mom

atthequillsmercy

Vacation Day One

I’m off till Thursday for the combination of my daughter’s birthday and Litha (Summer Solstice). I spend ALL DAY yesterday doing laundry so I wouldn’t have to spend my entire vacation doing it and could maybe get caught up on my writing. Funny thing: I get more writing done when I have to go to work than when I’m home all day. It’s just too much distraction chasing my daughter around all day and finding ways to keep her entertained.

And I’m thinking of having another kid?! I must be out of my mind!!!

Anyways, today’s plan is to accompany my mother to the doctor. Depending on when we get out, I may take the kid to the park or just go home and write while she naps. I have no idea. @_@ Watch, I’ll end up cleaning the floors instead of writing. >_<

atthequillsmercy

One step down! And more on those crazy books.

The typed rough draft of the lesbian thriller entry is complete!! MwahaHA!!

Oh, it needs so much editing it’s not even funny; but it’s there and I’m happy. ^_^ Because I can work on Greenhouse again! YAYZ!

But looking at how things are going I may be able to submit on Saturday.  If I’ve learned anything is that I’m not exactly the best at writing mysteries/thrillers/noir-thingz but that could change if I ever decided to do another one.

If I do? There will be dragons in it or SOMETHING!!

On a slightly less productive note, I finished my first foray in to 10 Fantasy Sagas That Are Wronger Than Twilight with The Cat’s Fancy and yeah, typical romance. Nothing overtly horrid. Nothing to see here. I also finished Pleasure Unbound, by Larissa Ione and, again, another ‘meh’ on the "wrong" factor scale. I mean, I can see where someone who hasn’t read supernatural romance may be put off by the "Wow, it’s page 5 and they’re screwing already cause he’s an incubus but she’s just had her guts stitched back together" thing but after about 10 of these, you expect it. Especially if you’ve written and read about incubi before. It’s as if a shark bit you, it’s what they DO: Have sex with women. Give me an incubus who’s made a vow of celibacy. Now THAT would be odd.

Now I’m reading Touched by Venom, by Janine Cross and already we’ve got people getting high on dragon venom and whipping each other with their junk hanging out so I’m already heading towards "What have I done to my brain" territory. Not quite. That’s reserved for the Beauty books. XD Yes, I will keep linking back to that and YES, there are spoilers for the series there.

As for my Mom, things are still going the same. It’s day by day, week by week. So, there really is no sense being overly depressed about it. She’s here NOW and that’s what matters. 🙂

Better get back to work then, eh? Time waits for no one! 😀

atthequillsmercy

Doctor update

No good news from the doctors. 🙁 Sadly, it’s just a matter of "when" not "if" but I always knew that. Her cancer is terminal, inoperable, and comes with a whole host of complications.

Ma could live the next two years or be gone by the end of summer. There’s just no way to tell. In the meantime, me and my husband are taking on the tasks she uses to do, like driving the kid around and laundry and such.

It just blows my mind that this is the second time I will watch a parent succumb to lung cancer. And neither my Mother nor my Grandmother smoked a day in their lives.

atthequillsmercy

She’s home!! :D

Or she will be by the time I get off work today. My mother was released from the hospital this afternoon. 🙂

It’s difficult for me to sum up the feelings other than the ole roller-coaster metaphor. While tired, it is apt but doesn’t quite cover what it’s like to have your remaining parent in and out of the hospital and never quite knowing which time will be the last. There MUST be a special circle of hell just for that feeling. If I really believed in hell… Anyways, this passed week or so has sucked ass and that’s the nicest way I can put it. Between my mother in the hospital, my husband spraining his ankle and my child determined to act three years old no matter how illogical I keep telling her that is; I believe some booze and/or long bubble baths are in order.

Which has left me with some sort of a quandary: How personal do I want to get with my writing blog? Granted, I won’t be doing in depth reviews of *achem* "toys" I purchase or describing bodily functions in grizzly detail (only vague detail ~_^) , but if I wait to only talk about writing, it’s kinda cold and lonely. I don’t get many visitors here anyway and the ones that come, I’d like to keep.

So, I suppose it’s time to get to know the Lenni. As House would say: Wear a cup.

atthequillsmercy

Writing in times of crisis: A bit of instrospection

Ma has been in the hospital since Wednesday and with her having lung cancer and all, I always wonder if this time will be the time she goes in and never comes out. But it isn’t this time. Ma’s being treated for shingles and will be home in a couple days. Not fit as a fiddle but fit enough.

It’s during times like this where I try to meet my writing goals but I tend to fall short. I am filled with guilt about focusing on anything else but my Mother getting better and also for not giving my writing the focus it deserves. But through all this, I noticed that writing helped me keep my head together during down time where I would otherwise be panicking. I’m the type to handle a crisis while its happening then break down after (or when there’s really nothing more I can do).

Writing really helped me keep from curling up in a ball and crying or screaming at people for no reason other than they continue to breathe near me. So now I know in the future, I shouldn’t feel guilty for writing if something has gone bad or if I can’t reach the magical 5 page mark. If the treadmill and weights keep my body strong, writing keeps my spirit strong. I’ll need both to support my family through though times.

Now, since things are better, I promise I will get back to talking about anime and making dick, fart, and boob jokes now. XD

atthequillsmercy

Oh damnit!

I’m sick. That’s the first step to healing, right? Admitting you’re sick? Because usually I just work till I fall down. =_= If it’s bad enough that I actually consider not going to work, you know it’s bad. >_< But isn’t it nice for my co-workers to share their germs with me? :p

If I’m not too dizzy or coughing too much, I plan to hunker down in bed with my notebooks and netbook so I can still have an update this week for you guys. 🙁 I’m still having formatting issues with Create Space but it’s being handled by people who know much more about such things than I do. @_@ I’ll get there, don’t worry. I’m sure you guys are worried. XD

While Ma was in surgery (she’s totally fine), I worked on a Go Away Girls side story for a submission to an anthology. Let me tell you right now it really made me laugh to be sitting in a Catholic hospital writing erotic lesbian steampunk and reading a m/m romance. XD I lol’d. Hard.

Ok, right now, I need to concentrate on keeping the room from spinning to hard. I need to make it to 5 to justify the library keeping me on their payroll and then I can go home and fall down. O_o

atthequillsmercy

TGIF indeed…

Lenni’s had a rough week. To put it mildly.

It started if with a few silly little things and snowballed to hearing my cousin passed away. He was sick for awhile and in a LOT of pain so now he is at peace with my other family members who’ve passed on. He was a total free spirit; he painted, he did numerology, he even gave me Astrostones, so needless to say we had a lot in common. I’m gonna miss him…

Needless to say, I got a fat lotta NUTHIN done this week. But that will change.

Next week doesn’t look like it will be any easier on my fraying nerves. My Ma is going in for surgery on Monday (to have her chemo port changed or flushed er somethin) and I have to drive her home. Did I mention I only have a permit and think of cars as death machines humans no not the full risk of? So this shall be interesting. @_@ I’m not a VERY nervous driver but inexperienced? Totally. I’m gonna have to do a practice run to make sure I don’t completely freak out. :p Don’t worry, my kid won’t be in the car and my life insurance is paid up. 😉

This week has reminded me that I need to take time for myself to just breathe. It’s an important thing, really, to just take a minute, breathe deep, and chill. That way all the work gets done, bills get paid, and nobody gets hurt. :p

atthequillsmercy

Who does she think she is?

Who indeed!

I plan to watch that documentary tonight and reading the promos and looking at books along the same lines and it’s got me thinking: I don’t see much on women who have kids, work full time, and THEN try to cram their creative outlets in any spare few seconds they can find. Not that I’m the type to go scraping at new frontiers or look down on stay at home moms who try and fit their art in around their kids, but working full time with kids AND striving to keep your creative fire is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Who who the hell do I think I am? Ballz out, I want to say, "Whoever the fuck I want, bitchez!" Ahhh, if only life were that simple. First off, I LOVE my job. I don’t want to quit. In fact, the thought of quitting my job to pursue my dream is shooting myself in the foot. Librarianship is PART of my dream. It helps me be who I am as much as writing and drawing so why the heck would I give it up? And d00d, all the books I can get my grubby little hands on for FREE! I’d be stupid to give this up. Second, I don’t DO stay at home mom. I practically went batshit crazy on maternity leave and that was even with the hope of going back to work. You think the Lenni is crazy NOW, she’d be Yellow Wallpaper crazy under the yoke of housewifery. Other women can do it, I can’t. I like having a career. It makes me feel independent and useful.

I get a LOT of questions from other women in my life asking me how I was able to complete a novel, start another one, write a bevy of short stories, keep a full time job, have a side business, draw, and all the while being around the kid enough for her to still remember what I look like. And I have no idea. To try and figure that out (and as a cheap gimmick to pry more blog posts out of me) I’m starting Mommy Monday. The lovely trials and tribulations of how the bloody hell I manage all this with out being on mood elevators or booze.

There are many times in my life where I really just sit and wonder if there are any other women like me who not only have a Third Shift; but a fourth or quite possibly a fifth. If you find any, point them the way here. I’d certainly love to know who they are.