This morning I sat in a coffee shop, a bit of a hole in the wall, bohemian place. The whirring sounds of the cappuccino maker and conversations of passersby’s combining with the soft voice on the sound system drifts over my ears. The floors are worn in a path that leads to the counter that is manned by a dreadlocked woman whose smile is infectious. I love this place. If I sit in the front I can watch as life goes by in an unending stream of traffic while I sit and enjoy the moment. If I sit in the back the windows overlook the river where I can see the changing colours of fall sliding along in a peaceful cornucopia of breath. Evens its name Slave to the Grind takes imagery and thrusts it into the mind.
So this morning I sit and enjoy my chai tea, the same as every other morning. Breathing and prepping myself for the day. I started coming here regularly as a way to force myself to write. I sit wrapped in the warmth of my favorite haunt and type away on my baby laptop. Inspiration finds me and makes me its bitch.
I have set a rather lofty goal of trying to write one thousand words a day. Most writers say to write three hundred and fifty, so perhaps I am being an over achiever. For those not in the know, three hundred fifty words is approximately a page. So a thousand is a lot and so far I’ve maintained that. I’m not kidding myself if I can’t make it well than I won’t beat myself up on it. But I like having a goal – an end point. And honestly usually when I start (especially when I am mid story) the words flow and I can easily end up doing twice that many.
But there are some days, especially coming up in the foul weather of south western Ontario where writing is like pulling teeth. Each word is a struggle. Or where the story goes sideways and I just can’t write it anymore. I have a novel that is in process, sitting at thirty thousand words (about half way done) and I’ve lost all my get up and go about the story, the characters, everything. I’ve got another one, where at ten thousand words I realized there was no way it could be used at all. Both of those I’ve set aside and hope to come back to at some point. For now I file them away and keep going.
I’ve got just over a week until my release date. It’s really getting close now, close and crazy and scary and exciting and pride filling and utterly terrifying. I’m holding it together barely suppressing my emotions but holding it together none the less. The passage of time seems like a paradox, at points going so slowly that things are NEVER going to happen, then whizzing by in hardly noticed impressions. I know I’m regurgitating what a lot of science fiction shows talk about, but I feel right now like I am stuck in warp drive.
I know I’ve talked before about the busyness of life and this month is no exception. I am organizing a huge Halloween bash, running the store, writing, releasing a book, having my daughter’s birthday, having to attend four other major functions and trying to breath. It’s a crazy month. So I apologize if my brain isn’t working the way I would hope it would normally.
Today’s nonsensical post is about nothing. I am going to include a poem, which I normally wouldn’t – this isn’t the forum for poetry but I wrote this the other day when Mr. Gloria asked me what it felt like to write a novel. I also in no way claim to be a poet but I was feeling it at that moment. So here it is, feel free to ignore it or read it your choice.
That’s it for today. Wish me luck as I progress through this week and try to hold my shit together. (and just so you know this post is sitting at 691 words – so I am not done for the day)
Birthing A Novel
Hour by hour, minute by minute
carving little pieces of my soul
to serve on a plate for the public to mock
Days spent in little coffee shops, ignoring family and friends,
Surrounding myself instead with my characters,
hurting when they hurt, crying when they cry,
losing time, losing sleep as the world I engross myself in takes over.
Monopolizing my time, my energy, my every thought.
staring out windows agonizing over what they would do and the choices they must make.
Hands constantly poised over keyboard waiting for the words to come.
Hoping, praying for inspiration.
So Why?
Why do it?
Why not just ignore the voices in my head begging to be let out?
Why, because the call is too strong.
I write or I am not.
I am what I am, I cannot pretend to be something else.
I cannot lose myself in the world of the mundane.
I will become something I can’t be
The story begs to be told.
I must endeavour to give it the justice it deserves.
I am a slave to my muse, to the creative juices within myself.
I follow because I have no choice.
Thursday 23 October 2014
Tuesday 14 October 2014
Oh my Gawd!
Today is a beautiful fall day and I am sitting in my favourite hole in the wall coffee shop, enjoying a tea. I do love the smell of coffee, it evokes such positive, warm, feelings, but I’ll be honest when I say I cannot stand the taste of the stuff. Makes me want to vomit – no matter how much milk and sugar I add. So I stick to my tea and pretend I am sophisticated, AKA adult, enough to drink a cup of Joe. I watch as the leaves change colours and while I love the look of this season, I hate knowing that winter is merely minutes away. I fully admit to being a summer girl, basking in the sun, never cold just breathing. But the wheel of time moves on whether I wish it to or not.
As October speeds along, things for me are just getting more and more real. Only seventeen days until the official release of Supernaturally Yours. (Which by the way is available for preorder in eBook format on www.musapublishing.com – here’s the direct link . My nerves are a little ruined; I am still in a total state of shock.
I was doing up posters for the novel when I thought I’d better put a web address on them, so I faithfully went to my publishers website (just to make sure I had typed it in right) and while there I thought “What the hell, let’s put my name in the search bar.” Just for (as my mother used to say) ‘shits and giggles’ and lo to my surprise the cover pops up. Along with my blurb, excerpt and link to the book trailer. There was also a little red button for “buy now”. I nearly peed my pants. Quite honestly I screeched (and for those of you who know me, know I NEVER screech). It was an honest “Oh my god.” Moment. (which I said at least four times – each progressively screechier. There it was. My book. My love, my soul, my brain child, bane of my existence, my focus for the last two years. RIGHT THERE! I don’t think I will ever have a moment like that again in my life. I immediately called Mr. Gloria at work (pulling him from a meeting – but OH MY GOD!!) I screeched at him and freaked out a bit. Okay a lot. But it’s all new for me, I’m allowed. I am trying to find the words to express my emotions in that moment. Overwhelming happiness, disbelief, pride, fear, anxiety and joy all rolled up into a big old ball of “oh, my GAWD!”
I guess I am still in that stage of being unable to believe it is happening. I keep expecting the publisher to turn around and go “oops, sorry. We made a mistake.” Or “Bazinga! Fooled ya!” Not that I don’t think Supernaturally Yours is a great book, I do. It’s just this shit doesn’t happen to me.
Although I seem to be the only one with these secret doubts hiding inside me. I was talking to Mr. Gloria about it and he says. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.” When I asked him what he meant by that he clarified, that he’d always known he would see my work published somewhere. From the time he read the first poem I ever shared with him he saw something in me that would be more. He said that he knew how special I was and that the world would discover it as soon as I let them see it, instead of hiding the real me behind a mask of normalcy. - As if he wasn’t sweet enough without all the honeyed words, then he has to go and say things that almost make me cry. Bastard. But a really great bastard nonetheless.
I was kinda shocked by his admission, for a few reasons. First, I never saw anything special in me, I am just me. Second, that the bugger has known I could do so much more, and in the twenty years we’ve been together he never told me to get off my ass and do it. Third, that he could have such faith in me is truly humbling.
So I sit in my coffee shop, almost drinking coffee and going over all the ways my life has changed. Wait that’s not right my life hasn’t changed, I have. I am learning to accept me and love myself and believe in myself and maybe that is where the difference is. I like the person I am, a year or two ago I would have hidden from myself, behind a wall of everyday mom, instead of embracing the wookie wearing scooter riding freak that I am. I would never have believed that I deserved any of this. The fact that the world will soon be able to read my work (which is like reading inside my brain, my mind, my soul) is terrifying to me but I’m not afraid of it. Sounds like a weird sentiment, but I’m terrified of putting myself out there to be ridiculed, to be thought of as ‘less than’ but I am also not afraid. I know this is the path I am meant to take, the one I have to take. This is where I was meant to be. I only shake my head at how long it took me to get here.
As October speeds along, things for me are just getting more and more real. Only seventeen days until the official release of Supernaturally Yours. (Which by the way is available for preorder in eBook format on www.musapublishing.com – here’s the direct link . My nerves are a little ruined; I am still in a total state of shock.
I was doing up posters for the novel when I thought I’d better put a web address on them, so I faithfully went to my publishers website (just to make sure I had typed it in right) and while there I thought “What the hell, let’s put my name in the search bar.” Just for (as my mother used to say) ‘shits and giggles’ and lo to my surprise the cover pops up. Along with my blurb, excerpt and link to the book trailer. There was also a little red button for “buy now”. I nearly peed my pants. Quite honestly I screeched (and for those of you who know me, know I NEVER screech). It was an honest “Oh my god.” Moment. (which I said at least four times – each progressively screechier. There it was. My book. My love, my soul, my brain child, bane of my existence, my focus for the last two years. RIGHT THERE! I don’t think I will ever have a moment like that again in my life. I immediately called Mr. Gloria at work (pulling him from a meeting – but OH MY GOD!!) I screeched at him and freaked out a bit. Okay a lot. But it’s all new for me, I’m allowed. I am trying to find the words to express my emotions in that moment. Overwhelming happiness, disbelief, pride, fear, anxiety and joy all rolled up into a big old ball of “oh, my GAWD!”
I guess I am still in that stage of being unable to believe it is happening. I keep expecting the publisher to turn around and go “oops, sorry. We made a mistake.” Or “Bazinga! Fooled ya!” Not that I don’t think Supernaturally Yours is a great book, I do. It’s just this shit doesn’t happen to me.
Although I seem to be the only one with these secret doubts hiding inside me. I was talking to Mr. Gloria about it and he says. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.” When I asked him what he meant by that he clarified, that he’d always known he would see my work published somewhere. From the time he read the first poem I ever shared with him he saw something in me that would be more. He said that he knew how special I was and that the world would discover it as soon as I let them see it, instead of hiding the real me behind a mask of normalcy. - As if he wasn’t sweet enough without all the honeyed words, then he has to go and say things that almost make me cry. Bastard. But a really great bastard nonetheless.
I was kinda shocked by his admission, for a few reasons. First, I never saw anything special in me, I am just me. Second, that the bugger has known I could do so much more, and in the twenty years we’ve been together he never told me to get off my ass and do it. Third, that he could have such faith in me is truly humbling.
So I sit in my coffee shop, almost drinking coffee and going over all the ways my life has changed. Wait that’s not right my life hasn’t changed, I have. I am learning to accept me and love myself and believe in myself and maybe that is where the difference is. I like the person I am, a year or two ago I would have hidden from myself, behind a wall of everyday mom, instead of embracing the wookie wearing scooter riding freak that I am. I would never have believed that I deserved any of this. The fact that the world will soon be able to read my work (which is like reading inside my brain, my mind, my soul) is terrifying to me but I’m not afraid of it. Sounds like a weird sentiment, but I’m terrified of putting myself out there to be ridiculed, to be thought of as ‘less than’ but I am also not afraid. I know this is the path I am meant to take, the one I have to take. This is where I was meant to be. I only shake my head at how long it took me to get here.
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