Year: 2015

Some of you out there are probably aware of a podcast known as Welcome to Night Vale, which takes the guise of the community radio of a small desert town somewhere in the US where, as I heard it said somewhere, all conspiracies are true. It ranges from being completely absurd (Hiram McDaniels, literal five-headed dragon, often somehow manages to pull off the disguise of being Fred Chen, normal human being) to creepy (there is a faceless old woman who lives in your home whom you only ever see out of the corner of your eye, if at all) to intriguing and sweet and occasionally feel-punching. As a podcast it works great. They have traveling live shows, which follow the same basic structure of the radio show, and is not as distracting as you would think to be able to see the voice actors even though they in no way resemble the characters they portray. But now they’ve got a novel coming out in October and I find myself…conflicted.

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Time for another garden update! Here in southern Ontario, it’s the start of prime harvest season. Early crops like raspberries are over, veggies are coming into their own, and my partner and I just bought finished eating our first basket of peaches – my very favourite fruit when they’re in season. What does that mean for our backyard plot? Well…to be honest, we’re having a stressful summer. First problem: the tomatoes. In past years, we’ve been given seedlings by the elderly Italians next door, and planted them quite close together. This year we bought them from a garden centre and spaced them farther apart. Suddenly they’re sprawling out all over. The main stem of each is staked, of course, but what to do with all the branches with fruit sagging to the ground? I’m slowly building a weird-looking system of multiple stakes for each plant and also trying to prune them back. At the same time we’re battling hungry squirrels and an evil tomato ailment called blossom end rot. Right now the tomatoes are taking up way too many of my mental cycles.

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In 2006, my neighbor’s feral cat adopted me. He was a lovely black kitty, and no one but me could touch him. I named him Ravenclaw and called him my familiar. He was my pal and I was his human. Yesterday I noticed my fuzzy buddy didn’t seem to feel well. Today I took him to the vet, and then, astonishingly, at not even ten years old, I had to let him go.

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Late last year, I blogged about having daily excruciating eye pain and how it was affecting my quality of life. At the time, there seemed to be no answer and no real relief from the pain except prescription painkillers which was The Worst Plan Ever. Didn’t want to become an addict or spend my life in a drugged haze (for the record, all they did was make me extremely dizzy and loopy. Not fun, especially when you were dizzy to begin with…). So I did some digging.

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Ah, the Hero’s Journey. A staple of not only fantasy literature, but an overarcing plot archetype that can be found in stories across time and culture and genre.

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Six months ago, I blogged in this space about how I had lost my way as a writer. For the rest of the winter, I deliberately set writing aside. No pressure, no thinking about writing, just hibernating and reading and seeking out other fun things to do…and enjoying not feeling guilty about not writing instead. The absence of “shoulds” felt amazing. When winter finally started to ease up – and it took a while – I tiptoed back towards writing. So I started some fanfiction. I outlined the beginning of a completely silly novel in a completely different genre than everything I ever write. I brainstormed worldbuilding and backstory for a second, collaborative novel. But none of it is working.

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  Whoops. Guess who totally forgot she was supposed to post yesterday? I blame vacation brain. Lucky, lucky KD Sarge is in Sedona, Arizona this week. It’s been glorious. I’ve climbed rocks and gotten sunburned and seen the Grand Canyon and fallen into adventure (otherwise known as Oak Creek. Fortunately none of my falling was anywhere near the Grand Canyon. That is a looooong way down!) I’ve learned something this vacation. I’ve learned that I need to take more vacations.

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So I saw this great post by Kristin Lamb and thought I’d do one of my own. 😉 Here we go! 1. You might be a writer if…your characters have held an intervention because you weren’t writing (yes, this happened to me. While I was at work no less). 2. You might be a writer if…you spend more time inside your head than anywhere else. 3. You might be a writer if…you know how to do several weird and quirky things because research (my weird and quirky thing is brainwashing. What’s yours?) 4. You might be a writer if…your characters whisper in your ear ALL THE TIME. (Yep, that happens. ALL THE TIME).

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I think sometimes we, as people, get a little over ambitious about things. Big things. Especially big things we know are coming. “I’m going to get married and it’s going to be great!” “I’m going to have a baby and it will be adorable and perfect!” “I’m going to buy my dream house and I will never hate anything again!” But nothing ever works in quite the right way.

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When my partner and I bought our house, one of the things I was most excited about was starting a garden. My father (who grew up on an honest-to-goodness farm) always had a vegetable plot in his backyard, my mother (and her mother) grew flowers, and my new next-door neighbours were a pair of elderly Italians whose entire backyard was given over to vegetables. I felt like I had truly arrived. We’re now going into our fourth year of gardening. The first few were veggies only; last year, we finally had the backyard landscaped and added flowers to our repertoire. Here are some things I’ve learned… 1. The weeds are faster than you think. In early April the temperature was barely above freezing, and the frost date was still more than a month away, but the weeds were already up and going. 2. Easy = good. We’ve grown tomatoes and zucchini year after year, because they take care of themselves. Stick them in, water occasionally, and get all the veggies you can eat. Carrots, on the other hand…the first year they grew stunted (but so. tasty.), while the second year they never grew at all, and this year is looking like a repeat of the second. Alas.

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