A new story to read

I've been sharing a new story this month. It's called Night Aggressions and is a horror story by Trent Becker and me. We're posting a new chapter each Friday until it's done. We're posting it to the Emerald Dragon blog, here's a link to the page with the chapters posted to-date. Go catch up before Chapter 4 drops this Friday. And be sure to leave us a comment on the chapters to let us know how we're doing.

When we're done, I'll wrap it up neatly into an ebook for ya'll as well.

Here's the cover for our story:



#shortstory #shortstories #novella #ebook #reading #writing #amwriting

It's my birthday, I'm 36

It's true. All of it. But for my birthday this year, I'm trying the fundraiser for birthdays thing on Facebook. And it's for a good cause, of course. Young LGBT lives. That's a good cause. Raising money for The Trevor Project.

The Trevor Project is determined to end suicide among LGBTQ youth by providing life-saving and life-affirming resources including a nationwide, 24/7 crisis intervention lifeline, digital community and advocacy/educational programs that create a safe, supportive and positive environment for everyone.

I'm 36 today, but many LGBT folks won't live to see all those years. Let's support our neighbors, lift them up.

Donate

Seasonal depression, self-care time

This past winter season, 2017-2018, I had what I refer to as my Second Worst Seasonal Depression. Good times. I won't go into details on that, but rather I wanted to talk about something I came up with to help me through it.

Making time for self-care

As I found myself a month or two into what I could sense was a bad seasonal depression, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Part of the reason it was so bad was that I was planning to get a jump start on it and try to stay proactive, but it came on a lot earlier than I expected it to. I wasn't ready for it. But I came up with this idea, I was going to start taking off one day per month from work for strictly self-care. I'd have one day per month specifically set aside for me and only me. For taking care of my mental state.

At first, I wasn't sure it would do me much good, but the first date arrived and I was wrong. It was really good for me. And as time moved forward, I found myself planning and looking forward to my one day per month to relax and take care of myself.

Winter proved to be a long one, and I kept up the practice through springtime. But around August, I was scheduling my self-care day and realized I'd been going through all of summer continuing to do it. That was never my intention. I had only intended to do it so long as winter lasted and my mood felt it needed it. So I thought about it, and decided I would keep it anyway for the time being. I had grown so accustomed to it and it really was quite a treat for my self-care.

Last thoughts

Now, not everyone may be in a position to deliberately take off one day per month. And I understand those pains. But your mental health is important, and no one cares more about it than you, so you've got to be proactive. And obviously one day a month isn't all the self-care we should be doing, but as a bare minimum of taking a significant amount of time for one's self, it was good for me. Ideally, everyone should be allowed to take vacations when they need to, to refresh and keep their sanity. Your health matters, and sometimes that means prioritizing it higher than you normally would. Take time for you. Winter is coming. Make sure you're getting some self-care time.


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Hey, all ye writers. How...

Hey, all ye writers. How goes it?