NaBloPoMo meme edition with cats!

 Judgemental cat is judgemental.

Fuck social phobia.

 No flash fiction today. Just a rant about social phobia. This whole business of the ultra-conservative orthodox Filianic community coming out of the woodwork to take shots at the edition of the Clear Recital that I worked on is making my social phobia kick into overdrive. I'm hurt and upset because its coming from people who had previously been relatively pleasant and professional in their demeanor towards me. Now they're implying that I don't know a thing about the English language and basically saying the whole thing is a vanity attempt to garner more money. Never mind that every single dime that's come out of the book's purchase had gone directly into charity work and I am posting updates about that work. (My box for the preemie hats is about half full and I'm still working my way through the funky colored yarn. I've just slowed down because I'm trying to write a book at the same time.)

I know that I shouldn't read the comments, but I did and it felt like high school all over again. Fake friends and all that rot. It makes me reluctant to engage readers who have emailed me because I feel like it's a trap. Still, I have those emails sitting in my box waiting to be read and replied to. I am afraid that the book I'm working on now is going to get even more flack because it's for the Lokean community who tend to be part of the cult of personality surrounding Galina Krasskrova. I have issues with Krasskrova, big ones. She's a white supremacist and aspiring cult leader trying to get as many people to go along with her warped ideas as possible. When I encountered her at first about five years ago, I thought she was ok. She was putting on company manners. Then she started talking about shit like racial purity in Heathenry and stuff like that. She stopped short of spouting Nazi dog whistles. I've watched Krasskrova's followers destroy someone's career because they spoke up against her. Now I'm concerned that they're going to come after me.

I'm debating getting ahold of some old Disco contacts and seeing if they'd consider a raiding party. It's like MysticWicks all over again, but on Facebook. I'm just not sure if they'd consider the idea because I dropped off their radar a while back due to some political infighting that basically got ugly and I was in the crossfire. I don't know what the best thing to do here is. Aside from finish the damn book.

NaBloPoMo 15: I surrender.

 There's no way that I am going to make up the missing posts for the remainder of this month. Being sick for two weeks with that sinus infection threw everything off. Then I got hyper-focused on writing books. Add to that the chaos of a few days of distance learning, the kids being off from school for a few days, and the typical afternoon/evening chaos when they get home from school ... Well, you can see why I made it to fifteen posts before I hung up my hat on this front.

NaBloPoMo 13: Forgot to add a song.

 I've been listening on repeat to Lawless's version of Dear God. It's been something that just goes with the election bullshit. I've also been listening to Les Friction's Louder than Words.

NaBloPoMo 12: Books? oh yeah, I write books.

 Still doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Somehow, I'm at 41k. If I have a good day writing, I'll be caught up on my blog posts across all my blogs and get to 45k words. This project is going well and hasn't gone off the rails plot wise. This is a relief because I was writing most of it while feverish. Who knows, maybe I'll even fire off a short story or something in the course of today.

In other news, Les Friction is AMAZING. It made me really happy to see that the other half of E.S. Posthumus didn't give up on music after his brother died. If you enjoy cinematic/orchestral music, check both of them out. Also, I think you'll really like Really Slow Motion. 

NaBloPoMo 6: I am a zombie.

 Well, I just got off the phone with the doctor's office. They said that the antibiotics sound like they're working. It sure doesn't feel like it but I was told to be patient and give it until Monday. In the meantime, I have a killer headache and congestion that is making me miserable. I'm frustrated because I actually ate a real salad for dinner last night and my fasting blood sugar was 200. I felt rotten and debated skipping breakfast. I didn't. I forced myself to eat a meal bar (21 carbs) and a pot of diet yogurt (3 carbs). I drank water with it because I was too blurry headed to make coffee.

After I got the kids through their morning routine and off to school, I laid down. I planned to sleep for a half hour and then get up and start doing stuff. I did not. I slept for an hour and a half. What woke me up wasn't the alarm on my phone but the sound of my husband getting ready for work. Beloved all but ordered me to go lay back down. Apparently, I looked about as miserable as I felt. So, he headed out to work, I locked the door, and then I fell asleep for another hour or so. I guess it was about 11:30 when I was waking up. I had enough brainz to make coffee. Then I sat down and stared at my NaNoWriMo project too mentally toast to write anything. So, I played around on Spotify and started a playlist for this project. It's completely disorganized, but the tracks are great for various scenes and characters. Also, it's got the coolest version of Seven Nation Army on there from Skáld. 

Now I am trying to get caught up on my blogging and then I am going to work on my planner. Yesterday was sucked up by writing because I felt too woozy to do anything else. My fever has come down some today. I'm not quite as woozy but I don't feel great. I don't trust myself with stuff that's sharp because I'm operating with half a brain and I'd likely poke myself if I tried to do embroidery if not possibly sew myself to the project. I may do some crochet later. Either way, I am going to have to do something to keep me awake that isn't to taxing on my mental capacity. Stupid sinus infection and cold. I was hoping to be over this thing by now.

NaBloPoMo 3: Welp, I'm doing NaNoWriMo.

 Last night, about a half hour before I went to bed, I was struck with an idea for a novella. I'm not sure what my word count is. I'm not going to worry about the word count. I'm just going to focus on getting the story down. If I am lucky, I won't run out of spoons half way through. I may post random snippets here or something.

NaBloPoMo 2: Can't decide if I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year.

 I want to do NaNoWriMo, but I feel like I don't have the time or the spoons to do it. I'm filled with dread that we're going to go to remote learning when the cold and flu season hits full time. Right now, I'm trying to get my writing this post in quick as the kids are doing their assigned journal entry for today. We've been having some glitches with the assignments posted today. So, I did the sensible thing and cycled the power on the chromebooks for fifteen minutes before having the boys get back on to do their work. As the chromebooks were powered down, they were doing some reading work. I currently am struggling to get writing in while the kids are on their breaks from classes, it's not working so great.

I don't know how I'm going to do this.

NaBloPoMo 30

I did it. I made it to the end of the month posting every day on here. I feel like most of what I was posting was pointless rambling. This blog, however, is not focused on promoting books or something else like that. I'm going to attempt to keep up the daily posts. Now, however, I have to start coming up with titles. Because NaBloPoMo ends today. That's going to be the hard part.

The kids are playing and talking RIGHT behind me and they keep getting louder. It is exceedingly annoying. I'm doing my light therapy right now. I feel like changing the type font on this post is making it easier to read. I think I may need to schedule an appointment with my optometrist because the default font setting is getting hard for me to read with out my reading glasses. And the laptop is sitting at a distance where my reading glasses shouldn't be necessary.

I don't know what to write on this blog. I've been depressed and anxious. That is improving somewhat with medication and this light therapy stuff. But I find myself feeling like I have nothing of value to post here for y'all to read. So, I go quiet for long stretches of time. NaBloPoMo was an attempt to fix that.

I'm trying to reestablish the habit of blogging daily across all of my blogs. Having my brain telling me that it is a worthless effort and nothing but vanity makes that pretty hard. NaNoWriMo was another attempt to reestablish the habit of working on my books on a daily basis. That's just gone off the rails. The goal for NaNoWriMo is to write a story that is 50k words long. I'm almost at 101k words long and the story has no end in sight. I'm going to keep working on this in an effort to actually finish the damn story. But I think I'm going to take a break from it for a little bit.

The holidays have just begun and I have things I want to do for them. I want to get the kids each a little chocolate advent calendar. I want to do the 12 days of yule with them. And I want to find away to do some manner of small gifts every day of yule for my husband as well. I'm just stumped as to what to do.

Typing this up in the Courier font is very nostalgic for me. It brings up memories of using a typewriter. It reminds me of the countless term papers I wrote in college. It reminds me of the first book I ever wrote. I have some fondness for this type font. Not everyone uses it. It is somewhat dated. Times New Roman has become the standard blog and web page font. I think, however, I am going to start using Courier on this blog at least because it is easier for me to read.

NaBloPoMo 28

Here's some music I have been listening to as I have been working on my novel:

Heilung (random stuff from their top listener picks)
Helisir  (random stuff from their top listener picks)
Peter Gundry's Volur album
Medieval Ambient playlist on Spotify
The Chieftains' The Best of the Chieftains album
My Writing playlist on Spotify
Wardruna (random stuff from their top listener picks)

NaBloPoMo 17

So, I finally have my planner for this month set up. We're only half way through the month. Not a big deal, right? I have done nothing with my writing bullet journal. I have done very little journal writing. I have been focused on NaNoWriMo in an attempt to just finish one damn story. I am getting frustrated with it because it is taking me so long to get through plot development points. It's like playing a game and you don't get to choose to take the side quests or continue on the main quest, you automatically take every side quest.

It is almost as mentally fatiguing as trying to figure out the right way to finish book seven. This thing I'm working started as fan fiction. It has turned into gods only know what now. I think that working on this is giving me ideas for how to solve some of my book seven problems.

I'm not a big fan of this light therapy lamp but I'm using it anyways with the hope that it will do some good for me. It still gives me a mild headaches and makes my eyes unhappy.  After using it, I don't come away from the experience feeling energized and ready to take on the day. I find myself tired, still, and ready to take a nap. It makes me wonder if I am using this thing right.

NaBloPoMo 15

I am now at 71k on my project. I still have no idea what I am doing. But, hey, I finally hit one of my vague plot points. I've been struggling to have the discipline to sit down and write for the big word count days like I had back in the beginning of the month.

It is less a question of motivation and more a question of how to deal with my frustration with this project. I'm still at about the middle of the story, it seems. And when I am at this point, I feel like I am writing garbage and no one's going to want to read this thing. It happens every time. I suppose it is like second sock syndrome in knitting or crochet. You get one sock done and then you must summon up the energy to get the second one finished.

I'm still working out the ideal placement of my light therapy lamp. Right now, it is sitting on top of the stand holding the router and modem that is on the desk. It sort of works. I really have no idea what I am doing with this. I haven't seen much of a change in my mood right now. It takes around two weeks using it for the first signs of a change in mood shows up.

NaBloPoMo 12

My feels right now:

NaBloPoMo 10

It was a long weekend. The kids have today off because it is Veteran's Day. Saturday was busy with errands and visiting family. I didn't get much writing done on my novel. I got even less knitting on my current charity scarf. And zero spinning done. At this rate, I don't think I'm going to have met my goal of spinning a mile of thread/yarn by the end of the year. Things keep coming up.

I did my first session of light therapy and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I don't feel like a zombie right now but my blood sugar isn't sky high either. I do feel weary, but I woke up several times in the night feeling thirsty. I don't know what is going on that my fasting blood sugar numbers are creeping up higher again. I am hoping that it is just the stress from having to replace the Impreza and the general anxiety issues I have causing it. I don't want to be getting sick again when I just got over a sinus infection.

NaBloPoMo 9

NaBloPoMo 8

Don't know what to write at the moment. Still stuck trying to figure out how to finish my damn manuscript. It is driving me bonkers.

NaBloPoMo No. 6

I have hit 50k on my project for NaNoWriMo and I think I am about half finished with the story. I still have no idea what the hell I am doing. It's a fantasy novel based off of some fanfiction I've been writing. Now I have this debate, do I try to finish this novel or do I pick up another project and work on it. I am leaning towards finishing this novel. Because these characters are stuck in my head. Excerpt of what I'm working on beneath the jump.

NaBloPoMo #2

I'm actually attempting NaNoWriMo this year despite being depressed. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I took a partial manuscript from earlier in the year that I was just messing around with and put it in as what I'm working on now. My characters are that meme. I'm beginning to think that the meme is my stories in a nutshell.

NaBloPoMo #1 - Fuck Depression

So, I'm going to attempt National Blog Posting Month (that bit of alphabet soup in the title) this year. I was looking forward to doing National Novel Writing Month but I'm super anxious about it. I have no plan. I have no outline. Nothing. And I'm afraid that I would continue to write word vomit about my trauma as I did last NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo. Beloved tells me that I shouldn't hang everything upon writing a novel this month. He's correct in saying that I work on such things on a regular basis year round.

But I was looking forward to the project all year. But depression ate my brain so I have no plans of any sort for writing this. Which makes my anxiety go off the rails. I am just going to open a word document and put down 1.7k words today. We'll see if it turns into anything, I guess. I just feel like this is a hopeless effort and that my writing career is a joke because I don't know how to manipulate social media enough to get anyone to buy books.

Thoughts on NaBloPoMo & NaNoWriMo 2018

I think that I spent more time trying to solve problems than I did writing. I think that I also spent more time focused on trying to make time to write than I did writing this year. Having a break from school in the middle of the month didn't help me this year but starting early in October did. I am pleased with the amount of work I have gotten done on the book writing side of things. I'm not as pleased with the blogging situation.

I have gotten a bit better about blogging more regularly but it is still a challenge. Note the flurry of posts in an attempt to make post count on several days. I think solving that is going to be hard because my schedule over the next month is pretty busy. I have holiday crafting to finish up. I have holiday baking to do. I also have some written projects to finish up over the month. My goal is to start 2019 with all of my ongoing projects as of this moment finished.

That means finishing up book seven of the Umbrel Chronicles. That means finishing up the ritual book I am at the beginning of writing. And there is the business of getting books three and four up on KDP after I finish making sense of the way their merger with CreateSpace worked out. I think I have everything done correctly. I'm just not sure. I am considering finding ways to semi-automate the blog writing process. I have a lot of work on my other blogs that I want to back up. That is a project for next year (and probably a new couple of thumbdrives).

I would have hit 30 posts of stupid shit yesterday but I went out to LARP in Buffalo with some good friends of mine. It's a fun game where I get to dress up and pretend to be a monster and do horrible things to horrible people. We all regularly do things like break the fourth wall and drop awful puns. Staying in character is challenging.  It's a fun group.

My character is named Angela. She is a poet from the Victorian period. I have almost everything I need to dress up in Victorian period dress. I am probably going to acquire a few props to make the character a bit more rounded out costume wise. With my short hair, I keep my head covered. She is dressed in full mourning dress because vampires are goth as fuck. She has acquired a 'cane' which is going to be a regular prop as well as a reason why I have my cane with me in character. The character's cane right now is a length of rebar. She's going to be negotiating with another character the price of having a metal cane of similar weight and such made.

I'll try to find away to get a picture of myself in full costume before I head out next session (which is at the end of this month). Beloved gets a chuckle out of my ribbon garters to hold up my knee socks. Since I lost weight, the knee socks don't stay up quite right. So, I asked myself what did they do before elastic socks. Garters was the first thing that came to mind. I'm going to actually knit myself a pair based off of the Victorian era pattern in Goodey's book that's been uploaded.  I've started making Victorian era crochet patterns. I am rather pleased with how the shawls have worked out.

When I go to spinning guild, I'll be bringing the brown 'bosom friend' that I made with yarn from my mother-in-law's spinning. It came out fantastically and is a period accurate work, even though the pattern was of my own design. It is a nice and cozy wool shawl that wraps around and ties at the back, leaving my arms free to do things aside from hold the shawl closed and I don't need pins. I'm also going to bring the two shoeboxes worth of washcloths that I have made in the hopes that someone will buy some of them.