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matt_doyleBLOGGING: I am very disappointed with myself for not making a post yesterday, for Intergalactic Star Wars Day. I'll have to do something belated, that way. While I've been as successful at making my daily blogging goals as daily writing, the actual presence of meaningful content has been decreasing as my daily financial stress increased, which I hope to remedy.
WRITING: Quick question for Hellion Prince readers who have gotten through Chapter Thirteen -- could you confirm or deny for me that most of the chapter's problems occur in between when Damarhis gets to the royal balcony and when he arrives home? Trying to figure out if I can do a focused edit of that section or if it needs a heavier re-write.
Making good progress on A Stain Upon His Hands. There's at least a possibility that I'll have Chapter Two up sometime this month, especially if work on Hellion Prince goes slow. Either way, I will have two chapters of novel for you this month. We'll just have to see which novels...
EVERYTHING ELSE: I've been trying to walk around town an hour a day, with mixed success. Weight loss was my other big new year's goal, and while I haven't found a way to keep the pounds gone, I have repeatedly managed to drop a bit (and then, er, eaten and lazed my way back up. Work in progress...) I should be doing yoga with Megan right now, but watching her is... well, yoga is much more interesting and attractive to watch than I had assumed.
Every day seems shorter than it really is, especially when I am stressed out. I can't really use the metaphor of having spoons/energy for daily tasks, but my focus seems limited, not to mention my willpower. I really need to get a job, so I can get on medical insurance, so I can see a doctor. I know better than to assume I can diagnose myself, but honestly, the more time goes by, the more I think some sort of attention-deficit diagnosis is likely. No matter how determined I am, no matter how much I need to get things done, I just... cannot. It's immensely frustrating. It always has been. It's something I have been living with... well, always... but my depression-not-ADD diagnosis that I received as a teenager was traumatic enough (have I talked about that?) that I put the possibility out of my mind until last year. I just assumed I was a slacker. That my inability to follow through was a character flaw. Who knows, maybe it is. But... there was that glorious pair of weekends last year where I did a pharmaceutical study testing Concerta, and wrote over 9000 words a day, and for a day after I felt awake and alive, a participant in the world, confidently able to divide my time among all the functional tasks I needed to perform...
It was goddamn near to a religious experience. Either there is some imbalance within me that Concerta corrected (my assumption), or I am a junkie who has just found his personal holy-grail of pharmaceutical highs. Either way, it made me re-evaluate the notion that I am incapable or merely lazy. I know that I can, on a good day, do everything I need to in a timely fashion and still be energetic and creative enough to do the things I want.
Unfortunately, it's exactly that kind of focus that I need to chase publication; to go job-hunting; to reach the point where I can afford that doctor's appointment. Between that and the financial difficulties themselves, it's... really enough to make me want to cry. To lose sleep over it. I'm not at that point right now, but I'm staving it off. It seems like I am trapped in this stupid cycle, and all I can think about are the things that lift me out of it. My writing. My gaming. My friends(in person and online), and my cat, and my wonderful wife.
These things are great. My life is a very happy place. What it isn't is very accomplished.
WRITING: Quick question for Hellion Prince readers who have gotten through Chapter Thirteen -- could you confirm or deny for me that most of the chapter's problems occur in between when Damarhis gets to the royal balcony and when he arrives home? Trying to figure out if I can do a focused edit of that section or if it needs a heavier re-write.
Making good progress on A Stain Upon His Hands. There's at least a possibility that I'll have Chapter Two up sometime this month, especially if work on Hellion Prince goes slow. Either way, I will have two chapters of novel for you this month. We'll just have to see which novels...
EVERYTHING ELSE: I've been trying to walk around town an hour a day, with mixed success. Weight loss was my other big new year's goal, and while I haven't found a way to keep the pounds gone, I have repeatedly managed to drop a bit (and then, er, eaten and lazed my way back up. Work in progress...) I should be doing yoga with Megan right now, but watching her is... well, yoga is much more interesting and attractive to watch than I had assumed.
Every day seems shorter than it really is, especially when I am stressed out. I can't really use the metaphor of having spoons/energy for daily tasks, but my focus seems limited, not to mention my willpower. I really need to get a job, so I can get on medical insurance, so I can see a doctor. I know better than to assume I can diagnose myself, but honestly, the more time goes by, the more I think some sort of attention-deficit diagnosis is likely. No matter how determined I am, no matter how much I need to get things done, I just... cannot. It's immensely frustrating. It always has been. It's something I have been living with... well, always... but my depression-not-ADD diagnosis that I received as a teenager was traumatic enough (have I talked about that?) that I put the possibility out of my mind until last year. I just assumed I was a slacker. That my inability to follow through was a character flaw. Who knows, maybe it is. But... there was that glorious pair of weekends last year where I did a pharmaceutical study testing Concerta, and wrote over 9000 words a day, and for a day after I felt awake and alive, a participant in the world, confidently able to divide my time among all the functional tasks I needed to perform...
It was goddamn near to a religious experience. Either there is some imbalance within me that Concerta corrected (my assumption), or I am a junkie who has just found his personal holy-grail of pharmaceutical highs. Either way, it made me re-evaluate the notion that I am incapable or merely lazy. I know that I can, on a good day, do everything I need to in a timely fashion and still be energetic and creative enough to do the things I want.
Unfortunately, it's exactly that kind of focus that I need to chase publication; to go job-hunting; to reach the point where I can afford that doctor's appointment. Between that and the financial difficulties themselves, it's... really enough to make me want to cry. To lose sleep over it. I'm not at that point right now, but I'm staving it off. It seems like I am trapped in this stupid cycle, and all I can think about are the things that lift me out of it. My writing. My gaming. My friends(in person and online), and my cat, and my wonderful wife.
These things are great. My life is a very happy place. What it isn't is very accomplished.
