Honoring My Family History in Story

This is a photo of my 2x great-grandparents Hiram King Wicker and Emma Angeline Whitcher. I adore them. The genealogy work we have done shows them to have had fascinating lives, courting just after the civil war. They feel alive to me. 

My father and I have spent decades studying our family history and we have well over 1700 names of our known ancestors. It led me to develop a strong spiritual Ancestor practice as a means of honoring where I came from to better know who I am. And some of that shows itself in my work. 

[Don't be disheartened by my nutshell if you don't know your own ancestors or have a way of knowing them. I work with a lot of people who were adopted on ways of connecting to your line spiritually. You can still honor those who came before you without names. And you can honor a chosen line rather than blood. But I tangent away...]

Ancestors. Having so many of their names I wondered what I should do with them.

I created a catalogue of first names and surnames and I draw from them when I name characters in my stories. Sometimes it's a first name or a surname. Sometimes it's a main character or a small side character. 

It's my way of remembering of them, of pulling them into the present, however best appropriate to the story. There is always the ghost of my ancestors alive in my creations. Every time I finish a story I light a candle and thank the ancestors who inspired that name, for having had lived and continuing the line that ends in me, that I am alive to tell my stories.

Another Rejection-Not-Rejection.

I got my second rejection that was decidedly not a rejection at all, but an acceptance letter today! And I was thrilled to receive it while isolating with my parents so I got to read it out to them.

Another story arrived to a magazine I have been trying to get into after they had filled the next issue but would I allow them to hold it until the December issue?

Yes. Yes I will. Thank you and please print my story.

The story I sent out was a supernatural story based on a real experience I had. I enjoyed exploring what-might-have-happened but I'm not sure my old college housemates will find my version comforting, lol.

I will post more information as I learn it.

*

Artists, keep making your art. I'll see you all on the other side of this pandemic. 

Writing in Pandemic Times

I'm not going to lie, writing while the death toll is rising and people are getting violent over being asked to wear masks is hard. My work normally leans towards dystopian themes but this reality we are living in is too close to the way the horror in my stories start. 

I'm a hermit by nature and almost five years into isolated recovery from a near-death trauma. I don't mind the isolation (so far). But I keep thinking the same thing over and over again...

Science fiction is meant to be a cautionary tale, not a blueprint.

So watching the world unfold in the manner in which so many writers before me predicted humans would respond is more than a little disheartening and saddening.

I am currently isolating with my parents for a month, in a lake town closed for the season. Local people are still coming to the closed beach. I have been down there among them, hunting for fossils and beach glass, the only person in a mask. I was the only person in a mask among people shouting and spitting and laughing and I felt like I was living one of my own stories (and quickly broke through the crowd to go off to a more isolated stretch of shore).

I came back to work on a submission deadline and found it too sad to use that real-time experience as seasoning. I'm a sensitive person. I can imagine a great deal. But my joy in dystopian work comes from writing stories I think are real-enough but would never actually happen. I enjoy the What-If scenario when it isn't likely to occur.

I'm still writing, but my creations are more magical and modern right now. How can we change the world now to not-become-that? That kind of thing is living in my heart. How can we better the world with our crafts? Look at the numbers in which the world is turning to the Arts for relief. How can we tell tales but deliver a thread of hope?

Artists, keep making your art.

We have no idea how long this will last or what else will be asked of us. The flu of 1918 lasted two years. I'm watching the people at the park here being so careless with each other's lives that I am certain we have to be prepared for a marathon, not a sprint. The pure science behind how long it would take to get a vaccine that works out into the population tells that even that will take time. 

[But in the meantime, for a start, if people stopped littering the ground with their disposable masks, that would be great. Masks that might have virus on them. It's just health protocol. And we need to cut the strings when we're done. I've already seen birds with legs caught in them.]

We are our own heroes thrust onto an unwanted quest. Only we know if we will rise to meet it. 

[I'm just going to plug masks one more time. I'm chuckling as I write that but it is startling after isolating in solitude for three months to find myself in a crowd of people who are talking about this virus like it's not a big deal and won't touch them. Wear a mask to curb the spread. I think we're going to see the numbers go back up again. The flu of 1918 saw an increase that first fall season.]

May we all see the other side of this virus. 

Story Rejected. Wait? Not Rejected?

I received the best rejection yet this morning. A new story was rejected from an anthology and it was a long and sweet note. Buried at the bottom of that rejection was a request to include the story in an anthology for next year that hasn't even been listed yet.

Yes! Take my story.

Maybe a smarter writer would shop it around but I am still looking for homes for my stories where they are wanted as I know my writing style is not mainstream (or so say most of my beta readers).

So next year I already know I will have a new story out. It gives a little glow to how 2020 is panning out.

On the Other Side of Opioids

I posted over a year ago about getting back on my feet with writing after my accident. Soon after that post came the death of a dear friend, the death of my doctor, the loss of recovery services, and then new information about long-term opioid use.

I had thought that because I was taking less than half of the recommended daily dose that I was doing well. I discovered that I was still taking a significant dose. And I learned that a small percentage of patients were experiencing a sensitivity to it that created more physical pain instead of diffusing it.

I was in that category. And thinking I was experiencing more pain-- which I was-- led me to take more oxycodone. I was still under my daily allowance. But it didn't matter. I had been on oxy for three years and it only takes 7-9 days for a patient's body to become dependent upon it.

I may not have been addicted but I was dependent. And without a doctor. And scared.

It took me a while to find a doctor who would see me. I found one. No one wanted to take on a patient who was already taking a narcotic that was now being closely monitored and regulated. I was not treated kindly by everyone. I often felt like I had to point out what should have been obvious from my file-- I was burned badly. I almost lost my legs. I needed the pain meds.

I didn't want to need them.

I spent October through December weaning off them, cutting every dose in half for a few weeks and then cutting it in half again until I was taking the smallest sliver. I was told by my doctor to take those slivers and to call the office if I had any issues.

Which of course I did. Always at 3 a.m. when no one was in the office. And there were a few nights that my heart was swollen in my throat and racing so fast I thought I would die. 

The months that followed have been better and harder. My mind is clearer but physically there was some backsliding. So while I am ready for more mentally I can do less than I could. I was visiting with my mom recently and when I complained about my lack of energy, compared to last year she said something that stopped me cold.

That energy level was drug-induced.

So I'm aware now. I'm awake now. I have more pain than I hoped I would. But the stories are coming out. Editing takes too long still but I have learned to carve out the time I need to get deadlines met. I don't have the energy to write all night anymore. I have lost count have how many times I have fallen asleep mid-blink and wake with my hand on the mouse, hovering over a highlighted section. A couple of times I have discovered I deleted passages I meant to cut and paste.

I'm learning a new routine to make my artistic process possible for these new hands and this new body.

Speaking of new things, I have some things to look forward to, to keep encouraging forward momentum. I have a non-fiction story on my near-death moment coming out in five days in Against Death: 35 Essays on Living edited by Elee Kraljii Gardiner. And I have a supernatural urban fantasy story coming out in the anthology Of Fae and Fate in October.

Some of these hurdles have been hard enough to almost convince me that maybe one of the sacrifices of living was going to be my storytelling. I had to consider that maybe my post-trauma brain was different. And maybe it is. But the stories are there, more than just whispers of birdsong. 

I'm listening. And I'm ready. 

My Latest Story is in the Anthology On Fire

BURN, BABY, BURN

Capable of creation and destruction, fire burns within us.

Behind the thick, black smoke of our lives, we blaze with our own unique flame.

While love compels some, others feed greed and lust into their hearths.

A tool for the deft hand, used with magic or as a weapon, but irresponsibility leaves deep burns and promises dreadful consequences.

ON FIRE brings to light twenty-six tales that explore this unpredictable yet beautiful element.

Handle with care.

Coming out 12.01.17!

Contact Information

Website:http://www.transmundanepress.com/

Blog: transmundanepressblog.wordpress.com

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/TransmundanePress/

Twitter:https://twitter.com/TransmundnePres

Newsletter sign up: http://eepurl.com/bYiL2r

Editors’ Bios:

Alisha Costanzo is from a Syracuse suburb. She earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Central Oklahoma, where she currently teaches English. She’s the author of BLOOD PHOENIX: REBIRTH, BLOOD PHOENIX: CLAIMED, LOVING RED, and BLOOD PHOENIX: IMPRINTED and is co-editor of DISTORTED, UNDERWATER, and AFTER THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. LUCIFER’S DAUGHTER, her new novel, is its creation for a hopeful 2018 release. In the meantime, she will continue to corrupt young minds, rant about the government, and daydream about her all around nasty creatures.

                                              

Having relocated from Northwest Florida’s lonesome roads and haunted swamps, Anthony S. Buoni now prowls the gas lamp lit streets of New Orleans, playing moonlight hide and seek in the Crescent City’s above ground cemeteries. Anthony is the author of Conversation Party, Bad Apple Bolero, as well as the editor to the Between There anthologies.  His stories and articles have been featured in North Florida Noir and Waterfront Living. When not prowling, Anthony keeps it scary, writing dark fiction, editing, and watching horror movies.  In his spare time, he DJs, plays music, and conjures other worldly creatures with tarot cards and dreams.

Visit our author pages to learn more about the contributors here.

A Book Cover Reveal & What It Means to Me

Not the book cover; just a meaningful image.

This Halloween is the cover reveal date for the anthology my latest short story will appear in! I hope it always feels this exciting. It's an anthology of short speculative fiction stories called On Fire, published with Transmundane Press.

Yes. 

On Fire.

If you know my personal story, you understand why I clarified that they were works of fiction. And lest you don't find it funny, I assure you that gallow's humor is the bread and butter of recovering serious pain and moments of facing one's serious mortality.

October 31 will also be the second anniversary of my being on fire. Of when I was on fire. I never quite know how to put it. Words seem to fail the experience.

I'm not big on anniversaries as a rule, but the fact that this accident fell on a holiday makes it a bit more difficult to distance it from the upcoming calendar date. It's not like I'll be like, oh last Tuesday was the anniversary. I forgot. Not ever. But it's a day. It's just a day. It will pass. And someday it will pass and fire will not be the first thing I think about.

And this year there is a happy note to the day. The story in this anthology is the first story I finished after my accident, while I was early in recovery. My latest work, "The Last Seven Tribes of Ketchari", contains a thread related to my journey, the thread of finding courage in a hopeless situation and rising above it to become something more than you imagined possible.

In an original, fantastical world, it's about how we adapt to survive.

And Lo, the Pinkie, It Doth Straighten!

This is my right hand after a skin grafting and almost two years of healing. The thick ridging is mostly smoother out. My new skin is thickening, though it is still thin enough to act as a barometer, changing color in hot or cold. But I want you to look at my crooked little pinkie. I had contraction bands on the underside, which didn't allow me to straighten it at all.

Considering that I almost died, that I almost lost my legs (I didn't), and the months it took me to walk independently again, a crooked little, fire-eaten pinkie seemed a small sacrifice. The most trouble it gave me was that any time I tried to type an apostrophe, a semi-colon came out. My pinkie simply couldn't stretch enough to reach it. That's what 'find and replace' is for.

I can still remember waking in the ICU to my hands bandaged up in tight balls, wondering if I would ever write with my hands again. ::shudder::

My surgeon, Dr. Joan Dolinak, is a miracle worker. Upstate Hospital in Syracuse has a new scar laser for burn treatments. She said she could break up the contraction bands and some of the thicker scar tissue. I just had my first treatment-slash-surgery on Thursday. After all my skin graft surgeries I was nervous about going under again. Dr. Dolinak promised me that I would be able to take the bandages off today and shower.

She was right.

I won't even go into the transformation in my legs except to say it was more than I hoped for and I wept. I sobbed. It was amazing. And when I took the wrap off my hand, my pinkie straightened IMMEDIATELY!!! It pulls from being immobile and I have some physical therapy work to do with it to get it to flex up again. But it is the most beautiful fire-eaten straight-ass pinkie I have ever seen.

My hands are my craft. My hand speak works my lips cannot put form to and for a while I was scared that their ability would be compromised. And it was. But I am doing my work, as well as my Work.

The rewards come. My semi-colons are apostrophes again. I even had to correct the over-reach I had unknowingly adopted because, for an hour tonight, all my lower-case Ls were apostrophes.

Look at that beautiful pinkie finger. Fire doesn't just have to be an ending. It can also clear the way for new beginnings. Imagine all the stories my hands have yet to write.

Can you? I can.

A Post-Accident Milestone

Last week I sent out five stories to answer submission calls. Now I just have to wait and see if they intrigue the editors enough to want to buy them. It's a writing and waiting game.

And sometimes you win.

I just sold the first story I wrote after my accident!

That makes me happy on many levels. It means the work I've been doing to get my hands back in shape and regain discipline around writing every day has begun to harvest results.

I'll post more information about the sale after I sign the contract.

*

I always mean to write on the blog more but I spend all of my free time writing my stories.


Whatever it is you dream of doing, just start doing it. May it consume all of your time until it becomes your vocation.

A Year and a Half Later

May 1st marked a year and a half from the day of my accident. It was just another day of rehab and walking and working and editing and sleeping and resting. A couple weeks on and it hit me emotionally. I could be dramatic and say it was the toll-of-it-all that threw me but I was exhausted muscularly.

I've hit a new level of physical ability. I leveled up. But now I am at a new hard beginning. I'm doing it, but it's whooping me. So I took a month off from writing. I binged on The Handmaid's Tale and American Gods episodes when I would usually be working. For full disclosure I also watched Penny Dreadful, The O.A., Grace and Frankie, Orange is the New Black, and Stranger Things.

Today came the last possible rejections because I have no more stories floating about for submission. That sat uneasy in me. So I wrote down the ideas in my head I'd been avoiding. I wrote when an old story idea cracked open and became a full novel.

I sent a story out to a reader and their critique was perfect. I love them. I'm keeping them secret. (At least until they get through a dozen or so of my stories.)

I have found my inspiration to write again in the same place I always find it. In nature. I spent the day looking up submission calls and choosing stories to send out and fleshing outlines down for a couple more I want to write. It feels good again. The itch-to-write feels in my body the way it felt before my accident.

I'm going to need that.

I spent the spring writing down things here and there about my coma adventures. I have been writing them out, telling the details, and I have needed more comfort come bedtime. But I am a writer and this is how I process. I write. So in my heart I am writing as a means of healing. It is mostly taking the edge off of the difficult emotions surfacing.

There are still deeper waters left to tread but it doesn't feel like drowning.

It feels like liberation.

Recovery Road

It's been a year since the accident that almost took my life. How could I not be thinking about that tonight? In many ways it's been a very long year. And in another way, I don't feel like I have a lot to show for it.

Except I can walk, talk, write, make myself food in the kitchen, put my shoes on by myself, use the bathroom, wipe myself, check the mailbox, climb stairs, cough, etc. I had to relearn all of it. And I did, like a champ. From the outside now, I move slowly, but you wouldn't necessarily know something so almost-devastating had happened to me. Most days that is enough to make me happy.

My recovery has taken me longer than I expected. The more honest answer is that it has taken a lot more out of me than I expected. When I get most frustrated, my brain sighs heavily and says, "You were a pillar of fire."

I was not in a fire. I was the fire.

I spend most of my time preparing-to-do-things, like getting clothes ready to put on, or getting ready to wash up, or getting ready to make the bed. And then I can do one thing to cross off my list. I keep making plans of five things to do a day, but I forget to start the list with all the things I already have to do before any of the extras can get done.

If I get one extra thing crossed off, one new thing done, I call it a win.

And then, at the end of the day, when my exhaustion-induced-naps are over, I write. But two months ago it would have been, "I try to write," so I will embrace the improvement. And my writing spurts sound more like my old voice, and more easily so on my first try. It's not that I had any damage to my brain. But when your body is still using processing points to remember how to step up on a curb, it doesn't want to divert power to imaginary world-building.

And I learned that even then, it's not about desire. It's not about want. It's about can't.

So you have to ride it out. Or you could fight it, but I'm pretty sure that will just tire you out more, requiring more naps than now, and if now is very frustrating to you, it's probably not the best choice.

I have managed to write a few new stories and submit some of my pre-accident ones. Within the last month the story muse has been singing faster than my healing hands can type, so I'm getting better at choosing what to work on and catch-in-the-moment. Better discernment is a good skill to have.

I like to note my silver linings. They make the pain worth something.

I even found a story I sent out the morning of my accident. I couldn't recall the storyline. Once I read it I remembered having the idea for it and drafting it, but I couldn't remember how I ended it at all. How many writers get to say they read one of their own finished stories for the first time and didn't know what was going to happen?

Three of my recent submission responses were we-really-liked-your-story-and-held-it-for-further-consideration-but-it-didn't-fit-with-our-other-selections, and two of my responses were sales. That feels really good. I am not back to where I was, but I am back on track. I lost momentum for a while but I didn't lose my creative mojo.

A year ago I was on fire and they thought I was going to die. Today I am putting pen to paper and birthing a new world. These are good things.

Get Dystopia Utopia Here!

It's been a week... I got a rejection. A submission got bumped up to the next tier- one step closer to a yes. And I just sent a new story in. Then there was an e-mail telling me that the last story I had accepted, "The Keepers of Madleen," was just published!

Check out the book at Flame Tree Publishing with this link!

Hitting a Milestone & Receiving Professional Payment

The current professional payment rate in the writing world is .06 a word. So if I write a story that runs 5500 words and then sell it to a publisher at a professional rate, I receive $330 for that story.

When I started sending my stories out, my main hope was to get published, to see my work in print. I didn't have any lofty aspirations besides, please, somebody-who-doesn't-know-me like my story well enough to want to print it. After enough rejections, finding out that you *almost* made it actually makes you happy rather than upset. After months of hearing that you almost made it, it no longer feels as good. That's when you start wondering what's missing from your stories that you can't get grabbed up.

You're always working at being a better artist.

A lot of editors and publishers are also trying to build up their businesses and aren't at a place yet to pay pro-rates, though they wish they could. I have submitted to calls offering .01-.02 cents a word, where that same $330 story would net me $110. And I submitted, because it's still $100 more than what I have in my pocket.

I sold a $287 story for exposure, because it was the first place I had no connections with that read my story and wanted to print it. I sold a $59 story for $10 because at some point, any money is more than the not-money you currently have. I actually sold a $350 story for $30 recently, because I've been shopping it around for three years and someone finally wanted it and I realized that, more than money, I wanted to see that story find a home

A lot of artists struggle with this. After all, if you spend a week on a story, writing, editing, polishing it, that's seven days of electricity, seven days of three meals per that you're hoping to recoup the loss of. Exposure doesn't put food in your belly.

But we do it, if the project is right. We do it because we're working towards being good enough to earn a pro rate.

I finally have, and it's for a story I am extremely proud of, a world I want to explore more of, and a character I want to visit with again. Check out "The Keepers of Madleen."

My (Current) Creative Process

Sometimes this happens over weeks, sometimes days, and in the worst times, over one weekend. When you ride the creative waves of inspiration, sometimes they are elusive and other times they sweep you up and carry you with them. So when the waves stop, and you are stranded in an unknown sea, and the direction is unclear, it’s a good time to evaluate your faith in yourself.

For the moment, my process seems to be pretty consistent. Shared with intended humor, though it's still true, this is how each story is born:

• So, I have this idea…
• I think my idea is pretty good.
• This is a pretty good story.
• This is going awesome!
• Huh.
• This is tricky.
• I can’t figure it out.
• Fucking-a.
• (This is where I try to distract my brain with stupid logic puzzle games.)
• Okay. I need to babble at you about a story you don’t know anything about. But please don’t ask me any questions yet or you’ll derail my train of thought.  I just need you to let me babble.
• I hit a wall and it’s a thick wall.
• I’m going to moan about it and say I need to take a break but I’m not going to take a break. Instead I’m going to work on this one sentence for the next 5 hours.
• This is crap. THIS SUCKS! I don’t even remember where it was going!
• I’m going to ask you what you think, but everything you say will be wrong. Sorry in advance.
• I don’t want to hear you say that I’m a good writer and I can do this. Stop encouraging my failure!
• I suck. This was a horrible idea. Everything I write is lame. What was I thinking?!
• The universe is lame. I can’t write. I can’t be a writer.  I want to die.
• I should just work at Crawl-mart…
• …but I can’t imagine doing anything other than writing.
• (Deep breaths.)
• I just need you to tell me I’m a good writer. Tell me I can do this.
• I need to look at my story with new eyes.
• Okay, a lot of it doesn’t suck.
• OH! OMG! I figured it out!
• (Insert usual unhappiness that I had to cut something/someone I cared about to make it work. At least I accept it as part of the journey. Fighting it only insures a broken story.)
• That was so easy to fix.
• I think this is a good story.
• I wrote a really good story.
• Writing is awesome. 

Oaths and Statistics

You have to get your feet wet.

A little over a year ago, I made a public statement on land sacred to me, that I was going to take a leap of faith, believe in myself, and send my writing out regularly. I am happy to look back at that moment and be able to say that I did it. There were a few months where there were lulls in submissions calls, but during those times I kept working on the next story, never ceasing to string words together. I built worlds.

In the last year, I wrote and edited over a dozen stories, of varying lengths. I sent them out into the world and received a passel of rejections, which indoctrinates me into the Every Writer Club. You know what helped with that? I shared my favorite rejection form letters with other writer friends. It’s not personal. Most of the time, you are one of hundreds of writers vying for a dozen spots.

But, in that same year, four of my stories were accepted!

I still doubt myself and my words. It comes with being an artist. But I have a trust now that I didn’t have before I opened myself to accepting rejection into my creative process. I trust that each story that doesn’t hit the mark is a learning experience to make the next story, or rewrite, better. And I trust that a rejection doesn’t mean my story is bad, but that it simply hasn’t found the right home yet.

As a writer, you are creator, nurturer, adoption manager, and undertaker. I have new goals this year, and prayers that my computer can hold out until I get paid enough for a story to replace it. Wherever you are in your own process, may your time be fruitful and productive.

Happy Hunting!

June Release for the Folklore Anthology!

I am thrilled to announce that the first book in NordLand Publishing’s Northlore Series, Folklore, will be released in June. My story “Hold the Door” is in this anthology! It has been a pleasure to work with the team at NordLand and I cannot wait to see this cover in person.

If you’re a fan of storytelling, of prose and poetry, of Norse flavored sagas and fairy tales, of monsters and creatures, of gods and heroes, check this series out.

A link to NordLand's announcement! 

Good News Cometh

I have a sci-fi story and a fantasy story to edit. I have an urban fantasy story to clean up and another urban fantasy story to bring to life. So of course, I started working on an original fairy tale instead. 

Sometimes the muse bids us to follow another wind. And sometimes looming deadlines overrule the whims of the muse.

*

Yesterday morning, I woke to an e-mail in my inbox. Since they’re mostly rejections, I was ready to steel myself for a few minutes of sadness and tears, before moving on. But when I opened it, I almost didn’t understand the words:

“I am happy to tell you that your excellent story has been accepted…”

Cue tears of disbelief, hand over my mouth in joy. The contract will come next month. The YA anthology the story has been accepted in should be published this October. More info to come!

And, this morning I learned that a story I signed a contract on last summer is moving forward with it’s publication. That’s two stories due to be printed this year!

It doesn’t mean I get to relax. I have to maintain this momentum. More hiccups and hurdles will come. But so will the good news. 

Silver Linings

I have five stories out waiting to be read and accepted or rejected. One story has been out since September, almost seven months now. On the publisher’s webpage, several authors have posted about signing contracts and getting published, only to never receive payment or their contributor’s copy. The publisher has responded each time publicly, assuring that they did so months ago. But they have yet to respond to my story. And it’s unlikely I would sign the contract if they did. It’s a shame. It’s a good one that would have meshed perfectly with their project.

But otherwise… other authors have been posting their rejections to projects I submitted. It’s nerve-wracking, and ironic, as artists and creative types tend to be sensitive by nature. And wounded by rejections over creations we consider to be our children. It’s enough to make some people give up. To decide that at some numbered rejection, their story isn’t good enough and they set it aside.

We forget that there’s also the audience to consider. Sometimes we shop stories around to the wrong places, because we don’t know better. I’ve had my fair share of those. I’m new to the business and not so savvy about that end of it. So there are bound to be hiccups and bumps along the road.

What matters is that I get up, dust myself off, and keep going. What matters most to me, about this journey, is that I didn’t think I had the heart for so much “no” and I am encouraged to find that the fortitude to do it anyway, because it is in my nature to do so, lives inside me, beneath that hurt.

I have this ritual I do every morning before I open my author e-mail account. I tell myself that rejection is part of the journey. If I get them it’s because I’m putting myself out into the world. And I believe that eventually, after a slew of rejections, the acceptance letters will come. So I welcome the rejections.

Still, every morning I don’t have a rejection in my inbox is a good one. It means one more day my story is being considered. When your career boils down to a daily game of chance, it’s all about the silver linings.

What keeps you going, on your uncertain path? 

As 2014 tips into 2015...

I've been writing for years, finding my voice, finding footing in the stories I wanted to tell. This last year was the first that I seriously started submitting my work to strangers. Throwing myself out there is not something I do. So that is amazing. Accepting that I may not be understood or valued, and believing in myself is not something I did well in 2013. But I had to, in order to embrace the rejections that came back to me.

And yet some people liked what I had to say. And some people even sent me contracts, to share my work with others. So many steps forward, despite the push back. Every one of those steps is a beacon guiding me forward.

That's where my dream lies. It's the only path for me. I believe in fairies. I believe in Santa Claus. I believe in things I cannot see. I believe there are those out there who will feed from my stories.

May you find your passion in 2015. May you dive into what you need to do to see it through. There is only one you. Only one person in this whole world who sees what you see. I rang in the new year the way I want to live every day after... writing. Working on words. Thinking of my family. Wishing my loved ones health and happiness.

This last year has been solitude, work, loss, reunions, poverty, illness, surgery, births, love, work, success, rejection, love, and love...

May the next year be better. May my work be fruitful. May you find what you're missing. May you find it within you.


Here's a link to a separate blog post I wrote about my Great-Grandma's NYE diary.

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There is this rush of adrenaline when it’s done. I don’t think that will ever go away. You write a story and it’s a creation of yours. You’re attached to it. If you’re not, you might be in the wrong profession. And then you let it loose. You send it out into the world.

Will it be good enough?

Will they like it?

Did I polish it enough without losing my intention?

The reality about writing is that every draft you discard is still alive inside you. Every character you create and then cut out is a shadow in the story, something that was. And it’s very possible at the end for it to get muddy in your brain. It’s why having beta readers is SO important! But despite the story itself, out in the big world, there are other hopes.

Is this the right market for it?

Is it a good fit for the project?

Will my story find a home?

And you hope. And you dive into the next project and try to forget that you’re waiting to hear. And you finish the next story and you send it out. And your heart skips a beat as you hit the button. And you flush with terror and adrenaline. And you hope.

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