Prose, Pain, & Plans

 

There’s something about the change of seasons – especially the transition from summer to autumn – that ignites my  creativity. My brain slides from “yeah, on the weekends I work a bit on that next book” to “yeah, you need to stop sleeping for a few weeks because now we’re crocheting a couple of blankets and maybe a new shawl, sewing a coat, and writing three fiction novels. OH WAIT! NEW IDEA! Okay, now we’re also doing a non-fiction book about learning to live with grief.”

It’s been busy for me, which is probably a good thing, given I’m just about one month from the first anniversary of my brother’s death, and it seems every day assaults me with painful reminders. The last eleven months have probably been about the most agonizing ones of my life, and for a while there I wasn’t certain I was going to be able to get through it. I think I’ve been pretty open about all of that. Last year in August, before my brother was diagnosed, I would never have imagined the following months going the way that they would. So much changed in the blink of an eye. Last year in November, I wasn’t certain I would be able to function even minimally… like, ever again. At all.

Yet, here we are, nearly a year later. No denying it’s been rough. But there’s a lot of beauty, too. A lot of laughter. Much has changed, but change isn’t always terrible. During the crux of the worst of last winter – mentally, I mean – I went through sort of a manic phase where I couldn’t stop moving or creating. I feel as if maybe that was a way my brain was trying to protect itself, flooding every second with creativity. Ideas. Imagination. But it had gotten to a point where holding still, not creating every single second, physically hurt, and I don’t think that was a healthy extreme, either. I was productive, but exhausted.

I wrote and wrote and wrote. Released three books between November and May. And then, although I knew which books I wanted to focus on next, that frantic creative pace slowed way down over the summer, and I began to worry I would not be able to finish another book. Ever. To be honest, though, I generally go through some sort of phase like after writing furiously for a while. It just lasted longer this time, so it started to freak me out. But I’m in it again, now. Not quite the manic, frantic buzz of last winter when the bats had overtaken the belfry and were throwing nightly raves in it, but the typical creative rush I often fall into around the transition to autumn.

I was a little bit worried when I released The Knowing Child in May, because it turned out to be more angst-laden than the first two books. I wasn’t certain how it would be received, but as it happened, it appears to be a favorite amongst my Windy Springs readers. I had planned for the fourth Windy Springs book to be Knowing Rogan, a prequel of sorts featuring Rogan’s early life before he met Keisha. I knew how it would start and exactly how it’ll end, and what will probably happen in the middle, so I’ve been working along on that, though I wouldn’t say with much gusto until here lately. Then I took a break, moved on over to the aliens and turnips (yes) story I started a few years back and which is SO. CLOSE. to finishing, if I could just plow through these last few thousand words. However… a few weeks ago, Captain Dash started talking (as he is wont to do) and would NOT shut up. I thought, well, I’ll just scribble this down, as a jumpstart for later on when I start his book. But his words became a waterfall in my brain and I couldn’t make it stop. So I *might* have to switch the order of books four and five, and release Knowing His Madness first, though doing so will not alter any timelines at all. It’s just not what I expected to be doing.

and then –

And then I had a dream. I know that sounds wonky. But really, what even am I, if not wonky? Anyway. I dreamed the book I was writing was a collection of pieces I’d written on grief since my sister’s death a few years back. I’d asked in my FB group if there might be any interest in such a thing, and the response was surprisingly positive. I toyed around with the idea a bit, then just to sort of see, I started collecting bits and pieces of writings on the subject and lo and behold, I’ve already got about forty-thousand words. Tentative working title is Grief in my Pockets. I’d like to get it out around the holidays this year. We’ll just have to see how that plays out.

It’s awesome when the characters are “talking” as much as they are right now, and there’s so much I want to be writing. But the fact is, I work full time at the law firm, and I live with six other people (and three dogs. and several fish.) in a house that is not a  mansion. Even when I am at home and maybe have time to write, I have no office or really, any quiet space in which to do so which is not a complaint so much as a snippet of reality. So quite often I write sporadically in stolen moments – on my phone during my lunch break at work, or while waiting in the lobby of a doctor’s office, or standing in the kitchen while I’m making dinner. I’ve been aiming for a thousand words a day on any one of my current projects. Some days I hit it, some days I don’t, but that’s always my goal. When  I do finish, then it depends on my editor’s availability, and of course, my limited budget. Even if I finish all four books by the end of this year, there’ s no way I  can afford to publish them all at once. Still, though. I enjoy having all these stories living so vividly in my upstairs. It’s a curious sort of joy.

That’s where I’m at, for  the moment. I try to mention my plans now and again on all the different platforms, because I know a lot of folks follow me only in one spot on the vast web. I’m most consistently active in my FB group, which is a delightful mix of eclectic folks much like meself. That’s also where I do live videos and Q & A days, so if you’re interested in that sort of thing –

As always, I’m so thankful for the readers who share my blog posts, my book posts, my newsletters. Thank you for telling others about my work, and for reviewing (Yeah. I notice. Thanks.) Thank you for being excited about what I’m doing, and for sending me messages about how my writing has affected you. It means so much, and I absolutely could not do any of this without you. Onward.

 

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Growth. Joy. Writing.

I feel like I’ve been fairly transparent – especially recently – about my writing journey. My goals, my hopes, my truth. While my mindset may not be shared by many, I find the longer I stay over here on my own little quiet dirt road, the happier I am with my writing and where it is going.

As I’ve said, a while back I made the decision to write for myself. I removed myself from the idea of competition, of writing toward any “trends”, and of doing things other people tell me I “must” do in order to succeed at this art. I will not stick to writing one genre. I will not change my vision for my books to fit whatever is popular in the moment.

This decision was made, in part, by the losses of my siblings. Losing beloved family members at such young ages really drives home the notion of mortality. Life is so extraordinarily brief. Why would I take the thing that brings me such joy – writing books – and make myself miserable with it, just because that’s what I feel pressured to do?

So I quit. Quit attempting to meet anyone else’s expectations. I have to say, it’s turning out pretty well for me so far.

In the last fifteen months, I’ve put out four books – three novels, one collection of short stories. I’ve an e-book releasing shortly and two new books in the works, one very close to completion. I’ve sought and received my author rights regarding Slither and my super chick short stories that were in an anthology. Slither has been re-released as my own indie book, and the super chick stories will be re-released on their own soon enough.

I’ve been hawking my books at Ren Faire for five years now. This year was by far the best season, ever. Honestly, I sold so many books I had to emergency-order another box of them for the last weekend. I met so many new readers! It was amazing. One young woman even came up from Ohio just to meet me (ME!) and have her copy of Consumption signed.

I’ve spoken recently with someone who has interest in turning one of my short horror stories into an indie film. Opportunities have been turning up around every corner, it seems like. One of the things I’ve been doing over the last year is writing down my nightmares, just to sort of get them out of my head. After a particularly odd one a couple of months ago, I posted it on Facebook as a weird little story. The publisher of the Halloween Machine magazine noticed it and asked if I would be interested in publishing it in the summer edition of their magazine, which is pretty damn cool. It released this week. You can find my creepy nightmare under Auntie Val’s Story Time.

Learning to manage my anxiety has been a struggle since my brother died, and I’ve really been focusing on ways to remove extra stressors from my life. One of the things I decided to change is how many book events I’m going to do each year. I’m invited to several, and even though I have fun with them, they are exhausting and sometimes stressful. I intended this year to only do April Ghoul’s Day and then Ren Faire; however, I’ve decided to do one more this fall. I’ll be at the Flint Film Fright Fest in Flint, MI on October 27th. It really does look fun, and it’s only one day. I think I can handle it. I’ve ordered new business cards – I actually ran out of them at Ren Faire! – and a new banner for the occasion.

I guess what I wanted to convey with this post is this: it isn’t wrong to do things your own way. We don’t all need to fit into the prescribed size and shape of what others perceive as “successful.”

Figure out what success means to you, and adjust accordingly.

Life is too brief to live it for anyone else. Follow your own arrow, wherever it points.

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For Better or Worse

 

I’ve spent a great deal of time over the last year considering my writing: what I want from it, what I’ve learned from it, mistakes I’ve made and victories I’ve enjoyed.

I’ve come to some conclusions I’m aware seem illogical to many, but here’s the thing about my writing:

It’s mine. The books I write are mine. The decisions I make regarding them are mine. The amount of time I choose to spend on writing, on promoting, on building relationships with readers & bloggers – that’s mine to choose as well.

I’ve removed myself from the idea of competition. I’ve removed myself from the idea of making a living on the books that I write. That’s not giving up – that’s making a choice that is right for me. The constant guilty feeling that I’m never doing enough, the stress of daily promoting and marketing, the unbelievable amount of pressure to reach some random marker of success with every release: it’s crushing.

I love writing. It is my joy, the thing that makes my soul sing when I’m doing it. I love creating books, sharing them with people, hearing what they thought. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last several months when my marbles tumbled out onto the floor and I had to hire professional help to pick them back up, it’s this:

In most of life, I can do what I can do, and then I need to let it go. I cannot keep juggling all the plates in the air. The stress of trying was breaking my brain. This includes writing & releasing books. I’d rather work full time at my day job and write for the pleasure of doing it and of connecting with the readers who enjoy my books. As long as I make enough on each release to create the next book, I’m chill. I mean, money is great and all but depending on my writing to pay bills is so stressful it sucks the joy right out of it.

I’ve had people argue with me over this, that I MUST do this thing and this thing and oh hey also this thing over here, it’s how you DO IT, how EVERYONE does it, yada yada, blah blah blah. That’s cool, but the reality is that I’m the only one living in my brain, and I’m the only one writing my stories, and until one of those things changes, I’ll be doing it the way I choose. Besides, I can’t fit my parallelogram self into the general square-shaped hole of society. Never have. Unlikely I ever will.

Something else I made a decision about is my horror novel, Slither. I wrote it four years ago and it was accepted by a publisher. I have no terrible story about the publisher I went with, it’s just that over time I’ve realized I’m indie at heart. I requested my rights back on it a few months ago. I re-released it with a new cover and new blurb on May 20th. I’m so pleased that it’s all my own again.

I also released the third book in my Secrets of Windy Springs series, The Knowing Child, on the same day. I’m so happy with the way that one turned out. It’s a little deeper, a little more angsty than the first two books, but it works. I have started the fourth book in that series, Knowing  Rogan, but it’s only maybe 4k in. At this point, I’m taking a break. Not a break from writing, but a break from releasing books, at least for a few months. If I put out another book this summer, it will be the aliens and turnips book that’s already almost finished and has been for two years. If I do that, it will be later this summer.

Weekends in June I’ll be working at the Renaissance Festival, schlepping yarny whatnots and books. I sincerely doubt much writing will be accomplished in June.

And that’s okay. My only deadlines are my own. I can do as much as I can do, and then let it rest. For better or worse, these decisions are mine and at the moment, I’m content with them.

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