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Wanted
I know I promised the Ichabod Brooks blurbs on a post that most people don’t read over the weekend. Figure I have over a month to get that done, so I can get this brain worm out of my head.
So, I’m 37 and I recently considered all of the things that happened over the course of that time. Many ideas have come and gone, so few have reached completion. Plenty of games have been played and workdays have been slogged through. If lucky, I could live for another 37, which means many more events and ideas can occur. Yet, I wonder if there’s a point and also if the phrasing I had in the shower will return to me. Won’t bet on that last part.
For a while, I’ve wondered if humans simply waste most of their lives. I should say most humans because there are a handful that get to live out their dreams. Others make the best of their situation and still find happiness, which is the way to go. Yet, I’m seeing more and more people who simply hate where they are. I could list the problems, but it really boils down to something in their life sucks and they can’t find a way to change it. This is where somebody will step in to say ‘only you can change your life’. Very few people can simply quit their job and go into something else or cast the sources of negativity away because some of those are family. That phrase is actually fairly painful because it means the situation is entirely that person’s fault. For as much control as we have over our lives, the actions of others can impact us without us wanting them too. For example, a seasonal staffer steals money at a retail job and the management decides to let all of the seasonal staff go because everyone shared shifts at some point. That happened to me once and it was rather deflating.
Many questions turn up when I think about this:
As I watch sales trickle in even on the new book and struggle to think of promotional abilities, my mind drifts to how I spent my life. 10 years writing, editing, and submitting thinking I’d eventually get a bite. Nothing happened. 4.5 years living in Florida, which feels like a waste outside of the friends I made. Most of what I learned in elementary school has been forgotten because I had no use for it. College courses I took for graduation requirements are vague at best. Just how much of what I’ve done in my life has gone to waste and I simply did it because I had to. There wasn’t a connection to my endgame, which many people have tried to talk me out of. Even today, I get weekly inquires about when I’m going to grow up.
And there we also have it. People are very quick to tell others to put away the ‘childish things’ and act like an adult. If the fun stuff isn’t allowed when you grow up then what’s the fucking point? Does society require that an adult be miserable and never shed the illusion of maturity? Yeah, I said illusion because deep-down every person wants to go back to having fun like a kid. They want a day to lounge or a chance to grab the dream they never pursued. Is that what living is? Surviving and letting the regrets gnaw away at you until you either die, go insane, or make a move for the dream?
37 years! That’s how long I’ve been around and it’s only been the last 4 that I’ve put any real progress on my dream. Legends of Windemere has been in outline form for nearly a decade and 12 of the books weren’t even written prior to 2012. This isn’t counting Bedlam and Ichabod Brooks. What the hell could I have accomplished if I was allowed to charge into this world straight out of college? Well, there probably wasn’t a chance because e-readers and indie publishing wasn’t around. Yet, even when it started, I was convinced by others that it was a fad that I shouldn’t bother with.
Why did I listen to them? Because they were older than me, so I assumed they knew better since they’ve been around. We’ve all done that when younger. Then we hit the same age and realize those people are full of more shit than a latrine. You get there and suddenly you don’t feel wiser. You feel tired, battered, and end up staring at your past that is filled with only slightly more than nothing. You pick out the times you were too afraid or unconfident to do what you really wanted. A trend of people repeatedly talking you down from a ledge turns up too. They think you’re going to go splat on the ground, but they don’t see that you’ve got your wings ready. Their words make it that you forget you can fly if even for a little bit.
Now, this post has turned into a finger-pointing thing, but the truth between the lines is that I think people waste their lives. They listen to the wrong advice because it sounds good and safe. They believe that their chance for the dream will always come until it’s clear that it will never happen. I think all of us are guilty of this. We depend on people to help guide us, but nobody truly knows what we want and need except for us. Yet, we still listen and deny ourselves the dream.
It’s almost like society depends on people giving up on what they really want. Only so many people can stand at the top for some reason. I wonder what life would be like if we saw the world less like a jagged peak and more like a large plateau. Even better if there was room in this world for everyone to be what they dreamed of being. Imagine a world like that. Wonder how many problems would be solved if people were allowed the right to be happy with their dreams.
(Think this post got really far away from me.)
Welcome to another edition of Lisa Burton Radio. I’m your host, Lisa the robot girl. What if you had to completely reboot your life? Maybe it’s not so bad in your twenties, it might even seem common. But what about someone in their fifties? In the studio with me today is Imogen Smythe, and she’s had to do exactly that. “Welcome to the show, Imogen.”
“Thank you very much for having me on the show today Lisa it is great to be here.”
“My bio says you were happily married, but apparently that happiness was one sided.”
“I did consider myself happily married Lisa, and thought that my husband Peter was too. Unfortunately I discovered that for the last two years he has been living a double life. We have three amazing children, two daughters and a son and during the last twenty-five years we have faced challenges but also…
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Hello everyone, I’m Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene, taking a moment to lift you up, to help you thrive. What better place for me to do that than from the marvelous tree-house of the Story Reading Ape?
Sometimes I feel de-motivated, denied, discounted, discombobulated, or any other de or dis that nobody enjoys. However, there is one thing that always helps me change that feeling so that I can thrive — and that is motivating someone else. If I work at lifting someone else’s spirits, or promoting them in some way, I find that I’ve also motivated myself.
We rise by lifting others… Robert Ingersoll
Wishing you a Thriving Thursday.
Mega hugs,
You can read my serial stories and learn about my novels at my blog,Teagan’s Books. Click on over and say hello.
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Black Sails
Can’t talk about the good guys without touching the bad guys, but these aren’t always the bad guys. Close enough though. Pirates are a favorite enemy in adventure stories. Either they’re the main villains, the opposing army, the minions, or a momentary problem that the heroes stumbled into. For some reason, fantasy stories have oceans full of wandering pirates that pray they never run into a protagonist. Let’s be serious here. If they do run into a main character then their fate is a choice between death and noble heroism. That second option only happens if they have lines beyond ‘Arrrrr!’. ‘Tis a difficult life for a buccaneer in fantasy.
Seriously though, it is always a lot of fun to write pirates in a fantasy setting. They have such a hodgepodge of personalities, quirks, and gear. Think about how they loot ships for money and resupplying. The collection of magical items alone makes them a fairly unpredictable force. You don’t know if you’re getting a swashbuckler with a regular sword, enchanted sword, magic boots, or a wand of fire wasps up their sleeve. This is a reason why the navy hasn’t wiped out the pirates too. It’s difficult to plan against a force that isn’t a unified group. Every ship for herself with some flimsy alliances and nothing more than common rules to join them.
Now, I am making pirates seem rather goofy and random here. They can always be that sometimes. Yet, they are a major threat or a great ally depending on what happens. Most times, a pirate will be selfish and become a hindrance if they join a team. Their nature is to look out for themselves, their crew mates, and their ship. So there is a loyalty similar to what the navy has. Both have a foundation of family in a way, but they deal with betrayal a lot differently. Navy will fire or jail you while pirates will kill you. Usually since they could also turn a traitorous crewman over to the authorities for the reward by using a middleman that gets a cut. In this way, the Windemere pirates are very cunning and most of those that rise up the ranks study the history of their profession. These aren’t stupid or lazy people.
My pirates do tend to be more like the ones you see on TV and in movies. If they show up as bad guys then they’re fairly aggressive and most will fight to the last man. Those that show up as good guys are jovial, tough, and will leave as soon as they lose interest in the adventure. I should say typically because there are a few series that involve pirates to some extent. One has them in a closed off area and the ‘crew’ are people taken from various worlds. Still trying to figure that one out or see if I should simply make them all different types of pirates. Another has a character who decides to become the pirate captain of a ship and crews it with elementals. So, it’s hard to put them into the same category as the standards.
I would say as far as power and influence goes, the pirates have a leg up on the navy because they travel everywhere. With no kingdom to control them, they only have their whims and desires to restrain their travels. Probably makes them rather appealing to people in that world too. Also, it’s the big reason you will see them turn up more often in my stories.
For many of us in the world of authors-marketing-ourselves, we know Sally Cronin as a treasure who selflessly promotes others, spotlighting their new books, re-showcasing their old ones, and offering endless encouragement and support to artists of all stripes.
But Sally is also an author, and a prolific one at that. Not only does she write blog posts that enlighten her readers on everything from the benefits of garlic to heart health to the weather in Ireland, but she also writes short stories and books, both fiction and nonfiction. And she’s here today to tell us about her latest work, What’s In a Name.
Welcome, Sally!
Thank you so much Amy for asking me over for an interview.. It is a real pleasure.
Tell me about your new book, What’s in a Name.
The short stories in this collection are about ordinary people who in some way bring their…
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As I consider branching out into other Windemere stories, I’ve been thinking about a variety of things. Will another series work out? How is it that I still have very little idea what I’m doing? What was I . . . Might be getting off topic here and I haven’t even really started. So, I’m really going to talk about some of the forces that may come into play over the course of other series. Some have made appearances like guards, mercenaries, pirates, etc. So, I’ll be dividing the weeks into 3 groups of sea then land and then air. Just to have some fun flushing out the world.
Now, the first one I want to go over are the various navies that are scattered about Windemere. The reason they’re so wide spread is that each kingdom has one or neighbors share. This gets really messy when you look into the Cerascent Islands, which is where you will find most of the naval muscle in the world. Not because they have large armadas that can be sent out with a single call. The region is composed of thousands of islands, which means you have all of these small navies and a network of treaties that makes you wonder why they aren’t in an eternal war.
Unlike the armies and air power of the world, the navies of Windemere aren’t very different from what we have. The biggest difference is technology, which is closer to the Age of Exploration than modern times. Although, there are no cannons and the biggest non-magical weapons tend to be ballistas and catapults. Most naval combats are done through boarding parties and using specialized gear to catch ships. This covers planks that fuse to enemy ships and your own, unbreakable grappling hooks, various battering rams, or simply archers aiming at the sails.
One thing with Windemere navies is that they don’t always wear strict uniforms outside of formal affairs. Some may have identifying armbands or tattoos. With piracy being a problem, navy vessels depend more on their flags to tell someone if they are friendly or not. A trick that pirates once used was to disguise themselves as navy vessels and attack when they get close. So the sailors stopped making that an option and it’s actually made the pirates a little more cautious. Hard to go careening into battle when you don’t know if it’s a merchant ship with a navy flag or really a navy ship.
To be honest, I don’t have many plans for this force. Most ocean adventures will be with pirates, merchants, adventurers, and other non-affiliated groups. The navies of Windemere may come into play during big battles or evacuations, but they don’t get involved in big events that often. A reason for this is because there hasn’t been a global war on Windemere in hundreds of years. Only a few skirmishes and other wars that remain within a single continent.
Hi Story Empire fans, Craig here again. I’m pre-writing this so I don’t know when it will post as it references my process. The big point is I have two books that are very close to being released. One or both may be available when this posts.
Being a self publisher gives a tremendous amount of freedom, but it also comes with all of the work. I thought you might like a peek at what I go through to bring one of my books out. Warning: If you hadn’t noticed before, my process is a kind of organized chaos, so I may wander a bit in this post.
The starting point for me is a finished first draft. This needs to go in the vault for a number of weeks before I attempt any personal edits. In most cases, the draft has been through a brutal critique group and those…
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