The fandom has always been a nice distraction from real life. A place to read amazing stories. Look at gorgeous graphics. Cruise around the blogs I enjoy and of course, twitter and all that it brings you, the good, the bad, and the pretty.

But that was abruptly taken from me recently and I was plunged in to a forced seclusion.

Yep, that's exactly how I felt, a forced seclusion. I had no idea what was going on around me nor any access to news. I didn't even know who won the election until the next day when I went in to the office. My only form of a news outlet was twitter. Can you imagine, twitter as my outlet? That worked out well until all the R/K news took over and then that was it, plunged back in to seclusion  Don't get me wrong, the pics being posted were a nice distraction, but not what I needed. I was chomping at the bit for news of what was going on around me. I knew what was happening in my neighborhood and it wasn't good.

I was without power, heat, and hot water for 10 days. It was horrible but I am thankful that I did not lose my home as so many around me did. Very thankful. We are slowly getting back to normal.

Kind of.

We still have many stores closed, many stores without deliveries and many still without power. Cable is very intermittent as is sanitation pick up. And something I have never experienced, gas rationing. Odd and even days, I am odd so my day is tomorrow to sit on line. So you really have to be sure what you want to do, where you want to go and pretty much base everything around your day to sit on a gas line.  

Everything now is day by day for many of us. You really should stop and appreciate what you have because you never know. I know I am. Even the silliness and at times the stupidity of the fandom.

I really missed the distraction of the fandom and honestly do appreciate it a lot more than I ever did before. And many thanks to those who tweeted checking on me. It was really appreciated and nice to know there were some that were wondering how I was and how things were going.

So....while in my seclusion as I refer to it now, I've had tons of stuff going on that I couldn't post so I am going to give you all a run down now.

I have recently been posting Wolf Fic Recs and News from @JBNP. There are some really great wolf genre stories going on site and lots and lots of happenings. The only drawback is if you don't join the site, you'll miss some great stuff. So join the pack or follow along here where I post the recs with their fanfiction links so everyone can enjoy them.

PMU from SheWolfAwards also made me some new wolf banners to go along with the new postings.

Such a different look. PMU tried out some new techniques using disintegrate and color pencil affect. No idea what that means, but I love the look. You can check out her Artwork Unfinished site to see some more of her amazing and original graphics.

And here they are with some "Paul quotes" for that added special touch. How great are they? I love them...

And some exciting personal news! I won the My Forever Diamond Challenge on SheWolfAwards. This is a great challenge that everyone can participate in. And while most challenges are geared towards the writers, at SheWolfAwards, the site admin PMU runs weekly challenges for character inspirations. It's really just your opinion on what character you love and why they would be great for the Shewolf herself, Leah.

The winner receives a customized banner of their choice reflecting their entry, an interview posted on site, and they also get to choose the next challenge. How great is that? This really is an amazing challenge geared towards the readers.

You can see my winning entry and the graphic I used as inspiration on the challenge page.

I also have some new blog tours going on. I signed up with Jitterbug as a tour host which are a lot of fun. Jitterbug is a site that does PR for writers and arranges hosting of their blog tours. This is a site all writers should check out, especially if you have a new book coming out and want some exposure in the fandom.

So there you have it. A little update and some venting.

Missed you all and so much to catch up on.  ♥