“What the hell did I just step in?!” A dog owners tale.

Well my holiday from writing is over, so it’s nose back to the grindstone. I went to bed last night full of enthusiasm for getting back to work. After all my webcomic goes live Friday week (January 25th). I finally have a really good laptop, capable of running all my various creative programs, on a pretty 17″ screen. I’ve, at long last, settled on my next novel to finish first drafting (that only took a full year to decide while I wrote the first ten chapters on three different ones.) I have some pretty interesting plans for my video blog, ideas which I think will make a lot of people very happy, and a lot more wish for my slow death over a hot fire. Yup, I have every possible reason for being excited about this year, this is gonna be a BIG year for me.

So it was with a serious hop in my step that I got out of bed this morning. I honestly have been looking forward to getting back to work in a way that’s hard to describe, it’s that intense. So get up, get dressed, wash teeth, dress the bed, and wander downstairs. My buoyant mood lasted right up until I walked in to my living room.

My two puppies sleep in the living room, Lulu in her cage, Winter on the couch. It’s only fair when the alternative is my bathroom, which frankly is so cold that I’m surprised when my pee doesn’t make the same sound as hail hitting a tin roof. At least in the living room there also lives my log burner, which is pretty much always toasty warm. Yeah, I’m just a big softy. Sometimes I forget to put on my slippers coming downstairs, I did this morning. So after walking in, I was almost instantly left wondering the most horrible though which most dog owners will probably have pass through their minds several times a year.

“What feels cold and wet on my foot?”

The second worst thought closely followed.

“Why is Winter hiding behind the couch?”

Then the third.

“Why does she have that guilty expression on her face?”

Well it turns out that the bigger of my furry children had been violently sick just inside the door. And on the power block for my 2 days old laptop. And on the kitchen door.

Still buoyant though. Yup. The alternative was to drown in dog vomit. So yeah…

So yeah, Happy New Year folks.

(And yes folks you read it first time right here, my long, LOOOOOOONG delayed comic goes live Friday the 25th. I can not wait.)

So we’ve all survived another year…

…and yet another supposed apocalypse. If you’re reading this then you probably survived Christmas, that or you contracted a zombie flu, in which case congratulations on being one of those very rare intelligent zombies.

Anyway, insanity aside, welcome to the first post of the New Year. Huzzah! It’s 2013 and my Goddesses aren’t we all just frikkin’ delighted to be out of 2012.

Another year of nightmare budgets.

Another year of scandal followed by yet more scandals.

Another year where to rich became richer, while the poor shouldered the cost of this new Great Depression.

And sure there were highlights, the Olympics, the Apocalypse failing to appear again. The Robert Downey Jnr. doing yet another wonderful rendition of himself in Avengers Assemble.Oh and this very blog passing the 40,000 views mark after less than two years in existence.

But I think when the history of 2012 is laid out for posterity it will without any doubt be painted in drab, depressing tones.

But that year is in the past now, time to start looking towards the future. And what does that future hold? I can’t speak for the world but for me personally, well this year’s gonna be something special.

My PC having died about a month ago, combined with my ongoing health problems conspired to put my video blog on hiatus. Well I will, thanks to a little help from some very special people, be receiving a brand new Dell laptop in the next two weeks. A mobile platform at last. So the video blog will be returning with some serious vengeance, and let me tell you folks…I have plans!

That same laptop is the final piece in the puzzle of my long promised webcomic. Very soon the first pages will be online for one and all to enjoy.

With the New Year comes the time that I finally have to settle on one writing project. So with ten chapters written each of two separate novels, I will in the next week decide on which take priority, and aim to have its first draft finished by around my birthday. Of course then I’ll have to get the second done as well. So busy busy.

All that said, my health as I’ve mentioned before is giving me a lot of problems right now. And it’s been joined in the past 24 hours by a dose of flu. So, in the interests of my sanity, I’m now going to take a fortnight’s holiday while I await the arrival of my new electronic baby. I’ll be back with my next post on Thursday the 17th. This is going to be sweet, two weeks of me and my brand new Xbox. I sense much Halo, and Skyrim in my future.

So for now have a Happy New Year. May we all have a better one than the last, though let’s face it, that won’t exactly be a struggle.

Seriously Irish Retailers? You Call That a Sale?

Having received a gift voucher as one of my gifts over Xmas I decided yesterday (Thursday) to convince my Partner in Crime that she really wanted to take me to Liffey Valley Shopping Center. After all I’d been such a good Puppygirl over Xmas, how could she deny my whimpering and the simpering eyes? As it turns out she couldn’t. Or at least she wanted to get out of the house, and I was as good an excuse as any to do so.

Unfortunately the Christmas Sales (at least in Liffey Valley) turned out to be something of a damp squib. Not in the customer numbers, you could barely walk through a lot of the shops yesterday without bumping into people, or stepping on children. No it was more an issue of what was on offer, as in, sweet fuck all! I was actually kind of disgusted. So was my PiC.

The only shop that had anything decent that was both available, and well priced was New Look. HMV, which I had the voucher for, had mostly their normal regular deals. Which is something I love about HMV, if you pop in regularly you’ll always find something nice to listen, watch, or play at a good price, regardless of the time of year. But that was pretty much all they had on offer in their “Sales”. The few clothing stores I looked in, all seemed to have decided that the word “Sale” actually meant “See all that shite in the corner that no-one bought? Yeah, throw it on the rails at its original price, people are thick they won’t notice.”

Now I accept that the sales always include a certain amount of that. And sometimes it’s cool, there’s a piece that I wanted to get, and for one reason or another I missed when it was on regular retail. But so many Irish retailers seem to have done nothing else this sale. All the while laughing up their sleeves at the muppets who didn’t notice…

Well I noticed. And I was not impressed.

New Year, New Plans.

So how was everyone New Years Eve? Did everyone enjoy their hangovers? Wonderful.

Well this is the first post of the new year, and it’s more by way of a notice of some minor temporary changes to my posting schedule. Now don’t panic, you will be getting your regular three doses of Amanda Harper brand insanity. In fact I rather hope that in this my second year of running this blog I will achieve new heights of both entertainment, and all round randomness.

But, and this is an important but, I am up to my rather shapely breasts in writing the first draft of my second novel. What’s more I have a self-inflicted deadline of my birthday at the beginning of March to achieve. So what does this mean for your tri-weekly dose of random ruminations? Well usually I try for about 1,000 words per piece. Sometimes it’s a little less, sometimes it’s a little more. But I think it averages out at about the thousand words. Well from now until I finish that first draft I’m afraid I’ll be trimming down the length of most of my posts to allow myself more novel writing time.

Of course once the first draft is done and dusted we will be returning to our usual programming. But until then I hope you continue to enjoy my site, even if I’m not quite as vociferous as usual.

So eight weeks to write 30ish chapters. Let the mental torture begin…crap, writers block!

And here comes the next one.

Last week I wrote an article speaking about what the past year has meant to me. This week I want to do much the same, this time though writing about how I hope the on coming year will play out.

So this year I hope fervently for the following things to become true.

I hope my friendships grow stronger, including somehow my finding a way to go see those I haven’t seen for far too long because they are in other countries.

I hope my romantic relations go from strength to strength. This of course also includes any unrequited ones, just because it’s unrequited doesn’t make it wonderful to feel.

I hope to be a better slavegirl, making my Miss more proud of me. Or you know, proud of me, sometimes being a brat is hard work.

I hope to forge a truly strong loving D/s dynamic of some kind from a dominant side with someone special. I suppose I should write another letter to Satan Claws on this subject.

By my birthday in March I hope to have finished the first draft of my second novel, a science fiction action romance if you’re interested.

And I hope to have performed, and released the first part of what promises to be a very long-term YouTube project.

In the coming year I intend to lay the ground work for a one woman business of my own, which will run parallel to my writing. You can most definitely expect to hear a lot about that in the coming years.

I intend to experiment with some burlesque type fun. Yes, of course there’ll be videos uploaded.

I’ll even walk the dog more, thus making her incredibly peeved off with me for waking her in the wee small hours. Don’t you just love walking along darkened, lonely canals in the arse end of nowhere alone in the middle of the night? No? Just me then.

Even more ukulele skills will be learned. One of these days I’ll master strumming.

And the mandolin will become my other instrument of choice. But I point black refuse to learn “Copperhead Road.” What a cliché.

With a little luck I’ll find myself living in Maynooth, with its shopping, and commuter service to Dublin City. Not to mention all the pretty, bipedal scenery provided by its university.

I will be finding a counsellor, things are moving in my mind, and while I may or may not post about them (while I think some people might find it healing to read about what’s churning in my head right now, it is also an intensely personal and difficult subject for me to even think about right now, much less write about.) I will most definitely need help in truly assimilating my new reality.

I will be playing my ukulele on webcam for my blog. I mean you don’t practice for hours most days just for your own enjoyment. Besides as anyone who knows me can attest, I am something of an exhibitionist.

Beyond this I don’t know, what I hope will come. But I do hope that it will be a better year than the one that is about to end. I hope my nation will claw its way back from the brink. I hope my friends and family will be happy, loved and have no reason to experience pain or fear. I hope the guys who give me hassle keep turning out to have glass jaws, because damn it but I love it when they act big and bad, only to go down like Sonny Liston.

Another Year Gone

Over today, and this day week I intend to post two related posts. One about the year I’ve just lived through, one about my hopes and dreams for the year to come. Today we start with the year that’s past.

This year has been one of the hardest I’ve ever lived through. It’s also, perhaps been one of the best. My health was horrific for all of it. My emotions all over the place from permanent exhaustion. I don’t remember a time where I felt more like my body was at war with me.

And yet this year I achieved a life long dream when I completed the final polish on my first novel. I even received some very positive feedback from a literary agent about it, even if she did advise me to sit on it a while until the publishing industry recovers from the recession.

I also realised that being a writer simply isn’t enough for me. I love writing, I love that side of being creative, but I need more, I need to feel fulfilled. So after a great deal of thought I have come to an understanding of what I want to be. Though more about that next week.

My relationships seem to have mostly strengthened. And I’ve welcomed new people into my life. Some far more special than others, but all precious to me none the less.

I reconnected with an ex of mine, and have high hopes of regaining my friendship with her.

My dog Winter finally stopped growing, thankfully before she became so large that there was no space left for me in the apartment. Although she now does seem to produce her own bodyweight in poop each day.

I started a blog, this blog in fact, thanks to the seemingly constant prodding from an adopted lil sister to do so, and seem to have made something of a success out of it. It certainly has helped me in improving my writing abilities.

I started three “second” novels, before finally settling on one. Expect to hear a lot about that in the New Year.

I started to learn to play a musical instrument. Found I actually have a bit of a talent for it. I’m sure you noticed, I’ve blogged a lot about it.

I lost my remaining grandfather to a grave, my remaining grandmother to a stroke.

I gave up on a lot of dreams which I can never physically achieve.

I found new dreams to replace them.

I looked inside, and found once more the need to be a Domina to and owner of someone special. Time will tell with that whether I will ever get to look down into loving, adoring, worshipping eyes again.

I found new strength to be a better slavegirl. Only time will tell if I’m going to end up permanently marked with cane stripes for being cheeky.

2011 was a good year for me. There was heartache, and pain. But over all it was filled with happiness, even if that happiness was occasionally tinged with stress, and stained with tears. I hope yours was as good, or better.

Next week my hopes, dreams, plans, and schemes for the coming year.