#*I still can't fix the fucking link. but whatever...you get the gist.

[vanosslirious]

SMii7y: Who did that to him?!

[tarnishedxknight]

{out of dalmasca} I'm... having thoughts, heh. It's just one of those days when I feel creative but mostly in useless ways, haha. Bit of a tangent rant below for no reason other than that I felt like sharing. XD

Totally random, but thinking about some of my favorite author's books today that I haven't re-read in an absurd amount of time and the absolutely harsh betrayals her ships manage to have... Such as a wife in a position of power testifying at her warrior husband's trial that he's insane to completely discredit him, knowing that in his culture that's not only a serious dick move and is just the biggest way you could ever betray someone, as well as an essential death sentence. Or... a different wife with a mental link to her kind, selfless, gentle healer of a husband whose magic is illegal. When he's discovered and literally burned at the stake simply for wanting to heal people, he asks her through their link not to leave him, to keep his mind occupied, to tell him a story, anything so he can bear the pain... and she nopes the fuck out and blocks him out of her mind because it was too hard for her to bear it. I may be getting the exact situations a little screwy because it's been a long time, but that was the gist of them.

I only ever had two books published (most cites have taken them down by now, they were too old I guess, heh) and they were spawned from just that second scenario I mentioned up there, especially my first book. When I read that situation, I remember having to put the book down for a few days because it turned my stomach. I had that much of a visceral response to just how upsetting that situation was and how angry it made me. I'm not sure I could ever read it again because it really poked me in a painful way. I was impressed that writing could make me have that kind of reaction, but I also hated it, haha, and needed to fix it. You know how 50 Shades of Whatever started out as Twilight fanfiction? Well my book... wasn't fanfiction in that I didn't use this author's characters and just change the names, but I did purposely set up a husband and wife to be the same types of people so that I could then... fix things, heh. Like it wounded me so badly in the heart bits that I needed to make it better, haha. I was really crushed that a wife could abandon her husband in that sort of situation and in that manner, and especially someone as gentle and selfless as this guy was. So I literally wrote an entire book to take people like that... and then write a story equally as tragic but where the wife doesn't abandon her husband no matter how bad or upsetting things got.

It... was not a great book, as the reviews on Goodreads and other sites will attested to (most have been deleted over time as sites removed my books because I didn't renew them, but the worst review I ever got is still up there, so... thanks for that I guess... *sigh*), but I will always love two things about it. It's published, and that's an accomplishment, I feel? Even if the book is terrible? I'm kindof like hey, I did this thing, good for me. It didn't... like... work, hahaha, but go me. XD And also, my mother who died of cancer in 2017 always loved that book. She was a nurse, so a "healer" in a real-world sense, and of all the books I wrote that she read, she always said that book was her favorite. So for that reason, it'll have a special place in my heart. But it's really terrible, haha. I wrote it so many years ago and my writing was just awful back then. I'm not saying it's great now, but it's... better, heh. I don't edit my two published books at all, though. They feel like a product of their time, haha, like a time capsule of how my writing has evolved, so I leave them alone.

I just have two comments, though, about those two scenarios I mentioned way up there: 1) Why can't I write things that powerful? I haven't read these books in like 15 years and those aspects still stick with me because they were so emotional and powerful. I envy writers like that, but it makes me sad that I'll never be one of them. I'm not having a pity party here, just being realistic. I tried for a number of years to become an actual author and to put books out there, and I quickly learned that I didn't have what it took, both in writing skill and storytelling ability, but also just... the whole technical writing and publishing process. It's exhausting and unless you're a seriously good writer, all your effort is likely not going to give you the returns you want. I made all of $23 and change on my books over the years, haha. That's um... that's it. So yeah, it didn't pay, and I didn't have what it took, so it was time to realize my limits and accept that writing for me is only ever going to be a hobby. That's what I learned, anyway, I'm sure other people had different experiences in the self-publishing world. Don't let me discourage you, heh. But I can't even imagine inspiring another writer to write an entire book of their own just with a single scene that you wrote in one of your multitudes of books. Like. That's so metal, it's not even funny, and I wish I had those skills. Goals, for sure.

And 2) while I love a good tragedy and a good angsty ship-that-sank tale, those stories make me really appreciate ships that work so well, like Drace and Noah, for example. I mean, haha, also tragic since he's forced to kill her, but I mean... they'd never betray each other. They'd do what they needed to do for the sake of their greater cause, but themselves as people? Intimately? Hurt each other in a way so personal that no one else but they could do it because of how close they are? Never. I guess that's what makes some things so powerful sometimes. To quote Tim Curry's character Darkness from 1985's Legend, "What is light... without... dark?" Unless you know the other side of things, you don't appreciate when they're actually good.

Okay, and now back to our regularly-scheduled programming, heh. I'm going to just be farting around working on things for a bit today. Not sure how much I'll post, but if I do get anything actually completed, I will post it. Otherwise, I plan on being on to write all night after dinner, treadmilling (ya girl's gotten a bit plump and I refuse to buy more clothes to accommodate this, lol, so... time to shed some pounds), and possibly baking some brownies because chocolate, my beloved. That's the plan! =)