About that depression post earlier ...

 I am depressed right now. It interferes with my functioning on a number of levels. It really messes with my ability to concentrate and come up with creative work. I know that I promised all y'all an update to the serial stories. I feel real bad that I can't even remember where I was going with the plot of any of them right now. I just have a blank in my head where that plotline was. I look at my notes and they just strike me as gibberish. They make no sense to me as I read them. Sure, there's an internal logic to them but my depressed brain just can't grasp that logic and take the bullet points to paragraphs.

I'm going to try, going forward, when I get caught in the grips of depressive spells or other mental health struggles due to my being disabled to blog about it here (and on my other blogs). It is less about the fact that I want to wave a flag and get attention and pity for my situation and more about I'm trying to keep you abreast of what is going on over on this end of the internet. I'm trying to grind my way through these spells and post content that's genuine and, hopefully, interesting.

You may have picked up from my Morning Pages posts that I have a lot of trauma that I'm working through. I've been in some form of therapy for most of my adult life. I've a diagnosis of complex-posttraumatic stress disorder and bipolar II, with a side of seasonal affective disorder. We're entering into the time of year that is really hard for me. There's a lot of trauma-versary dates coming up. There's the stress of being estranged from my toxic side of the family. I'm still mourning the deaths of my beloved grandparents who basically taught me how to be a decent person despite all the crap going down in my parents' house. Between those two facts, the holidays suck more than the fact that we're all basically forced to listen to Bing Crosby 24/7 whenever we go out in public until sometime around the middle of January.

This blog is not going to turn into a disgorging of trauma. I've got my therapy journals for that work. But it may come up from time to time because that's what's on my mind. I'm going to do my best to keep that rambling to the Morning Pages. My mental functioning right now is impaired. I'm exhausted despite a full night of sleep last night. I'm terrified that there's going to be horrible consequences for this post. And I feel like I should just give up on everything because I feel like nothing's ever going to get better. Depression is a beast. Medication helps, it keeps me from being at that place where I've got suicidal thoughts running around in my head. But 'happy pills' don't make you happy. They just take the edge off of the sword stuck in your heart. You're still pumping out emotional blood and wounded, but it doesn't cut deeper than it already has.

The esteemed Chuck Tingle calls this 'the call of the lonesome train'. It's a pretty good metaphor for this feeling. You feel alone and like there's no hope. Because I'm a fighter by nature, I just grimly put up my shield and push forward through the dragur of trauma memories and fucked up brain chemistry. Eventually, I'll get through this. It's just going to be ugly and painful in the process.

Friendly reminder to Indie Authors and Publishers

Lulu.com has a history of shady business practices. They’ve failed to deliver books and other goods while taking your money. They have completely decimated the interior format of books in the process of setting up the book to the point that it is just a hopeless mess. And they misrepresent themselves as having “good customer service”. They’re becoming notorious for this behavior.

I have stopped working with them because of the fact that they failed to deliver about $100 worth of product over the course of the several years that I was working with them. And they marked the product as delivered or pending *years* after the order was placed and *never arrived*. I strongly advise you to avoid Lulu.com to save yourself and your customers heartbreak down the road.

I am still searching for an alternative to publishing via Amazon because I find their business practices and culture to be questionable. But, Amazon doesn’t screw up your book and print it when your proofs looked fine. Amazon doesn’t eliminate entire sections from your work at random. And, most importantly, Amazon gets the books to readers.

As we’re coming up on the end of NaNoWriMo and I’m sure a bunch of hardy souls have books they want to get into print, don’t go through Lulu.com. They’re not the business they were five years ago, back when they actually were trustworthy and got things right for a good deal. Don’t be fooled by their slick looking front page. The process of uploading, formatting, and getting books done has changed and is far from user friendly. Look for another service, trust me, it’ll be a lot easier.

Going digital for now.

Dear Reader,

Maybe you have heard of this COVID-19 bug that's making the whole goddamn world sick. Aside from social isolation and doing my best to home-school my kids right now, I'm in the process of making sure that all of my books are available in digital format. While there are people all through the printing process and delivery process in need of work, their safety is of higher priority. As such, I exhort everyone to purchase digital editions of the books that they are interested in. The work of producing a digital edition is predominantly done via computer programs and far less people are physically involved with the product (and each other) which makes it safer for consumption right now.

The COVID-19 situation is making things crunchy and weird. As a medievalist, I was fascinated by the black death but I had (and continue to have) zero desire to live through such situations. And yet, here we are. I'm going to attempt to produce some short works and price them as low as I can manage to help you stave off boredom and cabin fever. Goodness knows I have a pile of notebooks full of story ideas. I may even share some of the stuff that my kids came up with. My youngest was inspired by my book writing efforts to make his own called The Sad Worm and The Happy Cat. His handwriting is illegible because he was so excited that he just scrawled random lines (or at least what looks like random lines) to go with the pictures.

If I can get things organized enough around here (which is a laughable idea at the moment as the kids are doing a terrible cover of The Beatles' Hey Jude at FULL VOLUME in the other room), I will share some writing prompts and ideas for writers of all ages. I have been logging the progression of COVID-19 in my journal. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this but I feel like it is an important thing to do for posterity. If you're inclined to keep a journal, consider using pens that are good on acid free paper. You're making a historical document, even if it doesn't feel like it, and it will quite possibly be important years down the road.

If I'm lucky, by the end of this situation, the kids will have learned how to carry a tune. Or I will learn to have the focus of a zen master. I suspect that I will not see either happen.

Stay safe everybody.

Craft of Writing: Making a Writing Schedule.

My writing Bullet Journal

So, I mentioned in my last craft of writing note that I have reworked my bullet journal. The layout is far more streamlined. It is the simplest that I have seen anywhere. (I still look through Pinterest and other places for ideas on how to improve my bullet journaling. Multiple colors assigned to different major projects is one example that I lifted from another place.)

I realized that I was attempting to go after things from a perspective of DO ALL THE THINGS! This is partly due to the fact that I am very ambitious in my thinking about my projects. And it is partly due to the fact that my initial work setting this up was a combination of a mixed episode and using it as an attempt to shift my attention from feeling awful. All together, it was just a problem to work with. I briefly considered just pitching the notebook. Then my refusal to waste paper hit me and I decided that I would just try again.

My 'pocket' Day Planner

The other thing that got influenced by the bullet journal concept wasn't just organizing my writing stuff. It was also how I approached my day planner. This originally was more like what FLYLady uses. Then I realized that format really wasn't working well for me with everything going on in my life.

Cue my setting my planner up with time blocked out as seen in the example to the left. It was almost effective. Then I realized that I needed to apply the bullet journal organization techniques towards my schedule. Add this to my finally having that damned depressive episode end and I found myself becoming better at scheduling my day. What isn't pictured in my day planner here is the time immediately after I get up. Some days, I may be up at 6, but more often, I am up at 5 am and I sit down to write my morning pages immediately after I am up for the day. (With a cup of strong coffee and my favorite pencils. I'll talk more about that next week.)

Later in the day, I block out time for writing in general. I am finding that if I give myself the same time to work in just about every day, it gets easier to write. Granted, I may just be writing rambling angry tirades about the idiots I find myself dealing with on a somewhat regular basis. (White supremacists repulse me and for some reason they seem to be regularly regurgitating the pablum of the Third Reich on platforms that I frequent on an increasing basis.) All of that writing is focused right now on just getting writing done.

My goal is to get myself to producing at a volume I want. This means effective time management techniques. The daily planner and the bullet journal are proving to be two very helpful tools. Also, I confess, I have been using a timer on my work as well. It was refreshing to find that I could still pull off writing approximately 300 words in fifteen minutes. (I have started doing prompt based writing again. I will post some of the prompts later this week. I need to pick the good ones to share with you because a lot of them are pretty lame, in my opinion.)

As my late Grandfather said, half of getting the job done is just showing up to work. A writing schedule is part of making sure that I do that. I also make sure that my schedule is one that does not get interfered with. It is hard and some days, I am not half as successful as I would like to be. But, every day is a chance to do better and do more.

Keep your chin up and keep trying to do your best, folks. ♥

Interested in Advertising? New Details!

Hello Everyone!

I have whipped up a form for you to fill out if you would like to advertise upon my blogs. Follow the link below to get the discussion started. As I may have mentioned elsewhere, I require compensation for advertising space being provided to you or your organization. This is something that can be negotiated on a case by case basis. My form is just a place to get the discussion started. It will be linked to outside of this post in the footer of the page in addition to right here.

Please, if you wish to advertise, contact me. We can work together to determine what will work best for everyone involved.

Thank you for your time and support.

Advertising Request Form

A question for the Readers.

Hi everyone!

I am a little bit under the weather right now. This is making it difficult for me to concentrate to get quality writing up here. It is also making inspiration something that is in short supply here. I wanted to ask you all to help me out with something.

One of the things that really inspires me when I am writing is music. In the comments, please recommend the music that you feel is best suited to writing high fantasy (or any other genre, I'm not picky). With your recommendation, please state what you like about the work you are suggesting. I am looking to build a new writing playlist and I am somewhat overwhelmed by what is out there.

Also, I am doing something of an informal poll. Should my next serial story be folklore of Evandar or should it be something more like Dacia's War, a longer story that is told in a series of snapshots. Again, note your feelings in the comments on the post. I am torn between the two options and I need your help to decide what is going to be next.

Background work in progress.

I've been busy with 'real life' over the last several days. Somehow, in the midst of it all, I managed to snag some writing time. (Update for Dacia's War is coming later this evening. I just have to get it typed up.) I started out in my journal writing about random stuff and what I saw at the diner I had lunch at. (If you're ever in Lakeville, check out the Family Diner. They're in expensive, have good food, and their staff are a riot. Seriously, these guys have a fantastic sense of humor.) Somewhere in the midst of finishing my cup of coffee and paying the check, I got the idea in my head to try to do some planning for how I am going to move forward with everything in Evandar.

(Yes, the prequels are coming. I have the plots drafted out. I anticipate a trilogy. Look for the first book in that triad next year around late September. ♥) I got home and sat down in a comfy chair with some Qntal playing (because you always need mood music, am I right?). As I spent the two hours I had free until the kids got home from school, I started drafting out details about my little world. I went back to an idea that I had way back when I attempted to write the very first draft of book one of the series. (This was in 1993, in sixth grade, if you're keeping score.)

I was enamored with Tolkien's world and especially charmed with the languages. In the first flush of enthusiasm, I came up with some random gibberish that was supposed to be a language. This was then forgotten as I built up world history and such. This afternoon, however, I sat down and gave it some serious thought. I realized that I had to fill in some holes in my story which arose from the lack of languages. I now have two notebooks. One is for the rules and development of words. The second notebook is for the devising of alphabets and how to write in my shiny new languages.

I don't know how long it is going to take to devise these languages and I realized I needed more than one. I am planning on posting some pictures as I work at it. Before I can start doing that, however, I need to work out the rules of my languages and how to put them together. I have a brand new set of pens that I purchased recently on a whim. One of them has a brush tip which will be great for the calligraphy style language I have decided is going to come into being and the sigils that will be magical short hand.

I'm not sure how the others are going to look but there is going to be at least one set of letters based off of runic and one based off of ancient Pictish glyphs. I figure if I do it right, I can probably come up with something that looks close to what people wrote in antiquity but with my own twist on it. First, however, I have to sit down and study my books about the development of the English language (which I have a passing familiarity with but I need to deepen it). And probably go through the couple of language text books that I have kicking around my apartment to work up something that is semi-functional before I start making letters to go with it.

What I'm Working On: Revisions.

It has been a challenging week. I had stuff distracting me a lot. (I'm looking at you, my lovely boys. *glares*) I think there is some kind of conspiracy to make me write with that frustrated tone. It has been bleeding into some of the revision work I'm doing on book three. Fortunately, however, the scene I'm working on involves a frustrated adult dealing with a misbehaving child. Because the Little Queen is not the perfectly behaved child that people wish she was. She's been acting out because of the stress of everything happening.

It is kinda refreshing to actually use some of the material I learned ages ago in Child Psychology. I never thought I'd be using it in my writing. I always thought it would be something that would come up in the classroom. (I dreamed of getting my masters and teaching certification after I finished my bachelor's. Life had other plans.) It is a bit difficult to recall what my childhood was like. So, I'm drawing inspiration off of what my children and the kids around me do. I never did like it when fiction featuring children turned them into miniature adults. Kids are entirely different from adults and we really should write about them in proper context.

I've been making adjustments to the map that I drew up years ago. It is an absolute mess. I was going to post a picture of it. Then I started making notes and stuff. It is so much of a mess that I am kinda ashamed of it. I do, however, have a picture from very, very early on in the development of Evandar. I actually have two of them. I have the first map I ever drew of the region, back when I thought Evandar was just one kingdom. I also have one of the first character sketches I drew. The female figure is supposed to be Sideria, the elf woman who watches over Thora and Cormac, among many other things.

Setting & Other Details

The works on this blog are a digital version of a series of writings that I am doing for a dear friend of mine. All work here is my intellectual property. Quotation and references made to it can be done for educational or personal use with proper credit given.

The setting of these stories is the world of Evandar. This is not only the setting of these stories but the name of the kingdom wherein a great deal of the action of my novels take place. Excerpts from the novels will be placed up here from time to time. I will give updates as to how I am progressing in my efforts for publication on these. This is a fantasy world and has many elements in common with the works of other authors in the genre.

It is not my intent to copy another's style or plagiarize their ideas. Any resembelances you find to another author's work is purely coincidental. The world, the characters that people it, and their stories are all the result of over 15 years of world building. This includes an almost obscene amount of research into various things that range from herbalism to medieval fabric making techniques. I will occasionally give commentary on these details, look for the tag 'Notes' or 'Commentary' attached to those posts.

All of this said, I'd like to dedicate this on going work to my friend Jerry and his wife, Jaime. They're two wonderful people who are working thru some significant difficulties right now. I hope that my stories serve as a plesant escape from their problems.

To all others who are reading this, enjoy and welcome to my little world.