Vanishing Calluses & Such

Alas, we used to practice in Bob's Basement

Confession time: I haven’t guitared in forever. Ever since I started working on The Night Chemist (working title), I have had a hard time motivating myself to focus on my music. At first, it was because I just I was so excited about my new project; the novelty kept me hooked. Then, I started to stagnate. I found myself playing the same songs over and over, mindlessly, rather than trying to actually improve or learn/write anything new.

Eventually, I more or less gave up and decided to set my guitars and recording equipment aside for the time being until my musical motivation returned. Part of that funk was definitely because of the lineup changes Olga’s Burning Sparrows has undergone, with first our bassist—also our second vocalist—deciding to step back, and then shortly thereafter, our rhythm guitarist (at whose house we practiced) had to back out, too. So the only official members of the band at the moment are me and Zach, our drummer. Unfortunately, until we move—long story, and more on that in another post—we have no rehearsal space. Zach doesn’t have room at his place for all the amps and mics and other equipment needed for us to practice live, and I don’t have room at my place for a drum set. Thus, we’ve more or less been on hiatus for months, and without a concrete goal to work toward—i.e., a specific date for our next live rehearsal—I haven’t been able to motivate myself to actually practice the way I should if I want to maintain my skills.

Which means, at this point, I’ve lost my calluses.

It was a depressing realization the other day, when I noticed the fingertips of my left hand were mostly soft again. I was proud of my gnarly guitarist calluses; they were a badge of honor, a physical manifestation of how often I played. Now? There’s still a tiny bit of a callus there compared to the fingertips of my right hand, but nothing like they were this time last year, and even this time last year they were nothing compared to what they were in 2021 when I had time (and energy) to practice 2+ hours every day. Alas, I used to actually be able to shred. Now? Not so much.

So here’s the deal. I’m at a pretty good progress point in writing this series. After all, it’s been (almost) a year and I have one book as polished as I can humanly make it—and, I’d wager, infinitely more polished than any bull$h!t generative-AI abomination could do—a second book at its second-round-of-revisions stage, a third book with a detailed outline, scene summaries, and a good chunk of dialogue already done, AND a fourth (and final) book almost outlined. It’s basically a synopsis at this point of the major plot points, but not a full plot outline yet. Either way, for less than a year? That’s a damn impressive amount of work, if I say so myself, especially considering I am also a full-time parent to a particularly rambunctious little boy. Fortunately, he finally started preschool, so I had a few hours three times a week of blessed solitude.

And to think, my doctoral dissertation, which was half the length of book 1, took me a solid seven years to complete. Granted, that includes three years of coursework before I even started researching, and then two years of research before I started writing, but still. It was a long time.

Looking back further, my very first novel, which I began working on in middle school at the ripe old age of 12, took 20 years to write. 15 years, if you count when I actually started the manuscript that I eventually published, because the initial draft—that again, I was like, 12 or 13—I made it 120 pages in and decided to scrap the whole thing and start over. Either way, that is a loooooong time. Second book took 5 years to write, but the planning for that began when I was still in high school. Suffice it to say, I’ve learned a lot about writing over the past almost-three decades (yikes) and my craft has GREATLY improved—and my process has greatly streamlined.

So back to music, now, which was my actual intended topic for today’s blog post (my bad): in all likelihood, if I’m being realistic with myself, I probably won’t be at a good space to get back to my bad musical metalhead self until after this current chapter of my life has concluded. By “this current chapter,” I mean the duration of my time living in Virginia—more on that later, for real, I promise—which will likely also correspond to me having a completed (or nearly so) first draft of book 3. I’ve only got a few months left here in Virginia, and then it’s on to a new adventure.

All for now. I’ll be back in a few days with the next installment of my Slavic Warrior Women series, where I’ll be introducing my very first case study: Hippolyte!