Bad Habits and Self Assassination

Journal 88 10-23 April 2023

I’ve been skipping blogs, breaking from weekly to bi-weekly.

I’ve been skipping writing for weeks to sometimes a whole month at a time.

In all cases I’ve justified my actions with great excuses. Real reasons why I needed the time away form the keys. Side work, holidays, travel, etc. They’re all good.

Take this blog for example, does it need to be weekly? I mean if I’m writing weekly, then sure, because this is the place where I put up my numbers. This is the place that holds me accountable to keeping up. But when I’m not writing so much… bi-weekly makes me have to think of a real topic and less of a journal. But if I forced myself to blog every week, I would start getting mad about the lack of word count. They both feed on one another.

It’s habit forming.

Habit Forming

So, writing is habit forming, but unlike all our bad habits, its way easier to fall out of.

If you start up a routine with writing, even if it’s a small thing like writing for a half hour every morning during breakfast before leaving for work. That can easily become a daily habit. One in which your brain will come alive with ideas. Until that day when you’re running late and you skip it. Then the next day you skip making breakfast entire and then suddenly you’re not eating or thinking in the morning anymore.

That’s my one of my problems. A few months backs I took a break from writing, I went from October to Jan. without doing anything other than this blog. Now, I already said I had good excuses. I wasn’t in the right headspace, two funerals within three months of each other took it out of me. And then trying to have holidays with empty seats.

That’s all true… and yet at the same time, I was probably good to get back to it during November, but I’d gotten used to not writing. Then December, and finally I kicked myself in the ass and got back to it really well through Jan thru March. And now I’m once again looking at a month without a word count.

Schedules and Routine.

My problem is my past “success” and overplanning. My thesis novel got hammered out in a matter of months because I head a deadline. And then I planned my next novel around a long-term schedule. Jan to March was planning and outlining.

Then I took April off for birthdays and Easter and general bullshit, and started my novel. Started it three times actually with some time spent with re-outlining but I finished the novel in March.

This pushed up my schedule (I originally planned—over-planned?—to finish before December) as I didn’t finish the novel until Late-March. To cut to the chase each book pushed up the start of the next, as I got further and further off target. Out of habit.

The plan to outline every winter and start a novel every April just pushed out further and further. And now I’m sitting here in April with a book that is about 70% done, and it’s almost May. A full year on a book that should have taken only a matter of months.

Hence why I’m mad at myself for habits, excuses, and really just mad that arbitrary plans made without any idea of what might happen across the year were stymied by… reality.

What the hell am I saying….?

I think I’m just venting. A lot of these blogs are nothing more than my anger at myself or recrimination for what I perceive to be laziness. We are, after all, our own worse critics.

And the only answer I have to all of this is to work on forming habits again. I need to start working on the outline of future books now. During my in-between times. Get my ideas down on paper. I need to get in regular keyboard time every week. And I still need to do all the other work I’ve been doing instead. My side jobs, hobby time, reading, etc.

And now I’ve put it in writing and I’m going to post it to the public to see.

Accountability.

Will it work? For a while.

Last Two Weeks

As noted, both regular and orthodox easter were had in these two weeks. Also, my birthday and several of my friends and family as well. There was a fair amount of gaming, a lot of side hustle work, and I built three models.

Gaming

Gaming has been going well. One of my games skipped a few weeks… actually most of my games skipped weeks. Only the in-person game met both weeks and they were great games. I actually used a bunch of my writing time to create a discord for the in-person D&D game and write out every session of the game in a series of long notes.

I’m still debating the time when I will return to the DM screen and run my Dusk Campaign. (Which ties into the next novel so I tell myself it’s ok to work on this material because I’m also using it for the next novel).

Cthulhu Pulp has been really good, but I also admit it’s been 90% RP and atmosphere. I don’t know if I need to ease in some more mechanics… a little more action. Everyone seems happy, but I always worry that there is a need for some action. I mean we have tension and crazy moments. Most of those moments are about running the fuck away, or stealing a motorcycle and then finding out the character can’t ride a motorcycle.

Finding a massive monster, fleeing, thinking about it for several hours (real time) a full day or two (game time)… and then letting someone else deal with it while moving on to a tangential subject (closing the gate the monster came from in the first place).

Overall, gaming has been a steady and good part of my life again.

Movies, TV, and Other Hobby

So, for my birthday I got the boxed collection of Universal Horror movies, and I’m working my way through all 30 films in chronological order. I’ve only seen about 7 of these films before.

So far, I’ve watched Dracula (last time 38 years ago), Frankenstein (38 years ago), Invisible Man (35 years ago), The Mummy (first time), Bride of Frankenstein (First time), and Werewolf of London (first time).

They are great.

For my birthday I also got to go see the DnD Movie and I loved it. The movie felt like it was in Faerun. And the humor was just right. Plus, fat dragon is fat, I would not surprised if someone based them off their cat. Seriously.

Anyway, that’s probably enough about movies and tv and other bullshit in a blog that was once all about writing. I did think I would review the DnD movie a little more. But to be honest I hate critics and tearing about a movie like most reviewers seem to do. I mean to this day I still have this hatred for Siskel and Ebert because of how they treated action and horror movies (my favorites) in the 80s.

Also, I went a little longer with my rant half than expected.

Thanks for reading and I’ll try to be here next week.