I’ve been thinking a lot about birds lately. 

I had a meeting with the rector at the church I want to join. On the way out, he noted my tattoo. 

“Is that a robin?” 

“Yes,” I said. “I got it before moving to Arizona. Robins migrate if the environment they’re in isn’t right anymore. If they can’t thrive.” (There are other reasons it’s a robin, but that’s the one that was most relevant to the conversation we’d been having).

Later that day, I saw a hummingbird taking shelter on my covered patio during the monsoon rain. Which made me think of my boss, who is European and obsessed with hummingbirds. 

Today, I was reading an article from Becca Syme about “not quitting your day job” –  a triggering phrase for writers. But what she’s actually saying is “You have to establish a secure place of emotional, financial and physical safety from which to do your best creative work.” 

Build a strong nest, so you can fly without fear. 

And I started thinking about my two friends and creative co-conspirators. For a long time, that little conclave was a place of unshakeable emotional safety. It, too, brings up thoughts of birds. 

Lunch at the Bird’s Nest Cafe. Girlfriends’ getaways, one at a place called “Taj Ma Coop” (surrounded by chickens), and one in a gorgeous barn called “Birdsong.” That last one was a goodbye of sorts. A last moment together before I moved a continent away. 

I have spent the past three years building a nest. Making a home where I felt emotionally safe. Some of that was literally making my home comfortable. Some of it was finding new friends for new contexts. Or finding new footing in old relationships that had to change. Looking for communities where I felt welcome, not “tolerated.” Moving from being the fun weirdo at the most normie workplace imaginable to being a fun weirdo among … a whole organization of fun weirdos. 

I’ve been kicking my own ass for not finishing or producing much creative work of my own these past few years. But I’ve been migrating, y’all. 

And what people don’t realize is that none of this stuff is one step and done. Each one is a whole back-and-forth dance. Often interrupted by failure, missteps, and experiments with totally uncertain outcomes. Or traumatic events completely out of my control.

I tried wheel-thrown pottery only to learn I hate doing wheel-thrown pottery, y’all. HATE. IT. It looks so fun and sexy in Ghost. Turns out it’s a sensory nightmare IRL. (At least for me. Follow your joy, friend.) 

But this morning, I took a look around. And… I think I did it? I mean, no place is fully insulated from the chaos of life, especially right now. But the life I’ve built? It feels complete. It feels steady and supportive, but flexible enough to bounce when I launch myself into some new thing – as opposed to breaking or falling apart. 

And yeah, there’s some detritus to clear out. Like the sawdust, loose screws, and random pieces of 2×4 left after a major remodel. And yeah, I’m dealing with those things. It’s a nest, not an Architectural Digest spread. 

Nobody can live in those things, anyway.

But also, I’m having ideas again. Story ideas, podcast ideas, weird random project ideas. After a few years of terrifying hollow emptiness where my muse’s garden once was – fragile, tender little shoots are sprouting. Some will be weeds I’ll have to pull so the best ones can thrive. Which is hard, but work I’m better equipped for now that I understand my ADHD a little better.

And if you’re struggling right now, maybe you’re where I was a year, or three, ago. And I’m so sorry, sweetie. It’s a hard place to be. Feeling the wind get colder, knowing you can’t stay where you are, and not knowing when you’ll feel okay again. Or being stuck in between the comfortable past you had to leave, and the future you’re dreaming into existence. Practicing patience not as some moral fiber supplement, but because there’s literally no alternative. Gross. If you’re thinking “this sucks” you are 100% correct.

Consider this a message from your future self. Keep moving. Don’t give up. 

I don’t know how to land the plane of this… Article? Blog? Essay? Letter to my past self? That’s always been my biggest weakness. I’m amazing at takeoffs. I can leap into the sky on a wing and a prayer like nobody’s business. 

Perfect 3-point landings, not so much. I’ve never really been able to master that part.

But that’s okay. I have a safe place to crash. 

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For a long time, I was very good at scanning for threats. Too good. Someone in my life had a habit of casually scattering landmines behind them, and failing to tell me about them. 

It meant I spent years scanning for things that might come out of nowhere and knock me for a loop. A few times, it meant I clocked a threat before it blew up in my face. More often, I felt like a paranoid freak right up until the thing I was paranoid about actually happened. And the fact that I called it didn’t make it suck any less.

So mostly what this meant is that I trained my attention to filter for potential bad stuff. What you seek, you find. If you’re looking for problems, you’ll find them like a magnet finds iron filings no matter how small. Blessings don’t usually smack you in the face and force you to notice them. 

You may have guessed that this didn’t do amazing things for my overall mental health. 

There’s a recent X-Men comic where Destiny, a character who can literally see all possible futures gets called on the carpet for not warning others of danger. And a villain, of all people, points out to her that she’s so concerned with her lover Mystique’s safety, she unconsciously gravitates to visions where Mystique dies. She created a blind spot for herself that prevented her from noticing a thousand possible happy endings. And that hyperfocus didn’t help her avoid a lot of obvious bad stuff. 

I don’t want to be Destiny. But that means I have to break my current habit of attention, and create a new one. What you seek, you find, and I’d rather seek joy than terror and grief. 

HSPs and folks with ADHD are great at absorbing information and pattern recognition, but it’s often indiscriminate and unconscious. We can easily get stuck sorting for only unhelpful information and recognizing only the scary patterns. 

It takes effort to intentionally process the abundance of data we absorb in a helpful way that reinforces mental wellbeing instead of undermining it.

But it also takes a certain level of self-awareness to realize you have a problem that is skewing your perspective negatively, instead of just accepting that skew as “objective reality.” 

That level of self-awareness is tough if you’re stuck in survival mode. Which is where the skew generally keeps you. It’s a self-sustaining cycle. Your negative bias keeps you stressed and scared, and being stressed and scared keeps you from noticing the bias – or anything outside it. 

I don’t have a solution, other than treating others with respect, compassion, empathy, and taking care of my side of the street. (People from my faith tradition might note that this sounds suspiciously like something our Founder said. More than once. One might even say, something fundamental. But I digress…)

As far as the “taking care of my side of the street” thing goes, some things that help: 

• Gratitude journaling 
• Cognitive behavioral therapy, specifically identifying thinking errors
• Constructive Living (specifically, naikan reflection)
• The spiritual practice* of the Ignatian examen

* I’m sure other faiths have similar practices, but I can only comfortably speak to the one I know. That’s the nearest tool I personally have to hand – YMMV.

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f you work in social media or digital marketing, starting over is the millstone around your neck. It comes with the territory. Platforms rise and fall, as predictable as fireworks exploding and burning out over a summer lake. Sometimes you’re sad remembering when it was fresh and fun. Sometimes you’re quietly grateful to see it put out of its misery. 

Indie authors have a similar cycle. Every few years you more or less have to start over, because “what works” has shifted so far that nothing you knew is still trustworthy. 

And of course, as humans, we’re often faced with the prospect of starting over. Maybe life threw you a curveball you didn’t see coming. Maybe it was the kind of inevitable change you prepare years for… then find yourself unprepared to accept. 

RPG players – tabletop and computer games alike – are familiar with the impulse to rebuild their character from scratch and restart a game knowing what you didn’t know before. We call it “Restart Disease.”

That’s the good part of starting over – the ability to apply knowledge you didn’t have before. But still… there’s the temptation to cling to old patterns, even ones you know deep down aren’t gonna work any better this time around. And no matter how much you love the glorious potential of a blank page… starting over sorta sucks. 

This is perhaps a bit heady for an introductory post to my newest blog/newsletter. But I’ve been doing this since 2004. I don’t have any illusions that this blog will be a magic platform. It’s fun, promising and (knocks on wood) isn’t unapologetically platforming actual Nazis. Which is enough, for now.  

My intention is to make this the hub for my personal creative work. Right now what that looks like is … not a lot. I’m focused on some big impact projects at World Anvil, and finishing up my first semester back at college pursuing a film degree. That by itself is a lot of creative output. But over the summer, I hope to spend some time on the following projects:

• Sorcery & Stitches, my cozy fantasy serial fiction, and a related collab with my SPI Girls Kick Ass co-authors.
• Turning my novel Her Immortal Guardian (as Mara Dane) into a horror romcom screenplay in the vein of Warm Bodies, Lisa Frankenstein and Your Monster. 
• Another Cypher System RPG Short, Operation Crimson Veil (spy shenanigans for fans of Man from UNCLE, Mission Impossible, etc.)
• A gen-x contemporary romcom (no working title). 
• Folk Rock Horror – my “Scooby Doo meets Cthulhu meets Fleetwood Mac” worldbuilding project. (At some point, I think it will either become a screenplay, novel or some other narrative project).

That’s… a lot. But you know what? They’re all projects that have been floating around in my head for a while. And I’m grateful that I’m sticking with them, instead of starting over with a bunch of new projects.  

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