I want to write a big thing here about what’s coming up, but I’m temperamentally incapable of writing about things that matter, at least directly. I can’t contain a single matter to a single post. There’s too many variables that feed into it and too many lives at stake. I’ve never been good at debate or argument. I see every side and try to address them to the point that I neglect my own.

I’m angry and I’m scared because my own personal life is at stake according to certain policies that certain politicians wish to implement, have already implemented, and will continue to make every effort to implement (and will likely succeed, regardless of who wins, due to keen long-game strategy). I’m angry and scared because my life is just one of billions at stake due to climate change (trillions, if you count the mass extinctions of other animals than humans). I’m angry and scared because I’m watching a slaughter in real time and people in power seem to have declared them not only expendable but vermin worthy of extermination. I could keep going, but what’s the use?

I don’t know how I’m going to get through these next few days and possibly these next few years. My only solution is to get through a day at a time and just be who I am for as long as I can. After all, who am I to have anything to say, other than someone who lives here, same as you?

I voted. There is a difference between a shit sandwich and a shit sandwich with a side of vomit and a glass of toxic waste. Please vote.

News:

Moved over to a new computer. Still fixing some glitches from the moving over of files, but I think I’ll have that finished by this weekend. I’ve gotten used to the new keyboard, and I’ve christened it with stickers, so I think she and I are in a good place now.

FOUND 2: More stories of found footage is out and available to all. My story “Nuisance Notifications” is part of it. All those notifications you get on the phone and can’t do anything about… All here, with all the other cursed media.

I don’t normally reference Amazon reviews because they’re easily accessible, but my Meridian series doesn’t get a lot of love, and I appreciated the review from Jennifer Hines (The Literary Tryst) for Avarice & Creed (Meridian Book 4):

Let me start off by saying this is the best book I have read in a while. It is also my first by Aurelia Evans. I have to say that now not only do I want to read the first three books in this series, but also see what else she may have written.

Works in Progress:

I had an outline in place for Rack & Ruin (Meridian Book 8) from after I finished Tooth & Claw (Meridian Book 7), so I’d know I had a story and because I seem to need outlines more often than I used to. Well, I opened up the R&R document and approached it with dread instead of excitement, and I was almost immediately bored. I wasn’t months ago when I came up with the story, but I think I need to do something different, so I’ve altered the main character, which makes certain elements of the story more interesting to me and less repetitive with other stories in the series. There will be some unanticipated challenges in working off the outline with this new main character, but I think I have more to look forward to with these changes. I certainly don’t want to finish up the Meridian series with a book I don’t like.

If it doesn’t work, I’ll do what I did for Tooth & Claw and set it aside for a while. I just hope I don’t have to. I’m ready to be done with the development of this series and down only to editing. I finished my first round of edits for Book & Candle (Meridian Book 5), and I’m just waiting for the final proofreading copy.

However, I think I’m generally tired from the work this year and from *waves at everything*. I’m looking forward to doing edits after R&R is through. Masque and the DRI were so much fun to write, and though Masque will need some extensive reworking, I’m looking forward to it. I may also need to find a developmental editor for the DRI to make sure I’m on the right track and get some feedback, because I’m too enamored with it. There’s so much Dracula stuff (for good reason, because it’s a blast), I don’t want to necessarily get lost under all the noise.

Things I’m Reading:

The Apocalypse and Satan’s Gloryhole by Timothy W. Long and Jonathan Moon
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Things I’m Listening To:

Halloween playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Hell Fest
The Curse of Bridge Hollow
Murder, She Wrote: South by Southwest
Grave Encounters
As Above, So Below
Sleepy Hollow
Hocus Pocus
Trick ‘r’ Treat
Muppet Haunted Mansion
Rose Red series (finished)
Unsolved Mysteries series (finished)
Halloween Wars series (finished)
Halloween Baking Championship series (finished)
The Last Bite series (finished)
Outrageous Pumpkins series (finished)
Columbo series
S.W.A.T. series

Poem of the Week:

sagrado corazón
dead center bleeding
sanguinary transfusion
the blood of three
killing her sweetly
but blood of el maldito
brings vida eterna
la sangre es la vida