books

A whole forest or just some trees?

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Sometimes we need a little help to figure stuff out. The big stuff. Deep stuff. Stuff we don’t always like to examine in the light of day. I came across a blog post today that really struck a nerve. Here is the part that brought me to tears:

“When I feel better, I am more creative and more willing to allow myself to take the risk of feeling good about myself. Isn’t that strange? It’s a thing that I do, that I’ve done for my whole life: I don’t want to take the risk of feeling good about myself, because I’m afraid that I’ll get complacent, or arrogant, or someone will discover the Truth that my Depression tells me: I’m not that great and I don’t deserve to feel good about myself.”

I’ve never felt like I was depressed. Sometimes aggravated and upset with myself that I haven’t ended up where I thought I would be by now. But I never considered it depression. When I found this blog post from Wil Wheaton, I realized that what he described is exactly how I feel. I don’t know when it started but I have the feeling it goes way back. Mom had a way of making me feel guilty for doing something well, even my grades. I wasn’t given a choice but to make good grades. Yet she would fuss at me for always having my nose in a book whether it was for school or not.

How do you learn to break free from that when it’s all you were ever taught by the one person who’s supposed to love you and encourage you and nurture you above all others? For a lot of the time I remember, my mother was a miserable person. Nothing I could do to make her happy, nor my dad or my brother. She seemed to revel in it. The more I read about depression, I’m not sure she had a choice. That doesn’t make it any less tragic to instill that thinking into your children.

Now that I recognize what’s going on, I have to stop the cycle. I don’t have kids but I do have friends and family. I don’t want my behavior to be a negative influence on anyone. I recently had a meltdown. I hit my breaking point. And I am now medicated. Hopefully, the medication will help me find my way back to the right path. The path I should have found my way to when I was supposed to be learning who I was.

Here’s the entire blog from Wil Wheaton: http://wilwheaton.net/2015/10/seven-things-i-did-to-reboot-my-life/

Karina’s Back!

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Okay, we finally have the Audible link for Karina Fabian’s book, I Left My Brains in San Francisco. This is the second book in the Neeta Lyffe series. If you like your zombies on the funny side, you need to read/listen to these books.

NeetaLyffe_ILeftMyBrainsinSanFrancisco_audio_MED

Interview with Karina Fabian

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I’m on vacation this week and giving myself a birthday present. I’m interviewing my NeetaLyffe_ILeftMyBrainsinSanFrancisco_audio_MEDfriend and fellow writer Karina Fabian. She has a new audio book that should be dropping this week.

Do zombies take vacations?

Zombies are dead people whose hind brains haven’t clued into the fact yet. While they sometimes keep enough brain function to do things like return home, shamble through a drive-thru or try to vote, they aren’t really making conscious decisions. So, if one dies while on vacation and was really, really invested in doing something while on that vacation, its soulless corpse may return to hang out on the beach or go skydiving – likely what may have killed it in the first place, but zombies don’t really learn from their mistakes, either. However, it would not take a vacation.

What’s been you experience with audio books? Do you like it or not? Will you do it again?

I’ve had a great experience working with Becky Parker on the audiobooks. She has a good narrative style, fun voices and has fantastic special effects. It puts a new spin on the story. I’d love to do it again. In fact, I suggested to my publisher we just jump right to producing Shambling in a Winter Wonderland in audio, too, and have the print and audio come out together.

Do you have a bazillion notes on Neeta like J.K. Rowling has on Harry?

Nope. Neeta tells me what I need to know as I write the story.

What’s next for Neeta?

Neeta and Ted are heading to Utah. Neeta is showing off her exterminator’s van as part of the publicity agreement she made with HumVans, and they’re hoping to enjoy a zombie-free vacation snowboarding.  (Yeah…guess how that turns out.)

NeetaLyffe_ZombieExterminator_300dpi_eBook - CopyHow has writing Neeta Lyffe impacted your other writing universes?

My universes stay separate. I don’t see them crossing over, ever. They each have their own histories and population, and I enjoy moving from one to the other. Each book I write does teach me lessons I can apply to other novels, however. I’d say Neeta’s books help me remember to keep in mind how the wider world affects the doings of my characters.

I know you’re teaching a world building class. How did you build Neeta’s universe? Actually, the worldbuilding class was in August. This month, I’m teaching monster creation. You can learn more and register at https://www.anymeeting.com/AccountManager/RegEv.aspx?PIID=EB59D786854E39.

Neeta’s universe was the easiest one to build, since it’s ours 30 years in the future. I took current social and political trends, projected them to ridiculous extremes (or what I hope would be ridiculous), and then added the zombies. I took a different approach to zombies. I have a hard time believing in the overwhelming apocalypse model, especially as we were in the middle of the H1N1 scare at the time I started the series, and while some people were sure we’d wipe out a significant amount of the population, strong controls made it a tempest in a teapot.

I figured the same thing would happen with zombieism. Even if we didn’t figure out what caused it or how to cure it, we would put controls in place to contain it. Thus, zombies as pests, not pestilence.

If you could ask Neeta a question, what would you ask her?

Why was it so hard for you and Ted to just admit you loved each other? It was the hardest part of the book to write.

Slider-ilmbiSF-audio-tour Karina

I always enjoy having Karina on the blog. You can find her and all of her universes at Fabian Space.

Get moving…

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It’s raining again. I’ve been wanting it to rain. I have arthritis. I feel the rain coming three or four days before it gets here. After the first few hours of rain I stop hurting. I’ve been looking forward to the rain. But now it’s been raining for almost five days. Did I mention I’m allergic to the mold spores that are now piling up on the ground because of all the moisture? Yeah, the weather will always find a way to get me.

The lack of pain that commenced with the rain has helped boost productivity the last few days. Today I’m not feeling very motivated. So I turned to my drug of choice: music. For motivation it needs to be fast and loud and usually rocking. Here’s something to get you started:

Show a little love

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You knew this day would come. It happens without fail. Every week of your life. Yes, it’s Monday. Stop whining.

I don’t understand why so many people fear Mondays. We all know it’s going to follow Sunday. Maybe it’s because I don’t work a regular Monday-Friday job. Nah, I’ve done that before and I still didn’t hate Monday.Smile-960x854

This is how I look at it. I woke up. I have a safe place to sleep. I have food to eat. I have people who care about me. I have music and books and football games and crafts to make.

Do I have everything I ever wanted? Am I wealthy? No. And I’m okay with that. I have all of what I need and enough of what I want. Next week when you start to complain about it being Monday again, stop and count all the things you have that you are grateful for. Then think about where you would be if you didn’t have it. It’s time to remember how to be happy for what you have.

Let’s show Monday a little love for a change.

Review: Edward M Erdelac’s With Sword and Pistol

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With Sword and Pistol by Edward M Erdelac is a wonderful set of stories. Each involve some type of battle with both steel and pistol in some fashion. Erdelac has a swift voice that quickly immerses you in the worlds he creates. He is a student of fiction and his knowledge shows. You’ll find yourself hanging on every page, absorbing words like oxygen. His imagery is applied with a deft hand. In Night of the Jikininki you get samurai and zombies with images standing out so clearly you can almost hear the Tarantino-esque 70’s music while you read. Red Sails gives you vampire and werewolf pitted against regular mortals in a battle that keeps you spellbound. Sinbad and the Sword of Solomon is everything I remember from watching Sinbad movies as a kid. You get the sailing, monsters, a double cross or two, and a dominant Sinbad that’s true to his swashbuckling inspiration. And finally you have Gully Gods, a tale of former child-soldiers and gangbangers in modern Chicago that delves into the darkness of blood gods and dark magic. If this is your first experience reading Erdelac, you will want more.

Ready, Set…maybe next time

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How comfortable are you? No, not your chair. In your skin. When was the last time you tried something new? How often do you step out of your comfort zone? Having a comfort zone can be a good thing. It’s where you feel the strongest, safest and most comfortable. When you feel secure, you have more confidence.

But it’s not always a good thing to be that comfortable. It can lead to a rut so deep you may not realize you’re in it. That can lead to boredom, missed opportunities, a wide posterior. Sometimes we need to step out of our comfort zone. The fear of making a change or trying something new can become monumental if allowed to grow unchecked.

So how do you tell if you’re stuck in a rut? For starters, pay attention to how many times you opt not to do something. Why are you saying no? Is it always for the same reason? Are you too set in your ways to get up and do something? Also pay

attention to how often you chose not to do something that you use to a lot of. When an old friend asks you for a long overdue lunch date or to go for coffee, are you saying no because you’ve had too much coffee already or because you just want to go sit in your comfy chair and not move? Do you find yourself saying, “I’m just too set in my ways” or “I’m too old for that anymore” or “maybe next time?” Pay attention to when and why you say these things. It could be that you’re trying to avoid stepping out for some reason.

We all get tired. We all have days we just want to go home and not deal with the outside world for a few hours. But we all need human contact. We all need to get out in the sunshine and enjoy life. Don’t be afraid to put on some sunblock and step out the door.

Sifting through the ashes

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Most of us have had some experience with loss. Fires, tornadoes and hurricanes, deaths of loved ones, deaths of relationships. Loss comes in many forms. Sometimes the healing is fairly quick. But some wounds are deceptive in how deep they really go. You may think you’re over it, but then something new happens and you realize that there are some lingering issues. What do you do?

I’ve realized over the last few days that I have some leftover damage from a past relationship. So what am I doing? Sifting through the ashes of the past and looking at what’s happening and what I feel about it. Here’s the truth of it: the other person in my life now is not doing anything different now than he was when we started this whole thing almost a year ago; his behavior is consistent. I’m the one having issues. I’m the one having doubts and second guessing myself.

the_phoenix_rise_by_amorphisss-d34q7w8Wait….did I say “I” was second guessing “myself?” Yes, I did and that’s an important distinction. I recognized a few days ago that the problem is that I’m afraid. It’s truly not anything the other person is doing. I’ve struggled for a long time with fear of failure/success. It applies to relationships, too. I’m just now realizing how much it applies. I’m afraid of making a mistake, afraid of losing someone that’s important to me, afraid to trust him because of the behavior of someone who is long gone from my life. That’s not fair to me or to him.

Okay, so what do I do now that I’ve dug through the ashes and gotten my hands all dirty? Wash away all the residue of the past. Let go of the emotional baggage that’s weighing me down and just enjoy myself and this relationship for what it is. It’s not easy, but it’s worth the effort.

Hello World!

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I’m Becca. I’m a writer trying to put all the right words together. I’ve been blogging for many years and recently realized that my voice, what I wanted to say, was changing. So I decided to create a new blog. I hope you’ll join me in this new adventure in blogging.