A BRIEF INTRODUCTION: Hello there! I’m Tess, a writer of dark urban fantasy stories, and you’re about to read an experiment of mine. The experiment is to see how long I can keep a decent log of my writing life as I write the first draft of my third book--and to see whether that log has any entertainment value. You could think of it like a captain’s log...but it’s almost definitely less exciting. Hope you enjoy!
11/19/2019
903
Well, this wasn’t a good day for a while there. But I’m doing important edits again. Shaping up the ending a little better. Who knew writing a torture scene could be torturous? The irony.
But then I pulled another 300 words out of who-knows-where. Das fine with me.
In other news...this has been another difficult week due to family drama. I’m so stressed out, I’ve been clenching my fist in my sleep...or occasionally crushing my hand beneath my face, somehow, resulting in arthritis-like pain in my left (and dominant) hand. Which is just *great* in the lead-up to Thanksgiving. Next week, I’ll get to deal with all the drama in-person! Won’t that be fun?
For serious, though, we gotta fix this country’s medical system. I swear it’s got more problems than solutions.
An unusual house in winter.
11/21/2019
703
Spent an hour and a half on the phone with my dad today, trying to help him through his medical issues, and a few other things. There’s been an increasing amount of tension between him and my brother lately. And he’s pretty depressed over his continuing illnesses, which include needing to spend 4 hours a day 3 times a week in a chair for dialysis. It’s a bummer for him, because now that he’s finally retired, he really wanted to be able to do something with his time...but then he had to go on dialysis, and now that sucks up a lot of time and energy from him. And, like I mentioned in my Tuesday log, this country’s medical system sucks. It has been RIDICULOUSLY hard to get clear answers on some of his issues, and even harder to try to get him in to see new doctors. And living half a country away doesn’t make it easy for me to help him.
So, anyway...got a pretty late start on writing. Since I’m going on a plane on Saturday, I wanted to make sure I got a really good workout in today, to give my body the best chance possible at avoiding some plane-related soreness. And I think I achieved the best workout I could! Also stretched out my semi-injured left hand a bunch.
And then I stayed up until like 12:30 to get a word count in. And I’m glad I did it. SLEEP BE DAMNED.
11/22/2019
634
Damn straight for a Friday! The partner and I are leaving for St. Louis tomorrow, and I have a few reasons (see above) to suspect that our time there will be less than restful, so I definitely want to see my buddies before we go. So, now we’re headed over to their place for some breakfast for dinner! Waffles and eggy casserole, wahoo!
Edit: and we watched The Mighty Boosh. I really enjoy weird as fuck television.
11/23/2019
1264
A study in blue.
All done on the plane! And then I got very, very tired. Our flight wasn’t until 6pm, so we had a lovely slow day and stopped by our favorite neighborhood cafe on the way to the Link, which is Seattle’s subway system and our preferred method of getting to the airport (generally no traffic to deal with on the train.) Picked up dinner in the airport since we won’t get into St. Louis until midnight: a shared tomato and mozzarella sandwich from Starbucks, and a shared fried fish sandwich from the Seatac fish place right next to Starbucks.
I’ve never had much luck writing on planes, though I’m not sure why. In the past, it may have been because my laptops have been so bulky that it was difficult to use them on the teeny tiny table you have (if you don’t travel first class, which I don’t. #fuckclassism.) But my current laptop, though annoyingly slow, is actually small enough to use on one of those tables. So I deliberately under-packed my entertainment, and I gave it a shot.
Well, I can easily say this is the most successful I’ve ever been at writing on a plane. And I’m actually writing the climax now! I’m pretty excited about it--even though I have realized that there’s a really early scene I need to go back and finish. But that’s okay! Climax AWAY!!!
Weekly total: 4546
Surplus: 546
-Tess
Hey, thanks for reading! If you’re new here, and you’d like to hear updates on my writing, including these blog posts and my ongoing novel series, The Choronzon Chronicles, then click below to sign up for my email list!
Alternately, if you’ve never heard of The Choronzon Chronicles before, but you think you might check it out, you can find the first book right here: Shadow Summoner.
This is my brother and his girlfriend. And some lights.