Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing this wonderful Wednesday? Things are still in the wait and see part regarding Medicaid. I have to say, this is a ridiculously long wait, even for them. But yeah, the current administration isn’t ruining anything by firing everyone willy nilly. It’s all perfect. Anyway, other than that, our week has been interesting. Our TV finally died after 18ish years. It was a great TV. Panasonic. Now, Dad’s looking for a new one. He’s looking at the 65″ range because it’ll fit in the entertainment center he built. All we’re really wanting is the best screen quality. We’ll stick with a Roku device for streaming and our sound system is great, so speaker quality isn’t important. We just want a TV with the best picture. Dad’s looking at an LG, but we’ve never had a good experience with them in other devices, so he’s a little wary of them. There’s also a Sony he’s looking at, but it’s a bit pricy without any reason we can see for being so. What are your favorite TVs? Recommendations? Feel free to leave a comment here or on my social media pages!
From 2016. Entertainment center in the background. Can’t find a better picture.
Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? Things here are okay. Dad’s trying his hand at a hydroponics garden for herbs and lettuce and stuff. He got one for some herbs recently and when they sprouted it made him happy, so he decided to build a bigger one. There will probably be pictures in the future when it’s all set up and things start growing. He used to have an herb garden out back, but the trees blocked all the sun and they died out. It’ll be nice to have fresh stuff again! Plus it means he has to use the stuff, which means more cooking. Huzzah! Anyway, today, we’re here to relive the trauma of Sunday, January 26th. I would’ve written about it last week, but… book review. Here we go.
The culprit (pictured above from when we first got her): Sophia.
Background: The previous few nights, Sophia woke multiple times and needed to go out, which isn’t unheard of, but is unusual for her. Since she spends her nights in a crate, Dad had to keep getting up to let her out. By Saturday night, he was sleep deprived, so when she cried to be let out, he decided to just let her roam. If she peed in the house (which is why she gets crated), whatever. Then, he went back to bed.
The scene: Sunday morning. Dad walks into a bloodbath. The white leather couch is covered in blood, along with the throw pillows. It’s all over the floors; living room, hallway, kitchen. The back patio has splotches of red with raspberry jam looking clumps. Dad looks for whatever poor corpse our dogs have destroyed to no avail. But Sophia is laying in his chair obviously worn out. An inspection reveals blood on her nether regions. She moves around fine, not showing any signs that she’s in imminent danger of dying. She’s just bloody (though not actively bleeding) and lethargic. After a mini heart attack, Dad cleans up and gets me out of bed. We decide I’ll stay up all night and we’ll take her to the vet first thing on Monday because we can’t afford the emergency pet hospitals around here.
The verdict: Dad and I are sure she perforated something, but she’s still alive albeit lethargic on Monday morning. After an hour of trying to get through to vet (apparently their phone system was down), I emailed them on the off chance they’d see it (they don’t check their email often) and got lucky. They said to bring her in at 11:30, so we did. After a bunch of questions and a couple of blood tests, they came back in and nonchalantly told us she had Hemorrhagic Gastroenteritis which was probably precipitated by a bout of Pancreatitis, though we couldn’t figure out what she would’ve eaten to bring that on. They gave her subcutaneous fluid because she was dehydrated and sent home some antiemetics (not because she was vomiting, but because it would soothe her stomach), antibiotics in case a bacterial infection was contributing to it, and some probiotic to help with her gut life. And they said and did all this like it was the most common thing in the world. So, she had a severe tummy ache and decided to traumatize us with it.
Like that, but with blood.
By the end of that day, Sophia was mostly fine again. Now, other than still taking the antibiotics, she’s back to her usual piss-on-the-floor-if-left-unsupervised self. So yeah, that was fun and expensive. Let’s not do it again, please.
Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing this wonderful Wednesday? I don’t really have much to say today. Back on the 12th, my friend Astrid sent me this message: Happy Birthday, you majestic shimmer of light in the watery darkness of the world! May this year be better than anticipated! I took a couple of days to answer her (and everyone else that day). My reply ended up being: I was going to say something along the lines of “this year can’t be as bad as I expect it to be,” but cue NG and all his bullshit. It’s going about as expected. XD Thank you, though! Let’s sink into the darkness together!
Gaiman, who could have been anything he wanted, turned out to be the same boring, invasive species of pond scum that we’ve all become so inured to that it isn’t even surprising. Hell, we’ve got one sitting in the White House right now making dumbass decisions that are going to ruin our economy (which was finally starting to heal after he wounded it last time) and destroy any progress this country has made toward being halfway inclusive and people are actually proud of it. It’s all just so fucking disappointing and yet it’s still what I expect of this year. Nazi Musk? Par for the course. But I don’t want to rant or rage or cry, so I’m just going to bottle it all up and sink into the darkness.
Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone’s Wednesday going? Things are fine here. It’s that time of year again where I’m supposedly getting older. Tomorrow (the 12th) is my birthday. Probably just going to order Greek for dinner and spend the day writing. Unless I use it as an easy day and just goof around. Haven’t decided yet. Anyway, I’m skipping the book number thing this week in favor of a random about me thing. I don’t know why I started doing this. It takes forever. But whatever. I’m 37, so here are 37 random things about me.
Tomorrow, anyway.
1. I’ve written creative words every day this year. A whole 10 days. I’m trying to stick to a schedule where on Sunday, Tuesday (or whatever day I write my blog post that week), and a lazy day of my choice, I write 100 words on the current novel attempt. The other four days, I’m aiming for 1,000 words. At least until I finish a first draft (the goal is approximately 90,000 words for this one). It’s basically my old schedule, but with no zero word days because it’s too easy to talk myself into quitting right now if I don’t write words. So far, so good.
2. I haven’t gone anywhere (where I left the van) aside from yearly doctor appointments and a couple of trips to a hardware store that’s usually empty since Covid started. I’m mostly okay with this.
3. I do miss going to restaurants and the occasional concert, but that’s about it.
4. Telehealth visits are wonderful. It means we don’t have to drive all the way to UT Southwestern just to wait 45 minutes for a five minute chat. I like my doctor there and wouldn’t mind meeting her face-to-face (we haven’t because my old pulmonologist retired after Covid started, so computer visits were already a thing when she took over), but I like not having to leave the house too.
5. I’ve become fond rye and ginger beer.
6. Kraken rum and Pepsi is pretty good too.
7. I’m not a sot. I swear. I have a drink maybe once a week.
8. I still have most of my Kah reposado and Republic anejo tequilas. Mostly because I don’t have anyone to sit around and sip booze with once in a while, but whatever. If I were a tosspot, they would be gone.
9. It’s that time of year where I panic because I have a scratchy throat (Flu! Covid! Dying!) only to remember that it’s Mountain Cedar season, so my options are living with a scratchy throat/excess mucus/sinus headache or live in a Benadryl/Zyrtec haze for the next couple of months if things get unbearable. This is just my life now.
10. I despise ordering groceries from Kroger. There’s almost always some kind of glitch on their website. They never tell you what’s out of stock until it’s too late to modify the order. Canceling orders is ridiculous and there’s a 50/50 chance it’ll still show up. Plus, most of the time, they don’t have a previously ordered section to make life easier.
11. Walmart is better, but the few times we’ve ordered dairy or produce through them, it went bad within a few days despite the best by dates being reasonably far away. It’s weird.
12. Amazon Fresh is pretty good, but they have the worst meat selection. The diversity of the selection is good, but they only sell them in one pound portions most of the time. We can’t survive on that.
13. Tom Thumb is our go to, but only because Dad can call them up and they usually fix things. Usually.
14. I’m already running out of things to say about myself in case the ordering groceries mini rant didn’t make it obvious. Talking about myself is hard.
15. I’m great at bottling everything up, but expressing feelings and shit is hard. I keep my responses to everything (good or bad) moderate and I don’t know how to fix it. How do I show excitement or happiness? The anger and rage can stay in the box in the abyss of my soul, but I would like to become better at expressing the good stuff.
16. I’m not a physically affectionate person. At all. I can’t be. It’s not like I can randomly hug people or whatever. And I have a super hard time asking for things that I actually need to survive and/or be comfortable (the whole burden mentality is a bitch to outgrow), so I just can’t see myself ever asking for cuddles or whatever. I don’t know how to fix this either.
17. And now I’m super uncomfortable with the last two shares, but it’s getting late and I still have too many to go, so I guess I’ll leave them.
18. Despite my aversion to being touched (one reason I’m not affectionate), one of my favorite A-Kon (anime convention) memories is of the dude who rubbed all up on me in the Sheraton bar. He asked if he could love on me and then massaged my arms and knees while whispering sweet nothings at me. He asked if I was okay with what was happening every time he switched hand placement. I’ve never felt more comfortable with a stranger touching me. It was weird and innocent and amusing. And I still randomly think of him and hope he’s doing well.
19. I also randomly think of the dude and his friend who gave me a lap dance at Lazerz when I was like 20. That was strange and not something I would let happen now, but I was young and stupid and didn’t really care about being touched as long as something pretty was dancing for me.
20. I know I shouldn’t objectify people, but I can’t help it. I enjoy eye candy. I’m not a dick about it. It’s not like I catcall people on the street or harass them online. I appreciate from afar and mind my manners.
21. I don’t understand expensive coffee. Dad decided to try some Kona coffee and it’s good, but it tastes like… coffee. Same with chocolate and wine and stuff. I’m just not sophisticated enough, I guess.
22. I am eternally tired. It doesn’t matter how well I sleep (not that I sleep well often). I wake up tired.
23. I get irrationally upset when I find a book with a good story and characters I enjoy, but it’s full of continuity errors, typos, and punctuation errors. It’s so disappointing, but I usually rage read it just to have something to rant to myself about at night. So much potential just absolutely ruined by a horrible editor (or lack of an editor).
24. I’ve been working on this list for three hours. I’m so uninteresting. Sorry. But at least it’ll only take you a few minutes to read.
25. I love peppermint bark. In chocolate form or coffee form or whatever. You can’t go wrong with chocolate and peppermint.
26. I always say I need to catch up on anime or tv shows I don’t watch with Dad, but if I have time, I end up playing mindless games while listening to loud music.
27. Years ago, I stopped playing video games because crippleness (my last big mobility loss affected my arms and hands and I lost the ability to lean forward on my own). That was before adaptive controllers existed. Now, I hesitate about getting back into them because they are/were addictive. I get sucked into my mindless games occasionally. Can you imagine what would happen if it was a game I actually liked?
28. I wouldn’t mind dancing around and being stupid with people. I don’t think I’ve done any dancing with others since Stonecoast. Used to dance at anime conventions and clubs. That’s not happening any time soon. If I had local friends aside from the Minion, I’d say we have a backyard, but everyone is so far away. You guys suck. Not really.
29. My coping mechanisms for life in general could probably be better. A dark sense of humor and self-deprecation have helped me survive this long, though, so I won’t change anything.
30. I started following other cripple people on social media and found out that pee math is a thing cripples have to do. Calculating how much they can drink and knowing where the bathrooms they can use are, etc. I mostly eliminated that a long time ago by training myself to just hold it, but I still have to do it for all day events. I have to know which drinks I can have and when I can have them so I can make it home. Or we have to drag my lift with us and that’s more trouble than just doing the math. But yeah. Pee math is a thing you know about now. You’re welcome!
31. Amazon started doing Kindle Reading Challenges and the only thing I get out of them are little bookmark icons that do nothing and can’t be seen by anyone but me. They don’t even send a congratulations for completing the challenge. But I get so ticked off if I fail to get one of the stupid things. Is that weird?
32. Mardi has me trained to go get her when she nudges my feet and whines while Dad’s out in the garage or running errands. Then she just wants back down two minutes later. Spoiled pupper is spoiled.
33. I’m currently craving flan and I don’t know why. It’ll pass.
34. I’m far too old and boring to be making these kinds of lists. There’s nothing interesting about me that people don’t already know. Ugh.
35. Surprisingly, I’d rather be working on the novel than this post. I never thought that would happen. But I’m sure as soon as I schedule this and open the file to write my 100 words it’ll be like pulling teeth. I’m never satisfied with anything until I’m done.
36. Holy shit. This post is about 1,700 words according to the WordPress word count thingie. No wonder I hate it.
37. Gott Ist Ein Popstar by Oomph is a decent song to end this list to. It’s what’s playing right now.
Sorry for the length. As always, feel free to leave comments or whatever here or on my social media pages!
Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this week? Things here are good. I’ve been writing and all of that fun stuff. Fingers crossed that I can keep it up! But, I’m not really here to talk about that right now. It’s my birthday tomorrow (actually today when this goes live), so I thought I’d do another “getting to know me” type post. Instead of 36 random facts about me, I decided to look for one of those A to Z questionnaire things. They’re shorter and I don’t have to think as much. I randomly found this one during a Google search, so here we go.
A… If you were an ANIMAL, what would you be?
Probably some kind of fish. One of those ugly deep sea fish with the little light lure thing on its head. An anglerfish, I think. That might be cool.
B… BOOKS: What’s on your reading list?
Right now, just the book for January’s review post and one I ended up with to review in mid-February. Otherwise, my list is mostly the same as the last time I posted about it, but I’m slowly chipping away at it and randomly adding new stuff. I’m sure I’ll run out of stuff to talk about and share a list soon enough.
C… COMPULSIVE about anything?
Far too many things. I have a few weird rituals that I do repeatedly throughout the week, mostly when I’m in my lift for an extended period of time. It’s stupid and does nothing, but it makes me feel slightly better.
D… DREAMS: Do you… dream in color? remember your dreams? keep a dream journal?
I don’t journal at all. And it’s rare for me to remember my dreams. They’re either super mundane or straight up nightmares, nothing in between. Almost always from my own perspective and in color.
E… EATING: What’s your usual snack?
I don’t really eat snacks unless Dad and I are having a lazy day. I guess chocolate mostly. I’ll have a piece before bed if that counts as snacking. Chips if we have them. Once in a while, popcorn. Or whatever leftovers are in the fridge.
F… A Few of your FAVOURITE Things?
Food. Animals. Books. I could go on, but you just asked for a few.
G… GIGGLES! What (or who) makes you laugh? Do you have a good sense of humor?
I basically have the sense of humor of a 12-years-old boy. It’s not hard to make me laugh. Dad jokes, puns, innuendo. I’m not picky with my humor. It ranges from actually funny to completely inappropriate.
H… Major HOT Button:
I don’t really have any. I know I should probably care about stuff more, but the truth is that people are going to think what they want regardless of what I say. The only reason I ever debate anything with people is because I’m bored, but then I just get annoyed, so I don’t see the point in it.
I… I am:
A cripple. A writer. My father’s daughter. And much more.
J… JOBS: What do you do? What have you done? What would you like to do?
I’m a writer. That’s about it.
K… Also KNOWN As: Aliases? Screen names? A non de plume perhaps?
Cyn, because my old screen name was cynicalcripple and my friends were too lazy to type it out. Sak or Sakura for basically the same reason. I also have a pen name, but I haven’t published anything using it yet. When I do, you’ll know.
L… I LOVE:
Dad. Jen. Danielle. Heather. And some other people.
M… How do you feel about MEETING people? Do it all the time? Rarely? Parties or 1-on-1?
Please don’t make me. I’m not good with people. If I have to, I prefer email or text.
N… What’s the story of your NAME? Were you named after anyone? Do you go by a nickname? Any aliases?
I was named after Sean Connery and Nichelle Nichols.
O… OBSERVANT: What’s around you right now? What do you see?
My desk and armoires and sticky notes and tins of peppermint bark. Darkness outside my window. I have the front camera on, so I see the vans and trailer and truck. The heat is currently on. I can’t really smell anything because allergies suck. My ventilator is whooshing. I’m too lazy to keep listing things.
Old picture, but similar set up.
P… Who are the special PEOPLE in your life?
Just Dad, really.
Q… Any Little QUIRKs About Yourself?
I have a lot of quirks, but I can’t think of them off the top of my head. What quirks do I have?
R… What do you like to do for RECREATION?
I read books or manga. I watch anime. And I play mindless games while blasting music as loud as it will go. I’m not an exciting person.
S… Do You SING in the Shower? In the car? For your friends?
I try to only sing when I’m alone or the music drowns me out. Sometimes I slip up. Ah well.
T… What’s at the Top of your TO DO list?
Writing. Need to get back into a rhythm.
U… Any UNUSUAL Experiences?
Far too many to talk about here. Maybe in a different post. But I did have a woman sing a full on gospel version of happy birthday to me in a dance club bathroom, then she told me I was beautiful and if anyone told me different she would slit their throat. I stopped letting my sister drag me into public bathrooms after that.
V… VEGAS, Vienna, Venice, Vladivostok: How far have you travelled? What’s your favourite City?
None of those places. I do remember stopping in or near Verona, New York. Pretty sure that was the place with the awesome La Quinta. I’ve been all over the eastern side of the U.S. and up into Canada. I’m partial to the northeast.
W… WINTER, Spring, Summer, Fall: What’s your favorite season? What makes it special?
I live in Texas. We get summer and a couple of weeks of winter. Summer is better.
X… EXes: They are ex for a very good reason.
I wouldn’t know. Don’t have any.
Y… Any secret/deep YEARNINGS?
Unless you count milkshakes as secret desires, no. Not really. I’m good.
Z… ZERO to ZENITH: Where are you in your life? Still growing? On an upward (or downward) curve? Just skating along?
Pretty much just skating along right now. I think that’s what most people are trying to do thanks to COVID. Hopefully things will eventually get better.
Howdy, howdy! I was cleaning out the notes on my phone yesterday, when I came across something from one of my workshops at Stonecoast. This particular group was led by the lovely TheodoraGoss. Just about every day, she would send us off with questions to think about and we’d discuss our answers the following day after we finished our critiques. One day, she asked us to list seven things we believe. There were no guidelines beyond this, so things went in a lot of different directions from what I remember. Anyway, I thought I would share my old list and make a new one.
It’s just a pretty picture.
The old (2014) version, in no particular order:
1. I believe music keeps me sane while inspiring me.
2. I believe growing up and acting your age are scams created by people who are jealous of the young at heart.
3. I believe in priorities: food, sleep, and eye candy.
4. I believe life is too short to be serious all the time.
5. I believe family is more than blood. It’s the people who love you and keep you around because of your flaws.
6. I believe coffee and booze were created to be mixed together.
7. I believe the angels punted my soul into the wrong body at birth. I should’ve been Japanese.
I just found this, so I thought I’d put it here and save it for later.
As you can see, I wasn’t very good at the whole introspection thing back then. Spoiler alert: I’m still not. I still completely believe in all of those things, especially the boozy coffee one. But I thought I would give it another go now that I’ve graduated and have no one to ask me these weird questions anymore.
Here’s the new (2018) version, also in no particular order:
1. I believe there is more than one way to be a professional writer. As long as you get words on the page and out into the world, it doesn’t matter if you write every day or not. Find your own rhythm.
2. I believe binge watching anime (or whatever makes you happy) is good for the soul and cleanses the mind. Not every day, but once every couple of months, just to give yourself a break from reality.
3. I believe puppy kisses have magical powers to perk people up.
4. I believe it’s important to surround yourself with people who have different viewpoints/backgrounds than you. Along with the understanding that we don’t always have to agree, but that we can have civil discussions if we put in a little effort.
5. I believe in a thing called love! Please tell me I’m not the only one who remembers that song.
6. I believe it’s perfectly reasonable to buy a book just because the cover is pretty.
7. I believe in myself. This is not something that even crossed my mind when I was originally asked to list things I believed. Despite all the rejection and failure, I’m finally at a place where I can say that I believe in me. I will succeed. Eventually. At something.
Yeah. That song by that guy.
There you go. Seven things I believed back then and seven more from now. What are seven things you believe? Feel free to leave your list here or on my social media pages!
Hello, hello! Last Thursday, I sent out a few of the queries I was talking about in my last post. Friday morning, I woke up to a form rejection from one of the companies that declare a no from one agent is a no from all of them. They didn’t even take the time to personalize it with my name or the title of my “material,” and the signature wasn’t from the agent I addressed my query to, but instead from an associate agent. It had been sent at 8:04 in the morning. I thought my first agent rejection would be devastating, that it would be so much harder to take than all of the other writerly rejections I’ve received. I was wrong. A form rejection that basic was pretty much the best first agent rejection I could have asked for.
Cute animal memes help.
First, I suppose I should explain what a form rejection is for people who might not be sure. It’s basically a vague letter turning you down. Most of the ones I’ve gotten have an “it’s not you, it’s us” vibe. They start with a firm no, usually followed up by explaining that your story doesn’t mesh with what they’re looking for, and ending with something along the lines of “feel free to submit to us in the future.” Most of them are polite enough to include your name and the title of your story, at least in the realm of magazine/ezine rejections (not sure about agent rejections yet).
What do form rejections mean to me? Honestly, they tend to be an indication that my story didn’t even make it out of the slush pile, that it probably didn’t even make it to human eyes (and I might be entirely wrong, but it’s what I like to think). The places I submit to get hundreds of submissions a week. There’s no way they can read each piece and give them the attention they deserve. Slush readers weed through the ever-expanding piles and do their best to pick pieces the editors will enjoy or grab names that will bring in more readers. I’m guessing a similar process occurs in the agencies. I might not appreciate the whole process, but I understand it. As writers, rejection is a part of the game and we can’t question each one we get.
Okay, but only for a little while, then back to work.
So, yeah. A barebones form rejection from an associate agent was exactly the kind of rejection I needed. It doesn’t mean that Garnets and Guardians is unwanted trash. It doesn’t reflect on my writing in any way. It simply means the agency wasn’t hooked by my query, if they even read it at all. And that’s okay. I’m more worried about when the rejections get personal, because then I’ll know it’s my fault. I might start getting really discouraged at that point. Until then, I’ll just keep writing and submitting and collecting my rejections. That’s all I can do.
Don’t let the rejections get you down!
How do you feel about form rejections? If they get you down, do you have any kind of ritual to help improve your mood again? Feel free to share any thoughts, stories, questions, or whatever here or on my social media pages!
Hello, hello! I didn’t really know what to write for today, so I asked around, and a friend suggested that I share some advice that I would give to a younger version of myself. I think she meant like one of those open letter posts. This isn’t really going to be that. I don’t even know if this is technically advice, but I thought I would share some words. I can guarantee that young me wouldn’t have listened to any of it, though.
Okay, super young me might’ve listened, but not teen me.
I suppose the first thing I would say is that you’ll be okay. Life is fluid. It’s always changing and it will shape you, eroding certain things away while building up others. You will grow to be cynical and dark and quiet before you figure out that the world is generally good. You will learn early on that life isn’t fair. People will tell you that you can do anything. A staircase to a second floor with no elevator will prove them wrong. Most of the time, you’ll find a way around the obstacles presented to you or you’ll move on to something else. You’ll take these experiences and find your reality within them. You’ll find yourself.
A lot of the time, you won’t like who or what you are. You won’t be able to change the things you want to, so you’ll accept them. A morbid sense of humor will help with that. At some point, you’ll even realize that a lot of the things you don’t like about yourself aren’t as bad as certain people make them out to be. You do have feelings. Your capacity for love and caring is greater than most people will ever know. They will tell you differently. You’ll even believe their words for a while. But that will pass. You’ll never be the kind of affectionate and sentimental person they wanted you to be, but that’s okay. That’s not you.
Most of my high school years were spent looking like a boy.
People will come and go as well. The toxic people who drag you into the darkness won’t always be there. Sometimes life will take them away and sometimes you’ll decide you’ve had enough. Yes, you’ll be strong enough to tell people to go. Even people you love will leave. It’ll hurt, but you’ll be okay.
You will eventually surround yourself with people who have wildly different world views than you do. You will care about them even when you disagree with them. And most of the time, you’ll keep your opinions and beliefs to yourself so you can keep the calm. Occasionally, you’ll pose a question to stir up debates among your friends when you’re bored. Then, you’ll sit back and watch the chaos until you get bored again. Mostly, though, you’ll try to keep things peaceful.
Twenty-one was a lot longer ago than I realized.
Like I said, you’ll be okay. You’ll be dark and cynical and quiet and loving and sarcastic and weird and so much more. But most of all, you’ll like who you are. You’ll still struggle with what you are on occasion, but everyone does. You’re not alone. Life, like the world, is generally pretty good. So, even when it seems like you’ll never be happy again, remember that the good will always come back around eventually.
Howdy, howdy! I was really having a hard time deciding what to write about when a friend sent me a text thanking me for being the voice in her head asking if she was at least thinking about writing. It gave her the nudge she needed to stop at a place after work and take a little while to have a cup of tea and write some words. She hadn’t written in a while, but she wanted to, so I told her I’d pester her every day or so until she started writing. The second day of pestering and she’s already making time for it. That’s what happens when you’re held accountable for things like this, you make time for them.
I know, Cas. I know. I’ll go do that.
I don’tknow about you, but I always work better with deadlines in place. At school, I could knock a ten page paper out in one night if I had to, as long as the research was done ahead of time. Deadlines meant grades. In the real world, missing deadlines affects the pay from the day job. In other words, deadlines carry the threat of consequences. But what’s going to happen if you don’t finish a novel? Unless you have a contract with a due date, nothing will happen. So, how do writers overcome this lack of a threat and finish things? We hold each other accountable.
In the beginning, I didn’t really understand how holding each other accountable would work. After all, if I don’t push myself to finish something, why would someone judging me for it be motivational? Turns out that guilt is a powerful tool. If I set reasonable goals with people and don’t reach them, I feel guilty. I don’t care if the end of the world pops up, if people know I planned on doing things and failed, it sucks. It also helps that I’m mildly competitive, so failure and losing are not an option. I won’t be the only one to not meet my goals.
Mixed signals achieved.
According to people I’ve done this whole accountability thing with, it also works by legitimizing their craft, especially when they have jobs. They have trouble taking time out of their schedules to write because they feel like it shouldn’t be a priority even when they secretly (or not so secretly) want it to be. Having someone who will pester them and encourage them gives them an “excuse” to make time for writing.
You can’t keep waiting when there’s no last minute.
So, even when deadlines aren’t an option, we can still motivate each other by holding each other accountable. We might not receive any real negative consequences if we don’t meet our goals, but we’ll have to live with the shame of disappointing our friends. Who has time for that?
Do you have any friends who pester you about your creative outlet? Does accountability work for you? How? If not, what do you do to stay productive and motivated? Leave a comment here or on my social media pages to share your thoughts!
Hello, hello! I was at a loss over what to write for today. My usual plea for topic ideas proved unfruitful this time. Then, I realized that I have never shared my journey to writerhood on here. At least I don’t think I have. Feel free to stop reading if you’ve heard this story before.
I’ve always written. Stories, poems, the occasional attempt at a comic strip (but my drawing skills failed me there). I never really wanted to be a professional, though, so I’m a little different from my friends and fellow writers who have wanted to do this forever. My crazy job goal was always a fashion designer, but when I figured out that wasn’t going to happen, I set my sights on more obtainable professions.
Dallas Hall at SMU. This campus is where my plan tumbled down.
I went through most of my time at college (both community and university) waffling between psychology and English. With psychology, I could help kids like myself. After all, all the psychologists I saw walked into the room and presumed to know how I felt. It never seemed right to me. At least I would appear a little more relatable than they did to me. I also kept returning to English because it was easy and I enjoyed it. In fact, by the time I transferred to SMU (I went in as a Junior), the only degrees I had time to finish were psychology and English.
Since I had a semblance of a plan with psychology, I initially decided to go with that major. It was going well. I passed all my classes with fairly high grades (never less than a B). I really got into abnormal psychology, especially the class that focused on disorders in children. I aced my research class paper. But I still kept taking English classes as well.
Try having the debate with yourself. I still secretly prefer APA.
Then, that fateful day came. Dad was walking me to class after a stop at the campus coffee shop and we were talking about majors and what I was planning to do, when he asked the question that shattered my little plan. “How’re you supposed to be a psychologist when you don’t like people?” He was right. I’m not a people person. I don’t like to pry. I’ll offer advice when asked, but beyond that you’re on your own. What kind of psychologist would I be? I could go into research, but I don’t even like that. Thus, I became an English major.
Don’t fall for the hype!
What was I supposed to do with an English major? I had zero desire to teach. So, I took some creative writing courses, found out that I still enjoyed writing, and dipped my toe into the big bad world of writerhood. And that’s how I found myself on a path that would take me to Stonecoast and onto a place where I could live with the voices inside my head without having to worry about people.
How did you decide to pursue the path you’re on? Did you always know you wanted to do it or did it spring itself on you? Tell me your story in the comments or on my social media pages!
Shawna's Blog of Doom 