My Panic Button is the Only Thing Working

   Inside my brain:

   I'm panicked. Anxious. Worried.... Off. 

   I sometimes get this way and don't have an exact word for the feeling, but I needlessly feel doomed. My life is relatively calm, I don't work late or at home anymore, and I have actual free time to write. My financials are fine, my work is done up until next week, and nothing noteworthy or mentionable happened.

  I know, deep down, that the next book needs to have a strict outline because I'm floundering. But once I sit down, I stare at my cursor, and all I do is comb through my chapters and wonder what I'm doing. I have several ideas, I've written half an outline on a few of them when I can't think up anything for my current book, and the thing is...
It's a few chapters short of a full-ass book. I literally have an entire book. 
I hit my word mark already, but it's climbing a bit from a shorter novel to an actual story with deeper meaning. I'm excited, don't get me wrong, but there's something inside me that fights with whether or not. I should be finished with it now or be patient. 
Part of me is like, look here, you literally started this book in what, March? Thanks to Insta, it says April, I got the wild hair to write my almost done book. I've been writing this for going on six months. In the grand scheme of things, I should be amazed that I have written 70,000+ words. Last year I started and am somewhat finished with my first book, which comes in at 120,000 words, and I have three other partial stories on the back burner that I add notes to every now and then.
I have, in fact, done something amazing.
It's telling myself I'm on the right track, that my brain doesn't get. I'm getting there. The opportunities are there; I've submitted two of my works, and I'm still trudging along in the literature world by reading when I'm not writing, or when I'm not doing that, I'm watching anything I can watch on TV that's new.
   Even though half of it is shite and makes me want to write better content. I at least have compiled a list of shit I will not be writing about.

  While watching the Amazon Prime show called Authors Anonymous, one of the characters said something quite profound to me that I understood completely. Kucko's character tells another that they're paying attention too much; their brain is every which way but where it should be: Writing.

  I'm thinking about work, it's wedding season. I'm thinking about getting ahead of my line; I'm thinking about taking on extra dresses to recoup our savings. I'm thinking about writing, not writing, my current book, my past book, what I'm doing right, and what I'm doing wrong.
What other people are doing right and wrong.
I'm reading, blogging, Instagramming...

  I'm also trying to have a life with my husband, be a cat mom, be somewhat social with friends, and what have you. I couldn't imagine having actual children. I have so much on my plate that when I go to sit down and start typing, I can't.

  Because my brain is pulled a million and one ways, and no matter how much time I set aside to try and inspire myself to write, I either go watch a movie, read a book, or take a nap because my brain is done for the day.

  
   

Review: The Unbalanced Equation

The Unbalanced Equation
By H.L.Mcfarlane

Macfarlane Lantern Publishing


Instagram recap:

This book starts with the sweetest anime meet-cute worthy of any nerdy girl who has been in similar situations. 

EX: My own relationship: Sailor Moon and Pride & Prejudice. 

Not only does Tom save Liz from mansplaining nerds, but he also bests them with his own knowledge, then sweeps her off her pretty little feet. Be still, my nerdy heart. 

Until orange juice wrecks the night. 

I love the drama that ensues years later and captures these two in a cluster most epic with family, friends, and each other: the bar, the fire, the close quarters, the love of single parents, the eviction, to the moving in with each other out of pure desperation…

It's glorious how a simple twist of fate can change everything, especially when fate is a toddler and she keeps spinning. 

Tom: Acts tough, but he's a mama's boy, has a soft side under his polished exterior, an Arsehole, but a lovable arsehole with a kind soul. 

Liz: Fakes being tough to avoid confrontation, pain in the arse, and stubborn but is kind, lovable, and a daddy's girl. Wants to feel deserving of love but is afraid of being hurt. 

_____________

So, I have this habit of binge-reading a book if it's REALLY good and captures me body and soul. I will HAVE to read the whole thing, or I'll be absolutely useless at work, and the boss gets pissed off at me (it's me, I'm the boss. Yes, I piss myself off.)

Of course, I did this on a Sunday when I had to be to work the next day because I have zero self-control. Yes, I'm trying to work on it; no it's not really working as I start to evolve into the bookish woman I was meant to be in high school. 

Thanks to Netgalley, I'm heading off in a different direction and trying my hand at truthful, information-packed, reviews I would like to have before reading books. In the Facebook group, Bitchy Bookworms, I've learned much about peer reviews and how to take them lightly. What is someone else cup of tea may not necessarily be mine.

I love real-life happenings, fiction but not fantasy like I'm stepping into the MC's shoes and living vicariously through her. 

That's what I found in The Unbalanced Equation, real-life happenstance, with a lot, and I mean a lot, of real-world drama and a ton of plot twists in just a few short chapters.
I loved it; it wasn't cheesy, I could follow it very well, and I got enamored with how well she wrote the book. I enjoyed the characters, the anime references, the cosplay funnies and the truth behind being a female cosplayer.
I know, I am one of them, but I only dabble, I mostly create cosplay costumes for others now since wearing wigs pisses me off. 
And don't get me started on wearing a leotard and needing to pee.

I. Get. It. 

I also felt the nerdy girl being nerdsplained part to my core. I had an argument with not only my husband, but all his friends during The Last Jedi. I had seen it twice, read the book, and did some deep digging to be able to have that argument.
I was the only woman.
I enjoyed it. 

On that note, I lift my glass of Rose' to the beautiful story this fine woman has brought forth on rainy Scottish days. As we relish in the joy that we have one sunny day in over a month. 

Yay Florida. 

Review: Overkill by Sandra Brown

My brain was furiously working on my blog post in my dreams a few nights ago. 

I flew through 150 pages without blinking. I could see everything. Brown's writing has always drawn me in and captured my mind. Not only in its movie-quality explanations but in how it lets my mind run wild by drawing images with the descriptions.
It took me 24 hours to read and then a few more to process because this was, somehow, a different kind of book for me than her others.

I spend Christmas/Thanksgiving in the Blue Ridge Mountains, so the cabin in North Carolina made me long for that peace. Zack's character reminded me of my culinary friend Kevin, who also lived on the side of a mountain, and I loved how at ease he looked. How he explained his small town intricacies, the winter months when people bid on the last snow shovel or what time was best for the all-you-could-eat pizza place. I remember those times, and reading about this character who 'ran away' into the peacefulness of the mountains made me long to be there myself.
You kind of forgive and forget when you're encompassed in such a serene place. Brown captured that for me.
That's what Zack wanted. Even though he was the opposite, he would protect that by putting on an asshole vibe.
 

It was an astounding story, and following several characters through the pages gave a nice 360 view of the story as a whole.

At the start, you see Eban, the sociopathic villain, and his two henchmen, Theo and Cal, making pretty big mistakes. One mistake is the worst of them all, and throughout the story, you get to see the impact on each person.
Every one of them.

Then you see the match between Zack and Kate based on this twist of fate, the differences, the commonplaces. What each has to offer the other in defiance of social norms.

 

I had read a few reviews for the book after I had read it because I was stuck overthinking a few things, but I have to say: Where did all the good reviewers go? The one I read that made me cringe used a lot of LOLs and complained about how spicy the book was. A true fan knows there's a high spice level in all the books she wrote that preceded Overkill. This one was surprisingly mild in comparison.
Yeesh, first-timers.

I learned the art of spice from Sandra Brown! She writes the romance scenes tastefully, so I more or less threw out that particular GoodReads review and decided to write my own.

I realized that this book took a little time to settle with me after I read it. I had a few moments of introspection about how I felt this book was so much different from Brown's last few, like Thick As Thieves or Outfox.

I think that was the point of this book.

Then as it settled in, I dreamt about it and realized that during 2020, we all kind of went into a weird survival mode. We soul searched. That's what she was doing with this book, I feel.
I saw that in this book because Zack was introspective, too; he was a different kind of male lead that she had crafted before; this one, to me, felt like he was an adult. The other male leads were always very secretive about feelings, showing weakness, etc. The bad boys were secret soft boys with a stern but candy coating.

Then there was Zack. At first, he was kind of an asshole regarding things that mattered: his privacy, his property, and his livelihood. He was protective of his ex-wife and even her parents. Then later protective over Kate.
There was an air of the older books in there, but it was completely new to me. Having a character who acted mature, a little sarcastic of course, and definitely a little frisky, but he was a new and I loved it. But he was adult protective, versus throwing everything to the wild and hoping for the best; protective.

I started reading Sandra Brown's books my last year of middle school; I was 14, while everyone else was reading Harry Potter and Holes. I was never one to jump on the bandwagon, so I picked out three books from the thrift store and wound up with my first Sandra Brown, Envy.
Homegirl from GoodReads has no idea what spicy is if Overkill was her first.

My old ass soul has brought me here, being an avid Sandra Brown reader and fan at the ripe age of 33.

So, with every fiber of my being, I have to say I LOVED every bit of this new book.
I can't wait for the next one to come out!

Until then, I'm painstakingly editing my novels, waiting for my preordered books to roll in since I've read almost everything in my to-be-read pile. 

Readers Guide: People We Meet On Vacation

 

  I believe that, much like people, books come into our lives at just the right moments.

  People We Meet On Vacation was one of those for me, and Emily Henry knows how to write sentiment just right. We meet Poppy and Alex in, what we come to find out, is an ordinary bit of banter between them while on vacation.

  Alex is cool and calm; he rather read a book than socialize. Everything about him is controlled.
  Poppy is the opposite; where he is controlled, she is chaos. She is the key that unlocks an Alex only she can see, and their dynamic works for both of them. She is Vintage, whereas he is Kakhi; she's sunshine, while he is moody.

  Discussion Questions Number 1
When they first meet, Alex and Poppy are immediately put off by each other. Have you ever made a friend after a bad first impression?

  As I read, I thought back on when I met Andrew (my best friend and second husband), and it was a similar story, but ours started at our mutual best friend's college graduation. I thought I was meeting his cousin again, but when I saw my husband's face above where Jon's dad pointed him out, I was curious.
  I hadn't met this one.
  At the time, I didn't overthink it. Still, I remember him sitting across from me at one point at the TCBY, then eventually sitting next to me on this obnoxiously bright orange plastic sofa where we were both turned inwards, talking with one another. We had a lot in common, it was easy to talk to him, and his smile and laugh were infectious.

  In this case, I was Alex. My husband, before he was my husband, was Poppy. He was the only person, in a very long time, who actually talked to me. I felt seen.

  Discussion Questions Number 2
What's something you do on vacation that you're unlikely to do in your daily life? Is there an unquestionable comfort in anonymity?

  On vacation, we try to do new things, even if that means eating at a new restaurant (we are foodies) or try a new experience. Like, our last trip to Atlanta for book research, I threw us into many new experiences, and my hubs enjoyed himself, much like Alex, once he relaxed. We bar hopped, got lost downtown, found a random Pho place we ate at twice, and rode Bird scooters around town.
  We love the anonymity of vacations. It's the thought of being out of our norm, doing new things, things we usually don't do, and chating and enjoying the people we meet along the way. We've made lasting friendships that way, but we mostly collected stories and memories.


  Discussion Questions Number 3
Have you ever met a goal and found that your reaction wasn't quite what you expected?

  I've met a few, expecting to feel accomplished, excited, and happy. The happiness of meeting the goal lasted, but not as long as I would have thought. It took being in my 30s to understand that I was holding my excitement out for others, and they weren't as happy for me as I was for myself. Others were my parents and a few friends; I realized that if I kept expecting others to be proud of me, I wouldn't ever be proud of myself. It was the people-pleasing aspect of my life that I've learned needed to be pointed to myself, and making me happy.

  Discussion Questions Number 4
What is your worst vacation memory? Your best?


  I have always loved adventures, the planned, the unplanned; the more unplanned, the better. Our spontaneous and off-the-cusp vacations followed the same suit as Alex and Poppy's 'budget-friendly' vacations. My hubs had lost his Airbnb privileges because of the exciting places he has sent us, but at the same time, it made us cry with laughter.
  Our last budget-friendly trip was to Gatlinburg, TN, and we stayed at the local Comfort Inn. It was ghastly. Once we turned into the parking lot, my husband's face fell; he quickly got on his phone, looked at the pictures, and kept looking up and down while I watched him sleepily. At that point I think I had two hours of sleep the last 38 hours and I was cool with throwing down a drop cloth so I could sleep.
  Once married, we switched modes back and forth; on this trip, I was Poppy, and he was Alex. He was in the bargaining stage of vacation grief as I looked on the App for other places available around town.
  "No, no, no, this is not the same hotel."
  Nothing was affordable without spending $1000+, of course.

  In an hour and a half, we watched three different floors open up doors and have a conversation out front with neighboring rooms, another three had dogs tied to the outside bars, trash everywhere; a random car had evem pulled up, and we watched the most exciting display I had ever seen in person.
  We watched as a lady walked from the car to the room with her pants around her ankles.
  Instantly, we knew we had messed up.

 

  Discussion Questions Number 5
Poppy is going through professional burnout. Have you ever experienced that kind of fatigue? How did you get through it?

  I've become quite adept at the fine art of professional burnout, mostly because I've been chasing a dream through what I thought I wanted. I've been chasing the high of writing for over 18 years, and it took gathering these experiences to realize where I'm supposed to be. I look at burnout like a chapter ending, so I don't just call it quits right then and there; I wait until I find the one thing I haven't done yet and try my hand at it.
  In these experiences, I find my passion in the written word. So I write. 

  Discussion Questions Number 6
Which vacation of Alex and Poppy's would you most want to take? Which would you least want to take?

  Tuscany, hands down. The least likely is Palm Springs since I lived in the Desert. It's hot as hell, and the AC bit is so on point even though I was hot just thinking about it. 

  Discussion Questions Number 7
Having grown up in a small town, Poppy struggles to break free of her reputation—or at least struggles to believe she can do so. When have you felt misunderstood, and how did you get past it?

  When I lived in Las Vegas, I had to live under the guise of a dutiful daughter, a Christian school student, and altogether be the good girl everyone thought I was. When we moved to Pensacola, I started to come into my own weird little personality. Into the free spirit I really am. Truthfully, up until 2020, I felt misunderstood. Still, during that year, I realised that others opinions of me didn't mean diddily. I began to write more, read again, and do the things that made me truly happy. 

  Discussion Questions Number 8
Why do you think it takes Poppy and Alex so long to admit their feelings to each other?

I think it's the same way it took me a while to admit that I liked my hubs more than just friends. After so many failed relationships, you stop believing in yourself. After my ex wore me down so much, in those days that I asked for a divorce and the onslaught of phone calls, mean Facebook posts, and everything else that came with that time. Telling Andrew that I liked him was the least scary out of all the turmoil in my life.
It's the fear of the unknown that holds us back.

Discussion Questions Number 9
Rachel has a lot to say about contentment versus purpose. In your own life, do you prize one above the other? Are these ideas mutually exclusive, or can you have both?

  I believe we want both, sometimes all at once, sometimes separate. I know I strive for purpose; I've worked very hard since my first job at Target to get to where I am today. Owning a business. Yet, I'm still not content to be here, making great money; I run my own calendar, I can take a whole month off if I like and not fear the loss of a paycheck.
  But, I've always wanted to be a writer. I don't think I could be content until I'm there. Time can only tell!

  Discussion Questions Number 10
Do you think Poppy and Alex are going to make it?

  Without a doubt.

 

Link to Discussion Questions: People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

Poem: Little Did You Know

​What about me? 

What about my hurts, my woes, my deep seeded fears? 

Don’t they matter too? 

I scream, from the inside out. 

Can’t you see that the fear in my eyes isn’t rebellion, it’s all a telling disguise.

My cries for help are obvious, but no one hears me scream. 

They’re oblivious. 

When I speak; I’m hushed.

When I cry; I’m told to stop.

It’s like any form of emotion is outlawed, unless it’s you who shows them.

If you cry, or scream, yell or curse, it’s warranted.

If we did it, it was bullshit. 

How dare you, you’d say, most kids dreamed of my life. Dreamed of the bed I slept in or the food I got to eat, no one liked a spoiled rotten bitch like me. 

I should feel like shit, she’d say, complaining about injustice.

I should let them verbally abuse, misuse, and harm my soul.

For what? 

A roof, some food, a sanctuary where I fear to breathe? 

I can’t even open a book to read, without being ungrateful. 

How dare I want I better life, or a life that’s in a dream.

I should be more grateful than I seem.

I shouldn’t fear my parents, but I do.

I shouldn’t hold on; but I do.

I should move on; I know.

But how?

Because little did you know, I was just wanting a home. 

Not this. 

On Research: Sexuality & Toys

As a writer, a curious human, and someone who craves experiences and the possible stories I can tell, this week's On Research is brought to you by Sex.

 

It's no mystery, but I was raised on romances, relationships, and the many-sorted sexual dalliances that they procured.

All the while, my parents didn't monitor me, but I got to see healthy versus unhealthy.

 

But did it over-sexualize me at a younger age?

Is that why I had a hard time in my late 20s-early 30s trying to figure out my sexual prowess?

Was I just stressed?

I mean, a mix of everything, I'm sure.

 

I learned about Sex by way of books and movies; even the school's sex-ed classes and the many shades of less is more had a hand in teaching me. Christian schools teach abstinence. So, it didn't surprise me the day another bookish friend, and I found a book about a Las Vegas prostitute at the new Dollar Tree.

As our whole class gathered around for storytelling, we didn't think we looked suspicious. As an adult, now I know better. What harm could a group of hormonal teenagers get into when huddled and whispering as we took turns reading chapters? Not much, but much like English class, the school needed to approve.

 

Which they did not, the book was snatched up. We did get sentenced to the sex Ed video that started Topanga from Boy Meets World? I don't know. I remember two things: Sex was like a roller coaster, and my body was a flower.

If you give away all your petals before marriage, you're basically a useless, sexual piece of shit. You a ho.

The Christian teachings left a lot to be desired.

 

Later, in public school, my 8th-grade year was pure magic, in the sense that we watched 3-4 different videos and it sealed the deal on me ever procreating. They blew what I first learned out of the water by showing us a weeks-long parade about other ways to give birth. Then, when you thought you could take up alcohol instead, they slapped some drink goggles on us and made us walk around.

 

Plus, my high school years, some bus rides, learning who Anne Rice was, and getting asked for personal advice or given highly personal information because I seem to have that aura about me.

Tell me your deepest sexual secrets- aura.

So, I've collected data in my head over the years and researched as I go.

 

I used to think it was taboo, but it was only in my head because that's what I was taught. It was not too gently shoved in my brain that if I had Sex, I was on my own. Here are some condoms; if I was going to fuck it all up, at least use one of these.

One tastes like strawberries if you do the oral.

 

On that note, you shall learn about my journey into the research land of sexual nature.

 

The books I started reading in middle and high school brought up a lot of good questions, and thanks to the internet, I was able to ask. Over the years, I have collected quite a bit of knowledge but still learned new things on the topic.

 

I'm working on a rom-com book called All Things Considered, and I needed the first chapter to be my first experience at a sex store.

At 18 years old, my sexual world opened before me with a plethora of weird-ass experiences that started at that very spot. I've been to several since and love having awkward conversations with the team. And yes, I seriously had a fifteen-minute conversation with sales staff about the importance of dilation before butt pluggage.
I love getting people to open up; I now know how to use that to my advantage. Tell me your dirty secrets; I just love learning about the things people think about. This exercise helps me understand people's backstories and allows me to file away character traits that I'd like to portray in a book.
Also, if you piss me off, you will definitely make it into my book one way or another.

 

I enjoy experiences as much as I like the conversations; trying or attempting to try is just as fun. You're either going to succeed, fail, or have a hilarious story to tell in the end. Either way, it gets filed away.

 

Like, Ben Wa Balls, for example. I bought some over the weekend because I'm at the curious age of 33, I have extra income to spend, and I don't care to hold on to the ounce of prudish nature I had left. Buy the sex toy, try it out, and do your thing.

Don't like it? Cool, don't use it.

Also, I figure why not after watching A Nice Girl Like You.
Or, after reading an excellent review about the Lelo brand, I may or may not have, purchased.

Yolo.

Now, my first toy buying experience? Embarrassing as all get out. I think I bought my first one when I was 19/20, and it was at the Spencer's. It was purple; it took me an hour to pick one out because I was nervous. I even bought a birthday card with it, pretending I was gifting it.

For the second one I bought, I threw down $85 for the Rabbit…. because of reasons. I was also wiser and more mature, and my ex-husband wasn't the most remarkable maker of love, so I had something to prove.
To myself.
And that it wasn't me.

 

That's beyond the point I'm trying to make. The fact is that I hold very dear those moments in my life that made me question what I thought I knew. I'm the same way now, if not worse because I genuinely yearn for knowledge. I'll try new things just to gain experience points like I'm waiting to level up.

I want to have master-level experiences, and I don't think I'll live a day and not want to do something new, so maybe one day I can write about it or use it in a book or a blog like this one.

 

Example: after washing my pet cat last night (she's a big girl, fluffy, fur for days), I tried something new and dried her off with a blow dryer. It worked great! She loved it. Until I realized it blew off so much fur that I had to deep clean the bathroom, then myself.

It was everywhere, rolling around like slightly damp tumbleweeds. Imagine black fur stuck to every available white surface that was the entire bathroom.

 

Even if it's a little thing, you bet your ass I will try it. And if I sit long enough to overthink it, I will have a funny diatribe or two on the subject matter.

Funny to me, at least. 

​On My Brain: Internal Playlist

​Please tell me I'm not the only one who lives with music in my head. My life has a literal playlist that rolls through, it summons forth a song like it's thumbing through a Rolodex from my memory banks, inserts it and plays.

 

Did someone just REALLY pull out in front of me TWICE?

The Bitch Came Back by Theory of a Deadman

Depression kicking my ass?

Anything by Evanescence.

Happy?

Cue the Millennial Mixtape.

Time to remember my childhood and everyone that wrong me?

Anything with teenage Angst.

It's purely emotional. 

When I write I have music on and a tarot deck near by. 

I have three. 

I also use it when writing my books. 

The tarot cards are a whole other discussion. Hint: I use them when I need something random to happen in a story. They've become excellent storyteller tools.

Weekly, YouTube updates My Discovery file, and I get lost down the hole during the workweek. I sucked it up and bought the membership with how much I fucking use the music function. 

YouTube: You're welcome. (PS, Thank you.)

At the same time, I try to avoid Florida driving hazards. Humans, school buses, and cars with humans in them drive 15 below the posted speed limit pre coffee. My weekly commutes to and from work are 15-20 minutes each; I have enough time to jam out and file away songs into my' book' playlists, personal and work ones. Then, if I'm alone at work, I replay the songs in the book file I'm working on blast, letting them tell me a story and then building on it in my head.

Movies, music, and tarot cards are where the storytelling starts for me; something always pops up; a memory, a feeling, an idea. It pearls up until it's a striking thing in my mind, and it's brought to life via music, then finely tuned by my imagination. It's an orgy of sounds, colors, TV show scripting, and nine yards of uncut fabric that deserve the perfect cut garment. If a particular song comes on, I imagine the start of a book I'm writing as if it were playing out before me as a show or a movie. I know what I like in my shows and films to start; I want to be knee-deep into something that I only have to slightly figure out. I like my mind to be in it, working through the problems the character is working through right then and there. I like feeling the same things they do.

I try to write like that. 

So I start writing as if we are falling into a character's most private of moments; I start in their head. I know I'm always in my head; I also love learning what other people think because those moments are truthful.

I started We're All Okay, with a typical On-Call moment when I worked for Child Services. I start it out with the mundane but exciting to me, the start and end of a work night. I start and end it off without spoken words because half of the exciting things are inside.

And when you work by yourself at night, you don't talk much, and you're stuck thinking about what time you'll be off, what time you'll have to flex till the following day, and what you're walking into because it's always a mixed bag. What bag do I grab? Infant, Toddler, older? What chapter am I on in my book? Should I grab another one just in case I'm here longer?

As a kid, I spent more time with myself than with other kids, parents, or siblings. I was personally okay spending time with myself, especially since I couldn't get in trouble if I was just keeping myself company, right? Nope, even being a bookworm got me fussed at. All of my teen years, to be exact, got me fussed at because I didn't act like a typical teenager. 

It still boggles me that I got yelled at for reading. 

Anyways, I digress. 

At the start of All Things Considered, I got into the main characters head because she’s who I was in high school. She’s a bookish woman, loves writing, crafts worlds in her head, but lacks a life outside of the pages of her books or her magazine column. We see it through, her world, and her view of the magazine. I have her explain things in her personality. Through her eyes, I grant her the ability to show us where we were going with the story. 

Last, in Trauma Bound I use a fear of mine and make it real. I also use music I liked when I lived in Alabama. I let music mould a story loosely before I step in and add the flourishes. 

It’s team work. 

I try new stuff per story, so I'm not repeatedly using and rehashing the same story with different names. In essence it’s because I’m still learning to navigate the literary waters I’m treading blindly into. However, I do find my voice one literary leap at a time, so that’s nice. 

Question: What’s  on your inner playlist this week?

Mine: 

New York by Cyn

Outsider by Rachel Grae 

Hero by Grace Gaused

Mercy by Duffy (opening song to All Thing’s Considered) 

You Know I’m No Good by Amy Winehouse 

Sunday Morning by Maroon 5

Oh My God by Adele

A-O-K by Tai Verdes

Born For This by Foxxi

On My Brain: Characters

 I wanted to start something new for me. I felt that May was the month to start it, looking into my crazy brain and what I think about as a writer with ADD, Dyslexia, and a full-time job.

Early this morning, I rolled over. My brain yelled out that I needed to write an in-depth explanation of how I got to my characters and character building.

Okay, weird, but sure.

 I woke up thinking about this Monday morning. I do that frequently, and I guess I should listen to my brain more often instead of putting it off for another day because I'll forget.

 In short, each character I construct has a piece of me either hidden or blatantly prevalent as I write. One of my favorite characters came about a few weekends ago, and it's a homage to my past. To the girl who wasn't yet wounded, who fell head over heels in love with reading, notebooks, and pens.

  

I'm writing a new Rom-Com set in New York City, and I'm crafting the story around what I had wanted for my future at that point in time. My high school years meant a lot to me; they were formative in shaping who I was becoming, who I am now. Before moving from Las Vegas to Pensacola, FL, throwing everything I knew into a whirlwind of uncertainty, I fell in love with reading. My mother took us to the thrift store, and I stocked up on books that summer before we left. I had gotten books from the school library or the one down the street from my father's house. Still, there was something about Danielle Steele, Nora Roberts, and my all-time favorite, Sandra Brown, making me yearn for reading. 

 They had romance, mystery, drama aplenty, and they kept me sucked in and glued to those pages. I didn't meet a book that I didn't love; I read them all.

Diana Palmer, Johanna Lyndsey, etc.

 This was a fresh start for me, and I was excited. I had notebooks for days, stored just about everywhere, pens, gel and regular, high lighters, colored pencils; everything, everywhere. I would write on paper stories, ideas, quotes, doodles, whatever came to mind in my free time.

 So, when I thought up, All Things Considered, I was watching A Nice Girl Like You starring Lucy Hale, and I fell in love with my young self all over again. As I watched this sexually frustrated woman play out on screen, watched as she did things outside of her norm, I realized I was similar.

 I had lost track of her over the years, finding/losing myself, forgetting about who I was when I was happiest, when I had promised. I let many people dictate my worth over the years, and it got me down. 

 I lived in a victim mindset for so long, wondering why I was constantly being pushed down. I realized it was because I wasn't sticking up for myself as an adult. I couldn't save myself as a kid, but my old ass could now. I had no excuses now.

 Neltilda "Nel" "Nelly" Hanson was created on a Saturday afternoon in my head; she was bright, vivid, and alive. She was me when I had hope.

And I was fucking ecstatic about her.

 I lost track of that beautiful, free-spirited girl, the one with hopes and dreams, who had a drive I envy to this day. She could power through ten books in a week, work part-time, pass high school, and not blink an eye. Not that I don't know, have hope, but I had dreams before the crushing world of being a Millennial became a reality; I got stuck in it, this survival mode.

 Nelly is social enough with the girls in high school that had similar wants and hobbies. She wants to be a writer just like the women who wrote her favorites; she wanted to be someone girls like she looked up to and wanted to be. She wanted to inspire the next generation of creatives.

 Nelly is me, circa 2003. I took this path because 2003-2007 me was gorgeous in every way; she was real. I stayed a virgin until I was 19; even today, I have people telling me about their most personal secrets upon first meeting. When I was in my Journalism class, I wanted to run an advice column, definitely in Cosmopolitan, or become a psychologist because, for four years, I was the go-to. The only time I mentioned to anyone, what we talked about confidentially, was when a friend told me she attempted to kill herself. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if she did. I'm glad she didn't because even though we don't talk anymore, she has a beautiful family and is married to the love of her life. I'm proud of her for sticking around even when things got tough.

 I wasn't okay with the thought of sitting. Still, I wanted a life of adventure. I wanted to travel, gain experiences, learn all the languages, read all the books, troll every garden, coffee shop, and rooftop in every city. But, as time went on, wars started, life changed, and my home life shifted. The abuse became something that wore me down, and I started working harder than ever, collecting houseware instead of books and planning to move as soon as humanly possible. In six years, my brain shifted from what I wanted to survival mode. I lost a lot of that young innocents. Still, I wanted to bring that back up with Nelly, my struggles as a young woman who held on to herself over the years, hoping for something better down the line. 

 I chose to skip the formative years of my personal life; I started fresh where I wanted to back then if things had been a little easier. What if my parents divorced instead of sticking it out? Would it have been better? Would I have stuck with journalism? Would I be in new York? What if I didn't marry the first guy I moved in with? What if, what if, WHAT IF?

 I don't hold much to thinking about the past because everything I went threw brought me here, where I'm at now, to my beautiful life. But I love dreaming about it. I've always had an active imagination, so story tales fit me a lot better than someone who lives many different lives or thinks about the depressive possibilities while residing in the Burbs. I love handcrafting a character to fit what I think would have happened. I'm a creature of struggle, so Nelly has her fair share. 

 There's beauty in the struggle, and I want to show that. It's the little things, the little moments, the being stuck in your head, the daydreams, the breakdowns. It's the happy moments, the sad ones, the happy tears, and everything in between. I want you to find the humor in the mundane, just like I do, and I try to craft it into beautiful pieces for your enjoyment.

 If Colleen Hoover's writing taught me anything this past year, it is that it's okay to write about real things, about struggle, about what you know. So, in All Things Considered, I'm choosing to write about my first loves: Teenage me, Writing, Romance, and New York City.

 It fits because I'm starting a new chapter in my life this year, and damnit, I'm excited again. I'm finding myself again after losing her there for a while, but with a lot more know-how and life experience, I'm a better writer for it.

 Now to just work on my grammar and editing skills! (Yikes.)

 Here's to finding your passion again after years of second-guessing yourself. Here's to finding yourself and making YOU the main character in your life story.

 You deserve it, girl. 

Poetry: Cold is the Tile

 Watching the clouds roll in my eyes,

The smell of Incoming trails on the wind,

As they fall, they drench me in a cool, cold sweat, 
My hands start to shake, and my vision goes blank, 

My head fills with doubt and every word ever used in vain, 
The curses, the yelling, the blame, 
On the outside, you see calm, but inside I'm reaching out for help,
You don't see it in humor and in my smile,
It lays wide open if you just ask,

But you don't,

So here I sit on cold tile, hand pressed to my heart,
Trying to stop the crying jag I'm in because anxiety has come back,
It never stays long; it comes quick and hard like an E5,
Leveling all progress in my path,

After the storm passed through, I was left panting,
I'm left cleaning up the mess I am,
Because you made me, 
I am left looking into my own, red-rimmed eyes,
Wondering how I am still here,
At an address, I've always had, even though I had moved,