the trick is to keep breathing

...or, How Writing A Completely Gratuitous Good Omens Human AU Winery Based Fanfiction Led Me To A Very Personal Revelation That’s Kind Of Embarrassing, I guess.

I find myself in a place where I am simultaneously handling all of the stresses and changes from the rona very well, with very little concern, and... also not doing very well myself at all. It’s a weird dichotomy. The truth of it is exactly that: I am in fact managing the rona situation just fine, but I myself am not. That. Okay.

( “well” )

been meaning to update just like ive been meaning to do a lot of thingslksdjgldkfjgdf

So here I am 20 days into NaNo and still banging it out like a champ. I’ve had two goose egg days so far, but I’ve had a lot of very productive days as well (esp thanks to lassarina!) and as of today I’m about to be only ~1200 words behind actual target. That’s ~32K of absolutely original fiction I’ve written this month and I’m on track to making it 50K.

The amount was never a question for me - last year, after quitting my job and signing up for the Winterhawk exchange, I wrote 57K in 10 days; that pretty much proved to me that NaNo wouldn’t be about the wordcount - but it was about the habit. Can I write every day on something? Can I write original stuff every day? Can I write it around all the other words I do, for pay and for fandom?

I mean, yeah, sure, looks like I can.

I’ll admit, I went into November with a changed mindset. Having realized I’d been out of industry work for a year absolutely hit me in the head with the what do you have to show for yourself rock, and it led me to a new sort of determination I haven’t seen in a while. NaNo - the act of doing something daily and tracking it - was really just a crutch to get me into new habits. And it’s working — somewhat.

I’ve been much better during the day about dedicating time to words. I can write over 5000 words in one day before my brain really starts to sink. I can switch between original and work and fanfiction as I need. And I’ve been writing (nearly) daily for 20 days now, which was the goal, so yay.

But - as my fucking dumb gay ass should have predicted - regiments and discipline come in steps. And when I’m spending time on original fiction to that degree every day plus my work words, plus fanfiction stuff, I still don’t have time to do much more than... keep up. I’ve made no real progress on unfucking the house; I can keep afloat, but that’s it. Any extras cleaning I’ve done over the last few weeks has been UNdone by days where i can’t get to thinks.

[And, also, crucially and critically: I am sick. I’m sick for the first time in MONTHS, possibly since LAST WINTER. It was a good run while it lasted, but I’ve now been sick for over ten days, sinus infection / flu / fever / cough / sore throat / runny nose / sneezing / aching / stuffed head / gross feeling / no willpower to do anything / naps every day and not the fun gratuitous kind. I do need to note this because it’s also robbed me of any extra energy I might have had for additional activities.] [I don’t mind because it wasn’t like I was ever going to get sick again in my life, and this really just proves that it was having me out of a crowded office situation with tons of people and their tons of germs that helped me stay as not-sick as I did for so long.] [ Plus I always get sick on November so it’s like oh, hey, you again?]

The key will be — December, I want to say, but December always sucks. Holidays take up a lot of space for me and my family - not just time, really, we only spend a couple days together, but the energy of preparation and gifting always becomes frantic and gross by the end - and I have another niece birthday visit coming up that’ll eat up a weekend. The key will be taking this daily motivation and hanging onto it through December, and into January, and letting it morph itself into something that encompasses more than writing.

Now that I have the daily habit, I want to do the same with drawing, to just doodle something daily and let myself practice at that. I need to set days and times aside for house projects and have them be priority — not let the specter of Nano Words or Work Words be more important (Nano is of course a fallacy i use to be lazy; work words are important cause they pay).

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this ramble. About four or five days in I had a real low period and almost decided to quit NaNo because it was interfering too much with the rest of my day and words and chore schedule and grumble I didn’t know what I was doing and I should be writing work and commissions anyway and such whining. Then I woke up on day like six or seven, my head clear, realized that had been An Episode, and just pushed on with the wording. 20 days and over 30K is a success for me on projects; it’s the maintenance, the daily bits.

I dunno. There was gonna be a point to all this but now I’m just talking about the process (but in the most BORING way POSSIBLE because i dont want to get INTO the PROCESS and now I’m just CAPSING at RANDOM)

Anyway. Still here, still writing, still having successes and failures big time. Still broke! Who knew!

(It will always be a shame that ppl at tumblr cant see my brilliant DW tags; i use IFTTT to cross post, but i haven’t yet found one that will swipe up all of my DW tags and include them on the tumbles)

a wild sev emerges from the depths of the ravine HI WHATS UP LETS TALK ABOUT NANOWRIMO, ORIGINAL FICTION, AND MY FUCKING SABBATICAL

( me yelling into space about my life )

Anyway, the IMPORTANT question is about NaNo projects. I've narrowed it down to 3, because I have to start somewhere. (none of them are lesbian werewolves in space, namely because while i have the characters and worldbuilding down, the plot needs some solid work i haven't done.) Let me know what you think of the following concepts -- you don't have to vote or anything, but if something sounds interesting, I'd love to hear it.

1. Young woman working as a non-magical analytical scientist suddenly and drastically discovers she has the specific magical ability of working a season's circle with a coven of four (spring summer autumn winter; she's autumn). The season's circle is when four witches work together to create a passageway between the [land of the fey] and the human's world, allowing an (1) powerful being to step through or back. This particular circle is attempting to summon a cool demon-type dude who is powerful enough to stop an entity called the Oak King, who's basically spreading dark magic through the land etc etc. The circle has been holding on to the magic with only 3 witches but they need the 4th to complete the rite. Unfortunately, Amber has no fucking clue how any of this works and basically gets stabbed with her power; Summer really hates her for some reason; she has to come to terms with Autumn being the season of death; and who the hell is going to finish her analytical work while she spends three months in a season's circle coma? Additional options include: background romance, Gay, lots of fun worldbuilding, urban fantasy type setting where this could be the real world just with some magic bullshit.

2. Sassy idiot lady born with the power to scry into the past uses her magic and tools to make a living exploring things for fussy customers who want answers. Lives in a rough edge of town, doubles at a bar for free food, manages to get by in the grey area between the brightness of the City and the darkness of the Void. One day a scry doesn't work, which has never happened in her career, and she starts finding out other magics are failing: the bar owner's beer went off, her father's healing magic didn't come when called, etc etc. She's eventually sought out by [the equivalent of a detective] to help [a City murder case] but drags him into finding out what's going on in their small town as recompense. Turns out the two are related, but she doesn't have any other magical powers and doesn't know how to fight off this [creature] that's slowly moving in on their City. Bisexual protag and this is definitely Not Our World. Additional options include: Karma Knights (when killing someone is right, they're the ones who do it), Wild Gay Fairy, this world could easily explode if i let it.

3. Young lady was born with a huge reservoir of magical energy but lacks the ability to channel it all. Having been abandoned/orphaned (not sure yet) she's now training with the dwarves to learn how to be a healer, figuring she may as well try it. Her (erstwhile; somewhat removed) cousin has the gift to heal the earth, and asks Enna to come on her pilgrimage across the Civil Lands and into the Nolands to try to heal the damage so that the land can be used [think: remnants of a nuclear apocalypse healed by elemental magic]. Cousin, her existing band of jolly protectors, and Enna set out across the absolute disaster of the journey, haunted by demons and Nightmares, often having to invent new ways to use their skills because nobody has faced this shit yet. One part FFX pilgrimage, one part Enna finding her own purpose, one part environmentalist rants in the form of a tiny girl.

Thoughts?

[edit] markdown y u always do this to me fuck ity

so in addition to my commissions (which are, yes, still coming) i've taken on some content writing work for with two different clients. It's easy stuff, for reasonable amounts of money - not a survivable income yet, but making enough for me to slide along until 01 May - and while some of it can be fun, i'm realizing that i don't want to be an online content writer for money.

no, it isn't meant to be interesting work. and there's a certain -- not pleasure, but the sense of having gained a skill, i guess, to be helping my brain learn how to do dumb work for money. if you all remember, i was severely overinvested in my career to the point where it was used abusively against me, so there's a good lesson for my head to learn on how to be detached.

but it isn't what i want the sabbatical to be like. i want my sabbatical to be writing, working on my own original fiction, building an audience in fandom, trying to actually go for it before i have to turn back and find a corporate job again.

it's funny cause i fucked up my money and that's why im here, pumping out silly 500 word articles for bit cash, so it isn't a complaint, more an awareness. I need the cash, but it also takes up so much of my time?

i feel like there are stories in me, stories i can tell, stories that would sell, and i want to reach for that - jump for it, have nothing to do all day except let words come out; i feel like i really could do it if i could settle down (and defeat ADHD and executive dysfunction, and depression, and my dumb body, of course) and have a month or two to really bang it out. in november i wrote 57K in 10 days because i did nothing else. i can do that.

anyway for now lol i need paid so i'm off to write some really ridiculous stuff, yay

Future posts i want to make:
- the house dynamics of a cat family
- Hello Fresh and StitchFix
- January
- my job suddenly going from 0 to 600mph
- marriage, finances, and future
- the 5 mobile games i am addicted to
- my management blog
- nothing political because it’s all a trash fire and it makes me very angry
- new lady music that i really like
- swimming and water!
- new video games!

Brief updates:
- I am alive.
- I still need to review January to see just how badly I flunked all my goals. I’m sucking at writing and art, but I have been doing more gaming than usual, and I really picked up my knitting pace (two pieces complete!). I had a lot of fun cooking and packing lunch more often, I didn’t work out regularly but did work out, and we hit most of the wedding goals we needed to.
- I have two cats on the couch with me right now.
- I went to the pool today :3 swam my usual for right now: ~23 min, ~1100 yards. 40 lengths of the pool. I will get back to that mile soon.
- what the hell else do i do with my life
- shota box.
- why am i not doing chores right now.

The end.

[EDIT] ok i remembered the funny story i wanted to post in the first place, which isn’t even funny and probably only Drak and Cendri will find it funny at all. The main 6-lane pool was full so I had to swim in one of the three lanes attached to the more public water park parts of the facility. I was up against the wall and the thing was that the bottom of the pool was so fucking dirty, it was super gross, like some weird shit on the bottom that was probably harmless but looked like fucking worms or something. There was this like, clump of hair and every time I swam past it I choked on vomit and it also gained some life from my ~wake~. So what did I do? Instead of barfing like I wanted and/or bailing on the swim, I decided that Reno wouldn’t have any of that, no trashing the trash, man. So instead I named it “Cloud” and decided that it was a particularly enthusiastic dust bunny that lived in Rude and Reno’s apartment, under Reno’s bed, which is the one place Rude refuses to sweep for him, and it bothers Rude a ton that it’s there so Reno decided to name it (“after our favorite guy on the planet!”) and sometimes will have conversations with it, usually ones that discuss Rude’s shortcomings. And Rude refuses to admit that it exists, except that Reno starts finding “Cloud” in random places in the apartment, like his sock drawer, or in his favorite plant, and Rude still won’t acknowledge that it exists at all and Reno’s like what the fuck Rude I literally found it in my briefcase Cloud doesn’t move on its own and Rude’s just ... ... and Reno won’t shut up about it and anyway that’s how I survived 40 fucking laps swimming over a hairball

Based on this, let's see how we did in January... For context, in January, I:
* Dealt with furnace break and repair for about 5 days
* Babysat my niece from a Thursday night to the next Monday morning
* Went to Pittsburgh with my partner to marry two of my best friends
* Got knocked on my ass for 2 days by a surprise sinus infection
* went through an absolutely horrible HR-centric clusterfuck which ended in having to terminate a previously (technically) excellent employee, which was draining

So, as much as I may not want to admit it, I didn't have as much weekend time as I would have liked. But also, I let things slip.

Let's see....

1. Health:

   • I didn't make it to the gym at all. I meant to, but it did not happen. I need to make myself a true workout plan and stick to it.
   • I did actually eat pretty healthy (except that weekend in Pittsburgh where I said my words over lemon drop shots and we signed their marriage license making sure there was a nice beer ring on the paper) with food at home - not packing lunches yet. Also, I did clean out my fridge and pantry.
   • not sure on weight -- I had lost 5 lb, and then this morning I'd gained 5 -- I did just put my NuvaRing back in, so it may be hormonal water holding.
   • My dr and I have added a medication to my fibromyalgia treatment package (so I am now on Cymbalta, Lyrica, buproprion, buspirone, Mobic, and trazodone) and I have adjusted my supplement regimen so that I'm focusing on boosting my immune system which is at what may be an all-time low. I had the med adjustment period, but I am hopeful.

2. Writing: I'm at 1/52 for the prompts (should be at 5/52). I did write two pieces for prompt #1 though?

3. Art: I'm at 14/365 (should be at 31/365). It actually surprises me that I've done 14, although probably only 25% of them have been anything above the layer of crap. However, it means I should be able to do >0 arts this year - maybe I can keep up with it?

4. Home: I haven't done this well. Although I did get the fucking furnace fixed; it's great when I can surprise the repairman because shock, I'm an engineer, and while I wouldn't necessarily start pulling out wires inside my furnace panel, I certainly know what a draft inducer blower is, and that it should not have water in it

5. Mental: I've done OK in letting hobbies be chores. With this new medication plan I'm going through the grieving process of believing I would ever be a healthy, able-bodied person again.

6. Work: I am taking huge steps in making it clear where my line is between assisting on a project and completing action items for it. I also had the awful situation I outlined above, which will be saved for another post.

7. F&F: I saw my niece, and went to Pittsburgh to visit (marry) friends - with my partner, and we had an absolutely fantastic time with each other. I did ask him for support when I needed it while going through the horrible HR fiasco, and we talked a bit about where boundaries might be.

Rather than setting firm goals for February, instead I want to just pick three areas to focus in:

1. GET TO THE GYM. THERE'S ONE RIGHT UP THE ROAD IN A DIFFERENT BUILDING ON THE WORK CAMPUS.
2. Uncluttering. Laundry / clothes to donate is a big area of shame right now.
3. Make up some ground on my art & writing commitments.

[EDIT] ok so I really like Markdown but there's something funny about this version of it that's making me mad