It’s taken over three years, but in recent months I have achieved stability. I still have very limited energy and can’t be upright for very long without getting horrible headaches, but my symptoms are finally at a point where they are predictable. I can make plans. I can leave the house! 1Once a week for no more than 2 hours with the proper medication precautions, and only if I make sure I take a full rest day the following day, but still! Predictability has given me a freedom that I haven’t had in a long time, but it also gave me something else.
Ambition.
I’m starting to see glimpses of the person I once was coming back. Not the burnt out tech worker parts, admittedly, but the parts where I used to throw myself into projects that I loved. I miss losing hours a day on creating things and following that inspiration when I was between projects to figure out what I was up to next. It’s a thing I can’t do anymore without causing major health issues, but now that I’m stable, I think I can treat myself a little.
Of course I mean I am going to let myself start doing things again. I’m going to need to be very careful because, well, I know myself. I give myself any slack and I will run away with the leash. No concrete goals, no timelines, nothing that might make me feel even a little bad about taking a break from it. It’s not going to be anything like the productivity I used to do and it is definitely going to feel pretty fake sometimes, but it will be something.
The only rule I’m holding myself to is a maximum daily time allocation. At the start of the year, no more than fifteen minutes a day on a project that I am going to keep a running list of. That time limit goes up by no more than 5 minutes after 1 month of no increased symptoms. That is a lot of time. Well, for me at this point in my life, anyway.
I am very excited about this. I don’t know if I will post the list of projects anywhere, but the list currently includes the trilogy I wrote last year, a couple Twine and RPG Maker games, some art, creating paperback and hardcovers, and a smattering of other things. It’s going to be so good to make things again! I cannot wait.
First off, I know it’s October. This is, however, the time of year where advent calendars start coming out and I love an advent calendar. Companies rebranding their overstock as little surprises leading up to Christmas to recoup their costs before they put these items on sale and putting it in custom packaging is a grift that I am 100% for. I enjoy a little surprise with fancy packaging, and it’s a fun way to check out a new business that I’m not familiar with.
Also, I just can’t do a lot of things these days and an advent calendar is a holiday experience I can handle.
Which brings me here. This is going to be a living document, updated throughout October, of advent calendars that I am considering for myself. I’ll update it as I find interesting ones, though probably won’t mention which of these I actually get until later.
The criteria
I’ve been doing this for a few years, so I have things I’m now looking for in an advent calendar.
24/25 day calendars. There are a lot of 12 day calendars out there. My brain is not that good anymore. I’m not going to do that math. I will forget to start them, so for simplicity we’re going for the full month leading up to it.
No chocolate-a-day calendars. The most common type of chocolate advent calendar is a chocolate-a-day calendar. Either it is the same three or four types of chocolates cycled through a month like Purdy’s or Chez Christoph, or a different truffle every day like in the case of Cococo Chocolatiers or Chocolats Favoris. I’ve done these for a while and I’m looking for something a bit more. Show me what else your company/store has to offer besides truffles!
The more expensive, the less surprising. If I’m dropping a lot of money on a calendar, I do want some assurance that it will be worth it. I don’t need to know specifically what is in the calendar, but I do want to at least know that the items are going to be something I want.
Preference to Canadian small businesses. Even before the everything, I have been preferring Canadian businesses for this for a while. I will lean toward BC and Vancouver if I can find it. I will go outside of Canada if something looks interesting enough.
If there’s multiple options, go for the one I haven’t tried before. I have done David’s Tea many times. I did Squish and Life is Sweet and many others. While I like all of them, I also really want to try new things as much as I can each year.
Something I will enjoy. This is probably obvious, but I want to have a calendar that I am going to enjoy.
Though I’m not entirely certain, this does look like a candy calendar that has more than a single bonbon in each of the drawers. I’ve seen it a few years now and this might be the year.
This company also has the bonus of offering a DIY kit, which is just last year’s candies to put into your own calendar. Which, well, I have a bunch of old calendars…
Every time I have looked at this site, I get instantly distracted by the fact that they have not only a candy truck, but a corporate candy section. It’s been a year or two since this one’s been on my radar, but it’s back now.
I’ve done these ones before, but I really liked Squish last year. The packaging was really nice, especially given the art hinted at what was behind each door and inside was a clear label to let me know exactly what the candy was. And, you know, the gummies were also really good.
This is another one that I’ve done before, but I really enjoyed it! It’s a little pricier, but on top of a few truffles, there were also other products in both sample size and full size throughout the month. These ones also have a refill pack, which is good because I still have the box 1Which is surprisingly sturdy! The cardboard is thick and honestly the highest quality of the advent boxes I’ve gotten since I started doing this from last year!
I have seen people very excited about these cookies, but after looking on the site I do have one main concern. Cookies tend to go stale and, while the eco-friendly packaging is great, I am not sure how fresh these cookies will be by the end of the calendar. Still, might still try these ones.
Looking at the packaging, I have the same concerns about freshness but also I think this one might have more flavour options given the price point of the advent calendar. Might be wrong, might only find out one way!
I always thought flapjacks were pancakes, but it looks like I was incorrect! Given that this is a UK company, though, I’m not actually sure if they ship to Canada, nor am I sure I want to pay that much to find out what they are for the first time.
I love the idea that this is two cups! That means I get a morning and an evening cup out of this one. My only concern with this one is I’m not sure if it’s 24 pouches loose in the box, or if it’s actually formatted like an advent calendar where each day is a surprise.
That packaging is so pretty. The bonus is also very enticing, given how big it is compared to the tea bags. It is, however, a lot more expensive than most of the other tea options I’ve seen.
Stationary advent calendars are so expensive, but also Papier is one of those ones I end up staring at every year and thinking real hard about. It’s just a matter of whether or not I will actually use all of the items inside.
This is another one that I’ve looked at year over year. I’ve heard such good things, and the list does look like I’ll actually use a lot of the items inside of it.
I’m a fountain pen girl. I have a collection of fountain pens, which makes a ton of cool inks seem like a great idea. I am also a creature of habit, so I’ve hesitated every year on this one because I just don’t know if I will leave my comfort zone to actually use new inks!
This looks so cool and like I could repurpose the box for something fun in the future. The problem is that at this price point I need full spoilers and there just isn’t enough to let me know if I will use everything inside to make it worth it.
A cat advent calendar for my little menace would be so much fun! The trouble is, of course, that Remy is very picky about everything so I’m concerned that this will result in a lot of days that are not used. I do, however, have several other cats in my life who are less picky, so it’s in the running.
I don’t actually know if they’re releasing one this year, but the idea of a short story advent calendar just sounds like so much fun. I do enjoy a short story, so getting one a day to read in the evening with a cup of tea and some snacks sounds like a lovely way to spend the evenings.
I have not been doing many puzzles because I don’t know what to do with them once I finish them, but this one looks so cute. The idea that each day is a puzzle that reveals another part of a story too? I am enticed.
I cook more than you’d think, and this one sounds like it could just be a lot of fun. I don’t do much with vinegar specifically, but the idea that this also comes with recipes tailored around all of the items so that they can actually be used makes this seem like a surprisingly good value.
Speaking of interesting food calendars that will take me longer than one month to finish, this one is just spices! It also comes with recipes, but possibly is more designed for entertaining? That’s what I’m gathering from their description.
They say write what you know and a lot of authors out there write about characters who are writers. That part is not strange. What is strange is how these characters portray writing in books to a degree that makes me wonder: Am I the weird one? Do I just have a really strange writing journey that is outside of how most people operate?
I mean, yes, but also I don’t think it’s that far out of the ordinary.
There are some patterns I’ve noticed. This may just be in the books I read, and I need to read about more fictional writers, but this is what I’ve seen in a lot of the stories I come across.
They are in their 20s/30s and writing their very first book
This happening once in a while wouldn’t be that strange, but I keep coming across women 1Almost always women who have always wanted to write a book and are in a place where they can start doing that because of the plot. How is it always your first book? Did none of you spend late nights writing embarrassing self-insert fanfiction in high school? Maybe a pile of books you wrote nearly to completion? The most they have is half written manuscripts that never felt right to them and I do not understand it.
It is always a book
More minor, but there’s other fiction formats than a novel. You can write short stories. Poetry. Novellas. Weird anthology series. Hell, scripts for comics, games, television, or movies. 2Male characters are more often writing television and movie scripts, I will note. Books makes sense because that’s what the author writes, but these writers rarely ever even consider another format. That’s probably because of the next point.
Their first book will be published in the end
This is your first novel ever. I can excuse the plethora of writers in these stories who are also working in literary agencies who understand what agents are looking for and know the traditional publishing process intimately. These people know what sells and, even though their journey is always framed as a passion project, those writers could know how to write for publication. The rest of these writers, though, not all of you are getting a book deal out of your first foray.
It’s romance or literary
Let someone write hard scifi! Let them buy a sword for research into their fantasy world fight scenes! It’s because that is what the genre of the book they exist in is, 3I know, I really need to pay more attention to the genre tags on books before I pick them up but genre is never a consideration. Maybe there’s a thriller author in a thriller book, but that seems to be as close as things get. I finally read one book where the writer is writing a romance with a fantasy element, but that part is so quickly glossed over with none of the nonsense of spending days trying to build a magic system that makes sense before deciding this is a soft magic system so you can get back to writing already.
They are writing by hand
By. Hand. My hands hurt just reading about it. I remember several people over the years writing their Nano novels by hand and the cramping and hand pains they endured, plus the pens giving out at key moments of their stories. It’s not a bad exercise to try, and maybe as their first book it’s actually a good thing to make them have to type up their book after hand writing it as their first editing pass, but how are all of these characters getting these books done without a single hand cramp?
They don’t have other writing friends
This absolutely happens with some writers, but every time? I think in one book the love interest was also a writer, but they acted more as a rival, which is a shame. Long conversations about how to make different parts of a book work between writer characters could be such a fun way to explore character dynamics or even to include some foreshadowing. I mean, if you have a romance author trying to make the romance work, it could be an easy way to drop in some hints around how the third act break up is resolved in an opening scene, you know?
I write writers too
All of this to say I am not exempt from doing some of these things as well, but reading about it so often is making me think a lot harder about the writer characters I have. They are getting writer friends, diversifying their genres and formats, and some won’t be published at all. And I will be sure to make myself a bingo card for the next book I read with a writer in it.
After months of writing for just ten minutes a day, I have finally managed to write a book for the first time in four years! The last draft I finished was back in 2021 when I write the Cloned Evil trilogy. It’s been so good to finally feel somewhat normal again.
It has been an adjustment to writing like this. I used to churn out a first draft in a week, letting myself get completely lost in the story and working off of a plot outline. I tried a lot harder with that first draft, hoping that it was structurally sound and actually including all of the bits that I don’t really enjoy writing. It was easier to do because I was writing for hours at a time, which meant that I would get back to the fun stuff soon enough.
But with only ten minutes a day, a lot of this went out the window and I went back to how I used to write. No plot, no time spent on the boring stuff, a lot of skimming over the bits that I didn’t have fully figured out. I forgot how much fun pantsing is. Plus, it’s not like I only spent ten minutes on the story a day, just ten minutes writing. I would write at the very end of the day, and then go to sleep with story ideas spinning through my head.
Which, incidentally, means I slept a lot better when I wrote.
There has been nothing that’s made me feel more like myself in the last several years of being chronically ill than finishing a book. It will be a long time before it’s ready for anyone else to read, but I’m so excited to be able to get back to working on the things I love again.
I got covid back in May 2022, which means I have been dealing with this illness for three years now. I’m pretty sure this means by even the most conservative estimate I am unlikely to ever recover from it and this is just what my life will be like now.
And I’m okay.
I’m at a point where my symptoms are predictable, which is honestly the best thing for me. I can generally tell how much I can do in a day, when I am pushing myself too far, and how long I will need to recover when I go over my energy limits. I may not be able to be spontaneous anymore, but I can make plans and have short outings to grab coffee with friends once a month. I’ve figured out how to get groceries and the things I need and there’s a lot fewer doctor’s appointments lately draining the little energy I have. Plus, with the weather getting better, my body is more cooperative and I am starting to go outside for quick adventures again.
And I’m writing again! Which, honestly, is the best thing to happen in a long time for me. I can only handle about 10 minutes a day and have had to put in place some child locks to keep myself from going over, but it means that I’m finally working on a new book. I don’t write like I used to and I am definitely not churning out a trilogy in a month anymore, but I am writing and I am happy.
With the weather getting better, I’m hoping to get over a functional hour a day and more than 10 minutes continuously on a task before I need a break. They’ll probably be used on getting the garden together, bothering the cat, and setting things up for myself when I inevitably get over confident and trap myself in bed again. My world is smaller, but I’m okay and I’m getting pretty good at finding little joys in life.
