Musings From the Author
Things on my mind since I'm in no mood to write fiction
The Need for Writing
You sit down to get writing, and all of a sudden you’re sick. Two days later, you’re trying to find the letters on your keyboard, and whatever you’re working on takes twice as long to produce because you keep horribly misspelling the most basic of words.
And it’s not an obligation, just for fun, putting pen to paper (or, in this case, fingers to keyboard to screen), until the obligation comes and you must produce something or else you break your pledge. Are you ill enough to skip the day? No? Then write something!
Skipping my Substack day is very easy. I can just simply not do it and wait for Saturday or sometime “later” to do it. But the moment I skip a day without a 100% valid excuse it will cause a mental slide which will result in the Substack, like so many prior projects of mine similar to Substack, abandoned, and I don’t want to do that. It’s my one day where I know I must write because there are people waiting on that email to pop up in their inbox, wondering all the while, probably, “What’s Storm writing today?”
Plus, it’s nice having a day where I must sit down and write something. It’s also very easy to enter a period of simply not writing anything for a few months. It sucks, and when I get back to writing afterwards I don’t feel too great about the lost time, so having at least a couple hours taken out of a day to write something will keep me both happy and warmed-up.
Though you can’t really stop being sick. You can’t pull down the book of your life and simply cross that detail out. But that’s if I get sick on a Friday, or I’m still extremely ill on a Friday. Until then, I write on…
Gum!
I don’t know how many people pop a piece of gum in their mouths when they get to writing. I know I do. Technically, the gum used to be a bowl of Goldfish (the crackers) or Cheez-Its, but I was breaking the household law of snacking in my room that way, and I got caught a few times by frustrated parents. So gum it is.
I was first introduced to the concept of “thinking gum” in my Trigonometry class. The teacher had a big bottle of gum on her desk and she allowed students to take from it as they pleased. She said it helped students think/focus, I believe. I know it helped for me - I’m the kind of person who prefers doing two things at once whenever I work. When I’m writing, it’s easy to snack, or chew gum, because it keeps my mouth busy while my fingers work. Plus, I’m getting fed.
I’ve tried a few different brands and flavors of gum over the years since then, to find what works best for me. What did I discover? Well, for one thing it’s better to switch the flavor out every now and then when you’re getting a new tub, otherwise you’re going to get sick of what you have.
Mint, while the standard flavor for gum, varies in quality based on the brand. In this instance I even had mint Mento’s gum once. It was alright, if not a little stiff. The worse was that generic brand of gum that was always available in Thailand. For a while it was alright, but Thailand has a very… strange take on mint flavored items, from an American perspective. The only way I can describe it is as a color: Think mint green, but desaturate it. That’s kind of what it tastes like. I had Thailand mint toothpaste while I lived there, and it took quite a few weeks to get used to the unusual flavor. There weren’t other flavors besides mint and bubblegum, so I got sick of them really fast. At least they came in much larger containers, though.
I really like Ice Breakers. Not just their mints - I practically grew up with their Watermelon Duo’s - but their gum, too. It’s soft with just the right amount of chewy, and their flavor lasts ages, though the strongest flavor you’re going to get lasts about an hour and a half per cube. They’re also really spot-on with their flavors, too. Right now I’ve been working my way through their Raspbetty Sorbet with a Black Cherry container beneath it. It’s been a while since I’ve had Ice Breakers gum, so I’m working my way through their six(?) different flavors that are at the local store. In Japan they offered Arctic Grape; it was okay but, once again, I got sick of the flavor after the forth or fifth tub. There was also Spearmint and some sort of bubblegum flavor too, but they weren’t my favorites from the brand. Probably because there was Arctic Grape…
Expanding my Projects, Maybe
It’s an itch that keeps coming back. I was first exposed to Amazon’s Vella program not long before I left Thailand, and since then it’s been on my mind every now and then. Should I start a Vella project? Well, technically I already have a Vella project running right now - my Substack, and it’s free! But here it’s more like a writing resume of sorts, and I can’t really rely too much on new people randomly stumbling across my corner of the internet. Through Amazon I could be earning some reliable money for my work.
Vella → a chapter-by-chapter release of a story, typically one chapter a week.
I’ve started other similar free projects previously (although they all took place when I was still in school, so guess how well those went). They were fun, which is probably why I’ve got the urge to branch out yet again and start something new elsewhere. Though there is one very important thing that must be addressed before I come to any sort of decision on the matter:
What would I even write?
I want to turn all my stories into novels for the most part. I’ve not come up with an idea that could probably be turned into that sort of episodic release schedule. Well, maybe I have one idea, but it’d need to get dedicated development time to even be considered an option. I’d need to come up with something I could write in an episodic format before I even begin writing on that platform to begin with.
There’s also the possibility of losing interest, diving too much time between Vella, Substack, work, and other household jobs, and stars only know what else might pop up along the way that would throw all sorts of wrenches around.
Brain Won’t Turn Off
Am I nervous? Yes. About what? Many things.
Vella is one of them. I’m nervous it’ll all go awry in the worst way possible without really knowing how. It’s one thing writing for free with only a self-imposed commitment, and a completely different thing to get paid for writing. You want it to be perfect, obviously, especially if this is your first paid work ever.
I think I have the perfection complex a little too hard right now.
Publication is another one of them. With the anthology release pending, I’ve gotten more and more anxious about… well, almost everything. Is my short well written, how it’ll be received, who’s going to buy the anthology in the first place, etc. I even read over my short again not that long ago to make sure it’s perfect.
Yes, the compulsion for absolute perfection is strong with this one.
FOR THOSE THAT DON’T KNOW I’m going to be in an upcoming anthology called The Mirror, being published by No Bad Books Press! They’re a small hybrid publisher for fantasy, paranormal, sci-fi, and horror authors. Check out their website and buy some other books of theirs to give these authors some support, and keep and eye out for the anthology preorder!
It’s bad enough that I want to start a Vella project while my first ever official publication is going to be released in a couple of months. And then there’s my novel.
Originally, I was worried over how it was going to get published. Now I’m worried over - say it with me now - it being perfect. Which is kind of dumb, since it’s got everything I want in it, and I’m rather happy with how it turned out. I’ve got a cover I’m waiting on, plus probably extra art, but that’s up in the air right now. Also courage - it’s going to be self-published so that’s one hell of a marketing mountain and a big leap to take for one’s first ever novel. I swore to myself it’d be published this year, and by the Spirits above I will meet that goal!
Doesn’t ease the nerves, though.