It's 2:30am, and I should be asleep, but I'm not. Being up late isn't anything new to me, but tonight I'm only up because my acid reflux is making it really hard to sleep - the sounds of my own choking on stomach acid? Not the sweetest lullaby. So I got up and made myself a coffee, grabbed my laptop, and turned on some music. I'm listening to Disclosure, because I really like their new song with Lorde, and I like a lot of their older stuff. I wrote up a writing schedule the other night so I know what I'm working on up into May 2016. I like to plan things. I'm following Rachel Aaron's 2k to 10k method, because I have a lot to do and a lot more I want to do. But some nights I get lazy. Some nights my brother comes home and I have to be quiet because his room is right below mine, and the sound of my clacking on keys keeps him up all night. So, here I am, not working, drinking coffee, blogging, listening to electronic music in the middle of the night, in the wee hours of the morning. But because I still love my WIP and I want to work but have to wait until morning, I thought I'd write up a list of all the things I love about the projects I'm working on right now.
Evil Scary Mermaids
Poetic Verse
Teen Banshees
Cheesy Puns
Dragons
Gay Witches Saving the Day
Red Bull Name-Dropping
Spooky Encounters
All the Angst & All the Kissing
Lesbian Monster Hunters
So yeah. If that doesn't get you excited about my books I don't know what will . . .
So the other night I realized blogs are my favourite books. I was sitting in bed reading Amanda Hocking's old blog posts for like, the millionth time, and I realized I am obsessed with reading blogs. And I don't mean blog posts - I mean blogs themselves. In their entirety. When I find a new blog, I will go to the last/first post in the archive and read the entire blog from the first post to the newest post, even if it means reading three to four years worth of posts. I've read blogs like Amanda Hocking's (http://www.hockingbooks.com/blog/) and Zoe Marriott's (http://thezoe-trope.blogspot.ca/) and then I'll read ones about military wives who travel around to different bases around the world, or uni students living in Japan, or manga artists moving to Hawaii. And I'll read them more than once.
A good blog is like a good book, but even better, it's like a good conversation. A good blog has that nostalgia to it, like remembering a 3am conversation with your best friend from three years ago, except you can reread them again and again and again. They're a glimpse into other people's lives. Like right now, I'm sitting at my desk listening to Young by Vallis Alps, with a mug of black coffee beside my computer. The window behind me is open letting in the mid-September air, and I'm about to go do some laundry when I'm finished writing this.
Or, like, last night, when I though this post up, I was lying in bed, reading Amanda Hocking's blog, listening to Enemy Fire by Bea Miller, I was a little bit stoned, drinking lukewarm peppermint tea out of a chipped mug, eating leftover donair pizza from Pizza Shack, thinking about how blogs are nostalgia fodder and how I really, really love them.
See? Reading a blog gives you a glimpse into someone else's humanity - into their existence and what it feels like to be them. It's really, really cool, and there's nothing else exactly like a blog: it's basically a public diary. A bit invasive at times, maybe . . . but still interesting as hell.
In the film Enemy at the Gates, a Russian sniper in WWII, Vasily Zaytsev, is transferred to the sniper division after he saves a comrade of his. In reality, he served as a clerk before being transferred to the Rifle regiment. The story of the film doesn’t mention his early war career at all, but instead jumps into the battle at Stalingrad: while in Stalingrad, Zaytsev meets Tania Chernova, who a comrade of his also likes. The comrade, Danilov, transfers her away from the combat to keep her safe. This is all a lie. The love triangle is a lie. But more importantly? So is Tania. In real life, Tania Chernova was a ruthless sniper who met Zaytsev at a sniping school he ran. Tania had lost family and decided to take out her enemies, the Germans, in revenge for their deaths. She was a ruthless and skilled sniper who called the Germans ‘Sticks’ as she though all they were good for was breaking. Tania traveled through Stalingrad on her own and, at times, with Zaytsev, and the two became lovers. Tania was on the front lines serving her country and fighting against the Germans, and while the story reflects this, it is very sad that the sexist writers of the movie decided to turn her into nothing more than a damsel in distress and a prize for Zaytsev to win that would represent his happiness at the end of the movie. Tania Charnova was not another person’s prize, or a troubled damsel who needed to be saved: she was a dedicated soldier and a skilled sniper who should be renowned for her skill, fierceness, and bravery during the war. It honestly makes me sad to see such an interesting woman and historical figure squandered like this by the script. It is honestly shocking and disgusting that they went to such lengths to make her seem delicate, pretty, and helpless, as opposed to portraying the often ugly, flawed human being she truly was; a damaged but still brave and driven young woman who used her pain to help her own country, and by extension the world, by taking on Nazi forces. She should be upheld as an incredible hero and a role model for her intelligence and her shooting skills, not turned into a pretty face meant to entice a male hero.
So that's what I have to say, and that's who Tania Chernova is, and that's why you need to know. I'm gonna go back to drinking my peppermint tea and ignoring this god awful movie's existence, now.
I finished another on of my daily goals. I went for a walk. I wrote earlier that I wasn't sure if I would force myself to do it or not, because I wanted to be a slug. Well. I did it. I morphed from a slug into a grossed out and mildly agitated slug. It was boring. It was sunny. A met a cute dog. I found a dead crow. A few bugs stalked me for about forty feet and then gave up. There were trees. I miss my treadmill, because when I had that walks were fun. I watched True Blood. I listened to music. I talked on the phone. And I walked more, because I didn't have to actually go anywhere. The treadmill broke and I can't afford another one, but someday I'll buy one. I need a new computer first. And then new clothes. and then, then I can start saving for a treadmill. And when I get it, I will finally be a happy slug.
I've posted like 3 times already today, and I'll probably post a few more before the day is done, but do you guys remember when I posted like, 2 blogs a month? Now I post like 2 an hour. Ah, the good old days, before I realized I could use blogging as a form of procrastination.
Do at least an hour of outlining for Shadows and another project each.
Do at least two school assignments.
Go for a walk.
And here's what I've actually done:
Eat leftover Chinese takeout for breakfast.
Eat an entire pack of bacon two hours later when I get the munchies.
Watch two episodes of the Mindy Project and then stop because it makes me sad I don't live in New York with a slew of awkward and slightly condescending love interests.
Watch a bunch of Mirror's Edge Catalyst promos I've already seen.
Listen to the song Same Old Love by Selena Gomez like ten times.
It's 12:39pm, so I should be working already. I should have been working since 11. But I haven't been. I've been watching Mindy Khaling be the perfect human being and listening to the same three songs on repeat for hours. And I like Cage the Elephant, so that's okay, but I also like to be productive, so it's not.
I think the main problem is that I'm very good at being lazy. I could rock a job as a prince - not next in line for the throne, but one of the cool younger princes who gets all the riches with none of the responsibility - or a famous for being famous socialite. Except I'm not hot enough to get famous for no reason and I'm not conceited or exciting or rich enough for my own reality show. So.
I really don't want to go for a walk, which I think is because I don't want to go outside. I'll force myself to do it anyway, eventually, because I want to cross it off of my daily goals list, but I feel bad because my hair is really short and I just ate, so I feel like I'm gross and I don't want people to look at me, which going out - even here in the middle of nowhere - would entail. Whatever. It's really cloudy, so I can bundle up in a sweater and go out then, but it's going to suck. It would suck anyway because it's exercise, and I have no ipod, but it's going to suck extra because I feel so gross today. I haven't done my 5Things though, so maybe if I write those before I go out I'll feel better.
Anyway, that's all I'm doing today - stressing over not working enough, eating everything I can find, and listening to music while I work up the momentum to get some homework done. Here, have some:
A few weeks back I had the scariest dream of my life. I regularly dream about serial killers and monsters coming after me, cruise ships sinking while I'm on them, and snakes strangling me - but this dream was scarier than any of them, because the monster was human.
I don't know if I'm the only human this afraid of doppelgängers, but I am. I don't mind clones - use science to explain my exact double and I'm cool with it. I don't mind long lost twins, clones, people who look similair, et cet. But doppelgängers? Spooky exact copies of people that turn up without explanation?
I wasn't the one with a doppelgänger in this dream, though. It was a random guy I've never met before.
The dream started out line any random one: I was at the movies with my dad, and we were seeing a Superman movie. Well, in this movie Superman had a male love interest, and on the way home my dad kept complaining about it. We got in a fight, as you do over gay superheroes, and he kicked me out of the car to make me walk home. He's only done that in real life once, late at night, over 2 miles from home. I won't say I deserved it, but I do understand why he did it, since I was in a bad mood and taking it out on him for no fair reason. He wouldn't do it for something as stupid as an argument over a movie in real life, but in my dream we were really passionate about this movie. So while I was walking home after he drove off, I walked by a really hot black boy, a few years older than me - so maybe 21, 22? And that was it. For me. I kept walking after checking him out as I went by and went on with my day and my walk home.
But the dream didn't care about me anymore - after that it followed this young black guy. And I had been reading a lot about police brutality before I went to sleep, so it seeped into my dreams, all these stories of racist cops and brutality and conspiracies. Because the police do get away with a lot. Dirty cops get away with a lot. And cops need to stop killing black kids, teens, and adult. Cops need to stop killing black people. Tamir Rice was 12 and was shot instantly and remorselessly, all for playing with an obviously fake toy gun. So I was outraged by this, and it bled into my dreams, as things tend to do with me.
So this guy walked past me without noticing me, he was focused on getting home - but when he got there the door was open, and his mother had been shot in the living room, and there was a gun there, and a cop had done it, and he knew it - in the way you just know things in dreams - that a cop had done it, and in that same way he knew they were going to frame him. So he closed the door, called his aunt and grandma to help him clean it out, and set out to prove the cop who had done it (the police chief, as it were) and things went from bad to worse.
Because that's when the dream turned scary. And I mean, I was shaken for the rest of the day when I woke up scary. The boy followed the cops to the woods to check out what they were up to, and long story short they were killing people and ditching the bodies in the woods, there was a pile of corpses in a short ravine and a pipe/slide/chute thing they pushed them down, and it was disgusting, and scary - but the scariest part came when the copy showed up.
The scene flashed to this boy walking through a dirt road in the woods, and something rustled in the trees - and when he turned to look he saw himself coming out of the trees.
And in knowing things just because you know them, as dreams work, I knew without having to wonder that this clone was a normal human. He wasn't a scientific clone or a magic monster or a demon. He was just a person who looked a lot like another person. He had the skills to easily kill the main character, and he was going to do that and take over his life, and no one would ever know or be able to stop him or know what had really happened to the main character. He would vanish and be replaced and no one would know and this stranger who looked like him would take over his life until it was time for him to take the fall for the death of the mother. And it wasn't a big deal to the copy - he would feel no remorse and he wouldn't hesitate. It was no big deal to him.
And that was horrifying to me. The idea of someone killing you where no one will ever find you and taking over your life, it was so fucking awful, so scary to me, that I woke up frozen in the dark. I couldn't breathe for a minute. I was shaken for the entire day, looking over my shoulder.
So that's what scares me: cops, and random doppelgängers. Just, all doppelgänger in general. It's scary, and weird, and it creeps me out. I have a lot of issues with mirrors, too, and I have dreams about my reflection moving without me or turning on me, too, which always fuck me up for days on end afterwards.
I don't know why I'm writing about this here. Food for thought, maybe? Or maybe I just like talking about dreams. Or the things that scare me. Or both.
All I know is, doppelgängers are creepy, cops both scare and enrage me, and I should stop focusing on stuff I hate before I go to sleep, or I'll be doomed to have nightmares for all time. And now, I'm gonna get back to work.
I feel like my blogs have been really dark and personal lately, and while it's important to me to talk about personal stuff to form a connection with my readers and show who I am, I also feel like it's fun to keep stuff light and recap-y and, well, bloggy. And I like talking about pop culture. So much that it's almost all I do.
I'm working on a side project right now while I take a short break from everything, and it's just something to take my mind off stuff when I crave the motion of typing or thinking about storytelling. It's just an expanded version of a short story I wrote almost two years ago, but it's in a different pov and verb tense, and it's bery Richelle Mead. Or, well, as Richelle Mead as I get - my writing is a lot more mope-y and emo than hers, but still.
Anyway, while I'm writing I'm collecting a bunch of good music, bust last night I stumbled across Same Old Love by Selena Gomez and I'm loving this song. It's different than anything she's done before, but still familiar. I like that there's an electronic element, but she's letting it be pop. She's not forcing it to be a dance track and it's really glamour. There's something almost Amy Winehouse about it, and I love it. I've had it on repeat for an hour while I cooked eggs and fried mash potatoes for breakfast. Also coffee, because coffee.
It really fits the story, too, because the main character and her love interest are both the kind of girls who like to wear glamorous dresses and give sass. This is ya paranormal, but it's so chick-lit it's one of the funnest things I've ever written.
I'm also really loving Dangerous by Big Data, even though the music video grosses me the hell out, and Coattails by Broods.
I'm reading Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo, and I'm worried because there's so much to read I don't know if I can get to all my arcs in time! I don't want to waste the arcs, but these book shopping sprees might have me knee-deep in catch-up with my actual books so long the ebook arcs expire.
expensive habits...
I did just read a physical arc of Pretending to be Erica by Michelle Painchaud that her publisher sent me, though, and I have to say - I loved it. You can read my review of that here. I really like heist stories, so that was nice, even if it was more contemporary. But Michelle Painchaud is awesome on Twitter, and her book is full of some pretty awesome stuff too. Like cute boys and emotional trauma. That kind of awesome.
Right now I'm just hoping my royalties pay out soon because as soon as I get my next payment I can buy a new laptop off of kijiji or something and pick up the pace with work. I desperately need a new (well, new to me) computer, because mine is nearly six years old and ready to retire. Once I get a new one I'm hoping I can work more and do more as far as youtube videos and blogs and stuff go. I can also do more with Diverse Tomes, which would be nice.
As it is, you can find Diverse Tomes on Facebook and Tumblr now. It's a platform I use to talk about and dissect diversity - or the lack of it - in the young adult genre, and in other teen oriented culture. So that's cool, and you should probably check it out.
What else? I haven't had a red bull in so long that it's killing me. It's raining today and I'm going to light some incense and make coffee and do homework when I'm done writing this. I'll be writing and posting another blog earlier because I should post on this blog more. When I'm done homework I'll probably work on that project I was just talking about for a bit. And then crash.
Keep an eye out for a post on becoming a beta-reader or recieving arcs of this project because I want to put some out as soon as I finish it.
(I'm hoping to squeeze in one more release besides SOSAS in 2015, because Shadows doesn't come until 2016, ditto another project I can't talk about yet.) And then I have two books coming out in 2017 as well - a duology. After that I'm up in arms. I might aim for traditional publishing with anything after that, but we'll see how it goes...
I'm thinking about being alone. I've been alone a lot lately. I stay up all night, alone, working, and nap for most of the day. When I'm not working or sleeping, I'm home alone because my parents both work during the day. I'll only be going into the city once every week during this semester, so I'll be spending days on end alone.
I'm thinking about every day being school work and then regular work, and how it will be long hours at my desk and late nights doing stuff I'd rather not. And I wonder how I'm not gonna go crazy from boredom. From apathy.
But you know, I'm very good at making things good. I think as long as I can make coffee and play with my cats for a minute while I wait for the water to boil, as long as I can walk down to the river everyday and watch how winter creeps in, as long as I keep dancing to my new playlists while I'm home alone, I'll be okay. I just need to let the little things in. I need to keep reminding myself I'm getting a lot done: even if it feels like I'm sitting in my room every day...
I've been doing these two things lately (lately being the last three days) where every morning I go to the same page in my sketchbook, and on one side I write down five things or virtues that I like about myself, and on the right side I write down three things I want to accomplish in my day, no matter how small or simple they are. I don't know if the 5Things has been helping, but I love the daily goals part.
I've been super productive since starting this, pushing myself to do little things like write 2000 words or do some homework or go for a walk. Plus, at the end of the day I can't say I wasted my day, because I accomplished those three things. I think it's a nice little way to get motivated, which is hard for me sometimes because of my depression. It's also nice on days where I'm not having symptoms but would otherwise be lazy. If you have a lack of motivation I really recommend it - especially if you're on a deadline!
So yesterday was my first day of school. I have to admit, I've been anxious about this for weeks. The end of summer was getting closer and I had no idea if I would be back in school daily or on the same program I'd been on last year, which was one where I basically home-schooled myself. I had to meet with the principal yesterday to figure out what would be happening.
I think a lot of people are surprised to find out I'm still in high school, and that always surprises me. It shouldn't, honestly, because I'm too old to still be in high school, so the assumption makes sense - but I'm not used to people taking me seriously enough to not immediately assume I'm an adult imposter. So why am I in high school? I failed two grades, among other things. I don't know how I failed grade one, so don't ask - I don't even know how it was possible, but it happened. In grade six I started skipping school a bunch, and had to repeat the year. I kept skipping after that, but it didn't get me in academic trouble until high school.
Anyway, I'm supposed to graduate this year. And I'm hoping I'll have all of my credits by the end of the first semester, so I won't even have to do this for the entire year - just half. But in order to accomplish that I needed to get on packages - the aforementioned home-schooling program - so I could work at my own pace and earn as many credits as possible.
The day started at 4:30am. I woke up in the dark, sweating, with my heart racing. I'd had another one of those serial killer dreams. I seem to be fixated on this idea this week, and I keep dreaming about it. It's because I watch too much Scream the tv show and eating cold pizza before I go to sleep, but it's giving me thrilling dreams and fantastic ideas, so I'm not complaining. Except for the whole awake at 4am part.
I was nervous as soon as I woke up. If I didn't get packages then I'd be spending the entire year in stuffy public school classrooms, the ones with the pastel painted cement block walls and desks with plastic 'wood finish' veneer. I was also nervous because if I did have to do that, it would be my last time ever being in high school - and if I get packages then that last time has already past. And that makes me sort of sad.
Public school raised me as much as my parents did. The reading corner in Ms. Genge's first grade class, trips to the library down the hall in her third grade class later on. I can remember my first crush - which, surprisingly enough, was on a girl - in Ms. Hachey's fourth grade home room. I remember pumpkin carving in the gym of my first middle school in grade 6, both times around, remember getting sent to the office for snapping at teachers, remember the first time someone told me I was their friend and I really believed them. I can remember ignoring our teacher lecturing us in social studies in the sixth grade so we could talk about Twilight and New Moon, and I can remember how after the longest detention of my life the same teacher who'd given it to me told me she thought I had what it took to be successful.
I remember my home room teacher in the second attempt at sixth grade, Mrs. Holden, lending me books and talking about my interests with me after class while I helped stack chairs - not because she had to, but because she was genuinely interested in talking with her students. I remember a teacher in the seventh grade giving me ten dollars to buy a cd at a school event, and I remember the first teacher who ever snapped at another student for using a gay slur, because one of his classmates could be gay. One of the first people who ever really made me believe I was talented and clever was my ninth grade English teacher, and I can still remember the vice principal of my high school keeping bins of snack bars and pastries and instant ramen just inside the door of his office so kids could grab a snack. I can remember spending music class holed up in the book room across the hall or the empty auditorium upstairs, pretending to learn guitar while we spent the entire hour talking, becoming friends.
This school system has been my home for 13 years now, and it will be that and a half by the end of this semester. It's a lot to say goodbye to, no matter how it ended.
I ended up sandwiched in the principal's office with him and a girl I've been friends with since the second grade, and we both ended up getting packages. So that's it, I sat in a high school classroom for the last time the first semester of the eleventh grade, and now I'm never gonna sit in one again.
I'll never eat lunch in the cafeteria again - or, more realistically, trudge uptown through snow for off-campus takeout - and I'll never spend break between each class gossiping in the chaos of a crowded hallway, or skip a class to go for coffee or hide out in the basement hallway near the pool, where everything smells like chlorine.
I'm strangely sad about it. And I'm excited, too, because now I can focus on work and graduating and writing. It's just odd to leave such a big chunk of my life behind. It helped me become who I was and learn a lot about the world, and it's sort of melancholy to watch it all slip away, even if I'm elated at the thought of a new chapter starting. And a new chapter is starting. Because I'm free by the end of this year. I can move wherever I want. I can do whatever I want. I can pursue my career without having to sacrifice time to school or other commitments that are forced on me. I'm, y'know, an adult.
And hey, the rest of the day was pretty good, too: I spent a lot of it sitting in the grass at the public park smoking with friends, but I also spent some time at an old playground called Rainbow Park that I love, and I got to hang out with some people I haven't seen in months because of life getting in the way.
So yeah, I don't know. It was wild, and nostalgic, and I'm a bit torn up about the fact that it's the last first day of my high school years. I'm a bit sad that it's my last first day with the friends I've been with since elementary school.
I'm set to spent an entire semester sitting around in my pajamas, mainlining coffees, writing, and squeezing in episodes of America's Next Top Model in-between bouts of obsessive school work. So I have a lot to do, and I'm gonna go get started, but I just needed to observe this strange sequence called time for a minute.
I feel like I should be happier than I am. I feel like I should probably be better at shoving out these empty spaces that keep trying to fill me up. And it's like I win, you know? I win the battle, and it convinces me I've won the war, so I stop being afraid to smile. And then as soon as things are good again, it all floods back in.
I don't really know where the person I actually am ends and the person my depression turned me into begins. In a lot of ways I think they're the same person. But I also think I had the capacity, once, to be happy, and naive, and innocent. I can remember being that way. I can not remember exactly when the chemicals in my brain starting turning against me and eating away at that person, but they did, they have, and they've been doing it for so long it's become my new normal.
And I worry, too - I worry that someday I won't beat it. Someday I won't be strong enough to swim against the black tide, but I will be strong enough to pick up a bottle of pills, or take that last step off a very high ledge. I wonder and I worry.
It feels like sometimes instead of being defined by what I actually am, I'm defined by what I'm not: like all these null and void spaces inside me I haven't filled up yet are spilling over, pooling on top of everything else like oozing blood until all I am is a long list of anti-accomplishments. Like I'm nothing.
It's funny how I win, too. Because sometimes it's as simple as drinking three cups of coffee and blasting some Katy Perry, circa 2011. And other times it's an entire November spent staring at the same blank ceiling and feeling nothing. Feeling like everything has spilled out a hole in the bottom of me and I'll never experience another emotion again. and when I do, it's fear.
But even when it's like that I always end up floating ashore one day or another.
I still worry though. It doesn't matter how many times you've been tossed overboard, how many times you've been unable to tell up from down or see sunlight through the surface - when the black tide swallows you up you panaic, even if these are the waters you were baptised in.
And the other ones? The anxiety? The paranoia? Those are a bit more problematic...
Depression is hot right now. It's sexy. It's hipster teens in black Adidos jackets, clutching cigarettes and torn sheets of loose leaf and turning blazed eyes into the cameras because they're gonna love this on Tumblr, it's gonna get five-thousand notes and every indie and pale blog in a hundred miles will have your face plastered on it! But it's the ugly mental illness indie blogs have never tried to make popular.
Because when I'm in the corner of my room at 3:43 in the morning with my shaking hands clutching a baseball bat to my chest like the last life raft in a stormy sea, that's not hot. Because there's not really someone trying to break into the house from outside, but hey, there could be. I don't fucking know: I'm crazy, in case you didn't get the memo.
When I run home from the bus stop so I'm panting and dry-heaving by the time I get to my lawn all because I think they're watching me from inside the trees, that's not hot. It's not hipster.
I can't help but think that if the lines I was broken along were smoother, more pleasing to the eye, that maybe I could cut myself some fucking slack.
But when it's 1am and I'm still shaking from that embarrassing thing I said today - why the fuck did I say that? - and cowering in the dark because my mind is convincing me that someone is after me, waiting in the woods and watching for the chance to catch me, it's harder to think kind things about myself.
But I still beat it, you know? I push away the pretty pills that pound my heart into oblivion because I want to be strong enough to swim on my own, without their help, without them keeping me up. But I remember how easy it was when I had them floating under my back, and sometimes I wonder...
I think there's a lot I could say about the ways people are broken in more malicious ways than I am, about the way they fall in love with their fault lines and try to paint them as pictures of love instead of working for recover. There's a lot I could say about how hard I am on myself.
But I still have it pretty good, and I feel like I should be happier than I am. So for now I'll just make some coffee and dig up some old pop music, and maybe I'll win another battle in this endless war with myself.
So, Souls of Salt and Seawater is coming along. Coming along as in, I'm going to be ready to send out ARCS by November, as in, I'm having fun with it, as in, the cover came out and I forgot to post about it here.
I'm a pretty forgetful bitch, if I'm being honest. I'll forget something is a dream and wake up excited to use my new laptop or go find my new husband in the backyard and then realize - wait a minute, I didn't actually go on an electronics shopping spree or marry Brandon Urie! It was all just a dream!
My dad says it's because I smoke too-much pot, my mom says it's because of my dad (his genetics are cursed with this pesky thing called alzheimer's - my gramma has it really bad) and my brother says it's because I'm plain stupid. But then, he's probably just salty because I got better eyebrows than he did.
So anyway, I forget important stuff, and then I make up for it by posting it late and trying to make it seem like it's still relevant and exciting. Which is what I'm doing now. So here's the cover:
Isn't it beautiful? Don't you want to marry it, start a family, have a child together, and then run out on it one day by telling it you're going for cigarettes and milk and then never coming back? Me too. And the plus side is, it won't be able to hunt you down and demand child support because it's just a book cover, and your child together is purely hypothetical. All I'm hearing is a bunch of pluses, to be honest...
Anyway, aside from beginning an ill-advised affair with my book cover, you can also support the project by talking about it on Twitter, Tumblr, or the micro-blogging platform of your choice, or giving the Lilac Jones Adventures some love on Wattpad. Seriously, guys, word of mouth is so important as an indie author. I so appreciate everyone who has reviewed one of my books, or shared it with a friend, or retweeted/reblogged a post about it.
I'll have more news about SOSAS out closer to release, and when arcs are available (everyone who requests an arc of this book is getting one, no questions asked) and more. I'll also post more news about Shadows when I have it.
Thanks for being cool and not making salty, snide remarks when I take too long to post updates, guys! Love ya's!
I'm in a lot of pain right now. Did I break a leg? Cut myself? Sprain something? Nope: I went to a friend's house and got a lot of flea bites. They're swollen, because I'm allergic to flea bites, and itchy, because they're flea bites, and it sucks. Fuck fleas. Honestly, they can go to hell.
Flea bites aside, though, I've been having a (mostly) good time, as of late. But life is still weird, in the way it's always been weird, and between bursts of goodness and fun, life has been a cloudy mess of nostalgia and dread lately. Basically, it's almost fall.
To start with the good, I've had a great past couple of weeks. I promised to post more about my vacation and then never did, so to start I guess I should get into that: around a year and a half ago, my grandmother and aunt (who is not actually my aunt, but who I've always called my aunt anyway) moved out of the city to my aunt's home town, which is called Campbellton, and is a four hour drive away. I haven't seen them since. My brother, parents, and cousin had all been up to visit, and I hadn't. Since my grandma's health isn't great I've been really anxious to see her again since they left, and this past month I finally got the chance to go up with my cousin Amelia for a five day trip. The four hour drive ended up being eight hours, both ways (thanks, bus company routes!) and the trip was...wild. Good wild.
I never thought I'd get my first tattoo on a trip to Grandma's house, but I went ahead and did it anyway. Bad ass, right? Top that with a wolf and some store-bought basket food, Red Riding Hood!
Anyway, the trip was good. Amelia and I have been best friends since we were born (I was born exactly seven days before her) and we spent most of our early years together. Who we are is irrevocably tied with each other and, honestly, we're pretty damn similair: we're both creative, chaotic, passionate night-owls with a tenancy to bite off more than we can chew and get ourself into trouble like a fish gets wet.
My memories are scattered and hazy like the smoke from my grandmother's endless stream of refrigerated cigarettes: Amelia laughing out the open window of the car as we swerved around a corner, the hiss of my grandmother's ancient, bald cat as he batted at my face for daring to pet him, the fast-track, clipped accent of my aunt's seemingly infinite line up of sisters. My aunt, Josie, and her sisters, took me on a walk every night. Amelia tagged along sometimes, but other times it would be just me and Josie and one or two of her sisters, strolling along. we would point out houses we liked, tell old stories about each other, or ourselves, they pointed our local landmarks and recounted wisdom they'd picked up along their path through the years. I was consistently amazed by some of the little nuggets of humanity and wisdom I found among the cast of my vacation, which was mostly middle aged to senior women. But it was a young vacation, too. It was Milly flirting with the hot guy at the Sobey's checkout counter, it was me walking through the dark town alone in the rain, dreading coming home. It was diving back into the current at Tidehead beach and feeling new memories wash over my head like the cool water, swallowing me up to spit me out again as something new, something both older and younger.
And for the weird? Coming home was a struggle. I knew/know, in my heart of hearts, that this could be the last time I ever see/saw my Grandmother. I might have the opportunity to go up again in October with my brother, and if I do, I'll take it. If she lives through the winter, I'm going again next summer, too. Nan has been in bad health for years, and she's survived a lot longer than any of us thought she would, but I know that no matter how long she lives, I'll always regret not spending more time with her when the end inevitably comes. I've already lost one grandmother. So has Amelia. We both knew what we might be leaving behind when we climbed out of Josie's car and into the cold morning to get back on our bus. We knew, when Josie climbed onto the bus after us, tears streaking her face, to hug us again and press twenty dollar bills into our hands, what had pushed her to come after us for one final goodbye.
We both know what it's like to lose someone to time, to realize that your last goodbye was the last goodbye. I still remember Amelia's hands shaking as we hovered over our Grandmother's bedside in the dark of morning, wrapping her in hugs and whispering our goodbyes to her half-seeping form before heading out for the long trip home.
Something was coming to an end. A chapter we'd been reading so long we'd fallen in love with it. And this trip? This trip was the final scene of our beloved chapter. I know that I'm going to remember this summer, and this vacation, for the rest of my life, in some capacity.
It hasn't been all bad since I got back, either. My tattoo is now healed, and while I did miss the Saint John Pride parade, I've been out a few times. The other day I met up with my best friend, Kuma, and a friend of ours named Kevin, so we could go into the city for the day. The plan was to hit the library and hang out sketching, but instead, after checking my bank account for eight bucks and realizing I had one hundred and fifty, it turned into a wild day of walking, shopping, laughter, and sunlight that sears into the memory of the day so that you can almost feel it on your skin when you look back on it.
I bought a bunch of books, and a bunch of incense, and tea, and snacks, and lunch, and...okay, maybe I got myself a new pipe. My old one was broken, the mouthpiece is twisted. Her name is Lady Starship. The new pipe? Not twisted. Not rusted or burnt or damaged in any way. She's perfect, gleaming black metal, and her name is Black Cobra. I also got these new cigarettes (if you can call them that) that are menthol free and nicotine free.
Cute, right? I'm not a big smoker - I mean, sure, I smoke pot sometimes - and I've been known to indulge in a cherry cigar every other month, but cigarettes? Not my thing. Lung disease. Yellow fingers. Nasty. these, though? We found them in the organic food store while we were getting incense and tea and thought they're be fun to try. We chain-smoked them in Kuma's room while getting shitfaced drunk on home made wine and breaking in my new pipe. I'm not entirely sold. Kuma really liked them, since she doesn't smoke weed or actual cigarettes they make a nice, healthy alternative - but I'm not too fond. The smoke was really, really irritating, to the point where I was full on crying because ouch, my eyes! and I couldn't really taste the vanilla. And, you know, because I'm just that kind of high-class bitch, my organic cigarettes need that vanilla flavour if they want to keep me around.
We also took selfies in the Asian Market:
My point is, it was a good day. And there have been other good days. My cousin from Vancouver laughing at the table with me and my mom over a bowl of freshly picked blueberries, smoke twining in the air of my bedroom while I sit talking with my dad, an endless stream of good writing days and netflix gossip Girl marathons and so many coffees I'm sure my blood is half-caffeine now.
And yet I feel sort of...sad. Melancholy. And I'm worried. Scared, even.
I'm scared that the summer is coming to an end in a very short three days. I'm scared that I'm turning twenty years old in a few months. I'm scared that I might have to go back to daily classes soon if my homeschool-ish program doesn't work out this year, I'm scared I might never see my grandmother again. I'm scared that I'm turning into an adult. Time is passing so quickly now.
Yesterday I'd just been accepted into my first-choice high school. I was a naive, slightly-damaged but still mostly-innocent teenager who had four years to get his shit together. Today I'm a nineteen year-old who's going into my final semester (if things work out I'll graduate halfway through the academic year, as opposed to at the end of it) I'm tattooed and toughened-up. I've got new scars and new sorrows, and I'm stronger for them all. I'm a wholly different person, and I've barely had time to blink.
So who will I be in three years? Will I be the struggling writer living with his parents and working a shitty job at a Starbucks to try and get by? Will I be the published author and artist living in a tiny Toronto apartment with my best friend? Will I be single? What colour will my hair be? Where will I find room for some more scars? Who are my pets, my friends, my thoughts?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm an adult now - or just about to become one - and it's fucking scary. Responsibility, work, regrets. I just don't want to look back in twenty years and wonder where all my time went, why I wasted all my chances. But I'm also excited.
I'm excited because I'm a self-published author with big plans to increase my readership. I'm excited because I'm finally turning into someone who isn't afraid to stand up for himself and be his own best friend. I'm excited because all these new opportunities are turning up and all I have to do is be brave enough to go after what I want.
In short what I'm saying is, nostalgia is messed up. And so is the future. And I'm sort of a mess, but it's beautiful. I have people on my team who are invaluable, like Amelia/Milly, and Kuma, and my parents, and my readers, and it's all kind of funny how things work out. If you'd asked me who I would be someday four or five years ago, I would not have told you I'd be the boy with a scar on each wrist (one still pink and healing, the etched in my flesh with ink) who had a fire in his chest and sparks in his eyes, who was a published author, who was not ashamed to look his own reflection in the eyes and say "I love you." but now I can't imagine myself as anyone else.
So that's where I'm at right now, between screeching at the MTV Scream finale and mainlining cheap instant coffee, I've been asking myself who I am and who I'm going to be. They're some tough questions. But I've learned lately that I'm tough, too, so maybe I don't have too much to worry about. I don't know what this semester, or this year, is going to be like - but I know that, through all of it, I've got me, and I've got this blog, and I think...well, I think I'm ready.
And that might be the scariest thing of all.
***
Bonus, the song that will officially remind me of this summer forever:
.png)
