Writing and me

Writing is a huge part of my life, and I have been working on it off and on since I got here. I've also been doing a lot of reading. But today let's talk about the writing.

I started out finishing a book that I'd previously started. I realized when I finished it that it was too perfect. There wasn't much in the way of plot. I got them from point A to point B but there wasn't much struggle. Also I had a plot point that just wasn't going to work. Even if it was two books it wouldn't work because it was an impossible goal.

So I started over. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. I've done it multiple times with multiple stories. But this time I actually did something a little different. I actually built an outline.

I'm normally a pantser, but this time I wanted a more concrete plan for the chapters so I didn't wander around. Unfortunately, as I progressed further into the story, I realized I don't have any side plots. It's all straight line to the end of the outline. So now I have to figure out what I want to do about side plots. I have room to put some in. I just have to figure out what they are. I've left myself a note and will go back and insert some things after I've finished the story. Revisions are good for that.

I plan on finishing the first draft of Hackers, the novel I'm working on right now. It was last year's NaNo novel. Hackers is a working title, since I have no clue what I want to call my cyberpunk novel. But now I'm completely rewriting it to fix all of the errors I found when I read through it again.

That leads me to this year's NaNo. I still plan on doing it. I'm just trying to decide what project to do. I have a number of stories waiting to be written, but none of them are speaking to me. I thought about writing the sequel to Hackers but until I get the side plots in and adjust the main plot so it can carry over into the next book (my outline didn't take that into account either) I don't want to work on it.

I've thought about rewriting Marked with the changes I've made to the world. Yes, I know. I need to stop world building and set up the guidelines I need to work with. But talking with Tims, things keep expanding and changing. Which makes me reluctant to work on Marked. Or any of the Vassa books.

That leaves me with my other sci fi novels. Which I'm not sure what I want to do with either. I intend to finish this draft of Hackers by the end of October so I'm free to write in November. I also intend to write an outline for November, to see if it helps keep me on track. If it doesn't, I'll scrap it and pants it again.

So that's my writing in a nutshell for the past six months. I've written on a few fluff pieces just to keep me writing on those days that even with the outline I just can't seem to write anything serious. But I've set my goals so now I just have to complete them.

Sunday 'fess up - It's been a week

It's been a week, that's for sure.

I finally made a breakthrough on both of the stories I'm working on. I realized what was wrong with Rescue and with Birth of the Silver Lady. I'm hoping to have BotSL ready for publication around Christmas and Rescue in January. The other two to follow shortly after them, assuming I can find beta readers and critique partners to review the stories for me. I don't want to put out something that isn't polished to its finest. If you're interested in beta reading/critiquing leave a comment, message me on Facebook, or @ me on Twitter and let me know.

Thursday night I had another seizure and managed to give myself a concussion. I lost most of Thursday and managed to irritate Himself because of my insistence that we go to the emergency room. But it was a good thing we did. Knowing me, I'd have neglected to inform the necessary people until months from now that I had another seizure and by that point I could have had at least one other seizure, possibly more. By going to the ER they've increased my anti-seizure meds again and this time I have high hopes that it will work and keep me seizure free.

Himself is still working away on several projects. It's keeping him busy and though it leads to some cranky moments he's having a good time and that's what's important to me. He has high hopes that this business venture will finally pay off and some of the problems we've had in the past will disappear as a more steady and stable income will be provided for the family.

I'm reading a lot more now. I've finished Game of Thrones and I've moved on to Clash of Kings. It's definitely gotten a little easier to read now that I'm used to the head hopping. Though I will admit that the two characters I care most about are Arya Stark and Daenerys Targaryen. And I'm fairly sure I spelled that wrong. Arya fascinates me because of how strong she is for a 10 year old girl. And Daenerys has baby dragons. Who wouldn't love baby dragons?

I'm changing up the blog again. I realized that it's getting harder for me to write well thought out posts because I'm always scrambling to come up with ideas and the quality of my blog posts has been suffering. So I'm dropping down to three days a week. Monday will be my usual rambling on any subject that interests me. Wednesday will still be my posts on writing. Some will be informational. Others will be me putting up random snippets for your entertainment and possibly your help. Friday is vlog day and I'll post my vlog and some random music videos for you to enjoy. That way I'm not inundating everyone with badly written blog posts and I can get back to spending more of my time working on my WIPs.

My goal is to have the rewrites of Birth of the Silver Lady, Rescue, The Soldier and the Lady, and The Pigeon and the Fiddler finished by the end of September. That means I'm going to have to get cracking and quit goofing off but that's my goal. I at least want BotSL and Rescue done for sure.

That's it for this week. This will be the last Sunday 'fess up for a while, until I get things figured out. So keep an eye out for the new blog content and schedule. Thanks for sticking with me and I look forward to reading your comments on all things that I write.

Here's a vlog post (yes, I know it's been a while). Also, some music videos for your enjoyment.

Sunday 'fess up - *sigh*

You may have noticed a lack of blog posts this week. That's because my computer contracted a malware that my anti-viruses couldn't kill so I pulled a nuke and pave on my computer. This means I had to download everything again. This includes drivers, Windows updates, and even Open Office so I could keep writing. Thankfully I had almost everything writing related backed up to Google Drive and Dropbox, so the only thing I was missing was the hastily written pathetic little outline/timeline for Cracked World. Nothing vital, and I can easily rewrite it.

This also means that I've been dealing with my computer shutting off at random times and rebooting as Windows downloads and installs "critical updates". I think it's finally done so I don't have to worry about it anymore, though I expect I'll have more updates to download as it usually takes several days to catch up to everything. I'm still using Windows 7, and I'm not looking forward to making the switch to Windows 8 when I (eventually, not in the immediate future) get a new laptop.

I'm focusing on getting my three interconnected short stories rewritten and polished. Then I'm going to format them. (That's going to be fun.) And then I'm going to publish them as e-books on Amazon and Smashwords. I don't know when they're going up so I'm not going to give a time frame now. I'll post more on it when I'm getting closer to being ready to publish. I hope that I can entice all of you to support me and buy copies of the e-books. If this goes well, I might do up a novella that I've written and put it up as well. We'll have to see.

I had a bout of insomnia on Thursday night, coupled with having a freaking huge ass spider run across my legs. I know this because the damn thing ran across my foot as I was working on one of the short stories. I figured since I couldn't sleep I might as well get some work done. I almost screamed out loud. The spider was fast but not as fast as I can be when confronted with something the size of a quarter, legs included. It made a satisfying pop, and then I buried him at sea (a.k.a. flushed it down the toilet). Ew.

Himself is working on his project. I can't say what it is, but it's a big one. We have high hopes for this one producing some ongoing work for his company. That would be a huge benefit and a relief to me as well. So fingers crossed for good things happening.

Lastly, I'll leave you with some music videos like I usually do. As things get better, look for my vlogs starting up again. I know you're all excited about that.

Sunday 'fess up - Not such good news after all

Hey everyone!

You know how last week I was so excited to go back to work, right? Well if you've read my blog post from Thursday you'll see that I'm not back at work like I wanted to be. I've had to quit my day job permanently because of my health. If you're really that curious, ask and I'll tell you privately. Otherwise I'm not going to talk about it anymore here.

Himself and I got into a discussion this week on how, now that he's bringing in a steadier income from his business, I've gotten into my old habit of "spend, spend, spend" again. He's right. I have. And that's proving troublesome because I can and will run us out of money. All the bills still get paid, but the rest of it is spent on frivolous things. That's partly because I want nice things and partly because of the bipolar. I need to work hard on stopping this habit before it leads us too much further down the road of ruin. We've already been there enough times in our lives. I don't want to visit that place again.

On the writing front, I'm slowly making my way through the timeline of major events in the world of Aleran. I realized, after a discussion with Himself, that I need to know the history of the world I'm writing in because events in the past will color the present of my characters. So I'm working on that. Then I'll work on the outline for Cracked World. Then I'll see about starting that one over again. I'm also polishing three of my short stories that are interconnected with the intent of self publishing them and getting them on Amazon and Smashwords for sale. We'll see how well that one goes.

Sunday 'fess up - Some good news at last

So, this week started on a good note and ended on a good note. On Monday, I heard back from my HR representative. I was cleared to go back to work. She'd get in contact with my manager and either she or my manager would call me back. I was thrilled with that.

Then I didn't hear anything from anyone all week. So Thursday I called my manager and left her a message. She called me back Friday morning and asked if I was coming into work Friday afternoon. Needless to say I jumped at the chance to get back to work. So, now I work Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. My Sunday shift is 1-6. My weekday shift is 4-9. I'm only part time until November. Then I get to go back to work full time. I'm excited though. It feels good to be back to work, even if it's at the same soul sucking job I left a year ago with no intention of going back.

I have a new appreciation for my job, now that I've been out of it for a year. I realize it is a hard job and that it's not for everyone. But I know I can do it. I've had a year to think about it and realize just what I want to do with my life. Right now, what I want to do is pay off all my debt. I need a job to do that. So I'll work and pay off my debt and eventually I'll be debt free again. That is my goal now.

On the writing front, since I've scrapped Cracked World, I haven't done as much writing this week. I'm building a timeline of historical events, since those are going to shape the world. And then I'm going to do a timeline/outline of events in Cracked World so I have some direction for the story. This also means I'm probably going to have to rewrite some major sections of Marked too but I'm not worrying about that right now.

Nothing much else to report this week. I expect I'll have more to say about the day job next week, after I've been back at it for a week.

 

Sunday 'fess up - It's about damn time

Remember last week how I was grousing about not getting my paperwork filled out in a timely manner? Well it finally happened this week. But not without a lot of hair pulling on my part.

My clinician left the practice a little over a month ago. I was seeing an intern in the interim because I'm being seen pro bono. Well, that intern couldn't fill out the paperwork so she was going to pass the information on to her supervisor. Well, her supervisor thought it was all about more counseling so she was ignoring me. I finally started calling her directly and eventually got things sorted out. Or so I thought.

The day before the paperwork was due she called me back to tell me that she couldn't fill it out because I wasn't seeing any of her people regularly enough for them to make any sort of judgment call on my ability to go back to work, or even the validity of my original diagnosis. So it looked like I wasn't going back to work after all. Then I had an idea.

I called my regular doctor. I've had other problems crop up that he's seeing me for so I decided to see if he'd fill out the paperwork. Not only did he fill it out, he resolved some of my other issues for me too. So we got the paperwork faxed in and now I get to wait and see if it's good enough for my employer to accept it.

In other news, I've been slowly making progress on Cracked World this week. I've been having some trouble in getting into the main character's head but I've been able to work around that. I'm looking forward to getting to a certain point in the book, so I'm really working hard to make it there. I doubt I'll make it before I go back to work, but I'm going to try anyway.

I've played a little Sims 3 this week too. There was one day where I was just too stressed to even think about writing so I went and did something completely different. I love Sims 3. I wish I had the money to get all the expansions and all the stuff packs. There's 20 of the buggers now. I have Sims 3, World Adventures, Ambitions, Generations, Supernatural, and Pets. As soon as I get some money to spend, I'm going to buy another one of the expansions. Or maybe one of the stuff packs. As that will be some time from now I've got the time to make up my mind.

That's it for this week. Keep your eyes on the blog. I'll be updating everyone as soon as I hear back from my employer when I'm able to go back to work. If I'm able to go back to work. If my regular doctor, who wasn't the one who signed me out of work, is sufficient enough to get me back into work. Crossing my fingers!

Sunday 'fess up - Grrrrrrr

This week has not gone at all like I planned. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed myself immensely this week. But I didn't get as much done on the story as I hoped to. I've been distracted by running errands and getting out of the house with Himself most of this week. It's been pleasant, if a little busy.

The main reason I'm frustrated though is my clinician's office still hasn't called me back to help me fill out the paperwork I need to have filled out before I'm allowed to go back to work. They keep telling me they'll pass on the message but nothing has happened. I'm going to keep calling every day until I get a firm answer. It's not that difficult. Read my file, copy down the info from my file onto the paperwork, and let me get my ass back to work. It's that simple.

Of course, they apparently don't think it's that simple. I could fill out the paperwork myself, except that's kind of illegal. Medical fraud and all that. Don't think the thought didn't cross my mind though. But knowing my luck they'd call my clinician's office to verify the information and I'd get caught. I'd not only lose my job but I'd probably get criminal charges laid on me. I don't want to go through that so I'll just be the exceptionally annoying squeaky wheel.

As I said, writing this week didn't happen. I maybe got 2000 words this whole week. So I'm going to try to improve that number this coming week. It all depends on how things go with Himself and with my clinician's office.

Himself signed a rather nice contract to build some kind of web page for a client that's netting him a fair bit of money. I don't know all the details but it's nice to have a steady income coming in now from him. That's why we've been running every place this week. We've been taking care of some things we've neglected because of a lack of funds.

Well that's enough rambling from me today. Hope everyone has a great week!

Sunday 'fess up - Anni's a little disappointed this week

Well, this week didn't end the way I intended it to.

It started out all right. I've been making progress on Cracked World, even though I pretty much started over from scratch because I didn't like how it was going. I like it well enough, even though I still think I'm taking too long with the beginning. I'll have to see how the story plays out.

I think I've made it pretty clear I was intending to go back to work. I've talked about it enough this past week. Well Thursday I went to my med doctor and got something to help with the anxiety that's inevitable at my job. Life was pretty good up to that point.

Then we got to Friday. Friday was the day I went into see my clinician. She'd fill out the paperwork and fax it in and I'd be all set to go back to work by the end of next week. Easy, right?

It didn't go that way. Because my clinician is an intern, and a summer intern at that, she's not "qualified" to fill out the paperwork. I now have to wait for someone else in the office who doesn't know me to fill out the paperwork. I don't know when that's going to be. I do know it has to be soon or I'm going to lose my job. They'll only hold it for so long and so long happens to be September 10th. After that date, I will no longer be employed at the bank. I'd rather not lose my job over something this stupid, so I'm going to keep hounding them to find out what's going to happen.

So that kind of derailed my plans for next week. If I haven't heard by Wednesday, I'm going to call and pester someone to get me an answer. Because I need them to fill out the form so I can go back to work.

I did hear from my boss on Saturday. The problem there is she may not be my boss anymore. They did another shift bid while I was out on disability and if there isn't a position on her team, I'm going to have to go back to someone I don't know as well. At least, I hope it's someone I don't know as well. There are a couple of managers that I'd rather not get again. Talk about personality clashes. I'll know more on Monday. Another thing she told me was that we're losing the smaller accounts I was working with, probably going to another center, and gaining one large account to work with. Should be interesting when I go back.

So that's my week in a nutshell. How was your week?

Here's the music videos for your amusement.

Sunday 'fess up - Anni had a pretty good week

Well, it's that time again.

This past week hasn't been too bad. I got a weekly appointment moved to the afternoon on Fridays because 9 am was just too hard on me and Himself. We've worked out some financial difficulties we found ourselves in. And my roommates finally got us a new hot water heater so no more driving to my dad's for a hot shower or biting the bullet and taking a freezing cold shower. (Those were not pleasant.)

On the writing front, I surpassed my 60k goal for this month and I'm still going. I still fully intend on finishing Marked by the end of July and I'm on track to do that. On  Friday I had a little issue where I'd written myself into a plot hole big enough to drive a semi through. So I ended up backtracking 100 pages or so and starting from that point to rewrite the scenes to get rid of the plot hole. I didn't have to delete much, which made me a lot happier. But I got everything sorted out and this plot hole is gone. I'm sure I'll find more when I go back to edit, but this particular hole was preventing me from moving forward so I had to take care of it now.

That's it for this week's 'fess up. See y'all next week!

Sunday 'fess up - Yes, Anni's bringing this back

Hello all!

Any of you long time blog followers remember my SFU posts? You know, where I'd talk about my week and my writing. Mainly about my writing. And just other general life stuff? Well I'm bringing them back.

Aren't you all excited? ;)

Now, for those of you who missed the post I made about this (I did make a post about it didn't I?) I'm trying to finish the first draft of Marked, formerly known as Only A Name, by the end of July. So far, I'm on track to complete that goal. I'm using Camp Nano as an excuse to write as much as I can every day and it's working. While I'm not updating as frequently on the Camp Nano site, I am still tracking my word count and it's progressing nicely.

Of course, that does lead to the inevitable blocked moments when I run into a brick wall. I ran into one of those last night when I tried to think of a name for a creature they were fighting (I figured it out finally). And now, I'm in a boring part of the story and I don't want to write it but I know I need to so I can progress with the story. It's a short boring part but it still has to be written. (Even if it'll probably get changed in edits.)

I've changed up my blog post schedule a little bit going forward too. From now on (or until I change my mind again) Sunday is back to the SFU and Tuesday is for the snippets. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday will stay the same. Friday I'm taking a day off my blog.

Well, I've abused the parenthesis enough for one blog post. See you all next week on the SFU!

Um...yes, I'm still alive

*cough, choke*

*removes spider webs*

Uh....hi?

I haven't had much to say lately so I haven't been saying it. Which is quite apparent since the last time I posted a blog post was in November. I feel rather bad about that and I appreciate all of you who have stuck it out during my blog absence. I can't guarantee how frequently I'll post but I will be posting more often.

A lot has gone on in the last four months. Himself has had a few more contracts come his way. I've been told I'm not allowed to go back to work, so I'm dealing with that. I've started writing full time since I have so much free time. I finished a first draft in less than three months. I've now burned myself out on writing but the first draft of Burning Dreams is done. That's the book I started in November, won NaNoWriMo with, and then scrapped at the end of December and started over fresh in January.

I attempted the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest this year. I didn't make it past the pitch phase. Which is fine. After everything was all said and done, I realized Only A Name, which I thought was finished, really wasn't finished and needs a total overhaul. I'm going to try it again next year, probably with Only A Name again since that's the book that starts everything.

I've also moved. We were living in a small town pretty far out from where we needed to go for shopping and Himself needed to go for work. It was a pain getting to my doctor appointments. Now we live in town and everything is within a 20 minute drive of our new place. We'll have new roommates by the 15th, but for right now it's just us and the cat in the house.

Reidar didn't take too well to the move at first. I think he was rather offended by the fact that I wrapped him in our bath towel and held on for dear life as we drove him back from the old house to the new. We didn't have a cat carrier for him and I needed some way to prevent him from tearing holes in me while Himself drove. He hid himself on a shelf in the bathroom and wouldn't even acknowledge my presence for the better part of a week. He's resigned himself to the new place and has since gone back to flopping on me every chance he gets, but for a while I was beginning to think my cat was going to hate me forever. :D

Things are progressing forward at a slow pace, but good things are coming our way. We're slowly optimistic that things are going to continue getting better. We've embarked on a new chapter in our lives. We're going to see how this one will be written before we progress on.

And because the butterfly is so symbolic of how I feel right now, this picture was posted by user seiyastock on www.morguefile.com.

De-stressing, an admission, and another #ROW80 check in

Let's start with the first admission: I'm horrible at de-stressing. I can stress myself out with ease. But when it comes to unwinding from the stress, I find it difficult to achieve that calm state. I've had to learn fast over the last couple months because there has been literally NOTHING I could do about Met Life being arseholes and dragging their feet about my short term disability. (Yes, it finally came through. That was a huge relief to me too.)

Let's start with the definition of stress. Merriam-Webster online dictionary has an excellent and comprehensive definition of stress here. We're most interested in two of the aspects of this definition: a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation and  a state resulting from a stress; especially : one of bodily or mental tension resulting from factors that tend to alter an existent equilibrium <job-related stress>. 

Stress can be a cause for a lot of short term problems. Tension headaches, back aches, neck aches, body aches in general. It can cause loss of appetite, sleep loss, tension between people. It can also lead to a depressed immune system because of the physical depredations on your body caused by the stress, which opens you up to every sickness out there.

Now, if you're like me, being sick stresses you out too because damn it, you don't have time to be sick. There are books to be written, chores to be done, people to be dealt with. Life has to go on and you don't have the time to deal with being sick on top of it. Yeah, that doesn't help you any either. It just makes the sickness linger longer, I've noticed.

De-stressing is a must in these kinds of situations. I'm not a person who de-stresses easily but I've found that these specific things work best for me. First, shut off all the damn electronics. Yes, even the cell phone. Yes, the laptop/computer/tablet. Everything. Turn out the light. Bury yourself under the covers. Take a nap if you feel like it. But if you don't, spend some time just curled up in the dark. If your mind has a tendency to wander to topics that stress you out in times like these, force your mind away from these thoughts. Make them go to something else. For me, I made it go to one of the books I'm writing. I worked my way through several scenes that way and it helped relax me.

Music. I know it's been said before to listen to music. But you have to pick the right music. Music that increases your heart rate is not going to help you de-stress. Pick music - or some kind of nature sound if that's what you prefer - that is going to lower your heart rate and soothe you. I recommend Ed Van Fleet's "Oceans". It combines the sound of the ocean with gentle music. It's very nice and soothing if you like that style of music. While you're listening to it, try not to think of anything. Just focus as hard as you can on the music. It's hard at first. Your brain wants to run through everything that's stressing you out. But don't let it. Focus solely on the music and let your body relax. It'll help.

Tea or hot chocolate. Try for non-caffeinated tea if you can find it. Caffeine does drive up heart rate, which can lead to a higher stress level. I know chocolate has caffeine in it. But the caffeine level isn't as high as it is in say green tea or black tea. Besides. chocolate triggers all those lovely endorphins in your head which lead you to happy places so hot chocolate is beneficial in that way too. Forego the coffee when you're stressed, or go for decaf which has less caffeine in it if you must have coffee. But try for something with as little caffeine as possible.

Finally, find something that makes you happy and do it. Writing can be stressful for us writers, so sometimes we have to put the pen/word processor away and move on to something else. I knit, so when I got really stressed out this past month I dug (and yes, I do mean dug...the stuff was buried in the bottom of my closet again) out my knitting and started knitting a scarf. I need a new scarf anyway and it gave me something to do that kept me busy but helped me relax. I watched movies. I read books. I knitted. I steered clear of being online or writing. And it helped. Sometimes unplugging is a good idea to help with your stress.

These are only the things that work for me. There are so many books, self-help gurus, podcasts, vlogs, blogs, etc. out there on how to do this that I'm sure you'll find a hundred different tips on this. These are just what have worked for me. Please find your own and use them to help you out of stressful situations. If you've got one you'd like to share, please do. I'm always looking for new ideas to try to help with de-stressing.

I'm feeling much better these days. My stress levels dropped significantly when I was able to pay my bills. But by de-stressing I was finally able to start to shake this nasty cold/allergy/thing that's been lingering for the past month and a half. I actually feel better today than I have in weeks and part of it is due to the fact that I'm no longer as stressed as I've been. It really does help. The main thing you need to keep in mind while de-stressing is it isn't going to work all the time. Sometimes you're just not going to be able to shut down the stress receptors. In that case, practice your de-stressing techniques to minimize the stress and try to get past it faster.

ROW 80 update is below. You don't have to read on if you're not interested in that.

A second admission, and this to the ROW 80 crowd...I've missed the last couple check ins. It's had to do with the stress levels in my life being so high I haven't wanted to be online much and I'm sorry. I'll be making the regular check ins from now on.

Writing - NaNo is fast approaching so I'm anxious to get started on that project. That's the novel I want to start that's the first in the series. I decided to start with it for NaNo as a kick in the pants to get it done. Jaelon's story is started but not finished. I've tweaked a few thins in Mkai's story again because I've altered a few details in the world building. Taereah's story got completely deleted because I realized in order to write her story I need to have the outline for CRACKED WORLD written out so I know where she comes in with that story so I can figure out what I want to write with her. I kind of need the same thing for Jaelon's story because both of them tie into CRACKED WORLD and the as of yet unnamed novel series I'm working on starting in November, so I need to have past and present details worked out before I can work on their stories.

Personal - I didn't follow through with vocational rehab. It just didn't feel right, and they told me the best they could do for me was find me a job that paid me $8-$9/hr. I need something $10+ just to survive these days so it wouldn't have worked out. I'm still forgetting my afternoon dose of pills so I've started setting an alarm in my phone. It'll be easier once I start back to work because I'll have an afternoon break and I'll be able to take the pills regularly on that break. I'm mostly just stretching every other day when it comes to exercising. It's not much but at least it's something. I haven't wanted to do much of anything lately because of how crappy I've felt but I've made myself go through the same stretching exercises they taught me in the hospital so I'm doing something.

Work - I've talked with my boss about a few new developments. The big one for me is they're changing our schedules which means I'm losing my shift differential (that's almost $100 per paycheck). There was a shift bid, which I would have missed if not for her, that was due on the 23rd. She emailed me the shift bid and I sent back my preferences. I'm not likely to get what I want since I'm low man on the totem pole because of my stats but we'll have to see. I'll know the first week of November, which is right after I go back, and we won't actually have to make the change to our new shifts until January. They're getting rid of most of the night shifts and putting us all on days. Blech. I like my night shift, thanks. Practicing my anti-panic attack exercises now so I've got them down for when I go back to work.

General life update & ROW 80 update

I bet y'all have missed me, haven't you? *grin*

Things are a little tight these days since I'm out of work on the leave of absence. But we're making things work. My dad loaned us some money that we'll be paying back as soon as we can, though it's going to be a while. But between that and the limited amount of funds I got for my short term disability, we're scraping by.

I've gotten my outline for NaNoWriMo finished. This is a new thing for me since I've always been a pantser. I've even categorically stated I'll never use outlines. Well, I'm eating my own words. I'm going to try my hand at writing with an outline this year. If it works, I might actually win this year. I'd like to break my losing streak from the last three years.

I've gotten most of the histories written. I'll revisit them all before November because some of the things that show up in the histories get touched on briefly in the novel I'm planning on working with for November. It's the first story in the series. I'm not sure how many books are going to be in the series, how many books I'm going to break the outline into, and all that good stuff...but I'm going to get it written.

I go back to work on November 1st, supposedly. Not sure yet if that's going to be the precise date or not but that's the general timeframe I've been given. I'm not looking forward to it but I'm making sure I don't overstress myself too much.

Now, for those of you who weren't aware, I'm participating in ROW 80 as a way to hold accountability for my goals. If you're curious, follow the #ROW80 hashtag on Twitter or follow the link that should be set up in my sidebar. I think I did it right.

So, quick update on the ROW 80 goal posts:

WRITING: I finished Jaelon's story. I still need to do some more work on Taereah's, but I've gotten it started.

JOB: I had to put a stop to my job hunting while out on a leave of absence. Funnily enough, my current employer sort of frowns on that while I'm out on their dime. *shrug* I'm still going to the voc rehab on the 15th and we'll see what they say.

PERSONAL: Exercise is going well. I'm at least stretching every other day, and I've been out on walks twice in the last week. Still good on the meds. No missed doses so far this week either. I'm meeting with my counselor on Friday. I did call today to find out about meeting with the doctor and about the FMLA paperwork that I need to get paid for being on my LOA. They're going to call me back with that info. I've spent time away from the computer, though I've used it for background noise. I'm reading Warrior by Marie Brennan. It's a book I picked up at Hastings used (along with its sequel) for $3/book when I got out of the hospital so I'm trying to read them. So far, so good.

I had this great blog post idea

No really, I did!

Then I went to bed without writing it down.

So now I don't remember what I was planning on writing about.

So I'll just give you a general life update and a writing update like I usually do.

I know you're all excited, aren't you? *grins*

Life update is as follows: I spent 8 days in the hospital. Dehydration + extreme stress = one messed up system. So I stayed in until I stabilized and now I'm trying to extend my FMLA/short term disability while I deal with therapy to get me completely back on my feet. I'm also trying to apply for permanent disability because honestly I'm probably going to end up back in the hospital from the stress and anxiety this job causes me.

Yes, I know I could look for another one. I have been. I'm not having any luck. And really, any job short of something that requires NO interaction with people is going to trigger the anxiety and there aren't too many jobs where you don't interact with anyone. Actually, there are no jobs where you don't interact with people. Not even if I went to writing full time, though that has less interaction with people until you're published than other jobs. Not NO interaction, but less than a normal job requires. Then again, I'd get lonely if I didn't have someone to talk to occasionally so being completely isolated is a bad thing for me.

Boy, that rambled on a bit.

Writing update is as follows: I did a lot of world building and note taking while I was in the hospital and I've come to realize that things are going to need some tweaking. Yes, again. Aleran is a constant work in progress. I've redefined the world and the characters enough times in the last 20 years that one more time won't matter. What matters is that this is the last time for the world building tweaks and that I'm finally ready to take the plunge and write the main series that I've been playing around with for the last few years.

This means no more slacking. I'm writing out the "histories" to sketch out the characters, and then it'll be onto the main event - the 6 book series that revolves around the two guys. Poor Anila is relegated to secondary character status in Reidar's books, though I may elevate her to additional MC in one of them to explain something that's essential and has to happen. I haven't quite figured out what to do with her yet.

In regards to roommates: Himself (who is not by definition a roommate since we're, you know, married) bought me a Milky Way to celebrate me coming home. Hey, we're broke and it was a sweet (ha, ha) gesture. Twitchy bought me a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich today from the ice cream truck lady to celebrate my coming home. It's not anything big but it's the little things that make me smile.

In regards to the cat: Reidar (yes, he's named for one of the characters in my main novel series) is still Reidar. He hasn't changed, other than being pissed off at me for the first day I was home. Now he's back to face planting in my arm pit and licking it. Got to love weird cat behaviors.

Pretty much that's it for this blog post. If I remember what the cool, awesome, probably-been-done-before-but-not-by-me blog post was I'll post it too.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I feel all SQUEEEEE!!! about this new project

I know, I know.  It's totally not like me to post this frequently.

But I have to share how excited I am about this project I've been working on.  I literally wrote more words last week (over 32k) than I have over the last two months COMBINED.  This makes me very happy on so many levels.  Part of it is the fact that the dreaded Writer's Block is gone (it was more the story I was trying to force out wasn't the right story for the characters, which has obviously been resolved).  Part of it is I feel more like myself again and feel that this story is the right story for me to be working on right now.

You saw a brief snippet of it two posts ago - the interchange between Rachel and Nathan (okay, his name then was NICK but it's since been updated to NATHAN because I like that name better for the character), where she's his psychoanalyst even though she rejects that title and tries to come across as someone casual.  I actually dreamed up that exchange within the last ten minutes or so before actually waking up fully and getting up the same day I posted it here.

I've since gone back and actually sketched out who the characters are, what motivates them, and touched briefly on their world so I know what makes them tick.  Rachel wants to be loved.  She's an outcast from her own people (no, she's not human...maybe I'll explain what she is one of these days).  She's made a sort of family of her own out of fellow outcasts who have been there for her during some of the roughest times in her life, but she wants something more.  Nathan wants justice for his twin, who was murdered when they were children (though everyone claims it was an accidental death).  He also wants to clear his name as the accused serial killer who's been murdering adolescent girls (yes, he's innocent).

I've added side characters, fleshed out the antagonist - the REAL serial killer - and her motivations, and built up the world that Rachel and her entourage inhabit.  I've put limits on the magic, taken away some of the things that made everyone overpowered, and put a touch of insanity into one of the characters who has - up until now - been a perfectly normal if moderately obsessive woman.  I've also combined the worlds of two of my different UF stories because this just works so much better as a part of that world.  This story also gives more depth to the other story*, which will eventually get an overhaul and get written too.

Mostly this slightly inane** babble (it's 1 AM...I don't usually stay up this late***) is just to say "Yay! I have a project I love again and I'm, well, LOVING IT!!!!!"





*If you're curious, the story I've combined this one with is Meg/Magni's story.
**I'm pretty sure I used this word right.  I'm too tired/lazy to go look it up at the moment.
***My insomnia has returned, so be prepared.  You may see more random babbling like this.

Life update and a random bit from one of my WIPs for your amusement

Hi all!

As you all know, I should be at work and doing 14 hour days.  Instead I'm at home taking care of a sick Himself.  He's getting better but he's still not up to moving around much.  So I'm hanging out at home (hooray to my awesome boss who got me 4 days off through my remaining vacation days so I get the time off AND get paid), cooking and cleaning and generally just hanging out while he sleeps.  The medication is good for knocking his butt out so I don't have to listen to the whining that he doesn't feel good.

To be fair, Himself rarely ever gets sick.  When he does, oh damn does this man get sick.  It used to be we'd have about a week a year where he was sick but still functional.  As we both get older, it's getting worse.  This is the first time he's been seriously this sick during the summer AND to this degree.  Usually he saves his worst sickness for December, like I do for mine in January.  This past year has been one of multiple medical emergencies.

However, he's getting better and I'll be back to work on Saturday.  I'm grateful to my dad who has helped us out this week with the medications since I have no money until Friday.

So...I've been having a lot of writing time.  And one of my projects has really taken off.  It's not one that's listed on the blog post that lists my projects.  If I keep adding to it, that thing is going to be monstrous.  But I do have a fun new character I'm loving.

This is just a sample of what's going on in the story.  You want more details?  Ask!  I'll be glad to share a few more hints about this project.

________________________________________


Rachel smirked as Nick stared at her.  The tight pants, corset top, and high heeled boots made her look very different from anyone's idea of a psychiatrist.  "So, are you my new therapist?" Nick asked.

"Actually, I'm a bartender," Rachel said, grinning as she sat down.

Nick smirked.  "A bartender?"

Rachel waved one hand dismissively.  "Budget cuts.  Do you know how expensive an actual psychoanalyst is?  Since I get paid shit to listen to people's problems anyway, they decided to bring me in instead to see if I could get you to spill your guts."

Nick snorted.  "So do I get the attendant alcohol with this analysis?"

Rachel shrugged.  "Sorry, government facility.  No alcohol allowed."

"So what makes you think I'm going to talk to you?" Nick asked, leaning back as best he could in the chair he was shackled to.

Rachel leaned forward.  "Well, you can talk to me or you can go back to solitary confinement with only your shadow for a conversation companion.  Which would you prefer?"

Nick tilted his head to one side.  "So, do you want to hear about my horrible childhood?  Or how I have daddy issues?"

Rachel sat up.  "Let's start with the childhood.  I'm a sucker for hard luck cases."

Saturday Stuff

I know, I know.  Bad title.  But in my defense, I just had to remember the last 10 years of my work history and honestly...my brain is a little fried.

As most of you may (or may not) know, I work for one of the largest banks in the world in one of their many credit card divisions doing collections.  I hate it.  I hate it with a passion.  Especially since they made us go mixed inbound/outbound in April.  I was perfectly content to do the collections inbound only.  So now I'm job hunting so I can get out of that increasingly hostile work environment.  It's not going well - the job hunting, I mean - because our job market sucks unless I want to take a $3-$5 pay cut (i.e. go back to minimum wage).  I can barely afford my bills on what I make now.  That would be disastrous for us, so I'm stuck where I am until something better comes along.

Himself has discovered a love of all things digital, especially when it comes to 3D rendering and game design.  He's become quite adept at creating 3D figures through the various programs he uses.  So he's teaching himself all sorts of new programming languages, mathematics, and computer programs.  I'm ashamed to say when he starts getting really excited and in depth about his work, I glaze over because what he's saying goes right over my head.  A lot of what I have to say about being an author and the publishing market as it stands now does the same thing to him, so I guess we're equal on that.

The cat is...the cat.  He's annoying, furry, and demanding.  He's taken to climbing into my lap while I'm working and laying his head against my left arm.  He sits there purring until my typing gets on his nerves - which actually takes a while.  But once that happens, he starts sticking his claws in my arm to get me to quit typing.  He bats at my face and meows loudly.  He even nips at my nose or ear to get my attention.  About that point he gets dumped out of my lap.  But he's back again within a short time, doing the same thing.  Either that or he's sprawled on Himself's back or legs while Himself is lying on the bed.

I'm a little bummed right now, though.  Most of my family (my oldest sister and her husband, all three of their kids, their oldest daughter's three boys - she just had a baby last month - and most of the rest of my nieces and nephews) is in town to celebrate my niece giving birth to her youngest son.  But they're meeting for lunch tomorrow at 1 pm and I work from 7:30 am to 4:00 pm.  I've put in to get out of there as early as possible, but it all depends on the business need tomorrow.  If we're busy (which, with outbound is almost a given), I won't get out of there until 4.  So I'll miss seeing them since my niece and her family are leaving right after the lunch.  I've seen pictures of the baby on Facebook (he is so cute), but I'd like a chance to hold and cuddle him the way I got to his older brothers.  I tried to take Sunday off (4 day weekend FTW...only not), but with a waiting list upwards of 15 people ahead of me I knew the chances of me getting off were slim to none.  I'll just have to wait and see how tomorrow goes.

Worked on a couple different projects this week in regards to writing.  The first one is about my winged race of demi-humans and the war that surrounds a prophecy of theirs.  Established the prophecy and the alliance between one of the human factions and the winged people to eradicate the other human faction.  The geography of this particular continent is very strange, so it makes for some interesting logistical problems when declaring war on your neighbors.

The other is about a smart aleck (did I spell that right?) fae calling herself Meg and the trouble she gets into rescuing a fallen god/demi-god/divine being of some sort.  I have NO clue what this guy is yet, other than he's something powerful that got sent to Earth as a punishment and now he doesn't remember who he is/where he comes from/his true power, and she's geas-bound to help him because of an ancient oath she swore centuries ago.  Absolutely no idea where this one is going, but I'm having fun getting it there.  Meg's very refreshing after the months of work on my Aleran stuff.  She's definitely UF, maybe Para Rom.

I still have a lot of world building tweaks to do with Aleran, especially now that I've added the new continent for the winged people story (stories, maybe...depends on how far I go with them).  I figure I'll probably do something in regards to the world building this week.  Maybe.  If I don't get sucked further into Meg's world.  Because honestly?  I want to know which hunky deity she's hosting in her house.

A blog post? Really?

*cough, cough*

*sweeps aside cobwebs*

Wow.  Is this thing still here?

Hello everyone.  Thank you for staying with me during my rather long hiatus from blogging.  Between life, work, and the fact that I have no clue where I want to go with this blog I've sort of neglected it.  I still don't know where I want to go with it but I thought I'd at least dust it off and try to get a few posts in.

In the Real World, Himself is working on game design.  He's extremely happy with his decision, and I'm happy to support him with it.  Me?  I'm still working at the evil call center.  Looking for a new job but the job market sucks so that's going slowly too.  Not to mention I don't want to take a large pay cut just to switch jobs.  We can't afford that right now.

In the Imaginary World, aka my writing, things have been stalling there too.  I haven't been putting too much effort into it over the past couple months.  I've instead been reading a lot more.  I've picked up several of the free downloads off of Amazon for my Kindle and I've been reading a lot of self-pubbed and Indie pubbed books.  I have found a few gems, which I will happily share with you.  For the most part, they've just reinforced my desire to make sure the product I eventually put out there is as perfect as I can get it.

If I go traditional, this will be taken care of for me by the editors in the employ of the major publishing houses.  If I go the self-published or with a smaller press, I'll be hiring an editor to go over my work for me.  So many good stories have been ruined by too much prose, grammar and spelling errors, or just basically poor execution.  I intend to not be one of those authors.

This week, to kickstart the writing again, I decided to build the time line of events that goes from the creation of the world to "present day" in Aleran.  Holy crap was that a pain in the ass.  It doesn't help that at two points on my time line I have a LOT going on.  Now I didn't just do a basic time line of events.  I also added plot points and story notes at certain points on my time line.  Let me tell you, when you have three stories running concurrently at the same place on the time line it gets a little difficult to sort out what happens when.  But I managed it and the time line/plot point thingy is done.

I am once again revamping certain aspects of the world because they just weren't working, so I've got some world building to do.  I swear I'm never going to be done building Aleran, no matter how many books I write about it.  I've also got a new story that jumped up and bit me on the butt while I was doing the time line (which I sketched out brief character descriptions and a vague list of some of the plot points for that instead of working on my time line at one point) that I also want to get some work done on.  So it looks like the writing freeze is finally over.

Now, to share some of the gems I've pulled off of Amazon.

The first one is Alice in Deadland, by Mainak Dhar.  It's Alice in Wonderland meets zombies and a world domination seeking military.  This is not my normal read.  I wasn't even sure I really wanted to read it even after downloading it.  But I went ahead and got it and I was pleasantly surprised.  This was also one of the few books I paid for, since I got this with the gift card I got for Christmas when I got my Kindle.  The product description will do this book more justice than I could so here it is.

Civilization as we know it ended more than fifteen years ago, leaving as it's legacy barren wastelands called the Deadland and a new terror for the humans who survived- hordes of undead Biters. 

Fifteen year-old Alice has spent her entire life in the Deadland, her education consisting of how best to use guns and knives in the ongoing war for survival against the Biters. One day, Alice spots a Biter disappearing into a hole in the ground and follows it, in search of fabled underground Biter bases. 

What Alice discovers there propels her into an action-packed adventure that changes her life and that of all humans in the Deadland forever. An adventure where she learns the terrible conspiracy behind the ruin of humanity, the truth behind the origin of the Biters, and the prophecy the mysterious Biter Queen believes Alice is destined to fulfill. 

A prophecy based on the charred remains of the last book in the Deadland- a book called Alice in Wonderland.


Alice is not your ordinary teenager.  She goes through quite a metamorphosis as the book goes on.  She starts out a tough fighter but still generally naive about the larger picture in the world.  Through her experiences with the Biters and the military force known as Zeus, she learns that there is so much more at stake here than the lives of those in her settlement.  How she changes and what her choices ultimately lead her to make this a compelling read, if you like sci fi/horror.


I'll share one more of my new favorite books with you.  This one I did get for free and it's called Blood of the Righteous (The Ki Kalendeen Chronicles, Book 1), by J.E. Sandoval.  This one focuses on the fates of the three remaining children of the Ki Kalendeen family, whose entire family are killed by forces they don't yet understand for the purpose of allowing an evil king to conquer the lands outside of his kingdom's boundaries.  Here's the product description from Amazon.


Murder most foul! 
A noble lord is slaughtered in his manor. His three surviving children suddenly find themselves commoners. The oldest, Gabriel Ki Kalendeen, is a knight in service to the church who must balance his commitment to God with his responsibilities of his family. Eleenia, an independent minded healer, tries to make her way in a in a male dominated society in a profession that permits few females to enter. The roguish David, having survived the attack on his family, takes on a new identity, convinced that he is still a target. Together they struggle against society, their own deep character flaws, and the evil that secretly manipulates the world through intrigue, deception, lies, and murder. But the Sons of Perdition knew not what they did when they spilled the Blood of the Righteous!


One of the only nitpicks I have with this book is in the beginning they say David is fourteen but as I read the first part of the book, he seemed to be much younger - closer to ten rather than fourteen, especially in the medieval setting the author chose for the book.  But that aside, I loved how overprotective Gabriel is of Eleenia, which leads to conflict between the two of them on more than one occasion.  I love the colorful characters that are introduced, especially through David's POV.  This book is no longer free (it's $3.99 now).  Honestly, I'd still recommend it even at that price.


Link to buy Alice in Deadlands
Link to buy Blood of the Righteous

I'll share another couple of my favorites on my next blog post.  Which may be next weekend, or it may be later this week.  I don't know.  It'll be whenever I decide to do my next blog post.  :)

And remember...even if you don't have a Kindle, you can still read the e-books.
Kindle for PC
Kindle for Mac
Kindle for Android
Kindle for iPhone

(No, I'm not employed by Amazon.  I just like my Kindle and want to share.)

Sunday 'fess up...Anni has a new toy

Hello everyone!

This week Anni has a new toy to play with, courtesy of @KDSarge from Twitter.  (Go buy her books.  No seriously, she's awesome.  Go here and here to buy her books.)  KD gave me access to the full Windows version of Scrivener.  You can find Scrivener here.

If you don't know what Scrivener is, it's an amazing word processing/research holding/editing program for writers.  You would not believe all the stuff you can do with this program.  I'm still learning all that can be done with this program, given that I've only had it for the last 2 days.  I've already used it to divide ONLY A NAME into chapters, and I'm now going over each chapter individually to do the edits.  It's making it a whole lot easier.

Scrivener has a cork board function where you can see your chapters laid out like index cards pinned to a cork board.  It has an outline format.  When you're done, you can compile your document and export it in e-book format - or so I'm led to understand by the tutorial.  I haven't tried that yet.  But it's awesome and I would recommend it for any author.  You can get it for both Windows and Mac.

That leads us to the writing update for this week.  Finished the outline for Raghnall's story, though I'm constantly tweaking that as I work some things out.  Back to editing ONLY A NAME.  I read through CRACKED WORLD too and all I can say is ouch.  I'm all over the place with that book.  It's going to take some major rewrites to get it into any kind of cohesive whole, and I'm not in the mood to work on that right now.  I'm more interested in getting ONLY A NAME into shape.

That's it for this week.  Here's some music videos for you to enjoy.

Sunday 'fess up...Anni lives

Hey everyone!

It's been a rough week.  The reason there was no post last week was because I was in the ER.  Again.  This time with a massive infection in my lower leg.  It got so bad they actually admitted me Monday.  I got to spend a wonderful two days in the hospital (ugh...more hospital bills) and the rest of the week off from work.  I go back to work tomorrow.  I anticipate another Talk with my manager about my attendance issues but really, when the doctor says stay home and I've got FMLA to cover my job and vacation days to cover the time, I'm staying home.

I'm trying something a little different with the writing.  I'm actually outlining a novel.  I know, I know.  I'm a pantser.  What am I doing outlining something?  I'm trying to pin down the story so it doesn't go all over the place.  I mean it already does go all over the place but I need it to not go all over the place quite so wildly.  So I'm trying to shoe horn the story into a workable whole by outlining it.

Well, that's it for this week.  Back to work tomorrow so not as much time to focus on writing but at least I'll have a paycheck.  Here's some music videos for you to enjoy.