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. 

Moving Along Slowly

In the past few weeks, I've made some progress. There's about three or four drafts of the To Do list I planned on making, mostly adding things to it. I've also realized that with things going as they have been with Covid, my job hunt may never get started again. A lot of companies are moving their employees to home-based working, and that's not really feasible right now for me, even if I could qualify for the well-paying jobs I'm seeing. Not only that, I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel with other methods of making money. Ideas I've had before, but never had the courage to consider doing seriously. So, if things work out, writing won't be my only income stream—and it really shouldn't be anyway. 

About that To Do list. I think I have it finalized at last. My attempts at starting on obeying it have failed previously, in part I think because of the depression that is still very much with me, but also in part because I didn't really give myself time to mentally prepare for starting to align myself to it. This week, though, I finalized the list and started on a "schedule" for it starting Sunday of next week. One of the things I'm doing is listing minimum times to do the things on it, usually an hour-range, but sometimes something like a wordcount (for writing) or minimum chapters (for reading). I'm not going to be working on a couple-odd things on it for the first while or so, because I need to get better equipment for the work, and I won't be able to do that until I get all the fabric I need for the quilting projects I'm planning. Writing is definitely on it, though, even if the goal count won't be very high, mainly because if I throw myself into high wordcounts right away I'll burn out and end up not writing at all for a few weeks.

I'm happy to say I'm getting some ideas on how to handle DH03 now. Suffice it to say that some major plot points may change. Beyond that, I'm not going to go any deeper into detail. Overall, I'm enjoying writing and am excited to get back into doing it regularly, so I'm hoping the next several days of psyching myself up for getting into my new "schedule" will work. 

Yes, I'm up awfully early. I slept until around 16:30 yesterday. Was just so tired. I'm probably going to take a nap today, then go to bed at a decent hour. Whatever I do, I'll be setting an alarm for Thursday and getting up when it goes off. I can't get myself on a decent schedule unless I organize my sleeping hours into a much better nightly habit than it has been up to this point. Whatever else happens today, I intend to do some housecleaning and perhaps some quilting—as well as reading through what I have of Géta's scenes so I can figure out how his next scene should go. 

And that is all!

Where Things Stand

My writing is on hiatus again. I've gotten obsessed with quilting, which I've been wanting to do since before January but didn't have most of the equipment for. Right now, I'm mostly going with the flow, though I'm trying to be less focused than usual. This is, I feel, the first step to bringing writing into my non-writing obsessions and vice-versa, so I'm deliberately putting things aside and focusing on things around me and spending time with Tess. I want to have a better-balanced life, and it won't happen without me applying some discipline to it.

I'm still in the highly mixed state I was in when I wrote my bipolar post. Also, I've moved to a mostly nocturnal schedule, where I don't usually get to bed until after dawn. It's what's working for me right now, and I'm not sure if it's totally just what feels right for me or if the bipolar may be involved. All I know is that I'm enjoying being up all night. 

All I can really say is that I'm glad I got done with the Patreon setup before my mind switched gears. I'm sure finally getting a cutting mat, rotary cutter, and quilting ruler set is what jerked my mind into full-on Quilting Obsession. Depending upon how long this goes on, I may be able to establish better balance to my life. 

My job hunt is on indefinite suspension. I'm both sad and relieved about this. The main problem is that I need a job that pays at least $13.00 an hour, and I need to have a job where I'm seated most of the time. Being on my feet is just too hard on my right foot, and I really don't want to be in a medical boot for the rest of my life—or to have to undergo surgery to correct the problem because I've spent too much time on my feet. About the only job I qualify for that's seated is working in a call center, and all of the few I've found that pay $13.00 or more require knowledge of computer programs I don't even have access to right now, never mind training with. Most of the rest don't list wages at all, and those that do usually offer less than $10.00. If I'm going to get a job and thus lose part of my government income by making "too much" money, I need something that's got a halfway decent chance of supporting me and my family after taxes is taken out, and jobs for less than $10.00 just won't be able to do that.

So that's where things stand at the beginning of June 2020.