It has never occurred to me to write an autobiography. I don’t have a hook, or a reason people would want to read it. I’m not famous or infamous. I don’t have an exceptionally inspiring or tragic story, although I have overcome a childhood of abuse and bullying, and live successfully with bipolar disorder. I am pretty ordinary.
What I do have is joy. My day is filled with small joys — talking to people, being silly with my husband, playing with my cats. Nothing to write a memoir about, but joy is my natural state and my story.
The first sentence of any novel, any memoir, any written document is important. It grabs the reader and pulls them in. So my first sentence would have to be about joy. Something like:
‘When reflecting on my life, what stands out are moments of joy, with a feel that settles on me like a silver mist.’
I’ve concluded that my writing is not commercially feasible (traditional publishing) because it’s too short for fantasy. At 70,000 words on average, it’s not long enough for agents to be interested in it. It would be short enough for romance, but my writing is really fantasy (or to be more accurate, magical realism is more likely) which is not written short. However, I write tightly and don’t need all those words.
If I’m not selling in indie (self-published) markets, it’s because I can’t get enough traction with marketing. I have tried several things, and none of them seem to work. I feel like, if I wrote romantasy (heavy on traditional romance, lots of spice) I’d have a better chance, but I don’t feel moved to write about those things. I have a niche, but I can’t seem to get introduced to those people.
The saying “Do what you love, the rest will follow”? It does not seem true in my personal situation. I write because I’m possessed with ideas, and what possesses me is shorter novels. People have told me I’m a good writer. I think I’m a good writer.
I’m just trying to convince myself to keep writing, even though I don’t have a readership. It’s a hard sell, because I don’t do things just for myself; rather, I look at what they produce and whether they’re useful. Right now I am starting a garden; I don’t grow the seedlings for their own sakes. I grow them because they’ll give me food someday. My books will never give me food, and I have to figure out whether that’s okay.
Right now, I am burned out on writing. Nothing I write seems interesting; everything feels like a slog. I am swamped with negative self-talk that tells me I can’t write. I avoid writing. I have no ideas that possess me.
I miss my flow activity. I miss my desire to make something good out of a pile of words. I miss writing, but not enough to muscle through my negative feelings.
I might have mentioned before that I have a grow room in my basement to coax seeds into seedlings for the garden. I planted some early seeds on the second of February, and most of them have shown at least a little growth. I have cardoon (a relative of artichoke, except you eat the leaf stalks), mountain mint, yarrow, hyssop, lovage, lavender, and rosemary in a 72-cell seedling tray.
The lavender and rosemary are going very slowly, but both have at least one seedling up. The cardoon might need to be transplanted sooner rather than later because it’s big. I didn’t think the cardoon would come up so soon because I’ve had such bad luck with it before, but no, it popped up like the alarm clock had just gone off.
Growing seedlings helps me through a cold winter. Whether it’s the thrill of growing green things, the brightness of a room full of fluorescent grow bulbs, or the reminder that Spring will eventually arrive, it’s one of the best things for the winter blahs I’ve done.
One thing that worries me, though, is that I’m not writing. I’m burned out on writing, and have a lot of doubt about how good my writing is. But at least I have a hobby to sustain me.
Yes, I am an author. I have two series, one of which is a seasonal romance series. There is a society of secret Santas who recruit people who show the spirit of giving. Couples get caught in the Christmas spirit and fall in love. When the inevitable tribulations come along, they have to battle circumstances — and mostly themselves — to find their happily ever after.
The second series is called Hidden in Plain Sight, and involves an agricultural collective whose land has been taken over by a demigod and whose history involves preternatural beings and a battle that almost doomed humanity. Its people are a people of secrets, and their concerns are both otherworldly and very, very human.
According to some marketing sources, I should be mentioning my books once every three days as a ‘content creator’. I think that’s a bit excessive and that you don’t want to hear about them that often. This is probably part of my Midwestern Female SyndromeTM, where I want to be perfect and to avoid attention at the same time.
I can see where Midwestern Female SyndromeTM can get in the way of selling books. I believe, to some small extent, that our feelings and thoughts and attitudes affect outcomes. Not necessarily in a woo-woo way, but that internal baggage keeps us from doing the things we need to do to succeed. I’m sure this is the case with me. Notice I even put ‘content creator’ in quotation marks.
I’m not sure how to get rid of the internal baggage about writing and selling my books. One piece of advice that I should follow is “fake it until you make it”, but that sounds too much like a grifter’s motto to me. My approach has been to hope that something external brings me to the attention of readers (that is besides the marketing I do here, in my newsletter, on Bluesky and Threads, on Facebook …) It’s not that I don’t market, or that I don’t market often, but that I don’t market with confidence, and maybe that shows.
So, if you want, check out my author’s page right here.
I don’t ask for much, and this includes ideal days.
My ideal day usually happens on a Saturday or Sunday. The best of these days happens in Kansas City while on a mini-vacation. My husband and I wake up in a hotel room and stretch and yawn, then get dressed up for a day of wandering.
My favorite breakfast is at Eggtc, which is a breakfast restaurant in the KC area. I usually order something bad for me, although sometimes I eat the avocado toast. From there, we go to Broadway Cafe, with the goal of some writing time. I like the Cafe’s coffee, and so I drink less coffee at Eggtc to make sure I don’t get over-caffeinated.
We stay at the Cafe for a while. Part of the reason we’re in KC is for a writing retreat. We probably stay there till lunch, and then go to lunch at Choga in Overland Park. we don’t get to eat Korean food often. We usually order dolsot bibimbap, which is a sizzling rice bowl with Korean vegetables and bulgogi.
After this, we go to Whiskers Cat Cafe and play with the cats there. Mind you, we have three cats at home, but it’s fun playing with the cat residents there, especially the kittens in their enclosures. After Whiskers, we may go back to the room to rest, or maybe to the Cafe again. Dinner is likely to be ordered in through Door Dash.
It’s not an exciting day, but it’s ideal as far as this old lady is concerned.
I finally wrote for a bit yesterday. It didn’t really flow, but I got about 400 words in, better than I have done in a while. I’m writing on a novella that is going to tell a different sort of origin story.
How did it feel? It felt good; it felt productive. I am getting a feel for the characters, including InterSpaceNet. All the characters have been regulars in the Hidden in Plain Sight series, but we’re seeing more of Simon, the sysop for the collective. Simon’s hacker tendencies have been tapped with Luke’s goal of finding an answer to a pressing question. By the end of the story, Luke and Simon will know more than they’re comfortable with.
I’m largely pantsing this story (‘Pantsing’ = ‘flying by the seat of my pants’) — I just got the idea to insert the short story that spawned this into the body of the novella, and now I don’t know if the shape of the novella is correct. My gut tells me it’s correct enough. I can fine-tune it later.
I won’t write today because I need some rest this weekend. But maybe I’m moving forward.
The other day, I figured out that the genre I’m writing is magical realism. It had never occurred to me that writing about a theoretically real place (Barn Swallows’ Dance, an ecocollective) with preternatural guests and a resident demi-god would be magical realism. Especially as the stories feature allegories for all-too-human situations.
I thought my works were just some very subdued contemporary fantasy, some bastard children that would never sell because they’re just not … enough. I wrote the books because of something within me that said they had to be written.
I’ve always wanted to write magical realism. Maybe knowing this will entice me to write.
This is the longest I have gone without writing. I am concerned about this, because I’m afraid I’m losing the habit. I can think of some reasons I have had so much trouble writing.
First reason is that I am facing the fact that my books may never get enough readers. It takes a miracle to get attention. Or notoriety, but I’m reluctant to go that far to get readers. I usually combat this by reminding myself that my focus should be on writing for the sake of writing. That doesn’t always work.
4×4 or truck stuck in the mud at sunset on the Applegate Trail, Black Rock Desert, NW Nevada, US
Which brings me to crippling self-doubt. I compare myself to people who get published and selling books, and I feel that there’s something wrong with my writing that readers avoid it. This is contradictory with the first reason — if people aren’t buying my books, how do they know that they’re bad? My mind is not listening to reason, however.
Third, but just as important, is that I am not finding flow in my writing lately. I’m working on a novella based in the Hidden in Plain Sight universe, and it is bogging down before it’s even started because of my nagging feeling that I have not structured it right. The other, the latest Kringle book, is likewise bogging down because of structural issues. I’m using an outline but still struggling with this.
Part of this is that none of my ideas have captured my imagination. They all feel like contractual obligations, like that album the band had to make because the record company wanted them to.
Thus, I have fallen out of the habit of writing except for this blog. I write it every day, at this point for 170 days running. Maybe this is a good thing because I have a challenging spring semester with one of my classes. Maybe this helps me in the seed-starting season (we’re going to have a garden this year if it kills us, and that’s my responsibility).
I could give up writing — I have enough books to edit and release that I’ll be releasing books yearly for the next three years. I have written sufficient books to call myself an author. I would never have to release another book other than the ones I have already written. But I miss the flow of writing, something that helped my well-being and which defined me.
I need some reassurance, some encouragement, some breakthroughs in plotting or an idea that excites me. I need one of those factors to budge so I get motivated to write.
Words Like Me 