So today I get woken up by Macy's credit card calling to tell me I missed a payment (I did. Well fuck)

Then I get a text from CVS back in Pittsburgh. They have two pills filled and waiting for pick up. I have zero pills on auto refill (hear the internal screaming yet) I don't have time to deal with them.

At work my vascular surgeon's people call me in great concern. 'Are you okay? WHY do you need more blood thinners? You have an active script.' There's me in front of my class going uh what? I never asked you for more blood thinners. CVS called us. They did WHAT? a) I don't need a refill yet b) I don't need a new script. I have like 3 months left on this one. OMFG CVS.

Later that same class the surgeon calls to reconfirm my appt tomorrow which great because I was going to call after class because I don't remember them asking for my birthday and wasn't sure they made the appt.

I spent all weekend redoing the links on my online portions of class. Still not working as it turns out. (this is where my soul left my body)

Got an email from the dean. Is your art project ready? Technically no. I did around for my bones to put in my piece...and realize the small animal bones I had I gave to wild life so now I'm over there digging for tiny bones while talking to the head of wild life about the fact we need to add a 200 level research class because in spite of this never happening before in 20 years I had a second student ask me about doing research as a sophomore. She's a h.s. student who'll graduate in may and will graduate college with her associates as well. She wants to go to OSU to their dental program and can I help her. Not this semester young lady. We're 3 weeks in but next semester you bet because I need more work but I can't hardly say no to someone who is begging to do this (unlike my usual senior who has to be corralled and forced).

I get bones. I come home and get all the leaves I preserved last year for this. In spite of following a YT tutorial none of them kept their color but they ARE pliable. So that's ready, leaves, moss, bones. By friday it'll be art.

Also I'm doing Ashes of Them, where I decided to burn some poetry in my sink and mix visible text with ash and a 'wedding ring.' What could go wrong here? Well the smaller version of the poetry burnt so fast it burnt the text. WAH. I had the larger version that I made by mistake. Burnt it but it's still too big (will reprint tomorrow after the company party.) Burn even more paper for more ash. Because art!

Wanna bet Dana gets banned from faculty/staff art show next year.


While home I call CVS in Pittsburgh and ask why they refilled my script. they can't tell me AND somehow my doctor sent my new script there. They claim they didn't call my doc about that script renewal.

I call MY CVS, ask them to transfer those scripts and all my others. We need the names of them scripts. I start telling her and she says 'call us back on the weekend.' OMFG. By the way WHY do you have my pills also auto refilled and waiting (who the fuck knows which ones, she couldn't tell me)? And why did you call my doctor.

we didn't do that. Uh huh

Then United Health Care called about other Dana. I go into my spiel. 'oh my, how did that happen? I'll take your number out of the system.' Uh huh. Yinz been saying that for four years now.


BOOKS!

What I Just Finished Reading:

Solid Gold Murder - solid mediocre



Within the Darkness - a nonlinear fantasy jumping back and forth between 2017 and 1917, it was pretty good


The Secret of the Orange Blossom Cake - romance magic realism with a lead you want to slap into next week


What I am Currently Reading:

Wrong Side of the Grave - Bryna Butler mothman as an alien...she's local


What Moves the Dead - T. Kingfisher a very cool, queer coded retelling of the Fall of the House of Usher


What I Plan to Read Next: I'm so behind on my challenges. something for that


And finally August's reading. You know how I like to talk books so if you're interested in any of these let's talk


Ohio's Black Hand Syndicate: The Birth of Organized Crime in America true crime

Within This Darkness YA rural fantasy

Atlas of Unknowable Things gothic

Pantomime fantasy

A Dark and Deadly Journey historic mystery

The Wood YA rural fantasy

( under here for political crap )

I wish it was a tad happier on my end of the world.

But before that happy birthday to liminal_space

At 10 pm I remembered I didn't get my blood test for today's endocrinology exam. Sigh. No problem. I'm going to Point Pleasant/Gallipolis I'll do it before my appointment but first laundry.

And the lock to the laundry is fucking broken. AGAIN. I don't have time for this so fine, we'll go to the laundromat in Gallipolis after I get my blood drawn (if I didn't have to do this, I would have found the groundskeeper to get the laundry opened) I have two choices. Speed Queen where I might get knifed and Duke's on the mansion side of town. Guess which one I picked.

Everyone did. I had to park down the street and roll my laundry basket down there...and it's 5.50 for a wash. OMFG (my apartment one is 1.75) It has a credit card device too but if I tap it's another 5% on that. Fuck you. I will jam in the quarters and you can choke on them. 20$ to wash/dry my clothes (some I brought back. I'll wash them later this week because I was NOT getting a third washer).

Down from Duke's across the street it the library (just like in Jackson, library/laundry share a lot there). I hang in there because there's three frakking chairs in the laundry.

I go to Point Pleasant but not as planned. I had no time to go to the antique mall. I do go for coffee (It's almost always bad at this place but it's their only place) I WAS supposed to be looking at literally the perfect house for me including chair lift and green house but it sold in less than 2 weeks. sigh. Hell I couldn't even get there by then. I didn't really want to live there anyhow but it was truly perfect for me. ah well.

I go to see my endocrinologist. the blood work is in. Everything is fine except my HGA1C is up to nearly 9 so NOT my imagination that my diabetes is getting worse. I told her about how mountjaro didn't play well with my gastric paresis so we're trying ryseblus (that is so badly spelt wrong) which is basically ozempic BUT it's a pill so it's very low dose. We know that GLP1s don't play well with me but this way instead of a weekly dose I have to ride out, this is just for a day and that will be better if it does make me sick. It's tricky to store and take though. We shall see.

She clarified the thyroid scan and it's what I thought (still haven't heard from the surgeon's people, almost 2 weeks later) two of them are TR1 which is basically benign, no worries. They're both cysts and cysts are almost always benign. the one in the middle is tr4 which is moderately suspicious for cancer. The good news is it's only about a quarter of them that are cancer usually if they're hypoechoic and taller than they are wide. Mine is hypoechoic but wider than it is tall with calcifications which is also a cancer sign.

Probably needs biopsied but I am having SO much compressive issues that I do want this removed (or more studies if we don't think this is the problem). So now I'm in Schroedinger's box, is it or isn't it cancer? I'm not too worried if I'm honest and I'm going to force that appointment tomorrow. I might not be worried but I'm not pissing about with this either.

I hit Walmart for something (didn't have it but did have a pizza pan for cheap, like less than that wash machine cheap which seemed better than me trying to disinfect the one the mouse touched). Here's me with Rao's pizza sauce (cheap here for some reason), dough and now a pizza pan, what's for dinner?

Mexican as it turned out.

tonight was my author meet up on zoom and I got a lot written. I was feeling on the outside though for some reason.

And hey it's music monday and since we finished the alphabet I need something new. So let's do music that inspires you. As I keep saying lyricaltitles is running their bingo and that got me thinking. For the next month or so, let's do one song that inspires us to draw or write. If you're not a creative, share one song that's making you happy right now.

But before I do that, let me break my own rule and share 2. The first one I found via brithistorian (and then YT itself recced it to me two days later). It's really cool. give it a listen




And my song of inspiration is the one inspiring the latest chapter in my wipbigbang The Owl House story. Hunter is finally coming undone now that he knows his secret is out and he has to face the Bat Queen.

I have been thinking about this for a while but not really sure how to approach it. Telling the story from the wrong point of view. If you're lucky maybe it's only one scene you're mucking about and not your whole story. Sometimes we need to step back and ask ourselves, is this the right character for this?

For example, the Hazbin Hotel pilot was done years before the actual show. There were online comics (only been able to find a few) from nearly a decade before the show. Angel Dust was definitely with Valentino in the old stuff. However, in the pilot, in order to clue the viewers in on a key part of Alastor's character, she has Vaggie telling Angel about him with a 'how do you not know this? You've been in hell longer than me?' Angel responds with I don't like/pay attention to politics.

I think in some ways this was done to establish Vaggie as the competent smart one. And maybe Alastor wasn't meant to be entwined with Vox and Valentino. Maybe the fans are wrong and Angel wasn't with Val for decades (but I doubt it). With the current storyline, it just seems unbelievable he couldn't know who Alastor was when Alastor tangled with Vox/Valentino and Vox has had a hard on about it ever since and Angel lived in Vee Towers until the series opener so now he just looks dumb AF for not knowing this.

A change of character would have benefited this so much. Have Angel tell Vaggie who has only been in hell for a decade and Alastor has been missing for seven years.

I had something similar in my own novel. I was telling the scene from Grace's pov when it really needed to be in Howell's or Dan's. It felt awkward and an alpha reader called me on it. A simple change made the whole scene better.

Have you run across this in your reading? your writing? how did you handle it?


OPEN CALLS

Ten Manuscript Publishers Open to Direct Submissions in September

Wit Tea Stories of any genre that are Wit Tea… erm.. witty… eh? EH? (weird sliding scale of pay)

Trollbreath Magazine Speculative fiction, poetry, and non-fiction of all kinds with a particular fondness for slipstream and fabulism in all their delightful form

Last Girls Club Winter October 2025 Window Secret Police, ICE, and Desperate Times (way too topical for me)

parABnormal Magazine 2025. Paranormal – this includes ghosts, spectres, haunts, various whisperers, and so forth. It also includes shapeshifters and creatures from various folklores.

The Orange & Bee October 2025 Window Original and contemporary short stories, poems, and essays that explore, expand on, and subvert the rich traditions of international folklore, with a strong focus on fairy tales (though we also sometimes dabble in other forms of folklore, such as fables, myths, and legends)

Folklore & Horror Short Stories. The dark side of gothic fantasy and folklore stories

Solar Punk Magazine October 2025 Window Solar Punk with stories that stir readers with themes of defiance, change, and achievement

41 Themed Submission Calls and Contests for September 2025.



From around the web

The Odds of Survival: What Horror Movies Teach Us About Risk.

Writer Fuel: Why Your Book Needs a Subplot

Amazon Ads Gone Wrong: The Genre Mismatch Problem Costing Authors

Book Marketing: Basic Elements Matter More Than You Think

James Patterson offers new writers up to $50,000 to finish their books (will his name be on it too)




From Betty

Choosing Naval Tactics for Your Pre-Gunpowder World

Six Ways to Add Stakes to a Mystery

Critical Types of Narration

Should You Use Non-Humans in Your Setting?.

Five Ways Authors Sabotage Their Story’s Tension

How to Write a Matriarchy

It’s What’s Up Front That Counts

Ride the Lightning

What Good Are Your Cracks?

Make Yourself the Most Useful Writer in Your Critique Group

Hidden Ways Procrastination Affects Productive Writers

Sometimes writing feels like dropping a pebble in the ocean

Editing for Self-Published Authors: Types of Edits and How to Find the Right Editor.

How to Write Scenes That Drive Plot and Deepen Character

Struggling with a Weak Chapter? Try Rewriting from Another POV HA! Pure coincidence that I found this in Betty's pile of links. Check it out if you want something more coherent than my babble.