Tag: writing

Back to Q4 Retail

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After a decade and a half of banking, I am once again back in the retail sector during fourth quarter. Our store has had its Christmas decorations up for a good couple of weeks now (having set them up a few weeks before Halloween) and our aisles are now crammed with cardboard standees selling wares such as chocolate Santas, boutique candies, various toys, and everything else in between. Apparently our company doesn’t do the holiday season half-assed.

Am I dreading the craziness of fourth quarter shenanigans, high volume and constantly running out of paper bags up front? Not really! As exhausting as the last couple months of the year can be, there’s also a special warmth that comes along with it. I do enjoy talking with our regulars (and they are definitely such — some stopping by twice a day on the daily) end even more with new customers who are pleasantly surprised by how unique and accessible our store is. Sure, we’ll have the days with unending lines and short staff, but we survive it. And I’m old enough to remind myself not to let those particular days eat at me.

Sure, it affects my writing time sometimes, but not in the ways the bank used to. The mental and emotional exhaustion just isn’t as prevalent. Banking is very exhausting for the brain, whereas working retail, not so much. At least not for me anymore, anyway. Sometimes dealing with the front end is a bit like herding cats — coworkers and customers alike, when I’m assigned the Front End Manager position for the day — but I try not to bring it home. As long as I dedicate time to the writing, that’s all that matters.

Besides, working in retail means I get some sweet deals for the home!

How can someone so young sing words so sad?

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So the original idea came to me after reading multiple romcoms in a row: what about an older woman who, after a successful career in the late 80s and early 90s as a young pop singer and an adulthood stuck in terrible relationships and bad business decisions, has a meet-cute with an equally jaded John Cusack type of guy who runs a record store in the small town she escapes to?

I bring this up as I’m feeling incredibly burned out from my work on Theadia and Queen Ophelia, both of which probably need complete rewrites. As I said to a friend this morning, there comes a time when it feels more like I’m shoveling mud than actually making a sculpture, y’know? It’s obvious that my writing sessions for both are becoming infrequent enough and hardly any work is being done (cat-sitting aside) that it’s obvious that I’m not happy with the stories at all. Added to that, I do nightly rereads of passages as part of my revision process, and lately it’s felt like I’d rather be reading something else. I don’t hate these projects, they’re just not where I need them to be right now, and I’m not ready to devote even more time and brainspace for it. I need to take a break.

That said…the possibility of me writing a meet-cute romcom filled with 80s and 90s easter eggs, music references and other goofy things is something I think might work. And here I thought Meet the Lidwells was my nerdiest story idea…

(Image courtesy of K-On!, by the way. I really need to start watching that series.)

Changing Things Around

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Cat Update: Jules has been here for one week and thinks she’s got seniority, but new cat (and sister) Cali has proven otherwise by refusing to give in so easily. It’s been a few days together and they’re not playfighting nearly as much, though they’ll have bouts of chasing each other down our long hallway in full noisy gallop. I think we’ve cured them of waking us up for 2am playtime, but they’ve exchanged that with the 9pm tussling under our bed and the 5am Why Aren’t You Awake Yet. It’s a learning curve for everyone, I guess.

Anyway! As you can well imagine, my writing schedule is falling short due to Watching the Cats (to make sure they settle in well in their new home) and waking up early for the Day Job. It is what it is, and given that it’s also Q4, I will not be surprised if I eventually feel burnout in the next couple of weeks.

BUT! I refuse to let the writing fall by the wayside. I just have to keep focusing on it with the time that I do have. Twitter is currently having its New Owner Dumpster Fire Event which is keeping me from doomscrolling over there. I’ve got my close friends on Discord (we now have a dedicated channel just for our cat pictures, by the way) to keep me company. And of course I still have KEXP to listen to while working in Spare Oom.

It is what it is. I’m used to my writing schedule going all kinds of wonky during Q4. And considering I’m now working retail, the exhausting chaos will be ramping up very soon. I’m only thankful my job frowns on forced overtime (thank you, UFCW Local 648!) and our store is small compared to other outlets. It’ll be busy but not always overwhelmingly so. I’ll always have time to get at least something done each day if I put my mind to it.

And thankfully, the cats are currently sleeping in the cat tree so I can have some me time!

In Need of Distance…?

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I’m at the point in Theadia where I think I’m hyperfocusing too much. I do this at least once with every project I’ve ever worked on: I’ll eventually arrive at a point where I’m not sure if I’m making it better or making it worse. Sometimes it’s because I’ve been working on the same chapter or scene for far too many days and I need to let it go and move on (and fix it properly at a later time). Sometimes it’s because I’m working on a scene that’s full of tension that I’ve become so familiar with that I don’t feel said tension anymore.

There’s also the fact that I’ve been a bit distracted by Real Life Stuff lately, and I just don’t have the spoons to connect with it on an emotional level at the moment.

Either way, this is where I need to make a decision: power through until the issues go away, or step away and work on something else for a little bit. Powering through essentially means getting rid of those Don’t Wanna/Oh Hey A Distraction urges, which works really well for me. Stepping away works too, but I usually reserve that for when I’m truly frustrated or physically/mentally exhausted and need the break.

So yeah, looks like I’ll have to soldier through!

I’m Allowed

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I’m allowed to take my time getting there.

I’m allowed to take however long it takes to figure things out.

I’m allowed to share stories that don’t fit the mold.

I’m allowed to understand the world in my own ways.

I’m allowed to have paradoxes in my life.

I’m allowed to be imperfect.

I’m allowed to take my own uncharted steps to see where it all goes.

I’m allowed to remind myself of these things when needed.

Talking End of the Month Refresh Blues

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Image courtesy of hackaday.com

I talked a little bit about this over at my Dreamwidth account, but I think it begs a bit of commentary here: I’m happy to say that I think I’ve finally broken myself of that niggling feeling at the end of every month that I’ve failed in keeping up with my writing schedule. For years, and with the best of intentions, I’d start each month looking at my whiteboard calendar and think, yeah, this time I’ll make it to the end with new words and productivity all over the place!, and inevitably crash and burn about two-thirds of the way through.

It took me until recently that to realize that I’ve been looking at this in totally the wrong way.

Coming into each month with the determination to Do All The Things regardless of real life (and Day Job) getting in the way always leads to failure. And that’s the other mistake I made: seeing that as failure in the first place. In the final weeks I’d always get frustrated that I’d failed to follow my plans once more, and every single time I’d needlessly get angry with myself. It would only be exacerbated by thinking, okay, THIS time I’ll get it right! and setting myself up for failure once more.

What I need to do instead is see the start of every month as a refresh. I run cleaning software on this PC every weekend without fail (and it’s kept Spare Oom’s computer up and running smoothly for over three years so far, thank you very much), and it occurred to me that I really should see my writing habits in very much the same manner.

When I start the new month tomorrow — including participating in Inktober — the whiteboard schedule will once again be full, once again be seen as a guide rather than an assignment, once again allowing myself days off when Real Life intrudes. The whole point of the whiteboard schedule has always been to keep me working instead of procrastinating or distracting myself, nothing more. It’s my coping mechanism that’s kept me from otherwise faffing around on Twitter or playing with my music collection all day long.

What I shall do differently starting tomorrow is just do my best. That’s all. If I miss a day, I miss a day. And come the end of October I’ll do the same thing I’m doing now, accepting the amount of work I’d done in the meantime and starting it all over again in November. And so on. View it as a refresh, not as a metric.

Meanwhile, back in Spare Oom…

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Image courtesy of Makoto Shinkai, of course.

What’s been going on, anyway? I’ve been working on the Theadia rewrite when I’m not at the Day Job, mostly. On days off I’ll catch up with some personal projects, or if they line up with A’s we’ll go out for a walk or burn through our British streaming shows. [For those playing along, we’ve been on a Silent Witness kick and it’s exciting but definitely not for the squeamish.] Other than that…? Not much at all.

I’ve been in kind of a rut in terms of actually producing content to self-publish. I mean, I’ve got Diwa & Kaffi ready to go, but I really need to get off my arse and look into commissioning an artist. I’ve got a few ideas that I want to sketch out first, however. If I’m going to work with an artist, I want to work with an artist, meaning that I’m willing to give them as much prep work and rough sketches as I can so they won’t be going in blind. Besides, I know exactly what I want: a simple yet engaging cover similar to what you see on some manga/light novels. Something like Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku, for example. I like the idea of using blank space on purpose here, to evoke the mood that it’s very much a light novel in some respects, as well as the fact that a lot of that novel is about being up in the air. I have a few artists in mind, I’ll just need to contact them and see if they’re interested or have the time.

Speaking of Theadia, I’ve also been thinking a bit about how this novel is not quite the Epic that the Bridgetown Trilogy was, but nor is it the lighter work I published afterwards. It’s a bit of both, really. The project goal is very much typical of me: writing a space opera without the military drama, writing an epic without turning everything up to eleven, writing a political drama without falling into my own navel. I even have the tagline, which is a line that’s quoted by many in the story: If you could…would you do the right thing? The novel isn’t about being a savior, it really is about doing the right thing when given the choice between taking ownership or saying ‘not my problem’. There are no heroes here, only normal people choosing to do the right thing because no one else is, and having that in itself be heroic.

It’s been a bit of a juggle, because I definitely need to have certain characters with certain levels of intelligence, power and experience, but purposely not having them get all infodumpy or technerdy about it. [I half-joke sometimes that I’m writing an anti-Cory Doctorow novel here, because I’m choosing not to go into graphic detail about the worlds of infotech, the dark web, and living off the grid. I give just enough detail for it to make sense, because that’s all it needs. I definitely owe Becky Chambers for the inspiration for wanting to take that route.] It’s been an enjoyable ride, though, and that’s all I ask.

*

So. What’s my update schedule going to be here in the days ahead? Glad you asked! I’m going to try to return to the twice-a-week that I’ve had for the last couple of years, though there may be a gap or a late entry here and there, especially when Day Jobbery takes precedence.

Glad you’re sticking around, though! See you soon!

microfiction: Sshteia

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NOTE: This was written on 7 November 2018 as a 750Words entry, most likely during a slow time at the Former Day Job. I honestly had forgotten I’d written this soon after, having put it aside as merely an exercise in writing serious short fiction in a different style, and nothing more. I happened upon it a few years later and was pleasantly surprised at how well it stands up.

*

Sshteia

Sshteia stood six and a half feet tall and preferred to the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her’ even though her aspect was made up of thousands of sentient bee-like insects called Tnei gathered together in a wavering, buzzing human-like form.  Sshteia was the name of the queen of the hive, so it only made sense.  And she was one of the best coworkers I’d ever had in this company.

Sshteia and I had been matched five years ago when I started working for Yamato and Associates here on Adiamma.  We were part of a larger department of phystech workers; each human was teamed up with a hive of Tnei.  While the humans would do the computing, diagnostics and occasional heavy lifting, the Tnei hive would assume a humanlike form most of the time but break up into their thousands and insert themselves into the hardware and do the microscopic work as needed.  A human-Tnei team was considered one of the most efficient ways to do tech work nowadays, and Yamato was at the forefront of it all.

Thing is, they didn’t always understand that the relationship between humans and Tnei could sometimes go in strange directions.  For instance, Sshteia — or more accurately, her hive — seemed to love landing on my bare skin and walking all over me at the oddest times.   Then there was her request for wanting to move out of her next and live with me in my apartment.  I mean, I didn’t really mind, because we got along just great, but it could be kind of…weird sometimes.

When she spoke, her voice was half synthetic and half natural, so it sounded like a low feminine voice with just a small hint of flutter to it.  She said it was due to the fact that the voice simulator couldn’t quite match the speed of the natural clicking and chittering of the Tnei.  It took me a little while at first, but I soon found that the more she spoke, the more soothing it became.  She never lifted her voice any higher than normal speech; the one time she did, the voice sim couldn’t translate and it ended up as a bizarrely beautiful dissonant feedback.

Today Sshteia was once again in her humanoid form, ready to head out to the tech center with me, when I noticed that there were a few of her hive behaving a little twitchier than normal.  As queen bee (so to speak) she’d occasionally have issues with some rogue worker Tnei and would discard them from her hive and provide more.  She would lay numerous eggs every few months or so, leave some of the hive behind to help them gestate and grow into healthy young hivers.  She’d just laid a new wave of eggs a few weeks previous, and it seemed some of the older hivers weren’t too happy about it.  They felt they were being replaced too soon.

I did what I could to help, but to be honest there wasn’t much I could do.  I just kept her nest well protected and provided her with nourishment.  There wasn’t much I could do about rogue Tnei.

Sshteia ignored them at first; she’d sent her second and third in command — yes, each hive had its chain of command — to take care of them when necessary.  (It was sometimes kind of creepy and morbid to find dead Tnei lying on the floor below the nest, legs shriveled up just like dead insects.  Especially when the rogues were often dispatched by way of dismemberment.)  But by the third day, she could take no more.  Her synthetic voice had grown less intelligible and sometimes her humanoid form would spontaneously pull apart, turning into a wild and buzzing storm of lost Tnei.  I’d gotten caught in the cloud twice, and it wasn’t fun.

On the fourth day, Sshteia pleaded that I take three days off for health reasons — our job required both of us in peak form, and I could not do it on my own — and I obliged.  She requested that I leave her be in her nest in her room and leave the door locked.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, and I didn’t want to believe the rumors.

She’d switched off the synth voice halfway through the first day.  I didn’t dare ask.

But on the fourth day, I heard a pleasant humming.  The same hum I’d heard when I first met Sshteia.  Through the closed door I asked if she was okay and if she needed me to come in.

She said yes, it was fine to come in.  I opened the door, and stopped short.

There, on the floor, was the largest Tnei in the hive… Sshteia.  Had she…?

She said her name was Nai, and she was Sshteia’s daughter, and the new queen.

I blinked and stared at the humanoid form of Nai’s hive.  Slightly shorter but no different.

My first thought was a tiny twinge of sadness; Sshteia had been my friend since we both started the job.  I would definitely miss her. 

My second thought, of course, was that we’d need to stop by HR to update the paperwork.

Hmm.

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I’m feeling a bit bored with my blogs as of late. Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about writing here…but I’ve been repeating myself for a while now. I feel like I’ve been using the same subjects, hitting Random Shuffle and posting something not-quite-the-same-but-similar.

I need to shake things up a bit.

So.

I’ve decided I’m going to spend all of next month (and maybe July as well) going a bit off schedule. I’d like to share some of my outtakes, poetry, and other bits and bobs that I’ve written over the last several years. You’ve read more than enough about my thoughts on the process, why not finally share some of the end results?

Hope you enjoy.

Putting it all together (in my head)

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So the trouble chapter in Theadia has been somewhat successfully rewritten — it could still use a bit of tidying up, but for now it’s a lot closer to what I wanted it to be — so I’m onto the next scene, which takes place maybe a few weeks later. Now that particular scene is okay (again, could be better), but the transition between the two scenes could probably be a little more coherent. The current problem is that I need it to hint at a passage of time without it being a ‘Some Time Later…’ placard.

As I’ve mentioned before, there are a lot of moving parts that I need to be aware of and ensure they’re in the correct order and make sense. Like most of my novel projects, this isn’t something I ever have copious notes for…it’s all in my head. Sure, I’ll have some notes, but rarely will I ever have the entire thing mapped out somewhere on paper or online.

With Theadia‘s latest go-round, I find that I’m filling in a lot of the gaps with these sorts of things: fixing the transitional scenes, inserting new passages to strengthen the conflict within the overarching plot line, and of course filling in the ‘Fix This Later’ blanks. All of this in my head…getting to a point in the story where I know I need to insert the action from an antagonist’s POV, or better show a character’s development from passive to active status. Things like that.

It’s certainly making the story a hell of a lot longer, that’s for sure. But I’m fine with overwriting like this, because when it comes time to edit, I’ll have enough laid out that it will be safe to streamline what needs streamlining. [This is what I did with The Balance of Light, where I excised about sixty thousand words or so. That one’s still a long book, but it reads a lot smoother than it had originally.]

I still haven’t actually finished the book yet — I’d say it’s just shy of the final climax of the story right now — but I’m not too worried about that. I’ll get there soon enough. Once everything else is put together.