the trick is to keep breathing

(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

because i am That Guy:

I took a lump out of my retirement savings to support myself while I try to write an actual book! then, a week later, i got hired! this is my life. I've been hired to work as a technical writer with a great local company that does all sorts of technical writing and instructional design work (something im VERY interested in), which is awesome, but the first contract they were going to give me unfortunately fell through. they are frantically looking for projects for me because the VP of Ops apparently wants me as an employee very badly (a great feeling after months of unemployment lbr) so i'm willing to wait it out, esp cause i have the lump now.

and because i'm a giant waste of an idiot, i've decided i'm still going to try to write the novel. for NaNoWriMo. while working and doing work words. and 2 Good Omens zines. and Patreon. and commissions. and my regular WIPs. and cleaning my house. and so on.

giant waste of an idiot.

ANYWAY. most of you have probably already seen this on my other social media but just in case you haven't, i have two polls out about my novel. mainly because i have too many fucking ideas and styles, so i'm letting the general populace help me narrow down for my first novel attempt.

i realize my FF writing is slim these days, MCU and GO being my main fandoms at the moment, but i'm still interested in Ye Olde Canons -- it's a matter of time, these days. so for those of you who know me from FF and such, your input is DEFINITELY appreciated, because you've seen sides of my work that my current fandoms haven't. :) <3

the first poll about the content of the novel is here

the second poll about the format of the novel is here

and since im still technically unemployed lemme toss the reminder that you can always find me, my sites, and my KoFi and Patreon here: https://sevdrag.carrd.co/

<3 <3 send me all the luck you can. as soon as i set up my NaNo page i'll post it here <3

COMMISSIONS and COMMITMENTS:

• Bem and Roy do Tiamat (7-10K) --> START
• MCU / Black Jewels crossover (10K+) --> FINISH OUTLINE
• PaNcaKeS (however long it is) --> POST
• Measure of Distance, new chapter --> POST
• Old Vines, new chapter --> stay 5 chap ahead of posting (updates wednesday)
• Patreon smut fic --> patrons only!

BACKBURNER STUFF:

• Sokka fic I owe Lua --> GOT THAT IDEA FROM TUMBLR GOTTA WRITE IT
• knees deep in water (but we're not sunk yet) --> finish the GO triptych

writing is hard!

BUT HERE! are recent fun things you may not have seen!

( Read more... )

me, belatedly looking at this list from a distance: jesus christ i'm writing 1400 different ideas and AUs and universes here why
also me, squinting: no im not in a character and pairing niche right now what do you mcfuckin mean

me, after posting: STOP LOOKING AT MY WORD COUNTS LIKE THAT AAAAAAAAA

(current (i think) masterlist here: writing / comms log)

been meaning to update just like ive been meaning to do a lot of thingslksdjgldkfjgdf

So here I am 20 days into NaNo and still banging it out like a champ. I’ve had two goose egg days so far, but I’ve had a lot of very productive days as well (esp thanks to lassarina!) and as of today I’m about to be only ~1200 words behind actual target. That’s ~32K of absolutely original fiction I’ve written this month and I’m on track to making it 50K.

The amount was never a question for me - last year, after quitting my job and signing up for the Winterhawk exchange, I wrote 57K in 10 days; that pretty much proved to me that NaNo wouldn’t be about the wordcount - but it was about the habit. Can I write every day on something? Can I write original stuff every day? Can I write it around all the other words I do, for pay and for fandom?

I mean, yeah, sure, looks like I can.

I’ll admit, I went into November with a changed mindset. Having realized I’d been out of industry work for a year absolutely hit me in the head with the what do you have to show for yourself rock, and it led me to a new sort of determination I haven’t seen in a while. NaNo - the act of doing something daily and tracking it - was really just a crutch to get me into new habits. And it’s working — somewhat.

I’ve been much better during the day about dedicating time to words. I can write over 5000 words in one day before my brain really starts to sink. I can switch between original and work and fanfiction as I need. And I’ve been writing (nearly) daily for 20 days now, which was the goal, so yay.

But - as my fucking dumb gay ass should have predicted - regiments and discipline come in steps. And when I’m spending time on original fiction to that degree every day plus my work words, plus fanfiction stuff, I still don’t have time to do much more than... keep up. I’ve made no real progress on unfucking the house; I can keep afloat, but that’s it. Any extras cleaning I’ve done over the last few weeks has been UNdone by days where i can’t get to thinks.

[And, also, crucially and critically: I am sick. I’m sick for the first time in MONTHS, possibly since LAST WINTER. It was a good run while it lasted, but I’ve now been sick for over ten days, sinus infection / flu / fever / cough / sore throat / runny nose / sneezing / aching / stuffed head / gross feeling / no willpower to do anything / naps every day and not the fun gratuitous kind. I do need to note this because it’s also robbed me of any extra energy I might have had for additional activities.] [I don’t mind because it wasn’t like I was ever going to get sick again in my life, and this really just proves that it was having me out of a crowded office situation with tons of people and their tons of germs that helped me stay as not-sick as I did for so long.] [ Plus I always get sick on November so it’s like oh, hey, you again?]

The key will be — December, I want to say, but December always sucks. Holidays take up a lot of space for me and my family - not just time, really, we only spend a couple days together, but the energy of preparation and gifting always becomes frantic and gross by the end - and I have another niece birthday visit coming up that’ll eat up a weekend. The key will be taking this daily motivation and hanging onto it through December, and into January, and letting it morph itself into something that encompasses more than writing.

Now that I have the daily habit, I want to do the same with drawing, to just doodle something daily and let myself practice at that. I need to set days and times aside for house projects and have them be priority — not let the specter of Nano Words or Work Words be more important (Nano is of course a fallacy i use to be lazy; work words are important cause they pay).

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this ramble. About four or five days in I had a real low period and almost decided to quit NaNo because it was interfering too much with the rest of my day and words and chore schedule and grumble I didn’t know what I was doing and I should be writing work and commissions anyway and such whining. Then I woke up on day like six or seven, my head clear, realized that had been An Episode, and just pushed on with the wording. 20 days and over 30K is a success for me on projects; it’s the maintenance, the daily bits.

I dunno. There was gonna be a point to all this but now I’m just talking about the process (but in the most BORING way POSSIBLE because i dont want to get INTO the PROCESS and now I’m just CAPSING at RANDOM)

Anyway. Still here, still writing, still having successes and failures big time. Still broke! Who knew!

(It will always be a shame that ppl at tumblr cant see my brilliant DW tags; i use IFTTT to cross post, but i haven’t yet found one that will swipe up all of my DW tags and include them on the tumbles)

I swallowed the dice / I make my own luck now. Locke, Celes, and Setzer are taking things into their own hands in the aftermath of Kefka. They're tracking the shadows of the Empire, taking back what belongs to others, and celebrating having found a life to suit them all.

Sometimes a family can be a doting angel, a cranky demon, and their adorable forty snake children.

Tony’s always been fascinated by soulmarks. Like, what the fuck? There’s science that can see the soulmarks working in someone’s brain, chemical responses and nerve actions they can trace, but in the end no one really knows how it works, which is fascinating. He considers, for the four-hundredth time, writing a set of academic papers on what happens when your soulmate leaves you. Taking his own blood samples, monitoring his own brain, mathematically inscribing the pain he feels in his heart every time his left arm burns at him. It’s a field not many have looked into; he’s checked.

Steve and Tony, post-Civil War, and their soulmarks.

Turns out Clint's favorite afternoon snack actually comes from Hydra. It's a typical day for the Avengers, really.

(Mandatory Funday PopCycle prompt)

When you're livin' on a ship full up with crew, sometimes you gotta keep things to yourself, give yourself a little bit of space in the black to hold what's private an' pure. Then, other times, you just gotta say, fuck it.

[MCU/Firefly mashup.] NOW WITH THE PORN!