Sunday 'fess up...Anni's week went better

*waves*

Hey everyone.  This has been a fairly long week.  Himself is finally back on his feet after his mom's death.  I'm due back at work today after a full week off to help take care of Himself until his depression was back under control.  I've also had an interview with Aaron's RTO for a manager trainee/customer service rep.  Here's hoping I get the job so I can get out of the call center.

I've been working on CRACKED WORLD this week.  I'm absolutely thrilled because my damn writer's block finally broke.  I put ONLY A NAME on hold because I was too frustrated with it.  I'm going to try to finish CRACKED WORLD and a few other projects before I go back to ONLY A NAME.

I've finally decided to try to epub a few of my short stories.  I'm getting them polished up and ready to go.  I don't know when I'll get them published but I'll keep everyone informed.  I'll provide a link to them when I get them up.

I had a phone interview for Aaron's, and then I got the in face interview.  So that makes me excited.  I'll know by the end of this week if I've got the job or not.  Wish me luck!

Some music videos for you to enjoy have been added.  See y'all next week!

Writing Wednesday - Writer's Block

I have it.

The dreaded 'writer's block'.

It sucks.

It's even impacting my ability to post to my blog.  I sit and stare at blank screens and wonder what I'm supposed to be saying when the words won't come.  I hate this feeling.  I spent five years not writing at all because of this feeling.  I really don't want to do that again.

Part of it is how discouraged I am with Only A Name.  I want to be done with it, have it polished, and be shopping it around.  Instead I've shelved it because it needs a lot of work and because I feel like it's crap I want to delete it and start over.  Except I know starting over isn't the answer because it really isn't a bad story.  It just needs some good, strong edits and revisions.  But emotionally I'm too attached so I have to put some distance between me and it before I can do those edits/revisions.

Now, I have a lot of other projects I could be writing on.  I have more than a dozen novels set in Aleran that are waiting to be written.  I have my sci fi projects.  I have my UF projects.  I have random bits of stories that have been jotted down for "future reference" so I can work on new stories and new worlds.  And none of them appeal to me.  I just can't seem to make myself write anything.

The other part - and probably my major reason for not being able to write right now - is the emotional stress I'm going through.  Himself's mom died and he's not taking it well.  He needs someone to keep an eye on him so that's what I'm doing.  My job is stressing me out because of their insistence on perfection when I am far from perfect.  I'm even stressed out about the interview I have tomorrow for a new job (wish me luck?) because this could be a whole new avenue and a whole new opportunity for me, if I get this job.

I don't know when or how my writer's block will go away, but I need it gone soon.  I need the release I get from writing.  I'm hoping that something will spark that creative fire that's been banked by my frustrations soon so I can start writing again.

Sunday 'fess up...Anni is hurting right now

Hey everyone.

If you've read the blog for a while, you know Himself went in April to say goodbye to his mom because she'd taken a turn for the worse.  She hung in there for another four months before finally receiving an end to her pain and illness on Friday night.  My mother-in-law has finally passed, bringing with her death a more extreme closure to our lives than you might expect.

I used to be close to my mother-in-law.  But events over the past few years drove us apart and for a time even made it so she refused to speak to Himself, let alone me.  But time and her own growing sense of mortality allowed her to forgive Himself and they started talking again.  She refused to have anything to do with me, blaming me for everything - including "stealing" her son away from her.

What's interesting is I'm sad she's dead.  I'm hurting for Himself, who's hurting bad enough over his mom's death.  I'm also hurting because she died with that animosity still between us.  I'd have liked some more time to hopefully work things out with her so we could at least be civil to each other again, for Himself's sake.  I'm sad because Himself really has no other family - his sister...let's not get into her right now, just accept she's out of the picture; his grandmother preceded his mother in death; he doesn't know if his biological father is alive (and he doesn't really care either); and now his mom has passed.  He for all intents and purposes has no family now other than me.

I'm also relieved she's dead.  Not because I hated her.  I loved her in spite of everything.  I'm relieved because she's no longer suffering.  She was in such poor health that she barely recognized Himself when he went to see her in April.  She's finally at peace and no longer shackled to a body that had stopped working right several years ago.  Himself isn't quite ready to accept that at this point (which I don't blame him...I didn't want to accept it after MY mom died), so right now we're just kind of taking it one day at a time.

On the writing front, I'm putting ONLY A NAME on hold for a while.  I want to focus on some of my other projects because I'm to the point where I hate looking at OAN.  I want to delete the whole thing and forget it ever existed.  Not that I'm going to.  I'm just going to ignore it again for a little while and see if my attitude improves and I can finally get it polished and ready for publication attempts.  I've got the same problem with my Beauty and the Beast retelling.

So I'm going to find other projects to work on.  I'm going to find other stories to tell.  And hopefully, one day, when I come back to both of these projects I'll be able to put the kind of care and attention into them that they deserve.  Otherwise they're both going to get deleted and I'll probably kick myself for that in a few months once I've changed my mind about how horrible they both are.

Work is work.  I'm taking a couple days off to deal with Himself and losing my mother-in-law.  Then I'll be back to work.  I'm actually doing better than I was, though I'm still not where they want me.

Music videos for your enjoyment.

Writing Wednesday - Revisions and edits

Update on the car issue - it was the starter.  We're now $50 poorer but the starter works.  We were just lucky the mechanic cut us a break.  Otherwise it would've been closer to $100.

I'm not going to post a lengthy diatribe on revisions and edits.  I don't need to.  Anyone who is a writer knows how hard it is to sit down and chop up your own work.  It's even worse when you send your pride and joy off to other people to have them chop it to bits too.  But that's what critique groups and beta readers are there for...to help you make your writing better.

So remember to thank your beta readers and your critique partners.  They're part of the writing process too and they deserve credit for their assistance.

Sunday 'fess up...Anni is really stressed, as usual

Hey all!

Life is getting complicated again.  The good news is Himself has a job now.  He's a Kirby salesman.  Please don't bash the job.  Selling vacuums is hard work.  At least he has someone else doing the appointment setting for him.  He's not going to random houses.

The bad news is I'm not doing as well at my job as I thought I was.  I've been given my final written notice.  I'm not selling enough to suit them so they've given me until the end of the month to pull it together.  Or I'm fired.  Yes, I am looking for a new job as we speak so please keep me in your thoughts/prayers as I try to figure this mess out.

My car also won't start.  We're not sure if it's the battery or the starter.  We'll find out tomorrow.  At least I'll have a ride to work tomorrow, unlike today.

I've made some progress on the edits on ONLY A NAME now.  I started dividing it into chapters and quit after I realized I was at chapter 14 and not anywhere near the end of the book.  I think I was about a quarter of the way through.  Now either I need longer chapters or my book's going to end up with 30+ chapters.  Then again, it is fantasy so I guess that's not too unusual.

I haven't really touched any of my other projects.  I've been focused on that and on job hunting lately.  And now most of my spare writing time is taken up with job hunting so I have even less time to devote to it than I'd like.  I did spend most of Friday and Saturday working on it, though, and I'm intending to put a few hours on it today.  I've already done my job hunting as best as I can on a Sunday so now it's just waiting for tomorrow and then back on the hunt.

The regular blog schedule will resume this week, so long as nothing ELSE goes wrong.

Sunday 'fess up...the Monday edition

Hello everyone!

We've had two days of some rather spectacular thunderstorms so I opted to avoid being online last night (and I forgot in lieu of other panic inducing issues Saturday night and Sunday morning).  So we're a day late but here's the SFU anyway.

No soapbox this week, I promise.

My paycheck didn't show up on Friday.  It didn't show up on Saturday.  No mail on Sunday.  We have a lot of bills to pay off of my meager paycheck and they were all running late.  This made us very, very nervous.  Thankfully my check showed up on Monday (today) so we were able to get some of our bills paid.  But we had one major expense come up that's wiped out the money I was expecting to have for food and other random but necessary things.  I've had to ask my dad for help and I NEVER ask him for help anymore because he can't always afford to help me.  We'll get to see on Wednesday how much he can help us.

Yes, my work offers direct deposit.  Yes, I've signed up for it.  I don't need another panic-inducing weekend like this past one.

Nothing new on the work front.  Same old, same old for me.  Himself is still job hunting.  We're hopeful that SOMEONE will eventually realize he's perfect for their company (or at least very good for their company) and will hire him soon.  We have to keep that hope up or we'll drown in our depression.

Writing is going okay.  Still working with getting my critiques done, after my email went and ate the most recent chapters.  ONLY A NAME is on hold until I get the critiques and beta reads done for it.  The Beauty and the Beast retelling is getting darker and more violent, which is what I want, so we'll see how that goes.

I don't really have that much to report this week.  So instead I'll leave you with more music videos.  Enjoy!