So, because this is my day off I'm updating like crazy, and one of my biggest updates is that I'm moving and the space is prettier and bigger than ever! The biggest epic development is the fact that I'm getting an office in my apt that will be--wait for it--TAX DEDUCTIBLE!! Totally psyched. So I'm planning my office and this is what I have   in mind...

My walls:

And yes, that red chair needs to be there. I'm very inspired by this style. It's clean and feminine but not the kind of room that's going to make my boy friend squeal to be in... which he will rarely be because, this is my lair, bitches.

So Amalynne is getting an office and has been spending far too much time at Ethan Allen *head desk*... how am  still going to Jamaica this summer? GAH! I will take pictures once we paint and I have "the lair" complete :D

*NEWSFLASH*

Latest renderings sent from the creative group in charge of things I will never control (such as cover and promotional art and things they really should listen to me about). I was sent a couple character digital art pieces but this one was the closest...while simultaneously being the furthest from my imagination. It's just like being a mother strolling the mall, passing Abercrombie and Fitch and seeing your son in an larger than life androgynous shirtless ad plastered in the window. Um, yeah... awkward. 

Dear target market (ladies 15 to 25) what do you think of the art I've been sent? Feedback would be helpful. If you're wondering about the tone of the novel in question just reference posts with The Company tag or read the ad copy I was sent by the marketing team...


There were seven, and Langdon always pictured them lounging in shadows like lazy kings, two at the center of the fray with wilder, hungrier eyes, battling for the final say. Unhinged, nameless, unattached, they ruled from the alleys and smoke-filled drug dens, controlling the pulse of pleasure. And so, the very heartbeat of Nysius was run by teenage tycoons reveling in the shadows of the Eastern temple and smirking at the sins of the clergy. This was the Company, and even Langdon didn’t really know them, but goddess almighty, he wanted to be them. 

What I think--sardonically, I might add--about the art I have been given:

I, Amalynne, have had an interesting few months. Chaos and creativity have taken me from East to West Coast, to the highest point in my life and the lowest, and somehow, I'm left feeling miraculous, successful and more empowered than ever. I know vagaries don't do anything for you, but I just had to get that out... because I've been gone and I'm back... and I hope for a while.

Today is my first day off in a long, long time. I woke up last night, bolt upright, and had a panic attack about all the things I want to do in this life, while my ass is still firm, while I still get taken for a high school student, while I still use too much profanity, while I still think 40 sounds old, while college is still a pleasant echo away, while Lulu Lemon is still too expensive... though I did buy a pair of pants from them--regrettably. I made a lot of concessions this year, some big, some small. I bought a mac when I'd vowed for years not to, committed to an apartment even closer to the beach, took on more clients even though I was starting to resent them, got a trainer, and actually started going to the doctors. Big girl, this has been a big year and it's only April. 

I was also diagnosed with Lupus.

I didn't realize what kind of changes this would mean for my life, most of which I cringe at, but are for the best. More conscious of my human frailty, I've started taking my health more seriously and this is just another thing I must sigh about... adulthood is so obnoxiously serious. Fuck it. Really. I'm in a stage in which I'm rebelling against my adulthood and finding myself regrettably converted--in those banal, financial areas of life. I'm still not the person you want teaching in a public school or in a government position, or even corporate, because I am fabulously free of filter and if my clients don't like it, they can just as easily find a digital marketer with the same kind of specialized portfolio and bend-over-backwards-until-your'e-happy commitment (sarcasm). This is the beauty of self-employment and the beauty of the hustle. I think of one of my favorite TedTalks, Rethinking Unpopular, by branding genius, Erika Napoletano. If you have an ample 20 minutes I recommend watching it, but if you don't Erika is merely arguing that in order to stick to your target market, your key customers, you have to be true to yourself, you have to be unpopular. You can't meet the demand of the entire market, you can't be everything to everyone. In fact, if you're small, if you're a little guy, you should be niche, you should be specialized, perfect for some, unpopular to others. My personality plays into this a lot. I believe in a reader's digest approach to life, tasks, and interactions with clients--except of course when I'm venting on my own blog. I'm a fabulous hypocrite sometimes.

Feel however you may, but I'm not suited to deal with bullshit and I've tried corporate, laughed in its face and surprised myself by conquering on my own in the last two years. Everyone is different and I don't feel the need to explain it to my peers to seek their approval anymore. I used to try to say that I had issues with corporate ethics, that you were just a number, that opportunities for advancement in this economy are meager... but that's not really the truth, as far as I was concerned. 

I hated being told what to do by people that I didn't respect. I hated making decisions I knew were wrong because someone with a higher pay-grade told me to.

I hated it so much I used to come home and cry. I wasn't going to tell my old college friends this, and I don't need to. I don't need to, because the hustle is enough for me now, the next job and the next, the game of planning, the game of landing that bigger, better job. I used to wait tables and there was something addicting about that kind of hustle. Freelancing is a different kind of hustle, it's a lot less of one job description and all lot more of many, it's being a writer, a consultant, a teacher, an artist, a programer, a researcher, all in the areas of marketing for small business...bigger businesses, even bigger business, and ultimately big business. 

But... I, in all this discovery, find myself void of the time needed to follow my first passion, and that is writing. Today I've taken about thirty minute to shower you with my feelings because I just.really.need.to. Camping out at my absolute favorite coffee shop in my little beachside community, JC Beans, I sit with my headphones wedged in snuggly, listening to the chill, steely beats of Tame Impala, ready to fix what need be fixed, edit what need be edited, so I don't put my dreams on hold any longer--or send my publisher over the edge with impatience. [Now that was a run-on sentence!!]

ALSO! I've noticed lately that my oldest of old fan fiction, The Ever Secret Diary of Sirius Black, has been getting some serious action on Wattpad. This year marked the ten year anniversary of this very old, very beloved fan fiction and it is STILL, to this day, getting so much love. I want to thank my loyal fan-ficianados over the years for your readership, you are tirelessly fabulous! Also, I have been writing some new fan fiction for my current obsession, The Raven Cycle, by the talented Maggie Stiefvater. I'll be posting it to my tumblr eventually or any of the appropriate fan fiction mediums out there today. Tumblr and Wattpad kind of seem the hubs for that sort  of thing. 

So, with that long-winded update, I shall leave you with my current, lumbering obsession: