Galls & Walnuts

books, writing, and a strange life

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Category: Writing

  • Overcoming Creative Cowardice

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    When I was in high school, our art teacher wanted us to come up with a mural to hang in the school cafeteria. It was a design project, and we had to show and discuss the steps we took to create the mural. I was getting into political and philosophical ideas at the time, often listening to music that was heavy in social and political awareness. I would be lying if I said I was particularly knowledgeable and understood entirely what I was consuming, but one has to begin somewhere, right?

    The Girl and the Dragon (somewhere around 2004-2005)

    I was the lucky art student that had to hang their work first. So, my friend and crush at the time helped me hang the mural early before school started. What came next, I did not expect.

    “It’s a dragon raping a girl!” a kid screamed.

    That was not what I drew, nor was that even going through my head.

    It was a Catholic school, so I pretty much created an uproar. I got my art teacher in trouble and I was brought down from class and back into the cafeteria to explain to the school what I had created.

    Rather than feeling fear or retribution, however, I was proud that something I made had begun a conversation. I had drawn a dragon crying and mourning the death of a human friend. She was killed by her own people because she had dared to love a sentient, living being beyond her own skin. It was a representation of how prejudice begats death and destruction. The cat peers at its audience, pleading why?

    After high school, the desire to make those conversations disappeared.

    The Beginning of Creative Cowardice

    I used to love shocking people and getting them to think about real world issues: human rights, prejudiced thinking, environmental destruction, etcetera. In my young adulthood, however, I began to wonder what people would think about me and my ideas? Would my ideas, my art, and me be cancelled, my career snuffed out as soon as it started?

    Social media, algorithms, and search engine optimization homogenized art. It all became fabricated content to appease the marketplace. I began to write blogs, killing my creativity and joy so that the Search Engine Optimization Gods would notice me and bless me with likes and eyes.

    The result was work I did not even enjoy. Work that felt soul-less. Work that was identical to others because the aesthetic being pushed was safe and marketable. I did not even know who I was anymore.

    The End of Creative Cowardice

    I created a small quilted American Flag for No Kings Day.

    This morning, I remembered that mixed media picture I created for high school art. I have forgotten the title of it, but let’s call it The Girl and the Dragon. I rolled it out onto the garage floor and laughed at how beautifully naive it was, yet proud that my young sophomore self had more guts than I do now.

    These days, I feel my younger self being summoned, having a story to tell, loving to create raw art from the inside out. I feel more empowered to release the creative cowardice that has kept me from creating anything. I want to create a work of enduring love, philosophy, and power. Even if I’m unsuccessful, I can say that I’ve tried.

    A Story in Progress

    My new hobby is writing unapologetically. I believe my book Eclipse (a steady work in progress), has been a good starting point. I want to talk about Diseases of the Mind. Since my goal is to put contemporary issues into a fantasy story, I wonder how I can express three issues that haunt me daily:

    1. The inability to think for oneself.
    2. Outsourcing thinking to others, especially machines.
    3. Blatant refusal to attempt to think for oneself.

    How can I fit these issues into the seemingly impossible moments my characters will have to overcome? Am I able to overcome them in real life? One who thinks for themselves has no room for creative cowardice.

    Daily writing prompt
    Share a hobby you’ve picked up recently — what got you into it?
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  • Writing a Novel: Eclipse

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    I finished my fist novel when I was sixteen. I got it copyrighted and remember the excitement when my certificate arrived in the mail. I once thought to query it, but I never did. Perhaps I thought it wasn’t good enough. Perhaps more work needed to be done. Twenty years later, and I never finished another story since then—a painful realization as I let the struggles of the economy, work, and daily life overtake my initial dream of being a published writer. A dream differed.

    Instead, I blogged, started a slew of unfinished novels, and let my creativity rot under an ocean of distractions.

    After my students’ creative writing reignited my spark, I began the slow process of remembering what it was like to love scratching words in a notebook. Rusty yet working, the love for storytelling returned. I decided to begin rewriting that childhood novel with a more experienced voice.

    Premise

    I am letting go of the perfectionist pantsing pattern I used to abide by. It clearly doesn’t work for me because I have over twenty years of empty output. The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, right?

    This original story I’m working on was inspired by a jade bracelet I had in history class in 7th or 8th grade. While spacing out, I pretended it was a crown, and developed this idea about magical princesses. I created a story influenced by my favorite fantasy books and video games, featuring four young people on a journey to save the world—completely original, I know!

    This time, I’m rewriting the same characters’ in a much darker world. And instead of the usual story of evil kings, sorcerers, and Lord of the Rings tropes, I decided to shoot for something different: a world of dark representative governments and capitalists instead—something that parallels with our present, but still has the flare of fantasy.

    What if I take the insanity of America’s 2016 and 2024 elections, and essentially “Fuck Around and Find Out” by going all madwoman and writing a fantasy story centered around the injustices and anti-intellectualism of my world?

    The words began spilling out of me since April 2026. Leather bound notebook in tow, I’ve been writing religiously for five months. I spend most of the writing time outdoors where I can write without distraction. The only music is the rustle of trees, laughing insects, singing birds, and sighing creeks. I write in wildlife reserves, public parks, national forests, and public libraries.

    The story is fleshing out, whether beneath stormy skies or cruel heatwaves. I have so much to say, and I’m taking the craft of storytelling seriously this time by studying the art and science of plot, psychology, characterization, and voice. I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing, but I feel comfortable in this new writing pattern. I’m getting somewhere and am unafraid of the outcome of this story.

    Creating What I Want to Read

    I am writing the sort of story I wish I could read. There are plenty of stories I adore—and am welcome to suggestions because there are millions of unique stories out there—but I want to see a story where there are twists to tropes, diverse characters and experiences, and worlds that mirror our planet earth, yet also feel different and refreshing.

    AI-Free Writing

    I am proud to say that this is a human-made endeavor. I am not generating any writing ideas with generative AI, nor is this book being made with AI. The only thing I cannot escape are search engines that use AI overviews—but I am steadfast in following up on research verified through books and articles. In fact, I began this blog to prove my humanness so that my stories have a paper trail or digital footprint. My stories won’t appear out of thin air under an unknown name.

    Let’s see together how far this story will go. I haven’t settled on a title yet, but for now let’s call my book Eclipse.

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s a book you never finished but still think about?
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  • An Era of Distraction: Thoughts on Distancing Oneself from Post-Modern Amusements

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    If I had a time machine and could send just one message to my past self, it would be, “Remove the distractions.”

    I hope you never have the horrible realization of how many days, weeks, months, or (heaven forbid) years summed up and listed on a STEAM gaming account. I probably don’t have as many hours in the grand scheme of things, but I don’t particularly enjoy being reminded that I’ve played over five hundred hours of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (let alone the total of hours of video games played). As much as I love a good video game, it’s come to my attention how much of a distraction they are. Them, as well as social media, algorithms, and any attention-draining campaign. All of those hours sitting in front of a screen… Think of how many books that could have been read or written!

    I’m at the tail-end of my youth, and it’s eerie to think of having fewer tomorrows than yesterdays (unless life grants me the blessing or curse of living beyond seventy-five—a bessing if my health is good, a curse if I’m on life support with piles of pills, tanks, and tubes). As such, it forces one to choose distractions wisely, and to wisely choose how long to be distracted.

    Life is too short to be distracted most of time time, and so all different parts of me (the procrastinator, the madwoman, the creator, the tortured soul—I jest with this one) convened during this past Ostara—the Spring Equinox. During this celebratory time, we welcome the return of the sun and all of Earth’s revewals and rebirths. I use this time of the year to renew myself—like a New Year Resolution, only bound in realistic goals.

    I had a special goal in mind this cycle: to bring back my passion for writing and reading. And, to achieve this, I had to remove distractions… even if some of them were painful to do.

    Not all distractions are useless, mind-numbing, brain rotting marathons of media and content consumption. Sometimes, it is simply spending too much time doing other things. For me, as much as I love a good crafting project, this meant knitting fewer sweaters. Sewing fewer shirts. Taking a leave from martial arts. Baking less. And, of course, playing fewer video games. Time is a priceless thing. We cannot get more of it, but we can reorganize it.

    When a defining goal overtakes one’s soul, it becomes necessary to sacrifice something else. Three hours of watching a movie could have been three hours of reading. Two hours of baking a cake could have been two hours of hiking for better health. We get to decide what priorities to indulge in (and nothing has to be completely discarded; only reduced or changed).

    Daily writing prompt
    If you had a time machine and could send just one message to your past self, what would it say?
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  • Rescuing a Side of Me

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    There is terror in this first step: writing about writing.

    I’ll never forget the award my 4th grade teacher gave me at the end of the school year. It was a blue ribbon that read, “Can tell a story with a single picture.” Although I no longer have that precious blue ribbon, the sentiment stuck with me nearly thirty years later, so far away from the city I was born in.

    It’s a familiar sentiment: wild childhood and childish dreams that expand until right-angled parents, mentors, and society steer one into practical productivity.

    I woke up one day, having accomplished very little in the shadow of that ribbon. I’m a teacher now, and that ugly, judgmental statement even my dad parrots stirs a bit of anger: Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. Somehow this phrase from George Shaw’s 1903 play Man and Superman has spiraled into an easy way to insult and demean teaching and education—even though Shaw’s original critique was intended for revolutionaries and theorists of revolutions, who are quick to drown in endless conversation over taking up pens and arms.

    That said, to teach is to also be a student. Working with young people on the verge of adulthood has done something very unexpected: reinvigorated my original love of pictures and stories.

    A student of mine this year allowed me to read her poetry, and I cried. I adored every word, her passion for metaphor, and her deep understanding of surprisingly mature topics despite her only being twelve years old. We truly underestimate how brilliant young people can be, and I always look forward to experiencing the creativity of my students. It wasn’t only her poetry, but the written prose by one of her gothic friends, the comedic voice another young man’s persuasive essay, and previous students, now in high school, contacting me years later asking that I read their work.

    They all inspired me to stop burying the dream of writing, neglecting it, and deferring it until it does stink like rotten meat.

    Writing about writing is very uncomfortable. The gauge for which we measure the title of writer or author is reserved for the traditionally published. However, seeing a book I’ve written one day on another reader’s shelf is still my greatest dream of all.

    What’s your biggest dream?
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