I don't know where I lost the will to write.

Writing is work. Even if that work is just sitting in front of a keyboard -- I still have to keep my fingers moving and sometimes, for a long time now, that's hard.

I was never great at being consistent. I never wrote daily or blogged regularly. But it got worse a year or two back. Then somewhere along the lines I had the incredible opportunity to interview Francesca Lia Block, but I wasn't in one of my blogging-success patterns and I really, really didn't give it my all. This was one of my dreams, people, and I didn't give it my all!
Thanks depression and dysphoria, so glad you could join the party...

After that I was caught up in the whirlwind of moving across the country and trying to find work and succeed at all in another place where the odds are stacked against us. Against everyone, really. I lucked out like crazy with an internship to get me through the doors and part-time job(s) to pay the bills, but lost essentially all of my creative energy and motivation.

Over time, this started to create a fuzzy little noise in the back of my mind, like a tumor reminding me that I've given up my creative and artistic goals and never accomplished anything. Then came poverty.

I love this city, but everyone knows it's kicking us out. My rent is literally double anything I've ever paid for housing before. My car is constantly one step away from repossession [I've since sold it --read; paid a lot of money to not have to pay for it any more]. We haven't bought groceries in over a month. Every time we've thought we were almost caught up, something else happened and we were at the bottom of the money hole again.

It's like all of my energy and motivation and hope has drained away in the last year, maybe it's just been too long struggling to make things work here, fighting possible homelessness over the last few months, going hungry for the first time in my adult life. I worked three jobs (one unpaid) over the summer and two after that fo
r months. When I lost one (the one I hated, luckily), I spiraled. I'd spent so long working 40+ hour weeks that I exploited my new-found free time. I'd go to work and I'd come home and I'd watch tv. Over and over. For months I overcompensated for a year of overworking. Getting to work on time became a small win. Doing the dishes; a big win. Working for more than 5 hours a day; huge.

Everything fueled this depression trying to creep over me, but I smoked lots of weed and curled up on the couch to watched tv. First I stopped writing. Then I stopped reading. Then I stopped being social. Then I stopped doing pretty much everything. It wasn't like my past depression -- curled up under piles of blankets with a black hole inside of my chest -- this was... almost functional. I assume, perhaps logically, that this difference is due to my being medicated now versus then, but who knows.

And we got through it pretty decently. We started to take walks more often, just to get off the couch. We found local resources for free food. We found ways to make a few extra dollars -- selling plasma, selling furniture, etc.. We played with our dogs more and we cuddled more and we keep our heads up and kept moving.
Mood-wise, we were okay: it was like doing yoga next to a crumbling cliffside-- sure, you're keeping your cool, but any minute now that wall of rock is going to collapse on top of you and kill you, and you know it's coming. This was my feeling pretty much all of the time. And every time I thought about something I could do to help myself -- write, read, be social, clean -- I just... didn't. I didn't have even the slightest bit of willpower to get my ass up and do anything.

Now is a little bit different.
Now I'm the sales manager where I was interning, a rad [i say rad, now, cause i'm a west coast grl.] publishing house that is getting bigger and bigger every year, and I'm excited to help them grow and succeed. They've been incredibly patient with me and my situations over the last year, and it is an amazing opportunity. I work with books all day and, basically, am doing exactly what I came here to do. If I work a full forty hour week (which I'm still working up to and it's slow-going) I have almost enough to pay my rent and car payment, and hopefully the electric bill (not our other bills though, of which there are many).
We're not even close to paying any of our bills, our taxes (holy shit it's a lot), our loans, my car payment, or being able to buy groceries any time soon. But we still have an apartment and we're constantly looking for somewhere cheaper. I have a reliable, grown-up sized paycheck coming in.
For the first time in months, there's this underlying feeling of possibility.

We're not okay, but every week it's more and more likely that we're going to be. There's something inherently freeing in that possibility.

A New Year on Its Way

So I sort of have a new computer. On loan, basically. And I only have it for two weeks before I'm probably lending it to someone else for a month, so... not having my own computer has been an oddly placid hassle. I use the boys, usually, but when he's not home I don't really have the chance to write or work (I'm officially a freelance Editor now, win!). And when he isn't home I tend to feed my Triple Town addiction...

But a new year is on its way, which means a new collage and pages of resolutions in my Bible, hopefully a party where I can dress up and drink champagne, and a short-lived feeling of newness and rebirth come the first few days of January.
But right now, for the first time in quite a while, things seems to have potential. I'm working (a little) and still a substitute teacher (can't wait to get out of that, but at least I get to make my own schedule) and Christmas (my favorite holiday, even as an atheist) left me with a lot of things I really kind of needed. Clothes that I actually like and can wear to work, so I can finally throw away some of the things I've had since I was 14; a new cookware set so I'm not eating bits of Teflon in my soups; and a lot of things I actually kind of wanted: books, blankets, a munchkin game.

Somehow, I feel a very slight, subtle sense of... possibility, for the first time since I graduated college. I even have a little pile of story ideas spinning around in my head that I think are eager to get out, including a fantasy series (comic?) that was originally my partner's idea, but I've evolved and would like to write down, and a dark children's story that I think could be really good.

I'm afraid of this too, unfortunately, because much of this possibility will have to begin with a cleansing of what currently is. 

I need to throw away my scratched and broken pots and pans to make room for my beautiful new set.
I need to throw away the clothes that are torn, don't fit, and I just don't like, and finally make room for a wardrobe that I actually look forward to wearing, and create a more concrete (though still completely fluid) visual identity that I actually like, and makes me feel like me.
I need to redo the office and its contents for the beau's new Drafting Table-- which means his hulking desk is now mine, which is another new beginning to cleanse and start.
I need to reevaluate my living space as a whole to find a way to keep it clean and love it and discourage laziness.
I need to purge myself of laziness and focus wholeheartedly on this work that I really really want to do for the rest of my life, which I'm finally taking baby steps towards.
I need to reevaluate my working life, since I didn't get into grad school and now have a large span of time without a proper plan or indication of what/where I want to be. This is slightly alleviated by the point above, but as my freelance work is small and only just beginning to crawl, there has to  be something else in the meantime.
I need to pour energy into my body (exercise) and relationship (attitude) by letting go of the past and beginning again.

And these aren't even my resolutions. Though now that I've written them they're definitely going in my Bible...

Having said that, I need to get to work. I have a new novel to edit, and I haven't even gotten to the second page.

Wish me luck.

Editor For Hire

Freelance editor with experience writing and editing fiction (short and long) and comic scripts, as well as news stories and magazine articles.

Looking to publish your short story or novel? Self-publishing a novel or comic? Love writing blogs but hate searching for grammatical errors? Perfecting a resume full of writing samples? 

For a small fee I’ll review, edit, and suggest improvements for your writing, bettering the odds of your work getting noticed, enjoyed, or even published!

If interested, email cmmarts@gmail.com with a short sample of the work you’d like reviewed, as well as information about it; including type (short story, novel, blog post, comic script, etc.), title, genre, word count, and what your plans for your work are. If I feel I can help you, we’ll negotiate a fee and work schedule, and go from there. I won’t stop working until you’re completely happy with your work and it’s potential.

Happy writing and I look forward to working with you!