fiction writing

maybe trying maybe not

Two-ish years ago I got a day job.

The day job isn’t great. It maybe was once, but now it is just where a lawyer and my boss said I was lying, where my union rep told me “you have to be perfect right now”, as if being a short, femme, woman in a male-dominated field that is not already expected of me, where my coworkers treat me like their admin assistant if and when they even remember I exist. Mostly they don’t. Mostly I can be alone.

I have a notebook with a blank page. I have a pencil. But writing is just like work: another way to get rejected.

There are things about me I don’t like, so then others don’t like me either. I write stories that people think are odd, but aren’t odd to me. They are just what I am. People will never love me the way I love them apparently. That’s just the way my brain works now.

Maybe I’ll write some words down on a piece of paper. Maybe it’ll turn into a story. But probably I’ll just end up feeling sorry for myself while laying in bed, annoyed at my coworkers, but, in all reality, actually annoyed at myself.

there were two things I read this weekend

as I feel spilled out.

“I don’t really allow myself to get close to people on an emotional level because my insides are all riddled with maggots, which is very frightening for people to see, especially up close, especially when they are, you know, inside you.”

Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

The Brain is deeper than the sea —
For — hold them — Blue to Blue —
The one the other will absorb —
As Sponges — Buckets — do —

The Brain—is wider than the Sky—, middle stanza, by Emily Dickenson.

Art (The Brain — is wider than the Sky) by Spencer Finch.

Wolf Children found a home!

Wolf Children at Kaleidotrope.

I wrote Wolf Children in what felt like a fever haze in the summer of 2015, but if a haze lasted weeks rather than hours, by taking a set of stories that I thought were unrelated, but then realizing they weren’t.

So it is a weird story, like a dream. But I am a weird person, like a dream’s character. Everything about Wolf Children is its own closed fictional ecosystem. I don’t really feel like living in reality anymore, but I wouldn’t live in Wolf Children for anything, but it’s strangely prescient considering how long ago I wrote it and how relevant it is to the BIG BAD THING I can’t discuss about my job. The world, any world, even the ones I make up, aren’t made for women, especially weird ones. Eldritch ones I suppose. Like Enid too. Just weird women who don’t fit in and feel it every second. This past year, this line from The Little Mermaid:


every step you take will be as if you were treading upon sharp knives, so sharp as to draw blood

I know this line. I live it now.

Photo source — interestingly the file name says it is a female wolf, which, if you’ve read Wolf Children, is fitting.

The Summer the School Burned Down Amigurumi Mascot #7

I’ll put one of the amigurumi’s I’m least happy with with one of the stories I’m most happy with. And why does this story get a syringe? Well — come to my reading on Sunday and find out! The Happiest Place on Earth is one of the stories I’m going to read!

Event info: 7-8.30 this Sunday at the Sackville Commons.

Special Guest: Fellow author Eric Sparling

Door prizes! Books for sale! You can ask me questions not even about anything related to writing. Bring your Calculus homework (I’m great at Calculus).

More info here.

They’re here!

After a week of pricey car repairs and hot water tanks leaking all over my basement floor, I thought to myself “at least my social media manager and I can make an awesome unboxing video when my books come” (and yes, I paid my fourteen year old fifty bucks to be my social media manager).”

Well, that all fails when I assumed the box that showed up at my door yesterday evening was liquid plant nutrients for my indoor garden and not twenty copies of my book.

The cost is $10, but I’m also open to trades/barters, or drop me a message if late-stage capitalism, inflation, and greedy corporations mean you’d like a free copy.

Tomorrow: Amigurumi Mascot #2!

The Summer The School Burned Down Amigurumi Mascot #1

So what’s something I like as much as writing stories? Making cute things!

Fifteen stories in The Summer The School Burned Down = Fifteen amigurumi mascots.

Will this take me a bunch of time to do because I only came up with this idea last week? Yes.

Will these amigurumi-short-story-mascots posts be irregular since some things will take me longer to make. Absolutely.

Are my stories kawaii and adorable? Well, not really. But amigurumi people! AMIGURUMI.

And so, Mascot #1 for the first story in the collection: Breathe.

Kobo

Kindle

Paper