I write. Urban and other-world fantasy. Intensely – obsessively, in fact, when I’m not going through one of my deeper depressive episodes.
I might spend a week scribbling down a hundred pages longhand (more likely to do it on desktop or netbook, these days, though!) to experiment with an idea, and have an incredible creative high while I do, and then abandon it without hesitation if I can’t see any potential in it.
I might choose one to spend more time on some.
Shortly after starting neurofeedback, I finished the manuscript for Yin-Yang, proofread it, and sent it off to some test readers. After another revision, I released it on my old writing site in the fall of 2013. However, I frankly suck at marketing and self-promotion, and it sat there quietly with several other works, largely ignored. In the spring of 2014, an intense need to get it out into the wider world got ahold of me, and I independently published it via Smashwords as an ebook. By request, I then added a print-on-demand option. My second novel was released as an ebook Hallowe’en 2014, and there will be more. A wonderful friend does beautiful covers for me. That said, I don’t really sell all that many – I’m not going to make the NY Times bestseller list. However, the feedback I do get tends to be positive, and I’m going to keep polishing and releasing old work and still working on newer ones. You can find my official writing site at http://prysmcat.com and my old one, with shorts and such, at http://prysmatic.com/writing.
I have minimal prices set on my books, and it is in fact possible to find them for free with a little looking. I have no interest in doing much more than covering the costs involved, really. If I feel like I have to write, I stop wanting to do it. If I don’t want to do it, then either my mind goes blank, or what I generate is stilted and artificial instead of flowing naturally. Call me unprofessional if you want. I’m writing novels that are as good as much of the traditionally-published work out there, and I’m writing them my way, and I’m good with that. (Although, who wouldn’t want a larger audience for work that has hundreds or thousands of hours behind it?)
Sometimes I write about my playground world Gaia, the one that was never intended to get into print, the one where I write hundreds of thousands of words just for the entertainment of myself and a couple of other people, or to toy with a new concept and look at it from different angles, or keep my skills active when I have nothing more “serious” I feel like working on. I’ve made an attempt at organizing and cleaning up the beginning of this, but it’s too much work if there’s no audience. If one appears, then I’ll try again. Meanwhile, it’s fun and relaxing and good practice all in one.
Luckily, Jackie being the artistic type, she understands and doesn’t get jealous about the amount of time I spend writing.
When I feel creative and I’m not writing for some reason, I do have other things to do. Primarily, that means either making cat toys, which you can find elsewhere on this site. I have been known to experiment for the sake of understanding something I’m putting into a story, though, and have a lifetime history of messing around with yarn, fabric, and other things in often odd ways.
