Aly Welch's Blog, page 6

A Better Me is Coming

The book, that is.

I’ll still be the same annoying weirdo I’ve always been.

Somehow March came and went without a post, not for lack of trying. Just increasingly dismayed by everything happening in the world. Plus I still had to work, parent, and care for other animals, and now I have writing to promote. It won’t save any lives, except maybe my own, but it’s something I’m good at, and I hope it provides a source of comfort and entertainment to others.

The Family anthology by Writi...

A Better Me is Coming May 31

Somehow March came and went without a post, not for lack of trying. Just increasingly dismayed by everything happening in the world. Plus I still had to work, parent, and care for other animals, and now I have writing to promote. It won’t save any lives, except maybe my own, but it’s something I’m good at, and I hope it provides a source of comfort and entertainment to others.

The Family anthology by Writing Bloc, including my short story “The Patriarch”, is available in e-book for Kindl...

The Monster You Made

Last month I was focused on A Better Me, my debut novel coming out late spring. The main character is a film student who works as a production assistant, an entry level position that demands the ability to perform any number of tasks under pressure. I have so much respect and admiration for PAs. I describe the novel as a urban fantasy/romcom. It’s a lot of fun, but it also plays with conventions of both genres. While it may not be the magnum opus I’ve been struggling to complete for two decades ...

The Year in Reviews

“Right now, she wanted nothing more than to shut the rest of the world out and have nothing to worry about except the next page of whatever she was reading.”

 Genevieve Cogman, The Invisible Library

There’s still (always) a lot of crummy stuff going on in the world, but for now I want to talk about the art that made the year more bearable. A lot of these books did not come out this year. I just happened to read them this year. I’m fortunate to know a lot of talented writers. In no particular o...

Tired

“Male violence is not only tolerated, but celebrated; women’s violence is not only discouraged, but stigmatized.”

Mary Anne Franks

I can now announce my short story “The Patriarch” will come out in next spring’s Family anthology from Writing Bloc. The anthology was originally planned for fall, and I had planned to submit a story about a Thanksgiving dinner gone horribly wrong called “Plus One”. It’s a good story, but it didn’t accomplish what I wanted, so I came up with a new story to submit a...

Bees in My Brain

I’ve mentioned my novel won’t be out until next spring. I also have a new story set to appear in an anthology that has been pushed back to next year (a common occurance 2020/2021 for traditional and independent publishers alike) – which meant 2021 was destined to pass without a single new release from yours truly.

Sometime in between writing “Plus One”, the story originally intended for the anthology, and “The Patriarch”, the story I ultimately contributed, I experienced a big burst of inspi...

Monsters and Mischief

My first promotional post since the release of Silly Little Monsters last fall!

Before the pandemic canceled our plans the spring prior, my husband and I were preparing for an author event with some of our friends from Writing Bloc at The Book Loft in Ohio. Silly Little Monsters wasn’t out yet, but “Alpha” led the Writing Bloc Deception anthology, and I looked forward to meeting other writers. I was also super hyped for salted caramel cream puffs from a German restaurant and macarons from a F...

Labor Day

Labor: to exert one’s powers of body or mind especially with painful or strenuous effort : WORK 2: to move with great effort 3: to suffer from some disadvantage or distress labor 4: to be in the labor of giving birth

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I hear there’s a bounty on my womb. A high price in the currency of power and control. In the currency of violence and cowardice.

excerpt from a poem by Gina Puorro

I want to focus on writing, but as is too often to case, other matters burden my mind....

Dat Praxia, Dyspraxia

“I was born with a brain that tells me to move. I’m hyperactive, and I’m bad at moving.”

Jessica McCabe, How to ADHD

Lately some people pushed a bizarre rivalry in the neurodivergent community, perpetuating misinformation harmful to people with ADHD, autism, or both. Most recently I saw ADHD referred to as autism-lite (which minimizes ADHD, demeans autism, and misrepresents both), as well as claims people with autism say they have ADHD instead because it’s supposedly less stigmatized and more ...

My Mind Doesn’t Fit on a Meme

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn’t.

Lyall Watson

Memes.

As I’ve said before, they’re like the bumper stickers of the internet. Not a lot of room for context or nuance.

There’s a lot of ADHD memes, probably made by people who were supposed to be doing something else at the time. For those of us with ADHD, they can be a source of amusement and comfort (yay! it’s not just me), for those with other neurological differences they can be a sou...