Writing As Refuge

Writing As Refuge

Pardon the yawn. Also, pardon the delay since the last time I posted. Life always seems to be busy, but this episode in my life has spiked the activity level – until about now. The yawn helps prove that. I recently moved from a small house with a view on an island to a new old big tiny house with no debt. That also means I moved from a house with storage and a mortgage and other debts to a house plus a storage unit and a seemingly infinite parade of micro-decisions about how many forks to keep, where does my personal library live, and business matters like where does my unsold book inventory reside. Overwhelmed? Sure. But this post is my thanks to what has helped me cope with the chaos and mayhem: writing.

The move spawned yet another blog; MyTinyExperiment.com, a spinoff from my oldest blog TrimbathCreative.net, blog about my personal finances, including deciding to move.

Within the episode that is this move, there have been events with the preface of “You can’t make this stuff up.” Drama. Trauma. Otherwise known as material.

When the world is making up a story that is unimaginable, it is a good time to write. For a couple of days, my house had sold, but the banks and the Fed couldn’t find the money. I was homeless and wondering if I’d just lost the largest sum of money ever in my life. (My Money (And Almost My House) Lost In The Wire) It has become one of my most popular posts. Forget writing classes, style guides, literary considerations, and marketing implications. As things happened, I took notes. As things got weirder, my handwriting became harder to read. During enforced lulls when I had to wait for the escrow officers, bankers, and the feds to work things out, I wrote. My anguish was fuel. Writing was my outlet for words to say that no one needed to hear until I heard about progress. Even with notes, it is hard for me to remember emotions. Anxieties are frequently not supported by logic, but waiting for the anxieties to leave loses the emotions and illogical thoughts of those moments.

Spoiler Alert: It all worked out well enough, I think.

Even if nothing went wrong, life events like moves can be stressful. So many things are changing. Physical, financial, friendships, and even bureaucratic shifts swing a person through a temporary era of uncertainty. Liquor consumption can increase. Sleep can decrease. Not a good combination. I wasn’t able to maintain my writing schedule. A month later, I haven’t redeveloped those habits, but along the way, every time I was able to work on my book (the Sequel to Firewatcher) was a retreat into a different world. A work in progress is a lot of work, but compared to the rest of the day, it was play. For about an hour I’d play with my characters, live within their world, and maybe shift threads because reality was providing a fresh perspective. Progress was slower, but it was progress and a healthy activity that wasn’t going to strain my back. It might strain my carpal tunnel, but that’s a familiar occurrence.

One odd consequence was a month delay in the release of a Revised Edition of the first book in the series. Now, with page numbers! I submitted it to KDP (aka Amazon) immediately prior to the move, celebrated, then had to backpedal as KDP sent me a note saying something was wrong with the file. Ugh. That can be a moment’s or a month’s work, so I let it aside until I moved in. It was fifteen minutes of work (as long as I relaxed some criteria). That’s done. If I make my goal, both the Revised Edition and the Sequel will be available for the 2024 shopping season. 

I’ve been writing for over twenty years, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that I realized that I’d rather write a story than watch someone’s on ‘tv’. No ad interruptions. I can express myself for as long as I can type without defending statements or apologizing for minor errors of logic. I put tv in quotes because I have yet to find a common way of describing how I watch videos. Maybe tv will be with us like ‘hanging up’ a phone.

I can tell life is getting back to normal or is shifting to my new normal. I tend to write blogs during the day around chores, and books after dinner. (Meals are the times when I do watch someone else’s story, usually sci or sci-fi, on ‘tv’/YouTube/Roku/Amazon Prime/…) I see the progress in the pages. I also watch the progress of the calendar. And that is getting closer to normal, whether new or old. I’d like to insert the quoted line about the sound that deadlines make as they rush by, but I self-publish. I impose deadlines, but there’s no other legal entity pointing at a contractual obligation merely me and my self-appraisal.

There are writers’ refuges available for rent. Make a reservation. Show up with your equipment. Use the time for vacation or productivity as you wish. Remember to pay your bills.

There is a refuge within the foldable device sitting on my lap. No reservations required. Games available for surreptitious diversions. Research and support available by browsing through windows. (That sounds creepy, but I’ll leave it in.) What’s that worth? I haven’t quantified it, but I’ve willingly spent the time and money that help make it happen.