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Month: December 2020

2021: The Year Of Chaotic Creation

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Here’s what I’m doing in 2021. If it sounds good to you, do it, too. I think after the hell year of 2020 and the fact that there really isn’t a ton of light at the end of the tunnel yet, we all need something to get us off the couch and away from doom scrolling and binge-watching, and generally just wandering around in a stupor. We might not be able to get out of the house, but we can get into our heads.

In 2021, I am creating chaotically. And when I say it’s gonna be chaos…it’s gonna be chaos. Because I realized that there is a) no reason that all of my creative energy needs to go into either secret projects I don’t show anyone for fear of feeling “monetized” or projects that are extremely monetized and b) I’m my own boss and I can do literally whatever I want.

Obviously, I’ve got the recaps I’m going to keep doing because I like doing those (although Buffy is getting harder to get on board with; Joss Whedon makes my skin crawl and he’s basically destroyed my love for the show). I’m going to devote more time to The Business Centaur’s Virgin Temp, because I’m enjoying that, too.

But you know what else I enjoy? LITERALLY EVERYTHING.

If you stood in my office and you saw all the stuff in here, you’d be like, “This person has never finished a craft project in her life.” I have so many hobbies that in the past, I’ve had to actively participate in community craft fairs to be able to afford more supplies. I’m like some Dickensian urchin warming himself in a doorway, begging passers by, “Please, sir, just a drop of gouache?”

Here are all the things I like…do:

  • knitting
  • crochet
  • community theater
  • oil and acrylic paintings
  • painting and designing custom ouija boards
  • decorating miniature rooms in an unfinished wooden castle for no reason
  • play a little bit of a lot of different instruments, badly
  • sing
  • game
  • crafting theatrical props
  • writing thoughts about metaphysical stuff and rarely posting to a hobby blog
  • epoxy resin pieces
  • watercolor
  • counted cross-stitch
  • illustrating a children’s book I made up
  • bullet journaling
  • coloring in those adult coloring books which is a misleading name because there aren’t any bewbs.
  • soap making
  • needle felting
  • fanfic
  • writing screenplays/teleplays of my own work
  • So much weird mixed medium stuff

Writing is such a very small percentage of what comes out of my head. While I sometimes post art on Instagram, I generally keep it under my hat because I am a writer, you see, and there is only ONE THING I AM ALLOWED TO BE.

Everyone told me that when I turned forty, I would no longer give any fucks. Any at all. And surprisingly, the area hardest hit was my perception of myself and how I’d pigeon-holed myself. Not a single fuck left. I don’t need to keep a side hobby blog for my witchy-poo nonsense. There’s no reason I’m not allowed to put that here. And there’s no reason I’m not allowed to put my art here when it’s not a mental health update or something. And if I want to make a YouTube video of me singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in front of a green screen scrolling a constant loop of kittens barfing in the background? There’s no reason I shouldn’t put it on this blog.

It’s my blog.

Also, the description of what my company, Trout Nation Inc., does is very vague and I’m the sole shareholder. I’ve also heard that blogs are “dead,” so if I’m one of the last villagers in this abandoned valley, I’m gonna take this in a real, real strange direction.

I know, Business Centaurs aren’t strange enough.

I guess what I’m saying is, plan on seeing a bunch of random stuff next year, as I allow my creative self to do whatever it fucking feels like and I just vomit it in here and on my YouTube channel. If you decide to do the same thing, let’s call it a Chaotic Creation Challenge, and you wanna post stuff to your blog or your social media, put a link in the comments to share. I don’t care if you come back to this post in July like, “Just built the largest card house I’ve ever achieved,” everyone is going to be psyched for you.

Because I’m the President-King of Trout Nation and I decree that we all have to be psyched for each other.

I’m not saying that 2021 is gonna be our best year. I’m definitely not setting goals in stone; we’ve seen how well that’s worked out progressively every year since 2016. But I am saying that 2020 took a lot of stuff from us and it’s time to create in the face of destruction, if that does, in fact, make you feel more hopeful.

If it doesn’t, then I invite you to take the Miserable Bastard Challenge, which is like the Chaotic Creation thing but just staying super cynical and angry. I fully support anyone who just cannot fucking trust 2021.

THE FINAL BOSS BOOK! Title change, cover reveal, and release date!

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READERS! IT’S HAPPENING! IT’S REALLY HAPPENING!

While I had planned to announce The Daughter‘s release date and reveal the cover last week, it just felt…wrong. And I didn’t know why. This is going to be the very last time I’m with Sophie. While I’ve been writing other books, as well, Sophie has been my main focus, my work wife, since I started writing the serialized version of The Boss in…was it 2013? I can’t remember. Either way, for the better part of a decade.

It was difficult to decide on a cover. I kept staring at it, going, “the title just doesn’t look right. None of this looks right. Is that even how ‘daughter’ is spelled? It looks so…wrong.”

I realized that out of all the titles in the series, none of them, not a single one, had referred to Sophie. For example:

  • The Boss referred to Neil.
  • The Girlfriend referred to Valerie.
  • The Bride was Emma.
  • The Ex was Stephen.
  • Obviously, Olivia is The Baby.
  • The Sister referred to Molly
  • The Boyfriend was El-Mudad

Sophie has never had top billing. When you read The Daughter, it’ll be clear who it refers to. But that person isn’t Sophie.

So, without further ado, the title and the cover for the final book in The Boss series will be (already ruined for you by the social media preview):