There's the rub..

As most people who know me or follow my tumblr know, I suffer from depression. Not just the temporary feel bad and mope kind but the debilitating, turn off my ability to life kind. I am happy for those whose depression leaves and never comes back. I feel more like Smeagol, who gets Gollum to leave only for him to return when things don't go very well. My vitality fades and my desire to do anything goes up in smoke. As one might imagine that is the kind I am dealing with now.

The Walkabout has been good in a number of ways but Depression simply drags me down. And one of my main ways to battle depression is to write. Alas, I have not been able to really write fiction since my surgery. And there's the rub.

If writing helps me through depression and I can't write does that mean I'm stuck? Well, I don't know. I had a major surgery and those take a good bit of energy to recover from and I am aware that things are still healing. So if it is simply a healing thing, then that will work itself out. If as the voices say, that I can no longer write, then I don't know. I will address that issue when and if that seems to be the case.

Oddly enough I can do non-fiction writing, as evidenced by my continued posting on FemHype. That seems like a suitable stopgap measure and so I am dealing with it. Writing on this and the Walkabout blog have been helpful. Creative non-fiction is a thing and I have been doing some of it. I figure, that so long as I can write something then the fear that I have lost the knack will fade. I hope.

Anyway, that's what I have been up to, fighting ghosts and struggling with uncooperative fingers.

I am sorry that I haven't written much, things got busy here. There hasn't been a lot of writing lately but that is mostly due to the fact that I have been either unconscious or out and about. The interesting thing is that I have been getting a lot of ideas for both stories and poems, which is encouraging. I want to get back to writing because I miss the rush I get from the flow of story through me. Le sigh...

I was able to get some editing done, which was nice. Not a lot going on so far, so I simply tackled Transitioning Home, to try and get more done. I may need to do more than I originally thought as there is a lot more telling than I was expecting. Given that I wrote this in 2006-7, my writing has changed just a little bit since then. Oy

Traveling is going great. I think it might help me get past this writing congestion, as I have been feeling a few things percolate. That is most certainly a good sign. I need to finish up the edits for Transitioning Home, since it is pretty much ready. A lot of that is cleaning up the prose and adding a few things, partially thanks to my experiences post transition. That should be exciting. After that, I honestly don't know.

Since I am still rather grumpy with my parents I might do more on The Cost of Blasphemy. I am certain it will hurt to write but I also know that it will be a good read and rather powerful. Amulet of Adventure also needs tinkering, especially with the way that things have changed with the story. Regardless, I have a few things I can get to if I can ever get back to them.

I have been working very hard on my Femhype articles because I can write them fairly easily. It's not fiction work but it is still creative and gets me moving in a direction. That is what is important. I may not be able to write story but I can still write. Femhype really is helping to relieve the pressure that not being able to write creates.

Not a huge fan of all the health issues getting in the way of my writing. Very annoying. Thankfully it only seems to affect my writing ability and not my ability to review. So, with that in mind I am going through Transitioning Home again in order to get it somewhat ready for publication. What I will do from there I don't know but getting it ready to go can't be a bad thing. And a number of rewrites/edits come from the fact that I am a better writer now than when I first worked on the story. I am pleased with the story but I am able to make better emotional connections to things, making the book stronger.

One of the things I have been thinking about is that I am good at writing Trans narratives but is that all I want to do? I have several stories that are non-Trans but are they as strong as the others? I don't want to pigeon hole myself as a Trans writer but it is an area I can speak to. Hell, I am not even sure how to go about finding an agent or publisher if I have that particular leaning in my stories. And my YA series isn't even remotely Trans so I don't know.

Figuring out how to market myself is challenging and not exactly fun. I am doing what I can but it really is annoying. That seems more difficult than anything else, honestly. Am I a writer who is Trans or am I a Trans writer? What do I want to write? How do I want the market to see me? This sort of thing is problematic. I understand that a particular identity can help make marketing easier but that does seem to limit me more than liberate me. I have no clue.

So, anyway, editing and revising are in my future. Yay...

Writing has been tough for me lately. I have been able to write some non-fiction articles for FemHype, which have been nice but fiction is what really does it for me. Granted, there is a lot going on in my life, what with having had surgery in March, getting ready for Walkabout, the nonsense with my family, etc... so it does make sense that I am having difficulty really stringing things together. I am working on that but it isn't easy. Here's hoping that I can get Transitioning Home and Amulet of Adventure edited and out. That would be a nice change of pace.