Tag: writing

Well, that’s a thing.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks

Man, the Universe can really kick you in the ass, can’t It?

Many moons ago, when I was a much younger Nik, I was having a very bad day.

My life was not going in any direction.

I had just graduated high school, gotten a job which paid $4.20 an hour, lived with my parents (which I did until I got married), had no social life outside the fantasy worlds inside my head, and was absolutely miserable.

I remember it was a Saturday*. I didn’t have any plans other than sitting around in my favorite chair and thinking about how I’d had already lost the race before I’d even gotten my sneakers laced up.

To be honest, I was contemplating suicide. Not my first time. Actually, back then, it was more of a past time.

There was a knock at my door.

It was a friend from high school. Nancy Phillips. She was a red headed firecracker. She was going to college and getting her life rolling. I hadn’t seen her in months.

“Hey, so I had the weirdest thing just happen. So, I was at this bookstore and this wooden plaque fell at my feet,” she said, handing me a bag. “I knew it was meant for you. I gotta go. Bye!”

And she was gone. I went back to my chair and opened the bag. It was a wooden plaque with a sailboat on the ocean at sunset. It had a quote from my favorite book at the time, Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach.

It read: YOUR ONLY OBLIGATION IN ANY LIFETIME IS TO BE TRUE TO YOURSELF.**

The little gift really perked me up.

Now, Fast-Forward to NOW.

I’ve been having a lot of Big Thinks lately. I’m on the verge of my 55th year on this planet and, frankly, I think I’m due for some Big Thinks.

I’ve been reconsidering a lot of things. Trimming away some dead branches and finding new tribes.

But the biggest thing that’s been haunting me is whether or not to continue with this crazy dream of being a Writer.

You have to stop and think about whether or not this is really worth it? Why am I doing this? Why am I spending so much time and energy on fluffs of wordy farts?

I’ve got maybe 20 more years in this meatsack.

Do I want to spend it making up shit?

Do I want to leave behind boxes and boxes of manuscripts, notes, newspaper clippings, books, books and MORE books for whatever poor bastard is left to clean out whatever hovel I finally crawl into to die?

Maybe I should let go, leave behind childish things and do something more adult. More responsible. More useful. Because, face it, if I were to roll up to a car accident, the only thing I’d know to do is tap the poor bugger on the shoulder and say, “So, wanna hear this cool idea I have for a screenplay?”

So, should I give in? Give up. Just realize that I don’t have what it takes to make it as a writer. Maybe I did, a long time ago, but I’m old now. I don’t have the strength, the stamina or the goddamn connections,*** to make any of those dreams that Young Nik had so long ago.

It’s a question that has been haunting me because, goddammit, I don’t know what else to do other than make up shit! It’s what I am. It’s encoded in my DNA.

Anyway, much like that Long Ago Nik, I’ve been sitting around, brooding. Maybe not quite so dramatically to include suicide but, I haven’t exactly been a lot of fun to be around.

And then I got a *DING* on my phone.

It’s a message from Nancy.

HOLY CRAP.

Like I said at the beginning of this.

The Universe can really kick you in the ass, can’t it?

*Nancy, if you ever read this, I hope I’m not misremembering this story. And if I am, well, so be it. This is my life, my blog, and I prefer to remember it as such.

**I wish, dear readers, I could show you a picture of this plaque. I still have it. It used to hang next to my desk but, since the move, I have no idea where it is. I spent 30 minutes in the hot box that is my attic, going through boxes, and found nothing. Well, not nothing. I found some cool stuff that I forgot I had and plan on hanging because, ain’t that just the way?

***And, Fortuna Help Me, I don’t have it in me to kiss anyone’s ass enough to make connections.

My Renewal and God Bless Us Everyone!

Nikki Nelson-Hicks

My favorite writing teacher back at Palomar College started off the first day of class by saying, “If you are in this to make money, let me break that illusion for you right here and now. The days of Stephen King payouts are over. If you think you’re going to make anything near a livable wage, well, good luck. But it’s probably not going to happen.”

That class started off with fifty very earnest students.

By the end of that semester, there were just five of us.

Five stubborn sons of bitches who couldn’t take the hint.

That was a long time ago. An ocean of decades separates that naive girl from me. Sometimes i wish I could go back in time and thank that teacher, David Cowper, for his harsh but real truth.

Check this out. This year, I made $28.00 from my Patreon (THANK YOU! I do appreciate all of you lovely beautiful people). I cleared nearly $24 from Amazon. And just last week, I received a royalty check for $7.08 for three stories. That figures out to be (insert calculator noises) $2.36 per story.

On the other side of the ledger, I have spent $675.00 on layouts and artwork. I have spent $100 on editing ( a freaking bargain!) and roughly $300 on swag, books and festival fees.

Yeah. Mr. Cowper was right: If you are in this for a buck, good fucking luck.

HOWEVER, I don’t want to end 2019 on a downer. I want to spread a quick piece of wisdom that injected needed oxygen on my dwindling fire.

A few weeks ago, my friend, M, and I were sitting in the Author’s Circle tent at the Dickens of a Christmas festival in Franklin, TN. The weather was terrible but there was at least a thousand people wandering around the stalls. In spite of that, I couldn’t hook a sale if I’d baited my books with cocaine. My spirits were sagging and M and I started talking about the lack of sales.

“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t come here thinking I’d sell a bunch. I mean, I’ve done okay* but I’m happy to just be here with my book. I have a job that gives me money. This is what I do for fun. I don’t need it to make money.”

I had a flashbulb moment.

And it was then that I realized I had lost my own perspective about the Craft. I was so concerned about the Profits and Loss that I forgot that this was supposed to be fun, goddammit!

I have a day job. THAT pays me money so I can buy food to feed my body. THIS….the writing, creating, doing all the weird, wacky, stupid, useless, fun storytelling…THIS feeds my soul .

I am taking that renewal of purpose into 2020. I’m going to have fun and I’m taking you guys with me.

Buckle up. It’s going to be a spine breaker.

*M published a book, God Bless Us Everyone! It’s an anthology written from the POV of the other characters in the Christmas Carol. I was so happy to get her into our group at the last minute. M came dressed as Charles Dickens and she had this huge, beautiful stage prop of a leather bound Christmas Carol book. She sold quite a few but what was delightful was listening to her talk about her book with such pride and wonder. It never came off as an elevator pitch or a shtick. Just love for something she had created. I learned a lot of from that day.

https://www.amazon.com/God-Bless-Us-Everyone-Christmas/dp/1689022485/ref=sr_1_6?crid=WACOPEWO7TR&keywords=god+bless+us+everyone&qid=1577828113&sprefix=God+bless+us+%2Caps%2C207&sr=8-6

The one about the kid and the cannibal trolls

Nikki Nelson-Hicks

First off, let’s get one thing straight.

I don’t write books for kids. It’s not like I have anything against kids. Frankly, I think they’d like my books although I suspect parents and other adults in a supervisory position might disapprove.

And I tried once to write a children’s story. It’s about a boy who tries to save his mother from Death by stealing the Crown of Feathers* from under her pillow. Unfortunately, it turns her into an undead thing and he has to consult three witches to help sort it all out.

While writing it, I consulting with my daughter who is far more mature than me.

“So….do you think it would be okay if I let the Zombie Mom eat the boy’s dog?”

“No.”

“Okay. How about if she eats the Grandmother?”

“NO!”

So, even when I try to write something for kids**, it all turns out weird.

Which gets me to the point of today’s post.

I was at the annual Dickens of a Christmas festival in Franklin, TN selling books with the Middle Tennessee Author’s Circle*** when this little girl, maybe 9 or 10 years old, comes into the tent and says she likes spooky stories.

Fingers point towards me.

She gravitates instantly to my book, The Problem at Gruff Springs, a Weird Western story.

Her mother tries to push her towards another book. It has a unicorn on the cover. “Look, honey, fairy tales!”

The girl rolls her eyes and picks up my book so I go into my Spiel.

“That story is about Alan Pinkerton who is sent to look for stolen Confederate gold and finds that there are some horrible things in the mountains. Mainly cannibalistic trolls.”

The girl’s eyes widen. “Cannibal trolls! This is the one for me!”

The girl’s mother looked at me with even wider eyes.

“There is no sex or cursing however there is violence and, well, cannibal trolls.”

“This one. I want this one!”

And the mom paid and the kid went home with my book.****

.

*It’s an Appalachian folk tale. Look it up.

**Even though I think kids like weird and morbid stuff.

*** Truth be told, I was TRYING to sell books. Mainly what I did was stand there, feeling like a freak on display. “Oh, look. So, that’s a Writer, in the wild? How odd.”

****And I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to remember if there were any curse words. I did remember there is a scene with the troll queens pendulous breasts swaying about. Jesus. I’m going to hell.

The one where I start rambling and finally pull my head out of my ass.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks

My last story was finished on October 1, 2019. It’s called Brother Marvel’s Old Time Revival.

*Shameless plug*

https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Bishop-Presents-Bandit-Territory-ebook/dp/B07ZKX34WV/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Paul+bishop+bandit+territory&qid=1573492285&sr=8-1

And, until today, when I sat down at this cold keyboard, I haven’t written anything since.

It’s not because I don’t have ideas. I have a whiteboard looming over me with a list of projects. Looking up at it, I can hear it whispering, “For chrissakes, just write one sentence, a paragraph, anything! Get those wheels rolling!”

Here’s the rub: There is a part of me that desperately wants to stop. To never write another word, sink into mediocrity and just stay still.

Perhaps it is because I am too content.

I have a job that pays my bills with a very small spillover that allows me to buy books and pay for my Pilates addiction. Thank the Muses I don’t have to live on my royalty checks. The last I received from Kindle wouldn’t pay me a cup of coffee.

I made the rounds at a few book fairs this year and was grateful to make my table money back. However, if you really wanted to be anal about it, if you consider the overhead involved in putting on those shows, I am drowning in the red.

At this moment, my writing career is a classic case of diminished returns.

If there is no monetary incentives, why keep at it? Or, considering the lack of writing I’ve done lately, why do I even worry about jumping back on that horse?

Why am I even wasting my time bitching about it?

Because in the end, it doesn’t matter how much money you made or how many times you were published. In the end, IT DOES NOT MATTER.

What does matter is answering this question truthfully:

ARE YOU HAVING FUN?

If you answered, no then STOP. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Just STOP, get off the horse, dust yourself off and find something else.

Now I don’t have some rose colored perception about the writing life. I don’t expect it to be a mile a minute, raucous adventure zone cavalcade of fun fun times. It’s hard. Soul sucking, frustrating and depressingly hard work with sometimes little to no rewards (see the royalty statement paragraph above). Your work will more than likely never be read, be forgotten or, God forbid, your work will stay unfinished and molder in gut like a tumor.

So, if you’re not having fun. If even on your best days when the story is flowing like lava from your fingertips and the Word Genie is throwing a rave inside your head and you aren’t having fun, then stop.

Stop and find something else. Because, dammit, there’s no reason to clamp your knees around this bucking horse if you can do anything else.

And that’s it, isn’t it? Can you do anything else?

If I were to quit right now, go to school, and become something professional, profitable and respectable, the entire time I would be thinking “How could I turn this into a story?”

It’s how my brain works. I think in metaphor. I search for stories. I look for connections in unlikely things. I think sideways. Like Janus, I see both sides of the door.

I guess, maybe, I’m a little nuts. Perhaps, too organized a thinker to be diagnosed as schizophrenic but, in a way, I think all creatives are a little cuckoo for coco puffs.

Maybe that’s why I’ll keep on writing.

Not for money. Not for some kind of fickle fame. I’ll do it because it’s what I am, what I do and how I keep sane.

So, with that in mind, let me give my apologies. In a few years when my corpse is laid out on the cooling board in the morgue, I apologize to the poor soul who somehow ends up with my boxes of unfinished manuscripts, unpublished dreams, indecipherable journals and files named ‘future story fodder’.

I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. It’s just how I was made.

But, until that, hopefully, far away day, you’ll need to excuse me. I’ve got some new stories to tell.

I need to rent an urchin.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks

Today, I was at Barnes and Noble perusing the magazines when a wide eyed little girl straight out of central casting, blonde pigtails and maryjanes, , came up to me.

“Excuse me,” she said, her lower lip quivering ever so slightly. “Do you like to, um…do you like to read books to your kids?”

She then held up a very slim book. Her blue eyes peeked over the top. “My daddy wrote this. Would you like to buy it?”

I looked around for cameras. “What?”

“He’s right over there. With my grandpa. Come with me. I’ll show you!”

She took my hand and pulled me towards two men sitting behind a sad card table. You know the kind. A tower of books and a writer looking completely out of place.

I looked at the man and shook my head. “You sly dog. Using your kid as bait to sell your books.”

He laughed. “Hey, it was her idea.”

The little girl laughed and dropped the urchin facade. “I told him it would work!” and then she skipped away to find more customers.

Respect, kid. You got skills.

And I really need to get an urchin.