Becoming More Myself

Laura Highcove

So I started writing a blog post for this week about a month ago. I came back to it a few times and edited it, but it was never quite feeling right. I talked through it with my husband to no avail and last night I realized what the problem was. The post was too much of a rant, me complaining about the world and my own opinion of how things ‘should be’. And when I stopped to think about it, I remembered that that’s just not my style. The whole reason I have such a problem with writing blog posts in the first place is because I don’t feel comfortable stating my opinions as ‘right’.

And I’ve struggled a bit with the idea that I’m only careful with putting my opinions out there because I’m a woman and yada yada. But that’s the same trap I found myself falling into for those years when I thought I wasn’t female enough. I was listening to people ‘out there’ tell me how I should react to the world around me. I thought because I don’t like jewelry, or bags, or makeup that I wasn’t female enough. It actually got worse with the “me too” movement because suddenly there were more opinions out there about what women should do or be like. At a certain point, I finally had to decide: ‘screw that’.

I think I’m finally making that same kind of distinction here. I write my journal entries that are basically just that, journal entries, because I want people to be able to read about the struggles I have in my every day life, see how I deal with them, and perhaps find something that will help them in their own lives. Giving my opinion on how people should deal with their feelings (that’s what the failed blog post was about) was outside of that. I don’t want to tell people how they can have a better relationship with their own feelings. I’d rather show them my own relationship with myself and my feelings and let people draw their on conclusions.

And finding that this is part of who I am has been a lot of trial and error in learning to distinguish between when something is hard vs when something feels wrong. I could never begin to tell anyone else how to differentiate that for themselves. The closest I’ve come is a set of posts I wrote a while ago that talk about feel and awareness.

Post #1: The Skill of Feel
Post #2: Developing Awareness
Post #3: Analyzing My Awareness

Though even in these posts I focus mostly on the process I used with a few suggestions of how it could work for someone else. These are the types of posts I like to write, I guess I just needed the reminder. Now I just need to wait until the next thing goes wrong in my life so I can talk about how I respond to it. Shouldn’t be too long.

Lack of Motivation

Laura Highcove 1 Comment

I have been suffering recently with a lack of motivation. Ever since I put the Huntsman in my hubby’s hands for an alpha read, I’ve been struggling to find another project that interests me as much. I was working on the rough drafts of two other novel ideas that sort of fizzled. I tried doing some prompts, but those ended up just flopping around and not feeling very effective. I also wrangled an idea for a short story where I tried to outline it before writing it, but I ended up with a story where none of the characters feel like characters.

There were brief moments for each of these that felt exciting. But it’s like the sparks that jump out from the fire. They burn brightly, and you wonder for a moment if they’ll really catch fire, but instead the light fades, leaving you with only a tiny sooty reminder that there was anything there at all.

This worries me. If I’m going to make a career at this, I should be able to sit down and write that needs to be written. What happens when I pitch a book idea to my eventual agent, and they get all excited about it, and then I get into this same situation where I can’t write it? What if more of my projects fizzle than catch fire?

Am I really getting better at this writing thing? Because I feel like my skill with actual writing may be growing, but at the same time I’m losing access to the things that used to come so easily. What good is it for me to be able to write a beautiful sentence, or have all my plot points in a row if I can’t come up with an interesting concept that can carry a book or a character that feels real?

I did, however, get the Huntsman back at the beginning of last week and I was finally able to sit down with my hubby and hammer out some plot points that should help with my muddled middle. I’m so still in love with this project, and though it still needs some serious work, I’m feeling much better about it.

I’ve also gone a long way toward accepting that writing a sequel really is that much harder than writing book one, so I’m feeling less bad about my ‘lack of progress’ on this book. It’s going to take however long it’s going to take, as annoying as that is, but I want this book. I want to keep following these characters and I want to know what happens.

It’s also the third week of the short story I’m publishing through my newsletter about a young Loki and a war between men and gods. If you’d like to read it, you can sign up here.

Still having doubts, still moving forward.

Review: The Broken Earth Trilogy

Laura Highcove

My Review of The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin

Since I am writing a review of the entire series, there will be spoilers from here on out. This is your warning.

My summary: In a world where some people (called oroenes) can control the earth but are reviled for it, a mother searches for her daughter, taken by her husband after he kills their son for having this power. Also, the earth is broken, and can only be fixed by catching the moon and putting it back in orbit with the earth.

Why I picked up this trilogy: I’ve heard tons of great things about it, including it winning a Hugo. I’ve had several friends who throughly enjoyed it.

What I knew going in: Very little. I actually didn’t even read the back-cover copy. I bought it based on reputation alone.

My response: This is a very odd review for me. If I had known what this trilogy was like and the themes of it before I picked it up, I never would have. However, the writing was beautiful, and the first book was just interesting enough that since I already owned the trilogy, I started reading the second. The second book took me two months to read, not something that *ever* happens to me. Usually I finish a book in a few days or I never pick it up again. I finished the last book because I figured I might as well.

My problems with the themes in this book:

1) Essun loses two children, and while I knew intellectually that I should care and understand about the pain this causes a person, I didn’t. I don’t have experience with the parent-child relationship that is fairly standard in society.

2) This book delves deeply into the ugliness created in people based on fear (whether justified or not) and the resulting anger and hatred. I get enough of this watching the world every day, and I actively avoid books that focus on this because my reading tends to be escapism.

Despite that, the writing and world building were amazing and beautiful enough to pull me along despite my flat out dislike of the main themes and lack of connection to the characters. Not even Rothfuss’ Kingslayer series could manage that. (And man that world and his writing are beautiful.) I have marked places where I want to go back and review her writing. She also did beautiful things with the merging of magic and technology, which is something I am coming to see as a recurring theme in my own books. I am glad she, and many other authors, are paving the way for this type of book in general.

The onyx says, in its ponderous, wordless way: Execute Y/N?

Do I recommend this series?: If you’ve read my review, without having read the books, you likely have enough information about the themes to decide whether this is a book you would enjoy. They are good books, I just didn’t like them and I’m not arrogant enough to consider the fact that my not liking a book means it’s bad. However, I won’t be recommending these books unless it’s an example for writers.

Gryffins: Oh God There’s More

Laura Highcove

Yes, this is the last installment of my collection of gryffins. For now …

Gryffins in Plush

My collection of gryffin stuffed animals, because of course I have some to snuggle with.

The biggest gryphon (back left) is actually a puppet my mother bought for me. The one with the wild eyes (back right) I saw at a store one day. The one that looks like it has a cutie mark (front right) is from Busch Gardens where they have the griffon roller coaster*. There is also the gryphon plush I bought for World of Warcraft (front middle) that came with an in-game pet (I just never got a screen-shot of while I was still playing the game.) The round one (front left) is a limited edition griffin from Squishables. I actually missed the first run of them and only managed to grab one from the second (and final) run.

*More on this later. 😀

Gryffins in Cards

Magic the Gathering has a good and fairly constant set of griffin cards that come out. While I don’t have all of them (I’ve kinda fallen off on keeping up with the sets.) I do have a good number of them. I even have some that aren’t considered griffin cards, but that have griffins features in the art.




Other Gryffins

I also have a mug. It is also from the Griffin roller coaster in Bush Gardens like the plush.

And this gryffin sconce was made by a local artist. It sits just above my bed. Yes, the colors don’t really go with the wall color, but there you have it.

Gryffin Sightings

And here are examples of gryffin sightings in the wild.

This is the rollar coaster from which come the gryffon plushie and mug. It is at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg and is my favorite rollar coaster because if you get in the front row, you really feel like you’re flying.

This is a bar I passed by while in Las Vegas. I don’t drink, however, I had to record my #gryffinsighting.

And there you have it. That is my collection of gryffin-related items. Thanks for putting up with a bit of my insanity.

Getting through February

Laura Highcove

I have 15k words on Blessings of the Nerial, though some of that was in trying to figure out which pov I was going to end up using on the story. Most of it was useful prose though. I like the idea of this story, but the world-building is giving me trouble. I believe I’m thinking about it too much at too early a stage though. I’m going to try and just push through for the rest of the week, and do whatever and tighten it up later. Either way, I got my goal.

My goals of writing four descriptions and doing some deep reading fell a bit more flat. I did post one description. (From the world of Blessings of the Nerial.) and I did some deep reading on the first chapter of Six of Crows by Leah Bardugo because I love how she introduces her two main characters in that book. No excuse, I just let them fall by the way-side.

I also worked on getting my short story, The Aesir-Vanir War promoted and out there. If you’re a member of my newsletter, you should already have part one in your inbox. If not, you can sign up to start getting it any time. I’m excited to get something new out into the universe, and something complete at that. Makes me wish I was a little better at writing short pieces.

By the end of this week I am planning on having The Huntsman back from its alpha read, at which point I’ll probably be diving head-first back into that. I’ve been a little encouraged by articles I’ve read that talk about how hard the second book in a series is to write, in general. Though most of them talk about doing it once you find an agent/have sold the first one and so then you’re under pressure. None of that for me yet, but I love this story and want to complete the trilogy. For now I’ll just be happy that I don’t yet have any kind of deadline besides those imposed on myself. I’m hoping that completing this series will just be a wonderful learning experience.

Anyway, I’ll be reading over the comments I get back, and likely doing some discussions with my hubby. What he says will have a large impact on what my next step with the story is, so I can’t really make a plan for that yet. It will be interesting for me to see, however, if my focus and feeling of purpose come back when I’m back to having that *one* story to work on. I’ve been feeling a little ‘all over the place’ since I stopped working on the Huntsman. Though it’s possible it’s also because it was February, which is just not a pleasant month in general. Yay for March!

Review: Black Panther

Laura Highcove

My Review of Black Panther

My summary: Latest and greatest Marvel superhero gets his own movie. Right, plot? Time for T’Challa to succeed his father as King of Wakanda, only he runs into some poignant questions about why they’ve been in hiding for so long, and what it has wrought.

Why I watched this movie: Cause it’s MCU.

What I knew going in: I knew the cast was mostly black, and that Wakanda is super awesome cause they made the Quinjets, and the CG looked sick. What? I didn’t really know much about Black Panther.

My response: Super amazing movie. It hit the points it needed to hit, it supported it’s theme like a beast, and it was full of amazing acting, lovable characters, and amazing CG. The plot wasn’t super twisty, but then most marvel movies aren’t.

Do I recommend this movie?: That would be a yes.

Gryffins: In Solid Form

Laura Highcove

This is the third of a trio of posts showing off my gryffin collection.

Gryffins as Figures

A whole bunch of gryffin figures I have found in various places.

A rather typical looking gryffin (front left), a humanoid gryffin with a hammer (front right), and why yes, that is a humanoid gryffin riding a gryffin (back), thank you for asking.

Ignoring the little gold guy in front who should’ve been in the other picture, these are all pre-painted miniatures from Dungeons and Dragons. Flying gryffin (front left), stalking gryffin (front right), and lady riding sideways flying gryffin (back).



This guy is from Warhammer. Before and after pictures. I did all the modding to make it as High Elf as possible myself.

And this is Klesk, the mini for a D&D character from a 4th ED One Piece Campaign. This mini was modded pretty hard by a friend and painted by me.

I also got Sonic Boom from Skylanders. And Gilda, who was a character in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series.

I spotted these guys …I forget where, and while they remind me a bit more of a shisa with wings, I decided they were close enough to go in my gryffin collection.

This guy I bought a million years ago in 2003. He was meant to sit on top of your monitor. Yeah, remember when monitors wern’t flat? I do.

Gryffins in Stone

One Otakon there was a booth in the dealer’s room that sold jewelry, along with animals carved out of gemstones. I only picked up one at the time and later regretted it since the store wasn’t online anywhere for me to pick up more. It wasn’t until years later that I found them sold on ebay, so over time I collected a number of them.

I am very particular about the shape of the head. Sometimes there are ones for sale with huge bulbous heads, and I leave those ones alone. And the strawberry quartz one just ended up being bigger than the others. I didn’t realize it until it came in the mail.

And yes, that is just one more chunk of my collection. (You’re starting to think I’m crazy aren’t you? /cackles) Next post will show the rest of them.

Review: Blade Runner 2049

Laura Highcove

My Review of Blade Runner 2049

My summary: A dystopian future where replicants (built humans) are retired by Blade Runners in order to keep the population under control.

Why I watched this movie: It was new and rather shiny. I liked the idea of it.

What I knew going in: Andriods being hunted down an killed.

My response: I actually watched the first Blade Runner first. It was pretty terrible. Pacing was rather horrible and I spent much of the movie wondering what what happening and having to put together some sort of idea on my own. Blade Runner 2049 was much better, while the pacing did still drag in places, the plot was actually cohesive, understandable, and actually quite enjoyable.

Do I recommend this movie?: Yes, and you don’t necessarily have to see the original Blade Runner in order to understand what’s going on. You’ll probably miss a few subtle things, (some location shots for sure) but they sufficiently explain what you need to know from ‘before’.

New Timesheet Questions

Laura Highcove

Week before last I finished taking notes on the Huntsman. I organized what I had, wrote a bunch of new scenes (and rewrote old ones) based on what my notes had told me. I then realized I was still stuck. The idea that I had for the end of the story is just not coming together the way I want. So I did a quick cleaning and sent it to my husband for an alpha read so he has a better idea of the story to help with a plan. (He’s much better at outlines than I am.)

Since that is off my plate for now while the hubby reads it, I started working more on my Blessings of the Nerial story. I once again ran into the problem of being a discovery writer who now knows enough craft that I keep trying to put the plot together as I write. And right now I have no idea if it’s helping, or just stifling my writing. I talked out some of the ideas with my hubby and realized how little of my ideas are actually solid (ie, I can explain them successfully to someone else). It’s possible that it’s always like this at the beginning of a story and I’ve just never been aware of it before. I’m still on ‘vague feelings’ and ‘this is how it would look in a movie’ stage of writing. And who knows, it’s possible this story won’t stick at all. (It’s only at 13k words, so I’m not all that deep yet) But I’m going to keep working on it until I get the Huntsman back, barring anything else unforseen.

At the end of last week, I also noticed how little I had on my timesheet related to ‘reading’. I did finish my mushroom book, which is counted as ‘research’, but that’s all I had in the past month and a half. I think part of the problem is that counting ‘reading’ time toward ‘work’ time feels like cheating, since I enjoy it so much. Like yesterday I ready Dennard’s new Witchlands novella, Sightwitch. I put down the two hours it took on my timesheet and I feel weird about it.

And yet, I feel like I haven’t been reading much of anything because I’ve been so focused on getting the hours I want for my timesheet. I do want to work on doing more in depth reading, but in order to have fodder for that, it means I need to have read the story in the first place. Obviously this is just a timesheet I keep for myself and there are no right or wrong answers. We’ll see how the data pans out in the next month or so.

I also am working on making my descriptions more descriptive. My descriptions tend to come out rather …well like I’m writing code. (I have a BS in computer science.) It’s certainly a weakness of mine, so I’ve been looking for good examples in books I’ve read and trying to see how I can improve.

Goals for the next two weeks: Keep working on Blessings of the Nerial. I’d like another 7k words. I finally think I’m starting to get a handle on Eira’s (main character) personality. Write four descriptions that I’ll post on facebook and get some feedback. Spend at least two hours on some sort of deep-reading or analyzing. Man, I am being super specific this week. We’ll see how that goes.

Review: The Shape of Water

Laura Highcove

My Review of The Shape of Water

My summary: A mute janitor at meets and falls in love with a captured fish man.

Why I watched this movie: My friends suggested we go see it because it was playing at the Lyric (a local historical movie theater) and because one of those friends lurves Guillermo del Toro.

What I knew going in: Well I knew the summary, and that it was directed by Guillermo del Toro, and that it was rated R. You know, all the important things.

My response: This was a really beautiful movie. While I didn’t get a bunch of the references that were undoubtedly meant to be gotten by the old movies shown, the aesthetic of the movie was just lovely. The story was touching and realistic feeling. And for once the R rating wasn’t because of gratuitous violence. (I mean there was some, but not a lot.) It was more for the nudity and sex, which in all cases was handled well and fit with the story. It, to me, had the feel of being created by someone who knows their craft, and it made me excited for the book I will write one day with a similar level of mastery.

Do I recommend this movie?: Yes. There’s a reason it’s up for Best Picture.