Legos and Anime Don't Really Help with Writing

Sorry about the late post. This week has been super screwy for some reason. I keep thinking today is Friday. Yesterday I was bouncing back and forth between thinking it was Wednesday and Thursday. Monday felt like Thursday as well. I thought Sunday was Saturday. At the beginning of the week it felt like the end of a long week.... it was just draining and kooky all week long. I'm so disoriented. It didn't even occur to me until just now that - had this been two years ago - I'd just be finishing up my last page push for Script Frenzy. I'd also most likely be no where close to the 100pgs in 30days goal of the event.

Anyway, my off-balance probably isn't being helped by the fact that it's dreary out yet again. April showers bring May flowers and all that junk. I sure and heck hope that means nice weather starting tomorrow!

Hubby and I have more-or-less spent the past week binge-watching Sword Art Online and My Bride is a Mermaid. SAO is filled with so many "feels" while MBiaM is more "OMG, WHAT ARE WE WATCHING" fluff. Nice contrast.

When we're not watching Netflix we're getting lost in the semi-open world of the new game Hubby bought with a gift card he won at work: Lego Marvel Superheroes. Just when I didn't think I could love Lego any more, I start playing these games. I actually finished off Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap about two weeks ago and have been periodically playing Lego Batman ever since. These games are just so goofy, I love them! You have the main missions, and then you can replay the missions while being able to switch through your unlocked characters in order to find more goodies. You can also go through Lego Batman as the villains for a second set of Story and Free Play modes, while in Marvel you can just run around NYC in an open-world format. Hubby and I spend HOURS just running around Manhattan gathering Lego Studs - the currency of the games - and doing side quests.

In fact, that's one of the reasons this is being posted so late.

I was working on a solo-play for Trish since I haven't done anything with her since January. I wrote a quick little blip recapping her recovery after getting banged up in the obstacle course. I then wanted to start up a new location in the Brotherhood section of the board, but I needed to do some quick research for the description of the area. Naturally, this "quick research" lead me to be sidetracked for about 30min. I posted the new location and then was about to role play in it as Trish when my mind went blank. I needed some inspiration, and so I thought "I'll run around NYC as Pyro in order to get inspired for Trish."

Well.... I ended up doing sidequests for three hours before realizing it! Still no inspiration either, awesome. So now I'll have to bring the notebook with me to work and see if I can get my mind to focus while I'm on break.

That's the other thing as of late. My job is becoming more and more stressful. We've had a LOT of people leave work lately. Some retired. Others got better-paying jobs. A couple left for medical/family reasons. One was even fired. Or she quit. We're not quite sure which came first; it was kind of at the same time.

Anyway, this means we're on a skeleton crew at the start of our busy season. I have to run around like a chicken with my head cut off all the time. Add in the lack of diversity when it comes to co-worker options, and we're all getting on each others' nerves at this point. The place is a powder keg!

So when I go on break I haven't been writing for the past month. I just can't focus on anything writing wise. It used to be that writing was a great stress reliever, and then I downgraded to simple puzzles like Sudoku or Word Finds that don't require too much thinking on my part. Right now I'm so stressed that I just spend the fifteen minutes turning my brain off. I slowly eat and drink as I lazily read the promotions work uses as the screensavers for the computers, or I'll read the labels on my food/drink, or I'll actually just color something.

Complete brain shut off.

Not the most desirable thing when you're trying to avoid Zero Days.

I go in to work, I zone out on my break instead of writing ANYTHING, and I finish my shift. I then come home, veg to decompress, and end up spending the entire day on the couch watching anime or playing a video game before I realize where the time went.

Hubby and I nearly forgot about dinner at least twice this week already. Twice! Out of three nights already this week! We are in such desperate need for vacations. I hope my need to just turn off the brain doesn't keep me from being productive my two days off tomorrow and Friday.

Aside from cleaning - perpetually - I want some productivity to be centered around writing. I took a step up from last week. I didn't have a week of zero-days again, but at the same time I didn't really do much more than a few posts on the forum. I'm hoping forcing myself to work out this Trish solo-play is another step in to getting in to my writing rhythm again.

We're also supposed to be getting new hires at work, and so I'm hoping this will help destress that environment too. The first new hire starts tonight, so we'll see how that works.

I've also started thinking about converting X-Future in to an original work some more this week; world building that concept. I'm still struggling with a generic term besides "mutants" since everything I come up with either seems to elevate them or has a demeaning connotation. Maybe I should just use both and that way you can determine the "haters" from the "allies" by how they refer to the mutants. I don't know.

Its stuff like this I'd like to talk over with the writing group, but that all but fizzled out. Omnibladestrike is unmotivated to write. Ronoxym is still MIA aside from one comment on celestialTyrant's status before ghosting again. Finally, Cyhyr is uber introverted and was having difficulty letting others in to her writing process. It seemed to be hindering her more than helping. Ironically though, just before I was going to disband the FB group that Omni started up and officially declaring our group dead, Cy posted a discussion topic. Last I checked I was the only one who responded to her, but it does give me hope. The writing group may not be a good idea for us right now, but perhaps in a few years we'll all be at the right mind set for it to work. In the meantime, we can slowly post helpful tidbits on the group page to keep the concept from dying completely.

So, in the meantime I still have Hubby as a sounding board. Once I have either glasses or my friggen laptop back I can hit up WH frequently again. Perhaps that can help. Now, to just get myself in the mindset to WRITE in the first place.

Until next time - which will hopefully be more productive and on time.