Major Life Change

I think it was in 2006 or 2007 when I applied with Social Security for their Disability income. At the time, I was misdiagnosed and on the wrong medication, and I was having difficulty holding down any job, never mind one with a decent wage. I really needed the boost, and my mom found a Social Security legal advocate for me. He came to my apartment and "helped" me fill out the application for disability. Basically, what he did was ask me a series of questions so he could fill in the blanks himself. It was due to his advocacy that I ended up being approved for SSDI. Even when I was sitting in my living room answering the advocate's questions, though, I had in the back of my mind the promise to myself that I'd be on SSDI only as long as it took me to get mentally stable and back into the workforce. 

Over the years, especially since around 2018, I've made efforts to get back into working. For various reasons, my efforts failed. The biggest reason was that I was not as ready to do so as I thought I was. I'd put applications in places, but never follow up on them, and rarely received calls back from those applications. After a few weeks, my enthusiasm for working would wane under the influence of fear of working again, and I'd give up for a few months before something would inspire interest in working again. 

All of that has ended now. On the 29th of June, I applied with a company that provides solutions for clients seeking to protect their premises and such. I've done security-guard type work a couple times before. Once in the mid-late 90's for a company in North Carolina, after I graduated from Job Corps; I had to quit that job unexpectedly due to my living situation imploding. Later, in the Navy, I performed watches and such that included making patrols and logging events. I've always found security officer jobs rather easy, but not so boring that I'm falling asleep on the job, even if I'm up on a third shift after being awake all day the day before. 

I'll be starting my shift on Monday, and it's a full-time position. This is going to cut into my writing time a great deal, so it'll take me a few weeks at least to get into the habit of coming home and settling in to write. I'm also considering switching my writing time to the mornings before work—basically getting up at 03:00 or so to work until 06:00 before I have to start getting ready for work. We'll see what happens. I'm hoping to be able to at least keep up with the new writing schedule I set up since I was hired on at the security company.

As always, if you want to know more about what's going on, I'll have a post on my Patreon blog for those who are willing to sign up for the "Kneecaps" level.

Haywire

It's fall here and I'm struggling to keep up with things. My sleep schedule is haywire again, and I'm on a nocturnal schedule again. This is getting to be a regular thing, not that I was exactly on a diurnal schedule before, but at least I wasn't sleeping until 22:00 and sitting up all morning. 

Writing isn't going. Having a haywire schedule means not a lot of writing gets done. In fact, this blog post is the first writing of new words I've done in over a week. Honestly, I really hate having to write posts about me not writing, but I'm trying to keep up with my blog, so here you go. 

Crafting isn't even going. I can't make COVID-19 masks. Quilting doesn't appeal. Crochet is out of the question because I don't have any of the things I need for that. I'm relegated to reading the Help files on Etsy for setting up my store and sitting here doing nothing because I want to work on my writing but the only thing I want to do (work on worldbuilding for a NewShiny), is something that isn't on the list and won't be added. 

I don't put doing these blog posts on my task list because I know I need to do them and I don't want to feel pressured over it. When I feel pressured over something, I avoid it and it eventually doesn't happen unless someone intervenes. There were quite a number of research papers and essays and such that almost didn't get written when I was in school because I procrastinated on them until someone sat me down and didn't let me get distracted so I could finish them. 

Because my sleep schedule is haywire, I'm having trouble taking my meds on a set schedule, and that's really essential for me feeling motivated. Though I only recently learned this the past few months, it's something I really need to pay attention to. I'm not sure how to get on a set schedule again, or precisely what schedule I want to be on. But I'll figure everything out. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

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. 

A Wild Month

 It's been an interesting month-and-more here. My sleep schedule went haywire, and it threw off a whole lot of other things and I ended up falling into a depression.

Part of the past month, I've been working on the dreaded gay romances I love to hate. I think I'm noticing a pattern with these. Anytime I fall into a depression or struggle with my mood status, I turn to writing the gay romances. It's something I've only just realized happens. When I'm stable and not depressed, I find it easier to focus on my speculative fiction and rarely touch the gay romances.

Also over the past couple months, my wife and I entered into debt consolidation. We weren't horrendously deep in debt, but it would have taken a lot longer for us to crawl up out of it than it will be with the new—single—bill to pay off our debts. I'm looking forward to having this all taken care of within the next few years now. 

One of the things I'm looking into is starting up an Etsy store. I'm going to sit down with my wife, who has far more experience with businesses and such, and see about hammering out a business plan. This is in place of me getting a job with another company. Why? For several reasons, one of them being I need a more sedentary position because my body just can't handle me being on my feet all day. I'll keep y'all updated on progress here and provide more details in my Patreon posts. 

So that's where things stand right now. 

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. 

Patreon!

So, after years of considering getting a Patreon account, I've done so. My page is up, and I've got one Patrons-only post so far. 

I've been kind of looking forward to this step in my writing career. Years ago, I knew I wanted a Patreon account, and I've held off 'cause I haven't felt ready for it on a mental/emotional level. This is a lot of responsibility for me to take up. But here it is—just scroll down a bit to find the link in the sidebar. 

How Depression Affects My Writing

I mentioned in a previous post that I'm dealing with a depressive phase of my bipolar disorder. This affects my writing to some extent. Even with these posts and recreating this Blogger account, I'm having to fight through feelings that my writing isn't any good and that the blog is pointless. This is even more pronounced with my fiction writing. I haven't touched DH01 in days, and in fact, I haven't touched it since the 7th of this month.

Depression doesn't so much block me as make it harder to connect to the ideas I have for my writing. This is true whether I'm pantsing the WIP or have an outline for it. It's frustrating to be able to see the ideas, but have an inability to "grasp" them well enough to write them out. Back in the past when I got like this, I'd try to force the words out, following advice that it's best to write every day regardless of mood, and that didn't end well for me. Sure, the words were as good as they would have been if my mood wasn't down, but I hated what I wrote and ended up abandoning the project for a few months. Not days or weeks. Months. So now I don't try to force the words out when I'm depressed. I go with the flow instead. 

At the same time, I also have a very poor opinion of my writing. I know I write well, and that I can create engaging characters and entertaining stories. Consciously. Logically. But the depression tells me all my writing, especially the fiction, is crap. This is part of the reason why I don't touch projects I force depression-phase words onto after forcing those words. 

If I'm lucky, I can look at my stuff to edit it. This time, I'm not lucky. I've been using this down period where I'm not writing to get to know ProWritingAid software again, using their web editor one paragraph at a time. It has few complaints for the most part; I've spent long enough writing to eradicate most of the issues it highlights. The "Repeats" checker section, though, always "confirms" the depression's opinion of my writing, so I don't end up doing any editing. I'm trying to figure out how to get ProWritingAid to work best for me, and this is not helping. At this point, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. 

The worst thing about pronounced depressions like this is that I don't know how long I'll be in it. It makes me not care about my writing, and if I had a deadline, that would only exacerbate the disinterest. Even if I were inclined to pursue traditional publishing, I wouldn't be able to because of these depressive phases so it's good I've latched onto the independent/self publishing track like I have. This depressive phase may last another day, a week, a month—or longer. I don't know. All I can really say is that I'm glad I don't have these phases more often. I'd never get anything done.