[UPDATE] So where did I go? · 4:47pm May 5th, 2022
One thing I've grown to hate is my life going to absolute crap at the worst times and in ALL the ways all at once. I've lost so much every time it happens and in many ways never get back what I lose. Without going on a deep dive on this, I had life spin up it's, "Let's make Chrystal the main character of a Jim Butcher novel," engine and I'll often have no idea what I'll be losing until it's already a done deal.
This time, I lost my cat.
So starting about the time I got the most recent chapters of LLW and Deviation posted, I began experiencing little paper-cut crisis. You know the kind, it's small, it's annoying, on it's own it doesn't much impact anything, but you start dropping three, then five, then you start losing count, and pretty soon you're covered in papercuts...and here comes the lemon juice tidal wave.
Now, overall, my life hasn't turned completely to crap. I'm pretty secure in my apartment (so no "pending homelessness" anxiety like has been plaguing me since 2018), I'm financially okay (not great, but in better condition than many), I have a live-in GF who's been taking care of me WAY better than my ex ever did (...lot to unpack there, but that's a subject for another blog post), and my car is running and just had a new wheel replaced.
But my cat's health took a MASSIVE dive this last weekend, turning the irritations of a heart murmur, early-stage kidney failure, and arthritis into, "She's dying, and there's absolutely nothing that will save her and everything we could possibly do would just force her to live with the pain, now made much worse." I made the decision to euthanize her, and held her until she died. And yes, I'm crying as I type this.
I'm pausing my writing for a bit as I get my life straightened out a bit, get ready for our next cat (we were already getting set to adopt from a litter of kittens a co-worker's cat had recently), and just in general get to the point in my grieving process where I'm not ready to break down at the drop of a hat.
I've currently got a few writing projects to knock out, and for the time being, I'm going to be cancelling Fanfiction Friday. That is a FUN activity that really lets me engage with all my readers, but in terms of actually being able to focus and chunk out work, it's not actually helping me do the job of writing. I may return to it at a later date, but for my own ability to get projects done, it needs to be axed for now.
So what will be up next?
- On the Subject of Bug Horses and Friendship Lessons - Not only am I horribly late to get this done for the "...Hunts the Undead" series as a semi-canonical entry, this is the one thing that's stopping me from being able to get the draft of "My Empire of Dirt" off to the small-print, on demand publisher I'm using for the printed book. That's probably going to be priority #1.
- Bohemian Space Opera Rhapsody - This one is a "sleeper," I was inspired to start it based on a series of Tubmlr posts about how "humans are space orcs" and a variety of other related posts. It's absolutely a short story and shouldn't take long to hammer out, it's constrained specifically by the length of the song, "Bohemian Rhapsody," and so it will absolutely not balloon out like my writing projects tend to do.
- Lost Little Wolf: The Minor Key - This bad boy is going to see completion this year unless something goes catastrophically wrong. The next chapter is literally titled, "The Beginning of the End of the Beginning," marking the final five(-ish) chapters of this story. (And no, I didn't get the title of the chapter from the show, this bad boy has been planned since S05 of MLP.)
- Deviation - This little love letter to The Omegaverse is, hopefully, going to include a tie-in to the Empire series, a little tease as to the direction Empire will eventually go. That said, Empire's sequel (Voice of Rage and Ruin) is not on this list and likely won't be touched this year. I'm tentatively putting it on the board for start and completion in 2023. As for Deviation, the story is practically writing itself...when I can get the spare clock-cycles to actually write in it. I like to use this one as a "just trying to unwind, open the doc and let the creativity flow" project, so updates will be sporadic and likely unannounced, but they will happen.
- Fission - With the return of one of my favorite fanfics-turned-webcomic of all time, Sailor Ranko, it's given me the itch to write more of Fission. This project is now VERY delayed in getting the finish of the first book done, so I'm wanting to at least put that to bed so I can work on other stuff with a clean conscience. I do have upwards of 9 parts planned for the world of Fission (including a Senshi civil war that I had plotted out long before the MCU brought theirs to the screen), so (like Empire) this one will probably get more work in the future once I'm done with book 1. I'm hoping to have book 1 done by end-of-year 2022, but realistically I may have to aim for EOY 2023.
- All I Want for Solstice... - With Voice of Rage and Ruin put off until 2023, that leaves a gap for this year's Christmas Special...and wouldn't you know it my brain came up with an idea...for the She-ra fandom.
I'm hoping to get this all out in a very fast blob of released chapters on AO3 around Christmas 2022, and attentive fans of Empire will likely recognize a character or two if you happen to venture into this story when I release it to the world. 
- You'll Do... - This bit of apparent randomness popped into my head when I was chattering with the spoptwt fandom. (That's the She-ra part of Twitter) It's already a solidly locked arc (I already know the beginning, middle, and end), I just need to get it all written down and figure out a few logistics. Presuming I don't hit any major blocks, I'm expecting to finish this one fairly quickly once I get my creative juices flowing on it.
- The Angel in the Forest - A piece of original fiction that I'm working on for my GF. She gets precedence, gang, so even if this isn't a passion project or have a large reader-base, it's still highest on the list.
Not sure about publication for this, yet, but if it is going to be published, I may seek out an actual book publisher before posting it online.
There's no need to single out Jim for that one; doing this to your protagonist is a common bit of writing advice ("kill your darlings" is the pithy wording typically used).
Losing someone who's a part of your family is never easy. One of my doggos got arthritis recently, and it really hit me since I don't get to see them often. Thanks for the update, and I hope this week gets more okay for you.
On a side note (*dumb question ahead alert*), since you're into Sailor Ranko, does that mean you're into the Sailor Moon series in general? And if so, have you seen the trailer for Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos?
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I blame the following authors/writers by name for my writing style:
~Hugs~
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Color me interested. I was fairly unsatisfied when I found out that Momoru had basically been written out in favor of some other punk but somehow Chibi-Usa/Chibi-Moon as still a thing that existed in spite of the alterations to the timeline. I get that the love story needed work between Mamo-chan and Usagi, and the new guy was a good chance to tell a romance story right, but it just rubbed me raw. The Crystal series managed to fix a BUNCH of narrative issues from the original (including making Pluto MUCH more interesting...), even if some of my favorite scenes from "classic" Moon never got translated to Crystal, it's a very worthy reboot series. (Plus, easier to tell people to watch Crystal than the original, which suffers from 90s-era VA work, even if it was later re-recorded)
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*hugsback* Thanks, sweetie!
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Of course, sweetie.
The beautiful smile shall live on upon your lips 😗💝
(Smoking) Well said, my lady.
🫂