Wicked Girl Saving Myself

♥ Meow at husband, receive bacon. Not a bad life.

♥ It's 39 degrees but it feels a whole lot colder. I'm not ecstatic about the idea of standing in line at the food pantry, all of us poor folks huddled together like chickens. My friend who just had knee replacement surgery is going to be in agony. If we didn't need the food there wouldn't be any way in hell. 

• Yup, it was cold out there. Innoq held our place in line because he doesn't mind the cold. My friend and I stayed in the car until the door opened and we moved inside.
• Excellent haul. We were able to get the wherewithal for chicken tacos tonight.

♥ I don't believe in writers block as a Thing in and of itself. It's usually a symptom or a result of another problem or set of problems. I'm trying to figure out what my problem is. It's been a month and I haven't even wanted to write. That's not normal.

• I've decided to fictionalize my exploits in Fallen London, to shake the cobwebs out of my brain. I did something like this once and it was fun.
• I'll be posting this on my writing Tumblr on a fairly regular basis. Ideally every day.

♥ I haven't totally abandoned writing, despite this. I've been doing a lot of thinking. I got overwhelmed about "platform" before I calmed down and decided to treat it like everything else in this half-life that I live. I broke it down. What do I want out of this? What's the most spoon-effective way to get it? What isn't going to be so unpleasant that I'd rather roll around in lobster bait? The solution is to better utilize the tools I already use and enjoy. That's Tumblr and Twitter, and eventually a Goodreads author account.

• I created a dedicated email just for my writing, to keep it separate from my personal stuff and protect my legal name.
• I created a simple Weebly site as an "About Me" page and for contact info. Later on I'll add information about the projects I'm working on.

♥ I'd always planned on taking a pen name for my writing. This is largely because a) I know what I can do if I've got somebody's actual name and b) I've seen Misery. I'm protective of my name and a lot of details of my lives. (Despite the spew here on DW. Trust me, this is the tip of the iceberg.) I wanted my pseudonym to be Irish, and I wanted to honor my Irish family. What I came up with is Rosalyn Kelly. I love it, and I'm getting excited to see it on the cover of a book. 

♥ My kiddo brought his Spanish grade up from an F to a B in less than two weeks. I'm pleased with him... but why the flunk was he fucking in the first place if he was capable of that? I don't know whether to say "I'm proud of you" or "Oh, you little shit." 

• I went with "I'm proud of you but please work to your full capacity. It'll save us all aggravation and you from getting in trouble."
• We told him that, besides our old PS3 (which Innoq mailed to him since we'll be getting the PS4 soon) he won't be getting any Christmas gifts from us because we have no money. And he won't. It's not, technically, a Christmas gift if he doesn't get it until sometime in January. *dimples*

♥ I am very pleased with my lennán tonight. As soon as I have the spoons for it I think I'll write some personalized porn for him.

• Of course, I'll only post it with his consent.
• If he consents, his sub gets to read it first because she was a very good naughty girl today.

♥ Well, the Pagan tag just went a'splody. O.O'

• For the record, I blocked and ignored soloontherocks a long-arsed time ago. 
• I even put her name in the sugar jar.

I paid hard for pushing myself too much yesterday. I woke up at around 8:00, then got up for about 20 minutes to see Innoq off to work and give him very precise instructions for mailing a package. Then I fucked off back to bed. I didn't get up again until 1:30 in the afternoon. I was flattened. 

I perked up after that. He brought home pasta fagioli, and though I wasn't crazy about it I was grateful for the warmth and nutrients. I didn't do anything the rest of the day. (Well, offline. Online I got into some interesting mischief.)

Tomorrow Innoq and I are going out with a friend we only see once or twice a year. She's well-to-do and loves to take us on adventures, places we'd not be able to go otherwise. We'll be hitting a museum, a bookstore, probably an antique mall, and a nice restaurant. I really look forward to these outings. I wish I had my walker already, so it would be easier and less painful. I'll take things as easy as I can.

On Wednesday I'll be resting as much as I can, too, because on Thursday we have Thanksgiving at a different friend's house. After Thanksgiving I probably won't be good for much of anything for days!

I spent the entire day just sitting at my desk listening to music and letting my feels run amok. Catharsis, y'know.

My regret is that I went back to my old eating habits for the day. No breakfast, two fish sandwiches and a snack cake for lunch, cinnamon toast for supper, potato chips, and a 2-liter of Pepsi. After last nights fish & chips... urk. I'll be a good girl now. *swilling Yogi Detox tea*

Also, Innoq is getting a bit perturbed that the only time I've even looked at the dishes these past couple of days has been to flip them off and walk away. 

I've been in the middle of a bad flare. Exhausted to the point of tears, aching, dizzy, occasionally nauseous. All the fun flu-like symptoms of CFS. 

Spiritually I'm at a point of... well, not throwing everything out the window over my left shoulder with a pinch of salt, but feeling like I need to loop around to the beginning, examine my foundational stuff, and maybe replace a few stones that are crumbling underneath me. I definitely need to simplify and streamline a lot of things to accommodate my disabilities.

Writing came pretty much to a skidding halt a couple weeks ago when I let myself get overwhelmed and brain-fried. The first draft of Spirit's Calling is finished (!) but instead of celebrating and taking a break as planned I succumbed to NaNoWriMo and tried to go straight into the second draft. Of course, I can no longer maintain the 1,667 word per day pace and I fell behind, which stressed me out, which made me ill, which caused me to fall further behind, which... etc. (Damn, I spend a lot of time chasing my tail...)  And the story isn't ready to go into the second draft. This is the stage where I need to research time period and setting, nail down the characters and timeline, start the "story bible" etc. Add to that, I'm freaking myself out because all the writing advice I'm reading is telling me that I Need A Platform Right Now or I Won't Sell Much. Then I calculate the number of spoons the recommended platform is going to take out of me and freak worse. Gyah, can't I just tell the goddamn story?

Innoq (my husband -- not his actual name) had a massive seizure at the library where he works. I had to be matter-of-fact and deal with that, and deny even to myself how stressed out I was. He was fine, but really tired and shaky afterward so I did all the cooking and what housework I could even though I should have been in the bed resting next to him.

Then there were appointments with dentists, social workers, councilors, doctors, and everybody and their cousin's hamster fuck my life. *thud*

But now I have five days where I'm not scheduled to do anything but basic housekeeping or go anywhere unless there's an emergency. *quickly knocks thrice on wood* These five days (Thursday - Monday) are mine. I will spend them nurturing myself in whatever way is right for me at any given moment. I may work on Spirit's Calling. I may work on Night Market. I may knock a couple books off the TBR Pile That Ate the Northeast Coast. If I'm feeling steady and the weathah isn't too bad I may take a mosey in the woods behind the housing units. I may practice on my Celtic harp, which I haven't done for a while. 

The thing I'm definitely doing is cleansing, grounding and centering, and recharging. With all that's been going on, a lot of energetic gunk has built up. That's making everything probably twice as bad as it has to be.