Category: SCA

Mind matters

#bipolar, #books, #publishing, Abnormal, anxiety, Critique, Depression, Health, Insomnia, Marketing, Mental Health, Musings, Novel, SCA, Sleep, Social Media, Stress, Thoughts, Time, Work, Writing

In matters of the mind, what really matters?

Well, right now, in my mind, the little things apparently matter–in a big way. I’m talking about all the little things that people say that might be well-intended but get skewed in perception.

Here’s the thing: I commented on a post in the writing group I’m part of. Big mistake. Really big mistake.

The OP (original poster) was talking about how if you want to be a best-selling author you need to think like a best-selling author and treat your writing like the job it is. Okay. Fine. But what about the job I have that pays the bills? What about the few real-life friends I have? What about my physical and mental exhaustion? Did the OP have any advice for me on that?

Not really. I was basically told that, since the SCA is not 100% necessary (like the job obviously is) I need to reevaluate my commitments to it (and, of course, the people in it). Okay. I kinda get that, but the OP fails to realize that the SCA is my only source of real-life friends outside of the one or two friends I have at work. So….to succeed I need to give up having friends?

Yeah, that’s how my brain works. But that’s not the best part. It gets better.

The OP also told me to “schedule” writing time and “prioritize” it. Okay. But I kind of already do that. Unless I have an urgent embroidery project (oops! there’s that pesky SCA thing again), my insomniac mornings are spent on writing, editing, and marketing my writing through social media interactions. So, yeah, I schedule writing time in a manner of speaking. I prioritize it by choosing that over trying in vain to go back to sleep. I spend hours on this. Almost every day. Probably cumulatively more time than I spend at work, when I think about it. I can easily be awake for 5-6+ hours in the morning before getting ready for the day job, and I spend a lot of weekend free time on writing as well. Hell, sometimes I sneak a little modern day into the SCA events by using my phone for Twitter interactions and Instagramming and yeah, I even bring my laptop on camping events so I can hotspot my phone and–you guessed it!–work on writing, editing, and marketing.

But my brain’s not done yet. No sirree. My brain had to tell me that the OP was singling me out. He had to have been picking on me. Insulting me. Telling me that I will fail if I don’t do the things the way he says to do them. That’s what my brain got out of that.

So that’s the worst of it, right? I got over it, calmed down, recentered my perception and got out of my own way?

Nope. I went full-on psycho paranoid ultrasensitive bitch.

I worded my response carefully, or so I thought. I didn’t bite back, even though I felt attacked. I kept it calm. Or did I…..?

Guess not, because the next day, the OP wrote another inspirational/motivational/well-intended post, this time about excuses.

Oh, shit. There goes my mind again.

Clearly he’s writing about me. Clearly he’s targeting me in this verbal assault. I’m obviously the sole inspiration for this outrageous insult. When I was asking for advice on how to deal with all that’s going on in my life, I was obviously making excuses and thus the new post was born.

I’m trying to tell myself it’s not personal. Or at least, if it is personal, it’s meant to help not harm. I am trying.

Oh, shit again. There I go. Using “try.” (The OP also posted about taking “try” out of one’s vocabulary today. Yeah. Today was a two-fer.)

I’d say that it’s a neurochemical shitstorm (ooh! I like that phrase–sounds better than “off my rocker”) in my brain right now, what with the medicine that helps me de-stress and not think this way being denied by my insurance, but I don’t even know where mind and matter separate at the moment. I don’t know where the line is. I don’t even know if there’s a line anymore. My mind is twisting everything I read to be an affront against my person, and I don’t know how to stop it.

I was better in my outward reaction today. I bitched to one or two people privately, but I didn’t comment on his posts. I kept my fat mouth shut. What does it matter, anyway? He’ll just twist my words around to make everything that’s wrong with my life my fault and I’ll feel even shittier than I already do. Best to leave it alone.

One of these days–maybe not soonish, but some day–I’ll even out. I’ll stop taking every little thing personally. Until then, though, I’d better retreat. Back into the shell you go, personality. Back in there before you screw something else up.

When you need a vacation from your second job but your hobby has turned into a third job

#books, #design, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, anxiety, Art, Crafting, Depression, embroidery, escape the light, Friendship, Geek, Learning, Mental Health, Novel, SCA, Sci-fi, Sewing, Stress, Time, Work, Writing

Okay, so Pixabay didn’t exactly have an image with a woman in scrubs, a woman in casual clothes, and a woman in SCA garb all together. Let’s just pretend that’s what’s going on in the above picture.

This weekend, I decided to take a mini vacation from both my day job and my writing. I needed that small break (and besides, yesterday, if you remember, was my anniversary). The SCA event we went to was not as relaxing as I had hoped, though, and I’m getting back to that feeling of “obligation” moreso than “hobby” or “volunteering.” It was like okay, I agreed to do the thing so I’ll do the thing, but what I really wanted to do was spend the day with my husband.

It would have been okay, but he got busy with autocrat stuff (he’s co-hosting an event in a couple of months) and I got a rash from the grass at the site and ended up falling dead asleep in the car for a good solid hour courtesy of the Benadryl I took. I barely saw him all day, and for our anniversary dinner he invited a lot of people, so it wasn’t as intimate as I would have liked for our anniversary. In fact, he sat with his back slightly turned playing host to the friends at his side of the table for most of the meal.

I discussed with him afterwards, told him I would rather celebrate our anniversary in a more intimate setting, and I told him that, even though our SCA “anniversary” tends to fall on the same weekend as our wedding anniversary, I’d like to keep the two separate.

Next weekend we have another two events. The weekend after is technically free, but I’ll likely be doing the embroidery for my good friend’s elevation to the Order of the Pelican because, well, the elevation is the very next week.

I’ve also got embroidery to do for my belting to my soon-to-be Peer, a Laurel I both admire as an artisan and as a friend. There’s also an art exchange gift that I need to finish before my belting–both of which are due the week after the elevation. Then, when all that is caught up, I need to finish the embroidery project that I’ve been working on for the past four or five months for Their Majesties….who will no longer be ruling by the time I get finished but who have told me that my friend’s elevation project comes first.

So, long story long, I have ended up with a third job in the midst of all this. The SCA is becoming obligatory instead of just fun.

Don’t get me wrong; I like doing the embroidery. I like when people take note of and enjoy my work. But it IS work, so I have to once again force myself to slow down and reflect on my priorities.

  • Day job (gotta pay the bills)
  • Writing (which I hope will some day assist in the payment of the bills)
  • Sanity (yes, I do need to include this in my list)
  • SCA events and activities

I don’t want to stop altogether. I like my SCAdian friends and family… I just need more of a balance.

In pursuit of that goal, I picked some Fridays next month to sign up for the live stream Writer Imperfect, where I get to chat with other authors and answer questions about what little I know about the publishing world. I still have an event in May, but it’s just one event. Those three Fridays are for my writing career.

I’ll survive. I always do. But my survival hinges more and more on me standing up for my needs and voicing my concerns when I get overbooked. And speaking of booking, I should try to get some writing time in today….

Floodgates open? Well, there’s a trickle

#bipolar, #books, #dystopian, #publishing, Abnormal, anxiety, Mental Health, Novel, SCA, Sci-fi, Stress, Tattoo, Work, Writing

Well, after a good solid month of being blocked, I’m back to writing. It’s still slow going, and the progress isn’t marked, but it is progress.

I’m starting to get more of the world in place, the situation–locally for my characters as well as globally–the timing…things are coming together. Or, well, for my characters they’re falling apart. Lol

I can’t say too much without getting spoilery, but I’m getting more confident in the direction Book 3 is going. It’s fleshing out, it’s developing, it’s coming to light. (Sounds silly for only having added about 1500-2k words this morning, but you’d be surprised how much can be conveyed–or inspired–by those few words.) I have more of a vision of what’s happening and what’s going to happen.

Of course, this means that my long work day in the surgery department will seem even longer, because I’ll be away from my laptop and unable to continue my momentum. My brain might end up being stuck in the distant future instead of being rooted firmly in the present. (Don’t worry–I don’t do anything more crucial than taking vital signs, giving drops, and maybe giving discharge instructions. Lol)

Adding to the time-taken-away-from-writing is my upcoming anniversary. Six years this Saturday! We’re going to get coordinating Gallifreyan tattoos once we have the extra funds saved up. It was my husband’s idea, but I fully endorse it.

Tomorrow I’ll start on the full-dose Vraylar, which means I’ll be taking it only three days a week (yay for a long half-life!) and hopefully seeing even more improvement in my stress levels. I handled yesterday’s work day well, and it seems even the days that are craptastic aren’t as bad as they normally would be. I tried to cut hours where I could, but it looks like I’ll be in OT again this week–which means I’ll probably be sent home early tomorrow. Darn. Guess I’ll have to write or something until my husband gets off work and we can leave for our weekend trip.

We’ll be going to an SCA event on Saturday, but Friday-Sunday we’ll be staying with his dad and stepmom, and Saturday after the event we’ll be having a nice dinner with friends at a delicious restaurant. The adult in me is looking forward to a beer; the kid in me is looking forward to FOOD!! Seriously, this place has the best chicken pot pie I’ve ever tasted.

Well, it’s getting to be That Time again. Time to leave for work, to leave my comfy abode and make the twenty-minute drive to employment.

Vicious cycles

anxiety, Insomnia, Mental Health, SCA, Stress

Here we go again…

…I don’t know quite how it happened. Things were going at a fairly manageable pace, and then suddenly I was thrown back into back-to-back weekends of SCA-related events while still having the embroidery deadline looming…and now I have more embroidery to do (not that I’m complaining–I adore my friend that has commissioned me, so I’ll definitely do it). But yeah. I’m back at it. Somehow, despite my determination to slow down and maintain my sanity.

I might have to put my foot down (again) and say (again) that I can’t be doing this (again). It’s got my anxiety up, which I think is affecting my stomach (I’ve had more frequent reflux recently, so I think my gut hates the anxiety too), and I’m having a harder time sleeping through the night and functioning the Monday after the event weekend.

Last weekend had an event on Sunday. This weekend has a birthday party Friday and a household meeting Saturday. Then the weekend after is our anniversary weekend (with an SCA event on our anniversary). Then an event that my husband’s Peer is running the weekend after that. Then I’m pretty damn sure there’s something the next weekend (because even though my calendar doesn’t show anything, there’s gotta be something), then a big event for our Barony the weekend after that, then Coronation the weekend after that (where I have two smaller embroidery projects due)…then I think I might get a weekend or two off. But damn. That’s a lot of stuff all at once.

What happened to slowing down after Estrella?? It happened, and then it didn’t…and I don’t know how I let myself get wrangled into this many engagements again.

I have to sit down and evaluate what events I have to go to and what ones I can stay home for. I feel obligated to go to the birthday party because it was nice of them to invite us, which means since we’ll be in Tucson anyway we might as well go to the household meeting. The anniversary weekend I can’t skip. Maybe my husband’s Peer’s event? That gives me one, maybe two (if my calendar’s right) weekends “off”… but there’s still the two back-to-back weekends of SCA stuff, and while it’s pretty much right in town, I have a lot of work to do for both events and I. Just. Don’t. Know.

And of course now that I’m getting all this typed down the anxiety is creeping back up. Maybe creeping isn’t the right word…how about skyrocketing? Yeah, that’s more accurate.

Guess I’m back to running on high octane again for an indeterminate period of time. At least a month, maybe a bit more. I hope my mind can take it.

Rusted blade, broken heart

#bipolar, #nerd, anxiety, Depression, fencing, Friendship, Mental Health, Musings, SCA, swordfighting, Thoughts

It’s my own fault, I suppose. I stopped practicing and fighting rapier because depression got the better of me, and now the rapier community in my Kingdom has all but forgotten me.

My husband gave up on rapier long before I did. He quit bringing his gear long before I did. But I’m a nonentity, a no one, so while he gets people asking him what gives, I get silence (save for a few steadfast friends who always ask where I’m at).

I don’t know. Maybe I’m not approachable. Maybe I hide off to the side too often, and people assume it’s where I want to be. Maybe they don’t know how much it hurts to think that almost no one cares if I’m out there or not.

Do I put on too good of a show? Have I hidden the pain that well? So few people seem to acknowledge my existence beyond a smile and a nod. I get a rare hug from someone outside my circle. I don’t get invited to stuff (except tangientially, as an extension of my husband or friends), and I often wonder if I ever cross people’s minds when I’m not there.

The worst part is he doesn’t realize how much it hurts me when he goes on and on about it. About how so many people talk to him and chat with him and I’m over here like “Hey, I exist too. I’m a person. I’m a rapier fighter.”

Have I lost that part of my identity? Am I perhaps no longer a rapier fighter? If not, then what am I? I’m not an artist until my husband shows off my work. I’m not a leader, not a helper, not anything. I just float along on my husband’s coattails, clinging to the hope that one of his friends will think I’m worth talking to.

I think I need to go to bed now. I’m clearly not thinking right. I’m getting emotional over something silly. Maybe these people do give a shit. Maybe they just think I don’t need conversation or comraderie or anything other than a smile and a nod.

Almost Home

#bipolar, #books, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, anxiety, Celebrity, Depression, escape the light, Fandom, fencing, Friendship, Geek, Health, Home, Insomnia, Interview, Marketing, Mental Health, Novel, Promotion, Q&A, SCA, Sci-fi, Sleep, Social Media, Stress, Work, Writing

It’s 0432, and I’m at a friend’s house for the night, waiting for my husband to wake up so we can go the rest of the way home. So what’s an insomniac to do but write?

I tried to take a writing break during Estrella War, but my story started speaking to me again, and I couldn’t ignore it. This is after weeks of little to no progress on Book 3, so I’m glad the Muses decided to become chatty. Still, hand writing when you’ve pulled a muscle in your back (on your dominant side) isn’t exactly fun. I’ve already called out from work–well, texted out, I should say–and I foresee a heating pad in my future once I’m home… Possibly a doctor’s appointment. Depends on how much worse it gets. At the moment, I really don’t want to yawn, as I discovered last night that breathing too deep causes pain in the pulled muscle.

My feet hurt, too, as well as my legs, but it’s more of an ache from overuse of muscles that I’m not accustomed to using. You’d be surprised how many new muscle groups you will discover when you have to sludge through half a foot of thick, slippery mud for days on end. It actually got to the point where walking on dry land felt unnatural.

I’ve been tasked by my publisher’s publicist to find and book no less than three (preferably five) podcast appearances by mid March. I’ve had terrible luck getting responses, so that’s another thing I’m going to have to do once my laptop is unburied from the mess that is our car. I’ve enlisted the help of Twitter, whose #writingcommunity hashtag is a wealth of help and knowledge for newer authors like me, but I’m still going to do the “legwork” of searching podcast apps and contacting shows. It’s going to take a lot of my time, but I know it’s for my own good. I need to keep promoting ABNORMAL even though I’m working simultaneously on ESCAPE THE LIGHT and Book 3. An author’s work is never done, I guess.

I’ll be glad to get home. I miss my cats, miss my shower, miss my bed. I miss my house, my comfy couch, and all the things that I couldn’t take with to Estrella.

I wish that I had ventured out from camp more during the War. I was so miserable that I didn’t make enough of an effort to see friends that I rarely get to see or even to meet new friends. To my SCAdian friends, I apologize for not having much of a presence this War. I’d promise to make more events or something, but I’m still not sure what my mental state is following this “break” from work. I feel somewhat refreshed in the sense that, aside from a few frantic texts, I haven’t had to think about work in a week. However, that little twitch in my right lower eyelid is still there, and I still don’t know how I feel about getting back into attending more SCA events. I want to keep active, but I also need to take my mental health into consideration. That being said, I got some of the best hugs this past week, much needed and sorely missed.

Goodbye, Estrella War. Until next year.

Dry for now, but a mudpit to clean up later

#bipolar, anxiety, Depression, Geek, Health, Mental Health, SCA, Stress

Estrella War has been wet. It’s been damp and mucky and gross. I’ve escaped two nights in a row to sleep off-site in a warm bed. Tomorrow, however, we have to go back and clean up the mess that is our tent and pack up the car.

That means three hours in a car loaded up with mud-soaked items. It means sorting what can be saved and what is a wash. It means tomorrow is going to suck.

I tried to get stuff together today in preparation, but the task was too daunting for myself alone, and my husband was busy most of the day. Over half of our stuff is soaking wet, another third is damp, and a small sampling of the rest is salvageable.

I’m so done with this vacation. I’m done with the mud and the port-a-johns and the cold. What was supposed to be a relaxing break from work has been nothing but a mudpit. I enjoyed the time I spent with my SCA family, but overall it did nothing to destress me.

I’m going back to a slammed office, or at least I’m pretty sure I am. I’ve stopped receiving text messages from work, but it’s a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I’m not getting inundated with texts about work stuff while on vacation….on the other hand, I could be walking in to anything. Chaos could be awaiting me when I walk in the door….or it could be handled. Who knows.

I might end up going to my psychiatrist early after all. I can’t keep going at the pace I was and survive. War did nothing to relax me. It just keyed up different triggers.

I’m still writing. I’m still holding in there. But I’m not going to be able to hold in there much longer.

Cold War

autoimmune, embroidery, fencing, Friendship, Health, SCA, Sewing

Estrella War is just a day away for me, and this is how my part of the desert is looking this morning:

Yes, that’s my land, just behind the house. It wasn’t much, but it snowed last night, and it’s supposed to be cold and rainy in Queen Creek for a good bit of Estrella.

We’ve got a new canvas tent (that’s supposed to be warmer than modern nylon tents). We’ve got a heater. We’ve got a wool coat for me and a reversible wool/cotton cloak for my husband. We’ve got thermal underwear for nighttime. We’ve got blankets and thirty-degree-graded sleeping bags. We’ve got throw rugs for the floor of the tent (because the floor is a tarp, not canvas, and that will be cold to step on in the middle of the night). We’ve got warm hats. We’ve got rain boots and fuzzy boots and thick socks. We’re set–right?

I sure hope so. Last year it got so cold that our silicone-gel-filled pillows literally froze. Rock solid. Not comfy. We had the heater then, but the nylon tent we had wasn’t very good at retaining the heat, so the heater was almost useless. Almost. I was sore and achy and miserable every morning because my arthritis did not appreciate the cold. So this year we’re packing extra heat-conserving methods.

Am I looking forward to Estrella? Sure. I mean, I’ll get to see people I haven’t seen in a long time, hang out with friends, teach some embroidery, and maybe get a little fighting in. (The last one I’m not 100% sure on, because I have the royal embroidery still to finish…so that’s going to take away some of my time.) But I am not looking forward to the cold.

Yes, I know, cold in the desert? It’s true. It can get biting cold, especially at night, and it’s not fun going to the port-a-priv at 3am to sit on a freezing-cold plastic seat. Sometimes when we’re camping and it’s cold in the morning I hold it for an hour or more just because I’m dreading the trip to the priv and the ensuing frozen butt.

I don’t know how much posting I’ll get done at the event. I usually have a few hours in the morning where I’m up and awake but not able to do anything like embroider because of the lack of light and the fact that the rest of the camp is asleep. However, if it’s cold enough, I might not want to sit up on the laptop or even lie down with my phone to post something. Regardless, I’ll try to get my weekly newsletter out. I think I can manage at least that.

One thing is certain: I’ll be glad to get back to my warm, warm house once War is over. Even though it snowed last night, I haven’t been cold inside at all, unlike the apartments we lived in. So there’s that.

Horse of a different color

#books, #design, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, Art, Celebrity, Crafting, embroidery, Fandom, Geek, Interview, Marketing, Novel, Q&A, SCA, Sci-fi, Sewing, Social Media, Writing

I started the end of my royal embroidery project today. Granted, the “end” means two full hems that need to be embroidered, but….eh, details.

On the bright side, due to me being unable to math at 0400 this morning, the horse head designs that I’m stitching will have to be spaced out more to make it even….thus making fewer heads to stitch and saving me time in the long run. That wasn’t my intent, but the hems will still look good once they’re finished. Lucky for me I realized my error quickly, before I got too far into the design to take out what I’d done.

Lesson learned: Measure twice, add/subtract/multiply/divide twice, then place the design on the fabric and put on the hoop.

So, instead of stitching two dozen 3.5″ x 4.5″ knotwork horse heads, I’m stitching 16 of them. Thank the Gods for the Tim Gunn method of design: “Make it work.” (At least I didn’t have to use the Bob Ross method and turn my mistakes into birds. Wrong monarchs.)

I should be packing. Or doing laundry. Or something else. I’m of a one-track mind right now, though, so embroidery it is. Writing and the like will have to wait until later.

Oh! Speaking of writing–I’m being interviewed by my publisher, RhetAskew Publishing, on Twitter this evening. They’ve been doing a series of interviews with their authors, but due to my work schedule this is my first time being able to participate. 8PM PST, on the RhetAskew Twitter feed! (Or follow me @AJMullican–I’ll be tagged of course in the interview.) It’s kind of weird getting interviewed when just a couple years ago I was doing the interviewing of people. Strange how things come full circle.

War is coming, but I’m not ready

#books, #design, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, Art, costuming, Crafting, embroidery, Exercise, fencing, Insomnia, Marketing, Novel, Promotion, SCA, Sci-fi, Sewing, Stress, Time, Work, Writing

Next week is Estrella War, the biggest SCA war in this area of the country, and I have a lot to do still before we leave on Wednesday.

I have to repair a couple pieces of garb. I have to keep working on the embroidery for the King and Queen. I have to mentally prepare for the embroidery classes I’m going to teach (the actual physical prep is pretty much done). I have to do laundry. I have to pack my garb and any mundane clothes I want to bring. I have to pick up the Viking coat that my fencing teacher made for me.

I’m sure there’s more, but that’s all I can think of right now. So despite the fact that after today I’m off work until the War is over, I’m still going to be quite busy.

I’m hoping to get a good start on the hem embroidery for Their Majesties by the end of the weekend. It should go quicker than the cuffs did, despite the additional details. I’m hoping. Fingers crossed. Lol

Even with War going on, I’ll have the good ol’ laptop handy to tap-tap-tap away whenever I have some free time. I’m not going to let my early a.m. insomnia go to waste just because I’m at an event! No, I’m going to keep busy with writing and editing in the wee hours while there’s not enough light to embroider by. Y’all can’t get rid of me that easily. 😉

I’ve added a subscription option to this page, as well as a newsletter that will be going out on a semi-regular basis. I’ll have tidbits about the projects I’m working on, links to blog posts, and other fun stuff. Keeping up with that should prove interesting, but I think if I set myself reminders on my Google calendar or something I’ll be okay.

Well, off to do war-like stuff now. Or embroidery. Or loading the dishwasher. Whatever my happy little butt decides to do. Lol