Feeding the Rage Machine

I am working. Because I am a strong-willed, uneasily distracted author who knows when it's time to put words on the page.

Ok, I wish. Mostly I'm trying not to tear my hair out.

Rage is finished, and I'm moving onto edits. But I don't think a lot of people are going to love, or even like, this book. Why? It doesn't have a happily ever after. The ending is, if not sad, at least bittersweet. Bleak.

It's supposed to work as a standalone, and it does, but Myra as a character isn't done her journey, and she appears in Frenzy after the ending of Rage, and she appears in Maelstrom after the ending of Frenzy. Her story isn't over by the end of this book. I think readers who don't read the other books will be mad about that. But I think people who do read those books will appreciate it for what it is; a glimpse at some of the side characters of this world and at the Big Bad from Maelstrom.

So. That's where my head is. I, personally, love the thing. It's little and bleak and wordy, which is how I like them. Now - back to work.

Grimes is Better Than You

I'm in love with Grimes' music right now. Also kind of in love with her brain.

I ended up listening to Kill V. Maim a few weeks ago, and falling in love with it, so the only thing I could do was listen to Art Angels a million times in a row. That album is amazing.

But I was reading a bunch of interviews with Grimes (who is Canadian!) about the making of it, how she creates every inch of the music herself, how she's a producer before she's a singer or an artist, and I was really thrown with her intelligence and how surprisingly self-aware she is.

So I went and listened to Visions, too. It also is amazing.

The thing I love about her and her art is how honest she is about it; she talks about how some of her work doesn't live up to her expectations, she's true to who she is and what her work is about. I enjoy that.

She's also kind of weird, which I like. Genuinely weird people are not appreciated enough. History and language nerds and people who really appreciate the technical sides of things. That's Claire.

And the fact that she taught herself how to play so many instruments is giving me guitar inspiration.

Anyway, back to writing Rage.

Blogosphere Bullshit (I'd Rather Be a Person Than a Profile)

I'm an artist. And I want room to work on my art.

I don't want people interrupting me. I don't want people knocking on my door every fifteen minutes. I don't want advice I didn't ask for, and I don't want to be forced to blog every day because 'it's good advertising' or be forced to try and get fucking Twitter famous because it will get more of my books out.

I hate this fame game that everyone is so sucked up in and I hate that all my friends think that lines of text on a computer mean we're communicating because we barely even know each other anymore. I don't want to have to be on social media to connect with them when we never see each other in real life. I want to fucking talk to people and I want to be left the hell alone to make my shit.

The thing is, I feel like when I think this shit or feel this stuff it comes off as, like, I'm anti-technology and I don't enjoy all of this progress we've made - I do. The internet is amazing, and I've made friends in other parts of the world using it.

But sometimes I want to talk to my friends on this side of the world. I want to be able to sit down and talk with the people I grew up with and talk to them instead of sitting there watching their phones the entire time, or going to their place to watch them sit on their computers.

I don't know. I can't say any of this without sounding pretentious and snobby, and I don't care at this point because it's so fucking frustrating. I just want to delete facebook and sign off of everything and be a person instead of a profile.

Personal Algorithms of Living With an Artist

We all develop these little habits and patterns like circles worn in rugs that we always follow. It's waking up to writing on the wall and rings of empty mugs around the entire table.

Eventually you get used to notes you can't read and poetry written in strewn clothing. You do.

It doesn't come easy.

There are red knuckles and tears that leave bite marks on shirts. Sometimes, when words are spilling like rain, you wonder if it's not enough just to drown in someone, if all oceans dry up eventually, inevitably, no matter how much they consume.

Running in and outside the lines scuffles them up like dust, though. You become a routine in unmarked maps and you become a pair beholding the broken. It's enough.

Improvement

A few days ago I found one of the first digital art pieces I ever did, bad anatomy, half-assed background and all. So I decided to redraw it.

In middle school I went through a big, big vocaloid phase, and I still like a lot of the character designs, so I do still draw miku from time to time, though I don't listen to the music anymore.

Anyway, I thought I would share this here. I really still need to improve in the colouring department (I forgot to shade her best because I'm an idiot) but I'm happy with my drawing improvement, so far - not that I want to stop improving, just that I'm on the right track in that direction, so I think I'll focus on my painting style for the time being.

Ghost Squad, Roll Out (I Think My House is Haunted)

Pretty sure my house is haunted. It definitely wasn't, when we moved in, and I've only really been experiencing this stuff in the last month or so, but I keep seeing things moving out of the corner of my eyes, hearing stranger noises, and feeling, well, not alone - when I'm the only one in the house.

So. I'm fairly sure that one of us must have manifested something or unknowingly allowed it entrance, and honestly? I'm more annoyed than anything else.

Nothing bad or malevolent has happened, and I'm really not too afraid of spirits. I'm more like Brenda, in Scary Movie, beating the shit out of whichever ghostie decides to crawl out of the TV, and I think that's fair, because it's pretty fucking rude to move into someone's place without permission, incorporeal or no.

Since the undead bitch hasn't tried to shove my gay ass down the stairs or jump out at me from behind any corners (which would honestly just earn it an earful it would never forget) I'm honestly just gonna let it be.

So that's where we're at; the house is clearly haunted, nobody believes me that said house is haunted, and, why should they? since I honestly don't care much myself.

The thing is, I'm just looking at silver linings, since the last time we lived in a haunted house it was one of the historical buildings uptown and that presence was actively fucking with us and scaring us, and, at the time, that was really stressful, because we were younger. It never really got violent or anything, but it was harsh and it made it really uncomfortable to live there.

This haunting is small beans compared to that haunting. I can't believe this has become my life.

Instrumental Obligations and Lacking Magic

This past Christmas, I received a guitar. To be clear, I mentioned wanting a guitar once, about seven or eight months before the holiday, as a throwaway thing that I never - never - expected to get. But I did. And I have to learn it.

Why? Because it was expensive and my parents were happy they were able to get me something I asked for, and I feel guilty ever day that passes without me learning it.

Back in tenth grade I started to learn as part of a music course I hadn't even passed the pre-req course to get into, and was only in because they had no other place for me that block, but in the end I lost what little I picked up and spent most of the time in the course fooling around. I was never a good student, but it was still one of my favourite classes. I used to have dreams of being able to plop down on the sidewalk uptown and play and be able to earn some quick cash, or being able to romance some musician guy through my sheer instrumental bad-assery.

Now I will settle for learning the chords to a couple of pop songs to placate my parents and make myself feel like this gift was not a total loss on me.

This isn't even the first time I've failed to learn an instrument - the one I'm honestly in love with, and always has been, is the piano - but I failed to learn to play keyboard in ninth grade, as well.

Okay, I didn't entirely fail - I learned a bit of Seven Devils, by Florence and the Machine, but it quickly fell apart and now I have no idea what I'm looking at when I sit down at a keyboard.

The thing is, I'm not sure I have the passion in me to develop another love like that. My love for things I used to enjoy - reading books, walking, partying, socializing, art (both digital and traditional) has all been slowly but steadily fading away over the past year, and it's been a struggle to get back into it.

I had a really bright (challenging, but bright) spot for a while, back when I was working and earning money and I felt productive, but my seasonal was coming to an end and they decided not to keep me on after it did, and after I stopped working I went into a downward spiral.

I'm hoping once I'm in school every day it will get better, and being out and getting things done everyday will be beneficial, but at the same time, I'm skeptical. I'm always skeptical when someone says something might offer some form of happiness of fulfillment these days. Because I know how it feels, have been through it time and time again, to start to feel yourself resemble a fully formed human being again only to have that happiness and stability and sense of identity start to slip away from you again.

But, at the same time, if I don't try, there's just the guilt. So I've been doing it, very, very slowly, with other things. I went for a walk a few evenings ago, even though it was snowing, because I knew I needed to get out or I would lose my mind. I've been working my way through a few books, trying to gain momentum in my reading life again. I recently finished The King's Games and Language Lessons, by Amanda Hocking and Jay Bell, respectively, and I actually fell in love with the Magicians, by Lev Grossman, although it may have made my depressive state a bit worse, if I'm being honest. It's a bleak book.

Soon I need to get back into language practice and try picking up this guitar for the first time.

I don't know, I suppose it feels like my life has stalled and nothing is happening, every day is the same, and I'm very isolated. A lot of old friendships simply dwindled into nothing once I left school, and it just feels like the magic has drained out of everything.

But at the same time, I know that it is up to me to seek out happiness. Nothing might change if I go for it, but if I don't there's not even that tiny chance.

So I'm trying to perk up. And in the meantime I'm trying to pick up on my workload and get more things out there. I've been looking at different marketing tactics and options to get my books out there, and, I don't know, it all seems really difficult and . . . well, ineffective.

Like, I had a LibraryThing Giveaway where I sent out twenty copies of Frenzy in exchange for reviews, and got zero reviews. I made the book free on Kindle for several days, and scours of people downloaded it, but it only got one new rating. It was a five-star rating, which was very nice, but it was still one rating, and no reviews. With Souls of Salt & Seawater, I figured things would be different - why? The book was born of reader demand. I had 200 followers on Tumblr, when I wrote a single one-off scene in response to a prompt on my dash, and almost overnight my blog grew to over 900 followers and I had dozens of people demanding I write a full story, or put a book out. And I love mermaids, so I did. And I sent out free copies, and ran a free promotion on Kindle, and again, easily over a hundred downloads, and zero ratings, zero reviews.

To be absolutely honest, I don't even need my books to sell well. I would be perfectly happy finding another source of income. But I do want my books to be read. I could care less about the money, as long as they foster discussion. As long as there's feedback.

All writers crave feedback. But there isn't any, and it's hard to gain any, because not only am I an indie author, I'm an unknown indie author. Not many people have taken a chance on my work, since they have no idea who I am, and nobody is going to take a chance on it until someone else does, so me and my work are both trapped in this eternal waiting phase.

To be honest, I'm trapped in waiting phases in most aspects/areas of my life, so I'm used to it, and I don't really expect anything else at this point, but it would be nice if things could start happening. 'Cause at this point, even if they were bad things, they would still be better than this insufferable monotony that's taken over my existence.

So, that's where I've been at, lately, and that's partially why I haven't been posting here - because there's really nothing to post about. And not a lot of people read this blog.

As soon as that changes, I will probably be posting a lot more than I do now, which is already quite a bit, considering that most of my posts get few to no views.