I Gotta Get Me One Of These

the Crossing story update

Have posted next section of my current WIP novel, section 2.3

If interested, that blog is @bennuma-crossing

Have a lovely week.

This.

Writing is Life

If writing is life to you, then you have a right to identify as a writer.

New Year's Declaration: I am a writer. I know this because I need to write, I am not ok when I can't write, or am otherwise prevented from writing. It doesn't matter whether anyone else likes my writing, but I do want to share it in case someone might like my stories. Likewise I don't care whether anyone says I can't call myself a writer if I haven't yet achieved official publication status or monetary compensation for my writing. Visual artists can call themselves artists because they create art, regardless of whether they have achieved a status of supporting themselves at it professionally. I believe in the same for writers. If you write and really care about your writing, then you are a writer if you want to be and believe you are, if writing is a part of you, in your soul.

New Year's Resolution: I resolve to no longer apologize to anyone for doing what I have to do in order to be able to keep writing, and commit to writing. If I don't keep in touch with people as much as they want, if I don't take care of my health as much as people think I should, if there is any other thing that I have to do or not do in order to keep writing, that is for me to decide, and no one else. It doesn't matter if people don't understand why I do the things I do; if it helps me to keep writing, then it is necessary for me, even at the expense of other things. I will not accept guilt based on anyone else wishing I were different. I have to be who I am.

Besides, there's not much else I can reasonably do anymore anyway. I have to write.

Writing is Life.

I've been thinking...

hypothetically... if I self-identify as reclusive, and actually start telling people that and own the fact that is part of who I am and suggest that people should accept it as 'normal' for me...

...then am I, in fact, going INTO a 'recluse' closet, rather than coming 'out' of one?

Basically, am I more of a "closet recluse" if I am 'in' the closet about it, or out of it?

(I'm really the same me either way, so I guess that's what matters most.)

Anyway, it just strikes me as funny, the way the semantics look to me in a visually-interpolated way. Wouldn't a closet recluse be someone who pretends not to be, and thus is not hiding in a closet? On the other hand, owning it can be like hiding in a closet, asking people not to open the door?

ok, bye bye (for now)

Hi there!

Just a note by way of explanation...

I am going to be putting some stories and things on tumblr. I had originally started out using blogger, but decided to use tumblr also now for reasons too tedious to elaborate at the moment. When I have short stories to put online, there will be short stories to be found; however, most of the time when I plan to write a short story, it turns into a novel... when I plan a novel, it turns into a trilogy... when I plan a trilogy, it becomes a series... and series have a habit of turning into extended universes on me with alarming predictability.

The story I am mostly working on currently is The Crossing, and it takes place in one of the lives of my fantasy world Bennuma, beginning with a group of refugees in a part of the world without magic, in one of the earlier-ish ages of that life of the world, though not of the earliest ages. Eh, that would make more sense if you saw a chronology of the history of the world, ha. (as for that, my little blog on Legends of Bennuma is for historical notes, background, short stories, fables, tales, etc. regarding the world of Bennuma, written from the point of view of someone from that world)

The Crossing is a story that I decided to post online as I write it, and aside from having made some relatively minor edits recently to what had previously been on blogger (and has been updated there) is basically intended to be shared as what I consider to be a first draft...ish. It is one of my stories that originally was going to be a short story, but turned into a more complicated plot than the simple tale I planned at first, because it just grew that way. Although I have done a lot of work so far on the outline for the whole story, the actual writing out of it is pretty much still in the first chapter. I think it might turn out to be as long as a full novel or perhaps a multi-part thing... not sure yet.

I write slow, unfortunately, and cannot always post as much as entire chapters at a time; more like... scenes, or bits and pieces. Updates to be added roughly when I can; ideally I would like to do so once a week but it is difficult for many reasons. The first several bits I will likely post closer together until I get the blog caught up to how much has been posted to blogger previously. I am going to maintain the same length of posts as had been posted before instead of combining them, so any potential readers can get used to the idea of how long of sections of story bits may be normal, rather than anticipating that updates would be as long as all of what has been written so far together. Same also for the Legends of Bennuma.

Also, eventually, when I work on other stories/books, each novel-length (or longer) will likely have its own blog, and any short stories that are NOT from the world of Bennuma, I’ll put in another blog (ie, not with the shorts in the Legends of Bennuma) ...whether fantasy or sci-fi or whatever.

I think that’s all from me for now by way of introduction, so I say again, hello!

P.S. ~the “D.L.” in “D.L. Lane” may be optionally pronounced as “del”

My emotional support animals are plush.

A Couple of Notes

In The Crossing (current WIP novel) I hesitate to refer to the camp of travelers as refugees or exiles, since although they left their home in order to escape war and being threatened (also raided, plundered, etc) by local armed forces and mercenary types... they weren't specifically evicted or told to leave, nor forced out because of their culture, race, beliefs, or any other such sort of thing. Not... directly.

It was more like, they wanted to remain peacefully neutral and not join the fighting, and being in small unfortified villages and hamlets in the countryside, they simply were easy targets for people who wanted to pick up supplies in quick raids... because of where they lived, and not because of who they were (except for their choice to be neutral). The survivors of the raids found these conditions intolerable, and decided to pack up and leave instead of moving to join any of the (sort of) neighboring fortified burgs that were at war with each other. This doesn't quite fit with a lot of what I read about current common definitions of 'refugees' and I don't wish to confuse people nor in any way minimize the plight of people in the real world on planet Earth who have become refugees or exiles because of their religion/beliefs, culture, ethnicity, or other sorts of differences. I also hesitate to refer to them as 'nomads' because although they have taken up a nomadic sort of existence, it is more of a temporary thing (they hope) like pilgrims or pioneers traveling out of necessity while they seek out a new home to settle in, and not an inherited, cultural way of life like I think the word 'nomad' usually denotes. Likewise, I don't want to refer to them as 'travelers' because it seems in some parts of Europe, that word (in English) specifically is used (perhaps as slang) to refer to the Romani people and their cultural way of life, which is also not what is going on in The Crossing. Sometimes in hash tags I am putting 'traveling people' because I am not sure what else to refer to their current nomadic sort of way of life as, since although they might accurately be referred to as a type of pioneers (in Bennuma) that term could also be confused with a specific time period and the geographic area of North America... and similar issues with the term 'pilgrims' exist, in addition to that term typically also designating having religious reasons for traveling, or 'making a pilgrimage'.

Perhaps eventually I might figure out what would be a term to use that I'd consider ideal, or at least acceptable. For now, it's something of a muddle to me.

Also note: regretfully, I cannot currently be sure to post updates to the Crossing WIP novel @bennuma-crossing according to a regular schedule (as also, the informational, sometimes-containing-short-stories, worldbuilding sort of background blog @legends-of-bennuma) but I am trying to do so without huge gaps in time between posts. After section 1.7 of The Crossing, I plan to get into what I currently consider to be chapter 2... the novel being more or less a first draft, someday after the thing is completed perhaps the novel will be divided differently chapter-wise, I don't know yet... admittedly I sometimes get in a muddle over where to make chapter divisions.

The Crossing WIP novel

...got the last section of what I currently consider as chapter 1 of The Crossing WIP fantasy novel up now, over in my @bennuma-crossing blog... if you haven't seen it yet, there's sort of an info thing pinned at the top, and then 7 sections (not whole chapters, more like scenes or parts of scenes, depending on how you see it) 1.1 - 1.7 which I am calling "chapter 1"

It's taking place in a fantasy world of my own creation, though currently set in a part of the world where there's almost no magic. (Also, btw, it's relatively early in the history of that world, though there would have been a lot of important historical events that happened previously... think of how on Earth there was such a thing as relatively early in "recorded history" but which was a time period after there had already been a looooooong stretch of time before recorded history in which really quite a lot had happened all over the world... including some of which might have been recorded but subsequently lost)

Reminder: I also have a blog that has more info about the world of Bennuma and history of it and such, @legends-of-bennuma ...I do plan to add more to that at some point of both shorts and general information, but for now plan to put more time into writing chapter 2 of the Crossing, so... no promises about when there will be more of the legends stuff.

i wish

to be a small kitten in the pines 🌲