Happy Mother Fucking New Year...

The Unicorn and I stayed up until Midnight last night.

We didn't really celebrate. If anything, it was heartbreaking. She goes back to her dad tonight. She goes back to the hell that is his judgment and scrutiny. She goes back to the yelling and spanking. All the mental and physical abuse… all in the name of keeping her disciplined towards a future that only he can see.

Fuck… as little as I've gotten done… my to-do list is nothing but 'recovery' anyway. Spending time with her is always more important, and I don't ever intend to lose sight of that again.

I am going to miss her.

I'm going to miss her a lot.

Fuck you 2017. You're off to one hell of a shitty start.

This morning I fucked off the yoga and poured myself an extra cup of coffee.

Fuck this shit.

Fuck today.

Fuck everything.

I'll get back to saving myself again tomorrow.

What's behind Door Number Three?

Damn…

Okay, so, here's the thing. In the past, I've been told places where my characters and story arcs were lagging. Now, I've done enough research into story crafting that I feel like I'm doing well with my current narrative.

But, I've hit a snag.

It felt like I was leaving out too much detail when I was crunching words to fit within my 'midpoint' word limit cap.

Now I'm working on the 'crisis' chapters and I’m fluffing the hell out of it just to bump the words up to the cap.

In other words, my midpoint feels too short, and my crisis doesn't feel long enough.

Suddenly this thing is struggling to fit within the confines of the suggested pacing guide.

I can do one of two things:

1. Continue to follow the pacing guide. Put my trust in the WAY MORE EXPERIENCED author who generated said pacing guide.
2. Throw caution to the wind. Fuck the pacing guide. Extend my midpoint and let my crisis flow naturally.

I know what you're going to say.

It's my story, I should do what I want, right?

Well… are we sure about that? I mean, really?

The potential backlash of fucking the pacing guide sideways is that the work will 'drag' in the middle and my readers will lose interest.

So, we're going with what's behind door #3…

Write both.

Yes… more work… (fuck)

But the only way I can see this going the best way is to do both and then trust the critiques of my beta readers when it comes to deciding which layout the final project will take.

*grumble*

And I was doing so well…

SSI and Bad JuJu...

My SSI hearing for disability is coming up soon. At least soon enough that I'm starting to get paperwork in the mail from them. More requests to 'prove' my mental health disability.

This just causes bad juju with me. It makes me think of the two years I was homeless and desperately clinging to any ray of hope that would get me off the couches of friends and frienemies.

I’m okay now. I've been safe, stable and housed for almost three years even without the help from SSI. But I hate all the judgement by people who think I'm faking my disability.

I realize they have all the reasons in the world to be suspicious. So many people do succeed at working the system. I hate that too. It just makes problems for those of us who really need the support.

Tarnished Awesome still has the potential to be Shiny Awesome... but... ow.

So, I was explaining my current situation to someone, and I kept the detials just light enough for her to get the full picture, but without revealing any deeper information that could mess with anyone's privacy filters... and then I threw that in my journal... because... I'm journaling the fuck out of this thing.

Emotionally I'm too much of a mess to do any real writing.  But, I figure I can turn this around at some point by keeping a very close eye on my fluctuating emotions.  Now the next time I have to write a character that's suffering from some separation anxiety, I can harvest those emotions from my journals.

So, I took that letter and tossed it into my journal... because some of it is just story gold.  And then I realized that HEY, this is a great way to update people on what's going on with me.

Ergo:

- - -

Things seem to be normalizing out a bit... but, everything is still in a state of flux. I'll have times when I'm fine with everything that's happening, and I'll also go through periods of anxiety and depression. I cried myself to sleep the night before last. Put up with nausea the entirety of yesterday... slept 'okay-ish' last night. Tummy seems calmer today. 

Ever have one of those relationships that starts off with so much promise? Like "This thing! This thing is AWESOME! Look at my new shiny! Isn't it awesome?" And then you find out that your new shiny is nothing more than flaking nickel plate over already tarnished copper?

Fuck... it just hurts so much, because he does this Jekel and Hyde thing. 

Jekel reminds me of someone I lost a long time ago. And where I no longer grieve that 'person', I still deeply grieve the way I 'felt' when I was with that person. Jekel is that level of awesome, and a bag of chips. I mean... my gosh... the awesome.

Whereas Hyde reminds me of my very emotionally abusive ex.

You see the issue?

So, on the one hand, I'm smart enough to not let Hyde anywhere near me. Our relationship has been placed on 'long distance until further notice' status.

Also, I understand the problem. This kid (20 years my junior) has simply NEVER had any sort of positive role model. No one has ever taught him that all that he knows about relationships and how to treat one's loved ones is wrong. And, like it or not, people are not born with practical common sense already installed in the programming. They have to learn that shit, and there are extenuating reasons why he never has.

So... now I'm in that tender place of knowing that I am his last, best hope for any sort of a mentor. So, I refuse to abandon him completely. But, I also need to remain emotionally disinvested enough to stay safe for my own mental health reasons. My self-worth doesn't depend on his success or failure to 'nut up' at this point. 

I'm fully aware that it could take years for him to learn from his mistakes, and I'm okay with that. I'm patient enough for that.

But, fuck... it hurts to be just on the other side of that wall from the 'awesome'.

I have an amazing mentor though... so, at least I have that. It took my husband 8 years of trial and error and watching me fuck up and fall flat on my face and then fuck up again and fall so far in the hole we both thought I'd never find my way back out again... Hubbs is brilliant at this sort of thing. I've learned volumes upon volumes on how to play the 'long game' from him.

So... there's that too (sorry I'm still on coffee - brain is all scattered at the moment). Anyway. 

Having this experience is giving me a new appreciation for what my husband went through when he found me as a broken thing and re-forged me better. 

So... LOL, yeah, it hurts. But it's a worthy hurt. I'm learning from this and I LOVE that, but fuck... 

... ow...

Where the hell is my Ariste implant?! (i.e. struggling with identity)

In a fictional verse of wonder, written by Walter Jon Williams, people with multiple identities have one hell of an advantage.  A wetware implant that allows each voice to operate independently.  Each individual personality can be assigned to his or her own project, and the overall result is that one physical body's worth of a person can multi-task like a son of a bitch.  Aristoi

I've been trying really hard to let each of my projects flourish under the same level of care and attention, and the result I got was overworking myself into major meltdown space.

*sigh*

The experts have told me that I need to just focus on one thing at a time.

It's a struggle, but I see what they mean.

For the month of July and probably a good portion of August, I will be letting my Amanda Harris voice come to the foreground.  Amanda writes psychological horror and is participating in the 2015 Camp NaNoWriMo.

During the month of August I will be working on getting Amanda's work published.

September I will return to my anti-bully campaign, The Bronykin Alliance.

October, November & December I will be back with Amanda for NaNoWriMo2015

Past that... I'm not really sure... I have other voices that need attention.

If you need to reach me, my email is companion.anne@gmail.com

Gross...

Sex on The Beach

The guy who brainstormed this is now doing Masterchef Canada.

I want to vomit now.