Week 4 - You've Got to Ask Yourself One Question

 Week 4 update: I’m pretty much over the illness, or whatever it was. Still got the dry cough, but it’s slowly clearing up. As for the writing, I’m easing myself back into the groove. I did not write a book or even advance the two drafts I started with this month, but I’ve successfully re-established the weekly blogging habit, and I’m still game-free. Plus I’ve got an assignment coming in next week, so I’ll either have a good payday in February or so-so paydays in February and March. Either way there’s money coming in and I’m always good with that.

$$$$

Years ago I was having lunch with a friend (of the toxic variety, but it took me years to discover that) and we were discussing jobs, employment and the difficulty would-be writers had in securing either, writing-related or not. I think we were both employed at that time; I’m pretty sure we split the check. I’ve always been a cheap bitch.

And she was a complainer. Nothing ever went right in her life. Every conversation had to be about her and how miserable she was. There was no one-upping her in misfortune, ever. If you had a broken arm—“Oh, I broke both my legs once. The ambulance crashed on the way to the hospital. The doctor forgot to give me anesthesia. The recovery room was full so they left me in the hallway where a guy with the plague sneezed on me.” And so on, for hours at a stretch. Like I said, toxic.

Whatever job she had during this particular visit, she hated it, as usual. The work was pointless, the boss was Darth Vader, the pay sucked but every other job in the world paid even less so there’s nothing you can do about it so why even bother, you’re never going to earn a living doing anything so—

Having finally reached my limit, I looked her in the eye and broke into her monologuing with, “How much do you make if you don’t work at all?”

She went silent. Didn’t answer. Then—“There just aren’t any good jobs around and—”

“How much do you make if you don’t work at all?”

“Yeahbutwhineexcusepoormeit’snotmyfaultI’mnottoblameexcuseexcusethewholeworld’swrongbutmeI’mthevictimhere—”

“How much do you make if you don’t work at all?”

“(more of the same, only louder and more forceful).”

And so forth. I must have asked her that question at least five times. She never gave me an answer. I finally gave her what she wanted and stopped, and she went on with her narcissistic whining as if I’d never spoken. I’m sure, in her mind, I hadn’t said anything worth paying attention to anyway.

It was another several years before I finally gathered my self-respect and just flat-out ghosted her. It wasn’t easy because we were part of the same writers’ group and we had decent friends in common. I don’t think she was even aware I’d stopped talking to her. She had plenty of other victims she could spew her toxic waste on. As far as I know, she never changed. She was content to wallow in her misery pit, as long as she had somebody else down in there with her she could stand on. I’ll bet in her version she dumped me because I was a dreary, pathetic loser who always complained and never did anything to fix my own problems while trying to tell her how at fault she was. Narcissists—and bullies—have projection down to an art form.

$$$$

She may have had a point; it just took her around fifteen years to be proven right. I started this challenge a week before New Year’s. Here it is a month later and I’ve done exactly squat. Technically, I started this a year ago. Things were going my way financially and I was on the verge of starting a series while looking into ways of earning side money. Then the whole year went to shit. Before that I started work on the series, hit a writer’s block and blew off my dwindling lifespan playing computer Solitaire. Before that I got thrown off-stride by Covid and its subsequent lockdowns. Before that it was having my last full-time job go overseas and the realization I’d aged out of what was left of the job market. Having experience didn’t make me valuable; it just made me expensive. Jobs I’d worked years to acquire skills for no longer existed, or were going to diversity hires because they’d accept less than a living wage, and women under 25 have lower insurance rates than us battle-axes over 50, and being straight and white was just soooo ’90s.

And it’s all just excuses. There was a point where I was making good side money writing erotic romances. I was just beginning to build momentum…except I stopped. Went on a block for a year and didn’t write. That one’s on me. I landed an at-home editing job for that publisher, though, so I wasn’t destitute. That and savings got me through until I got old enough to claim Social Security. I could have been writing this whole time, maybe have savings in the bank now. Why didn’t I? Maybe I should have asked a therapist.

It all comes down to that one question: How much do you make if you don’t work at all? These January blogs should have answered that for you. They sure as shootin’ did for me. February will be devoted to answering my original question: Can I write a book/draft in a month? I should be able to because this is a leap year. Make that extra day count! See you next week.

 

Week 3 - Stallouts and False Starts

 

Here I am again. I wish I had something to tell you. Anything that wouldn’t sound like an excuse. But the fact is, I did next to no writing this past week on either of my projects, because 2023 and all its bad luck wasn’t quite finished with me. Yes, the car is fixed now. Yes, I got to celebrate my birthday the way I wanted to. And then, as I reported last time, I got sick. Here’s where our update begins.

I thought it was a 24-hour virus because the nausea and the fever only lasted 24 hours. The dry cough and the lack of appetite decided to stick around. I also developed a scratchy throat and sporadically runny nose. I’d be fine for hours, then suddenly start coughing and sneezing. Then I’d lie down and take a nap. Assuming I could, because when I tried to lie down the phlegm would drip into my throat and I’d start coughing. I could hear it making liquidy sounds whenever I took a breath. That’s bronchitis, which I’ve dealt with before, only it wasn’t as intense. It was kind of bronchitis lite. The fever, the night coughing, the sleeplessness and fatigue only lasted a day or two each. The problem with bronchitis, though, is that there’s no shot or medicine you can take to relieve it. You need to stay in bed and ride it out and let it run its course.

Caveat: yes, I did try Nyquil, during my last bout of full-blown bronchitis back in 2020. It did knock me cold and suppress the coughing so I could sleep through the night. The trouble happened after it wore off. I’d get wide-awake, standing-up catchup coughing fits so bad I could barely breathe. For two of them I had ringing in my ears and thought I was going to pass out. One was in public. The one where I almost passed out happened right in front of my house, with nobody around. I count myself extremely lucky that it didn’t get any worse. I will never take Nyquil for bronchitis again. Your mileage may vary.

Back to the story. It’s now Monday night, and we’re having an overnight snowstorm.

Not too bad. Three fluffy inches. But I don’t have anyone to dig my car out for me, and I needed to get to the store because I was running out of food and Kleenex. (Thank Chuck, God of Supernatural, the Tylenol held out.) So sick l’il me went out—twice, had to shovel in stages because I got tired—and cleared off the car. That was Tuesday. I’d sleep as well as I could and drive to the grocery store in the morning.

Woke up Wednesday morning, put on my glasses, and discovered I had double vision.

Luckily this is something else I’ve dealt with before. It first happened to me after a really bad week of computer game addiction, when I wasn’t eating right, if at all, and not getting sufficient sleep. Simple enough to manage: take a nap, eat decent meals, and it goes away on its own. Which it did, eventually. By the end of the day I was seeing single again…but only in the house. I got into the car and realized outside was a whole different animal. Y’see, with my form of double vision, everything close is in focus. The farther away things are, the more likely they are to double. Imagine the two-lane road running past your house is now a four-lane, and half the cars coming at you in the opposite lane(s) aren’t real, and you can’t be sure which is which. Or if the lane you’re driving on is an actual lane and not somebody’s lawn. Or somebody. And you still need to get to the store if you want to eat breakfast tomorrow. (I can always blow my nose on toilet paper. I always have plenty of that.)

If I’d been dizzy, or nauseous, or fatigued, I would have just gone back in the house and toughed it out until morning. But I’ve done this before too. The store I was aiming for is only two miles away, on a straight, clear main road. I drove most of it with one hand covering my right eye (the blurrier of the two). Each eye was fine on its own; it’s trying to look through both at once that was causing me problems. I got to the store with no problems. Coming home, the double vision had even cleared up but now I was driving into the sunset. Sometimes there’s just no winning no matter what you do.

Thursday. Woke up with double vision again but it was gone by the end of the day, for good this time. The coughing is more liquid now; whatever I’ve got is starting to break up. The shoveling I did Tuesday has resulted in sore back muscles, so walking around is a bitch. And guess what, we’ve got another all-day snowstorm scheduled for Friday…

Which I survived, obviously. I didn’t need to get supplies this time, so I basically took Friday off to let my back recover. Some neighbor with a snowblower did all our sidewalks, so all I had to do was dig out the car and my mini-driveway. I did that in stages on Saturday. Sunday I didn’t do bupkis. Napped, ate, read. No writing beyond flash.

That’s where we stand. Three weeks into January and I’ve barely written squat. Can I write a book in a month? The question remains unanswered. Or else the answer is, “Not this month.” Or maybe it’s, “Next month.”

Though I have established one positive habit while possibly extinguishing a bad one. I’ve now written and posted a blog four weeks in a row. I haven’t done that in years. I wish the content was better for you guys. I’ll work on that next. Also, I’m not sure of the exact date, but I think it’s now been at least a full month since I stopped playing computer games. I know that ended sometime before New Year’s. I even had some momentum going for a couple of days there before life tripped me up again. I survived. Hopefully I learned something. Hopefully whatever I learned may be useful to some of you attempting your own New Year’s journeys. I do not recommend driving while sick, or with double vision. Stick that one under the generalization, “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Now to post this puppy and get back to work. See you next week.

Week 2 - Sick Days and Unpaid Holidays

Short update this week, due to issues beyond my control, and me taking a day off to celebrate. The week started off fine, with progress made on both projects. Then came Wednesday. Wednesday was my birthday, and I’d planned to take the day off and do a road trip. Except the weather didn’t cooperate. Neither did my car. I elected to spend Wednesday wrapping up a paid assignment (due Friday) and take my trip on Thursday, when the weather was supposed to be better. Good thing—later that afternoon I got in the car to pick up some groceries and the damn thing wouldn’t start. Again. It’s been having battery issues for the last three months, but I thought it was fixed. Guess again. It was too late in the day to contact the garage, so I went back in the house and fumed and got the assignment done. That was also the first time in two weeks I had insomnia overnight, and I’m sure it’s because I looked at the clock. I haven’t looked at the clock since, and I haven’t had insomnia since. So that trick’s working. Hope it can help somebody.

Thursday turned out far better. The weather was indeed much nicer, just right for an extended road trip. Now if only I could get the car to cooperate. The mechanic from AAA who gave the battery a jump said I had a bad battery. Trouble was, it was a new battery, roughly a year old. We’d been focusing on the connections and hadn’t considered the battery itself was the problem. The garage put a new battery in, which I got for free because the bad one was under warranty. I considered that my birthday present. Maybe my luck is finally changing for the better, after the expensive hell that was 2023.

So Thursday ended up being my birthday, with a long, satisfying drive around Philadelphia’s outskirts followed by a pizza dinner. I’d sent the assignment back that morning, so I was able to do all this with no obligations or stress.

You’d think this recharge would have upped my writing production. You’d think wrong. For the next three days I couldn’t write a thing. I had to resort to flash. This is strange, because I’m mostly typing longhand on both projects. The problem is, it’s been a while since I wrote the original versions, and now new, better ideas are banging around in my brain and I basically end up rewriting the whole thing. Not to mention all the distractions offered by the internet. I finally got myself back together and advanced the new project (the romance) and figured I was back on track.

And then I got sick.

Nothing too serious. It was either food poisoning or a 24-hour virus. But dang, those little buggers are powerful. This one gave me stomach pains and kept me in bed for almost 12 hours. I may have had a fever too, and chills, which is why I’m leaning toward a bug. I seem to be okay now, but I’m going to stick to bland foods in small portions for a day or two, just to make sure.

The moral of the story is: you can make all the plans and schedules and resolutions you want, but sometimes life is going to throw you a curve ball. You can power through some of them; had I chosen, I could have taken a notebook along and written longhand while I was waiting at the garage. Others, like fever and fatigue, are going to knock you off your feet and there’s nothing you can do about it, other than take care of yourself first so you can take care of the work. Downtime is just as important as work time. All work and no play makes Jack grab an axe and chase his family through the Overlook Hotel. Yes, I know Stephen King kept writing while he was recovering from getting hit by a van. Some people are wired that way. Or just plain obsessed. Since I’m neither, I have to find what works best for me. That’s what this year is all about.

There’s another truism I need to keep in mind: if you want to be a writer, at some point you have to write. If you don’t you won’t have anything to send out and those royalty checks won’t be coming in. There’s a lot more to it than that, like marketing and all that boring business stuff, but it all begins with the product. I have half a month left to finish one of my current WIPs. If I apply myself, I can do this. Unless I get sick. Or the car doesn’t start. Life is a never-ending adventure. See you next week. 

Week 1 - Trial Runs and Helpful Hints

So here we are—one week into my personal challenge of writing a book per month for the duration of 2024. How did I do?

Not too bad. Not perfect, but not awful enough to plunge me into despair and self-doubt and make me give up within twenty-four hours of the start of the new year. I did that with my resolution to eat better. Went out January 2 for supplies and bought Mounds bars and Cheese Doodles and other unhealthy stuff, which I binged on over the rest of the week. This is not how diets work. Still, it wasn’t a resolution per se, so I can let it go. I just have to be careful not to do that again. Or not do it too often. Maybe I can sneak up on a healthy diet and then give up junk food for Lent. Kind of a practice run. Like the way I’m sneaking up on exercise. I leave the house and move around every other day. Once the weather gets better it’ll be every day. As I phase out the junk food (in particular bakery goods and candy bars with all their processed sugar) the pounds will drop off slowly without undue exercise. By the time spring rolls around and temperatures start to rise, I won’t be hauling around as much body fat and will actually want to move more. I’m slowly getting myself up to the point where I can stroll around stores without using a cart as a walker.

Slow, incremental changes appear to be the key, at least for me. I’ve tried self-challenges and resolutions in the past. My biggest problem seems to be piling too much on my plate at once. Then I get overwhelmed, give up in despair, and go back to my old bad habits. I do this with writing, too. It’s part of the reason I went on an unshakeable block for most of last year. Girl, relax. Build up those muscles, physical and mental, a bit at a time. Every day you do something instead of nothing is a win. Pretty soon the habit muscles will strengthen and you can push yourself a little further. I want to lose five pounds by the end of the month. That’s doable. Losing too much weight too fast isn’t good for you anyway.

I will not be giving up pizza. Just cutting back. My plan there is to treat myself to pizza every time I finish a book. That’s not too bad. Every time I sub something, I’ll have pizza and a soda. Yeah, there’s my motivation.

You’re welcome to try this approach as well, Keep in mind we’re all different, so your mileage may vary.

And now, the Week 1 update, positive division. I started work on a shapeshifter romance, and continued work on the original side project, which is currently in its second draft. I’ve been able to write at least a little something on one or the other, sometimes both, every day. I haven’t had to resort to flash fill-ins at all. I haven’t touched any computer games since at least three weeks before the start of the new year. My attitude has been upbeat, for the most part. I’ve been sleeping better. The fact I’m able to write and post two blogs within a week is a major triumph in itself. All this is while I’m working on a paid assignment which is due this Friday. See that? A couple deep breaths, a reduction in sugar consumption, and miracles can happen.

Things I need to work on: My resolve does tend to peter out as the week wears on. More than once I caught myself slipping back into my well-worn procrastination habits. They’re mainly tied to the laptop (that’s where the internet and all its siren distractions live) but I’ve got a couple of tricks to get me through. For one, I can write longhand, where the Web can’t get at me. That’ll work for the romance, but not for the other one. That one’s already longhand; I’m trying to type it into the system, rewriting as I go. For that I just go for a music channel and tie up the WiFi while I type on the hard drive. Once I get going I don’t have a problem. It’s the “get going” part where I stumble. If things get really bad I’ll just unplug the WiFi. I’ve found if I don’t write first thing in the morning, other obligations start getting in the way and I never get around to the manuscripts. Those are the days I end up frantically scribbling flash scenes right before bed. That cropped up a couple of times this week. Fortunately, I was able to scribble scenes from my works in progress rather than random flash. Eventually my lazy subconscious will realize it’s not going to win and back off. I wanted to write this post two days ago, but the bastard kept distracting me. And yet here we are. Take that, asshole!

Finally, a simple tip I got from Dr. Google is helping me tame my insomnia. Being old, I tend to go to bed early (average bed time, 10 pm) and get up at least once, sometimes two or three times, to clean the pipes. All too often I find I can’t fall back to sleep. That’s when the negative thoughts creep in. Every mistake I’ve ever made, every bad thing that’s happened to me, comes blasting back like a crappy rerun on TV Land. When I do finally fall asleep, I wake up afterwards feeling like shit on toast. Naturally, my attitude is in the hopper. You can imagine how my writing goes.

 The worst time for this is between 2 and 4 am. How do I know? Because I’ve been checking the clock. Dr. Google’s solution: don’t check the clock, especially if it’s one of those digital ones with the glowing screen. Not only does seeing the time stress you out, the blue light messes with your sleep hormones and helps keep you awake. So last week I stopped checking the time when I got up for my pee breaks. And son of a poodle with a litter of puppies, it worked. I do my business, crawl back into bed, lie there for maybe a minute and then drop right off. When I do wake up and look at the clock, it’s around 5-6 am and I’d be getting up anyway. If you’re having sleep problems, give this a try. Again, your mileage may vary.

This week I’m going to see about shutting down the laptop at 7 pm because I’ve been having off-and-on problems with falling asleep to begin with.  You’re supposed to avoid screens at least an hour before bed. I already blew that one today because I wanted to write this blog, so I’ll have to kick that off tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it works out. See you next week!