Category Archives: Writing

Am I ill?

09 Saturday Mar 2019

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I started a pure horror story near the end of February (I classify NOCTURNE as horror, but it has a serious supernatural fantasy vibe in addition to the horror elements). I wrote the first ten thousand words last year, back when I had downtime at work to longhand (what is downtime?). I started out last month with transcription, then tackled new words. That’s difficult for me to do, come back to an old project, but this one hasn’t been hard to sink into. I guess it’s stayed on my mind all this time.

Any problems I’ve had have been because dayjob has been going through a months-long transition, and that’s required a near manic level of energy from me, but also more time than I like giving. I’m a perfectionist and pathologically terrified of disapproval, so I do what I do and don’t have enough time or energy to write as much as I’d like. Still doing it, though. Because when I don’t, my mental health plummets to dangerous places.

How strange that such a dark, bleak, sad story that I developed during the surfacing  fatalism after the last election would become a haven of sorts. So it’s moving more slowly than I’d like, but it’s moving.

I’ve hit roughly twenty-eight thousand words on the manuscript so far. And based on my outline and rough word goal of sixty thousand words, I’m about halfway through. Now, usually I give myself a word goal, then end up twenty thousand words or more above it. I’m notoriously terrible at figuring out how long things take or, in the case of novels, how long they’re going to be, even when I adjust for knowing how terrible I am at it.

But for DEEP DOWN (working title), I’m looking at fifty to sixty thousand words of a novel. As planned. Before edits. I’m actually writing a short novel, possibly a *gasp* novella.

You have to understand, in addition to being terrible at gauging how long things take, I really tend toward longer novels. I think I average around 120,000 words. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, and I’m really good at cutting my starting word count, paring a novel to its necessary words. That 120K novel was probably 140-150K to start out with. THORNS started out at a whopping 195K and ended up 155K.

A fifty-thousand-word novel is unthinkable to me. I’m literally looking at that word count and wondering whether something’s wrong with me. Or the story.

But I think it’s because it’s a single story line, no subplots, and a spare cast. I’m usually working with a more complex plot and multiple characters whose arcs need tending. DEEP DOWN has a very simple premise. A lot of good horror is minimalistic, and that’s what I wanted to try here.

I guess it’s working.

It’s still weird.

 

Resolute

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

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Looking back on 2018, I managed to reach several, if not all creative goals. I didn’t get to write my short horror novels. I made that resolution when work had a lot more downtime, but around May, that downtime disappeared, so they didn’t happen. I also didn’t manage to reboot my jewelry-making. When I had breaks at home, I generally wanted to rest rather than work.

But I did write an average of one horror review a month. Got the last one in just under the wire:

1. “The Lazarus Effect”
2. “Would You Rather”
3. “Gothika”
4. “Teeth”
5. “The Awakening”
6. “Contracted”
7. “Starry Eyes”
8. “As Above, So Below”
9. “Slender Man”
10. “The ReZort”
11. “Silent Hill”
12. “The Wolfman”

And I did write an average of one song a month. Almost an average of two:

1. “Vultures”
2. “Anything but a Diamond”
3. “Standing Water”
4. “Fools”
5. “The Valley of the Shadow”
6. “City on the Hill”
7. “Plenty of Fish”
8. “Devil in the Details”
9. “Trypophobia”
10. “Without You”
11. “Svrcina”
12. “My Captain”
13. “Sleepwalker (Anthony’s Song)”
14. “Music Box”
15. “Rest of Your Life”
16. “Red”
17. “The Rose Less Traveled”
18. “Tattoo”
19. “What Happened”
20. “For the Last Time”
21. “Floodwaters”
22. “Choice”
23. “Would You Rather”

Most importantly, I managed to publish THORNS, the first book in the series of the same name. I’d done edits in previous years and made a number of changes then, but this required an intensive double edit (with the help of my beta readers), then doing the two indie pro edits in tandem, then proofreading. It basically took all year, piece by piece. But I’m really happy with the end product, and I hope you are as well.

I plan for the same marathon in 2019 with ROSE RED, the second book in the Thorns series, to be published around the same time. Hopefully in October, because doing anything other than NaNoWriMo in November is hellish. I’ll also do a single pass through BLUEBIRDS, the third book, though it’ll go through the more intensive phase of preparation in 2020.

I don’t really do resolutions. I have goals, and most of them are ambitious but doable, and I don’t hate myself for not accomplishing them. I focus on the creative, because that’s the meaning of life to me. My writing schedule for 2019 is all set up, and while I foresee some changes, it would be awesome if I could keep to it. 2020 will have a lot more room for writing new things, but I want to get a good set done this year, too.

In addition to ROSE RED, I’m putting those two short novels back on the docket, and I hope to do a rewrite of WAR HOUSE, because it’s also a fairly short (for me) novel, but odds are that these will be the first to be sacrificed if time becomes an issue.

What’s not optional is the fourth Thorns book, PUPPETEER. I haven’t written a new Thorns novel since 2015, and I really want to get the next three tackled. But considering their lengths, that can sometimes be like climbing Everest. I enjoy it, but it’s a lot of time required. I predict three months, but it may end up being three and a half or four. Yikes.

I really would like to reboot my jewelry making. I have pendant components ready to be put together, but I just need to commit to the time to create and take pictures (because I have an actual camera, not a smartphone, it’s a longer process.

This year I’m not going to be as focused on writing songs, but I’d still like to write an average of one a month. I may or may not try to write the music to one.

I’m also continuing my goal of an average of one full horror review a month. It’s a good amount to commit to.

I’d also like to engage in one new creative thing. I keep going from calligraphy to sketching to painting. I’ve done all at one time, calligraphy least of all, but they all intimidate me.

On the non-creative side of life, a few things changed in 2018. I took on more responsibility at work, which filled up that time I used to have too much of. Of course, the business itself had major changes as well that challenged my writing schedule mightily, but I don’t like talking about dayjob work.

Our house underwent drastic renovation, and I basically got rid of my old bedroom and replaced it with furniture fully of my choosing and funding. It was the first time I really got to do that. My old furniture was perfectly respectable and not young-looking or anything (antiques and a sweet daybed), but it was the same furniture I’d had all my life, and it wasn’t stuff I chose. I’m really happy with the furniture I chose, built around a completely awesome drawer unit. And I and the cat love my new bed (I think she’s convinced it’s the best cat bed in the world). I’m still in the process of making my room my own, and for all the clutter I cleared out, there’s more left to get rid of.

I also started improving my diet, although I still have an unhealthy attachment to bottled Frappuccinos and tortillas. I’ve lost some weight and hope to lose some more, but I don’t expect too much.

The real accomplishments are in the realm of my writing. That’s the life I chose, and I’m mostly happy with that. It’s my favorite thing to do, spending time with all these amazing people and having adventures with them. Looking forward to doing so much more of that in 2019, even if the rest of the world seems to be falling apart. This much I can do.

THORNS now available!

20 Tuesday Nov 2018

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Thorns E CoverIt’s finally here! The first book in the series, THORNS, has been made available across the board.

To love a rose, you must also love its thorns. THORNS invites you down the twisted paths of classic fairy tales, myths, and legends into dark forests, urban jungles, otherworlds, underworlds, and your very own rose-red hearts.

Kindle e-book
Trade paperback
Universal link to all other vendors

When eccentric artist Olivia Rowe returns to the Castle to fulfill a childhood promise to its mysterious owner, Griffin, an assassination attempt against him catapults her into a world of hunters, witches, and enchantments—where fairy tales are real but happily-ever-afters are far from guaranteed.

With a rogue hunter hot on their heels, they must journey between the modern world and the last remaining magical enclaves to rescue Snow White, the Sleeping Kingdom, and Griffin himself from Bluebeard, a powerful sorcerer on a life-stealing spree to achieve immortality.

Voice

18 Sunday Nov 2018

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I pick up a book and read the first lines.
I listen to new music all the time.
And I think, I want to sound like that.
Why can’t my cords vibrate like that?
Why can’t my brain string words like that?
Why can’t I be louder, lovelier, stronger, better, best?
Why am I trapped sounding like this?

I wish I could sound like them, but I can’t.
Because I’m not them.
My voice is my voice,
And imitation only gets so far.
Always pale and weak,
Nowhere near where they are.

My voice is my own.
And maybe someday someone will say,
I wish I could sound like you.
But they can’t.
Because my voice is my own,
And there will never be another one like it.
Like it or not, my voice is my own.

Writing Through the Apocalypse

14 Friday Sep 2018

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The year 2012 was a rough one for me. If I remember correctly, I was taking online courses and no longer working at the time, which was amazing, and going forward, I will ever pursue a similar state. But I was also dealing with a level of anxiety and fear that has only been matched post-2016 election, and for much the same reason.

I’m what’s called a thanatophobe. Roughly translated, it means afraid of death. Now, that would describe most people, right? Fear of death is normal and part of the survival instinct. There’s something fundamentally disturbing about being snuffed out, of the world continuing on without you, even though you accept perfectly well that the world got along fine before you were born, too. Your consciousness just can’t comprehend not being a consciousness. That’s why you wake up from dreams when you die–or that’s the theory, anyway. It’s all very mirror-in-a-mirror.

I do have what I consider a higher level of normal death anxiety. Hypochondria is a side effect of that, as is the mysophobia that’s been slowly but steadily increasing for a while. Uncertainty and control freakishness play a big part.

But I also have an occasionally paralyzing fear of apocalypse. All kinds of apocalypses. If there’s been a disaster movie about it, I’m afraid of it–although, strangely, I love disaster movies. Natural apocalypses. Alien apocalypses. Supernatural apocalypses. The Rapture. The Yellowstone caldera eruption. Asteroid hurtling toward Earth. Nuclear war. Rapid climate change. Epidemic. (Honestly, every time I read THE STAND, I get a cold. I think the publisher puts something in the pages.)

And yes, the 2012 Mayan calendar ending that marked the end of the world as we know it.

Did I know that, while natural and nuclear apocalypses are quite possible (as my brain reminds me all the time), this one was complete bunk, and nothing was going to happen in 2012 just because it was 2012, and the world was definitely not going to end on exactly December 21, 2012? Absolutely. I knew this for a fact. Just like I knew that the Rapture wasn’t going to happen according to Harold Camping’s predictions. Did that stop me from being afraid of it? No. That’s why they call it a phobia, Carl. It’s utterly irrational. And it was the entire freaking year. December 21 was at the end of it, after all.

So to distract myself, I wrote THORNS, which ended up about 195K words in its first draft. (I write long, then cut. That’s my very frustrating process.)

Of course, it helped that I was pretty much the only one freaking out and everyone was else was basically chill, so there were a lot of ports in the storm. Post-2016, not so much, which is why creativity has been such a hard thing for a lot of artists of late, although I’m noticing an upswing. Fear fatigue, maybe?

THORNS actually arose from a short story I’d wanted to write during college four years earlier. The opportunity came up in my fairy tales class–yes, I had a literature class on fairy tales. Envy me. Among a few other options, our final assignment could be a retold fairy tale, so I sat down and put to paper the idea I’d had for this BEAUTY AND THE BEAST retelling I was dying to write.

First thing I realized upon writing it was that it was too long for a short story–around 11K. The second thing I realized was that the story was still much too short and didn’t work at all as it was. It needed to become a novel to do the concept justice, so I shelved it until I thought I could handle a more elaborate plot. I wrote a much shorter BEAUTY AND THE BEAST retelling for the purpose of the assignment and moved on with my life, working on other projects. Most of which I also shelved, because that was the period in my life that I was really Learning How to Write by writing well-conceived crap. I’ll probably rework some of it someday.

Enter the apocalypse.

I’d say I just needed some escapist fiction, but THORNS isn’t really escapist. What it offered me, however, was a full, rich, detailed world in which I could hide among plot complexities (I’m a logistics person, so the problem-solving aspect of plotting is my wheelhouse) as well as hang out with people who were much more interesting to be around than my anxiety-ridden head. As long as my mind was racing, I thought I might as well put it to better use.

About halfway through this monster of a novel, I realized one book wasn’t going to cut it. Because of course.

But that’s the beauty of it (seriously, I’m not trying to be fairy tale puntastic). I can always come back to the THORNS series. When I do, I know it’s going to take up time and brainpower and spoons. But it’s going to do so in a way that I very much need, so it’s a good thing I’ve planned at least seven books in advance, and in my spare moments at work, I try to think beyond that. I told myself I couldn’t publish the second book, ROSE RED, until I’d written the fourth, PUPPETEER. Now that I’ve more or less figured out a work/writing balance, I’m thrilled next year will finally see me tackle it. (If we’re still here. Just saying.)

Haven’t figured out a work/writing/life balance, but you can’t have everything. And if you can’t have everything and the world is going to hell in a sound bite, I plan to do it writing.

The line in HAMILTON that sticks with me daily is “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?”

Because I fucking am. And I’ve got shit to finish before then. I guess death is a great motivator.

Would rather not work in a constant state of low-level panic, but I’ll take what I can get.

P.S. Editing through the apocalypse works, too.

Songwriting Goals Achieved

19 Saturday May 2018

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For the purpose of accountability, I just wanted to share that my challenge to write an average of one song a month has been met well before the deadline. I’ve discovered I have two lanes when it comes to subject matter, but they don’t exactly go together, so if I ever decide to produce anything, who knows what kind of EPs I’d come up with. 🙂 I wrote a song about trypophobia, then followed it with the sweetest love song I know how to write.

In general, I seem to favor dark social/religious commentary and self-deprecating humor.

Anyway, here’s the list, in alphabetical order (I’ll follow up on the end of the year with a full 2018 list, and maybe I’ll share a few):

1. “Vultures”
2. “Anything but a Diamond”
3. “Standing Water”
4. “Fools”
5. “The Valley of the Shadow”
6. “City on the Hill”
7. “Plenty of Fish”
8. “Devil in the Details”
9. “Trypophobia”
10. “Without You”
11. “Svrcina”
13. “My Captain”

A Melody without a Beat

06 Saturday Jan 2018

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pexels-photo-210661.jpeg“I don’t do poetry.”

That’s what I keep saying. Every time I try, something rings inexplicably false, juvenile. Also, I’m a wordy fucker, and short form writing is hard.

“I don’t do poetry.”

But sometimes, I have so much to say, and I’m terrible at saying things directly. I have a tendency to backpedal or start arguing from an opposite viewpoint. My mind is scrambled, and there’s not a lot I can do about it when it comes to the broken line between my mind and my tongue. The way I get around it most of the time is from the side, by writing fiction, where I can hide in my characters–who sometimes don’t agree with me, so good luck figuring out which part’s me. (Trick question: it all comes from me, because all the thought-voices in my head are me, even if they don’t agree, but damn, it gets crowded and mean in here.)

But sometimes it’s not enough to come at something sideways. Sometimes I have too many thoughts all at once, with an intensity that can’t be assuaged through long form writing. Takes too darn long, go figure. In those events, I usually have to grab the nearest writing implement and furiously write down verse. Usually free verse in those situations, sometimes with the rhythm of slam poetry. But undeniably poetry.

Not necessarily good poetry. I told you. “I don’t do poetry.”

But sometimes I need it.

I came up with the goal to write twelve songs this year because of the same theory that drives NaNoWriMo: Stop talking about writing the novel and just write the novel.

I kept telling myself I needed to figure out how to write lyrics eventually. Since I was already jotting random snippets of lyrics down like crazy lately, driven to put something down that prose couldn’t touch, I figured I might as well start figuring out how to structure a song and figure out meter and rhymes. I’m an alpha-omega writer. I start at the beginning and finish at the end. Verse seems to grow outward from a single line or couplet. It’s not natural for me. But writing novels was once unnatural to me, and now I barely have to think about story, structure, or pacing.

It may take six years, the way it took with writing novels, before the song-writing feels less amateurish to me, before it feels less insincere–which is the deepest cut, because the inspiration is usually something terribly raw in its sincerity. But already, between jotting down lyrics, making a few attempts at Christmas songs (a few of which I actually like), and the first two entries in satisfying my 2018 song-writing goals, I notice improvement. “Vultures” was my first extended metaphor, which I’m proud of. And I really reined in my wordiness. And “Anything but a Diamond” is a bit of an aromantic love song, if that makes any sense.

I’m not going to get into the music-writing yet, although I’d like to tackle that in the future. Maybe that’ll be next year’s monthly assignment. In the meantime, I’ll reacquaint myself with the piano, after our period of estrangement. I took piano for twelve years, but around Year Ten, I developed terrible performance anxiety that makes playing in public impossible, and thus discouraged me from the ivories for another twelve years. Scales and chords should be like riding a bicycle, though, and already I’m noticing how songs are arranged based on that very premise.

If I’m really ambitious, I might try indie recording. I have no delusions of fame. It would mostly be for my own edification and enjoyment. One of those ‘why the hell not? I’m thirty fucking years old and really don’t care what anyone else thinks’ things. It would be really interesting to figure out all the technology and how to do it myself (because asking for outside help is so ten years ago, and I can’t afford it).

The other impetus for learning myself songwriting is that I’ve found it comes up in my fiction more often than I expected. Sometimes, free verse just doesn’t cut it. Sometimes I must rhyme, and I can’t get away with half-assing or improvising a poem.

But I really don’t do poetry.

Resolute

01 Monday Jan 2018

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1358111_52482665Like a lot of people with depression, end-of-year milestones can be difficult, which is why I don’t really like birthdays or New Year’s. I try to take care of myself and play things low-key during those times. The realist in me isn’t very fond of resolutions, although I can’t help but set a few goals that I usually keep to myself.

In my experience, creativity-based goals are the ones most likely to be achieved, so I don’t mind sharing them. I’m not holding myself to them, and although I get frustrated when I don’t keep to my schedule, I’m not going to beat myself up if I fall behind. It’s not helpful.

All of these are contingent on the world as we know it still being here by the end of the year. With my thanatophobia working overtime, I don’t take that as a given, and because I feel like I finally have some writing momentum over these last few months, it would just be my luck for the apocalypse to strike this year before I accomplish my life goals.

I had set an early 2018 release for THORNS, but that’s just not going to happen, because I have things I’m doing January and February. However, I hope to publish THORNS in October 2018, around the same time I published NOCTURNE in 2017. I need to do another personal edit, send it off to at least one professional editor, possibly two, then do the final personal edit and proofread.

Because I’ve had so much success writing in the company break room after work, I’m hoping to also have time during the extended editing process this Winter/Spring season to write two short horror novels that have been percolating in my head. One or both of them might be something I attempt to sell through traditional routes rather than self-publish, but I’m not sure yet. Both of them are a bit experimental for me, not least because they’d be short, but it’s not entirely unprecedented. WAR HOUSE was a short novel.

And speaking of WAR HOUSE, I’d like to rewrite that this summer. It was a good concept, but a bad plot, and if I had a bit of time to mold a better plot to fit the concept, I could still recycle a great deal of what I wrote in the original draft.

Beyond this summer, I’m not sure whether I have anything I have to write, so maybe I’ll start the fourth Thorns series novel, but I’m not holding myself to that, since NOCTURNE took so long to finalize. However, since I won’t publish ROSE RED (2) until I write PUPPETEER (4), I should probably write PUPPETEER (4) sooner rather than later.

As far as non-fiction-writing creativity goals, I’d like to write an average of one song a month. I think poetry is good for my brain, even if my brain isn’t good for poetry, and sometimes the Thorns series has required something rhyme-y. I may never do anything with my song-writing; it’s just something to try.

I’d also like to get back into jewelry-making, because I have a lot of supply inventory I’d like to eliminate. Who knows? The bug may return. And I’d also like to create a line for the Thorns series that I can sell in tandem with it. I’m partial to rose jewelry as it is. So I’m going to make an average of two necklaces per month.

Also, I set this blog up as a horror review site in addition to discussing writing and sharing my novels, but depression kept me from doing much with that. I’d like to write one full horror movie review per month.

Changing the Rhythm

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

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1159420_96550296One of the biggest things I changed about my writing this year that made a huge difference was bringing my personal computer to work with me.

After I sign out from work, I take my computer to the break room and set it up on one of the high tables like a standing desk. I don’t plug in or connect to the wifi, so I’m not using any of their resources, just the empty space that isn’t otherwise being used. And without being able to get on the Internet or make a snack or do any of the other myriad things I distract myself with everywhere else, I literally can’t do anything else but write.

That gives me a good, dependable 700-1000 words in less than an hour before I endure traffic home (traffic is a over-stimulation issue for me—and many others, I’m sure) and start the long wind-down from the day. I also try to write another 700-1000 words at night, but my brain’s shutting down at that point, so it’s more difficult to focus. Plus, I have wifi at home, and other things I want to do, like watch mindless procedurals.

What did you change this year that made a difference in your writing?

Green Thumb

09 Saturday Dec 2017

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1373911_93509324Just to be clear, I do not have a green thumb. Literally or in the sense most people use the phrase. I kept mint going pretty well back in college, could keep mini roses for a few months, and I grew snapdragons for a while, because those are hardy little buggers I’d totally grow again. I’d probably also do well with succulents. Plants require attention, and plants don’t purr, so I’m much less likely to give them said attention.

However, something happens when I’m in the middle of writing projects, when I’m devoted to the discipline of writing even when I don’t want to.

Other creative places in my brain start waking up. I stayed awake for an hour and a half because my brain wanted me to make jewelry again, and it wasn’t going to stop until it was finished designing, even though I can’t begin to work on jewelry until the new year.

In the middle of work, I’ll jot lyric snippets down on sticky notes when they pass through my head (because I learned a long time ago that if I don’t write The Thing down, it does not stay remembered). Oh yeah, I just decided one day that I wanted to try writing songs, even though poetry was never my forte and I don’t know how to write music. It might be a 2018 project to keep me from ruminating over the apocalypse. Seriously, folks, I’m making this up as I go, and it’s not like I’m certain I’ll ever share the songs with anyone.

I have a miniature notebook where I write down new story ideas, not to mention the notes I write in the margins of my big longhand notebooks or on other sticky notes. That’s the main thing. When I plant a creative tree, that tree keeps growing and putting out new branches, new leaves. It takes all my effort to prune the damn thing so I can get my projects done rather than start on a new story every other week, which would lead to a lot of chasing white rabbits and no finished works to show for it.

But that To Write list keeps getting longer, and I’m a long-form writer who can’t churn finished work out that quickly. The ideas have bottle-necked in my brain, which is a surefire way to make that brain sick. The only solution is to stop being creative, but I can’t stop being creative because it’s all I have at this point. I have my day-job, and I have this. I sacrificed a life for this. It consumes every waking moment. It’s not stopping, and it’s not getting better.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for the inspiration. But I’m only one artist, and I only have so much time in a day. Never enough time. I’ve written over 250,000 words this year, and there’s still not enough time to move the stories through fast enough for me to keep up. Tell me to get up earlier in the morning to write more, and I will find you, tie you up, and tickle you with a redheaded centipede. Discipline is not the problem. Depression occasionally is—at the moment it’s there, but not an obstacle, so I’ll get as much done as I can while it’s not.

My problem is time. Always time. I could have fifty more years, but I could also only have a week. Even if I have fifty years, would it be enough to get everything down, everything out? If it’s a week, I have so many regrets, I’d rather have something to show for it.