R.K. Belford's Blog, page 3

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Writing this last year has been a challenge while I adjusted to new health issues. But as I come through to the other side I feel a new surge of creative energy flowing through me and I’m excited to complete all the projects that had to be put on hold while my body and mind were being insufferably annoying.

This is where I could use your help, though.I need your support! Self-publishing means I don’t get paid to write. Being disabled means I don’t get paid much of anything, period.

It’s more...

Free Books

It’s my birthday this week, and in continuing my tradition from last year, my books will be free for a limited time (Tuesday, April 14th, 2015 – Sunday, April 19th, 2015). Now’s your chance to get free e-book copies of my books (and to encourage me to finish the new novel and poetry book I’ve been trying to finish for the last year).

Here are the links!

Cracked: A Novella

http://www.lulu.com/shop/rk-belford/cracked-a-novella/ebook/product-21581295.html

I Am Not These Things (poetry)

http://ww...

Insane, Got No Brain

Insanity is inconvenient.

There is this impression which‘normal’ people havethat insanity is somehow a result of personal deficiency. As if somehow having your shit together can prevent it from sneaking up on you. That having money or friends or a good family will offer some sort of protective barrier.

It certainly seems that way, right? Because the really crazy people you know are separated from family. They’re destitute. They’re those lunatics on the street, mumbling under their breath and...

Thank You No Thank You

I hate the expression ‘control freak’, but I suppose it’s suitable to describe me, in that when I don’t get to control my surroundings, I freak out. ��More than a little. ��Being disabled means giving up control. ��Even if set out not to, in the beginning, and figure out some work-around schemes to allow yourself to maintain control, there comes a point when you have to cede some or all control to other people.

I hate it.

“It must be so great to have other people do things for you.”

No. ��It isn...

Why I Don’t Want to be Pretty

I���m tired of trying to be pretty. Not so much physically tired (although that���s certainly part of it), but mentally tired. The culture of beauty is exhausting.

To be fair, beauty has never really been my burden. I am attractive to some, but I���ve never possessed the type of beauty that stops men and women in their tracks.

I challenge the notion that women have to be pretty.

We are assigned this task from birth against our will: prettiness is a requirement for femininity. If you are not bles...

Ways My Life is Exactly Like Downton Abbey

The problem with ditching cable and subscribing to Netflix is that you tend to binge-watch shows, especially if you you���re procrastinating. (Of course, as writers we are never procrastinating, we���re ���gaining life experience/cataloguing creative fodder���.)

It should come as no surprise that watching 10 straight hours of period drama tends to shape your perception of reality, and you start seeing yourself in not just one, but all of the characters.

For instance���

If you���ve read my writin...

My Father Died

My brother and sister scattered my father���s ashes over the water in Port Dalhousie, Ontario. I was not invited. I would not even have known if I hadn���t happened across a single random Facebook post that made reference to the occasion.

It was hardly a surprise, and I acknowledge that their choice to exclude me was the direct result of a situation of my own making.

If I had the opportunity to go back and change how I handled my father���s passing, I don���t know that I would. Even though I wa...

A Writer Writes

Except for when they don’t.

TWENTY THINGS I DID LAST MONTH INSTEAD OF WRITING

I���ve often said that even when I���m not writing things on paper or online, I���m still actively a writer because I am concocting stories in my head. It���s always been part of my process to mull things over for a while (sometimes a very long while) in the safety of my mind before I birth them fully-formed onto the page.

But in June I didn���t write. Not even in secrecy behind the shroud of my subconscious. I was a b...

Poems of Further Neglect

Well, I still can’t write. ��Because reasons. ��Lots of stuff stuck in my head. ��But apathy.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.ca/

Also, the upcoming move is kicking my ass. ��Even though I’m not actually doing anything. ��I kind of suspect that’s why I’m stuck in anhedonia-land. ��It’s like some evil plot that mental illness likes to play: Need to get something done? ��Tough! ��Time to put on the brakes and completely paralyze and defeat you! ��Whee!!!

Or rather: meh.

I feel like if I don’t pos...

Riding the Anhedony Pony

It would be great if I was prepared for days like this by getting everything done that I needed to ahead of time. ��That’s not quite how it works, unfortunately. ��I took it pretty easy this weekend because physically I was in the middle of a bad flare-up of my arthritis and figured that somehow that would prepare me for being super productive today.

Unfortunately my body and brain never seem to have their shit together, cooperation-wise.

So here I am today, over the worst of my arthritis flare...