I’ve been channeling my inner Paula Deen and indulging in Southern comfort foods. Banana pudding and lemon curd pudding? Yes please! Chocolate popcorn, potato salad, beer can chicken (though I used apple juice instead) … It’s feels really good to throw off all concerns about sugar and fat and just indulge in the fuel of life.
Besides, I was never the one who cared about reading ingredient labels anyway.
The weather is nice and I’ve been getting out a fair bit, going on nature walks and identifying bird song using a handy app I downloaded. I like how I have a better understanding of the world around me, not to mention the excitement of hearing a bird that’s marked as “uncommon” or “rare.” My kids and I also keep our eyes out for fish in the river, any other critters that we can spot, and plants that are interesting … I enjoy these excursions quite a bit.
I patched a hole in the back tire of my daughter’s bike. I haven’t done this sort of thing since I was a kid, so it was satisfying when I got the bicycle put back together and it worked … especially with getting the chain back onto the gears, since that was rather tricky for me. I like discovering this inner reserve of handiness that’s gone untapped over all these years, and it’s really boosting my confidence. It’s not that I couldn’t fix things, but rather that I was never allowed to before.
Occasionally, after all of these busy days of outings and improvements, I have days when I feel completely unmotivated to do anything. I’m doing my best to frame these as days of rest, and not judge myself by their existence. I’m rebuilding a lot right now, and it would be unfair to expect myself to keep doing so much every single day.
It is surprisingly hard to write about myself. The internet is full of people who go on and on about the ordinary things that they do, while here I am struggling with summarizing my weekly activities. I don’t believe that I have the “it” factor, so I’m not going to gain any attention through journal entries, but this is something that I want to do for myself. I grew up in a shadow, then married into a different shadow, and now I want to feel like I have the right to shine with my own light. No permission required.
Hartmann was summoned back to the Base the next day, and waited in the bunker with no explanation of what was supposed to happen. He stared at the Suit and ached to touch it the way the cleaning lady did, but his training kept him in his position, ready to salute the moment a superior appeared to deliver orders. He mused over the possibility that some new intel had dropped, and he was on the verge of being sent out on another mission. In a matter of time, he would return home a hero, and the incident with Carol would be as forgotten as completely as she was.
What he did not anticipate was Captain Lambert to appear with Carol in tow. She was pale, and hid behind Lambert’s large frame to avoid Hartmann’s burning gaze, seeming even more timid and nervous than she had before. If he hadn’t been so annoyed over her reappearance, he would have found her behavior cute.
“MSG Hartmann,” Lambert said brusquely, “You are to assist me in training a new pilot for the Suit.”
Hartmann’s hackles rose sharply. “Who?” he demanded without any of the expected deference. “That bitch?”
Carol’s eyes teared up as her head swung away, her hands wringing together as she tried to shrink into herself behind Lambert’s back. It wasn’t the captain’s barked out punishment that twinged Hartmann with contrition, so much as the way Carol failed to defend herself against the word. He had expected her to bite back at him, to fling insults and posture as if she had a chance in a fight against him. Anything that would show that she thought of herself as too tough for him to feel guilty over. Compared to all the other women Hartmann had known, Carol seemed unnaturally quiet.
The way Lambert moved to shield her filled him with jealousy.
There was no way the captain was smitten with Carol. She was too pathetic and plain. All she had going for her was the fact that she cleaned the Suit … and the way her hair brushed the top of her petite shoulders, promising a feminine clavicle hidden underneath the neckline of her t-shirt. Hartmann thought about how she had felt under his hands, and how her soft muscles had struggled to pull away from him without any success.
Hartmann was the Suit’s pilot, and Carol was the cleaning lady. If she was going to belong to anyone, it was going to be him.
Not Lambert.
But he was determined to punish her for turning his world upside down.
Hartmann added extra energy into every push up, boosting himself off the floor to clap before catching himself again, purely for the sake of showing off. When he was through, he smugly noted the displeasure on Lambert’s face, and the amazement in Carol’s eyes.
“As I was saying,” Lambert continued gruffly, “The Suit considers Carol to be its ‘commander,’ and orders have come down for us to train her on how to pilot it.”
“You expect me to believe that, sir?” Hartmann narrowed his eyes.
“I verified it myself.” Lambert crossed his arms over his chest. “During the incident you created, the Suit automatically turned on and welcomed Carol as the ‘commander’ while she was inside. She has full access to all the Suit’s records, as well as a number of features that we never dreamed of. While you were lazing around at home, Carol and I were up digging through as much information as we could.”
Hartmann was lost for words. The muscle in his jaw twitched, but his teeth were locked together. He stared as Lambert proceeded to brush Carol’s hair back and clip a receiver onto her t-shirt, stared as the cleaning lady looked to the captain for reassurance who in turn gave her a small nod, and stared as she climbed up the ramp and enclosed herself inside the Suit. His Suit.
“Carol,” Lambert spoke into his radio, and it crackled as she replied,
“Here, sir.”
Then, disbelievingly, a computer voice sounded over the radio: “Welcome back, Commander.”
Was that why Carol had slid out of the Suit in an inexplicable daze the day before? Did she genuinely have a connection with it that he could never understand?
It wasn’t fair.
He was the best pilot.
He got the most important missions.
Why should the cleaning lady appear out of nowhere and take away his glory?
“Now, Carol, MSG Hartmann is going to be a good boy and coach you through how to move the Suit. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure that he plays nice,” Lambert spoke into his end of the radio, then gave Hartmann a warning scowl as he handed it over. “I mean it,” he growled. “Follow orders, and play nice.”
“Yes, sir,” Hartmann replied sulkily, then found his throat too thick to speak to Carol. He had to clear it first, then pushed the button to transmit, “The best way to explain it is that you connect your mind to the Suit, and after that walking should be as intuitive as it is with your own body. Don’t overthink it; just let it happen naturally.”
Silence answered, and Hartmann wished that Carol was more verbal. He missed the nonstop noise that usually surrounded women, that left no mystery as to what they were thinking. Dealing with Carol felt a lot like going up against a wall, with no way of knowing what he was going to find on the other side if he managed to break it down. It was frustrating. Unnerving.
Then the Suit took a step forward, and the two men jumped back as the screech of twisting metal filled the bunker. In one fell swoop, Carol had completely destroyed the ramp.
Hartmann stared as a grin crept across his face, then doubled over in laughter. Lambert cussed profusely, shouting into the radio, “God fucking dammit, Carol! Watch where you’re going!” It was satisfying to imagine her crying inside the cockpit as the captain continued ranting, “You are in a formidable piece of equipment, so do not destroy the base through stupidity and incompetence. Do you understand!”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Carol’s voice sounded broken, but her mental connection with the Suit was continuing to improve. Hartmann could see that it was imitating her body language, trying to curl up and disappear, which was comical for a 12-foot mecha. There were definitely tears on her cheeks, and it was time for him to wipe them away, so to speak.
He reached over to take the radio back, and purred, “Don’t sweat it, that was only the ramp. Give your legs a stretch, and see how it feels … just remember to be mindful of your surroundings.”
Lambert crossed his arms over his chest and growled, “Get her to the airfield, then join me in the jeep.”
Hartmann was satisfied as Lambert stormed away, certain that his sour mood wasn’t over the wrecked ramp. “All right, the captain wants us outside,” he spoke into the radio. “You up for it?”
“Yes, sir,” Carol replied dutifully, so he answered playfully,
“Save that for the captain. I want you to call me … master sergeant.”
She was silent, confused by his behavior as she went through the massive double doors that had been pulled open, and Hartmann followed her outside, ordering her to jog down the length of the airfield.
He dropped his affectation as soon as he was seated next to Lambert in the jeep. Carol was adapting to the Suit much faster than he had, despite his intuitive grasp of it, and the way she moved around the airfield was too natural – to the point of becoming unnatural. Hartmann knew that he was the best damn pilot to ever climb inside the Suit, but that was all he did: pilot. Carol, on the other hand … she was inhabiting it like a second skin, especially as she was becoming more and more comfortable with moving around the airfield. It crossed his mind that, with the way she was catching on, the Suit could have been made for her.
Commander.
Hartmann had been in the military for far too long to let anything show on his face. His instructions to Carol over the radio became more mechanical and routine, but his thoughts remained perfectly hidden. He almost managed to keep them from himself, but as he stared it was undeniable that she was better at maneuvering the Suit than he was, even despite lacking the discipline that would have given her grace and efficiency.
“The Suit is following her body language more than I expected,” Lambert muttered beside Hartmann, though he was speaking more to himself. “She’ll need to be physically trained to clean up that sloppiness.”
Hartmann shrugged, muttering “Yes, sir,” when he failed to come up with an obnoxious reply. He had never watched the way he piloted the Suit from the outside, and he wondered if it responded similarly to his movements, or acted more like a robot.
Lambert continued, reluctantly saying, “You will work with her on the track this afternoon while I attend to other duties. You will be courteous, considerate, and respectful, and you will not make her cry. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Hartmann echoed. He had to stop himself from asking why the captain cared so much about the cleaning lady’s feelings in a world where tender emotions were a dangerous weakness. He already knew the answer.
Sometime later when they were back inside the bunker, Carol parked the Suit in its usual place, opened the doors, then stood hesitantly looking down at the drop to the floor. Hartmann wondered why she hadn’t kneeled in the Suit first, given that she was the one who destroyed the ramp and knew damn well that it wouldn’t be there, but Lambert stepped forward and held up his arms.
“Come on, we haven’t got all day,” he snapped, but Hartmann recognized the false gruffness of someone who had adapted to his rank to survive.
She cautiously dropped down to Lambert, and his hands closed around her waist as he lowered her to the floor. His fingertips curled in slightly, and trailed along her t-shirt as he pulled his hands away, his face too stony to be anything other than a mask. Carol was appropriately oblivious, which Hartmann found soothing; he wasn’t the only one she completely failed to notice.
“Get some lunch, then report to MSG Hartmann for physical training,” Lambert ordered. “Like it or not, we’re going to beat the civilian out of you, commander.”
“Yes, sir,” Carol replied, then turned and trotted to join some corporal that Hartmann only vaguely recognized. An assigned escort, he hoped.
Having time alone with Carol was going to give Hartmann the advantage, and if he worked his magic right, Lambert wasn’t going to stand a chance. Underneath the boring beige of her existence, he’d bet anything that Carol was still a woman, and still susceptible to his charms.
If the Suit couldn’t belong to him anymore, then he was going to claim ownership of the next best thing.
I went and gussied up some of the old posts I made about my writing process that I’m still proud of.
It wasn’t exactly the most exciting thing to do, but those AI features made it much easier, and even gave me a chuckle with some of the quirky generated images. Will it matter at all? Heck if I know. I barely know what SEO even is, and I’m not all that convinced that it will do anything to boost my blog stats. But, at the very least, it makes me feel like a more attentive blogger,
And attentive bloggers blog more often. So there.
I want to write about myself more, and think about myself more. I feel like I’ve spent years listening to someone go on and on about himself, and every time I said anything like, “I have a dream too!” I was instantly shut down. “Whoa there. Getting full of yourself, aren’t you?”
But it isn’t egotistical to have dreams about where I want my life to go. Maybe I won’t end up in a big house on the bench of the mountain, but I can still watch the sunset glint off those enormous windows as I drive by and wonder what it would be like to live there. It’s not wrong to feel inspired to pursue success for myself.
It’s not wrong to believe that I have skills and talents. It’s not wrong to think about how I can use those skills and talents to make my way in the world. The Universe didn’t designate me to sit in the dark as a permanent audience member — I have a passion for writing that I want to share with the world, and I genuinely believe that I can offer something that others would enjoy.
And it’s not wrong for me to exist as a real person writing about my real experiences. “Dear diary, today I went with the kids to the park. The breeze was cold but the sun was hot, and the public restrooms are finally open for the season.” My thoughts and perceptions are valid, and I want the freedom to express them without wondering who might disagree with them.
I still have my own opinions and philosophies about writing, and I still want to write about them. Maybe soon enough, I’ll be able to take those old posts and rewrite them — expound on them — and compile something that could even be published as a “how to” type book. ~Writing With Autumn Rain~ Forward by ChatGPT
And maybe I’ll finally figure out why SEO matters.
I find it encouraging that my fiction writing is still performing the best in my blog statistics.
I’ve been working on overcoming the memory of that smug voice telling me that my writing ideas were cliched and immature. Despite that proclamation, I continued writing my ideas. Alice and the Warden? Me. The Scion Suit? My interpretation of a writing prompt. The Black Magus? Yup, that was me. I enjoyed writing my ideas immensely, and others have enjoyed reading them as well, so it doesn’t matter if they were “cliched” or “immature” — it isn’t about being the best of the best, it’s about personal satisfaction and having fun.
It wasn’t really my ideas that were the problem. Rather, it was the seed planted in my brain that made me feel like I had to seek a stamp of approval before I could write them. That deep insecurity and fear I always felt when I started a story that hadn’t been given the “green light” by someone else.
Yet that person who had propped himself up as the Gatekeeper of Quality left.
It might be difficult to understand if you haven’t been through this, but when someone deliberately inflicts an emotional wound so that they can provide the “cure,” that wound is still there after they leave. Real healing takes time and is very difficult, especially when you feel the withdrawal from the false cures they fed you. It hurts severely to acknowledge that they weren’t trying to help you improve, but instead deliberately keeping you dependent.
Despite knowing better on a cognitive level, it’s been terrifying to write without that stamp of approval.
I’ve switched back to writing with a pen in a notebook, but unfortunately my handwriting muscles aren’t what they used to be (I blame the years spent typing). It reminds me of being a teenager, secretly filling page after page with my characters in novels that will never see the light of day, though now my end goal is to publish. I haven’t given up on my dream of being a professional author; it’s always there in my mind through every moment of every day.
All I need to do is write without holding anything back.
I’ve taken a much-needed break, though I can’t say that my life is any different these days. Motherhood is taking most of my focus as usual, but I am feeling much better about myself in general; I’m learning the value of simply breathing.
The kids and I have made plans on how we want to celebrate Valentine’s Day together, including decorating cookies and setting up a chocolate fondue. Valentine’s Day is still one of my favorite holidays, and I’m still excited for it — I’ve never been one of those bitter “singles awareness” types, and I’m not going to start now.
It’s hard to summarize everything, honestly. I’m busy with plenty of activities, and I’ve been spending a lot of time processing the past and musing about the future, as well as trying to appreciate each day as it comes. I spend a lot more time out of the house these days, practicing how to engage complete strangers in small talk, and slowly boosting my confidence bit by bit. No more shy and invisible for me!
I still haven’t decided what I want to do with RuneMaster. Since I originally created the characters back when I was in high school after a traumatic period in my life, it seems very fitting that I should do my “grown up” rewrite now, after another traumatic period in my life. Come to think of it, the mirroring of past and present is a little weird. I don’t break up often, but when I do …
I need to figure out what happens in the rewrite. When I began it a year ago, I decided to cut a character to make the story fit into the overall mythos better, but now I think I want to put him back in … even if it does completely change the dynamics of the characters’ interactions. Why not, right? I ain’t got no fanbase to disappoint. 😆
I’m serious when I whip out my notebook and start taking notes.
So … “how to get big on youtube” is a genre, and there are about a million channels all telling you how to … get big on youtube. Naturally, that inspires me to feel massively insecure about the fact that probably everyone is following the same advice, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to measure up to all the people who don’t have my issues (of which I have so many). There are a gazillion youtube videos out there, after all.
Meanwhile, I’m still working on my camera anxiety.
This is probably going to be a big block for me, but I’m determined to get over it. The thing is, I realized that since I’ve lived most of my life trying to be invisible, I’ve attracted people who wanted me to be invisible … and I don’t actually like it at all. What I really want is to feel seen and heard, which also means that I have to get over feeling so uncomfortable with being seen and heard. I mean this for my personal relationships just as much for my current career venture.
To get a little bit personal here, I recently played Josh Groban’s song, “Hidden Away” while belting it out with my terrible vocal control, when in the middle of it I broke down sobbing too hard to keep singing.
If no one sees you then nobody knows And all these words you were meant to say Held in silence day after day Words of kindness that our poor hearts crave Please don’t keep them Hidden away
Josh Groban – Hidden Away
I’m teary eyed right now just reading over it again.
I don’t think I was meant to be silent and invisible in my life. I love words too much, and I care too much about leaving a positive impact on the world. So, no matter how hard and scary it is for me to stand up and be seen, I want to do it. I want to overcome my fear. Because I want to help others and leave the world a better place, and I can’t do that in hiding. Do you want to know something that I’ve learned? Strong emotions, including fear, are easier to turn into forward momentum than having weak emotions. So it’s a good thing that I’ve got fear in droves — tons and tons of it, about practically everything.
Getting back to the original topic …
The deeper I dive into this youtube idea, the more it feels like I need to do this for the sake of my future. Because, as it’s been said, “If you do what you did, then you’ll get what you got,” and I really don’t want to repeat my past. If I can get over my camera anxiety, then I can start a new chapter in my life where I’ll be more confident in myself and make better choices. I also won’t attract people who expect me to sit in the shadows while they hog the spotlight.
So, the photo above is of some of the notes that I’ve been taking about managing a youtube channel — specifically the thumbnails. Not every popular channel follows those rules, but they’re a good place to start, especially considering that you only get about one second to capture someone’s attention. Then, after they clicked that thumbnail to see what the heck, the first ten seconds of the video are where you establish whether or not they’re going to stick around and watch it. Kind of insane, right? One second to catch someone’s eye, and ten seconds to make them stay — yet that’s how fast our brains work. In a way, it takes the pressure off the rest of the content, because as long as I don’t plummet downhill with the quality, I don’t have to maintain that level of engagement for the entire video.
I’m starting to feel excited about learning marketing. I wouldn’t go and claim that I feel excited for it every moment of every day — I still have plenty of periods of feeling soul-crushing defeat about how everything went so so wrong — but I can get behind the idea of spending 2025 learning me some new skills and re-making my life into something better. Provided I don’t end up homeless.
I even went through the trouble of digging out my fancy camera, that I bought all the way back in 2016 so that I could get high-quality photos and videos of the kids. Only then I became too anxious about accidentally breaking it or something, so I didn’t use it that much, and it ended up sitting in the case gathering dust. LOL. Now it can be repurposed for youtube, I guess.
So … let’s see where this goes.
What about you? What are some strong emotions that you’ve had, that you’ve used to change something for the better in your life? I’m really curious, because I think that we can help cheer each other on with positive words; we all probably need more than we’re getting. 😊
One of those big and glaringly obvious things about trying to make a living as an indie author is that you have to, you know, write books to make it happen.
Ha ha, yeah, I’ll get around to it.
Currently my actual progress with novel writing is quite small. Currently my mind is a little too preoccupied with the real world to think that much about my fictional ones. I wouldn’t say, “writer’s block”, but I’m definitely still deep in “writer’s process.” And while I’m kinda wishing that I was more of an escapist sort, I need to get a real-world foundation built under me before I can start dreaming.
There is a slightly pragmatic element to me.
So instead of thinking about Malachi and Lyra, running around and doing things in Runemaster, I’m thinking about boring adult things like my credit score. I’m figuring out how to structure my day so that I can have time for everything that needs to be done. I’m trying to remember to stay hydrated and get some fresh air and sunshine. I’m adjusting to a major life change. I’m stopping a four-year-old and a two-year-old from spitting at each other across the room, because despite how cute and little they are, it’s also kinda gross.
What I need is time. I wish that life came with a pause button that I could smack every time I needed a moment to think and process, but the sun continues to rise and fall the same way that it always has and always will. I don’t know if I’m counting down the days to a deadline, or if I’ll have all the time I need. And it’s easy to get caught up in the stress.
So I remind myself not to make any decisions based on fear. I can be logical. I can follow what my heart truly wants. But I won’t let myself succumb to fear; that’s not how I want to live the rest of my life. I know deep in my heart that writing is the only thing that I have any real ambition for, so that’s where I’m throwing all my energy.
However, I’m not going to lie: having a fire tickling my behind is also proving itself to be great motivation. I might not be deep into writing yet, but I’m thinking a lot about the marketing aspect and learning new skills.
My life right now
Speaking of marketing, that whole “SEO optimization” makes me feel awkward. There’s nothing poetic about it, and it’s definitely not natural to my way of thinking.
“Calls to action” are also something that are currently uncomfortable. Should I really end my blog posts with, “Now that I’ve shared how my life is a train wreck, tell me about your own train wrecks in the comments below!” Is that appropriate?
But what the hey, let’s commiserate a little bit. What are you struggling with in your life right now?
One of the nice things about being a writer is that I can step outside of myself and ask, “How would a confident character handle this situation?”
Then I give myself guidelines to follow, and do my best to emulate how my imaginary character would be navigating my real life.
For example, I’ve given myself the very strict rule of no rebound dating. At first I felt done with relationships altogether, so it wasn’t really that big of an issue … but as time wears on, I find myself missing simple things like hand holding more and more. But since the last thing that I want to do is drive off a perfectly good partner with unresolved emotional baggage (or pick a bad one because of said baggage), I’m holding fast to my rule. This time is for rebuilding myself, and that’s what I’m going to do! Even if it leaves me feeling lonely.
Back during the summer, I told my domestic violence class that I was going out of my way to do one fun activity a week, outside of the daily grind and responsibilities, to remind myself that life still had a lot of enjoyable and beautiful things to offer. And I meant it. I was — and still am — doing my best to engage in some small activity every week, like hiking and baking.
But here’s the dark side to trying to emulate a fictional character: I felt like an impostor after saying that.
Despite the fact that my actions were true to my words, inside I didn’t feel like I was having all that much fun. Inside, I had days where I kinda wanted to step in front of a moving train. But I didn’t confess that to anyone, because I didn’t want anyone to stress and worry over me. I was already suffering from enough guilt over the events that landed me in a domestic violence class in the first place, and I didn’t want to add to it. I didn’t want it to turn into a Big Deal. So instead, I took my kids to the zoo so that they could have something exciting.
Enough time has passed now that the painful emotions are settling down, but the habits are still here. Still eating ice cream every Sunday, and going on long walks by the river. Still taking the kids to the park, and still looking for shapes in the clouds. Still watching the sunset.
My heart isn’t back yet to where it used to be. I’m still grieving the loss of the life I thought that I would have, and still trying to wrap my mind around what my future is going to be like. But it’s okay to feel a little bit like an impostor because my insides aren’t matching up to my outsides, because as long as I keep doing my best I’m sure that they’ll synchronize once again. One day I’ll see rainbows and feel the beauty with my entire soul.
I posted the second half of chapter 2 for The Scions yesterday, which gives the basic setup for the rest of the story.
Yes, Hartmann is crazy.
And, driven by a mixture of resentment, jealousy, and competition, he decides to pursue Carol for a possessive relationship.
For those who are unfamiliar with The Scion Suit world, Carol’s responses are probably going to be uncomfortable to read. There is a reason behind them, as there is a reason for Hartmann’s craziness. Also, since I’ve chosen to place the camera (so to speak) behind Hartmann’s shoulder, we’re seeing Carol through his interpretation.
I’m not a cookie-cutter genre writer, and I don’t color in the lines. I write to express the human condition, and not everyone lives a sheltered and privileged life. Not everything is pretty.
Anyway, I guess I just want to give the proper context for this story. The hard part about throwing it out there is knowing that many people aren’t going to understand it. Consequently, I feel protective of both Hartmann and Carol — I’m not out to vilify or condemn anyone.
I don’t usually get so emotionally attached, but this story is special.
By Autumn Rain 