Dead Month

Journal 112 15-28 January 2024

This is a weird start to the year.

Partially I feel like I reset back to the old days when I didn’t care and didn’t work. When I welcomed silence in my life. But… I don’t feel as much crippling guilt nor do I feel particularly depressed.

I’m in an upbeat mood. I know I will work on things eventually.

This is a weird state between the old (pre-Necon/ return to college me) and the post degree me.

The whole of the month hasn’t been a total loss.

Normally, I like to fixate on the successes to inure myself to the depressing truths. Missed opportunities, work slacked off, and what I perceive as ‘laziness.’

Excuses

I make excuses for my lack of progress by lauding the few goals I’ve reached.

I mean, this is a good practice and I still recommend it to help with people’s mental health. I suffer from SAD, so the whole end of the year and then the winter is a fine balancing act.

I managed to go over five (6?) years without suffering a single SAD attack. And I’m still not really “suffering” one now. I’m just in a state where my drive is low. I have goals, I have a list, and normally missing these goals would bother me greatly.

But I don’t feel so bad.

Is it because of my “excuses?”

My excuses, which are minor goals that I’m still making.

I want to go my PT four times a week, I make one or two… is that enough to keep me happy? Maybe not by itself, but going to the doctor and finding out that I lost weight over the holiday. Plus, noticing a general increase in strength, energy, and ease of movement-flexibility.

These are enough to please me and keep away the guilt.

I might not have written anything in months, but I’m still thinking of story. I’m playing with ideas and I’ve been tearing apart other stories. Watching shows and picking apart the plotting, noticing missed opportunities and plot holes. Thinking of ways that ok tv and movies could have been better.

And then asking myself if it’s arrogance to judge work that made it to TV and film when I’m not successful yet as a writer. But then I say “Nah! They got this wrong.” Ha ha.

January

Has been a month of extra hours at work, broken ribs, and I’ve powered through 10 K-dramas and I’m about to finish number 11 today. I’ve discovered that Netflix and Viki (and the writers of these shows) seem to be unable to clearly genre-slot their material. I don’t know if I should elaborate on that or not. Would you readers want to go through a few hundred-word rant about genre expectations?

I mean it is writing related so the primary topic of these blogs, but its not about MY writing and mostly just me complaining about things. Though I can coach it into literary criticism and review.

Hm?

I’ve moved off the topic of this section. January has been a mixed month, as I write this its raining and snowing at the same time. Creating a slippery mess, after we had a week that reached the 50s in temp.

I’m so tired of winter. Even though it has been fairly mild. I just find it stressful to think of snow and ice.

February, Forward

I like to think of March as spring, even if snow and cold lingers.

So, I have one month of shittiness to get through. What is the plan for the next four week then?

If I’m being honest, I’m just pushing my current plans forward. There is nothing else I can do. I still need to revise the previous book, and start the new. I have some art projects I’ve been putting off for months, and I’d like to build a model.

That last might seem left field, but I’m not even doing fun things for myself. The time I’m wasting has not been spent on cooking, gaming, art, or models… all the things I normally do to use up my writing time.

Most of Dec and Jan were without gaming, and only this week has seen the return of all three D&D games to my weekly rotation. Continuing my honesty, I’ve been barely bringing in the “story” to those games. My characters have been quiet. Sticking to the background and I’m not wholly engaged in them.

Going forward in Feb. I plan to get my mind right. Work on story. And get schedule figured out to accomplish goals and still have fun.

Going back to the Top.

I started this by talking about my failure to accomplish my goals. But I want to stress that I don’t have the normal guilt, self-hate, and depression that follows those failures.

I’m feeling good. I don’t think of myself “as a failure” I just think I’m behind my schedule. But that “schedule” is arbitrary. It’s made up.

I won’t say I’m happy. But then again what is “happy?” It’s more an absence of misery.  I’m not mad at myself.

Perhaps this blog is a little too honest today. Too much behind the screen and not enough on the writing. But the writing hasn’t been happening and I need to write something here. Every time I write one of these blogs, I get so happy to hit the keys that it makes me want to do more. Makes me want to write.

The clack of keys makes me happy.

Writing, Art, Gaming, and Movies/TV

I’m gonna try to stay happy for the rest of winter.

I’m gonna revise Daeria.

I’m gonna start Dusk.

Models will be built, art will be made, dramas consumed, and characters role-played.

I’ll keep going to PT and trying to get that third and fourth day in every week. And I have a lot of cooking that needs to get done. Recipes tried, knife skills brought back from the dead, and good times ahead.

I’ll probably keep the blog bi-weekly until I get back to writing weekly. Once I start Dusk, the blog will be weekly with word counts and all of that again.

Outro

This was probably a wasted blog, not much to it. Sorry.

I need to make breakfast, clean the slush off my driveway, and brew a new cup of tea. Today is art and perhaps some reading.

I’ll see you all again in two weeks.

Bye.