so it happened again

Another wonderfully funny post down the tubes :( It was extremely funny, IMO, and a perfect light hearted foil to all the drama in the hospital. I swear I could write my own hospital drama from what's happened here.

So now, instead of the lighthearted post I was going to deliver with brilliance and savoir faire, I'm going to give you a not so happy updated and do a little woe is me. If you're not prepared with the cheese and grapes to accompanying my whine, I will wait while you properly prepare yourself.

I have decided the month of April sucks @$$ and I'm sorry if I offended anyone. I don't go off like this often, so bear with me and let it roll of your back like water of a duck.

ON April 3rd, my daughter was admitted to Yakima Regional Hospital. After much procrastination and drama, a surgeon finally looked at my presumed insurance-less daughter. She then proceeded to have four procedures and discovering she has may thurners syndrome and now has two stents in. When she's finally out of the ICU after getting out enough of the debillitating clots to get 95% of her physical proweress in the leg back, she has severe headaches. Well, five days later, she's had a stroke and is having brain surgery. During her recovery time, the anniversary of Grandpa's death passes us on the 19th. My brother's is the 25th.

My daughter's stuff (and please believe me when I tell you that the stuff listed here is the tip of the iceberg.) has subverted my stuff on my brother, but do you know what that means? That means that instead of spending my days releasing a little at a time, immersing myself in my writing, I've been inundated with more stress. Thankfully there has been some that has been happy stress as mentioned in previous post.

I have decided, as I announced on twitter that April is to be given the boot. Then, a good friend suggested I line up the bunnies for sacrificing and maybe April will get the point :D I'm seriously considering it. I'll add zombie bunnehs to the mix for my #zombiesurvivalcrew But something different has to happen.

So join me in trending #effoffApril in memory of my brother, grandpa and in hope for my daughter!

The writing community

I love the writing community. It's so supportive. You have a bad day, you get virtual hugs. You have a good day, you get virtual high-fives. It's super awesome. You can find blogs from those like mine about the everday struggle of juggling my responsibilities of wife, mother, and part time work while still trying to make a writing career, to those that have numerous self-help and writing tips like Jami Gold's. http://jamigold.com/ to plain fun like @M__Mitchell http://www.badboyscanbefun.com/ that makes you think and your writing improve.

Whatever part of the writing process you need themost support in (finding time--look to blogs like mine, issues--blogs like Jami's, technical--blogs like edittorrent http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/ (grammar geeks unite!) you will find it in the writing community.

Recently, @briquinlan and @Mgbuehrlen, who run the Writer's Yardsale store http://www.cafepress.com/writersyardsale/7204306(awesome support story there as well) to help sponsor their writing careers, started a design contest. Basically, they are looking for designs for their T shirts and mugs.

I did a design based on my new Gal Friday Noir series I'm writing. But I can't get the background to be transparent. (grrr. anyone knows how to do that, I'll kiss them, or not as their preference may be!) I asked for help on twitter. @Wulfie_ (whom I met through the #zombiesurvivalcrew @Jtzerzieff and chat w/ through @Jinxie_G and @PatriciaIVicens) gave me couple hints and also told me to download Picasa. So, I did. It hasn't worked on the transparency issue, yet, but it did something else totally amazing. (@grae42 and new to me peeps @joelandmandy also told me to download program paint.NET to help since it's the paint program that I originally used. Lots of good help!)

Back story. Any y'all remember my computer crashed? To say I was devastated is understatement. My brother died less than 2 years ago and I had the pictures from the last time I saw him, he was holding my baby and his baby before he moved to Georgia. Also, my baby has Down Syndrome, was born three weeks early and spent first week in ICU and then few more days in hospital (recovered MUCH quicker than doc's expected!) and all those pics were lost. I was told by guy at Best Buy (where I bought my computer and have 3 year warranty that it was gone. I decided to not believe him and haven't taken my computer in yet cuz I have friend who does information recovery.

Well, I download this program and as it's finishing installing it asks, "do you want only pics from picture and document folder or from all over whole computer" or something like that. A little piece of hope lit up in me. Could it? Would it find my old pics despite the new wall??? I put all over the whole computer. And yes, as I'm sure you've guessed now, all my pics are back! I cried and cried and cried happy tears! So many important pics, my daughters graduation, a family reunion, birthdays, fourth of july, and everyday things like my baby's face full of spaghetti in his high chair, or our family's experience at the Pizza Hut in Texas next to my husband's college/work place. So much was lost and has been found.

And it is the perfect timing. My brother's birthday is next week. Last Year. I was pretty much depressed from now until about a week after the anniversary of his death. Having these pictures may make the difference between me being able to cope and continue writing and supporting my family or not.

So thank you writing community. Thank you for all your support, love, encouragement and well wishes. I love all of you. I haven't even mentioned all my favorites here! You have been my life line since my brother died. Literally. The blogs, the community support when I'm feeling down, helping me improve my craft so that I can more effectively channel my emotions into my work, all has been of immeasurable importance to me.

Sunday

Sundays have traditionally been days of rest. Slow days. Easy days. Right? Not in my household. For the year we went without TV it was major clean up day, including laundry. Before TV, and perhaps today, it was football!!

Then again, football was before I had concrete writing goals. Before I discovered what I am capable of. In regards to writing, I keep stretching and growing, I'm finding my nitch, but not settling in it.

My nitch seems to be dark-ish paranormal erotica. Although, my next series I start will be something new. I am still going to write the sci-fi/fantasy. Those I will publish on smashwords and kindle with my won artwork as cover. I really need to crack that whip. However, before I do that, I do need to wait for the last round of queries to respond. My fantasy made it into semi-finals of agent contest that held mostly romance, so I know it has some real potential.

Recently, I got so tired that I couldn't edit. Then we had company over the holidays. I was busy with extra cleaning and cooking. Then my dark moments, some of which inspired the ballad in the last post, took over. I started writing it out. Releasing on twitter inspiring an alter-ego that is leading to something new and dark and I think wonderful. I shall see when it's written.

Writing is a good weapon in my arsenal against falling into situational depression and it and painting is how I keep my sanity. FYI for those who might remember, I didn't do so well last year between my brother's birthday (feb 8) and the day of his death (april 25). I'm hoping that this year, since it is second year through all of this, will be easier to cope with.

The holidays were a bit easier as I found old friends. But I found out, through some weird happenstance, that I was only moving through the motions. I don't know how much missing my brother and sadness regarding my family played into it, but I'm absolutely sure it didn't help.

So hold me accountable. Many of you follow me on twitter. My phone is supposed to receive the @mentions from those I follow. You have my permission to inundate me with comments and pointed remarks about where my writing is and where the hell am I type of tweets.

My brother's death had a great impact on me. One I will always feel. He was the tie to my adopted family. So, keep me in your thoughts as his birthday approaches. I will hopefully be out of this other dark period before that day. Or at least be writing it out of my head to leave room for the extra so it isn't so overwhelming.

Keep writing, and/or whatever it is you do to keep your mind healthy :)

I'm almost finished with the first Damian book. You remember, the one I outlined then couldn't finish? The one I threw out 60k on already? Yep, that one! I will, with any luck, finish it today and send it off to my beta reader! Yay!

my brother, my writing

My brother died over a year ago, yet, I still feel as if he should be here. Like somehow, the cosmos made a huge mistake in taking that loving, lively, laughing brother of mine away from this world. "The world is a better place with you in it." I swear that the quote was made for my brother and others like him. Sometimes, I feel like yelling at God, "don't you have enough angels up there? Couldn't you leave him heere with us?" I've been better on a daily basis lately. However, better is relative word like no other. You can be better and still be bad.

What I've found is his death, and all it meant to me, rears its ugly head when I'm getting down about other things as I was Monday night. I'm starting to pull myself up by the bootstraps. As a person who ALWAYS gets postpartem depression, I have absolutely no wish to be stuck in that state of mind.

It's been hard. I look twice my age now, which will hopefully change back as I keep climbing out of this pit of despair. (Yes, I love the Princess Bride:) It's amazing how a few days can change things. I started to apply this thinking and idea to my writing.

Sometime, I despair that I will never write enough or good enough. However, I've learned that I'm too much a perfectionist. I know, you can't tell by my blogs as I let them slide with errors--but not always. However, for me, the blog is a way to keep up. If I allow myself to overstress it, then I don't do it. See the months with few posts? Sometimes, that's a simple internet problem. But mostly, it's because I'm afraid that no one will like what I write or that there will be to many errors in it. Well, I've decided to buck up and take it like a man. (Can't you hear the deep bass voice there LOL) So, here's me blogging more. Here's me doing NaNoWriMo with my internal editor TURNED OFF. No really. It may throw itself on occasssionally, but it is going bye bye for a month.

What happens? In a few days, I have a ton of words on paper, sometimes as much as 20k in 3-4 days. Now that is a big difference. Three days, people. Three days. What can change in your life in three days? Think about it. Make a goal for every three days. It will be easier than hitting a larger goal a month out and the progress you see will give you a huge boost of confidence to sweeten the success.

I love my brother. I still talk to him sometimes. I still miss him. I cry. One day, I'll tell you about my story at the fair that happened where I swear I saw him. (no, it wasn't him, but...) In the meantime, when you're feeling down, give yourself small, attainable goals and reach for the stars! A misnomer? No. Reach for the stars one light year at a time.

Tell me here, what are some of your goals? What are you doing to pull yourself up by the bootstraps when you need to? Do you write or paint like I do? Do you cook? (btw I love to eat ;;) Do you sew? What do you do the most? Or do you switch it up?

Share your thoughts here in the comments section, if you want. But if not, at least tell yourself you are worthy of these breaks and of success and GO FOR IT!

I'm a dunce

I think I am excited by my book signing, judging by how many posts I did on it :) on the sister blog, After the Beginning, two posts in a row were about the signing LOL

At home, hubby sick, daughter and son not felling great, although I think they have "spring fever" with a dash of "senioritis" thrown in for my daughter.

I'm fighting depression, not very well at this point, as the anniversary of my brother's death gets closer and closer. Since his (Timmy)birthday in February, I've been having unexpected crying fits and the whole he's left in my life has become more and more apparent.

I was adopted. Timmy was first baby born after that and he was my connection to the adopted family. Two of my sisters were adopted with me, but they were younger. I was ten. A hard age to be adopted at. I feel as if I've been severed from the family in a way that can't be fixed. Writing and painting has saved me from uncontrolled depression more than once these last few months.


Well, I best get to writing and hope I hit it big before graduation... All that senior stuff!

My brother

This month is about over, Thank God. This is the month of my brother Tim's Bday. He would have been 26. The family misses him. On his bday my mom wasn't answering calls. It's the first one since he died. The holidays were hard. I keep putting things away to the back of my mind, but they won't stay there. His lovely daughter, a few weeks older than my son, is beautiful and wonderful to see with her cousins.

She looks to be as fun loving as her father was :D I'll prob lose my regular internet connections soon, so I wanted to say thanks to all those who read my blog. And a big thanks to all of my blogging community. They have been a big help getting through this, even though they didn't know it at the time. I didn't say anything sooner because I needed the "normality" of my friends when I could get on and read.

Writing is keeping me sane. You all are keeping me involved. Tres importante.

Have a great weekend and know that you are all appreciated.