An Actual Progress Report · 7:07am Oct 5th, 2017
Okay, I'm feeling betterish right now, at least to a point where I can communicate without a wall of emotions twisting anything I could potentially type.
Here's a cute picture of Sunset. After the break, you can listen to me talk for a second. If you want.
I wasn't lying about those numbers last time. I met September's word count. Much of it went to Across the Shimmering Sea, where I had two days of writing 5k and 4k words respectfully to finish chapters 9 and 10 (chapter 10 was one I had been dying to write since the story started), and then the first three chapters of Class Zero. When the cover art is ready, the story will follow shortly after.
I haven't progressed further with Spectacular Seven recently. Instead, I made several changes to existing content to hopefully tell a more cohesive story. There's a lot going on in Volume II, and I'm still working out the pacing of a few things. The first half is challenging because I've found myself trying to resolve something that I legitimately forgot to do in the first volume, while tying that into the current focus of the story so it progresses and I don't give you guys literal filler. The second half should come pretty easy because I have most of it laid out and I'm dying to get to it. It's just the set up that's taking its time.
So, I think I'm going to put it off this month and turn SS into my project for NaNoWriMo (Lord willing I have time to write next month). That'll push me to finish it, spend the first half of December polishing it, have it looked over, and then give it to you guys around New Years. Since I'll be staggering it one chapter a week sans the intro and finale, you'll have about 15 to 16 straight weeks of Sunset and friends, giving me a buffer to work on Volume 3 so the next hiatus won't be as long.
This month, I'll be working on Class Zero and other things I make no promises about when they'll come out because at the end of the day, I'm still a liar.
Okay so emotional/mental health.
I'm... meh. It's funny, this seems to always happen around this time of the year. This time, it has almost nothing to do with my writing at all, writing is my only means of escape, and I'm terrified I'm going to lose it with school and getting a job.
Compile that with this that I'm feeling right now. This year's flavor is: identity crises. And a very deep one at that. It's messy and has its roots in race and politics and history, and literally has me freezing up and shutting down for a good while.
And while I know many of you out there do care, don't ask if you can help. I appreciate it. But unless you're albino or begin to understand what that means, don't ask if you can help. You can't.
And I sit here at my desk thinking these profound thoughts and stripping away what I built up for myself for 23 years, and it leaves me cold. All I can do is listen to music and force myself to get back to a spot where I can write. I don't want to talk to anyone, mostly because, I don't want to lash out at them.
So, forgive me if I'm distant. With that and what's about to happen in the next two month, I'm going to be rather silent. My stories will do my talking for me. And that's all I'm here to do: tell stories.
Go out. Enjoy the movie we've all been waiting for. I don't know when, but I plan to see it eventually as well.
Jesus, mang, you were 19 when we started working together. That durn timey whatsit-thing keeps reminding me that it waits for nobody.
Do what you can while you can, perhaps, if you're so afraid you won't be able to later. Don't start anything new. Finish your stuff, and then perhaps finally move onto the more real form of writing. You've had the best form of practise with the best kind of general responses to said practise that anyone could hope to have as an aspiring author.
As someone who’s just finished school and started work, my writing has taken a massive hit. But I always manage to set aside a some time each day to write and it works. So don’t worry about life changes getting in the way. If writing is what you love then you’ll still find time for it and you’ll still enjoy it.
I actually have felt the same way in regards to an identity crisis. I chose to attend college for broadcast television, I proudly graduated with honors in 2015 and that same summer I was working with a documentary maker on a doc that aired on CBC Canada. I felt “this is it, I’ve made it, this is my life ahead of me now.”
I haven’t had a TV job since. Patrolling job boards, Facebook groups, reaching out to friends and instructors, turns up nothing. My only exposure to the TV industry is my regular volunteering at the local cable company. In the meantime I’ve gotten a job at McDonalds and am trying and failing to save up money from it to perhaps buy equipment or software to help with the job, since the problem with money is that you spend it on things like bus fare and a cell plan and helping the parents with bills and meals at work. Last week I had that same “this is my life ahead of me now” thought in a very different context, wondering if the five years of my life spent at college were for nothing, and I’m going to become a Mickey D’s for life guy because this is all I could get.
I say this unto you now a full week later - it will pass. We all have concerns and hesitations about our lives and how they go. We all wonder if we’re going to become the people we want to be and if we’re currently living the lives we think we want and deserve. Now, of course your identity crisis does not sound the same as mine, but I think the solution is the same - live your life. Be who you are and who you want to be, so that you can be comfortable with yourself in that. That’s the secret to true happiness to me, if you can be content with yourself and not worry about how others define you.
I fully accept I can't really help other than to offer support and a voice in the darkness, but I do feel it's worth mentioning.
No help? NO HELP!?
Yeah, sure, I can do no help
Lotsa support from over the interwebs though. Digital warm fuzzies all around!
Slightly off-topic question though, ever looked into Seasonal Affective Disorder before? (I swear I'm not helping shhhhhh)
I'm sorry you've been dealing with so much and I hope things get better soon. Here's a bro hug. (HUG)
4687643
Oi geez, I've been here too long. But this place is a temptress. It's hard to resist her.
... I'm laughing right now. Very much so. I've tried so hard not to come up with new ideas. Nope, I have stories, they will be started. But when Spectacular Seven and Class Zero are finished, I will walk away. If the other stories aren't done by then, oh well.
4687763
The acronym for that is actually SAD. It's ironically amusing.
Wait, so you're actually albino? Huh, when you started talking about race and identity crises, my mind went in the opposite direction.
Well, if nothing else, you have the vague emotional support of this random internet stranger.
I know I can offer no help. But I do support you and hope you get better and decide on what's best for you.
Hey, sorry the cover art is taking longer than I promised. But I hope what I've shown you so far has helped assure you that itll be worth the wait!
Hope you feel better soon, dude.
No offense intended, but I am failing to see how being an albino (is that the right way to put it?) makes you different in terms of being a human (just one member of a species numbering 7+ billion) and having very human emotions/emotional crises, etc? I'd be very surprised if there is a single human on the planet that hasn't encountered at least one identity crisis, however small. You're probably not alone, no matter how much it seems like it, even if there isn't a conveniently located person suffering on the same scale to commiserate with.
Best wishes for feeling better, hope the writing goes well.