To The Editing-mobile!

 

Help Raven Publish

One thing I can thank my day job for is skill in dealing with “real-world” situations. We are basically predators so, often, interactions that do not involve friends we are comfortable are merely acts of posturing. The rules are: don’t apologize, don’t be completely honest, and, whatever you do, absolutely do not be vulnerable. It sucks…and this is not going to be one of those times for me.

While I’ve mostly given up my habitual need to apologize, I do crave honesty and vulnerability. These are part of the writer’s arsenal. Even in creating the truly fantastic, there is complete honesty. These stories contain our fantasies and, often, our closely held desires. Right now I’m just going to be honest: no fantasy involved.

I hate asking for help. If I don’t receive it then I’m pretty sure people hate me and think I’m nothing more than a leech. If I do receive it than I’m pretty sure (see the previous sentence), or they want something from me that’s awful and will later use this to their advantage because I’ve definitely fallen for the guilt trip before. I realize, rationally, this is rarely true, but I have to deal with anxiety so…brain often does it’s own thing. Sometimes you gotta be scared and do it anyway.

Above is a link to my GoFundMe page. I’m a multi-pronged planner. I am going to continue the search for an agent today, and find more places to submit my manuscript, but I’m also going to try to do this on my own. Did you know there is some chick who makes a living selling stories about fucking T-Rex (please note that ‘fucking’ is being used as a verb not an adjective here)?! It costs to do it on your own though, which leads me to do this scary thing and ask for help. If you feel like it…awesome! If not…that’s cool too.

Thank you for reading.

I Made a Deadline!!!

I turn forty in June. Science has yet to develop a way I might miss this deadline. Well…I could die. Let’s hope not. This is also not the deadline you were looking for (cue Jedi hands).

Forty got me thinking about all those things left I might regret on my death bed: A trip across the pond (the big one…either one…I’m leaning towards Atlantic) and publishing a book.

That’s kind of a short list. Does this mean something?

Anyway, with that in mind I set about making yet another deadline for myself: Finish editing by April 30^th. If I do that I can hand it over to an editor and be prepared to publish in June. This time I didn’t tell anyone. Why torture myself more? I’m not as masochistic as I used to be…or maybe I am. It could have been a strange twisted need….psychological introspection.

The point of this post is its April 20^th and I’m done. So…no more setting deadlines in public. I contacted an editor. I submitted my manuscript to a publishing company that requested it a while back. This is all pretty much a done deal.

I keep vacillating between “meh, whatever” and “OHMYFUCKINGGODDESSWHATAMIDOING?!”  (because anxiety).

If Entangled refuses it (pretty certain they will) I will self publish in July. Why waste however much time on rejection from publishers when I can get it from the whole world all at once. ::grin::  So brace yourselves:

You Can’t Pay For Me

You can pay for my services

My art

My skill

You can pay for my time

My voice

My words

You can pay for a world of things I can do, but

I’m a fucking person and I’m not for sale!

Dark Places

I find myself in dark places

Open worlds and cramped spaces

Fear and lust and sorrow

Dread and hope tomorrow

I search in other faces

I try to walk in their paces

But I lose myself in their lyric

Their ivory towers vampiric

Worshipping painted idols

I see slaves proud of their bridles

I know that I cannot be found

In the grooves of well-traveled ground

To wander is truly the cost

When looking for things that are lost

And in the light I find only traces

But I find myself in dark places

Love

How do I know I love you? You scare me. I could tell you it’s because I would die for you, which I would, but dying‘s easy. If I were dead I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit anymore, and, quite frankly, that doesn’t seem so bad. The reason you scare me is because you make me want to deal with the shit so, maybe, I’ll actually live here, not just exist here. I don’t know if you’ve got demons like mine, but they can be a bitch. So you scare me because you make me want to face my demons so maybe I won’t lose you in their masochistic self destructive frivolity…and that’s real.