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Another day…

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From my Dreamwidth account on the 5th:

I’ve been feeling frustrated lately with my creative endeavors…or more to the point, the lack thereof.

I mean, I should be excited about working on Theadia, now that I’ve got a clearer idea of what I want to do with it. I should be excited about all of it: doing the daily words, the drawing, the music, like I have in the past because it’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing. But somehow, at some point, I just…stopped. I know it was a mix of things: real life/day job stress, mental exhaustion, emotional exhaustion, internet distraction, music library obsession, comic reading obsession, and maybe even just a bit of Getting Older. I’ll allow myself days off when I need to rest, of course (something I often forgot to do during the Belfry Years), but I’ve really let myself go these days, and I hate that feeling.

I seem stuck in the Preparation Phase yet never following through. I’ll think about writing or drawing or whatever but never actually do it. I don’t think this is the same as the Boston Years when I was just starting out. That was a different approach: that was me learning how to focus, but it was also my way of avoiding an emotional spiral given the financial situation I was in.

This is pure distraction, plain and simple.

So the last couple of days I’ve been trying to restart it all. I’m deliberately not trying to do it all at once, because then it all starts feeling like High School Homework Due Tomorrow That I Should Have Completed Three Days Ago. I’m restarting it gradually instead. Making those mixtapes I haven’t made in a couple of years. Posting at the blogs when I have the time and something interesting to talk about. Popping onto 750 Words when I feel like working out a story idea. Journaling when the thought strikes me and the notebook is at hand. Eventually I’ll fire up Word and start working on Theadia again, maybe even playing around with Decline and Fall on the 750. And on my days off I’ll pick up the guitar and play a tune or two just for the hell of it.

I don’t think I need to rigidly plan all of this, but I think I should at least make a more concerted effort to meet my own expectations. If I’m doing one of my morning shifts at the day job, I have more than enough time to work on something in the afternoon. Same with the midshifts: I have at least four or so hours before I need to go in. I need to be better at acting on that urge to create instead of distracting myself.

…and again on the 7th:

I’m making good on my previous entry about just doing what I can do creatively and not worrying about doing all the things. Interestingly a reel popped up in my Facebook feed that made a lot of sense to me in regards to all of this — it’s not so much laziness that’s causing this procrastination but a mental ‘safety’ response. Somewhere along the line my Mental To-Do List started feeling overwhelming, but not because there were a lot of things there; it was that somehow I’d gotten into the habit of ‘things I must do soon’ = ‘must avoid this to retain my sanity’ with a sprinkle of ‘oh hey this fun distraction (music library, webcomics, social media) is a lot less mentally taxing, let’s focus on that instead’.

The fascinating thing is that I understand this, and I’ve ALWAYS understood this, and it rarely ever bothered me in the past…so why now?

I think part of it was the ongoing stress of the day job before I got my transfer, along with some other personal and real life stuff going on that just dogpiled on me over the last couple of years, and I got sloppy about letting it get to me so easily.

That’s not to say everything is magically fixed, of course. More that I have a better understanding of it all now, and I’m more aware of how I can navigate this going forward.

*

It is interesting how this kind of thing can completely derail your life. You’d expect some kind of high-level action like a life-altering event, or a financial struggle, or whatever, to be the culprit, but sometimes it’s just a bunch of small things piling up and a bad day where you just can’t be arsed to keep it together. Next thing you know you just want to enjoy life as sedentarily as possible because that feels better mentally and emotionally.

I’ve recently read about ‘bed rotting’ from somewhere online, just spending the day in bed like you’re an 80’s Morrissey and would rather avoid the world instead of fighting it. It’s not a new thing, even though it’s got a new name. I used to do that in my high school years. It was my own ‘safety’ response, and somewhere along the line I added ‘listening to music’ to that, and that inspired writing songs and poems soon after. And eventually that grew to writing fiction. And I stuck with that for decades, because that’s what worked best for me.

Which is why in 2020 at the start of the pandemic and my unemployed years, I decided I wanted — no, I needed to deconstruct all that. Sometime in the late 10s I’d started feeling as though I was repeating myself. Writing the same lyrics and poems and journals, visiting the same memories, writing the same words, to the point that I felt that I had nothing new to say. So I chose to not write for a while and focus on more personal things that I’d been avoiding.

But here we are in 2026, those formerly avoided things have pretty much been taken care of. It doesn’t so much feel like a clean slate this time as it’s more like raw skin after a long stretch of healing. It feels different and weird and I’m not entirely sure if I can recreate what used to be. Or if I even want to recreate any of it. Some of it, sure — the daily regimen that kept me going all that time, for instance — but I don’t want to return to the same habits and themes and thoughts.

Long story short, that’s where I am right now. It’s not a bad place to be, per se…I’m merely feeling a little impatient at the moment. The only thing left for me is to move forward. I shouldn’t have to mentally plan it all out like I might have in the past, though…sometimes I just have to let the day come and see where it takes me. Eventually a new creative endeavor will appear. Whether it’ll be something I’ve done in the past or something completely new, I’m not going to guess.

*

“Harry, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Everyday, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it, don’t wait for it. Just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the Men’s store. A catnap in your office chair. Or two cups of good, hot black coffee.” — Agent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks

Fly-by: brb, being lazy

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I’ll cop to it: I took a few lazy days off this week and hardly got anything done other than the daily words and some house errands. Sure, I feel a little guilty about it, but it’s not often that I allow myself to have absolutely zero on my To-Do list. I sometimes have to remind myself that I need to do this now and again as part of the recharge process.

See you again on Monday!

Filling in the gaps

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I am now at the point in Theadia where I have to visit all the WRITE THIS LATER gaps and…well, write them. Thankfully, I planned ahead of time during this last reread/revision, where I wrote out a paragraph or two of each plot point I need to hit for these scenes and chapters. Also thankfully, most of them are scenes featuring a not-quite-secondary, not-quite-primary character, which means I can focus mostly on the action. As you can guess, I wasn’t entirely sure at first how to approach him as he’s not the kind of character I usually write, and that’s mainly why I skipped them. One, so I won’t lose focus on the rest of the novel, and two, by the time I come back to these scenes, I’ll have a better idea of who he is and why he does what he does.

So why am I putting them there in the first place? Well, if I truly felt that I could get away with not putting them in, I probably would have shoehorned a variant version of the scene (or the information it’s relaying) elsewhere and via a more important character, but I don’t feel that’s the case here. This is a character that isn’t part of the tight-knit main character circle, but they do have a very important link with at least three of them that I think strengthens the story’s logic and flow. He’s an insider that helps the mains achieve their goals without actually abandoning his link to his status within the ranks. He’s gruff and cranky but he’s also extremely intelligent and supportive.

I’ll be honest, using the WRITE THIS LATER gap style of writing novels is still a rather recent change in my writing process. I always write in chronological order from start to finish, and I’m always worried that if I skip scenes too often, the multiple interwoven plot threads running through my head will unravel. This changed when I wrote Diwa & Kaffi, however, when during one of the rereads I realized I’d forgotten to add a key scene that would make the logic and flow work even better.

I still use the style quite infrequently, but these days I’m not as nervous about it. As long as I use it for the right reasons and not out of any sense of laziness or ‘just don’t wanna’ avoidance!

In that middle ground again

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It’s been a rough couple of weeks here at the New Digs. There’s been a bit of drama at the Day Job that I’ve been juggling, not to mention the rise in customer volume considering it’s Q4 and the start of the holiday retail season. I’ve also been doing a hell of a lot of thinking about how I’m going to finish Theadia, and what project(s) I’ll start after that one’s completed. Then there’s the cold/allergies that laid me out for a few days a while back.

Right now I’m feeling very much like I’m somewhere in between where I was and where I need to be, and that can be tense when I can only do so much to keep it moving in the right direction. Sometimes I’m fine with that — the journey’s part of the learning process, as they say — but other times the journey feels like one frustration after another that has to be handled in a certain way in order for the remainder of the trip to be smoother. [Come to find out, this is an ongoing theme in Theadia.] All I can do is just keep going despite the impatience, the anxiety, and the annoyance.

Still, there is a bright side. I’ve gone through this many times before, and if I play this bit of 5D chess the right way like I’ve done before, the end results will definitely be worth it.

Revisiting Bridgetown…?

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The Trilogy Remaster continues on schedule (slightly ahead, actually) and I’ve been allowing myself to revisit the created world as I approach each scene. In the past I may have been one to react with ‘oh yeah, I wrote this one in the Belfry on a super cold winter night while listening to Sea Change‘ or something like that, but this time out I’ve been asking myself: why did I write this scene? Not in a pessimistic way, mind you (those would have an oh gods before the question, heh). I’m asking it in reference to the story as a whole.

Which is kind of interesting, considering that most of this trilogy was semi-pantsed. While I had a pretty good idea of what direction I wanted the story to go in, I never planned ahead more than maybe three or four chapters. However, that was part of the creative process I had at the time: my focus was on the evolution of the characters, and how their interactions provided the actions (or reactions) that followed. The story wasn’t just about the reincarnation of a deity, it was about how different people reacted to that. And that was something that had been set in stone since 1997 when I started The Phoenix Effect.

I think that’s partly why I found it so hard to get MU4 going for the longest time (ten years, coincidentally!), because I’d forgotten about that part of this story’s creation. So….if I’m going to revisit Bridgetown once more, I can’t just write a NextGen-style story. It has to have its own focus on character evolution. And just like the original trilogy, I already know what needs to happen. I just need to figure out how its events will affect the cast. It may take time, but I’m willing to work for it.

*

As an aside, please note that the writing of this post was temporarily interrupted by Jules who demanded my attention.

New phone!

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We’d decided it was time to upgrade our phones and went with the Google Pixel 8a. We’ve had really good luck with this brand over the last few years and see no reason to change to anything different. The camera is supposedly even better than the previous iteration, so I figured I’d try it out by taking another shot out Spare Oom window looking north. Looks nice to me!

For the most part I don’t see too many differences but then again I’ve mostly been fiddling with the settings and deciding which apps can stay and which I’ll most likely get rid of eventually. [I mean, do I really need six food-ordering apps when I really only use three of them?] I would like to get back into the habit of taking more pictures again — I mean, other than shots of our two ridiculous cats — and maybe start using the sound recording app again.

And what am I doing with my old phone? Well, I’m planning on using it as an e-reader for the most part. Delete most of the apps on it but keep the Dropbox, Hoopla and B&N apps. Or maybe even continue using that as a camera as well? Who knows?

Third time’s the charm…?

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Hmm. I’ve been plowing through this one scene in Theadia for the last two weeks and it’s taking FOREVER to get through. There’s so many things wrong with what’s ending up on the screen that I’m having second thoughts about keeping what I have so far. I know the problem: it’s a tense scene with a lot of important information that comes to the fore, but the execution of the scene is absolutely atrocious. There’s tension there, but it’s the wrong kind. And the whole scene is from a single person’s point of view and she’s so passive in it that I keep forgetting it’s her scene.

I think the issue here is that I’m still not entirely sure how the scene should unfold. It’s an important scene that needs to be there, where multiple story threads lead up to this moment, but the weave is weak and unstable. [Yes, I’ve been using this particular crafting metaphor a lot with Theadia. There is a reason for it.] What I need to do is map it out again. I did that for Take Two, and to be honest, I probably should have followed my instincts when it was clear this version didn’t quite resonate with me either.

So. What do do? I’m going to cut the entire thing again. Take Three. (Take One did the exact opposite and did a lot of telling-not-showing, which didn’t work either.) As always, I’ll paste this current version into my Outtakes file where I can use it for reference for the next attempt. Hopefully third time’s the charm, yeah?

We’ve arrived (and to prove it, we’re here)

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Hi there! Remember me? That writer guy who used to blog all the time?

I’ve come back to the blogosphere after a hiatus of two and a half months, and from here on in I’ll be posting once a week on Thursdays. Why once a week? So I don’t repeat myself and so I can spend more time working on long-delayed projects! Yay!

So — what’s new? What’s been going on? What have we missed?

  1. I dropped In My Blue World a few weeks ago as a Smashwords e-book on March 2nd, and though sales have been slow, I’ll still get one or two unexpectedly every now and again. Still learning how to self-promote here, kids!
  2. I made an appearance at FogCon in Concord this year. I fear I dropped the ball multiple times here, as I screwed up filling out the panelist forms and also had a reading that was too late for me (I duffed the whole thing, being overtired, and I’m still mad at myself for it). On the plus side, I did notice a number of people picked up my freebie cards over the weekend, so there’s that!
  3. I’ve started revising Diwa and Kaffi — YES I FINALLY HAVE A TITLE FOR IT — and I plan on taking this slow and steady, as I’m planning on submitting this one to a pro publisher.
  4. I’ve started doing my daily words again, which means I should *hopefully* have a new fresh project to work on down the line.

Do I have anything planned for the immediate future? Yes! All sorts of fun things. I’m hoping to be a lot more multimedia this time, actually. More Drunken Owl music experiments. More story ideas. More visual arts. The road is clear and I can’t wait. (Wish I could be more clear about this, but right now it’s all in demo and planning stages. You’ll know when I know, heh!)

Glad to be back!