Category: Thoughts and Reflections

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.
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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.

Clutter

Daily writing prompt
Where can you reduce clutter in your life?
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Clutter is the bane of my existence. We have clutter everywhere in the house. The coffee table is piled a foot high at the moment, and the kitchen counters are covered with soup cans and boxes of cornbread mix. There’s not a place for everything unless it’s at the bottom of a pile.

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We’ve considered Swedish death cleaning, but we’re sure we might need all these things someday. That’s what you get when hobbies and projects take over life. I’m sure there’s a fishing reel winder at the bottom of the table clutter that I could never get to work. The seed-starting materials are piling up by the couch where I swear I will take them down to the basement eventually.

I could reduce clutter anywhere in the house if I could only find a place to start.

No Claws, Kitty!

Daily writing prompt
If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?
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I have three cats, and all three have very sharp claws. They work hard to keep these claws in perfect working order, and I can attest to the functionality of these appendages. The three use their claws in unique ways to keep me in line.

Chuckie reaches out with his claws when I haven’t petted him enough. He reaches with just enough claw to sting, hinting at how much worse he could apply his claws. Sometimes he reaches for my face, and I suffer five tiny points of pain.

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Pumpkin lurks in the kitchen and claws at my feet as I walk by. She’s not a very social cat, and she’s asserting her boundaries. My feet are trespassing in her space. The entire kitchen is her space.

Chloe likes to dig her claws into me when she’s jumping off my lap. I appreciate her need for leverage, but I appreciate her claws less. I have claw marks on my thighs because she digs deep.

I could clip their claws — ha! Have you ever tried to clip a cat’s claws? My cats aren’t highly trained sweethearts — they’re cats. I would be shredded if I tried to clip their claws.

Claw marks are a small price to pay for the privilege of being owned by amazing creatures.

What I Write

I want to remind my readers that I write books. I don’t mention that much.

I write romantic fantasy and fantasy romance. The difference between those is the emphasis; fantasy romance is mainly romance and romantic fantasy mainly fantasy.

The fantasy romance novels concern the Kringle Society, a secret society of Santas that infiltrate towns with good deeds. Quirky people fall in love and become involved in the community. You will find Santa scholars, Renaissance re-enactors, toymakers, college professors, and the occasional accountant among the people featured. These are sweet romances; ‘closed door’ in romance parlance.

The romantic fantasy novels feature an agricultural collective, what some might call a commune. The residents are hard workers; they are pacifists, back-to-nature sorts, and people who seek community. Add to the mix immortals, the earth-soul Gaia, and the possible demise of humanity, and you have a people with life-changing secrets hidden in plain sight.

You can find my novels here. Just click on this sentence.

My Dream Job

Daily writing prompt
What’s your dream job?
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My dream job, which should not surprise regular readers of this blog, would be an author. I am an author now; the difference would be that I actually received enough money from my writing to live on.

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Making a living as an author is difficult, especially when one is an indie author. The indie writers I know who support themselves write romances and publish several a year. I will never be that prolific, although I’ve had years where I’ve written two novels.

The odds of my being able to support myself as a writer are infinitesimally small. The only way I will write full-time is after I retire. I have accepted this.

Un-Inventing WMDs

Daily writing prompt
If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
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If I could un-invent something, I would un-invent weapons of mass destruction. I would just eliminate them from the earth. I would un-invent mutually assured destruction, the arms race, the nightmare of my childhood during the Cold War.

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I remember reading a science fiction series where the premise of war was that the only weapons you could use were those that brought you to arm’s length from your opponent — in other words, swords and spears. With the books, this was to prohibit psychic warfare, but it makes sense to me. Weapons of mass destruction kill thousands, even millions of people while keeping one’s hands clean.

One could argue that this would eliminate all area bombs. I’m fine with that. If it gets rid of assault weapons, even better. I could get rid of all weapons, but I think hunting is a legitimate use of weapons (I am not a vegetarian).

What would war look like if we could get rid of looming threats? I hope it would be shorter. And less lethal.