Down for the Count and Recovering - Journal

Hello Lovelies,

So, based on a few e-mails that I've found waiting for me, I know some of you have been chomping at the bit for part 3 of Xenophobia. That said, I wanted to apologize for my absence in the last couple of days.

Unfortunately, I've been in the hospital.

While I won't go into the finer details, the last few days have been a rather unhappy rollercoaster of medical fun. I'm doing ok for the moment and have plenty of follow ups with OTHER doctors now that I'm back at home, but I should be able to return to the regularly scheduled program from here.

I'm going to be resting for the evening and potentially through tomorrow. My intent is to begin putting out content again starting tomorrow (probably Xenophobia so long as I can work out a good arc for it). IF I don't post tomorrow, I promise to put something out come Tuesday. I don't want to break my cycle over this but, unfortunately, it's not easy to put out content from a hospital bed.

Thank you for everyone's patience. Again, I intend to have something out by tomorrow but, worst comes to worst. Tuesday.

- RB

Don't Break the Chain in favor of Perfectionism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRtV-ugIT0k

So, I'm going to be upfront here.

I have developed some really bad habits.

Compared to where I was a year ago, I have been writing drastically less. While I keep making excuses and going through small bouts of HOORAH! where I try to write and peter out quickly, I'm generally just not staying motivated. Part of it has to do with stressing about doing something 'right' but part of it comes from simply not keeping focused.

That said, I'm going to be trying something a little different...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiwTq5DV1dA

Also, quick shout out to Dan and Arin. Love you guys!

While I'm not sure about the entire concept behind 'not breaking the chain', I think the idea behind just doing anything to keep the rhythm flowing isn't a terrible one. My thought process is always looking for something that is, for lack of a better term, "marketable". Because of this, I seem to get stuck in a rut of thinking "I should try this" followed by "I can't do it." or "I don't have time." and it just goes into a tail spin of staring at my computer screen and getting nothing done.

Here's what I'm going to try. Of course I will continue to work on my given novel ideas. I believe I will attempt to focus on the Smithy story as I feel particularly attached. But I will also attempt to do Open Book discussions about any relevant writing topics that strike me as well as OTHER writing. This other writing may be big or little (one thing that grabbed me is just snagging a writing prompt and running with it for a short story) but it has to be SOMETHING. This way, it forces me to stay focused.

At the moment, I want to hold myself to four times a week, but I'm not sure if I can maintain it. Maybe three? I'm going to have to see how my work and personal schedules TRULY effect my writing schedule when I'm trying to maintain consistency.

That said, just a quick status shout-out about where we will be going from here. Thanks everyone!