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Taking a Break is Tough

I’m taking a break from my latest manuscript. I’ve been trying to do the second draft all this week and it’s had its ups and down. I was able to crush out the first chapter in a day but to be honest that chapter had already been pretty polished. Over the rest of the week, I’ve had to convince myself hard to work on it and I’ve only gotten 1500 words into the second chapter which is really slow. Everything has just been dragging so hard and I think it’s because I haven’t given myself enough of a break from it. I went from pre-planning the book which took a month and a half, straight into writing my book full-time which took me almost exactly three months, and then afterward I spent a week combing through the book for typos and grammar mistakes. I love my book, it’s very special to me and I think it’s got really solid potential for mainstream success, but I need to walk away from it for a bit. I’ve just been working on it too hard, too consistently, and too long. Every article that I’ve read from authors says that it’s a good idea to walk away and take a break for about 4-6 weeks before launching into the second draft. There’s no way in hell I’m waiting that long but I’ll give it a solid 2-weeks.

I think walking away from your manuscript is the hardest thing to do, at least for me it is. There’s all this excitement inside of me to get it done so I can start submitting my work to agents and taking steps to getting published for the first time.

Whoa, that was a major ADHD moment. I completely forgot I was writing this, walked away, wrote an email, and then started looking into submitting to a writing agent. Wild.

Well, I think I killed the momentum of my own blog post. WHOOPS! Anywho, I’m going to take a break from writing my current book. I might start planning the next kid's book that I want to write. Yeah, actually I think that is what I’ll do. That or write some more short stories. Either way, Imma gonna be writing.

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The good and the bad

Hello all. I know it’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post. I’m not going to do a full update because a lot of life has happened over the past couple of months, and it would be pretty difficult to try and cover all of it. Instead, I think I’ll focus on two things, one of which being good news while the other bad.

In good news, I finished my latest book! This one is significantly longer than my first book (it wound up being about 306 pages) and I’m very happy with how it turned out. There is nothing major that I have to change or fix with it which is a pretty good feeling as an author. Most of what I need to do from this point forward is to fine tune and make sentences flow better and more enjoyable to read. After I finish a second draft, I’m going to have my mom help me comb through the book and find all the typos and grammar mistakes and then I’m going to start searching for an agent. It’s scary but also exhilarating!

As for the bad news, van life is currently on a hiatus. Sammy and I had been having problems with the van recently. It wasn’t accelerating very well, and it felt like it could stall when we had to stop for stoplights. We recently took the van to the mechanic hoping to get an estimate of less than $2000 to fix it up and get it ready to go cross country. No dice. The mechanic described the van as a turdsicle. He said that it would cost $5000 to get the engine repaired and that it would just keep breaking down after. He recommended that we cut our losses, sell the thing, and start over. I just heard the news today and my heart hasn’t stopped hurting. What absolutely devastating news. We sank a good amount of money and a lot of time into fixing that van up. Now, we’re trying to look forward to see what we should do but it’s not clear. We could try again with another van but now we have less funds to jump in with. I’ve thought about getting a car loan and getting a brand-new van but if I do that, I’m committing to at least three to four years to van life which is a scary thing to do. I really want to do it but maybe that’s not what the universe wants me to do, it sure seems like it’s saying not to with all the road bumps we’ve hit. I don’t know. The news is still fresh and I’m still processing everything.

While I’m letting myself process, I’m just trying to keep focusing on the light. I finished my book and I’m happy with it. This is a huge accomplishment and deserves a celebration!

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Back to the Fantastic

It’s been a while since I’ve done a blog post so I figured that it was time for an update. I’ve been dragging pretty hard at writing my new book so far. I really wanted to be over-halfway done by this point but instead I’m only about a third with 26k words written. It’s pretty good but it’s around about 24k less words than I would’ve liked by now. I get it, some books take longer because you have to think about it more, but I think it’s more that the summer’s just been BUSY. I’ve been rock climbing, seeing friends, house sitting, swimming, traveling, playing tennis, competing in Smash tournaments. It’s been a lot, but I guess that’s what happens post-Covid.

I think partially we’re making up for the year we lost but we’ve also learned to value things more that we might have taken for grated in the past (and by ‘we’ I mean us as a collective society but also just my personal experience). It can be hard to write a book when you’re living so much life but I have to ask myself if that’s just an excuse? Am I just being lazy and dragging the process along because of bad habits like procrastination and poor sleep schedule? I think it might be a mix of both but either way I would really like to get it the eff’ together (is that how you write that?).

Any who, potentially big news! A New York Times best selling author is going to read my book! Crazy right? By a random string of happenstance, Sammy and I wound up house sitting for the author of a popular book that was turned into a movie on Netflix. Well, when they came back, I chatted with the author and they offered to read my book! I am still pretty shook to be honest. Like, I can not describe how insanely anxious I was to prep the script to send to them. Even with all the anxiety though I am beyond excited!

I’m happy to write this blog post. I miss being able to do other writing projects while I’m so wrapped up in book world. I think that maybe I’ll start messing around more on the weekends and doing more for fun writing. All writing time is fun time, but I think that the weekend can be for short stories and experimental writing.

Anyway, I’m glad that I wrote this, but I am back to magical worlds and the fantastic. Hopefully I’ll find the time to check back in soon!

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Not Too Much Left To Do

I’m really on the final stretch of book prep for my next book. Honestly, I could have been completely finished a week ago, but I gave myself extra time because I want to go to the sequoia national park before I start. It’s been nice to take the extra time to polish everything up and to be honest, I’m surprised at the major things that have been added and refined in the past week. I changed how the first pinch happens and I completely changed the second pinch point to the mi-point. Maybe I should add an additional 2 weeks of prep to all of my books. It’s really helpful to be able to just take time to sit on everything.

We leave for California on Wednesday. We have a semi-planned tripped with some wiggle room. We’re going to get there at 10am and are going to spend the day around LA eating food, meeting up with my friends, and I’m going to show Sammy in general what it was like for me to live in LA. The next morning, we take the 3-hour drive to the sequoia national park where we’re going to spend the day exploring the park. Our last full day there we’re going to go back to the park for a bit if we felt like we hadn’t seen enough of it the first day and then we’re going to make the drive back to LA to go to the ocean and chill out until our flight the next morning.

I have a small leather notebook that Sammy bought me for Christmas that I’m going to bring with me. I’m planning on taking a bunch of notes during the trip. Hopefully, I get a ton of usable stuff for my book. It’s wicked important to me that I visit a magical forest before I write about one and I think that this is going to do it.

Honestly, I don’t want to jinx anything, but I think that this book is going to be a little special.

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Spell Lists Are Hard

So, I’ve been working on the spells for my YA fantasy novel, and I got to say it is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. It’s been really hard trying to figure out what to include and how the spells work. I thought it would only take me a day or two but I’m going on my fourth day right now. It’ll be at least a full week before I wrap up with making the spells.

In non-book news, I got my second Covid shot! It’s very exciting that I’m fully vaccinated (I know it doesn’t take full effect for another 2 weeks, but I don’t have to get another shot) and that I can start doing life things again. The only bad thing about the second dose was that I got violently ill. I don’t want to discourage anybody from getting vaccinated because you absolutely should but the second dose was the sickest I’ve been in 5 years. I had such bad chills that I shook my bed and my feet felt like they were dead. I got a temperature of 102.5 and had total weakness in my body. It was ROUGH, especially since I just had some wisdom teeth removed. It was not fun, but I am just very thankful that I didn’t throw up.

Sammy and I have our vacation planned for 2 weeks from now. By that time both of our vaccines will have had ample time to saturate and attain full efficacy. It’s going to be such a good reward for enduring Covid for so long. After I get back, I plan on starting to write my book. No more outlining, it’ll be go time bb. Until then I’m going to just keep plugging away.

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Three Teeth Down

So, I got my surgical extractions done today at 8:30 in the morning: It was not a pleasant experience. Firstly, while I may keep myself busy during unemployment, that doesn't mean that I wake up early everyday. Typically, I get up anywhere between 10-12 so to wake up at 7:45 was pretty awful. It took a half an hour before I was even taken back to be operated on but luckily once I was there, everything started happening pretty quickly.

The student who pulled me back was nice. She was a little awkward and I got the feeling she laughed at most of the things I said out of politeness but to be fair, who hasn't? Unfortunately, I didn't like my oral surgeon at all. He was a heavy set man and was very aggressive with his questions and how he operated on me. He would just shove the metal instruments in my mouth, often times catching on my lips causing them to get pinched between the tools and my teeth, would jerk my head into the position he wanted, and because he was heavier, he would press my head against his belly to operate. I needed to get 5 shots of Novocain and I was still able to feel it somewhat. I felt my nerves go into a panic as the pieces of my teeth got pried away from my gum and jaw. This really tested my deep breathing abilities. My whole body is shaking from being in fight or flight and yet I had to continue to just lay there as 4 people gawked at the massacre that was my mouth. I dipped into my meditation techniques in the down periods, trying to calm myself. Finally, three of the teeth were removed and I was told that I would have to come back in a couple of weeks to get the rest taken out.

So, all in all it was a terrible morning. I came right back home and went back to bed. Sammy was very sweet – she dropped off my prescriptions and then picked them up just in time for me to get up.

Weirdly enough, I've actually been pretty okay since the extractions. Last time I was much, much worse but I think that might have been because I had a terrible tooth infection. This time, sure I have pain, but it is much more manageable. I've definitely been taking it easy today but I think that I'm going to recover in no time. Maybe it won't be so bad getting the second Covid shot on Thursday.

In other news, Sammy and I have our vacation booked for California! We're only going to be there 3 full days but it should be a wonderful trip. I can not wait to see the Sequoia National Park! After we get back, I'm going to properly start my next book. While this week is going to be rough, it is all uphill from here bb :)

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I Get Tooth Surgery Tomorrow

Word of advice; never drink soda. It’s not worth it. I assume that most people are much more responsible about their soda consumption than I was for most of my life, but still, it’s a hazardous level liquid that is super bad for your body. Unfortunately, I was raised on the stuff. My parents weren’t aware of how bad it is for people back in the 90’s and so soda was my brother and mines water growing up. It took me an exceptionally long time to break that habit and it’s something I’m still struggling with. The damage it’s caused to my mouth is pretty catastrophic, with one of my teeth getting such a bad infection last year that it became life threatening.

It was exceedingly difficult to see an oral surgeon during 2020. Most of them refused to take new patients so it took me awhile to just find a place that would help me out. After a month and a half of waiting for the appointment with severe tooth pain, the doctor cancelled on me the day before my consultation without disclosing any reason and didn’t reschedule for a different date. I was stuck. I couldn’t find a place in my state to accept me as a patient and I couldn’t travel outside the country to get affordable dental work done because of Covid.

Finally, I had to go around calling every place I could and tell them that I was experiencing a life-threatening infection. A dental school was the only place that would take me, even as an emergency. I went in the next day at 6:00 AM and they called in an oral surgeon to remove the tooth. In another turn of bad luck, I dropped the prescription for life saving antibiotics on the way out. It was a Friday, and they would be closed all weekend. I had to make an emergency appointment at my doctors to get a prescription for antibiotics.

This was all around August of last year. It’s been 8 months since I’ve gotten the teeth extracted and I still haven’t been able to get the other problem teeth taken out. Since it’s a dental school during covid, they go SLOW. I mean, 4-hour appointment to do one filling slow. They required me to have a certain amount of work done before I could schedule my extractions, so I’ve gone to the dentist for I’m going to say around 20-30 hours in the past year alone. That’s WAY too much time at the dentist.

After a long, long wait, I have my dental surgery for tomorrow to get some teeth removed. If I’m being honest, I don’t know how many teeth their removing. I hope they do them all in one go. I don’t want to have to take another week off for recovery another couple of months from now. I’m scared an nervous, especially since I can still remember the smell of rotten teeth as it got sawed in half in my mouth and wafted through the air like sawdust, the sound of the sickening crack as the tooth breaks away from my jawbone, and the force that the surgeon put on my mouth that felt like my tooth was getting hit by a car.

Yeah, not looking forward to that at all but I remember just how much pain I was in all the time last year and how much anger that caused me. I became a pretty toxic person. It was just too much, and I couldn’t handle it. Constant pain, like your nerves are erupting and screaming at you that something is severely wrong, but you can’t do anything about it. It was truly terrible. My relationship with my boss soured because of it and it hurt my relationship with Sammy. It wasn’t until I got that tooth out and that constant pain went away that I became me again. I was no longer angry and seething, just a kind goofy guy who was looking to get his life together. After the surgery, I started meditating regularly, kept my space clean, started reading and writing every day, wrote my first book, and started making plans to move to California. Really, that one tooth held me back from so much in my life.

I’ll say it again; never, ever drink soda. It’s wicked not worth it. I don’t know if your experience would be as severe as mine but I can assure you that it won’t be good.

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Third Draft of My Outline

I’m making some really good headway with my book and I’m right on schedule. I’m going to delay writing it for a couple of weeks that way I can start writing it after Sammy and I get back from seeing the Sequoia National Park which is an especially important thing for me to see beforehand. I just need to live and breath and see the grandness of it all.

There’s still so much that I can do in the meantime. So many little details that I can fill out and think of. When you’re writing fantasy, you have to think of every little detail and then pick and choose which details to share. If I just went on a tirade, going off about the descriptions I’ve thought up for every little thing, my YA fantasy novel would be 200K words and everyone but maybe 2 people would be bored out of their skulls. It’s all about finding balance. Well, in my case, it’s all about balance and tricking people into learning how to deal with emotional problems, but that’ll just be our little secret.

I’m really excited and nervous to get into the writing of this book. It’s going to be either spectacular or supremely underwhelming. Without giving too much away, the book has serious potential to be compared to a very famous YA fantasy novel series. I hope it doesn’t. I hope that it gets judged off of its own merits and people can see it for what it is. I’m not naïve enough to believe that that will happen, but I hope that some people will be able to see it for what it is instead of what it will inevitably be compared to.

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The Wine Done Messed Me Up

I’ve written posts about this before, but wine has a big effect on me, especially when doubled with allergies. Well, I forgot my own advice to myself and have drank wine twice this week, causing me to wake up incredibly dizzy. It seriously felt like my head was filled with weighted sand that way every time I tilted my head to one side it felt like the entire weight of my body followed and tried to pull me down to the ground. Because of this, I had to cancel my dentist appointment for today and skip writing my book. I probably wouldn’t have had to take a day off book writing except that I accidentally took drowsy allergy medication instead of non-drowsy which made me fall asleep in the bathtub.

I gotta say that it’s odd taking a sick day when you’re unemployed. I mean, it’s not technically my job but I take my book writing very seriously. I make sure to do work on my book every Monday-Friday and am very diligent about my deadlines. I’m currently in the process of outlining my book and I’ve been making sure to do two chapters a day. The outlines of the chapters run anywhere between 400-600 words a piece.

I’ve been writing my outline in the same style as R.L. Stine. Seeing how he does his outlines was a major breakthrough for me with learning how to write novels. Instead of just hitting all of the points that happen in the chapter, he instead will do a balance between marking the important moments and getting a feel for how it’s going to sound. So, for example, if in a chapter there was an important conversation between two people instead of saying “they talk about the important thing,” he writes “John, the important thing is happening! What are we going to do about it?” It’s a much more active style of outlining and I absolutely love it. A lot of the time, I take direct dialogue or descriptions from the outline and put it into my books.

I’m going to have to make up my writing some time this week. I want to make sure that I’m all finished with the outline before Sammy, and I take our trip to California next month! Sammy and I are going to be completely vaccinated by May so we’re going to go visit LA, see my friends and go to the Sequoia National Park. It’s kind of a win-win-win in terms of vacations. Not only do we get to take our first trip since Covid, but we get to scout out LA before we move there, see my friends, and I get to do research for the book I’m writing. I’m truly beyond excited to be going!

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First Cottage Day of the Year

Today was the first day that we headed up to the cottage this year. It was a pretty short trip; mostly I just picked up sticks around the property, read, and played ping pong. It was pretty nice. We all got along in the car ride and there was a really good energy about the day. We stopped and got food and ice cream which I was a really big fan of and just had an all-around pleasant time.

Tomorrow kicks off the outlining of my book. I outlined the book months ago but since then I learned a new and better way to outline from the R.L. Stine Masterclass. The way that he outlines his books is genius and I happily adopted the method. It allows you to really get a feeling for each chapter and you get to start vocalizing your characters which is always a great thing to do early. I’m aiming for a May 3rd start. It will be just after my second Covid shot and my teeth extractions (I’m getting my wisdom teeth out plus three other teeth. Don’t drink soda!) I think that I’ll have enough time to recover but maybe I’ll need a little extra time.

I would love to go on a small trip before I actually start writing the book. I really want to visit a magical forest so I can get really authentic descriptions of a cool wooded area. Really, I would like to visit a bunch of places before writing the book, but I just don’t think it’s going to pan out that way. Maybe I’ll be able to visit some great places before the second draft that way I can pepper in some great detail then.

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I Got Sucked Into A Phone Game

Book progress has been going along smoothly lately. I’m not the biggest fan of my writing schedule (I’m currently writing around 11PM and would much prefer to write during the day) but I’ve been making really good headway. It’s looking like I’m going to be right on schedule and will be begin writing the actual book in May. If I mange to stick to my 2000 words a day rule, I should be done with the first draft of the book around mid-late July and I should have a fully polished second draft some time around September. It’s a lot of work but I am really excited to see how it’s going to pan out.

In the meantime, I still have a lot of things to do before launching into the book. I’m currently in the process of writing down important things down onto flash cards that way when I’m writing I’ll be easily able to keep track of everything. For instance, I’ve already written down 20+ names and who they are, and I haven’t even touched the main characters yet. That’s the thing about fantasy, you need to write A LOT of stuff beforehand and make way more names then you think you would ever need.

Unfortunately, the thing that’s been slowing me down recently is a phone game that I’ve been playing with my brother. It’s a lot of fun but we’ve been diving into it pretty hard. It’s a competitive game so we’ve been competing with other people online and it just feels good to beat other human beings. I need to dial it back though. Not only do I have the book stuff coming up, I have to start working on the van again soon.

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World Building Can Be Overwhelming

I’m currently in the process of prepping my latest book and oh buddy is it a lot of world building. So far, I have 8 character breakdowns, created 4 magical games and sports, written in depth about the main 7 races in the world, created 2 maps, written plenty of backstory and history about the world and the events that happened before the book, created the rules for magic, and changed what the book is twice. It’s been a lot of work but I’m finally getting towards the end of the line. There isn’t too much prep left for me to do other then re-write the outline and I need to put everything down on flashcards and stick them above my computer that way I can keep track of everything. The worst thing would be for me to change the name of a character halfway through the book or to mix up the rules of magic.

I’m really excited and scared to start this book. I’ve never tried to write a book series before and it’s rather intimidating but I’m also already in love with the book so I’m excited to see where the journey goes. I have an outline already written but the information in it is so outdated that I think I’m going to have to scrap 75% of it.

Just wanted to give out a small update before I call it a week. I’ve been shockingly busy for an unemployed person with the daily tennis, yard work, spring chores, cooking, and social commitments. I thought that when Sammy went to visit her sister, I would get some more downtime to read and write but it hasn’t panned out that way. I’m slowly plucking through Prince Caspian and I still seem to put off writing until late at night. I think it’s because I’ve been so busy with helping my mom out in the day that I don’t really get time to work on my stuff too much. That and I just haven’t been able to break out of the habit since UPS. Either way, I’m glad I get it done every day, I just would like to be less tired when I get to it.

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Prep Is Slow Going

I understand that when you prep a book series that it takes time. You need to do a lot of world-building (especially with fantasy,) character development, and it’s a pretty good idea to figure out the overarching plot. It’s a lot to do and I feel like I’m both getting a ton done and not enough at the same time.

As I’ve said before in this blog, I dedicate Monday-Friday to book writing. On my book writing days, I usually spend anywhere between 20 minutes to an hour doing some sort of work on my book. I don’t know, maybe I’m being hard on myself, but I feel like since I’m unemployed that I should be spending more time in my day working on it. At least an hour a day. When I get to the actual book writing process I make sure to spend much more time writing. I make sure to write 2000 words a day and I don’t stop until I’ve met that goal. Sometimes this takes 2 hours, sometimes it takes 4. Doesn’t matter the time, as long as I meet that goal.

Maybe I need to figure out some equivalent with doing book prep. I had made a list of what I needed to accomplish before I write the book and I have been trying to accomplish one of the things listed a day. Maybe that’s enough? I don’t know. I can get pretty conflicted between doing enough and pacing myself. Sometimes I just can’t seem to find that perfect equilibrium.

In other news, I think I almost have 20 books knocked off on my book reading list! I started it back in October and 6 months later I’m still going strong. It isn’t like 20 short books either. The Fellowship of the Ring, Deathly Hallows, American Gods, and The Lost Hero might as well count as 2 books each. To be fair, Coraline and Stargirl were both pretty short but still! I’ve read a lot of words this past 6 months. I’m about to finish The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and then I’ll probably move onto one of the other series that I’m reading. I think I’ll probably take a little bit more of a break from LOTR just because the details can be overwhelming, and I haven’t been too impressed with the second Percy Jackson series so far. Maybe I’ll order the other 2 books in the Golden Compass series. Before I go, I just wanted to mention that Sammy and I got to play Dungeons and Dragons today and man was it a blast! It felt so good to play, especially since I always wind up having to be the dungeon master. Such a great game highly recommend that everyone tries it. Find a decent group online to play with, it’s a blast!

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Circle Circle Dot Dot I Just Got My Covid Shot!

That’s right! I got my first shot of the Moderna vaccine today. It was very happenstance; I was incredibly lucky to get it. My mom had talked to our neighbor across the street, and she said that her doctor’s office started carrying it. So, I called my doctors office to check with them. I was told that the location that I go to didn’t have any available and that I wouldn’t be able to go to the location that did since it wasn’t my primary office. Still, I wanted to get further information, so I was patched over to my doctors Covid help desk. When I asked them if it would be possible, they said that it would actually be no problem and I was able to make a appointment that day. I was super excited to finally have an end date but that isn’t where it ends. I got a call this morning saying they had vaccines available today if I wanted them. I of course said yes, hopped in the car, and within an hour I got my first shot.

I’m so excited about it! I thought I was going to have to wait until late April, even May to get a shot, and I assumed that I would get the Johnson and Johnson because they’re going to be more readily available. I got to say, I love it when I’m wrong!

Typically, I wouldn’t be writing a blog post today. I dedicate Monday through Friday to book writing and I am in the thick of preparing my latest book for a rough draft but I’m working on making a rough map for my book. Even though making a map counts as book prep, I needed to make sure that I got some words down on the screen, even if it’s unrelated to my book. So, I figured that announcing that I’m a good healthy boy was a great way to make sure the writing muscles stay working.

I was a little bummed that me getting vaccinated was kind of an afterthought for everyone in the household today. Sammy is on day two of quitting vaping and my mom only got 4 hours of sleep last night so while they were excited for me, they had other things that were weighing on them. It’s okay though, my personal relief is immeasurable. I don’t have to worry about touching my face in public. I don’t have to scan everyone in the room to see who is wearing a mask and who isn’t. I can go rock climbing again. I can see my friends again and not wear a mask around them. I can hug people again. I can travel places and actually be able to do things like eat in restaurants and go to bars (even though that isn’t super my scene.) Life just became available to me again, and I’m so, so, so excited to live it.

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I Thought I Lost Something Irreplaceable

Today I thought I lost something that I never could have replaced. It was a tuff of fur from my childhood cat that passed away last year. It took me a while before I went into full blown panic but when I did, I basically tore my room apart looking for it. I felt very intense anxiety spiking throughout my body that still hasn’t worn off hours later. I called Sammy asking her if she had moved it or accidentally thrown it away and because of anxiety I wasn’t as nice as I would have liked to have been about it. Luckily, I eventually found it in my cabinet buried in my technology drawer. Not where it was supposed to be but I’m just super happy I’ve found it. I honestly don’t know what I would have done if I had accidentally thrown it away.

I’ve apologized a couple times to Sammy now. She was cool about it and totally understood but I don’t like that I can be unfair when I’m agitated like that.

I’ve definitely been thinking about Meow Meow (her name was Lola but that’s what we called her) a lot recently. We adopted two cats this past Fall and don’t get me wrong they’re great but their not as special as she was, at least not yet anyway. We considered Meow Meow the 5th member of the family. We would have her sit at the table with us at Thanksgiving and get her presents at Christmas. She had her own relationship with all four of us and we all loved her equally in our own unique ways.

I was truly heartbroken when she passed away. I haven’t always been great with animals and it took a really long time before me and her bonded. I don’t know, it felt like I didn’t get enough time with her. It seemed like as soon as we had made a special and unique connection that she passed away. I don’t want to get to meta or spiritual but maybe that’s why she was able to pass. Maybe once she finally had a special connection with all of us, she completed her life’s mission and was able to head into the great cat unknown to chase cosmic yarn, get celestial pats, and universal cuddles.

Wherever she is, whether it is cat heaven or the cosmos, or if she was reborn as another cat or something else (Louis does act a lot like her), I just hope that she is happy and that she is getting pat just the way that she likes.

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Working on Book Number 2

It’s been nice starting a new book this week. Well, I guess that it’s not technically new but with all of the changes and lore that I’ve been adding to it, it for sure feels new. This was the book that I was planning on writing before I wrote Spiders in the Attic. SINA was such a spontaneous book. I started writing it as a short story but decided to turn it into a middle school book, and a little over a month later, I have 2 drafts and 21,000 words down. The book that I’m working on now however has taken a lot more planning.

This was a book that I had decided was going to be my “practice book.” This was going to be the book that was going to teach myself how to write a book. It’d be no big deal if I made mistakes or if it turned out bad because it was just for practice. Well, the thing about writing fantasy is you have to do a lot of worldbuilding before you start writing your books. You need to think of what the world is: what creatures from mythology are you going to borrow? how will you interpret those borrowed creatures? what original creatures are you going to make? What are cities called? Is there more than one race besides humans? How do humans get along with those races?

After taking time to build a world that is unique and has never existed before, it would be kind of hard to consider whatever you write to be “practice.” It is just writing at that point.

Now, I have had practice with writing my short stories and Spiders in the Attic, so now I finally feel ready to dive in. With taking time away from the idea, I’ve decided to change things around to better fit what I want to do. I am a little nervous, but it’s an excited kind of nervous; the type of nervous you get when you’re about to go on stage and perform in front of a bunch of people. I’m not sure how long I’m going to take to flesh out the world but I should actually start writing the book by May at the latest. Fingers crossed! I think this is going to be a good one :D

[nicknags]

I Feel 29

There was a weird phenomenon that happened on my 29th birthday; I actually felt my age. It’s the first time since I was probably around 7 or 8 since I felt the actual age that I was, mostly because thoughts like that don’t happen when you’re that young. When I was a teen, I always felt older and more mature than I was (I wicked wasn’t but I felt that way.) When I was in my early to mid-twenties, I felt like I was still just a teenager. I felt like I was going to be in this constant age dysmorphia where no matter what age I was, I would feel like I was younger or older then I actually was. Not this birthday though.

Maybe the year of Covid lockdown mentally aged me but I feel like I emotionally aged a lot recently. I am a lot cleaner and better organized than I used to be. Like my room doesn’t have any dirty clothes or dishes when I used to let my room get so bad that you had to climb over piles of crusty plates, moldy teacups, and used underwear. I used to call myself a ‘certified nasty boi’ but it’s just no longer true.

I am SO much better about pursuing my goals and projects. I used to give up on books after a chapter or two. I wouldn’t outline or do character breakdowns or basically plan ahead in any way. Now, I’m all about preparing for my stories. I write extensive outlines and I make sure I know my characters before I write them.

I handle my emotions significantly better than I used to. When I was in my early 20’s I was an anxious, depressed, angry mess that had no idea how to process their feelings. Now, I have a very good grip on my emotions, and I push past my anxiety and depression. I make sure to meditate, journal, and just take time in my day to process everything.

I regularly work out, read (including non-fiction which I never used to read), make sure to get outside and enjoy the day, and take walks. I am so much less arrogant and full of myself. I no longer give people preachy advice and revel in the fact that ‘I’m so smart for knowing that.’ Instead, I listen and talk to people as equals.

Really, I’ve grown a ton in the past 9 years, so much so that I finally feel like my actions reflect my age. I used to dread turning 30, but now I’m kind of excited to see the person that I’m going to be. I’m ready to continue to grow into the person I’m supposed to be.