the trick is to keep breathing

i think i've miscalculated a bit on my writing projects.

last year i wrote over 300,000 words, work and fiction and fanfic combined. it was great. so i said, hell, let's go for 350,000 this year (i am a member of Get Your Words Out) and see what happens.

but i kind of got ... locked up. old vines finished early this year, and there it was, the biggest writing project i've ever completed, done. i had a big worry about "what's next" and "do something as big this time." the concept for new roads has been sitting in my backbrain for years (thanks, feral server) and so i said, yeah, this is what's going to come next.

for some reason, it isn't coming. it's still a story i very much want to write, but my head isn't in that place right now. i have a great outline and beats to hit and i open the document up and stare at it for a while, daily, until i just close it again.

i think i've made a mistake with trying to be predictable -- scheduling things. i wanted NR to some out every 10 days, but what that does is stop my brain from working on anything else if i haven't done new roads, even if i can't write NR at the time, and that just ...plugs everything up.

this is why im also taking a break from zines and events -- it's that commitment to a due date, i think? i'm not sure, but like, it feels that way. zine pieces i have to craft to get within the wordcount, which makes them good (IMO), but then you sit on the piece without feedback for a while and it's strange. i've been lucky enough to get into every zine (5? 6?) i've applied for and it's really awesome seeing my work presented as such, but like. i think that's also enough for the time being.

same with He Thinks Like A King, the fratt big bang piece that slots into place in my Marvel / Criminal Minds AU universe. it's so good, so fuckin good, the art i got is amazingly inspiring, and then the time i had set aside to hammer down and finish the fucker up ... vanished when i fell down some fucking stairs. so now i open that one, stare into it, and close it again. HTLAK is going to be some time.

(and yeah, a bunch of commissions. i. uh.)

anyway, i'm way behind on my wordcount for this year, to the point where i fell behind in tracking it, even, because stares into my own brain (accusingly). i know i can catch up but it's only going to happen if i can get myself out of this feeling of writing-for-obligation and back into writing-for-joy.

not quite sure yet HOW to do it, but oh well

So last Thursday around 10:00 I had a bad fall and ended up in the emergency room, with both ankles basically busted.

Cut for discussion of injury. ( yeah )

Can’t really walk. Couldn’t really even stand the first few days without supporting myself on wheelchair / nearby table / couch / something else. Crown helped make the first floor wheelchair accessible and put together one of the basement beds for me to sleep on in my sunroom cause i cant do stairs. Feathers brought me down enough toiletries that I could brush my teeth and actually wear deodorant. My parents came to visit with groceries and fruits and lots of help getting everything set up so that I can survive first-floor-only for a little while.

Check-up with the ortho on Wednesday put me into a boot - good news; boot FAR better than cast! - and predicted about 6 weeks before I’m back to any normal kind of motions, with next check-up in two.

This certainly isn’t my first time impaired — I spent most of my senior year of high school on crutches or in a wheelchair for a variety of reasons. But that’s very different; you have friends at school willing to help you out so that they can use the elevator, and you have parents at home who still do your laundry and get your mail. I’m nearing 40 and don’t live with my husband for a variety of mutual personal reasons, and I’m kind of lucky to have a basement gremlin in Feathers at this point or I would be, just, you know. Boned.

All projects are behind. Drawing? Writing? Don’t know ‘em. Today for the first time I sat down at my desktop while in the wheelchair and while I can make words, it isn’t really that easy, or that comfortable.

My life as a cripple (patent pending) so far has been interesting. I have my grandmother’s wheelchair, which is great because I have it and didn’t have to pay for one, but not so great in that it’s made to be pushed, rather than for self-propelling. And wheeling myself around on carpet also not made for wheelchair ease is, well, fucking exhausting. I better have massive arms after this. I’ve had to rearrange nearly everything so that I can access it without having to stand up. Hell, even a trip to the bathroom is like a 20-minute quest montage from Lord of the Rings.

The poor cats are not adjusting very well at all.

ANYWAY! Friends! I will be literally useless for at least the next 6 weeks. I still plan on putting out fan stuff just to keep my own sanity, but will it be quality? Who knows! Will i open commissions again? Depends on the emergency room bill! Do i consider crying at least once a day? Of course!!

Love, Sev

yes i also hate that i posted to tumblr first rather than DW, but i needed to embed the image easily, so that's where i went dont shoot me

word count update is here!

yes: I'm behind my GYWO target. Behind by about 25,000 words going into june. for someone who writes the way i did last year, this isn't too concerning yet, especially because i have two new projects i'm excited about and a bunch of year-old comms i want to dig into for motivation. but like ... like you'll see on the post. life has been A Thing. it's been too much of A Thing. I give up.

also realizing its already june has been a punch to the gut; my brain still thinks it's, like, april. somehow. halfway through the year and i've made no significant progress on either of my two goals for 2021: finishing my first original novel and getting back into shape. i don't know why the turning of the calendar hits like this - i'm of the opinion that the best time to start a project is right now - but if it motivates, i'm going to use it.

i mean, i've been cancelling my two standard weekly original fiction dates lately because i am either overworked or too exhausted, so i only have me to blame, but then again gestures at tumblr post That's A Thing.

anyway im overworked and tired and mad and slowly going crazy, how are yall

(EDITED) to say that every single tag on this post is accurate but while going through my tags i found this and im fucking howling why am i like this

Tangerine moves out the day after mom announces she's pregnant.

She can't; she just can't do it. Two years of her life on hold, taking care of this damn house, cooking and cleaning and studying, and now Mom's having a baby? Mom's always been like this, sure, typical type A always-on always-going, and Tangerine's been happy to help but she is not raising a kid, too.

They don't see her. Mom's always just looking for more of everything, always wanting to know, to get, to have. And Dad trails along happily in her wake, happiest when he's elbow-deep into some other maintenance project, happy when she's happy. And Cayenne's just like the two of them combined, outgoing and ambitious and driven, too caught up in his relationships with Violet and his own job and his own damn sense of self.

None of them see her, there in the shadows, making sure the floors stay clean and the garbage goes out and the fridge has groceries.

Tangerine's tired. She loves her family, but she's tired of it, all the business talk and the amount of time Mom spends on the treadmill and the way her brother treats Violet like a possession sometimes and the way Dad laughs at everything. The only one who ever sees her is Indigo, and that's complicated.

So Tangerine packs the very few things she has, talks her way into a small loan, and moves out.

Her new house is small and simple. The upper floor isn't even finished, but she's always been handy like dad, and it'll be fun putting in things she wants. The best part of it will be the garden she's envisioning: surrounded by trees, and flowers, and her own vegetables to cook with. Tangerine isn't like Mom; she was never meant for an office. She has no idea how she'll pay rent and taxes, but she lives simply; she's excited to live simply, after the bright crush of her family's house.

(She tries to get Violet to come with her. Violet's undecided, though; her friend yearns for freedom, but they just lost Violet's dad, and her mom - with two younger children running around - hasn't recovered yet. Violet hasn't recovered. Violet's so ready to get out of that house, but she's tangled up in a lot of stuff right now, and she's just painting it all away rather than actually doing anything about it. Tangerine won't push her, though. Violet probably has a limit she'll hit just like Tangerine did.)

(There's an empty bedroom upstairs for when she can convince her best friend to join. There's space for another, actually, if she can ever afford the materials, and Indigo could come too.)

She isn't, like... leaving the family. No. She's going to be there to take care of that kid, who deserves someone that will happily share her snacks and change their diaper. She just has to have her own space for once. God knows whether Cayenne will step up and help out, or if he's going to be like Mom, focused more on his own trajectory than those around him. Tangerine loves her brother, but he's becoming a bit unpredictable. He's technically older, but some days it feels like she's the eldest -- or, at least, she's the farthest ahead.

Ahead. Apart. They aren't great words to use for her family. Tangerine's always loved her family. She still does. She just has a limit.

Eventually she'll invite them to her little shack. Mom will bring something native to brighten up her walls, and Dad will grill something traditional, and Cayenne will probably bring Violet and sneak off to make out somewhere in the unfinished basement she can't afford to do anything with yet. She can have the kid over, teach the poor child that it's okay to have boundaries. They're thinking of calling the kid Ginger, regardless of gender. It's a good name.

Mom calls, but it's late, and Tangerine has to work tomorrow. She turns on the television and lets the cell phone ring out.

(please note: i'm trying something new, writing in a particular world as a warm-up for other fic; snippets will all be tagged "rainbow house" as we go along. i'll explain more in a bit.)

I got my second shot of the vaccine on Wednesday! I then spent yesterday in an absolutely horrible preview of what COVID-19 would have been like in my body, and seriously, thank God and Gramma I didn’t get it, because yesterday was miserable. Fever and feverish chills, shakes, every single atom in my body hurt on a pain level i haven’t had to deal with in a long time, and utter exhaustion — for the first half of the day I just couldn’t stay awake longer than an hour. I did end up taking Tylenol and it helped in the way wearing earplugs at a heavy rock concert helps, I guess: took the edge off, but you know what’s lurking there underneath. It was abysmal. I’ll stop talking about it. Anyway, I feel better today in the way you feel better a few days after you get hit by a truck, but compared to yesterday, I’ll take it.

We’re having work done on the downstairs bathroom so that Feathers (my murder husband) can move into the basement in the middle of May. This is a money-saving move on both of our parts; I’ll get some income from a space I’m not really using, and he’ll get a more affordable rent. The pandemic / quarantine has hit us both financially so we’re going to combine some things for a year or two until we have some more respectable savings available. I don’t really do roommates so it’s really going to be just like a separate rental, except he’ll come up here for the kitchen and I’ll go down there for the laundry. Crown has thrown himself into this, which is great, because up until this week I’ve been absolutely slammed with work. He’s really come through and I am super excited for the extra income.

However, it’s been obnoxious because of course there are all kinds of horrible fucknoises coming from the basement which makes it really headache-inducing and hard to concentrate and yes i know that’s what its like when people are fitting 2x4s into the frame and cutting pipe but wahhh its loud. And I’m v tired of having people in my house.

Around that I’ve been getting ready to launch a few fan projects in May that I’m excited about, trying to survive work, and trying not to get so depressed about gestures at the world in general that i spent 42 hours a day playing Sims 4. I don’t know. Having the second shot means in 2 weeks the world kind of opens up again but I’m just so. Worn. Out. From everything.

Also my birthday is 03 may and I’m turning 39 and that’s just a big ol what the fuck.

HELLO FRIENDS????? Remember those fandoms we all used to be in? and producing things for? Well, baby, it's time for a nostalgia run, so buckle up your chocobos and get ready to roll. We haven't done a Kiss Battle in years and lassarina and I for one think it's TIME TO DO SO.

This event is open to everyone, even if we aren't DW circlefriends! (feel free to friend me too; i promise i'm not crazy that's a lie). If you aren't on DW, you can still play via anon or OpenID!

The Kiss Battle is simple. Players leave prompts in comments under each specific fandom, using generalized fandom nomenclature: a relationship of some sort, and a concept to inspire other players.

• For romantic relationship kisses, we use X / Y
• For platonic relationship kisses, we use X & Y
• Absolutely open to relationships with more than 2 people involved! X / Y / Z (/ A / B ...) welcome to this party!
• Prompts can be a word, a sentence, an image, a song lyric; it's a suggestion, rather than a request
• it's a kiss battle! there will be smooches!

Players then go looking for smoochin' prompts they'd like to fill. Fills can be fic, art, interpretive dance, whatever you're inspired to; they can be filled in a responding comment, or as a link (to AO3, tumblr, etc). FILLS GOTTA HAVE A KISS IN 'EM. IT'S A KISS BATTLE. What counts as a "kiss" is up to you, though -- you can be creative!

• Fills should use the comment header to let people know what the fill is; please use a format like "X / Y, (title), (rating), (any content warnings that might apply)"
  
  • "Aerith/Tifa, memorial, G"
  • "Cloud/Squall, just in time, R (blood)"
• Prompts can be filled multiple times! Don't worry if someone got there first; we love Two Cakes up in this event! The more kisses we get, the better!
• You can fill as anon if you want/need for any reason
• You can of course crosspost anywhere you'd like

It's a very simple game, and is meant to be played in good faith without anybody being a shitbag about pairings or characters. We're all too old for this.

Comments or Questions?

FANDOM LINKS Fandoms with compilations and expansions should fall into their titled macrofandom. For example:

• FFXIII also includes FFXIII-2 and Lightning Returns (FFXIII-3)
• FFX also includes X-2
• FFIV includes the After Years

If you need to specify a certain microfandom / singular canon, please do so in the prompt or in the comment header!

FINAL FANTASY I
FINAL FANTASY II
FINAL FANTASY III
FINAL FANTASY IV
FINAL FANTASY V
FINAL FANTASY VI
FINAL FANTASY VII
FINAL FANTASY VIII
FINAL FANTASY IX
FINAL FANTASY X
FINAL FANTASY XI
FINAL FANTASY XII
FINAL FANTASY XIII
FINAL FANTASY XIV
FINAL FANTASY XV
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS
FINAL FANTASY TYPE-0
FINAL FANTASY RECORD KEEPER
FINAL FANTASY BRAVE EXVIUS
BRAVELY DEFAULT
FINAL FANTASY SPIRITS WITHIN
OTHER FINAL FANTASY CANONS
FF CROSSOVER PROMPTS

MAKE FRIENDS! If you're interested in meeting more FF fandom people, this comment thread can be used as a friending meme! Tell us a little about yourself, which FFs you've played, favorite characters/ships, and look around for new friends!

FF FRIENDING THREAD

You can also join the Final Fantasy Old Folks Home Discord and come gripe about those kids on our lawn and the old days where you had to level grind by hand lmao. Open to all FF fans!

BLITZ KISSINS If you already know what smooches you want to write, you don't need to wait for a prompt -- just comment into the relevant fandom thread with your kiss!

REMEMBER It's only fun if everybody plays, so if you leave a prompt, try to fill someone else's!

(content warnings: i just talk about the shit that's going on rn cause i gotta, but if any of it is triggering for you, be careful or scroll past)

so, as it turns out - as anyone could have predicted - i'm behind AF on nano.

look, a lot of it is that the first week of november got tied up in the hellhole that was america's election. fuck. i had done a lot of research and i knew what to expect and i STILL DIDNT KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT. that entire week was draining as fuck and even the relief of them finally calling it for biden was destructive and devastating in its own way. (i cried. i dont ever cry. i fucking bawled.)

and some of it is another lesson in preparation. i have a great outline for this novel! i know all the plot beats for all three plotlines! but i didn't practice getting into either character's voice, so while im still writing, it's very third-person-onmicient type, very distant, rather than the third-person-intimate that im going for.

and ive become STUPIDLY hung up on that! LIKE, ITS STOPPING ME FROM WRITING. i realize i just need to forge ahead and i'll find their voices eventually, but like, brain matter no go. head empty no thots.

SURPRISINGLY, though, if i count all words i've written (including nano, patreon, work words, fanfic, etc) i am on pace to hit the 50K. guess what I might be doing, rather than focusing entirely on the nano words. fml. etc.

my two oldest nieces are coming this weekend for their birthday celebration. when they were young i decided that instead of birthday gifts, what each girl got was a weekend alone, just with me, where we would do super fun things and they get to have all of the focused attention from their aunt and uncle. it's worked great, but this year, because of the rona, their schedules are all fucked up (you would not BELIEVE what my bro and SIL have had to work out to manage both of their jobs with 3 children under the age of 7 at home; it's crazy), and we wanted to limit the travel as well. so both girls are coming together to stay with me, to celebrate together. i'm very excited, but wow, that's also been a whirlwind.

i had to clean the entire house. the thing is, when you've been in house since march, and you're already disabled, and you're depressed, and you're tired, and you have 5 cats, the house can quickly get to a pint where you really give no more fucks about it. hugely. bigly. i had to summon my mum, Crown, and murder husband to help me out with it, but now the house is gorgeously clean and i am happy. doing all the work at once was kind of a sledgehammer to the face tho, RIP me, but i did it.

fought with Crown over a bunch of stuff too. it's resolved and we are in a better place after having it out, but that also hit me like a fucking pickup truck, thanks.

also didnt help nano.

isolation is weird. i dont mind being alone - i love being stuck in my house alone, that's like, my dream world - but i feel like i've hunkered down here in other ways as well. friends i used to talk to daily, i check in like once a week. a BIG part of that is, well, having nothing to really say. my new contract remains in covid limbo, my other work continues, and my desire to write a novel to sell is just aksjdlkasdjggs, so like, ??? why bother to talk, there's no news here, etc.

im also just not very good at staying in touch because of (reasons) and the situation is compounding that and really doubling down on it. how can i reach out to people when im spending most of my mental energy not going completely batshit??? "hey demons. it's me. your boy."

i mean i also feel like other friends are pulling back as well, probably because none of us really have anything new to say. it's just an interesting side effect of isolation, i guess?

plus it's the jazz hands depressssiioooonnnnn ~! for all of us!

i really just exist on discord these days. honestly.

ANYWAY.

i haven't yet given up on the novel, nor have i given up on trying to grow my kofi and patreon to help me out in these terrible times. (crankyoldman, thanks so much for the Kofi! that covers this month's entire Chewy order! <3 <3 aaaaaaa ILU and i miss you guys!!) it's just such a bizarre fucking time to be a conscious thinking creature and that's weird, i guess.

went to target and bought a bunch of men's shirts for the winter. sorry but for what i want men's clothes are vastly superior. you can't get a women's t-shirt that's long enough to go over hips or really be tucked in unless you find a "tunic length" and they're like $25. i got 3 mens tees for $18. i also now have a giant hoodie with thumbholes. bless.

plus big ass sports bras. i just want my tits to be comfortable. dont always bra them, but like when im cleaning they gotta be held. gently. softly cupped in place so that they don't get tossed around too much. i dont know where im going with this.

i just want to be comfortable here in my private cave.

the stasis of isolation. such an odd year it's been this last month.

Ko-fi for the cats || Patreon for CYOA and the novel || Sev's Pub, my creative works discord || carrd for the rest

Just posting this so as a reference / pin for stuff I have going on right now! Since my job has been delayed AGAIN, I just want a central place to link to for anyone who wants to support my crazy writing endeavors. this is the cash money post, of course.

• Sev's Pub Discord -- join to get updates on my fanfic work, watch me fail at my first original novel, and holler about writing. There's a NaNo channel too!
• Patreon (Sevdrag) -- currently running two Choose Your Own Adventure fanfics exclusive to Patreon, where voting tier patrons choose what happens next! One's a Clint Barton CYOA; the other is Good Omens. There will be snippets of my original writing posted for crit and feedback, mostly exclusive to Patreon. Patrons will also have the opportunity to prompt for things in December when the crazy of NaNo is finished.
• Ko-Fi (Sevdrag) -- in case you can't do the Patreon but have a bit to send my way. For the rest of 2020, if you leave a Ko-Fi with a prompt you'll get a little drabble or a doodle!

and yep that's me begging for money have fun friends