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As summer approaches and the snow from winter is finally melting, I think about what a strange thing it is to be a human in this world.

We live in houses, drive cars or bikes, go to work, play on phones, watch TV, and spend much of our time completely detached from the natural world. Sure, it’s there. In the same way the sun is there so we put on sunscreen, or the same way our food is in a store so we buy it and consume it. It’s ever-present, though often a burden. Something to be managed, tamed, or ignored.

Rainy day? Take the car to the shop instead of walk. Don’t forget to bring your brelly!

Blustery fall? Hurry from one safe building to the next to keep out of the wind.

Snow? Spend time inside where it’s warm and safe.

Even in the inviting beauty of summer we must manage our world. Sunscreen, hats, gazebos. Days on the beach spent playing games or drinking. I’m guilty of this myself, because I get heat stroke really easily. You’ll rarely see me without a hat on my head, or in the direct sunshine.

But I worry about what my body wants, what it would chose for me if it didn’t have my mind to order it around.

When I put my feet on the earth, feel grass between my toes, I am reminded of who I am.

When I close my eyes and listen to the sound of wind in the trees, I am reminded of who I am supposed to be.

If I hide in the shade from the sun, trying to manage my bodies distaste for the heat, I think about what it would be like if I had to spend all day out there, like my ancestors did. Does my skin miss the sunshine, without any lotions to guard it? Would I have adapted better by now if I wasn’t so careful?

And what of the rest of me? What would our bodies chose for us if they could?

I think mine would prefer I didn’t wear clothes, or live inside. It wants me to be in the forest, where the air and the sunshine are. It wants me to be in the water, where the fish and the dirt is.

So I try to listen to it, in whatever small ways I can.

When I walk around outdoors I always kick off my shoes, if I even bothered to put them on in the first place. Friends and family tease me for having dirty feet half the year. Though I shower every day, by June the soles of my feet are stained brown and green from running through the soil.

And every time I stop to feel the world beneath my feet, let my toes get muddy, I wonder what they would chose for me if they got to decide what happens with us. I think they’d appreciate being so close to nature, where they belong. In fact, I think my feet miss the earth, and together we share a secret: My heart misses it too.

The ring in the sand.

When I was a child my grandmother gave me a green ring from her jewelry box.

Glittering emerald and gold filigree, it was beautiful in an austere, Grandmotherly way. Knowing her, it was probably “costume jewelry” but I treasured it anyways. A little girl doesn’t know or care if her precious items are real gold, or wire painted yellow. All she cares is that it came from someone special. And Gramma was very, very special to me.

I only had it for a few weeks, maybe a month or two at most, before I predictably wore it to a park during the summer and took it off — not wanting to lose it. I can’t recall the exact sequence of events, as I was quite young, but I know I took it off near a pile of sand, or a sandbox, and put it somewhere I thought would be safe from whatever rough-housing game I wanted to play.

When I left I completely forgot about the ring.

It wasn’t long before I realized. Perhaps it was even the same day? When I went back to look for it, I recall the panic I felt sifting through the sand trying to find this small, glittery ring. I can still see the early evening sunlight through the spruce trees; feel the grains of sand slipping through my fingers.

It was never found.

My grandmother was diagnosed with dementia soon after.

The ring was one of the last things she ever gave me that she chose for me to have, while she was still subjectively her.

Even before the diagnosis I instinctively knew something was “off”, and I think I somehow knew the importance of the gift.

She was lucid when she plucked it from the jewelry box on her tan colored dresser. She was still My Gramma when she placed it on my finger, a smile on her face. We were still Us in those moments; doting Gramma and loving Granddaughter.

Of course she was always My Gramma, until the day she died. But anyone with a family member stricken by cognitive decline or brain injury knows there will always be a difference between who they were, and who they become.

That was thirty years ago, and I remember it like it was yesterday.

Just a few snippets of a moment, mere seconds of a childhood which has otherwise been lost to time. I don’t remember a lot from my early life, and the things I can recall are usually unpleasant. My brain likes to tuck away the years, repressing things that hurt too much to think about. That traumatize too much to relive.

But it is indiscriminate in its theft. It takes the bad, and the good.

And I’m left with just a second or two of my grandma’s smile as she gave me a ring.

And the utter hopelessness of sifting through sands trying to find it once it was lost.

Hello, dear friends, fellow writers, and random people from the internet who’ve stumbled upon my blog…

It’s been a minute since I posted, but not for lack of ‘thinking about writing a blog post’ effort. If posts written in my head counted for content, I’d be the most prolific blogger ever. Alas, those words have struggled to get onto your screen.

My last post was 3 months ago. I was halfway through NanNoWriMo and having fun streaming my progress.

A lot has happened in the few short months since NaNoWriMo 2022!

• Completed (won) NaNo with approx 63k words.
• Promptly scrapped half those words.
• Began rewriting my NaNo project after revising the outline (WooHoo!).
• Interpersonal conflict and drama.
• Workplace conflict and drama.
• Regular depression.
• Seasonal depression.
• CHRISTMAS OMG I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! CANDY!! NOG!! SLEIGH RIIIIDES!!
• Nintendo Switch and ACNH for xmas! I HAVE A NEW ADDICTION.
• Back to seasonal depression.
• Workplace changes.
• A few chapters written.
• Beta reading other peoples writing! YAY!
• Existential crisis.
• A few more chapters written.
• Heavy snowfall.
• Wait, how are we already 2 months into the new year!? AUGHHHGHGHGHGHG!
• Finally on the final few chapters of my WIP.

In between trying to work on my own projects, I was critiquing others’ writing, and I did the February Motley Writers Guild blog post: 10 Romance Tropes Readers Love (with examples!).

The last 4(ish) months have been a whirlwind, some of it good, some of it bad, some of it life changing in ways I wish my life wasn’t changed — but it’s all room for me to grow as a person and as a writer/professional/mom/sentient ball of anxiety.

Which brings us to now…

With one cat at my feet, another on my lap, and a third close by (waiting to pounce), I sit in my writing nook overlooking a very snowy yard, and I feel… Hopeful. Which is a difficult feeling to have in this, the age of pandemics, right-wing extremists, and looming climate catastrophe.

Want to know what I feel hopeful about?

Of course you do! That’s why you’re reading my blog!

Em Van Moore, Cat Owner & Human Woman

I am hopeful for changes I can make in my life, and the lives of others.

We just launched Services for hire through the Motley Writers Guild, and I can utilize my hidden superpower: Knowing what’s wrong with other peoples writing, while still struggling with my own (please don’t judge my critiquing abilities by my informal blog!).

I am starting a new job in an area I am really passionate about.

My kids are potty trained at 2.5 years old, and I did it in 4 days! (I’ll write a post about it if enough people want to hear the story)

The world is making great strides in the effort to move away from fossil fuels and curb our emissions. Check out this great article about Positive Environmental Stories from 2022.

And most important of all….

My senior cat gained 0.20 kgs.

I know that doesn’t seem like much, but he’s been steadily losing weight since my other senior cat (his BFF for 16 years) passed away last year. He lost half his body weight in 7 months. I’ve spent thousands on tests and procedures to try and diagnose his issue, and now he’s on a special diet, getting treatment, and seems to be perking up. After seeing that scale number get lower and lower every month, I cried when it went up by 0.20 kg.

So now that things are improving…

(And my website is being hosted by myself and I don’t have to worry about it)

I’m back to writing!

And critiquing!

And drawing/painting!

With any luck, you’ll be seeing more posts from me in the future. Yes, I know I promised that last time…but this time I mean it 😉

So stay tuned for whatever it is I decide to blog about next…

Will it be a banana bread recipe?

A book review?

Creative writing?

My mid-life crisis?

Who knows! But I’m sure it will be vaguely interesting, and totally worth reading in the time it takes for you to go to the bathroom.

Best wishes and snowflake kisses,

Em

Hello folks, and fellow NaNoWriMo participants (known as “Wrimos”)!

It’s November 15th, 2022 and we are officially halfway!!

How are you doing on your project? Ideally, Wrimos should have 25,000 words done by now if they plan to be on track to complete the month and “win” NaNo.

I tend to be a very speedy writer, so I hit 25,000 words on November 12th. I’ve seen some people update on Twitter that they were halfway done on the 10th and 11th, which is amazing. As of this blog post, I’m currently at 31,573 words.

I also know writers who are struggling, and have completed only a few thousand words so far —all of these paths on the NaNoWriMo road are valid.

You don’t need to write 3k words every day. You don’t even need to “win”. You just need to love to write and then sit down and do it.

In case you missed it…

The goal of the National Novel Writers Month is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. This year I’ve been not only writing but also livestreaming my progress on Twitch and YouTube. So far, it’s been a lot of fun AND an interesting learning experience.

One of the best things about NaNo is the sense of community to be in the fray with countless other people. Some folks are more productive than others. Some feel wonderful. Some feel awful. All of it is okay.

I love seeing peoples updates online, and I especially love the comradery in the Motley Writers Guild group chat. Half of us are doing NaNo, and it’s great to be there with people on their journeys and to know I’m not alone.

This years NaNoWriMo novel…

The project I’m working on this year is from the Terra² Series, set 5 years before the events of Pearlessence. The novel (and entire series!) is a collaboration between myself and fellow Guild member, A.D. Moseley.

You can check out the first book in the series on Kindle Vella, available only in the USA. The first 3 chapters are always free!

I’ve been having a blast writing this new story. It’s in the same universe as Pearlessence but there’s only 3 characters who overlap.

I get to write about two of my favorite characters: Somiette and Lomeque Solus, identical boy/girl elven twins from an off-world colony who now live in a futuristic version of Washington state.

Solace Sacrificed

“Graduate student Somiette Solus is an elf maiden who just doesn’t have time to date, she’s too busy saving the world.

But the world she wants to protect isn’t her own, it’s a planet in another galaxy; home to beautiful creatures threatened with extinction when funding is cut to the conservation society Somi works at.

Trying to secure finances for the conservation of the exoplanet, she attends a swanky fundraiser – something she’d normally never do. There, she meets a human named Ravien Ignacus. Young, rich, and handsome.

Somiette has to keep her eyes on the prize: exploiting his fortune to save another world. But can she do it without falling for the charismatic rich boy with a very dark past? And what will she do once she discovers exactly how his family made their fortune?”

Livestreaming!

I am really enjoying writing this, and I’m also having fun streaming the progress! If you’ve joined any of my livestreams you could have read along with the novel, as I’m sharing my computer screen and writing in “sprints”.

While I write, I like to listen to my friend, Rosy Rhodes, on Spotify. He makes very beautiful, ethereal, ambient electronic music and has a >500 song library! Please check him out. He’s been creating for years and it’s easy to get lost in the gorgeous soundscapes of his music.

Another musical artist I listen to is a fellow Twitter #writingcommunity member, Sauroke. He makes pretty and surreal electronic music. His songs have also been in the background of my livesteams.

Quite a few other writers are also streaming their NaNo progress. I like to tune in to: CoffeeQuills, LaTake_, and Author_Abe when they’re online.

I’ve had fellow writers, and Guild members, writing with me too!

A.D. Moseley hasn’t missed a single livestream, and getting to be productive with her every night is really awesome for me. Sometimes she’s the only person chatting! So shoutout to her for being my ride or die this NaNo <3

Quite a few friends have popped in and viewed the livestreams, on both Twitch and YouTube.

Please join me every night at 08:00 PST for my streams.

You can catch me on my Twitch channel

and

My YouTube channel

Please don’t forget to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE!!

For everyone doing NaNoWriMo this month:

Break a leg!

I hope the words are wording for you!

If you need any encouragement, or just want someone to write with, please join me on my streams, or message me on my socials. I’m relentlessly positive and encouraging, so if you need a boost hit me up and I’ll cheer you on.

Twitter: @EmVanMoore

Facebook: @EmVanMoore

Instagram: @EmVanMoore

Twitch

YouTube

MySpace

Best wishes,

Em

It’s November 1st, which means the National Novel Writers Month starts today!

Writers all over the world will challenge themselves to write 50,000 words of a story before the end of November.

I was a NaNo 2021 winner, and I’m gonna do it all over again! I’ll be working on a novel called SOLUS SACRIFICED, the second in a series of books I have planned with fellow Motley Writers Guild member, A.D. Moseley.

The first novel is already available on Kindle Vella!

Check out PEARLESSENCE, the first 3 chapters are always free.

My NaNoWriMo 2022 story is set 5 years before the events of PEARLESSENCE…

Graduate student Somiette Solus is an elf maiden who just doesn’t have time to date, she’s too busy saving the world.

But the world she wants to protect isn’t her own, it’s a planet in another galaxy; home to beautiful creatures threatened with extinction when funding is cut to the conservation society Somi works at.

Trying to secure finances for the conservation of the exoplanet, she attends a swanky fundraiser – something she’d normally never do. There, she meets a human named Ravien Ignacus. Young, rich, and handsome.

Somiette has to keep her eyes on the prize: exploiting his fortune to save another world. But can she do it without falling for the charismatic rich boy with a very dark past? And what will she do once she discovers exactly how his family made their fortune?

Terra² Chronicles, Solus Sacrificed (Em Van Moore)

I’m excited to be getting back to writing, and I hope you’ll join me on this adventure.

Starting tonight I’ll be livestreaming my writing on YouTube AND Twitch!

Check out my channels after 745 pm PST tonight for one full hour of writing, chatting, and general shenaneganizing! (Just kidding. Very little shenanegans will be had. I’m a serious person who writes serious things :D)

I’ll also post updates on Twitter and Facebook, so please follow me on all my socials <3

Please join me, and let’s do NaNo ’22 TOGETHER!!

Can’t wait!

Em Van Moore

www.EmVanMoore.ca

www.MotleyWritersGuild.com