Categories
Echoland

Echoland Part 4: The Thunderbird Lands

Link to part one: here Wordcount: 1,749 Part: 4/9

Synopsis: The thunderbird touches down and takes on a strange new form.

If I called Tormaigh right now, would he show up in a couple of seconds? Maybe there was something about space around here I didn’t know. For that matter, the bird might be an arm’s reach away at any given time, as well. Maybe right behind my back. I stopped and turned around. I wind came out of the west, dark and wet. A shadowy wall of cloud soared miles high, and below it the land was smeared like a watercolor painting. Lightning crackled through the cloud-mass. I had been going the wrong way.

  My hair whipped against my face as I looked back toward the clear east. I assumed if the wind was coming at me, the storm was too. I’m not sure that’s always true but when I looked back at the west, it was already visibly closer. I zipped up my jacket and started back in the direction I’d come from. He must be there. I would go and meet him. Maybe he could see me from where he was. Not running away from him might be a good first step in becoming friends.

  That was a truly amazing storm. As the thunder rolled through the ambient atmosphere, I could almost feel it slam against me on its way by. I could taste the rain in the air. It was raining hard under that massive storm-cell. I wondered what it would be like walking on glass ground in a downpour. The clouds had spread over two-thirds of the sky already. High above, cumulonimbus fingers reached for the east, clawing through the smoky blue, and blocking out the daylight. Purple lightning spread across the western horizon.

  I stopped and waited, the wind buffeting at my ears. A spray of rain came against my face. I knew he was there. My eyes curried the underside of the cloudbank. I could see light glowing inside the billows—leaping and zigzagging—coming to a head. And then a huge dark wingspan lashed through the murk.

  In the next instant, there was a massive pulse of energy and the bird’s silhouette was lost behind a bolt of light the size of a LEARjet. I stepped backwards. He was half a mile away, but really too close to be playing with that kind of firepower. Leastwise, he surely wouldn’t hear me if I called to him now. I would have to wait until he let go of it and came in closer. I couldn’t tell if he had even noticed me yet. My hands rose to my ears as the bird skipped like a dolphin in and out of the cloud-cover. He dropped the lightning bolt and it shattered to the ground. It sounded like someone had dropped four tons of sheet metal in a cathedral.

  As the sound cleared I whipped my hands away from my ears and scowled into the sky again, searching for the bird. He was above the clouds again. My eyes were drawn directly overhead. Light pulsed in the clouds, and there, just above me, the shadow of a huge pair of wings unfurled. My breath hauled in and I lifted my hands to my mouth. “Hey!” Rain washed down against my face and the downpour surged in full-strength over the land. “Can you hear me?”

  Lightning flashed again and the shadow was gone. I turned and gazed around at the storm that enveloped me. Lightning dropped far away. All Echoland vibrated with a profound bass note. The rain made my hair stream down the contours of my face and blurred my vision. Talk to the thunderbird.

  I looked straight up again into a strobe of bluish lightning. The clouds gave and the bird tumbled down fifty feet in front of me. The wings opened, dark luxuriant feathers spreading over the sky. I could see its face clearly for the first time since I had arrived in Echoland.

  The flight-feathers—each one as long as I was tall, spread as the wings drew upward against the raging rain. The feathery horns twitched back along its neck and the toothed beak opened. I would have been scared–I probably should have been scared—but the eyes were so tranquil, so deep—orbs of summer night sky. And the song was lush and echoing, almost like a mammoth whip-poor-will. I had expected a rough scream, like a hawk.

  As it approached, the near wing dipped, and the bird swung into a wide circle. I couldn’t be absolutely sure, but I think it was watching me. The uniform darkness of the eyes made it hard to know exactly where they focused. They seemed so still. It beat the rain off its slate wings as it swooped back around and called again. It wasn’t gathering lightning, but I was beginning to think its huge bulk was driving a tornadic wind.

  Without warning, it called, flicked its wings and dove into the clouds again. “Hey!” I called after it. I should have said more while I had to chance. The wind died around me and the rain came down straight. Thunder clapped against my ears and another mass of lightning dropped out of the clouds a quarter-mile away, heading away from me. I could see the capricious bird dragging it along.

  My shoulders dropped. He didn’t care. He had other things he would rather do. Besides, certainly he couldn’t understand me. I hugged myself. I was soaked through now. I’d gotten this far. I remembered a childhood friend who once owned a parakeet. She talked to it all the time. Maybe it didn’t understand, but birds have a definite appreciation for voices. Maybe thunderbirds had something in common with budgerigars…a bit of something.

  Thunder exploded and the bird was gone again. I started walking in the direction of the place he had vanished. There he was again. I could see the wing-tips flashing in and out of the clouds, eighteen or twenty feet apart. He was still flying away from me. I picked up my pace, but I didn’t dare run. The ground was slick under my feet. I lost track of him in half a minute and was left turning around in circles, searching the sky.

  “Where’d you go?” I asked, too quietly for anyone to hear. Thunder crackled in the darkness. Lightning illumined patches of the cloudbank, but revealed nothing. It didn’t take long for me to suspect I was alone again.

  To the north, a city-sized net of lightning dropped to the ground and returned. Then nearer, a mass of fiery veins flowed between earth and sky. I stumbled back. For a minute the world seemed to hum with electricity. Then the universe burst into pure soundwaves.

  As the steam started to clear, my eyes widened. There was a grove of low leafless trees there. I hadn’t seen it before the lightning struck. As I approached it, I noticed that all the cracks in the vicinity were converging. In fact, they all radiated from the thicket. The air was warming at an unnatural rate as I walked. A few yards from the trees I stopped and crouched down, touching the wet ground with my fingers. The ground itself was almost hot.

  Warily, I proceeded into the wooded area, ducking under the low limbs of the gnarled gray trees. I reached out to sweep a branch aside, and my hand met strange resistance. I scowled and my fingers slowly curved around the hot twigs. My hand slid up the branch and strained to bend it. I let go.

  My mouth dropped open and I gazed around at the woodland. They weren’t trees at all. I could see it now. They were fulgurites. This grove really hadn’t been here before the lightning struck.  Then, I saw movement.

  Between the warty branches of the glassy formations, something twitched. It was dark gray, and moved against the wind. As I moved closer, it sunk out of sight into a lower part of the ground. I persisted through the fulgurite brush-land, keeping my eyes anchored on where I thought I had seen it. It had seemed much too small to be the bird, but I hadn’t seen it well, and what else could it be?

  Now I could see that the grove surrounded a shallow crater. The lightning’s heat must have effectively smoothed the sharp edges that you would expect to find at a blast site in a glass world. The depression was about ten feet across, but I couldn’t see the bottom of it yet. I crept silently as I could in all the standing water, up behind a large broken fulgurite at the crater’s edge. Now I could see what was there.

  At first, my mind couldn’t process it, but there, lying in the bottom of the glass crater, was the most fantastic creature I had ever seen. It wasn’t a bird at all, but a humanoid being with long graceful limbs and translucent charcoal-gray skin.It was dressed in trailing gray cloth, and though there was a lot of fabric, most of it didn’t actually cover the creature’s body. Down its bare back ran a wind-tossed mass of glossy hair that apparently didn’t absorb water. I could see one long feathery backswept ear, but the face was turned away. It lay still one the wet ground, apparently enjoying the heat.

  With all the stealth I could muster, I crept around to see if I could get a look at the face.  My eyes fell to the long legs. The shins were armored with dark scales, and the feet, though mostly human, bore long curved talons on the toes and a formidable spur on the heel.

I kicked a smooth chip of glass and it coasted over the edge of the crater.I backed behind the fulgurite. The being pushed itself up with its arms and looked over its shoulder at the piece of glass. The face was angular, and the gray skin darkened and shifted toward blue around the enormous silky black eyes. The ears fanned and leveled, and it looked up toward where I hid. It blinked and tilted its head. The lips parted, showing the very tips of fangs.

  I swallowed, a flash of icy heat spreading from my spine. I backed away three steps and then stopped. It was the bird. It had to be. Would it bite? Would it fly away? Would it blast me with lightning?

Talk to the thunderbird…. He can be quite personable when he comes down.

Categories
Echoland

Echoland Part 3: Of Birds and Bells

Link to part one: here Previous episode: here Wordcount: 1,195 Part: 3/9

Synopsis: The mysterious hooded person tells Jasmine his name and a bit about the thunderbird after it almost kills her.

  I wandered toward the horizon I could still see. Was that the pale rim of dawn there, or the end of the storm? In an instant, the sky exploded, and the air overhead dropped flat to the ground. My blinded eyes snapped up to the surge of light racing just under the clouds. A tangled mass of purple-white lightning sped through the sky. The light fluctuated, and in a moment of dimness, I could see the bird.

  The light went out and the bird flipped over and dove into the clouds as if gravity went the other way. In the wake of the lightning trail, the atmosphere slammed back together almost breaking my mind. I dropped to the ground and grabbed my skull, pressing the heels of my hands into my ears. That was the bird I was supposed to talk to? That weapon of mass destruction was why I was here?

  I turned on my hip, dropping my hands against the glassy ground, scowling into the distance. Through the fog I could see another massive surge of lightning falling out of the clouds farther away. It swept through the sky and blazed into a bright raging mass. It was coming at me again. This thunderbird clearly had issues with my invading his territory.  Scrambling to my feet, I tore away as fast as I could. No good at all. There was no shelter anywhere. If the bird was intent on vaporizing me, it could certainly do that.

  Before it reached its position directly overhead, the bird rolled over and vanished again. Thunder slammed down, and I stumbled and almost fell. The blast pounded the air out of my lungs and I collapsed again, choking. I stayed there, waiting for the bird to reappear. I never would have known what the bird was capable of when I saw it in the ash tree. It looked so placid sitting there.

  The thunder must have taken a whole three minutes to clear. Just as I was starting to hope it had gone, daylight erupted, and the air went hot and dry. I jumped and charged out of the line of fire.  The bird seared the air thirty feet overhead. Something like a shockwave snapped the ground under my feet and I could hear the crack over the thunder. A jagged line of gray appeared in the dark glass. “Help!”

I saw the bird’s face the moment before it plunged into the clouds again. The toothed beak was open, and the fanlike crests flicked back as it flew. I think it was singing.

  I rolled onto my back.My head throbbed. My spine was numb. If that bird dropped out of the clouds one more time—

  “I forgot to tell you my name. It’s Tormaigh.” I turned around and sat up. He was sitting on the ground a few feet away. Half his face smiled and he shrugged. “Just so you can stop calling me ‘Help’, you know.”

  “What am I supposed to do about this bird?” I demanded, getting to my feet. “It’s trying to kill me.”

  “It’s just showing you what it can do,” he said, as if it was rather nice. “You need to befriend the bird. It’s really a very nice bird, as far as birds go.”

  “What do you mean, ‘befriend’ it? How?”

  He got up. “Like I told you before–talk to it.”

  “It’s too busy making its stupid thunder to hear me, even if I knew what to say to a bird.” His gleaming eyes blinked patiently, waiting for me decide to do the only thing I really could–try it. My shoulders drooped and I looked back at the sky, then at Tormaigh again. “Is it a he or a she?”

  “Thunderbird.”

  “Last thing I knew there wasn’t a specific pronoun for that.”

 Tormaigh glanced at the sky. “He. If you express your interest in friendship, he’ll be distracted from thundering, and come down. You’ll see he can be quite personable when he comes down. And he likes to dance. You’re a dancer too. Sometime, you can dance together.”

  “You dance with it. How am I ever going to get home? Back to my life?”

  “That’s just it. That’s what makes this all very important. If you can’t get the bird on your side, nothing is ever going to make sense again.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense in itself. You mean the bird can get me home?”

 Tormaigh crimped down the corner of his mouth. “You could put it that way, I guess.”

  I sighed and stared into the clouds. It really was getting lighter now. One part of the horizon was growing distinctly pale, even as the mist turned to fog. That must be east. That is, assuming the sun rises in the east here. “I’ll try to talk to him,” I said.

  “Good. And one more thing you should know.” I looked back at him. He smiled a little closed-mouthed downward smile. “He likes bells. All different sizes of bells.”

  I scowled. “Do those grow out of the ground here, or something?”

  His face lightened. “Yes. See, I knew you would start to catch on.” And he was gone again.

  It seemed I was going to have to get used to the physics of this place. Until I found that bird and persuaded it to take me home, I would have to explore a bit. At least my encounter with the thunderbird got me over my fear of the ground giving way under my feet. If it took an explosion like that to even crack it, I probably didn’t have much to worry about.A gentle wind began to lift the fog. I could see the whiteness of morning coming through. My hands slipped into the pockets of my jacket and I started walking toward the brightening horizon.

  After half an hour or so, the sky was clear. It was a strange sky—blue, but not as bright or as uniform as ours. If I watched carefully enough, I could see the color undulating and changing. It took me some time, but eventually my quiet mind put forward the theory that it wasn’t a clear sky at all. I was looking at very high-altitude blue clouds.

   The bird was gone, anyway.

  I really didn’t have any way of knowing how or where to find him. Even simply walking didn’t make a lot of sense. With the landscape so level, I would only see anything new gradually. What’s more, I wasn’t even sure that the bird ever landed. If he did, he would have nothing to do but sit there on the ground. From what I had seen, he seemed more comfortable above the clouds than below them. He might still be above them now.

  But there was nothing to do but walk. Every now and then I would stop and gaze around me, scanning the horizon for something. Anything. Where did these bells grow? Maybe if I could find the bells, I could find the bird. I must have walked for hours. I got to thinking if I lived in this place, I would probably be quite fond of bells myself.

Categories
Dreamscape IN series

Dreamscape, IN: Episode 1, Between Water and Sky

Read the Prologue: here Wordcount: 583 Part: 2/ongoing

Between Water and Sky

I thought I saw it as I jumped off the pier into the lake.

The air was already cooling as afternoon slid into evening. Summer doesn’t last long in Dreamscape. I tossed my towel off my shoulders and ran down the weathered dock, my bare feet pounding the weathered gray boards as I sped toward the horizon. The wind thundered in my ears and my hair tossed against my sunscreen-slathered shoulders. My skin was rough with goosebumps. The water would be cold, but I ran faster. Faster! This might be the last dive of the season. Go!

My feet left the end of the pier and a sudden silence rushed around me. I was flying, launched into the air from the sheer energy of knowing the whole sky was watching, waiting.

High, high above and many miles long, it trailed on and on toward the west. The cars flashed back the reddening sunlight as it coasted faster and faster over the curve of the sky. Away it went, and I hit the water.

The roaring chaos of the broken surface gave way to the humming jingling teal-black depths. I plunged through the shock of the cold to a dark secret world. This world calls me, too. It always disappears when I touch the soft oozing sand at the bottom and kick off. I was bound skyward again.

My face erupted into the biting breeze and lapping waves, and I dragged my hands across my blurry eyes. A seagull screamed and I searched the sky. It was gone.

For a while I swam around under the pier, weaving in and out between the slimy supports and the zebra-mussel reefs like an unglorified mermaid. I watched the others with only my eyes above the water. They would be cold soon. We wanted to stay until sunset, but we would see.

Maybe it was strange for a girl my age to care so little about what her friends were doing. But they never talked about the train. They never really talked about what they wanted to do. I was ambitious. Or something. I’m not sure what it was. I just knew there was music in my head, always changing and building. I was bound for somewhere.

Even if I never left Dreamscape.

Mom picked us up and drove us home, letting the others off at their houses along the way. Then finally, it was just me and her in the car. I told her about the train.

“Why do I see it?”

“Everyone does, honey.”

“But nobody talks about it but us.”

“Nobody dares to hope. Most people seek security in other things. Hope…it’s too hard to control.”

I let my hand ride the wind outside the window. “I suppose I’d better focus on this last year of school, so I can have something to hope for, myself.”

“Hard work is good for you,” she said. “All your dreams are there to get you out of bed in the morning. But outcomes can be chaotic in this world. So much that you can barely claim the credit or take the blame. Do your best. Make your plans. Don’t give up. But at the end of the day, if it helps at all, try to remember everything this life has to offer can be gotten by accident.”

Categories
Echoland

Echoland Part 2: The Glass Prairie

Link to Part One: here Wordcount: 1,357 Part: 2/9

Synopsis: Jasmine discovers a strange, lonely world and meets a frustratingly mysterious entity in a hooded cloak.

Wherever I was, I was completely alone there. Overhead, the huge sky was stormy and still dark. The ground was cold under my bare feet, but not wet like ice. Otherwise, it looked more or less like ice. It was smooth and flat. Several yards from where I had fallen (if I had fallen) there was a fine white seam, like a stress fracture. I walked over to it carefully, easing one foot at a time. I needn’t have bothered. The ground, I found out, was perfectly solid. I placed one foot on each side of the crack. Here, I could see—almost–how far it went down. The ghostly seam extended deep into the crystal blackness, down, down, until either it or my vision dwindled. How thick was this sheet of glass? Or maybe, I had been transported to a glass planet. Perhaps it was solid glass all the way down.

  And the sound was still there. It was louder now, but even harder to define. It was some perfect, eerie cross between music and thunder—maybe the way thunder would sound in a place like this, resonating off the endless glass. I stared up at the sky. Lightning frisked between the patchy black fleece and the midnight-blue that seeped through it. My eyes swept down and around the horizon.

  Well, whatever this crazy place was, there was clearly nothing to do here but wait around until you got struck by lightning. And if it didn’t kill you, you would have to wait around until it happened again. In the mean time, I decided to follow the crack.

How long I traced it, I have no idea. Looking back, I don’t think there was any reason it might not have been eight to ten hours. This place had absolutely no landmarks, it seemed, and likewise I began to doubt that my mind or my body still processed time. I’m not even sure if I had any thoughts all the while—not until I started to rationalize what it could all mean.

  I had to either be dead or in some kind of an altered state. Remembering back to my last few moments in the backyard, and up though the point where I fell through to this place, it all seemed impossibly unnatural. I don’t think the ground was what shattered at all. Something had happened to my mind, or my nervous system. Maybe I lost consciousness. Maybe I was struck by lightning again.

My eyes jerked up and I stopped. I’d been enveloped suddenly by an uncanny feeling. I felt like someone was asking me a question in a voice I couldn’t hear. I scowled and looked around me. Was there breathing? No. But there was someone. Should I say something? What was the risk? If no one was there, no one would think I was crazy. If someone was, I wasn’t crazy. “Hey, uh, what’s going on around here?”

  My voice stopped in the air. I turned fully around, twice, I think, before I started to feel silly. Nobody was there. My mind was playing tricks, because I had fallen through to a world where nobody lived and had no way to ever get back. How stupid of me not to assume that right away. People have the hardest time recognizing total solitude when they’re thrown in the middle of it and can’t get back out. They start imagining other presences.

  “Help!” I screamed at the horizon. The figure standing in front of me started back.

  “I was just right about to answer your question.” The face in the dark hood crooked an eyebrow and shook his head a bit. “A little patience never hurt anybody. Hey?”

  I stepped back a bit and looked him up and down. The prairie’s atmospheric drone crackled, and in a lingering flash of lightning I could see his face clearly for a full second. I was so sure I recognized him, the name almost twitched off my tongue, but it was gone before it came. “Well?” I said, shaking it off.

  “First off, I assume you came looking for the bird,” he said.

  I raised my eyebrows and looked around at the sky and then back at him. “Bird?”

  “You know, if you’re going to pretend you didn’t see it, we’ve got a long way to go.” He turned and looked back over his shoulder. “Let’s go find it.”

  I could hardly see him in the lighting when he turned away, but I could make out his cloudy shape moving at a good pace when lightning flashed. I sprinted forward a few steps. “What is this place?” I asked. “How did I get here?”

  “Same way you’ve always come,” he said.

  “I’ve never been here before.”

  “That’s what you think.” I stopped and he turned around. He sighed. “It’s called Echoland. You’re here because you had questions about the bird. You’ll see it in a few minutes. Might not be a great deal to do before morning, though.”

  “If you’re worried that I might get bored here, I think I could suggest a few more immanent problems.”

  “Boredom’s a problem, Jazz,” he said.

  “Kind of like a thousand miles of open land during an electrical storm, I suppose,” I said. “And don’t call me Jazz.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

  “Because it’s my name, and I haven’t told you that yet.” I tucked my hands into the pockets of my jacket and followed him for a few minutes of quiet. The wind rushed across the openness, and I couldn’t help but search the land and sky for any sign of the bird. There weren’t many places to hide out here. I came up to walk abreast with my hooded companion. He was moderately tall and appeared to have dark eyes, but it might have been the lighting. I couldn’t say anything else for sure about his coloring, it was too dark, and his hair was hidden, along with everything else, by his mantle. “Are you going to explain to me how I got here?”

  “No more than I’m going to explain how I got here. You’ll figure it out. You’ve done it before.”
  “I haven’t either,” I said. “Stop for a minute. I’ve never been here before. You must be mistaking me for somebody else.”

  “Somebody named Jasmine who looks exactly like you and is looking for the bird.”

  “And I’m not looking for any birds. I don’t know why you think that. I really just want to get back home. I don’t care about birds.” Either my eyes were adjusting or the clouds were thinning as we spoke. Now I could clearly see the expression on his face. He seemed to think whatever he was thinking about was clever, and he was clearly not thinking about my argument.

  “You’ve been looking all over the sky ever since you got here.”

  “Because it’s a weird place with nothing else to look at.” My eyes lost anchor and my vision spun in confusion. “Where’d you go?” I yelled into the empty landscape.

  “Talk to the thunderbird.”

  “Huh?” My eyes lifted to the sky again. There was nothing but clouds up there, matted, flickering, cumulous clouds. There were as many birds up there as there were hooded ghosts down here. My head whipped around as I searched one more time for my disappearing friend. I was alone again, and his voice, disembodied though it had momentarily been, offered no further assistance. “Further assistance.” As if he had been any help at all.

  I noticed a mist was beginning to rise off the glass prairie. All this time, in spite of the clouds and the thundering, there hadn’t been a drop of rain. I had been able to see for miles in those conditions, but now the dark horizon was growing fuzzy. The thunder died away and the humming filled in, taking a slightly different timbre as the mist thickened over the land. The breeze pulsed through my hair. It wasn’t a cold breeze, but it was becoming wet. I pulled my jacket around me and looked up at the sky. No birds.

TO BE CONTINUED….

Categories
Echoland

Echoland: part one

Author’s note: I randomly decided I should serialize an old story I wrote in college. Fun fact, I actually recorded this as an audio book with a full soundtrack and two original songs for my senior project. Not-so-fun fact, I actually hate the sound of my own voice, and on top of that, I was actually sick for most of the recording. I sang a song for it in a key that I usually can’t sing in.

Synopsis: Jasmine is a dancer and a recovering lightning-strike victim who stumbles into a world in another dimension. If she wants to return home, she must befriend a wild, destructive thunderbird who cares for nothing but bells and dancing.

Wordcount: ~10,700  Parts: 9

I turned off the lights in the studio and the coming storm re-colored the room. Slate and silver watercolor washed across the smooth wooden floors. On either wall, parallel versions of me took identical windbreaker jackets off hooks beyond the raw edge of the glass. The mirrors created the eerie illusion that I never danced alone. Silent Jasmines leaped and pirouetted into infinity on either side. They all flinched when the pain spread through by back and shot down my arm.

  I forced my hand out through the sleeve of my jacket. I was the only one who could still see the scars, like ivy in the winter, crawling up my back and across my right shoulder, lacy and lavender-gray. The doctor said I should be healed up entirely my now. But of course, one could never know for sure. The pain I tried to ignore might have nothing to do with it.

  Just the same, it was hard not to suspect it was left over from the lightning strike.

  I was different since that dark afternoon last August. Without making further claims, anyone could tell you that. A light had gone out somewhere in my mind. I didn’t see the world like I used to. Waking up was slow. Falling asleep was even slower. Days merged together and I couldn’t read time or remember names.

  The wind roused itself and held the door for me as I slipped outside. My steps reverberated on the rusted stairway, shaking the quiet. I lighted on the sidewalk and looked up at the sky. There was a soft whir, and half a dozen starlings burst from the crisscrossing telephone wires. The charcoal-wash clouds streamed above, and the cables moaned in the wind. A tendril of sable-brown hair flicked out of my tired ponytail and crossed my vision. I pulled it behind my ear and ducked into the wind.

  I lived out of town, but it was only a fifteen-minute walk from the studio. I didn’t bother to drive this time of year. Perhaps I should have, today. The storm wasn’t here yet, though. It wasn’t due here until tomorrow. I shoved my hands into my pockets and blew down the road into the gentle undulating hills outside of town.

  My house is hidden in a young brushy woodland in the middle of a neighborhood of hay and bean fields. My town is so small, the roads turn to gravel only a couple of miles out. On the curve at the very edge of town stands a huge, mostly debarked ash tree. It’s stood there for a hundred years, probably. Now and then a long-dead limb drops into the road. But I don’t think it’s ever been struck by lightning.

Braving the wind, I lifted my wary eyes to the old tree as I approached it. There was a monstrous bird—at least I took it to be a bird—perched on the tree. It was perfectly still, besides the rustle of feathers in the wind, and it faced away from me, overlooking the soy field. The plumage was sooty black and deep oily slate. The tail– like a peacock’s—cascaded all the way to the ground. The bird itself must have stood almost as tall as me. Presently, it turned its double-crested head over its aquiline shoulders. The eyes were dark and placid–oversized, like a nightjar’s.

  I couldn’t tell if it was looking at me. It didn’t respond like a bird would. The wind fluttered the horn-like crests that flanked its head, and it raised them slightly, like a pair of folding fans. It turned back a bit and gave me a profile, staring out into the horizon.

  I had imagined it, of course.

  The day trailed off into night. Still quiet. I sat in my kitchen watching the gray darken outside. A flock of pigeons careened through the sky in search of some barn loft or silo to roost in. They batted out of sight and the dreary sky was empty again. I stirred honey into my tea, watching it slowly dissolve. If I listened closely, I could hear the musical note the second hand struck with each mechanical twitch. The house went dark around me.

Resigning at last to the close of the day, I got up and prepared for bed. Why did I always feel so let down at the end of every day? Each was just like the one before it, lonely, confusing, and directionless. I always dreamed of a solitary life, but I had never imagined it was possible to be this alone. I saw my students once a week. Not that I particularly liked teaching, but it was something. I guess it distracted from the strange sense that I was falling slowly, with nothing ever to catch me. Falling into another world where everything was silent and uncomprehending.   

  I remember trying to analyze the sound without opening my eyes before I was fully awake. At first, I was sure it was wind, but when I sat up and looked out the twilit window, everything was still. Thunder swelled and broke through the resonant thrum. Maybe it was wind. Faraway wind. It was about four in the morning. My feet dropped to the floor, and I crossed the room to open the window. A scowl pulled at my waking eyes. It had to be the storm on its way here.

  I pressed my hands against the rough wooden frame, about to thrust the window upward, but there I stopped. What was that?

  Through the deep blue of the morning, beyond the mottled shrubbery at the edge of the lawn something huge and white was closing in. Smoke? No, it was too dense, and it didn’t rise, it fell. In fact, it cascaded down out of the filmy sky, and advanced like a slow ghostly tidal-wave. I could only think something bizarre must be happening with the atmospheric pressure—forcing the clouds to dive suddenly from their natural altitude and crawl along the earth.

  But what was it really? I needed to see the whole sky. That sound wasn’t my imagination, and it was growing louder with the passage of time. There were overtones now, like bowed glass, almost music. I made my way through the house, eyes always on the glowing windows, to the back door. There I paused, listening, staring through the glass. The fog was coming through the edge of the brushy border of the yard now, seeping in through the dark foliage, spilling out across the twinkling grass. I stepped out onto the back porch.

  Thunder purred. I scowled up at the sky. The air overhead was clear and dry until the cloud blanket. I tucked my hands under my arms and tiptoed down the damp steps and into the grass. A few paces out, I stopped again and scowled at the cloud coming down. My gaze followed it as it poured over some invisible ledge in the sky a few miles away all the way to the gnarled apple tree halfway between me and the edge of the yard. The fog continued at a walking pace, gradually dissolving the tree and the borders of the lawn. 

  By the time I looked over my shoulder, the house had vanished. Now and then, a shadow in the fog revealed the line of the roof, but aside from that, I might have been anywhere. I scowled back in the direction of the oncoming cloud. Certainly nothing to see that way anymore. But wait.

  There was something. Something dark looming an uncertain distance from where I stood. I leaned toward it and took a step forward.

  And the ground gave like thin ice.

  I fell back on the heels of my hands. Pain jarred through my shoulders and my head cleared. The fog flicked away, and with it, everything. I pushed myself upright and sat staring around at the vastness, at the infinite sky, and the trackless glass prairie that swept out around me for miles and miles. I drew a breath out of the lightly dancing wind and slowly got to my feet.

On to part 2?

Categories
Dreamscape IN series

Dreamscape, IN: prologue

Last night I climbed out onto the roof outside my bedroom window as I almost always do just before sunset late in the summer. I’m holding onto something. I realize this.

School will start in a couple of weeks. I’m seventeen. I have to go back one more time. I wanted to see the clouds and wonder at the way they catch the last of the light as the sun slides over the curve of the earth. Last night they were soft and feathery, but some evenings they’re solid mountains, glowing with the color of the inside of a barely-ripe peach. I love to watch the jets glinting along their soaring courses to somewhere…I don’t know where they’re going. They always pass high over Dreamscape. They don’t know this town exists.

Few do. Dreamscape hangs suspended in a misty netherworld between now and the future, between hope and whatever comes next. Few stay here as long as I have. But it’s such a beautiful place. Especially in the evenings in late summer when the last dreams of the season are beginning to fade again.

The feeling sets in. It didn’t happen this year. Next year, maybe.

Maybe next year.

Categories
Art

I Redrew my Old Art from Years Ago

I’ve never been great about putting dates on my art.  I started digging through my old sketchbooks in search of some worthy redraw material, and discovered a big 8 ½” x 11 ½” spiralbound. Flipping through its smeary pages, I found sporadic dates ranging mostly from late 2008 to 2009. What’s interesting about this era is, it was the beginning of my more serious writing days. I started writing my debut sci-fi trilogy in ’08. As you can imagine, there was a lot of art related to that story in this sketchbook.

In fact, there was so much I thought it would be better to dedicate a whole future post just to Stardrift Trilogy art redraws eventually. For this post, I decided to pick drawings that stood alone. There are five. Let’s have a look at them now.

Girl T-Posing in a Field

Some of these drawings had titles, but this one didn’t, so that’s my title, now. I have a lot of comments about this one. First off, why in the world did I choose that angle on the face? With the head tilted back like that? That is not an easy angle. It actually isn’t even an intermediate angle, but here we are. I would like to congratulate my younger self for not shying away from the anatomy here. I think I remember studying this pose in the mirror so that I got the ins and outs of the arm-muscles right, and it shows.

Obviously, I liked the concept and vibe of this picture. That’s why I choose to redraw it. She’s actually most likely not t-posing, but probably dancing or something, judging by the hair and clothing movement. So, let’s look at my redraw.

The Redraw

This was the first of the drawings I redid, and I was excited to realize, for the first time I actually have developed a style. Clearly, I learned something about how I like to depict hair. Aside from a little more confidence in the foreshortening on the face (I still don’t like the angle) I think the hair is the clearest improvement you can see looking at the two images side-by-side.

Honestly, she looks happier in the first one. But this first redraw inspired me to move on to the next and see what else I had learned over the years.

Smug Girl from Visaclosure

So, I cheated a tiny bit here, because Visaclosure is in fact a planet from the Stardrift Trilogy and I said I was going to save that for later, but since this isn’t an actual character from the books, I decided to go ahead and include her. First off, this is not a proper way to sit wearing a dress, but clearly she could care less. Afterall, I probably wouldn’t care about much if I lived on Visaclosure either. It’s very sparsely populated and every human settlement established there quickly goes back to nature since everything on the planet grows extremely fast.

The hands and feet could use a little more effort, I think. A bad habit I had, and honestly still have, is trying to draw faces on a scale that’s way too small to expect much. This face is under an inch from chin to hairline. It’s really hard to work that small. I tried to draw a little bigger the second time around.

The Redraw

Okay, so it’s kind of an illusion if the face looks any bigger here. I measured, and it actually isn’t. But obviously I got better at drawing faces overall, and was able to get something a lot more human looking into that inch of paper this time. Once again, you can see I figured out how I like to stylize my faces and figures now. I’ve outgrown my ghost stage as well, and I actually know how to put a little pressure on the pencil, which is kind of a plus for people trying to see my art.

I also thought it was funny that she has a similar little thing on her shoulder as the girl in the field. I’m not sure what my obsession with little metal rings as sleeve-ornaments was about.

The confidence is the biggest difference here. Everything about the second piece is much more intentional. And the girl looks a lot more like somebody you might actually see.

Thunderbird, the horse

Thunderbird was my imaginary horse growing up. What? You didn’t have an imaginary horse growing up? She was a blue roan mustang with a stubborn, fiery temperament. She was also my warhorse, but we’ll get to that later. Anyway, I almost think I wasn’t looking at a reference picture for this, so it’s pretty good, considering. But I don’t know what I was doing with the eye. That’s not how horses’ eyes look. Also, is that her other ear coming out from behind her forehead? Because I don’t think that should be visible.

The Redraw

Once again—the hair. Also, I am no longer a ghost, you’re welcome. Though I’m still not super confident with equine anatomy, (and once again was not using a reference) you can see that my understanding for the forms clearly has improved. Another thing I though was interesting about this picture is the way you could still see my stylization carried over from my human drawings, even though my subject was an animal rendered more thoroughly than the previous drawings.

Kids, don’t be afraid of putting some graphite on your paper. Draw hard lines. Shade things in. Your future self will thank you.

Mists of Time

This one had a title. I suspect this is another depiction of a scene on Visaclosure. I loved the aesthetics of that world so much. We have here, an ancient time-keeper—apparently this past civilization divided their day into tenths. I don’t have a lot to say about this picture. I just wanted to see if I had gotten any better at drawing environments.

The Redraw

And I think I have. It’s a lot easier to understand the landscape and distances shown in this second picture. I also was a lot more patient about filling in the foliage and adding details for believability. Forms are a lot more solid and there’s good depth contrast between the foreground and the background.

I changed the design of the vines in this one. I think they were supposed to be opal vines—aggressive low-growing vines with little pearlescent white fruit. They pose a major tripping hazard in the undergrowth. The second picture is more how I imagined them in Stardrift.

Self-Portrait as a Warrior

And now, another episode from my childhood. My siblings and I were very into imaginative play growing up. We had a war that literally went on for years. There were a bunch of made-up characters, locations, and political situations involved—not to mention talking gorillas with swords. They were bad guys. Anyway, I eventually became a commander for some reason (and Thunderbird was my warhorse, as you might recall.) I thought I was cool, but I was probably pretty annoying to work with—always going rouge, had a petty rivalry with another officer who was better at winning over the higherups. It was so fun.

Anyway. I found this picture, which I clearly wasn’t happy with at the time. When I noticed I had literally promised myself to try it again later, (in writing at the bottom of the page) I decided this was the time.

The Redraw

I think little me would have been really pleased. Here we have a lip-curling frizzy-haired little fighter who actually knows how to sit on a rock.

I kind of want to draw my old rival, now. I never really did get a satisfactory picture of him, and he was kind of a good-looking kid, to be fair.

Improvement?

I realized something as I was looking at these drawings. Yes, I have gotten visibly better and have learned to more accurately produce the things I see in my head. Yes, my confidence has increased, and I like the way my style has developed. But there was another thing I realized from this activity. It wasn’t about my art.

It was about my writing. I’ve been writing fiction for fifteen years now, and somehow I have tricked myself into thinking I haven’t improved much at all. But this is how much I’ve improved in art over that time—and I wasn’t even drawing every day. I wasn’t feverishly studying and pushing myself to the next level year after year. But I improved massively.

And I think I haven’t improved at other things? Writing, which I’ve been aggressively fighting to uplevel almost every day? Life in general, after all this experience?

Don’t doubt you’re getting better at the things you love, everybody. You won’t always feel it. You’ll doubt yourself more often than not. But you are getting better, and you’ve already come so far.

Categories
announcements

The NEW Direction of UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com

I have decided to do something completely different with this blog. I’ve decided to wreck its entire commercial potential as well as its community-building potential and make it a type of blog I can’t even find a niche name for. It’s not going to be an author blog anymore. But it’s not really going to be an art blog either. It’s not going to be a ‘life-updates’ type of blog, or a devotional blog, or a lifestyle blog or anything you’re used to seeing.

UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com is going to go from a useful educational writing blog to an entertaining and hopefully inspiring outlet for all kinds of creative output. It’s definitely a risky move. I can’t even find anything online about how to run a blog like this. I’m going to have to totally wing it and figure everything out for myself.

This is a terrible idea, right? We’re kind of doomed, aren’t we?

Not if you read on. Not if you find anything here that entertains or inspires you and are interested enough to seek out more.

What kind of content can you expect now?

I have no shortage of ideas for what to share with you here. I’ll be sure to put my best efforts into learning how to create the most engaging content I can in this new style. I won’t be droning on dully about my WIPs or doing random sketch-dumps and calling it a post. Writing great blogposts is an art in itself, and I intend to perfect it.

What type of post will likely dominate UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com going forward?

  • Fiction Posts

I’m really excited about this. I’ve got some specific things planned, which I’ll talk about in a second. Probably about two-thirds of the posts on UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com will be fiction—like my own personal Wattpad website. I’ll do flash-fiction, bonus material from my books, and short-run as well as long-running serial stories. Some will be regular, but others will have random posting schedules to keep you guessing. I’m looking forward to the freedom and variety I’ll get to enjoy writing shorter more informal work. You’ll be seeing some brand-new worlds open up.

Here and there, I’ll do other types of posts, including:

  • Art Posts

Like I said, no sketch-dumps or single-picture with no caption posts. I want to do side-by-side comparisons of redraws of my old art, detailed character-design sheets and intros to characters (you’ll get to see some of my book characters in vivid detail and full-color for the first time!) my art-journaling pages and processes, sketchbook tours with full commentary, etc.

  • Tutorials

No, I’m not cutting this category completely. Gotta do something to keep Pinterest happy, right? But probably not a lot of writing how-to. Things like multimedia art-journaling, beating creative block, and creating inspiring creative workspaces are in the cards. I’ll probably branch out into other things as my vision gets clearer.

  • Challenges and New Media

I want to become more creatively adventurous. I want to try to do stuff I’m terrible at and see if I like it. Whether it’s creating art from random prompts using random materials, trying to learn a brand-new medium or technique in a set amount of time, or something significantly crazier, I want to take a tip or two from the “I tried____” trend and dive into some new and exciting experiences.

And now, I’d like to introduce the first serial fiction series ever to come to UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com.

Dreamscape, IN: a flash-fiction series

“Everything life has to offer can be gotten by accident.”

This is an ongoing flash-fiction series written completely on the fly. Not so much a story as an ethereal rhapsody of reoccurring themes and images haunting one main character. Anything can happen from episode to episode. Read one. Read every other one. Go back and read them all if you’d like. The story is whatever you remember when you wake up.

What’s particularly unique about Dreamscape, IN is I’ve planned it to be a multimedia series. That means some episodes will be mostly writing, but will probably include illustrations. Some will feature multiple more detailed images with snippets of prose between them. Still others will lapse almost completely into webcomic form—some of which will be nearly wordless.

It’s the story of a teenage girl living in some undefined Indiana town in the Great Lakes area. The visuals will be pretty, a bit lonely, sometimes surreal. Dreamscape isn’t a real town. It’s a place she goes in her mind where there’s always the hope of something more to be had but no guaranteed way to get to it. I think, when you’ve read a few episodes, you’ll start to remember you’ve been to Dreamscape, too.

The prologue will be released on 8/11/23, so there’s something to look forward too. Hopefully, episodes will come out weekly.

What’s Next?

We’re about to jump into the regular posting schedule! Keep an eye open for my next post where I will be redrawing my art from years ago. Did I improve? Did I develop a distinctive style? Did I used to have significantly cooler ideas for things to draw?! Find out on 8/7/23!

One More Thing:

So, I’ve tried a lot of different creative and artistic media throughout my life. I’ve only actually gotten good at a few of them and there still some I’ve never tried at all. In the comment section, throw out all your best guesses on which ones I’ve never tried before. Go wild. I’ll tell you if you’re right or wrong. If you can hit on one I haven’t tried, maybe I’ll use it to challenge myself and report how it went in a later post.

Categories
Christianity & Creativity

Does God Use Entertainers?

Unfortunately, if you struggle long enough as a Christian artist, you’ll probably eventually go from asking, “Is it because I’m not a good enough artist?” to “Is it because I’m not a good enough Christian?”

Over the past couple of years, I’ve become ever more strongly aware of the power artists have. I’ve been watching other artists and discovering what I want to do and what I don’t want to do with this power. I find in the Christian author community, there are really three approaches people tend to take to making sure their work counts.

An author has a platform. And to make the most responsible and impactful use of it, she needs to be at least one of these three things:

  • Teacher: a practical mentor helping others become better for the glory of God
  • Preacher: a voice of truth using art to teach moral lessons
  • Activist: an advocate using art to raise awareness and inspire action

The Problem

These are all very good things to be. For years, I tried to find out which vocation best suited my skills and personality. I tried teaching. This blog used to be dedicated mainly to writing tutorials and essays detailing what I had learned studying the craft. But honestly, I felt a little bored writing them. What’s more, I didn’t feel qualified since my techniques and insights were constantly changing.

I’ve never been much for preaching through my art. I hope my work reflects eternal truth and provokes thought in my readers, but I’m never sure exactly what I’m trying to say. Most of the time, I’m just vibing with a vibe and hoping it comes out pretty. I’m shallow like that.

Then there’s the big one. It’s pretty much considered irresponsible and cowardly not to be an activist these days. If you have any platform at all, you really need to be speaking out on The Things. There’s way too much wrong in the world for anybody not to. So, of course I needed to be an advocate for justice.

But I did not want to.

And this is where the guilt comes in. I didn’t want to repost things. I didn’t want to join movements. I didn’t want to create propaganda with my art. For a long time, I thought this was wrong of me. They say if you’re silent, you’re part of the problem.

Should I have just done it?

It seemed selfish. It seemed weak and cowardly. I was supposed to style myself as a warrior and dive into the fray wielding my weapon—creative art. I mean, I’m literally a Christian dystopian author. How could I not go into the battle of social and cultural issues? Isn’t that what the genre is for?

But I didn’t want to do that to my art. I didn’t want to be known for my views and opinions. I didn’t even want to be known for my morals. (!?) I’m not a role-model and I wouldn’t want anyone looking up to me as a standard—for literally anything. I didn’t want to use my platform to put my creative life on display as an illustration of my ideology. The thought of taking the stage that way paralyzed my brain.

People would start following me for my beliefs and my stances on issues rather than for my work. My career would be swallowed up. Sure, I would probably get a lot more attention if I spoke on hot-button topics. But it would almost certainly destroy my love for sharing my art.

But if I didn’t take a stand, was I really doing anything for my true mission here on earth? Was I ignoring God’s call? Was I rendering my work meaningless?

More than anything, I wanted God to use my work. Could He still use it if I refused to teach, preach, or fight for justice?

The Entertainer

Entertainment. Pop-culture. Distractions from what really matters in life. I engage in it pretty much every day—always chasing that temporary high of a song with a great beat-drop or an atmosphere that gets me out of this monotonous headache called reality. I want to laugh and dream and borrow emotions from other people’s hearts until I can feel again. I want somebody to articulate things I couldn’t quite grasp before and remind me I’m not alone.

What a waste of time.

And yet, it was in the middle of my time-wasting that I discovered something that would begin to open my eyes to my true mission as a creative. God showed me something beautiful—something that gave me hope and a new sense of meaning for what he was asking me to do.

And who did He use to reveal this to me?

A kpop idol.

Doing it all wrong

This was not the correct way for me to learn deep truths, was it? Somebody should have told God that’s not how it’s supposed to be done. You don’t use messed-up, secular pop star boys in heavy eyeliner to inspire revelations. Well, who’s gonna tell Him that?

Turns out He can use whatever He wants. Even artists who aren’t teachers, preachers, or activists. He can use people who might never even have invited Him into their creative work. He can work through anyone. And he does. He probably works through everyone, at least once.

I was sitting around worrying that somehow my art wasn’t going to point anyone to God and would languish in meaningless darkness until it disappeared in the ashes of time. I thought maybe it was because I was too greedy or jealous, or scared, or self-absorbed to do what I was meant to do.

I thought I was going to completely fail because I didn’t follow a very particular method of using my platform and beating my work into a very particular mold and He dropped an artist from an extremely different situation in front of my face and showed me something no one in the Christian author community ever could have.

Something Beautiful

Art can be used in many ways. Yes, it can preach truth or inspire action. It can be a powerful vehicle for driving the culture in a certain direction or bringing injustices to light. But that’s not all it was meant to do.

I could rant for a lot longer about what I think entertainment could be if more Christians would realize it had value in itself. It might be a bit of a controversial opinion, but I’m not sure we were supposed to focus on the dead-seriousness of life every waking minute. Of course, retreating into the world of entertainment can be overdone. Everything can be overdone. Even doing good work in the real world will eventually burn you to the ground if you never step back from it. Constant battle has destroyed too many people.

Art can be a means of deep connection to lift spirits, ease loneliness, and bring attention to things the world tries to rush past. We need the escape and the playfulness it can offer. We can grow and learn through the secret doors it opens inside us.  

Ultimately, art is communication. For me, it’s a way to reach out to a world that is becoming increasingly more isolated, alienated, segregated and alone and tell anyone who’s listening they’re still alive. There’s still hope, still laughter, still room for dreamers. And I want to show them something.

I want to show them something I saw in my mind. It was fascinating. It was beautiful. Maybe it even meant something, I don’t know. But I want to share it. And that’s why I’m going to start sharing it right here.

The New UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com

In the next post, I’ll be talking in detail about what to expect from this blog from now on. But I’ll give you a quick preview here.

I’m going to branch out into a fuller range of arts. You’re going to get to see drawings and paintings and multimedia work that you’ve never seen before. There are also going to be an ongoing fiction series…but I won’t spoil anything! Stay tuned.

I’m aware that I might lose some of my audience here. I’m not going to be running a traditional author blog anymore. Like I mentioned, I’m not as interested in writing tutorials and essays about writing. It just isn’t where I am in my artist’s journey. I don’t feel like I know much anymore. But that’s fine with me, because I’ll finally get to start sharing my real love with the world—the art itself.

I hope you enjoy it.

Categories
Social Media

Why I Quit Instagram

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that an unknown indie author trying to gain a readership must be in want of a social media presence.

Social media has become so central to any business plan, you sound crazy the moment you question if it’s actually necessary. Of course it is. In fact, normal people who aren’t trying to promote a book can’t seem to do without it. It makes you less normal if you try to give it up.

Don’t like it? Learn to deal with it. You simply can’t go without social media if you want to gain any traction in this world. Just pick one and stick to it. Post every day. How hard can it be?

Well…we’ll get to that. But let’s start with what I used to think and see how the story goes from there.

Reasons I believed I needed social media:

Platform

You have to have a platform if you want an audience. In the modern world social media just happens to be the most obvious place to collect your people. It’s also very easy to judge how you’re doing by the numbers. Everybody likes that.

Community

This is a huge buzzword. If somebody uses the word “community,” you basically can’t argue with them anymore. Community is literally the most important thing. You literally will evaporate in direct sunlight if you don’t have it as an artist. I’ve seen this happen. And where do you find your community? Social media.

Social proof

People won’t like you unless you’re already popular. Social media is a great way for anyone wondering if they should stan you to just do a quick search and find out what other people think. Most people can’t decide what they like without other people telling them, so—social media.

Staying top-of-mind

See, this is the other thing. Apparently, people won’t think about anything unless it’s right in front of their glassy eyeballs—preferably on a small screen. If you want to live rent-free in anybody’s shabby-chic attic space, you have to pop up in their notifications every single day. You will be evicted and forgotten otherwise, so get on the ticktoks and start lip-syncing like an idiot.

Lastly, it’s free, it’s accessible, and everybody else is doing it. Why not?

Why not?

The downward spiral

Because it almost always takes a turn, that’s why.

Actually, I was always skeptical of social media. It wasn’t until February of 2020 I finally dived into Instagram. It was pretty fun at first, but as I started to accumulate a follower and following list, the pressure began to build.

At first, I told myself it would be worth it. I would find my people here, make connections, grow my readership. I wouldn’t be alone in my work anymore. The stress that came with it was just part of the job.

But the demand for content was becoming draining. Shutting off my creative brain and mass-batching piles of easy-reading captions was not a skill I had. I’m not really a “thought-of-the-day” person. This may surprise you, but sometimes I go days without having any thoughts at all.

I had to do it for the books

The deep desire to see my books reach their audience was at the heart of all this. It was like a toxic marriage holding out for the sake of the kids. But the sad truth was, it wasn’t doing much for readership. Not for the books. Not for this blog.

Something people don’t often acknowledge is the fact that people on social media rarely get off. That is, if you leave a link to your latest blog post in your story, most if not all the people watching will just tap through to the next story. Secondly, people will follow other people on Instagram and never bother to find them anywhere else. They simply don’t care that much.

My conversion rates were a flatline. My followers were not buying. Okay. So maybe it’s not about conversion. Maybe it really is about community.

Toxic conditions develop

Even in the best communities, social media is a breeding-ground for toxicity. And some people can swim right through the polluted waters and never so much as break out. Then there are those who literally die.

But the toxins build up in users minds. For me, it was that constant buzz of productivity, hustle, success. It was the noise of other authors who seemed to do everything correctly against all odds. Not only that, they also held all the correct opinions, and, being wordsmiths, were excellent at sharing them.

Not only was everyone always on the ball in their author lives, they also knew what mattered in the rest of life and were doing quite well in those departments too. And the stories ran on and on—these other authors were quick to display their checked-off to-do lists at 11 a.m., their Bible-study routines, their day-jobs, their family lives, their “hectic” yet somehow flawless schedules were constantly blurring through my exhausted brain.

Now and then I stopped to wonder why people needed to share all those things with the world. It’s all very boring to watch from the outside. And what does it have to do with anything? But all these other authors were what I was supposed to be. I should be doing the same thing myself.

I tried harder–it got worse

But I had to keep up. A breakthrough was just around the corner if I could just survive the turn. Afterall, I hadn’t been on Instagram long at all compared to many people. People who were patient and showed stamina eventually blew up. People who spoke out on the right things and had their hearts in the right place were rewarded. They would find their people. They would grow. They were putting in a lot more work than I was.

You get what you earn. I was just underperforming. If you’re a good steward of what you have, you’ll be given more. I saw it preached again and again by accounts that were doing well. There was no secret. I just needed to try harder.

Then one day, I realized I didn’t want to. I had nearly lost my desire to do anything at all. My writing was suffering. I was overworking and isolating myself. Whenever I tried to do anything else I felt guilty for not working on my Instagram. I was addicted to checking in on the community, desperately trying to stay current on other authors’ accomplishments to make up for the fact I had nothing to say about my own.

Long and short of it was, I had to choose between my sanity and creative happiness and the Instagram community. My physical and mental health was collapsing, and I was closer than ever to completely losing my author career.

So, I quit.

What happened when I quit?

Silence

It felt weird. For years I had always been up to date on this circle of authors’ daily progress. I always knew what projects were about to launch and what challenges people were participating in. Now, there was nothing. There was me and my offline laptop shut away in my room trying to write.

I had been sort of living vicariously through them. Their forward motion created a sense of movement in my creative life, even though my wheels were spinning. Now I was alone with my own stillness.

Loneliness

Social media creates a sense of togetherness in isolated people. Cut it off and what have you got? Nothing, it turns out. Instagram doesn’t really miss you when you’re gone. And I realized how I probably wouldn’t have even gotten into that circle in real life. It’s nothing against them. It’s just true. I don’t get into circles in real life.

I realized how much I had been missing my family. I was always alone. These cyber voices coming from the distance had distracted me from the fact that I was far too alone. I should have spent more time with my family. No wonder I was depressed.

Confusion

I was pretty disoriented. For years I had been pushing toward the goal of breaking into the online author community, believing it was the key to success. Now, I had to rethink my strategy.

Maybe teaming up with a big band of peers was the only way my life’s dream could ever become a reality. But I had given that up. I still wanted to be an author. I didn’t know what to do.

Frustration

My writing was trash. It took forever. The final product was haphazard and unprofessional. Why would anybody read it?

I had hoped all my artistic frustrations would magically dissolve when I quit Instagram somehow. Of course, they didn’t. They didn’t live on Instagram, they lived in my head.

Introspection

Who am I as a creative? What am I truly trying to do?

I started to ask myself questions. If I had five thousand five-star reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, what would I still be striving for? Not six thousand. That was the wrong answer. Was I doing something wrong by not trying to link my books to relevant issues and push my readers to take action against the injustices of today? Were my stories unimportant? Was I just too self-centered as an author?

Finally, I asked myself the real question:

If Jesus were coming within the next few years, what should I be doing?

And the answer came back loud and clear: I needed to finish the Dronefall series.

Inspiration

I didn’t try to analyze why. Maybe my work is important for reasons I can’t even see. I suppose, to an extent, that’s true of everyone. It’s hard to see why anything matters sometimes, but if God tells you to do it, it matters. At this point, I had one book left to write in the Dronefall series. I could do this. I had finished the other five. It was time to write.

And beyond that, it was time to rethink UnsweetenedDarjeeling.com. It was still important to me. But it still seemed to be entirely unimportant to everyone else out there. I began to shift my plan. I shouldn’t be writing an author-instruction type blog. I needed to try something different.

More on that to come.

Can an author and blogger survive without social media?

We have yet to see how this goes. I just got back from my 9-month blogging hiatus. I’m still working on book 6 of my series. But I can tell you, even with the increased uncertainty hanging over my head having quit Instagram, my vision is clearer. My inspiration is returning. I’m entering a new stage in my adventure.

I’ll post on how this is working for me from time to time. I hope you stay around to watch.

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