Hello, two years later

To all my subscribers and newcomers, I apologize for the extended radio silence. I set up this new site at a moment when I felt optimistic and had a little extra time, then was swamped by real life.

Here’s the short, trigger-warning-free version: Life stuff happened! Most notably, I discovered it’s exceptionally difficult to balance a full-time teaching job with two small children, including a very-active toddler and a precocious preschooler, as well as a wedding (planning and getting married) and other real-life stuff that I’ll include in more details below.

It is once again (almost) August, though two years later. I can’t promise the future will be consistent, because like everyone I’m working with a great deal of unknowns, but I can say I’ve finally written the “after the end of Mancer 3” fic I promised. It ended up being from the POV of Hansa’s mother, not Rinnman, though I’ve started into his chapter as well. I may post regularly for a while, or I might not. I’m leaving it open partly to be honest about my own abilities, and partly to protect my own mental health. All posted fic will have content warnings.

That’s the short summary. If all you want is to know what to expect in the next few days, that’s all you need! I’m going to start the longer summary with things I don’t consider commonly triggering, then give a content warning before the rest.

On the personal front, I have spent the last couple years engaged in a lot of self-exploration, on many fronts:

My agent switched to exclusively representing children’s books around the time I published Mancer 3, which meant she dropped her adult-novel clients; that left me without a plan of what I wanted to do next, professionally, at the same time I was struggling with personal issues (more below the CW). I still haven’t decided where I want to go next in terms of publishing. More Castra? Back to post-Promises to Keep Nyeusigrube? I’ve been learning a lot about myself and coming to recognize some problematic aspects of my published work, which is heavily influenced by my background in white liberal suburbia; when I go back to publishing, I want to be able to do better.

In the meantime, I’ve been writing more for myself, things that I’m not sure are publishable. In particular, I’ve been exploring gender, and coming to understand my own in a new way. I haven’t figured out a label I feel entirely comfortable with, but I can say I finally understand why the label “lesbian,” when applied to myself, has always made me uncomfortable.

Beyond this, CW for sensitive topics: politics, suicide, Covid, 2016-2020.

On the subject of stories after Mancer 3: In the summer of 2018, one of my best friends died by suicide. My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) and I were concerned when we couldn’t reach him for a day, and ended up calling in a health and wellness check. Because we were the closest he had to family, I was the one who officially ID’d the body at the morgue. We arranged the funeral. We cleaned out his apartment, including throwing away the empty pill bottles he left behind. I think it surprises no one if I say this was both devastating and traumatic. His death left a hole in my life.

Before his death, my friend was also a member of my tabletop gaming group. I was game master, and we were playing a campaign set in the world of the Mancer trilogy– specifically, we had just come to post-Mancer 3 Kavet. When I set out to step back into that fictional place and time in August of 2018, a year after his death, it hit me hard. It seemed his ghost was everywhere I turned. So I backed away. Two years later, I’m coming back to that world, at last feeling like maybe I can face my friend’s footprints there as a memory of him instead of a reminder of what was lost. But I make no promises. If the story goes silent again, that may be why.

Or, it might be because of so many other reasons.

It’s now 2020. Since schools closed in March, I haven’t been able to write; even before that, my writing life had narrowed down to a three-hour span of writing group once a week, and since then, the anxiety has been too overwhelming. I don’t need to go into details; you’re all aware of the many levels on which the world is on fire and the future is utterly unpredictable. I don’t know how to creatively step into a world after 2020, so writing in the world of my YA books seems impossible. And if I could? I feel like I should leave space for the many BIPOC writers whose voices are finally being given space to come through, and not try to shove myself back into the publishing wringer.

It’s now August, and my family is struggling to predict September. I teach special ed; will my school be open? What will my daughter’s kindergarten look like? My son’s daycare? My wife’s work? Can we make this work? We don’t know. I’ve been waking up every night in the middle of the night with panic attacks, trying to make plans for the un-plannable.

Yet, a couple nights ago I once again felt that itch. A character speaking to me. And, after the kids went to sleep, I wrote it out: about 3500 words from the point of view of Hansa’s mother, mostly taking place the day after Mancer 3 ends. And then, miracle of miracles, I slept the rest of the night.

Writing is something I’ve always done for my own mental health, long before I did it for a career. It makes me feel better. It helps me process. And, when I put something down that I feel might entertain others, I enjoy sharing. I think I had forgotten, after 20 years defining myself as a novelist, that I was a writer first, and a writer for myself, before anything else.

So (because I can’t stand to not share anything, in direct contradiction to the whole “I’m a writer even if I’m not publishing” thing above) I’m going to try to post bits of flash-fics or excerpts here for the next little while. They will be free. This is still my work, protected by copyright, not public domain, but I’m not going to worry about perfection or preparing a full novel for a contract and publication. I can’t right now. I’m not going to guarantee a regular update schedule; the world is too uncertain. Subscribe and you’ll get a heads-up when I post.

So, I’ll see you soon with Marigold Viridian, who is quite annoyed with her son.

Take care, and thank you all for your patience.