Writing Archives : dispatches from the loony bin

2020 Reso-goal-tions

OK, take 2 on getting my shit together…I started this post on January 1st. It is January 10th. I have not finished this post. Let’s see if we can change that, shall we?

Do you like that word? Reso-goal-tions? I made it up ~~today~~ January 1st. I never seem to make pure resolutions, and trend towards goal-setting instead — but in my goals there is some resolve. Thus, reso-goal-tions.

I have a million and one, but I’ll just be talking about my writing and publishing ones here on loony bin.

First, my 2020 Intention. What’s an Intention? It’s some hippy-new-age thing I’m into that I don’t even know how to describe, but it’s what I set before I started doing my resogoaltions.

I created it while writing my last email newsletter of 2019 and shared it right there in the email. It’s based off the oracle card reading I did for the upcoming year for myself and my newsletter subscribers.

(Are you on my newsletter? You should be! I might actually email it this year! And when I do I sometimes draw cards for the list.)

May my writing lead me to greater spiritual insights and wealth, in 2020 and beyond. May I share those insights with others, and in sharing, may my own spiritual wealth and happiness grow.
Katje’s 2020 Writing Intention

I know, sounds hokey, but the truth is, writing is a spiritual calling for me as well as a career. Yes, I want it to make money, but first it needs to feed my soul. Then it can feed my coffee habit.

But, because I’m a crazed Type A, anything that feeds my soul must also have goals and organization attached, and perhaps a little healthy self-competition. Never measure yourself against other people — measure yourself against yourself.

"Never measure yourself against other people — measure yourself against yourself." Click To Tweet

Just don’t go crazy, like I do. Baby steps!

Ok, let’s see what big honking elephant steps I’m about to take this year.

WiP Playlists: Anala

This summer I started work on Anala, third book in The Bellica Trilogy. As with all my other projects, I created a playlist to help inspire me while writing it.

As I don’t really know how to create a listenable playlist for you all online yet, I figured I’d just post the list of songs.

No true spoilers, but seeing the list might give you some good ideas about plot points. OR totally out of left field fan theories. I won’t tell you which is which. 😉

By the way, while the songs are listed in a numbered list, I don’t play them in order. I hit shuffle every time. And the order they’re listed here is random. I just thought numbers would look neater than bullet points.

The Songs

Freiflug, Megaherz
Banshee, Methodic Doubt (this is the opening credits song for the TV show of the same name)
The Sharpest Lives, My Chemical Romance
Not An Addict, K’s Choice
In The House – In A Heartbeat, 28 Days Later Soundtrack
One Last Time, Veruca Salt
The Ghost of You, My Chemical Romance
She’s A Maniac, Michael Sembello
Tango De Los Exilados, Vanessa Mae
Rinse, Vanessa Carlton
Eden (Hooverphonic Enigma Remix), Sarah Brightman
Dig Ophelia, Rasputina
Here With Me, Sarah Brightman
The Show Must Go On, Queen
Conspiracy, Paramore
Estasi Dell Anima, David Sardy (Zombieland Soundtrack)
Easy As Life, Original Broadway Cast of Aida
Waltz for the Moon, Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy VIII OST
Monster, Lady Gaga
My December, Linkin Park
Starting Up, Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy VIII OST
Lithium, Evanescence
Toxic, Britney Spears
So Happy I Could Die, Lady Gaga
Lose Control, Evanescence
The Point of No Return, Phantom of the Opera (film soundtrack)
Nothing Else Matters, Apocalyptica (Metallica cover)
Weight of the World, Evanescence
Rev 22:20, Puscifer
Snow White Queen, Evanescence
I Don’t Care, Apocalyptica
All That I’m Living For, Evanescence

I might add more songs later, as work on the book is ongoing and 2 hours, 8 minutes worth of music might not be enough.

-Katje

Rewolfing the Soul paperback now available for preorder!

Yes, that’s right! Rewolfing the Soul is now available for preorder!

I am SO EXCITED to release this book. I think the poetry in it is some of my best work. And I know, I haven’t been sharing as much as I’d like to Instagram and certainly not to here on this blog, but I have been writing a ton.

So much writing, y’all.

And now it’s almost done. Yep, I have a few more poems to pen/put the finishing touches on, but the manuscript is basically finished…and I got really excited about it and created a preorder page for the paperback.

Rewolfing the Soul is a collection of Millennial poetry. Poetry that speaks to the experience of being a Millennial: trapped in a soul-crushing system that will slowly grind you to dust, and dreaming of a day you can be as wild and free as the last wolves on our planet.

Yep, Millennials are killing poetry now. We’re unstoppable murderers.

Anyway, if Millennials killing poetry seems like it’s up your alley, here are some pre-order details:

Format: trade paperback, printed in Canada.
Shipping: to residents of the US and Canada. Flat rate 5 dollars.
Sold through: Gumroad! Great platform for indie creators.
Price: 20 dollars Canadian.
Perks: comes signed, and with a free “Rewolf Your Soul” sticker.
Print run: 50 copies.

But wait! There’s more!

I would LOVE to do free shipping, but I live in Canada, and am beholden to the whims of the cruel and capricious god Canada Post. However, people who pledge at my Patreon WILL get a discount on the book that will basically amount to free shipping…and if you pledge before July 30th (NINE DAYS FROM NOW, WHAT), you’ll get your name in the book too.

Let me repeat that: I will be thanking Patrons from my Patreon on a special page in the book. Pledge before July 30th at a dollar a month or more, and you’ll be part of that.

(Why the deadline? Book production! I need files finalized well before the publish date. 2 weeks is honestly pushing it, but it’s my own fault for being so behind on things.)

Speaking of being behind…I started writing this post on Saturday the 20th and now it’s Sunday the 21st. I guess I should finish up and post it, eh?

The preorder info is below the cut (along with some pre-written tweets if you want to help spread the word). It goes through Gumroad so don’t worry about the fact that my site is not (yet) https — Gumroad is secure. Your info will be safe.

2019 Micropoems, January through March

I’ve been posting micropoems on Instagram, Ello, Patreon and Pinterest this year. I did have a thing set up where they would instantly cross-post here, too, but it broke a lot of the time and just didn’t work the way I wanted.

So I figured I’d gather up the posts from the last 3 months and put them in one post. And then I’ll do that again in a little while when I have more posted.

Side note, all these poems are going into a book called Rewolfing the Soul. I’ll be working on that for April Camp Nanowrimo. More details about that — including a cover and release date — later.

This post is picture-heavy, so I’ve put the images behind a cut. The poems are more or less in chronological order; one or two may be switched around because I didn’t double check the order I posted them before making this post.

-Katje

micropoem: sunset

“let me sink into the lake,

fold myself into the sunset,

become nothing

and everything

all at once.

let me flee this adult life

before it finishes devouring

what’s left of my soul.”⠀
.⠀
via Instagram http://bit.ly/2Rini81

Welcome 2019: Goals and Thoughts

To start: I’m not totally sold on this new WordPress editor. I know when it came out people were PISSED about it, and honestly, I can see why. On the other hand, it has some cool features. ~~What I’m really not pleased about is the apparent disappearance of the word count function — or maybe it’s somewhere here and I just can’t find it yet.~~ EDIT: I found it. It’s…yeah, okay, I don’t like where it is now. You have to click a button to see it instead of it just being at the base of your editing window.

To continue: Happy New Year! I hope you had a great New Year’s Eve and Day and that you stayed safe and warm. On New Year’s Eve I went and got a CT scan, which was a terrifying experience as I’m claustrophobic. However, it will hopefully show if my spinal injury has deteriorated or not. (OK, seriously WordPress? You fucked up adding links? Jesus.)

Anyway, as I’ve thrown out my back three times in the past year, I think it’s time to see what’s going on back there and possibly get a referral to a neurologist. I was super lucky to get a CT scan before the end of the year, and going in and getting it was actually very fast. So I’m not displeased.

2019 is the year of feeling less crappy. #spoonielife Click To Tweet

I have decided that 2019 is going to be the year I get my health back. Or, more accurately, the year I stop feeling like 100% crap all the damn time. Living with a spinal injury and acid reflux and all manner of chronic crap as well as mental illness means that I basically always feel like shit, and I’m tired of it, because there are small interventions I can do to lessen that feeling like shit thing.

2019 is also the year of better communication and finishing up projects! It’s the last year in this decade, the 2010s, so I want to get some stuff DONE, you know? I also want to communicate better — by which I mean, actually send out newsletters on a regular basis and blog more. Also maybe get a keyboard that can keep up with me so I’m not having to correct for missing letters every FIVE SECONDS, LAPTOP, I’M TALKING TO YOU.

So anyway, I’ve got some goals. Some writing goals. (I have other goals too but maybe one set of goals per post, or this will be waaaay too long.)

Just finished my 4th novel, nbd.

One of my goals for 2018 was to finish #FromTheAshes, book 2 in #TheBorderlandsSaga. Well, last night, I did just that. Talk about getting it in at the last second! I am SO HAPPY it’s done, and so excited to revise it while I’m writing book 3, #TheMoonrunner. I’m hopeful book 3 is a faster write than book 2 was, haha. Here’s to 2019 being the year I get both these books out! #writersofinstagram #authorsofinstagram #amwriting #amwritingfantasy #fb #instaloon #lesbianwerewolvesinspace via Instagram http://bit.ly/2SwEq6j

2018 End of Year Reflection

This month I realized I hadn’t posted here since July, and didn’t want to end 2018 on that note. So, an EOY reflection…and I would say an explanation of where I’ve been, but if you’ve been reading this blog for any period of time you know I tend to drop off the face of the earth for long periods.

I try not to do this, and I am working on it. But I think I also need to admit that perhaps my regular schedule is flurries of activity followed by periods of silence.

What even is blogging?

Obviously, I have no idea.

My last post here was Valentine’s Day. That’s ridiculous. Granted, this time I actually have an excuse: school did kind of eat my face.

It was all worth it, though! Check out these puppies:

If you can’t see the image, it’s a list of all the classes I took and my final grade in each of them. A+ across the board. I SLAYED this semester. I AM THE LIZARD KING

And then I slept for the past three weeks, basically. I have really just been sleeping for most of this entire time. Sleeping and watching movies with my husband because we now have access to a bunch of movies on demand.

Now I’m arising from my sleep like a leviathan from the depths of the ocean and looking at summer like the tasty morsel it is. It’s time to get some shit done. I need to get my tits up and ACCOMPLISH STUFF.

A photo of a post-it note on a wall. The note reads "GET YOUR TITS UP," which is a quote from BAD MOMS. — This is an actual photo of the wall above my desk. It’s super motivating.

(Side note, if you haven’t seen Bad Moms, it is a really funny film and I highly recommend it.)

Things I want to accomplish this summer include:

◆ Clean my freaking house so I actually have a place to do homework come Fall.
◆ Finish all my current WIPs and hopefully another book. (What am I CRAZY?)
◆ Read a LOT.
◆ Give my mom a really excellent 70th birthday. It’s a BIG ONE!
◆ Have a nice birthday myself.
◆ Cuddle Lord Tyee the wundermutt.
◆ Get ahead in my Medical Terminology book in preparation for next semester. (halp)
◆ Be more active here and at my other blogs. Mostly here, though. And, like…with a purpose.

Honestly, no idea if I’ll accomplish all this stuff, but I’m hopeful. At any rate, the last one I’m going to be starting with next week. I’m going to try to actually blog here on a regular basis, on actual topics that I know a little about. I hope that these posts I’m going to write are helpful and informative and entertaining for you all.

There, of course, will still be the regular “omg what am I even doing with my life” type posts, but hopefully those won’t be the ONLY thing that happens because they tend to happen once every few months. I’d like blogging here to be a weekly thing, eventually. However, it might start out as every other week, until I can get more into the habit.

Anyway, that’s all the news that’s fit to print DEAR GODS I HAVE TO STOP USING THAT PHRASE, TALK ABOUT DATING MYSELF.

*cough*

I’m going to sign off now, and work on some more writing. As a reminder, if you want to be first to know when From the Ashes is done, sign up for Loony Nation. If you want to be second to know, join my Patreon. If you want to be third to know, join my reader’s group on Facebook. And if you just want to find out with the rest of the world, just…keep doing what you’re doing, I guess? I mean you’re reading this post, so I assume you’re following me online somewhere.

See you all next week! Have a great weekend, and happy mother’s day. Unless mother’s day is a shitty day for you, in which case I’m sorry for reminding you about it. *offers hugs and cookies*

~Katje

2018 So Far (pretty good, with a side of “Fuck you Student Loans”)

I don’t know about you but my 2018 so far has been pretty awesome. Well, I say awesome. I mean, it’s been good.

I’ve started doing that Year in Pixels thing — I wasn’t even going to, but the planner I bought and put into my binder had it already laid out on a page so I was like, hey, why not — and I’ve decided that when deciding if a day was good or not, I’m not going to let the 5 shitty minutes color my view of the entire day. I am committing to being relentlessly positive about life, on top of very ambitious and driven. So I’ve had mostly good or great days this year, with the exception of a row of “so-so” days when I was down with the sickness (OH-WAH-AH-AH-AH).

'I'm not going to let 5 shitty minutes color my view of the entire day.' Click To Tweet

Also with the exception of a couple of bad days, courtesy of Student Loans.

Some background: Student Loans now does things through an online dashboard. You apply there and get info about your loans there. Since sending off my declarations on the 4th I have checked my dashboard relentlessly for news. They didn’t get my declarations until the 11th, and then didn’t update my page for another several days, and THEN last Sunday they told me my total funding was $1,293.

Cue heart attack.

Continue reading “2018 So Far (pretty good, with a side of “Fuck you Student Loans”)”