It’s A Wonderful Life

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

So…. So…. So….

Er….. I thought I might get 25k over two weeks, if I begged a lot. And then we’d borrow the other half, pay the bill, and if the house sold quickly, we’d be okay. Mostly. I mean BTB — back to broke — but not in a hole, right?

And then the GoFundMe funded in… 7 hours? And is now double the amount? And I’m not keeping it up because I’m greedy, but because people keep sending me emails and pms saying “leave it up another week, so I can play.”

I don’t get how this is “play” but I get it seems to be cheering people up. The discord group is watching this like it’s election results only better. And I don’t want to take that away. But it seems…. surreal.

People in the discord group keep saying it’s like a real life It’s A Wonderful Life. They’re not wrong.

This side of the keyboard? It’s pretty lonely. I often wonder if I’m flinging out things no one cares about/reads. Like shouting into the dark, and not being sure there’s anyone there. Sometimes there’s glimmers of eyes.

So, it’s amazing to get this kind of response. It’s — life affirming.

And yeah, the fundraiser is at double. And someone — coff Kim Du Toit — has threatened me with deathy death if I take it down before it hits 150k. That seems…. excessive. (I mean the amount, not the deathy death. The man has enough guns to deadify half the planet.) And surreal. But it seems to be headed that way.

And — besides the fact that of course if the house sells fast I’ll use some of the money to help friends I know need it, and who’d never ask — the other part is why it feels surreal.

You see, our married life started with nothing, my degree being of limited value in the US (Well, you know, there are like 3 new translator jobs a year and they might not be in YOUR languages. Even if I had 7) and Dan being a beginner programmer. A year in, he said I should JUST write. Of course we thought I’d sell the first book and we’d be rich. But though I got very encouraging rejections from first submission on, nothing was accepted.

I finally got a job as a translator, just before I got pregnant (finally, six years in) and got very ill, so I had to quit. From then on, we were on one income until I sold a novel 6 years later. And for the unitiated, a mid-list novel, which mine was from day one, isn’t an “income.” It was 5k. And since it was “literary fantasy” they wanted one a year TOPS.

By the time my advances were bigger, the kids were teens. And I was writing five novels (at around 10k a piece) and taking side writing gigs to keep them in food and shoes. (My dainty boys.Would you believe 13 EEE and 15 EEEE — or depending on the cut 17 EEEE?) And we were socking away what we could, but never getting enough for a cushion in case of trouble.

When the possibility of indie raised its head and “the more you write the more you make” I was ill. And it’s been very hard – as you guys know — to write anything. Partly because of stress. This has been very bad the last five years. We bought the last house in CO for various reasons, and partly because it was the cheapest (trust me) we could get and be where we needed to be at that time. BUT it was more house than we could afford, both in price, (Yes, we qualified. But I think those calculations are a bit nuts) and size. Buying it as a short sale, with a ton of stuff that needed to be done was bad enough. But there was also heating/cooling and just regular maintenance. It reminded me of when we owned a 5th hand Volvo. No matter for what it went in, it was going to cost us $500 (or in the house’s case 10k.) Oil change? $500. Wiper blade squeaks? $500. We loved that car, but only had it a year and a half because it was bleeding us. Well, the house bled us for five years, and almost killed us getting it in shape to sell. (Both monetarily and physically.)

And I can’t write when I’m stressed. It doesn’t work. I mean, regular every day stress, sure. But “Where are xk coming from to pay for the food/gas/mortgage?” That shuts me down. Which yes, is counterproductive.

Ultimately, the reason I did the GoFundMe was to be able to write. Because the alternative was to borrow and then sit here, with my hair falling out and without any nails, while I waited for the other house to sell.

I’m actually somewhat embarrassed by how well it’s done. (No, I can’t explain it.) And yes there will be yearly fundraisers (Younger son spent an hour talking me into this.) They might pay a tenth of this, but that’s worth it. But they will be of a different nature, with returns at various levels. Nothing I need to physically mail, unless younger son undertakes to do it (I SUCK at that) but tuckerizations and exclusive stories and stuff. Not this. This was because otherwise I was going to have a heart attack trying to find the money to pay bills.

For now? It’s surreal because for the first time ever, we have a cushion. I.e. if something goes wrong, like the other house takes three months to sell, we’re not going to be broke/homeless.

And for right now? It’s a wonderful life.

The lights in the great dark theater have come on. And the darkness I’ve been flinging words into is full of friendly, loving faces.

It’s stunning. It’s almost unbelievable.

And yes, it is wonderful.

358 thoughts on “It’s A Wonderful Life”

  1. BTW, for an odd example of, “things you’ve done for us,” spouse and I are enjoying small glasses of Sandeman’s port. Would never have thought of trying the stuff if there hadn’t been a discussion on port here.

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      1. Taylor’s is my tipple. My mother liked Sandeman’s. That was her father’s favorite. The joke in the mess was “Port, sir, is the only wine.” When they drank the loyal toast.

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  3. I’m glad it’s done so well Mama Taz. I may send you a little. We got the tax return [ we filed late. just ONCE I’d like mom to file on time instead of procrastinating most of a fucking year away.] We had to use some of it for a new fridge. [fuckin finally! the old one was goddamn near as old as *I* am Mama Taz!] Mom wants to use most of the rest for a new couch and I’m itching for a decent wattage portable generator before ‘winter’. because I forsee more power outages and I would dearly love not to lose most of the shit in the fridge this time and be stuck in a house with no fucking heat for several days, with my mom, my sister, and my hyper dog. Plus I live 60miles inland from the coast and occasional hurricanes are a fact of life.

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  4. To put this in perspective, I, who generally try to check your site daily these days lest Boxes from Sarah’s Garage start without me, didn’t even *see* the GoFundMe until it was already at $116,526. (Granted, I got on late today, because I suddenly got obsessed last night with finishing a certain story I’d been neglecting for years, but still.) So, yes, this is every bit as gloriously flabbergasting as you make it sound, and please accept my humble soupçon of rejoicing to swell the geyser so rightly surging from your heart.

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    1. We will be doing boxes next week. The guy who’ll be doing the donkey work came in at 4 am yesterday. (He SHOULD have left early, but buddies took him to farewell brunch, so…) and is now trying to figure out HOW his computer fried while unplugged in the basement. So, we’re hoping to do that next week?

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  5. I’m glad you are going to do the yearly fundraisers. I currently have no funds myself but I hope to be able to donate next time. Also seeing everyone else’s donations and comments has warmed my heart.

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  6. Now…with the funding taken care of, the altitude problems disposed of…we expect you to get the water-cooled keyboard and write on a scale that would make John C. Wright gape with amazement. :-)

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      1. I heard a gal talking about writing a formula romance novel in 28 hours. She was a wreck by the time she finished, but the editor loved it, and it saved two people’s bacon (the editor, and the writer who was supposed to do it, but who had a massive medical emergency, both friends of the person telling the story.) No thank you!

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        1. 3 days (Plain Jane) is my BEST grossing work so far. It’s been out forever, still pays a couple of thousand a year.
          I actually have no idea what I wrote in it. I was the walking dead for a week after. BUT whatever it was, it worked.

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          1. That’s (one of) the things that drives me crazy. A few of the things that I’ve dashed off in days or weeks, often sleep deprived and sicker than a dog, continue to get the most reads. I do not get it. I do not understand it. If I *did* I could replicate it, and make, I dunno, insurance salesman money, instead of gas station attendant money.

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            1. Dali famously sleep deprived himself in order to turn off the part of the brain that say “wait, that doesn’t work”.

              With that level of intense flow, and yeah it isn’t that surprising so long as one can maintain the quality.

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              1. There’s a famous essay that we read in Spanish class, about how flamenco and writing, and other arts, work best when they are full of… a sort of magic spirit? Basically, a sort of direct pipeline from the unconscious mind.

                So yeah, if you’re sick and feverishly busy, or sleep-deprived and wired, Mr. Unconscious and Mr. Motivator Lizard Brain get to take over. And if it’s coherent at all, it can have that magic power.

                OTOH, it’s also notorious among songwriters that the song you dash off, that you put nothing into, that was just a gimme, could be the song that really takes off. (And of course, it’s really the fruit of all the hard work you put into the other songs, but people don’t take it that way and it annoys them.)

                Better to take it as a gift and be happy, than to be annoyed by that sort of thing.

                And don’t do drugs to write, mkay? Better to do self-hypnosis with smells or an organized workplace.

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                1. I can’t even write when I take cold medicine, let alone back in the days when I drank a bit. That stuff completely shuts off the part that does the writing somehow.

                  When writing, you often pull a dozen half-remembered things together, or at least I do. At least some of which are wrong. Conversations overheard, things researched some twenty years ago, stuff I’ve read, stuff other writers have said, things thought about while stuck in traffic, etc. Translating thought stuff into words on a page means you lose things in the process. Less as you get practice with it. Because thought stuff, or at least mine, don’t happen in discrete words and phrases. At least not completely.

                  Perhaps because a big part of it is sensory, images, sounds, smells and such, or even more vague emotion laced if/then and of consequence X,Y, and B. In thought, it’s easy to miss things because you have impressions of connected ideas that assure you you’re on the right track that in text don’t exist. That’s what editing is for. If that makes any sense.

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                3. “OTOH, it’s also notorious among songwriters that the song you dash off, that you put nothing into, that was just a gimme, could be the song that really takes off. ”

                  Ask Leslie Fish about that….

                  “And we’re banned from Argo, every one……” 8-)

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  7. > This side of the keyboard? It’s pretty lonely. I often wonder if I’m flinging out things no one cares about/reads. Like shouting into the dark, and not being sure there’s anyone there. Sometimes there’s glimmers of eyes.
    > The lights in the great dark theater have come on. And the darkness I’ve been flinging words into is full of friendly, loving faces.

    I come here for things like this.. that unique perspective on looking at life in a wonderfully different way that just plants itself into my head and sprouts imagery & emotion.

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  8. I couldn’t donate via gofundme due to some technical error, so donated via the paypal.me link. Happy to contribute to another shocked face!

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  11. Years’n’years ago, at a con in Denver, a friend of mine grabbed me by the arm and pulled me toward a room where you’d be giving a presentation. “You’ve gotta see this woman. She’s a phenomenon. I think you’ll like her.”

    He was right on the first two counts. The third, well, he needed a far stronger word than “like.”

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      1. And while I have you, I wanted to mention that moving from 6700 feet in Colorado Springs to 1400 feet in Scottsdale made all my oxygen issues go away. All of them. I’m a couple of SP02 points lower than I’d like, but my symptoms (which were largely like yours, if not so severe) are gone. You’re doing exactly the right thing. I do miss living four or five miles south of you, but that’s life.

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  12. I hope you are not surprised that intelligent individuals might also be in a profession that pays well. Since freedomistas tend toward the right end of the IQ curve it would be reasonable to expect a greater than average percentage of the people reading your blog to be in a higher income category.

    Even looking at it coldly, you are an asset to the freedom community. I, personally, have benefited from your upbeat essays and I am pretty sure there are others who can say the same. That those who have profited from you freely given words are willing to help you out of a jam should not be a mystery. Freedomistas also tend toward the right end in of the generosity and pay-it-forward curves.

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  13. What goes around, comes around, sweetie. How many people have you helped out over the years, with a kind word, or a rousing blog post, or a pithy breakdown of the latest insanity? How many people have taken hope from your words, your patriotism, your bravery in speaking boldly?

    How is it a surprise that those you have helped would hesitate even a second in helping you?

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  14. Think of it this way, Sarah. Some want to help their author, in some cases their friend. Unlike some, in spite of your woes, the darkness, you still reach out and pick/lift people up. Either with your books or your blogs.

    Be happy that people want to help. Esp. with the problems you’ve clearly had there.

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