I Have an Idea

Yesterday, my husband and I did some brainstorming on a new novel in the Hidden in Plain Sight world. I realized there is a ten-year gap between Avatar of the Maker and Carrying Light that would house at least one novel. I had one idea — there is a danger to the Garden.

Then I realized the Garden wouldn’t let anything happen to it, being the Garden and all. But what if someone were disrupting the collective? Not a preternatural matter, but human meddling? From there I got the idea of a conglomerate that wanted to buy the collective to harness its magic, not knowing what magic really meant. It didn’t take much to imagine underhanded methods on the part of a multinational health food corporation.

Somehow, I got the idea that the conglomerate would reach out using influencers, and the thought of corporate-sponsored influencers tickled my funny bone. My story idea turned into comedy, which I hadn’t counted on. What would the collective do to keep their home unspoiled by corporate America?

The collective would try to look normal, but things would slip. The cats would fly. The food forest would repel their guests. There would be strategic pauses as the Nephilim mindspoke each other. And the collective would gaslight their guests into thinking they imagined all that. Maybe Elaine would create illusions, or Allan would guest DJ and spin a mood-altering show. There’s nothing like nonstandard reality to plant doubt in someone’s mind.

I haven’t written a comedy for the Hidden in Plain Sight universe. Not to say I can’t write funny — I write funny for the Kringle Chronicles (the Christmas romance series). But this is a new twist for me. It’s going to take a lot of brainstorming before I can put the bones together on my outline.

The Power of “No”

How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?

I say “No” all the time. At work, there are many opportunities to do service for the University. I do some of these things, because service is part of my goals for the year. But I carefully choose my service to fit my goals.

For example, I do a couple Academic Showcases a year, where we talk to incoming students about the department’s majors and classes. These are not directly part of my goals, but they are service. To say “No” to things, I have to say “Yes” to things not quite fitting my goals to balance the work in my department.

On the other hand, I spend days in Hope exercises, where I do moulage (casualty simulation, turning volunteers into victims using makeup). I teach CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) classes in Disaster Psych. I do moulage for the annual Docudrama (drinking and driving simulation for high school students). These fit my goals.

There are other times I say “No”. Events that happen after my bedtime are “No” situations, because one of my goals is to get enough sleep. That goal is necessary for my mental health, so it’s high priority. I say “No” during certain busy times of the year. I don’t feel guilty saying “No” because I know my time is limited.

I think the ability to say “No” comes with age. I know that when I was younger, I said “No” a lot less often. I didn’t know my goals back then, and what goals I had were scattered. Strangely, I didn’t do as much for others when I was younger and said “Yes” all the time.

I think saying “No” is a very healthy thing and not at all selfish. It is more selfish resenting things and people outside oneself for asking for time.

Hidden in Plain Sight

I think I’m at the end of the Hidden in Plain Sight series, and that’s part of the reason I am facing writer’s block. I have been with that series for over ten years, and my involvement in that world has been extensive.

My books involve an ecocollective in the middle of Illinois, an experiment in living with a small carbon footprint, on a working farm, with principles of pacifism. But the place has secrets. A fight for humanity on its grounds. Two trees that give people inexplicable talents. Immortal beings and their long-lived offspring. Flying cats. Barn Swallows’ Dance is, necessarily, hidden in plain sight.

I have written seven books about the world. Gaia’s Hands introduces us to the collective and its miracle food forest, which grew up literally overnight with Jeanne Beaumont’s talent. Apocalypse pits the pacifists of Barn Swallows’ Dance against three immortals who want to end humanity. Reclaiming the Balance visits justice, as even the utopian collective falls into prejudice and discrimination. Avatar of the Maker involves a young adult who is called to stop a battle among immortals that could decimate the world. Carrying Light takes the reader to the edge of the riots that will ultimately bring down the United States, while Whose Hearts are Mountains explores the world on the other side of those battles. Finally, Hiding in Plain Sight features an early glimpse of the immortals as one of them falls in love with a human.

One of the important themes of the books is relationships. Not only the romantic ones, of which there are many — the 6000 year old linkage of Adam and Lilith, the odd couple Jeanne and Josh, the star-crossed lovers Alice and William — but the everyday relationships of the members of Barn Swallows’ Dance. The characters, and how they relate to each other, are important.

Barn Swallows’ Dance is almost itself a character. Part utopia, part cauldron of preternatural turmoil, it serves as a uniting principle of the stories. (Only the prequel, Hiding in Plain Sight, does not feature the collective).

This is the world I am leaving behind. It hurts, but I don’t know what else I can write in the series. Nothing is speaking to me. I feel like I have explored everyone’s stories.

What can I do to top this?

Trying to Get Back Into Writing

I’ve been gone for a little while. I am struggling with getting myself back into writing. Motivation is not there — I haven’t been writing on any books, either.

Part of it is lack of faith in my writing. That’s pretty normal for me. I go through that a lot of the time.

Part of it is a lack of ideas. I think I have written all I can in the Hidden in Plain Sight series, and I don’t write on the Christmas romances until it’s Christmas season. I have a novel and at least one short story sitting on my computer, but I don’t have any ideas for either. They’re all at an awkward place where I know where they have to go, I know how to get there, but there’s more spaces on the template that I don’t know how to fill. It’s like the novel should be a short story, and the short story should be a shorter story. But I know that wouldn’t do them justice. Like I said, a lack of ideas.

I still promote my writing on various channels. I have my Loomly (social media software) programmed through September. I don’t have much faith in their success, but I do have inertia.

The part of me that writes for the love of it is at a loss. The part of me that writes for recognition is burned out. Maybe it really is time for a break now.

A Simple Woman

Daily writing prompt

If there were a biography about you, what would the title be?

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“A Simple Woman” would be the name of my biography, with a little bit of irony and a bit of truth.

When I was younger, I was complicated. I have a history of childhood emotional and sexual abuse which led to untreated bipolar disorder, and I was a bit of a mess because of that. I didn’t always make great decisions, although I generally didn’t make disastrous ones. I was lucky that the drunk/stoned driver I got in the car with didn’t go off the road. I had lots of unrequited crushes. I made choices for boyfriends that didn’t bode well for marriage, and the first one I did marry betrayed me. I was considered by one friend as “the most stable person [he] knew”, which made me wonder who else he knew.

My life now is simple. I have done lots of therapy, am on good medication, and am living a more stable life than before. I’m married to the right person. My life now doesn’t make for a riveting story, and I’m grateful for that. I look at my past life, which bordered on scandalous, and I hardly recognize it now. How did I make those decisions?

I do sometimes think I was more interesting when I was younger, but maybe it was in a Chinese curse sense (“May you live in interesting times”). But I’d rather have this simple, stable life.

No Fate

Daily writing prompt

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

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I used to believe in destiny. When I was younger (in my 20s and 30s) I felt that certain relationships in my life were fated to be. These were dramatic relationships with equal parts elation and turmoil. In their time, each relationship was The One. Until they weren’t.

Nowadays, I think destiny was the artifact of bipolar disorder. When one is elated, one believes in destiny, a shining path toward a happy ending. One never gets the happy ending, because one is stretched to an irritable attenuation, and then goes skidding into depression. Destiny dissipates in depression.

Nowadays (with age and medication), I don’t believe in destiny. I don’t want to believe in destiny. It is a destabilizing influence. I would rather have this mundane life without destiny. I can read about destiny in books, where it is safely captured in the pages.

Coffee

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite drink?

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Photo by Pascal ud83dudcf7 on Pexels.com

Coffee is my favorite drink. I have been drinking it since I was a freshman in high school. I started drinking it because my mother and aunt would sit around at restaurants and drink coffee and talk for hours, and most restaurants did not give free refills on sodas. (Nowadays Americans get free refills on soda, which might explain how so many of us consume too much sugar.)

At home, my husband and I roast and grind our own coffee. We have the freshest coffee in town. We also have a high-end automatic drip pot which makes a rich brew. We are spoiled on coffee.

I drink less coffee than I used to, having lost some of my tolerance for caffeine since I lost 80 pounds. It is still my favorite drink; I just drink half-cups of the stuff. It caffeinates me just fine. I don’t like the feeling of being over-buzzed anymore, like I did when I was younger. No more double cappuccino — Turkish tea — Arabic coffee — more Turkish tea days for me (that was the day I finally had too much caffeine to drink in my youth).

So give me coffee in the morning.

Daily writing prompt

What were your parents doing at your age?

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This answer isn’t too exciting, but it explains why I want to be retired so badly. Both my parents retired at 62. My mother was seven years older than my dad, so she retired first from the Census Bureau, where she was a supervisor out of the Chicago area for ongoing surveys. (The Census Bureau does not just do the decennial census, but ongoing and occasional surveys like Current Population Studies and Health surveys). Mom retired to do things like cross-stitch projects until my dad caught up with her.

My dad retired from his job as an equipment installer at age 62. He worked at several different places over his career without ever moving from his job. He started at AT&T Long Lines, then Western Electric, then AT&T Technologies, then Lucent Technologies. “Work isn’t fun anymore,” he said, and then it was time for him to retire. The picture above is where my dad worked for many years when he wasn’t installing electronic switching equipment throughout the state.

My parents retired well together. They spent their time doing projects and traveling, usually taking several-day trips through the US. Occasionally they would visit me. My mother would decorate anything that didn’t run away fast enough at Christmas time. I credit some of their longevity to the fact that my mother was a night person, and my dad a morning person, so they had limited time to get on each other’s nerves.

My life is different. First, I will not get to retire till 67, which is when Social Security and Medicare come up for me. I have five years left to go. I don’t know how long I will live past then, because my mom died at 76 from cancer and I don’t know if I take after her. My dad died at 86, so maybe I take after him. We’ll see.

I just feel like I should be retired by now.

In Search of Great, Amazingly Fantastic News

Daily writing prompt

You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?

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I could use some great, amazingly fantastic news. My life has featured none of that for a few years. It’s been a time of bad news, starting with the presidential election a little over a year ago and continuing through my husband’s job loss. I’m not sure what I would do with great, amazingly fantastic news.

Yes, I do. The first thing I would do is contact my husband. I suspect that anyone getting news like that would share it with someone. My parents aren’t around anymore, so it would have to be my husband. I would probably message my husband rather than call him. Why? Because my hearing is bad enough that I don’t like phones:

“Guess what?”

“Mrrph.”

“What?”

“Mrrph.”

No, it’s not quite that bad, but it’s close.

If it’s great, amazingly fantastic news, I probably still wouldn’t be able to get off work, so we’d have to celebrate later.

I can’t even think of what would be news that good. I don’t buy lottery tickets; my job doesn’t have any advancement possibilities since I’m not going for full professor, and I can’t retire early because of the lack of health insurance. So this is not likely to happen to me. But I can pretend.

Hobbies I’ve Abandoned

Daily writing prompt

Are there any activities or hobbies you’ve outgrown or lost interest in over time?

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I lose interest in hobbies all the time. Usually, after a near-obsessive interest in them and buying plenty of supplies. For example, scrapbooking. I was going to scrapbook my wedding. And I did, until I got married, and then I never finished it. It’s been almost 20 years, and I am not done yet. It’s all sitting in a box somewhere. I discovered that I don’t know how to lay things out on a page so they look interesting.

And then there’s gardening. I am quite interested in gardening until I actually plant something, and then I forget to weed. I’ve even gone so far as to start seedlings in my basement, many many seedlings. I can’t find them in the garden by the end of the season.

It’s embarassing how many hobbies I’ve abandoned over the years. Breadmaking (I had two sourdoughs that were healthy during COVID) and fountain pens (they’re all sitting in a case) and sewing (I never had the coordination for that).

Writing is the only hobby I’ve maintained over the years. Even when I get tired of it, I persevere. I finished my problem novel the other day and immediately went to edit it. (I will put it back into the drawer to get some perspective, I promise.) Writing feels like a hobby I can actually accomplish.