Category: Stress

Take a deep breath. Again. Good.

anxiety, Depression, Exercise, fencing, Friendship, Health, Home, Mental Health, SCA, Sewing, Stress, swordfighting, Thoughts, Time, Work

That’s what the surgeon at work says when he listens to a patient’s lungs. I always find myself unconsciously deep breathing with the patient as the doctor says this, and even though it’s relaxing in a way, it’s not enough for the day I had yesterday.

It was busy. I mean, I did some standing around, but it was mostly when I was standing still during the lasers. Mostly I was hurrying back and forth from room to room to room, and though I managed to get a break I never felt rested or relieved. It didn’t help that the heater was on at 73 all day long, and when I first got to the office it was so hot in the exam rooms that I immediately started sweating. From there, it got worse. Between the movement, the heat being on, and the stress of one problem after another, I ended up damn near drenched by the end of the long day. Even though the temperature was in the 40s when I left, I cranked the A/C to half blast and left a window open as I drove home. It took about fifteen minutes to cool off.

But I’m trying. I’m trying to calm down, trying to take those two deep breaths when I need to. I’m trying not to stress about the things I can’t change, and I’m trying to be more assertive in the things I can. Yeah, I’m still going out of town this weekend. I didn’t really try to fight with my husband on that. But I did tell him that I need to slow down and that I’m feeling stressed. I can’t do anything much about the work stress, but I can at least try to minimize the home stress. I will cut down on the SCA activities. Sadly, that sometimes means cutting down on time spent with friends who also participate in SCA activities.

Once my laundry is done–any minute now, really–I’m going to finish getting dressed, go to the post office, and go visit with a friend. I need that so much right now; “me” time with someone I enjoy talking to. I haven’t spent much time with my local SCA friends lately because I’ve been trying to cut back wherever I can, and unfortunately the local events and get-togethers have suffered. By the time I’m done with work, or back in town from a weekend away, or whatever, I just don’t have it in me to go exercise with my friends or go to rapier practice. I quit going to the monthly populace meetings and the months Court Nights because A – I’m not an officer anymore, so I don’t have to go to the populace meetings and B – no awards or recognitions are ever given out at Court Nights, so what’s the point? It’s generally a regurgitation of the information from the populace meeting, which I can easily get from my husband. So, long story short, I don’t see my local friends too much. Feeling kinda guilty about that lately, so I need to see when I can find the time to hang out with them where it won’t add to my already-full plate.

That being said, the next two months–basically now through Estrella War–are still going to be hectic. I still need to reevaluate the events I’ve agreed to attend and see which I can stay home for. I’ll feel bad leaving my husband to attend on his own, but I have to take my health and well-being into consideration. The stress is affecting me adversely, so I need need need to do this. For me. For my sanity. For my physical health and mental health. All of it.

Post-Christmas funk

#books, #design, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, Art, Christmas, costuming, Crafting, Depression, embroidery, Geek, Holiday, Insomnia, Mental Health, New Year, Novel, Parties, SCA, Sci-fi, Sewing, Sleep, Stress, Thoughts, Time, Work, Writing

It happens. Christmas comes and goes and you’re left with a void that you don’t quite know what to do about. You may have to go back to work, or do chores, or return something that someone got you, but after that, what is there?

For me, I’m thankful that I have my sequel to work on. Sure, I’ve got other projects aplenty, but this morning, at oh-dark-thirty, I cranked out almost two thousand words… And that’s not taking into account the words I deleted. I was on a roll!

Of course right before I got to the good part, I had to leave for work. The office beckons, and I must answer. At least until, say, three o’clock or so. Then it’s off to the household twelfth night party. Tomorrow’s a full day of lasers, Friday through Sunday I’m off, and next week, aside from having New Year’s Day off, it’s back to life as usual.

So I’m excited over the progress in my next book, not so much over the working. And yes, I am aware that I have nearly two full Persian outfits to make and a set of cuffs to embroider and two hems and….

Ugh. Can another holiday be added in here?

Aww, who am I kidding? I need the money from the day job, need the sanity from the writing, and need the sewing projects for when the words fail me.

It’s all over when the fat man sings

#books, #dreams, #dystopian, #publishing, Abnormal, Age, Birthday, Celebrity, Christmas, Cosplay, costuming, Crafting, embroidery, Exercise, family, Fandom, Fitness, Geek, Health, Holiday, Home, New Year, Novel, Parties, SCA, Sci-fi, Self Publishing, Sewing, Stress, Time, Weight loss, Work, Writing

So maybe it’s not “over” quite yet. I mean, it’s barely 2:00 PM. But the presents have been presented, the family ate breakfast with us, and all-in-all, aside from Christmas dinner at my parents’ house, Christmas is pretty much over. I haven’t even had a full day off from sewing and stuff–my husband just asked how far along I am on the Persian garb. I need to stop being so wicked; no rest, man, no rest at all.

I keep trying to tell myself that after Estrella things will calm down. I’ll have fewer sewing projects, I’ll be able to back away and take a break from SCA events, and I’ll have (theoretically) more time to write. That’s still two months away, though, and I have a crapton of things to do in those two months.

Did I enjoy my Christmas morning? Sure. It was nice having the family over, everyone seemed to love their gifts, and breakfast was tasty. But now, it seems, I don’t know what to do with myself. I could write, sure, but that’s work. So is sewing. And embroidery. I wanted a day off…but it’s not gonna happen. I can see that now.

I’ve been doing a lot of whining as of late. I need to quit that…along with quitting junk food and overeating, and quitting volunteering for all the things, and quitting not going to exercise (though that one will perhaps be the toughest, because I hate exercising in public and the group of friends I work out with now goes to a public gym).

Maybe I can be lazy for another week and save the above paragraph for New Year’s resolutions. Have a big ol’ list of stuff that I’m going to quit or give up or start or start back up. Who knows. I kinda hate resolutions, too. I tend to not get them done if they’re anything associated with me losing weight or getting healthier. The writing ones? Yeah, I can do those. Cosplay goals? If I can lose the weight, I can usually manage. It’s kind of a matter of how hard I want it, or how hard Thing X is. If Thing X is writing, I got this. If Thing X is getting on a treadmill to have half the town watch my fat jiggle, well, Thing X might not be a resolution I’d keep.

What will 2019 bring me? It’ll bring me age 40, hopefully around the time Escaping the Light hits shelves. That would be an awesome birthday present. Forty years old and a three-time published novelist, with two of them traditionally/indie published and one self-published. Yeah. A published sequel will be great for the midlife crisis. Maybe I can become a shut-in when I’m not at work and just churn out novels for the next, say, twenty to twenty-five years. Hit the Golden Years with a bunch of series and standalones.

It’s nice to dream, anyway…

Release

#bipolar, anxiety, Depression, Health, Mental Health, Stress, Work

Things are getting tougher.

I want to get all this stress out, but I don’t want to talk about it. I’m tired of crying, and if I talk about it I’ll cry…so I’m writing about it.

You see, I used to cut. I know, I know, that’s, like, considered a teenage girl kinda thing. Well, maybe until Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects. Good book, but the miniseries was kinda bland. Anywho, up until eight or nine years ago, when I got stressed or depressed or manic or self-deprecating or any other such extreme emotion, I’d cut myself. Not, like, bad. Just enough to bleed. Just enough for the water to sting when I took a shower.

I haven’t seriously wanted to for a long, long time.

I kinda want to now.

Work is too much. Home is too much. SCA is too much. Bills are too much. Life is too much.

I’m fighting it, but it’s getting stronger. I kinda want to feel the rush. To bleed. To release some of this pent-up anger and frustration and depression and anxiety and hopelessness.

Yeah. That. I want that. Not that deep…just the surface. But yeah.

But I can’t. I won’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.

Maybe this post will be cathartic enough that the urge will pass. I’ll waffle inside my head on whether or not I’m really going to try to find a knife or razor blade or something. I’ll think about it, and I’ll realize that I don’t know where in the house any of those things really are. So much stuff is kinda in flux because of the move, and kinda because I’m terrible at organizing things.

Nah, I’m not gonna. I’d have to search the garage or the craft room or the bedroom, and I have no real reason to go to that much effort. So I’ll take a deep breath, type some more, and then take my nightly pills and go lie down.

I still have the stress. The depression. The anxiety. The slightly hopeless feeling. But I don’t think I’ll need release. Not like that. Not tonight, and not any time soon.

This has been a little cathartic. Not quite full-on flood-of-emotions cathartic, but a little.

Just one more day of work before four days off, two on, three off, one on, one off. That’ll help the work part of the stress, but not the budget part of it. I’m gonna have a stress buildup until the good ol’ taxes get filed and the returns come in. Pay off a couple people, pay down a couple things, get some stuff taken care of.

Gotta hold on.

Gotta resist.

Can’t release.

Not now.

Not ever again.

Slow burn

#bipolar, #books, #design, #publishing, Abnormal, anxiety, Art, costuming, Crafting, Depression, embroidery, fencing, Freedom, Friendship, Health, Home, Insomnia, Marketing, Mental Health, Musings, Novel, Parties, Promotion, SCA, Sci-fi, Sewing, Sleep, Social Media, Stress, swordfighting, Thoughts, Time, Work, Writing

I’m trying. I really am.

I get up and go to work every weekday (unless the office is closed or–rarely–I request off for an appointment or something). I work a full week, sometimes into overtime, and I hardly ever call out or ask to go home early. I clock in on time, and I stay until my boss says I can go. If that means clocking out less than twelve hours before I have to clock in again, then that’s what I do. If it means working when I’m in pain, I do. If it means working through a panic attack, I do. I can’t afford not to.

Most weekends I end up doing SCA things; whether it’s an event, a household meeting, rapier practice, or crafting various things for SCA events, household meetings, or (rarely) something just for me.

I sleep when my body lets me. Sometimes it’s six hours, more often closer to four, maybe four and a half. I drink caffeine and take Adderall to make it through the above listed days without falling asleep sitting up…or standing up. Or while driving.

I do the laundry every week, sometimes multiple days a week. Sometimes I’m aching enough that I have difficulty picking up the clothes that end up on the floor instead of the hamper…. so I leave them. Sometimes I’m so worn out from all the other things that I leave the clean laundry in the dryer for a few days and just fluff it when I need something to wear. Sometimes I go to the effort of taking the laundry out of the dryer and putting it back in the hamper until I have the energy to put it away.

When I have time alone–usually in the wee hours, when sleep evades me–I write. Or edit. Or revise. Or embroider. Or sew. Or plan and execute social media marketing stuff for my writing.

There’s more, but right now I can’t think of exactly what.

I’m trying. I really am. But I am feeling more and more burned out lately. Just thinking about the things I have to do makes me exhausted and depressed. The things that I used to do for fun are now duties. Chores. Requirements. Necessities. There are deadlines upon deadlines upon deadlines. Even the SCA events that used to get me all excited now fill me with dread. It’s not “yay! I get to do this thing!” It’s “well, I guess I have to do this thing.” 

I need some me time. Problem is, time is not something that I have available to give myself. It’s all filled with things. Work. SCA. Housework. Crafting.

I can only do so much. My body and my mind and my spirit are all stretched as far as they can go.

I need to think. Introspect. Look inside. Take all the pieces and see where they fit–and what ones shouldn’t even be in the puzzle. I need to prioritize and cut back where I can. 

Some people might feel like I’m pulling away, but it’s not trying to get away from them so much as trying to regroup.

I’m committed to several things for the next two months. I have to hold on at least that long. But after Estrella War?

I might not try as hard. I really might not.

Right of passage

Age, anxiety, Health, Learning, Mental Health, Musings, Stress, Thoughts, Time, Work

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.

Full Plate, Table 7

#books, #design, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, anxiety, Art, costuming, Crafting, embroidery, Geek, Novel, SCA, Sci-fi, Sewing, Stress, Time, Work, Writing

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.

Revisions revisited

#books, #design, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, Crafting, Novel, Reading, Sci-fi, Sewing, Stress, Thoughts, Writing

I just can’t right now. I can’t look at Book 2 again. Not right now.

It’s not that it’s bad. It’s not. But I’ve read and reread and re-reread ad nauseum at this point, and I just don’t think I can read it yet again.

My biggest problem is that the word count is suffering, and I need to bump it up–but I’ve looked at it in such detail for so long that I can’t see the bigger picture. I can’t see “here’s some telling that I can expand by showing instead” or “this dialogue can be beefed up” or “kill that adverb and make the sentence more descriptive in other ways, with stronger verbs and adjectives” etc. I’ve stared at the doc until my eyes damn near bled.

Perhaps I’ll give myself a few days “off” from revisions. Relax. Do some embroidery or whatever.

I made a cute little card holder today. That’s a thing I did to procrastinate.

See? It matches Abnormal. I had fabric left over from the bookmarks I made, so I used it to make a little mini-wallet for myself. Yeah, I got the top stitching too far in and had to seam rip, and yeah, you can see a bit where I zig-zagged sew-in interfacing instead of waiting until I could get stiffer fusible interfacing…it’s just for me, so it’s not like I’m trying to sell the thing. 😉

Yeah, I think a few days off from revisions are in order. Maybe with some “fresh” eyes I can see what needs to be done where.

I might actually outline Book 3 before I start. Well, re-start. I kinda had a chapter or two going, but I think I need to scrap that and start over. I don’t like where I began the story as far as timeline goes. Need to back it up a bit and not just skip ahead months and months to make it easier.

Now, it may sound like I’m putting the proverbial cart before the trilogy, but hear me out. Publishing is a process; it takes time. I can’t just wait for Book 2 to be released before I start on Book 3. I have to keep ’em rolling so long as there’s story to be told. My Facebook memories are reminding me that I had Book 2’s first draft started before I even had Abnormal submitted to the publisher, and I have to keep that going. Get Book 2 ready, but start Book 3 while Book 2 is in edits.

Book 4? It’s going to have to wait a while. I have a tentative title, but I need to have Book 3’s first draft finished before I am 100% certain where it’s going. Even though I might try planning Book 3 more than pantsing, the characters still take over from time to time and tell me I’m wrong.

They’re living the story, so I guess they know better than I do…..

All they want for Christmas is ABNORMAL

#books, #dystopian, #publishing, Abnormal, Holiday, Marketing, Novel, Promotion, Reading, Sci-fi, Stress, Time, Work, Writing

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

A learning experience for all involved

#design, anxiety, Art, costuming, Crafting, Education, embroidery, Learning, SCA, Sewing, Stress, Thoughts, Time

Estrella War is fast approaching, and though I have a ton on my plate–between sewing/embroidery projects, revisions, and life in general I don’t have a lot of free time–so of course I decided to volunteer to teach a couple beginner embroidery classes at War.

It’s not quite been a year since I started embroidering. I am almost wholly self-taught. And I am terrible at teaching things that I can pick up without help. So why did I decide to do this??

Part of it is because I want to get better at my art, and teaching something can sometimes lead to insight to better ways to do said thing. Part of it is because I want to impress my hopefully-future-Laurel. (Yep, Guilty.) And part of it is to get over my fear of talking in front of strangers and my fear of not being able to teach.

My problem with teaching is that, as mentioned before, I tend to pick up new things without much help. I am self-taught in embroidery through Pinterest tutorials and a book my husband bought me. That’s kinda pretty much it. Not trying to brag, mind you, but it is what it is. I learn through seeing and doing. I see a picture of a type of stitch, and I do it, and there you go. All of the following were pretty much done by derping my way through it. Go to Pinterest, search Stitch A, look at pictures, practice Stitch A, lather, rinse, repeat. I’ve even done some mundane embroidery for family members thanks to this learning method.

Not everyone learns in the same manner as I do, though, and that’s the sticky part. I have to try to tailor my teaching method to help people who don’t learn the same way I do. 

It’s going to be tricky, but I think I can do it. If I’m going to teach as a Laurel some day, I need to do it. Am I nervous? Yeah, but I’ve got a few months to get over that. And I get to plan ahead. I’m not diving in headfirst without a clue as to whether or not the pool has water in it. Who knows? I might even make a tutorial post or two between now and then to give me practice at teaching without an audience, so I can work out the kinks. (Heh-heh, I said “kink.”)

I’ll get all the things done eventually. The Persian garb. The gift bags for Christmas. My husband’s Viking hood. The cuffs and hems for Their Royal Majesties’ garb. The embroidery for the Barony of Tyr Ysgithir’s new Lady in Waiting bag. New cup cover for myself, possibly? Wait. I probably shouldn’t add new projects until I finish these…..