February Slipped Away

What an asshole of a month. A month of mystery. And fog. And snow. And reading Crescent City and playing video games and sleeping a lot. And editing a lot.

And now, March.

I'm turning thirty. Is anyone ever ready for that? I'm kind of vibing with it, though.

Meanwhile I wanted to blog so much more during February. I wanted to read more, write more, and DO more than I did. So with the one last day we have left, I'm doing as much as I can. Which means I'm going to post what I want, make what I want, and cram as much creative productivity into the last day as I can.

Because even though I have time to do this all in March and I'm not rushing any of it, I still wanted to have more more in February, you know?

And if you don't, I don't know how you don't. The shortest month really outdid itself this year. Here and gone in a blink!

Anyways, I've got music to make, and a sketchbook spread to do, and some books to edit, and some self-pub admin tasks to finish with, and it's all so overwhelming, but probably only because I put it all off until the last minute.

I Want To Tell You About My Grandparents

All of my grandparents are gone now, which is a really weird feeling. I never really knew my grandfathers, in fact I only met one of them. But my grandmothers were such a huge part of my life, and it feels weird that I haven't talked about them much here, because it just feels painful and hard. But now I think I am at a place where I can talk about them from a place of happiness and wonder at the fact that I got to meet these beautiful people and share so many moments with them in life.

Like a lot of kids, my parents were always busy working, they both had nine-to-five jobs that were physically demanding, and they were overworked and underpaid, so I got left with my grandparents a lot while my brother who was older was allowed to run around with his friends or go to after-school programs. I had no problem with this, because I was antisocial and I liked my grandmothers both better than I liked other kids my age and my friends at school. Even as an eleven year old boy, I had the personality of a woman in her late fifties. What can I say, some things never change.

My grandpa Al died before I was born, when my father was about seven or eight, I think. After he died my Nanny Better had a nervous breakdown; she grew up an orphan in the Canadian foster care system and had bounced around from group home to orphanage to foster home, etc, from what I've been told, and she ended up sending both my uncles to live with our great aunt Lillian, while my father, who apparently had intense behavioral issues, was sent to live in a boys home for a few years. At some point, Betty got her life together, she bought an apartment building and turned the bottom floor into a commercial space, opening a convenience store with her girlfriend Josie, who we grew up knowing as aunt Josie, because I guess everybody thought we were too young to understand that Grandma was dating a woman, lol. That convenience store is still there, in fact I went there a lot growing up after they'd sold it. It's called Sam's now and it has been since the eighties or mid-nineties, at least. In the early two-thousands my Nanny Tony, who lived a few doors down, would send me there with spare change and I'd buy Miami Cakes and pizza pockets galore before going back to her place to watch unhealthy amounts of TeleToon.

Anyway, Betty eventually ended up selling the store and becoming a librarian of all things. She loved books, but not as much as she loved cats and cigarettes. I have fond memories of listening to Stephen King audiobooks on tape at her and Josie's apartment in the West Side, in the dark, while trying to fall asleep, at like seven years old. I was traumatized. Baby's First Audiobook!

Nanny and Josie lived together for years, even after they broke up. The last time I saw them together was in 2015; I blogged about it on this blog, actually, if you go back to summer 2015, it's when I got my first tattoo with my cousin Amelia. I remember that summer so fondly, we went swimming and saw a truck back into the water and get stuck, we went to Dixie Lee and got decent greasy chicken and iced green tea, we walked every night with Josie and her sisters. Nanny and Josie had moved to Josie's hometown at that point so she could be with her family, I think they moved around 2013 or so. Amelia visited them dozens of times, but I'd only ever gone that once.

A short time after that trip Nanny Betty was moved back to our city, into a home, as her condition deteriorated and her dementia got worse. I'm ashamed to admit it, and it's a big regret for me, but I never went to see her while she was in the home for the last three years of her life; I was afraid, because I knew my father and I are probably both going to get dementia one day, it's like a family curse, and my father is already showing signs. I knew from Amelia and other relatives that she often didn't know who they were, that she often didn't know where or when she was. I couldn't see her like that, and the idea of it sent me into an anxiety attack every time, so my parents tried to shield me from the questioning and prodding of the rest of our family to the best of their ability.

Everybody tells me I'm like my uncle John, Betty's son, Amelia's father, because we both love reading and books, and we're both writers, and the truth is I think I'm like him because we're both like her. It comes from her, the love of books and stories, and police procedural dramas. She babysat me for years in elementary and middle school and she was always watching some form of CSI or Criminal Minds.

Nanny Betty always had a cat calendar on every surface, and cat plushies, and cat figurines, and more, and one of the keepsakes I have from her is a tiny cat statue on my bookshelf, it's white and blue and very elegant looking, even though I'm sure she bought it at a local dollar store sometime around like 2004.

On the other side of the family, there's my mom's parents. I only met her father once, when I was very young. He wasn't close with anybody in the family, and when my parents got married years and years ago they sent him money for a plane ticket and a hotel but he never came. My mom talked to him on the phone occasionally, but I never had much interest in him. He died a few years ago and my mom found out he'd had more kids and she has a half-brother and half-sister out there, who she's had a little contact with here and there.

Her mother, though, my Nanny Tony, was a HUGE part of my life. Nanny Betty and Josie always favored Amelia and my brother Brandon over me, which was very hurtful as a kid. I felt like I was the odd one out in the family who nobody wanted. But Nanny Tony clearly favored me, to the point where I truly believe I was her favorite person in the world. She died very suddenly when I was eleven, and my last words to her, a few weeks before that, were 'I love you' which brings me a lot of comfort even now that I'm an adult.

I would go to Nanny Tony's almost every weekend, Friday to Sunday. Amelia's maternal grandmother Lillian lived right down the street, so if she went to her place we could both hang out and play as much as we wanted, which was amazing.

Nanny Tony made the best scrambled eggs I've ever had in my life, and I always demanded she make them for me. I still try to make them like she did and I always fail. She loved Christmas movies and romantic comedies, and her house was a hub of activity, there was always several friends and family members coming and going, at all hours. If I slept in on the couch too long the living room got so crowded people would sit on my legs and wake me up. When my parents got into a bad argument my mom would storm out and take me and my brother to her place. We went there every holiday, and I remember one year on Easter she and my uncle Chicken, who passed away last year of a heart infection, put on the horror movie Boogeyman. Traumatized my dumb ass for life. Watching it now doesn't do anything for me though, it's so corny in retrospect.

Nanny Tony also smoked like a chimney. Her and Nanny Betty would sometimes meet up at the bingo parlor and were bingo buddies for years before they had a falling out and turned icy with each other. (Drama, drama!)

My mom took on Nanny Tony's personality trait of wanting to feed everybody all the time, although at this point I don't know if it's really a personality trait or a genetic disposition Greeks have towards hospitality and wanting to force-feed people. Both of them can cook a good damn meal. My mom is vegetarian and eats a mostly vegan diet now, but she still cooks meat dishes for my dad and I sometimes, like last night she cooked an amazing ham for us.

I have very fond memories of running in and out of the kitchen while Mom and Nanny Tony cooked family dinner, and how various cousins and uncles and family friends and whoever they were all dating at the time would come over to eat with us. Everybody loved her. At her funeral they printed out cards with her portrait and the caption 'Queen of Duke Street' which seems pretty damn accurate to me. I used to sit with her on her front stoop all morning, watching people pass by, and more than half of them inevitably stopped to say hi and chat with her.

I'm going to hop off now, since I think I've successfully conveyed how awesome these women were. They formed who I am and who I'll always be, and I'm eternally grateful I got to know them.

Can I Cook or Not?

Today I got in a huge fight with my parents, and now my head is pounding. My best friend Kuma cheered me up a bit and comforted me, because they're awesome. And I've been listening to all the good new pop music to make myself feel better. Olivia O'Brien's new album is crazy. I also like the new Ashnikko song, and of course, Taylor Swift finally dropped her new single. I didn't like it at first but it's growing on me. She always picks bad lead singles anyway, then her albums have amazing deep cuts.

I made some beats in BandLab tonight that I really enjoy. I made like six songs and of those I think four have potential, so I wrote some lyrics for those to record later today once the sun is up and I'm home alone.

I want to move out really bad but I'm not sure I want to leave the country, I'm kind of too used to it even though it's inconvenient and spooky sometimes. I think cities are scarier because of inevitable societal collapse. I mean, I say inevitable, but I hope it's not, but all the climate change news and deforestation freaks me out. But if I lived in the city my neighbours would hear me singing, and that's awkward. Even though I do post some of my songs online, it's the final versions that I think sound decent enough to share. And even now I look back on many of those songs and cringe. But I still feel a compulsive need to make them, even if I'm too shy to sing when other people are around. Basically everything I do is a random compulsion though, so that's that.

I have a short story in the works I really don't want to finish. I'm just not in the mood to write more erotica tonight, but if I don't finish now I don't know if I ever will. (Note: since writing this I finished it. It was easy and fun, I was just being a drama queen.)

All I want to work on is the sequel to Storm of Masks. I have so many ideas for it and I feel genuinely inspired, but I have other things on my checklist first. To satiate myself I'll republish Storm of Masks sometime soon, since it's down right now. I'm very excited for these sequels. Each one ramps things up a step further, to crazy levels. I've got a few things to finish first though, and right now all I want to do is go play video games and be lazy.

First I'm going to eat more baked potatoes and salad though, because that's the only thing in the world I want right now. I don't know why I have such intense cravings for baked potatoes lately. It's probably that weird Tierra Whack music video for her song Unemployed. I just love the texture of the skins I think, they're super crispy and I drench them in butter and salt and pepper. Plus they're simple to cook and require like 3 tiny steps. If I have to put in effort in a dish I'm either going to burn it or ruin it some other way.

I disagree with my parents on a lot of things but they have finally convinced me I can't cook, so there's that, but I can make baked potatoes, and salad, and that's good enough for me.

Actually since I said that I cooked some honey garlic chicken and rice that my mom said looked good, and she told my brother I'm an awesome cook. So I think she's as indecisive as me. Maybe it depends on the day. I do burn stuff a lot but it's usually because I get stoned and forget I turned the oven on.

Balance

Storm of Masks is out, and you should probably buy it and read it and let it get you super excited for the fall. I mean, if you want.

That's actually not what I wanna talk about, right now, though. I put the book out the other day and it's been nice not being near the end of a project for a while, so I can just float. I'm so glad it's done and out there and it's just out of my hands - I wrote the best book I can, and it has to sink or swim on its own.

I've spent the last couple days just hanging out with friends, listening to music, catching up on BoJack Horseman and rewatching Jessica Jones. Fun, easy stuff.

I'm still working, but since SoM is published, I'm taking a couple days to play around with various projects and outlines and see what direction I wanna go in next. I think I may dive into the second books in the Evernight Falling Saga and the Seraph Chronicles. If I could finish ToS and Atrocity and put them both out around the same time, I'd be sososo happy.

One thing I've been focusing on a lot though is life outside writing. I've been publishing since the tail end of 2014, and it's been my absolute life focus since early 2015 - work, work, and more work. I'm not burning out, really, just more like taking a step back. I'm not where I hoped I'd be at this point with my career and lifestyle, and I'm trying to assess what needs to change. I know I'm dedicated to my books and can't stop writing, no matter what I do. I've essentially stopped trying to be a marketing machine and am just working on putting out a large, diverse body of work, so there's something for everyone.

But it isn't enough for me anymore to only focus on work and live my life. In the next year I'd like to get out a lot more and also bring up my income a bit, so I'm not a constant ball of worry and stress.

It just doesn't seem worth it to me to literally kill myself for my job and not see results, so right now I'm drifting and trying to figure out what new approach I'm going to take, while trying to balance work and actual recreation more.

I tend to write all day when I write, so it's around eight hour bursts of writing. I typically write 6 to 7 thousand words a day, as well as work on outlines for other wips. It takes a lot out of you to put in that much work and see very little reward, but this is both a numbers game and a test of patience. I know hard work pays off, but it's still, you know, hard.

So I'm compensating with a short vacation. Netflix and long walks and hanging out with the people in my life, being a human being before an author for once.

As much as I love what I do I think I've become a bit of a workaholic and let it turn into my sole focus, but I'm alive and I want to experience this world before I lose it, because we all will someday. I don't like that I often push away valuable, enriching experiences in search of more work time, so right now that's where I'm at, is trying to find a happy middle ground.

Things You Can't Calculate (Like The Future)

It would be pointless not to admit that I'm not where I expected to be in my life, at this point. I'm about to turn twenty, so I should probably be excited and happy - especially since I'm starting to publish and follow my career goals - but I'm poor, ridden with mental illness, my living situation is less than ideal, my academic life is a mess, and my personal relationships are all in shambles.

And there is no easy fix. It doesn't matter how hard I work, or how much I do, because - and this is something a lot of us refuse to believe - it is possible to do your best, to give something your all, and fail.

And that's okay. It's okay to fail and learn a lesson from it. It's okay to do your best and make the choices you think are right and still end up in an unhappy place.

I think sometimes when people see me mentioning these things, it can come off as complaining or giving up - and to be clear, I would never give up - but in reality I thinks it's just important to be honest about our struggles and the way we've either failed ourselves or been failed by the world, and, because of my situation, there are a lot of times where I can't talk about the ways I've been failed by the world, or it puts my current situation in jeopardy as well. I can talk about how I've failed myself, though.

I can talk about how fucked around in school, or how I haven't been kind enough to myself, or how it's taken me so long to learn certain lessons. I can talk about the fact that I put my trust in the wrong people.

I can talk about the fact that I failed, and continue to fail, to be able to predict the future.

I can't. None of us can.

What can we do? We can keep giving it our best, even when it doesn't seem to be working. We can have faith that just because we can't see to the end of the road doesn't mean it's not where we're meant to go.

There are some things in life you honestly, honestly, can not calculate. If you asked my fifteen year old self about his five year plan, current me is sure as hell not living up to any of it. If you ask current me about my five year plan, I would tell you I've stopped trying to make long-distance plans.

That's a side effect of being poor, but it's also a side effect of being disillusioned. I can't choose my future. I can plan and hope, but I can't guarantee the outcome. Honestly? I don't want to anymore.

At the end of the day, life takes us where it takes us. And of course, our choices influence where we go - our mindsets and our investments and our decisions now shape ourselves and our futures - but they aren't the only things that shape ourselves or our futures. They're just part of the overall equation.

And I'm going to stop beating myself up for not being able to control the world. I'm going to stop beating myself up for not being able to game a system that's always been stacked against me - one that's stacked against all of us.

I'm going to accept that there are some things you can't calculate and I'm going to be kind to myself, because god knows the world isn't, too often.

Lessons & Reminders

A lesson that I've already learned but that the world seems determined to remind me of today, is that the world is filled with people who will take one look at you and assume they know the whole story. There are people who are determined to misunderstand or mishear you, and it doesn't matter what you say or how you say it, because they've already made up their minds about you and who they think you are based off of a single encounter, or a first impression, or a misread statement. There are people who will belittle and dehumanize you because your voice is scary to them or because they don't like what you're saying. There are a million reasons people, especially strangers, will use to be cruel.

Because it's easy to be cruel. It's hard to be kind.

And yet-

There are people out there who will take the hard road. Who will, even knowing that it will be a steep climb and a cold journey, still take the time to learn your soul. People who will grab onto you and keep their hold through every type of storm you can imagine.

And today has been hard. Because I'm thinking about how scared I am for the future and I'm thinking about the negative words people have thrown at me lately and I'm thinking about how much I miss my grandmother, and why is life so harsh on us? So what I'm reminding myself today is that there are so many amazing people in my life, there are so many gifts and tiny moments of light and love that I've been given.

So how selfish and idiotic and downright petty would I have to be to compare the good and the bad and somehow let myself believe, even for a second, that the bad wins?

So here's my challenge to you, for today, for this week, for this year: tell the people you love that you love them. Tell your reflection that you love yourself, too. Take solace in the silent moments you spend alone and in every comforting movement and smile that fill the ones you spend with others.

Look at the cruel people of this broken, ugly, idiot world, and love them. It's the only true power you have.

Filler. It's All Filler.

This post is total filler, because I want to blog more, and I never have time to talk about the stuff I love anymore, so I'm doing that here. I keep telling myself to update this site more, because it's good marketing, and it's a nice connection to my readers, and it's nice to read posts from the past and remember things.

But I'm also a lazy, lazy nerd with not a lot of time on my hands. And in that limited time, I would rather do nerdy stuff than talk about doing nerdy stuff. But here's to talking:

I'm reading Six of Crows, and it's amazing, and I am blown away by Leigh Bardugo's worldbuilding. I'm binge-watching a bunch of stuff on Netflix; Devil is a Part-Timer, How To Get Away With Murder -- and I just finished Jessica Jones, which was amazing, spoilers or not. I can't wait for Luke Cage. (Is his show going to be self-titled too? I don't know. Who cares? More Luke!) And I'm also trying to fill out my sketchbook before the year ends. I really, really need to get some damn sketch work done. Pronto.

Aside from all this? Playing a bit of Tomb Raider here and there. Maintaining my caffeine addiction. Trying to deal with my crippling mental illness. The usual.

But no, really. I think I may need to go back on Prozac, which I really don't want to do, because side effects, and expensive medication, and gah. But my health is more important, and I'm better on my meds than off them, increased risk of type 2 diabetes or no. Because if something doesn't change I will implode, and it can't be my life that changes. I need this job, I need this school work, and I need to be writing - it's not the things I have to do, it's me, being too weak to handle the stress. And I know I have an illness and it's not my fault it undermines my quality of life, 'cause that's what illness does. It still sucks.

But I would rather be tired than tired, paranoid, anxious, and depressed. So. Them's the breaks.

What I would mainly like is a good night of sleep, clear skin, and a driver's license. Until then, however, I am stuck taking public transport to work. Which means I have to go get ready for my shift right now because the walk to the bus stop is forty-five minutes! Lucky me, right?

Have a good one, guys!

Spoiled & Sick

Well, I called in sick to work. I probably shouldn't have, but I felt like absolute trash. I have no idea what is is - some kind of stomach bug mixed with the common cold? I know I'm stuffy and I have cold sweats and my guts were twisted in knots earlier. I feel a bit better now, thanks to herbal tea and lots of sleep, but I'm not totally better. I have to go to work tomorrow no matter what, so I hope I'm better by then because if not, I'll be working another eight hour shift sick as a dog. . .

In other news to be mad about, I got spoiled for Jessica Jones. As in three deaths that I didn't know about and the overall ending of the season spoiled. Gah.

I really love it, so I'll keep watching, but I'm angry it happened. I've been avoiding the tumblr tag since I heard the news of the show to avoid any spoilers, 'cause the show sounded so interesting, only to get spoiled now. Not fun.

But what is fun is 8tracks. Which I'm obsessed with. Right now I'm listening to a random paranormal romance playlist, but I've been listening to it while drafting/editing SOSAS too, and I've found so many good mixes for fantasy writing it blows my mind.

Because I have been writing - even though it doesn't seem like it. Souls of Salt & Seawater should still be out Dec 15th (originally planned for Dec 5th, but life happened, so it's gonna be ten days later. And as far as ADSD goes, I'm still drafting, and having fun with it, exploring Lilac's present reality a year after the dark times where I left her at the end of How I Broke Us. I think I might want to have the sequel to Shadows (tentatively titled Whispers) drafted before I publish the first book, just so the wait on the sequel is shorter on your guys. I would rather have a bunch of stuff finished instead of making you guys wait the entire development stage of a project, you know?

And I don't know if I like talking about stuff before it's done, anyway. I think after SOSAS, ADSD, and Shadows are all done and out, I won't be talking about projects until they're ready to be released, because it leaves less room for waiting and disappointment when things like release dates change.

I don't know. I'm still trying to figure this all out: how long I want to take the indie route before trying traditional, how I want to market myself, which books I want to write, essentially, what do I want my artistic career to look like? It's important to me to put out a professional product.

A lot of self-pubbed books have a bunch of editing mistakes and bad covers and end up reading like a stream of consciousness. When I put out the Lilac short stories I made plenty of mistakes - hell, just the other day my mom pointed out an error in her ebook of Welcome to Midnight that I'd missed in copy edits (to be fair, I wrote that book in 2 and a half days as a surprise project) and now have to go back and give another read-through. I'm not better than all other indie authors, by far. But I do want to put out the best product I can. As cocky as it sounds, I know I'm a good writer. It's one of the few things I'm confident about - and I put out Welcome to Midnight to give readers a glimpse at the darker, more serious side of my work. It's not all going to be sunshine and rainbows and pop culture, even though it might be some of that, sometimes.

So I'm eager to put stuff out and show you guys what I can do. But I'm also aware of my limitations and flaws, and I want to be careful. I'm a fast writer, but it's not fast writing that's the problem - it's fast editing. I've rushed the final part of the process in the past, and it was a mistake. I want to take my time and do right by these projects, so I hope it's worth the wait for you guys, and I'm sorry if I feel like a ghost sometimes.

At least I'm a ghost that's nice to look at. Well, not today - today I have bed hair and black bags under my eyes. Whatever. I'm still the prettiest damn ghost you know.

A Very, Very, Very Boring Walk

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.

Daily Goals and 5Things or, Me Talking To Myself Every Morning

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!