I’m pleased to announce that I’ve sold my poem, Damage, to Bete Noire. The contract is currently winging its way toward them courtesy of Canada Post, and the poem is scheduled to appear in their January 2013 issue.
Niteblade!
*sang Batman-style* Na na na na na na na na na Niteblade! Niteblade!
I freaking love Niteblade. Love it. I have a fierce pride and an overwhelming affection for the publication and everyone who helps make it happen that I could do a whole Blogging from A to Z challenge with ‘Niteblade’ as my theme and still have blog topics left over at the end of the month. Truly. In fact, maybe I’ll do that next year. For this year, however, I only have one blog day to dedicate to it in this challenge. Today.
Niteblade, for anyone who is new to my blog and my life, is a fantasy and horror magazine I founded nearly five years ago (that’s like a billion years in internet time!). Since that day when it was me doing everything but the .pdf layout (which has always been Jo’s responsibility) Niteblade has grown to have several great people working behind the scenes.
We publish high-quality fiction and poetry and our pages are illustrated by original art.
Put simply, Niteblade rocks.
Unfortunately, it also costs money, and money is short these days. I’ve always hated asking anyone for help, for, um, anything, but Niteblade is something that means enough to me I decided I was willing to break that pattern and have a fundraiser. It was with more than a little trepidation that I put the call out ‘Niteblade could use your support, can you help?’ but the response I received was fabulous.
People donated loads of awesome stuff to our first (hopefully annual) fundraiser. Lots of stuff. Amazing stuff. I’m talking about critiques, handicrafts, signed books, food, art… the list goes on and on. People who couldn’t afford to donate *things* donated links. They donated time. They told their friends, and their friends told friends.
Our fundraiser starts today, April 16th and will be running through until the end of the day on April 20th. Check it out, we really do need your support:
This fundraiser will be the biggest single factor when it comes to determining our budget for next year. That means it directly effects how many stories and poems we can include in each issue and potentitally how many issues we put out. Every dollar makes a difference. Every one. Seriously. And if you can’t afford to donate cash, you can show your support by sharing the news of our fundraiser. The more people who know about it the better and we’re giving away a great collection of goodies to one lucky person just for telling people about our fundraiser. It could be you.
And thank you. Thank you so much.
~*~
This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter N. Please check by again tomorrow when I’ll be talking about Other writers.
Motivation
Motivation. It’s one of the things I struggle with the most.
Well, actually, not motivation, per se, but more the willpower and the focus to sit down and freaking do the work.
But motivation is related to that, so it’s my topic for today :-p
I’m not alone in struggling with this. I think it’s pretty nearly universal. A lot of people have trouble getting their butt in the chair and their words on the page (figuratively speaking, of course, especially since I don’t write my first drafts at a desk these days). Kern Windwraith had a guest blogger, JoAnne, over at her blog the other day talking about this exact thing. Her point? Just Do It.
It’s fantastic advice, but doesn’t necessarily make it easy to follow.
Over time I’ve slowly begun to understand the things that motivate me. The two biggest ones are Deadlines and Accountability. I’ve totally signed up for workshops and paid good money just to have deadlines I had to meet. I’ve used my critique group meetings the same way. I didn’t win NaNoWriMo until I founded the NaNoLJers group (now run by the awesome Amber Stults) and knew that people were watching how I did and would notice if I slacked off.
Deadlines and Accountability. Those are the tricks for me.
This year, not only did I post a list of goals for the year publicly on this blog where everyone can see them (and see if I don’t meet them), but I also signed up for Write 1 Sub 1.
Write 1 Sub 1 has been fantastic for keeping myself motivated, largely because it combines accountability and deadlines together. The idea is pretty much summed up in the challenge’s name — you write 1 piece and you submit 1 piece. In my case my goal is to write (at least) one story or poem a month and submit (at least) one new story or poem a month. Some super ambitious people are writing and submitting at least one story a week. I’m not that brave or masochistic LOL I think most people doing the challenge write and sub the same story, but I’m not like most people.
When I write a first draft of something (especially poetry) I like to let it rest. A lot of people do, I know, but I like to let it rest a good long time. Like, at least a few weeks. At least. That means I’m never writing and submitting the same piece of work in the same monthly period, but I am writing and submitting, so that’s good.
We’re only four months into this year and already if it hadn’t been for W1S1 I wouldn’t have written anything new for at least two of those months. It’s easy, for me, to get caught up in the novel I’m revising or Niteblade, or whatever and just not write anything new, but W1S1 keeps that from happening, which is a good thing. A very good thing.
It’s not too late to join in if you haven’t already and this sounds like something you might find useful. You can check it out at Write 1 Sub 1 Do you use another similar challenge/website/program/group to stay motivated to write? I’d love to hear about it. Sometimes diversity helps and you never know when I may need a little extra something to help keep me motivated.
~*~
This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter M. Please come back on Monday when I’ll be talking about something near and dear to my heart — Niteblade.
Kidnapped by Klingons
I grew up in southern Alberta. For the first half of my childhood we lived in the MD of Willow Creek, but when I was in grade four we moved to the County of Vulcan (it’s like the wheat capital of Alberta so I’ve totally got the wrong grain in that picture, but whatcha gonna do?). Around about the time I was in grade seven the county began a promotional thing — they started taking advantage of their name.
Suddenly there were Star Trek-themed paintings in every business’s windows, and on one corner of main street, right by the old town bell (they used to ring at curfew) one of those stand things where you could stick your face through a hole and look like you were a crew member of the Enterprise. The Home Hardware began to sell Vulcan ears, and I think they even had three-sided coins that were only good in Vulcan. Best of all, was Spock Days.
I understand that these days Spock Days are pretty big, there’s a rodeo and they get Star Trek-related celebrities to come hang out, but from what I remember of that first year it wasn’t quite as big a deal. In fact, the evening I have in mind may have been part of some sort of midnight madness-type thing rather than actual Spock Days.
A friend and I went to the pool hall, where all our friends hung out, and we were having fun. Shooting pool, listening to really, really outdated tunes on the juke box (Queen of Hearts anyone? Did I mention this was like 89-90ish?) when suddenly her parents came in. Not to kick us out, we were allowed to be there, but to embarrass the hell out of us. They were wearing Spock ears, acting dorky and making sure every single person in the pool hall knew they were her parents. Now, as an adult I think what they did was awesome, but to two teenage girls who cared very much about looking cool (though we’d have denied it with our last breath then), it was horrifying.
Mortified, we fled the pool hall and went to hang out on the street. Main street had been blocked off I think, so there was no vehicle traffic, but man, was there ever a lot of pedestrians out. And in costumes too! There were loads of random red shirts and I remember another friend’s mother was dressed up as Amanda Grayson (I remember because she was mortified that I didn’t know she was Spock’s mother and I got a 5 minute long “education” about his heritage), and the Klingons. There was a group of men who were dressed up in the best Klingon costumes you’ve ever in real life. I think they were actors who had been hired by the town to kidnap the mayor as part of the festivities.
My friend and I were just walking down the street, checking out cute boys, looking cool, and all those things that teenage girls do (or at least the ones I did when I was a teenage girl LOL) when the Klingons came up from behind us and swept us away. Neither one of us was very big and a Klingon just picked each of us up, tossed us over their shoulder and kept on walking. It was all in good fun, and flattering, of course, to be the subject of their attentions, so while we squealed and kicked a little bit, neither one of us actually wanted to get free. Where would the fun be in that? And besides, how many girls can say they’ve been kidnapped by Klingons?
…so, I should leave that story as it is, but I can’t. The truth is, while most of it is the truth, I’m not sure about the last paragraph. In fact, I’m pretty much sure that’s an outright lie. Here’s the thing. The line between truth and fiction is sometimes blurry, and this is one of those cases. I’ve told that story a lot. A lot. It’s a good story… but it’s a lie. My friend and I made it up (for whatever reason, I don’t even remember now), but I’ve told it so many times that I remember it. I remember it as though it really happened.
As frustrating as I find that in reality, it is that merging of truth and fiction that I’m striving very hard to reach in my writing these days. I’m learning how to weave reality with lies to make a good story. It’s been a slow trudge so far, but I think I’m getting it. I want my readers to know what they are reading isn’t true, but feel like it is. The same way I feel about the Klingon story. I expect this is sort of at the core of good writing, the balance between truth and lies, and it’s something I will be continuing to work on until the day I die, but I feel like I’m making progress, and that’s a good feeling.
Now if only my conscience would let me stop ruining my “kidnapping” story by telling on myself after every time I tell it and letting people know it’s part fiction 😉
~*~
This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter K. Please come back tomorrow when I’ll be talking about Lost and Found
Jealousy
So, I’m not actually a jealous person, but I am rather prone to bouts of envy. Unfortunately (?) my ‘E’ blog post was already claimed and I needed a J post so… Yeah.
(The difference between jealousy and envy)
It’s not that I think other writer’s successes somehow take away from my own and I don’t want to take them away. I am honestly and truly happy for my friends when they reach a goal or have good things happen to them. Sadly, however, I usually feel a little twinge of ‘I want that too!’.
It kinda sucks because it gives me a weapon to beat myself up with, and frankly, I do that far more often than I should already. I’m trying to learn to use it as a motivational tool though. I’ve had mixed success so far, because sometimes telling yourself ‘They achieved that goal because they did the work. They didn’t take the afternoon off last week to go raiding’ is a double-edged sword. It’s true enough, but it’s also really close to being that weapon again.
Someday I’ll either learn how to stop envying people for what they have that I don’t (Heh! Small chance of that, really), I’ll learn how to use their victories to motivate myself toward my own, or, more likely, I’ll just have to keep feeling the twinge and going on. One step at a time. It’s how they earned all their achievements, it’s how I will too… even if I am a little bit behind them. That’s okay as long as I keep moving.
…or that’s what I’m telling myself this week, anyway 🙂
How about you? Do you get envious or jealous of other people’s achievements?
I did a quick google before I started this blog post and this seems to be a rather common problem. Writer’s Relief has a blog about how to deal with jealousy, Absolute Write does also and even The Rumpus. Their advice mostly seems to be (though you really ought to read all the articles if you struggle with this) not to let yourself get too hung up on what other people are doing, sincerely wish your colleagues well and trudging on, so I guess I’m doing the right things. Sometimes it’s stinkin’ hard though. Not the wishing people well part, I truly do, but the not getting hung up and trudging on bits.
Do you have anything you do to help you deal with jealousy? Any words of advice to pass on? I’d love to hear them. You never know what’s going to help until you try, and frankly, every little thing I can do to boost my productivity is a good thing. A very good thing.
~*~
This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter J. Tomorrow I’m going to tell the story about the time I was kidnapped by Klingons. You don’t want to miss that one, right? 🙂
I Lied
So, I lied.
In yesterday’s post I said I was going to talk about Inspiration today, but once it was time to actually write the post, well, I didn’t wanna LoL. I strongly suspect that most of the people who read my blog are creative people, which means you don’t need me to tell you all about inspiration. You know how it works (or doesn’t). You get it. And you probably don’t want to hear about all the myriad of inspirations for my various stories.
Mostly though, I’m feeling lazy today and I don’t want to have to organise my thoughts as clearly as will be required to do that. The inspiration for any one story is made up of a half dozen other things that are interconnected in complex ways that require a lot of thought to sort through.
So, instead of that I’m going to do something different.
Last month I asked people to ask me questions I could then answer for my letter Q day (on the 19th). I was pleasantly surprised by the number of questions I received so on my cheating I day I’m going to answer a few of them. If you want me to find an honest way to make this topic begin with I (other than the oh so clever “I Lied” that I’m going with now) we could call it I Think or All About I* or something, but… meh. Again, that requires too much thought LoL
Alexa asked:
What’s your fave ice cream flavor?
Oh, hell, while I’m at it:
Favorite poet and poem?
My favourite things change as I do. When I was younger my favourite ice cream flavour was Bubble Gum (back when it actually -had- bubble gum in the ice cream), then in my early teens it shifted to Cherry Cheesecake (om nom nom!). A couple years ago I discovered Moose Tracks ice cream and that became a fast favourite, but these days I think my preference is just straight-up chocolate. Sadly I can’t have it very often because I’m working pretty hard at losing weight and it’s calorific, but when I feel like spoiling myself that’s the flavour I want 🙂
Choosing my favourite poet and poem is a bit trickier. When I was younger my favourite poet was probabaly Alfred, Lord Tennyson, especially The Charge of the Light Brigade, and around juior high I was in love with The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. Around that time I also read and re-read all the poems in Through the Open Window (edited by Shirley I. Paustian) and I had tons of the poems marked for quick access (Farewell by Crowfoot, It is not growing like a tree by Ben Jonson, Then the Child Replied by Joseph McLeod, For a Father by Anthony Cronin, Father by Dale Zieroth and Maternity by Alice Meynell, for example. That last is one of those poems whose last lines always seem to linger around the edges of my conciousness.).
These days I’m finally beginning to enjoy Poe’s poetry in a way I never did before, but also a lot of modern poets too. I’m scared to start listing them, to be honest, because I am afraid of leaving anyone out LOL One of my favourite poems recently is “Initiation” by Caitlin Walsh, which was in Niteblade’s recent poetry issue. Actually, I’m pretty fond of all the poems from that issue. I like poetry that is accessible (if I have to have an extensive knowledge of, um, anything to ‘get’ it, I’m not interested.) and while my tastes often wander to the dark side of the spectrum, I’ve read light poems I really enjoyed too.
Francis W. Alexander asked:
Here’s two questions. Although I write zombie stories and poems, I still hafta ask. Why do they hunger for brains? I know brains look like chitterlings (which look good, but turn my stomach). But why do they want the very thing that’s hard to get to? Do they use a nutcracker to get past the skull?
Well, according to Return of the Living Dead (1985) they want to eat brains because that’s the only thing that stops the pain of being dead… but most of the zombies in my stories and poems are straight-up cannibals and will eat any part of a person, they aren’t all about the brains. Maybe the ones who are just enjoy the challenge?
You know what bothers me about brain-eating zombies? They usually go hand-in-hand with the ‘Shoot them in the head to kill them’ kind of zombies. Think about that. If zombie #1 gets turned into a zombie because zombie #2 smashed his head open and started nomming on his brains — what is the point of shooting him in the head? He doesn’t have any brains there to hit anymore, they’re all in zombie #2’s stomach.
O_o
LOL I think that’s it for today. If you have any questions you’d be interested in my answering for my Q post (or any other ones I decide to cheat on LOL) please feel free to leave them as a comment to this post.
~*~
This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter I. Tomorrow I’ll be blogging about writerly jealousy. Should be fun LOL
ETA: I was curious. So I did one of those who do you write like things. How do these programs even judge this stuff? Anyway, I pasted in text from three different stories and got three different authors. First, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle then Oscar Wilde and finally, my favourite:
*snort*
Dude, frankly I’d settle for writing half as much as Neil Gaiman.
Hobbies
Hobbies. I haz ’em.
Like I mentioned in my ‘Branding‘ post, I am all about writing, gaming and crafting. My interest in each of these things waxes and wanes, but it never completely vanishes. I bet you know what I’m talking about. I’ll bet you’ve noticed it in your own hobbies and interests 🙂
I think my hobbies fall into two distinct categories, gaming and crafting.
When it comes to games I prefer RPG & story-based games. I don’t like first person shooters, and really, my favourites are the ones that don’t require me to have uber reflexes, hand/eye co-ordination or remember five million control combinations. Up until quite recently I was a pretty serious World of Warcraft addict, but I’m um, ‘in recovery’ for that now. I’m currently only raiding one day a week (a couple hours) and plan to drop even that when the new expansion comes out. It’s the people, not the game, that I play WoW for now. Nowadays I’m enjoying games that actually have endings, like Dragon Age: Origins (I’m on my second playthrough at the time of this writing). Sadly, I’m also still playing Sims 3 — whenever my tolerance for the never-freaking-ending bugs is high.
When it comes to crafting, I enjoy crocheting, quilting, cross stitching, fabric painting… Um, I think that’s it, these days. Like I say, it’s cyclical. Right now I’m crocheting a baby blanket for a friend, and once that’s done I have a mystery quilt to finish designing and sew, a picture of a loon I’m cross stitching for another friend, a quilt to “restore”, and did I mention my sister is expecting? She’ll need a baby blanket…
It never ends LOL But I love it.
I also love taking pictures. Don’t ask me any technical questions about focal length or anything like that because I won’t know. I know how to make my camera do what I want it to do, and when I need to, I know how to look up tutorials on the interwebz to learn new things, but I never retain the technical knowledge, just the practical stuff. All the pictures you see on this blog are by me (except in very, very rare instances when I note otherwise) and I think some of ’em are pretty good. I’m not shooting a lot right now, because most of my “spare time” and energy is being spent on crocheting at the moment, but eventually the tide will change and I’ll be all about photography.
How about you? What are your hobbies?
Do you know any awesome new games I ought to try out? I’m hungry for something new LOL We have an Xbox 360, Wii and PCs. To say I’m open to suggestions would be an understatement.
Have any fantastic craft projects you’ve finished that you’d like to show off? Link me, I’d love to pop by and admire your work.
~*~
This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter H. Please pop by tomorrow when I’ll be talking about Inspiration. I think. That’s the plan anyway 😉
Goodreads
Okay, I admit it, the link between the topic of this post and this picture is pretty weak, but it’s the best I could do without actually taking a photo specific for this, and because of procrastinating I just didn’t have time for that. Whee! So, this blog post is going to be about Goodreads which is about books and that’s a picture of a replica of an 1885 Canadian schoolroom. School / Books. It’s the best I could do.
Well, I could have put a Goodreads widget there, but I couldn’t get the formatting to look right. I tried. Honest.
So, about Goodreads. I really like it. I think the main reason for my affection for this particular website is that it makes reading cool. You get to share what you’re reading, what you’ve read, and also your thoughts on each book. You get to use cool little widgets on your website to show off your library or challenge yourself to read a certain number of books every year.
When I first signed up for Goodreads I actually tried to add all the books that I owned to it. I don’t think I made it through more than one bookshelf (we have ten… ish. I can’t remember off-hand and I’m too lazy to get up and count) before I came to my senses. Now I just add books as I’m reading them. I love that Goodreads will share them on my Twitter feed for me, and I usually remember to update my status for #Fridayreads (though I never remember to tag it LOL).
What’s more, Goodreads hosts giveaways. I ran two giveaways of Shades of Green there when we released it, and I’ve also entered to win a great many books. So far I’ve only won four, and unfortunately I didn’t like three of them LOL But still, it’s better to find that out without having to spend any money, right? And happily the people who won Shades of Green (and reviewed it) seemed to like it, so yay!
If you’re not using Goodreads you ought to take a peek and consider it, and if you are, I hope we’re friends there. I don’t usually post on forums, join groups or send out messages, but I do often decide what books I’m going to read based on what my friends are reading and what they’ve enjoyed.
~ My Goodreads Profile ~ Goodreads Giveaways ~ Goodreads Reading Challenge ~
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This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter G. I’m taking tomorrow off, but if you come by on Monday I’ll be talking about Hobbies.
Family
So, I’m cheating a little bit today, but only sorta. As you can see, I’m still writing part of this blog, so I am not actually counting this as a cheat, but, at the same time, the bulk of today’s content isn’t coming from me, it’s coming from my daughter, Danica.
F is for family, and my family are the biggest supporters of my writing. They put up with me living in my own head far too often, they don’t mind when I bounce ideas off them (and they don’t take offense when I shake my head and say ‘No, no, that will never work’). They contribute ideas to my fishbowl. They don’t complain that our house isn’t spotless, or that our income isn’t higher (as it would be if I had a paying job). They are always there for me and if it weren’t for them… well, let’s not go there.
I asked Danica if she’d like to write about what it’s like to have a writer for a mother for my blog. Her response? “You have a blog?”
LOL Okay, so they are super supportive, but that doesn’t mean they follow my blog :-p After I told her that yes, I did have a blog, she was happy to complain about me in public on it.
~*~
Hi, I’m Danica, Rhonda’s daughter. I really have no idea what to write about in this blog, so I guess I’ll talk about writing, and how living with a writer can sometimes suck.
My mom, as you can tell is a writer, and I’ve picked up a few things from her. For instance, if you have writers block, just write. What you write may sound stupid, but it usually helps to get rid of that pesky writers block.
One horrible thing about living with a writer is: If I say something that is not grammatically correct, my mom corrects what I say. Or, if I’m just being silly she’ll correct what I say anyways. It can be pretty annoying, but you learn to live with it.
Here’s another thing: My mom said I have to write a conclusion for this, but I don’t want to. So here’s my ‘conclusion’. Don’t live with a writer unless you love them a lot, like how my dad and I love my mom.
~*~
Short and sweet, eh? This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter F. Please pop by tomorrow when I’ll be talking about… um… something… something Grrreat! My schedule says Goodreads, so maybe… 🙂
Exercise
Really I ought to have a ‘before’ picture of myself to go with this blog post, but, since I’m totally avoiding being in front of cameras these days, a shot of Jo’s bicycle will have to do instead. I avoid having my picture taken because I don’t like how I look, and I don’t like how I look because I’m overweight. You know those ladies who are overweight and gorgeous? Yeah. I’m not one of them. Fun, fun.
The good news is that this year I made losing weight one of my highest priorities. I need to be healthier (and obese is not healthy) if I want to live long enough to write even a fraction of the story and poem ideas that are jammed into my brain.
Some of my goals for this year were:
Health: This relates to my writing because the healthier I am the more productive (and less dead) I am.
- Continue to eat healthy. In my case that is a low-sodium pescatarian diet.
- No drinking energy drinks
- Remember soft drinks are a ‘sometimes food’ (Thanks Cookie Monster)
- Workout at least five times a week*
- Lose 40lbs (and 64lbs overall)
I’m doing a fairly good job of sticking to these goals. I’m struggling a little bit with the soft drinks are a ‘sometimes food’ but otherwise things are going well. No energy drinks, I’ve lost 9lbs as of today (I wrote and pre-scheduled this post on March 17th) and I’m pretty good at forcing myself to exercise. The thing is, it hurts LoL
Mostly I’ve been using my stationary exercise bike. I do a pretty intensive 1/2 hour workout on it six days a week. Because that’s exclusively a lower body workout I’ve also been sneaking in a 30 Day Shred workout every once in a while, and now, with the Xbox Kinect I got for my birthday present I’ve decided to add in a Kinect workout regularily too. I’d love to do it everyday, but realistically I think three times a week would be great, because, as I may have mentioned, it hurts.
I have a buggered up ankle that doesn’t like impact much and I’m really out of shape. Really, really out of shape.
Every time I do a full body workout I’m Limpy McGimpsalot the next day. Not just a little bit either, like wincing and moaning everytime I go up or down stairs, sit down, stand up… you get the idea. Sometimes it takes several days before I stop being Ms. Wussypants, and I think I have a pretty high threshhold for pain LOL I’ve been forcing myself to do light workouts (on the bike) on my hurty days (usually) and that often helps reduce the pain, but damn. Hurtiness sucks.
So, for all you in-shape and exercisey-type people… it does stop hurting at some point, right?
I don’t mind a little discomfort, and exercise-sore is actually a kind of satisfying pain, but I could do with a little less of it, to be honest. Please tell me that this is going to decrease if I stick to this LOL
ETA: It turns out that at the peak of my pain I’d actually injured myself (groin owiness) and not really known that was the case and not just that exercise hurts. I took a couple days off and healed up and now I’m back to normal exercise-related aches and pains. The satisfying kinds. I’m still curious though, will these go away as I get more in shape, or not really because, presumably, I’ll always keep pushing myself?
~*~
This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter E. Please pop by tomorrow when my daughter will be doing a guest blog about what it’s like to have a writer in the Family.
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Fuck Depression
I’m prone to depression and it sucks.
Chances are pretty high that you know what I’m talking about. A google or two told me that 7% of adult Americans suffer from depression in any given year, and since those 7% have friends and families, I’m betting if you haven’t had to deal with depression directly you’ve still been indirectly affected by watching a loved one struggle.
When I get depressed it tends to manifest in a lack of things. A lack of energy, a lack of enthusiasm, a lack of interest, a lack of concentration, a lack of focus, an inability to fall asleep at night, weight gain despite all efforts to lose it and headaches all_the_freaking_time. I’m not suicidal, I don’t curl up in a corner and cry*, but I’m not myself. I’m not the version of myself I want to be.
I hate the way it affects my family. I hate the effect it has on my writing. I just plain hate it.
It’s funny to me how difficult it has been for me to write this post. It’s not because I’m ashamed or embarrassed about depression, it’s because I’ve always struggled to not let it be an excuse for the things I do (or don’t do)… but I’m coming to realise that sometimes it might be a reason. I don’t like it. I don’t like feeling like I’m both blessed and handicapped by my brain, I don’t like realising that I’m going to have years, like last year, where I don’t get much of anything accomplished because I’m spending all my energy just keeping my head above water. I. Hate. It.
I’ve learned a lot of coping strategies over the years; little tricks, baby steps, whatever it takes to get what I need to do done, but though they help I resent their necessity.
One thing about depression, for me, anyway, is it does a fabulous job of showing me what things in my life are the most important to me. Family first, then friends, and then, like a lazer, it cuts through all the other things I do, and shows me which ones I can continue, and which need to be put aside until that bout with depression is through. But depression is also sneaky. It always leaves, eventually, but its shadow is always over my life because I know it will come back, someday, it will come back. I never know when, how hard it’s going to hit me, or how long it’s going to stay, but I know it will be back.
When I’m really low I can’t find the energy to care that I’m not writing because I’m spending most of it blaming myself for not getting anything done, but, at times like these when I feel like I’m climbing (oh so slowly) out of that hole, I try to remind myself of all the hardships other people have had to overcome, and I tell myself I can do this. I’m a fighter. I won’t give up. I will accomplish my goals, whether my brain likes it or not…
But damn, I wish it were easier.
If you’re dealing with depression and you feel all alone I swear to you, you’re not. You’re not alone. There are people, like me, who feel your pain and are pulling for you. We really, really are. Fuck Depression. Don’t let it beat you.
~*~
This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter D. Please pop by tomorrow when I’ll be talking about… um… something that begins with E. I’m sure it will be awesome… maybe.
ETA: I know there is medication that could possibly help me with this, but I’ve decided to not take it until I have exhausted every other possibility open to me. I already take a lot of medication, I don’t want to add another to the list if I don’t absolutely have to.
*much
