Erotica By Helen E. H. Madden

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

D'oh! I Shouldn't Have Done That!

Geeze I'm such an idiot. I did something I really shouldn't have done. And I mean I really, really shouldn't have done it. What did I do that was so bad?

I drew a cartoon.

Yep, the overloaded writer/artist/podcaster/stay-at-home-mom drew a little four-panel cartoon. It wasn't much, just a strip on what life was like today. And I wouldn't worry over it except that...

1) It took me three hours to do and...

2) I really, REALLY want to do another one.

I used to draw a regular comic strip for my college newspaper waaaaaay back in the day. I drew two episodes a week for four years, and the cartoon was pretty well received, but after college I stopped because hey, I wasn't even on the same side of the state anymore as the school so that made it pretty hard to walk into the office twice a week and hand in my cartoon. So I stopped doing the comic strip and since this was waaaaaaaay before the days of web comics and I didn't have another forum to publish in, I just stopped doing comics all together.

Then back in January I met Jennie Breeden who draws the Devil's Panties, an absolutely fabulous web comic that really takes me waaaaaaay back to my college days, and reading her work and talking to her got me jonesing to do my own comic again. Only what would I draw? The adventures of a writer/artist/podcaster/stay-at-home-mom?

Well, as it turns out, yeah 'cause that's exactly what I drew today.

Oh, this is bad. I have so much work to do. And I just got back from RavenCon this weekend where I had a fabulous time talking to other writers and artists and podcasters, including one who was a stay-at-home-mom, and I felt so understood and loooooooved, and I was so inspired to come home and dive straight back into work but then my youngest came down really, really sick so I've been home all week trying to squeeze in tiny bits of work around tending to a fussy baby, and wouldn't you know it, the first chance I get to sit down for three hours and do some work, I decide to do something that is nowhere near what's on my to-do list. And I really don't need to start doing this on a regular basis, except that I'm absolutely dying to do another and I've suddenly got all sorts of ideas, including enough to do three web comics for three different websites I run!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!

Oh man, just what I needed, one more damned creative endeavor. I am so screwed.
But hey, I had a great time at RavenCon and am looking forward to going back, assuming I survive this year.

Labels: Today's Work, Write-At-Home Mom

Monday, April 14, 2008

So, How Have You Been?

Yeah, I fell off the face of the earth **again**. What can I say? It happens. There are never enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to do or think I should do as a writer, especially when you add in the fact that I also happen to be a mom and I run my own business.

So what happened since my last post? Gee, that's kind of funny, especially since I just went back and read that last post. See, I kind of had this mini-mega-mental breakdown. Let me explain. I have had a ton of work just sort of fall into my lap in the last few... no, actually several, months now. I got a series of digital art commissions which have taken quite a while to complete. I've been working on the book, Demon By Day, for MojoCastle Press, trying to get the final galley out the door. And I've been podcasting and writing non-stop since September. Oh, and I've been doing some promo stuff off and on with EPIC and EPIC VA. So I've been pretty busy.

For a while there, I was dead serious about getting up at 5 AM so I could DO IT ALL. I keep a to-do list on the table beside my computer that lists all the tasks I want to accomplish by the end of the day. That list had up to 13 or more items on it at the height of all this madness. That's 13 or more things to accomplish between 5 AM and 11 PM, which was when I was finally allowing myself to crash and go to sleep. Let's see, 5 AM to 11 PM is a 16 hour day, and I'm trying to get 13 things done (minimum) in that amount of time. Now keep in mind that my list included everything I was doing from washing laundry to writing to changing my underwear. But it was still way too much, and I was getting far too little sleep. Far, far too little sleep.

On the days I managed to DO IT ALL, I felt like I accomplished a lot but I also felt so dead tired that I was dreading the next day when once again I knew I was going to have to get up and DO IT ALL all over again. And the problem was, I could really only manage to DO IT ALL about once a week, if I was lucky. There were always at least three things on my list that I had to carry over to the next day. And so things started to pile up, and the work load got heavier, and as I got more and more tired from lack of sleep and too much work, I started having more and more problems getting out of bed at 5 AM (imagine that!). And so I started to feel more and more like I was getting behind because I couldn't get up early enough to get a jump on my day, and that along with everything else that was going on really stressed me out and made me cranky, and THAT led to me yelling at my husband and kids way to much until finally, finally, I just had this mini-mega-meltdown.

I can't even recall how it happened or what triggered it. One minute I was zipping about, trying to juggle the laundry with the writing while changing my underwear and the next minute I was curled up in a fetal position on the kitchen floor. I do remember the stench of burnt panties as the light bulb in the ceiling lamp slowly burnt a hole through my undies...

Whatever happened, I finally realized I had hit my limit. Actually, I had gone past my limit, waaaaaaaay past it, and it was time to slow things down. There were things I wanted to do that weren't happening, like spend time playing with my kids (as opposed to screeching at them at the top of my lungs when they accidentally spilled cereal on the carpet). I wanted to have sex with my husband (if I could remember what sex was - yeah, I know... I call myself an erotica writer?). I wanted to just sit and watch TV, because I'd been so busy I hadn't been able to watch a damn thing in months. And most of all...

I wanted to take a nap.

So, I took a nap. And then I went outside and played with my kids. And once I had a few nights of sleep that included me sleeping in until at least 6 AM, I even got a little quality time with my darling husband.

Needless to say, I have since made some changes to my schedule. I no longer get up before 6 AM. I spend at least an hour each day with my youngest at the local playground (that way she takes a nice, long nap in the afternoon, something she wasn't doing before). And when Sam lays down for a nap, I lay down for one too. I snooze for anywhere between thirty minutes to an hour. Depends on how lazy or tired I feel. And I've cut my to-do list down to no more than seven items a day (still including laundry but no more reminders to change my underwear -- now that I've slowed down, I don't need to be reminded of that anymore).

Some things have had to come off the schedule, of course. House cleaning was one of them. I was trying to schedule at least 15 minutes of house cleaning a day. I traded that for playtime with Sam. Other things, art/writing-related things, that aren't actually art or writing, take a back seat now to the main events themselves. When I finish up a big art or writing project, then I'll go back and worry about tracking down markets, answering e-mails, handling promotion stuff, finding that next job.

Because the work is still coming in. I've had more feelers from people wondering if I'd like to do some artwork for them. And I've got a couple of cons coming up where I get to be a writer guest and promote myself. And I'm still keeping an eye on the EPIC VA stuff, offering to help out where I can.

But I'm not doing it all at once anymore. And I sure as hell ain't getting up at 5 AM anymore. I need my beauty sleep.

Labels: Burn Out, Writing Business

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Arguing With Myself At 5 AM

With so much work going on, I frequently schedule myself to get up at 5 AM, just so I'll have a little extra time to work. But I'm so dead tired in the mornings that it takes a Herculean effort to get myself up and going. Here's the argument that proceeds between the good/disciplined side of myself versus the evil/stay-in-bed side of myself.

Get up. Alarm just went off.

Nnnnngggh.

No, I mean it. Get up. You've got work to do, remember.

Noooooooo.

Yes you do! You wrote it down last night before you went to bed. 5 AM - work on podcast story ideas.

Uuuuuuugh. Tired. Sore. Worked out yesterday. Husband feels soooooooo warm. Want to stay heeeeeeere...

Screw that! Get out of bed! You know if you don't get up now, the rest of your day is going to be shot!

But I don't waaaaanaaaaaaaa...

Get the fuck out of bed now, bitch!

Make me!

Okay, you have to pee.

God dammit!

(Get up, shuffle to the bathroom. While sitting on the toilet, the argument continues...)

Don't fall asleep! You're sitting on the john.

But I'm soooooo tired...

WAKE UP! You have to go to work!

Nnnnnnnnnngh...

If you wake up, you can have a nice hot cup of tea.

Don't want tea...

Yes you do! Now get up!

(Trudge out of the bathroom to the bedroom. Stand indecisively, squinting at the bed.)

Don't go back to bed! You're up now! Grab the laundry and head downstairs.

**You** grab the laundry. I'm going back to bed!

No no no! Look, just do a load of laundry! You have to start the laundry if nothing else. Do that and then maybe we can go back to bed.

You're lying to me. I know you are. Once the laundry's done, then you're gonna make me do something else.

Yeah, probably, but right now, grab the fucking laundry and head downstairs, okay?

Fine.

And grab your laptop and your writing notebook too. You know, just in case...

God dammit! I knew you'd pull this stunt!

Just grab the stuff and head downstairs!

(Grab the laundry, the laptop, the notebook and trudge downstairs. I set up office in the dining room and start the laundry.)

Hey, the cats are up. You should feed them. Because they're cute, you know, and they're hungry and you're a responsible pet owner.

Aw man...

(Grab the cat food bowls and head for the sink.)

Fuck! Michael didn't do the dishes last night!

Well do them now!

But I'm tired and I want to go back to bed!

Just do them! Put the clean ones away, load up the dish washer, feed the cats and you're done.

God...

While you're at it, start the kettle for some tea.

Nooooooo! Tea means staying up!

Hey, I didn't say you had to drink it. Just start it. You know, just in case.

Fine. Whatever.

(Start the kettle. Put away the clean dishes. Load the dish washer.)

Crap! The floor is crunchy. Michael didn't sweep last night either.

Well do it now then. Otherwise it's gonna drive you crazy all day.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. (Grabbing a broom.) I hate how you do this to me. You make me get up and then I have to do stupid chores all morning.

Well, they need doing. Unless you like living in a pigsty.

That's not the point! You make me do stupid chores until I'm awake and then I have to stay up because I'm awake enough to know I have work to do!

Well, you do have work to do, right?

But I want to go back to bed!

Okay, look! I'm tired of listening to your whiner crap! Who wanted to be a famous writer? You did! Who wanted to have a podcast and a blog and a novel and a short story collection? You did! And don't forget the graphic business, all those perverted graphics you want to draw, and the fifty-bazillion other things you keep thinking you want to do! You can't do these things in your sleep you know! You have to get up and work! So quit with the bitching and the moaning and do the damn work!

Fine! I hate you!

I hate you too! Are you done cleaning?

Yeah...

Okay, then. Shall we get to work?

I guess... What should we do first?

Um... how about a blog post?

Aw, fuck that...

Oh! Tea is ready...

Labels: Write-At-Home Mom

Thursday, February 28, 2008

On The Road To Recovery?

The end for some of my projects is in sight. Hopefully, I'll get a rough draft of an image out the door in the next two days or so, and then I'll get two others finalized. That will clear the graphics work off my plate. Then I can get back to the writing.

I started shooting for 200 words a day on the new novel, and proofing 10 pages a day on the galley of the novel that's waiting to be published. I'm not even hitting those goals everyday, so it's going slowly, but at least it's going.

I look back on the last few months and I realized that I've been steam-rolled by all this work. It's great that I've got so much stuff going on, but it sucks because I'm struggling to get stuff done and still take care of my family. And somewhere in there, I'm supposed to take care of me. Not easy to do these days.

What's really bad is all this work and stress and lack of sleep has just about killed my sex life. Michael is out of town a lot these days, and when he's home, it's all we can do to stay awake long enough to get the kids in bed before we collapse ourselves.

I'd like to re-start my sex, you know? Call me crazy, but I think an erotica writer should have a sex life. I can remember a time when I'd get up early in the mornings to write something really nasty, and then I'd crawl back into bed with my husband for an early morning wake up call. That hasn't happened though since our second child was born. I wonder why? I wonder if I could change that? I wonder what it would take.

Hmmm...

Labels: Current Work, Write-At-Home Mom

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