Restful autumn season cancelled! After 3 years of difficult searching and many deferred hopes, we are finally moving house! 😭✨ (From having a shared driveway with our neighbors and loud city noise to little cottage in the country!)

Forgot this place even existed this summer, it's been that wild. 😅 (In contrast, starting back to homeschooling this week has been positively restful.)

Struck 100k on this draft this morning! 🤸‍♀️🤸‍♀️🤸‍♀️ There's a lot of mess to sort out, but at least some showdown scaffolding is now in place.

Still questioning whether the middle of this book raises too many questions it can't answer yet--but it occured to me this morning that this first book from the villain's POV would be WILD, he is 100% flummoxed, and so MAD about it.

I'm still several months away from ending this book draft, but I just re-read the conclusion I wrote a few years ago, and excuse me, that is still FIRE. 🔥🔥🔥

1000 word cafe-writing session today! 🥰 (This was my belated Mother's Day present. 😁)

Inched my way to 80k on this book today. \o/

My shoulder is still rather dreadful, and holding a pen or pencil for any length of time is very painful (drawing is Out)--so today I am thankful for typing (which does not hurt!), and a fair amount of writing progress, despite other Creative Woes. 😅

Being an artist is like "when i finish this art project i am going to reward myself for working so hard by making this new art project" Over and over until you die.

I've continued to have terrible mysterious back/shoulder pain--and so often it's hard to get any doctor to look beyond my Terrible Spine to any other probable cause. So I am DEEPLY thankful for my physical therapist, who really listened yesterday--

Somehow lost EVERYTHING I wrote yesterday, despite having autosave in libreoffice set to every 2 minutes???? Screaming, crying, throwing up.

My 8yo: "Which word is the opposite of BIG in my spelling words?" Me: "This one is not in your spelling words--but like the other ones in the list, it ends in 'le.'" "Small?" "...No." "Tiny???" "Um--no. So when you were a baby, you might say, 'When I was....? Begins with L?" "LARVAE?"

I seem to finally be coming out of a 6-month writing block? (I've been writing, it's just been tortuous.) Maaaaybe I will actually finish a full 2nd draft of this book this year after all?

Beautiful day slightly interrupted by a visit to urgent care for my daughter, who fell at the playground and sliced her chin open, and emphatically needed stitches (her Worst Fear). She has been slightly mollified by ice cream. (My kids and their dramatic facial injuries, ackkkkk. 😬)

Severe back pain flare-up timing itself neatly with the PT appointment I scheduled weeks ago, when I was fine. Usually that happens in reverse.... 🙃

Some days the only thing motivating me to go to the gym is the fact that I get to listen to an audiobook there. 😅

My writing time these days is stretched very thin (I have to get up at 5am to do it at all, and there are no opportunities after the kids get up), so a week where I've finally made about 2000 words progress, with scenes that actually feel right, is a cause of much rejoicing. 🥹

In the spirit of "I see it, I reread it" this year, I chanced upon THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY in the library yesterday, and was laughing over it so much later that the kids demanded I read it to them, so I read them the first chapter.

Realized in the scene I wrote this morning that my Big Bad had slipped his official introduction into it, in disguise, even from me. 😅 (He is the Most Evil Shapeshifter, so I don't know what I expected.)

My 3yo nephew has had two long hospital stays since New Year's Eve, due to a burst appendix, and he finally gets to come home today. 🥹🥹 Lots of scary, anxious times. We're thankful. ❤️

Finished re-reading Return of the King in two days and now somehow I've got to go on with life. 😭

My once-a-decade re-read of Lord of the Rings with my husband around is mostly this meme on repeat. 😅

Get in, loser, we're posting lock screens.

Finally serious enough about sourdough that I decided I ought to actually acquire a lame, so I can make my bread prettier.

First two days of shoveling snow: Look at me, not falling apart physically! 💪🏋️‍♀️ Third day of shoveling snow: CRIPPLING SCIATICA.

Couple of commission slots open: ko-fi.com/scarvenartis...

Back to writing today (light edits and maybe +100 words but it's SOMETHING), and back to school with the kids. Both semi-painful for all concerned. 😅

First book of the year is Yours From the Tower and I'm going absolutely FERAL over it. 😭❤️😭❤️

Ouch?

Ending our year with making an offer on a house?! I have a lot of reservations about this one though (hanging on to that "pending inspection" clause) so I'll be cool either way it goes.

Maybe sometimes we go away just to appreciate how much we actually want to be home. 😅😴😴

Using contact paper to transfer a rough sketch to mixed media paper continues to be this year's LIFE-CHANGING traditional art hack, how have I never done this before????

One thing you will never think after reading a great book or listening to a great album or seeing a great piece of art is, “I’m really glad this person remained cautious while they were making this and guarded against being perceived as weird.”

5 is my favorite, but in black.

Recently realized that I'm constantly thinking "Oo I want to re-read that," and then I never actually do, so I have decided to designate next year as the Year of Re-Reads, and I'm so excited about it.

Going from three separate rotations of houseguests for a solid month (including three full days last week where I was the sole person in charge of six children), down to just me and my daughter in the house this weekend...I feel like I have some kind of whiplash. 😅

Pile of recent sketches.

Moving the bookshelf to rip out the (gross and beloathed) carpet under it means many, many book piles.

Have accidentally written 25k on a future project, and I don't think they're ultimately what I want out of the finished product, but at least I get it out of my system for now?🤷‍♀️

Pain has abated somewhat, but I tried to sketch a bit tonight and got numb and tingly fingers, and struggled even more than usual with fine detail. ☹️ Anyway...I'm feeling rather low about all this. Going to need much patience.

GOOD morning, I'm annoyed at a popular work of fiction for the nitpickiest of details and the most pretentious of personal reasons, and I'm being so brave about it.

Quote with a picture of water that you took.

Sibling sketch. (My shifter-verse.)

Finished a long section of revision today in the middle of my novel, and I'm honestly so excited to see how much this project has grown over the last six years. 🥲 (A lot of discarded words along the way, but I regret nothing.)

Made an offer on a house this weekend (I dearly loved it), and we were outbid by a LOT, even though our realtor thought our offer was competitive...and so the search goes on. (And on and ON. 😞)

Would love to be intentional about my drafting process one day, but actually it looks like: started fleshing out a thing in part 1-> realized Part 1 is actually Book 1 -> with a distinct arc of its own? -> so wait that means I actually have One Finished Book and I'm just revising it???

ko-fi.com/scarvenartis... 2 commission slots open at this time, guys! 😊

Probably should finish one or two of the eight books I'm presently reading before allowing myself to start a new one? 😬

Maiden voyage with my new oven indicates I should actually follow recipe directions now to the letter--GASP. Bottom is perfect, the top would have been better if I'd preheated my dutch oven's lid before baking (which I couldn't do with my old oven without scorching the loaf black. :P)

After nine yeeeears of striving with my oven's various issues and quirks...I at last have a new one. 😅 Let's see if I now have to learn how to bake all over again! For one thing, maybe I can now use actual baking temps and times in recipes, and not have it burn one day, and underbake the next???