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.

Parent-hazing (Sick Baby) and a Bit of Sap to Go With That

I'm a real parent now.

I've passed another initiation rite.

Last night my son woke up at midnight because he threw up in his crib. Then he threw up for several hours every twenty minutes or so. He was finally able to fall asleep in my arms and then just wake up to vomit into a blanket as he cried.

So it turned out that Stoker and I only got about two hours of sleep. Like idiots we've been going to bed around midnight. You see the problem?

Anyway, Stoker called the experience parent-hazing and I think it fits. I mean, it's not just the no-sleep thing. It's the holy-hell-my-son-is-in-serious-pain-and-I-can't-stop-it. And that is really hard. Even though we know that most likely, this isn't too serious. It's just real pain. It's just the "WTF is this vomiting nonsense? It's unnatural," he seems to think. You know what I'm talking about. It's one of those human things and it's weird and no one likes it.

Hearing him cry every time it began and while it was happening was kind of hard. I don't want to sound like a wimp, but you get pretty attuned to your child and when they hurt, you tend to hurt, if not a bit more because you want to protect them from that.

He seemed to feel better this morning, and was even playing despite the terrible diarrhea that set in around six-thirty am. And then I fed him some solids, and then he vomited all over me, the couch, himself, and the living room, around four-thirty (as you can tell from this description, it was crazy projectile vomit). So the solids were a dumb idea.

Let me just say that I really admire and feel for the parents of children who suffer more than what my son is going through. You really get taught a lesson by the universe, or life, or mother-nature or whoever, just when you think you have a handle on things.

So, I ought to go to bed right now, because I just heard my son cry and I have a feeling that it will be a long, hard night again. I'm glad I don't have to face this stuff alone. Last night his dad was the real hero. I'm incredibly thankful for both of them.

Corbet gets a stubbly kiss from dad during a Sunday drive up Provo Canyon. 

Notice the grocery bag in a tree to round out the shot. Nature is beautiful!

Corbet likes everything dad likes and wants to do everything with dad. 

Dad feels the same way! 

Being Honest With You, My Dear Blog

You wouldn't know it, but I tend to hold a lot back. A LOT. A. LOT. But starting today, I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm going to be more open about things. Is that cool?

Good.

I think I've made this promise before, in other blog posts, but I mean it this time. I really do.

What I usually hold back is, well, the truth about what I'm doing and whatnot. I usually only write about the safe things, things that I'm not afraid for people to know, like me exercising (kicking arse!), running races, music I like, and my random thoughts about current events. Typically those are rants, the ones about current events, and even there, I hold back. I could rant so hard it would burn your brain into a skull-puddle. Skull-puddle. How does that sound? *shiver

Anyway, I hold back the most about my writing. Back when I put links up to some of my stories, you wouldn't know it, but that was huge for me. Enormous. It was quite scary, too. And so far, it's been terrible. No one has even noticed them. I think twenty people have read the stories and they were all in my family.

No big deal. That's what happens when you don't advertise. Plus, who wants to pay for MY stories when you can read my blog for free? My blog is so fascinating. Who needs to get their fix from my stories?

Right now, all that's going on my life is: 1) taking care of Corbet (my son, born eight months ago); 2) maintaining the house (that's hard, if you've never done it before, it involves things like sweeping, folding laundry, dusting blinds, etc. Sucky work, but someone's got to do it); 3) exercising like a banshee; got to get that lithe figure back, you know, ha. Ha ha ha. 4) hiding from the neighbors, who turn out to all be in my ward because I'm back in Utah now ("I saw you out running yesterday." Is a phrase I've heard several times already from ward-members. Still not used to it.); 5) taking care of Corbet; 6) trying to find time to write.

The other day I made a goal. I'd work on my stories DURING THE DAY AT SOME POINT. MAYBE WHEN CORBET IS NAPPING*.

I accomplished that goal once or twice. And then the laundry piled up. And Corbet tried to eat a dust-bunny he found under the linen rack in the master bathroom. That's when I realized I hadn't swept in over a month. So I cleaned. Still haven't swept, but I cleaned the bathroom. Good job, me.

And now I've only written at home once in the past two weeks. Last night. I threw in a scene that was partially inspired by the song "Cough Syrup" by Young the Giant. I liked that song BEFORE it appeared on Glee.

I hate Glee.

Anyway, great song. Can't stop listening to "Islands" by Young the Giant, either. And you know what? That band is awesome. I'm in love.

Anyway, I threw the "Cough Syrup" scene into the manuscript that I finished a month or so ago. The manuscript only took me two years to write or something. Ha. Ha ha ha. That's partially because I had a baby during that time. Writing was difficult while pregnant. And then I had some health complications. I know! Excuses, excuses. So, I think the scene works. I need to reread it again, and touch it up, but I think it's daring. And right. It fits. It really does.

So, there's some info about my writing, which has proven to be the hardest thing for me to write about on my blog. Weird, I know. But honestly, it's because I'm afraid to be a failure.

You know. I just want to grow. Somehow. To combat that feeling I constantly have of being in a state of permanent regression. Like Mister Kurtz. Day by day. The older I get. Perhaps it's merely the "the more I know, the more I realize I don't know" phenomenon, and I'm suffering the symptoms of it. Who can say for sure?

Fear bugs me, anyway, and when I finally realize I'm being afraid, I try to woman up and confront it.

This is me confronting a fear.

Thanks.



*This kind of planning always results in the plan's ultimate destruction. Son won't cooperate when I plan to do things while he naps.

Had a Dr. Who Dream Last Night, But that's Hardly the Point

Last night I was driving to the cafe to do a bit of writing. It was dark, and now that I'm in Utah again, beautiful. Listening to songs from the official soundtrack to the piece I'm working on as I drive helps me get in the right frame of mind, so of course I was listening to the official soundtrack. The lights from the city make the sky glow and the trees are all skeletal black frames against the bright sky. It was a serene moment, but there was something missing.

Angst. Oh yeah. ANGST! Where has it all gone?

Then I realized, my son was born last June and so now there's always something to live for. He's this brightness in my life that pushes away all that crappy darkness that sometimes closed in on me. And that feeling of desolation was always worse during Utah winters. But now I am home, Utah is my land, and these are my people, here. I have a son and a husband and I don't have to feel that loneliness the harsh winters could always generate for me.  Not anymore. Weird. I never thought, back in the day, that I could feel so much more lightness.

A brooding, black and white shot.

Corbet at 5.5 months. He gets handsomer every day. Handsomer?

Maybe it's just a result of fewer hormones, or maybe it really is that I have someone who needs me more than anyone has ever needed me before.

Having a baby is difficult, no questions there, but it's also the greatest thing to ever happen to me. Sometimes I feel like the Grinch, and just looking at Corbet makes my heart swell to ten times it's original size (I may have mentioned this before). Honestly, I wonder if it could ever make my chest burst, because it feels that way.

Speaking of this, I met this girl the other day who's about to have a baby. She's married, 24, and somehow, SOMEHOW, she's going to give the baby up for adoption. What?! No idea how this works or how someone makes a decision of this nature. I mean, I can imagine a couple of scenarios, but I can't understand how she could go to full term and, with a father for the baby nearby and everything, simply put him into someone else's hands.

I told her it was cool that she'd have the baby and everything, because that's better than the alternative (my opinion after having had my own), but wow. That's got to be crazy. All that effort. That time. That energy spent growing the baby, and boom, you give it away.

The only thing that made those nine months of hell worth it was to know that I'd have a baby at the end of it. I had no idea how it would feel to have a baby and everyone said, "You can't imagine how much you'll love him till you have him." And they were right. Now that I know better, there's no way I could have just given Corbet away.

In any case, here I am, old and without angst. But not without crazy passionate responses to the insanity of the world. Go figure. I'm exhausted already. I have no idea how I'm going to make it to ninety-four. Wish me luck!

Best Doctor ever. In a snowstorm. Wait. Is that Utah?

p.s. Had an awesome dream last night. Flying. Etc. And I was Rose Tyler for a bit, then the Tenth Doctor. And did I mention there was flying? And it was a new episode of Dr. Who with the Tenth Doctor. If I keep having awesome dreams like this, I might make it to be an old woman.