Salutations fellow humans, it is I, Charlie, returned from limbo and ready — so desperately ready — to tell y’all what I’ve been up to since the Hippo Events (my seasonal job) is over-for-now.
Firstly: on the final day — O, what a day that was — there were multiple things that happened. Some were benign — I hit my head in the shower and will now have a distinguishing scar above my right eyebrow, lol — and some were serious — my grandmother had to pay the hospital an emergency visit. Regardless of severity, life happened — as it tends to do — but we can’t stand still, or life will pass us by.. So . . .
Secondly: whilst life happened, my writing took second priority — as it should when one’s family is in danger. But, after my grandmother was in good hands by the end of March 9th, I took a day to collect myself and rest before I started up the work again. A whole day! Can you believe it? Probably not — and for good reason, because I didn’t take the whole day off. I brainstormed.
Thirdly: now, what did I brainstorm? Why am I brainstorming when there are five projects that still need my urgent attention? Why am I sweating so much and acting nervous? Well, whilst on my morning walk, I found myself watching a brief video on the YouTubes that planted a seed . . . which promptly started growing into a sapling after five minutes and refused to do anything but grow into a brainstorm after ten. So, I explored. I created a whole new corner of my world, expanded the history, compounded the worldbuilding, and filed it away on my computer to write later in my spare-time. But then I realized something — my fingers haven’t written anything but a text for a month, so . . .
Fourthly: the next day, I used my new idea to create a short-story/novella (we’ll see which it is by the end) to wake my fingers back up. Because, you see, I’ve got plenty of experience writing in Project Murder House, Our Holy Mother book 2, and Project Apocalypse, so I know how long it should take me to write a measly 3-6k words in a day. But, after a month of nada, my fingers have slowed, my writing skills have gone to sleep, and I needed to wake them up with something else, or I may fall into a depressive episode because I’m not writing as fast, which would make me think I have no business being a writer, which would mean I’ve wasted a year of my life . . . and so on.
The solution, then, was obvious — write something brand new that isn’t long, isn’t super important, and isn’t something you plan on publishing immediately or maybe even at all. So, I did. I wrote over 10k words in two days and finished exactly half the story — working title, subject to change, Jove and the Dream — and then I realized I may have created a larger story than I intended (shocker). I looked it over, considered where I wanted the story to go, and laid down some very loose guidelines to see how many sections the story was broken into. When I saw I still had four sections to go before completion, I had to set it aside and resume my other work.
Jove and the Dream is something I enjoyed writing — it flowed easily out of my fingers and got me in the groove and habit of writing again — but if I only dedicate myself to that, I’ll never get six more chapters in PMH done by the end of the month. So, Jove and the Dream will sit half finished, slowly worked on every Ultimate Week until it’s complete. Maybe I can make it part of a larger anthology of unrelated shorts? Maybe I’ll publish it as a stand alone novella? Who knows at this point. But . .. .
Fifthly: having gotten back in the flow, March 14th saw the birth of PMH ch25, March 16th saw the birth of ch26, and today was the birthday of ch27. Three chapters in three days — it’s good to be back. Now I just need to continue with this momentum and write a measly three more chapters in PMH, edit them before the end of the month, and edit them again in March’s Ultimate Week.
Unlike my usual plan of trying to fit in PMH on top of chapters in OHMb2 and PA, I’m setting the latter two aside to focus on my paranormal murder-mystery as it’ll be published long before either of the others. However, if I have time in the Ultimate Week, I plan on working on one or both of them before returning to my regular schedule in April. March’s Ultimate Week is from March 30th - April 5th — an actual week — so there isn’t a huge amount of time. But, think of it like this; I can edit 3-4 chapters to draft 3 a day, which means I only need two of those seven days for PMH. That leaves five days extra. If I can write and edit a chapter of OHMb2 and PA a day, that means two days writing, two days editing, and still leaves me with one day to do with what I please.
And that, fellow homo sapien-sapiens, is how I plan to beat myself to death this March :D. (does anyone even use emoticons anymore?)
As with the first half of February, the latter half of March is essentially crunch-time — there’s little to no room for error or fun or mistakes — but this is not the regularly scheduled program. Come April — blessed April — I’ll return to my normal gig of two PMH chapters beside alternating OHMb2 and PA installments weekly for three weeks, and 3d edits and clean up in the Ultimate Weeks.
Until July and August . . . then I can start the madness all over again. But hey, PMH should be finished by July, so crunch-time will be a little sweeter.
Alright, That’s it from me, y’all. Moving into the end of March and the end of the first quarter — whew, time flies — seems daunting, but we’ll get through it together. In the meantime, keep up the creativity, keep up the hard work, keep your shoulders back, your pride down, and your dreams big. And most of all, never forget to spread uncommon common-decency. All people deserve to be treated like you think you ought to be, and, though you can’t control others, you can control yourself. So do for others what they might not want to do for you and see what happens. Bye!