Welcome to My Mind

          For the many of you out there who don't know me, my name is Sarah Cannavo, and just like it says in my Twitter profile, I write weird shit and in rare, wonderful instances, people have begun paying me for said weird shit. (I suppose I should have begun this post with a warning: I will more than occasionally use Bad Words, and also discuss things that might disconcert the prudish and/or squeamish. Feel free to exit the page now if anything like that bothers you. I'll wait.)

          All right, now that the more delicate among us have left, I should probably more thoroughly introduce myself and explain just what this site is about, since looking it over made me realize it kind of looks like I'm trying to crowdfund a homemade indie movie or self-published novel about a poetess who is Not Supposed to Be Emily Dickinson But Obviously Is and some sort of anguished, ill-fated love affair involving corsets and hoop skirts and admirals and ill-timed cholera.  

          Trust me, I'm not. I'm a writer above all else, with a usual domain square in the horror/fantasy/sci-fi regions, although I can't say I've  never woken up with an idea for a Western or a more mainstream drama unfolding in my braincase. I also write poetry, currently on quite a poem-a-day streak (more on that in a later post), and after long months of picking poems from my vast stack, arranging them in an order I can live with (which is hard; my first warning to any other young writers reading this? Trying to arrange poems in some kind of order, if they weren't written in any, is like herding cats. Possibly pumas.), I've ended up with a finalized manuscript for my first collection, which I'll most likely self-publish through CreateSpace in the coming months. I'm sure advice, updates, and rants about that particular step of my journey will fill this site, along with updates on all my other projects, both those that've already been accepted and those ranging from "done" to "...I'll get there someday." I've been told it's good for authors to have websites, so more people can find out about their work and they can build their profiles and fan bases, so after a long period of ignoring my other blogs completely, I've decided to jump back into the game now that I actually seem to have some news to share.

          And hey, if the internet wasn't created for people to overshare unasked-for, possibly meaningless information about their lives with complete strangers, that's what it's turned into, so here I am. 

          That's not to say that EVERYTHING on this site will be completely about writing, my own or anyone else's; of course I'll share helpful advice and/or warnings I either come up with myself or find in the course of my writing career, so any other writers who are interested can check them out. I love sites dedicated to helping writers, whether to publish their work or break a procrastination streak (not that I've ever really been able to do that; usually I blame it on the fact that I'm a Gemini and berate myself until I eventually get back to work), come up with story ideas or cut down on their word count; there is definitely a place for those sites out there. But this is not, strictly speaking, one of those, firstly because I can barely keep my own shit together and so don't feel qualified to tell other people how to keep theirs, and secondly, because I just can't stick to one topic that continuously. And, thirdly, because, as the great Hank Moody so perfectly put it, "I can't teach you how to write, and anybody who tells you they can is full of shit." (He also said "You should give a fuck. You really should. But only about things that set your soul on fire. Save your fucks for magical shit." and "Whatever doesn't kill us only makes us more annoying," both of which I also believe to be entirely true.) 

          So no, not every post will be self-promotion or complaints about receiving yet another rejection. Some days there will be rants about The Walking Dead and Supernatural, mentions of cool books I've found and want to share with my Dear Readers, bouts of low self-esteem where I discuss how every one of my poems is in some way inferior to your average Lana del Rey or Hozier song, drops into the world of the paranormal and cryptozoology—two of my biggest interests and the subjects of many of my works—rants about assholes who think banning pit bulls is the answer to the problem, random wonderings as to why the Blogger profiles have room for you to put in your favorites movies, music, and books, but not TV shows, and whatever else comes into my head on any given day. Just like with the stories I plan to write, I never really know what's coming next, so if you ever wanted a real look inside my mind (you sick bastard), this is about as close as you're ever gonna get.  

          Posts will be irregular, sometimes infrequent, just like my periods (thanks, polycystic ovarian syndrome!), so if you care you won't have to worry about checking every week or at a certain time for updates or new posts. I do what I can, when I can, and I've been told that's enough, just like this seems to be enough of an introduction for now. If you've read this far without getting annoyed and have decided to keep checking on on my musings, thanks, I do appreciate it. And if nobody does...well, blogging still has to be cheaper than therapy. 

                                                                                          Until next time,

                                                                                                              Sarah Cannavo