1001 Reasons Not To Clean - #56 through #60

Welcome to 1001 Reasons Not to Clean! The main goal of this series is to see if I can actually reach 1001 reasons, 5 reasons at a time (the final post, if I get there, will be 6 reasons). I'm sure I can. It's not just my crazy brain being unrealistic, right? Links to previous posts are below. And feel free to share your excuses, and they might get added to my list (with credit, of course)!

#1 through #5 ~ #6 through #10 ~ #11 through #15 ~ #16 through #20 ~ #21 through #25 ~ #26 through #30 ~ #31 through #35 ~ #36 through #40 ~ #41 through #45 ~ #46 through #50 ~ #51 through #55

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56. Anxiety, mostly due to #57. It pretty much freezes you and you can't seem to muster the energy to clean anything or work on the projects you started three months ago. Close your eyes, then you can't see the mess. Better yet, take a nap or do #58.

57. Pandemic. Need I say more? OK, I'll say more anyhow. You're cloistered in your house most of the time for over a year... which makes you want to clean it even less. Not to mention to deal with #56 you're playing an inordinate amount of video games. No time to clean, busy with #58.

58. Genshin Impact! Oh, yes, it's another game. A super fun game with gorgeous scenery and beautiful music that's easy to get lost in. And 2020 made many of us want to get lost in things.

59. The house has become sentient and has decided to fall apart on you in the span of a month. Boiler dies during a cold snap? Yup. Front door steps crumbling to dust? Uh huh. Upstairs toilet overflows and water pours from fixtures into the kitchen below (which was remodeled five years ago)? Argh, yes. Who has the energy to clean if your house hates you?

60. Taking cat pictures and posting them to Instagram is loads more fun. Cats are cute. They make me smile. Don't they make everyone smile? I hope so. Cleaning doesn't make me smile. Why do something that doesn't make you smile?

It's Been A While - June 2020 (Writing Update)

The Staind song aside (yes, it's stuck in my head now), it has been a while since I posted. Actually, I was supposed to post last week. And I had the post all written up. Then the new Blogger interface ate it. Yes, gobbled it up.

I was having issues with the new interface to begin with (30 minutes to add tags to my post, no thank you), and I'm decidedly not thrilled with it. Heck, I was furious with it last Thursday. So, I'm now writing up my posts in Scrivener, and I managed to revert back to the legacy interface on Blogger (and I'll keep it like that until they pry it from my cold, dead hands).

I'm a little less cranky about it. OK, not really, but I'm currently channeling Grinka.

Yes, I'm back to writing! And though it wasn't on my schedule, I'm drafting the next Fractured Fairies story, currently titled Bytes Bite, And So Do Fairies. And I already have the urge to write the next story, too.

Thankfully the anxiety has lessened a bit, and I'm done homeschooling my kids for the school year. The world is still in a bit of a tumult, obviously, but I won't get into my feelings over all of it because then the anxiety starts to rear its ugly head, and I can't have my mental health completely deteriorating on me.

For now, I'm writing again, and that feels great. Who knows what will happen come Fall, though - more homeschooling? Until then, I'm going to keep plowing ahead.

The yearly plan has been completely uprooted, of course. I never seem to learn with this whole planning thing. It never works out. My best laid plans don't just go astray, but blow up in my face in spectacular fashion. I kind of do feel like Grinka sometimes. Let me tell you, her current plans aren't unfolding as she wished either. Per usual, it's all the fairy siblings' fault.

Anyway, here's how the year currently stands. If you'd like to compare it to my original plan, you can find it on the 2020 - Keep On Rollin' post.

2020 Upcoming Publications

❦ Well of Solitude (Fortunes of Fate, 7) - Fall 2020 - Yes, I've now pushed this out 6 months later than originally planned. It's also the only publication that I now have planned for 2020.

2020 Project Progress

❦ Chains of Nect: Obsidian's Obsession - Rough draft complete - yay! And I've already sent out one of the brand new chapters in my Author Newsletter, which means I'll be posting it here in July, as well as on Wattpad.

❦ Bytes Bite, And So Do Fairies (Fractured Fairies, 4) - Again, this wasn't on the original plan for the year. I'm almost 7k into the rough draft, though, and I might have 2-3k left. I really needed to let loose with Grinka, Syndago, and the fairies before getting back to more serious stories.

❦ Well of Solitude - I'm about 4k into the revisions of this. I'd just started working on it when the pandemic hit the fan, so to speak. Once I finish the rough draft of Bytes Bite, I'll be returning to this. However, I was wrong, it likely won't turn into a novella. My brain finally resolved some issues I had with the story, but it means more of a re-write for half of it, instead of just a revision. I'm hoping it will still come in around 16k when all is said and done.

❦ Dead As Dreams, Fortunes of Fate 8, and Downward Spiral are now all on pause. I'm not sure when I'll reschedule them. It completely depends on what school looks like for the kids in Fall. Drafting is much easier than revising with the kids around, and humorous fantasy flows a lot better while all the serious stuff swirls around in reality. I think planning only one project at a time is the best bet right now.

❦ My main goal for the rest of the year is to keep on plugging away and pushing forward. The good thing is, even with all the anxiety, the ideas never stopped coming, and some are bugging the hell out of me. I want to write all the things NOW. So, once I'm done with the Bytes Bite draft and the Well of Solitude revision, I'm going to let my brain pounce on whatever project asserts itself the most next (at the moment, that's another Fractured Fairies story, but that could always change).

❦ Nope, not discussing blog posts or newsletters. No way.

That's what things look like for me, though. I hope among the tumult, you've all been able to find at least a sliver of focus on something (anything, maybe even reading). Now let's hope I don't have to type this post up a third time.

Writing vs. Quarantine

Wow, what a curve ball Mother Nature has sent our way recently!

When this current situation started in the U.S. - Hubbie now working from home every day of the week, kids with pretty much two weeks of spring break instead of just one before diving into virtual learning (um, homeschooling), and me without a moment to myself any longer - I'd thought it would be a grand idea to do a funny diary-like post about the whole situation. As I've learned so often in life, things never turn out how I planned.

As each day passed, my notes quickly turned into not funny at all. And then I had to start homeschooling. Let me tell you, for a person that completely sucks at multi-tasking, my anxiety is beyond high simply from trying to teach Youngest (who doesn't want to listen to me) and field questions from Eldest (while Youngest yatters in my ear to go on with her school work so she can continue to not pay attention or believe a word I say).

This has seriously been rough on me the last nearly four weeks. So rough that I can't get any writing done due to a combination of time, energy, and anxiety.

And yes, I understand and sympathize with others out there who also have it rough (or rougher). I'm not pulling out a measuring stick, trying to compare who has it worse. It's bad for everyone, even if it's a different kind of bad for everyone (even for those people who are simply bored - I mean, I can't grasp the concept of ever being bored with my endless list of interests, but I do understand they are suffering in their own way as well).

So please let's not come into the comments with anything like, "You have it easy - it's so much worse for me!" I've quite had enough of people belittling other people's feelings and reactions to this whole situation.

For me, it simply boils down to, my anxiety is high, so high that I've been on the verge of an anxiety attack several times. And while many of the things causing me anxiety may not affect others the same, that's how those things affect me. Everyone is different, everyone reacts differently, each person has different levels of what they can take, so let's just all get along and sympathize with everyone else - this whole thing sucks all around. Period.

OK, off my soapbox. I guess mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook feed has been getting to me. Too much jabbing on all topics.

Which is why, pretty much after this post, I'm taking a big social media break. This will include blog posts. Hell, it was hard enough convincing myself I needed to write this one. I'm hoping to be back at it all come June.

And yes, as I mentioned already, I've been unable to write. Revisions of Well of Solitude (Fortunes of Fate, 7) are on hold, likely until June as well. I'm hoping in summer, even though the kids will still be home, there will be a lot less pressure due to no longer having to homeschool, and then I can banish them outside for a couple hours (or be nice and let them play video games every afternoon).

Until then, I'm not putting any pressure on myself to write a single word... well, aside from this post. I may start a new Fractured Fairies story just to blow off some steam if my anxiety levels decrease and allow me to have a bit more energy. I've been intending to have Grinka deal with a computer virus - maybe she'll be confronted with a real virus as well, who knows. Those stories have always been my way to vent about annoying situations or just plain have fun. Can you imagine Grinka quarantined with the fairies? Oh, boy.

I'm at least happy to declare my drive to write and conjure up new ideas hasn't been dampened. Stuff is just getting in the way of my ability to execute. =P And I have to accept that once in a while, it's time to put the original plan on pause and go back to it later.

None of us should be too hard on ourselves right now!

I've babbled enough. And since I did spend the time writing down some of the events once we started pretty much quarantining ourselves, aside from grabbing food and taking occasional walks, I'll leave you with a few here. Not the depressing ones. The ones that still give me a bit of a chuckle. I hope they give you a chuckle, too.

Diary of a Quarantined Writer Mom

Day 1 – Bickering broke out at breakfast. Kids had exhausted me by lunch. And then I gave up and played video games until dinner.

Day 2 – Drama over organizing a drawer – Eldest claimed it would take hours to straighten. It took 10 minutes. Pre-order for the Deluxe Edition of Final Fantasy VII Remake delayed – the horror!

Day 4 – Ostara (Spring Equinox)! Woke up with a headache and a beyond hyper Youngest. Where does she get all this energy? Amazon messed up categories for Mind Behind the Mind big time. Medical Romance? Um, no. Planted sunflower seeds, but too tired to dye eggs.

Day 5 – Anxiety climbing. Really need a schedule... if the kids would let me make one between all the other stuff I need to get done. Finally dyed some eggs – glad the kids had fun.

Day 6 – Played a hell of a lot of FFX and let the kids play video games, too.

Day 8 – Schedule for today – let’s see how it goes. It seems Minecraft pacifies the young rabble-rousers. For the most part. Still some drama while I was trying to revise.

Day 9 – Went for our usual walk, and clearly people aren’t taking this social distancing seriously. Another kid tried to give Youngest a shell, and after we backed away and said no thank you, the kid’s caregiver tried to insist it was "just a shell". No, means no. Move along. Do I need to carry a sign that says, "Observing Social Distancing"?

Day 10 – Woke up in an "I don’t care" mood. What do you think that means? More video games!

Day 11 – Eldest’s birthday. Unfortunately, our local baker couldn’t make the cake we ordered. So... Funfetti cupcakes instead! With blue frosting, of course.

Day 12-13 – Lots of video games!

Day 14 – How long does it take to plan three daily schedules and a single day’s lesson plan? All damned day.

Day 15 - First day of homeschooling. How long does it take for the schedules and lesson plan to unravel? Minutes. Oh, and drama over art/drawing? The one task I thought would be easy!

Day 16 – I can’t do this for five plus weeks. Argh! My brain is constantly being interrupted by the kids, notifications from teachers, and the million things I need to do speeding through my mind. My lack of multi-tasking skills are showing through. Writing time? What writing time?

Day 17 and Beyond – Gave up tracking the days. Everything’s blending into one big blob, a blob that I turn into every afternoon as I scroll through Facebook on the couch in utter exhaustion.

Art, Or Where My Brain Is Before A Trip

I'd intended to write up a post about Wonder Woman, really I did. But my brain doesn't want to form anything coherent right now. (Hopefully I'll write up some comments for a later post, unless I get too distant from when I watched the movie).

It could be anxiety because it's been 4 years since I've ventured away from the family on my own for a long stretch of time (I've dealt with different levels of anxiety all my life, especially social anxiety, and no I haven't been diagnosed, but it does run in my family). Or it could be all the things on my to do list freezing up my molecules, especially my neurons. Probably a combination of both. I'll push through to at least get the necessary stuff done. But a thoughtful blog post? Hahahaha. Not right now.

Sooooo... pretty pictures! I poked around Pixabay for some neat ones simply using the search term "fantasy". Art definitely makes me smile and helps me shove down some of that anxiety, even if for only a brief moment.

First up is this haunted looking train. Definitely neat. I'm sure I've seen it other places around the internet. But I picked this one because I'll be hopping on a train tomorrow! Let's hope it's not a ghost train, shall we?

I also found this neat idyllic scene. I love the face in the tree and the blue butterflies make it pop. What do you think the woman in the picture is thinking? She looks deep in thought. I wonder if her hair hides pointed ears. This might be a good one to do a free write based on and see where it takes me (maybe while I'm on the train)!

And I love this one. Unicorns are my thing. I have a black unicorn tattoo. One of my friends also made me a Unicorno addict (those little figures are so expensive - lol). I love how the edits are done in this picture, though. Makes it all look more realistic. Oh, and I'm also seeking many, many unicorns right now: balance, writing career success, convincing my 3-year-old to not be so stubborn and willful...

Have any pretty art that you've found recently and love?

Writing Blues

First, my apologies for not posting last week. And again, apologies for this post not being what I had planned initially.

I've kind of run into the writing blues lately. Part of me thinks it's the weather shift, the change in the seasons that has me a bit down. The colder months have a way of dragging me down, like I have this innate need to hibernate or something. Funny enough, I actually live in a town where someone once lived who was famous for "hibernating", or not leaving his apartment for the entire winter--his name was Arthur "Turkey" Gehrke.

OK, that was a tangent. Perhaps that's part of my problem too--my mind wanders into insane directions.

Now, I know many people say to just keep writing, push through, ignore how you feel. Unfortunately, my moods tend to affect my writing. It's kind of weird. If I'm not into the writing, it's obvious. That would be fine if I were working on a first draft and it didn't matter if it was messy, but I'm trying to revise Dead As Dreams! This revision needs to be the best it can be, as I don't want to wait for another five years before I start submitting the manuscript places.

I think my other issue is I'm kind of feeling left behind. Both of my crit partners are actively publishing things, either through an e-publisher or some of it indie published. They're so busy with their writing, and I'm at a different stage with my writing--I still need feedback, so the dominoes can go off in my head. Me, I had another rejection come back for The Mind Behind the Mind last week. I would consider indie publishing it, but I need the next two books in that trilogy lined up before Mind can be released. All of that takes time, and with running the house and caring for my 4-year-old, I feel like time is slipping through my fingers. So, I get overwhelmed and then depressed, which leads to freezing up.

I also know other people say ditch all of your hobbies/pastimes/downtime to write. If I do that I'm even more frazzled. If I don't have time to veg each day, I'll give myself an anxiety attack (I get enough of those the way it is).

What's my point to this post? I guess it's just a bit of a vent, getting my frustrations out there. I'll get over it all, I have to, because if I don't keep writing something inside of me will shrivel up and die, and I can't have that happen. I might just need to allow myself to take a break, to take it all one step at a time, and stop getting ahead of myself. It'll get done when it gets done, and one day I'll be at the same level as many of my other writer friends--it'll just take me a bit longer.

So, what do you do to get over the writing blues? Have you ever found yourself in a funk that makes it hard for you to write or work on other things? I'd love to hear what other people have done to pull themselves out of that funk!

NEXT UP: Monthly Update (Next Wednesday)