When Tragedy Strikes

Hi, everyone. I know, I dropped off on a long hiatus again. I didn’t keep up with writing as I had wanted to. I have, however, started to keep up with weekly flash fiction challenges. (Namely #ThursThreads hosted by the lovely Siobhan Muir and #MenageMonday hosted by the amazing Cara Michaels.) I need to get myself back into Wednesday Words from the awesome P.T. Wyant, too.

Today is not about a recap of what’s going on with this sporadic blogger author though. It is not about my own announcements or my own experiences. Today’s post is a memorial to a beautiful young soul who’s life was tragically cut short late Tuesday night.

Yesterday I wrote a tribute to her life and memory on Facebook.

We all live to believe this world is big and what happens to it and others are not our own problems and won’t affect us. But we are wrong. This world is small and fragile and more often than not right on our front steps.

I learned that today. This afternoon I got a group text. A text that brought shock, grief, anger, and pain.

Last night there was a shooting in the Hill District at a graduation/birthday party full of teenagers and young adults. A potentially senseless shooti…ng that destroyed what should have been one of the best days of a young girl’s life. That young girl was my employee and now her life is gone. She had literally just turned seventeen. Just graduated high school. Full of potential. Hard-working. Willing to learn. Upbeat. Happy. A beautiful soul. She was planning for college. She was going to be a nurse. She had her whole life ahead of her, and now it is all gone. And because of what? For what?

This world is not as big as we think it is. The problems of this world are always closer than they appear to be. Today I learned that as I still sit here in shock. She may have only worked with my company for a short period, but it was enough to make a connection. A simple passing “hello” is enough to make a connection. It is enough to leave an ache in my chest, to make the weight of this messed up world press down on my shoulders. This life and world we live in is precious and it only takes one second, one pop of a gun to take it all away. Senseless. Greedy. Worthless violence. And it needs to end before another beautiful soul is taken from this earth for useless reasons. #RIPbeautifulsoul #stoptheviolence #whereisourgunreform #whereisthejustice

Today I turned the #ThursThreads prompt into a lesson to honor her in my flash piece.

~*~*~*~*~

The erratic beep, beep of the checkout scanners around me reminded me of the beep, beep of a heart monitor. I watched the cashier scan each of my items. A bag of Doritos. Carrots. Gallon of milk. Tissues.

My expression fell, following that item all the way to the end of the belt. Hazel eyes drifted up to the young woman. She was African American. Her name tag read “Faith” in bold, black letters. Tight braided hair that fell past her chest. Warm brown eyes. She couldn’tve been more than seventeen. She looked bored.

“First job?” I asked softly, randomly.

Faith gave me a weird glance. I knew that look in retail. “Um, yeah… Why?”

“Just curious.” The beep, beep of the scanners overtook the awkward silence. I sucked in a breath. “Cherish this job, hun. I know it feels demeaning and customers can be royal asshats. But cherish it while you have it. This world is cruel. It only takes one second, one pop of a gun for tragedy to strike and life to be stripped away.”

She gave me a haughty look, understandably. “Why are you telling me this? Because I’m black?”

I couldn’t blame her. I was white. To her I was privileged. I held my calm, looked into her eyes with grief in mine. “No,” I whispered. “Because violence is everywhere. It doesn’t discriminate and even when we think the world’s problems won’t affect us they have a funny way of showing up on our doorstep.”

~*~*~*~*~

When tragedy strikes I am only able to write and feel what is tumbling through me. I am only able to light candles and honor the one who passed through the veil however I can. So write for her memory I will, and light candles to guide her soul I will. For I will not just do nothing.

May you find peace wherever you are now, Alexus. Fly high, beautiful soul.

SERIOUS WARNING To Wattpad Users!

PLEASE SPREAD THIS WARNING FAR AND WIDE TO ALL READERS/WRITERS/AUTHORS WHO USE WATTPAD IN ANY FORM AND/OR KNOW SOMEONE WHO USES WATTPAD! PLEASE SHARE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE AND ADD THE HASHTAG #Wattpad SO IT IS NOTICED! THIS IS NOT OKAY WHAT THEY ARE DOING AND PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW.

You know, for the past three years I’ve had nothing but praise for Wattpad as an author. (For those of you unfamiliar with the site, it’s an online free platform to read and share stories.) I thought it was great to get yourself some exposure, get feedback, connect with other authors and your readers directly! And it is great on that front.

But suddenly I’ve also discovered a very infuriating and potentially harmful side to Wattpad for all authors.

Wattpad isn’t as trustworthy and secure as it claims to be.

For the past month now I have been dealing with a disgruntled Wattpad user who was angry over the fact an account of mine was shut down. (It is not my main account.) This user admitted, to me and others, to trying to obtain the password to my account so that they could take it over and post a new part to the books on my account. An action they never once consulted me over or obtained permission to do so. It was completely behind my back.

In light that they couldn’t get into my account, this user then did the next best thing and created an account that was a duplication of my own, with full intentions of mimicking and continuing my account as their own.

Once this was brought to my attention from fellow friends, I immediately reported to Wattpad of the duplication and attempted theft of my account. I was advised to “mute” the user so they would not be able to contact me at all after that and I did so on all fronts.

However, this user didn’t stop there. After muting the duplicated account, I received messages from a separate account that held an admittance of attempted theft among other things. This user still found a way to contact me.

So, naturally, once more I muted that account as well and reported the confession to Wattpad.

I received no help in return from Wattpad, as if they weren’t even at all concerned about the attempted theft of my account, or that this person was forging my account as if it was their own. They refused to shut the user down.

I was even directed to submit a DMCA when I found the user’s profile description to say they were going to post a book using my title in order to continue what I was doing on my own account because they couldn’t obtain by my password. After filing my report, I received this from Wattpad support, “You may not submit a DMCA when there is no work that is violating your copyright. Similar plots, themes, characters, and titles do not constitute as copyright. Continuous reports of false submissions will result in account suspension.”

But it wasn’t a similar plot or theme I was reporting. This person had every intention of continuing my book on their profile, and the proof laid right in their description. Still, I was shut down for an alleged false claim — even when I was directed to fill out the claim by them in the first place — despite everything that had already happened and once again nothing was done about the user.

Then a week went by with no activity. I frequently monitored this duplicated account since Wattpad would do nothing, worried something more would happen and absolutely livid Wattpad didn’t take its security seriously.

Then suddenly I received a third harassment message from yet another account of the same user. A message that was a direct slam at me for muting their accounts and ceasing communication. Livid, I again reported the harassment, even provided screen shots of the confession to trying to gain the password to my account and the slam for further proof of my claim.

And what did Wattpad do?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Instead of taking action against this user for harassment and attempted theft, I was told “Repeated submissions are considered an abuse of our system which is in direct violation of our conduct guidelines. If you continue to submit these reports we will have to take necessary action.”

I was just threatened to be suspended or shut down myself as if I am the bad guy in this claim. All because someone duplicated my account and it isn’t considered a security risk someone tried to steal my account and then mimic it because they are seeing it as a “similar theme” even after all the proof I provided. In fact, they didn’t even address the proof I provided in their shut down message to me, and that was something they asked specifically for.

Wattpad is not as secure as they say they are.

Wattpad is not as trustworthy as they claim to be.

Wattpad apparently believes it is okay and not a violation of their conduct guidelines for anyone to log on, pick a random user, and then go duplicate their account using a similar username and pretend to be them.

This is not right. This is not fair. They are essentially advocating account theft by refusing to do anything and instead threatening to shut me down if I do not back off. The worst part, they are claiming their reasoning as “similar story lines or plot themes are not enough to constitute a copyright violation in a story, and much less for a general account theme.”

And yes, I understand titles and similar story lines aren’t protected by copyright. But when a user deliberately tries to steal control of your account – admits it even, and then goes to create a duplicated account of yours because they couldn’t gain access to what they wanted, they consider that no violation at all in any form?

How is that okay? How is attempted theft and duplication okay?

The answer is it isn’t, and the public needs to know where Wattpad stands when it comes to the security of user accounts and the safety of not being forged by someone else.

Wattpad needs to be made aware something needs to change in their policy.

This is not okay. And this is dangerous to authors everywhere.

Please share this, and please help me get the word out before it happens to someone else, before people realize the enormous, dangerous loophole Wattpad holds in their guidelines.

Pranks Vs. Harassment

(Warning: Some strong language ahead.)

Everyone loves a good prank, right? They can be quite a laugh sometimes and all in good fun. I mean, that’s what April Fool’s is all about! (Well, other than the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and the sneaky leprechaun you can try to catch.)

But when does a prank go too far? When does a prank constitute as harassment?

That was my issue today, and it’s been one hell of a day.

I’m sure the majority of you have done a prank call at least once in your life. Maybe it was to someone you knew or maybe it was just a random call asking someone if their refrigerator was running and that they should go catch it. All in good fun then, right?

For the most part.

But what about when it interferes with someone’s job? What about when you waste their time by acting as a disgruntled and angry customer, before ending on brash questions that are a slap in the face?

That I consider harassment.

So it was fun to you. You thought it’d be a good laugh to call my place of work and fabricate stories regarding my product that had me repeating myself for five minutes on policy and possibly solutions, scream at me for “not listening” to the point I can’t even understand you, demand to speak to the manager when I have told you six times I am the manager on duty, laugh hysterically in the background with your little group of teenage girl friends because I’m trying to appease who I believe is a disgruntled customer that I don’t want giving us a complaint because that is part of my job, and then decide the game is up once I realize it’s a prank call by asking me “do you like dicks?”.

You know what, fuck you. You just wasted ten minutes of my time when I was supposed to be clocking out and ending my shift.

So you’re proud of yourself for tripping me up that long, well good for you. But you know what else? In the end, your little group of friends was nothing more than a bunch of little bitches who obviously aren’t going anywhere in life. You are part of the problem of every generation coming after me, a world where no one respects anything or anyone. And it disgusts me.

So go right ahead at the expense of me and give yourself a high five with your friends. Go ahead and laugh over the clueless manager you fooled and upset. But I don’t care now, I’m letting it roll off me, and you know why? Because in the end I realized you don’t matter, you little attention seeking twat, and I was the adult. I didn’t scream back at you, I didn’t curse, I stayed level headed even if I was mentally throttling you, and I didn’t hang up like I had wanted to a couple minutes into the so-called conversation until you blatantly asked your rude question.

I only have a few words for you now: Grow up, get a life, and actually strive to achieve something. Learn to be the bigger person for once instead of the bully, because the day you find the shoe on the other foot, I will be the one laughing while you are sorely surprised to find you’re on your own and the world is cruel. The jokes on you in the end.

Just remember, next time the person you prank may not be as strong and dismissive of your hurtful nature. And don’t forget, we can get your number and call the police on you for harassment.

So to whichever group of dumb teenage girls that decided to prank call my place of work today… *Sweet smile* Have a nice life, bitches. Karma is an even bigger bitch in the end, and I’m done being a victim because of your insecurities. You aren’t tearing me down this time.

An Introvert’s Nightmare

So I realized about half way through my day on Saturday that I completely and totally forgot I was supposed to write a blog post on Friday. I was exhausted by the time I got home from work that night and at that point everything just slipped my mind. I think I was actually in bed before 1am that night again, I think…

To be totally honest, I almost forgot about today’s post too, and since all of my time has gone to work and the holiday season, there’s not going to be any writing updates anytime soon. This post isn’t even going to remotely be about writing.

I’ve been doing that a lot this month, even last month I was doing it a lot, and it’s all because of work. I’m just so exhausted and worn out anymore that I can’t remember anything, and that I have no time for anything else.

Working in retail as a manager during this season really is an introvert’s nightmare, and it’s not even half over yet because as soon as Christmas is over, it’ll be changing the store around once more and diving into inventory.

I’m really realizing how unfair everything is right now. I had said last Tuesday that I was quite sure I would be pushing into overtime this week and probably next. (At least, I think I said that, I can’t remember anymore.) Well as it turns out thanks to being screwed over on Sunday’s shift, I definitely am going into overtime this week, and after a quick glance at next week’s schedule, I’ll be doing overtime again because I’m working six days next week.

And yet, I’m the only manager of my rank who’s pulling those kind of hours. Sure, the freight crew manager is pulling their own weight right now and then some, just as I am. Yet there’s still another who should be getting a share of what I’m having to carry with the general and assistant manager but refuses to work that much and those kind of hours. How is that fair to me?

But I forgot, the world isn’t fair, and it never will be. So I just suck it up, do my work, and keep my mouth shut, right?

By the time Christmas gets here, I’m going to wish I could just curl up and stay home in bed the entire day. There’s no joy in this holiday anymore, not once you get into retail and deal with double the stress of the season. You add worrying about the snow, how you’re getting to and from work since you don’t drive and your ride won’t drive in it either, and all you have to do personally to be ready for the holiday on top of the retail job and suddenly you hate Christmas.

I found myself changing the lyrics of Christmas songs on our radio at work today. The assistant manager would be singing “we’ll frolic and play, the Eskimo way, walking in a winter wonderland.”

Do you know what I changed it to?

“We’ll frolic and play, the Eskimo way, bashing in a snowman’s head today.”

I remember once last year I heard a customer yell a change of lyrics to the song Deck The Halls too. It wasn’t “deck the halls with boughs of holly”, it was “deck the halls with poison ivy”. All I remember is thinking he must know retail as I do, too.

Quite honestly, I’ve lost all cheer and happiness for this season. Now I dread Christmas. I’ve always dreaded and hated winter, but since working in retail… Now I just wish Christmas didn’t exist and that I could simply skip three months out of every year. I wish I could skip November through January. More so I wish I could skip right to the middle or end of March so that winter is over.

I don’t care what I miss in those four, five months, I just want them to be done and gone.

I lose everything during these months. There’s no personal time for anything other than working your ass off, shopping your ass off, and running around like a chicken with no head. There’s hardly time to sleep on top of that when you have to worry about getting everything done in time and shoveling a 600 foot driveway to even get to work. There’s no such thing as peace or quiet or downtime for a moment to breathe.

I can kiss everything in my life goodbye for a solid two and a half months during this time of the year. Writing, sleeping, sanity, downtime, peace of mind, energy, fun…

All of it. Just gone during those three months.

It’s nothing but stress, worry, frustration, exhaustion, and aggravation.

To put it bluntly: it fucking sucks.

As much of a Grinch as this makes me sound like, I no longer like Christmas for all those reasons. This season isn’t about giving or being with family anymore. It’s about worrying if you have money to get someone something because you have to work three measly jobs on minimum wage to make a living, it’s about worrying about the weather, it’s about stressing out and panicking and losing sleep, it’s about worrying when you’re going to have time to do anything because all you do is work to make a living that may not even be worth living in anymore.

Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the joy in it anymore?

But you know what’s even worse?

What it means for the people like me, the people that work their asses off in retail for everyone to shop and go crazy, and get absolutely nothing out of it. I may be a manager but I don’t earn any personal time off or benefits or sick days, because I’m technically part time. That’s how this economy works anymore. So I stress myself out, and I work myself to exhaustion, and for what? To watch the bosses above me get all this vacation time and break after inventory is over so that I have to keep working my ass off to run the store even when I’m doing just as much as they are? But I get nothing except maybe a tiny bonus on my paycheck and the company calls that “good enough”.

How is that fair?

You know, it’s funny how the ones who work the hardest and willingly put in the hours because they know it’s their responsibility to step up get nothing in return and always end up with the short end of the stick, because they’re taken for granted and passed over.

So yes, Christmas is this introvert’s living nightmare from which there’s no waking for three months, and it’s sad when the things you want for Christmas now compared to when you were younger are no longer things that can be bought, and are things you know you’re not going to get.

Out of Time

So this week hasn’t been very kind to me.

The yard sale is in nine hours and I am not ready. I had roughly half a room left I still had yet to clean and go through. Part of the reason I didn’t finish is because I had two really messed up days that…I’m not even going to go there. One of which I can’t be angry or upset over because it was a… Not an emergency, but a sudden happening that I had no control over.

Here’s what happened.

I wrote Tuesday’s blog post after midnight and before I went to bed and work the next day. After that shift I was supposed to have off the rest of the week for riding and to be ready for this thing. Well, not far into my shift I got asked if I could work Friday even though I had wanted off because one of our managers had a death in the family and needed the time off.

(The scary, ironic part is I had been talking to said manager just last week about should anything ever happen, we had their back and would not hesitate to pick up their shifts for them.)

Of course then I said yes immediately. I’m not that cold-hearted. The good part about the shift was I would be getting off early in the afternoon, right after lunch and would still have the whole day to clean. The bad part about the shift was it started at 5am.

(I can’t complain about picking up the hours though since I lost my Sunday shift to said manager actually since I was scheduled to work a day I was on vacation by accident. So at least she got some hours before this tragedy hit, and I gained back the day I lost.)

Anyways! I did not sleep Thursday night into that shift. I had barely slept Wednesday as well. So by noon today I was dead on my feet. Which meant by the time I got home, I ate, and pretty much half napped, half just laid in bed for an hour and a half. I shouldn’t have tried to nap, it only made things worse for me for I couldn’t wake up after and I just felt sluggish. A shower finally seemed to help that, as is the coffee I’m drinking now.

However, I hadn’t started cleaning until late because of that shift and having to go set up where I’m holding this yard sale, and because of how exhausted I was.

But Friday wasn’t my only screwed up day.

Thursday was no better, but I’m not going to go into that one.

Now I’m running on an hour and a half sort of nap and a coffee to try to be ready for tomorrow. When I have to be up in 6 hours again and there’s still too much to do. I think I’m going to be lucky if I get a few hours of sleep tonight, and then it’ll be back for another large coffee in the morning to keep me going.

Part of my stress and worry is I have no idea how I’m pricing anything, and I have a ton of crap I need to get sorted and set up before we open the doors. And the fact I never finished cleaning like I wished (though it’s not all my fault, part of it is uncooperative household members in my way). Then there’s also the fact I haven’t written a single word on my novel so far this week…

Honestly, I’ll just be glad when tomorrow is over so this no longer hangs over my head and I get everything sorted out and gone to Goodwill or wherever if it doesn’t sell. I’m praying this is a success because I’m out of other ideas.

I know I can still clean out and go through things in the spare room after this. I think I’ve gotten most of what is sellable. If there’s some I missed, well… Don’t know what to do about it then. Maybe I can finally breathe after tomorrow is over at least.

All I know for sure is I’m damn glad I’m off Sunday so I can just crash tomorrow night and sleep as late as I need. Perhaps for a whole day at this point.

One for the Memories

Alright, so this isn’t going to be my standard writing related blog post. I am going off on a completely unrelated topic tonight. (Actually, if I really wanted to, I could turn this into a half related writing post…)

Anyways, on Wednesday, I had the chance to go to my first concert ever, courtesy of a Christmas/birthday gift from my dad. (I only say birthday because the concert fell right around my birthday.)

I went to see my favorite country artist, maybe one of my favorite artists period, Carrie Underwood!

I will admit, I own every single one of her CDs and know the lyrics to just about every song she has ever written. (This is where I could turn this into half related to writing. Remember my post about music and writing?)

I digress though. It was truly a night to remember, for more than one reason. A night out with cousins, dinner and a concert — an amazing concert at that — and lots of singing and laughing. Needless to say I sang along to every song she performed.

Carrie is one rather great performer — in my opinion at least, I don’t want to hear smash talk back on this post if you don’t like her. She has the voice even without all the audio tuning studies do nowadays, and she has the heart and passion for what she writes to really make the songs come alive. Her songs don’t just go on about some girl or heartbreak, her songs actually go into so many more topics. Being a mother, growing up, losing someone, love, heartbreak, betrayal, little town drama, family, and so much more.

As her tour is called, The Storyteller Tour, her songs really do tell a story. More than your standard girl meets boy, fall in love, tragedy and break up happens. No, not every song is like that of hers and that is one reason I love her songs. She puts so much emotion and heart into these stories that she tells in song.

A tug at the heartstrings. The bursting joy. A tender love and touch. Betrayal and anger…

Her songs have so many layers to them that they become their own story, their own song. It is like I said in that Music Musings post of mine ages ago: song and story alone have their own amazing qualities, but putting them together makes them that much more incredible, that much more powerful. Carrie has a way of achieving both of those together in her own sort of song and dance with the words and tune.

There are so many of her songs that are not just black and white. They are not standard. They are unique and I believe that is what makes her so successful, along with her voice, heart, and passion for what she does.

Not many artists can do this to me, but she is one of the few that have the ability with her songs to move me to pure joy, to wanting to scream, to breaking down into tears. Each of which her songs have brought me to. For someone to achieve that, if even with a few, they are doing something right, and they are doing it with their full heart and soul. It’s the same with authors as it is with singers and songwriters.

I believe an achievement like that is something to be proud of, something not everyone can claim they have managed with their fans or readers. I believe that is something to be respected as well.

As if they have a gift of touching people’s hearts and lives.

Gone But Never Forgotten

So I had no idea what to write about for this post at first. Then at work I got a slight idea on what to write, at least, until I heard some bad news…

Now my heart is not in writing anything at the moment, but my commitment to not miss a post has me writing my heartache out.

Earlier today, I learned that a horse farm I used to work at had a barn fire at 3am last night. The two horses inside perished. Both of these horses I knew and loved; one a kind, abused ex racehorse, and another a spirited and slightly tempered chestnut. Despite their backgrounds and personalities both horses were great steeds and my heart hurts to learn that they both died in the fire.

It hurts worse to know that the cause of the barn fire is still unknown. It hurts worse knowing I used to work with those horses, and I came to care for them, thinking of them as horses of my own as I always have with every horse I’ve ever worked with.

Now I am left sitting here heartbroken and devastated, with no idea on what to write other than my sorrows with a song stuck in my head over the tragedy. A song that does not help the waterworks.

As an author, I know this heartbreak and tragedy provides more insight in writing, more depth of emotion to any tragedy I may come to write, but that doesn’t help to quell the hurt inside over the loss of these two horses.

As a horse lover and addict, I wish there was something I could do for them, for the owner as well. I can only imagine her devastation to lose two babies; as to every horse owner, our horses are our babies, our children. I wish to write my condolences to her, but I know it will be small in comparison to the hurt inside over the loss.

So for this sudden tragedy, I light a candle in honor of these two horses, Ben and Bobby.  You may now be Far From Home, but you are forever in the home of our hearts. Rest in peace, babies, you will be greatly missed.

Off The Face Of The Earth

That is exactly where I have gone for the past two months about.

Off the face of the earth and down into some dark hole with no way of climbing back out.

But I did have a valid reason.

You see, about those two months ago, after up setting my Sunday Snippets for the month of November and starting to actually get on a roll and pattern of things, my computer, very suddenly and unexpectedly, crashed.

Internet explorer stopped responding with Toshiba. I could not close out of the browser. I could not get anything to respond. The screen started fizzing and flashing. Not even ctrl alt del would work to close anything out.

In the end, I had to take the battery out and force it to shut down.

And when I tried to turn it back on the next morning…

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

I got the Toshiba logo screen and then nothing but a blank glowing black screen. I could not do a damn thing. No mouse. No log in screen. Not a damned thing.

Again, I had to take the battery out and force it to shut down.

Countless times for weeks we tried to get it to boot up properly and once we finally got it into safe mode on some stroke of luck and we were able to back up nearly all of my files. We tried countless computer restores, and then computer restarts back to factory grade square one.

But nothing was working.

They would get up to seventy some percent and then crash and burn and stop working again.

Just when everything looked bleak and dull and it was coming down to either buying a new harddrive, or a new computer — granted this one is hardly over two years old to begin with, and I did NOT want to buy a new computer because I liked this one — we had a stroke of luck and the factory restore worked.

It seems now that everything is back up and running in working order. Though it does start up slower and run slower period, it is working once more and that’s about all I care about. Well, that and the fact we were able to save most of my files from being lost, though I did lose pictures in the end. I didn’t lose anything writing related though, thankfully. I would have died if I lost the 12 pages I wrote in my novel right before this crash happened.

I have gotten extremely lucky this time, and that’s to say the least.

I’m still terrified of using my computer though. Scared it’s suddenly going to crash again on me or it’s not going to turn back on. Every time I start it up and get that momentary blank glowing black screen before the sign in icon shows up gives me a mini heart attack and I panic. And every time it takes long to load something I’m panicking it’s not going to work. But hopefully as things still work that little fear will fade away into the backdrop and things will return to normal.

Hopefully.

Now, what did this little two month computer lapse cause?

Everything. Just about everything.

I had to drop out of NaNoWriMo just as I hit a groove in writing because I had no computer to write with. (And I never would have made it writing long hand.) I had to drop out of Sunday Snippets — except for the scheduled posts I had made right before the crash — and I couldn’t blog hop or even share my link that I had one up for that week. (Thankfully a good friend was nice enough to share my link to the group.) Obviously I haven’t written a blog post in two months and this blog has been completely silent for all of December now. I haven’t written a word of my novel since this crash and the characters have been driving me up the wall for it. Half of my to do list was unable to be accomplished without a computer (like blog hopping, making a new cover, posting something new to Wattpad, sharing my stories on Wattpad to get more noticed, etc etc.) so I’m even more behind now. And…

You see my point? This damned thing threw my whole existence out of whack.

I ended up turning into a night owl that was going to bed at 1am instead of my normal 3am-ish because I had nothing I could do. That is not okay. That is not okay for me. I was a lost, irritated, stressed, and down puppy for the past two months.

But now that spark of hope that things are going to get back on track is kindling, and I pray that this one doesn’t get snuffed out. It’s been a rough and crappy two months, but now there may be a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully now I can get myself back on track and pick things back up to decrease that long to do list.

And maybe just in time for the New Year.

We shall see how it goes, and I pray that I can crawl back onto the Earth and stay there this time without disappearing unexpectedly. Except, Mercury’s Retrograde is coming up next week so…

Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.

The Struggles of a Night Owl

Yes, that is me. I am a total night owl.

Ever since I did an overnight freight job in retail, I have been an even bigger night owl.

Eleven at night is way too early to go to bed. Midnight is even too early. One a.m. even feels too early. But 2am… 2:30am… 3am… Now those are the times I finally feel like going to bed.

(Of course, this makes things difficult when I have to be up at seven or so in the morning for work, but on those nights I will tend to break pattern and go to bed at least around 2am, if not a bit earlier.)

You see, my problem with being a night owl is that it is the time I want to be active and get things done, but I kind of can’t. I am most focused at night. Once that clock hits maybe three or so in the afternoon, I start to get focused. But when seven at night starts to roll around, I’m my most active and focused from there all the way to whatever ungodly hour of the night I find myself up to.

(I have been up till sunrise before, if not pulled an all-nighter. If I didn’t have to worry about being up early enough to do other things before work shifts, I would probably stay up till sunrise every day.)

I love the night.

I want to write at night. I want to organize at night. I want to play music and sing along at night. Hell, I’d clean at night if I really wasn’t tired and was looking for something to do.

There’s just one major problem:

I can’t make noise at night or I wake up my entire household.

So I can’t play music unless it’s soft or I have headphones in from my computer — which limits my mobility if I’m organizing and they do not like to stay in my ears. I can’t sing along like I wish to unless I’m again soft. I can’t clean and make noise. I can’t spread my papers out to organize or write because there’s someone sleeping in the room with me where I would use the bed to spread out more.

I pretty much can’t do much of anything that I want to at night without risking waking grouchy people up.

So what else am I left to do?

Browse aimlessly through Facebook, Wattpad, and whatever else I feel like scrolling through? Play around with Photoshop for covers? Just go to bed early — what is early for me, that is — and then toss and turn half the night?

I’m pretty much screwed either way.

Of course, I could write. I could blog hop for Sunday Snippets. I could brainstorm and such. But again, I like to be spread out with my papers and mounds of stuff when I do that. That also makes noise as I flip through notes and type, though. (I’m apparently a loud typer according to my roommate, but I don’t think I am.)

So again, I have become limited on what I can do at night. And it makes me sad because I could knock so many things off my to-do lists. I could get so many pages and chapters written if I just was able to make noise. Or even if I just had my room to myself, then I could do all of that.

(Well, except cleaning and playing loud music. But I could still play it softly and sing softly then if I’d be alone in my room.)

Of course, I could also go to a different room at night. Except, where? I’d have to carry a mound of notebooks, papers, and/or binders with me. Something for music, headphones. Then my laptop and charger in case it starts to die. And moving all of that stuff is going to make noise.

Plus, I have nowhere to go. If I wandered downstairs, I’d be waking my dog up and then I’d have to let him out and hope he doesn’t start running around like a puppy on crack. And the only other room available to me is kind of cluttered and unusable to me.

So, I am stuck trying to work quietly in my room and hoping I don’t wake a grouchy person.

I think I need to start just flat out writing when a certain roommate heads to bed — that’s if I don’t get yelled at for my typing. Or maybe, I’ll sit here and write out my camping entries since I still have yet to write all five of them. That’s handwritten, not typed. I’ll make less noise. (Minus flipping through my notes for it.)

I think that might actually be my new plan. But there’s not guarantee at all what time I’ll be getting to bed then doing that.

I’ll bet… 4am? If not later. Whoops…

Drowning

It’s been another horrible start to the week. I seem to be having a lot of them lately.

Sunday wasn’t all that bad, though it did have some raised tempers and short fuses. Yesterday…

Well, yesterday started off alright I guess. Still short fuses, but it had died down. At least until late last night when all hell pretty much broke loose.

I’m to the point where I want to just shut myself away, lock the door, keep a stash of food, and waste my time away alone with music blasting and attempting to get something done. Considering yesterday’s fiasco, I didn’t get anything at all done.

And now I’m back to work for four days, so there goes the rest of my time. To top that off even, I’m not feeling well, and I can’t call off because there is no one to cover my shift tonight.

*Sigh*

I had so many plans to get things done and all of them have just gone down the drain anymore. I’ve lost my motivation, and too much of everything else has bogged me down.

In my defense (or maybe I’m just making excuses now) I was gone for five days which really screwed me, but even coming back yesterday I didn’t get anything done. I’m so far behind on things that I feel like I’m drowning.

No room for air.

No surface in sight.

No calm seas ahead.

Just. Drowning.

I can swim, don’t get my wrong. But right now, I’m treading water and there’s a sea monster grabbing my ankle and yanking me down under the surface. None too gently either.

I need a new plan of action or just straight days of alone time with nothing else to worry about, because this certainly isn’t working this way.