Whispers

Feels like lots of dying lately

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 20:27:20 GMT

Blessings on all those with losses. I lost my grandfather, the last rock of an older generation for me, and I've been really quiet and not even lurking while I process this. A lot of things I loved working on are probably dead for good. Some aren't, and new things are happening. Slowly.

I hope all of you are doing well. Much love.

comments

New Year's Goals

Mon, 08 Jan 2024 22:59:31 GMT

I wasn’t really sure I was going to do New Year’s goals, but alas, I have some in the big areas of health, spiritual, writing, and finances.

I’m on my January week off for the year, and I haven’t really gotten going on my heaps of reading to do nor getting into writing, though I’ve things I do in fact want to scribble on. But due to it being my “recover from the brink of catastrophic failure to function” week, I’m not stressing over producing anything, and I’m kind of super chuffed that goals happened. I wasn’t planning to do them, but I got them set up as weekly things to track.

Hope everyone had some lovely holidays and a lovely new year to you!

comments

In Random News

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 23:07:20 GMT

I'm actually doing things while lurking: writing novels (takes forever, oh well), watching new tv series on occasion (Frieren is amazing anime and gecko has absolutely got me in love with Kiseki), and still earning enough income to survive. But in short, I've been lurking and not talking about any of it because I'm concentrating on my health and most days don't have energy to do more than that. So I'll try to keep up with randomly messaging people and replying whenever that crops up and sending warm fuzzy well wishes to everyone.

In the meantime, if I ever finish writing something, I'll post it, but otherwise, gonna probably keep lurking for a while.

Love.

comments

Another Day

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 02:06:58 GMT

I had gotten behind on laundry, so the joys of wfh, is that if the fam doesn’t need the washer, I can just change out loads all day in between more important professional-type tasks. But it was a lot of laundry and there is a mountain of it atop my bed waiting for me to clear it away so I can sleep.

In other news, I’ve signed up for the free version of Avid Pro Intro and Cakewalk by Bandlab and started scrounging around for the cables for my neglected Casio WK-210 and I’m gonna see if I can get back into at least playing around with music for fun and mental health. (Singing to myself is great, but sometimes one might want something less ephemeral.)

I’m off the massive work recovery thing, so hopefully brainspace will be restored to full writing capability in the next day or so.

Have a nice night!

comments

An Update I Guess

Sun, 11 Jun 2023 22:05:01 GMT

So I haven’t been blogging. This isn’t news. But basically, I didn’t have energy and I kind of feel bad for doing so much less communication with anybody I care about, but I also haven’t been up to making it happen anyway. That’s what bad health will do to you.

And to be completely honest, I’ve still been digging myself out of some serious depression after I ended up realizing how far I have fallen on that front. Let’s just say if my chronic health issues have started affecting my ability to think and function in a most basic manner (which was already clear to me from my degraded ability to do my dayjob), then maybe don’t mod anything. Biggest regret ever that I didn’t see that coming and quit before things went bad.

Progress is being made on the health front, but when you’re basically fighting just not to get worse, that’s not really indicative of improvement yet. I remain hopeful for actual improvement and just continue to plug away at trying to survive in the meantime.

Back to writing again, which suffers from the same problems the rest of my life does: health doesn’t always allow me to be functional, but when I am functional, I’m enjoying the ability to put words on paper again towards the current novels-in-progress. While I look forward to actual improvement, here too I’ll be grateful to just hold steady.

So this is a cheerful post! But ah well. I do feel a bit more cheerful than it sounds. Because at least I don’t feel like I’m on a slippery slope to worst most days anymore, which is where I’ve been for a little too long to be comfortable.

Hope you’re all doing well! Much love!

comments

I Live! And Happy New Year

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 00:51:06 GMT

Not making any blogging goals whatsoever, but am actually eagerly looking forward to this 2023. I’ve been slowly revamping my schedule to hopefully make getting in some solid base hours more doable (working so far) and spun up book-writing plans that feel more doable than anything ever (long story, maybe some other time). Additionally, a path forward on my health is finally well in my hands, which is probably exactly how I got enough brainspace and energy to start in on the other two.

So writing a book right now. Exercising (even if fresh air still needs to show up more, work-at-home doesn’t inspire me much to venture out into the cold) is happening, and we’ll just have to fit in the smaller rocks around the bigger ones.

Hope you all have a wonderful new year and all your goals are achievable!

comments

Some Days

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 13:28:22 GMT

I really miss being a functional human being.

comments

Discipline, What Is It?

Sun, 05 Jun 2022 10:57:44 GMT

Available when I’m in an up, not a down. So gonna keep posting but just not worry about skip days.

comments

Daily Post #001

Thu, 19 May 2022 02:25:54 GMT

Reading

MANHWA

Fins by Nymtea, ch. 15: Good stuff. Gorgeous art. Main couple being super cute, orcas being even cuter with their whole, Play! Play! in the background and a suitably ominous ending. Technically a bit of a cliffhanger, but it didn’t feel like one to me.

A Wicked Tale of Cinderella’s Stepmom, ch. 71-72: So I really like all the couples in this one and I adore the family moments, when they’re messy and when they’re warm fluff. Mildred jumping in to save a random girl she doesn’t even like who’s clearly on a get-a-man hunt felt so nice and in character and everything I love about Mildred. I’m convinced the baron uses his art for magical purposes. It’d be nice if we’d get an explanation for his ominousness soon, because the manhwa clearly isn’t casting him as a bad guy.

The Advanced Player of the Tutorial Tower, ch. 110-112: ugly villain, but suitably stronger than first appearance. I have a thing against bugs, so visually these chapters were not great. I absolutely love that his girls violently reject the idea of cheating or mindcontrolling him, even if they remain very grey morality in their own way, applying what morals they do have to people involved and not whether the actions themselves are right or not.

Suicide Hunter, ch. 71-73: Oh my heart! That was a good ending to this story! That nearly made me cry! It was absolutely lovely and I’m glad they really had such good payoff on the arc, as it felt very long to be immersed in a world within the world without really feeling his regular world very strongly. But soooo good!

Pixie and Brutus, ch. 108: Just utterly cute! I love overprotective found family and how they didn’t go overboard either, just demanded some respect. Delightful!

NONFIC

“Business Musings: How Writers Fail (Part 2): Fear (Established Writer Edition)” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch: A good article that actually inspired me to want to sit down and write out the fears that are holding me back, because I’m pretty 100% sure there’s a pile of them. Sadly. Knowing the problem though is half the battle.

Health

Sciatica better but not gone yet. Ought to get on those stretches. More functional mentally overall. Roughly at chronically not great baseline, where I’d dipped heavily below for weeks, so this is good. 5/10

Went outside. Am well aware I need to do this more frequently, so that’s a plus. Also packed up 2 weeks worth of supplement doses, which is critical to me actually taking them. Yay me.

Writing

Basically 5 pages in the notebook: a snippet of a story for my sister and a bunch of lyrics, and a conlang word.

Conlanging: one word only in Kofnea the daughter language, uachak, originally meaning “little glory”, used colloquially to mean “fame”, implying that it was brief and/or fickle glory, having no real basis of merit or inherent worth.

Lyrics! I am only now getting it through my head that my random tendency to sing a lot and write songs that consist solely of lyrics and tune/melody is actually turning into an ability to actually write them down and finalize that part. When I got my first smartphone a couple years back, I started recording my singing in an attempt to really just deal with them later and at least not just repeat the same songs over and over so I wouldn’t forget them.

But last week, I realized once I nailed down the tune of verses and/or chorus, I could just sit there and write the rest as if I was writing poems, because technically, I am. I have a ton more experience with poetry and it’s working very well.

As for turning them into something listenable by someone else? We’ll get there maybe. Right now, I’m creating songs I can sing to keep myself going and that’s good enough.

Fiction: canon review, as I call it, when I go back through what I have in preparation to write more, in this case on “Chosen for Power.” Looking seriously forward to getting back into it and I already had a solid scene written on the next chapter, and I’m going to try to do a better job on the sensuousness in this chapter than I did in the last. I’m not as happy with that in chapter 2, as I was really focused on getting it shaped up enough to put the chapter out.

I have no more exchanges! I can focus on this and then the very late treat for someone else and get them up.

comments

Things Written, Things Read

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 23:23:32 GMT

Latest Binge:

I Became the Wife of the Male Lead
https://bato.to/series/92590

So I find the title of this ver reassuring. Because we have some standard isekai former villainess denseness going on. What makes this one so great is ~~Daddy~~ Duke Abel. His relationship with the main, Fiona, makes me think of If You Touch My Brother, You’re Dead, in the way dad and daughter are clearly meant to be, with just the right brand of ruthless.

The story’s less mad caper though. If You Touch reminds me of Emperor’s New Groove and I Became the Wife doesn’t. It’s got pining, war is horrible, found family, abusive bio family, and OP magic. I thoroughly enjoyed season 1 and want more.

Tbf, I’ve read other things but at time of writing this, that’s the latest, so that’s what we’re talking about.

Recently Written

Tower of God Khun(/Bam) Ficlets:

Lazy Days: Khun’s declared a lazy day. Bam gets converted.

Bought with Blood: Khun Aguero Agnis is a name bought with blood.

Kingmaker: Khun wasn’t a king, but a kingmaker.

Queen’s Thief Gen/Irene Ficlet:

Spilt Like Wine: Attolia’s reign began in blood.

comments

Another Day, Another Word

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 21:57:10 GMT

Health has been such that all my plans for the week largely melted away in the face of dealing with that. I’m going to try and get back on chapter 2 of Chosen for Power this weekend.

It’s very tempting to stretch myself too thin, and I’m trying not to. So no committing to other late treat work, and no committing to not doing that either.

It feels weird to do any part of life in light of a war, but I’m sending prayers and trying to push myself forward regardless.

Hugs and blessings to all who need some.

comments

Who me? Have plans?

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 00:57:36 GMT

Yeah, so this year, I’m doing something new with the annual goals:

Health: do daily supplements, get the breathing exercises done and a year later pick up my appliance (let’s just say sheltering-in-place threw last year’s plan for a number on me), and get healthier

Writing: write stuff daily and don’t care if it’s poetry or nonfiction or fanfic or original fiction, just write completed stuff on an average of daily

Publishing: get online sites and subscription/commission sites off the ground and stop trying to put books in stores before I have the time/energy bandwidth to do it

Me. I have plans.

Best wishes for yours!

comments

Story Structure: the Ad Hoc and the Uncertain

Mon, 21 Sep 2020 00:43:14 GMT

So I’m writing a story again, go me. I’m actually writing stories all the time and there’s of course, the commission and the Big One hiding out in my Big Fear timeline that I don’t even know when it’s supposedly due. Ahem, anyway.

Then there’s this thing. I brainstormed it over the last two days basically and lo and behold! a story! I know how it’s supposed to end and I know all the big emotional stuff going on through the two big mains and absolutely no clue how much of the backstory’s going in or how to organize any of it.

Yeah, so thoughts about structure. I’ve never been big on the idea of this straightforward plot nonsense. It just really doesn’t quite work for me. I’m far more into the business of structuring an emotional journey. And right now, I know absolutely the emotional journey I’m going to throw these characters through, but how that’s going to play out for the reader is a whole different ballgame.

There’s backstory, the first. There’s backstory, the second. There’s present time over a longer period of time where the two mains meet and one gets over her natural skepticism and one gets over (or at least finds more peace with) his overwhelming longstanding grief and then there’s the wrap-up for those two.

I’m absolutely not going to write three stories and marry them, so good luck to me figuring out how much of this stuff is needed.

Plus main storyline invites some meta and in-world nonstandard texts, but that doesn’t mean it’s a great idea for me to get sidetracked by that.

In short, I’m gonna do the thing I do when I’m writing about a universe I know too much about: I’m going to write the main story as if the reader knows everything I do. Then good luck to future me editing in all the pieces necessary to understand.

What kind of structure does one plan for a three in one story? In my case, as little as possible.

comments

apparently someone's trying to hack me

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 23:14:30 GMT

And for this reason, LJ has temp banned me and the crossposter won't work until I'm unbanned.

Nice.

comments

Getting too good at not talking

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 23:10:58 GMT

Just tired, bone deep tired of everything, of everyone tearing the world apart and hurting people who don’t deserve to be hurt, of dogpiling and blaming, and in the middle of it all, of my body trying to give up altogether when that isn’t a person I’ve ever allowed myself to be.

It’s a lot just to keep going right now, and so I’m not talking about the nightmares going on in the world right now and don’t intend to start. I’m so grateful for everyone who’s stepped up to keep MFD going and beautiful because even signing up and committing to write one drabble is just too much. I love everyone and I see your posts and your emails and feel your pain and hold you in my heart and I stay silent.

I wish I were less silent. But right now, this is where I am. I love all of you and hope for all the things you need right now that I can’t give you. You’re in my heart.

comments

Fandom for Oz

Sun, 23 Feb 2020 14:52:41 GMT

Fandom for Oz is live! I’m offering fanfic in return for donations to support Australia. A link to the bidding guide for the auction.

comments

Since We Talked Last

Tue, 14 Jan 2020 10:57:48 GMT

Wrote:

12 poems and 70 lines, crossposted nothing

6 unrevealed ficlets and 1 just not crossposted

a scene list sort of thingy on my WIP

Not what I was hoping but not half bad. I was hoping to get more down on WIP. I know where I’m heading with it, just haven’t had time/energy/headspace to get it down yet.

I’ve also finished getting a PDF file ready of What Lies Before, a collection of original short stories, which I will get into download access and possibly a gumroad before I try and figure out how to actually publish it properly, because that last sounds more tiring than it ought.

Still, that’s prepped, which is great.

I also pulled 5 pieces out of first access into freely available, so I’ll get there on posting links to those soon too.

On the health front, I went to a new doctor yesterday for insurance reasons to establish care, who is willing to keep my other doctor in the loop, which is awesome. And lo! There is hope for me yet. I have a structural issue apparently that’s preventing my getting enough oxygen or draining stuff the way I should, which technically I always kind of knew. From childhood, my breathing options were constrained, I just didn’t realize they meant I’m literally never getting enough oxygen, and I’ve always been so stuffed up, I can barely smell.

Shocker. These things have health consequences, so my doctor gave me a potential nonsurgical option to check out, which I will do as soon as we wrap up all this car and post-vacation business. Because quality of life! Not dragging around tired and depressed all the time! This would be good!

About that, CAR! I loved our beautiful, old faithful, 2005 sedan but it was… time to retire it. We got a new car on Friday, which has eaten a chunk into budget and time bank, but so worth it. A beautiful Hyundai Santa Fe Sport and I will eventually get used to how her responsiveness differs greatly from the sedan. Mostly, I will eventually stop turning on the windshield wipers when I’m trying to reverse because our gear shaft is now in between the seats instead of on the steering wheel. I drove like an amateur yesterday on my first time out in her. Oh well.

Hope you’re all doing well! Lots of love!

comments

Unprompted Ficlets

Sun, 12 Jan 2020 16:57:27 GMT

For those things without prompts you feel like posting here.

comments

Crosspostyness

Sun, 12 Jan 2020 13:03:57 GMT

So along with writing more, typing up my backlog, etc., I’m also trying to do better at crossposting. One of these got mentioned before but is now also on my website and not just AO3.

Take Care (K): AO3, Website

Yata seriously considered grabbing Saruhiko’s knife and stabbing him. Except that would defeat the entire purpose of carefully wrapping every injury in antiseptic and gauze, regardless of how much it stung. [Fushimi Saruhiko/Yata Misaki]

Written for Happy Belated Treatmas 2019 for my dear friend in fandom, geckoholic. Who prompted some of my favorites for the Hurt Comfort Exchange when I really wasn’t up to adding another exchange to the docket. Months later, behold! Fushimi/Yata hurt/comfort with some how does one have sex around the bruises and also lots and lots of unspoken feelings because that’s how they roll.

In Small Moments (Bourne): AO3, Website

“Are you comfortable with this assignment?” her supervisor asked, and she was not unintelligent.

She looked thoughtful for a moment, processing all the implications—it would do no good to have them assume her an airhead or even blindly devoted to the cause; it was a delicate balance to strike—then nodded. “Yes.” [Nicky Parsons/Jason Bourne]

Movement (BSD): AO3, Website

He’d had friends and now he had nothing. [Dazai Osamu]

Okay, so I took one look at the prompt about not wanting to move on and Dazai was just it. He lost his friends, and he moved on from the Port Mafia, but in a way, he didn’t really move on from that. It’s what drives him today. Also, angst.

Untouchable (Toaru/X-Men Movieverse): AO3, Website

Rogue was just a teenage girl who couldn’t touch anyone. Accelerator was just a teenage boy no one could touch. [Rogue +/Accelerator]

So the prompt was your first favorite character and your latest favorite character and I hadn’t actually thought about how well these two would complement each other from an ability perspective. It probably should have kept more of the Toaru setting, but I gravitated toward Xavier’s school and of course that meant Accelerator has classmates and a slightly better present (okay, a million times better) than where he started from in Toaru, so I did soften him up minutely to reflect that, hopefully in line with his personality from slightly better present in Toaru but without having all the softening up he gets in that canon from Last Order and Accel family.

I can’t imagine anyone else being strongly interested in this, but it was actually really nice writing Rogue again, however briefly. I hadn’t planned to, it just came out, but I’m actually kinda happy with it.

comments

Today's Haul: Poetry and Prose

Wed, 08 Jan 2020 05:09:41 GMT

So I was horrible at running Patreon and crossposting last year and here’s hoping to be slightly better. I intend to take everything posted on first access in 2019 and make it free by the end of the month.

Posted for first access ($1/mo.) today are three poems, all written today:

labels – I could be bold / like the colors of ancient crayons / unlikely adjectives sprawled / over the yellow labels…

a name – call me something, anything, / I used to say, / as though just having a name / was good, though it wasn’t…

lamp on the wood – bright lamp on the wood beside my window / keeping watch with steady eye and yellow…

Available for free on website and AO3, fanfic:

In Small Moments (Bourne Movies): Nicky Parsons/Jason Bourne – The asset wasn’t known for tender compassion or warmth. If he was, Nicky assumed, he wouldn’t be an asset. But there was a certain amount of liability in being an obvious plant that disappeared at irregular intervals, always when someone of import within the country died, and there was something to be said for the traditional old standbys for covers. [on AO3], [on website]

The last was written for Happy Belated Treatmas 2019 for Ashling, who prompted arranged marriage and tenderness and hurt/comfort and upon discovering Bourne was an option, this AU just sprang into my head, basically because arranged marriage fit so well with the whole undercover asset thing and having a relationship that was both professional and intensely personal. I really loved stepping back into Nicky’s head for a minute and was really happy the recipient liked it.

I’ll get my other Treatmas fics crossposted soonish.

comments

Hello, Vacation!

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 23:32:03 GMT

Where apparently the first thing I do is just sleep. A lot. A lot, a lot.

This is my annual let’s not melt down week, right after vacation resets for the year because when one is faced with chronic health issues, it’s amazing how you can fritter your whole vacation allotment taking care of that without almost any actual vacation that isn’t tied to feeling sick.

There’s a lot I want to do this week, particularly make plans for how this year is going to look goals and schedule wise, but I’m trying to primarily do the thing I’m here to do, which is rest up. A lot. So when I go back to work I can handle it.

Hope everyone’s doing well and having a good first couple weeks of the new year. I’ll probably be posting more here while I figure things out, but going to give myself a lot of grace as I figure things out.

comments

Notes on a Friday

Fri, 03 Jan 2020 14:46:42 GMT

Work has been intense, but I’m heading in for a weeklong holiday, so just trying to make it through to tonight.

I’ve been formulating goals for the year, and stuff I want to deal with, but more on that in the days ahead when I’ve thought it through better.

And while I’m thinking of it, because I am.

Conlanging

So I was a flat failure at Lexember, which is new for me, but I’ve decided I’d like to actually see if I can bring Akachenti to a usable/finished ish state, even without building a proto-language because guys, I just want to write fiction, so I’m gonna try to stop worrying about perfection. (More like, unfinished things are starting to feel heavy.)

That said, I’ve started rereading my notes and realized something I should have all along. The unmarked stem is indicative and the marked stem I started with is inchoative. Simple as that.

So if you say abaga:, you’re saying, “I love,” with an indication that this is true in the past and the present. Aka, it’s true, factual, already happened. If you say, abaga:sha, you’re saying, “I love now,” or basically it’s true in the present but not the past.

I’ve looked at all kinds of aspects and tenses to explain why the unmarked is past/present without thinking about basic aspect. It’s indicative. It doesn’t really have tense at all. It can be used for past or present, even if you’re referring to something you did and completed before now, so long as you haven’t undone it since. They have a past discontinuous for that, which is actually just a specific negative or discontinuous prefix, e.g. vibaga:, or “I no longer love”. I’m guessing this originated from some word meaning “to stop or cease.”

comments

A New Year

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 03:37:44 GMT

I could totally do goals! I could. I had a good 2019 for writing goals, bad on some fronts, but better than if I hadn’t had the goals.

2019’s Writing Goals:

Finish 1000 poems

Finish 365 ficlets (fanfic one-shots count here even if longer)

Finish 52 original short stories

2019’s Accomplishments: Well, to start off with, I haven’t properly run all the numbers, but I’ll take a stab at the poetry despite not having finished typing things up.

Finished more than 1000 poems (980ish typed and we won’t discuss the backlog of in notebook, not typed)

Finished 213 fanfic or original ficlets

Finished 9 original short stories

Boy, do I want to move that #3 needle, but that wasn’t a bad 3rd run at writing prose daily. Not what I wanted, but not bad.

So next year: I want to do all the things, to be honest. I want to finish writing books, compiling anthologies, finish those gift stories I never did because the guilt hangs over my head all the time, and I want to finish short stories too. I want to crosspost things to patreon and publish every week, so people have a reason to subscribe, and collect the month’s haul of writing into something publishable, and the truth is I haven’t compiled reasonable goals yet. I could keep up with the average 3 poems/day and that wouldn’t be hard, but I truly want to focus in on producing and making available fiction.

Ah, we’ll see what happens.

comments

Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax and Cabbages and Kings

Sun, 10 Nov 2019 18:24:26 GMT

Lots of things on plate, starting with I have a strong tendency to disappear when I'm not feeling well. And that happens far too often.

But I'm alive and thoroughly into my new fandom, each more obscure than the last, but seriously, I am in love with Accelerator as a character and have eaten up all the anime for A Certain Scientific Accelerator, most of A Certain Scientific Railgun (I got impatient getting to the Sisters storyline, what can I say?), and all of A Certain Magical Index, then poked around in the manga for a bunch of Accelerator bits, and am now inhaling every bit of the LNs that feature him (I'm currently in the middle of Volume 15; no, I did not read all the non-Accelerator bits and I should, I know).

That said, I'm gonna have to rewrite my first completed treat for Happy Belated Treatmas and still want to write 5 others. I gotta get some good writing time, which is tough with me always having work-related stuff to do on the weekends. It's possible I should not run Freeform Flash at the end of the month, though I was looking forward to it. Now it feels stressful. We'll see if next week gets better.

And I think of stories way too fast, faster than I can write them. I've got three full grown stories in my head that happened in a week or two but I haven't had time to write them and am worried I'm gonna lose some of them before I have enough time to get them all down. Gah, why?

I also need to develop a better system of getting stuff distributed. I'm doing better at logging new writing, but it's still work and I'm behind. I've got first access on the patreon, but it means I need to do a better job at putting things in first access, telling people they exist, then moving them to general access. System creation, this is a thing I need to do and am good at doing when I have the time/energy— See the first sentence of this post.

Hope everyone's doing well! What's going on in your world? How's the writing? How's fandom? Reading/watching/otherwise consuming anything new and great?

comments

Promised Prompt Post

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 13:39:31 GMT

Here be prompts! Leave a prompt in the comments! Fill a prompt! Leave as many as you like, fill as many as you like, even if someone’s already filled one.

You can prompt original, any fandom, or a specific fandom I know. Format examples are:

any, any, alone again

Bungou Stray Dogs, Kyouka+/Atsushi, falling asleep on each other

original, any/any, we were happy, right?

You can also throw in image, lyric, other format type prompts. Whatever works.

Post stays open until it slows down. If I don’t fill any right away, I’m working on an exchange fic due, but I’ll be in and out I promise.

You can also prompt poetry.

comments