Hey there! It’s been a sort of busy week at the Day Job and next week’s schedule is going to be pretty much the same, so I’m going to enjoy the two days off I have coming to me by doing some stuff outside. Take care of our plot at the community garden, go for a walk, catch up on errands, things like that.
Hope you have a nice weekend! See ya on Monday!
No, I don’t plan on giving up this writing gig anytime soon. I’m seven books in, one I’m currently working on and a few future ideas on the back burner, and I have no plans on letting them fall by the wayside.
I’ve been thinking — again — about other creative outlets lately. More to the point, how I haven’t allowed myself to give them any proper focus and practice to be anything other than passing hobbies. I’ve often said my other two creative outlets would be art and music, but I’ve spent so long working on writing novels that I rarely ever have time for either of them.
Why is that? Well, part of it has been just not allowing myself the time. Balancing the novel writing and the Day Job (and spending some time IRL with A.) often leaves me with very little time to do anything else. I still have a habit of carrying a notebook with me at all times so I could easily spend a few moments doodling. I have enough time outside of the Day Job that I can pick up my guitar and noodle for a bit. And I’m better at both than I used to be just ten years ago.
What’s stopping me? I think it’s that my creative brain gets stuck on the ‘well, you’re not bad, but there’s at least 9,000 more hours of practice and experience before you’ll be good‘ and I put it aside for a later time. And that later time keeps getting pushed further into the future.
I think I’m perhaps also a little daunted by seeing so many musicians and artists relying on computer software nowadays, and simply I don’t have the money to spend or the PC memory to eat up (or the desk space, for that matter) for it right now. And then I start thinking that maybe my art and music should remain a hobby.
But if I’m going to take either of them more seriously, I realize what I should do is take the same route I did with my writing: Do It Yourself.
I mean, my inspiration for having a DIY writing career is based on music, so I’ve got the knowledge to go that route anytime I want, right? Why should I worry about trying to learn the technology when I have the Beatle-based inspiration of pushing a button, saying ‘oh hey this sounds neat’ and running with it? I’m not a synthpop based performer that needs all the doowackies; Drunken Owl is more something you’d hear on Slumberland Records than a hipster indie label, and would be right at home on Bandcamp.
As for art? Who knows what would come of that. A webcomic? Storyboarding? Something else? And as for photography, I really just need to give myself the time to properly edit the pictures and make them saleable on stock footage sites like Shutterstock.
The net is vast and infinite, as Major Kusanagi says. I just have to make the time to explore it.
NOTE: This is a key scene in my current novel I’m working on, and I think encapsulates the theme of the entire project. I also think it’s something that’s become a bit of a personal motto of mine over the last couple of years. It’s a scene that immediately came to mind when I read yesterday’s news announcement. I try my best to be optimistic, but I refuse to be a pessimist if things go south.
*
Stars, wasn’t sure if it was the grav meds being slow to kick in or that she really was that exhausted. They’d landed at Faroe Base over an hour ago and the upper brass had already departed the stash to have their meeting in one of the inner four ships here on the tarmac, but they’d neglected to give Maris – or any other captain, for that matter – any further tasks other than to split their assignments between standing guard outside or manning the comms inside. It was exactly the kind of quickly tossed-off micromanagement that drove her crazy, but she had too little brain space to bother with it right now.
She stepped out the side entryway to the Ravel Blue stash and took in several deep breaths, reacclimating herself to the air. It wouldn’t help her disorientation, but it would at least calm her down. What she really wanted was to head back to her bunk, lock the door, and sleep for the next two days, but there was still far too much to do. And she’d already chosen to ignore any potential hails from Colonel Jaffrey during that stretch of time regardless, because she was plainly out of fucks at this point.
Her comm buzzed twice. A double-tap silent hail. She unclipped it from the side pocket of her uniform and glanced at it, and knew who exactly who’d sent it: Dani Gataki. He was on flight tower monitor duty with Lee Cheng right now and most likely saw them pulling in. She was tempted to respond in kind, but now wasn’t the time. He’d understand.
“You’re looking like shit,” Captain Beecham said, stepping out of the stash and sidling up next to her. She didn’t look nearly as exhausted, but the constant grav change was starting to get to her.
“I’m feeling like it,” Maris muttered, rubbing at her sore eyes with the palms of her hands.
“You want to sit?”
Maris snorted. “If I sit, I will not be getting back up,” she said. “Thanks anyway. Just…waiting for all this shit to end so I can bind off and pass out.” She pulled the water bottle from her side pouch and took an extended gulps, hoping the liquid would help. She was very tempted to take a seat on the fold-out bench someone had taken from inside the stash, but instead propped a leg on it and leaned forward against her knee. “I am so thankful upper brass is heading eastside when all this is done instead of heading stationside again.”
“Hmm. The trips are taking a toll on them as well, I’ve noticed,” Beecham said.
“You know what they’re up to?” It was a blatant attempt to get her to spill information, sure. But she had to try anyway. “Aside from having all these hushed-up meetings, that is.”
Thankfully, Beecham was the kind of captain who would gladly share the information with someone who deserved it and sat close to her on the bench. “Word is that Nima Federation is causing trouble again. Yes, yes…they love to make a noise every couple of years or so. They miss us, I guess? Anyway, what I’ve gathered from other ravels is that Nima is planning something big this time. My assumption is that they might want to reannex us back into the Federation whether we agree to it or not.”
Maris exhaled slowly. She’d heard the same rumors several times over the years, countless versions of them, but they all had the same theme: Nima Federation had been hit hard financially and politically when Galactic House had granted FairIsle its full freedom fifty years ago and had never fully recovered. FairIsle was not just a waystation with a planet but a major transportation hub, a military power, and a leading partner in their sector’s economy. And every few years, almost like clockwork, Nima would get restless and start some stupid shit, like a needle skirmish or a hostile takeover of a minor station, and FairIsle would have to come in and clean up their mess.
“So what’s different this time?” she said.
“The difference is that they’re meaning business now. They’ve already taken over Pioneer and Leicester in the last year, and those are close to Anais Gate exitways. Like, extremely close. And they’ve been hinting that Atelier might be next.”
Atelier. That would be extremely dangerous indeed. That was a ship dry dock station…one that FairIsle used from time to time.
No fucking wonder Force and High Command were losing their shit.
Maris exhaled and pushed herself up again, the muscles in her lower back howling in protest. “And that’s why they’re sending us pilots from Selvedge,” she said.
“That’s the reason gate travel has been heavily monitored this past year,” Beecham said, purposely avoiding answering her comment. “They believe Nima’s going to make good on their threat this time.”
Maris let the wave of anger wash over her in silence. She wanted to scream, wanted to hunt down Jaffrey and demand why he and upper brass were being so damned tight-lipped about it. They were putting several ravels in danger with this passive-aggressive scheme.
“If you could…” Maris started, her voice low and quiet. Reached up to her comm again and turned it off this time. Scanned the immediate area, looked around the sides of the nearby stashes for anyone listening in. Turned back to Beecham, who was watching her with interest and concern. She finally allowed herself to sit down next to her.
“If you could…” she started again, her voice a whisper. “Would you do the right thing?”
“Without fucking question,” Beecham responded.
“As would I,” she said, and gave her the slightest of nods. “Let’s keep in touch.”
Unfortunately I am falling behind on a lot of my writing work lately, so I’m going to be taking a few weeks off to catch up. It happens from time to time…whether it’s the Day Job sapping my energy or other non-writing things taking precedence now and again, I just run out of space on the schedule. It’s not my favorite feeling, to be honest, and sometimes I have to sacrifice things here and there. It’s not always to catch up, either…sometimes it’s just to give myself a mental and physical break to rest.
Not to worry, though. I shall be back soon!
There are just some days at the Day Job that leave me so exhausted that you say okay fine, I’m taking a day off and passing out on the bed instead of trying to work through this chapter. And as all good writers do, I always feel incredibly guilty about it, even though I should know better that creativity rarely works well during a drain of energy.
It’s been a couple of busy days at the Day Job, mainly due to back to back holidays known to be extremely chaotic in retail (Mother’s Day and Memorial Day), a strong wave of warm and sunny days in the neighborhood, as well as the final days of the local middle and high schools wrapping up, bringing twitchy teens loading up on snacks and drinks.
Usually I can get a few hundred words done despite this, but the deal-breaker this time has been allergies. Those warm and sunny days have brought along several blooming and pollenating plants and trees that have kept me stuffed up and/or handling a migraine throughout my shifts. I look forward to days off when this kind of thing lays me low.
Still…I don’t feel too guilty about missing a few days or doing the least amount of writing work. It annoys me that I have to sacrifice that and not something else, but I’ve made my peace with that some time ago. As long as I’m able to get back to work soon enough.
So what am I working on creatively when I’m not writing? No, sadly I haven’t been playing music or making art lately.
However, A and I have been working on the above — our own little six-by-six plot at the local community garden! It’s mostly A’s planning, perseverance and plant selection, but I’ve been, as they say, getting stuck in when we stop there every couple of days. One or both of us will stop by every other day, maybe harvest some of that ridiculously fruitful red and green lettuce, and give it all a good watering. [The above picture is courtesy of A, btw.]
Funny thing is, I never thought I’d be all that excited about gardening, even though we’ve been watching Gardener’s World on BritBox for a good few years now. But when we started working on this, I really found myself having a lot of fun with it. And not just that, it’s forcing me to get out of my reactive don’t wanna mode that often gets the best of me. The other weekend when we participated in a monthly garden community gathering to clean and weed, I really got stuck in and weeded the hell out of a significant area that had been bothering me since we got the plot. It feels really weird to feel that sense of pride in something I never thought I’d get actively excited about. It’s kind of made me rethink a lot about how I approach a lot of things in life, and that’s a super healthy thing to do.
Plus, we’ve been having a TON of free salad these days, and that can’t be a bad thing.
I think it’s safe to say that the cold rainy season here in the Bay Area has finally come to a close (I hope), which means that I’ll be able to return to something I’ve been wanting — and needing — to do at work for a while now. And that’s go outside during my breaks.
I was doing it for a while there, heading up to the roof parking deck for my ten minute breaks and the back half of my lunches. For a while there I was just heading to our small break room and slumping into one of the chairs and, well…maybe not doomscrolling, but passively reading news sites and social media again. At least I’m not getting myself worked up like I used to, so there’s that.
Anyway, I think heading up to the roof, or even out to the side parking lot for a few minutes can’t be all bad, especially since I have a small notebook in my inside jacket pocket that’s been itching to be used for quite some time now. I’ve been using it to work out a few vague ideas for Theadia, but I think it’s time I start using it more often like I used to in the Yankee Candle days: working out what I want to write for the current chapter, that way I’m not wracking my brain at the start of my writing sessions.
As long as the weather is with me, I think this is a fine idea!
[On a side note, I can safely say I don’t need to head outside to do any exercise, as this day job keeps me on my toes and I can easily rack up a few miles’ worth of steps on my fitness app. I’ve joked with one of the bakery workers that any of the cake slices I buy from them get worked off by the end of the day, considering how much I flit around the store!]
Oh hey there! Doing a fly-by today as I have a rare Friday off. I’m spending this time listening to new releases, getting a few household errands done (sorry cats, but I really do need to vacuum), working in a an extended writing session for Theadia, and just relaxing after a very busy work week.
See you next Monday!
For a while I was walking to and from work, but due to the winter weather here in SF, it gets super cold and sometimes rainy and I’d rather either drive in or take the bus. I always feel like I’m being lazy and wasteful because it’s only eight blocks. It’s not even worth turning on the radio as it’s only a three minute drive. But it’s spring now, it’s warming up, and the days are getting longer so I won’t always be walking there or home in the dark, depending on the shift. And the walk is only ten minutes. [I timed it when I first went for my initial interview.]
What do I do in that ten minutes? It’s not as if I really do all that much deep thinking about things. Sometimes I’ll think about what I’ll be doing for the rest of the day when I have a morning shift, and after midday shifts I’ll wonder what’s going on in the neighborhood now that everyone’s come home and had their dinner already. I might even stop into one of the three coffee shops I pass and grab a cup to go.
I do think about my writing. Not always, but sometimes. Just as in the past, if I’ll use the time to work out something that’s bothering me, or plan out something I’d like to try. Going for a walk these days is more about me not having to think, taking a mental break from what I’ve been doing all day, but if I’m in that creative mood, this is a perfect and peaceful time to let my mind wander a bit.
Either way, I need to start walking again. I definitely need the exercise!
The last time I talked about this sort of thing was four years ago in this entry, but a lot of things have changed in my life since then. I wrote that entry in the first year of the pandemic, about a year after I’d been forced into heading thirty miles west into the office, ten months after I’d originally come up with the idea for Theadia, and six months after I quit that former day job.
Reason I bring it up is that I’ve been talking with some coworkers at the current Day Job about personal things and surprisingly they all say that I’m probably the most got-their-shit-together person they’d ever met. Which is kind of mind-blowing, considering my past. Ask me how I was four years ago, and I’d say that I was in a much better place than I’d been even a few years before that, but I still had a hell of a long way to go.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I work on the Theadia rewrite, because I’m once again at the point where I feel I’ve still been holding back. I’ve just gotten so used to doing it over the last couple of decades for varying reasons. Getting my emotions under control, ensuring my mental and emotional health (and in the process my physical health) was no longer going haywire because I’d just been reacting to everything for most of my life.
So now I’m thinking: yeah, maybe it’s time to trust myself a bit. Far past time.
What does this have to do with my writing? I think it’s that I’ve always felt that my payoffs weren’t as grand as I want them to be. I mean, other than the epic roundup at the end of The Balance of Light where the fate of everyone is held in the hands of two characters, Denni and Saisshalé. I love my books but there’s always this feeling that I could have gone so much further with them plot-wise. Raised the stakes more. Sometimes I feel my personal avoidance of conflict in real life infiltrated the conflict in my books to some degree.
But it’s here and now, and I’m definitely not as avoidant as I used to be. And that’s another reason I want to rewrite Theadia: I can make this story a lot bigger, grander and stronger than what it currently is.
I don’t want to hold back this time.
Welcome to Bridgetown 