Useful Writing Junk 2: 8tracks

Look, I know this is a cheap one, but nothing helps me get in the writing zone like a good playlist (with minimal vocals). Pandora is swell and YouTube is doable (provided you're using an ad blocker), but the best place I've found for writing mixes is 8tracks.com. Writing the chipper, optimistic beginning of your fantasy adventure? Look up "fantasy" and "instrumental" and you're well on your way. Writing a death scene, you evil, character-killing jerk? 8tracks has depressing soundtracks for days.

PLUS, you can make your own mixes out of existing uploads or your own stuff! For example, I made an instrumental playlist for my office based on a story I used to tell myself as a kid. Give it a listen:

A Dragon to Fight the Nightmares from Cheerio on 8tracks Radio.

And this has been the super-short sequel to my first Useful Writing Junk installment. I know, it feels a little weak, doesn't it? I promise I'm working on more stuff. Unfortunately, there's this whole wedding thing to take care of, and some poop-filled puppies, and evenings filled with networking (now THERE be some blog fodder), and an ongoing personal battle with the awful gross yucky memories that are resurfacing from last year's trip into absolute insanity. Things are a little tough right now for me, but I'll pull through, and will hopefully have some fun new things to share with you! I mean, the best holiday of the year is just around the corner!

But for now, get into your writing space, turn on some emotional tunes, and get creatin'!

Useful Writing Junk 1: Blurb.com

Welcome to the first of a series of posts about sites, tools, techniques, and probably even foods that I've found useful while writing. A number of people have asked about how I do what I do (not that I do terribly much), so I've collected a few of the things that have served me best in my writing journey. Hopefully, you can get some good use out of this stuff too!

In an earlier post, I talked about my decision to self-publish Necessaries. I didn't really touch on the how part of it. To be honest, I didn't put a ton of thought into the platform I chose. I'd heard good things about one site in particular echoing around on tumblr, and after glancing at some other awkwardly-designed websites, I gave Blurb a chance.

On Blurb, you can design photo books, ebooks, magazines, and (obvs) trade books like my novel, then publish those directly through the site or make the books available on the Global Retail Network. It's a pretty straight-forward process, and if the help section of the website doesn't get you out of a jam, their customer service department certainly will.

I like lists, so let me lay out the pros and cons of my experience with Blurb.

PROS

• Ridiculously affordable. Let's be real. If you're a writer, you're probably not swimming in a pool of gold coins a la Scrooge McDuck. On Blurb, the software and the publishing system is free... ish. In order to keep your book on the site, though, you have to buy a copy. But considering your copy of the book will probably cost about $7 and there is almost always a 35-40% discount running, you won't be breaking your bank. Once it's on the site, it's there forever (if you want it to be!).
• Decent free book-formatting software. Blurb uses a program called Bookwright for book designing. It's a handy program, though it takes some getting used to (see cons). Once you understand the program, you can make some snazzy, very professional books.
• Access to the Global Retail Network (GRN). This is a huge plus if you want your books distributed as widely as possible. Once you've uploaded your book to Blurb, you can submit it to the GRN, which will make it available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ebay, anywhere you can think of to get a book. I just Googled myself (hush, you) to see make sure I wasn't making stuff up, and found more people reviewing Necessaries than I previously knew of on different sites. Which is pretty damn cool. The more places you sell your book, the fewer excuses your audience has not to buy it.
• No minimum orders. You get discounts for bigger orders (starting as low as 10 books), but you don't have to buy cases and cases of your book just to have some copies on hand. 
• Great customer service. When something goes wrong, real people are there to straighten things out. However, things do go wrong, which leads me to...

Cons

• Things go wrong. Big time. Maybe my wack-a-doo luck has been working against me when it comes to my book, but I've had several BIG printing issues. The very first order I made vanished in the mail, and it looked like I wasn't going to have my books in time for a book fair. It was a panicky time, and though eventually customer service got it sorted out for me and reshipped, I nearly missed my first author event.
• Bookwright can be devastating if you don't watch it very carefully. I had a massive printing issue with the edition of Necessaries I was trying to get on Amazon. I'd made some small changes to formatting after getting some feedback on the first printing, and though I read through several pages to make sure all was well, all was not well when I got the books and discovered a series of out-of-order pages. I think I lost a decade of life in the ensuing panic as I tried to pull the thing off of Amazon. Bookwright is great when it wants to be, but dangerously fickle. 
• No editors. This is a given with self-publishing, but you don't have a professional who will look at your book design and OK it for distribution. Printing errors can go unnoticed, weird page designs won't be questioned. Everything about your book and its appearance relies on you.
• Page limit. At least for trade books (paperbacks, hard cover novels, things that aren't picture books), you only have about 400 pages available. That may seem like a big number, but any sci-fi or fantasy writer can tell you it's not. I had to mess around with fonts and margins for a few days in order to get the right number of pages. Your LOTR-style epic isn't going to fit unless your font is so small that it requires a magnifying glass.
• No marketing. Again, another self-publishing given. It's all on you, kid. However, you can purchase advertising on Amazon or Facebook, and those campaigns can be successful if you do your research on running them right.

All in all, I do recommend Blurb, but recommend that you first be very familiar with their Bookwright software, have several friends who are willing to critique your book design, and budget in extra time in case you need to re-order a set of books. I also suggest you hold your horses before submitted to the GRN. Sell or give some copies of your prototype book to your friends and family first. Then, if they find a glaring mistake, you don't have to go through the hell that is trying to strip the screwed up book from Amazon.

Next time, I might try traditional publishing. Or if I do self-publish, I may try going directly through Amazon, because I've heard good things about that system too. How about you? Any writers out there who have used Blurb or another publisher for their books? Tell me about it in the comments!

Glitter, Sunshine, and Crippling Depression

I've been thinking about mental illness a lot in the past year, and there are several reasons for that. I've watched a few of my friends get brutalized by it. I've been getting reeeaaal into Maria Bamford's Netflix show.

Also, I guess I kinda had the largest mental health crisis of my life less than a year ago, so, I dunno, maybe that also got me thinking.

Seriously, great show. Source

Now, I'm an over-sharer extraordinaire. If over-sharing were a job skill, I'd be absolutely murdering the market for it. I'd be at an "able to afford Starbucks every day" level of obscene wealth. I'd maybe even stop taping my shoes together with electrical tape and actually buy new shoes.

Despite my need to talk about myself all the time always, I have largely avoided talking about what happened. And I'm not ready to get into a lot of it yet. It's not even because of the mental illness stigma, at least not wholly. Honestly, it's because I don't want my family to read about what happened, and I know they're reading this blog. Irrational as the thought is, I don't want to add to their giant list of ways in which I disappoint and/or worry them.

Which is absolutely a crazy, unrealistic concern. But that doesn't stop the worry from happening.

TL;DR: I'm not going to talk in detail about what happened last fall. Not yet, but maybe someday. But I am going to talk about how I got here, and where here is.

I've always been a quirky kid. Very dramatic, very imaginative, very blunt, very bad at blending in. I'm not bitter about those traits, but they have made my life kind of hard in places. I was prone to doing loud, crazy things, things that became embarrassing as soon as they happened. Licking other kids in the shower, eating a newt, tying imaginary elephants to my desk, telling people that the bumps on my arm were clusters of non-human DNA and that I'm an alien hybrid. 

Ya know, kid stuff.

And I've continued to be just as weird, with even greater confidence. I'm an ambitious person. I want to be successful in my creative endeavors, and my career, and my relationships. But all the weird stuff I do carries that baggage of guilt, and I quickly start hating myself for my strangeness. 

Not just strangeness. Anything that makes me "other" or not enough, because, dang it, I want to be the best. I want to be clever and funny and good at everything I do. When I don't live up to the ideal vision I've made for myself, I quickly turn to self-hate.

The thought process seems to be: "If I made this mistake, I must not be as smart as I thought. If I'm not as smart as I thought, then I must have a very bloated self-image and an unrealistic image of myself as a smart, capable person. I must be way off base. Ergo, I'm the dumbest creature on this planet, I'm the scum of the earth, and I deserve to be punched."

With that, there are also a lot of other thoughts buzzing through me, like: "I'm the stupid sibling; I'm an embarrassment to my family." "I can't even be an adult." "I'm not good enough to exist in this world." "I bring everyone down." "I was wrong to think I could keep up." "I'm a pity hire at my new job." 

"I should kill myself before I make things worse. It will be better for everyone."

I've mentioned these thoughts before. But here's something more: I don't believe them.

I really don't. I think I'm pretty damn smart. I think I make some good jokes. I'm okay with my weirdness because it led to me writing stories and creating art and making suuuper high quality friends.

That's the thing with whatever my brand of mental illness is. I'm still a glittery, sunshiny person, and I'm still confident, happy even. Hell, I have such high standards for myself that when I fail to measure up, I, uh, go off the deep end. That is some first class narcissism right there. 

It's just that these invasive thoughts come in and cloud my thinking. I see that they're ridiculous, but there are just so many of them, and the evidence is there (in the form of my mistakes) that my self-image is a little off. It hurts to look at my flaws. The cognitive dissonance can be crippling. My impulsive nature acts as a catalyst, and things get out of control.

I feel everything intensely. That's probably why I write, why I started creating so many imaginary worlds in the first place. They were vessels for the abundance of feelings that I've always had.

Last fall, I hit a critical moment in my job in which the massive volume of intense feelings that I encountered working in auto total loss claims became too much for me to handle. On top of that, I was getting little sleep, working longer and longer hours, and being told I wasn't doing enough. That I was too slow. My name plastered in red writing in a "shame list" for not being good enough. So my own thoughts ("I'm stupid, I'm worthless, I can't keep up") started piling on as well. 

My body ached from invisible injuries to my mind, and I didn't know how to explain that to anybody. I thought my panic attacks would literally explode my heart. 

Then, I stopped feeling entirely. That's when it all collapsed. Some piece of me broke away in an attempt to cope, and it opened a terrible path.

Like I said, I can't go into the details yet. But it was like living in the skin of a different person, a person I desperately wanted to destroy. I wanted to peel off my skin and emerge something less terrible, or maybe not emerge at all. 

I was a parasite to myself. Or, my depression was.

I want to talk about this stuff because if I don't, it will just be another secret sitting in my soul like cold iron, weighing me down. I feel uncomfortable interacting with people when they only know parts of the story and are afraid to ask about the rest. I worry about what they think of me, or whether they think they're walking on eggshells when they really aren't.

Also, I want this sort of thing to be talked about. Mental illness is entering more conversations, but the stigma remains, and so much of it is considered "off limits" when I don't think it should be.

Yeah, I'm incredibly embarrassed about what happened to me. I wish I weren't, and I don't think I should be, but I am. This is my clumsy attempt to bring up the elephant in the room (not the invisible one I tied to my desk as a child) and make it something OK for conversation. I'm not the only person who thinks like me. I think I'll always think like this, and always have nasty thoughts I'll have to chase out of my head like rats with a broom.

The other night, I asked Kelsey what she thinks of me, whether I seem depressed or what. She described me as cocky, and I took it as a compliment. Ten months ago, I don't think anyone could have described me as that.

If you have questions, ask 'em. If you want to tell me your story, please do! I'm going to keep being weird, and screwing up, and letting people down. But I'm also going to keep doing good stuff. As best I can. 

Because I can.

(Jasper the Cat Is) Bad At Puppies

I was seven when my brother was born. I don’t remember much about his birthday except that I was bitter and skeptical about the prospect of having another human around, especially one that was garnering so much attention and praise before he was even out of the womb. My primary memory of that day is of my grandparents easing the blow to my only child status by buying me a remote control car.

RadioShack’s 1998 Flamethrower. The stuff of legends.

I’d been pining for a remote control car since my own birth. I remember the rubbery smell of the tires, the whirs and clicks of the car’s tiny machinations. What a thrill, zipping it around my grandparents’ house, smashing it into ankles! I was pretty sure I didn’t have my parents’ love anymore, but hey, I had a small, battery-devouring racer that was almost as fast as someone taking a brisk walk.

Unfortunately, I don’t think my cat would accept a remote control car as a peace offering in response to the two little sisters we’ve just dumped on her.

Jasper the cat is a sweet, pudgy little lady who followed me when I was walking home, tipsy and singing, from a friend’s place in college. She’s shaped like a gourd and has some rough RBF, even for a cat. She has a speech impediment (I’m not even making this up. Cats can have speech impediments. Jasper doesn’t meow. She squeaks.). She has never scratched or bitten anyone, even when we cradle her like a baby and jiggle her tubby, pink belly. She’s a wonderful cat, but her Only Child Syndrome is out of control.

So when Jasper met Billie and Binx, our two canine additions to the family, she was displeased. We held up the sleepy puppies for her to see, and she gasped and hissed in Cade’s arms. Which we expected, given that she was afraid of a kitten who visited her once in Cade’s previous apartment. Then we put the pups in their own little room where Jasper could avoid them if she wanted, which she did want.

In the few days since we’ve acquired little Billie and littler Binx, Jasper has been wrestling with her sense of betrayal by holing herself up in Cade’s room and hissing at random items that she suspects have something to do with her baby sisters. Luckily, she’s consolable, and will rub on us and purr when we visit her in her sanctuary, and has even come out of hiding to sprawl across my keyboard in the study (until she hears a puppy growl in the next room, and she remembers that she’s supposed to be pouting). Sometimes, she’ll gently hiss at my hand before purring and head-butting it, just so I know that she’s still pissed, but not so pissed that she’d turn down a massage.

Photo taken seconds after the puppies yipped in the adjacent room. Not pictured: Jasper vanishing from the room, leaving behind a cat-shaped cloud.

Despite the hissing, growling, squeaking, and muttering (if cats could curse, we’d have washed her mouth out with soap many times by now), Jasper still hasn’t scratched or bitten us. Hopefully, she’ll stay as gentle with the puppies, if she ever gets over the situation enough to interact with them once they’re out of their puppy room.

I think she’ll be OK. She’s already calming down and allowing more puppy-scented things to get close to her. She even let me carry Billie and Binx past Cade’s room while she watched, unblinking. Just a little stink-eye, no hissing or hiding. When I put the puppies back in their kennels, she even let me rub her belly with my Chihuahua-tainted hand. She’ll get there eventually.

As for the puppies? They're oblivious to big sis. Billie talks a big game, growling and pouncing on the smaller Binx, but she's a wuss with car rides or dark rooms. She's super into person-climbing and will not rest until she's on your shoulder. Binx is more relaxed, but has been playing an intense game of The Floor Is Lava since she arrived at our house, and will only touch the hardwood after several minutes of growling debate. She likes to snuggle on laps to sleep, and her gentle kisses would be much sweeter if I didn't know that she's a pro at eating her own, um, "foul misdeeds." 

Billie is the one spreading her legs and appearing to hold in a fart like a proper lady, and Binx is the one who looks like she belongs to Bernie Sanders.

They're puppies. Stinky, rowdy, precious fur-potatoes. And Jasper isn't the only one who needs to adjust to them. 

Now then, I'd better jet. It's been too quiet for too long...

Bad At Moving: Part II

"But didn't you just move, Abi?"

"Well, yeah, but it's never too soon to destroy your relationships, empty your wallet, and break half of your belongings a second time!"

"But if you broke half of your belongings in the first move, and half in the second move, then wouldn't you have nothing at this point? How do you still have enough crap for 3 families boxed up in your living room?"

"I don't know, theoretical person, I don't know."

Just another one of the great mysteries of moving. Where did all this crap come from? Did my crap meet my roommates' crap and have little crap babies? Where will we house the crap babies???

And what the heck is this? It was in the "moving" tag so I'm rolling with it. Source.

So, in case one blog entry about moving wasn't stressful enough, here is my revised step-by-step "How to Move" guide, now that I've gone from an apartment to a house.

• Step 1: Don't do it. Don't bother moving. 
• Seriously, don't. 
• What, you want to have your roommates' blood on your hands? Because they'll definitely ask for it. And you'll ask for it too. Moving is a bloodbath. Have you seen the show Spartacus? It's about gladiators, injustice, and gory special effects. And it serves as a solid visualization of what your moving process is going to be like. 
• Well, aren't YOU a stubborn one. Current place not good enough for ya, huh? OoooOOOOoo, look at you, too special for your current home, too much time watching HGTV. Boohooboohoo.
• OK, fine. So you're moving. Acquire gloves, an entire store's worth of cleaning supplies, and some nerves of flippin' steel.
• Lay out your boxes for each room as though you're going to employ an orderly system with which to sort and store your modest belongings.
• Screw it. There's no time for order. Jam your obscene amount of crap into the sorry scraps of boxes your fiancee managed to snag from her job with a pizza shop. Don't mind the grease. If you're moving in the summer, you'll cover your stuff with plenty of your own grease anyway.
• Do as much as you can before your family arrives en masse one casual Saturday morning with 15 minutes notice. 
• They're gonna say stuff. They always say stuff. Bite your lip, kick the dumpster, and remind yourself that they have good intentions and they're the ones with the big-ass truck and the safety net for if you do something stupid again, which you will, because look at you. I mean, you thought moving was a good idea. What other "good ideas" are you going to come up with?
• ...
• From there it's kind of a whirlwind... I think...
• There was definitely some crying...
• Because, duh.
• Also drinking?
• And what the heck are those stains on the carpet? Melted crayons? Aren't you all adults here? Was there a ghost toddler?
• Make an offering of tears and stale tortilla chips to the ghost toddler to placate him or her.
• Drive back and forth between your two homes, unsure of where you should be staying while you're still "technically" in your old place. You don't win either way, because neither place has Wi-Fi, you poor sucker.
• ... it's hazy again, my dudes... lots of boxes... always with the boxes...
• And then boom! You're surrounded by boxes in your new place, and you've mangled your friendships, and most of your furniture looks like its been a prop in a monster truck rally.

And that's pretty much it. You wait a few weeks for your internet provider to extract their heads from their butts and get your new place set up so you can ignore the untouched boxes and watch Netflix. You wonder how they wrote "Abigail" as "Lavogabella" in their notes, even though you spelled your exceedingly common name for them. And then you complain about it on social media, even though Lavogabella is a better stage name than you could have come up with on your own.

There you have it! Abi has a new house! Er, an old house, rented from my uncle/employer (and now landlord). The tangled webs we weave.

Stay tuned for *drum roll*

...

BAD AT PUPPIES.

(It's a joke. Please don't call the Humane Society.)