Things have been very difficult this month and I’ve had to take some time off entirely. My personal life is stabilizing, but the interesting thing about ME/CFS or Long Covid, whichever thing you want to blame for it, is that heavy emotion also drains my energy very badly and that means I’ve also been dealing with health issues. I’m hopefully that I’m out of the woods, but the trees in my life tend to move unexpectedly.

Scions

I’m not very creative when I’m dealing with emotional turmoil, much less when my energy is in the gutter, so I’ve been working on the same page for the last several weeks. Sometimes you have to just take it a word at a time. It’s coming and hopefully it will start to come a little quicker, but it has been very slow.

Twisted Eden Stuff

I have desperately needed a win these past couple weeks. This came in the form of finding files from back in 2021, back when Twisted Eden was the planned focus for my year off of writing. One of those projects, and the one that was the farthest along, was a Tarot-based guided journal. All it needed was ISBNs and a cover. I’ve now gotten that done and you can get a copy for yourself.

Things in my personal life are not doing so great. I won’t be getting into it until I feel like I am ready to share, but know that I will be prioritizing other things. As much as I do love being creative, it’s not the essential thing for me to focus on right now. Some people use stress to become more creative, but it’s really just stunting my inspiration and drive.

Scions

I thought this book held up a lot more than it did, but this draft really needs a lot of work. On the bright side, it’s shorter just because a lot of the set up and world building happened in book 2. Now I just need to do what I do at the 2/3 mark of any story and dismantle some of the established facts of the universe and twist the story.

Beyond the Din

I have a title for the White Noise game! I had a burst of inspiration for it, so there’s a lot more structure in place for this one. I am running into the issue of the art. Namely, my ability to draw the same person with different expressions is questionable at best, which isn’t great when I’m building essentially a visual novel with mini-games. Not sure what to do about this yet, but there’s a lot of writing that needs to be done before I really have to worry about this.

I have been influenced. I already had a pretty bad fountain pen habit, but somehow the algorithms didn’t know about it until very recently. Seeing all of the pretty pens and inks, not to mention the notebooks ¹ have got me back into journalling. I already had my brain dump one and one for when I actually finished a project, but pulled out one of my notebooks that have been collecting dust to start a journal just daily creativity journalling.

Will I spend all my time journalling instead of doing actual projects? MAYBE! But my health is better during the summer and the books is small, so this might just be a thing I do for a short amount of time and drop when the weather gets bad.

The Trilogy

I really should rename this to Scions, since that is the name of the trilogy. I’ve been using the name for a while now and it was the name I used for it when I thought about making it a single long volume, but I just never got around to it. I’ll add it to the list of to dos for the next block of time, I guess, but heads up that the title will probably change and some links might break as a result.

Audiobooks

No actual progress has been made on the current project. Whoops. I managed to record a new chapter on the next book instead and got the files into the program I use for the first pass of editing. It only gives me an hour worth of audio a month and I had files from last month I hadn’t loaded in, so unfortunately the next book is also going to take a damn long time because my ability to read is pretty bad. Still, at least I’m not going to be procrastinating by trying to record more this month? That’s probably a good thing.

Fantasy RPG

I really need to just accept that I can’t work on actually building this right now. Which should be fine! I don’t have anywhere near enough of the story together to even think about building this, but I saw that the Steam sale had RPG Maker available and I was very tempted to purchase a version that would actually work on my OS. I did not give in, but I did spend far too much time staring at it.

White Noise Game

It’s been a while since I have looked at these books. I have my notes for what happened in this prequel story, but I did need to go back into the books eventually to see what actually made it into the final books about what happened. Luckily most of it is in just the first book and contained mostly in one chapter, so I needed to pull this information eventually. I should really check Dead Air again before I start putting together a final story line, but maybe next block.

I also need a better title for this. Something like Tinnitus but better.

One of the better things about summer is that the nice weather tends to help ease symptoms. I’ve been doing my best to have my one adventure a week ¹ and catch up on the chores that I’ve been taking a lot of short cuts with.

Which means I finally swept the floors and vacuumed one rug. Still, progress!

The Trilogy

Speaking of progress, the second pass of book 2 is done! I think the structure is finally solid, but it’s definitely going to need another pass to make sure all the information is in the right place and the prose is good.

While I am really happy about it, I can’t help but remember how this used to take me a matter of weeks to do. It’s weird taking so long, but I try to remember that this is not actually as slow a pace as it feels like. It’s just slow compared to what I used to be able to do.

Audiobooks

You know, if I just kept up doing just one audio file every 2 weeks, I could have been done one book by now. At this rate, maybe I’ll get the first book done by the end of the year. But hey, another chapter edited and finished is another chapter edited and finished!

Fantasy RPG

So, I haven’t actually done any work on this. RPG Maker still doesn’t work on my computer, so nothing’s really getting built until I can be upright long enough to use the desktop.

What I have been doing is I’m slowly creating some templates in Notion so I can make notes and keep track of asset creation. Luckily, I’ve already more or less made my standard templates for this kind of stuff, so it’s just digitizing it and adding a little extra for video game specific elements like attacks. With any luck, I will be able to use this for that other game.

Just when I thought the sun meant going out and enjoying myself, the heat got a bit too harsh for me to be going out quite as much as I want. It means I don’t have to deal with those feelings just yet, but I’m hoping that the blazing heat either dies down or I get used to it so it isn’t stopping me quite so much. If nothing else, I am still getting my once a week outing to check out the world and being much less housebound, one way or another.

I also recently got scouted for a medical thing. Yay for being medically interesting! It resulted in my furthest adventure out from my house in years ¹ and I survived! Crashed very hard as a result, but I was downtown for the first time in years, so I’m hopeful that the weather isn’t going to stop me for too long.

The Trilogy

I am so close to getting back into the bit of the book that exists. As much fun as writing new stuff has been, it’s also slow and I am excited to get back to some of the fun bits of the plot that I wrote the first time around. It’s also a lot faster to work with story that I just have to make sound better rather than write from scratch, so my productivity will feel a lot greater, even if I’m pretty sure I’ll be working on it at about the same pace.

As a side note, I do miss when I could write fast. This is the longest it’s ever taken to write a trilogy. I feel like it’s going to take me longer to finish this than it did to finish all of The Looking Glass Saga.

Worksheet Tangents

I had a thing happen with one of my medications. Yay for being medically interesting, right? It gave me an idea for something that people can use to keep track of how their new medications are improving their symptoms or causing side effects. And then I remembered I can’t get Affinity working on Linux, so it’s currently trapped in back of an envelope limbo for now.

Fantasy RPG

It’s been ages, but I finally opened Notion up again so that I can start making notes on this project as I come up with ideas for it. Mostly because the day I had an idea for the game, I didn’t have a notebook and ended up starting a slide deck of all things to make these notes. I had a notebook for this project, but I cannot find it so naturally I have to complicate matters.

I also had a sprint of trying to get the program working on my computer again but, again, Linux. I like this OS, but dammit. I’m going to have to run a virtual machine, aren’t I?

I’m calling it, it’s summer. I know technically I should wait for the solstice, but if I’m having to use the aircon, then I think it’s worth making the call here. My health should start to even out with the good weather and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to enjoy more of the local events that the city puts on over the summer. I know the craft fairs have expanded to the outdoors and the farmers markets are in full swing, so I’ll have plenty of chances to enjoy the weather.

I also got myself a rollator so I can go out more! Still having some feelings about being so visibly disabled, but hopefully I will get over it and be able to enjoy the nice weather.

The Trilogy

I’m finding it hard to do much else besides the books these days, and for good reason! I’m getting close to finishing the rewrite of book 2 of the trilogy! It’s nice to have so much of the world building done, though I am going to miss all my fade to black chapter endings.

I am going to need at least one more pass on this before anyone sees it, but I’m still excited to have this pass almost done.

Audiobooks

I had a good upright day, so another chapter of book 2 has been recorded! Meanwhile, I’m working on editing chapter 7 of book 1. At some point, this audiobook will finally be out of my hands and I am excited for that day.

Alas, I spent another week crashed and so not a lot has been done. On the bright side, I learned what some of the different tax forms are called, so not a total loss. I do wish I was spending that time on something less stressful, but there’s no going back now. I’ve just been trying to ease myself back into things and not think too hard about the possibility that I did something wrong and this will be just the excuse insurance needs to kick me off.

I may have spent too long working with US healthcare. One insurance call and form has me very stressed.

On the bright side, I think they finished repairs to the roof. I may not have mentioned it last time, but I have been living directly under a construction zone and let me tell you! The sound of banging, power tools, and the walls shaking due to what’s happening directly above you for weeks does not do great things for your mental health!

The Trilogy

As much as I want to publish this trilogy like the rest of the books, I am hesitating now. I keep getting reminders from my private health insurance and also from the Canadian government that if I dare to make too much money from a series that has taken me years to write, I could get kicked off of my insurance entirely. $7,400 annually to get investigated, $21,000 annually to be removed entirely. That doesn’t even cover housing, much less is that enough to live on. Not to mention if insurance isn’t covering my medication, my expenses go up. It would be catastrophic for me.

On the other hand, I know what my traffic numbers are on this blog. I know my sales numbers of previous books. This is likely not going to be an issue.

Audiobooks

You know what a great test of noise cancelling headphones is? Roof construction! Stress meant that there hasn’t been as much writing, but I still wanted to get something done and getting the final edits done on another short was it. I know I can hear all the times my brain fuzzed out while I was recording, but I do wonder how much that is going to matter. I have heard a few audiobook samples now and I’m starting to think I’m being too hard on myself.

It’s another new month and, while I had another month without major crashes, it was another month of not hitting those maximums per day. The fatigue has just been kicking my ass, which means I just cannot spend more than 25 minutes a day on fun stuff. Some of this definitely is related to having to spend more time on housework ¹ but ultimately it means I am maintaining what I’m currently doing. Just a little every day and hopefully I get to cross off something else at some point this year!

But also I am kinda hoping that I can increase soon. My health tends to get better during summer, so wish me luck this month!

Also, way less this block. Unfortunately for me, insurance really wanted to reassess whether or not I was still too disabled to work which meant my energy had to be spent on filling out paperwork for probably not a doctor ² to look at and determine whether or not I can hold down a job. So I’ll see if documenting and celebrating what I spend 20 minutes a day on in this blog is a bad idea.

The Trilogy

I keep thinking I’m getting close with leaving the restructuring phase of this, but there’s so much world building. I am definitely going to need another pass on this to trim out some of the fat because I want to go into all the nuances of this world I created but is the audience going to care? Probably not. Then again, I may make my editor tell me what I need to cut out instead. Maybe.

Because Pretty Stuff

I finally published those listings! I really need to get better at editing the photos since they look hella dark but given the traffic to that site is mostly from China and the ability to purchase from the site is currently broken I am not in any rush to get that done.

This two week period started out so well until the major distractions hit. Unfortunately, that did end up taking away some of the time I would have spent on projects, but it had to be done. And luckily I have already set up most of what I need, so it’s been pretty smooth making the changes. The unlisting has been done, and now I’m taking my sweet time setting up getting the books elsewhere while focusing back on the things that I want to be working on.

The Trilogy

Slow and steady! Emphasis on slow right about now, but that happens when you’re restructuring.

Audiobooks

Nothing edited, but I did manage to get another chapter recorded! It took 5 days, 10 minutes a day, and I really hope my voice doesn’t sound too different between each recording, but another chapter recorded!

Because Pretty Stuff

Before all of the Draft2Digital nonsense, I finally got some photos taken! The plan was to list some things, but hopefully that can happen next week.

I’m doing my best to take things a day at a time. I’ve had a few odd spikes in motivation, but as is the case with chronic fatigue, I cannot act on it without pretty severe consequences. It does mean I’ve spent a lot of time working on things outside of projects, like baking or cleaning or generally crossing off to do list items relating to chores around the house that have been sitting there for ages. Using that extra motivation on things that I don’t lose track of time on, you know?

The Trilogy

These first drafts require a lot more work than I thought. Every time I think that I’m getting close to the parts where I got the story pretty close, I realize just how little is actually salvageable. Which, like, not terrible for me. I am having a lot of fun reworking the story and finding out I get to do some fun things with it. ¹ It’s still fun, even if I’m a little frustrated with just how much longer it takes me now to write something.

Also, decided to get the tablet out and figure out some stuff with the covers! I still don’t know what the titles of these books are, but I think I have a general idea of what I’m doing with the art for each of the covers will be. I am leaning toward a long title this time around, though, albeit with a different font.jrwi

Audiobooks

I got another one edited! Two of them, actually! The second one was a lot shorter so it felt almost like cheating, but it’s still another one! I am going to need to start signing up for all the services to distribute the audiobook at some point, and figure out what to charge, but it’s getting closer ever so slowly. Please tell me what services you use for audiobooks so I can get that done.

Twisted Eden Stuff

I have a journal full of journaling prompts. I had plans to create some guided journals for Twisted Eden, but I didn’t want to do that without actually trying the prompts out myself to see which ones I found value from, or without figuring out how to modify those prompts so that they were actually helpful. After around a year, I finally picked it back up again to continue journaling with it. Not because it’s awful journaling, but because if I only have 20 minutes a day to spend on fun stuff, I am going to spend it on creative works than self improvement stuff, but I had a rough writing day and needed a break.

Because Pretty Stuff

If there’s one thing I don’t like writing, it is product descriptions. When I finally get these products actually and fully listed, you will see just how much I do not want to write these descriptions. But that part is at least done, so there’s that.