Finding balance

I've let a few things slip over the unpredictable winter months, I must admit. Not just my overall productivity but my health strayed too. I spent Spring Break doing some planning and reevaluating.  I can't just step right back into the level of discipline I enjoyed starting out last year, for one. I'd crash on day one and that's no good...

So what's important? Well, in my case, I tend to either take good care of my health or work really hard on my creative goals. I've never made a real attempt to blend them together. They are very different beasts. Optimal health is a lifestyle just as much as creativity. Supposing 8 hours of sleep is a goal, there's usually at least an hour of self maintenance outside of that-- showering, shaving, brushing teeth, all of that fits in the bits and pieces. For some people, more than an hour but I'm a minimalist and I don't wear makeup. Creative pursuits are my work and I treat it as such-- 8 hours, 5 days a week at minimum. I don't set it on a 9-5 schedule but I'm considering that. Routine may be necessary in understanding what works. The first week, I'm going to try that. I've set alarms for breaks and meals to try to aid in time management. 

During the week, I walk the kids to and from school. This is an hour of brisk walking every day without fail but I'm going to start making it a slightly longer walk. I'm also going back to P90X3 but I'm modifying it for low impact until my joints give me the green light. And yes, fibromyalgia people, you can work up to this. I started on Slim in 6 to gain enough muscle to handle it. I still have the muscle but I did put on weight over the winter and am wary of stressing lazy joints.

I did a fitness blog where I charted my experiences so I'll jump past more details here. The blog was called Becoming a Different Shape. I still use it as a reference when my pain flares and I have to remember what worked.

In any case, diet takes some preparation too. Again, I'll spare the details but my plan includes an hour or two or preparation on Sundays and heating or preparing during the week can take an hour or two each day. As you can see, it leaves time to rest or work overtime or throw in another walk or two. The wild card tends to be sleep and energy levels which I have the most trouble with. Drinking water and taking a daily vitamin are an important factor not to forget and often the most overlooked.

This is a writing blog though so let's wander back over to that. Creatively, I've never had a definitive workflow or any clue how much I'll get done. Generally, I aim to just make good use of my time. Once I've clocked 8 hours, that's where I decide if I'm interested in going longer or taking a breather.

I know word counts or forcing yourself to write daily might be part of the mix but as a writer/artist hybrid, I often find I like to spend a full week on one or the other rather than bouncing these days. I've written posts that bouncing around works best but my discipline and needs change with the project. UnSung is a Titan of storytelling prowess and the cover art is also something that needs visual focus so I've taken to centering on one or the other so I'm very clear on where I'm picking it up or putting it down. My next books or next covers may need something very different.

Balance isn't always about finding the perfect routine. I need cheat days, I need rest days, I need a staycation even if I'm too broke or stubborn to relax for a proper vacation. I know I need to market to make more than $20-40 a month on this, but right now, I want the library before I create the demand. I especially want my first series done before that. It's complex and controversial and I'm almost positive people will misinterpret it but I'm also prepared to defend it. Balance is very much about understanding how to optimize goals. I suffer when I let one priority override too often. So that's the priority.

I don't want to solely focus on recovering the slacking discipline I had with diet and exercise. Then my work and creative needs suffer. So the name of the game is finding the harmony I need, to not let either become too much of an obsession. And I do have a history of letting things fall off so I cling too hard to things when I know I should be doing something else. You'd think finishing college and finding discipline would make those fears unwarranted but they always lurk. I'm going to have to trust my discipline more. I know I can do anything and I've proven that over the past ten years.

For the rest of you, find pride in your own struggle and accomplishments. Don't let a dark past or a bleak future overshadow the present. Right now belongs to you. Keep writing!

My Mind is Telling Me No, but my body, MY BODY!

Excuse the unprofessional and not very informative heading, but I'll lead in with its purpose. It's appropriate on so many levels that I'd have to reinvent the onion, but let's just peel back a layer or two here. For one, sometimes my mind keeps kicking me down, but I become physically ill with the need to make it work for me.

One of the purposes of this blog is getting creatives unstuck. Whether I'm talking about my own journey or attempting to offer up those experiences in a way that you can use them, it has some double-lucky magical property-- helping you also helps me. When you keep those around you pumping out ideas and inspiration, you can find a well to draw on when you are feeling less than confident.

One thing I discussed with my friend Joe today was how a prevailing mood can really suck the ideas out of you and make those people start to drop off too. It doesn't mean that your muse completely abandons you because sometimes he/she is in fine form and nudging your ass with his/her toe. (Okay, I'm switching to the traditional female default. Your muse can have all the parts or none of the parts, but clogging up the word real-estate is distracting and tedious.)

People often wonder how I can be both depressed and productive. Let me simplify it here. I wasn't always then and even now I'm not. 

Now I'm going to complicate it. I'm going to type in some hash lines if you want to skip ahead to the point, but for everyone else, get the personal view of things.

My friend Fermín passed away 4 years ago and it hit me hard. I was two months shy of graduating college and earning my bachelor's degree, end of January 2014. His last message to me:

That was it. Days later, I got the message from a mutual friend, Phil, to look at his FaceBook page. Condolences for his passing. He was only 43 and he came home from a conference and didn't make it to his bathroom before his heart just called it quits.

Further down on that message, I sent him more messages he would never get to read. Even after I knew he was gone, it felt like a place I could still reach him.

I worked at Petco for another few months, quitting in May. I decided I'd try (and fail) at a crochet business. It was disillusioning to turn that hobby into a business and I realized it wasn't the right choice. There were too many people in this failing economy that told me my time wasn't worth minimum wage. I'm against slave labor and I won't be paid slave labor. The increased demand gave me a condition called Trigger Thumb. I couldn't treat it because I was broke. I basically couldn't crochet for 3 weeks solid. It was pretty disgusting. I'd wake up in the morning and move that thumb and it would make a sickening pop like a cap gun going off. I thought the tendon was going to snap, but it healed.

That year didn't improve and I lost my dog two weeks shy of Christmas. Damn, but this dog was my best friend in a way I can't really help people understand. I'm not a very social person, so this dog followed me around almost all day every day, was excited to see me if I stepped outside to take out garbage and came right back in. I'm still tearing up just remembering him now. That little dog was a huge part of my life and the absence was gaping. It wasn't like a ranking system where you could prioritize spouse, child, or anything above him. He was my daily life and my daily life was now missing a huge piece.

For about 8 months, my cat then became my companion. At least until she acquired an inoperable tumor. We couldn't even let her out of basement because of the risk it would rupture. I tried to visit her, to bathe her, but it was torture. She passed away peacefully, but the chaos was in my heart.

That was 2015, about midway through. I thought I'd get through 2016 unscathed, but then I lost my grandma on Christmas day. And my fish started going into genocide mode, killing each other. Until I somehow figured out which species was responsible and nipped it in the bud. By this point, I wasn't really a stranger to the pain of loss. It's not that it hurt less, but I was reaching a point where I could either function or give the fuck up. So I functioned.

Two months after my grandma passed, I lost my mom on her birthday in 2017. It was internal hemorrhaging that they could only stop if her BP would come up, caused by cancer that was already late stage. The operation might have bought her a year or two of intense cancer treatment before she passed away. Her BP didn't come up and we had to let her go.

At that point, I hadn't been useless. I had already lost 60 pounds because one of the ways I came out of losing my dog was by starting to take better care of myself whether I felt like it or not. But it was the final straw on procrastination when it came to pursuing my dreams. I had been busily writing my first series as well and when my mom passed, I buckled down and finished it. She was the one person I talked with about writing them and because she was gone, I felt more strongly that I couldn't bury it. I published my first book in August of 2017.

To date, I now have 5 books on the market. I've released the first trilogy, its complete edition and UnNamed. 

How do I work when I'm not in the mood? I'm never that happy and depression always looms. Some days I'm really low and hardly anything gets done. Sometimes I start out feeling like absolute crap and make myself work. Sometimes it picks me up and takes me out of Kansas, sometimes it just destroys my house and I'm picking up the pieces. Long before I started losing people, I picked up chronic pain and had to learn how to not be a depressing person to be around already. I can smile and entertain even when I'm miserable. Unless you're the sort of prick that wants to see the 'real me' you'd never know it's a mask. Look, there are sometimes when you don't want honesty and that's when the person you're with is coping. The burdens are too great-- talking won't help, medicating completely annihilates them as a person, and their best recourse is to not be totally depressing. If it's so bad, how can we hide it? Because the alternative is total isolation, the pain of losing everyone you care about, and loss of purpose. We're being fake for everyone's benefit-- our own and yours alike. But guess what? We DO have safe outlets. It just isn't you and everyone we meet. We learn to compartmentalize, we learn to organize, we learn how to be useful even when we're broken.

All these people and pets are dying and I've made it about me. Damn right. Their pain is over. Whether you believe they've gone to a better place or think death is the end, it's not a place we get to go and we don't throw this life away on some promise that something better awaits. It's one reason I'm NOT in a hurry to die. The idea of leaving the people I love in any form of the pain of loss I've endured is a wretched thought. It's not for fear of hell or nothingness. I don't believe in hell and if it's nothing? Deep dreamless sleep is nothing. And it's fantastic. If people I've lost get that, that's comforting. That I don't get to see them IS my hell.

This is where the TL;DR people can uncover their eyes. lol That probably sounds bitchy, but it was funny when I said it in my head. Okay, but this is where you can jump to the point. That's more neutral and harder to misunderstand.

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There's no magic switch where ideas come because I'm at 'optimal efficiency'. That sounds robotic for a reason, because it can be. Most days when you're low, you're going to find nothing works. You go through the motions and it sucks. Still, you did something, which has a separate but motivational purpose you can draw on. Some of those low days, it clicks and you're flying. Don't expect that, but don't just NOT do it because it's not guaranteed to happen. The point is, it MIGHT and that's why it's worth trying. I might fire off plans when I'm sort of manic with inspiration. Sometimes I can meet those lofty demands, sometimes I mostly hug a pillow and scribble in a notebook without actually working. Own it-- you might not have added to your official word count, but it's real towards the process.

Today was like this. Spring Break, stayed in bed until 2 PM. Harassed people in message form, made coffee and pounded out some ideas for Part II of UnSung (you beautiful, terrible bastard of an idea, you) but didn't actually start it. Wandered over here to blog... this. That's it. I probably have an hour of sunlight left and I plan on doing nothing but mapping the location for Part II. I don't usually put too much into maps, but this is going to be a challenging space for these characters to explore and it needs all three dimensions of consideration and maybe a couple more.

That's probably the point. The onion is getting mushy at this point (also why I'm crying, I swear) but it doesn't really matter that my brain is full of doubt and fear and procrastination. I get more physically ill when I deny it. I need to create on any scale. I can't just have ideas-- I have to jot them down, sweat them out, put them beyond the 'I have an idea' place that my mind taunts me with. 

You'll hear it everywhere-- ideas are cheap. Don't take that to mean that ideas are useless. They ARE cheap. You need lots and lots of them to give them value. They don't have a set value, mind you. Only editors get to charge per word. A writer doesn't really get to place a set value on their ideas. I get to slap a price on an asset, but it doesn't protect me from piracy, you borrowing your friend's Kindle or my books earning me nothing in a used book store. Most authors will not make a living on it. And that means nothing to me. If I get time on this earth, I'll get there. If I don't? Well, I'll be dead and you can write a really stupid eulogy about how hard I tried. I won't be around to care.

I don't keep doing this because I'm merely a hopeless masochist. I do it because my mind is telling me noooooo, but my body, MY BODY IS TELLING ME YES! Seriously, guys-- I need this. Not just the passion, but the hope that it does pay off. I'm not going to pretend that I'm okay with the starving artist part. I want to encourage the same hunger for my work that I feel when I set out to make it. I want to complete you...

However, we have each day we get. If I waste a single one, I stand to lose several more on stupid regrets. So maybe today is not the day I work my ass off and churn out an amazing cover or get a 8K word count on my book. Maybe today is 'just' the day I set up points of inspiration that sow those seeds. Sometimes you 'just' and 'only' accomplish things of any scale. You know that it's a monumental step but you used those words humbly because you probably realized that ego is a shitstorm. 'I have only written five books' doesn't mean that your accomplishments are less because you haven't even published one. I know it can sting because I get sensitive about wording sometimes too, but I'm learning how to kill the comparisons. It would take a long ass blog post to really explain that I am humbling myself for the long haul not kicking down. I have 5 but I'm reaching for 50. Maybe one or more has bestseller potential. Maybe number 23, but I'm not stopping even if I 'make it'. I'm not throwing darts in the wind either. I might still speak in 'just' and 'only' because I've never had guarantees in life. My generation was one of the first to get decimated by lack of opportunity once we hit adulthood. 

Fuck that rabbit hole though. I went there too earlier today. I'll let the rest of the world argue politics and such. I'm here to help you escape or make sense of your troubles. Let me offer you a little place to start. If you read every word, you are probably in a vulnerable place. I'm certainly not a well-adjusted superhero. I just make decisions that have so far and through dumb luck kept me going. Count on yourself. No matter how much you've downed on your limitations, well, you're not always in the best place to see your strengths, but it doesn't mean they aren't there. There's a middle ground between your best and worst days, what your mind and body want when they aren't working together.

It doesn't matter what you think you can and can't do. Whether you're right or wrong, you don't have a clue. You go forward because the only way back is passive, inaction. You might find a lesson in retrospect or reflection, but camping out there is cheap. Not useless, but it's not going to secure a future. Use the present, realize the future is possible but just as unattainable. One thing my mom taught me is the value of the present. You might not be able to help that you are miserable or scared or self-hating, but you do chose to stand up or move your right arm or do the hokey pokey. You can drag yourself through every damn day until your body kicks your mind into gear. Yes, it goes both ways. Maybe you're stuck in a stubborn body that won't or can't move. Make your brain do the heavy lifting.

You can say where you want to be ideally, but life isn't an ideal. Working hard is sometimes about using the least wounded part. When someone says success came from barely lifting a finger, sometimes it means that their every effort went into lifting that finger, but it was the right finger and by sheer dumb luck. Don't worry too much about being misunderstood. It's bound to happen even with clever context or outright telling someone. You know your struggle and you know when you've earned the reward for that effort. Accept it humbly or scream it from the rooftops. Take what you need.

Sorry, guys, I'm TL;DR regardless. I want to be absolutely sure you get a valuable piece to take away. You get plenty of quote dumps on social media. I can do more and I will.

Keep going because... well, what else are you going to do? Keep writing because you have a story to tell.

This, Too, Shall Pass!

And who can argue with Gandalf?

I know, I know, that's not what he says. Welcome to my head. When I use this little four word pep talk, I absolutely see this epic scene where Gandalf goes toe to toe with the Balrog play out in my head.

It's certainly effective when the nasty fingers of doubt, the darkest parts of my soul, the things I'll swear with bravado are behind me because 'I'm stronger now.'

I'd love to say that is why I'm drawn to writing fantasy, that it's simple escapism. It's true enough that it's therapy in disguise, but it's not just there when I'm sucked into the darkness. In fact, nothing is in the darkness and fantasy is not always sitting there with its hand out, telling you it will all be okay.

You'll find that writing groups and author circles are often full of people that will remind you that this state of being is unexceptional. More often than not, the thick of it is also paralyzing and you'll see people panicking as to what they can do so that it doesn't slip away.

More often than not, I won't talk about those dark times and I won't reach out to anyone either. It's usually a good sign that I'm coping if I do. Often it's the silliest thing that tilts me out of those stupid pits of hell; the motivational Gandalfs or the British voice of reason (because oddly enough, a good dry insult is comedy gold for me).

This post isn't really going to go deeper. There are plenty of posts that will dive into the personal aspects of rock bottom, but since I'm writing about it, I'm just not actually there. It's like the absurdly wealthy trying to convince you they remember what it's like to be poor. Our brains are actually trained to ditch that shit as soon as possible. Even if we remember it quite clearly, survival instincts file it under 'let's not go there again.'

Last week, I was actually functioning while in a bad physical and mental state. I managed to do some coherent editing and meet my goals. It's probably because of that stubborn insistence that I'm not still in that state of mind. Do I want to talk about it? Not really because it doesn't have a catalyst, some current tragedy to explain it. It just happens. Well, aren't I ineffective when in that state? Eh, probably, sort of, but let me tell you, if you can still manage to pay attention to what you're editing in that state, it's probably pretty amazing stuff. It definitely means that some things have to be looked at again when I'm less foggy, but here's the thing-- it's actually kind of valuable. While ideally, I like to edit when I'm neutral about my work and when I love it, there's a gold mine in when you're sure you're going to hate your work. You're becoming your own objective audience-- you've got your superfan, your passerby, and your troll all right there.

I'm not really hiding anything; I'm just manipulating my own feelings into something usable. Armed with Gandalf, a sense of humor and a story, I'm ready to trample my trolls.

In case my people are wondering, I tackled an impromptu screenplay edit and finished editing the first part of UnSung. Tomorrow, I'm going to read an origin story first before tackling either proceeding with UnSung or doing some cover art. Either way, I'm armed with some pretty solid weapons in the fight ahead.

Do what you gotta do and keep writing.

Are You Word Shy?

Two posts in one day, but this one is directly inspired from a post about using little known words in your story.

Do you ever catch yourself wondering whether you should dumb down a word so that you don't lose an audience? I'm not going to tell you one way or the other whether your supposed audience should be considered or not, but I have a thing or two to saying about dumbing down.

#1, don't.

You probably have a special knowledge on a subject that means you sound like you're speaking a foreign language to most of us, but don't give up a big money word just because it isn't well-known. In this case, the poster wondered how knowledgeable her audience might be about a horse term. In this case, it was a perfect fit and omitting it would mean having to explain it. When you do this, you run the risk of infantilizing your audience. You may need to boost the context around it or just let your audience look it up and see why the word fits so well. I encourage you to throw in your special vocabulary and educate your audience... in small doses. Use the big word, then use a better known word to lead them. Don't omit them all out of fear. Let your audience grow into the knowledge that excites you and it can pay off.

On the flipside, I will agree that the reverse, using big words that you don't usually use, is usually a bad idea. The temptation to sound smarter or more diverse often drowns out your voice, the natural flow of your story, and looks very much like you've just discovered the wonders of a thesaurus. By all means, tap into your Word of the Day on occasion, but don't risk looking pretentious by filtering in words that don't fit your voice. When that day comes to address the fanbase you've worked so hard for, don't walk in making them expect a scholar and ending up with a grade school primer with a few pages torn out. Represent the talented storyteller that wrote the books. In fact, wow them a bit if you can. Don't build a house of cards and then show up with gum wrappers.

There's my two cents on that. I believe that novices always go in with shaky knees and a lot of questions. Take all tips with a grain of salt, knowing that your experience will be unique. Simply be aware of the consequences you could face. It takes gobs of confidence to win every small step forward, so make your steps with a solid base of consideration.

Thanks for reading and keep writing! I always try to help my fellow writers and authors build so don't be a stranger.

The World Can Always Use a Hero

For better or worse, fantasy is often whittled down to where heroes (and villains) fall in the grand scheme of things.

In my experience, it's never that simple.

I grew up as a gamer where heroes and villains were always clearly defined. The most visible instances of either were things I could start attributing to the people closest to me at any point in my life.

As I have mentioned before, I like to hop on Quora sometimes and lately, I've seen the plight of psychopaths, assuring the rest of us that they aren't all bad. Maybe you have also seen the movie Unbreakable, where the theme is that everyone has a natural nemesis.

For someone who has come to terms with where they are on the sociopathic spectrum (and we aren't all bad either, for the record), psychopaths ARE the natural nemesis. I'll leave it to you if you want to go do some research on sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies, but to make a long story short, here we go. Sociopaths are very honest, to the point where we come off as blunt, bossy and insufferable. I know it and I do try not to, but I'm a horrible liar where social situations are concerned. Even for my own sake, I do not see manipulation or flattery as possible weapons in my repertoire. If you are charmed by me, chances are you've caught one of my rare passionate moments where I feel both secure and enthused to talk about something I am confident about. On the flipside, psychopaths have that side of themselves on constant point. While we both share a limited sense of empathy, psychopaths are not above using charisma to manipulate or flatter, creating a security that they can exploit, not considering those they hurt. I would not say that all psychopaths do this, but that particular exploit is a sure weapon against the credibility of any sociopath.

I will defend my position with facts and over time, you will realize I am right and trustworthy. A psychopath, however, will immediately win you over with their charisma and you will be more tempted to believe them in that moment, only seeing the truth of the deception when they are well out of reach of the consequences of it.

If I haven't lost you in the aside there, then you better understand what more often makes the theme between heroes and villains. You may have heard it said that actions define the hero or villain. However, the supposed hero is often the charismatic favorite with a dark side you aren't seeing, which makes them very probably a villain at any given moment. The same goes for the villain, where they might just be unpopular or misunderstood, but given access to the red button, they're actually the ones that save all of us ungrateful bastards.

The world needs a hero, yes, but often we are not equipped to know who the heroes are. I am easily both at any given time, so neither put me on a pedestal or lock me away underneath it. This goes for everyone you meet. Be prepared to find your heroes in unlikely places.

In case I've been too distracted to say so, this week has largely been about helping my nephew with his science fair project, although I did get some writing done (woo hoo!). I'd like to resume cover work ASAP next week since there hasn't been a good window for much else outside of organizing some rough templates for them. Nonetheless, it's been a busy week (all the good ones are) and I hope to get back into more intense sessions as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading and keep writing! Hopefully, I can dig up some new tips for everyone.

Made a Thing

Well, another thing. At some point, humility seems insincere since I've made a lot of things and I've busted my butt while I'm at it. Share time...

 

And there it is. I shouldn't have slacked off on actual making a virtual flier, but it did completely slip my mind. UnNamed was already released as well, but I may hold off on designing one until I set UnSung up for release.

Oh man, oh man, UnSung will be huge though... Now that I've stripped away all word count concerns by sticking to self-publishing, I'm still two scenes away from finishing Part One of Three and I'm at a whopping 70K words already. That's the 'minimum' word count for most adult novels already (anything smaller usually gets called a novella). Keep in mind, I'm also fairly skeletal in the beginning. When I flesh out some of the rushed scenes, that sometimes boosts my count up another 5-10K. I would not be surprised if this story reaches the 200-300K range.

It's a vague set of numbers but maybe more details will shed light on this. I've mentioned before it's a complex story to write, but that is because I labor to make these ideas much simpler to read. To give you some insight, the story starts with the bard, Aiden. He is a young man who can't speak and lived most of his life as a slave before escaping. He is running from place to place, always afraid he will be returned to his master. He meets a strange young woman named Lilith that decides she is useful to him, but to help, he has to go with her to a mysteriously abandoned city where trade once flourished. To him, literally anything is better than going back to his master.

The story also follows a girl he met prior to his escape, a fire dancer named Talia. Life seems perfect-- she's at the top of her class, close to graduating, has a wonderful boyfriend. After fleeing from a scene where she might be suspected of murder, she travels alone to a place where she doesn't know anyone but is befriended by a performance troupe. When she auditions for them, she displays a very unique trait. She is separated from them and begins to believe that maybe she is cursed to wander alone.

And the murder investigation continues. Following head investigator Corvus, we get more insight into the murder that resulted in the first two characters fleeing. Only it doesn't stop there.

These are the three main plot points, but there are also smaller scenes that carry the story involving two of the Gods. I say that this is easily its own book because I'm resolving many of these plots that lead into a very different approach for Part Two. Part Three will unify all of the ideas to resolve the main conflict.

As I did on UnNamed, I am planning an epilogue that starts in a very different region on the same world. I already have the first two characters in mind, but I hope this one will be as rich and vast as UnSung is turning out to be. I do know that UnHeard is taking place on the lightly mentioned island nation to the west of the Anders. Until I write the epilogue, I don't want to commit to any details for the time being.

I'm not terribly worried about my ideas being stolen. For one, good luck arriving at all the details beyond those short descriptions. I haven't given away anything specific enough to be pinched and plagiarized. For two, nobody talks like me. I know this. How I arrive at things is not mainstream. My voice is its own thing. I am at least keenly aware of that.

Honestly, like with any story, I anticipate releasing it to everyone! Even more so, I always look forward to the next story. Physical exhaustion aside, I'm so unblocked that I'd need a spaceship to hide from my muse. And I'm so grateful for that, really. With so much else that can go wrong in life, the best thing I can ask for is a relentless muse.

Well, I'm off, friends! Thanks for reading and, if you're one of the others, keep writing as well.

As for me, more to write, more to design. I'll keep you posted!