Dear Reader,
I am taking the next three days off from blogging all over creation. Sunday's Craft of Writing Post will be back to back with Monday's Flora & Fauna post. I just need some time to recover from this migraine and head cold. I'll see all y'all on Monday. ♥
Dear Reader,
Here we are at the final day of NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo. Many people are at or real close to the finish line. Others are slogging along, possibly cursing their decision to participate in these challenges. Word count is the big gauge of success and source of stress during this month. Posting across six blogs, I have absolutely no idea what my word count is. It took some stress off my shoulders, but six blogs ... that was a lot of work. It has cemented in my mind that some of these blogs are going to be updated on a weekly basis. Because updating all of them in one day eats my entire morning of writing time.
The serial stories are stalled right now. The science fiction book is stalled because my notes in pencil are become illegible due to fading. At least I found them. The series of modern fantasy is on hold as I am awaiting contact back from the person who requested the work to be done. We had a gentleman's contract initially based on a virtual handshake. I have four books written and a fifth started. It is time to take that gentleman's contract and put it on paper to make clear what is expected of everyone involved. I'm having difficulty contracting him, because he's in grad school right now and busy as heck.
My fantasy series is on hold because I'm correcting errors in one book and trying to make things work according to my plot map in the other book. Hopefully books six and seven of the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar will be out by late spring. In case you are curious, the story arc plotted for the whole series takes place over thirty books. I have snippets and bits of ideas for the other books, but I have to finish what I have on the block first.
Dear Reader,
Dealing with the stress of how health insurance is a protection racket has rendered me markedly devoid of ideas for this blog. I could talk about how bad it is or how it should be illegal the way they screw people over, but everyone knows this. Don't even get me started on dental insurance or vision coverage. Those are luxuries.
To say the least, my afternoon turned sour and has successfully shot down what plans I had for writing. I suppose it is time to go work on some dishes or otherwise try to be useful. I'm sorry y'all.
Dear Reader,
I have been so busy trying to keep my real plants alive that all world building regarding plants has fallen by the wayside. I would share with you a picture of my small indoor garden, or as Beloved calls it, the jungle. The problem is the plants are in sorry shape. I have three that need to be potted up. They're in bad shape because they're rootbound. I have others that have this weird white fungus growing on the soil. I don't know how they got infected with this, but I have some Neem oil to spray on it and kill the fungus. Long story short, I have quite a few plants that look more dead than alive and I'm trying to fix that. It's not going that great. But as long as I keep trying, I'll probably manage to nurse them back to health.
Dear Reader,
Here's a tip for keeping your preteens and teens from completely invading your writing time. Fart. My boys will either run away going 'Oh Gods, MOM!' or back off a solid eight feet waving things in my general direction that they hope will make the fart go away. If you're lactose intolerant like me, the farts smell worse (or so I've been told). Compared to my husband's gassiness, I am an amature.
Once, he dropped a bomb that had me reaching for my inhaler. That evil creature locked the windows of the car and cackled all the way home as I was choking and digging through my purse. So, sometimes, I will threaten them with having their Dad fart at them.
Remember, if anyone objects, let them know if we don't fart, we'll explode.
Have a great Sunday and I hope you had a laugh.
Dear Reader,
I guess, I could go on a pedantic rant about how my back hurts, coffee is as awesome as tea, or update about my kids' attempts at NaNoWriMo. Instead, I will post a humorous meme, drink my tea, and wait for the Tylenol to start working so my back ache goes away and I can actually focus. In coming meme:
Have a good day, everybody.
Yoshi Yoshitani has done an amazing job in how she handled the tales from around the world and the illustrations she has made for her book are excellent. The stories are delivered in a compact yet elegant format. It ranges from the Arabic folktale of Shahrazad to the Norse myth of the binding of the wolf Fenris. She even included the U.S. folktale of John Henry. I was surprised that she did not include Paul Bunyan but it was clear that there were more tales that Ms. Yoshitanti could have included from around the world that had to leave out for the sake of brevity.
Each tale was treated with respect and a loving hand of someone who delights in stories. The artwork was fantastic and incorporated imagery from the tarot, for Ms. Yoshitanti has made a tarot deck and accompanying guide book to go with this text. (I collect tarot decks. This book and the deck were a birthday present a few weeks ago.) I rate this book 8/10. The only drawback this book really has is the myths are short form and a lot of the interesting detail of the long form myth is not included.
Dear Reader,
At the beginning of the month I explained what NaNoWriMo was and invited the boys to participate. First week in, my youngest son announced that he had won and handed me his best effort at a graphic novel. There was a lot of foul humor in it and air horns galore. But, he's 14, can I truly expect anything different. His elder brother finished up a train story he was working on over the last two weeks in between doing school work and watching cat videos.
Now, this week, he is nine pages into a new story about a firefighter named Johnson. So far, Johnson has yeeted himself out a window to save a family of pigs, yeeted himself down a flight of crumbling stairs to get to safety, and let off steam from that difficult fire call by raging at his gaming system on video. I'm not quite sure what is more amusing that my son used the word yeet in all seriousness or gamer rage for an audience to laugh at.
He's been laughing as he is writing. I figure that is a good sign. If you can make yourself laugh at a scene, there's a chance a reader will do the same.
Dear Reader,
When you have a book to write, no money coming in for it, and a ton of other responsibilities, it is the worst plan in the world to devote all your available time to it. Dishes pile up in the sink, you find yourself having weird food combination for your meals (peanut butter and onion sandwiches, anyone?), and the laundry will eventually form a militia and start demanding rights. This is why you have to pace yourself, especially if you are super excited about the idea that you are working with.
You can't let that excitement overrun your responsibilities. A schedule that is detailed may help you get everything done, with writing time as a reward for when you complete crucial tasks. If that doesn't work for you, try out logging tasks and writing time. For an example of what I am describing look up the Bullet Journal format invented by Ryder Carroll. (I may have misspelled his name, but the system is definitely called the Bullet Journal.) Or you can mash the two together as I have to stay on top of things. Pictured below are my planning pages. Every Thursday, I reconcile calendars and plan my next week. (Some how I have become the scheduling maven of the household.)
Dear Reader,
I found my notes for Dacia's War. The notebook is ruined because of an overwatered plant. As I was working in that notebook, I had the nagging feeling that I should be making a document on the computer with those notes in it. I pushed the feeling aside and continued to work in the notebook. And then after my plants dried out for two weeks, I watered them and the notebook got soaked. A tragedy but one that can be overcome.
If I can rewrite my first novel after someone deleted it and someone else shredded the paper copy, I can rewrite some plot notes. After all, rewriting is a thing at many stages of the writing process, right?
I need to write on the calendar the days I have to water my plants. This business of getting depressed and not remembering to water them is just not good.
Dear Reader,
Between migraines, terrible sleep, and the huge interruption of Turkey Day, I have fallen behind on my post count. Somehow it is worse in my mind to fall behind on post count than it is to fall behind on wordcount. I don't exactly know what to post this morning. A part of me says I should post a casual poll on what is the best beverage to have at hand while writing. But I don't know how to make a poll on here and it's a stupid question anyways. Everyone knows it is coffee while working on the first draft and tea for editing. The coffee makes you type faster even as you vibrate through space and time while being able to see sound. (I drink a lot of coffee. LOL)
I'm listening to music inspired by the Nordic and Germanic people of antiquity. It gets a little challenging to make sure that they're not promoting Nazi values, White Supremacy, and similar things. I try to keep my listening and the media I consume free of that garbage. One, I know the kids are watching. They're still absorbing information like a sponge. Two, it runs contrary to my religious beliefs. Beating bigots with a bat is more inline with it, and I have worked very hard to control my rage and be a peaceable woman.
As such, I try to vilify these things in my writing and some of the logical extensions of their extremist arguments. My science fiction series is more than a pulpy romp through space with random jargon. As I get the original material out of my archives, I will be showing it is a fight for equal rights across a stratified social system. There are the wealthy with their designer genes, clones, and designer babies. (Imagine a baby born with a Coach birthmark as a sign of their social currency value.) There are the middle class crushed as brutally as they were in the early Industrial revolution. Included among them are the cast off children of the wealthy. The lowest strata is the poor who live an almost Dickenson like poverty.
Sure, there's going to be pulpy goodness, it's fun to write. But there's going to be some hard looks at the social system that I see evolving over the years. It will be an inquiry into the outcomes of many social pressures currently at play. It will be an inquiry into what makes a person have value. I'll even be taking a look at what makes a person.
Dear Reader,
This happens to me every year. I get to a point where I am eyeballs deep in a project and Turkey Day hits. I know it would be poor form to bring my project on the computer with me. Something about being engrossed in a laptop, tapping away at the keyboard, is more off putting than counting stitches on a holiday knitting project that you're desperate to get done. Some how, it's just more socially acceptable to be at work on knitting and ignoring everything instead of typing and doing the same.
I am still tempted, even if what I am doing is blogging instead of writing a novel. I just don't want to get behind and I can't stand the thought of breaking my streak when I do manage to get caught up and actually on one. In the morning, I'll be prepping food to bring. In the evening, I'll be burned out. It's rather tiring.
My sons are highly creative. One enjoys making things and creating his unique version of graphic novels. The other is determined to right "real" books and has been filling up A5 hardbound notebooks as a prodigious rate. They like to swipe pencils from me. Some how, my pencils work better or something? Magic? I don't know. Maybe just because they're mine and the boys see me writing all the time in various formats.
I have a favorite mechanical pencil brand (those yellow ones held up by my pinkie finger) that the kids have liberated often enough that small group of mechanical pencils are all I have left. So, I have decided to be clever. I picked up that box of rainbow colored pencils. Because they're more colorful, the kids have been more inclined to consider them for use. Hopefully this means I get to keep my favorite mechanical pencils for journal writing. They have gone through my other favorite pencils and left me with two. Which is funny, because they are the old fashioned yellow, number two pencils that you have to sharpen.
When I get the time to write in my free writing journal, I use those number two pencils. As they wear down and eventually get small enough that sharpening them with my manual sharpener, I put them in a jar and refer to them as my dead soldiers. I have a whiskey bottle full of pencils as long as my pinkie finger. Since I can no longer enjoy whiskey or wine due to my diabetes and my other medications, I am now filling up a glass peanut butter jar with dead soldiers. It is my reminder and motivator to keep working. A visual thing that helps me keep at it when the depression isn't too bad. And, if I ever take up golf, I will have my own pencils to keep track of scores. LOL
Dear Reader,
The backstory of Angel, Aeolus, and Dregan is currently in a holding pattern. I found my notebooks from '96 where I wrote much of the original story. One slight problem, the pencil is fading. So, I have to attempt to recreate the story via bullet points that I can draw out of the less than legible pencil. Also, I must confess, my handwriting from '96 is rather atrocious compared to today and that makes it a bit harder to read.
Give me a few months and I'll probably get the beginnings of a working draft out of that mess. With how life is going, that book is going to be the NaNoWriMo project of next year. A good amount of what I have is disjointed and a mess. But that's what a first draft is like when you're in high school.
If only I had written it in pen. Ah well, you make do with what you have and try to get the best out of it.
Dear Reader,
I was going to write for you another installment of Dacia's War but this migraine is making it like thinking through mud. Also, my notes for where the plot was going next have gone missing. I suspect my son, who is attempting to write his own novel, swiped the pages to use the blank sides. As such, I have to re-read the entire serial story and figure out what I was up to. With the chaos of turkey day coming up, it may be two weeks before I post the next installment. I ask your forgiveness. Similar difficulties are going with the Iron Lily.
On one hand, it's awesome that my son has taken to writing like a duck to water. On the other hand, he's going through paper like it's going out of style. And already used up half a package of pencils in the course of two months. He's been eyeing my mechanical pencils covetously. Much like his brother, the artist/crafter, has been eyeing my sharpie pens. Gods help me, these are my children. Chaos is going to happen any moment.
Dear Reader,
I live in a household of readers. I'm lucky that way. I'm considering doing reviews of the bed time stories. I'm going to start by reaching way back into the past (not so far as board books, though) to the Little Golden Books series and discussing how well the material works with the modern day and how well it works for young readers. I will gradually work my way forward to the books that my youngest loves right now.
I'm not decided yet. I basically will have two features doing review/analysis before this one enters the scene. I just know that we have a ton of books that I can do reviews of that may be helpful for people writing children's lit and early YA fiction. I know that I'd like to see more diversity in children's lit and YA fiction. A part of me says doing these reviews may help make that happen. Another part of me says am I going to have time for this? Maybe in January. I don't know.
Dear Reader,
The Fear litany from Dune wasn't the only book quote that I embroidered. I also embroidered one from a holy book that I read. I think it came out rather well. The motto is one that I love.
Dear Reader,
I rather dislike Frank Hubert's Dune series because of the blatant misogyny in it. At the same time there are a few tidbits that are useful. During the lockdown period of the pandemic, I embroidered the Fear Litany. I didn't get it perfect, but I captured the essence. Here's what the end result looks like.
Dear Reader,
I will admit the three things listed in the subject line eats up a lot of my time. (Laundry = Sisyphus's Boulder, dishes too.) I am passably good as an abstract painter, though I haven't had the room to do it in years. I practice the fiber arts: spinning, weaving, embroidery, knitting, and crochet. I am still attempting to teach myself how to use a lucet and how to do naalbinding (also known as single needle knitting). I say I practice the fiber arts because my skills vary wildly between the different aspects. Some tell me that I am a proficient spinner, but I feel that I still have a great deal to learn and it is merely luck that I can draw out super fine thread from a batt of fiber. I am an utter novice at weaving, knitting, and I feel a fool for attempting to knit a sweater for my 16 yo son. It is taking forever.
I do cook. As a person with diabetes, it's been a challenge to adapt menus and recipes to my needs. Now that my husband also has diabetes, it is even more important to find things that work for us. Thankfully, neither of our sons have it. Type 1 diabetes is terrifying to me. We have type 2. Lately, Beloved and I have been going through family cookbooks to adapt favorite recipes. Getting ready for Thanksgiving is proving to be a long series of scientific experimentation with sugar subs. I rather dread cookie baking. I haven't done it in years because I became despondent over the results my first year with diabetes. I have a little more confidence and I'm going to try to work up some old family favorites with the hope they'll hold together when they come out of the oven.
I have a bit of an indoor garden that is hit or miss for good conditions. So far, everything that is supposed to be green is still green so there is hope for me yet. I gave up on my two outdoor gardens this year because the new neighbors just throw so much garbage in there it looks awful. May it be that next year I can get back to those two plots because they're such a mess right now.
Dear Reader,
I have the tag for book reviews but I haven't done one in a long time. Right now, I'm reading Beneath the Moon and I will be doing a review of it soon. I need to pick a day of the week for reviews of books I'm reading and a different day for that critical analysis of The Artist's Way. I'm literally in the process of renovating how this blog is organized even as I am coming up with random ramblings to make post count.
In January, this blog will be different but hopefully improved. I will still have world-building material and character snippets posted. But I want to make this blog more versatile and useful for you, my Reader. It is taking some planning, which is not going so well because I have to catch up on a number of things since I was sick for two months and I'm doing this right now. December is going to be tricky to get all the posting across all six blogs done, but it is one of my goals. Wish me luck.
Dear Reader,
I was working on doing a chapter by chapter analysis of The Artist's Way and then I misplaced my copy of the book. As I have been cleaning the apartment and trying to get ready for the holidays, I found it. Instead of expecting you to go and follow tags back to the beginning, I am just going to reboot the entire thread. I am debating if I will do the freewriting here. I've been finding my freewriting getting rather dark as I have been using it to process psychological and emotional trauma from the past. I wouldn't want this blog to have a 'sensitive content' block on it. Some of it is that ugly, well, most of it is that ugly. I've seen some stuff, y'all, and it wasn't pretty.
I'm not going to start that analysis this week because I'm overloaded with other random stuff. I will be doing once weekly posts about the organization and all that stuff for each chapter. I will warn you, I may go into a rant or two. Now, I'll be honest, this is a book that I actually like but it has problematic elements. I'm going to bring those to light and try to come up with some work arounds for those problems.
Dear Reader,
I'm still a bit loopy because of my shoulder and lack of sleep. Please forgive the following silliness.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Recipe for One Author
Ingredients
Dear Reader,
If I had a funny meme, a witty quip, or a really good joke, I'd post it. My ideas are off in the aether mocking me. I woke this morning after a night full of terrifying dreams of faceless people trying to kill me. I still shudder over it. I may work that into a story at some point. I have spent my day in pain because I somehow wrenched my shoulder in the night. This was right after I recovered from bursitis in my other shoulder. It's made me a bit grumpy. On top of this, I had forgotten that the kids didn't have school today.
Every time I went to write, there was a fight, demands for answers to odd questions, or just a lot of noise. It was exceedingly vexing. This is why most of my work happens when they are in school or during their time for electronics. I am unashamed to bribe my kids to give me peace and quiet. I am pretty sure this is an unspoken rule for all parents regardless of their child's age.
I think the oddest question that I got today was: Mom, what is the speed of dark?
One of the boys is taking a Physics class and they were discussing the speed of light. I have a degree that is evenly split between English and Physics. My response was to tell him to ask his teacher. It isn't exactly fair to the teacher, but I just didn't have the spoons to muster up a cognizant answer. I used to be a teacher a little over a decade ago. When someone threw that question at me, I gave some witty non-answer because there is no speed of dark.
My husband loves questions like that. His favorite one to annoy me with lately has been asking me what the one-way speed of light is. I usually respond that there is no lumniferous aether in space so it is a question that will never be solved. We're a happily married couple of nerds.
Dear Reader,
As you can probably tell, I am six days behind on posting here for National Blog Posting Month. Juggling six blogs is hard. Trying to do it while there is a full week of appointments, tasks outside of the house, and general relationship maintenance with teens and your spouse is even more challenging. I wish I could say that I had a stash of really cool things to slap up here rapid fire, but I don't. Part of that problem is I can't find my notes for more flash fiction on here under the pile of notes and workbooks that were used over the summer to tutor my boys in mathematics. I can happily say, however, they are doing well in Algebra and Geometry.
When I am behind on a project I go through a cycle of emotions. I don't know if this is unique to me or if it is one that all authors go through. At first, I am resolute to catch up and start drafting plans. Then I look at those detailed plans and I despair that I have overloaded myself. I take a bite at trying to complete the plan. I despair again. Then I take a deep breath, steel myself, and return to that resolute state.
I have been struggling to think of topics to post in here for literally months, if not a full year. (That's rather depressing to put up here for the world to see, but it is the truth.) I attempted using my prompt box, but only one prompt was fitting for the purpose of this blog. I'm not going to natter on about what actor in Hollywood is attractive to me. That's just plain silly. I don't even know who most of those people are since I haven't watched television in about six years. (No streaming shows either, though I did attempt to watch Vikings but 3 episodes in the software stopped working for me.) I can't remember the last movie I have gone to. So, those things can't count as prompts or casual discussion topics.
When people gush about these things, I just smile and nod. I'm glad that they're happy. I suppose I could do book reviews, but so much of what I have read is outdated I am not sure there'd be much interest. There's also the fact that I haven't read anything in a few months that wasn't news related. And the news is just depressing as hell. I don't want to carry that over here.
So, I sit and I stare at the wall/screen until I get a stress headache. Then I wander off to take something for that headache and forget about writing. My brain isn't working that great because I'm depressed and that is making me have brain fog and memory issues. It's rotten and I wouldn't want to subject any of you fine people to that experience, even if it is vicariously.
All of this rambling and going far astray from the topic is fruit of brain fog and my desperate effort to post something here. There's probably going to be more of that going forward. Then I'll find my rhythm and I will be more prolific and sensible in my work here. In the meantime, behold the mess that I have become. Ugh.
Dear Reader,
I have a question for you to consider. The authors and creative folks in my readership, I wonder when you are at the beginning of the creative process and organizing your thoughts, what do you prefer: writing ideas out by hand and drawing diagrams or typing up detailed outlines and bullet point reference notes to go along side that outline? It's two very different styles of organization. It seems like the working method of doing things by hand is falling by the wayside since computers have become ubiquitous.
For my part, I do a mixed combination of the two since I have my own personal computer. When I didn't have a computer that was strictly my own, I did everything out on paper. Now, I have a hodgepodge of paper and digital notes. Alas, they're all painfully disorganized and I have difficulty sorting it all out because of what my Beloved calls 'shiny object syndrome'. I'll be going through a stack of papers and find outlines for books, notes for instructional essays, and a plethora more all around me. It's hard to focus on one project when you are stuck for how to describe the next scene and something else is glittering with promise of being easier and more organized.
I suppose I live in a state of chaos that I am struggling to fix. Because once I get all these ideas and notes organized, I'll be off to the races. Or staring at the screen until drops of blood form on my forehead. Who knows.
Dear Reader,
Some of you may be familiar with the Poem A Day challenge. The folks who run it really get going during this month to encourage more people to write. I think it's a pretty awesome thing. I just have one problem, I can't find my poetry notebook. I also have the dreaded imposter syndrome going on. At one point in time, I shared with a college instructor who I highly admired a poem that I had worked quite hard on and thought it was a good piece. I got a sour expression from the man as he told me to stop "aping Edgar Allen Poe and write something original."
To say the least that took the wind out of my sails for a bit and I questioned the validity of all of my writing for a period after that. It stings still and it makes writing poems hard. I'll focus on it at some point in the future when I have unearthed my poetry notebook and life isn't crazy. I want to get back to that kind of written work. It was a great form of emotional therapy and expression when I was going through some very hard times in my life.
But that sharp statement echoes in my ears to this day. It was not a good day when that happened.
Dear Reader,
Most years, I knuckle down and I crank out a novella or two during November. As you can tell, I have been having difficulty writing in my blogs for about a year now, perhaps a little longer. Since I have bursitis in my right arm, I am restricted in my movement and have a fair amount of pain. Oddly enough, my recovery time lines up with my writing goals. I am forced to sit and write across my seven blogs or stare at the wall.
Yes, I suppose I could attempt my knitting or my crochet. But repetitive movements are painful. And I just have to accept the fact that there is going to be a delay in my work on holiday presents until later in my recovery where moving my arm, even in a slightly repetitive action, is not a source of pain. Typing, however, and writing by hand don't hurt horribly because my arm is stationary as I work.
So, I am doing NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) this year to get myself back into serious writing form. There may be occasional memes if I have no idea what to write. I have to say, maybe there's an upside to this painful bursitis business.
