TRANSGENDER
Please Send Sleep!
Reflecting on my transition journey this week
WEEK 55 CHECK-IN:
Trans Life Past: Survive. Write. Meditate (becasue I need to keep my stress in check). Walk/run/exercise (burn off the stress hormones). Just make it through one more week. Hopefully, the kids will chill WITH me and we’ll all be fine (but for reals, not the meme, lol).
- I survived. I wrote (well, edited and published). I meditated. I walked. I made it through one more week. The kids have chilled a little but they are still a handful — then again, so are my characters! Lol. I’m fiiiiiiiiine.
Priorities: 1. Path to Purpose — edit, voice check, format, and publish
- Done (see day 383 below)
2. NUSA excavation — gathering all my NUSA scenes, insights, ideas, etc. into ONE place
- It’s a WIP but I did a crap tonne of it!
3. Sugar Twink — first pass edit
- Oh, not quite there yet. Half way. Was planning on doing a huge chunk today, but then we did the podcast instead. So this one just fills up more of Wednesday next week now.
Other Notes:
- I’m so very very tired…
T-Day and Beyond Daily Journal:
Day 380 (Sunday): I woke up with the shakes. Guess anxiety is still on high alert.
But on the positive, the morning ritual of them all going back to sleep after breakfast continues. I love the morning — they sleep and I get work down. And I love the evening — the two older dogs sit on the lounge with me (and ON each other, lol) while I chill with some Netflix until we head to bed. I like that part. During the day, I’m trying to allocate chunks of time to just, play. To give them a rush of focused attention while stimulating their brains. Apart from that, they are very randomly demanding attention (and that is the problem part). I’m trying to randomly give them all the love and attention so that they learn they are going to get it, just not when they demand it. THEY will all be calmer for it too. But, it’s a process.
Day 381 (Monday): I had a thought about the whole they/them plural stupid argument thingy!
Ok, so hear me out. As a writer, Point-of-View (POV) is important. There are several POVs you can write from.
FIRST PERSON POV — is me, I. The story is told by the character. You can therefore only ever know their thoughts and feelings.
I wrote Cupid’s Guide in 1st person POV (external Amazon link below).
SECOND PERSON POV — is you, your. The story is told as if the reader is the actual character. Like choose your own path books.
I wrote my Choose your Own Psychopathy series in 2nd person POV (external Amazon link below).
THIRD PERSON POV — is he, she, they. The story is told about the characters and could be:
- 3rd person omniscient POV — the narrator shares access to the thoughts and feelings of all characters
- 3rd person limited POV — only one character’s thoughts and feelings are revealed or perhaps a few, but not all (limited shifting).
I wrote Wipe Out in 3rd person limited POV (external Amazon link below).
My point is, each of these is a singular person POV — including 3rd person where THEY is used. For singular. Show me a 3rd person POV book that doesn't use they in the singular at some point!
Also, just because it’s kind of cool to notice, any of these POVs could be any gender. For 1st person POV, they refer to themselves as I so unless gender is stated, it can’t be known. For 2nd POV, the gender could be that of the reader — sit with THAT! And in 3rd person POV, they is used. Often. For a single character. Especially if ‘they’ haven’t yet been introduced properly and so the reader doesn’t know ‘their’ gender.
Thank you for coming to my TedX talk!
Day 382 (Tuesday): Why are people a thing? Can’t I just, not people? Ever.
Oh, hello Marcus! Well, shit. That’s not where I saw this post going.
People are often painful. Disclaimer — when I say people, I mean those ‘normal’ ones. The EXTREME neurotypicals. The ones that seem to live on the surface of existence and don’t really notice the deeper layers. You know, the boring ones, hahaha. You, my reader, I’m quite sure are not what I call ‘people’, lol.
Anyway, ‘people’ are kind of really easy to read because they rarely have much going on and when one tries to (consciously or not) gaslight me, man, I will set that shit aflame! I never used to be able to, but I guess gaslighting itself has become a trigger now. Who would have thunk it?
So yeah, I don’t like to people.
Back to Marcus. From First Strike book 2 — Holding the Line, Marcus doesn’t people. He asks Thor to teach him how to people but what he learns is that he doesn’t NEED to people. He just needs to Marcus.
So there you go!
Day 383 (Wednesday): And I’m done — the Living on Purpose series is now all live.
Do you know your purpose? The reason you are on this Earth? The thing that will mark your existence and leave behind your legacy?
Ok, yeah, it’s kind of funny, because existential ambivalence, and I no longer even believe in purpose and legacy, BUT, once more, that’s fine because it was a step on the journey and it WILL help others that are hovering around that same general area. Lol. You know the drill, external link, me, money, blah-blah-blah. Lol.
I did make some changes but it was mainly taking out chunks of text that were just like a superfluous nipple — fun, interesting, maybe even a little intriguing, but with no damn use and really, it just gets chaffed on hot days.
And THIS is why I’m shit at marketing, lol. But I’m not trying to ‘sell’ my books here. To be honest, publishing these has been about ‘getting them published’ and getting myself back into the groove of it before I moved on to Fiction. Which is where I’m heading now. Starting with… SUGAR TWINK! Lol. Because why not start with the only gay erotica novella I’ve ever written?
Day 384 (Thursday): I had it all wrong and it’s SO much better!
So, I thought when the homeowner introduced the two girls, she said they were both her daughters. BUT, only one is. The other one, is her girlfriend! It suddenly made so much more sense because I remember her saying, “They were friends for years but they weren’t attracted to each other until they both transitioned.” I was wondering who she was talking about but now, it’s all become crystal clear. Not only are they two trans girls, they are queerly trans!
Initiate plan to interview them for the Queerly Trans publication!!!
Day 385 (Friday): Doing the audio check of Sugar Twink and voice-to-text just doesn’t get kink.
For clarification, I write what I call the YEET DRAFT (a.k.a. dumbest version, vomit copy, first draft), for most of my books these days via voice-to-text. I’ll do a basic scene plan and then I’ll just, tell the story to my microphone. So, once the yeet draft is done (yeet because I yeet it out of my soul and into my computer, lol), the first step is to listen back to the audio and clean up anything that got messed up in transcription.
This is what I’m dealing with in Sugar Twink:
Original (voice to text): “Scratching, audit, management, Baileys, HP, and, for me,” figured I’d just keep going until he stopped me.
Edited: “Scratching, orders, punishment, praise, age play, anal, rimming…” I figured I’d just keep going until he stopped me.
Day 386 (Saturday): While editing Sugar Twink, I’m reminded queer sex is so much easier to write than that icky straight sex, lol.
To specify, masc-masc sex. Sugar Twink is my first official SMUT book, lol. I wanted to challenge myself just to see if I could do it. I read a lot of MM romance, but I hate those books that are just ALL sex! I like sex to be the potential physicality of their relationship, but the relationship matters more. So the sex is NOT even necessary. It’s just kind of like an occasional bonus if they are both into it.
The first time I TRIED to write smut, it turned into a thriller and I never wrote any sexy scenes (let alone actual sex scenes). Lol. BUT — they were straight.
I wrote sex scenes in Awakening but holy crap they were awkward — luckily, so was the character. Reading straight sex scenes or even watching them in movies always made me so damn uncomfortable. I thought maybe it was because it ‘did something for me’, but now, I know, THAT feeling was discomfort. Yeah, like I’ve mentioned before, I’m still exploring if I may be on the asexual spectrum.
Anyway, the point, because I DO have one, is that queer sex is so much easier to write (and read). I don’t feel as icky or uncomfortable. I mean, it makes sense… NOW! 🏳️⚧️
This Week’s Articles:
And on to WEEK 56:
Trans Life Ahead: My main aim is to survive without losing my mind. That’s it. That’s where I’m at.
Priorities: 1. Editing Sugar Twink 2. Blogs for job 3. QT Superhero posts
Dose: 3 Pumps/day (37.5mg)