You’re having a shitty writing day.

It happens.

I get a crap writing day at least once a week. Maybe twice. Once in a while, I get a whole bad run of writing days, like I’ve got some kind of creative food poisoning and every day is just the urgent regurgitation of narrative fluids without aim or purpose. It’ll be five heinous days in the word mines, where I’m sweating and raging and kicking dirt.

To repeat: it happens.

Problem is, these days, these fucking days, boy howdy — they can derail your train, can’t they? Knock you right off the track.

But it’s okay.

I’m here to help you get through them.

But first you have to get in the van.

*gestures to van*

*waits*

*waits some more*

Okay, you know what, looking at the van now, I maybe see what I did wrong. Maybe we don’t get in the van. Maybe we just stand outside the van. It’s cool. We can talk here, where you can easily run screaming for help.

The first thing you need to know is that:

Bad writing days — or, if you’re an artist, bad art-making days — are normal.

They are part of it. They are woven into the fabric of what we do.

In fact, writing is supposed to be hard. Easy things are boring things. Easy is like, putting on lip balm, or making a pot of $0.19 grocery store ramen. Those are not bad things, but they are not particularly consequential things, either. Nobody changed the world by putting on lip balm. (Cue 52 comments where people tell me that Winston Churchill and Roosevelt bonded over lip balm.) Writing a story or making art is not putting on lip balm. It’s not raking leaves, even if the mechanics feel that way sometimes.

Stories are bigger, stranger, sprawlier things.

Consider: the act of telling a story is you CONJURING AN ENTIRE UNIVERSE INSIDE YOUR MIND and then using words as knives to CARVE THAT UNIVERSE INTO REALITY SO THAT OTHERS CAN VISIT YOUR IMAGINATION. “Today I am going to make a world out of my brain that you can go to in your spare time,” you say aloud, hopefully realizing that this is far more significant and far more bizarre than tying your shoes or blowing your nose. Creating whole worlds is pyroclastic. It is volcanic. It’s heat and fire, it’s molten rock, it’s lightning inside black smoke amid the nose and clamor of thundering earth and boiling air. It is an astonishing, generative act.

And it’s sometimes hard.

Sometimes what we do is stage magic. Sometimes the magic is sacrificial.

Stage magic requires hours of practice where you get it wrong.

Sacrificial magic requires blood on the altar.

In both cases, the magic — be it trick or spell — is hard as hell.

As it should be. As it must be.

We sometimes get the false sense as creatives that, if this thing we do does not come naturally, then it is not worth doing — or worse, that we are somehow not meant to do it at all. I watch this with my son sometimes, where he wants to try something new and because he is not immediately successful he rules himself “terrible” at it and wants to stop. Thing is, he is terrible at it. Of course he’s terrible at it. What, he’s going to sit down on his first try at painting and summon a Mondrian Mona Lisa? No. He’s going to paint something that looks like a clown ate a unicorn and then threw it all up again. (Spoiler warning: sometimes I go to write a first draft and yeah, no, it looks like a clown ate a unicorn and then threw it all up again. This is how it goes. It’s part of the process, man.) This isn’t automatic. It’s not automagic. It takes time and effort and grit and sweat and confusion and probably hallucinogenic drugs and definitely an ingrained sense of free-wheeling foolishness.

It being hard is not a sign of it being not worth doing.

The difficulty is the point. The difficulty proves its worth.

The difficulty is not a sign that you don’t belong here.

Impostor Syndrome is real. Flip the script on it. Don’t let it have power over you. Admit you’re an impostor. Then admit that we’re all impostors — none of us belong here because art and story are forbidden, interstitial places. This thing we do is Buccaneer’s Den, it’s Mos Eisley, it’s a secret moon colony. Not a one of us “belongs” here. We all booked illegal passage through blackest night and sharky waters to get here. We’re not one ship, we’re countless life-boats strung together — a glorious flotilla of freaks.

This is who we are. It’s what we do. And what we do is sometimes hard. It’s hard for me. It’s hard for you. It’s hard for Stephen King. It’s hard for J.K. Rowling. King probably thinks that Rowling does it effortlessly, and Rowling probably thinks King sails through every draft, and the truth is, it’s hard for them, for you, for me, for every penmonkey that ever done monkeyed with a pen.

When a story reads effortlessly, it was not written effortlessly. In fact, the more effortlessly it reads, the more effort probably went into making it read effortlessly.

It took work.

Lots and lots of unholy, occasionally unhappy, hard-ass work.

Because, repeat after me: IT’S HARD.

Now, to clarify: it’s not hard in the way other work is hard. It’s not back-breaking work. Nobody’s shooting at us. We’re not training chimpanzees or wrangling eight-year-olds or wrestling bears. It’s easy, in that way. But it’s also hard in its own way, and let it be that way. If we diminish what we do, if we make it seem that the act of MAKING COOL STUFF is somehow cheap and glib and fucking throwaway, it undercuts our power. It sells short the necessary nature of art and story in the world. It makes what you do feel lesser when what you do is epic. Story moves the world. Art changes people. Entertainment gives us respite. Narrative gives us enlightenment.

It all moves the needle.

When you’re having a bad writing day, a hard writing day, remember that.

And remember too that when you sit down a week from now, or a month, or a year, the days the writing was hard and the days the writing was easy will be indistinguishable from one another. In fact, sometimes the easy days produce worse work than the difficult days. You never know. So don’t let it stop you. Put the bucket over your head and run at the wall anyway. And remember that all of this is just a draft, that it can all be fixed and changed, that what doesn’t work can be made to work. It can always be made to work with enough practice, with enough blood.

You’re having a hard day of writing, write anyway.

Do it because it’s hard.

Forgive yourself because it’s hard.

Don’t let one bad day be the gravestone for the rest of the days.

Then stop. Push a little, but don’t push so hard you drop your brain out of your ass. Go and take a walk, play with the dog, eat a churro, crank one out. Then get back to it tomorrow. Maybe it’ll be hard tomorrow. Maybe it’ll be harder tomorrow. I don’t know. Nobody knows. But the difficulty is the point. You’re ripping things out of you and putting them onto the page. Nobody said it was going to be easy. Nobody said it should be easy.

Let it be what it must be.

Look.

Looooook.

GAZE UPON THE ANTLERS AND DESPAIR.

Okay, no, wait, shit, don’t despair.

That’s just the cover of my brand spanking new writing book, even though it’s not really a writing book but rather, a book about storytelling, about how we tell stories, why we tell them, and how we can use all the fiddly bits of narrative to make them more impactful.

It also contains a deer on the cover.

And various personal anecdotes like the one about the masturbating elk.

The book is out October 18th of this year.

And why yes, my deer, you can pre-order it:

Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

And yes, I do believe I’ll be doing a brief li’l book tour in support — I will in fact be joining word maestro Kevin Hearne on his book tour for the really-fucking-awesome Plague of Giants and story-maven Fran Wilde (of the Bone Universe series) in San Francisco (Borderlands, Oct 17th), Portland (Powells in Beaverton, Oct 18th) and Seattle (University Bookstore, October 19th).

Though you may be saying hey that’s too far away, I wanna see you guys sooner, then DEER READER, I’ll note that you can come see us this motherfucking Friday (the 14th) if you’re anywhere near Philadelphia (event details here).

So, do all of that.

Go buy all the books.

Come see all the authors.

Flail and gibber and wail.

Also yeah no, I know that’s not a macro photo, but pretend it’s a really tiny deer.

(Sidenote: I’ve been having some problems with the blog again — I think they’re solved now, was based on a wonky .htaccess file. Apologies for any downtime or unapproved comments!)

Last night, I had a dream — no, no, not the one with Mrs. Butterscotch and the strap-on dildo covered in spray cheese. This one was a dream in which a phrase figured prominently:

There is no exit.

I don’t know why.

I don’t know what it means.

It probably doesn’t mean anything, because dreams are just your brain’s way of pooping.

Anyway.

I thought it would make a very good flash fiction challenge.

So, incorporate that phrase —

“There is no exit”

— into the story. Either as a title, a line of dialogue, a theme, whatever.

Go forth and tell the story.

Length: ~1000 words

Due by: July 14th, Friday, noon, EST

Post at your online space, then give us a link so we can read it.

Last week, I said, gimme some five-word-titles.

This week, I picked ten at random.

They are:

Dark Lords of Shining Sun

Paper Cuts Make Good Bait

You Don’t Steal My Shit

Once There Was Far Music

I Shouldn’t Have Swiped Right

Ghosts of the Sea Queen

Someone’s Dragon Is Double-Parked Outside

The House No One Built

Dear Robbie Benson, Save Me

Time For Tea And Treachery

Your job:

Pick one or nab one at random.

Then write a story using it.

Length: ~1500 words

Due by: Friday, July 7th, noon EST

Post at your online space. Link back here.

Pick and write.

Emmie Mears is the badass author of the Ayala Storme series. Please behold their guest post, which they wrote to let you know — you are not alone.

* * *

You need to get out of bed.

Roll for initiative.

For some reason, you’re stuck in the perma-one.

But let’s look at this from a different angle.

***

You’re probably not like Ayala Storme. You likely don’t have bright orange hair or violet eyes that clash with it. If you do have those eyes, it’s probably not because you were born a Mediator—you’re just a super rare earthling.

You’re probably a norm. A Muggle, as it were. Stuck on this rock with all seven billion of the rest of us.

But you might have something in common with Ayala anyway.

***

You don’t know exactly how it picks you. Sure, maybe it’s in your genes. Science is pretty certain of that. But why you? Why your consciousness, your soul, your essential Platonic you-ness?

Just like Ayala’s eyes, you get it when you’re born. It might not wake up for a long time. You might go years or even decades before you see your first demon.

***

When Ayala is seconds old, the doctor scoops the mucous from her mouth and waits for her to yell. Clips the cord.

At that point it’s already done.

She gets taken away from her mother and brought to a place where everyone will come face to face with demons. As soon as she can lift a stick, they teach her how to fight with a sword.

Is that how it felt for you?

That’s how it felt for me. I learned early that there were demons out there. They invaded my home, sunk their claws in my family. They lurked in my room, stalked my sister and me both until we felt we’d never be rid of their slime. They don’t make a detergent strong enough for that.

Maybe for you it was different. Maybe you were older when you saw your first one. It could have been any number of things or none. When they linger long enough in your periphery, you start fighting just to exist, even if they don’t go directly for your throat.

***

Ayala kills her first demon when her age is still in the single digits. It’s a little, stubby thing. It makes her feel strong and scared and serious…for a while.

You understand that, don’t you?

The first one you kill feels like a triumph until the second one rears its head.

The second one is always bigger, always quicker. Any arrogance you let soak into your skin scrubs away when it appears.

You’ll probably beat that one, too. And the next one, and the next one.

You’ll learn that there are lots of different kinds. Some spit at you with corrosive venom. Others shoot you full of quills. Some just have claws and teeth, and those are bad enough. Some jump up and land on your back, heavy, pendulous.

You start to notice that some kinds scare you more than the others.

Ayala understands that. She learns early on that behind every demon is another one, waiting.

***

How do you fight when that is the truth? How does she keep picking up her sword, first as a terrified kid, later as a gawky adolescent, finally as a resigned adult?

How do you?

Ayala knows in every molecule of her being that her world is ever only inches away from sliding right into hell. Not even sliding. Becoming hell.

Even though she knows there are thousands of people just like her out there, picking up their swords day after day to stab the same slime over and over—even though she knows that, she believes she’s in this alone.

It’s easy to think that. So easy to feel it, and when you feel it, it feels true.

It feels true because we see people we love lose their lives to the demons. Sometimes people we see every day. Sometimes people we know through their art.

It feels true because of the endless scroll of social media. How could we feel anything but small in the face of a fragile world so often led by fear?

Ayala see that too.

But believing that we fight alone doesn’t make it true.

***

Ayala’s not the only person who sees demons and fights them. In her world, plenty of people don’t see what she sees.

The same happens here.

Telling Ayala to just buck up and look at the good in her life? She’ll laugh in your face. Telling her not to worry? She knows damn well the danger is real.

You know that too. It’s just harder when the demons you fight only show their faces to a relative few.

There’s no secret to surviving this fight. It gets harder every time we lose another one of the good folks. When you’re knee deep in the shit, it makes you sink a little bit more.

The best weapon we have, though, is one another.

I know, I know. Ayala’d say that’s cheesy too.

Here’s the thing: Ayala’s world needs her. Just like this one needs you.

Those demons you’re fighting? You’re not fighting them alone. They only come out in the dark, and they do it so we can’t see the soldiers around us. It’s their single best tactic, isolating you from your comrades.

Fuck that.

Fuck that right to all six and a half hells.

I’ve fallen on some black days these past few years, deeper still the past few months. One look at my social media feeds tells me I’m far from being the only one, but still so many times, I don’t know how to reach out a hand.

So I’m asking you: do you know that we’re here?

For anyone fighting demons, that’s one of the biggest lessons to learn. It’s not a one time deal, either. We learn it once, we forget, we learn it again. Sometimes with some bruises to show for it.

You don’t get to choose your genes, your brain chemistry, which traumas hit you and when. You don’t get to choose those things. Ayala doesn’t get that choice either.

If we can’t see the others fighting their own battles around us, what we can choose is to raise our voices. Let them hear us scream defiantly into the faces of our demons.

A couple weeks ago, I had a night where I wasn’t sure I’d see the morning.

I shared this on Instagram:

Depression is a motherfucker. I’m trying to be open about it because if you’re fighting the same monster I am, you deserve to know you have comrades in this. When you’re in the shit and depression blurs your vision and you’re up all night trying to hang on against the claws dug deep in your heart and mind, it’s hard to remember that mere inches away in this battle there are others. Depression isolates. It lies.

This is my face. I fought all night, and hands of friends held me up, and when dawn came, they cradled me.

You might think you have no one to do that for you. It’s not true. I may be fighting my own battle, but you can reach out your hand and we can fight together.

Ayala’s story is complete, but it’s not over. When I wrote these four books, I didn’t consciously realize I was writing a big metaphor for depression, several hundred thousand words long.

She’s never alone in her fight.

Neither are you.

***

Ayala Storme’s series is complete at four books, countless butts, a lot of really cute bunnies, and heaps of hellkin—she’s also queer. She’ll fight you if that’s a problem. In her world, they’ve got bigger frahlig demons to fry.

All four books are now available at your choice of snazzy retailer. If you want a chance to win this entire series in paperback (signed!), audio, or ebook, enter here. (terms and conditions on page).

* * *

Emmie Mears is also M Evan Matyas. You can call them Evan or Emmie—they’ll answer to either. Their pronouns are they/them. Evan is about to puddle hop over to Scotland with their partner and two cats. If you want to catch an exclusive Stormeworld short story, check out their Patreon [patreon.com/emmiemears]. There’s a whole world of exclusive content over there that you can get your paws on for a dollar a month. It helps Evan keep writing and fighting.

Everything is dumb right now.

From nose to tail, we have become the dumbest, saddest pig at the county fair. Historians will not refer to this period as THE DARK AGES, but rather, THE DUMB AGES. The greatest question I get, right now, is how to simply persist creating art and staying motivated and creative in this epoch of syphilitic dipshittery, so I thought I’d bop in here and try my hand at answering that.

1. Stop staring at the news and at social media. This is hard, because presently the news is a series of constantly crashing cars right outside your window. One after the next, bang, smash, crash. The symphony of shrieking metal is very, very hard to turn away from. In many eras, the news is only marginally relevant to you on a day to day basis but, to me it seems that ratio is going up, up, up. The healthcare debacle alone affects me, um, rather significantly. If I don’t have access to healthcare via health insurance, then this thing that I do gets a whole lot harder. Just the same, I gotta know to turn away from it. The news is a vampire. It’ll bleed you dry and leave you a desiccated husk on the carpet. You can look at it, but pick your times. Write or make art first, then go and stare into the unswerving gaze of Sauron himself.

2. Writing is an act of resistance. Art is an act of resistance. Shit, just living your life in the maelstrom is resistance. Here’s how you know when something is a act of resistance: would the Shitty People, the Petty Men with Axes, want you to do it? No? Then do it. They want you showing your belly. They want you to stop contributing your ideas. They want you to shut the fuck up. So, don’t. Don’t get sad. Get mad. Get fucking pissed. And then —

3. Put that piss and vinegar into the work. Pour it right in. Glug, glug, splish-splash.

4. Do some real resistance, too. Make your calls. Join a protest. Contribute some cash to an organization who will carry the fight in ways you cannot. Key point: do this after you’re done doing the thing you need to do. You know how the airlines tell you to put on your own mask first? Put on your own mask first. Make the words. Art the art. Eat that cheese. Pluck that banjo. Then when you are done for the day, get down to the acts of resistance major and minor.

5. Hey, also, just take care of yourself. These are dumb times and dumb times often call for tireless marathons of beer and donuts and naps — and definitely do those things from time to time! — but also, like, eat some fucking vegetables, get some exercise, get some rest. Trust me, I get it, pretty much every day I hit a period where I’m like, “The best thing I can do right now would be to drink whiskey until I stop recognizing the world,” but I don’t, because I have to stay sharp. I have to stay sharp to make stuff and to be ready for whatever this era of epic stupid is going to throw at me. Take care of your shit.

6. Don’t dismiss what you do. If you’re making the words dance or you’re snapping photos or drawing pictures, and you worry that what you’re doing is somehow shallow or insignificant, fuck that right in the banana-pipe. Even at the barebones level, entertainment has value. In times far worse than these, people needed to be entertained — not in a bread and circuses way, but in a way where, if you wanna regain some sanity and light in the middle of deep fuckery, then you need something fun. If you’re writing to entertain, I salute you. No shame in that. You’re awesome. Keep doing it.

7. But also don’t be afraid to go bigger. If your mode is to use the work to carry a greater message or elevate your ideas or to even just contextualize the bees and murder that are currently living in your heart, hey, do that. Do whatever you gotta. Just make stuff. It feels good. And we need you to do it.

8. Art has meaning. Obama talked about the books that made him who he was. Most world leaders are readers. There are reasons that a book like Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is so popular right now — art leaves its mark, indelible and essential, and it helps us both understand what has come before, what will come again, and what’s happening right now. It gives context and inspiration. It challenges and us and can unfuck our heads — even as it sometimes fucks with our heads in equal measure.

9. Talk to others like you. Sometimes you just have to be with your people. Either to commiserate about current global shenanigans or, better yet, just to talk shop. Talking shop energizes me. The news enervates me. Find your people. And together, you find your way.

10. Remain cautiously, grimly optimistic. Optimism is hard. So fucking hard. Optimism is in itself an act of resistance. But optimism, as long as it’s not blind and naive, has value — and can inspires others to be the same. I’m not saying to simply assume that everything will be magically fine. But optimism paired with a bit of realism and a lot of effort can actually do a world of good. The world has gone wonky in the last year, but we still live in a far better time than most other times throughout history. We still have dogs and otters. We still have shitloads of ice cream. We still have options and a way out of the storm. We have art, too — ours, and others. Train your brain to look for good stuff. And even better, train your brain to look for ways to make things better — in small ways, in big ways. And then, most importantly, train your brain to make art. Think about words. Think in images. Distract yourself with your work. Be hopeful, if not about the world, then about what you can contribute to it. Make cool shit. The end.

How do you stay motivated in this cauldron of shit-soup we call a world?

(Also, thanks to everyone who came by and commented yesterday. Rest assured, the blog ain’t going anywhere, and shall remain at normal operations, probably until I die of beer and donuts.)