Fighting against the tides is for salmon only. My writing’s been on and off in the worst way possible, and at the moment, I’m feeling pretty ill (literally) from staring so long at my laptop’s screen with hardly anything to show for it in today’s writing session.

Yeah, “writing session,” my foot. I won’t bore anyone with my sob story, but inspiration and creativity have been shitty since June, i.e., for all the tiny successes I’ve managed to enjoy in spurts, I’ve got far more failures than I care to admit.

So I decided to take a break from writing for the rest of August. I need to just forget about all of my WIPs and kick back with my books. Screw it. I’m making myself sick from all the frustration and self-directed anger, and I need a break. I mean, really need a break.

I’m also not getting any help with regard to my questions involving my blog theme’s colors, which I desperately want to change. Bright blue might be good for some folks, but I can’t get into it. I tried to change codes, but some elements of my blog theme depend on actual image files, which I can’t mess with. Unfortunately the theme designer isn’t responding to my question, either, so I’m stuck.

Just like my writing, I say, forget it. I’m still commissioning a custom header to use, but I’m forced to switch back to my old theme, at least for the time being. That said, I’m looking into the Thesis DIY theme for WordPress as a possibility. It’s made specifically for customized blog designs, and I can change things around without having to go into the CSS stylesheet and risk totally screwing things up with the wrong code.

The only good thing to happen to me today was that my extra copies of Curse of Arachnaman finally arrived. If my luck holds, it’ll be the only good thing to happen to me till the release of The Glass Minstrel.

Oh, drama, drama, drama…can’t live with you, can’t live without you. Especially when it comes to figure skating. The newest deal:

Olympic champion figure skater Evan Lysacek took to Twitter over the weekend to make a bigoted joke about fellow skater Johnny Weir’s gender. Then he went the classy route — by claiming he was hacked. Read more

I’m not going to go over the way Lysacek appears to be digging himself a deeper and deeper hole with each new Tweet he posts and the fact that he singled out a superbly idiotic, douchebaggy question from a fan to address in a public forum.

What I’d like to ponder is the fact that Angela Springfield, aka @TahitianFantasy, can’t even figure out if Johnny Weir is male.

Dear, oh, dear Angela: If you don’t know what a man looks like…honey, you really need to go out more. Just sayin’.

And it looks like she deleted her account. Surprise, surprise.

It hasn’t been “at least a month” since I last revised Desmond and Garrick. It’s been two months and counting. I just checked. I now demand a box of bonbons and this movie:

Hell hath no fury like a writer blocked. Or uninspired. What the heck ever.

As the post header says. :) I’ve never experienced Bastille Day celebrations, being stuck here in California, but if you observe the day, have a great one!

Ah, yes…feed the bunny, please. I still haven’t lost sight of my 1848 student revolutions in Paris historical story idea. Heck, I even bought “Do You Hear the People Sing?” for my iPod as a constant reminder. Then again, I’ve always liked that song, anyway, so being reminded of the story through it works beautifully for me. Heh. But it’ll be written after my Beatlemania story because it’s another angst-ridden thing. I prefer to balance my state of mind by alternating uplifting and downer stories as I go.

In less savory news, I have a feeling that Curse of Arachnaman will end up flopping because I’ve been having the worst time finding people willing to review the book. Rainbow Reviews have blocked authors from submitting material for review, and I have to depend on my publisher to take care of that; hopefully they did. Another review site lost their YA reviewer and have no one to take on the book. Well, they have a prospect, but I’m not holding my breath.* A couple of other reviewers who took up my Masks series in the past seems to have shifted attention to LGBT YA published by mainstream presses, which irks me. Most of these authors already enjoy massive word-of-mouth and other promotional benefits, being published by one of the New York presses. We small press authors, as always, get the short end of the stick.

The only dependable promo blog I turn to is Lee Wind’s. I also managed to establish a relationship with Dreaming in Books and Naughty Book Kitties. And some word of mouth via my backlist. Oh, well.

* EDIT: The YA reviewer alternative is interested in taking up the book. Yay! Still batting zero everywhere else, though.

There are two images I can’t get out of my head, both of which make me feel miserable. One is of a dog I saw yesterday as I was driving down westbound I-80. I was near the Carlson St. exit when I spotted this white dog jogging along the shoulder of the freeway. It was clearly a stray, given its condition: thin (but not emaciated), with some of its ribs showing.

Second is the image of a kid, who looked like he couldn’t be any older than nineteen, sitting on the sidewalk on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. He was homeless, and he had a dog with him. Basically he was begging for money with a little handmade sign on cardboard. I hate myself right now because though I thought about giving him money crossed my mind, I didn’t do it. I just walked right past him and went to work. I’m fucking pathetic.

I hope less cowardly, less stupid, and more generous people helped him out today and that he’s able to survive one more day in the streets. Though it would be far, far better if he found shelter and whatever help he needed that would take him off the streets and into safety and a more productive life. But if I see him again on Thursday when I walk from the BART station to work, I hope to do the right thing this time around.

As for the stray white dog…

What little extra money I have, I give monthly to four different animal protection and welfare organizations. My donations are small, though I know that in some way or other, they do help where it counts the most. But when I saw that skinny dog endangering itself on the freeway as it searched for food, I couldn’t help but feel nothing more than cold comfort in what I do to help animals like that.