The Writing LEOW: Finding Purpose

It took me at least thirty minutes to find a blog title that was appropriate for what I wanted to write about. Although this is nowhere near the whimsical or thought provoking direction I was going for, in the end I think it is more than appropriate. First, I am and have always been a writer. Second, I am married to a police officer. Both of those facts are HUGE in defining who I am and what I have become, whether I believe it or not.

The purpose of this blog is to have a place to throw down my scrambled thoughts, word puke if you will, and to find some inspiration and/or camaraderie in the swirling, emotional whirlpool that comes with being a writer and even a LEOW if any of y’all happen upon this blog (LEOW stands for Law Enforcement Officer’s Wife). I also have a passion for saltwater aquariums and will be discussing my own from time to time.

Yes, writing a blog should be cathartic. Perhaps in some ways it will be. However, I find that this stresses the inner critic in me out. Ergo, I will be setting some ground rules for not only myself but for anyone who chooses to read this. Well, you don’t have any rules. I suppose they are mere informative facts for you. This is going so great already…

First, I yearn to come across sounding like I have it all figured out and am dripping with thought-provoking accolades. Stop trying so hard, lady! This blog is meant to be a new outlet to express honest opinions in all of their frustrating rawness. Accept them as they are. They don’t need to be dressed up in pretty clothing with intriguing back stories. I am so unbelievably conscious and aware of how other people will perceive me that it causes me to evolve and adapt, wear a mask so to speak, in order to be seen in a likable light. I even do it with family. It’s unbelievable frustrating and I need to stop. I want to stop. I feel like I have slowly lost myself to all of these facades in overthinking situations like I do. This blog is not the place for that. Accept it and move on.

Side note…except not really- It’s gotten so bad that I struggle telling people what my favorite books are. Actually, I take that back. If someone tells me they are a writer or have an English degree, THEN I start overthinking my answers. It makes NO SENSE. I genuinely overthink what I am going to tell them, trying to foresee what they would appreciate. Or….I just get so worried they will judge me on my answers that I genuinely cannot think of a single title. And then the conversation stutters into awkwardness…. which then turns into me believing I can hear their inner thoughts and they are nowhere near flattering towards me. Does anyone else feel this way? It’s ridiculous. But, in all honesty I will tell you a few of my favorite titles now. Legit.

Sabriel– Garth Nix
Daughter of the Forest– Juliet Marillier
Crown Duel– Sherwood Smith
Outlander– Diana Gabaldon
Neverwhere– Neil Gaiman
The Talisman– Stephen King
The Book Thief-Markus Zusak
Attachments– Rainbow Rowell
The Illustrated Man– Ray Bradbury

That wasn’t so hard, right? Nope. Because I can’t see your face, nor do I have to have a conversation with you on the spot. Ah, the magic of the computer.

Speaking about speaking, ha, I am not scared of public speaking at all. I am not a huge fan of going to social activities but I can certainly hold my own. What scares me is standing in a room full of other authors and agents and trying to speak with them and not feel like a complete fake. I have preconceived notions that a writer should be able to just throw out different book titles and author names as easy as it is to spell their own name. I assume the conversations are deep and thought provoking and that I should know every single grammar rule and literary theory I learned in college when I received my Bachelor’s degree. As evidenced by my blog, you can see that I certainly do not follow all of the correct sentence structures, syntax, grammar rules, etc that would be expected of an English major. And I’m okay with that. I’ve always felt my strengths were in the actual storylines themselves. But still, perhaps other writers will judge me on that when I continually have to look up what a preposition is and why I shouldn’t end a sentence with it. Yup, definitely have to look that one up again. And again.

The only grammar-nerd opinion I have is that the oxford-comma should forever be used and if you don’t believe in the oxford comma you need to be thrown into a dark pit and forgotten. I don’t actually feel that strongly. I probably wouldn’t forget you’re in the pit…..

Oh, right. Rules.

Wow. I really only have two rules.

1) Honesty without over thinking.

2) Grammar, punctuation, and spelling are not key players. They ARE players mind you….but they aren’t the lead roles.

Well, there is the first entry of the blog for you. Still not sure where I will be going with this except to say that you will be getting thoughts on writing from a complete stranger. Why you may want to listen to a complete stranger…I don’t know. But perhaps we are friends in the making and can vent our publishing (or lack thereof) frustrations together through this technological world. Or about anything related to writing really. Inspiration, ideas, books, tricks, writing spaces, etc.

Or if you are a LEO, LEOW, or of any relation to a first responder….thank you so much for your or your family member’s services. Y’all are badasses.

I count myself as one of you… by default. HA. Just kidding, seriously we LEOW’s are a whole other level of bad-assery.

~Bell

Tank Progress

We have had our ups and downs since my last post about the tank. Since losing Iggy we have lost three more fish (two in QT, one in DT). We purchased a McCosker’s Flasher Wrasse, Lawnmower Blenny, and Royal Gramma at the same time and the Blenny died three weeks into QT for no apparent reason (rather dick move in my opinion) and the Gramma we treated for Flukes with FW dips and Paragard (see link here for our FW dip experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQX_m2UbNxo). She got a secondary infection though and died at around 4 weeks. Our Wrasse, Tom, made it though and made it into the DT (he is super sassy and I totally understand people’s love for Wrasses now).

Two days before the Gramma died, my husband bought another Lawnmower Blenny and our first tang, a Yellow Eyed Kole (3/6). We named them Beast and Belle. Both were moved into the DT around 3/27. We ended their QT time a week early because we could not control the ammonia levels in QT (seriously, owning saltwater tanks is like a constant science experiment) and had to pull them out because Beast was suffering from Ammonia poisoning (breathing heavily, flashing, rubbing on pvc pipes).

Beast recovered but Belle had a hard time. Our Square spot Anthias, Jamie, is the alpha in our tank and all but tore her to shreds. I won’t lie, I cried when I saw what he did to her. We ended up purchasing and placing an acclimation box into the tank, which was a godsend. Jamie refused to go into the fish trap so it provided a safe haven for Belle who swam into it the second Jamie started chasing her. It was originally meant for Jamie to have him cool off while Belle got used to the tank and other fish but we were never able to catch him. We kept the box in the tank for around a week and the two have since worked their differences out. He still chases her every now and again but she is no longer in shreds and has healed beautifully. Sadly, however, Beast died two weeks after being placed into the DT. He went into our overflow, stressed out, and passed away before we found him. We’ve decided to not get another one. It would break my heart to lose a third.

Who knew there could be so much drama? They’re fishes! I wonder if Ariel had so many issues wither her mer-sisters. ;p

*Sigh* Any who, beyond the fish drama, we have purchased more coral. Underwater gardening for the win! We kind of went crazy at a Coral Convention last month and brought home five new corals. Also, before that we bought a beautiful Acan and Rock Flower Anenome  (2/11) that have added beautiful colors to our tank. We did some minor re-scaping of the tank because we needed to move our GSP. It is growing like a weed and was beginning to spread to more rock, which would lead to it overcrowding other corals. Everything is so much better now.

On St. Patrick’s Day we brought home a new Dragonette. Emmy (short for Emerald), is doing fabulous. She is pretty much the tiniest, cutest fish ever. We also purchased three emerald crabs who are hilarious. Our big boy is called Dwayne “the rock” Johnson and they have since taken care of the bubble algae in our tank.

While I was away my husband took it upon himself to go and buy more coral (I wasn’t around to say ‘no’…clever) and bought a beautiful Rainbow Hammer and Purple Torch. The guy he bought it from said it was a green torch…..it certainly doesn’t look like a green torch.

Last thing (promise),we found a gentleman (Joe!!!!) on craigslist who lives in our area who frags out pieces from his tank. We visited him (4/17) and got nine beautiful frags for next to nothing. His tanks were beautiful!!! It is so neat to be able to meet different people who enjoy the hobby and see their own beautiful tanks, the different designs and coral. When we got home, we got an email from our favorite aquarium store saying that they were closing :(. Naturally, we rushed over and bought a ton of things on sale (a doser and two other corals-acan and torch, which very well might be a frogspawn…..our bad). After the money we spent today I am convinced we have a problem. Saltwater Hobbyists Anonymous anyone? Eleven coral in one day…..is. a. lot.

I am SO excited to watch our tank grow! Someday we might be able to frag the coral ourselves and spread the love round to other hobbyists’ tanks. How neat is it to be able to keep coral alive that would otherwise die? Each coral has a story to it and to be able to share it with others puts a meaningful spin on the hobby. I do see how the hobby could be doing some harm to the ocean what with catching wild fish that they have not been able to successfully breed in captivity, as well as pulling coral from the ocean. But I do know that we LOVE our aquarium. We treat our fish and coral like our kids and have SO much respect for them. And there are so many others in the hobby that have mad respect for the ocean. I have learned a ton about fish and coral because of this hobby that I never would have known before. Its a whole education. And maybe someday, because of it, we can give back to the ocean somehow.

As I said before, I love the idea of growing out beautiful coral and fragging it to share with others. One day one of our corals may die, but if we were able to frag it to another persons tank…that coral is still technically alive. It’s almost immortal. Kind of mind blowing to think of it that way.

Here are some pictures of the new pieces in the meantime. I think it is neat to see how small coral begin and then see later what they grew to become. I don’t have pictures of everything. Our new Zoa’s haven’t opened up yet (Rasta’s and Dragon Eye).

 

Frogspawn, Rainbow Hammer,  Hammer

Duncan, Purple Torch, Green Slimer, and Green Torch (in the background)

Acan

Acan

Montipora Setosa

Red Digitata

Purple Digitata

Australian Green Birdsnest

Blue Pocillopora

Purple Millipora

Scrambled Eggs Zoa

Bam Bam ? Zoa

Zoas….pretty (haha)

Acropora Sarmentosa

 

 

Social Media Rantings

I am frustrated that writers need to be active on social media to survive. I am not nor have I ever been interested in twitter. I don’t want to know what people think every two seconds about things. I honestly don’t have much to say of interest. What I have to say is not always important and I don’t want to pretend that it is. I’m going to be real with you about that. That’s not to say that I think people who use twitter are ridiculous. If that’s your cup of tea, game on. But it seems like if I don’t have a platform on social media, get a following of some sort, it is real difficult to make progress in being a writer.

Yes, I write all the time and have written two novels. But I have to gain some kind of following it seems to even be noticed by agents. Not all agents of course, but in my researching agents for querying, some of them mention it only hurts to not have a blog, twitter account, etc. in the business. It’s like, if I can’t prove that people like what I have to say on social media, there is no chance people would want to read my book. And what I would say on social media is light years away from what is in my book and how I write. It is unbelievably irritating.

Again, not all believe this or push this, I’m sure. But I’m focusing this completely on the ones who do. I always thought (and still hope) that I will find an agent who loves my manuscript, helps me make it even better, gets my book picked up by a publishing company, and then I start pushing heavy on social platforms when there are people who care about what I have to say because we both love a story.

I’m a storyteller. That’s what I want to do. But, I created this blog to try and start reaching out socially. I guess it’s a matter of just trying to change how you view things. I’m trying to find people who are like minded so that we can have a conversation. Or maybe things I have to say can be of use to people. I don’t know. I’m just grumpy about it right now. I’ve always had a youtube account (see link below-tink5188) because I love making artsy (or humorous) videos. Again, storytelling.

Am I just acting like an old fogy? Possible.

I created a twitter account too. But I literally stare at it forever trying to come up with a clever tweet because I really don’t have much to say. So I’m trying to stick with the writing theme on twitter in hopes to connect with like-minded people. Maybe future friends? Also, I guess it provides ample opportunity to stalk agents, see if they throw us writers any bones, while seeing if they seem like a good fit. Perhaps that is why it is useful for me to have a twitter? So they can stalk me back? They won’t stalk me though until they look at my query and like my manuscript. I would hope that if they did and see I don’t have much of a social media presence, let alone read this bitch fest of a blog, they wouldn’t hold it against me.

Grumble grumble. Trying to be positive. Yay social media!…?

I just blogged. So go me! Right? Right?

Yay one of my videos on Youtube!!!!!! Proof that I’ve been on social media other than Facebook for over ten years.

 

Querying Round 2

I have begun querying again. I’m editing my second manuscript and feel great about it. But for the life of me I cannot seem to let my first manuscript go. Something keeps telling me to push through and continue to query for it. So while I am editing, I continue to query for The Missing Feather. After the feedback I received from Russell Galen I know the chances are extremely slim that any agent would sign with me on account of word count. But my hope is that with my rewritten query an agent will not see the word count but the story itself and believe it is worth fighting for. I know in a previous blog I had mentioned splitting it into two books. I decided against that. It wasn’t meant to be told in two parts. So yes, I am attempting to query for a 171,000 word novel. Don’t laugh at me.

It is a pipe dream but a dream I cannot let go of. Some agents I have been querying would be amazing. Not only would they do great for my book but I genuinely believe we are best friends in the making. It’s ridiculous how alike (at least on paper/computer it seems) we are. But I slip into the ocean of the masses, unseen, constantly. Yes, my novel/query may not seem strong enough to them. That is totally fair. But I cannot allow myself to stop. The Missing Feather is like my life blood and I cannot put it aside. However, I will stop querying for it once I have finished my second manuscript and begin querying for that one instead.

I am working on other projects in the meantime. I have to be a little realistic about the world of publishing, right?

I guess for any other writers out there in my same boat, keep trying. Persistence. It’s easy to feel stuck and even easier to stay there than choose to climb out. But climb out anyways. I’m going to chase down my dream no matter what. Eventually I will get there. When the time is right. My time and your time will come.

I am climbing out of some serious frustrations as we speak. Sticking to a schedule is something I need to do because it is easy to just lie around in my pajamas and even easier to allow myself to wander from Word and into youtube. Having goals is so important; tasks to get through and be productive each day. I set a few small ones to get myself started.

1. Get dressed-again, lounging in pajama’s, though comfortable, doesn’t push productivity
2. Drink first cup of coffee while reading for 1 hour (reading is SO IMPORTANT)
3. 10 minute creative free write. I HAVE TO WRITE.
4. Send 1 query letter out.
5. Edit my second manuscript for 1 hour.
6. Take a break. I am only allowed a break once I get through the first 4 tasks. They sound easy, right? Surprisingly, they aren’t. Pathetic. I know.
7. Work on blog for 1 hour
8. Edit second manuscript for 1 hour.

Those are all I have at the moment but they are a starting point. I think if you write down and have a schedule for yourself you are more apt to succeed and not putz around with other things. Achieving things makes everyone feel good so put yourself in the position to do so. Don’t make it super easy, but doable. Also, I recommend setting an alarm for everything. That way you really get the time in and it feels like a challenge you must complete. Be released with the buzzer!

Push through the writers block, attention block, frustrations, and hopelessness. It isn’t easy but absolutely necessary. You only are hurting yourself if you don’t. Be your own advocate.

So here I go again. Querying and hoping for a lifeline. The Missing Feather deserves it.

 

Iggy the Dragonet

On New Year’s Eve we purchased a Mandorin Dragonet. These are known to be difficult fish to keep on account of their eating habits. These guys, usually, cannot be trained to eat frozen food. They eat copepods, which need to be alive and plentiful in your tank. Dragonetts will starve within a month if they do not have the proper food source. We introduced copepods into our tank a few months prior to purchasing him so had a healthy stock in the tank already.

Another thing about Dragonets is that they generally do not do well in quarantine. With all the medications that may need to be dosed into a QT, copepods do not survive and therefore the dragonets starve. Therefore, you generally put Dragonets directly into your DT without quarantine.

We purchased ours, called him Iggy, and put him in our DT. It didn’t take long before I realized his tail looked a smidge ratty. But he was swimming around and eating,  seemingly alright. Dragonets don’t move around fast so sometime hermits or cleaning crew can nip at their tails. So we hoped that may be the case for his ratty tail. Boy were we wrong. It didn’t take long before we realized he had tail rot and it was upon first arriving in the tank. We weren’t sure what to do to help him since we knew there wasn’t a chance he would survive quarantine where we could dose him with the medicine he needed.

After consulting with some stores we decided to do medicinal dips. On January 4^th, we put KanaPlex in a 5 gallon bucket with an air stone and transferred Iggy in there. We did it for an hour to make sure it didn’t stress him out too much. He was fine.

We waited a few more days, his rot got worse, and we dipped him again on January 7^th. Afterwards, we put him into the sump with Princess instead of the DT so that there would be less stress on him (especially to catch him if necessary) and no hermits could get to him. There are copepods in our sump so he would still have food if he got his appetite back.

Two days later we decided to do one final treatment because his rot was progressing so severely we figured it was go big or go home. There was no way he would bounce back from it without help. We left him in treatment for a 24-hour period. He survived it without apparent stress and we put him back into the sump area. Sadly, he died a few days later on the 12^th.

When you have a fish with fin or tail rot you should always quarantine them because there is a chance your other fish may get sick. However, we took the chance on account of our water parameters are excellent (healthy water=healthy fish). Also, none of our fish had any open sores or cuts (that we could see), which is how the bacteria spreads.

It was so sad seeing such a beautiful fish die so quickly. Next time we will be sure to be pickier  about the dragonet we purchase. We were told to also look for one with a “beer belly” which shows that he has had a healthy appetite and is not starving (which could make him prone to bacteria).

On a sidenote, Foxface is a quick study and by watching Iggy the first few days realized the little white things moving on the glass are edible. So yes, believe it or not, our Foxface now eats copepods. Suck. I wouldn’t normally care but we don’t want any future dragonet to compete for food. Stupid…smart Foxface.

 

This is the third day after we purchased him

Only a few days later.

After the second dip we placed him into the sump.

 

This was about three or so days before death.

Let’s Talk About Fish

Let’s talk about fish.

My husband and I have a 180 gallon saltwater aquarium. He researched for at least three years before we finally started working on our own. My husband and I (I use the term “I” loosely because he did the lion’s share of the work) built a bar in our basement with our aquarium being the showcase piece for it. He did a beautiful job. And though I started out with a “whatever” attitude about the tank, it was impossible not to get involved.

I assumed he would take care of it while I enjoyed it.

Newsflash: When your husband works graves on a police officer’s schedule (which includes numerous court dates on his supposed weekend),  you have to get involved to ensure the tank is running smoothly and your fish/coral are healthy. So unbeknownst to me and my eye rolling “over it” attitude while my husband gushed on about saltwater aquariums pre-ownership….I was  slowly suckered in. Not only is it super expensive (thus I would like to make sure everything survives and is healthy so we don’t need to spend more money on things) but I actually found pleasure in it.

So, for any another aquairiests out there, as well as for maintaining my own records, I decided to write/record our experience while we built up our fish tank.

We purchased our first sea creatures on 9/25/17 (we cycled the tank for a month prior), which consisted of hermit crabs (including a Halloween Hermit called Jack), snails, turbo snails, and a cleaner shrimp (Fergus). We lost Fergus over night and replaced him a week later when we got two Naked Clownfish (Callie and George) and two Bengai Cardinals (Dale and Brennan).

Having had no fish in the tank and the clowns being captive bred, we were comfortable putting the clowns directly into the tank without quarantine. The cardinals were put into quarantine for observation. They showed no signs of illness so we were comfortable putting them into the DT (display tank) after two weeks.

On 10/25/17 we purchased two Squarespot Anthias (Male-Jamie and Female-Claire) as well as a Foxface Rabbitfish. These three were a cluster. I originally hated the idea of quarantine. It’s a bummer to have new fish but unable to put them into a DT for four weeks. Plus, taking care of two tanks is a pain in the butt. But after these three I am a full supporter of quarantining your fish. I think these three were the reason I started having more interest in fish. I hated the idea of blowing money on fish that die before they even get into the DT, let alone seeing fish suffer.

Introducing Dr. Bell. I became a fish doctor. In-between working on my manuscripts I did some serious studying on fish illnesses and after some time diagnosed our fish correctly. To start, Foxface obviously had worms. Easy fix, feed the fish dewormer. That wasn’t the only thing though. Here are each fish and either their symptoms or actual illness.

Foxface: Worms, lymphocystis, and super skinny

Jamie: Fin/tail rot, fuzzy/torn lips (from fighting with Claire), cloudy eyes, loss of appetite, swimming in place and/or up and down, yawning a lot, a lot of flashing, and head shaking.

Claire: Cloudy eyes, swimming in place, a lot of flashing, yawned a lot.

All of these symptoms happened in the first week of observation. We also had to have a bit of a learning curve when it came to the different medications. We started treating the fish with Paragard and a Copper treatment at the same time, which is a big no no. So we did a water change and began flushing the water out (carbon), deciding to start with a two week copper treatment and then transitioning to Paragard. Before we did these treatments (correctly) however, we decided to treat the fish as if they had flukes.

If you have flukes, the eggs are most likely in the tank and it needs to lie fallow to ensure the eggs die. But we don’t have a third tank to use as QT. So we decided to simply treat the fish to give them relief and then go from there. Treatment for flukes consists of doing a fresh water dip. The concept of this scared the crap out of me. Taking a sick/stressed fish out of its saltwater and placing it in a bucket with an air stone, matching water temperature, but using fresh water (RODI)….yeesh. We did it for 15 minutes for each fish…I believe. 10 or 15. After that, the medication in the tank and copper treatment, all of them recovered. So whether or not they had flukes, it all worked out in the end. On a side note-do not be scared to do a fresh water dip to your fish. If they do not make it, they probably weren’t going to anyhow.

During this six week stretch, we also put KanaPlex in the food for the DT and QT fish. Because of Jamie’s apparent fin/tail rot we thought this was best. Plus, the cardinals had a red tinge to them and Callie a possible red bump that wasn’t there before. So to be safe we gave it to everyone. Three doses over a 10 day period. We dosed their food with the medication, Focus (helps them not taste the medicine), and garlic. KanaPlex is not invertebrate safe so we dosed the food rather than the tank itself.

We ended up putting the QT fish into the DT around the second week of December. Just to be safe we probably should have waited a few more weeks but we were having trouble controlling the nitrates in the QT tank, which in the end can make the fish sick so we felt it best to get them out of there. Jamie’s tail grew back by Christmas and as I write this (January) it is long and more beautiful than ever.

Claire, Jamie, and Foxface. I believe Callie also wanted in on the picture so is tagging along.

A week after putting the big boys into the tank, we noticed that our smaller cardinal (Brennan) was beginning to wither away, have shredded fins, and not eat. After a lot of sneaking in to spy on the tank (fish like to pretend they are nice while people are watching them), I found that the other cardinal (Dale) was being a total jerk. Sadly, they will not be a good pair. We removed the smaller cardinal (now named Princess) and put her into the sump so she would not stress and could get food while she healed. We will wait until our next batch of fish is introduced to try and put her back into the DT. Maybe the hierarchy will change up a bit and she and Dale can cohabit together. Not holding my breath on that one. Also, realized Dale is actually a girl. She started shaking like crazy and chasing our big fish around, shaking against them (not rubbing as if she had ich). This is a sign of a horny, female cardinal. So Dale, without a male cardinal around, is getting hot and bothered trying to shake against our other fish. She’s special.

After moving Princess into the sump we turned our sights on coral after purchasing the correct lighting for them. We purchased two types of Zoa’s, a pulsing Xenia, Duncan, Favia, and Torch coral. They all are still doing well. At the end of the month we brought in some more cleaning crew because the coral lights encourage algae growth, which didn’t take long to begin appearing. We purchased more sifting snails, a brittle starfish (the Kraken), tuxedo urchin (Niffler), and two peppermint shrimp(Cheech and Chong). One of our zoa’s had aiptasia and we were told the peppermint shrimp would be a good solution so long as the aiptasia didn’t get too big yet. Sure enough, overnight, the aiptasia disappeared. Aiptasia spreads quickly and competes for food. You do not want it in your aquarium. If you try to remove it yourself, it can spread easily. So having a shrimp eat it is ideal but there are a few other options that I won’t get into now.

We have a few more new additions to the tank, as well as a sad story about our Mandarin Dragonett. But I think that is for another day.

 

Torch

Duncan

Pulsing Xenia

Zoa

Zoa

Favia

 

The Peacemakers

I just wrote a blog about my anger towards the public’s treatment of the police and the way the city is handling it. But all it did was make me angrier. It did not feel cathartic or give me any peace.

So I deleted it.

I can’t promise an angry blog won’t show its face in the coming new year. But for now, I will stick with this: Please respect your first responders. They deserve so much more credit than they are given. They are our superheroes. The police, fire department, dispatchers, and medics are phenomenal people who do a lot more than the general public will EVER know about. As a wife, sister, and best friend of a first responder, it is difficult to explain the respect I have for them. That and the fear I live with daily knowing that my husband may not come home to me.

I’m proud of my husband and everything he does. And it makes me sad knowing that I cannot share that with many people. Those that aren’t in first responder circles don’t realize that our officers are threatened constantly. In most situations, my husband can’t tell people he is a police officer. Only that he works for the city. He has had to drive around our block twice when he comes home from a shift to make sure there is nobody suspicious on our street, targeting him because he is a police officer.

I don’t always feel comfortable talking about calls he goes on or again, about how proud I am of him. The people I’m talking to may have something against the police because of something they saw in the news across the country, or the one dealing they had with a cop was shitty so they’ve pegged all police as corrupt. There is a lot of hate in this world. I don’t even get into conversations people are having when it comes to anti-police topics even though I have a fairly decent opinion on the matter being part of that police community. Why? Because sadly, most people will never change their mind, let alone listen. But when that person needs help, the first responders will show up nonetheless of their support or not. It’s what they do.

So all I ask is that if you do not trust the police, or feel like you have a valid concern or opinion about disliking and/or disrespecting them, please give it another chance. Go to your police department and sign up for a ride-along. Go on calls with them, ask questions. Spend a day or night at their side and see what they see. It may or may not change your perspective, but at least it’ll give you a better idea and, in my opinion, a more valid opinion on the matter. Most people will have only one interaction with a police officer in their life. Sadly, sometimes it is a bad experience or perhaps you caught that officer on a bad day (they very well could have come from a child abuse case, homicide, or haven’t slept in 24 hours). So give it another chance. Be the bigger person if that’s how you want to see it.

And if you are unhappy with the justice system, which let’s be honest….it’s pretty messed up, do not point fingers and direct your hate towards the cops. Go above them to the courts and the people responsible for the laws. My husband has arrested the same person multiple times. And lo and behold he sees the same person again, released by the courts and committing the same crime. The system needs fixing. But it isn’t on the cops level. It’s higher.

Today, New Year’s Eve, a Castle Rock Officer and four Douglas County Deputies were shot, one of whom was killed. On facebook, I saw messages of support, but I also saw hatred. The cop “deserved” it someone said. I couldn’t believe that I read that. That family lost their loved one. They are going to start their year…the rest of their lives, in mourning. And that Blue family not only lost a member but have four others injured. They will never be the same. It’s heartbreaking. My best friend was one of the dispatchers for the shooting. My heart goes out to her.

First responders can’t help but take their work home with them. It’s not only physical but emotional. And you can’t always turn off the emotional. And it’s even harder when there is so much hate directed at you. My husband is a good man. Most of the police he works with are good people as well. But the sins of the few are thrown at them and they must carry the stigma.

To all first responders, thank you. For what you do not only in uniform but what you have to deal with on a day to day basis. I pray you are all protected by the shield of God and that your families stay strong. Let this New Year move in a direction of healing. Hatred will never help anyone or make things progress in the right direction. If you are angry, stop. Take a breath. It’s easy to miss the forest for all the trees.

If you get the chance, thank a first responder. They’re amazing people. And please, do not read this post (especially if you are family) and immediately feel fear or worry for your loved one. It is a tough world for responders right now. But what first responders need in it is our respect and our pride. Not constant worry. They are keeping us safe and getting bad guys off the streets. They are badasses. Be proud and show your support. They signed up for this. Encourage and support them because I promise you this, without healthy support, it’s a lot harder to do what they do. That’s what I’ve learned as a police officer’s wife.

May 2018 bring everyone health, hope, healing, and happiness.

Blessed are the peacemakers;
For they shall be the children of God.

Matthew 5:9

An End In Sight

My new manuscript is coming along at a pace I had hoped for. Yet I am still so surprised that it is being achieved. Seriously. My goal is to have the first draft of my new manuscript finished by the end of the summer. At this moment I would say I am about three quarters of the way done with about three weeks left of August. My mind is blown. It isn’t necessarily that I didn’t have faith in myself but I know my writing history. My last manuscript took me six years to write. Yes, this included about four drafts and working full time during the writing process. Also, the manuscript is massive at 171,000 words. But six years is a long time (if you didn’t realize that….glad I could be of obvious assistance). After realizing nobody would likely publish a manuscript that large from an unpublished author I accepted that I needed to reign in the novel length.

I have done so with this new manuscript and have found that, as long as I know where I want to go with this story, cutting 171,000 words in half for it has been so liberating. Granted, this story didn’t need the length my first manuscript needed for its tale. But still…a finished manuscript (word length aside) in four months. For me? Epic.

Being aware of my word count has completely changed the game for me. I tried not to put boundaries on myself the first time. I didn’t want to scare myself away from the creative process. This go round I wanted a little more structure going in and found that it is helping rather than hindering me. Also, I have found that going from a plot driven story to a character driven story completely changes the feel, pace, rhythm of writing (and all the writers of the world cried out, “No duh!”). I’m enjoying it immensely.

Having goals and meeting said goals feels wonderful. If I can keep my confidence up and the negativity and self doubt out … I know I can do this. I WILL do this.

Focus

Finding the focus to write is a difficulty for me. I am easily distracted. I sit down with the hopes of writing or I will be relaxing, eating dinner, watching a movie, etc. and find inspiration thinking, “hey, I should write that down.” But then I don’t and when I actually sit down to work on my manuscript, it all slips by the wayside. Inspiration comes and goes so easily. It’s having the restraint and dedication to force yourself to be still and focus. FOCUS. Force yourself to write. Even if you are not in the mood, you must push yourself to do it. When you do, you either find that inspiration you were looking for, or you can at least feel like you were productive.

I was feeling inspired for a fairly decent amount of time and loved it. Those are the times a writer lives for in the creative process. At least, I do. New life. But writing is more common with the times you have to convince yourself to sit down and put something onto a page. Like right now. I should be working on chapter 8 of my manuscript. I am really not feeling it, however. I keep wandering online, reading articles, watching youtube videos, texting friends, etc. So I figured, maybe I can write a new blog. It’s writing at least. I even skipped out on kickboxing this morning to give myself more time to work on things. I certainly botched that.

So I will go to kickboxing in 45 minutes, kick the shit out of a bag that can’t kick me back, imagining my frustrations as a writer personified into a face on a bag, and then get home and try to get some writing done. Goals. Goals are important to maintain. My goal is to write 1000 words a day. Considering writing is my full time job this should be beyond easy. But that internet is so close, that new book I’m reading so good, and somehow I have the desire to clean my house out of the blue. All of those urges are raiding into my writing fortress and they often win. You’ve got to fight back though. Your manuscript is worth it. Fight.

Fight for focus.

Confidence

I am a writer. Oftentimes I doubt this and do not speak with confidence when people ask me what I do. I quit my job to become a full-time writer. I have not published my novel yet, found an agent to represent me, nor have I made any money off of my work. YET. But I will. I (and anyone else out there in my shoes) need to embrace the fact that despite all of these things, I am still a writer. If you speak with confidence and feel confident in your identity as a writer, that is how others will see you. Embrace it and make it be true.

I have written a novel and am working on three current projects. Ideally, I will have at least one rough draft completed by the end of this summer. My first novel was huge and took a long time. We’re talking years. I am cutting down on these projects because they don’t require the length my other story did and I am also more aware of the difficulty in being an unpublished author trying to sell a huge novel. Not that I am tapering my manuscripts specifically for publishing purposes, but I am certainly keeping that knowledge in the back of my mind.

I am part of a writing group. I believe being involved with a writing group is incredibly important. As a writer, I need to have different opinions and viewpoints expressed towards my work so that I can get a general feel of how an audience will view my work. I trust the people in my group and know that they will give me honest opinions. I need to constantly be bettering myself and my writing and this cannot be done without other people. They shed light on things I would not normally see being so close to my writing. That and I believe in reading others works and challenging each other with writing prompts and exercises, it puts a little fun back into the writing and forces you to try things you wouldn’t normally.

I am a writer who needs an audience. Not all of the time of course. But it is easy to get burned out if I am the only one viewing my work. I write stories to share and want to see that my writing is bringing joy to people or making them feel something for a character. Ergo, I need critiques from others during my writing. It is extremely valuable to me and I believe helps my work be better. I honestly feel everyone should have this approach, but everyone is unique in their craft and path.

I do not write well when I am stressed. I need “me” time and cannot be interrupted. I think that is one of the reasons I have found it difficult to tell people I am a writer. I have not been writing as often as I believe I should. I spend a lot of my day being at other family member’s beck and call for anything and everything they need. I am happy to do so. I make my schedule work for everyone else because they are making money at their jobs and their schedules are more concrete. Mine can bend and I am my own boss. But because I jump for everyone and try and do certain things around my house and run as many errands as possible to “make up” for not bringing any money home, I don’t leave time for my writing. I often feel like it is a gift or treat I’ve been given that I have to balance out. I need to stop thinking this way. It isn’t healthy and it is far from correct. I need to disconnect from everyone else and make time for my job. It isn’t frivolous. Yes, it’s my dream, but it is also my job. I need to accept this, embrace this, and make sure others know that this is the case. It’s been a long road so far, but I think I’m starting to make the correct decisions on it.

The Hope for Agent Feedback

I have written a novel.

I came up with the idea in 2007 and wrote a chapter or two in 2008. Otherwise, I started writing heavily in 2010 and finished it completely (four rewrites included and four years worth of group critiques) at the end of 2016. It’s been quite a long process. I finally began querying in February of this year and it certainly has been a learning experience….a QUICK one. As many writers (I imagine), I was hoping that I would be that one author who queries only 10 agents and magically has their manuscript picked up right away. I didn’t want to work on any other projects because I wanted this manuscript to have my complete attention. So I devoted all of my time to querying and thinking about it.

Well, I am beginning to realize that when other writers encourage you to work on other projects, it isn’t because they have lost interest in their first ones or have given up hope on them. It simply is because the waiting game to find an agent can be discouraging. Working on other projects will help my craft. It doesn’t mean I love my finished manuscript less, I’m not cheating on it. I simply am mixing things up a bit so that when the day comes that it is picked up by someone, I will have been bettering my craft in the meantime to bring an even better A-game to editing and fine-tuning it with an agent. That doesn’t mean I necessarily enjoy splitting my attention. But it is keeping me distracted and away from obsessing.

That being said, I am a fairly quick learner and have good intuition. Before I began querying I had one giant concern, which I am sure any other writer will read about and say, “no duh, that’s a problem.” But to an unpublished writer who has never queried before….I was hoping that perhaps it wouldn’t be a huge problem. Ha. The problem under discussion being word count. Ah yes that happy area of words your manuscript should consist of depending on genres. Thankfully, my genre (fantasy), has a higher word count of about 100-120,000 words so to speak. Again, an an unpublished author this is merely what I have found with my research. Well, my manuscript is 171,000 words. Yikes. Again, maybe I’ll be that one author that an agent picks up simply because they love my storyline and my writing style!….*Naive bubble bursts*

Though I continued to query, I had a strong feeling that my word count was ruining it for me pretty quick. I have only queried 30 agents so far and received about 15 back as rejections (standard form) and the rest have not responded yet. Per my research, this is not a lot of agents but I had a pretty strong feeling I needed to change my approach. One of my top agents, Russell Galen, never responded to my query. I read that writers should NEVER do this, but I did it anyway because I figure, until I am a known author or query the same people over and over again in a short period of time, no one will remember my name. I’d rather take a chance and get useful feedback than keep going down the same path, making the same mistake. Ergo, I waited 39 days (to be exact) and then emailed Mr. Galen again. I thanked him for reviewing my query and hoped that perhaps a future project of mine would grab his interest. I also bit the bullet and asked that if he had a spare moment, if he could let me know whether my word count may be an issue for an unpublished author.

Lo and behold, he responded! He was very kind and stated that my word count most certainly was making my querying DOA to any agent. He also wrote that my story also just didn’t click for him (which makes me sad, but I can’t expect everyone to like my story). Nonetheless, that changed things for me. Though I had intended for my novel to be one novel, I decided that I needed to adapt. I do not want to wait until I get other books published before I try this one again because companies will then know my books will sell. I still want to try something before I give it up. I cannot bring myself to cut down over 50,000 words of my novel without completely changing….everything really. So I am splitting it into two novels. Not ideal, I realize. But doable. And I think it is worth a try.

I found a spot that is a decent spot to stop my story and I will work on selling that to an agent. If they like it and realize there will be a sequel, it works out because the sequel is practically done but for a rewrite of the beginning. I know that I should be trying to sell the first novel and that it should be a stand alone novel. This….can stand by itself but certainly does not address one of the main conflicts. So it obviously has to have a sequel. This is where I may be too much of a dreamer again, but I hope that my story is written well enough, and the storyline is so appealing, that someone will give me the chance and pick up Part 1. I believe it will sell and if it proves me right, Part 2 is ready to go. If this all proves to fall apart…well, I will adapt again. I learn quick and change things as I need. Maybe I will just have to accept it and try to get other manuscripts published before I try this one again. But until I give this a try and it proves foolhardy, I’m not going to give up.

I have found that publishing seems to be about making money. It’s not what I thought it would be. Obviously, the passion and structure in publishing is the love of books, but money is also a huge factor. If it won’t sell, people won’t represent it. People need to make money for anything to be worth their time and for publishing companies to stay in business. It’s just a fact. But I think that is what eventually kills writers’ dreams of ever being published. I have a fairly thick skin, but I think even I could become downtrodden after such a long time without any agent feedback/nibbles. Writing is about telling stories…connecting with strangers. Currently, it seems like trying to be published, connecting, and reaching out to agents is an extremely lonely place to be. When I got a personalized email back from Mr. Galen, it renewed my faith in that connection with people.

Apparently, everyone is trying to publish a novel. According to almost every agent website, they are swimming in query letters. I truly had no idea. So it has been disheartening receiving only form letters with no personalized feedback. I am not sure if some people respond to agents who personalize their feedback and try to argue with them, but it seems pretty rare to have feedback from an agent. This bums me out. I do not intend to argue with agents about how they feel about my manuscript. They’re going to feel whatever the hell they are going to feel. I just wanted to know whether there was something in particular, beyond my story just not clicking with them, that I could work on or needed to know in order to give my manuscript a better chance. Whether it is just being told that the market is not buying high fantasy, my story is similar to another novel (God I hope not), or if it was honestly just the word count. I just wanted something to go off of as well as to know that there are actual people behind these standard form emails. So thank you Mr. Galen. Instead of swimming in an ocean without any idea which way I should be swimming, he at lest gave me a life boat.

So as I try and continue to find an agent for my manuscript, I am working on two other projects. One of which has been an idea since I began writing my first manuscript so I feel like I can bring the same amount of passion to it as I have my current one. To all you writers out there, keep pushing and adapting. It can be a lonely and disparaging place to be-querying. But I like to think that if you feel it deep in your soul, that passion to share your story…. it WILL happen. Maybe not in the way you hoped or on the timeline you wished, but it will happen if you refuse to give up on it.