Category Archives: On Writing

Excuses

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Today Gregg came home and I was playing Minecraft. I love Minecraft, I find it relaxing. I usually listen to podcasts while I’m playing, or catch up on the news.

But then he asked how my writing was going. I was honest, as I always am (even when it hurts) with him. I had been writing earlier and I’d get back to it soon.

Then he hit me with the hard question, after stressing that he wasn’t trying to be judgmental or anything, he was just honestly curious…And I mostly believe him, but the question cut through me a little deeper than any other question he’s asked me.

I’m just curious if you make more excuses to write, or not to write.

Ouch. There I was, playing a game when I knew I should be finishing up that novel I’ve been trying to complete, and he was cutting to the quick of it, yet again. It hurt, but he was entirely right. I had been making excuses just like I usually do, and letting myself get away with it.

Excuses are insidious things. I use to think of them as the things I did to get out of an assignment, like washing dishes, or cleaning the lint trap. ANYTHING to get out of doing something I dreaded. But I love writing, right? So I wouldn’t be making excuses to get out of that. WRONG.

Writing is fun, just like painting or playing music, or making a vase. But when you try to shift from doing art for joy to doing art for a living you realize you have to do this thing all the time instead of just when the mood hits you. You realize it’s not always going to be fun anymore. Sometimes it’s going to be a slough and you’re going to have to do it anyway.

Oh I love my stories. I love creating worlds with fantastic creatures roaming through dark woods, and witches flinging spells across wide oceans, and men being cursed to live as hawks. I love the fact that all of these mystical and magical worlds that lived inside of me for decades now get to be seen by others. And I love that they will live on beyond me.

But that only happens if I actually write them. They only have a life of their own if I put in the work.

And, lets face it, playing a video game is fun. It can be mindless entertainment. It can be a complete distraction from everything else around you, including the art you want to create.

Substitute TV shows, books, train rides, sky diving or whatever in there. If we are using these little distractions as an excuse not to seek out our creative fulfillment then we are just hurting ourselves.

Now…I have a book to go write.

Tales from Radcon 2016 and a Question

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2016-02-13 12.20.50Now that I’m getting over the con-crud I thought it was time to share what happened at RadCon with everyone, and what I took away for myself from it.

First: Radcon was amazing! So many amazing things happened, so many new friends, so much new information. Gregg and I had to take some time to process it all. It’s been a week and the excitement of RadCon wore off a little bit, but the knowledge and encouragement are still working.

For Gregg this was a moment of validation. He won the best in fantasy for the masquerade, then he was invited to stand up at a panel and talk about his armor, and the road to it’s completion. He had several of the speakers (men and women currently working in prop/armor making for TV and movies) there oh-ing and ah-ing over his armor. Then they invited him to be on a panel next year as a full member. It was overwhelming. Gregg might have done a happy dance a few times, and then just collapsed from sheer joy.

It was so amazing to watch him transform from the unsure, self critical person he had been into this massive beast of a man walking through the crowds with his head held high, clad head to toe in red and black armor that he made with his own two hands. The pride, the smile, the final moment when he could say “I did something great!”

Sure, there are still little imperfections that bother him, little things that stand out as “I need to fix that.” Every creator has that little voice in the back of their mind saying those things, and we wouldn’t want to make our stuff better if we didn’t. But…as one of the panelists (a man who works on Grimm) said “There is only one person who sees all the little mistakes, and that’s you. Everyone else just looks at the overall piece.” (paraphrased, of course.)

I watched his transformation with pride, and happiness…and maybe a little jealousy. I realized that I needed that same transformation for myself. The same validation that yes, I am a good writer, and yes I’m on the right path. And I realized that I didn’t know how to get there. For me…it was a moment to realize that I need to get my shit together and figure out what the hell I’m doing.

So for the past week, while I’ve been battling con-sars, I’ve been thinking about my writing career, where it’s going, and what pieces I want or need to change.

First of all, The Bradbury Challenge has been a fantastic thing for me to do. NaNoWriMo has it’s good points, especially in learning to write faster and let go of the inner critic, but the Bradbury Challenge focuses on finishing things, and really need that emphasis on getting things done.

I haven’t been doing well. It’s been seven weeks and I’ve completed three stories. That’s not a story a week. This week I had a good excuse. First the convention, then a horrible head cold that knocked me out for three days, and left me incapable of writing. But what about all the other weeks? What excuse did I have then? And were they really good enough?

Now the truth is I have written almost every day since November first, and accomplishment in itself. I put down 6.4 thousand words on my novel last month, getting it closer to publication. I wrote 11k more on the short stories I worked on. But I didn’t finish all of the Bradbury stories. I didn’t send them to my newsletter as I promised. And this month I’ve only written 5k so far.

I should at least be continuing with a story if I fail to finish it the week previously. Instead I have come up with new stories every week since January first, and written plots and paragraphs for all of them. I LOVE the idea phase of a story a thousand percent more then actually finishing a story. Brainstorming is second nature to me, and if I get an awesome idea for a novel I have no problem jotting down 3-5000 words in a couple hours on that idea.

But ideas don’t make a career. Ideas are just that…ideas. They have no form, no function, and no monetary value. If all of my stories stay ideas I get nowhere. I get no actual career.

This, I think, is what I saw with Gregg and his armor. At the end he was sleep deprived and his body was screaming for relief. He kept telling me about pains in muscles he didn’t know existed, or his hands cramping, or being surprised he didn’t break something when he hit his hand with a mallet. But he kept going. He wanted to finish that armor. Not just a few pieces, he wanted the whole set.

Do I want my writing career even half as much as he wanted that?

It is no surprise that they invited him back to speak at the conference. It is no surprise that he had many people in his industry talking to him, encouraging him, and telling him how truly awesome he was, and is. Because he is amazing! He has persistence, and he has a passion, a real hunger, for his craft.

Do I? Or is this more of a hobby that I just enjoy when I’m not playing video games? I don’t think it’s a hobby, but then again, where are the finished products?

That’s the question I’m going to be asking myself the next couple of weeks as I am working on my short stories, and finishing things. I’m not at 100% yet, still recovering from this sickness, and still very, VERY, tired. But that’s nothing but an excuse, and I know it.

So are my passions bigger than my excuses? Time to put up or shut up, I think.

The Price of Admission

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We got back from Radcon a few days ago, and then I came down with a horrible sickness. For me being sick means I need to sleep, and sleep a lot, to the point where it’s almost impossible to stay awake.

So for the past two days I’ve been barely able to speak, an d stay awake. I’ve been awake now for a couple hours so I think I’m on the mend, but even as I type this I can tell I need to go back to sleep. YAY CONCRUD!

But it was so worth it! The convention was amazing, and Gregg was impressive. You can see a lot of pictures from the convention over on his instagram, and a bunch more on my instagram.

I started writing a blog post about the experience and everything that happened. I’ll have to come back tomorrow and finish that. For right now I think it’s time to go take another stab at writing a short story before crashing again.

But here are two photo’s to wet your whistle. Me, as Velma, posing with a furry Scooby Doo, and Gregg in the awesome red armor that he made getting compliments from Dragon Dronet. More on that later.

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Formatting Matters

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I have been doing a lot of reformatting lately. Adding in better back matter, adding in a little notice about the news letter and a offer of a free book. Little things here and there that take forever, but they go a long way to making a book look professional.

It’s amazing how much my ideas of a “finished” book have changed over the last two years. Even my covers have improved dramatically. But none so much as my print books.

IMAG1817When I first printed the original print editions of my various books I did okay, got the right page size and put the beginning chapter on the right side of the book. I even added a page of reviews so anyone picking it up might see that I had at least some accreditation. They looked good.

When I got to “Witch’s Sacrifice” I did everything the same way, or so I thought, and ordered the proof. The text was itty bitty and could barely be read. I adjusted, sent a new one and found that I forgot to add the front matter. Tried again, upped the font size and added the front matter. Adjusted the table of contents since that always changes when you adjust the font. This version was readable, but I still wasn’t quite happy with it.

It turns out I was using the wrong sized pages when creating the print files for “Witch’s Sacrifice.” That meant when it was shrunk down by Create Space the font shrank with it. When it printed the text ended up being off in every way, as did the page numbers, maps, and everything else.

I didn’t bother changing it after the last time. The text wasn’t too small, so it didn’t look horrible, but it wasn’t exactly what I wanted either, but I knew that I’d have to get to it eventually along with all the other little things. Last week I finally took a few days to start reformatting.

IMAG1820It is amazing how big a difference it is just to have everything the correct size. It’s about a one hundred page difference. After adjusting the size of the page and putting in the correct size text made the book feel more substantial, like a real novel.

I got the new and improved version of “Witch’s Sacrifice” today, and it’s beautiful. It’s everything I wanted it to be, and now I know how to format the other two.

BTW!

“Witch’s Stand”, the final book in the series, will be going to the editor next week! I will also be getting the cover done at the end of the month. That means I will finally have a finished trilogy! SQWEEEEEEE!

There is one more story in the Witch’s Trilogy, and that’s a short story about Salvia, the little mother, and how she learns that she is a witch. I haven’t decided if I will be giving this away for perma-free, or just sharing this with my newsletter (though my newsletter will get it long before anyone else does.) However, once that is done I will be putting out a combo pack that has all four stories in it. I will hopefully have the other print books out as well, and might also get a print book of all four together depending on how long it ends up being.

But right now we’re getting ready for RadCon. If you’re there let me know, I’d love to meet you.

Map Building

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PeyllenI’ve always enjoyed building maps, and world building in general. I have a few dozen of them stashed among the pages of old hand written story ideas, their edges smudged over time, and words sometimes faded out WSsmltill it’s illegible. But the concept, the idea of the map is still there.

The journey of Peyllen started with a young girl leaving home for the first time. That was the first book that I wrote in the series, the first book I finished in the series. But it won’t be released for a long time. There are many stories that come before that one, and it will have to be rewritten in its entirety before it ever sees the light of day. But the idea behind it, the world and the magic, remain. You might have already taken a peak at it. It is the same world that my Witch’s Trilogy came from.

map2The very first iteration of Peyllen was a scratchy pencil drawing on a spare piece of paper.

I scanned and copied it into Gimp and started adding outlines, colors, adjusting the land masses, and giving it more definition. I added “The Sea of Tears” since it did not appear on the original maps (though the idea was always there).

peylinPeyllan has grown, taken shape and mass of it’s own in my thoughts. And the stories have grown as well.

I’m getting to the end of book three in the trilogy. I think I’ll take a short break from Peyllan after that to work on a few other projects, but eventually I’ll be back. There are ten more novels in this world waiting to be told. And I bet by the time I’ve finished some of them I’ll find more stories lurking in the world. Maybe some from areas yet uncharted on the far side of the world.

Medical insurance…

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And now for a small rant on the failure of our medical payment system.

The current poverty line for a single mother with one child in Washington state is 54,000. I made 28,000 last year. That seems to be below the poverty line,  to me. That’s because health care is based on national poverty levels, and the National poverty line is 15,000 for a family of two.

To top that off the lowest insurance that I qualify for was $80 a month since I no longer qualify for a subsidy. All because my daughter’s are now over 19 (even though they still live with me and one doesn’t have a job yet.)

The penalty for not having insurance for a single adult is $350. Or I could pay $960 to have insurance that I won’t use anyway since it doesn’t even cover the one thing I do need (dental).

I’m taking the penalty, and I’m voting Bernie Sanders, and fighting for a one payer health system, because there are too many people like me who fall through that little space where health insurance is too expensive, and going to the doctor isn’t an option unless you’re desperate.

The USA needs to join the rest of the world in this.

And I’m lucky. Gregg moved in and is helping pay rent (which just increased for the year). If he hadn’t moved in I would be trying to move to a low rent part of town by now just to survive. So glad I don’t have to do that. As it is I still pay half my pay just to rent every month. How the heck does anyone survive on 15,000 a year? That’s INSANE!

Mapping it out!

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Ipeylin‘m starting to put together a map of the entire world of Peyllen, and how the Sea of Tears (from the “Witch’s Trilogy”) fits into the greater world. You can see the Sea of Tears in the middle with land on either side. Oddly the islands in the Sea of Tears do not appear on any maps of the various kingdoms because any ship who traveled there never returned. They assume there’s a sea monster, or some large whirlpool there.

I love having maps in Gimp because I can do various layers that include roads, trade routes, and even a map just to lay out which character goes where in the world. Then you can just make the layers that you want visible. It’s fantastic for story planning, and keeping everything in order. Plus it’s just awesome to look at.

Next I’ll be adding various features like large forests, major cities, and the mountain ranges.

Also, I should note that because of the way Peyllen was created this map isn’t based on normal geological features, as in plate tectonics and shifting like that. Other things like weather, and where deserts and swamps might occur, are effected naturally but the underlying structure of the world was created by the movement of the trolls, not plate tectonics. (More on that in another post.)

I have lots of books planned in this world, spanning centuries, so look for updates of that after I’m finished with the Witch’s Trilogy.

The Mirror

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Today was the second day of the new podcast, and my newsletter was just sent the first short story, “The Mirror.”

This short story is going to eventually be the Zero episode of my “Illicit Gains” series, a series of short stories revolving around items that have paranormal properties. This includes “The Ring” and “The Camera.” I will be writing a couple of the stories during the Bradbury Challenge.

I still think we’re a bit crazy for trying to write a short story every week, but at the same time it’s encouraging me to write more, and that’s awesome in and of itself. And that also means more stories for you! You just have to sign up for the newsletter to get them.

Here is a short sample of “The Mirror”.

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Judy rubbed a hand over the frame, polishing a floret in the engraved design. Aunt Tracy didn’t overlook much, but she hadn’t noticed the ladder up to the attic space, so missed the mirror. Perhaps she thought her mother had been too old to go up there, or that the crawl space wasn’t big enough to hold anything. Most of the items in the attic had been junk; old Christmas ornaments, craft magazines and a box of flower vases. Things most people would throw away or donate to a thrift store. It was likely Tracy only saw the trash, never venturing far enough into the attic to find the mirror.

It meant Judy could keep one thing of her grandmothers, even if she didn’t remember her grandmother ever having the mirror.

She stepped back admiring her handiwork…and froze. She blinked, clearing her eyes. Surely they were playing tricks on her. A shadow seemed to pass over the image in the mirror, something that twisted her own face into something

Judy squinted. What was that? A trick of the light? A shadow?

A shiver ran down her spine as she took a step back. Her mind was playing tricks on her, surely, but something did seem off about the mirror.

Diversity in Fantasy

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I write fantasy, if you can’t tell. I also read a lot of it. I enjoy dragons, fairies, magic and mayhem. It’s fun, and a nice distraction from every day life. But most of all I love building world’s where people can change everything around them with a little magic.

Today, while youtubeing, I ran into an interview with George RR Martin about GOT, and specifically why it is so “monoculture”, i.e. most everyone is white. Martin’s answer, and many people’s answer for this, is “Because most fantasy is written by middle aged white guys.” And there is a lot of truth to this. There aren’t a lot of fantasy writers of other ethnicities. Wiki even had an article about it, and a list of the notable authors. There aren’t a lot.

But I think there is more to it than that.

Most fantasy books have mono cultures because they take place in small areas before the advent of travel between countries. In my own series all of the characters are the same race because they all live on an island nation together. There have been no immigrants, so no other races are present. There are more diverse characters in other parts of my world, but there are no planes to encourage mixing of the cultures. No TV, no phone, no cruise ships. No extensive way to travel, so few do it.

Integration and diversity are modern concepts created because travel and relocation became easy. On the other hand most fantasy is built on the Victorian age when only the rich or explorers could afford to visit far off lands. That means a natural lack of diversity.

Plus if you wanted to base the culture of your world off an actual real world equivalent then the place with castels, Knights, priests, etc (things people often equate with fantasy) was Europe, not Africa. A fantasy novel based on Africa, or Asia, or South America’s past would look entirely different than one based on Europe. If you just make all of the characters in your Anglo influenced book dark skinned then it’s still a white culture book with dark skinned people. The skin color often becomes irrelevant at that point, window dressing to go with the dragons. Then you get to the question “if you call a rabbit a smeerp is it still a rabbit?” Does it matter, does it make a difference. I don’t know that answer because it doesn’t effect me in the same way, I’d love another person’s opinion.

Another way to look at it… Why is Merideth from “Brave” White? She’s from Ireland. Why is Elsa from “Frozen” white? Scandinavia. Aurora, Snow White, Cinderella… All from predominantly white countries. Would it have changed them had they been Black or Asian? I think so,just the same as making Mulan white would have been wrong on so many levels.

Also, we write what we know. I learned a lot in history and English about the ancient days in England, I know very little about Africa before colonization. Our studies in public schools in the USA are very USA centric. I’ve also read a lot of fantasy books that take place in Anglo influenced realms, because there aren’t a lot that don’t. Therefore when I sit down to write I’m more apt to write in the same sort of world because that is the world I know.

There is also the risk that if you write about diverse cultures you risk catering to stereotypes. I don’t know much about the early days of Africa, but are the few things I do know heavily influenced by stereotypes or not? I don’t know. How much research do I want to do in order to write that book without appearing to be “another white girl labeling black culture?” It’s often safer not to attempt it, and so many newer authors won’t. Then you have your series that you have a fan base in and why would you step out of it to try something new?

I find the question of diversity more appropriate when dealing with science fiction because one would assume that most science fiction would take place in the future where integration was more predominant, or modern fantasy that takes place after the industrial revolution. Even then you might come accross species, groups, or colonies that are monoculture for one reason or another. It’s a good time to explore it.

I suppose I’m more curious about this question as I get closer to writing the books and stories I have planned that take place in areas of my world that are distinctly not Anglo in origin. I love my world, and I want to share it with readers, but I also want to be faithful to the world I created.

I suppose there is a balance to be struck somewhere, and it’s my job to find it.

Getting Fit

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Gregg’s mom got me a FitBit for Christmas. It hasn’t been off my wrist much since then. I love it. At a glance I can tell how much I’ve been sleeping, how many steps I took for the day, and how active I was all week.

What have I learned? I’ve gotten really lazy, that’s what I’ve learned. And I don’t sleep well. Well, I already knew the second part, but it really does drive the point home by telling me how many times I woke up last night, and how few hours I actually sleep (6 on average).

Does it help me fix all of that? Well, it’s encouraging me to get off my butt and move around a lot more. I’ve also tried tracking what I eat and because of that I pass on a lot of the sugar and pasta that I would usually eat. I also take a second look at the menu for something semi healthy when we go out to eat. I guess that’s a start.

But really, for the sleep all I can do is try to go to bed a little earlier. So far it hasn’t helped since I just end up waking up earlier. Maybe my natural rhythm is to only sleep six hours? Or maybe I need to be more active so my body wants more sleep. I don’t know. Time to experiment.

I do know that I’m averaging about 5000 steps a day. That’s not enough, not if I want to be healthier. So I’ll be trying to increase that as I increase my word count.