Sena's DW :: Watermelon Life

Today is Day 6 of my personal July 2025 TKA Challenge. I'm trying to write 25,000 words over the course of this month and hopefully finish up TKA in the process. So far I've written 7,432 words, which is okay but not great. I'm having trouble getting back into the TKA groove after so many months of not working on it. Blegh.

But even if I'm not getting as much written every day as I did during last year's NaNo, I'm still meeting my goals for each day so I'm on track to achieve the goal I set over on TrackBear. *shrug* (It doesn't help that Pluto has been in my lap 24/7 the last week, either, HE IS SO IN THE WAY.)

The last little while the axolotl tank has gotten a little smelly, and I can only attribute it to two possible things. 1) The water that's leaked out the cracks in the bottom and is sitting there getting mouldy while my ribs heal to the point I can actually tackle swapping the tank out for the new one or 2) The external filter needing desperately to be cleaned.

You typically don't use external filters with axolotl aquariums, just the internal ones, but the internal ones only filter chemicals, not particulates, so I have both going on. Anyway, so tonight I unplugged the external filter and took it to the basement and cleaned it thoroughly, and then when I brought it back up and put it back in place... it won't turn on. I THINK I accidentally got some water into the motor casing while I was cleaning it, so I'm leaving it to dry out overnight and tomorrow I'll give it a try again. If it still doesn't work I'll have to buy a new one, which I CAN NOT afford. =/

Other than that, a little over a week ago I bought two black sweet potato vines from the garden shop at Country Produce, and one of them (Castiel) I put in the aquarium and he is THRIVING HOLY SHIT. He sits right next to Dean, naturally, but Dean isn't doing well atm, most of his leaves have systematically fallen off, especially the last little while. I have a spare Dean downstairs, though, so I just have to do some pruning and fixing and current!Dean with spare!Dean and he should be fine. Sam is still doing really well, too, and though Jack is recovering from when Pluto... ate some of him, because he was living on my windowsill next to my bed. EVENTUALLY JACK WILL BE BIG ENOUGH TO JOIN HIS FAMILY.

I've had two orders of computer ink lately where one of the cartridges was defective and my printer couldn't read it. I just returned one like yesterday, and the replacement one that came in today needs to be replaced too. I'm really fucking annoyed, but at least Amazon has a good returns policy. *shrug*

Tomorrow is Thursday, which means it's Fic Update Day on my literally nonexistent update schedule lmao. I'll be posting Solid Foundations, and I already have Nightlight finished and edited for next week. I'm currently working on Put Your Hands On Me for the week after, and then that's the end of the post-HH fics, and I'll be working on post-SS fics instead, which are totally different stuff.

But before I start posting more post-SS fics, I'm taking a break (for real this time!) to finish up TKA, and maybe get a start on My Zombie or Freefall, Then I'll go back to writinf post-SS fics for a while, and then after a few of them I'll take another break to work on something else. Maybe Frailty or Tempest. I haven't quite decided yet, I just know I need to at least PERIODICALLY work on stuff that isn't related to Horror High et al, as much as I love it.

Which reminds me, I've gotten a couple of really nice reviews since I posted Absolute Devotion, ones that were really kind and made me feel really good about myself and my writing. But in the notes for Absolute Devotion I talked about how it was a good thing I didn't mind not getting any kudos/comments on my stuff because I get like less than 200 hits and maybe 7 kudos and no comments on most of my fics. I guess a few people read that and took it to heart. It was nice.

Today I actually got around to editing Comfort Food, which was a FREAKING pain in the ass, God I hate editing so much but like it's something that's got to happen, I guess. Now Comfort Food is ready to be posted this coming Thursday, and I need to edit Something To Be Protected for the week after that, then FINALLY get around to editing Teeth for the week after THAT. Just basically SO MUCH EDITING. /SOB

I'm like 75% of the way through writing Baby, and I've started writing Supply And Demand, but I really need to work on Endling since it's now next in line (I ended up pushing Hunting Souls down father in the list after all.) But I've decided that after I post Nightingale, I'm going to drop my Every Thursday update schedule and just update as I finish fics because honestly, I love my SPN AU and everything, but I need to work on some other things for a bit because my brain is just... starting to burn out on SPN. I'm trying to keep writing it by easing back a bit and working on other stuff as well, because I love it so much, so I mean, fingers crossed for me!

What I really need to do is get back to writing TKA, after like four-and-a-half months of hiatus for various reasons. I'm SO CLOSE TO FINISHING IT and it's just EATING AT ME because I'm THAT CLOSE to having completely written an original novel, you know? So once I'm done my editing on Something To Be Protected and Teeth, I'm going to pull TKA back up and try to get it finished up. BUT THEN MORE EDITING. /SOBSOBSOB

One thing I AM considering is printing Horror High and Storm Season so I have actual book copies of them. There would be maybe four or five books in the set: Horror High, Horror High One-Shots, Storm Season and Storm Season One-Shots (possibly two volumes of those.) I wouldn't be selling them or anything, I would just have one copy of each printed for myself, you know? Ideally in hardcover, but I'm thinking of going with Lulu for printing and they don't offer hardcover as an option, as far as I can tell.

But to do this I need a cheap/free program for creating .pdf files because all the self-publishing sites work through .pdf and so far the Internet is just screaming ACROBAT at me, and that is NOT CHEAP OR FREE. I dunno, I'm still looking into it.

Come to think of it, I should have a copy of Biology printed for myself, too... .__. Hmm.

Instead of working on Hunting Souls this morning, I started that other post-HH one-shot I was thinking about. It's currently untitled so I can't even add it to my NaNo Projects Page, but I've written a couple of pages of it so far. It's just going to be mostly smut, as is typical of the one-shots in the series, particularly the post-HH ones.

I also got a binder started for Wicker Princess, which is a project I literally dreamed up back in the summer and I think has SO MUCH potential, I just need to work out the plotline and characters a little more firmly. I made a cover for it last night and now I'm just waiting for the title marker/MSC to dry on the binder so I can put the cover in and add it to my shelves. I think when I added it to my NaNo page I gave it like a February 2030 end date or something like that, lol.

I shoehorned Tareth and Sarie into Sterling, which means I have to actually finish In The Forest, so I added THAT to my NaNo page, too. I find having projects on my NaNo page to be really... inspirational, I guess. And seeing the progress I'm making on them on the little progress bar is SUPREMELY helpful. It pushes me onward even when I don't feel like writing... unless my ADHD is acting up and then NOTHING gets done, even though I have a THOUSAND tabs open.

I wish I had someone to talk to about my writing, to bounce ideas off of, but I don't anymore, and that sucks. Mom used to love hearing about my writing but she just doesn't have the patience to listen to me talk about anything anymore. And Poe... well. We all know what came of that.

Anyway.

I've turned into the kind of writer who writes out TONS of notes on projects before and during writing them... and then doesn't stick to those notes AT ALL when she's ACTUALLY WRITING THE THING. I wrote like a 23 page detailed storyline and notes for TKA before the NaNo started this past November and when I reached 50,000 words? Literally NONE of it was in the actual novel. And I was like. Fuck. And then had to scramble through the notes to see what I still wanted to keep and where I could kind of shoehorn those scenes into the novel I had actually written. To this day I STILL don't know what happened, there. I'm hoping it doesn't become a trend, because it was really frustrating. :|

Right now I'm working on that post-HH one shot, Snapshot, and the post-SS one-shot, Echoes, even though I should be working on Hunting Souls and Endling. But there's no telling what my brain will latch onto, even with the ADHD meds on board, and apparently that's true even with the upped dosage. But I have like... six? Weeks before I have to have Hunting Souls done, seven for Endling, and then Supply And Demand and THEN Echoes do idk what my brain is doing. I think it might just miss teenage!Dean and teenage!human!Cas because Snapshot takes place when they're 18 and Echoes involved a spell that de-ages them to about that time as well. Their relationship is just slightly different when they're younger. I like younger!Dean and younger!Cas in this AU the best. Plus 13-year-old Sam is always fun to write.

Yesterday Mom and I went out to Walmart (and then Michael's and then Staples) so I could buy some binders for new projects, because all my projects are organized into their own labelled binders, most with mocked-up covers to go with them. Last night I set up Circulation (Brilliant Minds/House/Helix), Frailty (SPN), Sins of Angels (original), Endgame Girls (original), Where Monsters Come From (SPN/Valdemar) and a new, smaller binder for TKA (original) because the one it was currently housed in was WAY too big (when I got it I was like "3-inch binder? 3-inch binder." but I only really need half of that.) When I did my grocery shopping last Friday I also bought binders for My Zombie (original), Sundown Valley (original), Cessation (SPN/TWD) and Freefall (original), so I'm set up for projects for the next little while. Of course now my brain will pick another completely random one to work on instead, but you know. *shrug*

I still need a binder for Riptide, I forgot about Riptide in my binder-buying spree. =/

.....

I've been buying healing gemstone bracelets recently. Not expensive ones, but ones that I can use and like the look of. So far my LUCK one, my RELEASE NEGATIVE EMOTIONS one and my ANTIDEPRESSION one have come in. I think I still have a PROTECTION one and another ANTIDEPRESSION one coming (because I can use as much antidepressant stuff as I can GET) and... I ordered one for Grandma, that's supposed to be really good for memory, made of blue agate, but I ordered it before she was literally on her death bed and I have no idea what to do with it when it arrives anymore. Maybe I'll give it to Mom or something. I don't really need my memory stimulated, I have a super good memory and always have, I just thought for Grandma... and it's pretty shades of blue. I thought she would like it. But yeah. Now I just...

I have books for her, too, in the other room, that I was waiting to give her until she finished the LAST batch of books I sent her a couple months ago. And I have other books in my thriftbooks cart for her just waiting for me to buy them. But I guess now I just... don't. I delete them, and I take the ones I already have up to the little library at the top of the hill by the church. There's no point in hanging onto them, she isn't going to make it to read them, so someone else might as well. It just hurts to be giving away gifts for her before she even had a chance to enjoy them.

Anyway.

When I went shopping this past Friday I bought a couple of new posters (I only needed one but I couldn't decide between them) so I could replace the ripped up, water damaged Spider-Man: Homecoming one that's been on my closet door since I moved in here like seven freaking years ago. Then I asked Mom which one I should put up, since I didn't want to open both of them if I didn't have to) and so now I have a nice Japanese art print poster on my closet (sorry Mona Lisa popping bubblegum! You can go up in my next apartment, assuming I ever get one) and I really like it. It's got Mt. Fuji and waves and trees and everything. It's very pretty. I would have been happy with either of them, though. <3

Oh, and I bought my own stud finder and it came in yesterday, so today at some point I plan to (attempt) finding some studs in the ceiling so I can hang more plant hangers, since I have a few plants down on Mom's shelves that I know she would really like to pitch out the window right now, so they need to find new homes. Mom doesn't thrive in clutter like I do, lol. XD

When we went to buy wormies for the axolotls on Friday they were sold out of regular worms so the guy talked me into buying trout worms instead because they're "basically the same just smaller" (and a dollar more expensive per container.) So I bought like six containers of them, each container with 24 worms in it, and when I got them home... YEAH. They are TINY. I have to feed the 'lotls TWELVE WORMS A DAY (between the three of them), as opposed to THREE of the regular sized nightcrawlers. That means my six containers will last only TWELVE DAYS, AND they cost extra. I can't AFFORD to feed them trout worms like holy shit. (Which is too bad because they're easier to handle, I don't have to cut them apart, and the 'lotls seem to love them.) But YES GOING BACK TO REGULAR WORMS IN A FEW DAYS WHEN I RUN OUT OF STUPID EXPENSIVE TROUT WORMS.

Speaking of the 'lotls, I need to give their tank a really good cleaning soon, it's getting a little grungy and they shouldn't have to live like that. It was hard to keep up with the tank when my brain was made of concrete, but now that I'm on an upped dose of the ADHD meds I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things.

What else...

Oh, I tried to fight Wren's seller on the C.O.D. thing because like, they charged my shipping UP FRONT and THEN went and charged me C.O.D.? That's fucking fraud. But they refused to refund my money even when I showed them the C.O.D. receipt and when I went to AliExpress they were USELESS as always, so I'm just out $25. Whatever. I think I'm pretty much done with AliExpress anyway, at least for now. They heavily favor the sellers in disputes and generally treat the customers like shit and I don't need that in my life. Plus I can get most of what I would want from AliExpress from Temu anyway, so. Yeah.

...Poe still refuses to acknowledge my existence but I guess that's fine. I mean, it's not FINE, it hurts, but it's "fine", you know? At least they reinstated their Insta a few days ago, every time they delete it I worry because they only do that when something really bad is happening in their life, and I get concerned that they might do something stupid, especially now that they're living on their own. I think I'll always worry about Poe, I just hope over time the worry will lessen, even though I doubt the care will ever go away.

I'm hoping they'll be willing to get back to me when I contact them when their Werewolf plush eventually arrives, though. We've both been waiting for our Snughouls plushies for a year and a half now and I really want them to have theirs.

Also on the topic of Poe, I'm going to take my spare copy of How To Be Autistic up to the little library along with the books for Grandma. I have two copies, one normal one that I bought and a signed copy that Poe sent me, and I don't need both. I'm hoping someone grabs it and is helped by it, the way Poe intended.

I have spent approximately $150 on stuff on Temu since I discovered it yesterday, and admittedly most of that was on gifts for other people for Christmas next year, but that is ridiculous and I need someone to take Temu away from me. :| I have made a resolution not to buy anything else from there until the fall when I'm doing more Christmas shopping because it is GREAT for Christmas shopping HOLY SHIT is it great for Christmas shopping. :|

The bonus is that I have everything bought for my younger brother and my Dad, some things for Lee and Mom, and a few knickknacks (planters, mostly) for me so I have a really good start on Christmas for 2025 and that will be very helpful come the fall. I'll go back to Temu and see what else I can dig up then. This is the plan, anyway. My plans have a habit of going pear-shaped on a regular basis. =/

Anyway.

Yesterday my new printer came in since my old one died last week. It wouldn't even TURN ON so like... yeah. And also the USB sticks I ordered came in, so I spent most of last night and then this morning from like 2am when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep transferring movies and TV series onto sticks to get them off my HD. I had like thirty TV series and a hundred movies on my computer, so Riptide is much happier now and running much better as well. I still want to download iZombie but like I have spent so long transferring files omg.

Yesterday Mom took me back out to Michaels to get more paint because last week when we went I got the paint I thought I needed but when I got it home it was THE SHITTIEST PAINT IN THE HISTORY OF SHITTY PAINTS. But it's my own fault for going with the cheapest brand they had. So yesterday I bought more expensive ones, as well as some seed beads and a plushie for Amy and Brit for Christmas next year (I used the gift cards I got for Christmas.) And the paint is FANTASTIC I did some painting with them tonight while I couldn't sleep and it was great. <3

The day before yesterday I literally googled "good zombie shows" because I wanted to see if there were any I hadn't seen before, and there were quite a few! So I downloaded the first season of Freakish and both seasons of Helix. I watched Freakish last night and really enjoyed it, but I can't get the second season to download. I might just buy it on DVD if I can find both seasons relatively cheaply. I've only watched one episode of Helix so far, but it's good. I'm looking forward to more. :D

Right now I'm watching Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey 2 because I have NO TASTE in movies, but like, the second one was WAY better than the first one, at least? And there's a third one coming out in 2025 so I'm looking forward to that. ALSO BAMBI: THE RECKONING IS GOING TO BE SO TERRIGOOD I CAN'T WAIT FOR THAT ONE.

Unfortunately my brain is back to being a bunch of bouncy balls right now because my ADHD meds need to be adjusted so I haven't done any real writing in a month. I WANT to, I just can't focus on it. I just find myself watching TV/movies instead because that's easier for my ADHD brain to deal with. I have an appointment with my Doc on the 30th, though, so I just have to survive until then, and I can get my dosage upped. Apparently I'm on the lowest possibly dose right now, so. Yeah.

But even though I'm not being PRODUCTIVE, WRITING-WISE, my brain is still kicking out the occasional idea, like Cessation. The newest one is called New Dawn and is about a pair of sisters (Tilde & Eloise) who time travel to try to save the lives of their parents and youngest sister (Adelaide), all with the help of a magical cat. It's one of those "changing the past has consequences in the future" situations. The actual plotline is going to take a lot of creative thought that I'm not up to at the moment, though. *fingers crossed for more ADHD meds*

Today I'm hoping to get at least a couple hours sleep and then bake some cookies. Lemon cream cheese with pecans, and maybe shortbread, too. And last night Mom somehow made the BEST SPAGHETTI IN THE WORLD, it was SO GOOD, but then I've been craving spaghetti, so that probably helped. I kind of want more right now, actually. .__.;;

P.S. My copy of the Countdown DVD came in the mail yesterday, too, so I don't have to call and yell at Amazon after all! :D

EDIT: Just booked Juna and Pluto's vet appointments for this year! Gettin' on top of things! Gettin' things done!

The last of my gifts for people finally arrived yesterday and I was like THANK GOD because they were slated to arrive anywhere up to the 30th of December, which, you know, wouldn't have been ideal. So, I was able to get my last five gifts under the tree and that means I am DONE (except for Cobin's cookies and Amy's pie which will be done at the very last minute, so probably on the 25th.)

This year we did Extended Family Christmas on the 14th, and we're doing Regular Family Christmas with my little brother tomorrow (the 21st) because he always spends Christmas in Toronto with his daughter and the girls now, and then on the 26th we're getting together with Amy, Brit, etc. (including Sarah and Heather, unfortunately) so we have no actual celebrating to do on the 24th or 25th, but that's not uncommon anymore, especially with my brother heading to TO every year.

I guess since we're all adults it probably shouldn't matter but it bothers me a little bit. I get really stuck in my ways and we used to have the big family Christmas every year on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and things are just so... different now. I know things change as you get older, but this year at Extended Family Christmas my Aunt Brenda said something about "not having to do this at all next year" meaning Grandma might be gone by then and why bother without her? And that hurt a lot because as much as I love Grandma, she's not the only thing holding this family together.

Or maybe she is, I don't even know anymore. Either way it sucks and I just want to go back to the way it used to be.

.....

Today Mom is taking me shopping. It's early for the month and terrible timing, but even if we waited until the 30th we'd be running into Boxing Week shoppers so I guess whatever. Mom is just going to sit at the McDonald's at Walmart and wait while I get my stuff. She'll take her kindle and be fine there. She HAS to come in with me at Costco, since I don't have a membership (the whole membership thing is stupid anyway, they would still be making just as much money without bilking people out of $60/year like they do but whatever), but otherwise she's just going to stay in the car, basically, because she hates shopping this time of year. Then tomorrow she gets to do it again with my brother.

Yesterday we went to Shoppers to buy pop because if Mom comes with me I get the Thursday senior's discount and it saves me like $10 to $20 depending on the month. This month it was $20 because I bought a cane as well, so I almost got the cane for free. I used to use a cane like twenty years ago when I weighed 270lbs and all my weight was fucking up my joints, and now because of the NAFLD I've gained a shit ton of weight back again and I'm having the same problems, with my already arthritic knees and hips. I won't have to use it all the time, but I am going to need it once in a while from here on out unless my Doctor and I can figure out a way to get my weight under control again. Thinking about it just makes me want to cry.

I'm still mainlining The Walking Dead. I'm up to Season 8, now, I just started it last night, but does Season 1 even really count? It WAS only six episodes, after all. The end of Season 7 is the big battle at Alexandria against the Saviors and Jeffrey Dean Morgan's delivery of "Holy shit, the widow is alive, guns a blazin'!" is possibly the best in the entire series. But then I'm just a fan of JDM in general and he did a really awesome job as Negan, start to finish.

Watching so much TWD has got me brainstorming for My Zombie a bit again, though. I did a ton of it a couple months back, but I still need to write out the plot start-to-finish and get all the details worked out. After TKA I'm going to work on either My Zombie or Freefall next, along with my never ending SPN stuff, of course. I have a new SPN/TWD crossover called Cessation that I've been tinkering with the last couple of days.

Speaking of SPN, I got a review on Storm Season today (or, last night) that made me smile first thing this morning: "THIS SEREIS IS SO IMPORTANT TO ME I THINK ABOUT IT ALL DAYYYYYY.. I've never been more invested in a fic series than I am with this one!!!!!!" SO MANY EXCLAMATION MARKS. SS only has three reviews so far (including this one) but it's really nice when someone is so enthusiastic about my work. I'm pretty much writing it for myself, because of the lack of response from the fandom, but the occasional feedback I do get is really nice.

Right now I'm working on Serendipity (#30) because of course I am. I really need to get back to writing the earlier SS one-shots, Temper Tantrums (#6) is next up on the list, followed by Hunting Souls (#7) but I just keep jumping around and putting them off. I think because even though the IDEAS are there I'm not entirely sure about the execution for either of them. Except for a car sex scene in Hunting Souls that I HAVE already written, but like, what else is new? Jump straight into the smut, says the freaking asexual writer. Figure that one out.

Anyway.

I think I might be developing an intolerance to my anti-nauseant tablets like I did with my sinus pills. This morning when I took my customary Gravol ahead of taking my pills to help keep them down I had TERRIBLE stomach cramps, which is what happens with sinus tabs now. It would make sense, considering the amount I need to take them, eventually your body just says Enough Is Enough, but still. I don't know what I'm going to do about my meds without Gravol to ease the way. At least I still have ginger ale? idek.

A couple weeks back, Pluto over-groomed himself, like a stress grooming situation, until he had a big bald patch on his belly and two bald patches, one on each leg. Juna used to stress groom sometimes, so I wasn't TOO concerned, but Juna also stress groomed himself almost completely bald so I was definitely keeping an eye on it. Pluto seems to have done it over the course of the days that we moved all the boxes out of the basement, moved the sewing desk (etc) INTO the basement, and got put up all the Christmas decorations, though, so it was probably just a "too much change too fast" thing. Pluto doesn't do well with change. But like I said, he pretty much did his over-grooming over that week and then stopped, and his bald patches haven't gotten any bigger since, and the hair is growing back in (slowly) so soon he'll look like a regular kitty again. Right now he's just got like... peach fuzz. It's actually kind of cute.

The other day I got a REALLY good picture of Kaida. The 'lotl's are slowly realizing that they can climb up on TOP of the one hide, that it has a flat top they can rest on, Ryuu was up there a couple days ago, and then the other day I looked over and Kaida was climbing up on it. And Kaida is SO handsome! He's darkened right down to black with darker black spots, and he has VIBRANT purple gills. So I took a couple of pics to share on Insta and show to Mom, and Mom was like "when you see him like that he's gorgeous!" You hear that, Kaida? You're GORGEOUS.

Itsy has been out and about a couple times lately, looking for crickees. He doesn't come out of his hide very often (at least not during the day), so he must be hungry. I'm really hoping Petsmart has large crickets in today so I can get him a good feed. If not I'll have to ask Mom to pick them up for me when she's out with my brother tomorrow.

Right, anyhoo. On to other things.

I got used to writing in this thing every day, there, but the last couple weeks I've been bad at updating. I've been doing lots of WRITING, just not in my journal. I think because I'm depressed over a great many things right now and I just... don't have it in me at the moment. It's kind of a Catch-22 because writing in my journal and venting usually helps me work things out, so by not doing it I'm just making things worse. I dunno.

Today I had a large Amazon order come in. It had two filters for the axolotl aquarium, some axolotl food and dechlorination tablets for the axolotls, and three DVDs (Deadpool And Wolverine for me, Fighting With My Family for Lee for Christmas and the Dune duology for Christmas for Mom), a new photo album since mine is almost full, some bails for working on my brother's Christmas present, two tiny glass Christmas trees (one for me and one for Mom for Christmas), a tiny sewing tape measure (for Mom for Christmas) and like five tubs of Chupa-Chups lollipops.

I've got one of the new axolotl filters up and running already. I've had a problem with gunk accumulating at the surface of the water, and this filter has a surface skimmer so hopefully it'll solve that problem. I still need to figure out the root cause of it, but I think part of it is that I need to clean the foam underwater filters. Or, at least, one of them, definitely, so I might as well do them both. I should probably also do like a 50% water change, but I couldn't do it until I had the dechlorination tablets. So.

Like I said, I've been doing a lot of writing the last while, the same as ever since I went on my ADHD meds. I'm working on TKA again, I can't remember if I mentioned that in my last entry or not, so that's good. Turns out I basically deviated from the outline I originally wrote ENTIRELY, and only the bones of TKA are the same. That's fine, though, it's still turning into something great, imo.

Other than that, I've been working on the post-SS stuff, and we're up to 30 post-SS one-shots which is RIDICULOUS but also kind of awesome. I wish I could work on them in the right order, though, like I have the first 5 (When Lightning Strikes, Ghost In The Machine, Pinfeathers, Teeth & Nightingale) done, and I'm tinkering with 6 (Temper Tantrums) and 7 (Hunting Souls), but I'm REALLY working on 28 (Wayward Daughters) right now which might as well be the last one because Halcyon Days and Serendipity are largely fluff.

Wayward Daughters is a genderbend fic, though, and while I'm finding the pronouns mostly easy to remember (I've slipped up a few times but always catch myself, though I'm sure I'll find some mistakes when I go back to edit it), I'm... struggling a little writing a f/f Destiel smut scene because my brain is going like WTF!! with two exclamation marks. Also it's my first time writing f/f for anything more than just making out. :| But like also you knew it had to happen because Dean and Cas so like ahaha.

Tonight I might work more on TKA or Wayward Daughters, or I might dig out my jewelry making stuff and start on the bracelets for my brother's Christmas gift, assuming I can find the right BEADS because I literally can't order more of them right now because of the mail strike. I was lucky I was able to find the bails and the charms on Amazon as it is. Goddamn fucking postal strike. Grr.

Today I made banana bread and I used my Best Banana Bread Ever recipe but I made it with whole wheat flour instead, and idk if that will have ruined it or not. It's currently cooling on the counter, but Lee is already circling, so I guess we'll see before the night is out!

I downloaded Venom: The Last Dance the other day but I haven't watched it yet, I just haven't been in the mood. I also have the new episode of Brilliant Minds to watch as well. Still writing that House/Brilliant Minds crossover, btw, I'm thinking on plot ideas even while I work on other stuff.

This morning I bought a bunch of books off Thriftbooks.com. I haven't gone there in a while. Anyway, I picked up several for Grandma:

-When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals
-Gorillas in the Mist
-The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story With Wings
-Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter
-Alex & Me
-The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival, and Trust in the Wilds
-Living Free
-A Zoo in my Luggage
-The Whispering Land
-Menagerie Manor

And I grabbed a few for myself as well:

-Supernatural: Children of Anubis
-In The Hunt: Unauthorized Essays on Supernatural
-Fell
-The Raven Boys
-The Dream Thieves
-Lily Blue, Lily Blue
-The Raven King

There was another SPN related book that I wanted but when I tried to add it to my basket it like... disappeared entirely. :D;; I'll have to go back and look for it again later, I guess. My copy of Feuds (the newest Valdemar anthology) came in yesterday, which was nice. I preordered it months ago.

Also, I went on AliExpress and ordered a doll to be new!Wren. Unfortunately, the doll that I had originally picked out for her was no longer available, so I had to do some shopping to find a suitable one again, but I think I managed it. We''ll see when she eventually gets here who-knows-when, again, because of the stupid postal strike. Like, dick move to pull this shit RIGHT at Christmas time, you guys. >:[

But yeah, looking forward to new!Wren, and if I dress her up like Wren and it just doesn't FIT, you know, then she can become a different character and I'll keep looking for Wren. It really is too bad that the doll I had originally picked out isn't available anymore, because she was PERFECT and had the SLIIIIGHTLY darker skin-tone that I was originally looking for for Wren.

Speaking of Wren, I need just a plain t-shirt for her to go with the corset I paid an obscene amount of money for. Also a long, flowy black skirt.

Oh, and I nabbed myself a NaNoWriMo mug from the website, to celebrate my winning the NaNo this year. I won't buy something every year that I win (because I'm sure I will again), but this was my first year since trying almost every year since 2003, so I'm kind of jazzed. I wanted a memento.

I want to celebrate the whole NaNo thing with Poe, but they still aren't responding to my emails or messages. When I sent that email to cool off our friendship for their sake, I didn't mean that we shouldn't be friends AT ALL, but that seems to be the way they took it, and looking back at the email I guess I can see why. But no matter what I try to tell them about it I get nothing back, just radio silence.

They won't even message me their new address so I can send their werewolf plush when it eventually comes in. They didn't bother to tell me they'd moved until AFTER I'd already mailed an EXPENSIVE parcel to the wrong address in October, and I had told them ahead of time I was going to mail it. Not telling me and letting me spend $125 to send it to the wrong place was kind of mean, actually.

I'm about to message them again to let them know that their werewolf will be even later coming in thanks to the postal strike, but I'm not expecting a response.

Anyway. I guess that's it for now.

Last night and this morning I finally managed to finish Teeth, which turned out 39 pages and 18,345 words long. I think it's the longest HH et al one-shot so far, which is funny because it's directly followed by Nightingale, which is the SHORTEST one so far. Next up is Temper Tantrums and then Hunting Souls and then I think Shrike? I'm starting to lose track, there are so many of them.

I still need to edit Ghost In The Machine, Pinfeathers and now Teeth, though. I've done a rough edit of When Lightning Strikes and Nightingale, but I should probably go over them again. I can't print hard copies right now because I have no ink atm though, which sucks. I can buy more closer to the end of the month, so in like a week or so.

But I promised myself I would work on TKA some more once I finished Teeth, at least 10,000-->15,000 words worth, so that's what I'm going to do before I move on to Temper Tantrums. I really want to get TKA finished and edited so I can try to get a book agent for it and see if I can get it published. That's the dream, anyway, but idk if anyone else will like my writing as much as I do. So.

Last night I moved everything out of my room so I could vacuum and then moved it all back in and my back only hated me A LOT for it, but it really needed to be done. If I didn't do anything that upset my health issues I would never do anything at all. So my floor is nice and clean and will stay that way for like... a day. Before the birds have it covered with feathers and stuff again. Sigh.

I couldn't find my wolf charms or my bails for doing one of my brother's Christmas gifts because my organization system is not so much of a system as it is SHOVE EVERYTHING ON THE SHELVES AND HOPE IT DOESN'T FALL OFF, and I ordered more charms from aliexpress but now the postal workers have gone on strike (AGAIN) so I have no idea when I'll be getting them, so I'm ordering (more expensive) ones off Amazon instead. Some bails, too, which were shockingly cheaper on Amazon than on ebay where I normally get them. But again, I can't afford to buy them until next week.

Today I have an appointment with Dr. K and I for serious have to talk to her about this whole NAFLD thing, as well as the side-effects I'm having from my breztri and possibly getting an increase in my baclofen because the less OTC muscle relaxants I can take the better. OTC ones have acetaminophen in them, which is bad for the NAFLD, and sometimes I can actually feel it in my liver when I take acetaminophen. Not really pain, but discomfort. It makes me nervous.

Tonight I'm going to try to get all the blue (and maybe some of the pink) painted on the Wiggly Foxes that I'm making for my brother for Christmas. That and I have to clean the axolotl tank again, but that's normal for my nowadays. Kaida, Haku and Ryuu keep me busy.

Oh, and tonight is my night for making dinner but I literally have no idea what I'm going to make so there's that. :|

Okay, having taken a day off and gotten an actual, DECENT night's sleep last night, I think I'm ready to get back to writing TKA (and other stuff) as well. I still have at least 30k words to go on TKA before it's finished, so I should probably focus on that, buuuuuut... you know how it is, other, shiny things catch your attention and-- no? That's just me. Oh, okay.

(I emailed Poe to tell them my NaNo/TKA news because... they were my TKA cheerleader for years, and helped me out with it a LOT, and I thought they should know I'm FINALLY getting somewhere with it. I doubt they'll respond, but I reached out, at the very least.)

But anyway, right now I have TKA open in word as well as Teeth, Mockingbird and Grace, and I kind of want to work on Echoes, too, just for, like, smut reasons. Because even though I'm personally ace as hell for some reason I enjoy the SHIT out of writing smut. Yeah, figure THAT ONE out! There's no smut in TKA because I'm aiming for the YA audience with it, but I'm considering writing a smut scene anyway and just keeping it for myself, just to... I dunno. Say that I did it once. *shrug* It might be weird writing a Taidan smut scene though, so maybe not. I do like fade to black with them a lot more, when it comes down to it so why ruin that, right?

I REALLY need to ignore my want to write Echoes and close down Mockingbird and Grace and focus my SPN energy on Teeth, though, since it's the next one in line to be written and I already skipped over it once to write Nightingale (which was one long fuckfest lol.) I'm 10,076 words into Teeth so I'm getting there but I'm aiming for around 15,000 (give or take) each for these one-shorts so I have about 1/3 to go yet.

Umm. Yesterday I made Lois Cookies because I FINALLY HAVE THE RECIPE THANK YOU LOIS!! and they turned out SO GOOD like UNBELIEVABLY GOOD, and Mom just complained that there was chocolate in them and how if she was making them she would cut the chocolate in half and then toss in some toffee chips and maybe leave out the coconut and I was like "IF YOU DID THAT YOU WOULD BE MAKING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT COOKIES??" You would not be making "them" anymore. *FACEPALM*

I was so mentally exhausted yesterday that I didn't get the axolotl tank cleaned, so I HAVE to do that today, it is imperative. The boys are all wandering around in gunk and we can't have that, can we? So that's on the slate for this afternoon.

Haku and Ryuu are both adjusting to their new home really well, but Kaida is still being a grumpy gus in the corner. He just comes out to eat and then goes and hides again and that's it. Poor guy, he just suddenly had INVADERS!! ...even though Haku and Ryuu are his own brothers. But he doesn't remember that, and he'd gotten used to being an only 'lotl so it's taking some re-adjusting. We'll get there.

I think tonight after I clean the tank I'm going to do some worms for them (EW EW EW EW EW) since they like them so much. I'm going to have to get more worms soonish, but I'm hoping to stretch the ones I have until the end of the month so I'm not asking Mom to do a separate trip just for worms. I sometimes have to do that with crickets for Itsy and I can tell she doesn't like it. =/

Oh, and then THIS MORNING I downloaded Red One, which means TONIGHT I get to WATCH Red One, and I am really looking forward to that. Literally they shoved my two favorite actors into the same movie, I am SO LOOKING FORWARD TO IT. :3

I JUST PASSED 50,000 WORDS ON TKA SO I HAVE OFFICIALLY DEFEATED THE NANO GOAL ON THE FIFTEENTH OF THE MONTH LOL which is fine, actually, because TKA is only like half done so I can just keep working on it, now, until it's complete. But still. THE 15TH OF THE MONTH.

I entered my last word count and it took me over 50,000 and a screen popped up with confetti and stuff congratulating me and I was like YES IT TOOK 21 YEARS BUT I FINALLY DID IT I WOULD LIKE TO THANK MY ADHD MEDS FOR ALL THEIR SUPPORT--

Anyway I took screenshots, and I'm considering buying myself a NaNo mug. I wouldn't buy one EVERY time I beat it from now ON, but just to commemorate the first time, you know? I know a lot of people out there have probably done it tons of times and would be like "stop fussing, you just did it once" but it is SUCH a big deal for me omfg.

Having that little laurel on my icon means EVERYTHING to me right now.

I am considering changing Tatsuya's name to just Ryuu which is super obvious, yes, but I like it much better than "Tatsuya" for some reason, so I'm going to ponder that for a while and decide by the end of the day. Also Haku is the one with the PLETHORA of light spots on the top/tip of his tail, and Tatsuya/Ryuu is the one with a darker tail literally they are basically identical I'M DOING MY BEST HERE.

Anyway, yesterday Mom and I headed to Elmvale, which is about an hour away (give or take) to pick up Kaida's brothers. I was buying one, but the lady asked, since I have such a huge tank, if I might be willing to take a third one as well, if she didn't charge me for it? Apparently she was having a hell of a time finding PROPER homes for them and felt really good sending them home with me, so I said sure, which is why I ended up with two yesterday and not just the one I'd originally intended.

NO REGRETS!! ...except I have to figure out how much to feed them, now that there's three of them? Though Kaida is still sulky so he didn't eat this morning. I'm not worried, though, give him a couple days and he'll get used to the New Normal and everything will be fine again. I definitely need to buy some more axolotl pellets at the end of the month, though. Also nightcrawlers. Blegh. :|

When I fed Kaida that worm a few days back AND SWORE OFF WORMS UNTIL THEY COULD EAT THEM WHOLE but then changed my mind about that, Kaida ate 3/4 of the worm, so they're very close to being able to just eat whole worms. Maybe another two or three months just to be sure? If Kaida is anything to go by, they grow like bad weeds, so they'll be big enough for full worms in no time AND THEN I WON'T HAVE TO CUT APART LIVING ANIMALS ANYMORE AHAHA!! /SOB

Um.

Writing-wise, I am BLOWING through TKA, but it's going to end up WAY longer than I originally speculated. I'm currently sitting at 77 pages and 37,532 words on the 13th of the month (and I'm hoping to get another 2,500 written later today), so I'm going to get to 50,000 words way before the NaNo is over, but like... almost NOTHING that I originally planned to put in TKA is actually IN TKA yet, I still have SO MUCH to write. I've written 77 pages and 90% of that is extra stuff that just CAME TO ME as I was typing. It's DEFINITELY going to be AT LEAST 80,000 words, if not more.

This is both exciting and terrifying because finishing TKA leads to EDITING TKA, which leads to FINDING AN AGENT for TKA and (hopefully) getting TKA published. And that is like... my ENTIRE UNIVERSE for AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER had revolved around wanting to finish a book and get it published and I just COULD NOT DO IT BEFORE. So NOW I'm kind of... anxious about it, which is stupid, but I'm excited, too, which I guess is LESS STUPID, assuming I can even get an agent and get published to begin with. I don't even know where to START with that stuff. :| Poe was supposed to be introducing me to THEIR agent, but... yeah. Not so much, anymore. idk.

But technically I've already completed two books with Horror High and Storm Season, so it's totally doable, I just have to do it with original characters and concepts that I won't get yelled at over copyright on lol. TKA is doing nicely, and then after that I'm going to work on Freefall and/or My Zombie, and of course a bunch of fanfiction stuff at the same time. I think I might work on What Angels Dream for a little bit today, actually.

First I need to have a nap, though, which I am off to do riiiiiiiight about now. =.=

Today I did basically nothing for most of the day because I'm so sore from hauling boxes up and down the stairs at Dad's place yesterday. I slept until my alarm (for once) and then after I'd been up for a couple hours I was like "fuck it" and went back to sleep again for like three more hours. My legs are killing me, like going up and down the stairs is a CHORE and my back keeps seizing up at random intervals.

I downloaded last week's episode of Brilliant Minds and it was SO GOOD. I cried. And then Dr. Wolf kissed the Neurosurgeon whose name I can never remember and I was just going CALLED IT because I knew a few episodes as soon as they offhand mentioned that the Neurosurgeon was bi. The one thing that bothers me about Brilliant Minds is that every second character is gay, and normally I LOVE LGBTQA+ representation in my media, but Brilliant Minds is really going overboard with it sometimes. But I wonder if that's part of the point of the show.

I also downloaded The Crazies (2010) because I haven't watched it in FOREVER and I had the urge to. Also my copy is in storage right now, so I have no access to it. It like... borders on being a zombie movie without ACTUALLY being a zombie movie, you know? At some point I should watch the original The Crazies, actually...

Tonight I like deep-cleaned the axolotl tank to make it nice for the new additions tomorrow. Though I'm not looking forward to the drive, I'm definitely looking forward to picking up my two new 'lotls. But right now Kaida is mad at me because I took everything out of the tank to clean the hides and suction the aquarium, so he's just being a grumpy 'lotl. It's actually pretty cute.

Mostly, though, today I've just been working on writing. I'm up to 69 pages and 33,093 words on TKA, so I'm WAY ahead of the game for the 50,000 word goal of the NaNo, but we'll see how much I actually manage to get done before the end of the month. I'm writing on average approximately 3,008 words a day, which is fantastic, but I'm also working on other things at the same time. Today I wrote 2,227 words on Echoes (mostly Destiel smut), and I officially have Freefall open in Word right now, too. I wrote the ending of Freefall the other day, the first thing I wrote for it, so it's like. Sure, why not?

Also everything yells at me that "Freefall" isn't one word but FUCK YOU SPELLING PROGRAMS I'M USING IT AS ONE WORD ANYWAY. Literally it's just the title, I don't think I'll even end up using it in the novel itself, so whatever. But after I finish TKA I want to work on Freefall and My Zombie because those are the two that have the most development for them, really, so it makes sense.

I also want to work on the Storm Season fics (THERE ARE SO MANY) and Where Monsters Come From, too, of course. And more SPN Witcher AU. And I want to get back into my Valdemar stuff, finish up some of the fics that've been dormant for a while. Marionette. Brothers At Arms. Of The Deepest Dye. That kind of thing. And, naturally, I want to write a House M.D./Brilliant Minds crossover because the idea of House and Wolf in the same room just TICKLES ME. That sort of thing.

But I need to keep in mind, when I do finish and edit TKA, that if I manage to get an agent and sell the book, I could potentially be looking at writing the whole TKA series, which is 10 books long. The second one is Pelts For Pounds, and then the third is called Grimoire, etc. They all have titles, characters and plots but need more work before they're ready to be written.

Anyway.

Plotting and planning, plotting and planning.

FIRST OFF, I just fed Kaida a live worm for the first and possibly last time. It WIGGLED and BLED and then the PIECES WIGGLED WHILE THEY BLED and I felt SO, INCREDIBLY BAD oh my God. Like even digging it out of the soil was terrible I have never dug for earthworms before and then it was kind of cute?? And I CUT APART AN ANIMAL WHILE IT WAS STILL ALIVE. I FEEL LIKE SUCH A HORRIBLE PERSON.

But like... maybe I'll just get used to it, maybe it'll get EASIER?? If not, my 'lotls can survive perfectly fine on just axolotl pellets and frozen bloodworm treats, so I mean. That might be a thing that happens with my bunch. Just. The worm thing was not a great experience for me, right off the bat. :|

UPDATE: Kaida didn't even eat his worm bits. Goddammit. Right. So maybe I'll just #freetheworms and stick with pellets from now on. Or, at least until Kaida and friends are big enough to eat the worms whole, you know?

...anyway. Other than that. Um.

Even though I didn't write anything yesterday because reasons, I did do my writing this morning and so I'm still a day ahead in NaNo maths. I'm hoping to get some more written tonight, too, after I make dinner and feed the cats, before I go to bed. Hopefully another couple thousand words or so. Right now I'm at 35 pages and 16,119 words, which isn't nothing, considering I spent like three years dicking around with TKA and not actually writing anything until I got onto the ADHD meds.

Plus it's nice to be accomplishing something for the NaNo for the first time, since I always seem to have a block when it comes to November and writing my fffffffreaking NaNo project. I don't think I'll FINISH TKA this month, because I'm aiming for 80,000 words for it, but I can at least get to the 50,000 word NaNo goal, right? Right.

I have Teeth open to work on as well, but I'm actually more focused on TKA (for once) the last couple days, since I finished Nightingale. But then again, maybe I'm just not feeling Teeth at the moment and I should try writing one of the other 50,000,000 POST-SS ONE-SHOTS I have going on atm. Maybe Kindling or The Desert Tide, or even What Angels Dream? I dunno. I'll think on it I guess.

Tonight is my turn to cook dinner and I'm making shepherd's pie with tofu instead of ground beef (technically cottage pie, whatever) because I should be eating less red meat and that's a PROBLEM around here, especially hamburger. So I bought some tofu the other day and I'm going to do this tonight and see how it goes. Right now I'm pressing the tofu to get as much water out of it as possible before I start cooking at 5:30pm.

Mom is going in with an open mind, I think, but Lee is predictably skeptical because MEAT. Like at least one day a week when he cooks I'm going to get red meat, but that's better than before, when we ate it basically all the time. Mom is willing to switch to chicken/turkey and I'll cook with tofu and fish, too. REAL FISH NOT BATTERED AND FRIED FISH. Which. I might do next week, I have some salmon in the garage freezer. Mom doesn't like fish but she can deal once in a while.

I don't know, it's just like... I have all these new restrictions of my diet and I'm also trying to work around Mom and Lee. It's going to be difficult.

On a somewhat related note, yesterday I got my tea at Tim Horton's with almond milk and WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ALMOND MILK IS SO GOOD? I would have gotten it FOR SURE instead of the Next Milk I have right now if I had known. Boo. (Next month, Sena, next month.)

I know it's only Day 4 but SO FAR SO GOOD ON THE NANO FRONT. This is the best I've ever done in the NaNo, sadly, so I am super pumped. I might actually like... do this thing. Currently I'm at 17 pages and 8,132 words which doesn't sound like a lot but is close to 10,000! :D The best part is that it's not even taking me all day, so I'm also working on other writing at the same time, which I didn't think I'd be able to do for basically all of November!

So, I've also been working on Nightingale, which is the post-Storm Season one-shot that is basically 100% smut, if you'll recall. I'm at 23 pages and 10,598 words for it, and it's going to clock in as a short one-shot in comparison to the others, but that's probably a good thing all things considered like there's only so much of Dean and Cas being in each other's pants in one fic that people can take, I feel. xD;; Anyway, when I finish Nightingale I really need to get back to Teeth because why am I writing these one-shots out of order? GAH.

Also, I've had time for some arts and crafts as well, so I've been working on some wiggly foxes! Finishing up my current set of four, starting a new set of four that's a Christmas gift for my brother, and doing Christmas and Halloween themed ones just for shits and giggles. WIGGLY FOXES FOR EVERYONE. (Mom says if it comes out nice enough maybe we can put the Christmas one on the Christmas tree this year so IMMA MAKE IT FUCKIN' FANTASTIC.)