I may need a few more avenues of escapism if the Dems lose this year...

Here's what Kathe Koja, an amazing writer of fiction, posted on FB just today:

How can we read books, write books, make art, make cakes, take walks, take a friend out for drinks, etc., when the country is literally collapsing and the world is on fire? We can do it WHILE WE FIGHT BACK.
Neither is optional.
Pleasure and joy will sustain us.
Have more fun and fight better!

How kind of you to share this. Now, onward! And, butt in chair.

I make a sort of "Mix Tape" of music that I associate with my characters. I imagine what kind of music each of my characters would listen too and then I pull it together into a mix that I listen to when I am preparing to write or just when I am winding down at the end of the day. So in a way I allow the characters to "talk" to one another in my mind via music. It really works to get me in the space.

This might sound a little kooky.... but I take hot baths and listen to my "Mix tapes". The hot. bath gets the blood flowing to my brain and I swear I can write for hours afterwards. Sometimes I take a recording device into the bath with me so that if I achieve stream of consciousness I don't feel like I will slip and break my neck getting to my device to write. LOL

Just works for me.

You can’t imagine how perfect your advice is for me, as well as the protagonist I have created. If you are willing to indulge me, here are a couple of excerpts from Unreasonable Suspicion.

Once they were both inside, Brenda closed her office door and pressed her back against it, as if to create a barricade. Despite her waif-like appearance, the magnetic field of anger emanating from her would have been enough to bar anyone from barging in. After a long exhale, she said, “He did that to deliberately challenge my authority. To humiliate me…”
“You did zat to deliberately defy me, Renata. Now play it correctly.” ​Renata shuddered ever so slightly and the fingertips of her left hand tingled at the recollection of her mother’s words, and the dissonant strains of a late Beethoven string quartet.

.....

At last it was time to practice the fourth step of spiritual health - letting go of the results. Reportedly, according to Native American wisdom it followed (1) showing up, (2) doing your best, and (3) telling the truth. For Renata that played out in early 21st Century European-American tradition as having a glass of wine, or, the occasional cocktail if circumstances warranted something a little stronger. Um, like this evening maybe? She turned on her sound system, and while her Manhattan “cooked” in the freezer for the required 30 minutes, she went upstairs to shed her management guru getup and relax in a warm tub scented with White Moss bath gel and wonder if Dr. Stern, Asher, might possibly have marital problems.
It was a little before seven when Renata padded back down the steep wooden stairs swaddled in a white terry cloth robe and puffy animal print slippers that were a birthday present from her dad’s longtime girlfriend, Nutmeg. From her sofa she could see the Fremont Bridge looking like a colossal diamond necklace spanning the Willamette River – an impression further enhanced by a few sips of good bourbon mixed with sweet vermouth and bitters. Her short term goal was to make the allotted single serving of hard liquor last until Kenny Burrell finished fingering Blues in the Night.

This sounds terrific. Your character already lives for me. Keep up and don't give in to the various outside noise that drags on all of us.

It has been said that "Hope is not a plan." it is, however, what keeps us planning.

Ugh! After rereading, as always, too many damned commas. 🙀

At lease they're not ellipses or the dread semicolon.

every January.

teacher who taught comma rules...your other option is to write a lot more simple sentences. NOt a good option, IMHO.

(Now, about your hourly rate ...)

The world will be a better place to have your story and your perspective out in the world. To you it feels like an indulgence, but to the rest of us it is a new perspective.

Keep up the good work. And if you feel shy about sending out your writing, what helped me was getting a few good people to read it and give me feedback. Once they told me it wasn't all in my head and it did have merit, I felt I could let the rest of the world see it.

Give me escapism, and keep on keeping on.

Represent!