Author: Cynical Woman

Cartoonist, Artist, Geek, Evil Crafter, Girl Scout Troop Leader and Writer. Also, a zombie. I haven't slept in I don't know how long.
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The Queen Of Porn Rides Again!

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I got some great news last night. My erotica novel, Demon By Day, is being picked up by an e-publisher. I won’t divulge too many details, but I’ve got a contract to sign and mail in so I’m feeling very good. Demon By Day (originally titled “Helen’s Very Gay Fantasy Novel”) is a work of lus- er, love, for me. I spent ten months writing the first draft, another three doing the second draft, and another two putting together synopses and query letters for publishers. I think I came out lucky on this one, as it found a publisher far more quickly than I had any right to expect.

In other erotica writing news, the Erotica Readers and Writers Association is pleased to announce the release of
CREAM, an anthology of the best of ERWA’s story galleries. Yours truly has a piece in there that will curl your hair and probably kill the faint of heart. “A Man In A Kilt” is another work of lus- er, love, and I’m very proud of it.
Winter is coming folks, so if you’re looking for something to read AND keep you warm at the same time, you know who to come to.

YEEHAW!!

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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ZBrush Tree

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Here I am, back with the program I love to hate. Between sick kids, a broken car, and other schedule screw ups, I haven’t been able to put paper to pencil lately, so I’m reverting to some digital work to fulfill my daily art requirements (even then, I’ve still missed a couple of days recently; that’s got to stop!). The above may not look like much, but it’s a work in progress. ZBrush has a nifty little tool that allows you to easily build branching objects, including trees, people, anything with legs and arms that go off in different directions. This is my first pass at a tree. It’s got a long way to go before it reaches it’s final form.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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You Know You’re Tired When…

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You brush your teeth with facial cleanser instead of toothpaste.

You use a tube of bright red lipstick instead of a tube of flesh-toned concealer to cover up the circles under your eyes.

You keep asking the other moms in the play group, “Has anybody seen my kid?” And they keep pointing out to you that she’s sitting right there next to you.

You put orange juice in your coffee instead of creamer (yes Yvonne, I’ve done it too, and you’re right, it is a complete f@cking waste of perfectly good coffee).

You can’t find your eye glasses because you put them in the refrigerator… again.

You call someone every name of every female in your family, trying to get that person to come down for dinner… and the person you’re yelling for is your husband (last time I checked, he was male).

You put your nursing bra on inside out.

You go to change the baby’s diaper, but somehow the clean diaper ends up in the gin and the dirty one ends up right back on the baby.

You give the cats baby food and the baby cat food… and you don’t figure this out until after lunch is over.

There are more signs, I’m sure, but I’m too tired to remember them.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Writer’s Blockhead

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I think I can honestly say, I would rather go through another vaginal birth than deal with writer’s block. Yes, vaginal birth is extremely painful. There is nothing quite like having another living being rip its way out of your uterus and then tear up your clitoris as it exits your vagina, but I gotta tell you. At least you know that eventually, the pain will end. You will somehow eject that sucker from your body, and if you can’t, someone is always willing and waiting to cut a four-inch hole in your gut to get that kid out of you.

Writing is not so easy. I have a story stuck inside me. I’ve been working on it for about a month now. I’m twenty pages into it. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, I’d say it’s about two gay men who both love the same horse. No, not THAT way. Get your mind out of the gutter…

Where was I? Oh yeah, I’ve got twenty pages of story written and it’s all crap. I cannot get past page 20 to save my life. I keep going back and rewriting the same scenes over and over. I have ideas for what should come next, but those scenes are still a little ways down the line, like at page 32 or there abouts. What I need to write is what comes between page 20 and page 32, but I can’t figure out what goes there so I keep going back through the first twenty pages hoping I’ll figure out how to get from point A to point C.

If you’ve been hearing some very loud screaming and cursing coming from the southeastern area of Virginia, you now know what it is. It’s me. Oh, and that repetitive crashing sound? That’s also me, smashing my head against a brick wall.

Unlike a baby, no amount of pushing is going to get this story out of me. I know it’s there. I can feel it dancing around the edges of my conscious brain. I just can’t get a hold of it to put it down on the page. And unfortunately, there’s no doctor standing by waiting to cut it out of me, fully formed and ready to go. So I’m screwed. It really is like having the baby’s head sticking out of your wazoo and not being able to get it out any further, and I fear I may go through the rest of my life like this because that’s how bad writer’s block really is.

I tried today to work around the block by sitting at the computer and just typing out whatever ideas came to me, but that wasn’t very productive because SOMEBODY (Sam) decided she’d rather scream than take a nap. Screaming is not conducive to defeating writer’s block (although I must admit, I have been doing a lot of it myself; see my earlier comments above).

I’m hoping a hot bath and a glass of wine might loosen my brain tonight and allow me to figure out what to do with this stupid story. I’m also hoping that if I get Sam up at the crack of dawn, she will go down for a nap with very little fuss. I’m hoping. But if you hear more screaming coming from this corner of the world… well, you’ll know what’s going on.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Happy Birthday, Mary!

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I can’t remember how old she is (last I recalled, she was a year younger than me, I think), nor can I remember the exact date of her birthday (hell, I can’t remember the exact date of MY birthday), but I do know it’s sometime this month, and she’s still alive and kicking, so happy birthday, Mary! Here’s to not dropping dead from sheer frustration.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Tired

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To quote Madeline Kahn, “I’m so tired…”

I don’t know what my problem is. I know I went to bed at an early hour (for me at least), and I only got up once with Sam. She wanted to nurse at 3:45 AM, which shot my plans to get up at 4:30 all to hell, but oh well. I just can’t get up at 4:30 if I’ve already been up within an hour prior to that. Now, if Sam would wake at 2 AM, or even sleep through the night, I’d be fine, but she’s not in the mood to cooperate these days.

Being tired hurts when you’re a mom. It hurts because you can’t you just can’t get anything done. Like my work. I’ve spent the last few weeks struggling with a story. I’ve got twenty pages written, but it’s been agonizingly slow work, and I don’t know why. I just can’t get this story written. There are times when I think I’m doing really well with it, then I look at it and realize it’s all wrong. There’s too much dialogue, not enough action. Or else there’s too much action, and it’s too intense for that point in the story. I’m laboring over every single word and nothing is flowing out of me. I’m about ready to scrap the damn thing, which truly hurts because of the amount of time I’ve already wasted on it. But honestly, I can’t get this story to move. It’s just not happening. It’s like trying to walk with a small child strapped to each leg, you know?

So I’m tired. However, I did manage to accomplish a successful switch over to Blogger Beta. At least I think it’s been successful. Maybe I should knock on wood. The site looks pretty much as it did before, but now all my dedicated readers (both of them) can find entries based on topic. That’s right, I did this all for you guys, because you know I love you.

One change you should note. Art will now be posted as a separate entry. Thanks to the handy-dandy category function of Blogger Beta, I can label each art entry as art, so if anyone just wants to peruse through the pretty pictures, they just have to hit the “Art” topic link and they’ll get it. And to make sure I continue to do some artwork every day, I have devised a new rule. I can post art without a written blog entry, but I will not post a written blog entry without art. Whoopee! Don’t that sound like fun.

I’m so tired…

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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The Happy Flower

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I decided to play around with ZBrush today, a program I love to hate. This is about the level of success I can get with this program. I just can’t wrap my brain around how it works, and frequently when I try to do things, the program crashes and I lose all my work. But sometimes I can do simple little things like this.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Sisyphus, I Feel Your Pain

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I spent three hours yesterday morning cleaning my house – vacuuming, sweeping, taking out the trash, scrubbing litter boxes, folding laundry (lots and lots of laundry). Then I spent another hour that evening scrubbing my kitchen until it sparkled. I was so thrilled with how clean the place looked and smelled. This morning, I put in another two hours, scrubbing cat puke and baby spit-up stains out of the carpet, washing windows, wiping down both upstairs bathrooms and doing yet even more laundry. By 1 PM when I left to work out at the Y, my house was pristine. When I got back at 2…

Sigh. I hate cleaning. I always swore to myself that I would not end up like my mother, spending every weekend on my hands and knees scrubbing the house. I swore I wouldn’t spend entire days just washing and folding load after load of laundry.

What the hell happened to me?

To make things even worse, I got nothing else done this weekend, including artwork. For some reason, I cannot seem to lever myself out of bed early on the weekends. I don’t know why. It’s not like I stay up any later on weekends than I do on weekdays. I just can’t seem to get moving. I wonder if the problem is that weekends are just so chaotic. No matter how hard Michael and I try to impose some sort of order on the day, we just can’t seem to put together a plan and make it happen. I wish I knew how to change that, because it’s getting to the point where I hate dealing with weekends.

Okay, I will take that last statement back. I did get to do one thing I enjoyed this weekend, and that’s go to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens with Michael and the kids. It was a wonderful afternoon and I’m grateful for the time I got to spend with my loved ones. I just wish the rest of the weekend hadn’t rolled over me like a twenty-ton stone.

***

In lieu of the artwork I didn’t do this weekend, here is what I completed last Thursday. The first two images have been posted here previously. The third is the image in its current state. I’ve taken the bed scene and worked out the perspective in Corel Draw, adding details like the bedspread and wall decorations so I can print the whole thing and trace it by hand onto a sheet of drawing paper. Then I’ll scan the traced image back in and start working on digitally painting the final image. Yes, I’m going around my ass to get to my armpit with this one, jumping back and forth between digital and traditional methods, but it’s the only way I can figure out how to do this particular image. It’s ass-backwards, but that’s what happens when you don’t plan things out. No wonder this frickin’ thing is taking forever.

Reclining Figure, September 2006

Beautiful Bed, rough draft, October 2006

Beautiful Bed, perspective draft, November 2006

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Good Day, Bad Day

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Monday was a good day. I got up at 4:30 AM, was at my desk with a hot cup of coffee by 5:30 AM, had the kids up by 6:30, and saw Cassie and Michael out the door by 7:30. After bathing and nursing Sam, I had her down for a nap at 9:15 so I could go back to work. She didn’t wake up until 11:15 when we headed out the door for the YMCA. Got some karate practice in, did a little swimming, made it home a little too late to have lunch with Michael, but I still got to kiss him on his way out the door. Then I played with Sam a while and had lunch. When she went down for a nap at 2 PM, I went right back to work and didn’t stop until it was time to get Cassie from preschool at 4:30. Dinner was at 6, and both kids were in bed by 8 so I could have a nice long bath and get to bed before 10. Yep, Monday was a good day.

Tuesday, on the other hand, was a disaster.

Sam woke up around 2:30 AM and kept me up for the next two hours, kicking me in the stomach while I tried to nurse her back to sleep. It was 4:30 before I finally managed to get her back into her crib. Normally, I like to get up at 4:30, so I can have a perfect day like Monday, but after being pummeled for so long I was wiped out, so I figured I just forget about my early morning work and catch up on sleep. Ten minutes after I climbed back into bed, Cassie came running in screaming. I couldn’t understand what she was screaming about, but figured it was the usual problem – monsters (i.e. the cats) climbing into her bed again and waking her up. So I let her into bed with us and told her she could sleep safe for a while between Daddy and me. Only she couldn’t settle down. Turns out there was a reason for this. She had an earache, a very painful one, but she couldn’t stop crying long enough to tell me about it. I finally figured it out when I noticed how she kept clutching at one ear.

Needless to say, that pretty much killed my day right there. My baby was in pain and needed my full attention. With Michael’s help, I managed to get her and her sister up and fed. I had physical therapy, so Michael stayed home with the girls while I went to my appointment. When I got home, we rushed out to vote. Then, just before Michael headed out to work, he and I managed to squeeze in a small argument. Joy! After he went to work, I sat down to nurse Sam. Fortunately, Cassie agreed to play quietly in her room rather than demand an all day TV marathon. I did get Sam to take a quick nap, which is how I managed to get some writing done, but then we spent lunch at the doctor’s office, where I found out that I missed an 8:30 AM appointment the day before. It was supposed to be for Sam, and I could have sworn it was scheduled for the next Monday, but I guess I was WRONG! So much for Monday being perfect.

Cassie fell asleep on the ride home from the doctor. I got her down for a nap and then had to fight to settle Sam down. She was fussy, so I decided to take her temperature, only to discover that the digital thermometer was on the fritz. So she may or may not have had a temperature of 100 degrees. While I was trying to read Sam’s temperature, Cassie woke up screaming again. I couldn’t abandon Sam on the changing table with a thermometer stuck up her tookus, so I yelled at Cassie to come find me, which she wouldn’t do. She just stayed in her bed and screamed. Finally, I gave up on the thermometer and set Sam down in the bassinet in our room. I grabbed Cassie and set her on our bed and tried to calm her down. Didn’t work. So I headed downstairs to get the medicine the doctor gave me. It’s an oral suspension, which means I have to mix it with some water. While I was trying to measure out 4 ml of water, Cassie continued to scream even louder. Then Sam joined in, no doubt inspired by her sister. So I had two screaming kids when I came back upstairs. It took me a good twenty minutes to calm them both down. I finally had to resort to turning on the television to get some peace and quiet. Thank god for afternoon cartoons.

Sam eventually took her afternoon nap. Cassie stayed slumped in front of the TV for about an hour. I got a tiny bit of artwork done. Then I cajoled my eldest child away from the boob tube by offering to pull out her Play-Do and play with her. I spent the next hour alternating between making squishy cartoon characters and cooking up tacos. Fortunately, I was able to keep the ingredients for two such diverse projects separate. The rest of the evening went about as expected – dinner, tantrum, movie, tantrum, bath time, tantrum, bedtime, tantrum – with neither child going to sleep as early as I would have liked. As for me, you better believe I didn’t get enough sleep. I, fool that I am, decided to watch an hour of television, which mean that I stupidly decided to trade one hour of snooze time for one hour staring at the idiot box. Now that may not seem like a lot of time to watch TV, but consider that if Sam went down at 9 PM, I watch TV until 10 and then take a bath, I may not get into bed until 11, and Sam has a nasty habit of waking up crying at 11:30. She’ll usually fall asleep after twenty minutes or so, but I can’t sleep through her fussing with or without the baby monitor on, which means I will then be up for a while trying to calm myself back to sleep. One would think that as tired as I am, I would just drop right off, but no, I sleep about as well as I breathe mud, which is to say not very well at all.

I can’t decide if today, Wednesday, is good or bad. Michael stayed up late last night watching election results, and I usually can’t fall asleep until he’s in bed. Can anybody explain to me why the hell that is? Why does a husband have to stay up at least an extra two hours before lumbering into bed, thus keeping me up or, if by some rare chance I did fall asleep, wake me up as he crashes face first into the mattress and starts snoring? Any way, we were up late, so we slept late, except for Sam who was right on time with that 2:30 AM feeding. Not that it matters too much on Wednesday. Wednesday is play-date day, so I don’t plan on getting much work done then anyway, but man, it sure would have been nice to get up at 4:30 AM this morning and do a little work.

Now at this point, after rambling on and on through the tedious details of my day, I feel like shooting myself because I finally have proof that I’m growing old. I look forward to getting up at 4:30 AM to do a little work? Shoot me before I go any more insane, okay?

***

Okay, today was a good day after all. What makes today good? The artwork below, courtesy of my three-year-old, daughter. This is a drawing Cassie did this morning of her, me, and Sam (who in this picture is still in my belly). She’s also included Sam’s crib and something hanging below me that she calls “The Dump.” I’m afraid to ask what she means by that. But isn’t this picture amazing? I’m so proud of my little budding artist!

Me, Cassie, and Sam, by Cassandra Jane – 8 November 2006

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Head… Must… Explode!

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My friends tell me they can tell how well or how poorly my week is going by the number of blog entries I make. Lots of blog entries mean I’ve got time on my hands and very little stress. Fewer blog entries mean my head must be about ready to explode. Guess which end of the spectrum I’m at right now?

Cassie is over her flu bug, but has been cranky as all get out. I swear, I think somebody dropped a crab down that child’s shorts, the way she keeps screaming all the time. On Friday morning, after I’d been up with Sam the Fuss Pot all night, Cass came running in at 6 AM, yelling “Mommy! It’s time to get up!” “No, no, honey. Mommy’s tired. Why don’t you lay in bed with me for a few minutes and then we’ll get up and have breakfast?” I swear to you, all I wanted was five more minutes of sleep and a chance to let Michael finished getting dressed so he could take Cassie downstairs and feed her while I dragged myself and Sam out of bed. But apparently Cassie thought I had just told her that I was never getting out of bed because I was an evil sloth demon, because she began screaming at the top of her lungs. “GET UP! GET UP YOU VILE BEAST OF LAZINESS! IT’S SIX AM AND YOU MUST GET UP!” Needless to say, I did get up and I picked that child up by the waist band of her pajama bottoms and hauled her little tookus right back to her own bed where I left her, still screaming, while I went back to my bed. Perhaps I am an evil sloth monster after all.

But Cassie is feeling better and is most certainly going back to pre-school today. Hell, she could have the bubonic plague and I’d still send her to preschool because I can’t take much more of this. I love my child, but she’s driving me crazy.

The upside of all this is that I’ve done some nice cartooning while watching kiddie TV with Cassie. I’ve got designs for three cool characters roughed out, plus story ideas jotted down, and plenty of projects just lined up and waiting for me to work on. Oh yeah, lots of stuff to do, cool stuff, art stuff, writing stuff, stuff I love… stuff I have no frikkin’ time to get to because I AM A MOM! AAAAAUUUUUGH!!

Do you see my problem here? This is why my head is about to explode. Lots of ideas for stories and art, no time to express them into reality. Bummer.

Oh well, such is life. Eventually, both kids will be in school, and then I will have my free time back. Too bad my sanity will have long since departed.

***

Here is one of the character sketches I was talking about. This is Angel Baby. She’s craaaaaazy!

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.