On Physical Health, Emotional Fortitude, and Writing

Currently Listening to: Entropy – End of Silence (feat. Alexa Ray)

I watched the sunrise for the first time in a few years this morning.

The darkest part of night before the dawn. The way the sky turns black-blue and deepens in color. The shadows that grow darker, stiller, and then start to fade as the sun peeks over the horizon. The sky is dyed with a pale purple this morning shot through with golden clouds. It’s a moment of silence before the crows in my neighborhood start their morning. As of the time I write this (5:52am Pacific Standard Time), the sun is also blessing me with a direct shot into my face/eyes as it rises between two trees.

Thank you, sunlight, I appreciate you.

Short Update + Short Story

Every time I tell myself I will do an update more than once every few months, it somehow invokes some variation of Murphy’s Law. Oof.

So there’s been more health nonsense that’s transpired, and it kicked me harder than I anticipated it would. It isn’t COVID-19 related, I’m safe from that for the time being and am actually going to set an appointment to be tested for antibodies here in the next week or so after a prolonged illness in December into mid-January that mimicked the symptoms almost exactly. I have a follow up appointment in June to make sure things are doing what they’re supposed to and there’s no extra risk. Worst case scenario, some fairly major surgery to get the problem organ)s yanked out and dealt with.

As a result, writing has been… next to non-existent and I hate that. Writing is my ‘safe space’ and comfort. It’s where I go to get away from things going on as well as how I process and download. I have fanfiction chapters to write and by God I want to finish a fic for once. Like any unused muscle, I just need to get back into the swing of things.

My D&D campaign has been going rather well, thankfully, and we’re closing in on our one year anniversary. Some people who may read this are in my campaign. If so? You’re in for a surprise. 🙂

But, thanks to quarantine, I’ve had some time to rest and get some of the health nonsense back under control. I’m feeling more like myself instead of some existential dread and tea filled mess. I rediscovered an old thing I’d written and, instead of hating and deleting it, I gave it a bit of polish so I could post it here + my writing tumblr.

This short story is called “Store Bought Heroes”.  Please enjoy!

Stay well and here’s hoping I don’t take another few months between updates again!

– K.A. Crittenden

Happy New Year + Updates

One of these days, I will be able to write an update post once per week as I’ve intended to since starting this blog. This is not that day and has not been since October when I posted this initially.

Oh well, Happy belated 2020!

Brief Update

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything, and I am sorry about that.

A number of issues have come up and most of them have to do with an irritating physical issue that just refuses to heal up even though it’s been about a year of trying everything and anything possible to heal up. I’ve thrown in the towel and it’s time to go for the surgery in hopes it makes things better. That’s on Thursday and I’m actually looking forward to it– and that should be an indicator of how uncomfortable I’ve been.

The downside to feeling so poorly is that I have hit a rut/stopping point with Project Vanilla due to being in some goodly amount of pain and being exhausted on all fronts as a result. This is particularly frustrating for me as an author because I have everything I need ready and raring to go– except for the motivation and the ability to actually concentrate in order to write.

This, as you can imagine, is incredibly frustrating and disheartening.

But I’m also writing this from several thousand feet in the air on my way back from an amazing trip to Colorado to see my older brother (also known as my best and most cherished friend/one of my strongest pillars of support) and his amazing wife and family. It’s my first real vacation that I’ve been able to take where I’m not stressed beyond belief and could have a good time– even if the above mentioned health issue did rear up around the third day, much to my annoyance.

It was a lovely visit and far, far too short for my liking. I’m going to have to go back/fly him out to torment him more next time.

On the positive side, this plane ride has given me absolute freedom to try hammering out the rest of Project Vanilla, and with the resolution of my health issues looming in the very near future, I have high hopes of finishing the draft and sending it off for editing here in the next two weeks at the pace I’m going.

I, uh, just hope the anthology I’m submitting to is okay with a monster story this time around. It definitely smacks the ceiling on the 25,000 word limit. Maybe I’ll get lucky and my editor will completely destroy me and whack it down to about 17-20k?

I hope everyone is doing well and your own creative projects are coming along exactly as according to plan.

Cheers and stay healthy,

K.A. Crittenden