The proof copy of A Potagerie of Rejects arrived today, and aside from a few minor adjustments with images (which I think I’ve resolved now), book baby #13 has arrived! Some strangenesses also arrived with it:

This has been a trying time of life for me. Yes, some of it has stemmed from the past two years’ financial strife, and while some of that has eased, different struggles have come up and I seem robbed of my joy from every which way that I turn. I believe I described my current place to someone today as ‘swimming in quicksand’. I’m 100% in survival mode right now–getting through 1-5 minutes at a time, with very little looking ahead. It’s a nasty way to live, precious. Having my brand new book arrive today and getting to hold it for the first time was of course a thrill, though I was much more reserved in how I wanted to feel about it. I described this sensation to someone recently as feeling like wanting to jump for joy, but the ceiling is constantly too low. It’s a sensation of feeling stunted and caught in the brambles of someone else’s garden. Oddly, there is talk in another of my books, currently under way, of how some characters feel they are trapped in a physical location. They are told flat-out that they’re not and no one else is either. They can leave whenever they wish. I try to think about that when I hit one of these days like today, and remember that I’m not trapped at all. It’s merely the waiting game when it comes to more suitable opportunities that will help me make necessary adjustments; opportunities that are there, and even then, my struggles are against thin membranes that are due to break at some point. Like my books, everything is born eventually in one way or another. So in the meantime, I must continue to eat, take my vitamins, rest, and write. Those are the things I have maneuverable control over, and that is just fine. That is good. That will keep me strong for the positive changes that will help me to get to a healthier place.

Yesterday and last night I picked up that horrendous pirate story that I mentioned a short while ago–the one where I named all the characters after people I had in my life at the time. I’ve added more and done some hard tweaking to improve bits of it. I know I quoted a lot verbatim back during its original writing, but some of the dialogue was just so trite and… I don’t even know what the hell!? Stripped from old IRC conversations, that’s what! Man. That alone is reason for amusement! Anyway, some chunks of conversation are MUCH better now. Enough so that I look forward to re-reading those upgraded sections and have been able to add a few more sentences each time. Might be salvageable! There’s another story that is loosely related to it–written a good 5 years earlier (as this first one is now around 19.5 years old…sheesh! No wonder it needs work!!!) and I have already done some work to turn it around. There are some real zingers in the dialogue of that one–lines that I read again and again and just sit back thinking, “Well, damn!!” By that, I mean I actually impressed myself some. No telling if either of these will work up into books. I actually have about half a dozen that will be books, and that’s where my focus should be at the moment. The Open Book, for instance. I finally gave it a glance over this evening, now that Potagerie is done, to see what areas need to be completed. Still not a heck of a lot–which is a relief–and if this cold, windy, rainy–perfect–weather holds through the weekend, I might be able to get into the right frame of mind to plow through at least some of those unfinished places. Now there is a thought that inspires me! At this point, it won’t be done in time for my next event, but before the end of the year. A December book baby…I don’t think I’ve had one of those yet! Maybe even November… Strange as it sounds–and as much as I want to finish it for its own sake of completion–I am really looking forward to it because I am consumed with curiosity over what I will heavily work on next. There’s always something pretty amazing about seeing which muses speak up and for what story/stories.  What adventure will I be taken on next? Where will I go? What things will I discover of my creations that I will never be able to un-discover?? It’s fascinating–you must trust me on that!

Thinking about that has helped me to feel better than I have for the majority of the day. I think that’s a good up-note on which to end this post.