| Friend,
Holy wow, what a crazy year 2020 has been. Hard to believe that just eleven(ty-bazillion) months ago I was in the middle selling off my belongings—and the house!—doing a book launch for Liars’ Legacy, and delivering on the Serial Box deadline for Marvel’s Black Widow: Bad Blood. And then March hit and the world collectively reenacted every worst disaster movie trope and toilet paper became a collector’s item and time itself turned into its own kind of TARDIS.
I hope you’ve been holding on and getting through okay in spite of the challenges.
It’s been a while since I’ve done a proper update. I apologize. It’s not that there’s been nothing happening, I’m just really bad at updates, and I also forget that not everyone listens to the weekly podcast episodes which is where all the small, stupid, funny things that are hard to convey in writing end up—garden stories, goose stories, chicken stories, me and my dumb mistakes stories, me sticking my foot in my big mouth—the stuff that’s real and human and, you know, life. So if you ever get to feeling like you wish there was more, it does exist, it just happens to be a skip, hop, and a click over yonder at The Taylor Stevens Show. There’s also the Taylor Stevens Fan Club (Author, not the Web Star) group on Facebook which is about the only place I post or interact on social media anymore. Anyway, there are a few things going on that I’m really excited about.
THE VESSEL AS A HARDBACK BOOK: When THE VESSEL (a Munroe novella) was published in 2014 it was only released in eBook and digital audio. Those limited formats were the publisher’s decision, not mine, but I did understand their decision. There’s just not much of a market demand for novellas so a print run didn’t make financial sense. I was okay with that because, unlike the novels for which the publisher bought full print rights (meaning they don’t belong to me anymore), they had THE VESSEL on a limited exclusive license, and once that license expired, I could do whatever I wanted with it.
So the idea of turning THE VESSEL into a real life hold-in-your-hands physical book that only the cool kids could get has been kicking around for a while. It’s just, you know, there’s always been something higher priority demanding limited time, mental bandwidth, and resources.
But, because of the generous support of those who’ve followed me to Patreon, and with enormous thanks to the incredible kindness (and patience) of a friend and fan who offered to take on the most time- and mental bandwidth-consuming aspects of getting it done, we for real (OMG!) have just taken THE VESSEL from hold-in-your-hands idea into hardcover reality.
I have received the first copies and they are beautiful.
Do you want one (or more)?
If yes, here’s the very most importantist part. Seriously. Don’t skip this. The hardback edition is an exclusive, created specially for fans and readers. You won’t find it in any book catalogues, or on any retail platform, and can’t order it from a book store. The only way to get a copy, unless someone chooses to rehome one of their own, is directly from me. If you would like to receive details on how to order a copy, please reply to this email with THE VESSEL in the subject line or in the opening line of the email text. And then please be very, very patient with me because this is all new and I’m still figuring some of this stuff out.
I also want to offer a sincere apology to my library readers and the many librarians who’ve been so good to me and my work throughout the years. The same exclusivity that’s keeping this edition out of book stores and online channels is, unfortunately, also keeping it out of libraries. Please know this was not a deliberate slight. If I could have figured out a way to a way to make the hardback available to you through normal channels while keeping it invisible everywhere else I would have done it. That said, if your library is open to ordering outside the book catalogues and can handle an SKU instead of an ISBN, let me know and we’ll figure out a way to get you what you need.
THE HACK THE CRAFT PROGRAM: For years I've been talking about building out an online writing course based off my own tricks and hacks for anyone looking to shortcut their way to cleaner, stronger writing.
A huge portion of the material already exists, it just happens to be spread out within 250+ podcast episodes. I’ve been meaning to go back and listen to each one, mark out specific topics, and cut those into smaller audio clips that could, if nothing else, at least go into a searchable database. But as time went on, and the podcasts kept growing, this task got bigger and bigger to the point where… yeah, I was deluding myself. If getting it done depended entirely on me it was never going to happen. No matter how good my intentions, I was barely keeping up with the bare minimum as it was .
So I posted about it in the Fan Club Group (on Facebook) and asked if anyone might be willing to manage a project like this, and if anyone else might be willing to volunteer their ears and their time to go back through the episodes. It was a hard thing to ask. Time is so valuable and asking people to give that up without much to offer in return is a lot. But…what should have been impossible is now moving steadily forward thanks to the amazing volunteers who were willing to contribute themselves to making this happen. Ladies and gents, if you’re reading this, please, please know how much I appreciate and value you!
But oh! If you’re just hearing about this now, you should also know that it’s a small volunteer team and a slow labor of love, so if you yourself happen to have extra time available and the idea of this project appeals to you and you’d like to be involved, please, please let me know because we could really use you!!
THE BOOK CLUB PROJECT: Earlier this year, when I was deepest in the struggle of trying to find words and trying to figure out how to return to and reconnect with Munroe as a character, I decided to read my own books for the first time as a reader. I knew that, if left to my own devices, I’d never actually do it and so I made a public announcement about it and invited anyone who wanted to read along with me to follow my posts.
That didn’t exactly go according to plan. If you’ve read the book club posts, then you know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t, well, they’re an interesting mix of history, reflection, trauma, issues, and oh hey, the books are actually pretty good. Thus far I’ve only managed to get through the first four, (I’ve read THE VESSEL but haven’t put up a post for it yet) and hope to finish the final two in the next few months.
Okay, but what you’re probably really wondering is if I’m still writing fiction and if there’s been any progress on the next Munroe. The first answer is definitely yes and the second is. . . maybe, kinda, a little?
THE WRITING LIFE: Writing is the horse that bucked me. The confluence of events that led to my brain breaking—and my actual brain breaking—kind of ripped confidence in my ability to ride right out from underneath me. And THE FULCRUM (Munroe #6) especially has gotten into my head. So returning to writing by working on THE FULCRUM is the equivalent of not just getting back up on a horse but getting back up on the meanest, buckingest, want-to-throw-you-off horse around.
How to explain? THE FULCRUM was what I was working on when everything in my publishing world went belly up. And from the time that I started writing it to now I’ve written three-and-a-half other books. Two of those books have been published (the Jack and Jill stories), one couldn’t find a publisher (it’s waiting in a digital drawer for when I have the time to go back to gut it and rewrite it for a third time) and the other is 2/3 finished (waiting for me to finish THE FULCRUM).
I’ve started and then had to stop work on THE FULCRUM so many times and this has been going on for soooo long that being not finished has begun to feel like “this is the way.” After so many years and so many stops and starts, and then restarts, I struggle to envision would it would be like to reach the end. Heck, I struggle to envision what it would be like just to get past where I last left off. And that right there—me not being able to see myself finishing—is a mental block, a belief problem that I must face down and conquer. I know myself well enough to know that the best way to do it is to simply work toward the finish line consistently, relentlessly, end of story (literally and metaphorically).
And if everything else was equal, that would be enough.
But then there’s also the very real issue of this stupid, stupid brain of mine. I have been butt-in- chair—not insane 16-hour-days like before, but easily 8-hour-days—I am here, I am doing the work, but forward progress isn’t even a fraction of what I believe it should be. (And if you’re picking up some frustration here, you don’t even know the half of it.)
But at the same time, I look at where I was a year ago and if I compare that to what it is now, we’ll it’s definitely better, and writing is getting a little easier, and what I mean by “easier” is….ugh. How do I even explain this without writing a whole other novel?
Okay, so this goes back to the podcast discussions we had about how different people’s brains process information differently. If you’ve listened to those, then you don’t even need most of this explanation. But if you haven’t, well, around March of this year or so is when I learned—to my horror!—that there are people (a majority, it seems) who think in words. Like literal words. Like when they’re thinking about something, those thoughts form as real grammatical sentences with a very literal “inner voice.” In the podcast conversation, Steve mentioned that not only does he think in full grammatical sentences but that sometimes if the sentence has a grammatical error, he will go back and self-edit the grammar in his thinking before continuing on. And since then I’ve learned that others of my friends do that, too.
I was ::explosion:: mind blown.
I cannot fathom what this must be like. I can’t imagine the noise. The constant chatter. A literal inner voice?! How do words—much less in grammatical sentences—possibly keep up with the speed of thought. How could words possibly encompass everything?!
By now you’ve probably deduced that I don’t think in words.
I’ve since spent way too much time trying to figure out how I do think, and the best I can come by is that I think in concepts, a whole that grows in every direction at once: images, emotion, and sometimes scattered words or phrases that all come together in flashes of understanding.
So, for example, I would never think, “I forgot to take the meat out of the freezer. What do I do for dinner now?” (I honestly have no idea if that’s how someone who thinks in words would think it, either). For me, that would arrive as an image of the freezer (or the memory of writing a line on my to-do list) with a simultaneous “oh shit” emotion + understanding that I’d forgotten to do the thing followed immediately by a flash of what’s currently in the freezer, flash to pantry shelves, flash to clock (for timing), flash to vegetables in the fridge drawer, flash to “relief” emotion + understanding that everything needed to cook something else is available. And then as quickly as that has come, it’s gone again, replaced by other images, other memories, other thoughts, just a continual sequence of jumping, jumping.
But it’s really nice and quiet :D
Where this all comes into play in regards to actual story writing is that—well, yeah, it can be hard to stay focused when your brain is a constant lightning storm of past, present, and imagined future all mixed up in one—but more than that it means writing is a process of creating words for something for which no words currently exist.
When I write, I know what I want to express, but it exists as emotion, images, and understanding as a whole. To put it into words I have to first pull apart the whole, understand the separate interconnected pieces well enough to find them, figure out their logical linear or chronological order, and then find words that will somehow approximate the emotion + understanding of the whole.
That thought-to-word conversion process is a chokepoint.
If my brain is having a bad day, the capacity for turning thought into words begins to shut down and it really doesn’t matter how well I understand something or how much I know what I’m trying to say feels like, I’m still shut off from being able to articulate it. And this isn’t just with writing, though writing is where it’s worst. Emotionally charged conversations have, at times, so overwhelmed the emotion + understanding circuits that I literally could not speak.
Right now is kind of a good example. The thought-to-word conversion has been sputtering and hiccupping pretty badly trying to explain all this. I’ve gotten the words to where they seem coherent enough but there are pieces missing for understanding and whole. I haven’t been able to find them. I also can’t find any words to approximate the emotional component that should accompany them. Without a mechanism to convert what exists in awareness onto the page frustration begins to simmer—a claustrophobic squeeze in my chest—a sense of being trapped by my own mind, of self as a prisoner confined to only what space it is able to articulate.
Here it’s fine. For something like this I can let it go and move on. But when writing fiction it becomes a massive block because without all the pieces, without the intertwined connections in the right order, without the whole, the story and the characters can never be alive and real and what they should be and I get trapped in the chasm between what exists in awareness and what exists in words.
So when I say I think writing is getting easier that doesn’t mean it’s getting easy, just that a year ago my brain was so shut down I couldn’t even distinguish thoughts as thought, everything just was, everywhere all at once, and now I have days in a row where my mind is clear and understanding is right there and I have the capacity to pull it apart to find the pieces and find the words, and just being able to do that again at all feels pretty amazing.
I’ve been focusing fully on Munroe#6 and starting to see progress in ways that would have been impossible even six months ago, but I haven’t yet reached a point where I feel like I’ve got this. And I’m not quiiiiiiite sure how much of that is part of the normal process (because even when I’m at the top of my game there’s still always a long stretch where it feels that way) and how much is pragmatic acknowledgement of still not firing on all cylinders and how much is just being afraid to get on that horse and ride.
Regardless, I keep writing, and on we go!
GOODIE GIVEAWAY: This month there are six books in the giveaway pile. If you’d like to be entered to win, simply respond to this email with the subject “GOODIE GIVEAWAY.” If your email program likes to be difficult and won’t let you change the subject, just put GOODIE GIVEAWAY in the reply and I will make sure it gets to the right place.
The 6th, 15th, 27th, 34th, 52nd, 65th, and 73rd readers to respond will be prize winners this month. I read every single email that comes in but due to the volume, I’m ONLY able to respond to the 6th, 15th, 27th, 34th, 52nd, 65th, and 73rd respondents. If you email and don’t hear back, it’s not because I’m ignoring you, it’s because due to time and volume, I just can’t.
[Standard buzzkill disclaimer for all giveaways and offers of free books: Void where prohibited or restricted by law. Limited to U.S. addresses. I am not responsible for lost or misrouted emails, interrupted or unavailable network or server connections, other computer or technical failures, or post office mishandling.]
I’m not sure how long it will be before I get around to sending another NEWSIE, but if you don’t get updates here for a while and you start to miss me or get to wondering if I’m still alive, you know where to look. :) And here’s to wishing for calm, quiet, boring, routine-filled days in 2021.
Love and hugs,
Taylor
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