Blur

I haven't posted in a while because I've been trying to work on stuff (and mostly failing) when I'm not in bed bingeing Sense8. I'm super lazy.

They say depression makes you sleepy, that it gives you physical fatigue, and I understand that, but I also still kind of blame myself for it. I hate not getting things done or being able to focus on anything. I hate feeling like an invalid.

I've mostly been spending my time designing and formatting book covers because it's the easiest, funnest part of my job. At the same time, I want something to put out.

The other day I wrote the first bit of Beacon book two, finally. I think the Beacon trilogy probably will be my next release, if I don't hop over and finish something else first, which could always happen. I'm trying to finish book two by Saturday the thirteenth, which is scary considering how close it is, but I haven't been setting deadlines for myself recently and I'm determined to get back on track.

Tonight before I start work on that I'm going to free-write a bit to try and get myself back into the writing groove.

 

(This is the deadline face...)

I have no idea what the hell I'm going to write about. People think the hardest part of being a writer is the long hours or the pressure to write something great. For me, it's picking out which paranormal creature to make the hot dudes in my books.

I love stuff like the Trylle Trilogy or the Paper Gods Trilogy, books where the paranormal aspect is something newer and original. I like stuff you don't see often.

The market is flooded with werewolf books and I'm sure there's always a market for them, but as much as I love them I'm not sold on them. I don't know if vampires still have a market. My vampire book doesn't sell well, but I don't market it much and it is kind of a niche title. I still can't tell if it's urban fantasy or paranormal romance, really, and I wrote it. (I still love Blood of Midnight, I think it's a good book, it's just not an easy one to sell >.>)

Need by Carrie Jones has pixies, which is cool as fuck. I've written about those before, in a vastly different way, so I don't want to do that. I can't write about faeries because I'm not in the mood. Gargoyles? Not right for this project. Genies? I'm too white and Canadian to pull that off respectfully without a bunch of research first, which I really don't want to do with a 'just-for-fun' project.

See how hard this is?

What kind of paranormal beings can my hot gay heroes fall for? It's an eternal plight.

I'd love to write about the undead or zombies, but I have no clue how to make them hot and not gross and/or mildly horrifying. I have some ideas, but I'm not sold on 'em.

This is the struggle.

I'm gonna go brew too many coffees for one person, which is what I usually do when I'm stressed, and never helps, but does taste good. Maybe I'll find the answers I'm looking for in a human-sized vat of boiling coffee...

~

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Letting Things Take Time

I know that things take time. Especially manuscripts.

I know that I should let things take time and run their natural course, but it's hard. It's hard not stressing out over my not finishing a book in months when I'm also freaking out about everything else. My human existence. Whether or not I or anyone else is a good person, or at all redeemable. If God exists. If ghosts exist. What the hell I'm going to do for a living. How I'm going to survive and make end's meet if I can't even get out of bed or dress myself most days.

To be clear, I'm not making myself out to be some great victim. I'm not like, quivering and rolling around on the floor in a state of constant crisis. I might be close, but I'm not there yet.

I just stress myself out.

The thing is this entire struggle will probably remain forever a figment of my own emotions and imagination and paranoia, stuck inside my head, and I should ignore the fear and live my life to the fullest I can enjoy it.

But, you know, that's not how this whole existential dread thing works. I can't shut it off. And I need to chill.

So I'm dubbing this month the month of short stories and relaxation. Next month I'll worry about getting more serious and setting deadlines and really tackling whatever it is I'm feeling. But for now, I'm going to let myself wing these strings of random short stories and ignore the market and trends and what sells and what I want my author image to be and who I want to be as a human and if I can even become a halfway normal, functioning, worthwhile person, and just fucking write.

The truth is even though it all feels suffocating, most of what I'm feeling is not new. Other people have felt it and are feeling it every day. So I should breathe and not convince myself that my problematic symptoms make me evil, because I know who I am, or I should, and I'm trying to get back in touch with that person.

Maybe this month I'll somehow achieve that by writing a bit. Just for me, not anybody else.

My wip has fancy gowns and mansions and it's giving me Pretty Little Liars vibes, big time. Except it also has magic. Lots of it. And my worldbuilding is basically 'anything can happen' so I can write whatever the fuck I want. I probably won't write in this world again, which is also really freeing because I don't have to think ahead to what I want to do in future installments while writing the current story and building my world.

This is what I've been doing for the last five hours.

I'm going to get back to it and hope it makes me want to jump off a high surface a little less, and maybe produces something publishable.

(A totally unrelated aside; anyone else screaming with joy at the prospect of the new Shatter Me books?)