I just finished NanoWriMo 2009. Yea! There were times I wondered if I’d make it, but I did with time to spare! I’ve been trying to think of ways to reward myself, but I honestly think I’m just going to take a day off and play a game or something. Better idea… get away from the computer for a day and read. I have a book I started ages ago that I’m still not done with and a stack of books on my desk screaming at me to pick them up and dive in. It made finishing Nano tough with all the screaming…

Sorry everything has been Twitter updates for the entire month, but I was hoping the Tweets would tell the tale of Nano and the busy, crazy month November turned out to be.

So what’s next? I haven’t decided yet. I have a new project I’ve been burning to get started on for a couple of weeks now. I have several people expecting me to podcast after this Nano, which means lots of editing and rewriting of my Nano project. I have other obligations I need to catch up on as well.

I’m going to take a day off and start in on the blog again next week. I plan on writing more about Nano this year, what it did for me, and what the future holds. I have several other projects I’m hoping to launch very soon as well, so I’ll be keeping busy.

I’d like to thank @Mornaric and @greyfane for the support during Nano. Both have been long time friends and I’m glad they joined me in the craziness.

In 2006, I participated in and finished NanoWriMo. In 2007, I tried but failed due to serious lack of time. In 2008, I didn’t even attempt it. This year, I’m going to try again!

National Novel Writing Month or NanoWriMo for short, is a month long endeavor to write 50,000 words by midnight on November 30th. While quantity not quality is the goal, many novelists and budding novelists enjoy the community and solidarity of NanoWriMo. Write-ins and meet-ups are scheduled and attended around the country while participants support each other through the trails of tackling such a frantic writing schedule.

If only I had a laptop. I’d love to join in the local fun at

>>> [ WARNING ::: DATABASE ERROR ::: CONTENT OVERRIDE ::: SOURCE: EXTERNAL ] < <<

> source terminal location: UNKNOWN
> source terminal identity: UNAVAILABLE
> source login information: ENCRYPTED
> message begins

the post you are now reading is designed to dull your senses to THE TRUTH. do not live the life of the worker bee, the cog, the well-oiled piston in the MACHINE OF DECEIT!

there is a grand CONSPIRACY afoot. you have been taught to believe that you are UNIQUE, one of a kind. THIS IS NOT TRUE. long ago, a cabal of scientists created technologies to ensure that ANYONE’S MIND AND BODY can be duplicated.

human cloning isn’t NEAR. it’s already HERE. discover the truth at http://JCHutchins.net

you are being DECEIVED. break free from the cogs, flee the hive, become A PROPHET OF THE TRUTH!

kilroy2. was here … kilroy2.0 is everywhere

>>> [ CONTENT OVERRIDE CEASES ::: DATABASE STATUS: RECOVERING ] <<<

but even if I only write 1,000 words this November, that’s 1,000 words more than what I had before, right? Wish me luck!

Pine Cone

Dead on the outside
Yet something stirs deep inside
The signs of new life

-Kryson

It has been awhile and after a couple of friends threatened me with bodily harm… I decided it was about time to update if I wanted to stay alive for awhile longer. This isn’t the podcast update they wanted, but I hope it will do for the moment.

I made a list of all the things I wanted to cover, but I can’t find it now… of course.

Ok, I’ve been lectured from people on both sides now. The “you shouldn’t post anything personal in your blog” camp and the “what else is a blog for but posting personal thoughts” camp. And… if you think you haven’t lectured me about this, I’m probably not talking about you! I think I fall somewhere in the middle and I’m starting to care less and less every day. I try not to be too personal… try not to talk about my cats too much or personal turmoil or things about myself that could be damning, but that doesn’t leave much to talk about now does it?

I have started a new writing project with a long time friend. He might even jump in on a few things I already have going. We’ve supported each other creatively for years, so this should be a fun and interesting venture. I’m excited to get started and nervous for him to read what I’ve been working on.

As always, I have a million and a half things to do, but I’ve been trying to be less of a workaholic lately. I’ve always been amazed at the people that can balance or at least appear to balance things that they have to do, need to do, and want to do. I bow in reverence to those that have combined the three (have to, need to, and want to) into one thing. I’d love to get to that point in my life.

In April, we took my grandmother’s cat to be put to sleep. Jessica was a sweet little kitty that had a hard couple of years before my grandmother adopted her. She was a good companion for a long time, but at 20+ years with a thyroid condition and failing kidneys, life became agony for her. We were there… we watched her take her last breath. It was so… sad is not a descriptive enough word… I’m not sure I can find a fitting one…

I know there was more I wanted to cover, but I can’t think right now. It’s late and my brain is shutting down for the night. Hopefully I’ll find that list tomorrow. If not… hopefully good stuff will happen that I can post about soon.

Still working on updating more, but I’m not making any promises about anything to anyone at the moment.

My partner in crime found a better way to streamline things and freed up quite a bit of time. We still have a ton of things to do, e.g. taking pics, adding new products, spring cleaning, but after that’s over with I might actually have a little free time on my hands.

My brain is already on overdrive adding new projects for me to tackle. I keep mulling over adding a blog for CMH so I can stop talking about it here and actually post less personal and less vague posts on the business blog, but I don’t know. I don’t know if it would just wind up being another time sink with no real benefit, or if it would actually be worth it. I’d ask Tee’s opinion, but he’s such a busy guy I’d hate to bug him.

I’m most excited about getting back to old projects and as soon as we get a handle on the backlog of things we need to do, I’m going to find me some word meters to add to the blog. I want to see a word meter start increasing again!

I don’t want to get ahead of myself though. There’s still a lot of time consuming stuff left to do.

Ahhhh… Valentine’s Day. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve hated Valentine’s Day. Giving out little cards to kids wasn’t how I wanted to spend my day. I’d rather take a test. Once I was a teen, Valentine’s Day was just a reminder that I was alone. Everyone that was in a “couple” seemed so happy, until I was in a couple myself and the daggers and drama came out of the woodwork. The worst was the expectation placed on both men and women to give something amazing and almost everyone seemed to be disappointed.

I was happy with a peck on the cheek myself.

My husband usually has to work on Valentine’s. That’s where he’s at now. Although Valentine’s Day just seems like another excuse to spend money, he always does something sweet for me anyway. He’s a bigger romantic than I am. That was hard to admit years ago, but it’s true.

So, in honor of this day… here’s a poem I wrote for him years ago. Not exactly a happy piece, but it reminds me of where I’ve been and how lucky I am to have such a wonderful man in my life.

Hey, I never said it was a good poem!

I read a post the other day where someone was talking about updating 30+ blogs. I have problems finding the time to update one blog. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to try to keep up with over 30 of them. Sheesh.

Based on the last random question, I’ve decided to try podcasting a short story in the next couple of weeks. I’m not quite finished with it yet. I’m trying not to be a perfectionist about it or I’ll never be happy with it and I’ll never release it. The first one is going to be the hardest. I think it will be easier after that.

So, I’ll be launching this thing for real in a couple of weeks. No more Starting From Nothing. First will be the short story I’m working on now, then I’m going to launch into a series of short stories I’ve been working on over the years. This is all leading up to the launch of my first novel, which probably won’t happen until 2009. Unfortunately, November and December are entirely too busy for me to attempt the novel before then. I also won’t be participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I wish I could. I enjoyed myself in 2006, but I tried last year and failed miserably due to time restraints. This year is going to be worse.

Things are not all quiet on the podcasting front, but things are in flux as I switch gears. Just a couple of weeks and I’ll be doing this for real. Scary!

I was going to try to keep myself seperated from the business so as not to drag it down with all this “goth stuff” and horror and such, but I find it impossible to keep something that is such a large part of my life seperate from everything. So, hopefully no one will look down on my business if they happen to stumble in here and see all this.

Originally posted on Macabre Manor’s forum: http://forum.macabremanor.com/index.php?topic=153.0

In Jan of 2007, I started my own business called Crescent Moon Haberdashery. We started selling at local shows then and in March of 2007, we started selling on Amazon.com. The business has been growing and growing ever since. It’s been keeping me pretty busy of late.

I love photography and also in Jan of 2007, I started putting photos and art on cafepress.com. So far, it has been supporting itself, but needs a huge update. I have tons of photos sitting here begging to be added. You can find it at http://www.cafepress.com/crescentmoonhab if you’re interested in seeing what I’ve done so far. At some point, I’m going to be putting some of my poetry on mousepads and framed pictures as well. I’ll be crushed if they never sell, but I’m doing it anyway.

In June of 2008, we launched Crescent Moon Haberdashery’s own store at http://www.crescentmoonhab.com We haven’t been doing too bad considering we only launched a few months ago. We sell t-shirts, incense, greeting cards, knives (until they’re gone), and some magnets made from photos I took. I’d love to carry more of the magnets, but they aren’t selling enough to warrent bringing in more. Our biggest seller is the Life is Crap line of t-shirts.

At the moment, we’ve sent more Life is Crap shirts to New York than any other state… I wonder if that means something…

We have a few goth shirts too, which is our second best seller. I wanted to get in more goth shirts before Halloween, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. We’re going to be adding long sleeve shirts, tank tops, and hats soon, too. Don’t know where we’re going to store it all, but that’s the plan.

While I’m not the only slave to CMH, I’m the primary slave and it takes more time than I ever anticipated. I really enjoy it though. It’s nice to be the boss and not the peon for once. It’s also nice because I feel like crap more often than I feel good anymore, so I can do as little or as much as I feel I can accomplish. Most of the time, I work way too many hours anyway, but when I really feel like death warmed over, I can take it a little easy. Still have to work, but not quite as hard.

So, check out Crescent Moon Haberdashery and laugh at the shirts! They’re a lot of fun.

I go through long periods of not playing any online games, or any games at all for that matter, because I’m simply too busy. Shroud is still playing WoW and recently I’ve played some myself since things have been slowing down a bit after the back to school rush… and I needed a break… needed to have some fun for a bit. However, we’re about to start gearing up for the Christmas selling season, so I doubt I will have time to play much very soon. That and I need to run an inventory. Wheeeee!

Since I had so many friends jumping from blog site to blog site and wanting me to follow, I decided to start my own permanent blog at http://www.kryson.info awhile back. None of those friends actually go to my blog, of course. It’s only stuff I can post to everyone though, so no ultra personal stuff there. I’ve found that most people don’t want to read about the drama with the insurance company on the damage claim for our house, problems with bank screw ups, and family drama anyway.

I started a podcast on http://www.kryson.info as well. I’m planning on podcasting my short stories for now and work my way up to podcasting the 3 novels I have in the works. I’m not sure how I’m expecting myself to free up the time, but it’s something I’ve wanted to do since 2005 when I found out what a podcast was. I just recently decided to stop planning it and just do it. The podcast sucks at the moment, but I’m hoping it will get better as I get more practice at it. If not… well, it’s something that takes me away from working for awhile. I’m only interested in having some fun, making some friends, and sharing two of my hobbies with others (writing and now… podcasting).

Shroud changed jobs and is working 3rd shift now. It’s an adjustment and difficult for him to find the balance between sleeping and getting things done that he needs to do, but I’m sure he’ll figure it out soon… probably about the time they move him to another shift. He’s enjoying the new job though, which is the important part. I’m hoping he’ll become a trainer there at some point. He’s so patient and so good at teaching, I think he’d really enjoy it. I tried to talk him into being a teacher at one point, but with the way our school system is now, I don’t blame him for not wanting to. I still think he’d make an awesome teacher though.

Speaking of the school system, Sara is still making incredible grades and is becoming more active in school. She’s going to be in a musical this fall. Fiddler on the Roof! She has a bit tougher classes this time around, so we’ll see if she maintains her excellent grades. Traditional Chinese is probably her hardest class. In December she turns 16. Pick your jaw up off the floor! Time flies.

My mother always told me that kids grow up before you can blink and I never believed her until now. When I was a kid, time seemed to pass so slowly and now… I blinked and 10 years just flew by. Makes me wonder if tomorrow I’ll be in a wheelchair watching my grandkids graduate from high school. Yeah Sara… I know… you’re not going to have kids! Remember, I said that, too.

Sara’s got a boyfriend I absolutely hate. Just kidding. Did ya have a heartattack there, Sara? He’s actually a pretty nice kid. Pretty typical “indestructible” male teenager. As a matter of fact, the song Indestructible by Disturbed is her ringtone for him. He asked me, through her, what I thought about him one day and I told her to tell him that I don’t really know him very well, but I thought he was a pretty nice guy… and the best guy she’s gone out with so far. It’s funny though… she asked him what he thought of me and I guess he’s never given her a straight answer. Understandable though. I mean, most of her friends like me, but only her boyfriend has to put up with how strict I am.

Sadly for Sara, Shroud and I are some of the strictest parents. I just can’t understand parents that let their kids run wild. So many kids Sara knows just flat scare me with all the things they do and are allowed to do… or rather the parents never know because they don’t take an interest in their kids. I just couldn’t do that. At least Sara seems to understand that I care and that’s why she can’t do all the thing these kids do. She’s a lot like I was as a teen… I understood why my parents didn’t let me do things, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

I haven’t actually written much of anything in years, but I’m slowly changing that. I need to have something to actually podcast after all. I’m hoping that eventually, people will want to play in my world and write for the podcast as well, but every time I’ve tried to get community activity going, it hasn’t actually happened. I’m hoping this time will be different, but if it isn’t… well… people will just have to listen to my rusty butt try to put something out there worth listening to. I’ve already had one person say I suck and I haven’t even podcasted any fiction yet! LOL!

I’m thinking about taking a few of the pieces of story I wrote for the round robins we did years ago and turn it into something else as well. Like the whole scene with Mordin in the virtual garden… I’m thinking about turning that into a sci-fi stand alone story… pulling all of the fanfic out of it and doing something completely different with it. There are a couple of others as well. I toyed with posting the pieces I wrote on my blog, but I didn’t think anyone would really be interested in reading bits and pieces of stories. I haven’t posted any poetry there either. I’ve posted it so many places it feel like beating a dead horse, ya know?

Man I miss those round robins.

So… that’s what we’ve been up to. How about you? What have you been up to?

I have a lot of poetry and snippets of prose sitting here on my HD. I thought about posting it, but I always post my poetry on forums and blogs. While I used to get comments and reactions, I feel like I’m beating a dead horse now, so I’ll ask…

Are you interested? Should I post my old poetry? Would you be interested in reading cuttings of my postings from old round robins and author duels? Would you rather I just get on with the podcast?

It has been a long time since I actually sat down and really wrote something. Jotting down ideas, editing old stuff, or adding a bit here and there is all I’ve really done for the past few months, if not longer. I’m extremely rusty and I’ve noticed that my vocabulary has been flushed out of my brain by numbers and code and images.

I know not many people are reading this blog at the moment, but if any of you that stumble in here are interested in participating in a round robin or author duel… please let me know. I have a forum/message board that would work brilliantly for such a venture.