Category: Random Author Babble

July 21

Cool Things a Brew’n!

Hey peeps, thought I’d check in. I had this stretch where the cleanroom failed when I changed the airflow, and it took a while to figure it all out. But it’s all set now — I’ve got an office and I’m just going to have to give up on the whole bedroom thing for the moment. There’s just something ‘wrong’ in that room no matter what I do, no matter the mold treatments, etc, and I just don’t have the expertise (or energy) to make it work. Figured out CO2 levels though, and that’s been an interesting puzzle seeing as it’s much harder when dealing with a fully sealed room to keep CO2 at safe levels. Gotta love a learning curve. 😉

More interestingly, I’ve been taking some time to look at the poor abandoned stories and fanfics that haven’t been finished after all this time. I mean, for real, fuck. Where did the time go??? @_@ I feel like I kept waiting to feel well enough, assuming that I’d find this whim and just finish things up, but it never happened. It’s shit.

I’ve been organizing things, going through my notes, and my plan is to get back on track. I want to get the next episode of Demon Bonded out, not to mention update City Howls and finish it (but probably only once the next couple of PATB Serial books are done.) But also Awakening! And the Fanfics!!! They’re just sitting there, so many unfinished, and I realized I hadn’t even planned to turn them into audiobooks when I was claiming I wanted to create a more accessible site. It would be pretty cool to turn them into ebooks in general just so people could download the fanfics for free and read them whenever they want…

So yeah, plans are a brewing, and I’m in the stages of assessing it all and seeing what’s coming next once I get a feel for the scope of everything. I’m going to need a new external hard drive– audio apparently takes up a lot of fucking space compared to simple text files. ^^; Who knew? XD Hope you’re all doing well and staying safe during this long ass global pandemic. I’m pretty sure it’s never going to end for me in the US (too many sociopathic assholes normalizing ignorance) but hopefully anyone living in the rest of the globe is fairing better and seeing things start to lighten up now.

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June 18

Hey, A Cover!

So, I didn’t set out to make a cover for this story. I just wanted a picture for the website because I just finished making the audiobook and wanted, you know, something. But apparently my brain is a monster, and once I started, it just would not let me stop until it looked respectable. I think it’s rather pretty if not a bit surreal. It suits Vince — Vincent’s mind is either a mess of monsters or beauty, with very little concrete for him to grasp to… which kinda makes dating a shadow fox shifter who naturally camouflages rather fitting, now that I think of it… hmm.

Anywho, off to figure out wtf to do next. This is the first time running my graphics PC in the office bubble cleanroom. The room heated up a fair amount, even with the AC on, and nothing has cooled it off since. Doesn’t help that the sun hits this side of the house constantly at the worst temperatures. Not sure what to do about it. It’s not horrendous levels. I think just being sick so long has made me really sensitive to temperature changes.

I want to write some erotica. Something short, offensive, and finished. I feel like I need to remember how to just throw myself into a story and get to the end again. Task completion combined with wading in the dark woods to find the path.

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June 11

Living In A Bubble

Okay, the Hellcat audiobook is finally done, whoot! Uh, I’ve got some things to plan as I figure out which direction to go next. I’m feeling better– a lot better — and I want to start writing the next PATB episode. But I’ve been doing these audiobooks as an accessibility thing for the site, not just as a fun perk, so it’s not something I want to just drop, you know? I created a bubble/cleanroom in my house to separate me from any of the mold, and it’s been working. I pump fresh, filtered air in, and the mold is sealed away from any living space. So my health is going to hold. This is an answer, one I’m surprised is working this well, and the sky is the limit at this point.

I suspect what’s going to happen as I switch into writing again, is that I’ll be doing these audio chapters in the background, likely not as elaborate recordings as these currently are. You might not realize it, but a lot of these sentences are run through the text to speech synthesizer multiple times to get a recording that sounds appropriate for the story. A lot of times the voice sounds tone deaf to the content, and I have to go in and adjust until I find the right version. So, it’s not that I won’t be doing the audiobooks, but I likely won’t be as detail oriented. The recording should all sound good in general; I feel like I finally got a good quality all around. There might just be some wonky spots that don’t flow as well (the software is horrible with rhetorical questions, for one. @_@)

It’s my birthday tomorrow, and I feel like I’m at this crossroads and reassessing everything in my life. But I’m thinking if my health holds, I’ll start sharing schedules, that sort of thing, so that members can get a clear idea of my work load and what’s coming next. It’s something I avoided in the past because it put this level of pressure on me that was completely unrealistic given my health problems. But now, it seems more like a way to stay on task and remember all those projects that have kind of fallen in the dust to my exhaustion. We’ll play it by ear and see how it goes (see if the country I’m in is still standing, because believe me if Trump turns the military on the protestors, it doesn’t matter how sick I feel, that’s the shit I gotta go out and march against.) So yeah, I guess we’ll see where life takes us. 😉

I hope you’re all well, all safe, and staying smart with the whole global pandemic.

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March 4

White Mold

Hey guys. I wanted to give you a heads up cuz I’m not sure how things are going to be going from here on in.

So my health was degrading rather quickly the last week. I wasn’t sure what it was—I thought my adrenals were failing for some reason, maybe they were stressed, whatever. During this time some ceiling tiles fell in the basement where there is a half finished bathroom set up down there. We rent the place so we just, you know, cleaned up the immediate mess and didn’t think much about WHY the ceiling tiles fell. I started getting more and more tired and smelling this weird dust whenever I passed my brother’s bedroom, then the other day I took a walk to the basement to do some laundry and checked in on that weird little bathroom, and by the time I got upstairs it felt like I was either moments from hallucinating or dropping.

The guys took the ceiling tiles down and found mold—white mold. So, it’s not the same type of mold (black mold) that took over my bedroom and living room over a year ago that spring. It’s less toxic, and because the weather is cooler and humidity is low, there is less chance that it’ll take root into the main house. But even when they removed the ceiling tiles, they found the mold still on the wood, and it exposed it to the basement room, and it was getting into the main house and my brain was sparking, leaving me a twitching mess.

I am okay. I am not great, I am not ‘well’ and I am not myself, but I am okay, and that’s the main thing to focus on. Right now I’m having difficulty with reading, with perceiving individual elements in a group, with focusing, with neurosis, and some weird moments of random anxiety and paranoia. I’m combating a lot of the exhaustion by increasing my adrenal support, and most of my funding is going into clean up for the moment. I’m not writing. I don’t trust my brain, and I can’t focus atm. I’m hhoping this will change eventually, but I also know that mold and me don’t do well together and there is a reality to my condition I have to face. I do not know when I will be recovered enough to be able to write to the level I feel confident at—my vocabulary is shrinking so quickly, it’s alarming.

The landlord has said he will fund whatever professionals we hire, so we need to get the ball rolling. And we’ve already done a lot to get the house uh… separated… what’s the word? Sectioned off? We basically blocked off all the vents that connect to the basement, lined the upstairs floor with plastic sheeting (hardwood floors with potential cracks between the slats that the neurotoxins could permeate through into our rooms) and am currently wiping all the upstairs down with vinegar and using box fans in the windows to suck the contaminated air outside. The uh… fuck, I’m just staring at the screen spacing out. We got uh… lucky. We got lucky that the weather was surprisingly warm. 60 degrees in March—freaking lucky—and even though it’s nighttime, we’re still sending the air out and it’s cold, but it’s not freezing. But I don’t know how long that can hold. We shut all the vents, sealed them with cardboard and tape to prevent mold moving through (and it was, hardcore) but that means we have no working heater at the moment. It’s also been very frustrating because people are hoarding masks because of the corona virus they don’t even had and I can’t find anything to protect me from breathing in the mold that we do actually have. >_> It’s not a great time to need face masks.

Uh… I think that’s it… I’m spending most of my days in my car again— even less glamorous in the winter. >_> But it’s something. It’s survival. Depending on the level of mold remediation that will be done, this could be solved and we can stay, or when my royalties finally come in for PATB Serial in the next two months, that might be put into a desperate blind move just to get away from the mold. I cannot predict the future; but I can promise that I haven’t given up. I know you’ve all been waiting so long to see these stories continue, and I hope you can tell that even though I got sick for so long last time, I still showed up the moment I got my brain back. I have the knowledge and tools I need to heal now, and although it is a process that will take the time that it takes, I will return to writing. It’s everything to me.

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?The Latest PATB Book Is Out (and proud ?)

It’s live!!!

Super quick email today. Just wanted to let you know that episode #2 of PATB Serial just went live, so for those who preordered, you can crack it open now, and anyone waiting for KU, it’s in there full of suspense, shifters, and a crazy, explosive love now that Wylie gets his first glimpse of Dorian.

Also, on a side note, Theodore has become my temperamental badass and I’m loving him for it. 😉

image link to PATB #2 ebook on Amazon

A spark of love might burn them all…

I’ll have a proper newsletter this weekend. Got a mini cover reveal, among other things–there are so many awesome books that dropped this week I need to share. I feel like I’m still playing catch up with everything… Actually, I feel like I’m kicking my own ass with this write a book a month pace, and I might have to slow the fuck down. I just wanted to let you all know that the book is actually out there (and I’m still alive. @_@)

Hope you’re all doing well! ^.^ I’m still completely anti Valentine’s Day. It’s a great day for self love, not going to any kind of restaurant (seriously, restaurants are the worst on Valentine’s Day,) and remembering that society can suck their expectations of what love is. XD I’m gonna go curl up with a shifter (nope, that’s a cat >_>) and wait this day out. Possibly with hot cocoa. 😉

December 18

I’m me again!♥

Turns out the final missing link was progesterone. I knew my body had a genetic mutation that made it hard for it to create progesterone, but everything else seemed so much more important and I got out of the habit of taking it. I restarted the supplementation last week, and yeah, it’s like the world clicked into focus. Time is moving so slow because my brain is alert and recording it all. I had no idea how progesterone impacted my memory and mental clarity, or just how it was connected to being able to feel and be motivated. I’m waking up in the morning, getting things done that used to feel exhausting like it’s nothing– like I’m just living life.

I am full of so much damn gratitude to have found this place. I look at my writing and it makes sense– the doubts and confusion are gone. I’ve found my joy again and I am writing up a storm, peeps. Nothing can get in my way anymore and I’m looking to fly!♥

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Hey, the Calendar and Art Cards are here!!!

I’m crazy excited about this! I have last year’s Demon Bonded calendar staring me in the face right now from the wall, and all I can think is how awesome it is to have gotten this done in time, really able to make images for the calendar instead of just fiddling with old covers. This is a return to art after a really super long break, and it’s just awesome to have gotten here. <3

Check out the pretties! ♥ I did an Art Card option for those who wanted the art without having to have a million different calendars in their house. Oh, and first time using Gumroad–super happy with their layout. They made this really easy. (link if it doesn’t load…)

November 29

Arting

Just wanted to check in and remind people I’m alive. @_@ I’ve been making a calendar the last two weeks. 3 more images to do and the 2020 Paranormal Academy for Troubled Boys calendar will be done. ♥ Here’s a little sneak peek of Theo’s finished image in his glorious dragon scales (cropped.)

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September 24

Fiddling…

I felt that Wylie looked too old in the other version. That, and the colors were too bright, kinda cartoony. So… this exploded instead. XD Ah, fun.

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September 23

Dorian’s got a cover!

Self explanatory. I’m trying to break whatever this thing is and move forward, so I sat down and got the next episode cover done. This week I want to put the first episode actually on Amazon and publish it. Just gotta keep moving and not think much…

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