Let's Push a Planet! A Scene from Mind Over All

I'm charging (or more realistically, walking) toward the ending of Mind Over All, the third book in the Mind Over trilogy.  Deryl and Tasmae team up to save their world, Kanaan, and the neighboring world, Barin, from crashing into each other.  For millennia, Tasmae's kind have done this by psychically pushing the other planet away, but that won't work this time for reasons you can read in the book.  Instead, Deryl needs to come up with an alternative.  He'll create a way to direct Tasmae's "push" to guide Barin into a stable orbit.

He didn't just think this up.  Tasmae sends out a physic push, which he interrupts, but not soon enough to keep it from damaging Barin if it hits the planet.  He teleports there and in the heat of crisis, comes up with a plan:

It’s not a gravity pulse, the scientific knowledge Deryl had absorbed on Earth told him.  Otherwise, the effect would have been instantaneous.  It’s a force, a targeted force.  Force can be absorbed, deflected, dispersed…

I’ll make this right, Deryl told Alugiac.  Get out of here.

Despite being on his knees and wheezing, Alugiac argued.  What?  What can you do?

The ground shook, nearly knocking Deryl off his feet.  With instincts acquired from his bond with Tasmae, he reached into Barin and drew the energy of the earthquake.  Rather than sending it elsewhere, however, he pulled it into himself.  His muscles shivered, a strangely pleasant sensation.  The ground below him stilled.  He stifled a laugh Alugiac wouldn’t understand.

Alugiac coughed and wheezed.

You can’t help me, Alugiac, and you can’t help them if you die here.  Trust me and get out of here.

When he had left, Deryl pulled off his shirt, wiped his eyes with it, and tied it around his face, covering his nose and mouth.  It didn’t help much, but enough that he could concentrate. 

Five minutes.

Dispersing was not an option; he didn’t even know how he’d do that.  How long had it taken Tasmae to absorb the energy she then sent on a collision course?  He already felt a little shaky just from what he’d pulled—was still pulling, he realized—from Barin.

Four minutes.

Deflect, it is.  And Barin, if you want to survive, you’re helping me.  Deryl called upon Tasmae’s memories and his own experience with Kanaan and opened his mind to Barin. 

Where Kannan had been furious tyranny, Barin was panicked anarchy.  Ironically, Deryl’s confidence rose.  How many years had he dealt with the anarchy of thoughts impressing upon his mind?  The unorganized sensations of a planet struggling not to be torn apart?  Walk in the park.

Deryl braced his feet, splayed his hand palm downward, and sucked the energy from Barin. 

When Deryl had first been learning to control his abilities, particularly to deal with the legion of impressions coming at him from others around him, Joshua had taught him to shield himself from the mental/emotional aspects.  Over the past year, he’d taught himself to filter those aspects out.  It was energy, all energy, pure and neutral, like food once through the digestive tract.  Now, he applied the same skills to Barin, stripping away the pain of the turmoil, taking the energy into himself, storing it, letting it build.  The tremors under his feet stilled.  The waves crashing against the rocks calmed.  The wind that drove the poisonous air against his makeshift mask quieted.

In response, Deryl’s breathing accelerated, his blood raced, his stomach churned.  Adrenalin coursed through him, making him shake.  He ignored it, pulling further on Barin, reaching into the ground, through the air, and to the ley lines that arched weakly overhead.  A detached part of his mind worked physics problems of angles and forces.

Sheilds?  Ha!  The key to his sanity lay in creating shields—barriers against unwanted thoughts and emotions, clumsily erected until Joshua and his neuro linguistic programming style of psychology had taken him at his word that he was truly psychic and helped him create stronger, more clever shields.  Then again, training on Kanaan, training under Salgoud in anticipation of a Barin attack:  manipulating energy to protect himself, then Tasmae, gradually expanding…

He could do this.  It was just a matter of size and energy.

Get Mind Over Mind and Mind Over Psyche on Amazon.

My Writer's Journey: Slow steps back

Well, after last week's declaration and a burst of energy that took my e-mail level to-do list from 125 to 31, I figured I'd be full steam ahead on writing, but my parents came to visit, which inspired me to do some home improvement projects with them.  We now have doors that make me happy instead of annoyed when I see them, some minor fixes to major appliances, and, of course, Liam's new chair.  We also went shopping, out to dinner, played games, etc.  Overall, a good visit, indeed.

Of course, one of the shopping trips was to get a new dog.  We hadn't intended on looking so soon, but my daughter wanted to volunteer with a pound or rescue, which led to pictures and to phone calls, and on Saturday, we adopted a hound/shepherd mix, Toby.

He's a puppy, so in one sense, he'll be yet another project for me, but will also challenge me to keep my writing at hobby level.  He's also excellent with the kids, always following them around instead of me.  (Sometimes, I had to protect Layla from a kid who wanted to snuggle too much.)

I didn't work on fiction, but I did enjoy writing my blogs this weekend, which was one of the things I had lost enthusiasm for.  Also, I do feel some of my enthusiasm for marketing coming back.  I'd not been able to come up with a book trailer for I Left My Brains in San Francisco, and an e-mail reminded me of the September 1st launch date, so I went looking for music for the trailer.  I came across a really fun calypso/reggae beat by Kevin MacLeod, and lyrics popped into my head.  Now I need someone to sing it!  We're going to make a contest of it, so I'll be working out the details this week.  Stay tuned!

Between dogs and parents, and doctor appointments tossed in, I probably won't get started on writing until next week, but that's okay.  I think I'm back on track.

My writer's journey: Starting Fresh

Last week, I came to the conclusion that I'd make my writing success too high a priority in my life.  God called me to be a wife and mother, and I've let what should (for now at least) be a hobby consume my time and energy beyond what it deserves.  So the question is, what to do now?

Well, many of you probably won't be surprised to learn that my first goal is to cut the clutter.

I have a lot of writing clutter--promises to other writers, reviews to request, follow-ups to pursue, interviews to apply for...  My to-do list last Thursday was 125 items long, some of the tasks nearly a year old.  It's like the closet where you stick stuff in case you need it someday.

So I resolved to do no more writing until I had killed that list fully.  I have read books for endorsements, critiqued stories, followed up on marketing leads, and sent replies to friendly business e-mails that I flagged to do when I had more time. 

I also followed up on submissions that have been sitting on editors' desks.  Mot of these were second follow-ups and had been sitting for six months or more.  I've decided to do a 3-3-3 method from now on:  follow up once in 3 months, a second time 3 months later, and count it a loss at 9 months.  I need to face facts: if my stories were so impressive, they would not languish so long.

I prepped review requests for all my books and have them in the drafts folder to send out one a week.  Once I've cleared the backlog, I can start sending them out as they happen.

I also deleted a lot because they'd been put off too long, or I found with my new attitude that I didn't have the time or energy to pursue them in light of what I figured are the returns.  In the past, I was willing to try a lot of new things; now, I'm going to be more particular.

This was not an easy process.  Sometimes, I shed a few tears when a task would remind me again of how I have not achieved the sales success I'd hoped to.  But with those tears and the accomplishment or deletion of the task, I healed a little.

I'm down to 27 tasks, some of which I cannot handle because they need to be addressed in later months, and some of which are writing opportunities.  My parents are visiting this week, so I'm holding there to hang out with them and do some household tasks.  (Monday, I'll tell you about the chair we reupholstered for Liam.)

My Writer's Journey: Time for a change

Well, it's been a long journey of introspection and soul searching.  I've journaled, talked with friends, done some reading, asked myself hard questions.  In some ways, I don't feel I've made any life-changing conclusions, but perhaps all I needed was a nudge into a new direction.

For those who haven't been following--I took a 6-week vacation from writing and marketing in June, but when we got home in July, I found myself unmotivated to write, even the stuff I wanted to write.  it's not writers' block as most folks think about it.  I had lost the joy of writing, kind of a mid-life writer's crisis, if you will.

As I journaled about my feelings and expectations, I recognized that I was frustrated by my low readership and sales, not so much for the money but for the recognition of a job well done.  I also confronted my feelings about marketing.  And I thought hard about the kind of person I want to be--and what kind of person God expects me to be.

The fact of the matter is,writing is a small part of who I want to be, yet it's taken the biggest part of what I do.  I have an obsessive personality, and I have too often let writing and marketing consume me at the expense of my more "mundane" roles of wife, mother, even housekeeper.  Perhaps if those efforts had paid off in bestsellers, I could justify them.  However, they have not, and my frustration lies in the fact that I've sacrificed in those areas for minimal returns to my writing career. 

As far as God's call for me--I just can't see that He would Call me to write funny SFF with puns, innuendo, and occasional puerile humor.  I don't think He minds; He may even approve--but a Calling?  Even if my books were best sellers, they aren't that significant.

And yet, I had made them too significant. 

So, now I have a better idea of where my writing belongs in my life, and it's not in the forefront as it is right now.  It's going to need a change of focus, of attitude, and of planning.  I'll be exploring that next week.

My Writer's Journey: Tired of Busting Butt. So what now?

*Whine Alert.  Grab some cheese before you read on.*

"Karina, you do great work...but people don't believe it."

I was a first lieutenant in the Air Force when my supervisor told me this.  Twenty-two years old, working hard and apparently producing great work, but nonetheless, for the most part, I did not have the confidence of my chain of command and my coworkers that I could actually do the job--even when the fruits of my labors were there for them to see.

I still remember my first reaction--to get upset.  My second was to ask my commander, "And what are you doing about that?  Because I am doing good work and busting my butt for this organization."  However, the Major was being sincere and seemed frustrated over it, too. Plus, he was a Marine, and you don't whine or demand entitlements of a Marine.  Besides, I was an officer--give me a problem and I'd handle it.  So I said, "Okay, why, and what do I do about it?"

"I don't know," he replied. 

It's 23 years later, and I find myself having the same conversation.

I am a very good writer.  I write tight prose and fast-moving, complex plots.  People love my characters.  My humor can make people laugh out loud in public and even spit out their drinks.  And this isn't me bragging--this is what I get told by folks who have read my work.  My novels and anthologies have won popular and judge-based awards, and have four or more stars on Amazon.  My publishers tell me I'm one of the hardest working marketers they have--and more than one has hired me to teach the basics to their other authors--which I do well.  Even when I've asked for help, I get the same advice I'm already following.

And yet...  My Amazon rankings are low.  My sales are low.  My blog and website hits are low.  I work hard, do the same kind of things other more successful authors do, and even with high-quality work, my books are not thriving. 

Karina, you do great work...but people don't believe it.

When it comes down to it, that's why I'm tired of writing.  I love writing, but I'm tired of working so hard to create great books and to promote them, yet to achieve so little in terms of readership.

I left the active-duty Air Force in 1993 to stay home to raise our first child.  I have to admit, much as I wanted to be a stay-home mom, some of it was because I was tired of working hard and yet not getting the recognition commensurate to my work.  I didn't enjoy the Air Force that much.

However, I love writing.  I've never had such fun or felt such satisfaction as I do when creating and polishing a story.  But I'm tired, tired, tired of busting butt for such small returns.  And it's not even the money, per se.  We're financially well-off; money is a measure of success and readership--though I do feel I should at least get back what I invest.

 So, now I'm back to the question I had asked my commanding officer nearly two decades ago:  "Okay, why, and what do I do about it?"

My Writer's Journey: Taking time to ask WHY

Thanks to all the folks who commented on my blog and Facebook with encouragement, suggestions and kind words.  It seems many of us face this issue at one time or another, so I am going to blog now and again about my thoughts and experiences as I do some self-examination regarding my writing career.

First, some clarification and reassurance:  I am not going to stop writing.  I do love sharing my stories.  And I am not in a crisis of faith, or even a life crisis, nor am I depressed or overstressed.  I have a wonderful marriage, terrific kids who are smart, compassionate and well-behaved, and a comfortable home.  Rob earns a good income.  We're all healthy.  I have wonderful parents, a great sister, and a terrific mom-in-law and sis-in-law.  Plus, I obviously have caring and supportive friends. And true, Rob is deployed for the year, but he's in a safe job and we've done this before; plus technology means we have plenty of contact.  So my feelings about my writing career are probably 25 percent of my feelings about life--significant enough that I need to address them, but not significant that it's ruining my quality of life.  So, while I appreciate all the prayers, please don't worry about me.

That doesn't erase the fact that I do feel discontented, and I need to face those issues head-on.  I wrote Thursday's blog on Tuesday.  Afterward, I found an old journal I never filled, and started using it to record my thoughts.  I start with a page of freewriting, then ask myself a question, many of which I got from reading articles about midlife crisis and career change.  It's actually been an illuminating experience.  Many things, I already knew, but not as clearly; some things I was surprised to learn.  I'm also clarifying my areas of weakness.

In my readings, I came across this:  The young adult asks, "What should I do with my life?"  The midlife adult asks, "Why am I doing this with my life?"  That really speaks to me, because it's not that I don't love what I'm doing.  Writing is what I feel I should be doing with my life (or at least part of it).  But I haven't examined the "why."  Instead, I filled that with goals and expectations, easy answers, and maybe even what others think "success" means. 

"Why" is the Big Question, the end goal.  These past few days, I've been laying the groundwork--thinking about what I love and hate about writing, examining my strengths and weaknesses.  Once I have a better idea of where I stand, I can then determine where I really want to be--not where ego or outside opinion says I should be.

Have you ever stopped to examine "WHY" you do what you do?