Good morning, Readers!

I've written about this before, but I want to mention it again, for anyone who is new here.

A few of you may have noticed that I often make note online of when things aren't exactly fantastic for me.​  I often talk about when I'm in a depressive spiral, or when I've failed at a task (as in today, the second day in a row when I failed to get to the gym, for no really good reason), or if things are generally shitty.

It's a decision I made early on, when I first started blogging and appearing online in a professional capacity, which is to say, when I first started trying to promote myself as a writer.  I wanted to present an honest me.  The real thing.  Not really a curated image of me.  Not the partial picture.  Sure, it would be nice to be perfect, but I'm not, and life is not.

There are a number of reasons for why I chose not to always act like everything is absolutely spectacular all the damned time.  Mostly, it's because it's utterly dishonest.

Things aren't always spectacular, and while looking at the bright side is generally a good way to move through life, ignoring the darkness only permits that darkness to grow, to fester.  Ultimately, I think that's far more dangerous than just admitting that things aren't all that wonderful at the moment, facing the darkness, shining a light on it.  It's lying.  I don't particularly like lying.  Honestly, I think lying to people is disrespectful.  People deserve something a little more authentic.

Also, I was very aware of the fact that, if ever I got big in the publishing, there would be a lot of eyes on me.  That's a lot of people comparing their lives to mine.  They deserve to know that even really successful people struggle sometimes, and that's okay.  Perfection is impossible, and that's okay.  Their lives are not lesser, because it couldn't possibly live up to what I'm putting out there (you know, assuming I was really successful and got invited to conventions and speaking gigs and so on).

People are tearing themselves apart trying to live up to the perfect lives that are constantly being broadcast from 'influencers' - these ridiculous, impossible lies that are a part of a highly-curated social media presence.  That's not real life.  That's not even their real lives.  It's just what they want to put out there, to gain followers, praise, envy, whatever it is that sets off the reward centres in their brains.

I don't want that for people who might follow me.  I don't want them to see my life and think that if they just destroy themselves enough, they'll have it all so damned perfect.  It's impossible.  Never going to happen.  Even if they reach my hypothetical levels of success or exceed it, they'll find out that everything is a lie.  It's not happy all the time, even then.

Another reason I talk about the not-so-great things in life is because it's important that these things are represented and discussed.  I was only able to come to grips with my depression and seek out therapy because a well-known person I would consider a success spoke openly about it on his blog.  The symptoms he described, and the encouragement he gave made me feel like I wasn't alone anymore, and there were people who struggled, even successful people.  Getting successful wasn't going to cure me.  I wasn't going to magically get better if I publish a book.  What was going to help was therapy, was recognising the symptoms for what they were, for taking action when I get them.  If this man had never spoke of his mental illness, I'd probably have kept it to myself in shame and silence.  Given how bad it was when I stumbled across the blog, chances are, I would not be here today.

If my talking openly about when things aren't so good can do that for even one other person, it's worth it.

Not everything in my life is great.  I have depression.  There's no cure for it.  I will always have depression.  But now I can manage it without all the unhealthy mechanisms I used prior to seeking therapy.  Some days will be fantastic.  Some will be utter shit.  Life is not always glamorous, even for the glamorous.  Everyone struggles.  We're all human.

I want my online presence to reflect that; for myself, and for whomever it is that looks up to me (you fools).

And now I have to write.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

I have nothing of any substance to offer you today, so instead, I'm going to link you to two things that are far more entertaining than I this morning.  The first is a satirical news article from 2013 that makes a jab at underdeveloped female characters.  It made me snort tea out of my nose.

Read that here.

The next is a blog post by the wise wise-cracking human-shaped sentient being known as Chuck Wendig.  In this post, he ruminates on the nature of failure.  It's a great post.

Read that here.

Maybe when I have the energy, I'll talk about deeper things again.  If you've noticed the blog get a little... superficial... it's because there are a shit tonne of things on my mind, but diving into any one of them is utterly exhausting emotionally, and I just don't have the energy to trawl through it all right now.

Okay, now I have to go and do the whole failing thing.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

So, last night was weird.  I practiced guitar for a little bit, then collapsed into a sobbing mess while listening to a really beautiful cover of Hello by Lionel Ritchie on repeat.  The sobbing may or may not have been brought on by a rejection I received yesterday.  Ordinarily, rejections don't get to me, and I was expecting a rejection for this particular submission (word to the wise, make damned sure you send your most recent draft of a manuscript when submitting.  Okay?).  I didn't even so much as flinch as I read it.  Why it hit me later is anyone's guess, if that was the reason.  It's been been a long while since I've had a good cry.  I scared Galahad, who was curled up with me.

That was my evening.

How was yours?

While noteworthy, that's not really what I wanted to talk about.  I want to talk about the word talent.

I have a love/hate relationship with that word.

It's easy to love it.  Having talent is generally considered a good thing.  "You're so talented" is generally considered a high compliment.  Being talentless is similarly a terrible thing.

Thinking on it, however, it's not that much of a compliment.  "You're so talented" is a compliment, but it completely obliterates the incredible amount of work behind the success someone is remarking upon.  Behind the word talent is the assumption that what you achieved was relatively effortless.  Behind that word is the deletion of all the hard work, the frustrations, the tears, the insecurity, the set backs, the struggle, the almost-quits.

The word talent just assumes you can do the thing, not that you had to work hard at it.

And here's the thing, there are actually people who find that things come more naturally to them.  There is, I think, such a thing as a talent.  Some people can sing on key, and have always been able to.  People like me just can't.  Even though I would love to be able.

Simply being talented at something, however, doesn't guarantee success.  Talented people all over discover this sooner or later, when they find themselves amongst peers who are equally if not more talented than they.  Suddenly, they're no longer effortlessly at the top, and they have to suddenly work really hard to even approach it.

The ability to work hard is what sets people apart.

Nothing is effortless.

So, I like the idea that maybe I have a natural proclivity for something.  I don't like that maybe having that detracts from the understand of just how much work I've put in.  After all, it's the work that's important.

Anyway, just thinking out loud about a word I have mixed feelings about.

Now I have to go write some words and hope they're in some sort of intelligible order.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

This weekend was a good 'un.  I did pretty much everything I wanted to... more or less.

I even did some socialising.  Go me.

Saturday was the first martial arts classes for the semester.  I always forget how much I miss teaching women martial arts, and how much I miss the returning students.  It is really great to see a class full of women willing to learn how to... uh... hurt people... ?  Shut up.  It's a good thing.

It also marked the first week of my return to my usual training schedule.  I didn't too badly, either.  I'm not too sore, and I feel like I'm getting stronger, which is nice.  One of my frustrations from last year was how I felt I wasn't improving at all.  As of now, week two, I feel I can increase the weight on my dead lifts already.  So, yay!  I'll be upping it next week.

I spent a lot of time this weekend asleep.  I need a lot of sleep, I've noticed. Anyway, it's back to schedule.  Gym in the morning, writing in the day, guitar lessons at nigh.  Bed.  Repeat.  Honestly, my life just isn't that interesting.  I like the routine, but the monotony is getting to me a bit.  I'm getting restless (more... still... still more).  I want to go travelling; adventure type travel.  I want to go on a long hiking and camping trip.  Or a multi-day horse ride somewhere.  Even better, a week's  long horse ride in which I get taught survival skills at camp.

I don't know why I want that.  I just do.  And the going to and from work and home and gym, while great, is getting to me a little bit.  I'm getting antsy.  Antsy isn't great.

But back to happier things.  I've good news.  I have finally hit the halfway point in my novel.  It felt like I'd never get there.  I just have to keep plugging away, and then I'll get to the finish line.  Just one step in front of the other.  Thus far, since my return to writing from the holidays, I haven't reached more than a thousand words in a writing session, save once.  I'm not thrilled about that, but a thousand words in a day isn't the worst, so I'm not especially mad about it, either.

Even though I've reached the halfway mark, I'm not all that thrilled with the book itself.  I'm hoping that it's just that I'm too close to it, and it's actually not that bad.  Hoping.  I'll be mightily pissed if I spent all this effort writing the damned thing, just to have to do it again because it sucks.

Right, I'm off to attempt more writing of words.  Have a good day everyone!

Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

OC Transpo decided that two entire buses weren't going to show up last night, leaving me stranded for 45 minutes.  I got home very late, leaving me little time to practice my guitar before streaming, and I was furious about it.  Which is odd.  In school, I played the flute.  I wanted to learn violin, but the only violin teacher in town left the year I was due to start music lessons.  So... flute it was.  I didn't like practicing so much then.  But I do now.  Perhaps it's because I'm older now.  Perhaps it's because I'm much more suited to a guitar than I am the flute.  I really enjoy learning the practicing the guitar, and I which I had started sooner.

I had thought about it for quite a while, but figured that I didn't have the money for a guitar, or lessons, and I had no time, and I'd probably be really bad at it, so why bother.  A thousand things held me back.  I regret it a little.  Music has always been an important part of my life.  I feel like I've missed out a lot having started learning to play so late.  There's nothing for it, I know, so regret is a useless emotion, but still.  There's a lot of life I've lived without doing the things I wanted to.

There's so much that I wish I had started sooner than I did.  Martial arts.  It has been such a boon to me, both in terms of fitness and mental health.  How much better would my teens and twenties have been if I had the self-confidence I gained from training martial arts?

Same with weight lifting.  My inability to lift my own weight over a high wall has always bothered me.  How much vexation would I have saved if I had started weights sooner?  What would life had been like if I hadn't let my fears of appearing 'too masculine' (and therefore even less appealing than I already thought I was) or 'too intimidating' (I was told often to tone myself down for that reason), or any number of pressures placed on women specifically when it comes to appearance and abilities get in my way?

How many incredible friendships have I missed out on because I was too afraid to put myself out there?

A lot, I imagine.

It's a damned shame that it's taken me until my thirties to dare do the things I always wanted to do.  The only thing holding me back was, I realise now, myself, and my fears of rejection and ridicule.  It's really nice not to care so much about either of those now.

If I could go back to my fourteen-year-old self, I'd have a long chat about these things.  Chances are, fourteen-year-old me would still be too afraid to come out of the corner, but maybe not.

Still, I can't help but look reflect on my life and wish that I hadn't been so afraid of things.

Don't mind me, I'm just thinking out loud.  Here's a question, what thing did you start later in life that you wish you had the guts to do sooner?

Right, I have writing to do.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

I can't believe it's Wednesday already!

I am currently behind in my preferred writing goals, which is to say, I have written during the time I had allotted for writing thus far, but my usual achievement of around two thousand words has fallen short by about half on both days.

For a while, I struggled with that.  I am really hard on myself at times, and the pervasive feeling of 'not good enough' keeps me feeling pretty down every time I don't hit a target.  It takes a considerable amount of conscious effort to shut that voice out.

Here's the deal: writing is a marathon, not a sprint.  It is a game of inches.  It doesn't matter if you move half a square.   You moved.  Whether you write one word or three thousand in a day, you have still written.  It's one more word than you had yesterday.  It's one step closer to writing 'The End.'

So, no matter how despondent you might feel about your writing performance, it's important that you keep going.  One foot in front of the other.  Just write.  You'll get there eventually.

I'll get there eventually.

And on that note, I have work to do.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

Today has been a bit rough.  I awoke for no reason at around 3:40am, and spent the rest of the time I had in bed counting my breaths before the alarm went off.  Then, after I got to the bus stop, the bus was ten minutes late.  I missed my connection as a result, which sucked because that particular bus only runs every twenty minutes.  During rush hour.  Honestly, Ottawa has one of the most abysmal transport systems.  Anyway, the point is, I got to the gym very late and had barely any time to train.  Still, I trained, hitting nine rounds of skipping for 2.5 minutes each.  Next week, it'll be eight rounds of three minutes.

The point is, I had a crappy morning, so I'm doubly keen about today's blog post.  I need something beautiful right now.  Cue: Dimash Kudaibergen.

I've blogged about him before, either late in 2017 or early in 2018 when I noted his rendition of S.O.S d'un Terrien en Détresse brought me to tears; like, ugly sobbing, it was just so beautiful.  You can watch that performance here if you need a refresher.  This kid can do things with his voice that I just cannot understand.  It should be impossible.

I showed that song to my Dad, who became, like myself, an instant fan.  I have since learnt he has a pretty rabid fan base he calls his 'Dears,' which is sweet in the weird way that fandom works.  I suppose my dad and I are both Dears... sort of?  It's weird.  I've never been a part of a fandom that has a name before, and I'm not sure I like it.

Anyway, since that initial post, he's gotten a YouTube channel, and instagram and has had a concert in London (UK).  I guess I'm not much of a 'Dear' since I knew none of this until very recently; at Christmas, in fact, when my dad sat me down and we went through Mr. Kudaibergen's more recent performances.  He's been better about keeping up with him.  And, OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS GUY IS REAL!

Anyway, of his more recent performances, his rendition of Sinful Passion is just about my favourite.  Once again, this young singer from Kazakhstan has blown my mind.  So I'm sharing, because I love sharing music that moves me.  So, here is Sinful Passion.  I highly recommend putting on the subtitles, if you're interested in the meaning of the words (they're sung in Russian, it sounds like), but honestly, you're not going to need them.  Dimash is a master at manipulating your emotions with song.

Pay particular attention to the incredible vocal athletics in the middle there that sounds like it might be a traditional/folk interlude, and also the length of his run at the end of the song.

You're bloody welcome, everyone.

​Now, I have books to write.

​Ciao!