The holidays are upon us, and even though we’re mostly giving out Mason jars of salsa or apple butter (made by my husband–I am NOT a cook-y wife) to a lot of people, there are still some presents that needed wrapping, which is usually my job.
I did a shit job this year. Lol
In my defense, I was pretty achy last night. Long day at work, and my back was having none of my shenanigans. Still, I got about a dozen presents wrapped, more or less, so that’s an accomplishment of sorts.
My project of making little gift bags for all the apple butter and salsa flopped, mainly because the apple-butter-jar-sized bags I was making ended up being too small for the Mason jars my husband is going to end up using, and I never got around to even making a mockup of the salsa-jar-sized bags. Oh well. So much for contributing to the gift-making this year.
There’s still lots to do to keep me occupied though–I just have to find the motivation to do it. I wasted time on bags (since the ones I made were too small, I have four that aren’t even finished yet), and I still have many many sewing projects to get done in a rapidly-shrinking time frame.
Persian garb. Embroidery. More embroidery. Hemming. All that combined with work and visiting family and SCA twelfth night parties and work and …. sheesh!
I’ll get it done. I have a terrible procrastination problem, especially when I’m achy like I have been lately, but I also tend to pick up the pace in the crunch and eventually get all the things done.
Speaking of that pesky work thing, though….I gotta go get ready!
Well, it’s happening. Can’t stop Mother Nature, but I sure wish She’d given me some kind of warning.
So here’s what happened:
The work day started like normal. I opened the exam rooms and worked up a couple of patients. I got hot, as I tend to do when I start work.
Problem is, I couldn’t cool down. Like, sheen of sweat, trouble breathing, full-blown panic hot.
I think I just experienced my first hot flash. And my brain (at the time) switched into freakout mode because it didn’t know what the fuck was going on.
I’m okay now. I hyperventilated a bit, cried a bit, and finally got my temperature regulated… just in time for the doctor to crank up the heat in the office.
I’m a tad young for it, but now that it’s over I’m not surprised. It was bound to happen eventually. I just wish it hadn’t happened while I was at work. I got too much to do for that kind of mess to be going on.
Does this mean I can blame any wild mood swings on menopause? Because that I might be able to handle.
I’ve done it to myself again. Gotten too many projects on my plate for the coming month or two. Sure, I’ll get them all done, but until then I have to start buckling down and prioritizing.
Projects pending (in no particular order):
1- I have to finish the embroidery for the Atenveldt royals. Of which I am less than a quarter of the way through. Deadline: about a month.
2- Persian garb for my husband and myself. Can probably step this up to get it done in time, with patterning help from a friend. Deadline: Jan 4.
3- Gift bags. These were a cute idea, but due to unforeseen circumstances no longer really truly needed. Deadline: eh, project’s scrapped at this point.
4- Embroidery for the Baroness of Tyr Ysgithir. Solid black boar about 5″ big. Deadline: Estrella War in February.
5- First official round of revisions on Escaping the Light. Giving myself a few days before diving back in. Deadline: no official deadline as of yet, but I don’t want to procrastinate too much on that.
6- Commission cross stitch for the “Boss Lady” at RhetAskew. Actually making some $$ off this one, but I’m not charging much. Deadline: none really given, and she knows I have some other projects going.
7- Non-Rus Viking garb pants for the hubs. He doesn’t dig the Rus style, so I have to find some magical time to get those done. Deadline: Probably Estrella War?
8- Finish the embroidery I started on hubby’s Viking hood that I made for him. More than halfway through with this one, but the royal embroidery took precedence (ha! SCA pun!). Deadline: Estrella I think. Hoping to crank it out as soon as I get Project 1 done.
9- Read an ARC of a sci-fi novel that I’m going to help promote. Need to know at least a few quotes from it for a game I’m going to do when I do the author takeover. Deadline: Oh yeah, this Saturday.
So yeah. I may have bitten off too big of a chunk. It wasn’t until I started putting the sewing projects on a spreadsheet to keep track that I realized what I’d gotten myself into! I can do it, though. I work better under pressure. Right? Yeah. Right.
The holiday season is upon us, and whatever you celebrate, a great gift for those sci-fi/dystopian fan friends of yours is Abnormal, by yours truly!
Check it out! A simple, easy-to-remember link for Kindle…and the great thing is, if you want to gift a paperback copy for someone, Amazon has those, too! Available by December 13th for Prime members (as of this morning)…so think about that, too! And there aren’t a whole heckuva lot of AJ Mullicans on Amazon, so if you search AJ Mullican on there you’ll find me lickety split, and the paperback of Abnormal is there as well.
Abnormal makes a great gift for the sci-fi or dystopian fan in your life. It’s got action, drama, romance…all the things!
This has been your holiday post for the week. 😉 Now to our regularly-scheduled postgramming.
I’ve almost finished the first run-through of revisions on Book 2, which means soon I’ll be moving along to the first round of final revisions before it heads back to the publisher for their standard line edit tear-apart. I think there won’t be as much for them to fix, because I learned a lot from the line edits for Abnormal. Fewer gerunds, fewer adverbs, etc.
Work is not making it easy to get the revisions done, though. I had to go to our satellite office last Wednesday, which was supposed to be half dedicated to me working on laser chart prep–can’t do that in the satellite office, especially not last-minute with no warning. That means today I have to go in early today to get today’s charts ready before today’s patients show up. Ugh.
I’ll get the revisions done, though. I’m not overly worried about it, just annoyed at hiccups in my “master plan.”
I had started on Book 3–a short start, but I’m glad I hadn’t gotten far. I don’t like the start I started with, so I have to restart my start once I have the revisions in at RhetAskew. I know the general direction Book 3 is going in, though, so it’s not too bad. Who knows–maybe I’ll actually, y’know, outline it beforehand. Or something. Lol
It happens from time to time. Mostly in the late summer and early fall, during monsoon season, but it happens.
I could be sleepy because of the dismal weather. It could be because I didn’t really sleep much last night. Or maybe that second cup of coffee I skipped. Regardless, I’ll be needing another dose of my Adderall if I’m going to survive work today.
This kind of weather actually excites some Arizonans, especially the lifers. Me? I hate it. The sky is dreary and dark, even though the sun should be up by now. The pitter patter of rain on the windshield as I wait in the parking lot drones, making me feel drowsy and sluggish. It’s altogether depressing.
It’s cold, too. Not bone-chilling by any means, and my cousins up north would laugh if they read this, but it’s still cold to me.
I am not looking forward to today. If the rain keeps up, I’ll probably dread tomorrow too.
I want to go home. Back to bed. Snuggle up under the covers and forget the world. I can’t, though. I need to make the money to pay the bills. Gotta keep a roof over our heads and food in the fridge. Heating and cooling and all that. Takes money–which requires work. Fucking vicious cycle.
The sun’ll come out… sometime. Meanwhile I will drag one foot in front of the other, plaster a smile on my face, and pretend that I want to be at work.
I made it through Thanksgiving weekend, despite my stomach and esophagus rebelling against the copious amounts of food I had each day. Now I have to buckle down and get back to work on Escaping theLight, among other things.
There’s still the original Super Sekret Projekt for embroidery that needs to be done, and the current projects I have lined up. There’s making gift bags for the Christmas holiday giving season. There’s embroidery that the Baroness of a nearby Barony asked me to do before Estrella War. There’s my husband’s Viking hood to finish. There’s two full Persian outfits to make before January. There’s a lot.
In addition to going back to my old writing and crafting habits, I have to create new eating and exercising habits. I’m tired of being fat. I’m tired of feeling sluggish and miserable. I’m going to go back to exercising with my friends, but I worry that I won’t be able to get back into the routine or keep up like I used to. They have never once made me feel bad about not being on their level physically, but my own tricksy mind has. I mean, I used to kind of be able to keep up. Now, on the rare occasions when I’ve gone back, I am far, far behind while they all have increased their stamina and endurance. It sucks.
Today I have my annual physical, too. So I have to tell the doc about the weight issues and other concerns I have…like the aforementioned reflux that has been eating away at my esophagus and is in no way healthy. It can be damn dangerous if I let it go, actually, so I need to make sure I get some kind of prescription for it. I can take OTC meds, but there might be something stronger or better for it that he can prescribe. Maybe.
The breakneck pace of constant SCA events and other running around has slowed some, but not much. I’ve got a dyeing class that I’m going to this weekend, a household meeting (we’re finally officially members of House Sable Millrind!), next weekend is Christmas shopping with household members, the weekend after is the work Christmas party, the week after that is pre-Christmas at the in-laws’ house, the week after is…something, I’m sure. Maybe that’s a weekend off–I don’t know anymore.
Amidst all of that I still have to find time to exercise, to practice rapier more, to write/revise…
…And to goddamn sit up straighter. Geez, I didn’t even have anything overly spicy or irritating for breakfast, but because I’ve been slouching I can feel the acid creeping up inside my chest. Yuck.
The good news is, the Christmas tree has been up for a few days now and no cat destruction has occurred. They’re mildly interested from time to time, but aside from sniffing it or maybe nibbling on the plastic branches, Rory and River really have been good with it. Mostly leaving it alone. Hopefully I won’t lose too many ornaments this year to feline antics.
I still have a couple of Doctor Who ornaments to put up, but they’re fragile and important to us because they were gifts, so I’m waiting until I’m 100% sure they’re at least relatively safe from the cats.
I guess that’s about all for now. Life moves on. The wheels keep turning and all that. But I’ve got at least some semblance of a plan for keeping myself in better shape and for getting things done.
Now that the con is over, I have to focus on Book 2 again. I did some figuring, and overall I made a few hundred bucks at the con selling books. Not quite enough to fully cover what I paid for the books, and definitely not enough to make up for the money I spent on the table reservation for the con itself, but enough that I’m quite happy with it.
Will I go next year? I’d like to. I’d like to go to TusCon, which is a sci-fi-centric con, and I might even like to do a small con at the local community college. That one would be cheaper than Tucson Comic Con was for a table, and I’d hit that sweet college student market. I know some college students, especially the kind who would attend the con, like to read. Voraciously. And a New Adult sci-fi/dystopian novel would hit the college market nicely, I think. We’ll see. I have to discuss with the hubby before I commit to anything on that end.
Phoenix Comicon–er, I mean Phoenix Fan Fusion–is probably not going to happen. Tucson Comic Con just wasn’t profitable enough, and PFF is more expensive and harder to get into. No, it’ll be a few years before I can get in there.
I started back on Book 2 revisions this morning, but it’s an early day at work today, so I didn’t get much done. A few lines, enough to move the story along a bit and get me some momentum for later on, but definitely will need to zero in on that here now.
I’m very excited for Book 2 now that more people are reading Abnormal. Maybe I’ll gain a new fanbase–I certainly had enough middle-aged and older men buying the book this past weekend. And at least one eighty-something grandma. I hope she doesn’t get a heart attack reading the racy bits…I kinda didn’t warn her about them. I mean, I didn’t even think about it until she was walking off with book in hand. Eh, I’m sure it’s nothing she hasn’t read before. I hope.
Speaking of new fanbase…I’ve really got to get back in the habit of reaching out to book bloggers and other influencers every day. I have been slacking on that as of late, and I can’t just leave it to the publisher; they’ve got a lot of new projects on their plate, so I need to pull my considerable weight and get more eyes on Abnormal.
That will have to wait until at least tomorrow, though. Today I have to work. Silly day job, paying the bills and all that.
Well, the con is over. The end. Finit. And though I didn’t sell out of books, I did pretty well for a first-time con vending author.
The bookmarks were a bust, but I sold 2/3 of the books I brought. Out of the thirty five I brought, there are twelve left. Not too shabby.
I learned some things. I learned that maybe I should have just gone with the book and not tried making an add-on item to sell. I learned how to talk to potential customers in an engaging manner. And I leaned that when a person says they’ll come back to your table…. they’re not coming back. Lol
Waiting on a friend to meet me and my husband for dinner before we head home. It was a fun weekend overall, but I miss my bed and my kitties. Rory and River will be glad to see us.
Will I do another con in the future? Maybe. If I take what I learned from this con, maybe I can rock the next one.
Maybe next year I can have both Abnormal and the sequel at the table. Sell two books at once.
So today went much better than yesterday. I sold nine books at the con, which I think is not too bad for an unknown author her first time vending.
Wore the top hat that’s on the book jacket, and people seemed to like it. I got more comfortable with my pitch to customers as the day went on, and I’m hoping tomorrow brings those wait-til-the-last-day-of-con-to-make-purchases shoppers. You know, the ones who asked if I would be there all weekend. The ones who said they’d come back. Those shoppers.
As before, I end the day exhausted, but in better spirits than yesterday. Tomorrow we’ll see how I end the con, and we’ll see what we can learn from how this one went.
The time has almost come! After work today, my husband and I will leave for Tucson, and in the morning we’ll get up bright and early to go over to Tucson Comic Con and set up our table.
The Con Jitters hit me just last night.
I was fine. Honestly, I was. I was excited but prepared. Business licenses procured, books procured, bookmarks made, PayPal reader set up, etc….but as I was printing flyers and what have you last night I started to get that THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP in my chest that indicated the start of anxiety. I’m not entirely sure why I’m so anxious. I have almost everything I will need. The only thing I’m really missing is cash and change, and that I can have the hubby grab from a bank before the exhibitor hall opens to the public.
Booth setup shouldn’t be too long. I just have books, bookmarks, and some signs. Small, 8.5″ x 11″ signs, that I can either tape or pin to the tablecloth. I’m a little worried that the tape I’m bringing won’t be strong enough, but it’s what I have, and to be honest I could probably just set the signs down on the table and be fine. Still, I’d like to affix them to the tablecloth somehow to get them to stay put. But safety pins are packed. Tape is packed.
I’ve got an apron for keeping my phone, PayPal reader, and markers close at hand. I’ve got receipt books (for whoever might actually want a receipt, though the days of the written receipt are going by the wayside). I’ve got a notebook to jot down any notes that I haven’t already thought of, with my Tucson business license info and the TCC exhibitor packet and some sundry other items in it.
I’ll have my laptop Friday and Sunday, and while my husband has it at an SCA event Saturday I’ll have his tablet. Why the laptop and tablet, you may ask? Well, someone gave me the brilliant idea to have my book trailer playing at the table. To conserve battery I might not have it on a continuous loop, but I can at least pop it on for those who might be interested in the book but are iffy on buying it.
Books. I have books. I have bookmarks. I have a tablecloth. I’ll have a portable battery for making sure my devices stay charged. I have embroidery to do that I can use to keep myself occupied if things get slow, so I don’t waste battery power on playing with my phone. I have sell sheets and author info flyers. I have my clothes for the weekend packed and ready to go in the car.
I’ve got all this stuff…so why am I not feeling ready? Why am I so anxious over the whole thing?
Anxiety’s a bitch. She gets you all worked up but doesn’t tell you why she’s got you all worked up, and she doesn’t follow the rules of logic. If I’m pretty much ready for the con, why am I anxious? Who knows. Maybe once I clean out the car and pack it I’ll be better off.
Who am I kidding? I’ll be nervous until the con’s well and truly started. Lol
