Update on Progress / Prose: Winter Tunnel

Wandering down a tunnel, cold and damp. The mud squelches and echoes around me. It feels like I am in a huge cavern, but I know its a tunnel, and I have been walking for a long time.

from MorgueFile

My feet feel heavy as I lift them up and out of the mud, only to be draw back in the quagmire of the muddy recesses. I don't like being here, but here is where I am. It wasn't always this way. I remember back when the sunshine existed and I was warm. 

That was July, I believe.

I got sidetracked while traveling. That happens sometimes. But never like this, with tunnels and darkness. I wish that I could get back into the sunlight, but it feels like months, or eons away.

Squish.

Squelch.

I start humming a little song, something that I don't remember, but I am walking a little faster. In time. In beat.

Beat. 

Beat.

Beat.

And suddenly I don;t realize that I am in a dark, damp, and cold tunnel, because I am singing, "...rise to the fear, face the inner dark, and the light will.." I sing, getting lost in the melody. When I look up, I see the light, a much larger circle, though still in the distance. 

Maybe it's not so far away, I think, skipping along the muddy roadway.

Dear Readers, sometimes I get so caught up in the daily, in the tunnel, that i forget I am on a journey. Winter, as I spoke of before is so hard, hard for a lot of people, me included. Once again I found myself in the middle of a dark tunnel, but this time I refused to stay there. I have to fight. I have to walk. Because if I don't then I won't get out of the tunnel. I have been outside of the tunnel before, and I will return there again, but right now I need to walk, one step at a time.

In the mean time, I am beginning my journey to published author. First, I just got word that one of my two poems were chosen for a local anthology of poems on Gender and Sexuality, titled "Gender Truths". There's a reading next month and this will be in physical print. This is REALLY exciting!

So, now I have to work on getting these pieces of fiction published. I have chosen four short works that I have revised and sent out to beta readers, and then revised some more. Now it's time to start submitting them. There are in a great place, ripe for submitting. Maybe I will need to revised and/or more, but at this time it's time to try another round submissions. If I don't get my name out there, how will anyone know who I am. Right?

Other business, I recent had a Sooper Sekrit Project that I had been working on. It's time to admit what I have be doing. I last month I write on my own, four Welcome to Night Vale scripts. It is my current obsession, and am going to be seeing them live in April. SQUEEEEEE! Anyway, when I started writing these scripts I hadn't thought much beyond finishing them. Well, there are done. And I went and submitted them (afterward I checked the website FAQ). I don't know if Jeffrey and Joseph will read them, but I did what I set out to do. In the mean time I have posted them to my Deviatart Page for fans to enjoy, and I plan to do a table read with my Night Valian friends this spring.

Also, I have two children's books that I am going to get published somehow, either this year, or later and maybe self-publish if it doesn't go through the regular means. I am working on that, nd as it involves business stuff, I m taking it slow. But, it's only February 9th and I am a (NOW) a thrice published poetry (the last two were on calendars).

Yup, that is going to be my 2017, editing, revising, and submitting, maybe a little writing to keep the juices flowing.

What have you been up to, Dear Readers?

Choose Your Own Adventure: Quest for the Holy Grail of Muses or Creativity Grail

It's story time, Dear Readers!

Once Upon a Time it was February. The first of February, a Wednesday (okay, some of this is based on truth), the middle of week. The barely covered grass  boasts green brown, stunt grass, and little else. It is a very boring, sad sight.

That's how I am feeling.

They say that the third week in January is the worst part of winter, especially here in the northern wastes. Okay, that's an embellishment, but as my friend Jack often says about where he grew up in a little town North of Corning, NY, it is the great northern snow wastes (or something like that). I will have to pay royalties to Jack now. Great!

Well, anyhow, it's the first of February, and honestly January, while it's rough and utterly disgusting. Trust me, I have lived in New York State for thirty seven years, and in most of that time, well January is SHITE! Utter crapastically shite! The cold, the wind, the snow, and the bleakness that rules everything. It's bad! This means, Dear Readers, that if you are not engaged in a hobby, job, or some mundane task, then you are forced to try to figure winter out. Often it is too cold, windy, or light out to do much of anything. And many of you, myself including suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, in possibly additionally other mental type disorders.

So, I am currently in a battle, Dear Readers!

Truth, I suffer from fear of complacency, and actual complacency. If I am not currently doing something, I don't do anything, and then am left feeling terrible about my lack of productivity.

It's like I'm on a quest for the Holy Grail of Muses, or the Golden Calf of Creativity, and while on this quest I decide that staying in bed and binge watching She-Ra is a better option.

No don't get me wrong. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu are all great, but there is always this nagging little faerie (think Navi fro Zelda) yelling at me with high-pitched shrieks.

I'm on this quest and I find myself facing the Lazy Beast of Netflixia, a far away, and that loves to attack innocent travelers. Well, on this first of February I met this beast and it my attempt to slay it, found me at the mercy of my bed, warm blankets, and two sleeping Beasts snoozing next to me. I have put down my sword and pressed the button,

Three hours later I was still in the familiar lands of My Bed, and the sleeping Beasts are gone. I pick up the mantle of intrepid traveler, adventurer, and continue to seek the Grail of Muses. Further down I find a kindly gentleman with a pack of books. He agreed to sell me a magical tome. After a moment of bantering I now have a tome of literature and make my way to the nearest tavern where I am greeted with a cheerful smile and a hot cup of stimulate. There is another hour wasted, and I have in a cold half drunken cup of stimulate and no Grail.

You can see where this is going, right, Dear Readers?

I picked myself up and fill my satchel full of supplies and leave the tavern. Again going out into the frigid cold, the deadened landscape to seek my query. Only I am left wandering the well worn paths seeking clues to what I am looking for. What am I looking form? I don't even anymore.

Yes, there is a point, Dear Readers...

I wander down into the valley. There is a familiarity to the land, and I can't help feeling that maybe this is what I was looking for before. There are many buildings in the village, but I find the one place that I have always know, always gone to, and relied on. It is a tavern, but this time as I am walking up to the front door, the overhead sign  depicting a chalice of steaming liquid, I open the door and it's warm and the familiar smell of caffeine and baked goods. I have come home. The sleeping beasts are far from here, the charlatan's pedaling easy answers stay away. And I sit down only to realize that I had the Grail with me the whole time. Before I know it, I have a story sitting in front of me.

See, Dear Readers, there was a plot to this story. Simply, I know what works when I am feeling like I'm in a rut, or the Winter Blues are attacking. Sometimes you just need to take that moment to see why you are not happy, and then do it. Thus doesn't mean that I will always feel this productive. Some days are really hard, and my life is VERY different than what it was a year ago. What worked before, may not always works, but if I don't try, if I don't make an effort, then I won't know.

Winter sucks, especially here in the Great Northern Snowy Wastes, but it doesn't have to take me out everyday. I can battle it and win. Sometimes I give in and binge watch She-Ra or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But other times, especially when I don't go into work because it is slow and there is nothing for me to do, I do need to go on quests for the Creative Grail, because otherwise I might not have written this blog post / story from you now.

What I do~~~
I love to read books. I just finished a re-read of The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica by James A. Owen, working on finishing the Inkheart series (halfway through Inkdeath). I do community theatre and have lines to learn for a show that goes up at the end of April. Also, I am working on getting published this year.

Leave me a comment about what you do to beat the Winter Blues. How do you fight the sleeping beasts or the charlatans of Netflixia? Or if you need a lazy day, because you've been extremely busy, what do you do to relax and unwind?