Reading is a Need

I need to read.

I know that sounds like some kind of exaggeration, like, “I need to buy that set of geeky solar system glasses” or “I need that pint of ice cream” or “I need to see that movie in theaters.” We might joke around, using the word “need” to refer to things we merely “want,” but sometimes I seriously wonder if reading should be filed under the list of requirements for mental health.

Recently, I wasn’t able to read for about two weeks. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I had been reading piecemeal from various nonfiction books for some time, namely The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction by Neil Gaiman, Royal Romances: Titillating Tales of Passion and Power in the Palaces of Europe, and now I’m working on Using Medicine in Science Fiction: the SF Writer’s Guide to Human Biology. That technically counts as reading. But I hadn’t immersed myself in a fictional world for some time, and it was starting to wear on me. I felt tired, unfocused, lethargic, irritable.

Then the weekend arrived. I looked at the pile of dirty dishes and unwashed laundry, glanced around the empty house, said “Screw it,” plucked one of my library books off the shelf, and flopped down on my window seat to read Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine.

I spent almost four glorious hours suspended on an airship between Earth and Mars and loved every second of it. Afterwards, I felt awake and aware in a way that I hadn’t been for days. Rejuvenated. Renewed. Resurrected. The list of synonyms goes on.

Point is, we need to read. Not just nonfiction for research or personal edification, but also poetry, short stories, essays, and, most especially, fiction. And as writers, we REALLY need to read. For inspiration. For relief. For sanity.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to pick another book from my shelf.

Rejuvenating “Freedom”

Click HERE for the Audio Edition!

.
Freedom is a word that has been bandied about to a point where it’s become almost meaningless. It’s used in political rhetoric, as a banner to shield bigotry, and, ironically, as justification to take freedom away. Using a word too often, too freely, too ambiguously, drains it of significance. The concept of “freedom” is already so vast and amorphous that it’s difficult to define, even at the best of times. Words like “love” and “change” and terror” are tossed around like common ingredients in a salad rather than as carefully chosen seasoning. Some definitions restrict “freedom” to a carefully regulated nanny state while on the opposite side it becomes a free-for-all of Darwinian anarchy.

Freedom is both very broad and highly personal, so I’m not going to attempt to define it when far wiser and more experienced minds have written whole volumes discussing its nature. But I think we need to keep that in mind and be very specific when we talk about freedom because it means so many things to myriad people in disparate circumstances. I do think that the majority of people agree than an important component of freedom is the ability to strive and improve one’s lot or one’s self uninhibited by artificial societal or cultural constructs. That doesn’t mean it will be easy or that one will succeed, but we should all at least get the chance to try. We should each be able to establish our own independence. So as this Fourth of July comes to a close, I recommend going to YouTube and watching the TEDxConejo talk with Erin Gruwell, founder of the Freedom Writers Foundation. The best place to start planting freedom’s seeds is within the garden of one’s mind.

Happy Independence Day.

“Bright Sunshiny Day!”

Click HERE for the Audio Edition!

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright) bright (bright) sunshiny day
It’s gonna be a bright (bright) bright (bright) sunshiny day

— Jimmy Cliff, “I Can See Clearly Now”

And so it is! Actually, these last two weekends have been ridiculously productive, mostly because I’ve been able to sit out on the front porch (like I am now) for hours at a time. (I just LOVE my Chromebook!) It’s astonishing how much something as simple as the weather can have such a massive effect on one’s psyche. While I don’t really consider myself and outdoorsy person (since I like, never go camping or hiking or boating or anything like that), I do gain great satisfaction and pleasure from being outside. And even if I have to hide indoors during the summer because it is too hot or humid out, I am still more productive, simply because there is sunshine. I think I may be part lizard and part sunflower.

At any rate, I am very pleased with my progress on All’s Fair. My characters are talking to me again, I’m filling in plot holes, uncovering motivations… it’s all coming together and that’s a good feeling. Granted, since I had to rip out or severely alter over two-thirds of the book, I now have no idea how to end the darn thing. I suspect something will occur to me after my subconscious has a chance to mull over it for a while. I plan on participating in Camp NaNoWriMo in July, since they have come up with a system to represent editing and not just vomit-typing. For Camp NaNo, an hour of editing equals 1,000 words, so I’m setting a goal of editing for at least an hour each day, which would be 31,000 words. I don’t think I’ll do LeNoWriCha this time since I’m not really generating new content. My ultimate goal this year is to have All’s Fair ready for the submission process by October.

Speaking of time… did you know that The Cat’s Cradle is now five years old? Yep, I started this blog back in June 2011. At the time I was just shouting into the ether from Blogspot without a clue of where I was going. Now I’m here on WordPress with a far more streamlined and professional webpage design. I update more or less every other week, I’m on Twitter, I offer editing services, and I’ve added the Audio Editions for people to listen to and download. I try not to look at stats because that way madness lies, but I’m ecstatic that, as of today, 138 people follow The Cat’s Cradle. Whether anyone reads it or not is another story, but I’m very grateful to everyone who has chosen to read, like, share, comment, or listen to these entries. I’ve learned a lot over the last five years, and I hope to continue improving so these entries remain informative, interesting, or at least entertaining for you.

The Good (Short Fiction), the Bad (YouTube), and the Ugly (Editing Process)

Click HERE for the Audio Edition!
.
.
As you probably guessed from the title, this entry is a mixed bag of news.

(CAUTION: This entry also contains strong language!)
.

THE GOOD:

I’ve been derping around with the Submission Grinder, a wonderful tool created by Diabolical Plots to help writers weed through the mountain of online magazines without having to check every single one on the net personally. Just fill in some parameters for the story you are trying to sell and BOOM! There’s a good chance something will come up that will be useful to you. I’m still playing round robin with my pair of short stories, and while I know I should be writing more, nothing has really come to mind. However, I stumbled across a book called The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction. I’d seen the term pop up before, but hadn’t really looked into it. (It’s possible that “flash fiction” sounded too much like “slash fic” for me.) Apparently, flash fiction is a term for “short short stories.” Although the lengths vary from publication to publication, flash fiction is usually less than 2,000 words. So, I decided to try my hand at it, since there is apparently a huge market for it. It’ll be an interesting challenge, but I actually already wrote down a rough draft for an idea and will work on refining it. Wish me luck!
Continue reading “The Good (Short Fiction), the Bad (YouTube), and the Ugly (Editing Process)” →

Reflections of Contentment

Click HERE for the Audio Edition!

Lately, I’ve done a lot of complaining about not having enough time, or feeling like my time is not my own. That I am subsumed by other responsibilities and then do not utilize what free time I do have to its fullest capacity. It’s an old song, one that I think every writer or artist sings throughout their lives. It is rare to find an artist who is happy with the amount of time they spend on their art. It always seems to be too much, which leads to burnout, or too little, which leads to intense frustration and despair.

But I’m not going to talk about that today. You already know about that particular current, so let’s appreciate the scenery for a while. Let’s look up and see where the river is flowing. Because despite all of the moaning and groaning about set-backs, I’m surprised to find that, right now, I’m actually pretty happy with myself.

There’s a text I got from my onii-san after I told him that I hadn’t won the Dark Crystal Author Quest contest back in 2013. I hadn’t honestly expected to win, but I didn’t even make it into the top five. It was discouraging to receive no tangible reward after putting in so much intense work for so long. But David reminded me of something important:
Continue reading “Reflections of Contentment” →

Draft Completed!

Click HERE for the Audio Edition!

Oh my gosh, I am so excited that I don’t know where to begin. I guess the title of this entry says it all: I’ve actually completed a draft of a novel! Yep, All’s Fair (AFiLaW) is the first one. While I’ve spent a lot of time working on Ravens and Roses and have called each stage its own “Draft,” that story is still missing pieces of it and therefore should probably not be titled as such. But that’s just splitting semantic hairs, so moving on!

I hammered out the plot and characters for All’s Fair in October 2015 and started writing on November 1, 2015. As of January 31, 2016, I have a complete story ready for beta reading. Wow. That’s 170 pages written in 92 days. There aren’t any gaping holes that need to be filled in or scenes that haven’t been written. Obviously things may be adjusted, dropped, or added during the editing process, but you can actually read it from beginning to end. I’m still a little stunned at this; the only other complete novel-length stories that I have finished are fan fiction. (Yes, I know, I need to get back to “Nakishojo.”) And those took me years to complete! The fastest I’ve ever written was for the Dark Crystal Author Quest back in 2013, which took three months, but was still not really complete. Not like All’s Fair.

Continue reading “Draft Completed!” →

Donating to the Arts

Click HERE for the Audio Edition!

Greetings everyone! How are those New Year’s resolutions or goals coming along? Yeah, it’s been hit-or-miss with me too. Feels like I am sleeping way too much, which kind of wreaks my morning schedule.

Still, I did manage to finish the first original short story I’ve written in a while: “Handsome and the Hag,” a gender-swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Eventually, I hope to rewrite it and expand into a more detailed short story, but I wanted to have a more traditional fairy-tale feel for the version posted on The Fellowship of the King. Also, I’m almost, almost done the initial draft of All’s Fair; my goal is to have it ready for beta readers by the end of January. Hooray! Aside from that, none of my other writing goals have really gotten underway, especially with the Audio Editions. Gods, I am so behind…

But there is something I wanted to bring up. It’s been kicking around in the back of my mind for a while, so I wanted to share my thoughts on it:
Continue reading “Donating to the Arts” →

2015: The Year in Review

Click HERE for the Audio Edition!

Okay, seriously, who keeps making off with all this time? Feels like the year just got started and we’re already on the cusp of 2016! (And from what I’ve heard, this sense of time distortion only gets worse… ugh.)

I am definitely in a better place at the end of 2015 than I was last year. Many of my 2014 goals have been reached, and it feels like I’ve got a better handle on life in general, which is a massive relief! I want to give a huge thank-you to all of my friends, readers, subscribers, and followers. You make this all worth-while.

Continue reading “2015: The Year in Review” →

False Dichotomies

Click HERE for the Audio Edition!

Greetings to everyone from the end of National Novel Writing Month! Wow, it’s really hard to believe that a month has gone by and, for once, I actually have an almost complete rough draft of a novel. It still needs work and some scenes, but I think I’ll be able to progress to the editing stage this December and January. And I’m actually looking forward to it! My creativity has come back, I’m eager to work, and I’ve been writing over 2,000 words a day more often than not. Which, like, never happens. So, I’m really pleased with my progress and hope to have a finished product to show for my effort sooner rather than later. (Then I’ll go back to Ravens and Roses, I promise.)

Now, on to a topic that has been percolating in the back of my mind for some time: false dichotomies.

Continue reading “False Dichotomies” →

Checking In

Click HERE for the Audio Edition!

Greetings to you all from the beginning of Week 3 in NaNoWriMo! I have to say, this month’s writing has gone a lot better than it has for quite a while. You may have noticed that my last few entries (although few and far between) contained a note of despondency. Or maybe a healthy dose of it. Or perhaps entire buckets of the stuff. At any rate, I’d essentially stalled out on Ravens and Roses, which I’ve been working on pretty much non-stop for longer than I care to remember. I know that I swore (again) that I’d have a finished draft at the end of this year (sound familiar?) and I still might. It just may not be the project I was expecting it to be.

My 2015 NaNo project, “code-named” AFiLaW (pronounced A-F-I-Law), also referred to as All’s Fair, has gained a lot of momentum, despite containing two genres that I’ve never worked with before: Romance and Steampunk. I’ll admit that at this point the prose is a little light on both; I keep forgetting to add steampunk descriptive details and I haven’t touched the sex scenes. In fact, I may decide not to write any of the latter at all. Scenes with that particular kind of intimacy are alien to me, and every piece of advice I can find about writing in the romance genre says: “If you are uncomfortable writing sex scenes, then don’t write them because your discomfort will show through.” So we’ll see. Still, even with those quibbles, I’ve been writing at least 1,000 words each day and often pass the 1,500- and 2,000-word marks. That’s practically unheard of for me; I don’t recall doing that well even when I began Ravens and Roses in earnest back in 2010 for my first NaNo.

I think the reason I’ve been doing so well lately is threefold:

Continue reading “Checking In” →