“Why would the sun be a shiny potato covered in butter?”
My five-year-old.
Category: About Me
Romance
This month, my husband and I celebrate 12 years together.
It was one of those “love-at-first-sight” whirlwind romances that everyone insists is unrealistic and guaranteed to fail. Yet here we still are, and there’s no one else I’d rather go through the fall of civilization with. 😉
So…
Don’t let the critics and naysayers stop you from making your own destiny.
Thank you for sharing my work!
Piano
It’s been a little over a year since we got our piano, and I’m pleased to say that I have played it nearly every day since.
I like teaching myself a lot more than the structured lessons that I took as a kid. For starters, if I want to dedicate an entire month to classics like “Jingle Bells” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, I am completely at liberty to do so. I learn new songs when I want to, and replay my favorites when I’m in the mood for something familiar. Being completely free from any outside pressure has made it much easier to practice every day.
I think that’s one of those things that makes me weird — I CANNOT handle external pressure. Most everyone else that I’ve broached the topic with always says that they work better with a deadline, but I very much don’t.
I’m also much more patient with slowly plinking my way through new songs, and repeating them over (and over) until I’m more comfortable playing them. When I was young, I expected myself to start good and get better without much effort, and it was frustrating when that didn’t happen.
Not to mention, these days I have a couple of dancing toddlers accompanying me. What’s not to love about that?
Thank you for sharing my work!
Samhain
It takes a lot of energy to maneuver five kids through various Halloween activities, so I decided to break up our celebrations into multiple days.
We made and decorated donuts, carved pumpkins, went trick-or-treating, played Animal Crossing, and ate way too much sugar.
I’m exhausted.
But it’s a good way to start the dark half of the year.
Thank you for sharing my work!
True Love
I’m married to a man who helps me wash vomit out of my hair.
❤ ❤ ❤
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Existential
It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I do this, morning sickness doesn’t get any easier to deal with.
I managed to stay active with exercising 2-3 times a week (yay!), but I also felt absolutely awful in the evenings (morning sickness is such a misnomer). You know, after the kids were in bed, during the time I usually spend on my stuff. So instead of doing my thing, I focused on not throwing up while feeling tired.
I’ve also been very existentially moody about the direction society has gone.
The other day I looked at a line of moms sitting with their faces glued to their phones, and I wished that they would look up to see the world in front of them. They could have watched what their kids were learning and chatted with each other, then left for home feeling happy and fulfilled, but instead they chose to be checked out and miss everything.
Just fricken’ look up already.
One day you are going to die, and the only memories you’ll have will be of staring at a screen. What a waste.
Anyway, I didn’t really feel like publicly complaining while I was dealing with morning sickness.
Of course, feeling better also means that I’ve got a lot of catching up to do with the housework, because even though my family has been very helpful, they aren’t an expecting mother full of nesting instincts, lol.
Not to mention, Halloween is coming up fast.
Thank you for sharing my work!
LMAO
Three-year-old: Put fire on the candle.
Husband: That’s called lighting the candle.
Three-year-old, screaming: NOOOO! PUT FIRE ON THE CANDLE!!!
Just no changing some people’s minds.
XD
Thank you for sharing my work!
Cats
I like to think that he’s keeping my feet warm for me, and not just asking for food.
Thank you for sharing my work!
Rambling
I sat down and read an entire book in two days.
It’s something that I haven’t done in years, but I like that I still have it in me to pull it off. I usually bounce from activity to activity, fulfilling an obligation here, stealing ten minutes there, trying to make the most of my day. I haven’t spent so much time on one activity in ages.
The funny thing is, as soon as I finished, I launched into an analysis of the author’s psychological problems. I couldn’t resist — the romance was so badly tacked on, it just screamed to be probed and dissected.
At some point, I decided to experience novels beyond what was written on the page. I try to see the authors behind the words, and can get a pretty good idea of what they’re like before I go searching for the bio. Unsurprisingly, the above author turned out to be divorced, and currently lives alone with two cats — which is probably why she failed at portraying romance effectively.
But otherwise, the story was very enjoyable. After all, I finished the book in two days.
That’s also why it can be so hard to share my writing with others, because it feels like I’m exposing huge portions of my insides to anyone who bothers to look. Guess why there’s a reoccurring theme about social outcasts? Obviously it’s because I’ve spent my entire life surrounded by a group of BFFs who love and support me. /sarcasm
As serious as I am about the craft of writing, I’m a flake about marketing. Big time flake. Heck, I worry that developing that part of my brain would hurt my artistic integrity, so it’s easy to shrug it off. My goal isn’t to become an entrepreneur.
Actually, there isn’t any real point to this post. I’m rambling.
Before 2020, I had been planning on some real-world marketing strategies to get my name out there as an author. Obviously when people started wearing gloves and hitting the hand sanitizer hard, I put those plans on the back burner. It still doesn’t feel like the time is right to engage with the real world yet, and I don’t want to fuss over stats on social media.
I don’t mind biding my time.
It’s nice to take a couple of days off for an indulgence, just because I felt like it.
Thank you for sharing my work!
Slacker
I’ve been such a slacker lately.
I actually do have a reason for it, which I am keeping personal for the time being. I will say that the echoes between this year and 2011 are rather eerie.
When I decide I’ve had enough of being a hermit, I plan on re-releasing The Black Magus on Smashwords. I’m also undecided about whether I should put The Scion Suit on the back burner for awhile, or push ahead with finishing it. Though come to think of it, I’ve never put a project on hold before, so that probably answers that question. Besides, writing Hartmann should be fun, with him being so cavalier.
Once that’s finished, I’m going to start the sequel for BOTH The Black Magus and Alice and the Warden. A series of cheesy and highly contrived events cause Hackett and Ainmire to cross paths, and they form an everlasting friendship based on their mutual proclivity for younger women. LMAO.
Or something like that.
I never take myself too seriously.
Anyway, I also need to finish transcribing the Miranda and the Convict letters, which I have been procrastinating on horribly. Stuff to do, and all that jazz.
Not to mention, it’s that time of year for baking apple rolls and pumpkin cookies.
By Autumn Rain 