News: Kari the Anxious Heathen

So for those who are curious about why there are long stretches of me being gone (besides the usual illness that I seem to attract), well, the currently ruling queen of the household, Kari, has developed anxiety. The DumDum has been chewing her back claws and trying to yank them out, licked parts of her legs bald, and of course is her usual clingy self the rest of the time, only with a higher hunger and not sleeping enough. We’re not sure if me going on a trip aggravated it, or if this has just been steadily building to the current crescendo. The vet has put her on some anti-depressants (topical compound gel too, so less likely I’ll get bit), and they seem to be doing her a lot of good.

Now, part of what is possibly leading to her high anxiety is her being the only cat in the household. She went from her mama and siblings to me and Tsuki, but it’s been a year since we lost Tsuki. She may not be adjusting well to being alone a lot during the day. So, cue Operation Sibling. We had a couple of good candidates, but after review, I went with Charlie, who seemed the most laid-back and yet energetic, which is the combo I needed. They seemed to be working out…except Kari just goes and goes and goes like a demented Energizer Bunny who instigates the lashing out, and then is too rough. Charlie put up with her nonsense for a couple of days, and then enough was enough, and I took him back to his foster mom.

(Note: I am well aware that you are supposed to do the closed-door thing when introducing cats. However, Kari can’t be locked away from me with her anxiety, and Charlie was too social to be locked away from the only human to interact with, which may have been the problem and I need an independent, energetic yet mellow cat.)

Current plan is to put her on her meds for a full six months, then after her next check in at the vet and her calming down from that, we can take a look around again and see if there’s anything like what I’m needing in the right age range. Right now it’s currently kitten explosion, and I can’t go under six months old, so I kinda need to wait until those kittens have had a chance to grow up. (I was told six months to two years old, I took a risk with Charlie and never again.)

I haven’t been completely without work, however. Mystic Riders is plugging along, now with some maps and more spreadsheets. I’m also trying to get my notes organized and put in the right places for it, so when I go back to working on demo weeks I haven’t completely confused myself. In addition I am working on maps, of the camps and the topography of the districts as I write them. This means Amethyst needs a topography update (and oops, I need to finish Ruby, just remembered I didn’t do town placement), and Sphalerite needs both, but then I’m caught up.

Right now, besides the organizing of all my various folders, I am editing one of Ginny’s books so she can get it out to market. There’s a few fanfics in progress that kinda get rotated around, but I am working on a stand-alone book while I wait on cover art for Sun’s Guard, which I’ll touch on first. It will still hopefully be published in September, I am hoping to have cover art by the end of the month come hail or high water so I can start advertising it here, on Twitter, and possibly start an Instagram account for what little art/photography I do if anyone would be interested. Lots of Kari pictures, so you know, there’s that. Everything for MR though will be cropped to smithereens or watermarked from here to Sunday.

The stand alone was meant to be short and then exploded on me. It’s based on the princess in the tower trope mixed with Beauty and the Beast, plus… a lot of nonsense that I blame Tumblr, Ginny, and my DnD character Hekate for. It’s a hardcore romance in fantasy robes, edging towards NA more than YA but I think I can get away with it as YA still? Ah well. I’m pretty excited about it, and I’ve been slowly working on it. Right now it’s on pause for the data organization and then August is inevitably going to be eaten by Descendants-mania because the third movie comes out and I stole a fanfic idea from Ginny to work on in relation to keep me from screaming at the TV. September is probably going to go towards seeing if I can get prepped for Nano, but that won’t take the whole month, so I might come back to Lyall and Armelle then. (Yes, those are the main couple, I love their names as much as I love them, they are GREAT.)