When the Words Won't Come - Erin Zarro

It's no secret that many people are off kilter due to the COVID-19 happenings going on right now. My husband was laid off in late March, and he's been completely out of sorts since because he's not used to being home. I've been working through this because 1) I work from home anyway, and 2) Publishing really hasn't seemed to have been hit much (yet) and things have been ticking along as usual. I do realize that could change, and that's scary.

My usual method for dealing with stress or upheaval is to write. One of my novels got me through a divorce. Another got me through a family upheaval, after the initial shock wore off and I could feel again. Countless breakups in high school compelled me to write tons of poetry, most of which became the basis of my second poetry chapbook, Without Wings, which released in 2011. A particularly horrible breakup resulted in some of the best poems I ever wrote.

Any stress in general gives rise to words. And it's been that way for years and years and years.

Until now.

To be fair, we're in a completely new, almost unbelievable situation. We, as a people, at least in my lifetime, have never had to face something like this. There's so much fear and panic and it's every day in the news, on the internet, talking with the family...I can't get away from it. Luckily, work has been busy and has given me a bit of space, so I'm no longer a ball of anxiety like I was before. But for the country in general, it's been a rough few months. Especially the lockdowns. People aren't used to staying home. Well, I am, and I rarely go anywhere, but most aren't like me. They're feeling it. I am starting to feel it. In Michigan, our governor just extended our stay-at-home order till May 15th, but has raised some restrictions.And that brings with it the possibility of things, some good and some bad.

I don't think anyone really knows how to handle this.

Happy birthday to me!? - Erin Zarro

Today is my forty-fourth birthday. Forty-four years in this world.

Feels like forever, but it also feels like a blink. Why does time seem to go by faster as we age? There's a theory that if you're ten, for an example, one year is one tenth of your life — so it seems to go by slower. But once you hit, say, forty, one year is one fortieth of your life — a smaller piece of time, so it goes by faster. I'm not sure if that's the reason, but it is an interesting idea.

The thing about being born today is that I'm on the cusp of winter and spring. So, more often than not, the weather isn't so great. I love spring, when the world wakes up from its long slumber. The snow melts, flowers bloom, and birds fly overhead. It's a magical time.

I'm an Aries. Very typically Aries — passionate, fiery, a leader, not a follower. Sometimes I think the fire of my birth sign is actually within me because I can get very passionate and I can burn hotter than the sun when I'm angry. I actually have a phobia/fascination with fire that has intrigued me for years. I can't strike a match, but fire finds its way into my stories. Maybe I was burned in a past life? I've got huge birthmark running from my feet to my thigh and from my shoulder to my hand on the left side only. Things to ponder.

Another interesting fact about me is that I was actually due on my grandmother's birthday, April 12. What makes this truly amazing is that she and I have so much in common — she was a writer/poet, she was chronically ill, and she and I have some of the same personality traits. She passed when I was eleven, so I didn't know her as well as I wish I did, but I still feel a very strong connection to her, even now.

So today we're taking our cat to the vet to get fluids. We've been trying for eight weeks with limited success. Yesterday was impossible. The vet will take her out of the car and bring her back after, so it's pretty low risk. I feel like we failed. :( But truly, she's so damn feisty, even for a senior cat.

The Fifteen-Minute Solution - Erin Zarro

At the end of last year, I promised myself that I wouldn't stress myself out trying to do All The Things. I had some deadlines hitting, and I knew that if I beat myself up over not writing, it'd make it all much worse.For me, things accumulate — I'm not writing, I'm working twelve-hour days, I'm not getting enough sleep, I'm stressed...I have to be so careful because of the fibro and trigeminal neuralgia. I could put myself into a major flare that could take months to recover from.

And who the heck needs that on top of everything else?

So I was pretty much okay and zen about it.

Then...my muse started whispering things to me again.

"You're not writing. You're wasting valuable time."

"You're feeling okay today. How about a few hundred words?"

"That idea I gave you last week would be perfect to dive into! What are you waiting for?"

Ugh. Sometimes — okay, most of the time — she's relentless. And a bit psychotic. I put up with it because when she's good...she's phenomenal. When she's like this...not so much.

The other thing is that if I am not being creative on a regular basis, I fall into a depression. I feel worthless. Life has no meaning. Part of me is missing, like an amputated limb. It is absolutely one of worst states to be in, and I actively try to avoid that.

There's only one way to relieve it. By being creative.

Alternate Universes, a Novel, and Spending Time in My Own Head - Erin Zarro

Crazy title, but it's appropriate.

This will make sense, I swear. ;)

I have been experiencing memories of things that never happened.

Yeah, it's freaky.

The first time it happened, it was after I had surgery on my foot. I'd remembered writing an email to a client and putting together an invoice. Vividly. Turns out, I'd never sent it, nor did any such invoice exist. And it wasn't hiding in my Drafts folder, either. I thought, hmm, general anesthetic screws with your brain for a bit...maybe it's that, and went along my merry way.

Until it happened a few more times, well past the time the anesthetic would have left my body.

So I did what I usually do in this situation. I researched it.

I found out some interesting things. For one, which blew my mind completely, is that your brain cannot tell the difference between a true memory and a false one. Let that sink in for a moment. There are cases where eyewitnesses to crimes had actually confabulated memories when prompted. They suddenly thought they saw a man walking a dog when they actually saw no dog if asked in a leading manner, for example. That's why eyewitnesses and memories are so complicated in law enforcement.

Saying Goodbye to 2019 - Erin Zarro

This year was a really rough year for me. I struggled with my health, and then finding time and energy to write, and honestly, I am happy that this year is almost over.

I think the worst part of it was all my health stuff in rapid succession: foot surgery in March to repair my Achilles' tendon and a torn ligament, the long recovery where I was non-weight bearing for almost a month, suffering horrible headaches and scalp pain that I found out was due to a pinched nerve in my neck, the failed root canal scare that turned out to be part of my facial nerve pain disease (trigeminal neuralgia), and finally, abdominal pain that sent me to the ER thinking I was going to die. Spoiler alert: I didn't, and it turned out to be pretty mundane, but it was scary.

With all of this crap going on, plus my freelance work, writing had to be set aside. It hurt, sometimes horribly, as I am the type of writer that writes every day, but I knew it would just add more stress to an already stressful situation. I wrote a grand total of 751 words on Wednesday, and I anticipate that that is probably it for the month. My total wordcount for 2019 is around 53,000 words. Probably the lowest since I got serious about it in 2003. Last year was slightly better at 75,000 words, four hundred of which were written on New Year's Eve to make that goal.

But my life has changed so much from those days. For one, I'm working from home now. And I have been struggling to find a sleep schedule/work schedule that works. I am a night person, so I don't perk up until around eleven or noon. I've tried to start work sooner and more often that not, I'm asleep at my desk in minutes. However, starting work this late requires that I work into the evening, sometimes late at night, to get my work finished. And I'm not really fond of this way, and want to change it, but it's been so overwhelming with everything else. And it doesn't leave much time for writing. Back when I worked a traditional job, I wrote after dinner. That was my routine. I could count on it. Now, I'm usually working after dinner. So clearly something needs to change. I'm not even sure what at this point, just that it has to.

The Delight and Agony of Dictation

Well, friends, it has happened. I have had to start with voice recognition software to write once again.

Recently, I decided to start dictating again for speed. I've heard of people dictating ten times more than me. I'm not looking for a novel a day or anything, but a few thousand extra words a day would be great.

Because I am a slow, slow writer.

In 2003, I had a carpal tunnel syndrome scare. Turns out it was just severe tendonitis. Back then, ergonomics weren't really a thing, so I had no idea how to sit properly, nor did I realize that yes, typing for hours on end might lead to hand and wrist issues. Say it with me: Duh.

Anyway, I bought Dragon Naturally Speaking, which is the best dictation software out there. It cost me $60.00. And I started dictating. I had a bit of trouble with the RAM — Dragon needs a ton of RAM and my computer needed to be upgraded to Windows XP. Damn, that was a long time! I found it to be very awkward because I am used to typing, and speaking everything, including punctuation, was just weird. I even went so far as to pretend to be typing to trick my brain. As time went on, I got better at it, and my wrists got better, too. However, I went back to typing at my first opportunity. But I've had to drastically cut down how much I type per day.

Over the years, I had several more tendonitis flares, requiring me to drag out the software once again and relearn how to speak my novel. Each time I went back to typing. See a pattern here? My last flare was in 2008, where I dictated my entire novel for National Novel Writing Month, a writing challenge that takes place every November. I "wrote" 57,000 words, 7,000 more than the goal of 50,000. But I had a serious problem. The headset that comes with the program gave me migraines.

Since then, I've done two things. I've been keeping the software up to date so I always have the most current version. It has gotten better over time. And now you don't even have to train it anymore! It's like 90-some odd percent accurate upon installation. And I can verify that this is true.

I have also been looking for an alternative to the headset. For awhile, I used the Dragon Dictation app on my iPhone, and it worked beautifully. And then they stopped updating it to be compatible with the iPhone, which totally sucked. Strangely enough, the version for Android still works.

I also looked into a Bluetooth headset, but that was a major problem because they're so expensive but so flimsy.

So I was basically screwed.

Music, Magic, and Mayhem

Hi! My name is Erin Zarro, and I write fiction in the genres of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. I started writing when I was a kid. I've always wanted to be a published author. My parents, ever practical, suggested that I have another job so I could pay my bills while I was trying to find a publisher. This was back in the days before self-publishing.

I went to college, majoring in journalism and unofficially minoring in photography. As it turns out, journalism and photography are both in my blood. My grandmother, who passed away when I was eleven, was a gossip columnist for the city paper, which is still operating today! My goal back then was to work there. I even have her old Smith Corona typewriter that she used to type her columns. It is almost a hundred years old, and it's in my office. I feel closer to her having it with me.

My grandfather was a photographer and had his own darkroom. I've seen his pictures.They were a lot like mine, amazingly. I have my own darkroom as well because I love black and white photography so much! Back when I was in school, you could still get black and white film developed for a hefty price. Problem was, they used a standard development process and sometimes the pictures don't look good. By doing everything myself, I can control how my negatives and prints look. My favorite kinds of pictures are self-portraits, black and white infrared, and other experimental processes. I haven't been in my darkroom in a long time due to health issues, but one of my goals for next year is to get back in there. I miss it terribly.

I started self-publishing in 2012 as an experiment. I had been revising one novel over and over again, trying to make it perfect for submission to literary agents. Please note that I had no idea what exactly the "perfect novel" was. I ended up causing myself horrible anxiety every time I opened the file. Some writer friends suggested I take time away from it for some much-needed perspective. It was initially supposed to be six months, but it ended up being ten years. Oops! I started writing a book in 2011 on Halloween that became my debut self-published novel, Fey Touched. I had started it for fun as a rewrite of a novel I'd written for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a yearly writing challenge I always participate in."The Sacrifice" was my first finished novel. After Fey Touched, I went on to write two more books in the series, Grave Touched and Ever Touched. They are published through Turtleduck Press, a small independent press I co-founded. We aim to publish books that don't fit into genre boxes—the different, the experimental, the great books that aren't commercial enough for traditional publishing.