Writing Day!

Hello lovely Readers!

Today is a writing day.  What is a writing day, you may ask? Once every other week, a friend of mine and I meet for coffee and writing time. Normally it's on Fridays but today it's on a Sunday because of scheduling conflicts.

Normally I use this time to write fanfiction, but I've rather burned myself out on my fics for some reason.  I haven't updated them in a long time and I just haven't been in the space for it.  So I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to write.  Maybe poetry?  Maybe fiction?  I don't know.  I do have some ideas for stories, one of which is based on this game I play with my sister - Guild Wars.  I have several characters but my favorite is a Nord named Dagny Ravenborne.  She's like a Norse character living in the mountains and hunting with her animals.

I feel like there is a story there that is just waiting to be cracked open.  Do I let it marinate or do I go for it?  That's the big question. 

I think the reason I write so much fanfiction is because it's easier to put myself out there with loved characters and scenarios that may or may not fit those characters.  Creating original content is scary.  It means putting out your own world, your own characters, your own original story.  Will it be well received or will it flounder?  Is my idea even good enough.

I'm thinking about investing in some resources for writing and art in general.  I've discovered I really love to create anything really.  I knit, I design knitting patterns sometimes, I color, sometimes I draw, sometimes I paint.  I write.  I like doing that sort of thing. 

I feel like life is full of colors and bursting with opportunity right now.  It's been a very long time since I've felt that way.  It's like spring is just showering down all these possibilities.  I want to play with color.  I want to play with words.  I think I'm probably rambling at this point.

I want to produce beauty into the world, be that with my hands or my voice.

My friend I write with, she's an editor for a publishing company and runs these events once a month with local authors and open mic time; she's encouraging me to come to open mic night next month and to read.  I think, even though it sounds scary, that I'm going to do it.  How else am I going to fly if I don't fall first?  Birds jump from the nest in order to learn to fly.  This is me jumping.

Also next month is Camp NaNoWriMo.  I think I've talked about this before, where I set a word count of 20,000 words and I'm going to write daily to achieve it.  I'm not sure if I should outline or not, but I do know I've been working on character sketches.  I've got a nice list of characters and I'm not entirely sure the underlying conflict but I have some ideas.  We'll see how this goes.  I really hope it's something I can accomplish.  It would feel good to have written a book even if it never goes anywhere; just the knowledge that I can.

And that is enough for today.  Thank you for reading, dear Readers and go create something beautiful.

~Birdie

Fan Fic Commissions!

Hello lovely Readers!

I've started a new opportunity. I love writing and I decided at the urging of my friend Dorothy, to try to do it to make some spending money. So...

I’ve decided to offer commissions of some of your favorite fandoms! I’m most well known for my Metal Gear Solid writing and my second person reader inserts. Samples of my work can be found here:

Single page fics (single spaced - 600 to 700 words) go for $4.

Whole chapters (single spaced - 1200 to 1500 words) go for $10

What I will write: NSFW/smut, Marvel fandom, Metal Gear Solid fandom, Supernatural fandom, blood, murder/death, characters together, reader inserts/second person (male or female) with a character. If you have a fandom not mentioned here, shoot me a message and we can talk about it! 

What I will not write: Rape/non-con

If any of this is of interest to you, shoot me a message on here and we'll get in touch and talk.

Have a great day!

~Birdie

A New Start

Hello Lovely Readers!

It's March and I've decided it's time to really push my writing muscles again. That includes getting this blog up and running again!

So while I've been gone, several things have happened: I've graduated with my English Ed degree, I've gotten a job as a tutor with a company that is really great (I teach reading, writing, math, and offer homework help), and I've been writing lots of fanfiction!  (If you feel like checking it out, just look up birdgirl90 on Archive of Our Own and you can read it! Most of it is either Metal Gear Solid - from several years ago - or Marvel, which is what I'm currently working on.) 

I also got a dog and am trying to train her to be a psychiatric service dog to help me with my anxiety and bipolar.  So far, it's slow going but I have hope. I don't fully agree with my dog trainer's tactics all the time - she's pretty hands on and a little aggressive at times - but I am hoping it's going to be okay. Worst case scenario, she stays an emotional support animal.

I'm taking on a new project this month: Camp NaNoWriMo. It starts in April - the wave I'm doing with friends - and I am very excited.  My plan is to outline and flesh out characters this month so that I'm ready to go for next month.  I've always tried to do NaNoWriMo but I always get distracted two weeks in with all the holidays and stuff.  I'm hoping this time to stick with it!  The beauty is that I get to pick my word count. I think I'm going to aim for 30,000 words.

Everything else is going pretty well in my world. Knitting projects have been started and finished, though I have several ones to still finish - including a blanket, a shawl, another shawl, and several pairs of socks, and some handwarmers.  I'm starting to really read books again, which is kind of exciting. I've also been doing a lot of coloring; mandala coloring books are my favorite, done in Sharpie.

My main goals right now are to keep being awesome at work, keep working with my dog, and to keep writing again. I want to get back to updating this blog on a weekly basis, so possibly every Friday, though I might try to do bi weekly on Sundays and Fridays.  It depends. 

Thank you for still being with me, dear Readers.  Here's to new starts!

~Birdie

Scraps of Yarn and Hearts

Sometimes...I think about the knitting I've done.  Sweaters, shawls, hats, gloves - I've made everything but blankets.

And sometimes, I think about the pieces I've given away.

Knitting is such a personal thing.  I spend hours on a project, days, weeks, sometimes a year or more.  My heart always goes into each piece too, a reflection of what I am going through.  Socks for finals and fear of failure, a sweater when I couldn't sleep and filled the void of seemingly endless nights, hats upon hats because I can't stop the mania from making my fingers shake, a scarf because I'm just happy and can't keep it to myself.  Every single piece has a story behind it - something I designed, something I mastered, something I defeated.

I've given so much away.

A white glittering hat to a girl who shared stories with me as we shivered by the train every night after class during a late fall semester.

A grey dropped stitch hat to a girl who was convinced my soul needed saving.

A pink and green shawl and a beanie to a friend who once was close but now is drifting as we both grow into who we need to be.

Purple socks, endless red scarves, and hand warmers to my best friend who left the state this year, taking them to a place where they're no longer needed because it doesn't get cold.

A hat to someone I never even met because they were important to a friend of mine, even as it crumbled months later.

Hand warmers to a woman who's secrets made me queasy but who offered my friend a home when she and her son were homeless.

Socks to my husband because he doesn't have boots and he needs his feet warm in the winter, socks he cherishes still.

There are so many more too, to family members and acquaintances.  So many things over the course of the years and years I've been playing with yarn.

All of these people shared something with me at some point, stories and intimacies and pieces of lives. I heard stories of breakups and heartaches, disease and sickness, fears of failure, unworthiness, the future.  I heard the joys of life, getting a new home, having a new start, passing something they were so afraid to do.

 I gave them all a piece of myself too.  Things are not one way, you know, and I opened up as I handed out knits.  I gave them warmth and I gave them comfort and I gave them my own secrets and stories and fears.  Souls are interesting things.  Maybe they are like horocruxes - you chip a little away each time you share with someone else.  But that makes me sad to think about.  It makes me sound as if I regret doing what I've done and giving what I have.

Sometimes it's exhausting, but I don't have any regrets about it.  The knitted items were needed at the time to keep someone warm, someone safe, someone comforted; the bits of myself were needed too, forming connections that helped me along my way.  I've grown so much through these threads we weave - I'm learning that while I want to curl into my shell again and not let anyone in, that's a miserable way to live.  Give away a bit of yourself and see what you can learn from it.

But sometimes I think about the hand knits I've given away, and inevitably the people I gave them to.

I hope they're all flourishing.

And I hope my knits are being well taken care of.

Update: Everything That Happened and What's Going On Now

Hello lovely readers!

So here is kind of an update of what's been going on with me since I last wrote a post about what's going on in my life.

Last semester I ended up opting to graduate and drop student teaching.  There were a lot of factors involved, some including me being burned out, some including other people making decisions for me that were not theirs to make.  I'm not going to lie, I was angry about it for a long time because in the end, I felt like I didn't really make the choice but rather had it forced on me.

But things have a way of working how they need to, and this was no different.

I currently work at a middle school with students with severe needs.  It's so very different from what I went to school for (English Ed) but it's been so good for me.  The first two weeks were stressful and I didn't know if I could do it.  But going into week three, I realize I know how to do my job and I actually enjoy it.  I feel better about teaching and working, and the experience I'm getting is invaluable to when I run my own classroom.

Today I received my Bachelors degree in the mail.  It feels so surreal and amazing.  I plan to walk in December, and there will be celebrating and all sorts of good things.  I feel proud of myself for coming this far, honestly.  I now have two college degrees (an Associates and a Bachelors) and the opportunities I have are wide open.  It's an amazing feeling.  I feel like I can take on anything.

I've also made the choice to student teach next fall.  It's something I've been thinking about for a while now, but I'm ready to make that commitment now.  There are two, maybe three, ways it can go.  But to get into those, I need to back up further.

So my husband's family is all in New Mexico.  We currently live with my parents in Colorado.  His grandfather had a few strokes last year and could use some help getting around and stuff, and his mom has her hands tied.  The decision we've made is that next summer we're going to move down there and live with his grandfather, helping out while getting a huge house to run rent free.  It actually is a pretty great deal - we're allowed to do what we want with the house, I can have a garden, we're going to get a puppy, and there's room for us to expand our family in a few years.

How does this affect student teaching?

Well, there was a girl in my class last semester who was moving to Washington and they made it so she could student teach in the program out of state.  It's something the school does that I completely forgot about; I just emailed one of my mentors at the school to verify that it can happen.  So if we move to New Mexico, I can student teach through my school out of state.

Then, another plan.  My husband is finishing his degree and has two semesters left.  He has to appeal for financial aid because the government is denying him it, because he has too many credit hours total over his college career.  There are two ways this can go, and it's fairly stressful.  One, he can finish the appeal process and they'll cover him for this semester and next, and we go ahead with moving, and I student teach out of state.  Two, he has to take a semester off and work for a bit, and finishes next fall, which means that I student teach in Colorado next fall and we move during January to New Mexico.

Another plan.  We end up staying in Colorado because of the job market and I student teach then get a job here in Colorado.

Final plan, and the one I hope it doesn't come down to.  He moves to New Mexico and I stay here a semester to student teach, then move down to join him.  I pray this does not happen this way.  But if it does, we deal one day at a time.

Regardless, I'll get my license by the end of next year, and he'll hopefully be able to graduate.  I plan on getting my sub license as well, so really, my job options are endless.

Anyway, that's what's been going on.  A lot more happened over the summer (we went to Disneyland!) but that's for another post.

~Birdie

A Letter to the Dead

Sometimes, I find myself thinking about you.

We never had a good relationship.  It was bumpy and up and down, your moods and mine clashing.  We could have been good friends, I think.  If things had been different.  If we had met at different times.  If things were...just different.  You had your issues and I had mine that I didn't want to deal with.  And so we were oil and fire.

Sometimes, it makes me incredibly sad.

Sometimes, it makes me so very angry I can't stand it.

But mostly now I feel numb.

It's been over two years and you've still left a mark on all of us.  I could talk to you about how much my sister has blossomed and grown and still struggles, how my parents don't talk about it unless we bring it up now, how my husband has made promises to me in the middle of my breakdowns that he won't do what you did.  But that's not what this is for.

This is for me.  My words.  To you.

I thought I saw your sister at Wal-Mart yesterday.  I was getting my nails done and she was getting those white tips she was so fond of.  But when she turned her face, it wasn't her.  The damage was already done though.  It's amazing how something so small can still trigger a wave of intense emotion.  I couldn't stop thinking about you, about your family, about what happened, all running in the back of my mind.

They've told me I have PTSD from you and what you did and how you left.

Did you know I had flashbacks last month?  It all came rushing back - the screaming, the crying, the sirens, the numbness and shock and how dazed and confused I was.  When I woke up in the morning, I was afraid to get out of bed.  I was afraid something would happen to my husband if I did, that he somehow wouldn't be breathing when I came back later, that something would happen to me if I left the security of the blankets and faced the world.  It took me an hour to finally move.

This morning was the same.  I woke up praying my husband would be safe and protected and that nothing bad would happen, paralyzed by the fear that he would somehow be taken from me.  Later this afternoon I broke down and cried, sobbing my worries and once again hearing the words I needed that he wouldn't willingly leave this world.

Sometimes...sometimes I think I almost understand why you left like you did, you know?

Sometimes my emotions run so hard and heavy that I can't see straight.  I lash out or poke at the people I care about the most because I can't think right, I say things wrong, I worry on one thought for hours, days, weeks, I itch, I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I can't breathe...the sorrow hits and I cry for what feels like days, for no visible or obvious reasons.  My meds are working now though.  They have been for a while.  I still have those moments where I lash out or poke or cry, but they're more manageable now.

You never had that luxury, did you.  Finding the magical combination.  I remember we once picked you up from an electric shock treatment you had at the hospital to see if they could help your mind.  God, I can't even imagine.  My old therapist once told me that when someone is physically sick for a long time - like they struggle with cancer - and they pass, we say it with compassion.  But we don't account for the people who are mentally hurting without help who can't bear it anymore.

I used to be angry.

Now...mostly I don't think about you.  I've boxed you away for the most part, put in a corner of my mind to be dealt with later, whenever that is.  Not totally healthy, but it's what I did.  Now on Wednesday I'm going to have to dig you back up.  I don't know what I will find.  I don't know where you stand with me.  It's confusing and painful.

Every once in a while, you come back to me though.  Just in waves.  Usually with a small trigger, something inconsequential - thinking I saw your sister, someone telling me a dream about suicide, hearing something in the news or a song on the radio.  And then when you do, I don't know how to handle you.  So I cry usually.

Because it's just so goddamn sad, okay.  I'm sad.  I'm sad that you felt this was your only option, that you couldn't get better, that you hurt my sister like that, that you hurt your family, that your family acted the way they did towards you, that life and love and everything you tried ran through your fingers like sand.

 I know how it feels to try to catch all the grains.  I know how it hurts when they fall.

I used to worry I would end up like you, did you know that?  When I got my diagnosis.  Sometimes even now I have those passing thoughts - will I end up like him?  Our disorder...it never gets better.  I think you probably knew that more than anyone.  It changes our brains until we die, progressing; at least, that's my understanding.  I have to remind myself from time to time:

I am not you.

I never was you.

And it'll be okay.

I guess this is a long letter to tell you that I was thinking about you today.  I listened to one of the songs from your funeral before I wrote this.  I cried to my husband about my fear of losing him, losing people I care about in general.  Part of me almost wants to go to your headstone, believe it or not, but I don't know what I would do there.  Last time I went was  over a year ago and I just ended up standing there awkwardly.

I wish things had been different.  I hope you're at peace.

~Birdie

Attention Fic Readers!

Hey readers!

So, I talk a lot about fanfiction, ocs, rps, and fandom things on here because they mean so so much to me.  Well, my best friend - one of the first people I ever met in fandom and who's introduced me to so so much - is offering commission fics.

Now, commission fics are something you don't hear about very often.
Artists commission art all the time.
But for someone to offer to write fanfiction based on word count tailored to exactly what you want - that's very few and far between.

In fact, he's the first person I know who's doing it.

Let me emphasize this:

He is the first and only person I know who's offering tailored fic commissions.

I'm one of those people that I won't out of hand sell you something if I don't think it's worth it, friend or not.  I'm also one of those people who has never spent money on a commission even though I've thought about it.

My friend is one of the best writers I know, and his work is amazing.  I have fics he's written me over the course of knowing him that I re-read all the time because they are so well done and wonderful.  From one writer to another, you will definitely get your money's worth out his commissions.

He writes for the fandoms of Metal Gear Solid (MGS), Voltron: Defender of the Universe, Overwatch, and the Witcher.

He writes ships, singles, OCs, self ships, and almost any kink you can imagine - meaning, if it's niche, there's a chance he'll write it for you if you ask.  (He does, as all writers and artists do, have the right to turn you down, but he doesn't bite - so don't be shy and definitely ask.)

He has examples of his writing  from an old AO3 account on his information page, but I wanted to add the other two fics that I like: extra example 1 and extra example 2.

You can find his awesome commission info page here.

I do, in fact, have a list of several fics that I'm going to see if he'll commission once I get the money in the next two weeks.

And if that doesn't say it all, I don't know what does.

~Birdie