A Total Cosmic Convergence & Helpful Personalities

I have multiple personas I call upon as the prevailing need in my life dictates.

Constance was the first to develop. She was helpful because I could readily blame her when I was late or forgetful. "Sorry, you know me, I'm Constancely late / forgetful / or whatever." It's quite convenient. In fact, I highly recommend it.

Right now, Dorothy is in full sway. That's Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.  She deals with the tornadic periods of my life. She helps out in those times when things are coming at me every which way and I'm fighting hard against the tide. I pull her out and use her as a shield of sorts during those Cosmic Convergence periods where everything seems aligned juuust perfectly to make life a challenge.

Hope is there, too, because I Hope this too shall pass and calmer waters lie ahead.

I'm also calling upon Patience, so I don't lose my temper and scream or throw things. Fortunately, Patience hasn't been trotted out too much, and hasn't expended her energy. So that's a good thing.

On the other hand, Constance is taking a few days off. She won't be called again for a while - not until I'm Constancely late, or Constancely forgetful about something or other. Birthdays are one event for which she's handy.

So those are my different "people" who help me through periods where life gets difficult.  Right now, my life feels as if I'm standing under Niagra Falls and trying to catch it in a 5 ounce Dixie cup.


See, what happened was, we had a guy who worked here. A nice guy, affable and pleasant, but one who never "got" it when it came to his job. He faked his way through for long enough that we're now scrambling / struggling to fix what he didn't do. I was the one who did what he was supposed to do before he did it, so I trained him. And I retrained him and sat with him and encouraged him, 'If you have any questions about anything, please let me know'. I stopped by and asked, 'how's it going?' According to him, everything was fine. Until they fired him and discovered things were not fine. Things, in certain cases, were a year past 'fine'.

So, having a bit of a guilt complex because I think I 'failed' somehow - either by scaring him by my personality (which can be strong), or by making him afraid to ask me for help - I offered to step in and help fix what went off the rails. That's pretty much all I've been doing for the past several days, because what went off the rails didn't just go off the rails. It went massively off the rails, like across the verge and over the road and into the next county. And it has to be fixed ASAP.

Not only because it's month-end, which it is, and we don't want to accrue all of this stuff, but also because we have other companies relying on us and if they don't get what they're expecting, we'll be in a world of hurt. So I'm playing catch-up - with, in some cases, a more than one-year delay.

On top of that, I started an online wedding album for my daughter expecting that people who were there and who want to post pictures will do so. Unfortunately, they're not. They're putting them all over Facebook so I'm going to have to go through and pick up the pictures and copy them into the wedding album - otherwise they'll be lost forever in the morass that is Facebook.

Things at home are... well, they are. But it's par for the course so it's what it is and I just deal with it. It does add to the Stress-O-Meter, though, and just makes that Cosmic Convergence seem bigger.

And there are other things at play, too, but this too shall pass and I shall get to calmer waters. I'll have a period where I can breathe and catch up with myself, and this shall go into my Life Book as one of "those" periods. Just like everyone else has, too.

Along with this is the writing which has stalled again (small wonder, given everything else...), but I am leaning strongly toward doing NaNoWriMo in November, and I have an interesting concept for my story - so I'll continue mulling that. It would be cheating to start now, although I could and who would know? But I won't because that would at least partially defeat the challenge.

Authonomy is in my past. I was very upset and sad yesterday, but they're shutting it down at midnight on 09/30 and I wasn't sure which midnight they meant - 09/30 or 10/01 - but I didn't want to be there for it. I'm on the West Coast of the US and many of my Autho-Friends are in the UK and parts East of here. I did not want to be the one to see it ripped out from under me, so I closed my account yesterday. It was hard, really hard, and I had to think about it for several days before I knew I was ready.

However, life will continue and the cosmos will converge and I will muddle along doing what I do from day-to-day.

So - cosmic convergences and associated personas come together once more. And the big piles that I have on my desk are looking smaller, so there is hope. At least large chunks of this particular Cosmic problem are resolved. It's all I can do - chip away at it a little at a time.

I hope your cosmos is spinning calmly and you're in a good place in your life.

Best~
Philippa

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Ah ha! Just as I Suspected...

There is life after Authonomy and it is good. It is, according to song, as sweet as cherry wine. Which, frankly, I probably wouldn't like since I don't much like sweet wines, so it's a bit odd that I'd use that reference. But, that's me. A bit odd and happy to be here and dancing (metaphorically speaking) again.

I've been over on WriteOn for all of... (glances at clock) oh, about forty-eight hours now, and I already have seven reads on one of my stories! Seven!!  That's more than I've had in all the time I had anything posted on Autho.

I guess there people were too busy posting in the forums and promoting their own book to get it to the Editor's Desk (the carrot for the site) to spend time reading. This, however it is a breath of fresh air. So far the comments I've gotten have been minor, detaily picks. Using wrong terms for the British locale, so I'll have to clean them up, but nothing Earth shattering.

That, of course, opens the door to requirement - reciprocation is only right and fair, so I'll spend time reading and commenting on theirs. Definitely like playing doctor. 'You show me yours, I'll show you mine.' Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, etc.

It is lively, though, and that's fantastic. And the front page has big cover images that cycle instead of a static board that hadn't changed in more than a year.

I know HC is not in the web-pub business but, honestly? It would have been kinder to shoot the patient than keep on trying to resuscitate it for the past however many months. Of course, with that said, I must also say that I do appreciate the duration of it. It allowed me time to build new acquaintances and participate in some great threads.

Of all of them, the Flash Fiction thread was the most beneficial.

Yesterday afternoon, in challenge to a prompt, I posted on WEbook an 850 word 'confession' that started off at upwards of 1300 words when I copied it from the document in which it had been created. It was an early work, something I wrote in my pre-Authonomy days, and that inexperience showed. Based on what I've learned since, I was able to take that long, wordy passage and whittle away the fat to get to the meat that was buried. It took a while, but in an hour-and-a-half I got it down to the 850 word limit.

Yes, I had to cut more than I liked, but I kept the theme and thread so a reader can follow what's underlying what's there. Also, in the book, a reader will know what's referenced so all of that excess wasn't needed, anyway. My primary concern is that since it's set in Regency England (around 1810 to 1816 or so), the language is a bit stiff, but that was the time - far fewer contractions than now, more formal forms of address and speech. I might be marked down for that, but that's okay. I participated, and that's really what counts. It's practice and grist for the mill.

I also managed to re-work several chapters of 'In a Green & Shady Place' and got that uploaded, and that's the one on which I almost immediately got comments. Then, prompted by one writer's work, I went back,worked on, and then posted several of the opening chapters of 'Downlander'. They're not complete, but both have several (five plus) chapters up so readers can get a sense and flavor.

Wiped out by the day I held off doing more, so now I'm going to have to squeeze a few hours out of this week to do some reading and criting in exchange for what I've received. Then, maybe, I'll spend some more time working on what I've got going.

Have a lovely day!

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories