I suppose.
There are a few house finches, a pair of cardinals, and a blue jay squabbling over the bird feeder hanging right outside my window. The birds are not entirely happy but so be it. It looks like the highway department is trying to fix a hole in the end of the driveway again. It is right where the driveway meets the road. Every time it rains, gravel washes out. A few weeks back, the landlord hired somebody to fill in all the holes of the drive way with gravel and level everything out. The guy didn't do the job quite right so the hole are back.
I'm not sure why the highway department stopped to fill in that hole. I suppose if your landlord is the town supervisor, they can call in a few favors or something. I don't know. But they shoveled some gravel into the hole and then drove off. I wish that the landlord would spring to actually fix the problems around here. For that matter, if the dumpster could get moved away from my building that would be amazing. It isn't going to happen, though. The landlord has been talking about making repairs on this place and getting it 'ready for summer' which I think means he is going to try to sell the place again.
Last summer, I came out my front door to be met by some realtor with a couple of clients in tow stating that they were told they could look at my apartment. I had no phone call from the landlord prior to this. It was a shock and the whole affair sent me into a bit of a panic. Was the building getting sold? Were we going to have to move out? Was our rent going to go up? Lots of other similar questions came up as well. I was as gracious as I could be on being caught unawares and gave them a tour of the apartment in the state it was in. I answered their questions honestly, like the fact that the hole in the entryway ceiling had been there for almost a year.
The place didn't sell. We still have the same landlord. I'm not impressed with the guy. He apparently has a reputation as a less than stellar landlord in the community. All I want is for my damn sink to get fixed and we've gone through three landlords trying to get that resolved. The last plumber to look at the sink took the sink apart and now we can't put the drain plug in because they took the linkage away with them. So, my bathroom sink is even more broken than it was to begin with.
I'm frustrated and disappointed. I also feel fooling posting this entry. I don't think I'm doing these morning pages/blogs quite right. Almost all of them are ranting or some kind of journal like entry. I think I should be doing something more 'art' oriented but I can't come up with anything. I am struggling right now to make art or to write creative stuff. I'm not blocked as much as therapy things keep getting in the way and I can't kill things in effigy to help the process. I am going to attempt the poem a day challenge as I am working to finish my Camp NaNoWriMo project. Maybe some bad poetry will get the messed up thoughts out of my head.
I have started keeping an art journal again. I haven't done much on sketches right now. But I did do some basic art therapy prompts. I felt kinda stupid doing the two hands one. On one side of the page you draw your hand and list the things you need to let go. On the other side of the page, you draw your hand and list the things you need to gather into your life. Then you decorate it. I felt stupid doing this exercise. I don't think it did me much good. But I'm going to be doing this once a week for next several weeks. As long as I just keep working, I'll make progress at something, I suppose.
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