Tag: writing

About Me

Dishes

Autumn

Our house likes to eat dishwashers.

The last one died on Mother’s Day. After which, we discovered that the small business we had bought it from — for that personal touch and guaranteed warranty — had gone out of business because of … you guessed it! Queries proved that it was going to be difficult to find an authorized repairman.

So I bought a bottle of soap just for the new scent, and am now using the dishwasher as a horrendously overpriced drying rack. Because the only thing that works reliably is me.

Especially now that I haven’t had a single migraine since I started taking low dose aspirin. Ha. Ha.

The funny part is, I’m actually better at keeping up with the dishes when I’m handwashing them. I can easily slip into autopilot and scrub away while thinking about other things (usually my writing), and I don’t have to sort through what can go through the dishwasher and what can’t, or make sure that I’m loading everything in correctly, or blah blah blah. I just hate washing dishes. ‘Cause, you know, it’s the dishes.

So the other day I had a pan of cream cheese brownies baking in the oven, the baby was busy throwing cat food all across the kitchen floor, and I was scrubbing away at the sink with a particularly deep train of thought, when it hit me that since I’m writing a story with lots of different branches, I can easily invoke the multiverse and have the branches bleed into each other. Which one is canon? They all are!

Be still, my heart!

I know, I get excited over some pretty weird things.

BTW, the brownies were amazing.

The Scion Suit

The Scion Suit VN edition

Autumn

I’ve been converting The Scion Suit into a script for an interactive fiction game, and I’m amazed at how well it’s translating over into second-person narration. It’s almost like I wrote the story for this purpose without realizing it…

I don’t remember laying it on so thick with the Carol/Lambert pairing, but apparently I did. Lambert’s seriously got the hots for Carol, but she’s too obsessed with the Suit to realize it, lol.

I wasn’t actually planning on starting this project right away, since I know full well that I’m committing myself to months and months of work here, but my husband can be so persuasive. He immediately jumped on getting me set up with Twine and Vim, supplied me with documentation, and appealed to my teenager years when I played with HTML for fun.

Tangent: Bit funny, really, but the only reason why I didn’t go down the web designer path is because one person flaked out and left me feeling stranded. I would have eventually quit to raise babies and write anyway, but it could have possibly spared me from developing a great deal of cynicism.

Let’s not kid ourselves: we’re here for the deep undercurrents of cynicism and alienation.

Back to our regular schedule …

It’s fun to type up things like:
<<Lambert “I yell at you so much because I secretly want to bed you, but I know I shouldn’t.”>>
”How do you reply:”
[[I love you too! -> Ooo_la_la]]
[[Who are you again? -> OUCH]]

Look at me! I’m programing! I AM SO SMART! LAWL.

Anyway

While I’m playing it safe and basic on the technical side of things, I’m feeling ambitious in terms of branching “what ifs” for the story. The whole point is to provide tons and tons of avenues to explore.

Including this:

Unfortunately, this isn’t the sort of thing that I can really share as I work on it, so you’re going to have to wait until I’m ready to publish the game. I know, I’m disappointed too.

About Writing

Thoughts on creative writing

Autumn

I took my first creative writing class 18 years ago.

Technically, I guess I did three years of creative writing as a teenager, then majored in the subject for two years in University before dropping out.

Anywho

It rather leaves me speechless at how creative writing has “modernized” since then. Absolutely no one talks about literary devices, story organization, or how to utilize punctuation. Instead you get an onslaught of articles promising to teach you, “How to write an emotionally manipulative villain”, or, “The best way to avoid burnout” — not to mention, the standard attacks on adjectives, and the word, “said.”

(That’s like painting a picture without using any shades of green and blue. Yes, it can be done, but it’s pointlessly limiting. If the words exist, don’t be afraid to use them.)

The other day it occurred to me that I’ve developed my own style of writing to the point that I could publish a how-to book on it. Then you, too, could be a famous author like me!

Except not really.

Because if there’s one thing I’m really bad at, it’s marketing — which has more to do with popularity than quality does.

And, well, it’s my writing style. Even if I listed everything I do out with bullet points and detailed explanations, you would still never write like I do. Could I even reduce it down succinctly? Is it possible to teach others how to talk to people who aren’t real?

Not to mention, some of my most poignant lessons happened while my husband and I were living out of a car, and that has been a major influence on what I write. You can’t teach that through a book.

I’d much rather encourage people to develop their own process that makes them happy. Ultimately, that’s what writing should be about.

But I’m really starting to think that literary devices need to make a comeback, and someone ought to give that push.

Light Eternal, Quotes, Stories

Broken

Autumn

Available on Amazon

About Me

Spinning Yarn

Autumn

Once upon a time, I bought some carded wool and a drop spindle, and made a bunch of yarn that I knitted into a baby blanket. Then the baby was born, and I never spun yarn again. True story.

That was 9 years ago.

The other day, our wonderful Amazon overlords said to me, “You want to buy this.”

I looked at it and exclaimed, “Yes I do!”

I absolutely love the color combination of pink and yellow, and the way they blend together into a scrumptious rose gold. Too irresistible!

So I placed the order and dug out my drop spindle for a revival.

For some reason, the camera on my phone is making everything more orange than it should be.

Last week I mentioned that I prefer working on fiddly crafts, and this is one of them.

I’ve also got a lace tee that I’m crocheting, a t shirt that I’m decorating with embroidery, and a button up shirt that I’m sewing for my husband. What can I say? I’m totally out of control.

I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is that housework is so 2019. That’s how I have time for all of this. Ha ha. (I also make the kids earn their screen time by doing chores)

Anyway

The real reason for writing this post:

As an author, I have a compulsion to spin yarns — in one form or another.

*rimshot*

About Me

Sanity

Autumn

Writing keeps me sane.

My usual tradition is to read a book after finishing a first draft, before beginning on the second. This time, circumstances aren’t quite usual.

In one sense, I’m barely aware of the world. Truth is, ten years ago I saw too much, and turned my back on society in disgust. I don’t like being a negative person, but there’s really no other way for me to describe why I live like a hermit in the middle of suburbia. Heck, we even tried going off grid several years ago, but that proved to be too difficult with the resources we had.

And yet, there’s a great deal that even I can’t hide from. I feel it every time I see a face mask littering the sidewalk. I know it’s out there, lurking just outside our fence line.

It’s seemingly taken away my ability to focus on reading. I can do everything else, but whenever I sit down with a book, I can’t follow what’s happening on the pages or remember who’s who. I can only finish short novellas if I read them out loud to my children (We’re currently reading The Fairy Rebel). I end up doing some sort of fiddly craft with my hands instead.

I can’t follow my usual ritual this time around. When I don’t spend my evenings re-centering my balance and exploring my fictional world, the noise from the children during the day gets inside my head too much.

So it looks like I’ll be plowing through the second draft of Alice and the Warden without “cleansing my mental palate” first. I have to work with what I’ve got.

About Writing

What AatW isn’t…

Autumn

My husband and I like each other, so we tend to talk a lot. Like, for at least a couple of hours every day. We’re serious BFFs.

Recently, my husband said, “The only reason Hackett isn’t a cuck is because of his sense of dignity.”

I both laughed and felt mortified.

Because for the last eleven months that I’ve been working on this story, I’ve been worried that it was going to be misconstrued as a cuckolding fantasy, or the MGTOW narration of, “Girl gets pregnant by sexy alpha, then dupes nice guy into financially providing for her.”

It’s not.

One of the main themes of the novel is the value of self-worth. Hackett comes in with a strong sense of who he is, and doesn’t let others belittle or manipulate him. Alice, on the other hand, starts off struggling to figure out her identity, while dealing with the aftermath of “living like she was disposable.” Essentially, Hackett becomes the example that inspires her.

Hackett still expects fidelity, and to be treated fairly and respectfully. He ain’t no cuck.

But I can see how the same scenario with a weak male lead would very easily be along those lines.