Challenge check in #2

Sunday again. And once again I barely made my challenge deadline >.< thanks the stars I left myself that easy out of earrings and other small stuff being alright or I'd have failed miserably by now *sigh*  I should just rename Saturday as 'Scramble-day' since that's when I rushed to make all three pieces for my challenge >.<

Is that not terrible? What should be a fairly ease thing for me to do with a whole week to get them done... and I still end up doing it last minute >.<  I had ideas for stuff, and indeed, I wanted to do a piece for the ABS monthly challenge, but :p, nope. Not this week anyhow.

I did decide to do something a bit different since I was going with just earrings. I followed a quick tutorial from Fanciful Devices on 'making' artisan ear wires *snicker* love this little cheat and I think they look so much better! As well, both Fanci and Sparrow Salvage post earrings I adore. And while I haven't even attempted to try my hand at stuff along their style ( although I love it and it looks like a crap load of fun to make ;) ) I decided to keep it low key this time and just try one little aspect of it... the mis-matched pair. 

I pulled out some lampwork and ceramic beads I've had for ages and never used and got to work. Oddly enough, the three pairs I chose were all in the same color range...

The top pair is the most of the mis-matched , with the order of the beads reversed.

The next just has the seed beads colors reversed for a more subtle difference. I rather liked the ceramic focals here... they're a coffee tone with orange.. the scribbles look almost like Japanese writing but I don't think it is.. just artsy scribbles
.

The bottom pair isn't mis-matched at all ...I don't know why I didn't... maybe because it's all mixed media? lol Ceramic focals, wooden spacers and gem stone chips lol

As for my art part of the challenge... still zip on that front. Unless you count the red cat plushie I have sitting here in pieces. I DID design it, make the pattern myself and have it all cut out ready to put together. The face and stripes are sewn on and everything. I just kinda hit a snag of forgetting the pipecleaners to make the tail and ears positionable back when I started sewing, and then by the time I bought them, the sewing urge had abandoned me >.< If I get it done soon and it looks as good as I hope it will, then maybe I'll count it this month, simply because I did design it from scratch.

As to WHY I haven't done anything creative this week? Well.. I DID do quite a bit of writing... just nothing else. For those who don't know I write and have a website dedicated to my 'world' and characters, I do :) lol Hunter's Prey  .

~ ~

Okay...after writing it all, I decided to zip back up here and post a warning. This marks the end of jewelry/rational stuff. 

The rest of this post is dedicated to a massive whine/rant/bitch fest that you are in no way expected to actually read. Please feel free to skip to the comment form concerning the challenge bit if you'd like or just leave all together :) I'm perfectly fine with that. If you do chose to continue, I apologize in advance. I did try to not swear but... sometimes there are no other words to fully express it.

 ~ begin rant ~

 'Hunter's Prey' began as one story about six or so years ago. I'd just kicked my hubby out and had dived back into doing all the stuff I loved that he'd ruined for me with his attitude. Some friends did some fun little group writing projects to fight off the boredom of school work and life crap so I decided to start one. I created a world and story base to jump from, peopled it with some characters lead by a remake of an old character I'd made years before but not gotten to use much, then they all joined in. The story exploded with new characters and twists appearing, and branched off into a multitude of back stories and side stories. 
Within a couple months I'd started a website to house all the work so others could enjoy it too.  The website was intended to be run by two of us, the main writers, since the others were immersed in schoolwork and had enough trouble finding time to write, let alone help with the editing and site work. However, over the years I have received very little in the way of help with it. Plenty of new writing and art work, but very little edited work to post and no site work at all. Tons of excuses though; everything from a computer that won't access the website, to various other computer and internet issues.

Finally I decided it was for the best since their versions of 'editing' and MY version of editing were two completely different creatures... and their spelling was scary >.< I have a massive back log of writing to just spell check before I can even begin to consider editing it to make it remotely readable. If you read any of the stuff on the site  you'll begin to see what I mean. Group stories are difficult to edit together into one work so I try to piece the various parts together and nail as many of the spelling errors as possible into a rough draft that is at least readable. Even so, a lot got past me in the early days of posting them up >.< You'll also be able to pick out the stuff that others 'edited' for me... the ones where every other paragraph is taking place with a different set of characters or a different location and your brain is kinda jumping around to keep track of it all >.< 

Last year I had reached the point where I was so extremely pissed off over it that I couldn't write and was ready to let the site die. The rest of the group had vanished so it was just the two of us for the most part, and I was told about all these 'fans' who loved the stuff and wanted more, and what great reviews our work got. Turns out, while I'm working my ass of trying to edit these stories into readable works before posting them on a website I'm paying for to host them... she's off tossing the rough work up on other sites to be read. I felt like she was completely screwing me over and wasting my time and money. We ended up coming to an agreement after I'd cooled off ( luckily I try to make it a point to fume and growl in private or in venues where the person pissing me off won't hear or see until I'm calm enough to approach them reasonably over it ) and it was decided that I would renew the website on a three month trial.. which would be renewed into another year IF she started helping spell checking everything and doing at least rough edits for me... and to stop undermining my work with the site by posting everything all over the place. She could post teasers to draw people into the site for the rest, but not post the full work.

Then nothing.
First she couldn't do anything because she was working two jobs to save money ( great... no problem with that since it was much needed and a long time coming for her! I was more then willing to continue carrying things for a while longer if that was the reason.) Then she mentioned a bus trip across the country to spend a week with some mutual friends and attend a convention... then I hear next to nothing from her for a month, then the next thing I know she's stranded because plans changed and her dad decided he'd drive her and visit family while she was there... and they ran out of money and gas >.< Okay... lack of writing help understandable again.  
Then a couple weeks later when they get money again and they've had their little vacation.. do they head back home? Nope.. they continue on with the traveling to go see his family.. and the same shit happens. By the time they get home, they hock the computer again for money to get through the rest of the month. During this time I get word that they're selling their place and moving to another State. Her parents were getting an apartment in a complex and she was going to stay with her cousin until she got a place of her own. Now they're staying with mutual friends, not even in the same State as they were moving too, because her parents are on a waiting list, and she claims she never planned on staying with her cousin. 

The whole family is completely irresponsible, both financially and personally... I'd thought she was breaking free of the crap they'd been doing to get by month to month and she WAS making a difference... but now she's dived head first into her fathers irresponsible attitude >.< The way she acts reminds me more and more of my ex ( whom she couldn't stand, btw ). 

This week I found myself getting pissed off  again. Every time I dropped into our work forum and saw her name listed as having been into the site, but seeing nothing added by her, It bugged me more and more. This kind of stuff will go on for a week or more, then she'll leave a few little bits, then vanish again for another week or so. I just got extremely ticked off over her vanishing acts and refusal to do so much as to leave a note or email or facebook message saying that she was busy or not feeling up to writing. And she never responds to emails either >.<  

I decided that enough was enough. Since the group no longer exists and it's just the two of us, the group name is coming off the site. I created an original world with original characters and almost everything in the stories revolves around them. Her characters are based off of game characters or movie characters and she's just changed them around a bit... and she keeps using story lines from movies and games as well...its driving me nuts. It's like she has no concept of the term 'original'. I'll still give credit where it's due, don't get me wrong, but I'm no longer sharing credit that's mine. I'm the one who doing all the editing and website work, I'm the one that created the entire concept, world and main cast of characters that started everything, and I'm the one paying for the damned domain and website.

All she wants to do is write, that's fine. She'll get credit for the writing on the works that she did. 

Yesterday she reappeared out of nowhere and began writing up a storm on the work forum again and is still there now. I'm willing to bet she'll vanish again by tomorrow- Tuesday at the latest. I love her like a sister, but more and more her shitty selfish attitude reminds me of my ex and pisses me off. ... which I guess is about average for little sisters, right? You love them but there are times you just are tempted to throttle the living shit out of them or to try and knock some sense into them >.< she's been my honorary little sis for over ten years now. That's gotta be the longest running friendship I have to date. I still enjoy her company and love writing with her, but damn *sigh* the urge to shake the shit out of her is becoming a monthly occurrence.

If we hit the point where she starts to destroy my love of writing with this crap like my ex did...I'll have to call it quits. Ten year friendship aside, I'm not letting that part of me go again without one hell of a fight. Until then I'll just start being a bit selfish myself and make sure that I pay more attention to what I want and like rather then what she'd like.

Oh, and a good thing out of it all... when I get that pissed off, I've found I can channel it into my creativity, whether it be a painting or writing... usually writing. I usually choose a character that my writing is usually fairly good too... then write a very dark storyline in which I get to torture the shit out of them. Or I'll take a character that has a dark past and explore that past more fully, usually making it a tad bit worse as I do. Not so nice for the poor character, but great for the story and great for my emotional well being :D

Anyhow, now that I've made those decisions I'm feeling better :) I'd even decided that once I finished with the dark pieces I was writing, that I'd look over the stuff we have ongoing on the work forum and see what stirs my interest for taking over solo. It was rather eerie...within an hour of my decided THAT, she appeared and began working on some of them again... lol  sometimes I think we're connected just well enough that she can tell when she's gone that bit too far and I'm getting pissed off, even if we haven't spoken in ages.

So, dark mood has passed, new goals and decisions have been made to help keep another one at bay ( aside from PMS moods...those are a whole 'nother ballgame ;)  ). 

If you actually stuck around and read all of that .. wow..I'm impressed by your attention span and apologize for all the bad words ( although I was trying not to use too many ) and  the endless, ranting, bitch fest.

If by some chance, a certain sister or two actually found their way here to read this ; 

D- relax and calm down, I'm fine now and I'm not planning on disowning her.. do not link her here, try to play middle man, or get depressed over it. I'm fine. I promise.  

A- I'm sorry but this shit eats at me and every now and then I gotta let it out or it'll explode all over your ass and we'll end up kissing the friendship goodbye. I don't want things to go that way. I love you hun, but you just irritate the fuck outta me sometimes and while I've tried to explain shit to you, and ask you not to do some of it, I've done so AFTER I've tried to calm down. >.<

 ... Mar, if you read this, same goes for what I said to D. Thanks but no thanks. :) some times a girls just gotta bitch. You're married... you SHOULD understand this by now ;)

*looks back up at the massive rant and cringes* Once again, I'm sorry to all of you. Don't feel like you have to comment on any of the ranting topics. I really am alright and no longer moody or depressed over it all, but I decided I'd write it out anyhow.

I'll try to see if I can't remember to get around to doing a BTW post this week. If I do, I'll catch you all then :) Hell, maybe I'll share a bit of my writing every now and then and see what you guys think of my solo work and the characters I enjoy tormenting through my bad days  ;)

~Skye