So it's been forever....
Just what the title says. It's been forever since I posted here. Truthfully, I needed to Google how to do a cut thingie because it's been so long (and then I saw the little tool doohickey and wow, it really has been forever since I don't remember that being there the last time I posted). Long post is also going to be long.
Life has been... interesting this year. Like so many people around the world, Covid has changed things in my life. I'm fine health-wise at the time of this post. Job-wise is a different story. After 20 years working at the same place, I am now jobless. That's not entirely terrible. I was feeling burned out by the job for probably a year before Covid hit but never considered stopping. I'm appreciating the time off now but I'm not sure yet what I want to be when I grow up. I have the luxury of time to be able to decide where I'm going to go from here.
The Hubby is still at my brother's house organizing and selling stuff. We'd anticipated selling a lot of stuff this past spring and then Covid hit. Everybody went into lockdown and sales weren't a thing since nobody could leave their house for non-essential stuff. Once people were able to go out, so many had lost their jobs and were unsure of where they were going to get income, buying stuff priced at several thousands of dollars wasn't even on the to-do-list. Yeah, there's lots of stuff that isn't that pricey but people are wanting to hold onto their cash not spend it right now.
Because of the travel restrictions in place, Hubby is effectively trapped there. He's in a lower risk area than me and there is only 1 flight a day out. He'd also have to come through Toronto's Pearson airport and Toronto is currently grey-zoned and in lockdown until December 21st. I win Covid bingo having all 4 medical issues (immuno-compromised, lung disease, genetic heart defect & TIA's) that could make contracting the virus more difficult. We talk every few days but we haven't seen each other in 16 months and that is unlikely to change for the next several months.
I have been writing, playing Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) and playing with my dolls. I'm an introvert so this enforced isolation isn't really that big of a difference to my regular life style. I pretty much live that way normally. I miss being able to see my friends (they live in Toronto and I'm NOT going there right now) and I miss playing in-person with my D&D group (we do it online now) but overall, not much changed for me on that score.
On the writing front, for those not in the know, I have posted some stuff over on Ao3. Some I've posted in other places but the majority of it is only posted there. I've been writing a lot in my Divine Worship World (pretty much exclusively actually). I'm having a lot of fun with the characters and their stories and as per my usual, the stories have a tendency to turn epic in size. I'm currently working on a story called Wish Fulfillment and I'd say I'm roughly 1/2 to 2/3's of the way done. It currently sits at 133,634 words and that is in unedited, first draft format. Yeah, he's a big one. I have other stories in progress as well (of course I do). The Dire Heart is also very large at this point, sitting somewhere in the neighbourhood of 120K words. That one is also at roughly the 1/2 way mark.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these stories when I finish them. Do I post them for free on Ao3? Do I do some sort of Paetron thing? Do I self-publish? Do I go to a publisher with them? Considering my non-work situation it's probably a smart idea if I publish in a way that makes me money considering the amount of time that's gone into writing these. I think a publisher is out simply due to the content of the stories.
Wish Fulfillment is likely okay but The Dire Heart has enemas (although not in a sexual context), come drinking, large object insertion, sounding and egg-preg and I don't think that'll fly very well with most publishers. It also mentions events of the prologue story, Metamorphosis (which is available on Ao3), which features rape, forced slavery, come drinking, fisting, double penetration and probably some things I'm forgetting to mention. But I'm also fine with that as it's the story that wants to be told.
Related to the stories I'm working on are my dolls (you knew I was going to talk about them). I currently own 69 of the wallet vampires. No, that's not a typo. This year alone, I've acquired 6 of them. No, that's not a typo either. It started with Kulfi (one of the characters in Wish Fulfillment). Kulfi is an Impl Ziv in a custom green resin. He was supposed to be Malachite as an adult (the story with him and his husbands, Triptych Heart, is also a WIP) but Impl cast him in the wrong shade of green. When I notified them of this, they apologized, said they'd re-make him in the correct colour and that I could keep the "wrong" green doll as a gift. I thought about selling him for less than 24 hours. Once I decided to keep him (like I would've done anything else *rolls eyes*), I needed to find him his husbands. I did in fairly short order. Rhyia is a grey Soom Euclase (meditation head, open-eye mod) with the owl feet as his defaults. Akusuo is a honey mango Dollshe Hound. Akusuo is the God of Secrets, Wishes & Dreams.
The other new additions are Macian (Spirit Doll Dark LE50), Wae-Lan (Miracle Doll Asael LE50) and an as of yet unnamed Soom FCE Vesuvia Poison Kiss. The Vesuvia is a girl doll but I'm going to have her modded into a him. I've wanted to do that since she was released way back in 2010. These 3 are a thruple, too. Wae-Lan is the God of Pain & Sorrow. I haven't started anything (yet) on their story. Ideally I'd like to finish other WIP's before starting something new (you may all laugh hysterically now).
I've also been making resin eyes for my dolls and it's a lot of fun. I've made some hard cap wigs, too. That's a new skill for me and there is a learning curve to it but I've found it pretty fun. I sewed the wig Macian wears and I'm super pleased at how that turned out. I organized all the doll clothes I have by size and no word of a lie, it took me 2 hours to do that. I made 95% of the clothes, too.
So, in all, I'm doing okay, puttering along and pursuing stuff I enjoy doing.
Life has been... interesting this year. Like so many people around the world, Covid has changed things in my life. I'm fine health-wise at the time of this post. Job-wise is a different story. After 20 years working at the same place, I am now jobless. That's not entirely terrible. I was feeling burned out by the job for probably a year before Covid hit but never considered stopping. I'm appreciating the time off now but I'm not sure yet what I want to be when I grow up. I have the luxury of time to be able to decide where I'm going to go from here.
The Hubby is still at my brother's house organizing and selling stuff. We'd anticipated selling a lot of stuff this past spring and then Covid hit. Everybody went into lockdown and sales weren't a thing since nobody could leave their house for non-essential stuff. Once people were able to go out, so many had lost their jobs and were unsure of where they were going to get income, buying stuff priced at several thousands of dollars wasn't even on the to-do-list. Yeah, there's lots of stuff that isn't that pricey but people are wanting to hold onto their cash not spend it right now.
Because of the travel restrictions in place, Hubby is effectively trapped there. He's in a lower risk area than me and there is only 1 flight a day out. He'd also have to come through Toronto's Pearson airport and Toronto is currently grey-zoned and in lockdown until December 21st. I win Covid bingo having all 4 medical issues (immuno-compromised, lung disease, genetic heart defect & TIA's) that could make contracting the virus more difficult. We talk every few days but we haven't seen each other in 16 months and that is unlikely to change for the next several months.
I have been writing, playing Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) and playing with my dolls. I'm an introvert so this enforced isolation isn't really that big of a difference to my regular life style. I pretty much live that way normally. I miss being able to see my friends (they live in Toronto and I'm NOT going there right now) and I miss playing in-person with my D&D group (we do it online now) but overall, not much changed for me on that score.
On the writing front, for those not in the know, I have posted some stuff over on Ao3. Some I've posted in other places but the majority of it is only posted there. I've been writing a lot in my Divine Worship World (pretty much exclusively actually). I'm having a lot of fun with the characters and their stories and as per my usual, the stories have a tendency to turn epic in size. I'm currently working on a story called Wish Fulfillment and I'd say I'm roughly 1/2 to 2/3's of the way done. It currently sits at 133,634 words and that is in unedited, first draft format. Yeah, he's a big one. I have other stories in progress as well (of course I do). The Dire Heart is also very large at this point, sitting somewhere in the neighbourhood of 120K words. That one is also at roughly the 1/2 way mark.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these stories when I finish them. Do I post them for free on Ao3? Do I do some sort of Paetron thing? Do I self-publish? Do I go to a publisher with them? Considering my non-work situation it's probably a smart idea if I publish in a way that makes me money considering the amount of time that's gone into writing these. I think a publisher is out simply due to the content of the stories.
Wish Fulfillment is likely okay but The Dire Heart has enemas (although not in a sexual context), come drinking, large object insertion, sounding and egg-preg and I don't think that'll fly very well with most publishers. It also mentions events of the prologue story, Metamorphosis (which is available on Ao3), which features rape, forced slavery, come drinking, fisting, double penetration and probably some things I'm forgetting to mention. But I'm also fine with that as it's the story that wants to be told.
Related to the stories I'm working on are my dolls (you knew I was going to talk about them). I currently own 69 of the wallet vampires. No, that's not a typo. This year alone, I've acquired 6 of them. No, that's not a typo either. It started with Kulfi (one of the characters in Wish Fulfillment). Kulfi is an Impl Ziv in a custom green resin. He was supposed to be Malachite as an adult (the story with him and his husbands, Triptych Heart, is also a WIP) but Impl cast him in the wrong shade of green. When I notified them of this, they apologized, said they'd re-make him in the correct colour and that I could keep the "wrong" green doll as a gift. I thought about selling him for less than 24 hours. Once I decided to keep him (like I would've done anything else *rolls eyes*), I needed to find him his husbands. I did in fairly short order. Rhyia is a grey Soom Euclase (meditation head, open-eye mod) with the owl feet as his defaults. Akusuo is a honey mango Dollshe Hound. Akusuo is the God of Secrets, Wishes & Dreams.
The other new additions are Macian (Spirit Doll Dark LE50), Wae-Lan (Miracle Doll Asael LE50) and an as of yet unnamed Soom FCE Vesuvia Poison Kiss. The Vesuvia is a girl doll but I'm going to have her modded into a him. I've wanted to do that since she was released way back in 2010. These 3 are a thruple, too. Wae-Lan is the God of Pain & Sorrow. I haven't started anything (yet) on their story. Ideally I'd like to finish other WIP's before starting something new (you may all laugh hysterically now).
I've also been making resin eyes for my dolls and it's a lot of fun. I've made some hard cap wigs, too. That's a new skill for me and there is a learning curve to it but I've found it pretty fun. I sewed the wig Macian wears and I'm super pleased at how that turned out. I organized all the doll clothes I have by size and no word of a lie, it took me 2 hours to do that. I made 95% of the clothes, too.
So, in all, I'm doing okay, puttering along and pursuing stuff I enjoy doing.