Lucky numbaaaaahhhhhhh 13. Or something. I have returned from my time in the trees, and I did no editing. I did read a few books while out and about (Quicksilver by Callie Hart, Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy, and The Lost Woman by Sara Blaedel), and I hiked for a bit. The state park I went to is one I’ve not visited before, so it was nice to do some wandering in unfamiliar territory. At one point, I thought maybe I’d wandered off trail, and I got nervous I’d be lost. But, clearly, I am not. Have a picture:
Writing wise, I plan on editing the proof copy of the project I am almost finished with. I still have some changes I need to make to the final text, and seeing them in printed form will definitely help with that. I ordered a proof version to make sure everything was where it should be, and it ain’t, sooooooooo back to the GIMP drawing board.
I have sneezed almost ten times in the last six minutes. My face is betraying me.
Anyway, since NaNoWriMo is disbanded, I’m participating in a November Writing Thing on the forum I’m part of, and I have a title, and I have almost 1500 words so far, but I hate them, so I’m going to (pause for sneeze) redo them and try again. The title will stay, though. I do like that one a lot. I’m only shooting for 15k words instead of the 50k because I am trying to finish a project, and I don’t want to be too spread across the lands. (Like butter over too much bread, eh, Bilbo? [I had to, sorry]).
That’s all the soup in this tureen, chickens. I hope you’re well, and I hope your words are coming along pretty.
Sometimes, my dad hugs me just a little longer and I am lighter than I was before. Sometimes, my sister drops a random moment and I laugh like it’s how I breathe. My stepmom will give me a smile and I am okay for another day.
My niece tells me about her little almost seven years old life, and I wonder if anyone ever listened to me with such gusto.
I’m always going to be thirty years older than her, and I still see how small she was when she was born. She’s not my kid, but she’s my kid.
When I see the little ways people love me, the quiet ways, the moments just us, it makes me panic that I don’t appreciate it enough, that they don’t know how much it means to me.
I’ve hated my birthday for a long time, never wanting to be reminded of my own existence. I know I’m here, don’t tell me about it. But this year I started asking myself why.
The attention being on me is certainly one of the reasons I hate it. I hate being cared about so openly. It makes me feel like I need to do something to “pay back” and when people don’t want the reimbursement of their love, I don’t understand.
But I want to.
I want to stop being uncomfortable when someone does something for me because they want to, because I exist in their life and they find value in who I am. I want to see why birthday candles are fun things to look forward to, the wishes blown out a promise of future happiness.
I spend as much time as I can around my birthday in the trees. Seeing the world as big as it is reminds me I’m small and insignificant, but not so I can use that to hate myself. It is my way of proving to myself that my existence is necessary. That I am part of the great woven masterpiece I drape around my shoulders, and I am not meant to leave it yet.
Little by little, I tell myself. Little by little, we’ll find our way back. One day, I’ll smile when my birthday rolls around. One day, I’ll embrace myself the way my father hugs me, and I’ll hold on a little longer each time, too.
I’ve been, as I told a friend, almost neurotic in trying to get this book done. I finished marking up the manuscript a… day ago, and I’m already on chapter eleven (this morning) with going through to fix things. If all writing were this fast, I would get more done, I think. I did spend about an hour and a half last night before bed reading through Lazarus Rising.
That one I’m pumped to get back into. I forgot how dastardly Mr. Fogg is, and as I was reading through his sections, I kind of forgot I wrote him and just “man, this guy.” So that was fun.
I’m possibly going to have my summer project, aka Daisy, ready by the end of the month, and I wasn’t going to do a big release of it, but I think I might just announce the completion and be all “hey, here it is.” I’m only going to do a print version of it, I think.
I wrote out a list of the front matter I need for this one (the bits in front of the book, for those who don’t know the lingo I didn’t know until I finished Fulcrum), and I definitely think I’ll put a content warning in. It’s not smut on the romantasy level, but there are some descriptive moments. It’s one of those things where I kind of … It’s necessary for character development in this case, like, very necessary, which is the only reason it’s been put in. And the descriptions are there for the characters and how they’re feeling/experiencing things. I hope I did it well. I am going to take one scene out because it is gratuitous, and I think that’s very editorial of me, haha.
I’ve had Daisy in my head since high school, and I never really thought I’d finish it because it just kind of sat for a few decades. It’s got many, many iterations. I’m pretty sure this final content version is in the teens in terms of drafts for it. But that’s the beauty of being a writer. You grow and life experiences color and graft onto your writing style. What I knew in high school is useful, but I’m able to parse through the stuff in my brain far better. Well, maybe. That’s a different story for a different page.
At the end of the day, I’m proud of this book and the story within it, even if I felt like it was an undertaking now in my thirties versus my late teens, early twenties. Maybe my thoughts about love are a bit different, too. Actually, no maybe about that one. I joked around with some friends that I hate love, and then said I don’t, and one of them said back “don’t lie to my face.” I don’t hate it, I just don’t think it fits me right now. I love it for other people, though. Which I think is why this project has kind of been a lot for me to work on.
Good news for me, though, because once I finish this, I’ll never write a designated romance novel again in my life, haha. I will leave that to the professionals, and if there’s romance in my other stories, it won’t be the focus. It’ll be a side quest.
That’s all the shoes on this rack, kids. I hope you have a lovely weekend and I hope the fall air is crisp in ya lungs as you go about your day.
I’m minutes away from finishing the second to last content draft of my summer project. It’s going to be a pile of paper for a few days while I let my brain come back to being a person. I tend to disappear when I write, and I don’t mean to.
A few moments later and the last pen mark has been dragged across the paper. Time to type. I’ll let you know when the thing’s ready for lookin’ at. I’m not going to do a big release of it, just kind of set it out for the world to see if they stumble across it.
I’m a little tired. October is a hard month for me, and I’m trying not to let it get me in the funk it usually provides, so of course my brain is doubling down.
I hope you’re well. I hope your words come easy. And I hope you are able to see the sun through the clouds.
Don’t mind me, I’m still in Rocket Arena, watching confetti fall from the ceiling while Vessel sings my favorite song off the newest Sleep Token album.
I’m not one for letting myself cry in public. It takes a lot to make me cry in front of others, like truly cry, not the few tears thing. I can do that. I can show I’m a human through that, but when it comes to the kind of crying that makes people ask if you’re okay, I stopper that up so fuckin’ fast.
I wish I had the words to explain how utterly overwhelmed I was when I got to hear Infinite Baths live. I sobbed. In full view of people I love dearly. One of them put her arm around me to comfort me, for which I’m grateful.
I can’t stop thinking about the way it felt to turn my head to the ceiling and watch the pink paper confetti fluttering down onto us as Vessel asked us to drift with him.
Surreal.
Ethereal.
Unearthly.
The way it lives in my whole body, the way it switches me to life to remember I got to experience my favorite band in an arena.
I’m not a risk taker. I’ll talk myself out of just about anything. And the idea of crowds in any number greater than five is abhorrent to me. So, getting tickets to not only a Sleep Token concert, but also the Louder Than Life festival the weekend before, it made me do a quick, “hey, who even are you?”
Turns out, I can be brave for Vessel. I can put aside my biggest anxieties just for the chance to exist in the same room as him, hearing him sing his music.
That’s such a powerful thing to give someone, you know? The confidence to be unafraid of what scares them. I didn’t need to see him (I did a few times, don’t worry, it wasn’t me just Gollum crouching saying “my precious” the whole time).
I got to hear him.
What a beautiful, beautiful thing to be part of, to keep in my heart for the rest of my life.
I’ve been on somewhat of a nostalgia kick recently. My Instagram feed is full of all these clips from Halo releases and someone posted (again) that video of kids from a 2000s year at high school, where it was a camcorder, not a phone.
I think I missed a bit of that being a kid stuff, but the bits I got to have are pretty solid bits. Whether it’s swimming in a pool with my best friend while it’s raining out, driving to Rally’s (pre-vegetarian days) after school to grab a burger (before burgers were 12 dollars), watching my brother play video games on our small TV while our mom taught piano lessons. That last one is probably one of the best ones.
One of the things I always looked forward to when I was smaller was the yearly trek to Peoria, Illinois for family reunions. I never spoke to the people I saw there except at those reunions. My great-grandmother’s children decided to hold these reunions once everyone started spreading out. There were 9 children total, 8 survived to adulthood, my grandma was the baby.
My great-grandmother had all of her children by the time she turned 44. I’m turning 37 this year and while I don’t have 9 children, I wonder if my great-grandmother would understand the pride I’m building in myself. For staying even when I want to leap into the void. For continuing onward, with a dogged determination to prove the bastards in my brain wrong, that I am worthy of being here.
Life was a different kind of challenging for her, especially as the mother of so many children. Things known as an instinct now were being discovered when she was a teenager. She saw two world wars while trying to raise her family. She had sons fight in the second, two of whom were in some of the bloodiest battles. I can’t even pretend to know what that kind of fear feels like.
The point of this whole thing is to say Labor Day weekend is when the reunion always takes place. I’m still on the email list (something not around in Martha’s time) so I know when and where it’s happening, but after my grandmother died, I couldn’t bring myself to keep going. It was different without her. Not quite empty, because there were familiar faces, but more of a dissonance. A chiming of bells that didn’t ring together.
It’s always a time of reflection for me on Labor Day. Now that I’m in a job that gives me the day off, it’s easier to look back at what being young was for me. Young and full of whatever propelled me onward, ready to bolt toward the future of uncertainties and unknowns.
I don’t know what Martha would think of me. I’m only just now starting to shift my own thoughts of myself. But I like to think that whatever exists in the space between life and death, if there is such a space, Martha finds me funny, endearing, and full of the hope that carried her through her toughest times. I’m probably a bit too raunchy for her, but I feel like she’d have a secret smile for me when no one else is looking.
On chapter 18? 19… of my Summer Project (It’s called Daisy, but I keep referring to it as my Summer Project to … appear more mysterious? I don’t know)
Gathered a list of short stories that I think I could possibly put together in a collection
Went through a few chapters of Lazarus Rising’s first draft (Fogg is so fun to read and write)
I spent yesterday reading 2.5 books, and both were disappointing. I don’t know why I keep expecting romantasy to be good. It’s all miscommunication tropes that make me want to slam my face in a blender. And if it’s not that, it’s the main couple arguing about their relationship. It’s so frustrating that the plot is non-existent in a lot of these. But if the people want the fuckin’, I guess they’ll get the fuckin’.
I’m going to spend some time typing up a bit of the first scribbles I made of The Dust Chronicles. A story I keep drifting to in my heart. It might be a duology. It also might just be a single novel. But a fuckin’ big one. That’s the next project after the Maker Series.
That’s all the snow on this mountain. I hope you are doing well. I hope the summer has been kind to you, even if it’s been hot as balls.
Q: What is your favorite food? A: Cheesy carbs, but also peanut butter
Q: Do you have a favorite color? A: Blue, in any hue
Q: How about hobbies? A: Sure, writing–although that one is more of a life. Reading (I’m currently reading two books, Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, and No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. I just finished Accomplice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer.)
I also enjoy hiking, art museums, listening to music, visiting my family, and seeing my friends.
Q: How big is your family? A: I have a blended family, which gives me two brothers and three sisters. Most of us live in the US, but one sister lives in Japan with her family. I have four nephews and a niece. They range in ages from 6.5 years old to two less than a year old.
Q: What music do you listen to? A: Pretty much everything. I’m not a country music fan, but I appreciate people are. I don’t usually listen to rap unless I’m in the mood for it. My most listened to band right now is Sleep Token (shut up, they’re good to me), but I also am very fond of soundtracks, “classical” music, and other assortments of musical acts like Dead South, Bedouin Soundclash, Breaking Benjamin, Noah Gundersen, Elbow, Modest Mouse, Heilung, Hozier, Juice WRLD, Keane, Linkin Park, Hanson, etc.
Q: Do you believe in God? A: Not really. I used to. I was raised Mormon (LDS) and was fairly active in the church until my early twenties, and then I kind of had some stuff happen that didn’t really shake my faith, more confirmed some things I’d thought for a while. I do believe in a spirituality of sorts, not necessarily religiously. I find a lot of solace in nature, and I like being reminded there’s more out there much bigger than I am, and I can get easily lost in the thought of how rivers know where to go. Spirituality often gets misconstrued as having to do with religion, but I think it’s more a connection to our place in the universe. For whatever reason, evolution gave us the ability to have a deep thought now and then, and a lot of us humans ponder why we’re here. I certainly don’t know the answer to that, but I do know I’m doing my best to enjoy being here.
Q: What is your biggest fear? A: The dark, deep water, mirrors, losing my family. The dark is, of course, the possibility of what’s inside the darkness, deep water because there’s an element of the unknown and darkness, losing my family is pretty obvious, haha. I don’t mean the natural way of life loss, though. I mean more the metaphorical loss. Mirrors because I don’t need to see things in there that don’t need to be.
Q: Is there a Mr. Salisbury Fake? A: No, and I don’t seek one. There is loneliness from time to time, but that’s human nature. I am quite content by myself. I think one day it’d be cool to be married, but that would probably be a weird relationship to outsiders. I’d like having someone, but I’d also really like being left alone, haha.
Q: Are you romantic? A: Unbearably so. I think there is beauty in romanticizing life to an extent. I don’t think it’s good to let romance become delusion.
Q: So, if you did get married, what would your choice of ‘first dance’ song be? A: Blue Skies by Irving Berlin, but specifically from the Picard season 1 soundtrack.
Q: Are you happy? A: Happiness is such a fleeting feeling and something I think as elusive as perfection. I don’t strive for happiness, I strive for contentment. Far more achievable and far more sustainable. Happiness is important and something to enjoy when it appears (such as seeing my brother’s kids play together), but to me it’s far more important to understand it’s okay not to be happy all the time. Generalized contentment is my preferred goal, and so in that line, I say yes. I am content. Wanderlust and yearning aside, I am content.
Q: Did you make up all of these questions for this interview with yourself? A: Yes. Yes, I did.
Hi, salutations, popcorn in your bucket, and maybe some peanut butter and jelly on your sandwich?
I’ve been writing, sure. The “Summer Project” is about to be merged with the 2023 draft, and that’s exciting. I have to … grow up? the 2023 draft a bit more because the character is older and some of the stuff is youthful.
Been reading. Finished The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (highly recommend). Read through a few others this afternoon, actually, and had the thought that I don’t think all people who can discuss books should write them. A lot of “thrillers” and “mysteries” are being churned out by the booktok machine and it’s clearly written for popularity rather than substance. That’s okay. The world does need books like that for the readers who want them. I am not one of them, it seems, so I will consume with caution from now on.
I don’t consider those books beneath me, but I prefer the books I read to offer a satisfying conclusion to a building of tension and “thrill.” Both endings of the books I read today were rushed and one of them I predicted well before the reveal of the “twist” and I felt let down. This is why I don’t tend to read modern mysteries. I usually figure them out before the halfway point and I get frustrated.
That’s all the spokes from this wagon wheel, darlings. I hope you’re well, and I hope the heat isn’t keeping you down.
A few thoughts and then I flee again. Not much to report, really. I’ve been
s t r u g g l i n g
to write my summer project. Most of it consists of staring at a blank page of notebook paper and wondering if I finally developed carpal tunnel from my decades of writing everything by hand. I mentioned something about maybe “outgrowing” a project, and I think I have a little here. And by a little I mean a lot. I still want to tell the story, but it feels like every other romance novel out there. What separates my characters from anyone else’s? Why should anyone give a shit about this story?
Am I being morose? Yeah. There’s a starvation in my chest. An ache where I wish I could stuff someone in there and love them. Loneliness and yearning I can’t explain rationally. But is that kind of thing ever rational? I don’t know, but I feel so stolen by it whenever it finds me. Kind of jerked out of time, a bit. My brain just rattles around trying to find the place it fits and the room is a mess.
Trying to write while being suspended above yourself is rather impossible. I could shove all I’m feeling into the story currently eluding me, but no one wants to read realism in romance. We all want to be swept into a reality not our own, and if I put down on paper my vulnerabilities like that, what am I setting loose into the world?
I know, I’m writing it down here, but no one really reads this, so I’m not too bugged. I want to be seen, but unknown. If you only see what I drop onto this screen, I still own myself and I am not beholden to anyone other than the gromblins chewing on my cerebellum.
How do you put such distended limbs on a person you create?
If I could find the right words, I know I’d find the story properly again, but for now, they’re going to remain buried in the pile. Slippery from being disgorged out of the intestine of my thoughts.
Do I even want to write? Do I want to see my words continually fail? Maybe if I write the wrong ones enough times, I’ll get something to make sense.
salisbury.fake 