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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Writing Wednesday – A Writer Looks at 41

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I’m 41. Huzzah.

Sorry. Usually I’m far more enthusiastic about birthdays, but yesterday, on my birthday, I came down with some sort of nasty sinus infecting crud and have ended up spending most of the day on the couch answering e-mail and watching Scooby Doo with the youngest child. Not a pretty sight, I can assure you.

But since I am just turned 41, I though I’d take a moment today to look at what I’ve done so far with my writing career and then discuss what I want to do during Year 41. I consider my writing career to have started on my 34th birthday, in spite of the fact that I had already published 3 short stories prior to that. Those 3 short stories were written and published years apart, so I wasn’t so much a writer as a wannabe who had somehow managed to get into print. Writers, in my opinion, are people who write every day, and work to get themselves published. And I did not really start doing that until the day I turned 34, which coincidentally also happened to be the day after I came home from the hospital with my first born child.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll repeat it now. Until I became a parent, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I worked at various jobs, all of which I hated. I spent 11 years in the Army Reserves. I had quit my last job to “find myself” as it were, and after 2 years didn’t have much to show for it. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do or how I wanted to do it. But boy howdy, when I came home with that screaming bundle of joy, I certainly figured it out then. The urge to write was overwhelming, and it was prompted in part by a) the fact that I realized if I wanted to do something with my life, I needed to start now, and b) post-partum hormones and a need to distract myself somehow from the pain of breastfeeding a squalling infant around the clock.

Writing = Ass In Chair. I think we all know that equation. With breastfeeding, I suddenly had a lot of ass-in-chair time, and thus I decided to put it to good use and write. Now seven years later, I have written nearly 150 short stories, 135 of those for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast; one novel; and produced a weekly audio show for the last 2 1/2 years. I also have a weekly webcomic that I write and draw, plus another comic that I’m restoring and publishing online. I get invited to 4 conventions a year to be a writing/podcasting guest. I’ve been in half a dozen anthologies. And probably most surprisingly, I know quite a few e-publishers by first name. At this point in my writing career, I am out of the slush pile, well-known enough to have a small fan base, and I get the occasional invite to participate in various anthologies and projects. It’s not a bad place to be, I have to admit.

So what do I want to do with the next year? Where do I want to go? On one hand, I’d like to step up on a few things – more novel writing, more publications, maybe even a couple more convention spots. On the other hand, I’d like to tone things down a notch. I am still, after all, a stay-at-home mom with two small children to take care of. And I’d like very much to have the time to enjoy my life and indulge in a few hobbies and passions. Can I balance those what I’ve got in those two hands? This is the year I intend to find out.

Here’s the plan. I’ve been podcasting a short story a week for the last 2 1/2 years. That’s been great in terms of getting my name out and building an audience, but it doesn’t allow me any time left over to write novels. And boy howdy, do I have some novels I want to write. And podcast as well. I’ve talked to some publishers I work with and they have said they would be interested in publishing a novel I podcast. That’s always great to hear, because I think podcast novels are a great way to build an audience for current and future work. So the plan is that at the end of the third season of Heat Flash – that’s this September – I’ll wrap up the short stories, take a bit of a hiatus, and get to work on the first of what I hope to be many a string of novels. Then I’ll come back in the new year and podcast that novel a chapter at a time. Taking time off from podcasting will obviously cause me to lose some audience members, but it’s a necessity at this point. I swear to you, I am on the go from dawn to midnight, and there simply is no spare time in my day to write anything more than what I’m already doing. Even if I stopped blogging and cartooning, I still don’t think there’d be enough time. And I’ve already given up TV, so what else is there to cut out of my schedule? Sleep?

Ah, sleep. That’s been another problem. I don’t get enough of it. I’ve been getting up at 5AM for the last couple of years, and it’s starting to get harder and harder. So I’ve decided that I need more and not less. The 5AM wake-up call is going away for a while. Right now I’m thinking 6AM might work, though if I still find myself tired getting up that early, I’m willing to stay in bed until 7AM. In lieu of working early in the morning, the plan is to get the kids to bed earlier and write in the evenings. It’s a switch I can live with, and one that will put my schedule in synch with the Hubster’s. I married the man, I would like to at least be awake when he comes to bed so I can kiss him goodnight.

Beyond that, I am in general trimming some things out of my schedule to make more time for writing and family. My post on Oh Get A Grip this Friday will be my last there. I’ll miss participating on OGG, but I need that time back. And once I get through the current novella I’m writing, I’m not picking up any new writing projects until I get past the third season of Heat Flash. I’m hoping that this summer, I’ll be able to squeeze in a little extra work time in the afternoons, since I won’t have to be at the bus stop at 3:30PM. The kids are quite capable of entertaining themselves in the afternoon while I work, I know that from previous summers.

And that’s the general plan for next year. Start clearing out my workload, get a little extra sleep, and switch over from short stories to novels come September. I think it will work, and hopefully getting more novels published will mean more book sales. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Thoughts and opinions on my plan are welcome. You can leave a comment below 😉

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ACW Episode 57 – All I Want…

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Yep, this is exactly what I want and pretty much how I expect the day to go. And don’t forget, I have a dental appointment today! Yee-HAW!

In all seriousness, I got some very nice presents from the Hubster and my sister, and have already been informed by my in-laws and parents that there’s a little something from both of them on the way. I’ll be spending this weekend with family as we celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday (she was born on Leap Day; how cool is that?!). And then I’m thinking that the next Friday, I’m blowing everything off and going to hide in the bookstore for the afternoon until I absolutely have to leave to get the kids. Or maybe I’ll just sit at my computer and play around with my graphics programs? Who knows! The thing is, I’ve been trying to take a day off for the last two months and something’s always come up. Not this time. Not if I can help it.

So here’s hoping everyone with a birthday today has a great day, and the rest of you too! See ya!

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Move It Mama Monday! I finished EA Sports Active’s 6-week challenge! Now what?

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Well, I finished the new EA Sports Active 6-week challenge two weeks ago, just before heading out to Farpoint. I was doing the medium level challenge, since I remembered how I’d fared doing the hard level challenge in EASA’s previous incarnation. I can say I did finish the challenge within 6 weeks. However, once again I did not lose weight. I was losing weight for the first four weeks, but then the last two weeks I had some problems. First off, I hit a high stress month, and I missed a lot of my regular non-EASA workouts as a result. Second, my hormones are all out of whack right now, probably a hangover from the previous quarter’s fertility treatments and my age. I’m 40, very soon to be 41. I expect my body to do wonky things like suddenly pack on 6 pounds. And the stress of so much going on this month did not help with my eating habits. I don’t care what anybody says, eating right takes a lot of work, and it’s hard to maintain healthy habits under stress.

But I completed the challenge, so my big question is, “Now what?” EASA recommends I do another challenge at the next higher level, of course. I’m not keen on that idea for a couple of reasons. The first is that EASA’s 6 week challenge requires four workouts every week. It’s hard for me to fit that in along with regular water aerobics classes and karate classes. Those classes take up my mornings most days, leaving me unable to do anything else until the evening. I could do 20 minutes or so of exercise in the evenings, but even that is hard to fit in. Princess has needed more supervision recently for her homework, which eats into my evening time. Plus, I really need to get back into cleaning the house. I can either do 20 minutes of exercise or 20 minutes of cleaning, but not both during the evenings. Trust me, I’ve tried. I’d have to live a very regimented life to do that, and that’s not possible with kids.

My other problem is that the workouts for the EASA challenge got longer the farther I got into the 6 weeks. Initially, the workouts where only 20 minutes long. Toward the end, they ran as long as 38 minutes. That’s a lot of time to devote in the evenings to a workout! And again, very hard to accomplish when I’ve got homework to supervise, a house to clean, dinner to make, children to read to, etc.

So what to do now? I figure with my schedule I could do 3 regular workouts a week, on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The Sunday and Wednesday workouts would be on days I have nothing else scheduled, exercise-wise, so I can afford to spend more time on a Wii workout. As much as 45 minutes, even. The Friday workout would be on an evening when I don’t have to worry about homework or cook dinner. That’s pizza and movie night, so I can easily squeeze in 20-30 minutes.

The question is though, do I stick with EASA for these 3 workouts a week, or do something else?

I’m thinking of doing something else. I’ve done EASA for 6 weeks straight, and while the latest incarnation is better than the previous, I am still getting bored with it after so many weeks. I’d like to cycle back to Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout and Wii Fit Plus. Gold’s Gym really lets me work up a sweat in very little time. And Wii Fit Plus would let me work on my core muscles and balance, as well as have fun with the games. So I’m thinking of using primarily those two programs on Sunday and Friday. I might still use EASA for Wednesday, but I’ll need to figure out if I’m going to build my own workouts or use some of the pre-programmed ones.

Of course, I could always check to see if there are any new Wii workout games out there. But for now, I’m moving back to Gold’s Gym and Wii Fit Plus. I don’t know if I’ll lose any weight with this, but the goal these days is to just keep moving and stay as healthy as I can.

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Sunday Contentments – Birthdays and Birding

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Today has not gone at all as I would have liked, so I’m doing my best just to roll with it. I should know by now that the entire month of February is going to be totally F’ed up and just deal, yet somehow this month always catches me by surprise. In February, la casa de Madden has…

  • Valentine’s Day
  • Princess’ birthday
  • My birthday
  • My mother-in-law’s birthday
  • My trip to the Farpoint science fiction convention
  • And the ever popular 100th day of school project for Princess

We did manage to stave off some stress by not having a big party for Princess. However, we are going up to DC for my MIL’s birthday. So actually, we haven’t reduced stress at all on the birthday front. Princess’ 100th Day project got out the door in plenty of time and she received a good grade on it, but I’m juggling work and other responsibilities like nobody’s business.

Oh, and did I mention I just found out yesterday that my sister is in the hospital? She’s doing fine, but I may or may not end up flying up there to help out, depending on how things go.

But for now, it’s Sunday afternoon. Princess had dinner out for her birthday, and received more presents than I can shake a stick at. I can tell she’s gotten older because she’s developing an attitude. Even so, I love the little twerp. It wasn’t that long ago I was going into the hospital for a c-section and wondering what was going to come out in the end. A very bald, very fussy baby is what I got. And I miss having that baby, and the one that followed, because babies don’t usually talk back when you tell them to pick up their stuff or you’ll throw it out.

But the joys of a seven-year-old are many. This morning Princess described some birds that she had seen in the backyard. Birding is our latest hobby. Hubster gave me binoculars for Valentine’s Day, and no I’ve not been using them to spy on the neighbors, you perverts. I’ve been watching the birds in my backyard. Thanks to my nifty new binoculars, I can now identify house finches, dark-eyed juncos, cardinals, American gold finches, black-capped chickadees, blue jays, tufted tit-mice and a few other species. It’s fascinating to just sit at my dining room window and watch the action going on at my bird feeder. I love to spend lunch nibbling on a sandwich and watching the birds. It’s calm and very quiet, and I obviously need a little calm and quiet right now.

I’m going to go on with the remains of my day as peacefully as I can. I have stories to critique, laundry to wash and fold, and a podcast to edit. One day, I’ll clear some of this work off my plate and be able to relax a bit more. Until then, I enjoy my day as best as I can. I hope you enjoy yours as well.

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Rats! Episode 06 – Listen Up!

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Amazing! We’re all the way up to episode 06! That’s mainly of interest to me because this was the last cartoon I did in the 2×2 panel format. After that, I switched to a regular 1×4 set up, which you’ll see next week.

The above incident actually happened to me my freshmen year. You might remember last week that I mentioned rats were required to speak up to all upper classmen in the hall and identify them correctly by name and rank without looking at them. That got old fast, so we tried to make our lives easier on ourselves by staying the hell out of the hallways. When we had to leave, we always listened at the door to see if we could figure out who was out there. One day, we stood at one side of the door listening, but couldn’t hear anybody. That’s because the upper classmen were on the other side of the door trying to figure out if we were in the room or not. I can’t recall why they wanted to know if we were in, but we sure surprised the hell out of them when we came rushing out the door all of a sudden, thinking the coast was clear. As I recall, everyone was too startled to worry about speaking up, and my roommate and I got out of the hallway without having to say much beyond, “Good morning Sir! Good morning Ma’am!”

Someone commented to me a couple of weeks ago that they couldn’t understand why I put up with all the crap I had to deal with being a rat in the VTCC. They thought it was depressing that I lived through that kind of hell for so long. To be honest, it was not my idea to join the VTCC. My dad insisted I had to at least try for an ROTC scholarship, or he wouldn’t pay for school. At that point in my life, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I only knew that college seemed like the next step to take, and I wasn’t ready to strike out on my own. So after lots of screaming and arguing, I agreed to put in for the scholarship. When I didn’t get it, I was relieved. Then I got accepted to Virginia Tech and Dad found out they had a full-time cadet corps, so he insisted I join that and try for the scholarship again next year. More screaming and arguing ensued, but again, I had no better plan for my life so Dad won that argument.

In hindsight, I have to admit Dad was right. I had no idea what I wanted to do after school. I picked both my major and my college at random. I don’t know why I wasn’t better prepared coming out of high school, but that’s how it was. Dad’s motivation for the ROTC scholarship was partly financial and partly patriotic. He truly believes that everybody should give something back to their country, and I believe it as well, though I think I would enjoyed doing that through some sort of volunteer service as opposed to military service. Peace Corp might have been cool. But again, I was too scattered at that point and didn’t have a plan.

I still didn’t have a plan for my life by the time I graduated, beyond staying as close to my boyfriend/future husband as possible. In fact, I didn’t get a plan until 3 days after my oldest daughter was born, which was also the day before my 34th birthday. Imagine going through the first 34 years of your life having no fricking clue what you want to do. That was me. But thanks to Dad and his insistence that I go into the military, I did acquire a lot of discipline, plenty of skills, and enough career experience that I could do any job I happened to come across. And I came across a lot of jobs that I didn’t particularly like but that I could do, and do well, thanks to my time as a cadet and officer in the Army Reserves. And so things always turned okay for me, more or less.

Today I know what I want to do, and I do it. And I still use that discipline I learned the hard way as a cadet. And when things don’t go right, or I have set backs, it doesn’t really bother me too much because I know I’ve been through lousy times before. It didn’t kill me back then, and it won’t kill me now. So to that person who thought my life as a cadet was miserable and depressing, all I can say is, “Hallelujah! I’m a better person for it!”

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Writing Wednesday – Coming Together Anthologies

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Coming Together has a new online store! For those of you not familiar with Coming Together, this is a series of erotica anthologies, the proceeds of which are donated to charity. Authors donate their stories (and yes, we have to compete to get in, the series is so popular!!) and the editor, Alessia Brio, devotes her time and pretty much her life to making these books a reality. Proceeds from each volume go to a different charity. So visit the store, buy a book, and do something good by Coming Together!

(And yes, I’ve got stories in two of these anthologies – Coming Together: With Pride and Coming Together: Al Fresco!)

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ACW Episode 56 – The Death of the Party

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I did this panel over the weekend, while manning my author’s table at Farpoint. I bought one of the Canson comic strip drawing pads and used it for this week’s episode. The Canson pads are expensive – at least twice what I pay for the Strathmore pads I’ve been using – and they only have 14 sheets, not 100+. However, the advantage of using the Canson comic strip pad is that each page comes pre-lined and measured, so I don’t have to draft out my panels, I can just start drawing. Also, the paper is Bristol board, not cheap sketch book paper. I love cartooning on Bristol board. It’s smooth and very sturdy. But most important, the Canson pad is small enough to be portable, yet large enough to make drawing easy. And since this week’s and last week’s panels turned out so well using this paper, I think I’ll be willing to suck up the expense and buy more Canson pads.

Now onto today’s topic of discussion. I’ve been wanting to draw this particular strip for a long time. I had the idea back in April of last year, and held onto it until now, just a few days before Princess’ birthday. Turns out this week’s strip is very appropriate for two reasons.

First, I suck at children’s parties. Really. I hate the bloody things. Not because I don’t want my kids to have fun; I do want them to have fun. But I recall the days when a children’s party was simply a matter of inviting a few kids over, serving cake and ice cream, opening a few presents, letting the little monsters run amok for a bit, and then sending everyone home after an hour or so. That’s what it was like when I was a kid. Now that I have kids of my own, the rules have changed.

These days, no children’s party is considered a success unless it’s a ginormous affair with a giant inflatable moon bounce in the backyard, catering by Chic-Fil-A, and a visit from Spiderman. I’ve been to children’s parties where there were approximately 30 kids there, ranging from 6 months to 12 years of age. There are usually a lot of adults there, nearly two for every child, invited to attend along with the kids. There’s cake, soda, and lots of chicken nuggets for the kids, with beer and barbeque and fancy appetizers for the adults. And then there’s the mountain of presents coming out the wazoo, with lots of screaming and fighting occurring as the birthday child opens them. It’s madness, I tell ya, and not the kind I can get into. And every year the parties get worse as each set of parents tries to outdo the last. I don’t like paying an arm and a leg for a kid’s party. I don’t like forking over mega-bucks to feed a pack of adults I don’t really know. And I don’t like having to clean my house just to watch it get trashed again by screaming hordes of kids (and the alternative of renting a venue for the party leaves me cold too; those places are damned expensive and usually not worth the money). Thus I suck at hosting kids’ of parties because honestly, I hate them.

For the last few years I’ve allowed myself to be suckered into the whole big bash trend, but not this year, which leads us to the second reason why the above cartoon is apropos. I killed Princess’ birthday party this year. Killed it flat out dead. You see, Princess got grounded at the beginning of the month for not doing her schoolwork, and I told her that if she didn’t get the problem straightened out by the time I needed to start planning her party, there would be no party. You can guess what happened. It takes time, more than I have to spare these days, to reserve a venue, write up the guest list, send out the invites, arrange for food (do we make everything or waste a bundle on kids’ catering?), hire a clown or magician or other character, etc. I told Princess that if she wasn’t going to take the time to do her school work when she’s supposed to, then I didn’t have time to prepare for a party. And that’s true because I’m spending more time that I can count supervising her completing the unfinished school work at home.

So no party. Instead, I somehow managed to schedule eye appointments for Princess and I on her birthday, AND I managed to schedule the entire family for dental appointments on my birthday a few days later.

Do I know how to party, or what?

Happy birthday Princess! Even though you didn’t get that big party you wanted, you know I love you.

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Move It Mama Monday! Not today, folks

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I apologize for the lateness of today’s blog post, but the fact is I did no moving of it or anything else today. In fact, I pretty much skipped all my workouts last week getting ready for the Farpoint science fiction convention. I simply had too much work to do last week and I was just too dang fried today to exercise. In fact, I was so tired I went back to bed after seeing the kids off to school. Yeah, it was that kind of exhausting today.

So now I’m getting ready to go back to bed again. I’ll be good tomorrow — drink lots of water, eat lots of fruit and veggies, and do an hour or so of exercise at the dojo. But today, I just want to feel half-way human again.

I’ll blog about how I finished the EA Sports Active 6-week challenge next week. For now…

To bed!

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Sunday Contentments – Faaaaaaaaaarpoint

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Wow am I beat. I got back from the Farpoint science fiction convention a couple hours ago, and am now quietly unwinding in front of the TV while the kids watch the Olympics and chow down on marshmallow lollipops. I had such a busy weekend, I’m about to fall asleep while blogging, so I’ll try to keep this short. What I loved about Farpoint this weekend…

  • Getting to see friends I would never get to see otherwise.
  • Getting to see friends I haven’t seen since college, including people who were at my wedding 16 years ago..
  • Being a professional writer for a weekend. Yes, I’m a professional writer all the time, but nothing makes me feel more like a writer than attending a con, running panels, selling books, and doing readings. I put the “stay” in stay-at-home mom, so getting out like this is a big deal.
  • Did I mention seeing my friends? I have many cool friends; very cool, very strange friends.
  • Shopping for a corset. I had not planned to buy a corset, but I found one in a black and red flame print and that was all she wrote. I’ll be wearing it for readings from here on out.
  • Selling books. I sold the last 3 copies of Future Perfect that I had this weekend. It amazes me that I’ll need to get more copies before I hit Balticon in May.
  • Doing panels on erotica and speculative fiction. I like being the recognized expert on something.
  • Having my friends show up for my panels. Did I mention I love my friends?

All in all, it was a great weekend. I’ll do a full after-con report for this Writing Wednesday. But now, I’m going to…

Zzzzzzzzzz…

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Rats! Episode 05 – Life’s a drag, speak up!

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The above scenario actually happened to one of my buds, Valerie, and it was frikkin’ hilarious when it happened. It may not make sense to any of you civilians, so let me explain.

New cadets/rats were not allowed to walk in the hallways of the cadet dormitories, which were Rasch and Brodie Hall back then (they’re probably still Rasch and Brodie Hall, but I don’t keep up with this things, and I know they’ve been other dorms in the past and why am I going on about this now?). Anyway, rats weren’t allowed to walk in the hallways. We had to drag. Dragging is a fast-paced march, done at the very side of the hallway, up against the right-side wall. New cadets marched quickly, in single file, right shoulders scraping the wall until they came to a point where they had to turn. Then they did a 90 degree turn in the appropriate direction and kept going. If a new cadet ran into any obstacle in the hallway, like say one of those giant rectangular trashcans that were spaced about every 15 yards along the way, then the new cadet had to do those 90 degree turns all the way around the obstacle to get back to the right-side wall. If you were with a group of other rats, you all dragged together in single file to make a rat train. If you were on your own, you dragged on your own, and you hugged that damned right-side wall every step of the way. The only time a rat got to walk in the hallways was when he or she was on mail duty and needed to be able to look at the doors to deliver the mail.

Oh, and did I mention that while dragging, rats were not allowed to look around? Eyes had to stay straight ahead. You couldn’t look at anyone else in the hallway, even if that person was directly in front of you. That would be gazing, and gazing was bad. People got demerits and got dropped for push-ups and suffered all sorts of nastiness that upper classmen liked to visit upon rats if gazing occurred. So all the rats marched around the dorms like… well, rats in a maze, with blinders on.

Oh, and did I also mention that we had to speak up to everyone in the hallway and greet them by rank and last name? See, that’s what’s going on in the cartoon above. That particular rat has been caught dragging out in the hallway, and has spoken up but has not addressed the upper classman in question by rank and name! Honest to god, we were expected to know who was in the hallway just by the sound of their shoes and whatever other blurry details we could sneak a peek at through our peripheral vision. Sounds impossible, yes? And yet somehow we did it.

And just to make things even more interesting, because you know this wasn’t interesting enough, all new cadets could only leave the dorm through one doorway. And that doorway was at the exact opposite end of the building from where the female cadets were rooming.

So imagine this. It’s 8AM. I have a class on the far side of the campus in 20 minutes. I’ve got my shirt tuck done, my shoes polished and my books packed. I grab my hat (also called a cover in military parlance), fling open the door to my room and rush out into the hall. After three paces, I hit the far wall pop a right turn of precisely 90 degrees and start to drag. Every fucking upper classman on that floor is out in the hallway – heading to class, ironing uniform shirts, burning popcorn in the microwave oven, or taking a trip to the head (another military term meaning toilet). And as I’m dragging along the hallway, I hear their footsteps, catch a glimpse of their silhouettes, and say good morning to everyone of them by name and rank all the way through the whole damned building. I can’t look at anyone or just plain walk until I hit the door to the outside and then I can relax, just a little.

That was my life, every day for I can’t remember how many months. Crazy, ain’t it?