Teddy Radiator

TheHubs™ and I are currently eating lots of plant-based stuff. We're also eating up all meat and dairy products until we done with them, so I don't know if that qualifies for doing something good or not. But we have been trying some fairly good plant-based meat substitutes and like them. We've done this before and I failed spectacularly - mainly because I tried to exclusively substitute tofu for meat and it was a disaster of monumental proportions. I cannot cook tofu. And I don't know what I'm doing, so I don't even know if I dislike it or not. What I need is for someone who really knows what they are doing to cook me some decent tofu and tell me, "This, now THIS is the way good tofu is supposed to taste." Then I'll know for sure if I actually do like it and just don't know how to cook it, or, like eggplant, I can't stand it no matter how well it's prepared.

Still battling depression - still fighting the good fight. It's approaching two years since TheHubs™' stroke. We still talk about it alot. Both of us were deeply traumatised by it, and right or wrong, it still haunts us a bit. Both of us are doing all the right things - eating well, taking our meds, getting regular checkups, but the event itself fucked me up mightily. I am still prone to bouts of anxiety and fear. I have been a fearful person all my life. Some Leo, huh? I'm the original cowardly lion. I find myself afraid about 70% of the time. I hate it, but I think it's just the way I'm wired. Talking about what happened helps, and writing helps, and working helps, but still, sometimes I'm almost paralyzed by fear. Now we are nearing the two year anniversary of the stroke, and I find myself afraid of that day. Hell, I get anxious if we drive past the parking lot where it first happened.

I started writing a short story today. We drove by an old house yesterday, and we started talking about a prompt for a story. We knocked it around while we drove from job to job, and today I've worked on it. It's around 2K, and I don't know if anything else will come from it, but TheHubs™ cried like a baby as I read it to him. I think that's about the best compliment I've ever been given. He even mentioned it on Facebook today. It makes me think I should submit it somewhere, but I've got no idea where. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

We've just finished two weeks of the most hellish job I've ever done since starting with this company in 2011. I have never been so grateful to see the back of anything like it. In the 80 hours we worked for this project, only 20 of them were our actual job. The other 60 were as parking attendant, standing for hours at a time in the cold, heat and rain.

The one redeeming factor (aside from the money) was that TheHubs™ and I spent one day thrashing through my third book. It was fascinating working through plot holes and blind doubles, and he's brilliant at that sort of thing. I remember almost everything we spoke about, but I deeply regret not having a notebook there.

The constant standing on asphalt has taken its toll on my physically. I still have shooting pains down my legs, and I'm not sleeping worth a damn because of muscle cramps and spasms. We have another full, but less physically demanding week ahead of us, so no rest for the wicked.

To ease the pain, I've been dabbling around with The Masque's Holiday Erotica story contest. It's great fun, and for erotica writers should be a blast. The deadline is December 15, and the prize is a lot of kinky goodies and I'm just dying to win. However, I'd also like a lot of competition, so if you fancy a wicked toy or two, click HERE for details. It's sex and Christmas - what could be better?

I am champing at the bit to decorate, but I won't have a chance until next week. Expect to be bombarded with the usual Christmas photos.

I am done. I finished my sshg_giftfest submission. I started it about two weeks ago, with an teensy idea, and suddenly, zillions of words later, it's done.

I say that provisionally; stgulik has not had the chance to really get her teeth into it, so I'm sure lots and lots of things will be edited. Still, I wrote it. It has a legit beginning, middle and end, and has broken a very long, very dry spell. As I say, it's nothing profound. Fanfiction will not be changed by it. It's not a story that will have a profound effect on people. But I do think it's a bit of fun, and hopefully a fun read.

But it's done!

Did I mention it's finished?

Hello, all. Still committed to trying to post here more often, and get away from the Toxic Swamp of Facebook. It is so depressing there now I can barely stand to log in, even though it's the best way to keep up with all my friends. There's got to be a better way.

Audible Chine is coming along well. Evan Harris, my reader, is doing a great job, and working with him is so much fun. He took a shine to one of my most despicable characters and made every word that oozed from this character's lips a masterclass in E-veel. It was a shame he (the character, not Evan) got killed off about halfway through the book. There is a very difficult chapter (stgulik, you will know the one I'm referring to), involving a great deal of violence, but he handled it with great sensitivity and confidence. He's a fan of horror films, and not in the least bit squeamish. I told him it needed to be read in a detached, clinical way, and he managed to do just that without losing any of the menace or tension of the moment. I am very proud of it.

Prior to that, he had read through what is probably the most erotic and smut-filled chapters of the book, and I have to tell you, I was so enthralled with his reading of it I totally forgot to squirm. Even though he has always read the erotic parts confidently and comfortably, without a trace of self-consciousness, I would be thinking, "My god, this is one of my friends and he's reading this stuff aloud - what must he think of me? How can I look him in the face?"

He did such a perfect job, I actually got caught up in the eroticism of it. It sounded at times like he was tasting the words in his mouth. For an author hearing their words read by someone, there can be no greater compliment than that. He almost sounded turned on himself, which made it very personal and sensual.

Work on Book three has brought about an epiphany of sorts this week. I have about 40K worth of stuff already written for the book, and I've been staring at it for weeks, trying to wade through what I should keep and what I should discard. The other day, I told TheHubs™ that it feels like I'm staring at a mountain of mismatched socks, and they all need darning and pairing up and the idea that I have to go through each and every sock and fix it is overwhelming me. These are chapters I wrote ages ago, and while the gist of the story stays the same, I write differently now. My 'voice' is different (sorry I know that sounds pretentious); the tone of the story is different. I will have to literally go through these old chapters word for word and change it before I can even start pulling it all together in one cohesive narrative. I said, "I can't help feeling that, instead of going through all this shit, day in and day out, fixing this mess, should I just throw everything out and just get a whole load of brand new socks?"

He thought for a moment, then answered, "Well, if you don't, you'll always think of them as darned socks. You'll never be really satisfied, will you?"

And there you have it. A lovely little analogy, taken to its nth degree, and resolved. So yes, I'm throwing out 99% of it. A couple of chapters at the end of The Chine were removed and will be placed at the beginning of Book Three, Silverbirch, and I'll keep some of that, but tonight I wrote the Prologue from scratch. It's sort of sad to think I'll be chloroforming a lot of sort-of decent stuff, but maybe I can recycle them elsewhere. The majority of it, though, really is a pile of old socks not worth repairing.

We had a mondo yard sale this weekend to raise a bit more money for the UK trip, and it was fairly successful. It was also a perfect day, sitting underneath a very large old oak tree, chatting with friends while TheHubs™ played with her cats and her boyfriend's band serenaded us and people gave me crumpled dollar bills for my old junk. A couple of very busy weeks await us at work, thank goodness, and hopefully more to follow. July was abysmal, work-wise. I need about $800 more dollars to achieve my goal for the trip, and I think I'm going to make it after all!

Well, I'm off to get us ready for a very early start to the week. Hugs to all who needs 'em, and I hope your week is fab. Stay fresh, cheese bags!!

I'm very thrilled to be quoted in this month's Authors Magazine in an article about online writing communities. You can read the article, written by one of our very own, Tallulah Habib, HERE starting on page 22.

I had every intention of writing for kinkfest - it's a favourite of mine, but when AR died, it really took a lot out of me, and I wrote the lovely mods to say I was dropping out. The thing was that I had this story rattling around in my head based on a deliciously wicked render lemonade8 made for me. I haven't shown it off yet because it is the inspiration of this story. Naturally, stgulik and I have been lobbing ideas back and forth on it, and while it started out as a generally kinky thing, I began to see it as a larger story.

Bloody thing's only gone and become a murder mystery. Oh, it's still got the kink (a TeddyRadidator fic with no smut? Perish the thought), but overlaying all this dirty deeds done dirt cheap is an actual story. I don't know if I can honestly do anything like that.

Well, it's started anyway. Around 3K in. I think we're just getting started, but it does feel good to write something substantial again. But I've never written a murder mystery before. Could be interesting.

I woke up this morning with that delightful nagging itch behind my eyelids, the one that says, "Get up, you need to write this. Write this down now. Down NOW."

I did. I wrote almost 2300 words of an important scene that's been rattling around in my salty brain for weeks now. And Jules pronounced it a good first draft.

I wrote! Finally, I wrote! And it felt lovely.

Sorry to interrupt. I just had to tell someone, and I knew you would understand.

PS. A huge thank you to all who took the time to comment on all the drabbles I inflicted upon you for the FB writer's challenge I participated in. It meant alot. I promise to answer each comment individually when I get my head back together.

We asked kmhmd and hubby B if we could borrow their nail gun and compressor, and they generously came over today and helped out. I didn't sleep worth a damn last night thinking about how awful the house looked. It's amazing how much we got accomplished between 8 and 9am this morning - the house looks almost inhabitable now. While the boys nailed down the beading, K and I popped over to Aldi's and got lunch. We all shared a great lunch, then they sprang it on us that they were going to give us two tickets to Biltmore House! I tell you, these two are the sweetest, most generous hearted human beings on the planet.

We are going to dog-sit their lovely girl Lucy Friday night and Saturday while they go on a trip; she is the nicest dog, not a speck of trouble and so smart. We're looking forward to it.

After B and K left, I'm afraid we did little more than sit around, binge watching telly and noshing on lunch leftovers. I feel really tired, and a little blue, for some reason. We have to work tomorrow and Friday - I suppose that's the reason for my depression! LOL

This weekend we hope to put up the curtain and move some furniture back into the SteamLib. I hope we can start getting bookcases put together next month; it won't be much of a library without them!

Now that the main bulk of the big stuff is done, we have to decide exactly what we want to put into the room, decoration wise. I think we'll end up with ceiling fans in both the alcove and the room. I bought a set of curtains yesterday, then turned around and asked for a refund. Something just wasn't right about them. I have a very bland curtain I can put up in the meantime.

I couldn't help but feel a little envious with all the MISTI-Con posts back and forth today; it made me feel really sad to miss this. I know everyone will have a ball, and rumour has it this may be the last MISTI. If it is, I'm very sad, but sometimes you just have to accept that you can't do something. But to everyone who is there, I hope you have a wonderful time, and safe journeys.

I need to write the prologue of Book Two, but I'm just motivation-free right now. I feel ashamed of being that way; all writing advice says you write regardless. But I know what I'm like when I plow throgh without my Muse - it's not pretty. So I'll just continue binge watching Mission:Impossible until he's ready, and we'll be off again.

Enjoying a Monday off from work today. We've been balls to the wall for the last three weeks; it's nice to have a few days of down time. Menopause is my constant companion, but I'm just riding it on through - like you can do anything else, am I right?

Writing is going well - two chapters of the novel are with stgulik, and my hp_silencio is done and ready to submit. (Memo to self: submit Silencio) What an enjoyable experience that was - dialogue-free writing. I've been looking through some of my grangersnape100 drabbles and I realise I do a lot of dialogue-less things there, so I shouldn't be so surprised that I enjoy that genre.

Speaking of which, I have set up a new Weblog at WordPress. It will be writing only - no personal things - that's what this account is about. It will be purely fanfics, original fics, news about fics, etc. Well, you get the point. I would love for you to drop by and say hello HERE.

I got my contracts from the HoE anthology Complete Control today, and I'm thrilled to bits over that.

And RUN, NOW, over to deviantArt to see the wondrous deslea's SSHG Piece After Hours. His fingers at her throat! *DIES*

I hope you've had the chance to look and comment on all the awesome art and fic over at sshg_promptfest. There's been some absolute jewels there, both art and fic. I'm enjoying it very much. I've also signed up for samhain_smut and minerva_fest, which is terrifying. S_Smut I feel fairly confident in doing but Minerva_Fest? I have got to bring my a-game to this one, and that frightens the divvil out of me. However, I have a great prompt, and if I can honour it properly, I hope to do something good with it. I'm not 100% confident I'm up to their standards, because they have very high ones, but I'm going to do my best.

Work remains work, my health is what it is, and life is pretty good. We have family coming round for my birthday on Saturday, and the house must be blitzed within an inch of its life. We've let a lot of stuff slide, and consequently we have a bit of clutter here and there. Bosco, our orange cat, has set himself a personal best of vomiting over every square inch of our carpet, and it looks as if he may reach his goal in the next two or three months. We've ceased trying to get out the stains left behind and have merely settled for just ignoring them and throwing rugs over them.

Well, I must go and prepare my Jim'll Fix It list for all our chores tomorrow, but please drop by the Wordpress blog if you feel so inclined. Hugs to all who needs 'em.