Hope, Hope, Hope

Posted on June 27, 2025June 27, 2025 by Robert Tomoguchi

Manga drawing from Orly's Journals — A scene from Orly’s Journals Entry 33: “Hanabi”

Since my last post, I wrote two more short stories. The first, entitled Yote, is about my childhood best friend Gote. I wrote it in response to a call for submissions by The Sun for stories about nicknames. I felt so good about the story that I submitted it to two other journals as well.

Inspired by the No Kings protests, I wrote another story entitled Five Years. My beta reader and ChatGPT had strong, positive reactions. I haven’t sent it anywhere yet but hope to next week.

In an attempt to cheer myself up, I commissioned a manga artist to do a drawing from Orly’s Journals. I just saw the final yesterday and am very happy with it.

Speaking of Orly’s Journals, I’m currently 10 weeks ahead, and am currently writing Entry 66. I also added two new perks to my Patreon. The first is that I’m now posting screenshares of me writing, to show my writing process. The second is that I’m now calling out my favorite sentence/passage posted during the month and explaining what it means to me.

So, if you’re not part of my Patreon, I hope you’ll check that out. I hope you’ll also wish me luck with finding a publisher for my two new stories. Finally, I hope you like the manga illustration from Orly’s Journals Entry 33: “Hanabi.”

The Bridge to Corn Dogs

Posted on November 1, 2021 by Robert Tomoguchi

I finished writing the beginning of Chapter Eighteen, which begins the bridge between midpoint and climax of the book. This is always the hardest part of a story for me to write. Using handwritten notecards helped me organize it enough to get it done. Looking back, I feel like it shouldn’t have taken me so long to write so little (currently 1,138 words), but then I must remember depression and then it makes sense even though it’s still disappointing.

Last week I waited on hold with a suicide prevention chat line for twenty minutes before I gave up and logged out. I wanted to talk to someone, and I know talking about suicide makes the few friends I discuss it with sad and sometimes tearful, so I wanted to spare them.

I tried to be kind to myself over the weekend. I hung three paintings in my office. I drove to get the vegan corn dogs I’ve been craving. I drove on side streets aimlessly and skipped to songs I could sing to. I drank hot chocolate.

I had a list of things I wanted to talk to my psychologist about today, but she called out sick, so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

I’m glad I finished the beginning of that bridge. Going on from there should all come easier unless, of course, the depression…

I’ve Been Here Before

Posted on June 20, 2021 by Robert Tomoguchi

My best friend, Amirah, sent me a Facebook memory yesterday of something I had posted five years earlier. I was shocked when I read it. The post began with this sentence:

I’m trying very hard to love my book again.

I wrote that in 2016. I was talking about The Scribbled Victims. In my post on my author blog from May 13 of this year, I wrote this about Scribbles of the Empress:

True, as time passes, I tend to become less satisfied with my work, but that’s never happened with a work-in-progress; it happens months after finishing.

My memory, as it often does, failed me, and I see now, that that is not true. This experience of not loving my work-in-progress has happened before. I found proof of this while reading through posts on my personal blog from June 2016 and I found this post from June 6:

Throughout that month, I wrote about feeling depressed and demoralized with my work-in-progress. I even posted about trying to immerse myself in beauty, looking for art to inspire me, just like I’m doing right now. (I’m even going to an art fair after I post this.)

Knowing that I’ve gone through this struggle before makes me hopeful, because I certainly got through it, for I finished writing The Scribbled Victims, and am still mostly happy with it today, and it led to Orly becoming such a big part of my life. I don’t remember how I got through it. (I didn’t even remember it happening.) Maybe it just passed. But if there were things I had done to come out of it and love my work-in-progress again, I can probably find clues by reading July, August, September, and so forth in my personal blog, until the book was released in February 2017.

I feel indebted to my BFF. Not just for sharing that Facebook memory with me, but because she has been there for me throughout this difficult period and understands how much it’s been hurting me.

Here’s to hope that I will be writing again soon and loving my work again.

Alarm Clock

Posted on June 14, 2021 by Robert Tomoguchi

Saturday evening, long after I stopped rereading chapters of my new book and feeling nothing, I began to think that what I need is something to stimulate me. I thought of getting drunk even though I don’t drink (since 2003). I toyed with the idea of drugs even though I haven’t done any since right after college. I thought of cutting even though I’ve resisted since 1995. I then thought that perhaps the problem is that since the pandemic, I haven’t been able to go to theatre or ballet; both often offer moments that touch my heart.

Girl left behind the night by Yoshitomo Nara. This was one of the pieces I loved most. The photo doesn’t do it justice, the piece shimmers and the background is made up of so many colors.

I slept thirteen hours and when I woke at 10:30 a.m., I played Mozart’s Requiem, hoping for inspiration. Later, I drove up to Los Angeles to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) to see the Yoshitomo Nara exhibit. I love his work and hoped seeing it in person would help me feel again. The exhibit was impressive as well as immense. I stared at some of the pieces for a long time, and sometimes I could feel my emotions trying to surface, but they never fully got there, even when I admired what I was looking at. I tried talking to Orly about some of the pieces, but it felt like I was trying too hard.

It was a long drive home because of the traffic and the disappointment. But it made me realize that maybe the problem isn’t the manuscript; the problem is me. I think my heart is asleep, and I won’t be able to feel what I had previously felt while rereading my chapters until it wakes up.

I put my copy of The Keys to the Kingdom by Elliott Downing on my desk to read today as it had moved me when I read it before.

Book Cover The Keys to the Kingdom by Elliott Downing — The Keys to the Kingdom by Elliott Downing

This post isn’t about Mozart or Nara not providing the stimulation I’m looking for. They’re amazing. Everyone knows that. As I said, the problem is me. I’m thinking it’s going to require an immersion into piles of beautiful art to get that alarm clock to go off. Mozart, Nara, Downing…the list will have to keep building until my heart wakes up or I think of something else. Maybe I need to adjust my meds. Maybe I need to travel. Maybe I need to fall in love. Whatever it is, I just hope I begin to feel something soon. Until I do, I don’t know if there is any point in me rereading.

Maybe I should just stop looking back at what I’ve written and just start writing again from where I left off.

I don’t know. I’m lost. I’m confused.

I see my shrink in a few hours. I doubt she’ll have the answer, but I think she’ll be happy that I’m trying and that my efforts don’t involve drinking, drugs, or razor blades.

Of Love and Rage

Posted on March 8, 2020March 8, 2020 by Robert Tomoguchi

I attended American Ballet Theatre’s Of Love and Rage last night. I had considered not going because I would have to go alone as I couldn’t find someone to take my second ticket, but I put on a suit and put a bottle of Klonopin in my coat pocket and went anyway.

American Ballet Theatre Of Love and Rage I’m glad I went. It was a beautiful performance and it told a mythological story I had never come across before. The emotions captured between Callirhoe (Christine Shevchenko), Chaereas (Thomas Forster), and Dionysius (Blaine Hoven) were spellbinding and heart wrenching. The chorus performances really stood out in a way that I hadn’t felt in a ballet before. Watching Katherine Williams as the Queen of Babylon, made me think of Yelena—not the étoile but the one who stole Marcel’s heart. (In a handful of scenes, the head of Aphrodite was suspended in the background. It was so glorious I wanted it tattooed on me. I took a picture during bows, so maybe I will.)

The reason I’m including this in my blog is because the performance reminded me how important it is as an artist to experience other art. The ballet was so moving that it became inspirational. The experience has already influenced the chapter I am writing this morning.

And I didn’t even need the Klonopin I brought with me.