Erotica By Helen E. H. Madden

If you're reading this blog, you've probably noticed the Twitter box in the right side bar. Yep. I'm micro-blogging now. It's damned addictive.

I signed up with Twitter last week, which may have been a bad time for me to jump into a new social network, (like there's ever a good time). Michael was away for half the week. My youngest, the Pixie, had a fever and just oozed snot all over the place, but kept running and playing like nothing was wrong until she collapsed into temper tantrums. My oldest, the Princess, was actually very good, very helpful. Good thing too, because I was feeling pretty lousy myself. Don't know what I had, but I was dead tired all the time and dragging myself through the days.

On top of all this, I started a story that I wanted to finish in time for ERWA's theme weekend this month. The theme was mystery and noir, the deadline midnight Saturday. I had a story idea, a really good one. But I didn't realize until I sat down on Monday to write that the story was probably going to be 12,000 words long. I just churned out two stories in two weeks the month before that were both 8,000 words long, and the thought of doing this to myself a third time on a story that was even longer just about killed me. That's a lot of writing to try and accomplish when you're sick, the kids are sick, and the husband is away.

But I struggled onward and managed to get 6,000 words written by Saturday night. Michael came home Friday and royally screwed up my schedule by not telling me what his plans were when he got home. I know, I know. He had no idea he would have a 4PM meeting on Friday after being away on a trip, but still, trying to keep an eye on a couple of yard apes who were screaming for there father while said father headed out the door for an all afternoon meeting did not help me get any writing done. At least he did come home as soon as he could and take over the kids for me.

It was a crap week. And the pressure was only just starting to mount. I felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything, which was a crock because I did write 6000 words and I finished up another cartoon and I got an episode of my podcast out the door. But...

Friday while I was on Twitter, I ended up watching two other writers promote their big new releases, and it was **great** that their books were out on Amazon and that all everybody following these authors on Twitter went out and bought the books so they could push these two people into the limelight of the top selling authors on Amazon for that day (and many days to follow as it turns out). But watching writers who are succeeding so well made me feel... well, tiny. Insignificant. Inadequate.
And that's when the insomnia started.

I had a story with a twisty twiny intricate plot that I needed to finish by Saturday midnight and I knew I physically couldn't do it. I was sick, burnt out, and overwhelmed with kids, husband, and laundry. The 50th episode of my podcast, Heat Flash, was coming up the next week and I had made no real plans for it beyond getting my good friend and fellow author Nobilis and his wife to help me record and produce it. Reaching episode 50 is a huge thing, let me tell you. That means I've written 50 stories since last September, not including the stories for special episodes and other publications. 50 stories in less than a year! And it looked like the milestone was going to pass by with very little fan fare because I didn't have time or wasn't organized enough to promote the event. On top of that, I knew I'd be out of town when the big day came. My cousin's daughter gets married next Saturday. In Pennsylvania. So I won't be home to tweet and blog and promote for most of the week about my wonderful, amazing podcast. Which didn't feel so wonderful at that moment because of how tired I was.

Friday night, I got almost no sleep. I think I nodded off in time to not hear my husband get up and shower the next morning. I spent most of Saturday morning at the dojo watching the Princess compete, and then had to spend an hour getting photos taken of her, myself, and my husband in all our karate gear. I really, really didn't want to do that. I hate pictures of myself like that. It seems so phony, posed, and bogus. And besides, I looked like crap because I didn't sleep the night before. Then when I got home, I had to deal with the kids running around screaming, Michael trying to get them out the door and out of the house, more running and screaming, where are their swimsuits, where's the sun block, we don't have any clean beach towels, will they ever get out the door...

Michael left with the girls for the pool. I locked myself into the office. I churned out another 1000 words while they were gone. It was painful. The well was full, but the bucket was broken. I gave up when everybody came home and sent out what I had later that night.

Around 11PM, I tried to go to sleep. But the story I was writing kept dancing around in my mind, along with worries about all the promo I knew I should be doing, and the podcast, oh gods I had to assemble the podcast the next morning at 0530 and if I didn't sleep I wasn't going to get up to do the work, and then I'd have to struggle all week long to pull this thing together and I hate that. And really, MUST Michael snore when I'm trying to sleep?! Geeze!

I just couldn't sleep, no matter what. I tried a glass of wine, a hot bath, reading, meditating... Nothing worked. So I crawled out of bed and hopped onto Twitter. And what do you know? There were quite a few people who couldn't sleep that night.

Nobilis was up and running because he'd just finished some really great writing and was psyched to do more work. Another Twitter friend couldn't sleep and was watching bad monster movies on Sci-Fi. Someone else apparently never sleeps at night and was working on a podcast. I started tweeting with people while Michael snored in the bed. It made me feel less lonely (insomnia is terribly, terribly lonely). I had some friends to sympathize with. But I couldn't Twitter all night. I had to do something, something that would take my mind off of my insecurity. Something that would let me go to sleep so I could get up at the crack of dawn and work on my podcast...

And that's when it hit me. Work. Why wait for the morning? Why not work now while I was awake? Sure, I'd be one of the living dead the next day, but I could get at least a little work done on the podcast, make things easier for the next day. I mean, come on, if I'm going to be tired, why not at least have something to show for it, right?

I transferred myself from the bedroom to the office, logged into Twitter again, and tweeted while I worked. At one point, I had to wake Michael up when my desktop decided to tell me it wanted to reinstall Vista. I thought the damn thing had died on me and gone to PC heaven, but when Michael came to look at it, it straightened right out. Piece of suck-up PC crap.

But aside from that, I got work done. I got lost in my work, even. Nobilis and his wife had done an excellent job reading the script I had sent them. The audio file they sent me was high quality. I assembled it into my show file then started hunting down sound effects. This was a special show after all and had been written with fx and music in mind. I played with levels, edited sounds, arranged and rearranged things in Acid Music Studio. I recorded a commentary, the first I've ever done for the show. It was terrific. Episode 50 is going to be so great! And all along I tweeted with folks online. Nothing huge, but it was nice to know we were all staying up late, working, watching TV, unable to sleep. Misery loves company and all that.

I put the finishing touches on my podcast at around 5AM. I crawled back into bed at 5:11, just 19 minutes before I was originally supposed to get up. Now I was tired, now I'd get some sleep. Then the Pixie, who had konked out at 6PM the night before, stood up in her crib and started to sing. Very loudly.

It was another hour before she quieted down and I went to sleep.

Around 10AM, the Princess ran into my room screaming about pancakes and sausage. I got up. I ate. I checked Twitter. There were a lot of sleep-deprived zombies all tweeting each other, like undead song birds that had didn't care that they'd missed the sunrise wake up call. I had e-mail from a couple of folks. Someone read my story, The Honey Bee, online at ERWA and wrote to tell me that not only did he like it, but he had always wanted to write sci-fi erotica, and he believed I had shown him just how it was done. Someone else wrote in to say they loved my cartoon and were passing them on to their friends. And at least two people told me they enjoyed the unfinished story I had sent in to ERWA and if I didn't write the rest and send it to them, they'd come find me and break my legs. It was just a little bit of love, but it was enough to make me feel not inadequate anymore.

I dragged through the day, just like I knew I would. I did the house cleaning, folded the laundry, answered e-mails and somehow gathered enough brain cells to write a flash fiction for Flasher Sunday on ERWA, which was also well received. I drank coffee, twitched and groaned, and plowed through the day. At 8PM I tried to sleep and couldn't. More stories ideas twined through my brain, more promo ideas, and a podcast idea so good I had to get out of bed and e-mail Nobilis about it. You people have no idea how happy it makes me to know I have a partner in literary crime.
I stayed up and tweeted, and eventually, eventually, I got tired and went to sleep. Around 1AM.

Was there any point to all of this? Yeah. I'm not alone, even when I'm sleepless. And the cure for feelings of inadequacy isn't a little blue pill. It's work and feedback.

And I really need a nap.

Labels: Podcast, Write-At-Home Mom

Monday, August 11, 2008

Insomnia, Inadequacy, and Twitter

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