Tag: writing

About Writing

Context

Autumn

I posted the second half of chapter 2 for The Scions yesterday, which gives the basic setup for the rest of the story.

Yes, Hartmann is crazy.

And, driven by a mixture of resentment, jealousy, and competition, he decides to pursue Carol for a possessive relationship.

For those who are unfamiliar with The Scion Suit world, Carol’s responses are probably going to be uncomfortable to read. There is a reason behind them, as there is a reason for Hartmann’s craziness. Also, since I’ve chosen to place the camera (so to speak) behind Hartmann’s shoulder, we’re seeing Carol through his interpretation.

I’m not a cookie-cutter genre writer, and I don’t color in the lines. I write to express the human condition, and not everyone lives a sheltered and privileged life. Not everything is pretty.

Anyway, I guess I just want to give the proper context for this story. The hard part about throwing it out there is knowing that many people aren’t going to understand it. Consequently, I feel protective of both Hartmann and Carol — I’m not out to vilify or condemn anyone.

I don’t usually get so emotionally attached, but this story is special.

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About Writing

Writing in 2022

Autumn

I had made it my goal to publish a book every year, but at this point I can definitely say that it’s not going to happen in 2022.

It’s been a chaotic year.

At the very least, I can say that this year was dedicated to fairly big events, like having baby #6, and saving our cat’s life at the cost of her leg — there was never a point where I could have been writing, but just didn’t. So hey, good enough for me.

Dear master sergeant Hartmann, one day you will grasp the object of your desires. But probably not this month.

And CR1515 will have to wait until next year to continue his steamy philosophical rants. You have no idea how much I enjoy writing a cynical cyborg.

On that note, I’ve had this particular quote by CR1515 echoing in my head of late.

Humans have become the worst combination of lazy and entitled. They don’t want me to be relatable – they want to hate me because they know that I am superior to their celebrations of mediocrity and failure. They don’t want to achieve anything great, or even to manage their own basic survival, and they will attack anything that reflects their own pathetic state back to them.

This speech is promptly followed with lots and lots of delicious arguing, lol. Gosh I miss the bickering and ranting in that story.

Maybe (and this is a big MAYBE) I’ll get away with publishing both The Scion Suit Multiverse and CR1515 next year … provided no one loses any more limbs.

About Writing

On Self-Publishing

Autumn

There’s a stereotype that authors who self-publish aren’t good enough to cut it with the publishing houses. Personally, I have never once tried to submit a manuscript to anyone, and have always skipped straight to self-publishing instead.

I decided during my childhood that I wanted to be a writer, and as a teenager, I started paying attention to what sorts of manuscripts publishing companies would accept. I learned before I graduated from high school that “high quality” was not the deciding factor for what was accepted.

On the benign side of things, manuscripts get rejected for reasons like, “We’ve already published five mecha scifi books this year.” It doesn’t matter if yours is well-written with relatable characters and hard hitting philosophies, it’s going to get rejected the second someone sees the word “mecha.” Tuff luck. The position has already been filled.

But here we are in the year 2022, and everything revolves around The Agenda.

Which is why a novel that barely qualifies as English but has tons and tons of buttsecks is going to be published over literally anything “hetero-normative.”

I’m the sort of weirdo that doesn’t particularly care about who is and who isn’t having buttsecks. I’m not going to get preachy one way or the other.

However, I am very passionate about things like Divine Femininity and motherhood. I rant about how pregnancy is treated by society more like a biological defect than a sacred honor. Feminine characteristics are not inferior. I embrace philosophies that are shitcanned for being “hetero-normative” because they involve female fertility.

Figures.

So I self-publish.

About Writing

Creativity and Sci Fi

Autumn

Last year I decided to crochet amigurumi toys for the kids to help knock down my yarn stash, and they all excitedly picked out which ones they wanted from my pattern book. I got about three-quarters of the way through the third one when I hit burn out on the single crochet stitch, and decided to take a break.

I finished knitting my new baby blanket a couple of days ago, and decided that my next project should be catching up on the promises I’ve made to the older children. I finished amigurumi #3, and have started the prep for #4.

The fun thing about #4 is that I don’t have any of the requested colors on hand, but I do have plenty of cotton yarn and dye. So, I measured out some skeins and currently have them curing in dye.

Anyway, you can basically extrapolate from there what my daily life is like — a swarm of kids, and an adoration of creativity that goes quite deep.

Which is why I think it’s funny that I’ve started writing sci fi.

I don’t have any interest in owning “smart” soap dispensers or smoke detectors; I don’t see any use for them — aside from secretly hosting rogue AI hiding from human knowledge on the internet, anyway. But, you know, existing as a flesh entity, there’s no point in me owning a soap dispenser that runs on electricity when I can have more fun spending money on crafting supplies.

Heck, I’ve spent the last few months loving my antique spinning wheel. In terms of technology, I’m practically moving backwards with my personal habits.

Yet, I’ve been discovering that sci fi lets me explore more philosophical topics inside a world that is still very relatable to what we live in, and I’ve been discovering potential ideas that exceed what I felt capable of when I was writing fantasy.

As for the technology, I don’t have to expand that much outside of what we currently have — we all know it’s only a matter of time until Amazon starts using drones to make deliveries. The rest can easily be waved away with “technology magic, lol, :smiley emoji:.”

About Writing

Crafting

Autumn

I’ve been posting more of my crafting recently, even though this is my author blog.

Why?

Because it’s part of my process.

You see, we are multi-sensory creatures, and it’s been thoroughly proven that activities like fidgeting and pacing are soothing and help the mind work more effectively. Instead of sitting with silicone push-pop toys, I’ve opted to work on handicrafts to keep me busy. What can I say? They make me feel good about myself.

When you feel mentally blocked, work with your hands to get the creative ideas flowing again. Honor and respect the mind-body connection, and don’t underestimate the power of physical movement.

My major secret of productivity is that every time I sit down and take a break, I reach for my current crafting project. That’s all. Sometimes I think about my writing as I work, and sometimes I just want to meditate. Usually, by the time I put the kids in bed, I have an idea to write down.

And remember, it’s not about speed, it’s about persistence.

Bonus, I have a lot of neat stuff that I’ve made.

About Writing

TSS and leaving the planet

Autumn

In this post, I discuss spoilers from The Scion Suit. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend that you click the link and enjoy some free reading.

Alrighty

With my new multiverse expansion of The Scion Suit, I’ve written timelines of Carol getting into a relationship with either Captain Lambert, or MSG Hartmann. Due to Carol’s incomplete personality at the beginning, this has a big influence on how she turns out.

The catch is that in order to stay with Carol, the chosen beau must leave the planet and join an alien race.

For fun, I asked my husband what he thought each man would think of that decision.

He replied that since Lambert joined the military to run away, he’s probably still motivated by that desire. Leaving the planet would be the ultimate form of running away for him.

Then my husband said, “Hartmann wouldn’t care, because he’s crazy… and a war criminal.”

Well, when you put it that way…

What the heck am I writing?

About Writing

Carol

Autumn

In this post, I’ll be discussing spoilers for The Scion Suit. If you haven’t read it, I recommend you click the link and enjoy a free story.

The big reveal at the end of The Scion Suit is that the main character, Carol, is a “seed” for a bio-mechanical alien race, and she has a chip implanted in her brain stem that allows her to connect and interface with her mechanical body — aka the Suit. The idea behind her characterization is that she starts off as literally half of herself, and is consequently a fairly boring and one-dimensional individual. The more time she interfaces with the Suit, the more she develops into a full person.

With writing different story branches, I’ve had some time to emphasize that Carol doesn’t have much going on. She has no obvious hobbies or preferences, and can’t figure out how to occupy herself when she’s left to her own devices. Heck, she gets abruptly plucked out of her life and doesn’t miss anything about it.

I’m going to go ahead and confess something here:

I feel like I’m writing a normal, average real life person.

I want to believe that real people are more rounded than that, but unfortunately one of the poignant lessons of 2020 was that, when stuck at home with no where to go, a huge number of people will spend all day watching Netflix and not much else.

How disappointing.

But I guess that since this is my little fictional world, I can pretend that everyone is far more interesting than they are in the real one.

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About Me, About Writing

Whining

Autumn

The air conditioner broke. ‘Tis the season of dead appliances, apparently…

And the weather forecast is promising a heat wave for the next few days. This matters because we have to order the part in for repair. Ha ha.

It might be better for me to spend the afternoons out on the patio, where I can turn on the misters to cool down. I have terrible heat tolerance.

Anyway, that’s enough whining for now.

…

Actually, no, it isn’t!

I don’t have any sort of aptitude for marketing. In fact, it’s such a foreign way of thinking for me, that it leaves me so drained and cranky that I end up completely nonfunctional for the rest of the day, then lose all ability to “follow through” afterwards.

I made some queries about how to effectively advertise over the past couple of days, and currently I have e-mails sitting in my inbox that I just don’t have the energy to open. I badly want to retreat to the kitchen to bake something sugary, and forget about the whole subject.

So I’m going to pull back for now. I learned one important lesson about Kindle keywords (use phrases instead of words) that will henceforth be applied to everything I publish, but I’m not going to sacrifice my soul for this. Heck, part of my long term “marketing” strategy was to publish a novel every year, and that ain’t gonna happen if I kill my creative energy.

Not to mention, no one enjoys a cranky mama.

I’ll probably make no-bake cookies to avoid turning on the oven while the air conditioner is broken. Seems prudent.

Anyway, I haven’t finished polishing up Alice and the Warden for official publication yet, and I particularly wanted to fix up the final few chapters where I was *obviously* fatigued when I wrote them.

And I’m working on The Scion Suit MULTIVERSE edition, lol.

I need to stick with what works for me emotionally, since I’m kind of a finicky hyper-sensitive sort that burns out easily. Patience is a virtue, and all that.

About Me

The Program

Autumn

I’ve spent the last month or so probing around, and I’m starting to suspect that I’m going to have to let go of my little malfunction.

So that’s it, I guess. It’s probably time for me to get with the program.

Though honestly, with the way everything is going, charging $3 for a book might as well be giving it away for free.

And we did spend 2020 together.

Anyway, I’m not going to make any moves this week. Still processing ‘n stuff.

And the nice thing about books is that they don’t have expiration dates. I could spend the next five years sulking if I wanted.

The thing is, I will write in a vacuum. I will write for one other person. But there’s still a part of me that wants to know what my full potential is, and that’s not going to happen without making some changes. This isn’t 2010 anymore.

Vague griping, lawl.

I guess I can’t help but feel a little bitter about pulling myself together too late to achieve what I wanted. Ten years ago, sure. But not today.