I am aware that I have missed the majority of the last week. November is always a hard time for me. I end up sick more often than not. Chronic Bronchitis doesn’t seem to let me do everything that I want to do. Between that and the stress of moving my youngest child into their own house… and then the election…I just went out of commission. I am behind on my work, have not written anything in a week and am barely back to being alive. I am trying to get my work caught up – because I have authors depending on me. I’m sorry for the delay in my own writing. I plan on going back and trying to do the poetry for the missed days, whether I end up getting them up here or not. I am going to try to start posting again. This will be a little bit of effort on my part as my desk is still covered by things that I have been neglecting.
so I have been doing my best to post the Drawtober daily …problem is that this weekend I will somewhere with no internet. I might be capable of doing the update during a sneak into the town to check on my kid (Who is an adult and refuses to go ) but I am not sure if I can. I will get it done Friday and I will will be back Sunday …but Saturday I am not certain I will be able to get up.
If you are a facebook friend or follow my Instagram… you have seen me post yesterday that our family cat has passed. That means I am a true mess. My Child is the Intern doing the Fae Corps blog…So I scheduled it for them…because in so many ways Luna was their baby. We are going to be okay…but it will take time. This is probably the only post I am doing for Wednesday & Thursday here. I will schedule my usual Friday post. By Monday I should be back to my routine…but if not then I will try to pick it back up as soon as I can. We are used to a very vocal baby who is now silent. This will be hard.
So for two months I have managed Daily posts…I find myself presented with a problem. June and July are busy months…not the ability to sit in front of the computer kind of busy…but garden and being invited to cookout kind of busy. I have plans for the fall. Sketchtember. Inktober. This is probable. I am considering the Poetry Marathon in August. (that is 24 poems in 24 hours). But I don’t think I can do daily post in June. I will try to post some more art and poetry than I had been doing. And I will definitely do my weekly posts. I have so much more upcoming that I want to share. I just need to pull back slightly.
Last week I said that I was going to try to be more responsible with my own blog… the more observant among you have noticed that I have not been posting the drawings for the past two days. The weather changes and my crappy immune system equals I am sick. It is not life threatening but it is bad enough that I am barely out of the bed today. I am hoping to be able to do some periodic posts this week instead of the scheduled stuff… mostly because I feel like warmed over death at the moment. My sinuses are driving me nuts and I am so going back to bed. Peace out y’all.
Ever want to just scream? Or throw everything in the garbage and just say the first idiot thing that comes to mind? Yeah that has been me lately. I Don’t wanna be that girl who is always there for everyone. Hell Really I am NOT that girl but I am not that boy either. To be flat out honest I am not ever even sure what I am. I am not anything that I can put a label on. I tried to talk to my therapist about it…Only to find out the words I did use to describe myself were not good. (Weird is apparently hateful)
So I am the lonely introvert who pushes everyone away. I don’t fit anywhere. I don’t know if I mind that so much…though it adds to that feeling of not having anyone who sees me. Don’t get me wrong – I have a best friend…who I feel like I am burdening because I have no way of talking to with out complaining. It doesn’t help that I am high functioning in my anxiety. So I take on more than I can do…and then refuse to ask for help. She wants to help and I end up doing what I do ask her to do because my brain tells me I am asking too much.
My damaged soul is just enough that I can see the problems I put out into the world, but I cannot seem to help myself from pushing away those who try to accept them. I normally avoid talking about the mess that I am because I am trying to put forth an image of competence and professional nature…but as I said Lately I am wanting to say the first idiot thing that comes to mind. Instead…I think I will say thank you all for your patience with me and my lackluster blogging of late.
I am hoping after the MRI on Monday I will be in a better headspace. I am hoping to get back to our regularly scheduled half mad idiocy.
The next few months are going to be busy for me. (Yes I seem to do that to myself a lot) So, as I am sitting here trying to get all my weekend work caught up, I realize that my poor blog is AGAIN neglected. Friday we are releasing Andrew McDowell‘s second edition of Mystical Greenwood. That means I am trying to gather images and activities for the release day on our Facebook Party Room group. I have things I am trying to put together for the Fae Corps Blog…again to get everyone possible to see his book.
That is just the first thing I am doing. Then, I have our Halloween Anthology. This year it is called Darkness Screams. It received so many outstanding submissions that I split it to accommodate the quality of stories. (I have done this before with other anthologies)
So I am neck-deep in editing, Marketing image creation, and formatting for these two. I give myself two months to do this with each anthology because I have a routine. Once approved I invite the author/artist to join the company discord. I have each anthology set up in a private room within the channel. This allows Files to be shared and questions answered easier. I ask everyone to sign a contract (So I can legally publish their story/art/ poetry and they have protections of their copyright) I ask for a bio written in 3rd person and an image to represent them. (I say an image because I have had a few who gave me photoshopped images, due to personal reasons. ) Then I sit down and put together a rough draft of the anthology. I don’t worry in the first rough about perfect formatting or having it be edited and polished. After I get a feel for how the anthology will flow, I feel like I am more capable to suggest edits. Yeah, that seems so silly…the grammar will not change based on how it fits in the book, right? Actually, it might. It will help me to see the story on its own instead of trying to place it mentally in an imaginary book. I send the suggestions to the author and give them a deadline for when I need to see the finished copy.
Then I start while waiting for the stories to come back…to make images to catch the interest of possible readers. I do (For most of the anthologies) a cover reveal, A author/artist list for each anthology, A image to represent each story, and a meet the author/artist graphic. That can be quite the undertaking. In Darkness screams that is 3 graphics just to list the author/artist in each one. I, as you can see above, combined the cover reveals. I have already today done the story graphics for each book.
I still have more to do just for the anthologies… Then I have another book we are releasing in October. The third book in Ashira Dayta’s Magick Saga. (The cover reveal should be happening soon on Fae corps Blog. I am quite proud of that cover) It releases on October 31st. I have to do some images for marketing it as well.
Then I have other projects that are ongoing and need my attention. (For example Formatting for a Poetry book by NK – Titled Valley of Thoughts. We are supposed to be releasing that next year. Editing for Ruan Bradford Wright’s Novel Toe-Rag which is expected to release in February. Writing my own poetry and prose books. And just being a mom and person who has housework that is not getting done more often than not.)
I honestly intend to do this blog every week..but I end up overwhelmed. I think I will just post some of my poetry this week. I thank you for your patience. I swear I am not forgetting y’all.
So those who follow me know that Fae Corps is just about to have a busy season. August 26th we are releasing the second edition of Andrew McDowell’s book Mystical Greenwood. And the submissions are in for Darkness Screams. I am busier than a one armed paper hanger…I wrote the above poem to put in the front of both volumes of Darkness Screams.
I will be able to return to posting here next week. thank you for your patience. (ps. Check the Fae Corps Blog tomorrow to see the covers for the next anthology!)
Pattimouse 