So what has happened in the year and half break I’ve taken from blogging and doing pretty much anything? Well a lot to be honest. The last entry here was March 19th, 2019 and I can say 2019 was a whirlwind – and I had thought 2018 was one. Of course we are now 2020 and this year has become a cosmic meme of oddities. I wouldn’t even know where to begin if I were to try and describe it all.

So instead we’ll focus on what’s changed. In April of 2019 I had become pregnant. God, however, had different plans for that wee one and I lost the baby early on. It broke my heart and left me devastated as we had been trying for years only to lose it. I had love all around me to help me get through it and as soon as we were able, Ben and I tried again.

In July of 2019 we decided we needed something more, and we bought a new house, we moved out of the city and on August 15, 2019 we moved into our new home. That day was more than just a move, that day became a wonderful blessing. We found out we were going to have a baby. It was a terrifying and wonderful time for us. We were so excited but also weary.

And in April of this year we welcomed our baby boy, Damian Nikolas Evans, into this world. He is everything I could have ever wanted. His smile fills my heart with joy and when he cries I just want to hold him and make everything better. Every moment is precious and through everything I can say this is the greatest job I’m ever going to have, being mom.

Of course it has also meant that my writing took a back seat as I navigated the new world of being a mom. I have a lot of help though, my mom and dad live with my husband and I and they have helped me get my mom legs under me. They have taught me so much and have given me breaks when I needed them.

Now as Damian is getting closer to four months old, and starting to sleep through the night, I have been taking the opportunities to spend a bit of time down in my office, getting back in touch with my characters. Of course, they don’t really want to talk to me… for some reason.

I’m sure I can bribe them with some candy – until then I’m on the whiteboards in my office, spending time finding my creative side again so I can one day share the worlds I create with my son and watch his bright eyes light up as he delves deep into the fantasy and impossible, learning and growing.

I keep wanting to finish the second book, but I’m not 100% certain it’s even going in the direction I want it to. However, when I try to force it to go in one direction, my brain appears to shut down. I’ve had writers block before but I don’t ever remember it being as bad as it has become. My mind is cluttered and even the change of scenery for writing hasn’t really helped de-clutter it.

I keep hoping that the next day will be better, my attention and energy still sucked into my working life. I worked with a coach last year to “Love my Working Life” and I do, more than I ever have. There are opportunities to learn and grow that I don’t feel I’ve ever had before. It’s been one hell of an amazing ride for me, and like every roller coaster there are ups and downs, but the ride is a rush of information, experience and knowledge that I’m learning to grow through.

But it appears to take all my energy and I’m worried I’ve lost a part of me, the writer. I keep hoping she’s still in there, that burst of creativity. I used to never be bored online. I had chats and forums that I frequented, and now I spend endless hours scrolling facebook, feeling like part of my soul is dying with each roll of the mouse.

Today, I’m sitting in front of my desktop, looking at the screen and the words printed on it. Challenging myself to make those words form coherent thoughts – to talk to the imaginary characters in my head that make up the fantastical worlds I write in. I think somewhere along the lines I forgot how to write for myself, and I keep trying to write for what others want to read.

I’m not going to be a Rowling, a Tolkien or even a Meyer, I’ve got to be me. I have to find what makes me happy and stop focusing on what others want. Maybe then these characters will talk to me again.

One can hope.

I’m driven to succeed at writing the novel this year, to get myself back on track.

Hopefully it goes better than writing this post. So far I’ve been distracted by Facebook, Big Bang Theory and Mike & Molly (and I don’t even watch Mike & Molly).
Cross your fingers for me…

There has been a lot of teetering in my head, I would love to get EMPIRE book two completed, and I know I could give it to my parents as part of an Xmas gift for them, but I would also like to tackle a Genre I love but is outside of my comfort zone and feel that the month long challenge would be a great opportunity to do so. 

The working title is Shadow of Magic and it is indeed a fantasy novel.  Fantasy is not my genre of strength.  I love fantasy but because the world is so open for anything it is a challenge for me.   

I used to think writing for a fantasy world was an easy task, the world was your oyster.  You could write anything and no one could dispute it because it was your world – I mean Stephenie Meyer wrote Sparkling Vampires, and Giant Wolves.  The world had to be open to anyone to make anything up – even with the gods of the field setting the ground rules for the worlds we fantasize about.  I mean J.R.R. Tolkien’s works is the baseline of how I view elves, dwarves and halflings in fantasy.  Bram Stoker’s Dracula is my baseline for Vampires, the creatures of the night.  J.K. Rowling opened my eyes to the idea of how magic could be hidden in the society I see before me. 

These authors defined what I see as magic and fantasy and I began to believe that what I wrote had to fit into their boxes.  It became a mental block for me.  I couldn’t step outside the realm of Bram Stoker’s dracula for the fear of the ridicule, I mean – sparkling vampires? really?  Then I stop and remember – that is the world Stephenie Meyer created – it is her world and vision for a different take.  I shouldn’t judge based on my baseline.  Now I may not like it because of my baseline being what it is, but it’s still her take on a fantasy and it should be seen as that.

Trying to get over that hurdle in my head is a challenge, and makes writing in the genre a challenge for me.  Writing in the suspense and thriller genre is easy – you write what you know what you see and what is possible.  The Mythical world opens us up to endless possibilities.  I could create my own race, my own language.  I could create my own world and no one could say it wasn’t real because it would be fantasy. Technology wouldn’t need to be possible, just a product of my imagination. 

Yet, I constantly find myself in the middle.  Is it believable?  Is it too similar to someone else’s magical world?  Is it unique? It’s magical?

So as NaNoWriMo comes, I’m promising myself that no matter what I write, EMPIRE or the new book, I will commit to writing again.  Putting it at the forefront of my desire – and maybe I’ll make a female hero instead of the male heros I tend to lean to.

The fact of the matter is that I’ve stopped because of myself and nothing more.  I’ve said it had to do with work, I’ve said it had to do with school.  However, all of it has to do with me.  I’m worried it’s not good enough. 

My first book was not some large success like I hoped it would be, but I forgot the reason I wrote it.  Me.  I wrote the book because the characters were in my head, because the story is one I love.  The fact anyone can enjoy the story with me is great, I want the world to enjoy it.  I want the world to love the story like I do but it shouldn’t be my only basis for writing.  

My basis for writing should always be me and nothing more.  

So, with Nanowrimo around the corner I need to make a decision of whether I write the second novel in the EMPIRE series, or if I write the fantasy novel that is floating around in my head. 

I have time to think about it, and I’ll continue to think about it over the month of October.  Come November 1, I am going to put pen to paper and and see what comes out. 

The entire house is a work in progress, the hall is torn out, the bedrooms need to be re-floored, the kitchen is well under construction.

This year though the focus has been on what can we do outside.  How can we make it better?  How can we make it so we spend more time outside in the sunshine, letting the beautiful rays brighten our days?  So we decide to take down the dead trees that threaten to do damage to the house, take down the leaning tower of a chimney that was threatening to give us a skylight in our bathroom, and build ourselves a patio.  At the rate we are moving forward I’ll be surprised if this doesn’t become another kitchen nightmare.

It’s frustrating to see things move slowly.  While I understand sometimes it’s just outside of our control, it’s frustrating and makes me wish we never started the project.  It’s just another thing to be upset about.  Another thing to drag me down and feel sick about.  So my back yard oasis that was meant to make me feel good inside, and help perk me up is now going to be another item on the list of things that just depress me.

Here’s hoping that I’m wrong and that the oasis becomes just that my oasis.

I keep forgetting that the build up can be just as fun, the suspense the little clues.  I want to build them and make them important but I never know how to make my players note them without… giving away that it’s a clue.   With all the planning the characters to build, the dungeons and the quests, I don’t think I ever appreciated how much work needs to go into building a campaign, let alone an entire world.

I think I took Andrew, my former DM, for granted.  The amount of time spent between sessions planning, building and developing story is difficult and then during the game being able to think on your feet because no matter what you plan you’ll never be ready for the wild direction your adventurers are going to go.

My biggest issue is that at the table, while playing, I have cellphones.  People browsing facebook, playing games and bringing laptops to the table.  I would love for just one game to have focus.  But I guess that lies with me, knowing how to capture focus and keep it.

Back to the drawing board.

The privacy slats are fairly easy to put in but are time consuming, as in I spend a lot of time putting them together and forcing them through the chain link fence (I have the blisters on my hands to prove it).  The back fence was only 3.5feet so it had to be replaced to a five foot fence, down it came (relatively easy) where my husband and Mark cut the internet and phone service to the neighbour.  Some Bell guy felt the best way to ‘bury’ the telephone wire was to weave it through the back fence.  A black cord through the bottom of the fence?  Yea that’s real smart.

So we called Bell, they came out very quickly and probably one of the kindest tech’s I’ve ever met in my life.  I don’t have his name and I’m hoping my husband does so I can e-mail Bell later and tell them of this wonderful employee and how he was so pleasant, humerous and kind.  I would have him here any day to do any work on my house.

Yesterday was also a beautifully sunny day at 26 celsius with the sun shinning bright.  I know the sun was shinning bright because my red and burning shoulders, tell me so.

Today my husband and father-in-law are out in the cloudy – could rain any minute – weather putting in the fence posts they didn’t put in yesterday and hopefully that means I’ll soon have a wonderful back fence again.  After that the two side gates have to go in and then it’s the patio.

Of course all this means more work outside making the oasis I’ll hopefully get to enjoy for a few months…

As for me, and my crispy shoulders, it’s a day indoors writing I think, nothing I can do outside so might as well make use of the day in the best way I can – writing a book.

Not my business on how he builds his home, and all the power to him on how he goes about it, but we’ve had nothing but issues along the way.  First it was the removal of our lilac bushes that bordered the property.  They were big beautiful lilac bushes that bloomed beautifully in the spring.  I loved them, honestly – even if I did hate that they sometimes rested on my car.  I wasn’t willing to let that go when he ripped them out without speaking to us.  Then the fence, his crew broke our fence while digging the hole for his house, then tried to tell us it was just a couple of nails.  Meanwhile the posts are broken and we can’t open the gate if we try.

Next it’s the gigantic hole in the ground.  Well that’s just lovely a 7ft deep hole in the ground and the lack of a construction fence around it.  Of course by this point I’m already annoyed so I call the city and have them force him to put up the construction fence.  By now I’m thinking what could be next?

It’s the windows.  Who builds a new home and then lines the windows up with the neighbour’s house.  I can literally look right into his living room from my kitchen.  Classy.  I get the desire for natural light and as much as you can get, but really?  Windows that line up with ours?  Well thankfully the trees were in the way of that… or so they were.

Timber once again as the neighbour cuts down all the trees (on his side of the property so his right) and leave us with a clear view into his house.  So by this point I’m thinking, what the hell is next.  Why cedar bushes are next! Because who doesn’t like mosquito infested brush lining the property?

At the end of the day it’s his property to do with as his pleases – and if it weren’t for the fact I like the neighbourhood I live in, I’d probably be more amped up to move. Here’s to the next 30 years…

We were watching Instinct tonight while having dinner (after using the BBQ, chicken on the BBQ tastes better than baked chicken any day).  The episode we were watching featured a story about an author who was dying of cancer and decided to use her time left to enact revenge on the people who wronged her.  However, what stood out to me was that the authors featured in the story all lived in large spacious homes in New York City.

Of course the story explained it to me as a wealthy lover paying the bills for his mistress, the unpublished author, and the published author, who happened to be the lover’s ex-wife, was a famous author who had written a few books.  So in the end these spacious homes sort of make sense… I guess.  However, I’ve been to New York a few times, and I’ve seen features and stories about the price of homes in New York City and I wonder how accurate are they really.

Then when I dissect the episode I find I missed the writer’s point – to enjoy the story.  It was a great story, a successful author, who’s lost her mother, father and siblings in a car accident, has her best story ever written stolen.  A woman who marries and has her husband cheat on her repeatedly and store a mistress in Tribeca.  Then this woman has cancer and decides the dish of revenge is just cold enough to be served.  She murders the mistress and blames it on the man who stole her idea.

The story was great, if not overshadows by a main plot about Lizzie’s deceased fiance and a chance he was crooked before his death.   I have to admire writers for television they always have to have the long game in mind (even when the show is cancelled – Deception).  Now a days television makes comebacks, Will & Grace, Roseanne, Full House.   Killing a character isn’t as commonplace (unless you’re Grey’s Anatomy, then it just feels like a cheap thrill – but that’s a whole different story for another day).  You want to have your original cast if you bring it back, it’s a boasting factor – all the original cast!

Writers for television have to think in seasons while still giving fans a thrill in 30-60 mins (more like 20-45 once you take out the commercials).  They have to weave a web so intricate you keep coming back for more while giving you enough in a single episode to not feel like you wasted your time.  Sometimes it’s elegant the way it is pulled off and other times it can feel rushed and thrown in.

I get that, it’s my big beef with book 2s, and they have to do season 2s and episode 2s.  Going on my theory that number 2 isn’t always the least favourite for me.  BBC’s Sherlock, Episode 2, Season 1 is the worst episode of all of them, in second place Episode 2, Season 2.  However, Episode 2 season 3 is quite likely my favourite from the series.

All this is to say – I’m still in writer’s block on Book 2… here’s to keeping at it.