Happy New Year, and a Frank Speech by me

First off, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year. May 2015 be a joyful and peaceful year for you.

My New Year’s resolution–with regards to myself–is utter frankness, both in my personal life, and in my writing life. And so I am going to be frank with you. I’ve kept quiet about some things that happened to me in 2014, but I’ve decided it’s best I start being upfront about them because of the impact they’ve had on my writing commitments.

First off, back in August 2014, as I was working on the revisions to the second half of Lies, Magic, and Nightmares, I was in an incident with a person who was suicidal. The safety of a child was at stake, and there were several times in the confrontation with the suicidal person when it turned into a physical fight.

However, I am very fortunate. I’d been through training with a good sensei in Aikido twenty years ago, and I also had gone through the Citizen’s Police Academy taught by good officers of the Los Alamos Police Department. That background helped me when I found myself a first responder to a situation I never dreamed I’d ever find myself in.

And I hope I never again find myself in such a situation. I am glad to say that both suicidal person and child survived with no injuries, and I got off with minor bruising and a mild injury to a thumb joint. I can thank the Aikido training for how minor my injuries were, for I instinctively kept my muscles relaxed.

I did develop post-traumic stress disorder (PTSD), though, and it wrecked havoc with being able to write fiction for months. Good counseling and support has made the PTSD subside, but the writing deadlines got dropped.

I put on a brave face to show to the world, but in private I found myself asking during these last few months, “Is fiction writing still worth doing? Is writing about imaginary people meaningful?”

I can highly recommend Stephen King’s novel Bag of Bones if you want to know what it feels like to be a writer who comes to question the value of fiction writing.

I discovered that the only reasons I want to start writing again are that 1) the imaginary people I write about seem real to me on certain days, and I want to find out what happens to them. (Hmm, that looks rather crazy when I type it out, but it’s the truth.); and 2) I’ve found I gain insights into human nature that make me a little wiser and kinder.

Both of these reasons have given me the push to get started again, despite the significant cost in time and energy.

So I fired up the computer; reread the first part of Lies, Magic, and Nightmares; and have gone back to work on finishing the second half of the rewrite. So it will be done. It will be late … but it will be finished.

The print versions of Cubicles, Blood, and Magic and Tales from the Threshold are also on their way now that I can mentally focus.

Another thing I’ve decided is that if I have nothing meaningful to say, I’d rather say nothing at all. The world is flooded with enough filler as it is. I will post on occasion about new stories that are being published, or special sales where you can save money on my stories, but I will keep them to a minimum because I hate spam and I want to make sure I don’t cross the line into being a spammer.

Best Wishes for a Good 2015 for all of you, Lynn

Since social media is becoming unpredictable at times in what it shows users, the best way to keep tabs on what I’m up to is to sign up to be notified of new blog posts. You’ll find an email tool for signing up, as well as an RSS feed tool, on the left side of my website near the top, next to the most recent blog post.