Author Archives: CrissyMoss

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About CrissyMoss

I've been writing as long as I can remember.

Just a Quick Update

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I’m working on editing “Osiren’s Tears”, one of the stories I did during NaNoWriMo. I’m also trying to write a description I think doesn’t completely suck. 

Everyone who does something creative, I don’t care if it is sewing, painting, writing, or cooking… We all have that one thing about it that we are horrible at. For me it’s the blurb you put up on Amazon. I just can’t seem to wrap the story into some neat little catchy paragraph or three. Everything sounds forced, sterile, or just plain horrible. So I’m working on that trying to get better.

While I am editing “Osiren’s Tears” I am also working on a Sci-fi romance. I know I mentioned “Message in a Bottle”, but when I got the idea for “Starcrossed” I just had to go with it. It involves some quantum physics going awry, and the merging dreams between a young scientist, and an alien. You can have some interesting encounters when you think you’re dreaming.

The Past Hurts Sometimes

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I spent much of my childhood trying to do “the right thing”. How does a child even know what the right thing is?

I knew that if I did certain things at certain times I’d get a little more attention from my parents. But they were so busy with everything in their lives that they really didn’t have all that much time for me.

It seems a silly thing to complain about sometimes. You see children who have no food, or suffer incredible abuse. My parents just didn’t have any time for me.

I spent a great deal of time alone. To clarify, I have two sisters. We didn’t get along very well. I found it easier to just spend my time outside, away from them, and avoid arguments.

I spent so much time trying to make my parents happy, and proud of me that even the small things hurt. Once I made dinner for my family. I usually did because both of my parents worked. I think I was 14 at the time. Steak, mashed potatoes, and some sort of vegetable.

My dad took one bight of it and got very unhappy. You could see the disapproval oozing off him. He was mad at me because I didn’t put any spices on the food. I forgot. I never ate spices on food, and I forgot. And he told me how bad dinner was, how horrible it was.

I learned a long time ago that I was never going to be able to please the people around me. And then I got married.

New mother, new baby, new home, and I cleaned the entire house. Even got on my knees and hands to scrub the kitchen floor because we didn’t have a mop. My husband came home. I thought he’d be so happy with me… No, there were things up on top of the computer case stashed out of the way that I hadn’t gotten too. The rest of the two bedroom apartment was clean, but there was paper up on top of that case. He was so disappointed in me, and I was that little girl trying to get approval. Trying so hard to earn someone’s love.

It took me a long time to learn that you can’t, and shouldn’t EARN someone’s love. Love is a gift you give. Love is free. Love is beautiful. It is full of hope and joy, and all those wonderful things of acceptance.

And even now, at 35 and trying to start something brand new I feel myself shutting down. Hurting. Afraid to try and earn someone’s love and attention. Will they like my books? Will they care? Will it affect anyone?

Who knows. And I shouldn’t care. I should be doing this because I love the writing, not because I’m trying to find that illusive acceptance somewhere.

My parents will never be proud of me. I accepted that years ago. And my life is saner now without them in it.

My husband would never be satisfied with anything I did. So I divorced him. And I have been happier without him.

But you can’t close yourself off from the world. You can’t satisfy the world. You have to satisfy yourself before you can do anything else.

That’s my struggle every day. Somewhere inside I am just that little girl still trying to find approval. And I suppose I always will be.

Drunk Writing

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I am amazed by all the stories about people who wrote, painted, or created while dunk or high. I know, this shouldn’t amaze me. I’ve read some interesting books on LSD, and the scientific studies that were done before the bathtub version was available outside the laboratory. It is all quite fascinating.

I say this as a person who has never done anything harder then a shot of whiskey.

Here I am, after drinking a bottle of “Mocha Death” from Iron House Brewery (the best beer EVER btw) and… I couldn’t write if my life depended on it.

Well… I’m writing this. I’m also expecting to do terrible things with it.

I think the idea behind a substance and creating, be it art, writing, or whatever, is simply this: when you are slightly tipsy you turn of that internal voice that is constantly whispering at you that you are going to fail, you are wrong, your writing/art/whatever is AWFUL!

The trouble I have with the whole thing is that when I wake up completely and entirely sober I am going to come back to this and read it. The spelling will be correct, but only because of those ugly little red squiggle lines under so many of my words. But the grammar? The flow? The ideas behind it.

I think I’m going to post this anyway. And to all my brethren who have a nice glass of wine while sitting down to write that long epic that has been brewing in your mind I say GO FOR IT!

Turn off the internal editor. Sit down. And write. Worry about everything else once the words are down on the paper.

I think I’m going to go do the same.

Giving for the sake of giving

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I have had a lot of Christmas’s where others have been very helpful. When you’re down on your luck, I guess, having someone get your kid a present, a doll, or an MP3 player, can be incredibly uplifting.

My family is at a point now that we’re getting by alright. I don’t have a lot, but we have presents under the tree. But I wanted to give something back this year.

On that note, I found Random Acts of Christmas on Reddit. I didn’t have much to give… I mean, we’re okay but I still can’t go out to eat every week (not that’d I’d want to, it get’s old after a while). But, I did have a bunch of things I made. Stickers, magnets, bookmarks, and some simple jewelry.

So I stuck up an offer to give away some stocking stuffers…

It’s amazing how good it feels just to give away these little things. There not much, but hopefully some little kids will really enjoy them.

Maybe you can’t do much, but even the little things count. And I hope you all have a great Holiday season, whichever Holiday you’re celebrating.

The Leftover Pieces

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I don’t have much from my past. I had three life changing moments where I was left with only a box of things, and everything else had to be donated, trashed or sold, so only the few things that meant a great deal to me managed to make it to my home now.

 

But I’ve always thought those things, those precious memoires you choose to keep even when the world is collapsing down around you, those are what define you. They are what show what really matters to you.

Of all the “things” that survived the upheaval in my life, being homeless, a failed marriage, moving to four different states, and crossing thousands of miles of land with just a little suitcase to my name, the only thing that truly survived all of that was my writing.

I have the paper I stole from school, stapled together, and wrote in bright orange marker about a nymph in a forest. I have the poems I typed up on an old typewriter, stapled together, and marked with “1cent” up in the corner. I have the first school assignment that asked for a story about a picture. Some of these are 20+ years old, and I have them all.

In fact, over the last 30 years of writing I have lost only one thing (that I know of). Half of the very first novel I ever completed. Called “Deaths Gate”, it was about a girl who was unable to ever get close to anyone because Death marked her as his bride and would kill anyone who tried to claim her as his.

The novel took five years to put together. I started it in my Junior year of high school, and continued on through the first few years of my marriage. We moved around a lot. Had children. Got our first PC. Had to put all the hand written notes into the PC for the first time.

It took five years of a sentence here and there to get through the 200 page manuscript. It had elves, hunters, battles, nymphs, magic, and one lost young woman who simply wanted to claim her life as her own. It was terrible. Poorly written, and full of Mary Sue’s. But I finished it.

Then my computer crashed and took it with it. All of my hard work just gone. Lost. Unrecoverable.

I did find half of it in a drawer somewhere, the last half, and I still have it. No one else will ever read it, but it will follow me to every home I move to from here on out.

When I took some college classes I tried figuring out “what do you want to be when you grow up?” for the first time since my divorce and having my life in my own hands. I looked back n those leftover pieces and started to think about what was important. What made me “ME”.

What do you have as leftover pieces?

Around the Web

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I’m sure something else has happened to, but that’s what I have for you this week.

End of NaNoWriMo

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In a few short hours NaNoWriMo will be complete. Many people have already sent in their verification and “won”, including me. Some are going to be drinking coffee and scrambling for those last few words at midnight. Others had life get in the way, or lost interest along the way.

If you completed your challenge, congratulations! You deserve it!

At the conclusion of NaNo I now have two completed stories. One is 20k words, and the other is 30k. I also have the beginnings for a new sci-fi romance that just popped into my head today, and I got another 1500 words on that, and a complete outline.

But more importantly, I have a good habit of writing. Something I lost a while ago, and have been working on getting back for the last year. I hope that this has started something great.

I’ve decided I need to write or edit three pages a day, at least, if I really want this to be my “day job”. It doesn’t sound that difficult at the moment. Then I have those days where I have to cook dinner, or take children to doctors appointments, or days where I’m just sick, or tired, or fed up with life.

I’m rather happy with this NaNo. I’ve seen people who didn’t understand it, didn’t support their spouse, or thought it was ridiculousness. I am so grateful that my boyfriend pushed me to keep going. I can’t wait to start editing this, and hopefully have it up on amazon within a few months.

Falling Behind

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Ever since I decided that I was going to make a real effort at this “writing thing” I constantly have the feeling I am falling behind. Never so much tonight as I look at my NaNo word count and realize how behind a really am.

50,000 words in a month, and I am behind by 4,000.

Well then… nothing like a deadline to get a person motivated, right?

Around the Web

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I’ve been meaning to add a post a week about what is going on around the web in writing. I keep up on a few blogs, vlogs, and forums so it makes sence to share the best here.

So… This week around the web:

And a really important date: April 23, 2013. Just a few months from now. On that night thousands of people will be giving away free books for World Book Night. Read here for more information on how you could be one of these people.

Missing Days

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One thing that NaNoWriMo does for me…. It gives me a really good idea about what helps me to keep writing. What distracts me. And what I need to do to motivate myself to keep writing.

I’ve missed a couple days. Either because of children, work, stress, or just being sick. I know I’m going to get nearly zero words during Thanksgiving too.

But another thing I am learning…. I am really starting to hate interruptions to my writing. Which is a good thing. If  I want to make this what I do then I need to get to the point where this is what is important, and interruptions are just flipping annoying. Which they really are.

So… back to writing.

Progress so far: 17,200 words.