Abandon Outside Expectations

If my 'new plan for a new year' did anything, it wasn't simply making me set myself up for crippling failure, but reevaluating how I treat myself as a writer. I've done a lot of advice blogs, not coming from the place of an expert, but simply meant to help other writers to remember to be as flexible as their guys tell them to be.

So what about those lamenting they flit around and never finish anything? I could say that maybe the tides will turn, maybe you can try to try some methods that have worked for me. Still, you see the baffling overflow of bloggers and articles whining about how the overflow of ego-driven advice.

Where?

Seriously, where? This is the same thing that happened when Bird Box came out on Netflix. I saw tons and tons of memes complaining that social media is raving about it, but somehow, 99.9% of the people on my feed hadn't even bothered to see it. Given, I've got maybe 300-something friends on FaceBook and fuck Twitter, but the things that overflow into my feed sometimes assume we're all absorbing the same shallow sources.

A writer's bane is, what then; the burden of choice? That, in our most vulnerable times, we're possibly just drinking in the most click-baity articles while downing wine and using that fishing expedition as an excuse to claim we're 'blocked' or 'burnt-out'?

Because every writer I actually talk to has the equivalent of idea diarrhea (sorry that the analogy has come to this...) Even when we're not writing, we're endless streams of possibility. It's not anathema, to shy away from the pen or the keyboard. It's process and how you feel about it is contrary to how it actually works, more often than not.

The days where I write or edit the most are often days where I feel like, eh, I'll just poke at it for 15 minutes because I'm not feeling it. I never remember how much I enjoy it until I push it.

Sometimes I'm right and it doesn't take off, but this is one of those instances where I'm happy to be wrong.

Maybe it's because I went into the new year gently. I've finished all of the oral surgery, caught a bad cold and still, I'm hoping to get through the nitty gritty of editing and formatting. I'm really hoping to honor my mom's birthday with another book release, but I'm not going to panic if I have to adjust that goal. 

I know that doesn't sound gentle; the breaking of jaw and tooth, the wracking of coughs and the pile of publishing prep, but that's exactly how I see it. I've had to put off exercise goals so my body could heal first. I've gracefully chosen sleep when I really want to edit. I've taken my own advice, time and again, because the advice is only frustrating or useless to others if I'm just bleating the same shit other writers are apparently blogging about without applying it successfully myself.

Go ahead and blubber over click-baity advice while inebriated on your alcohol of choice sometimes. It's not the best advice I can give and it makes for a sad party, but what is good or bad advice comes with how well you mesh with, test or rebel against it. Don't let anything intimidate you against self-improvement. Don't let the pretentious goals of 'perfection' or 'mastery' push you off of being a story teller, no matter the medium you choose.

It is what it is. Sometimes the simplest truths are that plain. I can get flowery at times, but underneath the flower bed is a simple base of soil, a self-sustaining ecosystem that doesn't need me throwing fertilizer (or salt) down to feel like I'm doing enough.

Don't smother the garden. I can't stress enough that what keeps me steady on the path is being okay with not knowing every stone, not freaking out at every worm.

And while I heal, I'll be gentle, which includes busting my ass on a few pavers in my personal garden. Whatever works.

I may not be consistently blogging, but I'm at peace with that. It isn't a priority but I'll make it one when the time is right. Once a week sounds like a modest goal for now.

Short Stories and Shorter Stories

Even though I originally posted the news a couple weeks ago on my FaceBook page, I'm keenly aware that not everyone (meaning all but maybe two people) follows ALL of my outlets so I like to sprinkle the news over sci-fi-like timelines of no particular order.

Ever since the anthology, that saw published my first marketed short story, came out, I've been wondering what I might do with it after its one-year run is up. More short stories based on it? I thought of maybe making it a three-part story, coming it at a sort of 50-60K novella length. Which I might still spin-off the idea in the future, but I've always had the niggling urge to do a sort of sampler of my two published series but with wholly original entries.

Well, one night a couple of weeks ago, I'd sat down to do a quick outline of one of those spin-offs and within a handful (I'm ableist trash so that's five) of hours, I'd ended up with an almost 10K word draft for a The Truth about Heroes spin-off story. Whether you're new to the series or you've actually read it already, the story follows my star-crossed Bryfolk characters, Dinsch and Seles, and their rather unconventional love affair before they parted ways. (Think Song of Solomon, written by an atheist, and with all the juicy parts uncensored. Also, they're not married and it's not a happy ending.) Because it's a sort of prequel to where the books' events take place, the spoilers are actually few and may give you a different sort of appreciation than the reader that read them in a different order.

Either way, it inspired a new idea-- to maybe write some other spin-off stories for my adult collection. There will be triggering themes, but the playground is still in made-up worlds so it won't be my intent to include any current events parallels, just some nice adult fun. While some of my stories can be romance-centric, it's never the entire reason for the plots, every generic piece revolving around sex. In the same vein, there's plenty of sex. Why? Because I find there are powerful psychological motivations in even the most seemingly casual encounters and it's another layer to our growth as people.

And this coming from an asexual, in case you missed me saying that ever. Despite my own disinterest in a physical partner, I don't have trouble understanding, appreciating, and enjoying the intimate human connections and how they drive people. In the same way that I understand why people embrace religion, even being an atheist, it doesn't mean I don't have parallel drives to balance morals, observations, and moods just like anyone else. In fact, if there's anything I have difficulty understanding, it's how people can enjoy lying. I've never liked the taste of one myself. If I can't be honest, I shut the hell up.

Despite the stick-up-your-ass wannabe gatekeepers throwing sex into the category of literary trash though? Eh, fuck 'em. And fuck the people who are swear-Nazis while we're at it. The idea that I'm somehow simpler or baser or unsophisticated for 'going there' is ignorance. I deal with enough of that when people treat me like I'm retarded when they find out I'm high-functioning. At least until I'm dropping that knowledge. Sure, if I was some kid flexing my rebellious right to swear and fuck, I'll even agree it's tacky. It doesn't change the fact that many adults are capable of using adult themes to a story's advantage. I like to think I'm one of them, but those people will find any reason to be right so I'll let them gnaw on their wheat crackers and call it a cookie.

Ahem, anyways, I've mentioned the idea of UnNamed spin-offs before and I may pick a couple for this teaser anthology in the future. Insofar, the prevailing theme is just adult fantasy, so anyone who appreciates my mix of adult romance and far-reaching fantasy themes will be right at home with this one. If I have to cite any influences in this work, think of it in the vein of writers like Karen Marie Moning and Laurell K. Hamilton, only not so much only urban-ish fantasy since insofar, only Gretel's Gift flirts with real-world parallels. All the same, I'm a woman who likes deep and sexy and supernatural/mystical themes, so that's the nearest comparison I could throw at you.

Personally, I'm a fan of Moning's Fever series (even though her other titles fell flat for me) and Hamilton's Anita Blake series, though that one fell off after the fifth book for me. All the same, they use a lot of investigative themes, who-dunnits if you will, that also appeal to what I like to write, so that's where you'll see my influences. Other than that, compare at your leisure.

The biggest challenge in maintaining a blog is that they're absolutely nothing like what I enjoy as a novelist and it's harder than I make it look to figure out how much to talk about myself, how much to claim any proficiency, how closely I should bother sticking to a topic. I like the organic flow and the rambling here and there, if only because it's a departure from weaving words I care to edit over and over and over again before slapping a price on it.

I do delight in what I'm learning about short stories. I like the way it challenges me to get right down to the point, to cut that beginning, middle and end down from my usual epic build into a complete story that might tempt the reader to imagine beyond it on their own.

So far, I have Gretel's Gift and Drawn to Perfection. Haven't thought about working titles for the other possible stories, but I'm thinking of calling the anthology Sword Romance. No, I'm not; I'm just fucking with you. I really haven't thought of a cohesive title and won't until I've gotten all of them drafted at the very least.

You're welcome to use Sword Romance as your title. But seriously, it's super lame. Probably don't do that. Even if your Sword Romance becomes an international best seller, I'm just going to make fun of the title. Promise.

Assault of the Dreams!

"Never say never..."

Someone said that to my sister once at a psychic fair. We were looking at jewelry and some woman thought it was quirky to dreamily say she wish she had more fingers. I didn't really overhear what happened, but apparently the conversation evolved into someone else saying the above quote with even more unnecessary solemnity before my sister challenged it with a forcefully whispered 'never...'.

Recently, someone had the boner-bright idea to humble-brag in a writing group about their lucid dreams and how all of their ideas came from this 'unique' ability to dream up their ideas. Ironically, it's a snore-fest full of people chiming in to either say 'me too!' or scoffing in refute. I took the bait with my never-say-never jinx that I haven't dreamt much at all over the years but I have daydreams so I'm blessed that my brain shuts the fuck up at all. I just never dream that much anymore so that can't be a driving force for me.

I've had lucid dreams, wet dreams, actual orgasmic dreams, night terrors, etc. I, however, assumed that everybody experienced all of these things at some point in their lives so I never quite get how many people seem to humble-brag about it as if most of us miserable people are consigned to the boring dream world of dogs. (Apparently they dream in black and white and mostly about mailmen and cats. The first, I have no clue how they arrived at; the second is my guess since I can't imagine anything would make a dog run and bark in their sleep, short of mailmen and cats.)

However, for whatever reason, I truly haven't done much dreaming at all over the years. Maybe it's because I'm an idea-wagon when I'm awake. Maybe it's down to triggered traumas (deaths of loved ones, old poorly-buried garbage). Either way, I've never really found myself to be particularly more productive or insightful or better at what I do because of dreaming at night.

There's that 'never' again...

Quoth the Raven 'never more'. This is not the GIF I was looking for, but it's the one that Gotham needs...

Because I'm dreaming a lot since I said that. A lot a lot. I mostly keep telling my designated Joe about them since I'm hoarding them. This most recent one would make for a good dystopian fiction, a novel that will NOT turn into a series, for once. I've said that before, but this one actually had a definitive beginning, middle and end.

And yeah, I'm going to be like those bitches on FaceBook that say shit like 'you know who you are and what you did, but I'm not going to say it so anyone else knows what the fuck I'm talking about.'

Could be allergies. I've been taking a Benadryl each night to sleep. Could be that. Could be because that stupid comment actually kind of made my brain feel threatened and challenged and eager to prove this anonymous rando on the internet it was better. Could also be because I said 'never'.

Either way, whatever dreams I did have were not AT ALL usable for my work. It wouldn't be wrong to even say they were lame and not really worthy of writing down, a mishmash of uninteresting garbage that my brain just discarded to my consciousness in an act of rebellion to hide what was really going on in there.

Now I know. Oh, I know, thank you very much, exactly what my brain had been hoarding in dreams.

Really, it kind of pisses me off even. My least favorite thing to do is wake from a huge dream I've remembered with the need to write it down before it fades. My ideal morning is waking up from a peaceful nothingness (a type of sleep I call 'practicing for death') and lingering for a while, staring at my ceiling or the screensaver of falling sakura blooms on my TV, stretching each muscle in a state of meditation, the first thought being whether I should make coffee or not.

But no. The brilliant landscape of dreams Godzillas all up in my preferred morning ritual by making me half-fall, half-tumble out of bed to scramble for a pen and notebook to scribble down whatever dream will fade if I wait even a half hour to do it.

"I'll be your dream, I'll be your wish, I'll be your fantasy..." Again, with the GIFs missing the mark. Can a girl just get a NORMAL Godzilla GIF already?

It's an abomination, let me tell you! Not only is my love of handwriting completely aborted in this scribbled mess, but I tend to grab one of the many booby-trapped busted pens (that I'll probably grumble about throwing away 50 times before I do). You know what that means-- smearing that shit all up the side of my hand when I'm in a frenzy to write it down.

Can it, floppy orange shirt guy. Let me complain about all the disadvantages of my advantageous dreams in peace!

Okay, yeah-- so it's actually not terrible. Except for the whole Murphy's Law sort of fact that I'm almost certain to need a notebook and a pen every time I put them away in some smug need to be more organized. I should know by now that that's my brain's cue to call up their imaginary friend Murphy to write a new amendment. I'm not REALLY complaining about anything more than mornings that aren't ideal due to my luxury of being scatter-brained. My ancestors would have been eaten by sabre-toothed tigers and shat out into tar pits.

If I can assume my ancestors were actually humans. Aliens, some missing link of dinosaurs, animorphic dragonkin-- I'm not ruling out those possibilities. I can't imagine their mornings are as anti-climactic yet dressed up with flashy words to make it seem more interesting...

In all actuality, I feel ridiculously blessed. Ideas are not something I struggle for. Sure, I wish I could channel them more effectively to complete things without distraction, but better a batshit crazy muse than none at all. Even if they are kind of the devil on my shoulder.

He's got a lot of room to walk. I have very broad shoulders. #humblebrag

Really, I'd love to sleep more. With the dreams tend to come a sort of exhaustion in my waking hours. I've heard it said that we only remember the dreams that we wake from. It's possible that our brains even intend to finish them but we spoil it by waking up. 

I'm sure you've done this too, all you extraordinary people who dream, but sometimes you wake from a good one and go ahead and try to finish it. Sometimes this ends well, other times... well, don't know about you, but on occasion, once I wake, I realize this dream I want to finish is... completely stupid and that overwhelming desire to finish it almost becomes a weird kind of embarrassment. It's even a guilty pleasure kind of thing where you get caught not just watching a stupid movie, but enjoying it. In this case, thankfully, no one is actually seeing what stupid nonsense you were initially excited about, but what your unconscious brain told you was the shiiiit, your conscious brain starts to make fun of you for. No. No, you don't want to 'finish' this unless by 'finish' you mean...

And we're done here.

Maybe I can at least say what is making these dreams the 'not-stupid' kind. Well, mostly 'not-stupid'. There's usually a fact or two that I will purposely leave out when I'm remembering it. It'll be something dumb, like who my significant other is in the dream (sometimes an old co-worker, yikes) or my best friend and I stealing markers from a daycare center. Something tells me this isn't the first time I've brought that up...

They're not stupid because that feeling resembling embarrassment doesn't come up within the first five minutes of being awake. (Seriously, I don't think there's a real word for that feeling-- it's not embarrassment, but the physical response is similar-- tense, naked, awkward, vulnerable. This is close enough.)

Bad example! BAD EXAMPLE! Dream-embarrassment shouldn't be a GIF search for embarrassment conjuring up my first example of a cartoon crush wet-dream! ARGH! In fact, I know his voice actor was Scott Weinger and his singing voice is done by Brad Kane. Yeah, bitches; I know my Aladdin trivia. *Longest caption ever.

So I can tell you what these dreams aren't that makes them qualify, but what ARE they? The easiest way I can answer that is to say that they are complete in some way. Some tidbit of residual interest. Even incomplete, there is some feeling of genre, of a beginning and a middle, or a middle and an end. I say this because beginnings and endings are the difficult part so a dream solidifying those is already passing inspection. Beefy middle meat is always a bonus.

(Room for my perverted friends to heh-heh on that one...)

What I consider successful for an idea is one where I'm all 'hell yeah, that should be a book/movie/comic book/bubble-gum-wrapper.' It seems all of my dreams have this quality these days. I want to complain because none of them have anything I can put towards my actual book. However, what inspires my actual book has to come just as organically, so it can become a lesson in patience. 

Awww, look at me, all unprofessional without my fancy deadlines and prolific discipline. Look, I still get my words up, so twist it all you want. Again, I give all ideas room so that there's no such thing as lulls in my production. Don't harsh my buzz.

I should probably work on my story now though... Blogging always gets me going on what I know I should be doing.

Hey, how about I leave you with an embarrassing bad dream? I once had a ridiculously failed sex dream. Because it was probably supposed to be one, but did. Not. Go there... This one stars me and... Chris D'Elia making out in my sister's childhood-bedroom closet. For some reason, neither of us can figure out how to undress each other and we stop in frustration and end up falling asleep angry on my waterbed.

I know-- embarrassing, right? I don't even have a waterbed.

At least you understand why I say many of my dreams are completely unusable. Great for self-deprecating blog entries though.

I'm a Liar, But For a Good Cause

I blogged a post clearly stating I was 'on hiatus' but I'm clearly a liar. The frequency is still high, but it also comes with the intention of it intact.

I'm not procrastinating on my main project.

When I posted that, it was because the sheer amount of time I spent on scheduling blogs, times I was realizing I had bowed out of writing, had exhausted myself to goals I wanted to place as a priority.

However, I created a sort of unconscious reward system. Now that I delegate writing to the first thing I do, I've been putting quality hours towards where I want them, using blogging as a way to take a break, not the first priority. Sometimes you just have to trick yourself into a new order.

And of course, I'm enjoying the hell out of writing my book. I'm playing with some fun arcs, my favorite mix of seriousness, adventure and humor. Although it gets more complex, keeping track of the logic as I go, I also develop a deeper kinship with the characters and events along the way. To think too deeply on the challenge can cause hesitation, but once I get going, the elusive magic sparks anew.

You don't get many lies that come guilt-free, so consider this sort a true victory.