Just...

I am alive and well. Life keeps going on. 

I've started re-formatting the e-book of the Executioner (my 2nd fantasy book in my Thelum series) for print. I've always wanted my books in print, and I did have the first one in print a few years back. But I wanted to change the cover. Every time I do, I have to order a copy of the print book to make sure the cover and book layout is right. Which was pricy. The shipping to South Africa is more than the actual book. And I just felt overwhelmed and pulled it from Amazon. 

But now things have changed. I'm working, and have saved up the money to pay for the shipping. Plus times have changed. There are so many other print options these days. Like printing it here, in South Africa, and if everything is fine, I can upload it again on the many platforms, Amazon being one.  

To be honest, I have completely forgotten I had once written 2 books. It actually feels like another life. But I am slowly trying to bring her back. The writer. The creative.

During Covid I started with a new series, crime fiction, Human Nature. It plays out on an Earth-like planet, which seems idylic, but things go wrong. I had made tons of progress, more than one book finished, but now I have to go beyond the 1st draft. Which is terrifying. And I seem to never have time.

I am currently writing this and posting using my email. I have never done it before out of fear of my horrible spelling, and fear of safety. But if I can write tons of emails, I might as well write posts here. 

Not quite myself

I have no idea why, but I have not been feeling like myself. Even being in my own skin feels alien. 

The good news is that I still managed to pitch up here instead of going back in my shell. 

I haven't written any fiction yet. But I am doing a psychology Diploma course right now. It is about Jung, and I absolutely love it. I am learning so much about myself, and about concepts that might sound unfamiliar, but are right up my alley. Thoughts and ideas that I have always had, but didn't know there were actual terms for them. Or that they were real. That it wasn't just me who thought about certain things a certain way.

Jung was a great believer in studying myths and folklore of cultures to understand people, and the psychology of individuals. Each community, or country has their own folklore and myths. This course feels like it belongs in my world. Just like writing does. Both play a vital roll in my true self. 

I am not quite myself. But I am happy I could write this post. Because last year I did one post and this year I have at least two. 

Keep well

Getting back to being a writer

Never in a million years would I have guessed that I would be here again. That I would have stopped writing again. That I would become an inflexible salary person. But that is exactly who I am.

Working in the hospitality industry for the past few years has taken every ounce of physical, creative, and mental strength out of me. I had to… I needed it, and still need it to survive in that environment.

I merely told myself that I was taking a break. Recharging my creative well. I had done that. I am still doing that, but still, other than this post, not much else has been written.

Now I have to fight my way back to creativity and my writing, or give up. The latter is not an option.

I think the fear of knowing how hard the road had been before…It terrifies me. Knowing how far away I have drifted from this life.

I have never been much of a quitter. So my fight to make it back to my true self, writer self, has begun once more. I am truly terrified. But what do I have to lose, right?

No more comments for my blog

 Hi Everyone.

I hope you are all doing well. It has been a while. My blog has become a ghost town so-to-speak. I am so impressed, and admire all of you bloggers/ writers that have been cotinuously blogging no matter what. You are hardcore. I respect you. 

I however haven't been blogging at all. One post for last year alone .  . .  I think? That is atrocious. And if you had told me back in 2010 that this blog would've been unattended without a second thought, I wouldn't have believed you. 

As for my current reason for blogging . . . I wanted to make a few changes in my life. I wanted to get back to writing and publishing. It has been such an important part of my life for so long. But because of the long hours, and constant chaotic schedule of my day-job, writing was pushed back, almost completely forgotten about. I wish to change that. 

One of the reasons I stopped blogging is that I felt I had nothing to share. I wasn't publishing new projects. I wasn't writing much, and to be honest, I'm not that interesting a person. 

The other was that returning comments felt more like a burden than fun in the end. And I hated myself for not returning comments. After all, that is how we support each other. Thus, I have turned off all comments for my blog.  

My hope is that if I don't have the obligation to return comments, that it may help me blogging again. I sound like a bitch. Apologies . . . I'm only sharing my honest thoughts today. 

I don't know about you, but I miss the times when I could send out blog posts into the void, not knowing who was reading them, or caring what they thougt. It made me feel brave, because I could share thoughts, opinions, and writing I wouldn't otherwise if I knew people were reading my posts. 

If you wish to unfollow me, I understand. No hard feelings. Truthfiully, I have lost touch with almost everyone. It makes me upset, and resent myself because I allowed it to happen. 

In 2018 my depression got to a point that I could no longer function. It got drasticlly worse, and adding Fibromyalgia to the mix . . . I didn't know how to handle it and I was a mess. I still am. I still struggle with both drastically every day. But I want . . . am desperate to do better. 

Thank you for all your support through the years. Just because I am disabling comments on this blog doesn't mean I'm completely cutting ties. My email adress is still available, and I'm active on Instagramm

How is it July already?

I can't believe that it is 25 July 2021. According to my blog post history, it's been a year since my last entry? I can't beleive it. Shocking actually. 

Blogging clearly hasn't been a priority, which is upseting. But it is not strange since I've felt far removed from my writer dreams and writing ambitions. My heart has just not been in it. But I hope to change that. 

My family and I are doing well during this crazy times of Covid-19, and shocking politcal turmoil. As South Africans we're used to adapting quite quickly, and just keep moving on. 

Our Baking Company is doing well. My sisters and I are directors of our company now. We've truly formalized the business, showing we mean business. It's where I spend most of my focus and time. 

How have all of you been? How have you managed to find the inspration and discipline to keep on blogging over all these years? 

Staying focused

Hello my friends. I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately, as you might know. I’ve actually finished the first book in my Human Nature, Thriller series. It is a true first draft. It’s ugly, but the bones are there. I just have to clean it up, a lot. 

I’ve been so excited with this series that I started immediately with book two. But then, the strangest thing happened, which never usually happens. I started getting ideas, and scenes for future books of this series started flooding my mind, and I found myself jumping back and forth writing scenes from different books. It was like all writing inspiration I’ve been lacking over the years came rushing back all at once and I went into a writing frenzy. Sometimes writing 8 hours a day. Losing lots of sleep, but the writing had to get out of my head. It was flooding my brain and I couldn’t focus on anything than these books. 

Because my depression and Fibromyalgia (despite which I am permanently on medication for) plays havoc on my short term memory, I didn’t want to take the chance I might forget anything so I wrote it down immediately. Upsetting my nearest and dearest, but I had to get it out. It would play havoc with my sleep if I didn’t get it out. But I got most of it down. My sister wanted me to dictate most of my thoughts, and I will do that from now on, but then I forget the emotions and possible dialogue I had in my mind for a specific scene. 

So now I have a half written book here, a few scenes there and so forth. But I won’t give this flood of inspiration up for anything. The quiet and isolation of the extreme South African lockdown and that of the world did wonders for me. It rebooted my brain and made me whole again. It gave me a reprieve of all the noise (figurative) that I’ve been experiencing over the years. The human race were all just trying to survive. Nobody focused on war, or which celebrity was sleeping with whom. People all around could relate what was going on with one another, as we were all experiencing the same thing. It’s just such a relief for the mind and soul.

I’ve decided that I’ll try and do such an isolation once or twice a year. Even if it’s just for a week, or a few days. I just need this to survive in this crazy over crowded world with all its insanity, and new technologies popping up all the time, for the long term. I’m deeply introverted, so this type of Isolation suits me perfectly. Do all my shopping online and avoid most people all together sounds like a dream.

How do you recharge your batteries? Does your senses get overloaded quickly? How do you focus in this noisy world?

Music speaks to my soul

Hey friends. I don’t know if I ever mentioned this little fact about me, but I love music. I can’t live without it. As in my previous post, the lockdown had me fall in love with music all over again. For some time I’ve been so stressed, that during work the thought of playing music to help me cope, didn’t naturally occur to me. I just though it’s a personal pleasure, I can’t possibly listen to it when working, like when we are working on orders, or stocktaking and so forth. I don’t know why I thought that way. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.

 But like most things, I like various types of music. From rock and metal to classical and non-lyrical music. I will listen to most kinds of music and each moves me in a different way and evokes different kinds of emotions. These days I need the mood of music to match that of the book I am writing. I actually did research on which songs were the saddest, so I could write certain scenes in the book, and it did the trick. I actually created a playlist. On it were songs like Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton, Knocking on Heaven’s door by Bob Dylan, and I’ve always found that most of Johnny Cash’s music is sad, so I listened to a lot of him. Certain scenes are gruesome and I needed music to get me in sort of a frenzy, or should I say made me feel bad-ass and for me there’s nothing like Metallica or Marilyn Manson. So I’ve been enjoying my writing again.

 Do you listen to music when you write? What kind of music do you listen to?