Ever want to just scream? Or throw everything in the garbage and just say the first idiot thing that comes to mind? Yeah that has been me lately. I Don’t wanna be that girl who is always there for everyone. Hell Really I am NOT that girl but I am not that boy either. To be flat out honest I am not ever even sure what I am. I am not anything that I can put a label on. I tried to talk to my therapist about it…Only to find out the words I did use to describe myself were not good. (Weird is apparently hateful)
So I am the lonely introvert who pushes everyone away. I don’t fit anywhere. I don’t know if I mind that so much…though it adds to that feeling of not having anyone who sees me. Don’t get me wrong – I have a best friend…who I feel like I am burdening because I have no way of talking to with out complaining. It doesn’t help that I am high functioning in my anxiety. So I take on more than I can do…and then refuse to ask for help. She wants to help and I end up doing what I do ask her to do because my brain tells me I am asking too much.
My damaged soul is just enough that I can see the problems I put out into the world, but I cannot seem to help myself from pushing away those who try to accept them. I normally avoid talking about the mess that I am because I am trying to put forth an image of competence and professional nature…but as I said Lately I am wanting to say the first idiot thing that comes to mind. Instead…I think I will say thank you all for your patience with me and my lackluster blogging of late.
I am hoping after the MRI on Monday I will be in a better headspace. I am hoping to get back to our regularly scheduled half mad idiocy.
I have always loved the written word. So much of my childhood was spent in the idea that I would be a writer. I had a best friend, Lucretia Fisher. (only one of a handful of friends I had) She lived near my grandmother. She and I would talk about being famous writers some day. We would argue about which of us would be published first.
When I was not writing I was devouring books. I read at a college level in 4th grade…And now I find that I am having trouble finding the time…last year right about this time I decided that I missed it…between October and December I read nearly 60 books…
I think I will likely do it again…but I am trying to get a habit with my writing. And I find that I am having trouble getting motivated. I always have 500 million other things that I have on my to do list. I wonder if Lucretia managed to get her books published. She was such an amazing writer.
The to-do list never goes away. I am fighting to help authors get heard. I am fighting my own demons to see what I write as being worthy of the world. And sometimes I am just hurting my own feelings. So, if I seem to be a little bit more in self-doubt please realize that I am still fighting.
Handprints on my soul is 10 poems away from being done. I am hoping that I can get it done in time to publish by the beginning of November. However, I don’t want to promise that or start the promotion of it until I get the last poem written. Because I somedays lose that fight.
Oh! And I will be releasing a new kids’ book in December. Not Another Danny is going to be released December 2nd during Fae Corps Kid’s Week ! I will try to get the cover reveal up later this week .
I recently joined a few writing discord channels. There was an article shared. It spoke about Vanity presses, small presses, and indie presses. It advised the author to avoid all three. I will link to the article…as it was an interesting read. It gave me a bit of an issue, however…as I run a small press. It spoke in the article about checking the education of those running the press…I am not classically educated. I could not afford college. I learned via free classes and reading everything I could get my hands on.
Soooo this article made me wonder when the writers in that discord would call me out for the imposter I know myself to be. I have been publishing for a decade…and I am still learning. I don’t do everything perfectly. No human does. I, personally, advise you to use common sense. Does the small press expect you to do everything? Are they asking for money upfront? If you have to pay to get your book published then yeah they are likely not legit.
However, not everyone can afford to go to college. Those who go do not always know what they are doing, and those who cannot sometimes do have knowledge. Sometimes you have to ask questions and make choices that are not based on how many degrees are hanging on someone’s wall.
The next few months are going to be busy for me. (Yes I seem to do that to myself a lot) So, as I am sitting here trying to get all my weekend work caught up, I realize that my poor blog is AGAIN neglected. Friday we are releasing Andrew McDowell‘s second edition of Mystical Greenwood. That means I am trying to gather images and activities for the release day on our Facebook Party Room group. I have things I am trying to put together for the Fae Corps Blog…again to get everyone possible to see his book.
That is just the first thing I am doing. Then, I have our Halloween Anthology. This year it is called Darkness Screams. It received so many outstanding submissions that I split it to accommodate the quality of stories. (I have done this before with other anthologies)
So I am neck-deep in editing, Marketing image creation, and formatting for these two. I give myself two months to do this with each anthology because I have a routine. Once approved I invite the author/artist to join the company discord. I have each anthology set up in a private room within the channel. This allows Files to be shared and questions answered easier. I ask everyone to sign a contract (So I can legally publish their story/art/ poetry and they have protections of their copyright) I ask for a bio written in 3rd person and an image to represent them. (I say an image because I have had a few who gave me photoshopped images, due to personal reasons. ) Then I sit down and put together a rough draft of the anthology. I don’t worry in the first rough about perfect formatting or having it be edited and polished. After I get a feel for how the anthology will flow, I feel like I am more capable to suggest edits. Yeah, that seems so silly…the grammar will not change based on how it fits in the book, right? Actually, it might. It will help me to see the story on its own instead of trying to place it mentally in an imaginary book. I send the suggestions to the author and give them a deadline for when I need to see the finished copy.
Then I start while waiting for the stories to come back…to make images to catch the interest of possible readers. I do (For most of the anthologies) a cover reveal, A author/artist list for each anthology, A image to represent each story, and a meet the author/artist graphic. That can be quite the undertaking. In Darkness screams that is 3 graphics just to list the author/artist in each one. I, as you can see above, combined the cover reveals. I have already today done the story graphics for each book.
I still have more to do just for the anthologies… Then I have another book we are releasing in October. The third book in Ashira Dayta’s Magick Saga. (The cover reveal should be happening soon on Fae corps Blog. I am quite proud of that cover) It releases on October 31st. I have to do some images for marketing it as well.
Then I have other projects that are ongoing and need my attention. (For example Formatting for a Poetry book by NK – Titled Valley of Thoughts. We are supposed to be releasing that next year. Editing for Ruan Bradford Wright’s Novel Toe-Rag which is expected to release in February. Writing my own poetry and prose books. And just being a mom and person who has housework that is not getting done more often than not.)
I honestly intend to do this blog every week..but I end up overwhelmed. I think I will just post some of my poetry this week. I thank you for your patience. I swear I am not forgetting y’all.
We are trying to raise the money to get the roof repaired and the basement fixed. I don’t often ask for assistance but I’m stuck between the proverbial rock and the hard place. Thank you for all your assistance and support.
The picture is of the garage. It’s sort of where my life really started. When I started dating my boyfriend, we lived in that garage. His grandma didn’t him to live in his car with me, and we had nowhere else to go. So, she let us live in the garage. Now we live in the house. The garage was home 27 years ago. The house roof has been patched but it really needs to be replaced. The cellar used to have a drain, but the septic tank was broken and his mom didn’t realize that it was still necessary. So when it was broken, she had it filled in…and the cellar floods because of it. We have temp fixed it with a sump pump, but it doesn’t ever empty.
We are trying to raise the money to get the roof repaired and the basement fixed. I don’t often ask for assistance but I’m stuck between the proverbial rock and the hard place. Thank you for all assistance and support.
Pattimouse 