Time and Light Switches

It’s funny how different life can be. How one day seems to be headed in one trajectory and then next moment everything changes.   I don’t often have plans for my life, more like guiding dreams, and every time I think I have it figured out, a new path crops up. It is the strangest thing.  Every plan I’ve ever had for my life has at one point or in some capacity been changed, it never quite works out the way I picture.  I had a plan, or at least a thought of one, and now I’m not so sure. The writing completely uninterrupted, but just the how.  Even if it’s just this flash of maybe, it has already undone me in a beautiful manor. I will not leave this process unchanged, regardless of outcome.  It truly is baffling how every now and again I think myself sorted, and then the One Who Created me will send a guiding hand to direct my vision ever so slightly, or largely.   Having completed what I have, has me all strange. It’s uncomfortable, and stretchin...

The days spent since finishing my latest creative project have been something strange. I have spent the not long enough days wringing my hands behind my back and quaking with the reality that I am to get on with the publishing process. The daunting mountain that is the thought of letting what has only been my story be read by many, it is nothing short of breathtaking. And I suppose it is not always an awe-struck thief of breath, but a foreboding one.   It is the crux of being an artist of any form, to release what was once and perhaps intended, to only be for ones self and allow it into the hands of others. It is baffling and confounding at best, unnerving and nausea inducing at worst. To be known in this way, it takes a certain kind of courage.  I am greatly new to the publishing process, so it in-of-itself is daunting, and overwhelming. No matter the path I’ve chosen, to self publish, there are a great deal of details, not all of which come easily to me. I am however gre...

  Yesterday evening, on February 12th 2025, the first draft of my second novel was completed! Now the road is far from finished, and I’ll have much editing to do, but for now it is an accomplishment.   At 135,662 words, it is by far and large the longest thing I have ever written. Double that of the length of my first novel. I started wring this draft on June 25th 2024, so it’s been a bit of a long ride. Yes, I keep the dates of these things written down. It helps to give myself a sense of perspective. I’ve lived a lot of life since staring this draft, from mountain top high, to valley of the lowest, but I’ve arrived at a deep breath. That’s how finishing felt, like a heavy breath.  I didn’t really want to finish, I was sad once I typed the last words. This story has been living in the back of my mind since I was a teenager. The characters almost as real to me as my own flesh and blood friends. It’s a strange part of it all, and I’m sure I sound a little crazy to some...

Well, I’ve run into an interesting predicament, a frustrating one that has me pulling at my own hair. I’ll keep this brief, because as you’ll see, I’ve got some work to do. I’m at the tail end of writing the first draft of my second novel, and I’ve hit a road block. I only have a page and a half of notes left to implement, for reference my “outline” is about 20 pages long, so really I am so close to done.   I’ve reached the end of the story, where one might find a villain monologue, and my characters don’t know as much as I thought they knew. It’s a strange thing, I’ve never written a thing with so much mystery involved, the balance of revealing and keeping said mysteries hidden is a tough one. Apparently I erred on the side of keeping too much to myself because now my characters don’t even really know why they should be outraged.  It is not unsalvageable, only in need of some fine tuning. I’d find it exciting, as the prospect of finishing was making me a tab blue, but I a...

I used to be a dancer. It’s the one regret in life I truly have. The one thing I left behind and wish I hadn’t. I’m not sure where I left it. Which is a lie of course, I know exactly where I discarded this great love of mine. Because while I may have been a painter first, I was a dancer second, and my how did I fly.   I had never felt so free, as when I was dancing. Have not truly seen that height ever since. It is something I allowed to be stollen from me, something that lost its joy when comparison and skill driven spite entered the picture. I’d blame other people, for their boisterous opinions and cruel stares, but I know myself stronger than that. If only I had been stronger then, maybe I would not have quit.  It is the last thing I quit, the last thing I gave away that felt like the sawing off of a limb. I’m not sure I ever came back from the loss. The loss I willing rot upon myself. The one regret I truly carry.  I used to be a dancer, and if ever there was a ...

The writing has been a bit stunted as of late. Not for any real reason, I’ve simply been temporarily obsessed with a resent book release. (If you know you know.) It’s brought about quite possibly my strangest piece of advice ever, and it is to be taken with a mountain of salt and self reflection.   I have an all or nothing personality. It comes with benefits and drawbacks, but that’s not this post. It means that if I am obsessive about something I either have to completely deny myself for the sake of progress and productivity, or I have to give wholeheartedly into it. I try to strike a balance, but I’m about a decade too early to have found it I’m afraid.  I have found through trial and error I will release myself from obsessive interest if I simply exhaust it. Easy example, I am just about enthralled with reading the latest instalment of a book series I quite throughly enjoy, so the solution is to read and finish the book as fast as I desire to then get back to it. If I t...

I never used to date my work. In school there was always a place for the date and seldom a day did I fill it in. It didn’t feel important at the time, didn’t seem to matter. Really I thought I’d never look back at my time as a student, elementary, middle, or high school. It just… didn’t seem to matter.   Before I moved this past time, in April, I had to go through ever piece of everything I own, or now owned. It was an arduous process, it took weeks and some things took months. It is not a process I long to repeat any time soon. While doing so I sorted through all my old school papers, seeing what I might like to keep and what I’d like to burn. Not only metaphorically I literally burnt the papers I didn’t keep. It was final, and even as I said good riddance I felt my heart ache. Not all my school journey was for my betterment, but not all of it was for my doom. It’s something I hold in tension to itself to this day.  In this searching and deciding I took notice of the fact...

I got back into the grind of writing my book late last week, Thursday night to be specific. I had planned on starting back up on the Friday, or just straight up waiting for the start of the week to jump back in. But I was too excited when I thought about it, so I got back to it a little early.   I remember having resigned myself to staring again later, but on Thursday evening I looked over at my desk, my notes for the book staring back at me. After that it was all over, I could’t help myself. I was just too tempting.  It felt like coming home. Getting back into the story felt like home. A feeling I’ve always been chasing. It made me nervous after I realized it. I didn’t want that feeling to end, didn’t want to finish writing because then I’d have to do all the other parts of publishing a book. The parts I’ve been halfway avoiding for awhile now.  Having hit the climax before the climax of the book, where my two main characters finally meet and talk was positively exh...

Happy New Year!   I’ve been knitting a lot as of late. Having been on a writing break for the holidays I quickly became antsy and in need of a creative outlet. The more I give the more I receive, in terms of creative energy that is specifically.  Did a bit of a number on my wrist too. It’s been a couple weeks now and I still don’t quite have my full range of motion back. It’s getting better, but the knitting hasn’t exactly helped.  It’s been a strange start to the year. I’ve wanted the holidays to come to a quicker end so I could get beak to my writing, my routine. It’s not felt like a kind feeling, not to my family, but I don’t much like change and that includes interruptions to my routine. Don’t like drawing out the goodbyes.  Having to remind myself of what I wrote just before the end of the year, to step lightly and hold fast to peace. This beginning already hurts in an old kind of way, with more goodbyes and promises to return. It is something I grow eve...

As the year comes to a quiet close, I can’t help but look back at it with satisfaction and mild perplexity. It was quite the year, a new lifetime low of loss, while meeting the greatest accomplishment yet.   I lost my grandfather this year, and I wrote 100,000 words onto my second novel. These things seem to parallel one another. The contrast of my year. I began the year waking in another country, in a different home, and now will celebrate it’s end in another. I moved across the continent and it has been a doozy of it’s own ups and downs.  I think getting older it like that. Where the middle ground seems easier to find, more comfortable to sit in. I’ve been a creature of extremities, black and white in thinking if you believe my father, but as I turn the chapter into the new year I think I’ve become at least a little more calm.  It was a year where so much happened it feels as though there is little to say about it, I was too busy living it. Whether chosen or not, ...

Writing in the dark has made my inner teenager happy. I used to stay up till all hours of the night painting, and now at 24 staying up to write my novels has become something of great joy. It’s pretty easy to get the dark part now that it’s the winter months, but even before that it was something I was finding happy.   Each writing project is so surprisingly wildly different. For example, my first novel I almost exclusively wrote in the afternoons. Sometimes I’d start early, or others I’d run into the evening when I was on a roll. But almost the entire book was written in the afternoon hours. This second one I’m writing however I don’t seem to start till the afternoon and almost always run into the night. If in fact I don’t not start at 9 o’clock at night. Yes I did that this past week and wrote till 1 am. Not the best move but it got the job done.  I like to set up a fake fireplace on my tv and let that run in the background while I type away. It don’t feel as cozy if the...