longer stories

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.

kind words

Someone sent me a bevy of kind words about Enid on the weekend, and so I said to myself Meghan, says I, You should use your blog for more than complaining about how no one will publish you because that is depressing. Also, maybe you should fix up your blog a bit because you put a filler template on a few months ago and then wandered off to play video games and do your paid job for a bit.

Well, my paid work is coming to an end and maybe I should do some more stuff here. Like most people, COVID burned through me quickly, then some illness issues (non-COVID) with family, then paid employment (non-writing) took up the rest of my time. My brain isn’t even mush. It’s whatever is after mush, which I guess is fungus? Mold? Dust? Maybe just a rattling sound?

I did start a screed a month-or-so ago. Basically I started writing down everything that I hate in this dimension, and what I might possibly hate in other dimensions. The screed is quite sour and made-up, but no one will believe it is made-up and I’ll get those comments again (such as with Enid, when a famous Canadian writer/radio-personality asked me “Where did you do your research?” so I told her it is a book about faeries; I made that shit up. Then there was a long pause and I couldn’t tell which one of us was less attached to reality) about how I make people I know feel bad because everyone assumes everything I write is about them.

When I get to one hundred and sixty pages in my screed, I am going to wrap it up, call it a novella, and move on. But move on to what?

  • Enid 2? I mean, Amber is still stuck in faerie land and there are lots of loose ends. I do have an Enid 2 kicking about, unfinished, but it was weird, even for me.
  • Dutch WWII story? Except I’m still not good enough to write a story about a massive traumatic event without exploiting the event for cheap emotion.
  • New blog layout? I used to spend hours trying to perfect the best blog layout. Now, I click the default WordPress theme and leave it for three or four years.

Ten years ago, I was going to be a writer. Today, I am pleased with myself for remembering to eat. I went through at least one depressive episode (surprisingly before COVID) and have been just dealing with COVID-stay-afloating for the past two plus years. Another author I know talks a lot about how art is necessary for making sense of overwhelming events, but I’m not sure what I create is meant for that. Also, I’m not creating.

Blog layout may change over the next few days as I try to get back on the creating track. Or I might just go by some TSP degreaser and pretend that if I’m cleaning at least I’m not as useless as I likely actually am.

My first reading for Enid Strange!

Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/435928826878056/?notif_t=plan_user_associated&notif_id=1527523820264286

I’ll be reading from my new book on June 8 at 4pm at Cranewood on Main in Sackville, NB. This event is free and kid-friendly. If you’re nearby, come get a sneak-peak before release of Enid!

Also, for no reason, this song has been in my head for the past few days:

finished typing

As per my previous post, I finished the last little bit of typing. I’d feel accomplished if I’d stopped handwriting this story at an ending point, but I just arbitrarily stopped and decided now was time to type up what I had, so I have some fraction of a story typed up in which I have no ending and no clue how much longer it’s going to be, and that just seems like a little bit of a waste of time this Friday when I could have been watching Netflix and eating Nutella.