If I don’t just lay around in my bed all day tomorrow I’ll EAT MY HAT.
Did I do that right?
Anyway, this is me doing the third post in a row. If we’re being technical, I cheated. I could have sworn I hit publish in yesterday’s post. But when I opened up the app, it was still in drafts. I was falling asleep when I finished it. But I cheated and gave it yesterday’s post date.
Anyway, it’s not like I work for some major news outlet that I could get in big trouble with for fudging the numbers. I’m just little old me.
But I have confidence that I can succeed at posting every single day. It just might not be quality.
Here’s what might come to you this month.
(By “this month” I mean the next 30 days or so, not by the end of November. I’m not that confident)
Holiday History: Thanksgiving: Yes I know I flubbed up in the Halloween one. I had it scheduled to publish, thinking I would be forced inspired to complete before publish. But I forgot about it and it auto-pub’d incomplete. I realized it when someone LIKED THE POST and I unpublished it. Like, it was poorly written, and I was mid-depressive episode, my dude! Anyway, Thanksgiving is a juicy one and I’m not referring to the Turkey!
Possible PFN short story: I haven’t worked on it in a week, but it’s there, in the back of my mind.
More drawing challenges???
More “flying by the seat of my pants???
To be honest I’m going keep going with my trademark ABSOLUTELY BONKERS “content” until someone forces me to stop. And even then they’ll have to drag the internet away from my clammy clutches.
I am no artist. I’m not very good at drawing. In fact I am not very good at anything. But in order to post a blog every day you must have CONTENT. So I decided to UTTERLY SHAME MYSELF IN A PUBLIC WAY!!
yay.
AnyWho, we all know that I love random generators. So on my favorite random generator site there is a button for a random drawing and so I clicked on that button. This is what I got.
ScreenshotAnd a screen recording. In case… you didn’t believe me… I guess?
Anyway I started on it tonight using Procreate, while on the phone with my dad. I found a decent reference photo and got to work.
Now I know better than to claim it’s any good. But the whole point of the thing was to practice to get better. That’s how one improves at something, I’m told.
I tried to screen record the whole process but my iPad ran out of memory. I’m gonna throw it into a video at some point. Mostly cause I paid for a year subscription of videoleap and don’t want it to go to waste.
I’m also going to leave a small message for my niece. She likes to draw, and also stalks my YouTube when she’s bored. I hope she’ll see it and challenge me 😂.
The Result
On a transparent background A very busy background
How’d I do?
Seriously tho, I don’t need critiques I know it sucks. Lol
Anyway, posting before midnight so I get my daily post in. Goodnight
The current block in place on the Pretend Fantasy Novel happens to be the basis of the entire thing.
That being the prophecy.
While I have the gist of the prophecy written, my brain won’t let me go any further until I get it fancied up. Like, she’s gotta sound good.
Here are a few things, off the top of my head, that I’d like to do or have in place before I feel confident in writing.
The Prophecy: the actual prophecy, preferably in a poetic or lyrical form. I want it to sound like it needs to be interpreted, not like it’s been translated already
The Background: The Who, What, When, Where, and How of it. I want to answer all the questions about it.
Lore: I want to write some backstory. Some lore for the world of Arynthel. This would include the prophecy and other aspects of the story.
Character Development: while I already have the main character (and her trusty sidekick) chosen and living rent-free in my already cluttered noggin, there are more characters to create.
Coming Eventually
In an effort to trigger my brain into manufacturing something besides absolute nonsense and depressive episodes, I began writing a bit of an “origin story”. Actually it feels kinda Frodo/Gollem possessed by the Ring-esq. But it’s helping develops ideas in my head.
I’m not promising anything (we all know how that goes) but I hope to have it finished soon. Once it is finished it will be shared for your free-to-read pleasure. I don’t want to tease the story and make anyone want more and I don’t want to leave anyone hanging with no news.
So I make no promises.
I’ve just been going through some things that are all problems I mostly blow out of proportion in my own head making it worse for everyone around me.
There’s a screw in my tire.
Also coming soon maybe: I’m gonna start doing this thing where I use a random generator to draw an object.
The first one (ignore the ads) is going to be a sunflower. I’m going to be using the art app Procreate to draw it on my iPad. I’d love to improve my artsy fartsy skills and get better at using an app I spent money on. Haven’t decided if it’ll be a video or not yet.
And welcome to day one of “Let’s see how many days in a row I can blog until I either give up or lose my ever loving mind
It’s not like I have don’t have enough to stress about. Because believe me. I do. I recently discovered why my tire on my truck keeps losing air. And it’s not just the cold temps.
THERE’S A FRICKING SCREW EMBEDDED STRAIGHT DOWN IN MY TIRE. Its almost as if someone did it ON PURPOSE.
Side note: I just got the absolute worst medicine stuck in the back of my throat. Y’all ever had a bad cold and been prescribed steroids? Yeah. Worst taste in the world.
Anyway, I know I’m not the best person in the world. I know I’m not the coolest or the most well liked but I sincerely hope that no one intentionally sabotaged my tire.
November 17th is Apparently a bad day for me.
Annually.
9 years ago a dear jumped out of the road to avoid a car then BACK INTO IT apparently to check its makeup in my passenger side mirror.
It busted out the mirror, dented around the handle of my car door, scratched the side panels with its antlers, and left bits of hair along the back fender.
I hadn’t had my license four months, it was around 10pm. I had gotten off work and was on my way home. I managed to keep my composure long enough to get home and I got emotional.
8 years ago, heavily pregnant, I was sick all day, despite my morning sickness mostly passing by this point in my pregnancy. I managed to hold it until I was moments away from the exit door of work and I knew it was happening.
I’d made the mistake of eating food. I’d skipped lunch and ate on my last break. Mostly under peer pressure. “But you’re pregnant you can’t not eat!”
Hell yeah I can and I should have. I felt it happening as I walked out the door and managed to turn to the side out of the way of where customers would walk and just let it go.
The Husband was picking me up from work that day, and didn’t see it happen as there was a car in front of him (they got a show tho). I was, however, watched by a coworker who literally stared, said nothing and just walked in the door.
A friend (who really doesn’t talk to me anymore) happened to come out, I think I warned her, and my “mess” got cleaned up I legit felt better after but was cautious to eat the next day.
So what happened today?
Oh besides being screwed? By a screw? In my tire? Well, my kid had two separate meltdowns at school, leading her teacher to message me multiple times. She eventually calmed down both times, but it ripped a hole in the delicate fabric of my day.
Considering it’s really hard for me to have a good day, and this was the beginning of my weekly four days in a row, it’s not hard to rip me a new one.
The fact that people with less of a tenure than myself are moving up and moving out of my place of employment, and here I am, content to be useless. At a job that, let’s face it, I do not love. Even if I did want to move up, knowing that doing so and my child not having a single week of consistent good days? Let’s just say, it seems entirely too selfish looking for a better position and knowing I’d inevitably lose time with her, which is important when she struggles.
I’ve often said, maybe when she gets a little older and she has adjusted to her struggles and learned to understand what’s happening in her mind and how she can fix it, maybe then I can feel confident in moving up.
But it feels a little selfish that it would mean some piece and quiet, if I’m alone sometimes.
All I really wanted to do today was come home and play Lego Star Wars on my Switch.
Having too much money at your disposal makes you absolutely bonkers. I believe it’s a fact of not having to worry about where your next meal is coming from or how your gonna pay for a new roof when it’s starts leaking through your ceiling and onto your head when you sleep.
That got a little too personal.
Case In Point: Kanye West is Bonkers
In case, on the off chance, you’ve been away from the internet for, I don’t know, ever, Kanye West is a perfect example of how having too much money makes you crazy. “Ye” or whatever he goes by now, has absolutely lost the plot and forgotten what it’s like to be a person human being.
Most notably and within the last six months West posted to Twitter, obviously, that he’s “going death con 3 in Jewish People”.
A screenshot of a screenshot of the most bonkers tweet to ever be tweeted.
First off, Mr. “I Don’t Read Books” it’s “DEFCON”. And it is a defense readiness condition system used my the military or Air Force in order to determine how ready they’d need to be in case of imminent danger or threat of nuclear warfare. If I’m wrong blame me and Wikipedia.
But most importantly he is exhibiting this classic “bonkers” symptom: antisemitism.
Thank you Mr. The Google
Antisemitism was a very real reason for World War II and we all know how that turned out. Hint: NOT GOOD for a lot of people but mostly JEWISH PEOPLE.
Based on the barely decipherable content of the tweet in question (pictured above) Mr KanYe is blaming his problems on Jewish People. Now, while I may be influenced by the internet I have no idea what problems he may or may not think he’s having. They are likely something he’s made up in his own head instead of perfectly normal problems likely to be suffered by average non-incredibly wealthy people.
Because the only problems that he could be having right now are those you have by simply being uncommonly wealthy.
Let me take a moment to make a statement of my own. I want to make it undeniably clear that I am by no means making light of possible serious mental health problems of any one individual or group of people. Through my random readings and my more recent focus on the subject at hand is have learned, only vague details of his being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder.
While a “fan” recently claimed he was “off his meds” West did not outright deny the fact, just talked his way around if calling it “dismissive” to claim he’s off his meds “anytime I speak up.”
My use of the term Bonkers is not poke fun at or make light of mental health struggles.
While Kanye has been banned from Twitter (I believed he blamed the Jews for that one too) he has managed to attempt to use multiple social media platforms.
He continued to mess things up for himself by saying whatever pops up in his head. Because of his multiple antisemitic remarks he’s been dropped from companies, he’s been shunned by brands and pushed away by collaborators.
A person is granted freedom of speech from the government t by the constitution. But when you are in the public eye, and Kanye is very much in thr public eye, your words can come back and bite you in the butt. And I’m the golden age of the internet I’d which we live, you can say one thing and it will reach millions within the hour.
Someone like him, especially considering his history and because of his wealth, is being watched constantly. One problem that he definitely has that is 100% his fault, is the responsibility the think before he speaks. Because his every word will be scrutinized within minutes of sharing.
If you are in the public eye, you don’t have the freedom of speech. You have the freedom to say what you want, but the responsibility to use your words wisely. Lest they be used against you in the court of public opinion.
I recently took an 8 day vacation from work. When I came back from it I was feeling much better emotionally. However, things are starting to building up like a digestive tract that hasn’t gotten enough fiber.
Sorry.
The Ship Maybe Be Sinking
First off, I’ve known for a while that I’m not the kind of friend to some that means I’m on the list of “hey she should know about this”. In fact I’m not on that list of many people in my life. I tend to learn things about people secondhand.
I’ve know this information for a long time, and I’ve decided to not force the issue so as not to bother or annoy anyone, I have also decided I’m not going to dip my toes into a wading pool I’m not invited too. These decisions are made for my mental health so I do not linger where my presence is not requested.
This was all a conscious decision and of my own freewill. But I’d be gosh darned if it doesn’t still hurt a little.
I’m 100% sure that I’m likely just as “at fault” in relationship maintenance as others. The same way that it takes two to tango, it takes two people willing an able to make a bond strong.
I have lost a number of friends in my day, and I’ve had all manner of reactions to it. But no matter how it happens, whether they’ve just disappeared or we’ve drifted apart, I still mourn almost as if there were a death. But the death of what one thought was mutual still stings.
Raising The Kid
After ten months of struggle, and thinking I’d finally reached a plateau, we’re back where we started, basically.
In December of 2021 the hubs and I made the decision that it was time the Kid started sleeping in her own bed. For basically all of her life, she has slept in the bed with me. Now I don’t want to discredit my husband and baby daddy, there were a few nights he took over. But his batting percentage is significantly lower than mine.
The decision was mostly prompted by repeated issues at school resulting in discipline being required. And when you have to punish a kid, allowing said kid to sleep in bed with her mom every night seems a little counterproductive. We made it clear to her that she wasn’t being pushed out because I didn’t want her, she was being guided gently to her own space because it was time to grow up.
Also she’s getting big and a full size bed doesn’t have enough space for the both of us.
She was doing really well. I was doing really well with taking her back to her room at night when she’d wake up. But vacation changed the tune. Because I didn’t have to work every day, I wasn’t making her stay in her room.
So when vacation was over, I couldn’t bring myself to crawl out of bed in the middle of the night and make her go to her room, lay with her until she fell asleep and trudge back to my room. It’s just easier and I get more sleep than all that. Except the rare and glorious occasions when she SLEPT IN HER BED ALL NIGHT.
She hasn’t done that more than a handful of times since my vacation. Waking up this morning after sharing my bed with her for about four hours last night, my hips and joints and head were hurting. I spent most of that time laying in one uncomfortable position to accommodate her and her need to be physically touching (or often on top of) me. Wanting her to sleep in her own bed all night so I could sleep alone makes me feel like a bad mom.
But my lack of willpower to refuse her when she comes stumbling into my room in the middle of the night when I’m drowsy in my own bed makes me feel like a bad mom too. I can’t win for losing.
The Roof The Roof is leaking and it’s becoming a problem.
I’m not even entirely sure at this point how long there has been a leak in the ceiling over my bed. We have lived in this house for thirteen years. There are at least two leaks in the roof over the living room and one over my bed.
Well, it turns out there is one long leak.
Water, while it has no mind of its own, will follow the path of least resistance. That trait, combined with the force of gravity telling it what to do, leads it to create a path of destruction. While your first thought of water might be of something gentle and flowing, water, given enough of it, can begat floods.
While I’ve not had my life flipped over by a flood, I do have the slow and gentle destruction of my sanity by a small leak in the form of a drip, just over my bed. Where my head lays.
I can’t remember when I first started noticing it, but it’s been a problem for a while now.
You see, my whole house, floor to ceiling is wood of some form. The walls and ceiling are the same material, wood slats. And in this wood, like can be found in most wood, are knots. And my leak seeps slowly through a knot.
It’s Knot your problem it’s my problem. That big brown dot turns kinda white when it’s not leaking. It’s been raining. Yay me.
Now, I don’t know why I assumed that it was just dripping straight down onto that knot. And not the actual truth. That the water leaking through the roof has to build up and likely form a puddle for it to leak through.
Because just the other morning, after staying up all night making my kid a costume for Halloween I noticed a wet spot at the foot of my bed. On the bed. At first I thought, oh, I might have laid a wipe there, since I was using them to clean brushes.
After The husband and Kid left for school, I looked into it. Nay, it was not a wipe. In fact it was another drip. The water from the leak in the roof, wherever it is, had built up, and was now slipping through the joints in the slats of wood. It found the quickest and easiest way through and was dripping at the foot of my bed.
I followed the seam of the wood all the way down and it’s right in line with the leak at the head of my bed.
Yay me
Now, I had previously manufactured a temporary solution to having a drip of water on my face every night. It’s what I like to call a hillbilly MacGyver situation. Dollar tree edition. But while temporary meant “until we’re able to fix it”, it decided it was done with my nonsense early this morning.
Now, not only is my pride hurt and I have a red mark and a lump on my forehead, but I had myself a good old fashioned mental breakdown. I cried in bed not just because it hurt, not just because I got slapped awake with a bucket to my noggin, but because eventually this leak is gonna get worse and I’m going to be covered by what’s used to be the upper part of my house.
Ow
Dangerous Combination
Combine all of the above with a constant feeling of failure, feelings of inadequacy, of uselessness. If being broke and depressed, and I am weaving a dangerous web with what the universe keeps throwing at me.
There are an alarming amount of people that would taking having a bucket dropped on your head as a sign. Gravity, after all, was discovered when Newton got sacked on the head by an apple.
But Newton didn’t put the apple on the tree waiting for it to fall. I stuck a bucket to my ceiling in hopes of postponing the inevitable burning down my house in a fit of rage after one too many drops of water interrupted my sleep. So this is all just a sign that I’m a complete idiot.
A Poorly timed free balling NOPE spitballing session.
I got it into my head that I needed to write work on #Pretend Fantasy Novel. I’ve had bits and pieces of the first chapter stuck in my head for months. Yes, I know I’ve been “working” on it for ages, but you know me. But like a silly little dreamer I got it in my head to try and put things down.
So I randomly generated some names for some characters that were in the scene and started laying down some lines. Well, I got to a part that needed more than just a random generator.
The main plot of PFN (titles are hard) is “to prevent the world from ending a number of artifacts of some kind must be collected and taken to a predetermined location”.
See? Proof.
I have added my own spin and, hopefully no spoilers, there’s a prophecy that if “shards” of a thing are not collected and brought together, the world will end. Hold up there’s a whole post. BRB. BMB: The Prophecy. Ok I’m sorry that was a Birthday Month Blogs post where I fell asleep sitting up.
That particular version of the prophecy had a lot of placeholders. The the gist of it is:
The end of times shall be nigh with the dying of the lambs, the rotting of fruit upon the vine, and the spoiling of water in pots.
BUT where it’s unfinished is the actual names of things. So here’s me spitballing ideas into the universe. The Prophecy continues…
Unless the Shards of the fire Crystal from the sky are brought together in The Tomb of Aryn before the setting of the sun on the final day of Harvest, the Earth shall shatter.
Like I said freeNO spitballing. Rolling ideas around in my head to come up with something good. Now, there are a few things in both bits of the passages of the Prophecy that might need explanation.
“Shards”: I heard the word somewhere and liked it? I thought it would make a good name for a thing.
“Aryn”: despite the fact that my head keeps thinking it sounds too much like one of my boss’ name *shudders 🤮😂*, it too came from a random generator.
Proof of another thing
And it was so absolutely similar to the name of the place the novel will take place: Arynthel. That was chosen by the group members as well. It was one of multiple made up using letters from names of the people involved in the creation of PFN.
All I will say about “Aryn” is that I plan on adding Lore to the world of Artnthel, and obviously Aryn (a woman) will be part of it. Not my boss. He’s not cool like that. (In the very unlikely chance he’ll read any of this, he’d probably laugh at me lol.)
The “Fire Crystal from the Sky” I literally made up on the toilet on the spot.
Like I said, the kinks are still being worked out. I want to eventually (before publication) write the whole prophecy in poetic verse form, and make it sound cooler tbh. And I feel like my title is gonna come from the prophecy.
The next couple days are gonna be me working on the prophecy and title, and I would like to start writing in earnest in November. Possibly spend a week on PFN and a week on The Silent Secret, alternating between the two. I think I’ll keep a running weekly word found for both WIPs and post them here.
Twenty-years ago in Black Pine, at a local beach celebration, high school senior, cheerleading captain Haley Sullivan went missing. The incident put a shadow over the entire graduating class and town.
Now, just in time for their high school reunion, those she was closest to in school all received postcards, all reading “Have you forgotten about Haley.”
Lucy Sawyer, childhood friend of Haley, received her post card, and decided it’s time to return home, and maybe find out whose keeping the secret, of what happened to Haley.
The Deets
I came up with the idea for this story during a time when a close relative was very ill. We were passing through a state park with old fashioned motels, run down from disuse, nestled deep in tall trees growing for perhaps a hundred years on the side of a mountain.
Back in the days when family style road trips to see landmarks and local attractions were the go-to vacation, small downs like these were probably popular and thriving. Now the internet exists and if you wanna see a natural bridge or cave system, you can Google it. So the towns, and people in them, lost money as interest waned. These places went from destinations to “just passing through”.
On a trip through the mountains, I started thinking about this, and as I tend to do, wondered what kind of stories someone could tell. And this Black Pines was born.
The idea for the actual store legit came from *drumroll* random generators. I wanted to write a novel entirely with random generators. While it’s been a few years since the idea was created, I know that character names and other aspects came entirely from generators. Including the title. The premise from the story came from the title and bits and pieces of other generators.
Access
The Silent Secret will be my first premium only story. It will be available chapter by chapter on the premium page here. It will ONLY be available via premium.
Premium is currently set at $10 a year, which is pretty reasonable, I think. While subscription is currently open, I won’t be posting any premium content for a while so don’t worry about subscribing right away! It will be announced when it will be posted.
FYI: Creating a (free) WordPress account is required to subscribe.
I’m also working on some promotional material, including a mock newspaper article. This material will be free to read.
WIP/Works in Progress
I currently have multiple works in progress (WIPs) on my docket, including Halloween History, the Choose You’re Adventure Story (which needs a title), and Pretend Fantasy Novel. I hope to have something to share soon!
Right around a year ago, I tried to start something I called “Choose Your Adventure”. You know those old books where at the end of a section it said “go to page 77 for this or page 56 for this” and it would alter the plot?
Well, I tried to do that with polls. I started with a prewritten portion of the story and there would be a poll to decide what I wrote next. It lasted about two polls before I lost my will to live write because no one was interested (probably because I was inconsistent).
Well, I decided that I needed to potentially overwhelm myself once more with a third mini project (in addition to PFN and 2nd Story). This will be my Halloween, though not super creepy, story for the month of October.
I’m thinking of it as a palate cleanser for when I’m feeling brain fried while focusing on the main events. So in an act of good faith, below you’ll find what was already written on the Choose Your Adventure Story, plus a little fresh that hadn’t been shared yet! Enjoy and keep your eyes open for the redux!
Crash Landing 