Writing Through the Night

The Point

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

These days, I’m less convinced about the existence of an afterlife than I used to be. What I have come to understand, however, is that eventually––some five billion years from now––our sun will destroy Earth.

Cheery stuff, which has got me wondering… what’s the point, if there even is one at all?

If you don’t believe in eternal life, but do know that not just your current life, but some day all life as we know it, will end then I think you could be forgiven for concluding that––ultimately––so much just… doesn’t matter.

And in a similar vein, albeit on a more personal, and incredibly smaller and less important scale: if no one is really buying your life’s work now, and your words don’t stand much chance of continuing to reach people after you’re dead, is there really any point in wasting your time?

Well.

As I said, I’ve been thinking about this. And good news, I’m not just writing this post to depress you, because I actually have a conclusion. It’s perhaps not a conclusion that will suit everyone, but I personally find it comforting.

But let’s back up a second while I tell you about this show Angel––I promise it’s on topic, just bear with me here. Continue reading →

Dangerous and Endangered Women

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Since it is just seven days until my new book––a short story collection, titled Girl Imperilled––comes out, it seems high time to tell you about it!

Here’s the blurb:

Thirty stories of warrior women and damsels in distress. Of damsels ~causing~ distress. Of girls falling in love and breaking hearts; stealing babies, stealing wallets, transforming into creatures new; finding, losing, and saving themselves.

It was way back in 2016 that a review blog pointed out I had a major running theme in my work––of female characters being in, and subsequently overcoming, adversity. It’s actually that same blog (Self-Publishing Review) to which I owe the inspiration for the collection title.

Their exact words, which I’ve quoted at the very front of the book, are/were:

While her protagonists are often imperilled, McKee imbues their stories with hope, making something uplifting out of terrible circumstances.

And once they pointed it out, it suddenly became so obvious to me. I’d never really thought of my work that way before, but it was true. I’ve actually explored the theme so much, I could have included twice as many stories as I did, but––along with my amazing editor, Bridget Engman Wilde––I have curated the selection, so it only includes the strongest pieces.

A lot of them are quite short, and some have been previously published individually, but I really feel like they flow together, and I am so proud of the outcome.

Another interesting thing I was surprised to learn about my own body of work, was quite how queer it all is. Without meaning to, I have included a wide range of representation for many characters within the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. While I’m aware that might put some people off, I trust that the book will find the audience it deserves.

If that’s you, I so hope you like it.

The ebook is exclusively on Kindle (US link | UK), and the paperback can be ordered via a range of online retailers including Waterstones and Barnes and Noble. If you wish to get it in-person from a bricks and mortar bookstore, it should be listed with their wholesalers, available on request.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-8384323-5-5

2022 Wrap Up/2023 Goals

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

I do not want to get into how 2022 went for me. It might be tied with 2010 for my Worst Year Ever TM, and the less said about that, the better. I will bust out a few stats, however, because you know I love stats. So…

  • Total Words Written: 157,000
  • Five Poems Published
  • Two Short Stories Published
  • Thirty-Two Books Read

So many of my plans and projects didn’t pan out, BUT I was in an anthology, I produced an art zine, I had my photography in a gallery show, and I had a mini-exhibition for my paintings.

My two main personal goals for 2023 are to:

  1. Stop being horrible to myself
  2. Eat three meals a day.

2023 Goodreads Reading Goal: 20 Books

Professional Goals:

  • Pass the one-million-word mark on the NaNoWriMo website (where I track everything I write, all year ’round, not just during the events). Context: I’m currently at 936,000 words.
  • I want to have posted 200 stories to the Elysian Fields fanfic archive by my ten-year anniversary (at the end of July). Context: I’m currently at 186.
  • Publish my short story collection
  • Publish part two in my YA trilogy
  • Illustrate and publish my children’s picture book
  • Do more art events and craft fairs

A New Approach

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

I’m told that you don’t stop growing until you’re twenty-five. That at twenty-five, you’ve apparently––finally––reached physical and emotional maturity. Which… looking back at my life… yeah, that tracks.

But when I first heard that fact, at say around age twenty, I misunderstood it (as, fittingly, I misunderstood so much at age twenty). I thought it meant that I needed to have my life figured out by twenty-five. That I must resolve all of my issues and faults by this deadline or they’d become set in stone and, not being able to change a single lick more, I’d be doomed to keep said faults forevermore.

Thank f*ck things were not quite so dire. (Twenty-year-old me was a little dramatic, can you tell?)

Little did I know that at thirty-three-and-two-thirds, I’d be able to adopt a new writing habit that would change my creative life entirely.

This new habit is ridiculously simple. So simple, in fact, that I actually came up with a very similar one myself years ago. I’m pretty sure I wrote a blog post about it then, too. I no doubt tagged it as ‘Good Advice.’ And then, of course, I didn’t take the advice until this past week, when I came across it again on a podcast. Continue reading →

Feeling Reflective

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

I feel in a bit of a weird headspace right now. Life has been… interesting, as always. Many exciting projects. Many things falling apart. Much stress and exhaustion––you know, the usual.

I used to use this blog to get into the nitty-gritty of all of that. The exact specifics of what I was working on, the struggles I encountered along the way, and how I was feeling about all of it.

I miss that, and would like to get back to blogging a bit more. But, at the same time, I’m hesitant to address the harder stuff I’ve encountered this year as a bunch of it still feels too raw. I feel like I need the distance of time before I can talk about it, so I don’t feel quite so vulnerable. But also, I’m very aware that the things I want, and probably need, to talk about don’t just affect me, and that makes me nervous.

Earlier this year I wrote a blog post that was about my own personal growth and journey, that just mentioned someone else in passing, and that person––whom I love deeply––was hurt by my mention. And although it was a complete misunderstanding, my intentions don’t matter much. If they’re hurt then they’re hurt, and I’m sorry.

I’ve been fairly gun-shy on getting too personal ever since, and now I feel a little in limbo. Not sure what to do.

Dear reader, shall I begin again?

On Laziness

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

I have noticed a trend, both in people I know personally and others I follow on YouTube, and it’s been slowly driving me nuts. It’s a trend I mostly see in women who not just work hard, but overwork themselves to the point of burnout several times a year. And it’s this:

If and when they finally do take a break, they say some variation of “I’m having a lazy day.”

No. You’re not.

You’re resting. You’re recovering.

There is a difference, and it’s a significant one.

Even if you think you’re saying it as a good thing, e.g. “I’m having a lazy day because I deserve it,” the word lazy is negative. Because definitionally, it’s a crappy character trait.

Rest, however, is a good thing. Not just a positive thing, but a necessary one.

You’re not lazy, you’re TIRED.

You need to give yourself a break in more way than one, and avoid falling into the trap of feeling bad or guilty for doing it.

Sincerely, someone who learned––and is still learning––the hard way.

Shooting My Shot

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

Forgive the repetition if you’ve already heard this news via my newsletter or social media, but I have been given what I think is a really great opportunity––but I need help in order to take it.

Some of my photography has been accepted into a gallery show in October, but I don’t have the means to cover the gallery fee plus the cost of actually printing and framing my work.

So, long story short, I’ve set up a crowdfunding campaign to help raise the funds.

You can find all the details here.

I’m of course open to any and all questions.

Finding Mylo and Míng

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

In case you missed my newsletter and/or my announcements across social media, this is just a short post to tell you that I recently released my first art zine.

It’s called ‘Finding Mylo and Míng’ and is about the journey I went on to start making art as an adult, develop an art style, and create my first characters.

The zine is a short, 22-page, full-colour book the size of a comic (6×9 inches).

It’s for anyone interested in getting started with illustration, and/or people who enjoy cute images of animals.

Available via Amazon (US, UK), Barnes and Noble, Book Depository, Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and independent bookstores if you ask for it.

See below for a flip-through.

Man of the River

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

I wrote this for the Waterways Storymaking Festival, and it wasn’t chosen to be shared anywhere, so I decided to share it here myself.

It is all true.

I never met my paternal grandfather. He’d passed on before my parents were married, long before us kids came along. But when I think of waterways, my mind is immediately drawn to the Upper Bann, and to the somewhat eccentric man who spent many of his years quite literally on its banks.

Outside the tiny village of Rathfriland, my grandfather lived with my grandmother and four sons in a tiny cottage––two rooms total, with a mud floor and a waterwheel on one side. The tiny scrap of land on the other side had no railings. No fence. Just six feet between the front door and the water’s edge.

One of my uncles almost drowned as a toddler. And as with so many of my family’s stories, I have no idea how any of us made it this far.

Yet, here we are. 2022 and the McKee genes live on.

I remember my dad taking us to that cottage. Through the then knee-high nettles to the spot where he could look up and point out the very tree from the infamous fishing incident.

My grandfather tried to be a man of efficiency. Emphasis on tried.

One time, after a few too many drinks, it occurred to him that it might be a waste of time to eat dinner and dessert as separate meals, so he tossed one atop the other and ate them as one.

And proceeded to throw them up as one, a few short minutes later.

It was with a similar burst of inspiration that he once decided to go fishing. Not with a rod, or a net… but a shotgun.

You read that correctly.

And it went about as well as you might expect.

He climbed a tree, hung out on a limb over the Bann, and waited. Then, when a fish swam within reach, my grandfather fired––and the recoil sent him out of the tree and into the water.

Needless to say he was none too happy upon hauling himself out, scrabbling up the river bank, utterly soaked to the skin.

The river took his shotgun, but we’re likely agreed on that being for the best. Especially when you consider this is not the only shotgun/river anecdote about my grandfather, past down in laughing voices and with shaking heads.

It was the summer of ’69 that my grandfather packed up the family and headed for the bright lights of Bangor, but I’ve got a funny feeling his soul is back there in Rathfriland, on the banks of the River Bann, even now.

Maybe he’s still hunting for his gun.

2022 Take Two

Posted on by Ellie Rose McKee

I know most things never go completely to plan, what with life getting in the way at every turn, but my gosh has the first half of 2022 been the opposite of what I hoped for. Thinking on it as a whole, I’m left feeling disappointed for opportunities I reached for and didn’t get, and frustrated for projects I didn’t complete. Looking part that into the details, however, I can see there were good points, too.

In the first half of this year I:

  • Wrote 65,000 words––considerably less than I usually pen in six months, but still sixty-five thousand words!
  • Attempted Veganuary for the first time (and did better than I expected)
  • Got the third Belfast Writers’ Group Anthology out into the world (FINALLY!)
  • Published the first Perilla Magilla book for CL Scott
  • Became a moderator of Elysian Fields, an online fan fiction archive of almost 25,000 members

I also lost pretty much the entirety of my June to COVID––but I was fully vaccinated and I’m still here to tell my story, so I have that to be thankful for.

My Goodreads Goal is on track (11 books read off my total of 20 for the year), and I have been working on my art, as planned.

I’ve had art mentoring sessions via Zoom that were really helpful, completed a bunch of Skillshare classes that were also really good, and attended some in-person art classes that were… let’s just say not up to the standard of the Zoom and Skillshare lessons.

So a mixed bag! Maybe not even too bad, considering. You might be wondering why I’m feeling so down about the year so far, all considered, and to answer that, I point you at the three things still currently in the pipeline for 2022:

  • Life Lessons: Book Two in my YA Trilogy
  • Girl Imperilled: My Short Story Collection
  • An Art Zine

I had planned to have all three of these published by now, and if things had worked out, I’d currently be writing book three of my trilogy, but that’s been pushed to next year.

Which is frustrating, as I’ve said, but I’m also trying to be gentler with myself this year. One of my goals was to actually chill more, and I think I’m maybe a little better on that front. Either way, we’re now in July, having crossed over into the second half of the year, and I’m considering it a fresh start.

Let’s go onward from here!