Pitch Slapped

Hooray for the Opinion of the Everyday Reader

2012-01-27T12:35:00.000-05:00

This is just a really short, quick thought that came to me as I'm reading around blogs today.

It seems that I see a lot of the same people reviewing each other's books, all over the place. At Amazon, on blogs, I imagine at Goodreads (though personally I don't go there, I registered there once ages ago and never went back.) Same names and profiles.

And in those reviews, I notice a lot of very carefully constructed sentences- a lot of verbal tap-dancing and I wonder, just how much gentle-treading are these folks doing because they don't want to hurt their friends' feelings?

This is why as much as I love my writer friends (and as many of their books I have and will continue to buy) I won't review them. Because I couldn't really be completely objective about it and I would never want to hurt their feelings if I didn't like it.

After reading I may write them an email to tell them that I really enjoyed the book if I did- but I'd do so privately. In fact it's becoming my policy now not to even mention which of my friends' books I've bought and are/will be reading because A) I never know what my eyes are going to be doing at a given time and so I may not get to it for a LONG time and B) I dread the inevitable "What did you think of it?" Not that I've had much reason to say anything but an honest "loved it!" in the past, but it's just a situation I don't want to be put in- and cannot imagine putting my friends in someday if I ever do put a book out there.

And seriously...I think it looks a bit suspicious if you see one blogger reviewing a friend's book and gushing over it and then the next week the other blogger is reciprocating. How can you know for sure what to think about either book?*

I think that Everyday Reader (though granted there are some bad folks in the lot who complain about Amazon and pan a book, hurting the author, which is about as logical as yelling at a waiter when the kitchen got your food wrong) has a lot more unbiased, unvarnished input to offer- and while I'm not a huge believer in reviews as a whole (especially for film, I never seem to agree with professional critics) I do appreciate the readers, those non-writing, nothing to gain or lose genuine readers, who take the time to leave book reviews.

Not that another person's opinion will make or break my decision to buy a book if I'm really interested- but if there are ten glowing reviews for the same book and all from names I recognize...I will admit, it does give me pause.

I think any time every single review of a book is five star- especially when there's more than a few of them- something is suspect. At least one person, somewhere, is going to find a reason to take away at least one of those stars if things are on the up and up, just because personal taste varies so widely.

So circles of people all going around reviewing each other's books and doing so with over the top praise that's difficult to believe? Just know, going in, that to the outside observer, it is difficult to believe.

If it were my book, I'd want a change in strategy- and let the reviews come in from where they may instead of putting my friends under the gun, and hoping they'd reciprocate. I speak about this because I think it's a huge underlying tension in the blogging world these days- and I hope maybe people will rethink it, just a little.

Just my 2 cents which you know, is worth absolutely nothing given the exchange rate between here and Jupiter. Though I hear that their economy is due to bounce back any minute now.

Happy Friday, everybody!

~bru

*there are many bloggers who regularly review books by authors they don't know, and that is fantastic, if that's what they enjoy doing. That is in no way what I'm talking about here, please know that.

The Fourth Idea: Sound Advice from a Good Friend

2012-01-26T11:11:00.000-05:00

I received an email from a good friend this morning, in which he started a discussion about the fact I wanted to end this blog, the way recent posts had turned out and been commented upon, and what if anything I should do differently about it all. He had a few specific suggestions which, after resisting at first, I saw the wisdom in, and I followed them.

This friend, Author Stephen Parrish, suggested this: (and said that I could quote him on it, and so I shall and gratefully.)

I have a fourth idea. Move on. Pick out a star, and on the next clear night I'll go out and look at it, and when darkness descends in your neck and nape, you'll go out and look at it, and then you'll blog about what it means when two friends, separated by a distance that would intimidate even Columbus, send thoughts to each other via the same burning ball of gas a squillion light years away.

How can you say no to a suggestion like that?

I can't.

Next clear night we have on this side of the pond, I'll be working on that star post for you, Steve. Promise.

~bru

Please Do Not Miss This: Bru Interviews...

2012-01-20T00:01:00.094-05:00

Let me begin by saying that I never intended to post another interview on this blog.

As much fun as they were (and I do enjoy them) they’re a lot of work, and they are, well, something pretty much every blogger in the group started to do at the time I decided to stop, and so, I stopped.

This time, however, I have got to make an exception: if for no other reason (though there are other reasons) than no one else will get this interview.

In that, I feel humbled, privileged, and quite anxious for you to meet the man who has stopped by for tea and Twinkies today.

This one means a lot to me, my friends, so please, read on.

I first crossed paths with Matthew Irvine almost five years ago, when I was the acting administrator and editor for an online science fiction writer’s group. One afternoon I received an email from our webmaster, that particular group’s creator, forwarding an application to join and the proposed character profiles the applying writer had come up with.

To say I was intrigued would be an understatement- and the fact the applicant also wrote the most sincerely polite emails I had ever read in my life didn’t hurt, either.

In the fourteen plus years that I’ve written in groups I’ve worked with more writers than I can count- dozens, certainly: probably hundreds overall. People of every skill level, educational background, and personal style.

The thing about Matt Irvine was that he surprised me- and it’s very difficult to surprise me. (Well, at least in a good way. There were many writers that surprised me in bad ways. It’s why, to this day, I do have some sympathy for those who wade into the slushpile.)

He kept right on surprising me with the wit and attention to detail in his work and I have lost count of the number of words and stories we’ve written together in the years since.

His voice has evolved as I’ve watched, and I know without a doubt that writing with him has made me a much better writer. The things that I’m proudest to have written- ever- have been written with him and/or shaped by his presence.

He’s known me so long, he has not only been a source of strength through all my surgeries- in times of blindness, madness, and complete uncertainty but is also well aware of all my Twinkie-toting, lightsaber-loving, Disney-obsessed, Coldplay-worshipping, quirky-Muppet ways.

Somehow he puts up with me, anyway. Maybe ‘cause I really think he’s truly the last of the Jedi, and they’re legendary for their patience. I mean, he has the beard and everything, people. I’m telling you, he’s the real deal.

He’s also the only person I have ever turned one of my most beloved characters over to lock, stock, and barrel and said “Please write him, because I know you can write him better than I can.”

And he did.

So, (here’s the disclaimer) he is one of the absolutely dearest people in the world to me, and this is an interview I have wanted to do for a very, very long time.

Here we go. Ladies and Gentleman and Pitch Slapped usual suspects, allow me please to introduce you to my dear friend Matthew Irvine, author of the brilliant dystopian novel The Last of the Venitars.

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FG: At long last, welcome! You know I wanted to hold off on doing this a little while until the e-book of Venitars was finally up at Amazon but it wasn’t easy to wait! Finally the day has arrived, and I couldn’t be more thrilled for you. Congratulations on your book, Matt, it’s really a work of art.

MI: You really are too kind. The book was a long time in the making and I doubt it ever would have gotten finished and out there if not for your encouragement and assistance throughout its development. So thank you.

FG: Now you’re much too kind. I consider myself very lucky that I got to see the first draft a few years ago and to discuss with you the ones that came in between that and the final version, now published, as they were in progress. So thank you for that. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about you?

MI: About me, you say? Well, what’s there to say? If your ways are ‘Twinkie-toting, lightsaber-loving, Disney-obsessed, Coldplay-worshipping, quirky-Muppet’ (which I suppose is quite a bit better for your health than being Twinkie-loving and lightsaber-toting) then mine are ‘science fiction watching, science fiction loving, science fiction obsessed, Roddenberry worshipping, quirky science fiction enthusiast’ ways. In short, I like the genre known colloquially as sci-fi.

FG: (mumbling) And you’re a Time Lord. Don’t forget that part…

MI: My tastes admittedly tend to the old-fashioned. I love the classic Doctor Who.

FG: …and there it is. There is little better than big rubber monsters and characters you can really love, is there?

MI: While it’s true some of the special effects look exactly like a piece of foil being blown around by a fan, I don’t believe it’s ever been conclusively established that alien space craft have neither foil nor fan on board. Besides, it’s the story that really matters, not the effects that help us see it.

FG: Preaching to the choir, my friend, and I am sure that’s true among my readership as well. What about a little more about you, personally, for the folks at home? (and I know you’re a Rational and don’t go in for that sort of thing generally…please, indulge me?)

MI: I was born and raised in the countryside in Australia before moving to the city to attend university (where I now live and work). Though interested in writing, I never really got into it when I was growing up. That said, every now and then I did get out my parents’ typewriter (this was actually in the nineties but I just liked the typewriter) and I always enjoyed myself.

Then when I came to Melbourne I began writing with a very interesting group of writers (including one who was extremely talented…) and I just never stopped loving the art form.

FG: That you kept up writing has been a blessing to us all. Without you, I happen to know that particular group could never have produced more than 1100 “posts” (chapters) in the four years it ran, many novels’ worth of stories. Speaking of stories, that brings me back to yours. Please tell us a bit about the book.

MI: Well, as your readers surely have figured out, it’s science fiction. It’s not about space ships, time travel or aliens (though as a Doctor Who fan you know I enjoy all three). Ultimately it’s about different people and about the world they live in.

The story takes place over an extended period of time (something I love that science fiction lets us do) by concentrating on three distinct time periods, which it switches between. The first is a time not too far from now. It’s a rather optimistic world but not one free of problems, as it opens with an old man going to see an older friend for the very last time.

The second is the distant future, when quite in contrast to the first the world has been devastated by war and cultural degradation. It is a time of great conflict and anger, when the truth is hard to ever really know.

The third time falls somewhere in between. It serves not just to show important steps on the world’s path, but concentrates on the characters that played a major role in what happened.

Each period is unique and distinct with different motivations for some very different characters. Yet the entire story cannot be seen in any one and all must be read to truly understand just what happens to the world and its people.

FG: There are so many facets to the story and they all come together so artfully.

The thing that I found most memorable about The Last of the Venitars is the depth to the book—to the people that inhabit your world. The characters offer such a rich cross-section of the traits of humanity itself, the inherently good and unconscionably bad-in the darkest of circumstances in some cases, and which character truly represents which is not understood until you’ve read the whole story. This is a book you think about for a very long time after you put it down.

It’s layered with meanings and woven with thoughts on how war, power (or the quest for power), religion and politics shape a society (in this case our future Earth) and with what it all really means to be an individual, human and alive.

Is there a message you hope that people will take away from the book, or do you hope they find whatever message it leads them to (and I think it can lead different readers to different messages, personally…)

MI: I quite like how you put that. I do hope that they find ‘whatever message it leads them to’.

It’s easy for a writer to put their own opinion into a story. You can shape the consequences of your characters’ actions to be whatever you want them to be (if you don’t like people who cut in line in the supermarket you could write it causing the apocalypse if you wanted). However just as in life events can be interpreted different ways, I’d love for people just to think about the story and find their own meaning in it.

FG: Well there’s lots of meaning to find and that is why this book is so significant to me.

While people will find you’re a complex man who can craft intricate plots- one thing they won’t find is a webpage, blog, Twitter account or FB presence for you. This means that you’re not actively marketing Venitars, as most authors are marketing these days. Is there a reason for that?

MI: Indeed there is a reason for it. In fact, there are a couple.

The first is simply my personal intense burning non-fondness for social networking in general.

FG: *collapses into laughter * “burning non-fondness?” C’mon, Matt, tell us how you really feel! See, I told you all this guy could win awards for politeness… * feigning shock now* YOU don’t like social media sites? Why ever not???

MI: Don’t get me wrong, they are wonderful things for some people. They open a world of possibilities, like a party with half the world invited that never stops. However in my opinion they’re…rather like a party with half the world invited that never stops. Eventually you just want to shoo these people out of your house, wipe the footprints off the ceiling, and not even think about what they’ve done to your kitchen for at least another forty-eight hours.

However the more significant reason for me comes down to simply doing these things for the right reason. Social networking is, at the end of the day, just that. It’s networking with a social group. It’s ultimately making friends, however serious those friendships may be, with a whole bunch more people.

To my mind, to join a community just to sell someone your book, is a bit like starting a conversation with a stranger at a bus stop, inviting him to your home, then attempting to introduce him to your ‘cleaning supply quick finance methodology’.

Many people are on these sites for exactly the right reasons. Many (yourself included) have genuinely interesting blogs or websites with diverse and intriguing purposes. However these people are, in my opinion at least, the ones who’d be doing it regardless of whether they have a book on the market.

FG: Me? Interesting? I think it’s more the train wreck people just can’t look away from. But you’re right, I would blog even if I didn’t have a book- wait, I don’t! * laugh*

Actually I did blog long before I ever thought about publishing anything, ever, anywhere: for various reasons and in various arenas. You summed up very well what I tried to say recently about marketing and you did it so much more nicely than I did. I should have asked you to write the post for me * laugh* You have always been able to write for my characters when we wrote serials together without anyone realizing who was writing what- you could surely ghost-blog me. Well, if I could just keep you from saying ‘whilst’ for a little while. But I like the ‘whilst’ too much so I guess I’ll have to do my own damn blogging.

In any event, I really admire the fact that you’ve published your book and not gone overboard with the huge marketing push that many others do. I know that the important thing to you was that your work be out there- that it is available, but you don’t see the need to remind people constantly that it is available.

I still believe that the absolute best marketing is for readers who believe in your book to tell their friends about it- and so that’s what I’m doing here. I’m telling people that I was amazed and moved by this book and I hope that if they enjoy science fiction with depth, a classic feel to it and unforgettable characters that they will check out The Last of the Venitars.

Now, one more thing before I let you get back to working on your next project (or spinning around time and space in your TARDIS. I know what you really are...) Tell me, is there a line or paragraph that you’ve written (anywhere) that you’re really proud of? If so can you share it (without giving major spoilers for the book, say? It doesn’t even have to be from Venitars…)

MI: I’ll admit this question wasn’t an easy one to answer. In truth, the things I’m proudest of in the book are inseparable from the whole story and so cannot be given here without giving far too much of the story away by way of explanation. However I’ve included below a sample of my descriptive style for anyone who may be interested.

Once this had been a living city. Now it was dead. Slain in battle; its buildings were tattered wrecks, its food stores looted dry and its mighty towers that once reached the sky now rested as piles of debris upon the chipped asphalt of the streets.

FG: That’s great stuff, Matt.

Since I can’t post my favorite parts of Venitars without giving away too much either (people will just have to read it!) and since I am as you also know such a sentimental sort- I’d like to add a short thing- one of my favorite things you wrote back when we were doing the series.

Words spoken by William, the character that I asked you to take over and you so graciously did. To preserve the context I’ve left in a few lines that I wrote for the piece (I’ll bold yours so our readers can tell them apart.)

In this scene, my character Liis and yours Will are off embarking on a very dangerous mission, and discussing their mutual friend and officer (and Liis’ newlywed husband) Keiran O'Sullivan (and all my buddies know how I feel about my Keiran * laugh*).

It was then that the joking abruptly ended, as rather than reply with some witty retort Will stopped and asked in a deadly serious tone. “Are you worried about him?”

Her eyes spoke for her as she slowly unclasped her fingers from the taunting fist they had made. Her hand gravitated upward, instinctively drawn to the chain of her earring.

"I only hope that he'll be all right if I don't..." she looked down at the deck, her tall frame bending as a willow in the wind as the reality of their situation washed over her in full force.

"That's why we're both going to do everything in our power to make certain that you do survive this mission, Zanh Liis," Will replied, placing a reassuring hand on each of her shoulders.

"Because it’s not just your life we’re dealing with here. Every nick, every cut, every drop of your blood that’s spilled will be lost from him as sure as if he’d been in your place. Only when they’re your wounds, they’ll take him so much longer to heal. And I swear if you were struck down by that fatal blow, that no matter where in the universe he was he’d feel it just as hard. Then slowly he’d spiral down and down through misery and pain until eventually, it took his life too.” He added with an all too knowing tone, “There really is no worse way to die.”

FG: It was December 2008 when you wrote that, and it still stays with me.

That’s the power of Matthew Irvine’s writing, everyone. Once you read it, it stays. I hope you’ll soon know that for yourself.

I’d like to sincerely thank you all for reading, and Matthew Irvine for giving me this chance to interview him and to introduce him to you all.

As I said, you won’t find him online anywhere else—well, except at Amazon and Lulu, where you can find The Last of the Venitars- and I hope you will.

It’s available in both paperback and ebook formats at Amazon (where you can read a sample) and in paperback from Lulu.

I give it five out of five stars (and I do not generally review books- you know that. This is different. And just for the record I purchased my own paperback copy from Lulu for review.)

Please feel free to ask any questions you may have for the author in comments- I’ll be sure he gets the chance to answer (even if I have to copy/paste his replies in here myself- he has no blogger account either.)

Thanks again to all of you for reading this very special, out-of-retirement edition of Bru Interviews! Now, time for more Twinkies. We have to save Hostess from bankruptcy, don’t we? Start eating, people! I can’t do this on my own!

~bru

Why You Want To Know What I Think Of Your Marketing Practices

2012-01-19T15:05:00.000-05:00

Hi again everybody,

This could I suppose be considered an unplanned sequel to my post Why I Won't Try To Sell You My Book.

It could alternately have been called "What Will Or Will Not Make Me More Likely To Buy Your Book...or What Will Ensure I Never Buy Your Book If It Were The Last Book On Earth."

I said in the aforementioned post about the over-marketing that many authors are doing that I didn't count, that my opinion doesn't matter, because I'm a nobody.

Then today, it hit me.

I'm a nobody who buys books, and so just maybe my thoughts on all this should matter a little to the people so desperately trying to sell them.

So allow me to briefly to take off my aspiring-writer's hat and put on a much bigger one: the one that would be the equivalent of the Ten Gallon Hat in marketing. Across it in big huge letters: CONSUMER.

I am your audience, frankly, because I buy books. Fiction books, non-fiction books, traditionally and independently published books. Across the genres I buy books by friends and strangers (many of the friends being readers of this blog- wish I could buy everybody's books but alas my eyes couldn't take it even if my budget could.). Books, books, books.

I own a Kindle and love it but I am still willing to shell out for hardcover if the book means enough to me.

And I'm not the only one I buy books for. My spouse reads voraciously, and so does my teenage daughter. I even buy books for little kids who are friends of mine and to donate and give as gifts in general so I buy broadly, and there is little I love more than browsing Amazon or a real brick and mortar and coming home with more than I intended to buy.

You want me on your side.

But many of you are daily chipping away at that tenuous relationship between author and reader and you don't even realize it. I know you must not realize it or you would not persist in doing it- especially with the huge amount (everywhere lately it seems) of articles cautioning you not to do it.

Case in point: I got frustrated today on Twitter, especially, because I kept seeing tweets for the same book by several people, spaced out throughout the day. This was surely planned in advance- and it's, well, as annoying as hell. I heard you the first half dozen times- it's on sale this week, I get it. We all get it. We know. We heard you. It's okay, really you don't have to tell us again. (Isn't that kind of writing annoying? I did it to make my point.)

I've unfollowed a couple people already today who were part of this marketing blitz and I swear if it keeps up by the end of the day everybody who signed up for it will be unfollowed, no matter how much I may like them personally. Why? Because I refuse to be spammed anymore. By anyone, for any reason. And this is spam.

Just like tweeting the same links days in a row, again and again and again be they to blog posts or other articles you've found- that is spam. And I'm not the only one irritated by it.

There's other stuff going on too- but I don't want to get specific for fear of hurting anybody's feelings. Suffice it to say before you start linking to advice on how important a good clean website is to have you should look at your own first.

Sometimes I wonder if people even read the links they post.

I know that posting like this may cost me favor in the eyes of some of my writing acquaintances but I'd rather they despise me from this day forward than risk them losing their customer base in greater numbers because no one warned them that they were treading the thinnest of ice. As I've heard some parents say, "I love my kid enough to let them hate me for awhile." I feel the same way about the writers I know. I'd rather risk you disliking me than risk seeing you damage what you've worked so hard for because no one would be honest with you.

So the short version of this post is: I would offer, purely as a consumer who can only attest to what I do and do not like as a consumer (in other words I don't claim to be a marketing expert and never did) a few humble pleas:

Please don't spam. Not on Twitter. Not on Facebook. Not through blog blitzes or organizing 50 friends to all talk about your book everywhere on the same day. Just don't. It is doing more harm than good in the long run in the eyes of your potential customers (at least, some of your potential customers.) Spread your marketing out, and get CREATIVE with it. Wit and creativity win every time. If you've written a serious non-fiction book, then aim for memorable instead of witty.

Do not retweet the same links days in a row. It's repetitive and comes off as insulting: either we heard you the first time or we don't care. It's as simple as that.

This especially applies to blog posts (we're likely already following your blog if we like you anyway) and links to other people's blogs especially. Once is enough.

You're gonna tweet about your own books more than once of course, I know, everybody has to. Just find creative ways to do it and don't post the same tweet day in and out. Please.

Please do show your personality and don't just blog or tweet or whatever about your book or your friends' books every day. I'm not saying tweet everything that happens in your life (I don't really need to know when you showered last though I'm hoping it was recently) but show me a little of who you are. Be funny. Be kind to someone else. Care about something other than selling. Because if you don't, you're just going to end up like the commercials on my DVR...fast-forwarded through.

Remember, if you take nothing away from this at all but one thing, please let it be this.

I have money to buy books. I might even buy your book.

But if you annoy me, repeatedly and without let up, there is no way that I will be buying your book.

Good luck guys. I don't envy you out there, the choices you have to make about all this stuff. But you can do it- I know you can-- and win a dedicated and loyal fan base in the process, if you just show us all some respect for having brains and hearts, as well as wallets.

~bru

PS PLEASE DO NOT MISS tomorrow's post. I never thought I'd do another interview here- then I realized there was one person I would come out of interviewing retirement for. You won't be disappointed.

Little Horses And Tiny Sculpted Fingers, Grasping Memories

2012-01-17T19:38:00.001-05:00

Sixteen-year-old girls are beautiful, quicksilver creatures.

They gloss their lips and line their eyes and somewhere between sleepovers and schoolwork and chores and obsessions and talk of boys, sometimes try to shoulder worries meant for much broader, more experienced shoulders.

Sometimes, life hands them burdens that even the sturdiest of shoulders would buckle beneath- and then they wonder why they hurt.

I wish I could fix it all. I can’t. But I try to do what I can.

If you read here regularly, you know for a long while in the year since my daughter chose to move in with her biological father that I’ve been deafened by radio silence.

Emails and phone calls unanswered, my efforts to reach out to her even through the mail distantly, if politely, declined. The religious divide is neither small nor shrinking. It's not one unfamiliar to me- after all, when I was sixteen, I was walking the very same rickety bridge, and trying to find reason in what everyone I had ever known, three previous generations of my family, had all believed.

There have been tiny cracks in the ice wall between my daughter and I recently. Little signals she missed us, and wanted to be in more regular contact(and a great deal of it in part to the just quietly being present in the background of her life and on demand as needed by her step-father, in a way that I cannot be for those religious reasons. Just trust me when I say it’s complicated. I am grateful to him for this).

Slightest openings have appeared and I have jumped at every one I could. Watching and commenting back to her on every silly YouTube video link she sends, every game she asks me to sign up for (me trying to play Words With Friends with my eyes? Oh yes I will, this is my kid I’m talking about here…Looks like it's time to start saving for an iPad when version 3 comes out...)

I’ve tried to keep any thin line of communication open that I could, while dealing with my own issues and, unknown to her, my utter devastation at her decisions; that after having her five days a week (joint custody) from the divorce at age two until she turned fifteen I was left with only seeing her a grand total of five times between February and December 2011.

And there’s more.

They’re moving across the country in a few months time.

After that, I don’t know when I’ll see her. I know there will hopefully be Skype (if her father will let her have it) but it’s not the same. So I take every scrap, every chance to kiss her forehead and inhale her hair that I can. And I do my best to turn away before she ever sees the tears in my eyes when she lets go again.

When she texted me recently to tell me she’d come across her favorite small childhood toys, buried in a box she’d taken with her (I had searched everywhere for them before she moved out) and that she wanted me to have them, I could barely speak. She carried these little horses with her everywhere when she was small, had a special pet name for them and everything- and now she wanted to give them to me, “as a keepsake.”

What material gift could she ever give me that could mean more- could represent more?

So last Saturday was the day finally selected for her to give them to me, and I couldn't wait. We picked her up in the morning and brought her home- she had some other things she wanted to look around our house for- and we ended up getting to keep her overnight, for the first time since she left.

I’ve never been so grateful for surprise snowfall in my life.

We watched a movie, then stayed up all night talking- and I mean all night. I hope that it helped, in some way, to remind her that she’s still my daughter, I’m still her mother, and I still love her, no matter what, always. Even if her religion tells her she must exclude me from her life, the doors to my heart will never, ever close to her.

Even if it doesn’t help, at least I have those memories, bittersweet.

As time went on, we a little time talking about how concerned she was about trying to get rid of things before the big move. Specifically, she had planned to put some of her old favorite dolls up for auction- discontinued now, and worth a decent amount of money at resale.

The more worried she got- the more I thought about what little remained of her childhood being scattered to the winds and broken up- precious little dolls that she had loved and tended, hair brushed and dresses straightened. Fictional little girls who had been “best friends” for so many years, now to be pulled apart? As I had been pulled apart from my own beautiful living doll?

Something inside my chest caught. The lump in my throat rose, and I decided then and there what I’d do. It wasn't rational, it wasn't logical, but I really needed to do this.

I’d offer to buy her out.

I’d keep the few that meant the most to her- and so to me- and the rest she could donate, give away, whatever she wanted or needed to do- without feeling like she ‘should’ have sold them for the money they could raise.

When I offered, she hugged me tighter than she’s hugged me in a very, very long time. This worry over the auctions business wasn’t the biggest problem in her life, to be sure. Not by a long shot and I wish that it was-- there are some I can’t fix. But this one small "problem" I could just make go away- and you can bet nothing would stop me doing it.

Things are always complicated with mothers and daughters. No one knows that more than I. I also know that I have done my level best by her as a parent, always have and always will. Even if she never knows it, I kept many burdens off of her tiny shoulders- as any decent parent should- and I really have done the best I can. It's a shame when religious differences, even when respect for them is offered even if not beliefs shared- can drive a wedge as deep and far as the one that has been driven between my daughter and I. In her view, I am dying a day at a time of a terminal illness, because I stand ready to be judged unworthy by god and so destroyed when that day of reckoning comes "any second now." No matter how I live my life or what I do- I can never be acceptable to them, because I do not believe what they believe.

That has to be an awful burden for a child to bear-and it's one I wish had never been put on her, or on me.

So now, on a prominent shelf in my living room, four proud, well-loved little horses, and the word that says it all…

…and in her old room, so cold and empty now of life it once contained, three little dolls will live.

Tiny plastic, contoured fingers reaching out, holding hands. Hair a little worse for wear, (don't we all wear with age) but together still, even now, and that is what matters. Each doll representing moments frozen in time, and as I stare at them they fill my head with the sound of my daughter’s musical laughter, of the make-believe whinnies of beloved toy horses and formal afternoon teas.

Dreams and memories of a simpler time, never to come again.

At least they chase away, for an instant or a heartbeat, the panic I feel when I realize with horror all over again every time

I think of it the fact is that if she continues on the life path she has is following, that the day will come soon when those who make the rules that she abides by will tell her to stop talking to me, to cut me out of her life completely, and she will be obliged to obey.

I don't know if a mother's love alone can win out against such things. But I just can't give up trying.

I'm haunted to know that the day will likely come when she will stand at the back of the aisle in a Kingdom Hall in a perfect white dress and veil, unspeakably beautiful, about to be married- and I won't be invited to attend.

My doll will be all grown up- and I can't bear to think that all I may have of her then is memories.

~bru

We Now Interrupt This Blog for an Urgent Bulletin

2012-01-05T11:22:00.000-05:00

Thank you so much to everyone who commented on yesterday's post- I am going to head back to it in a moment to reply to each response.

But first- this is urgent and can't wait.

Many of you know (and some might not yet) Candace from The Misadventures in Candyland.

Her family has been going through a lot lately- a LOT- with a miracle baby that is still having health issues and a host of stuff going on.

She posted about it yesterday, and I hope that you can find it in your heart (and your piggybank) to see if you can help out.

I have seen Candace give, time and again, in the time she's been a blogging buddy of mine.

From heading up a drive to help women in Ghana, to participating in the Suicide Prevention walk, to donating to help save a dog that had been hit by a car so that it could be saved instead of euthanized and returned to its family (a family with a single mom and three kids, two of which are autistic...this was a project dear to my heart and local to me) I have seen her care and kindness. All I can say is, in my view now it's time for us to see to it that a little of that kindness and generosity comes back to her.

I know times are tight for everyone- believe me, I know. But if you can help...please, help.

She's offering to do writerly related favors in return for even the smallest donations but it's my hope (and belief) that most of us realize how busy she is working two jobs and with two small children and will give just because we want to, not for what we can get out of it and so won't take her up on those offers (sorry, just had to put my own commentary in there...couldn't help it.)

That's all for now. I have another post brewing in my head but while I seem to be getting more hits here than usual due to yesterday's post (why is it those kinds of posts get the most hits?) I wanted to bring attention to this. My family has already done what we're able to do. Now, I'm hoping you'll help. To those of you who have seen this on other blogs/twitter etc and already have, thank you.

Any one of us could end up needing help at some point in our lives- many of us already have. I hope that those in a position to will remember that, and help out another little family now.

Thanks for listening and as I said, I promise comment replies as soon as I get another cup of coffee in me (you don't want them before that, trust me on this one.)

~bru

Why I Won't Try To Sell You My Book

2012-01-04T13:58:00.000-05:00

Well, I debated long and hard about writing this, and here we are, so here we go.
Maybe it's just the normal evolution of groups of people who congregate together spurred on by a common goal- when a lot of them achieve it, the dynamics change. Cliques form, and there are the insiders and the outsider.

I guess I will always be an outsider, even if/when I do publish a book (and don't think I couldn't have done one by now- I have had several offers of help to self publish and at least one manuscript that could be sent out there into the world today. But I want to think it all over some more first, for many personal reasons. I digress.)

Here's the thing.

When I started this blog most of us (by 'us' I mean the writers who read here and whose blogs I also read) were in the same boat. We were all overwhelmed in a lot of ways by the query process (hence the origin of this blog's title, even though my query history numbers at having tried two agents) and had a lot to share.

Then some folks got agents and/or book deals and I rejoiced with them- I still do.

If you have honestly really ever read here or read my comments on other blogs you know that nobody is happier for a writer finding success than I am. And I mean that sincerely. I am not jealous- I am not petty. I am HAPPY for them.

In the past six months or so, however, I've noticed a huge shift in the writing blogaverse and it's really beginning to get to me and makes me question if I should even be reading writer/writing blogs and Tweets and all at all anymore. If I should be the outsider in the group any more or just quietly fade away.

That thing is that, due to the huge surge in self-publishing, almost everybody I know now has a book out.

And for many of them, it's all they talk about.

Ever.

And it's boring as hell for the rest of us.

Now, I know I might not win a thousand blog followers by saying something that's not entirely nice sounding (not that I ever expected to anyway--follower counts mean little- it's reach that matters when it comes to blog stats anyway) but I don't care. I have always been honest and real with all of you, shared my troubles and hopeful times, and shared as much of your real lives as you would share with me.

So even if this is the last blog post I ever write- I feel I have to warn you that some of you are in danger of losing your audience.

Egos are spinning out of control, folks, and it ain't pretty.

Now some of you folks, a rare few, I have to take my hat off to you because (and I'm not going to name names because I risk leaving someone out with my brain being what it is) you do the marketing thing VERY well. I mean that, from the bottom of my toes. You ROCK it. I mean I even know of one incredible published author who I won't name but whose book has been turned into a screenplay (and she has more books on the way) and this author amazes me with how she does it all. She's a class act all the way and when I grow up I want to be just like her.

So it CAN be done, WELL.

Those who do it well talk about other things on your blogs- your families, your passions outside of writing (music, movies, your day job, video games, ANYTHING...) You are fun and interesting people and it makes me WANT to know about your books. It makes me want to buy them and read them and tell people about them and drive your sales numbers up as much as I personally can.

Others...

Guys, please remember I'm only saying this cause I love you...

Some of you are losing us, the audience you hope most to market to. Because you just don't know when to stop.

If your every Tweet is about the book you have out, had out a year ago, or will have out in the future- I will stop hearing you.

If you endlessly tweet LISTS of people you want me to follow- I will unfollow you in no time flat. I have to ration my eyesight, I don't have time for spam.

If your every blog post is about every nuance of your book and characters and sales and promotion, it's a commercial, every time, and I just can't take it. And I know I'm not alone.

Most people would not tell you this- they would just silently unfollow you and that's the end of it. And you've likely lost a reader, or as you may think of it, a potential sale- for the duration of your writing career. I'm telling you because with a little dialing back, you may retain the people you'd otherwise lose.

I am not saying my opinion matters. I'm nobody.

But I'm a nobody at a point of frustration and posting this so my brain doesn't explode.

That's right, I'm first to tell you that I'm nobody. I'm not published, I'm not agented. Right now I don't even know if I ever want to be either at this point in my life.

I just love writing stories. And I have kept this blog to connect with people- really connect- and give them a place where they feel they can hang out and be who they are.

But now so many of my writer 'buddies' have ceased to be who they were.

They have been swallowed whole by their books. That's all that's left. Sales figures. Promotion. Presence. Branding. Blog tours and marathons.

How I love you guys, but some of you are making it so much harder to love you these days. (and I'm sure most of you will probably hate me after this.)

I'd just like to remind you though that before you think too much less of those of us who haven't made the leap yet (for many and varied reasons) that with self publishing- now anyone and everyone can have a book out. I could have a book out too. I really think that soon more people will have a book out than not. That's where we're headed. At least, anyone who wants to.

And lest anyone think I'm dissing my indie author buddies-- I'm not. If you went the traditional route I'm not completely impressed by that fact alone either because the traditional people also published Snooki and the Kardashians. So the book has to stand on its own feet, to impress me.

I'm just asking you to consider this.

As important as it is to you that your books sell and you create an audience- please remember that the friends who were with you before you were published- however you were published- are the ones most likely to still be with you if it all went away tomorrow.

Don't drop us the second that you become an 'author'.

Remember us, and we will be your most loyal cheering section, fans, and friends too into the bargain.

Sell us out the second you're published and we will remember, with great sadness, how quickly you forgot.

~bru

Forward: A New Year's Eve Audio Blog

2011-12-31T14:12:00.000-05:00

Background: my painting Across the Universe

(Highlight the text below to see the transcript, if your computer can't play sound clips)

Happy New Year, everyone. Thank you for your care, concern and support in 2011.
xoxo
bru
Strange creatures, we, who begin our day in the middle of the night.

Instead of days turning over with sunrise, light thrown upon the land and all among the trees and hills and rivers and mountains upon it, we strain to see the morning in the blackest dark of midnight.

That makes no sense to me. But then so little in this world makes sense to me.

You’d think it would be better to start a new day, let alone a new year, when you can see where the hell you’re going.

But we don’t. We seek daylight in darkness, even as we seek hope in darkest days.

Twelve AM arrives in waves across the globe, sweeping past already in my heart where it lies and leaving my body lagging behind in another time zone to follow.

We light the night with artifice, beautiful, glimmering color that can (and sometimes does) consume the thing that holds it.

The canvas upon which we paint these colors is still darkness.

Most drink they say to celebrate but I’d wager more to try to forget.

Some like me face the dawning of the new world without the comfort of such dangerous and impossible company; as sober as one with a mind wired for fireworks ever can be. We (I) live in our (my) own perpetual, internal intoxication; a gift and curse, a magic that defies both hope and description though treated with equal parts prayer and prescription. They may try to scare or medicate or therapeutically manipulate it out of us but it remains.

At least, for me.

The new year begins in the darkness of the last night of the darkest year of my life.

It’s already passed by, where it matters to me.

With the coming of midnight in the Eastern Standard Timezone I hope to be sleeping.

Gathering from my dreams, if I can, the strength to find a way forward in the new day, because there is no way back.

Regardless the numbers on the calendar, for me time seems to stand still, frozen on a point from which I must free myself, somehow; repeating to myself again and again six simple words: Forward, for there’s no way back.

Wishing you a year of momentum moving forward in all the right directions in 2012

~bru

Keep Shining On

2011-12-22T22:46:00.000-05:00

I have no words right now, my friends.

I'm trying to find them again, but tonight they're just not there.

Neither is my voice, or I'd sing to you.

So since I can't find it right now- I'll share what may actually now be my favorite Christmas song of all time.

Watch until the end- the fireworks are beautiful.

Happy Holidays, whichever ones you may be celebrating.

I'll try to post something real tomorrow, if I can.

love,
bru

PS To Steve Parrish: I'm still trying to come up with the 'how and why'. Nothing could touch what you wrote. If you guys haven't read this- read it.

An Open Letter

2011-12-15T17:10:00.000-05:00

Dear Toys for Tots Recipient Parent,

Thank you.

Thank you for working so hard, day after day, to keep your kids clothed and fed.

Thank you for the countless, thankless jobs you do, every day.

For the meals you skip, so your child won't go hungry.

Thank you for not giving up.

Thank you for the fact that you keep on trying, even if putting one foot in front of the other feels impossible and some days you don't know how you'll find the strength to do it.

I know many of you are trying to raise your kids on your own- without the benefit of a partner.

Times are so tough, and there's so little to go around.

Some of you have made choices that most people would find unimaginable-- like going without your own medications so that you can fill your child's prescription.

I wish there was more I could do for you.

I know it is so little, really, in the end- an armload of toys to be distributed to children I won't ever meet.

I know it doesn't solve the big problems, which, frankly as a disabled person myself I don't always have the answers to for myself, let alone for everyone, like I wish I did.

But it is a joy beyond my ability to explain to you that I am able to choose and send a toy for your child, and I'm grateful for the chance to do it. For the chance to be reminded how lucky I am to have a roof over my head and food in my fridge.

One thing I have to ask, though. I want you to do something for me.

When they bring in those toys for your kids this Christmas, hold your head up high. Know that though you may not have been able to buy them yourself, you earned every single one of them.

Know that this formerly single mom (who once had to adopt out beloved pets because I couldn't feed them and my two year old) understands a tiny bit of your world, even if not by far the whole of it.

Know that people do care.

And please know what an honor it is, for me, to be able to buy a gift for your child, because I can't buy them for my own anymore.

You see as of last year she's rejected the holidays. Her birthday, even, and for the most part, me along with her 'old life', with her new teenage religious values.

I won't even get to see her this Christmas, on her sixteenth birthday.

But I love her just the same-- more than she'll ever know. And I will be remembering how we burned (okay, how I) burned the cookies and she laughed because I ate the burnt ones anyway. How she decorated the little dollhouse with beads and strings of ribbon. How she used to squeal with joy at the sight of all the pretty packages.

And so for her, and for your child, I did what I could do. I wish it could be more. I wish it could be toy stores full.

All I ask in return is this.

Please hug your child an extra time for me, this Christmas morning.

When they wake you up at the crack of 'oh my god is it morning?' and you don't even get your slippers on let alone coffee made before the joyful ripping of paper is begun.

Treasure, and savor it knowing that there is a mom out there who would give everything, just to have her child back again.

Our children are the true meaning of the holidays- whichever you celebrate.

May we give them a world more peaceful, and hopeful, in 2012.

Sincerely,
February Grace

PS to all my friends and readers- it's not too late- please consider tossing an extra toy in your cart this year for Toys for Tots. I met a woman earlier this year who told me a story about how, as a child hiding at a women's shelter with her mother, the doll she got from Toys for Tots was not only her only Christmas gift that year but one of her only toys in her childhood- and she loved it dearly. I won't ever forget that story. I ask you to remember it with me.

The Third Brightest Object

2011-12-08T10:40:00.001-05:00

When viewed from Earth, Jupiter can reach an apparent magnitude of −2.94, making it on average the third-brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus. (Mars can briefly match Jupiter's brightness at certain points in its orbit.) ~Wikipedia

A few months ago, the primary care doctor who has had the misfortune of calling me one of his patients for the past dozen or so years looked at me and sighed.
Aside from the day he informed me that he believed I was in the process of having a stroke, so many years ago, I don't think I've ever seen him look so worried.

"You scare the hell out of me, you know," he announced, as he assessed the swelling that had ballooned me up into something that looked like the ill-begotten offspring of a marshmallow and the Michelin Man. We didn't realize yet it was the first sign that serious side effects to new medications was setting in.

I told him the medications scared me. That I didn't like them, didn't want them.

"You're bipolar. You don't get to be afraid of medicine anymore," he said. "You've been up there, on Jupiter, for a very long time now, February, and it's time for you to join the rest of us down here on Earth. You're not going to like it. But it has to be done."

I don't like it.

After my body went toxic mid-November from that first medication and I had to stop taking it immediately (which is not recommended but was necessary) I was sick, really sick, for about two weeks. Then the immediate slam of the new med; which has slowed my brain down so much that I don't feel that I recognize its workings anymore.

One day I woke up (literally) and looked around my house as if it was somewhere I'd been before, a very long time ago, but that in no way could ever be called home.

Nowhere in this world feels like home.

The closest thing I can compare the experience to is the way it feels when you come back to your house after a long vacation; you observe things about it that you didn't realize about it in your day to day life before you left.

How long has that pile of (clean) socks been on the armrest of the couch? Why does he always leave them there until they accumulate? When did I paint that painting? I don't remember using those colors. Why is everything so blurry?

Why is my head so quiet? Where is the music? Where is the flying, continual stream of words and thoughts that rush through my head under such pressure, like water from the end of a garden hose when you press your thumb down over it? Where is the sound? Where is the spark?

Where am I? Who am I?

I spoke about the fact that I don't know who I am anymore to my therapist. About the fact that, since I began taking the lithium that I don't--can't-- write the same way--except for poetry and in very short bursts. That I am not the same person that I was and I do not know who I am and it scares me.

She said, "You're going to be someone different now, but someone better. Someone healthier."

Healthier? Maybe, if you define health as eating, sleeping, and staying alive.

Better?

As I stare at the open draft of my still unfinished, beloved novel--I am entirely uncertain that's so.

She told me to go ahead and call the doctor, about perhaps reducing the dose. I'm waiting for a phone call..

I am, it seems, forever waiting.

And I'm tearfully homesick for Jupiter, though I know I can't ever go back.

Swimming The Stars

2011-11-26T00:01:00.001-05:00

How high can sweetest dreaming soar
when stars are strung with net
and as the prey of fisherman
the mermaid now must fret
held in her cove by tidal seas
as azure sunlight sets
her tears as salty as the brine
-near to heaven as she'll get

~February Grace

Swimming The Stars by February Grace 11/20/2011

Hope In A Bottle

2011-11-20T21:58:00.000-05:00

They say you can't catch lightning in a bottle.

Can you capture hope?

Can you distill it down from an elemental salt into powder and seal it into little portions?

Twice a day, once at bedtime, once in morning.

The past weeks have been a trying, dangerous time.

And I say that as someone who had fifteen surgeries in the twenty three months between April 2009 and March 2011.

As one who spent most of 2010 getting torn down, pulled apart, rebuilt; gaining, losing, regaining sight; shaping bone upon layer of bone so savagely destroyed.

Twenty three days at one point without solid food.

Thirty-three days on IV antibiotic infusions that generally required more than two tries apiece to get the vein to hold- some days as many as four.

To put it bluntly- I have been through some stuff.

So when I say that it's been difficult, I mean it's been difficult.

To be driven from sleep and eating by this twisting, anxious thing called a 'mixed state', then spend months with your brain being altered continually by medicines of one sort, only to have it turn on you and cause serious, dangerous side effects and reactions that send doctors who never register concern in their voices into a near tone of panic as they say "Stop it, now. Really, right now. Don't take your next dose."

No weaning off. No gentle shift in mood or physical reaction.

SLAM!

Face first into the brick wall.

You get so sick, and you shake and you churn and you sweat like you're dying of fever and wish at points you would. Then you sleep. For days. Because your body and mind cannot do anything more- there is nothing more to give. You are spent.

Then they start again- with something else- and you stare at the pill and you cry and wonder do I really want to do this? Is it really even worth trying to do this at all? Then you see the faces of people who say they love you- and you see the bright brown eyes, rimmed with artful lines of perfectly applied liner--the eyes of your sixteen year daughter-- and you know that you have to try. You may not want to, ever again. But you have to. So you do.

You do it. You swallow the tears and the pill whole, all at once. And then you can do no more for the moment, there is only to wait.

Soon it's pedal to the floor again only in a different gear this time and you feel and hear the grinding as it strips you down. You wonder if this is how normal thought is supposed to feel- if anything feels like it's supposed to feel or if anything you ever felt ever did.

And you start to wake up a little, only this time you think- hey, that other stuff really was making me sicker all along than I realized, physically. No wonder I felt like I'd been dragged behind a team of horses.

And you even think of prose and poetry about it though you can't work on your novel (NaNoRebellion may be a fail for this year- but there are still 9 or so days left...and hell I'm alive, that's what matters right now)

...and you begin to think about painting and you think that it might be nice to just sit and read a book for a little while in the new-born silence.

So you do.

You have poetry come to you in bursts of short lines that you can't write down fast enough.

And you think about how you've always written poetry- and how the research supports the fact that the poets always were the craziest of the art community lot, statistically.

I wish I had the genius to go with the madness. But one takes what one is given.

All the time you wonder, will this be the pill that makes it all fall apart?

The little pink capsule of light or doom, so unassuming--better or worse than tiny dark pills or shiny yellow?

Will it undo the faltering threads that remain of me, unraveled into nothing?

Will this be the one that mars my skin, rots my teeth and makes my hair snap off? Send my weight into the stratosphere where my mind has so rarely but memorably resided?

Or is this my best chance at solid ground? Drawing on a well of strength to build on a wall of earth to count on--for safety, for shelter. With land below once more and heavens above, replacing upside down that has been for so long.

Will it take the colors-- remaining vision and the light?

Will it tremor my hands and imprison my soul, take music from my fingertips, keep words from my pen and my paintbrush from all canvas?

Was I serious when I meant that I'd give all those things up if only to be normal? Too late to wonder now.

Will it be the thing that finally sets me free? Some unimagined ray of heaven or unforeseen sliver of Hell...some part of each but somehow best of neither?

Only time can say what's so.

Someday perhaps I'll learn

Someday, maybe in hindsight, I will know

...if you can catch hope in a bottle, and absorb it.

No Words Today- Just A Song. Because When I Can't See Anything Else...

2011-11-14T12:42:00.000-05:00

...I can still see music, in all its beautiful colors.

Back To Square One (or) I Wouldn't Wish...

2011-11-11T23:52:00.000-05:00

...immediate discontinuation of major medication on anyone- not even my worst enemy (if I had any. I don’t.)

Amazing how fast the positive effects go away, but how long it takes the adverse reactions to stop.

Ten days until next doctor’s appointment.

The Plight of the Extreme Introvert In Our Virtual Society (or why catching up on blogs makes me tired…maybe you too)

2011-11-10T00:01:00.003-05:00

The great thing about visiting your friends’ blogs is it’s like going to their house for a party. You visit, look around, make a little conversation, listen to a story or two.

Now imagine going to dozens of houses in one night…

I Just Have To Say It

2011-11-09T11:14:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I just have to say it: Not everyone writing for NaNoWriMo resigns themselves to writing “crap”.

Nano 2011, I call “Welcome to my HellNoWriMo” because I’m a NaNoRebel- I’m writing, rewriting, and editing.

Just like a real writer.

Some new words…
“There is a shadow side to Quinn, since boyhood, that he can never escape to completely stand in the light. His is a soul divided by halves, and not neatly down the middle as by tailor’s shears. The edges are exposed, ragged, and as sharp as broken mirror.”

~February Grace

Just Around A Corner That's Still Really Weeks Away

2011-11-07T11:49:00.000-05:00

It’s much too early.

Everywhere I go, look, am.

Plastic antlers.

Singing Santas.

Tinsel overhead.

Why can’t I at least have autumn?

Why must they remind me every second with marketing, glitter and fabricated families what my own will never be again?

--

Bonus: Since I didn't post for the last three days: a new, 42 word poem.

Unnatural Cold

Mother Nature knows too well
I'm frozen now beneath
interior of snow
draped in ice's silken sheath

a sterling blade to pierce my heart
and bleed me to the core
for love is love forever still
...love is love forevermore.

~February Grace 2011

Up, Up, And Away: What It's Really Like

2011-11-03T14:32:00.000-04:00

It's so dark.

Cold.

You're stuck in the mud. Jammed deep down into it and you can't move.

Thenthere'ssparkandthefuseignitesandthere'sliftoffandsoaringandwordsandcolorsandmusicandstarssocloseyoucantouchthemandcitylightsbelowandthemoonandcloudsandlivingtwilightandyouarethemusicandthemusicisiridescentinvividultravioletcolorsandyou'renotwatchingthedisplayyouarethefireworks.

I saw my(new/wonderful)therapist again today:

“You're pretty manic right now...”

“ItbeatsthelivinghelloutofthewayIfeltearlierintheweekwhenIfeltlikeeveryonewouldbesomuchbetteroffifIjustvanishedfromthefaceoftheearththishastobesomeimprovementright?”

“Yeah. We have to watch this.”

So we're watching.

In the meantime I have words to write flowers to paint and music to see living colors in.

But I know it can't last.

Even the detritus of fireworks descends to earth as dust after the pyrotechnics detonate.

Heartfelt Thanks

2011-11-02T11:21:00.000-04:00

Love to all who read, commented, and emailed in response to yesterday’s post.

Words fail.

Thank you.

Jury is still out on new med adjustment: as with all things, time will tell.

…and I linked my latest painting to the sidebar yesterday.

--

PS My NaNoWriMo blog, in case anyone wants to peek…I'm a rebel this year and proud of it!

…because I promised him that I would be okay if he hung up and went to sleep.

2011-11-01T11:26:00.001-04:00

Isolated.

Empty.

Useless.

A liability to everyone in my life.

That is the actual running list going through my head right now of what I amount to in this world.

That’s where I’m at right now, in this moment on a day when I’m doing absolutely anything I can to pass the time including saying this publicly because I promised someone very dear to me that I’d do whatever it took to get through the day here, while it’s very late at night where he is.

Whatever it took. Even writing a stupid blog post.

So I’m doing it- including going over 42 words for the first time since my experiment started. But I warned you it’d happen sometimes. And hey, I’m only about 12x over, so what the hell…

Why is today any different than any other?

Today is the day I wanted to take a razorblade to every painting I’ve ever done.

Today is a day when even more destructive thoughts have turned inward on me with a more frightening power than at any time I can remember before it.

What have I become?

What the hell am I doing with my life- when not a damn thing I do matters and no matter where I go from here, no matter what choices I make, someone I love will feel hurt?

Not even the things I thought mattered matter to me now.

Here’s just one insignificant, ridiculous example—a tiny keyhole into the much larger mess that is my soul.

It’s day one of the closest thing I have personally to a religious holiday (Nanowrimo) and where was I at 12:01 am?

Not clacking away at the keys as I have been every year since my first Nano back in ’08.

No. I was in bed.

At night.

ASLEEP.

On the first night of Nano.

Though it’s really more appropriate to say that I was ‘knocked out cold’ because I don’t think the dosing on the new medication regimen is working for me (because following it repeatedly ends up in me being knocked out cold) and so I’m opting to go to new shrinkdoc’s plan B option starting tonight. We’ll see how that works.

So.

How are you?

I know the answer for some of you is that today you’re in about the same place mentally as I am. Sorry to hear it. As the band James once sang, “Sit down next to me…”

For others there’s that adrenaline rush of Day One going on and I say yay and more power to ya- wish I felt it and who knows maybe it’ll still hit me somehow (and don’t worry non-nanoers I don’t plan to Nanoblog here if I do end up doing the Rebel thing as I’d planned this year for the first time (no shiny purple line or winner’s badge if I finish but I just need to get myself writing- anything- somehow, and this is my last ditch chance or else I finally have to accept that for me being a writer really is over.) I have another blog to do that on and I will utilize it if the mood strikes. So this will be the only mention of it here until it’s over (or at all should I decide to just forget it this year.)

So, I’ve made ten minutes go by, typing this.

Only twelve hours and thirty-four minutes until tomorrow.

Oh, and one more thing before I go- this is for you, Jules:

The Darth Vader coffeemaker does make hissing noises- it is NOT the caffeine, the bipolar, or anything else talking there- it DOES, and proof is showing here (and doesn’t it look all sweet and normal when it’s closed up! But we all know what it looks like when the lid is lifted…I swear, this video clip has not been tweaked or enhanced in any way- it really sounds like this.)

Too much stress. Can’t think. So I’ll try to amuse you instead.

2011-10-28T00:01:00.000-04:00

Someone at Black and Decker has a sense of humor- or am I the only one who sees a familiar villain in my coffee maker?

Dunkin' Donuts: Official Coffee of the Jedi- good and evil.

Also showing here: cat, hugging teddy bear.

New artwork to be posted this weekend (hopefully).

Happy Weekend!

Her Assimilation Is Complete

2011-10-27T09:46:00.000-04:00

Try to see or talk to my daughter and get silence or texts like this:

Miss u too. I'm really busy for the next couple weeks, maybe after that or something we could do something. Love u *hugs*

‘or something’ never happens.

To remind myself that I still am a writer: 42 words from something not too un-recent.

2011-10-27T00:01:00.002-04:00

All was still.

The sheet of rain that cascaded down over the windows all night long finally altered now, as the first light of day began to bleed through the billowing canopy of gunmetal sky, seeking the relative solace of ground.

Famous Last Words

2011-10-26T00:01:00.006-04:00

So long I tried to hide the pain.

I drew this* on a dark day last August.

If you’re putting on a brave face but not okay, you’re not alone.

Help exists.

It’s not perfect.

But it’s help.

Tell someone.

You matter.

---

*Of course, this applies to husbands, dads, and single/child-free people of both genders and medical problems as well as psych stuff. I just drew it as it came to me.