AW:Morning Pages 2025: Day 27?

I don't know about all y'all but my life has been bananas. First there was the business of going to the doctor back in May and finding out that my heart rate had jumped to near 130. So, he put me on a beta-blocker which has had me feeling exhausted, spaced out, and struggling to concentrate. Writing has become a major challenge/accomplishment(?). 

Then there was the matter of challenging my disability claim's denial. I had a ton of paperwork to fill out and my anxiety was all over the map on that one. The fine folks at LawNY are helping me out. I'm nervous about all this stuff but my anxiety over this isn't half as bad as my anxiety over getting paperwork done for the kids to get them on Medicaid so they can work with OPWDD.

And on top of all of this, my eldest child, my Cuddle Bear graduated high school. He has been in vacation mode for the last month. It's driving me batty. He talks about wanting to get his learner's permit but has made no move in that direction. He talks about wanting to start a business mowing lawns or getting a job with a landscaping company, but, again, has made no movement in that direction. If you're curious about what Cuddle Bear looks like, here's a pic:

And yes, all that curl in the previously straight hair is natural. I had curly hair when I was a little kid, then it straightened out. In his case, the opposite happened. Who knows if Snuggle Bug inherited the curly hair gene or not.

AW: Morning (somewhere) pgs. 2025: Day 25?

 I did not drop off the face of the earth. My doctor put me on a beta blocker with some side effects that mimic the symptoms of depression for me. It's been hard for me to find energy to write, do housework, or even just read a book. My ability to focus is pretty much shot. I just sit and stare trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing.

Now is not the time for that sort of thing. My eldest son has things coming up to get ready for graduation. We also have to get him his learner's permit so that he can take the driver's education class this summer. I have a ton of paperwork to do for myself and the kids to get things sorted out for supports that they need. When I should be working on all of this stuff, I am sleeping on the couch or sitting infront of the computer spaced out. I am, to say the least, frustrated with the situation.

I don't fully understand why my resting heart rate is now high enough to require this. It could be stress or anxiety. I have more than my share of that. I am making dietary changes to make my diet more heart friendly. Because the requirements for a heart healthy diet are not too different from a diabetic healthy diet, it is not requiring too many changes. But all of this is fairly vexing and I just don't have time for one more chronic condition to get in my way. I have too much to do.

Posting to resume soon.

 Dear Friends,

Last year, I had a bad depressive episode that lasted just about the whole year. Things like writing stopped and I felt awful. Thanks to medication changes, patience, and more daylight, I am back to my normal self. I am in the process of reevaluating the directions I want to go with this blog. It is a curious feeling to reread your previous work and say 'Did I really write that? It's pretty good.' 

In the course of my working on spring cleaning, I found several old writing projects that I am going to dust off and share with you. It's good to revisit your roots and original concepts for how your huge project is going. It's fun to see how much you have grown and to find the gems that were buried in all of that brain drabble.

If you have books that you would like me to review, let me know in the comments. My personal library is pretty extensive but I know that there is always new things to look at. I will not be doing dual posts on LiveJournal and here for book reviews. I will leave up the LiveJournal links but I am not going to be updating it anytime soon. Too many blogs makes for a frustrated author. And less time for novel work.

ETA: I will resume working on the critical analysis of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron around the end of the month. In the process of cleaning, I put it in a safe place. It's a sure way to lose things around here with my swiss cheese brain.

Up coming recovery period.

 Dear Reader,

I am taking the next three days off from blogging all over creation. Sunday's Craft of Writing Post will be back to back with Monday's Flora & Fauna post. I just need some time to recover from this migraine and head cold. I'll see all y'all on Monday. ♥

Word count? What is that you speak of?

 Dear Reader,

Here we are at the final day of NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo. Many people are at or real close to the finish line. Others are slogging along, possibly cursing their decision to participate in these challenges. Word count is the big gauge of success and source of stress during this month. Posting across six blogs, I have absolutely no idea what my word count is. It took some stress off my shoulders, but six blogs ... that was a lot of work. It has cemented in my mind that some of these blogs are going to be updated on a weekly basis.  Because updating all of them in one day eats my entire morning of writing time.

The serial stories are stalled right now. The science fiction book is stalled because my notes in pencil are become illegible due to fading. At least I found them. The series of modern fantasy is on hold as I am awaiting contact back from the person who requested the work to be done. We had a gentleman's contract initially based on a virtual handshake. I have four books written and a fifth started. It is time to take that gentleman's contract and put it on paper to make clear what is expected of everyone involved. I'm having difficulty contracting him, because he's in grad school right now and busy as heck.

My fantasy series is on hold because I'm correcting errors in one book and trying to make things work according to my plot map in the other book. Hopefully books six and seven of the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar will be out by late spring. In case you are curious, the story arc plotted for the whole series takes place over thirty books. I have snippets and bits of ideas for the other books, but I have to finish what I have on the block first.

What do you do when you are behind schedule?

Dear Reader,

As you can probably tell, I am six days behind on posting here for National Blog Posting Month. Juggling six blogs is hard. Trying to do it while there is a full week of appointments, tasks outside of the house, and general relationship maintenance with teens and your spouse is even more challenging. I wish I could say that I had a stash of really cool things to slap up here rapid fire, but I don't. Part of that problem is I can't find my notes for more flash fiction on here under the pile of notes and workbooks that were used over the summer to tutor my boys in mathematics. I can happily say, however, they are doing well in Algebra and Geometry. 

When I am behind on a project I go through a cycle of emotions. I don't know if this is unique to me or if it is one that all authors go through. At first, I am resolute to catch up and start drafting plans. Then I look at those detailed plans and I despair that I have overloaded myself. I take a bite at trying to complete the plan. I despair again. Then I take a deep breath, steel myself, and return to that resolute state.

I have been struggling to think of topics to post in here for literally months, if not a full year. (That's rather depressing to put up here for the world to see, but it is the truth.) I attempted using my prompt box, but only one prompt was fitting for the purpose of this blog. I'm not going to natter on about what actor in Hollywood is attractive to me. That's just plain silly. I don't even know who most of those people are since I haven't watched television in about six years. (No streaming shows either, though I did attempt to watch Vikings but 3 episodes in the software stopped working for me.) I can't remember the last movie I have gone to. So, those things can't count as prompts or casual discussion topics.

When people gush about these things, I just smile and nod. I'm glad that they're happy. I suppose I could do book reviews, but so much of what I  have read is outdated I am not sure there'd be much interest. There's also the fact that I haven't read anything in a few months that wasn't news related. And the news is just depressing as hell. I don't want to carry that over here.

So, I sit and I stare at the wall/screen until I get a stress headache. Then I wander off to take something for that headache and forget about writing. My brain isn't working that great because I'm depressed and that is making me have brain fog and memory issues. It's rotten and I wouldn't want to subject any of you fine people to that experience, even if it is vicariously.

All of this rambling and going far astray from the topic is fruit of brain fog and my desperate effort to post something here. There's probably going to be more of that going forward. Then I'll find my rhythm and I will be more prolific and sensible in my work here. In the meantime, behold the mess that I have become. Ugh.

NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo? Decisions, decisions.

 Dear Reader,

I've been struggling to make up my mind if I am going to do NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo. Some years I have attempted both at the same time. It did not end well. On the novel writing front, I am stalled between being sick and my depression. I don't know if that's going to improve by the time November gets here. I suppose I could grind my way through writing a novel. Or I could cheat and work on finishing two novels that I have in the works.

But I'm leaning towards blogging every day for the month as a way to get myself back into the habit of daily blog posting. I think it will be as much of a grind as working on a novel. But, in all honesty, it is probably better for me to kick start all my blogs and get back to writing in them. If in the course of all that blogging (I have 7 blogs.) I happen to feel the urge to write a novel, I will do it. I just have had mental silence on that front. It's hard to write when you're just staring at a blank wall until drops of blood form on your forehead and you have to stare some more before the words appear on the page.

I humbly ask your patience.

 Dear Reader,

As I have one son in the process of wrapping up summer school, the other son and I are struggling mightily with algebra. (I swear they don't teach it the same way that they did when I was in grade school.) I am also coaching him in his writing of his second novella. He just finished the first last week and is jumping into the second with both feet.

We're also getting inundated with back to school stuff. My youngest is entering high school this year and my eldest is a junior. There's a lot of events and such flying around. Throw on top of it they've gone from paper schedules to digital ones and we don't have a printer, it's getting a bit crunchy here. 

I'm hoping to get stuff as ready as I can with out too much insanity at the store. And I'm on the hunt for a new A5 notebook because my eldest took that to write his second book. Not that I mind, but they're starting to become scarce right now. (The weirdest things are getting hung up in supply chain breakdowns.) I'm going to try to post more soon. If there's a victory post, it means we made it past the section of the algebra book we've been working in to material that makes more sense. In the meantime, gods help us.

In solidarity with all other writers who have kids going back to school.

♥

I have not abandoned this blog.

 Hello, everybody!

I want to first apologize for my extended absence. I have been having some rather severe health issues since that bout with Covid last year. Pretty much all of the impact my ability to write in some fashion. The persistent exhaustion and the brain fog are the biggest problems. I can not promise daily posts. I haven't the stamina for that yet. But I will attempt to post something on a weekly basis, at the very least. 

I have no new books to announce. I have no interesting developments for the Iron Lily or Dacia's War. As I mentioned, I've been having a hard time thinking clearly. It's made writing common words difficult and I have difficulty with getting sentences out while I'm speaking because of this brain fog. I'll be talking to my primary care doctor about all of this. One of the specialists that I see because of my disabilities brought up the prospect of Long Covid as I described what was going on and asked if it was possibly due to side effects of my medications.

This doctor's appointment on Friday is going to be a less than awesome experience if this is the case. It's bad enough to be discussing diabetes (which really sucks regardless of what type you have). That gets my nerves going, now I have this other potential problem on top of that to make me nervous. Ugh. 

I will do my best to have something more pleasant, interesting, and on topic for you next week.

Please forgive my extended absence.

 Dear Friends,

Life got screwy around here and I was having trouble being grounded enough to do my daily chores let alone my writing in any format. When that problem more or less resolved itself, I caught Covid and was sick for a month. To say the least it has been a trying experience. I am not going to make any promises that I'll be back in form for writing every day. But I am going to try. Some of this will mean preloaded blog posts that were written several days before hand and some of this may include reposting of old content (as a last resort). If nothing else, I may post a few funny memes that I have had sent to me.

I am still dealing with a lot of exhaustion and some other symptoms, but I am much better than I was last week. This has me hopeful that I can get writing done, possibly across all formats. Covid was an awful experience, even with the milder Omicron variant (which we caught at my house from school). The anti-viral medications are serious business but they taste awful and you have to choke down 4 pills per dose. I guess that's better than a horse pill, but it wasn't easy. Fortunately, I and none of my family lost our sense of smell or taste.

My eldest is making noises that he feels like he's caught a cold. Given that was how he felt when he caught Covid, I'm a little nervous. My youngest is just fine and had mild flu symptoms for his experience. And Beloved was taking care of all of us as he had the sniffles. It was a strange experience to have the whole household sick with the same thing and displaying different variants of how it manifests. I also envy the living daylights out of my husband's immune systems. It always happens like this, I get sick and I'm flat on my back for at least a week and he gets the sniffles. As he says "Well, somebody's supposed to take care of you." He's a sweet heart but I still envy his immune system. LOL

I could go on an extended rant about how my region has decided to treat Covid like it's the flu but I won't because that's a bit too far afield from the purpose of this blog. To say the least, I am not happy with it and my kids want to go to a school board meeting to demand the reinstitution of the mask protocol from last year. This is a big thing given how they dislike public speaking. But, we're all muddling by as best we can. I've finally turned something of a corner in my recovery as my congestion is clearing up. Now I just need more energy and I can get stuff done. But such is life when you get sick, right?

Editing is like pulling hen's teeth.

 Dear Reader,

I am currently working on line edits for a book in the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar series. It is slow going and exhausting. I have discovered places where one character wound up with three different names. I have found typos galore. It isn't pretty. And this doesn't account for the fact that I still have to reformat the page size and type font for the entire document. 

Some of you may say, "Deb, why don't you hire an editor?"

The simple answer is that I'm broke. The extra money that could have gone towards getting this professionally edited and proofread is going towards my son's braces. It's the same reason why I haven't done anything like those nifty book trailers that you've seen on Facebook or paid for advertising. I just don't have the cashflow to make it happen. It forces me to sit down and go through a document a good six or seven times before I deem it ready for publication. It can take months, especially when my depressive episodes sap my ability to think clearly.

At one point, my mother-in-law told me how I needed an agent. She was convinced that if I had an agent that one of the big traditional publishers would be interested in my series of books. I mean, it's not everyday that someone says "Hey, we've got the first third of a thirty book series right here and it's not half bad. We just need to put it to press and slap a better cover on it." The problem is, since I have gone independent publishing, they want to see big purchase numbers before they are even remotely interested.

I don't have big purchasing numbers. I'm a small fish in a big ocean in a market that's rather glutted. It requires me to push advertising and the money for that is going for household needs and my kids' needs. If I won big ticket lotto, maybe I'd throw money in this direction. I don't know. By now, editing myself is a habit. Finish writing a book, set it aside for a few months, and then start the long process of edits and read throughs. I've gotten halfway decent at it, despite the word processor's attempts to correct my spellings and such.

I am very 'type a' about my writing. It is part of the reason why I am an independent author. I want that creative control over pretty much everything. I've heard horror stories from some traditionally published authors about how the manuscript got butchered in the editing and formatting process until it no longer resembled what they wrote. It happens a fair amount of time from what I have heard. I may not sell well, but I am telling the story that I want to tell. Not something that is watered down and filled with hype oriented concepts that will make it more 'appealing'. It's a measure of freedom that I don't think I am going to give up. Authenticity in my writing is the most important thing right after making sure that I get character names right and I clean up all the typos.

Update Time!

 Dear Reader,

I have not been in good health over the last month or so. Well, actually a bit longer as you can tell by my gaps in posting. I've been having lots of problems with sleep which lead to a hypomanic episode. Those are extra fun (if only there was a sarcasm font). I have to distance myself from the internet and social media so that I don't say or do something horrifically stupid thinking that I'm witty when I'm actually mentally unbalanced at the time.

The hypomanic episode seems to have passed. (My project room is almost clean because I was compulsively organizing everything. I think I have enough yarn to insulate a tiny house now.) I am going to attempt to get back to writing material for you. It is difficult for me to concentrate because my brain is still a bit haywire due to my sleep issues. I am working with my doctor to resolve this. It is my hope that I will be able to get back to regular posting within the next month, at the latest.

Thank you again for your readership and your patience with me. This disabled author appreciates you bushels and bushels.

Edge of Night is live as paperback!

 Dear Reader,

I got Book Mail! Here's my author's copy of Edge of Night and I simply had to share it with you. It came out beautifully (and is a nice visual contrast to the infamous editing bench). It's now available as a paperback on Amazon and through other online retailers. Happy Reading! The story gets darker as evil rises.

Day two of a migraine, yippie!

 Dear Reader,

If only there was a sarcasm font. I would have used it and made it as big as possible for that title. I'm doing a bit better than I was yesterday. I really wanted to get on here and post a craft of writing thing but I was hardly able to see straight most of the day and light felt like I was getting stabbed in the face by the evil Day-star. Migraines suck, y'all.

Where do I begin? Last week was relatively awful on the brain front. Barely avoided a big fight with a relative because I focused my attention on mentally stabbing them in the eye as I was knitting on Mother's Day. I'm still kinda angry but I'm doing my best to just put it aside. I had a rotten week last week that kept me from writing just about anywhere because of my brain doing the I am depressed thing. Therapy writing was grueling and felt utterly useless. When I finally got through what is typically my morning writing routine, it was time for the kids to get home from school and then I was playing referee between two teenagers. (Yes, my youngest is twelve but he's got the attitude of a thirteen year old already.)

To say it's been rough over here is a big understatement. I didn't want this blog to linger in silence longer just because I didn't feel awesome. I wanted to let you know that I'm still here, just struggling to get time to write pretty much anything. We're coming up on a week of appointments next week and the boys have a track and field competition that Beloved and I are trying to figure out if we can make it to.

The remainder of this week is up in the air. I can see straight by the power of Excedrin but I've been typing slower than usual because I keep making typos that I have to go back and correct so you can actually read this. I hate migraines. And looking at the weather report for the weekend, I think I've got another one lurking Sunday into Monday next week. Ugh.

In other news, the paperback version of Edge of Night is out.

Errands, doctor's appointments, and gardening, oh my!

  Dear Reader,

Today has been a busy day and I'm not even half way through my list of things to do. I am working on getting the apartment cleaned up. I did a little gardening. (I think the Oregano is going to win the turf war with the Vinca Vine in the left hand bed, but who knows. It's still early in the game.) I have to take my son to a doctor's appointment because he got bitten by a tick when he was out hiking yesterday. It's just been super busy.

I will have the Craft of Writing post up as soon as possible. Fortunately, the weather has sorted itself out and I'm pretty sure that it will not be a week of migraines like last week. That two day migraine was awful and then one came along two days later because of that shift in the weather. Beloved calls me the human barometer because of this. He's not wrong. LOL

New Umbrel Chronicles Volume Coming Soon!

 Dear Reader,

I've been unwell and busy over the last few days. I had a migraine that lasted two days and I was finishing up the publication prep and process for Edge of Night: Book V of the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar. I will have links for you soon. 

Here's the blurb:

The desperate deception of Askemb was doomed to failure. As the forces loyal to the true Queen of Evandar try to plan their next move, the elf-woman Sideria makes an astonishing discovery deep in the heart of Dragonwood Forest. A discovery that could change the course of everything. In the White City, the High Council votes on Askemb's claim to rulership over Dakon-Bar and all of the Seven Kingdoms of Evandar. Treason awaits. Away to the east, the turncoat Douglas struggles towards redemption. Meanwhile, the deamon Axeron tightens his grip and bides his time until true Darkness falls on the world of men.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Just as I was about to hit post, the ebook has hit the market! Grab a copy and a cup of coffee. ♥

Trying to pull up out of a stall isn't easy.

 Dear Reader,

My late Grandfather was a pilot. One day, he was talking to me about how it takes a lot of guts, skill, and knowledge of your craft to pull an airplane out of a stall. I've been stalled and the ground's coming up at me at terminal velocity, but I'm not worried because I can kick start the engine and pull this thing out before it crashes. I've done it before, I can do it again, it's just been a wild few weeks.

That side business that I was doing reading tarot cards went belly up in the ugliest way possible. That kinda left me emotionally reeling. What I thought was a long term book project appears to be falling apart and this has me struggling after all the effort I put into it. I'll be taking those books and putting them aside in case that stalled project turns out not to have crashed. But it's taken a bit of an emotional toll on me to have these things happening.

My days are completely out of sorts because what schedule I had is gone and I am now in the process of rebuilding my schedule. I will be posting material more frequently now that I have more time. I will also, hopefully, be making more progress on my books. Check back in Monday for a Craft of Writing post. I'll be talking about the most valuable reference book that I own. I've probably already done a post on it and it's buried in the archives, but this book has been so helpful that it deserves to be posted about again.

The serial stories are going to take a little time because I have to review my notes (once I find them in this mess) and figure out where I was going with things. I can't give you a date when the next installments are coming, but they will be out in a little while. I'm also going to take the previous installments and wrap them together into an ebook at some point. This way you can read the whole story from the comfort of your e-reader and not waste time on the internet scrolling through a blog post. 

♥

Craft of Writing: I've got Nothing.

 Dear Reader,

I have no pithy comments or witty bits of inspiration for you. I've been slogging through the tail end of a depressive episode and about a month of chaos. I am not participating in Camp NaNoWriMo because I have barely had time to write in my daily journal, let alone take care of other tasks and projects. It's been rough going here.

My dear friends, I deeply appreciate you and your faith in me. When I have days where I feel like all is useless and hopeless, Beloved reminds me that I have you all out there eager to read what I have to share. My husband is a dear man and quite smart. I really should listen to him more often when my moods get down and the brain weasels are gnawing on me. I would like to apologize for the fact that I left you all in a lurch. I sincerely planned on doing more writing. Then I got sick for a week. My kids had a surprise superintendent conference that shot one day of work down. I forgot that they had a week off the following week. And there was the business of Easter dinner with my in-laws, which is always an experience.

Now that things are beginning to settle down, I hope to start posting more often. My side business reading Tarot cards is defunct. It is simply because the platform that I was on became unfriendly towards readers like myself who don't fit the newer business model that the new president of the company envisions. I was on there from 2007 until a few weeks ago. It wasn't super profitable but it boosted my confidence a bit to actually make money using a skill that I have.

I've decided to take this as a sign from the Universe that I must focus now on my writing as a serious business effort. I know nothing about  marketing. I am rather ignorant about traditional publishing but I seem to be doing ok for a beginner in a niche market as an independent published author. I'm attempting to screw my courage to the sticking place and actually submit work to publications. The last time I did that, there wasn't any reply back or anything. The time before that, it was a fly-by-night operation that tried to steal a book that I wrote. I sent them a nastygram and I got my manuscript back, shredded. (This was in the late 90s when people were still accepting paper submissions.) The experience has me a little gun shy about trying to get work out to magazines and such.

But, life has altered my course and I suppose it is time to get to work. Tomorrow, I will not be on-line and there will not be a post because I am going to the eye doctor to get checked for glaucoma. I am as nervous as a cat in a rocking chair factory but Beloved is confident that everything will go well. Look for another post from me on Thursday.

April is Camp NaNoWriMo: Will I participate?

Current embroidery project

 Dear Reader,

So, April is one of the two sessions of Camp NaNoWriMo. It is the more convenient one because it has 30 days in it like the official NaNoWriMo in November which makes planning word count goals a bit easier. I don't know if I will be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this April. I'm still having lots of anxiety problems and I'm not coping very well. 

It is likely that I will continue pouring a great deal of effort into my therapy writing. I don't feel comfortable about setting word count goals for that. Some days I can manage to write up to 1k but most days I'm lucky if I get a few hundred words out before I start freaking out over the trauma content in it. This business in Ukraine (and it's Ukraine not 'the Ukraine' which was a Soviet propaganda effort to delegitimize Ukraine's status as a nation, I only recently learned this fact, so I'm sharing it) is triggering a lot of stuff that I thought I had dealt with.

I am part of Gen X and I grew up under the threat of the Cold War for most of my youth. My parents had insane things to say about life during that period. They talked about inhumane things that we would 'have' to do to survive, like cannibalism, if Russia dropped The Bomb. I was frequently told my only value would be as meat for the pot, a laborer to keep my brothers alive (stack rocks outside the place they could shelter if a Bomb got dropped and wait for the adults to show up, not go into the shelter myself), or someone that could be traded off as chattel if someone was looking for something out of us.

My parents were not the most stable or in touch with reality at that period of time, to be honest. It was brutal and ugly. A lot of my childhood trauma goes back to that era of my life. With this war in Ukraine happening, I've been having flashbacks and struggling to cope. I don't really know what to do with this stuff that's coming up. I've been doing embroidery to keep me from freaking out. But, it's not working so great.

But all this trauma stuff is making it hard to write fiction. I don't know if I'll participate in Camp NaNoWriMo or if I'm going to skip it this year.

It's going to be a rocky re-start.

 Dear Friends,

It's been quite a while since I have posted. I want to apologize for that. It was not because I didn't want to or because I simply had given up on this blog. Way back last August, I started having health problems due to my C-PTSD, namely sleep issues. These issues got really bad and started me having problems with my bipolar disorder (on top of the issues of seasonal affective disorder). To say the least, I was working with my doctor to get it all sorted out. Things really came to a head in January, when I decided that I had to take a step back and do some focused therapy work.

I had initially thought that it was going to be two weeks. It turned out to be much longer and much harder than I expected. I am finally getting to a place where I have a measure of equilibrium again and I can resume my writing work. I am going to attempt to jump back in on topics that have been languishing. I also am going to try to bring some new material to the table. It is, however, going to be challenging and I may not be able to hit all my goals initially. 

I appreciate your readership. I appreciate your patience and support. And most of all, I appreciate your encouragement. Thank you for waiting for me to come back and I will do my best to bring you the best of my work over the coming weeks as I work on getting back into the saddle.