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A few days ago, I forget how long now (see title of post) I was awakened at five in the morning, pretty sure I’d been shot in the leg.

Which would be absurd because I’m not important enough to be the first assassination on somebody’s morning schedule.

I woke up in horrible pain, wondering what the hell happened. My first thought was maybe our ceiling fan fell, or that raccoon that’s always on the roof found a soft spot and crashed through. I groped my way to the end of the bed in the dark, confused, wondering if I was about to be attacked by a similarly confused raccoon. And just as I was leaning over, my forehead and orbital bone met the skull of a pit bull in full zoomies.

Zoomies, if you have never owned a dog, is a phenomenon that occurs when a dog rids itself of extraneous energy by running at full speed with no regard for its own safety or the safety of the people who are just trying to sleep because it’s five in the ding dang morning. Pit bulls run around 20-25mph and their heads are like basketballs made of concrete.

Reader, I saw stars. Within a few hours, it was clear that I had a concussion.

The thing is, this is my third concussion, the second in five years. Every progressive concussion is worse than the last, which I had heard before, but since my first concussion happened when I was fifteen or something, so when I got my second one, I had forgotten what the first one was like. Now, having them back to back, I have a comparison.

PROTECT YOUR HEADS.

Not that I think my Trout Nation friends aren’t smart enough to not split their melons. It’s taken me about three hours to get to this point in this post. I can only think for about twenty minutes at a time before I get intensely car sick. This includes watching movies, reading a book, having a conversation, basically anything other than just staring off into space.

CONCUSSIONS ARE BORING AS FUCK.

So, in summation: pit bulls aren’t dangerous because they’ll attack you, they’re dangerous because they pick ridiculous times to do goofy things, concussions are boring, and wear a helmet even when you’re sleeping because you don’t know when a raccoon is gonna crash through your ceiling.

It happens. I’m waiting.

Wear a helmet.

Howdy! Still hard at work on a bajillion different projects at once over here, but I took some time out of my busy schedule to torment myself with the game that traumatized and inspired a generation of children to say, “Nah, I’m good. I’ll just keep living where I am.” And today, I am sharing that with you:

Please enjoy the adventures of the Butt family and many, many references to the Donner Party.

Also, if you’ve been waiting to see your favorite Jealous Haters Book Club selection immortalized on merchandise, this month I’ve added two new designs, “Pidge” and “#1 Most Jealous (for 24 hours)” to Troutmart. These were the designs that got bumped from June after the proofs didn’t come back in a way I was happy with. Now they’re fine and I highly recommend the “Pidge” throw pillow. Be aware that one of August’s designs will also be an homage to my favorite book about people randomly meeting Carrot Top, so if you want one but can only get one or only want one, wait until August to see if you like that design more because I don’t want to bait and switch you. But I’m having such a good time drawing these between frantically scribbling a thousand different stories all at once in many notebooks that I am most assuredly not looking forward to typing up.

On that note, more The Business Centaur’s Virgin Temp will be here tomorrow, after I obsessively make sure I have all the Ancient Greek names spelled correctly.

I’ve been a little busy lately. I wanted to get another set of Jealous Haters merch out for yous all, but I didn’t like the way one of the proofs turned out so they’re getting a re-design and release in July. It will be worth the wait, Jealous Disasters and Handbooks for Haters. I haven’t forgotten yous all. But here’s the stuff I’ve been busy with.

Reason #1:

On the condition that my brother and sister get their cat spayed, I agreed to foster these beasts. Which quickly turned into, “I will keep two of these.” From L-R, that’s Frankenstein, Dracula, and Ed. Obviously, Frankenstein and Dracula are mine. Once Ed is old enough (they’re eight weeks old now, we got them at six weeks because Momma cat peaced out on the whole parenting thing), he’ll live with Baba. In the meantime, all three of them are here, to the bone-chilling terror of our largest pit bull, who trembles and flees any time we open the porch door because one of them hissed at her once and she has yet to recover.

Reason #2

I went on my annual U.P. writing retreat where, unfortunately, I spent most of the time in agonizing pain and missed out on seeing my friend’s new baby. But I did get more writing done than I usually do at home, and I always use that week as a benchmark to figure out how my publishing schedule is gonna go for the rest of the year. I feel like BARRING ANY POTENTIAL BREAKDOWNS CAN I GO ONE GODDAMN YEAR WITHOUT A MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS, I’ll be releasing both Queen of Hell and the rewritten version of In The Blood on Halloween. Because I’m spooky like that.

 

Reason #3

You ever get a chance to do something you’ve always dreamed about but never had the chance to do? And then you get the chance and you throw literally everything else in your life to one side because this is all that matters until July 9, 2021? Well, that’s what happened to me. I got the chance to write a musical revue. It’s free, it’s outdoors, and it’s with my very favorite theater family, Center Stage in Kalamazoo, MI. If you live in the SW Michigan area and you’d like to see a show on the 9th, 10th, or 11th of July after a year of no theater, you can get ticket info here!   

So, that’s what’s been going on lately. Check back this week for a rec/review of a really great series from one of my most favorite authors, Leanna Renee Hieber, and possibly other stuff. I’m not 100% sure that my ass is unkicked yet from the trip.

Am I introducing Pride merch like a god damn conglomerate? You’re 100% right. If Lego can cash in, so can I. Except, when LGBTQA+ creators do it, it’s like when you hand money to the dude in the sleeping bag on the sidewalk instead of the dude ringing the bell to get money to run through the hands of the CEO before making the dude in the sleeping bag sit through a gospel reading to get a bowl of oatmeal and a roll of toilet paper.

Moving on.

Before I shamelessly hawk my wears, let me explain this shit like a fucking recipe blog.

I don’t think cops should be a presence at Pride. Not just because cops routinely raided gay bars and checked people’s genitals and counted how many pieces of “gender appropriate” clothing they were wearing and beat them and outed them and humiliated them etc. until Marsha fucking snapped and chucked that brick, but also because of how the police have weaponized their presence to prevent events and protests from even happening. Cities have tried to use, “but you have to pay for the police to protect you!” as an excuse to withhold permits and contracts from event organizers who couldn’t raise the funds. And “protection” from police at Pride has sometimes meant open harassment and violence against the people paying for their protection in the first place.

Just because marriage equality passed in the United States doesn’t mean LGBTQA+ people are safe and all our problems have been solved. We’re still considered “less-dead” in criminology terms: victims more vulnerable to becoming cold cases due to marginalized status.

The situation is somewhat similar to what happens to Black Lives Matter protests: Pay us to protect you at the protests you organize in remembrance of how we, specifically, have historically victimized you. Oh, and while we’re here, why not let us make you feel incredibly unsafe.

In the United States, there’s a flag that’s become a popular substitute for the traitor (confederate) flag. It’s a version of the American flag in black and white. One stripe is blue, to signify the “thin blue line,” the mythical concept that without the police to brutalize citizens, the workers will undermine the fruits of their labor or something dystopian like that.

In my area, they usually fly just above “Trump 2024” or “Fuck Biden” MAGA flags.

I fucking hate them.

Like, whenever I hear a firetruck, I fantasize that it’s one of those houses.

So, as with many, many things in my life, I was motivated by spite to make a flag for LGBTQA+ Americans who don’t want cops at Pride, based on the bootlicker flag:

This image file is huge, by the way, so that you can use it on what you want. Put it in your Cricut machine and make stickers and sell ’em on etsy. Make it a real flag, I don’t care. Put it on your FB, print it out and write love letters on it, whatever blows your skirt up. Monetize it. Get that cash, gaybies.

What I’m not cool with would be if someone not a member of the LGBTQA+ community decided to be an ally by making money off it. Or a corporation. That would disappoint me and I would lose respect for that person or entity. But I want it to be available for everyone so I’m not gonna copyright it or anything.

But I’m gonna sell merch!

Over at TroutMart, you can find this design, as well as a limited edition, super gayed-out version of our favorite misogynistic insult that will only be available during the month of June.

Giving queer people money is allyship, right?

Anyway, a very merry Pride to you, remember the people who died so you could watch cis straight actors pretend to be them in the biopic.

No Cops At Pride.

Troutmart is live, I feel like I died yesterday (Moderna round 2), so here’s the link and go get your vaccine if you can.

Click this link and consume if you would like to.

Hey yous all, my dog died and i finally got an appointment for my second dose of the vaccine (they ran out of Moderna, so I had to wait until they got some), so I gotta postpone this week’s Crave post because I know after they stick me with that Dolly Juice, I’m gonna be down for the count and because tomorrow will be a total wash because we live way out in the middle of nowhere and it’s like an hour to get to the crematorium for the dog. I guess in the meantime, rock out with your cocks out? IDK this has been a wild week and it’s only Tuesday.

This is my fourth attempt to write this post. The first one blew up bridges. The second was nuclear assault. The third was a little more measured and reasonable. I flirted with the idea of posting all of them, choose-your-own-adventure style: if you want to choose the high road, click here. To plunge into the fiery abyss of Jenny’s contempt, click here. But then I stopped and thought to myself:

I have so much awesome stuff going on in my life right now. I’m so blessed to be doing the things that I love. Why talk about people who aren’t included in that? This week, I’m launching some merch (I love how douchey that sounds. Merch.), I’ve got a video to post, a new recap to deliver, I’m finally crawling out of my grief pit a little bit, I’m half vaccinated…why burn a bridge I’m sure as hell not going to accidentally wander back down? But changes must be made.

As you can see from the title of this post, I am retiring Abigail Barnette. For a few reasons. I don’t need to comment on my views regarding the power of cis white woman tears in the ‘landia. I’ve referenced Mean Girls to describe the hierarchy of the industry but after Dudley only got twenty-six presents last week, it’s beginning to look a lot like MAGA. There are so many people trying to genuinely do good, even some of the people I find insufferable. And I wish those people well. But the hypocrisy of others, the entitlement and gatekeeping and diet social justice branding, the openly unethical actions and outright lies, it’s just…so tiring. And it’s really soured my experience as a romance author. I’m just not enjoying myself anymore. I don’t begrudge anyone their success; I actually have a lot of respect for con artists, if they’re good con artists. And I’ve seen so many incredible feats of manipulation and gaslighting in my time writing romance, made by incredibly successful people.

I’ve also seen some of the best, nicest, and most honest people have magical things happen for them. And I’ve made some great friendships, with authors and readers alike. Romance has always been a great love of mine. But I never meant to be a romance writer. My traditionally published books aren’t romances, they were just published by Harlequin and because romance readers are such big cross-genre readers, I did a lot of romance conventions and collaborations with romance authors. My writer friends were all romance writers. All of the fanfiction I wrote was romance. When I switched to writing and editing romance, it ended up being the worst move of my career. It killed my hobby writing and reading and made all of it a homework assignment. The pace, the environment, the intra-genre politics, all of it has burned me out. So, Abigail Barnette must retire.

I know this will come as a disappointment to readers waiting for a fourth Ian and Penny book. I had explored other avenues of continuing that series with new writers and I was in talks for about a year on that but ultimately a deal wasn’t reached. But when I look back on the end of Baby Makes Three, it feels like their happily ever after already happened. Everyone’s loose ends are tied up, except for one. That’s Danny’s book. I’ve had a perspective change on priest romances. I don’t think anyone is terrible for writing them or reading them, believe me. Priests are just not a subject I want to think about for reasons involving recent charges against a favorite one from high school. I won’t get into it because it’s a sensitive subject for a lot of people, I just wanted you all to be aware that his book wouldn’t have been happening regardless.

This isn’t me quitting fiction; as much as I would love to blog full time, I wouldn’t love to blog full time. I really like writing. I’m going to go back to the fantasy/urban fantasy I started with, and I’m still going forward with dark paranormal erotica/erotic horror as Jennifer Morningstar. So, upcoming releases like In The Blood and Queen of Hell aren’t affected by this shift. I’ll also be pursuing traditional publishing with future fantasy projects. Self-publishing requires more executive function than I’ve had for a while. But that’s quite a way out.

Do I believe that other genres are any better when it comes to petty squabbles and unethical behavior? Absolutely not. Where there be people, there…there shall ye find assholes. But at least they’ll be different assholes. And maybe that’ll make me less of an asshole?