Episode 39 - Who's Yo Mama?!

One day, this is going to happen to me. It just has to. In addition to reading my stories aloud to catch mistakes, I also record most of them for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast (which is a free weekly audio show I do that you can download to your MP3 player or listen to on your computer, and if you're not listening you should be!). Most days I only write or record when the kids are in school or in bed. When they're home and awake, I'm so busy taking care of them, I don't have time to do anything else. But mark my words, one of these days they're gonna walk in on me while I'm working...

You may have noticed that this cartoon is done "old style," which is to say I did it on the computer using Manga Studio 4. I still love MS4, and much prefer the way the cartoons look when I do them on the computer, but the fact is, it takes too long to do the cartoons this way. This particular cartoon was penciled back in April, and then inked yesterday morning. Had I done this by hand, it would have taken me an hour at most to do the inking and then the cartoon would be finished. In Manga Studio 4, the inking takes longer, plus there are extra steps I do to add the tones and text balloons, which is part of what makes the digital cartoons so pretty. What to do? Continue drawing by hand, but draw better! It'll come with practice. Meanwhile, I'll just use Manga Studio for other projects, since I'd really like to do some Manga style artwork, and this is the best program I've got for inking.

Anyway, here is this week's cartoon, and I hope you enjoyed it ;)

Ballticon, I love you!

I just got back from Balticon 43 and damn I'm tired. Four straight days of fun, frolic, work, mind-bending conversation, fan-girl moments and sundry madness. Here are several of my favorite moments from the convention, in no particular order.

1. Getting there. You people have no idea how much I love climbing into my old beater car and heading out of town. I used to do long drives like this all the time, pre-kids. Now these drives only happen a couple times a year. When I'm in my beater car, I can listen to my favorite music, drink a ton of coffee, and rant out loud with only other drivers to look at me like I'm crazy. I used to drive to the same area Balticon is in for Army Reserves drill, so I really miss this. Although admittedly, Balticon is a lot more fun than Army Reserves.


2. Hugs. I got hugs from everyone - Paulette Jaxton, Elf, Mike Pederson, Doug from College (who I only got to see for 30 seconds, but man what a hug!), Cmaaaarrr, Sci Fi Laura, Steve Eley, Gutshot, Matt F'n Wallace, Christiana Ellis, Mae Breakall, Kim the Comic Book Goddess, Dee, Nobilis, Heather Welliver, Grail Wolf, Mistress Jett, Paul Fischer and Martha Holloway, MAinPA, Dan the Fan, Tee Morris, Podcasting's Rich Sigfrit, SVAllie, Brand, Vivid Muse, Chooch, Alessia Brio and Will Belegon, Jared Axelrod and J. R. Blackwell, George Hrab, and many, many others. I love getting hugs from friends, and when you only get to see folks face to face a couple times a year, these hugs are very important. Best group hug - Ms. Information, Nobilis and Phil Rossi. Best hug over all - Mur Lafferty. Her husband is a lucky man };)


3. Info overload. I sat in on a ton of panels, everything from podcasting to geek family life to short fiction readings. My brain is so full of ideas and inspiration, it's leaking out my ears!


4. Readings! The Friday evening short fiction slam rocked - Nathan Lowell had the best short story on religion I've heard in a long time. Phil Rossi read from Crescent, soon to be released in print. Steve Eley rocked with a little gem on computer viruses and daily life and Chris Lester had me jonesing for Metamor City. On Saturday (or was it Sunday?), I listened to George Hrab read from his essays, many of which you can hear on the Geologic Podcast. All I can say is, wow, that man knows how to capture real life and bring it into sharp, fascinating focus.


5. The Sex With Aliens panel. Not a live demo, but a fascinating discussion. Bud Sparhawk had some intriguing things to say on the topic, and I walked away with more than a few story ideas.


6. Social Media for writers panel. Tee Morris IS social media. He knows that topic inside and out, and gives the best advice on how to use social media without coming off like an ass. (He's also a wonderful writer. I love Billibub Baddings!)


7. Hearing Phil Rossi confess that reading about other people's successes on Twitter makes him feel depressed and unsuccessful. It's an odd choice for a favorite moment, I know, but it was an honest moment (and startling to hear from someone I'm a fan of) and I know exactly what he means. It's nice to know I'm not the only writer who sits there wondering if they're being left in the dust.


8. The look Mur Lafferty gave Nathan Lowell when he talked about how he wrote his first book in ten days, but then things slowed down during edits and rewrites, which took him a couple of weeks. Another truly honest moment from someone who's work I admire.


9. CmdLn trying to fix my watch. The man is a hacker-philospher extraordinaire. He's also a gentleman who did his very best to put a new battery in my fav watch. The attempt may have driven him mad, but I'm grateful he took pity on a gal who owns nine watches, none of which work. And his wife makes and wears the best dresses I've ever seen!


10. Music! Three concerts this weekend - Phil Rossi, George Hrab, and Kim the Comic Book Goddess. Three very different styles, all very good. Phil Rossi and Evo Terra did a little booty shakin' during George Hrab's Ms. Information song. I had the best seat in the house for that performance. Too bad I didn't have any $20s };D


11. Attaching names to faces. PG Holyfield, I'm glad I got to see your handsome mug too ;)


12. People playing with my horns. You know you've established your image when people like to tweak your horns.


13. Talking with Matt F'n Wallace at a party Sunday night. The man's a true gentleman and a great writer. He's also easy to talk to. Don't be intimidated by his size or greatness. He's someone you really ought to get to know.


14. Dining and partying with friends. Nomming with Gutshot; dinner with Nobilis; lunch with Chooch, Viv, Jett, MA and Dan; breakfast with Cmaaaarrr, Sci Fi Laura, Matt F'n Wallace, Mur Lafferty, and Vintage Jim; stealing sips from Ms. Information's delightful Dirty Martini. Dinner with Nobilis was particularly nice, as I don't get enough chances to conspire with my partner in crime.


15. Calls for Cthulhu, LIVE! Need I say more?


16. Singularity, again. Earl Newton of Stranger Things has promised we will keep having the Singularity until we get flying cars... or a toaster that doesn't burn the toast. This is good, because I love seeing Stranger Things on the big screen like this!


17. Personal Effects: Dark Arts. It just looks cool. And freaky. And... cool.


18. Escape Pod, LIVE! Acted out by a fantastic cast. The line 'Brains for baby Jesus' will ring in my ears for a very long time.


19. Aliens You Will Meet, LIVE! I'm glad George Hrab won the music contest. It should be a boost to his career ;)


20. Viv and Chooch's Podio Books and Web Comics party. Those two really know how to host an event. Though seeing Tee Morris spanking himself while dressed as William Shakespeare has probably scarred me for life...


21. Sharing a room with Nina Kimberly the Merciless, AKA Christiana Ellis. We really only chatted a couple of times, but she was very cool. And she did not even give me a funny look when she came in and caught me eating cereal and milk out of a bowl with no spoon.


22. Paulette Jaxton. Hands down, coolest thing about Balticon was sharing a room with this lady. I only wish I could have spent more time with her. Paulette, you RAWK!


23. Alessia Brio and Will Belegon. Two of the coolest people in erotica and e-publishing. Hot writers, caring people, amazing humanitarians. Do good while being bad. Read Coming Together!


24. Sitting on a panel with author Scott Sigler and David Moldawer (editor at Penguin Books). They are very big names. I am very small. Yet I got to moderate on the subject of e-publishing for the small screen, and managed to not sound like an idiot. Almost makes me think I can run with the big dogs.


25. Erotica readings. I got to do two this weekend, and the room was full both times. To all the people who came to listen, ask questions, and (absolutely astonishing) ask for my autograph, thank you, thank you, thank you. You made me feel very special.


26. Babies. Certain people have some of the cutest babies (and there are two cuties in particular I love). You guys know you are! I'm jonesing now for a third bambino after seeing such cuddly cootness!


27. Chatting about cartoons with Gutshot. A simple conversation about one of my favorite pastimes with someone who is obviously talented in that department. He also has the nicest collection of hats and a verra lovely kilt!


28. Mae Breakall's t-shirt. Also Mistress Jett's modified tee. If you saw these shirts, you know what I mean. If you missed them, I pity you. They were hot!


29. Coming home to a bit of blood and a minor crisis. Okay, another weird moment to put on the favorites list, but after four surreal days roaming a con on my own, coming home to see the Hubster soothing crying children and taking care of the mess made me feel oh-so-glad and extremely luck to be married to the most wonderful man in the world. Plus, the boo boo in question gave me extra reasons to cuddle with my youngest and listen to my oldest explain how she helped take care of her sister. The chatter and love of little girls, along with the calm confidence of the man of my dreams are a couple of things I really missed this weekend. Next year, I'm doing everything I can to get my whole family up to the con!

There are many, many more things on my list of favs, but honestly, the whole damn weekend was just about one of the best things I've experienced in a long time. Many, many thanks to Paul Fischer for including me on the new media track this year, to Nobilis for recommending me, to Martha for trusting me to moderate her panel, and to everyone who smiled and put up with the annoying tag-along known better known as Helen E. H. Madden. And especially, always, thank you Michael. The Hubster let me run away to the circus for the weekend and did an outstanding job taking care of our children while I was wrong. I love you, stud!

Techno Tuesday - not your mother's "stay-at-home"

Technology and stay-at-home motherhood are subjects near and dear to my heart. As a work-at-home, write-at-home mom, I spend a lot of time online. Blogging, Twitter, e-mail, Firefox... the internet is a huge part of my life.

My own mother was a stay-at-home mom for the first few years of my life. Back then, we lived in a tiny, rural area of Georgia, miles away from any town. Fort Benning, the Army post where my dad was stationed, was about an hour's drive away. We had neighbors, but nobody Mom (the city girl from Philly) felt close too. And my dad? Between his assignment at Fort Benning and the master's degree he was pursuing, he was pretty much gone most of the time. So for two years, it was just Mom and me out in the middle of nowhere.

When I was three, Mom went back to work. She had to. Not for financial reasons but because she was going stir crazy. It's a feeling I understand all too well. When your only companion for weeks on end is a three-year-old who endlessly babbles, throws tantrums, and gets into stuff she shouldn't, you start to feel the walls closing in. My mom had an epiphany the day she ran me to ground, grabbed me by the pony tail, and prepared to nearly smack me into the next decade. She stopped, just in time, and realized that if she continued to stay home with me, it wouldn't be good for either one of us. She had to get out of the house; she had to have adult contact. She had to get a job.

Flash forward thirty-seven years. Now I am the stay-at-home mom, living in a suburb where I rarely ever see the other moms in the neighborhood. Either they work, or their kids are much older than mine and so they've got different schedules, or there's a gap between our personalities that's too wide for me to want to bridge (freaky goth mom here, remember?). Michael frequently works late or is away on business, and my constant companion is...

A babbling, tantrum-throwing, getting-into-stuff-she-shouldn't two-year-old.

I love Pixie, but honest to god, some days she just drives me crazy. Like my mother, when things get too nuts and I'm ready to blow my top at my adorable girl, I realize I need adult contact. Unlike my mother, I have more options. I have Skype, Twitter, e-mail. I can work from home, sending artwork and writing to clients via e-mail. I can give myself a purpose outside of motherhood all from the comfort of my own desktop. I am so plugged in, in fact, that I have not one but three computers in the house, all dedicated to me and they're all plugged into the net. Whether I'm in the bedroom, the office, or the kitchen, a sane (or even just semi-sane) adult is only a mouse click away. It's all I need to keep myself together.

These days, my mom lives out in rural Arkansas, miles away from the nearest town. Still the city girl, still the outsider, she doesn't have any close friends within easy distance. She does have a computer and e-mail, but living in such a rural area limits how much connectivity she has via that medium. She can't even get cell phone reception without getting into her car and driving to the top of the mountain my folks live on. Thus at the age of seventy, she's still working at a grueling job because if she doesn't she knows she'd go nuts.

I wonder myself how I'd fare out in those circumstances. Could I survive long-term without Firefox, Skype, Twitter, or e-mail? Would I eventually run my darling Pixie to ground, ready to murder her because I was too stir crazy to stop myself?

I hope I never have to find out.

Episode 25 - This Is My Life!

This is mostly an update on work, but...

Yes, this has been my life the last several weeks. Since November, I have struggled to survive the holidays, a convention (9 panels, 1 reading, an all-day author table!!), final edits on my new book Future Perfect, creating the cover art for said book, getting set up to join the "Oh Get A Grip" group blog (read us - we're fun!!), keeping up with the Heat Flash erotica podcast which now airs on Thursdays at 8PM on Radio Dentata (streaming internet radio with teeth!!), clean the house, feed the kids, help the Princess with her homework, potty train Pixie, and somehow find a few moments to have sex with my husband.

Yeah, it's been a little busy.

Things are starting to slow down a bit. I got my last major deadline out the door on Friday. I submitted a short story to Alessia Brio's Coming Together: Al Fresco, and regardless of whether or not I make it into this volume, I highly encourage everyone to buy a copy of any of the Coming Together books (I do have a story in Coming Together: With Pride, if you're interested). Coming Together is a charity anthology and all the proceeds go to the organization of choice for each volume. It's doing good while being bad, and ya gotta love that.

So this week's cartoon is just a glimpse into what's been going on at la casa de Cynical Woman. I'm tired, but things are evening out and I hope to be back on some sort of regular schedule in the next couple of weeks. I'll be at the Farpoint science fiction convention on Valentine's Day weekend, the same weekend as the release of Future Perfect, so I will be gearing up for that, getting promo ready and preparing for the panels I'm on (only six this time, I believe). Otherwise, I'll be turning my attention back to the podcast and this cartoon, putting in a little more time on my two favorite projects for a while. Hopefully, I'll have another cartoon ready within the week. See ya then!

What I want to do this year.

I had meant to post my New Year's resolutions the very first day of the year, but I'm still sort of stuck in 2008 thanks to a project I'm working on that won't be over until next weekend. I hate this project, and can't wait to get past it. It's been taking up so much of my time at a point when I really need to be working on other things. I won't say what said project is, but those of you that know me well know what I'm talking about. It's something I volunteered for and I will never volunteer for this particular project ever again. Nope, no sir, couldn't pay me to suffer through this misery another year.

Any way, let's take a moment to look past next week and into the time when 2009 will finally start for me. I've been thinking about what I really want to do this year, things I'd like to change, things I'd like to start, things I'd like to finish, and here are some of my goals.

• I want to work less and spend more time with my family. I spent several weekends in the library slaving away over this project I hate so much and missed a lot of time that I could have spent with my husband and kids. I don't want to do that this year. Plus having a kid in school has turned out to be more demanding of my time than I thought, and I have no choice but to quit working at 3PM so I can focus on the kids.


• I want to lose 10 lbs. Yeah, yeah, I know, everyone thinks I'm skinny and I've got nothing to complain about, but I'm starting to get that middle-age creep in my weight, and I swear, I don't want to be 40 this year and be 10 lbs. over weight. I can lose the weight if I make a few changes, so that's what I'm going to do. And I'm going to reward myself with a new summer wardrobe because for once, I'd really like to have something to wear in the summer that I can enjoy.


• I want to read more. I got the mini-laptop for Christmas and promptly bought two erotica e-books. I was enjoying the first one very much, but the dreaded project I hate reared its ugly head and ate up all my reading time in addition to my work and family time. So after next weekend, when the dreaded project finally dies-- er, I mean is finished, I want to go back to reading half an hour a night before going to bed. Just today I bought three more e-books through Fictionwise.com, and I can't wait to sit and read them. Plus, I want to go to the library once a week as a family so we can all have a chance to browse and pick out books to read. I love the library. When I was a kid we used to go there every Friday night, and I want to start doing that again.


• I want to play more games. We spent a week over the holidays with Michael's family, and those guys play a lot of games! Cassie is old enough now to sit in a lap and play with someone, and on ocassion, she can even play a game herself (she's not bad at Uno). I want to pick up some games to play with the kids and then some games I can play with Michael and other adults when they come over (I'm looking at you, Mary, John, Patricia, Vince, Patty, Lloyd, Rick, Cindy...). Games would be good!


• I want to watch more TV. Not kidding on this one. I watch almost no TV these days beyond the ocassional half-hour of kids programs during the day. I had to give it up to do some of this work I've had all year, and it sucks. I miss watching all the cool sci-fi shows, and I'd really like to start watching some of the history and science programs that show up on PBS, Discovery channel, etc. I love those things. Plus I'm way behind on watching 'Coupling.' That show is such a scream! So yeah, I'd like to get in a little more tube time, just a couple of hours to vegitate and enjoy myself each week.


• I want my hobbies back, at least one or two of them. I want to get back into sketching again, and maybe either beading or polymer clay again. I'm thinking polymer clay is more likely, since I can sit with the kids on a Friday afternoon and make little figurines with them (with Cassie anyway; Sam could make beads). It would be fun to have a hobby again.


• I want to take the kids out to play more - swimming at the Y, hula-hooping in the backyard, long walks, hiking, working in the garden, etc. We don't get outside nearly often enough, and I want to change that. I'm thinking I want to surprise Cassie and Sam by picking Cass up for school and then taking the three of us straight to the pool for an afternoon swim. That would be fun! And it wouldn't take a lot of work either, just grabbing the swimsuits, towels, and shower stuff and tossing it in the car before Sam and I head down to the bus stop. I think we'd all really enjoy that.

Anyway, so those are my ideas for this year. More fun, a little less work. I still need to sit down and figure out the work schedule, because I do have things I need to accomplish writing-wise and art-wise this year, but I won't be taking on anything that eats up all my time again, and I'll work on just one project at a time, so this could work. One more week until I can get started. I can't wait.

Fried But Not Tasty

I'm going on five nights of insomnia now, and it's just about killing me. And I caught the creeping crud from Sam! How does that kid manage to get sick in the summer?!

I'm trying to function normally during the day, but it's damn hard. In addition to taking care of the kids and the house, I'm trying like crazy to get some promotional work done. It's not been easy. The 50th episode of my podcast, Heat Flash, goes up on Friday, and I have yet to toot my horn about that. Will start on that tomorrow, which is the last chance I have before I leave for a wedding in Pennsylvania. Very inconvenient time for someone to get married, right before my big podcasting milestone (grumble, bitch, moan).

Anyway, just letting folks know I'm not dead, just dead tired.

Cartoon for 2 August 2008

I actually feel like the goddess of Hell fire today. The kids and I spent all day yesterday at a beach in Kitty Hawk, NC. We went with my best friend Mary and her family. We brought sunblock and I swear we used it, yet somehow the only one of us that didn't end up looking like a crispy critter was Sam. The blonde pixie is as brown as a little nut, but Cassie and I are toasty red. Mary's stepson has it worse though. Poor kid is Irish - red hair, fair skin, freckles. Only now he's got red hair, red skin, and you can't tell his freckles from his sunburn. I swear, before yesterday, that boy would have glowed in the dark he was so white. Nice kid though. I was hunting for seashells all day to take home to photograph. Would have photographed them on the beach but Sam + Ocean = Imminent Disaster, so I couldn't really juggle the camera and watch the kid. I could hunt for shells though, especially with everyone else in the group helping out. Mary's stepson dove under the waves a lot and kept brining up these incredible shells. And before I left, I scooped up a bucket of sand from beneath the water. The plan is to take a glass backing dish, lay a layer of sand in the bottom, put the shells on top of that, and then add water. Then I can photograph the shells the way they'd look best - in their not-quite-natural habitat. If only I can figure out how to get the lighting just right, so that it looks like sunlight streaming through the water over the shells. You know those wriggly lines of light that play on the sand beneath the waves? That's what I want.

That and a vat of aloe vera gel. Ouch.

Cartoon for 25 July 2008

I'm late, I know. I had to check the URL that I included in the cartoon. This is both a true story and a bit of shameless promotion for a project that has become near and dear to my heart. Coming Together is a series of erotica anthologies put together and sold for charitable causes. I have a story in Coming Together: With Pride. The proceeds go to AVERT.org to support HIV and AIDS research. There are a number of other books in the series, some of them award winners, all of them good anthologies put together for good causes. You can find out more at the Coming Together website. Alessia Brio, the editor, will be a guest tomorrow night on Passion Internet Voices Radio. That'll be at 9PM-11PM EASTERN time. She'll be playing audio excerpts of some of the stories, including mine, and some of the writers will be joining her for interviews. If I still have a voice tomorrow after fighting with a nasty cold, I'll be there.

I'll get to work on another cartoon right away, I promise. It looks like it'll be a couple more weeks before I've got a website set up for the cartoons, but once it's up, I'll be sure to let everyone know.

And here's another cartoon...

Does this sort of thing really happen to me? Yes and no. I've done the stand up and announce I'm an erotica writer bit, but most people don't seem to want to confront me about it. Apparently I intimidate a lot of folks. I have no idea why. I'm a really nice person. I am. Stop laughing. I know where you live.

I noticed today that Google's Picassa will not put these toons in order, so if I'm doing a series, like I am right now, they're going to be all jumbled up. But that's okay. I've taken steps toward getting a web comic account set up, and by next week, I should have a page dedicated to just the comic strips. I'll link to that page from here and from my erotica website, and probably from my podcast, so that wherever people find me, they can go look for the comics as well and find them all in one place. The web comic page should have a nice archiving function that will let people scroll through the comics by calendar dates. But that will happen next week. For now, enjoy the mixed up mish-mash on Picassa!

A Cartoon and a Story About Freaks and Normal Moms

True story, although this happened a week after I started work on the above cartoon. I met with Patty and other Patty and their kids at one of the local playgrounds. While the yard apes ran amok, we sat in the only shady area in the place. Another mom showed up with her daughter and they joined us, seeking a little relief from the heat. The daughter seemed very nice, but the mom? A little too mundane, if you know what I mean. A little too normal, a little too scrap-bookish, a little too Bunco-playing. She was the kind of mom that wears Birkenstocks and volunteers for the PTA so she can tell other moms what to do. She wasn't rude, but she sure as hell didn't fit into our little freak clique.

See, Patty is a member of the SCA (she was a Baroness once) and was making adjustments to a medieval period coat while we were there. Other Patty was discussing the finer points of yoga and getting her massage therapist certification, and such talk will occasionally veer into chi, pressure points, and other metaphysical stuff. Me? I was nattering about the best way to promo my erotica e-book, and was dressed up in my fav pirate t-shirt and plaid school-girl skirt. Individually, we're odd. Together, we're a freak clique.

Anyway, Normal Mom was just a little too normal for my tastes. I kept waiting for her to invite me to her church's women's bible group. I'm Zen Buddhist, which is pretty much like being an atheist that meditates. Normal Mom was also just a little too familiar and condescending with my kids. After I mentioned that Sam had painted her crib with poop, she tracked Sam down on the playground and told her, "Big girls poopie in the potty, sweetie!" Uh, yeah, we already had that discussion, thanks. Then when she introduced her daughter to Cassie, she said, "This is Clarice. You should remember that name, because Clarice and Cassie start with the same sound."
To which I said, "Cass, what letter does Clarice start with?"

"'C' just like 'Cassie'."

At which point I shot Normal Mom a look that said, "My girl can read and write, so back off, bitch."

We haven't seen Normal Mom since that afternoon. Patty invited her to join us again, but due to rain we ended up going to a different venue for our next gathering, and nobody had Normal Mom's number. Darn. But someone, she has haunted me since that play date. Last night, I had a dream that I was forced to join a formal mommies group, the kind where they have regular business meetings and you have to pay dues. They forced me to wear a mommy uniform and then issued me a baby (seriously, I had to sign for it and everything). The baby was adorable, a fat squirmy thing with dark curly hair that reminded me of Cassie and Sam. But the uniform was butt ugly. It had this ascot that made me look one hundred years old when I wore it around my neck. I hated it, but I knew if I didn't wear the uniform, the mommies group would take back the baby, and I couldn't stand the idea of that.

I will always be a freak. I've been one for as long as I can remember, and have been persecuted for it by various means. I'm used to that, maybe too used to that, so that I end up seeing enemies where there aren't any really. Maybe I should have gotten to know Normal Mommy better. Maybe we could have been friends. Or maybe I would have found out that she's the kind of person who comes after people like me with pitchforks and torches. We'll probably never know.

I hope.

Cartoon Up!

In spite of spending most of this week dragging my sorry ass through the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, I did manage to get a cartoon done. Not much of anything else, but hey, I took care of my priorities. Anyway, here's this week's cartoon:



And yes, this always happens to me.

Can't Talk - Very Busy!

Got lots going on. No time to blog or cartoon. Going on vacation very soon. See my erotica blog to find out what's up. Not pornographic but not work safe, okay? I'll post in a week or so.

Just Another Day In The Office

We had a fun weekend at La Casa Madden. On Saturday morning, after going through karate and swimming lessons, Cassie suddenly came down sick - temperature of 103 degrees, chills, sore throat, aches and pains. I promptly put the Princess to bed and babied her with juice, sherbet, Disney movies, whatever would keep her content while she rested. She puked once, all over the couch and herself, and complained of being cold and unable to sleep, but otherwise she was okay. Well, not **okay** okay -- she was looking pretty pale and scrawny -- but I knew with enough viewings of Beauty and the Beast, she'd live.

Cassie's illness sort of threw all our weekend plans into a tailspin, however. We missed her best buddy's birthday bowling party that afternoon, and I have heard nothing but, "But I wanted to go bowling!" and "I LOVE bowling!" ever since. Cassie doesn't even know what bowling is, but man she sure wanted to go to that party. Michael did get some house work done that he'd been planning, but since I spent so much time tending to Cassie, my plans to rapidly accomplish my work went down the tubes real quick. Tasks that should have taken an hour tops took five. I just couldn't concentrate when all I could hear is this tiny, whiny little voice in the background going, "But I LOVE bowling!" Mary, if you're reading this, we are taking the kids bowling SOON. Otherwise I may just have to throw myself through a window to escape that sound.

So I was all discombobulated as usual this weekend... the weekend that I had to proof my final novel galley, the weekend that I had to do up promo materials for a convention I'm headed off to in a few days, the weekend I had hoped would go so smoothly. Nothing new. Just another day in the office.

I Was Interviewed For The Balticon Podcast!

On the writing/podcasting/would-be professional front, I was interviewed this past weekend by Paul Fischer of the Balticon Podcast. The interview is here.

Paul talked to myself and fellow erotica writer Nobilis about erotica podcasting, writing sexy stories, family values for erotica writers, and everything in between. We also talked a bit about what we'll be doing at Balticon this coming Memorial Day weekend, where Nobilis and I will both be guests working on the adults' new media track for the convention. We had a great time discussing all the naughtiness we plan to get into, so take a listen to the interview and check out some of the rest of the Balticon podcast. Also stop by and listen to Paul's podcast (one of my all time favorites), the ADD Cast.

Keep in mind, we are talking about erotica here, and the talk naturually gets rather explicit, so don't listen to this any place where you might get into trouble, like say... church or work?

Work-At-Home Mom Versus The Sick Baby

I had such a wonderful time last weekend. I left Michael and the kids on Friday and drove to Richmond for RavenCon. Talk about having some fun! I spent the entire weekend volunteering for the convention, a job that mainly consisted of me sitting in on discussion panels and filling out little forms on how good said panels were. I got to listen to discussions on costuming, podcasting, art, computer graphics, and web comics... all those geeky topics that yours truly just LUVS! And I got to meet an erotica writer friend of mine, Nobilis. Like me, Nobilis writes speculative fiction erotica (i.e. sci-fi and fantasy porn). Unlike me, Nobilis is tall. Freakishly tall, even. How tall was he? He was so tall that I never did see his face, but I could describe his belly button lint in detail. That's pretty frikkin' tall, folks.

But aside from the crick I got in my neck from having to look up all the time to talk to Nobilis, I had a great time. I also got to meet the world famous writer Mur Lafferty, Paul Fischer and Martha Holloway of the ADD Cast, and tons of other people I only know through my iPod or via the internet. And I stayed up late, really late! Way past bedtime late! And did I mention I actually got to talk to some other adults about things other than potty training and the hazards of preschool? So it felt like I sort of had a real life for two and a half days.

Then I came back home. Which was good, because I started jonesing for Michael and the kids after my first hour at RavenCon. I missed them soooooooo much. Cassie and Sam didn't see me at first when I came in - they were engrossed in a Barbie movie -- but as soon as they saw me they both jumped up shrieking and laughing and... ah, who the hell am I kidding? Cassie gave me a brief glance and said, "Hi Mama." Sam saw me and immediately held out her arms and wailed. "Pick up! Pick up!" And once I did pick her up, and I wasn't allowed to put her down again for twenty hours or so.

Turns out there was a reason for Sam's fussiness. She had a low grade fever with a small rash on Sunday, which jumped up to a full-grade fever with more rash on Monday, which transformed to Bubonic Plague on Tuesday. I should have known something was up when Sam didn't wake up until 11AM on Monday morning. No kidding, that baby slept waaaaaaaaaaay past her normal wake-up time, which meant I also slept until 11AM because there was no way after having so much fun that I could crawl out of bed before noon, only I had to because Sam woke up at 11AM.

But that was Monday morning. Tuesday morning Sam was up at 6ish, vomiting. By 9ish we were at the doctor's, who by 10ish told me that Sam had a fever (knew that) and the rash was probably a reaction to a virus (knew that too). Sam tested negative for strep, Bubonic Plague, and the Insidious Ear Infection, so we went home for lunch. On the way there, I stopped to pick up some groceries - rice, bannanas, ginger ale, all the stuff that sick babies should eat. Sam of course slept through this part of the trip, so I had to lug her around in my arms while I shopped. If I have biceps like Ahnold's, you know why. She woke up when we got home and had a temperature of over 102, which was up considerably from the doctor's office. We thus spent the rest of the afternoon watching Dora and fussing non-stop. Around 4PM we went to pick up Cassie from preschool. Once again Sam fell asleep in the car and she was so out of it that she actually stayed asleep when I brought her in (this NEVER happens in real life). Michael came home and took Cassie to karate while I spent the rest of the afternoon either in the our bed with a screaming Sam or in the glider trying to accomplish some work.

Ah, work. After RavenCon and meeting all those other writers/podcasters/artists, I was so psyched to get back to work. I wanted to create, man! And I am quite certain now that my urge to create corellates directly with Sam's fever. The more I want to work, the sicker she gets. By 8PM last night, Sam had a temperature of 103.6. We gave her a dose of Motrin and some Benedryl to help her sleep. By 5AM this morning, her temperature was up to 103.8. After dosing her again and getting her back to bed, I was wiped out, so we all slept late again this morning, though not as late as 11AM. Except for Sam, who did sleep as late as 11AM.

And today's work? Cancelled, naturally. Wednesday is Cassie's day home, so I've done nothing but ride the exercise bike, run some laundry, fix lunch, and watch a butt-load of Dora the Explorer. Around 2PM I dosed Sam with some more Benedryl and Motrin. She fights taking the medicine, but I've found that if I pry her mouth open with one finger and use a syringe to squirt the stuff into her mouth, I can get the medicine into her. I've done this twice and am proud to say that I still have eight fingers left.

So not much accomplished this week after an invigorating, inspiring weekend of creative thought. Except for the below cartoon. Hey, I had to do something fun today...

Welcome To My Week-Long Total Freak Out

So I had a nervous breakdown or three this past week. Actually, I probably had even more than that. I have been stressed out for a while now, trying to get **WORK** done because I am a **PROFESSIONAL WRITER/ARTIST/STAY-AT-HOME-MOM** who has responsibilities and drop-dead-lines and a career to forge, blah, blah, blah, blah...

The last several months have just hit me like a steam roller, smashing me flat over and over again. It's partly due to the amount of work that suddenly fell into my lap (four art commissions at once!), plus the extra work that I created for myself (New podcast! Write and record a new story every week! Promote EPIC VA and market your writing career! Make personal appearances at conventions!). And it's partly the fault of my own anal retentiveness over the state of cleaning in the house (Must do laundry every day! Must mop and dust once a week! Scrub those toilets! Clean that shower! Scour that sink!). Oh, and don't forget exercise (Swim 20+ laps three times a week! Karate class twice a week! Practice 2-3 times a week! Walk! Stretch! It's good for you, dammit!).

Jesus Christ Almighty. Who the fuck was I kidding? Not even Wonder Woman could do all that every day. But I sure as hell tried. Have been trying for the last several months. I think it started back in August, when the art commissions came in. About that time I started up the EPIC VA group. And then I started working on the podcast in September. And the housecleaning thing? That particular losing battle got started the month before Sam was born. I can recall being eight months pregnant and having so much energy that I could get up at 4:30 AM **before my alarm went off** and being all excited about doing a couple of hours of housecleaning. Only it didn't seem like a couple of hours, because I was doing the Fly Lady thing, and which turns housecleaning into 15 minute blocks scattered throughout the day, mixed in with 15 minute blocks of other stuff in between, like work, playtime with the kids, exercise, etc.

Not to knock Fly Lady, because she's got some really good ideas there, but parceling my life out in 15 minute segments to do all the shit I thought I needed to do was really killing me.
Anyway, I've been trying to juggle too many chainsaws at once, and failing at it. On the days that I managed to do all the stuff I told myself I had to do, I felt like I was running one massive long marathon, with no end in sight. I was getting up almost two hours before Michael was (and resenting him for sleeping in) and going to bed an hour before he was. This made it seem like we lived in two separate time zones, even though we were in the same house. I only saw Michael when he was asleep, and many mornings this frequently led to me not getting out of bed at the ungodly hour of **5AM** because if I did, I was giving up quality time with my husband. Yeah, sleeping with my husband was considered quality time. Unfortunately, it wasn't the fun kind of sleeping with my husband.

What was really bad was what all this **WORK I HAD TO DO** was doing to my temper. I was so frantic and so harried and so overscheduled that I had no patience left, especially with the kids. I resented every minute I had to take to herd them along through the day. Five-year-olds and toddlers do not move fast, nor do they live their days parceled out in blocks of 15 minutes. I was yelling at both kids way too often, and then on top of it I was yelling at Michael because his attitude was a bit more slack than mine and he wasn't doing things **EXACTLY THE WAY I WANTED THEM DONE, ESPECIALLY THE HOUSE CLEANING WHICH WAS DRIVING ME NUTS AND DIDN'T HE UNDERSTAND HOW HARD I WORKED TO TAKE CARE OF THE HOUSE AND THE KIDS AND HOW WOULD HE LIKE TO DO HIS OWN DAMN LAUNDRY BECAUSE I'M TIRED OF PICKING UP AFTER HIM**.

So yeah, this sort of shit has been going on for months now and last week it sort of all came to a head and I have three or four meltdowns in a row and then something miraculous happened.

The car went into the shop.

Huh? Say what? What does your car being in the shop have to do with melt-downs and sanity-salvation, Helen?

See, it was like this. The steering column in the SUV was making this horrendous squeaking noise every time I turned the wheel. I ignored it for a while, because I really, really didn't want to spend several hours chasing Sam through the Saturn dealership while someone fixed my car. I had too much shit to do, see? And besides, I've been in that dealership often enough in the past few months that I'm sick of it. The people who work there are really nice and they're very patient with Sam, but they make crap coffee. Anyway, the squeaking noise in the steering column got so bad that last week I finally couldn't ignore it anymore so I finally broke down and made an appointment to have the car repaired on Friday. Only when I made it, I decided to drop the car off **the night before**. That meant I would be stuck at home all day Friday, unable to go to the gym or anyplace else, but hey, it beat being stuck at the dealership with the crap coffee with nothing to do but chase a screaming toddler.

So Thursday evening came. Everybody in the family had a raging cold that day. I had spent the previous several days killing myself to finish up a commission, which still needed a lot of work, and I was dead on my feet. When I picked Cassie up from preschool, I decided I was simply too fried to make dinner, so I called in an order for Chinese. Michael picked it up, brought it home, and we ate a really delicious but very-bad-for-us meal. Then we all piled into the cars and took the SUV to the Saturn place and left it there. When we got home, I sat down at my computer and went back to work on the bloody art commission that had become the bane of my existence. And I worked on it until 2AM.

Crazy, neh? Typical overworked stay-at-home mom shit. But then Friday came and this is where the miracle really started. Because I had been up until 2AM, **I decided to sleep late**. That's right. I shut off all three of my alarms (because I've been so damned tired I actually needed **three alarms** to get my ass out of bed) and I slept in. I let Michael get Cassie up and ready for school. Somehow, they got themselves breakfast and made it out the door. I don't know how. I slept through it all. And then around 9AM (oh my gawd, did I really sleep until 9AM?!), I woke up feeling pretty decent and got out of bed. And I made breakfast - Captain Crunch for me and yogurt for Sam - and I brought it upstairs to the master bathroom, and then I got Sam up and we both got undressed and we took a bath while we ate breakfast. And that worked out pretty well. And since I was feeling lazy and I'd been up so late and I didn't have a car anyway so I couldn't go to the Y, I decided to say, "Fuck it!" and didn't bother to do any exercise. I did fold some laundry, but that was really more an excuse to listen to some podcasts. And I let Sam watch two hours of TV, which I watched with her while I worked on the bloody art commission. And while I did this, all I could think of was, Jeeze! When was the last time I watched TV? When was the last time I just goofed off?

The rest of the day went pretty much like that. We had a simple lunch with Michael (holy cow, we were both awake and talking!) and afterwards I took Sam out for a walk. While she ran around in the field behind our house, I followed along taking pictures of whatever caught my interest, and it was nice. The weather was warm, flowers were blooming, Sam played in the dirt and I had absolutely nowhere I had to be because hey, my car was in the shop.

Sam went down for a nap after that, and I kept working on the bloody art commission, which was now actually turning out to be kind of fun because by this point I had decided it was the only thing I was going to work on that day so now I could actually take some time to play around with it. And it came out sooooooooo nice. Mary's seen it and she likes it so I know it's good. And when it was done, I sent it off to the client and he likes it too, which means he'll pay for it now and that makes **me** happy. Then around 5PM, Michael came home to get me and Sam and we all went to get Cassie at preschool and then we picked up the car and I took the girls home and make leftovers for dinner - Chinese with mashed potatoes and green beans. Yum!

And then we all watched some TV and I tinkered around with the art commission a bit more and bedtime came and the girls went down fairly easy and no one was shouting, especially me, and I stayed up too late after that but I didn't care and I still got a good night of sleep because I slept through the alarm the next morning but I was only a little cranky about that because we still got to Cassie's karate class on time and I was able to do the writing work I had meant to do at **bloody 5AM** while sitting in the dojo watching my girl do her Okinawa thing and then the rest of the day I just sort of relaxed and went along with the flow because I was wearing my favorite Hawaiian shirt with my favorite pirate socks and the weather was sooooooo nice again so I took the girls out for a photo safari and we took pictures of tree bark and tiny flowers and a little bumble bee and all the spring-is-in-the air stuff inspired me to write the coolest story for my podcast and then Mary and Shawn came over for dinner and karate and we all had a good time even though the pork chops I cooked turned out kind of lame.

And all this happened because the car was in the shop all day Friday.

I took a break. I had no choice - the damn car was in the shop. And afterwards I felt better than I had in months. So good that it makes me cry thinking about how damn hard I've been flogging myself to make things happen. So I'm rethinking some things this week. I'm going to keep wearing my Hawaiian shirts and just work on one thing at a time and I'm going to slooooooooooow down because honest to god, nothing I do has to happen except for taking care of the kids, my husband, and myself. I have been so stressed out over all this other shit that I told myself I had to do to succeed as a writer-artist-mom, that I felt like I was working back at Langley AFB again. And everyone who knows me knows how bad that job was. When I quit that place I swore I would never work under those conditions again. And yet somehow I recreated all that right in my own home. Well not anymore.

I'm goofing off today. I'm gonna listen to some podcasts while I fold a little laundry. I've got an article to start for ERWA. Maybe I'll write a little flash fiction I've had in my head and send that in to the writer's group. But I'm only doing those things because I want to, not because I have to. And none of it has to get done today. As for the other stuff that's on my list? Well, all that shit can wait its turn, can't it? I mean, it'll still be there when I'm ready for it. I'm pretty certain of that.

So that's all for now. Chill, dudes.

So I Fell Off The Blogosphere...

I'm not even sure if I'll get this entry written and posted, but I've been gone for more than two months, and I thought I should explain.
Hell with that. Explaining takes too long. Let me sum up.
My folks visited for the week of Halloween. Cassie refused to wear the Hermione Granger costume Grandma bought. Sam refused to wear anything.

I've been working like crazy on my podcast, Heat Flash. Several of the stories have shown up on the ERWA's story galleries, so I know the writing is good. I wonder if the podcast is good too.
Sam, Cassie and I keep giving each other some sort of near-lethal upper-respiratory infection. I'm on antibiotics right now, and am so fed up with being sick I'm just blowing off the whole week. I'm doing the work I have to do, but have opted to skip going to karate and the gym and doing anything else. Did I mention that I have a pinched nerve in my neck as well?

I've decided getting up at 4AM in the morning is not feasible at this time. Yeah, I get a lot of work done, but it's almost like being in an entirely different time zone from the rest of the family. Nobody else wakes up that early, and nobody else goes to bed as early as I need to in order to get up the next morning. So I haven't been seeing Michael at all. Plus, with being sick so much, I've gotten out of the habit. I'm resetting my clock for a more reasonable time, still letting me get up early enough to work on the podcast before the kids wake up, but not so early that I might as well be in Englad, you know?

Michael cleaned the office over the garage, which means there's now room enough for both of us in there. It looks very nice, and I am actually considering moving back in. The biggest problem I have with it though is that my computer in there runs on Windows 2000, and some of my software doesn't work on an OS that old. So I need to update my OS. Plus, that computer doesn't have a DVD drive, which means it can't read any of the disks I've stored all my old files on. Michael is toying with the idea of building me a new computer. He bought a $100 case for $10 the other night. I only hope he doesn't junk up the office again in the process. That would kind of defeat the purpose, you see.

Sam is running, playing, laughing, giggling, and dancing all the time. She climbs on everything, including the coffee table, and gets into everything, like Michael's papers in the roll top desk. The roll top broke, with the top half disappearing into the back of the desk. We keep the bottom half down, but Sam has figured out how to pull out the chair, climb onto it, and reach over the remaining roll top to get Michael's papers. Not good. Kid's too damn clever for her own good.

Cassie is growing like a weed. In fact, I'd almost say she's freakishly tall. She's doing pretty good in preschool, and in karate class too. She keeps begging me to get her sparring gear so she can join the Power Kids class. So guess what she's getting for Christmas? Don't tell her though. I'm having a hard time imagining my freakishly tall four-year-old sparring with the older kids. My baby's growing up so fast!

John turned 40 the other day. Ha ha! You're older than dirt John! I just had to say that.

And I've got a ton of work to do. E-book covers, podcasting, stories to write, a book to outline, an image to finish up for a contest. Baby is screaming right now, so I'll wrap this up.

Hope I don't fall off the blogosphere again.

By The Way, I Survived Fantasci 6

Just thought I should mention that I survived Fantasci 6, the sci-fi convention I went to a couple weeks back. I was there to represent EPIC (Electronically Published Internet Connection), and spent all weekend talking to people about e-books. The convention wasn't as nearly as large as the staff predicted it would be, but I thought it was worth attending. I got to run a fan table for the first time ever, talk to folks about e-books, and I spent most of the weekend with Kathryn Lively from Phaze Books, which is not a bad thing when you are a writer who would eventually like to publish with Phaze. Nope, not bad at all.

The Mad Month Of June In Review

Usually, when I don't post much, it means there's so much going on I don't have time to sit down and breathe, let alone blog. This past month has been just such a case. So to quote Innago Montoya, "Let me explain... No, no that would take too long. Let me sum up..."

2 June - Sam's first birthday.

9 June - Michael's birthday (all I gave him was a CD because...)

9 June - the same day as Michael's birthday is also the deadline for the Erotica Readers and Writers Association theme week this month. And the theme was speculative fiction erotica, and there's no way in hell I'm missing that particular theme (they liked my story, by the way, and will be publishing it on their website next month. More details later). Of course, the writing came in the midst of...

24 April to present - picked up some actual paying work that is eating up all my free time!

15 June - Cassie's first karate belt test. She was so cute! Hiya! Pictures later, I promise.

17 June - Father's day. Michael got a picnic, my Dad got nothing, nadda, zip (see note above about having paying work which eats up all my free time).

19 June - our 14th wedding anniversary. I spent the evening at home feeding dinner to the kids. Michael spent the evening at the dojo getting ready for...

21 June - our 2nd degree black belt test! Which left us so exhausted that we barely made it to...

23 June - our next door neighbor's wedding, which was followed by...

24 June - Sam and Cassie come down with a cold.

25 June - I come down with a cold. One of my cats is also very, very ill, so I take him to the vet. Now I have to keep him in the garage and feed him food with crushed up pills in it six times a day, which is a lot of work, but it beats cleaning up cat diarrhea six off the carpet six times a day.

27 June - my cold is now a sinus infection. I am so dead tired...

And that is a quick review of the month of June in the Madden household. Now you know everything, so go to bed!

I Have A New Blog On Writing Erotica

Just because I don't have enough to do with my time...

Actually, it's because I need a proper venue for discussing erotica writing and art. I added a blog to my erotica website HelenEHMadden.com. I'll be using this blog to discuss what's going on with my writing and artwork, plus as a place to discuss what I see going on in the world with regards to sex and erotica. The rest of the site includes an art gallery (mostly male nudes) and will have a story gallery up by the end of this month. Stop by for a visit if you're so inclined!