Writer Wednesday: my news + upcoming and new releases

A funny thing happened when I was pregnant with my daughter. When I sat down to write, I experienced writer’s block for the first time. I know it may sound weird or unbelievable to many, but prior to that moment, I’d always had something I could write about. Even if it was drivel, at least it was abundant 😉

But when I was pregnant with my daughter, it was like my brain refused to function. I would stare at the blank notebook in front of me, and my brain just wouldn’t work. I guess maybe pregnancy brain is a real thing.

I still needed a creative outlet, so I took up drawing, something I’d done in high school and a tad in college. Something about its wordlessness soothed me. After my daughter was born, I was informed that I had one of those babies who just didn’t like to sleep. There are entire moments of my life erased by sleep deprivation, and I understand first-hand why it is used as a form of torture. My son, born two and a half years later, was better…but still didn’t sleep through the night for a while. At least he didn’t wake like 5 times per night, though, for 15 months straight…

As soon as he started sleeping through the night, my writer brain awoke (and ironically, I am crap at drawing again!). And the experience of having kids pushed me into a depth I hadn’t known before–I see the world with more clarity. I like to think of my kid-induced gray hairs as “wisdom.” The work I have written in the last few months has certainly started taking off, and I’m excited to be making my comeback.

First, I made it through all four rounds of the NYCMidnight Short Story Challenge 2020. I’m not sure how I’ll place (the top 40 writers out of the field of 4,700+ all wrote stories, which will be judged and top 10 chosen next month), but I’m happy to have made it through the odds and written four decent stories using randomly-assigned elements in a compressed amount of time.

Then, I learned that my work has been included in the Elizabeth River 2020 Annual anthology. It’s a short story I wrote in my head while commuting to school and wondering about the work-home-writing balance and how to achieve it. It turned into a piece of magic realism, which I think is turning into my favorite genre to read and write. The e-book is only $1.99 if you want to read my story.

Finally, it was announced that a flash fiction piece I wrote, “Seed,” made it into Queer SciFi’s Innovation anthology. The anthology will be released in August, and I am glad to be included in an anthology that gives diverse voices to the field of sci-fi.

I’m currently working on Corgi Capers 4, something I am a bit ashamed to say I started before my daughter was born–so, like, five years ago… but it’s fun to be able to finish it again, even though it takes place in a blizzard, my least favorite type of weather. But my daughter was born in a blizzard, so maybe there is something full-circle about the whole thing.

And I’ve got a few more projects in the works as well.

I hope in all the craziness of the past few months, everyone is taking time to do something enjoyable. Even if it’s just reading a book 🙂