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Oh, get your heads out of the gutter. I’m talking about #reading.

I’ve done so much reading of my own work and others’ for critique for so long, I’m finally taking a little bit more time here and there to read for myself.

Darynda Jones has an incredible urban fantasy/supernatural series about a modern-day grim reaper that I highly recommend. I have been negligent in that I have not caught up on the series sooner, so even though the eighth book has just come out I’m only on the third (thanks to a friend of mine, who generously loaned me her Kindle so I could read the books).

I’d almost forgotten what it was like to lose myself in reading without reading for critical purposes. Does this sentence work? Is that comma necessary? Could that be phrased better? Nope. Just reading for reading’s sake. Love it.

Lots going on in the land of me.

I had two moles biopsied yesterday (results should be back within a week). A phone #interview with a band pending this Saturday that I need to prep for. Two movie #reviews I need to work on (one I have to wait until Friday because it’s released then). My weekly live tweet. My Monday thru Friday job. Revision #2 on my novel. Critiquing for my group as well as for a friend. And somewhere in there, #reading for fun.

I don’t mind it, though. I’m enjoying the freelance writing, I’m getting caught up on backlog at my day job, the works I’m critiquing are fun to read, the biopsies so far don’t hurt, and I’ve been itching to get back to my book since I sent it to my editor. And the series I’m reading is an excellent one by author Darynda Jones (check her out–now).

Speaking of busy, have to leave for “real” work soon. Off to the races!

Well, it’s finally back–my editor (aka my mom) has finished with her first round of editing on my novel, and I’ve finished reading her edits.

As is natural with any writer/editor arrangement, I didn’t agree with all her suggested changes. That’s just how it goes. I have my phrases that I thought were just genius, and she kinda looked at them and said no, no they’re not. That’s the editor’s job. Knock the writer down a peg or two. 😉

Now I have to go through it all again, reading more carefully. Is this sentence really better her way or my way? Or is there a third, bester way?

I’m going to need beta readers soon. The alpha reader project failed miserably. I got a few feedback comments, but for the most part my alphas ignored me and made excuses. I understand life happens, but I’m not just writing this for funzies here. I actually would like to get it published some day. If I had waited for those alpha readers, I wouldn’t be nearly as far along as I am now. I might never have gotten around to editing.

For now, while I’m on revision #2, I’m going to continue submitting a few chapters at a time to my critique group. Once I feel like I’ve got a somewhat decent polish on it, I’m going to go to another group and put out feelers for beta readers–strangers this time, but people who take writing seriously and understand the importance of deadlines. I’m not trying to rush this, but I’m also not trying to take seven years to send out to a publisher.

So here it is: am I a fatty because I eat to much, or do I eat too much because I’m #hungry all the time?

I mean all the time. I very rarely am full, and when I am it’s not for very long. Something in my brain is constantly telling me that my stomach is empty and it needs more food, regardless of how much food I’ve already eaten.

That means I eat all the time. Which is no bueno for my health. Or my appearance. Yeah, I know in my last post I said I was getting more comfortable with my appearance–and I am–but that doesn’t mean I enjoy the preggerbelly I have. I need to lose weight, but it’s difficult when I’m always hungry.

Sometimes I eat to the point of feeling so full that I’m queasy, and before the nausea and fullness goes away I’m hungry again….so I eat more. Does that make me guilty of being a pig, or guilty of succumbing to the hunger?

I suppose it doesn’t matter what I’m guilty of. What matters is I need to exercise more self-control.

I may not be model-thin, but I’m becoming increasingly comfortable with my appearance.

Today’s society is so self-absorbed, and the portion of society that isn’t buying into the #selfie craze is dissing the #selfers (new word–Shakespeare did it, and I’m claiming writer’s rights to do it as well). Me? I’m a little bit of both.

Why take dozens of selfies if I look down on the selfie phenomenon? Because I spent the first couple dozen years of my life hating how I look, and a few more after I gained weight hating my appearance again.

Now I’m slowly growing comfortable enough in my own skin to take pictures of myself and to allow others to take my picture and post it on social media.

I’ve even become #comfortable enough to use a picture of myself as a cover image for an anthology that I self-published today. Can’t get much more #selfer than that.

I’m also thinking of toying around with taking even more photos of myself as “model” photos. Not necessarily for use in publications, but to remind myself that I’m worthy of being looked at, of getting attention.

My first test photo isn’t exactly Vogue style work. More like, uh, a famous horror magazine. (I didn’t sleep well last night, give me a break.)

I give you the first of what I hope will be many shots of me being me, in my various forms. This is pissed-off me.

My other hope is that by taking more pictures of myself I’ll be more #motivated to lose weight and get fit. I’ve gained too much since my surgery and need to shed those pounds.

Remember all those Flash Fiction Fridays I posted a while back? Well, I decided to gather them up–along with a couple of short stories I wrote–and put together an anthology to publish on Amazon Kindle. It’s not available yet; it takes about 12 hours or so to be available for download. Still, that will make three titles on Amazon now. I feel more accomplished just having enough material for that.

I even used a selfie (with a horror-looking filter) for the cover lol I can add book cover model to my ever-growing resume! Haha yeah, right. More like too cheap to try to find a model of my own.

I think I’m going to go read for a while now. Relax, take a break from creating to enjoy someone else’s creation.

About a week ago I got so excited about my first live tweet of a TV show that I ended up going more than 24 hours without sleep. Near the end of that time, I got a little loopy and started doodling just for funzies (& to keep sane).

I have a couple of photos, but I haven’t been able to get the scanner to behave and I keep forgetting to ask my tech-savvy husband to look at it for me. So the photos are a bit dark. Still, the drawings turned out pretty nice and as soon as I get some decent scans I’m going to post them to my DeviantArt account.

Now that I’ve been focused on the journalistic side of writing lately, I need to buckle down and get back to my regular fiction writing for a bit.

I’ve got two pieces for the charity anthology that need polishing this weekend, which shouldn’t take too long but between the work with Talk Nerdy With Us and my recent flare up I have been procrastinating.

Also, I need to get reading again. A friend of mine was kind enough to loan me her Kindle in order to read some books in a series that I’ve been wanting to catch up on, and I don’t much like keeping people’s belongings longer than absolutely necessary. So I have to binge read as well.

Busy weekend for me.

Well, my first two completed interviews for Talk Nerdy With Us went well. 🙂 Here are some links

http://talknerdywithus.com/2015/06/17/interview-with-joe-mallozzi/

http://talknerdywithus.com/2015/06/17/interview-with-war-games-band/

The top link is from a phone #interview I conducted this past Tuesday, and the bottom link is from my first ever interview, an email interview.

The phone interview had some hiccups because I was nervous and kept giggling or saying “Right, right,” while poor Joe was talking. Next time I do a phone interview I’ll try to be more professional, but hey, it was my first phone interview. I think overall I did pretty good, and I think I learned my lesson after having to try to hear Joe over myself when transcribing from the recording lol

It was amazing being able to interview a TV show creator and producer so early on in my journalism career (if that’s what this pans out to be). I’d love to be able to continue on in this field, because I am truly enjoying it. I still like working at the eye clinic, but this is a different kind of work entirely. I’m still learning things, and I’m still meeting and engaging with new people, so it’s still two things I like to get from a job, but they’re quite unique experiences.

Tomorrow is another West Coast time live tweet of Joe Mallozzi’s #SyFy show #DarkMatter, so log on to Twitter at 10pm PST and follow @talknerdywithus to follow along as I tweet along with the show 🙂

Aaaand monsoon season returns. How do I know? Well, even if it isn’t a huge thing on the local news around here in the desert, my upper spine notified me yesterday. I can pretty much literally feel the changes in the air pressure in the vertebrae of my back.

Right now it feels as though the portion of my spine between my shoulder blades is both swelling and compressing, like there’s this intense pain and, well, pressure. It’s kind of depressing, because I had been doing so well for months now that I had almost forgotten what it was like to have a bad day. Now my back is rebelling against me again, and it kinda sucks to be reminded that I still have #rheumatoidarthritis and it’s still affecting me.

But I don’t have time to wallow in self pity today. I have work to do. Not just the interview I mentioned–I can do that with the back pain–but real work at my real paying job. I can’t let this get to me. I’ve dealt with it before. I just need to remember what it was like to deal with it and channel those memories to deal with it again.

I got this.