The Juggling Act

When The Spellbound Scribes went on hiatus late last year, we all had our reasons. Mine was small, had huge eyes, and was vaguely human shaped.

No, I didn’t get abducted by aliens. I had a baby!

As a first time mom, trying to navigate the ins and outs of raising an infant has been a truly novel experience. As expected, it’s been incredibly challenging at times–sleepless nights, tears, diaper blow-outs, you name it. But it’s also been just plain incredible–the snuggles, the smiles, the milestone moments. Sometimes when I look at my daughter, it feels like my heart has grown three sizes and I’m full of more love than I ever could have imagined.

But now that she’s almost four months old, I’ve been setting about trying to get back into writing. Although I don’t have any books being published in the near future, or even any on deadline, I do have a completed novel my agent and I hope to send to editors soon, as well as two projects that stand at about 20k words, and about a hundred ideas that need fleshing out. The only thing standing in my way is…time.

Here’s something I didn’t anticipate–you can’t type while holding a baby. It’s just not possible. If they’re chilling out in a baby carrier on your person, you might be able to. But otherwise, the basic rule is: if the baby’s awake, you’re probably not writing. And if your baby is anything like mine, and loathes daytime naps with a fiery passion, that means you’re probably not writing most of the day. And when they finally do fall asleep, either for naps or bedtime, writing has to compete with a thousand other things you need to get done, like cooking and laundry and cleaning and playing with your dog and spending time with your spouse.

But funnily enough, in those random small moments when the laundry’s in the dryer and my dog is sleeping and my husband is working and it’s just me and my laptop, I’ve discovered that I’m actually really happy to write. For the first time in a long time, writing feels more like the refuge it did when I first started out. When I open up my Scrivener app and start typing, it doesn’t feel like work–it feels a little like an escape from the day, a quiet moment between my thoughts and I, a space to create. And as much as I love my new job of being a mom, it’s so nice to have something just for me. Even if I’m only able to write half a chapter, or a paragraph, or a sentence before the baby wakes up again, in those moments I’m a writer again.

When I was pregnant, I worried a lot about losing my identity to motherhood. But it turns out that you don’t lose any of your identities, you simply gain a new one. And yes–recently, that new identity has taken over my life. Mom has overshadowed baker of cakes and sweeper of floors and yes, even writer of books. But it won’t be that way forever.

Nora Roberts was once asked how she managed to be a mom and a writer and a businesswoman and a wife all at once. She replied that she liked to think of life as a juggling act. All her responsibilities–kids, book deadlines, interviews, anniversaries–were balls flying above her, and she was the juggler desperately trying to keep them in the air. Except, she said, some balls were plastic and some balls were made of glass. A plastic ball, if it got dropped, bounced. No harm done. But a glass ball shattered. As the juggler, she was eventually going to drop a few balls. She just tried to remember which balls were made of plastic and which were made of glass.

We’re all jugglers in our lives. I know I can’t do everything all at once. But I can do the important things one at a time, in stolen moments if I have to. Because life is short and long and messy and beautiful and full of many wonderful things. And for now, I’m happy to juggle as many of those things as I can, and hopefully I’ll only ever drop plastic balls.

On the pursuit of dreams…

I’ve been watching a ridiculous amount of tennis. Might be a strange opening line for a writing-related blog, but hang with me for a minute. It’s Australian Open season, which is a great tournament for someone who works night shift because ESPN and the Tennis Channel broadcast the matches live. Given the 17-ish hour time difference between Seattle and Melbourne, I’ve watched some fantastic tennis at three am.

In part, I consider it research, because some day I’m going to write a tennis romance. If for no other reason than because I find Stefano Tsitsipas (above) to be so very inspiring.

Following an entire tournament if fun, too, because of all the different storylines. Early on there are so many players and so many matches. I can root for favorites, see who’s playing well and who’s fighting injury and who’s mental game has gone to Mars. Over the two weeks of the Open, the numbers drop, the tennis gets better, and the matches more intense.

Are there any young players on the men’s tour who can beat one of the Big Three (Federer, Nadal, & Djokovic)? Will Serena win her 24th major? Four of the final 16 women in the Aussie Open are American. How did we end up with so many fantastic players?

And what about Aslan Karatsev, the 27-year-old Russian qualifier who’s the first man in the Open era to reach the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament in his debut? Wouldn’t it be cool if he made the finals?!

The thing that fascinates me – and the element I find most intimidating when it comes to setting a story in the world of pro tennis – is the amount of focus and self-discipline it takes to reach that level. I can play tennis; well, I know which end of the racket to grab anyway, but I don’t think I’ve ever dedicated myself to anything so completely.

When I was a kid, I was on swim team, and I dreamt of making the US Olympic team. I worked my butt off in practice, but somewhere along the way (ahem, high school) I got distracted. Never made the Olympics, but I did do the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, which was a 2.8 mile race off Waikiki Beach. Finished in the top fifty women, too, so some of my discipline paid off.

Later, once I found my feet as an adult, I decided I wanted to sing. I studied voice and sang in choirs and with bands, everything from the blues and rock to Mozart and Gregorian chant. When I brought my oldest kid to the pediatrician for the first time, I asked about bringing a baby to band practice. I did, too, both kids, protecting their ears with wax earplugs held in place by headbands. I’ve also known the unique pleasure of stepping onto the church altar to sing a little Renaissance Christmas ditty with a trio, only to see my then-three-year-old engage in some experimental dance between the altar and the first row of church pews.

I might never have made the finals of American Idol, but over the years I learned a lot about myself, and a lot about music.

And for my next trick...

I always knew I wanted to be an author, and about ten years ago I decided I better get my act together or it was never gonna happen. You might have heard this story already, so I won’t go into too much detail. I started writing, studying how to write, going to conferences, taking classes, and connecting with other authors. I published my first book just about nine years ago and my next release – a novella I co-wrote with Irene Preston – will be number eighteen.

I might not have the level of dedication required to play tennis on an international stage, but making the New York Times bestseller list isn’t completely out of reach. Honestly, though, I seem to have put together a pretty decent life without actually getting what I think I want.

There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere...

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This is my first blog post since August, and I’m SO happy to be back with the Scribes!! I’ve had two recent releases and Irene and I have a new one coming in early March, so I thought I’d share the pretty covers. Well, two pretty covers and a teaser.

So much paranormal fun…

There’s nothing scarier than the truth…

Find HARROWED here!

Fusing copper, gold, and moonlight creates the strongest bond.

Find SOULMATES here!

Me n’ Irene are still keeping secrets. Join our readers group, After Hours with Liv & Irene, for more details!

Poetry and Power

Hey readers, did you miss me? I missed all of you. I can catch you up on the last six months pretty quickly. I’ve been working (a lot. this is an interesting time to work in health care marketing) and writing (a lot. two books at once actually).

I’ve been thinking about getting back into writing poetry for a few months now. It all started when I was doing research for a future book and reading Lana del Rey’s poetry book “Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass.” (My book will be a modern adaptation of a classic with a soundtrack entirely of Lana’s music. She is the PERFECT muse for this story.) Her poetry hit me so hard that I was like “Dude, I want to do that!” (I say “Dude” a lot.)

Now, I wrote poetry as a kid (which you may remember from a previous post) and also as an angsty teen. But then for some reason I stopped. I went through a period where I was like “Who reads poetry anymore?” which I’ve come to find out was my brain’s way of saying “I’m intimidated by it and am afraid I can’t understand it.” This despite the fact that I was an English major.

Enter Amanda Gorman on Inauguration Day. Lord, that woman is a genius. That is all there is to it. I want to bow down to her Wayne’s World style. (I am so a child of the 80s and 90s.) USA Today is even speculating that because of her we may be in a renaissance of poetry and I hope they are right.

So, lots of motivation to start writing. But my problem was I felt paralyzed. I would pick up a pen and try to write (for some reason I feel like poetry needs to be hand-written first) and my mind would freeze, go totally blank. I think I was putting too much pressure on myself to produce something publishable. I asked my Facebook friends for advice and they said to just let go and write for myself, something private that expresses my emotions or opinions about something.

After a while, I loosened up. I finally wrote my first poem in 24 years the other day. I’m not ready to share it because it’s pretty personal, but I want to share them eventually. Right now I seem to be using poetry to work through some unresolved issues from my past, but then again, so did Rupi Kaur and look what it did for her. (I was not expecting Milk & Honey to be so dark!) I think that may be what gives poetry it’s power to touch readers and it’s staying power as well. It, to me at least, is so much more personal than prose, though I know that can be as well.

Today I’m going to start posting some poems on Instagram, so I’d like to share the first one here with you. I don’t want to bias your reading, but it has deeper meaning than its surface value.

I am finding that I have no idea how to judge whether a poem that I write is good or bad. Anyone have any tips for that?

P.S. – In case you are wondering about the title of this post, it’s based on a song by Gary Numan. But I know the cover by Gravity Kills.

Annnd We’re Back!

Blessed Imbolc, friends. And welcome back!

It’s been a minute since we at the Spellbound Scribes’ Blog have crept into your web history, but all of us are happy to be back and are so grateful if you’ve come back to join us.

We each had reasons we needed the break when we closed the blog at the beginning of September and, when I wrote that post, I was in a very dark place, myself. Things in mine and my partner’s lives had been turned upside down and we were kind of drowning at the time. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I could see into the different timelines, depending on which way things went, and so many of them were very scary and stressful. Sadly and not sadly, I was right and we went through some of the toughest months of our lives.

We lost our home, nearly lost our business, lost family members, all while trying to avoid the actual plague our world is fighting.

But. Five months to the day that we got the news our world was turned upside down, we landed on our feet. Or we swam up out of the abyss. Broke through the rubble and climbed to the top. Take whatever imagery you like, we made it to the other side. And, if I’m being honest, there’s a very good chance that this might have been one of the best things to happen to us. Check back with me in a year and we’ll see if that prediction comes true.

Imbolc is a time of renewal, the celebration of making it through the darkness and the light returning back to the world. It is so appropriate for our situation to finally be settled right as this moment turns on the wheel.

I know this is supposed to be a writing blog and me talking about my life and our world finally finding some normalcy doesn’t seem appropriate, but we’re all people first and I think it’s important to know that we all go through troubles. When we’re seeing people’s lives or careers online, it can look like their world is perfect and we have no idea what’s going on behind the screen. And it makes us question our own lives, comparing ourselves to what we see and feeling like a failure. I had to completely shut down my online presence to get through the last couple of months and it wasn’t because I didn’t want people to not know things aren’t always perfect for me and mine. It was a survival tactic. But I was so touched to have friends reach out to me to find out where I’d gone and wanting to know if I was okay.

And now I really am doing okay. In fact, I’ve even opened up the manuscript I started working on for NaNo ’19 that I’d shelved when the pandemic started and you know what? I don’t hate it. I might actually start writing again and finish the damn thing. I cannot tell you what a monumental moment that was for me to realize I might want to start writing again so soon. But I do.

If you’ve been around for a while you know that I’ve posted about how many words I’ve written over the course of my writing career. So maybe you thought I was able to write through all the turmoil. Maybe you thought I could just push through the chaos and keep working. I mean, that’s what it probably looked like. You saw people posting like their lives and quarantines were going great, right? All sourdough starters and puppy adoptions. But there you are in your tattered sweatpants not getting a damn thing done. Because you were depressed. Because you were tired. Because you were scared. Because you were uninspired. Because. Because. Because. Whatever it was. And how many times did you see that meme about what Shakespeare got done during his apocalypse?

You know what?

Fuck all that noise.

Maybe you wrote your life-changing project. Maybe you did jack all like most some of us. Either way, you did exactly what you were supposed to.

I didn’t get anything written and I’m okay with that. I’m going to start again. I’ve done it before so I know I can do it again. And so can you. If you’re not ready yet, that’s okay too. The words will always be waiting.

And I’m so glad you were waiting for us. We’re here for you once again.