A Bigger Scratching Post – UNDER CONSTRUCTION – Just sharpening the claws. Website for S.C. Jen. Full-time Administrative Assistant, part-time writer aiming to become a full-time author. Slowly but surely learning the hustle side of the business, but in the meantime bills are to be paid.

One Pandemic Later

Posted on April 11, 2024April 18, 2024 by S.C. Jen

Welp!

The last time I posted here the world was a bit different.

Okay, a lot different.

The intentions I had before March of 2020 were swept away. Scheduling? Gone. Self improvement? Gone. Doing more than just getting by? Gone.

Trying to keep up with all the necessary changes while not losing my new job or the roof over my head became the name of the game. The masks, the distancing, new work parameters, figuring out new ways of communicating all while still trying to retain some humanity. My escapism got worse, but it was all I could do to keep from having the stress overwhelm me.

2023 was especially harsh for me on a personal level. Had a neighbor come after my spouse with an open blade in February and in March we went to court to secure a restraining order. My father had a severe stroke in January and made a sharp decline in health where he passed away in September. Also in September we moved out of the place we’d been at for 27 years to move in with my mother so she wouldn’t be alone and I could handle her finances for her. Then while settling finances we discovered that my father put a reverse mortgage on the house so when my mother passes away instead of the house deed going to me, the 300k+ owed is due. Since we can’t afford that we’ll have to sell and move again… all while the cost of renting and buying is going way above our pay grade.

This year has been better (so far), but while there hasn’t been any major hits like 2023 gave, there have been these tiny little cuts that continue to happen. Mother is not able to drive anymore, health insurance is still removing funds to cover for my dad, troubles filing taxes for them … it threatens to overwhelm. But instead of giving in and giving up, I’m striving to be more bold and go for what I want. Don’t worry about mistakes and just Do The Thing.

I’m looking down the pipeline at the future with less and less years to work with. I don’t want to spend the next 30 years of my life working at a company for a mortgage I can’t even afford. I can’t let life shut me out from doing what I’ve dreamed since I was old enough to understand that the story I was reading was written by someone. I see where I want to go, but in order to get there I need to risk and I need be flexible.

Aside from getting a novel finished and ready for publication, I also need to work on my online social footprint. I don’t need to go viral. I just need to find my audience. This post is one of the starts to that.

At this point I’m not going to promise any sort of schedule. I tried that before and got hit in the face with a world wide pandemic. So to avoid risking it, I’m going to go with the flow. Right now, it’s building an online presence and working on Getting Things Wrote.

It’s a bit scary, but the prospect of being stuck for the rest of my life slaving away at a job with no chance of retirement is far more frightening to me. If I don’t take this path now, I’ll be spiritually dead and I don’t want that.

So .. I’ll see you all in the wilds. Game on!

From Writing Prompts

Super Misunderstanding

Posted on May 10, 2024 by S.C. Jen

From a writing prompt on Reddit: Your friends are actually superheroes, but they think you already know because you mistook their secrecy for them being a throuple trying to hide their relationship.

((NOTE: For some reason I’m not able to post the story onto Reddit. I’ll keep trying, but for now, enjoy.))

Samantha chewed on the inside of her lip as she sat down. She knew this conversation had been coming. Inwardly, she kicked herself for getting irritated the day before. She new her words were harsh and maybe she had been a bit unreasonable, but at the same time …

“Sooo… you do know why we want to talk to you,” Nate sat on the arm of the couch, his eyebrows furrowed in worry, “Right?”

“I have something of a notion, yeah,” leaning back in the recliner, she crossed her arms. Marcus and Amanda were already seated on the couch across from her wearing similar worried looks.

“What you had said the other day,” Nate rubbed a hand on his thigh, a definite sign that he was nervous. “Look, we–“

Samantha shook her head, “You don’t need to explain, okay? I know I sounded upset the other day, but I guess I was just in a mood and feeling … feeling like you guys just don’t want me around anymore or something. I mean, I know what you guys go out to do and I’m not a part of that — don’t want to be a part of that — but I guess I’ve just been feeling abandoned, and –“

Amanda sat up, the worried look getting heavier, “Wait, you… you know what we do?”

She sighed, “Of course I know what you guys do.”

The three of them exchanged looks of surprise.

“H-how long have you known?” Marcus managed to finally get out after the moment of stunned silence. “I mean, how could you have known?”

She rolled her eyes, “Oh please, I knew something was up when Nate gave that really lame excuse of being late for his bowling practice. You don’t even bowl!”

Nate winced and looked abashed, “I … I might? .. or maybe not.” His shoulders slumped in resignation.

“And, Amanda, maybe keep track of who’s funeral you’re going to? You’ve said twice that you had to go to your Uncle’s funeral and you only have one Uncle.”

Amanda opened her mouth, then snapped it shut, “I said it twice?”

“Mmhmm, and Marcus, I love you, but you really don’t know how to quiet your body language.”

Marcus’ mouth hung open a moment, “I … well… wait, what do you mean?”

Samantha sighed and leaned forward again in the seat, “Every time you three go into the corner to have one of your little meetings you grab hold of either Amanda’s or Nate’s arm or shoulder or drape and arm over one of them. I know you’re a hugger, but the physical contact between you three just screams how close you guys are.” She added quickly, “That and I saw you get your duffle bag from your trunk before all three of you piled into Nate’s car. You really need to be more careful about that.”

The looks of guilt the three carried made her heart clench. She really didn’t want to out them like this. Honestly, it didn’t matter to Samantha what they did behind closed doors, but it was putting a strain on their friendship. At the end of the day, she didn’t want to lose them as friends. She had to make that known.

“Guys, look, you are full grown adults allowed to make your own decisions and what you three do is your choice,” she shook her head, “but stop with the lies. That’s what hurts more than anything else. You didn’t have to hide any of this from me. You know I’m not the type to judge like that. My anger the other day wasn’t because of you lying then leaving, it was because it felt like you guys didn’t trust me.”

Samantha felt her eyes well up, “And it really really hurts to think that.”

“Oh,” Amanda immediately got up, then went over to her to kneel in front of her and take her hand, “Oh, Sammy, I’m so sorry. We never ever meant to hurt you with this.”

Nate chimed up, “We just thought it would be better if we just didn’t tell you about it. Thought it would protect you if you didn’t have to cover for us, too. Please, believe that.”

“I know, I know,” Samantha took the tissue Nate offered and dabbed her eyes with it, “that’s why I can’t stay mad at you guys. I figured that was the reason. It just… you know I had that bad breakup with Tom then lost my internship at the law firm and then.. then you guys–” She felt her breath hitch, more tears came, and she felt stupid for getting so emotional.

“Oh crap, we didn’t–…” Marcus sighed and got up. “We are shitty shitty friends, guys. Let me get us some drinks.”

After Marcus got them something to drink and Samantha got all her tears out there was a more relaxed sense in the room. Like a burden had been lifted from their shoulders. The three sat on the couch while she cradled the glass in her hands, tissue box nearby in case the flood gates opened up again.

“So where do we go from here?” Nate’s worried look never really left.

“Well, I’d like to say that it goes without saying, but let’s not make assumptions,” Amanda took a quick drink, then looked at her, “Sammy, you do know that you can’t tell anyone about this, right?”

“Of course I won’t tell anyone,” Samantha shook her head. “I can only imagine what your families would think about this. Nate’s family would probably disown him.”

“Dad definitely would,” he drained his glass and immediately went to pour another.

“And Amanda, your mom would practically evaporate on the spot.”

“Burn me in the steam cloud while she was at it too,” Amanda snorted.

“Marcus your grandmother would drag you to church and beg the priests to perform an exorcism on you, after trying to drown you in holy water.”

Marcus barked a laugh, “Unfortunate, but yeah she probably would.”

“Definitely wouldn’t tell your mom and dad either.”

“Oh, but they know.”

Samantha’s eyebrows shot up, “They do?”

“Yeah, they’re fine with it,” Marcus nodded. “Heck, my dad is the one that trained me.”

” ….. what?”

“What?”

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Getting Back on the Horse

Posted on December 19, 2019December 19, 2019 by S.C. Jen

It’s taken a little over a year, but I’m getting back on the horse again.

The “falling off” this time was a positive one. I had to take the year to adjust my time around the new job. Had to assess how some things were going in life and arrange both my mentality and life style. Admittedly, the lifestyle change still goes on (technically, it doesn’t ever really end), but as time progresses and I make tiny changes here and there, its been for the better.

Getting back to writing, creating, and testing my skills with drawing has been a relief. Its always been a stress reliever for me and being able to get back to that while enjoying a job that I like has been uplifting in a lot of ways.

Am I stress free? Of course not. However, I am in a much better place then I have been in well over a decade.

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The Next Steps

Posted on November 28, 2018November 28, 2018 by S.C. Jen

For those who live in the United States, I hope you had a fine Thanksgiving. For any who don’t live in the US, I hope you had a fine long weekend away from us crazy Americans.

Turkeys_On_Thanksgiving_20181127 — Took this picture on Thanksgiving morning. They were right across the street from my back porch. California is lousy with these wild birds found within towns and city limits. Yet we still have to go to the grocery store to buy these delectable foul so we can stuff our faces with them every Thanksgiving.

I managed to get my outline finished before the end of the month. While I don’t really have hard and fast deadlines it still felt good to get it done. Now on to the next bit of churning out chapters. At least one before the end of the month of December.

. . . I was about to write here about worrying about the publication phase, but that’s me being a Negative Nancy again. I need to not think about that right now and just #DoTheThing. Get it written first. Hard to fight my want to be prepared for the future, but I know it’s fear talking. Got to ignore that voice and just step forward to my next major goal.

Pics_of_Writing_20181127 — Already on my way. #DoTheThing

As Ray Bradbury put it, I need to be “the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling.” Now it is time for me to write every single day of my life, read books like a lunatic, and wrestle with my Creative Muse. Everything else is superfluous to that.

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Moving UP, Moving ON

Posted on November 14, 2018November 13, 2018 by S.C. Jen

Sixteen applications.

Two responses.

One interview.

Three minutes from where I live.

One dollar extra than I’m already making.

Score new job!

Such a huge relief. Such a weight of my shoulders. I feel like I can actually breathe.

So while the last four weeks have been less than stellar on the writing/creating front, it was the price that had to be paid to get to a major goal.

Results of 4 week - end 11-10-2018 — So many holes of incomplete tasks done in the last four weeks, but it was worth it.

The new #CorporateSponsorship for my writing has been a great place so far. The people, while busy, are friendly and it’s not walking immediately into Stressville the moment I cross the threshold. It’s only been a week and two days and already the chronic pain in my shoulders have lessened, the rings under my eyes are less pronounced, and I have energy at the end of the day to Do Things.

I’ve been writing during my lunch breaks, something I’d been unable to do at my previous job due to being too tired or busy worrying about the next order/issue I had to deal with when I got back. While the company I’m with is saying they’re as busy/stressed as they’ve ever been, it’s a cakewalk compared to my last place. It’s all in perspective I suppose.

But now I get to move on and move up. The next four weeks are now scheduled for me to concentrate on being able to write. Holidays not withstanding, I’m going to get as much writing done as possible.

I might get a quasi-NaNoWriMo done. Too many days have passed to be able to get to the full wordcount goal of 50k, but I sure as heck will try. Still need to finish out the outline for the story brewing in my head, then I’ll get to crackin’. Most of my updates will be on my Patreon and Twitter accounts, but I will post here every Wednesday for a fuller update and thoughts.

Now that the goal of a new job has been reached, I need to aim for the next goal.

Get one book published.

Later, Kittens!

Uncategorized

Down But Not Out

Posted on October 2, 2018 by S.C. Jen

As I mentioned before I’m on the job hunt. Multiple resumes sent and no responses yet so I’m feeling a little despondent. I know patience is key as many places these days can take a week or more to contact you, but I’m also still fighting my panic mode. All in all being a little despondent is an alright place to be as its not crippled me to the point of being unproductive.

I have a Patreon page now.

Instead of dwelling for too long over the silence of potential employers I looked at my “need to do list” and did something I could manage in leu of writing. The page will need some spicing up and I need to get lined up a steady stream of content to post, but it is done. I didn’t sit and mope as I sometimes am want to do when I’m not mentally at my best.

Over the weekend there were a few snippets of story that did float about in my head and I did scratch a good deal of it on paper. A lot of it was disjointed though and my brain just wouldn’t settle on one particular thing. That was definitely the stress taking effect. It’s happened before and has derailed previous writing trains, sometimes to the point that I don’t go back to writing the story I was working on.

stressed over bills — Amazing what financial instability can do to a creative drive.

It’s a lousy habit to develop that leads to way too many WIPs laying around. Story of my life I suppose. I am working to change it. Before I wouldn’t have even written disjointed pieces of story or make the attempt to set up a Patreon page. It’s baby steps, but they are steps in the right direction.

Main goal still is to get a job at a more financially sound place that’s hopefully closer to home, but that doesn’t mean I should count myself out.

Later, Kittens.

Uncategorized

Funny Thing Happened On The Way To a New Career

Posted on September 25, 2018 by S.C. Jen

As mentioned, I reworked my 4 week schedule to edge in time to look for work. As of Monday this has changed again.

It’s become more imperative that I find new work not just for the get-more-writing-done angle, but in a very real this-company-might-not-last-much-longer panic inducing manner.

In the place were I currently work I had started as the Receptionist and worked my way up to Customer Service. Our current Receptionist recently quit so our HR Manager has been dealing with the mail, phones, etc. She had to go on a trip over the weekend so she asked if I could cover some of the front office work on Friday and Monday.

Easily done and on Monday I was going through the mail, opening envelopes and organizing the paperwork to get to the right departments. This does mean I get to see some pretty sensitive stuff … including a paper version of our companies latest bank statement.

The ending totals were in the negative. I mean, deep in the negative. Seven digit negatives. Panic mode initiated.

Now, there had been other signs as well. Some of our vendors are refusing to sell to us unless we have cash/check on hand. Our drivers have to make sure the manager has topped off all the gas tanks with one specific card as all others are being rejected. I’ve overheard our CEO asking about extending loan times. So I knew that our company was hurting, I just didn’t realize how badly.

The last time I heard of a company needing their workers to have cash on hand just to keep the business going was from my dad and a company he used to work for 27 years ago. That company was a “little” airline called Pan Am. This should have been a more major warning to me than anything else. I guess the fates decided to give me a major wake up call.

So I won’t be able to post or write as much. While I know I’ve only just gotten my toes into the water here, finding a job is now A-1 Top Priority. My nights are going to be spent throwing applications and resumes out left and right. Until that is solidified the writing will, unfortunately, have to take a back seat.

… not to mention I’m too much in a panic mode to think of any stories right now. It’s all internal screaming to be honest.

Wish me luck!

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Wrenched Backs and Rescheduling

Posted on September 18, 2018 by S.C. Jen

All I was doing was emptying out the kitchen trash. It wasn’t even that heavy, but there I was three days later still nursing my lower back muscles. Never had it happen this bad before. Sure I’ve tweaked my back muscles or slept in a bad position that would make them cranky, but to throw my back out completely was a new sensation.

lower back pain — IcyHot, Salonpas, heating pad, and cold compress are my life.

Due to the pain, the meds, and most of my energy going to just making it through a work day, the last week on my 4 week schedule was a wash. This turned out to be fine as I needed to reassess how the plan was coming along.

While keeping to the schedule felt great as far as my writing production was concerned, it was woefully short on the “get a new job” front. Having more time to write and produce content is a landmark goal, but I was putting the horse before the cart, so a little rescheduling was needed. I will admit to being disheartened last month over having not one, but several potential jobs falling through. It took the wind out of my sails and I hadn’t prodded the job sites with the full driven intent I had two months ago. I need to get back on it and this change up should help.

Split time between D&D prep and writing, but job search now in place. Also Friday nights off needed as I never seemed to get around to the task. My brain turns it down a gear and doesn’t want to produce.

We will see how the next four weeks pan out. Hopefully by the end of it I’ll be posting about a job I have closer to home with more time for writing and less financial stress on my shoulders. Here’s hoping!

By the way, anyone know of a office type job in the Benicia/Vallejo California areas that pays enough to sustain a one bedroom apartment plus disabled spouse and two parrots? Data entry, receptionist, administrative assistant, order entry, things like that. It’s not for me, my bird is asking.

Annabelle wants mommy to get a job closer to home so she’s not leaving work when it’s dark and getting home when it’s dark. Help a bird out?

Uncategorized

Still Digging and Less Worried

Posted on September 4, 2018September 4, 2018 by S.C. Jen

I have a file cabinet where I keep paper copies of my writing. Admittedly, I’d not been into this cabinet for almost 3 years. With all the family health issues, the long commutes, work taking up more of my time and energy, my writing had ended up being neglected. As I’d mentioned, I would be too tired and mentally worn out to even try writing, but every so often, inspiration would strike hard enough for me to write a small scene or snippet of a story. Either a new idea or a smaller part of a larger one, I’d write it all out, then end up eventually tucking it away into a file drawer.

So my main “writing” has been going through this file cabinet and getting it organized so that the stories and ideas would be easier to find. Three years worth of occasional random writing alongside the main bulks of my work. I was finding small bits of nonsense ideas that wasn’t panning out as a full story, but some of the information and hooks in it would work well paired with another story I had concocted. There were novel ideas and old fanfics that didn’t have any place being in public view, but some passages of writing in it had some merit and with polish and expanding would work well.

I still have yet to reach the back of the file cabinet, but whatever worries I had about not having enough content to post to satisfy the potential Patreon subscriber has quieted by a substantial degree.

I’ve got stories. Boy, do I got ’em.

One of them, a sci-fi space opera type has so much content that I could expand almost indefinitely with it. From short stories, to snippets, to multi-part novel length series, there’s a good hunk of it right there. Perfect for Patreon. Hopefully I can garner the right interest in the story that people will want to subscribe to me for more.

If the sci-fi doesn’t take, there’s a fantasy setting noir-buddy-cop-detective type story that could easily be serialized and expanded upon. Another story that takes place in an alternate history involving superheroes and dragons. Yet another that’s a fractured fairy tale in the vein of MYTHing Inc. Another a set of Ulitma Online fanfic stories (yes, I said Ultima Online, I was a beta tester for it back in the day) that could be retooled into a semi-decent fantasy tale.

This doesn’t even include the works I’d like to do just as single novels or multi-part novels.

I really don’t know why I was worried.

As for my still lingering worry about having to show my mug to appease the masses… who says I have to? When I look at a quarter of the content that’s on YouTube or Twitch or other such service there’s a good portion of posters who don’t show their mugs and just talk while video plays. Why does my so-called “introductory/thank you video” on Patreon have to be a shot of me talking? To heck with that. I’ll introduce myself while random pictures of black cats and kittens are shown.

black cat — Why would they want to see my face and awkward self when they can see kittens? See? Posting cats is easy!

Needless to say my feelings of anxiety over even remotely being able to do this, while still there, isn’t the nagging monster it was a week ago.

I can do this.