Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
Life, Prayers, Friends, Frustration, and Futility
I know I haven’t blogged in a bit, but the last few weeks around Chez Caffrey have been hectic, to say the least. I’ve been hip-deep in one edit, chin-deep in another (don’t ask), have nearly completed a third edit, restarted a fourth edit…and carved out a bit of fiction writing time for myself, too. (Not as much as I wanted. Not as much as I would’ve liked. But some.)
And, of course, I have had all the usual Real Life Issues (TM) to deal with, too.
Sometimes, I feel utterly frustrated. I want to be able to do more. I only have so much energy; it’s a finite amount, and some days it seems like it’s trickling away without my notice. There’s only twenty-four hours in a day, and it seems like I need at least twenty-six to get everything “normal” done (I know; define normal). That’s before writing, of course, so if you add in writing, along with music composition (which has taken a back seat the last few weeks as well), I’d probably need at least thirty-two hours in a day to do everything I feel I must do.
Which, of course, is flat-out impossible.
Because of the recent “sadiversary” observance (which I’ve discussed elsewhere here at my blog), too, I have been reminded of how much faith my late husband Michael had in me. He believed my writing, my music, and my music composition all mattered. He wanted me to succeed, to thrive, to be happy, and to be creative (not necessarily in that order).
I wonder, sometimes, how much I’ve managed to do in this regard. Life gets in the way. There isn’t enough of me, and there are way too many different things that must needs doing, stat…then add in the fact that a couple of my friends are in major distress right now, plus another one is watching his spouse die by inches and can’t do anything except be by her side as she no longer recognizes him…well.
Frankly, I have felt extremely frustrated over it all. I have wondered if life is just a futile thing, because there are so many things I can’t do and so many things I wish I could do (such as restore my friend’s wife to health). I believe we, as human beings, are striving toward something — empathy, creativity, passion, purpose, maybe all of it? — and yet we face so much frustration along the way.
Is it worth it?
I think so, or I wouldn’t be here now, blogging about it. I believe life is not only is worth it, but it matters so much, so intrinsically, that it’s nearly impossible to plumb the depths of just how much it matters.
That said, there are moments where I wish I could do a whole lot more than I am. There are moments where I wish, just for one moment, I could hear my husband Michael tell me that yes, what I’ve done makes sense, and yes, what I’m doing makes sense, too, and yes, what matters is that I’ve given it my best effort.
As I’ve always done. Yes.
He knew that, about me. And he knew that about life, too.
Some say that life is all about the journey. I think that’s only part of it. Yes, we journey along, and yes, we learn things on our own journeys, too. But it’s also about figuring out what’s important to you, and how to go about doing those things while pulled in seemingly a million different directions.
So. I’ve felt frustrated, and wondered if life matters, and thought about futility for the past week-plus. (Yes, some of this would’ve come up because of the “sadiversary” observance. But I think much of the rest has come about due to my friends’ various struggles, and my wishes that I could ease their burdens in some way as it doesn’t seem like I’ve been able to do a lick of good in any regard.)
What do you do when you feel frustrated? What do you do when you think everything is just futile, or pointless, or just not worth it?
I know what I do is go on. I put one foot in front of the other, do my best not to fall, and just keep going. Even if the direction doesn’t seem right, and even if sometimes I need a course correction or two, I just keep on keepin’ on.
But before I go, I would like to ask a favor. Please, if you have energy to spare this week, pray for my friends. Pray because they are good people who need good things to happen rather than the bad things that have accumulated over the past few months (months that have seemed like decades, at least to me). Pray because no one deserves to feel so terrible for so long. Pray because human beings should care about one another.
I’ve never asked this before, and I may never ask it again. But I need to ask it now, as way too many of the people I find meaningful and wonderful in my life are struggling. I can’t do much to help other than listen, which of course I’ve done…and pray, which I have been doing for a while. My prayers, however, do not seem to be anywhere near enough to positively affect the outcome.
That’s why I chose to blog today and to discuss all this difficult stuff. I want to help my friends, dammit; I want, somehow, to give comfort to them, and the feeling that their lives aren’t hopeless or meaningless or worthless.
Does anyone else feel this way? If so, tell me in the comments. Please.
When Times Are Bad, Keep Going (Cautiously)
What do you do when you encounter something that’s a difficult, intractable problem?
This thought has been one I’ve mulled over for the past several weeks, perhaps aided by the hot, humid, and nasty weather we’ve been dealing with in Wisconsin the last few weeks. There also has been long-term damage seen in the Canadian wildfire situation, not to mention Lahaina burning to the ground out in Maui. These are difficult, intractable problems that need a long-term solution, and when nothing seems to be changing — especially with regards to the Canadian wildfire problem, as it’s gone on for at least three months — it can be difficult to remember that things, in time, will likely improve. The weather changes and isn’t always awful (or at least isn’t always awful in the same way); the way we deal with long-term issues can change, too, if we wish it and work hard at it.
I know I can’t do much about the weather except adapt to it. I also know that I can’t do much to help those who are struggling with worse problems than I have, especially those that are weather-related like the Maui situation and the two hurricanes that hit Florida last week, except listen and perhaps pray while hoping for better, while continuing to deal with whatever situation I’ve got in front of me.
It’s frustrating as Hell. I dislike it intensely. But the only way through a bad situation — whether it’s weather or anything else — is to keep going. You can’t put your head in the sand and say, “I think it’s sixty degrees F outside with no wind” when it’s over 100 degrees F when the humidity has been added into the mix. You can “think cool thoughts” all you want, but that won’t change the facts.
Maybe it’s because I’m feeling more curmudgeonly today than usual, but I think this one thought is the only thing that makes sense to me: keep going, even when the situation is bad, even when everything seems pointless and stupid. Don’t give up, even if you have to retrench in some weird way just to be able to deal with whatever that’s going on that’s causing you distress. Take a step back, if you must. But don’t deny reality, because that’s pointless; don’t deny when things are bad, because that more or less gaslights yourself (as in, you don’t trust the results you, yourself came up with); don’t forget that as bad as this is, you’re smart and driven and human, and will find a way around this or any other obstacle, given time.
I also wanted to reiterate something I discussed a while back that Sharon Lee and Steve Miller put into one of their Liaden Universe books. When you’re ill, whether it’s from the heat or the cold or just because you picked up something that is giving you fits, you need to take a step back and get your rest. Eat well, hydrate well, and rest, if you are not feeling well, no matter if it’s from allergies, asthma, Covid-19, or anything else.
Also, do your best to find the humor in life whenever possible. Laughter is sometimes the best medicine of all.
Anyway, these are the thoughts that have been on my mind. I hope they’ve made a bit of sense…and for those of you struggling with intractable problems, know that I wish I could wave a magic wand and make things more bearable for you. (I don’t know how much good it is to know that, mind you. But it is the truth.)
Tell Negative Self-Talk to Take a Hike
Folks, I’ve recently realized something that I think has value. And that is exactly what I said in the title line: tell your negative self-talk–the stuff that hits you in the middle of the night, or maybe at other times, that says nothing you do will ever matter and that no one wants your creativity, thank you anyway–to take a hike.
See, because of my initial training as a musician, I know a lot about failure. Very rarely does a musician get through a performance playing everything the way they wanted. If you get all the notes right, you didn’t get the feeling right. If you got the feeling right, you missed notes. Maybe near the end of the concert, you thought you were finally going to have a perfect one…and then something went wrong at the last minute.
We’re human, so nothing is ever going to be perfect. This means if you want perfection, whether it’s as a writer or as a musician or as anything, you are doomed to disappointment.
Now, as for negative self-talk: it can be insidious. “Well, your sales record shows that no one wants what you write…” is one of the biggest problems I have right now, and I have to throw it out.
Besides, I know better than that. Sometimes you can do everything right, and for whatever reason, it’s not time for your books yet to make any sort of dent at all.
How do I know this? My friend Loren Jones had it happen to him. When his books were picked up by Twilight Times Books several years back, he did far better than he’d done with a previous micro-press. Same books. Same editor (yours truly). Better visibility and covers. Which all led to more sales–far, far more sales.
Yet Loren’s work hadn’t changed. He wrote good novels, then and now.
See, all we can do is our best. We can’t force the world to notice us, or our hard work. We can only continue to do the work, because it matters to us, and because it’s the only thing we want (and need) to do.
It can be difficult to tell those awful words inside you, that tell you that nothing you do matters or ever will, to take a hike. But you must do it.
Don’t let your fears keep you from realizing your dreams. And those fears include, most definitely, negative self-talk.
One Step at a Time
Folks, I figured this week’s post should be about something we all need.
Is it optimism? Well, optimism never hurts, but while I believe optimism is helpful in the main, it’s not going to get you to sit down and write or create (not by itself, anyway).
Is it faith in yourself and your ideas? Well, again, this does not hurt and can only help.
But when you have much faith in yourself, and you’re not sure your ideas will ever matter, what do you do then?
What I try to do is to take a step back, see the big picture, and realize that while I can’t control the market (or the court of public opinion, either, truth be told), I can control what I do.
I know that for myself, creating something new is absolutely essential. Whether it’s in music or words (no matter what type of words, either, as sometimes a poem can say more in two short pages than a novel can in hundreds), cooking something different, or just being willing to experiment a bit to learn a new skill (how I learned latch-hooking, years ago, and needlepoint, much less how to make an oboe reed and/or finish off a clarinet or saxophone reed) can help me keep going.
Life, you see, is as much about learning as it is about anything else. That includes learning new things about yourself, your talents, and the uses for same.
So, when I lack optimism, I tell myself that I’ve done creative work before and will do it again.
When I worry that I don’t have enough faith in my ideas, I put that to the side and keep going anyway.
Persist, persist, persist. That’s my motto.
It should be yours, too.
What Motivates You? (Hint: Your Characters Will Show It…)
Folks, I’ve thought long and hard about this topic (the topic being motivation, as the title says), as I think what motivates you as a writer is likely to be what motivates your characters, too.
Now, you might be shaking your head here. Your characters probably range from awful people to good ones; from those who keep fighting to stay afloat, and those who sink like a stone; from those who do, to those who wait. They would seemingly all have different motivations driving them, right?
And all of it — all — comes from you.
Your motivations are important. They infuse everything you write and everything you do. Whether you believe in miracles, believe in hard work, or a combination of the two, much less your not-so-good characters believing in expediency and “going along to get along,” why you do things can’t help but shine through.
This is why people talk about “what is your brand.” I wish we’d come up with a better way to put that, as I don’t like codifying people in the same way as we codify objects. However, as this is the term we’ve got, I’m going to run with it.
My “brand,” so to speak, is this: Out of desperation and tragedy comes hope, safety, and romance. A better life awaits my characters, if they can just get through the morass they’re in right now.
Now, that’s not exactly a great “tag-line,” another concept I’m not entirely keen on. How can you sum up yourself and your writing with one, simple sentence? If you could do that, why would you write at all? You’d have your one sentence, and you’d be done.
Yet I’ve been compelled to write all sorts of things. Books. Stories. Novellas. Blog posts. Opinion pieces. Sports articles. Poems.
What’s the one, common denominator in all of those disparate things? Me.
So, what you bring to the table — or the internet cafe, or the workroom, or whatever — is absolutely crucial. Everything you are, everything you have done, everything you have observed, gets into your writing, much less the entirety of yourself.
That’s just a fact. But what you do with that fact is up to you.
What do you think about motivation? What drives you and/or your characters? Tell me about it in the comments!
A July “State of the Writer” Update
Folks, I know I’ve not been blogging much this summer. It has a great deal to do with two things: the poor air quality (AQ) and my overall health. In addition, I suffered a hard fall last week on the concrete pavement outside Chez Caffrey, and was lucky to escape serious injury. (As in, I didn’t break anything. Just bruised and battered. No concussion, either.)
At any rate, it’s been a while, so I figured I’d let you know what my upcoming plans are, writing-wise.
First, I have a completed story called “All the News That’s Fit…” that I hope to have out within a few months. I’m still trying to figure out what would be good cover art for it. I’ve had some help along that line recently, so we’ll see if I can come up with something…anyway, that’s a completed story in the novella range.
Second, I have a nearly completed young adult story in my late husband Michael’s Atlantean Union SF universe called “In Harm’s Way.” It features a young woman, Ryann Creston, who along with her shuttle of incoming cadets was shanghaied instead to an out-of-the-way space station. How she breaks free and saves them all is the point of the story…and yes, she’s only fourteen.
Third, I’m working on a sequel to “Baseball, Werewolves and Me,” which doesn’t have much of a title right now but is at 15K words. The adventures of Arletta the psychic and Fergus her werewolf husband and the baseball team that now employs them both is a lot of fun to write. I’ll let you know more once I figure out exactly what my ETA for this is.
Fourth is the “mystery project,” which I’m not going to discuss at this time. I will say I have about 10K on that, and I hope it’ll go to 90K. Once it does, I’ll let you know what it’s about, why I’m doing it, etc.
Fifth, I hope to have the short story “In the Line of Duty” out later this year. It is a sequel to “To Survive the Maelstrom” and features some of the same characters.
Sixth, I am working on an Elfyverse short story collection. Currently I have four stories and I’d like to have six. One is set around Valentine’s Day, another is set around Yuletide, and a third is probably going to be set around New Year’s Day and/or the Winter Solstice.
So, that, and whatever editing I can do, is what I’m up to. What’s going on with you folks? (Tell me about it in the comments.)
The Bad Air Blues
Folks, I haven’t written a blog in a bit because, where I live in Wisconsin, we had some of the worst air quality in the nation over the past few weeks.
Bad air — in this case, polluted air from Canadian wildfires — was the culprit. I am asthmatic, so poor air quality is the bane of my existence. I can’t do much when the air quality is terrible except pray that it goes away and go about whatever business I can contract (usually it’s whatever is needed to stay alive and no more).
Now, is this living well? Hell, no, it’s not. It’s merely the best I can do, that’s all.
The Fourth of July was yesterday, which of course is a huge holiday in the United States due to it being Independence Day. Usually, the fireworks would not hurt me; the air quality to start with is usually good enough to handle it. But this year, I’m afraid it wasn’t…not for me, anyway.
See, when the air is bad, there’s almost no way to get away from it. Yes, there are air cleaners. Yes, there are air conditioners to lower the temperature a bit so (as an asthmatic) you’re not fighting on two fronts (the heat and the poor quality of the air). Yes, there are ways to make things better, but they don’t seem to be helping overmuch this summer.
That said, I am continuing to do the best I can even though I feel like I’m in a holding pattern. I’m waiting for better days, or at least days containing better air, so I can resume living the best life I can.
I can recommend one very good book to keep you busy, though…it’s called A SPLENDID EXCHANGE: How Trade Shaped the World by William J. Bernstein. I’ve found the insights into this book, which include why slavery flourished for a time but later declined (thank goodness) and the differences between slavery in the West Indies (where people died due to overwork, high heat, and brutal living conditions) and the United States’ Southern states (where while the life wasn’t a cakewalk, families were encouraged to form among the slaves if only to save the owners money in not needing to buy more; it was this reason why the Southern U.S. slaves mostly lived while the West Indies’ slaves died en masse). I don’t agree with everything Bernstein says, as I don’t agree with anything any historian says. (The impolite among you can say it: Maybe I don’t agree fully with anyone?) But I found that an interesting insight, along with others about the rise of the East India Company in the UK, and before them the Dutch’s industrial trade complex, and before that, the Portugese trading empire…everything built off everything else, and while most things were learned over time and transmitted, some lessons seemingly needed to be learned over and over again.
Bernstein’s book is only $2.99 right now as an e-book, and it’s an invaluable resource for writers IMHO. (Especially if you don’t agree with it, mind you. It spurs you on to finding other answers, or at least it has in my case.)
So, I hope that book will keep you amused, as we all continue to fight the poor air quality in the Midwest that probably is going to hang around as long as the Canadian wildfires do.
Star Trek: Picard Ends in Two Days…and Other Stuff
Folks, over the past few months, I’ve been flummoxed by something that’s happened here at my blog. Namely, my posts about the TV show Drop Dead Diva have had hundreds of page views, despite being several years old — and despite Drop Dead Diva going off the air in 2014.
Look. I’m glad folks are finding any of my writing. Truly, I am. But these are folks who, in general, come to read those two posts, and then take off again.
I hope that something else here at my blog interests my long-time readers. I do try to talk about a wide variety of things, from TV/film, to sports, to politics (though I’ve been doing less of that lately, as there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to say except to double-down on previous stances), to current events (I’m so sickened by all of the shootings, and have no more words to say than that).
So, today I thought I’d talk about other TV shows that I’ve enjoyed besides Drop Dead Diva (which I loved, and still miss to this day). Ready?
I’m a huge Star Trek fan. Always have been. (It’s one reason why I found it too difficult to write about the pioneering Nichelle Nichols’ death. I also found it exceptionally difficult, in a different way, to write about Rene Auberjonois’s death.) A good friend recommended Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is a prequel to the original Star Trek series starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, and the rest. It is excellent, and I can’t wait for season two to start this summer.
In fact, I loved that show so much, I went back to look at the second season of Star Trek: Discovery, which shows the previously unknown foster sister of Spock, Michael Burnham, as she rises in the ranks after a huge personal tragedy, because I wanted to know more about Anson Mount’s portrayal of Christopher Pike, plus see more of Ethan Peck’s version of Spock. I was pleasantly surprised with season two of Discovery, though I didn’t like season one all that much except for Michelle Yeoh’s performance as Mirror Universe Emperor Philippa Georgiou. (Goodness, she’s amazing. Best actress alive, anywhere. hands-down. There’s nothing she can’t do, and she somehow nails the essence of every character she plays within seconds. I am riveted by her.)
Paramount Plus has all sorts of stuff to watch, but so far I’ve been concentrating on the Star Trek shows. The original Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager…and the show that ends tomorrow, Star Trek: Picard. (You may be asking, “What about Star Trek: Prodigy and Star Trek: Lower Decks?” I like both, but I kind of think I’m not the target audience for the first, while wanting the second to move faster…don’t ask me why, because that show moves with a rapidity as it stands.)
I’m someone who adored season two of Picard. I thought it was amazing. The depth of Patrick Stewart’s acting was truly stellar. I loved Allison Pill as Agnes Jurati (and eventually the Jurati/Borg hybrid). I enjoyed all of the characters so much, and did I point out yet that Michelle Hurd’s Raffi and Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine were phenomenal? (Please, Paramount, give those two their own series!)
But season three is even better. Picard is now much frailer; he’s retired completely, and at the beginning of the show, he’s preparing to leave Earth and move to another planet with his love, Laris. However, the universe needs him again, and off he goes…(I hope we see Laris again, as I loved Orla Brady. I keep saying that, too, but all of these characters are so good, and the acting so stellar, it’s hard not to gush about them all.)
I’ve been waiting for a few weeks now for the end of Star Trek: Picard. I hope to see Allison Pill again (surely the Paramount execs won’t be so rude as to refuse us to see her one, last time?), as there’s a huge evil Borg plot going on (and as the Borg of season two, once Agnes Jurati got a hold of them, had become much kinder/gentler, it would seem that as the crew of the Enterprise-D needs allies, Allison Pill’s “Borgrati” would show up as part of the cavalry. Hey, everyone needs allies! Really, they do. No one can do it alone, either, no matter how phenomenal you may be — that has to be the message, if you need one, of Star Trek: Picard, at least with regards to seasons two and three.)
Anyway, that’s what I felt like writing today, hoping that someone out there who’s a new reader will actually, you know, stick around a bit and figure out I write other things, too. (If you are exceptionally diligent, new readers, you can go to the About Barb page and find links to my three novels. That’s the best way to support me, you know; read my books! End shameless plug.)
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