Author Blog of Erica Deel
© 2015-2019 Erica Deel, All Rights Reserved
I’ve had a difficult year, experiencing a concussion, surgery, losing a writing mentor and community, and mental health issues (exacerbated by the concussion). All of which I’ve mentioned before.
All year, I’ve wondered, “What happened to the me I used to be? Where did I go?” Despite my husband and I fulfilling a longtime dream of buying a house, this past year has been largely a downer for me. And it’s time to wake up.
For this year’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I’m concentrating on the two Bs: my book and my blog. I feel ready and prepared (mostly!) to tackle the challenge of writing 50k words in a month this year, and most of all, I’m excited to do so.
I’m working on a new novel this year—hurray!
So, these Storyzine posts are going to be a regular occurrence. Get used to it! But that also means you get to read some of my writing, so that’s a win, yes? Anyway, below is the story that got published for Storyzine’s October issue, which was based around the theme of MONSTROSITY. (For Halloween, get it? Of course you do, you’re brilliant!)
I’ve done a lot of things with this blog ever since beginning it just over three years ago: posting every week, posting every two weeks, every month, and then NOT. AT. ALL. For far too long. The reason for that inconsistency is largely that I got off track and then never got back on. Fell off the horse, so to speak. I kept wanting to blog, I kept wanting to share my thoughts and views with all of you … but in order move forward and do current posts, I felt the need to work from the back-forward and catch up with myself.
Wrong idea. Oh-so-very wrong idea.
I explained about my newfound love of Storyzine in a previous post (a digital magazine of flash fiction stories), and here I have my first bit of exciting news around it: I’ve been published in their September issue!
I have found a new favorite thing—along with all of my other new favorite things plus old favorite things. I have a lot of things, is what I’m saying. Anyway, THIS one has rejuvenated my writing life nearly as much as the Scott Writes Stuff stream, and, in fact, is something I discovered through him. Yay to one awesome thing feeding another!
There’s this newish digital flash-fiction magazine called Storyzine that comes out once a month. And every month, they give would-be-contributing writers a prompt to write from. The writers write a story about the prompt, less than 500 words (1,000 if you’re a Patreon subscriber), and submit it to them for review and potential acceptance into that month’s issue. If you are chosen, they’ll send your story through editorial review, you’ll make changes, and poof! A few weeks later, you are gifted with an email containing their magazine and your special little story tucked inside. Congratulations, you’re an author.
I recently discovered a new resource that completely revitalized my writing life: a creative writing stream on Twitch, of all places. For those who don’t know, Twitch is an online platform much like YouTube where creators do things like play video games, paint, etc., for an audience. The big difference between the two is that, while YouTubers largely record their videos and then upload them, Twitch streams the live feeds of the creators. Therefore, the video is live and the community watching can chat with the creator in real time.
I’ve toyed with the idea about starting some kind of writing/storytelling stream, but that’s not what this post is about. The point is, I didn’t know it could be done. I didn’t think an actual collaborative writing stream could be done, and one day I stumbled onto this person who had managed to figure it out. His name is Scott Wilson, and he runs the Scott Writes Stuff stream. He’s ridden into my life like a high-definition knight in shining LCD light.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, this has been a tough year for me. The entire past year, yes, but also just 2018 alone so far. My grandmother passed away in January, and we’re doing a memorial service for her at the end of this month (waited for the weather to warm up). We found out I’ve been suffering from a concussion, and I’m still dealing with those symptoms. My dad’s birthday just passed, and that carries with it some heavy emotions ever since his death—from suicide. And now, amid everything, my writing life changes like the drop of an atomic bomb. My world turned upside down.
(Anyone get the Hamilton reference? This post needs a brief moment of levity.)
On one of those fortuitous days where everything lines up and you feel like magic is at hand, I attended a lecture by none other than Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the book Big Magic.
