Man what a week. It’s still a little weird to be able to talk about uni openly at work after 7 months of Project4, but I am finding my productivity skyrocketing in the office. I think EDS suits short bursts of high productivity, but I could never get my head around Pomodoro or other artificial ways to make small bursts work. Aside from the finances of it not adding up until now, I should have gone part time years ago I think. Of course I guess we have to see if that holds true long term, but all reasons to feel optimistic so far.

I like that I can just write what I feel like on any given day now. I think if I decide one project stands out to me, Main Story Content will go into effect for the duration of that project, but for now getting to hop between ATM, VOL and TFT as I am right now feels nice. And of course soon, I’ll be doing more uni writing alongside these. That I seem to be too averse to not do 1K of fiction a day I am hoping isn’t going to detract from academic writing and note taking, but given I make about 600-1K notes per session in my UniBuJo makes me cautiously optimistic it won’t be as hard as I fear.

To be clear, I am under no illusion how hard this journey will be. Heck, I had an anxiety attack in the first week, and yes I managed to ride it out and bounce back without dropping any balls, not all such roadbumps will be as smooth. I need to be aware, and ready to face far worse bouts down the line, as well as just the fog of the future. But at the close of arguably the busiest month of the year, and perhaps my entire life, I gotta say, I’m feeling optimistic. That’s a nice feeling.

I had an anxiety attack. Whoops. I’m, “better” now, in as much as I’m not currently still having it 24 hours later, but yeah a general anxious ‘oh god oh god oh god’ hit me like a sack of wet mice last night and I’ve been feeling unpleasant ever since. I’m keeping this one short too but I felt a need to give yesterday context as I know it was one of my more disjointed posts.

On a lighter note, I did manage to make an unintentionally hilarious mistake when trying to fix – read tape – my headphones back together:

I am so tired. This is going to be short because it’s late, I’m shattered, I feel ill, and just emotionally exhausted. I need to pace myself better, or I will burn out and this will go down hill. Just need to breathe, keep my head above water, and try not to fret. It’s literally year one week one. I got this.

I set myself the soft goal of finishing The Service to Ore series by today, 4Y1K, or the 4 year anniversary of 1K beginning. In the end, I finished eight days early, and that included backtracking to write well over ten thousand additional words of TUS to get it closer to the desired length. That feels like a nice way to mark this milestone, but I also had in mind to add my latest project, A Timeless Moment, to the sidebar too. Well, if you have been to this site before, first of all you lie, no one has ever been to this site before because all of its readers are imaginary, and second, you may notice I did a little more than that to the sidebar. Yes, those are links.

To go from ‘I’m not ready to put these out there’, to ‘screw it, you can read the entire series right now in its full unedited glory’ is, a policy shift. It’s also a little terrifying, even if I know full well this site does not in all seriousness get traffic on a level I need to be wary. You watch, I’ll go viral tomorrow and get utterly ripped to shreds. But I mean, what’s the point in keeping it all hidden? I even linked to The Wanderer, though you’ll note I’d still advise against reading that one. I decided that even if they’re all still messy, I’d rather be able to say to people who go ‘oh where’s your writing’ that it’s all on my site, rather than my current answer, which is ‘I do absolutely nothing with it’.

Call it another step towards transparency too. I mean, I say I write a thousand words a day on here, but until now I haven’t provided the actual evidence of that. Aside from it being a pointless thing to brag about as quantity means nothing without quality, I think it’s kinda nice having my actual portfolio in the sidebar. Yes, it all still needs work, but I mean hey if you don’t mind reading rough drafts and can forgive grammar and continuity errors for what I honestly feel is a good story, knock yourself out.

So this neatly brings me to one of my favourite Hamilton songs: What Comes Next? Well, university first and foremost, but I think it’s time to diversify. I’ve shown I can finish a project – a huge one at that – and now I kinda wanna dip my toes in a few things. I’ve got A Timeless Moment, which I won’t link yet as it contains massive spoilers for the series, but I will down the line. I want to start a webnovel, which will either be Clockspinning or Over the Gap. I want to write a stage play about one of my favourite historical events of the 90s. And I just wanna write. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Here’s then, to four years of all my dreams come true, and for many more to come.

Though tomorrow is the big day itself, today is the actual 4 year mark. I have now written a thousand words a day for four years. And that milestone came on my first day of university in eight years. It’s wild to me how well that lined up. I’m looking forward to a day of reading and writing tomorrow between my next lecture and my first seminar, and just losing myself in the student life. I’m back at work alongside from Wednesday, but outside of that, it’s gonna be full steam ahead studying, and for the time being more ATM, which, I still need to add to the sidebar. Imma keep saying this until I actually do it.

You watch this become the next running gag…

I need to start tracking my spoons. Spoon theory is a tool for visualising how much energy you have to work with throughout the day, and while it was first developed to describe living with lupus, it’s also applicable across chronic fatigue in general. I need to start doing some research into how if ever, others have tracked their spoons in a way that gives useful data, and I need to do this because my life as of tomorrow, and especially when I’m also back at work on Wednesday, is about to get a heck of a lot more complex. I need to be going into this armed for the challenge, and part of that is knowing how much energy I have to work with in the first place.

You might wonder why I would need this data? Well, here’s the rub: I am useless at reading my body’s own signals. It took a long time to even realise that the reason I often feel out of it and zone out from ‘mild pain’ is that it is very much not mild pain, but rather the highest pain out of whole body pain, and I’m just not processing it until I think about it, and realise I’m in an almost constant dissociative state to block it out. I gotta tell you figuring out that painkillers make it easier for me to concentrate has been a game changer. But I do still have the fatigue to deal with, and I need to be more conscious how much energy I’m using. I have to be smart how I ration it.

ATM is still going super well. I need to add it to the sidebar, even if this one isn’t so much a novel as an open ended character study tool, one which I can see eventually being as long if not longer than the actual series.

I really wanted to write early today, but I think I managed to burn out this week. That’s ok,that’s just how this was always going to go, and why I took this stretch of time off. I’ll figure this out and balance work and life for this challenge, but in whatever way it takes, I’ll need to carve out tomorrow to kick it off. I need to get my house in order.

At least ATM is proving very therapeutic to write. Comfort is important now.

I find it funny that I love Dungeon Crawler Carl so much, that when I finish the latest book, I always just end up back on book one again within anywhere from a couple days to a couple hours. It’s the perfect mix of comfort fiction, thought provoking, and just fantastic writing. I really hope I get to meet and talk to Matt Dinniman some day. Clearly I need to be less of a coward and join the Discord. In truth the only reason I haven’t is I rely on the audiobooks – paper problem – so I wanna avoid spoilers best I can.

Utterly knackered, and today wasn’t even that long, I just didn’t get much sleep. Tonight, Imma conk out for a nice long time, and then tomorrow I’m gonna go buy a cheeseboard selection and have a fun laid back weekend. I actually meant to buy one after work today, but I did at least remember to buy ice cream. Trying to cater to comforts right now. After all I have a heck of a lot of stress in my near future and I need to keep that in check. I’m also hoping a bunch of books will arrive tomorrow, while I listen to a few more of the uni books on Audible.

Onto writing. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and I think all I can do in the short term is heed that I feel the need to focus story content, and to allow essays to take priority when they get set. The good news is that means I will end up finishing most if not all of my homework on the day of or after it gets set. Still need time to find the rhythm. But hey, I haven’t started yet, so I need to be considerate to myself.

Return to Monkey Island is spectacular. I finished it earlier tonight, and while I really wish in one specific scene they had gone for just a little bit more of a gut punch, it’s my only qualm with it. No it’s not the beginning, or the ending, it’s one throwaway moment and to be honest I think the longer I mull on the game the more I love it. Will probably at least tie with Tales as my favourite in time, is currently about tied with Revenge at present. Enough of that for now in any case; you might not be real readers but I care about not ruining the game for you.

Unfortunately I need to rush to bed now as I have an early start tomorrow, but I feel pretty chipper. I was super ill last night and today from fatigue and terrible leg cramps during the night – oh look, another EDS red flag, constant night time calf muscle cramping – and while the latter was particularly bad, I am contented right now. Also just ordered a bunch of uni books, so that helps.

I’m so tired. Juggling everything with induction week being so busy has been tough, and I managed to crash and miss an important volunteering meeting. Not my proudest moment. Tried to make the best of low energy levels but I am going to need to just rest tomorrow. That’s ok, it’s all part of the plan. At least I finally got a nice hoodie with the uni branding.

I’ve found I just have to write story content to feel content. To be clear, I feel 1K of anything counts for 1K, but this is a bit like how you flip a coin to decide something: when the other outcome comes up and you’re not happy, you know what you have to do. But I’ve got other story projects I may then move onto. One to mull on.