What to do, what to do? I want to draw; I want to practice calligraphy/illumination; I want to sew; I want to embroider; I want to write … Making up my mind should be a simple enough thing, but this morning it’s just not happening.
I woke up early with a rumbling stomach. Guess I didn’t have enough for dinner. I ate a snack and drank some hot chocolate to try to calm my restless mind, but the longer I was up, the more I wanted to get done…and the less I actually accomplished. I started one sewing project by cutting the pattern pieces, then decided I should put that aside for another sewing project. Then I decided I wanted to try drawing some illumination designs. Then I decided I didn’t want to do either of those. Then I tooled around the Internet for a while. Got hungry again. Made more food. Printed out some designs to try to embroider (those are still on the printer, because I then decided I wanted to write).
Guess my Creative Attention Deficit Disorder has kicked in again. As soon as I set my mind to one task I’m flying off to another, and it’s terribly nonproductive. I’ve gotten my hands dipped into too many creative ventures/projects, and now I’m in creative overload.
Maybe I’ll skip creativity for more practical activities. I have a couple of articles to write–maybe by the time I get those done I’ll be better able to decide what the heck I want to do.
Category: Novel
Another year gone by
Here it is: 38. Feels about like 37. And 36. Et cetera et cetera, ad nauseum, whatever. It doesn’t even feel a year closer to 40. It just feels like another year.
I’ve gotten a lot accomplished in the last year, I guess. Completed two full cosplays in record time (for me); finished the first draft of two different novels; started learning rapier fighting; taught myself how to sew Viking garb and stuffed animals…not too bad of a haul for a year.
Oh yeah, and there’s that house thing. Starting the process of building a home from the ground up. I suppose I should count that in my accomplishments. That’s more of a joint venture, though. The husband and I are in it together, through the thick and thin of it. Six and a half years together, five years to the day since he proposed, and a little over four years of marriage.
Do I have any special hopes for this birthday? Well, I have a few things I’ve been hoping for gift-wise, but that’s selfish stuff. I hope that work goes well. I hope that I get to leave work early enough to make it to the city for birthday dinner. I hope my friends enjoy the restaurant we’re meeting at. I hope for a free dessert. I hope the drives to the city and on to my in-laws’ are smooth and uneventful. Lots of hopes, but mostly just hoping for a good day with friends and family–after work of course.
Yep, I’m working on my birthday. I do most years; it’s kind of just another day in the grand scheme of things. Sure, sometimes I request for a vacation day so I can spend time with my family or take a day/weekend trip or just chill at home, but not always. There was even one time where I worked at two different jobs on my birthday. You gotta do what you gotta do, after all.
I’m wondering when the impending big 4-0 is going to hit me. For 30, it hit exactly one month before I turned 29; I was suddenly filled with anxiety and dread over reaching that milestone, which now seems insignificant. Will 40 be the same? Will I become obsessed with the notion that I’m “old”? We’ll see.
Surreal
Taking big steps lately to becoming, like, a real adult. More than just working and paying bills. Sure, there’s work involved–and paying bills–but it’s both exciting and a little unreal. I mean, I don’t think I ever imagined being at this point in my life. Suddenly, things are happening. Okay, starting to happen. Like, they won’t happen for a while, but plans are being made and things are going from theory to discussion to hopefully reality.
Cosplay, on the other hand, has suffered due to my increasing obsession with Pokémon Go and the exercise I’ve been getting. I haven’t been spending as much time in the craft room, and now that I’m only a month out from when we leave for Dragon Con I’m feeling the Crunch. I have to step things up on the sewing, but tomorrow is reserved for prop-building with some new friends. They’re much more experienced than we are, so we’re hoping they can give us more pointers than the panels we attended at Phoenix Comicon. We’re still a little in over our heads, but we’re willing to learn and we’ve gotten most of the supplies and (we think) all of the materials we’ll need. Basically the only thing left to buy is the corset boning, and I have to get off my Poké-ass and get to sewing so I know what lengths of boning I’ll need.
Writing is pretty much at a standstill…again. I keep getting new ideas on how my society will play out, trying to imagine what life will be like a couple hundred years from now. Will space travel be a common thing, or will it have been a passing fad? What kind of tech will be available? What about society itself? Will things improve from today’s media-fed nightmare, or will it all go to shit? Well, it’s a dystopian setting I’m aiming for so I’m guessing things will go to shit, but to what extreme?
But this new thing–this adulting thing–this is a vision of the future that is tangible, that I can actually see and envision with clarity. Change, in this case, is something that I think is a good thing.
Intimate Revelation
So I think I know my problem with my novel not really selling (besides poor marketing efforts on my part)…I’ve had it listed in the wrong genre.
Urban fantasy still fits, but I listed the second category as occult/supernatural because I was afraid of being pigeonholed as an author of what it really is: erotica. Why, do you ask? Well, I guess it’s the whole notion that erotica is “dirty” or something. But let’s face it; I wasn’t exactly stingy with details. So erotica it is.
What brought about this revelation? Well, it seems in the first two attempts at writing a new novel since publishing my first one, both times the writing has leaned back towards, you guessed it, sex. I can’t for the life of me get away from it, even when I’m trying to write in another genre.
So I might as well embrace it. Let myself become an erotica author. Screw the fear of being typecast, so to speak. For some reason, this is where my muse is taking me, so I’m just going to go along for the ride. Er, pun not intended.
Playing God
As I work on my next novel, a sci-fi/dystopian piece, I’m in awe of authors who can create whole worlds from scratch.
With my novel, I’m skipping ahead a century or two, but I’m sticking to good ol’ Earth as my locale. I figure it’s easier to try to envision how today’s events may unfold into tomorrow’s reality than to build an entire world (or universe) from my imagination. Can I look at today’s tech and society and draw lines from now to then? Well, I sure hope so. But trying to create technology that has never existed (and may never exist) all the while weaving the threads of a society that evolved and developed such technology…it’s mind-blowing.
Creators of fantasy/high fantasy/epic fantasy also amaze me. Forget science…we’re going to make a whole new world where physics is thrown out the window and metaphysics takes over, where there are creatures never before seen and people capable of unreal feats. It baffles me.
I’ve tried worldbuilding as a teen, and even a bit as an adult. I just can’t do it. I can’t get the details, the nuances, the little bits that make it all come together.
With my current WIP, I originally tried pantsing it, but it just wasn’t working. The world wasn’t rich enough, wasn’t deep enough. As I brainstorm and make notes, it’s slowly evolving into something much thicker. Meatier. Juicier. Plots are forming, technology is springing up, and the people living in the society that created this technology are starting to go about their daily lives. They’re coming to life.
I may not be able to create an entire world or universe out of thin air…but I’m slowly becoming the god of my vision of the future.
Double Trouble
Ah, this weekend was so nice. Relaxing.
And too damn short.
I’ve been awake for an hour & a half, but I can barely keep my eyes open. They keep crossing and closing, trying to force me back into slumber. They almost succeeded–almost.
Today it’s back to work, followed by (hopefully) more cosplay progress. I got a decent amount done yesterday, but my back started getting sore (and my hubby needed the power strip from the craft room for some of his cosplay work, so there’s that too). Yeah, yeah, I could’ve taken the strip back when he was done & gotten back to it, but damn I was tired. I think I was asleep before 7:30.
The jacket I started working on yesterday has the front two panels sewn and the back is almost done (not counting lining and such–that comes soon).
Damnit, eyes! I can’t be going back to sleep now!
Anywho, I also got a lot of character development done for the dystopian/sci-fi novel I’ve been working on for ages. This book will definitely be slower going than Whispers of Death, mostly because I’m having a more complicated plot…not to mention the research. I have to figure out what kind of tech we’ll have in a few hundred years…or at least speculate to within a reasonable accuracy. For instance, flying cars? Eh, maybe, maybe not. Bionic implants? That I can see happening. Genetic engineering? Yep, can see that too. And as far as current events unfolding in the ages to come, well….I don’t want to give away too much. 😉
Well, it’s time to make my husband’s coffee and see what the rest of the world is up to this early in the morning. Enjoy your work day!
Finally free
I could be talking about Independence Day today…but I’m not. I’m not overly patriotic. I’m not political. I’m not a historian. I’m just an average Joe (Jill?), and I’m not that into the revolutionary aspect of the holiday. No, I’m talking about a free day off work. After working 12 days in a row, then going on a day trip, then doing laundry all day, I finally have a day off where I can do whatever.
The start of my free day? Fixing my cosplay booboo from yesterday. I got that done and all of the twill fabric pieces cut out; now comes cutting out the interfacing & lining, after which I’ll start putting the pieces together. It should prove interesting since I’m altering the pattern. I keep doing that…and so far, aside from yesterday’s disaster, it’s been turning out well. Guess I have a knack for it…or I’ve been lucky.
Now I’m taking a break from all that pinning and cutting and I’m just chilling on the computer for a while. I might take a nap. I might make some food. Or maybe I’ll just stare at this screen and do nothing.
Sometimes it’s good to take time for yourself. Burnout sucks. Sure, if I spent all day nonstop working on the coat I could probably get it finished…but is that really what I want to do with my free day? Spend the whole thing cutting and sewing until I’m sore and worn out?
Also, I’ve been having some good ideas about my dystopian/sci-fi novel. Yeah, you know the one–the one that’s been stalled since the cosplay stuff went into overdrive? Well, it’s still stalled (narrative-wise), but some new details about the world and the characters have come into my head that I think will give it some depth and diversity. It’s outside of my comfort zone, but isn’t that the point of writing sometimes? Going new places, trying new things…creating new worlds (or destroying them).
Maybe I’ll work on brainstorming today in between cosplay sessions. That sounds like a good idea.
Freedom to do what you want–gotta love it.
(Not so) well read
So Kindle has this thing where if your book is enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited deal, you can see how many pages a person has read if they have downloaded your book through Kindle Unlimited.
Somebody has been reading my book! But they’re not very far in…eleven pages one day, three the next, then nothing for a few days, then twenty-five pages yesterday. (And there’s no way to tell if it’s all the same person or different people, so I don’t know if the first two days were people who got bored partway through or if all three days read are the same person.) Still, even if they’re all from different people, at least one person got a good couple of chapters in yesterday. I’ll keep checking it to see if any more pages get read. I’d love to be able to watch as someone reads all the way through.
Still no reviews after my free promotional period, but I’m not surprised. A lot of people download books while they’re free then take their time reading them. I’m sure plenty of those nearly 600 people have lists of books that they want to read, so I’ll try to be patient.
Haven’t written anything new in the WIP, but I’m planning on possibly rewriting the beginning once I have a better idea of what my world is like. And now, more pre-surgery-shift Internet laziness!
Marching on
Now that I’ve given myself a break from cosplay sewing for a couple of weeks, I’m finally back in a sewing state of mind. I started on my husband’s pants for his Shatterstar cosplay the other day and am slowly making progress. (When I start sewing early in the morning, sometimes I don’t have the energy to sew for too long at a time…so I get done what I can, then remember that I haven’t had my Adderall and go back into the bedroom to mess around on the computer & take my meds.)
Once I get back into the swing of things, I know my pace will pick up. It will help that it’s the in-between season where most of the fall/spring shows are off air & most of the summer ones haven’t started up yet. Not that I’m a TV addict per se, but it’s nice to have time in the evenings to spend with my husband. A little bonding, something we can’t really do when I’m sewing because I get so focused that he ends up sitting on the floor playing games on his tablet.
With these newest cosplays, we’re going to try making some foam armor and props. It should be interesting, because neither of us has worked with the EVA foam before. Don’t know what EVA foam is? It’s basically those foam floor mats that look like puzzle pieces. Pretty cheap, but you can do a lot with them. We saw several panels on the subject while at Phoenix Comicon and my husband has been watching tutorials online to learn how to work with it. It seems simple enough, but I’m sure we’ll have a large learning curve to start with.
Now that the book “experiment” is over, I don’t feel as obsessed with checking my numbers every hour or so. It’s both a relief and a disappointment. A relief that it’s over, disappointment because I kinda liked seeing so many copies of my book being picked up, even if it was for free. Oh, well.
Experiment, Day 4
Well, this is somewhat interesting. My day 4 numbers as far as free book downloads were more than double the day 3 numbers. Could it be that people are trying to get the book while it’s still free?
Today will be the final day of the free book promo for my novel and my two anthologies (my poetry anthology and my short story/flash fiction anthology). The horror short anthology has been doing relatively well, considering I haven’t really advertised it specifically on social media. Not nearly as well as the novel, but decent numbers for not having been talked about.
This experiment has been interesting, given that I haven’t done anything different besides putting my novel on a temporary free promotion. Does this mean that people aren’t willing to pay the price I’ve set for my novel? If so, does it mean that the price is too high, that the blurb isn’t catchy enough for them to want to pay for it, or does it just mean that people like free stuff?
Since I’m not a scientific person by nature, I’ll probably never know the answer. Still, this has been a new experience that I will probably experiment with more later on.