Caraway Carter

Shelter in Place Day 61

Early yesterday morning I’d sent off a short story that I’d written over a two week period. I’d gotten it edited and sent out copies to about four people to beta read. One person returned my form and with her help, I was able to fix things that didn’t seem to work and added a few more things. Removed overused words. OMG! I found 43 instances of the word that in the story. Lowered those significantly. 

However, after all of that I was able to send off a really sweet story called The Prince of Hearts. When I sent it off I prepared myself for it not to be accepted. And this isn’t because it’s not a good story, I just have that feeling a lot lately. And, I don’t know why I need to have a publishing company behind a story to tell me I’m a good writer. 

I have been published with two publishers. I even had the editor of a book, where one of my short stories is in tell me “You shouldn’t be surprised the book won an award, because you’re a great writer.” 

I’m prepared because after I checked out the publisher and the types of stories they publish, The Prince of Hearts might be too sweet for them. Might not be one of the stories they are looking for, but you know what this is the time I don’t care if they don’t accept it. Sure, I’ll be sad, but I won’t be devastated like the other times my story wasn’t accepted. 

Because I’m already plotting out the book that will give Grady & Matthew the happily ever after they deserve. If it gets picked, awesome, it’ll be new readers who haven’t heard of me. If it doesn’t, great… it’ll be a freebie readers of my books will get when they join my newsletter. 

It’s a win-win for me. But, I spent most of yesterday in a state of Meh. Except for the three hours when I was on a zoom call with my old D&D group. Three men and two women, we hadn’t seen each other for thirty years. And it was like the old days, talking over each other, reliving old games and our theater days. We’d met in Jr. College in the theater department. 

Afterwards, I just went back into the funk of not hearing back from people or figuring out how I felt about something else. And watching two different groups of people fighting over things. And I blame all of this huge amount of meh on it being 60 days inside. 

So, what will 61, 62, 70, 83 and so on bring me? I’m hoping for a more clear mind, centered. The Husbear and I are still here. Sure, we argue about stupid, but we are working things out. We love each other and we thank each other for being here still. What I hope to see in those days are more zoom calls with my old D&D group, readings of plays, finally getting my writing friends together in a zoom or Skype call or even one of the new google meetings or facebook group calls and write sprints every 30 mins. 

I’m going to be wearing a mask and gloves when I go outside, I’m going to be careful and wipe down those packages and I’m going to survive. I’m not ready to die, I’ve got too many stories in my head. And I’ll self-publish them or I’ll get something accepted, but I’m never going to doubt my writing again. Not everyone likes what I write, but someone does. And those people will buy it when they find it. 

What stance are you taking for the future?

Shelter in Place Day 60

How can I say this and not sound like a total asshole? I’ve been the most creative I’ve ever been since I’ve gotten sent home from work on March 16^th. I remember stopping by to see everyone in the hallway in deployment. Our nickname is the hallway bitches, my friend Lisa calls us that. I think there are only three guys who work in deployment on a regular basis. 

I remember not being of use and having not been scheduled there, I was asked to leave by noon. I left because they were busy and couldn’t talk. I said goodby to them and seriously I was crying. Because I was leaving my job and not knowing what I was going to do with my time. 

The Husbear was sure that I was going to have a terrible time with it, because I’m a extroverted person. And that he as a introvert, had been working towards this all his life. I’m doing really well. I’m talking to people online. I’ve Skyped with the Hallway bitches once. And later today, I’m getting together on zoom with my old college D&D group. Friends, the last time we all saw each other was 20-30 years ago. It’s going to be a hoot. It’ll be happy hour someplace and I’m looking forward to seeing them. 

But, I was talking about my creativity. I’ve finished and submitted a 4993 word story to an anthology, the words just flew out of me. I’m also about 200 words from hitting 40k on the third book in a series I’m rereleasing next year. And, that doesn’t include the other anthology I’ve been invited to be a part of and an anthology I’m working on called A Lucious Affair, 13 short stories. And Sticks and Stones and Cards and Bones, a paranormal I’m working on. 

A creative boost, in a time when most people can’t get off the couch or stop eating. But, remember a few days ago? I’m living this shelter in place in 15 hour days. Last night I baked coffee cake and brownies, and I picked up UPS stuff and hit CVS. I picked up food, because I didn’t want to cook. I was out all over the place. We watched The Rise of Skywalker and I was ugly crying again. But, ended with happy crying. I also warped up a loom with cards and am weaving in small intervals. 

Have you been more creative these days?

Shelter in Place Day 59

Last night we watched The Last Jedi and I lost it halfway through the movie. There was so much death and the First Order was winning. I seriously had those ugly cries that you get when you watch an emotional movie. I kept saying, I hate all this death and it hit me. I turned to The Husbear and said, “It’s like what’s happening now, and I think I’m just more emotional because of so many people dying. 

I discovered a friend from work had lost her grandmother and the grandmother’s sister. It was in the middle of a chat with several people and I’d just said how I’d finished a short story and had 35k on my third book and just as that posted, her post of the loss of her family and I felt like my cheering me was so much less than what she was going through. And she went on and cheered me. And I felt like such a shit. 

I’m scared for what all this death is doing to us. There are people who just don’t seem to get it. Thankfully, the majority of my friends and family are still doing well and following rules, but how much longer can this go on? LA County just announced they were not opening anytime soon. My wrist surgery will be postponed to at least August. 

Last night I posted how there has been an uptick of people getting Covid19 from those protests a couple of weeks ago. 581 people in Anaheim have it and Santa Ana has 586, and Huntington Beach with 272 and the numbers go down from there, but not much throughout all of the OC. With 80 deaths. 

The Husbear kept telling me that this was act two of the trilogy, and I understand, but it was still so much death. Please, #Staythefuckhome #pleasewash #pleasewearamask You can wear underwear, you can wear a mask. 

If you’ve lost family members, my heart goes out to you. I know you must be tired of me talking about the same things over and over, but it’s how I’m processing things. I need to hear from friends and family.

So, check in. How are you holding up?

Shelter in Place Day 58

I have a friend that I work with at the Mouse and she loves my writing, but she said she loves it more when I read it to her. I’m not really a reader-out-louder, I’m sorry I couldn’t think of the real word. My family has a tendency to rename something. Like one time my mom couldn’t remember the name for something and she called it doby boy, turns out she was talking about crown molding. And another time I couldn’t remember the name of something and I said to The Husbear, you know camping stilts. I was talking about cots. 

So, I know now that the word I was looking for was narrator. Sheltering in place has got me taking longer to get to a point as well, I suppose. Anyway, I’ve been wanting to do a podcast, told you that a long time ago, but I have no idea what to talk about. 

I’m only bringing this up, because an author friend of mine just invited me on to hers and I’m excited. It’s my first foray into being on a podcast. But, aside from that do you think I should youtube my stories? I do have a few that aren’t naughty. 

I know quite a few authors are doing it, but I’m not releasing any of my new work until next year, so I guess if I record a few of my stories, they’ll be around for when my books come out eight months from now. 

Would you watch me, as I read from one of my books?

Shelter in Place Day 56

The beautiful thing about podcasting is it’s just talking. It can be funny, or it can be terrifying. It can be sweet. It can be obnoxious. It almost has no definitive form. In that sense it’s one of the best ways to explore an idea, and certainly much less limiting than trying to express the same idea in stand up comedy. For some ideas stand up is best, but It’s really, really nice to have podcasts as well. ~Joe Rogan

If you really know me you know I’m a podcast junkie. I listen to everything. I got started back probably about five years ago. I was working an inventory shift and it was eight hours in a dark warehouse going through the Fantasmic stock. Packing everything in boxes and scanning every item, keeping lists of everything. Rebarcoding and making sure the barcodes matched what the item was.

It was everything I’d ever imagined, and if any of you remember my LARP roleplaying years, as Bob Davidovich. His flaw of CDO, which was OCD, but I had to alphabetize it. I think I really have that. I love organizing things in spreadsheets and keeping track of everything, just like Bob. 

But, I’m running down another path that is only the start to my love of podcasts. So, I was listening to This American Life on my way home and it was announced that it had a podcast, so I listened to everything, and there was a commercial for Criminal and someone recommended Radio Lab and there was a commercial for 99% Invisible and so on, and so on. 

What set it off for me was when I discovered My Favorite Murder, at the time the number one comedy true crime podcast. I couldn’t listen to it at work, because it was super foul-mouthed, but oh my god so funny. There were times on my way into work where I’d be laughing so hard, I couldn’t drink my coffee. 

But, then I discovered The Black Tapes, and I scared myself for weeks on end. And I feel in love with a zombie podcast called We’re Alive, but I can only find an archive of it anymore. It was such an amazing podcast. Well acted, great special effects. Also I had discovered Lime Town, back when it was a podcast before it was becoming a tv show. 

Podcasts amaze me, like the quote above, they can do anything. In fact, I’ve got a list of the 184 podcasts I subscribe to. Even the Husbear has a podcast. I’ve talked of starting one, my co-workers wanted me to just talk about the shit that happens at work and they’d be my guests just laughing in the background. And my author friend, Tari wants to do one with me about cooking and writing. 

I suppose we could record a Skype of us talking about the food we’re cooking while we’re writing. I don’t know if it’d be successful, but someone else said, you’ll never know if you don’t try it. So, maybe I’ll be podcasting by the end of the year, who knows. 

Oh and I’ve included a link to all the podcast I’m listening to if you’d like to check them out. Podcasts can be found on Spotify now, Stitcher is something you can download. If you ave an iPhone, there is a podcast app you can download and store them there. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14e9aa8yZA_fmIoz70x3JTBA_y-1nYLq1FL0mrZyOYQk/edit?usp=sharing

If you listen to podcasts, what have you been listening to?