Shattered Mage has been sent over to my copyeditor, and I’m also now sitting on a book cover that will be revealed in a month or so.
This is the part I struggle with, by the way. The fake cheerfulness of book news and so on, like “HEY GUYS I HOPE YOU’RE READY TO BE ENTERTAINED BY ALL MY TRAUMA WRAPPED UP IN MAGIC AND DRAGONS AHAHAHAHA.” I think that’s why I’ve been terrible about updating people about my writing, or talking about my writing, or marketing, or networking, or any of that stuff in general. I know there are people who create joyful art full of meaning while also still acknowledging the hard parts of life, the universe, and everything, but that’s just not me. Everything I vomit onto a page always feels raw and bleeding, and I’ve stopped trying to fight it.
If you’ve seen any of my updates over the last few years, you’ll see how I’m just really recently coming to terms with my neurodivergence. Every year seems to be a rude awakening to the struggles I’ve faced–and have somewhat tried to ignore–my whole life through. I think in the beginning I thought I could just pop some pills and be normal again, but no, apparently it’s not that simple. You can only outrun yourself for so long.
We are, for better or worse, everything that we’ve done and everything that was done to us.
If Chronicles of the Bitch Queen was about the impossible choices women have to face, then The Dageian Puppetmaster series is about the impossible choices children of the diaspora have to face. I had to unpack so much of my own biases and worldview here, particularly as a neurodivergent kid growing up in a culture that seems to define our worth by how well we live up to the standards of a “good kid.” We’re supposed to get good grades so we can get good jobs that bring prestige to our families, and so even though our elders may have the best of intentions, we end up struggling alone because we’re afraid that even just talking about how hard things actually are will somehow bring shame and disappointment to the people who have sacrificed so much “to get us where we are.”
I put so much of how I personally struggled throughout my school years in this series. That in spite of how “intelligent” I was told I was, to the point that people actively harassed and shamed me for it (and also for my many, many weird hyperfixations), I was a mess who couldn’t keep track of things and didn’t know where to begin. And it feels awful to “complain” about this, because up until the last few years of high school I was still getting decent grades, but I was able to skate on by because I was good with patterns and problem-solving and so many tests have logical fallacies that reveal the answer if you’ve read even just 25% of the material. But I couldn’t apply myself to anything that required diligence–which just put me in a cycle of burnout, skipping classes, and ignoring problems until they piled up. I was also suffering from insomnia, depression, anxiety, and a bunch of other things on top of that. I still remember going to college wearing a hiking shoe and a runner on each foot, and only realizing it after I got home. All those struggles put me on a tailspin, and I only “forced” myself to try and fix it after my eldest was born. I told myself she deserved better than a mess of a mother.
It took another decade and a half to realize how this was about more than just applying myself. That there are in fact things I can’t fix about myself, which is kind of a hell of a thing to admit in a culture that continues to overpraise people who exude toxic positivity (even now, outside of my husband and kids, I really can’t talk about how hard I struggle each day without being told some form of “it’s all in your mindset” or “maybe you’re just weak” and “leave it to God”) But my kids are all more or less looking down the same cliff I’ve been falling off all these years, and I owe it to them to figure my crap out so they can figure their crap out, if only so life will be a little kinder to them. I don’t have all the answers, not even close, but at least I can direct them to art. Art helps. It can even save your life.
So here’s to another completed hot mess of a series. To my dearest readers–if you’re still with me, know that I appreciate you from the bottom of my heart; I wouldn’t be here without you.
