Two blogs in two days, lordy lordy

Yesterday, I wrote 4,127 words. Not counting the blog. It took me till 5:30pm and I felt quite burned afterwards. Please excuse me for not having a whole lot to say today.

This morning, I wrote a post for Tumblr about how to give feedback on works in progress, specifically aimed at people who have difficulty with that. Because, well, people who don’t have difficulty with that probably don’t need a guide. *harrumph* Anyway.

So, today I will blog about things that inspire me and things that assist in my writing process. There is no guarantee that this will be interesting.

Inspirations:

• Colors
• Song lyrics
• Brilliant original stories, like Daughter of Smoke and Bone
• Stories about cynical underdogs fighting for justice
• Stories about angels, apparently
• Surreal feelings of seeing the exact path life would have taken if a choice were made differently
• Really cool shoes

Writing Aides:

• Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Pandora station
• Hot chocolate
• Kitties on my lap
• 30-minute timers
• The thesaurus
• Slippers
• Constant adulation and encouragement from Branden
• Microwaveable lunch

Did I put those in unordered lists so that my blog post looks longer? Mmmaaayyybbbeee. Did I just stretch out the word “maybe” to put more filler in my post? No, actually, that’s just an added bonus.

Sorry my interesting tank is empty today. I hope to be more engaging on Friday!

Word count: 15,307 (㯋)

You think you're nearer your destination when in fact you're slip-sliding away

So. You may or may not have noticed, but I failed to blog yesterday. I try to keep a M-W-F schedule, but yesterday... yesterday was one of those days.

In the course of my disease, there are some things I’ve learned that are going to happen. These things happen with the best, most effective medication. There is no real way to predict when it’s going to happen, but it’s most frequently on days after days that I’ve spent a lot of energy, either mentally or physically.

These “things” of which I speak are mostly days on which I can’t—or don’t—do anything. I mean anything. I laid on the couch from 8:30 am till 5:50 pm, only getting up to go to the bathroom or, at about 3:30, pour myself a bowl of cereal (technically my breakfast). I had a cut on my thumb, and the neosporin was about two inches out of my reach, and I just couldn’t be bothered to reach over and get it. I’m slightly amazed that I got up the motivation required to turn on Netflix. I didn’t open my laptop to read my comics or Tumblr.

That level of apathy is, I feel, incomprehensible to a normal, healthy person. I think that that kind of behavior is associated with depression, but for me, it’s not. I’m not depressed. There were moments, yesterday, that I was like, “Elly, you really should eat something. Elly, you could be doing something more fun,” but the fact that I wasn’t eating or having any fun didn’t really bother me.

I spent months and months, possibly years, getting really angry at myself, frustrated, and pretty freaked out when this sort of thing would happen. Then I got therapy, coincidentally with a therapist whose mom has MS, and she helped me understand a few things. These things have been key to not descending into misery and guilt.

1. Blaming and punishing myself doesn’t help anything. If anything, it makes it more likely to happen.
2. Sometimes days like that are going to happen, and the most healthy thing to do is acknowledge it and deal with it as it comes, like you would a headache. One doesn’t blame oneself for a headache, or feel guilty for not powering through it, so why should I do that with my fatigue?
3. It’s a real biochemical thing, not a choice I’m making. Not being able to force myself to get up and be productive isn’t a failing any more than not being able to grow wings and fly.

So I deal with it, and I am kind to myself when it happens, but I won’t pretend it’s a blessing or something to have an unannounced “relaxation” day.

Because it’s not relaxation. There’s a large difference between fatigue and relaxation, which is a thing that a lot of people really fail to understand. It’s a day completely lost. It’s like going to sleep on Sunday night and waking up Tuesday morning. I’m not more rested, really (metaphor aside), and that’s a day of my life that’s gone. The chili I was going to make, the shopping trip I was going to do, those things are still not done. And now there are more things that need doing. (For example, today I’m going to write 4,000 words.) And thinking about that makes things seem overwhelming. I don’t know if this is normal, but a lot of days, the only way I get anything done is to approach it with baby steps, or I don’t get off the couch.

And to me, that’s scary.

Anyway, I don’t want to focus on that, because today is another day.

I am writing as soon as I post this blog. I made a lot of progress over the week, and I’m super excited about that. My current word count is 11,180. I feel like the pacing of my story is good and that I’m going to have more than enough content to reach and surpass 50k, hopefully 75k. Of course, that’s hard to see from here, but I’m getting better at gauging stuff like that. NaNo and the revision have really helped me get a handle on pacing and how much content is actually in a thousand words.

Somehow, this story is very writable. Before I started it, I was writing a different story (which I find I can’t really describe in a sentence), and I would struggle for every word. When last I wrote, my word count was 38,640, and it felt like at least three times that, based solely on how long I spent writing it and how much mental anguish went into it. Despite the fact that my writers’ group was enjoying it and giving me kudos, I hated it more and more every time I wrote. This story isn’t like that; for all my insecurities, I still write like a house afire when I can focus long enough to do it.

And that is exciting, and encouraging. We’ve got writers’ group this weekend and I’m very excited for it, even though, as I’ve said in other posts, feedback on a work in progress is only so helpful.

So, do you have hard days? Are you making progress on your stories or revisions? Let me know in the comments!

Timers are magic

I’m getting around to blogging quite late in the day today. I’m blaming Branden for that. Because it’s more relaxing than blaming myself, because certainly it’s not more his fault than mine. I just like his company too damn much.

Yesterday, I accidentally read things about Gamer Gate. I have been aware of this... shall we say travesty... since its inception, but I didn’t really know the affect it was having on real people. Then I happened upon this post by Zoë Quinn, and it made me realize that things are really not okay. I don’t feel well-informed enough to really comment on the GG situation specifically, but I want to make it loudly known that I support babes—in gaming, on the internet, and in the world at large. Yes, there are women who could be more civil and less sensitive to guys who neither intend nor actually do any harm. But a minority of rude women does not excuse the vile vitriol that has been spewing forth from the misogynistic underbelly that has spawned from anonymity on the internet.

I think it would be a really good idea for there to be some kind of real-life consequences—or, hell, I’d settle for actual online consequences—for bad behaviours online. You can’t call someone the n-word (nor most other names) in public without some amount of backlash, whether that be getting punched or getting shamed by their friends; the fact that this is not really possible online is a damned shame. The ability to verbally, mentally, and emotionally abuse someone in the context of an online game is undoing decades of work done by marginalized groups to teach children how to be good citizens and good neighbors, and it should not be tolerated by we who know better.

But how do we who know better collect any amount of influence, let alone wield it? It seems like an insurmountable problem. But I would propose immediately quitting any game in which someone calls someone else something that is racially, sexually, sexuality-ly, gender-ly, or identity-ly charged and taking all like-minded players with you. You train animals by refusing to reward their bad behavior with attention or play, and humans can be trained the same way.

But I don’t know anyone who is willing to do that, unfortunately. Even my most civic-minded friends call it the cost of doing business, which is complete BS in my humble opinion.

But I’m not an online gamer, and no one cares what I think. So I should get back to what I do know: how to fumble about scribbling words onto a page.

Today’s word count: 9,185. Translation: I wrote a hair more than 2,000 words on Wednesday, and a hair more than 2,000 words yesterday. When I publish this, I’m getting to work on today’s 2,000 words, and then I take the weekend off.

I am most looking forward to taking the weekend off.

I’ve taken the same approach to my last 4,000 words that I did for NaNoWriMo: set a timer and write as many words as possible. Race myself, essentially. It means I don’t spend a lot of time overthinking my content... which means things happen that I don’t expect. Let’s just say I’m really looking forward to my writers’ group reading the scene in which Cassidy meets BeBé.

Thoughts on online citizenship? Feminism? Writing your writing with no handlebars? Comment below!

Interrobang‽

This isn’t news to most people following this blog, as most people following this blog are either my own doppelgänger (Branden), follow the same nerdy sites as me, or are well-versed in their own right, but this. This bit of punctuation! I didn’t know that there was a way to type it. There’s apparently also a punctuation mark that is a backwards question mark and a forward-facing question mark that share the same dot, which is called a “love mark” and is meant to end a sentence that expresses love, like “Happy anniversary.” I wish there was a way to type that, but so far I haven’t found it. (There are also many other cool punctuation marks that mostly don’t have a way to type them. See here.)

Second super-fun thing: Neil Gaiman will be signing books at Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins on February 6, starting at 4pm! I think I’d like to try to get there, but I don’t know if I actually will, knowing me. If I did go, I’d bring Neverwhere for him to sign. And maybe book #1 of Sandman. Is that how book-signings work?

Having just reviewed my blog post from Monday, I can say, wow, I was loopy. That’s okay, I’ve written things while loopy that I wonder why I can’t write like that while fully intact. On Monday, after my blog, I did manage to write a little more. Not a lot; only about 200 words, but better than nothing.

I’ve been reading my tumblr and checking my deviantArt feeds till now and I think—I think—that I’m going to be able to open up my writing and write! That will be excellent. I have to say, I’m looking forward to having a finished project. And that anticipation should carry me through the rewrite.

I’m starting to identify more with Cassidy, and that is extremely helpful. I still stress about my ability to pepper clues and red herrings throughout the book, but I can’t fail until I try. What’s more is that the clues, while important, are actually much more understated than it seems they might be if you’re not really analyzing a work. I mean, a lot of the time, “clues” are just things that happen that your investigator doesn’t have the proper context for, that make sense after the mystery is solved. Only very occasionally are clues going to be the fingernail trimmings found in the ashtray, or the discarded zorro mask. More often it’s the fact that the baby’s blanket disappeared, or the friend you haven’t seen in a decade happens to drop by.

I’m trying to work Cassidy’s history into the “present-tense” narrative of the story, and I’m not sure if I’m doing a good job, but hey, that’s what writers’ group is for, right? I’m liking how the theme of the book—identity—is working its way into the peripheral parts of the story without my having meant to squish it in. That’s pretty cool. Mostly, I’m appreciating the things that happen when my brain percolates the story, and I really look forward to writing those things down. So now I just have to conquer the sleepies and the what-if’s and the what-then’s and start writing things down. I managed the first draft in thirty days. Twenty-eight, maybe. If I set myself a word goal, maybe I could manage the second draft in, say, sixty days.

That’s it. I’m setting myself a weekday word goal of 2,000 words per day. I don’t have a top limit, so that’ll be until the book is written, however long that is. On my blog posts I’ll be posting my word count, so all of you readers, you many readers, you legion of readers can keep me honest.

To infinity. And beyond! (Today’s word count: 5,129. Special character? ᐉ [typography is fun])

Finally! Progress!

Although I seem to have contracted Captain Tripps, which is true every time I get sick, I somehow managed to write yesterday. I wrote slowly and laboriously, writing only about 1500 words in something like six hours (with breaks, of course). I’m not sure any of it is worth anything; I haven’t reread it in the cold light of day. But I’m supremely glad that I wrote.

Days dawn and set and every one, I am excited to work on my story, but things stand in the way. Stupid things. Bite-sized things. I’ve talked to my therapist about this, and she and I agree that there is little for it but to just do it. Change scenery, change attitude, change implement, but really, just friggin do it. I’ve been giving myself a sanctioned break because I’ve been so sick, and I’m okay with that, for reals, and because it’s “mandated” I’ve had the luxury to feel antsy about not working on it—as though, if I weren’t sick, I’d be dutifully cranking out twelve hundred words an hour with one hand while luxuriously painting my toenails with the other. Self deception is best deception.

Every time I write I realize anew that writing isn’t so unapproachable. That’s a very good thing. I remind myself that I have no real deadlines and I should feel no real pressure, and my writing group will keep me writing (which is how I’ll avoid abandoning projects as I’ve done so many times in my life). As long as I do as much as I can, when I can, I’ll be okay.

So I finished my outline (as I said in an earlier entry) and I did a card or two for my corkboard, but once again the festering pustule that was my Inner Critic was getting so big that it was crowding out everything else, censoring my cards and rendering them neutered with regards to their power. So I had to write narrative instead, and I found once more that writing narrative serves to drain off the Critic-cyst, to relieve the pressure, and to put everything back in its proper place. Plus it means I’ll have something to share at writers’ group, hooray! I have recently realized that sharing WIPs is not as useful as sharing completed works, but I still get good, useful feedback on my prose. I just wish I could write more...

I’m going to wrap it up because I can feel myself meandering. I am still fully sick, have patience with me. I’ll be back Wednesday to say some more stuff about writing, I hope.

One tall step down... the rest of the book to go

Moments ago, I finished the outline/synopsis/What God Knows for my story. There are some middle parts missing, but considering how I tend to “follow” outlines, that may not be too bad of a thing. I also wrote several more cards for my corkboard. I did more writing today than I thought that I could, and tomorrow I can start writing narrative again. Weirdly, I think I need to get further in my narrative before I can flesh out the corkboard much more, but I can probably add a card or two before putting it on hold.

I admit I’m nervous about writing narrative. The voice of my narrator (now also my main character) is really different from last time, and somehow I’m not sure I’m fully behind it. I think it’s better, but it’s not what I had envisioned it at the onset.

Part of what kept my momentum up during NaNoWriMo was the fact that I was fully engaged in the tone of my story. It was my voice, and I didn’t care overmuch what anyone else thought. Now I’m hoping to make a work that will stand up on its own among other works within the genre, and it sounds really egotistical in my own head to say that.

But if it doesn’t stand up, what’s the point? I mean, you don’t literally “level up” in writing. You get better with practice, to be sure, but your first book needn’t be crap. Look at John Kennedy Toole—he wrote two books ever, and the one he wrote first was published second, and both after his death. A Confederacy of Dunces, the first-published one, won a Pulitzer Prize.

So, just because you aren’t published doesn’t mean you aren’t a good, skilled writer. It does mean that your attempts may require a little more editing/revising than some other authors’. But you can revise and edit it until it, the work itself, is a venerated old guy with a grizzled beard and a grizzled voice, and it speaks with authority when it tells the story that was etched into it over months and weeks and years of hard, hard work.

Anyway. I’m sick and I think I’m rambling and I started this entry over four hours ago and keep getting sidetracked from finishing it. I’m proud of the work I did today, meager as it was, and I hope to do as well or better tomorrow—but we’ll see, because tomorrow has this whole other set of responsibilities, and I imagine I’ll still be sick.

I’m proud of my work. I just wish I could work up the willpower and momentum to work every day. Once I get to narrative stuff, I think I’ll set myself a daily word goal, like in NaNo. We’ll see.

At any rate, now I sleep. See you Friday.

There are always excuses

I meant to blog on Friday, but it ended up not happening.

Friday, at least, I had a good excuse.

Due to an unfortunate series of events, I ended up taking two doses of my medicine on accident. My Gilenya (MS medicine) and my Adderall. Because of the double dose of Gilenya, I first attempted to induce vomiting (which I failed. I could never be bulimic) and then spent about fifteen minutes on hold with the hospital trying to find out what I should do. The safety information on the drug said I should go immediately to the ER and that I would have to spend the night there with continuous EKG/heart rate monitoring. I was not excited about that prospect, so I really wanted to make sure that it was actually necessary—thus the long wait on hold.

(As a note, the more relevant reason I chose not to go immediately to the ER was the very valid fear that they wouldn’t know what to do with me. My medication is not particularly common, and I would be surprised if the doctors on call knew what it was, what it treated, and what to do in the case of overdose. So... yeah.)

Anyway, after waiting on hold for a total of twenty minutes, I finally got someone who could ask someone to call me back.

Shortly, the nurse called me back, scolded me for taking two doses in one day ( O_o ) and said I’d be fine.

Whew.

Once that emergency passed, I was able to focus on the issue at hand: I had twice the usual amount of Adderall in my system. I felt like I could have cleaned my whole house, twice.

Luckily, I had a friend on hand to keep me busy, so I did no such thing. Luckily.

So, between panicking and being distracted, I wasn’t able to blog on Friday. That combined with the fact that I didn’t have much to say, I didn’t feel too bad about letting it slide.

The following day, I was exhausted (perhaps predictably), but I did my best to add to my summary. I made significant progress, and I’m happy with that. But I haven’t written a word since then. Which brings me to my post title: there are always excuses.

Frequently, they’re very good excuses. Frequently, they’re reasons and you should do whatever the thing is that you need to do. For example, I needed to get my prescription filled today, and pick up food for tonight’s dinner, and then subsequently cook that food.

But even more frequently, they’re not good excuses. The reasons are “poor time management,” “lack of prioritization,” and the like. (Even today, there was plenty of those.) It’s very frustrating to me when I sincerely want to write; I’m even inspired to write, and I just can’t seem to do it. I don’t know how it manifests for other people, but I open up my file and immediately get incredibly sleepy.

The bitch of it is, I can’t seem to actually sleep at those times. I’m just a zombie. But, it’s not a good excuse. It’s my body writing me a note to give to my writing, excusing me because I “have asthma”. But I don’t have asthma. If I just pushed through it, the sleepiness would subside and give up, crawl back in the cave it came from.

And because I know that, my body or mind have found other ways of cutting my legs out from under me.

Now, this concerns me a lot. On days that I go to the gym, I find it very difficult to write (or do anything creative) afterwards. I don’t know why, but I hate it. I want exercise to be an invigorating, energizing activity, not something that shuts me down for the whole rest of the day. Because if it is something that shuts me down, that means I should probably do it after writing... but then I know I’d never get up the motivation to go at all. And it’s very important for disease management and maintaining this hot body that I get to the gym on a regular basis. Also, going to the gym gets me physically out of the house, which is definitely not guaranteed in a day, otherwise. I don’t know if employed people can actually sympathize, but sitting for sixteen hours a day is... really not good.

Anyway, this is sort of a venty post. I’m going to spend some time working on my summary tonight and hopefully I’ll have something more interesting to post about on Wednesday. Thanks for listening!