I'm Still Here!

A farm near our home.

The above photo was taken last Friday, when my fiance and I went to do some volunteering. The site is beautiful, and my main function that day was as photographer.

It has been over a year since I've updated this blog. I have not gotten back to my writing, but I will soon. I will. The writer's muse can be a fickle one, though.

I am a member of a local writers' group, but I have not been attending, due to my health. I would like to change that, so I am going to make the effort. The truth is that there are a lot of things that I want to write!

So what I am saying is please hang in there with me. I will get back to it soon, and I will happily share excerpts of my work! You can also find me on Medium, though I have not uploaded there in quite a while, either.

More soon!

Late Summer Update

 View from my kitchen window.

I have not been focusing on my writing.  I'll be honest.  The summer here at the farm has just flown by, and other than a quick script for an event I hosted earlier this month and my continuing work on writing exercises and on the transcription of my handwritten material, not much has been happening.

James Clear- The Daily Routines of 12 Famous Writers

I found this very inspiring.

from James Clear

Springtime: Reading

Photo by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels

Happy Spring!  Our thoughts here in Massachusetts have turned to planting, pruning, and freshening up!  (Also leaving the house and going out for a good meal, not gonna lie!)  My writing is a bit stalled, but I've been making time to read which tends to spark my writing, so there's that.

I'm at various stages of reading four books.  I'm very close to the end of one, at which point I'll be starting a new one. Three of the books are for a book club.  The one I'm about to finish was our first selection.  I'm about halfway through the current selection.  It's a weighty book.  Like college textbook weighty.  As soon as I finish the first book, I'll be starting on our next selection.  The other two I have going are my writing book, What If, and a Grimm's Fairy Tales anthology.  The book club selections are all non-fiction (spirituality.)  To be honest, I'm dying to just read a regular old fiction selection (for me, that means either literary fiction, horror, or sci fi.)  Once I'm done with the Grimm's, I'm going to do that.

"Why Grimm's," you may ask.  I've always been deeply interested in fairy tales, folklore, and myth.  They inform my art.  There are also a few of the fairy tales that I would like to modernize.  I usually enjoy it when other people do it, and the genre adapts really well to horror, which is where my fiction aspirations lie, should I ever go there.  These stories carry very strong and timeles themes.

The only thing I have written lately is a comedy set, which I performed about two weeks ago.  Though I have not performed on a physical stage in a pretty long time, I have been taking advantage of online opportunities to do so. I also have rejoined my comedy writers' group back in DC, who have been meeting online every Monday night during the lockdown. I'll continue to do that until they go back to meeting in person. (Bad connections be damned!)

I'll get back to my other writing eventually.  For now, I have farm work, house work, and other desk work to tackle first. I know this may make it seem like I'm not prioritizing my writing, but I do spend some time working on it, in some respect.

I hope everyone stays safe and healthy and has a wonderful Spring!

Checking In

Just checking in, as its been a while.  The truth is, my writing has been on hold, as we work on our new home and as I struggle with a chronic illness.

I'm still a member of the writers' group I joined when I first moved here, but unfortunately, we haven't been able to go in a while, mostly due to my illness.  We take it one week at a time.  I hope to return soon, especially since the weather is improving!

I was thinking about my memoir this morning, which is not the same as writing. What this means, though, is that I will soon sit down and work on my notes.  If I'm lucky, I might even get an outline started!  This would be new for me, as I hate making outlines!

As of this afternoon, I'm going to work on one of my other blogs while I'm  here in town where there is Wifi.  I did watch a book talk by Stephen King (my Forever Inspiration) earlier today as I worked on stuff around the house.

My writing projects are never far from my thoughts.  It's sitting down and writing that is a challenge for me!

Onward!

Productivity

I have formed a new habit around my writing. I suffer from insomnia. I used to get up and watch TV or YouTube when I couldn't sleep. 

Then I moved and unpacked some books. One of them is the one in the photo. It's a textbook. The chapters are super-short, but they are dense. The exercises are challenging. 

As of right now, I'm mining some memoir material based on these exercises.

I have also joined a writers,' group. These two things should keep me busy!

Update: We're Moving!

Photo by Helena Lopes from Pexels

"Moving to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches..." If you remember what song this is from and who wrote it, then you know approximately how old I am!  ;)  Yes.  We are moving!  As I write this, I am sitting in a hotel lobby in New Jersey.  We're on our way to Vermont, where we'll be staying with my in-laws while we look for a house to buy in Massachusetts!  We are looking for a moderately sized house with a lot of land!  We have about six or seven houses picked out from the web, and I'm sure our realtor has more for us to see.  We'll be up there for about a week and a half.  Our house is under contract, and it looks like this one will stick, so we need to be ready to move into our new house soon!

We live in the country now, on a pretty private five acres. We are looking for even more  privacy.  It's not that we don't like people.  We are just both introverts (I mean, hey--I'm a writer, after all!)  We are also homesteaders.  You can read about that on my personal blog. 

The past couple of months, I have not gotten much done on this front.  I've been working more than I have wanted to, and when I wasn't working, I've been resting and recovering.  My fibro has been off the charts.  Now that I've ended my job and stepped away from the whole house-selling fray for a bit, I'm feeling a little more relaxed.  As an early riser, I count this time as precious.  I will be designating my mornings as writing and meditation time.

I've noticed that a lot of the writings I am transcribing (stuff from the 90s, mostly) has a real YA feel to it.My intention was not to write YA, as I'm not particularly a fan, but I'm going to keep an open mind and see where this all goes.  I would eventually like to write horror, but first I need to establish a habit, get these pieces transcribed, and see where it all goes. I will probably take some writing classes and/or join a writing group once we've moved and settled.

All I know is that I love words. Words shape our reality.  They connect us to other people.  Whether I end up publishing and seeing any success or not, I know that my words will affect someone, somewhere, some day.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Inspiring Words: James Baldwin, Stephen King

I am not familiar with James Baldwin's work, other than to know that he was prolific and that he was a genus.  As I am making my way back into the struggle and toil that is the writer's experience, these words were just what I needed today.

I have been a Stephen King fan since I was a child.  At first, it was all about his horror stories and novels.  (I'm a big horror fan, and let's face it: No one can write a short story like The King!) As I have grown up and grown older, I have read other work of his that is not horror, and I have come to really appreciate him, just as a fellow writer.

Project: Memoir

Photo by LSD for Society on Unsplash

I've been going through my typing folder. Tonight, I came across several college essays. Different episodes from my life.  Opinions. I have created a folder just for this project. Tonight, I started collecting my stories into one document.  Notes for my memoir.  They're not really even chronological right now.

I have wanted to write a memoir for a  while, but I'd convinced myself that my story isn't that good.  I'm not done writing it yet, so there's no way to know how it will be.  I don't need a central theme to compile notes, and maybe the materials I'm using will spark something.

More as this project progresses.

Medium Post: Psychology of the Magus

Back in the 90s and early 2000s, I was very active and prolific with my spirituality.  I'm just now starting to get back to it.  This is what I think was one of the better articles I've written, so I pulled it out today, dusted it off, and published it on Medium.  You can read it here.

(Please limit comments to the concept of writing. I do not wish to debate life choices and religion on this blog.  Thanks.)