I can't believe it's already November, and over a year since my job of 13 years let me go. Now it is my hope that maybe this month I can shake the miasma that's been dogging me for a while but I need to change my mindset and a few other things and hope that maybe I can finally figure out the right balance to be able to let me be healthy and happy and consistently productive.

Although some of this has been mentioned through my youtube videos, the short version is this. Unemployment is almost exhausted and my savings will not carry me much further. Now what this means is that in the short term I want to use the time I have to get as much done as possible. I have started using some outlining software that I am hoping will help me overcome some of the mental roadblocks I keep hitting and get a good rhythm going. In the meantime I hope to figure out a schedule and a good cycle to satisfy my various isms and see if I can keep it up.

As far as work goes, if something doesn't pop up soon it may be necessary to take a temporary or placeholder job in retail/customer service. I was hoping to not have to do that, but on the flip side it'll at least keep money coming in and we know that there are a lot of openings it being the pandemic and possibly the holidays if I go looking before then.

I must admit I haven't made as good a use of this last year as I had hoped. I let some things fester and it just allowed them to get bigger, and in short term it seemed to make sense but in long term it just doesn't fly, but I'd prefer not to get into it much right now. All I'll say is that I'm going to take this opportunity to try and get my focus directed in more of a reasonable direction.

I do have some material to share, and I need to get my production to be at least mildly consistent for my own preferences but for now, we start with this.

I've posted a story that I've actually had finished for a while, and it was honestly a bit hard to do. Reason being I always have this thing where I feel weird posting work when things aren't going well, and I feel tense about reducing my cushion and/or keeping up my level of quality. Maybe you all don't notice or I overthink it but nevertheless it took some energy to put all that together. I posted it simultaneously on all three galleries, which felt kind of good, and some of you may have already seen it on patreon.

I still need to get that together too. Anyway, for now I'm going to try to post the stuff I have in the coming months and try and see if I can't figure out a way to put out some stuff on the regular. I appreciate you all bearing with me.

 LaurenRivers