Est. Read Time: 10min
This Month's Font: Playpen Sans
Well then. That... was not how I intended to close out September or start up October....
I knew I was struggling, but I didn't realize how badly I was struggling. I believe I've mentioned in the past that I got hit with a bout of insomnia, and so I struggled to fall asleep before 1am (sometimes 2am!). Not ideal when I have to be up by 7:30am. I mean, it's still better than so many adults I talk to who are lucky if they get 4hrs of sleep, but barely 6hrs a night when you should have 8hrs.... it catches up with you.
Add in that my coworker was yet again on a 2-week vacation, so I had to help cover her shifts. My manager was kind enough to work by herself a couple of times so I could have at least *A* day off each week, but that still left me with 6-day work weeks. One of my friends was also having car issues, so I helped pick him up from work every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening throughout most of September.
I was pretty much go-go-go all month long. And, well....
The traditional Passing Of The Illness that seems to happen every school year hit us. Kids go back to school, they pass germs, they get sick, they then get their parent(s) sick. Said parent(s) goes to work despite being sick because health care sucks in this country. They then pass the illness around work, getting everyone THERE sick.
And Hubby can only dodge it for so long, even while masked up and still trying to socially distance.
And if Hubby gets sick, I can only avoid him so much in our tiny apartment. Add in the weakened immune system from being worn out and....
Apparently, the end result is walking pneumonia. Weeee!
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If you don't schedule maintenance, your system will schedule it for you. And, boy howdy, did my system schedule it. For the better part of two weeks, if I haven't been at work - and yes, I did call out sick when needed - I have more-or-less been asleep.
So. Much. Sleep!
Clearly, my body needed it. However, it IS a bit irritating when I have chores to do, and games to play, and things to watch, and crafts to work on, and bills to pay, and a blog post to write, and beta reading to do, but I end up sleeping my off-hours away instead.
Oh, right! I don't think I've mentioned that yet. I've offered my services as a beta reader to Ichi_Tan. Specifically, for their fic 404: Jester Not Found. As I mentioned in my September LRRC, they're dyslexic, so there's a few line errors that they struggle to find, but they'd love for their work to be more polished. Editing their already published chapters has been a hassle, and they would love to have future chapters properly edited before publication. So, before realizing how worn thin I was, I excitedly offered myself as a beta reader.
I was tearing through their previous chapters too. They even teased that I was beta reading faster than they could edit, and that I'd catch up to their current incomplete chapter before they had a chance to edit even one of the previous chapters.
Personally, I didn't see a problem with that scenario, and I wanted so badly to be caught up to their current chapter so I could help edit it as soon as it was done.
Except, when I had but one more chapter left to beta read, I collided face-first into the Illness brick wall. Halting my progress instantly. I felt so guilty, but Ichi graciously had no issues with my editing slowing down. Gave them time to actually go back and work on the previous chapter edit notes I had left them.
I have since gotten well enough to get back into editing, and have brainstormed with them for their still incomplete next chapter. I do hope I helped them sort things out enough that they can finish the chapter the way they wanted.
Ichi has also brought on a second beta reader. They assured me that I could never be "fired" from being their beta reader. However, this way I won't have to feel as guilty if I have to step away for a few days and can't edit as fast as I'd like. Also, it never hurts to have an extra pair of eyes with maybe a different set of perspectives reading through the story. They might catch something neither Ichi nor I did. And that can never be a bad thing, right?
I'm excited that Ichi is doing so well that they have multiple people itching to help beta read for them! I don't know if Ichi realizes how big of a deal that is! People have enough faith in your writing that they know they'll enjoy voluntarily reading your unpolished work! Plus... hello? Free preview of the story before anyone else gets to read it. Score!
So, has helping Ichi inspired me to do any of my own writing? Even before pneumonia decided to kick my butt?Uhhhhhhhhh.....
N-no. No, it has not.
What? You were expecting me to talk about MY writing within MY writing blog? Pfft. You're cute.
I HAVE had these.... itches, though.
These moments when I'm brainstorming with Ichi and coming up with my own headcanons because of what they write. Or when I'm reading my endless backlog of comics on Webtoon, and something in one of the stories just tingles part of my brain. And I get the urge to write... and yet, when I focus on it... the urge vanishes. Like I spooked a wild animal. Or I'm trying to catch something in my peripheral.
The closest I got to writing anything was while talking to Ichi about The Amazing Digital Circus. We were discussing fan theories about whether the main six cast members are actually humans trapped in a computer program - a la Tron - or was it more that their consciousness was trapped - similar to Sword Art Online - or were the "human" characters simply digital copies of their human counterpart's entire consciousness? A sort of digital mental clone of who they are outside of the computer program.
Playing with that final option of "the cast members are digital clones", I thought it would be interesting to have a sort of Six Degrees style story running parallel with the events of TADC. Seeing how these characters interact with each other while trapped together in a land of virtually no circumstances, versus how they may - or may not - interact in the real world.
Fans have already adopted the headcanon that Pomni's real name is Christine and Jax's real name is Felix. I can see Zooble taking on a universally accepted gender neutral name, such as Max or Sam or Jamie, when they realized they were non-binary. As for the other three - Ragatha, Gangle, and Kinger - I'm still trying to sort out what I think their names would be irl. Either way, here's more-or-less how I was picturing this parallel-story set-up to go:
The cast of TADC are indeed perfect copies of the psyche of the person who wore the VR headset (essentially mental clones). The actual person, however, while still going through some minor trauma (SOMETHING had to have happened to them to be able to download their very essence!) are able to rip the headset off and safely run from TADC.
You see "Christine" and "Felix" pass by each other irl; no clue who the other is. Meanwhile, Pomni and Jax are besties (maybe even dating) within TADC. There could be brief interactions between Christine and Felix. Maybe they find each other attractive, but they have no clue how well matched they are since they run in different circles.
But then the story keeps cutting back to Pomni and Jax being chaos gremlins together. And.... are Christine and Felix "meant to be" and just haven't sorted it out yet? Or are Pomni and Jax so close simply because they have no other options? Is the trauma of being locked in TADC warping their personalities to the point of the two connecting in a way they can't irl? Are they trauma bonding?
Maybe Felix stumbles upon Christine's videos while going down a weird insomnia-induced YouTube spiral? Maybe he dismisses them at first as "lame" or "cringe" but then realizes he recognizes one of the buildings she breaks into. Now he's intrigued.
Slowly, Christine and Felix are being drawn to each other, but they are still SOOOO far from being as borderline codependent as Pomni and Jax are.
Their avatars cuddle and passionately fight and freak out on adventures together. Meanwhile, Christine and Felix still don't know each other's names.
Bringing in the other characters, maybe irl Zooble - getting back into bartending - ends up serving both Christine and Felix on the same night. Maybe irl Zooble gets in a fight with Felix since he's being particularly Toxically Masculine, and picking on "Zooble" for how they present themselves. Christine maybe sits beside irl Gangle on a bus and casually mentions how she likes Gangle's drawings before getting off at her stop. Irl Ragatha's face is plastered along the bus's side as a real estate ad.
Meanwhile, irl Kinger and Queenie sit on their apartment balcony, sipping tea together and enjoying their people-watching before heading in to work. Neither are wise to the TADC's versions of themselves going through so much trauma: Queenie dying and Kinger losing his mind from it.
That's.... it. More-or-less. That is the extent of my September writing, outside of brainstorming with Ichi about ways to polish their story.
BUT THAT ITCH IS THERE! That craving. That NEED to do something with my hands. Be it typing or jotting things down in a physical notebook. I need to tweak and/or continue what I have for Seduce with Caution to get back on that horse. I need to fill the fade-to-black in a couple more romance stories I've been reading on Webtoon. The scenes and scenarios play out in my head as I fall asleep. Only for that motivation to vanish when I'm up and have free time the next day.
Instead, I fall back into more sleep to get over this illness, or more reading.
Lord, have I done a lot of reading this past month.
But that's for October's LRRC... which I've also been periodically chipping away at. So it SHOULD publish close to on-time again this month. Fingers crossed.
In the meantime, I have to figure out how to bridge the gap between this urge to write - these scenes in my head - and actually... ya know... WRITING.
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I'm gonna shoot straight here. When I first gave myself this task of finding even just ONE blessing in my life each month, I thought it would be easy. A simple way to practice gratitude. A way to prove to myself that I have a lot of things to be grateful for.
While that is still true - there is a lot that I can be grateful for - this year has been ROUGH. And finding these blessings has ALSO been rough.
Most of the time, my "blessing" has been "this awesome thing happened to someone I know and I'm grateful for that" or "life has been real rough for these people I care about, and I'm glad my life has been easier than what they've had to survive".
Noooot exactly blessings within my life in the way I had intended when I first set this goal. I was kinda hoping for more good things to actually happen to ME this year. Things that improved MY life. Even if it was something as mundane as "I called a customer service line and the representative was able to solve my problem within a couple of minutes," or "I bought a scratch-off lotto ticket for $2 but won $40 off of it!"
Instead, I think September's blessings will have to just focus on "things went well for a friend". Namely, that I was able to reconnect with Ichi so much that they happily accepted me as a beta, and I was able to help them polish their already awesome story. It does make me feel so good to be able to be of assistance on their writing journey. Also, it's been awesome to just get to chat with them for just.... sometimes hours off-and-on throughout the day. Not even about their story. Just... in general.
Getting to bond with my friend again has definitely been a blessing, brought on by my enjoyment of their angsty story.
And, talking to Ichi HAS tickled my writing brain again, so that could be a blessing as well.
So... OK.... maybe I DID have a blessing more like what I was aiming for. Something that did improve MY life. In other words: September's blessing has just been Ichi.
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So, huge thank you, Ichi, for letting me back into your life! It's been fun!
But this blog update is nearly two weeks late... so I should probably wrap this up so I can make sure I don't fall further behind with October's LRRC.
Hope to catch you real soon for that!
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OH! And one last thing! A belated happy 14 years of marriage to my hubby! Love you loads, Sweetness! And a very happy one-year anniversary to my sister and brother-in-law! Love you two lots! (Plus, it gives me an excuse to use this cursed image I edited of you two again! HAHA!)
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