It’s time to get back into the habit of thinking in words. For someone who has spent most of her life reveling in them, they’ve been rather absent from my mind for the last several months. But, traumatic psychological injuries aside, this is my favorite way of processing the world.
I’ve been challenged to keep a daily gratitude journal. It seems like an added pressure, so I’m not going to bother — har har — but it is true that we write the stories of our own lives. Maybe not the details, but the genre and tone are certainly within our grasp, and it’s better to stick with “inspirational” when possible.
That said, I am working on getting craft items ready for selling, and we had some gorgeous Spring weather days that were spent outside basking in the sunlight.
Not bad, right?
Writing is one of those skills that gets rusty with disuse, so I’m going to put more effort into posting updates, even when they aren’t anything special. I hope that you don’t mind.
I’ve taken a much-needed break, though I can’t say that my life is any different these days. Motherhood is taking most of my focus as usual, but I am feeling much better about myself in general; I’m learning the value of simply breathing.
The kids and I have made plans on how we want to celebrate Valentine’s Day together, including decorating cookies and setting up a chocolate fondue. Valentine’s Day is still one of my favorite holidays, and I’m still excited for it — I’ve never been one of those bitter “singles awareness” types, and I’m not going to start now.
It’s hard to summarize everything, honestly. I’m busy with plenty of activities, and I’ve been spending a lot of time processing the past and musing about the future, as well as trying to appreciate each day as it comes. I spend a lot more time out of the house these days, practicing how to engage complete strangers in small talk, and slowly boosting my confidence bit by bit. No more shy and invisible for me!
I still haven’t decided what I want to do with RuneMaster. Since I originally created the characters back when I was in high school after a traumatic period in my life, it seems very fitting that I should do my “grown up” rewrite now, after another traumatic period in my life. Come to think of it, the mirroring of past and present is a little weird. I don’t break up often, but when I do …
I need to figure out what happens in the rewrite. When I began it a year ago, I decided to cut a character to make the story fit into the overall mythos better, but now I think I want to put him back in … even if it does completely change the dynamics of the characters’ interactions. Why not, right? I ain’t got no fanbase to disappoint. 😆
I’ve always been passionate about words, but I have the writer’s curse of being absolutely terrible at speaking. But combining letters to create sounds and sentences? It feels like art.
Cooking
My favorite thing is to sit down to wholesome comfort food with my favorite people, which means that I’ve put in the effort to be able to prepare food that makes the moment perfect. Presentation, on the other hand, is completely different skill, and I’m not about to go adding sprigs of parsley any time soon.
Sewing
I call it my sanity hobby! I love the way the fabric feels in my fingers, and the hum of my machine as it stitches.
Child Care
While I’m not going to claim perfection, I have put in a lot of time practicing patience, and I try my best to empathize. When it comes to children, the love and care you put into them is reciprocated (though not always in obvious ways), and that means the world to me.
Moving Forward
I feel a little ridiculous for putting that one down, but after the year I’ve had, I think I ought to acknowledge how much strength it’s taken to get out of bed and keep breathing, every single day.
Energy ducking – using low enthusiasm to avoid standing out.
Don’t be afraid to be playful!
Story gap – hint at something to build interest.
Avoid short answers – elaborate!
Share enough to make conversation easy, but create space for the other person.
Avoid repeating the same old boring stuff
Use fun hypotheticals!
Don’t be passive!
Listen to laugh (be real about it)
Make others feel smart & funny.
I confess that “energy ducking” is something that I’m quite guilty of, especially in real life. You know how it is when you tell a joke, only it falls flat and everyone stares at you like you’re a weirdo? I have a hard time with that. So it’s easier to not tell the joke in the first place.
I’m struggling quite a bit with camera anxiety. Camera confidence is zero. On the bright side, I’m very skilled at silently staring in terror. Heck yeah!
My social skills are rusty. I probably would have had an easier time building a youtube channel when I was 22, back when I was used to interacting with friends. As it is now, my daily conversations tend to revolve around, “Please do your math lessons,” and, “What would you like for dinner?” However, since my long-term goal is to do livestreaming, I need to brush those social skills off. Remember back when I thrived on social energy? Do that again.
Part of me is kind of embarrassed that here I am in my late 30s, trying to remember what it’s like to be around friends. But, given everything I hear about the “loneliness epidemic”, I’m in good company. Hey there, fellow humans who spent too much time working and no time socializing. Let’s hang out. I can silently stare at the camera in terror. We’ll be awkward together. No judgments.
I recently learned about the “warm social world,” and I very much want to live there. I’ve been starting up conversations with random strangers, and its fun when I find someone who wants to talk.
I may be in my late 30s, but as they say, it’s never too late.
My kids and I are reading Hatchet by Gary Paulsen as part of our home school curriculum, and this was a fortuitous quote to come across at this point in my life.
I am my best friend and my greatest resource. I am someone that I can rely on, no matter what happens. I am the best thing I have.
And I will make a good life for myself and my children, no matter how much work it takes.
I’m serious when I whip out my notebook and start taking notes.
So … “how to get big on youtube” is a genre, and there are about a million channels all telling you how to … get big on youtube. Naturally, that inspires me to feel massively insecure about the fact that probably everyone is following the same advice, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to measure up to all the people who don’t have my issues (of which I have so many). There are a gazillion youtube videos out there, after all.
Meanwhile, I’m still working on my camera anxiety.
This is probably going to be a big block for me, but I’m determined to get over it. The thing is, I realized that since I’ve lived most of my life trying to be invisible, I’ve attracted people who wanted me to be invisible … and I don’t actually like it at all. What I really want is to feel seen and heard, which also means that I have to get over feeling so uncomfortable with being seen and heard. I mean this for my personal relationships just as much for my current career venture.
To get a little bit personal here, I recently played Josh Groban’s song, “Hidden Away” while belting it out with my terrible vocal control, when in the middle of it I broke down sobbing too hard to keep singing.
If no one sees you then nobody knows And all these words you were meant to say Held in silence day after day Words of kindness that our poor hearts crave Please don’t keep them Hidden away
Josh Groban – Hidden Away
I’m teary eyed right now just reading over it again.
I don’t think I was meant to be silent and invisible in my life. I love words too much, and I care too much about leaving a positive impact on the world. So, no matter how hard and scary it is for me to stand up and be seen, I want to do it. I want to overcome my fear. Because I want to help others and leave the world a better place, and I can’t do that in hiding. Do you want to know something that I’ve learned? Strong emotions, including fear, are easier to turn into forward momentum than having weak emotions. So it’s a good thing that I’ve got fear in droves — tons and tons of it, about practically everything.
Getting back to the original topic …
The deeper I dive into this youtube idea, the more it feels like I need to do this for the sake of my future. Because, as it’s been said, “If you do what you did, then you’ll get what you got,” and I really don’t want to repeat my past. If I can get over my camera anxiety, then I can start a new chapter in my life where I’ll be more confident in myself and make better choices. I also won’t attract people who expect me to sit in the shadows while they hog the spotlight.
So, the photo above is of some of the notes that I’ve been taking about managing a youtube channel — specifically the thumbnails. Not every popular channel follows those rules, but they’re a good place to start, especially considering that you only get about one second to capture someone’s attention. Then, after they clicked that thumbnail to see what the heck, the first ten seconds of the video are where you establish whether or not they’re going to stick around and watch it. Kind of insane, right? One second to catch someone’s eye, and ten seconds to make them stay — yet that’s how fast our brains work. In a way, it takes the pressure off the rest of the content, because as long as I don’t plummet downhill with the quality, I don’t have to maintain that level of engagement for the entire video.
I’m starting to feel excited about learning marketing. I wouldn’t go and claim that I feel excited for it every moment of every day — I still have plenty of periods of feeling soul-crushing defeat about how everything went so so wrong — but I can get behind the idea of spending 2025 learning me some new skills and re-making my life into something better. Provided I don’t end up homeless.
I even went through the trouble of digging out my fancy camera, that I bought all the way back in 2016 so that I could get high-quality photos and videos of the kids. Only then I became too anxious about accidentally breaking it or something, so I didn’t use it that much, and it ended up sitting in the case gathering dust. LOL. Now it can be repurposed for youtube, I guess.
So … let’s see where this goes.
What about you? What are some strong emotions that you’ve had, that you’ve used to change something for the better in your life? I’m really curious, because I think that we can help cheer each other on with positive words; we all probably need more than we’re getting. 😊
One of those big and glaringly obvious things about trying to make a living as an indie author is that you have to, you know, write books to make it happen.
Ha ha, yeah, I’ll get around to it.
Currently my actual progress with novel writing is quite small. Currently my mind is a little too preoccupied with the real world to think that much about my fictional ones. I wouldn’t say, “writer’s block”, but I’m definitely still deep in “writer’s process.” And while I’m kinda wishing that I was more of an escapist sort, I need to get a real-world foundation built under me before I can start dreaming.
There is a slightly pragmatic element to me.
So instead of thinking about Malachi and Lyra, running around and doing things in Runemaster, I’m thinking about boring adult things like my credit score. I’m figuring out how to structure my day so that I can have time for everything that needs to be done. I’m trying to remember to stay hydrated and get some fresh air and sunshine. I’m adjusting to a major life change. I’m stopping a four-year-old and a two-year-old from spitting at each other across the room, because despite how cute and little they are, it’s also kinda gross.
What I need is time. I wish that life came with a pause button that I could smack every time I needed a moment to think and process, but the sun continues to rise and fall the same way that it always has and always will. I don’t know if I’m counting down the days to a deadline, or if I’ll have all the time I need. And it’s easy to get caught up in the stress.
So I remind myself not to make any decisions based on fear. I can be logical. I can follow what my heart truly wants. But I won’t let myself succumb to fear; that’s not how I want to live the rest of my life. I know deep in my heart that writing is the only thing that I have any real ambition for, so that’s where I’m throwing all my energy.
However, I’m not going to lie: having a fire tickling my behind is also proving itself to be great motivation. I might not be deep into writing yet, but I’m thinking a lot about the marketing aspect and learning new skills.
My life right now
Speaking of marketing, that whole “SEO optimization” makes me feel awkward. There’s nothing poetic about it, and it’s definitely not natural to my way of thinking.
“Calls to action” are also something that are currently uncomfortable. Should I really end my blog posts with, “Now that I’ve shared how my life is a train wreck, tell me about your own train wrecks in the comments below!” Is that appropriate?
But what the hey, let’s commiserate a little bit. What are you struggling with in your life right now?
I confess that as I’ve been researching marketing, I keep having the thought that it would be easier for me to get remarried instead.
It’s not that I find the idea of marketing to be morally repugnant or anything — hey, once a story is deemed finished, I can cut that metaphorical umbilical cord and throw it out into the world for consumption; no problems there — but the idea of managing a platform and brand sounds so overwhelmingly draining. I’ve never been the sort to wave my arms and cry out, “Look at me!” and it frankly scares me to do so.
At the same time, I’m also aware that dating and marketing probably aren’t all that different. Target demographic: Men, 40’s, divorced with children. Product: One domestic engineer — I can cook, clean, and laugh at all your jokes! The main difference is that I have lots of experience in a companionship and support role, and have otherwise done my best to remain invisible to everyone else in every other capacity. What can I say, I’m shy. LOL.
And honestly, it just hurts to dedicate my life to household management, childcare, budgeting, and culinary arts, only to be abruptly ousted out of my career. Like, hey, I really enjoyed doing that! Please just let me cook dinner.
But I have no idea what my life is supposed to be or where it’s supposed to go, so I’m just going to pick a direction and blindly follow it until I hit a sign or something. And since I love writing so much, that’s where I’m trying to go.
Target demographic: People who love genre romances with strong characterization, deep philosophical discussions, a touch of wholesomeness, and a sprinkle of sordid. Product: My novels.
See? That wasn’t so bad. Now I just need to wave my arms in the air and shout, “Look at me!”
I wouldn’t go out on a date without putting on deodorant first, and in the same vein I should gussy up my books to make them appealing and not stinky. However, I would also never put on fake eyelashes, since that’s not in my personality and not the sort of precedent that I want to set — I’d prefer someone who likes my minimal makeup style. So … I shouldn’t try to make my novels seem like something that they’re not.
The main difference is, of course, that in dating I would just be searching for the One to settle down with, while in marketing I’d be searching for … a lot more. I’m not sure if there is an end goal in marketing, and that’s a little much to wrap my mind around.
And as of yet, I have no idea if being a professional writer will provide the same warm fuzzies that sharing a home cooked meal does.
But you know how it is when life throws you a curve ball. Sometimes all you can do is adapt and stumble around blindly until something new works out.
By Autumn Rain 