MultiMind's Blog, page 9

Ow, My Hand

I handwrite the vast majority of my works. I use a fancy fountain pen to do it. I write my works in one sitting. (My current record: 60,000 words in 7 days). I type my handwritten works almost right after into Zenwriter in roughly 2-3 days, sometimes 4. The works are usually typed in half the time it takes to write them or shorter. I tend to write in sprints, not bit by bit. When the sprints are done, I don’t touch my pen for a while.

This all means my hand is full of ow when done.

All the ow.

Neil Gaiman talks about hand strain quite a bit but I most likely clock larger daily numbers than he does so I think I can super talk about this topic.

I definitely can.

So! When I’m done writing, my hand is deaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. Gone. In the afterlife. Send flowers and cards.

But I still gotta use it, because it is a hand.

And I want to make sure it lasts a long time so I have to take good care of it. Thus, I try to.

What I do:

– Silicone Sleeves: I have a trimmed pack of silicone finger sleeves that are meant to go over my middle finger’s first knuckle and pad it from my fountain pen. It isn’t because my TWSBI isn’t comfy but write with anything for 14-18 hours straight and it’s gonna hurt if you don’t have excess padding. They’re not really pricy, I think $10 or less for a decent pack that, when cut up to fit only over the knuckle, gives you a load of them, in case you are prone to losing things. I can write for as long as I want and I avoid Writer’s Bump (different from Writer’s Cramp, that affects the wrist/hand) and my finger is perfectly fine after writing my books.

– Finger tape/bandaid: I write to the point I basically sand the skin off the side of my pinky knuckle. Again, I write for 14-18 hours straight for several days straight, this is not a change-the-way-you-write thing, it’s an ow-friction-and-determination thing. Yes, I have the pinky glove thing but that’s for my e-note, not for my paper writing. The glove is way too cumbersome for my journal; it covers the blade of my hand, I only need it for my pinky knuckle. That’s where bandaids come in. I would just wrap a small bandaid on my pinky knuckle and problem solved – sorta. Washing my hands means I run through bandaids – which are meant for injuries, not protection from future injury. If I get a real, blood producing owie (yes, “owie”), then I’m out of bandaids. That’s where finger tape comes in. Finger tape is for athletes like gymnasts and martial artists to protect their hands from friction burns. I know about them because I practice Wing Chun kung fu but I didn’t have any because this is somewhat a new problem. (Probably just showing up now because it’s the cumulation of all the times I have done it with reckless abandon.) Thus, a big reel of finger tape is useful. That way, I can wash my hands and not use up all my bandaids. I have no idea if the finger tape is biodegradable, I’ll worry about that later (unless someone knows a Black-owned/Black created, biodegradable finger tape brand, it’s an I’ll-Worry-About-It-Later issue). Not really pricy, around $8-$10 for a big roll.

– Hand exercises: I do flex and rotate my hand and wrist when I write. It is smart to do since my hand is basically in the same cramped formation for literal hours, day after day. It helps prevent cramping and slow down aches from appearing. Very important to flex and rotate your hand if you’re writing for as long as I do or just every other hour. It also helps me determine if I need to crack out the heated hand massager

– Heated Hand Massager: Godsend ;_; It revives my hand every time I use it. It is a small, pressurized device that massages and flexes your hand via motorized compression. It has multiple settings of different pressures and two levels of heated function. It’s about $60-70 but totally worth it. Mine is small, rechargeable and ambidextrous (meaning it can massage either hand, there’s a thumb hole on both sides). If my hand hurts too much or I’m stuck on a scene, I just shove my hand into it, listen to music (usually a single album as a time keeper), and run it through all the settings on the heating functions. I also run it when I’m done writing for the day and am about to go to sleep so that my hand can be fresh and ready to go for the next day. It really does disappear all aches and pains, I’m always astonished when I wake up and my hand feels new again, as if I didn’t attempt to write my hand into an oblivion the day before, or the day before that. It’s a total need. Take off any raised rings and bracelets though, the pressure is strong enough to squeeze them bent.

So nice ;_;

This is what I do so I can keep my hand up and prim because I do more than write. It’s a hand, after all. I don’t want to have days and weeks of hand strain or wrist strain. I also want a simple, direct, concise system to treat my hand so I can take good care of it without a whole lot of work. Basically, I just want to focus on my writing and my writing strictly, I don’t want anything to take me from that laser focus. I can’t write if my hand is busted, plain and simple.

MultiMind will be at Multiverse Convention 2023!

Yay, my first guest author slot!

I will be at Multiverse Convention, a Sci-fi/Fantasy Book convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

This is an in-person event for the most part but pandemic rules will be in place, definitely check out their website for more info.

It also will be my first time on a plane.

I have never flown before, lol.

Reasons: A) Fear of flying (that I thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink I may have gotten somewhat over thanks to flying games in VR) and B) I would just drive everywhere. For ease of travel of my books and my sanity, I’m choosing to fly. And all this time, I thought my first go on a plane would be to visit South Korea to write Soaring (I still plan to do that in 2025) or to the United Kingdom for the Download Festival because my friends, P.O.D., were playing – then Covid happened.

I’m very excited and I hope to meet you all. I do have a disorder so if I seem a bit derpy, it could be awkwardness, it could be disorder. I am one heck of a chatterbox, tho. I will most likely have a mask on at all times and if you want to talk to me, please wear one also.

Woo! More details to come up soon. The Events page has certainly been updated.

New Book Coming Out: “The Glassman”, a dark fantasy novel! Coming out September 23, 2023, Pre-Orders start June 2023!

Woo, new book!

This time, it is a novel. A debut novel! My previous works have been novellas and a novelette but this time, we have a novel. I am very excited. It’s been a long time coming. About 20 years, in fact. (Just like with Dreamer and Kinetics, these are works that have been boppling about in my head for almost two decades if not two actual decades.) Not to mention, The Glassman has won a creativity grant from the Maryland Arts Council.

The Glassman is a debut dark fantasy novel. What is it about? Read below:

Mars, the lead vocalist of rock band Lumination Rising, has had to learn how to live with his new self. Living in the aftermath of a devastating accident, Mars gained a new ability: he can control and create glass. 

But that’s not all that changed about Mars – and that is exactly what worries the band. 

Haunted by the trauma of his transformation, Mars grapples with himself and his mind. Eager to help, cousin and bandmate Amos tries to keep Mars’ head straight … and the new abilities a secret. 

The world can’t know about the glass or the change. There’s music to be made and a record company to please. 

Mars isn’t a monster – but he isn’t so sure himself.

There is also a sample excerpt of The Glassman on the front page, or you can read it here.

The cover, created by my artist Edge:

 

I love this cover, she did a fantastic job, as always. Everyone, she does all my covers, from In Search of Amika to now, The Glassman.

And this book, I am super excited for the promotional materials that will be for non-pro/influencer reviewers and giveaways. Guitar picks, audiobook cards and stickers. Pictures will be on my Instagram: @MultiMindPublishing. Want in? The best way is to participate in giveaways, which will all be announced here. 

Who will be doing the audiobook narration? Good question, it will be a new narrator this time because this book is male-character led so that means time for a male narrator. More details later.

What inspired the book? Mainly the music video “Sleeping Awake” by my favorite band – and friends – P.O.D. It’s also inspired in part by them also. Gonna talk about that in another post because it’s a bit of a tale to tell.

Pre-orders for the print and ebook will be available June 2023. The Glassman comes out officially September 23, 2023.

The AIs Are Coming to Get Us – Not Really

There’s now a growing grumble about AI now that it has hit writing. A chatbot can now pen your novel for you – not well but it can do it. SFWA has a list of Sci-Fi writers who has written on it – to be honest, it basically can be titled “AI & Writing: The White Opinions (and a couple tokens) Edition” so if you have basically heard White Person in Creative Writing Class Whinging before, you can probably guess the basic gist of what you’ll see ad nauseam in the blog roll. I have read a few of the blogs listed so, yup, it is definitely that. The Verge has a great write up about it, however – and did an amazing job with the interactive layout.

Also, it’s a little odd, if not a tad funny of sci-fi writers worried about AI taking over their genres. Because I guess someone could say “shouldn’t they have seen this coming?”

Now, I’m a sci-fi writer also. I also worked at NIST library. And the Library of Congress, which houses the Copyright division. (I worked in Acquisitions, which is the first step books take before they go to Copyright or other important parts of the library) I make tech in my free time and I have an interest in AI and I am familiar with the integral parts of Open AI when I was teaching myself AI coding. (It really is a bunch of (if) statements). This means I’m most likely beyond qualified enough to talk about this.

My take:

1) If you use ChatGPT or any other AI to make your books for you, you’re not a writer. Plan and simple. Punching in a bunch o’ words and seeing what spits out is not writing, to me. Yes, there is some writing AI in our regular lives, such as Spell Check (which can suck rocks when you’re not a White guy) and Grammarly (which is miles from perfect, unless you want a program to argue with) but they are not writing for you. You still have to do the leg work, they just steer and provide help, like an anti-lock brakes or lane assistance on a car. If you can’t come up with a story, sit down and write it – whether bit by bit or in one whole chunk – then, nope you’re not a writer, the chatbot is. Everyone has ideas, not everyone commits them to paper.

2) If you’re using a chat AI to make your books for funsies, for le kicks and le giggles, that’s fine. Remember, everyone has ideas but not everyone commits them to paper. If you want to futz about and see some rando story with the idea you had boppling in your head (For example: A cat astronaut on the edge of space trying to make friends with the last daisy flower on Alpha Beta 9, and you just wanna see a story about that quickly spat out), that’s fine. At that point, the Chat AI is a tool, no different than Cleverbot telling you a story because you typed “Tell Me a Story”. (I have no idea if Cleverbot does that but just go with me on it.) It’s only a problem when you say “this story is mine, I wrote it (no you didn’t), I’m going to put a cover on it and a price tag also – and post it where regular stories are! If there is a site or section for AI made stories, go for that but it’s no different from AI art: expect a lot of copyright issues because your work most likely is cobbled from the works of others and those others are not going to be happy about it because this all counts as “derivative works” that they did not sign off on. Heck, fan fiction is already testy waters as it stands, no need to add a robot that will blindly crib and rip from other people works. Play it safe, don’t be stupid.

3) BIPoC and you want to use chat AI to pump out your works? Expect it to all be so White, it could net a basket of Nebulas and Hugos, no questions asked. And I mean that in a negative way; the vast majority of works the AI learned from are White people so expect a lot less diversity than you would have personally put in there and whatever diversity is going to be there is going to be spat out through the digital White lens/gaze (aka horrifically bad). Very straight. Very White. Very Cis. Very bad. Plus, the world doesn’t need twenty billion more White stories, even badly cobbled together ones. We already have what’s considered “Classic literature” in the West. Just write it yourself. I guarantee your work doesn’t suck worse than a White guy who thinks they’re the next Shakespeare and Random House backed up their hubris-pumped ego because Racism in Publishing is still Racism in Publishing. Just write your story and put it out the best you can. At least people haven’t seen work like yours before. Can’t say the same about non-diverse works – they’ve been done to death so much even a computer can do it.

 4) AI will not come to Kill Us All – I remember having this discussion in 2011? 2010? In my Play Theory course in college. Granted, I hated the class because the teacher sucked and so did most of the classmates and some of the readings could have been retitled “Play Theory: As Defined by White Privilege” and it would have been more accurate – but there were some small (and I mean sand grain sized) nuggets. They talked about AI in the fine arts: AI Art, AI voices, AI writing, before these things even had names. Just because the AI seems creative to the human eye, it is not borne the same way human creativity is. However, always know that the future doesn’t look like the past often so prepare to not have everything be as it seems. Also, read the Terms and Conditions, they’re probably very nasty at close detail.

5) Don’t be lazy, learn how to write. AI writing programs are okay as helpers but if you genuinely don’t know how to write a paper, a letter or a resume, learn. Even if you have a disability, learn ways around it (and also, I can see a case for “Why use AI exclusively” but a skinny case, at that). Your writing is a reflection of you, plain and simple. It’s a skill, learn it. May not always be a fun skill but it is a useful skill all the same. I still remember the intern I had at NIST who was smart as long as numbers were involved … but was practically illiterate. They couldn’t read or write very well. Their critical thinking skills were also pretty non-existent, and they were 16. (Their crit thinking skills were bad, even for a teenager.)

I do see why people find AI to be a potential problem. I mean, I once looked at an article about how rent jettisoned during the pandemic and how it affected people (which is wholly unfair) but on one place, Forbes, I found out I was reading an AI crafted article. I immediately disregarded whatever the article said because frankly, “An AI doesn’t know what it’s like to pay rent”. The data was ok but the thing about AI is that it is constructed to make what it says sound legit and factual. It could be an entire page of lies but the average reader wouldn’t know that unless they knew what to look for prior.

Always remember about AI: it is designed by humans and thus has those human biases coded in. Look at the average tech team group photo at a big tech company. Notice the lack of genuine diversity? All those blindsides are getting coded into the AI also. (Even if there are systems and tools that can be used to thwart that in the making. Remember, you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it think.) AI doesn’t think like humans do, it just compiles, considers likelihoods and spits it out. AI can’t decide what is correct and what is not. Not factually and certainly not ethically.

As for AI stories chunking up story sites like Clarkesworld, that’s certainly concerning and that’s a hurdle a lot of story spots online will have to worry about, especially as it increases and the tech gets better. Eventually, an AI story is probably going to slip in but I guess I’m not too pearl-clutching right about now about it because it is a sci-fi spot so for my brain, it’s all “normal”, if it makes sense. But – if you use AI to make stories, it’s a literal waste of time to submit them.

It’s not like you’re a writer.

If it is for the ability to say “My work is in Clarkesworld”, people like that are uber pathetic lol. Can’t write, no talent, absent discipline and skill, they just want the recognition that comes with being a writer. Just like people who pay others to write their papers and do their homework: a phony fraud, in other words. That’s really sad, if one thinks about it lol

They can’t write, or they would have done so. They can’t thread together ideas, or they would have done so. They can’t make anything, or they would have done so, for better or for worse. And they go for things that would sound great next to their names, glittery credentials they never earned and can’t even back up if it ever goes under contest because … welp, they never made anything in the first place. Why go after the credentials they know they don’t have the skills for? I have no idea. They know they’re talentless and dumb because they cling so much to “well, I still got this!” They’d probably would walk into a trophy shop and buy everything but the mannequins just to display to others if they could lol. They got it, but they didn’t earn it. They still aren’t good at writing. They still have no talent because that was someone else’s brilliance they fenced off as their own. They’re still dumb because LEarNing 2 hArD.

In academics, it’s fun making fun of these folks because welp, they should have done the work if they didn’t want to be the butt of that kind of joke. I always enjoy humor and they’re dedicated to failure so it’s a good combo (for me). It just sucks when they talk because, let me tell you, they are top grade whiners (and borderline sociopathic liars who are obsessed with reputation & how others perceive them) and I have met thin crystals sheets of ice that are less fragile than their I’m A Fraud And I Know It egos. Yes, writing can be hard but that’s every skill ever on the planet. Why submit a story you didn’t write to a short story publication? Then again, it’s how I feel about fake papers and homework: why have someone write papers or do homework for you? Just drop out so someone more deserving can have your seat. I’m quite a meritocrat so I can be a real ball-buster for people who dislike work but really like accolades or got accolades in other means besides earning them. Oh wellz. If they have a fear of earning success (or better yet, risking failure from trying) to the point they would rather pretend to be successful while they are still a dedicated non-achiever/bona fide failure of life, then they should take that up with a therapist.

Even if a person hit it big with an AI story, it’s a case of Flavor of the Day, Heat of the Week, Taste of the Month – a one-trick pony locked into a one-hit wonder. And it’s not really because “Oh wowz! What a neato story!” but more because it went viral for some reason and thus had a Moment, kind of like a toy for the holiday season. And if there is one thing I have learned from being in entertainment, there is almost nothing worse than feeling like a one-hit wonder. And this includes “never being known at all”.

Does all this AI chatter concern me? Not as much as it seemingly bothers others. An AI can’t write like me and I find actual joy in writing and in crafting stories so that’s fine for me. I write to get the stories out my head and onto the page and I always wanted to be a writer since I was 10. This is because I’m an actual writer. If I wind up with some horrid disability (gods forbid) that would make me have to use AI, I would probably want to train it to my storytelling voice and ideas only. Because I don’t want to sound like Hemingway or Poe. In other words, I want to still sound like me but just use that AI as a disability aid. Which is perfectly fine, as I see it, because I’m not cobbling other people’s works, I’m cobbling my own. And only as a disability aid because the thing is, that AI is most likely not going to predict how my writing would improve or advance the same way I do. And it still would be frustrating to me because the AI most likely would not do the story the way I want it to be done. The second it would go off the rails, I would get frustrated, I can already predict that. All the AI is doing is taking whatever I said in the past and cobbling together what I am likely to say in the future, no consideration for learning new things, having new experiences, human things like that etc.

AI is definitely a big thing for the arts world to discuss but I don’t think it would nuke the existence of human created art any time soon.

But if someone wants to be the MilliVanilli of writing: Either don’t or be prepared to be treated like the MilliVanilli of writing.

Non-Tech I Use

I talked about the tech I use to make my work and such. I also am very much old school in how I create (for example, I write long hand and bind my own journals) so let’s look at that.

TWSBI 700VacR Pen, Extra Fine nib – I had such a hard time finding my usual pen (Bic Atlantis, fine point) in the pandemic, I got a fountain pen. I wrote about it here. I write all my books on paper and then type them. I write literally hundreds of pages so I need a reliable writing instrument. I always wanted an inkwell fountain pen so I got one. I write super small so extra fine is exactly what I need. It’s a nice pen but mine is limited edition so it also shows in the price. When I first talked about getting the pen, I have mentioned that $5 inkwell fountain pens exist and that they’re just as dandy as mine. ($86, Iris limited edition)

Smudge guard glove – for the Ratta SuperNote. The palm rejection on that thing is awful. I’m used to writing on paper and having my skin basically sanded off, no big deal. SuperNote will pitch a fit if there is skin on the screen. (Does it less now due to service updates.) For the price, it’s bananas. But I got a smudge guard, which basically is a little one (or two) finger glove that is for the pinky and blade of the hand. It is supposed to help those who use big digital screens to make stuff. It’s not bad but I’m not used to wearing them so there’s that. Make sure you size your hand with a ruler before you buy ($14)

Ink! – I have a fountain pen so that also means I have boatloads of ink. I also have talked about it here, I had about 19 bottles of ink (One 85ml bottle of ink can translate to over a thousand hand written pages with an extra fine nib for me) but whittled them down to the colors I’ll actually use, which is about 13 or so. They’re different colors and properties. Some shimmer, some sheen, some don’t do anything. Either way, I’ll literally never run out of ink ever again. The prices vary, my cheapest bottle is $5 for 75ml of Higgins Fountain Pen Ink (Black), and my most expensive is any 85ml bottle from Ferris Wheel Press ($22, Jelly Bean Blue, Dusk in Bloom)

Skeleton journals – I am a bookbinder so I personally bind my own journals. This is so I keep things as distraction free as possible, instead of going “Oh! I want to write in that journal because…” or “I have a lot of journals but I don’t want to write in any of them”. A skeleton journal is exactly that, the very skeleton of a book – the spine, the lined pages, the covers (which are chipboard). I write about that here. I print out the lined pages with my own designed pdf, fold them, turn them into signatures (packs of folded pages, which are called “folios”), stitch them with crochet thread and stencil on the title of the work in pen. It’s just chipboard (thin or thin-ish cardboard sheets), paper, thread, needle, awl and I’m basically done. I design and 3d print my own bookbinding tools at home, like an awl guide or a bookbinding cradle, so I already have those tools. I’d have to say skeleton journals are super cheap to make for me – but remember, I already have the skill of bookbinding so that’s why I can take super few materials (chipboard, paper and thread) and make something out of it. Anyone can learn bookbinding but I do want to mention that it is a skill so it takes time to build ($???, maybe $$-10, rounding up)

TWSBI Fountain pen filler/Travel Inkwell – Having an inkwell fountain pen means that you have to fill it with ink. It can get super messy at times when filling straight from the bottle. I have a vacuum filling method, not twist, so it’s quick but can get a little messy. That’s where the pen filler/travel inkwell comes in. It’s designed for my pen so I just fill the inkwell with whatever ink I want, screw on the cap, screw in my pen, fill the pen and then I’m done. No mess. It’s plastic so it also is a handy travel inkwell that allows me to write hundreds of pages (about 400+) in a single inkwell. It makes filling my pen super easy, especially if I see that I’m running out during an important scene and I want to be interrupted little. Just fill and keep writing. ($14)

Squishy finger sleeve – I write for long periods of time. This means I get what’s known as a “Writer’s bump” on my 1st knuckle of my middle finger. It can get painful and it sucks. It also sucks away my writing time. Solution? A squishy silicone finger sleeve I some how have not chewed on because it looks suspiciously like candy to a hungry brain. It is a forbidden nom-nom. A useful forbidden nom-nom. All I did was find “silicone finger sleeve” online, bought a pack and cut them up so they could cover only the affected part of my finger and not an entire digit. ($8/pack)

That’s literally all for the non-tech. I’m old school in how I write (I use a fountain pen so super old school, I suppose) but that’s because I need to keep things simple. I have disorders to contend with so when things get over-complicated, that’s not good. Pen, paper and journal, that should be it.

Tech I Use

Since I’m independent, this means I have to do almost everything myself. When I’m done writing the story and it’s about to go to book form, that’s also all down to me. If I were traditionally published, there would be others doing the work for me (and screwing me quite a bit out of my royalties and intellectual property (IP) but that’s a different thing). I’m independently published so I have to do the vast majority of the work – for better or worse. By the way, none of this is a “must have”, it’s simply what I use.

Tech I use:

SuperNote A5X – This is to do hand-edits. The old method was print out all my double-spaced pages of a story (which can be about 100-200+ pages per work), staple them all together (by chapter or by brute force – I shall staple them, paper bulk means nothing to me except “slam harder”), sit down somewhere with a pen and go word by word, line by line. I have spare paper on the side in case I want to add extra scenes. Then when I’m done, I type up the corrections and additions, scan the hand-edits in and then shred them because I’ve zero space to put them. That’s a lot of dead trees. Also, thanks to the Pandemic (that is still on-going at the time of this post), physical stuff like paper and printers are not as reliable as prior. The SuperNote is supposed to cut that out, allow me to do hand edits on the e-note device (I made sure to pick an e-note device that would imitate pen and paper. I don’t care about fancy nonsense, just replicate pen and paper). That cuts out printing, scanning and shredding. I had a bit of a taxing time over their stylus because I accidentally took off the screen protector – which I learned I didn’t like much anyways – and they had a ceramic nib (which can hurt the screen without the protector) and I wanted a stylus that erased. That was an entire saga. Either way, SuperNote is what I use. It is hella expensive so definitely do your research if you want to go the e-note route. They have a smaller version, the A6X, which is still pricy. You can choose if you want a protective cover, the stylus (ugh). Mine has a ceramic stylus and the blue canvas cover. ($500, mine; A5X – $415-$569; A6X – $299-$449)

Acoustica 7 (Acon Digital) – This is for editing audiobooks. Just like Affinity Serif, it is a “pay once and you’re done”. I do not want to pay subscription to anything. Especially not to something that should not ever be a subscription. Acoustica has a month long trial period where you can try Standard (Recommended) and Premium. Always start in Standard, so you can see if you actually do need the extra bells and whistles. I learned that I do but Standard is amazing. It has a de-esser (for sibilance, s-noises), a de-clicker (for mouth noises, mouth clicks and crackles), etc etc. I really recommend Acoustica, it is a great replacement for Adobe Audition. ($60 Standard/$200 Premium)

MP3Tag – This is to put metadata on my completed audiobooks. Findaway Voices will do it for me but when it comes to sending versions to my editor, narrator and artist or reviewers, I want it to look like a finished product when they play it themselves on their devices. This means the work has “album art”, track number, etc. (Free)

Calibre – This is for editing and making e-books. I really had a bit of a hard time with it at first and I have a coding/tech background so definitely take your time. Calibre is a little finicky but it works. I did have an epub check site I would visit but that’s down, a site to check and make sure my ebook will pass clearance for online book stores and see where correction is needed. Still looking for a replacement there. Calibre is free to use. (Free)

Serif Affinity Publisher – This is for formatting books into physical form. This is a great replacement for Adobe’s InDesign because it has everything you need and it is a “pay once and you’re done”. I strongly recommend getting the accompanied workbook because it is a step-by-step guide on how to run their program. I used to be massively frustrated by how anything worked on the program, even with help from the internet, but the workbook super helped. They even have a chapter on formatting books, it’s wonderful. This is where I start adding wild fonts and mod the formatting from Word. It is also how I make covers, with the fancy typesets. ($50 software, $50 workbook)

Zen Writer – I love Zen Writer for putting my longhand works into typed form. It’s distraction free and really nice. I don’t want to see squiggles, I want to just get the words on the screen, that’s it. Zen writer does that and gives sound effects, music, and calming pictures in the background. It provides a whole experience. When I’m done, I can download the file or copypasta it into Word. $14 (when I bought it, pay once and done) but worth every penny. ($14)

Libre Office (Free)/Microsoft Word (Not Free) – This is where my works go after Zen Writer. I mainly use it as, well, a word processor. I let spell checker run riot. I do the basic formatting that I would prefer to see in my books, where the indents should go, stuff like that. It’s just the bare bones story, no flair, nothing much. It’s also how I send copies of the work to my editor, cover artist and narrator. It’s how I turn my work into .pdf so that I can do hand-edits. And it’s how I turn my books into ebooks, pumping the word doc into Calibre, or physical books, dumping the word doc into Affinity.

Wacom One Stylus/Lamy Al Star Stylus  – Affordable ($30-ish), better than what Ratta Supernote put out, has an actual eraser button, nice handling. I use it on the SuperNote. I also have a pointed nib Lamy Al-Star Stylus (which also has an eraser button) but I prefer the Wacom One. I wish it had a cap, tho (Wacom One, $30. Lamy, $75 (I got mine for $38 but the price went up in several places))

Ultrasonic cleaner – This is for my fountain pen to clean out as much ink as humanly possible because I write sometimes with glitter/shimmer ink, which can clog the nibs, and because my pen isn’t used for long stretches of time sometimes so it isn’t a good idea to have ink crud just sitting there. I want my pen to be get-up-and-go, so I take care of it to be that way. This is an extra tool, not needed. I don’t want to use the running water so ultrasonic cleaner it is. It’s a huge bath of water that I can throw my nib into, press a button, and call it a day ($25)

Honorable Mention: My phone, a Galaxy Note 9. I use the stylus to scribble down story ideas and other stuff on the go. It super helps so I can keep track of ideas as I walk about. I just have to take out my stylus, write on the dark screen without ever having to open my phone and I’m done. I can do story idea, sketches, etc etc. I don’t like to type my ideas, it feels like a disconnect between my brain and the (digital) page.

Honorable Mention 2: My electric, warming hand massager. I’m a writer. I’m getting old. I need to massage my hand and heat it because I’m a writer and I’m getting old. It is a massager that is meant for both hands, the thumb sticks out (which I like), thus it is for the palm mainly. I type. I write. This, I need. It’s also rechargeable and wireless! ($75)

Next post: Non-Tech I use!

Booklet Creator – Great for Bookbinding Printed Documents!

Sounds like an ad but it isn’t. I guess it’s a review?

I book bind by hand, something I’ve talked about before here. It is a pain in the neck to bind printed documents and even worse when it comes to looking up how to do it because online searches assuming you mean putting a book in a professional bindery or printing it for official distribution, like a regular book.

The part that makes things tricky is the collation of the pages. In a signature (a batch of folded pages), they have to line up and, well, look like a regular book. But it isn’t that straight-forward when assembling pages for signature printing. Especially since the average book need several signatures. One sheet of plain printer paper can create four sides, front and back, of pages. With all those pages stacked on top of each other, the pages can become out of order quickly when not checked. And that gets frustrating fast. It’s wasted paper, wasted time, wasted printer ink, everything is a waste.

Sometimes signatures are called “sub-booklets”, which can make internet search difficult because the usual standard name is “signature”. That’s frustrating also.

In the past, I would accomplish this with Blue Squirrel’s program called “Clickbook”. It was good for back then in the past (2015-ish) but now, it’s just too wonky and outdated for me. It may work for others but it doesn’t work for me. I thought Affinity Serif’s Publisher would do signature printing but newp, Affinity isn’t much of a help in that department.

I wound up finally finding Booklet Creator after seeing someone online giving it a try and coming off successful. There’s a trial that limits you to printing 16 pages at a time, which is good enough for if you’re testing out the software, then it is roughly $20 for a forever license (the only good kind of license, none of that month-to-month nonsense).

Things I learned from using Booklet Creator:

Print Odd Pages first unless your printer has super fancy settings. If you are not interested in having a headache in attempt to find out, just print Odd Pages first, and then turn the stack around en masse (long side) and then print Even Pages.

You may want to select “Flip Backs Upside Down (For Duplex Printers)” unless your printer has a built in print-on-both-sides feature built in. Mine doesn’t. This is so when you put the printed pages in again to print on the other side, it comes out the correct way up.

It actually looks pretty good. It’s great for if I want to print out a book and bind it up by hand instead of regular old journals, which does not need a special program because its just lines on a page.

Walking Out of the Dark

I always think of Death Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Follow You into the Dark” when I use that phrase, “walking out of the dark”.

I’m a horror writer. This means I have very dark content in my works. To write it, I have to come up with it and pretty much be submerged in that world for however long it takes for me to create the story I’m trying to tell. Some works of mine are darker than others (I personally think my three darkest works are 1) The Glassman 2) Kinetics 3) The Harlequin) and by that, I mean I sincerely have to take a break and/or work on something happier afterwards. Otherwise, I’m tossed into a dark-minded funk, and given my history of disorders, that can be a potentially fatal thing.

I tend to think of going into the darker recesses of your mind as akin to going into a pool fully clothed – It’s super easy to get in, it’s immensely hard to get out. It’s not tough (for me) to enter into that pool. Just stride right in. Getting out, though? The clothes are laden with water and soaking wet, it’s like wearing sopping lead encased around you. If you’re really good at it, you can pull yourself out that pool on your own under your own strength – which you had to put work in to get. If there is a ladder, you can make a valiant effort to climb out yourself since there is a dedicated route out. But there are times you’re simply going to need help from another person on land to help pull you out.

As I usually say regularly on this blog, I’m around the music industry a lot, particularly the Rock part. This means I’m literally surrounded with artists who are known for having dark or dark-adjacent lyrics:

Linkin Park – “Suicide lyrics all over the place, life is suffering and my head won’t quiet”
P.O.D. (my top favorite band) – “I hear voices and can God make them stop?”
Korn – “Life is not as pretty as the world likes to make it seem, it’s actually quite ugly”
Drowning Pool – “Life is a misery and everyone wants me to pretend to be happy – for their sake”
Evanescence – “Everyone wants me to be what they think I should be, I wish I just could just be me”

By the way, these are all music acts I adore and love. If you give me peppy “Life is awesome, happiness is a choice!”*, I’m going to despise it because, welp, real life isn’t always that great and smiles hardly fix anything. Nihilistic? Ma’haps. Accurate? Yes.

Inb4 “What are you, goth?”: I’m fairly punk goth (and, at times, gothic lolita). My favorite literary era is actually dark romanticist so, yup, you wouldn’t be wrong. Back to the topic:

 In this very short sample list of music acts I listen to, there’s a lot of, well, depression and woe to go around. And a couple dead people – as well as a few alive ones who certainly aren’t pushing up daisies … but not from a lack of trying.

Ever since Chester of Linkin Park passed, there has been more talk about mental health and the importance of it in the music industry. Even some venues have signs now with QR codes backstage for someone to scan if they want to talk to someone about what is going on in their head so they can get some mental aid while on tour. Plain ol’ talk therapy with someone they can trust who won’t ferret their secrets out to TMZ or Instagram, all on the privacy of their phone. It’s wasn’t just Chester’s passing who kicked this off, there was a triplet of self-made deaths (I’m being cautious in my wording here because, frankly, I’m talking about mutual friends. I didn’t know Chester but I know many who knew him, as well as others with his end). There was Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots and Chris Cornell. The deaths were fairly close to each other in timing and that made quite a few in the Rock industry upset because it was just getting to be too much.

It is incredibly easy to go into the dark parts of your brain, as an artist, and pull something out that others may consider art. Especially if you were already leaning into that direction to begin with. Doing that in and of itself isn’t bad – it’s when you can’t get out, that’s when it can get pretty bad, if not deadly.

To pause for a brief bit, there is a thing I learned back in my play theory course in college, the 10 creativity myths by Keith Sawyer. Of the ten, two are the deadliest: The mental illness myth (“must be mentally ill to create) and the drug myth (“must be on something to create”). Only 20% of the 10 myths but wracks up 80% of the bodies, in other words.

I’m harshly against drugs – I don’t even drink – so I don’t have that one to worry about (but I have seen it lots, it is a) a myth indeed, you are creative because of you and b) it really robs people of life, either by making them a slave to the addiction, the walking dead, or the literal dead … and it eventually robs them of their art) but the mental illness one I definitely believed a lot growing up. Why? Because it was commonly touted a lot in pop media. Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath and Edgar Allen Poe, anyone? I knew I had disorders but I rather “be crazy and creative instead of sane and uncreative like everyone around me”.

Fun fact discovered by Dr. Sawyer (and eventually me): in reality, when you’re in the throes of mental illness, you’re at your least creative – because your brain is re-routing that creativity into self-harming behaviors and/or you’re simply too out of it to even create anything. You can’t write a poem while trying to put your head in the oven. You can’t bang out a song when all your brain is figuring out how tall a building you need to spring off of. You lose energy, you lose passion, you lose time. No one I know in the creative fields stayed in self-destructive modes and lasted for a very long time with zero repercussions, ranging from vociferous band arguments, hospital interventions to a decrease in art and an increase of worry from others. Something always gave and it was never fun or pretty.

I learned from the music folks I’m around – and therapy – how to navigate that. That I don’t have to wallow in the dark because while it can be comforting at times, it’s really deadly when left unchecked and unnoticed. It isn’t perfect but it’s better than prior.

Besides, it is really difficult to get out that pool.

It takes time to learn how to do it and how to do it safely. A lot of my music friends had to learn how to do it themselves to some degree because they noticed the old saying of “live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse” is, welp, a load of bullsh*t when you’re standing over a tombstone of someone gone too soon. Sounds great when you’re trying to separate some kid from their money in the name of pretend nihilism and selfish hedonism, sound overwhelmingly offensive when you actually know people who are dead because that saying had been the mantra for the music industry for decades.

As a writer of dark works and horror, it’s important to know how to walk yourself out of the dark. Learn how to take a break and look at comforting things, even if the comforting thing is a little macabre, something to help be a ladder to get you out of the dark. Develop healthy coping mechanisms, not ones that will eventually rob you of your art and perhaps your life.

Nothing is wrong with writing messed up stories where they’re all wicked and gory (says the goth horror writer) but you can’t really do much with them if you don’t figure a way to get out of that pool and walk out of the dark.

You don’t necessarily have to walk into the pretty, happy-shiny light but it is important to not simply drown in the deep just because that’s where the art comes from.

*Gotta love the game “We Happy Few”

Kinetics Audiobook is Out!

Finally! The audiobook for Kinetics is out! Took longer than expected (due to me and my disorders) but it’s finally out and done! Narrated by Soraya Butler, the same narrator for Dreamer. I really appreciate her work in all this, especially for the creepier scenes (which I do feel bad for making her recite ;_;’’’ But they turned out so well!). 

I am very excited. Kinetics audiobook is available everywhere you can get audiobooks! From Audible to Chirp! You already can check out an audio snippet of Kinetics on the front page.

And now, I can (hopefully) take a small break to focus on my disorders and also get ready for the next book, The Glassman, which comes out September 23, 2023. Preferably not at the same time.

I’m on Spoutible!

Twitter seems to be sputtering itself to death. I’ll still use it in terms of posting de temps en temps buuuuuuut I’m going to be using Spoutible more and more. I really like how it has a bot avoidance feature built in!

Follow me! @MultiMindz

Also! Kinetics audiobook will be out on Feb 11 everywhere audiobooks are available!