Good morning, Readers!

Monday night was a mixed bag.  On one hand, my stomach was cramping rather fiercely, and it woke me up in terrible pain early Tuesday morning for a couple of hours.  I missed my morning run Tuesday because of it, and I'm not happy about it.

BUT

Something also happened that really made my night.  My friend tweeted this:

You know, sometimes all it takes is someone saying something lovely about your writing to really make your day.  Night.  You know what I mean.

It is, of course, a two way street.  I'm obviously very chuffed, and it was so very sweet.  But at the same time, that little voice in the back of my head is yelling, "YOU'VE BEEN AT THIS FOR YEARS. IF YOU WERE SO GREAT YOU'D ALREADY HAVE A MASSIVE FOLLOWING YOU GIANT FUCKING FRAUD!"

​I hate the voice.  That voice hates me.

And the voice is both so, so correct, and so wildly wrong at the same time.

It is true that a work should stand for itself, and if a work or body of work is good, it should find its place and its following.  It is also true that in this industry, merit alone cannot bring one success.  There's a whole area where it falls to blind luck; the right brilliance at the right time, either on the page, or hitting the rising crest of a trend or finding some deep hunger in readers that has little to do with one's skills as a wordsmith.

All the skill and hard work of a writer cannot replace that tiny bit of luck.

I mean, all writers have been there; watching the meteoric rise of a work that they feel is sub-par while they languish in obscurity forever.  And then that little voice in the back of your head begins to scream:

LOOK!  LOOK AT THE GARBAGE THAT GOT THAT HUGE PUBLISHING DEAL. AND WHAT DO YOU HAVE? NOTHING. WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU ABOUT YOUR WORK, HM?  YOU'RE RUBBISH.  A FAKE.  A FRAUD.  GO HIDE UNDER YOUR ROCK AND DIE THERE.  YOU'LL NEVER MAKE IT.

Sometimes, that voice is so loud, it's hard not to have it the only thing you can hear.  And then, every so often, you get an email or a tweet like the one above, and it gives you hope.

Here's the truth, there is no greater luck generator than word of mouth.  If no one is talking about your stuff, you're not going to find success.  It takes readers talking, sharing, reviewing.  It takes them demanding that local book stores and libraries stock your books.

Without that, it does not matter how brilliant a writer you are, you will not find success.

It's frustrating that merit alone isn't the deciding factor.  It's upsetting knowing that no matter how hard you work, or how fiercely you market, it all boils down to being read by the right people at the right time, and those people spreading the word.

Readers, if there's a writer whose work you are passionate about, speak out.  Review it, recommend it, demand stores and libraries stock it.  Help them get known.  As an added bonus, you will have more people to geek out over the books with.

And don't feel shy to shoot the writer a message about how much you love their stuff.  You might just stop them from listening to that awful little voice and quitting altogether.  You never know.

Good morning, Readers!

I really have nothing to say today.  I'm still writing.  I got my two thousand words in—just—yesterday.  I'll be hopefully doing the same today hopefully.  Since I have nothing with which to waste your time currently, here's the next episode in my video podcast.  We discussed the 1991 film, Hook.  I loved the movie, and that's not just nostalgia talking.  Anyway, here's the episode.

And that's all I've got for you today.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

This weekend was busy and lovely.... right up until last night, when the internet decided that I wouldn't be allowed to upload or download anything within a reasonable time frame.  A fifteen minute video at one stage had an estimated download time of 22 days.

Yeah.

Hopefully I'll be able to get it all fixed tonight.  Fingers crossed.

Essentially, though, it was a great weekend.  Friday night, I met with my writer's group and read them the opening chapter of my current WIP.  It got a good reception, and I'm even more excited about the project.  I will be writing that today.  Not that I wouldn't have been if the reading didn't go well, but it would have been a little more difficult.

Saturday morning was fantastic.  I had a great run, and my students for my martial arts classes were there and did really well, and I was full of good mood and great energy.

Sunday was wonderful.  I got to spend a few hours in the morning with friends, celebrating their wedding anniversary and chowing down on food.  It was so much fun.  I had to skip out after a couple of hours, though, because I was recording some CoOpted stuff.  The house was a disaster, and I didn't have time to clean even a little before Jon came over, but such is life sometimes.  Still, we recorded and it was tonnes of fun.

Then I went through and edited together the footage.  Only my computer was screwing up a bit, and editing took longer than it should have.  Then the internet started totally fucking up, and I couldn't upload or download anything.  I went to bed frustrated and angry, and later than I should have because of all the issues with the computer.

As a result, I didn't get up as early as I should have to get to the gym.  I'm not mad, though.  My sneakers were recently washed, and still a bit damp.  I needed the sleep.  And the cats were cuddly and purring and wonderful.  So I didn't go to the gym.  I will be going swimming this afternoon, though, and I'll be back to my regular workout schedule tomorrow... though I'll be switching up the post-run workout.

Ugh.  Fitness stuff is boring.  It says a lot that it's the most interesting thing in my life right now.  Man.  I need to get a life.

​How was your weekend?

Good morning, Readers!

So, the bruise on my butt from the fall on Friday is starting to look like a pixelated alien from the old school game Space Invaders.  It amused me this morning.  It amused me less when I went for my run.  It still hurts.

I had another really weird dream last night.  This time, we were in a zombie apocalypse.  It was a small band of survivors, none of whom I knew, except for a kung fu brother of mine.  I like the guy.  He's a nice person, really hilarious, and down to earth.  In this dream, though, he was the villain.

Anyway, we're a group of six moving through a ruined landscape that looked like my mind had pulled it right from The Last of Us.  We find a young woman, roughly my age, near a destroyed shed in the backyard of a collapsing house.  She's curled over herself and crying.  With a little TLC, she joins our less-than-merry band of survivors.

Then, while we're looting a house in search of supplies, my kung fu brother snaps, and goes into a weird entitled misogynist rage against our newest member (he fancied her, you see, and she wasn't interested).  I intervened, and for it, I got shot twice.  Once in the lung and once in the stomach.  I died.

Then my alarm went off.

And that was my dream.

So, there we go.  That's what happened in my head early this morning.

Writing is going relatively well.  I didn't write as much as I wanted to yesterday, but I still wrote, and that's a good step.  I will have to change the last fifty or so words, since I took it to a place that makes to story stick, but that's nothing, really.

The trick to writing a book is just to keep plugging away at it.  Sometimes it feels like you're shifting a pile of sand with a pair of tweezers, but each word down is one more step closer to completion.

Off I go, marching towards the finish line.

Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

I started working on Outworlder, the first in the Avalon series.  I managed two thousand words before the persistent headache I've had since my fall forced me to stop.  It's a fun book, and it's getting really interesting.

Last night I went to training to continue my quest for chin-ups and pull-ups.  As it happened, I managed to do an unassisted chin-up.  Yay!  I know it's not much, but it's such an improvement over the previous number of a big fat zero.  I have felt the improvements of late, and for the first time, I'm optimistic that I'll get to my goals this year.

Also, the pain in my left shoulder I mentioned last post was resolved last night during weight training.  As it turned out, it was because my shoulder was out of its socket.  That's fixed now.  It popped back in last night.

That was fun.

I have nothing else to add, except that I watched The Late Show last night, and this monologue made me cry:

I didn't talk about Parkdale because there was nothing that I could have said that I hadn't said countless times, and, being all the way up here in Canada, there is little I can do in any case.

But these kids can.

I hope they keep their fire.  I hope they keep fighting.

And on that note, I'm off to do things.

​Ciao.

Good morning, Readers!

Well this weekend was a thing.  I'll try and go through it in order.

Friday was great.  I opened up and read through what I had written for Outworlder (title may change).  I actually quite like the story so far, and I'm pretty excited to get stuck into it.  It was a good day for creative stuff.

Friday night was less great.  I ordered pizza, and then tried to run downstairs when it arrived.  Only I fell instead.  I'm nursing a few bruises on my right side, muscle pain on my left side, a headache, and possibly a stressed tendon in my left shoulder, but nothing much more serious.  It could have been much worse, so I'm counting my blessings.  It hurt like a bitch when I went down though, and there was a lot of shock, so when I finally collected my pizza and sat down to eat, I burst into tears instead.

Then, despite not having an appetite anymore and because I'm a stubborn old goat, I ate two slices of pizza before heading to bed.

Saturday I could not move, except I had to because I teach martial arts on Saturdays.  It was not a good day for me, but I went and I taught and it was decent enough.

Sunday was a filming session for Nights at the Round Table.  Ordinarily, we'd be filming this coming Sunday, but there's a celebration for friends that I'm attending, so we just moved the filming up a week.  It was fun, but baby Keladry was in a wriggly, squeally kind of mood, so it was also a lot.

Sunday night, I received a note from the publisher I had submitted Skylark to.  They're a bit behind in answering their submissions.  So far, however, there has been one vote from the acquisitions team on the manuscript, and that vote is a yes.  That made me happy.

One step closer.

The world won't end if they, ultimately, decide not to take the book.  I'll just self-publish it.  Hopefully, I'll have more news soon.

I'm also a little proud of myself because, despite the hurt, I still managed to get myself to the gym.  Not Saturday, which is my usual gym day (Sunday is my rest day).  I waited a couple of days for the muscles on my left to be less painful.  They're still not great, but they were good enough for running on Monday, so I went for a run on Monday.

I would like to state for the record, that running with a bruise on your butt hurts like hell.  Just the movement of the skin in the area of the bruise was excruciating.  But still, I ran.  It felt good to be doing something, at least.  I didn't do weights because of my muscle issue, but that's alright.  I did something.  That counts.

I also went for a run this morning.  The butt bruise hurt much less, which was nice.  I managed just under 4K in half an hour, including the five minute walking warm up, so I'm pretty happy with my pacing.  My goal is to get a half hour 5K.  That's all I really want from my run training.

And that is the state I'm currently in.  Bruised and battered, but ultimately in a good place.  Now I have some writing to get stuck into, so I'll let you go here.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

Despite Galahad and Persephone being the cutest cuddlebugs this morning, I got out of bed and went to the gym.

That's not different from any other morning (except Sephy usually isn't cuddly unless the Amazing Flatmate isn't home).

I did my workout and headed into work.

It's been almost two entire months since I started my new workout schedule, and to be honest, I have seen some improvements in my ultimate quests: the quest to be able to do pull ups and chin ups.  I'm also doing okay with my side quests: run a 30 minute or faster 5K, lose that extra weight that I've just always had (#PermaChub).  Overall, however, I'm just not feeling as wonderful as I had hoped.  It's still tough getting out of bed at 6am, and the runs aren't getting any easier... though the couch to 5K programme I'm following is actually pretty good, and I haven't yet had to walk when I should've been running.

Anyway, I'm feeling meh about the whole thing.  I don't think I'll be stopping any time soon, though.  It's kinda habit now, and my mood is generally better.  So even though it's sometimes tough to get started, I'm better off.

Happily, my stomach is much, much better.  It was in a terrible state yesterday, thanks to the hunger pangs I had the night before.  Yesterday morning, I could not stop eating.  My starved stomach demanded copious amounts of sustenance.  I tried really hard to eat healthily while my ravening stomach was going wild, though someone brought in chocolates to the office, so... I was not as successful as I might have otherwise been.

As everything was so out of whack with my digestion because of that stupid night without dinner, my tummy was not in a happy place.  Not only was it in a state of perpetual hunger, but it was also feeling a bit wobbly.  I was mildly nauseated all day.

This morning, everything seems to have been fixed.  My tummy is feeling much better, and I'm no longer ravenously hungry.  I'm back to the normal level of hungry, and I'm no longer nauseated.

I'm feeling better, and also incredibly 'meh.'  I am a woman of many layers.

In other news, I streamed last night, and it was very fun.  I mentioned on the stream that I will be doing a special holiday Monday stream on Family Day.  I believe it's next week.  Which means next week there will be two streams.  Yay!  I really love streaming with you guys.

Now I'm off to do what is hopefully the last of the editing on Soldier.

Ciao!