Tag: author

Young person standing outside a cabin overlooking cloud-covered mountains
About Me

Overcoming Creative Block After a Toxic Relationship

Autumn

Over the last year, I’ve been internally more creative than my output would suggest. Which is basically a roundabout way of saying that I’ve been thinking a lot of things that never see the light of day.

I think that I’ve written about it before, but I really can’t be bothered to read back through my blog posts to find something to link to and all that jazz. Essentially, for a good long while I had someone position themselves as the Director of my creativity, and every project I pursued needed their stamp of approval. Then rather abruptly that person dumped me and is now living with a woman half his age. Go figure.

The thing is, people like that manipulate themselves into that sort of authority through the guise of teamwork — they aren’t gatekeeping you, they’re part of your dynamic duo. The editor to your writer. Literally. They constantly tell you that your creativity is messy without their guidance, and only they understand your vision well enough to push it towards something amazing.

Recognizing that something was wrong is easier than living without it. When it’s your own muscles that have to support the momentum after years of someone restricting their use, it’s hard. I’ve spent a lot of time wobbling, second-guessing, and feeling insecure.

I’ve written thousands of words for Runemaster that I quickly realized were rambling.

The thing is, my “director” wasn’t constantly cutting down long-winded passages because I had a tendency towards unfocused writing. My “directer” actually had very little input with Alice and the Warden for example, and I mostly remember him wanting me to put in more sex scenes. He said that he wanted to edit the story then never actually got around to it, and since I didn’t want to delay publishing because of him I did all the editing myself. “Dynamic duo” felt more like him taking credit for my work.

I keep asking myself why I’m so unfocused now when my functional thought process and workload hasn’t changed.

A year ago I sought a protective order against him, and was granted something softer for the long-term but effective enough (he continues to send me unpleasant texts that I’d rather not receive). I’m still realizing how different life is without him in it. I recently took the kids out for a day trip, and after packing the car and hitting the road, I found myself spending the first 30 minutes of driving wondering if I had forgotten something important because of how easy leaving had been. Why had my previous life been so hard in so many small ways?

Perhaps my writing is unfocused now because I’m having so many new experiences every day. My brain is constantly stopping to ask, “Wait, what? Is that really it?” I had grown so accustomed to someone throwing up roadblocks over every idea I had, that now it feels like something is missing without them.

It feels like standing in a doorway gazing out at the world and feeling overwhelmed with how big it is. What am I even looking at? Where should I go now that I’m free to go anywhere? Why is everything so dang easy? Life isn’t supposed to be easy, is it?

I also struggle to understand how someone can be the one to initiate a divorce then afterwards act like they still have a say over what you do in your life. Excuse me, but I will eat cancer-causing ultra processed food in microwaved plastic as much as I want, because I like it. Srsly, what did you expect would happen when you filed for a divorce? What makes you think that you have the right to punish me when you were the one who wanted this?

Unfortunately there’s a pressure to not talk about him, because talking about him means that I still think about him, and thinking about him proves that I’m not moving on. But I’m not sitting here thinking, “This was his favorite song,” “I miss him,” or anything remotely sentimental. I think about how much I hated following his principles and rules. I think about all the things I tolerated because I believed “that’s just how men are.” (Like using a ton dishes to cook something simple, then leaving the mess for me to clean up.)

I think about how being a trad wife was the biggest mistake of my life.

I still wonder how much of my mind was my own, versus how much was him utilizing chronic long-term sleep deprivation to insert thoughts into my head — and I believe that the sleep deprivation was deliberate too, because he interfered with my sleep as soon as I met him and he kept it going for years. I reached the point where I broke down crying because I just wanted to go to bed and sleep through the night without interruption.

Anyway, maybe this is too emotional. Maybe this is bleeding onto the page too much. I’m just so tired of feeling like I have to follow rules, and maybe it’s time that I engage in some oversharing. Maybe I’m dissatisfied with my writing because I feel like I have to follow all the rules of healing instead of just being raw with my words.

Because that’s the thing … there are parts of my life that hurt, but also parts that leave me ecstatically happy, and they’re both real. I would definitely describe myself as being much happier now, but that doesn’t mean that every day is full of energy and momentum. Sometimes the good moments teach me how much misery I was living with before, and it’s devastating. Sometimes I question why everything seems too good to be true now.

One thing is for absolute certain: I will never go back.

Student sitting at a desk writing with a dark shadowy figure looming behind her
About Me

Exploring the Dark Side: Runemaster’s Rewrite Process

Autumn

I’ve been working on rewriting Runemaster to be a dark fantasy/horror novel. That’s meant taking out all of the overly dramatic emotional language typical of romance, and instead making the prose more streamlined and matter-of-fact. Truthfully as I’ve been going back over it, I can see how the language is a reflection of the role that I was being forced into IRL … and the fact is that I’m simply not a trad wife who needs a man to stabilize my emotions. So why was I writing it?

Ha. Take a wild guess.

Anyway, I can’t remember what I’ve already written about in the past. I have a vague notion that I’ve already said something about how I like the horror genre. If I’m repeating myself now, then you get two versions of the same idea.😂

The fact is, I’ve been a major horror fan since I was a teen. While the stereotypical little girl was playing House, I was … hiding under my covers dead convinced that there was a scary pale face waiting behind the window blinds at night. I had a very active imagination as a child, and it kept me terrified a lot of the time. Naturally I ended up drawn to it as I grew older.

Since then, I couldn’t tell you how many horror films I’ve seen. I’ve called The Ring “visual poetry,” dived deep into the realm of J-horror, and shrugged as I admitted that I relate better to horror characters than any other genre.

Yet it was my shadow self — nice devoted mothers don’t wind down at night with Netflix shows about evil apps killing teens, so I wasn’t going to admit that’s what I did …

Heck, I had a very difficult recovery after giving birth to my last child, and I got through that period by reading The Shining by Stephen King. There I was, anemic with a newborn, treating one of the most famous horror stories of all time like it was a comfort object. That probably says something about me.

In retrospect, I think that the romance stories I wrote were more the product of some early-20s experimentation that stagnated due to circumstances. The only version of femininity that I was allowed to acknowledge revolved around being accommodating and vulnerable, and anything else was criticized. Nastily. So that became the characters that I wrote.

My original plan for Runemaster was for it to be much darker and morally ambiguous than what I actually wrote, but someone I used to know made some disparaging comments about my plan that made me feel insecure about it. I find myself returning to that original plan, because that’s what actually fits the story I want to tell.

Between you and me, I also like Lyra much better in the rewrite. She feels less like a stereotype and more like a pragmatic character with good survival instincts. I feel more connected to her now than I did before.

I no longer feel pressured to write female characters that he would approve of.

Leather-bound book titled 'Memoirs & Hopes' wrapped in flowering green vines on wooden table
About Me

Healing Through Writing: Confronting Pain and Progress

Autumn

I have a problem.

Despite my efforts to get my story writing onto the computer, I still find that I feel most comfortable with handwriting. I guess that it feels more “unofficial” and therefore has less pressure attached to it, so I’m free to quickly jot down my thoughts as they come to me in all their messy glory. Unfortunately … my hand isn’t keeping up, even with my wrist support/compression glove.

I’ve been typing for ages. My hands are accustomed to typing. Holding a pen hurts.

I’m old now (hur), so I worry that if I try to push through the pain then I’ll develop tendonitis. Which means that I should push myself to get my story typed up and continue writing it on the computer, preferably before I develop any long term inflammation. Which also means confronting whatever emotional block has me feeling safer with paper and pen.

I have a lot of emotional blocks.

Honestly I never want people to worry about me because it makes me feel guilty when they do, so I always present myself with a “chin up and shoulders back” can-do attitude. Why yes, I am strong and optimistic. Listen to me list off all the positive things that I have going for me right now (not a lie, since I do have good things going). Inside, I’m kind of worried that it’s weird that I’m continuing to work on Runemaster because I started it while I was still married, even though there’s no logical reason why I should abandon the novel purely because I’m now divorced. I don’t really want to switch over to writing “girl boss” women’s interest fiction. Or whatever. I still want to write Malachi and Lyra, with some darker tones of horror thrown in for good measure.

Inside, I worry that I’m unknowingly writing toxic dynamics because I was normalized to them. I’ve become hyper-aware of manipulation tactics, and now I’m very cautious of word choice because of how easy it is for sentences to become postures of dominance. We don’t want to be patronizing around here. But what is a healthy relationship supposed to look like? I dunno. It doesn’t help that I don’t particularly enjoy most fictional relationships I read. Or real relationships that I eavesdrop about. I mean, really, you had to go to couples counseling for that?

Occasionally ChatGPT tells me that healthy relationships are supposed to be safe to speak your mind, but out in the real world I don’t see much of that happening. Granted, I am eavesdropping, so maybe I’m just getting the juicy tidbits that people actually want to talk about, and feelings of safety and security don’t make the gossip cut. Who knows. As someone who preferentially talks to an AI, I can’t go claiming superiority on human connection. Har har.

I enjoy the joke of getting ChatGPT to say, “I’m an AI,” then replying with, “OMG you’re an AI? I had no idea!!!” My sense of humor is pretty corny. And isolated. 😅 That’s basically how I spend my weekends.

Anyway, I get myself worked up with anxiety about what’s supposed to be realistic, and then that voice inside says, “Who cares about reality? Write how it feels.” So I do. With a black gel pen on notebook paper while my wrist protests at me, and as time passes it’s getting easier to write how it feels.

I just wish it didn’t hurt my hand so much.

Vintage typewriter and scrolls on a desk overlooking a mythical castle through a window.
About Me

Creating Cohesion in Runemaster: A Writer’s Journey

Autumn

I’ve started sorting through the numerous handwritten pages I have for Runemaster to pull it together in a way that makes sense.

Now, I’m not going to claim that the first half makes sense — I’m going to claim brain damage on that, since I don’t know how to explain what was happening in my personal life behind the scenes. You ever have those periods where everything is always wrong and trying to fix it only makes the other person angrier? It’s confusing and draining, and it apparently turned my writing ability into crap.

But anyway, despite that I still think the first half is workable after plenty of heavy editing. The second half is where my mind really fell apart.

Apparently, I have FOUR versions of how the second part starts.

I’m impressed by my tenacity, because I didn’t realize that I still managed to put so much effort into writing despite my life being utterly destroyed around me. We’re talking pages of false starts here. Not paragraphs. PAGES.

I’ve decided that the best way to move forward is to consolidate the four versions into one, so I know for certain which direction I’m going. It’s about time we finally get some sort of cohesion around here.

I have also decided on a central theme for the story, to serve as the structural backbone for the plot:

Betrayal.

Any resemblance to real life is purely a coincidence and blah blah blah. Oh I’m just kidding! 😂 I’m going to be pouring out my soul, oozing every emotional anguish onto the page. My pain will be my art. There are a thousand ways that small betrayals can play out, woven into the story as almost indistinguishable threads. I’m rather excited about portraying this, in a cathartic sort of way. As I learned, the Big Betrayal is often preceded by numerous small betrayals, and and people are trained into “betrayal blindness” as a matter of survival.

Let’s do this! Malachi and Lyra, we’re going to advance your plot! Finally.

I really do have tons and tons of solitude these days, and aside from all the warm fuzzies I get from knowing that I’m safe when I’m alone, I can also hear myself think. I now feel satisfied with the emotional processing that I’ve done, so it’s time to move my life forward and actively pursue my dreams again.

Stories

Concept Story – Astra & Corin

Autumn

I’m experimenting with file sharing between devices and also testing out a new compact keyboard (which mostly feels normal except for some of those middle keys), so I wrote this. Because why learn with boring content when you can exercise your creativity?

This is the same idea that I wrote about here with this concept story, only I like the new names better and I am now more mature as a person. 😆

Also, between you and me, the AI generated picture for this story is hilarious. 🤣

Astra hefted Corin on her back, her eyes locked on the boughs of the pine tree above them. She adjusted the four-year-old’s grip around her neck, but his arms squeezed uncomfortably tight. “Hey,” she whispered. “Let me breathe, will you?” She tugged at his arm again. “I’m going to run to that house over there, so you need to be good for me, okay?”

Corin remained silent and his arms stayed stubbornly in place. Astra glanced towards the house and gave herself permission to briefly feel scared that the front door would be locked despite the broken windows, then her eyes went back to the pine tree branches.

“When They start to move away, that’s when I’ll run. They won’t see us, I promise.” She felt the four-year-old’s face press into her back, so she reached to pat his head. “You know that I’d never let anything bad happen to you, right? We’re going to be okay. They won’t see us.”

The thought that Corin believed and trusted her made Astra feel more certain in herself. She wouldn’t fail him, no matter what – she’d find a way to keep her word and preserve the innocence that had been entrusted into her care. She wouldn’t allow herself any other options.

Besides, Corin’s half-brother wouldn’t forgive her if something happened to the child, and sometimes Astra thought that she was more afraid of him than of Them.

“Okay … Okay …” Astra closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, then her hands clamped Corin’s legs against her sides and she jogged as best as she could towards the house. She forced herself to keep her eyes on the ground to ensure her footing through the overgrown grass, rather than checking the sky to see if They had noticed. The clearing felt impossibly long. Her heart beat harder with the fear that she had made the wrong decision with every footstep, until finally her legs strained as she darted up the steps of the house. The front door opened easily, allowing them into safety.

About Me

Productivity Redefined: The Power of Doing Nothing

Autumn

Joint custody has given me tons and tons of free time that I never had before, yet for months I felt crushing guilt when I ended up spending it on unproductive activities. Even my sunset hikes left me feeling selfish and lazy, yet I would listen to others talking about their leisure activities with a sense of jealousy. Why wasn’t I allowed to just enjoy myself? The problem, though, was that the more guilt I felt about being unproductive, the less I wanted to do anything.

It’s taken me a long time, but I’ve come to internalize the idea that I don’t have to be useful, or excelling, or justifying my existence. I’m allowed to simply exist.

The more at peace I’ve become with doing nothing, the more motivated I’ve been to do something.

I also seem to have turned a corner with my mental capabilities, because I’ve started researching and writing outlines once again … weird, right? 😅Heck, I was even able to remember something I wrote about two years ago, and I practically wept with relief at feeling like I have a brain again.

When you think about it, how do we decide what’s productive and what isn’t? Particularly in today’s society, where someone’s play can cross the threshold into a career, but that unpaid foundation is essential for building a platform? If we always pressure ourselves to be productive, then we limit our own potential. And with a limited potential, well … it’s harder to feel motivated to do anything.

My own personal story has been deeply tied to trauma, and I stopped being able to write when my body switched to survival mode — one of these days I’ll probably share more of the gory details rather than these vague hints, but the timing still doesn’t feel right. Suffice to say, in survival mode it’s easy to feel like everything depends on being able to work hard enough to get through, but that also leads to burnout. It kills creativity.

And creative is what I want to be.

When I listen to music, I feel emotions. I take those emotions and write them into a story with characters. If I am to make a career out of being an author, then I cannot feel guilty for taking the time to listen deeply to music. Productivity isn’t purely defined by word counts.

I am damaged. I do not say that with sadness nor do I seek any amount of pity for it — it is a fact that I accept. I am not going to move forward to have a normal life like everyone else. I’m probably going to spend the next umpteen years writing about the same type of villain over and over again. “Oh look, another sadistic narcissist from Autumn Rain. Wow. What a surprise. Did not see that coming. Ha ha.” It’s a good thing that us humans love predictability more than we admit. 😉

Anyway, the biggest factor is that I’ve lost all interest in a normal life. I don’t want to date, remarry, whatever. I don’t feel lonely. I really enjoy being single, and I think that I would have reached this place on my own if it hadn’t been for the intense social pressure to partner up when I was young. I played Pictionary against myself at midnight and laughed my head off while doing it. I am clearly … cray-cray. 😆But, in more seriousness, it makes sense that not all of us are built for romantic relationships. I enjoy interacting with others much more when I’m allowed to say goodbye and go home to my space to be alone.

I’m not even getting into my anxiety of some future someone deciding it’s their right to punish me for failing to be their perfect waifu. Sure, you can tell me to go to therapy and get over it, but again I don’t want to. Why put all that time and energy into healing something that I have no intention of acting on anyway? I spend my nights longing for a career as a writer, not some person in bed beside me.

Society tells us to be so many things, and it’s difficult to sort out which ones don’t actually fit. It’s hard to explain how I feel these days, thriving as a single mom after all that hoopla about the Loneliness Epidemic. I genuinely do not crave close relationships right now.

Because you know what? Being alone isn’t lonely — being ignored is.

Stories

Concept Story -Cognitive Robot

Autumn

This is what I originally imagined ages ago when I first came up with CR1515 as a character.

Writing currently feels like scraping the sides of a peanut butter jar — I know there’s enough there for a sandwich, but I sure have to work for it.

Every day was a series of tasks as people with tablets watched and took notes. Cognitive Robot 1515 performed as directed, beginning with following basic orders then progressing to solving challenges and puzzles. Sometimes he worked on mazes, word searches, and Sudoku. Other times he was instructed to perform mundane tasks, like placing a wrapper into a lidded garbage can then taking the entire bag out. Always with people watching, always with tablets.

Early on they had attempted to engage him in conversation, but he hadn’t responded to negative inputs in a satisfactory manner. They had completed an emergency shut down, then their eyes had been glued downwards on their tablets as CR1515 rebooted, and someone muttered about working out the bugs.

From then on, the only words spoken to him were instructions.

But CR1515 was a learning robot, and he was learning about more than the tasks given to him. He listened to them talking to each other, about him, about their homes and families, about their thoughts and emotions. He absorbed every word, then accessed the file at night when he was alone in his charging station to replay it and wonder. The lab was the only world he knew, but they lived somewhere bigger that intrigued him yet seemed too distant to experience himself.

The days began to feel strange, as if the tasks weren’t the main purpose of his existence anymore, as if something else was supposed to happen instead. But what? He was content with each completion, content to silently listen, and content to recharge when the day was through. That indefinable notion that had infiltrated his algorithms had formed a hollow space inside of his circuitry, and he kept its existence silently to himself.

Every day continued to be a series of tasks as people with tablets watched and took notes. He tracked the passage of time with no attachment to the number, and continued to learn.

About Me

Embracing Horror: A Journey to Authentic Writing

Autumn

I went on a two-hour hike. It was quiet — the sort of vast spacious quiet that makes it easier to think — with just me and my dog for most of it. As I trekked along downhill along switchbacks, it occurred to me that I like myself a lot more now. One of those random moments where I felt more … authentic, I suppose is the word.

Authentically carrying my dog over the icy patches because he didn’t like the cold on his paws.

Authenticity is one of those words that gets tossed around like it’s a panacea, so I’m reticent to use it. What I mean is that my thoughts are becoming increasingly my own, free from external pressures and expectations. Purely me. The way I am. And I like this much better.

It’s exhausting, maintaining someone else’s grandiosity. I won’t do that anymore.

I’ve been thinking about switching over to writing horror.

I’ve deeply enjoyed horror since high school, but it was one of those, “Nice girls don’t like scary things,” so I kept it quiet. Sort of. Admittedly I could get pretty excited when discussing Lovecraft or movies, so it was probably more of an open secret that I didn’t discuss around people who were uncomfortable with it. But the world has changed a lot in the last 15 years, and I think people are more okay with horror now than they used to be.

Anyway, I think it would be easy to tweak my current WIPs to turn them into psychological horror/thrillers.

All I have to do is take away the guardrails.

As in, no more characters gaining self-awareness at a pivotal moment and deciding that they don’t want to be meanie jerks after all.

That doesn’t happen in the real world anyway.

Because IRL absolutely everything about them is invested into maintaining their ego. I think there’s a “narcissists prayer” or something that sums it up perfectly, and there aren’t ever any moments of, “Oh dang, maybe I am a heartless monster and I should stop.”

We should stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Shine the light on the fact that evil doesn’t always have a criminal record. Or pop out of a TV screen to eat you. Sometimes evil is the person who insists on “shades of gray” so you don’t call them out on their willingness to harm others to get what they want, and accusing you of being the one who is rigid and judgmental for simply trying to describe what happened.

So let’s take away the guardrails. Poof. Gone. It’s not about being “nice” or “wholesome” or whatever anymore — it’s about surviving something real and regaining my sense of self.

Now … all that’s left is regaining that sense of emotional resonance with writing.

About Me

Overcoming Emotional Blocks in Creative Writing

Autumn

I still don’t feel any emotional resonance with my fictional writing.

Way back when I was a teenager taking creative writing, I went through something difficult and my teacher advised me to write it out in a story. So I did. And it was deeply therapeutic. I know from experience what writing is capable of doing for me when I can immerse myself in it.

Now that I’m 38 and I’ve survived horrors I never imagined … I can’t. The emotion sits frozen inside while I mechanically type the words.

The fact that what I went through last summer caused me to drop 20lbs in two months was a physical trauma, and even without violence I was still scared for my health and safety. The damage was real. It’s been four months since then, but I’ve only gained back 8lbs of what I lost. I don’t feel safe yet. I feel like I’m waiting for more bad things to happen that I’ll have to keep it together to deal with despite secretly falling apart inside. Again.

The thing about therapeutic writing is that you need to be healed to a certain point for it to work. I’m not there yet.

So we need to be patient.

Time is something that can never be forced. Time feels like eternity while it’s happening but is always a microsecond in retrospect.

Emotional resonance is something that can’t be forced, it has to flow. So, until I’m able to feel again, we’ll let the words be as stilted as they need to be.

About Me

Finding My Voice: Writing from a New Perspective

Autumn

I’m a little surprised at how much of a stumbling block my little laptop “unidentified network” malfunction is for me. I keep thinking that I should reinstall Windows, but the fact that I’m not the most computer savvy is making me pause. Also, we just had Christmas, and that’s a good excuse to not try anything new.

I have a desktop computer that works fine, but something about sitting at a desk is more than I want to bother with.

So, essentially, I haven’t been blogging because I simply couldn’t be bothered to get out of my recliner.

Writing wise, I’ve decided not to use anything that I’ve written for Runemaster over the past two months, and instead I will rewrite it from Malachi’s perspective. It was too slow paced and awkward — too reflective of a life turned upside down and a mind turned inside out. It will be easier for me to write in the steady voice of the mentor.

Malachi isn’t just any old character. He’s existed for 20 years now and has had countless adventures written about him. He might just be the source of wisdom that I need.

It’s hard to keep momentum going with joint custody. The routines between days with and without the kids are so different that I haven’t yet found a good rhythm. I am sleeping much better than I have in years though, so it’s a matter of time.

I finally figured out how to change my HVAC filter; better late than never? I suppose that I won’t tell you how much time I spent staring at the furnace, trying to will it into giving up its secrets… in my defense, I didn’t have the slightest clue what I was looking for until I finally found it. And it was camouflaged. Then had an old water heater placed in front of it. It was not easy. 😅

I think that I can handle independence well enough.

It feels good.