Category: Thoughts on Writing

Posted on by — Leave a comment

love what you do, do what you love

Every story I write, there comes a time somewhere in the writing or editing (or both) where I decide the whole plotline sucks, when I’m ready to chuck the whole thing and give up writing forever. Every single time. Sometimes at multiple points in the journey from concept to published story.

I’ve recently hit this again on The Blood Witch. I’ve pulled the complete set of stories together so I can work through some continuity issues and plug some plot holes, and as I’m reading/editing to weave pieces together, I hit a point that I’m sure it sucks.

Fortunately, having been here before, I know to step back and stop until I’ve sorted through what in the plot is bugging me. Always, when I remember to do this, I come back after a few days of rumination and I re-find my love of the story.

And, Readers, I do love this story so much! I love the characters. I love the way the plots of each of the three books is different, and takes us new places. I love my MC’s voice, which is important since she is telling the story. I love getting to play with mythology and mythical creatures.

I’m not sure of the ending just yet, but I’m getting there. And really, getting there is the better part anyway!

Okay, off to prep for a meeting for the day job. And maybe more coffee. Coffee is life!

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

about time

We’re almost to the end of June already! Is it just me, or does it feel like we’re barreling through this year at breakneck speed? Are we making up for the dragging pace of last year? Are we trying to outrun the virus?

Time is such an odd thing at times. It messes with my head!

How is it that the week can be dragging and speeding at the same time? Like yesterday and Tuesday seemed to go on forever and ever, and yet today feels like it should only be Tuesday.

Life is crazy busy at this time of year, though this year, without SF Pride eating up a chunk of my time, it’s not quite as busy as usual. I guess that contributes to the strangeness of time these days.

My big work project eats up a lot of time during the day, and I have writing time and editing on the Sirens anthology, and I have a crochet project I need to finish.

Speaking of which, I should pour that last cup of coffee and get back to the day job. Happy Thursday, Readers! Make it a good one!

Posted on by — Leave a comment

technically speaking

In my day job, I write technical documentation. Well, that’s what the job description says anyway. A good chunk of what I actually do is editing, formatting and coding, and organizing information. To be fair, I get to do a decent amount of actual writing, especially when we’re getting ready to release new features.

I also spend a lot of time researching APIs, and documenting the attributes our software will be ingesting and making available (we’re a data technology company). Some weeks it feels like all I do is this part of the job.

Sometimes though, I get to wrap my hands around a nice juicy project like a complete docs redesign/reorganization. This week I am just wrapping up one of those. There is something so satisfying about pushing that Publish button at the end of something this large.

Of course, most of our users will never know the amount of work that goes into something like this, and only a few of my coworkers (mostly other writers) will get it either. But that’s okay. I don’t need recognition for these things. If I’ve done my job well, my reward comes in the form of no one reporting broken links or missing information.

I push that Publish button tomorrow on the last piece of this project tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have a little celebration on my own after, then I get to spend my weekend writing non-technical stuff again.

It’s not a bad way to live.

Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

tear stained alleys and sun drenched fields

Sometimes, when I feel stuck working on a book, I’ll sidestep to a short story or some poetry. Sometimes into one of the other books in some state of written languishing on my hard drive. This last week, I’ve been wading into the poetry waters again.

I have a deep and abiding love for poetry. I can spend hours on a single line some times, working and reworking it until it’s perfect. Other times the words just drip straight out of my soul and stain the page permanently.

I have an entire bin full of pages of poetry, some dating all the way back to the 1980s. And sure, some of it is truly suctackular, but I never do seem to be capable of throwing it out. Each piece is a part of who I am, or who I used to be.

If you were to lay it all out in chronological order, you’d be able to watch me grow up, follow me from the angsty teen years to the angsty adult years, hear the changes in my voice as I got to really know myself. It’s almost a biography in poetry, if you will. My life story told in emotions and ideas, images painted with words.

This past weekend I spent some time immersed in those paintings, wandering down tear stained alleys and into sun drenched fields, gathering wildflowers before carefully putting the past back to bed.

Soon, I hope to be able to share with you what I found.

Until then, Readers, it is time for more coffee and the day job.

Photo by Mike Tinnion on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

poetic license

Because I’m not already in the middle of writing a trilogy, editing an anthology, working a day job and attempting to keep my head above water, I seem to have decided to work on a poetry collection.

I’ve always loved poetry, and though I know that poetry doesn’t really sell. Selling isn’t the point, I think, when it comes to poetry.

Poetry is expression. It is capturing a moment in time. It is reaching into the air and grasping words to pull back and put on paper.

The best poetry pulls the reader into it, fills them with the emotion, touches them.

You can find some of my poetry on my poetry blog.

I hope you are all well, Readers, and that they day gifts you kindness.

Photo by Trust “Tru” Katsande on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

thinky thoughts Thursday

I have had a number of thinky thoughts swirling in my head this week, ranging from ideas about gardening as a metaphor for living to notions about gun control, the medical industry, the fact that medicine IS an industry, the right to live, transgender children and so much more.

None of them have tumbled out whole yet though, so maybe I’ll just swirl them around a bit more.

While I do that, lets do a little navel gazing, shall we?

As an author, I like to pay attention to things being said in the world of books, from buzz about new or upcoming releases, new authors making their debut, books that are “banned” or panned or otherwise talked about.

And, as a fairly liberal minded soul seeking genuine equality/equity, but also understanding that we continue to evolve as a society, I am open to reinterpreting old ways to eliminate or preface things that we now see as troubling or problematic.

So, I support Disney prefacing movies with notes about the climate in which they were created, and not letting children just consume a movie that might have problematic content without engaging parents in the conversation.

And I support a publisher’s decision to pull books from publication due to problematic/racist depictions, even if the author is much beloved. As we have seen a lot in recent years, even people who we adore are not perfect.

So, it is with Dr. Seuss. He wasn’t the perfect children’s author we want him to be. He was a man of his times, and those times and his beliefs colored the work he did. The books that his estate has chosen to stop publishing are still available, if you can find them. They never were big hits, so I imagine even before they stopped producing them they were not easy to locate.

We do have to face the dilemma of what to do with problem people when we love their work, but can not abide something about them. How do you separate the love of all things Harry Potter and the anti-trans stance of the author? How do you continue to hold on to the love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when you discover that the creator is an abusive asshole? How do you hold onto childhood memories with affection when you discover that Dr. Seuss, Laura Ingalls Wilder and others were racist?

I guess that’s something we each have to decide for ourselves.

Photo by Juan Rumimpunu on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

of noise and static

I’m that person who has trouble focusing on a single task at a time. I grew up with the need to be in constant motion, to always be doing something and “sitting” didn’t count as “something”. Even in high school, I had to have music or the television playing in order to focus my brain on my homework.

Today, I use a lot of documentaries to occupy that space in my mind while I work. When I write, there’s usually music playing, unless I’m writing poetry. That’s about the only thing I think I need silence for. Sometimes the music I play while writing is driven by what I’m writing.

For example, while working on the first book in the Blood Witch trilogy, I listened to a bunch of baroque music, driven by the fact that one of my characters was into that sort of sound. When working on Forever, there was a playlist that wound itself through time, like Amara did, starting with some tribal beats and working up through history.

Book 2 in the Blood Witch series didn’t have a decided playlist, it kind of moved around songs in my library and I’d just skip songs that didn’t fit what I was writing. As I’m working on Book 3, I’m having trouble finding the musical flow. The story is set in a culture roughly equating to 1880 London, but the music of the time is not resonating with the story telling.

Somewhat more effective is a random playlist of “sound” rather than set music. Think atmospheric, not quite meditative kind of sound. Lots of long single notes and gentle waves of sound. It also helps when I have a headache, like this morning.

My coffee is getting cold, and I have words to wrestle into place, so happy Sunday, Readers. May it be filled with kindness.

Cover Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Posted on by — 2 Comments

the problem with heroes

More and more, I’ve been challenged by those I once admired, the people I found talented and intelligent and provided me with entertainment. I don’t need everyone to agree with my personal opinions, but when their “opinions” prove to be problematic…when they are not so much about what they believe, but about human beings, about treating people like human beings, when their behavior shows me that they are not good people, it throws me into a whirlwind of emotions.

I always have trouble separating the hateful ways they speak and behave from their characters or their creations. For some actors I have completely written them off and I can’t watch anything of theirs. Kevin Spacey and Adam Baldwin are two that come to mind.

Recently we’ve learned things about others that have me in the same mind-frame. Gina Carano falls into this category for me. J.K. Rowling is another. And most recently, Joss Whedon. These last two were harder hitting for me, because they are not actors. They are not people who I can just say, they suck and I won’t watch their work anymore.

Why?

Because both have created worlds that stand without them now. Worlds that live inside me, if you know what I mean. While I was older than the target audience for Buffy, there was something about it that spoke to a deep need inside of me. It went beyond “girl power” or the teenage angst. It had to do with the personal relationships, the characters who were more than just caricatures of high school kids and the relationships built on shared experience.

There was something about watching the “kids” grow up, seeing friendships grow and change that felt real to me. To this day, I re-watch the entire show every few years.

To find out now about the way Joss treated women, despite his public stance about writing strong women, is heartbreaking. The same kind of heartbreak that came when Rowling started being anti-trans.

I could let that heartbreak tarnish the things they created, the things that comfort me and bring me joy. Or I can divorce them from those things. I can relegate them to the side of things where I no longer spend money on what they create, where I no longer interact with anything new they create, where I do my part to ensure that the people who might pay them for things know that their audience is reduced due to their behavior.

But what I won’t do? I won’t let them steal the things that Buffy or Harry Potter mean to me. They live on beyond the bad actions of those who created them. The characters, and the actors who embody them, live outside of that world now.

The problem with heroes is that all too often we forget that, like us, they are human beings. Fallible. Filled with contradictions. Capable of good and bad. And just because they do something that we like doesn’t mean that they are perfect or worthy of adulation.

It isn’t cancel culture to hold people accountable for the things that they do and the things that they say. In fact, I think that what it is, is a sign that society is maturing to a degree. We’ve learned. We’re changing for the better (I hope)…and that growth is not going to be easy, and we will have to keep fighting and keep the growth safe against the backlash of the dying society we want to leave behind and their death-flails.

We need to come to a place of true equality, and equity for all, without regard to their gender, their physical sex, their skin color, their religion or their sexuality. Part of getting there is necessarily letting those who won’t join the journey fall to the wayside.

Love what you love, Readers, and keep growing past those who hate and mistreat others.

Posted on by — 1 Comment

of confidence and validation

I don’t know that I can pinpoint an exact catalyst for becoming a writer. It seems that I’ve been creating and telling stories my whole life. I do know that the idea that I could write actual books with my name on the covers came in my teens.

It didn’t start with books, obviously. First came poetry. Oh my, was it some terrible poetry! It was trite and sappy or it was trite and dark. I guess it was the primary outlet of my teenage angst.

From there, I dipped my toe into the ocean of short story writing. I was at least marginally better at that, as it was essentially what I’d already been doing without actually writing stuff down.

It was inevitable, however, that I would turn to full length novels. I wrote my first one longhand on notebook pages. It was awful. It was derivative of every movie I had ever seen and every book I had ever read and I tried to cram so very much plot into it that there were inevitably huge holes and forgotten lines. My characters were either stereotypes or wooden.

Still, this is the book that bit me. I let friends read it, and, friends being friends, they all loved it and clamored for more. It was my freshman year of high school, and my notebooks and pages got handed around school.

I got my first typewriter for Christmas that year. I banged away at that thing every single day for hours at a time. First, I typed up that first book. Then I got started on a sequel. During my sophomore year of high school, I would type up around ten pages or so each night. Those pages got clipped together and numbered, because in the morning I was passing the “chapters” around to those who were reading it, and I gathered them back together again at the end of the day.

It was my first real taste of what it was like to write for an audience. I still have some of those stories around here somewhere. That second was still awful, but it was awful in completely different ways than the first, so that was progress I suppose.

Today I’m still fairly sure some of my writing is awful and I struggle with imposter syndrome a great deal (as I’m sure all writers do at some point), but I try to hold onto the confidence of that teenager, handing out pages to her peers in search of any scrap of validation and the confirmation that this is what I was meant to be.

Happy Friday, Readers! I hope you have a grand weekend.

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

Posted on by — Leave a comment

the state of Thána

I finished a first edit pass on the second Blood Witch book not too long ago and have set it aside to start the third book. The idea for the third book came to me a few months ago, and has been building for a while.

I continue to love these characters with every fiber of my being!

Thána is like me in ways Amara never could have been. Writing in the first person allows me to immerse myself into the character. When I’m writing, I can lose myself in the narrative and shape the worlds she moves through.

Each book moves Thána into a new realm with new challenges and new characters to meet. Usually, when I start a new book, I have the basics of the world and an overarching view of the plot, though the details don’t ever come until I’m actually writing. My characters can surprise me, and often do.

I prefer to write straight through, making notes on things I will need to go back to add in or change, rather than stopping where a new plot point arrives and immediately build it in. So I usually have a file open with the story, one with notes and in the case of these books, one with spells and foreign words I use in the stories.

Then, when the zero draft is done, I take those notes, go back to the beginning and work all of those things into the bones. That’s what I consider my first edit pass. Then I usually put it away and work on something else…the next book or something new.

I give it at least a few weeks before I go back to edit again, focusing on smoothing out dialog, fleshing out descriptions, filling in scenes, etc. My third edit pass, I actually read the whole thing out loud to myself. This serves to point out missing words, clunky dialog and repetitive words.

But, for now, it’s time for the day job where I get to write other fun things! Have a great day, Readers!

Cover Photo by Dan Counsell on Unsplash