Category Archives: Life

The voices in my head

By Life, Writing

An example of how I can’t shut up my brain:

I’m working on a freelance copyediting job (great writer; love her work), but a part of my brain drifts over to the assignment for the SF Workshop that I have to write today. First 500 words of a story, all five senses. We’ve been give the character name, the setting (spaceship), and the problem (jammed or locked door). I’ve already made a couple of notes.

But now my brain starts…hm, how to explain. Some stories come to me as voices in my head. Seriously. My novel What Beck’ning Ghost started because two characters kept having these weird threatening conversations in my head, and I was all, who the fuck are these guys and what are these creepy things they’re talking about? (These conversations do appear in the book, BTW.)

With this story, it’s in first person, and it’s YA so she’s voice-y, and so I’m hearing her voice in my head (even as I’m copyediting), and she says something off-hand, and a moment later that little detail snaps into focus and I know the whole story and the last line and it’s freaking me out because it’s now SF horror.

It’s all I can do not to drop everything and write the whole story. But I have to get this job done by tomorrow, and I have to finish my Winter Witches story first, and…

Oh, I wonder if the story I uploaded last night has processed through all the sites so I can post about it?

Oh, look, a chicken!

Right, copyediting…that’s what I’m doing…

Want to chat about this post? Join me on Facebook or Twitter.

O, my silly brain

By Life, Writing

As you know (Bobs), I’m a founding member of the Uncollected Anthology series, which is a collective of writers who are writing urban fantasy stories about agreed-upon themes and releasing them simultaneously (hence the “uncollected” and yet “anthology”).

When we first sat down to hammer out the details of this vague idea I had (which was something along the lines of, I have these nifty anthology ideas and I love these urban fantasy authors, so how do I connect the two?), we came up with the first four themes: Magical Motorcycles, Winter Witches, Heartspells, and Portals and Passageways. (There are more themes, but these are the ones we agreed on for the first four issues.)

But my brain keeps trying to mash them together. For example, my Magical Motorcycles story, “The Madness of Survival,” takes place largely on the Winter Solstice, the time period of Winter Witches. And my Winter Witches story, which I haven’t actually started yet even though it’s due soon, wants to hinge around the concept of a Solstice Gate, which sounds like a Portals and Passageways story to me. But there’s also a winter-blooming rose, which the protagonist has to get from the heir to another magical family—which could nudge its way into a romance…Heartspells, anyone?

And, boom, suddenly I want to combine the Solstice Gate and the winter rose into a freaking novel.

And now I have the hiccups. Please tell me this isn’t all related somehow.

The Caffeine Report

By Life,

I’ve been under the weather for the past couple weeks—nothing major*; more annoyance and discomfort and energy-sapping than anything else.** After about a week, I started cutting various things out of my diet to see if that would help the problems.

[Redacted rambly paragraph about the cost of food and the exhaustion of meal planning and shopping on a limited budget.]

I gave up caffeine, mostly gave up alcohol (annoyingly, wine actually helped one of my symptoms, although I knew it was exacerbating other ones. So conflicted…), and was pondering giving up dairy (although yogurt probably helps things). I thought some of what was going on was being triggered by food, so…

I did an experiment this morning, and determined that no, it didn’t seem to be triggered by food, at least not in the way I was assuming. So after 8 days without caffeine, I decided to have a cup of tea.

And let me tell you, it was glorious.

The thing I missed most was the ritual of making tea. It’s comforting, somehow; the electric kettle boiling, the pouring over the tea bag or strainer, the steeping, the milk. The warmth of the cup (my Styx mug! Thank you again, Anwyn and Cathy!) cradled in my hands, the smell of the tea. I drank mint tisane when I was eschewing tea (mint is, after all, calming to the stomach) but it just wasn’t the same.

Then…whee! The caffeine hit me.

Even though I’ve been trying to get 8-9 hours of sleep (after months of getting 6-7 hours), I’m constantly tired. I even sometimes wake up before a full night’s sleep (I put that down to the stress). Afternoons are the worst, because I’m a failure at napping, even though I try. (Latest stats: 6-8 minutes before I give up in disgust and despair.) That first cup of tea this afternoon, even though I was still tired, I was…alert for the first time in ages. Awake. My mood improved. I had more focus. Instead of looking at my To Do list and feeling like weeping, I just picked the next thing and did it, and felt good about it.

The second cup of tea, man, that sent me buzzing.

I’m still not feeling 100%, but at least I know I can drink tea again. And thank the gods for that, because maybe I can feel like a functioning, useful adult again.

—
*Well, except for a several-day bout of sciatica that was not only painful, but dredged up a whole bunch of emotional shit that I’ve shoved in a deep, dark corner of my psyche because I don’t want to deal with it. That sucked almost as much as the pain. Thankfully it took one trip to the chiropractor to solve the problem, although it reminded me that I need to get my ass out of the computer chair with greater frequency. And reminded me that regular chiro visits are a necessity, when I can afford them again. However, I did learn that half an expired muscle relaxant is enough to make me adorably loopy. (They were prescribed to me, and I took them only for a couple days. I don’t actually like being loopy, adorably or otherwise.)

**If anyone really wants more detail, feel free to contact me privately. But I swear, it’s really not all that interesting.

Want to chat about this post? Join me on Facebook or Twitter.

Brain weasels and cosmic two-by-fours

By Life, Writing, , ,

Recently I’ve been struggling with what my friend Lisa calls “brain weasels”: those insidious negative thoughts that chew on your brain and make it near-impossible to feel good about yourself or (in my case, at least) get anything done.

Because I’m an idiot sometimes (I’m saying that in an affectionate way, mind you, not in a brain weasely way), I occasionally forget what works for me and stop doing it. For example, I’ve been reading Julia Cameron for years, but only in the last year or so actually tried doing morning pages, and they did help focus my goals and intentions for the day. Then I stopped. Why? I have no freaking clue.

A few days ago I started a new habit, which is to read a book on writing or creativity or some other nonfiction in that vein, while I eat breakfast. This has so many advantages over watching HGTV or reading fiction* or a random magazine, I can’t even begin.

I’ve been dipping in and out of an amazing book for writers and other creative types who want to make a living at their art for some time: Managing Your Inner Artist/Writer, by my friend Matt Buchman (he writes award-winning romance and teaches on many subjects). In it, Matt talks about setting goals (as opposed to having dreams, which are also important but not in your direct control). I’ve written down my goals (and dreams) before, but this morning I realized it was a good time to do it again.

Cosmic Two-by-Four #1: Writing things down makes them real. I know this about To Do lists, but forgot it when it comes to really thinking through what I want and need to do, and making that intent real but writing it down.

I wrote down both goals and dreams (and moved some goals to dreams because I realized I wasn’t quantifying them properly, although that was because I’m already in the middle of doing them). The goals are do-able if I apply myself. Some of the dreams are pretty achievable if I stick to my goals; some of them are outrageous ones that hell, could happen, but certainly not if I don’t apply myself, and even if I do. But if you don’t dream it, I believe you’ll never achieve it.

And then, for some reason, I got hit with the second revelation, which was powerful enough that I grabbed a second sheet of paper because it needed to stand on its own.

Cosmic Two-by-Four #2: Every time you compare yourself to someone else and feel like a fraud**, remember that there are people who look up to you and are trying to get to your level. Be the person they think you are.

Despite my revelations, I’ve still been pharting around this morning, so I’m’a gonna post this and actually look at getting some work done. You know, those there goals!

—

*Reading fiction is essential for writers. But reading fiction first thing in the morning for me results in hours lost in the book. If I look up, blinking in confusion at the real world, four hours later, that’s…not the kind of productive day I was planning to have.

**This was the first time I identified my feelings of inadequacy as feeling like a fraud. Possibly this is Cosmic Two-by-Four #3—and it’s definitely something I need to consider further.

Dancing with wolves!

By Life

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to spend my birthday this year. I usually try to do something fun, have a new experience (visiting meerkats, going to an aquarium, spending a romantic weekend in Solvang with bonus! Edible Arrangement to share with everyone at an SCA event), but there were two strikes against this. One, I’d wanted to take the weekend off, but I was behind on several work projects, which meant I’d have to do some work on Saturday. Two, money is super-tight right now. I don’t think we even celebrated Ken’s birthday last year, so I couldn’t justify spending money on mine.

Friday evening, I wandered downstairs and Ken showed me a video, and it blew me away.

Watch it, please. It’s short, it has gorgeous nature (Yellowstone! wolves! birds! rivers! trees!), and it’s important.

While I was still processing this amazing video, Ken told me that he’d just found out a local motorcycle group was riding to a wolf educational place on Sunday, my birthday.

I waffled, because, well, money, but Saturday morning my birthday card from my mom arrived (and it made me laugh and laugh), which included my birthday check. I’m supposed to use the money for something I want, not something for the house or to pay a bill. (In other words, dinner at a nice restaurant we’ve been wanting to try is good, using it for groceries is bad.)

Well, that settled that! Thanks, Mom!

So today we got up stupidly early (for me, anyway), and we met up with other bikers…

DSC00201

DSC00202 crop And went through twisty fun canyons to the historic Rock Inn for lunch…

DSC00204

DSC00203

And then we went to the Shadowland Foundation, where this rose smelled really good…

DSC00211

And then we met wolves!

DSC00219

Are you going to feed us?

DSC00224

Yes, we are going to feed you! (Note: wolf slobber is like getting your hand slimed.)

DSC00227 crop

Cochise, mugging for the camera.

DSC00233

Chenoa, I believe

DSC00243

Ogin and Chenoa, I believe

DSC00244

Ogin and Keme, I believe

Things I learned about wolves:

  • They don’t smell like dogs! They really don’t smell much at all. I like wolves a lot better now on a personal level (I’ve always liked them on a theoretical level, of course). (I’m afraid I find dogs really stinky.)
  • The way to tell a wolf from a dog is wolves have golden eyes. If someone tells you they own a wolf and the animal has brown or blue eyes, it might have some wolf in it, but it ain’t a wolf.
  • Wolves have no interest in eating people. The evil people-eating wolf legend has been around for centuries, though. (Big Bad Wolf, anybody? Little Red Riding Hood?)
  • They have 27 (I think) different tail positions, all of which communicate information to other wolves.

There’s more, of course, but even though it was stuff I didn’t know before, it’s possible everybody knows but me.

After that we rode off to see the poppies blooming, but it was getting hot, so I didn’t take any pictures. In fact, I commented that I was the bus from Speed: every time we slowed down, I started to overheat. (And, one presumes, eventually I would explode.) So if you want more poppies, follow the link.

We rode back on our own through a different twisty canyon, which kept things cool enough, but by the time we hit flat highway, it was hot again. As in, Dayle is Shutting Down hot. So we stopped at Yanni’s in Filmore for milkshakes, which helped (although even a small milkshake is too much sugar for me, so I didn’t finish it), and lots of water, which helped even more, and thus we were fortified for the short rest of the ride home.

Now Ken’s napping and I’ve just finished a cup of tea (so I might not need to nap), and I have no idea how we’ll spend the evening. Maybe watching a DVD from Netflix that’s been sitting on the coffee table for a couple of months. Last night we finished rewatching season 1 of Veronica Mars, so we may dive into season 2, plus we’d been rewatching Doctor Who (“modern” series) and trailed off somewhere in the first season of 10 and Donna, which is my favorite pairing.

What I really want to do is get off the Internet (I’ve found it’s restful and yet invigorating to eschew social media around my birthday), so I’m-a gonna post this and go read the really good book I’ve been reading. Or maybe I’ll write for a bit, because I feel like writing.  🙂

At the End of a Perfect Day

By Life, Publishing, Writing

Sunday, I had what came pretty close to a perfect day. A truly happy day.

But let me backtrack. For the last week plus, Ken has been out of town. He flew to Atlanta, spent a day helping out a friend of mine with some work that needed doing on her house, then headed off to be there for my niece and my sister. After that, he drove my mom home (she winters in South Carolina, and had drive from there to Atlanta) and then took care of stuff in upstate NY, like getting her brakes fixed, getting her set up with real Internet (she’d been on dial-up up ‘til now), defrosting her fridge, etc.

Yeah, he’s awesome like that.  🙂

The plan was that he’d fly from there (well, from Burlington, VT, because the local airport is tiny and flying from there can be crazy-expensive) to Oregon last Friday, where he’d do the last few tweaks on a motorcycle he was rehabbing, pop in to a work customer, and then sometime during this week ride the bike home in preparation for selling it.

Except, on Friday, he got to Burlington and they blinked in confusion and told him that his flight to JFK had been delayed such that he not only couldn’t make his connection to Portland, but the next flight to Portland available was Monday.

And he said, screw that, I’m going home. So Saturday evening, I got to pick him up from the airport, and after a stop at our favorite hole-in-the-wall Thai place on the way (amazing food, amazingly cheap), I got to bring him home.

He crashed pretty much as soon as we got home (jet lag, etc.) and so got up before me on Sunday, which meant Grimoire didn’t stomp all over the bed crying for me to get up and feed him at o’dark early (which he does even though there may be food in his bowl downstairs , because I don’t know WTF). So when I got up on Sunday, after a rare night of full sleep, I went down and found him in the TV room and cried “You’re here! It wasn’t a dream!”

‘Cause, yeah, I miss the shit out of him when he’s away, y’know?

So we had breakfast and whatnot, and I did some admin work, and then I headed off to Thousand Oaks to hook up with the most wonderful Christine, and there was hugging and squees and eating and gabbing and even a little writing. She gave me a lavender plant for my birthday, and I vowed not to kill this one.  😉  I mostly brainstormed and researched for an anthology story, and ended up with two ideas, both of which I’ll probably write.

I stopped at Trader Joe’s for a couple of things on the way home, and when I got home, Ken and I threw the water bottles in the car for refilling. But first we went for a long and glorious walk on the beach. Talk about refilling the well.

Once home again, I finished up a copyediting job and sent it off, and prepped the next job, and set up my schedule for the coming week.

Of course, the best laid plans, and all that. (Cue Eddie Izzard and mice plans.) Ken and I had dinner and watched some TV, and I think I got to bed around 1 am, and then at 5 am Grimoire decided to yark on the bed and floor, which involved Ken cleaning up while I went downstairs to get yet another comforter (this is the second time in a couple of days that we’ve had cat puke on the bed, hurrah. I think his new food isn’t agreeing with him). I didn’t sleep well after that, and spent most of yesterday in a brain fog.

Thankfully it was an admin day for me, which takes a different sort of brain power than writing, so I managed to muddle through. Although republishing 10 short stories and 2 collections (more on that soon) meant my right hand and arm were kinda sore by the end of the day. Unfortunately, all of this also meant I didn’t get to the new copyediting job…

With this job, I have three CE jobs back-to-back, which means none of them can slip more than a day. This coming weekend is my birthday, and I’d hoped to take the weekend off (Friday night through Sunday night), but now that’s looking less likely. I’ll see how the week progresses and how efficiently I’m working through my scheduled projects (two novels, a couple short stories, the CE job, etc.), and reevaluate towards the end of the week.

Phew! At least I had trouble sleeping again this morning, so I was up an hour and a half before the alarm, and I’ve done some more publishing work, and now I’m going to…write, I think.

Let me leave you with the song has been going through my head the past couple of days: Chris deBurgh’s “At the End of a Perfect Day.”  🙂