Writing Process

Everything Update – 06/24/2018

Writing: I’m still working on my new project and I’m deep in character development. I did a little index card plotting and have a basic idea of where the story is going but the more I work on individual characters, the more interesting the story gets.

I haven’t written any scenes yet but will soon. I was in a writer’s funk (not quite a block) for so long I think I’m afraid to jump into actual writing. At this point, I’m happy to be working toward something rather than fretting about not writing.

The story is urban fantasy. I previously worked mostly on high/epic fantasy, which I love to read. The problem is I hate world building. I don’t have the patience for it.

With urban, obviously you have to world build but not to the same extent as high or epic fantasy. I enjoy writing high fantasy short stories, but I’m sticking with more modern settings for my longer stuff now.

Reading: The Dresden Files. There are other series I like better but I’m enjoying this one. I’m on the seventh book. Each time I finish one and pick up another I swear I can feel my ‘to-read’ pile glaring at me. However, since this is research I don’t feel too guilty.

If anyone has any suggestions for urban fantasy series, please share them with me. I’ve read Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews along with what I’m reading now but that’s it.

Medical: I got another injection in my back last week. It’s amazing. There is no perfect relief from this kind of pain but it’s enough that I can sit at my desk and work for longer so I’m satisfied for now. Plus I’m going on vacation soon so I’m glad I did this now.

Vacation: We’re going to Colorado this year instead of New Jersey. My in-laws are meeting us there. I like going to their home to visit but it means a three-day car ride. This year, we only have to drive eight hours! My lower back will be thanking me.

Going to a new setting will be great for my writing. Every vacation is a working one when you’re a writer. Yet it doesn’t feel like work when you’re excited about a story!

Writing two: I plan to write flash fiction stories set in the world of my new project. Once I have a few I’ll start posting them.

That’s all I have for now. I hope to post more often soon!

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My Writing Journey, Part 2

To read Part 1 click here.

Ah, the teenage years. What a beautiful, crazy, terrible nightmare they were. I could tell a million stories from that time, but I’ll stick to the writing-related stuff for the sake of brevity.

I didn’t often write back then. Like most teens, I was crippled with self-doubt and unexplained fears. How on earth did we all survive blushing almost daily? It was during these formative years that I had a lot of serious upheavals and changes.

When I was thirteen, my parents divorced. This was both painful and welcome. They hadn’t gotten along for years, so we all knew it was necessary. The hard part had to do with being a daddy’s girl. There was a time I would have done anything to please my father, but I was learning that he was human and I didn’t like it.

He was an alcoholic, which I barely understood and probably affected me the least of all of my family since I was the youngest and his favorite. In the days leading up to my mom leaving him, I finally saw some uncomfortable truth. My dad was a high functioning alcoholic, as in he came home, drank a lot of beer and you couldn’t see much change. However, he was an a-hole when he was really drunk, but like most heavy drinkers, it was even worse when he wasn’t drinking.

I need to clarify that I was the one who couldn’t see much change when dad drank. I was young, dumb, and oblivious. My mother and brothers definitely weren’t in the dark. In a way, this lack of knowledge made it harder when I saw the truth.

Anyway, I won’t go into too many details, but the night we left, my dad did the unforgivable. He slapped my mother. I may have been a daddy’s girl, but no one touches my mother. Even worse, in my barely teenaged mind, it was my fault. He was drunk and pissed off because of something I did that my mother punished me for.

I don’t remember what stupid crap I’d pulled, but I do remember I deserved to be in trouble. All she did was ground me, but I was his baby, and I don’t know if he assumed I hadn’t done anything or if he thought she was too harsh. It doesn’t matter, he had no right to do what he did. Hell, he didn’t have the right to be yelling at her for it.

The words and images are fuzzy for me except the look on his face when I screamed at him. The shock and betrayal in his expression are still clear in my mind. Sitting here, writing this I keep thinking ‘he felt betrayed, what about us?’

My mom was smart enough to use the interruption to get the hell out of there. She grabbed me and my older brother and took us to her sister’s house. She filed for divorce soon after.

I need to backtrack a moment. My dad was a good man, once. He treated me like a princess and loved me with everything he had. He treated my mother well too, in the beginning. He didn’t treat my brothers the same, but I don’t know if that was the beer or just how he was.

Alcoholism messes people up, and he’d been that way for most of his adult life. Part of me believes if he’d ever completely given up beer, he might have become the man he should have been. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

Once they split up, I picked up a pen again. I wrote about my feelings and then tore up the paper into confetti, every time. It helped. Life settled into a routine for a while. Then my mom started dating someone.

I was happy for her until I met him. His name was David, and I hated him, instantly. This was no teenager issue, though my mom thought it was. No, I got a bad feeling from him. I’d only gotten this feeling with one other person, and it turned out my gut was right that time. So, in all my experience and wisdom I told my mom how uncomfortable he made me. She produced the knowing smile adolescents everywhere hate and kept doing what she was doing.

Everyone assumed I would hate the first guy she dated because he wasn’t my dad. HA! Little did they know my ‘bad feeling’ was never wrong. The guy turned out to be a pig, which is the nicest thing I can say about the man. As a side note, years later, I ran into this man at the local mall, where I worked (I was 18 or 19). He told me how much I looked like my mother, how he missed her, and then hit on me! GROSS!

I occasionally pick on my mother for not listening to me, but my choice in men was much worse for a few years so I keep it to a minimum.

Not long after dumping the jerk, she met my future step-dad. I liked him right away. He was weird as hell, had a dry sense of humor, and he adored mom. No bad feelings cropped up, so I was happy for her. They got married in October 1988, and we moved from our tiny little town to the bigger city ten miles away.

It might as well have been a hundred miles. I wasn’t sad to move, but I was sad to leave my friends. I figured we still see each other often, but it didn’t take long for everyone to move on. I loved and hated my new school. There were so many people! Unfortunately, some were little assholes. Some were amazing. I found the weird tribe and joined. I settled in and decided it could have been worse, then it was.

At the end of December, fifteen days after I turned 15, my dad died in a car accident. He was driving through New Mexico, on he way to El Paso to visit his parents. My brother and I were supposed to be with him, but we didn’t go. He was mad at both my brothers for something stupid and I was mad at him. On Christmas Eve, he yelled at me and told me I ruined Christmas because I defended my siblings. It was all so unimportant and silly, but we didn’t want to be around him when he was a jerk.

As you can imagine, I was a wreck. Grief and guilt consumed me. My relationship with my middle brother fell apart. He already resented me because I was dad’s favorite and was treated differently. Now that our father was gone, there was only me left to take the blame. My mother hardly knew what to do with me.

The years that followed are particularly painful for me, and I don’t want to rehash everything. I didn’t get arrested or do a bunch of drugs or anything like that, but there are some things I’ll never talk about again. I will say that I wrote more during this time than I ever had. I got angry at my mother often back then. She was very non-confrontational, and I am the opposite. It made me so mad when she wouldn’t fight! So I wrote her letters. I wasn’t capable calmly telling her how I felt and she wouldn’t let me yell it, so it was my only option.

Those letters, which she still has, changed my world. You wouldn’t believe how many drafts of each one I wrote. I cared about how well they were written. It bothered me to misspell something or if my grammar was off. I realized how much words mattered. I also learned that I could truly express myself with a pen.

Fear still ruled, but I’d taken steps in the right direction. Years later my mother told me she thought I should write after reading those letters because they were well written.

Remember when I used the word brevity at the beginning of this post? If you know me, I figured there would be some eye-rolls, well deserved.

Certainly, I wrote more than intended but sometimes the words have to come out. Thank you for sticking with me. In part 3, I’ll cover my failed marriages and bad choice in men. Those were the years that almost broke me and nearly killed my love of writing.

Photo by Apollo Reyes on Unsplash

 

 

Yearly Goal Post

Every year I write a post about my goals. I don’t like to make resolutions because those fail. I can say I want to eat better, and I might for a short time, but it won’t last. There will always be chicken strips in the world!

I could state I will work out more. I probably will do this, but it won’t be because I claimed I would on January 1st. I’ll do it for my health and because it helps me deal with back pain.

What I will say is I want to write more this year. I intend to; it is my primary goal. This is not a resolution; it’s what I’ll do.

Generally, in one of these posts, I make a long list of writerly goals. Not this year. There are too many roadblocks in my life to plan for anything too specific. So I’m sticking with writing more than I did last year.

I don’t want to be disappointed by too many bullet points like I was last year. However, if I’m lucky, motivated, dedicated, and able, then I will write many short stories, a novel or two and a lot of blog posts.

I’m not against other people making resolutions, but they don’t work for me. If you’re making some, I hope they work for you.

Sidenote: I’m working on a suspense novel! I started it years ago but put it aside to work on fantasy. It’s time for a change, so I picked it back up. I replotted it, with very few changes. Now I’m trying to fill in holes in the middle before I sit down and write the thing. Wish me motivation!

 

My Writing Journey, Part 1

One doesn’t choose to be a writer, it’s in you, but you do have to decide to write. Being a writer is part of me, it always was, but I didn’t always choose to do anything active about it. The road to writing regularly was bumpy, often blocked, detoured, sabotaged, scary, and sometimes impossible.

Even now, as in the last few months, there are times when I write next to nothing. I aim to change that, starting with this post. There are many reasons why I’ve been in what I call a ‘writer’s funk,’ but I’ll get into that in a later post.

For now, I’m going to share with you all how I got to where I am today. I called this post Part 1 because it will take several to get it all out. I don’t know how many but I would rather do this in sections than give you with a ten thousand word post.

It all began when I was a child. I’d like to say I always wrote. I wish I had hundreds of journals worth of childish thoughts and stories, but I didn’t write back then. I was capable of it, but things more powerful than the urge to write ruled my life. Fear and shame. Not fear of life or a person, just fear of baring my soul and shame when I did and was rejected. I tried several times, with diaries. After writing a few lines, I would seize up and put them away.

Opening up still fills me with dread. There was no significant event that started it. It was a mix of small childhood traumas that stifled me so much.

I was one of those kids who liked to make crazy things up. Fantastical stories with me as the star. A few times I tried to share these with friends and family.  My parents didn’t actively discourage me, but with three kids and jobs, they didn’t have time to ‘indulge’ me.

My friends were tolerant but more heavily grounded than me, so not particularly interested. All the girls my age were more interested in love stories, and the boys just wanted to watch cartoons and ride bikes. While I was imagining having a superpower or flying on a dragon, the other kids were busy being normal.

One of my brothers, who shall stay unnamed, but it’s the one I don’t get along with, had a different reaction. He made fun of me. Then his friends joined in. I won’t go into details except to say he liked upsetting me and succeed often. I valued his opinion above all others and he used that mercilessly. It wasn’t too long before I started keeping my stories to myself, even from the people who didn’t mock me.

I didn’t even want to write them down. Hence the started yet never finished diaries. What if someone read them? I would have died before letting anything see how weird I was. Now, all these years later, I don’t know what it was those boys said that made me feel so much shame, I only know the result.

Watching other girls writing their secret thoughts made me so jealous I could hardly stand it. I didn’t care what they wrote, but I wished to be like them. I wanted to be as brave as I thought they were.

I still made stuff up regularly, anytime I had a quiet moment. I kept it all to myself, for years. It took my mom pissing me off when I was a teenager so bad that I wrote her a letter to express my feelings before anything changed. That’s a story for next time.

As I stated above, I don’t know how many posts it will take me to tell my writing journey. I’m winging this one. Some posts may be short, others longer. There is also no schedule for when I’ll write them. I’m in the process of getting back to writing regularly so I hope to be very busy soon.

In my next post I’ll tell you all about how I started to embrace my weird and took a step closer, and many steps back from active writing.

Did any of you guys have problems with other people judging your creativity as a child? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments.

Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

In a Nanowrimo kind of mood?

Nope. I was, or at least I thought so. All it took was some outside negativity, and I was ready to jump ship.

I’ve put off deciding on a project, which means I’ve also delayed any planning, all month. So it’s probably safe to say I leaned toward not participating all along. Add in the fact that most the writers around me are also not feeling the call, which always gets to me and I never win when I go it alone, and this is no surprise.

Sadly, I needed a little encouragement, specifically today, to get over this dread and fear, or whatever my problem is, but there was none to be found. That’s not 100% true. My husband always encourages me, but in the face all everything else bringing/dragging me down, his awesomeness didn’t have a chance of working on me. Logic be damned! I’m as susceptible to feeling down and unmotivated as anyone else.

Who knows what the next thirty days will bring. I could change my mind, two or twelve times. Inspiration might smack me in the face (I wish), or I might re-watch Charmed all month. I’ll keep you all updated as I wade my way through this muck.

For anyone out there doing Nano this year, good luck. If you’re thinking about it, I strongly encourage you to go for it. Just because I’m not in the right headspace doesn’t mean I don’t believe the process works. It’s probably not for everyone, but it could be for you. Most years it’s for me too.

For those who don’t know what Nanowrimo is, go here. If you want to develop a daily writing habit and can handle being competitive with yourself, it’s an excellent way to go.

Everything Update – September 2, 2017

Sorry for the long gap in between posts. The past month was a busy one. I went on a long vacation, school started, and my brother had surgery. I haven’t been in a mental space that allows for much writing. I hope to change that starting now.

Writing: As mentioned above, I haven’t written much this month. I did a little work while on vacation, but until this week, it’s been sparse and sporadic.

Yesterday while grocery shopping I needed to take a break from walking around, so I sat down at a table in store and pulled out my notebook. I wrote down every major scene from the first book in my middle-grade series with the intention of finding gaps. In the process, I came up with eight new scenes and managed to discard a few (too bad I already wrote those).

It was nice to have communication with my muse again. I will capitalize on that today and continue to do so until the book is finished!

I’ll admit I got distracted twice, but I still managed to accomplish the goal I set for myself. The two distractions were my oldest son who works at that store and started his break while I was writing. The other was sitting a couple of tables in front of me. My ex-sister-in-law, who hates me, was there with a group of people.

When I saw her, I inwardly groaned but kept working. When she saw me, the conversation she was having with her friends switched to what appeared to be a tirade about me. I’m human and can’t stand the woman, so I admit to being amused. I’m almost positive she inspired one of the new scenes, haha.

While I plan to work on this series, it’s no surprise other story ideas pop up again. There was one that tried to take over, but I jotted down everything I could think of about it and went back to the fairy story.

Also Writing: I miss my writing group. It’s been a month since I’ve seen everyone and I can’t wait to get back to it!

Reading: I tried to stick to only urban fantasies but The Wheel of Time pulled in for a reread. It was inevitable after I read eight books in as many days in the same urban series. It was great, but I was overloaded. I figured re-reading anything was in order.

I still plan to pick up more urban fantasy books but perhaps not while I’m working on a middle-grade fantasy series.

Medical: My back hurts. It will continue to hurt until I give in and have another fusion. Even then it will probably still give me problems. So I’m resisting for as long as I can. That is all about that pesky subject!

Family: My oldest brother was diagnosed with prostate cancer. They told him it was stage 2, but when they did further tests, they found some cells were stage 3. He had surgery on August 28. It was also the first day of school, so the day was pretty stressful for our entire family. A group of us sat in the waiting room trying to make each other laugh. We succeeded a bit, but it was definitely forced.

The doctor said with a ‘magnified eye’ the cancer looked contained (they feared it had spread) but we won’t know for sure until the pathology report comes in, which could be as soon as Tuesday.

Blogging: My goal for this month is to post to this blog more often. I would like to get back to regular weekly posts on Wednesday, and anytime I think I have something to say. As you can tell from this post, I’m out of practice. I would go back and fix all my passive sentences, but then I’d have to work on it all day!

Everything Else: I love the fall. Many good movies and books come out. Number one of both is Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. Also The Core, by Peter Brett. Wonder woman on Blu-ray and Thor at the theaters are both on my list.

Sometime this week I have to clean off my desk. When I say clean what I really mean is take everything off, dust, clean with window cleaner (it’s glass, I hate it), then rearrange everything as I put it back on (or put elsewhere). The arranging extends to the three large shelves above and my bookshelves across the room. Add in the stuff I piled up on the closet floor to be gone through, and it will be a massive project for me.

My gym is taking gently used clothing to send to Houston, so I need to go through my three large bins full of clothing either too small or too big for me. I don’t plan to ever need the larger size and reality tells me I won’t fit into the smaller ones again, so why am I keeping them when there are women displaced by the hurricane who desperately need them.

I live in what we call west Texas, but it’s more north-west, near the panhandle. Houston is 520 miles from me, so we were not affected by Harvey, but I weep for those who were. It’s sad and horrifying. Yet there is hope. So many people stepped up to rescue others, risking their own lives in the process. There are so many volunteers that many are turned away. Donations are pouring in from businesses, celebrities, sports teams, and everyday people.

I’m not a spokesperson for anything, but I would urge everyone to do whatever you can to help in this time of crisis. Even as simple as donation points for hotel reward programs can make a difference.

Back At It!

I’m back from the West Texas Writer’s Academy. I got home on Friday afternoon, but I needed some recovery time. It was the best and worst week I’ve had in years.

First the good stuff. I plotted a novel! I started with a wreck of a first draft and ended up with the beginnings of something I will be proud of. It was hard work. The original book needed help, I’ve known that since I finished it. The problem was I didn’t know what to do to fix it. Now I do.

I panicked a few times, as expected. On the first day of class, we introduced ourselves. That’s always a not-fun experience. Then, we talked about plotting and got homework, which of course was to plot the first act. I was terrified because I knew I would have to read it all out loud the next day. We went in no particular order until someone volunteered me. I hated and loved that woman at that moment!

Each day I found it a little easier to speak, but I’m the type to get nervous anytime I have to talk to a group of people, so this went as well as it could have.

There was one late night when I sat down with some ladies and hammered out another act. I needed the help, and I got it. That late night was a turning point for my story. Everything from there was almost easy, creatively speaking.

It was wonderful how everyone wanted to help everyone else. We all wanted each of us to succeed. Writers don’t always like suggestions from other writers, but in this case, almost everyone seemed open and willing to listen. It was a great experience.

Now the bad stuff. You know how a lot of people believe hell is down below and unbelievably hot? They are wrong! Hell is cold and located in a dorm room on the campus of a college. Even though many of us complained, and they people in charge said they raised the building thermostat, my groups’ room was Antartica.

All day and night the air blew, colder than my heart after two divorces. I had two light blankets and a sheet as my only protection. Sleep was intermittent and miserable. Eventually, the last night, I thought to pull the bed into the middle of the room, which kept me away from the vent of torture and I slept a little better, but it was still not much.

Let’s talk about the bed for a moment. It had the worst mattress known to man. I guess the person before me either liked to jump on it or he/she used it to surf the stairs. The middle was sunken — maybe smashed in would be a better description. I tried turning it over, which didn’t work, then turning it around, which helped a tiny bit. My back is a wreck.

It didn’t help that I was sitting all day every day then going to the chamber of suffering all night.

Next year I’ll bring flannel sheets, a cotton blanket, and a comforter! Also, thick pj’s, a sweatshirt, and fluffy socks to sleep in. I won’t forget to move the bed too.

I need to rewind to the first day of class. I arrived on Sunday and class started Monday. So when I walked into the classroom, I wasn’t bright eyed and whatever-tailed. I was in pain, tired, and grumpy. Insert nerves, and I was a mess.

I forced myself to sit up front so I couldn’t hide, but I still wanted to stay under the radar. HA! If one wants to not stand out, then one shouldn’t screw up their medication. When I woke up that morning, I was hurting a lot, so the first thing I did was take a pain pill. An hour later, when I took the rest of my morning meds, I took another – I think. I was out of it, and I’m not sure exactly what I did, but the above is my best guess.

At breakfast, I started feeling odd and light-headed, but I chalked it up to being anxious. Then, about ten minutes into class, the waves of dizziness began. Any time I turned my head, I felt like I wanted to fall. Luckily I was sitting. Eventually, I realized what I had done, but there was nothing I could do about it. I did end up leaving the room and sitting in the hall. I was getting overheated so while sitting there I took off one shoe and sock and put my foot on the cold tile.

Several passersby were quite confused. I felt better and went back to my desk. I wasn’t better. When the instructor called a bathroom break, she asked if I was okay. I was embarrassed, but I was honest about what I did, and she was understanding. Several other students also checked on me. So much for hiding in plain sight!

At lunch, my friend (who was in class with me, yay!) and I walked across the street for food. I felt almost normal afterward. The meds were wearing off, and movement was the key to pushing past it all. What a day!

The rest of the week went well. In fact, I need to back up again to add something to the good stuff list.

There was a night where all the published authors attending of teaching at the academy set up tables in a big rectangle where they could sell and sign their novels. I roamed around a bit and bought a few. One of these books was written by the woman teaching the self-publishing class. She told me to sign up for her drawing to win an online version of the class. I never win anything, but I signed up anyway.

Fast forward to the final luncheon on Friday. Each instructor got up and said a little about their class and how the week went. The teachers who had giveaways also announced their winners.

When the self-pub teacher walked up to the podium, I said to the group at my table: “I’m out of the running, I never win anything, ever.” They all said things like “me either.” As I’m sure you guessed, my name was called. I truly hope no one was talking pictures because my mouth was hanging open in shock for much longer than I would have liked.

They went on with other teachers and winners while I sat there stunned. I did notice that every person who won something was in my class. Since I liked them all so much, I was thrilled. I’m still not past the shock.

The week was fantastic. Despite sleeping in hell, sitting more than my doctor recommends, walking more than I have in months, eating things I know I’m not supposed to, a major (but thankfully survivable) medication mess up, and having to speak in front of a classroom full of people every day, it was great. I will go back, probably every year from now on.

I’ll be better prepared and hopefully not as nervous.

The end of this story is really the beginning of the next story – my novel. It’s time to write it, and for some chapters, rewrite it. I’ll post updates as I’m able but I plan to be very busy until the book is written, revised, edited and submitted.

I typically write high fantasy, but I’ve found myself drawn more to urban fantasy lately. In fact, I’ve written more short stories set in modern times than a typical fantasy setting. The novels I’ve worked on that are urban are much easier to write, and I work faster on them. I find them more exciting too. The universe is telling me to put away the epic stories I’ve agonized over for too long and work on what I really want.

Therefore, the novel I’m writing now is about ghosts and a medium. The next one I plan to work on is about a witch/shaman, a vampire (not in a silly way), and the Fae. Plus my middle-grade fairy novel set in the here and now. It’s not only urban fantasy and paranormal trying to make it to the page. I have a suspense novel partly written, a vigilante story, and a book with fantastic elements but isn’t fantasy. It involves a portal and time travel but no magic. Each of these is more interesting to me than my fantasy trilogy.

I’ll write it eventually but I have to go where my muse takes me. I also have to rein it in. I will finish my current novel before working on the others!

Photo courtesy of Jesse Bowser

I chose this picture because my story is about ghosts and it seemed appropriate.

Everything Update – 5/25/2017

It’s been a while since I’ve posted and I thought I should write an update, so everyone knows I still exist. The last few weeks have been a bit crazy and unsettling for me, which affects everything I do, as I’ll explain.

Writing: The Writer’s Academy starts in less than two weeks. My nerves are on high alert. I received an email containing homework. The people in the class were asked to talk about ourselves, our projects, etc.

I put it off for two days because I was horrified. It wasn’t as bad as having to introduce myself in person to a room full of people, but I was still nervous about it. When I did answer, I got ‘yelled’ at by Alexandra Sokoloff, (author and one of the instructors) and it was hilarious! Let me explain. I’m a starter, and not always a finisher. I’m aiming to change this, which is part of the reason I’m taking the class.

I admitted to having twelve projects in various stages of completion, and she said exactly what one would expect. She told me to pick a novel and stick to it until it’s complete. Then she gave concrete reasons why. The irony is I haven’t even chosen which project I’ll be working on for the course! I hope I have it figured out soon.

Other than avoiding preparing for the academy, I haven’t done much writing. I wrote a piece of flash fiction and have thought a lot about writing. Mostly my mind is on my fantasy trilogy, so it’s currently the top contender for the class.

Reading: Pern, that is all.

Food Issues: Salicylates suck and avoiding them now rules my life. After several strong reactions to foods containing the nasty buggers, I decided it was time for a pantry/fridge/joy purge.

It was as painful as it sounds. I started with a list, well two lists on one piece of paper – front and back. Good on half of one side and Bad on most of the rest. On the bad list, there are foods I would never touch along with foods I will forever miss. Oranges, almonds, peanuts, mustard, basil, oregano, corn, all tomato products, tea, olive oil, rum, and many other things I regularly consumed. Okay, I haven’t had rum in over year because of pain meds but still!

The bad list is even worse than it looks at first glance. I mentioned corn. This means no corn products, except corn starch. Do you know how many things have corn syrup or corn meal in them? Blo-Pops, along with almost all hard candies, do. Soda, chicken bullion, most hamburger buns, any of the good frozen meals (I know, a rarity), and lots of cereals have one or the other as well. No more popcorn either.

Losing tomato products was painful as well. I’m a sucker for A-1 steak sauce, I’ll dip bread in that stuff, but I can’t have it. BBQ sauce. I live in TEXAS for crying out loud! Talk about unfair. No more ketchup, hell, no more Raising Canes sauce. Actually, Raising Canes uses paprika so I couldn’t have it anyway, but that’s not the point.

At least I can still eat garlic! I might have terrible breath if you ever meet me but I’m seasoning everything within reason with garlic, salt, chives, parsley and soy sauce from now on. Perhaps not all at once. I’m also happy to report I can consume pecans, limes, potatoes, and green beans. The world would have ended if these were taken from me.

The important thing is I feel different now that I’ve given up the foods I should have cut out a year ago. I’m less tired, less foggy, more energetic, etc. I’ve even lost a few pounds. The symptoms, besides major reactions, were much like the ones you would encounter with hypothyroidism.

Medical: My back hurts, as always. I won’t see any of my doctors unless I think I need to.

Everything Else: I’m obsessing/worrying about my packing list. The one I wrote five months ago. This is normal behavior for me when I go on a trip so nothing to be concerned about.

That’s all for now. I’ll post another update once I decide on a project.

Everything Update – 3/21/2017

Writing: My goal is to revise book one of my fantasy trilogy. I’ve worked a bit on it, but my lower back and a cold have kept me from doing much.

I used Grammarly to do a quick HA, not so quick check on grammar and spelling. I learned I have comma issues and I use too many compound sentences! The word ‘but’ is the bane of my writing existence.

When I opened Grammarly, I was shocked to see it found 900 critical issues! I almost fell out of my chair, seriously. As I went through it, I found it wasn’t as bad as I first thought. One issue the program has is it wants you to use more identifiers than I want. It’s a personal preference and not likely to change.

Another problem is sometimes it is flat-out wrong. There were times it wanted me to say ‘she’ or ‘he’ in place of her or him. It was wrong, I was right, and I clicked ignore on those.

I spent more time than I wanted on this and now it’s probably wasted time. There are some plot points I need to expand on, ideas I need to add and a few things I need to cut. My goal is to write the extra scenes, rewrite what I have to, then use Grammarly again.

It doesn’t matter that it’s not a perfect tool. The thing finds more of my mess ups than I do so I’m glad to have it!

As for the changes, there aren’t as many as I feared. There was a subplot I wanted to use in the beginning but chose to leave out. Now, I think the story needs it. I already have the notes and adding it won’t alter too much of what follows. I’ll have to change a few scenes, but mostly it’s adding new ones. It turns out my muse must have known because I inadvertently set it up as I went along.

The hardest part will be changing two character arcs. One of my most important characters is boring. He simply has nothing to do. He needs to be knocked down and dragged for a while. I don’t even know what torture I’ll put him through, but it will be bad.

Another change is the kinship of two of the ensemble. They are brothers, and I think they need to be cousins or half-brothers, or something that will make their relationship more complicated.

I have a character named I’maari who is probably the most interesting of the bunch, but she isn’t the main character. I need to dial her back a bit.

It sounds like I have a lot to do, but it’s not too much. It will be tedious work, and with all my medical issues it will take a long time. I’ll keep at it until I’m done. Then I’ll write book two, I think. There is a chance I won’t want to look at this story again for a while.

There are no plans for what I’ll work on if not book two but I’ll update when I figure it out.

Writer’s Academy: In three months I’ll attend the West Texas Writer’s Academy for the first time. It is a week-long intensive class, basically an expanded continuing education course. The one I chose is on plotting. I despise outlines, and this method uses index cards or sticky notes instead of a classic muse killing outline.

I’ve used the method a couple of times but I think seeing it demonstrated and being able to talk to an expert will help me with some rougher spots. I’m super excited about it. I’ve already made a packing list! Actually I made the list months ago, but that’s how I am.

Anyway, I’m transitioning from the kind of writer who writers by the seat of their pants to one who does at least some planning. I’m discovering as I go along how much I need.

Medical: This is the crappy part of my update. I have visited two doctors in the past week. First was my neurosurgeon. He said I’m still healing extremely slowly. Also, the fusion is not the cause of my pain. It’s disk above. In fact, I’m in more pain than before my surgery. He said to go see the pain management doctor, which I did today.

  1. I can’t say I’m happy with how it went. I have many options and all of them suck.
  2. Another fusion, preceded by another painful discogram.
  3. A neurostimulator implant. This is kind of like a TENS machine but on the inside.
  4. Targeted drug delivery. This is another implant, a drug pump. We’re talking continuous morphine.
  5. Pills.
  6. Injections.

As you can see, none of these options is appealing. Number four is out of the question and I’ll avoid surgery for as long as possible. The other implant might go on my last resort list. For now, unfortunately, they gave me pills. I was put on Tramadol and an injection semi-soon is likely.

The medication will make me sleep most of every day for the next two weeks. I’m starting with a half dose, once a day. I’m supposed to build up to four times a day. If I end up needing that much then I’ll schedule an injection. I cannot express enough how much I hate taking major meds. Tramadol isn’t a narcotic but it works very much like one. I won’t get addicted but I might not really be ‘me’ for quite some time.

So with all that said, I hope I can meet my writing goals!

Everything Else: I’m doing a lot of reading. I started rereading The Green Rider series by Kristin Britain. I didn’t want to read anything new because then I wouldn’t be writing, or new stuff could inject itself into my own writing.

However, with all this pain junk, and the new meds, I might read new to me books. There are several on my list, some of which are not in my normal genre. There are several people in my writing group with published novels and I own them but not read them yet. If my creativity shuts down for a while I’ll start on those. The genres are sci-fi, cozy mysteries, paranormal romance (vampires), and even some fantasy (YA). I think there are eleven novels I purchased (ebooks) sitting there waiting for me.

I’ll post another update as soon as I’m able. I can’t promise they won’t be loopy rambling. Just know, if the commas are in the proper places, it’s thanks to Grammarly!

Write Anything Wednesday #110

It’s a great day to write something, anything! Try your hand at flash fiction or write a poem. Create an outline or character sketch. Write a chapter or as many chapters as you can.

Nothing to write about? Try making a list of ideas or free-write. Grab a timer and experiment working in 10 to 25-minute increments until you find what works best for you. Take small breaks in between to make efficient use of your time while not overwhelming yourself.

Make Wednesday your weekly no-matter-what writing day. If this isn’t a good day, pick another. Give yourself permission to do what you want at least once a week. Don’t feel guilty for prioritizing your passion. Write your heart out!

If you would like a prompt:

  • The Great Human Galactic Empire is the biggest, badest, and scariest terror in the cosmos, but not today. Nope, today their computers are down.
  • He only thought it would be a relaxing day off…
  • Make up a new species!

Happy writing!