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.
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.
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 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’m not sure how to start this one, so I’m just going to dive right on in there.
When I was a kid, I danced for about nine years. Ballet. I did the whole competition stuff, but I also did a private studio that didn’t participate in competitions. We would dance in local events, though, and there was this Christmas festival every year where members of groups and communities could decorate a Christmas tree and people would “buy” the tree. Proceeds went to charities or something. I might not have the full details on that because I was little and didn’t understand why I danced at this thing, I just knew I did.
One year, I’d asked my dad to be there. I don’t remember why, but it was really, really important for him to be there. He had dental surgery that day, and the pain meds he was given ended up making him sleep through my performance.
My dad arrived at the venue and knelt on the floor and just hugged me so tight and said he was sorry he missed my dance. He even showed me the inside of his lip as proof that there was a reason he wasn’t there. The regret in his eyes and the way he hugged me for what felt like an hour while kneeling on that hard floor, all because he thought he had failed me.
But he was there. He did show up.
I still feel that hug to this day.
I have more dances for him to see. They’re just not ballet. People won’t remember everything about you, but they’ll remember you trying. They’ll remember you being there in whatever way you can. I hope you continue to be here. And I hope you are a little gentler on yourself because you are doing your best.
The following post discusses weight related issues as well as some disordered eating. If these topics are triggering for you, please do not continue.
My body has not felt like my own for about a year now. More than a year, really, but I don’t feel like being technical. I’ve mentioned before how I lost weight, and while I’m still not at the goal I wanted for myself, the getting there has been more of a challenge than I think I let myself believe it would be.
No one ever talks about the ugly side of weight loss. We see the photos of slimmed down people, and sometimes they briefly mention how hard they’ve worked, but I rarely see anyone go too far down the discussion of exactly how hard they work. I’ve been trying to lose three pounds for about four months. I’ve been in calorie deficits, and picked up my exercise, and I know how to lose those last three pounds, but it is just not happening.
This is discouraging because I still see myself as overweight. But the worst part about it all is I no longer know my body like I used to. When I was about fifty pounds heavier, I knew my limits. Now, I feel soft and squishy in places I didn’t notice before because there’s a tightness in the skin when you have so much heft. Sitting down is painful for me because my ass is disappearing and my bones touch the surface of what I’m sitting on. I jiggle when I walk, and I feel it. I’m sure I did before, but I didn’t feel it, and now that I can, I know it’s more pronounced and people can probably see it.
I can’t eat like I used to. This may be a good thing for some, but as an emotional eater, sometimes I have a painful need to binge and I can’t because I get fuller faster and the emotional satiation doesn’t happen. So I overeat anyway, and then end up wanting to vomit to relieve the pressure on my shrunken stomach.
The stretch marks on my thighs look like turkey neck skin when I scrub my body after a run, and I get grossed out with the wobble they still make when I take a powerful step because I don’t move slowly anymore. I’m not a fast person, but I became one because there’s a need to leave myself behind even more so now.
My lung capacity is greater, but I still ache and creak and I notice it more and more. Each time I have to shift myself in my seat because my knees are aching, or my hips are tighter or whatever the reason, I notice it and it angers me.
I am angry at this body. I am angry that it isn’t what I want and yet I am terrified to lose it. The continued loss of who I was, the destruction of the person I thought I was, it’s not just physical. It’s excruciating to see what I’ve limited myself to because I didn’t think I was worth the time to learn.
How many things have I shuttered closed in my head because I believed I was too fat? Too massive, too bloated, too gross to ever be considered beautiful?
I am angry at this body because it’s making me learn to love it.
This is going to be a personal one, so if you’re not up for feelings, please skip this post. I won’t be offended.
My favorite thing to do in the beginning of spring is drive home with my windows down. Daylight Savings Time swung us back to the sun being up when I leave work and because of that, I get to experience the most beautiful time of the day. The golden hour before sunset. Have you ever driven at a high speed with your hand out the window and the sun beaming itself directly into your eyes? Terrifying. And yet, stunning.
It makes my eyes water.
It burns them.
Tears whip down my face with scalding accuracy that only happens when I cry for myself, which never happens. I am beautiful in that hour. That drive home. I am just as stunning as the sun because nothing matters. I am between the earth and the sky and the brilliance of the light is pulling me together. Holding me on its shoulders so I no longer have to hoist the burdens I place upon myself alone.
It’d be easier to let others see how hard I work to keep myself steady. How fiercely loyal I am to them, dedicated to make sure they live the lives they can with as much ease as possible. No one should ever feel inferior. I will let myself be trampled if it means someone else is able to shine.
Does that make me sound like I view myself as a martyr? I don’t. I don’t want anyone to see me.
And yet, I want to be known. Life really is one great big paradox and I still keep trying to solve it.
The rush of air fills my lungs, much in the way running steals it away. It pushes into me, through my nose and mouth, sometimes choking in its eagerness to give me life. To fill me to the brim with the desire to be more.
To become.
To exist within the world I see.
To be the bold, golden beam of light for others.
The buffeting wind on my skin, the promise of further breath. The sweet grass coming in along the side of the road, baking in the sun all day, letting go its almost saccharine scent as the light fades.
As I slow down to turn onto my street, I understand what it means.
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.
I’m not going to upload a video of pen scratching on paper, don’t worry. But what I am going to talk about today is some of the music I tend to listen to when I write. I was going to do a character playlist, but I think instead, I’m going to give a few theme songs and some of the main music I tend to gravitate toward when I work.
I think I should first say I listen to a variety of music, but mostly instrumental because if it’s words I know, I tend to find myself focusing on those instead. I’ll listen to classical, film soundtracks, alt-rock, sometimes Viking metal, and sometimes nothing. Since I do a majority of my writing at work on my lunch break, listening to music helps drown out the sounds of my coworkers so I can zero in my focus. Sometimes it depends on the mood I’m in when I search for something to listen to, and sometimes I’ll just keep listening to what I started the day with.
If I need to have something emotional going? Season 8 of Game of Thrones, the second half of that soundtrack takes me to feelings I can sink into and push into my writing. Specifically these two songs:
Ramin Djawadi has a profound gift for infusing emotion into his work and I try to emulate that in the words I put down on the page. It’s a way to remind myself not to make the words ordinary. That I want to tell the story, yes, but in such a way it sticks in the readers’ minds long after they’ve finished. I love dissonance in music. If it resolves, great, but if it doesn’t? I am tossed into a place of joy. This is a thing Djawadi uses well within his work too. How can I create written dissonance? Something that twinges the brain into wanting the safety of before, not the twisting discomfort of clashing feelings. How do I put it into words?
It’s not just the forlorn which inspires me, but also the music inspiring boldness, the sound that gets under your skin and makes you want to climb mountains and stare at the sky above the clouds. It carries you past the left for broken feeling the previous chapter left with you. There is hope in the ending going where you want it to. Songs like these:
(yes listening to this for this post made me tear up a bit because I lovethis so much)
The last few songs I’m going to give you today are theme songs for some of my characters. All three of them fit those people in particular, but the one I have for Naim, it hit me within the first few notes of the song who this was for. Right around 0:24 is where it starts truly sounding like Naim, and until 0:49 I had this clear image of him slow shuffle dancing along a riverside, cigarette in his mouth, dreadlocks secured loosely, his leather jacket open and his arms wide to the sky as he tilts his head back and grins at the sunset. And the rest of the song fits him too, but that short range hit me with such an intense image of someone I didn’t quite have a handle on before, and now he’s one of the more developed of the series. Here’s Naim’s theme song:
The next theme is Milton Fogg’s. I don’t want to go too far into why it’s his theme because I feel like that spoils more than I want to put on the internet, but again within the first few moments of the song, I saw Milton stepping into a building, his silver tipped walking stick tapping on the marble floor as peons scatter around to be ready for whatever he needs. He passes off his top hat to a quivering underdog, and he makes his way to the golden elevators where he spins on his heel and gives a infinitesimal smirk before the doors close. He’s a smug bastard, and he knows how to get what he wants. This is his theme:
The last song is a piece of music, and it happens to be one of my very favorites. It’s not got lyrics, and it’s more of a philosophical look at a theme song for a character. This is Frankie’s theme song:
This song is the end for Frankie. I don’t want to go too much deeper into it because that’s hella spoilers, but there is a very specific reason this song is the end song. It represents what could have been, what should have been, and what will never be. (I know, I grossed myself out a bit with that, too, but it’s the truth.)
And so, I leave you with the hope that your own writing is going well. That you don’t smudge your pages too much, that your computer battery life lasts long enough for you to finish your thought, and that the songs you use for inspiration give life to the words you choose.
Until next time, friends. (I’ll have finished the first book by next post)
salisbury.fake 