On Invasive Thoughts

When I was diagnosed with fibro, a lot of things didn’t make sense, but some things did. Some things made less sense than before, since I thought I’d had them figured out. And some of them made more sense, with the understanding of my disease.

One of the things that made more sense was my thoughts.

Now, I’ve never had thoughts of killing myself, and even at my worst, on medication we learned exacerbated my depression, I never have. But my brain does ask some of the strangest questions unexpectedly, like:

What would happen if my car drove off a cliff?

What would happen if this saw jumped back at snagged me?

How bad can it really hurt to break an arm?

All of these are questions I don’t actually need to know the answers to. I’m old enough to divine the answers based off past experiences, and I have no desire or need to hurt myself. But the thoughts, inexplicably, were there. They came as quick as they would go, often in moments where there was no contextual reason for them to be popping up.

Chronic pain numbs you to other types of injury, in a way. Your new normal becomes constantly hurting, and there’s no way to mend it. Having a name for fibro didn’t make it easier to deal with, but it made it easier to understand; naming your demons makes them controllable, so to speak. I began to understand that my body was reminding me that it hurts, in loud, cohesive thoughts. A worse injury couldn’t possibly hurt more, could it?

But more than that, I knew it wasn’t something to ignore. I would acknowledge the thoughts and follow them to their conclusion mentally. If my car went over a cliff, depending on how far down and what obstacles it met on the way, X could happen, or Y. Talking to my subconscious was a useful tool before, and it became so whenever my mind would be assaulted by intrusive thoughts.

Well, I say intrusive thoughts, but they actually have another name. Stray thoughts. Only we call them differently, because stray thoughts are usually not detrimental to life or limb if you act on them. They don’t cause anxiety.

I’m anxious enough without extra thoughts adding to it. But I’m also a writer. I can’t shy away from it, but I can use it.

And why not? I’ve been using anxiety my whole life for one thing or another. If you’ve ever written a paper under the stress caused by last minute panic then so have you.

So I talk to myself, whenever these thoughts press in. I puzzle out information and tease together ideas. None of them are good. But in writing, sometimes you have to break a few characters before you can write a good story.

Fibro doesn’t make sense of why invasive thoughts bombard me. It doesn’t help me understand them. But even if I’m wrong about what is causing them, that’s what I’m going to continue to believe until I find a better working theory:

I’m in pain, and my body is trying to talk to me.

–Natasha

Writing Tip: Scribble

I keep a sheet of paper in my lunchbox.

I learned during my stint at Mordor that having one is important, not just for work-related things. (Protip: when working at a warehouse, keep a pen and paper handy. If the line goes down, if work gets scarce, if something happens at all, write down the time it happened, and when it stopped. Trust me: you’ll want that when the numbers start to scream at the bosses.)

Here’s the thing: writing ideas hit you most at the moments when you literally are not in a position to write them down. Falling asleep, in the shower, on the pot– at work, when you’re shoulder-deep in canned biscuits, in a fridge with half-frozen fingers and a back that is screaming at you, and your brain goes, ah, this would be a pretty excellent thing to write about. What a shame it would be to forget it before you get home.

So scribble. A lot. I try to hold onto that idea long enough for break or lunch to roll around and I can jot something quick down. Sometimes it clicks along enough for a short paragraph, and sometimes I only have a few moments to do the rough notation and any characters that might have been relevant. Sometimes I still manage to forget it before I get to the break room.

But when I have the free time, after, I can look at my paper and go, oh, I have a note here, this would make a really good story, let’s try it.

I do it with curious things, too. Sometimes there’s a new channel or a documentary on the TV, and they’ll drop an interesting tidbit somewhere that I just have to go research. Like samphire, which I learned about during a lunch break wherein a documentary about Venetian Glassblowing was on. It burns clean, or clean enough, and was a huge step forward in the advent of clear glass.

Progress!

So scribble. Anything that catches your eye, piques your interest, or even just happens to come across your mind. If you don’t have a chance to write right now, mark it down anyway and come back to it later. You’ll never know what good it can do.

–Natasha

Writing Tip: Be Envious

Let me explain before you get the wrong idea.

A lot of people think Envy is a dangerous emotion, a terrible thing. For them, they’re right. These people don’t know how to use Envy to better themselves. But it can be a positive emotion; you can use envy to say I want that, what do I have to do to get that too?

I do this a lot, with writing. I surround myself with writers and writing which I adore and which I would love to match in skill level; I envy my sisters, who are writers, and who have a writing skill I will never be able to match. Part of this is because their writing voice is not my writing voice, and my writing voice can never match their own without betraying me and my writing. But I envy them still. I am constantly pushing myself to try and meet them, even though I know it to be a ridiculous and unattainable level.

I find excellent fiction and books which I value the prose because of the way it’s written, because of the authors who write it. I value and strive to match what I read from them, even though I know, that, too, is unattainable.

It’s my sisters, though, who I see works in-progress and polished. I see the progression from nothing to what’s released. I see the way they remove or work around unnecessary words, how they handle typos, how they trim and proof. I envy them. My envy is functionally unnecessary, but I envy them anyway.

I strive to be better than I am. To be good enough, to hold enough value in my own self-worth to think I might be on their level one day.

I will never be, because their voice is not mine. But I want to be. So I am constantly working for that goal, which changes every moment that passes, further and further beyond.

Perhaps Envy wont work for you. But maybe it will.

–Natasha

Writing: Typos

I’m a writer. I love to write, and nothing brings me more pleasure about it than sharing my work with others who are apt to enjoy it and understanding how those readers interpret my work. If it makes them laugh, if it inspires them, if it brings them to tears… I thrive off knowing how it connected with them.

“But PT, what’s that got to do with typos?”

I’m getting there. First, let’s talk about what a typo isn’t, and what it is.

A typo isn’t a ruination of all things. It isn’t going to cause the world to end, unless that typo is in a line of code that controls the nuclear program. It’s unlikely to cause any death, disease, destruction. A typo doesn’t ruin a literary work.

What is a typo?

A typo is what happens when your brain perceives a letter it doesn’t think is supposed to be there.

Let’s use some examples.

• The fyood in the cafeteria was amazing.
• The food in the cafeteria was amazing.

 

• I enjoyed my chocolate.
• I enjoyed my chocolatte.

 

• Being dead did not stop him.
• Being deaf did not stop him.
• Being mead did not stop him.

 

• I was writing the essay.
• I was writing the ese.
• I was riting the ese.
• I was riting the essay.
• I was righting the ese.
• I was righting the essay.

 

• The affect was amazing.
• The effect was amazing.

All of these, somehow, some way, are typos. But which ones?

Here is the truth: all of these are typos.

Here is another truth: none of these are typos.

But your brain thought there was one, I bet.

But why are none of these typos? Well, for starters, none of them are typos because I wrote them deliberately. But also none of them are typos because they change how the sentence is read, and because of that, they cannot be a typo. Unless your brain is reading a sentence other than the one is written, and it’s coming up with “but that word doesn’t make sense in that sentence.”

You might be wondering about typos that don’t make other wrods. (That, is, in fact, an actual typo, and I’m going to leave it there because it’s relevant to the discussion.)

Honestly, for me, they create all sorts of words despite not being officially words. I keep a ledger of the ones I like the most, since I’m also working on a variety of conlang for my work. Very little not-word typos make it into anything I’m publishing, and that’s true for a large number of writers, both those who write original fiction and those who don’t.

A typo isn’t the end of the world. A typo is a way to make the world better, if only you have the heart to apply it.

NaNoWriMo: Fri 17th, 2017

Take a breather. Five minutes. Get up, stretch your legs, take your eyes away from your screen or paper. Take a walk in the woods. Play with a ball of string. Get something to eat.

NaNoWriMo is a taxing time. It’s stressful. We’re attached to our writing utensils and we can’t part ways for long. But honestly, we really have to do that, once in a while. But taking our breaks is important. It lets our minds rest, distracts us for a few minutes. But the thing is, we’re very rarely actually not progressing forward. I’ve taken time to catch a breather and my brain has pieced together parts that I was struggling with, despite doing a completely unrelated thing.

Sometimes our brains can make logic leaps when we’re paying attention to it… and sometimes it only makes those connections when we’re not actively focusing on it anymore.

I know it seems like we have to hammer away hard at what we’re working on, and that we can’t do anything else. But between NaNo and our responsibilities– housework, actual work, chores and remembering to eat and sleep– there doesn’t seem to be a lot of time left just to take a wedge out for ourselves. And we really need that. The human mind isn’t designed to focus hard-wire on one thing without distraction. Single-mindedness is great for short term and drive, but after a few weeks you really just need to take your moment.

Take your moment. Look after yourself. Let your brain have an moment off, to do nothing except rest. Maybe you’ll thank it for the help.

–Natasha

Wordcount: 31,898/50,000

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NaNoWriMo: Fri 10th, 2017

About this time last year, I had some truly awful breakups. And at least one of them was caused by speaking different languages.

I don’t mean English versus French or anything like that. I mean, the words we use don’t quite mean the same thing to the pair of us. I’ve talked about the phenomenon before, but never for NaNo, I think.

Last year was hectic for everybody. It was a difficult time, especially for hermits who don’t get out much, and I won’t rehash what went on in the world at the time. There was distance between my friend and I– and maybe it was on me, maybe it was on them, it doesn’t matter. But when everything came to a head, the distance had cost us our understanding of one another’s nuances. Or perhaps we had never truly known them. But I said what I meant, and they said what they meant, and both of us heard what those words meant to us, which wasn’t either of us had quite meant, I think.

That’s going to happen to characters, too. Especially those who don’t know each other well, or come from different walks of life. Of course, on the other hand, there’s always going to be those characters who just know one another. They know every little twitch and nuance of their partner, they can practically read one another’s thoughts. They don’t have to have words, anymore, to know what would have been said and follow through with the words that weren’t.

Drift compatible, anybody? You’d be surprised how often that happens in real life.

Maybe you have characters like the first set, or maybe you have characters like the second. Both are super fun to write and even more fun to read. But everybody isn’t going to go without having errors all of the time, and those errors might help boost your word count and enhance your story rather magnificently. Can’t hurt to try it, right?

–Natasha

Wordcount: 11,246/50,000

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NaNoWriMo: Fri 3rd, 2017

We’re three days into the biggest writing ‘fest of the year, and it’s kind of a nightmare already. But one of those awesome nightmares; it’s hard, it’s grueling, but it’s so, so worth it, just you wait.

One of the things that is hard for me, especially in the month of November, is time.

Now, time is a nebulous concept, but I get paid by the hour to whittle away at it. Some days it takes forever and a half to get through my work schedule, and some days it’s like it’s gone in the blink of an eye. Some days I have a whole wealth of energy, and some days I just can’t barely move. (Ironically, on the days of the second, it almost seems like I get more work done.)

Time is something we all likely find tricky in November. It’s the holiday season, just after Halloween, coming through the crunch for Thanksgiving, ready to steamroll on through Christmas and New Years. A lot of us are home, preparing for all of this nonsense; family dinners, gifts, end of the year bills, trying to figure out how to wrap everything up for Tax Time next year.

(I need a filing cabinet.)

How do you find time to write in all of that?

I cheat. I cheat like a boss. I have scrap papers everywhere, in every pocket, I carry a pen in my hair to scribble with. I inch out spare moments in the lulls between work, I write ferociously on breaks and lunch, and I subsist on nearly nothing but sugar and water throughout the month. Sleep? Sleep is for the weak. Writers don’t need that.

(Pro tip: yes we do.)

Some days, you’ll find time to write. It’ll just happen. Some days– like most of mine, because adulting is hard– you have to sink your teeth into it and not let go until you’re ready. Real life doesn’t always accommodate you, but you would be amazed at the measure of words you can get if you train yourself to quickly scribble down a few half-dozen lines during your luncheon. You don’t have to horrifically neglect real life and responsibilities for it.

And if you can, try to write more on the days you have the time, so you can get away with a little less on the days where you just can’t snag more than a handful of moments.

I know not hitting the goal isn’t the end of the world… but we wouldn’t all be here if we weren’t hoping to hit it.

–Natasha

Wordcount: 2,247/50,000

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NaNo Camp July, Friday 21st (2017)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: be kind to yourself, especially during something like NaNoWriMo. Did you remember to drink water? No? Take a few swallows. I need to do that right now myself. Did you rest well? If you’re caught up on your words, take a breather– you don’t have to sleep, but taking five or ten minutes away from the computer or journal you’re working with can do loads of wonders.

Not completing NaNo isn’t the end of the world. And NaNo isn’t over yet, anyway. Pace yourself, but don’t burn yourself out. Procrastinate when you have to. Take breathers. Remember to give your eyes a rest– reading, and by proxy writing, stresses the eyes.

And don’t forget: Every word you have written is a victory on its own, one word you didn’t have before.

–Natasha

NaNoGoal: 17,753/20,000

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NaNo Camp July, Friday 14th (2017)

I went to a private school as a girl. It wasn’t a large school, only a couple of students, but it was legalized and I have a copy of the Board of Education’s recognition of it as such.

But despite not being a large school, it had all the trimmings. We had a School Mascot (the Mustang), we had school colors (black, maroon, navy), a school flower (the magnolia). We had regular classes, or what I assume is regular because it was normal for us. We had our subjects and the tests for those, book reports and writing classes, schedules for tutoring, though we didn’t call it tutoring, of course..

We had very few sick days because there were so few of us, so it wasn’t like the flu came in waves or anything. We never had to deal with a lice scare, and we had both inside lessons and outdoor lessons. I learned how to balance a checkbook, how to build an animal pen, how to make a quilt; complex mathematics, base sciences, human history. When we were done with class for the day, we were cut loose and left to our own devices. We had our field trips– one time, we went to an auction in another state. I saw a zebra in real life.

During the summer, the local public school had a type of summer schooling, which any child that lived in the area could attend. I only went one year due to the difficulties caused by it, but it provided me with more than enough social interaction for several lifetimes. Those of my school were outliers  to those of public school; they did not take kindly of us, and we fit in none of their pre-established dynamics.

Our school didn’t have dances. I went to one at the public school, invited by a young ma’am who attended, and I had one dance with a young man who also had no date. I bristled at a lot of people. It was strange. Not really a dance, not really a party, just… a bunch of awkward not-yet-teenagers. Three teachers tried to get me to change schools, further making it more awkward.

When I graduated, I spent the next year or so trying to figure out how to test for the GED. Some businesses counted my diploma as sufficient schooling, but a lot of them called private schools as fake, accepting only diplomas from the local public schools. No college in the area would accept it at all, since my school hadn’t been required to do standardized testing and we didn’t have GPAs. The Adult Education Center gave me the run-around on GED testing, asking “why was my primary schooling not sufficient?”

We never got Letterman jackets (a fact which I hope to rectify, eventually) and we never got high-school rings.

I remember all of these things when I write a character. The character’s history matters. From where they were born to where they went to school to the school colors and school pride they carry. Sometimes it’s just a token, a throw-back to way back when, but the little details are important too. Even if we never use them in story, it’s nice to know a little extra color about your cast.

–Natasha

NaNoGoal: 13,706/30,000

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NaNo Camp July, Friday 7th (2017)

One of the most important things to do in Camp NaNoWriMo is set a reasonable goal for yourself.

I, uh, may not have done that this July.

In my defense, I told someone I’d do Camp July back in the beginning of June, and I decided way back then that I’d do a 30k count, completely ignoring how tight the month in question was going to be, between three jobs and trying to balance the rest of real life. One of those jobs, the full-time non-negotiable one which shall not be named, is having a bit of a do and thus requires me to work extra time than I normally would this month.

I do kind of need the money… but it means less time writing, and more time tired. It’s also the middle of summer, and I do want to enjoy the summer. Plus I have the summer harvest (raspberries and blackberries are both a thing right now) and a whole mess of kittens. Some of them need more TLC than I’ve been able to give them while being away at work, so my free days are often spent doing that.

That’s a bit working against me. Both my other paid jobs are more flexible, since I’m a subcontractor and I take the work I want to, but I really can’t neglect them even though they only truly make me pocket change. I could put them down for a bit if I wanted to, but then I have a bad habit of not picking them up again for a while.

I swear I did consider dropping my count to a measly 15k throughout the month of June. I just couldn’t get myself talked into it, though. Go figure. So here I am, in July, crawling my way to 30k. I don’t know if I’ll try to stretch beyond it. That’s a thing to cross when I get to that bridge.

Set yourself a reasonable goal. Be stubborn about it. When you break through it, set yourself another.

I believe in you.

–Natasha

NaNo Goals: 7,109/30,000

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