Onward and Upward

I got the results back for my L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future, first-quarter submission this week. I’m happy to announce it won my first, SEMI-FINALIST! This made me ecstatic. Sometimes I get a little complacent and frustrated with my inability to nail down a win. That’s the ‘Leo’ in me thinking I’m ‘all that.’ I know—despite my own imposter syndrome—that I have talent. The First Chapter contest wins and the many placings in the Writers of the Future is proof enough of that. But obviously talent is not enough—and I knew that starting out.

In addition to selecting the best stories from the newest writers, Writers of the Future is an anthology. Anthologies need diversity. So maybe my stories weren’t awesome enough, but when compared with similar stories, I’m just not the ‘one’ that’s going to make it into the anthology. But I moved up this time because I followed Wulf Moon’s advice and punched the emotion in my story to 11.

Now I need to tighten my writing up and focus.

Success and Insanity

I have my first school visit next week as an author--I'm getting nervous. One of my coworkers at USPS teaches at a junior high. He saw me editing my last WotF entry and suggested I come talk to them about revisions. Since I HATED rewriting anything during that time, I can understand. I plan on talking about storytelling and development--using my experience with WotF as bait. Essentially, how hard would you work on a story if it could win $5,000?

It only has to be a 20-30 minute presentation, but--

My anxiety and depression have been overwhelming lately. Hell--for at least a year (not that everyone hasn't been experiencing the same). Buying our house, home repairs, cars dying, car financing-- I'm beginning to understand WHY my mom lived most of her life in bed. She didn't even have the meds I do. My doc thinks we need to up my meds, but I HATE being 'chemically dependent' just to be 'normal.' Increasing the dosage feels like making the situation worse, but it's not exactly a good situation now.

And being mentally ill, I know I can't trust my own logic.

Anyway, I'm sharing all this crap to show that I have some really great things going on--despite feeling insanely panicked on the inside. Some of my friends are struggling through incredible burdens and stresses. It's a crappy time for everybody.

But I want you to know that I think you're awesome. I admire your determination and look up to you because of it. John Wayne said, "Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway." A lot of times, I 'saddle up' because you do. I hope I do that for you on occasion.

Ride on, Hoss. You got this.

A Busy Year

2020 was an eventful year.

The house we rented since 2015 went on the market in late 2019. We began house hunting and moved into our new home on February 15th. The move made me miss the LTUE writers conference, which fell on that same weekend.

The novel coronavirus, Covid-19, escaped unchecked from China also late 2019. Within a couple of weeks of our move, the world shut down in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus. The shutdown succeeded in preventing the hospital system from being overwhelmed, but panic encouraged governments to remain locked down. Some workers were deemed ‘essential,’ and kept working. As a postal worker, I kept working. Coworkers gradually got sick and we USPS employees began working 80 hours a week.

Between the ‘fixer-upper’ we’d just bought, and the 80 hours a week at the post office, my writing suffered.

But I kept busy anyway. See, I’ve found that if I don’t do SOME writing during the day, I’m not happy. So when I’m at work, I write during my lunch. It’s not a huge amount of time, but it keeps the juices flowing. And that—and a mountain of yard work and house repairs—has been my lifeline for a very rough year.