escape yourself and gravity

Drat. I keep forgetting that I want to post here more often.

Let's see, what have I been up to?

This paycheck I actually had quite a bit left over after paying bills, so I ordered another box of contacts. That should get me through at least another six months, because I never follow the guidelines for how long to wear them. This is good because as much as I love my Obamacare plan, there's no vision or dental included in it, so I have a hard time scraping up the money for those visits. I haven't been to the dentist since 2011 because it's just too expensive. >.>

Speaking of Obamacare, I found out this week that my monthly premium is actually going down by quite a significant amount. An amount that will probably make the difference between going to the eye doctor next year or not going. So there's that.

I made my first ever campaign donation this year, to Bernie Sanders. It was only $10, but it's what I could manage. Right now, most of the "extra" income I have gets poured into my writing career, such as it is, so I'm trying not to do as much extraneous spending.

I'm doing NaNoWriMo, as usual. This year I'm using it to get a jumpstart on an epic fantasy story that I'm going to serialize on Patreon. It's called The Ghostwolf Cadets, and it centers on a group of teenagers who are drafted to a special academy where they'll be trained to become the emperor's black ops team. Of course, they all have their secrets, and some of those secrets could tear the team apart. I'm planning to fill it with lots of UST, including some slashy goodness, and in general I'm having a lot of fun with it. I've got it part-way plotted, and I've written 10k on it since November started. Haven't done tonight's writing yet, but I'm hoping to hit 20k by the end of my "weekend", which actually runs Sunday-Tuesday.

I'm stepping outside my comfort zone and going to a lecture in downtown Indy Monday night. Some of the activists who broke into the FBI offices in 1971 are going to be speaking on the FBI's COINTELPRO program, which was used against Martin Luther King, Jr., Black Panther activists, AIM activists, and more. I just finished an excellent (and infuriating) book called The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country by Steve Hendricks. I've had a heart for the Native American situation since seeing the miniseries of James Michener's Centennial as a young child, and the breathtaking amount of injustice and oppression that took place (and still takes place) on the Indian reservations really pisses me off. As it happens, COINTELPRO played a large part in the downward spiral of the American Indian Movement. So the lecture in Indy came along at just the right time to capture me.

Let's see, what else is going on... I'm going to be up in Fort Wayne next weekend for the Allen County Public Library Author Fair. I'm speaking on a panel called "DIY: Successful Self-Publishing" with a few other indie authors.

The kitties are all doing well. Eustace weighed in at 15.1 pounds a couple weeks ago, so he is on a diet and Not Happy About It. But he's also lost over half a pound since starting the diet, so at least it's going well in that regard. Eowyn and Eustace still aren't getting along, but for the most part they just leave each other alone. Strider's fine with them both and likes to play tag with them.

How's everyone here?

In a lot of ways I feel like I've been in a several-months-long slump in productivity, life-wise. I've been managing to pay my bills mostly on time, but aside from that, very little has happened as far as accomplishing my personal life goals since NaNoWriMo in November.

Last week I started attacking the Room of Doom (the spare upstairs bedroom, aka our junk room) and have accomplished a LOT in terms of cleaning, sorting out books to sell, throwing away old papers and toys, filing financial information and book research, and pulling out clothes to donate.

Today I actually logged in to the USAJobs website and began updating my resume for the first time in a year and a half. My federal tax refund allowed me to start catching up on my student loan, which means I can start the FBI application process without feeling ashamed of myself (because one of the automatic disqualifiers is if you have defaulted on a Federally-insured loan, and while I wasn't in default, I was behind).

I also told astraea36 that I would have a brand new draft of Shaper, the first in my series of original urban fantasy novels, for her to read by the time we meet in Vegas this April. Y'all will note that April is not too far away. I've let her think I'm working away at that, when the truth is that I've only done a little bit of the work needed. At megburden's endorsement, I'm using Holly Lisle's One Pass Revision method, and I've completed Part One, which led me to discover a new subtheme to the novel that I'd barely hinted at, as well as made me realize I want to elaborate on the other subthemes a little. This weekend I am going to buckle down and get through at least the novel's Part One of the manuscript slog. No matter what.

Are there other things I want to accomplish? Well, I need to start brushing up on my Spanish. And I've really fallen off in submitting stories to magazines. Once I finish the novel revision, I need to start looking into representation for it. And the Room of Doom isn't clean yet. Not to mention while I was getting my foot worked on, I fell out of the Couch-to-5k program and will need to start that again in order to be able to pass the FBI's physical requirements.

All in all, I've got a ways to go. But at least I'm starting to recover the will to actually do it.

It's icing up out there. We go from 0 F with -23 windchills over the weekend to just enough above freezing earlier today that when the storm system moved in, we've got freezing rain instead of snow. This makes me grumpy. Snow isn't great, but it's better than ice. I want to leave now before it gets worse. >.<

Finished reading Whoever Fights Monsters over my lunch hour. Ressler is an interesting figure, but I enjoyed Douglas' books a little better. I guess because he's rather egotistical but he's funny, too, and unlike Ressler, Douglas doesn't seem to have a chip on his shoulder about certain aspects of the FBI. Then again, Douglas and the FBI disagreed violently over the Jon-Benet Ramsay case, so there's a schism there, too. I guess that makes Roy Hazelwood my favorite of the real-life profilers. *G*

So ready to go home now. I wish I had tomorrow off. >.

Seriously, Mindhunters? WTF. How did you get such a good cast when you are such a bad, bad movie? Okay, for a suspense-thriller, not bad. For a movie purporting to be about FBI profilers? GODAWFUL.

However, it led to some amusing dialogue...

innerslytherin: Oh dude, if you could have just seen me.  I am at this point where Character A is leaning over dead body, and I'm thinking "OMG, A, WATCH YOUR BACK!"  And then I lift my glass to take a drink.  Just as Character B comes up behind A and grabs her.  What do I do?  Obviously, I jerk in surprise, spilling rum & Coke all down my front.  BECAUSE HE DID EXACTLY WHAT I WAS EXPECTING!!?!?!?? WTF, Steph.  WTF.
severity_softly: *rolls eyes*  You're too cute.
innerslytherin: :P  Cute.  Also, wet.
severity_softly: And likely sticky.
innerslytherin: *G* A little bit, yeah. This is starting to sound dirty.  *waggles eyebrows*
severity_softly: Rowr!


( ...and a plot bunny! )


Also, in other news, the talented dragonladyk has made a Reid/Rossi fanvid that kicks ass! Seriously, definitely watch that instead of Mindhunters. Your time will be much better spent.