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Month: April 2021

Whiff of Death, Manuscript Style

Last week I had a Moment. It was more than a moment long. I fell into despair. I’ve been working on this book for a year. It has been, as most anyone would agree, one hell of a year, and I’ve been trying to write this book the whole time. And I, in that very long moment, hated it. I never wanted to look at it again. Everything was wrong, it was all wrong, it was trash and it would never be anything but trash. The characters were boring, the plot was stupid, and I can’t write anyway. I suck. But I’ve been there before. When writers advise other writers to “finish something, no matter what” this is part of why. I’ve finished a number of books at this point, and I know now that every book I write has that moment. Also, it’s not just me! Many authors know that awful moment. I’ve talked friends through it more than once. Neil Gaiman wrote about it. The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber,…

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Searching for Consistency in Chaos

Yeah, that’s basically been my life for…gosh…since August of last year? Not counting COVID, just business stuff, now. Somehow the editing part of my business exploded and I started getting jobs way more frequently than usual…one after the other. While this was totally awesome and lucrative, it required some adjusting — from the way I structured my workday to the way I scheduled each and every job. And, for the most part, it hasn’t really let up since. Which is awesome. And a bit rough. And then we also have COVID in there, and the usual life stuff, and my health crap and and and… So things have been seriously off kilter for awhile. So much that I haven’t written in months. One of my editing clients, who I routinely talk shop with, asked me the other day how the writing was coming along and I had to honestly tell him that I’d written 181 words in January and that was it for the year so far. And some poetry. And in years past I’d written every single day. My least prolific year back then was around 86,000 words, back when I spent a bit more time editing than drafting. My most prolific year? 399,000 words. Four standard novels, folks. But back then I had 9-to-5 day job. I came home, ate dinner, and wrote. Rinse and repeat. For years. It was not only a routine, but a comfort. I knew I could always go into my worlds and play.…

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Car Repair Interlude

Hi, friends! How are you? I’m screaming internally but am otherwise fine. Let’s break things up by having a car repair story. Ah, cars. So useful, and yet occasionally so frustrating. Especially when it’s a silly problem. Like, on my last car, there were these trim pieces around the wheel wells. And every so often one of the trim pieces would fall off, and I’d have to go get a new one put on. Sometimes I only went a few weeks between having to go get new trim pieces. In the great scheme of problems, not a big one. It’s not like the trim pieces affected how the car drove at all. But the repeatability of the problem and the number of times I had to go in for it eventually drove me mildly insane. Eventually I had all the trim pieces taken off for my own sanity, though it turns out they were either holding the edges of the car body together, or maybe the car body was just put together a little unevenly because they knew it’d be covered up by trim pieces. Who knows! Anyway, so in November, I got a new car. The old one was 10 years old and starting to have weird problems (one of the wheels was slowly dissolving, which was a new one), so I upgraded. And because everything is computers now, it came with a giant touch screen in the middle that controls all the internal things–temperature, music, etc.–as well as…

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Time to Rest

I’m sure I speak for many of us when I say I’m tired. It’s been a long and extremely stressful winter; for some of us, it’s been traumatic. Social media is showing me memories from this time last year, when there was an outburst of online creativity and caring and memes. We poured our fear and anxious energy into action. We didn’t realize then just how long a marathon we were in for, did we? This weekend, I had four days off work in a row, for the first time since Christmas. (I’m Canadian, so we get Good Friday off, and some sectors also get the following Monday.) I was prepared to crash for two days. Which I did, and thoroughly enjoyed it. On Friday and Saturday, I lounged around in bed, finished a book (reading, not writing, alas), went for some walks, ordered pizza, and that was pretty much it. I was not prepared to crash for three days. But that happened anyway. On Sunday, my big accomplishment was dragging my own butt and my husband’s out to the backyard with a picnic blanket so we could enjoy the beautiful weather. On the fourth day, Monday, I ran around like a madwoman (I have a mental disorder, I can say that) to try and accomplish at least some of the things I’d hoped to catch up on…like housework and dealing with all the vegetables we had just optimistically had delivered Somehow it took me all afternoon to make carrot…

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More Poems!

For our April freebie, I was in a poetry mood again. Here are more poems! Hope you enjoy! ~Erin Before Poetry We are made of star-stuff, Carl Sagan said But before poetry I was not a starEmpty, useless, aimlessstitched together crookedcobbled together with dust and boneand a muttered prayer over me I was not a vibrating pulsating thingmy heart lay deadgray and rottedmy silver strands of meaning severedparting gifts no light of creationcradled within But nowPoetry is lifeblood, red-hot and flowing through my veinsfire and tears, leaving echoes where they touched,It is the burning energy and the searing of passion,shining with silver gossamer light It is the infinitesimal spark of creation,lighting me up like a spirit in the darknessfilling me with purpose and meaningstitching me back togetherto myself Watch as my heart beats again, strong and surealive again Can you see it? It is meStar stuff. Secrets You tuck a strand of hair behind my earand your eyes meet minein them I see a perfect mirror image of myselfOn your bed, caught in repose, aftersweet communion.When I prayed the tide of years wouldn’tdrown usand our love was as vast as the ocean I pulled the Lenormand Fish card todayand it speaks of deep, deep connections Looking into your eyes, I can believe thatour souls have spent lifetimes intertwined We start a slow back-and-forth movement ofswings, our hands joined, our feet drawinginvisible pictures in the grass. I want to trace your fate lineand see if it matches mine— “We’ve much too…

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