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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.

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.

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?

Cold Feet

07 Sunday May 2017

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I know writers do it all the time, master the turnaround from draft to publication so that the process is much more efficient. I did it back in my fanfic days, when the standards for posting fic were different than the standards for posting original work, because you were amateur. The amateur status forgave many sins of the beginner.

When I was a kid, I could make a Tootsie Roll last by treating it like hard candy. Ironically—or perhaps not so ironically—as I’ve grown older, I’ve also grown less patient. Yet my standards for putting my work out require me to take my time, even if I don’t want to. I’m a perfectionist and a control freak. They’re both qualities that led me to pursue self-publishing, but they certainly do nothing for my impatience.

Moving from amateur to professional changed my standards. I write a thing. I set it aside for at least a month, and more often than not, about six months to a year before I pick it up again. That lets me distance myself from it, forget a few things, and approach it with fresher eyes after my alpha reader’s gone through it. Then I edit the crap out of it. Then I set it aside again. Then I look over how the edits changed the look and feel of the narration and dialogue, and I edit again. Then I set it aside again. Then I edit again. In between all of this, I’m usually working on other projects, but part of me is always with a finished story, working on it in my subconscious. Only when I think it’s publishable do I even consider sending it to a professional editor.

And finding a professional editor that’s right for me has been more work than I thought it would be, given the number of writers who recommend their editors. Once I settle on an editor or editors, I’ll go through their edit. Then I’ll set it aside again. Then I’ll do at least one final sweep and proofread.

Then I’ll send the book to the formatter. Only after that will I submit the book. That’s not even getting into the cover art/designer side of the equation, or the promotion plans, both of which I can work on in tandem with the writing/editing side.

To give you an idea of the timeline we’re talking about, I wrote Thorns in 2012. It’s probably not going to get published until late January/early February 2018. So much for quick turnaround.

I’m chomping at the bit for Thorns to be released, but not until it’s ready. Not until it’s right. Not until it’s as close to perfect as I’m capable of making it.

And isn’t that just the crux of the matter. Because there is no perfect. There will never be perfect. I’ll always come up short against my own standard, and an objective measure of writing quality is a foggy notion at best. If you don’t like a piece of art, it wasn’t made for you. Poor quality art can still be enjoyed by millions, which brings into question the designation ‘poor quality’ in the first place—because the art did what it was supposed to do, tap into something inside people and make them respond.

In most other parts of my life, I have ways to measure my success or failure and the quality of my actions, usually through some metric of quantity. In art, quantity doesn’t imply quality. I have nothing I can measure, and after a certain point, that takes quality control out of my hands. I can control spelling, grammar, punctuation, pacing, word choice. I can’t control how readers react to the story. That’s the indefinable skill that differentiates a good writer from a mediocre one. I certainly can’t anticipate readers’ enjoyment or engagement based on my own positive reaction to my stories. Mediocre writers entertain themselves, too.

The only solution available to me is to surround myself with people I can trust to tell me when something doesn’t work, but sometimes it’s a delicate balance to make sure that person is also the kind of person meant to enjoy the kinds of things you write. And deciding whether the reason you accept or reject them isn’t because they like or hate your writing. And determining whether your ego or your instinct is driving your decisions to take or leave their criticism. I can never tell whether I’m overconfident or underconfident, whether I’m second-guessing myself too much or too little. Sometimes, I’m a Professional Writer. Other times, I’ve got a serious case of Imposter Syndrome.

But here I am, willing to put my work out there through self-publishing, where the responsibility and consequences fall on me. If people react badly, all the egg hits my face and no one else’s. I’m impatient, with Thorns having been with me for five years and Nocturne having been with me for thirteen (a young adult book I wrote back when I was a young adult). Publishing’s a slow process, though in theory, the digital revolution was supposed to change that, right? But I’ve got some serious jitters, man, and a pathological fear of failure (although you’d think I’d be used to it by now).

There’s no way to objectively know it’s good. These are the things that keep me up at night.