The one good thing about my situation right now is that it will more than likely give me a couple of weeks off. While I am going to definitely pound out a couple of my commissions, I’ve decided that I’m going to make some lemonade out of these lemons I’ve been given and focus on pounding out the first draft of my original superhero novel. I just finished my outline, and after many months of squinting at the characters and concepts, I think that I’ve settled on what I want to say. It’s taken me a while to sort it all out, because this is kind of all of my feelings about the representation and treatment of women and minorities in comics distilled into a novel.
I’m excited to be focusing on original stuff, but also…ridiculously nervous. It’s been less than a year since I started writing again, and in that year I haven’t attempted to make the jump from fanfiction to original stuff. Considering that it’s been over five years since I successfully wrote original characters, that’s quite a big jump. I just really, really hope this doesn’t blow—-and that if it does, I hope that whoever I throw the rough draft at is honest enough to tell me that it sucks.
Ugh. I shouldn’t be nervous about this.
With Valentine’s Day looming awkwardly on the horizon, I’ve found it—-and other couple-related type things—-in my thoughts more often than usual. I’ve never spent a Valentine’s Day with anyone. My longest relationship lasted for all of three months, and those three months happened to end before V-Day could roll around. It’s not that I’m an unattractive person, or that I dislike companionship, but that my sexuality has been a struggle for most of my life. Even when I got to the point where I could admit it to myself, dealing with public displays with a partner brought about ungodly anxiety. I know that my family is at the root of that, since the rule was if I had a girlfriend, she wouldn’t be welcome in their home. I never wanted to disappoint them, so I loathed myself for not being “strong enough” to resist the temptation of homosexuality. It’s only been in the last two years that I’ve distanced myself from them and made a conscious effort to stop having such an awful opinion of myself, but I’ve made a lot of progress. In relationships, I was always the one doing the breaking up, since I’d decide that the person I was dating could—-and should—-do better than me. I didn’t have any confidence in myself, and misunderstood my complicated relationship with intimacy as meaning I’d been “broken” by assault and abuse. I had a neat hole where my self-esteem was supposed to go, and that made me feel like they were delusional for liking me in the first place.
It’s never really bothered me, though. I mean, I’d like to have a partner and be able to do silly romantic things? But it’s not something that I need to do in order to feel like a whole person. For me, the options were “be alone” or “force yourself to be with someone you don’t like, much less love”. In my teens, I did a lot of the latter, and it didn’t end well for me. This whole being honest with myself and my prospective dates thing is very new.
The closest I’ve gotten to having a Valentine’s Day was when I was fifteen years old. I was dating a grass seed farmer, and he forged me a sword (read: a soldered machete with a bamboo handle), climbed up a tree, and recited poetry. We’d both had other plans for the night, so he did this all over the phone—-he’d climbed up the tree with the phone and the sword and then called me.
Last I heard, he’d been arrested in Europe for suspected terrorism.
I have twelve shades of purple nail polish.
Why hasn’t someone stopped me? When did I cross over into THAT IS JUST TERRIBLE, KITTY, territory? It’s two in the morning and I just realized that my nail polish habit is actually ridiculous.
I honestly have no idea what I’m going to do with myself after next term. I don’t know how I’m going to find a job, or where I’m going to live, or how I’m going to support myself. I try not to think about it, but with graduation looming, I really need to. A part of me really wishes that I could drum up an artist and put together an ashcan for ECCC, but I don’t think there’s enough time for that.
I don’t know. I’m just grappling with this horrible, helpless feeling of not knowing how to get to where I want to be from where I’m at. I don’t even know what I should be focusing on, and it’s driving me up the wall. I’m nowhere near egotistical enough to believe that I’m just going to be ~discovered~ someday, but every professional that I’ve talked to has either gotten in by a) being an artist first, or b) knowing someone who knew someone. I don’t have the chops for option a, and ha ha I don’t know anyone, so option b is out, too. They don’t take blind submissions for writing. Should I just focus on getting something original published? ahaha like it’s that easy to get published.
Sorry, I’m not…I don’t know. I don’t mean for this to sound like a WOE IS ME-type post. I’m just very frustrated with the mechanics of breaking into the writing industry. I think I’d feel a lot better about myself and my life if I had a concrete goal or plan to shoot for.
Anonymous asked: So I was reading some Gotham City Sirens and found it extremely adorable how Harls calls Selina "Kitty". I then proceeded to sit there for a few moments wishing someone would give me a cute nickname like that, but I have idiotic friends that enjoy making up weird nicknames. So I got depressed a little. But then I remembered you and that you enjoy being called Kitty so I got happy again. It's been a very emotional week.
Today is Kitty goes through her inbox and answers all the cute things that she’s been hoarding for rainy days. I don’t have the brainpower to discuss anything profound, and I don’t have the time to write the “Steph and Dick discuss the need for Bat bras, for male and female vigilantes alike” fic that I apparently started at four this morning, so we get to talk about my wonderfully irrational nickname.
I never named myself Kitty. It was given to me and repeated until it stuck, but I don’t regret it at all. I’ve never felt like my real name fits me (and it’s not surprising that it doesn’t; my name was supposed to be Devon, but my father named me after his ex-girlfriend while my mother was too sick to know what was going on, aww yeah), but Kitty comes close. I’ve debated changing it legally, but I’ve gotten a lot of flak from friends and relatives about it not being an “adult” name.
But, dear friends and family, what if I don’t want an adult name?
