Living a double life

I’m definitely half-asleep. I started thinking about writing in this blog and then closed my eyes and started planning exam questions in Personal Adjustment (my positive psychology course for spring semester). I wish it was chapters of my work in progress; that would have been much more helpful at this moment.

I have a double-life. I teach, and when I’m not teaching, I write. And they’re two different worlds. I teach psychology and human services classes, and I do research occasionally on things like credit card use and euphemisms in advertising. I have about 90 students in a semester, including the internship students.

So in a few days, my days will be more absorbed in teaching and zoom meetings and the like. I will find time to write, and I might even write better because I have breaks from writing. Ironic, maybe, but that’s how it often works for me.

I look forward to retiring, but that won’t be for at least five years given the health insurance situation. Unless a miracle (the Powerball) happens, in which case I will retire early. So odds are (about a million to one) I will have the double life for a while longer.

Losing my Will to Write

I’m losing the will to get published.

It was my big goal for 2020, and I fulfilled it through self-publishing The Kringle Conspiracy. I got to do all the things I wanted to do with that publication — a book launch party, signing books. I didn’t sell many copies with royalties so far at $37, but it got the attention I thought it would get.

Now, I don’t feel the need to get published, which was the factor driving me to write. I am sitting on several books in the fantasy genre, and I’m having a horribly hard time getting the attention of agents. One has been sitting at DAW for so long with no response that I think it has mummified. I don’t want to self-publish them because I don’t know how to market them as they deserve.

So right now there is no stretch goal. There is no goal at all for my writing, and this is hard to struggle against. If anyone has any ideas for how I can get my mojo back, please let me know.

My life in writing

There’s days I’ve sat at my computer screen and ask myself, “What can I say that I haven’t already said?” And not just my blog, but stories in general?

Christopher Booker, in his book The Seven Basic Plots, holds that there are (you got it) seven basic plots in fiction out there, and that they all share one basic metaplot: being called to the action, a positive, almost dreamlike state, frustration, meeting the enemy, and resolution. If this is the case, nothing I write is original — unless you take into account the characters (especially the protagonist(s)), the setting, the specifics of the plot, etc. The reader expects the plot but revels in the journey to the end.

And so I keep writing, because I care about the characters first and foremost, and want to see how they fare on the journey. I want to see their journeys.

And I want to see my journey as well. In all of my posts, there is a journey, although sometimes (especially in writing Gaia’s Hands) I go in circles in the wilderness. My journey is not as sharp and clean as a novel or short story, and it doesn’t seem to have a plot. I doubt my memoirs will be worth reading. But as a series of essays, it may not be too bad.

Ask Myself

Do I feel like more of a writer since self-publishing The Kringle Conspiracy?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. I finally got a novel into the hands of readers (not many but) who liked it, I got to sign copies, I got to advertise it a bit, I got my hands on a paperback copy.

Will I self-publish another book?

Most certainly I will publish the sequel next Christmas time, I will.

What about all those other books I’m sitting on? The fantasies?

I’d love to get those traditionally published, but the shape of trad publishing and my inability to get traction does not encourage me. Alternately, I may put those into the self-publishing marketplace (aka Amazon) if I give up in frustration. There is one (Gaia’s Hands) that could go self-published, as it’s another romance novel.

Will I ever give up writing?

I don’t think so. It’s grown on me. I love creating, and I’m really bad at knitting.

My Temperament Today

So I’m listening to Apple Music’s Acoustic Christmas playlist and getting a bit weepy. I hope it’s just the stress of the end of the semester getting to me. Or the allergy to benzoyl peroxide I’m still dealing with after 2 days. Or the frustration at trying to write and not quite getting my hooks into the main male character. Or the book itself. Or COVID.

I hear that writers are temperamental. I’m pretty temperamental at times, so I guess that’s part of the job description. I try not to be temperamental, because I need to be nice to my husband, so usually I just announce how I’m feeling. Just like I did above.

Being honest about my feelings allows me to take them out and look at them and ask myself if the reasoning behind them (if there is reasoning) is true or a misgiving. And then, what can I do about it? Vent, write, distract myself, make something happen?

Today is split between vegging/taking care of myself and doing something. Confronting my novel in pieces. Interrogating Josh again. Something.

Where Do I Go From Here?

The good news is that, with my NaNo project of writing the sequel to The Kringle Conspiracy, I have found my love for writing again.The bad news is that I don’t know what to write next.

One possibility is writing the serialized novel called “Kel and Brother Coyote Save the Universe,” a light-hearted space opera. Another possibility would be to write Hands, which would be the polar opposite of Kel and Brother Coyote, a very psychological book about a boy who can heal — or kill — by touch. The one problem with this is that it would be set in the year 2005 in Krakow, and I don’t see any way that I could immerse myself in that era and place to the extent it would feel authentic.

There are still other possibilities. I could write the third story in the Kringle Chronicles, but I want to wait till NaNo next year to write that. I could write a sequel to Voyagers (or lengthen it to a full novel). I could write the sequel to Apocalypse, Gods’ Seeds. There’s so many choices.

But for now, I will edit the slightly problematic sequel to The Kringle Conspiracy, known as Kringle in the Dark. That will keep me busy.

Aside — my writing lately

A poem of mine, “Deep Touch”, will be published soon in Tempered Runes Press’ inaugural issue of

Bluing the Blade. I’m really proud of this accomplishment, which reminds me: I haven’t been submitting short stories and poems lately.

I’m not sure why; probably because I haven’t written any lately, and I’m running out of good poems to submit. I have a lot of poems I’m not that enthused with. As for stories, I have a couple I’m in love with, but they haven’t caught traction.

Time to think about writing short stuff again, even though one selection of serialized short stories is arguing that it should be a novel. Then again, given the space opera premise of the stories, serialized may be the best use of the material.

Muse, where are you? I need some inspiration!

I guess I’m busy.

I ordered eight paperback copies of The Kringle Conspiracy to sell after my book signing party requested copies. And do you know what? I lost the list! AAAAAAAGH someone threw out the piece of paper I’d written them on. I can’t believe it!

So now I’m asking my Facebook friends again who ordered copies. I think I’ve found most of them anyhow. Just missing two or three.

I feel like such a flake sometimes! Maybe most of the time, but with all the stuff going on (teaching, grading, writing, rewriting, emotional meltdown over Trump’s scary refusal to concede the election.) maybe I can’t be blamed for being a bit flaky.

What is left to do before January 1st:

Grade Case Management final case files
Grade exams in Case Management and People Money and Psych (in a couple weeks)
Meet with classes Monday via Zoom
Edit (first round) Kringle in the Night
Set up my pitches for PitMad December 3
Narrate 8 presentations for Personal Adjustment (i.e. Positive Psychology)
Finish setting up Personal Adjustment, Case Management, and People Money and Psych for spring classes
Get those books out
Rest (I don’t do that very well)

I guess I am busy. Busy is not necessarily a good thing if it stands in the way of accomplishment. Perhaps I need to learn to do things more efficiently. If I had time, I’d study that.

But today is Sunday, and I’ve finished grading a major assignment. Now to edit another chapter of Kringle. Ahh…

NaNo Winner — almost.

I’m almost done with NaNo. 48,300 words as of this morning. 1700 words to go.

I can’t believe I made it. I haven’t written a novel in a year or two, choosing instead to edit the ones I already have. I’m writing a romance novel, and despite the fact that I’ve got a romance novel published (A shameless plug for The Kringle Conspiracy), I still feel like I don’t get romance novels.

And then there’s the pandemic and the election, and our current president acting like the supreme leader of a banana republic (which I suspect is unfair to banana republics everywhere), I felt stressed enough to quit a couple times. But I didn’t.

But it’s nearly done, and then I will edit and edit and mercilessly edit. There are things I want to add, and probably a couple places I want to condence. I think promising myself ten pages a day should help the process.

Ahh. I never thought I was going to finish this one!

emerging

I don’t know how many of you are out there, nor do I know most of your names, but know I appreciate you. I think I’m crawling out of my prickly stress coccoon, which I picture as being something like a datura shell I curl inside of, hoping for peace.

The truth is probably not as dire as I paint it, and eventually Trump will leave office. The country will start to recover despite a deadlock in the government because thank Goodness there are things like executive orders and Trump set the precedent of using them right and left. The vaccine for Corona may be ready by mid 2021, and we will be able to hug again.

I’m writing. I’m still writing, breaking a NaNo streak of failing every even year since the 2016 election. That’s only two NaNos worth of failure, but I was pretty steady before then. I think I remember what I like about writing, and I think I’ll be able to continue it.

I also remember that I may have to put the big books, the fantasy books, out there again to traditional publishers. If I get my self-promotion game going, I may be able to put them out using that route.

I feel like I’m coming back to myself, someone who does better at doing than being. Thank you for listening.