Dear Diary

A 3616-post collection

Slow start

Since nobody gets out of bed before 5:30 anyway, I'm re-setting my alarm to that time and not waking up early for half an hour of heartbreaking inertia. And that's all I have this morning. Inertia has me in its wicked claws today.

I woke up at around 3 and tried and failed to get back to sleep. A combo of Beloved's snoring and the various little annoying lights in the room kept me awake. The phone makes the body lotion glow in the freaking dark. It's downright disturbing.

I am going to get some foam and make little covers for the annoying things in my room that glow when I don't want them to. Absolute darkness is a fantastic sleep aid, it seems. And now that I know it... I need it.

Yes, I have a sleep mask. That little shit has a tendency to slip off in the night and then all the firkin glow wakes me up. Bleh. Homemade glowy thing covers with optional heat vents cut into the sides where I shouldn't see the light... seems to be the way to go.

And if Beloved removes them... We'll have to talk about that.

I have a thousand words to write, art to work on, shopping to do, a comic to make, a book to read through (the artificial voice is invading my thoughts! HELP!) and, if I can overcome inertia enough, today, taking an entire hour to just firkin chill.

It's not looking too good for that. But it's the least-effort self-care that I have.

Beloved is taking a day off so they can help their Mum. MeMum is in Clucky Chook mode about everything, and the communication lines between sides of the family right now seems... very unreliable. I guess I'm the buffer between Beloved's Mum and MeMum's anxious buckaw-ing. No slight intended on MeMum, honestly, but sometimes a Clucky Chook is the last thing you need when dealing with the aftermath of shit plus fan.

I should reblog, retweet and re-whatever-facebook-does the call to arms for beta-readers. Because only one person has answered it so far. Either everyone's too busy to read (likely) or I'm not that great and nobody wants to proof my books. The latter of which, of course, my inner hatred takes as proof positive that I suck and I don't really deserve to exist, that I'm a drain on humanity, etc. etc. etc.

I really wish my inner hatred would stop pulling this shit. It needs to chill, too. This is why I need a me-hour to just fart around and enjoy myself. I always feel better after I've fulfilled a few quests in WoW or chipped further away at another layer of mountain in Minecraft. It's something that can be accomplished when nothing else seems to be working.

Maybe I should take that hour and make up the rest of it later on. Definitely after I've done my Instant, though. Nobody knows when I work on my novel, and nobody minds when I post my art. If I post my art. The Hatchworth animation is taking forever and a week. It's pure accident that makes it look like his arms are moving and I'm glad of it. Pretty certain that folks don't want to see what five more frames look like, every other day.

Speaking of animation, I'm doing five more frames, today. Hatchworth's hatch should finally dawn over the top of the hill I drew, and then I have to watch out for when his jacket stops. It's going to be weeks before I have to fret about his pants or his walk cycle.

Meanwhile, One Leap Year of Instants (2016) has finally entered the premium catalogue after I purged any reference to Amazon out of the "Also by this author" part of the novel. Do me a favour and go buy my Amazon exclusive novella. If you've already done so, please leave a positive review. Even if you think it sucked, think up a very nice way to say that it sucked.

But now... it is time to bull my way through the day. Wish me all the luck you have. I think I need it.

Struggle to juggle

I think I should probably try to do a "head space" comic per day. As well as the other stuff. I've learned I can only handle animation in small doses, so maybe five frames a go is my limit. And I still haven't posted the progress pix for the latest art piece I'm working on.

I know that it looks like a bag of suck at the moment, which is why I haven't posted it.

Bag of suck or not, I feel

Read more »

Murgledy...

I know I'm getting to sleep. I know I'm sleeping the night... but it's not working as much as it used to. Maybe it's the change of seasons. Maybe it's the time I spend reading in bed. Maybe I just need a coffee. Whatever it is, I'm not as fully "charged" as I'm used to.

Which means I'm back to functioning on low battery.

I know how to do it... I'd just rather not. You know?

My shrink gave me more homework,

Read more »

So much to do

I'm still doing the read-through of Beauties, and aim to get to the halfway point before the end of the day. Each chapter takes fifteen minutes away from other things.

Other things like writing my Instant, or working on the first five hundred words of the new book, Rael. And I haven't even written the nut notes.

They'll evolve as time goes by.

I've always needed nut notes to keep things straight. As I introduce people, I'll take notes.

And everything is

Read more »

Road trip!

I'm off to MeMum's today. To deliver a few things, sort out her compy troubles, and possibly help with whatever happens to be happening at the time. It's a long and tiring trip for me, and I don't expect much creativity to be done today.

As it is, I am hurrying to get the Instant done so I can be on my way,

I've only done a read through of one chapter of Beauties. It takes a lot of time and focus

Read more »

...dagnabbit

Good news: I have found a way to do an efficient read-through of Beauties before I send it off to my dear, dedicated Beta-readers.

Bad news: It sucks balls and takes an age to do.

The method? I get my computer to read my book to me and follow along. Chapter by chapter. I have to take the time to devote myself to this so that my Betas have more to enjoy and less to do. Y'all should be backup to make

Read more »

Yoiks and Away, I guess.

Before I wanted to write a draft of the very polite letter I sent to the most recent A2B, I thought I'd check in on their website to see what their responses were likely to be like in the first place.

if we are interested in discussing possible representation, we will contact you by email or phone—typically within 6 weeks.

The time limit has run out. They haven't contacted me. So...

I pick another A2B and try again. At least the

Read more »

Welp. That worked.

I scanned for news about the International Women's day and the global women's strike that was supposed to happen, yesterday. Not a sausage, as Bluebottle would say.

Hopefully, things are better in other places. Maybe some certain people will see the advantages of paying people equally for all the invisible work that gets done.

It could turn out two ways, really. The whiter percentage of the population could be just fine with a 27% pay gap, think they have enough rights already,

Read more »

Closed for Today

There once was a man in the late 50's who would come home from work to find his wife exhausted and not "in the mood". Everything else was picture perfect. The house looked like it came out of a catalogue, the kids were clean and picturesque. Dinner was a dream... it was just the little lady who was constantly out of sorts.

Every evening, he had the same complaint. "I don't know why you're so tired, you just do nothing all day.

Read more »

::William Tell Overture at 75rpm::

[AN: IDEK when this should have posted, but you can assume I was very distracted]

Okay, so today is busy and I only have myself to blame. I had scheduled an appointment for Chaos to get her shrinky paperwork in order for yesterday afternoon, but because of a sick Mayhem, I completely forgot about it.

Derp.

Now I have one this morning, but with squeaking room to actually get to the shrink on time. AND I have paperwork to hand in to

Read more »

Urgh...

So we finally edited Adapting, yesterday. And it was a slog. One of my dear Betas did not like the way I introduced all the concepts in the first chapter. I'm halfway compelled to start every single one of the first five Amalgam books in the exact same way.

I mean, sir Pterry started all of his earliest books by yatting on about A'Tuin for about three pages and nobody complained. It's setting the scene. It's a small amount of showing exactly

Read more »

Statistics Sunday, exercise, and other impediments

We're still not exercising regularly. Alas, alack. It's just not going to happen, what with Beloved going to work at Sparrow Fart in the morning. Morning was our best window for working out. And when Beloved comes home, tired from all the nonse they had to do during the day, they're hard pressed to have a conversation.

But we're both making sure we at least walk every day. I remember the old tricks I used when I was suffering under the high-carb

Read more »

Happy anniversary, babe

It's almost been twenty years of togetherness for Beloved and I. Twenty years of them putting up with my crap. Plus all the time we had as mere cuddle-buddies, which doesn't count apparently. Otherwise, it'd be twenty-two.

We have plans to go see Logan in a Gold Class cinema, which means I pretty much have to hurry up and do this thing as fast as I can.

No sign of rejection from A2B.

Chaos is officially critter-free, and I owe the school

Read more »

F-O-C-U-S

Today's my last day for writing Beauties and the Beastly so of course I'm procrastinating harder than ever. With all good luck, Beloved and I will be editing Adapting and then I'll be sending out Beauties to my lovely beta readers.

All of whom, I sincerely hope, will get back to me promptly about the contents of said novel. Instead of taking most of this novel's writing to do so.

Yes, I am still salty about that.

When I am of a

Read more »

Finding that new swing

Okay. So I no longer really have free time in the mornings. I have my alarm set at 5AM so that I have time to bathe before Beloved racks off to work. Then it's pretty much pure chasing my little darlings until it's time to go to school. And each little darling has a different delivery time.

Mornings after dropping off Mayhem are the best time to go shopping for fresh veggie matter so I can have dinner be all delicious and

Read more »