R.M. Ridley's Blog, page 5
October 23, 2015
The Bad and The Good of My Mental Health Cycle
So with my fall/winter cycle of ‘crazy’ ramping up I am faced with dealing with many issues. It is a stressful time just dealing with my own head and the supposition of what might come tomorrow. This is my longest cycle of three; The first happens around end of January and goes for roughly 2 months, the next is in July and lasts around 3 weeks – but it comes on fast and hard, the last is the longest – starting sometime in October and going until -luckily- just a bit before Christmas. The severity of this one can vary wildly – from long but ‘Not too noticeable’ to ‘Shit, I have to carve my own brains out to stop this!’ Not knowing which it will be doesn’t help the aggravation of dealing with it.
So among the above stated issues, the bad things about my cycle is a lack of control on my emotion. Now when I say emotion, I mean the base emotion that always throbs inside me, not the other myriad of emotions I’ve slowly taught myself to understand and get a good glimpse of how they might feel. No I’m talking about the ones that have always existed; anger, frustration, and anger. You’re right that is only one because frustration really is nothing but a mutated form of anger. When my cycle is in full swing, the irrational and illogical anger comes boiling up to the surface. The medication helps – boy howdy does it help – but it isn’t enough always to contain it during a cycle. So I am all too often in a state of clenched teeth, and have to be hyper aware of my reactions. When I’m alone at home, it isn’t too bad because my wife knows my snapping at her has nothing to do with her. When I’m out, in public… well let’s just say I often step outside to get a few slow deep breaths of fresh air.
I also have focus issues, It is hard to remember what I was doing or why. I get lost in a flood of racing frothing thoughts. My mind is bombarded with too much input, noise, ‘voices’, song snippets, images, idea’s, worries, and memories. I get tired faster and mentally worn down because of this constant torrent. When it’s bad – I need to block it all out and I simply sit down in front of the TV and watch … whatever! As long as it has moving lights and sound, it can block out the cacophony inside my skull and that is a good thing.
There is a good thing among all this negative – my Muse can use this open current to feed me. Among the flood of other crap, I get story. There are images from the next novel, there are words in the mess that make sense, and, through the deluge, there is a world flashing by in pieces.
This is a refuge, this is an escape… literally islands I can dwell upon as the waves crash against the rocks. Although it is difficult to focus, if I can grab a bit of the written world, I can submerse myself in it, block out all other noise and matter, and find relief in the story channeling through me.
This has begun – and not a moment too soon. It has been a long time, far too long, since I have written. I relish the idea of living in a different world right now. For all too often no matter how dark and chaotic that ‘make believe’ world is, it is still better than what my own mind is creating for me.
Filed under: Mental Health, Writing Tagged: anger, antisocial, Bi-polar, blog for mental health, Brain, crazy, cycle, frustration, medication, Mental Health, muse, plot, reality, scene, wierd thoughts, wife, winter, world building, writing
October 22, 2015
To Promote or Not to Promote?
To promote or not to promote?
If so…When? Where? How? How often?
These are the questions that an indie author faces.
Do I have the answer?
Hell no!
Before my anthology, ‘Blondes, Books, & Bourbon‘, came out, I was going to be attending the Ad Astra Toronto Convention. To promote my work, I printed up business cards with a scan code. I passed out these cards to any and all who would take one. My hope? That people would, in fact, download and read my work. From this, I hoped whatever number did take advantage of the offer, a portion of those would enjoy the stories enough to purchase, ‘Tomorrow Wendell‘, the novel set in the same universe.
For almost a month before the convention I plugged hard – including mentioning about the free give away on any Ad Astra related site I could. I made pictures that had the book covers and quotes from reviewers and shuffled which ones I posted on Facebook and Twitter every day. I tried my hardest to both be constantly in the faces of anyone who might see these posts and yet find a line where I kept them engaged in the posts without just being the same ‘billboard’ over, and over, as they drove down the street. Because lets face it…there are thousand of such billboard lining the social media highway and it is too easy to be jaded, even to the things you love.
What was the result? Well, there was a definite sales upswing during that period recorded on my quarterly report. The question is – was it worth it? I spent many hours tailoring these posts, and responding to posts, and working hard to get people to seriously think about purchasing my books. It was not something I would really want to do 365 days a year… nor do I think I could, while maintaining any sanity or time to write. It was nice to see what appeared to be a direct correlation from the work to the sales – but it was also a bit disheartening because I knew I could’t keep it up.
So if n
ot time invested to bump sales, what about money? Answer? I don’t have enough of it to find out. I suppose I could horde all profits from sales until I have enough to pay some decent agency/group to promote me and then after a year compare sales… but I have other uses for that money. I guess maybe I’m just not a gambler at heart.
I used to write for the love of writing and because I had to get the damn voices in my head to shut up. Recording them was the only way to do it. I still try to do it for the love of the plot, characters, and the simple joy of creating a world from words, but the pay-check – big or small – it changes that. No matter how hard I try, my brain slips to the business side. Should I be spending more time on social media – more sites, more clever promotion gambits? What am I doing wrong – what did I do right?
It’s no wonder writers are so often considered to be insane… the job drives us there. I have no answer except one – write for the love. I’m going to try my hardest to follow my own advice on this but, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, even this post is a promotion. ~sigh~
Filed under: Publishing, Writing Tagged: Ad Astra Con, anthology, authors, Blondes Books & Bourbon, characters, Jonathan Alvey, novel, paranormal, paranormal private investigator, plot, Promote, publish, readers, sales, short story, Tomorrow Wendell, Urban Fantasy, White Dragon Black Series, writer, writing
October 21, 2015
What I’m Doing to Stay Busy…This Week
I always seem to have a number of projects on the go, whether it is making a gift for someone, challenging myself to learn something new, or making something to enter into a Art & Sciences competition, my SCA life offers distraction and hands on activity.
Just last weekend, I formally challenged myself in the court of Ealdormere, before her Majesty, to create by hand, a ‘ivory’ 16th century rosary. No power tools are allowed to be a part of this process. I am modelling it somewhere between the two examples below.
I have one full year to complete this project. Now, obviously I am not going to use ivory, so instead I’ll be using bone and tagua nuts. Each of these will present different issues and challenges, but that was why I decided to do the challenge.
I have one piece of bone soaking right now to start learning the technique of hand carving it, and have already gone through my stash of bone bits to put aside the ones large enough to be turned into bead … I hope. The ten standard beads will be in the 15mm by 20mm range, which is close to period size. The paternoster and memento mori will be larger, and it is these I will most likely have to carve from the tagua nut.
Currently I am trying to wrap up a project I started for no other reason than to enter it in an A&S competition. The event it needs to be finished for is on November 14th, which should give me more than enough time but the sooner I get it done, the more time I have for other projects.
Yup – these ones. First time I ever did repousse and chase work. The image a artistic rendering of the heraldry of the barony I belong to, with trilliums which represent the kingdom of Ealdormere. The thing on the far left is the base layer over which, the cut out images will be positioned. These are roughly 3 1/2 inches top to bottom. The material for the top layer is brass and the base is copper. They are ‘tongue brooches’ of Viking era and have a pin on the back.
These are the tool I used – made from roofing nails. In the long run,not good enough, but they worked great for this project. Shaping the metal, stretching, rounding, and incising, all with gentle controlled taps with a hammer. I will certainly be doing more of this – in fact… one of my, side projects to tinker with now and then.
I am making my lady wife a rosary appropriate to the period – she asked before I even thought about doing the year long challenge and I decided to make one. I purchased some lapis lazuli beads of a decent size (they were half off) and some smaller opalite beads as well. Now, I know that opalite is a mad-made glass but that isn’t really a problem for me, because in Venice in the 16th century glass was a true art work and highly sought after. These I will string together and put a tassel on the end – and voila, rosary. But it needed a little something, and pomanders were very common on rosaries – hell, they were common on everything – so I decided to make a little pomander for the rosary.
I made these locket parts in the shape of a shell through repousse and casing. They are an inch from tip to hinge- which you can see in the one on the left.
The one last project that I do consider on going, despite not working on it for months is a toothpick pomander (told you they were everywhere) in the form of a sea horse pendant. This is a long term creation to test my skills.
The outside will be lavishly studded with ‘gems’ that I will carve from coloured glass, and set, by hand rolling the brass over the edges. A mixture of power tools and hand work. I want to return to this one soon and spend more time on it but frankly – it sort of scares me. The tiny gems….it’s going to be very hard. Cutting and shaping glass that small, then trying not to crack them as I ‘roll’ the metal over the edges. But once it is done it should be something I can be quite proud of.
Well – that’s my currently active list of projects. It’s a hobby.
Filed under: Jewelry, SCA Tagged: 16th century, bone, carving, Ealdormere, lapis lazuli, pomander, repousse, rosary, Society for Creative Anachronism, tagua nut, tools, toothpick, venice, wife
October 20, 2015
Here We Go Again!
Again – again, my cycle is ramping up. Again, I have to adjust to compensate in all that I do. Again, I enter a world more complicated and stressful than it should be – All because of bad wiring in my brain.
“For you just joining the us here today, Welcome to … Mad as a Hatter! With your host – Severe Bipolar, and his sidekick, schizoaffective!
‘Welcome. Welcome, and Thank You, all! We have a great show lined up for you today. A little later on, we will be talking to the makers of Seroquel, and get their take on why their drug has to make the simple task of dreaming become a trip down a rabbit hole even Lewis Carol would have blanched at. We will also try and get a consensus, from all the voices in a bipolar brain, on the best way to deal with things like OCD, emotional responses, and self-worth. I know, I know – but we can try!
Right now, though, I’d like to start the show with a very special guest. Please welcome, some one we hardly ever get to see, once this freak show called ‘Metal Health‘ starts up……Put your hands together for——CONCENTRATION!”
Yeah, my cycle is ramping up. First of the winter cycles, usually longest of my cycles, but only the second worst of the three…usually. For years I’ve been dealing with this, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t get a lead ball in the pit of my stomach…dread and fear over ‘ How bad will it be this time?’
This year I have many outlets to distract myself with, and many things to help bolster my weeks – maybe it will be enough.
I hope it will be enough.
Filed under: Mental Health Tagged: antisocial, Bi-polar, blog for mental health, Brain, concentration, crazy, cycles, dreams, medication, Mental Health, schizoaffective, Seroquel, wierd thoughts, winter
October 19, 2015
I Refuse to Submit
So two points I refuse to submit to on this day – First, I refuse to submit to the fact it is cold enough to start heating the house.
Actually, I am just stubborn – but somehow, lighting the boiler that heats the house, before November seems… Okay, I don’t know what it seems. The wood is there, the temperature is plummeting, the furnace is cleaned out and restocked. All I really need right now is a match, and yet….
We do this every year. Every year, my wife and I try to ‘hold out’ just a little bit longer, as though admitting it’s cold enough to light the furnace is breaking some taboo or moral code. It is 13 degrees Celsius, or 55 degrees Fahrenheit – so cold but not COLD! I am wearing layers to keep the worst of the chill away and have already implemented the ‘bath once a day to try and raise my core temperature up’ routine. Even the cats are starting to admit it is cold and glomming to me in the evenings for warmth.
Have I lit the furnace yet? Nope.
The Second thing I refuse to submit to today, is another single day of the Conservative Party eradicating all that I hold dear abut my country.
Yes I went and voted in what many Canadian’s are referring to as ‘the most important election in Canadian history’. Was my vote a wasted one, and thus even worse by giving the Cons a chance to win, because I didn’t vote strategically… maybe. Getting rid of our current Prime Minister is literally a life or death matter, as far as I am concerned. So maybe I should have voted for the Liberals, to try and have the best shot at electing in this riding the person in the best position to take the vote. There is a problem though, and it is that the stance and actions of the current Liberal party and their leader are essentially exactly those of the Conservative party a decade ago. I didn’t agree with them then and I don’t agree now, even if the flag colour being waved above the policies is red instead of blue.
I honestly felt I could vote for the NDP or the Green. Right now, either party (and their leader) would make me happy at the helm of this country. This is not coming from some stalwart Orange voter – no, I have voted Liberal, in fact, since I cast my first ballot many decades ago. However, as I see it, right now there is no Liberal party. There is the Harper Party under the name ‘Conservative’ and there is the Conservative Party under the name ‘Liberal’ – Right now, unless a miracle happens, we are in for roughly four years of simply ‘ not good’ politics and poor action in this country. Will I be happy if the Liberals beat the Conservatives? Right now I’d be happy if Emperor Palpatine beat Harper for control of the country – at least I could predict the evil flowing from the PM’s office.
Tonight, watching the results of the election, I will be shivering – not from my stubbornness in refusing to light the furnace, but from fear of the outcome of this election.
Filed under: Homesteading, MIscellaneous Tagged: Canada, cold, election, heat, polotics, season, weather, wife, winter, wood
October 18, 2015
The Return of the Posts! Of Publishing and Society of Creative Anachronism
My life has become… busy. Oddly, delightfully, busy.
With my lady and I returning to the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA), parts of my life that were ‘shut down’ and no longer used are back in operation – full tilt. There are many skills, and desire to learn more skills, that lay dormant in me when I wasn’t in the SCA. That was because there was no reason, or form, for the skills to be channelled through. That is now flooded forward as the SCA gave me opportunity and reason to reuse them.
Mean while, I also have started the edits for the next White Dragon Black novel, ‘Bindings & Spines’, with my editor, McKenna Gardner, from Xchyler Publishing. They are not going fast right now, due to ‘life’ on both our sides of the process. However, I am in that phase which means, an actual publication is not too distant. We have the cover art all done, and Luke Spooner at Carrion House has once more created the right look, and atmosphere, with his art.
I have recently taught myself how to do repousse and chasing. I’ve in no way mastered it but I’ve had enough success and fun doing it, I will certainly continue to improve and utilize that skill.
I’ve just challenged myself, in court, before Her Majesty, to carve a rosary from bone and tagua nut or ‘vegetable ivory’ in a year (or less). I’ve worked with bone in the past but using a Dremel tool – so doing it by hand will be a big learning curve for me.
I’ve also bought some Amber to play with and find it a very interesting material to work with, much like soapstone but… well, not. It does smell rather nice as you gently file away the unwanted parts, though.
As for writing, there hasn’t been too much of that. However, as I suspected might happen, now that the weather is turning cooler, and I’m immersing myself in the Jonathan Alvey’s world with edits, the snippets and short scenes are returning to my head. I don’t know if it’s my Muse finally being able to to get into my distracted brain, or if it’s that she didn’t decide I should be allowed new words until now. Either way, it will be nice to create things with words again.
I actually have a strong leaning to get back to a zombie novel I started, long ago.
I still like the premiss of it and the world it resides in, so I might just allow a hiatus from the WDG world and see about writing it. Or maybe my Muse will feel I’m not doing enough and get me working on both worlds at the same time.
The style and emotional input would be drastically different than I have written in a while, perhaps that would be a good thing. Changing your thinking every so often, keeps the regular day, in day – day out, fresher and more interesting.
With my rejoining the SCA, its associated new projects, and ‘jobs’ to do, I fell out of my habit and routine here on social media. I managed to get my Twitter habit back and now I’m attempting to implement my blogging again as well. Maybe I’ll can get back to sharing updates… now in a wide range of interests.
Filed under: Book Release, Publishing, SCA, Writing Tagged: amber, Bindings & Spines, bone, Carrion House, characters, crazy, current work in progress, editor, edits, Jonathan Alvey, Luke Spooner, metal work, muse, novel, paranormal, paranormal private investigator, plot, publish, repousse & chasing, SCA, scene, Society for Creative Anachronism, tagua nut, Urban Fantasy, White Dragon Black Series, wife, winter, world building, writing, Xchyler Publishing, zombie
October 15, 2015
New Paranormal Anthology – Get Your Scare On!
Book Release Blog TourGoodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26855777-beyond-the-wail
Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1940810485
RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY!
https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/63a91ade22/?
https://www.facebook.com/XchylerPublishing.page/app_228910107186452
http://www.xchylerpublishing.com/beyond-the-wail-blog-tour/
Featured Author: Danielle E. Shipley
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Spreading the Writer’s Word
Featured Author: Alex McGilvery
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Ash Krafton: Emotion Between the Lines
Writer’s Law of Motion
Featured Author: T.N. PAYNE
Monday, October 12, 2015
Notes from Author Ginger C. Mann
Featured Author: Ginger C. Mann
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Fairies & Pirates
Featured Author: L.K. McIntosh
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Scotty Watty Doodle All The Day
Terra Luft — View From the Crystal Ball
Featured Author: Jay Barnson
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Christine Haggerty
Featured Author: A. F. Stewart
Friday, October 16, 2015
Perpetual Chaos of a Wandering Mind
Anna Winter
Featured Author: Amanda Banker
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Semi Short chic
Featured Author: Julie Barnson
Sunday, October 18, 2015
The Road to Nowhere
Featured Author: Sebastian Bendix
Monday, October 19, 2015
:DandiFluff…
Featured Author: Tirzah Duncan
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
A.M.Harte
Featured Author: F.M. Longo
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
The Cult of Me
Filed under: Book Release Tagged: Beyond the Wail, Xchyler Publishing 
October 9, 2015
September 21, 2015
The Sword and the Flame: The Dragonmaster – Cover Reveal!
Blurb:
When the Gods call, mortals answer.
Reaching Solava Proper seemed like the end of their journey, but fate and the Gods have other plans for
Gilliam and his friends.
Old friendships are rekindled and strained as the friends are forced to find a way to prevent an
upcoming war and protect an innocent princess tied to the heart of it all.
Through their adventures, the Phoenix watches as he prepares for a possible conflict between the Gods.
When a single move could mean failure, will his efforts succeed or be for naught?
Excerpt:
Without a word, Fauna nudged her horse toward the portal with Mern at her side. The usual floating
and light-headed sensation swept through them as they traveled the roads of magic. Once they stepped
through, the portal closed, but not before a smaller shape hurried into the opening behind them. With
its use completed, the portal closed as though it had never been there.
Stepping through into a strange forest was bewildering at first, but Mern and Fauna’s previous use of
such traveling methods gave them the knowledge that the feeling would pass. For the one following
them, it proved something else entirely.
Reh Venata was many things, but a dabbler in the ways of magic wasn’t one of them. The magical portal
had looked like a doorway, but once inside she found it difficult to navigate. Countless voices called to
her from every direction, and images of places she had wished to see again appeared all around her.
The only thing she could so was try to follow the magus further, but her feet couldn’t find a purchase on
the swirling ground. She was about to scream for help when the pair disappeared. The swirling
whiteness of the portal shifted and started to shrink. Without thinking, Reh let out a squeal of fright and
dove toward the first image she saw of a chamber room.
She closed her eyes and prayed the image she saw was in her father’s castle. The next thing she knew,
she landed on her stomach with a thud among a series of shouts and curses. It took her a moment to
realize she was laying on someone.
“Get off me, blast you, or I’ll send you to the Abyss!”
At hearing the shouting, Reh expected to be back with the Goblins, but when no one grabbed her, she
forced her eyes open and found herself in a dining hall. It took her less than a second to understand she
wasn’t in her father’s castle, but it looked familiar. When she looked down to see a Dwarf with a gray-
touched red beard beneath her she let out a gasp.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to… I mean, I did, but I… Oh, dear.” Reh tried to push herself from her
perch on top of the Dwarf, but her hand slipped and she drove her knee into him. The Dwarf’s eyes
crossed, his face turned red, and tears poured down his cheeks.
“Blasted… Gods…” The Dwarf rolled over and spilled Reh onto the stone floor.
Reh pushed herself to her knees and looked around at the faces staring at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean
anything.” Gentle hands took hold of her shoulders and helped her to her feet.
“It’s all right. No one is blaming you.” The man holding her smiled.
About the author:
CP Bialois’ love of words began as a small child when his father bought a stack of comics to teach him
the reading skills he wasn’t mastering in class. Before long, he was reading at an advanced level and
teachers were shaking their heads over the unconventional method.
Growing up in the ‘80s, Bialois was exposed to even further inspiration through the popular cartoons of
the day. Transformers, in particular, sparked his imagination and led to him put his first stories on paper.
After a decades-long break, Bialois began getting back into the world of writing by joining some role-
playing groups. These groups taught him about fleshing out characters and building worlds that stuck
with him as he began writing short stories for fun.
To his surprise, Bialois would end up completing his first full-length novel, Call of Poseidon,
in 2007. Armed with a finished product, Bialois began working on another book, The Sword and
the Flame, unsure of what he would ultimately be doing with either. As with many others in the
later part of the first decade of the 2000’s, he found himself out of work and looking into new options.
Over the next two years, he would spend most days at the library, completing an additional half-dozen
works.
Twelve books later, Bialois is planning for the release of many more and enjoying the feedback he
receives. The up-and-coming author takes inspiration from favorites such as Steven King, Tom Clancy
and Sue Grafton. His love of history, fantasy and old monster movies has also served as a muse.
When he’s not busy writing or chatting on his social networks, Bialois enjoys watching hockey and
football as well as Metallica DVDs. He currently lives with his wife- a fellow writer- and their fur children.
CP Bialois is also active in several South Florida writing groups, as well as the online writer community,
and the Florida Writers Association.
You can find CP through his website, Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
Filed under: Book Release
September 5, 2015
Sigil Of The Worm
Check out the Author’s Pinterest: Fantasy casting call!
A Rafflecopter Giveaway – Contest on Facebook
Blog Tour
Saturday, Aug. 29
Alex Campbell
Perpetual Chaos of a Wandering Mind
Sunday, Aug. 30
Lurking Musings
Slithers of Thought
Monday, Aug. 31
The Deep, Dark Library
Cobblestone Scribe
Tuesday, Sep. 1
Lucy Ayrton, Performance Poet
T.N. Payne, Author
Wednesday, Sep. 2
Richard A. Usher, Media Creative
Alex McGilvery’s World
Thursday, Sep. 3
Scott E. Tarbet, Author
Are You Afraid of the Dark
Friday, Sep. 4
OMega W
Danielle E. Shipley
The Author Visits
Saturday, Sep. 5
R. A. Ridley
Didi Lawson, Author
Musings, Amusings, and Bemusings
Filed under: Book Release
