Sarah Wynde's Blog, page 25

Still learning?

Back in November, I took a class called Write Better Faster, offered by the author of Dear Writer, You Need to Quit, a book that I wrote about in a post called Dear Self, Have Fun.

I have not started writing either better or faster. Alas. But I’ve been slowly working my way through some of the books mentioned in the class. I’ve been reading them very deliberatively. And I just looked up deliberatively to be sure it was the word I wanted and it is: “related to or intended for consideration or discussion.” Not deliberately, ie “consciously and intentionally, on purpose,” although obviously that’s true, too.

Anyway, my usual reading is high-speed and voracious. I can finish a book in a few hours, but I only retain the main ideas. I’ve been trying hard to read these books in more depth, pausing to think about the information and ideas, taking notes, summarizing my responses. Trying to really use them as learning tools.

My approach was unsuccessful with only one of the books: The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg. Honestly, that book was just too interesting: I couldn’t stop myself from gobbling it down. My notes for it are terrible, although I used all caps and bold for my takeaway point, which says something about how I was feeling as I finished. Takeaway point: IF YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN CHANGE — if you make it a habit — the change becomes real. Your habits are what you CHOOSE them to be. 

So far, I’ve also finished Wired for Story, Verbalize, Triggers, and Rising Strong, and I’m working on Deep Work and Story Genius.

Coincidentally, an email showed up in my inbox this morning from Mark Manson (author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck) claiming that the most important life skill for the 2020s was probably going to be the ability to learn well on your own.

Sadly, this might mean that I’m not going to do so well in the 2020s. Because at the end of all this reading — a sincere, well-intentioned, thorough, focused attempt to learn how to write better & faster — I’m not sure what I’ve gotten out of it. Apart from approximately 15,000 words of notes, that is.

It’s not that I haven’t learned things. I definitely have. I’ve learned about the habit cycle, about transitive verbs, about the relationship of myelination to memory, about the human tendency to search for patterns. I’ve learned techniques for characterization, for plot development, for resolving interpersonal conflict, for creating change in my own life.

I don’t know, though. At the moment, I’m feeling very unfulfilled by all this learning. According to the Clifton Strengths test (taken for the class), I’m both high Input and a Learner, so this approach — reading all the books and trying to learn more — is definitely my style. But honestly, I think what I really need is to figure out how to get better at the execution strengths instead. Instead of being who I am, I want to learn how to be a Discipline and Focus person. But I think the whole point of the Clifton Strengths exercise is to embrace who you are and lean into your own strengths, instead of trying to be someone else.

Meanwhile, it’s Monday, and after my week off, I am feeling ready to get back to a solid writing schedule. It’s not quite the new year, but it’s time to execute! Hmm, maybe this story needs an execution? Nah, probably not. I did decide a couple of days ago that sentient otters were definitely in order, though!

The Seven Days of Christmas

[image error]Z was almost tolerant of the reindeer antlers. Almost.

My holidays lasted a week.

On the first day of Christmas, aka last Saturday, my dad and stepmom and I went out to dinner, their Christmas present from me.

On the second day of Christmas, we went to church, then to brunch with my sister and her kids, as well as R and his girlfriend, M. Afterward, we exchanged small presents. I gave everyone colorful socks; my dad and stepmom gave everyone t-shirts with funny sayings. Mine’s in my laundry basket, because I wore it immediately, but it says something like, “Camping, How to spend lots of money to live like a homeless person.” It makes me laugh.

On the third day of Christmas, I came back to Sanford and had Christmas dinner and presents with Christina & co. Dinner was fantastic: a maple-glazed pork tenderloin stuffed with a sausage & cranberry dressing; roasted brussels sprouts with pecans and gorgonzola; roasted root vegetables; and a chocolate mousse for dessert. And the presents were perfect. Christina and I exchanged (among other things) identical boxes. Mine to her contained Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries; hers to me contained Ticket to Ride: Europe. Great minds!

On the fourth day of Christmas (aka Christmas Eve), I drove to Port Charlotte, to M’s mother’s house. I meant to get there in time to make Christmas cookies, and we really did have time, but I don’t think we did. The days have started to blur together a little bit — did we play games? Did we sit around and talk? I think there was still some present wrapping underway, but in the late afternoon, we went to church.

The church service had the nicest beginning — a guitar player was leading people in Christmas carols as people arrived, in a Christmas singalong. Very fun. The church service itself included music; kids dressed as angels and shepherds and wise men; the reading of the Christmas story (distracted by wondering what in the world that angel was trying to do — adjust another angel’s wings, I think) and candles lit while singing Silent Night. In other words, the perfect Christmas Eve service. Afterwards, we went to an open house at M’s mom’s friend’s house. More food, fun conversation, and it was the second year in a row that I’d been there on Christmas Eve, so felt nicely familiar.

On the fifth day of Christmas, we exchanged presents in the morning, then baked and cooked. M & I made sugar cookies — I got to do the fun parts, she got to do all the work. Mid-afternoon, we went to another friend’s house for dinner. It was full-on feasting — pear salad with pecans and cheese, followed by turkey, ham, green beans, asparagus, potato salad, baked sweet potatoes, baked potatoes, cranberry chutney, bread, and homemade chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream for dessert. Oh, also, really cute and delicious antipasto skewers for appetizers. I obviously didn’t eat any of the things that included gluten, but I’m going to call that fortunate: it’s going to make the post-holiday, trying-to-fit-into-my-clothing-again period that little bit easier!

In the evening — and possibly at some other point, too — maybe earlier in the day, maybe on Christmas Eve? — we played Ticket to Ride: Europe. And then more Ticket to Ride. And possibly some Five Crowns, too.

On the sixth day of Christmas. aka Boxing Day, I intended to head back to Sanford. M’s mom, Renee, is a wonderful, welcoming and generous hostess, but M’s dog, Millie, is (potentially) unwilling to share her space with another dog. That meant Z had spent a fair amount of time alone in the van, which is hard on her. But in the morning, before I planned to leave, we all went for a really nice walk around a local pond. Lots of birds, including something pink that might have been a roseate spoonbill. In the afternoon, we tried a small experiment and let Z be on the lanai while Millie stayed in the house. After some initial excitement on Millie’s part, she settled down, so we spent the afternoon on the lanai, playing Ticket to Ride, with Z with us, Millie watching from inside. I wound up staying long enough that I would have had to drive in the dark, so I spent another night in Port Charlotte. It was a really nice day — cozy and fun and comfortable. A nice walk, some beautiful birds, some fun games, and terrific company.

On the seventh day of Christmas, after one last morning game of Ticket to Ride, I did leave. It was a grueling drive: lots of traffic, off-and-on rain. The kind where the timer on the maps app keeps getting later instead of earlier, so that after you’ve been driving for an hour, your arrival time is later than when you started. Ugh. But when I finally got back to Sanford, Christina was making bacon tacos with tomatillo salsa. Yum! (It’s not really bacon, but pork belly that’s simmered for hours. Totally delicious.) After dinner, we played Ticket to Ride, the US version this time.

All in all, two thumbs up for this Christmas. And now it’s time to get back to work. But first, maybe some bacon taco leftovers for breakfast. They’re excellent topped with an egg.

Happy New Year!

1% Chance

If I had a one-percent chance of winning the lottery, I would definitely play. Those aren’t great odds, but they’re better than any lottery odds I’ve ever seen.

If I had a one-percent chance of hitting the New York Times bestseller list, I would be thrilled. Not that one can ever get odds on being on a bestseller list, but given that millions of books are published every year and a few hundred make it to the NYTimes bestseller list, they’re definitely better than my real odds.

So if I might be sick with something that has a one-percent chance of mortality, how do I feel about those odds?

I spent part of yesterday debating that question, then opened up my computer and sent a message to my doctor. She’s going to see me this morning and we’re going to run the bloodwork and I didn’t ask how much it would cost. But I am so grateful for Obamacare today. It lets me say, yeah, 1% chance of dying is high enough to sacrifice some blood to make sure I’m fine. (I’m sure I’m fine.)

Zelda, however, sacrificed her blood last week to find out that she is not fine. She still tests positive for ehrlichiosis but she also tested positive for anaplasmosis. Wikipedia thinks those are the same thing in dogs, but the vet thinks differently. I really wanted to believe that’s what she was sick with this summer and that she’s recovered now, but the vet felt strongly that she should be treated, so we’re entering a cycle, probably a month, of hard-core antibiotics. I’m not happy about it, and she’s not going to be happy either. These are the same antibiotics she had in 2017, when she basically stopped eating anything except Whole Food roast beef delivered straight from my brother’s hand.

Fortunately, the vet took my concerns very seriously, so Zelda’s starting out with an appetite-stimulant and some anti-nausea drugs, too. The appetite stimulant is kind of awesome. The vet gave me two options, with the warning that one of them could make dogs “kind of hyper.” I took that one, thinking I handled puppy-Zelda, ergo I could manage “kind of hyper.” I can, but “kind of hyper” is a lot more challenging inside a camper van in the rain than it was in an apartment with plenty of room to throw a ball. It was fun, though. And she ate her entire bowl of kibble, twice, which hasn’t happened in years.

Worrying about Zelda has definitely been very distracting for the past couple of days, though. I keep trying to focus on Cici — who is probably worrying about Thunder and Lightning — but I can’t seem to get her moving. And I’ve got so much going on in the next several days. I may wind up just giving myself a break for the holidays and starting back up again post-Christmas. In fact, now that I’ve written that, I think it’s an excellent plan.

A Message to a Specific Unknown Reader

Thank you so much to the 31 people who purchased A Precarious Magic, and to the one person who bought a paperback!

As it happens, Dear Paperback Reader, you’re probably going to see the paperback edition before I do. Author copies get delivered remarkably slowly unless you’re willing to pay for expedited shipping, which I was not. But I also didn’t want to wait through the proof copy routine, because again, that takes a while. The proof copy is when Amazon prints a single copy of the title with a gray bar across the front & sends it to the author for review, before letting the paperback go live. Technically, you have to approve the proof copy before you can release the paperback.

I skipped that step, though, because I’m planning to send paperbacks to a couple of people (the ones mentioned in the dedication) and I was hoping I could get them out by Christmas. I decided to wait to send them, however just in case something was wrong with my files. I did not anticipate that someone else would buy a paperback first. I do hope the back cover turned out as nicely as I think it did.

So yes, you, Dear Paperback Reader, will be the first person to find out how the print edition looks and whether it’s all okay. I hope that knowledge is fun for you.

Release Day for A Precarious Magic

It’s official: A Precarious Magic is loose in the world.

I even finished uploading the paperback covers this morning. I had a serious mental debate about those — did it actually make sense to spend money to make the back covers of those books pretty? Since it’s only really sold online, no one sees the back cover before buying the book and I could have made my own back cover using Amazon’s cover creator. Spending money for a pretty back cover is just… well, it’s just what I did. Quixotic? Is that the word I was looking for?

Today is the 8th anniversary of the release day of A Gift of Ghosts, which inspired me to go back and read my blog from December of 2011. I have my memories of where I was at and how I was feeling, of course, but I wanted to know how they matched up with what I wrote back then.

It was unexpectedly grueling, although it shouldn’t have been. Unexpected, that is, not grueling. The grueling part should have been obvious: it was a hard time in my life, and re-reading my words brought those emotions right back to me. It was my first Christmas without my mom — she died of pancreatic cancer in five brutal weeks that summer — and my best friend was dying. I lost her in February 2012. I’d quit my job to go to grad school, so had also lost the structure, community and connection of 9-5 work, and was within five months of dropping out of school. My anxiety was sky-high — I can see it in the energy of every word I wrote.

But this is my single favorite part of my words from December 2011:

I’d love to make lots of money from my writing and be really successful, but that’s not why I started writing and that’s not why I want to continue writing. A Gift of Ghosts is out in the universe now and I need to let it go and let it find its own way and let the process work. Because I didn’t publish it to reach it a goal. I published it because I thought it was fun, and I wanted other people to have fun with me.

And that’s why I’m writing: for fun, and so that other people will have fun with me.  

Over the past eight years, my life has changed dramatically, and the publishing world has changed pretty dramatically, too. But that goal was always the right goal for me — to have fun, and to hope that other people would have fun with me.

I hope you find Fen’s continuing adventures as fun as I did!

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If X = Ouch

On Saturday, I had one of those accidents where if X = the time you see it coming and Y = the time necessary to make it not happen, X ≠ Y. In fact, X was sadly < Y.

I was closing the garage door and realized I was about to close it on my fingers, just in time to actually close it on my fingers. It was possibly the first time in my life I’ve ever truly sworn like Fen, because for the next period of time — it felt long, but was probably no more than enough time to say the f-word 25 times or so — I couldn’t get enough leverage with my left hand to get the garage door open and the tips of my right fingers were trapped in the panels.

They got squashed. Badly enough that C’s first reaction upon the sight was to say, “You’re gonna need a ride to urgent care.” My first reaction, though, was ice. Ice, ice, ice, ice. And fortunately, that X and Y equation up above was so close — so really, truly, almost-in-time close — that my fingers are fine. They still hurt, and my fingernails have this odd feeling of fragility about them, like maybe they aren’t as well attached as they used to be, but the damage barely shows.

But today I got a flu shot and I don’t seem to be reacting very well to it. My whole arm hurts. Whine, whine, whine. It’s just that having painful fingers on one hand and a throbbing arm on the other has not been good for my productivity. There were so many things I intended to do over the past couple of days to get ready for the release of A Precarious Magic, and they just haven’t gotten done.

I did, however, do the more important things: I went Christmas tree shopping; helped decorate the tree; made a great Christmas music playlist; and went to the local holiday fair where I ate oysters on the half shell and listened to orchestral Christmas music while holding a stranger’s very adorable chihuahua. Also played cribbage, Song Pop Party, and A Ticket to Ride.

Yep, I’m a bad publisher. But I really am having a very nice life. Well, with the exception of the squashed fingers and the painful flu shot.

Release date: Wednesday. It’s the 8-year anniversary of the release of A Gift of Ghosts, and I think I’ll have more to say about that, but for now…

Best of November 2019

I am finding it hard to believe that it’s December already. Where did November go? I swear we must have skipped a couple weeks, because it zoomed by at light speed.

I failed to achieve any of my November goals in November — I didn’t finish revising A Precarious Magic, I didn’t succeed at NaNo, I didn’t finish writing Cici 2, I didn’t even take the van in for an oil change.

I did, however, visit friends. And I played a lot of games. My current favorite is Ticket to Ride, which is a game where you build train routes around the US. I think I played it once before and was terrible at it, because I had no idea where any of the cities were. But we’ve played twice now, and I’ve been highly competitive. Not only do I want to win, I want to build the longest route and have the most destination cards and go out first. I’m not competitive, usually — I like playing my best, but I don’t need my best to be better than your best. I don’t care if I lose as long as I played well. But I’ve found it so satisfying to have really good interesting routes.

I’m also jumping the gun on New Year’s resolutions. It’s the end of the decade, a thing that wouldn’t have occurred to me yet except that John Scalzi blogged about it and then a Jimmy Fallon video I saw on Facebook talked about it, too.* Given that it’s the very beginning of December, I’m sure I’ll have been reminded of this another twenty-hundred times before the end of the year and be totally sick of the idea.

But conveniently for me, I wrote about the decade ending ten years ago. Do you know what I wasn’t doing in 2009? Writing. Anything at all. And yet, about three weeks after that post (where I was thinking about meditating and exercising and losing weight), I started thinking about writing again. The 2010s are therefore, for me at least, the decade of words. I am not making any predictions about the 2020s, but I did decide it was time to put Streaks back on my phone and start paying attention to walking and meditating and taking photos again. Early New Year’s/ new decade resolutions!

*The Jimmy Fallon video included John Mulaney beautifully describing the 2010s. I had no idea who he was. Never heard of him, don’t think I ever even saw him before. Now I want to watch everything he’s ever done, probably on repeat. In fact, I have to admit, this blog post got greatly delayed because I had to watch videos.

It also got delayed because I got a new phone in November and it came with Apple Music. I’m far too poor to pay for a music service, but wow, I love it so much. I’ve been creating playlists like crazy, including one for the season. This has involved listening to endless variations of classic Christmas carols trying to decide which one fits best with the overall tone of my list. Do I want Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers or Mickey Mouse singing “Deck the Halls”? Etc, etc. Much fun.

Oh, but this was supposed to be a best of November post. Oops, I got distracted. Yeah, that’s the theme for the month, I think. And I’m supposed to be making dinner right now so I can write with a friend in half an hour, so I think I’ll just say best of November = playing games with friends.

But I will also say: A Precarious Magic. In celebration, Christina took me to her hair stylist. I couldn’t decide between blue and purple but she said I didn’t have to.

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Thanksgiving Week

Yesterday, I stepped outside and thought, “Ooh, it’s starting to feel like Christmas.” It was 61 degrees outside. Yep, the Floridian is strong in me. I grew up in upstate New York and Wisconsin, spent almost all of my childhood Christmases in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and yet somehow, Christmas weather has become the low sixties. But I think it was also that it was dark and early. That feels like winter, doesn’t it?

Anyway, I’m enjoying the cooler — but not cold — weather. This time of year is the reason people live in Florida.

[image error]This morning’s sunrise

I think I’ve finally abandoned my NaNo aspirations. Not my Cici plans, I’m definitely going to keep working on Cici 2. But there’s just no way I’m finishing 50K words in the month of November. The good news, I suppose, is that it’s at least in part because I’m spending too much time editing and revising Fen. I’m about halfway done with my revisions, I think, and focusing lots of energy on them, hoping to be done by the end of the month. I was talking to my dad and stepmom about the book yesterday, trying to analyze what sort of validation I actually need to decide to publish it, and got annoyed with myself. Somehow between publishing Ghosts eight years ago and now, I have become cowardly. I don’t know why, really, and I don’t know what standard of perfection I’m aspiring to, but I think Fen is fun and certainly fun enough to share. So I’m going to polish for a little longer — the ending has literal gaps that need to be fixed — but then I am going to let go.

Meanwhile, Becca, the Write Better Faster teacher, has provided me with a writing task that I am so looking forward to trying. She suggested that my one thing — we are to only change one thing in our process, because changing ALL the things never works for anyone — be that I end my morning words with processing what I wrote the previous day and what I’m planning to write the current day. I’m not going to say it was quite a lightning bolt, but it was a definite sharp shock of recognition. My best writing days always start that way. So why haven’t I ever tried to do it intentionally? And I have no idea why I haven’t, but I’m looking forward to making it part of my process and seeing where it takes me. I’ve also got some reading to do and some notes for ideas on what to do when I get stuck.

But it is also Thanksgiving week. I’ve got cranberry sauce and pumpkin to make, some presents to buy, some more presents to wrap… and lots of things to be grateful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Deciding on the name

Turned out it was Write a Book Description day.

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For millennia, the Sia Mara hid from humanity in magical underwater refuges. They used to have seven: now they have six.

What happened to Wai Pa? 

For Fen, an orphan from the surface world and the only known survivor of the fallen refuge, the answer could mean life or death. After an unprecedented series of events, she now represents her city on the Sia Maran Great Council. But she also knows a secret — that when her mother was dying, she claimed the Val Kyr were responsible for the disaster that struck Wai Pa. 

When Gaelith — gifted healer, powerful mage, anticipated future queen of Syl Var, and Fen’s friend — disappears, Fen is quick to suspect the Val Kyr. Have they kidnapped Gaelith? Do they still want to murder Fen herself? Are they planning to destroy this city, too? 

And what can she do to stop them? 

******

Does it make sense? The city names feel confusing to me, but it’s book 2, I doubt anyone’s going to be reading it who hasn’t read the first one.

And does it sound fun? The book itself is 95% fun, IMO. Although I’m not sure I’m a good judge, really. But I think it’s fun. I was tempted to add more details — about Elfie and Firefly, especially, since they are basically what she’s got to answer that final question. But I’m not sure answering the question inspires as much curiosity as ending with the question does. Decisions, decisions!

Naming the Day

Today is either “Write a Book Description Day” or it’s “Stay Under the Covers and Feel Miserable Day.” One or the other, I haven’t decided which. Maybe it will wind up being both, but I sorta suspect that they are mutually exclusive. If I succeed in writing a book description, I won’t be miserable, and if I’m overly miserable, I probably won’t succeed in writing a book description. Chicken and egg, I think.

Anyway, my allergies have gone insane, which is making me pretty sad. I strongly suspect I need to completely eliminate dairy from my diet, which is not at all fun. I would like to somehow blame my state of being on gluten, but I can’t come up with any risk factors at all, so… well, it is what it is. Maybe I’m just sick.

Yesterday, Zelda hurt her paw. She is a stoic dog — a vet once said, “Even for her breed, this is a tough little dog,” as she patiently let herself be tortured — but she was in serious distress yesterday. Not whimpering, but holding her paw up as high as possible, not letting it touch the ground. She let me examine it pretty closely, pulling away a little but not resisting too much, and eventually I concluded that it was a fire ant bite right under her pad. I would so much rather it had been a burr. I gave her some benadryl, put some baking soda paste on it, and eventually, she mostly fell asleep but even in her sleep she was lifting her paw, trying to find a position where it wouldn’t hurt. It was not fun. I would rather be bitten by a fire ant myself than watch my dog suffer. Today should really be “Find the Fire Ant Mound and Kill Them All Dead Day” but the mere thought of that quest pushes “Stay Under the Covers” back up to the top of the list.

Last night, I was writing the book description as I fell asleep. I promised myself I would remember all the brilliant words I was writing. I don’t, of course. But I do know that I’m confronting the question of how much to explain about the Sia Mara in the description. Usually, I like very people-focused book descriptions. It’s Fen’s story, so what matters is who she is, what she’s faced with. But without the context of the Sia Mara, I’m not sure how to explain that. I’m also reminding myself that the purpose of the book description is to sell the book, not tell the story. But so far my two options for the opening lines are:

Missing, presumed… just fine?

Followed by something about Fen struggling to manage life in a magical underwater city until Gaelith disappears and Fen decides to run away to rescue her. (Basically, this is what happens in the first three chapters of the book.)

Or

For millennia, the Sia Mara hid from humanity in magic underwater refuges. They used to have seven of them. Now they have six.

Followed by, um… something that probably gives away the plot twists of A Lonely Magic. A dilemma. But the central concern of A Precarious Magic actually is both what happened to Wai Pa (the city that fell) and whether Val Kyr (another city) will fall. Mostly it’s just fun, though. I think, anyway.

Hmm, and I guess I’m working on my book description. Go, me! But if you have thoughts on those options, or opinions about what you like and dislike in a book description, particularly what motivates you to read on, please share!

[image error]Somewhere in this scenic park, the evil predators might lie in wait. Or not. They might be in the yard, too, but it was after we came back from a walk that Z started favoring her paw.