Singing Justin Bieber’s “Baby” while unwrapping a peanut butter cup is peak Saturday morning behavior, I think. I don’t know if this is journal number six. I could look, but that requires more dedication to a numbering system than I particularly care for currently. I don’t know “Baby” past the chorus, so it’s been just a repeat of “baby, baby, baby, ohhhhh” progressively more offkey.
I haven’t been stuck. Well, no, I have been. Stuck in chapter twenty of the Lazarus Rising first draft. I’ve come across things I’ll “fix in post,” I tell myself. Scribbling late into the night because insomnia has come to visit again. Who needs sleep when words give so much more to me? I probably do need sleep, because the headaches that have come from this lack of it are just debilitating sometimes.
But yeah, finally got through chapter twenty, and I actually made it through chapter twenty-one. Finished that last night, and then when I woke up this morning, I had some clarity to restart the gibberish I wrote to open chapter twenty-two before I passed out.
Currently, peanut butter cups are eaten, and water should be next to consume, but that requires getting up again and I just sat down to keep typing up chapter fourteen. I don’t want to get half a book behind on typing again, so I’m going to spend today doing some of that. After I have brunch/lunch with some friends.
Depression has been keeping me company as of late. I see it. I wave at it when I get home. I tell it how my day has been, knowing full well it’s been right there at my ankles the whole time. It knows my weaknesses. It knows my sadness. Not a bad roommate, really. More like a mother giving you the silent treatment and you aren’t sure what you’ve done wrong, so you’ll keep trying your best not to mess anything else up.
I hope you’re doing okay. I hope you’re able to see the sun, and I hope the warmth sticks with you longer than you expect it to.
I don’t necessarily have writer’s block, I have lack of interest in writing at the moment. I’m still trying to write, though, and so some of the stuff that comes out is useable and other bits are more scrappable.
I am not discouraged by this, though! Sometimes taking breaks is necessary. Give a brain a bit of a rest. I’m doing some reading, though. Currently I’m reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and The Temptation to Exist by E.M. Cioran. I may review one or both of those! May also just read them, haha.
I considered doing a game review of a game I recently watched a playthrough of, but I sometimes feel like a poser when I try to talk about video games. I’m not skilled in the slightest at playing them, so I usually watch games (without commentary). Big, big space horror fan.
Back to writing: I’ve done a few things with the language I made up for the Maker series, like named a metal and started … doodling? I guess would be the word for it, but seeing how sentence structure would work. Different cities would have different structure sometimes, I think, as a way to differentiate their cultures/accents/etc.
I think that’s about all I have in terms of an update for now. Until next time, friends.
I feel it poking at the back of my brain, trying to wheedle its way into my skull. To bury itself where it feels most familiar, most comfortable. I am surrounded by what-ifs and why. Can’t you just let me breathe?
I wish I had answers and timeframes, and understanding of the deeper parts of fear. I just have a promise to keep trying. Keep doing. Keep rising out of bed, keep putting my shoes on and still be a person where it’s expected of me.
I want to hollow myself out and climb inside. Wrap the cavity around me and tighten it with screws. Let me get to know the woman I’ve become. Without being asked why I changed. Why I became.
It’s okay not to be okay, of course, but how long do you let that be your maxim? Your guide through life? When does it stop being a thing you tell yourself for grace and becomes a thing you tell yourself to hide?
Hide with me, I beg the moon. Hide away with me from all the sunrises coming for me, so I can stay with the part of me I don’t know yet, the part I’ve been running from this whole time.
Is it right, I ask my back patio, to leave the tired parts of my mind behind, to stand guard against the darkness seeping in through their fingers, while the rest of me pushes forward a brightness I know is false? Is it right of me to do that?
I wish I could tell you, I say to the pillow I tossed onto my mattress last night. I wish I could tell you why I can’t find the pieces. I just can’t.
I’ve been working rather steadily on the first draft of the third book. Lazarus Rising. Not the religious connotations it might seem to have, but kind of? Based purely on Tobias (the creator of Telaroth) liking the story of Lazarus so much he used the name as a way to distance himself from the problems he caused. It goes so much deeper than that, of course, but this book is one of the first we see into Lazarus. Characters go into the sister-world and it is truly one of the coolest places to spend an afternoon in my head.
I am currently doing some typing so I don’t have an entire book to type in a few months when I have the first draft done. But I’m writing chapter sixteen now. Just scootin’ right along.
I’ve been thinking more and more about submitting a few short pieces for magazines/journals/etc, but I know next to nothing about that process. I have a few friends who are regular submitters and they’ve offered advice, so when I get the confidence to start collecting rejections, I’ll implement what I learn from them.
Sometimes I beta read as well, and one of the things that surprises the people I read for is how fast I get it done. So, I’ve considered maybe turning that into a side hustle. Get some dollars for a hobby? I don’t know. I truly enjoy reading through people’s work and seeing how I can help them tell the story they want to. I don’t really do line-edits, but I do broader content and some typo assist. I keep waffling back and forth on asking for money for it, though, because it is something I really do enjoy.
But my father told me once never give my work away for free.
And the part of me that breathes words says the delight I get from doing this kind of thing is the payment I need or even want.
Things to think about, of course.
Aside from that, I have a secret-not-so-secret project looming for the summer months, and I’m excited about that in the sense that it’s a piece I never really thought I’d publish. It’s a romance novel of sorts, and one I’ve worked on for yeeeeears and years. Never putting it anywhere more than a now defunct forum.
I will get the first draft of Lazarus Rising finished, and then work on Daisy while Lazarus steeps. When I get to the fourth book in the Maker series, that’ll be a challenge because I’ve never written a draft–first person or third. Everything else has at least been through a first person POV version. Uncharted territory ahead, and it’s exciting but intimidating all at once.
Thanks for reading this ramble of writing thoughts. Until next time, friends.
I’ve finished chapter eight of Lazarus Rising’s first draft. I’m writing from Fogg’s perspective in the beginning of this book, giving him some space to be seen. Not that he deserves such a grace given who he is. Some of the feedback I’ve gotten on Keeper is how dark it is, how violent Frankie ends up being in some instances. I guess I never really saw it as violence if she’s just using what she learns in defense of herself. Because that’s what it all ends up being, self-defense. I suppose I could probably leave some of the finer details out, but what I’ve enjoyed about my writing growth while working on the whole Maker series is seeing how I can use the darker sides of myself to propel a story. How I can give voice to the parts of me that otherwise wouldn’t be expressed. I’m not a murderous psychopath. But someone in my stories is, so I can take them as far as I want to, knowing I am safe from their evilness.
That then begs the question: how much of it is author-insertion? Do I have thoughts of violence? Do I run through the scenes that appear in my books like I want them to be realities? I don’t want them to be real. That’s the beauty of living in fiction, I can put people who don’t exist through extraordinary ordeals to show just how much they can handle–or not handle–and come out on the other side of it. It’s a wonderful thing, the power of creation. I don’t want the world to burn in reality, but I can sure write it doing that very thing in a book.
I’m going to keep going for tonight, and get as much done in chapter nine as I can. I’m almost done writing Fogg’s bit, and then I’ll have a chapter interlude for the Unbound, and then it’s back to Frankie. The page number formatting for this is going to be a nightmare, but I will get it done.
And that’s all I have for you today. Until next time, friends.
Back when I was a wee writer lass, I used to spend a lot of time on what I now consider “unnecessary description.” We’ll get into that here shortly, I just want to put a disclaimer of sorts here that I am not saying the writers who do this are bad. There are audiences for pretty much any kind of story written. I will also say when I was a younger reader, I did sometimes prefer the description I’m about to go into. As I’ve gotten older, however, I find it is less satisfying to have such direct references and specifics in a story. I like to wander a bit and imagine with some of the vaguer choices.
What I mean by direct references is the name-dropping of brands of clothing, specific types of furniture, exact songs playing during a moment, the color of the paint on the walls, the down-to-the-very-last-detail of the kitchen.
Telling me the main character is wearing Converse is only important if that plays a massive part in their characterization for the whole story. “Black and white shoes worn to the point of needing tape to be held together” indicates the importance of the shoes far more than the brand name does. The fraying, dingy shoelaces, old sharpie drawings of stars and smiley faces. These shoes are beloved, and it is far easier to see that through the description than being told what it is.
It’s the same as giving me a specific song playing in a moment. Unless that song becomes pivotal to the story later on, don’t tell me what song it is. I think book playlists are marvelous because it gives a vibe, but it doesn’t force me to think of a specific song. Giving me the opportunity to see a scene and feel it through the more purposeful description, such as “vibrant violin music played softly in the corner on an old record player” allows me to sink further into the moment far more than “Vivaldi’s Winter was playing.”
One of my favorite books of all time, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith has this magnificent moment where the main character is dancing with her sister’s betrothed, and she loves the piece playing, but she doesn’t find out what it is until after the dance has completed and a major moment happens for her. Debussy’s Clair De Lune is also mentioned, but again it’s after being described by the main character within the context of the moment it’s happening.
To reiterate, I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with using direct descriptions. There are audiences for such a thing, but I find it’s so limiting while writing, and relying on those specifics kind of takes away the wonder of a really good description.
This is a ramble. If you made it this far, thank you. I’ll see you next week.
One of the things I plan on using this blog for now is a kind of writing journal, where I drop all the stuff I’ve worked on during the week/day/lifetime/etc. For this inaugural entry, I give you:
Finished chapter three of the third book in the Maker series (first draft)
Wrote a personal essay that may or may not be a future blog post
Doodled little scenes between two of my main characters.
Outlined in my head a few ideas for a romance novel I’m looking to get printed this year. It won’t be offered for sale, but I want a few people to have it, so I’m going to do that one for myself.
Considered once again putting together a compendium for the language I made up
And that’s all the tales I have for you from this week. I did start chapter four of the third book (Lazarus Rising), and I’ve started with the perspective of a different character for this one. Usually it’s Frankie being front-and-center, but this time we’re starting with Fogg, baby. The first section of the book will be his perspective, and we’ll see some of his backstory and some of the current events being unleashed now that certain things have happened.
Thank you for stopping by. I hope you are doing well, and if you are not, I hope it stops being a beshmapasen for you soon.
Well, well, well. I kind of disappeared, didn’t I? I got the book finished to a point. It’s being read by betas right now, and I’m doing my second to last round of edits, the final round being when I go through for typos and minor grammatical things. But then it’ll be ready for the “fun” things. I’m going to self-publish, which will be a post for another time, but rest assured the moment it becomes available, I will let y’all know.
Today I wanted to talk about how my January went. Yes, I know it’s March, and yes, I know I could have posted this last month, but I neglected everything last month. Not just this blog. My personal journal suffered, my friendships suffered, I didn’t spend much time with my family. I got the whole book typed up, printed it off, and that was incredible. I got to see my book printed for the first time. Actually took a selfie with it, which should tell you how excited I was about it, because I never take pictures of myself.
Proof
But that’s all February. I’m here to talk about January. I’m an ambitious person, and I decided to start this year out with a bang. Challenging myself to not one, not two, but three different “challenges” just to prove I could. Veganuary, a pantry cleanout, and a no-spend directive.
Veganuary
This one feels like a no brainer for me, because I’m already mostly vegan, I just get a little emotionally attached to cheese on a difficult day. For the month of January, though, I try to avoid even that and see how I can be creative in the kitchen. It’s something I’ve participated in for the last three or four years, and I never really talk about it to people because as I’m sure I’ve said here before, I don’t judge people on what they eat. It’s not my place. Hunger is a prevalent problem everywhere, especially in places with famine or drought, and I’m not about to go after someone for spending .35 on a box of generic macaroni and cheese versus 3.99 a pound for cauliflower. The cost of living is rising, too, so I think it’s okay to give ourselves a little grace nowadays when it comes to eating what we want. And I drifted away from January again. But that’s okay, because I can segue into the next challenge. It added a new dimension of difficulty to my food choices.
Pantry
I have several items in my pantry (shelf stable) I’ve had in there for more years than I’d like to say. Rice, lentils, quinoa, that kind of thing. Since I was working on Veganuary I had to find interesting ways to utilize the stuff I already had. I didn’t do well the first week because most of the items in my pantry are things you have to cook to add to other things, or flavor well, and while I was doing my best to keep my head above itself, I had a bunch of residual holiday depression lingering in the back of my mind. I ate the convenience foods first, and then when I ran out of those, I ate the easiest to cook things like pasta and nutritional yeast. I did lose about five pounds in the month of January because I wasn’t eating much of anything.
No-Spend
I didn’t have an easy way to segue into this, so pardon the abruptness, but for this challenge, it was more to see how I could go without fast food. I have such a dependence on easy solutions, and I struggle to allow myself the satisfaction that comes from accomplishing something requiring effort. That goes so deeply into more than just a no-spend requirement. It delves into the appreciation of self I seem to constantly find myself striving toward. I was about to go on a horrible tangent on the word choice of “strive” but I’ve already diverted from the main topic of this paragraph already. So, for the month of January, I didn’t want to buy anything. No groceries, no fast food, no toilet paper (it’s just me in my house, so don’t worry, I was fine with what I already had), nothing.
Discussion
So what did I learn? I already touched on my dependence on cheese, and my dependence on easy, but to take it further, I learned how quick I am to fall into old habits. I did end up spending a bit more money at Target after the challenges ended, but I was absolutely out of everything. As one would be. And so with a restock of supplements and vitamins, household cleaners, and other various things, it became apparent that my relationship with money has been chaotic at times. I’m not going to go too far into that because that’s a different level of personal I don’t know I want to share on the internet, but it was interesting to me to see what became “oh, I’ll stop at Target on the way home so I can grab this snack, this thing, this something else, and blah, blah, blah.”
What is the point? The point is, I want to go back to the questioning of “do I really want this or is this an impulse?” It’s something that fits just about all facets of each challenge. How quickly do I turn to comfort foods because my emotions are so high and food functions as a punishment instead of a comfort? Why don’t I consider the efficiency of shopping for things all at once over random stops several times a week? How do I utilize what I have already to keep myself fed and content?
Several things to consider. And I leave you with that, for now. I have plans for blog posts more frequently now that the book stuff is kind of slowing down. I hope you are having a good day or week whenever you read this.
If I appear to have lost my zeal for posting on here, I haven’t. I’ve decided to approach this blog as more a tool for myself and less a desire for validation from strangers on the internet. It’s always been for me anyway, but to those of you who’ve been reading my nonsense, thank you. I do appreciate you being here. Cliche as it may be, it’s nice to know someone out there sees the things I say.
So that brings us to today. Today is my birthday. I turn 33. Holy frickin’ cow, dudes. It always catches me off guard and it always hits me in the face at the same time. Never one to appreciate attention on myself (which is where my need for validation on the internet becomes an internal eternal struggle), I’ve never been a fan of my birthday. I’d much rather spend it doing things with others and helping them. So I took some vacation time, hahaha. I am a firm believer in the idea that no one should work on their birthday. I realize that comes from a place of privilege and I wish it didn’t.
Every month in my bullet journal, I pick a quote to kind of guide my thoughts, and this month I chose something out of one of my very favorite books, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
“If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself, ‘My flower’s up there somewhere . . .’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn’t important?”
I chose this quote because while the obvious reminder is that the little things matter and what’s important for someone else may not necessarily be important to you, it’s more a reminder of going back to the things that matter. I love this book enthusiastically. It’s a classic, and it’s such a lovely little tale about learning the way the world is, and it reminds me to think about what truly makes a difference in my life.
So, what’s been different this past year? I think the thing that startles me the most is the change in fitness. I began running, something I talked more about last blog post, and I stopped eating so much and I lost about 40 pounds. I’m not to my goal yet, but hey. I lost 40 pounds. It’s easier for me to keep up with Caboose, and it’s easier to jog after a piece of paper I dropped in the parking lot. I have a new way of controlling my thoughts, which is probably the most important thing about running for me. I’ve set a goal with one of my best friends to run a 5k next year. For the fall, though, because running in summer sounds like a fresh hell, or maybe a hot hell. Either way, a pass for me. But last year I wouldn’t have even considered such a thing. I would have thought it impossible.
Finding balance has been tough. Finding a way to shut out the bastard that lives in my brain and coax the small child forward who wants to be everything and anything is difficult as all get out. I hear a lot that I’m strong, and while I appreciate that, I don’t think people really know how exhausting that is. Mentally, I’ve not been well. The month leading up to my birthday is one of the hardest of the year for me because quite honestly, I’m always surprised I’m here. Kind of a “well shit, now what?” moment. And every year, I remember “oh yeah, keep breathing.”
I was going to go camping this year, but I decided not to because the idea of the effort took so much energy. Just the thought of it. I’m still going to go to my favorite park and hike, because that’s the thing I look forward to the most every year. The picture for this post is from a few years ago, but it’s the only one that I like of myself. It reminds me that I’m insignificant in the best way. That the world is so, so vast and I am so, so small in it, but that doesn’t negate my importance. I am necessary. I am a vital part of the system I created around myself, and I did that without even knowing I had.
So, the point of this post really is to just mark another notch on the bedpost of life. I survived another round, and I’ll survive until the next one, the sun willing. But it’s going to be more than survival. It’s going to be living. It is such a cliche to say there’s a difference between survival and living, and while yes, I know, it’s obvious, it is another thing entirely to fully realize that.
Paint your sunset. Read that book you’ve read fourteen times before and it still makes you weep at the end. Watch the entire season of a bad show in one day. Smile at babies. Give flowers to your mom, or your dad! I’m sure he’d like it. Tell someone you haven’t spoken to for years that you remember something specific about them. The world is so full of life and you have the right to have it.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Footsteps pounding on the pavement. It hurts a bit on the fourth minute, but the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth are easier. By the end of it all, my lungs are full, yet empty. I breathe in and out, feeling the air expand in my chest, and the life within is foreign. The accomplishment is odd. And yet I’ve done it. I’ve finished a running goal. Now on to the next one.
I turn thirty-three at the end of this month. We’ve discussed how I struggle with enjoyment of my birthday before, but this year it’s a little harder to approach it. My brother told me a few weeks ago about the death of a young man we grew up with. This young man was my brother at one point, although we weren’t close after middle school. I have so many memories of playing, running through the neighborhood, causing chaos that only ten year olds can. His birthday is October 8th. He never made it to thirty-three.
While sometimes I feel a bit like an imposter, like it’s not fair that I get to see thirty-three but he doesn’t, it doesn’t feel right. But that doesn’t make sense, because I should see thirty-three. Ten years ago I tried to end my life. You always hear those people who come out afterward and say, “oh, think of all you’d have missed!” like that’s supposed to help you feel better. I’ve said many times on here that it doesn’t get better, it gets easier to carry. I have the mental strength of a bodybuilder on steroids, but the days when I’ve stepped on a metaphorical Lego are almost debilitating.
I would have missed graduating college. I would have missed seeing my family grow, with my sister-in-law, and then the birth of my niece. I don’t know that Caboose will ever know just how much she saves me. How she puts me back in my place. That I am important and necessary.
And I am. I am important and necessary. Not just to Caboose. Not just to my family, or my friends (more people I would have missed out on had I been successful ten years ago). I am important and necessary to myself.
Breathe in, fill your lungs. Hold the breath there until it leaves you in a rush.
Do that several more times. Do you feel it? Do you feel the life?
This is why I love running. I was terrified of it for a long time. I know that sounds so ridiculous because it’s fitness and it’s movement and good for you. But when you’ve spent so much of your life telling yourself you’re not worth the effort, all exercise feels impossible. Terrifying. Daunting. Like you’ll fail before you even start. So I gave in to that. I stopped myself before I could see what I can do.
Back in May, I couldn’t even jog a full minute. Now, I can run the full first week on the Couch to 5K program, and not be winded afterward. Do you know how utterly earth shattering that is for me?
Breathing in. Breathing out. Watching my chest rise and expand. There is life inside.
I don’t know how to be the person who can run 8 minutes. I don’t know how to like myself. I’m trying to learn, but it’s painful. It’s absolutely gut wrenching. Because now I’m seeing the bullshit. Now I see where the thought patterns begin and the ease with which they settle into my lungs. The place I freed.
Breathe in breathe out hold it don’t let go you’re okay keep breathing.
The place I will be okay. Feeling every muscle in my body, my feet on the earth through the soles of my shoes. My arms as I move, are they swinging too much? Am I too rigid? The control. I have control. I will be free. I can be free.
salisbury.fake 