I’ve been rewriting most of the second half of Lazarus, and while that sounds like a lot, it is. I’ve discovered things about characters that didn’t exist before, and now I have deeper appreciation for all the things that happen. I’ve noticed a difference in my writing since asking myself why I use the words “when” or “as” so much. I’ve also changed my approach significantly by adjusting my use of eyes, breath, and something else I can’t remember off the top of my head.
I’ve not done much on the language creation aspect this last week, but I’ve got a board game now? Tacat, and the board is a combo of chess and scrabble in terms of design. Colorful glass mixed with black and white squares, but they’re not in the checkerboard pattern. Randomly placed and no boards are alike. The game is strategy based and Frankie turns out to be really good at it.
To be real honest, I’ve not felt like being much of anything the last few days. I’ve found myself staring into space a lot and playing a game on my phone to keep myself distracted long enough to get to wherever it is I think I need to be.
There’s this image that keeps playing over in my head and I don’t know the significance, but it’s something I’m stuck on. Whenever I hold my nephew, he’ll grab my thumb with his whole little baby hand, and he’ll hold onto it as we move around. I’ll have him on my hip and we’ll be exploring the world around us, and he’s got his emotional support thumb like a little rudder, telling me what he wants to see and where he wants to go. I don’t really think it’s that deep, babies like to hold things. But it keeps singing through my mind and I want to tell him he’ll always have my thumb to hold should he need it.
I’m not at my best. I don’t like the way it feels empty in my entire body. Like I’ve been shucked from my skin and the hollowness is moving around while I stay behind. It’s uncomfortable in a way I’ve not experienced before, and I dislike it intensely. This used to be something I sought after. Something I fought to hold onto, the comfort of brain numbness when the whatever got to be too dark. Now, I want it to go away, and it’s lingering and I feel like a lost little kid.
Apply it to my writing, maybe? I don’t know what I’d write with this. Maybe Frankie’s depression. Reach into the heap of my own sadness and allow it to be shown through her. Give her the words I can’t find for myself.
Sorry this isn’t a pleasant entry. I appreciate you taking the time anyway.
Book number two from the Bingo Board! I am actually reading a third one, one that I started before this one, but that’s not important. This is a book I’ve had since 2024, and I picked it up at an indie bookstore in my town. This bookstore is known for it’s more YA selection of fiction, which is not a bad thing in the slightest. I think, however, I am not the audience for that, as I’m in my thirties and my joints hurt when it’s cloudy.
Hah, they don’t. Or maybe they do and I’ve just assumed that’s normal. In any case, this book is about two teenage girls who come from entirely different backgrounds who meet at a facility geared towards helping struggling girls. One has an addiction problem, brought on by her mother’s constant need for image control (she’s a politician, so do with that as you will). The other one is from a poorer tax bracket, and she ends up almost ending her life due to plans not going the way she expected them to.
Now, before we decide to go in on either one of them, I pose the question: do you remember what it was like being sixteen and your body had an influx of hormones and brain chemistry got altered? Do you remember what it felt like not understanding and knowing others were going through the same thing, but still feeling alone? Those questions are what I kept in my mind as I read this book. It’s a powerful look at two girls, both people of color (a genre I need to read more of, absolutely), and their struggle to know what it means to be who they are within the confines of their societal expectations.
I will say the book is slightly misleading in its description, because it has in the description that the girls find a music box that has letters tucked inside from a former resident of the facility. The way it’s presented in the description makes it sound like there’s going to be far more to the mystery of this unknown girl than there actually is. I think it lasts maybe two or three chapters out of the whole book. Which is fine, as again, YA fiction tends to flow differently from general adult fiction.
And I think that’s something a lot of people got hung up on. I read through some of the other reviews from readers on Goodreads, and while I agreed with some, a fair number were detracting points based on the pacing, the realism of a facility responding the way it did to a major plot point that I won’t spoil. I can’t speak to how facilities designated specifically for teen girls are run, but I do know that the author is, according to her bio on the back jacket cover, a psychologist. I didn’t know this going into the reading, but finding out about it afterward made some of the dialogue make that much more sense.
I think this book reminded me of what it was like to be uncertain in my own brain when I was sixteen. From my past entries on here, you might wonder if that didn’t send me into a spiral of “oh no, I’m not better.” But it didn’t! I felt sorrow for Camila because through her introspection, I saw my own. I felt such pity for Dani and her need to have control over just one part of her life, feeling like she didn’t anywhere else. What I think this book brought out for me is my ability to see it from the other side. No, I’m not cured of depression and all that garbage, but I can carry it better. It doesn’t weigh me to the floor so I can’t move. There’s a difference between uncertainty when you’re sixteen, when the world falling apart is quite literal, and the uncertainty one feels in their thirties, almost forties. Flashes of being young and afraid go darting through like fireflies, the familiarity of “I’m not good enough and never will be” stabbing every so often. What was the future if it felt so bleak at sixteen?
It’s not so bleak (current world climate aside, of course) because I know I made it out of the previous bleakness. And that was really, really, really fucking hard for a kid to do. In some ways, the kid I never got to be still dances in the living room, singing at the top of her lungs words she never gets right, but being wrong with confidence is a gift. She gets to see what we become, and I like to think she’d be incredulous at how far past the expiration date we gave ourselves we’ve lasted.
It is a wonder. It is a true, unfiltered wonder.
So, yes, this book is young adult, and some of it is unrealistic, but if it reminds me of how far I’ve come, I’m okay with it. I gave this book 3.5 stars rounded up on Goodreads.
What have I been doing? Well, I’ve been putting the edits into a second content draft. That will probably be revised, parts rewritten soon. But I’m finding out more things about Milton Fogg that are just diabolical, as the children would say these days. I kind of hate him. But in that “he’s so bad he’s good” kind of way. I’d go on, but I don’t want to spoil things. I also am biased, so maybe he’s not that deep of a character. We’ll find out.
I’ve been doing a shiiiiiiiiiiiit ton of work on the language. Found a new phrase the Moarteans use. If they’re startled or uneasy about something, they say “the hair of my stomach is bad” or “hair of my stomach!”
somsuk res xixba-mi
They also, when greeting people formally, will say “Are you well?” if it’s someone they respect, or just, “You are well,” if it’s someone they want to have a quick interaction with. It’s not fully disrespectful, but it is barely polite if you are told you’re well instead of being asked if you are.
These creatures and their social niceties, haha.
There’s a phrase they use that’s an insult that I just love. It’s essentially “lick death” but the literal translation is “use your tongue on death.”
bren ostipa-ti kil moartea.
Sometimes I find myself talking to my brain in Moartean and I look at where I’ve been and where I’ve gotten to and I have this moment of “oh shit.”
Saw a reel from Steve himself, the Blues Clues Steve, and the question was “What are you most proud of?” and my answer is two-fold. First, I stayed and I’ve gotten to see my brother be a dad. His kids are perfect. I know all aunts say that about their nieces and nephews, but if I could show you just how bright my life is because I’ve gotten to see a person grow into who they are, because my brother is the man he is, I would give that to you.
But then take it back because it’s mine, ha.
The second part of that answer to Steve’s question is: I am proud of my words. The ones I toss together in books, but especially the ones I’ve made up. I’m obsessed with words. I love them with so much of my heart sometimes I forget to exist outside of them.
But that’s what nieces and nephews are for. To keep us real. To keep us from getting too far away from ourselves.
I hope you are doing well. I hope your words are friendly, and if they’re not, shape ’em up, yo. They belong to you. You belong to them. It’s a dichotomy of osmosis. Or some shit. I don’t know, wanted to be pretentious at the end here.
I’m grateful to you. For reading my words whenever I drop them here. Like little crumbs of my consciousness. Glimpses into the maze of TV static that is my mind. It’s not always awful in there. I do spend quite a bit of time in it, so I’ve found some nifty things along the way.
Feel the wind today. Let it lift your face to the sky and you smile at it. Give those clouds, the sun, the rain, whatever! Give it a smile and let it warm you even if it’s cold out. You are just as much a gift to it as it is to you.
I’m buried in edit mode, and I’ve been basically rewriting the whole thing. But that’s how edits usually go, right? It’s not the whole thing, I’m not that bad of a writer. But there are definitely spots that need some expansion. I’ve added about three hundred words so far, which sounds like I’ve not made much progress, but the way I’ve rearranged sentences and removed others entirely, it feels good.
I don’t really have much to talk about this round. I’m going to try and get back into reading a bit more now. Had a weekend of books, some gifted, some I spent too much money on. All adventures I look forward to eventually.
I hope you’re doing well. Maybe next time I’ll talk about how I find little pieces of real life to stick into my main character’s life. Scenes along a road. Drifting in limbo of a sort.
I, as you may know, am a fan of the screams. The music kind. I’ve spoken multiple times about my love for Sleep Token, and there are several other bands I enjoy just screamin’ in my earballs every now and then. I had the opportunity to go to a concert with two of my favorite concert buddies over the weekend, and I got to hear some of the best screamies I’ve ever experienced live.
I got to see Bad Omens live at Louder Than Life last year, something I won’t be repeating (the festival part), and that was kind of my first exposure to the band. To be completely real and rude, I didn’t like their song “Death of Peace of Mind” when I first heard it on a random Spotify Sunday. And then I heard Noah sing everything live and I understood exactly why he is so beloved. The man has range and I am here for it. Not only that, but the drummer for Bad Omens is insanely talented. II from Sleep Token gets a lot of accolades–well deserved, of course–but buddy boy Nick is also amazing. The whole band looks like they’re having fun, and that is always something I will love.
The show started with President. I’d heard two songs by them before we went to this show and I was less than impressed. Not a problem, really, I don’t need to love everything. But live? Holy balls, they were somethin’ real nice. I felt the lead singer was trying too much to be cinematic at times with his poses in the lighting, but as one of my friends pointed out, there’s only so much one can do on a stage sometimes. Which is fair. I don’t hold that against their performance because overall, I really liked what I heard. My watch buzzed at me to calm down a few times, because the thumps got me palpitating, haha.
Not the tall man (context below), but someone having a really good time and I liked the visual.
Beartooth is another band I’ve vaguely listened to now and then. I wanted to kind of prepare myself for the show to know some of their songs before we went to see them, but I drifted back to Sleep Token more than I didn’t. This portion of the show became a little uncomfortable for me because of my aversion to crowds. I know, you don’t like crowds, so why go to concerts? Because I like music and I try to do uncomfortable things to show myself I can. Well, at one point during this portion, a very tall man stood in front of me and my friends (he was 7 foot 1 inch, as he claimed) and blocked pretty much everything. He said he was trying to get into a mosh pit, which, fine, okay. I was already hyped up from being in a crowd of a bunch of people.
One moment I was standing with my friends, the next I was shoved really hard away from them. My flight mode kicked in and my whole brain went silent except for “DANGER DANGER DANGER” and I needed to get away. Bless my friends for trying to help me, but I had to leave the spot we were. I pushed my way through the crowd to the side and kind of moved back to the end of the main clump of people. My watch was definitely buzzing.
But! All is not lost, because I was able to see and hear much better from that vantage point.
As I said, I’ve not experienced much of Beartooth’s music, but I am definitely going to add them to some playlists. If I may be cheesy for a moment, I think one of my favorite parts of live shows is getting to hear the roar of a crowd. Except it’s not really a roar. It’s more like TV static from when TVs would go off-station. Just a quick, loud burst of a buzz before it quiets. It’s one of those feelings I can’t quite describe accurately, I think, because it’s like when I’m in the woods. I feel so big and so small at the same time. I’m part of a bigger thing, in a room full of people I’ll never see again (excepting my friends, of course), and we’re all there.
You can see where I moved to be away from the bunch of people for the rest of Beartooth, haha
There was a part of me that felt a little like I’m a loser because I couldn’t handle being in a crush of people. That I’d “abandoned” my friends to go be by myself because my brain doesn’t work right. But I didn’t leave the concert entirely. I moved to where I wouldn’t feel trapped, and I was able to still be part of it. The music still made my watch tell me my heart was too fast. I still ignored that. I’m pretty sure I looked pissed off because I just have one of those faces. My eyes closed against the flashing lights several times, but that added a new layer to the music for me. Sound has always been more important to me than visual, anyway. Between Beartooth and Bad Omens, I went with one of my friends to stand in a merch line. Which is an entirely new experience for me as well. I got shirts that are too big for me, but I have things to remind me I did something uncomfortable, didn’t die, and I enjoyed the music.
Bad Omens is ridiculously good live. When I heard them at Louder Than Life last year, I was blown away by the talent and class of their performance, and it was just as good, if not better at our Detroit concert. Noah said at one point how he was nervous, and he always gets nervous, but for some reason that night he was extra nervous. To which the crowd cheered support. And then he got right back to singing like he wasn’t actually nervous.
Because I am the person I am, that moment made me a little sad. I had the (entirely) original thought that it must get lonely sometimes for big-name musicians or creative people who perform. Like all celebrity worship tends to be about the way the person presents themselves. We are fascinated by who they are, and we learn all their “stats” like we’re going to be their best friends, forgetting sometimes that they exist off stage and they aren’t famous to the people who know them best. They’re just friends. They’re family, they’re people.
Like I said, not an original thought, but it must be so surreal to have tens of thousands of people full of adoration for you, and they don’t really get to know who you are. Not like your parents know you. Not like your best friend does. The ones who sit on the couch with you and play video games, or you bring presents to their kid’s birthday parties. You’re just you, and you don’t need to be the stage persona.
All of that to say, I am really grateful I pushed myself out of my comfortable place to be part of the audience at this concert. It was fun. It was a break from the reality of the world falling to pieces around us. I stood in the cold for about an hour and some change. I passed bracelets I’d made to strangers. Had small conversations with the nice guy behind me and my friends in line waiting to get in. We were cute, we were frozen, but we were happy.
Hi, hello. I’m running behind and I have to get ready to leave for work in … now. But I wanted to put some thoughts down before I go too far away from them. I’m working on the edits for Lazarus. I keep calling it Lasagna in my head, so that’s fun. I’m also embarking on a more serious dive into the language creation aspect of my series, and I’m really quite excited about it. I have some regret in publishing the prophecy as it appears in Fulcrum, because I’ve had some understandings about the language that can’t be undone, BUT there’s a possibility I can maybe stretch things a bit depending on what words I already have and so on and so forth.
That’s all for right now. Short and sweet, and now I leave you with the idea of a good time.
Snowflakes float in whirling dances from a gray sky. Dusting the leaves carpeting the back yard. Silence broken by the electric kettle bubbling in the corner of the counter. Boiling water for a cup of tea that I’ll probably let go cold before I remember I made it.
The question sits on my spine. Gentle and heavy all at once. Where did you go?
I stare out the window at my big tree. I call him Charlie Boy. The thought hits me, that he isn’t mine. I wasn’t here when he was first planted. But I’m here now. I worry about him when the winds are too heavy in the summer. Or just the other day when it buffeted my car on the drive home from work. I worried Charlie Boy might not make it. Because the elder things of the universe I inhabit are precious and lift me with life.
I hold out my hand to the person I was four years ago. I ask her to forgive me for getting lost. She wants to know about it. Where I disappeared to. How I found my way back. I don’t have the heart to tell her I’m still a bit aimless.
Are human beings the only sentient things that yearn? Because sometimes I get so tangled in a web of yearning that I forget to breathe. I yearn to dance like the snowflakes. I want to feel the way the wind blows through my branches, like Charlie Boy.
I am finding pieces I set down along the way. Pieces I deemed not necessary for the misery percolating in my pancreas. How can I be sad if I am smiling all the time? How can I be tragic if I am full of kindness?
I want to see where I go, so I’ll keep walking forward. Hand firmly clasped in my past self’s fingers. She got me here, I won’t let her fall behind. I’m grateful to her. For carrying us this far. But it’s time she got some rest.
I’m just typing up what I wrote last so it’s on official printed out copy. I started a hard sci-fi novel that I’m not sure how I’ll do with writing it because I know nothing about space past the stars are pretty, but maybe if I focus on the plot more so than the setting, it’ll be … not easier to write, but it’ll be more cohesive, I guess. I don’t know the word I want.
Anyway, yeah. Not writing directly, although I’m excited about next year’s prospects with all the projects. I think I want to get a full draft of this novel, and then I think it’ll be about time to get Lazarus Rising published, and I also might get my short stories collected in such a way I can put them out, too.
Planning forever, that’s me.
Short entry this week, as I’m not actively writing. I say like I’m not actively writing. I’ve had some kind of illness for the last week or so and it’s been just a delight. It’s not the vid, all tests said no. I think it’s a pretty hefty chest infection though. Me lungs are gooey, cap’n.
Cough medicine makes me delirious. Okay, I’m done now. Have a good week, many joys and salutations to you and your words. I hope you’re well.
Cool news! I finished my November Writing Thing literally a few moments ago. My final word count (out of 15k) was 15,041. So, solid success. I think it could be edited into something rather decent and kind to the characters, but for now! I’ve finished with writing for the year.
Yes, that’s right. I’m not going to write anything else the rest of the year. I’m pinky promising myself because I need to take a break. And it’s only a month. I can do a month, right?
I’m going to post stuff in December, don’t worry. I’m not abandoning you yet. I’m compiling a list of my favorite books this year and I’ll do a post similar to how I ended last year, with a “this is what I liked the most!” I’d originally thought the list wouldn’t be that long because I thought I didn’t read that many, but joke’s on me, I am almost in the 70s. Again, most of those are romance novels because my brain needs to shut off a lot, but I think I’ve hit my quota of those for the year and the rest of the reading I do will be stuff from my actual REAL LIFE TBR. Shelf books. Stuff I picked up because I thought it was cute.
So yeah. I accomplished the thing. I hope you’re doing well and I hope your words find you when you least expect them, but not while on the toilet. That’s a bit awkward.
I’ve released Daisy into the wild. It’s listed on my publications page if you wanna see the final cover and stuff. I’m very much a minimalist when it comes to cover design, and this one is definitely minimal. There’s no summary on the back, and the front is just a flower and the words “a novel” centered on it. The title and my name are on the spine, so it’s not like… a complete mystery. But yeah. Daisy is done.
My November Writing Thing is currently at …. some number of words. I’m 293 away from my goal for this week. I’m contemplating letting myself miss goal since I was working on getting Daisy finished up. I can make it up easily, too. I’m a little less than halfway through to my final word count goal, and I don’t know where I’m trying to go with it entirely. But that’s the beauty of storytelling. It gets figured out along the way.
I’ve decided after I finish writing this piece (currently titled Simon Says), I’m going to gently encourage myself to take a break from writing. I don’t know how well that will go because I must always be giving the world words, but as I’ve finished up my Daisy work, I’ve come to realize I devote a lot of physical energy to a book and I don’t really ever tell myself to slow down.
I have a folder of short story ideas that I’m looking forward to getting into for next year, and then of course there’s the third book of the Maker series, Lazarus Rising. That’s going to be a fun time. I mean that. I kind of went through the first draft a bit, about halfway through for some random edits, and I genuinely enjoy being in that story. It’s a home I created for myself, I think. If I could live in Lazarus, my goodness. It’s one of those situations I wish I could link up my brain to a visualizer and show you what it looks like in each of the cities so you could see it the way I do.
But therein lies the other joy of storytelling. I get to show you with my words.
I had something else to talk about, but I’m currently working on typing something up for a friend, and my wrists are a little sore–OH! Instead of writing the rest of the year, I’m going to be reading. I have two books I want to finish before the end of the year, and then whatever else I happen to come across on my shelves will be a delight. I don’t remember what my current total read is for the moment, but I’ll do a “books of the year” post either at the end of December or the beginning of January.
So, this isn’t a short update, but I got a little sentimental, I suppose. I was thinking about how I made a promise to myself to utilize this website more and I think I’ve done so. It’s been nice to put my thoughts somewhere I know someone might see them. I appreciate the readers I have, and I appreciate the consistency in which y’all see the innards of me noggin.
And with that, I sign off for now. It’s not the end of the posts for this year, but it might be the end of the posts for November. We’ll find out! I hope you’re well. I hope your words taste good, and I hope you remember it’s never too late to tell a story.
salisbury.fake 