Catpaws Cafe

Random musings from my virtual fountain pen

Archive for the tag “writer’s life”

Crossroads


I want an unrelated job. I can’t do this any more. The time has come to give this wannabe author thing up. I need something I can do even when I’m stressed that will support me and the cats.

I don’t want to do the endless promoting that is self publishing, and I don’t want to make my writing commercial if that means I lose my voice.
I don’t want to spend years refining and editing a manuscript for it to sell 10 copies… For all the anguish, that’s not enough for me.

I’ll never stop writing, I can’t. It’s who I am, but it will be scaled back to contributing to anthologies perhaps. If it happens to fit. I can still blog and shout into the nothingness, pretending that somewhere my words connect with someone, means something, an other nodding to themselves.

When you need to pay an editor and proofreader out of your own pocket to be able to pub, and it costs more than you will ever make…there’s a word for that, or one that can be reclaimed. Vanity publishing. Dreamer.
It’s time to raincheck. There’s no money in it unless you strike it very lucky. Most of us throw our work out there for free in the hope that our labours of love is discovered and enjoyed by readers. That they will add your name to the list of ones to look out for new stories from. Perhaps send you a kind note.

I wonder what else I can do. 12 yrs in Mexico sure has robbed me of all professional self confidence, despite a wealth of experiences, and numerous arrows to my quiver.

But I’m not going to lie, some days I just want to give up. I didn’t come this far for that. I’ve started over so many times and I didn’t expect to, and don’t particularly want to do it again.
I just want somewhere to land softly. Somewhere I’m welcome. Somewhere to heal. To feel safe and where I can – and want to – stay. Make friends. The kind you can watch the sky with, feet touching, like the rabbits in the picture. You know what I mean?

Do not pet the humans

The charity anthology Do Not Pet the Humans just got published and is now available from Barnes & Noble and Amazon Kindle. Among others it features one of my short stories Cats in the garden.  Enjoy!

The angst of a first draft left to cure

I’m considering taking a look at Seeds of Soultraction and I’m scared. It is the sequel to Andino Andina and number two in Seeds to the wind and I absolutely loved writing it, cranking out thousands of words a day and enjoying every minute. My whole life I’ve detested mornings, yet during that time I had no problems getting up and eager to get sufficiently caffeinated to start my writing day. At the end of each day I was still so fired up I couldn’t sleep. I was happy and inspired doing what I love.
Until one evening…which was meant to be just a quick run to the supermarket for a couple of things we needed. Lights left on, food ready awaiting our return to have dinner. Only it didn’t work out that way.
It was 8 months until I could sit up in reasonable comfort, months of painkillers etc that left me mentally on par with vegetables, and over a year before I could put away the crutches. In addition I’ll probably need a splint for the rest of my life.

The manuscript is where I last saved it on the laptop and a thumb-drive and I’m terrified it won’t be as inspirited as I remember.
Or that I will be accused of cultural appropriation, when in my heart it is a love letter to a people that have fascinated me since my very first encounter, long before I was in double digits or had started school. All without being able to find the thread that connects us, in this world or the next.

So much has happened since 2015, I will have to go back and read up on other goings on come to light…because time has ticked away.
It saddens and worries me because it was meant to be the ‘mystical Seeds book of love’ and now there are all these other developments to take into consideration as well.That said, it is long overdue such despicable treatment and practices of indigenous people are being brought out in the open and dealt with, thanks to such dealings and conduct no longer being tolerated from a higher perspective. Maybe it will add depth as opposed to just making it darker?

Regardless, in the microcosm of things I still have my personal conundrum of going back and reading and rewriting/finishing the manuscript. Perhaps I could look at it as going from the first throws of falling in love with my story, the flush of infatuation, now to be followed by the entering of reality and seeing things as they really are when every day life kicks in. It could go either way… perhaps it has already past it’s best before date – or it will ripen and deepen into true love and something rather magical. I don’t know. I hope so.

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Red’ed, Rojito update

Red is doing very well, he’s got his appetite back (and then some!) but he is still very skinny. I guess putting some meat back on the bones needs to happen slowly rather than fat.IMG_20160420_171125

He’s such a writer’s cat: he sleeps when I work and only ever interrupts if I’m late with their dinner.

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Being greeted with his sweet little face (and Milou and Tabita) in the morning reminds me that every day together is a bonus, a gift of allowing us to love them.

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