quixotic chaotic

New print available on my Redbubble

Also available in lots of other colors

Some of the bookmarks available for sale on my etsy store :)

So I don’t think I’ve mentioned on here yet, but I’ve graduated! I’m now an Indiana University alumnus! It’s been a long time coming, between my chronic (physical) illness, chronic depression, military service, dyslexia, undiagnosed-but-highly-suspected ADHD and/or autism, and years of waffling around feeling like I couldn’t justify studying what I actually enjoyed (literature & creative writing) instead of something more “practical,” but after all these years I’ve finally finished my bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing, with minors in Comparative Lit and Gender Studies (primarily focused on queer studies). It’s still really weird to think about and hasn’t yet fully sunk in that I’m done. Honestly, it probably won’t sink in until spring classes start up in a week or two but I don’t have to go back. 

Right now, I’m just focusing on cleaning the last four months’ (or three years’) worth of mess out of my apartment, working through the backlog of laundry and dishes and vacuuming that always got pushed off to later while the semester was still in session. And of course, right this moment I’m spending new year’s night sitting up for a shift at the homeless shelter with my parents, which is the type of volunteering I’ve wanted to do but never before felt like I could, when school was eating up all my spoons and I was barely hanging on enough to pass my classes. 

After getting my living space in better shape, the next few months are going to be about getting moving on all of the various projects I’ve put off for school. @sheliesshattered & I had our first serious planning session for our fic Truth Universally Acknowledged the other day, and I just typed up a bit of a new scene for the next chapter that I’ve had sitting on paper for weeks. I also have a packet of paper on which I’ve jotted down an outline for a fic that’s been writing itself in my head before bed each night for probably about a year now, and I finally feel like I’m in a place to start working more seriously on that. And of course, I have a number of short stories and novel bits from my various creative writing courses over the years that are either already in near-finished states or have at least now sat long enough since being critiqued in class that I can look at them again & start turning them into real, publishable stories I can be proud of. (One queer romcom I wrote last year I am particularly excited about fleshing out and polishing up, not least because some of my classmates commented, in the best way possible, that it read like good, shippy fanfic, heh.)

I also made my very first sale from my Etsy store just this past week! I’ve had a somewhat steady trickle of sales from Redbubble and Society6, mostly spoonie-oriented stickers, but this is somehow more exciting, actually packing up & sending off something that I hand-made myself. I also have one short story up on the Amazon Kindle market so far, and while I want to build more of an online portfolio there, it’s still exciting to have any of my original fiction out there in the world. These are all things I’m looking forward to spending more time on in the coming year, and the idea that I can spend time on them, without having to twist myself into knots to meet someone else’s schedule, is still really surreal to me. 

Now that I’m done with school, I won’t be getting anymore of the GI Bill benefits that I’ve lived on for the past four years or so, so these online sales are going to be my only income until I can figure out how disability benefits through the VA and/or the state work. I do, thankfully, have a stable home life & good family support, plus VA healthcare, so I’m not in danger of being homeless, starving, or going without my medication, but I still want to be able to contribute to our household as much as possible and pay my own bills without being completely reliant on my parents. I’m going to (hopefully soon) get around to making individual posts for some of things I have up in my various shops, as well as commissions, which I’ve never done before but am eager to try my hand at. 

This is all getting really long and rambly, I know, but I guess this is sort of an announcement - I’ve graduated! I’m really done!! I have a degree!!!??? - and sort of a new year’s resolution, all the things I want to work on now that I have control over my life and my time again. Thank you so much to everyone who’s followed me the last few years, who’s read and responded to my fics and my art. The past year, the past two years really, have been a bit rough, but I have high hopes for the next one. 

Happy new year, everyone ❤