A Musing Mondays - Tumblr Posts

A Musing Mondays 🎐

I gonna start doing a Monday post based on what in the past week has amused me or been my muse. Could be a quote, could be a new perspective I gained, could be a neat rock that I found.

I think as creators it can be easy to forget that the things we experience in the now fuel our work too- not just our pasts. If you're feeling uninspired and unmotivated, if your 'muse' seems to have left you, that's when you probably need to step away and live a little.

This weeks a-muse-ment is in the neat rock category for sure 🤘

This weekend I visited Bryce National Park and went on a challenging but very rewarding hike where I took all these photos. It really got me thinking about environments ✨️ The Outlands in my WIP 7 Circles is largely desertscape, but there are soooo many geologic features you can find in a desert. Slot canyons! Hoodoos! Petrified dunes! Carved-in sandstone dwellings! I'm buzzing with thoughts of how to twine these in later in my story. Do any of yall have cool geological features in your stories?

@katenewmanwrites @smellyrottentrees @wyked-ao3 @lychhiker-writes @the-golden-comet

@tragedycoded @cowboybrunch @zackprincebooks @urbiggestnightmare-blog @quillswriting @dragoninatrenchcoat

A Musing Monday 🎐

Today I'm musing on movement vs lack of movement. Right now there's a lot of movement around me, and yet im feeling stuck. Immobile.

One of my partners is on a family vacation, a close friend of mine is moving, another friend started a new job. I know people finishing their book drafts and starting journeys to learn drawing and going back to school and marching up to businesses to ask for jobs.. it's amazing. Its breathtaking. Achingly so.

I feel petrified in comparison. Im having moments of movement- a little inspiration, a flash of bravery, and idea of things that could be. But it feels like an engine that rumbles with the start of something only to immediately fade back to stillness. Sometimes a lack of movement means peace. Not here.

We dont expect that stutter in our protagonists, we dont see it much in books and media. Is it because of the way it itches? The way it reminds us of headaches that keep us from sleeping while also dragging us into feeling sleepy? Perhaps its just not interesting to show someone putting forth surges of effort only for nothing to come of it. Perhaps its too scary. Too reminiscent of the futality we run from.

This musing doesn't have a pretty bow on it, no positive note to soften- but I invite you to ponder on it. How does it sit in your chest? How are you defying it or being defined by it? How would you write about it? How can a protagonist be defined by the way they can't move when they're trying to?

A Musing Monday 🎐

Today I'm musing about extradimensional spaces! Like Mary Poppin's bag, or 'eatery that connects to an isekai' anime, or your mind, even.

I do think the mind is a type of extradimensional space. We fit the essence of so many places and moments and people into the folds of our memory, contained in the little box that is our skulls. We imagine worlds, we dream entirely separate lifetimes. It's wild, and amazing, and a little terrifying.

Occasionally I think about how the entire world around me is MY world- in that my only access to reality is through my own interpretations, experiences, and the senses that link to my brain, all of which may or may not be close to the truth of reality. When I die one day, my world dies too- not one creature on earth will live in the same world that I knew due to my relationship with everything perceivable to me.

Before I get TOO existential here though (or maybe I'm getting more existential)- think of what that means for writers! We are masons crafting gateways to extradimensional spaces. Through what we do, people can visit the pocket dimensions of OUR minds, dimensions that have the possibility to continue existing long after the mind/wold that created it expires. And because everyone perceives things through their own lens, writing one story and sharing it creates the potential for countless alternate dimensions; every soul that reads your work will carry their own personal version of it in their mind. If you have a hit count or something similar on your work, THAT'S how many dimensions you've created, at least.

Not only that, but when someone reads what you've written, THEIR world alters. It may be slight, your work or your post might provide a momentary reprieve from the part of their world they're avoiding or decompressing from (which is still a very important thing), or it may give them an idea of their own, it may motivate them to make one choice over another choice, it may alter the very way they think and interact with their family, their partners, themselves. You very well may alter the fabric of what a person is, the dimension of their mind warping with the way it interacts with your dimension.

Never forget that as a writer, or any creator of art for that matter, you are a world-builder, a world-shatterer, a world-repairer; a powerful and magical being that may alter the course of history. Writing is magic, and it's sorcery, and I desperately hope even the small unconfident blogs on here recognize that power.

Tagging a bunch of cool writers: @cowboybrunch @the-golden-comet @lychhiker-writes @wyked-ao3 @rotting-moon-writes

@saturnine-saturneight @asablehart @tragedycoded @autism-purgatory @marlowethelibrarian

If I didn't tag you you're still super cool! The world of my brain is just made of swiss cheese and glitches a lot 🫠💕

@dragoninatrenchcoat @words-after-midnight @sableglass @gioiaalbanoart @illarian-rambling

@badscientist @officialauthorofanotherworld

A Musing Monday 🎐

Today I am musing on too many things! 😵‍💫

My brain feels crowded by little rabbit holes and I keep catching myself fully lost in them to the point where im getting salty or spicy or sad over imaginary scenarios. Ive been having more nightmares than usual lately, too. So I guess what im going to muse on today is processing things (I'll leave musing on innovation and the way its weaponized against the working class ((one of the rabbit holes🐰))for another monday)

WHY am I circle-thinking about stuff like 'what would I do if I was stuck in the past?' 'why didnt the industrial revolution provide more ease and profit for every class' or 'how would I convince strong people to protect me if I was in an apocolypse situation?' 😣💫

Now take this with a grain of salt, I may have a psych degree but im not a researcher or anything (just a nerd with autism 🤓); my brain is using fictional scenarios to practice processing🎭🧮. It feels the need to practice because there's a LOT within my brain thats unprocessed right now (hello trauma, hello issues with finding a better job, hello feeling very vulnerable lately). 👋😩

Our brains are solving machines geared to find the answer🤖, and when that answer is not immidiatly available we may experience things like nighmares and intrusive thoughts and maladaptive daydreams to try to get an angle on The Thing thats not processed.🔬

Thinking about The Trauma directly often puts the body in a stress mode thats not condusive to creative problem solving📉. Like being stressed is literally counterproductive to solving bc we go into 🔥survival mode🔥where fight flight etc are The Options Available. Imagining yourself in a historical fiction situation is not a 1-1 ratio to 'what exactly happened when abuse appeared in MY past' and but ya know what, its close enough for our brains to bring it up as a substitute. 🤷

And the fact that our brains have this reaction to The Bad Thing is interesting in itself. 🤔 Why are some bad memories just things that happened, and some are so triggering your mind would rather process terrifying nightmares every night than just.. face The Memory? 🫠 Like it's over, it can't get you now, the past is dead, right?

The solution? Well obviously it looks a bit different for everyone, particularly depending on where you are on your path. 🧭 Like if you have nightmares/intrusive thoughts/maladaptive daydreaming and dont uh... dont have any trauma coming to mind that aint my place to tell you whats next 🤐. I can only really mind my own gourd here and MY next step is Accelarated Resolution Therapy🗃, which is often used with war veterans with ptsd, to store my truama memories in a better, less triggering way. 📈

Well it turns out that memories like to be filed away by our senses 📂. Like memories sit best and retrieve easier (lets take xmas as an example🎄) if you're remembering the smell of xmas dinner, the sound of wrapping paper, the bite of the cold outside and the taste of hot coco✨️. When memories store poorly, as they usually do with trauma 😔, your body is not just remembering- it is acting as if You Are Still There. 💥📍

Infact to prepare for ART, I have had to purposly bring up all my old memories 😬, which has in turn signalled my brain to circle around pseudo truama thoughts when I'm 'at rest' in attempt to solve whats not really 'solvable' and with that weve gone fuuull circle on my musings here lmao ➿️

I got two weeks until that all important therapy session and until then I figure my brain is gonna keep trying to hampsterwheel 🐹🎡, but perhaps my loop will inspire something within you, or help you out of a loop, or perhaps make you realize you’ve been in a silent loop for awhile now.. 🔄👁👁

In anycase, thank your brain for me! Particularly if its doing these things I described above. It's trying so hard to help and protect you 🧠🫶 My apologies for giving it something so tough to chew on this Monday lmao 😅 Stay safe out there 🫂

(I don't have a taglist for my Monday posts yet, hmu if you want to be tagged on these zanny adventures plz)

A Musing Monday 🎐

Today i'm musing about connections and how they are often synonymous with our opportunities, our ability to survive, and our thoughts- therefor changing who we are and who will become. Also coin metaphors 🪙

Last Tuesday out of the blue one of my partners was laid off, he started a new job two days later because he knows people who work at a cabinet mill. 🙏

My family made the most healing ratatouille that we ate off of all weekend because someone I know from work had too many eggplants. 🍆📈

We got our house thanks to the efforts of a friend with a real-estate license. I got the contact info for my current therapist from a girlfriend. I have a song stuck in my head from a child I work with and I pick up catchphrases from people on tv and I know how to do pushups for the 1st time in my life bc an online friend taught me how. 🔥💪

Its fun and frightening to think about- that we are obelisks of pennies created from every person that gave us their two cents 🪙🪙

If every trait, thought, inclination, or idea of yours was a coin- which of your coins are old, passed down through the generations until they were shuffled into your hands? Which are invaluable? Like my dads tendency to accept things (like my gayness and transness and polyness) as long as no one is getting hurt, which I know he got from my grandfather ❤️. Which coins are a burden you dont know how to get rid of? Like my mother's propensity to say "It could be worse, think of__ (children in Africa, Houseless folk, etc)" which has become my tendency to minimize my own experiences and neglect to give myself breaks 🫠. Which coins did you find on the sidewalk and which sit with you in your car? Which are made of metals you're allergic to? Which are tarnished and scratched but still good? Which coins of yours are most valuable to you? 🎐

There are so many times in my life where I felt like I couldn't get a leg up, and the only way I got through was stacking pennies, adding up my connections and the ghosts of connections past to try to escape the pit..

With that in mind I want to take a moment to shout out the change (🥁) that others have gifted me with recently, cuz boy buddy have I needed to stack pennies lately, but have been so blessed to have so many new coins.

Thanks @sableglass, the fire you put into the world ignited action into me. I spent a year lamenting the loss of a job until your 'fuck it we ball' attitude inspired me to get resolved about that 🤽‍♂️. I got a job offer today. You helped me get here.

Thanks @the-golden-comet , you were one of the first writblr blogs I came across. You shaped my idea of tumblr to be something positive and uplifting during a very hard time for me 🫂. Your stories are so free and wild (🐳💦) and wonderful that they changed my outlook on being a writer and that what im 'allowed' to put in a story is anything but a limiting factor. You taught me that the course of a day can be changed with a simple frog gif and that you dont necessarily need to know someone to know how much they care. 🐸💕

Thanks to @tragedycoded for DMLS and @words-after-midnight for Libaw. Yall write the mentalscape of various conditions so well that im taking better care of myself 🧠🌿. I'm more proud of the work I've put into myself. And i'm becoming proud of the person I could have become but didn't.

Thank you to @lychhiker-writes for being my first homie on tumblr and for letting me vent my various frustrations into your dms 😏😅, and for being a brave and honest alpha reader for 7C.

Thank you @wyked-ao3 and @cowboybrunch and @gioiaalbanoart for being such great cheerleaders for my writing 😭💕 seeing yall connect and feel your feelings in my comments gives me so much hope and happiness and I honesty dont thank yall enough. I finally finished ch8 (no, really, check the doc 👀) and your encouragement helped me really embrace Seeker, who I used to think was too boring, and get that chapter finished 🏁.

There are so many others and I'm sorry for not naming them all 🙏 but if I have read your work, thank you. If I follow you or you follow me, thank you. If we have ever bonked together in a discord chat like two wayward beyblades 💞- *Thank You*

Today, I feel like I'm finally out of the pit, and it's thanks to the random 2 cents and spare change yall have gifted me. Your influence is priceless. 🥰💰

(Still no taglist for Monday posts yet, hmu if you'd like to be on it!)

Today i'm thinking about mold, like emotionally. The feeling of moldiness vs feeling nourished and refreshed.

If you've struggled with depression & have worked at allieving it (✋️), you might relate to how unfair it is that many of the things you DO NOT WANT to do while depressed alleviate the depression. 🔀

Depression wants me to isolate, but reaching out and connecting to someone helps. 🫂 Depression doesn't want me to leave bed much less the house, but standing barefoot in my front yard for five minutes eases something in me 🌾☀️. Depression wants me to forsake myself, but damn if everything isn't easier after a long shower and a meal.🧼🍜

It almost feels like depression is a parasitic mold man that doesn't want to be eliminated and has the ability to plant strong 'don't wanna' messages into your gourd 🚫. If you stay alone and miserable the mold can really settle into your body and grow- it even tries convincing you the depresso mold is a dangerous substance like real mold is and that if you go for help you'll just hurt people.

Its so hard to not listen to my scummy little mold man! SO HARD (😏). And he has gremlin powers where if you feed the mold after midnight (or whatever 'past bedtime' is) he gets incredibly worse.

So im celebrating myself (he hates that) and listing some fuck-off-mold-guy activities I've done the past few days 💪

☀️ I made myself a beautiful ratatouille and a plum cookie cobbler

☀️ I asked my partner for back rubs

☀️ I sat in a patch of grass by the road and found a swirly rock

☀️ Watched a goose 🪿

☀️ Opened some windows and curtains and vacuumed

☀️ Redyed my hair (still green lmao 💚)

☀️ Had two friends over to share a meal and bark at Paul Hollywood

☀️ Complimented and flirted with my partner until they blushed and squeaked

☀️ Listened to Carbon Leaf in a hammock with a drink in my hand

☀️ Did paperwork I didnt want to do and then loudly congradulated myself for completing it

Like, I still hate the trend of "Oh you're depressed? You should just __". The use of 'just' is so diminishing, its so dismissive of how hard it is and how individual the depression is. Sure, I have a list of things I did lately that helped me, but im not 'cured', and I know as winter comes itll get harder and Ill need my therapist even more. It can be true at the same time that I've found some things that help me through, make the mold recede, and are worth congradulating myself over. 😊

I hope you all find some nourishment and refreshment as well ✨️

Monday taglist: @gioiaalbanoart (hmu to be +/-)