So I figured that I’d better post something about why I’ve not been updating and probably won’t be updating regularly for awhile.  You know, you’d have thought that the last year was a big enough financial slap in the face to most of the people in America, but no, it really does get worse, right?

Let me preface this by saying that when I walk to the post office or to get a newspaper out of the one machine in the town, I tend to smile and wave at anyone I see, whether I know them or not because I live in such a small place that it’s common to do so.  Let me also preface this by saying that our roof over our kids’ room is bad—really bad.  We know it’s bad, and we know that it desperately needs replaced.  We also know that we don’t have the money to do it at the moment.  Two years ago when we had the money (when it was first starting to become an issue), Eric’s mom died.  Now what was I supposed to do?  Tell him, “Gee, honey, sorry about your mom.  That really bites.  Now get your ass out there and fix the roof!”

Yeah.  Not.

So last year (it was leaking during rain pretty badly), we had the time as Eric was laid off for a couple weeks here and there, but no money.  None.

Anyway, out of the blue, one of my neighbors stops in a month or two ago and offers to help us out by giving us roofing (they’d just finished roofing her shed) and that she’d help putting it up.  I was shocked, and my gut reaction was to tell her that we’d get it ourselves, but you know, I have kids, and they’re the most important people in the world to me, and my pride isn’t nearly as important to me as they are, so I said a grateful, “yes”.

Then I didn’t hear from her again.  I could’ve called her, I suppose, but again, the pride thing, and I kept thinking, ‘how would that sound?  By the way, weren’t you going to fix my roof?’

Now, we’re talking about a twenty foot by ten foot square that direly needs replaced, and it’s going to cost us around $400.00 (or less) to actually get all the materials and do it, but …

But the woman and her husband had a guy staying with them whose wife had kicked him out and gotten a restraining order against him.  Despite the restraining order that she asked for, she calls over to the woman’s house constantly, harassing her estranged husband to come over and fix this and that and what have you.  What does this have to do with me?  Well, I’m getting to that.

So on the day before my birthday, I get a letter in the mail indicating that we’re currently under investigation by the welfare department because of OUR ROOF.  That’s right; our roof.  That damned project that the economy screwed us on.  Now, the social worker claims that she doesn’t have any intention of taking my kids, but hell … maybe I’m just sadistic or something, but I can’t help thinking ‘what if …?’ …

I ended up calling the woman who had offered to help in the first place to tell her that I didn’t appreciate her coming over here and saying she wants to help, only to get a good look at our house and the water damage in the kids’ room so that she could turn us in.  It turns out that she didn’t, but she knew who did because she was bragging about it to her husband because he’d offered to help the woman put our roof on which meant he wouldn’t be able to fix whatever his estrange wife wanted fixed at the drop of a hat for … what?  Three days at most, as long as it took to complete our roof.  She’s also turned in half of the town I live in because they’re “nice” to her estranged husband, for everything from having a few pieces of siding down on their houses to having a hole in the yard where they’d excavated a tree trunk last summer.

Like any of that matters.  All I know is that I am sitting here, worrying that my kids are going to be taken away because of some woman’s ignorant show of jealousy and four hundred frigging dollars that seems like a mountain ahead of us.

Anyway, I’ll update when I can or when I feel settled enough to actually sit down to put a string of words together, and I’m sorry if that’s not good enough.  It really is the best I can do.

Okay, so this image just cracks me up, mostly because of Nezumi’s facial expression.  LOL … check it out in full view on Duckie’s page, and thanks to a really awesome artist!!!

Merry Christmas.

I guess that’s a good way to start a Christmas letter to everyone.  When I think back over the time that’s passed since last Christmas, I have to smile—and shed a few tears, too.  The generosity of strangers has touched me—us—in such a way that a simple thank you seems so trite, yet it is all I can really say.

So I guess that I should add here that we finished Christmas shopping for our boys last night.  Maybe we don’t have copious amounts of stuff under the tree, but we were able to get them things that they’d really like, and I have to say that my oldest made me so proud this year.  One of his school friends was really depressed one day.  Apparently, his mom had told him that they might have to move.  He admitted to my son that his mom had lost her job just before Christmas last year—we knew that—and that, like us, she’d had trouble paying her property taxes, so even though her house was hers, the county was going to take her house because she didn’t have the money to pay.  Now, her property taxes weren’t really any worse than ours, but the problem for her is that her husband left her when her son (now nearly seventeen, the same age as my son) was a baby, and she hadn’t seen him since.  Because of that, though, she’d always worked two jobs, so when she lost her main job—the one that paid the bills and kept her out of the welfare line—she only had the other.  Long and short of it was that this boy’s mother was going to lose her house.  So my son came to me and asked me how much I was going to spend on him for Christmas.  It was kind of a weird question coming from him, so I asked him why?  I mean, isn’t it the thought that counts?  (Yes, I was a little irked at that point.  I mean, I didn’t think I’d raised a greedy kid …)

And he looked me in the eye and he said, “Mom, Cody’s going to have to move because they can’t afford to pay their taxes, but even then, they don’t have anywhere to go.  Could you give her the money you were going to spend on me for Christmas?  I’d rather keep a friend than open presents on Christmas day.”

I just stared at him—just stared.  I think I might’ve stared at him for close to a whole minute before my eyes filled with tears, and I grabbed him and hugged him and told him that I was so proud of him.  Granted, we didn’t have a lot of money to spend on him, but since my husband’s hours had picked up somewhat, we did have some.

So I called Cody’s mom and I tried to find a good way to ask her how much she needed to come up with.  Turns out that a few others had heard about it and had offered her money to help her.  She was only about $150.00 short, and while we hadn’t really figured on spending that much on Christmas per kid, I couldn’t stand to see her that close to her goal and not help her.

So we skimped on groceries for a week, cut back on gas money and extra trips to town, and we gave her what she needed, and I thought, you know, isn’t that what Christmas is all about, anyway?

In the end, we were able to get my son one video game, and my youngest is always cheaper to buy for.  The point is, even now, looking at our tree and seeing how few presents are under there, I still feel good because that feeling that we actually could help someone who really needed it is a beautiful, beautiful thing, and to everyone who helped us when the situation was reversed? Thank you.  God bless you.  May you look at your Christmas tree and smile, too.

So I got to thinking, what can I do to say a small thank you to everyone who cared, whether they could afford to help us or not, or even if they did nothing more than drop me an email to let me know that they were praying for us.

Well, I guess it’s this: I wrote a one shot.  What’s different about that?  Nothing, I guess.  I mean, I do that every Christmas, don’t I?    But that’s what I can do, isn’t it?  What I do best, really.  I can only hope that you all enjoy reading the story as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.  Look for it on Christmas Eve day, okay?

Oh, and to everyone?  Thanks for bearing with me this year.  Here’s hoping that 2010 is even better!

Happy Holidays,

Sue

I’m channeling Arnold, I think … anyway, I just wanted to let everyone who cares know what’s going on.

My parents are coming into town next week for a long overdue visit, and with them staying here, I’m just not really going to be able to sit down and do much in the way of writing, but it’s been a long while since I’ve last seen them, and I really want to spend time with them. For those of you who don’t know, my father’s recently been confined to a wheelchair. All of his foot surgeries have taken their toll on him, and he just cannot seem to stay on his feet without falling a lot. He just doesn’t have the balance nor the ability to catch himself before he falls anymore, and he’s suffering pretty severe depression. Anyway, Mom’s bringing him up because he says he wants to visit some places that he used to go when he was younger. Mom’s afraid that he’s just going to sit back and wait to die. I sincerely hope not.

Because of all that going on, I’m just not going to be able to update next week as I normally do. I hope you understand. Right now in my life is such a struggle to put a bright face forward, and Evan and Valerie have been good for me in that sense. I just want to be able to focus on my family’s visit next week without worrying about anything else, but …

It really does make me feel better to read the discussion on the forums or read through the reviews when I have time. Thank you all for those. Sometimes, you just don’t know how much I appreciate hearing that someone appreciates the stories I tell. Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know what was going on, and I’ll see you on November 23!

Two new fanarts added on the lineart page. Very nice yet again, Chole M! Mikio just looks sweet, and Nezumi is as cute as she ought to be!

Frequently Asked Question #2

“Do you like reviews?”

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: yes, I do. It always makes me sad, though, when people say that they don’t review often because they just want to say ‘good job’ or something. To break it down, what a review means to me is that someone—anyone—read and enjoyed what I wrote. I don’t get paid for writing and posting these stories. I don’t want to. The only thing I ‘get’ is reviews. A published author knows from book sales and royalties how many people are reading their stories, and in a broad sense, buying a book is akin to saying that you enjoy the author’s work. To me, a review is a way of ‘thanking’ me for the hours I stressed out over one single word that just wasn’t right to convey the emotion I’m trying to create. They encourage me when I feel like I’m tossing these chapters out there and no one notices. I know, that sounds silly. It’s very true, and not just for me, but for everyone who gets the courage to post online.

Let’s face it: some people are a nasty lot. I mean that they want to be nasty and they actively search for ways to make themselves feel better for whatever reason by being nasty. There are people out there who would just as soon tear you down than leave you alone. I have never quite understood this, and frankly, I have more important things to worry about than some crackpot who has nothing better to do than to troll the internet, looking for things to hate. I actually feel sorry for people like that. I mean, why not look for something positive than to gripe about something negative? I know that I tend to exhaust myself if I try to carry around any kind of negativity. I can only imagine how weary their souls have to be, and in that sense, I pity them.

It’s a funny thing to me. I can’t count the number of times that a review has made my day just a little brighter, and it doesn’t have to be a long one, either. There are days when I truly just want to toss everything into a corner and forget that I ever posted a single word online. Then someone takes the time to review, just to say that they enjoyed a story or a chapter, and I remember again. I keep posting because of people like that. That’s why they’re important to me.

Frequently Asked Questions Pt 1

Today’s question:

“Which Purity is your favorite?”

I always laugh when I read this question.  I mean, it’s so subjective, isn’t it?  I know, I know, everyone has their favorites, right?  And it’s funny because my answer is invariably the same every time: they all are.

That totally sounds like a cop-out, doesn’t it?  Seriously, it does.  I know it, and you know it.  It sounds so … superficial.  (You know: “Oh, here’s the perfect answer!”)

I am being serious, though—serious as a heart attack, for lack of a better phrase.  (I’m pretty sure that one is a fairly mid-western thing to say.  Ah, well.  I won’t worry about it too much until I start chewing tobacco and spitting farther than my husband can.  ‘Course, that would also mean that he’d have to start chewing, too, and I think that’s kinda nasty … ewwww …)

It’s an odd thing, but I’m pretty sure that there are some folks who have read the stories more often than I have.  As horrible as it is to admit this, I guess I can.  I … actually haven’t ever re-read any of my stories.  Not one.  I guess it’s as simple as I know what’s in there (or at least, I did) and I don’t have any desire to re-tell a story—probably the real reason I hate editing.  Oh, I’ve re-read chapters here and there.  I’ve even set out to re-read them all at different points.  Then I see something shiny, and, well, I guess you can tell the rest.

But I’m still serious about them all being my favorites.  I guess I should explain myself?  It’s the characters.  I’ll let you in on a pretty big secret: I have to love a character in order to devote that much time and attention to writing a story about him or her (both).  I mean, I have to really adore them.  It’s an odd thing, but in many ways, it’s like having children.  Each of the characters, starting with InuYasha and Kagome, are characters that I adore, but as much as I love them, I also want to see them grow.  I mean, my favorite characters are the ones who have to overcome a lot of issues in order to flourish, in order for them to achieve their happy ending.  Look at InuYasha, for example.  I mean, who had it worse than that poor boy?

Purity is my favorite for one very important reason: it was the first fanfiction I ever wrote.  That’s right, the first.  The idea was conceived after I’d found a  lot of very bad InuYasha fanfic.  I won’t name names—to be honest, I can’t remember much from any of them.  I just kept thinking that InuYasha would just not act like that; not ever.  I couldn’t wrap my head around most of the characterizations I found, which is not to say that the stories were bad.  If they were wholly original characters then they would’ve been great.  They just weren’t InuYasha …

So I figured I’d write a story that I wanted to read.  I thought that would be the best way to go about it.  So I wrote the first chapter, and I posted it.  It was easy to write, and it was such a free feeling, a beautiful feeling.  For the first time ever, I was writing not only because I loved the story (I love all the stories I’ve written) but also there is a certain level of total freedom when one is writing fanfiction.  You’re not bound by the nagging thought in the back of your head that you cannot go too over the top or publishers won’t like it.  It’s not a huge thought, but it is there.  Freedom …

And to my amazement, I got a review within … minutes …?  Something like that.  Here is the key: I honestly didn’t expect anyone to read my ramblings.  I just wanted to envision a story that I felt ‘worked’.  In my mind, Purity was that story.  Yes, Chronicles worked, and yes, Metamorphosis did, too (though I daresay that Metamorphosis was more about Kagome than InuYasha, IMO).  Purity, however, was exactly what it was supposed to be: a pure, untainted love story about losing something precious but learning to achieve something even greater, and when I started writing it, I knew two things: I knew where I was starting, and I knew where I would end it.

The one thing about Purity that I didn’t anticipate was one adorable little youkai child with black hair and a tai-youkai’s attitude: Toga.

Now the thing is, I never wanted to write a continuation.  I thought that those were worse than bad!fic.  I’d started to read a couple of those, too, and ended up putting them aside because, well, the characters were just not nearly as interesting as they should have been.  Here’s something that I’ve wanted to say a million times but never did because I was afraid I’d offend someone (though not on purpose): just because you’ve started with a known character, whether you use that character as a jump-off point or as a main character, doesn’t mean that you don’t have to flesh that character out.  Now, let’s not chew it to death, but … if any of the characters were exactly like their parents, what’s the point?  As any person in real life if their children are exactly like them, and you’ll have someone laughing right in your face.  They’re not.  Characters are shaped by other characters, yes, whether directly or indirectly, and whether it is for the good or ill.  Toga learned from watching his parents and the polar opposites, InuYasha and Kagome, and he decided for himself what he wanted from life, and Sierra?  She was just the girl next door—a good girl who didn’t mind moments of badness, sweet enough to land Toga while brassy enough to stand up to Sesshoumaru, too.

Toga.  *happy sigh* Then the twins.

The twins were something else.  They started out bad: hair pulling, etc … Then they got worse.

Ryomaru was so much like his father that it was just interesting to me.  Just what might InuYasha have been like had he been raised in a time and in a place where he didn’t have to fight and in an era when he wasn’t looked upon as an outcast?  Well, he might well have ended up like Ryomaru.  That he did things backward when it came to claiming his mate?  It was just too funny to pass up, and Nezumi is a girl that I can identify with.  I may not be exactly like her, but there were times when I felt like she did, absolutely.

Kichiro, though, leaned more toward his mother’s mentality, and for that, we love him, too.  The real trouble with Kichiro was finding the perfect woman to compliment him in every way.  Unlike Ryomaru, who really wanted a lover who was also his best friend, Kichiro needed to have someone who was confident in her own life, in who she was and who she would be: someone who could stand up to Kichiro’s arrogance and shine: someone who didn’t mind letting him be the larger than life hero while never fading in his shadow.  And Bellaniece was born: a gorgeous girl with a heart.  She was fantastic from the get-go, and she still is.

Heading into Purity 4, I thought it’d be great to write a father-daughter dynamic that was a stark contrast to InuYasha’s slightly overbearing love for his own daughter, Gin.  From the start, I knew that Cain had to be big as a character.  He had big shoes to fill, right?  For a girl who idolized her father, nothing less would do.  (Of course, uchinanchuduckie didn’t help when she first sent me these awesome sketches of a character named Cain … They were intimidating to me … I had to write a character who was good enough to live up to those sketches …) InuYasha had always said that Gin couldn’t date just anyone, didn’t he?  So maybe he should be more careful what he wishes for in the future.  I mean, who could be better for his baby girl than the North American tai-youkai …?

Cain was both the easiest and the hardest character I’ve ever written.  From the start, I knew that Gin was the girl for him: the one woman who wasn’t actually trying to win his heart.  He was and is, first and foremost, her friend.  If she had come on strong from the start (if she even knew how—she didn’t), he would have run fast and run hard back to his domain in Maine.  Somehow, though, he turned out to be a beautiful character despite the things in his past that really could have hardened him completely.  To this day, I’m proud of that story, and in many ways, Purity 4 is my favorite because I feel that I could see the largest growth in me as a writer from the first one to that one.

And it was supposed to have been the last, wasn’t it?  That’s what I said at the time.

But that baby—Sebastian …

Now I guess I should say now that I’ve always loved shy guys, and Bas really shouldn’t have been shy, right?  Big, beautiful Bas was the quintessential all-American boy, but his shyness was just too cute.  A lot of people have said that he was the guy Cain should have been if he hadn’t lost his parents and his first wife.  I don’t agree.  In my mind, Bas is much more like his late grandfather, Keijizen than he was like Cain … and Sydnie?  Well, she’s kind of a one-of-a-kind kinda girl, isn’t she?

Jillian and Gavin were just fun.  Underline that another time or two.  Fun.  Their story is one of my favorites because it tends to be lighthearted all the way through.  (okay, most of the way through).  The best friends.  I love that.

Isabelle and Griffin was a return to angst for me, and anyone who has talked to me knows that I adore angst.  Actually, I can usually write angst faster than I can write comedy.  Comedy tends to get boring to me after a fashion.  Angst is more fun for me because I can play with words, because I can use them to convey the fear or heartbreak or anxiety, and who was better at that than angst-muffin Griffin?  No one, right?  Isabelle is much like her mother, and that was also good for me, too.

Samantha … Samantha and Kurt were very important for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the return to the basics of Sango and Miroku—not the pervy part, of course, but the moments when I saw a more serious side to him in the anime and manga.  That was the part of Miroku that really interested me … and there are very important things in this story that will not be entirely evident until much later.

Which brings us to Evan and Valerie and Purity 9, right?

Okay, I’ll admit it.  Evan’s so entirely quirky and over the top that I can’t help but adore him, and Valerie?  Well, in a lot of ways, she’s more ‘me’ than any of the women in any of the other stories. Sure, there are parts of me in every single character I write, but Valerie … her outlook, her personality, her sense of humor are more like me than anyone else.  Their story is just a lot of fun to write, but both of them have a lot of issues to work through.

A lot of times, people ‘criticize’ me, saying that my stories are too long.  You know something, though?  I would rather write a longer story where the growth of the characters is the focus than to write something with a lick and a promise where you’re left wondering just how someone got from point A to point F without knowing what B through E were.  Glossing over things is lazy.  After all, would it have really made sense in the end if Cain had decided that Gin was absolutely worth living for in twenty chapters?  And even if it were possible to have written any of it ‘shorter’, would the story stand out in anyone’s mind after six months or a year or more?  If it’s worth writing, it’s worth writing well.  That’s what I try to do: write well.  I don’t profess to be the best writer out there.  I’m learning and evolving with everything I write.  What I do profess is to try to write the best story that *I* can, and as long as I feel that a story is worth telling, then I will tell it.  If someone doesn’t want to read it, then I don’t lose sleep over it.  If someone thinks, “Oh, another Purity, duh” then that’s their opinion.  The bottom line is that I love all my stories for different reasons, and I’m sure that I’ll love the next three just as much, too.

In fact, I can’t wait to write those three.  We have ‘cute’, we have ‘angst’, and then we have the ultimate form of comeuppance … and I’m looking forward to them all …

Just a really cute sketch of Mikio!  Thanks, Chloe M! 

Mikio

I love fanarts. I really do.  I’m glad that people feel like drawing my wacked-out characters because it’s always fun to see someone else’s take on them   These are courtesy of Ice_Sick_El, aka harmonykitty on DA.  Enjoy!!

Kind of short and to the point, I guess, but another fanart has been added, courtesy of LadyDragonTamer!  Enjoy!

Consistency 2 by LadyDragonTamer

Gunnar’s great, isn’t he?