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September 2024 Writing Update: Ah, there's the burnout Pt...
a year ago
Hoo boy, this has been an especially rough one for me, and you can probably tell because of how late it is.
I'm safely settled into my new new place now thankfully. No big emergencies or crises happened during my second move. But I think the fact that I technically moved twice over the period of a month, AND did so while writing so many fucking words in August, was enough to finally break my brain and make my muse fuck off to Margaritaville or someplace else where she could try to rest. I also have to add in the fact that video game addiction DID in fact start up again in September. I predicted that at least one game out of the slate of exciting releases in September would snag me, be it BG3's Mod tools, Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, or Satisfactory 1.0. Turns out that the winner of the "Which game can snare Lightest's brain the hardest" went to Satisfactory 1.0. Sure Echoes of Wisdom was good, but building games are special to me. I spent so many fucking years far too addicted to modded Minecraft to write properly, so it's not surprising that Satisfactory 1.0 grabbed me so hard. I almost wondered why it didn't grab me sooner, since it's been out in Early Access for many years already. But the answer to that one is simple, they kept changing things that fuck up game saves as they progressed with the game, and it made me want to wait for the 1.0 release so I could dive in and build a proper megafactory once save-breaking changes stopped. Well, the save-breaking changes have indeed now stopped, so here I go lol
I mean, if I properly count my blessings here, I gotta say I'm grateful to have had such an insanely good game to use for a de-stresser during my burnout crash. Adjusting to a new place is VERY hard for people on the spectrum like me, EVEN if the new place is straight upgrade from the last one. (And yeah my new place does indeed rock, I love it!) Change makes my brain deeply unhappy, be it good or bad change. Being able to numb that stress by delving into a gorgeous alien world and fill it with glorious industry has been a huge blessing.
But, having nothing to show for the month does suck. I was dreading writing this journal, and even now as I write the intro I haven't counted what few words I did get written. Well... let's not delay it any longer. sooner I get this over with the sooner I can move on to making October not suck.
SEPTEMBER 2024 WRITING SUMMARY
Ok, taking a deep breath now and opening my story files. I did write like, a couple hundred words this month. I went to the coffee shop several times and it was shut down three of the four times I tried, but that fourth time let me get like... a pittance before my muse said "FUCK YOU AND FUCK OFF!" Let's whip out my stories and count them up.
-PRIMARY OBJECTIVES-
❌ -Hair of the Dog Part 2: 464 new words this month on a goal of 15K total
✔️ -Crossing of the Paths - Book 2: Darkness & Light - Chunk 5: 1,457 new words this month on a goal of ANY words
❌ -Editing of Hair of the Dog Part 2: 0 words edited
❌ -Editing of Bound In Steel: 0 words edited
✔️ -Editing of Into the Hive: 8,247 words edited! Added 23 new words while editing
❌ -Editing of Rebirth of Lightest - Chunk 3: 0 words edited
-SECONDARY OBJECTIVES-
❌ -Crossing of the Paths - Book 2: Darkness & Light - Chunk 4: 0 words edited
❌ -TOTAL WORDS WRITTEN IN SEPTEMBER 2024: 1,944 words
❌ -TOTAL WORDS EDITED IN SEPTEMBER 2024: 8,247 words
Well, it's better than a big fat zero, I'll give it that much.
I know I should give myself grace for this fuckup though. Not many people can move TWICE in the span of a month and still keep trucking along with their creative work like normal. Frankly it was freaky-weird as fuck that I got so many fucking words written in August during the space between the moves. That shit is the exception for me, not the rule. Still, oof. That sucks.
I was off by 23,056 words total this month. Taking that away from the 25,853 word surplus we had last month, that means our year-on surplus has shrank down to 2,797 words. Again, oof. Honestly, at least it's still a fucking surplus instead of going down into a deficit. I'm definitely no longer on target for my yearly stretch goal for sure, but making the main goal is what matters most. Besides, we still got three more months til the end of the year. It ain't over yet! I AIN'T HEARD NO BELL, MOTHERFUCKERS! Let's reset and get fresh goals laid out!
OCTOBER 2024 WRITING GOALS
(EDITING CATCH UP MONTH, TAKE TWO!)
Alright fuckers let's try this shit again! We're gonna strive to finish Hair of the Dog Pt. 2 and all our editing again this month. I also am setting a non-quantifiable goal of choosing what I want to work on for FicWriMo next month, since I have so many damn project ideas.
-PRIMARY OBJECTIVES-
-Hair of the Dog Part 2: Still have 13,154 words left to write to reach the 15,000 final total
-ANY OTHER STORY HERE: At least 11,846 words to take us the rest of the way to the quota (Can put any of my secondaries here at the end of the month)
-Editing of Hair of the Dog Part 2: Expected 15,000 words to edit
-Editing of Bound In Steel: 20,797 words to edit
-Editing of Rebirth of Lightest - Chunk 3: 21,746 words to edit
-SECONDARY OBJECTIVES-
-Crossing of the Paths - Book 2: Darkness & Light - Chunk 4: 35,646 words to edit
-Crossing of the Paths - Book 2: Darkness & Light - Chunk 5: ANY amount of words
-Choose a Project for next month's FicWriMo marathon!
Total Expected Writing Wordcount for October 2024: 25,000 words
Total Expected Editing Wordcount for October 2024: 93,189 words
Yeah this is basically the same as last month's goals, just slightly tweaked. I basically copy pasted September's goals, lol. Shouldn't be surprising since the work isn't magically gonna go away or change just because I had an unproductive month.
I certainly didn't set an ambitious goal for wordcount, but that's because I plan on next month being the real catch-up month. November is writing marathon month, though I won't technically call it by the name NaNoWriMo anymore. The org behind the "Official" NaNoWriMo did a fucking dumbass move by coming out in support of AI writing. Which is fucking baffling to me because you'd figure they wouldn't want to let people use a glorified plagiarism machine to cheat the entire fucking point of the marathon. Sorry but pressing a button to have a robot regurgitate someone else's stolen words for you does not count as making your own story in my book, so I will no longer be formally participating in the "Official" NaNo. Instead I'll be participating in FicWriMo, an alternative challenge that's not associated with the drooling shitgibbons behind the nano org. I'll still shoot for at least 50K words minimum next month, and the nice big chunks of time off I get for Turkey day will make it doable. So I can afford to just clear my editing queue this month while simply maintaining my wordcount quota.
Hopefully my burnout stops and it'll just be the Satisfactory addiction that I have to contend with this month. That addiction alone is gonna be difficult to shake. I already know I need to rewrite and heavily tweak several parts of chunks 4 and 5 of COTP:DW as I edit them too, and that's gonna be difficult. I'm gonna have to seriously bribe and beg my muse if she still refuses to cooperate this month. Wish me luck guys!
I'm safely settled into my new new place now thankfully. No big emergencies or crises happened during my second move. But I think the fact that I technically moved twice over the period of a month, AND did so while writing so many fucking words in August, was enough to finally break my brain and make my muse fuck off to Margaritaville or someplace else where she could try to rest. I also have to add in the fact that video game addiction DID in fact start up again in September. I predicted that at least one game out of the slate of exciting releases in September would snag me, be it BG3's Mod tools, Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, or Satisfactory 1.0. Turns out that the winner of the "Which game can snare Lightest's brain the hardest" went to Satisfactory 1.0. Sure Echoes of Wisdom was good, but building games are special to me. I spent so many fucking years far too addicted to modded Minecraft to write properly, so it's not surprising that Satisfactory 1.0 grabbed me so hard. I almost wondered why it didn't grab me sooner, since it's been out in Early Access for many years already. But the answer to that one is simple, they kept changing things that fuck up game saves as they progressed with the game, and it made me want to wait for the 1.0 release so I could dive in and build a proper megafactory once save-breaking changes stopped. Well, the save-breaking changes have indeed now stopped, so here I go lol
I mean, if I properly count my blessings here, I gotta say I'm grateful to have had such an insanely good game to use for a de-stresser during my burnout crash. Adjusting to a new place is VERY hard for people on the spectrum like me, EVEN if the new place is straight upgrade from the last one. (And yeah my new place does indeed rock, I love it!) Change makes my brain deeply unhappy, be it good or bad change. Being able to numb that stress by delving into a gorgeous alien world and fill it with glorious industry has been a huge blessing.
But, having nothing to show for the month does suck. I was dreading writing this journal, and even now as I write the intro I haven't counted what few words I did get written. Well... let's not delay it any longer. sooner I get this over with the sooner I can move on to making October not suck.
SEPTEMBER 2024 WRITING SUMMARY
Ok, taking a deep breath now and opening my story files. I did write like, a couple hundred words this month. I went to the coffee shop several times and it was shut down three of the four times I tried, but that fourth time let me get like... a pittance before my muse said "FUCK YOU AND FUCK OFF!" Let's whip out my stories and count them up.
-PRIMARY OBJECTIVES-
❌ -Hair of the Dog Part 2: 464 new words this month on a goal of 15K total
✔️ -Crossing of the Paths - Book 2: Darkness & Light - Chunk 5: 1,457 new words this month on a goal of ANY words
❌ -Editing of Hair of the Dog Part 2: 0 words edited
❌ -Editing of Bound In Steel: 0 words edited
✔️ -Editing of Into the Hive: 8,247 words edited! Added 23 new words while editing
❌ -Editing of Rebirth of Lightest - Chunk 3: 0 words edited
-SECONDARY OBJECTIVES-
❌ -Crossing of the Paths - Book 2: Darkness & Light - Chunk 4: 0 words edited
❌ -TOTAL WORDS WRITTEN IN SEPTEMBER 2024: 1,944 words
❌ -TOTAL WORDS EDITED IN SEPTEMBER 2024: 8,247 words
Well, it's better than a big fat zero, I'll give it that much.
I know I should give myself grace for this fuckup though. Not many people can move TWICE in the span of a month and still keep trucking along with their creative work like normal. Frankly it was freaky-weird as fuck that I got so many fucking words written in August during the space between the moves. That shit is the exception for me, not the rule. Still, oof. That sucks.
I was off by 23,056 words total this month. Taking that away from the 25,853 word surplus we had last month, that means our year-on surplus has shrank down to 2,797 words. Again, oof. Honestly, at least it's still a fucking surplus instead of going down into a deficit. I'm definitely no longer on target for my yearly stretch goal for sure, but making the main goal is what matters most. Besides, we still got three more months til the end of the year. It ain't over yet! I AIN'T HEARD NO BELL, MOTHERFUCKERS! Let's reset and get fresh goals laid out!
OCTOBER 2024 WRITING GOALS
(EDITING CATCH UP MONTH, TAKE TWO!)
Alright fuckers let's try this shit again! We're gonna strive to finish Hair of the Dog Pt. 2 and all our editing again this month. I also am setting a non-quantifiable goal of choosing what I want to work on for FicWriMo next month, since I have so many damn project ideas.
-PRIMARY OBJECTIVES-
-Hair of the Dog Part 2: Still have 13,154 words left to write to reach the 15,000 final total
-ANY OTHER STORY HERE: At least 11,846 words to take us the rest of the way to the quota (Can put any of my secondaries here at the end of the month)
-Editing of Hair of the Dog Part 2: Expected 15,000 words to edit
-Editing of Bound In Steel: 20,797 words to edit
-Editing of Rebirth of Lightest - Chunk 3: 21,746 words to edit
-SECONDARY OBJECTIVES-
-Crossing of the Paths - Book 2: Darkness & Light - Chunk 4: 35,646 words to edit
-Crossing of the Paths - Book 2: Darkness & Light - Chunk 5: ANY amount of words
-Choose a Project for next month's FicWriMo marathon!
Total Expected Writing Wordcount for October 2024: 25,000 words
Total Expected Editing Wordcount for October 2024: 93,189 words
Yeah this is basically the same as last month's goals, just slightly tweaked. I basically copy pasted September's goals, lol. Shouldn't be surprising since the work isn't magically gonna go away or change just because I had an unproductive month.
I certainly didn't set an ambitious goal for wordcount, but that's because I plan on next month being the real catch-up month. November is writing marathon month, though I won't technically call it by the name NaNoWriMo anymore. The org behind the "Official" NaNoWriMo did a fucking dumbass move by coming out in support of AI writing. Which is fucking baffling to me because you'd figure they wouldn't want to let people use a glorified plagiarism machine to cheat the entire fucking point of the marathon. Sorry but pressing a button to have a robot regurgitate someone else's stolen words for you does not count as making your own story in my book, so I will no longer be formally participating in the "Official" NaNo. Instead I'll be participating in FicWriMo, an alternative challenge that's not associated with the drooling shitgibbons behind the nano org. I'll still shoot for at least 50K words minimum next month, and the nice big chunks of time off I get for Turkey day will make it doable. So I can afford to just clear my editing queue this month while simply maintaining my wordcount quota.
Hopefully my burnout stops and it'll just be the Satisfactory addiction that I have to contend with this month. That addiction alone is gonna be difficult to shake. I already know I need to rewrite and heavily tweak several parts of chunks 4 and 5 of COTP:DW as I edit them too, and that's gonna be difficult. I'm gonna have to seriously bribe and beg my muse if she still refuses to cooperate this month. Wish me luck guys!
