Finding Inspiration in the Waiting Period of Writing

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Otherkin has been through the editing process and it wasn’t as brutal as I’d feared. It’s also passed muster with two beta readers. It’s now waiting and gestating. I need one more read-through after all the changes and then will start the publishing process.

In the meantime, I’m in that fallow period between stories, waiting for one to come through. This can sometimes be a stressful thing as fears surface. Will I get another story? Oh my god, what if I never write again?!? In other ways, it can be like a vacation, where you can let go of all the word – work and just let your mind wander.

One thing I’m doing is reading The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad, and what a wonderful way to keep writing flowing in between projects.

Waiting to catch the new story

So…I was enjoying the rain and thunder and all the beautiful fall colors yesterday, and I came up with a theory and decided to do some research.

The theory is, that a person’s preference for silver or gold is tied to their favorite season. It make sense, right? For example, fall and winter are my favorites. As is silver. The color is like rain and snow and gray days. That also kind of ties into my favorite gemstone, which is garnet.

Shaggy Mane fall mushrooms

For research, I did a broad study by asking a sister, and of course, she blew my theory out of the water. I thought for sure summer would be her favorite, because she likes gold. But no, it’s winter. In some ways her choice of season makes sense because she hates bugs and extreme heat. But how can she like gold when she doesn’t list the yellows and golds of summer as her favorite season?

Maybe she’s just an anomaly.

Or maybe it’s my theory.

Still waiting

Otherkin: Merging Reality with Mythical Beliefs

/ Lisa / 6 Comments

Otherkin is an interesting subculture. It represents people, or a person, who identify as nonhuman. In particular, people who believe they are wholly or partially an animal or mythical being.

I’m not talking about people who dress up in costumes or people who feel they relate more to their dogs than to their family. Just as you know you are a human being, these people know they are not. They believe they are animals, mythical creatures like dragons or elves, or even aliens.

Whether you think of this as a psychological disorder or truly possible is open to interpretation and your own belief systems.

However, there is a lesser known interpretation. This aligns closer to earth-based religions, to paganism, etc., where they believe all things have life (or soul) and that the otherworld is all around you whether you can see it or not. These are people who believe in the kindred spirits of animals and nature.

That’s the interpretation I’m using for a story. Otherkin will be released soon. It’s taken me a long, long time to write, and it’s a sequel to This Deep Panic. How does the world look after mythical creatures have returned? How do we move on from a catastrophic earthquake and begin rebuilding lives? How do we do that when most creatures want to kill us, but some are…otherkin?

I am just starting the revising work and then it will go to the editor, then come back to me for more revisions. But I will have the first three chapters available soon for everyone to read. And in the meantime, here is the cover. Let me know what you think. I’m very happy with how the artist has rendered this.

Harmony’s Friend

/ Lisa / 2 Comments

My last post was about the loss of my sister’s partner, Harmony. Now I’d like to tell you about his close friend, a man I only met once, at Harmony’s gathering. I’m not going to use his name here for obvious privacy reasons. But I’d love to tell you about him.

I’m not sure of his age but he’s slowing down, his memory is fading, and he is rarely able to get out of bed or leave his home. But friends made sure he was able to be at the gathering.

There were a lot of people there I didn’t know and he gave me a safe oasis to be in the crowd. I sat with him in the sunshine and listened to his stories and he gave me a reason to be there. Since he couldn’t get around much, I could offer him food, or get him something to drink, or just be company for him. Although that was an excuse because he didn’t need my company. Every single person there gravitated to him.

In his younger days, he was a naturopath, an acupuncturist, an herbalist, and one of the founding group, along with Harmony, of the famous Barter Faire in the Pacific Northwest. He helped start a well-known Antakarana Circle.

He built his own house, a round home, on six hundred acres, where he and Harmony and their friends lived. When it was lost to fire, he built another round house and told me he built it out of pallets and cardboard for less than a thousand dollars. Thinking about cardboard, I asked him if he worried about mice. He replied ‘I have a cat’. A round house, because spirit gets stuck in angles. It makes me think of all the round houses in so many cultures down through time.

He told me he’d had to put shoes on to come to the gathering, and how he rarely wore them. He said we should go barefoot on the land, soaking up the earth’s energies and neurons. It wasn’t long before his shoes were off and his feet were in the sun-warmed grass. This is something I’ve heard before and I’m going to follow his advice.

Once it stops raining.

So many people were happy to see him, to reminisce, tell stories, and re-introduce themselves to him, resurrecting a long, shared past. One person from the old days, who shall also remain nameless for obvious reasons, told him it wasn’t surprising he didn’t remember many of them because back then they hadn’t had clothes on.

I absolutely loved being in his company. Not only because it gave me something to focus on and a way to feel useful and needed, but because he is an amazing person. You know how it is when someone crosses paths with you for a brief moment in time and you know you’ll probably never see them again? And yet you have this deep recognition that this is a person who should have always been in your life? He and Harmony both should always have been in my life.

There are so many stories there, in that man, and I will never know them. But I am so grateful for the tiny window he opened for me.

And guess what? At the end of the day I was told by someone how much he had enjoyed me sitting with him…and that he knew I needed tasks to do and a place to be.