Tag: goals

I Hate Myself Today

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’m currently working from home, for this I am thankful. Except we may run out of work that I can do as of Monday (for which I apologize to the people I live with).

I went out today for the first time in two weeks to do a grocery run so I (in theory) won’t have to go out for another month. I hear people complaining about this and comparing it to the common flu but I also worry because there are so many being put into medically induced comas so their bodies can fight the virus. Without that, the death toll would be higher.

It started at 3% and has climbed to about 5%.

It’s not much, many say.

Kill about thirty thousand people and it’s the same as planting something like twenty million trees, which no one will do because it’s “too hard”.

And here I am with writer’s block.

I have two side projects and I have the plot for those side projects bothering me day in and day out. Super want to write them, but I can’t. The words are stuck, like behind a dam, and I know this feeling…

I want to write Mars Red and Mr. Wrightworth pops up every once in a while.

Okay, not every once in a while. I saw his real name the other day and he popped in. I responded to someone in chat, “good,” just in a normal fashion and he popped up.

Basically, I want to write, but I can’t.

My meds run ou next month and I considered, given the climate, to just do the work of easing myself off. Then I looked it up.

I’ve made strides while on the medication. Before, I was in survival mode constantly and this has kicked me out and reminded me that there’s something besides survival mode. So, in theory, I’ll do great even off it… but…

I worry.

So, I’ll have to venture out to my doctor’s office in the middle of a pandemic and I happen to know a bit about the medical field (only a bit) and I happen to know this doctor typically only takes on those who really, really need medical help and this has led me to worrying.

I have a family history of rheumatoid arthritis and almost certainly have it but my doctor won’t test until I come in with symptoms because it can result in false positives. That part made sense to me, but the rest didn’t…

Until I read that being treated for such a thing made you vulnerable to sickness. The thing was, they specified. Being treated for rheumatoid arthritis makes you vulnerable. 

Then I got to thinking…

If you can avoid flair-ups… I mean, the problem with rheumatoid arthritis is that your immunity is in overdrive and it ends up attacking the cartilage in your body.

For about two seconds I thought I’m immortal! and an evil laugh.

Anyhow, going out to the doctor causes me anxiety despite being on anxiety medication and needing to talk to the doctor about going off of my anxiety medication despite the pandemic that’s happening.

Let. Me. Fecking. Write.

This is the point where I’d be flipping my desk, if I were working at a desk.

But.

In order to ease off and not fall back into that constant survival mode, I have to call, and then go, to the doctor.

Who I know, for a fact, has to go to the emergency room. Because laws and such. I didn’t know that before. If you end up in the emergency room for more than a couple hours, your doctor comes in to visit you.

Anyhow, that’s my problem. Someone email me tomorrow and tell me to call my doctor so I can get this sorted out and writing within a month.

Might need the money, considering I may be laid off next week…

Medication

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

At this point, I’m almost certain my medication is interfering with my ability to write the way I used to. It’s altered my obsessive traits from the mental to the physical.

I mean, I made three blankets, two cardigans, and a hat in a month (crochet). I bought a piano to play but I can’t… it’s apparently along the same synapses as writing but I was so close to taking off with that. Now I’m cross-stitching.

But I can’t…

I just can’t.

I have at least three more months of meds. At that point my doctor wants to review whether I should go back on them. I’m going to ask to be weaned off and see if I can function better then.

Until then, I need to focus on putting myself back together enough that when I’m off the meds I can… do all the things while doing writing. I want, so badly, to publish twelve books this year but my mental health was failing when I walked into the doctor’s office which is how it came out, how I ended up on the medication.

So I need to put myself back together after decades of being shattered. And it’s killing me a little bit because not being able to write makes me want to crawl into bed and not get up again, but at the same time I know this is temporary. I remember what it was like before and I don’t want that but I also don’t want this.

I suppose that means in the usual fashion I’m going to burn the world to the ground and fix this all for myself.

I want a world where I write, but I also want a world where my PTSD and panic disorder and general and social anxiety don’t eat away at me. I know I’m a strong, extroverted personality that will make friends and change what’s broken in my environment and life. I’m a leader and creative and can be explosive when pushed too far. But my mental health problems have reduced me to a basement gremlin growling at sunlight and hiding under blankets.

So… over the next three months things may seem strange. I may not edit Contract Sealed and Contract Delivered, but that’s not because I don’t want to. I might get wrapped up in Awakened or in a new series I’m working on: Coventry.

Or I might just update The Others randomly.

I just want you to know that the weirdness isn’t because I don’t want to finish these projects. It’s not because I don’t want to write Mars Red, because that would be amazing for me…

It’s because I have three months to piece myself back together enough that when I’m off the medication I can still stand toe-to-toe with an idiot three times my size, carrying an axe, and I can still meet the eyes of my co-workers… and maybe carry on a conversation.

In the meantime…

Re-read your favourites, drop me a line, or, if you really want to help me out, leave a review on Amazon, tell your friends, or talk to your local bookstore about carrying my books.

Changes

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Oh boy…

So. Due to things, I lied to you guys about my employment. This is clearly a pen name, no one is so awesome as to have a last name of DeAniege. I had been with my employer for twelve years and then two very important positions quit and one important body decided to go on on vacation for a month over Christmas in retail.

Their plan?

Me.

That’s a huge backstory and yes, I was an amazing body to have. But I said I couldn’t do it but it still sort of kept coming and I had called it already. I get they needed me, I get that they may not exactly make it through the peak season without some… let’s say some casualties, but I had to do what was best for me.

I started working for another company in my field of study about a month ago and so I gave notice at my long term job.

My course is coming to a close in… gosh, a month now, and this company I’m working for is not only amazing but they seem to want me to be there. Not to mention I haven’t tried working for the other major employer in my field, in my area and they’re willing to interview me for a position that I think is way to important to put a “student” into.

And about six weeks ago, I got a doctor. In my area that’s hard. There’s this thing with like… living in the province with the five top richest families in Canada or something and they control everything and keep it super hobbled. Though, admittedly, it’s gorgeous land and barely dug into from what I can tell but still.

One of them is an oil company…

Anyhow, I got a doctor and during the first appointment, he said he didn’t want to prescribe anything for my anxiety and I nodded in agreement. The doctor gets his way, it was just the introduction and I knew it would be an uphill battle to get my mental health seen to. I’ve heard stories of this all and I tried all the things but was melting down to the point that I wouldn’t talk to my friends in school. I’d just kind of grunt, cringe, and bite back the tears.

By the end of that appointment, I had a prescription for an anti-depressant. I started taking it and my mood was like a pendulum that a cat was playing with. It would be good and kind of hover there, then slam back into bad again.

Turns out, what was once my good day is actually a bad day.

How was I getting out of bed every day?

Damn.

I knew I had mental health problems and struggled with anxiety and the like. I tried treating it on my own, without a doctor, because I didn’t have a doctor.

One of the reasons I always resisted drugs when people mentioned them in the past (besides the fact they were being jerks and saying it because they couldn’t handle my personality) was that I had read up on hypergraphia and learned that anti-depressants are used to treat hypergraphia.

I have hypergraphia, but it’s not to the point of being damaging.

Unless you count damaging as losing a relationship with someone who couldn’t understand that when I told him I had hypergraphia and it was linked to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, that meant that there would be weeks where I wasn’t as loving and responsive as he wanted because I was caught up in the words.

I mean, it also turned out he was a bit of a narcissist and wanted someone to spout nonsense, lovey-dovey sayings about him and support him rather than challenge him while he published his novel through a vanity publisher who can’t tell the difference between patients and patience but it did still cost me that relationship.

So, I suppose, in a way my hypergraphia was damaging a little bit to my life.

… or saved me from a massive mistake.

He’s very happy now and found someone for him, who feeds into what he wants in life, so it’s not all bad, I guess.

Anyhow, I think it was last week when it occurred to me that I’m no longer swimming in words. I struggle to fill a page, I don’t want to use my pens because the compulsion is no longer there. As an instructor is telling us to do something, I am not constructing the outcome out of spare words floating around my mind.

I am no longer the go-to. I can be, if you want editing or construction or management, but if you want something finely crafted, I can’t always be the go-to. I try to end things with “and something-something, an ending here.”

My stories and worlds have been slowly bubbling under the surface. Mr. Wrightworth visited for a time, bent Nathanial over the bed… and the floor… and the couch.

Damn it, he bothered me for days.

And there’s a running world, a new one, when I need to fall asleep but can’t. A messenger in a world of low tech. All they do is ride from city to city under the rule of the Guild, protected from everything and carrying messages silently. It’s… peaceful.

Except for the war that broke out, and the man determined to learn their identity, who then does and refuses to tell the Guild who they are while chasing after them, trying to find alone time.

Yeah, so that might be happening. I’m just trying to figure it all out because I’ve been riding in the messenger’s head so I know all about them but the story itself would be told from the perspective of others who don’t know.

Anyhow. After a week on my medication, I began talking to an old flame who had some mental health difficulties of his own. We broke it off when he decided he didn’t have the energy to look after himself and to carry on a relationship where we barely saw each other. The timing has changed, we’ve both changed. Things are going well.

A week later, I had a new job. Three days after that, I gave notice at my old job with no regrets.

I started talking to people in my class. Not everything was the end of the world anymore, which I knew to start, but struggled with.

There was a paper I read once which is always hard to explain and I wish I had saved it. But it’s been a decade and I was doing drunken research of psychology papers. What it basically said was that children who grow up in certain environments struggle later on. It was made into a metaphor. If you grow up in the mountains and find yourself on the plains as an adult, all you’ll see are mountains.

My brain needs a rest. It’s been in survival mode so long, it didn’t understand how to be anything else and I now have about six months reprieve. In six months, my case will be reevaluated and I may be taken off my medication. That both terrifies and excites me.

I’m not writing like I used to and I miss that. I still get wrapped up and obsessed with certain things, like Mr. Wrightworth trying to add five chapters to Contract Sealed in sex alone, but getting it onto paper or written form is a lot harder. I’m no longer thinking in letters or words. Memories come back to me. I recall what happened the day before even a week ago, better than I ever have.

My brain is rewiring itself and if this is how regular people see the world… I’m confused. I can still do what I could do before. Still be as fast, still be as accomplished.

Just proves that my being able to knock off due dates and tasks so fast isn’t a me thing. I’m not a special bunny, anyone can do it.

But my written words seem to fail me.

So, when I needed something to do because gaming wasn’t an option, I decided to learn crochet. It’ll be hard, I told myself, difficult, surely.

… I’ve completed a lap blanket, an afghan, a cardigan, a bag, and have now started a new blanket for my boyfriend.

Guy doesn’t have a warm blanket, who doesn’t have a warm blanket? I mean, he has plenty of blankets, but none of them generate the amount of warmth I need.

Anyhow, I did four projects in four weeks. No, I’m not kidding. Yes, that’s a full-sized afghan. I think… uh, 52×60 or so?

The bag pissed me off. It took forever. The new blanket promises to take a while which I’m not overly happy about because I’m supposed to really devote myself to edits starting on Tuesday and it’s a Christmas gift.

Oh, yeah, I’m back to work on Tuesday. Dire Consequences, Contract Sealed, and Contract Delivered are written and should be published. And I want to write Mars Red, and Kaz at least.

Struggling

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’m having a bad mental health week. It’s mainly a bunch of events which are toppling on top of one another, and because I’m so self-critical, the first couple wore me out, and then my problems compounded the actual problems.

Which all ends up meaning that all I want to do is sleep.

My student grants were absolutely gutted by OSAP, I received maybe a quarter of what I did last year when I had a higher income. Oh, and one of my grants from that province might have also been retroactively turned into a loan. Not because I don’t meet the criteria for the grant I was given but because.

I wasn’t taking any loans, I was only taking grants. It’s not necessarily about pride, it’s about how I know I’ll feel once I get out of school and have to pay off yet another debt. It’s bad enough I was living in said province and in poverty despite making well above minimum wage because of the cost of living. Bad enough I’m deeply in debt because I had to buy food while in said province and it was either on my credit card or going hungry.

But, hey, let’s suddenly change the rules and change this, so I have to pay it back even though that’s not the agreement we entered in the first place.

That, of course, led into a conversation with my boss where I told her about my grant situation and how I needed the hours from the start of last year (basically whatever I could get) because my funding has been gutted. Except my hours are suddenly being cut with no explanation.

And, frankly, I’m not going to ask. At this point, it’s a whatever. Yet again this company is not keeping its verbal agreement and, yet again, I’ve had no advance warning or talk before it happened. Fine. Whatever.

Except it also means I can’t pay my full board to my relatives because I do need food and gas to get to and from school and I know we agreed what I could afford but they’ve been receiving the same amount for the last year, so it’s come as an expectation but my next pay, at this point, would barely cover the boarding price, let alone anything else I may need.

So, a job opening came up, and I applied and had an interview yesterday. I did well until they reached the self-critical questions because I’m very critical of myself and “I’m a fucking idiot” is not an acceptable answer in an interview. And I reviewed these things with myself beforehand, but I fumbled, freaking fumbled.

It would have been a perfect job too. Described as data entry with a bit of research.

That’s my bread and butter. It’s basically what writing and editing are. Data entry and a bit of research, and what happens when I make a mistake?

I pretty well beat myself into a puddle and a mess.

So… probably not getting that job. It would have worked around my current job too which means my income would have gone up instead of down and I would be in the field I’m training for instead of being in the wrong field while in school.

Gawd, it would have been amazing.

So, all that was hanging over my plate after my bad mental health week.

One of the places I want to go has a medical checklist. I get it, I understand why I need it filled out. But I have no doctor because I’m an orphan patient. So… I started calling around to walk-in and after-hours clinics. You know, the places people like me go when they have a problem.

Turns out none of them will even look at the form. I told them it was school leading into work and they still won’t do it. I contacted the health network, and they seemed confused because I should have been able to go into any walk-in and get that done. I asked for specifics and gave them the names of the things requested, and they gave me some language to use and a specific clinic to go to.

The clinic is almost half an hour drive away, but you know what? If it gets done.

Oh, and that also appeared over my plate after my bad mental health week.

All happening as a personal thing is going down and I’m crying over it. Not because I’m sad, but because my system is just so overwhelmed it’s like “Fuck you, I’m shutting down.”

I haven’t had a week this bad in a very, very long time, and for that I’m grateful. But it’s definitely causing other problems.

Last night I had dinner with new people, and it’s this group that gathers once a month and is part of an association. I wanted to join them last year but couldn’t because I couldn’t get a day off once a freaking month to go. So that caused some anxiety, but it ended up being good. The only issue was that it was at the end of everything else. Everything else happened, and then I went to this dinner.

But the dinner was good. Except for the part where I didn’t talk to very many people because all I wanted to do was curl up in the corner and weep because my system is still in overload.

I did not cry.

Good for me.

As I was driving home last night, I was utterly exhausted. I showered and went to bed only to wake up this morning feeling like I had woken from a fever, except the fever hasn’t broken? It’s not that relief of a fever breaking. Everything is aching, and my head is full of clouds, and the only feeling I’m sure of is being cold and being tired and wondering who beat me up while I was sleeping.

I don’t recall any dreams. All I know is that Darius, one of my cats, climbed onto my face and then checked on me several times as I tried to fall back asleep. He ended up sleeping curled against my neck and face for several hours. The rest of my night was sleep, just sleep, near as I can tell.

So I shouldn’t feel this way.

Today, I’m basically waiting on a rejection letter. I’m expecting it, but it’s not going to feel any better when it arrives. Because I know my mood at the moment, I’ve made certain a game is up to date on my laptop, and that’s what I’ll be doing today. Playing the game instead of trying to edit or write because I just… I can’t right now, no matter how much I want to.

I have three books to edit, and I really want to get them done. Dire Consequences is what I’m in the middle of, but I want to get into Contract Sealed. I just feel like I could use some Mr. Wrightworth right now.

Summer Plans

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I had to open my availability up at work so I’m not a hundred percent certain how this is going to look.

This summer, I want to get through Nate’s Story and have it up and ready to go, preferably to have it launch August 20 but I don’t think I’ll make that deadline. That’s fine, it’s fine, I’ve been brain dead and you have to give yourself time to recover otherwise you’ll wind up permanently shutting down.

I feel like I’m forgetting a magic book or something, just sitting off in the corner of what I wrote before and haven’t finished with yet.

What I’d like to do is write Savage Shores (alien utopia/dystopia thing) I’m writing this because it involves a paradise ship and I’m taking a vacation to basic paradise so I’m going to take a notepad with me and my camera and do some intense research. The intro is written too, I just need to swing in from where I have written, add more steam, bam, done in a week.

… if I… work and Nate’s Story are getting in the way.

Anyone know how to clone a person?

This is definitely where normal people have editors, I know. But the day job isn’t paying a living wage, I can’t afford to pump that kind of money into books at the speed I write without a business credit card and I think my bank is actually laughing at me right about now.

If Savage Shores is written I can mangle time in there to do the edits but that version has to be on my desktop. I use ProWritingAid for that part and it won’t work on my laptop and the help service has decided not to… you know, help me.

I reached the limit of what I can do to troubleshoot at the moment so I walked away rather than spend ten to twenty hours finding the solution when I need that time for other things.

Once Savage Shores is written I’d pretty well launch right into editing. I’ve heard of authors doing all their edits in less than two days. Makes me wonder if I’m being too particular, but I’d …well, I’d like to try something like that and have Savage Shores out this year too.

Nate’s Story, I’m going to start reading again today because there are certain things from Izzy’s Story which need to be seen to in Nate’s Story, you know, plot holes, continuity, etc. So power through that and then start edits. Workload wise, these last two weeks of school sound simple, if they are as simple as they sound, I should have some work periods at school to devote to editing Nate’s Story.

The week of June 14 you won’t hear from me, I will not exist.

Unless I can write off that trip as a research expense, then yes, yes I do exist. But I don’t think that’s how write offs work.

I have two Wattpad stories to update weekly. The one has eleven or thirteen chapters pre-written which will take me all the way to … September? Before I “have to” make time for that but I will likely add more chapters between now and then. For The Arcane, I’ve been writing them weekly, but it’s two to three hours of writing and then off it goes. So I’ll slot that in every week.

I do have a side thing I have to do, but it’s basically a read and format , shouldn’t take more than a couple days as long as I don’t get sucked into doing the cover.

… I’ll probably get sucked into doing the cover.

As of July 1st I am going to sit down and manage and schedule. No school means I have 30 hours a week free. I have one week booked off that’s for family time but it’s not all going to be family time, so out comes the laptop for that.

If, and that’s a big if, but if I get Savage Shores and Nate’s Story done in time? I’m writing Dire Consequences in August. The third and final book of Morgan/Rachel. From there on it’s solo books in the world of daughters.

I need all the luck I can get. But it’s good to have a plan set out, because once I have a plan, I’m more likely to get stuff done. So. Let’s get this done.

May Starter

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Work took away my day off and I don’t know why. No explanation, I haven’t been back in. I know another manager is on a two week vacation, but I was managing my days off when we didn’t have her. This is a stress on me. I felt like I was finally starting to feel almost stable again.

Getting things cleaned up and organized, ticking tasks off my list, buying plants.

I never really buy plants while depressed. I don’t understand why that is.

I’ve got some seeds coming my way. From online so I can only say they’re supposed to be Desert Rose, Dragon Tree, and an Aeonium mix.

Yes, I could buy Desert Rose or Dragon Trees but I’m having terrible luck buying plants. They look fine in the greenhouse/store, I get them home and put them in quarantine and mites appear.

It’s not an all over the house thing, just a me thing.

Or they’re planted in the wrong soil and have root rot when I receive them but it’s so new I can’t see it.

Saw a house with a small orchard within my price range and desperately wished I could afford it now. A small orchard, a shed for small animals which housed goats and birds, zoned for small animals and it looked nice on the inside but in an ‘ish’ fashion which means I’d renovate and really make it mine.

I need to get on Sims and design an approximation of a house I want. Then I will have a bit of an idea and know what to look for or what sort of a blueprint I need made to build a house.

I know I’m going to get distracted and add a pool or some such. Then it’ll be a hundred hours later and I’ll have altered the entire neighbourhood, but that’s okay. As long as I get that first house done.

I’m going to refinish a couple of chairs.

I know what you’re thinking: but Aya, you don’t have time.

See, I’ve also altered my pain management. After hitting the edge of my tolerance Friday and still having to work then, a full shift on Saturday, and a half-shift on Sunday, I was beyond what I can tolerate.

So, I decided to take it upon myself to alter my management. Two of the pain killer / anti-inflammatory pills try to kill me from the inside out, from the feel of it. The one was like magic when I first took it buy my delicate little system decided to shove two middle fingers into the air.

Between the intestinal pain and all over body pain, I’d actually rather the all over body pain because I’m so used to it that I don’t feel it as pain any more.

So far it’s been good, of course, it’s only been a couple of days. All of a sudden I sleep, I eat (but not in the mornings because that’s madness), I clean and have interests in hobbies and activities again. Yesterday the pain came back at 1 p.m. but after two days without it was actual pain. I felt it like pain.

It started in my back and spread to my arms and shoulders. By the time my class ended I was basically laying on my desk, it hurt so much.

Each morning I wake up, I feel stuffy still. Like there’s cotton stuffed into my joints. So I take to ibuprofen because despite what the internet tells me, that stuff never causes any problems for me. By the time I’m done my coffee, usually, it’s all fine and done.

Today my back is still aching, or aching again, but I think that’s being exasperated by the couch I’ve decided to use again. I need to re-stuff the cushions and, I think, add ties to the corners to keep them from sliding about the couch. I never had this much issue before, surely.

Today for school we’re doing a volunteer day. Me and almost half my class are going to a place together. Rumour is I will be doing administrative work with one other person, while others do another equally important but unknown task. I signed up for the task and then heard someone else mention an instructor.

Yeah, signed up without reading beyond “may involve administrative work” and what group we were going to work with. Turns out, I signed up to work with a teacher we had back in Fall and who I really missed.

I’ve come to like… most… of the instructors, but she could very well be my favourite.

I finally managed to get confirmation from the one that she understands the only place I want to go is the hospital, but she said nothing about having me on the list. She didn’t even recognize that I was sitting at the table until that exact moment. She’s taken to doing that and it’s exclusion which by her own words is a form of bullying.

I had something to share the other day which I found interesting and brought it up because the topic was brought up and she barely let me talk before she started talking over me. A nurse ahead of me turned around and wanted to discuss the subject so the instructor called her attention over as if we hadn’t been talking and asked what she thought on the topic.

She doesn’t do that if anyone else starts talking about… anything. Could be school based, could not be school based, could be inappropriate. She lets them finish. Me? I want to talk about how you can’t get the Hepatitis B vaccine at the moment because there are none, but new babies are supposed to be vaccinated at birth against Hep B and suddenly the conversation has to end.

I get that I have attention problems and most people see that as being disrespectful, but the fastest way to get anyone involved in a class is to hear them out about topics which pertain to the class and which they are also showing interest in. Quickest way to make them stop paying attention?

Cut them off and make them feel invisible.

Instead of paying any attention in her class I’ve started reading the book on my own, or doing online research into health news and current research. She makes me feel like she doesn’t want me in the class and I don’t need or want that kind of negativity right now, as I’m trying to build myself back up.

It’s not really my fault that as I rebuild myself I can split my attention between two things and take both in just the same. It’s also not my fault that I can’t focus on one thing anymore. There’s no panic about the whole thing. I’m just taking information in passively.

I used to do it all the time, before I got run down, depressed, and just blah.

I missed the old me, I’m glad she’s back without as much baggage or anxiety.

April Updates

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’ve barely started the last edit for Grim Port, moved into Wattpad with a story called The Arcane, been dabbling with cover design and digital painting, and am super manic right now.

Grim Port may be slow because of a couple of reasons. The first being that last in the list: I’m super manic right now. Getting me to focus on words is like trying to feed a child brussel sprouts. It’s not that I have an aversion to words even, it’s that I have an aversion to editing. Normally I’d just hop on over to a story and get it out of my system but this is due in less than a month.

More like… about two weeks.

The move into Wattpad was done because of the manic thrum. I was down and out for almost a month from writing and world creation. Kind of exploded all over all the things. Serialized stories is how I started out and I love them to bits. It’s been years since I did one. Posting to Wattpad lets me get the stories I want to get out, out, while also allowing readers to get something from me that isn’t vampires.

Besides working on Kaz on the side, I’m going to shelve the vampires for a little bit. The three trilogies sort of round out the vampires and they do leave room for creation in the world. I do, at some point, want to write about Mungo and Daisy, and the witch war, and the Ba Re family.

But I also need a bit of a break from them.

Also, readers online prefer the romance. Readers in person like the vampire books better so, you know, if I could figure out how to get them into a book store in a major city, I could get books into the hands of readers that way.

If only, right?

Anyhow, Wattpad will update once a week. I think it was a Sunday I posted? Monday? One of the two, I’ll figure it out on Sunday.

For the cover design, well, it’s not words and it’s basically arts and crafts. I did a quick slap together cover for The Arcane and then did another cover, this one with purpose and attempt to make it look nice for an author named R. J. Price over on Wattpad.

At some point I need to do five fantasy books for the same author, but thankfully it’s not a commission so I’m not pressed to do them now.

I’ve been thinking about redoing the Contracted covers. I love the current covers, but they aren’t what readers are looking for, apparently. I also (still) need to redo the Wraith’s Rebellion covers. Lots of arts and crafts.

There’s also still school and work involved. I didn’t get either the specialized work program for the summer or employment for the summer from the hospital. It almost sounds like they only hired one position for the summer and it’s a friend of mine which is great for her.

So, from the sound of it, I’m stuck at my current job over the summer. Did some more math, can’t afford to quit and just spend the summer focused on my work and publishing like crazy. It’s sad, but that’s the fact of life.

Unless one of you has the winning lottery numbers?

Any job opportunity we hear about, I apply for. Getting into a job next year will be easier if I have experience in my field.

But I’m trying to prattle on to avoid edits, and if I get them done I can move on to another story sooner rather than later.

New Plan!

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

This is how I know I’m in the middle of some kind of meltdown.

I keep making plans and adjusting plans and figuring out plans and just… just just, you know?

If I could find a job with a steady income I could buy a house. Or at least get pre-qualified to buy a house. This is part of my long term plan. I understand repairs would be on me, but there’s this deep need of mine to own the land I live on. I’d have a garden and almost never mow the lawn because anyone who bitches can do it themselves.

So it has to be in the country, obviously.

I’d probably mow the lawn, but later on.

So, buy a house, have a child, pay off my mortgage and then “retire” on the writing.

See. Plan.

Shhhhhhh, don’t talk numbers to me. Don’t tell me how the writing isn’t guaranteed to pay for me and a child. Just take that little urge to talk and smother it.

I talked with someone else who told me a credit score her bank gave her for her steady income job in a different but also necessary field. I consulted an app in my bank because when I reached out for a specialist nothing happened. The app takes the information my bank has on me, which is a lot, let’s face it, and spits out an estimated credit score.

Okay, I’m within the range for a mortgage.

My brain just has to obsessively check all these things off.

Down payment, check.

House in the country that needs some work, check.

Don’t worry, not trying to buy a house now.

Then, after seeing my credit score I started backwheeling. Or, back tracking or… whatever. Pay off that debt, that also needs to get gone to get into that situation of living mortgage free and off the books.

Having sat down with a financial advisor before, I know how a bank looks at you. Your money plus your debt equals your worth plus how many “good” debts you have divided by the number of missed payments in the last twenty-four months plus one.

Math.

So I did that and realized there’s a whole different thing going on.

My brain immediately told me I had to work through the summer to maintain income to pay down the debt more. Then I did the math and realized that I would pay off an approximate $300 extra if that happens.

Whereas if I stepped out of work and focused on writing I could get the Nate’s trilogy done, Kaz done, Awakened done and who knows what else (I’m looking at you D.o.t.A, it’s time). So now I’m trying to talk myself out of talking myself out of taking the summer off.

Except this is one of many plans, that particular plan involves not having a summer job at all. I’m still looking and I’d still love to have a summer job in my new field. Luffle it to bits and pieces.

And if I’m there for the summer, working in my field, then there are two possibilities. One is that I got into a specialized program and I’m earning barely above minimum wage but getting full-time hours and that spectacular bonus of having experience in my field.

The other is that I get in at the hospital like I really, really want and I might earn what I’m earning now but from the sound of it they may work summer students (even in my position) full time sort of like an office job. As in 8-4 five days a week. The added bonus being that I’d be in the freaking hospital. Getting experience I want at the same-ish price as my current work is offering me and I’d probably squee through the first three weeks.

The only problem being the possibility of either of those is about… the same as winning the lottery.

Which puts my mind in this spiral of trying to plan finances and making it through. Which is the same as above. It’s like I’m searching for magical money except I’ve kind of found magical money because I had forgotten about the equation my bank uses to determine my worth.

And knowing my worth, having grown up in what my bank classifies as poor, I’m trying very hard to sit on my hands and not spend money. It’s not magic money, just keep doing what you’re doing.

Except what I’m doing gets me so far into it that I can’t see the forest for the fences people have built between me and it.

I think at this point I’ve now decided to find magic money, to find that amount which will drop my worth back to $0.

But that interferes with the house and child.

And if I had kept in the running for the position I withdrew from, it’s possible I’d already be back at $0 or close to and then I’d already be on track for all the things.

Which makes my mind start to spiral again even though I should be freaking happy because my worth practically freaking doubled so why in the hell is this such a freaking problem?

Anytime I sit down to write or edit that’s what starts going through my head. It just refuses to stop. Even Kaz has only gotten a few words in edgewise and he’s super loud and annoying most of the time.

And I know the best thing for me, the best way I can help myself right now, is to finish the edit for Grim Travels and get that up, then take the week to write Kaz for my sanity, then get on with editing Nate’s Story, then edit Kaz, then… then…

See? I need the summer off to get all these things done to realize my dream but I can’t look at my manuscripts without that spiral starting and me getting distracted and sinking into numbers and all the rest.

Writing keeps me sane during all this insanity, it helps give me something to keep going for yet I can’t even manage that right now and it’s frustrating. I don’t want to think about how it could take four years for me to be able to buy a place if I change my plan now. I don’t want to spend so much time focused on the financial status that can’t change without action, time, and patience.

I want to do something that makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something.

So… in the meantime, I’m knitting two more blankets and trying not to beat myself up about not editing just yet. I’m trying not to think about how disappointed I’ll be when I don’t get into the hospital/summer job even though I’ve already realized I’m not getting in there.

No matter what happens this summer, I have a plan to keep going and get things done. This should not be woe-is-me. I should be excited and moving and ticking things off the list and getting a little further into my plan to get a little further ahead before the summer hits.

I just need… to refocus, except I can’t focus. Not even on my favourite instructors. Instead I’m twirling a pen in class and staring off at nothing.

Yeah, you read that right, I’m not even daydreaming in class. I’m not plotting, I’m not planning, I’m not running scripts in the back of my mind during lectures. I’m in class and not only am I checked out of the class, I’m just not functioning.

This isn’t like me, and I don’t like it one bit.

Plan Changes (Again)

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

So, a few weeks back I had a discussion where I stated what I needed to succeed and I was reassured that it was possible. Yesterday I was told it wasn’t possible and I would have to accept the original agreement made at a time when things were lacking and I was trying to be a helpful little bunny or I would need to step down.

Stepping down means dropping to minimum wage. If I work at minimum wage I would have to work my current hours in order to make what I would make on the modifications at the reduced hours.

So… it’s step down for the sake of my mental health.

Or keep going and keep my head above water while not gaining the volunteer experience or peer experience I want to get from my schooling. Not getting back on track with my writing which… I mean, come on, it’s the only thing I’ve got that I still do for me anymore.

But if I step down I won’t have enough money which means I can’t afford anything which means…

Which means I am in full blown meltdown mode.

And I should probably say, my modification request was made after considering what I’m supposed to do. I didn’t ask for less that what is expected of a body filling my position. And I wanted the reduction because I’m getting more and more overwhelmed and stressed out and it’s started this spiral of destruction which affects my ability to work.

Know who’s lippy when tired and stressed out?

This person.

I was in pain yesterday so I took two pills for that and still had sharp, sudden pains in my back. Not in my rib cage or I would have gone straight to a hospital. A coworker commented that I was motioning to about my kidneys. She thinks kidney stones.

I’d go to my doctor except I don’t have one. And I can’t go to emergency because the wait for a bleed or broken bone is six hours. Also, I just don’t have the time, I mean, I physically do not have the time. Between work and school and sleep I think I figured I had something like 45 hours a week that isn’t dedicated to something. And two and a half or those hours are the first half-hour of weekdays when I’m making coffee and breakfast and getting everything situated for the day. Almost five of them are showering and dinner at the end of the day.

It might sound like I have a lot of time, but I’m actually pretty certain I messed up in my addition somewhere because… because I have an hour Monday and maybe two hours Tuesday where I have nothing to do. So where in the heck are the other 32 hours? Because I can’t find them.

I should be editing right now. I was so close to getting into the edit of Grim Travels and then the second discussion happened and my mind just completely shut down.

It didn’t help that my “career advisor” or whatever they want to call them at school, told me to go hand out resumes at doctors’ offices for my on the job training… directly after I told her I am interested in the hospital.

She said to go to her if we wanted to get in somewhere and she would tell us what we needed to make it happen, make phone calls, help us out. It reflects well on her if we get jobs, especially if we get the jobs we want and we are then happy alumni to pass on that bit of information for her.

And then… that.

I need people to stop telling me one thing and then doing another.

It’s not hard. “Everyone in the class except Aya can come to me and tell me where they want to go and I will do my best to get you in there.”

Bam. Done.

I’d be like, “Okay, lady, that’s kind of mean but I’m usually on my own so let’s do this.” and off I’d go getting all the job offers to show her.

Yeah, I’m a spitefully successful type of person.

Even if the conversation went:

“I’m interested in the hospital.”

“Okay, few people get in there. I’ll put you on the list and as soon as they approach us about next year, I’ll pass on your name to them. In the meantime, I’d suggest you also hand resumes out to doctors’ offices, just in case a lot of people want to go to the hospital and they don’t choose you.”

“Okay, I’ll do that, I was planning on doing that anyway, as I know not everyone gets in to the hospital.”

Even though last year’s class, everyone who applied and passed the application process got in from what I heard. Then they all got hired.

So… ya’know…

People I know who have worked for the hospital keep telling me I’ll get in but it’s not a magic job land where I can throw resumes at them and eventually they’ll let me in. If it worked like that I’d already have a job there and most of my stress from this past month would be solved and I wouldn’t be upset with an instructor who I’m pretty certain likes me the least out of all my instructors and just so happens to be our career advisor person… thingy.

I want to be happier at school but work has me in meltdown mode constantly because for almost the last year work has been in constant meltdown mode. Which is why I asked for a modification, so I could go to school like I have for the past two weeks and not felt like I’d be crushed under the weight of my schedule.

First it was no pay raise for the higher position last year. Then it was need to lean on you because this person is leaving and you used to do her job and we need that extra help. Then it was work these extra hours to make this work. Then it was pick up the pace to make this work. Then it was work six weeks in a row without a single day off or time to yourself because it’s our busy season. Then work through Christmas. Then it was you can’t make those changes. Then it was why aren’t these people succeeding? Then it was well… maybe we can work in a regular day off. Then it was this other person left and that person left and the whole place is on fire so lean on you some more!

And now it’s: if you can’t work the previously given schedule at the same rate you were earning without the higher position, you need to step down, revert to minimum wage and we will go without or struggle until a replacement is found and trained.

I feel they would rather not have my position filled than make accommodations for my mental health, of which I was told what I asked for were just to be reduced to the hours that my position is allowed/expected to work.

It’s kind of like saying, “Hey, I drove you crazy (pretty near literally) but you’re being a bitch, so fuck off. No, I don’t want to problem solve. Go away.”

Which I’ve also heard in the past.

I suppose I also feel betrayed and used and that likely is spinning into my seriously downed mood. Someone asked me how my day was and I started crying. That is not the answer to “how’s your day?”

I know when I get stressed out without a break, I go off the rails. I flight right off of them and land in crazy down, then light that bitch on fire and go cackling through the streets. Normally with a bottle of wine in one hand and a cat tucked under my other arm. I know this about myself.

I’m also pretty certain I’ve been saying right along that I need a break, that I need this over here as a break. That I need this week off without being called in and with pay, for my sanity. I need this. I need a day off. I need people to support what’s being done or I need to not be doing it anymore.

I never expect people to look at me and know, “Oh, if she doesn’t eat, she gets cranky.”

I tell them.

Then they laugh and are like, “Oh, you get hangry.”

No, I have snapped at a store manager that I needed food, he snapped back at me and my response made my customer tell me to go eat something while she looked at the wall for five minutes. Hangry is a cutesy term.

I turn into a crazy lady and I tell people that.

Basically it all boils down to: I am stressed.

I need a break and/or a new job that pays above minimum wage and doesn’t want full time hours unless it’s over the summer, then please, yes, throw the hours at me, I will roll around in them like they’re a bed of money, with as much delight as if you made me a bed of money because there’s something about working that just gets everything else working.

Eighty days to Mexico.

This is going to hurt and be bloody.

Etcetera

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Writing first.

Hera launches next week.

Grim Port is with my beta. I keep forgetting to check in over the past week. Grim Haven is halfway through the first edit and I’m not sure how effective I have been this time around but I’ve got stuff going on.

I’m shifting my plan there to produce a box set of the Reaping in April, then (hopefully) I’ll have Grim ready to go for May to July. That’s how months work, right?

Given recent events, I’ve been trying to dial back on writing but it’s my go to for everything. The only reason I tried dialing back on it was because that’s all I can dial back on.

I had a week off of work then it was canceled, then I was promised as many days as my boss could manage off. She delivered, which I have to say is surprising for my company. It took three days for me to start to unwind but it was only a sart.

My oldest cat passed away on Saturday, which leaves me obviously upset.

It and how much I’m struggling daily leads me to believe I’m mentally unstable. Not in a hurt someone or myself type of way. At least, not physically. No, this is the kind of unstable that takes a strip off someone for taking the last brownie in the cafeteria at school even though I’m back on my diet and am determined to stick to it.

The vindictive little bitch, I think I’ve heard people call it.

Not too many people realize that the ‘moodiness’ people see that appears to be for no reason is really for no reason. The person dolling it out is probably having a freaking breakdown, they’re struggling to hold onto whatever ground they have and can feel it slipping through their fingers.

I need time and to take a step back but as I said, stepping back from the writing didn’t work. I did try, really, I casually world built as I went along and now am writing again. Whole different project there, an entire story to go along with it.

So I’ve sat down and looked at my options for what I can do and it really comes down to to.

Quit school or quit work.

I am halfway through my program and, when done, can get an office job the likes of which sound mildly entertaining but also a lot less stressful. My program is for medical based offices and getting into a medical office is super exciting for me. Why? I don’t know.

At work I am still part-time and feel like the others are pulling away. They don’t want to know what I have to say on a topic and would rather do it their way or do things which doesn’t sound like how the company wants things done but is a grey area so I’m certainly not going to fight them on it.

I don’t have the energy for it.

I’m tired of that fight with difficult team members. I don’t have the energy. All I really want to do is whip out my mother’s special tone of voice and say, “look, we’ve been over this, you need to do your job.”

But I’m still sane enough to know that’s not right.

Two opportunities have presented themselves. When the first appeared I was like yes that’s me, pick me, pick me, pick me.

Now I’m not so sure. Am I ready for the change? Yes. Can I handle the change? Yes. Am I afraid of the change?

Yes, but I’m afraid I’ll be chosen, take it, and regret it later.

The other opportunity, is almost the same. I’m not quite ready for the change. I can handle the change, considering I can handle almost anything. And I’m petrified of the change because I worry I’ll get out there and not be perfect.

Whoopdeefreakingdo, you aren’t perfect.

Welcome to being human.

So while I’m off in my corner, having a bit of a meltdown and waiting for a few things to slide into place or work out or… whatever… I have no idea what’s going on, which way is up, or the time.

Ah fuck, I’m late for school.