<![CDATA[DREAMWRITER.EARTH - Writing Blog]]>

<![CDATA[DREAMWRITER.EARTH - Writing Blog]]>Mon, 05 Oct 2026 18:08:40 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[The Magnificent Little Chaos Goblin]]>Sat, 13 Jun 2026 22:29:28 GMThttps://www.dreamwriter.earth/writing-blog/the-magnificent-chaos-goblinI watched this video this morning, and it inspired ye olde noodle to begin processing thoughts unrelated to the book I'm trying to write. I actually had to pause on my novel to write this blog post.

The guy's name in this video is Joseph Ferris, and he goes by the social media ID of BUPC. His tagline is as follows: B.U.P.C. (Boopsy). The original Big Ugly Piece of Crap! Gen X Poet with sarcasm, shenanigans, and chicanery. I've linked his social media pages to the left.

That idea got me thinking about my writing and my characters, because of course it did. I write stories that I like to read. I create characters that I’d enjoy having as a friend in my life. Of course, I have to create antagonists as well as good guys, but even the bad guys have something about them that I think is worth hearing.

I tend to get really excited about things that I’m passionate about. I'm vocally expressive and use animated hand gestures when I read out loud. I used to read bedtime stories to my daughter when she was younger, and she’d once said to me that I could read an instruction manual and make it entertaining. How much of that is my silly naïve outlook on the world and how much is genuine passion for sharing stories, the world may never know. Maybe it’s a little of both, but I truly believe that we need stories. As the little saying goes, we need the fantasy to survive the reality because reality is pretty depressing.

"In the sublime war of man against reality, man had but one weapon: the imagination."
~ Benjamin de Casseres

I’d save everyone if it made for a good story, but sometimes evil must be defeated. Good stories need conflict, or else they become uninteresting.

Fun fact: When I started writing Threshold, the first book in my Elemental Alliance series, I had the idea to try something new. I wanted to try writing the book from both the perspectives of the protagonists and the antagonists. I thought it might be fun to see things from the bad guy’s point of view. The stories in this series are about opposing sides, and so I thought: Why not see things from both sides? I created the good guys, the fairies; and then I went about creating the bad guys, the demons. But I noticed a problem with the process early on.

Now, I’m one who tends to see the good in even the most desperate situations. It’s rather annoying to my family, I think, when I counter their argument that something is negative with something positive. After all, who knows what’s good or bad?This is one of my many personality quirks, but I did the same with my writing. I created some negative qualities in the good guys and some positive qualities in the bad guys. The trouble was, I’d created the bad guys into likeable characters and no longer saw them as antagonists that needed to be defeated. As I said earlier, you can’t have a good story without conflict, and I’d just eliminated mine. So what was I supposed to do?

I rectified the situation by changing the entire storyline around to accommodate these new characters that I’d created. I decided to create something worse that would make both fairies and demons put aside their differences to overcome. I didn’t make the same mistake, though. I didn’t tell the story from the new antagonist’s point of view. I didn’t have it in me to do that, I realized, because I’d just create another character that I’d want to invite for coffee, and then I’d be back to square one … again. But I think the solution created an even better story than I’d originally come up with so, who knows what’s good or bad?

Anyway, the video that I saw this morning got me thinking about my characters and what passions they had. And then it got me thinking about the many stories that I’ve read over the years where the characters seemed flat, or one-dimensional. The characters in a story have to feel real. Even if they’re not human, they have to feel like someone who could really exist if anyone is going to be able to relate to the character.

Years ago, I’d had the silly idea to create a scrapbook of my characters. In the scrapbook, I thought I’d dedicate a page to each character and create a bio of that character. I know the characters inside and out, but others didn’t. The ones who’ve read my stories might not have picked up a little nuance that I felt was a defining characteristic of the character.

When I’m creating characters, I like to find someone who looks like the person I have in my mind to make it easier for me to provide the reader an accurate description. With one exception, I don’t put people on the covers of my books, because I want the reader to form an image of the characters from my words, not from the cover art. The saying goes that you can’t judge a book by the cover, but people do it all the time, and I never wanted that for my stories. I’ve been lured in by an interesting cover only to find that it didn’t really match the story, and it left me with an unpleasant feeling.

I started writing before generative AI became available for public consumption, so I’d scour the internet for a picture of someone who looked like the person I had in my mind. Sometimes the character would be based on the physical features of an actor or actress in a specific role, or else it was just someone who’d posted a picture of him- or herself in the hopes that someone might see it. People tend to be vain and desire attention, so there were plenty of pictures of non-famous people out there for me to find. Nowadays, one can simply tell the computer what the character in his or her mind looks like and an image can be created. I don’t like AI and think that it takes away from the creative process, but that’s my opinion. I rely on ye olde noodle for everything involved in my stories, but I accept that AI is here, and, so long as it’s used as a tool to help humans and not to replace them, I’ll begrudgingly coexist with the foul fiend.

I never did create the character scrapbook but think that it’s a worthwhile endeavor for anyone starting out. That thought got me thinking of one of my passions, and that is to bring stories into the world. Stories make this ugly world a little more beautiful, as do all forms of art. Writing and painting are two of my passions, but since this is my Writing Blog, I’ll stick to that for the time being.

I used to participate in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) endeavor until its own stupidity caused its demise. Afterward, I decided to continue with the program on a personal level, and so I created my Personal Novel Writing Months (PerNoWriMos). Every year before I've started the program, I’ve put a post on social media encouraging anyone who took the time to actually read my post to join me. Over the fifteen years that I’ve participated in my annual writing endeavor, no one has ever joined me. Not once. I said in my post that I’d help in any way that I could, from offering advice to being a sounding board to bounce ideas off. No one ever took me up on my offer, and I’m not sure why. I believe that everyone has a story inside, just waiting for the opportunity to emerge. But maybe others don’t feel the same, or else don’t know how to start.

That led ye olde noodle to one of my other passions, and that is to teach. I think I might have missed my calling to be a teacher when I chose to pursue an accounting career, but I never lost the passion to want to guide another person to find his or her chosen path. I’ve been following the philosophy of Taoism for longer than I can remember. Each person needs to find his or her own path in life. Taoism, in its simplest translation, means the way. My way is right for me, but my way isn’t the only way, and I think that might have been the main reason that I never became a teacher. I never thought it was right to instruct another person to follow my way of thinking. Now that I’m older and, I’d like to think, a little wiser, I understand that a teacher’s role isn’t to tell someone what to think, but to help someone find a way to think. To help guide the person find his or her own path through life.

The video this morning helped me to remember the curious kid I’d once been. I don’t think I ever became the boring adult the guy in the video describes. I still believe that dragons exist. I still believe that my gargoyles come to life when the sun goes down. I still believe in magic. I’m perhaps as stupidly naïve as my mom always accused me of being, but I still believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, leprechauns, fairies, demons, werewolves, and even light elementals. And I believe that the world would be a better place for us all if more people believed in magic as well. If more people were able to see the fantasy instead of just the reality.

A quote that is misattributed to Gandhi states that we should be the change we wish to see in the world. It wasn’t said by the Indian mystic, who, indeed, did wish for change, but the statement is no less true than if Joe Schmo down the street was the one who’d made the statement. If we all put forth just a little effort to encourage change in the world, imagine how much better the world would be. If we all became the change that we wished to see. I wish to see more stories in the world. For more people to believe in magic. So how can I accomplish this?

Maybe it isn’t too late for me to become a teacher. Not necessarily to go back to school and get a teaching degree, but to impart some knowledge that I have to someone who’s looking to receive that knowledge. I consider myself to be a decent writer, but I’ve never made the National Bestseller list. I’ve never even made enough in royalties from sales of my books to cover the most minimal of household expenses. So, what makes me think that anyone will listen to what I have to say? I suppose that’s why so many quotes are falsely attributed to famous people. If a quote is attributed to Mohandas Gandhi, people will stop and read it, but how many of those same people would stop scrolling and read it if the quote, however poignant and helpful, is attributed to Joe Schmo down the street?

I see on my social media newsfeed lots of people offering literary advice. Some, I find helpful, and some I don’t. I’d love to put in my two cents to the mix. I’m giving some thought to creating a social media page dedicated to the art of storytelling, or maybe a newsletter if enough people would sign up for it. I could also just write it in a blog here on my website.

On this page, newsletter, or blog, I’m thinking that I can offer small bits of advice on how to create things like a realistic character, or how to create a believable world, or even how to find the inspiration to write the opening line of a story. I can pass along little gems of inspiration that I find along the way. I can share what I’ve found works for me, and what I’ve found that stalls my creative process.

I’ve been writing for the better part of forty years, having written my very first story at the tender age of nine (see the cute yet very remedial book to the left). I’d like to think that I have at least one thing that might help a potential writer get started or to stay writing when the urge to give up rears its ugly head.

What do I do when I encounter writer’s block? How did I find my writer’s voice -- because although I write under three pen names, the twenty or so novels that I’ve written over the years all sound like me. How do I keep different storylines separate and yet intertwined at the same time? How have I created the characters that I have, and how have I given each character his or her own unique voice? All of these small nuances are what makes a story either engaging or boring.

Anyway, that’s where ye olde noodle went this morning after seeing the video at the start of this blog. I think it’s a shame that while children are encouraged to explore their curiosity, society seems to discourage it as an adult. People who constantly ask why are often avoided in everyday conversation, or at least I am. Why? is my favorite question. It always has been. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it’s also the very thing that makes the world exciting. I’m not going to be some adult wearing beige pants having the weird sanded off me. I’m going to be a magnificent little chaos goblin and spread my enthusiasm to everyone I meet. I think it has a nice ring to it: The Art of Storytelling by MLC Goblin.

]]><![CDATA[Birthday Blog]]>Tue, 26 May 2026 05:08:13 GMThttps://www.dreamwriter.earth/writing-blog/birthday-blog

Today is my 54th birthday.

As I look back, I’m plagued with the existential question of whether I’d change anything about my life if I could. I’m thinking mainly about the books I’ve written because, well, this is my Writing Blog. I’ve recently published my 20th novel and am finding it frustrating that I can’t seem to generate enough income from those 20 novels to allow me to buy the little extra things that I’d like to get for myself. According to the 2025 Indie Author Survey, 77% of surveyed authors claim to be self-published, but of those, 44% make less than $100 per month from the sales of their books. I don’t know about you, but I can’t live on less than $100 per month.

I write as a hobby. Up until the time when I was able to stop working and stay home full-time, I didn’t earn my living as a writer. I was an accountant. I went to school not to be a writer, learning about plotlines, character development, world-building, and how not to info-dump details to bore the reader, but to learn about debits, credits, temporary permanent assets, and double-declining depreciation methods. I spent 30 years of my work life balancing the books of companies to pay the bills, using the left side of my brain, and writing what I think of as great books to keep my sanity, putting the right side of my brain to work. It’s a good thing I can successfully juggle both sides of ye olde noodle equally well. I just can’t juggle in reality. I’ve tried, and I fail every time.

I wrote my first story while in elementary school. I’ve always loved stories. So why, then didn’t I pursue a career as a writer? Well, it mainly has to do with my mother’s insistence that I pursue a “reliable” career, earning enough to support myself and not have to rely on my husband to survive. My mom and dad had a turbulent marriage, which led to a mostly dysfunctional childhood for me. But I digress and have veered off topic.

Being a gullible and mostly naïve person, I heeded my mother’s insistent demand and followed a stable and reliable career in accounting. But I didn’t abandon my love of writing. I just did it as a hobby in my free time. I’ve written several blog posts about how I got started in self-publishing, so I’ll let you go back and read those if you’re interested. But again, I’ve veered off the topic of this blog post, which is: Would I go back and change the decision not to pursue writing as a career?

The quick answer is no.

But anyone who knows me, knows that I’m not a quick-answer kind of gal. I like to spell out in detail why something is or isn’t. I’m the kind of person who, when you ask for the time, will tell you how the clock was made, who made it, what the clockmaker looks like, the clockmaker’s entire backstory, and anything I know about his or her love interests and any drama that’s going in the person’s life at any given time. Unfortunately, I may or may not remember to actually tell you the time. So with that being said, let me explain why I wouldn’t go back and become a writer instead of an accountant if the opportunity presented itself.

Back when I wrote my first official novel some 20 years ago now, indie publishing wasn’t as commonplace as it is today. If you wanted to seriously make writing your career, you had to go through a publisher, and that meant giving up control of your writing, not to mention, in most cases, losing the rights to your books and characters. That’s just how publishing houses worked back then. Most indie publishers were simply vanity-press institutions that would gladly take your money and provide you a physical book that you could put on your bookshelf, simply to say that you were a published author. But they didn’t do the things that would make the book sell, such as marketing.

I never wanted to give up control over my characters. I’m not what you’d call a control freak. I just wanted to retain control over something that I’d created. My characters were created by my own brain. They’re my children, and just as my husband and I decided at the beginning of our marriage not to have a child until one of us could stay home and raise him or her, never wanting the raising of our child to be done by strangers in a nursery or daycare, I wanted to keep my characters so I could evolve them how I wanted rather than how the publisher wanted.

Writing over the years, for me, has been therapeutic. It has allowed me to put my thoughts on the world into a format that makes sense to me. My home office has always been my happy place, my little magical bubble of beauty in a world that was slowly becoming a muddy quagmire of misery. A bit dramatic? Maybe, but I’m a fiction writer. Drama is kind of what we do. I’ve enjoyed being able to put my thoughts, hopes, fears, and beliefs out there in the guise of my writing. It helps me make sense of the chaos. It allows me to exert some illusion of control in a world where I have none. In my stories, I can exert control over the outcome of how the story ends.

Speaking of the ending … if I may take a slight detour off topic … again. A book’s ending is one of the most important parts of the story. It seems odd to say that how the story ends is more important than how it begins, but I think it’s true. The beginning is important. Don’t get me wrong. If the start of the book stinks, the reader won’t peruse more than the first few pages. And the goal of the author is to keep the reader turning the pages — to get the reader to ask, “And then what happens?”

But the ending is what stays in the reader’s mind after the book is put back on the shelf, or returned to the library, or given back to whoever it was borrowed from. The ending is what will make the reader come back and either read the book again or read another book that you write … or decide that in order to get a decent ending you have to write the darned book yourself. Fun fact: That was the driving force to make me decide to finally write and publish my first novel. I read a book that I really liked, but it had a crappy ending. I mean, a smack-your-forehead stupid ending. It actually ruined my opinion of the story. And it wasn’t just one or two books I’d read that had bad endings. It was dozens of books that simply ended in a way that I disapproved of. So I thought to myself that if I wanted a good story that had a great ending, I’d have to do it myself. And so I did.

Okay. Enough of taking the scenic, winding road. It’s time to get back on track. Back to the purpose of the blog … what was the purpose again? Oh, yes! Why I wouldn’t go back and become a professional writer.

Aside from needing to go through a publisher to make any serious money from the sale of the book, I think I’d keep writing as a hobby just for the fact that I think turning writing into a career would diminish my enjoyment of the process. I love writing. I love to tell stories. But I love to tell those stories on my terms.

“Love is at the center of your life. The things that you do should be things that you love and things that you love should be the things that you do. So, that’s what you learn from books.” --Ray Bradbury (from NEA Big Read: Meet Ray Bradbury, October 2017)

Writing has always come easy to me. It’s never been something I needed to “work at.” If I have a clear idea in my mind, I can easily sit and write 10,000 words before my fingers cramp and my stomach demands that I get up from the chair and put something edible inside it besides coffee. I have, in a span of a month, written in excess of 50,000 words, as was the goal of the now defunct NaNoWriMo that I’d participated in for fifteen years. (See my blog post on that topic.) But no novel of mine has ever been as “small” as 50,000 words. I have completed the first rough draft of one of my typical novels in the span of two months. That’s, of course, not including the editing and rewriting that follows. What follows the writing of the novel is the real work, in my opinion. The editing, formatting, layout, cover design, publication, and marketing. That’s the part that I have a love/hate relationship with and leads me to the thought that I might not enjoy “working” as a writer instead of writing as a hobby.

Knowing that if I don’t sell X-number of books a month means I can’t pay my rent or buy groceries adds pressure to the process that I’m not sure I’d enjoy. I’m not an adrenaline junkie who thrives on the thrill of life or death. I didn’t procrastinate in school, so I wouldn’t be up for all hours of the night before a term paper was due. I don’t wait until the eleventh hour to complete something. I’m a rather uninteresting person who likes simple pleasures. Sure, if I wrote my first novel and it sold big enough that I could sustain myself financially while I wrote my second book, maybe my thoughts would be different. But the truth is, most indie authors don’t succeed like that.

Aside from being uninteresting, I consider myself to be a practical person. I tend to not take unnecessary risks. Maybe it was the repeated warnings my mother beat into me (figuratively, not literally) about being able to support myself, or it’s just my survival instinct of wanting to make sure I had money for coffee (and for rent, utilities, and gas) that made me seek out other “secure” employment. I’m not sure.

Another reason I wouldn’t go back and change my life path and choose writing as a career is that I’m not comfortable promoting myself. I see authors in bookstores doing book signings or going on social media and blowing up various groups and boards screaming out how their book is better than the 8 billion other books that are flooding the market annually. I’m an introverted person. Being outside of my house is a challenge some days. I’m not agoraphobic, but I like the comfort of being at home. Unfortunately, sitting at home in my aforementioned magical bubble office doesn’t get books sold and bring money into the bank account. As with most things, to be a successful author, you need to work at it. Really work at it. You need to be willing to promote yourself, loudly in some cases, and I’m not sure I have the personality to do that. Sure, you grow as an author by stepping outside your comfort zone, and marketing is just a part of being an author, but I’m not certain I’d handle public situations very well.

The truth is, I like who I am today, and every choice I've made in the past 54 years has made me the person that I like. Maybe in some alternative universe I did choose to become a writer. Boy, wouldn’t it be interesting to be able to glimpse into those other realities and see how the outcome of a decision would play out? It would be like having a real-world personal 8-Ball where you could see what would happen with each of the possible choices you could make. That would make an interesting book.

That reminds me of a dream I had a while ago. Now, if you’ve ever looked around on my website, Dreamwriter.earth, you know that I often get inspiration for my books from my dreams. I had a dream a while ago about an unnamed woman who (for some reason yet to be determined) suddenly has the ability to be aware in both reality and the dream world. She goes through a typical day and goes to bed, only to wake up in the dream world, where many things are different. I had the scene in my dream of her having lunch with someone, who in either reality or the dream world is a friend, but in the other world is someone she just meets. She begins to question her sanity when things in one world contradict events in the other. It would have to be a first-person account of her trying to understand what the heck was going on and figure out how to stop it, if she even can. I imagine some form of male protagonist finding her, one who’s in the same situation as she is and has been for a while, as well as some form of sentinel or guard who prevents people from retaining consciousness in both places. The idea needs work, but it has potential. Of course, the last thing I need is more people checking into The Noodle Motel (see my blog post about that).

Anyway, as promised, I’m not someone who simply tells you the time when asked. By thinking through the premise of this blog post, I might have solved my existential crisis, so I can enjoy my birthday without pondering the fate of how many alternative realities I might or might not create while figuring out the answers to my own questions.

Now, the only question I’m left with is whether to allow these new unknown characters into my brain and ponder the details of writing the book, or to spend the next two months (my own PerNoWriMo – see blog post) writing some characters who’ve already checked in and are patiently, or impatiently in some cases, waiting their turn. I really need that personal 8-Ball to see if either of these will be big sellers. Without that, though, I’ll just have to rely on the same thing that has helped me decide what to do for the past 54 years: ye olde noodle

]]><![CDATA[A New Era Begins]]>Sun, 01 Mar 2026 01:54:51 GMThttps://www.dreamwriter.earth/writing-blog/a-new-era-beginsI’m extremely proud of my ability to create stories. An author has the amazing ability to create something that makes the world better, more beautiful. In my case, from just a snippet of a memory from a dream, or a quick glance at an image, or even a simple lyric from a song, I get inspiration to make stories. I see the story unfold in my mind, and I simply write what I see. As Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot once said, "I dream my picture and then I paint my dream."

As Carl Sagan put it in the following video: books are proof that humans are capable of working magic.

I self-publish my stories. This means that I do everything from concept to reality. I imagine the story and write it. That’s actually the easy part for me. The rest of the process is where the real work comes in. I edit the book with my amateur ability. I read and re-read the story dozens of times. I read the book out loud to either myself or my husband, if he has the time to listen. When I’m happy with how it sounds, I lay out the book in Adobe InDesign. I then create the book cover. I do solicit help from my husband for the blurb on the back cover, as he's good at summarizing, while writing a brief synopsis of my story is nearly impossible for me.

After that’s done, I create the files in Amazon’s KDP. Amazon is an evil corporation that takes most of my earnings as an author, but it’s the biggest retailer for books. I might explore other avenues later once all my backlog is published, but for now, KDP it is. After I get everything set, I order an author proof and read the story yet again after months of being away from it. That break helps clear my mind and allows me to see the story from a different perspective. Once I’m happy with it, I publish. I create both physical and digital media. I’ve yet to delve into the world of audiobooks because I refuse to use AI to narrate my books, and hiring a human narrator is too expensive for me right now. Again, maybe it’ll be something I explore down the road.

I’ve published 16 novels so far following the aforementioned process. In addition to those already published, I have seven novels completely written waiting to go through the process of being published. I also have five novels started but not yet completed. In addition to all of those, I have at least a dozen books with notes about them. These are mainly ones that will complete a series that I’ve already started, but a few are completely new ones that I haven’t even begun to write yet.

The ideas for my stories come to me usually at the worst possible time. I’m someone who likes to handwrite out my outline. It allows me to focus my thoughts better than if I’m typing them out on a computer. It takes me back to the time before personal computers. That was the time when the writing bug first came to me. I was young, still in grade school. I wrote my first complete story when I was fourteen, but I’d been jotting down ideas and thoughts for as long as I could write. I’ve kept a journal for as far back as I can remember.

Oftentimes, I’m writing out the ideas for one story when another story pops into my head. A story whose characters decide to check into The Noodle Motel. And, as I wrote in my last blog post, the receptionist at my motel refuses to turn anyone away.

I’m currently writing two novels simultaneously. Normally, I focus on one book at a time, but these two books are warring each other inside my head, and I decided to let them both win and work on both at the same time. It’s confusing, but as I delve into them, I let them decide who will get the next chapter written as each morning comes.

As soon as I wake and make the trek downstairs, I sit in my chair and let my mind wander. I don’t scroll through social media. I don’t write anything down. I simply sit and let my mind go where it wants to go. It’s been a pleasant way to start the morning this past month. I might just make it a habit. I clear my mind of any worries or fears (and after what I’ve been through these past two years, I have plenty to fear). I imagine my mind a blank canvas, and simply wait to see what image pops onto the canvas first.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I visualize the story and then I simply write what I see. I focus on the first image that comes to my mind, and that’s the book that I work on that morning. Thankfully, my mind has cooperated and has mainly produced thoughts of the two books that I’m writing, but on occasion, another story will pop in to say hello. I’ve managed to keep those thoughts in line by writing them down in a journal until I’m ready to write them into reality.

I enjoy writing and telling my stories. I like to take my time and introduce the characters properly and let the story unravel at the pace that feels right. Some of my books are longer (180K+ words) and some get to their conclusion a little quicker (80K+ words). I’ve read that in many cases, longer books aren’t great sellers. When I was contemplating sending a book out to a publisher, one of the requirements was that the book be between 50K and 75K words only. Anything longer would automatically be rejected. I like reading longer books. I don’t like to feel rushed. I like the story to gently unfold, not jump right into the action (unless that's the intention of the story). So I suppose it’s a good thing that I self-publish. I can write a story as long as I want without being told that it needs to be cut to fit into some template.

One of the two books that I’m working on is a little out of my comfort zone. I remember thinking the same thing when I first began conceptualizing The Arkainian Chronicles. I had, up until that point, kept my paranormal romance stories focused on characters who looked mostly human. But this was the first series that deviated from that. The Arkainians are from another planet, and the story takes place on that planet. I had to create a race of beings that the story was about, a planet for them to live on, a language (or at least some Arkainian words for them to communicate with, a creation story for them to refer to, and a culture in which they lived. Some details coincided with what we as humans can relate to, and some were completely … well, alien.

Aside from being outside my comfort zone from a character perspective, the book I’m writing is also going to send me on an unknown journey into a new genre. I had a dream, and that dream is sending me into a genre that I didn’t ever think I would write in. I love romance, and, as I mentioned earlier, I love stories with strong character development. This helps me relate to the characters, so they don’t feel fictional. They feel like real people who could exist in the world.

I like stories with a strong plot. If there isn’t a point to the story—the reason the story is being told—what point is there? I know many people think that romance books are simply pornography with a slight plotline. And, I admit, some books that I’ve read feel that way to me as well. But my stories aren’t like that. Sex is a part of life. Putting it very simply, without it, life wouldn’t continue. Babies wouldn’t be conceived and humans would eventually cease to be. Sex is also a pleasurable part of life. It helps us feel the love our partner feels, and it helps us feel connected in a relationship. None of my stories contain meaningless sex, and it isn’t the main plotline of any of my stories. My stories contain sex, but they’re more a mystery book or suspenseful thriller that also contains sex. It isn’t a sex book that has a bit of mystery in it. There is a difference.

That being said, one of the books I’m writing has me heading into a previously unexplored genre. Isla’s Demons is a book in the genre of literary erotica. I cannot write a book without characters that I like or a story that holds my attention. I like sex just as much as anyone else, but I don’t want to read a book that contains only that. I’ve read some books in this genre that are crude and mildly unappealing in their attempt to progress a story along amongst the various sexual scenes. To me, the term "erotica" simply means that the story is a little more risqué than the average reader might enjoy. I’m going to list the book in the erotica category because I don’t want anyone surprised or uncomfortable reading it. I want readers to know exactly what they’ll be reading. If this isn’t your cup of tea, I have plenty of other books to choose from.

The book Isla's Demons introduces EV Winter. a third pen name which I’ll be writing under. I’m uncertain if there will be more books by this author than just the one, but I’m excited to see where this goes.

Annie Rife is the name that I use for my contemporary romance books. These books all involve human characters, and all take place in or around the current time.

Lyra Zonder is the name that I use for my paranormal romance books. Here, there are human characters, but there are also werewolves, demons,, elementals, shapeshifters, fairies, and, of course, the aliens that I mentioned earlier.

I love variety when I read, and so that translates into my writing. I’ve even begun a young reader’s book involving my daughter and my three dogs. I’ve several chapters written and strive to finish it one of these days. Maybe this year will be the year. It would be nice to finish it before my daughter is old enough to drive! I also wrote a short book for my daughter’s seventh birthday. It was a story that I converted to a coloring book and was about how she met her favorite stuffed animal best friend, Maynard. I still have a stack of them and get them out every so often to read and enjoy.

I just never know what journey my noodle is going to take me on next, but I look forward to the ride.

]]><![CDATA[The Inevitable Topic of AI]]>Sun, 08 Feb 2026 18:08:49 GMThttps://www.dreamwriter.earth/writing-blog/the-inevitable-topic-of-ai

Let me begin this post by stating very clearly so there’s no confusion: I don’t like AI (artificial intelligence), and I want nothing to do with it or anything that uses it.

I’m an artist. Art comes in many different forms, and so many people can claim the title of artist. Art is not just painting or writing stories, which are the two forms of art that I choose to do. There’s also sculpting, drawing, dancing, singing, composing, designing, decorating, photography. Even sewing and cooking are forms of art. There are more, but those are the ones that come to my mind. Despite the plethora of people who can claim to be an artist, there is one thing that cannot claim the title of artist, and that is a computer.

Art is a human endeavor. It’s an expression of the human soul. Art evokes emotion by the emotion that is put into the creation of it. A computer does not have emotion. It cannot understand what it means to be human. Art, to me, is a human way of making something beautiful in an otherwise unfriendly and ugly world.

“Life beats down and crushes the soul, and art reminds you that you have one."
~ Stella Adler

I don’t dislike all technology. I don’t necessarily trust it, but I also don’t necessarily hate it. I’m writing this blog on a laptop computer. I check my e-mail messages on my cellular phone. I listen to music on those same devices, and I look up on the internet new recipes to try for dinner.

I enjoy the convenience of researching topics for the various books that I write from the comfort of my living room, rather than have to trudge to the local library and look up book information in a card catalog. I love staying in contact with friends and family around the country by seeing their activity on social media. Those things, I find comforting and enjoyable. What I don’t find comforting is the ease with which people seem to be handing over their humanity to computers.

People are using computers to allegedly create art. I have a bold truth to share with you: a computer cannot create. It can only mimic what humans have created. When you use AI to write a story, it’s taking a beautiful human idea and turning it into an abomination of borrowed techniques, styles, and voice. It takes samples of the work other artists have done and mimics it as something unique. But it isn’t unique, no more than pretending to be a character in a story makes you that person in reality. It’s false, emotionless, and a pitiful attempt to make real something that should not exist.

The following clip is from the movie Jurassic Park. As you probably know, it was about an island that had on it dinosaurs that had been re-created through the miracle of science. Dr. Ian Malcolm, played by Jeff Goldblum, argued that what had been done was wrong. His argument was about the re-creation of an extinct species, but I argue that it could also pertain to the creation of AI. People rush to see how quickly they can create programs to replace humans, but they don’t stop to think if they should.

It makes me weep sometimes to see people posting artwork done with AI. I see videos of AI-generated images being narrated by AI-generated voices reading scripts that were written with the use of AI. Recently, I’ve been inundated on my social media feed from people posting little AI-generated caricatures of themselves and their families. They think it’s cute, and many of the comments are on how amazing it looks and questions on how the commenter can get one as well. But what about the many caricature artists whose work was uncredited in that little AI program generating that cute image of you holding that cup of coffee or your child holding that soccer ball? That AI program had to get the knowledge from somewhere, and it’s important to stop and think of where it got it. It came from the struggling artists who’ve labored for years to improve their skill, the artists who’ve spent their days at fairs doing charcoal drawings for people walking by, the artists who’ve had to work a regular office job during the day just to pay the bills so they can spend the evening doing what their hearts truly love to do. I’ll hazard a guess that the thought never crossed the minds of the hordes of people who’ve recently told ChatGPT to create that caricature that they post to Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok.

Let me ask you this: would you form a meaningful and lasting friendship with an AI-generated person? Would you take your child to an AI-generated doctor to perform surgery on him or her? Would you trust an AI-generated person to interview you for a job and make the decision on whether to hire you or not? To some, this isn’t a dilemma. For me, it is. Because those things that I mentioned require instinct, emotion, and humanity. Without emotion, life is stale.

I repeat: a computer does not have emotion.

I don’t want to read a book written by something that doesn’t have a heart to weep at the words. I don’t want to buy artwork from something that doesn’t have eyes to see the breathtaking beauty of the colors in the sky at sunset. I don’t want to eat the food prepared by something that can’t taste the nuance in flavor that adding a pinch of salt can do for a meal. I don’t want to support something that doesn’t understand the contextual difference between longingly looking into the eyes of your lover, and logically looking into why your car engine isn’t working properly.

"AI art is not progress, and it’s not inevitable. It’s theft, pure and simple."
~ Lori Rush

And if the fact that this artificial art lacks that which makes art beautiful isn’t enough of a reason to not support it, think about all the people who are losing their livelihood to something that you think is cute and a bit of fun. This loss of livelihood includes more than the many artists who actually do the art that AI is being used to replace, but also includes other professions as well. My husband is an editor. His job is being threatened because his company thinks it can save some money by using the AI program Grammarly to do online editing instead of having human freelancers to the work.

As I mentioned before, voice actors and narrators are being replaced by AI-generated voices. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if soon the animations will eventually be done solely by computers and the movie industry will consist of one or two people running computer programs. All the hard-working people (you know, the many people listed in the movie credits that most people don't stay and watch at the end of the film) might soon be replaced by AI.

Writers of instruction manuals have all but been replaced by AI-generated manuals, and I don’t know about you, but for anyone else who has tried to decipher what the heck those instruction manuals are trying to get you to do, it’s a very frustrating process.

When it started out, it was easy to pick out an AI-generated piece of art. For pictures, the person in the picture would have extra fingers or an arm that doesn’t quite fit. Websites that were AI-generated scams were moderately easy to pick out and avoid. Ads that were written by a computer were obvious in the inability to use the correct context of certain words, or, if there were vocals, the inflections or words were often mispronounced. But as times goes by, humans are “training” AI programs to be better. As if stealing the hard work of actual artists isn’t bad enough … as if taking away the livelihoods of other human professionals isn’t despicable enough … as if flooding the market with crap that makes it nearly impossible for actual art to be seen isn’t unethical enough … now, it’s hard for people to tell if something is fake or not. This leaves people open to scams and fraudulent activity that can further rob them of both their money and their dignity.

And as if all of that isn’t horrible enough, I think the worst thing that AI has done is devalue trust. I can’t trust that what I read is honest because there’s no requirement to label a book or anything as written by AI. I can’t trust that a photo is real because it’s so easy to alter and change an image with AI, and there’s no requirement to label it as being altered. I can’t trust that anything on the internet is legitimate because it could have been written and posted completely without the involvement of a human being verifying the accuracy of it.

Do people who use AI not want to fess up to using AI? Is that why things don’t get labeled as being AI-generated? If the person finds nothing wrong with using AI to write a book or do other forms of art, why is it so hard to admit that AI was used? I’ll tell you what I think. I think it’s so hard to determine if something was generated using AI because deep down in their subconscious, the people using it know that what they’re doing is wrong. It’s wrong to steal, lie, and cheat, and these people know it, but they’re doing it anyway.

And what would make someone go against everything he or she has been raised to believe to be ethical and generally accepted as good behavior?

Money.

It comes down to people putting money above other people.

The subject of AI has come up many times in the different groups that I engage in on social media. I’m part of several independent writer groups, and the topic inevitably comes up about using AI to design a book cover or to pay a professional to design the cover. Another topic is whether to use AI to edit a book or pay an editor to do the work. I admit that making a profit on a book as an independent author is nearly impossible. The market is so flooded with new books that just getting a few books sold is cause for celebration. Deciding on whether to pay a professional at a higher cost or have AI do the work for pennies on the dollar is an ethical dilemma, to be sure. I guess it comes down to the individual person’s conscience. I’d rather do all the work myself than have AI do anything related to my book.

And, in fact, I am the one who does everything. I not only write the book (completely from my own ideas, not with prompts from AI bots), I’ve taken the time to learn the software to design my own covers and layout the book in the format needed for publication. I edit the book myself. I read and re-read and continue to read even after the book is published. I continuously update the print and electronic versions when I notice an error that slipped through my amateur editing process. I do everything from start to finish, and that process works for me. Being an independent author is not for the weak, or for those looking to make millions, or even those hoping to earn enough to pay the monthly rent. But the pride that I feel at having my books on the shelf is worth the work. I currently have sixteen books published and continue to write. I love sharing the stories in my head with anyone who wants to read them. I just can’t imagine feeling that same sense of accomplishment if I had allowed some impersonal AI program write my stories for me.

I didn’t intend for this blog to be a rant, but I’m afraid it ended up that way. I feel very passionately on the subject. I think AI, when used to replace the human element in anything, but mainly in art, is an abomination. It dehumanizes something beautiful in the world. The human mind is one of the most beautiful things in nature. It can be a burden if your thoughts are out of control, but for me, I’m blessed to have the brain that I do.

I often compare my brain to a motel, with guests checking in and out as I write the stories that are in my head. I’ve dubbed my brain The Noodle Motel. I have an overly friendly receptionist who refuses to turn a guest away when one decides to stop in.

“You want to stay for a while?" she says to the new character checking in. “Sure! We have room for you. We can double up the light elemental in Room 3 with the fairies in Room 19. Stay for as long as you’d like.”

In all honesty, now that I think about it, I’m not sure an AI program could keep up with my brain. At a minimum, I think it might short-circuit with the many characters and stories that I have checking in to The Noodle Motel (See the blog post: It's Getting A Little Crowded In Here).

Luckily, I’ll never find out.

]]><![CDATA[Who Knows What's Good or Bad?]]>Thu, 23 Oct 2025 15:33:11 GMThttps://www.dreamwriter.earth/writing-blog/who-knows-whats-good-or-badWho knows what's good or bad? Anyone who knows me knows that this is probably the saying I use most often. It’s the motto that I try to live my life by. It helps me to remember that we don’t have the capability to see an event through to the end result to determine whether the event is truly good or bad, so it’s best not to label it as such and just let life happen as it will. Here's the story behind that saying:

Well, Monday morning was a good example of having this this story play out in reality. My daughter was next to me, asleep, as I dozed peacefully, and my dog was at my feet. Suddenly, I was popped in the nose by my daughter's flailing hand. It wasn’t a hard enough pop to make me see stars, but it was hard enough to jolt me awake. After I made sure all was well with my face, I relaxed and managed to doze again, apparently long enough to fall into a resting state. While I was in that state of not quite asleep but not quite awake, my mind wandered.

"Not all those who wander are lost ..." ~J.R.R. Tolkien

In The Fellowship of the Ring is a poem known as the “Riddle of Strider.” Its well-known second line, "not all those who wander are lost," tells us that the mysterious ranger, Strider, is more than who he appears to be. He is, in fact, Aragorn, the rightful king of Gondor. The poem is hinting that although Aragorn is wandering Middle-earth, his rightful place is on the throne. But just because he's wandering, that doesn’t mean he’s lost, or that he’s wandering aimlessly without a purpose. Like Strider in Tolkien’s epic story, my mind wandered during this time of light dozing after that fateful bop in the nose, but it didn’t wander aimlessly or without a purpose.

Let me go back and explain something before I continue with my bop-in-the-nose experience.

My publishing company is called Dreamwriter.earth because I get most of my story ideas from my dreams. If you read my last blog post, you might remember that I was concerned that I had a lot going on inside my brain. The Noodle Motel, as I called my overtaxed brain, needed a “No Vacancy” sign. As I was struggling to find the time to get the books written that I want to write and to publish my backlog of already completed books, I had a dream. In that dream, I saw three women working on building a deck on the back of a house. Inside the house, there was a person watching them working. Somehow, I realized that these three women were witches and that the person inside the house was a werewolf. That’s all the dream gave me. It was up to my noodle to manufacture the rest.

Ever since that dream, I’ve been doing research on witchcraft because, admittedly, I know very little about the subject. Since this will be one of Lyra Zonder’s books, the three witches won’t just be followers of the peaceful Wiccan earth religion. Oh, no. These are going to be real, badass, spellcasting witches. And since they belong to the coven called The Sisters of Bella Luna, I knew that this story would, somehow, relate to my Chosen of Bella Luna series. Which, coincidentally, are some of the books that I was hoping to write and publish, so I could free up some rooms at the Noodle Motel.

Anyway, I’ve been reading and researching, but until Monday morning, I hadn’t come up with a plot for the books that I was happy with. I knew that I wanted the books to be about witches and werewolves. I knew that the three main female protagonists of the trilogy are named Bianca, Amber, and Ebony. I also knew that a werewolf hired these women to build a deck off his house. But that was all I had to work with. I didn’t know who the werewolf was, why he would hire three witches to build his deck, or how he and his pack fit into the Bella Luna series that I’m currently writing. I’m unsure if it’s just going to be related content but not part of the main story, or if it’s like Gypsy Moon, in that the storyline and characters of this related book will become part of the Bella Luna series somewhere along the line.

Then, I got bopped in the nose.

One might think that the bop in the nose was a bad thing. But not me. I let life take me where it will, and it took me on a very exciting journey. When I was fully awake, the details of the wandering road trip my brain had taken me on became clear. I had not only a purpose for the trilogy, but also the details of the three main male protagonists. I even had the antagonist they would all ultimately be fighting against. I came downstairs, pulled out my journal, and began writing.

I’m one who handwrites out my book ideas. I always have. I love the flow of the pen on paper, and how it encourages my brain to slow down. When the book ideas begin flowing and churning, my brain is like a very fast Italian sports car, and my hand is like a 1972 Ford Pinto trying desperately to keep up.

My brain

My hand

Fun fact: My mother actually drove a Pinto when I was young, and I seem to remember that it went very slowly. Or maybe it was just my mother who drove slowly. Either way, my uncle had a Saint Bernard, and the combination of the dog and the Pinto made Stephen King's Cujo absolute nightmare fuel for me. I still shudder when I think about it.

Old cars and rabid dogs aside, I spent the morning writing down my ideas for these untitled witch books. I’m actually still plotting them out. I’ve decided to plot out all three at once, because, to me, they'll all be part of the same story. The first book will represent the waxing moon, or, for the Triple Goddess imagery in Wicca and other pagan spiritualities, the Maiden. The second book will represent the full moon, or the Mother. And the third book will be for the waning moon, or the Crone aspect of the Triple Goddess. I’m still doing my research, but I’m pretty excited where this trilogy is going so far.

I love to write out my story ideas, and I have boxes of old journals filled with notes from past books. After I brainstorm ideas, I’ll plan out and handwrite an outline. Sometimes I write the outline on paper, and sometimes I write it out on notecards that can be rearranged or shuffled as needed. These books feel as though they’re going to be pretty straightforward without too many storylines aside from the main one, so I’ll probably write the outlines in my journal. I rarely stick to the original outlines I come up with, because my characters often take over and lead the story in directions I never intended. But, again, this wandering, or veering from the outline, isn’t purposeless. It’s a beautiful process of letting my mind take me on a journey. Sometimes I don’t know where my mind and I will even end up. I just modify the outline as I go and let the story take me where it will.

Anyway, that’s the story of where I am right now with these new books, and how a bop in the nose started an avalanche that will make my already overcrowded Noodle Motel even more crowded. But that’s okay. I can double up a few guests to make room for these seven new people looking for a place to stay.

After all, who knows what’s good or bad? I sure don’t.

]]><![CDATA[It's Getting A Little Crowded In Here]]>Mon, 15 Sep 2025 16:57:02 GMThttps://www.dreamwriter.earth/writing-blog/its-getting-a-little-crowded-in-here“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” ~ Isaac Asimov, Life Magazine (1984)

I read this quote and couldn’t help thinking of all the stories I’d leave untold if I had only six minutes to live. As I’ve written on the introductory page of my website, I get most of the inspiration for my books from my dreams. When I wake up, I’m left with images of untold stories and, in some cases, the names of characters. Oftentimes, those dreams that turn into stories appear in my brain at the worst possible times.

Right now, for example, I’m trying to work out the details so I can write the outline for Green, the second book in the Elementals of Light series. I like to jot notes down in a notebook and work out the details of the novel before I actually write the outline. I handwrite my outlines. This deliberate process helps me slow my brain. Many times, good ideas form while I’m writing by hand. I mark down notes in the margins of my outline of the ideas and fit them in where I can. I rarely stay true to the original outline. My outlines are more fluid — constantly moving and adjusting to how the story flows. Many times, my characters tend to go off in an unplanned direction. and I have to scramble just to keep up with them.

For many of my stories, I have multiple plot lines going on at the same time. So to keep these plot lines separate and organized, I’ve taken to writing the different ideas down on colored notecards. That way, I can make sure the various plot lines get more or less equal time, unless I want it otherwise, and I disperse the plot line evenly throughout the story.

Now that brings up a point I want to make about my writing: Each story, in my mind, has a single theme, which is the overall point or purpose of the story. Theme and story for me are used interchangeably. Finishing the theme, or story, often takes several books. Within the main theme, there can be many plot lines, which are the metaphoric highways that I take the reader down to get to the end of the story. And just like physical highways, there are many roads that one can take on or off the highway. Similarly, my plot lines can, and often in my stories do, intersect with various subplot lines, or metaphoric roads that allow the reader take a more leisurely trip to the end of the story. Keeping these all organized for each story can be quite taxing but is essential for the book to make any sense to anyone other than me. It's the map the reader follows that delineates the path to the ending destination.

For Blue, the first book in the Elementals of Light series, the book was fairly simple. It followed the plot line of Ashley and Matthias, as told in first person from Ashley’s perspective. In Green, I’ll be continuing the Ashley and Matthias plot line, still in first person from Ashley’s perspective, but now I’m going to add the plot line for Kali and Tobias, as told first person from Kali’s perspective. This adds an element I’ve never done before in a book: Two different first-person perspectives. This will require a little more organization than the first book, so I’ll utilize my notecard process to keep the plot lines separate. The third book, Red, will be adding a third plot line and will be three first-person narratives. I'm excited to try that!

While I was working on the outline for Green, I had some ideas pop into my brain about my ever-present Project 13 book. I had to have started and stopped this book at least a dozen times over the past few years. It isn’t that the story is uninteresting. Quite the opposite. I’m eager to work on it and finish the book, but something else always seems to pop into my brain to derail the process. I’m about two-thirds done with it and have the remaining one-third already detailed out and outlined. I simply need to sit and finish writing the darned thing. But, of course, this won’t be a standalone book. This is only the first book of probably five that will need to be written to complete the overall story I hope to tell.

As I was contemplating my thoughts for finishing Project 13, some ideas popped into my head for the next book in the Chosen of Bella Luna series. Book Eight of this series was derailed by the appearance of General Lokun Abakkus several years back (See The Arkainian Chronicles, 7/2/25). Now, instead of next writing Book Eight of this series, I’m planning to write an adjunct book completely dedicated to Killian's taking over of the Lupine Council because that is the entire purpose of the series. It is the story, or theme, and I don’t think I can do it justice if I simply add it as a plot line in Book Eight. It needs its own dedicated book. And the Council needs to be under Killian’s leadership before I can conclude the story with the plot lines that I want to follow in books eight and nine. Book Nine will officially conclude the story, and as much as I will be saddened to see my beloved characters go and live out their Happily-Ever-Afters, I want to get the story finished. I see the nine books as one long story. So far, I’ve completed only seven of the nine, and so, to me, the story is unfinished.

When we lived in the Seattle area, there was a store we shopped at often called Gargoyle Statuary. It was from there that I adopted several of the beloved gargoyle figures and statues that grace my house, and especially my office space. I follow the store's posts on Facebook, and a new post they did depicted a gargoyle that, if I still lived in the area, would totally now be living in my office and getting acquainted with the others that live there. I would have made a trip to the store and brought him home with me. But I don’t live near Seattle any longer, and a trip to the store is unrealistic.

This post, however, has begun getting ideas percolating in my mind about the untitled book I’ve started regarding a gargoyle named Claude Pierre, who finds his purpose in guarding Aimeé Reid. The book takes place up in Maine and follows the plot line of the two characters mentioned. As of right now, I think the book is just under halfway written, but I have copious notes about it scattered among several notebooks. Once I gather the ideas I’ve written, I’m pretty sure I will have jotted out enough ideas for the second half of the book. I really want to finish this one, too, as well as the others that I envision for the story.

Also insisting on his story getting finished is the ever-present and ever-demanding General Abakkus. I have three of the five books written in my Arkainian Chronicles series. This story follows Lokun and Star as they fulfill their part of the Rukkus Prophecy, which is the theme of the series. And I could leave it at that one plot line, but no. My brain has to work two other plot lines into the story, and each of those other plot lines have multiple subplot lines woven through them. This year, I wrote Book Three, Blood Blessed, which I hope to publish either later this year or at the start of next year. To keep the plot and subplot lines organized, I used a stack of notecards with three different colors to represent the three main lines. By the time the outline was done, I had a stack of cards nearly an inch and a half thick. I know Lokun very well, and he won’t let me rest until the story is finished. He’s most annoying that way. I already have the next book in the series, Blood Battle, worked out in my head, though I’ve not started writing anything down just yet. For now, it's just another big part of the constant goings-on inside my head.

Just thinking of the books I’ve listed so far, I’ve got at least six swirling around inside my brain with probably at least three dozen characters, each having their own conversations and evolving stories. Going along with these books and characters are about ten to fifteen follow-up books to complete the various stories that each of the aforementioned books are part of, because as I’ve mentioned before, to me I see the entire series of books as the story, not the individual books within the series. That’s a lot going on inside my noodle.

Now, to add to all of that, I had a dream the other night that has gotten still more ideas percolating for yet another story. This story, as of right now, is only three books. I don’t have many details worked out about the plot lines yet, and I haven’t quite figured out the theme, but I have the three main characters as they’ve appeared to me in my dream. The story is connected somehow to the Chosen of Bella Luna series, as it centers on three women who are part of a coven of witches that goes by the name of The Sisterhood of Bella Luna. I have the first names of the three women, and I know that they own a company that does home repairs, maybe a handyperson service. Or maybe they just do odd jobs. In the dream, I see them building a deck on the back of a house, but I have no ideas yet why, or whose house it is, other than there’s a werewolf inside the house watching them work. That’s all the dream gave me, so now I have to let my brain do its thing and work up all the details.

The problem is that my poor brain is already overtaxed with thoughts of the other books, and I only have so many rooms at the inn. I’m afraid my Noodle Motel is already overcrowded.

How am I supposed to get all these stories out of my head and into print? I simply don’t have enough hours in the day to accomplish it. My thoughts right now are to spend the remainder of this year publishing as many backlog books as I can, so I can focus next year on writing. My books tend to be on the larger side. They're more like extended novels of around 120,000 words, some bigger and some shorter. So using 120,000 as the average, I have six books that are in need of my immediate attention. So using math to figure it out, the six books will be, in total, about 720,000 words. There are 365 days in the year, so that means I’ll have to write about 2,000 words every day next year to get the six books written, which, of course, isn’t realistic. I’ve never been able to write more than two novels in any given year, simply because I need time to plot out the book and handwrite the outline. Given that, it will take me a maybe two years to write the six books, since a few of them are already partly written. It will take at least another seven to eight years to finish the remainder of the stories for those six books. That’s all assuming that I don’t have another dream in the next decade that leaves more books and story ideas swirling around inside my head.

And that’s not even all the books I have in process. Those are just the ones that are dominating my immediate thoughts. Additionally, those are just the ones from the one pen name, Lyra Zonder. I also have books from my second pen name, Annie Rife, which are mainly thoughts on the Visions series with Xander and Dani. With them, the story could go on for seven or more books until I conclude the theme I want to finish. I’ve completed writing three books and have published the first one so far. I’ve deliberately tried to not think about that story because it’s so involved. It simply has to be the only book in my mind at the time, or else I’ll get too overwhelmed.

When I’m writing a Xander book, I actually create an evidence board and hang it on my wall. I have all the facts inside my head, of course, but as the characters in the book progress along the specific case, or, more often, cases, I add the details to the evidence board that the characters themselves are creating to make sure their conclusions are justified and not unrealistic based on the information they know. Right now, I simply don’t have enough brain capacity to even think about this story, so I’m forcing the thoughts to stay inside one of the many file cabinets I have lining the walls of my noodle.

So, how do I get all the stories out of my head? I do it the only way I know how, and that is to write. As Charles Bukowski once said: “He asked, 'What makes a man a writer?' 'Well,' I said, 'it’s simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge.'” I don’t know how many years I have left on this planet, but I can say without hesitation that I have no plans to jump off any bridges. I might have many years to live, or the cancer could come back, and I might have only a precious few. I can’t dwell on that, though. I need to focus on today. I have my office, which is my creative bubble. The plan is to spend maybe two to three hours every morning writing. The morning is my quiet time. I get up before either my husband or daughter do, and so I can go in my office and write before they get up for the day. I’ll get done what I get done. I’ll pick a book and focus on that one book until it’s done, and then I’ll move on to the next one. Although in some cases, I could easily spend the entire day writing until my fingers are too cramped to type any longer. It may come to that some days, but most days I’ll have other things that I need to do.

First, I have my daughter’s schooling to focus on. My husband and I homeschool our fourteen-year-old daughter, and that needs to occupy several hours every day. Plus, I need to cook. Recovering from cancer as I am, nutrition needs to be the main thought for very meal, and this means cooking as much as I can from scratch to avoid ingesting potentially hazardous additives or preservatives from processed foods. I love to cook. It relaxes me. So I have to make time for meals. I like to plan at least one meal a day where we sit at the dining room table as a family and connect. I have a rule of no electronics at the table so we can talk to one another. Communication is so important to a happy and healthy family. I also have an old, persnickety hundred-and-fifteen-year-old house that needs cleaning and maintaining. After a century, things tend to break down and need attention. I also detest clutter, and in a nearly 3,000-square-foot house, clutter seems inevitable. Along with clutter, dust and dog hair seem to multiply on the furniture and floors overnight. I think on any given day, I can sweep up enough dog hair off the floor to form a small furry animal. And, as if all of the non-writing things aren’t enough, I have my neglected painting that I would like to get back to. I haven’t set foot in my art room all year. Painting is therapy for me and helps me relax. I'll get there. I hope.

Every day, we all have 24 hours, which breaks down into 1,440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. That’s an awful lot of time every day in every year that I still have left on the planet. That being said, if I was told that I only had six minutes left to live, I wouldn’t type a little faster. I’d type a lot faster.

]]><![CDATA[The Arkainian Chronicles]]>Wed, 02 Jul 2025 13:36:22 GMThttps://www.dreamwriter.earth/writing-blog/the-arkainian-chronicles

“It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.”

Sure, Edgar Allan Poe’s unknown narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart was talking about killing the annoying guy whose eyes reminded him of a vulture, but the quote is fitting for the topic of this blog post.

On January 3, 2021, I was scrolling through Instagram. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this event would forever change the scope of my writing. I saw a picture posted by the very talented artist and sculptor Kevin Cassidy. I thought that it was a cool picture and saved the image in a folder called “Awesome Art.” I figured that was going to be that. I might look back and admire the picture once in a while, but I had no idea just how much that picture would change my life.

At the time, I was writing the outline for book eight in my Chosen of Bella Luna series. I really wanted to finish the series, which I thought I might be able to do in nine books. This penultimate book in the series was one I was excited to write. As I was working on the outline, though, my brain kept going back to the picture I’d saved in the Instagram folder. I tried to ignore it, but the muses in my mind work in mysterious ways, and I could not stop thinking of the image.

Finally, I figured that if I just jotted some ideas down, I could get my mind to release the thoughts of the picture, and I could get back to writing my outline. I thought wrong. The quick thoughts I'd planned to jot down turned into something that launched me outside my comfort zone with regards to my writing.

I love romance and I love stories, so you can imagine that I absolutely love romantic stories. That’s why I write in the genre that I do. But there’s so much more to my books than just romance. There’s often suspense and mystery. There’s always some humor. And then there are the characters I create. I may be biased, but I think I’ve created some pretty amazing and realistic characters.

I started out writing contemporary romance, but then because of a dream I had, I ventured into the realm of paranormal romance by introducing werewolves into the mix. Fun fact: the werewolf series, the Chosen of Bella Luna, was the book I was trying to write when General Lokun Abakkus demanded my attention. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I enjoy the subgenre of paranormal romance so much because, frankly, here anything can go. I had another dream after I bought my first gargoyle, and that led to the idea of writing a book about a gargoyle named Claude Pierre. I’ve not finished that book yet, but it, as well as probably four more in the series, is still in my mind and is still listed on the “Works in Progress” page of my website.

I had another dream about the government using the DNA of an unknown species to create super soldiers that could be used to the government’s benefit. Like my unnamed gargoyle book, this book has been started but not finished. I'd planned to finish Project 13 for the NaNoWriMo in 2024 (see the blog post: What the Heck Have I Been Up To? on 2/20/25), but that didn’t work out as I had planned. I still intend to finish the book, as well as probably four or five more in this series. You might have noticed that I have a hard time writing standalone books.

What I’m trying to say with this long-winded explanation is all of these books, even the ones in a paranormal subgenre, were all well within my comfort zone. All of the characters were more or less human, or humanoid. All of the stories took place in the present time and all of them took place on planet Earth. The image that Kevin Cassidy brought into my life burst that little comfort bubble.

“The most interesting things in life happen just on the other side of your comfort zone.” ~ Michael Hyatt.

The thoughts in my mind about this picture I’d saved not only caused me to step out of my comfort zone, but it also forced me to do more as a writer than I had for any other book thus far. To create the story that was forming in my mind, I had to step off planet Earth and go even further than that to take a trip outside our solar system.

This is how General Lokun Abakkus and Star Shine Miller were created. The image I saved in Instagram was of a being that was definitely not human. The artist was making an image for Loki, the giant in Norse mythology. I decided to honor the art by using Loki in the name, and thus Lokun was the name I chose for the character. Star was so named because I envisioned what humans would be like if we discovered the ability to travel in space to visit other places. Star Shine has two brothers, Hal and Al, Halley Comet and Alpha Centauri.

To bring this story to life, I had to create a race of beings who lived on a fictitious planet in a fictitious solar system. I had to create a landscape and an entire world. I had to create a language and a society for a race of beings that didn’t exist. I’m not a scholar as J.R.R. Tolkien was when he created the languages and lore in The Lord of the Rings. I’ve never studied linguistics nor am I even very knowledgeable about astronomy. I haven’t studied ancient cultures or current-day societal customs. I didn’t have any of that knowledge, but what I did have was an imagination.

And from my imagination a story began to develop. The Arkainian Chronicles is the story about Lokun and Star. It’s a story of how they met, how they fell in love, and how they ended up changing the world.

The first book, Blood Bound, took a little longer to write simply because I had to create all the backstory before I could write the actual story. I had to envision what the planet of Arkainia looked like, what the personalities and character traits of Arkainians were like, and how and why humans came to be on Arkainia. While I was trying to jot down some ideas so I could finish the outline and write the book I’d intended to write when the image first appeared on Instagram, Lokun persisted in my mind. He stayed even when I wanted him to leave. So I decided to work this into his character. He’s rather tenacious and wouldn’t leave me alone until I wrote his story. I finally relented and paused on the idea of writing book eight of the Chosen of Bella Luna series and instead wrote Blood Bound. Fun Fact: To this day, I still have not written book eight.

It took nearly a whole year to get the story where I was happy with it. I continually read it and edited it, always finding things to change. When I read the book to my favorite beta reader, my husband, he helped me develop the Arkainians even further. Adrian’s background is in English, and he finds linguistics fascinating. He came up with the idea that the Arkainian language was much more formal and rigid than English. I already had in the story that they were a literal race of beings. They didn’t understand metaphors, nor did they understand sarcasm. They spoke efficiently and didn’t use any superfluous words. This became a running joke among the humans in the story. Our language is rife with metaphors. I actually didn’t realize how much we use them in everyday conversation until I wrote this book. Blood Bound was finally published in March of 2023.

I decided to write the second book in the series, Blood Born, for NaNoWriMo 2023 (the now defunct National Novel Writing Month). I had two main ideas that I wanted to accomplish in this book: Lokun takes control of the Sacred Mountain and Star gives birth (thus the name of the book). The first book basically followed Lokun and Star. It introduced characters who were with Lokun on his battleship and the characters in the city on Arkainia. They were different but all part of the main plotline. The story in the second book broke the main plotline into three subplot lines: Lokun and Star in the Outlands, Jorial and Zoken on the battleship in space, and Renald and Sturm in the city. Furthermore, I decided to complicate things, because why not, and create subplots of the subplots. Blood Born was published in July of 2024.

This brings me to the third book, Blood Blessed. I’m currently in the process of writing this book. I plan to complete the first draft in the next few days. The idea for this blog post came to me when I thought of how easily the ideas for this story came together. Before I began writing, I had some disconnected ideas, but nothing overall came to me as the point of the book the way it had in the second one. I know what I want to have happen in the fourth book. I was thinking this third book might end up being just a transition like The Two Towers in the Lord of the Rings series. The Two Towers is essential to the overall story but lacks a definitive purpose, other than getting from Point A to Point B. But as is the case with most of my stories, once I began writing, the ideas just came to me.

I'm one who handwrites my outlines and ideas. This helps me to slow my brain down. I’m not a great typist, but I type much faster than I write. By slowing down and writing the ideas by hand, I allow my brain to just relax and the ideas seem to just come to me. I often vary from the original outline. The characters quite often decide to go in a different direction than I had planned them to go in, but hey, writing is a fluid process.

Last night, I was working out the details of how I wanted Blood Blessed to end. I closed my eyes and had some ideas. But it wasn’t until I went and got my journal and started writing the ideas down that it all came together. I planned out how the book was going to end. Currently, I’m at 108,540 words. I’ve written just over five journal pages of ideas, which will will probably translate to around 30,000-35,000 words once I flesh out the ideas in the story. I don’t understand how the muses of my imagination work, but I’m pretty happy that they seem to enjoy filling my brain with people and stories that are worth sharing.

I hope you give the Arkainian Chronicles a try. If you do read the books, I'd love to know what you think. Thanks for reading this blog post.

]]><![CDATA[PerNoWriMos]]>Sat, 31 May 2025 06:51:37 GMThttps://www.dreamwriter.earth/writing-blog/pernowrimos

June 1st is rapidly approaching, and I am super excited to begin working on my newest novel. It has been quite a while since I’ve written a novel. I believe, the last full novel I wrote was Book Two of my Arkainian Chronicles, Blood Born. Book Three of this series, Blood Blessed, is what I have chosen to write for my personal novel-writing goal. If you read my last blog post, you know that NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) has officially closed down. I had participated in NaNoWriMo for over fifteen years. I looked forward to November for that very reason. But now that it’s gone, I've decided to establish my own “Personal Novel Writing Months.” Plural. Maybe I could use the initialism PerNoWriMos to personalize the experience.

The goal of NaNoWriMo was to write 50,000 words in November. I almost always achieved that goal, but 50,000 words never completed my novel. I tend to write big books and rarely are my novels less than 100,000 words, so I made the decision to utilize two months for my PerNoWriMos. My personal goal is to write 100,000 words between June 1st and July 31st. I chose June and July mainly because nothing is really happening for me during those months, and I can dedicate the time needed for writing.

In addition to writing a new novel this year, I've made it my goal for 2025 to publish four of my backlog novels. The four I've chosen have already all been laid out, and I either have the copy to proof, or it has been ordered and will arrive soon.

Words come easy for me, as does the entire novel- writing process. I start with a good outline, and the ideas just flow from there. Quite often, the characters decide the direction of the story, and I have to chuck the first outline out the window and create a second, or third one. Writing is a fluid process, and once I get going, I can easily write 10,000 words in a day. Yes, my fingers get cramped from typing, but I make good progress on the book. Now, understand, I type with six fingers: both thumbs, both index fingers, and both middle fingers. That’s it. My ring fingers and pinky fingers are useless phalanges for my writing process, and I often struggle to get the words out on the screen as fast as my brain manufactures them. It can be frustrating at times, but I've managed so far.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. ~ Isaac Isamov

My office is my creative bubble. I do my best thinking and writing in there. In the room with me are my many gargoyles. They keep me company and guard my office when I’m not there. I also have my collection of Lego modular buildings. I have every set released except the second one (which, for the record, I do not consider a proper modular building). I also surround myself with my art. I do acrylic paint pours and have adorned my ceiling with many of my paintings. The walls of the room are painted blue, which inspires tranquility and creativity. I usually light a scented candle appropriate to the story. Scent plays a significant role in many of my stories, since scent can trigger emotions, more so than visual stimuli. With the mood set and the good vibes flowing, the words just come naturally to me.

So wish me luck in my writing endeavor for my PerNoWriMos. By the end of July, I hope to have put a decent dent in Blood Blessed. I plan to continue writing until the book is done, and then I will spend time editing it and reading it to my favorite beta reader, my husband. He’s not normally a reader of romance books, but he's been kind enough to listen to almost all of mine and offer editing advice or other modifications he believes makes the story better. He's taken a particular liking to my Arkainian books. There’s just something quirky about my created race of aliens that tickles his fancy. The Arkainians are very literal, and they are often confused by English idioms. My husband isn't necessarily as literal as the Arkainians, but he does work with words for a living and enjoys exploring the ideas they convey.

I normally write a post on Facebook encouraging anyone who reads my post to join me in my journey, but to date, no one has. I've written those posts because I believe stories are meant to be shared. There are so many beautiful stories just waiting to be written. So if you’ve ever had a thought to write a book, now is the time. Take it from me: It will be such a rewarding experience to hold your book in your hands and to know someone else's life was touched by your imagination.

]]><![CDATA[Sometimes the broken cannot be fixed]]>Tue, 08 Apr 2025 23:06:09 GMThttps://www.dreamwriter.earth/writing-blog/sometimes-the-broken-cannot-be-fixed

I’m saddened, but not surprised, at the announcement that NaNoWriMo.org, the nonprofit organization that has hosted National Novel Writing Month for the past 25 years, has decided to shut down. I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo for over 15 years. It has served as inspiration to begin many of my novels, including my forthcoming new one. I try to write at least one novel per year — this past year being an exception with my health challenges. The goal of NaNoWriMo was to write 50,000 words during the month of November. The NaNoWriMo website was a place where you could record the basic details of the book you were working on and log your daily word count. You could set up groups and earn badges. It was both fun and encouraging.

What wasn’t announced until recently was the financial state of the organization. I watched the video from the acting executive director, Kilby Blades, as she explained why NaNoWriMo had to shut down. One of her comments was that the organization didn’t collect, or encourage, enough community funding. One thing that struck me is that she said most participants were under the impression that what they did on the site was free, meaning that people took part in the activities the site had to offer but didn’t provide any financial contributions. I’ve been coming to the NaNoWriMo site for over 15 years, and never have I seen anything other than a banner suggesting donations. The organization never, to my recollection, suggested membership fees or solicited annual contributions. I’ve contributed as I can, but I didn’t ever get the impression that I, and other participants, should have been donating continuously to keep the organization afloat.

The financial state of the organization has been declining, and it’s been operating in a deficit for four of the past six years. The only reason it didn’t report an operating loss in 2020 was that the leadership took out a COVID loan of $150,000, most of which hadn’t been paid back three years later. Most of the funding for the organization came from merchandising and sponsorships, instead of community donations. And the sponsorships began to seriously decline after 2023, when there were accusations that one of the moderators was grooming young participants on an offsite forum.

NaNoWriMo was a big supporter of young writers. Many educators provided material in their classrooms and created programs in schools to allow students to participate. The problem was the organization didn’t watch over this area closely enough. It didn’t verify that the people who said they were educators were actually educators. It didn’t even require participants or moderators to use their legal names. In fact, when the accusations came out about the problematic moderator, the organization was slow to react, and when it did finally report the case to the FBI, it couldn’t produce the accused moderator’s legal name because no one knew what it was. Even the acting executive director’s name, Kilby Blades, is her pen name, not her legal name.

This failure to protect young participants didn’t set well with many people. Adding to the problem is that there were forums on sites such as Discord and Facebook, created outside the organization, that used NaNoWriMo’s credentials but were in no way created or monitored by the organization. In some of these outside forums, participants were criticized and/or ridiculed. When complaints were presented to the organization, it didn’t do anything because it had no control over these outside forums. The problem is that the NaNoWriMo website hadn’t been updated in over seven years and was unable to support any inside forums like the ones created on the outside platforms. The organization admitted that technological advancements made up a very small portion of the annual budget.

As it became apparent that the organization was in serious financial danger, the acting director started actively looking for other similar organizations to merge with, but the organization’s precarious financial position made it a poor candidate for any kind of buyout. The director and board then started looking for sponsors who could help support the organization. When the topic of artificial intelligence came up, several AI sponsors presented their offers. The acting director, in the video announcing the NaNoWriMo shutdown, says the organization ended up turning down the sponsorships because AI went against what NaNoWriMo believes. If that’s the case, why had NaNoWriMo previously come out in support of the idea of AI-assisted writing? That stance had caused two well-known, nationally best-selling authors to resign from the NaNoWriMo Board of Directors.

Between the moderator issues and the fallout from AI support, the organization made the decision to shut down. As I said, I’m saddened by the news but not surprised.

But as H.G. Wells said, “If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.”

What am I going to do now? For starters, I’m not going to give up writing. I’m still going to challenge myself to complete one novel every year. I’m also going to continue with the NaNoWriMo challenge, just on a personal level instead of through the organization. I think I might even give myself two months instead of one to hit my goal. Writing 50,000 words in 30 days is a challenge in some cases, and none of my novels have ever been only 50,000 words anyway. I tend to write big books, most over 100,000 words. I think my shortest novel is around 80,000 words and my longest is over 180,000. A good middle spot for me is 100,000 words. So during the months of June and July, I’m going to challenge myself to write 100,000 words in 61 days. The daily word count comes out almost the same. The extra day in July — June and November both having only 30 days, of course — lowers the daily goal from 1,667 words to 1,640.

Of course, before I can sit down to write a novel, I need to get my office organized. Over the past year, I’ve used my office very little for anything other than a place to store things to be gone through later. My office is out of the way — a small area off the kitchen that, for the previous owners, served as an apartment for an elderly relative. There’s no door separating my office from a tiny kitchen area that was part of the apartment space, and I’ve often entertained the idea of creating a secret bookcase door leading into my office, for no other reason than I think it would be eccentric and look cool. And it is, after all, the place where I create books.

My office is my bubble of creativity. I took a class once on colors, and the instructor said the color blue fosters creativity and outside-the-box thinking. For this reason, I’ve always painted my home office spaces blue. Blue isn’t my favorite color — that honor goes to purple — but my blue office does seem to allow me to create amazing stories. I have so many ideas packed in my head, having not written much in this past year while undergoing cancer treatment. My energy has been devoted to recovering. But now that the hardest part of the treatment is hopefully behind me, I can get back on track with both my writing and my painting.

I miss creating. Creating is therapeutic for me. As Aristotle once said, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” I use my writing to express my inmost thoughts and to deal with problems in the world my way. Every character is a part of me. There’s something about each of them that represents a quirk in my own personality. In a way, then, my characters are an extension of me. Though I’ve never created a character specifically based on me, meaning I’ve never put myself in the place of any character, each one is distinctly some little piece of me.

My painting allows me to express my moods with colors. I do abstract paint pouring, and each painting to me is like a Rorschach test in that you can examine one of my finished canvases 10 times and sometimes see 10 different images. On a related note, I’ve been reading up on art therapy recently, and I find the idea fascinating. I know that I almost always feel better after I finish a painting. There are some that just turn out terrible, and I end up pouring new paint over them. But even those failures can be a lesson. And the lesson is: Don’t give up. Something good can come from something bad if you allow yourself the opportunity to see it. That’s something I’ve learned in a very personal way over the past year.

I have in my art room a bucket full of broken glasses. I entertained the idea of using the broken pieces to create new art — to create something beautiful from something broken. That idea hasn’t come to fruition … yet. But the idea is still sitting there in my mind, and until it goes away, it’s always possible for it to become reality.

As author Lauren Oliver observed: “You don't reach points in life at which everything is sorted out for us. I believe in endings that should suggest our stories always continue.”

]]><![CDATA[What the heck have I been up to?]]>Fri, 21 Feb 2025 04:43:33 GMThttps://www.dreamwriter.earth/writing-blog/what-the-heck-have-i-been-up-to

When I first created my Dreamwriter.earth website and made the decision to include a page for blog posts, I had the unrealistically optimistic thought I’d have the discipline to do a monthly blog post.

Needless to say, that didn’t happen. I did two blog posts in 2022 and three in 2023. From the pattern, you might think I did four in 2024. Well, you would be wrong. How many blog posts did I do in 2024?

Now, in all fairness, I do kind of have a legitimate excuse for this lack of activity. In July of 2024, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. I started treatment of chemotherapy and immunotherapy the week after my daughter’s birthday in August, and just finished the chemo part last week. To say that it’s been a difficult six months would be putting it lightly.

I didn’t write a new novel during 2024. It’s the first time in many years that I didn’t get a novel started during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Though I did make an attempt. I decided I was going to try and finish one of my works in progress: Project 13. I started Project 13 over five years ago. After reading this blog, you can hop over to the Works in Progress page to get an idea of what the story is about. I think it’s an amazing story that deserves to be finished, but I just couldn’t do it in November. I, then, made it my plan to finish it by the end of the year. That didn’t happen either. Now, here it is nearly the end of February, and I still haven't made significant progress to finish the novel.

I’m hoping now that the chemotherapy is done, I might start to slowly regain the sharp mind I’ve enjoyed and underappreciated my entire life. I’ve been doing the things suggested to regain a clear mind. I find Sudoku almost comical with how easy it is. I managed to complete a nightmare level in 20 minutes or so. I’ve always been a number person and numbers make sense to me, but numbers aren’t what I needed help with, so I took to doing crossword puzzles, Wordle, and word scrambles. My favorite app is Wordscapes.

Are these brain exercises working? I have the clarity of mind to write this blog post, so maybe it’s doing something. I’m not setting another time goal to finish writing Project 13. I made the decision on January 1st that the only New Year's resolution I was going to make for this year is to get a cancer-free diagnosis. That being said, I would like to finish the story and maybe get it published this year.

Though I didn’t write anything in 2024, I did publish four novels during the year. All four books have been added to my underappreciated arsenal of books available for sale. Shameless plug: If you click on the individual book covers, it’ll take you to where you can buy them on Amazon. Of course, you can always see what books are available and what’s upcoming here on my newly updated website.

I have several novels in backlog that are written and have been minorly edited. They’re not publish-ready yet, but they can be edited and published with less mental clarity than it takes to plan out and write the novel. In case you haven’t read any of my novels, I tend to write long books that have many interweaving storylines. Anything less than a sharp mind will flub something up and leave something dangling. There’s nothing more annoying to me as a reader than to have a concept or idea brought up in a book and have the author either never address it again or change the idea to fit into a concept in a later book. I guess the only thing that bugs me more as a reader is for a great story to have a terrible ending. Fun fact, that was one of the motivating reasons for me to begin writing my own stories. I couldn’t stand a lousy ending. If I write the book, it'll never have an ending I don’t like. Simple solution. Except when I have chemo brain, and I can’t write more than two sentences in a day.

Along with a serious decrease in my writing, 2024 brought a screeching halt to my artwork. Aside from writing, I also paint. My area of focus is on abstract art. I use acrylic paints and pour them onto a canvas. Then, I tilt and twirl the paint around until I’m happy with the final product. This process is called acrylic paint pouring.

If you want to see any of my paintings, you can hop over to DeviantArt.com and check out my gallery. I miss painting. I miss art in general. I have an art room in our basement that is my sanctuary. Aside from my office, my art room is my favorite room in the entire house. I have in that room anything and everything you can think of, and probably several things you might never associate with art. I have drawers of broken glass, containers of bits and bobs, even a basket full of pistachio shells. They make great flower petals. Don’t judge me. Anyway, down in my art room is where the magic of my painting comes to life. But it is downstairs, and undergoing my cancer treatment sapped my energy.

There were honestly days that I couldn’t get up from my chair except to stumble to the bathroom. Fatigue plagued me as the chemotherapy, designed to kill off cells (both good and bad), decimated both my red blood cells, leaving me severely anemic, and my white blood cells, leaving me basically without an immune system. But it, hopefully, also killed the cancer cells. I'll know more over the next month.

So, to answer the question I asked at the start of this post. What the heck have I been up to? Unfortunately, not much except resting and recovering the best I can. I am optimistic, though, that 2025 will be more artistically productive for me. Because as Pablo Picasso said: Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. I’m ready for some dusting to happen and for my mind to once again be my friend instead of my enemy.

]]>

Today is my 54th birthday.

The quick answer is no.

​“It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.”

“The most interesting things in life happen just on the other side of your comfort zone.” ~ Michael Hyatt.

“It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.”