“Why is it,” I muttered under my breath, or maybe in that part of my writer’s brain that’s always writing and narrating, “that the boy is so damn good about getting up every day at 6AM for school but can’t get up at 8AM twice a week to volunteer at the local township’s camp?”

The answer, of course, is multi-layered:
1. Mom’s cranky when she has to get him up in the morning
2. He doesn’t care as much about volunteering at the local township’s camp as he does about not missing the bus
3. It’s summer and he wants to be lazy and have zero responsibilities, even though he’s started to work on his Eagle project
4. It’s summer and he’s been staying up late, as is the right and responsibility of every teenager ever. Circadian rhythms and all that.
5. He likes being awakened by a smart-aleck of a mom.
6. It’s two days a week instead of five, and harder to find a rhythm.

But if you strip out those reasons, you’re left without character consistency.

In fiction, this can be taken a few ways:
1. It’s bad writing because characters should be consistent to themselves
2. If this was Young Adult, it’s a Sign! Of a Big Problem! a Tragedy! And the parents must now investigate, but they are bumbling idiots, so it’s up to the younger sibling (usually a girl) who is the main point of view character and who will now save the day.
3. The author is using the lack of character consistency to signal a left turn in the plot and character arc that you didn’t see coming (refer back to #1)

Most of the time, it’s taken as a sign of bad writing, not a flaw in the character. (note: MOST of the time) And a lot of the time (note: A LOT, not all and not most), you can avoid being called a bad writer by taking a bit more time to show what’s going on. The mom who wakes up at 1AM to see the light seeping through the cracks in the door, or hears him talking to his friends via Skype or voice chat or whatever he’s using this week. Maybe you show that the kid needs the interaction with his mom, who’s a lot less cranky two hours later and a heck of a lot funnier or more reasonable (You’d have to ask him how different I am without the pressure of “No, I am NOT schlepping your rear the whole way to school so get moving” and all.) — as always with fiction, there are a million possibilities.

Which means that it’s okay to let your characters be inconsistent from time to time, especially in the early drafting stages. You can revise them into submission later. But, like I’m always encouraging you, push yourself. Stretch. Don’t fall into Reason #2 time and time again. Do you see how many cliches I packed into that one point?

Don’t be a cliche packer. (wow. That sounds… wrong)

Push yourself. Stretch your writerly wings. Once you do, you can either revise and work on crafting it into perfection, or you can revise and edit it out until no one knows you tried.

But you’ll know. And if you’re the kid of writer I know you are, all you who struggle with Inherent Writerly Insecurity, you’ll learn from the experiment. Which means that next time, you’ll be less likely to fail.

Go for it. Character consistency. Character INconsistency — except, it’s not inconsistent. Not when you get done with it.

It’s that time of year again!

Every July, Smashwords has a huge, mega sale. And every July, I enter my books into it.

Go pick them up.

And once you do, since it’s the Smashwords July Sale, take some time to browse. Find some new-to-you authors. Check the discounts on books I’ve featured here or over at The Rock of Pages, THE home of Rock Fiction. Books are available in all formats, so don’t be shy because you think you can only buy from this vendor or this online bookstore or whatever. A Smashwords book will work on your reader.

Once you’ve done that, the next step is the best, simplest one: sit down somewhere comfy and start to read. Grab a beer, a glass of wine, a citronella candle, a poolside lounger… you name it. Have some fun. Don’t like a book? Delete and move on to the next!

But love it or hate it, always remember that one of the best things you can do is to leave a review. At Smashwords, at the retailer you usually get your books from, on a blog, over at a social reading site like GoodReads. After all, we authors aren’t making any money off our free books, and the books that are reduced in price bring a reduced royalty, too.

Reviews help authors in so, so many ways. Even if you say, “This was a great read. Highly recommended.”

But, of course, if you want to write more but are struggling, drop me a line. I’ll tell you what: If you want to work with a real wordsmith and former pro reviewer to leave a review for a book you like, tell me you’re reviewing a book you picked up at the Smashwords July Sale, and I’ll slash my rates. Not down to free, but slashed nonetheless.

Because reviews are that important. And so is helping you learn to craft a good review, and to feel good about what you write.

So. A slew of free books. And a pro helping you say thanks to the authors in the most helpful way possible.

Go have a great July, everyone!

SOMETHING DIFFERENT (The Three Graces Book Two) by Nia Farrell. Starving artist Anna James has sworn off men. Rock gods Jackson and Jacob Thomason just promised her the best sex of her life. Does Anna dare submit to the part-Comanche twins who perform as No Mercy?

Buy links to SOMETHING DIFFERENT (a BSDM MFM ménage rock star erotic romance):

Amazon ➔ https://mybook.to/SomethingDifferent

Barnes and Noble ➔ https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/something-different-nia-farrell/1122718107?ean=2940150808072

Allromance ➔ https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-somethingdifferent-1897500-147.html

BookStrand ➔ https://www.bookstrand.com/something-different-0

Smashwords ➔ https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/581142

Dark Hollows Press ➔ https://www.darkhollowspress.com/#!something-different/c13v4

Today is the twenty-sixth Saturday of 2016. That means it’s exactly six months since I fell off my bike and tried to take out my own eye.

How you noticed how the way I talk about it has changed? From a “catastropic fall off my bike” to “trying to take out my own eye.”

Time heals all wounds, the cliche goes. And my eye is healing. I just got back from a visit to my optometrist, who was able to adjust my prescription down. It’s still honkingly high – that’s what one of those sixes refers to — but it’s better than it was. And for the first time, the optometrist grabbed a prism and took a look inside. He said it looks good. He said that until he looked up to the area of the original tear, he’s seen similar scarring in eyes that haven’t had surgery, eyes that have had worse vision than a minus six. And he said the cataract was almost impossible to look through without dilating my eye. I can’t wait to hear what the surgeon says when I see him in a few weeks.

Way back in February and March, when celebrities and it seemed like everyone else was dropping dead on a daily basis, a lot of my friends were wishing they could have a do-over for 2016.

I get where they are coming from. I feel for their pain. It was a very rough way to start a new year.

But me? Nope. I wouldn’t redo most of the past six months. I wouldn’t reset time and not be on my bike. I wouldn’t stop my handlebar from hitting me. I might have gone directly to the second ER a bit faster, but that’s about the only change I think I’d make — but even that is a hard call, as it was the first ER who called the surgeon who saved my eye. Would the second have done that? Or would they have called someone else, someone who wasn’t as skilled?

I’d let it happen again. I think I’d let it all happen, exactly as it did.

Crazy, huh?

That’s because I had to almost lose my vision in order to see more clearly.

And boy oh boy, do I see more clearly. Like the value of so-called friends and the people who don’t call themselves friends but act like it when the time is right. Like the difference between what’s worth fighting for and what’s worth fighting over. The definition of respect, of healthy relationships, of what it means to be scared and what it means to have faith in yourself. I first noticed this back in March, at my son’s Frisbee tournament, but I am not planted in one spot anymore. I can and do move, and it’s fun and it’s great and I’ve got a right eye full of scars and ripples that may never go away and will always affect my vision and dammit, but I’ve never been happier.

I had to almost lose my vision to find a new freedom.

Six. Six months after that horrible Saturday morning. You can still look at me and see the incision the surgeon made just to the side of my iris. You can still look at the outside corner of my eye and see where it ruptured. You can still see a bloodshot eye that’s not quite as white as its partner. The incision should smooth out. The bloodshot areas may or may not go away and the trauma and steroids may not let my eye ever be totally white again, but frankly, I hope the rupture never lies flat.

I almost lost my eye, not just my vision. I should have a visible reminder of that. You all should see the scars; you all should know what happened, what I’ve overcome. And you all should celebrate with me that we can see those scars, that there is an eye to look at.

On the six-month anniversary, on the twenty-sixth Saturday of the year, the vision in my beat-up right eye is a minus six. It’s an improvement from what it had been.

Six. Six. Six.

I remember being in the hospital the day after it all happened — the fall, the hospital hop, the surgery — and asking the good-looking resident and the cool-as-anything fellow if it was fair to expect to spend the bulk of 2016 dealing with this. It was a fair question: it was the third day of 2016. People are still thinking about the promise of a year ahead at that point.

He couldn’t answer. Or he wouldn’t.

But I knew.

Twenty-six weeks. Six months.

And I wouldn’t change a thing.

“We can make that sappy shit happen ourselves. But how often do you get to take on the bad guys and save the world?”

It’s free everywhere but Amazon (sigh):
Smashwords
B&N
iTunes/iBooks/Apple
Amazon
Kobo
Overdrive
Scribd

You can probably guess where Week 24 found me… among other places. Life has taken a new, fuller swing, although the healing’s not nearly done yet. I’ve got another month to go before the next surgeon’s visit and I’m both on pins and needles to see what his verdict will be — another back-of-the-eye surgery to deal with scar tissue or not — and I’m beyond ready for all of this to be over. I keep reminding myself to be patient, to give myself time to heal, to be gentle with myself.

Being gentle with ourselves is a big one, a reminder most of us need. As writers, we’ve got a double burden: compelling fiction demands we torture our darlings while at the same time, giving them the space to be gentle with themselves.

That’s something I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say when talking about torturing our darlings. We talk about putting them in conflict. Not letting them take the easy way out. Action, action, reaction, reaction, more action.

But without that gentle period, that time to shut down, defenses up, our characters — and ourselves — can’t do the other essential part of fiction (and life): grow.

And without growth, no one’s satisfied. The real-life people become stuck in a rut (often a dangerous one). The fictional ones become frustrating to read about because as readers, one of the elements we seek — albeit unconsciously — is the character growth part of the journey. That’s the part we need in order to make the emotional connection to the characters on the page. That’s what brings them to life.

What made me think of this all night wasn’t my own frustration with my slow healing. It was watching one of the guys at the field last night. One in particular. He’s someone I’ve met, chatted with, someone whose smile makes me swoon. We have mutual friends, of course; the community isn’t nearly that big.

Over the course of this season, I’ve noticed that he’s been stiffer than he had been last summer. Last week, someone pointed out that his physical appearance has gone from being very colorful (and often joyously mismatched, at that) to being scarily monochrome. And when I speak to mutual friends, there’s an undercurrent when they talk about an action this guy took last autumn. Like they don’t approve. Or understand.

I’d like to say it’s the writer in me that’s intrigued by this guy, and until he smiles, it probably is. Where’d this new stiffness come from? Where’d the ease of his movements go, the quick smile, the dancing eyes?

At the game last night, my friends and I were standing in a spot that let me have a good look as he walked past, to and from the locker room. And that’s when I noticed it: he’s not just stiff. He’s shut down, defenses up. Suspicion in his eyes, maybe a bit of anger. Body held tight, shoulders taut, hips stiff. The arms don’t swing the way they had. He’s shut down, defenses up all right. And then some.

He looked like one gentle touch was all it would take to make him completely unravel.

Damn, I’m tempted. To grab him, to find out where his colors went, what it’ll take to bring them back. To remind him that being gentle with yourself is important, it’s vital, it’s how we figure out who we are and where we are headed, although one thing I’ve learned over the past six months is that trying to figure out the why of it all is an exercise in futility. That’s one of those things only hindsight can give us.

Of course, as crazy fun and outrageous as I can be these days — one of the blessings of that damn fall off my bike — reaching out to someone so very shut down isn’t something I’m going to do. Too much of a risk to my own need to be gentle with myself.

So I’ll put it into fiction: mine and that of my clients. Are we letting our characters have the time to shut down, defenses up, until they are ready to emerge from the cocoon, new and (hopefully) improved? Are we giving them the space to make sense, or do we merely let them react, react, react, act, act, act? Sure, sometimes in life and fiction, that’s where growth comes from. Changing the strategy and/or actions taken in order to have success in the penultimate fight.

But a little self-reflection, no matter how plot-driven a story, isn’t always a bad thing.

As for that guy whose smiles make me swoon? Yeah. Now that. That is a bad thing. The unattainable always is.

This one’s for you erotic romance lovers out there!

Unfortunately, it’s only available for you Kindle owners out there. Guess the rest of us don’t matter? Anyway, your link’s embedded there, so make use! Not only of this new one, but the other two in the series, as well.

This was part of an incentive from Rock Star PR, but if you’ve got a teaser of your own, I’d love to run it for you! Instructions can be found here.

Buy link (Amazon worldwide)

Here’s the cover:

(Art & Storyboard for the graphic novel is credited to Wendy Carey. Give Wendy lots of love)

How can you resist???

I’m still waiting on a bunch of clients, who are busy doing hard work before they turn their baby over to me. They need me… just not right now.

Do you need me?

This is a really good time to get a hold of me. Drop a manuscript in my inbox. Send me a sample so that when you’re ready for an edit, you and I are on the same page about who you are, what you need, and how I work.

Summers are always busy, and I’m planning a couple of trips away during August. One’s set and paid for. The other… well, we’ll see. The possibility exists. And that’s not including spontaneous road trips to visit family!

Don’t delay. Best of all, sending me work keeps me out of trouble and we all know what happens around here when I get into trouble…

(Besides, in my first post about the injury, I said I didn’t know if I’d be able to work and was worried about finances. No one was generous enough to set up a Go Fund Me or anything to help, and with the clients who’ve been all, “Oh, I didn’t want to add to your troubles right now” and with medical bills and the general thing called life, things are… lean. Very lean around here. And I hate it and am embarrassed to admit it ’cause dude. I’m successful. I edit best-selling indie authors like India Drummond. India’s picky as hell, so you know I’m good.)

Goodreads

Buy links:
Amazon Kindle
B&N Nook
Kobo
iBooks
Google Play

Got a graphic, or a favorite line from your own book, or a book you love? Send ’em along! Details here.

I turned away a client this week.

It’s not that I’m currently so backed up that I did it in order to get Steve’s manuscript in front of competent eyes faster (if that had been the case, I’d have called in a subcontractor). Truth is that I’m waiting on about four clients to finish up and send their manuscripts along. If anything, I’m a little bored — and we all know that bad things tend to happen when I get bored. Still, if it means a better manuscript from my clients, I’ll gladly wait.

I’d just like to have something more to work on while I wait. Catching up is only interesting for so long. I mean, there’s a reason that stuff slid in the first place!

So then you’re asking why I didn’t take Steve on. I have the time. I need the income. So what’s up?

Well, I could have. I could have been like all those other editors out there who focus on taking money from clients. I would have done a better job by Steve, of course, because I’m good at what I do, but in the end, I decided it wouldn’t be fair to either of us.

Steve wasn’t ready for me. And he didn’t know it yet.

Folks, using friends and colleagues as beta readers and critique partners is valuable stuff. Learning the craft is vital. Yes, I can teach that. Yes, I now offer writing coaching along with pure editing. Yes, I like to work with debut novelists and first-time writers and all that.

So what gives? What made me turn this guy away?

Well, maybe it’s about morals. That I could have taken his money. A LOT of his money. And I could have given this manuscript my all. But… I’d have been miserable for doing it. I’d have spent too long gnashing my teeth and swearing about why I’d taken this on. Or I’d have hoped he would listen to me and take my advice and the next draft — because there would be a next draft — would be better than the first. Markedly better.

But the simple truth is that I wanted Steve to save his money. To find some critique partners, some beta readers. To join writing groups and spend some time learning craft. It’s a step we as writers all need; not even I, when I am writing fiction, operate as an island. I have people I trust to read and be brutal in their assessments. I have an editor. I read articles about writing, talk craft with my friends, listen to what I say to my clients.

Steve… he wasn’t there yet. He needed to go through all that. And so I turned him away.

Working with him at this time wasn’t in his best interests. It sure wasn’t in mine.

Sometimes, it goes like that.

And sometimes, I’m a little less bored and a lot more in love with my chosen career.

Keep doing the hard work, people. I’m ready for you once you have.

Week nineteen. Yep, still counting. I will be until I’m cleared after the final surgery, so count along with me.

Over the weekend, Facebook was kind enough to remind me of this post, the one all about Inherent Writerly Insecurity.

IWI pops up in interesting ways, doesn’t it? As writers, we face it not just in our writing, but in life, too. I am seeing the surgeon this week for a check-up. The appointment isn’t for a week yet, and yet IWI is rearing its ugly head in my life. What if the eye’s not healing right? What if the eye drops aren’t working the way they are supposed to and the pressure is up again? What if the surgeon won’t be able, once I’m fully healed, to give me 20/20 vision when it’s all over? What if, what if, what if, what IF????

Writers do this with our books, too — only sometimes, we dwell on the wrong things. Where we should be dwelling on the What Ifs associated with decisions our characters make, or plot points, or something within the story itself, too often, we look at the external: what if BookBub won’t take my ad? What if that agent says no? What if silence means rejection and they are too polite to say so? What if I publish it and the reviews pan it horribly? What if my publisher drops me?

Look. I’m telling myself this, too, this week. Save the What Ifs for the things you can control. What if Stacy professes her love in the third chapter instead of the thirteenth? What if the drama student chooses a different path to get home? What if her bike tire goes flat a block earlier, before she turned onto the path through the deserted park? What if I mention the yellow flowers here? Will anyone notice later on, when yellow flowers play a role in the plot? And what if they don’t? Will the reader still get a full reading experience?

What if can be your best friend as a writer. It can be your worst enemy, too. While it’s fun to tinker with your plot, you also can’t let the what ifs stop you from finishing the book (and then needing to banish the other what ifs from your life). At some point, you have to love what you’ve got, accept it for its flawed beauty, and move on to the next project, the next manuscript… the next eye appointment with the surgeon.

What if…

What if we only focus on the things we can directly control?

Feel free to keep reminding me of that one. And then apply it to your work-in-progress. What if…

It’s a loaded question, and it’s not one without power. Use that power wisely.

.
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SOMETHING MORE (The Three Graces Book Three) by Nia Farrell. Rachel Givens is supposed to be dead. She has post-rape PTSD and a three-year-old autistic daughter, father unknown. When her former lovers walk into the diner where she works, this single mother learns just how much more she can handle. Nominated for Best BDSM Book of the Year, Ménage Category, 2016 Golden Flogger Awards.

Buy links to SOMETHING MORE (a BSDM MFM ménage secret baby erotic romance):
Amazon  https://mybook.to/SomethingMore
Barnes and Noble  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/something-more-nia-farrell/1122797262?ean=2940151160094
Allromance  https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-somethingmore-1905345-147.html
Smashwords  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/585262
Dark Hollows Press  https://www.darkhollowspress.com/#!something-more/c1clr

Week eighteen has come and gone. Week seventeen since the retinal repair.

And really, there’s not much worth talking about. I’m healing. Dodging Frisbees. Starting to get out on my road bike, although it needs to go in for repair; it seems maybe there’s a problem with the front tire. Probably not a surprise, but until I figure it out, it’s not worth talking about. Yet. Maybe ever. I mean, everyone who owns and rides their bike(s) has problems with their front tire from time to time.

That’s the point of the post today. The mundane. The not worth talking about.

If it’s not worth talking about, why do so many young writers talk about it in their fictional narratives? He stood from the table and walked outside, then down the street to the barn, where his horse was waiting.

Yawn.

I call it play by play when I talk to my clients about it.

Try this instead:
When Stevie didn’t answer, Tom calmly left her house and headed to the barn.

Not only do we have more information here — Stevie didn’t answer, they were in her house — but we have emotion, too. Tom does it calmly.

What Tom doesn’t do is have the narrator spell out each step he takes.

Most writers know not to mention every eye blink, every swallow, every burp or sneeze, and every trip to the bathroom. Only point those things out when they are important: the first eye blink after the overnight, after-surgery bandage comes off, when you’re testing it out to see if the eye still blinks properly – and you’re fluttering it for a few seconds, putting off the ultimate test: how much vision you have.

Not that I’ve ever done that. Twice, in fact.

You see that I am so bored by play by play, I can’t even bear to write about it!

And that’s the problem. It’s boring. It’s mundane. It’s not worth talking about. It’s pedantic.

And I can go on and on about why you shouldn’t do it. I don’t think you need me to; the only thing worse than play by play is when the author beats the horse dead and bloody. That’s for another day, though.

For now, go back to your manuscript. Are there simple, everyday actions that won’t hurt the narrative if they are cut out? Do people stand, turn, look, walk, enter, or exit? Do they do those things often?

If the answer’s yes, start using that backspace and/or delete key. Re-craft your sentences as you need to. Take the time to invest in your word choice, and be sure to vary your word choice, your characters’ actions, and your sentence structures. (Oh, is THAT all?)

And, of course, if you get stuck on a better way to word something, drop me a line. I’m offering coaching for just this sort of issue, and I’m offering it pretty cheap, at $25 an hour. One-on-one work, when you need it, and edited manuscripts back to you within a business day or two. How can you beat it?

Goodreads

Buy links:
Amazon Kindle
B&N Nook
Kobo
iBooks
Google Play

Got a graphic, or a favorite line from your own book, or a book you love? Send ’em along! Details here.

Weeks fifteen and sixteen are behind us now. They’ve been weeks of transformations, if not for me personally — seems that the status quo is holding, and I suppose that’s good — but for the things in my life.

My bike now sports its new handlebar tape. While there’s some pink in the tape, there’s not enough to be confused with what tried to take me out. Mostly, what you see is black. It has changed the look of my bike. Maybe it makes it look as evil as the bike must be, to have attacked the way it did. (although I’m still holding out hope for demon possession or voodoo being the cause.)

It was my first time wrapping handlebars. I think I did okay. I think I’d have done better, except my road bike has this cool feature: a second set of hand brakes up on top of the handlebars. This is super useful when I want to sit upright and don’t need to change gears but want the brakes near to hand. (Go figure someone wants their brakes handy.)

And my furniture has been shifted around, thanks to a birthday gift. The old couch is in the basement, with more to follow. New stuff is arriving in dibs and dabs and hopefully without holes, at least for rounds two and three. Too late for round one.

If you missed it, Women’s Day featured me as one of Ten Real Women Open Up About How They Make Money Working From Home. The link will take you to the page about me, but take a few minutes to look at them all. Interesting group I’m part of. Pretty darn cool.

So what’s all this got to do with writing? This is a #SaysTheEditor post, after all.

Well, just that a few weeks ago, the only change I saw on the horizon was the handlebar tape. When my sister and I ripped the old pink tape off, I knew I wanted new furniture. Knew I needed it. Didn’t expect to have the funds so quickly. (That $60 an hour in the interview sounds good until you look at the reality and how my time is divided up and accounted for!) Didn’t expect to find the furniture on my first real trip to a store. I mean, I was only killing time, gathering intel, learning…

And that’s how transformation affects your writing. When you are open to letting the story (or life) take you where you need to go, where it needs to take you, you find… new possibilities. New horizons. New furniture!

The pantsters — those of us who write by the seat of our pants — are all nodding sagely. We get this. We live it. We open up a document, introduce some characters, and sit back and see where it’ll take us. We’re all about these moments that wind up being story transformations. “But the book wasn’t supposed to be about you, minor character!” we’ll howl and try to fight the minor character who has seized control. But even as we do, we know it’s futile. Our story’s transformed.

But you plotters? (and one of my upcoming books was written to an outline, so maybe I’m one of you now, too?) It’s a harder thing. Plotters have a tighter control on their stories and their characters. At first sign of that minor character and his or her contemplation of a coup, the plotter nudges them back in line. If that doesn’t work, they make promises: behave in this one and the next one’s all about you.

Still not working? They chuck the character to the curb. Figuratively speaking.

This is both good and bad. Plotters sometimes miss the beauty of finding a better story. They miss the shock, the frustration, the process of coming to accept the story’s transformation. Yes, it’s a process. And like most processes, even the familiar ones, it’s a learning experience.

But so is the discipline of sticking to your plot, of staying focused on the story you sat down intending to write. Maybe when you don’t deviate from your outline, the transformations can still happen. They’re just more subtle. The author has to seek them out and maybe they’re not on a big, universal level. Maybe the discovery is in the small stuff, like how the new handlebar tape feels under hands that are still a bit unsteady on this particular bike. Maybe the transformation that happens is just subtle enough to make the author a bit uncertain at first. Like poking a toe into a pond to gauge how cold the water is.

Us pantsters miss out on this part of the writing process. Maybe that lack of discipline actually winds up hurting our attempts to write a strong story. Maybe we miss the subtle stuff.

I’m not sure, so chime in with your experiences in the comments. Pantster? Plotter? What have been your biggest transformations in your fiction?

Fess up. I’m all ears. Relaxing in my new chair-and-a-half, but all ears.

SOMETHING ELSE by Nia Farrell. Three soulmates forge a future from the flames of their pasts in an interracial MMF ménage erotic romance. “It’s part paranormal, part BDSM, part love story, but all good.”

Barnes and Noble ➔ https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/something-else-nia-farrell/1122571287?ean=2940151122504
Amazon ➔ https://mybook.to/SomethingElse
Allromance ➔ https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-somethingelse-1874223-340.html
BookStrand ➔ https://www.bookstrand.com/something-else-mmf
Smashwords ➔ https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/571934
Dark Hollows Press ➔ https://www.darkhollowspress.com/#!something-else/c1tdc

Do you guys like the graphic? The amazing Magnolia Belle made it for me two years ago, and I’m finally getting around to remembering I have it and should be using it! Pick up her books — I am partial to Lady Gwendolyn, although MB also writes some good Rock Fiction — or get in touch with her about graphics for yourself. She’s awesome people, and I’m proud to know her. And I’m proud to use her work.

So, let’s get to business, shall we?

I was at a business meeting last week. It was a good day: The provided lunch was good. The few people I chatted with were all interesting, and one owns a local Mexican restaurant I used to frequent when I first moved out to Chez West of Mars. If you saw the movie Dogma, you’ve been there, too.

I learned some other things, too, some of which we’re going to apply to writing. Ready?

Like I said, lunch was provided for us. Good food, I must say. But… it was a boxed lunch, which means sandwiches, chips, a pickle (in its own plastic wrapper! How cute!), and a brownie. All of which adds up to finger food.

Know what I learned at this business meeting?

I lick my fingers a lot.

I promised this would tie back into writing, right? This is where I do that. Right here, right now, but I’m sure you can guess what I’m going to say. Yes! Character quirks!

Licking one’s fingers sends a message, no? Think about the various ways one can lick fingers: with gusto, with embarrassment, with nonchalance. What does each say about a character? What else does the character do while licking? (Oh, my, Kota, STOP THAT. This is a clean post! In more ways than one!) How does the character convey their licking style via their clothes? Their hobbies? Their friends, their politics, their general outlook on life? Hell, even the way they walk can all be inferred based on how someone licks their fingers.

Yes, you CAN derive all that just from one simple gesture. Think about it. I bet you’ll see I’m right.

In fact, do more than think about it. Take a character you’re working with. Let them lick their fingers. Show me the scene.

Yes, show it to me! Here in the comments. Go on. Post it. Be brave. Have fun, too.

Not a writer? Who cares? What’s stopping you from trying? Try it; you might have fun. And isn’t fun what life is all about?

The Thursday running up to Week Fourteen hit me hard. Really hard. Like: three naps in one day hard.

Healing is like this. It’s tricky stuff, if you think about it.

I’ve had a million and three orthopedic injuries. Usually, by week 14, you’re out of the cast, if there was one, into the brace, and deep into rehab (or, if you’re me, you’ve finally admitted defeat and been to see the doctor). There’s some sort of progress you can measure, be it number of appointments or number of reps, or even pain-free days.

Eye injuries aren’t like that. Not even close. And so, being in the middle of the healing process is that much harder.

It reminds me of the drafting progress, when writing that bad (or sloppy or whatever you’d like to call it) first draft turns into less writing and more slogging through. When all you can do is keep putting foot in front of foot, word in front of word.

This is the time to give yourself permission to do what it takes. Three naps. Write absolute garbage. Write more garbage. Take another nap. Keep on slogging through.

The only way to reach the end is to pass through the middle. It really and truly is.

The good news is that for writers, there’s this magic process called revision, where you can erase all signs of slogging through. This is why writing is a craft, folks. You get to reshape, modify, perfect your words, your ideas, your characterization, your plot points, your tension. You get a do-over, as many as you think you need. And this is a good. Putting in the hard hours, taking a walk to chew over a turn of phrase, changing things, asking, “What if this happens instead?” or “What do you mean that’s Tom who does that, not Harry?”

In this, writing’s got one up on healing. Because when healing, all I can do is take another nap. And while it may be good for the body, it’s hard to quantify in notes to a client, in revisions of my own fiction.

It’s hard, this slogging through. No one said it was easy… but then again, aren’t the best things in life the things you work hardest to obtain?

Take a nap. Write garbage. Keep on slogging through.

With a respectful nod to Seether…

All I really want is something beautiful to say

Most of us grow up with that old sticks and stones maxim. As kids, we like it. It’s our defense against bullies and the mean kids and situations. It gives us a sense of power and a coating of teflon.

I was a kid who needed that teflon.

I was also a kid who grew up to be a wordsmith. I know that words can never hurt me simply isn’t true. Words can hurt. Sometimes, words do hurt.

Take last night, for example. Someone I hadn’t seen since before the accident called across a crowded room, “Hey, where’s your eye patch?”

“There never was one,” I said.

She kept going. I kept repeating the phrase.

She thought she was funny.

I … can’t say as how I agreed.

Keep me dumb, keep me paralyzed
Why try swimming? I’m drowning in fable
You’re not that saint that you externalize
You’re not anything at all

Now, here’s the thing. I had a client who made eye patch jokes… twelve weeks ago. A good friend in Texas who suggested I wear a gorgeous scarf she’d sent me years ago because it would match the patch… twelve weeks ago. Hell, even my mother made a joke about wearing an eye patch… seven weeks ago.

And the first and third were jokes, asked by people who’d checked in with me from time to time before they’d let ’em rip. Lord knows, I’ve made plenty of jokes myself about this whole thing. My favorite still remains the “Just like riding a bike. Oh, wait. We all know what happened last time I rode a bike” that I left on a friend’s Facebook wall after she discovered that after ten or more years, she still remembered how to roller skate.

The second? My friend in Texas? She truly didn’t know. And we had an absolutely fascinating discussion about the elegance and brutality of modern medicine. We theorized why I didn’t have a patch, or what circumstances might have occurred that would have resulted in having one. We talked about it. Yeah, we probably joked, too. I like to joke.

Last night? Wasn’t a joke.

That’s because this woman is someone in my community. She has my phone numbers. She knows where I live. We have shared parties and rituals. We have watched each other’s kids grow up.

She is someone I’d reached out to when the accident first happened, asking if she could help.

I probably don’t need to tell you what she said.

And last night, she was looking at me as I stood near my son. I had my new glasses on. People had been telling me through the evening that they couldn’t tell anything was wrong with my eye until I looked to my left, and then they could see it’s still pretty red, thirteen weeks later. One dad had commented that I’d been a regular at this, our weekly meeting place, and then I’d stopped showing up, and now I was back again. Was I okay? Had something happened?

So I told him the story. That I almost lost my eye. That I shouldn’t have vision.

That I have both.

That I am one lucky woman.

It’s all so playful when you demonize
To spit out the hateful, you’re willing and able
Your words are weapons of the terrified
You’re nothing in my world

And then her. Repeated demands to know where my eye patch was.

In front of my friends, my community.

In front of my son.

Say, “Can you help me?” right before the fall
Take what you can and leave me to the wolves

It’s been over thirteen weeks. I still wake up at night, scared that I’ve lost my vision; this is where the PTSD about the whole thing seems to lurk. Cloudy days are stressful days; when it’s not bright and sunny, my eye feels swollen — even though it’s not — and things are darker. Walking out of a well-lit area (like my family room) into a darkened area (like going up the stairs without turning the hall light on)? It’s like walking into a cave at first. It takes a bit longer to adjust. Zombie apocalypse? I am so toast.

In other words: I have vision, but it’s not perfect. The new glasses, with the lens that’s thicker than you can get your mind around, help.

My vision was perfect enough, though, that I could see this woman, across a room that was becoming more crowded as we drew closer to dismissal time, continue to make jokes. About me. About what I’d been through. She was just doing it softly enough that I couldn’t hear her.

I wanted to ask if she knew I could read her lips.

But I didn’t think she was succeeding in diminshing me at all. Nope. I looked at her, and I thought that I had been through so much in the past thirteen weeks (and three days) — and she didn’t care a whit to check on me once.

I thought that I continue to stop multiple times a day and say a silent thank you for my vision. That I look around and appreciate the way things look. The sharp lines of a tree that hasn’t yet blossomed or opened its buds. An angry storm, snow on the ground, the obnoxious shirt my son thinks is funny that I keep waiting for phone calls from school about. I was grateful when I got up at 4:15 in the morning last week to put my daughter on a bus for a school field trip, and that I didn’t have to sit in a dark living room with her and wait for someone to pitch in, help out, and give her a ride while I stayed home, acutely aware that life was passing by as I sat inside and healed.

And I thought that this woman was too… whatever… to realize the value in any of it.

That yeah, her words were weapons. Except…

They missed the mark.

All I really want is something beautiful to say
To never fade away
I wanna live forever

Funny how much better I’m seeing the world these days, as I wait for my vision to “resolve” (whatever that means; it’s the surgeon’s term) and I switch pairs of glasses depending on what I’m looking at, as the cataract grows and my eye heals and as I learn to live with a new reality, the outcome of which remains anyone’s guess.

Again, thanks to Seether for the amazing lyrics which may or may not fit, but suit my mood and give my roiling emotions a safe outlet. I am amused that the name of their new album is “Isolate and Medicate.”