Author Update and Reality Check Up

Tags

author's thoughts, Busy, reflections, schedule, writer's thoughts

Hey all.  It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here.  I apologize for falling off the blog bandwagon, but so much has happened since the last post that it’s hard to keep things straight.  Let me clue ya’ll into what has gone down.  There’s a lot, so please bear with me.

In chronological order, after mom passed and her funeral happened, we got her ashes back home.  One of her final wishes was that she be scattered off the coast of Key Largo, FL.  Unfortunately, my family isn’t of means, so it will take a massive amount of flawless saving to even get the chance to do so.  Next, my dad went and had a whole drama with another woman before the rest of the family was ready for it, and my brother and I (with support from my aunt and uncle) started to live on our own after they did not renew the lease he had with them.  He moved in with his woman, and though she was nice and all, I felt like we were shoving her into family drama with a catch-22 situation.

After that happened, what was left was a very messy house and wondering how we’d survive without my dad.  There was a lot of cleaning done (and still quite a bit to do in more detailed work) and the house looks a lot better than when I was growing up.  I started my final semester in the Fall of 2018, and with it, a completely new piece that was in a genre I was unfamiliar with.  Said piece was straining against the page limit I was given, and once class finished, I was going to give it the room it wanted to breathe.  This is my current project, and the mental scaffolding for the current bit of summary takes up several chapters worth of pulling into scene.  Tragedy struck us again in September, as Snickers, the youngest of the kitties, had to be put down due to liver failure.  Also, right after Thanksgiving, I received a phone call from dad’s woman and then dad the day after about something happening.  She kicked him out once he was stable and the family had to scramble to find him a place to live, because he can’t stay with us.  Later, the doctor suspected he had a mini-stroke during that episode, and he’s trying to pay on those medical bills.

I completed the semester and earned my bachelor’s in English, in which I had the family bring mom’s picture with us so, in a way, she could be there to see me walk.  I had to fight to keep my composure during the walk itself, but I did hear my family and friends cheering me on up on that stage.  As the first generation of my family, especially on my mom’s side, I think she’d be proud that I finished my bachelor’s.

Alas, the pride of graduation turned to panic about student loans and finding a job to pay them off with, and while I received many interviews, none of the companies I met with extended an offer.  I’m still working on the search, but at this point, the health things that have struck me recently take priority in my mind to interviews.  I’ve also been really stressed out with trying to keep the household up to par and Angie (my cat) has been dealing with health stuff of her own.  Looking forward, I have a procedure in the first part of May that I’m anxious about, as I haven’t been under general anesthesia in decades.  I do have a short-term editing gig starting soon, so hopefully that’ll help with some bills.

Now, what’s this mean for the blog?  Since I have a lot on my plate right now, it is mostly back burner until the current project is done or I finally get some mental scaffolding towards Binara and Ami’s story in a break from said project.  I’ve also been thinking about typing up the blog posts on a word doc beforehand so I can catch any spelling and grammar errors and give a bit of polish to it so it isn’t as rough.  I noticed several errors in Senet-Ra’s origin story after I pulled the text into a doc, and while I have corrected them there, I’d rather not have zero draft quality rolling out here.

So basically, please be patient with me as I figure out how to keep all the plates spinning without being too stressed out.

Siwy

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Finally!

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writer's thoughts

As those of you who follow this blog have probably seen by now, Senet-Ra and Edfu’s origin story is completed.  I hope that the darker tone that some of the chapters have taken didn’t put ya’ll off of the rest of the story.  I was trying to keep the story relevant to today’s world, and the “aha!” moment of where I wanted to go with it came from watching a news report a few years back here in my hometown about a bust for prostitution at a massage parlor, plus an article about human trafficking being a thing.  This has a bigger impact to me than most might think, and I believe now that the story is done that I should explain myself a bit on why it is such.

I’m going to get a bit personal with this, so bear with me on this insight into my life.  When I was a little girl, I was raped by ex-stepgrandfather around the age of 8.  My memory is fuzzy about the incident right now, as I don’t like dwelling on it, but clear enough that I did go through the process of trying to bring him to trial (this was his fourth case).  The DA dropped the ball on trial and he pled right to speedy trial.  From what the records of the sex offender registry show, he got his butt thrown back in jail in 2013 and I don’t really have the funds to search what for.  The asshole probably couldn’t keep it in his pants again.

Anyways, this bit of my history relates to my reaction to the prostitution and human trafficking because while not the exact same to what I survived, I can relate.  It challenges and gives me muse to bring a voice to this problem that we so often ignore.  It is this close to home event that burned me so much that even though my voice is small, it needs to be heard, as does those who are victims of such violence and captivity.  As I wrote in the “Catgirl Made Magical” chapter (and paraphrase here), I can’t stand by knowing this happens and do nothing.  I hope you as my readers don’t either.  Please bring your voices, yourselves, and what you can put forth towards rectifying this problem.  You may not see it as much, but to the victims and survivors of these types of crimes, it makes all the difference to see they have support.  There are several websites that have information on how you can help (www.humantrafficking.org was one I found on a quick search), so it may only take you a few minutes out of your day.  Of course, there are deeper roots to this problem than what I’ve mentioned, but I’m not going to go into it at this point in time.

Going forward and back on the topic of the supers that have posts here, I will be starting a new origin story soon that will be updated as I have time and attention for.  School starts back up on the 19th  this month, so I will need to focus on that.  This time around, I’m going a bit into more original territory as far as characters are concerned and having a bit more banter going on.  The reason why is that while these characters are all mine, all of them have been made and are getting adapted from roleplaying games I’ve done in the past.  That changes with this next story.  I’ve got a completely native character concept for this world lined up, and I think you’ll like her.  I wonder if you can guess who it is. 😉  I’m not going to give the story away, but I hope you think of it as an otherworldly experience.

Siwy

Much has Happened…

Tags

Busy, Final Fantasy 14, writer's thoughts

Well, the last time I worked on this blog was well over a year ago, and whomever does follow me deserves a status update.  I did make it to Tokyo for study abroad and it was a lot more intensive than I originally thought it would be.  I made some friends on FF14 and one of them became my boyfriend, then school hit again.  I was hit with a depressive episode about midterm and was so stressed with schoolwork that I barely passed.  Spring fared a little better after getting to see my boyfriend in January.  At the end of the semester, I landed a contract job for my local anime licensing firm helping to check the subtitles and other features of their DVDs, then boyfriend visited last month and the expansion for FF14 hit.

Going forward, I’m getting into a theater style LARP, as the Changeling: the Lost bug has bit me again.  I do want to write more on my stories here, but the updates will be irregular at best.  I have a mental outline for the next post of Senet-Ra’s story, I just need to type it out.  Hopefully I can get it done this week or next, but I do have to focus on making the costume for the Riddleseeker I’ll be playing.

I do hope that those of you that follow me continue to be patient for content.

Happy New Year to all!

Tags

fiction format, schedule, schoolwork, writer's thoughts

Hello to all that read this nice little story blog I’ve got set up for my characters.  I’m Siwyenbast (Siwy for short), the writer of this little space on the net.  I know I’m new to the fiction blogosphere and so I don’t have many followers yet, but I figured I’d introduce myself.  I’d also like to explain my situation and what it has to do with the blog.

To put it simply, I’m an English-creative writing major in university.  This means that, come January 13th, I won’t have the free time to update the blog as regularly as some of the ideas in my head would like.  As much as I love writing and want to make it into my career, school comes first.  I’m sure all ya’ll understand that, as I know the school schedule I have is going to be hectic for me.

This does not mean, however, that I’m giving up on Confessions.  I means that I must give myself a structure in which to update within during the semester, schoolwork permitting.  Instead of freeform posting like I did with the first post and editing it later to finish it, I’ll attempt to post once a week on one of the characters’ posts or their community interactions (once I get up to that point).  This will probably mean works in progress will be so for longer amounts of time, as I tend to write a lot after the house has quieted down for the night.  Also, if I know for certain that I won’t be able to post that week, I will let you all know with a little blurb or a random Psycat admin post.  There are times, though, that I won’t have the ability to let ya’ll know (say a teacher busted out a paper from nowhere and I have to finish it then and there).  In those times, please be patient, and don’t start poking me about posts until I’m about a month behind.

Now, what happens if I get behind?  Well, that depends on how drained classes have me.  With an honors course on my schedule, it may drain me a lot more than I’d like and of course Confessions will suffer for it.  Once I get the drive and time to do so again, I will get back on track.  This does not mean I will play “catch up” with the blog, as that’s a way bigger way to burn me out on writing than a schedule.  I will simply start posting again as I would normally.

The TL;DR version of the preceding is I am a college student who puts her schoolwork first, occasionally gets depressed and has dry periods like every other writer out there.  I’m putting myself on a schedule for both our sakes, so don’t bother me about a missed post until it’s a month late.  It could be my schoolwork taking up my time.

Now for the format questions that I’m sure some are wondering about.  Obviously I’m writing each character in first person past, journal style format.  What’s not clear yet is the world.  Currently Senet-Ra and Edfu are the third in my character line, behind Psycat and Lapis.  Psycat’s origin novelette has all the world set up currently, and it is going through its second draft phase.  Lapis’ origin story is in its first draft, but with school taking up my time, it will be a little bit before I get around to it again.  Yes, I do intend to go traditional publishing with these two stories and pursue every avenue of it before going self-published.  These origin stories will never appear on Confessions, though they will be hinted at.  They are my entry into the writer’s career field and I do not think that I would sabotage my eventual meal ticket on a blog that shows my writing for free.

That said, I will try to give each character’s perspective on their world as they’re living in it.  They’re here to raise awareness of my writing, my style, and to help me improve my craft as I go along.  They’re also here to give ya’ll a good story to read.  I do appreciate critiques and constructive criticism, but please explain to me why you think a certain thing should’ve gone a different way instead of the way it did, as it will help me see your reasoning.  Also, if you can, try to put more longer/serious critiques in an email to me.  This way, it’ll help to keep the comments from endlessly scrolling for people on slower connections.

See ya!

Siwy