I've been working on "By the Rivers of Babylon", and I think I'm at a point where I could use another set of eyes to look at what I have so far, and tell me what it needs.

Any volunteers?

I've done this before, and I'm sorry to need to do this again, but I really need some positive thoughts in my head, so if I have ever done anything that made your day better, could you remind me now?

on a day when I needed a pick-me-up, I got three. First, two different people mistook me for my mom when I answered the phone, and then while on a walk with Lady, a nice man said "you two ladies have a nice day".

You gotta celebrate the little victories cause you never know when or even if the big victories will happen.

Thanks to the recent blog on adding pictures to one's stories, which resulted in someone going through the steps in a way even I could understand, I am now adding some pictures to a some of my stories. I'd love feedback on the pictures if you happen to come across them (hint: Help my girlfriend is a unicorn, Mercy, and the E-girl universe have pictures now, as does my most recent story)

I would like to get back to writing, but that terrible thing Real Life has been acting up. My mom's been super sick and still recovering from her burn, I am not 100% well myself although I might be better off than my mom because I got the flu shot, plus the usual list of stresses that seem to be doing their best to keep me in a funk.

If you are reading this, you survived the challenges and changes 2017 brought. (I think. If any non-survivors are reading this, I hope the afterlife is treating you well.)

It had been a wild and crazy year, but here we are with a new year ahead of us, and I hope yours is as awesome as possible.

Happy new year huggles for everybody!

New chapter of "Branded" is up. Hope you guys like it!

https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/72199/branded-chapter-2

so last night my mom spilled boiling hot water on herself. because she would not go to ER, we put cold water on the burn spot until it cooled, and then wrapped it in gauze, and she promised to get it looked at after work today.

Well, she went to a pharmacist rather than a doctor, and when we looked at it, it looked pretty bad, so I called the health link number to see what we could do.

Now, my mom has made an appointment for tomorrow with her doctor, and I feel like I failed her by not pushing harder for her to get it looked at last night.

Assuming I havent driven away any fans I had with delays and short chapters, I'm afraid I have to tell those people that at the moment, my writing has slowed to a crawl, and as a result I cant say when then next chapter of Branded will be out. I'm going to try my best to have it ready before the new year, that's as good as I can do right now.

Sorry.

I'm really upset with Sharon.

Apparently, she told my mom that she's in serious financial difficulty with many bills not paid.

According to what my mom said, she has been stretching herself too thin by paying for counseling for Sam, and now is in trouble.

Of course, mom wants to help, but she cant do much when she's desperately trying to drop down to part time since at 80 working full time is getting to be a bit much.

And of course I can do anything since I'm not working at all.

Sighs ...

Well, my brother got a date for his knee surgery.

Its gonna be on Feb. 7.

hoping all goes well ...

I am on the chat site quite often, and last night I was chatting with a fellow author here, Arwen, and promised I would re-read her stuff.

Its really quite good, and if you havent read any, you should give it a try.

Here is a link:

https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/19524/arwens-tears

I am facing the loss of my days as a writer.

This isnt about my muse, i still get ideas, but my ability to communicate them seems to be gone.

I tried to write a little story for the Christmas contest, and despite having what I thought was a decent idea, what I produced looked more like a series of bullet points on Twitter.

It probably doesnt help that I'm grieving and fighting depression, but I am seriously worried this is the end.

To anybody who has actually read anything I've written and hoped for more, I'm sorry.

My brain is weird.

I cant even have anxiety like a normal person.

Instead of the usual symptoms, heart racing, whatever, my brain has come up with a different idea.

It finds something else for me to focus on, and goes "hey look, over here, a shiny!"

The result is I can go a long time without even realizing something is making me anxious.

I had a sad dream last night.

I dreamed that I was visiting a school, and had promised a kid I would see him in his class, only I got lost, lost my copy of Lord of the Rings which I had been carrying with me, and eventually left the school after all the classes were done and I had been told I had disappointed the kid, and then I tried to go home but found a gigantic hill behind the school that I tried to climb and failed.