Week 9.5 - Catching Up and Writing Tips

Update – Just thought I’d drop in and let everyone know I’ve recovered from my latest fall off the gaming wagon and am back on the productive track. I’m wrapping up a bit of paid work and have returned to work on the romance. I do that one in the mornings, longhand. Without the internet’s distractions I’ve been making some serious progress, with ideas for characters and plot twists hitting me so fast I can barely keep up. No urge to play games whatsoever. Looks like I made it through to the other side and should be okay. Until the next time. Here’s hoping the next time is many months from now. Or even never.

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While I’m here, allow me to impart a discovery I made about my writing habits. My current project is a shapeshifter romance, a resurrection of a story I started and abandoned several years ago. For reasons I’ll discuss next week, I need to change some settings and character names, as well as some characterization. In the course of reviving this ancient corpse, it suddenly struck me that some of my shifters, the coyotes in particular, all seem to talk and act alike. I’ve got one in the series that’s currently blocked, but I wrote enough to that story to realize he and the one I’m writing right now are basically interchangeable, even though they’re in two different stories with two vastly different settings and plots. Like the Klingons in the original Star Trek and the Ferengi in ST: The Next Generation, the coyote shifters have become my go-to stereotype.

Treating any homogenous group of beings in such fashion, like an overall set of quirks instead of as individuals, is not only lazy writing, it’s an insult to the readers and especially to the characters. Luckily I’m early enough in my current story that there’s still time to change course. The fragment I’m reworking was originally intended to be a simple M/F romance between a wolf shifter and a human woman, with the wolf’s coyote buddy as comedy relief. I’ve already decided to make the new version a threesome, so he’ll not only need to be a fully-rounded character, but one worthy of winning the woman’s affections. So what makes him stand out? What makes him different from any other coyote character I’ve written over the years?

Better characterization. And hidden layers. The coyote is a relative from an eastern pack; he’s been called to Wyoming to help the western branch of the fam in their turf war with another shifter species. (Fun fact: the subspecies known as the Eastern Coyote has been found to have wolf in its DNA, probably from interbreeding before farmers with guns wiped out the eastern wolf packs.) The coyote craziness my wolf-shifter hero can’t stand only shows on the surface. Underneath lurks a serious predator controlled by a trickster’s mind. There’s a good reason the western Alpha called him in to help and paired him up with the humorless, straight-arrow hero. Over the years the others characters have all bought in to my patented coyote stereotype. While everybody’s watching the wolf, the coyote will slip in under the radar and get the job done.

One trait I did retain from the stereotype was a coyote’s reputation as a horndog. Fortunately for my wolf hero, they’re not as sexually uptight as wolves and don’t mind sharing. Once my characters form their threesome, the wolf in this one will keep him faithful. My woman character’s dad was a Marine drill sergeant, so she’ll keep ’em both in line.

See? A little thought and a lot of effort will lead to a much better book. This is also why you should let a draft sit for a while before attempting revisions. Time makes the jarring notes jump out at you, as well as the overused  tropes. You can teach an old dog, or coyote, or writer, new tricks. See you all next week.

  

Weeks 8 & 9 - Dealing with Sinkholes

 

Update – You’ll notice I’m running late this week. So late I’ve decided to combine two weeks’ worth of updates into one, even though it’s only Thursday. Consider it a bonus for Leap Day. Besides, tomorrow starts a new month so it all evens out.

This is what happened. In Week 8, all those ideas my subconscious threw at me did indeed knock me off course. That and the new paid assignment successfully kept me from writing more than a few lines per day. Mostly I did flash. I did do a bit of typing on the side project, and eased myself back into the romance book, but nothing I could write a blog about.

Then Week 8 transitioned into Week 9, and that’s when the fun began. I’ve stated several times I have an ongoing addiction to computer games. As of last week I’d been game-free since before Christmas, for a little over two months. Take notice of the past tense. For some reason over the weekend—I think I got bored with the paid assignment I was working on—I hopped on over to a gaming site for a little break with some Spider Solitaire.

Ever see one of those movies where the guy agrees to have “just one drink”? Then the scene cuts to the next morning and him waking up naked in Vegas with the mother of all hangovers and Wayne Newton snoring in bed beside him. Or something like that. That was me on Saturday, minus Wayne Newton. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d just cussed myself out and gone back to work, but I didn’t do that. I went back to the games instead. Also on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. And I wasn’t even in Vegas.

During these relapses, crucial things tend to get swept aside. TV’s not that critical, but I did skip a lot of my faves. Also meals. And work on the assignment, currently my only source of writing income, which also has a deadline. I managed to whip out some flash scenes before bed, or type a couple of lines on one of the projects before jumping over to the game sites. There was one bright spot: Tuesday morning, instead of heading for the laptop, I stayed in bed and ended up writhing nearly two full longhand pages on the romance book. You’d think that would have broken the spell. No such luck. Something happens to me when I sit down at the keyboard during one of these episodes. I go for the games and just stay there for hours at a stretch. I’ve heard there are kids who get so caught up in playing they don’t even go to the bathroom. They just let loose in their seat. I haven’t hit that humiliating benchmark yet, but the organs are old and starting to give out. It’s only a matter of time.

It’s like falling into a sinkhole. One minute you’re strolling along and life is fine and dandy, then suddenly the ground gives way and you’re falling into the depths and can’t see any way out. It can be anything: gambling, drinking, drugs, social media, the endless timesucks on the internet. For me it was the stupid games that came with my laptop’s hard drive. I was even too cheap to pick an expensive addiction.

Wednesday became my day of reckoning. Of course with all this going on, my insomnia decided to join the party. I woke up around 3 a.m. and couldn’t fall back to sleep. By five I was wide awake and furious at myself. In a fit of self-loathing I decided Screw This. I got up, brewed my morning mug of tea, took it into the office with me, sat down and got to work. Over the next twelve hours or so I slogged my way through the work I’d been putting off for the previous three days, with only a break here and there for things like food, bathroom breaks and a shower. I’ll show you, Mr. Subconscious. You’re not the boss of me.

And it worked, more or less. I didn’t quite finish the bugger, but I only had a few pages to go when I finally shut down for the day/night. If that didn’t cure my insomnia, I’m not sure what would. Well, it didn’t. This morning I woke up around 2 am. At 3 I threw on my robe, went into the office, wrapped up the paid work and went back to bed. Got up around 7:30. I was pretty draggy for most of the day, but the work got done. Better still, I’d proven my point to myself: If I put my mind to it and take serious action, I can do damn near anything. I don’t have to fall into the sinkhole. It will only swallow me if I allow it to.

I still need to whip up some writing for today. I’ll do that while watching TV.

That’s how I’ll be wrapping up this month. No books completed, no income from fiction writing. But I scored a major personal victory over my spineless, procrastinating self. There’s a whole new month ahead of me now, 31 pristine days. The romance is starting to pick up steam; I’ll bet I can get it done. Maybe now I’ll be able to sleep through the night with only the occasional pee break. See you all next week.

 

Clean Slate

Aaaannnnd we’re back. I took a few weeks off mostly out of laziness. It’s not so easy coming up with new topics week after week. I don’t know how newspaper columnists do it. Oh, right, they get a paycheck.

I’ve decided to kick off the new year with a confession. In fact, the topic is why it took me all week to write and post this, when I’d intended to post on Monday. Deep breath and here we go:

I am an addict. I’m addicted to video games.

This is not a joke. It’s not the start of a rant. For me, it’s a serious problem. Moreso in recent months, because it’s started to interfere with the paying work. I almost missed a couple of deadlines because I got playing games when I should have been doing the freelance stuff that pays my bills. I did miss a couple of postings on this and my other blog last year, because I played games instead of writing. It’s one of the reasons I don’t get stories out faster. Again, that’s money I need that I’m missing out on because I’m playing computer solitaire. Not exactly the best use of my time.

How bad has it gotten? Well, ever heard those stories about people playing games well into the early morning hours? Or around the clock? They’re true. I’ve averaged eight to twelve hour marathons just on one game alone. I think the longest I ever went was over sixteen hours. I’ve started playing during the morning and gone on to two or three a.m. Then sleep for maybe three-four hours and get up. And sometimes start over.

During those hours I don’t eat or move around or go to the bathroom. For some reason I don’t feel tired. I get the feeling the game activity is messing with my brain chemistry. It’s certainly messing with my physical well-being. I haven’t gained weight, but I’ve definitely lost endurance. I can tell that just by walking around the house.

I once followed this pattern for roughly a week. Little food, less sleep, no exercise. Then I woke from a nap light-headed and unable to focus my eyes. I didn’t know if it was me or a gas leak (I have no sense of smell). I ended up calling the local volunteer fire department and had them come out to check my furnace and propane tanks and scan for carbon monoxide. Turns out everything was fine, except for me. The firemen checked my blood pressure and asked if I wanted them to call an ambulance. I turned them down because I knew what the problem was. I’d done it to myself. After some food and a decent night’s sleep I was okay.

That should have been my rock bottom, my turning point. It wasn’t. I think I quit for a while after that, but pretty soon I was back at it. Not continuously, but days here and there, for longer and longer stretches. The kind that interfere with life and the paying work, as noted above.

I’m not talking about World of Warcraft or any of the other games found on the Internet. These are the simple games that came with my laptop: Freecell, Solitaire, Spider Solitaire, Mah Jong. Those are the dangerous ones. I found others on the Net, before Yahoo discontinued their Games program. I once played Jewel Quest in the library lobby for nine hours. That was well after the incident with the fire department.

I’ve known for years I have a problem with OCDish behavior. I learned decades ago I don’t dare keep a deck of cards in the house. I used to buy those Sudoku magazines and compulsively work the puzzles until I ended up ripping up the magazine and throwing it out. That was the only way I could stop.

I don’t know what to do about these games. I don’t have home Internet, so in that respect I’m restricted by the library’s hours. The ones I’m having trouble with are on the laptop’s hard drive. I can’t block them (I tried). I can’t delete them. I asked the guys at the computer repair place to do that and they said they couldn’t without wrecking the hard drive. I can’t get rid of the laptop because I need it for writing and work. It’s not like keeping booze or drugs or junk food out of the house. As far as removing temptation goes, I’m pretty much up the creek.

Even worse, I don’t think this addiction is itself the real problem. I suspect it’s a symptom of some deeper problem, namely procrastination/work avoidance. I’ve stopped in the past. I was “clean” for nearly all of 2016. During my gameless phase I noticed I tended to watch mindless stuff on TV or read excessively or even do housework. Anything rather than write. I’d also just started the freelance job back then, so I was motivated by bills and a paycheck to stay productive.

Then one day I clicked on the Games program and decided to play “just one game.” That was my downfall. That was when I started getting into the longer-than-eight-hour sessions, usually when I was supposed to be working on paid stuff.

That’s the part that finally scared me. I don’t have a regular job, and at my age in this economy I’m not likely to find one that pays a living wage. If I screw up this freelance gig, I’ll be down to just my savings for financial resources, and that won’t last forever. At this rate, that won’t even last two years.

So I need to work, and I need to be more productive. Instead I turn to the games, then beat myself up afterward. And downward the spiral goes.

Before anyone asks, I haven’t worked a “traditional” job for about five years now, so I’m not doing this in the workplace. There’s no family involved, so no one else is affected by my slacker ways. That means there’s no support system, either. Most of the time I’m pretty isolated, which may be part of the problem. Does FaceBook have a page for gaming addicts? Is it helpful? Because I haven’t been doing so well on my own.

I was going to call it quits at Christmas. Go cold turkey. Didn’t work. I stopped “for good this time, I mean it” New Year’s Eve. I fell back into the habit three days later. I was playing as recently as last night. I put off paid work because the urge to play games was just that strong.

And yet … this morning I woke up with no compulsion at all. That’s happened to me before. I’ll go through a phase where I can’t stay away from the games, and then it just … goes away. It’s like a switch gets thrown in my head. The switch must have clicked overnight because I’m okay now. I’ve been working on the laptop all morning with no inclinations to play at all. This could last for today, or a week, or maybe a couple of months. I’m taking advantage of the break to confess to the world in this blog.

What I should be doing is using this time to root around in my head and figure out what the real problem is, why I play in the first place. Dr. Phil says, “People do what works,” but how is repetitively playing the same game for twelve or more hours giving me a positive payoff? I’m sure it has to do with self-sabotage. This is the point where a normal person would seek professional help, but video game addiction isn’t considered a real problem by the medical community so my health insurance won’t pay for it. Fair enough. If I don’t work because I’m playing games all the time, soon I won’t have money to pay for the health insurance. That’ll teach ‘em.

So instead of playing games, or working, or writing, I can lie down somewhere and stare into space and examine my motivations, or lack thereof. People who do this call it “meditation.” Sounds like a prime time-waster to me, marginally healthier than what I’ve been doing. Maybe I’ll give it a go.