I am So Done with today and just want to skip forward to tomorrow, is that possible?

Local art festival this weekend! I am so hyped to spend hours at the park checking out all the cool things. Already warned the husband and kids that they may want to drive their own car there because they will undoubtedly be ready to leave way before I am.

Something fun about my business cards is that when kids go through my booth and end up disappointed (or in some cases, on the verge of a tantrum) because their parents don't want to buy anything, I can usually just hand them a business card and they're THRILLED to have a cute little dragon picture.

✨️STICKER COMMISSIONS OPEN! ✨️ I've had a few unexpected business expenses come up recently that I'm now trying to offset. Thiught it would be fun to do some stickers for people. If you have a design idea you'd like to see turned into a sticker, now's your chance!

Well, well, well. Look who's only 2 days behind on their notes for work instead of 2 weeks. 😏 Gotta admit that feels pretty good.

Getting the itch to start writing again after sending my book out to betas a few weeks ago, so I guess it's time to start drafting that badass grandma/derelict space ship book I've wanted to write for years.

Meet Zipper, the goodest boy in my cozy post-apocalyptic novel. He's a happy go lucky, forever loyal companion for my MC Lor.

My stuff is now live in the OFMD craft fair, where we're raising money for the American Immigration Council. 🏴‍☠️ A set of all my OFMD art prints 🏴‍☠️ A pack of all 43 of my OFMD stickers 🏴‍☠️ A nautical-themed trinket box/butterfly taxidermy thing

Want some free art, and to help us protect everyone from invasive AI? Enter our raffle to win a free commission from Inkiio! We'll pick a winner in 1 week. You can learn more about our project to make it easy to protect yourself from AI scrapers & surveillance by watching our interview linked below.

The new documentation system we're using at work just erased my entire new client mental health assessment, so that's how my Tuesday is going. 🤬🤬🤬

There are SO many cool things here and I'm so proud of our fandom for banding together for this cause. Here's a little preview of my contributions, which aren't up yet but will be dropping later on in the auction.

I'm gathering up my items to photograph for this, one of which is a sticker pack containing one each of every single OFMD sticker I've designed over the last several years. Anyone want to guess how many that it? Because it sure was surprising even to me 😅😁

Holy shit, I think I may actually have a query letter put together. Definitely need some feedback on it, but I feel pretty good about this as a base and I'm definitely relieved to have it (mostly) finished.

I did squeeze in some creative time to make these this week though, so that was fun.

I've been perpetually behind on paperwork and some annual trainings the last couple weeks and I'm finally catching up, but I just feel so behind still. Maybe it's because all I want to do is have time for reading and art and writing my query letter and all the fun things. TGIF. I need a weekend.

Here's my monthly round up of book reviews! Slower reading month for me, but some good ones here by @cornellwriter.bsky.social, @authorwinifred.blacksky.app, @tahernandez.bsky.social, and @abigailtaylor.bsky.social You can read full reviews at www.helenwhistberry.com/blog

Very proud of myself for having a mature, assertive, reasonable converstation where I made some valid points and didn't get flustered or visibly lose my shit. The person I was talking to? An aspiring author who told me he plans to USE CHAT GPT TO WRITE HIS BOOK 🤬 Hopefully he will reconsider? 🙃

Just finished my workday and between Thanksgiving and the time off I took, I have 11 days off starting now. Whoo! It's very needed, I have been starting to feel the burnout a lot more, so I'm excited for some downtime.

Baguette, anyone? I roped my spouse into dressing up with me this year too, and he was a good sport about it. Happy Halloween! #halloween #happyhalloween🎃 #expedition33 #clairobscur #clairobscurexpedition33

Hey look, it's another AI-generated author marketing spam email. Only this time, they sent it to the wrong person because this is not even my book. (Though you really should read Survival Kit by A. H. Haga because it's great.)

Lor has a sister, Savanah, who she was very close to. She's referred to throughout the story but died during the global pandemic and societal collapse that happened before the story starts.

"Our goal as writers should be extreme empathy." -Leigh Bardugo I had the BEST time last night at this panel/discussion with Leigh Bardugo and Brandon Sanderson for the 10th anniversary of Six of Crows.

I just finished beta reading this, and I loved it. If you like vampire stories, don't miss out on this one! Check out that epic cover!

Since many of us are cancelling streaming services, now might also be a good time to support writers and artists. Times are extremely tough for creatives, so why not buy a book, commission an art piece, sign up for a Patreon, tip your favorite creators. Everything helps.

I still have such a fondness for Mitul and Kamaal's romance in my Curse of Shavhalla series. Second chance romance between two middle-aged men, an artist and a musician. We see it all play out through the eyes of the traumatized teen they take under their wing and basically adopt. 🥺💙

What an interesting day to be in the OFMD fandom and online writing/bookish spaces. I will say this for the OFMD fandom: we are NOT cool with this, and if they thought they were going to be making money appealing to us, they were mistaken.

My current random creative obsession is altering old t-shirts, and then I also want to try bleach painting. Anyways, I just left the thrift store with a sack full of clothes to play around with and I am very excited.

Large sections of the indie author community seem very happy with using generative AI for "writing", covers, promotion, translation, audiobooks and all the rest. I'm tired of it. It's parasitical behaviour, IMO, and it damages the reputation of us all.

Hi authors! Please remember to file a claim!

we're also burnt out because writing takes more brain power than AI bros can IMAGINE--literally, they cant even conceptualize what one prompt does to the environment its as draining as therapy, work or school A LOT of the time for me. creativity is a SKILL and skills require WORK

Also related (or maybe the same): Suspense is not generated by the reader not knowing what happens next. It's generated by the reader CARING what happens next.

Etsy recommending me my own stickers

oh my new sticker from @tahernandez.bsky.social arrived at the perfect time

Really wish my order of Tethered Spirits paperbacks had shown up before this weekend because I've now sold out of them and still have a few hours to go at this con. They'd better be here before the ren fair in a couple of weeks but Amazon is being SLOOOOW

Oh hi, yes, that's me. Thanks to the folks in the comments who linked my listing. I know it says there are only a few left but I make them from home and can do more if needed :)

Kids went back to school today, and as much as I love summer and having them home, it was definitely time 😅 They were super cute this morning waking up early and getting ready because they were so excited to go back.

Made some more Expedition 33 art stuff this weekend, including these two sticker versions of Verso. 😁 #clairobscur #expedition33 #clairobscurexpedition33 #verso #fanart #characterart #stickershop

Wanted to try this apple core art trend with Lor and Harlow from my work-in-progress cozy post-apocalyptic novel. #applecore #characterart #arttrend #sapphicart #digitalart #artistsofinstagram #authorsofinstagram #cozybooks

Made some good progress on my WIP last night, and today I'll get to incorporate the scene I've been dying to get to since I started. It was one of the first dialogue scenes I wrote for this book, and I'm super excited to build on it.

Anyone looking for a quick escapist fantasy novel about a magical traveling circus, fantastic creatures, and sticking it to bullies?

Had a scare tonight, just picked my husband up from the emergency room. He was exposed to some chemicals at work & was having a really hard time breathing, had to be sent to the ER in an ambulance. Looks like everything is going to be okay, but I'm still pretty stressed & watching him like a hawk 😬

Finished Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 last night. I am emotionally devastated in the best way. What a phenomenal piece of storytelling! Just stunning. I will be thinking about this one for a long time to come.

This. I prefer to write chronologically most of the time, but when I'm stuck, it really does help to jump to a different scene that I'm more excited about. It's a lot easier to fill in the blanks from there.

Advertise your book with the cover & content warnings only CW: Explorations of trauma and mental illness, violence/blood, death, references to self-harm & suicidal ideation, discrimination, torture and imprisonment, terminal illness

A kid maybe age 5 or 6 just came to my farmer's market booth trying to convince his dad to buy "a violence one" of my stickers or buttons. The dad reminded him that "we don't condone violence" and they settled on this insead. 😂 The kid was very excited to put it on his shirt.

Hey look. Writing progress! It's been months since I've been able to post an update about my cozy post-apocalyptic novel in the works, but I've gotten back into writing pretty consistently over the last week and the words are flowing. I'm really enjoying getting to know the characters better.

Got paid today and I'm dying to buy and start playing Expedition 33. The responsible part of my brain says I should probably finish the Fallout New Vegas DLCs I bought last month before I start anything new. Anyone want to take bets on how long it will be before I cave in?

So all my books are now on Itch, and I'd love to put them in some bundles, but I'm not really sure where to find upcoming ones. Can anyone help me out?

Listen, I don't want to jinx anything, but I'm on day 5 of a solid writing streak after months of writing nothing, so I'm pretty damn excited about that.

My Mexican mother in law told my husband that the arroz rojo I made with dinner was really good, and I'm gonna be riding the high of that compliment for years to come.