Some updates coming to the Cynical Woman blog

I know I've been very quiet on the blog the last several weeks. It's partly because life gets so busy, but it's also partly because it's been a while since I've written and scheduled blog posts in advance. There was a time, a long time ago, when I would spend all day Sunday writing a week's worth of blog posts, based on notes I had written during the week. In some cases, I could get two weeks worth of posts knocked out with no problem, so there was always something up on the blog.

Problems started, however, when I started getting bored with what I was blogging about. I ran out of ideas for certain regular topics and never found anything new to replace that. And then life started getting busier and busier and I just let the whole blogging thing slide. Occasionally, I would rally back and put out posts for a month or more, based on a theme for that month, writing a new post every night before going to bed. But even that petered out after a while when I realized I didn't like writing a post before bedtime every night.

So what to do? I've decided to go back to pre-scheduled posts, picking all new topics that I like. I've also decided that about three months, I need to spend a day reviewing those topics to see if it's time to change them up. And I'm going to start writing down ideas for new topics in a notebook, so I'm not stuck for new ideas when I need them. But what topics to start with now?

Well, I need to do more drawing practice anyway, so I thought I'd start there. I've got a number of books on drawing and doodling that I can work through, and as I do so, I can post the results here. I can also do a sort of review of the book in question as I go, to let folks know what I like about a particular art book, and whether I think it's effective.

Another thing I may blog about is some of the activities I do with Girl Scouts, specifically the DIY and craft activities. I've had some fun making stuff with the girls, and there are some great how-tos out there that I'd like to try with the troop. I can take some time to try this tutorials and blog about how they work, and hopefully other folks who have kids or volunteer with them can benefit from that.

Finally, I will continue to work on “The Adventures of Cynical Woman” webcomic. After the current story line wraps up, I may make some style changes to the artwork which will hopefully allow me to get it produced faster without a reduction in the quality of the art. And I may introduce a new comic for a bit, a single panel webcomic that's been sitting in the back of my mind for a while. I'm still playing with the idea, so we'll have to see.

So that's the plan to kick the blog back into gear. Hopefully this all works out and you guys enjoy the new posts 🙂

Sick with the flu

Hello all. I was midway through the website update when I came down with the flu. Pixie had it first, then Princess, now me. I’m trying to do a little work at a time between bouts of passing out in bed, but there are still some things that aren’t quite right with the website. I’ll fix these things as soon as I recover from the flu. But even so, I think the site looks a bazillion times better,

Anyway, now you know what’s going on.

And we’re back!

Migrating blogs is hard...

Yes, the website was all screwed up for about 24 hours, and I just about ripped out all my hair, but now it’s back up. At least I hope it is. If you’re reading this blog post, chances are good that we’re finally back to what loosely resembles normal around here.

Why the down time? Well, I needed to switch webhost providers this month. For years, I’ve been hosting this site on GoDaddy.com, but I’ve been getting more and more turned off by their advertising campaign, and I made the decision back in January, after seeing their Super Bowl ads, to move the website to a new web host as soon as I could afford it. Being the poor artist that I am, it took me a while to gather up the funds. It also took me a while to decide on a new host, and to gear myself up for what I knew would be a painful experience.

And it was painful. Boy howdy was it no fun the last 24 hours trying to get this site moved. I have only myself to blame in the end. I’ve not kept up with my website administrator skills, and I am going to fix that over the course of the next year or so. Ignorance is not bliss, and I prefer to be able to do my own tech support so I don’t have to drive other people crazy or go crazy waiting for them to email me back while we try to solve technical difficulties over a long distance.

I do have to say that the tech support for my new web host provider, Dreamhost, was very patient with me and they spent a lot of time helping me get the site back up and running. Hopefully, they won’t mind helping me move the VeryScaryArt.com site as well.

Anyhoo, we are back. Or I think we are. I’ll know for certain as soon as I publish this post. Which should be right… about… now!

Freaky Friday! The Cynical Woman Store is Live and Very Scary Comes Back from the Dead

I wanted to get some news out today. You may or may not have noticed the tasteful entry in our list of links below the header graphic. It says “Shop” and that’s exactly what it’s for. I set up a Zazzle shop this month and have been slowly adding product to it. Right now, there are only four products up, but I will be expanding on that. I am already working on a zombie Christmas card and have plans for a steampunk holiday card as well.

In addition to the set up of the Zazzle shop, I have also resurrected the Very Scary Art blog. I had only meant to take a little time off from the blog to give me a chance to catch up on other work, but ended up being away for five months instead. That’s five months too long, and I’ve already slapped myself on the hand and cried, “Bad blogger! Bad, bad blogger!” I’m making changes to how I do the blog posts to make it easier for me to continue working on Very Scary. Meanwhile, our first new blog post in months is now up at Very Scary. Go take a look!

And, um, that’s it. That’s all the news I’ve got. I’m getting back into my regular blogging schedule and will be working on writing today at the public library. I have some interesting projects in the works and I will see next week if I can get a WIP Wednesday post up so you can all see what I’m working on.

Now go SHOP!

Freaky Friday! So I changed my tag line

Take a look at the header graphic for the site. Notice that something has changed? I have replace the tag line of “Stay-at-home mom and erotica writer” with “Motherhood made me EVIL!!!”

Why the change, you may ask? (Or maybe you’re not asking. Maybe you don’t care. Maybe you’re too busy eating Cheetohs, in which case I hate you for not sharing any with me.) The change is for a couple of reasons, the main one being…

I am not simply a stay-at-home mom and erotica writer. Not that there was ever anything simple about that. However, while I have primarily written in the erotica genre for the last ten years, this website was never really an erotica writer’s website. You never saw a lot of story excerpts here, no contests or give-aways, no big book releases or anything like that. Yeah, I’ve talked about writing erotica from time to time, and I have occasionally put up some stories here, but 99% of my erotica work has been poured straight into the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast, and let’s be honest, Heat Flash is the perfect place for it. It’s a site dedicated entirely to speculative fiction erotica. If that’s what you want, that’s exactly what you get there, and you can find plenty of it all on that one website. It’s focused and direct, and that’s made it a great platform for my odd little stories of erotic fiction.

This website though, the Cynical Woman site, has always been more of a mish-mash of stuff, from the web comics to the artwork to the occasional (okay, the frequent) rant about my life as a mom. An evil mom. A mom who really does have devil horns coming out her head (hey, have you seen me at conventions? The horns are real!!). So as much fun as it is to be a stay-at-home mom and erotica writer, and as catchy as that tag line is, it really doesn’t cover the full theme of this site. And that theme is…

Motherhood has made me evil.

Oh, I was evil before I had kids, but I never really understood the true extent of my nature until after I had them. Giving birth to and caring for a couple of vicious man-eating rug rats has led me to the discovery that I am the kind of parent who enjoys trying to civilize such savage little beasts. I get a kick out of sending a screaming kid to her bedroom and I have no hesitations about handing out time-outs or sweeping through a messy bedroom with a trashbag and vindictive will to enact a scorched earth policy on anything the little ones refused to pick up and put away like they were told to fifty-million times. I am the mom who shows up at a Catholic school, with hair dyed pink and blue and purple, to discuss volunteer hours with the nuns, and then I go home to write erotica stories for the Coming Together charity anthologies. I am the mom who sells cookies for Girl Scouts by cheerfully advertising that yes, those cookies really are made of real Girl Scouts and I made them myself. See my bloody hands? Now please, buy a few boxes and support the Girl Scouts. I play Wii Fit while drinking Choco-Vine wine (although to be honest, the person who decided to combine wine and chocolate is far more evil than I). I sew zombie dolls on the sidelines while waiting for my daughters’ karate classes to end. I am the mom who will save your sorry ass should said zombie dolls ever come to life and take over the world… unless I decide to be the mom who feeds your sorry ass to my zombie babies, because hey, they’re cute and they need to eat too!

In short, I am not your mama’s “Yo Mama!” Rather, I am a strange new species of bitchy breeder all together, and that’s what this website has always been about. So I changed the tag line to “Motherhood has made me EVIL!!!” Yes, you will still see the occasional mention of erotica stories and artwork here, and you can always go to Heat Flash if you want more. Because I’m still a stay-at-home mom and I still write erotica.

I’m just really, really evil, too.

‘Nuff said.

Art Gallery is up!

I’ve spent a couple of days fussing over how best to put together an art gallery for the new site. The current set-up isn’t exactly perfect, but it does seem to work pretty good right now. I’ve got two categories up so far, including cover art I’ve created for e-book publishers and male pin-ups (if you don’t like looking at naked men, don’t visit that part of the gallery; if you do visit that part of the gallery anyway, don’t come whining to me over what you see there!).

Take a look and let me know what you think – The Cynical Woman Art Gallery!

Blog up!

Okay, I’ve spent months saying I need to integrate my various websites into one site so I can manage them better. Right now, I’ve got www.helenehmadden.com for the erotica stuff and www.cynicalwoman.blogspot.com as my usual day-to-day blog, which sort of works, accept that it’s giving me a split personality complex (am I a mom? an erotica writer? which one am I today?). Plus it also makes it a real pain in the assets to maintain two blogs and two sites (yes, there was originally a much different site up at this URL, with all sorts of cool flash animation that I found to be a huge pain in the ass to maintain).

To make life easier for myself, I’m building a new site that includes both sides of my life (Only 2 sides? Does that make me only 2 dimensional?).  This is meant to be a website for adults, okay?  Yes, we can talk about family stuff here, but the thing is, this is meant to be a place where parents, especially me, can be an adult and talk about adult things and share my very adult work.  If you have a problem with the idea of a mom being an erotica writer, then please go bury your head in the sand some place else!

For the time being, I’ll continue to make my usual blog posts to the other two websites, while also making them here.  The appearance of this blog will be making changes over the next month or so until I’ve got the final look, but for now, I just want to kick things off by saying, hello world, the blog is here.