The Scourge of Midwestern Female Syndrome

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 Syndrome^TM, where I want to be perfect and to avoid attention at the same time.

I can see where Midwestern Female Syndrome^TM 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.

My Most Ideal Day

Daily writing prompt

Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.

View all responses

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.

CAFE banner alphabet sign marquee light bulb vintage

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.

Monday

Today definitely feels like a Monday, and it’s barely started.

What does a Monday feel like? It starts with the desire to stay in bed all day. Blinking away the last wisps of sleep, I crawl out of bed and stub my toe. I hobble to the bathroom and look in the mirror. My hair looks like it’s been styled by a demon.

I have a whole day to get through. With office hours and a meeting all afternoon, I should be busy. But I suspect the hours will go slowly and I will miss the weekend all the more.

I Finally Wrote

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.

Magical Realism? Me?

Photo by Evgeny Tchebotarev on Pexels.com

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.

Computers in the Olden Days

Daily writing prompt

Write about your first computer.

View all responses

3D rendering of a vintage personal computer

I didn’t own a computer until I graduated with my Ph.D.. The University of Illinois had an abundance of computer labs, and I didn’t have money for a computer, being a student. I should talk about the computers I used then, of course. I was a student before Windows came out, and that meant I used DOS operating system with its glowing green cursor on a black background. Soon after, I took a class with Apple IIes, and decided I liked Apple computers better.

I was also active on the PLATO system. PLATO was an educational system at several universities and other sites; its hub was at University of Illinois. In addition to educational lessons, PLATO offered several features that are part of today’s Internet: messaging, email, discussion forums, and group chats. PLATO became a social network for the people who had access to it, including things like online dating and group meets. It was a haven for a geek girl like me.

The first computer I had access to at home was a classic Mac. It was not mine; I borrowed it when I was laid up at home with a broken leg. Those machines were cute, almost portable.

The first computer I bought myself was an Apple IIvx, a desktop computer that cost me $2300. That is in 1993 dollars; the computer would cost $4,992.97 today. It was an exorbitant price, however PC machines had not started running Windows yet and I preferred the WYSIWYG operating system. Not long after I bought this computer, Apple came out with a cheaper and faster computer called Quadra. I was one of the people angry that we had paid so much for an inferior computer, but I had my computer for several years.

Computers today are so much faster, so much more powerful, so much more graphically inclined, that talking about a 1993 computer seems quaint. My computer today (A Samsung Galaxy Ultra 4) is so far beyond what I had back then.

My Aching Bones

Daily writing prompt

What do you complain about the most?

View all responses

I am not a complainer, or at least I hope I’m not. I make an exception for my aching bones.

I’m over sixty, and that means my body has seen a lot of wear and tear. My knees are misaligned, causing a lifetime of wear on my cartilage. A car hit me when I was in my late twenties, and I have a bar and screws in my left leg; this has also caused some lasting problems in my hip.

I ache. I can’t take any of the NSAID drugs because of kidney disease, which leaves me treating all the pain for this with acetaminophen (paracetamol). It is only slightly effective, leaving me with the rest of the pain as part of my daily routine.

This is my life now. I’m told it’s part of getting older, but I don’t feel that old. Sixty is not that old, is it?

Thanks for letting me complain.

Proceed Cautiously

Daily writing prompt

What would you do if you won the lottery?

View all responses

(I assume the question above presumes a big jackpot win rather than $2. The type of win that changes one’s life rather than just settles a bit of money on one.)

Photo by John Guccione http://www.advergroup.com on Pexels.com

We (my husband and I) would proceed cautiously. First, we would get a lawyer and an accountant, and let the lawyer take over on the receipt of the funds, avoiding publicity, and the like. We would mark out a bit of money to spend in the first year so that we didn’t go wild with spending. We would spend that money on a mortgage, renovating the house and yard, which would benefit us in the short run and help us sell the house in the long run.

Then we would retire. There’s no conceivable way we could continue working under all the notoriety that a lottery win would cause.

We would work with a financial planner to set up our money in a way where we could live off the interest (not richly) and set up trusts for family members. I think we would also set up a trust for charitable purposes.

We would move to a bigger, more interesting town. Nothing too fancy and nothing too big. A college town would be nice, or an artsy town. We talk about this now as a thought exercise. We haven’t agreed on where yet.

We would be more discerning with our purchases. We would think of quality, not quantity. I think this will be the hardest part for us, as we seem obsessed with gadgets.

My biggest worry is that money might change my mind about the haves and the have-nots. I would hope I would not fall into the trap of believing that I deserved the money while others do not. I would not want to begrudge my tax dollars going to support the poor. I would not want to become a right-winger, and would do anything in my power not to be one.

Writing Is Not Happening

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.

Leon

Daily writing prompt

Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.

View all responses

My family had a Christmas tradition — I guess one could call it a tradition. It involved a set of candle holders that spelled out ‘Noel’ that my mother had. These are common in the US. ‘Noel’ is an Old French word that means ‘Christmas’. One might wonder why the Old French is common; keep in mind that the German version is ‘Weihnachten’, which doesn’t lend itself to candleholders.

I should point out that my mother decorated for Christmas HARD, by which I mean she decked the halls until they got dizzy and tied ribbons around everything that didn’t run away fast enough. The Noel candleholders always sat on a piece of furniture that took up part of the living room.

My father, on the other hand, had a peculiar sense of humor. And dyslexia. And a colleague named Leon. All of these came together, and my dad would rearrange the letters NOEL to spell LEON. The trick was to see how long it took Mom to recognize that the letters now spelled Leon.

I adopted the practice of rearranging the letters. This made two generations of letter-swapping, and my mother had to be extra vigilant that her decoration was not declaring ‘Leon’ She was not vigilant enough; she never caught us.

One year for Christmas, I found a cute set of block candles that spelled out ‘Noel’. I unwrapped the packaging carefully and rearranged them, then had my niece smuggle them under the Christmas tree (wrapped, of course) to Mom from Leon. This niece got the joke, because she herself started rearranging the letters, making three generations to adopt the trick. My mother also got the joke and laughed hard. The next year I got a bottle of homemade wine for a Christmas present — named Vin Leon.

My parents are gone now, but my husband and I bought a set of letters spelling out NOEL, and we rearranged them for our tree. The Christmas tree proclaims LEON.