To Nano or Not to Nano, That is the Question

It’s seven days till the big day — the first day of National Novel Writing Month, which is basically Christmas for a lot of us writers who love to participate every year (like me), and I am wibbling on what to do, like my fellow Turtleducker Kit Campbell talked about in her blog recently. Normally, because of work, I’d say no way, or sign up and attempt it and maybe write a few hundred or thousand words and call it “a valiant effort,” and feel like I tried, but damn, the experience was lost, again, because I couldn’t fully participate like I wanted to. It’s been this way for a long time. I can tell you already that I have an editing job hitting at the end of November. Not too bad, but…I have an ongoing job that got put off a bit due to some extenuating circumstances that needs to get done, preferably before this one hits. I have assorted author assistant things happening that are the usual things, but they take time too. It’s all part of my work, which I love, so this isn’t a complaint by any stretch. It’s just…I’m still trying to carve out the time to write more consistently. I can’t seem to manage it. I am hoping I hit upon the sweet spot, that method that’s been eluding me for literal years since I started my business…so I can maybe do something this Nano. It won’t be 50k like it used to be…

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Chronic Stress

Hello, friends, how are you? I’m actually pretty decent, today at least. We’re taking a few days to just rest. Nothing planned, nothing in particular, just chilling and not worrying about anything. Well, in theory. In practice, my spouse has had two work meetings he hasn’t been able to get out of, the kids have whined about being bored, we had a miscommunication about how long to spend on an art project versus making dinner, and I’ve spent about four hours at the pool, which is a lot of pool but I suppose isn’t too bad. (May also have gotten sunburned. Whoops.) I’ve used the non-family time to read 75% of a novel and 60 pages of a nonfiction book, finish revising a chapter and start another, and take a nap (which was not terribly successful because everyone kept coming in to bother me, oh well). And I am purposefully not thinking about anything that’s been giving me anxiety lately–nothing related to school or volunteer commitments, nothing related to the basement flood or the tornado, nothing related to my furnace failing, nothing related to upcoming conventions. Will I have to think about all those things tomorrow? Oh, absolutely. Dance classes, a book study, an email to the other volunteers, choir practice, the furnace people and the landscapers, my neighbor whose wife just died. But those are for tomorrow. Today, we let ourselves relax. Today, we find joy and comfort where we can. I can’t imagine the chronic stress that we…

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Dabbling in Languages

I’ve always been a linguistics geek, dating back at least to Grade 8 when I did a presentation on the language family tree (none of my classmates found it as fascinating as I did). I still get lost in Wikipedia learning new things. (Did you know that Romanian has a lot of Slavic in it, despite being a Romance language like French, Spanish, and Italian?) And don’t even get me started on writing systems. One of the things I found most fascinating about India, when I visited ten (!) years ago, was that every state had not only its own language (many unrelated to the others) but its own alphabet. Northern India uses Hindi as its common tongue, and southern India uses Tamil, but if they’re going to speak north to south, they resort to English. Which is why there’s more English on the signs than you might expect, even in non-tourist areas… Unfortunately for me, I’m not a polyglot (fluently multilingual), though not for lack of trying. I’ve learned tiny bits and pieces of Klingon (really!), Spanish, ASL, and Hindi. Like most Canadians, I studied French in school and came away with enough knowledge to read food packaging (and occasionally other things) but not to converse fluently — especially in Quebec. I also studied Norwegian in university, enough for me to get by quite well on my first solo trip overseas, visiting extended family in Norway. That meant I could more or less understand written Danish and spoken Swedish,…

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A Rustling in the Bushes

Well, here we are again. I had honestly begun to think it wouldn’t happen any more. It’s so easy to tell other writers that their muses haven’t abandoned them. It’s just a dry patch. You’ve got a lot going on in your life. It’s tough times for everyone. We’ve been through hell the last few years. The creativity will come back! Telling yourself that, though–no, that’s easy too. But believing it? Now that’s hard. Once upon a time, story ideas tackled me frequently. The kind of ideas that would grab me by the shoulders, or maybe the neck, and shake, demanding to be written. It hasn’t happened in a long time. Like, a really long time. Oh, I’ve had ideas, like maybe once or twice a year. And sometimes I even wrote them. But they weren’t the kind that pounced me like Tigger or Hobbes would do. Maybe the ideas that jump me like that aren’t better–in fact they probably aren’t better than something I’ve really thought through–but dammit, they are fun. And it’s happened. A great loud song I’ve heard a hundred times collided with a picture of a smartass redhead (have you noticed I have a thing for smartass redheads? Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention.) and an unrelated news story in my head, and BAM! KD is flat on the floor under a very self-satisfied tiger. via GIPHY Looks like I’m in for some fun coming up, and I’m quite excited about it. I’m poking writer friends…

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Another Update on the Bad Poetry Project

I didn’t want to update on this so soon, but I just have to give you all my news…. I have FOUR poems accepted for publication. Three for Naked Cat Literary and one for Free Verse Revolution. I am very, very honored, proud, and excited. I knew that someday I’d get there, but the question was when…and lo and behold, both acceptances came in my email the same day. How’s that for wild? I’m still on Cloud Nine. Today I just submitted another poem to Naked Cat Literary (love that name!), the one that accepted the three poems. Interesting story about this acceptance. I sent my poems in. I didn’t hear anything, and they had mentioned in their Twitter (X?) feed that they were starting to send replies, but didn’t indicate that they’d sent all of them yet. So I sat tight, waiting, on pins and needles. During this time, I had a weird prescient feeling that they would be the first ones to accept my poetry. Why, I couldn’t tell you. It just was. So then a week or so later, they tweeted that they were working on their next publication. And I wondered, were they done sending replies? And I hadn’t gotten anything? Not even in my spam mail? Hmmm. Time to politely — very politely — nudge. So I did that, via Twitter, and overnight they’d tweeted me back that they’d look into it (they were very apologetic, which I appreciate) and when I got up the…

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Playing Catch Up All the Time

Hey, friends, do you ever feel like you’re always catching up on things you should have done a while ago? Like, you can never start the day with a clean slate, because something’s already hanging over your head? Just me? Cool, cool. September is traditionally a busy month for me, and things–more things than normal–seem to get left by the wayside. So I spent today catching up on things–this blog post, some surveys for one of my kid’s schools, a bunch of important emails that I’ve been ignoring (still more of those to go, ugh), three emails worth of Moby Dick (I’m subscribed to Whale Weekly, though it’s not consistent on arrival), two chapters of a book for a book study, etc. It’s exhausting. My to-do list app has about six items in the red, and they’ve been there for about three weeks. What’s one to do? Is there a point where you abandon the things that haven’t gotten done? Change their due dates? Make sure you’re fitting in new things instead of always focusing on the past? I wasn’t one of those kids that was super eager to grow up, but I wasn’t against it. Little did I know adulting would be all never-ending to-do lists and eternal house repairs. Oh well. It is what it is. How are your Septembers going? Ready for spooky season? (Yay, spooky season!) Enjoying Across Worlds with You? Thoughts on the eternal drudgery of life?

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Emerging

So I’ve been pretty open about how my mental health has been undergoing a beating, mostly from the pandemic but also other factors. Every once in a while, though, I catch a glimpse, a shift, something unfurling just a little bit. August has been like that. In July, work finally settled down, and I had two weeks off in a row and one of them involved unplugging at a camp on a lake. That was the reset I needed. I still haven’t been writing. But I’m reading more/faster again — I’ve zoomed through my last four books — and more deeply — I almost missed my subway stop a few weeks ago. Can’t remember the last time that happened. Last week we finished Good Omens 2 and I developed a brief obsession. I talked my spouse’s ear off about it. I thought about doing a couple’s cosplay, even though that takes waaay too much executive function. (I am so much like TV Aziraphale it isn’t even funny, though my spouse isn’t particularly like TV Crowley, thank goodness.) The song that weaves through Season 2, “Everyday” by Buddy Holly, got stuck in my head for a full week. It finally cleared out when I fell down another rabbit hole, thanks to KD — a cappella folk/trad groups. First there was VoicePlay. (That’s their YT channel. I’m not going to pick just one video to share, because I can’t choose!) Then there was Geoff Castellucci, the lead singer of VoicePlay, who also…

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Another August Survived

Almost, anyway. Two more days. I got this. Is it silly to say I’ll miss it? As busy and draining and wild as it is, I do love the rush of August. I wouldn’t mind doing it twice a year. No, that’s not true. That would throw me off so much. Like anything else, a school year has a rhythm, and each season brings its own challenges. August ends, we settle into September, and boom! It’s October. Fall break and the scramble to get things done while the classrooms are empty. Many of the great plans from the beginning of the year aren’t working, so rearranging and rethinking are in order. Not to mention fixing all the things we’ve been getting by with–new holes in the walls, old glitches in the heating in that one classroom…and then we’re back, and it’s second quarter, and holy CATS how is it nearly Thanksgiving break?? I certainly should be used to the rhythm of the school year by now. It’s hard for me to believe, but I’ve been working in schools for over twenty years. Many times I’ve said that I don’t know how people work in regular offices. How do you cope without regular incursions of the small and squirmy? Do you just…not have swearing teens stomp through your office demanding that their parent be called because that woman is traumatizing them? How do you manage week after week in which no parent shows up with a baby sibling to coo over??…

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So…how’s the Bad Poetry Project Going, Erin?

Well, I am glad you asked! Seems like a good time to give you all an update. But first, do you know that I started the Bad Poetry Project three years ago? Mama mia, where did the time go? I have been writing poetry like a mad thing. Yes. More than fiction, to be honest. (I’m up to 11,000 words of fiction this year, which isn’t too bad considering everything, but I was hoping for more. So I’ll be working on that, too.) Poetry is easier because it’s quick, it’s efficient, and there’s a set beginning and ending. Plus, I can sit here and pound out a poem while doing my work. So it lends itself to being squeezed into pockets of time better than fiction. Not that I like it better, per se. Just that it’s been easier as of late. So, yeah. More poems. I’ve also been using Instagram prompts, which have been so useful, because sometimes I’ll start with a nebulous idea of…something, but I’ll have no idea where or how to start. So I’ll just be like…spinning my wheels. Prompts give me a place to start it ….a leaping off point. I collect them every month from poets who regularly post them, then mine them for inspiration later. It’s very effective. I’m still writing in Esperanto, also, which has been a blast. But …drum roll please…I’ve started submitting my poems to literary magazines! Yes! I’ve taken the plunge! I haven’t done this in over twenty years,…

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Imposter Imposter Syndrome?

Hidey-ho, friends. Pay no attention to what day of the week it is. Let’s talk about Imposter Syndrome. The Oxford dictionary describes it as “the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills.” Writers run into this periodically, even famous, best-selling authors. Not necessarily about works of the past, but current works. “Oh, sure,” one might say, “that book is great, but this new book is trash, I’m a hack, it was pure luck that I have gotten anywhere,” etc. But what I’ve found is…sometimes that feeling is justified? There have been times where I have written something that has felt like pulling teeth, that feels pedantic and repetitive and uninspired. It feels bad. Just bad. And while most stories do go through a “this is bad and I am a hack” phase (normally in the middle somewhere), sometimes something is truly bad, and when you give it to your betas or your critique group, they do come back and say “oh, no, you’re right, something’s missing, this isn’t working.” It’s not Imposter Syndrome if you’re right, and it actually is bad, right? So if you’d asked me last week if I was a good judge of whether my own writing was actually bad, or just me going through the tough phase of the story, I would had said I was pretty good at telling the difference. However, I spent the last weekend pulling apart…

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