October 20th, 2020 – 755

~ Sam Shuttleworth

Well, my foot looks horrible. It’s a swollen mess, and there’s every chance I’m going to have to sit in A&E tomorrow waiting to get an x-ray. That is not an inviting prospect, even if hospitals are working to be as safe as possible. If nothing else, I still have a beard, and masks are so uncomfortable with facial hair, as well as less safe. I’ll try and shave if I can stand at the sink. My foot is turning blue, which sounds a lot worse than it actually is. It’s a horrible bruise on the side, one I can’t help but flinch when I think about.

This week is getting off to an even worse start than last week, and as such my writing is slipping again. It doesn’t help being in pyjamas all day – too painful to change unless I have to – which always saps my motivation If you want to be motivated, get dressed every day, even the lazy do-nothing days should you do those. On a plus side, I found my letter paper after months of searching, so I’ll at least be writing more letters again even if I won’t be blowing off any barn doors with my wordcounts in-project.

Saying that, with 1K from today, I have a 1,100 average for October. I also had a bit of an amusing realisation how bad at maths I am; turns out I never dropped below a 1,100 word average. September worked out as that by the skin of its teeth, and October is looking to be about the same. Not explosive mind, but the win is still a win, and I needed that epiphany with where my head’s been at. Letting my stress levels get so high that I ended up nearly breaking – at least hopefully it’s ‘nearly’ – my ankle isn’t great, but at least it shows I’m functioning.

Let’s finish on a lighter if torturous note. There’s a special edition of the Monkey Island series coming out at the end of the month and boy if the temptation monster ain’t roaring its head off. At £125 before postage though I imagine this will stay a sad little dream, though I am honestly tempted to try selling stuff. All well and good except nobody be buying stuff I have to sell. I don’t need need it, but boy, do I want it. Look at this beauty:

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.