Category: Random Author Babble

March 6 2023

Currently Coding

Just wanted to check in and assure peeps that I haven’t fucked off for a bunch of years again. ^^; I’ve been working on my story reference database, finishing the template creator and building character sheet forms. It’s essential for me to have a one stop, visually organized system of reference to be able to continue to write the complex serials like Demon Bonded and The Paranormal Academy for Troubled Boys. The ADHD treatment has helped my executive functioning a lot, but it’s not a cure, only a treatment. It’s my job to create the tools that work for my unique brain (and eyes) to ensure I can return to getting these stories out with any kind of consistency.

Last week was also a week of really bad vision, eye pain, and allergies. Apparently something was growing in my humidifier, and it took a lot of adapting down to the pain until I started problem solving — it’s rather fascinating how much suffering a person will endure until they finally wake up out of it, huh?

Anyways, that’s much better now. I was able to flip my sleep cycle again (only lost 1 day this time around) so that I’m waking up at dawn instead of falling asleep. And yeah, it’s been really nice to measure the clarity of thought my brain can produce lately when coding. Getting the adrenals treated has helped so much. I’m solving these coding issues one after the other instead of the slow, confusing slog it used to be, and I’m already into the final form creation. It may still take a week or two to get it all polished up, but my goal is to try to task switch into finishing up the current Breeding His Nephew scene this week so I don’t completely get out of the habit of writing.

I really struggle with balance. It’s kind of like my brain loads everything it needs for a task like a giant video, and then buffers until it’s all running smoothly. But switching to a new task requires loading completely different info and all that buferring happens again. This is why the database is important — I need to store things outside of this wonky brain of mine so it has less it needs to load up each time. It’s quite practical, but for some reason I really resisted getting to this point…

April 7

Disability visibility and self ableism

So, this might not be of much interest to those who are just here to read, but it’s something of importance to me because it relates to who I am as a writer. Especially during these last 6 years of illness.

I was recently diagnosed with ADHD and autism, but before that diagnosis was 6 years of torment, and before that a lifetime of PTSD. You’re only seeing this website because 6 years ago I became so sick and bedbound, I decided to start my own business and self publish. I have been ill this entire time — but my skills as a writer have fluctuated greatly, seeing these sharp declines and improvements. This, on learning about my autism, now makes sense.

It wasn’t brain damage and repair; instead these language fluctuations are associated with autistic burnout. Now, the allergies and dopamine drops I was experiencing aren’t necessarily autistic burnout, so much as because I’m autistic, stress on my body can lead to certain symptoms. So having a chronic illness such as being allergic to mold and unable to handle the scents of certain things can result in autistic burnout.

Why is this important? I have psychologically kicked my ass for years now, waiting for my ‘brain to come back’ so that I can allow myself to write. As a result, I internalized my ability to write as part of my self worth, internalizing this very normal part of my existence — the part where stress breaks me and my brain loses language skills for a period time — and saw it as a character flaw, a moral failing, failing at being a person, instead of part of who I am. This vicious, cruel, internal bullshit I spew at myself is ableism. Instead of accepting myself for who I am, I was being an asshole to myself — not making anything better, might I add — and just being miserable.

This is also connected to the perfectionist problem I have. Because I’m waiting to be ‘perfect’ before I allow myself to write. Aka, I am the biggest dick to myself for nonsensical reasons to protect myself from what I saw as inevitable failure. What failure? Who the fuck knows. I started a business sicker than I have been in my entire life; I have no clue why I thought I could fail when at this place. But I managed to get a little bit better, and I saw any return to ‘the worst’ as failure. Fun.

I am now aware of this, and working on it. Which is why I’m also writing again. And this will be a process, because I’m still angry with myself that my writing is not at a level or ease that I know it could be, and therefore my brain has decided it *should* be. But whatever, until I get a therapist, this is where I’m at on this topic. I need to write when my brain will let me write, even if it’s total shit, because if I don’t, I’m judging myself for this very normal autistic trait I have of losing language skills when I’m ill. I don’t get to do that to myself — I’m bad enough without being that level of hateful over something I have no actual control over. Autism is me. That’s it. Time to fucking love it instead of this knee jerk hate fest.

If I were a scientist–which I am not, but my brain would like to be one once it grows up >_> — I would love to point out all the correlations I have found with autistic burnout and low dopamine. These loss of language skills are also connected to low dopamine. Stress of any kind is connected to inflammation, and chronic stress lowers dopamine, leading to cognition, memory, motivation, emotional regulation and impulse control losses. My multiple chemical sensitivity could be just as easily explained as how my brain processes scent because of autism, leading to what feels like screaming in my head, and pain through my entire face over certain scents. The fact that I become more ‘neurotic’ — which is really hyper systematizing — when I am ill, is an autistic trait growing more extreme in correlation to inflammation. My agitated tics show up during sensory overload and illness — inflammation exacerbates autism, and potentially it is that drop in dopamine which is the trigger.

I have not found anything online on how to cure/treat autistic burnout outside of ‘give it time,’ but I suspect if they instead started helping to improve dopamine levels and support adrenals, autistic burnout would not disrupt the lives of so many autistics, disruptions that can last for years for some.

This shit needs to be studied, but I am not a scientist. I’m just someone trying to crawl back into my life after so many years of exhaustion and illness. I am also someone who is trying to come to terms with my disability instead of ignoring it, and only showing up on my ‘good’ days, which have been so damn few that I haven’t been showing up at all for months at a time. I need to deal with this and accept my situation. I designed and built a fucking clean room to overcome all these immune problems and multiple chemical sensitivity, and for some reason I thought I could just pretend none of it even happened; I’m living in a bubble pretending I’m not disabled, and no, that’s not dealing with anything.

I’m trying, babes. I am fallible and broken and I try every day with subpar results, but I’m still trying. I only like to be seen when I don’t have to struggle to do the most basic of things, but that just leads to complete isolation and this illusion of how life is for someone like me who is disabled. They talk about disability visibility, but honestly, if I keep hiding away, I become the reason I’m erased in this really fucked up, sociopathic world that only wants to show the most beautiful, idyllic, abled among us. I have never lived in that lie of a world — I have never wanted to — but for some reason I still managed to contribute to the illusion by not showing up when shit gets so damn difficult.

So here I am. Tired. All the time I am tired and I don’t like to talk about it. But I’m still here.

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March 30

Unraveling the number cage

So you may notice a lot of numbers disappearing from the chapters/events/scenes to be replaced by short titles. Maybe it’s just me having too much time on my hands waiting for ADHD treatment… but I’ve been thinking about the things that trip me up as a writer since starting the subscription site.

It wasn’t something I actually planned to do, write while being observed. I was used to finishing a book then sharing it. I didn’t think it would be difficult — all I do is write at this point. But I realized in the middle of writing Hellcat, having done about, oh, three extremely different drafts of that book until I got to the end, changing it so many times on the site while readers watched it transform, that numbering things made me feel trapped. Like, I had to make a scene 5ab at one point—and don’t get me started about the mess of the PATB serial as I tear through the rough drafts building the completed form like a tornado—and it just felt dumb and annoying because suddenly nothing was the right number when I added scenes in the middle, and I’ve been using ??? for certain scene numbers just to claim this isn’t definitive, the number might not be this, don’t hold me to this! XD

It’s a mess. I write in drafts, and I change shit around, a lot, which is totally normal (things do not automatically appear in their final form on the page; it’s a process that requires the initial ideas to then spark the later ideas), yet I’m so stuck on patterns and systems—and to be clear, I’m not being glib about this being a disruptive thing. It seems quite brilliant to be able to find any pattern in a puzzle or sequence—once aced a PSAT of analogies not knowing a single word in front of me just based on pattern recognition. My brain zeroes in on this shit, and it all seems fine until you realize there is no pattern and your brain just assumes everyday things means something and that patterns must be found and created. My brain gets stuck on pointless labeling structure—it’s so fucking dumb.

It’s all in my head. I’m fucking neurotic. A part of me loved the idea of these really neat, simple number systems (the balance of the same pattern on a screen to scroll through is just so lovely to the eye), which is why I switched to them in the first place. And then here I am realizing I don’t feel like I’m ALLOWED to change things around because I’ll mess up the stupid system I made up in the first place! XD Oh, and if I do it for one story, everything I make has to have the same fucking system—there is no half-assing with this brain of mine. All or nothing.

Do not have my brain. Seriously, no one should have to deal with this madness. @_@ Although, this could be a part of autism—I have autism, recently found out when I got the ADHD dx. So definitely have this type of brain, just don’t let it rule you. Avoid the triggers that turn brilliance into tormenting dumb fuckery. Otherwise, it’s just this damn cage of nonsensical rules that pop up, something that writing in general has a lot of minefields. Grammar nazis are dangerous to a brain like mine, this insistence that something like the language we made up must be followed to precision (an elitist, ableist, classist claim, btw) when language is an evolving, ever changing medium that now includes n00b, c0mpu732 50c141 14n9u4935, and emojis ??? as normal forms of communication. Like, fuck my auto correct that used to help me and now just gaslights my spelling choices.

So, yeah, anyways, getting rid of numbers when it comes to scenes and such. The final, final books will have numbered chapters, but until that point—for my own damn sanity—I need to not use numbers. So of course now I’m just fucking around naming all my scenes that used to have numbers, still seeming mad as fuck about everything as I obsess on this part. The whole point of this is to be less neurotic about shit, I swear. It just doesn’t feel like it during this part of the process… >_>

But it’s important in its own way. It’s like coming at things sideways, dragging me into thinking about writing even as my brain struggles to focus. The fucking thing can focus on numbers, on patterns, on coding (fucking hate coding, just to be clear, even when obsessing over it) but it is still struggling to translate ideas of plots into scenes.

Soon. 2 weeks and I should have my first attempt at seeing which ADHD med is going to work for me. I’m already dreading the possibility that the first one won’t work—this has felt like the longest damn wait to get help for ADHD, and everything that slows it down is just unbearable. But whatever. I can’t function without treatment, so I don’t have a choice. Gotta wait it out.

Oh, but binge watching the The Great British Baking Show during this long ass wait. Some good is coming from this all. XD

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November 3

The Perfectionist’s Web

Okay, so all the audiobook stuff of the moment is finally done. Yes, there are still the fanfics, but I’m leaving those to be recorded specifically for the weekends. I’m not good at dividing my time during a day, so I would rather ensure I focus on my writing on weekdays and then give the final recording stuff attention on the weekends.

I want to slice through these waiting stories and get shit done. All of them. Just knock them out, one by one, scene by scene. I’ve been doing a lot to deal with the perfectionist side of me that sprung up once my brain started coming back after the mold. It’s fear, vulnerability, identity all mixed up in if I’m choosing the ‘right’ words, the ‘right’ plot, etc, and it’s been freezing me in this rather painful web. I think I’ve broken through, but I imagine this will be a work in progress, overcoming the psychological damage that came with having my entire life swallowed up by illness for so long and just feeling unanchored and unable to find myself in it all.

I plan to show up every day to have new stuff written, even if it’s just a few paragraphs. You can’t face writer’s block if you don’t show up. I will record each scene only once it’s fully written… And yeah, think that’s it. I’ve been feeling well, trying an experiment with CBD oil that’s been helping my health a lot. My brain is feeling better, my memory almost where it should be. And believe me, I fucking need all the help I can get as I wait who knows how many months long to see if the fascist orange dickhead is voted out, and if the electoral college will honor those votes.

But fuck that shit– I refuse to waste my energy on it. Let’s get some awesome stories written already! ♥

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August 19

Audiobooks and Perfectionism

I think I’ve finally reached the point where I can just post audio without it being perfect. Sometimes I have to trick my brain into shit–if you lived in my head, you’d understand. I need to call it a ‘draft’ and ensure I mark it accordingly, and if I do that, I will be able to record and put the rest of the audiobooks up–possibly every single one of them–this week.

A thing happened today, one of those wake up things in life. I found myself sleeping on the cleanroom floor as allergies once again took over the main living space so completely, my heart rate wouldn’t return to normal until I locked myself in the cleanroom. I don’t think I’m waiting for ‘perfect’ when I’m waiting for livable, but the reality is, most of the shit I’ve done when it comes to writing and art, for that matter, was while living in mold under extreme stress as my brain was overrun with neurotoxins and my dopamine system was breaking down. I have done nothing while life has been in any sense of the word perfect, and expecting that I’m somehow going to get more things done if only my existence could be momentarily comfortable just isn’t really realistic.

This body is broken–it overreacts to most every thing now. The dream of affording a house that isn’t full of mold is pretty low, unless I want to magically have a fuck ton of cash and move completely away from the state I grew up in to find some low humidity either freezing cold or boiling hot area to live where mold is less likely to grow. I built the cleanroom understanding that; sometimes you have to make your space because it’s just not going to be handed to you. The stars do not align– not in shitshow 2020.

This is still going to be a struggle for me–not the audiobooks, I can already feel I’m past that. I’ve given myself a bridge to cross with the idea of making drafts that will eventually be edited up nicely, but until then, it’s something–anything–to improve accessibility for all readers. No, perfectionism–the dream of being allowed to have my brain when I’m writing certain stories so they can be the best they can be. That’s going to be a lot harder to overcome. But it’s my job as a human being who needs to accept the limits my body and environment place on me to do the work and deal with it as it strikes.

So, yeah, expect a lot of audiobooks being posted this week and the next. Each chapter will be marked clearly visibly as either draft or not– if there’s music at the beginning, it’s a completed edited audio chapter, if not, then it’s a draft. Simple. I’ll be rerecording some of the original audiobooks too where I was just learning the system and fiddled with things that conceptually seemed really fucking cool, but I did not have the skill/knowledge to pull off–looking at you, I’ll Tell with your weird voice mods.

Hope you’re all doing well. Depending on if that solar flare hits tomorrow, this shit might all be moot anyways. 😉

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July 21

Cool Things a Brew’n!

Hey peeps, thought I’d check in. I had this stretch where the cleanroom failed when I changed the airflow, and it took a while to figure it all out. But it’s all set now — I’ve got an office and I’m just going to have to give up on the whole bedroom thing for the moment. There’s just something ‘wrong’ in that room no matter what I do, no matter the mold treatments, etc, and I just don’t have the expertise (or energy) to make it work. Figured out CO2 levels though, and that’s been an interesting puzzle seeing as it’s much harder when dealing with a fully sealed room to keep CO2 at safe levels. Gotta love a learning curve. 😉

More interestingly, I’ve been taking some time to look at the poor abandoned stories and fanfics that haven’t been finished after all this time. I mean, for real, fuck. Where did the time go??? @_@ I feel like I kept waiting to feel well enough, assuming that I’d find this whim and just finish things up, but it never happened. It’s shit.

I’ve been organizing things, going through my notes, and my plan is to get back on track. I want to get the next episode of Demon Bonded out, not to mention update City Howls and finish it (but probably only once the next couple of PATB Serial books are done.) But also Awakening! And the Fanfics!!! They’re just sitting there, so many unfinished, and I realized I hadn’t even planned to turn them into audiobooks when I was claiming I wanted to create a more accessible site. It would be pretty cool to turn them into ebooks in general just so people could download the fanfics for free and read them whenever they want…

So yeah, plans are a brewing, and I’m in the stages of assessing it all and seeing what’s coming next once I get a feel for the scope of everything. I’m going to need a new external hard drive– audio apparently takes up a lot of fucking space compared to simple text files. ^^; Who knew? XD Hope you’re all doing well and staying safe during this long ass global pandemic. I’m pretty sure it’s never going to end for me in the US (too many sociopathic assholes normalizing ignorance) but hopefully anyone living in the rest of the globe is fairing better and seeing things start to lighten up now.

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June 18

Hey, A Cover!

So, I didn’t set out to make a cover for this story. I just wanted a picture for the website because I just finished making the audiobook and wanted, you know, something. But apparently my brain is a monster, and once I started, it just would not let me stop until it looked respectable. I think it’s rather pretty if not a bit surreal. It suits Vince — Vincent’s mind is either a mess of monsters or beauty, with very little concrete for him to grasp to… which kinda makes dating a shadow fox shifter who naturally camouflages rather fitting, now that I think of it… hmm.

Anywho, off to figure out wtf to do next. This is the first time running my graphics PC in the office bubble cleanroom. The room heated up a fair amount, even with the AC on, and nothing has cooled it off since. Doesn’t help that the sun hits this side of the house constantly at the worst temperatures. Not sure what to do about it. It’s not horrendous levels. I think just being sick so long has made me really sensitive to temperature changes.

I want to write some erotica. Something short, offensive, and finished. I feel like I need to remember how to just throw myself into a story and get to the end again. Task completion combined with wading in the dark woods to find the path.

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June 11

Living In A Bubble

Okay, the Hellcat audiobook is finally done, whoot! Uh, I’ve got some things to plan as I figure out which direction to go next. I’m feeling better– a lot better — and I want to start writing the next PATB episode. But I’ve been doing these audiobooks as an accessibility thing for the site, not just as a fun perk, so it’s not something I want to just drop, you know? I created a bubble/cleanroom in my house to separate me from any of the mold, and it’s been working. I pump fresh, filtered air in, and the mold is sealed away from any living space. So my health is going to hold. This is an answer, one I’m surprised is working this well, and the sky is the limit at this point.

I suspect what’s going to happen as I switch into writing again, is that I’ll be doing these audio chapters in the background, likely not as elaborate recordings as these currently are. You might not realize it, but a lot of these sentences are run through the text to speech synthesizer multiple times to get a recording that sounds appropriate for the story. A lot of times the voice sounds tone deaf to the content, and I have to go in and adjust until I find the right version. So, it’s not that I won’t be doing the audiobooks, but I likely won’t be as detail oriented. The recording should all sound good in general; I feel like I finally got a good quality all around. There might just be some wonky spots that don’t flow as well (the software is horrible with rhetorical questions, for one. @_@)

It’s my birthday tomorrow, and I feel like I’m at this crossroads and reassessing everything in my life. But I’m thinking if my health holds, I’ll start sharing schedules, that sort of thing, so that members can get a clear idea of my work load and what’s coming next. It’s something I avoided in the past because it put this level of pressure on me that was completely unrealistic given my health problems. But now, it seems more like a way to stay on task and remember all those projects that have kind of fallen in the dust to my exhaustion. We’ll play it by ear and see how it goes (see if the country I’m in is still standing, because believe me if Trump turns the military on the protestors, it doesn’t matter how sick I feel, that’s the shit I gotta go out and march against.) So yeah, I guess we’ll see where life takes us. 😉

I hope you’re all well, all safe, and staying smart with the whole global pandemic.

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March 4

White Mold

Hey guys. I wanted to give you a heads up cuz I’m not sure how things are going to be going from here on in.

So my health was degrading rather quickly the last week. I wasn’t sure what it was—I thought my adrenals were failing for some reason, maybe they were stressed, whatever. During this time some ceiling tiles fell in the basement where there is a half finished bathroom set up down there. We rent the place so we just, you know, cleaned up the immediate mess and didn’t think much about WHY the ceiling tiles fell. I started getting more and more tired and smelling this weird dust whenever I passed my brother’s bedroom, then the other day I took a walk to the basement to do some laundry and checked in on that weird little bathroom, and by the time I got upstairs it felt like I was either moments from hallucinating or dropping.

The guys took the ceiling tiles down and found mold—white mold. So, it’s not the same type of mold (black mold) that took over my bedroom and living room over a year ago that spring. It’s less toxic, and because the weather is cooler and humidity is low, there is less chance that it’ll take root into the main house. But even when they removed the ceiling tiles, they found the mold still on the wood, and it exposed it to the basement room, and it was getting into the main house and my brain was sparking, leaving me a twitching mess.

I am okay. I am not great, I am not ‘well’ and I am not myself, but I am okay, and that’s the main thing to focus on. Right now I’m having difficulty with reading, with perceiving individual elements in a group, with focusing, with neurosis, and some weird moments of random anxiety and paranoia. I’m combating a lot of the exhaustion by increasing my adrenal support, and most of my funding is going into clean up for the moment. I’m not writing. I don’t trust my brain, and I can’t focus atm. I’m hhoping this will change eventually, but I also know that mold and me don’t do well together and there is a reality to my condition I have to face. I do not know when I will be recovered enough to be able to write to the level I feel confident at—my vocabulary is shrinking so quickly, it’s alarming.

The landlord has said he will fund whatever professionals we hire, so we need to get the ball rolling. And we’ve already done a lot to get the house uh… separated… what’s the word? Sectioned off? We basically blocked off all the vents that connect to the basement, lined the upstairs floor with plastic sheeting (hardwood floors with potential cracks between the slats that the neurotoxins could permeate through into our rooms) and am currently wiping all the upstairs down with vinegar and using box fans in the windows to suck the contaminated air outside. The uh… fuck, I’m just staring at the screen spacing out. We got uh… lucky. We got lucky that the weather was surprisingly warm. 60 degrees in March—freaking lucky—and even though it’s nighttime, we’re still sending the air out and it’s cold, but it’s not freezing. But I don’t know how long that can hold. We shut all the vents, sealed them with cardboard and tape to prevent mold moving through (and it was, hardcore) but that means we have no working heater at the moment. It’s also been very frustrating because people are hoarding masks because of the corona virus they don’t even had and I can’t find anything to protect me from breathing in the mold that we do actually have. >_> It’s not a great time to need face masks.

Uh… I think that’s it… I’m spending most of my days in my car again— even less glamorous in the winter. >_> But it’s something. It’s survival. Depending on the level of mold remediation that will be done, this could be solved and we can stay, or when my royalties finally come in for PATB Serial in the next two months, that might be put into a desperate blind move just to get away from the mold. I cannot predict the future; but I can promise that I haven’t given up. I know you’ve all been waiting so long to see these stories continue, and I hope you can tell that even though I got sick for so long last time, I still showed up the moment I got my brain back. I have the knowledge and tools I need to heal now, and although it is a process that will take the time that it takes, I will return to writing. It’s everything to me.

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?The Latest PATB Book Is Out (and proud ?)

It’s live!!!

Super quick email today. Just wanted to let you know that episode #2 of PATB Serial just went live, so for those who preordered, you can crack it open now, and anyone waiting for KU, it’s in there full of suspense, shifters, and a crazy, explosive love now that Wylie gets his first glimpse of Dorian.

Also, on a side note, Theodore has become my temperamental badass and I’m loving him for it. 😉

image link to PATB #2 ebook on Amazon

A spark of love might burn them all…

I’ll have a proper newsletter this weekend. Got a mini cover reveal, among other things–there are so many awesome books that dropped this week I need to share. I feel like I’m still playing catch up with everything… Actually, I feel like I’m kicking my own ass with this write a book a month pace, and I might have to slow the fuck down. I just wanted to let you all know that the book is actually out there (and I’m still alive. @_@)

Hope you’re all doing well! ^.^ I’m still completely anti Valentine’s Day. It’s a great day for self love, not going to any kind of restaurant (seriously, restaurants are the worst on Valentine’s Day,) and remembering that society can suck their expectations of what love is. XD I’m gonna go curl up with a shifter (nope, that’s a cat >_>) and wait this day out. Possibly with hot cocoa. 😉