[Khara's Scrapbook] Where is This Handbasket Headed?

[Zhol]

Secret :

That is all.

[Khara]

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Seasonish Rambles

I came to the realization today that each Season in Mizahar actually coincides with my own specific writing challenges. Things that life routinely throws at me that makes it so I can't dedicate as much brainpower to writing as I'd like. Granted, right now it's even a more special case with my job trying to wring my soul out of me - though supposedly that should let up come April. Of course, that was supposedly going to be October at one point so clearly we see how well that's going. It's not the normal though, even if my job does make a habit of attempting to murder motivation now and then, it's usually fairly unpredictable. These other things though? These I can count on almost as much as I can count on the sun rising every morning. Not that any of these stop me from fully writing, of course.

Spring: Spring is a time of rebirth and growth and more plants blooming than possible here in Southern California. It's the rare time when everything is actually green and beautiful. Which is great. Except if you have allergies and those little wafts of pollen and fluff floating through the air looks more like nuclear fallout than nature just doing it's thing. While sinus pressure is the work of the devil, it's actually the medication that messes me up more than anything else. I once knew a coworker who would take sudafed and become this limitless ball of energy; oh how I wish that was true for me. I turn into the walking dead, except instead of craving brains I'm groaning about coffee and chocolate. I stare at the walls and suddenly - POOF - 30 minutes have gone by and I'm baffled by how it snuck off. Writing like this is a hideous challenge, each bit taking me double or triple the time it normally would, I start to repeat things because I can't remember having written the exact same word or phrase two seconds ago and proof reading becomes this arduous task that is pure evil.

Summer: I'm not quite sure how this will go this year, it may not even be a problem considering my new home actually has air conditioning for a change. Southern California Summers may not be as brutal as other places but when we linger in the 90s and peak into the 100s for weeks on end it can seem like somewhere god has a magnifying glass and is aiming the beam of light right at us. As much as I'm not a fan of the cold, the heat tends to sap my energy right out of me. I feel like my brain has melted somewhere into a puddle of yuck in the back of my head and I'm lucky if I can muster the energy to go walk to the fridge for a glass of ice water. Not only that, I quite often find that I'm a bit concerned about my desktop overheating and the thought of a warm laptop on me in such weather is just a no go. Though as I said... blissful air conditioning is now at my disposal. Bring it on, Summer.

Fall: Fall is basically Spring 2.0. More allergies brought about by winds that move through the area during this time of year. Aside from that, it's usually my most productive time though. The cooler weather sparks a bit more oomph than I had and overall my love of Autumn basically cheers me up a ton too. I guess the stumbling block here is usually time more than anything, I end up with so many ideas, so much enthusiasm, and only so many hours in a day that I can actually write in. I guess that's not a bad problem to have, really.

Winter: Holidays. I guess technically they start at the end of November but eff it, I'm just categorizing them under Winter as a whole. I find family affairs to be ungodly draining. I wind myself up with anxiety prior to them, tend to mostly enjoy myself at them, but the aftermath feels like when a music box is winding down and the little chimes come slower and slower and more pitiful sounding. This last year was especially insane with buying and moving into a house in short order. Hopefully this year won't entirely kill me as much but it being the season it is - I'm sure something else will come up.


So yep. That's it. Not sure why I wanted to ramble on about it. Maybe it's just a way to procrastinate from writing much needed posts.

Sunberth peoples - I have not forgotten about you! Promise! Saidra's a bit on a shelf for now but I plan on picking her back up soon here.
Endrykas peoples - You too! Though by all means nudge me more, I know those Fall threads are still lingering and darn it, we need to wrap them up!
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[Zhol]

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Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady.
(I'm on a horse)

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[Khara]

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“The heart is extremely fertile soil. Whatever is planted there, good or bad, will take root and grow.” — Abdul Nasir Jangda

Just sharing a quote I saw on tumblr while having my morning coffee. I could gripe about work some more but I'll just say the situation hasn't changed, just as predicted. I'm not a particularly religious person, but if any of you people are reading this on the proper day - Happy Easter! Hopefully your day is filled with everything you expect/want (And hopefully that includes a ton of chocolate).
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[Khara]

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ARCHERY! I pick Archery!

So last weekend I finally did something I've wanted to since I was a tiny little thing. It's no surprise that I've always wanted to be the ranger in any RPG I play or why the Inarta immediately appealed to me (okay so there were many reasons there but "eeee bows!" helped for sure), but actually writing out shooting arrows has been somewhat of a challenge for me. I've done a ton of reading on anything from beginner mistakes to advanced techniques to pretty much anything else I could get my hands on but I've always been one of those people that will mock out actions and such in my living room to figure out if they are possible.

So last Saturday I finally got around to having myself a proper archery lesson. The instructor was super nice and explained it in ways that sounded familiar due to said copious amounts of reading, but seeing it in person was definitely better than any YouTube video ever was. I was rather proud of myself that from the very first shot I managed to at least hit the target and within an hour I had my giggle fit moment...

No... not ALL those holes are from me! They didn't give me a fresh target to start with.

I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that I went home with a new bow and a target and some arrows and spent the next six hours in my backyard abusing myself. Which made me realize that unlike my character that grew up doing this and probably has developed a bit of a callus that prevents such a thing, I'm a giant sissy... my draw hand still hurts. So worth it. If my reading did prepare me for one thing though, it was how to avoid getting your arm smacked by the bowstring, though I swear all the ways I read it made it sound so much more difficult than a simple "Don't hyper-extend your arm" - wish I'd known that before I wrote the thread where Khara taught Zhol a bit, I prefer that simple answer to what I actually had Khara say.
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[Khara]

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A Year Later...

Well holy crap, would you look at that? I've apparently been on Miz a year now.

When I first joined I was looking for a new site to write on as my old usual had left me feeling a bit... wanting. I loved cohesive storytelling with big overall plots and that just didn't seem to be the popular opinion. A bit of googling later and I kept coming across Miz and I am so glad I got past my hesitations of the unfamiliar and took the leap here.

In this short little year I've watched the site have it's ups and downs, people come and go, lurked in chat and made myself feel silly and while I still feel like a bit of the FNG in a way, I'm really glad that I can call this place my writing "home". There really is no where else like Miz and I'm so glad to be a part of it.

As far as me - I've stumbled a bit with some alt characters, but I'd love to pick them back up sometime in the near future. I know my activity level lately has been all over the place and I do feel like I owe my writing partners a bit of an explanation. Without making it a giant sad story (and as some of the people over in WR already know), I've had some medical issues lately... namely my hospital apparently had some sort of massive hiccup and cancelled me off a medication I take. Problem is it's the sort you're supposed to ween yourself off of, but nope... thanks to a paperwork issue I was cut cold turkey. Two weeks later I finally got an appointment and they decided to try something else which is working much better except it leaves me feeling tired all the time. You know that brain fog feeling when you're sick sometimes and you just can't seem to focus? Yeah, it's pretty much that. So naturally this has made writing a bit difficult, which in turn is bumming me out since it's effecting one of my favorite hobbies. I'm hoping I can talk to my doctor when I finally have a follow up appointment later this month and hopefully everything will even out and I can get back to some regular activity around here that I sorely miss.

In other news - I won't be around next weekend at all thanks to my annual Comic Con excursion but please, please, if you are waiting on me to post somewhere (even as one of my alts) do not hesitate to PM me. I don't really want to leave people hanging and while getting a post out right now is a bit of a struggle, it's definitely worth it to me.

I think that's enough rambling for now. Thanks everyone for the memories so far - here's to another year and hopefully many more after!
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[Khara]

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Blech to being Sick

I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing this. Most of you hardly know me but I figure anonymity allows us to be more candid sometimes. I guess I've just had a lot to get off my chest and I don't actually have a proper blog to gripe about it. So... here goes...

I guess I've been on a bit of a hiatus from writing, and sadly, it hasn't entirely been on my own terms. We all need a break sometimes, I suppose, and I was planning on slowing down a bit after Spring since I think I wrote the equivalent of a NaNo month and completed all of Wind Reach's goals (Seriously V, where's my badge? ) and just in general needed a bit of recoup time. What I didn't see coming was a mass of complications in my overall well being that turned a slow down into a trickle into barely any writing at all.

The long and short story is this: Depression and Anxiety are two awful bitches that will try and ruin your life if you let them. I've had them both on fairly short leashes for a few good years after I finally came to terms with needing help and going out and getting it, but sometimes life offers hiccups and everything goes into full meltdown.

It started when there was an interruption in my medication. Some miscommunication took me off cold turkey, which I quickly found out, was just about the worst thing I could do to myself. Again, not intentional, but it threw everything off and it has taken a long time to recover from that. I'm not entirely certain I fully have yet, to be honest. Once things got sorted out on that front - which took a while and some experimenting with different things before my insurance finally decided that they could cover a decent chunk of what was actually working best for me a few years back. As opposed to other things I tried that left me feeling spaced out most of the day which was horrible.

This process took a few months, though, a few really rough months in which life did not help. My boyfriend (who I guess after 12 years and buying a house together really needs a better term) had some deaths in the family and my cat died. It was rough and in general just a giant sap on things I needed badly - like my writing and creativity for instance. Work wasn't helping either - still isn't - but that's a rant best left separate as it could fill pages upon pages. Short version there - I feel entirely unappreciated for all I do there. Not to mention the whole medical hiccups caused me to miss a lot of time and no one really seemed exactly sympathetic on that front. It seems no one in my office quite gets what all can happen to you when your brain chemistry is going all over the place. I had to start saying that I was having migraines because anxiety attacks and such weren't apparently suitable reasons.

There was a period of time where nothing was all I wanted to do. I had talks about abandoning all my writing projects - Miz included. Which now that I look back on I'm slightly horrified to think that. If there's one honesty about me and writing it's that I get invested in my characters. Probably a bit too much some might argue, but it's true, and letting Khara fade away simply wasn't an option - even if at the time I thought it was a good idea.

So all rambles above aside... Where am I at now? Well, I've been trying to ease myself back into writing, which has been far more successful lately than on prior attempts. I'm still struggling a lot, but I'm aware of it. I get frustrated more than anything else right now because I want to write but feel like the tank is running empty more days than not.

What does this mean for Miz? It means that I'll be sticking to Khara only for a bit - not that that hasn't been the normal for a while now anyway, but for the time being she's going to be my focus. If you want to turn in threads you have with Dinah or Saidra, please feel free - I don't want to hold up your XP and such! But if you like, you can let them linger and when things clear up I'd love to pick everything back up again when I've finished putting myself back together.

Thanks for sticking with me, especially everyone over in Wind Reach for their infinite patience with me saying I'll post to something and then getting one reply from me in a month or so. I really want to be more active - I may just need a bit of help now and again.

I can't promise that I'll be the best writing partner, or the most diligent, but I can promise that I appreciate the time you give me to be creative and feel more like myself.

Also - in September, the boyfriend thought a good "help" to my perpetual bummed-outness would be to let me get a new kitten. I will apologize now for any random cat pictures that show up here in my future - hopefully more happy - scrapbook posts.
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[Khara]

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Still Not Dead

Wow, so much for the comeback, right?

Short reasons - things are still difficult around here in me-land, but I'll be honest when I say that not writing is feeling like some sort of cramp in my gut that I can't shake off. I'd really like to continue Khara's story though there's bit a bit of a shakeup in Kalea while I've been gone so I'll have to make some decisions on where it may be best to place her now (Suggestions are welcome! Looking at Lhavit but I'm not sure, yet.)

I'll be doing some off-site character writing prompts to get back in the groove during February and HOPEFULLY if I have my brain back, I'll launch into a proper return for the Spring season. (By the way If you are giving this a read over and happen to know of any sites with great little character building writing prompts please share! I can use all the help I can get)

Basically... I miss you, Mizahar and I need to come back and write. I just have to find my footing once again.
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