A BRIEF INTRODUCTION: Hello there! I’m Tess, 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, and to see whether that log has any entertainment value. It’s sort of like a captain’s log, but almost definitely less exciting. Hope you enjoy!
7/9/2019
Words: 1031
I’m getting to a part of the plot that I need to reconfigure a bit, and it is slowing me down. I think I’m also hitting a wall of just sheer exhaustion. Does not help that I don’t seem to be sleeping well.
Also, we had a scare with my mom’s dog, Chester, today when he briefly went missing. He’s okay! But he’s been pretty deaf for a while, and he wandered into a neighbor’s yard today and couldn’t hear my uncle calling him back. They live in St. Louis, of course, and it was a 90° day over there.
Seattle’s been having a pretty cool and gray summer, and I forget sometimes how hot it can get in my hometown. Man, I don’t miss those summers.
Also, why are pets the best and most fragile things in the world?
Cordelia, Queen of noir.
7/10/2019
Words: 351
Extremely busy day at work, but I just knew I needed to get in some words today. Honestly, sometimes I can’t tell if I’m being hard on myself/pushing myself too hard...or if I just genuinely feel a little better when I manage to get a certain amount of creative output in for the day. A little of both, maybe? Whatever it is, I set a goal of 200 for today, just to make sure I did something, even though it’s date night. And lo and behold.
7/11/2019
Words: 1083
Weekly total: 2,465
Surplus: still 1012
It was a pretty shit day at work, and I was slow to get going. Still, I hit my stride, albeit late in the day, and wrote over 600 of my words after 11pm. See, kids, sometimes it pays to ignore your own personal desire to sleep or do literally anything but work, and just PUSH YOURSELF UNTIL YOU BREAK. No, really, it works.
7/12/2019
Words: 423
Friday. Staring down the barrel of the trip I’m about to go on, I feel the simultaneous pull of the need to relax, and the need to GET MORE DONE. Why is life?
7/16/2019
Words: 1150
Took off a few days from sheer exhaustion. And by “off” I mean I didn’t work over the weekend.
This was a decent Tuesday back in action, though a part of me can’t help but wish this week had started off by hitting a higher benchmark, just because I know I won’t get much done after this. We’re flying on Thursday and gone thru the weekend. Alas.
7/19/2019
Words: 1312
Re: flying - went on a trip to North Carolina to hang out with my best friend from high school before she heads off to GODDAMN LAW SCHOOL...which, ironically, will actually bring her closer to me. Sooooo really it was the first trip of many, but the rest of them should have much shorter flights.
She had to take some meetings during the Friday we were there (since she’s working at her job basically up until law school starts,) so that’s when I got this word count in. Not bad for a vacation day.
On a boat in North Carolina.
Also, saw Shazam. Also not bad. Which, to be honest, shocked me.
7/25/2019
Words: 734
Took some days off. It’s been...an off-week. Got back from the 4-day trip across the country and just felt...exhausted. Sleep has been a little off. And I’m just feeling especially drained at my job this week. Every time I go on a short trip away, it’s kind of a roll of the dice whether I’ll go back to work feeling refreshed and ready to go...or more depressed than ever to be stuck at this particular soul-sucking 9-to-5. This week I lost the roll.
It’s not all bad, I guess. Cleaned my room up a bunch and spent some time working on the endless task list that builds up while I knock out my word counts. I’m teaching myself how to edit in Audacity, with the lovely help of a year’s subscription to Skillshare. Also did some ad monitoring and a little more tutorial watching within that space, as well. And ran a pretty successful promotion for Book 1 with a few email list advertisers. Slowly but surely, I’m figuring out how to run the business side of my writing business. The learning curve is steep, my friends.
I’ve also been doing some thinking about the plot of book 3, the last few scenes I wrote, and the few that are coming up. I’m going to be making some adjustments there. Recently re-wrote a chunk of the outline for the second act, and I need to finish up that rewrite. Also kinda underwhelmed by the work I put into the last Jude scene, so I’m going to work on that for a bit now. Might not be a high word count tonight, but at least I’ll start to get my mind right about, and get the train moving in the right direction again.
I also got back to my exercise routine this week, and had a wobbly start back into a diet. Wobbly as in, yesterday I ate donuts and Taco Bell, but today was basically a 1,000 calorie day.
It’s hard being a human being.
7/27/2019
Words: 1287
I’d call this a medium Saturday, but I did actually do a lot of marketing work, partly in the form of a new class on FB ads. Didn’t actually start up the ads yet, but got some prep work done. So, honestly, a productive day.
7/28/2019
472
Recorded the end of a podcast today, so I’m not gonna beat myself up over the wordcount. One day at a time, each day making a little more of a push.
I can’t really site my sources, but I did read once that marathon runners who made sure to take little breaks on the way made, on average, better time than runners who wouldn’t let themselves, naturally including the time spent on the breaks. It’s a good thing to remember when you’re trying to push yourself.
7/30/2019
844
Not amazing for a Tuesday, but not terrible either. Today felt a bit like a resurrection. Parts of it were slow and painful, accordingly, but I feel better having gone through it. Got in a decent workout, which seems to help balance out going to bed too late.
This is TMI, but after the workout, I took my first shower in way too many days. So idk, maybe I’ve been depressed, whatever. It’s kinda weird how it can take me days to notice, I guess.
7/31/2019
350
Not bad for a date night day. Helped that I worked from home today, which is unusual for a Wednesday. But basically everyone is out of the office this week, plus this week is Sea Fair, an annual festival in Seattle that I’ve never once been to, but also haven’t been able to escape, one way or another, almost the entire time I’ve lived here. This is because of the Blue Angels show--a bunch of loud-ass fighter jets fly over the water and a bit of the city, causing cats everywhere to flip the fuck out, and also causing bridge closures between Seattle and the land on the east side of the lake, which is where I’ve worked for roughly 6 out of the 7 years I’ve lived here.
So, rather than fight the traffic, I stay home, and try to tell my cat that no, actually, this is not the apocalypse. She does not find me convincing.
Side note, Hulu released the 4th season of Veronica Mars this month--they did a dumb surprise-early release, but that was while I was in NC, so I still watched it the weekend it was originally supposed to air, over the 26th. Well, I watched the beginning anyway, in a watch party with a friend. Date night tonight will likely feature the rest.
-Tess
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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.