What's a Writer to Write?

 

I got an email today from a reader. Let me start by saying it was polite and you can tell she was nice, but she was also pretty blunt.

An honesty that left me pondering and made me realize that I, and other apocalypse writers like myself, are in a conundrum.

If you don’t think … let me explain.

She stated she lost interest in getting my books when I started to focus more on other types of writing. She mentioned aliens, vampires and other mythical creatures. You know what? I get it, I do. Those books were scattered within my other works. But this reader hadn’t given up on me, and for that I am grateful.

At first, I couldn’t remember what alien book she meant, and she looked it up. Then I remembered why I wrote that book and that’s when I started thinking. Normal virus books and zombie books just weren’t selling for me. Forget nuclear war, no one wants to read that. Trust me I know.

I mean, for a hot minute I thought maybe I was the Nicholas Cage of Apocalypse books. People loved what I was doing at first, then grew tired of me, and despite that I can still pen a good novel (Like Nick has some decent movies) people were leery about diving into something I wrote.

With diligence, I try not to deliver the same old, same old.

I try to write one book a year that is an original ‘end of the world’ scenario, and I think I do well with that. Above the Hush, 10:37, By Way of Autumn, Omnicide… there are a lot of them.

So when I wasn’t writing original end of the world, I expanded into different apocalypses, like Aliens and Vampires.

Stories I thought were good, characters I built in my head long before I wrote a single word of the book.

All I ever wanted to do was have people read my work, and I am blessed and fortunate enough that I have that. I strive to keep my readers entertained, take them away from troubles they may have or just take them to a different world. Make them laugh, cry, cringe.

Then … then … Covid happened. At first I didn’t think it would affect things, but it did. Suddenly, people were cast into a tamer version of my books, but much of human nature was the same. They don’t want reality, they want to be taken away from reality.

So with that comes the title of my blog. What is a writer to write? Or rather, what is an author who primarily writes apocalypse, supposed to write.

When I started to see the change in reading trends, totally lost at what people wanted, I decided, I was just gonna write good stories.

I would love … love … love to dive into a really awesome, heart-wrenching plague.

Do people want that? Will they ever want that again?

I don’t want to touch EMP, that market is flooded almost as bad as zombies.

Civil unrest novels, society breakdowns … nah. I suck at military stuff.

Volcanoes .. did it. Earthquakes, yep. Meteors, solar … um … I hit them all.

The one I am finishing now is totally original. Never done. I am ending the world again, in a new way.

But is it what people want? I looked at the top 25 Amazon Apocalypse books. Absent are the virus novels, zombie novels.

So I wonder if readers are just tired of apocalypse novels.

One day I’ll figure it out. Soon I hope. I’m open to suggestions. In the meantime … I’ll just keep writing.

Slippery Slope of Self Esteem and Control

 

My entire life I thought when I’d hear a celebrity or older woman say, “I embrace aging’, I thought it was there way of trying o make themselves feel good about being old.

The truth is, at least to me, aging isn’t a walk in the park, but the ‘old’ factor doesn’t bother me as much as some that I know. Embracing doesn’t mean shouting from the highest hill, “I LOVE BEING OLD’, embracing means, “Okay, I got this, what can I do?”

It’s different for a woman. Men, they generally still look good, and we do too, but only we as women will acknowledge to each other that we look good. Make sense.

But why? Why do we have to look good, or young? Why do we have to watch our waist lines to keep them small when as we age, most of us watch out waistlines grow?

I have kept my hair long my entire life. Only having it short … twice. It’s so weird how hair determines our self esteem. Longer is youthful, blonde is fun ….that sort of stuff. Sadly, if you wear long hair your entire life, people equate that to your beauty factor. If we cut it, we are made to no longer feel beautiful.

Fuck that.

I cut my hair.

I cut it all the way off, short and pixie.

People ask why.

I never saw myself as beautiful on the outside, I just never did. That’s not a fish for compliments, that’s just a fact.

Granted, for the longest time I said I never would cut my hair until I had to. But this past year, it seemed every time I went to the hairdresser, a part of me just wanted to cut it off. I didn’t, and I also didn’t know why I felt so strongly about it. I mean right before I cut it, I was truly trying to search for the reason why…. Why was I so obsessed with it. It went beyond the simple desire for a change in hair or easier style.

It took for the cut for me to know why.

Control.

I felt liberated and free and bold. Suddenly I didn’t feel as if I were hiding behind anything. This is who I am, take it or leave it.

It was then I realized my hair was a symbolization of my life in the past year.

To give you the short cliff note version. But I’m going to be deep and honest. A year ago, my mom passed away. It was relatively fast, and I still don’t believe it was her time. Decisions were made in ‘her best interest’ and ‘it would be what she wanted’, but my argument was, she was so heavily sedated, was it fair to make a call without allowing her to say, ‘yes, I want to live like that’ or ‘no, I’d rather die.’. In short, that day, I didn’t just lose my mom, I lost my siblings. Again, another call I didn’t make. Years before I didn’t abandon a brother who had a marital affair, I didn’t agree with what he did, but I would never turn my back on him. Because of that, I was considered ‘bad and evil’, by my siblings. Not my mom. My mother’s passing gave them the excuse to rid their lives of me and all that I was. The black sheep, creative one, and evil one. Not only that, they disowned my children and grandchildren.

For a year I tried to deal with it, and if we’re being honest, I still am. Every once and a while the one sister pops on Facebook to make a snide comment to something nice I posted.

But on the anniversary of my mom’s death, I became obsessed with the hair cutting.

Like my life, my hair was out of control. Like my life, it took effort to make it look good. And like my life, I’d pull it back and hide the bad.

Cutting it off … no more to hide. I was liberated of all that held me back. My hair is simple, like I want my life to be.

It doesn’t take effort to enjoy, like enjoying life shouldn’t take much effort.

I have a big, huge family. 4 kids, sons/daughter in laws, and eight grandkids.

Letting go of my long bad hair that I held on to was my beginning of letting go all the other bad I held on to.

The first non family member to see my short hair said to me, “I liked you better with long hair.”

He liked me better with long hair? Granted, he could have misspoke, but it still pissed me off.

Normally, I would seen myself feeling bad, doubting myself and how I looked. I mean, come on, it’s hard enough begin older and embracing you don’t always look attractive. Instead of feeling down, I got angry and firmly said to him. “You know what? I don’t care. It doesn’t matter what you think about my hair, I like it.”

I like the change and what it stands for. If someone else doesn’t … too bad.

Baby steps to control.

'You cannot Kill David Arquette Amazes

 

It’s been a while since I wrote a review and I felt compelled to write for the documentary, You Cannot Kill David Arquette.

Five minutes into the ninety minute ride, I sent a text to my son that I was watching what was going to be a brilliant documentary. You could feel it from the opening seconds and I was glad I bought it instead of renting it.

The documentary focuses on actor and pro wrestler, David Arquette and his journey to prove that despite the bad reputation he garnished from easily getting the WCW title in 2000, wrestling was more to him than just a paying gig. It was and is his passion as any true wrestling fan can relate.

The documentary is much, much more.

I found myself feeling heartache and defeat, truly feeling bad for David in the beginning to cheering him on, sitting on the edge of my seat. I cringed, I gasped, I screamed and I cried. My God, what a ride this film was.

I always enjoyed David but I enjoyed the family dynamics, how they went from discouraging to supporting. Except the sisters, they always had his back.

On another level, I feel I experienced this film and related differently than maybe some others would. As a mother to four kids, wrestling nights were ‘dinner around the TV’ nights. We loved WCW. I watched my boys dream of being wrestlers, training, doing the backyard circuit, the indie circuit. I watched them wrestle each other, baby face against heal. I felt Christina’s pain when she watched the matches. Even though we know it is heavily preplanned, it still hurts to watch.

By the way, I believe she produced this and did a masterful job.

From a writer and filmmaker standpoint, this is an excellently written and filmed documentary, the editing is superb, sound quality is spot on and music fitting.

This is a must see, and you don’t need to be a wrestling fan to enjoy the ninety minutes that just flies by.

But if you are a wrestling fan, this movie is just … freaking awesome.

Make sure you watch the credits, not just out of respect for those who worked on the film, but there are some really great added clips.

 

Nothing about this will leave you disappointed.