When Black and White is Just Right

I can use all sorts of cool colors in this blog!

I just found out that I can change the color of headers, text, and background on this blog post. Hurray!

However, I am going to resist the temptation to do so. This blog is going to stay black and white.

Readability

The truth of the matter is that not all cool text innovations should be pursued. People’s vision is not up to all those cool colors.

Let me explain: Our eyes need contrast, lots of contrast, to see letters against backgrounds. We need those letters to have sharp edges.

Let me try something: Do you see these letters as well? No? Not enough contrast.

How about these? Better, but doesn’t your brain hurt a bit?

I could also change the background. Again, less contrast, and lots of eye pain.

The takeaway

I guess the takeaway is that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. The design palette for this blog offers me options that I don’t choose to use because they’ll mess up my message. How frustrating! I’m going to have to stick to the black and white.

The Beginning of a Writing Journey

Seven years ago today

Seven years ago yesterday, I finished my first novel. To be exact, I finished the first draft of my first novel, which was then revised so many times over the years that it’s not the book I originally wrote. Coincidentally, it’s the book I hope to self-publish by the end of the summer, Gaia’s Hands.

After that first novel

I thought I’d quit writing after I wrote that novel, because I had fulfilled one of those Big Audacious Goals that I thought I’d never fulfill, being a short-story person by nature. But I wrote six and a half more novels — the half novel being 50k of a book that needs another half.

So far, only one book, The Kringle Conspiracy, has been published. My family likes it and it’s helped me get quite a few newsletter readers in the past few weeks. That book was almost 40 years in the making, coming from a vignette I wrote in a high school creative writing class.

There will be (hopefully) two other books to be (self-) published soon: the aforementioned Gaia’s Hands and the second Kringle book, Kringle in the Night.

Where to from here?

Obviously, I’m probably going to keep writing, although I haven’t written a novel since — checks watch — last November. I’d like to start writing a new novel soon, even though I’ve been advised to stick with short stories for a while. Getting things published is also important to me right now.

For you

Do you have ideas for a novel? Dreams of writing a novel? Write them here!

What I Want Out of Writing

I’m still writing

After yesterday’s revelations, I’m still writing.

I will not be able to quit my day job, and at best I might enhance our income by $6 to $20k. But there’s value in writing, whether it is to express my thoughts and emotions, to explore skill-building, or to fantasize about making it big.

Time plus money = ?

I need to get value from my writing equivalent to the time (lots) and the money (considerably less) that I have put into my writing.

However, whenever we fulfill a goal, value comes from two outcomes: changes (usually gains) in resources and satisfaction. Gains in resources don’t have to be monetary — they can be in terms of knowledge and experience. Satisfaction comes from completing goals, and the feeling of that satisfaction differs by where it comes from. The deepest satisfaction comes from satisfying higher-order goals, goals that come from higher values like beauty, truth, and accomplishment.

Looking at my time and money spent writing, I see that I have increased greatly in both experience and knowledge about writing. I have written several pieces, both short and long, and that represents another gain in resources. And, having satisfied the higher-level goals of accomplishment and knowledge, I feel this satisfaction very deeply.

(Note: The discussion on the outputs from fulfilling goals, or the value-creating activities, comes from family resource management theory, which I taught for close to 20 years. For a summary of resource management theories, read here.)

What I want out of writing

I, of course, have been analyzing this question of what I want out of writing to make sure I’m getting my money’s worth, as it were. This is the list I came up with:

To learn about writing
To get people to read my work
To enjoy my time writing
To be able to call myself an author
To improve in my writing
To enjoy a hobby

I think there are good enough reasons here to keep me writing.

How about you?

What is a goal of yours and what does it give you?

Giving Up Cherished Dreams

Dreams of being an author

I went into this thought of being an author figuring I would find an agent, then a publisher, and get a five-figure advance and royalties. My ex-boyfriends (all geeks) would see my name in the science fiction section of the bookstore and be forced to have some respect for me. I could quit my day job.

The sobering reality

The truth of the matter is that the scenario for writers is far less rosy. According to the Authors Guild 2018 poll:

Median income for all authors (full vs part, traditional vs self-published) was $6080 in 2017
Median income for full-time authors for all writing-related activities, however, was $20,300
Self-published authors earned less than traditionally published authors
Publishers are paying lower advances to authors who are not celebrity or leading authors

And then there’s the part where Amazon has pretty much taken over the bookselling and publishing market, likely pushing all these trends. And the fact that the typical self-publisher will sell only 250 books.

This is a lot to absorb. If I’m going to be an author (I already am), I have to have honest and good reasons to do so. The biggest thing I need to do is dispel my illusions:

I will not make a lot of money doing this.
Most of my friends will not have read my work.
My work will likely not sit on a bookshelf.
I may never get picked up by an agent or be traditionally published.
No matter how much effort I put into being a published author, I may never sell more than 250 books.

This is all sobering information. If I write, I have to write for a reason other than external validation of sales and recognition, because I may not get those no matter how well I write. I will never be able to support myself this way, although it might be a nice addition to retirement income.

I have to write for myself. I have to write for the love of it. I have to write for the desire to improve my art, because I can’t count on being the shining exception to the rule.

Coffee as a Family Ritual

The formative coffee experiences

I dated a guy (to the point that we later got divorced) whose family had a Sunday ritual of strong Gevalia coffee in white Scandinavian porcelain ware, classical music, and the New York Times.

Another boyfriend’s family ritual involved percolator coffee in the cluttered kitchen as the cats drank out of the sink, and his stepfather and I discussed socialism.

My own family would drink coffee out of mismatched mugs in the kitchen on Mom’s good days, and the cats would wander around the table and occasionally stretch up on Dad’s legs. We would plan dinner, which often consisted of tearing apart a recipe and reassembling it again.

Coffee has always been a ritual

Throughout time and place, coffee has been featured in ritual. The Ethiopian coffee ceremony, which involves roasting and grinding the beans at the table; the coffee breaks in an office offering time to talk with colleagues; weekly coffee dates. After-dinner coffee, sometimes spiked with liqueurs. Turkish coffeehouses and coffeehouses in Paris.

There’s something special about the coffee beanthat lends itself to special moments. (I know the same could be said for tea in the British world, but I’ve only had a proper British tea once.) We in the US have very few rituals, but the ones we do have are ingrained and almost impossible to separate from everyday life.

Our Sunday ritual

Right now I sit in the living room typing this with a cup of coffee listening to classical music. The cats are somewhere — they don’t like classical as much as we do. The music du jour is one of Bach’s kids. We have a faux fireplace, which is on for ambience even though it’s summer (don’t ask; it’s a husband thing).

Soon I’ll be working on writing and Richard will be working on a project for the public library; but for now, we have our ritual.

For you, the reader

Do you have any Sunday rituals? Coffee rituals? Let me know in the comments below!

Tik Tok

They told me it would be good for me

@lleachie
An introduction to the love of my life
♬ original sound – Lauren Leach-Steffens

Some romance writers turned me on to Tik Tok, where they told me I could use it to make connections for future book sales. I’m not so sure about that, but I decided to try anyhow.

So far, I have posted 23 Tik Tok videos of various visual quality (I’m struggling with the lighting thing) and on various topics, with cats and coffee winning out over books.

I feel like a boomer.

I have so many questions about Tik Tok:

How can I use a ring light without the big glare in my glasses? Furthermore, why a ring light? Wouldn’t a work light work? Or a spotlight? Or a traffic light?
How do I duet?
Why can’t I do a true portrait-oriented clip on my computer? Instead it crams the landscape video into a portrait frame with lots of black area at top and bottom.
What, really, is the purpose of Tik Tok?
Editing software. What is the best editing software? I use Crazy Video Maker 2 on my computer.

For you

If any of you use Tik Tok, please submit advice of any sorts as to how to use it better. This Boomer needs your help!

Moulage (warning: graphic pictures)

My other hobby

I forgot to talk about one of my other hobbies yesterday, or rather, I neglected to talk about my other hobby/volunteer work. I do moulage, otherwise known as casualty simulation. In short, I make people look injured for emergency disaster training.

This isn’t a hobby I can share casually, because, actually, I did a pretty good job. The pictures creep people out.

My favorite story on the realism of my work is going into work after our big disaster training weekend (I’m a professor) and getting the rumor that one of my “victims” was sent to the hospital for a simulation, and they started hooking up an IV on him. He had to stop them from doing so. I mentioned this to another class, and his girlfriend corroborated it.

None of this is real

Moulage requires a certain amount of art and science. The science comes in studying injuries — knowing how they’re inflicted, what they look like on the body, how they change over time. The art comes from recreating them in grease paint, fake blood, wax, and latex.

Examples (warning: do not go below this point if you are upset by these pictures)

Some of My Other Hobbies

What is there besides cats, coffee, and writing?

That’s a good question, because I write about these all the time. But there are other things that interest me, sometimes to the point of fascination.

Plants

I have a fascination with plants, especially edible ones. And poisonous ones. I can now determine between Queen Anne’s Lace (not deadly) and poison hemlock (deadly). Not that I’ll be eating either, but Queen Anne’s Lace is, in effect, a wild carrot. I don’t try to identify mushrooms, because they all look the same to me.

I like to know plant names, because to just dismiss weeds as “weeds” eliminates a world of useful plants. Everything from lamb’s quarters (as good as spinach) to jewelweed (soothes the sting of nettles). For that matter, nettles (once cooked, a nutritious soup green.

This knowledge of plants helps me write. For example, I almost killed off a character with ricin from the castor bean plant. Writers often joke about their search histories; I am no exception.

Bread baking

I guess this goes along with plants, because yeast is a plant. I was never more aware of this as when I created my own starter by capture. This method depends on wild yeasts in one’s environment and making a hospitable medium to make them flourish. I kept these going for three months last year during the lockdown, until I realized we would never make enough bread. There is no true sourdough bread recipe for the bread machine. I have my cultures dried and frozen, however, to be started back up soon.

Cooking

I don’t cook often these days, but I am an accomplished cook with some training in food science, menu planning, and nutrition. I also cooked for two years in a Thai cafeteria, and we cooked more traditional recipes for ourselves, so I learned the basics of Thai food and now can navigate around a Thai recipe with ease. I make a mean Kung Pao chicken and Thousand-Year (master) sauce. I’m teaching my half-Chinese husband how to make Asian food.

Reading

Of course, reading. My favorites are fantasy and science fiction, but occasionally I’ll read Regency romance and the JD Robb series in crime romance. I should read more, but writing and my day job keep me busy.

Bird-watching

I haven’t gotten out to a good natural setting for a while, so I haven’t seen any new birds lately. I think it was two years ago I saw one of the birds unexpectedly on my life list: A painted bunting in southeast Kansas. I’m too lackadaisical to be a great birder; I’m just excited when I see a bird I haven’t seen before.

For you

What are your favorite hobbies? Tell me about them!

A Mess of Impostor Syndrome

Negative self-talk all day

Part of the reason I think I’m getting depressed is because I have non-stop negative self-talk in my head: I don’t know why I think I can get traditionally published. My writing isn’t good enough because it’s not like other people’s. I have the wrong kind of book covers. I like the wrong kind of book covers. I’m awful at marketing. I don’t have sex or nudity or grittiness in my romances. The dialog never ends.

The best I can do

It’s hard staying positive with a barrage like this. The best I can do is keep my head above water with cognitive therapy — “You don’t know this, you can’t predict the future, that’s black and white thinking, don’t call yourself names.” And I believe in cognitive-based therapy.

Cognitive-based therapy, at least in the version I use, utilizes picking out cognitive distortions (“I’m not a good writer”) and assigns to it one or more cognitive distortion labels (such as black-and-white thinking) and asks the person to write contradictions for their statements. This really does work, but when getting a barrage, it’s hard to eradicate all of the negative. This is why I wonder if I’m going into depression, because usually these are not so constant.

Question

What do you do when you have the blues? Drop me a line in the comments.

Feeling a Little Blue

This is part of my life

I have bipolar disorder — Bipolar II to be specific. This means that I have hypomania — a feeling of exhilaration and irritability — and some pretty severe depression. I take a cocktail of medication to keep me on an even keel, but sometimes the erratic moods break through.

Down or depression?

I’m feeling a bit down right now — sleeping too much, waking up tired. Feeling uninspired. musing over the past (there is a lot of it) and crying inside, not feeling inspired. Rejections are weighing heavily on me and I’m second-guessing everything I write. This feels like depression.

Which depression?

Generally, when talking about depression, there’s two basic categories — situational and biological. The former is depression based on external events; the other is internal. It’s hard to determine which is which.

For example, is my pile of rejections the cause of my depression? It very well could be I tend not to react very badly to single rejections, but I’ve had a string of them lately, and I can’t find the right thing to fix them so that they’re accepted. I feel like giving up. This could be the cause of my depressions.

It could also be that a biological depression (that is, bipolar depression) could create the stress and negative feelings toward my life. (Right now my brain is diagramming this as a path analysis (a type of social studies research equation) as if I could quantify each factor and measure and research. Not now, Satan.)

The only way to tell

The only way to tell if this depression is biological is to sit with it for two weeks. Given the relatively minor nature of the situational roots (rejections can be let go pretty easily) I should be done with it by then. If it lingers after two weeks, I call my psychiatrist and we tweak the meds. I’ll be bummed (oops, I am already) because this med combination has been working wonderfully for at least three years.

But this is bipolar disorder. Untreated, and it’s like someone else is running my life, laughing my laugh, stoking my rage. I won’t let them do it for too long.

Handing it to you

If I have anyone who identifies with this and wants to comment, please drop a comment.