Zachary Katz-Stein's Blog, page 7

Pets Are Not Like Children

Parents find it frustrating when pet owners compare their experiences with parenthood. While there are some undeniable similarities—such as the apparent acceptability of putting your child on a leash while out for a walk—there are also some obvious differences. For example: petting a child with your foot while reading a book or spraying a toddler in the face when he or she chews on live wires would be frowned upon for parents, while both practices are common for pet owners.

Another difference between pet ownership and parenthood is a matter of scale. In her article, 13 Things Non-Parents Should Never Say To Parents, Scary Mommy blogger, Lola Lolita says, “Puppies are like babies in the same way cinder blocks are like bricks of gold, kittens are like tigers, André is like Dom Pérignon, and a light sprinkle is like a monsoon.”

Given all these differences then, when it was time for my girlfriend and me to adopt our first solo pet, it’s ironic how classically—even stereotypically—we adhered to our parental roles. For Hannah (read, the expectant mother), our baby existed from conception. For nine months she stared, starry-eyed and smiling at Craigslist ads looking for a kitten. I, on the other hand, assumed the role of nervous potential-father, incessantly checking my bank balance and worrying how we’d pay for everything.

“It won’t be that bad,” Hannah said. “A re-homing fee is usually only $60.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “but you’re not counting vet visits, food, litter, toys, the monthly pet-fee that’ll be added to our rent, and the non-refundable $250 pet deposit. We just aren’t ready for this kitten.”

Then, one evening—after hours of trolling Craigslist—Hannah went into labor. “Look at this!” she cried. “I found these six-week-old Russian Blue mixes. It says they’ve already received their first round of shots and are ready for adoption!”

“Oh?” I hedged. “Are Russian Blues pretty?” When she didn’t immediately look guilty, the way she had after looking at photos of cross-eyed Siamese-ragdoll mixes with six toes and kinked tails, I knew we were in trouble.

“They’re gorgeous!” Her whole body seemed to contract for a moment before she turned back to her computer and did a quick Google image search. “See?”

My eyebrows rose as I studied the elegant grey cats on screen. “Okay, do you have pictures of these particular kittens?”

“Yeah,” Hannah said, clicking back to the Craigslist post. “The picture quality isn’t great, but you can still tell they’re adorable.” She pointed to one of the kittens. “This one that sounds perfect. His name is Firefly and it says he’s, ‘quiet, content, and cuddly. He’s a little playful but not rambunctious.'”

I smiled in spite of myself. “Firefly is a great name. Is he named for the TV show or the bug?”

“The bug. See the white tip on his tail?”

“That’s adorable,” I groaned.

“So, can I email the poster?”

I looked into Hannah’s shinning eyes and swallowed hard. “Go ahead.”

The street where we were to welcome our child occupied a liminal space between an upscale residential neighborhood and a rundown block of apartment buildings. The split level duplexes that lined the road reflected this duality. While a few of the buildings looked well maintained and comfortable, many others looked like they’d make excellent homes for squirrels, raccoons, or drug dealers. We stopped in front of a perfect example, the upper duplex was freshly painted while the lower was vacant, and Hannah called her Craigslist contact, Bailey.

“Should we wait in the car?” Hannah asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied, glancing around. “Might as well get out, I guess.” We got out. “Great, it’s raining.”

Hannah looked over at me and grinned. “Chaos in the universe.”

So it seemed to me standing there on that cool, rainy morning, waiting for our little money pit to be delivered. Soon, a thin woman, maybe twenty five, came around the corner of the house clutching something small and shivering to her chest. She was followed by a young man with shoulder length black hair and a scraggly Napoleon III—which is a handlebar mustache mated with a chin strip, a combination that made him look like a modern musketeer who’d fallen on hard times.

“Well, here she is,” Bailey said.

“She?” Hannah asked mid “Aw.”

“Yeah,” Bailey said, blushing slightly. “We got the gender wrong.”

I smiled, thinking of my sister, Hana, whom the doctors made us believe would be a boy. We were going to name him “Adam.” One of my mother’s favorite Zachary stories, tells how little four-year-old me wasn’t able to grasp this change in gender. “Hana’s great, but when’s Adam coming home?” I had asked.

As if listening to my thoughts, Bailey asked, “Are you going to keep her name?”

“Yeah,” Hannah said, “I think so.”

“Cool,” Bailey said. Her musketeer boyfriend grinned and bobbed in the background. Bailey shifted Firefly to one hand and fished some tiny bottles out of her pocket. “Here are the shots she’s already had; they should be enough for a little while.” She handed Hannah the bottles then turned to me. “Do you want to hold her?”

Here’s the thing, I wanted to say, I’m not great with babies. Children, okay, maybe, but babies? Not so much. I had tried to hold my second cousin a few times when she was an infant and neither of us much liked the experience. Of course I didn’t say any of that. My traitorous mouth said, “Sure.”

Then something miraculous happened. Bailey handed me the tiny, blue-eyed ball of fluff and my life changed. I felt an overwhelming wave of love envelope me—as powerful as it was unexpected. Tears came to my eyes as my new feline daughter burrowed her little head into the crook of my elbow. How had I not understood before this moment how essential she was to our lives? How beautiful, how perfect—she was our baby.

I looked up at our donor parents and locked gazes with the nebbish musketeer. He was smiling so widely his eyes nearly disappeared. We shared an indefinable masculine moment, one pet-father to another. I’m glad you understand, his gaze seemed to say. Now I know you’ll take good care of her.

I will, I promised as the women took care of business.

Hannah paid Bailey the re-homing fee, collected the vaccine bottles, and then turned to me. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah,” I said, still feeling drugged. We said our goodbyes and I reluctantly handed our palm-sized progeny over to Hannah so I could drive home. Hannah set her in the towel-lined milk crate we’d brought along to serve as Firefly’s temporary bed and began fussing over her. She squealed, oo-ed, aw-ed, and petted our baby as we drove along.

Unable to help myself, I took one hand off the wheel and scratched Firefly behind the ear. As soon as my hand touched her, she began purring loudly. “That’s just great,” Hannah laughed. “You didn’t even want her and she’s going to end up liking you better.”

“I don’t know about that,” I demurred, though privately I felt exultant.

Our feelings of euphoria lasted for the next several days, even surviving Firefly’s struggles with Brilliance cat litter and the subsequent “presents” left for us behind our bed and dresser. The feelings survived midnight surprise attacks, intense bouts of hide-and-seek, and one terrifying, nearly-fatal encounter with a ball of yarn. In truth, although it’s no longer overwhelming, the feeling still hasn’t faded.

So, no, I’ve never seen a brick of gold, never experienced a monsoon, and never tried Dom Pérignon, but as I clip my little girl into her Come With Me Kitty Harness and we go out to explore the world, I can’t help but feel like a lucky dad.

Is It Okay To Want A Better Butt? Reflections on Yoga and Body Image

Does this girl have an eating disorder? Should I talk to her after class?

I pondered these questions as I studied one of my students in downward facing dog. Her arms looked painfully thin and her waist was so narrow that, if she weren’t wearing a skin tight T-shirt, I might suspect she wore a corset — that’s how prominent her hip bones were.

However, her hair didn’t look undernourished, her teeth weren’t stained from purging, and I’ve met plenty of perfectly healthy stick figures. Maybe that was just her natural body shape…

Besides, I thought, feeling my own stomach absently, It’s not like you have much room to talk. Even if she does have an eating disorder, she’s only taking to extremes thoughts that you’ve had. I felt my face glow with the rising tide of hypocrisy.

Let me be clear: I do not have an eating disorder. I do, however, struggle with body image issues and more than a dollop of vanity. Friends and family reading the first part of that sentence might scoff (though they will probably admit the second). As a genetically blessed twenty four year old man who works out in some form (yoga, biking, or swimming) just about every day, I’m in good physical shape.

If I were to describe myself as a character in one of my novels I might say, “He was a tall, lean-muscled young man whose body attested to his easy life. His hands bore no calluses, his white skin only lightly touched by sun, and his was stomach slightly padded from rich food and leisure.”

My girlfriend and I call the slight padding around our midriffs “fluff” or “cookies” — as in, it’s where we keep the cookies we aren’t using. When we feel fat, which is often, we might say, “I feel fluffy,” or, “Do I look like I have a lot of cookies?”

I struggle with how to deal with these feelings. Sometimes I feel like I should simply accept my body. After all, my body is wonderful. It does nearly anything I ask it to, it looks great, works hard without complaining too much, and lets me experience the world. Shouldn’t I forgive it’s slight imperfections? Or, better yet, shouldn’t I try to shift my perspective so that I realize it’s already perfect?

This argument is fed by some of my readings about yoga.

In his book, Meditations from the Mat, Rolf Gates says, “Do not use [yoga practice] as a means to control your weight, or your appearance, or the effects of aging. Let your practice be a means to discover your fullness. Be vulnerable, be sad, be mad, be happy, but be there.”

When I think this way I work out less frequently and take easier yoga classes — sometimes replacing practicing yoga with meditation (another mindfulness practice). As a result, I tend to gain a little weight.

This weight gain inevitably leads me to gaze distastefully at the mirror, turning from left to right and sucking in my cookies. At these times I think, why should I pretend I don’t care about how I look? My body is so close to how I want it. I should just work a little harder, eat a little healthier, and I’ll be there.

This line of thinking is supported, if indirectly, by something that Sam Chase, one of my favorite senior teachers during yoga teacher training, said. Quoting loosely, he said, “People come to yoga for different reasons. Some people come for spiritual enlightenment, and that’s great. Some people so their butt will look better in their jeans, and that’s great too. As teachers, we should welcome students to the mat for whatever reason.”

This open philosophy resonates with me deeply — particularly because the judgments implicit in Gates’s quotation remind me of why I stopped practicing Judaism (the hierarchy created when one type of practice, and therefore one person, is set above another). When it holds sway I do work out every day, I stop putting sugar in my tea, switch from cream to milk in my coffee, and generally try to cut back on unhealthy snacking.

Because I’m young and healthy the changes in my body are gratifyingly rapid. If I’m good for two or three days I notice a difference. If I can sustain this lifestyle for two or three weeks I strut around like an Adonis.

However, questions always resurface. I’ll start to feel guilty about practicing to control my weight. I’ll think, why should I push myself this hard? I still look good without going to these extremes. I should resist this toxic celebrity culture and its impossible standards (this last thought drifting in from somewhere out of my liberal arts education).

On the mat we learn to accept our bodies. We learn to listen to their creaks, complaints, and gripes. We learn to respect our limits, but not always believe them (a topic for a whole post at another time).

Yet, I see many yogis, and yoga teachers, struggling with the issues of body image in the same ways I have. One of my good yoga teacher friends, who I won’t embarrass by naming, once asked my opinion on a shirt she was trying on. “What do you think of the back?” She asked. “Does it do weird things with my back fat?”

The shirt pushed the skin just below her arms up, giving the illusion that she was a little heavier than she actually was. “Umm,” I hedged.

“Yeah,” she agreed, “you’re right. It does make me look fat.”

“It’s not that bad,” I protested, because it was true. The shirt looked good and I probably wouldn’t have noticed the press of skin under her armpits if she hadn’t pointed it out.

“I know,” she admitted. “It’s just my own personal issues. If one of my girls had said that shirt made her look fat I would’ve told her not to be ridiculous.”

I hear stories like this all the time.

It seems we know we shouldn’t judge our bodies, but it’s another thing entirely to put that knowledge into practice. The challenge is compounded, in my own case at least, by the fact that I feel guilty about still wanting to lose “just those last three to five pounds.”

I worry sometimes about how much those words sound like someone with a weight disorder. Rationalizing, I’ll think, I don’t really want to lose weight, just replace a few pounds of fat with a few pounds of muscle. 

Gates talks about a similar phenomena in Meditations from the Mat. “Throughout my own spiritual journey, the behavior that has caused me the most suffering is not my anger, but my anger at having become angry in the first place…If I were being spiritual, I scold myself, then I wouldn’t get angry.”

This sounds a lot like what I do. Feeling guilty about wanting my body to be perfect has caused at least as much suffering in my life as my attachment to the idea of what I want my body to look like.

The solution, according to Gates, is not to, “succumb to the tyranny of our own self-judgement. We can observe our reactions with awareness, and let them go.”

This can be extremely challenging and, honestly, I don’t know if I’m ready to let go of my own impossible standards.

However, I can keep trying and I think I am ready to let go of feeling guilty about those standards. If I can manage that, I will have let go of half my suffering. Who knows? Maybe without my guilt contributing to its half of the cycle I may find myself ready to let go of my image attachment as well.

Like everything else, it’s a process.

August 2014, Progress Report

Dear Readers,

August didn’t see much progress in terms of word count.

However, a few important steps were taken. Here’s what I’ve been working on:

1) Beta readers for “A Study in Cutlets” reported back to me and I incorporated their feedback into the manuscript. This was very exciting because everyone loved the base work and all gave different comments that made the story better. “A Study in Cutlets” is now being read at The Antioch School, my elementary alma mater. As soon as they give me comments back I will hand it over to a professional proofreader, then the formatter, and get ready for publication!

2) Cover Work – I’ve been working with a professional graphic designer on a cover for “A Study in Cutlets.” We had a cover I was happy with but it turns out the designer used an image to which he didn’t have the rights! He fixed it, but it’s not quite as good as it was, so the jury is still out on that one. I’ve also been making tweaks to “The Grey Heir” cover in consultation with a few friendly professionals. I’ll upload the new and improved cover soon.

3) I’ve been working on this Website! (As partially evidenced by this post). I’ve also revamped the Grey Heir page, and I have many more ideas about things to change, which will be implemented in the coming weeks.

Well, that’s about all for now.

I hope you enjoyed your holiday weekend.

Zac

Smartphones and Yoga Teachers: a Tool, a Crutch, or a Distraction?

“If you haven’t done so already, begin to make your way into Shavasana. Lying on your back, arms either open and receptive at your sides or else one hand finds your heart, one finds your stomach. Eyes close. Release any control of breath you may have maintained throughout your practice. Relax your body.

“Once you’ve established this quiet, relaxed space, try to stay present. Feel the mat, or the floor, underneath your body. Feel the air circulating around your skin, entering and leaving your body with breath. Be present.”

My breath releases in a sigh as I turn my attention from my students to my smartphone.

I check my email, then glance up and look around. Everyone is still relaxing, so I check Facebook, then look up again. My students twitch, shift, and breathe, struggling with the difficult task I’ve set them: remaining present, relaxing, trying not to fall asleep. Occasionally they don’t succeed and gentle snores fill the studio, but at least they’re trying – unlike me.

Over the last several weeks an embarrassing irony has grown in the back of my mind: I tell my students to remain present and then immediately check out myself.

How did this happen? I wonder and, perhaps more importantly, What can I do about it? Do I want to do anything? Do I need to?

Your first response might be an eye roll and a disgusted, “Easy – leave your phone with your shoes. Phones have no place in the yoga studio anyway.”

Generally, I agree with you – for students anyway – but here’s the thing: I (and easily 75% of the yoga teachers I know) use my (our) smartphones for music during class.

Now, your next response might be, “Well then, just don’t look at it.”

Yes, obviously, I’ve thought of that. I’ve even been a bit better about not looking since I’ve noticed myself doing it, but I haven’t stopped completely. Like many modern smartphone owners, I’m accustomed to checking my email every 10-15 minutes (at most) and going an entire yoga class without can be challenging.

Not only that but, as a self-publishing author, I have so much that might be in my inbox. It could be correspondence from that author I emailed last week, it could be my cover artist with a new sketch for me to look at, or it could be any number of, if not vital, then at least vitally interesting things demanding my attention.

Plus, my students all have their eyes closed. It’s not like I’m giving dialogue. I’m not taking away from their experience, I’m just decompressing from a solid 50-60 minutes of being “on,” fully present, in the moment, engaging my students. It’s hard to understand how tiring this is if you haven’t done it. It’s like giving a lecture for an hour, except you are moving, walking, adjusting.

It’s somewhere between a class and an improve performance. After all that work, I deserve a little break right?

Well…maybe, and maybe not.

It’s true that my students are supposed to have their eyes closed (and many may be mortified when they read this), but what if they didn’t? What if they glance up at the front of the room and see me there, on my phone – what kind of message does that send?

Or, worse, what happens when I press the center button on my phone too long and Siri’s beeps shatter the stillness (oh yes, that’s happened). Or I forget to turn the sound off on my phone and the letters from Words with Friends bubble onto the screen, “Boo-boo-boo-bup.” Yep, that has happened too.

Those are the worst things that have come of my consumption.

Here are some of the good things:

1) As mentioned, it helps me decompress for class, which is especially important if I’m going to teach another one in 15 minutes.

2) It helps me get through shavasana.

This is an entirely new aspect of the problem. I like giving long shavasanas.

When I was a Teacher Trainee, I was told that yoga classes should warm up, culminate in a peak pose (like half moon, or full bound side angle), then begin to slow down, and end in shavasana. However, for me, the peak pose is shavasana. It’s the culmination of all the work my students just did and I want to give them plenty of time to absorb that work – particularly because many teachers only leave a few minutes at the end.

I have absolutely nothing against that style. As a student, I frequently appreciate short shavasanas and grow frustrated and antsy when an instructor leaves me there “too long.” This is precisely why I hold my students there. It’s hard, and it’s work, but I think it’s important work that I want to share with my students…I just don’t want to do it myself apparently.

Here’s another thing: it’s even harder for me to sit quietly in shavasana as an instructor than experience it as a student, probably because instead of putting my body through a demanding asana practice I’ve just spent the last hour focusing as hard as I can on my students. I’ve become hyper attentive to their every twitch and movement, and I feel self conscious as I watch them struggle to remain still. I begin to have doubts.

Am I leaving them in the pose too long? Should I say something? Offer something to focus on…What else can I do?

However, the best thing I can do for them is set them up then say nothing. Using my smartphone may be a crutch, but it helps me shut the hell up and let my students have their own experience in shavasana.

The answer, I think, is one familiar to most yoga practitioners: I’ll have to make it a practice.

In an ideal world, I would like to be able to use my smartphone to play music (aka as a tool), then sit with my students through a beautiful ten minute shavasana without resorting to the distraction that my phone provides. However, it’s a bad idea to walk on a broken ankle without support. Sometimes we all need crutches.

The trick is recognizing when it’s time to let the crutches go.

The April Report

For my curious friends, family, and readers, here’s a quick rundown on what’s happened this month in my writing world:

1. I wrote 10,000 words in my novella, A Study in Cutlets. While ideally I’d like to be writing a little more than that, averaged out over the course of a year that’s about 120,000 words, which translates to two short novels or one really long novel (in other words, not bad at all).

2. I sent The Grey Heir to be professionally edited, received those edits, and incorporated them.

3. I submitted The Grey Heir  to The Readers Favorite Book Contest. At minimum this will get me an in depth review from a credible source, at best I’ll become an award winning author.

4. I think I finally finished The Grey Heir’s print edition cover – for real this time. I hope to order a proof in the next day or so.

5. While I didn’t update this blog twice a week, I did write a couple real stories for it and started actively building my Twitter account again.

Overall it’s been a good month.

See you next time friends!

Zac

The Danger of “Teacher Proof Students”

I was first introduced to the term “teacher proof students” over dinner at my uncle Jonah and aunt Susan’s house. Susan was talking about high school students who were going to do well no matter what kind of teacher with which they were stuck.

She smiled across the table at my sister, Hana. “You were a teacher proof student.”

Now that I’m a teacher myself (though I teach yoga rather than English) the idea of teacher proof students makes a frightening amount of sense. The idea is scary because it’s so seductive and because it’s at least partially true.

There are students (usually fairly advanced students) who are going to have a good practice no matter what I do. I know I’ve had great practices even when the teacher’s dialogue was faltering and unclear.

There are also students who aren’t  going to have a good practice no matter what I do. While this is an extremely frustrating experience as a teacher, ultimately, there’s not a lot you can do about it. People are going to get out of a practice what they put into it. You can’t make someone take a class more seriously, so there’s no reason to feel like a failure as a teacher when it happens.

Both of these things are true, yet, maybe you can already see the potential problem.

If you fully accept the idea that your students experience doesn’t depend on what you do as a teacher, it’s all too easy to become complacent.

You may begin to neglect the advanced students. You might think, “they’re doing their own thing,” and so focus all of your attention on the struggling students. To a certain extent, this is appropriate. Of course you should pay more attention to students who are newer and need the attention more. However, even advanced students sometimes slip out of safe postures so it’s important that you’re aware of them. It’s also important to give praise when an advanced student (or any student, really) does something well, which you won’t be able to do if you’re only looking at the newbies.

Just as you may begin to neglect the advanced students, if you fully accept that you can’t control a student’s experience, you may miss an opportunity to help a struggling student. Maybe it just looks like the student isn’t trying, but they just don’t know that  their lunge is supposed to be longer. Maybe they have an injury. Maybe they’re just having a bad day, but you checking in with a them (a quick little, “are you alright there?”) could bring them back to the reality of their practice. You won’t know unless you try.

So, what’s the solution?

Try to accept that it both is true and it isn’t true.

Just like when we practice Warrior II and we try to both open our hips to the side of the room and keep our knee aligned over our ankle (two completely opposite intentions in the body), we must both allow our students to have their own practice – to listen to their own inner teacher - and be there as the teacher in the room. Also just like the struggle between opening the hips vs. keeping the knee alignment, we must strive for both but prioritize one. As the knee must always “win” to keep it safe within the posture, so too must our responsibility as teachers “win” over the need to step back.

Our responsibility “wins” by keeping our students safe. Even if that means reminding a student to do the same thing several times, or we give encouragement even when we’re feeling discouraged.

We can still do our jobs even when we allow our students to be their own teachers and listen to their bodies.

Again, just like practice, sometimes I’m great at this balancing act, and sometimes I err to one side or the other. The important thing is to reflect, re-calibrate, and keep going.

Young Writer’s Tools: Dialogue Tag Word Bank

I was surfing the Web last week and came upon Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writers.

Rule #3: Avoid Adverbs.

Rules #4: Avoid Adverbs, especially after “he said” and “she said.”

I began paying attention to my own writing and realized that I used quite a few adverbs, particularly after dialogue tags. This isn’t the end of the world. In fact, I came across another article that provided a compelling defense of adverbs. This article claims adverbs are just another part of speech, and that there aren’t any “rules” in writing unless you’re a weak writer.

That may be true.

It’s also true that it’s easy to abuse adverbs – particularly for a young writer - because they provide quick descriptive phrases like “he said angrily” or “she ran quickly.” There’s nothing wrong with either of these phrases, but, unless you’re accomplishing something specific with the adverb, you’re probably better off saying something like “he fumed,” or “she sprinted.”

So, after noticing my own tendency to use adverbs after dialogue tags, I decided to try to cut them out for a while. I ended up spending a lot of time on thesaurus.com, and found some great dialogue tags. Therefore, I thought I’d start a little word bank, so that writer who are interested in adding some descriptive words (rather than descriptive phrases) would have an easier time of it than I did.

Alternatives to:

“Said angrily”

Exclaimed, Exploded, Ejaculated, Fumed, Flared, Shouted, Roared, Yelled, Screamed, Shrieked, Snapped, Hollered, Raged, Hissed

“Said quietly”

Murmured, Muttered, Sighed, Whispered, Hummed, Insinuated, Mumbled, Purred, Whimpered, Squeaked

“Said happily,”

Joked, Laughed, Beamed, Glowed, Grinned, Sang, Caroled, Chuckled, Chortled, Whooped

“Said sadly”

Groused, Complained, Whined, Cried, Griped, Grumbled, Groaned, Moaned, Fussed, Kvetched

Clearly, this is not an exhaustive list. It is, however, enough to get you started.

If you have any favorite dialogue tags or adverbs that aren’t on this list, please leave them down in the comment section and I’ll add them to the word bank!

 

Progress Report, April 14

Good Morning Blog Friends,

I’m bored of constantly apologizing for not updating this blog enough every time I post, so this is going to be the last time I do so: I’m sorry and I’ll try to do better. Now, let’s move on.

The last couple weeks have been fairly eventful. I had a great conversation with publishing insider Will Shcwalbe that affected me more than the actual information exchange between us would warrant at first glance.

The topic that affected me the most was the two paths open to authors: traditional publishing and self-publishing.

Now, although I’d been ostensibly pursuing self-publishing for the last nine months or so, I’d also been feeling very discouraged about the number of copies my book had sold. Without giving it a fair shot I felt like I had already failed and that self-publishing wasn’t really a viable option. My conversation with Will not only convinced me that it is a viable option, but it gave me fresh incentive to pursue it: traditional publishers expect you to commit to a single genre to the exclusion of all others.

This makes sense. If they’re going to spend a lot of time and money building you as a brand in a genre, they don’t want to hear that you’ve suddenly decided to write something else. Again, perfectly valid, but the idea of writing in a single genre for the rest of my life makes me slightly ill when I think about it.

Right now, if I had to pick a genre, I would probably pick New Adult Urban Fiction, but that’s only because I am a new adult living just outside a city. A couple years ago I would have picked Young Adult Fantasy. As I grow and change, so to does my writing interests, and it’s important to me that I have the creative freedom to pursue those interests.

So, where does that leave me?

Figuring out ways to make self-publishing work, that’s where. It means redoubling my efforts at self-promotion, buckling down to finish the second edition of The Grey Heir, then getting The Exile and A Study in Cutlets out. It means biting the bullet and hiring professional editors and paying (at least a little) to market my work.

Take a deep breath because here we go, my friends.

Progress Report, March 30

This week I haven’t been working on what I should have – according to my plan anyway.

I worked a little on the cover for The Grey Heir a little and am writing the character descriptions for my artist.

I also wrote about 2,500 words in a new novella called, “A Study in Cutlets.” For any Sherlock Holmes fans out there, the reference to “A Study in Scarlet,” should be fairly obvious.

In my version, however, Watson is an English Mastiff, Sherlock is a female cheetah named “Sherry,” and it all takes place at the Milwaukee Zoo! I’d been struggling with writing The Exile (I just wasn’t enjoying myself), so I decided to take a break and write something short and fun. If anyone is interested in being a beta reader for this when it’s done let me know!

 

The Devil’s Word Count; or, March 23rd Progress Report

According to my calculations, to meet my word count goal for the first draft of The Exile I need to write 6,666.66 words per week for the next seven and a half weeks. Clearly this is a sign. It could mean that all the powers of hell are arrayed against me, or it could mean that I’m the devil…it’s too soon to tell. 

What I can tell you is that this past week I wrote 2,925 words. Still, I wrote almost everyday and I hadn’t yet made a specific weekly word count goal, so we’re calling this one a warm up round

Favorite passage I wrote this week:

Zuriel laughed. “Magic,” he scoffed. “You must be joking. Magic is heresy. The idea of The Order using magic is absurd!”

“That’s literally true,” Oresk smirked, “if you mean absurdity in the way that philosopher’s do: namely, that their position is self-contradictory or illogical.” All eyes turned to Oresk and Rayne’s eyebrows weren’t the only ones raised in astonishment. “What?” he asked, shrugging. “With the amount of time I’ve spent with Adaira, something was bound to rub off.”

Check back next week to see if the devil has his due.

(Meaning his word count, in case that was unclear).