Home Archive by category "Bloggish Things" (Page 9)

Category: Bloggish Things

Thoughts, essays, and comments from the writers of Turtleduck.

I Am Not Prepared

Tell me I’m not the only one who lands in this boat every blinking time I/they turn around. I had every intention of being prepared. I like to write my TDP post on Sunday, edit it a bit on Monday, and go through it once more quickly Tuesday before I post it. Alas, that didn’t happen this week. I blame the shingles vaccine. Don’t get me wrong–I’m very glad to have the shingles vaccine! I’ve heard shingles itself is horrible. But I hadn’t planned to get the vaccine on Sunday, and then I did, and I hadn’t planned for it to knock me on my butt, since vaccines rarely slow me down–but this one did. I started dragging Sunday afternoon, and by Monday morning I could barely get out of bed. I told my boss if the zombies had come that day, I would have blended in just fine. So anyway. Not prepared. I didn’t prep my food for the week either, or get water and now I have to go tonight and it’s storming, and… Anyway. Speaking of boats, I’ve been watching Drain the Oceans on National Geographic. It’s more fascinating than I expected, though I’m not sure why I’m surprised–it has shipwrecks, secrets, archeology, and history. What wouldn’t I love about that? Last night’s episode (watched twice because I fell asleep watching it the first time, see above re: vaccine) was especially good, as they were searching for slave ships and other wrecks that illustrated that dark time…

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Any Procrastination in a Storm

Good afternoon, friends. It has come to my attention that I am bad at priorization. I say that because I’ve been working on my book description for Hallowed Hill for like a month now and have yet to finalize it. But neither have I finished anything else useful in that time frame. You see, my brain seems to work like this: Have important project that needs to be done Panic because important project is IMPORTANT and must be done right Decide to work on other, less important projects because Important Project is overwhelming, and then at least things get done Cannot focus on other projects because Important Project is outstanding Fall apart Play Solitaire I’m really good at Solitaire. Earlier in the week I made a list of everything that needs to get done in the hopes that I could then make some headway because it was all written down, but instead I’ve only done one thing and have been existing in a vague form of panic. I’m getting real sick of my executive dysfunction here. I have Things To Do. And I swear I used to be way better at this. Like, I would sit down and get things done. And I could work on multiple things and make progress on all of them. Is this leftover COVID trauma? Is my brain going as I get older? Well, it will all get done eventually. Maybe if I sic my children on me. Like, tell them I need to be…

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My Body, My Head, and I

Why are bodies? as the kids say. Or, translated: Why are bodies so demanding? I’m a writer (obviously) and editor. I like to live in my head, which means I tend to ignore the fact that I’m not a brain in a jar. Sometimes my body makes demands, and when it doesn’t get what it wants, it complains — increasingly so, as I get older. This summer I’ve been trying to pull myself out of the sedentary lifestyle that I’ve been seduced into by the pandemic and its attendant anxiety and depression. I love walking anywhere there are trees, but Toronto’s summers are humid and gross (and our winters and sometimes our springs are damp and gross; we have beautiful autumns, though). I enjoy doing yoga at home, where I can go at my own pace and modify as much as I need, but I can’t seem to make the habit stick. My beloved dance community ran for a few months in the spring after its pandemic hiatus; I’ve made it to only one dance so far, but am hoping to go regularly when it restarts in autumn. Then there’s that demanding body. First my ankle complained. Then the ankle healed but my knee started acting up. Now I’m having a recurrence of an old wrist and shoulder issue…plus an eye issue that came up in the spring and isn’t going away. Most of these aren’t huge problems, but they’re all annoying and concerning. Especially because they’re getting in the…

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Announcement: Making Some Tweaks at TDP

Hello readers and loyal fans! You’re getting a bonus blog post from me this month because we’ve got some adjustments to tell you about. As you may have noticed, the last few years have been…kind of a lot, as the kids say. Here at TDP, the four of us are writers, but outside of TDP we also have families, health challenges, and day jobs to juggle, on top of, well… *gestures to the world at large* So we’re pulling back on the monthly free content. Instead of a yearly output of 10 freebies (short stories, serial installments, poetry), we’re moving to 4 freebies. The weekly blog posts will stay the same. We’ve been putting out 2 longer works (novels or anthologies) for sale each year; we plan to maintain that schedule or even increase it if we can. That may mean you’ll see a range of lengths, not only full-length novels. We’ll indicate the length (novel, novella, etc.) on the marketing copy for each so that you’ll know what you’re getting, and they’ll be priced accordingly. We’re excited about these changes. Some of us shine the most as writers with stories that have more space to breathe, and we’ll be able to focus on the kind of storytelling we love best. We’ve been writing more serials lately, and now we’ll be able to explore those middle lengths even more, which in turn opens up more storytelling possibilities. And in general, writers do their best work when they’re not scrambling for…

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Smarter Than the Machine

Years ago when a friend bought herself a fancy new car, my favorite thing about it was the backup camera. I’m an aficionado of the “where’s this road go?” school of exploring, you see, and sometimes you need to be able to turn around in very tight quarters. And my usual partner in exploring is really bad at telling me when to stop. She’s afraid she’ll send me and the car tumbling down a mountain, I guess, so instead we get a move like this. I wanted a backup camera. Really bad. My car is a 2007 Corolla. She (my Precious) came with a three-CD changer as part of the stereo. So that led to…well, I don’t like to listen to commercials, and I hate DJs talking. HATE. So I made two CDs of some of my favorite songs, and stuck those and a CD of soft jazz for headache music in, and they stayed. For years. YEARS. Sometimes I’d put a song on repeat, and not notice for a couple days. Once the child and I were headed up the mountain, and halfway up she asked if we could please just turn the music off. She couldn’t take that song one more time. Recently I did something about both problems. I had a new stereo, with screen, put in my car, and I had them install a backup camera. When the tech was showing me the basics of my new system, he told me to “play something” from my…

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Why Perfectionism Sucks

About a week ago, I read an awesome poem on Instagram. I follow a lot of poets on there, and I collect prompts and post my own stuff and generally try to participate in the poetry community when I can. Anyway, this poem inspired me, and I commented to the poet that I “might write an after poem inspired by it.” (An “after poem” is basically that — a poem inspired by another poem, or a response to it). The poet was obviously excited and happy to read that because she said, “Please, please do!” So I did. The poem was on “All the Places I’ve Lost Myself.” But my version didn’t quite hit the mark; in fact, I believe I veered completely off course. As one does. Oops? I wasn’t happy with it. Well, it wasn’t bad per se. It just wasn’t what I was hoping for as an after poem. If you recall, these Instagram poems are part of my Bad Poetry Project, so they don’t have to be perfect. But all of a sudden, the perfectionism monster reared its ugly head. One revision, I told myself. Just to get it right. I had some better ideas. I was sure I could nail it. And…I almost did? But not quite. Not quite. Now, here’s the problem. I am a total perfectionist. I know this about myself. I’m not allowed to make mistakes, not allowed to be anything less than 100% perfect. Why? I suspect trauma — being bullied,…

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Like Riding a Bike?

Hey, guys, how’s it going? I’m going to have a book coming out in October through Turtleduck Press! But it’s been a long time (since City of Hope and Ruin in 2016) and I’ve realized I’ve got to relearn all the marketing stuff that I haven’t touched in a while. (I did put out two short story collections, containing stories I wrote for TDP plus a few new ones in there–The Short of It (2017) and Half-Formed Places (2021)–but those are different beasts entirely.) Between life and the pandemic and everything, I had a hard time keeping on top of what I was supposed to be doing, let alone extra things like keeping up with marketing trends and new methods, but the day has come to jump back in. I actually went to a webinar this morning! And I’ve promptly forgotten most of it, though my understanding is that they will send the video out so I can watch it again. The biggest thing I remember is that she recommended getting a launch/marketing specific calendar and putting everything on there, so it’s all in one place and you’re keeping track of it. Sounds good to me! Maybe it will come back to me, like riding a bike, but I’m skeptical. Bike riding is always the same, and marketing techniques are always changing. But I am excited to have the book coming out! It feels good to have something done after all this time, and especially after the last couple of…

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Vegetable Gardening, Low-Stress Edition

You might have noticed that the world continues to be incredibly stressful even as the pandemic settles down (please please please). Personally, I’m done. I mean, I keep half an eye on the news and take action as needed, but I’m trying to be ruthless about cutting out or reframing my approach to things that don’t need me to stress about them. Take vegetable gardening. My spouse and I just celebrated our tenth anniversary of being homeowners, and we’ve been growing vegetables for most of that time (thanks to my having grown up with a dad who grew up on a farm). I’ve coddled them, I’ve researched weed control, I’ve carefully staked and pruned my tomatoes, I’ve mourned when something got hit by a pest or a blight. This year I didn’t have the energy for any of that. I asked my spouse to pick out and order whatever vegetable seedlings (baby plants) he wanted, and I would help plant them. Normally we put in some vegetable seeds as well, carrots or radishes, but that’s more my thing, not his; this year, a seed mix of local flowers got scattered willy-nilly in a bare patch. (Some went into pots, too, but for whatever reason, none of those sprouted. Not stressing.) He chose most of our usual things: tomatoes (lots), green beans, various peppers, basil. Then he added watermelon, parsley, mini sunflower, and something called a cucamelon. (Despite the name that makes it sounds like a new and trendy cross, it’s…

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Running Away From Home

Home, in my opinion, should be a place one wants to be, not a place to get away from. But that’s just my opinion. Reality has no interest in my opinion. Reality, sometimes, actively has it in for me. So yeah. Sometimes, I run away from home. On Mount Lemmon, an hour’s fun drive away, the temperature is generally 30 degrees lower. And there are green things! Mountain air! Fewer people! More deer, bears, coatis, birds! (Especially vultures. Not sure why, but there are a lot of vultures circling on Mount Lemmon.) Anyway. You can see why running away has its attractions. As that’s as much brain as I have for words, I’m already two days late…please enjoy some pictures. These are all phone pics this week. I mean to take my camera up soon. Like…Sunday? That might be good. Since it’s still gonna be ridiculously hot down here… It’s been a rough week. Run away if you need to, friends.

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Gluten-free FTW

So, last month I talked about how I’d switched to a gluten-free diet due to a gluten intolerance. I’d just started it, and it was going well. I wanted to give a bit of an update about my progress. 🙂 For the most part, I’ve been doing well. I’ve either been making actual gluten-free recipes, or modifying my own to make them gluten free. That hasn’t been too hard…yet. Except when you are running late and are starting dinner and have completely forgotten that some ingredients aren’t gluten free and you aren’t sure if you have any gluten-free equivalents on hand because this is the first time you’ve made it since going gluten free. Yeah. That happened recently. Luckily, it worked out. I just omitted the ingredient in question and checked that the other one was in fact gluten free (the brand was, thankfully) and all was well. Thing is, my cooking, since the pandemic started, has been what I call “fast and loose” — meaning that instead of figuring out which day I am making which meal on any given week like I used to, I literally decide the night before. Sometimes a few nights ahead if it’s more complicated. So things unfortunately slip my mind. I’m human. And I’m still adjusting. I’m sure at some point this will become more normal and natural and I won’t have to think, “Oh crap, is everything gluten free?” because all of my ingredients will be. I’m still in transition. Which brings…

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