S.A. Stratton's Blog

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Best line I heard today, “Sometimes folks is just born into the wrong shape and need to be able to shift to find home.” To learn to be yourself is a beautiful thing. Sometimes it takes people a while to figure out who that is and how to get there.

The truly blessed know right away and have the luxury and privilege to grow in this for nearly as long as they walk this world. Some of us struggle and scrape, walking on unsteady legs that never really quite learned how to walk. But those legs know how to run. They run towards some things. They run away from other things. Never stopping until they finally arrive to where they need to be.

Sometimes, it gets all too much and there are those that can’t simply carry on. There are plenty of us who get it. It gets hard. They never found their shape and hope became too hard to have or hold. No judgement on those that fall their darkness. I have those that I have dearly loved fall, unable to continue. I don’t think less of them. I miss them everyday.

I wish it was easy to figure out where we are supposed to be and how to get there. There is no map to find the way, but there are people who have found their way and are happy to help us find our own paths to that place.

Right now I’m trying to figure things out for myself. Trying to make the best choices. What I’ve figured out is just don’t go backwards. Figure out your shape and figure out what you need to do to get there. It never hurts to ask for help. And it never hurts to shift from time to time to make sure you’ve got it right.

I quit my day job this last Friday. While I wish had to be to focus on a writing, it wasn’t. Honestly, thinking of this place as my career that was problematic. Never once did I think to myself that I had the best job ever or even something I could see myself doing for 20 years or more, but here I was treating it as such. Over the last few months, it began to look like something I wouldn’t even have the stomach to do for one more year. Turns out, I didn’t even make it to the end of the year.

Now, to be completely open, it was not quite four years ago when I reached ten years with this employer. The home office likes it when the team makes a big show of milestones. The bigger the milestone, the bigger the show. Given most hires don’t seem to stay beyond one or two years, ten should be pretty damn good and an acknowledgement at the morning meeting when being given the certificate and pin sent out. Instead, I come in to work and it’s laying on my desk in a pile with the mail and papers for filing. I’m then told “There’s your certificate. Do something with it.” I dropped it into the bottom drawer of my desk and covered it with training materials to try to forget about it. My heart broke just a little. I spent more time with these people than I did my family. To have a milestone dismissed and summarized with two sentences and less than ten words was a painful affair.

This is where I decided to start writing again.

Wasn’t too long after, while I was cleaning out a supply closet, organizing a mess that had been there longer than I had been with this store, an employee spit on me. They took a long swig of water from their bottle and then proceeded to spit it out at me like a whale spouting at sea. While it was dripping from hair and down my face, I stood there in shock and horror, mouth gaping open while I tried to process the why of the situation. After the initial shock faded I blurted out “What the hell?”

They just smirked, a self-satisfied and smug grin crept along their face while laughing. As I wiped my glasses dry on my shirt, I was told to relax. “I’m just kidding around.”

“I don’t appreciate it.” I didn’t and I still don’t. Now, for those of you wondering if I reported it. I did. However, nothing real ever came of it.

After a short time of telling myself that eventually people like that get what they deserve, I knew I was lying to myself. I’d seen too many people in the daily world being terrible to one and other and moving along consequence free. Each abuse, every lie and snide remark I attempted to deflect. Finally, I had enough. Time to change the situation.

I began to casually and quietly look for a new job. Submitting my resume every other week or so to various places around town. I came really close a few times and went on a handful of interviews. But there was usually something in the end that wasn’t quite right. The best piece of advice I ever gave to someone, I took myself. “Don’t exchange one dumpster fire for another.” I kept on looking while fighting my fires.

I watched all kinds of good people that had been excited to be at this location wither and wilt before leaving. Sometimes I wondered how I might have seemed to them. Did I reflect the same wear and tear? Could they see my unease and unhappiness as readily as I could see theirs? I always wished someone luck and happiness as they handed in their notice. I was sorry to see them leave, but I has still happy they were doing what they felt was the best for them.

Eventually, I found a much better match for myself. It was my light at the end of the tunnel.

They invited me into their office to try them out for a day, a working interview. They offered me things that, as a working writer, I craved. A steady schedule with no late nights, two days off in a row, insurance, a fair wage, and no one spitting on me, metaphorically or otherwise. The relief I left was great.

Putting in my two weeks was hard and there was a moment or two when I thought of the good people that I worked with and felt bad, struggled with the thought: Is this the right thing? But as I went through my list of things I knew to be true, “change” along with “making the most of myself” kept coming back to the top of the list.

So, why is all this blog worthy? Because it’s a big change in my life and it is scary. I write about scary things, mostly. Tomorrow is my first official day and I will be the new girl again.

That’s scary.

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We aren’t really human unless we’re constantly thinking, evolving, growing, learning. That’s most of what I’ve been doing as I near my next birthday. Some folks just rolled their eyes, but, birthdays are the perfect time for a little self reflection. Our own personal new years moment to reflect on where we’ve been and where we want to go.

In all that deep thought, searching, considering, and, when we’re lucky enough, we sometimes find the fire we’ve had all along but didn’t see it there. It sounds strange, to find a fire. But, when something is lost or hidden, that’s what you do; you find it. Stumbling through the brush, pushing past the thicket, bloodying your hands on the rocks and thorns, you search and find it.

Then you’ve found it and suddenly so many things about yourself make sense. It’s not that you become a whole new person, just a step closer becoming a whole person.

So, what do you do when you think you’ve learned something new about yourself and don’t want to tell anyone else?

Not out of shame, but because you don’t know if can handle exposing that much of yourself. Even if that someone is a person you love. It’s something sacred to finally have a word, an idea, an understanding of what and who you are. And, sometimes, the most sacred things aren’t meant to be shared. At least, not right away.

Someday I’ll share, in time and only when I’m ready. Until then, remember, sometimes it’s good to have your secrets.

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Being an indie author can be an extremely rewarding and fantastic experience. You have total creative control and final say about whatever goes in to your work. There is no creation by committee, it is 100% you. But on the same token there are many things that are very frustrating to a vast majority of Indie authors.

You really do have to do all the work. Not only are you the writer but you also have to play the editor, the designer, formatter, and the cover artist, but also the marketing Guru, the shipping and receiving department, billing, accountanting, legal, basically everything. If you’re lucky you have some money put aside and you can hire out some of these things to other people. If you’re not so lucky with money, then you might be able to rely on the good graces and favors from friends and other folks that want to help out. Otherwise, you’re going to be wearing a different hat at least three times a day.You never really make money when you’re first getting started or sometimes even later in your career. Why is that? See number one. If you were not fortunate enough to have people in your corner willing to do things for free or a reduced rate, you’re going to have to shell out some money in order to get that assistance for the professional polish your work deserves. Even if you have the skills to do it yourself websites, computer programs, and good marketing are not free.There are a great deal of readers and literary counterparts that turn up their nose as soon as they hear the word “Indie”. There is a certain amount of bias in the business. A certain perception of those that choose to take the Indie author route exists that they are not good enough to attract an agent or a publishing house. Just all these horrible ideas that somehow Indie authors are not trained, not schooled, never been to college, or they don’t have the education to be considered serious authors. Which, in many cases, is just simply not true. We have chosen to take a path that is a part from traditional publishing because it’s what we want or need.It’s a lot harder to get reader reviews coming out of the gate as an indie writer. There are plenty of people, and rightly so, that won’t buy the book unless it has reviews. Which in turn makes it harder to get reviews. So, when somebody does buy your book and doesn’t leave a review for other people it actually hurts future opportunities for sales and placements on lists without that backing legitimacy of the review no matter how fantastic or horrible it might be. Word-of-mouth is needed for those Facebook and Amazon algorithms to work.Day jobs. Every single Indie author I know works at least one day job. Jobs to pay the bills, pay the rent, clothe their children, and put food on the table. To make sure that they aren’t true starving artist and living under an overpass or bridge writing their prose on the back of fast food bags and paper napkins. The ultimate dream is to be able to sell enough books to quit the day job and live a full-time creative life.

If you ask a hundred Indie authors what they hate and frustrates them about being an indie author, you’ll probably get a hundred new things to add to this list. These are just my top five. Yet, I’m still here, everyday, making it happen.

So, in summation, support your indie authors through buying their books and leaving reviews.

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After completing the most recent anthology project, I was wondering what to do next, outside of starting to write Crimson Part 2 and the few other scattered WIP’s waiting for my twisted, yet gentle, and always unusual thoughts. You know, a writer is always writing something. Through talking with the other writers, I began to believe that it would be a great idea to work on another anthology.

So, I asked them.

They agreed. We even included some new writers that had not been a part of the previous project, because all group projects need a bit of diversification.

So, now this lively group will be putting out a new anthology of campfire stories in the summer of 2020. It’ll be awesome and I am personally looking forward to it.

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Sometimes things in life don’t go as planned or as promised. Honestly, that feels like most of my life. While I’m sure that there are plenty of people in this boat with me, and I know for sure there are, it still feels like you’re alone in your head.

So then, I think to myself, it’s time to make a new plan. Sometime a new plan is exactly what you need to feel better about how the things that went wrong won’t really be that bad.

So, here’s to the failures that push us towards something that might possibly be better!

The first book in the Crimson series is now available on Amazon for preorder. October 31st marks the official release date.

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I can’t really believe that I am getting things rolling over there on Amazon. In case you haven’t been keeping up with things over there on Facebook or Instagram, I am part of a new anthology coming out Witching Hour Zodiac Anthology, available October 22. Filled with plenty of dark stories from lots of great authors and people. So, I had to get my Amazon author page up and running to allow readers to find me and my upcoming works a place to live.

On October 31st I plan on having Crimson available for sale on Amazon. Presales will be starting soon. Stay tuned for more information and look for my virtual launch party information to be coming soon. But until that time, please check out my short story in the Zodiac Anthology.

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As some of my readers know from Facebook, I have a story that I am working on in Wattpad that was actually the first story I ever did for NANOWRIMO when I first moved to Montana and the victim of the great technology crash of 2014. I did have a page made for it that I was working on it here, but then while I was working on The Life of Grace Dudley I decided to move it over there, again, in the hopes of gaining a little exposure and finding every writer’s dream of an audience. Are we following my thought process?

Of course we are!

Since that time I had disabled the page and totally forgot about its existence until, well, this afternoon. Now I have a got it happily slotted into the Library right here for linking pleasure.

Anyway, like with all my works, if you enjoy it, vote for it, like it, share it. Comment if you wish.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and I hope you find yourself completely entertained or at least distracted.

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Very recently I had come across an open call for authors for an anthology. And, I applied. When I did this I had no idea that I would be accepted to write one of their stories. After applying to so many publications trying to catch a break, it was a great ego boost. I’ll release more information closer to the actual release date.

I’m not know among my friends for having ego. Confidence, sure. But no ego. But getting that little bit of validation that I actually can do the things I thought I could from an external source that made me sigh in relief. I’d been chasing so many dreams and ideas, having just one start to root told me I might be on my path, finally.

Took me 20 years to figure out where I belonged.

I’m a writer.