October 6th, 2020 – 741

~ Sam Shuttleworth

I’ve not had a long day. In part, that’s because I only got up four hours ago, less than that even. Somehow it’s still managed to rain three separate times during that brief span, but I am at least not planning on going out. I was originally going to, but that can wait until tomorrow: want to buy some condensed milk and double cream, because I’m a massive chub. Well, more to make Café Bomnon and because I have leftover crumble in the fridge, but that doesn’t make me much less of a chub. I’m all too conscious that I’ve gone well over my calorie limit for several days in a row now, and need to get that under control before I start gaining weight again.

TWR is now on the cusp of 50K, and I am a little tempted to write the 818 words to get it there, though in truth I think it’s better not to take those opportunities. Sailing over target without realising is never a bad thing. Pushing for ‘just a little more’ to get to perhaps 1,250 for a day is fine. 818 extra words just sets me up to fail tomorrow if I force it, or if not to fail then to have a rough time going forwards as I borrow from tomorrow for today. As it is, I’m happy with how the pacing is at the moment, but do feel I have some clean up to do in Fun & Games when I get to editing this one.

That segues nicely into my next topic: I am considering trialling Scrivener again. I haven’t used it since Spectrum 2.0 back in 2014, and while I still like the concept, the lack of cloud saving in real time is a real issue for me. That is why I’m not considering it for any of my stories, but rather a novella-length piece that’s been sitting in the background this whole time: My Oreacle. This is the ‘missing’ book of The Service to Ore, a history of sorts that covers the whole story and all the interlocking events, more as a continuity checker for me when I’m editing than anything else. At present, My Oreacle sits between three places: two physical journals, and a Trello board. Jury is still out on how useful a tool it would acually be.

Have to get my sleep under control, so that I have at least a chance of making tomorrow’s entry here in the morning and not the afternoon, or god-forbid on the edge of midnight. I’ve got, including today, 6 days of holiday left to get my head on straight, and get me through to Christmas. Right now, that’s not an optimistic thought.

Published by Sam Shuttleworth

I’m Sam, and I live to write. I spent most of the first 8 years of my adulthood trying to balance writing with a large amount of crap in my personal life, until towards the end of 2018 I threw everything out and started afresh with just my writing. I built the new me around one goal: I have to write at least 1,000 words a day. I called this goal 1K, and it changed my life. So long as I write a thousand words a day, the day is a success, and atop that I've managed over time to build the life I wanted all those years. My greatest flaws as a writer is I still use too many adjectives, adverbs, connectives as openers, accidental passive voice and I don't force my work down people's throats enough on pain of extreme and unusual torture. My greatest strength is I know my greatest flaws and I'm working on them.