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When one blog is filled, another one must open. |
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Coming soon: more work from someone creative, ambitious, and determined - often called a variant of insane/crazy. Notes: Genderfluid. Preferred pronouns (they/them) [& denotes married couples] Immediate Family: soon-to-be-ex-Dilbert, Tempest, Dogbert My Extended Family: (s)Dad, cousins (K, D, G, J, F, N) I guess it's good to be on speaking terms with someone. Voluntarily. AuntS Dilbert's Extended Family: SIL (+5 kids)& BIL, FIL's gf (only for holidays, mostly) Important People I Don't See Enough: Owl + Partner, Paradise ICON crew (which owl is a part of) People I've Known a Long Time/Long Distance: Doc & [husband], Sheer & DocSheer, Mrs. Light & [husband], Trillium & Diego (not married but close enough), Steph Local People: MotherDroid, Owl&Partner ... There are about to be new people on this list, because, well, I'm evolving. And it hurts. DnD: used letters, S (DM), D(doctor), Y(because I like him!), K(old RPGer friend who also attends church), P(church guy who does game night and is local and our families are also friends), A (went to church but moved back to Chicago, moved back locally then i moved) Tempest's friends: I don't know very many of her local friends. She's got an internet buddy who also talks to CousinK's younger daughter. the younger daughter is DRAMA. Dogbert's friends: Has a new group of friends based on a Pokemon thing and they have a DnD club at school and outside of school. Lucky kid! |
| Yesterday I started bk 2. This morning I woke with a migraine. These two events are unrelated, since Dogbert is a bed hog and I blame him completely. Trying to get creative with my current stash of yarn to make things I want to wear and that suit me. I've been going through a wardrobe clear-out and change-up, and it's very involved. Dilbert just likes seeing the huge pile of stuff I'm getting rid of, so that's something. |
| I think I read four books this month, and they're all book 2. They're all good though. 4 of them. I have most of the book together, and I've polished 3 short stories this month. 2 are submitted, and 1 I finished today and need to look into where to send it. Dilbert keeps asking me what I'm doing with my computer. I should probably be shopping for gifts for people. *sigh* I just don't feel it this year. Probably because both my favorite shopping people have had cancer this year. Mom died. SIL had radiation on black friday. Made it through thanksgiving. Only a couple more days this month. I have two more stories to clean up, plus a few that maybe went sideways. I wonder how long I can send out a story a week? We'll never know if I don't try. But I also have those damn novels to finish. Plus I have this new med where I'm getting SUPER VIVID LUCID DREAMS. Every day I wake up to a new one. Wonder where that's going to take me, too. |
| In addition to my NaNo novel, I've been working on the short stories. Submitted one last Wednesday. Submitted one today. Have two more in my notebook awaiting markups. Decent birthday- many people reached out. (s)Dad forgot until after 6pm the next day, but he remembered at some point so I guess that's a win. Plus the dragon egg made me happy. Also got hugged and told I was the best gymnastics coach ever. (I do love the 5/6 year old crowd). Still trying to figure out the best way to interweave the secondary story line within the book. I'm close to done, I feel it, and I kinda want to rest. But must pull through to the end of the month. (Tomorrow and Friday will be travel days, so I will not be very productive except in the social department.) |
| 1. Write at least one sentence a day 2. Write one-four short stories a month 3. polish and submit (includes beta readers) 4. Don't rewrite except to editorial request (but do try editorial requests as long as it isn't against ethics) 5. read ten times what you write 6. Repeat x100 Sounds easy, doesn't it? Especially when you know I already write 750 words a day. Except- it's not always in my fiction worlds. Often, especially last year with a 'friend' who turned out to drain me in the drama, i have to sort out things around me. I don't trust my POV most of the time (Thanks, mental illness), so some of this seeking bleeds into other areas. I've written three short stories at the end of last month and I'm working to clean them up for a magazine. I'm excited where my NaNo project is going, even though the writing felt so slow today. I admit I fall down on submissions. I've been terrible at polishing/editing/rewriting until very very recently (think like now!) ... but I'm going to get there. As far as reading, I could do a lot more of that. And the repetition is sometimes what's hard. However, if I don't get out there, I'll never know how far I can go. Wish me luck and send me chocolate. P.S. https://www.worldbuildingmagazine.com/ for all your worldbuilding needs. |
| I've been officially diagnosed ADHD since Sept 1. While I knew that the diagnosis fit, I also found that making that official and having the entire DSM-V of symptoms compared to mine a difficult task. I appreciate my therapist for figuring this out, and I wish I would have known these things as a child. It would have changed so many things. Thursday and Friday were my trial run of stimulant medications for ICON (which is next weekend). I took one really low dose for Thursday: The fog that happens when I try to focus on something for a period of time (which also leads to me getting distracted) lifted. I could pay attention to the thing I was researching and then let the rest go (not an endless rabbit hole that it often tends to be). I didn't have to look at my phone every other minute (or five minutes, it's hard to tell). Even if it had notifications, i could still work through things without looking (checked maybe once an hour?). I rewrote a chapter (about 2500 words with complete retyping) as it was wearing off and I'm proud of myself for that effort. I also Prepped and things felt like they are coming together. Wore off around the time I picked up the kids from school and I slept decently. Friday I took two, which is going to be very much like next Friday during critique day. I was a bit distracted by my daughter's new restriction of non-weightbearing (She broke her foot during a bicycle accident in gym class on Tuesday). Now she has a scooter and crutches as options. Despite that, I started a chapter that isn't in the old rewrite category because I have to change too much. That's slower work but it was coming along. And I finished all nine reviews for ICON. I could focus on them. I could analyze them so much better. I no longer feel like the worst reviewer (probably my head playing games with me, but yeah). I am hopeful that I won't have a migraine at the end of the critique day. I'll still be bringing my migraine meds because that just isn't fun. Sadly, my psychiatrist doesn't feel like adults who didn't have stimulants as kids need them as adults. Because adults "like them too much" and he's afraid i'll adjust to whatever dose and just want more and more like an addiction. We don't see eye to eye on a few things, and the other psychiatrists I've seen set such a low bar he's the best one I've ever had. |
| Aren't you excited? Well, I am. I took last year off for *reasons* and it is good to be going back in that direction. Sadly, I've been getting a bunch of health diagnostic stuff (mammogram, colonoscopy) done this week, but it's really coming together right now. Or seems to be, while I'm a bit in a stupor from the sedation today. Also keep wondering why I'm taking one medication, so I need to ask for that to be maybe off the list. It's weird, I've taken no meds in the last 24 hours and I slept better than usual despite the 1am wakeup and lack of food. Yes, Dilbert took me to a lovely lunch today. I had a Bento Box that he was a bit jealous of, and then we had ice cream. I'm not supposed to drive today, but Dilb is leaving and I want to take my son to his damn dance class. I replotted the first book in my Freeborn series, and I'm really thinking about what that means. Trying to figure out the other pieces of the plot and find the arc(s) hidden there. Been reading a few books about critiquing/reviewing, and also about plots and character arcs. My hand still aches from the IV. i've been feeling lethargic for a while now. Gonna weirdly ask my shrink if I can just stop a med because i don't know if I like it. I must be a difficult patient because he often tries to explain things to me like I'm a kid. On the other hand, I'm not a psychiatrist... I just want to feel better with the drugs I'm on rather than worse. Diagnosis may be under debate - ADHD versus Bipolar versus both versus who can tell because everything feels out of whack. Plus I asked about what accommodations might look like for ICON = you know my dreaded critique meeting that kills me about every year in addition to knowing that this year has been bugging me more than ever so probably going to suck harder... And the leader said they never noticed I had a problem. Fucking high-functioning and have learned from society pressure to conform. *sigh* All I want is to feel more in control of myself and what I can possibly do in a day. I know there's a better answer than where I am now. (P.S, six months without Mom. Still miss her, but adapting to my new environment.) |
| (s)Dad keeps talking about how he's going to live 25 more years. He's currently 71. He bases this off his mother and two of her sisters living into their 90s. His mother was an evil bitch, especially through those last years, and she stayed mad at everyone and all of her friends died and she treated my mother so badly (mentally and emotionally) that my mother needed physical and mental health care from the damage. She stayed alive so long being mad at people. My mother was not white enough for her (and therefore I wasn't good enough either). Last words she said to my (s)Dad? I wish I had drowned you when you were a baby. She said this in front of doctors and nurses, and they suddenly decided not to treat her neglect injuries from her other son and just made her comfortable to die, which she did in a week. If that is how he wants to live, I'm out. He's already saying he's just staying alive to be angry at his brother and piss on his grave. Make Love Not Hate. If he's like this and continues I'm out. I already have to be super sneaky to get back a stupid sachet bag of ashes that he had removed from the bulk of my mother's ashes. He's also saying I need to live 25 more years. But here's the thing. I'm going to be 45 this year, and that will make me 70. Mom died at 66. Biofather died at 53. Her parents died in their 50s/early 60s. His parents died 70s and almost 89. But Grandmother had Alzheimers so much she didn't remember me for more than 10 years before she died. She remembered my mom, which felt so surreal. Eventually she didn't remember anyone, and it felt like we waited for her body to forget how to breathe. I don't want to "live" like that. If he's going by numbers of ancestors to say he's going to live so long- my numbers say the opposite. And it pains me. The first time he changed his tune from "I have 5 pre-existing conditions and you need to be careful of my health, too" (Mom had chemo and was immune compromised) - to I'm going to live 25 more years.. I just said there are no guarantees. Twice. I'm already feeling the burden of his lack of friends and family - and he calls when he's lonely. I don't want to talk to him most of the time. Suppose it doesn't help I've gone all introverted since Mom died, just being quiet and not so outgoing. I don't really know a lot of people since I've moved to Wisconsin, so I guess that fits pretty well, too. I tried to concentrate on writing recently- but I've struggled with that lately, too. It's also all coming up because I have to go to visit a bunch bc we're getting Mom's house ready to sell. |
| Finished reading the machine book. I have too many ideas in my head. Also got a rewrite request from a friend who is editing an anthology, so that will keep me busy this week. I look at the cast up there and so much has changed since I last used that. So much has changed since I moved to Wisconsin. I like that we have neighbors we like and everyone socializes sometimes in the good weather. Wisconsin doesn't have enough good weather, though. I'm really trying to think about how to change my book and also my story for the better. At least the editor gave me notes. I still haven't let anyone really read the Machine Book. Maybe soon.... |
| I took Tempest to Wiscon. Just one day, and I went Fri-Mon. Trying to volunteer and to be great at author things. Turns out I'm really not certain of a lot of things, but I had fun. I met others in my area who enjoy things I like. And I have ideas about how to go forward. Though part of me ought to really research both war and possible robots. Sales bots seem much easier in the scheme of things, since we already have them. These bits glom onto words we use around it, even when we're not actively using the phone itself, and then it tries to give us things to buy. You can train this algorithm - I did for a while - but it is also easy to fall out of that habit. Yeah, I went to two robot panels and suddenly my brain is full of all kinds of different ideas bc of it. I also left with more books i need to read. Of course, right? Dogbert identifies as a dancer. He wants a keychain of himself in costume to hang on his backpack to show his friends. Actually, finding kids stuff at Wiscon makes me think I could even take both of them if I'm careful. Plus I might be helping with kids' programming next year. Dilbert is always a PITA. Even though I seem sick he still thinks he ought to tell me what exactly to clean throughout my house. Ugh. I have 60 pages in my manuscript left to read and it's all single spaced, not even paragraphs between. |
| I picked up an old NaNo project this week. (2014, if you're wondering) I'm on page 52 of 221 in the printed rough draft, making notes, reading through what I have, and I spent 9 or 10 hours, because I didn't always time the notes I've been making while away from the draft. But I'm excited to see it differently. I'm excited to rewrite. Yeah, I know, I've dedicated a ton of time into a couple others, but it was the one I picked up when I felt ready to try a project. I'm working on three books to publish: a redo of Art of Science because it's out of print and I can change that, Don't Tell Your Mother, because I'm pretty much done with it and I don't envision spending more time with that book, and a book of my mother's writings. Of course, one or two of her friends talk about how they would also love to see her photographs but that might be more than I can invest into one book. We shall see. I could also create a Shutterfly photo book if they're interested, I think. I'm still breathing. I still miss Mom and I'm trying not to be so mad at (s)Dad all the time. But he talks incessantly about farming, and actually belittles things I enjoy or I am good at. I did, finally, maybe, get him to stop calling me young lady, which i absolutely hate and it only makes me more bitter toward him. I'm middle aged and he's old. I don't identify as a lady, but I used other words. I told him I didn't even like being called a young lady when I was that age, which is true. I might identify as a fire-breathing dragon. I'm definitely less worried about being polite or not pissing others off - especially when they start shit. And as I go through this NaNo project- I'm also starting to wonder what might be on the docket for later this year when NaNo actually rolls around. NaNo total words is 998,999. I will pass a million on NaNo this year, and I might just try a summer camp to see how that goes with the current project I need to rewrite. |
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