Tag: Books

Cozy artist workspace with an open door to a glowing moonlit forest
About Me

Reclaiming My Bag, My Time, and My Voice After Marriage

Autumn

There was a moment of realization that happened recently. My bag that I carry with me everywhere — that through the years has contained emergency pull-ups, diaper wipes, band-aids, and various other-people miscellaneous — now carries my headphones and my Kindle.

My stuff.

Mine.

What in the world? Did I stumble into an alternate dimension?

Heck, even the bottle of sunscreen is more for me than anyone else, because I never know when I’ll be caught in the sun and I burn easily. Have I really reclaimed my life?

So I’ve been reading A Court of Thorns and Roses. In my middle-aged perspective, I find myself thinking that it depicts sexual coercion more than anything genuinely romantic (so far, since I’m 50% through the first book). Between the spells that force people to have sex, and assaults that leave bruises (complete with a “It’s all your fault that I did that to you” afterwards), I’m not seeing much that I would consider “healthy relationships” going on. Then when Tamlin said, “I’ve had many lovers, but none of them understood me,” I snerked and thought, Oh no, he’s that guy. 😆

And that’s why I’m not the heroine of a romance novel. Because Mr. “I’m so misunderstood” can go take his wounded self and whine about it somewhere else. I have a microwave dinner to eat and a bag that I’ve finally reclaimed as my own, so please keep your issues to yourself and don’t burden me. I’m not carrying around your glasses wipes and acetaminophen in my bag anymore! Maybe the real problem is that people do understand you and they don’t like what they see. Ever consider that? Sheesh.

But I don’t blame women for writing and reading that sort of stuff. Honestly … I wrote stuff when I was married that I wouldn’t write now. And today I started writing a story that I would have never been able to write when I was married. That got me thinking about the subtle ways that a writer’s immediate social circle could influence what they write, particularly with heterosexual relationships. I think the question of “What women want” is difficult to separate from, “What women think they should want,” and “What women think men think they should want.” With a fawn response thrown in for good measure. It’s kind of a mess.

A series of quotes expressing concerns about writing female characters and perceptions of male expectations in literature.

I want to make it clear that I actually do really like ACOTAR. I’m not overcome with enjoying the sex stuff, but the dark scenes are delightfully dark. Romance novels tend to have a surprising amount of gore and murder in them. 😆

Last week I dusted off my old flashdrive and read some of the stories that I’ve written, going clear back to 2003. You know what conclusion I ultimately came to?

I liked my writing style better before I got married.

I remember being told over and over that I needed to drop the dreamlike poetic prose because my communication style was too blunt and terse for that to truly be the way I thought. Yet … It actually is the way that I think. I like painting stories as expressions of emotion and atmosphere, not as a technical explanation of events. What I don’t like are heavy visual descriptions, but a metaphor that sends chills down the spine is irresistibly delicious.

And isn’t that what storytelling is supposed to do? Inspire emotion?

Enchanted multi-level library with spiral stairs, stained glass, bookshelves, and fireplace
About Me

Minecraft, ACOTAR, and the Invisible Load of Modern Motherhood

Autumn

I have finally gotten myself a library card.

For years I imagined the horrors of trying to keep library books around small rambunctious children, and decided that it was a stress that I didn’t need. However, over the last year I’ve started hearing more about how libraries have expanded out from traditional book-borrowing, and a few days ago my soul-sister told me about Libby.

My soul-sister then informed me that if I didn’t read A Court of Thorns and Roses, she would blackmail me by releasing my old roleplay from 2007 (total fabrication, such a threat never occurred😂).

So, I popped into the library on my way to Walmart to buy Minecraft (a story there), and I exited with a sparkly new library card in hand. Once home, I downloaded Libby, requested A Court of Thorns and Roses, and sent the book to my Kindle. Hurrah, I am literate! There’s a whole new world at my fingertips, just waiting for me to explore it! And the kids can’t rip any pages!

Then 24 hours later it dawned on me that I have only 2 weeks to read this book. Trivial. I read The House of My Mother in about three days, including when I had kids to care for. And yet I still have deadline anxiety.

The problem with coming from a “trad wife” background (which thus far I haven’t heard anyone acknowledge), is that now I struggle with feeling like mom is allowed to look at something other than family and chores. The shaming didn’t just come from my immediate surroundings, but also from every internet post criticizing women for looking at their phones. Do I stare dutifully at my children on the playground, or do I allow myself to read? Guilt free? I can’t finish reading a book in two weeks if I’m stuck staring at children all the time.

Besides, you and I both know that I’m not reading ACOTAR as a mom. I’m reading it as a woman — a woman who is sharing in a bond with other women through common fiction. A woman who is allowed to have friendships with other women.

So ACOTAR starts with the stereotypical thing of the main character being the strong one holding everyone together, while everyone else consumes resources and pitches in nothing. At first I thought that it seemed like a Mary-Sue depiction, establishing that the main character is “not like other women” by portraying other women as inept and spoiled. Then it hit me that what readers were connecting with wasn’t the “not like other women” trope, but instead the feeling of holding the entire damn world together without any help.

That I can relate to.

Oh boy can I relate to that.

Which brings us to my Minecraft story.

I’m sure that everyone knows that Minecraft is basically a staple of childhood. Heck, my kids have had school courses that were heavily integrated with Minecraft, because Minecraft is where it’s at. Modern childhood includes flooding villages with a bucket of water (or lava) and blowing up so much TNT that the computer can’t render the explosion. C’est la vie. But thus far, my kids have all been sharing one account for Minecraft.

Lately my kids have discovered the modding community. They have also discovered Minecraft creepypasta. And they melted my heart when they told me that they wanted to play the creepypasta mods on multiplayer together. I vowed that I would make their dreams come true.

Which ended up being kind of a mistake.

First I created their own Microsoft accounts, which was straightforward. Then I attempted to purchase Minecraft on one of their accounts. It showed up on my credit card, but I received no confirmation email and it wasn’t on the account. I navigated the Microsoft website, which was a labyrinth of links and “self help articles”, until I finally found the “chat with a human” option. I was informed that the purchase was stuck in “payment pending” limbo.

We waited. The kids (disappointed) went to dad’s house for his custody time. I continued waiting, checking everywhere I could think of to see if the payment cleared. Then, after three days, I saw that the purchase had been refunded on my credit card. Payment pending failed.

I tried to purchase Minecraft again. This time I got a message right off the bat about not being able to process the payment. I tried putting money on the kid’s account to buy it directly, and again got the same “unable to process payment” error. Tried a different card. Tried a different browser. Headdesk headdesk headdesk. OMFG Microsoft! Just take my money!

I consulted ChatGPT, who suggested that I buy a copy of the game from Walmart then activate it on my child’s account.

So I stood in line at Walmart, clutching a little piece of cardboard with a picture of Minecraft and a $30 price tag, feeling a bit ridiculous for it. Video games have been a purely digital transaction for years now, yet there I was going old-school-but-not-really. I was so anxious that something else would go wrong, and then I’d be stuck trying to get a refund from Walmart.

I was scared to try activating Minecraft right away, so I did other stuff for awhile like exploring Libby. Once I worked up my courage, I sat down and entered the activation code. I probably didn’t breathe until I had confirmation that it had worked.

Aaaaand that was when I realized that Xbox defaulted the child’s account to block all forms of multiplayer, including LAN. I had not expected that … considering that LAN stands for “Local Area Network” which entails existing in the same house using the same wifi so why would it be blocked?

Seriously, you have no idea how hard it is to find the parental control menus. Between Microsoft, Minecraft, and Xbox, I didn’t know which site I needed to be looking under (Xbox, for you other parents out there). Click click click, ask ChatGPT, ask Google. Go crazy. Finally find the settings, check “Allow multiplayer,” and pull up the Minecraft game again. Still blocked. Close game and launcher to see if that needed to be refreshed. Still blocked. Start a single player game on child’s Minecraft, open to LAN, join using my account. Works. Open Bedrock and discover multiplayer works there. Java multiplayer still blocked. Die a little inside and decide to give up for the day.

My dear sweet precious children, you have no idea. You are going to come home and take it for granted that you can now play Minecraft creepypasta mods together, and no one is going to say, “Thanks for scaling that stupid mountain and sacrificing your soul to the Minecraft Gods for us, mom.” Of course that’s what mom did, because that’s what moms do. The kids have no one else who would do that for them.

So yes, ACOTAR, I am carrying the world on my shoulders in my metaphorical winter. Thank you for validating that.

The cherry on top is that I still need to buy one more copy of Minecraft — all of that had been my test run to make sure that I knew what I was doing. At least this time … I know what I’m doing. Sort of. I don’t remember creating the child’s Xbox account. 😅

Anyway, after I finish the ACOTAR series, my soul-sister has a huge list of books for me to read. And I admit that, for whatever reason, having a library card feels insanely liberating.

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.

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.

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

Embracing Creative Freedom in 2026

Autumn

I have now, finally, fixed the “unidentified network” issue with my laptop. Hurrah, I shall be back to blogging!

Which only leaves us the question, What will we talk about?

Maybe nothing. It was nice seeing you. Ciao.

😉😂

Alright, alright. Here we are in 2026, and I don’t have any New Year’s resolutions. I have plenty of plans, dreams, ambitions even, but no resolutions. I don’t want to hit the end of this year and think, “Yet again I failed.”

Like back when I was all, “I want to write and self-publish one novel a year.” And it’s now been how many years without any writing? Yeah, we’re not doing that again. I’m keeping everything open-ended and letting it happen as it happens, so I don’t have to face that particular brand of disappointment.

Joint custody still feels like living two separate lives that keep interrupting each other. It’s hard.

I’ve started saying to myself, “Tomorrow I’m going to work on a creative project.” Then I randomly get a phone call from an old acquaintance, and the trip down Memory Lane ends with me curled up in front of the TV and no motivation to do anything. I didn’t realize that I knew so many people. I didn’t realize that so many people would say, “Actually, I thought he didn’t treat you well.” Despite me trying to pretend like everything was boring and normal because I don’t want anyone to worry about me. And that was what people were thinking before last summer when he decided to turn really nasty.

The one that really threw me was when a new acquaintance that I met a couple of months ago called me up out of the blue with, “I heard about him”, and I have no clue how so much information is traveling around. I’m not upset, but definitely baffled. Eventually it will all be old news anyway, and Memory Lane will become appropriately dirty and overgrown from disuse.

Despite that, I am making progress on Runemaster. Switching to Malachi’s perspective was the right move, and the words are flowing more readily than they had been before. That picnic scene that awkwardly dragged on forever? Yeah, that’s going to be cut entirely. Maybe I’ll type it up and post it here for a good laugh, but it’s not going to be part of the final novel, that’s for sure.

I keep wondering if I should start reading books again, but focusing on them is harder than focusing on writing. Maybe I’ll play through Hatoful Boyfriend again and count that as reading.

Well, my friend, let’s see how 2026 turns out for the both of us. 😊

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.

About Me

Facing Fear in Writing: Advancing Your Plot

Autumn

NaNoWriMo has made me realize that I’m terrified of advancing the plot.

The characters have been on a picnic that kind of keeps dragging along with small talk and tiny hints at bigger things, only instead of getting up and doing anything, they’re sitting around. It’s starting to feel like my characters are looking at me with expectations, asking, “Well … when are we allowed to do something important?”

And all I can reply is, “I don’t know, where is my life going?!”

While I know where I intended the story to progress, I don’t feel anchored in it yet. It feels more like a half-forgotten dream than a series of events. Instead of trying to move forward, I’m keeping the characters sitting around the same spot, because I’m scared of changing the status quo.

Much like my life.

I think I spent about 15 years feeling like nothing ever fundamentally changed — a sort of monotony in constant chaos. No matter what happened, there’d be a big ol’ reset button that would put us all back in the same place with the same problems day after day after day. Explosive argument? Reset. New career prospect? Reset. Emotional breakthroughs and new promises? Reset.

Then one day the reset button didn’t activate.

Progress and change stopped being a fantasy to write about — it became real.

And it’s terrifying.

Especially because it’s like some sort of existential switch was flipped, and here I am trying to hide out at home maintaining the status quo for long enough to catch my breath, while people I hadn’t spoken to in 10 years are randomly calling me up to offer a path forward. Seriously, what the heck is going on? It feels like I’m sliding helplessly towards change. Maybe that’s what life is supposed to feel like.

So on an emotional level, I’m scared of advancing the plot in my novel. The characters want to move forward, and here I am all, “Let’s spend 10,000 words on this picnic. I described the weather as being very lovely.”

The problem with being a writer is that sometimes your psychological issues have a voice and can (metaphorically) stare you in the eye. Especially when you’re trying to get as much writing done in a month as you can.