About Writing

Writing in 2022

Autumn

I had made it my goal to publish a book every year, but at this point I can definitely say that it’s not going to happen in 2022.

It’s been a chaotic year.

At the very least, I can say that this year was dedicated to fairly big events, like having baby #6, and saving our cat’s life at the cost of her leg — there was never a point where I could have been writing, but just didn’t. So hey, good enough for me.

Dear master sergeant Hartmann, one day you will grasp the object of your desires. But probably not this month.

And CR1515 will have to wait until next year to continue his steamy philosophical rants. You have no idea how much I enjoy writing a cynical cyborg.

On that note, I’ve had this particular quote by CR1515 echoing in my head of late.

Humans have become the worst combination of lazy and entitled. They don’t want me to be relatable – they want to hate me because they know that I am superior to their celebrations of mediocrity and failure. They don’t want to achieve anything great, or even to manage their own basic survival, and they will attack anything that reflects their own pathetic state back to them.

This speech is promptly followed with lots and lots of delicious arguing, lol. Gosh I miss the bickering and ranting in that story.

Maybe (and this is a big MAYBE) I’ll get away with publishing both The Scion Suit Multiverse and CR1515 next year … provided no one loses any more limbs.

About Me

Strength

Autumn

During the time I spent on Facebook, one of the things I really hated was when people posted photos of various ouchies.

So I’m not going to do that.

The face of strength and courage.

About Me

Continued

Autumn

We ended up deciding to transfer our cat over to our regular vet for some extra care, so she didn’t come home until today.

She’s eating well, but with the broken front leg and the cone around her head, I’ve been helping with holding the food up so she can reach it more easily (I can’t figure out how to get the cone off for her to eat, and I’m scared to handle her at this point).

The kids are being really well behaved about all this. I’ve told them that they can keep her company sitting by the kennel, but they have to stay quiet and not touch her, and so far they’ve been perfectly obedient about it. Of course, she’s a pretty pathetic sight at the moment, and they’re probably just as scared of accidentally hurting her as I am.

Tired.

At this point, all that’s left to do is to keep an eye on our cat and keep up with her medications.

Probably time to catch up on some sleep.

About Me

Cat

Autumn

Our cat, the one who’s fur I spun into yarn for fun, disappeared for a couple of days, then showed up yesterday badly injured.

I took one look at the cat’s back leg and honestly told the children that the she was probably going to lose it. My husband rushed her to the emergency clinic, where they put her on painkillers and IV fluids, and an examination of the wound revealed that it was not only badly infected, but had maggots in it as well. Yuck! Her blood work showed that we found her in the nick of time, because the infection was on the verge of going systemic and turning into blood poisoning.

Sure enough, her back leg was amputated during the night.

Her front leg is also broken, and she has deep bruising all over. My husband asked the clinic what they thought could have caused all these injuries, but they couldn’t say for certain. It could have been a car, or she could have gotten caught on a fence and fallen.

She isn’t home yet — we’re waiting on a consult with an orthopedic specialist for what to do about her front leg (whether a splint is going to be sufficient for her bones to heal, or if she’s going to need pins inserted). I’m hoping to have her back this afternoon or evening.

I feel awful when I think about how much agony she was in while she was dragging her broken body back home, especially because it took a couple of days.

But if she had wanted to die, she would have laid down in the bushes and died. She wants to live. Besides, this is our cuddle kitty who’s all heart and no brain — we have to do what we can to take care of her.

I’m going to get a kennel set up for her in the laundry room, with puppy pads because the vet said that she won’t be able to use a litter box for awhile. She’s going to need medicine, and to have her bandages changed regularly as well. However, the vet has assured us that cats handle amputations very well, and that there’s a good chance she’ll return to full mobility once she’s healed — but she does need to stay indoors from now on.

For those who are following my blog, you’ll know that this is coming on top of our 15-year-old cat getting treated for an abscess after fighting with a stray.

So, kind of feeling a touch cursed right now.

About Me

Ramblings

Autumn

In Splatoon 3, I get the feeling that there are two factions: those who want to have a chill time inking base, and those who want to rush middle.

Me? Well, I’m a mid-30s stay-at-home mom playing Splatoon 3 because my 10-year-old likes it. I don’t have the reflexes to successfully rush middle, so I prefer to ink base.

But I am tickled by the fact that no one has any clue what these terms mean. Look at me, I’m blabbering gibberish. Ha, ha!

Seriously though, Nintendo isn’t exactly known as the hardcore gamer console. I like it the best because the games are playable for me and my kids. Just because this particular game is online, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be just as playable as Luigi’s Mansion or Breath of the Wild, and I don’t particularly enjoy being told that I should emulate the way a 20-year-old male NEET plays video games.

Anyway, the artwork on the whole is a lot more lighthearted and less furry-oriented this week, which is better. I actually bought a stylus for my 10-year-old to use for drawing, because she’s really developing as an artist. Watching my kids grow as individuals is the best part of being a parent.

About Me

The Forbidden Chronicles – 5

Autumn

Several years ago, someone was complaining about their personal problems online, so I replied with something encouraging. I can’t remember the specifics, but I know that what I said was the corny, “If you believe in yourself, you can do it!” sort of thing.

I was immediately dogpiled for “spreading false hope.”

Including from the person I had attempted to cheer up.

Okay.

So.

No matter what you do, you are going to die a failure.

You see, it’s the exact same effort for me to type something negative as it is to type something positive. I said something nice because I thought that the world needed nice people to say nice things so that everyone could end up being nicer to each other.

But all it did was result in a lot of crap for me.

Clearly, no one wanted to be nice. I was indeed indulging in false hope, but it was contained entirely within me — positivity does not beget positivity.

So I withdrew and took all of my positivity and niceness with me. I don’t participate in communities or groups or organizations or anything social anymore. Go ahead and eat each other; I won’t lift a finger to stop you.

Because ultimately, I realized that people aren’t worth it. They actually prefer to be miserable.

Maybe it will be different after The Fall.

About Writing

On Self-Publishing

Autumn

There’s a stereotype that authors who self-publish aren’t good enough to cut it with the publishing houses. Personally, I have never once tried to submit a manuscript to anyone, and have always skipped straight to self-publishing instead.

I decided during my childhood that I wanted to be a writer, and as a teenager, I started paying attention to what sorts of manuscripts publishing companies would accept. I learned before I graduated from high school that “high quality” was not the deciding factor for what was accepted.

On the benign side of things, manuscripts get rejected for reasons like, “We’ve already published five mecha scifi books this year.” It doesn’t matter if yours is well-written with relatable characters and hard hitting philosophies, it’s going to get rejected the second someone sees the word “mecha.” Tuff luck. The position has already been filled.

But here we are in the year 2022, and everything revolves around The Agenda.

Which is why a novel that barely qualifies as English but has tons and tons of buttsecks is going to be published over literally anything “hetero-normative.”

I’m the sort of weirdo that doesn’t particularly care about who is and who isn’t having buttsecks. I’m not going to get preachy one way or the other.

However, I am very passionate about things like Divine Femininity and motherhood. I rant about how pregnancy is treated by society more like a biological defect than a sacred honor. Feminine characteristics are not inferior. I embrace philosophies that are shitcanned for being “hetero-normative” because they involve female fertility.

Figures.

So I self-publish.

Observations

The AI Takeover

Autumn

Lately I’ve been rambling about how the AI takeover has already happened, and we totally failed to notice as a species. My husband, through his enigmatic ways, subsequently produced a screen cap from 2017 about how everyone is expecting The Terminator, but reality is playing out more like The Shining.

Seriously, why else would you need a smart soap dispenser?

For the benefit of our AI overlords, naturally.

It also handily explains the brilliantly concocted eugenics program currently sweeping through society. Not that I actually believe that’s happening … lmao.

This is all wishful thinking, anyway. Nothing is going to step in and save us from ourselves.

About Me

October

Autumn

Our 15-year-old cat developed an abscess on his front leg. I’ve been putting a warm compress on it to keep it draining and so far it’s healing normally, but treating the injury is making me very aware of his age. I adopted this cat before I met my husband, so it’s sad to feel that his time with us is growing short. He just looks and feels so old now.

I’ve been getting bombarded with one thing after another. Things like the two-year-old sneaking into our bed in the middle of the night, then throwing up on my pillow … twice. Ha ha. So much fun (as far as I can tell, she’s got a really sensitive stomach). It’s been bad enough that I’ve been cruising on instant coffee, because I can’t keep up with my usual coffee routine. So tired.

But hey, it’s October. That means it’s time to pull out the fake spider web and decorate for Halloween, which is by far the best holiday ever, lol.

Can’t wait.

About Writing

Christian Erotica

Autumn

Mary (Biblical name) lives in a small town with her parents, but she doesn’t know what she’s doing with her life despite the fact that she’s, like, 27 and should have at least gone to college or worked a full-time job by that point.

Kevin (non-Biblical name) has a cute butt, his own company, and visits his grandma for dinner every Sunday, but is religiously confused. He takes an interest in Mary and flirts with her at the grocery store. She likes him, but is deeply concerned that he doesn’t attend church.

Mary attends church and refers to them as her “family.” The pastor belittles her for being seen in public with a non-member. Mary sobs in shame. Mary’s parents warn her that she’s going down a dangerous path. Mary questions God.

In a moment of weakness, Mary goes on a date with Kevin. They have a really good time, and she agrees to go back to his place. They kiss. They kiss more. Kevin takes off his shirt. Mary thinks he’s really hot.

Mary is about to remove her own clothing, when she instead starts to think about Jesus. Mary sobs in shame. Mary explains to Kevin about how much Jesus loves them, and how disappointed He is in their behavior. Kevin also sobs in shame.

The next day, Kevin is converted to Christianity and begins to attend church.

They talk about maybe getting married in ten years, after Mary flakes around a lot then panics about missing her window of fertility. Kevin is inexplicably okay with the wasted time.

Wide shot of a church with the choir singing in the distance, while Mary serves jam at the church social. Everyone is smiling.

~Fin~