The End of an Era

For those who have been following my writer's journey for a while, you know that there have been a lot of roadblocks and pitfalls along the way. Distractions abound in the writer's life, not the least of which are earning an income. Add on a social life and a love life, and it can be a titanic effort to find time to write anything.

Then there's been my work with Comic Booked. It's a dream come true to be working for a comic book news site, a goal of mine since I read my first Wizard Magazine. But the joys of reading and writing about comic books has distracted me from other writing as well, and there comes a time when you have to reevaluate what you really want out of life. The things you do should support your passion and build your future, and if it's not serving either of those two necessities, it's time to move on.

So, it's time for me to move on from writing.

It's been fun writing and publishing short stories, even writing and rewriting my first novel, and I'm proud of my work for Comic Booked. But at the end of the day, the frustrations of being a writer far outweigh the benefits, especially from the financial end of things. Your work should be something you love with all your heart, and I haven't been doing that at all. It's time I fixed that.

From here on out, my writer's blog will be a musician's blog. I've had a passion for it since elementary school, learning multiple instruments and even conducting my own school band, but I gave it up after high school to pursue this pipe dream of making it as a professional writer. No more. I'm pulling out my old clarinet and dusting it off, and I'll be diving back into my musical pursuits with the goal of joining the L.A. Philharmonic. I hope you'll stick around for the ride.

I appreciate all the support you've given me as a writer, and I hope you'll continue supporting me as I rededicate myself to becoming a musical virtuoso.

Oh, and happy April Fool's Day!

Out With 2011, In With 2012!

I totally meant to write an elaborate blog post last night to wrap up 2011, but then I went out with a friend and came home to SWTOR. Bad blogger, no biscuit! But I will say this much, even though I'm not ending this year on the high note that I did last year, I still accomplished a lot this year:

I moved out of my apartment and into a house. I still have roommates (housemates), but it's a far better living situation than I was in before. I can now rest easy in a place that feels like home with people who don't make my skin crawl, and I feel like I'm one step closer to living on my own at last.

I had a great relationship that didn't last. I'm sad that it ended the way it did, but glad that I was able to share something wonderful with someone while it lasted. She helped me open my life up to things I'd been denying myself over the years, and for that, I'm very grateful. I wish her nothing but peace and joy.

I let my writing take flight in the public domain, first as staff writer for Comic Booked, then as a self-published author. My writing is now up on Kindle and Nook, which was a huge step for me in getting my fictional world out to a wider audience, and I look forward to watching that seed grow in the new year.

Finally, I survived a number of hardships thrown my way this year. Between losing my job, getting into an accident, and going through a break-up, there were times when the old me, the mid-20s me, would have thrown in the towel. But I persevered, and the challenges of this year have fueled my writing in unexpected ways.

2011 wasn't a horrible year. It held great promise, some of which delivered and some of which fell short, and built the foundation for what will surely be a successful 2012. Even so, I'm not sad to see this year pass. If I had to do it all over again, I don't think I'd change a thing. Well, I might have released Everyday Divinities a little earlier, but aside from that...

Now, let's hit the ground running in 2012 and make some magic happen before the world ends in December!

And Now, For Something Completely Different

I'm not a political person, and this is not a political blog. I like to keep the focus on writing, but I also like to educate and enlighten in this space, and I do occasionally shed some light on other aspects of my writer's journey that are not as obviously connected to me being a writer, but are still important to me.

I come from a nice middle class family. My mom worked as a producer for television while I was growing up, and my dad worked as an announcer for radio and television. (And while my mom has since given up working in the entertainment industry, you've probably heard my dad's voice recently if you listen to the radio or watch TV at all.) My dad's initial foray into creating his own business failed spectacularly, resulting in my family filing for bankruptcy and going through a divorce while I was finishing high school. When I graduated, I went straight into the work force because there was no money for me to go to college and my mom needed my help to make ends meet. I wasn't always the best at helping out on that end, and for many years, I carried with me an entitlement that I gained from having my every financial need met while I was in school. When I moved out, however, I had a job at a bookstore, and for a time I had a second job as a courier to make ends meet. Since then, I've worked hard to cover my own bills, to support myself, to get by as best I could on my meager earnings. It hasn't always worked. I've sometimes needed my parents to bail me out when things got especially bad, but I never stopped trying to make it happen on my own. I've worked at a law office, a doctor's office, and an information technology company. Considering I have no college degree and all of my adult education has been on-the-job training, I've done pretty well for myself.

Then the economy went to hell.

Then the government cut back on funding to companies like the one I worked for.

Then I got laid off from my job.

Now, 15 years after graduating from high school, I'm still struggling to make ends meet. It's harder now. People aren't as willing to hire as they were before, preferring to saddle current employees with the work of three people instead of bringing on additional help. I take temp work as often as I can and submit my resume for everything I'm even remotely qualified for, but I have no steady paycheck and I constantly worry about where money is going to come from so I can eat this week. Meanwhile, my bank continues to gouge me for money I don't have to pay hidden fees so their executives can continue to live the high life, forcing me to borrow money just so I can keep my head above water for five seconds.

I don't believe this is how the world should work, and I'm not the only one who thinks that way.

While I can't always get out to the Occupy encampment near me because I need to make money to pay bills, I nevertheless stand with them against the 1%. I believe real change needs to happen, in our government and our businesses, before things get out of hand. I believe our representatives need to listen to the people crying out for help, not the corporations buying their attention. I believe that the system is broken, and that our elected officials have a responsibility to fix it.

I know that this change won't happen overnight. I also know that it WILL happen, sooner or later. Until then, I stand with the rest of the Occupy Wall Street movement, because I am the 99%.

I share every piece of news about Occupy Wall Street that I can on Facebook, Tumblr, Google+ and Twitter, but there's so much more that slips under my radar. Please, I implore you, read up on this movement and understand what it's really about, not what the traditional media wants you to think it's about.

Edit: And as a sort of OWS primer, here are a few links to get you started.

New York Times: Protestors Against Wall Street

Huffington Post: Capturing Occupy Wall Street movement Demands

Portsmouth Patch: Roemer Fully Behind Occupy Movement

I Hate Moving

As if the stress of getting into an accident isn’t enough to make me want to hibernate for a month, I’m in the middle of that other life-changing event that adds unnecessary stress to one’s life: moving.

Yes, it’s time to move once again, to pack up everything I own and move from one home to another. When I was younger, this wasn’t such a big deal. Sure, the inconvenience of having everything I own packed up and largely unavailable to me as a kid was mildly irritating, but I didn’t have a lot of stuff that was really mine back then. Clothes, toys, video game consoles, and a few odds and ends were all that I claimed as my own. I also lived in apartments for most of my life. I’ve lived in 10 homes up to this point, and only 4 of those were houses. Living in an apartment meant you couldn’t have too much stuff, there’s no place to put it all. It also meant that non-essentials could be kept in that box until you needed it. That made moving again so much easier, if it was still in a box for ease of storage and transport.

Now that I think of it, I’ve never really lived in one residence for more than a handful of years. I do believe I set a record with this last apartment, having stayed there for over 7 years.

In preparing for this move, I promised myself that I’d toss anything that I hadn’t used or even looked at since the last move, and I did a fair amount of house cleaning in the past couple weeks. It gave me something to focus on other than dealing with insurance companies and car repair places, and helped me deal with shock from the accident. It’s been tricky getting this move going since my car is still being repaired, but I’m blessed with some wonderful friends who, for the most part, haven’t complained about me using them as substitute transportation. Loki, especially, has been very helpful in getting me settled into my new place, but my beloved is always so wonderful to me.

So, it’s safe to say that this isn’t my first move, and it certainly won’t be the last. The difference between this move and so many others is that I’m the one doing all the legwork to make it go smoothly. There’s no one else to delegate to, no one else to make all the decisions for me. Nope, this is all me, and I’m happy to say that I’m doing a pretty good job of handling this, all things considered.

You’re maybe wondering how I’m going to link this into my writing. Well, it just so happens that this journey of moving from one place to another, of trying to find home, plays in perfectly with my trilogy, particularly Book Three. I can’t say much about it, but there are certain characters who have been moving for as long as I have, and my current ordeal is helping me remember what it was like to live that kind of life. Between this move and my accident, it’s been a very inspirational (if stressful) month for my writing, and I hope bringing that to bear in my writing will make it that much more engaging to readers.

Do you have thoughts, comments or rants about moving? Leave ‘em in the comments below!

Paradigm Shift

"Seize the moment. 'Cause tommorow you might be dead."
—Buffy Summers, S1Ep1 Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy had amazing insight into how to live life for a teenage girl. And while this is wisdom from a fictional character, the quote stands as a very good way to live one's life.

A couple of days ago, I was in a car accident. Nothing too serious, I assure you. I'm fine, though my car is currently at the body shop having the damage assessed. The other guy was not nearly so lucky. For a motorcyclist, he was not practicing safe driving by hurling down a street in front of a school well in excess of the speed limit, and paid the price for his lapse in judgment. That didn't stop him from getting back on his bike, despite suffering heavy injury to the leg that got trapped under the motorcycle, and speeding off to put more lives in danger. Blood loss + reckless driving = another accident waiting to happen.

In the aftermath of the accident, I've been reflecting on how it could have been much, much worse for both me and the guy who hit me. Thankfully, none of the kids getting out of school at that time were injured. My car was damaged, but not nearly as much as it could have been. And, of course, my lack of physical injury could just as easily have gone the other way if the motorcycle's trajectory had been different, or if I'd been moving instead of stopped at a red light.

We go through life never really understanding that it can all change in one catastrophic moment, and not even through any consequence of our actions beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I used to envision certain dangerous events that could happen in the course of stepping outside my front door for use in my writing, but it's something else entirely when one of those scenarios comes true. This is not the product of my overactive imagination. This is real catastrophe, with real consequences and a very real impact on my life.

I haven't really been in my right mind since that day, and I'm fortunate to be surrounded by wonderful people who love and care about me enough to look out for me and help me through this ordeal. I think part of that altered mindset is that I'm going through a paradigm shift, for lack of better phrasing, a change in my way of thinking in the face of a dramatic and life-changing moment. Old assumptions are being cast aside as a new reality asserts itself in my way of thinking, a reality that I'm still trying to come to terms with.

I'm not sure where my writing fits into this reality, but I know that I've come too far to simply declare it insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I want to revisit parts of my trilogy and write all new stories, now that I have a different vantage point on potentially life-threatening moments that might occur within the course of the narrative, but I don't know if I'm ready to tackle it so soon after the accident. Naturally, I'll keep you all posted here once things settle down and my life isn't in upheaval.

Have you had a brush with fate that changed your way of living, or been close to someone who has? Share your stories in the comments below.