Yep, still short of target. I wanted to wait to write this when I was fuming a bit less, but that’s banned it seems. You know that feeling when you just want to smash something, preferably against someone? Yeah I’m not in a great mental space all told.

That’s hyperbole, I’m not quite that bad, but I’m seething still at how hard it is to get left alone. My new policy is I’ll ask politely, and if that doesn’t work I’ll just have to make said requester regret existing for a few years. Ok so maybe it wasn’t hyperbole but the internet is written in ink and I really would prefer to not look like a sociopath.

It all comes down to my time being mine, and other people being, well, bad. I know right, shocking that people can suck. I’ll let you in on a little secret: I suck too at times and am being a massive hypocrite. Believe it or not that’s what I find the most frustrating.

I think there is only one solution though: I’m going to kill off most of my social life. It’s just not worth the hassle. I’m not anti social per say, but I prefer my own company, and if given that I can achieve a lot. I am a life long introvert who for years felt obliged to be an extrovert. And, funnily enough, I’m sick of it. Screw other people amirite imaginary reader?

I do need to stop having these little chats in such a public setting but what are you gonna do. With luck one day I’ll be a full time writer, and while I’ll need to talk to a lot of people, I will also be able to, politely, tell people to let me get on with my work. Or you know I could just go back to plan A, but I like my glassware…

I did my best to have a rest day. Got screwed again, but I had a backup plan. Tomorrow isn’t that, but it’s part of it.

I’m booking off this coming Friday. It’s a risk; if the election is called, I cannot justify the day after as a recovery day. But with that day, AND Saturday just for me, I get my weekend to myself.

I’ll write over the course of the evening, then tomorrow my plan is simple: absolute minimum.

Speaking of, apologies but that’s all for today. I need the headspace.

The last two and a bit months that I have spent on this latest project have been eye-opening. I never expected that the process of jumping from one project directly into another would be easy, and to be frank I did expect it to be harder than it has been. Yet somehow even though it has been easier than I expected, it still knackered me.

As you can probably tell from the above paragraph I am still a bit drowsy. I apologise in advance for any broken English that slips out. I have to my credit however not lost a life since Wednesday, as I managed to produce just over a thousand words of WHT before I left work. If I can go quiet into the hour after work ends I can squeeze that out it seems.

So that brings us to today, where things get interesting. You see, I finish today at 4pm, which means I can start writing at that time. The questions are: is the library going to be open; if not will I be comfortable writing at my desk; will I manage to finish it all and leave by 5? If the answer to that last one is yes, then I will be going straight to Mana and then enjoying a day to myself on Saturday.

With luck, I will get a large amount of the anger that has been screwing with me out of my system and find some level of peace. I do not like being full of rage all the time. Here’s hoping I can turn things around and get a grip over the weekend. It seems unlikely, but I have pulled off bigger coups over this year.

Another life down. In a way, this one was inevitable in retrospect. The scene that would have come next in the story had a whole lot of elements that fed into the wider story, but in retrospect, it was not entertaining enough to include. That hurts a little, but you know what they say, kill your darlings. I don’t really have pride of authorship so when I need to cut something I just do it, but I hope this doesn’t take away from the heart of the story too much.

I am in a bad cycle at the moment of late nights and tired days. What I worked out before was that I needed to just force out some words of anything to get back on track. If it weren’t for last night I would brace myself and just go from 8 to 7 lives. Having now done that and gotten a poor night, I am not sure what I need to do now. Best I can think to try is taking my break in the library and forcing out the next scene.

When I write, I feel like there is a hidden charge meter in my head for my creativity. If I do some writing, I deplete it a bit, and then I restore it by getting rest. It gets depleted if I spend too long not writing too. That’s why if I chain three or so days of not doing main story, it can easily then slip into a week without me giving it much thought. If I am not careful just one of those weak points would break my deadline.

I need to get out of the habit of needing to feel a level of passion for a story to work on it. I used to be much worse with that of course, and wouldn’t write a single word for months because I did not feel right. Having now learned that I can create that feeling of “right” with persistence, I now get frustrated when I get similar emotional responses to my work, and want to just “write”. But here I go whining again.

Speaking of having a good moan, I hope that I can actually get some rest this weekend. I am isolating Saturday as a “just for me” day best I can. The painful part of that is I haven’t been to visit my family for weeks, and I might get a Saturday invite. But I can’t help that I have had most of my free time forcibly removed for weeks. I have to be selfish and take my me time by force at any cost.

Overly dramatic? Maybe. Called for? Well I was on eight lives yesterday, you tell me.

I need to stop getting so grim about my free time. Reading back yesterday’s entry I couldn’t not cringe at how whiny and petty it sounds. I shudder to think about what I’d make of it if I had not removed the more rage-fuelled passages. This is the one disadvantage of the blog taking over from the old private ranting documents I used to write called “Extra Ideas”. At least there my moaning was private.

Still never mind, I am going to have days where I am full of anger. There was a great tweet I saw yesterday that I want to have on a t-shirt at some point:

Reminder that writers and artists only create for two reasons: horniness and revenge. The sooner you discover which one motivates you, the quicker you’ll grow into your most powerful form.

— Samantha Wallschlaeger (@StillNotSam) June 24, 2019

Revenge is probably the one I stand closer to. I dislike just how bitter and rage-fueled I am under the surface but it’s nice to know I am far from the only one.

Uploading Chapter 6 of TUS today to WattPad. That means we are almost at the close of Act 1 of the story, and to be honest I have more votes and views than I expected by this point. I need to do more interacting on the forums, but they are so packed and overflowing that I am not sure where to start. I do need to though, and read a bunch of stories too to make some friends and get more active in the community.

Right back to work. At some point, I also need to become more active on Twitter, but that is a task that I am kicking down the road as long as I damn well can.

I am so sick of not getting my weekends. My writing is not invasive, but it gets shunted aside for others needs. So this weekend I am doing the bare minimum. I am furious at the situation, but it is what it is. It makes me sick to my stomach that I had six days of holiday left, and I had to use one to buy back sleep because people stole my free time. I need to stand up to that better.

I am stressed, and I need to cool off. I resent that I have to leave 5 days of holiday for a damn election that might not happen – and hopefully won’t happen either, as I do not need that kind of extra stress right now. I will be trying to claw more me-time. I keep having to delete my words because the rage keeps seeping into my words. I haven’t been this angry in a long time.

I did manage to write WHT yesterday, so there’s that one plus right now. I think I should be able to do the same today, but I need to go over the plan again as I managed to get more out of the last chapter than I thought I would. That’s a good thing, but it does also mean I need to re-evaluate the plan again to ensure I keep the story tight.

I don’t like rambling fantasy. I like clean on point writing where the story beats fall at the exact moments they need to, and as much is implied as possible to keep the action coming. I think I’ve managed to come a long way with doing that whilst still reaching the length of a novel, but it’s important I keep an eye on my beats to not go over.

So here’s the thing, I am about to go into July as of the end of this week. Assuming I don’t cave before then – and I doubt I would – that means I have a week’s holiday for two weeks. I think given that, I should book off the days between the 29th of July and the 2nd of August.

My logic is that if the election gets called within this holiday block, it will be called before then anyway. If the election ends up at the end of August I can’t do anything anyway, so I have to accept a seat on the sidelines. That would be much nicer for me, but as you can imagine I hope that does not happen. I don’t need that on my conscience.

 

When I agreed to do the tournament I knew this would happen. Without fail, if I do something like that which involves pressure, stress, that I’m not into and that makes me anxious, I burn out instantly afterwards.

Elections. Big events. Anything where I have to be around a ton of people and get little to no choice for how long that isn’t work pretty much. I do this to myself and it doesn’t help when on my rest day, the day I booked to sleep through,I get five hours sleep…

I think it’s because I was angry. I mean I’m always angry, but I was resentful of losing yet another weekend. That’s why I have to put my foot down next weekend: it’s for me, I’m being antisocial and not doing anything I do not have to besides resting up.

It’s half 9 and I haven’t written a single word. I wrote a short story last night to hit target and it’s such a sleep deprived unbridled mess that no I will not be sharing it. I’m gonna get a drink, stick on a good book and try and relax as I do my writing now. I hate leeches.

Busy intense day. I’ll update tomorrow. Sorry.

See I did say I’d try and write these at 10; never said which 10 though. Anybody? Anyone? No? Fine yes this is a late post, and yes 76 is both a terrible game and word count for this hour, but good news is tonight is Easy Street.

The climax of Chapter 4 – 12 when WattPadified – is one I wrote mentally years ago. It even has its own theme in my head: Norwegian Pirate by Two Steps From Hell/Thomas Bergersen. I’ve been looking forward to it for so long.

So yeah, short one tonight, but trust me, you’re gonna like this scene.

I ended up feeling obliged to do some team training yesterday instead of finishing 1K at my desk after work. Considering that it’s a little surprising that I managed to write a thousand words of WHT yesterday, 600 of the total number I did being written after 22:50.

That being said, I prioritised getting enough sleep over last night, and that saw me getting up at 27 past 8. In return, I managed 7 hours 59 minutes, so sixty seconds less than my sleep target which is a teeny bit infuriating. It also meant I went straight from home to my work desk, hence my CDWC.

Rather than going for a walk at 12 today, I am going to go do some writing in the library. Then after work I will write up to 1K, and go home to rest. No 7pm bedtime today, I will be up playing Minecraft for a while, but I will try not to push it too late.

I have an Axion Team Trio tournament on Sunday, so I will be knackered after that. On giving that inevitable outcome some thought, I decided to give in and use one of my six remaining holiday days on Monday. Fingers crossed this sees me stay on track.