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State of the Hiatus (Again): Week Two
We have now entered week two of my month-long twitter hiatus! I have previously only taken two-week hiatuses, typically when I start to feel overloaded by social media and need to take some time for myself. However, I wasn't especially overloaded this time so after one week I already miss... My friends... But I still have so much writing to do, so the self-imposed exile continues.
I am keeping awfully busy during my hiatus. I always start to read a lot when I get off twitter; I finished reading Practical Magic and began Nightbird, also by Alice Hoffman. And I've been rotating though seki, yukiscorpio, and Hal (prillalar)'s fics on AO3 in between novel chapters. For quite a while I'd only been in the mood for longer fic and hadn't chewed through some of the shorter stuff by the tenipuri authors I like, but now that's all I want to read because it's the correct length to occupy my spare time on the bus after playing my mobage, or during lunch, or just... Generally when I would get on twitter to kill time waiting for something.
It feels very nice and productive to be reading more -- I'd been reading even before my hiatus, but a lot more slowly -- and every so often I hit a really good line or passage and it makes me want to WRITE SO MUCH, but never at a time when I can stop and write. (Unless... I wanted to write on my phone... But I just haven't had the bandwidth for that.) I am writing a lot for the big bang and I have over 16k words of fic but I'm STILL not caught up to the percentage of my outline I want to be through at this point in the work period and it is reeeeally stressing me out.
But yeah, weekly updates!
Tuesday last I did manage to continue my productive streak and bought groceries, went biking, ate dinner, and wrote for the big bang.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were all incredibly busy workdays but, that's fine, after Friday I am sort of, maybe, going to have a minute of breathing space, finally.
After work on Wednesday I took a bus to the aquatic fitness center and DID A GOOD SWIM!! I feel like my endurance is getting better between the swimming and biking and that I can do more laps without my arms wanting to fall off, lol, but that it'd probably help if I could convince myself to do ANY sort of upper body strengthening exercise. It's just... So boring... For me to do that sort of thing. But hey, the gym portion of the fitness center is open again!
Honestly, the biggest thing is that it stresses me out to use any of the machines in the gym because I want to ACTUALLY USE THE WEIGHT MACHINES but I have no idea about which ones to use and with what amount of weight and for what number of repetitions. I actually really liked the weight room unit in gym class back when I was in school, but that's because my teachers gave everyone a form where the machines were numbered and you followed the numbers and repetitions and amount of weight the teacher said on your form and didn't have to KNOW anything.
I do kind of want to pay for a session with a personal trainer in the hope that they can figure this stuff out for me and give me workouts to do, but the idea of paying for that and STILL being too self-conscious to do what they've given me in the company of everyone else who uses the gym feels... Bad... I wish I wasn't such an anxious, solitary creature about exercise. I hate having other people around, I really do.
And then after my VERY GOOD SWIM, I spent just a little bit too long reading stuff in the gym and missed the last bus back to my house. I hadn't planned on taking a rideshare and was mad about it but at least it was pretty cheap at that hour and for such a short distance.
And I wrote again after I got home and cooked dinner, I have been! Working hard!!
Thursday I wanted to bike but my thighs were sore after swimming so I sadly... Refrained... It felt shitty because the weather was nice and I wanted to go out!! But it was probably for the best. And I did write for the big bang again.
Friday, I walked to the park near my work after having a very late lunch and wrote there for a couple hours. I'd been hoping that if I wrote there, went home, biked, and then sat down to write again I'd feel refreshed and it being a "separate session" would convince my brain to work more in one day, but by the time I was home and had biked and eaten it was late and I was tired and I just... Binge watched Brooklyn 99 for several hours.
Saturday through Monday I was at the beach with a friend, which I would like to talk about later in a friendslocked entry for Important Logistical Reasons but suffice to say, it was Not Bad.
I got home early enough to eat dinner and finally have nice rabbit time with Samy. We haven't been able to watch tenimyu in a while but I was a little too tired for a whole musical, so instead, we watched three episodes of Kimi wa Petto. And the reboot is, really really good!! I'm aware I am Hella Biased because I loved the original and the entire concept is just So Laughably For Me but it's still... A really cute show... I love Sumire as a character and this actress plays her so well and MOMO IS A LITTLE BRAT. Goshhhh Samy and I are going to die well together with this show.
The one thing I will say about my weekend trip is that I thought it might actually be productive for writing, since I work well around the person who invited me, but that I didn't account for the OTHER PEOPLE who would be around. It ended up being too much for me to juggle being appropriately social with doing any writing at all, so I wrote nothing for the past three days.
I'm really hoping to bike this evening, eat, and write, but I'm just... So nervous. So many people have listened to me talk about how I love my story and am excited to write it and just, need to work hard until I catch up and can be less stressed but I'm here saying it again because it isn't WORKING. I'm at a point where if I wrote one scene a day every day between now and the end of the month, that wouldn't complete my entire outline. And I've scheduled things on all three of the remaining weekends in June, so between those plans and work I can't really get myself to write at a faster pace than one scene a day. I just don't have the mental juice.
I feel like all I need is one good day when I can write for multiple hours and bang out several scenes and just catch up a LITTLE bit so the "scene a day" pace will get me to the finish line, but I don't know if I can give myself that good day. My remaining opportunities are Sunday or Monday over this coming weekend, or Monday the week after that, but viewing it as "these three days are YOUR LAST CHANCE!!!" is going to paralyze me and then I won't be able to use the time that I have.
I wish I wasn't this sort of neurotic, over-thinking person but I am and there isn't a lot I can do about it. The one comfort I have is that the POSTING date for the big bang is July 14th, so even if my draft is supposed to be in on July 1st, I can potentially use the editing period to finish my draft. I just don't LIKE this because I want to ACTUALLY USE THAT PERIOD TO EDIT, considering that I will have tens of thousands of words of barely-proofread rough draft, but. What can you do.
This entry is like, 50% closed mouth screaming about writing, fucking, look at that.
Thanks for following me on my descent into no-twitter writing hell, I'm doing my best and I will finish this story if it kills me. Which it very well might. Pray for me.
UPDATE: Yrin forced me to acknowledge that the July 1st date is something I made up in my head to turn the screws on myself; the actual deadline for big bang drafts is July 14th and posting isn't until August. It was probably kind of Yrin to try and save me from screaming and dying but this just means I'll get lazy and will deadline crunch in a panic two weeks later than I'd been aiming for, probably! Wish me luck, again.
I am keeping awfully busy during my hiatus. I always start to read a lot when I get off twitter; I finished reading Practical Magic and began Nightbird, also by Alice Hoffman. And I've been rotating though seki, yukiscorpio, and Hal (prillalar)'s fics on AO3 in between novel chapters. For quite a while I'd only been in the mood for longer fic and hadn't chewed through some of the shorter stuff by the tenipuri authors I like, but now that's all I want to read because it's the correct length to occupy my spare time on the bus after playing my mobage, or during lunch, or just... Generally when I would get on twitter to kill time waiting for something.
It feels very nice and productive to be reading more -- I'd been reading even before my hiatus, but a lot more slowly -- and every so often I hit a really good line or passage and it makes me want to WRITE SO MUCH, but never at a time when I can stop and write. (Unless... I wanted to write on my phone... But I just haven't had the bandwidth for that.) I am writing a lot for the big bang and I have over 16k words of fic but I'm STILL not caught up to the percentage of my outline I want to be through at this point in the work period and it is reeeeally stressing me out.
But yeah, weekly updates!
Tuesday last I did manage to continue my productive streak and bought groceries, went biking, ate dinner, and wrote for the big bang.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were all incredibly busy workdays but, that's fine, after Friday I am sort of, maybe, going to have a minute of breathing space, finally.
After work on Wednesday I took a bus to the aquatic fitness center and DID A GOOD SWIM!! I feel like my endurance is getting better between the swimming and biking and that I can do more laps without my arms wanting to fall off, lol, but that it'd probably help if I could convince myself to do ANY sort of upper body strengthening exercise. It's just... So boring... For me to do that sort of thing. But hey, the gym portion of the fitness center is open again!
Honestly, the biggest thing is that it stresses me out to use any of the machines in the gym because I want to ACTUALLY USE THE WEIGHT MACHINES but I have no idea about which ones to use and with what amount of weight and for what number of repetitions. I actually really liked the weight room unit in gym class back when I was in school, but that's because my teachers gave everyone a form where the machines were numbered and you followed the numbers and repetitions and amount of weight the teacher said on your form and didn't have to KNOW anything.
I do kind of want to pay for a session with a personal trainer in the hope that they can figure this stuff out for me and give me workouts to do, but the idea of paying for that and STILL being too self-conscious to do what they've given me in the company of everyone else who uses the gym feels... Bad... I wish I wasn't such an anxious, solitary creature about exercise. I hate having other people around, I really do.
And then after my VERY GOOD SWIM, I spent just a little bit too long reading stuff in the gym and missed the last bus back to my house. I hadn't planned on taking a rideshare and was mad about it but at least it was pretty cheap at that hour and for such a short distance.
And I wrote again after I got home and cooked dinner, I have been! Working hard!!
Thursday I wanted to bike but my thighs were sore after swimming so I sadly... Refrained... It felt shitty because the weather was nice and I wanted to go out!! But it was probably for the best. And I did write for the big bang again.
Friday, I walked to the park near my work after having a very late lunch and wrote there for a couple hours. I'd been hoping that if I wrote there, went home, biked, and then sat down to write again I'd feel refreshed and it being a "separate session" would convince my brain to work more in one day, but by the time I was home and had biked and eaten it was late and I was tired and I just... Binge watched Brooklyn 99 for several hours.
Saturday through Monday I was at the beach with a friend, which I would like to talk about later in a friendslocked entry for Important Logistical Reasons but suffice to say, it was Not Bad.
I got home early enough to eat dinner and finally have nice rabbit time with Samy. We haven't been able to watch tenimyu in a while but I was a little too tired for a whole musical, so instead, we watched three episodes of Kimi wa Petto. And the reboot is, really really good!! I'm aware I am Hella Biased because I loved the original and the entire concept is just So Laughably For Me but it's still... A really cute show... I love Sumire as a character and this actress plays her so well and MOMO IS A LITTLE BRAT. Goshhhh Samy and I are going to die well together with this show.
The one thing I will say about my weekend trip is that I thought it might actually be productive for writing, since I work well around the person who invited me, but that I didn't account for the OTHER PEOPLE who would be around. It ended up being too much for me to juggle being appropriately social with doing any writing at all, so I wrote nothing for the past three days.
I'm really hoping to bike this evening, eat, and write, but I'm just... So nervous. So many people have listened to me talk about how I love my story and am excited to write it and just, need to work hard until I catch up and can be less stressed but I'm here saying it again because it isn't WORKING. I'm at a point where if I wrote one scene a day every day between now and the end of the month, that wouldn't complete my entire outline. And I've scheduled things on all three of the remaining weekends in June, so between those plans and work I can't really get myself to write at a faster pace than one scene a day. I just don't have the mental juice.
I feel like all I need is one good day when I can write for multiple hours and bang out several scenes and just catch up a LITTLE bit so the "scene a day" pace will get me to the finish line, but I don't know if I can give myself that good day. My remaining opportunities are Sunday or Monday over this coming weekend, or Monday the week after that, but viewing it as "these three days are YOUR LAST CHANCE!!!" is going to paralyze me and then I won't be able to use the time that I have.
I wish I wasn't this sort of neurotic, over-thinking person but I am and there isn't a lot I can do about it. The one comfort I have is that the POSTING date for the big bang is July 14th, so even if my draft is supposed to be in on July 1st, I can potentially use the editing period to finish my draft. I just don't LIKE this because I want to ACTUALLY USE THAT PERIOD TO EDIT, considering that I will have tens of thousands of words of barely-proofread rough draft, but. What can you do.
This entry is like, 50% closed mouth screaming about writing, fucking, look at that.
Thanks for following me on my descent into no-twitter writing hell, I'm doing my best and I will finish this story if it kills me. Which it very well might. Pray for me.
UPDATE: Yrin forced me to acknowledge that the July 1st date is something I made up in my head to turn the screws on myself; the actual deadline for big bang drafts is July 14th and posting isn't until August. It was probably kind of Yrin to try and save me from screaming and dying but this just means I'll get lazy and will deadline crunch in a panic two weeks later than I'd been aiming for, probably! Wish me luck, again.