Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing this wonderful Wednesday? I’m tired. Allergies suck. Life is a dystopian hellscape. It seems like every time I wake up, something new and worse is happening. And there are still people who are too… I don’t know if they’re stupid, oblivious, stubborn, obsessed, or what… to acknowledge that this is all stuff that’s been done before and is a harbinger of all the bad things (unless you’re a rich, straight, probably white, cis-dude). And to top it all off, we’re on the wrong side of history this time. Anyway, I’m stressed. I’m tired. I panic check my benefits every day just to make sure the Doggies (DOGE) haven’t randomly cut them off.I have more trouble than usual sleeping. My tachycardia is back to acting up once or twice a week instead of once or twice a month. I expect our Social Security payments to stop and am delightfully surprised when they do show up. I’m waiting for them to officially get rid of Section 504 so they can go after the ADA next. I’m angry on behalf of the people who are already being affected (immigrants, trans, women, etc.). I constantly have to remind myself to unclench my jaw. And I’ve been this way since November. So yeah, I’m fucking tired.
Instead of ranting more, I want you to tell me something good. It doesn’t matter how big or small. Don’t try to tell me my fears are unfounded or that I’m overreacting. Don’t try to turn this into a political debate. Just tell me something good that has happened to you recently. I want to know there are still good things going on in this world, no matter how small.
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 everything going on this wonderful Wednesday? Things here are pretty good. Can’t complain, though I usually do. Anyway, it’s time for another one of those pick a number things. This week is 2, courtesy of the fab Derek! I’ve done 13 (you can find the prompt list there) and 7. Numbers 8, 3, 10, 6, 14, 11, and 1 have all been claimed, but feel free to pick one of the remaining numbers. Today’s prompt is “tell me which book had a profound effect on you as a kid.” Honestly, most of you probably already know the answer.
I don’t remember being much of a reader as a kid. I read what I was told to read for school, but never had much fun with it. There were two “book report” projects I remember from elementary school where we got to pick our own books from the school library. For one, I chose The Séance by Joan Lowery Nixon. I don’t remember the story itself, but it was my first locked door mystery and I vaguely remember loving it. It was a little advanced for my age at the time (it’s recommended for 12 years and up and I was like 8 or 9), but my teacher and parents didn’t say anything, so murder and mysteries kind of became my go-to at an early age. But still, it wasn’t enough to get me hooked on reading.
The other book from elementary school was Ransom by Lois Duncan. It actually had a cripple dude who wasn’t useless or inspo-pornified. Of course, back then, I didn’t know what inspo-porn really was and I didn’t care that he was cripple. I just liked him because he was the angsty loner guy and I already had the beginnings of a type (which eventually transformed into my love of fictional psychopaths). But it was about a busload of kids getting kidnapped. I loved it. And it wasn’t enough to stoke my love of reading either.
It wasn’t until 1999 (I was 13) that I really got into reading. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King had just come out and Dad plopped it down in front of me and said to try it. It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get me into reading (even The Hobbit had failed to interest me until later), but it was the one that worked. There was creepy stuff and normal stuff and it wasn’t super scary, but it was something that could happen and that made it awesome (yeah, I was a weird kid). I tore through so many Stephen King books after that. I remember sitting in the library/game area one evening during a hospital stay reading the uncut version of The Stand (I brought it from home, it wasn’t actually in a children’s hospital library) and a nurse came in making idle chit-chat while checking on me. The look of horror on her face when I showed her what I was reading (she didn’t like “scary” books) was priceless. It was my first time seeing a grown person get freaked out over a book. She just didn’t understand why I wanted to read scary things. It was hilarious. But yeah. My early reading habits were strange.
Anyway, I still wasn’t a constant reader after that. I’d go through periods where I would read everything until I burnt myself out, then I wouldn’t read for months. It went on like that until Stonecoast, actually. Ever since then, I’ve learned to read a couple of chapters every day so I don’t burn myself out. And I don’t scold myself if I miss a day or two here and there. But if a book grabs me, I don’t deny myself a good binge either. But I digress. This is all just a big ramble about having to find my way into reading. It didn’t come naturally to me. And it took a while to find the right fit. But that’s okay. What about you? What book(s) had the biggest impact on you when you were young? As always, feel free to leave your thoughts and comments and questions here or on my social media pages!
Hello, hello! Welcome to September. I suppose Thanksgiving and Christmas are some time next week with how fast time is moving. Before you know it, this year will be over and we’ll get to see what 2021 decides to throw at us. My hopes aren’t very high. But I’ve been in a blah mood anyway, so maybe I’m wrong and next year will be great. I’m in one of my burned out periods again. I haven’t worked on the novel in a while, so that’s not getting done this month. Oh well. I just pushed myself too hard too fast. Anyway, being a writer is exhausting. I thought I’d take this post as a chance to whine a bit. Sorry in advance.
Maybe, but maybe not.
And it’s true. Being a writer can be fun. Telling stories and reading and gathering with fellow writers to discuss writerly things can be amazing. But no one ever tells you that being a writer is so much more than writing. It’s the one thing I was disappointed about when it came to my MFA program: they glossed over everything included in being a professional writer that wasn’t writing or editing. I get it, it’s a writing program, but it would’ve been nice to be a little prepared for everything else. That one lecture on contracts and being told in our graduation semester that we needed to make a website didn’t quite cut it. I’m slowly figuring things out, though.
That website they randomly told me I had to make for my graduation semester? I had to design it myself because what beginning writer can afford a web designer? It has to be maintained and updated. And in order to make a website, you have to have content. Like a blog that you update weekly. And contact information. You can’t be a new anything nowadays without a social media presence. Those social media profiles need attention and updates just about every day if you want to keep your followers. It’s not exactly hard work, but all of this stuff takes up time. And if you’re popular and have tons of comments and emails to respond to, it could potentially get overwhelming. Sure, there are people you can hire for all that, but it costs money.
Yes, it can.
That’s not all. You also have to be an editor to your own work, a critic who can pull apart everyone else’s work and see what’s working and what isn’t, and a diligent student constantly improving their craft. After that, you have to sell your work and yourself to agents and publishers and readers alike. People have to like you to want to work with you, right? This usually entails submitting and querying lots of people who each have slightly different guidelines that you have to adhere to and getting told no by most of them. Then, if you’re lucky enough to make a deal, you have to pull on your lawyer pants and review every aspect of the contract to make sure everyone involved is getting a fair deal. It’s terrifying and exhausting and no one seems to want to talk about it all.
I know.
And to top it all off, there’s always someone pointing out that you should be actually writing, like everything else involved in being a writer doesn’t count as work. It’s enough to put anyone off writing for a while. But then you get the rare acceptance or encouraging note from a complete stranger or something like that and it’s all worth it again. So yeah, being a writer is exhausting and sometimes it’s fun, but it’s so much more than just writing. Be warned, then become a writer. It’ll be fun.
As always, feel free to leave your thoughts or questions or comments here or on my social media pages!
Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone’s spring (or autumn, depending on your hemisphere) going so far? I’ve been wrapping up my winter by searching for agents and researching how to write queries and synopses. In graduate school, they told us things like “make sure you have a finished, polished product (for fiction at least) before you query agents” and a few signs of questionable agents (ones who charge reading fees or want more than 15ish%, 20% at the most, etc.). But nobody really explains how to find reputable agents or how to go about querying them.
When I first opened my browser to begin the research.
Google searches proved to be overwhelming at first. They provided a plethora of information and no indication of where to begin, so I admit I panicked and sent a few emails out pleading for help. That would be my first bit of advice: don’t be afraid to ask more experienced people for help. Even if they can’t help you personally, chances are they know people who can. While I waited for responses, I read through SFWA’s literary agents advice page, which is wonderful at telling you how to recognize questionable agents (it’s far more detailed than anything I learned in school). I realize it’s a science fiction and fantasy group, but a lot of the advice here probably applies across the literary agent spectrum. They also have pages about editors and publishers and other things that are super useful.
There are a number of publications (Writer’s Market comes to mind most readily) you can buy (some even come as Kindle books) or check out at the library that offer lists of current agents and agencies if you prefer more traditional research methods. I didn’t want to spend money or visit the library this early in my searches, so I started at the Association of Authors’ Representatives website. My only problem with this website is that it doesn’t group agents by agency, so it’s difficult to keep track of who works where which is really important since most agencies don’t want you to query more than one of their agents at a time (some agencies even say that a no from one of their agents is a no from all of them). Then, someone sent me this postwhich groups science fiction and fantasy agents by agencies, and it gave me a solid starting point for my search (it was a life saver). It’s a little old, though, so be sure to check out the agency websites and do your research as to who’s accepting what.
There’s no magical way around the research.
That’s my second bit of advice: do your due diligence. This is my baby that I’m about to shop around. I’m going to make sure, to the best of my ability, that I’m not getting mixed up with someone who’s trying to take advantage of me and my work. If you’re not sure how legit someone is, ask around. Also, I’m making sure the agents are a good fit for me. Don’t just randomly submit to people and hope it works out. Go through their bios and websites to make sure they represent what you write and if they’re actually open to new clients. And always check out the submission guidelines. I look at it this way, if I’m wasting their time by submitting something they don’t represent or not following their guidelines, I’m wasting my time.
Be wary! We all have gut feelings. Trust them if they say something is off.
Anyway, I’ve compiled a list of agents (I still have many more to look into). I didn’t stop looking just because I found one who sounds like a perfect fit (she might not be interested in my story after all). I will keep looking at different agents until I get ready to send out the first batch of queries (simultaneous submissions to different agencies are expected), then I’ll look for a new batch in case no one bites. That’s all we can do.
Hello, hello! Happy New Year! Is it everything you were hoping for thus far? Mine’s been pretty peaceful, which is why I’m not entirely sure why I’m being plagued by irrational fears. You know, when you get that weight right in the center of your chest? That trembly feeling that invades every waking moment? At least until the cause passes, then you’re fine? Yeah, it’s been like that for the past few days. I just don’t know the reason this time.
Seems legit.
Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of odd fears, but I usually know what triggers them. I’m not fond of things suspended in the air (bridges, elevators, and the like). That’s probably because of recurring nightmares of driving off a bridge into the river below. I also fear being around grabby people (I blame doctors and nurses who don’t ask before they attempt to move my arms and legs, which results in pain or worse). Needles. Large dogs (another recurring nightmare). Storms. The doorbell or someone knocking on the door (no idea why on this one). The list goes on.
I even get a minor case of the terrors when we’re going somewhere where I’m not familiar with the roads. Bumpy roads are a pain (literally), so of course my mind fills with visions of potholes and speed bumps and unkempt dirt roads the whole way to our destination (and that’s not including the surprise jolts of adrenalin brought about by Texas drivers). That’s just the way my mind works. Thankfully, however, Google street view has helped with this particular fear a lot.
I guess “drive friendly” means try your damnedest to get your car to kiss another one in the most violent way possible.
But none of that explains the weight and trembles I’ve felt the last few days. The only things I can think of in the near future are a trip to the DMV (I’ve already looked at the roads), my birthday (they’ve never bothered me before), and an event at a hospital (I’ve been there before). Who knows? Maybe I’m just freaking out because I’m feeling a little lost. Maybe it’s something I’m just not thinking of. Maybe I’ll never know what it is and it’ll fade away as mysteriously as it came on. Fear can be a funny beast that way.
Still haven’t seen this, but he seemed appropriate.
Anyway, this has been a glimpse into my paranoid mind. I suppose it’s good practice, looking at some of the minor fears that can weigh on people. They’re potential character traits. Someone who faints every time the doorbell rings? I could write that. How about you? Any fears that you feel silly for having? What about the ones that terrify you? Feel free to share some here or on Facebook or Twitter or G+.
I’m not sure what to post about next week, so feel free to send me some ideas or questions. Have a wonderful week!
Shawna's Blog of Doom 