What do I do when I'm not writing?

I'm not going to lie and say the idea of being an author closed up in an attic that had been turned into a combination library/writing room, never knowing what day it is or what's happening in the outside world, has never been appealing. I do rarely seem to know what day it is, but that's about my brain not prioritizing keeping track of that. I sometimes wonder if it may be related to my dyscalculia. But there's no reasonable chance of me putting my work down and stepping out of a room to find out no one has seen me in the past three months because I was writing non-stop. 

I guess I can see the appeal of letting genAI do the "writing" for you if you just want to get a lot of stuff out there and hope something sells. Believe me, I would love to see consistent sales happening! It's easy to follow that with, "but I care too much about how genAI steals from the people who made what's used to train it, what data centers are doing to our water and to neighborhoods where real people live, and what studies are showing about how it messes with cognitive function of people who use it". All of that's true, but it leaves out the reason I always wanted to write in the first place. I want to tell stories! 

That's had some things added to it over time. Well...no. All of my writing is about telling stories. That's obvious with Forest Tales because they are short stories. Poems are also stories, though. Art Grimoire helps people tell stories by guiding them in making an art journal as a grimoire for a fictional spellcaster. Roll for Divination! tells the story of how my dice divination system works in a way that makes it possible for you to use the system. They're all stories. 

Where are the stories coming from? Lived experiences. Yes, even the enchanted forest stories. There are things in Forest Stories that don't take much in-depth thought to see parallels in our world. I might not have as many stories to tell if I could have disappeared into that library/writing room I've sometimes daydreamed about.

I haven't had much time for doing anything in my sketchbook (which I call my weirdbook) lately. I haven't given up on it! I've just been doing other things when I'm not writing. There's knitting, and household responsibilities, and I'll be getting my tomatoes for this year started soon. The big thing lately, though, has been my aquatic garden!

Not to sound dramatic, because I would never intentionally do such a thing unless the stars were lined up in some way and the name of the day ended with the letter Y, but life has steered things in a direction in which I am a water creature being kept imprisoned on dry land. There are some valid reasons, like my seizures, but water creatures need water! One of the things I've done this year is find a new use for the two gallon tank I've had stored away since I stopped raising brine shrimp.

Meet Bill, Ted, and Rufus!

(A spider plant, pothos, and mini lotus plant in a two gallon tank. Picture taken from above the surface of the water.)

There are no fish, shrimp, or snails. I'm just doing this with plants. One of the great things about doing this with a tank is that I can see what's happening under the water.

(A small castle for decoration sits in the rocks and soil at the bottom of the tank. Spider plant roots grow down the left side of the tank. Four lotus stems grow up from the soil on the right side in the front. The pothos plant growing in the back has a wood stick for support. Bubbles are rising near the pothos.)

The bubbles keep the water moving enough that it doesn't become stagnant and attract insects to lay eggs. The wood stick was just removed a couple of days ago because the pothos doesn't need the support anymore, and I had some concerns about what it could do to the chemical balance of the water long-term.

I explained the names here, but I don't mind doing it again. The pothos was the first one to be named. That's Ted. Why Ted? Because he was taken as a cutting from Keanu Leaves, who has had his name for six years.

(A very large, bushy pothos in a red pot. This plant has a lot of healthy green leaves!)

I decided the S in William S. Preston, Esq. could stand for "Spider Plant", and that made Rufus the obvious name for the lotus plant! 

I've just started preparing a second lotus seed, but it will go in it's own pot instead of being added to the tank. I started soaking the seed yesterday and can already feel what may be the stem of the first shoot forming under the outer shell of the seed today.

Remember the part where I said I write because I want to tell stories? That's also what it's like to be around when I'm talking about my plants. They all have stories. The aloe vera that's been with me for over 20 years. The spider plant Bill came from who is known in our house as Mother Spider. I'm the caretaker of a lot more plants than I usually talk about online. But I do have a couple more I can show you!

(A baby fig tree in a large red pot outside in the sun. It's more of a cutting than a tree yet, but leaves are developing well and are recognizable as fig leaves.)

The baby fig tree is no longer just a handful of green nubs on a couple of sticks. They have a lot of growing to do, but I promise you no one would give this tree more love than I will.

(Bonsai lantana, about four or five inches tall, in a small clay pot.)

I had a bonsai ficus once that was already grown and trained when it was bought. Whether or not my bonsai jade plant has been a success has a lot of space for debate, but I have kept it alive for over ten years. My bonsai lantana was given to me last year as a small lantana plant. About seven or eight inches tall, big leaves, no woody stems.

It's shorter now, made it through a winter and has some woody stems, and leaves are smaller because of trimming things back before they get very big. Lantana grows fast, so I do have to keep up with it in order to keep it small, but it's also very forgiving. I trimmed the roots and repotted it last month. It only lost a few leaves and was putting out new growth before two weeks had passed.

It's not all plants and writing. I will get back to my weirdbook, and I made an origami lotus flower recently. I don't spend a lot of time knitting each day, but I consistently do it while watching shows with my spouse. I make time for devotional work. I talk to cats. I spend time with family members. I research and read about enough things that I'm not sure that all counts as research for my writing.

An interesting thing about talking to cats: I address them with respectful titles and compliment them. The cats are more consistently gentle with me than anyone else, and some of them try to take care of me when they can tell I've had a seizure. The cats know that I know who's actually in charge of things around here.

I can promise you all of these things, and others I haven't shared, influence my writing. Maybe that's why I've always wanted to tell stories. I take a lot in, so it's got to make it's way back into the world somehow.