Kate Larking's Blog: Anxiety Ink, page 12

Ink Link Roundup -check out the book drama

Another Tuesday, another round of links! Enjoy.

Elisa has been doing a lot of research to help her mould a better writing routine. This collection of writer’s rules is a gem.

Kate  says: Possibly the best book drama to hit the web in August–maybe this year. How do you get a book on–and then removed– from the New York Times Bestseller list?

The post Ink Link Roundup -check out the book drama appeared first on Anxiety Ink.

More Workshop Hijinks!

I’ve spent a chunk of this summer wanted to make at least one writing workshop happen. I may get the chance, after all . . .

My theatre troupe’s annual 24-hour play festival is coming up fast. Unlike the past few years, I can’t participate in any of the usual contexts, though I joined the organizing committee again.

The festival goes like this: 6:00 pm Friday everyone gathers and we draw names out of a hat to establish groups. This usually takes about an hour. The groups split off and play improv games for the next hour. Then in the final hour, workshops for writers and directors take place.

The man who usually runs the writers workshop had another obligation he couldn’t get out of, so, ah, guess who’s taking over?

Yeah. I am.

Let’s not rehash my playwriting experience now, but I survived a playwriting workshop with high schoolers. So I feel fairly confident that I won’t make a complete mess of things.

Some of those who end up in the workshop may never have written anything like this before. Some others may have done this song and dance before. The point is: people participate in the festival to have fun. The writers who play to the strengths of their actors in terms of the characters or situations portrayed will find that the group as a whole has so much more fun.

The hardest part might be that coming to grips with the fact that it won’t be good. After all, the scripts are all glorified first drafts.

Wish me luck!

The post More Workshop Hijinks! appeared first on Anxiety Ink.

We Made It to Our Fourth Anniversary!

I’m a little early, but our anniversary is only days away and I really wanted to get this post up before the 6th. We’ve been doing this blog for four years now—I almost cannot believe it’s been that long. What started out as a fantastical, seemingly random idea in 2013 has morphed into a creation I (and hopefully Kate and Melissa) am so proud to be a part of!

This year was probably one of our hardest. Each of us faced major life hurdles and new challenges. In the grand scheme of things, I had it the easiest since I have neither cared for nor grown a new human. That said, my year has had a lot of downs—you’ve witnessed my whining firsthand. I think each of us hit a point in the past 12 months where we asked ourselves some tough questions: Why do we continue to do this? Is it worth it? Should the time we invest here be spent somewhere else?

Obviously, since we are still around, we very much believe writing for Anxiety Ink is worth it.

I am not the ultra-organized creature I once was when it came to the blog. I have turned into a person who gets her posts up at the last minute. However, I’ve never missed a deadline. That’s a small victory.

There are weeks where I stare blankly at the screen and wonder just what the heck I’m going to talk about. I hope my content is still worth reading and I’m not just repeating myself

I have had very few successes to share in recent years because I’ve let myself become unbalanced. While that has got me down and affected my creativity, seeing my fellow writers suffering with similar issues helps. Not in a schadenfreude-esque way, but one in which I know I am not the only one struggling with this writing thing.

For me, 2017 is all about shaking things up in my life. I’m wondering if I’ve left Anxiety Ink off the radar in terms of that. I have no idea what to tell you to expect, but know that I am committed. I am busy as all get-out. I am not getting enough sleep. I am all over the place mentally. But I am always here on Friday mornings—and I will continue to be.

Once again, I’ll close my happy anniversary post with a big THANK YOU. Knowing there are people reading my words is sometimes the only reason I am able to produce anything each week. I am so grateful. And I love when people comment to help me out or tell me that I’ve helped them. Writing, like so many things in our world, doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

The post We Made It to Our Fourth Anniversary! appeared first on Anxiety Ink.

Another Birthday Goes By…

Birthdays are a little bittersweet now. Every one that passes, I am acutely aware that I haven’t published any long form fiction.

I have wanted to be a novelist for a very long time. Since grade seven. Back then, I wrote a 88,000 word masterpiece (read: definitely not a masterpiece) and, at grade 11, I even submitted it to a publisher (and was rejected. Woot!).

Every year that comes by, I wonder why I’m not further than I am. This isn’t to say my life hasn’t been changing and progressing. I have done a lot of things I am proud of: publishing nonfiction, establishing my family, finding a book-related job that has a pension and benefits (unheard of, I know), and dealing with my depression and anxiety.

When I was a kid, I was always mad. Specifically, I was really mad when I heard publishing success stories about authors younger than me. Now that I work as a book buyer, I am finding young authors all the time. And it was frustrating because I was still floundering.

I had realized that meant that I valued the novelty of being a young person writing over all else. So I thought I was over that issue, acknowledging it and letting it pass. But every birthday, as my age goes for a level-up, I feel a twang of guilt and failure in my heart that I’m not further than I am.

Such is the situation living with depression and anxiety. Even if you acknowledge something, the feelings still linger and you have to remember again and again how you have dealt with that issue and moved forward.

Sigh.

The post Another Birthday Goes By… appeared first on Anxiety Ink.

Forgiveness: Practicing What I Preach

The power is out as I type this Sunday night. Hope it comes back on in time to schedule my Monday post, because I don’t know when I could post it tomorrow. This has become yet another practice at forgiveness – not for the power company, but for myself. Because I’ve known my hectic schedule for ages and shouldn’t be procrastinating.

The things I am struggling to forgive myself for:



The fact that the baby’s room is the only room in the house properly painted. This will continue to be the case at least until next spring because I have no more free time between now and October.
Last week’s missed post. Between painting the baby’s room (and cleaning up), social and family obligations, and the chaos that the day job suddenly became, I had no idea I’d missed it until about halfway through the week.
The many balls I have dropped. Like last week’s post. If this were a performance, I’d be booed off the stage. The play I’m in goes up in two weeks. Have I so much as glanced at my lines outside of rehearsal? No.
My inability to help and support friends and family the way I want. I know I’ve spread myself thin and can’t take on any more, even without the consideration of physical limitations at 33 weeks pregnant. But I would have loved to help my theatre troupe with writing a grant or helping publicize our upcoming events.
Not writing. Oh, I’ve written, but I can’t tell you the last time I wrote anything story-wise. Which is a great way to contribute towards my overall lack of functionality. This point bothers me the most, especially when the word from literally everyone giving me advice is that I will not be able to accomplish anything outside of doing my best to figure out how to take care of this baby for the first few months.


So you know that idea that I should do what I can, seize wha productive moments I can while pregnant? That has become a toxic ideal for me. Because I spend most of my spare moments trying to regain the energy to do simple things like eat dinner or string together coherent sentences.

I did not expect the state of being pregnant – even with the easy pregnancy some women might kill for – to take up so much time, energy, and brain-space. I did not expect the standard stress and chaos of the day job to erupt into this chaotic inferno that will require regular, significant overtime for the foreseeable future. (Seriously, full-time work maxes me out in the time, energy, and brain-space departments. How much worse will things become with this kind of overtime?)

Someday soon, I hope to stop harping on my failures. I’m struggling to accept them, to find forgiveness for myself and to stop thinking in terms of failure.

Can I figure this out before the baby comes? I really, really hope so.

The post Forgiveness: Practicing What I Preach appeared first on Anxiety Ink.

I Have Entered the Real World of Editing

Obviously, I have been writing for a long time. Not only has English been my favourite subject since I entered first grade, which is why I spent four intense years earning an English BA, I have always been actively writing and reading throughout my life.

I’m halfway through a copyediting course as I type this. I entered it believing I was merely going to learn the “proper language” of editing because I already had the chops. The further we’ve gotten into it, the more I realize that I approach editing as a writer. And that I am much more of a novice than expected.

As my title states, I have entered the real world of editing–and I am out of my element. I did not realize the change in mindset required to edit versus the one I use to write. They are very different beasts. In retrospect, I should have been aware of that. I’m an excellent close-reader, but it’s not the same.

I’m not terrible at copyediting, which is a relief. But I miss much more on our exercises and assignments than I anticipated I would. My expected weakness reared it’s head: Understanding clause rules and identifying when those rules are broken. Other errors arise because I read too quickly, I struggle with ie or ei constructed words, and my years of typing on the computer have made me lazy when it comes to spelling. I think a touch of performance anxiety is also exacerbating all of the above.

I’m learning a lot, and I’m grateful because it’s all so applicable to the writing I do. And learning editing skills is never a waste of time. I have newfound appreciation for the dedicated editors out there; I am only now grasping how much basic knowledge is required, let alone all the specialized knowledge.

Would I recommend such a course for all the writers I know? Yes! If only so you understand the amount of work your editor puts in. And you never know, you might just start producing cleaner manuscripts.

The post I Have Entered the Real World of Editing appeared first on Anxiety Ink.

Cleaning the Writer’s Office – After

Remember my writing office before? Here is a flashback of my absolutely mortification if you need it.

This update is all about the books. I went in with the goal to halve my books. Which means culling from my existing library, and cutting my TBR pile down by about two thirds into something manageable.

So, here is the after:

And some of you are saying, “Hold up, Kate. That’s it? The first photo set you posted had books in no less than 6 different photo locations.”

Yup, that’s it. I got my books down.

Starting tally: 850 books (exactly, which is kind of freaky that it landed right on a number like that).

Final tally:

435 books retained. Which means I retained 51% of my books. That’s pretty damn on the nose of halvsies!

415 books removed!

Of those removed:

120 sold. (The sum I got for the books wasn’t that impressive. But the fact that I did it within two days of the cull is pretty absurd. I still have clothes to consign from a year ago.)
200 books donated to the library book drive (trying not to think too hard about what they’ll do with them O.o).
78 ARCs getting donated to a library contact. Most will find homes as either teen book giveaways or librarian lunchbreak reads.
17 books set aside to give to friends.

The read books I kept were books I would very likely reread. The TBR books were kept with ones that I truly intended to read in the next year (or five). I mean, I could go down there, pick up any books, and be motivated enough to read it, no matter my mood. With a kid crawling up a storm, I really have to think about what I have time and energy for.

Is the rest of my office this clean? Not really. I have a TON of craft supplies stored down there that I need to tidy and this week’s mission was only books.

So this will forever be known as the Great Book Purge of 2017. Have you done a library purge before? How extreme did you get in culling books?

The post Cleaning the Writer’s Office – After appeared first on Anxiety Ink.

Ink Links Roundup

I have loved the Destroy series of anthologies since Lightspeed’s Women Destroy Science Fiction. Now, one writer talks about Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction.

I also adore Carrie Jones. She makes me want to be a better writer and a better person. So I love her thoughts on how writing might be a search for connection with the rest of the world. At least, it resonates with me.

Elisa has yet to write her “revenge muse(s)” into a story, but she’ll keep these tips in mind. http://www.elizadavidwrites.com/2017/06/writing-real-people-characters/

Elisa loves everything about this list of short works by authors of some of the biggest (size- and name-wise) classics out there! https://www.abebooks.com/books/short-reads/index.shtml?cm_mmc=nl-_-nl-_-C170817-MRC-shortrAMTRADE-_-b2img&abersp=1

The post Ink Links Roundup appeared first on Anxiety Ink.

Post-WWC 2017 Check-In

If you’ve been following us for a while, you know I love to do a write-up about my When Words Collide experience. This year, as I explained in this previous post, I decided to take a light approach. I did this for mental health reasons, all things said and done.

So, did my experiment work?

I am very happy to say yes! Usually I throw myself at the weekend and attempt to fill in every 50 minute slot I can with something I think will help me at some point creatively. I get up early, drive an hour, sit from 10-6, drive an hour again, then sit at home in a vegetative state. This year I went from 3-6 on Friday afternoon, 11-6 on Saturday, and then I took off Sunday. What’s more, when I was at the conference I kept everything very low-key. I was grateful for my decision early-on because life reared its ugly head and my Thursday night was annihilated, so I was not well-rested coming into the conference.

I also refused to go to any panel that wasn’t strictly writing and reading related. A few people told me they took in excellent marketing panels, but, unfortunately, I wasn’t having any of it. Part of me was sad to have missed out on content (especially on Sunday), but a bigger part of me was relieved not to be pressured. It has been a long time since I’ve enjoyed the conference as much as I did. There was no anxiety at all, which is amazing in and of itself.

I’m itching to get my manuscript done so that I can maybe play a more active role in the editor offerings next year, but I don’t want to stress myself out ahead of time. It’s a small thought in the back of my mind. I have a lot going on right now so it might not happen.

As far as panels went this year, my favourite had to be David B. Coe interviewing Guy Gavriel Kay. Not only did they inspire me by showing me a way to meld different passions together, but Kay reinforced my belief in rereading–which I wrote about here.

On top of all this, in one panel I attended, the chair of WWC discussed how low-key WWC actually is compared to the big writing cons out there, like Surrey and World Fantasy. Since my con experience is pretty minor, I had no idea. Yes, WWC offers a lot of content, but that’s because they want to offer something to everyone. They don’t actually intend for people to take in every single thing like I try to do. I need to remember that moving forward.

If you attended how was your experience? If you’ve attended other cons I would love your two cents!

The post Post-WWC 2017 Check-In appeared first on Anxiety Ink.

Cleaning the Writer’s Office – Before

My writer’s office is a mess. It’s a mess in that I hoard books ARCs and fulls, pens, reference books, letter writing paper and card stationery, journals, other office supplies, CDs, technology (ipads, ipods, computers, etc), figures (love figurines XD), candy (yup), and craft supplies.

My office is essentially an amusement park for cats. Which I love my cats…but I would also like to be able to use my space.

The Goals

Rudimentary math tells me I have approximately 900 books in my space. I better just make that 1000 in my estimates. I would like to get that cut in half. Getting 1000 books down to 500… I’m already scaring myself. This includes the books I have read and loved and live on my shelf.

(Only thing I didn’t count? Manga