I have issues, no really

I know everyone says they have issues but I've been officially diagnosed with issues. My issues happen to be so severe that I get to take a month off work so the medication they gave me can kick in and so I don't freak out and jump off a bridge. No, really.

Yesterday I tried to go into work. Note, the tried. I got up, ate breakfast, brushed my cat (it's our morning ritual now), chilled for a bit, got dressed, and headed out. I made it to the parking lot and was parking my car when I hit the breaks, burst into tears then took off.

Where did I take off to? The cemetery where my parents are entombed. I sat with them for about two hours until I got hungry. Cemetery bathrooms are gross by the way. Anyway, I headed down to the shopping mall for food and promptly went to my doctor's office. Why? Because on my way back home I wanted to drive my car off a bridge.

Why? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. I've always had darker thoughts and most of the time I can translate them into my writing and everything's good. It hasn't been working for a few years now but most of the time I can take a day off, cry it all out, and be done with till the next time I kind of cracked. This time, I broke. I couldn't fix it on my own.

My doctor referred me to the urgent care area in the hospital. I got to talk to an RN who specialized in mental issues about everything that's bugging me. No I'm not going to go into detail here mainly because it will reveal things about my location and my family life that I don't want to delve into for personal reasons.

The basics is I'm exceptionally unhappy with my life in general. I don't sleep well. I'm not enthused about anything (even writing) anymore. I hate my job. I hate the way my life has ended up. I hate myself. I want to go to sleep and not have to wake up to face the shit-hole that has become my life.

This is not where I wanted to be at this point in time. I had everything (or at least most of it) planned out. I had a way to get there. Then the train came off the track and I had no idea how to get it on the right path again. I still don't know how to get everything where it's supposed to go.

I think most of it comes from this cloud hanging over me, that has been hanging over me, for the better part of a decade. I don't think I'm worth it so I kind of hide out in this little corner and hang on the fringes of life. I don't want to cling to scraps anymore. I want to get out there and have a life, including marketing and publishing my novels but I don't feel like I'm good enough. I feel useless. I feel inadequate. There's no point in trying because it's not going to work anyway. I never have enough money and I'm so deep in debt I don't feel like I'll ever get back out.

So the RN got the emergency doctor to talk to me just to make sure I wasn't actually going to drive off a bridge or take a bottle of pills. I wasn't. I obviously didn't. The psychiatrist then spoke to me and prescribed me a month off work and two different kin of pills. One is a general anti-depressant/relaxant that I take every day and the other is a take-as-needed relaxant. I also got a few sheets of papers for referrals to grief counselling as well as therapists I can talk to. On Monday someone's going to be calling so they can make arrangements to come check on me through the month.

Thankfully the pills weren't too expensive because I had to pay for them out of pocket since my medical didn't kick in yet at work. Yes, even though I'm in Canada I still have to pay for my medication if I have no benefits through work. OHIP does cover some stuff but not this. Yes I do get a reduced rate (I'm sure) because I'm on a sort of benefit through the government but the pills were not free.

Anyway, I took the first one today. I know they say the pills aren't supposed to be working right away (about 3-5 weeks) but I don't feel like bursting into tears at the drop of a hat. I don't feel like ending it. I actually made a necklace today which I haven't done in months. I also felt disconnected. Kind of like I'm wasn't fully attached to my body. To be honest I think I was a little high. That feeling's gone now but man it was strong this morning. Right now I want to take a nap. And my mouth/throat has been really dry all day.

Oddly enough I feel like I could handle working. Do I want to go back? Nope. You can bet your life I'll be using at least part of this month to find a different job. The other part will be spent on novel writing, jewellery making, advertising Avalora, and reading.

I know I had a month off in January but it wasn't really a month off. I was freaking out about finding a job, worrying about training for the job I did get, and generally panicking about every little thing. Now? Eh, not so much.

Yes I'm still worried about money but it's at the back of my head. I know I have something coming to me Friday and I might not get sick leave benefits right away but I'll get something. I still have a job when I go back after a month. There are other issues and concerns which were bugging me (and still have the potential to bother me) but again: not an issue.

The concerns still need to be addressed of course but they aren't a horrifying monster that's going to bite my head off. They're more a bug I have to gather the courage to crush.

Until next time: thoughts, comments, rage, rants, questions, and out-right insults can be directed to the comments.

Fear

Fear is an interesting thing. It can make you do a lot of different things depending on the situation and who you are as a person. Fear motivates people in ways other people never expect. There's a lot of different things for different people to fear at different times. It's a complex emotion (hey, what isn't?) and as a writer I've explored it. I've studied fear in my characters and of course, I've studied it in myself.

For those of you reading this that follow my Twitter account,you'll notice that for the past two days I haven't been writing. For those of you who have no idea who I am: that's REALLY weird for me. Well, unless I've finished a project or National Novel Writing Month is over. I've not finished a project and NaNo isn't until November.

So, why did I stop writing? Am I suffering from writer's block? I don't believe in writer's block. Am I having problems with my Inner Editor? My Inner Editor is my Muse and we rarely have issues. Am I stuck in my current plot? Not really. So, again, why did I stop writing?

I'm afraid.

That's right. I'm afraid. Of what? Well, a lot of things. I'm afraid of midnight, mirrors after midnight, oh, right, writing. Sorry. I'm afraid of rejection. I'm afraid of not being good enough. I'm scared to SHIT of what I'm planning to do next month so I'm procrastinating this month.

What is it that's making me so afraid?

Well, you see, I've been an official self-published author since March 2010. Yeah, four years. I've not even come close to seeing my return on anything. I actually hate the only novel I have available right now and all my anthologies are unedited.

I'm also working as essentially an unpaid intern and have been for about the same amount of time as I've been self-published. For clarification: I've not had a paycheck in over four years. I've been surviving off lines of credit, credit cards, and inheritance. Not fun, I'll tell you that much.

What does that have to do with my fear of what's going to happen next month? Simple. At the beginning of this year I made it one of my goals to publish something. Next month, I'm going to start the beginning phases of completing that goal.

My plan is to start some kind of funding campaign (kickstarter, gofundme, gofundle, pick one dang it) and raise enough funds to edit, get a cover (if I can't make a decent one) and promote Burnt: The Story of the Fire King which is this month's novel.

If the campaign is successful (I'm planning to run it until December) then I'll have a published novel I'm proud about out into the world by early next year, depending on editing. If I use the 2K or so I hope to keep for promoting then I'll actually be able to get it into reader's hands and possibly make enough to at least pay some of my bills.

So what's the problem? Again, I'm scared shitless. Why? Because I've done the editing shtick before. I've had editors tell me that my stuff is great but seeing all those comments and red lines makes me think I'm not good enough. I see it as a kind of rejection, that I've messed up so bad that I shouldn't even bother. Granted it is grammar, wrong words, and tighter sentence structure that is meant to help (and does) but I still can't seem to get past it. I'm not sure why.

I do know for sure that I don't like to leave a goal unfinished and I've had the publishing goal on my resolutions list for years now. It's about time I give it one more try. Again: that is scaring the crap out of me. I know that as soon as I start the funding campaign and especially if it succeeds: I'm going to have to deliver. I'm going to have to get the book edited and actually CORRECT the changes then move on. I've given myself a deadline of October 10.

That deadline means I'll have the funding campaign started and I'll be promoting it like nuts. I'm hoping I don't deliberately let it fail so I don't have to see someone's professional editing.

Hell, even letting a good Twitter friend read a short story freaked me the Hell out. She tells me I'm good enough. Others have told me in the past that I'm good enough.

I don't think I am. I'm afraid I'm not. I'm afraid of being made fun of and rejected. I'm afraid of negative reviews and people not liking my work, and by extension: me.

But, I intend to overcome that fear. I owe it not just to me but to my characters and to all the people who have believed in me all these years. And quite frankly: I need to do this. If I don't I'll end up living on the street, literally because there is only so long lines of credit and what not can hold out. I'm running out of time and damn it, I like my bed.

Fear can conquer you if you let it. I'm tired of letting it hold me back.

Until next time: comments, rants, rage, questions, and concerns can be directed to the comments.

Thick Skin

First off I'd like to apologize for randomly wandering off for a month. I tend to get involved in things like writing, self-loathing, work, depression, and life in general. I can't even say I've been working on the rest of the 2014 "Novel Series" posts because I haven't. I've got one almost ready which is book two for the year and I'm up to five books for this year.

Second I'd like to say that I've probably been suffering with some form of depression for the past ten years (or more) and sometimes it's really hard to cope with it. I can come off as okay and happy on small things like Twitter or NaNo Forum posts but most days I feel like crap. I don't want to get out of bed or when I go to sleep I wish that I won't wake up. The only way I deal with it is by writing a novel and immersing myself in a character's life because most of the time it's about as crappy (or more so) than mine.

This depression was brought on by a lot of things that I don't feel like getting into right now but one is important to this post. So, away we go.

For those of you that don't know: if you want to be a writer you have to have a thick skin. I don't have a thick skin. It's probably part of the reason I don't promote so much because I'm afraid of what people are going to think. I know that if someone thinks badly of my work that I'll start hating it myself and then I'll stop writing.

That's exactly what happened tonight. A friend asked how I was doing in the writing front so I did what I probably shouldn't do: I Googled my name. To be honest, there were a lot of good things coming up. But I found a review for one of my books that simply said "Don't bother." Never mind the same book had a "not bad" review on it. It's the "don't bother" that stings.

Now, I understand that I can't please everyone. I also understand that the book in question is four years old. I'd like to think that my writing style has improved since then. I also understand the concept behind having a thick skin.

That doesn't mean a comment like that, two (or three) simple words, doesn't sting. It hurts. It made me stop writing in the middle of chapter tonight because I thought: "Well why bother?" Then I started thinking about how even after four years and a month that I haven't made the money I spent on my books back. I started re-evaluating my whole thought process on being a writer in general: "why bother with it?" "you know no one's going to read this," "there are people out there better than you," "you don't deserve to be a writer," "you have no future," and etc.

It's a whole downward spiral that I think I'm coming out of. It would be the quickest I ever came out of one, that's for sure but it's a good thing. It means I'm developing that thick skin and not taking a bad comment to heart. I'm not bursting into tears over it and I'm not feeling like I should delete everything and never speak of this again.

No, instead I'm thinking "well, he didn't like it. Hm, why? Let's go read it. It's not that bad. Yeah, it can be improved here, and here. Okay, so he doesn't like my writing. Big deal." Other people have liked it, well, thought it was okay. I'm good with okay because if it was okay four years ago, my writing is better than okay now. Rule of averages and all that.

What I'm trying to say is that for every bad comment there are probably at least four or five that aren't so bad. If you're lucky there's only one bad comment in a hundred. But that one bad comment will be the death of you if you let it. So don't let it. I know it's hard but hey, so long as your writing pleases you and you're happy with it, who cares?

Oh, and so you know: I didn't make it to Round Two in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. I also haven't submitted a damned thing because (if you hadn't noticed) I take rejection pretty horribly. That and I'm still on the fence about the debate of self-publishing (as unsuccessful as it's been for me) and traditional publishing. It's part of that whole self-loathing thing that only goes away when I'm putting my characters through some trial or another.

Until next time: comments, questions, rage, rants and everything in between can be directed to the comments.

Is it June yet?

So I had this plan, see. It consisted of writing 14 novels in 2014 to go along with the 13 novels I wrote in 2013. Details here of course. But as some of us might know life doesn't always go as planned.

I work for a start up company. There are four of us trying to get these products that are really awesome into the world. I've been doing it for about six years now and haven't been paid for it in over a year.

Now you're thinking: Renna, why don't you just quit? Well, that would be the easy way out and I'm a stubborn git. I haven't quit because despite hating driving myself deeper into debt: I love my job, my boss has become a father figure to me, and I believe in the products. I believe that they're great and if someone would just take a damned well chance on them we could make improvements to the markets the products are in.

With that being said: the company can't keep going the way it's going and we've decided that if we can't make it by June then we're shutting it down. My boss is in no way a quitter and he didn't even want to give it up but his wife is right: we can't keep going the way we're going.

Which means if we don't make it by June I'll have to start looking for real work. If you clicked on the link in the first paragraph you'll have seen that my goal for this year was to write two books a month, finishing my crime fiction series in June. I'm not 100% sure if I can pull it off as giving that final push for work might cut into my writing time. If it does, when June does come and if we're not getting cash flow, then finding a job definitely might cut into writing time.

So, life has happened. The unexpected came up again and I'm left trying to plan for something I'm not entirely sure will or will not happen. I could be an optimist and say that with our combined efforts the final push will pay off but small business rearing in this economy, eh, not so much. I could be the pessimist and say that I'm prepared to start looking for a new job in June but the reality is that I'm not. I don't do well with change.

I really don't like not being able to plan for the future. I don't like that the plans I did have for my writing year have gone awry. I don't like a lot of things that have happened the past decade or so of my life but like always I'll have to deal. I'm kind of sick of dealing but hey, crap happens. We wipe it up and move on.

The thing is though that no matter what happens I'll always be a writer. It's the one constant that will not change and really, it's the only thing keeping me sane. But even that hasn't helped all that much.

This month has been exceptionally tough as I haven't been writing as much as I normally do (I like to take a month off in December) and I found out the above news last week. I'm conflicted on the news because it means I can finally leave without feeling guilty but again: I love it there. Normally I bury myself in a writing hole but I just can't this month.

I want to but I don't want to. It's weird, I know but I never said I was in any way normal. The news is kind of sitting in the back of my head and I can't think of doing anything beyond June. I know when I meet up with my one friend tomorrow it won't be a fun meeting. I'll be talking about this and how we can't go on vacation this year or to the convention we normally go to. It sucks, it really does.

And when I meet up with my other friend I'll have to give some form of explanation to her about why I don't want to go on vacation (or do other things that require money) this year and it'll suck worse because she won't exactly be supportive of it. It's complicated. Then if we do close shop in June I'll have to explain to my family and that'll be another mess. I'm looking forward to start Milwordy but I'm wishing I could stay stuck in 2013 so I won't have to deal with this.

But, we deal. That's what we have to do to go on right? Either that or give up and I'm not the giving up type of person. I mean I've been self-pubbed for four years, haven't broken even or come close to it and yet I still write. That's either tenacity or stupidity and I'd like to think I'm not stupid.

Anyway, writing will always be therapeutic for me so getting all of this out has kind of helped. At least for now.

Until next time: Comments, questions, rants, rage and everything in between can be directed to the comments.

We Interrupt your regularly scheduled program...

This spot SHOULD be filled with another Novel Series, number 8 to be exact. That's the one about the aliens taking over earth with the Hunger Games theme if anyone's been paying attention. Obviously, this isn't Novel Series #8. It's not even a random rant about writing.

To be honest, brutally honest: I'm not sure what it is either. All I know is that I've had a really rough week and I had some kind of weird mental break yesterday. Not that there are normal mental breaks, but yeah.

Basically I started crying around 7:30AM yesterday, got calmed down enough so an hour later I could call in "sick." I burst out into tears on the phone with my boss' wife and couldn't form a full sentence. All she got was "I can't come in and I probably won't make it tomorrow either" in a bunch of choppy and incomplete sentences.

Then I hung up and texted her that I was under a lot of stress and I couldn't make it in because of it. She texted back an 8 page response about understanding, hoping I could make it through this, understanding if I wanted to leave the company and what not that I can't look at without tearing up again.

So here I am, Friday night, writing this blog post instead of working on one of the last chapters of my WIP. Why? Well, writing is what I do best. It's how I communicate best and the best way to kick this mental break out of my way is to write about it.

Why did I break? I mean, I can't possibly under stress right? I always seem so happy and my friends/coworkers/people I talk to would have never imagined me cracking like that. I am Sheera and Xena all rolled into one. I AM WOMAN! ROAR! *coughcoughsputtersob*

Moving on.

The company I work for is a start-up company. Read: I AM NOT GETTING PAID for being there. Why am I still there? Because we are this close to getting over the stupid hump, I believe in the project, my boss is like my father (since mine, you know, died about a decade ago), his wife is like my mother (who died a bit ago too) and I'm their adopted daughter. Besides all that, I can sit on a computer all day WRITING. No, it's not stuff I have an interest in but I still get to research and write about what I find which I LOVE DOING.

Soon I'll even be in a management position and if I play my cards right, I might take over the company when my boss finally retires. Not bad for someone under thirty, right?

Well, the fact that I haven't been paid in a long time is taking its toll. I'm surviving on lines of credit and credit cards and I'm about 40K in debt right now with no foreseeable way back out at the moment. Only one of my friends knows that I'm not getting paid because I'm too damned embarrassed to admit how foolish I am in not telling my family. Plus they would rather see me working a job I hate and getting paid then working for a company I might manage if I could just wait another...three months? six months? Year? Yeah: there are no guarantees.

Adding to money woes I'm pretty sure I haven't yet mourned properly for the death of my parents. Boo-hoo, I'm an orphan. Hey, I'm millions of dollars away from being Batwoman. HA!

Anyway, when my dad died I had to be the rock for my mom. I couldn't show my sadness because she wouldn't be able to take it. When my mom died, I had to be there for other family members and again couldn't show my emotion or they'd all fail. I guess I just got emotionally tired of being other people's rock.

Then there's the whole "not telling anyone I'm having money issues" and you know, paying bills, planning to go on a trip in December, buying presents for kid's (not mine, thank God) birthdays, maintaining the house, etc all.

And there's the whole issue of me sucking at promoting and get this: not being able to pay for someone to promote for me and not being able to figure out what I'm doing wrong. Oh and there's the whole need money to edit to get books out there but um, yeah, what money? Oh and let's not forget that in order to SELL a book I have to have MONEY so it can be successful and finance me so I don't freak out.

To those who think they can live without cash: FREAKING TRY ME. Seriously. Money makes the world go 'round and you don't understand this in full until you're wondering if you should pay your electricity bill or buy food besides instant noodles. Which are really unhealthy and is adding to the stress of me trying to lose weight so I don't have to take pills to keep my insulin level normal.

Yeah, I have health problems atop of all my money woes, people dying/getting sick around me woes, house woes, book woes, being everyone else's therapist (not that I would take that back, I don't mind really) and yeah. The good news is: I'm only a little choked up writing this. The bad news: read above. *winks*

Now, there is no quick fix for the money problems and I'm going to have to pull my big-girl panties back on and either quit the job I love to find one I hate, find a part-time REAL online job (someone point me there, please) or just freaking deal and wait.

I have found one avenue of funds but I'm pretty sure everyone I know would look at me funny for even considering but hey, it looks legit (I've seen tons of scams so I know) and it's good money for simply talking to people. I'm seriously considering it and will probably sign up tomorrow. Go Internet.

I think I'm done now. So, tell me your problems folks. I'll psycho-analyze them (I do have a few courses under my belt in that field ya know) and I'll be your rock. Then you can be mine and we can have this awesome cry fest then kick the crap out of whatever is keeping us down together.

Until next time: La-de-dum, by my stuff so I don't go completely nuts again. *winks*