Everything went smoothly, and she's now cuddled with me on our recliner. However, she does have the glazed look in her eyes.
Tonight's dinner for her will be Little Cesar's Filet Mignon. Her favorite soft mouth for her poor abused mouth.
It will be a quiet night in the Harden household.
It was delightful to visit a former home and one of my favorite cities in the U.S. Lots of friendly humans. Lots of friendly dogs. Lots of good food.
Took the wrong Metro a couple of times because the subway system has expanded over the last 30 years. Also, I rode in a Tesla for the first time! We Ubered to dinner our last night because the Red Line was being serviced on Sunday.
Apparently, I still look like I know what I'm doing down at the Mall. I was asked for directions by three different tourists. The little bit of rain that fell over the weekend didn't impede our explorations. Plus, Saturday was way warmer and sunnier than predicted.
All-in-all, a much needed and rejuvenating break. Now, back to the ongoing story...
Anyway, a friend in Cincinnati said let's take a long weekend, get massages, and eat some good food. So, I'm heading down to her place tomorrow.
So, the blog will be relatively quiet for the next few days unless some major event occurs.
Don't worry. Darling Husband and Princess Bella have plenty of foods and snacks for when they watch On Patrol Live and this weekend's Premiere League games.
There is no magic handshake.
There's no secret formula.There's no password to riches.
Frankly, if you want to be rich, invest wisely. Or buy a Powerball ticket. Or find a sugar daddy/sugar mommy.
Over the last two decades, I've met a lot of writers who have quit. They got discouraged. Tired. Bored. But in almost every case, they tried to be like every other writer. They followed tropes and rules instead of being their own unique selves.
But the most important of all, it's what they don't mention that's really behind them quitting. I never hear them say how much they love story-telling.
Never. Ever.
If you don't love making up stories, you're not going to have a long-term career. I and most other readers can tell when your heart's not into the story you wrote.
Basically, if you're not having a good time writing your story, why do you do it? There's a shit-ton of of jobs out there that are tiring and frustrating. I've been down those roads. You can usually leave the bullshit at the office or factory.
But writing and storytelling should be a passion. Something you can't live without. It's a tough road, but it's worth it when you love it. It's no different that any other art.
The only two things you need to remember is BICFOK, i.e. "butt in chair, fingers on keyboard".
And love your stories!
Also, I stopped to get a haircut.
Not a big deal, right? The stylist asked how my day was, and I said, "I'm running errands." He was like, "Oh, errands." I shrugged and said, "It beats being at work."
And I apparently offended him.
Oops!
And running errands did beat sitting at home, staring at the laptop screen, because I got stuck on a scene right before I went to bed last night. Ironically, I was able to work out a solution to the story in my head while he cut my hair in total silence.
It was pretty obvious he assumed I was a Karen. Most probably a wife of some Marathon Petroleum executive. But he didn't ask what I did for a living, and when he got huffy, I didn't offer.
I get it. Sometimes, it's hard for people to make a living, and I know I've been graced with certain privileges. However, my life has been all over the place. I've headed the probate division of a law firm, and I've worked three jobs while homeschooling an eight-year-old.
But good grief! I'm getting my hair cut at a discount place, not at a fancy, schmancy salon. Think it through, man!
Should I have apologized? Maybe. But I stubbornly dig my heels whenever someone jumps to conclusions about me. And that's the same whether it's a stylist in Findlay, Ohio, or the mom at GH's daycare who turned her nose up at me because she worked for Vinson & Elkins in Houston (second biggest law firm in the city), and I didn't.
I've seen partial eclipses in person, and I've seen picture of full eclipses, but nothing prepared me for a full in-person eclipse.
We moved our front porch bench out into the front yard before we grabbed our eclipse glasses, DH's binoculars, and Princess Bella. The neighbors on our side of the street did similar things with their seats, equipment, and pets. Folks on the opposite side of the street were in their back yards. Local schools cancelled classes, so all the kids in the neighborhood had a grand time since our weather was damn near perfect--70 degrees, a scattering of cirrus clouds, and no rain.
Princess Bella was only confused about why we were sitting outside instead of relaxing on our recliner couch. The birds and crickets were like, "Whoa! That was a short day."
The drop in temperature and the darkness I expected. We were lucky enough to see Bailey's Beads and the diamond ring effect. What I didn't expect was my bionic lenses creating a blue diamond shape in the middle of the moon. There's a halo effect created by multifocal lenses. I've had them long enough my brain edits out the effect, but this was new so my brain latched onto the blue diamond.
The picture above is the only really good shot I captured. The neighbors' security lights and the street lights had just kicked on, and you can see the edge of the moon's shadow via the cirrus clouds just above the treeline.
At the moment of totality, a cheer erupted from the neighborhood kids, followed by a dull roar of voices from all the spectators in town.
Like I said, pictures can't replicate the thrill at seeing an eclipse in person.
My cataract surgery was very successful. It's so cool I ditched glasses for the first time in fifty-one years. But still, it's surgery. Things can go wrong. And I have one of those brains that has to analyze every single possible outcome.
Because of the unexpected surgeries, I got behind on fulfilling my 2023 Kickstarter campaign. I failed to get the majority of holiday gifts out before New Year's Day. I struggled to get my tax information collected and handed off to our CPA.
And I feared we would lose our fabulous CPA last year when he was diagnosed with cancer.
CANCER SUCKS.
Another friend also had cancer surgery this week, too. I know I'm at the age where shit happens to my peers. But the stress collects in my body. Yoga classes help, but not enough.
A friend noticed, and she suggested we get away for a weekend. She's had her own issues over the last year. We both need a little break right now. So, I'm taking her up on her idea of a little weekend getaway to a hotel with a spa.
I'm really looking forward to this getaway, and I'm sure I'll come back refreshed.
I hope you all find your own ways to relax over the weekend!
Seriously, I do. Genius Kid was a fucking miracle. However, I didn't get too upset over someone else's idea of a joke. It had nothing to do with me or my life. Those April's Fool pranks actually helped me to let go of my own fury at my situation. Life goes on after all.
But all jokes disappeared in April of 2020 with the rising death toll and the overwhelmed hospitals from COVID-19. Most April's Day jokes remained missing until this year.
Today, a few jokes popped up on my feeds. The moderator of a fan site dedicated to Neil Gaiman's Sandman switched the header to say it was a fan site of Goldie the Gargoyle. Another friend beyond her child-bearing years made the usual pregnancy joke. Mainly, there were an abundance of puns.
After the last four years, most of the humor was actually humorous instead of cruelty-based. In a way, it's reassuring the world hasn't totally devolved into fractious fighting and mean-spirited insults.
Or maybe I'm just doing a better job of weeding out the trolls.
Either way, Camp NaNo started today, and I have a book to finished. Wish me luck!
This weekend is Easter, and we live in the Midwest. What does that mean? Kroger was pretty much wiped out when we went to get groceries tonight. And candy is already on sale 50% off.
Don't worry. I only bought four Reese's Eggs and a bag of Reese's pieces for our little treat. I may even make creamed eggs and toast for Sunday breakfast. I surprised the hell out of my mother-in-law years ago by making it when they came down to Houston for the holiday. She hadn't had creamed eggs since she was a little girl.
I admit I miss coloring eggs with Genius Kid. And creating a treasure hunt to keep him occupied for an extra hour while DH and I slept.
The following weekend will be even more nuts with tourists arriving for the solar eclipse. RVs are already lining up in spaces on the fairgrounds for the big celestial event. The mayor and county commissioners are anticipating fifty thousand to one hundred thousand visitors in Hancock County alone.
In our case, DH and I will slap on some sunscreen and watch from the bench on our front porch. Or we might move the bench to the end of the drive, fill a couple of coolers and hang with the neighbors.
I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the rain moves out of the area and skies are clear on the day of this once in a lifetime event.
But for the last few years, it's been weirdly difficult. It's common knowledge that trad publishing goes for the lowest common denominator. Rarely do they take chances on something different.
I truly believed with the advent of indie publishing and no gatekeeping, I'd find more different, engaging stories. Boy was I wrong. I'm seeing indie writers do the same thing as the trad publishers--they're following the herd.
Then both sides wonder why they're not making any money and sales are down.
First of all, we're in the weird recovery period after the COVID-19 pandemic. People expect things to go back to the normal they were pre-2020. It's not going to happen, folks. The post-apoc writers don't seem to realize that we spent the last three years living through a plague that killed millions of people. I honestly think that's why romcom is starting to make a comeback.
(Folks, that doesn't mean you should jump on the writing romcom bandwagon. Do it if you love the subgenre. Otherwise, leave it alone. We readers can tell when your heart's not it.)
Secondly, we in the U.S. are not getting any more stimulus checks. That means with the higher food prices, your average reader has less free cash for entertainment. Writers aren't competing with each other. We're competing with streaming and gaming. So unless writers figure a way to stand out, the general population isn't going to give a rat's ass.
Thirdly, the U.S. presidential election is this year. Setting aside the bullshit of the 2016 and 2020 elections, presidential election years have had notoriously slow sales over the last century because a good chunk of the population is paying more attention to politics. That's fine, and normal. Except the last two elections turned into a circus, and 2024 promises to be the same. Which means even fewer eyeballs are available to read out books.
Last, but not least, is the problem I mentioned above. A majority of writers, regardless of who their publisher is, are playing it safe. They're writing the same pablum over and over again. They use tropes as a write-by-the-numbers guide. It waters down their stories until you can't taste anything new and delightful.
So, if you're an indie writer seeking attention and discoverability, give us readers something new and different. I know I'd love to curl up with something new to read. Something so engaging Miss Bella can have a nice long nap on my lap while I read.
Things have changed when it comes to flying. A whole lot since my first trip on a commercial airline back in 1988.
When it comes to safety issues, I don't have a problem with most airlines. I'd rather sit patiently while the Detroit Airport personnel de-ice our wings a second time, rather than plunge into the frigid waters of Lake St. Clair in the middle of January. Or divert to Austin when a violent thunderstorm rattles the Bush Airport in Houston.
What I had a problem with was paying to skip the security line. It's awesome for people who can afford the fee, but it sucks for those who can't. Frankly, I've been on both sides of the equation.
So what changed my mind about paying the fee? I turn the big 6-0 soon. It's sinking into my pea-brain that my time is more valuable to me because, let's face it, I'm on the downhill slide to oblivion. And there's people I want to visit and places I want to see (again in some cases) before I lose them.
Over the next year and a half alone, four trips are already lined up, including a class I really want to go to in Las Vegas. If I can breeze through lines with my tiny overnight bag and my backpack, that's more time I can spend with my friends, check out places on my bucket list that I want to see, and revisit my old haunts.
Yep, I know I'm damn lucky to be privileged enough to have these experiences. But like Neil Gaiman's Death say, "You get what everyone gets. You get a lifetime."
And I want to make the most of mine.
There's been a rash of events scheduled this year for aspiring authors to meet and pitch to agents. Again, the well-meaning friends are sending me the links to these events.
I've published over eighty novels and short stories. I've sold five short stories to anthologies. I wrote a magazine column for four years. But apparently, I'm still a wannabe to my friends.
What's worse? When I was trying to get a trad publisher interested way back in the day, trying to get an appointment with an agent or an editor at a writer event was difficult, if not impossible. But now?
The event I saw for Ohio later this summer (no, I will not link to it) had nearly thirty agents. The organizers are begging for people to attend. Why the hell are all these agents making the trip to the Midwest?
Because they're desperate. Since several retailers have opened their doors to indie publishers, these agents aren't getting the slush pile they used to, much less the income from having a full stable of writers. Now days, most agencies are damn lucky to have a couple of ponies in the back yard.
Again, I know my friends mean well, but what is an agent going to do for me that I'm not already doing for myself? I have three excellent and lovely cover artists when I don't want to make the covers. I have a wonderful formatter. And the last thing I want or need is a corporate editor young enough to be my granddaughter dumbing down my stories.
Seriously, a lot of books I see on the market are repetitious and boring. And the trad houses don't get that's why they're losing so many sales. Even worse, I'm seeing a huge amount of indie writers making the same mistakes as the trad publishers.
Granted, there's no perfect method to becoming a career writer, but each writer needs to find the path that works for them. And what I'm doing right now works for me.
Regardless of what my friends think.
Someone clicked on my post from ten years ago when I learned Craig Ferguson was leaving the now gone The Late Late Show on CBS. I sometimes wonder what his thoughts on current events would be in the political chaos of the last decade.
When I'm down, I go to YouTube to play his theme song from TLLS. It still cheers me up!
Director Denis Villeneuve did the smart thing by splitting the sprawling novel into two separate films. The story is simple two massive for one two-hour movie. While Villeneuve stayed fairly true to the book in the first movie, he massively strayed from the story in Part Two.
If Villeneuve does adapt Dune Messiah as Dune 3, how is he planning to fix the problems he's created by altering some of the major storylines in Dune 2?
Problem #1: Paul's sister Alia is the one who kills Baron Harkonnen in the original Dune book. This leads to the Baron possessing Alia, which causes a lot of problems in the two sequels.
Instead, Paul is the one who kills the baron in Dune 2. Alia isn't even born before the end of the movie. Does this mean the baron has possessed Paul in the Villeneuve version? What does this mean for Alia's personality and actions if Villeneuve turns Dune into a long-running movie series?
Problem #2: Paul and Chani's first son Leto isn't born in Dune 2. The baby's death is one of the motivating factors for both Paul and Chani in the attack on the city of Arrakeen.
Again, Leto isn't conceived in Villeneuve's Dune 2, so he isn't born, much less dies. This change doesn't build the bond between Paul and Chani, one of the few things that keeps Paul grounded. In fact, Chani abandons Paul out of anger and frustration at the end of Villeneuve's Dune 2. So, how is Villeneuve planning to get them back together? The Chani he's written isn't going to just walk back into Paul's life, saying all is forgiven.
It's Paul's love for Chani that spikes Irulan's jealousy in Dune Messiah, and sets into motion another series of events. Does this mean Leto II and Ghanima won't be born in Dune 3? Their survival is the reason Paul renounces his throne and disappears.
Nitpick #1: While I'm glad Villeneuve worked in why Gurney hates the Harkonnens, I prefer seeing Rabban getting ripped apart by the civilians of Arrakeen. It's not that I would deny Gurney his revenge, but after the cruelty Rabban inflicted on the populace, it's a more satisfying ending to me.
Generally, I don't have a problem with minor changes or the removal of subplots in movie or TV adaptations of books. However, these a couple of major alterations that will have ripple effects in any subsequent sequels.
Part of me looks forward to seeing how Villeneuve handles the story with such major revisions. Another part worries Dune 3 will suck because Villeneuve didn't think his changes through.
Overall, the stunning visuals and performances still elevate Dune 2 above many other movies in current release at the theaters. I give it 9 out of 10 stars,
Yep, I'm trying to get the dang taxes done. The worst part is reconciling all the medical stuff. I try to keep up every year, but invariably, what the Flex Spending Account says we spent and what Quicken says we spent are two different things.
So, don't expect a whole lot from me for the next 5-7 days. DH and I did see Dune 2, so I'll try to put up a review on Monday. Initial thought--the cinematography is fabulous! Definitely worth seeing on the big screen.
Scratch that. I need a lot of stress relief.
I'm not getting any alone time. Unless I'm asleep. Even then, I have other entities in bed with me.
Anyone know of any car shows I can send DH to for a week? Or even a long weekend?
Or maybe I can send him overseas with GK.
Goddess, I miss the days when DH was gone for months at a time because of his job!
Unfortunately, I don't have that luxury because there's always something going on.
When I was practicing law, I wrote during my lunch hour and whatever time I could have to myself on the weekends. Which frankly wasn't much because GK was a toddler.
When I stopped practicing law (thanks to high blood pressure), GK was still in public school. It gave me some time during the day between dropping him off and picking him up. It was only about six hours, but I made the most of it I could. The problem? I was still very much a newbie. At that point I'd only finished three novels--one of which will never see the light of day. The other two were Blood Magick and Zombie Love.
Because of our finances, I had to get a job a year after I'd left law. Unfortunately, that was about the time we pulled GK from public school. The public sphere just wasn't working for him. It wasn't working for me and DH either. We were constantly getting phone calls from the school personnel. Neither of us was getting work done.
So, I worked part-time at a Hallmark store, wrote a legal column for a law enforcement magazine, home-schooled my only offspring by myself, and tried to write in whatever spare moments I could grab. By that time, I was making some headway with my submissions, but after reading the full manuscript, the agent or editor would invariable say, "Love the story. Love the voice. I can't sell this."
In the meantime, Amazon was allowing writers to upload their novels in e-book format so Amazon had content for their brand-new e-reader, the Kindle. In 2011, I decided to take a chance. Heck, Maybe trad publishers couldn't sell my book, but maybe I could.
Within fifteen months, I was making more through online book sales than I did at my other two jobs. The magazine crashed and burned during the summer of 2011, and I quit my retail job the summer of 2012.
I had time to write again even though I was still homeschooling. I would get up and be at the local Barnes & Noble when it opened at nine a.m., write for a couple of hours, then head home for lunch and a afternoon of schooling. On weekends, I tried to have the lesson plan and materials ready for the following week, so I could have a little more time to write after GK went to bed. All of this worked because, DH was scheduled for Pacific Time hours with his employer.
During the stresses between having to watch my health, worrying GK, and trying to keep my marriage together, I often had insomnia. On those nights, I'd write until I became drowsy.
At the end of 2012, my father-in-law had a heart attack. About the same time, GK asked about going back to public school. So we made the difficult decision to move from Texas back to Ohio.
DH and GK moved to Ohio in August of 2013 to get GK enrolled in school and for them to help the in-laws. In the meantime, I would do the last little things to get the house ready to go the market. We thought the worse case scenario was I wouldn't have the house ready until Christmas.
It took a lot longer because everything seemed to break after my family drove north. On the plus side, I had plenty of time to write because I had no interruptions and we had weeks or months of saving up for the additional repairs.
Once we were all in Ohio, I was back to writing during the day while GK was at school. Just one problem. DH also worked from home. He had for the last ten years. But now we were in an 1100 sq. ft. apartment instead of a 2500 sq. ft. house. And when DH is on the phone with a client, he was loud!
It didn't help that I was having trouble with insomnia again. I started staying up after DH went to bed and writing into the wee hours of the morning. He'd take GK to school. I'd wake up in time to pick up GK.
But shortly before GK was done with high school, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Which meant I needed to be up before two in the afternoon for various doctor's appointments and scans.I couldn't stick to a writing schedule for a year. I still write, but I did when I had the strength and the quiet.
A couple of years later, GK was off doing Army stuff, and DH and I found a home that would fit our working styles. Our offices are on opposites side of the house. I can't hear him. He can't hear me. For the most part, we are back to a relatively normal daytime schedule.
Except with everything going on in our lives over the past three years, I don't have everything unpacked, and it's driving me crazy. So now, on days I have a morning yoga class, I take my travel laptop with me. After class, I stop at Starbucks for breakfast and an hour or two of writing. Plus, I do writing sprints with some fellow writers for an hour or three in the evenings. In between, I work on the boxes and sort between stuff to keep, stuff for the spring garage sale, and stuff that just needs to be thrown out.
It's probably going to take me the rest of the year to empty the boxes inside the house. Nest year, I'll focus on emptying the storage unit where everything that we couldn't keep in the apartment ended up.
But I may change my writing time depending on the whims of the one true god Murphy.
So what I'm trying to say in this long-winded diatribe is find whatever time to write works for you in your current stage of life. But be flexible enough to change that time when you have to. Good luck!
And for a bit, I was terrified that our CPA might not survive his own cancer. I know, I know. I was selfish as fuck, but he knows our stuff inside and out. Ironically, he's one of the few people in my life who's super excited about my writing career.
For those of you who are attempting a career in writng, here's some tips (and NONE of this is financial or legal advice!):
1) Keep all your receipts. If you don't want to deal with a whole bunch of paper, scan them as PDFs in case the IRS has questions.
2) What expenses apply to your business? Cover artist fees, software, formatting fees, editing fees, basically anything that goes toward your writing career.
3) Pay attention to IRS rules. I do everything in a cash accrual basis. What this means is pay for your expenses ahead of time. For example, I'm attending a class Kris Rusch is teaching next January. I've already paid for the class itself, which means I can take the deduction for 2024 instead of 2025. By the same token, most retailers pay me on a 60-day delay, so any money I made in November or December of 2023 isn't paid until 2024. Therefore, I don't owe taxes on it until 2024.
4) Find accounting software, learn how to use it, and keep your entries up-to-date. No one likes this crappy part of owning your own business. I generally do all my data entry every two weeks to keep up. For software, I prefer Quicken, but use whatever you feel comfortable with. GK prefers Excel spreadsheets.
5) Find a certified professional accountant! You may think it's too expensive, but a good CPA is worth their weight in gold.
By the way, don't let your spouse/partner talk you out of proper bookkeeping just because they do your tax return. Sure, writing may start as a hobby, but things can change in a flash. If your other half doesn't know what they are doing or are just plain damn lazy, it's time to find a CPA for both of you.
Or maybe find a significant other who's more supportive of your dreams.
Decades ago, I used the Hugos to find new reads in my favorite genre. Not anymore. I don't want to read books based on someone else's political or social agenda. Moreover, I don't like other people to choose my reads in the hopes that they can brainwash me.
The sad part with this latest fiasco is that it wasn't the voters throwing a hissy fit. And from some of the leaked e-mails, it wasn't the Chinese government. The true story may never come out, but it's looking more and more like the 2023 conferences committee self-censored the nominees.
The question one everyone's mind is why. Were the members bribed by the Chinese business people who funded the brand-new building that housed the conference? Did the committee members think they were protecting the artist who might run afoul of the Chinese government? Or was this a back-end method for fascists to take over another institution?
It's sad. It's tiring. It's why I don't give a shit about winning an award for my writing. Because I've already been told I write radical feminist propaganda and I'm anti-white. *sigh*
I was taught that things need to be fair. And I took that lesson to heart eve though the people who taught me the concept were incredibly racist and misogynistic. The hypocrisy burns at times.
Regardless, I believe in picking out my own books. I believe in everyone having the right to express themselves. And I believe in everyone's right to read or view what they want.
P.S. If you need a rundown of the events, check out Abigail Nussbaum's blog post. It has all the same links I would have posted.
Which it did last week. And the outrage of writers is boiling on social media sites.
Why didn't I say anything before this? First of all, because no listens to me. I'm not successful by some people's standards, though I'm quite successful by my own standards.
I'm the old lady on the street who quietly gardens while her neighbors get into a kerfluffle over basketball hoops in the driveways and whose dog is shitting on whose lawn.
And I've found that concentrating on my garden keeps me healthier in the long run. Or at the very least keeps my blood pressure in check.
So I looked on with amusement at the torches and pitchforks raised by folks with their audiobooks on Findaway Voices. At the sight of the commoners calling for blood at their gates, Spotify revised their pathetic rights grab.
But frankly, I don't trust Spotify to keep things that way. They'll switch things back when no one's looking.
So here's your warning if you choose to listen: Get your audiobooks off Findaway. Create your own store. It's the only way to protect your rights.
I've also been re-reading a lot of Anne McCaffrey lately, and I found myself comparing and contrasting the Wilson twins with Anne's heroines, especially Killashandra Ree from the Crystal Singer series and Lessa of Benden Weyr from the Dragonriders of Pern series.
Why am I doing this? One concept emphasized in many of my early craft classes was if the story had a female protagonist, she must be likeable.
What the hell does this mean?
For a lot of writers and readers, this means the heroine is not allowed to have any flaws. Ironically, this means she needs to be polite, quiet, and demure. In other words, passive as fuck.
This behavior explains why I hated the Harlequin romances from the '70's and '80's, and I gravitated to fantasy and science fiction. For example, Lessa has a mind of her own. From the age of ten, she quietly sabotaged her home, Ruatha Hold, after it was conquered and her family murdered. When dragonriders appeared at Ruatha on Search for recruits, she manipulated their leader F'lar into dueling and killing the man responsible for her family's deaths.
F'lar still shakes Lessa and actually slaps her--actions that wouldn't go over well with a modern audience. Hell, it didn't go over well with F'lar's dragon Mnementh when the story was originally written in the '60's. But Lessa's fuck-you attitude more than makes up for F'lar's stupid and brutal behavior.
In Killashandra's case, she learns her voice is unacceptable to her teachers after ten hard years of training. Her dreams of being a solo performer are dashed in an instant. Her anger at being led on by her mentor cause her to leave the school while she tries to figure out what to do with her life.
She doesn't cry into her pillow in her dorm, which is what a "likeable" heroine would do. She ends up having a wild holiday with Carrick, a Crystal Singer, she met. When she tries to leave her home planet with Carrick, Killashandra's old mentor tries to stop her, saying she's mentally unstable. A tragic accident at the spaceport solidifies Killshandra's plan to leave home and become a Crystal Singer like Carrick.
Stubborn, angry young women, both of whom are everything I was told not to do.
Yet, Anne McCaffrey captured the warring needs within young people as they try to figure out themselves and their place in their worlds.
I found myself using Anne's examples in my own writing. I made the confusing juxtapostion of child and adult in one's teen years more intense by making the Wilson sisters identical twins. Are Kaley and Kirsten perfect? Hardly. But they are human. And I think that's the most important part of any character in the end.
But with popping knees, stiff hips, and sore shoulders, I took her advice. I'm glad I did.
Holy Crap! Don't get me wrong. The class is totally worth it, but after the first one, my hamstrings complained up a storm the next day despite all the water I drank and the Naproxen I took.
The crux of the class is gentle stretching. Nothing extreme. I guess I'm a lot older than I want to think. LOL
On the plus side, I treated myself to breakfast and got some writing done at Starbucks after class.
I'm going to keep at it for the rest of the month. Hopefully, the class will get easier, and I'll be able to try something new in the next level.
I had really looked forward to the end of the pandemic so I could go back to the George House near the University of Findlay campus. Unfortunately, it has gone out of business. The Timmies near our house had reduced their hours. The staff at the Timmies across town glare at you if you dare to sit and eat at one of their tables, nevermind being in your laptop. Cafe Amici has excellent coffee and no parking since it's downtown.
Why am I talking about coffee shops? Because sometimes, I need to get out of the house in order to write.
DH and GK used to laugh at my because I'd circulate from room-to-room on the first floor. When that didn't work, I go to the neighborhood Barnes & Noble or one of the nearby Starbucks. I know it's such a cliche. Also, I don't know why a change of scenario works to unstick my writing, but it does.
Best of all though, we now have two standalone Starbucks in town.
I've been stuck since the beginning of the year. Normally, I'd have half a novel done by now, but I'm struggling with edits since November. The cataract surgeries didn't help. Neither did my normal trigger of cleaning the bathroom. We bought this house so I could have my own office for crying out loud! And all I do is stare at the boxes I haven't unpacked yet.
So this morning, I grabbed Baby Blue and my Kylo Ren flashdrive and drove to the closest standalone Starbucks.
It worked! Solutions started clicking. My grilled cheese sandwich even got cold as I fixed the issues on the current manuscript. I came home feeling pretty good. I may have to go to Starbucks every day next week to keep up the momentum, but it'll be worth it.
I'm not asking for advice here. There's a little niggle inside my brain that's trying to tell me something. But I can't really hear it yet. Do I need to slow down? Speed up? Change projects? Change careers? Change zip codes?
Or could it be the ten-year itch?
You see, I have this habit/need to change careers every ten years. I jumped from IT to law to writing fiction. Generally, the trigger is boredom. Except I'm not bored. At least, I don't think I'm bored.
I want to know what happens next with all my heroines. If I don't write their stories, no one else will.
Or maybe, I'm just unconsciously freaking about doing my taxes. The numerical equivalent of my parents asking me why I write.
I don't know what happens next, but a decision will be made. Because punting the decision is a decision in and of itself.
If you want to be a writer, you need to come up with ideas, Except most of us had our imaginations knocked out of us when we were children.
"That's stupid!"
"Quit daydreaming!"
"Imaginary friends don't exist!"
And once that imagination is knocked out of your head, it's hard to get it back. Pure play isn't allowed in in American society.
So if you're a writer (or want to be one) and you're stuck, find some preschoolers and let them teach you how to play again.
**NOTE: Please make sure you obtain the parents' permission before playing with the preschoolers.
Here's a little suggestion video. Are you Squidward or are you Spongebob?
But one thing about turning the big 6-0 next year is I notice the ebbs and flows of our society. Especially when it comes to my chosen professions. For now, we'll stick to the publishing industry.
There were friends who were so excited about getting a trad publishing deal, only to have shit happen around the time of their release. One gal's came out on the second Tuesday of September in 2001. Yep, 9/11. Tons of books, movies, and records that came out at that time were dead on arrival all over the United States.
Another friend's debut novel was supposed to come out on September 16, 2008. She had personal appearances lined up in books stores all over southeast Texas, especially the Houston metro area. Mother nature has other plans. Hurricane Ike made land fall on Galveston and ripped through Houston. Most of her books never made it to stores between flooding, road closures, no power, etc.
People in the business longer than me will be the first to tell you to expect a dip in sales during presidential election years if you publish/sell fiction in the U.S. Citizens pay more attention to politics major election years. That's been especially true over the last four presidential election years, and the obsession has already started for 2024.
Writers also forget about natural disasters. Hurricane Ike hasn't been the only problem. Then there's the man-made disasters like 9/11.
But the big wave writers have ignore is the COVID-19 pandemic. Sales shot up during lockdowns because readers could download ebooks and audiobooks or order paper books for delivery to their doorstep. But the surge wasn't going to be sustainable or permanent. Eventually, the lockdowns would end, and everyone around the world would return to their real lives.
I made my prediction based on the Spanish Influenza pandemic a century ago. It took our great-great-grandparents roughly three years to gain herd immunity from that devastating disease. I figured it would be roughly the same with COVID-19.
Sure enough, all the writers I know and a lot I didn't bitched about the drop in sales in 2023 when things opened again around the world. Folks could travel, not just to see family, but to hug them. Who on earth is going to read when they haven't been able hug someone they love.
So, the 2023 travel surge led straight into the current obsession over the 2024 presidential election. I don't expect a major uptick in my sales this year, so I'm using 2024 for experimentation with both writing and new sales outlets. If I fail at either, well, no one's really paying attention right now.
Goddess, I miss the days when Johnny Carson joked about President Ford's clumsiness.
The Oscar nominations came out yesterday with some very obvious snubs. The 2024 Academy Awards should have been a battle between Barbie and Oppenheimer. Instead, Barbie didn't get nominations for Best Director or Best Actress.
I'm looking at the list and thinking WTF?!
A lot of folks are outraged Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie didn't get nods for Best Director and Best Actress. The speculation is that they were dissed for being women. That may be so, but there are other factors involved.
First, the Academy rarely nominates movies that are super successful. There's a bias within the membership that a financially successful movie has no artistic merit. Which is total bullshit of course, but it's part of a trend in mentality between the so-called elite and hoi poloi.
Second, Barbie is based on a popular toy. It doesn't matter that the cast and crew used this toy to used to slice apart and comment the social and emotional inequality forming our culture that harms all genders. According to adults, the sheer existence of a toy isn't mature or serious enough to merit an award nomination.
In an ironic turn to America Ferrara's excellent monologue, Greta and Margot were deprived of Oscar noms for the very contradictions Gloria lists in her speech.
Maybe it does come down to Greta and Margot being women.
And that totally sucks.
However, America's speech totally netted her nomination as Best Supporting Actress. If you haven't seen the movie, here's her clip:
Maybe that's part of why I don't understand other writers' need for external validation. Maybe that's part of why I dislike writers and artists depending on AI.
And it goes back to trusting your muse.
I often refer to my Subconscious as my muse. And for her to do her magic, I need to sleep.
After the extra sleep post surgeries, the internal brain switch flicked into insomnia for the last week and a half. Which is as bad as oversleeping. *sigh*
However, I have done very little new writing since before Thanksgiving between re-editing the third volume of Millersburg Magick Mysteries and dealing with the eye surgeries.
And with the last couple of nights of normal 8-9 hours of sleep, Subconscious has been weaving her magick tapestry. I've woken up and immediately wanted to start on the stories she suggested. At least the ones I can legally write about. LOL But it's her hint that she's ready to get back to work.
So for me, doing the little things to protect the work include appropriate sleep, a working laptop. and never showing a story to anyone until it's done.
YMMV
You'd think with the advent of Amazon's Kindle and other indie publishing routes writers would trust their own instincts. But nope. Writers as a collective don't trust their own skills to write a good story, but we don't.
Instead of relishing our freedom under the new paradigm, we recreate the same psychological obstacles that had been inflicted on us through trad publishing.
Writing by committee has transformed from the publishing house editor and your agent to beta readers and book doctors. The problem is the writers using this method feel they need outside validation in order to succeed in this industry.
Under a similar outside validation need are reviews. Writer beg for reviews. However, those reviews, both good and bad, affect the writers in the worse ways. If the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, the writer stops learning and experimenting. They fear changing their style, but that style becomes stale over time, and they lose readers. Or if the writer receives bad reviews. they often quit doing something they loved, even become suicidal due to the perceived rejection.
No one likes everything, and a story won't be liked by everyone. Invariably every writer gets bad reviews. However, many of these reviews have nothing to do with the writer's actual work. In fact, reviews are often weaponized for a multitude of reasons, including jealousy and hatred.
Seriously, my favorite bad review of my own claimed I wrote anti-white, feminazi propaganda. And this was for a superhero story.You've got to laugh at people who take things so passionately the opposite of a work's intent.
I believe a lot of this need for outside validation stems from a fear of failure But outside assessments have nothing to do with a writer's success or failure. In the long run, using other people to review your work, whether prior to or after publication, is no guarantee of success, money, validation or whatever need isn't being met in the writer's soul.
Write what's in your heart, what entertains you, and/or the story you haven't seen in your that tickles your fancy. Most of all, enjoy the process.
Needless to say, Princess Bella does not mess around during her constitutional. Even wearing her winter coat, she races out to do her business and races back to the house. She's spent the entire weekend either curled up on DH's lap or tucked under my laptop in order to stay warm.
She still refuses to wear the matching boots I bought for her. We've been checking her feet to make sure there's no frostbite.
And I'm beginning to believe I was a bear or some other hibernating mammal in a previous life. My attempt to reset my internal clock over the weekend has not worked. DH had to wake me up in time for my beloved Steelers playoff game this afternoon. While we watch the game, the local Toldeo station is already display school closings and delays for tomorrow.
Yeah, tomorrow will be a good day for hot coffee/tea and writing.
When I am awake, I've got a load of household chores staked up thanks to the cataract surgeries. I'm slowly wrapping holiday packages and sending them out to friends and family. And putting things back in order now that GK and Grandpuppy are back home in Texas again.
Once this weekend's storm is over, I need to start setting my alarm and going to the local Starbucks in the mornings to write. It may mean sleeping the rest of the afternoon away, but it would let me be a little more productive.
I hope.
In the meantime, play it safe this weekend, folks. Stay home and stay warm while Winter Storm Gerri roars through the country. Few things are important enough to put your life and the lives of the first responders in danger.
Instead, make your favorite hot beverage, cuddle with your loved ones and/or furbabies, and watch something awesome. In our case, it will be the NFL payoff games.
Assuming I can stay awake.
I thought I'd get a ton of stuff done today since I was up at a reasonable time. Instead, the pups and I fell asleep. The pups until they had to pee. Me until eight p.m.
Yep, I slept the day away. *groan*
I think most of it was collective exhaustion. I've been running around to numerous doctors' appointments for the last month. Dropping off cars for maintenance and repairs and picking them up. Throw in family get-togethers once everyone was over their Christmas colds while the kids are still home for the holidays. And now that my eyes have healed enough, I've been FINALLY wrapping and delivering or shipping presents.
And it doesn't help that I've been trying to cut back on caffeine.
But I think my introverted self is developing a lower tolerance for being around people. These are people I like for crying out loud, not people I can't tolerate. I mean we had brunch with friends who may go out to Vegas with us for renewing our vows.
But tonight, it's just DH, GK, and me, and the guys were hungry by the time I woke up. So, we splurged tonight and got some pizza before we kicked back and watched a couple of episodes of Jeopardy. The guys are now playing PC games while I go through my snail mail and email.
And then, I'll definitely get some writing done. LOL
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1 The kids working at our local McDonald's get a kick out of me ordering an Egg McMuffin and telling them to substitute the Canadian bacon this way. I'm not a fan of smoked pork chop on my breakfast sandwich.
Why? Because I'm realizing how little time I still have on this planet. Watching family and friends lose their mobility sucks. And I realize I may have the same problems within the next twenty years, which doubly sucks.
For the past three weeks, DH has had to drive me everywhere. Even to Starbucks. I really don't like feeling helpless, but when I can't even go out and buy my own dang cup of peppermint, it feels even worse.
But today, I drove my car home from the shop after the new brakes were installed. And I felt the same power I felt when I got my very first apartment,
And it was a most excellent feeling!
What I needed to do was go back and re-read the last couple of chapters of the wips in order to remember where I'd left off back at Thanksgiving. I didn't get as much writing done on our vacation as I'd hoped. Before we left, DH was rather passe about what he wanted to do or see in Las Vegas. But when we got there...
He had something scheduled for every day. Or multiple things for a day. It was such a hectic schedule I ended up napping quite a bit in our car.
So it feels good and weird at the same time to be writing again.
I'm considering participating another challenge Dean Wesley Smith is running this year--2024 words per day for 2024. The buy-in is $600, which would light a fire under my butt. In theory, the challenge is totally doable. I just don't want to tempt the Great God Murphy into throwing another life roll at me,
2023 was pretty good because I was taking it easy. Or I was until I decided to do the Witchstarter at the last minute. Then, I ended up in a surgical bay with a laser cutting up my bad eye lenses.
I know the readers will be all for it. More books for them after all! But I want plenty of time to make sure the stories are good.
So, it's something to think about for the next two days before sign-ups close. For those writers who want to check out Dean's challenge, here's the details in his own words.
