Time to Face my Existential Crisis

Officially done with Spring semester!

This past week was everything a finals week could be: Students missing finals because I told them the wrong time, students sleeping in, potential academic dishonesty (it wasn’t), a good annual review, a lovely lunch with my colleagues, plants coming into the mail to remind me that there will be gardens … a great finals week.

Now for the existential crisis

I can’t postpone my confrontation with my writing any longer. I make excuses: I have to make a batch of bokashi to raise my compost game. After the semester, I should take a break.

No, it’s going to happen now. I’m going to confront my feelings about writing right here and now.

Artwork by Edvard Munch by The Art Institute of Chicago is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Who I am as a writer

This is the first issue for me as a writer: who I am. I write fantasy with some relationship elements. I write fantasy romance.

Most of what I have let out to the public, however (as opposed to most of what I’ve written) is the fantasy romance Kringle Chronicles. Those books are fun, relaxing, and put me in the holiday mood.

The problem is that I am not a romance writer. I have hung out with romance writers, and they talk about (in harmony) things I do not at all want to read or write: alpha males, shape-shifters, explicit sex scenes (I’m not anti-sex, I’m anti-unrealistic-sex), BDSM, and just everything over the top.

It’s about fantasies. And I can fantasize a lot about things, to where I’ve had my writing considered very original, but I want my relationships to be reasonably, well, healthy. I want my readers to think about the possible.

And this is where the crisis starts

We writers are told to write from the heart. My heart, whether in fantasy or romance, wants the people to be real and complex. In my fantasies, we have realistic characters thrown into fantastic situations. In my romance, same thing, except that the developing relationship is the primary plot point.

And I’m not sure what I’m doing sells. People apparently want alpha werewolves who are deadly but just and protective toward their mate, who until they showed up was the bullied and rejected waif (this is the synopsis of about 14 novels advertised to me on Facebook).

The crisis is that I can’t write this.

I write with the attitude that the alpha werewolf and the beleaguered waif don’t need a story. They’ve had a story for millennia. If I’m going to write Cinderella, I’m going to write it in a way that someone hasn’t done before — Cinderella is a librarian who has nothing but hard work and her garden, until a mysterious neighbor named Dane Prince sweeps her off her feet — but then she has to save him from the land of Faerie. (Actually, I am writing that story — it’s one story I’ve taken a break from).

But that’s the lingering feeling. I don’t know if the world needs my stories. I don’t know if I care about that, if my stories are good. If I found out that my stories nourished people, but the stories that sold were popcorn stories, I would want to keep writing nourishing stories.

But I don’t even know if my stories are nourishing, because I’ve had trouble selling them.

Which brings me to the other thing: marketing

I don’t sell books because I am terrible at marketing. I am terrible at bringing myself to carry out the strategies of marketing and pretty bad at the strategies themselves. Post on Twitter 12x/day? Write an interesting newsletter? An eye-catching visual on Instagram? Heaven forbid, a video on Tik tok?

Again, I write what my heart tells me to, and I’m afraid it’s boring.

What it boils down to

I know what this boils down to: I think too much, and more than anything, I think I’m boring. If anyone has a solution to that, let me know.

Working toward writing

Looking at an outline

I have progressed as far as looking at my outline and making minor notes — mostly wrong names. I’m trying to figure out when Leah gets pregnant, because that’s a dramatic beat. Leah should get pregnant at a place where tension increases, because that’s how this is done.

I need to decide to build this story into a Save the Cat framework and move things as needed. By a Save the Cat format, I mean a story structure that walks the writer through a build-up, a tension state, the climax, and the aftermath. But I feel so much torpor, much dragging of feet. I need a good session with my husband and plenty of coffee or tea (or coffee and tea).

Camp NaNoWriMo

I hope to motivate myself to write through Camp NaNoWriMo in April. I won’t get the story done, but I will get it started. Maybe I’ll fall in love with my characters and find the energy to write the story. I hope.

Wish me luck!

Editing

I edited yesterday!

I looked at the chapters so far for unknown title (formerly God’s Seeds) through ProWritingAid to acquaint myself with what I’d already written and to fix my idiosyncratic style before proceeding.

It went well. I got rid of all of those unusual dialog tags I excel at. The problem is, I don’t know where to do from there. It’s not like I’m pantsing, where I am making things up as I go along. No, I have an outline, but it’s so long since I’ve touched it I don’t know where to go with it.

I need my assistant (husband Richard) to help me sort this. But he’s sacked out on the bed.

Sigh.

On Vacation

Writing time

I’ve got all the time in the world (at least this week) and a nicely set up office. It’s time to write.

Except that I feel overwhelmed by the writing task ahead of me — start writing on a book I started and did not finish. That is less daunting than starting a new one right now.

My writing partner just showed up:

This is Chloe, by the way. Our youngest cat and my shadow. At the moment, she’s laying in a sunbeam in the office. Eventually, she will climb up into my lap, making typing all but impossible. Some writing partner, eh?

Another cat came to keep me company:

This is Girlie-Girl; she’s a fourteen-year-old, and she’s about as grouchy as you can imagine. Right now, both are rather sedate, but I don’t expect that to last long. Not much writing will get done when they fight.

But I need to write

I keep putting the writing off — I’ve put it off for three months, to be honest. But I have seriously mixed feelings about my writing these days. I have gotten little traction, which makes me wonder if there’s something wrong with my writing. It’s more likely that I haven’t done advertising too well, and that my topics are unusual (or, as agents like to say, “imaginative” and “unique” just as they reject me.) But I think too much and get myself in trouble.

I think I’ll put this off a little more because lunch is happening soon and I want to rest before writing. I’ll let you know tomorrow if I’m successful.

My New Office Setup

Let me tell you about my office

(I’m sorry I haven’t been here the past couple of days; I got clobbered by some nasty bug (not COVID) and I spent a lot of quality time in bed. Now I’m up again and enjoying my vacation.)

Because we couldn’t go anywhere for Spring Break, and I wanted a writing retreat, Richard cleaned the office for me. To give you an idea of what this entails, the “office” is the designation of the smallest bedroom of this 3-bedroom 1913 kit home.

The room itself seems too small for a bedroom at all, being about 10×12 total. It could be the kid’s room — that is kid, singular; it would be hard to fit another bed in this room unless they were bunk beds. As an office, it’s an ideal room. With peaches and cream walls, bookshelves, and a classic library table for a computer desk, it’s a comfortable space.

Except that we cluttered it the way middle-class Americans do: with old technology that failed to deliver its promise; with paperwork we haven’t yet filed; with half-used legal pads bought and forgotten over the years. There’s a celebratory poster from my first novel that I need to frame. And a box of cookbooks I got from my mom when she died we haven’t shelved yet. If we ever had to move, we’d have to rent a bevy of semis.

My desk (there is still clutter to the side of me that may never go away)

A present for me

My husband cleaned the office for me, as I stated above. This meant taking most of the boxes of detritus and stuffing them in the closet. That worked for me, as I didn’t open the closet door the last time it was full of detritus. That’s what happens when one cleans out a closet: other things take its place because we’re used to shoving things in closets.

Right now, Richard is dusting down the office. (Yes, he’s the sexiest man on earth when he does housework.) It’s feeling like a real writing retreat and we have designated it as mine unless I need to lend it out to Richard.

All the room is waiting for are my posters celebrating my book publication.

And for me to write already.

Feeling the Tug of Writing

It’s about time

I didn’t write yesterday, but I really wanted to. I was tired after a day of meetings and taking care of my husband (the stomach flu, not anything dangerous). But I felt the Spring in my bones, and I felt my muse over my shoulder and I wondered if I could get back into my story that needs writing.

Stories on the docket

I have, in fact, two stories that I could write. One of them is contemporary fantasy, taking place on my fictitious collective Barn Swallows Dance, and in the realm of the Archetypes, InterSpace. Changes happen such that the Archetypes are slowly being fired from their task carrying the essence of humanity and thus humans’ lives. The Archetypes explode at their sudden lack of purpose. The only person who can stop the bloodshed, if at all, is a pregnant eighteen-year-old girl who carries the gift of influencing history randomly. To do so, she faces the dangers of a human in InterSpace.

The other is fantasy romance, about a thirty-something librarian who encounters a charming neighbor who she falls for, to her friend’s surprise. When the man disappears, the librarian meets his goblin accomplice, and she embarks on a journey to rescue her man from a very possessive queen of Faerie.

So there are two stories that I could write — and a third option, which would be to come up with a new story. I don’t know that I have any knocking around my brain right now. I am inspired by the extrordinary relationships of ordinary people, the surprising things hidden in plain sight, and the unexpected consequences of seemingly ordinary things. And people, beautiful people who I can write fanciful things about.

All I need to do is write.

The Muse

Meet my muse

My muse showed up in my dream last night, pale and red-haired and willowy, and kissed me on the forehead, then darted away.

My muse, the Muse of Things Hidden in Plain Sight, reminded me of my purpose when I thought I had long lost it.

My muse appears as a friend of mine, but isn’t really, because that person would not kiss me in dreams, however chaste. I would also not want to get in trouble with my friend’s wonderful wife. I understand symbolism, however. Long red hair and mischief speak to me. Muses should be wild, unpredictable, capricious. One does not possess muses. Muses possess one instead. So, of course, he would appear like my friend, knowing it would rattle me.

The message

What is the message when my muse leans in and kisses my forehead? The first message is that Spring is here, even though we don’t feel it yet? Astronomical Spring is in 20 days (or so), and the weather has become warmer. The robins aren’t here yet, but the mourning doves are making plans for chicks. Snowdrops haven’t broken the ground yet, but my seedlings in the basement are making their way to true leaves.

The second message is that it’s time to write, and that there are reasons to write. I write about relationships — some of them romantic; others not. The muse’s kiss awakened my characters and gave me the blessing to write about them. The muse reminds me of who I am and what makes me who I am.

The end of winter

I guess I have been going through Winter. The last time I wrote significantly was November (but to be fair, I wrote a book that month.) I didn’t feel like writing; I didn’t feel inspired to write, and I didn’t know if I was a writer anymore.

For me, to be a writer is to be beautiful and mysterious, to hold within oneself multitudes, to hear strange harmonies. I think I might be there again.

#SFFpit Again

Pitching the Baby

For writers, the opportunity to pitch their novel induces a certain amount of trepidation. Sending one’s baby, the result of months (or years, unlike a human baby), to an agent, brings the fear that the agent will not love the baby as much as its parent does.

So the opportunity for a pitching activity over Twitter is a blessing. It’s like one of those photo contest people enter their baby’s picture into, hoping for votes. With a Twitter pitch session, the worst that can happen is that no agent asks for a partial or full manuscript, just as if nobody voted for the baby picture. It doesn’t feel as much like a rejection.

To writers, “pit” means a pitching opportunity

I am taking part in a pitching opportunity, #sffPIT. This is a pitching opportunity for unpublished manuscripts in science fiction and fantasy, which is where I do most of my writing. I have three novels that fit this category (actually four or five, but one is not a standalone in a series, and another is a fragment which may never get finished).

To take part in a pitching opportunity, I must write twitter-sized blurbs for each of my novels and post them at intervals during the day of pitching. I have done this, setting them up using TweetDeck, so that they pop up at various times.

Now what?

All I have to do now is hope.

Rebeginning a Project

What a fine time to get inspired

There’s nothing like feeling inspired just as the semester is about to get busy. Tomorrow is the first day of the semester, where I have two classes to teach and office hours and all the little things to take care of, and I want to play with the next book. I hope this goes away, at least for a week, so I feel like I’m beginning work instead of devoting myself to my sideline.

What’s the book about?

The name of the book is Maker’s Seeds, and it concerns the Archetypes that show up in Apocalypse and Whose Hearts are Mountains. The Archetypes are, for intents and purposes, humanoid immortals, and they exist to hold humans’ cultural memories. If the Archetype dies through violence to their hearts or heads, their people will die because of the death of cultural memory.

The above books (none of which I have published) focus more on the human (or half-human) point of view. Maker’s Seeds looks at the Archetype point of view, concerning their Maker’s decision to slowly remove the responsibilities of holding humans’ cultural memories from the Archetypes. The result is a race of powerful immortals choosing sides in a schism, fighting in battle to the death — before the Maker has divested most of their cultural memories, thus endangering much of humanity.

The two central figures of the story are Luke Dunstan, an Archetype and Leah Inhofer, a seventeen-year-old human. The opposing viewpoints between the two — old vs young, Archetype vs human — make for drama as they try to prevent the Battle between Archetypes and the potential annihilation of millions of humans.

That being said …

I’m not ready to write it yet. I’m not willing to let loose my creative mind before the semester starts. Maybe I will this weekend, although I have lost my coffeehouse home because of closure (RIP Board Game Cafe). I hope to reconnect with writing soon.

Last Days of Leisure

I’m relieved they’re almost over

I don’t do well with nothing to do. Yes, over these last few weeks of break (about three weeks of break) I’ve spent a lot of time just recovering from the semester, but I don’t do relaxation well. I think I’ve said this before; I get frustrated with sitting down and not accomplishing anything. With 1.5 days till the beginning of classes, I’ve had enough of relaxation.

You’d think I could have spent that time doing the projects I don’t have time for during the Spring and Fall Semester. (And, to be fair, I did some of those projects, particularly editing Gaia’s Hands, which went live on Amazon on January 1.) I could have done class prep (I did this, weeks ahead of time.) But I didn’t start a new novel or anything like that because, I admit, I needed the rest.

So over break, I got little work done, and I feel guilty for not taking time to do the work. So if someone asks me what I did over break, I’ll answer, “I didn’t do a lot of anything.” And I will feel guilty because I could have practically finished a novel by then. Or edited more work on ProWritingAid. Or something madly ambitious.

Perhaps I needed to do nothing

Perhaps I needed to do nothing so I could charge myself for the semester, which I think promises to be stressful: students tired of COVID restrictions in the face of even more illnesses under Omicron, the dreariness of winter and the lack of sunlight, all the minor irritations accumulating by midterms. I, as the professor, need to be the sane one (and as you might recall, I have bipolar disorder, so sanity has some challenges.) So, if it’s possible to soak up relaxation, I have been doing so. And I shouldn’t be ashamed of it.

But it’s time to get back into the work world. I can feel it.