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.

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.

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.

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.