Hello?

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Um.  Hi!

So… Long time no see.

For myself, I am hoping these past year(s) have been better than mine.

Here is the bad stuff:

  1. I hate to tell you guys, but we lost Connor during the first month of lockdown.  He was having trouble breathing, and when we could find someplace to take him, we found out there was a large growth in his stomach and no guarantee that he will get better.  We couldn’t do that to him.  That hit harder than anything and to be frank, I lost a lot of inspiration for a very long time to do anything.
  2. I also lost a co-worker, not due to Covid, but something else.  That led to a dark time that we are all just pulling ourselves out of at work.
  3. Then after we surface for air, only to have my Aunt pass away.  Her funeral was less than a week ago.   And I am going to go get tested tomorrow to see if I have the same thing, since it is genetic, and I have some of the symptoms.

We had other things, like AC’s going out and having to replace it completely. Traverse needing a huge repair and so on.

Real Life has sucked.  But then it has for all of us.

During this time I actually finished Revelations (Alice and Hatter) and was ready to go on to the final section as I promised everyone back in the beginning.  Only for me to be unable to find those chapters.

On the other hand, I found chapters of I Never Did and some of the other stories.

Silver Linings.  Right now I grab onto them for my sanity.

What I want to do now, is get everything out to you guys.  And if the betas can get to them, then they can fix them, otherwise, you guys get to see exactly why I call these ladies wizards with my work.  But life is too short for me to put off something I love so much for time to do other things.  I still have to work PT since I need to pay for the traverse’s major repairs and for the new AC.  Also, if the price of lumber will ever go down, the renovations my home needs so badly.

I do now have an office that is separate from the sewing room.  I have a new keyboard that is a little difficult to use since it is Ergonomic.

So Chapters will be coming out in whatever order I find.  I do plan to actually work on making new chapters for What If, since I started that one very depressed.  It was getting better but it has that stigma for me and I think you guys would like to read that one to the end.  Well, if you like it.

Well, I am off to see what I find first that I have done but was waiting on me to send off to someone to beta.    And please be gentle with me.  There is a reason I have betas.

Kittyinaz

 

Results Are In

Results Are In

So Sorry everyone.  I had no idea what was happening until it was way too late to do anything about it.  And even then it took me until a week and a half ago to admit I needed more help than I was getting.  I got it and I am finally getting to where I actually wanted to be on the computer.

I didn’t even really want to play games or anything.  I was thrilled on the days I got out of bed.

If anyone else is going through Depression, please know you do get out of it and are able to breathe once again.  It has taken me a long time, as well as this being one of the worse episodes that I ever went through.  Luckily, M and I talked daily about it, with me letting him know when he needs to do to help.  It is one of the hardest things I ever done, but thankfully, he listened.

One of the things I was suggested, was to pick up a new hobby, so I am learning to sew.  My mom was a seamstress, so she is the one teaching me.  I am 41 years old, and I am just now learning how to sew.  My thing though, is I like household items more than clothes.  She already signed me up for a Quilting Class, and I am currently learning to sew a Roman Shade and Valance.  Thank Goodness my mom knows how to do these things since we had to scrap the pattern and make our own.  Sadly, we forgot to buy regular needles… So guess what I will be buying this coming weekend?

Enough about me, here are the results for the contest:

1st Place:

2nd place was close.  Literally, only 3 votes separated them!

Thanks again for those who entered.  I will not be hosting a 3rd Quarter contest due to the depression.  I will be working forwards to the Christmas one, so be on the lookout for that one.

And huge thanks to those who wrote to me during the time I was battling depression, your words helped me more than you know.  Now I am off to hopefully sleep since I have appointments to run Grandma to.  Have a blessed day, and thanks again.

Kittyinaz

Monday’s Suck

At least today does for me.

I went to the Dr’s.  She was touching base on some of my medicines, and M wanted me to talk to her about something that I have noticed that has been going on.  And I am now technically labeled depressed.

I don’t feel sad.

I don’t feel happy either.

I feel like nothing.  I might laugh or cry, but there is nothing really behind it.

I am numb.

And to make it so much better, my body is still feeling everything.  Which makes it worse, since I am dealing with the side effects of tense muscles, and all the fun that goes with it.

What do you mean, Wendy?

My body is stressed, it gets sick.  I can feel the tension in my upper arms and back that I am tense, but I feel emotionally nothing. I don’t feel stressed.  I can’t tell what it is making it so, I can only feel the effects of it on my body.  And it makes me sick.  I can’t do anything about it, since there is nothing I feel to fix it.

The only time I feel something is when I am writing, since I think in pictures, and am immersed in the movie I am telling you guys.  But I can’t spend my life in my head.

I can easily see why people may give up, there is nothing there to inspire me, nothing to make me want to go on if all I feel is nothing.

I am NOT saying this is happening now, and I don’t give up.  I have a great support system around me, I also have a huge sense of obligation, and that alone will help me.  I feel like I need to finish the stories, including the ones floating around in my head.

However, I can soooo understand those that want to give up.  They either feel too much or feel nothing.  Both would make you want to give up, because why keep fighting when there is no joy in it?

To have you feel disconnected to everything around you is awful.  Knowing you should feel something, that your body is feeling it, but you have nothing, it is scary.  Almost as scary as the one time I relaxed my mind and found out it is a scary place to be.  To try to explain, my mind feels like it is racing with thoughts all the time, but where I function, is a bubble of calmness.  That bubble being gone was scary since all those thoughts had at once…

I didn’t think I was depressed. I  mean, you have been told that means you are sad right? That everything feels hopeless and no reason to go on, and you can’t get out of the hole, since you are stuck.

Nope.

Seems you can just feel nothing at all.  And it can get worse, to where you don’t want to get out of bed, you don’t want to do anything.

And I am actually further along that path than I ever imagined.  I struggle to get out of bed, sometimes, it is the obligations of making banners, running contests and so on that get me out.  To write the stories.  I don’t have an appetite.  I eat because it is often expected.  But if no one notices, I may only eat once a day.

I want to let you guys know what is happening, in case there is someone out there like me that doesn’t know.  And to let those that are out there, that there is another person that you can talk to.  That there is someone who understands when you tell people you can’t feel anything.

And it is scary.

To feel nothing.  To have where you laugh, but you don’t truly feel happy.  M\yY kitten does some really funny things around me lately.  She attacks her shadow on the floor. Connor has been very loving.  But for them both, instead of feeling that happiness really, deeply, it is is surface only, and fleeting.  It is forgotten as soon as it comes.  I liken it to oil on water.  It’s there and then gone.

I haven’t even been angry.  Which, unfortunately,  has been a setting that often made me feel very deeply, but nope.

Though on the positive side, I am calm.  LOL!

So it is not that I am not emotionless, nor is it I feel sad.  It is that there is nothing to look forward to tomorrow.  There is nothing pushing me to get up and go write.  To get up and eat.  To get up. knowing that all  that will happen is that I exist and nothing else.

What is my Dr recommending right now?  I have lots of my anti-depressant that we have used since my body has always been much more sensitive to outside things, like stress.  It was to help with the insomnia, and with my body being so sick. So I am to take for the next month double the dosage.

I am to keep exercising, and if I have to stop with the weights because I am not looking forward to it, do drop them.  But go my Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  The exercise will help me out, which I did know, and it was why I started back on doing it.  I get a huge boost of endorphins, so I figured it would help.

However, I have no appetite.  And because of this, I have to be careful, making sure I do eat.  IF I forget, I have to do a replacement shake, Boost, to make sure I have the vitamins, protein and calories.  I am to make sure there is food around me, that I see.  To remind me to eat.  It is so bad, that I am to eat empty calories if nothing else.

I gained weight. It can happen when you are not really eating.  I eat a meal and maybe a snack a day.  Just enough to keep me going I guess.  So my body hoards everything.  And it makes you gain weight.  Who knew that barely eating, would make you heavier?

My Doctor of course.

Seems that what she had warned me of happening, has come to be.  My body is in starvation mode and it makes it where I gain weight.  I need to eat, to get it out of the mode, and where the exercise and so on will help.  I have to set alarms, and so on.  I need to leave food around me, so I will snack on it here and there. If I skip meals that day, like I only ate once, I have to do a boost or ensure.

So I bought grapes, I have different lunches, and I bought the stuff to make stew as well as a roast.  I bought snacky food since she approved that.  And in a way, it is already helping.  I have white cheddar popcorn in front of me, and I find myself grabbing a kernel at a time to snack on.  I have snacked on the grapes as I walk through the house, too lazy to unvine them and put them in a container.  And I have drunk my chocolate milk.

I worry about money, so I don’t like buying snacky things unless a treat.  Now, I have them to eat and being ordered too.  Of course as she mentioned, I am going to the gym, and it will all balance out in the long run, so it is why she is approving the empty calories as well.

Like I mentioned, I just wanted to say something about it in case there are others out there that feel the same way.  I will talk more on the Kittyinaz Blabbery, if you want to follow what is going on.

In other news, I am binge watching Once Upon a Time, so while I wanted to get started on Sacred, I am still on Best instead, watching it, as well as thinking on things.  Just remember, that I had named it a universe, along with my Alice and Tin Man stories.  It will make it interesting for those that follow those since I am going to have to drop those story lines to make it work for Once Upon a time.  Just remember, I started the story before Season 3.  So it is not going to line up with that.  I will be making some changes and so on.

But in the long run, it will all make sense.

I am off to finish dinner, to binge watch, as I try to get a handle on everything that was told to me.

Kittyinaz

Are You Willing to Take this Challenge?

Are You Willing to Take this Challenge?

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I will be posting the chapter of What If soon here.

But I had a thought when I was typing up my post.  It tied in beautifully into what I have been thinking the last few days.

It is is simple.  Most people when they look at stats for a story, they look at reviews.  Not them themselves, well not everyone does, but the number.

But I have noticed on my fics and others out there a disturbing trend on Fanfiction and other sites.  But you see it mostly on Fanfiction and WordPress since those of us that have WordPress can see how many hits we had to the site.  And for ones like me, we can see how many visitors are clicking in.

I taught myself early on to look at the numbers, and don’t look at the reviews.  But I know how it hurts on especially new writers, or people like me to open a story we have just started, and seeing TONS of followers.  And one review.

Now, I will admit I am BAD about leaving reviews.  But I have hit that follow button for later.

Last night after thinking on it, (It was late give me a break…) but seriously.  When I hit that follow button, why can’t I leave a simple “Hey this interests me!”  Or something to that effect?  Something.  Anything?  If you can hit that follow button, you must found something that you liked on it.  So why not let the author know it?

Yeah, Fanfiction sends us emails when people follow and favorite, but to be honest, I tune them out.  I get 35 emails between me falling asleep and waking up.  Then I get more, sometimes a hundred over the day.  I empty my trash every other day of over 300 unread emails.  When you deal with that many, when you see it is not a review or an update to a story, you delete.  Sorry, but yeah.

So, I figured, after seeing my plan for World Domination (see the post following this for more information) is getting pretty far in reaching out to the world out there, I figured I could use those numbers to see if I can help out new authors or even authors like me.

Here is the official challenge:  If you are going to follow a story (Or Favorite instead of follow), leave a quick note why.  What interested you enough to hit that button?

If we do this, it might help some struggling writers out there to feel better on their works.  Since a lot of them don’t think to look at the follows and favs as much as they do those reviews.

And hey, don’t we deserve it as authors?  As Readers?  To spend a few minutes over something that may have spent hours, days, weeks, months and who knows what other issues for that writer to publish it?  Also, it may just inspire that author you loved to write more.

Who will share this?  (I am publishing this on my Reblog page for you ladies who like to hit reblog)

Who will take up my challenge?

Kittyinaz…

Good Afternoon!

Good Afternoon!

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This is my weekly post to let you know I still live.  And yes the top pic is random.  I love Sebastian! Roche!!!!

First off, to relax your mind, you will not longer have to listen to me telling you about my life.  You can read it now here.

This will be for the stories.

So in case you guys don’t realize, this is how I work.  I write the stories.  I work on them, until I get to a stopping part that the muse won’t work with me anymore.  Then I either head off elsewhere to see if the muse will come back, or I try to edit the work.

I do things in chunks.  So when I edit, I edit a bunch of chapters at once, and give them to the betas.  Now, for editing, it is not what you think.  Yeah, I run it through Grammarly at the end, to try to make life easier for my betas.  But what I am doing is adding the words that I skipped the first time, expand scenes and so on.  The word count at the beginning is the word count when I went through the first time and wrote it.  The final count is once I am down.  Sometimes the betas correct the number when they are done with it, sometimes they don’t.  That is their preference.

I also add the pics, banners, everything but the final steps of linking so that if something ever happens and I am unable to publish, the Betas can publish.  4padfoot can do all the linking and so forth.  So when I am saying I am editing, I try to give it time to settle in my mind so I can actually see those skipped words. I try to do editing things, like all the verb tenses that I am bad at, but yeah.

So often when you guys comment, the chapters are weeks, if not months, behind what I am doing right now.  That is why I often say you can inspire my muse to pick back up a story.

For instance.  Sacred is 29 chapters written.  You will get it once a week.  This gives everyone time to work on everything once they start working on it.  When I say I do things in chunks, luckily as time goes by, the chunks get bigger.

And since Crossing the Fine Line was achieved in a month, I will be trying to write more in larger chunks.

But this leads to longer pauses on things.

Plus we all have RL.  You do, I do, the betas do.

Ok.  So this week it looks I have in the queue for posting What If, and Revelations.  I am going to try to get to work on editing Clocks, then at least writing one chapter a day on a story.  Since there are a couple clamoring for attention, we will see what happens.

I also wish to remind you guys, that there are ad’s on my site for Amazon.  They all contain links to the site with my tag on them.  If you buy through these, or the link, I get a small percentage of what you spend back.  It costs nothing to you guys, but it helps pay for this site.  And for the help that others give to the site.  I know there are some not working right now, but I will need a weekend with 4Padfoot for us to look at the ads and determine what to do.  We try to pick ones that self update, but without input, we have no idea what you guys would like to see.

And if you want to advertise, please contact 4Padfoot and we can work with you.

There is the reblog site for updates.  Now that I am up and moving that will be kept up again. There is also a Food Blog that has some dedicated ladies working on it.  They post a lot of new recipes and I love it!!!

Today, ending at midnight CST, is the banner contest vote.  I was late this month on the challenge, but we have our three contestants, and anyone who is a member of the Facebook Group, can vote.

I think that is everything.  Oh yeah!!

I am doing the Christmas Writing Challenge.  The information will be out by the 21st, since that will give you a month to get the entries in.  I will be heading out of the state for 2-3 months after that, and no too sure how Photoshop will work on my laptop.  Unlike this computer that has dedicated graphics cards and everything maxed out, the laptop is borrowed from another. The laptop I want is $900+.  Yeah, it seems a lot, but it will last me a couple years after I get it.  The last one I had, was a gaming computer that came with Vista on it.  And the major issue with that one?  Not enough memory now as well as an odd reluctance to connect to Drive.  But damn did it run some badass programs!!!!  It’s also the computer I started writing fanfiction on. I more than got my money out of that thing.

Ok I am off to start my stuff for this week.  See you guys later!

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I’m Not Dead…Yet!

I’m Not Dead…Yet!

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Though I feel like most days…

Basically, I was not ready to be up Monday.  And have paid for it, sleeping most days including that one away.  But…I feel better….

Sorry.  No idea why Holy Grail/Spamalot is in my head, but you guys will probably find many puns in here for those that like it.  :winces:

But why am I posting?  Because I am here to fulfill a promise.  Yep.  We will be forming a government based on a lady in the lake giving me the…. Wait.  Nope.  Wrong one…

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Yeah.. See why?  :Snickers:

Yes, I have a chapter of What If ready for you.

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And my Muse decided to show who is boss when I am drugged.  I have 2 chapters written of a story that I refused to write.  I’m kinda grumpy over it.  She took advantage of the fact I was drugged!!!!  I don’t know what to call it.  To be honest…

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Here is the banner (yeah, you should have seen me looking at the lyrics for Carnival of Rust and stupidly going… Can’t use that… Bertie used it.  And that sounds stupid.  And that doesn’t even put to mind anything to do with the plot. Is that even spelled right?)  Hope someone will enjoy this.  If you are interested, the prologue is up in the Facebook Group.  Use the banner above to be taken to the group. (just to be extra sneaky)

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I am trying to be good, but I often sound like the Black Knight, in insisting it is only a scratch… But my betas (yeah even the new ones, and the ladies who joined us over on the Food Blog!) have long caught on to my little idiosyncracies.  So I will be checking the other sites to see if they are caught up.  Then back to bed for me.  And hopefully maybe some work done on the laptop, but it all depends on how I am feeling.

I am shooting for full recovery from the drugs soon. And hopefully, my body can figure out the middle between no sleep and too much sleep. I just want to be kinda normal.  kinda…

As for my tooth?  Yeah, that sucker is on Aleve now.  I’m back to being able to drink through a straw so I am enjoying the hell out of my SodaStream drink.  Yeah, I am weird I can’t drink soda unless out of a straw or once in a while, an 18 ounce or whatever bottle.  Sensitive teeth.

And the pets?

Stormy is ruling the house.  Literally.  Family begs me to get back in the office since she will come in here and just sleep with me.  Or play with Tucker.  Whichever, It is better than her running along the backs of chairs, down a chair then across the chairs to start her track again.  She also has decided to like my dad’s water.  No matter what flavours he puts into it.  She sleeps in the bedroom on M or beside me.  Depends on her mood.

Connor is well… Connor.  He begs to be in the room so he can’t be blamed for Murphy tearing up stuff.  It is a surefire way to know something is torn apart.  He also, if in the room, will sleep the entire night between M and me.  We need a bigger bed.  Coming next month will start us getting him ready for the trip.  He will enjoy that, since he will have new dogs to play with, and maybe, just maybe he can play with mom and dad without M butting in.  (Well he won’t have Murphy since he is staying here with his owners, but there are two other dogs, one of them a golden….)

Murphy?  He likes my rugs in the bathroom.  We have to keep the bathroom door open to allow the AC to run correctly.  Don’t ask, it works is all I know.  He also prefers to sleep on the floor in our room, on an Avengers blanket we bought for Connor.  If we open our door at night, nothing happens, but we get little room on the bed.  We may need to look to buying a king so we have room! But Murphy thinks he sleeps on the bed, but he gets down each time.  He also is bad with his paws, going so far to hit me Monday on my jaw that was operated on.  He is still a work in progress.  We are still teaching him that jumping up and not landing on anyone is ok.  But the other is not.

That is everything on my side.  I am going to get this off.  I appreciate you guys still reading these things.

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