If you could have a trivial wish granted...

[MeltedCaramel]

SetsunaKou and zirconmermaid, I don't know if this is it, but it's got me excited, it definitely sounds sort of like what I am remembering. I am ordering the book immediately. Even if it's not what I was looking for, it makes me happy to see something somewhat like it!! Thanks you two!!! <333

[victoriavictrix]

The Thule Chronicles has nothing to do with the book I remember though.

Oh it wasn't supposed to be. I was just responding to your lack of money and voracious reading habits. Secret World Chronicle is both a book series from Baen Books (by myself and 3 other folks) and a FREE podcast. The podcast is what I linked you to. The episodes are 20-30 minutes, timed to be the time of an average exercise period or commute.

[WhiteDove01s]

If I could wish for something trivial, it would be a vacuum cleaner that doesn't break after two years. I have tried them all, the cheap ones, the expensive ones, the ones for pet hair (two big dogs and five cats), and it doesn't matter. No matter how well they work (and frankly, expensive or cheap, they all seem to work the same), after two years, they break. I think my parents had their vacuum cleaner (a steel canister space-aged looking thing) for about 20 years.

I had a similar problem until a few years back when I got a shopvac. The one I have is the ShopVac HangUp Mini, and despite massive amounts of pet hair, my own odd shedding problem (I have long hair with a tendency towards breakage, meaning people-hairballs every time I comb it), and other massive messes (mold in the back room, holes in the ceiling, etc), it has yet to burn out. It's also powerful enough to suck up small objects, so be careful if you do get one and also put paperweights on anything in the room that it's vent in the back might blow away. XD

[MeltedCaramel]

victoriavictrix Well thank you so much again for the kindness. The book series sounds fascinating!!! You participated in writing the book? Hmnnn, interesting. I'm what I like to call an "author in limbo". My medical issues have mounted and made it impossible to get into the extended-time creative headspace that writing requires of me, but I'm looking to get picked up by one of the larger e-publishers. The content of my novellas run more towards the er...well, the industry uses the term "romantica" so yeah, let us just stick with that term shall we? Still, the series you recommended me is actually right up my alley. <3 Thank you so much again!!

Edit: Also, I think calling my reading habits "voracious" is being far too kind. I actually wish I read slower. I'm long past the years where it helped me cram a book in the night before a big test, so now it's just a burden.

[DollyKim]

Island of the Blue Dolphin is about a Native American girl alone on an island, they made us read it in school and it's one of the few I actually liked.

As for writing have you ever thought of trying out plot points or beat sheets? Make a basic list of where you want the story to go, flesh out what parts you can as you can, eventually you get something to work with. If you can't get a publisher to pay attention to you try a self publisher like Lulu or Blurb, a few of the ebooks I bought through Amazon started that way.

[MeltedCaramel]

DollyKim I've been thinking about re-reading that one as well. I remembering enjoying it the first time 'round.

As for writing, it's not any sort of writer's block that is hindering me. To the contrary, I have several stories plotted out in my mind and some draft sheets written, and one of them is pretty much in it's final stages of pre-production, I just need to flesh out a few minor characters and then the story is pretty set. But when I say the extent of my injuries prevents me, I really mean it. I know it may seem strange, how can I post on a doll board and hold PM conversations if I can't sit and write...but see, even this takes a toll on my injury. This is purely a matter of self preservation. If I didn't do something, I would go insane as I'm pretty much confined to bed. To actually sit and pour out a novella of between 5,000 and 10,00 words would be impossible. Not to sound overconfident, but I'm happy with the quality and substance of what I DO manage to write and have all the hope in the world of being picked up by one of the well known e-publishers, especially since the ones that specify in diverse erotica have yet to satisfy some core readerships whose niches my stories just happen to fall into quite neatly.

My "author in limbo" status is owed purely to my injury. It is extensive enough to keep me hobbled and bedridden and yet I'm still a medical mystery. I'm currently working with every doctor I can think of to try and gather different results, but unfortunately nothing has shown up yet and I'm in such poor health I dread going in for a simple exploratory lapropscopy. I honestly don't know if my body could recover, I am so worn down. I liken it to being worn down to the marrow of your bones. I'm tired. Just...tired, as a person. Weary, sick, and hurting aren't exactly the zen places I like to go to for writing.

But as always, I appreciate your advice DollyKim!! If only publishers would be content with beat sheets and a promised date of "sometime within the next five years, maybe".

[DollyKim]

I have trouble sitting too. Getting a tablet helped in being able to change positions and locations while working. Go to the doctor, get things looked at. I've been able to reverse whiplash and make strides with easing the discomfort of a fused tail bone.

I hear ya about stories that are waiting. I did finally tell myself come hell and high water that I would publish at least one of Xavier's stories this year to have 2013 on it. 13 is his number so... I managed to make myself be happy enough with four of them enough to reach that goal. Some day I want to go back to a couple of them but in the mean time somewhere is somewhere.

[MeltedCaramel]

DollyKim Are your books about Xavier online to download on Amazon? I'd gladly buy and read your work!

As for the doctors...I am getting things looked at, trust me. Every single thing that my doctor will authorize. I've already had one of the most invasive blood tests you can get where they took so much blood out of me that I was literally weaving around like a drunkard afterwards and until I got some food into me I was so out of it my grandmother was starting to get really worried. I also had a hellish X-ray done. So far they've found some spinal arthritis but write this off as "natural aging" even though at twenty five I don't think I should be having as much as they say I do. I also have a herniated disc that happened suspiciously (like, on the dot) around the time my back pain started. They still say that couldn't be causing the pain. I'm on massive supplements because my vitamin D level test literally came back as a zero. Yes, a zero. I'm on massive theraputic doses of it that you have to get by prescription, but it hasn't made a difference in my localized pain, which is what is what I need to get under control. I'm also fighting my crappy insurance and slow moving PM doctor to write me a pre-cert for a second MRI to update my records, especially since between my last MRI and now I had a pilonidal cyst the size of a grapefruit (I am not exaggerating in the least, I swear) which could have easily did some wicked damage to my tailbone because of the sheer size of the damn thing.

So yeah, I've seen so many doctors that at this point I'm like Pavlov's dogs. I hear the word "doctor" and suddenly I turn into a hissing, spitting demon.

But as for my stories, unfortunately I'm caught in both hell and high water at the moment. Which honestly makes me rather sad, because these stories, despite them being your general m/m "romantica" material, actually mean a lot to me. I feel like I'm filling a niche for the readers who have weaned themselves off the cut-and-dry (and often rather dysfunctional relationships) portrayed in "Yaoi", but also don't want to read stories that are page after page of anonymous hook-ups with the crudest language possible. There seems to be a sore lack of stories that fall in the middle. I try to write realistic stories despite the fantastical elements portrayed within. If I immerse myself in a particular world I try and make it feel real for the reader, try and make the characters flawed and human, even if they happen to be firing with a plasma-gun or wearing capes and masks or living on a space station. I hope I can get my life in order to actually start giving these characters the stories they deserve, or the plot the characters it deserves within it.

Ah, the woes of the writer.

[DollyKim]

Somewhere between not having an ebook maker and the extra fees for an isbn# to sell on Amazon the book is an old fashioned paperback http://www.lulu.com/shop/kim-reed/noctu ... 69690.html But if you read it you'll know what an old fashioned paperback has to do with it. I think it lets you sample the first few pages.

[MeltedCaramel]

Wow, it does let you read the first couple pages and I'm definitely intrigued. (Honestly you could probably pitch it to a publisher.) I just spent my designated "book money" on a copy of the book that may or may not be the one I'm looking for about the girl and the dolphin, but I'm slipping this on my next 'to buy' list. ) I have a question though, and please don't be offended, but I noticed there was a rather lot of typos, but some were peculiar and I wondered if they were intentional. For example instead of a "well worn" book there is a "well warn" book. I was wondering if this was actually intentional given the nature of the novels? (As for the typos, if it was published without even a beta reader I can see why. My own stuff is riddled with typos that I often only catch after the fact.) And now I'm curious, do you have a picture of doll!Xavier you wouldn't mind showing me? (I'm assuming you made him into a doll, I've seen you reference him in those terms in other forum posts, but please pardon me if I'm wrong!! )