Are You Ready?

Halloween tends to be a busy pre-NaNo day in my household, so I'm throwing this post out (and scheduling a couple to throw out the first week) to get revved up for what's ahead.

(Quick update: I've gotten three of the UnQuadrilogy covers done, but considering the third and fourth books have yet to be written, I'm a-okay with not finishing them pre-Nano. It was a busy week with new kittens and my bear-like instinct to hibernate in cold weather.)

First off, from what I've learned, it's REALLY tough for writers with a full-time job to adhere to the 1,667 word daily average needed to get your 50K by the end of the month. Even if you do manage to flow with a 1K per hour output speed, you're still looking at about 2 hours of time dedicated to it. An already hectic lifestyle would make this next to impossible to squeeze in during the work week and, supposing you have two solid days off, the idea of shoving 14K words, or at least 14 hours of writing in two days (that's full time writing!) just doesn't fly. I've seen that some people will squeeze in an hour or even specifically schedule it as a word sprint, just so they knock off at least 5 hours-- still leaves about 9 hours to be fit into two days...

So yes, the full 50K is a pipe dream for people with that kind of lifestyle. I'd still encourage people to participate as they can, or set a NaNo-lite goal. 25K is still huge and I can tell you now, it's not really about how much you do. It can be a great learning experience and a way to boost your camaraderie with other writers. Over the course of the month, authors will put encouraging messages in your inbox that might offer encouragement or habits that can help you.

Busy lives can come from those who don't work outside the home too. Among the participants, you'll find the parents of young children who struggle for time to focus. 

 

Not many of my Buddies reported as Winners, but it really didn't dull their accomplishments one bit. It's not a strictly monitored event and what you report or how you report it is up to you. You can drop your text in to have the word count tallied up or you can just manually type it in. Some people will fudge it to get the Winner discounts-- no shame in that. The Scrivener discount alone is worth it. I do think the system should go ahead and allow those discounts for anyone who put in the earnest effort. 

As for habits, most people suggest a sort of ritualistic entry into each session. Make coffee/tea, light exercise, music (too distracting for me, but works for some), blog/free-write-- it's like a romance so bubble baths, scented candles and chocolate are fair game too. Habits are harder to come by if you're busy, but you might successfully squeeze in a pep talk while walking to your car after work, grabbing your favorite take-out, or keeping a voice recorder (bonus if it has a dictation feature) to multitask the mentality you need to motivate yourself to use your time the best way possible.

Any type of big goal is going to be a sacrifice so 50K may not even be a priority. In fact, word count goals can be intimidating. Maybe you're just not fast at typing or you're lucky you can squeeze out 200 words, let alone 2K. I still think it's worth it to sign up and check in, see what's involved and how you can prepare for next year. Go ahead and throw your word counts in it to see if it's more doable than you thought.

Best of luck to all participants! Go ahead and add me as your buddy (I'm AbsentGoddess) and I'll add you back. It's a very secure system so don't worry about people harassing you. It's just as easy to block people as it is anywhere else. I've never had anyone even remotely do so. Above all, enjoy this time! Any goals that put you on course for what you want in life are worthwhile. Never set it in measure to someone else.

The Way You See the World

There are some parts of self-discovery combined with studies where the knee-jerk reaction is resentment, defiance. Studies, no matter how extensive, are always isolated to their unique circumstances, yet some are immediately observable without confirmation. The 'why' of these conclusions is by far the most fascinating so, no matter how you feel, trudging on to look at where you land is how you'll make firmer assessments of yourself.

In case that's too vague, look at it this way. You read a study that says most people that aren't you are better at what you love to do (men have better visual attention to detail and reaction time). The knee-jerk reaction is that men would be better artists and gamers. However, when you actually read it rather than decide the world hates women, you see that we're talking micro-measurements in depth and reaction time. Do these studies account for the competitive nature of the subject? Do they look for the lifestyle or career choices that would put someone at a practiced advantage rather than natural? These are questions that may skew the results. Societally, some traits are simply hidden when undervalued in their communities. Men are less likely to admit they kick ass at crochet. People in poor neighborhoods are less likely to be praised for being good at chess. Not to mention, a competitive nature could be more distraction than a boost to focus in some cases. This is why it's important to look at how thoroughly these studies really dig.

However, in my case, I already knew my disadvantages. Doesn't mean I didn't experience the defensive rise of objection, but it's not a rarity. There are some people that can't see 3D effects in 2D formats. Having eyes with two different vision levels is one such reason but there are other brain and sight impairments that factor in. In my case, the world isn't really 3D to me. 

It's not a disadvantage, not really. I've always had an easier time of drawing because the world is shapes and shadows and lights but if I catch something or don't flinch, it's more luck than skill. 3D animation looks different to me because I see the more sophisticated color palettes, effects such as ray tracing which capture the movement of light on simulated objects nearly perfectly flat as opposed to struggling to translate them as such. However, a lot that moves is also lost on me. I miss a lot of what people call badly done effects in movies. Call it a choppy mental frame rate, but I knew 3D modeling would be a colossal challenge for me because I would have to micro adjust like crazy every time I moved the sculpted model.

That's not to say I could never enjoy sculpting or modeling. It mostly means that my standards and perceptions wouldn't hold up to elitism. As with most creative pursuits though, it's still blissfully (and woefully) subjective and you're often either a hack or a genius as fast as the critic blinks. Not seeing as 'masters' do doesn't necessarily put you at a disadvantage. A different perspective can mean a different workflow. You can make amazing music when deaf because of studies in music theory. A missing element also means removing it as a distraction. If everyone who is considered a master has a common workflow, that doesn't mean there aren't pioneers ready to crash through the walls and rethink how it's done. We're often seen as collateral damage at first, but if we stick with it, amazing things can happen.

Over time, my worst self-criticisms just don't keep me down very long. Being the exception to what is considered the rule can be isolating, a source of pride, insulting, motivating... maybe it's old school, but the way I grew up, it was always in noticing gendered differences, both biologically and societally, that I found the most comparisons. Things like racial/cultural behaviors are social and learned. You start to see that general perceptions are the crutch of invention.

Some people stumble on this one. Biologically, race is real. Forensic anthropologists can tell your race and gender with skeletal remains alone. Artists can regale you on the finer points of anatomical structure. It's not just a skin color. Living in different climates and altitudes and so on, have shaped us. Gravity and habits shape us. Whether you like it or not, the Y chromosome tends to produce those long eyelashes women want and male pattern baldness is inherited through the maternal genetics. Nowadays, even racially isolated areas carry migrants of other races and tourists will always be our best economic boosters. Isolation makes cultures stagnant yet people still develop tribal mentalities.

That being said, it's still possible that we acclimate our views not solely on accurate perception but rather by the things that leave the biggest impression on each of us. In an area where mostly Japanese people live, you're not likely to noticed there are Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. there as well. But if an Asian person is the only one of their ethnicity that walks in, you're likely to mentally attempt to discern which regional Asian features they most resemble. Our brain does tend to blend like objects into patterns to locate exceptions. It's true enough that with ethnicities outside our own, all of another actually does look alike unless we are making a concentrated effort to override that primal adaptation.

Brains by default are ignorant, but that's not a dirty word. There are some things that we can reprogram if we find it worth the effort. You could parse those priorities into ethical, moral, etc. standards, but as an individual, this is your call. See the world, experience the world how you will. Choosing a livelihood counter to your ability may be fruitless or very near to impossible but I think we all know to some extent why it might be worth pursuing against the odds.

Somewhere out there, I see someone who probably has the same if not similar issue that I had to come by the hard way. I wonder, if we can remove those obstacles, let someone else skip some steps, could we offer others a chance to realize more in their lifetime? At the same time, there is just no way to really understand some lessons until you've lived them in your own body.

Cats, Coffee and Halloween

Saturday night, we finally caved to having furbabies in the house again. After losing my dog and cat a few years ago, I just couldn't get over the feeling that getting another pet was replacing them. My sister's cat had a couple of kittens that finally reached weaning stages, so now we have She-Ra and Seven. It's nice to have cats in the house again. They adjusted pretty quickly and they do bring cheer to the house so it was time.

Onto the coffee...

You might also know I got a coffee brewer for my birthday and have since enjoyed the wonderful world of mass brewing, travel mug and K-cup coffee since. My dad's ex-wife, a sweet woman named Carole who told me I've always been the daughter she wish she had, had a bunch of K-Cup coffee in different flavors and types that she sent home with my dad. Not just coffee but cappuccino and lattes-- mocha, peppermint and my favorite, hazelnut. The bottom shelf of one cabinet is now completely my teas, drink mixes, and coffees and that also makes this girl over the moon.

As for Halloween, that's a week away, folks! I've done two of the four planned covers and it's highly likely I'll finish the other two this week as well. They're absolutely beautiful. For the first one, I went half and half, blending a photo with digital painting, but it made me confident enough to just source a photo and paint independently. I went with a simple stock texture background that will just change colors over the series and then each front and back cover will contain half a face with a solid spine between them. There will also be an object behind the title, something in theme with the book (there's a dagger on the first and a lute on the second, but haven't decided on the other two yet). Because I scrapped the original covers that I hadn't really planned, I do plan on posting the cover drawing I'm not using for UnSung sometime prior to its release. It's done in more of a comic style whereas I used more realism for the current ones. I'm very proud of these so far so it will be difficult not to share them right away.

In any case, proceeds for The Magical Book of Wands will be donated to the American Library Association. Preorder this anthology, that I am proud to be a part of, before its Halloween release and help us fight to keep public libraries available. Libraries aren't just for readers. They also provide valuable community services like free internet and children's programs. Authors will not be taking any proceeds so if you still wish to support us, follow our links provided after our stories to find our work or find us on Patreon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H7T24SG

That wraps things up for now. It'll be back to digital painting, scrambling to finish what I can prior to NaNoWriMo and maybe doing some diamond painting. Holy hell, the diamond chips are tiny. I've never done this before and they're definitely smaller than even my Mini perler beads, so there will probably be a lot of swearing. Wish me luck!

Rare Kind of Social Butterfly

It was a rare busy weekend for me. One kid with a high fever and cranky stomach. My oldest nephew Thomas coming over to play Chess with the younger nephew Marcus. Two new pet additions, cats we named She-Ra and Seven. So there was no drawing or writing but it was a weekend I needed lots of K-cup lattes and cappuccinos to function on. 

I don't initiate social situations yet it's also rare that I'll turn them down unless I'm just completely rundown. I know I'll end up talking too much and too loudly and end up nursing a sore throat, but I'll also have zero trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep once the mania passes. It's not a bad issue to have unless I get overwhelmed and forget to set boundaries or hesitate to excuse myself to take a breather. 

What I didn't do was forget to take notes. I've set up some ideas for short stories, digital painting practice and NaNoWriMo Prep. What always made things too overwhelming in the past was not seizing those moments. I would go weeks, months, years, not drawing, writing, listening to music-- daydreaming but never 'getting around to it.' It never occurred to me that I'd taken everything I heard adults were supposed to be too literally and creating this hysterical void that removed my personality, made me irritable and unbearable to be around. 

I've talked about before what became turning points. Going to school wasn't a fix-all right away. Too much built up, too much bottled up, too much zipped and buttoned up. Several months in, I was asked to commit myself when suicidal thoughts became vivid, planned, uncontrollable. I was happier than I'd been in years but it didn't erase the bad habits I'd trained into that were still degrading me, the damage finally catching up.

I fought like a mad woman for my true self. It was terrifying because I had to become selfish even though I was raising kids. Yet I was risking damaging them if I continued patterns of self-sacrifice and blaming others for that misery. Taking an extremity in selfishness was not the counterbalance. Yet I had to say no to others to become happy and useful to others. True common sense had jack shit to do with the self-help mantras that amount to misquoted sound bites on the internet. True common sense often sounds counterintuitive and hypocritical, yet you have to remove the simplifications and describe it to parse it out.

The ''overthinking" was actually an asset in a culture to used to under thinking. When I stopped dumbing down things that just didn't work for me, I found my strengths were in the excess of less socially accepted traits. Yet when I defended how they work for me, I found true friends, my voice and the ability to show people how to embrace their own niche perspectives.

There are simple adages that you can be confident in. First do no harm. Do unto  others as you would have done unto you. These need no elaboration. But throwing out context of origin for other ideas (don't cry over spilled milk) can end up misleading. You can experience and react to regret. The idea that you can't look or feel weak is not the right mindset. Yet you don't want to spend your life crying over a sour puddle you didn't clean up or respilling it to seek pity or continue the remorse. We do see messages that need interpretation, ideas that,if simplified, should at least be self-aware in their potential for misunderstanding. So count your chickens before they hatch-- prepare for good fortune just as much as ill. People blow windfall lottery winnings without preparing for them. So many lessons were written for the overly optimistic, those not preparing for the long winter, but those lessons don't carry over well for those already cynical and not sure how to take good fortune.

The academically and creatively gifted-- though we can seem sagely with common sense, we can be impulsive to the contrary in our youth. We probably made people obsessed with our weird minds then disappeared to leave bitterness when we didn't think to explain the price of that social overflow. There was a time when people didn't connect high-functioning and bipolar II. Life could have been different because those people have different opportunities now. I never considered my chances as too late. I've embraced my late blooming. In fact, there was so much in music, art, gaming and technology that made my life magical just as much as challenging. I had amazing teachers that didn't fault me for my struggles,who believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. I got lucky in a sense because there were so few people in my position that would have had support like I did. There were holes in that support but someone else with a safety net that kept me from giving up.

And this was hard mode. If I'm lucky, then the instability in any other aspect could be failure for another. I can't wish my life on my worst enemy and not be a monster. Living in my body is amazing and terrifying and given a chance I would not choose my challenges and problems again. Yet I practice self love and self discipline though conditionally. I don't excuse my mistakes but I don't destroy myself over them.

Mentally sound people struggle hard too. My struggles don't mean I get to assume anyone has it easier. Not in the least. I don't understand anyone else's struggles, even if it's an OMG #metoo #twinning kind of moment. In fact,sometimes people who are supposed to be complete opposites, sometimes we can relate somehow. Those wavelengths are definitely bridges to acceptance but it will never make us really get it.

Socializing will never be easy but it's the trainwreck I can't avoid. I can be unpredictably great, mediocre or even forgettable. What makes me better at it is work. As in my last post concerning compromise in work and personal situations, the important skill to build is that you can build your tribes. You can respect people and create a compromise and trust to function better. You'll find people that want to sabotage you too. You end up focusing on or venting with the ones that lift you up. You don't get less sick. You just develop the skills to deter the symptoms.

People won't know how you make it look so easy. They'll even assume you have it effortlessly. I share my 'secret' knowing it can be scrutinized and used against me or really help someone who thinks they're failing when they're really nailing it.

A Little More in Self-Discovery

Partway through my cover design phase prior to NaNoWriMo next month (less than two weeks!), I've realized what I thought would take a month is actually much quicker. It's very possible to have those four covers done by the end of October. As usual, I'm taking progress screen shots to tease prior to book release, but I'm beyond thrilled with how they are turning out. Blending for realism is a lot different than comic art so I thought it would take a lot longer. However, I'm getting the results I want  and I'm partway through the second cover already. Doing the third and fourth will only benefit from what I've learned already.

I've seen a lot of amazing artists on YouTube, many doing realism or comic art and even a hybrid like I aim for. I've been able to look at light and shadow differently and makes lists of things I want to try next. I didn't really have a lot of confidence I'd pull it off, so it was surprising that I have been able to find it intuitively rather than on purpose. 

There's a lot about drawing that requires me to let go, to confidence levels at all. Realism looks horrible at first. I can't immediately enjoy it like I do with line drawings. Yet once the colors start to deepen and shapes start to form, I understand why I endure it. When I start to manipulate them with unnatural, saturated colors and exaggerated proportions and forms, it's really fun. I never realized how much blending creates such subtleties in form. It's something you don't really see until you're manipulating it directly.

I never really pictures my characters quite like this before. It's not that I pictured them as cartoon characters either. I've always had a general idea of their features but visualizing them for cover art is new for this series especially. Again, I wasn't sure if I should do character art, but it's also what I enjoy doing, so it always wins. I'm not married to the idea of people thinking they should see them that way, but I do want people to see what I enjoy. Multi-talented people, this is our golden age, so always take advantage of that! Writers are not just readers-- we're also artists, crafters, pioneers for the benefits of taking control of our creative properties.

I'm grateful for every day I can pursue this. Anything can change that so I cherish it. I take every opportunity to draw and write when I can. To craft gifts and find a new problem to solve. It's made me a better person to be around. I have better relationships and bigger ideas and happier nephews. I love that I can pass on my knowledge with them, show them why it pays to pursue things you enjoy, bounce ideas off of them while we walk to and from their school. Right now, it's drawing. 

I find that big chunks of writing OR drawing tend to make either feel more profound. It's really funny how every time, I feel like I'm going to be rusty, so my confidence is an asshole. Yet, it's the time away that also creates this sense of wonder that I've actually developed some skill in the other that really shines in the transition.

Eventually my attempt at a comic book is going to rock. I'm going to sit down to do it, thinking otherwise. It's not humility or even lack of confidence because I feel like it's just practical. There's no preamble or procrastination in getting going, so it's more like underestimation for something I just haven't done in a while. The world will go away-- not because it's a bad world to be in, but the transition is about surrounding myself with a space that needs to be filled. It's not about escape but feeling as if I've been commissioned, an au-pair to a cast of characters wandering without direction, the architect of the mountains, valleys and cities to come. Like a favorite movie, I watch it in stages-- rough and new, engaged and developing, ripe and rich, burgeoning and complete. Every stage is trembling, on newborn legs to first love to frail old age. 

My eyes get a big workout. When writing, I sometimes stop looking at the keys or the screen and start rapidly looking around the world I'm in. Drawing is constantly drawing with my eyes what isn't there yet. I've laughed about how much work I do with my eyes, but I wasn't entirely joking. My eyes do tend to strain and twitch from use. Hand-eye coordination is big for crafters of all kinds. They tend to work together but it's not unusual for them to wander on their own.

Well, off to bed. I'll probably pop in with more progress updates. November will probably be more of the same. I may get more blog organized by December and think of a fun series to share. Until then, let's keep at our goals!

Disability in Fantasy

Nowadays, it's not unusual to see the occasional 'sensitivity reader'. Yet in the same vein where people try to tiptoe around racism, sexism, bigotry, etc., there's something about the idea of those with a disability needing to be tiptoed around that doesn't sit right with me either.

The problem is, communities still try to represent way too many people who have every right not to agree. I, for one, have never liked using 'autism' as the label for one of my life's challenges, yet on Quora, I saw another high-functioning woman claim that she wants to be called autistic. Just like asexuality, it is affected by biases that often plague a spectrum that can't be clearly defined. I do prefer high-functioning, if anything at all, because 99 times out of 100, people wanting to use it at all to describe me, it's generally not positive. Yes, when it's relevant, talk openly, but if you're apologizing for me by explaining that to someone. Like on Family Guy when Peter was tested 'legally retarded', it was a pass both for him being perverted and unambitious.

Retarded isn't a dirty word for me either. My dad hates it and mainly because it was used to hurt his little sister who had Down's Syndrome. I love my Aunt Shari and if anyone used that word for her, I'd fuck up their world, but when used in the context of just people who are willfully stupid, I had no problem with it. I'm the same with 'gay' and 'lame', both words that have many meanings that have jackshit to do with people. You're welcome to call me a 'cunt' if you like, because name-calling itself is generic to me. You'd really have to dig deep on a personal wound to get that to work.

Not every disabled person sees their condition as a crutch. In fact, many disabilities have workarounds, schools and businesses have been addressing them in a way that doesn't create pandering or elephant in the room situations. With any particular challenge comes people who view it differently. Some people do feel sorry for themselves, some people hate it mentioned at all. It's always ridiculous to assume there's a safe zone. People will be sensitive even when you think you have the safest middle ground.

I do write what you might consider disabled characters. The only thing I don't do is point it out directly. Why? Because I'm not using it as a teachable moment. I don't want to turn their life into a Web MD entry, just be as honest as I can be about what they might go through. I don't know if researching real world problems is really necessary for fantasy either. To do so would assume the same advantages and disadvantages exist there. Instead, I try to challenge how they might face those challenges in their worlds.

There is certainly a place for accuracy in fantasy yet a writer should never feel restricted to it. Some do want to cover their ass with a disclaimer that it's a mix of research and artistic liberty (already a given if it's fiction, in my opinion). One thing I like to ask myself throughout is whether I am using it naturally or whether I am turning it into tokenism. One of the issues about chasing after sensitivity is, in some attempts to be accurate and sympathetic, you too often run into a sort of bubble. InItrying to treat that character with dignity, you are pushed into making them invincible and therefore risking making them less human after all.

Sometimes teachable moments work for stories too. I was rewatching one of my childhood favorite movies yesterday (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) and there's that girl that comes up to Morgan Freeman's Azeem and asks him why God painted him and he told her Allah loves variety. I think what makes a lot of the exposition work for that movie is the fact that it's brief but effective in forming quick relationships between such a huge cast of characters. Look also at Duncan, who's a bit of a dick like much of the Locksley household before Robin leaves for the war, but when he is blinded, he becomes more considerate and feeble. At no point did I think that was simply from the condition of being blind. He was starving, the injury was caused by violence and trauma and he is not a young man. They don't nurse these characters' differences, but we see through the actions and environment the advantages and disadvantages they carry.

When I look for 'sensitivity' I don't find it sensitive to look for a disabled person to speak for their whole community. Just like when I create any character, I try to observe and research these issues from a broad and narrow point of view. There are thousands upon thousands of people who have already told their stories and even someone who can be as literal as me doesn't need to bluntly ask anyone what is widely available already. It's just as lazy as people who ask those condescending questions to atheists like 'what if hell is real?' Q&A sites literally have thousands of this same question answered by millions of people and it still gets asked. Dialogue can be a great way to hear the opinion side of things, but often, the tone of people asking about sensitivity readers is often lacking the confidence to question the reader at all for fear of offending them. Truly, that would defeat the purpose.

If it's important for you as a writer to be seen as sensitive as possible, go for it. Disclaimers, interviewing medical doctors for authenticity, 50 sensitivity beta readers-- knock yourself out. However, most efforts AREN'T done with being a total shithead in mind. If the characters are being shitheads to each other, this doesn't mean the author is a shithead. Some stories have to crawl under our skin and feel all sandpaper-y, to convey insensitivity to create the intended results, to do a lot of unpleasant things to make the good and profound more triumphant.

Or you picked up a grimdark fantasy and that's your own damn fault for not knowing gloom and doom is the whole damn point.

You are probably going to notice my 'disabled' characters without any help. You're going to cringe when you know something that can hurt them that the character doing it doesn't. That's just how life is and it doesn't need theme music or a diatribe. A narrator can even purposely mislead you with a bias then surprise you with how the character defies it. Triumphs can be singular and we won't always have the strength or willpower to repeat them. We have good days and bad. All of us.

Anecdote time then I'll wander off. I was hanging out with my stepsister and her boyfriend at the time in a hotel room. I don't rightly remember all the dumb shit we were doing that night, but it involved hitting the stop button while jumping on the elevator and alcohol. In any case, we'd gotten a bag of popcorn from thin air (I really have no idea where the hell we got it but it's important) and my SS and I were going back down to the lobby, probably for more elevator high-jumping and another bucket of ice. I toss her boyfriend the bag of popcorn and he asked how long to put it in the microwave for. I told him it says on the package and he got pissed and threw it on the bed.

No clue why until I laughed about it on the way down and my SS had those pie-plate eyes that also knew something I did not. Turns out her boyfriend was illiterate. I still didn't get it. The large numbers on the package literally exactly match the keypad so it was still a stupid thing to get mad about. This particular experience is why the modern PC bullshit tends to grind on my nerves. There are way too many people who have a chip on their shoulder over something a perfect stranger would never know unless YOU FUCKING TELL THEM. I get that you don't want to wear a sign. Yet if someone fucks up where you are the rare exception to a general rule, getting pissed instead of just casually saying it really just makes YOU the dick. Not them for slipping up on your invisible rules. In my case,I tend to run into huggers. Huggers are sunny people and I don't begrudge than that but they hurt me every time. Rather than get offended because they don't know I have days where my clothes feel too heavy let alone withstand hugs, I wince and tell them flat out. No, I don't want to preface every introduction with a laundry list of problems. But because someone doesn't know, I can't be mad that they were trying to ingratiate me as a friend.

Invisible illnesses are their own challenge and it's why you don't treat them like physical differences. Asking a fat person why they bought two seats is a dick move. Asking a one armed stranger if they need a hand might be a dick move (although the missing limb crowd are about 50/50 on a sense of humor about it). Asking an illiterate person to make popcorn? Not a criminal offense. Over time, I've learned to just risk offending someone and apologizing and explaining my error.

As an example, working at Petco, I ran into a little girl who was really excited about cats and she was talkative and adorable. It was near Halloween so I asked her what she wanted to dress as. I didn't notice her dad was there and heard him laughing, but he very calmly told me they were Muslim and didn't celebrate Halloween. They wore head scarves but I hadn't made the connection and felt silly for not knowing. I apologized and confessed to that and the little girl comforted me by saying it was okay. The fact that it didn't bother her really moved me and made it worthwhile to be curious.

This is another reason why it's important to me not to automatically assume someone should know. They didn't owe it to me to be polite and on a bad day, they might not be so polite. Even though I was embarrassed, I didn't respond defensively or with ego. Even though they handled it well, the face he put on could have been for his daughter's benefit. Whatever hurt he might have faced from ignorance in his past was something he would be right not to pass on to his daughter.

Sensitivity is not unimportant but it's a good practice when seeking a new perspective to simply speak with ego and listen with humility. We know that too much ego is destructive but the doubly sensitive are the ones most likely to wound more deeply. Someone calling me crazy is certainly less effective than baby-talking me for my own good.

Accountability is usually the best place to sit. It's generally a good practice to know why you presented a certain character or plot like you did in the first place. Also remember that your disabled character, even if they start out easily offended, they might get a tougher skin, sense of humor or stoicism about it over time. Most people learn over time that holding a grudge is a waste of time. Of course, you learn things like how to avoid certain signs. You start to read condescension or pity in their facial expressions or tone of voice. In many ways, I've become more forgiving of people who make fun of me. I start to see their fear and insecurity in how badly they treat people. I worked service jobs and at times, I'd just meet a dickhead I couldn't handle. Since I always found the time to let my coworkers know, low-key, that I can't handle disrespect, I would tell them beforehand that if I asked them to handle a customer, it meant I needed to step out for a second and calm down. Not a one of them every denied me this because they knew I would make it up to them, accommodate them when they struggled.

For any of my friends that have behavioral hiccups, it's good practice to learn to address this. I actually had a counselor in high school that introduced me to this. She told my teachers and myself that if I needed to leave to just ask and, no other questions asked, I could go. I'd always return and I'd both get my work done and not be a disruption, which worked for everyone. It was important that I didn't abuse it and cause resentment or suspicion. At work, it just meant I would return the favor with helping them complete a task or something. What makes people seem less functional, no matter their challenge, is often the lack of cooperative compromise that people are willing to exchange (a lack of a basic support system). It's not that tribal societies never have 'difficult' people. What keeps them in harmony is that they adjust to new challenges with peaceable solutions that enable everyone to maintain dignity.

As a writer, you have a huge berth to consider your angles. I don't worry too much about stepping on toes. I'm guaranteed to do that. I never do it on purpose, but it happens. 

How to wrap this up... 'Write what you know' is crap unless it's nonfiction. Dare to be wrong, but always give it your all. I'm doing this to entertain and explore, so being wrong is part of the fun. At the least, I do prepare to defend my choices. One thing I do want to emphasize is that sensitivity readers are not mandatory. Be confident that the story you need to tell is being handled with the level you are already capable of. Agents might be seeking out the PC crap now, but one day, there is still going to be a pile of pandering literature that will never be picked up again. A sensitivity reader can be good to weed out the impossibilities but take care they're not trying to make a Mary Sue or a token out of your efforts.

Writing About Writing

When I decided to start this writing blog, I really had no clue what to do with it. I looked around on other blogs, journals, scrapbooks, how-tos, prompts and most suggestions just went along the lines of this:

Write about writing.

Each journey is different and even when we hash out the same old advice (or the best ways to break it), we're bound to say it in just the right way to help someone else.

It's not that I don't see the logic of that. It's just that I didn't want to end up being one of those writers that fell away from actually writing.

Truly, because I see it all the time. People who spent more time posting on social media than putting any words to page. People joking about losing to the blinking cursor and 'wut r werds.' There are more people writing about writing than actually writing.

It's not enough to write anything. There's only so much you can claim what works for you as a reader or a writer before you're not saying anything new. The more blog posts I write, the more I'm uncertain that I haven't already said the same thing 50 ways. At first, I have 50 epiphanies when the blogging starts, but then over time, I start to wonder how long I'm stretching one into 50 blog posts. 

Obviously, blogging is not the same as a book or a contained story. It's not going to be compiled and scrutinized as a whole. Yet it still prickles that in many of the ways it keeps me accountable, it might also be creating blind spots in what really matters as a writer. 

Once we've gotten into the habit of asking ourselves what being prolific means, if a daily word count is important or if there are simply better ways to improve as a writer that don't involve actually writing... there's never really a peace in any of that for me. Which is cool. I have never felt more alive than when I'm biting my nails over a puzzle to be solved. Every craft and hobby where I'm not swearing or giggling like mad is one that goes away as a novelty over time.

It happened with anime. As glad as I am that my nephew got into it, it faded for me and I never thought it would. Yet at some point it wasn't feeding my creativity as it used to. The style in my own drawing is something I will always credit to that fandom, but I started finding something more from the gaming medium. When reading became harder to do with raising kids, gaming became my medium. It was inevitable that the change reformed the way I looked at stories. Choice gaming, a concept first made richest when I played the Fable series captivated me. It challenged me to think of story lines as branches. Rather than look for those linear paths, I felt more passion for developing story lines I might never use, but helped me find pivotal points in personality development.

School left a mark on me too. Art school really gave me permission to focus on more than academics. I was encouraged to engage with my surreal and illogical brain while using very logical and practical processes. 

I'm wandering away from where I want to keep this topic, but all in all, I've done a good thorough job of writing about writing. I'm making a mental note to move on from there. I might do it on occasion (because I'm prone to forget) but I truly want to try to avoid circling around known information. I've written through the fantasy gauntlet to every satisfaction.

In truth, I'm at an impasse because new material will come with new risks. I'll have to set up a formal book signing. I'll have to really look at marketing. I'll have to sit on the other side of the table at a convention. I'll have to attend a writer's convention.

At this point, I've given everyone the 411 on self-publishing. Truly, there's nothing more I can add to that. Formatting, covers, publishing options-- all out there. Things might get sparser in blog land, but consider it a sign that other things are getting done. I'll still return to update my progress or share an inspired idea or share some actually new knowledge.

I never set out to be a daily content provider. I've seen those types churning out the same weak content again and again on Medium and Quora. It's a better bet if I stick to turning to a short story instead. A sketch, planning, concepts-- anything but writing about writing.

What I don't want to arrive at is the place where my blog word count is the only one. Successful bloggers, I'm happy for you and your livelihood. When you know where your personal satisfaction and goals are met, you go for it. For me, it's just spreading way too thin.

Let's see if I can get it to stick! Hehhhhh....

Weekend Reading

I don't normally publish three posts in one day, but I just finished reading the anthology and I wanted this post up ASAP rather than scheduling it.

After finally getting my copy of The Magical Book of Wands, I got to start my weekend off with a magical bout of reading and I'm eager to share my thoughts.

What I love most about this mix is we somehow managed to cover a lot of ground without consulting on things such as sub-themes or age group. I can't say I'd recommend the whole book for all ages, but it's certainly subgenre diverse. My own entry blends dark fantasy and sizzling romance. Yet, it does show a vast array of styles and unique voices.

You don't have to take my word for it. I have a horse in the race here, but once it's pulled from the anthology's limited time run (one year), I'm going to repackage it in my own short story collection that branches off from this entry. I really enjoyed this short trip and I'd like to write some new characters and new adventures with the dark Fae theme linking them. Short stories are nice project dividers and a different challenge altogether.

Indie authors are a hard-working lot, so we really rely on people giving us a chance to grow. Readers are in the unique position to critique and encourage and support the authors they choose. They are given agency to consume stories that may not have been out there otherwise, to not settle for what agents and publishers whittle down for the masses. That's not to say indie authors can't grow bigger, be involved in movies or TV shows. I've said it before but those who think the market was airtight before are deluded. Not to mention, an open market makes it more possible for non-readers to find some guilty pleasure and change that.

I can't say enough how proud I am to be an author. Someday I'll wrap my head around marketing, but really, these years of writing and growing have been too amazing to fret about that. I try to read my stories dispassionately but I get sucked in again and again. Not because I wrote them even. I don't always like myself very much. Even when I try to hate myself, I look at what I've done and say 'damn, chick, you're the shit.' These stories consistently resonate with themes I love, games and books and movies and dreams that have had an impact on me. Stories written by me that I can still be surprised by.

I'm seriously in danger of tooting my own horn, but what I really want to talk about is the anthology line-up. I'll give you a short run of what to expect in my own words. Some might be easier to sum up than others. Let's give it a go!

The Enchanted Sword/ Raven M. Williams: A quick twist on Cinderella. Ashby is a young boy at the mercy of his wicked stepbrothers, trying to protect his father's legacy, all while charming a princess.

The Wand of Luminance/ Rick Haynes: An old wizard spends decades of his life patiently repenting for his crime against a goddess. He is determined to return something of hers, no matter the cost.

Gretel's Gift/me: When an old man returns from his wife's funeral, the anniversary gift she never got to give him holds the key to a secret she kept.

The Dragonbone Wand/E.P. Clark: Year after year, a recruiter comes down the mountain to find the ones worthy to become dragons. Convincing a young healer to go through the test, she is drawn into the blessings and curses of what being a dragon truly entails.

The Wand Whisperer/J. Steven Young: It has always been believed there is more to magic than a wizard choosing a wand. When a bumbling wizard discovers he can hear the voices of the wands, he learns that wands have more influence than anyone thought possible.

An Ill Wind/Devorah Fox: A young woman returns to her home after a hurricane tears her city apart. When she finds a box containing a neighbor's effects, she discovers that kindness contains its own magic.

A Wand Needs a Witch/Victoria Raschke: An accomplished magician, remembering his mother's words when he first discovers the wand that had so much impact on his life, takes on three young sisters who have the potential to be great witches someday.

The Keeper of Callister Space/Shakyra Dunn: Two sisters stumble on the journal of a mysterious witch making a bold claim. Curiosity wins over practicality as they brave dangers to find out if the claim is true.

The Long Way Home/Guy Donovan: U.S. history meets spectacular fantasy as a man journals his struggle from orphaned laborer to hard-working inventor that discovers a secret... and struggles with the burden of it.

Magen/Edward Buatois: Rylen is marked as the typical goth weirdo with a hobby for witchcraft. His practical older sister, Naia, raised him but tires of his passive attitude towards being bullied and his delusion about the existence of magic. When they are violently separated, Rylen meets an elf woman who seems eager to help him find his sister even though they don't speak a common language.

Spellbinders: Judas Mirror/ Bryan Rainey: In a world parallel to our own, magic is par for the course. Yet when a dinner between a newlywed couple goes sour after an attempted murder, the aftermath is anything but usual.

The Smallest Spark/Nils Nisse Visser: It's a sci-fi dystopia where names are meaningless strings of numbers and colored marks are rewards and punishments on the spreadsheet of life. A grandmother (Jill) remembers a time when nature was green and renewable and wonders if all that waits for her granddaughter (Sally) is a brown, poisoned future. Although books are forbidden, one of the gifts she can give her daughter are the remembered fairy-tales of her youth. But perhaps there is more after all.

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It's a good exercise, throwing out some hooks for these stories. As you can see, it's a very eclectic mix of fantasy and written from many points of view at that. I truly enjoyed finally being able to read through these. It's been in the works over the course of a full year, everyone turning these in for publication.

A thanks is in order, of course, for Raven M. Williams, who led the charge and consulted with us via group communications concerning cover design, information gathering and ultimately, the formatting. She also runs a Mystic Realms Curio Shop and writes her own novels while creating jewelry inspired by her books, aside from running yearly anthologies. Another multi-tasker like myself, so I know the struggle and commend her for all the hard work.

Feel free to preorder The Magical Book of Wands, available October 31, and check out these 12 short stories. You'll find links to these authors and you can find these authors and more available for Virtual FantasyCon (November 4-10), an annual FaceBook event gathering where you can find great fantasy authors and interact with them.

For any of my author friends, the cut-off date for being a participating author has passed this year, but if you're interested in being on future rosters, there is no cost to join unless you choose Option 2, which just adds your discounted books to a vendor section for more exposure. Authors and readers alike can always get more details from the VFC Reader's Corner, a public group on FaceBook.

Nothing But Net!

If only I could always be so productive...

After one helluva crunch weekend, the first draft of UnSung is done, done, donnnnnnne. What does this mean? There are a couple places where I need to amend scenes and add some plot details, which may boost the word count (which currently sits at the 234.3K word count mark), but there's no more guesswork, only refinement to do.

Since the epilogue always leads into the next book, I've also warmed up the characters leading into UnHeard, my NaNo novel for next month.

The edit for UnSung will wait. For the rest of the month? Cover art! I've staged the foreground layers for painting, just need to get it done. I will be redoing UnNamed's cover to fit the new convention. In the future, when I start new series, I'll be planning themes in advance. I didn't do this for UnNamed because I only decided to make it an UnQuadrilogy at the last minute. One of these days, I'm sure I'll be able to do a standalone novel but fantasy is just too tempting for the serials.

Piscine, one of my many plotted projects in wait, will be a sci-fi mystery thriller. It is definitely planned as a standalone yet since it could very well become serial, even that is one I'll plan a cover for that could carry on a theme.

The Dreampunk Chronicles, a Steampunk YA project, will definitely be serialized. I use both real world places and surreal fantasy destinations there so the possibilities will extend as far as I dare. I am still planning to write one of these following NaNoWriMo, but... After I set up UnSung for publishing and UnNamed for republishing (just a new cover). 

For those that bought the first edition, I may try to get some posters printed of the new cover to you, signed and sent free of charge as thanks for early adoption. I'll have to look at expenses but I really want to look at swag, convention booth options and so on for the coming year regardless.

Yes, the webcomic is another script I play with. With the way things are planned already, that's looking at a Fall 2019 slot at the soonest. I should have the first Dreampunk and UnHeard at least drafted by then. More details on those at a later date since I'm planning too far ahead already to nail down dates.

In the foreseeable future, Virtual FantasyCon is right around the corner, November 4-10. VFC Reader's Corner is a group you can join for the details. Remember, The Magical Book of Wands is up for preorder on Amazon. It's a great mix of fantasy short stories (I had the chance to read it this past weekend) and it's worth a read! Historical, urban, dark, traditional-- whatever your fantasy tastes, there's something for everyone. 

Here's hoping 2019 is an amazing year! 2017-18 were full of great learning experience, ups and downs aplenty, so I'm going into in with the same blend of optimism and cynicism that keeps me afloat. Thanks for hitching along!

Uwaaaah, Already?

Two weeks of scheduled posts... That's right-- I did them all at the end of September/beginning of October and here we are already, all caught up!

Even better, since I'm scheduling this only a day ahead, I can also boast passing the 230K mark on my draft. Pretending to be slightly-in-the-future me, I'll have closed up at least two major scenes and be easing into the finale.

And this was supposed to be a lazy weekend...

Like I said, this weather is my favorite kind and the sooner I get the writing done, the sooner I can focus on what I want to accomplish in painting and drawing. It's actually relaxing. I'm not hunkering down with a kegger of coffee on an 8-12 hour writing blast. No, this is a couple hours here and there, wander into napping or gaming then flopping back into writing. For these scenes, it's even effective. These are done in graphic bursts of information, closing one story while letting the reader peek for a moment into the story ahead.

Once the draft is done, I'll switch to the visual with the cover art I've been daydreaming about. It does often pay to tease the wistfulness of a future project so that when I get there, it's an explosion of all the ideas I sat on. I realize some people spook themselves out of confidence but my ego is usually far smaller than my excitement to see what comes of the idea. It's never enough to have ideas. It's like saying you want to bake a cake, gathering all the ingredients but deciding you'll never be a cake boss so you smash the raw eggs in your mouth. It's true-- my cakes are anything but art, but they always taste amazing. 

Let's take a moment to abandon analogies and appreciate cake... 

How to Write a Bomb-Diggity Bio

A bio is an important part of introducing yourself as a writer. First, you should--

I lied. I really have no clue what makes for a neat bio. In truth, I have yet to see one that made any impression on me. If you're looking for a way to get people interested in you, I find that a list of your books and links for where to find you online are ideal. You get right to the guts-- if you liked this, this is what else I've done. If you want to learn more, browse here at leisure.

Nevertheless, a bio is a formality like a résumé. It doesn't always have to be spectacular, but it should be functional. Try to leave out the need to talk about reviews or comparisons. Every time I see 'this book is like GRRM and JRRT and I swear people love me!' it is a red flag that they don't have the confidence to let readers decide its quality and draw their own comparisons.

Even in queries, writers are warned to mark other authors as your influence, not that you are like them. Agents still seem to want to discover your innovative qualities rather than your ego.

(If you want more great tips, agentquery.com can help you with your query and more.)

What can you put in it?

• Name- use the name you're publishing under. If you use several, make sure your bio matches the one you're using. Some pseudonyms you may not even want connected to your real name. I've been in writing groups where people ask 'why'? Personal reasons. I get it. Sometimes you write everything from erotica to children's books and don't want someone mixing it up. Sometimes you're related to a psychopath you don't want knowing what you're up to. Not a big deal, just make sure you keep your bio straight to avoid confusion.
• Where you're from or where you are now- City or birthplace might be personal, but it could score some points in cities that are mentioned. Sometimes you're just curious about people where you live. Try to stick to those two at most. Listing a lot of places can turn people off as pretentious. Definitely use those places if they're relevant to the story the bio is with though. Knowing which of the 50 American States you've visited? Not so much.
• Family- another one to go easy with. Who you live with is a maybe. Kids are usually a good thing to mention, or a pet or two but if you have a big family, then a vague mention of them as your bustling inspiration is well enough. Save some for dedications if you want to spread it out.
• Accreditation or Awards- stick to your education and actual awards. If there's a lot of that, cut it down to the top two of each, preferably the most relevant to the genre your bio is attached to.
• Books- again, if this is a big catalog, stick to the two most recent, although mixing it up with a book and then a series is more interesting. Leave out the short stories unless you've received an award. Remember, a bio is not your résumé. You can use a separate page to list all of your work, but the bio is more like your brief mission statement, not your full autobiography.
• Links- this is where you give the reader the power to be as curious as they want to be. Direct them to your social media, websites and accounts and encourage them to participate in your ideas and work. 

To sum up the bio, I just want to stress to aim for brevity. Don't beg people to think of you in a certain way. Don't insist you're the funniest person your friends have ever met. Stick to facts, maybe a little flair in wording, but let your story speak for your personality and voice. Bios are not meant to be hooks or blurbs. Using them that was can really come off as cheesy and a mark against you. If you can, run yours through a critique group, see if people can help you decide what's too much and too little.

So what would mine be?

Krista Gossett is an author/designer that lives in Cincinnati, OH. She has two degrees in graphic design (AS and BFA). An avid video gamer and crafter, she also juggles raising her two nephews and a bunch of African cichlids (tropical fish) with her work. The Heroes, World and Universe Chronicles are her first fully published epic fantasy series. She is currently writing the second book of the UnQuadrilogy. Find her on: (list of links here)

Some people really try to get clever with the bio, but again, the work does the talking or it doesn't. If someone didn't like it, my snappy, snarky sense of humor isn't going to change their mind. If they do love my work, I'm not bullshitting around when they want to find the facts and explore on their own.

One thing I've realized is that, while I do have control over so much of my story and how it looks, there are just some aspects I have to trust with the reader. I have to allow them to doubt me. I have to give them room to imagine what they want. 

Because there are so many aspects where I choose where to filter and express, even an unconventional sort like me has seen the wisdom in 'rules' I tried to rebel against.

Tomorrow, I think I'll delve into how to resist too much telling in a short story. While I don't completely buy into the 'show, don't tell', I sometimes see (and have personally done it in my own past) where people really try to crunch a big story into a smaller word count-- by slamming into a rapid info-dump. I'm going to attempt to show how you can keep your voice rather than devolve into explaining everything.

Get Delirious: How to Write Drunk When You're Sober

Recently I was revisited by the Ghost of Indigestion. Every day, I rediscover the symptoms of something on my laundry list of problems that I was eager to forget. This one is actually simple. Limit caffeine, spicy foods, and alcohol. Unless I want stomach pains, diarrhea, constipation and 24 hours of regret, it's something I try not to forget.

Coffee... The nectar of many writers. It was the culprit. I got that new coffeemaker and started drinking more than usual. Mistake. See, what happens when the symptoms come... Means it's already too late. If I slip, it means cold turkey. There aren't withdrawal symptoms because my 'too much coffee' is still 'n00b peasant of caffeine' level. I just miss the taste and the luxury of making it when I feel like it. You tend to want the things more when you can't have them.

I can't say I've ever been big on alcohol or spicy foods but a couple glasses of wine with food or a swig of MOM before the spicy stuff is armor enough. A trendy heroin addiction or alcoholism has never been an option. I like not shitting myself and not being hungover.

Except there's kind of a way to get those delirious highs with patience and application. It doesn't hit as hard and fast as substance abuse but once you hit it, it's tunnel vision that explodes through your senses for hours, runs you to exhaustion and even has a mild hangover quality at times. It's a running high that can taper off into lows that don't make a lot of sense.

It's not the same. I've been through substance abuse and I can tell you that. But that's why it's brilliant. Even substances aren't equal in that sense. People might claim that the lack of inhibition is the draw of drugs; the numbing of pain, the otherness that doesn't exist in reservation and order. Yet those things were also why my 'brilliant' ideas were crap or I never sat down to do them. They were, ironically, the stuff of being sober in the room full of drunks. My forced and synthetic highs were inescapable. I learned from them but I came very near to regretting and regret is not something I let camp out either.

A creative high can be torture, even inescapable. I have a brain that races from being overfull and stops to becomes a super sponge. You don't actually need my brain to experience this. I've said before but I would rather just have an average brain. I'm never afraid that I'd lose who I am. Just like I realized drugs stole from my potential, I think my erratic impulses are something I could shed without regret.

Big intro, but it's time to get succinct. What is a sober high? What isn't it?

Working backwards, it isn't 'being high on life.' People who say things like that think mental illness is a cute quirk or pretend to be drunk when they don't realize there's no alcohol or stimulants in their drink. It's not meth-level energy levels and giddiness. At least, it doesn't have to be. High energy can be a plus if it's not damaging your productivity or making you someone strangers want to punch in the face.

Some writers use writing prompts to court free thoughts. Some borrow people's children (with permission-- don't kidnap). It doesn't matter if your work is fiction or not. Achieving a state of euphoria is about introducing foreign ideas until you start looking down the ones that trigger the brilliance.

Lose structure.

No, really. Fuck grammar and punctuation and plot planning and sensibility. Write smut or wander (or blog). Eat something you might feel guilty about. Sometimes what beats the muse out you is as simple as the ennui and repetition of discipline. Shake things up. Start small. Use your favorite borrowed kid to take turns writing the lines of a story. Indulge in mental hilarity by rejecting convention. You can harness it all later.

Mad Libs.

This one tricks you into concentrating on grammar. Indulge in 'quickly pooping green fart salad'. You don't necessarily need an actual mad lib sheet to pull this off. Take a boring article, cross out words, identify the kind of word part, write them in order, make new words. It's a mix of imagination and unoriginality. Even better, borrowed kids can play too. Pro tip: use 'igloo' as a noun at some point. But wait until someone is taking a drink so they'll shoot it of their nose. Once you're good and giddy, attack your own work.

License Plate game.

If you were a kid that grew up going on long road trips, you know this one. When you go on a walk, take the three letters on a license plate (US standard at least) and make objects or phrases. GBG might be Get Bad Grades and YML might be Yellow Magnetic Llama. Yes, the dumber the better. Picture it and it's a mini acid trip. Try not to use the same word twice. Not only doesn't this make a boring walk interesting, but you might add a goofy bounce to your step.

Mirror writing.

Another youthful discovery. Learn to write upside down and backwards. Hold it up to a mirror. It's kind of a pseudo discipline but one that bends the way you think. Creating, finding its secrets, can often be about inverting and flipping what you know and see. In the past, when asked what keeps me locked onto my goals now, I hesitated to answer it because the surface is generic shit you've heard before. When I've looked deeper, I've found the distortions, the ripples in what is overlooked. Why do we look at oceans when it's virtually the same view? It shifts slightly different on its own, but turn it over so that the sky is an ocean and the ocean is the sky and suddenly all the poetry and analogies of either can be applied with a different stroke. Mirror writing is one of the simplest ways to do this. You can lift and turn and alter the page and there's a manual aspect to handwriting that triggers something too.

I could go on with simple ways to achieve that creative high. I wish I could say they were foolproof, but that's not the unique and frustrating part of it. It's not as easy as a drug, but it is something you can mold and have agency over. You can lose sleep over it, lose sanity over it, but it's not a poison and the addiction isn't a synthetic chemical dependence. Even I can forget how amazing it is and I've been there more times than I can count. When I sober from it, the magic can be forgotten.

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I'll never be an expert, mark my words, but I can tell you, it's never easy. There's always a price for the things both good and bad. Not karmic or anything of that sort, but you'll sometimes run into people who hate seeing you happy, or sadness will always keep you from doing anything worthwhile. I'm going to go with a little tough love here since creative outlets tend to attract a lot of sad sacks, but it's not really your sob story that people want to hear. I'm not saying to not be honest about your past, but don't give people the impression that that's all they have to look forward to in your future. It's not the absolute worst people want, but the glint of hope. It's not JK Rowling's cookie cutter depression or Stephen King's brush with death. Those things took more than they gave. They have something else, a skill, that they never gave up on and if there's a magic key to making our struggle triumphant, that is what we want.

Then again, I'm just not universely empathetic. I don't cry when celebrities die. I don't know them and I can't say for certain anything more brilliant might have ever come from them again. Who they are as people? Not my business unless we become friends. Even then, their life is my secret and theirs to tell. It's how I learned to survive. I protect people by filtering my emotions and not letting them decide for someone else. You might see it as cruel but wearing my heart on my sleeve was like accepting that I had every intention to keep being a victim. What we care about... Quite frankly, is none of anyone else's business.

All right, enough of the blog break. So much to do this month! Next October, I may go for the Inktober deal. This year, too much ran into this month to squeeze it in. We'll see.

Just Stuff

Cold weather is finally here and if you know me, I'm as psyched as the people who like hot weather (and probably enjoy those same people whining about how cold it is). Right now, I kind of just want to sleep under the warm fluffy blankets I dug out to celebrate and breathe in the ice cold air pouring into my window. No fans, no heaters, just silence to enjoy or fill with purposeful noise.

Of course, there's a cutoff. Once the cold dips towards freezing, I close windows. Once it dips into the 20s, I pull out the space heater (if my fingers and nose are icy). Yet, my favorite wardrobe comes out-- giant sweaters, fleece pajama pants, crocheted hats, fluffy socks. Things that aren't comfortable to wear unless the air is genuinely chilled. Even a cranked AC can't quite create the same environment a legitimate fall/winter permeating chill can.

Sometimes it can spark health issues, but for the most part, it's ripe for crochet, reading, writing, hot drinks and wholesome food holidays. I even met my weekly writing goal towards UnSung this week so I can hibernate and huddle up and plot if I want. (Getting so close to the end, but I'm really trying to tie up plots in the draft rather than throwing it together and dealing with an editing mess.) Still have cover art to do, still have NaNo prep underway, still have holidays to squeeze in so my loved ones don't think I'm losing functioning status on the social spectrum. Kingdom Hearts 3 will steal my soul in January and maybe Dragon Quest XI which I've been meaning to play, but haven't gotten yet.

Priorities still point to writing. Aside from the daily grind of feeding little people, keeping the house clean, and maybe some tablet gaming while nodding off at the end of the day, the usual juggling became more concentrated. At the least, I want UnSung's draft done. It will get put aside after that. I won't edit it again until December and not just because of NaNo. I really want to kick some dirt over it and look at it with fresh eyes. While starting its sequel for NaNo, things might shift even. So I'm looking at a 2019 release after all. I really want to avoid rushing things even if it means pushing them around a bit. It will be worth it to be more flexible in plans to get them just right.

That being said, time to enjoy this chilly weekend, however I use it. About to make some hot tea to start. Oolong, if you want to know. Here's to a productive winter season. Buh-bye, bugs, sweat, sun rashes! Hello, wonderful smell of dying leaves, fire pits and seeing my breath when I breathe!

Nerd Pretty

First off, I'm going to come right out and say I'm not beautiful. I know it's subjective and I'm not about downing myself either. Realistically, I have a classic look and can even be cute or pretty at times. I'm not here to lament being thrust into nerd culture because I needed an escape from looking like a cave troll. Maybe that's what makes some of the trolls of nerddom bitter-- that it was somewhat of a choice but more of a compulsion. That I COULD have been 'cool' because I'm not genetically unfortunate, maybe (at least aesthetically). At worst, I really haven't met that many people that give me shit for being a geek/nerd but when it happens, it's weird as hell.

No one is 'too pretty' to be a nerd. I realize you'll find a stereotypical pocket of elitist social rejects that think the only exception to the culture are the hot cosplayers that get hired to dress like their spank fantasies. Want but can't have and still bash them and other nerds-that-didn't-have-a-choice or some dumb shit excuse. Even when you can find countless devoted hotties, male and female, that genuinely enjoy the fandom (outside of being fit and hot) across social media, you'll still find this disbelief. They actually do more than spend thousands of hours making costumes for anyone else because they're actually fans that are doing it for themselves. Yes, maybe it turned out to be a lucrative fluke, but do yourself a favor, fuck off with the m'ladies and kind-sirs and talk to them like people and you'll find some actual fans.

Granted, you still get the 'nerrrd lol' girls who put on fake glasses and hold controllers wrong. It's mildly annoying but ignorable. However, this also set nerd girls back for a while, giving the treasure trolls license to think they could legitimize whether attractive girls could be nerds at all. They can and are and no one needs a gatekeeper to decide enjoyment. Elites are why games and fandoms die. You need the curious noobs to keep the numbers up and keep it afloat. Really, if a pretty girl wants to fake-nerd, enjoy the meme and be glad the name is crossing boundaries. We really can't be mad at 'impostors' because, like it or not, we depend on casuals too.

Here's another thing: most guys I've met, even when surprised, don't need any convincing and are thrilled when 'legitimate' female fans come along. Not all of them automatically set out to court me like I was destined to be their future wife (although you do get one here and there that clearly wants to skip over friendship or has expectations and it gets creepy, scary and even demanding, controlling and abusive if not shut down). I feel for the social rejects, but I think sometimes they get too comfortable in their escapes. They crawl out, demanding fantasy from reality and lose sight of why it's worth it to learn reality with an ounce of what they apply to the fantasy.

It's a strange mix out there, but even when girl gaming culture became widespread, there are still strange assignments I run into. Still people thinking I'm a casual Candy Crush kind of gamer. Young boys don't question young girl gamers but are pretty shocked that someone their mom's age actually loves PS4 and will forego sleep to marathon a great game. My generation of female gamers, if we didn't give up gaming for careers or families, are still seen as a rarity, something that may always raise eyebrows. The box just follows me, but I never minded it even when the occasional troll set out to de-legitimize it because fuck Halo and Call of Duty. If I want to shoot things, I play Uncharted. Preferences exist within a fandom and knowing a little about everything doesn't trump being preferential in a smaller sphere. Again, this is a nerd/geek distinction. Nerds tend to be strict fact-hoarders where geeks are content to latch onto certain aspects and lock it down. I'm willing to concede many people probably know more about a lot of things I love more than I do, but it doesn't take away from the many hours I spent investing in it for very different reasons and results.

I'm using games as the example, but it does go for comics, anime, books-- largely when my tastes don't fall into the pink feminine genres, bypass the happy medium, and end up in he-man territory. My tastes are everywhere and I'll always encourage people to try genres that wouldn't be their first choice. There's a lot of fun to be had in not being a genre purist. There's also gates to crash, trolls to butt heads with, and... quite frankly, I do hesitate to cluster with fans.

I'm sure you've come across it, but sometimes fandoms can kill the love for something. There's really nothing shittier than losing the love of something for being told how you should love it.

I could go on with all of the aspects of fandom/geekdom/nerddom that suck, but really, it's the aesthetic part that really only ever makes me self-conscious. People have to suspend disbelief when I warn them I'm a geek (sometimes a nerd). I don't really wear the uniform and I am not entirely socially retarded. I've been accepted just to be rejected when I don't want to be romanced either. My sexuality is something that makes every area of my life more complex. I'm not rejecting advances, waiting for a 'better' choice and it's hard for people to wrap their head around that too.

Ultimately, I don't care if you doubt that I'm a geek/nerd. Call it a privilege, but it's a compliment that someone is not automatically hostile, that it IS a choice to be a fan or a hermit or whatever label you throw at it. I'm happy that I can adapt and that I've also been able to continue my passion for things without needing permission. I don't feel the need to prove that I'm a bigger fan. I enjoy the hell out of Cons. I raise nephews that will never ever think that a girl gamer/fan is a weird thing.

I don't really need to fight the assholes on this because they defeat themselves over time. I would say I pity them, but that's condescending as fuck and they know damn well what they've chosen and what they have to deal with. They've found a niche for their outcast status and they also can't hoard it. In fact, deep down, they know they need people to love it despite their attempts to chase people off. In some ways, they probably think they're forging and tempering future fans, testing them to see if they have what it takes to carry the torch.

I'm cool with that. Perceptions tend to be stubborn, but they're not the end of the world. I know nerds/geeks really lamented how 'cool' nerd culture became, but we'd never have the explosion of fantasy and sci-fi on Netflix without the mainstream demand. And you can't say it's all watered-down garbage. The underground has seen the light. Game of Thrones has incredible computer graphics and one of the most amazing soundtracks. People either love it or hate it (and that goes for the books-- and not mutually exclusive) but each one keeps the torch lit for the next genre hits to have a chance.

Let's face it-- nerds don't really spend all that much time assessing other nerds. We've got fandoms to absorb, after all.

Fluffy Or Sparse: What Kind of Writer Are You?

Just like how most diet advice and studies turn out to be tailored for men, I've had to come to grips with the fact that most writing advice seems tailored towards the ramblers, the fluffy, the verbose. Given, I'm a texter and a blogger and I can ramble with the best of them, when it comes to writing fiction, I tend to cut to the chase. No complaints from me, really-- business, advice and life is often tailored most to where it's most sought, so when you're not on the beaten path, there's a lot of beauty in being the pioneer for change too.

So if you're like me and you scratch your head when it comes to the word count butchering advice, then this guide to bulking it up instead is for you. 

First off, there's some universal advice I believe goes for everyone-- don't spend too much time fiddling with a first draft. If you can, make notes of the things you want to change or add but keep moving. If you must scratch an editing itch, then try to stick only to small blocks or chapters. Some of the things you insist on changing may very well change again as the story develops. You really should go forward as much as possible, really feel the story flesh out before you start picking. I've seen so many writers tangle their heads and stories so badly with the impulse to correct constantly that they lose a solid sense of the story. They forget what changed or revert to old plots they subconsciously come back to instead. If you are the sort to track it all on style sheets, good on you, but if you find that micromanaging is killing the heart of your story, dampening your voice by making it too methodical, focus on the damn draft and step off what belongs in the editing phases anyway.

And really, be cool with stepping away. If you REALLY get to panicking when you're not being prolific, start a blog or find some other way to get in those comfort counts. As I've said before, my first series took more than ten years to realize. I didn't know if I ever wanted to share it, if there was even away, but just like college was a pipe dream until online options came along, self-publishing came along with the ability to release it as I wanted it to be.

If you're at peace with all of that and you're feeling up for some tips, let's get on with it.

So let's assume your first draft is finished or at least at a solid stopping point (I actually divide my epic length stories into 'parts' and run a full edit at the end of each). What comes next?

1) Determine pace. 

I wish I could say there's a sure-fire of doing this, but the best way I've found is to print your draft and break out a red pen. You're going to play the reader here. While reading, I try to take note of what is too slow or fast, lengthy or rushed and just mark it (s or f for slow or fast, something that doesn't break away from reading). Any kind of quick shorthand or symbolism will do. If I made any notes about what I suspected needed work, I can compare it to these marks later and it can really help decide where to edit or confirm I still think it needed work. For starters, this is just helping me organically come by where I laid down the map and where I lingered.

2) Talk it through.

While I've seen the advice to read aloud or run it through dictation software, that's not what I'm going for here (good advice though, so worth a mention). No, this actually entails looking at conversation more carefully. Is this how people really talk? Are there distinctions in the voices? Does it fit the character closely or do they say something atypical (and unintentionally). I've found that plotters (yes, like me) tend to baseline conversation sometimes and it sometimes needs more attention, more substance, more humor or wit-- or stupidity, if it applies. I also like to make sure I didn't use conversation purely for info-dumping. As a gamer, tutorials piss me off no matter how charmingly voice acted it is. I keep this in mind when sweeping through a story. Did I take a shortcut that could really benefit from a slow burn? Talk to yourself, talk to your story, listen to what it needs to say.

3) Write some back stories.

If you're really floundering with a flat character (it happens to the best of us), cutting them out may not be the only option. You may have used them as a device but didn't consider who they were beyond it. It's perfectly okay to have free-written characters as you drafted so, rather than fumble with reworking the draft right away, you might need to wander from the actual work. I've seen plenty of people that hesitate to do this, simply out of some sense that it doesn't count. They've become too obsessed with word counts or exclusivity to the main story that they can't wrap their head around planning AFTER drafting. Give it a try. If you struggled to flesh out your story before, this is one way you can help that hesitation melt away. Doctors and scientists often writes hundreds of smaller studies before it supports a breakthrough. Why should a writer be any different? We also benefit from study, method and application, not just creativity. Use that to weave some stronger threads into your storytelling.

4) Back up off it!
I mentioned it prior to breaking off into the numbers, but one thing all stories need at some point is for you to shake off the magic of the moment. I like to assault my own work in both the best and worst moods, to really test my commitment and scrutiny by forgetting it as much as possible. I'm not saying to sit on it for months or years. Sometimes a solid week can detach you before an edit. You're always going to have a sort of blind spot with it, always going to know it's your work and treat it according to your ego, for better or worse. If you know your story needs more, but you're afraid to fiddle with it, chances are it needs to become less precious. Look, I know those happy-go-lucky, I-live-in-my-story-24/7 types are out there, and they probably spend suspicious amounts of time in chatrooms and forums trying to convince you their stories are otherworldly and groundbreaking, but they're not putting out much at all, if anything, and you? You're terrific where you are, believe that. Update all you like, but constantly sharing it for approval, talking about it, and wearing it will not make it its absolute best. At some point, you might just have to hate it to figure out if you really love it enough.

Really, that last one might be a first one in a sense. Before you decide to add to your story, do you even want to? It's perfectly okay to toss it aside if it's lost its luster. Go ahead and work on something else if not. We come back to the things that really matter creatively. Rightly so since we can't possibly do all of the thousands of things that we swear we really want to do. The more you invest in a piece, the more difficult it might be to toss it aside-- yet it's a HUGE sign of discipline if you can admit that you're not quite ready to tell the story it needs to be yet.

Remember, you can absolutely do it anyway too. I always want to make it clear that there is no one path, no matter what you tend towards. You can release a story you're still reaching with. Many writers decide to let one go, only to explore it in later stories. It's definitely not hands-off a subject or theme once you've done it once. Organically, you'll revisit things that are important to you. You'll think about them from different angle, think of a new or better way to use them.

You'll also find that your usual sparse first drafts in some stories will fluff up beyond usefulness on others. Certain genres will grow up differently. You'll enjoy new methods and discover new things.

Advice is really just about affirmation, discovery and community. Sometimes I just want to see what other writers are thinking. Sometimes I'm on the same page, sometimes I'm okay with not being in the same book, the same library or the same planet. It's such a privilege to be able to have the world at my fingertips, whether I'm writing or exploring the many worlds others make and the general world we share.

Take a page from me if you like. Burn it even. I always have copies.

Nerds and Geeks: the Distinction

Why not, because we're one or the other and likely both in some way, right? (I won't assume that the casual can withstand my rants so by process of elimination...)

Nerds, geeks, dorks, queers, freaks, and so on... They're all kind of used synonymously and not exactly with actual ignorance or negativity. A lot of words in slang use are 'misused' or 'abused' and... well, I'm not exactly a word purist myself so it doesn't really irritate me much at all. Overuse is really the only crime and that's down to my gripe with repetition of any kind. I'm of the mind that you can use any word you damn well please as long as it's working to create understanding. It might be limited in understanding (inside jokes and experimental use are not a crime) but unless it's complete gibberish (and reeking of malignant elitism), go for it.

So! That being said, I still find definitions to be worth knowing. Know it to bend it, a personal policy of mine. Understanding a word's etymology, its anatomy and parts, is crucial to maintaining or enhancing the understanding.

Let's Google these bitches to start...

geek

ɡēk/

noun

informal

noun: geek; plural noun: geeks

1. 1.

   an unfashionable or socially inept person.

   • a knowledgeable and obsessive enthusiast.

     "a computer geek"
2. 2.

   US

   a carnival performer who performs wild or disgusting acts.

verb

verb: geek; 3rd person present: geeks; past tense: geeked; past participle: geeked; gerund or present participle: geeking

1.

engage in or discuss computer-related tasks obsessively or with great attention to technical detail.

 

nerd

nərd/

noun

informal

noun: nerd; plural noun: nerds; noun: nurd; plural noun: nurds

1. a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious.

   "one of those nerds who never asked a girl to dance"

   synonyms:

   bore; More informaldork, dweeb, Poindexter, nimrod, geek, drip, loser; techie "the nerds running the world's technology are certainly getting the last laugh"

   • a single-minded expert in a particular technical field.

     "a computer nerd"

      

Ouch, dictionary... you're not pulling any punches with the first definitions, are you? These definitions are certainly why dedicated fans are hesitant to embrace these words, but also why I keep pushing the positives hidden within.

 

And in this case, at the sad bottom of the list. Let's top it up, shall we?

 

Where geek is concerned, the obsession/passion is actually the distinction I can agree with, but I've seen language often deviate geek away from the 'computer' limitation. In fact, stripped down to its best, a geek is simply passionate about their hobbies, not one in particular. You can 'geek out' about a particular area, but it's not a restriction or even necessarily deep. I'd say that geeks are simply engaged in where they direct their attention and while they CAN be thorough, it's the simple act of being absorbed in it that counts. Geeks writing fanfic would be more inclined to experiment with possibilities than insist on facts.

As for nerd, again, bottom definition of a single minded expert in a technical field. Again, scratch technical since a fandom doesn't require technical base. Nerd is largely a designation given to the hyper-detail-oriented, the ones that DO develop single-minded obsessions. When you talk with the typical 'nerd' they are the ones most likely to get irritated or unable to resist correcting you when you contradict a fact. They might be a nerd in several or all areas they are interested in. Nerds writing fanfic would, of course, tend to be opposite of geeks; they would support facts more strongly than endeavor to bend or take liberties with the material.

The 'socially inept' part is always misleading in these. They aren't always general population level social but since passion and precision are areas that take a lot of devotion with time, they are often unaware of what hyper-social types would consider general knowledge. They are out of YOUR loop, but get them around their fandoms and good luck seeing any signs of awkwardness (or even getting them to shut up). Unless they're engaging in consuming those fandoms together, in which case, it can get pretty serious and silent. Yeah, they might not give a shit about fashion and be less than meticulous in hygiene, but this doesn't mean they're all uncoordinated slobs. 

So yes, when I use nerd or geek, my top meanings are usually this:

Geeks- passionate fans that enjoy participating in the possibilities and the enthusiasm.

Nerds- critical fans who file details, stricter to canon but still engaging in theoretical development of that area.

As far as what fandoms or interests or expertise qualify, I'm not sure you can exclude anything. You can have doll geeks/nerds, veggie geeks/nerds. Expertise and/or passion for a subject often gives people similar qualities that keep within the context.

In my experience, geeks are more likely to be accepting of new fans, simply because of the flexibility of their devotion. Nerds have the tendency to display more elitism and largely because they catalog and prioritize their devotion. A generalization nonetheless since I've known prickly geeks and chill nerds, so it really comes down to the individual in how sensitive they are to other fans.

I don't mind explaining myself when people seem to be offended or not on the same page. I'm really not insisting that my definitions even become the norm if someone thinks otherwise. I steer clear of labeling anyone directly until they know how I feel about certain labels and understand with more than my tone what is meant by it.

It's important that we create context even when a word is rather set in its definition, one that hasn't budged since it began. When we take liberties, it still means we should angle to drive the context. Poetry is quite different, just like music, where rhythm, rhyme, and structure is sometimes the higher or only priority rather than strict communication. If you read Eminem lyrics, they can come off as really silly, cheesy or stupid at times, but when you hear the way he chains and presents them, you suddenly understand why it's so important to prioritize what he does with them.

Words are everything to a writer. It can be intimidating to accept the responsibility of a risk to the rules, but worth it to establish what they mean to you, to guide the reader to that meaning as simply and interestingly as possible. I get when you're out to be a word-nerd (the rhyme is irresistible by itself) but it's worth it to infuse it with a little geek. Get passionate and experimental with the precision, even if it means keeping a journal to track what you play with on the side.

Nerd, geek, whatever you are, you can make it mean whatever you want. Every day, we redefine what it is to be man and woman, simply by being what we are regardless of the standards.

And fuck the socially inept part. Tell my grandma that I'm socially inept and you'll piss her off by making her laugh when she spits soda through her nose. She'll admit I'm weird or quirky or thoughtful, but my social choices are not due to ineptitude. They're just not limited to acceptability.

So, what's your favorite fan assignation? Do you like geek/nerd or are you sick of the stigma and go for a word like fan, aficionado, connoisseur, master-chief (if this is where you stop, you're a Halo geek/nerd in DEE-NAI-YAL!)? Drop your prestigious titles below!