Until today, they’ve curved around the south of us. Sometimes the north. Maryville has the distinction of being the highest point between Kansas City and Omaha. I wonder if this is part of the reason why we haven’t been getting the good storms.
This morning I woke up to thunder. Close thunder. And rain pattering on the roof. Hours later, it still looks cloudy out and maybe rainy. And we are in a flash flood watch.
Maybe daylilies will come back from their wilting sulk. Maybe the grass will green up.
There’s another peal of thunder. It has been so long since we’ve had a good storm.
My husband and I are driving to Kansas City to visit an intern. He has to take me there because my vision is getting increasingly worse in my right eye due to a cataract (I’m too young for those, so go figure). But first, a trip to the Public Health Department with a dead bat.
Why a dead bat? Because Richard accidentally handled it, which is a bad thing if, say, the bat had rabies. We’ll play it on the safe side, but it’s time to bring the bat in for testing. Poor bat.
Yesterday was Summer Solstice, and I didn’t celebrate it because I thought it would be on Tuesday. I should have checked the Internet.
I sometimes miss being a pagan, because I always knew when the turns of the year (the solstices and equinoxes) were, and pagans throw a great party. I had a friend who wanted to have an all-night drumming session around a bonfire, and me and my bodhran (Irish frame drum) would have had a lovely time with that. Except for the fact that lack of sleep tended to (and still does) make me a bit unmanageable — weepy and moody. And drumming all night is more suitable for the Winter Solstice, where one would drum to make the sun come back after the longest night.
I gave up being a pagan because I always felt like an impostor — I didn’t believe we were doing any magic, and I felt the symbolism was borrowed from cultures not my own. I am very personal in my mysticism, so I want the symbolism to speak to me. Nothing, alas, has spoken to me in a while.
How would I celebrate Summer Solstice?
I wish I would have pitched a tent in my yard, and stayed awake till sunset and then slept in the tent with plenty of mosquito repellent and on a camp cot, because I’m well over 40. I would have kept the lonely night company. (In actuality, I would have climbed out about 10:30 and gone inside because of lack of sleep. I know myself by now.)
I celebrate by what speaks to me, what makes for the best poetry. Maybe I have lost my poetry, maybe it was all invested in the crushes I had before my age finally caught up with me.
Maybe I need to celebrate the turns of the year again.
The weather outside is hot. By hot, I mean 105 degree heat index, 100 degrees actual. A July sort of thing, not a June thing. I get sick from the heat easily, so my strategy has been to stay in the air conditioner and NOT. GO. OUTSIDE.
I wonder if we’re past the point of no return when it comes to climate change. If these patches of extreme heat are our “new normal”. Gardens will wither and winters will be frigid and snowy.
My psychiatrist is a bit more sanguine about climate change. He’s a libertarian and a fervent believer is progress, and he believes that scientists will find a solution, just as they did (partially) with the ozone hole. I hope he’s right — I think the wind farms that surround us may be part of the answer.
A reprieve
The weather is supposed to clear by tomorrow, greeting us with temperatures in the 60s and 70s. I will celebrate by going to the cafe and visiting an intern on Wednesday in Kansas City.
I’m trying to finish Kel and Brother Coyote Save the Planet, but I’m dealing with serious writers’ block lately. I’ve been doing marketing stuff in the morning (even if the things I have down the pipeline are stalled) and sleeping in the afternoon. This may mean I’m depressed; I don’t know. But I do know I’ve been staring at that manuscript and coming up with nothing.
This is a job for Camp NaNo
NaNoWriMo, as I’ve mentioned in these pages, is a world-wide event where people attempt to write 50k words toward a novel in the month of November. Camp NaNo occurs in May and August, and it’s a smaller, less onerous event that I like to think of as training wheels for NaNo. You can pick your word count (as long as it’s over 10k) and feel free to work on something other than word count, such as editing. (Note: you can do that for NaNo as well, keeping in mind that 1 hour editing = 1000 words).
I’m going to put Kel and Brother Coyote as my Camp project (plus editing/plotting for another project) to see if it motivates me. Given that Camp (and NaNo) are a combination of gamification and camaraderie, I think I have a fighting chance.
I need a new project
Finishing up these old projects isn’t very motivating. In fact, I would really like to start something new. I just haven’t been inspired lately. I get motivated by relationship between people, and the short story list I have doesn’t seem to do that. (It’s very clever and science fiction-y, because my husband helped me with it.)
I want to write another novel. Real absorption into a world. But I need ideas for that as well.
Give me ideas
If you have any ideas for a romantic fantasy, let me know!
Every morning I write this blog. There are many reasons I do this, not the least because I want that little message from WordPress that I have written the blog X days in a row (yay gamification!) I’ll explore some of the other reasons below.
A morning ritual
I consider writing this blog my morning ritual, along with coffee, music, and getting my hair to behave. The ritual starts with racking my brain with finding a topic to write on. Then I start typing and thinking and typing. And editing as I go.
Warming up for writing
I find the practice of journaling warms me up for writing. Not just the fingers, although by the number of typos I make while typing the blog I guess my fingers need warming up.
Writing the blog warms up my mind. It trains it to write as a flow exercise, a task where time flies past me and I’m in the moment. Admittedly, blogging itself is not a flow experience because it doesn’t go on for long enough. but blogging limbers up my mind so that flow is possible.
A challenge
One of my attractions to my daily ritual of blogging is that it’s a challenge. What am I going to write today? Have I written about that lately? Will anyone care about my blog? I don’t know about the latter, as I have between 11-20 readers on a regular basis and 57 followers, which suggests most of my followers aren’t reading the blog. That’s okay; I still face the challenge every morning.
To my fellow bloggers
How often do you blog? Daily? More than daily? Weekly? Let me know!
I notice that the sunrise this morning is not really pink — maybe more of a salmon color, but that’s not poetic, is it? “The salmon-colored dawn.” No. Just no.
“Rosy”, on the other hand, is poetic. And everyone who reads the poem or prose takes the same poetic leap and accepts the dawn as rosy.
I’m in a writer’s group on Discord, and the caffeine addiction there is real. To the point where we talk about how we make coffee and what blend we use. And heaven forbid we skip our coffee in the morning.
I haven’t met any tea drinkers, but it could be a small sample size. Do you drink tea?
About that self-doubt
The same group of writers admitted that they too have self-doubt.
About romance categories
There are many, many romance categories. Superhero, bad boy, playboy, alien. Sweet, steamy, hot, erotica. Friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, boy next door, strangers to lovers. Science fiction, fantasy, contemporary, historical.
And because of my self-doubt, I don’t know if I belong to any of these.
Marketing
Right now, I feel like most of my writing time is spent in marketing, and I don’t even have anything on imminent publication. I’m using The Kringle Conspiracy as my hook for newsletter subscribers, so that’s out. This is all a very strange journey and I don’t know how things are going to work this fall when I’m back to work.
What about you?
Do you have any observations about yourself as a writer, or if you aren’t a writer, other writers? I’d love to see you drop these in the comments!
To be a writer is to be afflicted by crippling self-doubt. It takes only a Google search of “crippling self-doubt” to confirm this. It’s not surprising. If a writer writes for an audience, they bring their works out into the daylight.
If they’re showing their friends what they’ve written, they’re afraid of being judged. Because friends often skip over the Facebook post, they’re never quite sure if they’ve been read. Because friends are often afraid to hurt someone’s feelings, they will be wary of compliments.
If the writer submits for publication, they’re afraid of being rejected — and they will often be rejected, because their work is competing against others’ writing.
What to do about self-doubt
There are several articles on the Internet about how to deal with self-doubt. See here and here for examples. I don’t want to hash over these excellent articles, so I’ll write from my experiences and hope the advice is helpful.
Keep writing. Being a writer is a calling, even if not a penny is made on it. Write your way through the fear.
Keep improving, especially if the goal is to become published. Relish the feeling of improving. Take all criticism as room to improve.
Find support. Whether this be a Facebook group or your friends or spouse, find someone to express your frustrations to.
Stop negative self-talk. There are apps on iOS and Android that teach a journaling method that contradicts negative self-talk with realistic thoughts.
Remind yourself why you’re writing. Reconnect with the joy.
A takeaway
Writers aren’t the only ones with self-doubt; it crops up when we have to speak publicly, at our jobs, and any place where we step outside our comfort zones. What are your solutions for self-doubt?
Words Like Me 