Category: Diary

Well, this is bad

It’s after 4am, and I haven’t been to bed yet.

I’m pretty sure I’m exhausted, but it’s hard to tell.

I had a frustrating conversation that lasted until about 1:30am. It didn’t really have a conclusion; I just said I needed to go to bed. But I didn’t do that; instead, I got on the computer and listened to the new episode of Welcome to Night Vale. The episode was pretty lighthearted, up until the end, so I thought I’d be able to go to sleep after that, but then the ending hit. And then I made the mistake of reading other people’s reactions to the episode.

My brain feels numb, or overexerted. Like it wants to do something, but is in no shape to do anything.

I am constantly struggling to prove or believe that my feelings are valid. That my choices are valid. That my life is valid.

It’s after 4am, and Dad just got up and offered to make me breakfast. Fried eggs and hash browns. Dad’s breakfast is another of my favorite things about visiting home. I accepted his offer immediately.

I wonder if I’ll sleep tonight? Or today, I suppose I should say?

Heat

There are many things I love about being home at my parents’ house. Talking with Mom. Hugging Dad. Having discussions with Connor. Being showered with affection by Logan. Joking around with everyone. Eating home-cooked meals. Walking in the yard I played in growing up. Listening to the birds. Driving through Nicholasville and seeing what’s changed and what’s stayed the same.

But one thing I am always happy about is how hot the water is.

The water at our apartment doesn’t get very hot, usually. Every now and then it does. But the water at my parents’ house gets hot enough to burn you. I love this. I love a searing hot shower. I love standing in a cascade of heat, sucking in a deep breath of air at the sudden change in temperature, letting the pounding water paint any tension away. I love how a hot, hot shower leaves me filled with warmth long afterward.

It’s so nice, especially when it’s been cold. It’s a relief. It’s a therapy.

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Not much real writing lately

The past two weeks have been pretty light, writing-wise. My moments of strongest inspiration were a Night Vale one-off called “Brother” and Flace; otherwise I’ve been struggling with Opening a Door and its side story, trying to get back into the rhythm. It’s possible this writer’s block, or whatever, is contributing to the low moods I’ve been having. Or vice-versa. Regardless, it’s very irritating. I’m hoping being in a different place—my parents’ house—and being around lots of people who love me will help reboot my brain. I wrote about my moods separately so I could count that as today’s writing, because since I’ve been here I’ve mainly just been reading or spending time with family, and I haven’t written any fiction at all.

It is so easy to fall into “rumination,” thinking depressing thoughts over and over. My worst one lately has been questioning whether my writing is even worth doing, when there are so many amazing writers out there already. Who will read me? Does my writing really affect people? Does anyone care? Will it matter if I don’t write? It’s possible that these thoughts are affecting my motivation, even as I consciously fight them.

It’s also hard to feel good about my writing when the majority of what I’ve done so far is fan fiction. I think fan fiction is wonderful, and some of the best writing I’ve ever seen is fan fiction. Hell, much of our “legitimate”—culturally acceptable—entertainment is technically fan fiction, retellings of existing stories. But somehow it’s not seen that way; there’s an arbitrary distinction between the fan fiction that is licensed, sold to the masses, and the fan fiction that is just done out of love. “Do you have any original work?” one person asked me. “Oh, no, why are you writing fan fiction?” moaned another.

Honestly, I have just been trying to write every day. I’ve really been trying not to worry about writing something important. I want to write good stuff, but I’m not trying to meet any other criteria.

I want to have fun with my writing. It would be nice if it led somewhere. It would be nice if I could sell something I wrote. But it’s hard to profit on writing. You have to be far more prolific than I’m managing at the moment.

Let me just try to write what I want to write, what I enjoy writing, for a while longer. Let me get to a point where I feel like I can consistently put out a decent amount of writing. For a time there I was doing really well, but these past two weeks have been a significant bump. For now, let me just try to work through this.

Time to reboot

I’m home in Kentucky at my parents’ house for a long weekend. I wanted to get away. Do something different. See something different. At first I thought about going away somewhere. I considered Savannah, or New Orleans, or Charleston, or Orlando. But I’d be making such a trip alone, and I’m starting to think alone isn’t really what I need.

On the drive up here, I listened to two-thirds of a book called The Depression Cure by Stephan Ilardi. It discusses lifestyle changes you can make to combat depression. I think the recommendations make sense and might be able to help me with the mood swings I’ve been having. The book cites six key strategies: “dietary omega-3 fatty acids, engaging activity, physical exercise, sunlight exposure, social support, and sleep.”

Of those six items, I think I’m okay on at least one: sleep. Other than a couple times that I’ve let writing interfere with going to bed on time (like right now), I usually sleep well. I suppose you could also argue that I’ve done engaging activities (writing).

But my diet has been pretty terrible in recent months—takeout and fast food—so I’m sure my balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids (ideally 1:2) is completely out of whack. While I do take the stairs, in the parking garage at work and to get from our garden level apartment to street level, I don’t get any other exercise. I haven’t been outdoors much this winter, so I haven’t had the benefit of sun exposure. And lastly, perhaps due to the writing, I’ve been spending a lot of time alone, even on my lunch breaks at work. (A week or so ago I actually had lunch with three other coworkers, and I felt amazing afterwards.)

I’ll finish the book on my drive back home—I’m just about to get into the part with actionable steps. When I get home, I’ll try to start making some healthy changes.

But here, now, at my parents’ house surrounded by family, I’m going to relax and listen and talk and hug. I’m going to let this little break rejuvenate me.

Time

It’s weird how time can seem so slow and yet disappear all of a sudden. This weekend is gone, and it feels like it just started, but it also seemed very leisurely.

I spent the majority of my time reading, as usual. I read lots of fanfic. I also read the latest volume of Natsume Yuujinchou, which was fantastic. It’s been sitting on my desk for months now. I’m glad I finally cracked it open. Not only was there a sweet love story, but there was a cool Natori story!

Sean is working this weekend, so my Saturday was quiet. I did laundry and poked around online and watched Star Trek IV. When Sean came home, we went to Sushi Huku for dinner, which was wonderful. They have the best sushi I’ve had in Atlanta. Their tea is also the best. And I like that they give you free edamame at dinner. And the dinner I chose came with a delicious flan-like dessert. Yum!

Sundays are half days for Sean, so today he slept in and left at noon. My chores were done so I took a leisurely shower and actually blow-dried my hair for a change. I got a Quarter Pounder Deluxe and a cookie dough Blizzard for lunch, which necessitated a drive into Smyrna–there are three McDonald’s locations near us, but the Dairy Queen is a little far out. I went for the Blizzard first, which was kind of silly of me, especially given how long it took to get home. I was looking at Tumblr in the drive-thru and ended up pulling into a parking space to read for awhile. Then I drove to McDonald’s and sat in their drive-thru for about ten minutes, no lie, and then they said they were only accepting cash, so I had to drive to another McDonald’s. By the time I got back to the apartment, at least a third of the Blizzard was melted. (This may be partially due to the fact that it was like 70 degrees out. Very nice weather!) I had to remove the lid over a bowl and then dump off the excess.

When Sean got home, we spent a little time together and then he ended up falling asleep. I got on my computer and started making Welcome to Night Vale ringtones, because I’m a dork. Around 10pm I realized that it was 10pm, and I went to Taco Bell and picked up a couple of cantina bowls. Sean got up shortly after I returned, so I was glad I’d gotten him something to eat.

It’s now quarter after 11 and I’m feeling dumb for eating dinner this late, but hey, that’s Daylight Saving Time for you. Here’s hoping I get some good sleep tonight.

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An extremely slow week

This past week’s word count is extraordinarily low compared to that of previous weeks. Just 2827. My lowest-output week before this was the second week of January, at 3436. My highest output in a week so far has been 9568.

I’ve had some stuff on my mind, so that’s probably why this week has been slow. I’m trying not to worry about it too much. I’m also trying not to worry too much about the “fact” that I’m not writing anything “important,” but I think this may be bothering me more than I realize.

I’m taking this coming Thursday and Friday off work. I feel like I need to do something different to recharge. I definitely want to go somewhere, but I haven’t decided where yet.

Balance

Stepping into a pair of jeans

Snagging your foot

Hopping to regain your balance, still struggling to force your foot down the pants leg

Hopping a little too far in the opposite direction

Feeling your weight shift

Thinking “This is it, this is how I die, losing my balance in a walk-in closet with my legs uselessly trapped in a pair of jeans, falling, hitting my head on a metal shelf”

Regaining your balance

Slipping your foot through to the floor

Going on with your day

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A bad day turns good

I felt horrible when I left for work, and I felt horrible all morning. It was one of those moods where I would get near tears if I thought too much about any of the things that were bothering me, and when I was in danger of thinking things like “Why do I even bother trying to write? I am so terrible and there are plenty of people who are better and I’m not even writing anything important anyway.”

But I focused on work, work I enjoy, and then at lunch I ate with three coworkers and we talked about everything: kids, travel, relationships, anger, food, the ethics of eating meat. It was actually a pretty deep conversation, and it was so nice to talk and to listen. The meal was nourishing, too, roast chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans. After lunch I returned to my desk feeling cheerful, and even though a huge problem arose at 4:45 my mood wasn’t dampened.

Sean texted me shortly before I left work to ask if I’d paid the rent—I had plans to do so on my way home—and to ask me out to dinner. I happily agreed, and when I got home we went to Aspens Signature Steaks, our fancy date restaurant. You don’t have to dress up to eat there, but sometimes we do. Today, though, we just wore jeans. We shared some blue point oysters, then I had the surf and turf, a beef medallion with a lobster tail and a side of mashed sweet potato, and Sean had a strip steak with a lobster tail and grilled mushrooms. We finished the meal with the white chocolate raspberry mousse cake that is our go-to dessert; Sean also had coffee, which he said was really good. We talked the whole time, about all sorts of things. We talked all the way home, too.

It was so wonderful to have that feeling of connection, both with my friends at work and of course with my husband. I think that after a weekend of being sort of secluded, locked away to myself, I needed that.

I’m a little overwhelmed

I’ve come down from the writing high. Or maybe it wasn’t a high. Whatever it was, I’ve come down, and I was all set to just casually, leisurely enjoy writing for awhile.

I’m in a dangerous place today, though. I was once again reminded just how little I know. I’ve been writing fan fiction in the Night Vale universe, but that universe is suffused with the occult and horror and other things that I have honestly never really been that interested in, and as such have very little knowledge of. And Night Vale is a very smart work generally, filled with allusions I know I’m missing.

Sometimes I can accept my ignorance, or rather, accept that I have a lot to learn and am capable of learning it. But sometimes I feel like I’ve wasted so much time, that I know so little, that I’m a failure. Today is tipping toward being one of those times.

Today’s episode was emotionally draining. It’s left me somehow restless and numb. I’m not sure what to do with myself.

I don’t want to write. I want to just…recover.

But if I don’t write, I will break my streak, and I don’t want to do that either.

I’ll write. I’ll write something. Maybe it will be really short, but it will count.

And then I’ll try to figure out what the hell I seem to be yearning for.

Whew

Yesterday was pretty rough.

I’d been on a writing binge for the preceding four days, working on and then posting two long chapters of my fan fiction work “Opening a Door.” I felt driven; I needed to get the next pieces of the story out. I stayed up two hours late to finish the second one. I felt all right when I got up yesterday morning, but the lack of sleep did not bode well for the rest of the day.

(In an interesting parallel, my main character was also rather frenzied, and, like me, he had also forgotten to shower for a couple days.)

I’d waited to post the second chapter until morning, which was good—I ended up revising the ending paragraph, smoothing out the prose, and catching several errors. Then it was time for work. Due to the winter weather—there was a warning about black ice on the roads—I worked from home for a couple hours, then went to the office at 10.

Work was stressful, with various deadlines looming and lots of problems cropping up. I had to turn my music up as loud as I could in my earbuds to block out noise so I could concentrate.

I generally have a protein shake at 6:30 before leaving for work, then graze on some sort of breakfast food from 8:30 to 10. Because I’d left for the office two hours later than usual, I had second breakfast two hours later than usual, meaning I was actually still eating it at 1 o’clock when a coworker asked if I wanted to go with her to the cafeteria.

I really didn’t feel like I could eat, but I went anyway, thinking maybe taking a break would be nice. Unfortunately, I was wrong. As we walked, we got into a conversation I did not have the mental capacity for. She kept asking questions I didn’t feel like I could answer. I became increasingly frustrated. I couldn’t think. I ended up not buying any lunch, and, unfortunately, grousing a little at her. She was understanding, though, and I apologized for not being better company. Ultimately we just went back upstairs to our desks after she’d purchased her salad.

Finally at around 3 I got hungry again. The cafeteria had closed at 2, and I didn’t feel like I had time to leave the building to pick something up. So my oh-so-healthy lunch wound up being a package of peanut butter Nekot cookies and a Snickers bar from the vending machine.

Another coworker came by and started asking me a bunch of questions about myself. I can’t even remember what she was asking now; all I know is I felt like I was being put on the spot, and I got really frustrated again. I was able to express this without being completely rude (though I was a little rude). She backed off, explaining that she is just really interested in finding out how people tick. I apologized and said, “I am more open to that sort of thing at other times.”

Since I’d spent the morning revising and I didn’t write anything at lunch, I only had the evening to get something down. At first, I just tried to unwind, let my mind relax a little. I had a little fun with the dress meme and the llama meme that both happened to crop up yesterday, and I read a recently-posted chapter of an excellent fanfic I’ve been following. Finally, I wrote 77 words on a story that will be a companion piece to “Opening a Door.” Not much, but it was definitely enough for my exhausting yesterday.

I’m definitely going to try to eat properly today. There’s no winter advisory this morning; it’s cold and the cars are frosted over, but there should be no problem getting to work. I’ll grab second breakfast as usual and eat a real lunch. That should help today be a better day.

A completely unscientific comparison of my social media sites

Today I posted the same status across three different sites: Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. Here’s the status as it appeared on Twitter:

HILARIOUS RIGHT

Anyway. I posted the status at approximately 9am. Here it is, just after 8pm, 11 hours later. How’d this plucky little status do?

  • Twitter: Absolutely no response
  • Tumblr: Absolutely no response
  • Facebook: 7 likes

To be fair, if the status had had anything at all to do with human rights or Welcome to Night Vale it probably would have gotten a couple reblogs on Tumblr. I know the audience there. (Look how many notes this ridiculousness has.)

I’m pleased but not surprised that people on Facebook liked the joke. The people I’m friends with on Facebook are people I actually consider friends, people I’ve known for awhile either online or in person. So there is actually a relationship there.

Twitter, I don’t know. I don’t think many of my followers actually follow me. Even if they did, there are so many other people posting things that are far funnier. I haven’t managed to make many real connections on Twitter, even though I’ve been using it the longest out of all three services. Maybe that’s why? Maybe I sort of learned how social media works from Twitter, but only applied that knowledge to Facebook and now Tumblr.

In any case, it seems like the best way to achieve interaction is to make friends with people (shocking), and I really haven’t done that on Twitter at all. It feels so public, it kind of embarrasses me to try to strike up conversations with people I don’t know. I have started to make friends on Tumblr, which has been a lot of fun. Nothing too serious yet, just reblogging and liking each other’s posts, and a few asks here and there. But it’s nice. I like friends.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I use Twitter, and what I even use it for. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, if anything—I do have a couple friends there. But I feel like I spend an awful lot of time on it, and I want to be sure it’s worth it.

Swept up

The other day on Facebook, I posted,

I just want to read, and write, and read, and write, and read, and write.

That is all I want to do.

Yesterday I published chapter four of my fanfic “Opening a Door.” It was the most difficult chapter so far to write. For a long time it didn’t feel right; I had certain events that I knew should occur, but the story wasn’t cohesive. I’ve been writing in Notepad, but I needed to be able to “see” more of the story, see its structure, so I pasted it into Word, and that helped. I moved the part of the story that had been the climax to the beginning, because I realized it wasn’t really the climax…and suddenly everything started working.

It was so satisfying to finish that chapter, to keep digging at it until it came out the way I wanted it to.

I love this feeling. I want to keep going. I want to know what happens next in this story, and I want to work on all my other stories.

I’m so happy I’ve committed to writing every day.

Writing myself raw

It seems that writing every day puts me even more inside my head than I usually already am, and that has resulted in some pretty dramatic mood shifts. Either that, or my moods have always shifted like this, and I just wasn’t paying attention.

There will be days when I feel absolutely wonderful, days when words flow like water and joy bubbles up at everything. There will be days when I’m fine, not great, not terrible, just fine, and things can make me smile even as dark thoughts creep at the edges of my consciousness. And then there will be days when I think that my writing is terrible, that I am terrible, that everything I do is pointless.

Those are not good days.

Being aware of what type of day I’m having has helped me to start developing appropriate responses. On the good days, I just enjoy it. I indulge in thinking about how great everything is and pat myself on the back and pat other people on the back and engage in many conversations–those are the days I feel the most sociable. On the lukewarm days, I often have trouble focusing, so I set out tasks and plow through them with the help of music. When I think something disparaging about myself, I reject the thought as quickly as possible, and remind myself that I am doing something, that I am learning and growing, and that there is no such thing as perfect, just a path of improvement. As long as I stay on that path, I have no reason to hate myself. And staying on that path doesn’t mean writing thousands of words every day…it just means writing something every day.

On the horrible days, I just take care of myself as best I can. If I don’t feel like going anywhere, I don’t go anywhere. I generally don’t talk to anyone. I read things I enjoy and eat good food and go to sleep. Sleeping helps. But no matter what, I make sure that I write something, even on those days.

I’m not sure what kind of day today is yet. I feel like it has the potential to be good, if not great. Wednesday was awful, but I figured something out on Wednesday, a new way of thinking about things, and Thursday was an absolutely wonderful day. I did a lot of work-related writing, which of course doesn’t go toward my word count, but I also went back to a story I haven’t written on in awhile, and it was good. I was cheerful and chatty and smiling all day. Yesterday I sort of coasted along on Thursday’s momentum; it was a nice day, but quiet, subdued, like I wanted to just plug happily away at things by myself. I wrote a few sentences in the morning, spent the day working and reading, then went to dinner with Sean and our friends Charles and Heidi. Finally, late last night, I wrote and wrote and wrote, and yesterday’s total word count ended up being 1175. Not amazing, but good, and I was happy with what I’d written. It’s not beautiful–I really hope someday I can write something beautiful–but it’s interesting.

I like writing at night before bed. I’m typically a morning person, but if I stay up past my bedtime I get this strange, fresh burst of energy. And late at night it’s quiet; there are few distractions, and there’s nothing else to do. It’s not chore time or work time or socializing time. It’s my time.

Another nice thing about writing before bed is that I wake up thinking about my stories. If I don’t let myself get distracted by social media and news articles, I can jump right back into it.

I have decided that today will be good. It looks like the weather will be nice, clear and cool. Maybe I’ll go somewhere, let nature or art or some other kind of beauty rejuvenate me. And I’ll write, of course. Of course, I’ll write.

Word count

It’s the last day of January. This morning I tallied the words I’ve written so far this month, and it came out to 27,935.

The first thing that leaps out at me is that this is about half the words required to complete National Novel Writing Month. I’m actually pretty happy with this, because I wasn’t trying to meet a certain word count at all. I get the feeling that as I keep writing every day, as I get used to doing it and it becomes part of my daily life, my output will naturally increase. By the time November rolls around, I might actually be to the point that I can do NaNoWriMo.

I’ve tried NaNo a couple of times, but I never made it past about ten days of writing. The shift from not writing at all to suddenly trying to output thousands of words a day was not sustainable. I quickly got bored, frustrated, and blocked. (I also ended up losing everything I wrote in my 2004 attempt in the 2005 apartment fire.)

This more gradual approach seems to be much better; I can write whatever I’m inspired to write, and I don’t feel pressured to be particularly prolific as long as I write something.

It’s been heartening, too, to see that I’m able to keep writing despite the weird highs and lows I go through. Noticing how often they’ve been happening has been strange. I don’t know if my moods have always swung this frequently, or if writing daily is causing me to spend even more time inside my own head than usual. I wonder if I should come up with some way of tracking and quantifying my moods.

In any case, the month isn’t quite over yet. I’ll be writing more today, and I look forward to updating my tally sheet with the final word count for January. Then…on to February!

It’s almost February

In anticipation of Month Two of Daily Writing, I have created a main filler page for 2015 Daily Writing, under which I have placed 2015 Daily Writing: January and another new page, 2015 Daily Writing: February. Right now the filler page is just there to act as a container in the drop-down menu, but I think I might end up using it for summaries of each month (total word count, completed works, types of work, whatever).

Yesterday was pretty great, writing-wise. The night before, I was feeling restless and ended up staying awake way past my bedtime. As I was trying to force myself to go to bed, an idea for a new piece of fanfiction came to me all at once. I immediately went back to the office and turned my laptop back on and wrote 241 words. The next morning I woke up and wrote a couple hundred more, and again at lunch, and then after work I wrote until 1am, ending up with a completed chapter of 4511 words. I edited it and posted it at 1:17am in a happy haze and was finally able to go to sleep.

Fortunately, I have today off, so staying up late two days in a row didn’t hurt anything. I slept in until a little after 8. The day has been spent doing laundry, emptying the dishwasher, and closing a bunch of browser tabs–though thanks to Twitter and Facebook, I’ve opened a few new tabs as well. There is just so much out there to read.

I haven’t done today’s writing yet, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m not sure if I’ll continue the project from yesterday or jump to something else, but whatever I do will certainly be fun. I have the following to choose from:

  • Opening a Door: yesterday’s fanfic
  • Whispers: a fanfic I’ve been working on since January 1, which currently has 8 chapters and 7758 words
  • the untitled childhood memoir I started writing on Wednesday
  • the franchise reboot I’ve been working on since January 13
  • Impostor: an original science fiction story
  • the vignette I promised Heidi
  • something else! who knows!

It sort of seems like now that I’ve started writing every day, I can’t stop…it’s a good problem to have, but I do hope I actually complete these projects!