Week 44 = Survival Mode

 

Update – making great progress on the rewrite of the detective story, thanks to the Absolute Write writers’ forum. I’ve been a member for years but not always very active. I even stepped away for a while to get my motivation together. I was going to join their NaNoWriMo thread, but found a better one: keeping a daily word count for the month of November, with the goal of reaching 60,000 words after 30 days. I told everyone from the outset I wasn’t going for a goal; I was just there for the accountability so I could get the draft done. And it’s working. Over the last 14 days I’ve written over 7000 words, most of them brand-new as I revise/rewrite and significantly add to my initial draft. I hope to get at least 10,000 words down before the month runs out. That would be more than I wrote in the last three months combined (I don’t count the flash scenes; those are just filler). I still catch myself procrastinating, but knowing people are watching forces me to sit down at some point and actually produce. If I keep this up, I’ll have a book I can submit to publishers or, more than likely, self-publish. Maybe even make some money from it. Which, let’s be honest, is the whole point of being a writer.

$$$$

It is for me, at any rate. Especially now. I just got my payment for my editing gig for the work I did last month. I’ve gotten no assignments since. The publisher has no releases listed on their calendar beyond the middle of December. I haven’t contacted them because, quite frankly, I don’t think it would do any good. They may be restructuring, or hiring new staff, or pausing to see how the new regime in D.C. feels about erotic romance publishers. If we get classified as porn, that’s pretty much the stake through the heart as far as everyone’s job is concerned. In the meantime, though, they don’t want us workers walking away just in case we’re needed. One thing I learned from decades in the work force: nobody wants you to quit until they’re ready to fire you. Which usually happens right before a holiday. If the publisher’s closing its doors, I figure they’ll make a public announcement right before Christmas.

Well, I can’t afford to wait that long. I’ve been following the news and it looks like I won’t be losing my Social Security benefits. At least not right away. But I don’t have sufficient savings—medical issues and other unanticipated expenses took care of that last year—and I can’t make it on SS alone. I’m going to have to look for another job.

Yeah, I know. I’ve had years. I could have been writing and subbing all this time. Maybe it would have helped. Maybe it wouldn’t have. I think my last release for that publisher sold 17 copies. The books I put out with the Canadian publisher didn’t do much better. They handled my single foray into YA/NA, too. I don’t think that sold even a dozen copies, and it’s been out for ten years. Maybe I just never found my audience. Or maybe I suck as a writer. Gee, can’t imagine why I went on an extended block.

So here we are at crunch time. I damn well better come up with something, before I’m reduced to a) showing up unannounced at my brother’s house in Florida and asking to move in, or b) destitution and homelessness. Or maybe c) living in a camper. I never liked camping, but right now that option beats the hell out of A or B. I’d still have to buy the camper, though. Let’s see what else we’ve got.

I probably will never land another editor’s job. Too old, too expensive. Ditto for staff writer. Companies want young and cheap. Even if they drop the diversity requirement, I still can’t match the other two. I’ve found a couple of leads for remote proofreading jobs that I’m looking into. The fact I’m on Social Security and limited in how much I can earn may just work in my favor. Me knowing the difference between a period and a comma could help too. Sometimes it pays to be old. People actually needed grammar back in the pre-internet days.

(Today’s writing tip: “than” and “then” are not interchangeable. “Than” is for comparisons: “Bill is bigger than Toby.” “Then” denotes time and the progression of events: “Ethan chugged a bottle of whiskey and then he shot his brother. Then he shot his brother’s dog.” More and more often I’m seeing these two misused on the page, and it really grinds my gears.)

I’ve got stuff I can sell. I have a comic book collection that dates back to the late 1960s. Too bad most of the in-demand stuff came out in the early 1960s. Also in the late 1980s and into the ‘90s, after I’d stopped buying comics. Also, mine aren’t in pristine condition, so they won’t fetch top dollar. I was a kid back then; I only bought them to read and enjoy. Who knew? Still, I might get lucky and make enough to keep me solvent for a couple of months, or at least pay down the credit cards.

I can leave the house and get an actual job. Yeah, good luck with that. My legs won’t hold me up for long stretches any more, which leaves out fast food and retail. I can’t do delivery unless the outfit provides a vehicle because my twenty-year-old car isn’t fully reliable, in spite of it being a Volkswagen. Plus there was the big fire that destroyed a local supermarket earlier this year, and put a couple hundred people out of work in my immediate area. I’m astounded anybody’s hiring.

I may be forced into relying on writing to save me after all. I’m just going to need to go about it differently.

First, I need to be faster. No more screwing around half the day. I’ve already weaned myself off the computer games. That’s a good start. Now I need to wean myself off procrastination in general. That’s going to be harder; I’ve got years of a deep, well-constructed complacency rut to climb out of. I also have tons of false starts, abandoned projects and all those flash scenes available. I won’t be starting from scratch.

Next up: learn self-publishing. Traditional publishing takes too long and has gotten almost impossibly competitive. Though there could be openings soon. The results of the recent election may put an end to diversity’s stranglehold on some genres. YA and SFF will probably remain a bastion of woke/feminism, but expect more male-driven storylines in hard SF, mainstream and possibly mystery. Political thrillers may take a dive as everybody tiptoes around Donnie. Horror could get big. I wouldn’t be surprised if Westerns made a comeback. All those rugged he-men asserting themselves in the lawless West. All those lovely guns.

Me, I’ve already decided on the niche I’m going to aim for: humor/satire. I have a feeling in the coming months we’re all going to need a good laugh. Or any laugh. Besides, humor is also subversive. Somebody should resurrect Mad Magazine, or National Lampoon. Now’s the chance to get in on the ground floor, folks!

I do have some ideas and projects to work on, and even a new pen name to go with them. I’ll let you know how they pan out in the weeks to come, now that I’m confident the detective book at least will get finished and marketed somewhere. I may end up self-publishing that too. Hell, I could sell blood plasma if I wasn’t so scared of needles. Well, let’s start throwing things at the wall and see if anything sticks. See y’all next week.

 

Week 43 - Guilt Trip

 

Update – Doing pretty well, for a change. I’ve been game-free for a week now. I’ve been writing instead. I just finished a big info dump chapter in the detective book; from here on out it’s a straight race down the home stretch to the finish. There’s a good chance I can get this second draft finished before the end of the month. Part of that, unfortunately, is because I haven’t gotten any new assignments from my paid job in three weeks. No guarantee I’ll get any, either. For all I know, the company will be shutting down at the end of the year. Things always slow down around Christmas so I’ve been going through this every November-December for at least the past 3-4 years. Each time I’ve been lucky, but now…well, let’s just head on to the post proper, shall we?

$$$$

Here’s the deal: I retired a couple of years ago, at age 63, mostly because I finally accepted that nobody was going to give me a full-time job with benefits and a living wage when they could hire some inexperienced high-school grad for a lot less money and lower health insurance costs. For the last couple years I’ve been getting by on Social Security and working as a freelance editor for an e-book publisher. It was a pretty sweet deal, since at the time I was making enough from the paid work to cover my lot rent and utilities, with SS handling the rest. On good months I could even sock a few bucks away in savings. I should have been writing and subbing too, but…I’m not sure what happened. Complacency, maybe. Poor sales on the books I did put out. Isolation leading to depression and the video game addiction. A sedentary lifestyle exacerbated by the Covid lockdown. I decided to turn things around at the beginning of 2023. Keep working, get back into writing. Build myself a future.

And that’s when the fun began. First a change in the tax laws socked me with a $700 bill in taxes and led to me having to pay quarterly (because I’m a contract worker, that makes me self-employed). That decimated my savings right off the bat. Then there was the diagnosis of uterine cancer which led to the hysterectomy. Then the long-time writers in the publisher’s stable pretty much left en masse, reducing my workload to a trickle. Then there was inflation. And new expenses, as both the house and I began to break down at the same time. Again, I could have written more, if I hadn’t been blocked by anxiety.

And then the election happened.

I voted for Harris. I have no regrets. It was a choice between two ideologies; one of the sides didn’t give a shit if women suffered and died, and was making noises about cutting Social Security, at the moment my main source of income. Not exactly a coin-toss decision for me. I was certain the majority of Americans, especially American women, would feel the same way.

Boy, was I wrong. I’m pretty sure men hate us; Republican men appear to, at any rate. I thought women would vote for self-preservation. I forgot how much women hate other women, probably more than the men do. Given the choice between an intelligent, experienced black woman and a white, male convicted felon and established rapist with the cognitive skill of a turnip—well, we all know the outcome. A whopping 52 percent of white women voted for the rapist/felon because no way in hell were they going to put some darky bitch in the Oval Office, even if she’d vowed to save their lives. No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

So I could be losing my Social Security within the next couple of months. To all you sons and daughters of bitches, fuck you very much. I’ll save you a spot at the homeless shelter because your turn will come soon enough.

$$$$

Why the guilt, then? Because, even though I have leftist leanings, that doesn’t mean I blindly support all leftists. I think I’ve made my antipathy for “wokeism” and the radical SJWs who pushed it onto all of us clear. I don’t like anything or anyone who interferes in my efforts to make a living. Yes, you have a right to exist and be heard, but when you get into publishing and push your agenda into my chosen genres to the point of excluding all voices but your own, that’s when you and I have an issue.

That’s changed now. The election of the Straight White Supremacist Party means my book, with its straight white protagonist and mostly white cast, suddenly has a better shot at publication. So do a lot of my older SFF writings, which had mostly male leads. Then there’s that series that I started and got blocked on. I decided from the beginning, way back even before Donnie’s first go-round, that the series’ leads would all be straight white men from Texas. With guns. That might have been the kiss of death even a year ago. It would probably be a bestseller now.

I’m sorry a lot of women from both sides of the political fence are going to suffer and die. I’m not sorry the election may have changed publishing enough so that I have a shot at survival. In our new zero-sum society, it’s every gal for herself.

I doubt this will last long. When those in power run out of victims, they’ll likely turn on each other, and We the People should be able to oust them in favor of someone we can bitch about with impunity. Or else we’ll all be speaking Russian. Hey! I might get an answer to my question if Vladdie Boy does invade Alaska. There’s always an upside to everything. See y’all (hopefully) next week.

Week 42 - A Glimmer of Hope

 

Can a book like this be published today? I sure hope so...

Update – Not so good, but getting better. After a week-long descent into video game addiction, I finally got my shit together and started writing again. Not much, but I’m building momentum. I actually took the laptop to one of the county libraries and wrote a couple paragraphs in public. It’s a little exercise I came up with to spur creativity and, frankly, get out of the house. If I get stuck, I can pick a book off the shelf and read for a while. Wins all over the place.

November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, so I’m going to attempt what I was going to attempt last month, and write the first draft of a book over the course of the next thirty days. I haven’t fully decided which book, so I picked a contender at random from my list of possibles. If it doesn’t pan out, I’ll try another and maybe another until something sticks. Pity there’s no Start a Book in a Month program. I’d be a whiz at that.

Whichever book I end up on, it’s going to written longhand. This will keep me away from the internet and all its enticing distractions. That’s how I wrote the detective book, and that turned out okay. Anyway, I can’t type with my fingers crossed but I can still hold a pen. I’ll let you know how it worked out next week.

$$$$

Meanwhile, back at the writer’s block…

Recap: I wrote a book I had hopes for, until I looked at the markets. At the moment, my target market (SFF) is caught up in the throes of diversity. Straight, white characters, especially men, are anathema right now. So are male authors, and not just in genre. I recently made the mistake of watching a YouTube post about how women have taken over publishing in general and are making the decisions on who and what gets accepted and published, to the point that straight white male authors like Brandon Sanderson, in spite of an impressive sales record, have moved on to self-publishing. The upside for him is, he doesn’t have to share his sales profits with a publisher any more. Other, less popular authors, regardless of skin tone or gender leaning, probably won’t be as fortunate.

I, of course, insisted on writing a book about a straight white male in a straight white male profession, with the added red flag of choosing a male Anglo-Saxon pen name to keep impressionable kids from hunting up the erotic romance books I stupidly signed my real name to. I did manage to work in a Black character, but these days simply being Black isn’t enough, any more than my being simply female will help me get my foot through a publisher’s door. I should have published the sexy romance with the bisexual Hawaiian/Pacific Islander vampire slayer heroine. That was over-the-top when I wrote it; today she’d just be another face in the crowd.

Then, as a finishing touch, I had the only contender for Token Lesbian come out as straight with a vengeance, when she hooked up with a literal caveman. Let’s just pound those nails into the book’s coffin with a sledgehammer, shall we?

With all this going against me, added to my many insecurities, is it any wonder why I went on a writer’s block? (It’s no excuse for the video gaming, though. That’s on me.)

But there is hope. The SFF genre may be out of reach at the moment, but trends do change. Tastes change. The pendulum swings one way, and then it swings the other. In a market glutted with diversity books, some small publisher might be willing to take a chance on something new/old with a twist. It doesn’t have to be SFF anyway; my book can still be classified as mystery, although with a touch of the fantastic. If necessary, I’ll try querying mainstream publishers. As far as I know, they still publish anything and everything. With women running the industry, I may have a shot in spite of the male lead and byline, because at the ultimate heart of the book is a love story. (And how writers of all stripes get shafted by publishers. I'm hoping nobody notices that.) The Bridges of Madison County was written by a man, after all. Is Nicholas Sparks still publishing? I’ll have to check that out.

And if all else fails…I think for Christmas I’ll treat myself to the latest edition of Self-Publishing for Dummies. Maybe ask Brandon Sanderson for marketing tips. You only fail when you stop trying. In the meantime, it’s back to writing smut romance and hope I can garner enough income to offset the drop in my paid job. Failing that, it’s back to my scheme to blackmail the Pope. That one’s a long shot, but whatever happens I can always write about it. See y’all next week.

 

Week 41 - What Would Donnie Do?

 

Update – Not much writing got done last week. I’ve been working on a paid assignment, when I wasn’t moaning over a dentist appointment. Seems another one of my aging teeth chipped and cracked and needs an expensive crown. And because I reached some limit on my Medicare expenses, they’re not covering this. I’m totally on the hook for the whole $1800. Since I need to pay down the Visa card before the interest kicks in, everything from here on out will be going on the Mastercard. Welcome to the wonderful world of credit card debt. Well, the writing didn’t work out so well. Maybe I’ll win the lottery next year.

$$$$

Something a little different this week, although it could be considered a writing lesson if you stretch the definition a bit. A lot of stories get their start with the words, “What if…?”

Here’s mine, inspired by the upcoming Presidential election. It’s a question I’d love to ask Donald Trump if I could stomach attending one of his town halls. I understand he did a half-hour danceoff to his personal playlist at a recent meet-and-greet. Yeah, there’s presidential material. But then, Bill Clinton jammed on the sax on the Arsenio Hall show when he was campaigning back in the 1990s, so who am I to judge.

Anyway, here’s my question/scenario: Trump wins—legitimately, just to make things simpler. It’s Inauguration Day. Donnie and Vance get sworn in. They step down from the podium, ready to celebrate, when word comes in: Vladimir Putin has invaded Alaska. Russia used to own it, and now he wants it back. His challenge to the brand-new Prez: “What are you going to do about it?”

That’s what I’ve been wondering: if his BFF Putin challenged America by trying to re-annex Alaska, what would Donnie do?

Let’s be clear: Don doesn’t necessarily really want to be President. He needs to be President. At this point it’s the only way he can keep his ass out of jail. He wants the power, the attention, the crowds at his rallies cheering him on. Or the chance to go golfing whenever he feels like it. Somebody else can deal with the boring job of actually running the country. That’s what Vance is for. Responsibility is not his favorite thing. Ditto for accountability. We’ve already seen how quick he is to dodge both.

He's also a bully, and only stands up to people he thinks or knows won’t fight back. He wants to be seen as the tough world leader, the absolute dictator, feared and respected. He talks the talk, but Putin walks the walk with spiked leather boots. Putin doesn’t even have to stare; Donnie’s already blinking.

There’d be a lot of huffing and puffing and demands for negotiation and threats of nuclear war, but in the end we all know we’d be kissing Alaska good-bye. It’s not even a real state, or it would be down here with the rest of them. Isn’t it really part of Canada anyway? Nothing up there but snow and Eskimos. Good riddance to bad rubbish, says Donnie.

Though frankly, I’ll bet the absolute first thing Donnie would do is shit his pants right in front of the Fox News cameras. Then thrust the keys to the White House into Vance’s hands and hightail it back to Mar-A-Lago and hide under his bed. That’s what the Vice President’s there for, right? To take one for the team so the Big Guy doesn’t have to?

This is the moment Vance has been waiting for. His time to shine. We’re gonna nuke those godless Commies back to the Bolshevik Era! And the missiles start flying. China and North Korea join in on Russia’s side because they want to be good neighbors. Iran lets a few nukes fly in all directions and hopes nobody notices in the confusion. Europe as a whole sighs and goes to hunker down in the cellar. Africa looks at each other and says, “There go the white folks again.”

And civilization as we know it is destroyed. With humanity bombed back to the Stone Age, the damn dirty apes are free to acquire intelligence and take over the planet. So it goes for centuries, until Charlton Heston shows up. Or maybe it’ll be the raccoons this time. I like that ending better.

Here’s another possibility: Putin doesn’t go for the big red button. He offers to buy Alaska back instead and offers a shit-ton of rubles. Donnie’s greedy eyes light up. One less pesky state to worry about, and he gets money in his bank account to boot. Then North Korea chimes in: “Hey, nice little Hawaii you got there. Be a shame if something happened to it.” They make an offer. Aloha, Hawaii.

Oh, wait. Is that Mexico banging on the door, reminding us how we stole Texas from them? Hey, what the hell. Give Texas back to Mexico and he won’t have to go to all the trouble and expense of putting up the damn wall. Not only does Donnie solve the immigrant crisis, he makes a tidy profit in the bargain. See what a great leader and businessman he is?

And so it goes, from Florida to the Louisiana Purchase to the Navajo reclaiming their native lands until we’re pretty much down to the states nobody cares about, like Rhode Island and New Jersey. Then Canada offers to take whatever’s left off our hands. Donnie moves his loot to an offshore account and skips town. Nobody really minds because, with Canada in charge, we’ve finally got decent health care.

Granted, neither of these would make a very good novel, unless you’re aiming for heavy satire. But the concept of brainstorming is sound. Pick an idea, play around with it, let your imagination run wild. Sooner or later something legit is bound to crop up. And if it doesn’t…hell, think of the fun you’ll have.

$$$$

Actually, I did come up with a workable concept for a political thriller, even before this hectic campaign began. I just don’t have the knowledge, talent or skill to pull it off the way it deserves. Suppose somebody did succeed in offing Donnie Dearest? Not even in public. He goes to bed one night and the next morning the maid or Ivanka or somebody finds him dead in his bed with his throat slit. Obviously an inside job. Or a Russian mole? Or a Democrat? None of the above?

My story would have had several agencies competing to solve the case. I think my hero would have been an FBI agent because I was a big fan of the X-Files. Which enemy of America offed him, and why? The plot would take several twists and turns and finally settle on a cabal of right-wing Republican Senators intent on taking control of the United States for their own benefit. Or maybe they’re working with China. It doesn’t really matter who because the plot is foiled and the good guys win. Except for one little problem: none of them actually did the deed, they just saw the opportunity and ran with it. So, who killed the Prez?

And the answer to my What If? game was: none of the above. When considering possible assassins, I realized no one on earth has the right to kill Donnie except for one person: Melania. The wronged wife, the trophy wife, the mocked and despised arm candy. She never asked for any of this. Not the criticism, not the side-eyes, not a husband who serial cheats and brags about it while doing political interviews. She finally had it up to here with his public and private shenanigans, waited till he fell asleep, pulled out her nail file and did herself a favor. She’s background, set dressing, a prop in Donnie’s drama. Who would even think to suspect her?

This was how my book would end: the FBI agent figures it out…and lets her go. On the final page he’d be standing on the tarmac at the airfield, watching her and her son fly back to her European homeland, never to return. Damn, I’d love to read that book. Maybe David Baldacci will write it for me. Ball’s in your court, Davey. See y’all next week.   

Week 40 - Tossing in the Towel

 

Update – Not much went on last week. Mostly I worked on paid stuff. Did a little work on the detective book, played some games (which I’m not supposed to be doing) and got the lawn mowed. That one knocked me out; we had rain, drizzle and gloom for roughly a week and a half, then finally it cleared up but left some tall, thick green behind. But I got it all done, beating out most of my neighbors. I wasn’t the first, but I was up there in the top five. By the time Monday rolled around we all had our grass nicely clipped again. The weather’s gotten chillier. I’m hoping this means the end of the mowing season. I may need to chop it down one last time as we go into November. I never did get the yard work done. Maybe next year.

$$$$

Here’s something else I never got done: a first draft of a book—any book at all—in a month. I was going to do one per month every month this year. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I got some bad eggnog at New Year’s and it gave me delusions. Something gave me a massive block this year, part of the reason (along with work, financial anxiety and depression) I couldn’t write as much as I thought I could. So I’m calling it quits. I’ll continue work on the detective story, even though that’s hit a rough patch. How can you get blocked on a second draft? I’ve got the bones of the story written; I just have to dress 'em up nicer and pick better words than what I feverishly scribbled in longhand in two of those 1-subject school notebooks. But going back over it, I keep running into mistakes and plot holes that I glossed over the first time, and I have to straighten everything out so the story still works. It’s a work in progress, folks. That’s all I can say.

There’s another reason I may have gotten discouraged, and that’s the current market. Assuming I ever get it done, where do I send it? It’s not firmly slotted into one specific genre. It’s primarily fantasy, but it’s also a mystery, a detective story and partially a romance. I tend to refer to it as my Twilight Zone book, which would put it in the fantasy category. If I got the right agent, though, I could probably sneak it into mainstream. That’s where Stephen King’s books were first shelved, even though given the subject matter (psychic powers, vampires) they should have gone into the Science Fiction and Fantasy section, where H. P. Lovecraft and his ilk got lumped in with the elves and the rocket ships. King obviously had an excellent agent.

I’ve already sent a query to a SFF publisher for one of their open calls; we’ll see if anything happens. Other than that, I’m considering Hard Case Crime. Those are straight up mysteries, but they’ve published a couple of Stevie’s books, so I know there’s leeway. I just have to hope mine’s good enough.

Why not just query the SFF publishers? Back when I started, in the distant past, that would have been my go-to genre. But now I’ve hit a road block that I’ve touched on before, and recently saw an article on the Internet confirming my worst fears: SFF has essentially been taken over by the diversity crowd. It’s not just a moratorium on straight white male characters—now they want to block out the straight white male writers. Only female leads written by female authors—preferably an author of color and any gender other than straight—need apply.

(Insert screams and lots of colorful swearing here)

But you’re female, I hear you saying. You’ve got a ticket in. For the cheap seats, maybe. I’m still white and straight, writing about straight white male heroes. The problem is, I was planning on using a male pen name for this book. This book was going to be my entry into the horror genre. Stephen King doesn’t write the type of books that made him famous any more. I was hoping my nom de plume could step in and fill the void. But if white males are being elbowed out of my target genre, what’s a girl-passing-as-a-male-writer supposed to do?

So why can’t I use my real name? Because about a decade back, when I switched over to racy romance, I stupidly used my real name as my byline. Suppose the book sells well and piques people’s interest. They’ll look up my backlog and find my sex books. The ones with two guys, or one woman and two guys, or women with vampires and/or werewolves, doing fun activities together. The kind you don’t want your kids finding out about until they’re at least 27. I can’t use my initials because that’s what I used for my SFF stories, and that one YA romance with the vampires that sold maybe five copies, if that. So my real name and my initial name are both out of the running. And so’s my whitebread male pen name, it seems.

I’m still going to give it a shot, but my hopes aren’t high. My goal for 2025 will be to learn how to successfully self-publish.

Although…

Remember that screed I posted a few weeks back, about the publisher who wanted the male author to make his book “inclusive”? De-age the characters and play up the romance, only make it gay. I came up with a version of my book that did exactly that, eliminating all straight white maleness entirely. I meant it all sarcastically, getting my frustrations out of my system.

But what if I went ahead and actually wrote that version? Then queried both versions to the same or similar publishers? Which would sell? One? Both? Neither? What if I sold one and self-pubbed the other? Would I be sued for plagiarizing myself?

(Don’t laugh; that happened to John Fogerty, lead singer/songwriter of Creedence Clearwater Revival. He was called into court for writing a solo song that sounded too similar to a song he’d written for the band. It all depends on who owns the rights to what, and he didn’t own the rights to his CCR songs, even though he'd written them. The law's a funny thing.)

Might be an interesting experiment. It would make me feel like I’m actually doing something writing-related. I may just fiddle around with that next year, unless the diversity fad passes in the meantime. I’ve heard stories of romance e-book writers who do a traditional (MF) version, then rewrite the story as MM and sell it twice. I considered that, but while plotting I realized I was coming up with two separate storylines. I can’t even plagiarize myself correctly.

Or I could just go back to writing sex books. I need to do something to pay off the credit card before the interest kicks in. It doesn’t help that more and more outfits are saying, “We accept AI-assisted material.” Great. Like regular competition wasn’t enough, now I have to contend with Skynet’s literary efforts. I predicted that on here too. And you wonder why I’m depressed all the time. I think I’ll go watch TV. See y’all next week.

 

Weeks 38 & 39 - Running Late/Periods (and commas)

 

Yeah, I know—I got busy last week and before I knew it two weeks had gone by without a blog post. So another double-up. Most of it will be updates, followed by a brief tutorial in the correct usage of periods and commas. Nothing else. That title is just to get your attention. I’m experimenting with promotional techniques for when I’m ready to start marketing books. And now, on to the updates.

Week 38 update – this was the better of the two weeks. I had it all going on. I got a new paid assignment and worked on the detective book and was able to balance my work day with time left over to do mundane stuff like buy groceries and cook dinner. Okay, so the yard work took a serious hit. I’m okay with that, though my neighbors are a little honked off.  I kept the yard mowed. The summer yard season’s almost over now anyway. There’s always next year.

The best part was how easily the words flowed in my fiction. I’m supposed to be typing up the longhand, but I found myself rewriting most of the scene, and the story’s much better because of it. The parts I’m typing now were written two years ago. That’s really too long to let something sit, but the break paid off: I know the story and the characters much better now, and can add depth to the scene while cutting out the crappy bits. Also, plot holes I wouldn’t have noticed before now leap out at me, but so do solutions for fixing them. It’s a pity I went into post-writing depression and didn’t write two or three other books while this one was sitting around. That’s the way a writing career is supposed to work, if you’re really serious about it. I’ll be addressing that in a future installment.

Week 39 update – Here’s where things almost got out of hand. The first read-through on the paid assignment took longer than I planned for, because the writer had issues with proper punctuation usage, causing me to fix periods, commas and semicolons on practically every line of a 150-page file. Making readable sense of run-on sentences also slowed me down, though not to that extent. The biggest problem, though, was the unexpected quirks brought on by Windows 11. Or maybe it’s a hardware problem in the new laptop. I still don’t know for sure. All I know is, I went to move the cursor and it decided to move on its own and click on something without permission, and all of a sudden my paginated work file had no more page breaks or running heads, and I had no idea how to restore it. Imagine turning in a work assignment with the note: “Edits are done, but you’re going to have to reformat the whole thing. Sorry. My bad.” Luckily I did some experimentation and found what went wrong. One click undid the cursor’s damage and I had page breaks and headers again. However, the Table of Contents got messed up in the restoration. I included a warning note when I sent the finished assignment back. My next step will be to head up to the local library, which has a free computer lab for us old geezers who didn’t grow up with home computers, so I can figure out what the hell’s up with my cursor and how I can get it back under control. At least it doesn’t zoom the pages in and out any more.

I didn’t get as much of my own writing done this week, but the assignment’s done and gone back to the publisher and currently there’s nothing else on the docket. That means I get to write now. Unless the weather clears up (it’s been rainy all week) and I decide to take one last shot at the yard work. We’ll just have to see what happens.

$$$$

And now, a brief tutorial: Proper Use of Basic Punctuation.

This is the period (.). It means “stop.” It goes at the end of a sentence. This is the comma (,). It means “pause, more is coming.” It’s also used to separate dialogue from the rest of the sentence. Example: Marcus turned to Laila and said, “If you don’t get dinner on the table right now, I’m packing your bags and sending you home to your mama.” “Okay,” she replied, “but I can pack my own bags. Hope you’ve got the number for DoorDash.”

Here's a (made-up) example of what I had to deal with last week:

“I can’t take this any more.” He said and took out his phone. Laila watched impassively he dialed. “Don’t forget you’re allergic to soy sauce.” She reminded him walking out of the room her ass swaying suggestively in her too-tight pants causing Marcus to misdial. “Acme Hardware.” Some teenager’s voice cracked over the phone. “Hello?”

It was like that on almost every page. Sometimes almost every line. I’ll leave the writers among you to figure out what the problems are and how to fix them. Just like I had to; that’s what took me so long. I understand this is category romance and a lot of these people are writing a book a month so they can get more royalties. There isn’t time to let things sit and do a better draft. But you can do your copy editor and proofreader a huge favor and do a cleaner one. Our eyes appreciate the courtesy.

Interestingly, I’ve noticed that no matter how many typos and punctuation errors there may be in the rest of the book, the sex scenes almost always are typo-free and clean as a lewd whistle. This is true for every author and every sub-genre. I think we know what the writers’ beta readers and proofers are spending most of their time on. There must be somebody somewhere out there reading these for the story. Maybe I don’t need to worry so much about that part after all. I’ll keep it in mind when I start cranking out my own book a month. See y’all next week.

Week 37 - Things Could Be Worse

 

Update – Last week wasn’t exactly me at the top of my form. I had a week off between paid assignments—plenty of time to write. Instead I mostly played games on the new laptop. That’s the only bright spot: I figured out how to fix the cursor’s zoom problem. Turns out it was software, not hardware. I went into Systems, found the Cursor section, discovered the Zoom box was checked, and unchecked it. Haven’t had a problem since. I was able to restore my missing Recycle Bin function using the same method. I’m still having minor issues with an overly-sensitive mouse pad, but I bet I just have to click or unclick a box there too and it’ll go away. Eventually I’ll get around to that.

I did start writing again—on Sunday, the day before my next assignment was due to come in. Now I’m beating myself up over a wasted week. At some point my subconscious and I will need to have a long-overdue serious talk.

$$$$

Anybody reading this, you just caught a break. Last night I had a bad bout of insomnia. Close to two early-morning hours of sleeplessness, bad memories, regrets, recrimination, self-pity and nearly-nonstop whining. I was going to share all that with you lucky people. But then it hit me: all things considered, I’ve got it pretty good. Yes, I can’t trust my car any more and I’m facing growing credit-card debt. On the other hand, I had uterine cancer but caught it early enough that all it cost me was removal of an organ that retired ten years before I did. I didn’t even need chemo or radiation treatments. I skated right through what could have been a life-altering—or life-ending—illness. I really have no right to whine about anything. No matter how bad I think things are, somebody somewhere has got it a million times worse.

Take, for instance, current Presidential candidate Donald Trump. He doesn’t have to be President—he absolutely needs to be President again, because without the protection of high public office, his butt will be going to jail. He’s already been convicted of a felony by the State of New York. Then there’s that little matter of January 6^th. The Supreme Court gave him a reprieve, but he can only fully dodge that bullet if he gets elected again. His flunkies are protecting him, but some in the party are beginning to sidle away. If he loses, guaran-damn-tee ya the whole passel of rats will jump ship, leaving him to sink on his own. He thought he had a shoo-in, but then Biden pulled a fast one and dropped out of the race, leaving Donnie to flounder against someone younger, smarter, browner and more female than he is. A popular female, with bigger, happier crowds at her rallies. I thought I suffered from insomnia? Donnie probably hasn’t slept well in months.

And now, on top of everything else, people are shooting at him.

When you look at it that way, all in all I have no reason to gripe. All I’ve got to worry about is paying bills, staying healthy, and taking the positive actions that’ll enable me to deal with the first two. I’m not facing national public humiliation or possible jail time. Nobody’s taking potshots at me. Not yet, anyway. The hardest thing I need to do is get off my ass and deal with life instead of whining about it. If I can do that, and avoid fomenting an insurrection against the US government, I should be okay.

Like I said, I’ve already gone back to writing. I have a couple side ideas I can try to work in. I’m not running for public office. Life is good. Especially for you folks. You just got an upbeat message instead of more whine with your cheese. You too can fix a zooming cursor now. No need to thank me. See y’all next week.

Week 33 - Cursed

 

UPDATE – I’m making slow but steady progress on draft #2 of the detective story. Things may slow down a bit because this week I upgraded to a new laptop because the old one was taking longer and longer to boot up and one of the keys had come loose, with a second one threatening to follow suit. Since Microsoft’s been bugging me to upgrade to Windows 11, I went ahead and got a machine with 11 already installed. Sadly, I had to buy Microsoft Office 11 separately so I’d have access to the latest version of Word. The words you (all three of you, maybe four if Switzerland’s tuned in this week) are hopefully  reading here are coming to you live from the couch where I’m typing between commercials during Thor: Ragnarok. I’ve already done work on an existing file and only had minimal problems, but this is my first attempt at creating a new file on the new system. It’s…well, it’s turning into an interesting experience.

A caveat: if this week’s entry seems a bit disjointed and distracted, it’s because, as I mentioned, I’m watching a movie as I work. If there’s a break in flow, those were the points where I looked up to ogle Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, or both. I’ll try to type fast, and coherently, during commercial breaks and get this done before the big battle scene at the end. And if anyone’s wondering: Loki’s the one you have a torrid affair with before you marry Thor. Just in case it ever comes up in conversation.

$$$$

And here we go. I’ve barely started and already it’s giving me issues.

I didn’t have too many problems the other times I changed laptops. Mostly it was just getting used to that particular machine’s idiosyncrasies. Windows 10 was similar enough to Windows 7 that upgrading wasn’t much of a jolt. Wish I could say the same for Windows 11. Working with this is like I’ve been speaking Canton Chinese and 11 only speaks Mandarin. It’s just different enough to throw me off.

And then there’s the fun I’m having with the cursor. (NOTE: I’m being sarcastic.)

New Lappy didn’t waste any time showing me how annoying it could be. Once I got home, I naturally signed in to Google and checked out my regular sites. Of course I used the cursor and the scroll bar to move up and down. Instead it zoomed my screen out. Then out again. Then in. This happened without me clicking anything. Just moving the cursor brought on a dance of extreme close-up to ant-size print with all size variations in between. No amount of clicking on the mouse pad would return my point size to normal.

And that’s not all. My headstrong cursor also likes to drag the page itself around, zooming in and then swiping left or right so I can’t read a full sentence from either side. Again, no amount of clicking and dragging on my part reverses this.

I don’t know if this is a hardware or software issue. I’m not doing anything. It does this on its own, sometimes when I’m not even touching it. In the time I’ve been typing this entry I’ve already had a zoom in/zoom out incident and a random left-swipe. Ironically, the zooms started after I’d asked Search “Why does my cursor randomly zoom?” Answer: it may think my Control key is stuck. Try pressing Control. (Didn’t work.) Help told me I should be able to disable Chrome’s Zoom function by clicking on Settings and going to sections that didn’t appear when I did so. As for Microsoft Settings, that shows me the Zoom setting was already off. Somebody needs to tell that to my errant cursor.

I’ve had three laptops before this one and two versions of Windows. I never once encountered this problem with any of them, or on the various library machines I’ve used over the years. Others must have, though, because answers show up in Search. I just wish the answers worked.

Monday a new assignment comes in. I get to do paid work with this annoyance lurking in my system, just waiting for its moment to pop up and piss me off. I’m under warranty for another couple of weeks, but first I think I’ll go up to the computer lab the library’s offering. Maybe someone familiar with the new iteration of Windows can help me straighten this out. If it turns out to be a hardware problem, then I’ll take it back to the shop.­ I should have kept Ol’ Unreliable, my oldest laptop with Windows 7 on it, as a backup. At least I know how to work on that one. Only problem was, it tended to conk out unexpectedly; sometimes it would boot up again, other times it wouldn’t. That’s why I got rid of it, and why I started calling it Ol’ Unreliable.

There is a bright side to the zoom problem: I tried playing computer games, and the constant random zooming ticked me off to the point I just shut the whole system down. I think I’ve finally hit on the solution to my gaming addiction. The price of the laptop was still cheaper than therapy, so I have no complaints in that regard.

In semi-related news, my car has decided it’s also going to be difficult and not start at random times and places. The lights come on but the engine won’t turn over. It’s not the battery; that got a jump from a guy in the grocery store parking lot, but it did nothing. It may be the starter. Popping the clutch got it started and I got it to the garage, but they couldn’t do anything because it started right up for them so they can’t determine what’s wrong. Right now it’s running fine, but it could leave me stranded at any time, in any situation. I’d think it was in collusion with my new laptop if I were a paranoid person. Oh, wait…

Looks like I’ve got this written. Now let’s see if it’ll let me post. If not, it’s off to the library with a thumb drive, which may be how I end up doing the paid assignment. There are always solutions if you look for them. See y’all next week.

 

 

Week 32 - Writing with Style

 

UPDATE – the writing is moving along slowly, but at least it’s moving along. I’m making progress on both the new longhand work and typing the second draft. The longhand has slowed down a bit because every time I sit down to write new ideas hit and I end up running with them. Sometimes I run down a dead end and have to go back. That’s the trouble with being a pantser.

I wrapped up a paid assignment today and will have off for a while. I think I’m going to need to get a new laptop. My current one is taking longer and longer to boot up, and now at least one key has come loose (the number eight/asterisk; I can’t press it to show you because it doesn’t work now). So there’s yet another expense on the credit card. I may be doing a lot more longhand over the weekend. Or I can type at the library. Hooray for thumb drives!

I miss the bots. Those big view numbers made me feel popular. It doesn’t help that the old group blog I used to be on, which hasn’t been active since at least 2016, still rakes in a huge viewership. Mostly from Canada lately, for some reason. Why doesn’t Canada like me? Maybe it’s my breath.

$$$$

Reading soft-core smut for a living can be fun, but it does come with a downside: after years of spending long hours daily reading for a paycheck, reading for my own entertainment gradually fell by the wayside. At the end of the day, the last thing I wanted to do was look at even more of someone else’s words. Especially romance. I got burned out on reading, even the stuff that was paying the bills, but I couldn’t afford to just quit. Then the market slowed down, the writers started retiring (maybe they got burned out too) and the assignments (and my income) started to dwindle. Instead of  reading and writing more, I got depressed and ended up with the gaming addiction. But you don’t want to hear any more of that whine and cheese fest, so let’s move on.

Now that I’m semi-productive again, I’ve chosen to put time for just plain reading back on my schedule. Just no romance novels; I get enough of that at “work.” And not entirely just for the fun of it, either. This is semi-related to work, almost. Allow me to explain.

As chronicled, I’ve been writing a fantasy story about a detective trying to track down a writer at the request of several fictional characters. Since this is a novel about genre fiction, I’ve decided my first-person narrator’s voice should echo the tone of past detective classics. Although, as anyone who had to slog through a “classic” for a high school or college lit class knows, the writing styles of yesteryear can be a challenge (cough “boring” cough). I’ve never read Moby Dick, but I’ve heard stories. There’s a reason Cliff’s Notes and Classics Illustrated comic books used to be so popular with students.

What I need is the tone and flavor of a 1940s noir detective novel, but updated for modern readers. My first choice would be if I could find my old copy of Who Censored Roger Rabbit, about a hard-boiled LA detective dealing with comic strip characters, but that’s buried somewhere in my book room and I’m not about to go digging for it. So I’m going with my second choice, the best of all possible worlds: reading my way through my collection of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels.

If Parker’s name isn’t familiar to you, maybe Spenser’s is. There was a TV series back in the 1980s based on the books, starring Robert Urich as the titular PI and Avery Brooks as his buddy Hawk, still the coolest character ever to grace a TV screen. Watching the show got me into reading the books. Parker himself was a fan of Raymond Chandler, creator of private eye Philip Marlowe and one of the fathers of the hard-boiled detective genre. The Spenser in the books was nowhere near as charming, or good-looking, as Urich’s TV version. Book Spenser was an articulate tough guy and chivalrous thug who could knock down opponents with a smartass quip as easily as with his fists, depending on the situation. The tone Parker used was a callback to ’40s pulp writing styles, but streamlined and sped up for modern impatient or time-constrained readers. Exactly what I’m looking for for my particular story.

Now all I have to do is study the books and figure out how he achieved it.

This solves a lot of problems: it keeps me focused on the book I’m writing, so I’m not tempted to screw off and play games; it will make the book better if it has a “voice” that matches the subject matter; I get a chance to learn new tricks by dissecting the work of a successful published writer; I get to read something other than romance for a change, which will help get me out of my rut; and the books themselves are just plain fun, which will elevate my mood and get me back into my writing groove. That “joy” I talked about in a previous post? Here it is.

And I can picture Avery Brooks delivering Hawk’s lines in that sexy voice of his. Dang, that man was hawt.

Be aware that this is not plagiarism. I’m not stealing plots, characters, or lines of dialogue from someone else’s work. I’m looking for word choices, rhythms and sentence/paragraph structures that will echo the flavor of noir detective classics without putting readers to sleep. It would be the same if I was writing a Western or, well, a romance novel. People pick up a genre book with certain expectations, whether they’re consciously aware of that or not. If my PI doesn’t have a world-weary outlook or a quick-witted comeback in the face of some guy’s gun, they’re going to wonder about it. As an added bonus, there’s a meta reason for all this regarding the PI’s origins, but I can’t reveal that without ruining the ending. You’ll just have to wait until I finish it. Which had better be before I hear back from the publisher I sent my query to. But now I’m stoked, so I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. I’m off to work before the next assignment comes in and I get dragged back into romance. See y’all next week.

Week 29 - Close Shave

 

Update –Things got a little rough for a while, but I’m back on track for the moment. I’ve started a new story! Or a book. We’ll see how long it runs. If it peters out I have two others waiting in the wings, plus the rewrite of the detective book. I just wrapped up another assignment and nothing’s on the docket for the moment so, barring unforeseen circumstances, I should be able to get some work in. Just gotta keep that motivation going.

Here’s something you don’t get with too many professions: Monday I had to take my car in for inspection. I usually schedule it for the afternoons, then go up after their lunch break and wait around for them to finish (no rides available, and the garage is too far to walk to). This time around I took a notebook and my purse’s pen collection and got some writing in. Fortunately nobody asked to see it. Picture this if you will: in a world of electronic devices I sat and wrote, in longhand, a gay romance between two supernatural beings, in a garage owned and operated by Mennonites. That sounds like the plot of a book in itself. Or a romcom. Or a Hallmark movie. Beats the hell out of office work, even though the pay sucks. Come to think of it, so does the pay for office work. But I can work wherever now, with no annoying coworkers. There are times when I absolutely love being a writer.

$$$$

And other times when I don’t. This also happened last week. It actually started a week or two before. I get paid for my assignments on a monthly basis. Payout varies, depending on how many assignments I get and how long (word count) they are. I mentioned previously that in June I had a number of overlapping assignments, and some of them were long ones. I had myself a nice, hefty paycheck coming, which I could use to start paying down my emergency credit card. Or cover the cost of that car inspection. Or get my furnace repaired, because it turns out the thermostat wasn’t the problem after all. I’m putting that off until September. Payments have been coming in around the same time I get my Social Security, so most bills get put off until both come in and I can make a budget. On a good month I get spare cash and give the cards a break. That’s what the card was originally for, to handle medical and unexpected bills while SS and the paying job took care of the usual stuff. Life hasn’t worked out so simply. Thanks a bunch, inflation.

Anyway, I checked my bank balance on “payday.” Social Security showed up right on time. The amount for June’s work didn’t. I wasn’t that worried at the time. They’d taken their time updating my spread sheet, so I figured transfers would be running late. The outfit’s headquartered in Texas, which got hit by Hurricane Beryl right around that time. I heard reports of thousands of people left without power. I figured I could hold off for a bit.

A few days later they updated the spreadsheet. Okay, I’d get my money now. Checked the bank balance. No increase. I returned an assignment and mentioned in passing I hadn’t been paid yet. The company didn’t respond. More days passed. Another assignment came in. I made another mention of my missing money. Again, there was no response.

Here’s the downside to having a writer’s mind: my paranoid imagination concocted a whole slew of possibilities, all running along the lines of I'm screwed. They’d gone out of business. The company declared bankruptcy. The owner had an emergency and stiffed me to pay bills. The owner stiffed me, period. I wouldn’t be getting any money from them ever again. I was going to get hit with massive interest payments because I wouldn’t be able to pay down the credit card. I’d have to find another job. At my age, in my physical condition. I worked myself up into one pretty tizzy, got panicky and depressed and ate a lot food that’s bad for me. I wasn’t even this upset over the cancer scare. But then, I’ve had health issues involving surgery before and everything turned out fine. I’ve also abruptly lost jobs before, with the job market, and my paycheck, shrinking with every year I aged. This time there wouldn’t be any unemployment (part-time work as an independent contractor) or borrowing from family (they’re all dead or scattered). Not to mention I still had the new assignment, with no guarantee I’d even get paid for that, so should I work on it or not? Yeah, that was definitely a dark several days.

I selfishly indulged in despondency for a weekend, then did what I should have done at the outset: contacted the owner directly and asked them where my money was. By now we’d gone a week beyond the end of the pay period. It was unquestionably late, so if my email got a little testy in spots (though I did my best to keep it polite and professional) I figured I was justified. And this time I did get a response. The owner told me she’d failed to verify whether the transfer went through. She sent it again, with a screenshot to prove she’d done so. Within 24 hours I had my money and was able to pay off all my monthly expenses without having to resort to the credit card. Damn, it felt great to do that.

The minute I learned I still had a job and would be receiving my pay, my depression disappeared. I actually felt it dissolving. It was like I’d been reborn into a bright new world. I was rejuvenated. I finished the assignment and went back to writing my own stuff. Life was good again. Having paid bills and cash on hand, if only for a month, will do that to you.

I didn’t have to go through this. All the negativity could have been avoided if I’d done what I’d sworn to do back at New Year’s—write a book a month and start submitting to publishers, or learn how to self-pub and get ’em out there anyway. With backup income streams I wouldn’t have panicked like that. You can’t write when you’re depressed. You can’t do much of anything when you’re depressed. You do even less when you get complacent. Everything’s going fine, so why wear yourself out with extra work? Because life happens, that’s why. Companies go out of business. People get fired. Things break down, including your body. You need to work like hell during the good times because the good times can go bad in an instant. I didn’t, and got hit in the face with the consequences of my own inaction.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been in this spot. Maybe, just maybe, I’ve finally learned my lesson and will get off my ass and start prepping so I’ll be financially secure when the next disaster hits. If the books don’t sell, that’s okay; I’ve got loads of old comic books and some other memorabilia from my collecting and con-going days. They’re not in mint condition, but some of them ought to be worth at least a month’s rent and grocery money. I can always drop cable, too. It’s not like anything’s on.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work. Get those stories written, polished and out the door. And keep a close eye on my bank account. See y’all next week.  

 

Week 26 - (no subject)

 

Update – Not really much to talk about this go-round, either here or in the actual blog portion. I’m all caught up on the paid work and have off until Monday (July 8). I fell off on the actual writing again while I dealt with the paid stuff but will get back to typing tomorrow. I took Sunday off and spent the afternoon at my local comic book store, hanging out and keeping the clerk company (he’s an old acquaintance). We had a blast chatting with the customers about upcoming movies and classic trivia. For the record, my favorite Batman is Kevin Conroy, who provided the Caped Crusader’s voice on Batman: The Animated Series, which I mentioned last week. After Conroy passed, Mark Hamill announced he was retiring as the voice of the Joker because it wouldn’t be the same without his longtime castmate. So ends an era. My favorite Bruce Wayne—not Batman—is Ben Affleck. He’s got those classic chiseled features artists have been using for Wayne for decades. I mean, c’mon—did anybody really accept Michael Keaton as millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne? But once he put the costume on—dayum. Keaton was the best part of the recent Flash movie. I’m still imprinted on Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent/Superman, but I accept Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. She looks like a woman who could beat the snot out of Supes. Female actors weren’t really allowed to be buff back when Lynda Carter had the role.

I made up a list of possible projects I can work on while I type/rewrite the detective story. So of course one not on the list is what decided to nudge me. I’ve found my loose scenes and I’m going to read over them and see if anything sparks. If not, I’ve got plenty of others to fiddle around with. Somehow, someway, something is going to get written by the end of July.

$$$$

I haven’t been reading much lately. Frankly, not for months. My paid job makes it harder, since all I do for that is read. Then I get to the end of the day and the last thing I want to do is stare at even more words. Add in depression and the game addiction and reading for fun kind of fell by the wayside. No wonder I haven’t been able to write. One of the best motivators/idea generators a writer can have is to read a truly horrendous, boring, badly-written book, the type that begs you to throw it across the room. (I recommend you only do this with printed books. Kindles cost money.) Now that I’m working on staying positive and rediscovering my joy in writing—and especially now that I have some time off between paid assignments—I’m going to find a good book and get back into the reading at bedtime habit. This should also help me sleep better at night. That and not eating sugary foods after 6 pm.

What to read? I’m currently reading a magazine interview with Neil Gaiman, which reminded me I’ve never read any of his Sandman work. Some comics fan I am. My local library has a massive graphic novel collection, so I should be able to rectify that easily. If not, I’ll see if any of  Robert Galbraith’s (J. K. Rowling’s pseudonym) Cormoran Strike books are available. I’ve read a couple of those and enjoyed them. Can’t solve the mystery, but I’ve gotten caught up in the not-quite-romance between Strike and his female partner. Or I can catch up on Stephen King’s books. I haven’t read any of his new ones since Covid closed down the library’s used bookstore. That, and King’s gotten boring since he sobered up. The  trouble with library books is that the trend these days is for longer works, 300-500 pages or more, and I’ve only got two weeks. If I decide to switch genres again and need to read current YA books, I’m going to be in deep guano.

If I do get writing something new—and I’d better, that credit card ain’t gonna pay off itself—I’m going to make a semi-change to the schedule and write the new book first thing in the morning, in longhand. That eliminates internet distractions, plus I’m more likely to get up from a notebook to eat than I am from the laptop. My ideal schedule would be to write my stuff in the morning, work on paid stuff in the afternoon, then wind down in the evening and watch TV. Or, better yet, read. Somehow yard work fell off the map. Yeah well. Do that on weekends.

I haven’t had a road trip in a while either. I’ve been too busy and it’s been too damn hot. I’m going to hold off on long trips until later this month, after the car’s inspected and gets a scheduled oil change. Less chance it’ll leave me stranded somewhere miles from home. I may need to wait for September for research trips to Philly. Not as much daylight, but much less humidity. I’m not worried about researching Strasburg, my book’s secondary setting. Strasburg’s about a twenty-minute drive from where I live. I can cruise around there on a Sunday afternoon and get all the info I need.

That’s about all I’ve got in the tank for this week. Enjoy your Fourth of July holiday, try not to blow off any fingers or toes with those illegal fireworks, and I’ll see y’all next week.

Week 24 - Coping

 

Update – Last week got a little hectic. My day job has been sending me overlapping assignments this  month, which means either focus on one and shortchange the other due to lack of lead time, or try to do two at once. I responded by withdrawing and blowing off my work time on computer games instead. This resulted in an all-day marathon, starting at 5 a.m., the day before deadline. And I got the sucker done. The solution to the game problem was simple: unplug the WiFi. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?

I still made time to work on my own writing, at least up until the weekend. The slow pace is actually working out to my advantage. I finally caught up to a scene that’s been sitting for so long I was able to objectively see just how totally out of character my one cast member was behaving. To be fair, I didn’t know her that well when I wrote the first draft. I’ve had more time to think things over and to get to know her better, and crafted a whole new version that imparts the same info and keeps the plot moving while staying true to who she is. It also nets her the machete, which she’ll put to good use in the climactic fight scene. As an added bonus, it solved a problem I didn’t even realize existed: in that same battle, another character steals the PI’s gun and shoots somebody. Nothing in the first draft even hinted she knew how to handle firearms, in either her world or ours. So this time around I had her hand off the machete with the explanation, “I’m not much of a fighter. I can shoot a gun and that’s it.” Now I can go ahead and have her blast away with a clear conscience because I’ve set it up. This is why it’s a good idea to let time pass between drafts: the distance makes the bloopers stand out more. You plotters have it so much better; you work out all this shit beforehand.  We pantsers, who write on the fly, have to sweat through multiple drafts. On the other hand, we provide work for editors. Maybe that’s our true place in the publishing food chain.

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I’ll admit, I was in a pretty bad place emotionally last week. I think I’ve got a handle on it now. I’d better; I don’t have a support system, and I can’t afford therapy. I’m utilizing the Poor Person’s Approach to Combatting Depression: working at getting sufficient sleep, eating more fresh fruits and veggies, cutting back on sugar, taking stabs at exercise and getting out of the house more, and flat out unplugging and walking away from the internet. Looking back, last week’s anxiety and personal loathing was entirely self-generated. I let events overwhelm me and chose to shut down rather than take a step back and give myself a chance to regroup. Removing the source of temptation by pulling the Wifi plug did the trick. I got the work done with time to spare and felt much better afterwards.

I wasn’t quite over the hump, though. I jumped right into the next assignment, now with a shortened lead time because I had to wrap up the first one, but caught myself playing more games than doing actual work. I shut everything down and had a long talk with myself over what’s important. The next morning I got up and plugged in the WiFi, but this time with the resolution to take care of business first. And work got done, with the WiFi intact but without any swerves into games, and only brief forays onto YouTube. (Hint: you can tie up the net by running background music and enjoy yourself while still working.) I seem to be okay now, but I’ve walked this path before. I’m always fine after I give up the games…right up until the next time. The “next times” seem to be coming more frequently. I should be addressing the underlying problem, but the budget’s strained to the breaking point right now. Until I can earn enough money to afford a shrink, the coping mechanisms will just have to suffice.

I did learn some positive lessons from the experience. I’m capable of accomplishing more in a day than I thought I was. There’s a difference between taking a legitimate, needed break and totally screwing off. Schedules work. In this particular case, I’m the weak link in the chain.

It all comes down to time and the choices you make in how you spend it. Budget wisely and you can indeed have it all. Make a wrong, impulsive choice and you’ll be left scrambling. That may not often lead to true disaster, but it sure as hell feels like it in the moment. It can spike anxiety and a crash into hopelessness, or force you to assess and acknowledge what really matters. Do I really need to watch Thor: Ragnarok again? Deadline’s two days away. On the other hand, I can’t concentrate on the work right now and the longer I sit there, the more I feel compelled to play Spider Solitaire, which can and has stretched from “just one game” into a five- to seven-hour tournament. Or longer. Without pee breaks. That’s edging into self-destructive territory and is definitely not a good thing.

When I find myself hitting this particular wall, the best thing I can do is just get up and get outside. Or take a nap. Not play games or watch Ragnarok, because that just makes me feel guilty afterwards. Just change the venue for an hour or so. Drink water, take deep breaths. Then, once the panic passes, go back in and do what needs doing, like a real grownup. I could probably save even more time if I just breathed into a bag. I may try that sometime.

There is hope. I’m writing again because I made the choice to make time for it. I give myself an hour in the morning before I start paid work or mow the lawn or do anything else. That gets my daily writing obligation out of the way first thing. If I have the time and inclination at the end of the day after the paid work’s done, that’s gravy. On a good day, I can write, mow or pull weeds, make a sizeable chunk of progress on a paid assignment and be able to quit and watch Jeopardy or read a book at the end of the day with no guilt whatsoever. Those are the days I sleep well, too. I haven’t vacuumed or dusted in months. I can live with that but probably shouldn’t be content with it. Maybe I’ll start adding that in next week. Too much loaded on my plate makes me panic and spiral again.

Because it’s just me here. I don’t have backup. I’m my only source of income. I’m the one in charge, and sometimes that’s scary as hell. All I can do is keep on keeping on, and make better choices regarding my time than I have in the past. Like posting this blog. I used my morning writing time to get this done. Well, I can scribble flash tonight, or rewrite longhand and type it up later. And I’ll bet I just saved myself a ton of cash by dumping all this out on the Da Web instead of paying some douche with a degree to sit there and ask me, “How does that make you feel?” Thanks for handing me roughly fifteen minutes of your own precious time. I hope there was something worthwhile in here for you. See y’all next week.

 

Weeks 22 & 23 - What Grinds My Gears

 

Update(s) – Things went better last week, the week I’m writing about, than this week, the week I’ll be writing about next week. These updates would go better if I wrote them on Sundays, which was my original intention. Last week (May 26-June 1) I got stuff done, including paid work and writing. This week (May 2-May 7, the day I’m typing this) I finally started cleaning the weeds out of the yard and wrestled with a bad bout of constipation, culminating in a two-day descent into computer game hell once again. However, I got back to the writing this morning and I’m confident I can get the paid work done before deadline, so it’s all good. Next week I’ll see about getting myself back onto a less confusing schedule.

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As I feared, my last posted topic may have had internet repercussions. Over the last week my readership dropped alarmingly. Even the Hong Kong bots deserted me. Traffic’s slowly picking up again, though, so maybe it was just a glitch. And Switzerland’s still there. (waves) Maybe I’m just being paranoid.

To summarize, with clarifications: I am not against racial and sexual diversity in my reading and viewing material. I’ve included diverse characters in my own works, but only if it enhances the plot. I wasn’t planning on adding other races to the cast of my current book, but the Token Black Mercenary character started developing a personality, which led me to the conclusion his writer must have been a black man. This gave my main bad guy, the greedy, self-absorbed editor, the excuse to fire him for the crime of Writing for a White Audience While Black. The editor does a lot of reprehensible things, but that one should guarantee his infamy. It also made a crucial info source black as well, because he was the fired writer’s nephew and had actually met the two other writers the detective’s looking for. Plus it solved a background issue of my story being set in Philadelphia. Philly, like most major cities, is a melting pot of what Star Trek used to refer to as “infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” If I hadn’t included at least one Person of Color in the cast, it really would have been a fantasy.

What I do object to is having diversity forcibly crammed down my throat, in the form of a constant stream of feisty Girl Bosses who can do no wrong (think Mary Sue, but as a lesbian POC), or race- and/or gender-swapping established characters in the name of “equality” (Doctor Who; Thor: Love and Thunder). I tune in to see Superman stopping bad guys, not Superman’s young-adult bisexual son sexting with his gay boyfriend. Yes, that scene appeared in a comic book.  There are exceptions: My Adventures with Superman, the Adult Swim cartoon, is a true delight, even though Lois Lane is now biracial (she’s half Korean, according to the producers), and Jimmy Olsen appears to be permanently black, continuing the race swap initiated by the CW’s Supergirl show. That’s because everyone, regardless of skin tone, still remains true to their original characterizations. The writers clearly respect the characters and their history. That isn’t always the case. When the writers start using someone else’s characters to pound their pet agendas into our heads, it’s time to close the book or turn off the TV. Or get the hell off the internet.

But what really ticks me off is what may be the true motivation behind the surge of inclusivity, at least for the corporations that own the IP rights to all these characters getting largely-inappropriate makeovers. As with everything in a capitalist society, it all comes down to money.

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Three real-life stories, two of which happened to me personally, two of which deal with diversity…at least on the surface. Story 1: Back around 2008 I lost what turned out to be my last full-time job when the company, a printing firm, sent its work to India. This was also around the time the economy tanked, and finding jobs was a chore. I got lucky and signed on for the US Census, essentially a two-year temp job with no benefits but great pay. When that ended I still had unemployment to tide me over while I started a new job hunt in the slowly-recovering economy. I found two possibilities on the internet: a newspaper editorial position that, from the location and description, sounded like my old newspaper job, just under new management. The other was a writing job I’d applied to years ago but didn’t get; I think I may have botched the interview. Both were the types of jobs I’d been doing for years, had an interest in and experience with. Both ads contained the lines Recent graduates encouraged to apply. Experience is fine, but not required.

In short, they’re not looking for pros. They’re looking for young and cheap. Preferably women, because women traditionally get paid less. That’s how I got to be an editor in the first place. I wasn’t young, but I had no experience and would accept pittance wages to get it. The other woman, who had experience, wanted more money. Guess who got the job. Now I had experience and needed full-time work. Good luck with that.

I clicked on the Apply Now tab for the newspaper job, only to learn it was already filled, probably internally. I sent a resume to the other one. Never heard back. They probably saw the writing-related experience I had and decided I was too rich for their blood. I eventually got my work-from-home job, so things worked out, more or less.

Story 2:  It’s a few years later. Harlequin, the romance publisher, was looking for editors for Carina Press, which I think is an e-book line. They had a list of qualifications that my work-from-home job had given me some experience in. The pay sounded a lot better than what I was getting. They also used the “recent grads” line, along with a new one encouraging interest from members of “traditionally marginalized groups.” Again, experience was welcome but its lack was not a deal breaker, and diversity was a plus. I sent in my resume, answering all the questions. And got a reply: “We’re not going to interview you.” It’s the only line I remember from their response. Not even: “We had 1000 applicants who live across the street from our offices” or even “We’ve decided to hire last year’s interns.” My application itself got shot down in flames. I wish they hadn’t responded at all. Nothing like asking about a job and getting a smack in the face for it.

Months later, I checked out their “meet our new members!” page to see who’d won the lottery. It looked like they did hire a lot of interns, or people who actually knew their way around a publishing house. Can’t fault ’em for that. Some of their hires had pronouns, like “they/them”. Hey, if you’re qualified, fine. What you do on your own time shouldn’t matter anyway. But my favorite part of this story is what happened some weeks afterwards. Both the editor and the assistant editor (I think, but can’t recall for sure, if she was the one who responded to my application) were abruptly fired. The editor was on vacation at the time. She’d been there for years and had built that line from the ground up. She was also probably pulling in a higher salary than the new kids would be getting. Last I heard, she was marketing herself as a “freelance editor” and offering paid tutorials in editing. She’s not young and cheap any more, and probably not diverse either. Such is karma.

Story 3: One of the writers at DC Comics—Zack Snyder, I think, I don’t feel like double-checking—[Correction: I ended up looking it up; Scott Snyder is the comic book writer. Zack (no relation) is a director who has done DC-related movies] had been running a workshop in comic book writing for several years before I learned about it. I applied for what turned out to be the last one. Only a set number, maybe ten, would be invited, but some of those lucky few would get jobs writing for DC. I was always more of a Marvel fan, but what the hell. I always wanted to write for comics. This could be my last shot.

Well, it missed. I didn’t get picked. I did not get to take part in the workshop. In the end, Snyder picked a trans woman. Most of his previous picks were people of color, trans, black, and any and all combinations thereof. Word is that Snyder, himself a straight white man, was deliberately seeking diversity hires to broadcast his “wokeness” and secure his own job. Hell, if I’d known that was a requirement, I could have faked being a lesbian. I even supported the Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy ship before it became canon. But there y’go. Now DC Comics is in the dumpster and the writers are begging their fans for money to pay their bills because wages are even lower than they were back in the 1990s, when comics were popular. And good. And yet these people are still getting assignments, although the work’s drying up as the backlash sets in. I probably get more from Social Security than they do writing for comics. I think I may have dodged a bullet here.

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All this is why I’m glad now I missed out on the Berkley open call. That “fresh, new voices” bit was the warning shot: published writers, fogies over 40 and white folks stay away. We’re not looking for good books; we’re looking to check boxes. Quality is an afterthought. My guess is, advances are going to be a lot smaller than they were ten to twenty years ago. Assuming they even pay advances. If it’s e-books, they offer a percentage of net sales. Either way, the publisher’s going to make money; you can bank on that. The writer? Maybe not so much. But with very few exceptions, that’s always been the case.

And yet I persist. There’s nothing much else I can do. I’m no longer young and cheap, and I’ve always been boringly white and straight. I have become unhireable. Might as well go out doing something I enjoy. And no, I don’t mean playing computer games. See y’all next week.