Sacrificing a chicken
I do most of my writing on my work laptop. Boo. Shame. Waggle fingers. My calls are never missed and I have top-tier performance, so as long as I leave the open-door scenes closed on work hours, I think I’m good.
This has never really been an issue. Even when I was having tech issues that cut into my writing time, I could still get something done between calls to IT. Not a lot, but something.
Queue this week. My entire computer locks up. Can’t load anything, can’t type anything. My messages to IT have to go through my phone because the computer lags so bad it takes two minutes to send “so that didn’t work either”. Constant restarts, updates, head scratching. I’ve got a list of IT tickets cause I’m not getting reamed out for this when the bosses notice I’m not taking calls.
This goes on the entire week. I get nothing done. My throat is swelling up, I’m exhausted, and I’m 98% sure Holly (my work computer) is glitching out because she’s just as sick as I am. In the end, it’s decided I’m getting a whole new laptop. Partially because on my SEVENTH IT call, I said “we’ve done everything short of sacrificing a chicken under a full moon”.
Which the IT rep thought was so hilarious he had to include it in the official ticket notes. Don’t know how I feel about being professionally associated with that sentence, but it’s not the weirdest thing I’ve done/said at this job.
But, I’m back up and running now. I’m still on the lookout for some Betas for Biker Blues, and I’m vibrating in my skin getting ready for my editor to take a crack at Wolves and Rain.
I’m also trying to get some more writing for Ace of Wands done, but… well… how to put this delicately…?
When I started plotting and planning the Tarot Mafia collection, I made a lot of little decisions to try and flesh out the characters. One of the big things was that each couple in the Minor Arcana focuses on a different aspect of a romance. Not something matching exactly to the symbolism of the suit itself because I’m already mixing up so many other things in this collection.
Violet and Luca in the Wands suit represent mental connection. They’re both very logical people, and even though I haven’t written the others yet, I think they might wind up being the slowest burn I’ve ever written. Meanwhile Aiden and Justine from the Cups suit are more the emotional side, how love and romance can change you on the inside. Michelle and Dimitri from Pentacles represent the social side, the community that you can get from loving someone and the people they love as well.
And Sevan and Wren in Swords are… the physical side. Which I meant in more of a broad, symbolic sense. They are refusing to take it that way, though, and have decided to be ridiculously horny for each other. I’m going to have to finally bite the bullet and invest in a hot spot for my tablet because I can’t keep one scene with these two safe for work.
This weekend is supposed to be a relaxing weekend for my husband and I. Nothing planned, nothing scheduled. Just time for us to exist together with my daughter and our puppies. Fingers crossed if I give the toddler her own keyboard so she can “help” write, I can actually get some rare weekend writing in.
I am getting more active on Threads, but I’m gonna be honest—I suck at social media. The only social I grew up with was tumblr, and everyone knows the gremlins raised on that blue hellscape are built different. Still, I’m starting to get my footing I think. I’m also looking into a lot of stuff I can post now that I’ve got a Canva account again. Never took a design class in my life, but we work with what we have and everything else can wait.