SquarePeg Books

Things have been rough lately.

It seems to happen that way – I don’t know if it’s a Universe-tosses-a-bannana-in-my-path-for-reasons thing or if it’s coincidence or what, but it seems to feel like whenever I start to peacefully pull myself together, tornado-volcano-earthquake happens.

I thought I’d been dealing rather well with certain changes in “The Plan.” They’re temporary changes, I’d told myself. A few years and done.

The other day, the Universe sat me down and said, “No, Honey. This package doesn’t work that way. You don’t get to assemble it and shove it on a shelf to collect dust and show it off to people every once in a while. This is something you’re going to have to carry around, forever.”

I lost my shit. Totally. As I’m typing this up, I’m still losing my shit. It’s not supposed to be this way. It’s supposed to be my turn, dammit. I’d finally stood up and said “No, I don’t want to do that. It’s my turn and I’m not giving it away again.”

My ID raged like a 2-year old having a Spectacular Temper Tantrum. My Ego tried to rein ID in, tried to research things and offer solutions to show ID: “Hey, things aren’t that bad. Who wants ice cream?” like a teenager trying to be responsible who secretly doesn’t want to deal with any of this shit.

My SuperEgo just sat in a corner like a defeated mom on the edge of exhausted collapse. She sobbed. Helplessly. What else could she do? No viable exits, no decent solutions. No matter how you look at it the future doesn’t hold awesome potential anymore. A lot of heartache is just around the corner, eagerly waiting to pounce when I’m not expecting it like a hungry mountain lion and. Fuck. My. Shit. Up.

Life deals a stacked deck to everyone, and I just drew a shitty card. Not the worst card, maybe, depending on your perspective, but no one else would want it, either.  If I offered it to anyone else, they’d probably back away slowly and say “No, thanks. Good luck,” and high-tail it the hell away from me.

I’m sobbing. Uncontrollably. The what-ifs and whens and completely radical life expectation shift brutally staring me in the face is too much to do anything else.

I don’t know if it was one of my muses, (I know, I’m starting to sound like I’ve got some MPD going on, I don’t, it’s just… Oh, never-mind. There’s no way to explain it without sounding straight-jacket crazy.) but I distinctly remember thinking:

Sometimes you just have to totally lose your shit all over the place for a day or two before you can make sense of the pieces and start pulling yourself back together.

It sure as hell wasn’t sexy muse. The only thing that bitch said was: “Use this whole thing for that one book you’re working on. It’s perfect!”

Thanks, Sugarsticks. That’s… well… it’s helpful, and there’s a very good chance I’ll do that, but it isn’t what I really need to hear right now.

I really need to hear: It’s going to be okay.

I really need to hear: This isn’t the end of your world.

I really need to hear: There’s a way, you just gotta find it.

Except it isn’t okay. While it isn’t the end of the world, you can see how it’s gonna go and even get a timeframe for it. There isn’t a way around it – the only way is through it and it’s gonna suck like a motherfucker before it’s done.

As I’m writing this, as I’m losing my shit, I’m planning. “If I do this, I can have that in place and ready to go,” in multiple categories.

One is getting employment. Until I have to be at home. Brant tried to be hopeful – “Unless you publish and start bringing in money that way.”

Oh… that almost got him hit. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve told him nothing is in place to publish yet. I don’t have the money saved to not impact the family budget, I’m not a fast enough writer to roll with the current reading-public demands so I need a completed series hot and ready to rock to dole out while working on the next one in order to keep the pace steady and the fans at least interested and not appending foul language to my name because I’m not delivering product (trolling because they don’t like what I’ve written is a different matter entirely).

I’m hoping that the situation will work in my favor. I’m hoping that this stressful issue that is now a permanent fact of life won’t affect my writing the volunteer work did. I’m hoping that it actually inspires me to work, if only to hide from reality for an hour or so a day.

I’m hoping I can pick up the pieces and put them back together.