Today was not easy. I went with Mom to the pulmonologist and he decreed her eligible for the oxygen machine... That we already had delivered. 9_9 And because Mom had the doctor's appointment, she didn't take her shingles meds in the morning, leaving her in pain. I dunno which would have been worse: nausea and dizziness from the meds (I would have driven the car) or the pain? But hey, she made the call, for better or worse.

We have a follow-up with him in two weeks.

But getting home was a nightmare. I could see tears in her eyes from the pain. It was just unreal... By the time I got her home, medicated, and laying down, I was in tears myself. It took the rest of the day for me to just calm down and try and get some work done. It really is the shingles messing with her. When Mom takes the medication, she's... Is "fine" really the word to use for slightly less excruciating nerve pain?

On the plus side, I got a positive response to my query! I'm making the changes the editor asked for and will resubmit the short story to her by Friday.

Tomorrow is not only my daughter's birthday, but also the Summer Solstice. :) I'm not sure if I'll be able to do anything fancy but I did leave out an apple as an offering today. Better to strike while the iron is hot, right? I did spot a statue that would be perfect for an outside altar (till I can afford the one I really want) but I will be totally honest, I do NOT have my head together to plan much beyond "Edit story. Child needs birthday cake." So you'll have to forgive the lack of interaction from me. If you can, I'm sure the gods will.

I do feel my duty as a daughter could have been done better. I really froze. I need to be slightly less of a complete spaz and get my shit together. >_< Mom needs my help and since I never would have made it this car without her, she deserves my best.

I sent in the query for the lesbian thriller anthology today. Even though you're supposed to query with the idea first before beginning work on the story, I personally felt better having it nearly complete beforehand. Even if the idea is a bust with the editor, I still have a story I can use elsewhere. I have a few final edits to make but I'm holding off to hear from the editor.

I've been getting back to work on GH and having a complete ball with it. It's SO much fun working on it again, I can't even tell you. XD Of course getting another 5 star review on Dreamhunter doesn't hurt, either. ;)

I also have become enamored with this video:


As a fan of Gaga and Judas Priest, I had a complete fangirlgasm. It's really well done. 0.0

Won't some generous fan make a fanvid or fanfic of my characters one day? A girl can dream... ;)

No good news from the doctors. :( Sadly, it's just a matter of "when" not "if" but I always knew that. Her cancer is terminal, inoperable, and comes with a whole host of complications.

Ma could live the next two years or be gone by the end of summer. There's just no way to tell. In the meantime, me and my husband are taking on the tasks she uses to do, like driving the kid around and laundry and such.

It just blows my mind that this is the second time I will watch a parent succumb to lung cancer. And neither my Mother nor my Grandmother smoked a day in their lives.

Most of the time, I think I should be spending my time writing rather than reading about writing. Wouldn't my time be better spent honing my craft than reading the words of someone who's already done it? In this case it's a good thing I ignored my own advice because I would have been denied the mental TNT that is Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury.

I plan to buy a copy of my own to deface with a highlighter, but wow... I was alternately cowed and inspired. While I don't care much for word association, what I took away from this book is:

1: I am not alone in my fierce need to write. It's write or die a miserable, uncreative death choking on the words which should have been put to paper.

and 2: I will never, EVER be anywhere as good as Bradbury; who wrote most of these inspiring essays before I was even born. 0.0

After giving it a great deal of thought, I've decided that in all honesty, I shouldn't try to be like Bradbury. I shouldn't try to be like anyone and in doing so, I would have missed the entire point of Bradbury's book.

Bradbury went into great detail about how, when he was young, his "friends" would try and talk him out of his favorite comics and I can recall getting the same treatment. Especially since I was a girl. "Girls are not supposed to read X-Men." "Comics are for boys. Here, take this Barbie instead."

You know what I did with those Barbies? I played X-Men with them. Endless visits to the Hellfire Club got repetitive (what else was I supposed to do with all those gowns!?) and Cyclops was now a Black woman (not many "Ken" dolls) but I didn't care. I LOVED it. I loved comics, I loved fantasy, I thought the Crypt Keeper was a genius, and that the Twilight Zone was a temple in which Rod Sterling should be worshiped. As a teenager, Lady Death and Evil Ernie taught me that you can do any damn thing you want when you write and draw and to tell those girls who called you a lesbian for drawing women in superhero uniforms to fucking suck it. Yes, that really happened. The lesbian part, not the actual telling them to suck it. I just looked at them like they were morons and went on with my life.

What does all that senseless rambling mean? I don't need to try and be like Bradbury. I already am by virtue of being myself and having no fear. You can't write if you have fear. Am I scared that someone will come up to me and say my book sucked so hard, they wanted to pour bleach in their eyes? Sure. But in that moment when you put pen to paper and you are at the mercy of characters, pouring your soul out on to the page, you are making magic. Let it take you.

This anime, based on this manga by Ai Yazawa, tells the story of a high school girl (there's a shocker) Yukari, who usually has her nose to the grindstone trying to get through her high school exams. Unlike her perfect little brother, Yukari has to study nearly to death just to get by. Yet one day, a guy in punk rock gear chases her into a giant drag queen and everything changes.

Much like reality, life is meaningless and colorless without a drag queen in it, and Yukari discovers an entirely new world of possibility when it's revealed these strange people she meets are part of Paradise Kiss; a group of fashion school students working together to start their own line of clothing and win the school's competition. They all feel to win, they need Yukari as a model.

Enter George. Ok, George is kind of a dick and that's being kind. As the resident bishonen, he's charming, superhawt and omg, you just wanna bite him (says the anime, I seem to be immune), but he also has a short temper when it comes to little high school girls who think they know everything and expect men to do things for them without a lick of effort on their part. To which I agree. But he's in COLLEGE! If you want that sort of maturity in your girlfriends, try not wooing high school girls!

I won't spoil the outcome of the series but I will say, just like in the manga, Yukari gets better as she goes along. She learns there is more than one road to success outside ceaseless studying. The world has color and life and should be looked at every so often.

If you like the books, you should check out the anime just to see the fashions in glorious color and movement. They make so much more sense than back when I read the books. However, if you already read them, borrow the anime. I just don't see much point in watching this one more than once. *shrugs*

Or she will be by the time I get off work today. My mother was released from the hospital this afternoon. :)

It's difficult for me to sum up the feelings other than the ole roller-coaster metaphor. While tired, it is apt but doesn't quite cover what it's like to have your remaining parent in and out of the hospital and never quite knowing which time will be the last. There MUST be a special circle of hell just for that feeling. If I really believed in hell... Anyways, this passed week or so has sucked ass and that's the nicest way I can put it. Between my mother in the hospital, my husband spraining his ankle and my child determined to act three years old no matter how illogical I keep telling her that is; I believe some booze and/or long bubble baths are in order.

Which has left me with some sort of a quandary: How personal do I want to get with my writing blog? Granted, I won't be doing in depth reviews of *achem* "toys" I purchase or describing bodily functions in grizzly detail (only vague detail ~_^) , but if I wait to only talk about writing, it's kinda cold and lonely. I don't get many visitors here anyway and the ones that come, I'd like to keep.

So, I suppose it's time to get to know the Lenni. As House would say: Wear a cup.

I'd planned a long entry a couple days ago but then Ma went into the hospital with shingles and well, I freaked out. She's doing fine so now that I'm calmer I can update the blog with SOMETHING. :p

I'm awaiting a file review for getting Dreamhunter on Kindle and a review of my book from Sorean by clockworklady . Pardon me for freaking out in both cases. XD I'm trying not to chew my fingernails right off.

Once I'm confident DH went up smoothly, the short stories will start to go up. Eventually, I would like to collect all my short stories in a bound book but for now, Kindle seems to be the way to go for me.

My new 5 page a day goal is going pretty well (the hospital scare where I not only did NOT write, I didn't sleep... Or eat). I've been bouncing back and forth between Greenhouse, Grey City and the lesbian thriller. I'm having such a fabulous time working on them, you have no idea. >D I grab every spare moment I can. :)

Since Ma is still in the hospital, I'm walking to the train on weekday mornings. Today I managed to give myself a fabulous blister on my foot so instead of watching Dr. Who on the treadmill, I'll just sit and watch it. I also have to review Paradise Kiss for you guys.

All in good time, my pretties.

Since I seem to be meeting so many interesting people on Twitter, I'm going to really try and comment on more of their blogs. I've added a good chunk of my Twitter follower's blogs to my Google reader and if you see a comment from some crazy chick named "Lenni" do not me alarmed. It's my lame assed attempt to be social.

Other than that, I am still working on my second novel for the First Brood series and the lesbian thriller for that anthology query. I am also thinking about posting the rejected steampunk lesbian story I wrote. I still get a kick about an anthology out there for a concept I was already working on, but it's awesome that it's out there even if I'm not a part of it. ^_^

I think a LOT about types of characters which are underrepresented or represented poorly. Where are the bisexual, biracial, career women who are in stable relationships? And I don't think of this just cause I wanna see more people like myself, I really think there's a terrible stigma against bisexuals to this day. It sucks, but it's there.

So, I guess that's my indie writer's advice of the day: If you don't see enough of it? Write it. XD

Now, back to work for me. ;)

Since I've had the type of day leaving me with my foot up and ice pack on my ankle, I'm making the rounds on all my blogs to do some sorely needed updating. I need to keep off the foot and keep it on ice till I wrap it for bed so it's a very good use of my time. :)

Peach Girl follows the adventures of Momo, a Japanese high school girl with dark skin and light hair. People think she's an empty headed party girl but since she's on the swim team, the chlorine bleached her hair and the sun tanned her skin. All the wants is to be taken seriously as a normal girl, fall in love with her middle school crush, Toji, and be happy. But her "friend" Sae just keeps screwing things up for her in the most malicious ways.

As a fan of the manga, I was just completely stoked to see it on screen. I could see they changed some plot points here and there but it's generally verbatim from the books. This is pure high school drama and I love every freaking moment of it!! Hell, I even knew the end and I was still biting my teeth and crying like a big mush by the end of it. XD I love this series!! In fact, if you wanna get the Lenni a gift... Naw, I'm kidding. But if you like lovable characters and are the type to yell at the screen when a character does something stupid, this is totally the anime for you. There's no blood, no guts, no mechs, no sex (that rhymes on purpose) but it's perfect. Kudos, Miwa Ueda; the anime version of your manga is excellent. ^_^

On a totally random note: I added more to my Zazzle shop. There's a few sketches I did on stuff now. Yay...

Now, back to icing my ankle. =_=