More Writing Therapy

The real wobble of a day like this one is that I can't really anticipate how it will land on my shoulders. UnNamed's release last year on this day was therapeutic all by itself. I'd jumped from NaNo into a frenzied but focused edit and the date coinciding with my mom's death/birthday felt right.

So I thought it would do much the same. However, UnSung was three times the work and full of its own unique problems and solutions, January was a mountain of unpredictability while I healed and made changes and February was not a month I went into on full steam. Reaching today, while the book release is still a buffer and exciting on its own, is also a day where I'm not cushioned by any shock-laden steps of grief. I felt today, two years since I lost my mom, too keenly.

Days don't often have that power. I don't build up a frenzy for holidays, although I do anticipate the days when I get to give someone a gift. I certainly observe those death anniversaries with an acknowledgement but the day of mourning has never been my deal. Yet, at two years, I can't deny the stages of grief rub raw. The anger, the sadness, a reluctance to let any of it burst into a mess, but knowing that bottling is a big no-no.

For better or worse, this woman fuels my writing. I look for resolutions in our one-way relationship by talking to her through my stories. She isn't any one of my characters but I feel her traits coming through. There's a female cardinal outside the kitchen window that teases my cats so spiritually, it's definitely not unlike her.

I'm probably romanticizing this day more than I typically might. But I want the lump in my throat to go away so I can celebrate again. Nothing fills where people are gone, but nothing feels better than honoring them through bettering the self. So if I must concede this day to pain, then let it flow through and give me more days of triumph ahead.

How's that for a mantra?

Winter Wonder What?

I've been scarcer on social media these days. There are certain times of year that I simply know there won't be enough cheer to make it worthwhile. Presidential elections, the first time it snows, that whole fuck-lump from somewhere in the week after Christmas up until it's probably not going to snow again.

Fucking modern age of honesty... Too many people addicted to attention, oversharing their misery, triggered by events they try to piggyback. I miss the ridiculous amount of cat videos and joke posters.

I... know I'm being a hypocrite, setting that tone. Despite the rocky start, winter isn't my least favorite. While this first month wasn't the tone I plan to set for an entire year (less dental work, less peekaboo colds, that damned snain. Pick one. Snow or rain. Not both, you extra ass winter...)-- let's try this again. While this month doesn't count in setting the tone of my year, I find that I'm not drawn into the same shared misery. All said and done, sleep, recovery, and editing isn't giving me some rabid tail-chasing strain of cabin fever.

The isolation is zen. There are people in my home but we're mostly content to explore our own interests. My body is weak, the muscles sometimes refusing to work. It's the cold, the chronic pain and the comfort eating, but you can tell by my pajamas I'm not entering a damned beauty contest. I don't want to be social, don't want to go out to find something to post about, don't want to risk my shiftier moods upsetting the precarious peace.

Somehow, this January was pretty low stress and I'm keeping it that way. Closing up this final draft doesn't add tension. Covering some new ground while I set up my next book doesn't either. I'd like to sleep less but I take what my metabolism will give rather than lament what it won't. So despite some low lows, my attitude and determination to work with what I have has been crucial in that perception. I'm still in good pace with my goals. Knowing how the winter can weigh on me, I'd even planned for these hitches.

Will I take some kind of break after publishing this one? Mmm, probably not. I'll likely still be achy, maybe even juiced up to plow into the next project. Remember, I pounded out around 80+K words for NaNo and I try so hard not to think of it while closing this one up. It's a toughie--if an idea becomes too natural, I'm likely to think I've introduced it already when it's not on the pages at all. So if an idea is particularly juicy, I might scribble it down but smack my hands away from the story.

On another note, how do I have so much scrap yarn? I feel like I need to pound out some adorable and random amigurumi this winter too. Yet another isolated distraction.

Oh! I bought a fancy shmancy nameplate for my desk-slash-future-ComicCon-booth. Still have to go all thematic and design bookmarks, business cards. I want to make my characters out of the insanely tiny Mini Perler beads I collected. Look at gridwall racks for displays. Look at printing costs for custom banners.

Friends, family, country mice... See you again when the season thaws! Stalk my blog or, if I own a piece of your reluctant soul, message me to say hi. Head in the game...

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.

Spinning Wheels

I started playing Dragon Age Inquisition again. It's not a perfect game but it's one of those games that I can really talk story with another fan and no two people have the same focus or interpretation. Because I'd been several books deep into a series with obvious and vague parallels, I felt a sort of connection to this game (as well as the resolution to make it wholly different despite that).

Which means I'm not writing much, but that's okay. I had some issues with sitting up, fighting odd waves of vertigo, so I took it as a sign to pay attention to my health. I switched to housework and long walks to stay mobile but opted for video games so I could sprawl out on my memory foam mattress posture-free. My muscles feel energized, just needing to get the digestive system and head back in line.

In fact, I try not to think about my work at all. Why? Because different ghosts have been visiting me. I've been having strange dreams, sometimes lucid. They're crap as far as stories goes, but there's a personal element, namely WHO I see, that intrigues me most. It's not always the WHAT but the WHO and WHY that seems to matter. Maybe 15 minutes after waking, the mysticism starts to stale and I write it off as brain play (because brains do that too). All the same dreams seem to be giving me some reprieve from the physical discomfort and hiatus from playing creator.

I don't actually believe in karma or higher powers or cosmic balance, but I love that the feel-good hormones seem to find ways to kick in. It may not be in the way I think I need, but if I can be grateful for the way my body does work for me, I can find reserves for forgiving what alters my plans. There are plenty of things I don't understand and those things don't necessarily need sentience or reason for existing. It's because of this flexibility of evidence that I'm more rigid against the sort of arrogance that assumes moral authority based on feelings alone. You can get a sense over time of what stances are based first in feeling then try to build a shaky logic around it. The argument always circles back to appealing to feelings when the logic has holes for exceptions.

I'm going to pick on veganism again for this example, but I truly have no issue with the practice where it works for people (only the arrogance of a supposed morality). It is often successfully passed on by appealing to emotion. It's introduction, even when presented as a health concern still circles back to compassion for animals. When they can't wrap their head around a person loving fish but still eating it, then in an outburst of feelings, it often escalates to a personal attack. Would I eat my family? Well, no. Just like incest, there's consequences for cannibalism which is also why we largely disapprove of it. I don't love a fish as a fish myself so it's not cannibalism and moot point. I don't even love all human beings equally. I was devastated when my mother died but I was only distantly unhappy when a favorite actor passed away. To assume that all living things are equal or that I can be a truly compassionate person by spreading it so ridiculously thin is absurd. There are hierarchies basedmon experience and to be the most compassionate human to other humans and the planet alike, the battles I pick are not going to be yours. In fact, often we support and negate each other for the benefit or detriment and some things balance-- some things need work. Ruining the world with massive agriculture isn't feasible. Dreaming of genocide bringing the planet down to a happy utopia of vegans might work... But you've left all moral high ground where that is a worthy goal.

We don't need to appeal to the direct issues to inspire the intended feelings though. Successful vendors make you feel good about your purchase, like it was your idea all along. Someone sold them veganism, my burden is to sell my stories.

It's why I don't take the profound feeling of my weird ass dreams and assume that anyone could duplicate the feeling through that nonsense. It's not always about the content. The containers are not where you find the whole story. These places are where I find the thing I want to duplicate. How do I make someone feel bliss through the mediums I use? How can I hope to make someone want to pull their cheek muscles into a goofy smile? How people are drawn into books or pictures is, like in my dreams, how much we let ourselves go (or even how we are held hostage).

You could call it research. Or spinning your wheels. There's a freedom that exists where I am right now in this journey. I am free to step away and consider how to be a creature of experience. Yes, a writer is a manipulator, a list, but remove the negative context. You can like the content and be there to affirm it. You can dislike the content but if it's still intriguing enough, you'll want to see where it's going. When I write for me, I want to consider if what is for me makes sense to someone else. In real life, I often just don't get what is acceptable. I also get that it's my problem. Not that there is something wrong with me, just that I'm seeing it differently. So what needs to be in place for us to reach understanding.

People try to say it whenever bigotry is present, but struggle with the vocabulary. We aren't looking for your definitive morality or view, we're looking for you to handle the burden of proof and sell it. So many people on a moral high ground use yellow words to color a feeling with 'facts' that just don't apply to everyone. Is that not reflected creatively as well? Are we not looking for a way to charm our audience with words? In the end, it's not the ideas alone that sell it, but how you can reach the people who want to hear it.

In fantasy, even when the hero saves the world in some fantastical way, they are sometimes ordinary in their world at first. Sometimes they were never ordinary at all but still wanted to be. They are usually not born with a loyal army and the werewithal to conquer great evil. Winning free people is no overnight occurrence.

Of course, fantasy writers, you are welcome to completely prove any of that wrong in fantasy. However, ultimately, you understand it takes a fantasy world to make fantastical ideas work. We can't just wave a wand and make these ideals work here. Even if you could, you're aware that for someone to gain power that fast, the weight of oppression is also an immediate blowback.

In fact, for those conditions to be met, anyone not on the side of the 'hero' might resent and oppose such a regime and even call them the villain. There will never be a happy hive mind because free thought.

I'll wander off now that my wheels have spun, but please preorder the upcoming anthology! It was a fun chance for me to write just a one-off story with no intention to spin it off or expand it. It is what it is and I had a blast delving into a fantasy theme I usually don't write. I won't get the chance to read the other authors' work but I look forward to getting an advance copy before I buy my own print copy.

The Magical Book of Wands, available October 31, is up for preorder on Amazon. One year only! Prints will be available on release day as well.