Alexa Nichols's Blog, page 4

Little Dead Girls and hood rats in Elder Scrolls Online…

It’s frustrating when you really, really want to write, when your fingers are just aching to bleed out your creativity into your craft, your passion, and… Life decides to hit you with back-to-back time mongers that not only prevent it but only seem to relent when your energy and mental lucidity are completely tapped out. When you have just enough energy to stare blankly at your computer screen and blink, wondering if you’ll ever be able to blissfully go crazy the way you used to before adulting crept up and bitch slapped you.

Things do seem to be relenting a bit. Yesterday, for example, I was able to crank out several chapters of Little Dead Girls, my current passion project. Five hours later I was delightfully wasted, leaning back in my chair like I had just finished a marathon, smiling goofily to myself and completely spent. I loved it.

And then I jumped on a game I’ve been playing incessantly with my baby squirrel, Elder Scrolls Online. Normally I don’t play online games, but this one… see, I used to play World of Warcraft back in the day, and the differences between that and this game are night and day. Not only are the storylines more mature and fully voice-acted, but the community is so warm and helpful! For example, we were trying to complete an area’s tasks, and all we had left to do was kill one world boss (which is basically a monster so badass that you have to tackle it with a mass amount of people), but we kept getting beaten. Humiliatingly so. I mean, it was bad, yo. Usually, we can at least put a dent in a world boss and strategize/cheat our way to victory sometimes, but this creature mopped the ground with us without really trying.

After about 30 minutes and two dozen soul gems (soul gems are used to resurrect you when you die, and they are not cheap!) I decided to do something I had yet to do: I asked for help. I went on general chat, typed out a plea, and… one person responded. So I figured OK, one more person may make the difference, and even if it didn’t, we at least wouldn’t be the only ones getting whipped this time. Misery loves company, am I right?

So we waited.

About a minute passed.

And then all hell broke loose.

It was like the entire server showed up and started slaughtering this motherfucker, throwing him this way and that, hitting him with so many special powers and effects that it looked like a bunch of overenthusiastic Power Rangers clicking on a boss during the fourth of July. My mouth dropped open as I watched the carnage unfold on my screen. I was dumbfounded.

The entire battle was over in about 30 seconds.

Then everyone just blinked out one by one, some staying around to wave or socialize for a second, most just casually going on their way. I looked back at Anne, and she looked at me and… we were speechless. If you know anything about me, that is saying something. 😄 Since then I’ve been watching the chats and found that people occasionally do ask for help with things like dungeons or bosses, and aid is usually quick to come. Things like that never happened to me in World of Warcraft. Whenever I reached out for help (which wasn’t very often, because that’s a hard thing for me to do), I got either made fun of or ignored. Very rarely did I see anyone go out of their way for anyone else unless they were in the same guild, and even then, there seemed to always be strings attached. The maturity difference between these two games seems, to me, night and day.

So. If you’re playing and happen to see two confused little hood rats running around named Alexa Nichols and Squirrel-chan, say hi. If you’re lucky, we may even add you to our party. Maybe. No promises. 😄🥰✌

Little Dead Girls and hood rats in Elder Scrolls Online…

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It’s frustrating when you really, really want to write, when your fingers are just aching to bleed out your creativity into your craft, your passion, and… Life decides to hit you with back-to-back time mongers that not only prevent it but only seem to relent when your energy and mental lucidity are completely tapped out. When you have just enough energy to stare blankly at your computer screen and blink, wondering if you’ll ever be able to blissfully go crazy the way you used to before adulting crept up and bitch slapped you.

Things do seem to be relenting a bit. Yesterday, for example, I was able to crank out several chapters of Little Dead Girls, my current passion project. Five hours later I was delightfully wasted, leaning back in my chair like I had just finished a marathon, smiling goofily to myself and completely spent. I loved it.

And then I jumped on a game I’ve been playing incessantly with my baby squirrel, Elder Scrolls Online. Normally I don’t play online games, but this one… see, I used to play World of Warcraft back in the day, and the differences between that and this game are night and day. Not only are the storylines more mature and fully voice-acted, but the community is so warm and helpful! For example, we were trying to complete an area’s tasks, and all we had left to do was kill one world boss (which is basically a monster so badass that you have to tackle it with a mass amount of people), but we kept getting beaten. Humiliatingly so. I mean, it was bad, yo. Usually, we can at least put a dent in a world boss and strategize/cheat our way to victory sometimes, but this creature mopped the ground with us without really trying.

After about 30 minutes and two dozen soul gems (soul gems are used to resurrect you when you die, and they are not cheap!) I decided to do something I had yet to do: I asked for help. I went on general chat, typed out a plea, and… one person responded. So I figured OK, one more person may make the difference, and even if it didn’t, we at least wouldn’t be the only ones getting whipped this time. Misery loves company, am I right?

So we waited.

About a minute passed.

And then all hell broke loose.

It was like the entire server showed up and started slaughtering this motherfucker, throwing him this way and that, hitting him with so many special powers and effects that it looked like a bunch of overenthusiastic Power Rangers clicking on a boss during the fourth of July. My mouth dropped open as I watched the carnage unfold on my screen. I was dumbfounded.

The entire battle was over in about 30 seconds.

Then everyone just blinked out one by one, some staying around to wave or socialize for a second, most just casually going on their way. I looked back at Anne, and she looked at me and… we were speechless. If you know anything about me, that is saying something. 😄 Since then I’ve been watching the chats and found that people occasionally do ask for help with things like dungeons or bosses, and aid is usually quick to come. Things like that never happened to me in World of Warcraft. Whenever I reached out for help (which wasn’t very often, because that’s a hard thing for me to do), I got either made fun of or ignored. Very rarely did I see anyone go out of their way for anyone else unless they were in the same guild, and even then, there seemed to always be strings attached. The maturity difference between these two games seems, to me, night and day.

So. If you’re playing and happen to see two confused little hood rats running around named Alexa Nichols and Squirrel-chan, say hi. If you’re lucky, we may even add you to our party. Maybe. No promises. 😄🥰✌

Flash fiction, creative diarrhea, and getting hard

I’ve been asked several times why the frequency of my entries has decreased over the past year, and (somehow) I always tend to come up with different answers. I was thinking about this the other day for some reason, contemplating ramping up the frequency, but I eventually came to this conclusion: I don’t really want to put anything out there unless I actually have something to say. Of course, this goes against all the common wisdom on being an independent author and advertising yourself, but I don’t care – I decided from day one that I was going to go my own path, looking to others for help when I needed it but otherwise enjoying myself without worrying about becoming, you know, just like everyone else.

I’ve learned a lot. Unfortunately, I still have a lot to learn. I’ve been having an incredible amount of fun with it all, though, especially when interacting with readers and getting their input on my stories.

That being written… my mind has been in a weird place as of late. My thoughts seem scattered, and even when writing, I keep thinking of a million different things that don’t pertain to the story. I file these things away for later, and I’ll no doubt use them in a future tale, but for the most part, I seem to have what amounts to creative diarrhea. It’s just going all over the place, everywhere but where I actually need it to go, causing my Idea Junkyard file to be filled with all sorts of bizarre tidbits.

Case in point.

I was working on my current work in progress (something I’m writing under a pen name), happily revising the completed story so I can finally put it out in the world, when I checked my posting schedule for Patreon and Subscribestar and came to a screeching halt. I have this project, see, Dark Jubilee, which is essentially a collection of short stories that fit under certain criteria like word or even character length. It’s more a creative challenge than anything, though I plan to release it once I have five stories in each section. Anyway, I had a story rapidly approaching, a piece of flash fiction (1,500 words or less) that I outlined a long time ago.

So I stopped working on my pen name project and jumped on Dark Jubilee. I flushed out the outline, wrote the rough draft, and did a word count: 2,354 words. I figured, hey, this is no biggie, just do another revision, trim it here and there, and it should be under 1,500 words in no time, right? So I did just that, then did the final word count: 3,066 words. 😂 Yeah, I apparently fail miserably as a short story writer. It’s definitely an art form, way more than I initially thought. It’s something I want to work on, especially considering how much I love to read them. And it would be nice to release actual short stories for a change…

Before I forget: my very first hardcover, Erotic Urban Legends: Volume 1, is now available for sale! If you like hardcovers, please go check it out. And, of course, thank you for reading. I appreciate it.

I have a secret to tell

So here’s something I’ve only shared with a handful of people in my life: I have dyslexia. You can sometimes see this in my social media posts, especially those I craft using my phone, because all my glorified grammar checkers aren’t active. When I was younger, I used to hand copy a page from the dictionary every day to try and combat my dyslexia, and if I made a mistake, I would throw the entire page away and start over. This was originally given to me as a punishment from one of my teachers (talking in class queen over here), but it turned out I really liked learning new words, so I decided to keep the practice up on my own. It helped my dyslexia a lot, and combined with electronic grammar correctors, I can now write books.

Why am I telling you this?

Anne told me something the other day after I helped her get in bed (she has cerebral palsy and arthritis) that broke my heart, though it wasn’t her intent: she thanked me for looking after her, for helping her do things she can’t do herself. It was a simple, pure statement, but for some reason, it hit me hard. She wasn’t necessarily thanking me for helping her; she regretted that she couldn’t do these things for herself. She felt like a burden, and she was reaching out to tell me how much she not only appreciated me but needed me.

For the record, she was wrong. She doesn’t need me. I know that she would simply find a way to do it herself if I weren’t there. She’s crazy smart and resourceful like that.

We all have our struggles; some are just more hidden than others.

Food for thought, right? It definitely was for me.

Anyway, writing-wise, I’m neck-deep in Camgirl, and it’s way more absorbing than I thought it would be. In many ways, it reminds me of Girl Fight, a book that took me emotionally all over the place, but Camgirl is a bit… darker if that’s possible. It’s definitely more sexual. And longer. It was also insanely difficult to start. I had all my meticulously organized notes and outlines in front of me, but actually starting the story… was a bit difficult. As hard as Camgirl was to start, once I started, the words just seemed to flow out.

This isn’t exactly abnormal.

Every time I start a new book, it’s always the same: I stare at a blank page, wonder how in the hell I’m going to begin, start questioning if I’ve lost my touch, then tentatively type out a few words like I’m scared of the keyboard or something. Within a few minutes, and this never fails, I’m frothing at the mouth and slamming away at the keys like I’m mad at them. Every time.

I’ve written this before and I’ll write it again: I love being a writer!

I doubt that will ever change.

So many stories, so little time…

Don’t gamble something you’re not willing to lose.

Boy. I did not expect the responses to my last entry. Most of the time when I sit down to write them I just write, barely thinking about what I’m putting out there, just kind of letting my fingers do the talking. It seems more authentic that way. I then run it through a quick grammar check (Grammarly) and let it fly. After about a day or so, many of you message me in one way or another and let me know what you thought, and I love that; it helps me feel connected to you and oftentimes provides an insight that I never would have otherwise. It’s the reward for taking the time to record and share my thoughts.

Until you motherfuckers turn against me. 😄

Not long after I posted my last entry, my inbox exploded. Most of you were telling me how stupid I was being, linking to article after article and telling me some of your own personal stories dealing with heart issues, and because of that, I was forced to stop and think: was I being stupid? Was I basically gambling with my health? Someone close to me once said something I hold near to my heart, something I remind myself of on a near-daily basis:



“Don’t gamble something you’re not willing to lose.”



Sometimes it’s easy to forget that. Life can get so engrossing that it’s easy to brush things to the side and focus on the more fun, attention-snatching elements. Especially, in my case at least, people. Ever heard the expression about the shoemaker who didn’t have any shoes? That is me to a T. I concern myself with other people’s problems so much that I often neglect my own. It’s natural to me; once you’ve fought past the obstacle course and made it into my heart, I do everything in my power to make sure you are as happy and healthy as you can be. I often write that I like who I am, that I love being me, and while true… that doesn’t mean I don’t see room for improvement. My health is definitely one of those areas.

So.

I went to the doctor. Again. Instead of describing exactly what happened, I’ll just plop in a message I sent to a friend:



I’m pissed. Today was a big waste of time – time that I could have been playing Skyrim. I left early as hell, got seen almost immediately, then had several tests ran on me. My body apparently picked today to be in perfect condition, because the preliminary exams looked good. They’re going to run tests on my blood, look at x-rays, and evaluate CT scans further and let me know what they came up with. Heart still enlarged; they just have no idea why. Yet. So I’m home.

They did say if I had any chest pains to return and they would likely admit me. So I’m about to shower, make myself some tea, and binge-watch some Walking Dead on Netflix.



I feel like everything was kind of rushed. I thought about this for a while and finally decided it is time I go back to the hospital, a different one this time, and see what they can do about my enlarged heart. I’m going to get the bulk of my baby squirrel’s appointments out of the way (all Cancer related), get our second microchipping (COVID shot) as soon as a slot opens up, and then my ass is going to the hospital. Maybe sooner depending on how I feel, I dunno. I will, of course, keep all of you updated because I have a habit of oversharing online. Hey, I’m a writer; I make no apologies for this.

About writing…

Man, do I have so many projects! I’m turning The Siren’s Song into a trilogy of books, each based on a different mythological creature, all interrelated, each keeping the same erotic romance tone. Right now, I’m only in the drafting stages, but it’s been a lot of fun so far. My primary project, and what I spend the bulk of my time on, is Camgirl, and the research on this is, well, interesting. Seeing the industry from a camgirls perspective is fascinating. I even plan to take part in a few camming sessions just for the experience. I like to have a true understanding of what I write about, and as I’ve never watched a camming session (just like I’ve never been in a strip club), it’s something that’s always interested me. So this should be fun.

If you are interested in learning about camming, I found an excellent documentary that I shared with my Patreon and Subscribestar Alexaliens a while back called Cam Girlz. You might want to check it out. There is a bunch of nudity and kinkiness, so make sure you’re not, like, at church or something when you attempt to watch it.

And let me know what you think. I always like knowing what you think. Even if you occasionally turn against me. 😏

Real Life, am I right?

If you really know me, you know I have a barely existent immune system. I mean, it’s there, but sometimes it decides to go MIA for days on end. Probably out running the streets getting in trouble like I used to do when I was younger (i.e., pre-COVID). Anyway, yeah, I get sick easily, and when I get sick, I tend to stay sick forever. How I survived my first COVID shot with no symptoms is beyond me. I mean, if you were to look at my body, you would never guess, but inside this body… a whole other tale is being told.

Why am I writing all this?

Well.

For the past few months, I’ve been feeling a rattling mucus type of thing in my chest, primarily when I lay down, and it’s only getting worse. I’ve been coughing, hacking, and having difficulty sleeping because of it, and my breathing sounds like Darth Vader doing a mic check. I tried putting it off, hoping it would get better, but it, of course, didn’t. So I finally broke and went to the hospital a few days ago.

They placed an IV in my arm, took five shots vials of blood, did a barrage of tests with that blood, put me in a big scary looking machine for a CT scan, nearly killed me when I kept telling them I had to pee, which forced them to unhook me, and after all this… the doctor said they had no clue. He did say I have an enlarged heart, but he ruled out congestive heart failure (which was a relief, as the survival rate of that is 50% for five years).

So I waited. They ran more tests. Ruled more things out.

Many, many hours later, another doctor approached me and said she wanted to admit me, and in the morning she was putting me on a treadmill and if I passed that, she would send me home. There was an awkward silence as I looked at her like she was three kinds of stupid. I exercise every day except Sunday. Hard. I know I can do a fucking treadmill. Sleeping. It wasn’t going to show anything. I nicely explained this to her, and she gave me one of those strained smiles you give a child asking where babies come from. She explained that it was a basic stress test, but I didn’t understand why I had to spend the night just doing something like that, so I asked her if I could possibly do it today. For some reason, she looked at me like I was stupid, like why wouldn’t she want to spend the night in a hospital?! or something.

So went into full loli-diva mode and left against medical advice.

A stupid decision in hindsight, I know, because doctors are, you know, doctors. I am feeling better in my defense, but still, my body acting like that is a surefire sign that something is wrong. I know I need to go back. I don’t want to, because in a way I’m scared to learn what it might be, but…

Real Life, am I right?

Anyway, my writing life is going way better than my health. As I stated in my newsletter, I have a set release schedule of books, and everything is written up to 2024, so I’m able to take on these little side projects that I’ve wanted to tackle – things like pen name books, VIP tiered Patreon and Subscribestar.adult requests, and spider monkeying the hell out of my big brother. These are all important things, yo. My big brother gets moody and unbalanced if I don’t regularly spider monkey him.

Sigh. Back to work.

Stay freaky.

Or die trying. 😏

…of hostile squirrels and demonic lolis…

As some of you may know, my baby squirrel recently had breast cancer surgery. Chemo was apparently her best friend, shrinking her cancer lumps down to minuscule sizes that could easily be removed. So, after the surgery her surgeon was optimistic, and she went home with glue and tape to hold her breast closed.

Everything went perfectly for the first few days.

Then, the other day, while I was struggling away with Voyeur Season 2, she called out to me from the shower. She kind of casually mentioned that she was leaking, which made me immediately assume she was peeing in the tub or something and trying to be funny. In my defense, her voice didn’t contain any nervousness or seriousness – she seemed to sound nonchalant. When I asked her to elaborate, she said she was leaking blood. She was bleeding. From her breast. And she couldn’t get it to stop.

I rushed into the bathroom and found her sitting on the edge of the toilet, holding her breast, blood everywhere. And it was still coming out. Fast forward about fifteen minutes, and I finally managed to stop the bleeding, and we were on the phone with a nurse, my baby squirrel weak from blood loss and barely managing to hold it together. We were told that some bleeding and swelling was not only normal but expected after the type of surgery she had, so unless things became ridiculous, we should just ride it out.

I was a skeptical loli. 🤨

Apparently, however, the nurse was right, because after some orange juice, multivitamins, and mixed nuts (she is a squirrel after all), she was relaxed and back to normal, terrorizing her Roku as usual.

But I wasn’t.

For the longest time I couldn’t stop shaking. She took the whole ordeal much better than I did; in fact, towards the end, she was the one comforting me, because all I could see was her losing too much blood and possibly dying. And I have no idea what I’d do without her. It reminded me of when she was diagnosed with cancer and how all these emotions hit me left and right, night and day, incessantly.

I don’t do well with change. Especially when the change consists of death.

Still, though, the fact that she got better so quickly and learning how normal the bleeding and swelling had made me thoughtful: not everything is always as dire as it may seem.



“People fear what they don’t understand and hate what they can’t conquer.”

– Andrew Smith



So true. What I should have done was researched before panicking, educated myself before assuming. You think in this stage of my life I would know that by now, but… knowing and Knowing are two different things, you know?

Writing of lessons – do you know how hostile a baby squirrel can be when she decides out of nowhere to cold turkey quit smoking?! And how demonic a little loli redhead (that would be moi) can get when she decides to cold turkey quit drinking? It is not a good combination, y’all. At all. We’ve been arguing, fighting, wrestling, and smack-talking every single day lately. 😄 It’s been interesting, to say the least. And, if I’m being a bit honest, eye-opening. Addiction is a serious thing, and it’s a hard concept to truly understand until you decide to try and break through it yourself. No amount of writing or advice can even begin to prepare you for what’s in store once you take that initial step. It’s like a switch goes off in your mind, and you start craving whatever it is more than you ever have.

Anyway, breakneck topic switch. On the writing front, I’ve been struggling a bit with Voyeur’s final episode of Season Two, but I think I’ve mastered the direction I want the story to go. I had so many characters I wanted to touch upon, but because of space limitations (Voyeur episodes are short by nature, so writing one that’s novel-length just isn’t an option), I couldn’t for the life of me decide which ones I wanted to wrap up… after a ton of brainstorming, I finally settled on the core characters, then dived headfirst into flushing everything out. Fast forward a bit, and now I’m putting it through its final revisions. I can’t wait to finally finish it. My next story… well, it’s one for the record books…

Anyway, this entry was way longer than I intended it to be, and I have even more writing to do, so ✌ and 🥰!

I quit.

Not too long ago, I woke up disoriented, falling over myself, and nauseous. I couldn’t quit throwing up, and for the next two days, I felt absolutely disgusting. The worst part? I still had author tasks to do (such as advertising, finishing up Voyeur Season 2 Episode 5, taxes, and other personal matters). My heart wasn’t in it. My mind wasn’t in it. My body definitely wasn’t in it.

I was hungover.

For the last time.

When I was younger, I used alcohol as a coping mechanism to calm my mind and let my inhibitions lower enough to effectively communicate with others. I was awkward, quiet, and overly emotional about the smallest (and strangest) things without it. Alcohol killed all that, allowing my sense of humor to fully manifest. And I’m the sort to remember everything after I drink, so the next day I was usually able to laugh at my actions even when everyone else was busy telling me how I should’ve been mature or acted more responsibly. I loved it. The best part? I was rarely hung over.

Then I got older.

The hangovers started to manifest, creeping in with increasing discomfort and pain, until the other day when I woke up half dead and rethinking all my life choices. I ditched the rest of my alcohol and seriously pondered my life. Why, at this age, am I still putting myself through this? Why am I repeatedly getting drunk, only to suffer for it for days after? What’s the point? Yes, the buzz feels good in the moment, but it comes with so many caveats… I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s just not worth it anymore. I could be doing so much more with that time and energy than debilitating myself.

I wrote all that to write this: I decided to quit drinking.

Those of you that know me (either digitally or in real life) are probably reading those words with wide, astonished eyes right now. I don’t blame you. It was a serious paradigm shift and kind of long overdue. I mean, I’m 34 years old. When it comes to alcohol, I can’t just drink a little bit. What’s the point in that? I want to feel it. I want to be affected by it. That’s the entire point of drinking, right? At least that’s the way I used to think. 😷

Now I just need to find other things to make me feel the way I did when I was buzzed. Preferably not narcotic. 😄 Any suggestions?

On being a rapist, and how my art imitates Life

Anne and I were once again braving public transit to run some errands (because unfortunately, not everything can be done online. Yet.) and stepped onto a train where this young woman was sitting in her seat, slamming her fist against the window and yelling something about rapists. Everyone on the train seemed to be messing with her, and as we sat down, she seemed to get even more riled up. She became frantic, increasingly manic, and loud.

She even turned to me at one point and called me a rapist.

I can honestly say that is the first time anyone has ever done that.

Everyone was laughing at her, making fun of her, and trying to spook her even more than she obviously already was, but me? I was intrigued.

Now, seeing someone yelling and acting bizarrely in downtown Dallas is not exactly a shocking sight (in fact, it would be alarming if I didn’t see it at least once when I went out), but this woman didn’t look the type. She had sharp, lucid eyes, was well dressed, clean, and didn’t appear homeless. She was also speaking clearly, enunciating perfectly, and her energy level was beyond what your average street-yeller has.

So I studied her.

Why, you may ask?

Well.

Since I was a little girl, the mind has always fascinated me. I kind of mentioned that in my last entry, but let me expound a bit. First of all, when I say mind, I don’t just mean the human mind – I mean a brain in general. It’s an amazing device. But that’s a whole other conversation. Actually, one of the characters in Voyeur’s season 2, episode 4 (which I just finished a few days ago) sums it up perfectly:



“You see, my dear, before I became the Elder, I was deeply into psychology – and theology as well. The minds of people fascinated me; I suppose you could say they still do. A brain is an amazing machine. It alone controls the entire body, while at the same time being sustained by it. It is a remarkable symbiotic relationship, wouldn’t you say?”



I became so fascinated with psychology because the behaviors of others rarely made sense to me. People seem mercurial, going from one emotion to the next within minutes: much faster than I. Why? I wanted to understand. I wanted to know the reasons behind the things people do. I made a career out of it, and when it was all said and done I found myself closer to an understanding, but farther from actual comprehension. People are too unique, and there are simply too many variables. Formulating a realistic hypothesis is almost an impossibility.

I guess what I’m trying to say is people are complex, and truly understanding them is difficult – no matter how well you think you know them.

This brings me back to this woman.

I tried talking to her, asking her if she was OK, if she maybe needed help, but she seemed more alarmed than comprehensive. And then the doors opened at the next stop and she practically ran off, and that was the last I saw of her.

And I was left wondering what caused her to act that way.

Story of my life. People do things all the time that seem nonsensical, and even though I’m often curious, I can’t simply ask them why they do what they do. Ultimately it doesn’t truly matter, and even though I logically understand this, it still drives me insane. 😄

I suppose that’s why writing has such a hold on me. I can create people, and I understand exactly why they think the way they do, why they do what they do. Their motivations and actions make sense – even if to most readers they might not initially understand.

Art imitates Life, no?

How Star Wars made me an author

I am mentally and emotionally exhausted. More than that, I think I might be becoming a bit of a hermit. I have so many creative projects I’m working on, so many stories I’m writing/outlining, that I’m finding myself lost in them. It used to be I would turn to social media for a bit of fun, to talk to people and see what’s going on in the world, but anymore it seems more like a job, like a distraction from my writing that isn’t entirely welcome. No one seems to be really saying anything anymore, just regurgitating, especially when it comes to politics.

It seems the more I’m on social media, the more it reminds me of that movie Mean Girls.

I turned my social media notifications off a while ago just to distance myself from the constant pings (and to save my poor abused phone battery) and made the decision a few days ago to keep them off because the silence (and increased battery time) is so fucking nice. The only notifications I haven’t muted is Patreon. It’s like I have so much more free time now. Life is beautiful again. 😄

Free time I’m putting to good use. Currently I’m finishing up the second season of Voyeur, and somewhere along the way I ended up reminding myself why I started writing it to begin with. It’s an interesting mixture of drama, love, lust, and mystery that basically encapsulates everything I like to read in a book. And the characters all hold a special place in my heart, as I spent an inordinate amount of time and energy creating them. The only bad thing about the series is forcing myself to keep each episode under 20,000 words, because I keep bopping back and forth between characters and finding myself wanting to tell more of their stories… it’s kind of like a kinky soap opera to me. So much fun.

Another book proving to be fun is a little side project is Little Dead Girls, about Rachel, one of the main characters in another story I just finished, Devious Bitches, which so far only one person (the Patreon member that commissioned it) has read. Little Dead Girls examines Rachel’s past and explains a great deal about why she is the way she is. It also dives into some of the darker mythos of my Alexaverse and may end up being the bleakest story I’ve written yet. And that’s saying something. It will, however, have a happy ending if that sort of thing matters to you. It will just be a hell of a ride getting there.

In the grand scheme of my Alexaverse, Rachel is an incredibly minor character, but she caught the imagination of that Patreon so much that he commissioned yet another story about her – one that not only delved into her psyche a bit more but also exposed her past.

Things like this are why I became a writer to begin with.

I used to play Dungeons & Dragons for a bit, and one of the older advertisements for the Star Wars variant grabbed my imagination and never let it go.



They captured my imagination. What was his story? Why was he there? What kind of person was he? My mind sort of zoomed out, thinking about all the characters in the movies. And not just Star Wars, but movies in general. And then comics. Novels. Some of the minor, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them characters suddenly took on a new light. What was their story? Why were they the way they were?

This was the catalyst of my becoming a writer, and while I love telling stories, it’s exploring the minds and motivations of my characters that truly holds my heart. It’s also why I love reading books and manga that do the same. People fascinate me.

And suddenly, as I write that line, it’s causing me to rethink my current view of social media. Maybe I need to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes, try to remember why I fell in love with it to begin with. Interact with the people I truly find interesting, and ignore/unfollow/block those I don’t.

Huh.

Let’s see how this goes.

I may even get wild and crazy and up turning my notifications back on. Who knows?

Wish me luck. 🥰