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Dreamscape, IN: Episode 4, Anywhere Else

Read the Prologue: here Wordcount: 384 Part: 5/ongoing

Anywhere Else

The soft flicker of my vanilla cinnamon pumpkin candle, the steady background of lo-fi music, and the continuous ticking of my little pomodoro timer should have been enough to keep my head in my books all evening. But maybe it was a bit much with my fluffy fleece blanket and Tigerlilly purring on my lap. Such a perfect setup to study. It must be my brain that has the problem.

Civil rights in the 60’s. Not the coziest subject, but definitely something that should hold my interest. I shuffled my little stack of index cards. Names, dates, events I was collecting. Each card would serve as a memory in the pastel fog of my mind. I would need paper to keep them for me tonight. Tomorrow I could refer to them and know I had actually been here.

I began reading a passage aloud to Tigerlily. She blinked up at me with her mystical eyes. She seemed a little board and eventually became a tiny loaf and fell asleep. My voice trailed off and I sighed, glancing at the timer. Thirteen minutes left in this session. I had to keep going.

Outside, the clouds were breaking up and beginning to glow softly. How big were those distant thunderheads? How far away? Were they over another city or just over the lake a few miles out of town? I was a poor judge of distance. Especially in the sky.  

“If you could leave Dreamscape, where would you go?” Mom had asked me yesterday evening. I hadn’t been talking about leaving Dreamscape. Funny how it keeps coming up.

“Isn’t the whole world a lot like Dreamscape?” I asked. And that was why I couldn’t leave. It wasn’t because the whole world was so much like Dreamscape. In truth, Dreamscape was much like the whole world. Everywhere else was just another view of the same sky. Why did it matter what changed on the ground?

“Someday, you might want to go somewhere else,” she said.

“But Dreamscape is okay.”

“Dreamscape isn’t real.”

“Would you and Dad come with me, if I ever left?”

“Of course, we would.”

The timer was going off. I shook myself. Where had I been? Asleep? I had been thinking about a conversation I had recently had with Mom…or was that a dream?

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Echoland Part 9(Finale!): The Echo

Link to part one: here Wordcount: 843 Part: 9/9

Synopsis: The finale!

The storm was dead. It had dissolved long ago, though I couldn’t say when. The voices of the bells had returned. Or was that really what the sound was? I had forgotten how the bells actually sounded. I had forgotten a lot of things. From a distance, I observed that my mind was falling apart. It had started when I got here. Piece by piece my mental faculties drifted away into the expanse. I didn’t know how far I was from where I started, or when I started. I’d forgotten where I was, and how long I had been there.

  But this hardly bothered me, because now, all I knew for certain was I was searching for something and I couldn’t remember what.

  And then there was nothing but the glass prairie, and the marbled black sky, and the music. It would have been a terrifying moment…if I had been there.

  An enormous blast of light and heat surged through me. I knew this feeling. My body threw itself and the light went out. I couldn’t breathe. I was lying under shallow water, but I couldn’t remember how to move. My face burst above the surface and my head whipped from side to side. Thunder exclaimed through the atmosphere and lightning beat at the foggy rain. I was in the bell grove again. How had I gotten there?

  I staggered to my feet and squinted through the rain. Had I really been struck by lightning? Apparently I was alright, which didn’t seem likely. I mopped my hair out of my eyes and took in a breath. Tormaigh was there, loitering between two shorter bell-trees. He didn’t act like he knew I was there.

  For a minute, I watched him weaving around the trees. Suddenly, he sprung into a low branch and reached out to a pair of young bells. He barely touched the before they started to ring through the storm. There was a pause, and then I strode to his tree. “I found out something,” I called up to him.

  For a few seconds he sat there with his eyes closed listening to the bells. He opened them–pools of silky darkness–and slowly looked down at me. Then he jumped out of the tree, hood falling back on his shoulders. The feathered ear-crests flicked up from the fluttering mass of mane-feathers. “What did you find out?”

  For a second, I couldn’t talk. Then the questions came. “What do you mean only the thunderbird could do it? Why did you make me go after it when you were right there? What’s the cloak for? Why did you pretend you couldn’t talk?”

  “You understand now. I knew you would.”

  He smiled and the fangs showed. For some time, we stood there in the stormy bell grove. I had no idea what he thought I understood. He didn’t answer any questions. He didn’t say anything more. Lightning flashed and I felt a huge wing sweep over me. I breathed in a gasp of bright electricity, stumbled, and fell backward on the cold wet grass. I blinked in the clear light of early morning.

  I got to my feet and wiped my grassy palms on my thighs. My clothes were dry and the fog was gone. So was the hum of the bells, or the storm, or the music, whatever it was. “Well, huh,” I said.

  I don’t see Tormaigh anymore. Whoever or whatever he was, seems to be more or less confined to Echoland. I still don’t think I had been there before that morning. I don’t remember it. Why wouldn’t I remember if I had? You don’t just have these kinds of experiences and forget all about them once they’re over. At least I haven’t forgotten this last time, not yet.

  I do see the thunderbird sometimes. He’s quiet when he comes here. No thunderbolt-hurling and tearing up the sky. Usually he’s just sitting in some treetop, pretending not to watch me. I think he’s just making sure I don’t forget him.

  Last Friday I was driving back from the studio—driving, because it looked like rain. It was around six at night, and getting quite dark for the time of year. When I turned east, I could see why. A rolling mountain of storm clouds was moving in over the dark green fields and shadowy woodland. Lightning flickered in the haze of distant rain and I could hear the melodious rumble of approaching thunder.

  When I got home, I stepped out of the car and slung the strap of my gym bag over my shoulder, staring up at the storm engulfing the sky. I half expected to see the bird flying in the middle of it, and I don’t think it was my imagination when I heard him singing—not really.

  I smiled and started toward the house. But my first step faltered, and I wasn’t sure the ground was solid. I’ll be alright, I know I will. It’s just that I thought, for a minute, that I was back in Echoland.

THE END

Author’s Note: Thanks so much to everyone who read Echoland all the way to the end. This is the first serialized short story I have ever released on this blog–the first of many to come!

If you ever feel like sending me a couple of dollars for encouragement, my Ko-fi link is at the bottom of ever fiction post. You have no idea how inspiring your support is to me!

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Echoland Part 8: Alone Again

Link to part one: here Wordcount: 1,024 Part: 8/9

Synopsis: The thunderbird takes off again, leaving Jasmine alone, exhausted, and hopeless.

I didn’t feel the fatigue when it set in. I didn’t feel it for hours. I didn’t realize that the storm around us was a slow-turning carousel of stifling wind and blinding rain. None of it was real to me. There was only the dance in its impossible logic and grace. I don’t know how long it would have gone on, if he hadn’t flown away.

  The sky burst, and glass shards spun across the ground. Light devastated everything and shocked my mind into darkness. I don’t remember falling. I don’t remember hitting the ground. When I opened my eyes the storm was dead, the bird was gone, and the music had been jarred from my memory.

  Stunned, I pushed my limp body upright with the heels of my hands. Pain sparked down my back and through my arms. I felt like I had been beaten with a crowbar. My muscles could hardly contract. Blackness swarmed over my vision once I was on my feet again and I couldn’t breathe for a second. I could almost swear my heart had stopped.

  My mind returned like a bolt of thunder. My vision flew to the empty sky, the empty land, the melted craters all around me. What had I done wrong? Why had he flown away?

  “Tormaigh!” I hardly had the breath to yell, but I channeled all the miserable remains of my energy through my voice. “Tormaigh, I did it. I did everything you said. You told me to talk to him. You told me to find the bells. You told me to dance with him. He’s gone.”

  The air rang silent around me. Even the hum of the bells and the wind was gone. There was nothing but miles of glass prairie and black sky. The grove of bell trees had disappeared. My eyes widened against the darkness. “Tormaigh?” Nothing. “Tormaigh?”

  No. He wasn’t going to appear this time. He had no answer. I started to walk. Every step sent waves of searing pain through my muscles. There was nowhere to go, but I didn’t stop. There was always the horizon.

  It wasn’t much later that I collapsed. I couldn’t walk anymore. My strength had run out. My will had run out. I had to lie down on the cold glass ground and stare, unseeing at the towering sky, a bottomless abyss of cloud and air lurking in the obsidian shadow of the world. Was there a sun in Echoland? Was there anything outside the sky, beyond the glass? Or did it all roll on forever, trapping me in infinity, alone? The weight of the sky lay heavily on my chest. I shut my eyes. I couldn’t stand the distance anymore.

  “You could go after him.”

  I opened my eyes and turned. Tormaigh sat on the ground a few yards away. I sat up. “No, I couldn’t.”He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “I can’t chase him anymore. I’ll die before I can get him to listen. He can’t understand me.”

  “Yes, he can.”

  “No.” I got up and came over to him. “Listen to me. I need to get back home. The bird isn’t going to take me. You have to do something. You know everything about this world. You probably know how to get me home as much as the bird does.”

  “I know,” he said, almost under his breath, “but I can’t take you there. Only the bird can take you there.” He looked up at me. “You have to find him.”

  “All I could possibly do at this point is sit here and wait for him. I’m too exhausted to walk. I couldn’t possibly dance if he wanted me to do that again. I would still be willing to talk to him, but he doesn’t listen, all he does is sings at me.” Lightheadedness swept over me and I sat down, hugging my knees.

  “When you find him, he will take you home. But you have to go after him. I promise he will take you home.”

  “But how do I know I can trust you?”

  “There’s no one else.”

  And he was gone.

  The wind wafted against my face and I stared into the infinite landscape. Lightning flickered maybe a five-day walk from where I sat. I saw the greenish light bounce off the glassy ground and into the clouds again. Shutting my eyes, I breathed in a long breath. I had acquired a taste for ozone. I couldn’t remember what rain smelled like when it soaked an organic world of living green and soft black earth. Thunder crackled. I had to walk. I knew I did. I pulled myself to my feet, and the wind rippled around my numb body. Maybe the storm in the distance was coming my way and we would meet by morning.

Or maybe it was going the other way.

  I placed my bare foot on a seam in the glass. If I had nothing else, there were the cracks. The cracks were paths to the horizon. At least with them I would know I was headed in a single direction. So I walked, and I didn’t stop for miles and miles of monotonous glass prairie.

  There was no way to know how far I had gone. There was no time as long as the sun was down, and there was no space without landmarks. For this reason, there was no way to choose when to stop. I tried to count strides, only to discover, to my subdued horror, I had completely lost the ability to count in a straight line.

  I didn’t know it, but the night was circling around. Time was passing. The change was too slow to appreciate, but the east was, in fact, paling. After a while, I was able to see the difference between the green fabric and the gray lining of my jacket. I could see the contrast between my dark brown hair and the midnight slate of the glass. But I couldn’t see any difference between where I was now, and the place I had been when I started.

  Then, for no reason, I stopped.

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Echoland Part 6: The Bell Trees

Link to part one: here Wordcount: 1,167 Part: 6/9

Synopsis: Jasmine discovers the place where the bells grow, and the thunderbird’s strange obsession.

I was standing almost ankle deep in sandy water gazing up at a copse of soaring glass structures. I would equate them to both trees and the remnants of some enormous gothic building, but I don’t think they were either. Their translucent tendrils reached up into the mist, and on the stronger protrusions of the limbs were the bells.

The water’s mirror surface broke and swirled with my steps. Now and then drops of moisture dripped from high above, echoing like the hesitant chirps of tiny birds. I stopped and stared up at the bells. They came in every size, apparently at different stages of development. A gentle breeze whispered through the grove, but the bells hung still. Then I realized I had discovered the source of the hum in the atmosphere.

  There was a sound like a breaker coming against a sandy shore, and I turned. The thunderbird had landed in one of the glass trees. It put its huge wings away and moved out on a well-developed branch, flicking its crests back and tilting its head upward to the bells that hung from the branch above it. The black eyes closed, and it strummed a series of three hand-sized bells with its beak. The ambient ring intensified, gaining an eerie voice-like overtone.

  For a long time, the bird didn’t move. The breeze played with its long flowing tail where it hung only a few feet off the ground. Slowly, the eyes opened, and it turned its head, gazing at me as if in a dream. After a while, it moved farther out on the branch, reaching for a larger bell. It struck a deeper tone, and the bird closed its eyes again and was still, listening. Then the bill opened almost imperceptibly and a deep melodious call flowed out, dancing around the bell’s tone.

  As the low bell’s individual chime faded into the hum, the bird looked down at me again. He wasn’t afraid at all now. Talk to the thunderbird. I drew a breath. “It’s beautiful,” I said. The crests relaxed further and the bird blinked slowly. “You really do like the bells, don’t you?”

  As if in reply, the bird turned and strummed the bells again, all four. Once again it closed its deep eyes and sung along with them. I waded toward his tree. “I didn’t know you could sing like that. I’ll bet you wouldn’t if you didn’t have those bells, would you? You love the sound of them.”

  He sung to the end of the chimes’ echo and then crouched down looking up at the sky.He leapt into the air and glided in a circle over the bell grove. When he came back around, he batted his wings once, mounting into the air, and then dropped in a brilliant flash into a clearing between the trees. When my vision returned, he was anthropomorphic again.

  I tiptoed back behind one of the bell trees. He was flightier on the ground, ironically. It wouldn’t hurt to be cautious until I knew he was comfortable, this time. I could hear his footsteps in the water. Slowly, I leaned back around the glass tree and let half my face show. To my surprise, he took a step sideways and cocked his head at me. When I didn’t emerge he came further sideways and a bit toward me. He seemed to be curious about my presence, in contrast to his previous concern.

  Would he take off again if I moved? I stepped away from the tree so that he could see me better. “Don’t fly away, okay? I’m not coming after you,” I said. His ears expanded and tipped forward slightly. He stopped mid-stride, one foot suspended over the water. “It’s alright.” Come on, don’t get scared again, silly bird. The taloned toes spread and he set his foot down. “Why anybody who can drag a giant bolt of lightning around with them without getting fried should get scared of a little human that just wants to be friends, I don’t know.”

  The smooth black eyes blinked and the feathery ears swept back. Never taking his focus off me, he sidestepped to another bell tree and leaned against it. The breeze fluttered his cape feathers and he blinked. Apparently, thunderbirds don’t use human facial-expressions, but I almost think he might have meant to smile.

  All the while I kept talking to him. It wasn’t much of a conversation, but it seemed to put him at ease. After a few minutes, he sprung up onto a low branch of his tree and reclined on the limb in a way that must have been comfortable for him somehow. His attention wandered for a second to some new growth shooting off from the branch. The ends of the twiggy structures were developing thimble-sized bells, and for a moment this was too much for his obsessive mind to overlook. He flicked one of them, and it rang almost too high for me to hear.

  I paused and said nothing while he listened to the bell. After a few seconds he looked back at me and his ears opened toward me. I shrugged. “You weren’t listening, so I stopped talking.” I let the remark hang in the air.

  The bird’s featureless eyes changed somehow. He was looking at me like he looked at the bells, rapt and expectant. I laughed. “What? I thought you were busy with the bells. I wasn’t saying anything worth listening to, anyway. Go ahead. Ring the silly little bells. I know it makes you happy.”

  As I spoke, the black eyes closed and he tipped his head back, relaxing his ears. Quietly, he began to sing. I stopped talking and he waited, eyes still shut, ears quivering slightly against the wind. “You…like my voice?” I asked. “My voice makes you sing too?”

  The moment I spoke, he started singing again. We went on like this until late afternoon. He completely forgot the bells as long as I talked to him. I didn’t know what kind of progress this was, but it must count for something. Gradually, I crept closer to the tree, and eventually, I stood at the roots and was almost directly below where the bird lay singing. He was perfectly still, and his eyes were shut. I could have reached up and touched him.

  Then, the atmosphere thrummed. His eyes opened slowly and he stared out into the horizon. A wall of clouds was building up. Evening was falling and a storm was on its way. Darkness swept over his skin and his body tensed. He got up and walked toward the end of the branch, ears flicking back and head cocking at the sky.

  “Don’t fly away,” I called. But my voice startled him, and he sprung from the branch. In a violent blaze of light, I saw the sweep of massive wings and the bird took flight, soaring away into the storm. I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Come back!”

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Echoland Part 5: It Flies Away Again

Link to part one: here Wordcount: 1,099 Part: 5/9

Synopsis: Jasmine tries to talk to the shy confusing creature.

“Hey,” I said. I took one step toward him. What do you say to a thunderbird? “Don’t fly away. It’s okay. It’s alright.”

  It remained perfectly still, eyes unblinking, ear-crests laid back level with the crown of the head. I came to the edge of the crater. Should I go down? No. It could certainly bite. I just needed to keep my voice going.

  “Did you hear me call you, in the storm? Did you see me? Could you hear me over the thunder…Thunderbird?”

  Finally, the eyes blinked. It tensed slightly all through its body and emitted a brilliant whistle, louder than I could shout. It ended quickly and the crests fanned upward. Unlike in the avian form, the crests were actual ears, but ornamented with sweeping glossy feathers to a rather Mercurian effect. The ears swept forward a bit away from the head, quivering slightly. The expression on the thunderbird’s face hadn’t changed since it heard the chip of glass fall.

  “Thunderbird….” What to say? “Tormaigh said I should talk to you. You know how to get me back to my world? You can get me home? Tormaigh said you would.”

  The ears flicked back alongside the head and it sprung lightly to its feet. The bird pulled itself up incredibly erect, more so than a human probably could. It stood high on its toes, keeping the spurred heels far from the ground. It crossed one foot over in front of the other and tipped its bony shoulders back, lowering its chin and flaring its crests. I could now see that the long mane was composed not of hair at all, but of fine sickle feathers, like a rooster’s cape. The eyes were even bigger than they had been before. It chirped again. Apparently, human as it looked, it retained a bird’s vocal chords.

  It was scared of me. How do you convince a bird you’re not scary? Keep talking. “It’s okay. It’s okay, pretty bird.” Pretty bird. “You know who Tormaigh is. Tormaigh is your friend. Tormaigh is my friend. It’s alright.” I stepped toward him.

 The eyes glimmered.He turned, and sprung into the air.The air filled with white light and I dove away. Thunder clapped, sending wind in all directions and when I could see again. The bird was flying into the horizon, avian again.

  I sighed and my head dropped. This was impossible. I made my way out of the fulgurite grove and into the emptiness again. The storm was dissolving now, or rather, it had probably followed the bird. It was more devoted than I was. I needed to talk to Tormaigh. There had to be an easier way to get home.

  But, in spite of my better judgement, I didn’t try to call Tormaigh for a while. I wandered aimlessly around the glass prairie first one way and then the other, as lost mentally as I was physically. Tormaigh was certainly wrong. This wasn’t any place I had ever been before.

  I couldn’t decide whether there was any reason to keep the fulgurite grove within view. The bird didn’t seem to have any real intentions of returning there. But there was something comforting about having a focal point in the vast expanse. Slowly I gave it up, drifting out into the open again, searching the sky. He was just going to keep flying away. There was no sense in this.

  Back at home, the only ways to tame a bird that I knew of involved offering food. There was no food here, not that I could see. I would probably starve myself before I had time to worry about finding food for him. Except it was well past my breakfast time and I wasn’t hungry at all, or thirsty. So no food. But what then? What could I use to distract him from his flying-away instincts?

  Bells. That was why Tormaigh had mentioned them. I needed to find some bells. I scowled across the empty land. Did they really grow out of the ground here? I certainly hadn’t seen anything growing yet. I was going to have to see if I could summon Tormaigh. I had a question for him—or ten. For a minute I stared around wishing he would appear before I started talking to him. “Tormaigh? Can you hear me?”

  “Hmm?” He was standing on my right staring out at the horizon.

  “You need to tell me where to find bells,” I said.

  He smiled. “Bells.” I blinked impatiently at him. He turned to me. “They grow by the water.”

  “What water?” Now we’re getting somewhere. This place has geographical features. He pointed into the distance. I aligned my eyes with the point of his finger and squinted. I saw nothing but the hazy blue horizon. He let his arm drop to his side and we faced each other. “I don’t see it.”

  He veiled his eyes and looked back at some distant area. “It’s like a backwards mirage. If you keep walking that way, you’ll eventually come upon it.”

  “How far?” I asked.

  “Maybe fifteen minutes.”

  I sighed. When I looked back at him there was an expectant smile in his eyes. He had an odd face. I couldn’t say in what way. That first time I saw him, I recognized him, but the memory of that familiar person who shared his face was gone now. He nodded and pointed again toward the invisible body of water.

  “Alright,” I said. “But I really hope he likes the bells enough to come to them even when I’m there.”

  “You might find he’s already among them,” he said.

  “I’ll just end up scaring him away with my approach, then.” My voice dropped. “Oh man.” Tormaigh had disappeared. What made him think it was socially acceptable to do that at any point in a conversation was beyond me. Especially since I really didn’t know him very well.

  I gazed out at the “backwards mirage” he had indicated, and drew in a long breath. Off to the bells then, I supposed. I put my hands in my pockets and set out for the dark haze on the horizon.

  I had no internal clock at all since I came here. It didn’t do me much good to know it was a fifteen-minute walk from my starting point. I tried counting steps, because counting seconds didn’t work. But I lost track. Eventually, I sensed a change in the level of the ground, and the smooth glass became increasingly gritty. I looked out ahead of me. In the space of a couple of paces, everything changed.

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The Hiatus is Over

All I knew was I wanted to be a blogger.

I had finally moved from Blogspot to WordPress, secured my own domain, and gone full-force into creating high-quality, original, useful content for my future readers. I wanted a place where I could share my gifts and do what I do best. For a while, I was pretty sure I could make UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com my part-time job. It felt like it was meant to be.

But something happened. In the midst of my frenzied hyper-focused determination to grow my online platform, something broke and everything suddenly stopped.

Just as I thought I was finally ready to pick up some speed, I realized my creative life had collapsed into an all-time low.

So, I quit everything.

What was UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com supposed to be?

I had been studying blogging as hard as I could in my spare time. 2020, of course, was a major trigger. It was time to change something. My blog had been on the backburner simmering for years. Now, I wanted it to become something in my life. I was ready to start making moves.

As an author, the most obvious direction to take would be to write about writing. Along with your typical writing tips and how-to posts, I also dropped the occasional essay about the deeper parts of the creative life. It all came pretty easily. After all, this was what I knew most about. This was my area of expertise. I needed to establish myself as an expert in my community, right?

Maybe if I looked like I knew what I was talking about, they would want to read my books.

Slowly losing my mind all of a sudden

Actually, it wasn’t the blog that did it to me.

It was social media. Surprise, surprise.

In the Fall of ’22, I realized my Instagram schedule and attempts to promote my blog through that means were starting to give me both figurative and literal headaches. I was thinking about it all the time. I was doing everything I knew how to promote my blog and my books through online social networking. But I was starting to lose interest in everything. The blog felt heavy and dull—another of way too many things I had to keep afloat to not get left behind.

But I needed to keep up. I needed to keep posting, keep commenting, keep connecting and grasping at every opportunity to get noticed in my online circles. My traffic remained almost non-existent. I couldn’t do enough. I should be posting more reels. I should be posting every day.

And even with my mind demanding constant action, I would still find myself looking up and realizing I hadn’t posted anything in a week or more. Other authors could keep their Instagram stories running around the clock. What was I supposed to share? What did I even have worth sharing? Why would anybody want to read my blog or my books if they didn’t even want to read my IG posts?

I wasn’t like the other indie authors I watched. They were on every day, they had developed real friendships with each other, they knew all the book-bloggers and could run 20-stop blog tours every time they released a new book. I still don’t know how they set exact book-release dates a whole year in advance. They were so organized, focused, connected, capable.

I wasn’t even writing anymore.  

The fear of losing it all

But I couldn’t stop. I had to try harder. If I just didn’t give up—if I just kept being a faithful steward of what I had been given, just kept my motives pure and my jaw set, eventually the breakthrough would come. I would get into the rhythm and find my people. My blog would thrive. I was just too impatient. It took years. I just wasn’t trusting. I was stifling my own message. I wasn’t believing in my purpose.

I wasn’t sure I actually had a purpose anymore. But I knew you should never give up. And in the social media world, you can’t disappear—not even for a few days, or you won’t be relevant anymore. They’ll forget you.

You’ll lose all your progress. People will move on. Curtain call. You burned your only chance.

Nobody was going to read my blog. Nobody needed my expertise. All these authors knew what they were doing. They knew better than I did. And if they didn’t read my blog, they wouldn’t take a chance on my books.

I needed to take a break. The stress was getting to my head.

The Hiatus Part 1: Christmas Break ’22

In October of 2022, I decided I was going to log off until January. Just a little break. I wanted to enjoy my holidays if I could. I just needed to stop thinking about it all for a while. I would come back a few weeks into the New Year all refreshed and raring to go. I needed to plan an exciting comeback.

The final months of ’22 were uneventful. I’d like to say I learned to be nicer to myself and got perspective on my true vision and self-worth during that time, but mainly I just ignored all that stuff and put it off for January to worry about. But January came around faster than it had the year before.

The Hiatus Part 2: Quitting IG and Burning Bridges

I got back on Instagram in January, prepared as I would ever be—ready to get back into business and back in touch with my circle of friends and followers. As soon as I logged on, I knew I couldn’t do it anymore.

Remember how Instagram used to be? Flatlays and filters and stuff? I liked that. I liked photography. When it started out, it was fun and fairly spontaneous for me. I didn’t really have any expectations for interaction or growth. It was also cool when I wasn’t following very many people. Obviously, I’m missing the whole point of social media. You’re supposed to use it to network and keep up with all the important people in your niche.

Suddenly, last January, I realized I hated Instagram. I hated keeping up. I couldn’t keep up. I was miles behind and out of breath already. So, I posted a final carousel explaining and left.

I told everyone all my online activity would go silent until…sometime in the future. Except my email list. That would be the only definite way to keep in touch until then. I had almost 300 followers on Instagram when I quit. Seven joined the list.

The Hiatus Part 3: Drifting and Finishing Dronefall 5

It didn’t feel like the right thing to do, after all the years I had spent trying to build my platform. For a few months, I lurked as a ghost online. Had anybody sent me a DM on Instagram? Were people unfollowing? Commenting on old posts not realizing my account was no longer active?

What was new with my author circle? Who was releasing books? Should I be buying them? I should still be supporting them, right? Wow…they’re all doing so well. Good for them…not giving up.

It was an addiction. And it was still ruining my mind. I had to drop the internet altogether. I shut everything out and focused on finishing writing Dronefall 5—only to discover I had come to hate my own writing. It didn’t matter. I had to write anyway. And I did.

I finished the first draft in the second week of May. Mindrise took longer to write than probably any novel I’ve finished since my debut works. Clicking in the final end-mark and hitting save, my first thoughts were, “Worst book ever. Finished though.”

I then went to bed. 

The Hiatus Part 4: Summer and New Dreams

Not living on Mercury is nice for several reasons, but one is we have season-changes here. I like those. Though summer isn’t my favorite time of year, I’ve come to appreciate it and let it inspire me to launch off into new things. I had a new book to write (Dronefall 6), and I wanted to learn to love writing again.

And also, I wanted to be a blogger.

That’s why I’m back.

What I Learned:

UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com is a work in progress. It’s going to keep evolving. But I think I finally learned something extremely important. I learned who my target audience is—or, rather, who they are not.

I never should have assumed my target audience was other authors. I’m really not an expert. I’m not a teacher or a coach. I’m an entertainer.

My audience isn’t that circle I’ve been trying to break into for so many years. Most of them don’t even read my genre, and I normally don’t read theirs. I’m not writing my book to impress other writers. I don’t want to get caught in a closed community of people reviewing each other’s books.

My new audience is whoever is odd enough to actually love my actual art. I want to show people the beautiful things I see in my mind and share the joy they bring me. People need to see beautiful things. They need to read stories that captivate and intrigue them. They need to notice details of life they overlooked and feel feelings that remind them they are alive and here for a reason.

If my work does any of those things for you, you’re my new target audience. Thanks for reading. I’m excited to know you exist.

What’s Next?

I’ve got three more posts ready to tell the story of the new UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com. I want to talk more specifically about my thoughts and discoveries concerning social media and why I quit. I’ll go into more detail on that in the next post.

I’ll follow that up with a post about what’s happened to my positions on how my creative life and my faith life fit together—and how I believe God uses artists even if they don’t preach or use their art to bring attention to hot-button issues.

 To wrap up this new beginning series, I’ll do a post all about the exciting things you have to look forward to on UD. Preview: you’re going to be reading a lot less of these essay-type posts in the future. There will be serialized short-fiction, art-heavy posts, poetry, humorous rants, and interesting project updates. Details to come!

Two Favors

Before you go, would you consider doing one, or maybe even two favors for me?

First is a major one: no, I won’t be returning to social media in person. So, if you have a platform of your own, would you consider sharing the news that this blog is back from the dead? People might even thank you later. Who knows who might end up loving this blog. Every single visitor I get here in the beginning is a huge deal to me, so thank you so much if you choose to help spread the word.

Second is easy: if you read all the way to the end of this post, you deserve to plant a flag at the summit. Consider the comment section below a guest-book or a graffiti-covered bench. If all you want to say is “(your name) was here” do exactly that.

Even you, totally random stranger who for some reason stumbled across my blog and are wondering why you read this far. Even if this post is four years old. You’re here for a reason. Please sign in.

Thank you.  

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The Bright Side of Having No Audience as a Lonely Creative

At some point in the career of every artist, literally no one is listening. There is no audience waiting to appreciate your work.

People don’t notice things right away. And these days, people have trouble noticing anything at all. People are exhausted from information overload. Everyone everywhere is dumping information down everyone else’s throats constantly. It’s harder than ever to capture a focused audience. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s everybody’s fault. That’s the way it be.

In fact, you’re probably considering clicking out of this post even now, because your head is a flurry of other possibilities. You could be scrolling through socials. You could be watching funny ferret compilations on YouTube. You could even be doing something offline, but you might not be able to think of anything like that right now.

What you should be doing is working on one of your many creative projects. But there’s a chance you’ve been avoiding them lately. Because you’re discouraged.

Because you feel invisible and ignored.

But the truth is, the world has the memory of a goldfish. If you’re quiet for a day or two, most people will forget your work exists, and you’ll be back where you are now. You’ll always come back here, to the loneliness of your creative mind, to a world only you can see. You want to bring other people to this world. Of course, you do. But why the hurry?

The Anxiety of Starting at Zero

It’s hard to start anything when you aren’t sure you’ll ever have anyone willing to support what you do. It’s hard to create when you’re not sure if anyone will ever appreciate what you produce. But you have to be willing to throw your bread on the water.

I’m writing this post long before I intend to publish it. In fact, as I’m sitting here at my desk, listening to the crisp September wind and the birds and the soft notes of the windchime in the garden below, this blog, as you see it now, does not exist. I have no followers. I have no email list. I have less than 150 followers on Instagram and no followers on Pinterest.

I don’t know who will come or when. But you’re here now.

That proves that—in this noisy overcrowded world—people somehow find each other. If you found me, someone will find you.

What to Do in the Meantime

But at the end of the day, you have to find some other motivation besides likes, pageviews, comments or applause. You have to love your work and enjoy progress that has nothing to do with follower numbers. There’s so much you can do with no audience at all.

Here are some things you might want to focus on while you’re languishing in obscurity:

Practice, self-critique, and make plans to improve

Let’s make something clear: whether or not you have fans and followers has nothing to do with your skill-level. I’m definitely not implying that you don’t have an audience because you’re not good enough. There’s apparently no correlation, there.

But one of the very best uses of your time when nobody’s expecting you to perform for them is to focus on improving. Put some serious time into practicing, finding the areas you would like to strengthen and leveling up. Whatever this looks like for your particular art form, it will definitely be worth your time.

Research

Ha. Here it is—my favorite form of procrastination. Especially when enabled by Pinterest, I spend tons of time researching my craft. I’m always hunting down any scrap of information on fiction writing, art, blogging, etc. searching for anything I might have missed that turn out to be magic for me.

Of course, this can get a little out of control. It definitely does for me, sometimes. But if you figure out how to stay focused and pay attention to how much time is passing, research is a great way to make use of your obscurity. You might not have as much time to do it when you have an impatient audience waiting for you to produce something amazing all the time.

Find your voice/style

Another great thing to work on when nobody’s watching is developing your voice or your style. It’s kind of like what they tell people who are all impatient to get a significant other. Why don’t you stop worrying about looking for somebody else and see if you can find yourself? Who are you, as a creator? What matters to you? How do you want to express yourself?

This is going to take some experimentation. Play around with your genera, your tone, your media and techniques. You have no audience to worry about confusing, so you’re free to do whatever you want. There are no expectations. No one’s there to walk away if you completely weird them out. This is about the relationship between you and your work. Worry about that first.

Try crazy things

This is closely related to the above. Now is the time to try stuff you might not want to try in front of a thousand, or ten-thousand followers. Don’t hold back launching or publishing something until you’ve got x-amount of subscribers. Do it now. Get some experience while it’s still safe to flop.

Get started on a big weird project you may or may not actually finish. Try to write a novel in two weeks. Paint an eight-by-six foot self-portrait. Form a garage-band and go around performing in every garage that will let you in. Have some fun and don’t take your work too seriously. Besides, you’re going to have some funny stories to tell when you’re all grown-up and respectable, later.

Make a bucket list

You know, I’m glad I thought of the dating analogy, because I think that successfully reframed the situation for myself. I really like being single but I whine a lot about my lack of audience. But hey, this is the fun part. There’s freedom in obscurity. Make a bucket list. (This is kind of random. I just like bucket lists, okay?)

But really, do it. Make a bucket list of things you’d like to do in your creative life that have nothing to do with whether anybody appreciates them or not. Fill a sketchbook in a certain amount of time. Write a short-story a day for a week. Record an album where you cover a pop song from every decade from the past century. Recreate a classic novel in comic-book form using only cutouts from modern magazines. (That actually sounds awesome. Somebody needs to do that one.)

Here’s the point: It’s not all about the audience. You’re doing what you do because you enjoy it. As important as it is for artists to be heard and move other human hearts with their work, that’s not all we do. We have different seasons in our creative journeys. Sometimes, it’s just us and our art.

And that’s cool, too.

But don’t give up on your future audience. Keep putting in the work, and you’ll eventually reach them. It could be months from now, or years, but you get closer every day. Keep creating, everybody.

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Welcome to UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com

I have suddenly decided to jump off the deep end. I’m relaunching this blog. I’m going to charge full-force into the blogging world and become a real blogger. A consistent poster. A creator of rich decadent content full of things you want to know. Informative, entertaining, unique. You heard me say all that.

Welcome to UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com!

I didn’t just decide to do this today. I’ve been working on this relaunch for months—brainstorming, setting goals, trying to organize my chaos into something new and exciting. I bought a new laptop, I cleaned and redecorated my desk and told myself it was time to focus.

This blog has been creeping along, wanting to become something for years. I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to commit to a real plan, but here we are. UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com is Stardriftnights.blogspot.com reborn to be something it’s always wanted to be.

A Quick Note on the Name:

Stardriftnights was a reference to my debut into the noveling world, The Stardrift Trilogy. Since it’s been a while since Stardrift was published, it’s no longer my flagship, I wouldn’t say. No hate to the magnum opus of my teenage years, but I wanted to rename the blog to be more relevant to my current work. Unsweetened Darjeeling is the title of a poem I published in my little collection Songs from the Small Hours. I liked the idea of using a poetry reference for the title. I thought it suited the mood. Also, tea. By the way, don’t drink Darjeeling unsweetened. It’s not too good.

So, what can you expect from Unsweeteneddarjeeling.com? The former Stardriftnights.blogspot.com was mainly a writer/author blog. Anyway, on Stardriftnights.blogspot.com I posted about half-and-half writing how-to and author updates.

  • Writing (fiction, mainly)
  • Visual art (my first love)
  • Creativity in general (and being multipassionate)
  • The relationship between creatives and their audience (and how to improve it)
  • And the relationship between creatives and God (the source of all creativity)

So, yes, you’re still going to get a lot of great content to help you sharpen your fiction-writing skills. Studying, practicing and helping other writers achieve better fiction-writing is definitely a major passion of mine. I’ve been doing it for about fourteen years now, and I’m showing no signs of slowing down. So, definitely expect writing-centered content on the regular.

My main foci, starting now, will probably be as follows:

Writing

(And the majority of my old content is still available on this blog, so check out some of the links at the end of this post for further reading.)

Visual Art

I mentioned that visual art was my first love, and I’m not kidding. Long before I started writing I was doing other things with pencils. Sometimes on walls. Actually, I didn’t even like writing until I learned to type. Pencils were for art.

Maybe partially because my parents didn’t mind my drawing on the walls, I never gave up art. My favorite medium now is a combination of graphite and fine-liners. I also play with oil and acrylic paints sometimes and am hoping to expand my skills to include digital and as many other media as possible. I’ll let you guys watch my progress and share anything I learn along the way.

Creativity

There’s a lot to being a creative person. Artists have different struggled than normal people do. We see the world differently, make decisions differently, value different things, have different needs and wants. It’s easy to feel alone and misunderstood as an artist.

I want to help other creatives navigate and understand what they go through. There are times when the mainstream is going to fail you when you need somebody who understands. With as much introspection and observation of other artists as I naturally engage in, I might as well share what I discover and find ways to help you.

Creators and Their Audience

Most people who dedicate a lot of their time to creative work sooner or later try to show it to people. This is important to the function of human society. Art is a very deep form of communication and there are a lot of nuances to that communication.

From the more philosophical side of that discussion to the very practical issues modern creators face with trying to gain traction and grow a community on the internet, I want to explore that, as well.

Creators and God

Disclaimer: this is a Christian blog. I am a Christian creator. I believe that God is the ultimate artist, writer, musician, etc. and art that comes from a heart that is deeply in touch with God is the most powerful and beautiful art of all.

The most important thing we can do with our creativity is open windows to let God’s light pour into the suffering world we live in. To do that, we have to nurture and try to understand the relationship between our art, ourselves and God. I’ll be looking at practical ways to do that as well as providing some food for thought now and then.

And now, a quick Q&A to give you a few more answers on what to expect from this blog.

Q: How often can I expect posts?

A: My aim is twice a week—Mondays and Thursdays. For now. I’ll test some things and see what works best.

Q: Who is this blog for?

A: Christian creatives of all kinds, but especially Millennial and Gen Z authors and artists feeling alone and trying to get their footing in this weird new reality we’re dealing with.

Q: Will you still be posting author updates?

A: Yes. I definitely won’t be keeping you in the dark about my author activities and will definitely be taking about my WIPs and new releases—but it will probably be a lot less than half the time. I don’t want to bore you.

Q: Where else can I find you?

Please give this blog a follow on Pinterest. I’m also on Instagram as an author @albuehrerauthor and as an artist @thewhisperingsketchbook. And this is my Goodreads profile.

One more thing!

Finally, here are the links to some of my older content you might have missed. I recommend reading Writing for Christ, a series I wrote for Christian fiction writers. It covers some rare topics like how to write good pastor characters, and some classics like avoiding preachiness. Also, check out 5 Myths About Christian Fiction.

For general writing advice there’s fun stuff like 15 Ways to Add Color and Depth to Character Relationships and 5 Reasons Your Writing Needs Humor.

And lastly, if you want to learn more about my current WIP the Dronefall Series, check out what inspired it in this three-part blog series.

Thanks for reading this. If you’re seeing this within the first week, or even month of it being published, you’re among the first to celebrate the relaunch. Thanks for the pageview! It means a lot at this point.

If you’re feeling at all compelled to support me in my efforts with this blog, any of these things would be great.

  • Follow me on Pinterest and pin a couple of posts
  • Follow either of my IG accounts
  • Share about this blog anywhere and recommend it
  • Join my email list! (Okay, you’ll have to wait a second while I get this one set up. Coming soon, though.)

Thank you!!

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When Is Constructive Criticism Not Constructive Criticism?

  A massive amount of time and energy goes into any creative endeavor. For novels, it’s typically eight or nine months to a year, for me. Art is hard, and it doesn’t help that most artists are perfectionists who have very little patience with their own growing process.

  But now and then, you produce something that surprises you. You blink a few times, step back a few feet, pinch yourself, and think, “Wow…I just did that.”

  Then comes an odd moment of elation—a sense that you might actually have a chance, that you might finally be moving forward. You look around you, and in a burst of courage, you decide. “Okay! I think it’s ready. I’m gonna share this with the world.”

  And then, out of nowhere, the self-proclaimed Constructive Critics show up.

  They’ve got some well-meaning advice for you. They’ve got a few pointers you might need to work on next time. They’ve got a quick evaluation of how your doing, and how you could do better. What?

You’re not open to constructive criticism? You shouldn’t be so sensitive. Don’t take it personally. This is just to help you grow. You’ve got to be able to listen to feedback if you’re ever going to level up and be the best you can be, you know.

  There are two things to be learned here. The first is a little-known fact that probably no teacher ever taught you in school. There are points in your creative journey where it’s completely fine to reject criticism. Yeah. No, I’ll say it again for you. There are points in your creative journey when it’s completely fine to reject criticism. When you’re in the middle of riding a wave—you’re inspired, you’re motivated, you feel like you’re picking up some momentum—this is not the right time to backtrack. You should let that positive energy rocket you into the next phase of your growth.

   Sometimes, “constructive criticism” comes from our friends or family. It’s just habit. You probably asked them for feedback on numerous things in the past. When you show them something you’ve created, they’ll automatically start looking for how to improve it to help you, because you’ve wanted it in the past. But this time, you’ve got a finished project—something you’re proud of and happy with. It’s different. Here’s where communication is important. It’s our job, as artists, to be very clear with our friends and fellow creatives what kind of feedback we need—or if we want any at all. You’re not looking for critique at this point, you’re hoping to find someone to celebrate with.

  Another great place to get unsolicited critique is, you guessed it, online. This is actually pretty annoying. This kind of feedback sometimes comes from total strangers. People are just scrolling along through Instagram and stumble across your latest drawing, or something. They notice something about it they don’t like. Since they know so much about it, it would only be right to share their expertise and let you know how you could do better, right?

  In either case, understand that we’ve kind of built a whole culture around the concept of constructive criticism. People just assume all criticism—no matter when it’s given, or by whom—is constructive. As long as it isn’t openly mean, it should always be appreciated. I’m here to tell you, it’s okay to ignore it sometimes. If you didn’t directly ask for it, you’re not obligated to receive it.

The second lesson, I’ll give you as a send-off. Don’t give unsolicited critique.Always be absolutely sure the other party wants it before offering any constructive criticism. Ask what they feel they need to improve. What are they shooting for with their art? If you don’t know those things, you don’t know how to help them succeed.

  And remember, sometimes…every great once in a while…an artist is happy with what they’ve done. No amount of criticism has ever made anyone perfect. Sometimes, the best we can do for each other’s growth is hype each other up.

 

 

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What’s going on around here?

 Okay, so I’ve been pretty quiet since I announced the release date for This Time. For those who didn’t actually mark their calendars when I told them to, episode one was supposedly going o release June 17th. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Why?

It turns out, I need to learn a few very basic things about digital art before proceeding. I don’t want to spend the whole time wrestling with things that have simple answers just because I was too impatient to get a tiny bit of training. I’m going to have to get some things figured out, if want to actually enjoy the process of this first webcomic. Enjoying the process is really important when you’re doing any kind of creative project. Looking over the thumbnails and script for This Time, it’s actually quite beautiful as is. I want the comic itself to live up to the thumbnails. But in order to be as expressive as they are, I have to have a certain level of confidence. Please be patient. It’s going to be worth it.

So, what else? Avoiding the fact that This Time is postponed has made me postpone a lot of other progress that I want to move forward on. This is dumb. Don’t try it at home. Don’t let a setback on one project make you put all your other projects on hold. I’m not going to keep doing that. I’ve got some work to do.

I’ll give you a quick update on where all my projects stand as of now.

Dronefall Five: The Dronefall series is two-thirds done. That’s amazing. I’m taking this milestone and going back to read through the whole series myself, taking notes. Guys, you know it’s complicated. I’ve got to make sure I didn’t forget anything or drop any threads before I try to tie it all up in the final two books. So, Five is in the plotting phase. I hope to outline the last two books all in one shot. I want to make sure it builds exactly how I want it to. Once I start writing, I have a feeling the finale will go fast. I’m excited about it.

This Time Webcomic: You heard me. The whole thing is scripted and thumbnailed and the whole first episode, plus some, has been sketched, digitally. I’ve got some stuff to learn about coloring, which is important. This is going to be a color comic. It wouldn’t be the same in black and white or screen-tones. I promise it’s still coming. I’ll give you the release date as soon as I’m confident.

Stardrift Nights Blog: I’m about to do a major overhaul on my online presence. This whole blog is going to be edited, rebranded and moved to WordPress. It’s time for me to get serious, I’ve decided. I’m going to start focusing on building my email list—something that basically doesn’t exist, even though I started this blog way back in 2014. I want to become a lot more useful to my readers. You guys deserve better content, and I’m ready to step it up.

Instagram and Pinterest: For anybody who doesn’t know (and I’m surprised if you don’t, because most of you probably came from there) I have an Instagram. Actually, I have two. My author account is @albuehrerauthor and I also have an art account now, @thewhisperingsketchbook. I’m hoping to make some improvements to both soon, rebranding slightly and incorporating better video content. Like my blog, I want to use my Instagram to provide more value to my followers, not just talk about myself. I really don’t like to talk about myself that much.

I’ve also got a Pinterest account that I definitely need to learn to leverage better. I’ve noticed probably 95% of the blog posts I read are ones I find while browsing Pinterest. I really need to start using it to better help people find Stardrift Nights. So, I’ve got work to do there, too.

The Boy Who Called The Foxes Standalone Novel: I’m so excited to get back into this one. Some of you might remember I finished the first draft of this novel early this spring. I’m going to start editing it, probably before the month is out, prepping for—my favorite season ever—when I’ll release it. That’s on the agenda for October. I’m so excited. I know I keep saying TBWCTF is going to be a pumpkin-spice latte in book form, but I mean it.

Secret Project: Yep, I’ve got another secret project underway. It’s actually going to be pretty easy for me, and something I think probably a lot of my friends and followers will appreciate. I’m not going to say much about it just yet, but it’s going to be out soon, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

So, what is that? Six projects I’m working on to varying degrees right now? That’s how I like it. It’s very stimulating. I hope you’re excited for at least one of these things, and I hope you’re doing well on your own projects.

 

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