Distracted By Something Shiny

From Westword Books FB - it’s my book-birthday!
***

Today is a very special day - Sunday, February 9, 2020 is the one year anniversary of our first book release, Terrific Tails: Stories From A Pet Guardian. In publishing circles, this is called a “book-birthday”, because to writers, their stories are like their children. Which is why you never ask an author to pick their favorite work, any more than you’d ask a parent to pick their favorite child - (even if we all know they have one!).

We checked in with our author, Adie Weston, to ask her how she feels about it all one year later.

“To be honest, it’s still surreal to think that my words are out there in the form of a book. I don’t know if that feeling will ever go away.”

As for what she’s been working on lately, Adie says, “I admit to taking a break from Book 2 over the holidays to write a few short stories for my niblings. Every writer has to have priorities and for me, my monkeys are always my priority.”

We prodded just a little to see if we could get anything out of her about this so-called Book 2.

She laughs. “The working title is Roller Kids and that’s all you’re getting out of me!”

And then we broke protocol and asked the forbidden question - does she have a favorite child?

“Of my original work, obviously Terrific Tails is my favorite. I adore the subject matter of course, as well the way the project brought my family together. And it certainly has been my biggest labor of love. But in my late teens and early 20s, I went through a phase of writing short plays and there are a few of those I’m still quite proud of.”

We asked her if she had any closing thoughts on Terrific Tails’ first birthday.

“Just how grateful I am to everyone who helped me with this project, especially my older brother and sister. And how grateful I am to every single person who bought and read my freshman book. I’m so happy I was able to do this, not just *for* my Grandma, but *because* of her.” She smiles softly and adds, “Miss you, Grandma.”

You can celebrate the one year release of Terrific Tails: Stories From A Pet Guardian by buying a copy on Amazon today!
***

Can’t believe it’s been a year! Wish I was further along on Book 2, but also...omg, I have a book-birthday! That fact alone is mind-blowing! Thanks to all of my LJ writer friends for your support - wouldn’t be here w/o the fanfic community, for sure.

Today is my ninth LJ anniversary. I’ve been journaling via the Internet nine years. Usually I’d do a look back or meme or answer questions or something, bc getting an LJ was one of the most momentous moments in, not just my fandom life, but my whole life. Honestly, in saving my life. I can’t say I’d have stayed sober without it. But the thing is, the day I got my LJ was also important for another reason and that reason was that it was The Nephew’s fourth birthday. He was such a little guy then. And now he’s a big guy, bc today he is 13 years old. So despite it being my own anniversary, I wanna take today to talk about The Nephew.

This past Saturday The Nephew & I went to the movies together, as a little birthday fun for the two of us - (& bc I wanted to see Endgame again, lol). Now you might think, “Ok, don’t you go to the movies at least once a month, what’s the big deal?” Well, the ‘big deal’ is that TN took me to the movies, just the two of us, for the first time ever. I mean, let’s be real, I paid, lol. And Sis drove & dropped us off. But TN? He played caregiver the whole time. He handled my wheelchair, getting the snacks & drinks, getting us into the theater, transferring me in & out of seats, took care of our garbage, picked up things I dropped on the floor - (which, tbh, is a big part of caring for me, I drop a lot of stuff on the floor, lol). He even reminded me to turn off my phone - after we took a selfie, ofc. You know when we went on spring break this year, he handled my wheelchair all weekend, we stayed in our own room together, we snuck off to the arcade together. And he did so good!

And now we’ve been to the movies alone, together, and that’s a huge deal bc it means freedom for us both! No more hoping someone has time to take us to do fun things, now all we need are rides dropping us off/picking us up. Movies? Can do! Arcade? Can do! Mall? Can do! Out to eat? Can do! I mean, it’s not like we can go any damn time we please, like during the day in the week this summer when all our rides are at work, but still...it’s the point that we have the options. And we have those options bc TN has grown into an amazing & responsible young man, who takes good care of me, listens to me, behaves in public & is all around respectful. While also being hella fun, ofc. (He even fixed the back of my hair for me when I got chair-hair from the theater seat headrest - tho he refused to just spit in his hand to pat it down, bc apparently that’s gross).

I can’t believe he’s 13. I can’t believe he’s this grown up. I will always be a little nostalgic for 4yr old TN...but this new young man he’s grown into is gonna be a whole different adventure for us all & I for one am excited as hell to go on it with him! (As long as he doesn’t turn into a stereotypical teen who doesn’t have any time for his aunties & is embarrassed to be seen with us. But that could never happen right? I mean, we are a joy to be around). Happy 13th Birthday, monkey! I love you 3,000.

Today is May 13th!! You know what that means! The Nephew’s birthday! Well, yes. #12 to be exact. It was his 4th birthday the day I started my LJ though. Because, yes, it is my LJ anniversary! #8! And now Dreamwidth too! I came a little late to the game, but I am so glad I still came. Thanks to liptonrm for gifting this to me, setting it up and all, as an early bday present -- she’s the best bday twin a girl could have.

Sometimes I try to imagine, like, what would I be doing with myself if not for fandom? I was a geek/nerd as a kid, but I got older and angrier, and dropped that part of myself somewhere around 16. I was almost ashamed of that side of myself. I thought, for some reason, that you couldn’t be punk and a nerd, but that is SO not true. I can’t imagine where I would be if I hadn’t embraced that side of myself again. And fully. I don’t know if I’d even be here still. I would likely be a very angry person.

When I was in my early 20s, and had to move back in with my mom because of bad life choices and worsening health, I fell into such a depression. If I hadn’t stumbled across fanfic -- and realized that thing I had dabbled in as a kid had a name! -- I don’t know what would have pulled me out of that funk I was in. And years later, I fell out a bit, because of health issue, and then it went from there to drugs. But then I got sober and I got into fandom again -- even accidentally stumbled across some old friends from the mailing list days -- and for the three months I was detoxing, reading fic saved my life. When I couldn’t lay down without screaming pain, but I couldn’t sit up without shaking all over -- fanfic distracted me. I devoured it. And then, I started writing again. Like a miracle, like a new self.

Fandom saved my life.

It also connected me with my sister in a way I can’t even describe. The day she anxiously showed me her fic and confessed she too was in fandom and she had just been anxious to share her stuff with me -- that day cemented us beyond belief. And then, shirebound, coming to Michigan and having lunch with some Michigan fangirls, including my sister, and oh, The BFF. And my sister befriended The BFF, and brought her home, and the rest is a beautiful history that led to The BFF setting up this LJ for me! So many friends I’ve made on here -- some I’ve even had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face; dugindeep, rhymephile, ceitfianna. And now, soon, wolfrider89, who is coming all the way from Sweden to meet me!! I am so EXCITED! She’s got a conference in DC, but if you know the US map, you know Michigan is not a quick jot over from anywhere. I wasn’t sure how I would get to DC. And then she said, “Nah, I’ll just come to you and then fly out to DC after.” I am so fucking blessed by my friends.

The encouragment you have all given me on my publishing career, to stay sober, to keep finding ways to support and enrich my niblings’ lives, to get through the hard stuff with my health and family issues and yet keep going, to just enjoy my hobby of fanfic and not be ashamed of my geek/nerd side anymore.

I love you guys and I just got all emotional, sitting in my room, half laughing/half crying, because this day always marks a celebration of a part of my life that I know saved my damn ass.

For you, if you will, comment below and I will tell you five things I think of when I think of you. <3

Hey, gang! So, about the LJ/DW thing. I am going to switch over to DW. Probably not for a few weeks here though. I don’t have one already - because I am very behind the times - but since my LJ anniversary is on May 13th, I figure it would be easiest to switch to DW then, so that can be my anniversary over there too. (It also happens to be The Nephew’s birthday, which wasn’t on purpose that I made my first post that day, but it does help me to remember the date!)

I am paid up on my LJ account until July, I think, so I am certainly staying here until then. Whether I decide to delete my account after that is still up in the air. Most of you have made the migration, but not all of you, and not all of you that I talk to regularly, so I am undecided about deleting or not. And once over on DW, I am lazy and don’t want to go look for communities to cross-post fic at, so after that I’ll probably just post on AO3 - (same name over there already) - and just link to it from DW.

Anyway, I’ll let you know when I’m up on DW and I’ll search for all your names over there and friend you if I find you - (though if you see this and want to link me your page, that’d be awesome!). I’m also on Tumblr and I’ll be getting a Twitter here soon. Once my DW is up, I’ll make a post with links to all of my pages!

For Easter, we stopped doing things with our family - we used to do breakfast with Mom’s and lunch with Dad’s - a few years back, three or four, maybe. But recently we had a work-friend of my sister’s over to teach her to play euchre, since her boyfriend’s family plays and she wanted to learn. We were telling people about the big holiday euchere tournaments we used to have at The Farm, in between supper and pie; four or five tables, the kids banished to the basement until they were old enough to learn to play - (I learned at nine, so I didn’t have to go to the basement with the little kids anymore!). Neighbors and friends of us kids and whatnot would stop over for pie and to join the euchre games. “You got some pie? Playing euchre? Yeah, yeah, I can stay a bit.”

We got nostalgic, so we invited some cousins over Saturday night to play some euchre. Just six of us, but it was fun. My one cousin was complaining though, because we don’t have any regular playing cards. We have Firefly cards, Spiderman cards and Scooby-Doo cards, but no regular old plain playing cards. I don’t know why she way surprised by this, lol!

That was our little Easter celebration. I hope all of your weekends were good as well!

Today is my 6th anniversary sober. I have been drug free - drug compliant - for 6 years now.

I seem to say, every year on this day, that ‘this year has been the hardest’. As if every year is the hardest. Which I guess it is.

( Emotional waxing under the cut. )

But I didn’t. Not this year. No matter how rough things got or how much I needed to quiet my brain at times, I didn’t give in. I didn’t. I didn’t lose those bits of myself. I am still whole. And that’s worth celebrating.

So thank you to all of you who have been my shoulder and my ear and my friend this past year. You are one of those pieces of myself that I don’t want to lose and I am glad that this year, I didn’t.

So this has been going around on Tumblr, but for those of you that aren't on Tumblr, I thought I'd give you a heads up. This website, ebooks-trees, has been using a bot to randomly and rapidly steal fics archived at AO3 and other places. Without permission. And then making money off those fics through the advertisements they sell there and, though they claim to be a free site, demanding your credit card to set up an account. Which means not only are they taking our fics without permission, but they are making money off of the work we did. Last night I checked out the people I follow on AO3 and almost every single one had multiple fics stolen. Though thankfully not any of my own, they did steal the podfic my sister did of my fic, Baggins Books. (dugindeep, you had 12 fics up there last night, though they seem to have been taken down now). There was lots of info going around about how to demand your stuff be taken down and they must have gotten slammed with emails last night, because as of this afternoon, most of my friends' works have been removed. (lindahoyland, as of last check, you still had one fic remaining). I just feel like it's completely against fandom and internet etiquette to repost others' works without their permission and certainly to make money off someone else's works. What bullshit. As I said, it's mostly resolved now, but if you want to follow a good place that is keeping updated on it, go here or here.

And now, to promote some good stuff in fandom, have some fic recs. ( 5 fic recs under the cut. )

And since we are on the subject of fandom, what do you all think I should do for my 5 year LJ anniversary, coming up in May? Some sort of special post I can make? Did any of you celebrate your five years on LJ?

Today it has been 5 years since I touched an Oxycontin. /deep breath/

I never thought I would last this long. I never thought I would stay away from the temptation, but I also never thought that physically I wouldn’t end up needing something by now. Needing Oxy by now. I am stunned and joyed by this day.

( More emotions under the cut. )

And here I am, 5 years later, making this post. Alive, functioning, living. As a kid I was told a lot of ‘be prepared things’ and one of them was that I probably wouldn’t live past 30. With the drugs, I almost made that a reality. But now I have lived past all of that and far beyond what the naysayers said I would and though there is so much more pain and regret to this story than I have shared here, there is also joy and love and support and triumph, and for today - for today, I am proud.

Time to put up the answers you guys gave me for my anniversary meme!

What are 5 things you associate with me? Can be a book, movie, character, person, place, memory, animal, food, plant, anything!

You all left such wonderful answers! I'm totally serious, you made me cry, I'm not even gonna front. I didn't expect such in-depth responses or so much variety in what you all associate with me. I've just put up the simple, single word answers here, but I highly encourage you all to go to the actual post and see the fantastic, descriptive responses I got from everybody. It made me super happy! So, here are your answers!

vikingprincess said: Goofy/awesome conversations, Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit, Shows we squee about, Awesome surprises in the mail & Beta reading.

rockstarpeach said: Hobbits, Hyper-organization, Dean/Cas, South Park & NKOTB.

denig37 said: Geek, K and the physiotherapy stories, The Nephew, BFF/Sis & Strength.

ceitfianna said: Supernatural, Kitties!, Lord of the Rings/The Hobbits, Fandom & Michigan/94. And (because she answered on Tumblr too!) Supernatural, Dean and Castiel, Lord of the Rings, Kitties! & Fanfic.

matchboximpala said: Family love, Cat shenanigans, Fun times at therapy, Detroit Tigers & Hobbitses!.

wolfrider89 said: X-Men, Psych, Cas, Michigan & LJ.

ranua said: Hobbits, Chloe from Smallville, Fanfic, Asterisk actions in text & Friendship.

What a fun meme! I loved seeing all the different answers, so many different things, fandom and non-fandom, as well as all the things you guys said that were the same. Like, I am super squeeful to see how many of you said 'Hobbits' in regards to me. That makes me grin! This is definitely a great meme to play with! Thanks, everybody, for helping me celebrate my LJ anniversary!!!

Now onto Year 5!

So, The BFF informs me that FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY, DEAN AND CAS MET FOR THE FIRST TIME. September 18, 2008! Awwwwww. Five years ago they had no idea that their lives were about to change forever. I feel all sappy about it, I don't even care. It's a beautiful thing. I feel like I should be more poetic, but I am sickie today and I didn't know this day was coming or I'd have made a Thing of some kind. I only realized when I got up today and checked the internet and then didn't feel good enough to jump into a Project, so here...have a picspam that I put together in like five minutes using the photos in my album and google search on the internet. Meaning, these are just the tip of the iceberg of Dean & Cas images out there - if I spent more than five minutes looking, we could be here all day!

Yes, I ship the fuck out of Dean and Cas - even after five years, which is a hella long time for anything to keep my interest - but even if I didn't ship them, I love both these characters, I love deep relationships and friendships and 'the family we make' and I FUCKING LOVE CAS and the day he walked into that barn and onto our screens should damn well be celebrated, people!



( More Celebration Under The Cut. )

And this moment, just for good measure...

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY DEAN & CAS!! OR HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CASTIEL!! OR IDK WHAT YOU SAY FOR 'CONGRATS ON THE DAY YOU PULLED A DUDE FROM HELL AND THEN TOOK A HUMAN VESSEL AND YOUR LIFE TURNED INTO A ROLLERCOASTER OF TERRIBLE AWESOMENESS'. I JUST REALLY LIKE THIS GUY.

Tomorrow my hope is to post a fic I have almost ready to go and then catch up on other things on Friday and hopefully write on Saturday. We'll see how that plan goes.

Ever been trapped somewhere that you can't get out of and everything is pounding, pounding and shaking and you can't get out? Yep, welcome to being stuck at home while the roofers are re-roofing your house. At the ass crack of dawn. Right over your bedroom. Seriously, they’ve been here all day and while I am glad they are pushing through before the rain comes tomorrow, holy shit, I just want some silence! Also, my sister is sick with some sort of virus and has stayed home the last few days, so I canceled my therapy appointment for today because I didn't want to make her have to drive me. She needs to focus on resting up so she can go back to work and also, tomorrow is my mom's birthday and she is really excited that we are taking her out to dinner, so my sister needs to rest up for that as well. But...we mustn’t despair, not today, not on Rex Manning Day. Because...

IT'S THE 20th ANNIVERSARY OF THE X-FILES!!!

Here, have Time Entertainment’s list of the Best 9 X-Files episodes.

I admit that while I watched The X-Files religiously in those first few years, life circumstances had me slacking off (on TV in general) during those middle years. But now I can say that I have seen every single episode of The X-Files, in order! (Oh wait, I forgot about those other two seasons, never mind, /hand wave/, saw those when they first aired). I can see so much influence from The X-Files - really my first in-depth, feet first intro to genre TV - in everything I watch, read and write these days. But mostly, this was my first real bonding experience with my sister over media. I was too young during the 21 Jump Street and Beverly Hills, 90210 days, but then The X-Files came along. When she was off at college, my sister would call me the day after a new X-Files episode aired so we could discuss it in great detail. Before Lord of the Rings brought us together, there was The X-Files.

So, what about you guys? I know a bunch of my Flisties have their roots in The X-Files. What do you remember about first watching it, getting into the fandom, having your first feels about it?