reading

Literary Worlds, Hidden Meanings and Writing Whilst Impaired

/ ccsocialcreative
Photo credit: beasternchen on Pixabay.

Hey all! Welcome back to another fun filled adventure! Ok, so maybe that’s an exaggeration but why start off boring right? Hope you all had a good week and hopefully I can give you a respite from the outside world of craziness…because I think we could all use that right now.

I spent my week quietly and it was rather nice. I’m about to finish reading my fourth book of the week after having reread the three before it. I believe I touched on it in last week’s post, it’s a series I had started reading in the fall and the new book was just released this past Tuesday. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it but wanted to read the others again to get myself reacquainted with the characters and the town setting again. (I will do this all over in September when the next book comes out and already looking forward to it.)

I don’t know how you like to read, but for me, I need dead silence. I like a very quiet room, even turning down the fan I normally have on high because this place is hotter than hell, but I will roast for the sake of a good book because the only sounds I want to hear are the birds chirping in the morning to let me know it’s time to stop for the night. With a nice cup of tea by my side, my devices either on ‘do not disturb’ or on airplane mode, I sit, I read, I enjoy.

I should also tell you, I’m extremely OCD with my books. So no eating. A sip of tea is to be had when the book is closed at my side because I have been known to spill or splash and I will be damned if any gets on the volume I am reading and oh yeah, clean hands are a must. This is why I have so much trouble loaning books out. If they are out of my possession for more than a few days, I twitch and keep asking for them back. I still feel bad for asking for a book back from a friend before she actually read it and ended up just buying her a copy. Sorry, but I like my books to still look their best…hopefully almost new, unless of course they already come used then I won’t buy unless they are in great condition. Do I need help? Absolutely, but this is me and I won’t let fingerprints get on my books! I also write this way as well, so I’m chalking it up to a written word type of deal: Dead silence and no icky fingers.

Annnnnywhoo, This past week I had the place to myself for a few days and between a quiet house and the rain, it was like the perfect atmosphere for reading up a storm, literally. What I find myself doing though, and I know many can join me on this, is that when you are that deep in another world, your mind stays there even if you are not actually reading the book. I don’t care what genre it is, whether it’s a cozy New England town, a sci-fi planet or the magical world of Harry Potter, when you are deeply involved in a series, your mind wants you to stay there. Personally, I’d rather stay there and forget about my own reality for a while, which is why I read in the first place. But seriously, it’s a great feeling and one that is now starting to weigh on me a bit as well. (Oh and true confession here, I have never read any Harry Potter book nor do I ever wish to. It’s just not my jam. But hey, hope you enjoy them if that’s your thing!) 🙂

So why is it weighing on me? If you’ve been here before (thank you!) then you know I’m working on writing my own series. It wasn’t planned. My first book was supposed to be a one and done. But the more I wrote it, the more I could see the characters in other scenarios and then a new storyline came to mind and well, now here I am, 11 chapters into the second book. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing about these people and their town and when I’m writing about them, I feel like I am there. Just like this current series I am reading and the one before it, has done for me as a reader, I feel like I am a part of their world which of course, is what the writer is hoping for.

”What the writer is hoping for.” Right there. There is the weight of the matter. The more I get into the various books I’ve been diving into lately, the more I am starting to put pressure on myself about my own writing. Will my readers want to come back for more? Will they like these characters enough to want to see what happens with them next? Am I describing things enough that they will feel a part of the whole situation or am I going too far in that department? If I had just stopped at one book and gone on to tell another story totally separate from the first one, then this wouldn’t be an issue. Ok, getting readers to come back and read more of my stuff would be, but you get it, right? I’m already worried about the analytics of it all. Not just about the sales of two books that I haven’t even published yet, but as a former social media specialist, my life was analytics. Watching who’s reading posts and who isn’t on social or here on the blog, will eventually become, who is buying my books and who isn’t. And frankly, that scares the hell out of me. Again, too soon, but I like a good healthy fear to keep me motivated.

Hell, just writing about the journey here took time to do! Once I started making my writing journey public, then I knew I had to be held accountable for actually going through with publishing what I had written. No more hiding behind the idea of it. I wanted to document what I’ve been going through to remind me there is NO going back now. I AM doing this and this WILL happen! That doesn’t mean I’m not scared shitless about it. (sorry for the language) I think it’s that fear that leads to so many writers to not publish their work. To become the stereotypical alcoholic authors or recluses of our previous eras? I soooo get it now!

Ok so fears aside, and thanks for letting me vent that out. As I’ve said, sometimes my ramblings may be like my own personal therapy session, but I know there are others out there going through the same things and sometimes it’s all about the share. Where it hits that one person who is reading such a post and goes, “oh man, it’s NOT just me!” and hopefully it helps. It’s definitely helping me so there you go!

Anyway, let’s change it up a little. I take hemp gummies to help me sleep. They are not the, super potent, get stoned off your ass type, I take a super low dose, sometimes even just a half to help me drift off. Not looking to get stoned, just relaxed. I haven’t been sleeping great since I had covid and it seems I’ve been getting sicker again. So I decided to take a full one of these things the last couple of days and let’s just say I’ve been realllly relaxed. It’s been pretty nice and it has really amplifying the reading of book series. Lol What I hadn’t planned on doing was writing that way.

It takes a few hours for these things to take effect on me and usually I can write a chapter in about 2 hours if I’m lucky. So I will take one, start writing and hopefully finish before the relaxing takes place. The problem is that when I use a full one of these gummies, they take effect on me much quicker than a half of one does. I was only halfway through the last chapter the other day when the thing hit me and I wrote the second half, well, let’s just keep saying ‘relaxed.’ I have no idea what I wrote, I remember I was questioning myself about where this character and story was going and yelling at myself (sometimes out loud) to stop and put the keyboard away. (Put the candle BACK!) Alas, my fingers kept on going.

I admittedly have not gone back to read what I wrote yet because I’m scared. I’m both scared of the nonsense I’d see and also scared that it’s better than what I previously wrote sober! Think reading your texts the day after a big night out. I am almost just tempted to write the whole thing over without even reading it and file the other one away in a special folder, “read while impaired because the author wrote it that way.” Again, I get the whole Poe, Capote, Hemingway drunken thing. Creativity can come out at strange times and my own certainly did!  I will say this though, as I also take these things to help me with chronic pain whilst I sleep, I did feel my fingers flying across the keyboard even faster than I usually type, which is pretty damned fast. And I didn’t have to stop every few sentences to stretch my fingers so hey, added bonus? I think so.

Now I have a question for the writers out there…when you are writing something, do you add in Easter Eggs? I’m not talking the pastel version you go hunting for every spring that a giant bunny left in a pile of dreaded plastic Easter grass that you still find around the house years, sometimes decades later. I am talking about little hidden gems that some people will get more than others. Little nods of acknowledgement to a chosen few that get your sense of humor or reference. I actually just did it there! The ‘dreaded Easter grass’ was a family legend that is still a joke and I’m now in my mid-fifties. But every year, that damned grass comes up so I had to include it here.

I tell you this because I’ve been having fun adding my own little Easter Eggs into the books. I keep telling my friends that my first novel is a love letter to them. My second family and those who have supported me over the last almost 20 years now, are those I love with all of my heart. (Yes, I love my own family very much, but this book is more about friendship so there you go. Now that my guilt has been addressed…) I actually find myself laughing as I’m writing the books and add these little tidbits. It could be something as simple as a phrase, a lyric, the description of a park or a literal number of something. Just little nods to certain people and not just friends mind you, but some folks out there will get these things more than others. This is not to alienate my future readership by any means. On the contrary. I’m hoping that the more I do this? The more I include these little hidden aspects in these pages? Maybe down the line, someone will see one of my books on a shelf and that person will ask, “I wonder if she mentions ‘such and such’ in this one?” It’s the little questions such as that. The ones that make me think ahead and give me a little butterfly in my heart that keep me motivated to keep going. Keep writing. Keep creating.

Because the idea of someone out there waiting for the next book of mine to come out? Having as much anticipation as I had this week for this fourth book to arrive on my doorstep? Well, that wouldn’t be just the coolest thing ever???

Yes, yes it would.

And that my friends is where I will leave you this week. 🙂

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As always, if you’ve made it this far, I thank you and if you’ll indulge me in some promo links below, I will thank you for that as well.

May you have a great weekend and thanks so much for following along with my ramblings and inner monologue-gone-public. Because once again, I had no idea where I was going with this post, but always glad to bring it full circle like I did. 

Until next week…

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As always, I save the links for after my post…Any affiliate links you see here on the blog or in my shops help support this site (and me). Sidebar shops (non Amazon related) are my own shops and either feature my own design work or are a link to my vintage and estate jewelry business on eBay, StuffWeFind. Here’s this week’s goodies…

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I just published two new blank notebooks to add to the collection of blank journals I designed for Amazon. One is a book journal (more themes to come) and you can click the image in the sidebar to the right or click here to see this book as well as the others. 

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Have you checked out my linktree shop yet? I will continue to add to it, but throwing items into it that I use when I write or read and these are actual things that I use, not fake suggestions or anything like that. While you are there, be sure to check in with my FB page for this site. I just posted the latest phone wallpaper freebies for Spring and I update that page with the occasional silly writing and reading memes and more. Click here to check all of this out: Linktr.ee/PromoSocially  

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I have yet to update the On the Bookshelf page for 2025 and know that I need to do that. In the meantime, to see the latest cozy series I’ve been talking about, I suggest starting with book one, The Pumpkin Spice Cafe and going from there. By the way, as of this post, the paperbacks are all marked on sale, so I would jump on them now: The Pumpkin Spice Cafe

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Thanks again for looking and clicking!! 🙂

Opening Day, Writing Hold and a Plot Down the Drain

/ ccsocialcreative
Photo credit: ME!

‘Tis Friday folks and that means, we’re back! Well, I’m back and I hope you are too. 🙂

It has been a week and one I’m kind of happy is over. To get it out of the way, I finally tested Covid negative but still have some kind of bronchitis type of thing going on. So my writing has been an afterthought. To say I’m not disappointed in myself for that would be an understatement, after all, losing an entire week of writing anything is not ideal, but I have been creative in other ways so at least my brain hasn’t totally turned to mush!

I’ve mentioned a few times that while I do other things, whether creating a new design or even something as simple as making dinner, my mind frees up for figuring out where my next chapter is going to lead. I have to admit that writing a sequel to my first book (whose editing process is also just lagging behind) has been more challenging than I anticipated. Mostly because I have memory issues and trying to remember all character names and storylines including background stories, has been slowing me down a bit. I have to keep going back to the original manuscript to make sure I’m keeping the flow and the style the same as well as all the details. My neurologist would be so proud. Lol

I think that so far I’m succeeding in keeping the tone the same. I have become very protective of this little world I’ve created and while I’ve written about many different things across many genres in the past, making sure that this series of mine creates a world that the reader will want to come back to is my sole responsibility. The problem though, is the plot of the second book.

I had said in a previous post that I was so happy because I finally figured out where this particular story was going. Well, the celebration was a bit premature! I’m currently rereading a series I had read last year because the next book just came out and I wanted to refamiliarize myself with the characters. As I got to one of the books, all of a sudden I realized that what I had come up with for my own series was eerily similar to something that happens in that book. A major faux pas if ever there was one!

Let me be completely clear here…I have NEVER stolen an idea from another writer in my life! I think I’ve just read so much over the past year and a half that trying to remember what I’ve read and what I haven’t are getting mixed up. Hey, it happens and I’m sure with the millions of books out there, there are certainly books that have similar themes and plot points just like the movies. But this was a little too close for comfort and now I have to rethink the main plot for this second book of mine. The one good thing here is that I found out when I did! Had I not reread this series, I would have kept writing my own book thinking I’m all kinds of original and it would not have gone over well once it got to the public. So let’s hear it for rereading books! Woo-Hoo! (Have I mentioned I’m on a lot of meds?)

Ok so NOW what? Well, now I have to go back and rewrite a whole bunch, but again, not the entire book. I’m only about a third of the way in and fixing that will be much easier than having to fix an entire book. So really, I’m good with that. I also now need to figure out where my characters are going. It’s funny, as I’m writing this post I’m realizing that this week off from the book has been ideal! Had I been writing, I would have kept going with my original (ok so not so original) idea and all of it would have to be scrapped. But I haven’t been writing, I’ve been reading and because of that, I actually ended up saving myself from the inevitable consequences! So alrighty then. Breaks, I guess, can be a good thing!! (So are breakthroughs apparently!)

So what exactly have I been working on? Well, I created a bunch of new bookmarks for my shop and finally fixed the printer settings to get them as bold and bright as they look on screen. Then proceeded to reprint old ones out so they look better. Now I just have to cut and laminate them which is a lot of work, but at least they look the way I intended them too instead of muted versions of what I envisioned. I’ve listed a bunch of new vintage and estate pieces on eBay and took tons of pics for lots of new stuff to add in the coming weeks. I created two new blank notebooks for Amazon and just waiting for them to go live before I can put them in my new linktree shop. I finished reading one book, read another book and am now a third of the way through a third book since we last met up here…great thing about being sick, you have time to read! And I was also counting down to Opening Day of the 2025 MLB season!

I am a diehard third generation Yankees fan and proud of it. I make those around me who hate baseball regret they even know me throughout a season. I have very strong opinions on the game and the players and especially the management (please oh please fire Boone and Cashman). Now, having said all of that…what I do not do. I never trash talk on someone’s social media posts. What I mean by that is, let’s say I post something about a game. For example, I like to post about who just hit a home run. And say, a Red Sox fan (just for fun of course) decides to comment on my post with something nasty. It makes me crazy because I never do this to them. NEVER. To me, when you post something that makes YOU happy, I don’t go and tear it down. And while I may not like the Red Sox, I am a BASEBALL fan. I can respect other teams and player’s efforts. Hell, I loved watching Big Papi do his thing when he played! I get it’s all part of the sports world but you still should have respect.

Trash talking and such? I’m more for doing that in person. You’re out at a bar watching a game. Guy next to you likes the opposing team, you have fun with the back and forth, right? But you are right there. In person. It’s all in fun and you can hear the tone of the other dude saying stuff. Online, there is always room for speculation and misunderstanding. I’m also not seeking out the guy standing next to me, whereas on social, you can just let the post pass and move on. Once you comment, it is deliberately baiting that poster. Unfortunately, we see it too much these days with the way things are now. Which is the problem of social media in general and that’s for another day and a lot more meds. I’ve even had it happen with just posting something as innocent as “hey the flowers are up today!” No kidding, people will hate on all of it. So now that I’ve just deleted a two paragraph rant on that subject, let me just say this…baseball is back and I’m happy!

Baseball and cherry blossoms just sum up Spring for me. That plus tulips and daffodils. Ok, so the four of them sum up Spring for me! I used to hate this season. As a brutal allergy sufferer, all I could see was the pollen aspect. But in the last few years, I’ve grown to love it. January thru March in the Northeast holds many a gray, lifeless day. We have lost the colorful holiday lights and are left with cold, cloudy skies and brown lawns. And then suddenly we see something pop up out of the ground. Maybe a crocus or we see the beginning buds on a tree. We see the first robin of the season and as our state’s bird, we have tons of them here, all starting to sing their songs sometimes as early as 4am. It is life regenerating in the most literal sense and for us humans, it means new opportunities ahead. New days to get out there and breathe in the fresh air. Take in the sounds. See the colorful flowers that are washing away the gray, cold days. As a Fall person, to me, Spring is the closest to my favorite season as I can find. There are colors to be seen, it is not oppressively hot and there are still cool, crisp nights to be had. Fall leaves have their brief window of time to show off their bright, beautiful shades of reds, yellows and oranges while Spring tulips (my favorite flowers) are also given just as short of a window to give us their pinks, purples and in their case, multitudes of colors before disappearing for the rest of the year. The similarities of the two seasons are there, you just need to stop and take them in. Seeing the new flowers and such can make a bad day much, much better. 🙂

Just one more quick thing before I let you go…I will be adding more to my linktree shop and also want to remind you of the big Amazon Spring sale going on now and appreciate any click through on my affiliate links that help support the site (and me). Any relevant links will always be at the bottom of my posts as I never like to inundate my readers with tons of links or ads if I can help it. Oh and if you come and follow my FB page for the site, new phone wallpaper freebies will be going up in the next few days!!

And with that, I will leave you for now. As always, if you’ve made it this far, I thank you for once again putting up with my rambling. I hope I’ve given you at least one smile this week as well as some things to sit and ponder…but in a good way of course!

Thanks for hanging with me again this week and I hope you all have a great weekend! Until next week…keep writing, keep creating and keep motivated!!! 🙂

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Catch up with my latest posts by hitting the ‘new posts’ or the tab up in the menu bar.

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Linktree shop: linktr.ee/promosocially

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My vintage and estate jewelry listings can be found when you hit the eBay tab in my StuffWeFind linktree: linktr.ee/stuffwefind  or my ad block to the right.

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My bookmarks, stickers and soon, art prints on Etsy (for now): linktr.ee/stuffwemade 

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Thanks all. Keep being YOU!

Too Many Ideas, Stories From Nowhere and Thoughts to Fingers

/ ccsocialcreative
Photo credit: mohamed_hasssan on Pixabay.

How are you all doing this week? These past seven days have been a whirlwind of reading, writing and medical stuff. But I won’t bore you with the latter (this time).

As the month of February comes to a close (and my how fast it has gone compared to the endless hell that was January), I am proud to say that I have almost reached my final goal of reading all nine books of a series for my Read Every Day in February Cancer Fundraiser! I wish the donations would’ve been better this time around, but I still have a couple of days and there is at least some money there, so that’s something. However, my personal challenge was one I honestly didn’t think I could do.

Reading and I have been on a roller coaster my whole life. I was reading at a 2nd grade level in kindergarten and then as I got older, somewhere along the line, it all came to a halt. I have been such a slow reader for most of my life and it wasn’t until about 8 years ago I was diagnosed with a mild form of dyslexia. Quite a revelation for someone, who, at the time, was in her late 40’s! It really explained so much and for someone who only, again at the time, read nothing but non-fiction-mainly-histories, helped me to understand why one book would take weeks or even months to finish. I had no retention of what I was reading unless I wrote notes down which frankly took away from the enjoyment of the books unless I was reading for research.I have one book in particular that has been my white whale. It has taken me years to finish and I made a promise to myself that this would be the year I do it! However, once I figured out taking a bookmark and reading line by line and hiding the rest really helped my focus and retention issues. I do this for non fiction and extremely detailed histories and what an enormous help it has been. And because each line is so deliberately read, my retention of facts has been so much better.

Now, having said that, once I brought fiction into the mix? For some reason, I can fly though them! Especially the more lighthearted/escapist type of books. No bookmark trick needed for them, except to keep my place of course. Thus my going through the series I’m reading now so quickly. I think they have been an excellent distraction from real life and I’ve very much been enjoying being in another “mental space” while I read. I mentioned in previous posts how I’ve actually been learning from these particular books as well as the author has been sneaking in some great tips on publishing, book marketing and other creative processes for writing their own manuscripts. So all in all, this series has been a wonderful vacation/teachable moment for me.

I also find that when I’m reading a book that grabs me, I get inspired even more with my own writing. The idea for my first novel came to me while reading another book. Not that the stories were anywhere near similar but something struck a chord and the next thing I knew, I had my first six chapters written before I had finished the one I was reading! Apparently the current books I’ve been into have also upped my creative flow, as during this month I have been working a lot more on my own material. It has been the most productive month I’ve had in that respect in quite some time. I once wrote an article for LinkedIn called Creatives Inspiring Creatives and that is exactly what I am talking about.i

You have to understand something here, with all of my medical issues, I am on a lot of meds, many who’s side effects affect my train of thought. So to be in this more steady zone of building story vs editing has been a fantastic and long overdue journey!

This past week alone, I’ve edited five chapters of the first draft of my completed novel; written two more chapters of the sequel and written two chapters of another story that popped into my head. In my files, I have started to write so many other books because new ideas keep coming to me. I always assume they will just be short fiction stories that I could submit to journals and such. But then the stories keep flowing and the next thing I know, I’m several chapters in. In the meantime, I am more than determined than ever to get my first two manuscripts out because I have worked for years on the main story and am pretty excited about it!

I don’t know if you have the same problem where you could be in the middle of working on something that you’ve been so passionate about and then suddenly another idea pops into your head and won’t let go. Until you get it out, you cannot focus on your original idea. Thus, these stories/songs/art pieces, whatever is your own personal medium, from absolutely nowhere need to find a place outside of your head. Once they have? You can go back to what you were doing and all is right with the world.

A big issue I have as well, as do many, is trying to get your fingers to move as quickly as your thoughts. As fast as I do type, my fingers don’t move as precisely as they used to so I am constantly fixing typos along the way. A perfect example is that the last sentence. As I typed, it was filled with incorrect words and letters and it took me twice as long to complete it because I’m constantly hitting the wrong keys. Some of that again are medical issues, some, this particular week, is still getting used to my new keyboard (and now new keycaps!) and some, is that getting my thoughts to my fingers can be tricky. There is a constant disconnect between the two that makes my hands hit the wrong keys and the frustration factor is off the charts. I’ve always been a fast typist, but to express myself through writing can come out like stuttering when speaking. Brain works too fast, the execution, not so much. Sometimes I think it’s a pain and yet other times, I feel it is a wonderful issue to have. I say this because many creatives have so many ideas flooding their thoughts that sometimes the brain doesn’t know which to physically get out first!

I was at my neurologist’s office this week and one thing discussed with him is that I have trouble finding words when I speak. It can sometimes take me a while to get out a sentence during a conversation. My head knows what I want to say, but I can’t find the words to express the thought. So I go blank. I always feel bad for the person I’m talking to because they can see my wheels turning and know that what I want to say is right in front of me. They can see me searching for my statement like I’m looking for a cue card that someone is holding up next to them but of course, is not there. The same thing happens when I’m writing. But oddly, only when I’m doing something like this.

When I’m writing my book or a new story, it just flows. I don’t even know where it’s coming from and it’s like automatic writing. I’m often surprised when I go to read it the next day to see what I came up with. But when expressing my own thoughts and words in something like a blog post? Ugh. Each sentence is a challenge. The thought is there, but the errors and mistakes are constant and it takes me twice or even three times as long to finish a post than it should. I wish I could slow down just a bit, but I’m not hardwired that way so I just have to go with it.

Which brings me to what is the first point in this post’s title, that having too many ideas can be both wonderful and a curse! Having trouble focusing on one idea at a time is already a challenge for many, but when your mind is constantly going, well, the fingers fight back and cause you to constantly hit the backspace button to erase the mistakes you have made along the way.

You know what? That’s ok. That’s what life is, isn’t it? Making those mistakes, learning from them and for us creative types, it’s creating something you didn’t even know you wanted to do. Sometimes those typing errors may be thoughts that you had that have been trying to get out and they think that it’s their time to shine. For an artist, they may paint something they hadn’t planned to, but it seems to work in the piece they had been working on. For a musician, those extra notes may strike the chord that they had been searching for and for the writer? It is finding out that the words that come out may just be the hook that has been hiding in plain sight all along.

We may not be able to control the mind, (or the fingers) but we can embrace the mistakes. We couldn’t be who we are without the mistakes we’ve made along the way in life and your work wouldn’t be what it is without them either. It is all in how you deal with them and how you begin to learn that sometimes, those things that go the most wrong, can turn out to be the ones that are the most right.

Have a great weekend all! Until next week…Cheers!!

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Interested in reading the LinkedIn piece? You can find it and some of my other past works on: this page

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Come check out the Nantucket series beginning with book 1: The Nantucket Inn

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Looking for a new keyboard? While I got mine in pink, it does come in other color schemes. The new keycaps are perfect for Spring but there are so many fun ones out there to customize your aesthetic to how you like it. You spend so much time on your keyboard, make it more you! Actually, the keycaps came from Temu, but I found extremely similar ones on Amazon here. Keyboard link.

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Links to Amazon products on this site are affiliate links and help support the site. Thanks for making a purchase, any purchase through the links. It is greatly  appreciated!

Keeping on Track, Brain Fog and Opportunities

/ ccsocialcreative
Image credit: Ylanite on Pixabay

Hey all! Welcome back and thanks for keeping up with me. Been a weird week productivity-wise. I’ve gotten a lot done! I’ve actually edited quite a number of chapters (yay), have written a number of chapters and have also read 2 1/2 books since my last post last week.

In the middle of all of this, I had a few days of absolute ridiculousness.

If you have read my backstory at all, (about me page that’s a little old now), you know that I deal with several illnesses at once. I am on several medications and a pretty strict med schedule. But in late November 2024, while doing a good deed for my neighbors, I missed a step in the dark and came down hard on my foot and ankle. I heard a crack and what I thought were broken bones, my dr said might have actually been the tendons and ligaments snapping. If you think it reads bad, the sound has not left me since the night it happened.

Anywhoo, as I wait for my MRI tomorrow, they had me switch my meds around. Which is fine, I needed a shakeup. I’ve been on the same things now for quite a while and a switch now and then can sometimes help. Last time we did this, I purged my system of all the meds I was taking and suddenly could walk somewhat normally again. This time, it’s both helped and hindered my situation bringing on some old pain with a vengeance and also making my brain feel like mush.

When I tweaked them a little more, I was suddenly more productive than I had been in weeks! What a feeling this was! It was like being caffeinated and on some pretty high end speed all at the same time and because of it, I got into a great routine of reading for a few hours, editing for a few hours and then writing for a few hours! I got so much done in those couple of days I thought I was on a good schedule to have my first edited draft ready to go to the next step of reformatting and taking another read through for one more tweak, while also finishing the writing of my second book within the month. All this and I am now up to book 5 out of 9 in the series I am reading and hoping to finish by March 1st. It’s my personal goal for my February Cancer fundraiser. To say I was on a roll would be an understatement.

And then…

I ran out of one of my prescriptions. So I was making do with some more basic stuff and tons of Tylenol. The pain, not just from the foot, but my overall pain that I live with came back and it was to the point of distraction. I couldn’t concentrate very well. I could read a bit, but the writing and such had to be pushed aside. I found the prescription they had taken me off of when I hurt the foot and thought that might help. BIG MISTAKE. The one and only pill I took basically put me in an awake coma state. I was so tired, I could barely pick my arm up. Plus, it didn’t help the pain at all. In fact, it seemed to exasperate it quite a bit. I could barely walk, even just to my kitchen which is about 25 steps away. Standing was excruciating and I couldn’t wait until the dose was out of my system. I still don’t understand why it hit me this way when I had been on it for almost two years and it was one of the drugs that helped me walk and be more ‘normal’ two years ago before I had another setback.

So ok, no more of that one. I went back to the routine they gave me after the foot incident and while it’s at least helping me think more clearly and have more energy, it will be some time before the stronger pain subsides again.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, first, it’s my blog and I use it for a sort of therapy. But also because there are other folks like myself who are extremely sensitive to side effects and many don’t understand that. I am so sensitive that a high dose of Tylenol can knock me out!

So imagine being on multiple kinds of heavy pain meds at once and trying to read or write a book? Or even, trying to read a label on some food you are about to cook? Simple tasks become not so simple.

Then flip it…get a good combination and suddenly it’s like seeing the world for the first time! Your energy is up, your vision is clear, you can’t keep up with your mind that is going a hundred miles an hour and wants to do everything it possibly can but your body is not in the physical shape to do so.

The one thing I am so grateful for is my creativity. That’s not an ego thing by any means. For some they can go for a bike ride, some can get out and hike or drive somewhere special. I can’t do that. I am home in bed 99% of my time. So my outlet is writing and creating. I used to make jewelry for over 20 years but my hands can’t work the tools properly anymore. I have tons of craft supplies waiting to be used, but I always go back to my keyboard. While I do have to keep an eye out for how long I’ve been typing, (my hands swell if I do too much), I can still use it to punch out a few chapters of the story I want to tell or put together a post like this. One that gives me an outlet for my own mind but maybe may help someone else in the process.

To those who tell you, and yes I have heard this from doctors, “being overly sensitive to meds is in your head”, screw them. You know yourself better than anyone!

I’m lucky right now to have a group of doctors who actually listen to me. Two in particular are letting ME take control of the dosage of a med because there are some days that the high dose is just too much and I simply can’t function while on it. So they’ve given me two different strengths of it to use as I need to and it has been, overall, the best thing they could have done. You can also ask your doctors about this. NEVER BE AFRAID TO ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF! I have learned this lesson well in the past 8 1/2 years. I have learned to speak up, ask a ton of questions, go in with lists of things I need to talk about but are afraid I will forget while I’m in the room. One of my doctors just takes my phone and reads the list first, writes it all down and then we discuss it for an hour. THAT is what it’s like to have someone on your side. It has taken me years to have this happen, I have been told everything from, “there’s nothing wrong with you” to “you have six months to live, get your affairs in order.” (Btw, that was 15 years ago, jokes on him, I’m still here!) I used to be petrified to say anything if I felt what they said wasn’t right. Switching doctors? Ha! I’d go with one that was doing more harm than good because I was too scared to speak up. Not any more!

I admit that this post took a strange turn while I was writing it. I was going to talk about my progress this week. How well I’ve been back at writing and that I’ve finally been editing again. But you know what? Life is life and sometimes, that is the more important issue.

We do what we can. We get up every day and try our best. Am I mad at myself that for two days I did absolutely no writing or editing? Hell yes. I was doing great before I switched those meds up. But now here it is, two days later and earlier, I was able to do some things that needed doing around the house.  I’m now writing this. After I post, I will head back to my second manuscript and get in some more writing there as well. Am I still in pain? Always. I live with it 24/7. But I can focus and that, to me, is most important right now. When I can’t focus and get into the medicine brain fog, I lose sight of myself and it is frustrating. I know there are things I should be doing but can barely think or move. When I have the ‘good’ days of being able to function, I do as much as I possibly can and pay the consequences the next day. I already know tomorrow will be a tough one, but tonight? Proud of myself for doing…being…functioning.

I don’t know how many of you will reach this far and that’s fine. Again, I sometimes use this as my own form of therapy. Maybe I needed to get this out to clear my head so that I could write a few chapters tonight. Who knows? But what I said, I truly believe in. Never be afraid to be your own champion. Especially when it comes to your health. Don’t like your doctor? Switch! Meds not doing it for you? Ask if there is an alternative. And if you have days where you cannot move because of the pain, give yourself permission to rest and be ok with it. This last one is the one I have the most trouble with. I used to be on the go all the time so getting used to just having to stay in bed has been the hardest. But you know what? There are times that it is very necessary and hey, because of it, I was able to finally have the time to write a book!

Learn how to take the negatives and spin them around. Easy? Hell no! I live with depression, I know it’s not all motivational speeches and fortune cookies. But we have to find the opportunities that can happen. They may take time to find. They may be hidden in plain sight or they may have been right in front of us all along. Take a moment, take a breath and look at what is in front of you. Whether you are healthy or not, maybe you are looking for something different. Or maybe you have wanted to do something your whole life and never thought you’d get the chance. I always wanted the time to write a book. (Ok, so be careful what you wish for because this certainly wasn’t how I imagined the time would come to me.) But still, I had the time, I took a chance and I did it.

Sometimes opportunity comes to you in strange ways…don’t miss it!

Until next week folks. Thanks for sticking with me and following along my journey! Cheers all. 🙂 

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If you like journaling or would like to start journaling your own life progress, I have several blank journals that I have designed listed on Amazon. Some are just plain bulleted and lined books and some are done in a scrapbooking style that are non-traditional, but I created to make it a more creative experience: Click here for info

New Keyboard, Sequels and Learning from Others

/ ccsocialcreative
Image credit: lil_foot_ on Pixabay

Hey folks, how’s your week going? I have to say, mine is actually going ok! Spring training starts this week, we won the last quarter of the Super Bowl pool and I just got a brand new keyboard that has my fingers dancing over the keys.

I am new to the whole ‘hot swappable’ keyboard thing. Had never heard about it until recently, (I’m old, give me a break) but I actually heard about it first on ASMR videos! I love to watch/listen to people typing for relaxation and motivation for my writing and this one girl showcases a different keyboard in every video. She changes out her keys all the time and I was intrigued by this. To customize a main keyboard sounded intriguing and I was already looking for a new one as my other one was putting too much strain on my hands. So after a lot of searching, I found one that seemed cool and hey, it went on sale on Amazon for half off so, SOLD! I also picked out a cute set of keycaps on another site, but received the keyboard today and I can’t stop typing on it. What a different experience it is from my old one. Sometimes manufacturers don’t realize that some of us have smaller hands. So to find a keyboard that accommodates my hands is wonderful.

Ok, enough rambling about my new toy. (Although I’m really happy with it, can you tell?) I am happy to say that my writer’s block has cleared! In fact, I have been writing so much that I am now on my fourth chapter of the sequel to my first book. Yeah, yeah, I know I still need to edit the first one, but my heart is in the writing. The editing is like eating salads. You know you should do it, but you have to force yourself to sit and get it done. However, I got a spark of inspiration for the new story and wanted to get it down while I’m finally in writing mode.

I mentioned in the last post that I’ve been reading a series and I’d like to say, I’ve been learning a lot from it. I never thought I would read one let alone write one. But the further I go into the current series, the more I’m learning about how to shape the story around the first book. How to develop the characters more and to be sure to include details from the previous book for someone who may not have read the first one without boring the person who has already read it.

Case in point, I mentioned in the earlier post that I accidentally started with book three of the series. I had picked it up at a library book sale and only saw the author’s name. I like her work so I grabbed it. I was disappointed the story had ended because I really enjoyed it and then while looking for other books by her, only then did I realize I had read a book that was the third book in the series. So I’ve been getting the other books and enjoying them and while I’m invested in the story, I am learning a whole lot as well. There is a character in the book who is a writer. In the story he gives advice to another writer and I have been taking notes on it. There have been great tips throughout the books that I wasn’t expecting, considering it’s about a family on Nantucket! I stated in the last post to always look at acknowledgments at the end of a book for ideas on agents and editors. In this book, I’ve been learning more about the self-publishing process. 

I have taken a seminar on it at our library as one of the local author series they have. We are lucky to have quite a few authors in our city and one gave a class of sorts on how to get your book published. I have gone back and forth on the whole “to self-publish or not to self-publish” debate and never know where I will end up. So to find some great information in a fictional series took me by surprise. Not to mention the fact that I suddenly realized, the book I am reading, as well as the two others so far, look to be self published!

I noticed that she did not put acknowledgements at the end of these, (not necessarily indicative of a self-published book) but this time instead of looking to the back for information, I went to the front. I noticed it says, “created with Vellum.” I didn’t know what that was, so I looked it up and found it to be software for Macs for authors. You can write, format and create your book and then publish to print and/or ebook format. It does cost money and it is right now only for Macs but I didn’t even know this software existed! So ok, more research. I’ve found good things said about this particular software, many authors swear by it and it looks to be a good investment. Alright so I’m now saving up for my own copy of Vellum, although you can use it for free until you are ready to publish.

Now a tidbit that came from the series that I thought could be good advice, is that many new authors self publish the first one and then after they see how their sales are doing, go the agent route. I have been seriously considering this. I think mostly because I am very proud of my first book and I really want it out there. It has been a bucket list item for me for so long and I’d like to be able to say that yes, I do have a published book out in the world! So that is another point in the Vellum column. It helps get your manuscript ready for publication.

Then of course is the ISBN issue. This I learned about in the class and honestly, I was so happy this came up. I had never even considered this issue at all! From what I understand (and I will certainly correct myself if I have this mixed up at all):  If you self publish with say, Amazon KDP, they will assign an ISBN number for free for you; however, you cannot then sell your book anywhere else. Meaning, say you want to have your local bookstore carry your book but you did it by KDP with the free number,  the bookstore can’t sell it. For example, I have designed several blank journals and have them published through KDP with the free numbers. I can’t have my local bookstore order and sell these in their shop. But if I have my own ISBN number, I can sell the books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and even my local small shop. What I am still very iffy on is getting it published at another publishing house and how to get it listed on Amazon and the rest. But as a research junkie, I will figure it out and hopefully share it here.

Please also note that I was told by a bookshop owner that you must check a box that indicates returns can be done. This way if a shop orders say two dozen copies but only sells 10, they can return the unsold books to the publisher. However, if the box isn’t checked, the shop is stuck with them until they sell. I’ll post a link to an ISBN provider below that has more information on this and much more.

It’s a crazy world this writing business! It is not, despite what younger YouTubers think, where you can just fire off some pages, upload it and get tens of thousands of dollars in the first month! And I cannot stress this enough, it is also NOT about doing it with ChatGBT. I am someone who absolutely hates the idea of real writers getting outshined by people using AI to generate books. It is an insult to the writing community that you can even do this. So no, I will never be one of those people who uses fake programs to come up with story ideas and then publish and start selling them in a week. My first book took YEARS to finish. Yes, some of that was because of health issues, some was because of writer’s block and some was just the struggle with the process. But those who claim “writing a book is as easy as putting in a few ideas and having a program do the rest then watching the money roll in?” Lazy and stupid in my opinion. There, I said it. Let true writers be writers. My first full draft took an incredible amount of work and when I printed it all out and I saw my ‘small forest’ of paper for the first time, I was in awe that I had done it. That I had put my heart and soul into all of those pages. I don’t think you get that same sense of pride from an AI generated manuscript. But hey, that’s just me.

And that’s a subject for another day.

Anyway, my point is this. You never know where you might find the info you need. For me, learning about a writing program I didn’t know existed came from the front page of a book that I’d normally ignore. It came from a character in a book spouting real information on how to get started with a first novel. It has come from the acknowledgments in the back of a book I really enjoyed. Taking that information and then doing the research has been eye opening and as I always vow to learn something new every single day, this whole process has been like one giant life lesson that I am forever grateful for.

And on that note, I shall end this week’s post. I’ll be sure to throw some links below  on things mentioned in this post for you to check out if you’d like. I do hope you are getting something out of this and as I share my process and my own lessons. I am forever grateful for your hanging with me and reading this and hey, thanks for the likes last week! It has been a long time coming with that post and I was glad to see it got some reach. Hopefully the more consistent I get posting, the more we can grow together. I have been a writer for many years, but as a book author? There is so much to learn! So here I am sharing it with you both hoping you’ll get something out of it as well as a little online writing therapy for myself. 🙂

Until the next time, have an awesome Valentine’s Day and here’s to pitchers and catchers reporting this week!! Cheers all!! 

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I am still participating in the American Cancer Society’s Read Every Day in February fundraiser. If you would like to donate (no amount too small and every dollar helps!): Please Click Here

My new keyboard: Womier WK60 60% Keyboard Wireless, Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Hot Swappable Gasket, RGB Keryboard for Bluetooth/2.4GHz/USB-C, MOA PBT Keycaps, Pre-lubed POM Switches (I got it in pink but there are other color choices as well and again, you can customize the keys to your liking.)

Vellum Software for creating and publishing books.

Information on ISBN numbers and other publishing information at Bowker A great thing about this site is that you can buy either one number or a package of numbers to save you money. So if you are writing a series, plan on writing more than one book, or want to get them now for the future, you can get a good rate. (I am not an affiliate of this site, just love a good deal.)

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Please note: I am an Amazon affiiliate and any purchase made through one of my Amazon links sends a small commission my way. Other links are not commission based (for now) but I will always let you know when a link is an affiliate link.