Category: Sunday Contentments

I’m really not having a good time right now. I’ve got more work on my plate that I’d like, and more keeps pouring in. In fact, I’m reaching the point where I’m going to have to turn down paying work just to keep up with the things I’ve got going on right now, and I hate doing that.

So my stress level is a bit high right now. I will survive the next couple of weeks, but it’s not going to be pretty. My biggest concern is the Girl Scout Cookie Coordinator job I volunteered for. To the person who told me this was going to be a low-stress job, you lied to me and I’m going to get you for it one day. That’s a promise. I’ve got cookie paperwork coming out my ears, among other places, and it’s not fun to deal with.

Add to this a novel I’m still writing and have already started podcasting, paying art commissions, upcoming conventions, karate camp and the usual routine of family and home and you can see why I’m about to rip out a good chunk of my hair.

What to do? I hate being in this position, and obviously I’m going to have to figure out how not to get into this mess again, but in the meantime, how do I get through it and stay sane? I’ve given myself some ground rules that hopefully will help.

1. Set a schedule and keep it. That means a very early wake up call in the morning and going to bed at a decent hour at night. It also means setting aside specific hours for work and specific hours for family time (and doing my best not to mix the two things together). When my schedule is consistent, I get a lot done. When I deviate from that schedule, I end up paying for it through the nose.
2. Keep exercising. I feel lousy when I don’t get my usual 1-2 hours of exercise in. Given the current state of things, I think 2 hours a day of physical activity is obviously out of the question, but squeezing in an hour, even if I have to break it up throughout the day, is doable. Besides, a little physical activity always helps me blow off stress.
3. No stress-related eating! I always, always pack on the pounds when I get into situations like this, and I hate that. I’m going to keep a log of what I eat, as I have been doing the last month or so, to make sure I don’t just randomly grab food and stuff it into my mouth at any old time. I can feel the urge to devour a bag of chips even as I write this, but I’m going to put it off until I’m done, and then I’m going to grab the low-fat baked tortilla chips and eat them with salsa. That’s a HEALTHY snack that will do me far more good than a bunch of potato chips with fatty French onion dip.
4. Keep a to-do list. Lists help me stay on top of what needs to be done. I can check things off as they’re accomplished and add things as they crop up. I’ve got the perfect list app on my iPad right now, and it’s been a big help so far.
5. Take a break. All work and no play make this Cynical Woman a real bitch to deal with. So I’m trying to take a half hour or so every now and then to just chill. Knitting, sketching, reading, etc. I’m taking a bit of time off later this afternoon to sit on the couch and knit or draw while Hubster and the girls watch football. I’ve even got a special dish cooking in the crockpot just for the occassion. Fact is, I deserve a little laid back quiet time and if I don’t get it, my brain is going to melt out my ear. When that happens, I’ll really be screwed.
6. And finally, take steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I have plenty on my plate. I’m not adding to it. I will be making a few phone calls and emails to people to let them know I am full up on work and am not taking on any more jobs at this time. I will fulfill my current committments, and then I’m going to clear my schedule for a few personal projects that I really want to get done. I think that’s fair, it’s reasonable, and it’s about damned time.

So that’s my plan. I feel better just putting it into writing. We’ll see how it works come next week. Enjoy your Sunday!

I had a brief discussion on Twitter earlier this week about Jessica Rabbit. Bryan Prindiville had posted a link to a video of Katy Perry performing in an outfit that was almost like Jessica Rabbit’s. “Ah,” I said, feeling very sage and nostalgic. “Been there. Done that. Own the dress.” And Bryan shot back with, “Pictures, or it didn’t happen!”

Well here’s your picture, pal…

This was taken in the spring of 1990. I would have been 21. I think a friend of mine, Telf Dalton, made the dress. I can’t recall why she made it for me, but she did a damn good job. I wore it for a talent show at Technicon that year, where I briefly flirted with a guy who eventually go on to become the Hubster.

I still have the dress and the “come hither” sexy attitude. Not that the attitude fits into that dress any more, but what do you expect? That picture is almost old enough to drink!

I haven’t done a Sunday Contentments in a while, I’ve been so busy writing this month. So I just wanted to put one out real quick. I started a new website this month with Mich, called “Very Scary.” It’s an online gallery of children’s art, all drawings about things that scare kids the most. We found these drawings at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear last month. DonorsChoose.org was handing them out to people to say thank you for all the donations raised by the rally. Unfortunately, they had no means to get all the leftover artwork home, so yours truly decided to take what was left back with me and do… something with it.

It turned out I had over 500 very scary drawings on my hands, and not nearly enough refridgerator space to display it all. So I talked to Mich and then I contacted DonorsChoose.org to let them know we wanted to put all the artwork online. After a month of communicating with them, DonorsChoose.org gave us the go-ahead. They were very nice and supportive about it, too. Then last week I started setting things up. The result is the website which we launched late Friday night. You can check it out here.

I had planned to do a simple WordPress blog, but ended up buying a URL so I could host the site myself. I’m just too picky about how my websites look and WordPress won’t let me customize the CSS without paying $15 for it. The URL was only $12 a year, so I said why not. Then Mich came over Friday evening and we spent many hours setting up the site template and uploading files and swearing at the computer (that was mostly me, Mich doesn’t swear that much). Around 1AM Friday night/Saturday morning, we finally had the site up and running.

And you know, in spite of all the hassle, it felt really, really good to get this done. If we hadn’t grabbed that artwork, DonorsChoose.org would have had to have recycled it, and I hated that idea. There’s some really fantastic artwork in the pile of pictures we got, some absolutely surprising and amazing stuff. I just can’t get over how creative these drawings are.

So there’s the super-secret-special project I’ve been working on this month, in between bouts of writing for PerNoFiMo and doing art commissions for LL-Publications. I’d say the new Very Scary site is probably my favorite project in a while, and I’m looking forward to working on it for a long time to come.

After all, I have over 500 images to post… 😉

I spent the day…

• Drawing
• Cooking
• Sewing
• Watching “Corpse Bride”
• Playing with my hair
• Playing with my kids
• Curled up with the Hubster

Now I’m in bed getting ready to write. Shooting for 1000 words on the novel for this year’s PerNoFiMo (Personal Novel Finishing Month). It’s been a good day.

(Everyone should play with their hair every now and then…)

I’ve been working like mad on book covers the past couple of weeks for a client of mine. This weekend I got the final sign off on one of my favorites. It’s the artwork for Mark Jackman’s “Fistful of Rubbers,” book two in the Sid Tillsey Chronicles. I also did the cover art for book one, “The Great Right Hope.” These are both vampire books of a very special nature. Basically, if you hate Twilight, these are for you.

Anyway, here’s the cover art for “Fistful of Rubbers.”

This particular project gave me a bucketload of trouble. First, my original DAZ Studio file of the main character would not open, so I had to recreate him from scratch. That was a pain in the ass. Then DAZ Studio refused to open up one of the new characters I had created for the cover, just 2 days after I had created it! I could understand the first one. I was trying to open the file on a different computer, I was using a new version of DAZ Studio, the file was over 2 years old, etc. 3D files do get a little cranky, especially files that have a lot of supporting files attached to them that have to be present for the main file to work. But a new file not opening up?! You gotta be kidding me! I swore so hard about that one, I blistered the paint on my office walls. Then I dug through the forums at DAZ Studio to figure out what had gone wrong. Thank god I’ve got a brain and I’ve been working with these programs for a few years, because it took quite a bit of sleuthing to figure out what the problem was. I got it all fixed in the end, and managed to get my 3D renders done so I could move on with the job of compositing, painting and texturing all the characters together. I think the end result turned out very well!

Anyway, both “A Fistful of Rubbers” and “The Great Right Hope” are published though LL-Publications. “Fistful” will be out November 15th, so be sure to get a copy! And let me know what you think of the artwork. I’m very happy with this one. I think it turned out just right.

I took a break from producing my weekly erotica podcast, Heat Flash, at the end of September and have been relaxing as much as I can get away with. It’s nice not to have to churn out 2-3000 words every week, plus record and edit the audio. Not that I haven’t had work to do, but the work I’m doing is certainly a nice change of pace. I’ve had several art commissions come in for book covers, and those have been very fun to do. Plus they pay, which the podcast didn’t, at least not directly.

Without the pressure to write at such a frenetic pace, I’ve taken more time to sleep in, laze about with the Hubster, knit and even watch a little TV. I am doing some writing, a short horror story that I will be podcasting for someone in the next month or so, but otherwise I’ve been taking it easy. Easy for me anyway.

Last night I spent the evening with two of my best friends, Patricia and Mich. Patricia had a birthday, so we did a girls night out, getting Mexican and then ambling over to Barnes & Noble for drinks and knitting. It was all very low key and relaxing.

It’s occured to me more than a few times in recent years that low key and relaxing is exactly what I want in life, which is quite a change from how I used to feel when I was in my twenties. Back then I wanted as much excitement as I could get. I certainly did get my share of it, though rarely not the kind of excitement I would have prefered (I blame the Army Reserves for the kinds of excitement I ended up getting).

Anyway, these days I’m happy to just sit and knit, or draw, or write. I’ve become a real homebody. My twenty-something self would hate that, but my forty-something self says it’s all good.

Wow. Just wow. A little over a week ago I wrapped up the third season of the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast, just in time to take a 3-month break. I’m amazed at how much time I suddenly have available now that I’m no longer scrambling to write, record, edit and upload the podcast every week. I’m also amazed at what I have, and haven’t, been doing with that time.

For starters, I have not been writing. The plan with the hiatus from the show was for me to take time to write a novel I’d started a couple years back and to write some short stories I owe people. I’ve not really gotten into any of that. I guess that should not be a surprise. After three years of turning out a short story a week, I suppose I’m due for a break. I’m thinking tomorrow will be the day I start writing in earnest, at least in terms of taking notes for the next story and working on an outline.

I’ve also not been sleeping real well the last few weeks, which is a huge pain in the ass because it totally screws up my schedule. Honestly, I have not been able to find a decent solution to the problem. I exercise, avoid caffein in the evenings, try to get up early and I am definitely tired when I lay down at night. But none of this prevents me from staring at a dark ceiling for a couple of hours or more on the nights when insomnia hits. I’ve tried an over-the-counter sleep aid, and that helps, but also leaves me just as groggy the next morning as if I hadn’t gotten any sleep at all. So not sure what to do. Honestly, if I were smart, I’d get out of bed and do some easy work, something to lull me to sleep, but I’m usually so tired I don’t want to get up. I just want to lie there and hope sleep comes soon. At some point, it eventually does, but not soon enough to make me well rested the next day.

What I have done the last two weeks is work on computer graphics and other odds and ends things. I’ve been turning out book covers for a client, trying my best to keep up with the assignments they send me. And I’ve been designing posters and t-shirts to take to the Rally for Sanity and March to Keep Fear Alive. I’ve set up the “Fear Me” t-shirt in a Zazzle.com shop, with all the profits going to DonorsChoose.org, so if anybody is so inclined, they can buy the shirt and help out a good cause related to the march at the same time. As soon as it shows up online, I’ll post a link here and you can all go buy my shirt!!!

I’ve also started playing piano for some reason. Not obsessively every day, but often enough that I can get through a few Bach pieces with few or no stumbles. I actually sound decent enough that I bought more advanced music books and I’m thinking maybe this is going to turn into a regular habit. I find this incredibly weird though, as I haven’t played piano regularly since my pre-teen years.

Finally, it’s October, so I took some time to work on Halloween decorations yesterday. I dedicated the entire afternoon and evening to painting up skulls to hang in the tree in my front yard. Here are some pics of that.

I started with three dried gourds that I trimmed the stems off of and drilled holes in to hang them from the tree.

The kids helped me paint the gourds white and add some yellowish brown stains with a sponge.

I opted for a Day of the Dead look and painted the features and designs on with black acrylic paint. Here’s one skull in progress.

And here are the three finished skulls. Now all I need to do is run a wire through them to make a hook and I can string them from the tree out front.

Those skulls are probably the most creative thing I’ve done in a long time, and I loved every minute of it. I’m thinking I need to do more projects like this, but I don’t know what I’d do with them once they’re done. Any ideas? I’d love to do more creepy, spooky artwork, either sculptures or decorations or even just painting and drawing, but again, no idea what I’d do once I finished the final product. Thoughts? Ideas?

The other thing I’ve done a lot of lately is knitting. I’m just about finished with a scarf for the Hubster and have been busy knitting a shawl for myself, as I mentioned last week. I’ve also signed up to knit hats, scarves and mittens for a charity that distributes them to kids in the mid-East, so soon I’ll be busy with that. Maybe that’s what I’ll do when I can’t sleep – knit. Or draw. If I can just figure out a way to do it without getting out of bed, because I am to damned lazy to get up once I’m all tucked in.

Anyway, inspite of the insomnia, inspite of the lack of writing, I’ve been pretty happy all around doing stuff. Just not the stuff I expected to do. I’m hoping tomorrow I get my assets out of bed early enough that I can get back to a regular schedule. We’ll see how that goes.

Enjoy your Sunday!

It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon here today. Weather is cool. I had breakfast in bed, plus a few other fun activities, spent an hour on karate practice, and then had a nice long hot bath. Now I’m sitting on the couch blogging whilst the Hubster makes lunch. He has spent the morning working on the floor in our foyer, trimming carpet, laying down transition board, etc. Thus we are that much closer to having the downstairs floor re-tiled and the downstairs bathroom re-installed. Life is good.

Yes, life is good. My work schedule is even finally settling down now that the kids are in school and I’m wrapping up season three of the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast. That’s been a big project for me for the last three years, and by the time I record and upload the last episode I’m doing before taking a 3-month hiatus, I will have produced 164 episodes. That’s 164 speculative fiction erotica stories, written, recorded and released on the inter-tubes for anyone and everyone who finds them to enjoy. Total all that up to 300,000 words written in the last 3 years, and that doesn’t even include additional stories I’ve written and had published. Life is very, very good.

So I’m thinking lately that if my life is so very good, I ought to share the wealth. I don’t make a ton of money off my work, but I do make some and I would like to put that money to good use. Frankly, I’m fortunate in that I don’t have to earn any money. I am the proverbial “kept woman” (who takes care of the kids, cooks and cleans when I’m not busy writing porn). I’d like to take at least some of the money I make off writing erotica and put it to a good cause. But what cause to pick?

How do you choose a charity to support? How do you identify a cause that appeals to your hot button issues and say, “That’s how I’m going to do my part to fix the world!”? I know that among other things, I feel very strongly about the way women are treated in other parts of the world. Let’s face it; in India, Africa, the Mid-East and many other places, woman are little better than slaves, and they live every day in brutal circumstances. As a woman who’s used to be able to exercise her rights to free speech and sexual choice, I fully believe that every woman should have the ability to read and write and the opportunity to express themselves sexually as they see fit. This bullshit of covering women from heat to toe and hiding them away in one tiny portion of the house, or of forcing them to undergo ritual genital mutilation, or of subjecting them to rape on a daily basis as they go about trying to make sure their families have enough food and firewood to stay alive is unacceptable to me.

Thankfully, there are opportunities out there for me to do something with my work. In the past, I’ve had stories accepted to two of the Coming Together anthologies, and I intend to submit many more (and if you haven’t bought something from Coming Together, I suggest you get your tuckus over there now and fix that!). But I’m looking to champion a specific cause now. So I want to ask you all who read this to suggest some charities to me. I will look at any charity suggested, but will have a strong preference toward ones that work to improve the lives of women, especially in third world countries. And I want to make sure the money goes to an organization that puts most of its donations toward helping people rather than in campaigning and advertising.

Help me out, folks. Help me find where to put my money. Because my life has been very good, and I want to share that with as many people as I can.