Learning From Mistakes

I think I'm taking way too much time to write this story. Maybe I need to dive in. I feel trapped by the planning. Perhaps I need to run with it. Every time I feel ready to start writing, I get another idea that’s slightly better than the last one, and then I have to adjust my plan to accommodate it. But maybe I keep delaying because I’m afraid to start.

I made a lot of mistakes writing my first two novels, and I don’t regret any of them. However, I’m trying hard to learn from those mistakes, and maybe that’s what’s holding me back.

Here are the top three.

Mistake #1: Planning

My biggest mistake in writing From the Ashes and The Inferiors was the lack of planning. When I wrote those, I had been struck by an insatiable inspiration, one that consumed me like a fire I couldn’t put out. It was such an amazing, incredible feeling. I spent so much time writing that I didn’t stop and think about where I actually wanted these books to go.

When I started, I knew how I wanted Book 1 to end, and I had some vague plans for Book 2. I had assumed that a plan for Book 3 would just materialize as I wrote Book 2, but it never did. This was not only disappointing but also somewhat terrifying. I had come up with this whole story, to leave it 2/3rds finished, which feels very unfair to my readers. (Side note: I am still cooking up ideas for Book 3, but don’t get your hopes up.)

With my new stories, I want to have a plan for how I want each character arc to begin and end. If the plan changes along the way, that’s fine.

Mistake #2: Being Too Hasty

Don't get me wrong. I love From the Ashes and The Inferiors. They were the books that taught me how to be a writer. They were the books that taught me I could really be published, that I could actually do this. But there is a part of me that wishes I had waited to publish them until all three books were ready.

That way, I could have modified Books 1 and 2 to fit Book 3 in case things changed as the story evolved.

Mistake #3: World-Building

From the Ashes and The Inferiors are absolutely character-driven stories. However, I could have explored the world-building a bit further. Yes, I was 16 when Book 1 was published, and around 20 when Book 2 was published, but I had wanted to create a richer world.

The Mistakes I’m Making Now

Of course, I made so many mistakes writing my first two books, far more than these three, but these are the ones that bother me the most when I look back on them. Again, I don’t regret any of them, because all of my mistakes are things I can learn from. All my mistakes will make my current and future projects even better.

Right now, I’m wondering if the mistakes I’m currently making are an overcorrection of the mistakes I made in the past. I have over 100k words of world-building, I seem stuck in an endless loop of planning, and I feel overly cautious. I spend hours creating new languages, cultures, and religions. It’s incredibly fun, but I’m also not sure how productive it is. I often find myself in a world-building rabbit hole. I spend so much time writing, but it’s not going anywhere because I’m not drafting.

So … here’s to drafting.

Here’s to starting, to diving in headfirst, even if it’s scary.

Even if I don’t know where I’m going.

Open road ahead.

Talking To My Brain, A Sad Liver, & Some Turmeric

For the past few weeks, my body just hasn’t felt quite right. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I’ve always been very aware of when something is wrong. I’ve been exhausted, more so than usual, to the point that being creative has felt almost impossible.

Then, two Saturdays ago, Han and I went out to an Italian restaurant with our friends, Geralt and Luna. I ordered tortellini with tomato sauce, and honestly, it wasn’t very good. I can buy better quality tortellini and pasta sauce from Heinen’s to make at home. This food tasted like it came out of a box, which was disappointing.

When we got home, this acidic pain bloomed in my chest. It came in waves, ebbing and growing every few minutes. I don’t experience heartburn very often, but I knew what it felt like, so I took a Tums and tried to forget about it. Over the next few hours, the pain continued to worsen, and at around 12:30 a.m. I ended up … er … tossing my cookies. And I mean all of them.

Under remotely normal circumstances, that would’ve made me feel better. So I waited a few minutes for the relief to set in, for the pain to subside, but it remained. As a last-ditch effort, I took a shower, and when that didn’t work, I was exhausted. So, ignoring the pain, I lay down and went to bed.

For about three hours, I shifted in and out of restless sleep, trying to find some position where the burning pain couldn’t find me. Absolutely nothing helped.

At three in the morning, I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling for about twenty minutes, going through all of it in my head. The pain had only gotten worse.

Do I need to go to the hospital? I asked myself. I definitely didn’t want to spend my Sunday in the ER, especially if it turned out to be a bad case of heartburn. By this point, I was starting to feel anxious. I was pretty sure heartburn wasn’t supposed to last more than a few hours, and it had been six.

You might know from reading my previous posts that I have chronic anxiety, and that I’m also a bit of a hypochondriac. I often “don’t feel right,” so I go through an entire conversation with myself whenever I find myself in this situation. You think it’d be straightforward, but it really isn’t.

BRAIN: Are you blowing this out of proportion?
ME: Maybe? It’s hard to tell. You know how my anxiety is.
ANXIETY: Not blowing it out of proportion, it hurts so much!
BRAIN: How bad is the pain?
ANXIETY: It’s pretty fucking bad. Can we go to the hospital now? Jess, you know you have a high pain tolerance. If it hurts so bad that you can’t even sleep, then we need to go.
BRAIN: *sighs* On a scale of one to ten.
ANXIETY: Nine.
ME: *feeling a bit doubtful of anxiety* Nine is pretty high … I’m not screaming, I’m pretty sure childbirth or getting shot would be a lot more painful.
ANXIETY: Is that what people mean when they ask that question? If you’re measuring pain on a scale of one to ten, are you supposed to imagine the most painful thing you can think of and then compare it to that? Or is it more like you’re comparing this pain to all of the pain you have previously experienced?
ME: … I … actually don’t know.
BRAIN: Let’s think about this logically. Can we look up your symptoms online?
ME: *cringing* You remember how Anxiety reacted last time we looked up symptoms?
BRAIN: *Looks up over its glasses at Anxiety* Well, you’re wide awake and in pain with nothing else to do. We need to figure out what’s going on here. Anxiety, can you go sit in the corner while we look this up?
ANXIETY: Uhh, sure, I guess …
BRAIN: *pulls up my phone* Okay, so here it says heartburn should not last more than a few hours. It’s been what … six hours?
ME: Yep. That’s not good. Look here, it also says you should probably see a doctor if you experience heartburn accompanied by vomiting.
ANXIETY: *sneaking up behind me, and Brain* What if it’s an ulcer!? *steals my phone and searches up ulcer symptoms* Look! That sounds like what you are experiencing!
ME: *looking at Brain* It … kinda does …
BRAIN: Okay. Wake up Han. We’ll see what he thinks.

At that point, I did what Brain recommended, because Han is a lot more level-headed about these things. After a few minutes of discussion and going through my list of symptoms, Han cringed.

“Whatever you want to do, we’ll do,” he said. “I don’t really know how to help … if you feel like it’s that bad, and it’s not just your anxiety, then we should go.”

So that settled it.

Han took me to the ER at 4 a.m., which isn’t far from our apartment. They took my blood and did a CAT scan while we waited for a room in the ER. The CAT scan was super freaky, and the contrast they injected into my blood made me feel super weird for a bit.

At about 10 a.m. I finally got a room in the ER, and a doctor came to tell me that some enzymes in my liver were super elevated. They’re supposed to be under 50, and mine were over 500. Yeah, this felt like the time to start freaking out.

Sad liver!

I was admitted to the hospital and was given a nicer room around 1 p.m. They hooked me up to an IV and gave me fluids.

Mom and Lottie came to visit me in the early evening, which was nice because it allowed Han to go home, work out, shower, and bring me some things to do. Mom and Lottie helped take my mind off of everything, and Lottie talked to me about her boy drama for the week. That’s always a good distraction.

When Han returned, he hooked up our Apple TV to the hospital TV. He’d also brought my Nintendo Switch, the book I’m currently reading––Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson––and my laptop in case I wanted to write. I was way too stressed out to write, so I spent the rest of the night watching Star Wars: Rebels, playing Fortnite, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I had to stay the night, and Han stayed with me the entire time.

The IV was in the crook of my left arm, and it felt gross to move it around, so I did my best to keep it straight. Even so, I must have moved it around a little too much because around 10 p.m., my arm started to feel cold, and the IV started to hurt. When someone came to check on me, I asked if they could check my IV, and they told me the IV must have shifted out of my vein because my arm shouldn’t have been so cold.

“Is that bad?” I asked, trying desperately hard not to sound like I was panicking.

The nurse shook her head. “No, it’s fine. The IV is draining under your skin instead of into a vein. It’s just saline, so your body will absorb it.”

“Oh … great …” I managed. My anxiety was pacified with the new knowledge, but I was so grossed out.

The next day, Monday, they wanted to keep me again because my numbers had gone up. Instead of 500, they were at 552, and the doctors weren’t entirely sure why this was happening. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, and I don’t take pain medication even when I probably should, just because I don’t like taking medication.

On Tuesday morning, my numbers had finally gone down to 300, so they released me with orders to rest until Monday–– today.

They are still unsure why this happened, but they have developed two theories.

Theory 1: I had COVID and didn’t know it. I have never tested positive for COVID, either at home or in a medical facility, but some people don’t ever test for it, even if they have it.

Mean turmeric!

Theory 2: I drink a lot of tea, and one of my favorites is turmeric ginger tea. I had a lot of that a few weeks ago, and then I had paneer butter masala from my favorite Indian restaurant. Many Indian dishes incorporate turmeric, but excessive consumption of this spice can lead to liver damage.

They still aren’t sure which one of these two things caused it. Either way, they’re pretty sure my liver being messed up was what also caused the severe heartburn, since livers produce bile, and when your liver is messed up, a whole horrible range of things can happen.

Anyway. If there’s a moral to this story at all, it’s fine to have turmeric, but avoid excessive amounts of it. It’s fine to have in small quantities, but maybe don’t drink four cups of turmeric tea in a day, just in case that’s what caused this whole fiasco. Though again … they still aren’t entirely sure.

Project Updates

Convergence

Nothing to see here … I mean literally nothing.

Fan Fiction

Don’t look at me!

Goals This Week

Can we get back to normal, please? Let’s see if I can meet these goals this week.

I'd like to write:

1. 500 words in Convergence that I actually keep
2. 500 words in my Fan Fic that I actually keep

And I'd like to read:

1. 1 chapter in Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

Jasper Update

Jasper had a tick this week. We took him to the vet and they removed it, but it was so gross! Although… with all of Jasper’s medical problems, my parents joked that they felt bad for the tick.

“I bet Jasper gave the tick Lyme disease,” my dad laughed.

Don’t worry, he was joking, and Jasper doesn’t have Lyme disease. So far.

Quote of the Week

What are your goals for the week? How have you guys been?

IWSG - Not Unethical, Just Confusing

It's Insecure Writer's Support Group day! This is exciting for me because it's been about eight or nine years since I last posted for the IWSG, and it's really really nice to be back. The first Wednesday of every month, the IWSG hosts a blog hop with a prompt, and it's always been a fun way for me to connect with other writers.

The prompt today is, "What is the most unethical practice in the publishing industry?"

I've only got two novels published, and they're self-published at that. So I don't really have a lot of experience in the publishing industry. However, this question made me think of the thing that's been bothering me the most this week: publishing children's picture books.

For background, I work at a library. I'm not a librarian, I'm just a circulation assistant--the person who checks in books that have been returned, answers phones, directs people to the resources they're looking for, answers questions, etc.--but a lot of my day consists of handling books, which automatically makes it the best job ever.

Sometimes, if it's a slower day, I have time to flip through some of the books. The ones I read most often are picture books, since they're the easiest to finish in one sitting. I'm not a picture book author, and I won't pretend to know anything at all about traditional publishing, or publishing children's books or picture books. However, I can't help but notice how many picture books seem to be written for adults.

I'm not talking about the picture books that address LGBTQ+ issues, the ones that the right-wing are getting all triggered about. I've read a lot of these books, and they're wonderful. So far, in my personal readings, I haven't come across a single LGBTQ+ picture book that I would find inappropriate for children.

No, the books I'm talking about are the ones like We, the Curious Ones by Marion Dane Bauer.

PC: Goodreads

Before I say anything else, this book is absolutely gorgeous. When I read it the other day, I was captivated by the stunning images and the poetry. This is a beautiful book, one I think most adults would enjoy reading––I certainly did. It discusses the human experience and our curiosity, our beliefs, and how they've changed throughout the ages. However, as I was reading it, I started to wonder who this book was really for.

Would I have enjoyed this book as a kid? Most likely, yes. I enjoyed Carl Sagan's Cosmos series as a six-year-old, so I'm absolutely not saying "there are no children who would enjoy this book!" But … there are so many books out there like this, books that are poetic and vague, books that seem sort of "highbrow" for children. Which, again, is fine.

But I realized something after coming across a few of these.

When it comes to children's picture books––and children's media, in general––we're not actually writing these books for kids. And you can't write these books just for kids because the people who approve whether or not you get published at all are adults. You have to convince these adults that your book is worth it, you have to convince adults to publish a book for kids. It makes sense, because a five-year-old isn't going to be shelling out the money to buy these picture books, or signing up for a library card to check these out. Your publisher knows that the people you really have to charm are the parents, otherwise they're not going to buy your books for their kids, or let them check out your books from the library.

I'm not saying anything is inherently wrong with this, it's just the way the world works. But it's one of the few industries where your target audience is not who you're trying to sell to, and all I can say is … I can't imagine how hard it is to write and publish children's picture books right now.

Be sure to visit the Insecure Writer's Support Group page and the other people who have posted today!