November's Story On Patreon

Click here to go to Patreon! 

This went up on, well, the last day of the month, let's be honest. I thought it was done mid-month, but after a couple alpha and beta readers had one or two suggestions, I worked on it more. And then, you know, there was Thanksgiving and then my kids were sick, but I got it all finished before I GOT SICK TOO.

Seriously, if you're like, "Why haven't you posted since 2013?" It's due to a few reasons:

1) Now I have TWO KIDS. In 2013 I only had one and life was easy and fun-loving and I had time to write blog posts and books and fritter away the hours on beautiful things. Then in 2014, I had my second kid, Zoe, and since then living has taken on hurricane dimensions. Yes. Also, I started a website on Wordpress, and I like it much better. I'm pretty sure Google abandoned Blogger, for the most part. But what do I know? I usually don't hang out here. I hate the address, and the name, Talking to the Walls. Because yeah, I started this blog in 2005, before I even understood what the hell a blog was. So obviously, I was way into railroad ties and their innate poetry. Hence the ridiculously unrelated address.

2) Well, like I said. I started a website with a domain name that makes sense for me and what I do (I'm a writer, and my brand is me: Nicole Grotepas, the best brand name IN THE FREAKING WORLD).

3) But I can't just let this site DIE. Because it's my living record! So I leave it here. When I get a hankering to turn my life into an empire, I think, "My god, I'll double post! I'll double post the living crap out everything! I'll put all my stuff on my other website and this website and Patreon and FB and Twitter and Tumblr!!!" And like, right now, I do it for a few days and then quickly burn out. So yes. This site is still live.

4) Did I mention I have two kids? People with more than that are idiots. Well, I mean, I admire and pity them all at once. Sure, they can say to me, "It's fine. It's easy! Once you get past two, it's like THEY TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES AND THEN SOME." The and "then some" is that supposedly once they have a kid over 7 or so, that kid then proceeds to baby sit the younger ones. You've seen this on such disastrous (yet addicting, so I'm told) shows like that one that went down in flames because of some sex-abuse scandal. You know, where basically the parents don't even parent, because that's why they had thirty kids!

Ok, so I do think that people with lots of kids are a bit cuckoo, but more power to them! I do not feel personally responsible for their troubles. Or anything like that, I just know that for myself, I CAN BARELY HANDLE TWO. I adore my kids, I really do. They regularly melt my heart and make me laugh and grin so hard my face feels like it's about to crack in two. But, yeah, they also suck the life out of me. They're little energy vampires. I constantly mediate their battles. I am a warden. And at night, I can barely hang on long enough to possibly fold the laundry and watch a bit of some BBC police procedural on Netflix.

Anyhoo. Did I complain about being a parent? Yeah, well. I love it. And I don't. But mostly I do.

The point is, if you're looking for some new sci-fi, and you have .99 cents to spare per short story, I am on Patreon and I NEED YOU.