Category Archives: On Writing

Getting Ready 

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We have just a few weeks till we leave for LA and I have a lot to do. I’m not even competing, but I do want to dress up. I do want to have stickers, and other little things to give away. And I have to do everything I can to help Bjorn with his armor build. He hasn’t needed much help this year, the occasional extra hand to hold something in place, or another set of eyes to see if something is off. Mostly  I provide a lot of food, water, and cuddles at the end of the day. 

It’s been amazing to watch his build though. He’s done so much with it, learned so many new things, pushed through a lot of struggles.

And watching him I see “what excuse do  you have?” for my own creativity.

He sets a great example. Maybe he’s an over achiever just a little bit, but that’s what makes him awesome. Most people wouldn’t do what he’s set out to do. It’s a lot of work, a lot of sweat equity, and most people just don’t have the fortitude to do it. I think it’s amazing. 

So this weekend, and next weekend, I’ll be starting to get things together for the trip. Costumes, extra clothes, traveling stuff. Since we’re driving I’ll need to go clean my car, and get a wash for it….So much to do!

And at the end of the long drive we’ll have lots of friends to meet up with. Can’t wait!

Twitchcon is a go! 

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It’s just about time for Twitchcon. If you’ve been following me on twitter you might have seen pictures of my boyfriend, Bjornsworkshop, and his giant suit of leather armor! It’s amazing. I love it! I can’t wait to see him on stage at the cosplay competition!

We are driving down in October, staying for a few days, and then driving back home to Seattle. It’s going to be a long, exhausting, wonderful trip. 

And the best part about it is that he was voted in. All you wonderful people, and the people in his stream, and family and friends, voted for him so he got the first spot in the armor category! So much love and support, it’s been amazing to watch.

We will, of course, be sending out some vids for the trip. We have to share our journey with everyone. Maybe I’ll start vlogging a bit more this evening. Of course his whole build is on twitch right now, too. 

Smashing the Cookies 

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There is only so much room in a cookie jar. Oh sure, you bought macadamia, chocolate chip, peanut butter, oreo, and about fifty other varieties… But there is only so many that you can actually fit inside that cookie jar. The rest will have to wait their turn. Or you end up smooshing all the cookies to crumbly messes as you shove more and more inside.

Just the same, there are only so many hours in the day, and so many things you can focus on at once. The more you cram in, the more you split your thoughts, the worse things become.

And different things will have different weight for each person. Work, children, money stress, people, etc…. We each deal with them differently so we have to weigh them for ourselves and figure out how many we can fit in our lives before we smash the cookies.

For me, people are draining. Don’t get me wrong, I love people, but the more people I talk to in a day the more I want to go home and shut off my brain for a while and not think. This is not good for my writing. I work in a call center, I talk to literally hundreds of people a day, helping with their tech issues, listening to their personal lives, and getting a small glimpse into each person’s world for half an hour at a time.

It’s draining.

So I have had to cut down on contract with people in every other aspect of my life. I don’t go out as much. I don’t listen to as many podcasts, or go to social media as much. I try to guard what energy I have left so that I can keep my creativity.

Balancing a life isn’t easy. But I’d rather not have smashed cookies.

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I did zero writing today. And I’m not going to make excuses. I actually set it up, got ready to maybe write, walked away to help Gregg with something,  then chose not to come back. 

Choices. We have a lot of them. Sometimes they are as simple as which jelly do you want,  grape or strawberry (the answer is Apple butter, of course) and sometimes they are life or death. Writing is somewhere in-between. 

What causes a person to sit down and write? What motivates them? I’d like to know. Sometimes I think I have it, then I’ll take a few days off and it’s gone. 

But right now I’m exhausted. It’s 5am and I’ve stayed up far too long. 

To be fair, I did get a few things done. I put more items up on redbubble, and ordered a dress. So that will be fun. 

Anyway, that’s my five. Good night. 

5min – Just keep swimming

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It’s been a while since I started these five minute writing excersize, and I’ve learned that taking some time off is a bad plan.

A rolling stone gathers no moss…right? So if  you keep moving, keep progressing toward your goal, it’s less likely that you will stop and start growing moss, or in my case, procrastinating.

It’s so easy to procrastinate though. You have games to play, movies to watch, meals to eat. You can even procrastinate by cleaning the house. You need to clean the house, of course, but when  you’re looking for anything, even the little tiny things to clean just to get out of doing something then it’s more than cleaning. It’s procrastination.

The last couple of weeks since I finished “Dragon’s Flame” I started working hard on the procrastination. Games, mostly. A minecraft pack that I wanted to try, and West of Loathing (which is a WONDERFUL game and I highly recommend) were great distractions. Talking to my children, spending time with Bjorn when he took a moment from his own work. And so much more.

But I suppose it’s time to stop procrastinating, and start writing again. I am half way finished with the next book in the Half Blood Sorceress series, and it’s time to get to finishing it. I still haven’t gotten the edits back for the first book, but… that will come.

And there’s my five.

Rising from the darkness

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Today has been a day to recenter myself. I needed to.

And here is where I get a little personal today, and talk about some of the personal things that effect me.

I haven’t had issues with depression in years. Maybe a day here and there where I feel down, need to lay in bed and cry then get up and get back to the grind stone. Not like before. Not like the days when I use to sit in my bathtub praying to a god that wasn’t there that he would just let me die. That sort of desperation, that utter lost feeling that the world was closing in on me and I could not escape it, that I haven’t had in almost a decade. Thankfully.

But I do occasionally have those days where I wake up and it’s just so hard to get out of bed. So hard to turn a light on, or find my clothes. So hard to find that desire to just…move. It would be easy to never leave the house, just be a hermit and never speak to another person outside my home. But I know I’d eventually spiral down into that pit of despair, and drown again.

So when I do have those days now I force myself to get up. Force myself to tell Gregg that I’m having a problem. And like today, I take a mental health break and surround myself with people I love, who love me, and who support me in my dreams. I also missed my girls and spent some time just walking around the mall with them. By the time I got home I was exhausted, but so happy.

This wasn’t an option all those years ago in the bathtub. It wasn’t possible to draw my family to me and focus on their love. I am so, SO, grateful that it is possible to do so today. My daughters are grown, and they understand the darkness that lurks inside of me. My boyfriend has had to deal with it himself, and also understands. I have friends that also have had to deal with it on occasion, and friends who love me regardless.

So if you’re in a dark place, and life is starting to weigh a bit heavy on your shoulders…reach out to someone. Talk to them. Tell them what’s going on inside you. You might not know what to say, the words might be hard to come out, but please…try. It does get better. And depression is a lying bastard.

5min – slacking and change 

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Nothing about life is as true as this: everything changes. In a moment, in a month, or in a life time. It changes. 

I have been reminded of that a lot lately. From me jobs, car accidents, new cars, and more, I’ve had a lot of changes in my life. And just turn on the news to see the hurricane, or the latest protest, and realize that change is happening all around us. 

I think the harder thing to do is change myself. Even when I need to. Even when I want to. Realizing I need to excersize as I get older is easier than actually getting up and moving. Realizing I need to eat better is easier than putting down the candy bar. And knowing I need to write is so much easier than actually doing it. 

Change comes from doing, not just thinking. It’s a lot harder to do it, and that’s why there are so many people out there who say “I always wanted to write a book”  instead of “here’s my book.” 

And that’s my five. 

5min – Writing

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I’ve started cleaning up what I’ve already written for book two in my Half Blood Sorceress series. A lot of what I’m doing is just remembering what I’ve already written so that when I start getting to the chapters that aren’t finished yet I can keep everything on the right track.

That is the one problem with the way I write things. I tend to do things in a scattered way, switching from one project to another, skipping to the scene that is interesting me at that time so I can get it finished, then moving on to another. Linear is not part of my makeup. I use to drive my art teacher insane that way. I’d skip around on the paper, drawing parts of if here and there before actually finishing anything. She couldn’t figure out how I could draw like that and still get a coherent piece of art. But it worked for me, always, and I often had some of the most technically accurate work in the class, though maybe not the most creative.

My creativity was more in tune with writing. I could build worlds, expand them, add new creatures and dimensions to them. Explore ideas and themes that I couldn’t in real life. I had more mobility with writing then I did with painting. But still no ability to work in a linear fashion.

I suppose I’m better about it now. I do tend to write a plot line for the thing before rambling. It might not be a whole plot, but it is definitely something to keep me in check. I throw away a lot fewer words because of that.

And that’s my five.

5min- Publishing

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It’s been a wild ride this year. I’m getting ready to publish my fourth real book. When I say “real” I just mean that it has more than 50k words in it and qualifies as a full novel. Most of the books I have up are short stories and novellas with the three main books that are full novels.

But I looked today and I have actually published 40 short stories. Not all separately, some are in anthologies. But, dang, that’s a lot of short stories.

Trying to figure out what I should be doing with those short stories. They don’t sell a lot of copies, but I give them away a lot. I get some reviews, and a lot of comments from people that read them. I am considering giving them away as a Patreon reward, or a reward for subscribers to my newsletters. Or both, maybe?

It’s the little things, though. Setting up the publishing details. Starting to do the print book set up. Considering where/how I might advertise it when I finally get it done. But! it’s at the editors now and I’m all set to go from here.

Of all 46 stories I’ve written over the years, and publishing so many books, I am so happy that I’ve continued on this journey. It isn’t always easy, it’s a lot of time, energy, and sometimes tears getting out all of those words. But the stories are worth it. Having the books on my shelf, or having something to show to others, or even the audio books, are all worth the trouble it took to get here.

And that’s my five.

5min – Word Counts

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It’s August, and I thought it was time to take a look at my writing for the year. It’s easier now, right after I’ve finished a big writing project, (YAY, completed book one in Half Blood Sorceress Series) to look back and see what I’ve been doing.

I keep stats of every days writing, and I keep track of actual story word count separate from things like blogs, newsletters, and other writing media that I do. I don’t keep track of every word I write, because I love social media, but I do keep track of things that matter to me.

So how does this year stack up to previous years? Well, it’s now the 8th month of the year and I have only written 50,000 words. For the past four years I have written about 230k each year, which includes the NaNoWriMo 50k write in Nov. So if I manage to get through NaNo this year I’ll be a lot closer to my usual yearly goal, but still much farther behind then usual.

Why did this happen?

If we take a look at my monthly word count for just this year we see that I started okay in January, then in February everything went down hill, and didn’t pick up again till July. That’s because I was going through a bunch of changes at the end of last year, beginning of this year. Mostly moving to a much more involved, and stress filled job. I couldn’t write at work like I use to and had to make sure I took time out at home to actually write. I also had to make sure I made time with Gregg, who now works from home.

Overall, it feels like I’ve finally sorted that all out, and I’m able to work on my next novel with a bit more confidence, but still, I shouldn’t take my writing for granted.

And that’s my five.