Blocked
Writer's block + dystopia, with a sprinkle of wildflowers--because, balance.
Y’all.
I am in the middle of a severe case of writer’s block. It’s perhaps more like burnout from finishing my book in December but then still being in the limbo period of working on edits and supplemental documents that go along with it, as well as being done in my brain with it all. The fact is that I’m actually not done with the book. I think my brain crossed one hurdle and called it good but somewhere a tiny rational part of it knows there are loose ends and it is trying to tell the other 95% of my brain to get going again. I’m getting there, but gah, is it painful right now.
Alas, my brain has decided to stage a protest and isn’t very open to writing in any other capacity. It is a pretty terrible experience. Especially because I am used to getting ideas, then being able to flesh them out in my brain in a few hours, then sit down and write it out, to have something turned around relatively quickly. There are things I do want to write about but find myself becoming disinterested pretty quickly. I actually wondered if perhaps this was a side effect of being on ADHD meds now for 9 months. A perusal of Reddit ADHD forums suggests this is a possibility, though there are just as many saying the opposite. So, who knows?! It doesn’t actually matter what the source of my issue is, the issue is still there. I’m trying to wade through it while also giving myself space to just be but I’m not great at just being. See: ADHD.
In the meantime, I have been out and about botanizing and naturalizing locally, including throughout various parts of north and east Texas, as well as a trip to the Florida Panhandle in mid-March for Spring Break. Outside is really where I’ve been wanting to spend my time, not in front of a screen and writing. I also set my reading goal for 60 books this year and have been mostly accomplishing that via audiobooks (I’ve finished 20 books so far); however, I need to figure out way to make myself sit still long enough to plow through my pile of “actual” books, too. I’ve been leaning heavily into romantasy as a way to cleanse my palate and get back into fiction after reading a lot of non-fiction in the last few years. A friend and I started with Fourth Wing, well, she had already been devouring romantasy since last fall but I had been hesitant about the genre after listening to ACOTAR years ago and hating it. So, I decided to give Fourth Wing a try and well, now I’m hooked. I just finished Silver Elite by Dani Francis, a dystopian novel that has Hunger Games vibes but actually reminds me more of this book I read in the 90s called Invitation to the Game, which is a YA sci-fi dystopian book that I loved in middle/high school. There’s BookTok drama around Silver Elite because Dani Francis is a pen name by an established author and the rumors are wild about who that potential author is—from a current female romantasy novelist who wanted to write something under a different name to, shudders, JKR, to maybe it is a man and it will end up being Stephen King! Alas, the real issue that I appreciated, as outlined by Michelle Schusterman here is that the publishing company did all of the marketing and not a single thing was done by the author themselves (that we know, I suppose).
Whoever Dani Francis is, they have done zero marketing for this book that they’ve had to put their own name, words, and face to. No TikTok. No newsletter. No carefully curated Instagram grid. No BlueSky memes. Nothing.
And yet—Silver Elite is selling like hotcakes.
Why?
Because the publisher decided to get behind it. Full stop. - via The REAL Silver Elite Controversy
The other romantasy/dystopian series I have read is Shield of Sparrows and Rites of the Starling by Devney Perry. I will say, through all of these books I continue to hit on the reality: the dystopia is already here. It’s been here in some capacity for a while. When I re-read Fahrenheit 451 last year it was abundantly clear that it was a prophetic book coming true.
I can’t read any news headline or summary on social media without running into a story about AI or data centers and what is coming for rural communities, at least in Texas and parts of the south. Things are going sideways very quickly and while the pushback is enormous it is still being forced on upon us. Many of these things are quietly happening under the radar, paired with other tech projects that might seem innocuous on their own but they are often paired projects that will end up benefiting each other. Last week I started drafting an essay on the the proposed SpaceX TeraFab plant for rural Grimes County. I haven’t finished it yet (see: writer’s block) but more is developing on it by the day and it is catching the attention of politicians.
I’m hoping to finish that essay this weekend and get it published early next week and that it will help me get my writing groove back.
The problem with all of this is that there is so much to cover right now. The Big Bend border wall issue is still on the table and is constantly changing, which is throwing citizens and media into a frenzy with the vague changes that too many people are incorrectly interpreting as no wall will be built or no impact will occur, which isn’t true. Then there’s the expanded hunting directive on Department of Interior properties that was issued earlier this year and is in the process of being enacted. And then yesterday I see that Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy has a proposal to transfer 140,000 acres of Kisatchie National Forest from USFS jurisdiction to Grant Parish jurisdiction in some capacity, despite there being little support for it locally. That reeks of something from the playbook of Utah’s Mike Lee, to transfer public lands from federal management to state or local management with the ultimate goal being natural resource pillaging or development. For Louisiana I see this as being something in the combination of timber sales, development (data centers), and/or oil and gas related—most likely carbon capture projects.
Oh, and hey, did you hear about the subsidence issues happening in Katy, northern Harris and southern Montgomery Counties??
Is it any wonder that I just want to enjoy what’s left of nature before it is gone? If I write about the issues, I actually have to face them and can’t pretend otherwise. If I don’t write about it then no one knows what is happening and we can’t attempt to stop it.
The conundrum.
The reality is we’re living the dystopia right now. Most dystopian novels have something good about life in them, just like reality does. Unfortunately, those books don’t always end in a tidy fashion, with happy, clean endings. In the here and now, data centers will be built and public lands will be lost or destroyed—but maybe we’ll manage to save a scrap of something for later.
Hang in there:)
Yikes. (NE Houston-area/Harris Co here)...