Category: Musing

Rambling: Headspace

Rambling: Headspace

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’ve been in a strange headspace this last little while. Some weird combination of anxiety and confidence, dread anticipation mixed with hope.

My anxiety has been flaring up left, right, and centre for at least a week. I’ve done what I can to keep it in check, pushing the negative thoughts to the side and directing my mind to think about my story. Thinking on my writing is actually becoming an incredibly helpful tool for regulating myself, which is pretty cool. I just start imagining a scene, or thinking about where I want to take the story, and I get engrossed in it. It’s great!

But it isn’t perfect. Sometimes I just can’t quite get it to work right.

And I speculate that thinking about publishing my stories so much is contributing. As much as I would love to have published work, the idea of actually putting it out there is a bit terrifying. What if everyone hates it, despite the positive words I’ve received on it already? What if there is some huge plot hole I missed?

And to add to all this, work has insisted that all unbilled WIP (work in progress) get billed this month, which means that I am doing at least 50% more bills this month than I normally do.

Stress levels are high.

Current finances don’t exactly help. Part of why I want to publish my books soon, and why I care so much about whether they sell or not. It would be lovely to have a little extra to be able to put towards the debt.

As I type this, I realize just how much I do not like talking, or writing, about me having feelings like this. I guess I would rather deny them, than give proof to the world that I am less than perfect.

Silliness. Pretty sure the world knows I’m less than perfect and is OK with it, since perfection in unattainable.

Whatever. I’m just gonna wallow and leave the rest of you alone.

Ta.
Arcia

Ramblings: All the Things

Ramblings: All the Things

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

My mind is simply racing this morning, full of possibilities and unable to quiet down for more than a moment.

Starting on the more business oriented side of things, I’ve created myself an Author’s Facebook page as I am intending on publishing my short story soon, hopefully before the year is out if everything goes according to plan.

If you are interested in supporting me further, please go ahead and give my Facebook page a like. You can reach it here (link opens in a new window, so don’t worry about losing your spot here!)

So what prompted me to make the Facebook page? Well, I met an indie author on the bus today. A real, flesh and blood person, I promise, not just a figment of my imagination. She has been a USA Today top selling author, apparently within two years of publishing her novella series through Kindle Direct Publishing, which is exactly what I intend on using.

She made mention of a couple of writing groups in my area, one that is more for hobby writers who, while passionate, don’t know much about the technical side of things. Which is incredibly me, right now. I have so many questions, but many of them need answers from myself, answers that I will learn as I navigate the publishing process. The other one she mentioned is more oriented to published/publishing authors. I’m not certain how local these are, or how often they meet, but it may be something I will want to look into.

In the meantime, my head is just full of possibilities, like I said! As I get closer to the end of my short story, with so many ideas yet to come to fruition with it, I can’t help but imagine what this is going to end up looking like for me in the years to come.

I’m excited, I’m scared. Mostly excited, though.

The idea that people may actually pay to read my words is incredible. And very possible.

The lady on the bus mentioned that she had seen another author post that they started getting around $70/month and ended up the next year with $70,000 annual! Incredible! I don’t anticipate that I would reach that level of success (except in those wild pipe dreams that bubble over every so often), but any success would be amazing.

So I will continue to strive, continue to write. One day, you will see my name on the Best Sellers’ list, and just know that I will be spending a week straight dancing with joy if that does happen!

-Arcia

Ramblings: Best Bus Ride Ever

Ramblings: Best Bus Ride Ever

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

First, let me just get my inner excited girl out… “EEEEEEeeeeeEEEEEeeeEEEEE!!!!!”

Alright, sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. I had basically one of the best bus rides ever today.

Normally, I sit there, on the front most seat behind the driver (yes, that is my ‘spot’), and write in my notebook or stare into space while listening to my music. I take note of the other riders – since I take the bus at the same time every day, I see a lot of repeat riders, which is pretty cool. I chat with a lady and her three-year old most mornings as they go to daycare, and some evenings on the way home to!

There is this one girl that I’ve seen often in the mornings. She stands out to me, as she always wears beautiful clothing with bold colors or patterns, her make-up is exceptional and her hair is basically perfect. With all this beauty, I never had the guts to say hello even though she always has a ready smile on her lips.

Today she broke the ice. We locked eyes and smiled when she got on the bus, and then she took out her music to say hello and ask how I was. Not to be rude, I followed suit and we exchanged compliments. By that I mean, I gushed that her outfits are always amazing, she told me she always eyes up my hair, and I followed up with how awesome her curls were.

With both of us suitably complimented and embarrassed, she inquired if I went to school at the university, a valid question since the bus went through there every morning and she got off to transfer on the first stop in. No, I told her, I’m writing a story.

Her face bloody well lit up and that smile I keep admiring came out in force. She asked about it, getting a little tongue tied, before getting out the question of what was it called. I told her the series name, and how that name came to be – the shattering, the anchor shards, where we get out stories of fantastical creatures from. She asked if she could read it, but I hemmed and hawed – I don’t know her well enough!

We are going to exchange contact information next time, and she wants to introduce me to another friend of hers who has published a book or three. She seems like a very gregarious, extroverted person, which is pretty cool.

Anyway, after she got off on her stop, another lady on the bus was like “I couldn’t help but overhear” (I’m loud, yo!) and then WE started talking about writing and books and my story and honestly it was the best ever.

Both of them thought the premise of my book was really interesting and want to read it, and both wished me copious amounts of luck in getting to that dream! Well, luck was wished, I simply assumed it was copious.

Well, that is about all I really wanted to gush about today.

Take care,

An overly excited Arcia

Ramblings: Internet Safety

Ramblings: Internet Safety

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

It amazes me the number of people who will click suspicious links or open attachments they are not expecting. When I first started going online, way back when it was a whole new world and you used a modem that screeched and yelled at you, there was one thing that I learned quickly and have endeavoured to never forget: Do not click links you weren’t expecting. Do not open attachments you weren’t expecting. Doesn’t matter if you know the person they came from – double check! A quick message can save you so much headache.

The world is far more online now than it was when I first started my forays into forums and chat rooms, so it boggles my mind that people are not more aware of the big “no-nos” when it comes to keeping yourself safe online. The consequences nowadays are so much more than they once were.

I will admit, I’m not perfect. I’m certain I’ve clicked on a suspicious link or two in my past, and paid the price for doing so. And sometimes, despite your best efforts, you get bombed with an ad that has some sort of spyware in it and your computer gets fried. I get it, it happens.

But when you just go through your life, blindly clicking on every link that gets sent your way? Well, I’m sorry to say it, but you probably deserved whatever you got from that.

Don’t. Click. Suspicious. Links.

A good friend send you a link unexpectedly, with accompanying text saying something similar to “check this out”? Chances are you shouldn’t trust the link. But Arcia! you say, feeling a little hurt, that came from my best friend! Well, don’t click it until you’ve confirmed your friend intended to send you that link. Or attachment. Or whatever. It isn’t hard. And I would recommend you ask them on a different platform, just in case someone has gotten into their account rather than just made it send stuff out.

And you know what, while I’m talking about doing stupid things that cause you grief, I’m just gonna throw this out there. Companies will NEVER, not EVER, request that you pay them back by purchasing and providing the codes for Google Play cards, or PSN cards, or any other form of gift or product card. Will not happen. I don’t care how legitimate it seems, it isn’t. If you are really 100% certain that this is not a scam (seriously, though?) then take the time to call the number on verified correspondence from said company. Is it your phone company? Call the number on your account statement. Bank? Same deal. If you get online statements, then go to their official website. Don’t follow the link from an email or text message, but actually go and google their official website, if you don’t know the actual website address.

Links can be spoofed.

Protect yourself!

A concerned Arcia.

Ramblings – On Dreams

Ramblings – On Dreams

by Heather ♥ 2 Comments

Dreams. What a messed up aspect of our lives, right? We close our eyes for the night and our brains process what we’ve experienced during the day and we get to experience that as dreams. And some just make no sense at all!

As fascinating as I find dreams, I actually prefer to NOT dream. Mine are often very strange, messed up, and often give me anxiety, at least during the dream itself if not beyond when I wake. Once in awhile I get lucky – my dreams will take me on an epic adventure, with videogame-esque elements and an intriguing plot. I’m not usually so lucky. Normally I get dreams like I experienced the other night – I can’t recall specific details, but I can remember one moment. My father being absolutely PISSED that I had purchased a $20 hair dryer with my own money, saying things like I was irresponsible, it was foolish of me, how dare I. It left a sour taste in my belly in the dream, but thankfully wasn’t something that followed me when I woke up.

Anger is a common theme in my dreams. Not anger towards me, but rather anger that I feel. And it is a monstrous anger, irrational and petty, quickly ignited but not so quickly soothed. These are among my scariest dreams, because I don’t normally carry anger, I try to let it go. But I spend these dreams screaming, throwing things, breaking things, pushing buttons, and sobbing uncontrollably. Because yes, anger and tears are a package deal for me. I always find these sorts of dreams to actually be kind of frightening – it scares me to think that somewhere within me is apparently the capacity to completely rage.

I also cannot fly in my dreams, a fact that frustrates me even in slumber. The most I can generally manage is a clumsy glide, but that doesn’t stop me from flapping my arms with the best (worst?) of them. Dream guides suggest that this means I have someone or something holding me back in life. Hard to say if that’s true, it has honestly been several years since flight held any role in my dreams. Which is curious, considering how much I love wings and the idea of flying. And also probably why it always frustrated me when I couldn’t.

Locations in dreams are pretty tricky, too. Whenever my dream is at “home”, that home is a strangely distorted version of the home I grew up in. It has the open/circular main floor, my bedroom at the top of the stairs, the half wrap-around deck, the outside concrete stairs to the basement, the garage. But it isn’t actually that home. Small, subtle differences occur – the good room doesn’t exist in the dream version, the basement is far more sinister and easy to get lost in. The concrete stairs are steeper, deeper, dangerous. Sometimes the pool and hot tub exist, sometimes they don’t. The playhouse is often there, but it will look different all the time. And yet every single time, in my dreams, I understand that it is that home Doesn’t matter what changes my mind makes to it. I do wonder, however, when my mind will stop pulling up this house as my “home” when it hasn’t been for quite some time.

-Arc

Ramblings – All the Curls

Ramblings – All the Curls

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

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Aww yea, curled my hair this morning. Also burned my thumb a little in the process, but hey! what’s beauty without a little pain? OK, so I actually try to actively avoid pain for the sake of beauty. It’s why I don’t wear heels, or skinny jeans or things of that nature. Not comfortable, sometimes painful. If I wear heels too often I end up with a swollen foot, no lie. Happened to me back when I first worked at this job – naïve me figured I needed to wear heels all the time to be “professional” and then ended up spending a week shuffling around the office in thick socks because I couldn’t fit in my shoes!

Super professional, I know, I know. You may all worship my professional abilities.

Done? Yea, thought so.

Hey, here’s a question you don’t need to answer. When browsing blogs or whatever, do you like ones with a “featured image” (this post has one, most of mine don’t) or do you prefer without? I’m just wondering if maybe I should start plunking images in – maybe make a couple for different types of posts. Also, just a quick edit: featured image is HUGE. Have now changed it to just be at the top of the post. yikes.

*sigh* I really need to organize this blog too. Such a mess. I knew it would get like this, but past me was all “Meh, I’ll deal with it when I have to.” And now I’m feeling I probably have to, but also don’t want to. So much other, more exciting stuff to do!

Like working on my stories! Nearly every day on the bus ride to work (and sometimes home, too) I get a few paragraphs jotted down, at least, on my main work. It’s been coming along so wonderfully, except for when it isn’t.  I keep hitting road blocks, for some reason. The latest one was because I tried to shape the story wrong, put the wrong character in, and I was cursing, wondering why I did this to myself, why the character was doing what I had them doing. And then I stopped and realized that **I** was the one doing it, I was the one writing, so dammit, it didn’t need to be that way. So I scrapped… well, a half-assed scene and scribbled a few notes for what it should be like. Then I moved on, because I was way beyond done with that piece right now. It’ll just need to get a little extra TLC once I start typing it up.

Well, ok. I guess that is the end of my ramblings for now.

I hope you have a wonderful morning/day/evening/night. Whatever is most appropriate for you as you read this!

-Arc

Ramblings: Life Off

Ramblings: Life Off

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Sometimes it can feel amazing to just turn life off for a little while, or at least as much as you are able to. Just took a week off work and essentially spent it playing games such as Neverwinter and Baldur’s Gate with my husband – old school and lovin’ it.

I feel relaxed. I feel stress-free. I know that will change as soon as I get to work today, but I’m going to relish these last moments of quiet as much as I can.

Now, that isn’t to say I was completely out of the loop. I still pulled up my twitter and peeked at it, thought I didn’t really engage much at all. Which means that yes, I am aware that there is apparently a plan to storm Area 51 “Naruto-run” style. Hilarious! Husband and I spent a good few minutes looking at some of the golden memes that have arisen from this notion and laughing to ourselves over the ridiculousness of it all. I am particularly fond of the Naruto run bit, to avoid the bullets, of course. Best part.

I spent more time working on my novel and my little short story, as well. I can’t recall if I mentioned here or only on Twitter that I think I’m actually going to self-publish this short story I’ve been working on. It has a beginning, a middle, and I’m working on its ending, so it’s a complete story, not like the snippets that I post here. Once I’ve finished and polished it all up, I will likely be publishing it through Kindle Direct Publishing, unless I become aware of a better platform to put it on.

So that is kind of exciting for me. I will post a short blog post about it when its up, with a link to where it can be purchased and all that fun jazz. I’m pretty sure it will be $0.99, I’ve seen other short stories for that amount.

Well, I guess I don’t really have much more to talk about at the moment, except to tell you that if you can unplug from the world for a few days, you should totally do it! It feels wonderful. Let go of as many responsibilities as you can, even for a short while, just to regain some equilibrium.

Good luck, have fun. I’ll see you all again.

Ramblings – I’m busy, I swear!

Ramblings – I’m busy, I swear!

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Goodness it has been a busy week at work. Four day week, and I’ve taken next week off to help lower those stress levels somewhat. I continue to get upset with little things, so it’s time to de-stress as fully as I can!

Which means a week away from work. I was lucky to be able to take it off – lawyers two week trial ending up getting pushed for reasons, so the opportunity just kind of jumped at me! I was originally thinking I wouldn’t be able to take time off until much closer to September, so I’m pretty stoked for next week.

Not completely sure what we will be doing next week. Hanging out, playing video games, watching Stranger Things Season 3 (assuming that lasts more than just tonight and tomorrow, haha).

Just started playing some Detroit: Become Human, thanks to getting it for free through PSPlus. It is very interesting so far – much more of a story than a game, but what a story it is! I feel a strange connection to these poor androids that are on the outskirts of society performing all the mundane tasks. I’m not far in, but it is brilliant.

Anyway, my mood just plummeted and rather than bitch, moan, and complain here I’m just gonna sign off.

Have a great day, y’hear?

-Arcia

Ramblings – Word up!

Ramblings – Word up!

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

So I recently moved from using the trial version of Scrivener for writing to the full version, thanks to a slightly delayed birthday present from my momma (love you mom!). It is an awesome program, and I’m so happy I have the full version now. I’ve already got my dropbox all set up so that I can work on my story at work or at home.

I was doing it a little wrong yesterday, though. I did a “back-up” to the dropbox location, and then would do another one after I worked on it again, and I very quickly realized THAT would become unmanageable. It created a new folder each time with the date in square brackets, but when I did a back-up of the back-up, it added MORE dates/time in square brackets behind the first set. Yea, that was definitely not how things were supposed to go.

So I had a brilliant idea! Just save the damn thing in dropbox and let it do its backups to my hard drive. I know, I know, less a brilliant idea and more just common sense. I don’t always do the common sense thing right away – I like to make things difficult for myself.

If you are an author looking for something maybe a bit more affordable than the Microsoft Office 365 option, I would recommend Scrivener!

I think my favourite part about it is how you can have your scenes all completely separate, easily move them around as needed, and then compile the entire document per whatever settings are appropriate for your output (i.e. you can output it into e-book format or standard manuscript format).

Another really great feature is being able to have all my character sheets, my settings notes, all that good stuff in the same document. I only recently started getting all that stuff actually typed out, as opposed to living in my head. I realized the necessity for it when I realized I couldn’t remember what color hair one of my characters had! I mean, it’s at least a somewhat important detail, in terms of identifying a character and staying consistent. So it was time. Time to create character sheets.

And I go big or I go home, so I’m doing one for every single character. Even those that basically appear briefly and then go away. I don’t know yet which ones might come back into the story (though I have a little bit of an idea), so they all must be recorded!

I may even actually write out backstories, instead of letting those live in my brain too. I have too much crap living in there, better to get the important stuff out before it becomes overwhelmed by the useless crap. And I have a fun idea for my barbarian’s back story. He has a couple siblings that aren’t mentioned in my novel (yet, anyway), and is the son of the chief. He was quite adventurous as a teenage barbarian, and definitely got himself into trouble more than once.

It’s honestly quite exciting not only watching as I force my story to take shape, but to delve into these characters and learn them even more. I know why I’ve never been a full-blown fan of something – I was waiting for my own characters to stan!

Now then, where was I?

Oh, yes, Scrivener! It’s pretty cool. I’m looking forward to diving into it a bit more just to learn the various features and hidden gems in it. I like customizing things, what can I say?

So, uh, I guess I don’t really have much more to say right now.

Make sure you have a great day, kay?

Ramblings – Today’s Thoughts

Ramblings – Today’s Thoughts

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’ve decided I want to try and post on this blog a bit more often, which is going to mean less Storytime and more musings or ramblings or random thoughts.

Today you get ramblings, because that is just how lucky you are. You had better feel special!

I feel like talking about my cats right now, because they are weighing heavy on my mind. I discovered puke with bright red in it this morning, which means that one of our cats is either puking up blood or has eaten something very bright that they should not have eaten. We’re looking into it, but it’s tough when you aren’t certain which cat it is. Both my husband and I suspect it is Seraphim, our little lady, but that is not based on any fact or evidence, just the fact that we have always viewed her as less healthy than our big man, Grim.

We have had Grim (fondly know as Mister, Mr. Grim, Big Man, and Twitchy Butt, among other in-the-moment nicknames) since he was a kitten, adopted from a friend of my husband’s sister. He was the runt of the litter and was small enough to fit in the palm of my husband’s hand when we got him. Of course, we didn’t have a camera back then, so photos of him as a kitten are few and far between if they exist at all. Our big Mister is an all black cat, save for a few white hairs on his shoulder that have increased in number as he gets older.

When he was a little kitten he was a rascal, getting into everything. We had a hide-a-bed couch at that point, and we liked to snuggle Grim in between us while we watched movies or TV. We were doing this one day and we suddenly started to hear these very pathetic, muted meows. Looking at each other in confusion, we tore up all the cushions trying to find the little bugger. Finally, we noticed him under/in the bed part of the couch. Husband lifted the couch (and I’m sure you realize how heavy a hide-a-bed couch is) and I tried to fish the kitten out. Of course, kitten was having none of that and dug into the carpet. I eventually won that battle and we got him out of the couch, but until he grew a bit bigger we had to be extra vigilant that he didn’t wiggle his way back in there.

His favourite toy as a kitten (or at least one of his favourites) was one of those ones you stick to the wall or door and it dangles and has a bell on it. He loved this damn thing. One night, as we tried to sleep, he was going crazy attacking this toy, the bell just jingling and jangling like there was no tomorrow. In frustration, we grabbed the toy, threw it into the bedroom and closed the door. But we didn’t throw it far enough into the bedroom, and Grim got his little kitty paw far enough in the room that he could just touch the bell with a claw. That was all he needed to bring it closer and have a jolly ol’ time jingling the stupid thing, keeping us up. Of course, we moved it further away so we could actually sleep, and now it is a funny memory; at the time? Not so funny.

When we moved back to my hometown, we shared a house with a good friend of ours and had enough room that we could consider the idea of getting another cat.

Seraphim was a rescue from the SPCA back in or around 2006 or 2007. We got her not long after moving back to my hometown. She is a beautiful little thing, a bit small for a cat, with half her face blonde and the other half a dark brown/black color. Our housemate at the time adopted her sister and named her Mittens despite her not having any mittens to speak of – he just always wanted a cat named Mittens; Mittens was much darker than Seraphim and had only a few spots of blond on her, including a vaguely star shape on her forehead. We brought them home to meet Grim, and we learned something very important.

Grim does not like other cats. Especially when the other cats take over his brand new scratch post that he was in love with. Grim spent a lot of time beating the kittens up, especially Mittens. He wasn’t as mean to Seraphim, and we aren’t completely certain if that was because he knew she was ours and he had to put up with her, or because she was too stubborn and stupid to give a shit about him beating her up. Mittens was traumatized, unfortunately, and had taken to pooping under the desks to avoid going into the open where Grim could get her. She eventually had to move into our friends’ bedroom to keep her safe. It was sad, but at least there was that option.

While we lived in that house, we took to letting our cats outside regularly. Grim had had “outside time” on a leash at our old place, but had never been let out alone before. He very quickly formed a “cat gang” that consisted of himself, Seraphim and a stray cat that we called Third. The name was actually a nod to a TV series we were watching at the time, though I can’t recall what the series was. It was pretty epic (the cat gang, not the show I can’t recall). One time, we saw another cat in the condo complex and Third was peering at it from around the bushes, clearly keeping an eye on this cat. Out of nowhere, Grim comes charging around the corner and chases this other cat off the condo property and across the street. Grim didn’t actually leave the complex, but the other cat just kept on running. It knew what was good for it. We are very certain that Third and Seraphim spotted the other cat and Third kept an eye on it while Seraphim ran to inform Grim, since she was trailing behind him like the little follower she is.

Eventually we moved from that home into a one-bedroom apartment. Grim packed on the pounds – there wasn’t enough room for him to really be able to run, and it was difficult to get outside with him on a regular basis. Sera had no issues – being a small cat, she had no trouble rip-roaring around the apartment when the kitty crazies hit her. And they do, quite regularly even to this day.

While living in the apartment, we knew we had to get Grim out more – he loved the outside, and the small apartment wasn’t good for him. We invested in a backpack specially designed to carry cats – it had a hole for him to poke his head out of and a lead to attach to a collar so he couldn’t jump out. He loved his backpack. After he got used to it, every time we pulled it out he would awkwardly jump into it. It was awkward because he is so damn big – we had to pick him up and place him in it properly, and he purred the whole time.

Cat secured in the backpack, we would take him to the nearby park where we would let him roam on a leash while we enjoyed our coffees. There was actually a little public garden that he absolutely loved – it had a wide variety of edible plants, including cat mint. If you haven’t heard of it before and have cats and a garden, I recommend you look it up. It apparently helps to keep certain pests away from the garden, in addition to being loved by cats.

OK, so, apparently I’ve managed to write 1,300 words about my cats. I’m sorry. I could also totally write more, I have lots of little stories and tidbits so, uh, I guess if you enjoyed reading about my kitties, drop me a like/follow, and shoot me a comment to let me know how much you love my cats. And you should. They are the best. I love them so much.