Category Archives: Life Sucks

Good news, Good news, Bad news, Meh news

Good news: I’ll be on another radio interview at WADK.com on November 8 at 10:30 a.m. That’s a small station out of Newport, RI.

More good news: The anemia isn’t what’s causing my exhaustion. In fact, we don’t know what it is. But my cortisone pills have been increased so I’m feeling much better.

Bad news: No new episode this weekend. I’ll get one out next Monday, Columbus Day, after my stints at Autumnfest and Scituate Art Festival. I’m tempted to call it, “Throwing stuff against the wall: Ways how not to market your book.”

Meh news: I still haven’t done any writing. It’s like there’s nothing there. I’ve got ideas, but no real push to do anything with them. I know War Mage is supposed to be done for next year, and Earth for next February, but it’s like “meh” when I sit down to write it. I’ve stared at the blank page and end up falling asleep. Hopefully the cortisone will kick me back into gear soon.

Hate being sick

I have anemia. Among some of the symptoms is constant fatigue. Because of that, I haven’t been writing. I haven’t been playing games, either. I eat dinner, and an hour later, I’m in bed. Even on the weekends, I pass out for an hour or two at a time. It’s like narcolepsy!

My writing is suffering. My podcast this weekend was three whole minutes.

I have to get a particular shot for the anemia every month, and I’m due to get this shot on Wednesday. Then it takes about a week for it to kick in, so I hope I’ll be better by Columbus Day weekend.

Insanity

Had the Calamari festival yesterday. Sold one book. (Better than last year, when I sold nothing.) Was not worth the table fee. I’m not going to do it next year. It’s too much money and most people who came had no idea we were there. So they didn’t bring money. I didn’t even get to try any Calamari! But my tentmate helped me with a new elevator pitch for my first book.

My next festival is Saturday at Scituate Art festival and Sunday at Autumnfest. October 10 & 11.

This week I’m going to start the rewrite of Grimaulkin Tempted and develop the elevator pitch with that.

Next time, I’m getting the kid to schlep stuff. I’m too old to carry everything. I’m also going to buy a luggage carrier with wheels because I now have three bags of stuff to carry. Maybe I should just get a suitcase.

Also got the DSM-5 manual for research. My psychologist suggested it, so I could believably put in a mental disorder with some characters. Also interesting to read about my own disorder.

Struggling vs worthlessness

Amazing how depressed you can feel if you can’t see.

I’m still stuck at home. You would think that I would write more. Nope. It seems the more time I have to write, the less I do write.

Water is up to 30K words, “Pisces” is 10K words. My goal is to have each sign be 20K words, but trying to get the erotica out is like pulling teeth. I’m not in the most pleasant of moods (even doing ERP online), I can’t seem to get into it. But I have a deadline of March 1.

I had a cover reveal on FB and twitter for Grimaulkin:

This is the first book in the series. Possibly three books in total.

I am going to write a short story with Grim for a giveaway or additional story. It’s mostly written, I just have to edit it a little.

Good news/Bad news

Still with double vision. This doesn’t look promising.

According to the doctor I have “Sixth Nerve Palsy,” where the nerve in my eye is weakened and the other muscles pull the eye to the left. The good news is that it’s temporary, and it affects only distance sight. The bad news is it could take a year for it to resolve. However, I can still read and write, which does not give me the excuse of not writing Water. I’m truly struggling with that book. I’m struggling writing anything because, I think, I’m depressed.

I can’t even play the game I usually play. My muse is in hiding. At least I can read and write, so I think I’d better read more. I have 83 books to read according to Goodreads, so I might as well get crackin’.

 

When Life Rears its Ugly Head

Sometimes, Life gets in the way.

Specifically medical issues.

I’ve had problems with my eyes for the past year. I have a cataract in one eye, which I’m going for surgery over in February. However, this week, I had something worse happen.

Double vision at a distance.

When driving, it looks like people are coming directly at me. If I look across the room, I see two of certain items. Before, they were side by side, with a short distance between then. I could drive, but it was scary. It got steadily worse and now the distance is apparent, and I can see two distinct and clear items, next to each other, but at a greater distance.  If I close one eye at a time, I can see okay.

I went to the hospital, thinking I was having a stroke or bleed, but all the tests came out fine. They think it’s neurological, a diabetic neuropathy in the eye. I’m afraid it’s permanent. They can’t guarantee that it’s temporary or not.

What does this have to do with writing? Well, I can at least see close up still. I can write and read what I’m writing. So that’s a positive.

What it has to do with writing is the feeling I have. I’m depressed. I don’t want to write. I don’t want to communicate. I want to stay within my own bubble and remain depressed. My friend said, “Well at least you’re not blind,” which is a small comfort. I can’t drive. I am at the mercy of the bus.

And I’m scared.

Continuing

Still working on Water. Grimaulkin is still with the beta reader, though I have some feedback that I need to work on (add more straight characters because the story takes place in 2000, and gay people are still firmly in the closet, build up the two secondary characters).

So there isn’t much to talk about this week. I’m having trouble with Pisces in Water, mostly because I don’t know many Pisces, and I need to do more research on surgeons and doctors during the Civil War. I know they weren’t looked kindly upon, seen as butchers and cold-hearted men, but Pisces types like to help people. I have plenty of astrology books so I can look Pisces up.

Tomorrow, my son is set loose upon the world. He takes the bus for the first time to get to his new job. I’m terrified and proud at the same time. He’s autistic, so I’m afraid he’ll eventually take the wrong bus sometime and end up in some place he doesn’t know and can’t describe to me, so I won’t know where he is to find him. He is going to have a handler for the first couple of times he goes on the bus, but after that, he’s alone. I’m proud that he’s going to finally go to work.

There’s a story in there.

The Market

Went yesterday to an Author Meet & Greet in Narragansett. I had the best table–right at the door.

I sold nothing.

All around me, (memoir, children’s books) they sold at least 2 copies. I sold nothing.

I’m still depressed over it. But as I was thinking about it on the way home, I realized two things.

  1. The story is too niche.
  2. The market wasn’t right.

The story is about a bisexual wizard, in the US Army, during the war in Afghanistan. My audience is guys who are into the military and fastest on a fringe basis. They like reading military stories, but aren’t into the nitty-gritty.

I’m probably not going to sell anything at the next two places I’m going to, because of the same reason. My market isn’t there.

Makes me wonder if I should write to market, if I’m going to make any sort of money out of this.

I have the feeling too, that my editor doesn’t even like the story. She did two books ahead of mine, knowing that mine needed to be done by November. Supposedly we pushed back the date to October, but it doesn’t look like that’s happening. If the second book doesn’t come out in November, then I might as well hang up this series. I’m tempted to say the hell with trying to publish in general.

This third book is a bear because I’ve been stuck every single time on the interrogation scenes. Grimaulkin is stuck on the prison scenes. Why? Because I have no experience in either one of those things. And I’m not going to sit down and binge watch Oz for the prison scenes.

If I go to Comicon and sell nothing there, not only will I be out of $300, but then I’ll know that my story is too niche. And the 50 or so people who has bought it so far either did it by mistake, or that is where my true market is.

So maybe I should write a book for the general market here (my memoir-in-three-parts is still in my head). Nothing I have is really good for a general market. I could pull out Casey and do some historical fiction, or clean up Blood From a Stone. Or do something entirely different.

At this point, right now, I’m too depressed to write about anything. The muses are crying.

Update

Sometimes I can fake being an extrovert.

Next week, I’m going to have to. It will be an appearance in Narragansett, along with about 40 other authors, at a theater by the pier marketplace. I drove by there, being that I’m unfamiliar with the southern part of the state.  I couldn’t find the exact place, but hopefully I’ll be able to get there early enough on Saturday to find it.

I have my dragons, my candy, my books, and books that I’ll be selling for the Press.

This week I sent my novel to the editor. Yes, I know I did it earlier last month, but she didn’t get a chance to look at it until now. And come to find out it was a physical mess. I needed to put it through Word’s grammar/spelling paces (I later found out that Scrivener has a more robust one). After fighting with Word’s choices of grammar (which took two days), I resent it to the editor and hopefully now she’ll get a chance to look at it. Our timeline is to have it soft-launched on October 1, so it’s in time for the big launch at RI Comicon.

Book three of War Mage is coming along slowly. I think I wrote two pages last week, which is pretty sad on my part. I am reading “Make a Scene” which deconstructs scenes, the building blocks of story. I really should stop reading books on writing, because they’re not telling me anything I don’t already know; but I have so many of them on my shelf to read. Go to my Goodreads list and take a look to see what I’ve got there. Way too many writing books.

I’ve put aside Grimaulkin. Part of me wants to dump the whole thing. I’ve been working on it for over 6 years. It’s a good story, but damn, I’m bored with it.

The Day Job

My father does not believe in me as a writer. Whenever I call him, he never asks me, “So how’s the book selling? How’s the new book going?” It’s always, “You still have a job?”

My day job has nothing to do with me being a writer. It is a mindless drone-like task that Koko could do. Not in any way challenging.

I’m planning on changing my day job, to finally take that step up the career ladder.I’ve been there for 9 years and have been insulted to show for it. So I’ve been trying to get at other positions, mostly in the writing and editing fields. I’ve tried inside and outside of my company. No dice.

So here’s my dilemma: do I take a job that will eat away my writing time, and possibly my creative spirit, or do I stay in a mindless job that doesn’t sap my creative ability?

Unfortunately, most of us writers have a day job, and the ones that don’t are lucky. Either there’s a spouse working so they can keep the writing life, or they’re selling that many books – and living much more simply – than I am. Do I want to make this a real job?

I keep telling people no, because I need inspiration for my characters. But my real reason is that I’m not disciplined enough. On my weekends, I want to write, but do I really? I did yesterday. Haven’t today, not even in my journal. I write when I’m pressured: during my lunch, 5 minutes before leaving for work, waiting during doctors’ appointments.  If given two hours, or even days, I find something else to do other than write.

Sleep is a big thing, actually. Game is second. Writing…yeah, I think about it a lot, but I’m not consistent. If I get this new day job, I’ll be very inconsistent, and my muse will be upset. Because writing will no longer be the big thing in my life, but just something I do when I get a chance.

 

Appearances:

September 10, Narragansett Meet and Greet 10 a.m-3 p.m. Narragansett Theatre by the Sea.

Will have Homecoming books, and Best Intentions under the table. Also testing out my “attract money” spell. 🙂