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macfrog · 2 months

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Just me up at 2am wondering how many times Joel replays that wedding hotel room night in his head 🤔

warnings: breeding kink, pregnancy, m masturbation, desperately horny joel word count: ~600 words

i think he thinks about that entire night and wonders what the fuck even happened there. the way the world tilted ever so slightly the moment he pulled open his front door and saw her on his porch – sunlight twinkling from her earrings, satin draped over her breasts in pale waves; the shameless flirting under the cover of rosé wine and beer, string bulbs and rainbow disco lights.

i mean, one minute he’s waving his newspaper at her like a grumpy old man, counting down the seconds until she’s skipping back over to her own fucking porch – the next he’s caging her against the bed in her hotel room, thinking if he doesn’t fuck her here n now, he might tear the entire place apart.

between the wedding and three weeks later? yeah, he might think about it – just a little.

might think about her dress, the shape of her body beneath it. the way it fell from her hips – just slipped down over her curves and pooled at her feet like venus emerging from the ocean. might think about her naked body: how, until that night, he’d only ever wondered about it – stealing sideways glances over the fence at her little shorts and tight vest tops. but now…now, he knows what she looks like. he’s seen her undress for him.

and i bet he thinks about her soft gasp when he first pushed inside, after she finally caught her breath again; feeling the size of him inside her, how he knew she didn’t expect him to be so big and so fucking hard for her. how much he had to focus on not coming within five thrusts, she was so fucking tight.

bet he thinks about it in the shower, one hand against the tiled wall, the other jacking himself furiously. mouthing the words he whispered in her ear as their bodies rocked together: how good she is for him, how pretty she looks all full of his cock. bet he still hears the echo of her moans, the sweet little laughs lilting from her lips.

and when he finds out she’s pregnant? shit.

when he’s watching the evidence of what they did grow right before his eyes? her body blooming: stomach swelling, breasts growing, her cheeks plumping and her skin glowing? knows that he’s the one who changed her forever? knows that it’s his baby she’s growing?

sure. he probably thinks about that part a normal amount, too.

and i bet he thinks about how he shouldn’t be thinking about it. about her.

not when he’s sure she wouldn’t look at him ever again, if not for their parallel driveways and the parallel lines on that pregnancy test. not when he’s trying to act his fucking age, date someone actually appropriate for a forty-eight-year-old with backache and still two decades off retirement.

but it makes it worse – the fact he shouldn’t be doing it. shouldn’t be relieving the heavy weight between his legs in the morning with the memory of her lips closing around his fingers, playing on a reel behind his eyelids.

shouldn’t be staring into space while he’s driving, hearing her giggles once they’d finished; feeling her nails as she drew shapes on his sweat-sticky chest. shouldn’t be thinking about her wandering around with his baby inside of her; her body growing ‘n changing all ‘cause of what they did together.

he shouldn’t be. he shouldn’t he shouldn’t he shouldn’t but jesus, he is. you fucking know he is.

dear reader, joel has absolutely wrecked the tape, the number of times he’s replayed that night. the vhs player is smoking.

#thank you for putting thoughts in my head and distracting me for the afternoon #i got zero work done from 1pm onwards :-)#chats w max #anon #sweet child o' mine #tw pregnancy

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rachel-alderson · 7 years

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Creating a daily schedule as a freelancer + new process video.

I did start this blog post off, intending for it to be one, single post, however after writing the first section and doing a word count I realised that it just wasn't going to happen, so I'm going to make this into a month long series covering organisation/planning of your time as a freelancer. There's also a new process video at the bottom of my recent Junkrat fan art for those who like to watch an illustration from start to finish!

I've recently had the awesome opportunity of jumping into freelancing full time for a while, I'm just testing the waters right now, but it's a great learning experience and every aspect of being self employed full time is trial and error and also differs greatly for each individual. Seeing as this journey is forcing me to change my ways to benefit myself and my business to the fullest, I thought I would share what I've learnt where I can for others in a similar position.

The biggest thing I've been struggling with so far is my daily schedule. I have a huge interest (borderline obsession) with reading other artists daily routines and schedules to figure out how they do what they do, when they do it and what sort of hours they work. It is always really informative, but also really damaging at the same time. A lot of creatives, no matter what industry they work in like to get up extremely early, like 4-5AM, 6AM at a push and start their day straight away, being so productive that they can finish up around 2PM and then sometimes carry on going for a few hours late in the evening. Either that or they are the other way round and work until 4-5AM in the morning.

So I'm going to cover, and break down what I've been doing lately to improve my schedule and productivity, I have only just started this so it'll be worth me revisiting and updating this blog post in a few months time. Planning and organising your days will be the topic of next week's post.

WORKING HOURS

First of all, I refuse to work really late into the early morning, if it was a big project or I'd fallen behind on a deadline then fair enough, but it's not something I will intentionally introduce into my schedule, I know it does work for some people but I just feel like you have night and day for a reason, and I can safely say from working night shifts in retail, it does not do kind things to your well being!

So when I set out as a full time freelancer a few weeks ago, it was the first time in about 5 years that I've actually been able to have two days off a week instead of zero or one, and I decided to make those the weekend, because it's pretty standard, it's when everyone else is off so it's easier to see people and do things. So I knew I'd be working Monday to Friday and my first schedule was to start around 10am and finish around 7PM with an hour break in between, that wasn't quite working so I changed it to 8AM-5PM with an hour break around 12PM. I tried these for over a week each, both times usually starting out with some warm up sketches, because that's what a lot of artist's do, or working on personal projects first thing and then working on client projects throughout the day. I always have a few client projects on the go, so as long as I was keeping to my deadlines, I just worked on whatever I fancied, always making sure to do a to-do list the night before.

But it just wasn't working, every day, no matter what, mid-afternoon I just absolutely crashed, I didn't want to be sat at my desk, I got really distracted and just wanted to get up, even to the point where I really wanted to do housework/chores just to get up for a bit. I thought that I just wasn't concentrating enough, maybe losing focus or just making excuses, because I'd read so much about how other artists work I thought that that's how I should be too. Then I came to the realisation that in the middle of the afternoon, I just wasn't productive work wise, I always become fidgety and want to be doing something else. Being self employed, we can set our own schedules, and we are our own motivation and encouragement so it's important to know when you're most productive and use that to your advantage. It isn't wrong to work weird hours compared to everyone else, you just have to do what's best for you.

So that's what I did, and it's been working great. First of all, I don't sleep very well, I get really tired from around 10PM onwards, but if I try to sleep then, I can lay in bed for hours and still be wide awake. So I'm happy now going to sleep around 1AM, I get up around 8-8.30AM and get a shower, get dressed, make a coffee etc. and start my day out by answering any emails, the warm up sketching first thing doesn't work for me, because my brain takes a while to come out of sleep mode and I feel like if I have client projects that people are waiting on then I should work on those, and that nags at me when I sketch first thing, again it's not wrong if it works for you, but it just isn't for me. If I do feel like sketching I will though, but I don't force it and sometimes save sketching for when I need an eye break from the computer, and then I'll start working around 10AM (or earlier if I feel like it) and I'll focus this time purely on client projects, sometimes watching a Twitch stream whilst I do so for some background noise. I work for 3 hours and finish at 1PM, this is key for me, because it's the time when I become least productive creatively, and it used to make me feel really guilty taking a long break mid day, however, it's better to take a break and start fresh at a more productive time, than carry on working, get nothing done, but then have to work late into the evening to finish everything up (which is what I used to do). I then have a break for 2 hours, doing chores, having some lunch, playing some games and sometimes sketching and working on personal goals, whatever I fancy really.

Once I've had that break I feel really ready to get back to work, so I start working again at 3PM up until around 8-9PM with a short break in the middle for something to eat. I write my to do list for the next day, and then for another 2 hours I work on personal projects or stream on Twitch, I don't have to do this, and I could happily leave it out if needed, but I have my own goals and I enjoy working towards them. I used to do this every day first thing, before I even checked my phone but I found that I sometimes lost myself in the project, so now I do this at the end of the day because it's something I really look forward to. Around 10-11PM I finish up properly, get in bed and either watch a film or play a game for a couple of hours, this is when I can really chill out for a bit. It does leave my day pretty packed, however I'm finding that I'm getting so much more done, and the quality and speed of my work has improved a TON, which I'm extremely happy about. Now that I have the weekends off too, it means that I can really knuckle down on weekdays, be productive, feel good about it and then unwind on my days off.

A FEW TIPS FOR ADJUSTING YOUR OWN DAILY SCHEDULE

WORK OUT WHEN YOU'RE MOST PRODUCTIVE HOURS ARE

The best way to do this is to either pay attention to yourself or start a diary and note down how you feel and when. I shrugged off the fact that I slumped everyday in the afternoon as me just not concentrating, I should've listened to my body and made the changes needed. For some people their most productive period comes first thing, so they do all the difficult tasks first and then carry on working through a less productive period so that they working hours are all in one segment, personally I prefer to work at my two peak chunks of time and do other things in my less productive periods, there really is no right or wrong.

THINK ABOUT HOW YOU CAN WORK TO BENEFIT YOUR CLIENTS

The way I work now is much more beneficial to my clients because I can reply to any queries first thing and catch up on any feedback that might affect the projects I'm working on that day. I personally like to really involve my clients in the process, so solidly working on something for those first 3 hours and then having a 2 hour break means that I can make a substantial amount of progress, send it over to them and they then have a decent window of time to get back to me. I'm going to cover this a little more in next weeks blog post too though so check back for that.

WORK BLOODY HARD, ESPECIALLY ON YOUR PERSONAL IDEAS

If you add up the maximum hours I could potentially work on my current schedule, excluding time spent streaming or working on personal projects after finishing client work, it ends up being around 9-10 hours. So to then go and work another 2 hours on a personal project or do a Twitch stream seems pretty exhausting, and it is, but I already feel incredibly lucky to be able to do what I do, so I ensure I put a full days work into client projects first and foremost because they pay my bills, but to then be able to put in another couple of hours on projects that I'm really excited about is really motivating and in all honesty, sometimes I carry them on for 3-4 hours. I'm prepared to do this 1. Because it doesn't matter how much you earn or what your client list is, the best thing about being creative is being creatively fulfilled and the best way to do that is through personal projects, because you can do whatever you like and 2. Because the weekend is my time to chill, I do no creative work on Sundays and sometimes do some editing on a Saturday morning and that's it, so other than that I feel like I should and can put my full effort into my personal and career goals throughout the week. This is not at all to say anyone should over work because that's wrong, but you should be doing all that you can to become a better version of yourself and that also includes taking time out and taking days off to refresh.

DON'T FEEL GUILTY

It is extremely common and very easy to feel guilty about having a day off, especially when you run your own business, there are multiple reasons for this and although I think a lot of creatives will be able to relate to that feeling of guilt, they will also know how important it is to take some time out. I think this is more relevant when you're first starting out, I've been doing this professionally for 3 years now, and even though I now devote myself to it full time, I still find it really hard to take time off because I honestly don't know what to do with myself, and even when I do find something to do, I feel like I'm wasting my life and should be working, sometimes I even want to be working, especially on my own projects, which I think is a little different, but it's still important to take sometime to properly detach yourself from it all completely. Yeah you might lose out on a day or two of work that you could be doing but you'll gain that back throughout the week because you'll be more productive and motivated, in turn getting more done!

I hope this was valuable to at least one person out there, as usual for posts like this, I could write for days but I think this covers it all in a simple way, next week I'll be writing about organising and planning as a freelancer, which again, is something I've recently had to become more serious about!

And as promised, here's the process video for my Junkrat fan art!

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recordofmyreverie · 7 years

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It’s About the Ride, Not the Destination (November 2016)

Eventually the month of October flew by pretty fast. I was having too much fun, but it came time to pay my really expensive speeding ticket in Georgia. While I originally had booked another reservation with Paulette in Panama City Beach for this time, I needed to cancel it because I wasn’t going to see anyone anymore. I didn’t even know if that person was still there or not.

I told her over Airbnb chat that if that person somehow showed up at her door, to give him the middle finger for me. Assuming he wasn’t very confrontational since he liked to run away, I didn’t think he’d really show up though.

I considered still going all the way to Florida just to knock on his door and give him a scare. Or I thought about just going to the beach and seeing what I could have done while I was there instead.

I didn’t do any of that though. It would have been a huge waste of time, and a lot more trouble than it was worth. Instead, I opted for a tour of Georgia to convince myself that this state wasn’t so bad after all. I was trying to look on the bright side and see what made this state so peachy.

I planned to drive up to a place called Helen, Georgia, in the mountains which resembled a German town, and then from there I’d spend the night in Athens.

When I arrived in Helen, the first thing I noticed was a lot of Confederate flags. The second thing I noticed was a lot of people wearing Confederate flags in the German restaurant. People that were all white and staring at me. It also didn’t help that it was two days before the election, and I was definitely in Trump country.

Finishing what I could of the reindeer and purple cabbage I had ordered, I wasted no time at all getting out of Helen, GA. It was extremely touristy, and not very authentic German at all. There were also, strangely, mannequins at fake windows that sold funnel cakes. It was a bit disappointing to walk up to one of the windows to see a dummy and then feel like one for talking to one on accident. There was really nothing there except a lot of gift shops that sold the same crap.

Onward to Athens!

Driving through Georgia, there were so many more Trump signs than when I’d driven through in September. The crops were also mostly dead by now, so there was no more drowsiness from seas of cotton. I’d only seen one field of cotton, and that was on the way out.

Athens was definitely a more progressive town. You could see that there was art, music venues, cool restaurants, so it was my kind of place. I’m glad a place like that existed amongst all the red. Unfortunately, I stopped by there on a Monday night, so there wasn’t much going on. I stopped at a bar called the Manhattan Café to have a glass of Sangria, and then I went to the record store called Low YoYo Stuff where I met a cool guy named Christian and talked to him about music for about 3 hours while we drank LaCroix.

I’d never even heard of LaCroix until it started getting popular on the internet as a “hipster drink” and there I was, chatting to the record store clerk while drinking this stuff and having the most stereotypical accidental hipster experience ever. I told him that I liked to drive long distances and that I needed something to help me stay awake. I liked instrumental, but I didn’t want to fall into a trance and fall asleep on the road. He tested out a few CDs for me, and I ended up buying a 2-Disc set by Aphex Twin and the Low album by David Bowie. He was so easy to talk to, and he inspired me to stop by a record store every time I found one because it was an exciting way to find new music through the suggestions of the people who worked there.

I left the store after accidentally staying there 30 minutes after it had closed because we had so much fun listening to music, and then I walked to a donut shop to buy some donuts for my friend, Mia who I spontaneously decided to visit the next day since I was down south already. I texted her when I was in Athens to ask her if she was going to be busy the next day, and she said she was actually off for the whole day, so it was perfect timing.

I slept in Athens at an Airbnb that was some guy in grad school’s apartment. I never met him. It was kinda like I was never there, and he even said that in his review about me. We’d talked through the chat about where I could go and cool places to eat, but that was about it. The next morning, I got up early to go in the direction of Warwick, Georgia, but I actually had some extra time, so I went to see Providence Canyon State Park in Lumpkin, Georgia. It was about an hour away from Warwick, where I had to pay my ticket, and it looked like a small-scale Grand Canyon.

After seeing what sights I could see in Georgia before having to fork over a lot of money, I arrived in Warwick on November 8th. It was election day, so everyone was at the courthouse voting. They had moved the location of the actual court to the police station, and people had to sit outside on chairs on the lawn for the hearing. Every single one of them was out-of-state. I thought that my ticket was bad, but then I witnessed grown men cry because their tickets were even worse. One ticket was $800 because of lapsed insurance.

I patiently waited to pay for my ticket, and I just wanted to get out of there, so I already had my money in an envelope in the exact amount that I needed to pay. I didn’t expect them to want $50 more than what they’d asked for online, nor did I expect to need a probation officer to report to for 12 months and have to pay an additional $100 a month. I thought the $580 was enough, but I guess not.

Doing a quick internet search after I left, I found that it’s actually better to not pay your ticket to Georgia because then they won’t bother you anymore. If you do the right thing and do pay, they’ll ask you for more money. I tried to do the right thing anyways and paid my fine, then called the probation officer when I was supposed to, but there was only such a small window of time for me to do that. It was the first Thursday of every month at 11am-1pm, and twice I’d called and heard that she was the only officer on duty and was on her lunch break.

I never got a hold of the officer. I never paid the extra fines. How could I when they were unavailable? Too busy eating lunch, so not my fault.

For extra measure, I changed my phone number. I was reinventing myself anyways, so why not have a new number identity as well?

After paying my ticket, all of what I saw of Georgia was good enough to have zero desire to return. I got into my car and drove for 5 hours to Mobile, Alabama. It would have been less, but I hit rush-hour traffic on the way.

#makeitworthyourtime #worthyourmoney #speedingticket #don'tspeedingeorgia #athens #helen #georgia #won'tgoback #providencecanyon #lowyoyostuff #electiontime #2016election #blog #november #2016

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