December 2021 Update

 Well, it’s been quite a long time since I posted here, hasn’t it? The short explanation is that real life got in the way. If we take the scenic route through the past several months since my last post, there’s quite a bit to tell y’all imaginary readers. 

In my last post in August, I talked about getting a job and a couple of my initial posts. Well, I’ve seen two or three other posts since then, and have finally settled at one. I’m guarding for an organization that helps college students in particular majors get work experience and earn money while going to school. Since the office is mostly empty right now, it’s a pretty easy spot to be in. My shift runs in the afternoon, and I leave after 20:00 at night, and my desk is in the HR office, so when this office clears out, I’m alone down here on the ground floor. I patrol the 2 floors of the building where the organization has offices every 90 mins, watch cameras, and generally get to do whatever the heck I want while seated at the desk. This means I can write during the day. 

Due to this ability to write, I’ve adjusted my writing goals. I now write every day, and I’m using the Nano site to help me stay on task. My current goal is 325 words on any Archivos article for Aelyshthar that I happen to be working on, and it’s going well. 

While I’m doing that, I’m also doing series plotting for my Masters of the Schism series, and the Discordant Harmonies series. Final task is going through a general fiction coming-of-age-through-some-adulthood story to figure out where my scene written/outline counts went wrong.

And about my DH series. I’m doing a full rewrite of the first three books. The first novel is going to lengthen a great deal. Different characters are getting sex/gender changes, including Géta. I’m adding more foreshadowing and I have a much better idea of what’s going on behind the scenes of this conflict on Ruphlan’s border. There are hidden agendas everywhere, which means lots of political intrigue. I’m excited about this project and look forward to getting it together. 

The series plotting for MOTS is going well too. Right now, I’m pretty much just plugging things into a spreadsheet to help me see all the threads of the characters’ lives and the plots I have going in this thing. This is working up into a complicated series, and I still don’t know how many volumes I’ll end up writing. However, it is good to get going on this project, and I’m having a great time doing so. 

After the Hiatus

For anyone who's followed my blogs for any length of time, my hiatus since October is nothing new, but for those who are new, it probably felt like I dropped off the face of the earth. I typically go on an involuntary hiatus in the latter half of the year, and the end of 2020 was no exception. My sleep schedule going haywire was only the beginning. 

On November first, I joined Nano. This was not a well-thought-out decision. In fact, I'd already decided not to participate. After the past month and a half, I have no recollection whatsoever of what I wrote on for the event. It could have been anything from a mundane gay romance to my primary project, DH01. Just don't ask me. Maybe I'll remember someday. I just can't right now.

At the end of November, my wife, her sister, our friend Varick, and I began a frantic collection of funds in an attempt to move into better accommodations. Varick, Tess, and I were still in our government subsidized apartments, and Tess's sister, Kaitlyn, was in danger of being forced into homelessness. Unfortunately, we weren't able to gather all the funds, and so had to abandon our plans to move.

Following that catastrophe, I dropped into a depression that somehow included writing almost daily. I think I was using it as a way to escape things at the old place. It was cluttered, dim, and stressful for all of us, cats and humans alike. Not exactly a happy time, and my psych doc even stepped in to get me another medication and a light box to help boost my mood.  

Then, at the end of December—the 31st in fact—when we got word that the second Economic Stimulus Fund would be coming in early January, Tess and I decided to contact the complex we'd tried to get into at the end of November. We knew we could pay all the fees for the deposit with the additional $600 and still have enough to live on for the rest of the month. And, in the process of negotiating with the management of the place, they told us of a January move-in special where they cut the first month's rent in half. 

And thus our Great Move began. 

With all of us combining our funds, we got the three-bedroom apartment we wanted. Even better than the one we were shown in November, this one had a ramp down to the ground-floor apartments, which are actually half-buried in the ground. 

I'll include more details in my Patreon post, including pictures, for those who are interested. The lowest Tier, "I Lost My Kneecaps, So I Can't Crawl Now", will grant you the ability to read the post. Expect that to be up by the weekend. 

Sleep, Writing, and Crafting

 I haven't made as much progress as I wanted on my two stories. This is mostly because the level of my motivation has fluctuated over the past couple weeks. My sleep schedule has gone wonky, and I'm learning to settle into playing Pathfinder on Friday nights, two things that mess with my motivation. Honestly, though, it's mostly the sleep issue. Insomnia sucks.

This year, I'm tempted to enter Nano. To do that, I'd have to work on something I've got enough of an outline on, and that means it would be the gay romance, and I'm afraid I'll burn out on it. It's something I'm thinking about, though, and it would be kind of nice to do this rewrite during Nano since the original draft was written in November during the first week of Nano, even though it wasn't an "official" Nano project.

Either way, I'll be getting my words on DH01 and DOTSC01, and transcribing Front. Oh, and that's coming along quite nicely, that transcription. It's both just as sucky and not as sucky as I thought it was, in different ways. Most of the non-sucky parts come in the form of my technical skill with the story. Though that's definitely improved (along with everything else) over the years, I'm consistently surprised by how well things are written in Front, for one of my earliest works.

Otherwise, the crafting bug has bitten me. I've been working on a new quilt (yeah, I started another project—but this is normal for me) that I found a tutorial about online. It's called Pins And Paws, and comes from a quilt company based in Missouri. I find that interesting, because that's where my dad was from. It's funny how things circle around like that. 

Many Tasks at Once

 So the past month has been more successful writing-wise than previous months. I think this in part is because I've trimmed back my writing to a minimum of 250 words and no more than 500 per session. Before, I was writing as much as I wanted. I blasted through scenes and would write for two, three, four days in a row, be dry for the next week. Keeping my wordcount to a low range helps me remain interested without burning me out.

Another thing I think that's helped is that I've added other writing tasks to my roster. 250-500 words a pop on one project wasn't really enough. It felt like a warm-up, so I added a second project. The second project, DOTSC01, has the same range of wordcount as the first, which works well. It also helps prevent bouncy brain where I hop from one project to another in an endless round of distracted writing. 

That worked so well that I decided that it may be a good idea to add another writing task to my list. Hence working on the handwritten story from years ago. This tale of yore is called, Front, or My First Completed Novel Evar!!!, and it has the seeds of my current writing in it. I'm transcribing it directly—not making any corrections—and adding commentary that makes me laugh at least.

And, as if that wasn't enough to have on my list of writing tasks, I decided to rework an old gay romance I wrote years ago. I think I wrote the original draft of this particular story in November of 2009. At the time, I was not participating in NaNo, but I managed to slam out just over 80k words in about 6 days, if I remember right. It's got some major issues. At the time, I didn't know how to handle conflict, hence this reworking of the story. I'm outlining it in Scapple right now. 

Having a number of tasks seems to be working well for me. My writing mind is calmer than it's been for years, and I feel like I'm making progress on everything. I'm having fun too, which is important to me. And, best of all, writing slow brings out detail I wouldn't otherwise be able to include. I'm quite pleased.

So that's where things stand in the writing world. My mental health is doing well with regular dosages of all my psych meds, which is good, and I'm very faithful with taking them at a regular time. I'm also looking into other ways of earning money, primarily by hawking my handcrafts that I make with sewing and crocheting. Things are going well!