Nikki Nelson-Hicks's Blog

I have often said that the one thing that writers and addicts share in common is the absolute need to hit the vein.

For addicts, to hit the vein means jabbing that needle in the sweet spot to get that rush.

For writers, it's almost the same albeit not as jabby or illegal. Still, just as necessary. Until I find that vein, until I can ride that magical stream, writing is like trying to carve marble with a limp phallus.

And, friends of ink, I've been having a helluva time finding that juicy blue streak.

Still, I keep going. I try new POVs. Tilt my angle, this way and that. Until I can finally find something that shines, that sparkles that screams YES! HERE WE GO!

Because I know that rush. I know that beautiful ride when the words flow and time speeds by so that hours become seconds and before you know it, you've not only written what you wanted but that blessed finish line of THE END is almost within reach.

Unfortunately, that is not where I am now. but I'll keep on jabbing that arm until I find that vein.

Hello, friends!

I'm starting a new story called Crown of Feathers, and I'd dearly like your company on this journey.

Are you familiar with the lore of the Crown of Feathers?

Oh, it's delicious.

According to Appalachian folklore, if you find underneath the pillow of a sick person a ball of white feathers, the person is fated to die and go to heaven.

When I first came across this idea, I instantly wondered,
"What would happen if someone stole that Crown?

Eli Kohl is a twelve year old boy who attempts to save his dying mother's life by stealing the Crown of Feathers in hopes that Death won't be able to find her.

Eli soon learns that there are worse things than death and he will need the help of the strange Sisters who live on top of the mountain for help.

Sound like fun?

Here is a taste:

In the human flock, patience is a virtue, a nicety of the humble masses. However, in the wilder sections of nature, patience is the stock and trade of a predator. If you doubt it, look around. Consider the red breasted robin standing stock still out on your front lawn, waiting for the faintest movement of a luckless bug. Watch the cat sitting on a windowsill, frozen except for a swish of his tail, watching the robin out there on the lawn. Cast your eye higher still to the spider web in the eaves on the front porch. It looks empty and frail, flittering in the passing breeze. Only if you know where to look, up in the corner pocket, will you see a silent still garden spider waiting ever so diligent as it waits for the first tremor to sound the alarm of a struggling moth caught in its web. Patience. A humble attribute for some. A game of life and death for others.
Sister Megaera was a being of the latter sort.



I am currently in the research and world building phase. The story is set in 1908. Luckily, I am knee deep in history nerd friends who are drowning me in books!

I'll post more soon.

Oh! Btw, a cool weird death fact I've learned so far:

Lice and fleas will leave a corpse as it starts to cool.

Seriously. Ewwww.

Cheers,

Nik

My last story was finished on October 1, 2019. It’s called Brother Marvel’s Old Time Revival.
*shameless plug*  https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Bishop-Presents-Bandit-Territory-ebook/dp/B07ZKX34WV/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Paul+bishop+bandit+territory&qid=1573492285&sr=8-1


And, until today, when I sat down at this cold keyboard, I haven’t written anything since.
It’s not because I don’t have ideas. I have a whiteboard looming over me with a list of projects. Looking up at it, I can feel it chiding me for not getting to work. Whispering, “For chrissakes, just write a sentence, a paragraph, anything! Get that wheel rolling!”
Here’s the rub: There is a part of me that is desperate to stop. To never write another word, sink into mediocrity and just stay still.
 Perhaps it is because I am too content. 
I have a job that pays my bills with a very small spillover that allows me to buy books and pay for my Pilates addiction. So, thank the Muses, I don’t live on my royalty checks.
The last royalty statement I received from Kindle wouldn’t pay me a cup of coffee. 
I was happy to make back my table money at the few book events I went to this year. However, if you really want to be anal about it, if you consider the overhead for just going to those events, I’m still in the red. 
So, yeah. At this moment in time, my writing career is a classic case of diminished returns. 
So, if there is no monetary incentive, why do I keep at it? Or, looking over the lack of writing that I’ve done, why do I even worry about jumping back on that horse?
And why am I even wasting time bitching about it?
Because, you know what? In the end, it doesn’t matter how much money you made or how many times you were published? In the end, it really just does not matter.
What does matter is answering this question truthfully: Are you having fun?
If you’re not, then stop. 
Writing isn’t always a mile a minute, adventure zone, cavalcade of fun fun times. It’s depressing, frustrating and sometimes soul draining hard work. Work that is forgotten and never been read or, God forbid, a story that is never finished.
But there is an upside. When the story is flowing, the words shooting out of my fingertips, when the Word Genie is having a rave inside my head, there is nothing better. I love creating. I love conjuring up characters and telling stories. I love righting wrongs and loving the unlovable. Writing stories is a kind of magic, in that sense. In the real world, Justice isn’t always meted out in the final fifteen minutes. The lonely boy doesn’t find his tribe and ends up alone and cold in a dark forest. But I can make that happen. 
So, if you’re not having fun, find something else. Because, dammit, there’s no reason to clamp your knees round this bucking horse if you can do anything else. 
Because that’s it, isn’t it?  Can you do anything else?
Answering that question truthfully, I know that I can’t.
If I were to quit right now, go to school, become something professional and respectable, the entire time I’d be thinking, “How could I turn this into a story?”
It’s how my brain works. I think in metaphor. I search for stories. I look for connections in things. I think sideways. Like Janus, I see both sides of the door.
I guess, maybe, I’m a little nuts. Perhaps I’m too organized a thinker to be diagnosed as schizophrenic but, in a way, I think all writers are a little cuckoo for coco puffs.
And maybe that’s why I’ll keep on writing. 
Not for money. Not for some kind of fickle fame. I do it because it’s what I am, what I do and how I keep sane. 
So, with that in mind, let me give my apologies. In a few years when my corpse is laid out on the cooling board in the morgue, to the poor bastard who somehow ends up with my boxes of unfinished manuscripts, indecipherable journals and files named 'future story fodder', I apologize.
I couldn’t help it. It’s just how I was made.
But, until then, excuse me but I’ve got some new stories to tell.

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It snuck up on me.
At first, I brushed it off as fatigue caused by the time change. My body reacting to the weather being so wonky. 70 degrees on day and 19 degrees the next. I even checked the calendar, hoping maybe it was hormones, even though that isn’t a reliable scapegoat since I started menopause.
Yesterday, I had to finally admit it. The all over muscle aches, the inability to concentrate, not appreciating the blue skies and sunshine that heralded that Spring was definitely on the day. The way my leg kept jack hammering with anxiety. My appetite swinging from nothing to wanting to eat everything. Not being able to keep my eyes open at work but unable to keep them closed at night. Or worse, sleeping for 12 hours and still feeling exhausted.
The feelings of utter worthlessness. Worse, thinking you were the cause for everyone else’s failures. YOU let them down. You did. If you had done THIS then they would’ve had THAT. You are a loser, a waste of carbon, a bad mother/friend/employee/sister/wife/hack writer/general human being.
I knew I was in for a deep dark run when I opened the drawer on my nightstand, saw the loaded .357 magnum I keep in there and thought, “Maybe I should…”
I slammed the drawer shut and came to grips with it.
The Black Dog was back.
And this Bitch was big and very, very heavy.
I sat on the toilet and cried. I hadn’t felt this bleak in a long, long time. And suicide? Man, I hadn’t had those thoughts in over a decade. Hell, two decades.
Shit. This was going to be hard.
The first thing I did was go to bed. I forced myself to wait until 8 p.m. I promised myself that if I felt better in the morning, I’d go to work. We could always hope that my brain would suddenly start spurting out some sweet, sweet serotonin overnight.
My alarm went off at 4:50 a.m.
Fuck it. I told Alexa to set another alarm for 7:00 a.m. I’d write a quick email, telling my primary boss and all the auxillary bosses at the day job that I was taking a sick day. I wouldn’t go into the reason. I didn’t feel they needed to fucking know.
And went back to bed.
I forced myself out at 8:30.
Time to begin the Battle for Nik’s Brain.
Go to the gym, I told myself. Sweat it out. Get the wheels turning.
I went. I could barely work up enough energy to breathe hard much less break a sweat.
I gave up.
Went home, showered, put on clean(ish) clothes and Brian and I went to First Watch, a restaurant in Hendersonville.
We talked about stuff. I tried to put on the Face but it wasn’t working.
Brian said, “What we need is a lap dog.”
I said, “LET’S DO IT! Right now. Let’s go buy a dog. A little dog, like maybe a pug or something. I don’t want another big dog like Sage. Something small, we can baby.”
Brian said, “Don’t tempt me.”
I said, “I’m not joking.”
I Googled, “Animal Shelters near me” and found Sumner County Animal Shelter 2.8 miles away.
We ate and went straight over.
There was a large guy sitting behind the counter. Brian told him we were interested in a dog. He said, “We’ve got all the dogs out in the kennels out back since it’s so nice. But we’ve got two puppies available, if you’re interested.
“But I have to warn you: they are going to get big.”
My heart dropped. “What breed?”
“Pyrenees and Labrador Retriever mix.”
“Jesus! Those things are like horses! You could put a saddle on them.”
“Yep. Wanna see them?”
A few seconds later, Brian and I were looking down on two puppies, a brother and sister. The boy was all black and his fur was smooth as satin. His sister was black and white and furry as a teddy bear. It was obvious which one got the double dose of Pyrenees.
Shortly after that, we were in the visitation room. We met the boy. He was shy, very calm. Almost sleepy. Then they brought the girl. She was also shy but more amiable. I was sitting on the floor and she put her head in my lap and looked up at me with chocolate brown eyes.
“Don’t make me fall in love with you, dog.”
She wagged her tail and dropped her jaw in a sloppy, puppy grin.
“Dammit.”
“What would you name her?” asked Brian.
“Freya.” It was the first name that came to my mind.
“Okay. I’ll go see about adopting her.”
And that’s how we went shopping for a sort of pug kind of lap dog and ended up with what will be a giant.
Did it help my depression?
Frankly, it’s better. It really is. I can still feel the Black Dog circling, waiting to pounce but, it’s on the edges now.
I have a new black dog. One that was bred to guard and herd its flock. Maybe that’s what I needed.

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This story has a history. It was selected for an anthology that was shelved so I took it back after a year. Shortly afterward, the anthology was published.

In my own bleak view of myself, I figured the story wasn't good enough. 

So I sat on it.

And then, one day, with nothing else on my plate, I decided to give it a read.

And, ya know what? The story was good. I liked it. 

I made a promise to myself to put out more things in 2018 since I had produced so very little in 2017. 

The Galvanized Girl was top on my list to share.

And now she's here. Available on Kindle. 





Late in Queen Victoria's reign, a scientist receives messages from Angels, desperate to stop a future World War.

Deliliah Ditch, an orphan, and woman with no means, becomes his prototype for the Super Soldier that the Angels want him to build.

She, however, might have other ideas.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079CB686W/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&qid=1517071223&sr=8-21&keywords=galvanized+girl


I'm proud of this story. I really like Delilah Ditch and am looking to taking her on new adventures.

I hope you enjoy it as well. Thank you for your support and encouragement!





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Trying out the preorder option over at Amazon.

Check this out...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0792LGN9C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516150222&sr=8-1&keywords=the+Perverse+Muse



Let's see how this flies!<

Here are covers for two stories I'll be releasing very soon.



I seem to have a kneeling theme going on
 Artwork done by Mat Yan (matyan90@gmail.com)

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Have you ever wondered what life was like for Bear Gunn before Jake Istenhegyi crossed his path?

Now you can know!



It is now available for Kindle at Amazon.com!

"1920's, New Orleans. Barrington "Bear " Gunn is a WWI veteran who decides to live the life of his pulp heroes and open up a detective agency. Unfortunately, the gumshoe business is more about avoiding bill collectors than punching bad guys. Then one day, a terrified musician on the run comes to him for help. A few hours later, Bear Gunn is up to his beltbuckle in voodoo, goons and, oh, yeah....geese."


I hope you enjoy it.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079138QTB/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515986953&sr=8-1&keywords=Nikki+Nelson-Hicks<

Okay, just a quick little update.

The latest rounds of edits for Jake Istenhegyi: The Accidental Detective, book 6: Corpses, Coins, Ghosts and Goodbyes has been done.

Soon this will be off to the great Publisher in the Sky.

And then I'll be off to my next project. Whatever that it is.

Oh gawd......

What have I done????


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