Tag Archive for real life

Spectacularly Broken

Update On The Proofreading Mom Dilemma

 • 0 Comments

You may or may not recall that my mother, who is one of my beta readers, received an edited version of my first book, with most of the naughty bits taken out. You can read about it here. A while after the book came out, we Skyped, and she casually mentioned that she used my dad’s Kindle to download and read the published version as she wanted to know what the finished product was like. And then she mentioned even more casually how much she liked it.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be her way of telling me that she’s okay with the gay sex.

Home Life, Mental Health

Cyclical Depression and the Joy of Writing

 • 0 Comments

No blog posts until just before Spectacularly Broken was released, and that was over two months ago. The hell?

Unfortunately, this happens to me sometimes. Without trying to make it sound pretty – I have depression, severe anxiety and adult ADD. There is a lot going on in my head. I’ve struggled with this most of my life, and it has all steadily gotten worse to the point where I can no longer function without medication. I still try to keep the amount of meds low, taking some of them only on an as-needed basis (which is cleared with my health professional, of course). Unfortunately, even the meds can’t fully pull me out of the valley when my depression hits a low point, and then I tend to distance myself from the internet. Facebook posts are less frequent, I don’t tend to answer emails, I just plain don’t interact. That goes for real life too. I don’t generally leave the house much during these episodes, unless I absolutely have to, or I make myself take a walk in an attempt to feel better. So if you’ve tried to contact me, please forgive me for not getting back to you right away. I will eventually. At some point, the hypomania hits, and then I’m productive and full of energy, I clean the house, I cook and freeze food like a crazy person. I dance a Vienna waltz around the kitchen with my son.

(No joke. My kitchen is huge. It’s the largest room in my house, actually.)

Most important of all, I write. I get close to despairing when I’m in the valley because my head won’t let me write, and when I force myself to do it anyway, what comes out is the worst piece of writing in the history of mankind, or at least it seems that way to me. And then, once I’ve managed the climb, I’ve got ideas and energy and I write and write and it’s awesome.

I just wanted to put this out there. Now I’m gonna go back to writing about an artist and a baseball player and a little sister who steals condoms to use as water balloons.

Home Life

A Short Moody Update

 • 0 Comments

I’m tired. My child is cranky. There’s glitter everywhere.

I had to work an overnight shift, until four thirty this morning. The baby routinely starts his day at six or seven, or eight at the latest, so I didn’t have a chance to get a whole lot of sleep. Consequently, I’m a zombie today. It’s a miracle I didn’t pour orange juice into my cereal or put my pants on backwards. And my book comes out tomorrow, so I’ve been running around trying not to hyperventilate and tear my hair out. On top of all that, kidlet learned how to climb stairs, so now he has yet another way of bringing about his untimely demise if I take my eyes off him for half a second.

I do crafts to calm myself, and because I once told my editor that it seemed to me she hoards her authors like a dragon does its shinies, I did a pretty terrible marker drawing of a dragon (I can’t draw people or animals to save my life, don’t tell anyone, it’ll bring down my street cred). Then I started gluing glitter all over it, because why wouldn’t I?

The cats may have walked through the glitter once or twice. But I’m sure my lovely, amazing editor will appreciate my grand gesture of one clumsy glittery cardboard dragon-like abomination.

If you’d like to marvel at my creation, head over to my Instagram, there’s a couple of pictures on it. 😀

Home Life

I’m Having All The Fun… Except Not Really

 • 0 Comments

Blech. Not a surprise to anyone, I’m sure, that I place bronchitis very firmly in the “no fun” category, especially now that my eleven-month-old has it as well. Tough to get anything done when my day currently consists of coughing spells, miserable kidlet, and me feeling sorry for myself. It’s the first time that my son has been actually sick sick, and since I’m not very good at the mommy thing yet, I spend a lot of time freaking out and trying to make sure that he’s comfortable, which means I have a harder time recovering, myself.

Apart from that, I’m having chocolate since that fixes everything, my cats are pouting because I don’t have enough energy to make them feel like they’re the center of the universe, and it’s snowing again which- ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Hey guys, I have awesome snow in my back yard. Free to a good home. Limited time offer. Bonus bronchitis included when you pick it up.

Home Life

One-Baby-Band

 • 0 Comments

The kidlet has been cranky lately. He has also been busy playing with the world’s most annoying baby toy drum set. In trying to retain my sense of humor, I thought about what sorts of tracks the kidlet would lay down if he were to record a CD. Here’s the list:

1. Look It’s A Thing Lemme Bash You In The Face With It

2. Everybody Hurts (When I Chew On Them)

3. Hi My Name Is Kidlet And I Want To Put Carrots In Your Face

4. The Boobie Ballad

5. Everything Is Stupid But Napping Is Worse

6. Ode To My Feetses

7. What Is This I Put It In My Mouth

8. Sleep Is For Losers

9. Food On The Ceiling

10. NAKED! (And Why You Should Be, Too)

Spectacularly Broken

The Dilemma of the Proofreading Mom

 • 3 Comments

When I was still working on Spectacularly Broken (that would be the novel I’m publishing), I did a very, very brave and scary thing.

I let my mom read it.

The reasons for it were many. I needed a proofreader and she’s amazing at that. I needed someone who could point out the really huge, obvious flaws so I could make sure my beta reader wouldn’t be receiving a train wreck. I needed someone who would resolutely demand more character description and more chapters, and my mom is great at that as well. Most of all, I was excited about the story and wanted to share that with her.

She has only over the past few years come to the realization that writing isn’t just this flimsy, quirky thing I do for funsies, but that I’m actually good at it, and that it might even amount to something. Few things have ever been as gratifying as her telling me “While I was reading, I actually forgot that you wrote it – it reads just as well as any of the English novels I buy.”

The reasons against letting her read this novel? Just one.

There’s sex in it!

Sex! Gay sex! Explicit gay sex!

If you have or had the kind of relationship with a parent where you can write erotic stuff and be comfortable with them looking at it, more power to you. I don’t. I consider myself sex-positive and generally have no issues at all talking about it… but parents are special circumstances, and the regular rules don’t apply.

So I panicked and took out the sex.

No seriously. I went through the entire thing, rewrote some sentences, replaced certain words, faded to black close to the beginning of the action. I called it the “romantic version”, and while it wasn’t bad, exactly, it was lacking a certain punch and some character and plot development (yes, plot happens during sex), and I realized after deciding to submit the story that any publisher in the erotic romance genre would probably laugh at me. It was simply too tame. But not tame enough to fit into another marketable genre.

So I put the sex back in.

Actually, I didn’t just revert to the original version. I compared both versions side by side, and seeing them like that helped me realize what was essential, what was over the top, what worked, what didn’t. And I do believe the final version I ended up submitting is better than the original, so my kneejerk reaction actually worked out. But that doesn’t mitigate the fact that I freaked out a tiny bit at the thought of my mom reading the uncensored stuff.

Except –

*drumroll*

– the uncensored stuff is what’s going to be published, of course. And many acquaintances, fellow moms, Facebook friends, distant relatives etc have already announced their intention to read it.

Um. Yeah. *gulp*

This is gonna take a tiny bit of getting used to. I knew it was coming, ever since I made the decision not to keep my pen name secret. Because damn it, I’m proud of this story. I should be proud of it, and the best way to do Spectacularly Broken justice is for me to own it one hundred percent, not just under my pen name, but in my personal life as well. It doesn’t deserve anything less. The time I’ve spent turning ideas into the start of a career doesn’t deserve anything less. It’s a bit tricky to get used to the idea (because explicit gay sex!) but I’m getting there.

So yeah. Sex. In my book. And there you have it, folks.

You’re welcome.