Bleeding Ink: Stray Thoughts

Showing posts with label Stray Thoughts. Show all posts

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Oh Hai Thar!

Sorry about taking almost three months to post. What? ONE YEAR and three months? Haha. Very funn... um... sooo...

This! Lookit this!

So that happened. And then a new job. And then stuff. But I'm here now. I promise.

I have a confession: I have an addiction to cozy home libraries. My ideal library would have an old world explorer vibe, complete with a globe mounted in a brass-and-wood stand, a brass telescope, and a taxidermied mountain lion stalking a taxidermied big horn ram. It would also have a massive fireplace and at least three of the four walls would be lined with mahogany built-in bookcases. And those bookcases would be filled with books, yet have just enough shelf space left to accommodate any additions.

My current library attempts to mimic that dream library vibe, with mahogany lookalike bookcases on every wall, stuffed animals of the teddy bear kind propped on the bookshelves and the bookcases filled (to overflowing) with books. My Goodreads profile shows I only have 188 books, but I'm fairly certain that I have closer to 500 (many are too old to be scanned using their app and I will have to enter them by hand).

Ideally, I'd love to get all of them entered on Goodreads so that I could use it as a searchable database of my books, and then organize them on their physical shelves to match their Goodreads shelves, but until then, I have rudimentary organization going on. Horror over here. SciFi over there. Memoir up there. Children's books down there. Series are grouped together and placed in chronological (publication) order, but that's it.

And it works, in a sense.

Every once in a while, though, I stare at my bookshelves and know that as soon as I add a new horror book or if I purge some of the books given to me that I know I'll never read, I'll have to reorganize. That thought is depressing when there are so many books to deal with.

So now my questions: If you have a glut of books, how do you organize them? If you organize by genre, how do you organize books that cross genres? How do you organize anthologies? And how much space do you leave per shelf so that you can add new books (or do you pack the shelves tightly and worry about that later)?

Has It Really Been a Year?

Malayan Tiger Airbrush by Sky Sloderbeck

If you look at the post immediately preceding this one ("Correlation and Causation: Regarding Gender Discrimination Claims in Publishing"), you might notice that it's from March 13, 2012. With red-faced embarrassment, I have to admit that I wasn't as diligent in backing up my blog as I should have been.

What followed was a FUBAR moment with GoDaddy, their demand that I pay an outrageous sum of money to have my data retrieved, and the loss of my two-year-old writing blog. Before my last major site update - which was in 2012 - I backed up my site and so was able to salvage those 20-odd blog posts, but my entire "Life of an Intern" Series (a blog series that shared my experiences as an intern at a publishing company), some writing, and a few craft posts were lost.

And that brings us to the present. I've decided on Blogger because it's a Google product and they have yet to let me down. Plus, for a single mom and full-time college student, the hosting being free is a nice perk.

So if you knew me from my old blog, Literary Crux, welcome back! If you are new, welcome! I hope you join in on the occasional writing exercises and find my posts entertaining and helpful. I look forward to meeting you in the comments!

Why not start now? Leave me a message saying hi and the kinds of writing- and reading-related posts you'd like to see here. I'd love inspiration from my readers!

Oh, and are you wondering about the tiger above? No, it doesn't have anything to do with this post, but I've decided that with a new blog should come a new "feature," if you will. I have been creating a bit of art recently and I'm going to use that art, in addition to my own photography, in my blog posts. It sure saves headaches on copyright issues. I hope you enjoy the new blog and the new art!

Stray Thoughts: Get the Funk Out

On Saturday, March 10th, I turned 39. The week leading up to this was spring break for my university. I spent the entire week gorging myself on carbs and staring at the computer screen, unable to string any words together. Some might call this writer's block, some might call it a lack of motivation, I call it a funk.

I have never been a big fan of my own birthdays, especially now. The strain of this past birthday was not only internal, but external. For personal reasons that I won't go into here, this past birthday has been one of my least favorites ever. Additionally, my writing has suffered, my creativity has suffered, and my humor has suffered.

Many writers, I suspect, fall into this kind of funk from time-to-time for various reasons, and they all have different ways to pull themselves out of it. For me, it's deadlines. A deadline gives me the motivation, the adrenaline boost, that kicks me in the rear and gets me going.

And I have a deadline coming up.

No later than April 1, but preferably by next weekend, I need to complete the second draft of a short story. Once this draft is complete, I have to mail it off to the organizer of the writing conference I'm attending in April. I'm in a master class with five other writers and a published author and we will be critiquing manuscripts. My story is a sci-fi short written from a point-of-view that is risky, to say the least, and it is a story that I hope I can expand into a novel one day.

The funk is still there trying very hard to urge me back to mindless TV and pointless web surfing, but the deadline won't permit that. The deadline is key to getting me back in the writing habit. The deadline is wonderful. I know that, as a writer, I may not always have deadlines other than the ones that I impose upon myself, but for now, this deadline couldn't have come at a better time.

How do you shake the funk when life gets you down or drags you away from your writing for an extended period? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Stray Thoughts: Meet Me in Outer Space

ESO-Horsehead Nebula from Wikimedia Commons

About Pessimism

I have read many articles and come across quite a few people who are pessimistic about making a living writing fiction. In the past few weeks, as I've been considering options for the future of my education (grad school or no grad school, that is the question), I seem to meet more and more people who - in my own best interest, I'm sure - feel the need to try and "be realistic" about my possibilities in the writing market. People who have never read a word of my fiction, I might add.

I respect these opinions and value the information I take away from the conversations. Each time, I assure the glass-half-empty folks that I am perfectly aware of the dismal statistics for writers. Each time I inform them that I plan on continuing to dare to dream. But not a single time has any of these people ever said, "Can I see some of your fiction?" before making a judgement on my ability or potential. Not a single time has any of them even said, "Great, you know. Well good luck! If you can dream it, you can do it!" Not a single time.

I don't know how different it would be if they were familiar with my writing; I have a feeling I would still continue onward towards my dream, but perhaps with the added to care to put a little more time in perfecting my craft (as if I'm not already putting a ton of time into that already). But for the folks that have never read anything that I've done, or perhaps have read some of my work, but it was limited to blog posts or other non-fiction efforts, I have a hard time letting their words frighten me.

About Chasing Stars

I conduct myself in my writing career as if I plan on hunting Rowling and King down and overtaking them in the market. If I feel that I have a chance to topple the juggernauts, then that drives me to work even harder to hone my craft and create the best possible stories that I can. My sensible foot is on the ground, I promise. I know that the odds are against me, truly. But if I go into the business of writing believing that success may not happen for me, then I am merely hamstringing myself and my ability, peppering every word of every story I ever write with doubt of my ability. Besides, did pre-household-name-Rowling's friends, family, and peers think that she was going to be as successful as she is? I doubt it. So don't count me out just yet.

I believe that to succeed, you must reach for the stars. You must believe that you can do it. You must believe in yourself. But it's even more than that. People dream all of the time, every single day. But how many people actually build that rocket that will take them higher than they ever imagined they could go? I could sit here all day and say, "My writing is as good as, if not better than, Rowling, King, or Rice. I could be famous." But if I am not working hard, working ceaselessly to hone my craft and produce worthy offerings which prove (or disprove) that sentiment, then they are just words. I am building my rocket to the stars and no one is going to stop me (this site, especially The Craft of Writing, where I attempt to teach in an attempt to learn, is part of that process, in fact).

More About Reality

I am grounded, though. I know that for every author that gets published, there are thousands of authors who are rejected. I know that some things are out of my control, like market preferences and publishing house backlogs. I know that few fiction writers make a decent living wage at it. I know that it's rare when a new author sells a book on their first try. But do you know what else I know? I know that I MUST write. I know that I MUST create stories, especially ones that I want to read again and again. I know that we never stop learning and no matter how good someone might think that my writing is, it can ALWAYS be improved. If I am going to do this anyhow, then why not dare to dream?

Here's the thing: No one can see the future. Not you. Not me. I have no idea if I will become a household name and my books are read and loved around the world. I have no idea if my books will be optioned for the big screen or television. I have no idea if I will ever get a paycheck on a novel big enough to buy my forever home and my dream car. But I do know this, and I know it for a FACT... if I don't aim for the stars, I will never ever EVER reach the stars.

Some people encourage me and have faith that I can achieve these lofty goals or, at the very least, make a living wage from writing fiction, but most try to "talk me down to earth." Here's what I have to say to them: "I know the risks. I know the odds. So stop trying to dismantle my rocket, I have a galaxy to explore."

... and so do you. So go build your rocket! And enjoy a couple (or three) of my favorite "outer space"-themed songs while you build!

Author's Note: After editing this post for publishing, I realized that it had a pretty strong sense of personal combativeness to it, as if someone had read something of mine and then said, "You suck" and this was the response to that. Or maybe I'm just insane and am the only person who read it that way. In case I'm not, this topic actually had a very strange origin: It came from a post that I was working on (which will be published soon) about traditional versus e-publishing. I make a comment in that article that "I act as if I have a choice [of which platform I can publish on]" and that led me to a digression about conducting myself as if I did actually have a choice, which then led to the whole "daring to dream" thing, and then to this. Rather than bombard my readers with a massive digression, I plucked it out of the other article and plopped it into its very own. So thank my ADHD for having one of its "WAY the hell off the train track" moments if you liked this post.

Distractions and Focus

A Google search of writing advice returns over 300,000,000 results. Of these results, many of the samples offer the following tidbit of information: Write what you know. Some people, like Marg Gilks, says that the phrase "write what you know" is misleading. Early in her article, she states that writing what you know "builds walls in the writer's mind, imposing artificial limitations bred of uncertainty. How many writers, hearing those four words, have despaired?"

I know I have despaired. The funny thing is, my problem isn't because I don't feel that I have lived an exciting enough life to draw on that for my writing. I have had so many experiences, that if I wrote an autobiography from my teenage years up until now, no one would believe it was true. Not only that, but my experiences are SO varied, that I would certainly get flack from publishers for not having focused writing even though it would be my experiences, and not the writing, that were unfocused.

The good news is that if I am writing fiction, this means I have a wealth of varied experiences to draw from to create realism in my writing. The bad news is that if I am writing fiction, this means I have a wealth of varied experiences to draw from to create realism in my writing. You see the dilemma, yes?

If you were to look in my writing journal, you would see pages of 5-6 line story ideas. Pages. Each idea stems from one of two things: (1) a story I want to read which has not yet been written, or (2) things I have come across in my wild journey that I would like to expand into a story. The problem is where to focus so that I can actually (finally) get a complete story out on paper.

It seems as if every time I settle down with a single plan, something happens in my life to veer me off course and steer me towards a different story. I was going to write a novel that revolved around dragons as a challenge that was given to me, but I set that aside (after some good progress) and began a vampire story that I have wanted to tell for years. Then I set that aside to explore two different stories that would fall under literary fiction and not fantasy and would be at home in any Women's Studies course. Now I have set those aside to write a young adult fantasy novel that was prompted by a rather ridiculous conversation I had yesterday.

Writing what you know sure sounds easy -- until the things you know keep jostling for your attention. How do you keep focused enough to get one of those ideas fleshed out without letting other, just as worthy, ideas get you off track?

I think I have a solution to my dilemma, and (among other things) that is a self-imposed deadline, but how do others do it? I would love to hear how you fight distractions, especially distractions that are not in the form of games or web surfing, but are in the form of other equally fascinating stories dancing in your head and urging you to write them.

Five Steps to Home Happiness

People I have known have had different types of priorities and these priorities directly affect their level of home happiness. Some people need an immaculate home to feel content and happy at home. Some people believe that they need that immaculate home, when in reality keeping up on household duties is only a source of stress for them. Some people need a full schedule of activities inside and outside of the home to achieve a level of happiness that directly brings down their level of stress. Some people think that they need this full schedule, but keeping up with journal writing, entertaining guests, being a part of a sports league, and having their children enrolled in numerous extracurricular activities is only causing more stress in their lives.

For a large part of my adult life, I have struggled with priorities. Every person's priorities are different, as I tried to illustrate above, so reading something (such as this article) is not a one-size-fits-all solution to happiness in the home. What an article such as this CAN do is to offer others insight into how I achieve "home happiness" and maybe offer something that others can take away and use in their own pursuit of home happiness.

Don't clean (incessantly). I don't let garbage pile to the ceiling or in any way let my home get to the point that child services or the CDC would be worried about the state of my living space, but neither do I worry about making the bed every day, doing dishes every day, vacuuming every day, or putting away accumulated junk in spaces such as the living room every day. I am horrified at the thought of someone "just stopping by" to visit me; the feeling that my house must be perfect is so ingrained in me, that I will probably never shake this paranoia of unannounced visitors. That paranoia aside though, I have learned that it's really okay to not have a perfect house, and the less time I spend on cleaning is more time I have to be happy. Eventually, I will have maid service who will handle the nitpicky stuff like vacuuming and dusting, and then the other stuff won't seem so annoying.

Don't do yard work. While I am in college, my income level is at the point where the government considers me below poverty level. My education is more important than my pocketbook, so this classification does not bother me in the least. It does mean that I have to be creative about how to make ends meet and to not spend money frivolously. But there is something I spend $20 every two weeks on that, while others might find it frivolous, I find it a necessity to keeping me sane and happy: yard service. Yes, I am below poverty level, yet I pay someone to come cut my grass (a luxury usually associated with those of greater means). This makes me so happy that the cost (which is itself very small) is worth it.

Don't cook (every single day). I value healthy meals, I really do. Grilled chicken and fresh green beans are my idea of a great meal. There is one problem: I hate to cook. Hate it. So how do you eat healthy while feed yourself and your family, and do this when you hate to cook? Well, the ideal solution would be to hire a personal chef, but seeing as how a personal chef would cost a bit more than the $20 I spend every two weeks for a yard person, that is one (more) luxury I can't have now. So how do I solve this dilemma? Like cleaning, cooking is a necessary evil; it is something I must do whether I like it or not. But like cleaning, I only do it when necessary. I am not beyond grabbing McDonald's or going to sit down at Bob Evans if the budget permits. So yeah, I don't have a perfectly clean house or perfectly cooked meals, but I'm okay with this and not having to cook or clean every single day makes me happy.

Work on my passions. I love writing. I love photography. I don't have time to "chase the light" as much as I'd like. I get writer's block or distracted like a dog spotting a squirrel far too often to write as consistently as I'd like. Even though I don't do these things as much as I'd like, I DO do them enough that I am a happier person for them. And while my son is gone on his 4-6 week trip to Georgia, I suspect that there will be a LOT less housekeeping and cooking and a LOT more "working on my passions."

Goof off. I play World of Warcraft. I also play in Second Life (though, I don't play much in SL now, unfortunately). I read lots of fiction. I use StumbleUpon far more than is necessary. I tickle my son to hear him laugh. I speak in goofy voices, again, to make him laugh. I cut out paper snowflakes and make tents out of kitchen chairs and sheets, all with my son. I act like a kid, I laugh, I have fun, and I don't worry that I left the plate on the table next to me after finishing lunch.

I am not Suzy Homemaker and never will be. I don't want to be. My idea of a perfect home life is not having dinners cooked from scratch and on the table by 6pm every night. My idea of a perfect home life is not cleaning and dusting every day and yelling at my son to stop climbing on the furniture or fuss at him for eating a snack in the living room. My idea of a perfect home life is not being a literal soccer mom and having those home and garden sales "parties." My idea of a perfect home is not about being "perfect."

I want maid service and a personal chef, things that even a middle class American can easily have. Yes, I've been pricing them. I can get one maid service to come to my home every two weeks to do the nitpicky stuff I don't want to do for about $50 every two weeks. I can get a personal chef to cook me and my son a month's worth of dinners for $400. I want to keep my lawn service. I don't want to cart my son around to an extracurricular activity five days a week. I want to be able to pursue my passions and maybe even get a paycheck from those passions one day. I want to be able to goof off to keep my mind young, reflexes sharp, and smile lines on my face.

You can never get back the time you lose with loved ones. You can never get back time you lose with yourself. So why waste that time on things that are not important? Will my son be a better person if I make him do pee wee football and baseball (when he's already stated that he really doesn't want to do them)? I doubt it. Will I be a better person if I have a floor so clean you can eat off of it? No, and what's the point anyhow? I have plates, you just might have to wash one first.

I am sitting here on the couch with a laptop on my lap and glancing up from this article I'm writing to look around me from time to time. What I see is a stack of clothing on the floor, ready to be sorted and folded so they can be packed for my son's trip. What I see is a suitcase and backpack piled on the floor near the clothes. What I see is a dusty television, a carpet that needs to be steam cleaned, a plate left over from my lunch, and an empty soda can from the same. What I see are four kitchen chairs -- in my living room -- and a sheet on the floor between them from where my son and I played at making a tent. What I see is a happy five year-old on the Internet searching for "Sid, The Science Kid" -- all by himself. What I see is slight chaos, and in that chaos is immeasurable happiness.

Note: I am an A-type personality with ADHD. Having a messy house really does a number on my being able to concentrate when writing and makes me all itchy and twitchy. I feel calmer and more able to focus when the house is immaculate, but the act of cleaning or of being anal-retentive about keeping it clean is a constant source of stress for me. Of all the tips above, the housecleaning one is the most controversial for me and the hardest for me to live wholly by -- which is why you can find me at 4am cleaning the house like a mad woman from time to time. For the most part, I squish down that control-freak part of me when it comes to the house and just remind myself, "Whether the house is immaculate or not is not important, the time you spend with your son is what is important." That helps. That helps so much.