Pushing on

As I recently splurged all over this blog about, writing has been a bit of a struggle lately. I haven’t been able to plan and smooth things out as much as I like to, and the write-and-post fervour of getting Starwalker up each week has been a challenge to push through sometimes.

Part of what I love about web serial writing is the discipline of it: it would be easy to let myself slip and slip and wind up not writing at all. Also, I’m stubborn, and not going to let the fact that it’s hard stop me from doing it. If that was the case, I never would have started in the first place.

I’ve got a long history of pushing through the things that try to hold me back. I’ve had many reasons to give up in the past, all health-related. I’ve had arthritis and other joint issues my whole life, and I could have let it stop me from doing all kinds of things. Sports, trips, playing in the snow. I was a district high jump champion when I was 13. I’ve been skiing (I sucked at it, but I went!). I learned karate at uni. The issues were always there, but I dealt with them.

Nowadays, my biggest challenge is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I could have let it stop me doing all kinds of things: things around the house; going out; working. I could have let it stop me writing. I’ve had to make many compromises to live with this condition – and I still do, every day – but I’m stubborn too. I manage it. I work around it. Sometimes, I accept my failings and flagging energy, and I have to deal with that, too.

But I refuse to let it be an excuse. If I had, I never would have succeeded with the Apocalypse Blog and written a post every day for a year. I wound up writing three novels that year while working full time and doing everything else that fills up my time. (Sometimes, I still wonder how I pulled it off!)

If I had let CFS be an excuse, I wouldn’t be writing my current web serial either. It is a struggle, every week, to get the posts out at the moment. It’s harder work than I like. But I push on.

I still love it. It still works, even when I don’t think it will. I’m mentally drained this week, and I only had a vague idea of what I wanted the post to be about the day before I was due to start writing it, so I was facing this week’s writing with a note of despair. Then, just before I went to bed, an idea popped into my head. It was one of those lightbulb moments and I knew exactly what the scene needed to be.

It fought me. The two characters talking in the scene don’t rebound off each other well and they took some convincing to play nice. It was a hard conversation, for me and for my main character, but that’s part of the point of it (it’s no fun if it’s easy, after all). And at the end of the scene, Starry turned an unexpected corner. It blossomed out into an unexpected realisation for her, one that fits perfectly with the kind of emotional journey she has been moving through lately. It was more than worth the fight.

Sometimes, things just work. The post ended on the kind of note I wanted, and the ship is swooping in towards the next post, which I can’t wait to get to. (It’s one I’ve had in mind for a while.) I love it when a vague, half-formed plan works itself out right in front of you.

So here I am, pushing forward. I aim high, knowing that I’ll at least achieve some of what I want, maybe even most of it. Aiming for the stars is a good way to fly, even if you only clear mountains.

Where I’ve been

2012 has been a rocky year for me so far. One of the most obvious signs of that is the lack of posts on this blog. I keep coming back here and lining up things I want to post about, but finding the time and brain-space to actually post has been out of my reach for much of the time.

I won’t go into detail why. I’ll just summarise and say that my day-job has been very stressful (more so than it ever had before). I don’t deal well with unreasonable expectations, untenable positions, or problems I’m unable to fix. I’m under a certain amount of pressure at home as well (most of it financial and none of it anyone’s fault – life just gets that way sometimes). Couple all of that with CFS (which is made worse by stress, of course), and, well. Let’s just say that it has been a strain to get anything productive done in my ‘spare’ time.

This blog is usually the first thing to fall off my radar when I get busy, as it’s the one I have least commitments to. So, to those of you who read this blog: my apologies, and thanks for your patience. It’s not that I love you least! I’d make more of a commitment to updating here if I thought I was capable of maintaining it!

Sadly, it has also been affecting my current web serial. I’ve missed posts, delayed things, mostly due to health reasons. I despise doing that. Part of what works for my web serial writing is keeping to a schedule, and missing that schedule means I’m letting myself (and my readership – more on that later) down. However, I have to be realistic and recognise that it’s not always possible to keep it up! And I’d rather not put up a shitty post just for the sake of posting.

All the same, I think the quality of the writing has probably suffered. At least a little. It makes me sad to know that (I take a great pride in my work, and I consider the web serial ‘work’, not play). It also makes me look forward to editing Starwalker! (Whenever that may be.)

However, it’s not all dire news. Firstly, I’d like to say that I have the most wonderful readers. They have been nothing but understanding and supportive, despite the amount of ‘sorry guys, there’s gonna be a delay on the next post’ messages I’ve had to put up so far this year. I’ve had so many wonderful comments, letting me know that it’s okay to take the time I need, and even emails offering more support and advice.

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate those messages. You guys are why I write. You make it all worth it!

I work to live and live to write. I push myself to write more and write better because I love it. I have so many ideas, so many things I want to do, so many stories I want to share with the world. Running around in my head right now:

• Starwalker (in progress!).
• Apocalypse Blog shorts (shelved but not forgotten).
• Vampire Electric, the steampunk novel (along with a couple of non-vampire sequels).
• Screw Loose, the robot brothel (the next web serial? Maybe!).
• Starwalker spin-offs (I have a few in mind, including the villain shorts, the story of the Carapace, and something centred on the consciousness of stars).

I can’t wait to get to them all. I can’t wait to share them with everyone. I can only focus on one thing at a time right now (between working full-time and fatigue), but I hope to get to them all eventually.

And then there’s all the other writing stuff I’m involved in. I’m still running my Creative Writing Group every month, and the Monthly Write-ins are where I get a pile of writing done! Planning for NaNoWriMo 2012 started a couple of months ago and is already galloping ahead.

On top of all that, the ebook sales for the Apocalypse Blog are going amazingly well. (I’m hoping to do a post specifically about that; fingers crossed I’ll get to it soon!) I got my first cheque for ebook sales in this week! I can now say that I’m a professional, (self-)published author.

So, yeah, it’s been a hell of a year so far. But I’m just finishing a week’s holiday from work and I’m feeling better. I’ve caught up on a few things (this blog being one of them!). The work of dealing with the stressful parts of my life continues, and they’re being weeded out steadily.

Writing posts like this is usually an interesting exercise for me. I know I’m ambitious with everything I try to do. I know I push myself hard (mostly because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t get anything done; it’s too easy to let CFS be the excuse that stops you from doing or being what you want).

Today, I look at everything here and I think: I’m actually pretty awesome. I’m holding it together and I’m getting there. I’ll come out of the other side of this rocky patch better than before.

Most of all, I’m grateful. For the friends who listen to me whine, who hug me and make me laugh. For the family who love and protect me. For the budding MLs who are helping me with the NaNo stuff this year, and my previous co-MLs. For the readers who enjoy my work, both those who let me know and those who visit silently. For those who spend their money on my work, both through donations and buying ebooks, and help me know that they believe my stories are worth paying for.

You all know who you are. I love you and thank you. I’m lucky to have you in my life.

Time to press onwards. Hopefully you’ll hear from me soon! Be well, everyone, and I’ll try to do the same.

Still alive!

I can’t believe that it has been so long since I updated this blog. I’m so sorry! It has been months, and whenever I think of it in those terms, my brain says, “Months? Nah, it can’t be… oh, it is. Damn.”

Every time I have thought about writing something for this blog lately, I’ve had the desire and intention to write a post but the time has just slipped away from me. Even now, I’m writing this on the train on the way home, taking a break from writing actual fiction.

So, what have I been up to? It has been a packed, crazy few months. Let’s see if I can summarise my recent journeys in fiction and writing, and catch up to now.

November was NaNoWriMo, as it always is for me. Not just because of the challenge itself, but also because I’m a Municipal Liaison for this region. That means: prowling the forum with encouragement and aid for my faithful, madly-typing wrimos; organising and running events all over the city; putting together prizes and competitions; working full time at my day job; and, oh, writing a novel.

NaNo 2011 was a weird one. Usually, our numbers swell progressively from year to year, as word of the madness spreads and more lemmings leap off the novelling cliff into the wordcrafting updrafts. 2011, though, saw our event attendance drop, which worried my co-ML and me at first. We did everything we could think of to spread the word and it did pick up through the month (usually, it drops off!). Overall, we were really happy with how it went. We met a pile of new friends and had a blast, and we’ve got stacks of ideas to make NaNo 2012 bigger and better yet.

I managed to slide over the 50,000-word line without much problem, too! Despite everything that was going on, the writing came easily and quickly for me. I can’t say how much of a relief that was!

I used half of the NaNo wordcount target to finish off the second book of Starwalker, which has just finished posting (phew!). It was great to get ahead of the curve for a change!

Once that was drafted, I moved on to a project that has been tickling in the back of my brain for a while now. It’s a novel (rather than a serial), it’s steampunk, there are kinda-sorta vampires (I struggle to take ‘straight’ vampires seriously), and the central protagonist is a librarian. It’s possibly the first in a trilogy, as it links in with another story that I’ve been toying with for ages, though I’m still working out how they play together in the sandpit. I’m having lots of fun with it, though.

The end of NaNo was a relief: I was glad to put it to bed, but sad too. It’s a wild ride and I’m always more than ready for a rest when it’s done! A lot of December was spent recovering, as well as catching up on my day job, madly preparing for the more mundane events (like Christmas), and attempting to keep up a little momentum on my writing.

The two projects I worked on through NaNo have kept me busy since November ended. When I haven’t been editing and polishing Starwalker for posting, I’ve been writing the steampunk. The latter is up to 70,000 words and still going strong; there’s quite a long way to go there yet. I’m hoping I’m over the halfway point, but I don’t like to restrict myself; we’ll see where it goes.

Now that Book 2 of Starwalker has finished (more on that in another post soon!), I’ve decided to take a bit of a break before delving into Book 3. There is a third project that I’ve been struggling to get to, so I’ve decided to dedicate February to making a dent in it: editing the Apocalypse Blog for ebook release.

I’m up to the second book (of the main trilogy; that is, not counting the prequel). It’s over 100,000 words now and it’ll be even bigger by the time I’m finished. I’m hoping to get through all of Book 2 in the next month, so both of my other projects are on hiatus until 29th February.

It’s a bit of a gamble. The most dangerous thing for my writing is for me to take a break, because I find it so difficult to pick up a project mid-way through after I’ve put it down. That’s one reason why web serials work so well for me: they have additional pressure for me to keep the momentum up; and having people reading and waiting for the end pushes me to get there. So, Starwalker readers, don’t fear: I’ll pick that story up again. Getting back into the steampunk will be harder, though.

It will be worth it. I really want to get more of the Apocalypse Blog out (I’ve been getting emails asking me when more of it is going to be released in ebooks!). I want to get all three books edited and polished, and maybe look at doing a set of short stories related to it (I have plans for that somewhere). The short stories will depend on my other commitments once the ebooks are out of the way, though.

I’m certainly not short on plans. There’s so much I want to do! Starwalker and related spin-offs (I’m not going to say now just how many kernels of ideas there are already growing in the Starwalker universe). AB ebooks and spin-offs. The steampunk series.

Well, fingers crossed, I’ll get to it all before too long. Life, health, and work permitting!

I’m still battling with my health on a daily basis. Stress at the day job coupled with a general decline of my energy levels makes summoning up the creative juices so much harder these days (that’s why I am finally writing this blog post, because I’m not quite feeling up to thinking about story this afternoon).

We’ve got a big deadline at work coming up in April, and I think things are going to be rocky for me until that passes. Such is the fun of being a team leader. I’m hoping that things will improve after then, but I’m becoming more and more sure that I’d really like more of my mental energy focussed on my creative writing. It’s where my heart lives, and I have so little energy to go around these days. Those who know me know that I have a habit of picking up responsibilities, though, and I don’t know how easy letting go will be. I guess we’ll see about that.

In the meantime, I hope to not let it hold me back. I’ve had CFS for years now and I’m not putting my life on hold in the hopes it’ll get better soon. Push through and carry on, as always.

I have an ambitious year ahead of me: AB ebook releases; Book 3 of Starwalker; submitting the steampunk for publication; more NaNo organisation. It’s entirely possible that I’ll be arranging a writer’s retreat weekend for this November, too. It’ll be hard work but so worth it!

I’m still here; I’m still writing. It’s hard going right now but I’ll get there. Here’s to aiming high!

Retrospective: 2010

2010 has been a strange year. Wonderful and frustating, with progress both backwards and forwards. I haven’t done many things that I had hoped and planned to do, but it hasn’t all been disappointment.

Achieved this year:

• Got Starwalker up and running, and completed Book 1. When I started it, I had no idea how much actual story I had to play with. I had 12 ‘chapters’ planned out and had only got through 6 when the 100,000-word mark arrived. The arc worked out nicely, so that became Book 1. Book 2 looks like it’ll only take up the next 2 planned ‘chapters’ (!!!), so it seems that I’ve got lots of material to play with for that particular story. Which means: yes, there will be a Book 3.
• Started some Starwalker shorts. Got some good ideas lined up here and the groundwork done. Some previews are available – now all I need to do is go back and finish them all off. Ahem.
• NaNoWriMo – got my 50,000 words done, and did some bewildering ML-stuff at the same time. My co-ML and I had some ambitious plans, added a few things in on the fly, and had a fantastic time. It was bigger and better than 2009, and it all went swimmingly. I was left feeling awesome, and completely drained.
• Creative Writing Group is still going strong. We had a hiccup in the middle of the year when our venue decided it couldn’t host us any more, but now we have a new home and it’s all looking good.

Things I didn’t manage:

• Posting Starwalker three times a week. I dropped it to one post a week to give myself a bit of a breather, and haven’t managed to get back up to three posts a week. Even with a pile of NaNo material to use, editing and sorting out the posts in time to get them up three times a week just hasn’t happened.
• Apocalypse Blog shorts. I promised to do them. I have half of one written, but just haven’t got back to it in months. I am disappointed by this, and I do hope to get back to it at some point. To everyone who has been waiting for them: I’m sorry. It is still on my list. Really sorry. 🙁
• AB e-books. I am most of the way through editing the first ‘book’ of AB, but various other commitments have got in the way. I will have to attack this again soon.
• Merchandise. My potential avenue for this is struggling to get off the ground, and it hasn’t happened. Delayed but not forgotten or given up on.
• Getting business cards and doing more self-marketing. I had hoped to put myself out there a bit more, get some AB/SW t-shirts and go to cons to spread the word some more. Hand out business cards and bookmarks. Still struggling to sort out the graphics/design for these, though. It is still on my list of things to do.
• WorldCon. Work interfered and I had to be here for a major deadline, so I couldn’t go down to the event in Melbourne. Poot.
• Novel edit/submit. Haven’t even picked it up. Part of this has been the weight of webfic stuff I’ve been doing, but it also needs something more. I’m not sure what that ‘something’ is yet, but it is percolating in the back of my brain. Once I find that elusive missing piece, I will go back to it, but it’s not something that can be rushed.
• Other random blogfic. Yeah, didn’t get to this either. Starwalker has sucked up a lot of my creative time this year, and the angel-based blogfic has a lot of prelim work needed before it can start. With my energy levels as they are at the moment, this one won’t get going until SW is well and truly finished!
• More writing tips posts. I haven’t been posting on this blog anywhere near enough, and with nothing like the amount of ‘tips’ posts that I had hoped to do.

Without trying to make excuses, I will offer some explanations. I think the main one has been my health – I simply haven’t been as well this year as I was in 2009. The CFS is becoming more of a problem, and while I’m seeking specialist help, I still haven’t found the meds that will help kick it back out of my way.

It’s like trying to think through treacle, only not as sweet. Exhaustion is a weight on creative thinking, and I’ve had to push hard to get through some weeks and create something entertaining, for me and my readers. I don’t like that the CFS gets in my way, but I also can’t deny it or pretend it isn’t there, as much as I’d like to. Sadly, this isn’t something I can do a lot about – no more than I’m doing already, anyway. Just keep slogging on, I guess.

The other major factor this year is my work. Since my promotion in late 2009, I’ve had to take on the management of a small team with very little preparation or training, and carry it through a number of changes. Everything has changed, from our deadlines, to our format, to our management, to the structure of the entire R&D department, to the company we work for (we got bought out last month). Between picking up all the things that we’ve done previously and making it work with all the new stuff coming at us… it has been stressful. And busy. And crazy. And yes, very distracting.

I’ve had good stuff come up too. I managed to pull together some threads of various plots and characters I’ve been tossing around for a while. I have plans for the Starwalker universe that will take it beyond the story of the ship. There’s the possibility of a whole offshoot into another facet of that world, and that’s exciting. One particular character that I’ve been playing around with for about 10 years now has morphed in just the right way to fit in. And there’s a plotline that almost got started back in 2008 in a different project that I think I can make work in Starry’s world, too. Plus, of course, there’s the villain shorts that I’ll be working on in the new year, too.

I should probably come up with a name for the universe, to tie all these pieces together. Hmm.

Another couple of ideas have also recently come together, marrying up another long-standing character idea with a previously-separate world concept, with some aspects inspired by other fiction that I’ll mash in for good measure. That one has some background work to go yet, but I managed to get some outline notes down during NaNo (when I was burned out on Starwalker and needed to bulk out my wordcount), and I know I’ve got enough plot for three full story-arcs.

In short: I’m not going to run out of things to write anytime soon.

I’ll post more about my immediate plans in my ‘what I want to do in 2011’ post, which I’m sure will turn up sometime in the next few days. In the meantime… 2010? You were hard work. You weren’t all that I hoped you’d be, but I had high hopes to start with. I achieved some of what I set out to do, and I’m not disappointed with what I ended up with.

Here’s hoping that I can climb a little higher next year.

Falling into step

Things are starting to settle down a bit here. I have my apartment-type area set up and have settled in. The kittens are getting used to the new digs, even nervous little Jasmine. It’s feeling like home again.

Work is quietening down too. Old manager gone, new manager picking up the reins. I run the team anyway, so the biggest change is who I have to talk to about stuff. The new manager is receptive and friendly, so no problems there so far. I’m currently on a training course, learning the other monstrous side to the software my team has to document. My brain is filling up.

I haven’t caught up with Starwalker as quickly or thoroughly as I had hoped. It’s taking me longer to get used to the commute than I had anticipated – I’ve spent at least half of my commutes dozing due to exhaustion lately. I’m doing better this week, and feeling able to do more and more writing, so I know I’ll get there.

On the plus side, I’m keeping up with Starwalker and am excited about the story even after the break. I’m at an awkward part of the story, coming up to a peak in the plot that requires some logistical wriggling. It might help if I had planned all this stuff out from the beginning, but hell, until recently, I wasn’t even sure who the saboteur was. It’s fun writing it this way, though I’m paranoid I’ll write myself into a corner. I plan to keep going as I am until it breaks, though – it’s working for now, so why not?

With luck, I’ll be able to catch up to the realtime posting dates soon. I have to restrain myself from doing interim posts in the meantime (it’s possible I will fail at this – there’s a post that wants to be written that won’t wait a week from the previous one).

It’s a relief to feel like I’m finally getting on top of things. To feel honestly enthused about something without out the weight of everything else resting on me.

I have my writing group tonight, with a guest talk by the lovely and talented Kylie Chan – I hope I get a good turnout for her. We won’t be getting into our new meeting-place until September, so things are a little weird until then.

That’s about it for my update today. Better get back to work!

Engage catchup

So, I had myself a little hiatus. Spent time with visiting family, moved house, settled in, got back to work, caught up with the backlog there, said goodbye to my manager, started training the new one in the wonders of technical documentation…. Yeah, it’s been a crazy crazy time.

Things are settling down a bit now. I’ve managed to find enough time to get back to writing this week. I’m sure that you’ll all be glad to know that a new Starwalker post is now up! (I just got done sorting it out and formatting it all.)

I looked at where the story was and decided that three weeks is just too long between posts. I’d like to keep the real-time aspect of it, so I’ve backdated the new post to be where it should have been, if I hadn’t gone on hiatus. My goal is to fill in the missing two posts as I go – I can do about a post every two-three days at the moment, energy permitting, so by the end of next week, I should be roughly up to date. (I’ll probably post them all at once, so don’t hold your breath, but there’ll definitely be at least one going up next Wednesday!)

I’m not sure when I’ll go back to my original schedule of three posts a week. I’d like to stick to once a week for a little while, build up some buffer (oh, how I miss it) and spend some time editing the Apocalypse Blog. I also have another couple of projects I need to find time for.

I’m still getting used to this new schedule and longer days. The CFS is not my friend right now, but I’m sleeping better lately, so hopefully it’ll remain manageable at least. Maybe even improve some. So while I like my return to hour-long commutes on the train, I’m still working up to being having enough energy to fully utilise it. Sometimes, it’s just too necessary to doze all the way home at the end of the day.

I look forward to the time when I can write a post in the morning’s commute, and do something else on the way home.  Edit, rewrite, plan plots. Who knows?

In other lovely news, Kylie Chan is coming to talk to my writing group next month! (Why does everything happen at once?) I’m looking forward to that, and hopefully a good-sized group will turn out for her. Fingers crossed!

Right, back to the grindstone. More catching up to do yet – if anyone is waiting on a response from me about something, I’ll try to get back to you soon!

Hiatus

Since my last post, things have slid further into chaos. Not all in a bad way, but definitely in ways that make everything more complicated!

First, I got sick. The bug going around work decided to bite me, in a low-grade miserable way that dragged at me for 2-3 weeks. Lovely.

Then, things with my family came to a head and I decided not to renew the lease on my house. Instead, I am going to move out and shift in with my folks, taking over the bottom floor of their house. This will let me help them out and avoid some more serious problems down the track.

When I made that decision, I had three weeks to sort everything out. One week of that is taken up by my brother’s visit (he’s around the world for my dad’s birthday), so I really only had two weeks to sort the move out.

Then at work, my manager announced that he’s leaving. One week after my move finishes, he’s off. The best manager I’ve ever worked under is leaving, and we don’t know what’s going to happen after he’s gone. The department will be restructured and we have no-one to voice our needs for us at management level. I think I’m going to have to become more vocal.

Oh, and we have some redundancies coming through, too. I heard just today that my team is safe, but for the last couple of weeks, it has been a worry.

On top of that, there has been getting the new teammember settled into her work, and preparing everything for my couple of weeks off to be with my brother and then move house. We have a big release coming up just after I get back from my leave and there’s lots to sort out to make sure that that happens, too.

Just when I thought nothing else could go wrong, the bookstore where I hold my writing group emailed me to tell me that they’re not opening late any more. So now I have to find somewhere else to hold my writing group every month. Before the next meeting. Aaaaah.

That has been the past couple of weeks for me. The good news is that everything seems to be going to plan so far. The move is all lined up – everything is booked and ready. Currently giving my brother a whistle-stop tour of the area and doing lots of family stuff. Work doesn’t appear to have imploded in my absense yet.

I am bone tired. I slept most of today in the car as we drove around between pretty sights, and I’m still exhausted. I can’t remember the last time I just stopped and rested. I am looking forward to getting rid of this house and settled into my new rooms downstairs, and then sleeping for about a week.

The upshot of all this is that there’s no room for writing. I could probably squeeze in some time to throw something together, but my head is so full of everything that’s going on that there’s no room for writing. I don’t want to sacrifice the quality or story of Starwalker any more than I already have thanks to all of these distractions, so it’s time for a break.

This is why I’m taking a short hiatus. Just for a couple of weeks, enough time to get me past this visit and moving house and caught up with all of my other responsibilities. I’m going to be pretty absent from everything for the duration. I should be back up and running by the end of the month, and will update again once I have a clearer idea of how all this stuff is turning out.

Thanks to all of your for your patience. On the plus side, once I’m moved I’ll have my one-hour commute on the train each way, and will have plenty of time for writing! Or sleeping. We shall see!

Catch you all on the flip-side.

Change of plan

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the past couple of weeks. Things have not been going well for me, and if I’m honest, I’m struggling.

There are a lot of reasons for it. Work is stressful and I’m constantly fighting to keep all the balls in the air there. I’m managing more people, more projects, and tighter deadlines than we’ve had before. I’m still learning what the hell I’m supposed to be doing half the time, and every time I turn around, the goalposts have shifted six inches to the left. We’re doing all right, we’re still on-track, but that’s only because I’m busting my ass trying to make sure that’s where we are. I like clear goals. I like to know what I’m aiming for. I do not like playing catchup, especially not when it’s someone else’s fault.

There are also family-related factors at play that I don’t particularly want to get into. Let’s just say that it’s another source of concern, but not one I can do anything about (which is probably worse) except be there for them. It’s frustrating.

And then, once I’ve dealt with all of that, there’s my writing. I’m falling behind with everything. Organising my writing groups is simple – a couple of emails a month each (I have two groups), turn up and pretend to be competent, and enjoy the company and conversation. Easy, right? At the moment, it’s one more thing that I have to worry about, and the other week I started to seriously consider stopping them. Or at least one of them. But then I go to a meeting and I love it. It’s so worth it. It’s the bits in between, sending out the emails and having it niggling at the back of my head, all ‘don’t forget about this!’ Those are the parts that wear on me.

Starwalker is going really well. I keep meaning to post updates on this blog, but it’s yet another thing that I just don’t get to these days. Last month, SW had over 1,000 visitors. As in, different people, all coming to the site to read it. One thousand. And the feedback I get is amazing. People are talking about it. They’re getting excited about the storylines, and attached to the characters. I feel so lucky when I see that! I look at the stats and the comments and I’m all: “Wow. People like my stuff.” It’s a lot to get my head around!

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever written. I’m going to all these new places with it, juggling and adjusting things as I go to make sure it hangs together, trying to get the physics right enough to be convincing. So far, it’s all working great! I have all of these plans for it, so many avenues still to travel down. It’s exciting, but it’s hard.

I think the difficult parts aren’t entirely down to SW itself. It’s everything else that gets in the way. It’s shifting mental gears whenever I sit down to write, trying to put all the job-related and other stuff aside for long enough to focus. It’s sitting down on the train for twenty minutes at a time and trying to get part of a post down. It’s giving up three evenings a week to pull a post together, edit it into something coherent, and get it posted. And more than anything else, it’s the exhaustion.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – it is the bane of my life, once again. All of that stuff I’m juggling makes me stressed, and stress makes the CFS worse, and then I get exhausted and that makes it more difficult to deal with the stressful stuff. Fun, huh? It has been bad (and getting worse) for the last couple of months. I keep trying to take some time off, take a break, catch my breath, and that works in tiny portions. Unless it puts me behind with everything (which it usually does), in which case I have to bust my ass to catch up again, and I wind up exactly where I started – exhausted and struggling to keep up.

Last year, I set my sights high. I didn’t do everything I aimed to do, but I did most of it and I came out of it all feeling really good about how it went. This year, I didn’t set myself targets that were anything near as ambitious, I’m not doing everything I aimed to, and I’m still failing. A week ago, I had that thought, the one that says ‘something has to give’. I’ve been here before, looking at myself in a downwards spiral, and unless I change things, I’m not going to get out of it until I hit bottom and have to stop doing everything. That was five years ago, and it was a lot worse than it is now before I realised how close and inevitable that bottom really was. Funnily enough, the key stress- and frustration-factor then was my job, too.

That, sadly, isn’t something I can change. It’ll get better eventually and now is not the time to change jobs. I am in a really good position; the best one I’ve ever been in, professionally. I’m doing well, despite all the crap I’m handling. And more than anything else, I need the stability of that place right now.

And, dammit, I don’t give up on shit easily. It’s probably part of what’s made me so sick – I should have done this a while ago – but having dealt with chronic conditions of one kind or other my whole life, I’m stubborn when it comes to this kind of thing getting in my way. There’s a part of me that suspects I should take a proper break from all the extra things in my life – the writing groups, the blogfic, the novel that’s waiting for me to edit it, the Apocalypse Blog stuff that I promised to do this year. But even as badly as I’m doing right now, I’m not ready to go quite that far. Like I said, I’m stubborn about this kind of thing.

But I have to change something. I need some way to get back on my feet. Right now, I feel like I’m failing at everything, even though it probably doesn’t look like I am. I’m told that it doesn’t show in SW yet – but it will. A post was due up yesterday and I haven’t even started it yet. I’m so exhausted that it’s difficult to think straight enough to write this, let alone slide my brain into Starry and try to step forward with her story.

I’m not going to do yesterday’s post. I’m not going to force it and have it come out half-assed. It’s time to be realistic and cut back. I thought three posts a week would be easy, but when the CFS is this bad, it’s too much. I’ve been tossing around the idea of dropping down to two posts, but I have to be honest with myself – that’s not enough. I’m not going to stop Starwalker – mostly because it will be incredibly difficult to start again if I do that – but I am going to bring it down to one post a week. Take a proper breather in it. Not permanently, but long enough for me to sort the rest of my life out. I’m not sure how long that will be yet.

I don’t know how this will affect the real-time aspect of Starwalker, but I’ll deal with it if and when it becomes a problem. I still love the story and its characters. I’m still excited about sharing it with everyone. Hell, the other day, I was pondering an old storyline I created a few years ago and realised that it would fit into the SW world perfectly. My original planned plot just got extended by another story arc. I am still committed to making this story work and won’t let this CFS screw it up completely.

So there you have it. I’m not giving up, not stopping. But I do need to step back for a while. I’ll aim to post on Wednesdays, I think, because by the end of the week I’m usually so tired I can hardly see straight. I still have to look at the other things in my life and see what I can do about them. I need to fix some non-writing-related factors as well, like the exercise I’m not doing and how often I can’t be bothered to cook. They’re next on my list.  I have some time booked off work coming up, too, and hopefully that will help me get on top of things a bit.

Wish me luck – I think I’m gonna need it – and watch this space!

Sluggish

It hasn’t been a great week.

There was that review, which knocked me sideways a bit. Then you lovely people pulled me up again – thank you for all your comments, support, and honesty.

I’ve since had another review on Web Fiction Guide, which raised similar concerns to the previous one but in a much less damning way. It felt more balanced (but maybe that’s just me).

On the plus side, I’ve been getting a load of hits through from it, and more feedback is great too. My overall rating is pretty good (looks like a 3.5?), and I’m happy with that. Happy enough for now, anyway.

On top of that, the CFS has been crawling up to smother me this week. I’ve been getting sleep (which is usually my toughest battle) but still waking up tired. Worse and worse each day, until yesterday my alarm pulled me out of the middle of a very vivid (and strange) dream. I am never dreaming at that time – I don’t remember the last time that happened. My body clock knows I get up at just after 6am, so I’m at least semi-awake by then.

Today, I got up feeling like lead. My glands feel like they’ve come up, and I’ve had cotton-head half of the day. I am currently subsisting on sugar and caffiene, and wondering just how little of tonight’s work Christmas party I can be there for before I can slip away. If the party wasn’t between the office and my house, I wouldn’t be going at all. Plus, I put a dress on today for the damn thing, so I might as well use it.

It hasn’t been a good week for writing. With those things tugging at me – in a downwards direction – it was really a bad time to tackle a post about a character in a dark place. The whole thing went sideways and ended in a position that I’m not sure I can recover from. I’m writing about ten days from the end of the blog, and there isn’t time to work with that. Luckily, I’m writing far enough ahead of the posts that I have time to fix it.

This morning, I abandoned the desire to surge ahead anyway, and went back to fix the post. Basically, I rewrote it with an additional element that I had originally intended to be in there, but had been unable to find room for the first time around. I started with the new element and made the rest fit in around it, and I think it’s going to wind up better for it. I’m itching to get it finished, but I’m so braindead that I can’t bring myself to review yet another technical ticket because it hurts too much.

Instead, I wound up procrastinating by registering the Apocalypse Blog on NetworkBlogs on Facebook. Another way to share the joy! I hear that it’s a good way to advertise, and while it may be a little late in AB’s case (as it’s ending soon), no harm in trying. Those of you on FB – follow, share, enjoy!

I’ve put off everything I had planned to do this weekend, except an evening out with a few friends. For the rest of the time, I will be resting and attempting to sort out the hash I’ve made of AB this week. Thank goodness for buffer. Oh, how I missed you, buffer.

Coming soon: AB’s next milestone, and news about the next blogfic on the horizon. It’s coming soon. Hopefully not too soon. In the meantime, wish me sanity and sleep.

NaNoWriMo: Achieved!

It’s the 29th November, and I finally hit 50,000 words. Whoo-hoo!

It’s such a relief. I have been struggling all week, and my wordcount graph reflects that. Work has been nuts, with the new guy starting – I had to be in charge of inducting him and training him – and interviewing another candidate for the new vacancy we’ve been allowed to recruit for. And I had a deadline to meet on Friday, which involved much squinting at complicated spreadsheets and trying to work out if all the figures were correct.

On top of that, I’ve been out a lot and, of course, the CFS has been biting down hard. I wound up collapsing on Friday night and giving myself the night off, even though I had barely written anything the day before (due to an unplanned evening at the folks’ place, thanks to breaking trains and a dad who needed a lift home).

Luckily, the write-ins have been great for my productivity. I entered the weekend with 8k to go – not exactly ideal, but not horrific either – and wound up doing almost 4k at yesterday’s write-in. Today, I managed to get my head down and push through those last few posts to hit 50k just after 6pm.

Aaaaand, relax.

In all of my previous NaNo adventures, I have hit the target with a week or more to go. The first year, I petered out and coasted through the last week, ending on about 56k, just glad I got through it all. Last year, I was determined to get to the end of the story and powered on through to almost 70k. This year, I’m just glad I made it at all. This really is a lot closer to the bone than I like to cut things!

I guess it’s a symptom of how my year has been. More than once I’ve been up late, desperately trying to focus on an Apocalypse Blog post properly so that I can get it edited, and then post it before I fell into bed. Once, I had to backdate the time slightly to squeeze it into the previous day, as it was almost 1am when it was finally going up. (One lovely reader noticed! Despite my sneaky fiddling with the posting time. It’s so good to know people are paying attention!)

I wish I could take a break now. But not yet! NaNo might be finished, but AB isn’t, not quite.

I’m about halfway through December. Only a couple of weeks’ worth of posts, and then I’m finished. I have tomorrow off work, to rest and recover from everything, so I plan to spend that editing the first half of December. Then I can focus on getting the last half of the month written, polished up and posted.

Almost there. Almost done. I can’t wait. I want to see the whole story, hold it in my hands as a complete thing. I’m looking forward to telling everyone: I did it. I got to the end, I got through a whole year and a long, winding story.

For tonight, though, I’m going to put my feet up, feel good about myself, and look forward with hope. It has been hard work, but it’s all working out nicely. That makes it worth it.