If there's one thing I'd like, it's to have a week uninterrupted by headaches. More specifically, the headaches that grin at you with a slasher smile, slowly draw a knife up in the air, and stab you repeatedly in the head until you cry uncle and crawl into a dark room under cool blankets in the hope to die before the migraine kicks in.

So this will be a short post, I'm afraid -- both here and on Patreon, because I promised. You can find me over there. Just click this link. I don't have much up, I'm afraid (*cough*one post*cough*) and everything (*cough*one post*cough*) is open for everyone to view.

Most likely, any previews of original or fan fiction will be moved over to Patreon from this point forward, but I haven't figured that out yet.  I'm also not leaving DW or LJ anytime soon, so keep watching this space :)

There's something about not posting (for whatever reason) that is its own self-fulfilling prophecy.  The longer I go without posting, the guiltier I feel, and the guiltier I feel, the longer I go without posting.

Here is a perfectly guilt-free post

I'm still around, though I haven't been checking anything with any kind of regular frequency, and therefore haven't been replying either.  I'm worse with emails, so if you've sent me something, it's probably still in my inbox languishing in despair because I haven't gotten my act together -- not because I'm ignoring anyone.  I'll get on that, I promise.

In early April, I vanished off the trace of the earth for a vacation.  I came back with what I hope is a mindset that sticks, because, as it turns out, a few things happened at my work that finally made a message sink in: nobody cares how much work I put in, and they can't fire me if I miss deadlines.  That rationale comes from the fact that many people blow their deadlines and nothing happens; one person in particular is going on six years with a project they haven't started on.  While management is unhappy, they can't get rid of this person.  Logically, I knew all this before, but it's finally sinking in.

(Took long enough.)

In writing news, I've done very little:

Patreon is still an empty little place more bereft than a ghost Wild West town (they've at least got tumbleweeds now and then), mostly because I'm not sure what to do with it, so I'll start by opening it up and finding out what I can do with it, and what people would most like to see.  After all, if I'm looking for patrons, the least I can do is find out what my patrons will want the most and that which I can deliver, yes?  Watch this space, I'll post the link this weekend.

On the actual writing side, I haven't done much since... well, my last post, really.  But I've figured out a lot of things regarding the conversion of LM into original fiction, and started on the current action plan (it turns out I was writing three books at once -- which didn't make sense until I broke it apart into story arcs and realized they'd work better on their own, because there's too much).  I've also done more worldbuilding for another story I want to start on, sobbed helplessly when I realized how many other original fics I started but never finished because of a shiny coin, and decided I'll be making a writing schedule to keep from getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of shit I want to get done.

It'll get done.  I just hate being so slow about it.

How has everyone been?

As a standard disclaimer, for this post, assume "tabs" does not mean "an enumerated bill listing all items for which payment is owing", but instead, "the doohickeys filling up the browser's capabilities with a number of items to be read, referenced, or investigated further at a later time."

In other words, my browser has too many tabs.

About 70% of them have to do with Research^TM material, or are windows for searches that I haven't done yet but mean to do at my earliest opportunity. 10% are for fanfic that I meant to read months ago but still haven't read, but which are still open because I stubbornly convinced myself that I will read them at some point. Another 10% are reference sites for completely unrelated items of interest that I want to pursue more about. And the last 10% is roughly equally split into "I fucked up my knitting, how do I fix it", "I keep killing my seedlings why is it happening", and "I have a craving for tiramisu, what is the easiest and fastest way to make some".

And this, people, is the sum collection of a couple of months of never having closed my browser when I should know better.

Oh well.  I'll take care of that eventually.

Anyway, this is my usual "I have things to do but haven't done them because I'm (a) a lazy sod, (b) too busy to do any of it, (c) in denial, and/or (d) all of the above" post.  I will do better.  I promise.

I don't know what it is about being home that makes my brain turn off. The logic part of my head in charge of the Things I have to do to make a buck are completely worn down, but the creative side should be picking up the slack, right?

Except: no.

I come home from work, sit on the couch for half an hour doing nothing -- and by "nothing", I mean, catching up on my email and not actually answering any of it, opening Discord only to realize I don't have any social energy points left and shutting it down again, knit a row of the endless Ravenclaw scarf, or water the plants which are looking pretty dry. Then I get up, and make dinner.

The rest of the evening is mostly taken up with taking care of things that need to be done before Tomorrow, then I go to bed, and it starts all over again.

So you'd think the weekend would be a break from the routine.

Except: still no.

I had a list of things I wanted to do for the weekend. I've done exactly 1.8% of it. After that, my brain promptly turned off and curled up under whatever rock it decided it liked best today.

(It snuck out long enough for me to do another thing on my list, so I suppose I'm up 2.2%?)

So, hi! How has everybody been?

As mentioned, January was going to be a beast no matter how much I squinted at it.  In the aftermath, it doesn't look any prettier, but it's done, and I've appreciated the break.

So, monsters aside, we're nearly at the end of February, which was a month of sub-zero... wait.  "Sub-zero" doesn't really have much significance these days, given the temperatures around the world, and we're kind of used to it?  For the sake of clarification, I'm talking the Celsius scale, and somewhere in the region of "cold enough to make skin freeze within 2 minutes of exposure".

Did you know snow sounds and feels different when it's that cold?

Other than "recovering" from January, huddling under blankets for most of February, and doing an admirable job procrastinating everything else, I've managed to:

1. Get a bit further along on the not-for-me Ravenclaw scarf.  I'm on my second blue ball and more than halfway through the silver.  I've found a couple of patches I'll sew on, and if I'm lucky I'll be industrious enough to complete it by my friend's birthday in a few months.  Photos pending.

2. Finally launched my Patreon.

Except I'm not going to announce it yet, because it's absolutely devoid of everything except a cover post and banner picture.  I'm face-palming with I don't know what I'm doing, and what the hell am I doing self-doubt, but I'll shake that off as soon as I post the link, since at that point I'll be very much in oh well, in for a penny in for a pound mindset, with no going back.

Kind of like Radioman.

I'm going to go poke at it some more.

3.  There is no #3.  I've been procrastinating.

First! I'm alive!

As previously anticipated, January was Hell Month, because of Deadlines^TM and surprise!meetings booked within a hair's breadth of each other.  Also, as previously anticipated, I got nothing else done.

For what it's worth, I managed to complete all the work by the end of January in advance of the actual due dates (the client inquired about the status the very same day I made the final report someone else's problem), and was able to pawn off -- with my supervisor's approval -- another large chunk of work onto someone else (who still hasn't completed it, but that's not my problem anymore).

The first week of February was spent a little shell-shocked because I... didn't have anything to do?  Well, I had things to do, but the pressure is low and there's no deadline.  By the second week of February, I've adapted to the lower stress level and have become particularly gleeful about the fact that I'm doing my actual job for a change, instead of all of this other shit that keeps getting dumped in my lap.  This week, I've been nibbling at the cuticles of my fingernails, because I know this little blissful universe I'm currently finding myself in isn't going to last.

I am, however, ignoring the Negative Nancy in the corner, who keeps stomping its foot angrily because I'm not anxiously preparing myself for the shit hitting the fan.  I am going to keep sticking my head in the goddamn sand and appreciating the bearable workload that I have now.

Which means that I can get on with my other, non-work related projects!  More on that, soon.

An update in the form of a random drive-by, before I fall back on old (bad) habits of not posting on a regular basis:

There have been no new words to Current Writing Project, largely because I was distracted with books, and decided to spend the last week of my vacation reading.  And reading.  And reading.

I did get a bit further with setting up Patreon, then stopped, stumped, because I don't know what to actually do.  I'll figure it out by asking if everyone interested in this venture could help me figure it out, once I figure out what it is that I want to figure out in the first place.  This made more sense in my head, by the way.

I went into my 3 weeks of vacation knowing that my January was already solidly booked up.  Two days into the first workweek of the year (for me), and I'm now heinously solidly booked up, to the tune of hilariously and unpaid overtime.  There's also a slew of bad news (some good news, but the bad outweighs it) which I can't help but laugh about, because crying gives me a headache, and apparently, murder and mayhem as stress relief is still illegal.

Unfortunately.

And also, unfortunately, in these two days (four, if you count Saturday when I realized I had to go back to work, and Sunday, when the first crushing spiral of anxiety hit), I've realized that, while I normally handle stress fairly well, my body disagrees, because I've had three painful muscle spasms in my back in less than one regular workday.  I haven't had one of those in a really long time.  I did not miss them.

On the bright side, I made snickerdoodles.  I almost dropped the trays taking them out of the oven during muscle spasm #4, bu still.  Snickerdoodles.

I hope everyone's having a good week!

Happy new year! Here's wishing 2019 is everything you want it to be!

I have a short list of 7 resolutions objectives tasks which were originally intended to be completed between September and December of 2018, but which didn't happen because of Reasons^TM, and have carried over. I'm giving myself five months to get these completed, and at the end of May, I'll start a new list.

Considering that I've just eaten two giant pieces of Toblerone triangles and not regretting it for one fucking second, I can tell you that having a better diet is clearly not one of the things I'd like to work on this year.


Anyway, Item Number One of the Carried Over Task List was to create a Patreon, which I can now strike off my list (but not really). It's also terribly, terribly empty, but I'll work on that soon.

I have a few reasons for starting the Patreon. Part of it is to help me fund self-publishing my original fiction, another part of it is to put together a few projects (anthologies, zines, etc.) that I've been wanting to do for years. But baby steps, first: I now have a Patreon.
 

What are some of the projects everyone will be working on this year?

I'm looking for a book (or books) with a comprehensive overview of pre-medieval and medieval Gallic/French history.  It can be in French or English.

Does anyone know anything like this?  I'm afraid that my European history courses were limited to the French revolution era, and abstractly comprehensive on the Second World War, and that a generalized overview would be helpful in the sense of being able to research specific topics more in depth based on the information in an overview.


This may or may not be for the worldbuilding of a fantasy universe for at least three different original fiction ideas I have in various stages of planning.

Please and thank you!

In the 9 days since my last post, I've had a migraine, involved myself in family-holiday things, slipped on the ice shoveling snow, fell down the stairs in the house, and wrenched my shoulder catching myself from what would've been an awfully painful fall. Somewhere in there, the Spouse got miffed at me, and I think it had something to do with scaring him out of his wits from the ka-THUMP-thud on the stairs.

I'm not sure he's forgiven me for that yet.

In the meantime, there has been writing things happening, just not as much as I'd like, but I'm content with the progress, so there's that. I'm somewhere north of 10K at this point, and started the fourth chapter. There's no way I'll finish the fic by the new year unless I imbibe felonious amounts of caffeine and write a thousand words an hour for the next 4 days straight.

I like my sleep too much, so, nah.

I have a mini hydroponics system that I'm excited about, but also simultaneously bummed, because I have to grow seedlings, first. I also got a fitbit from my parents, though I'm not entirely sold on the appeal of it. The Ravenclaw scarf is progressing nicely, though I had to stop for a few days because of the drama associated with the stairs.

And now to figure out what my resolutions plans are going to be for 2019.

How have everyone's holidays been?