Week Five (Day Five)

Finished the first hundred pages of Harvest, got another sixty from my beta reader. I keep thinking I’m going to drop off and ‘die’ mentally again so I’m pushing through this but I still have until December.

Trying some ads for Seed even though I shouldn’t, because I’m technically broke. I’m trying them because it’s the best pre-order to date and I want to get it out there to the right readers.

Bookbub scared the bejesus out of me yesterday. It sent me an email about a new release alert and I had a small panic/joy that they had actually taken me on for a new release ad. Panic because how would I pay for it, joy because oh my god.

But no, it’s a new release email they push to all your followers on Bookbub for free until you cross a specific follower line, which I think is over 1000. So… free for me forever!

Look at the upside of situations, I guess. Yup, that’s my mood today.

I guess it is update day for school.

Writing has gotten into talking about word choice and cliches, that kind of thing. It almost bores me because my work has talked to me about it for years, but then ignored it. I try to do the formal business-like language. So, I struggle to pay attention because I feel like I know it and she wants us to hand write everything while kind of discouraging notes. If I’m not taking notes, there’s a very good chance that I’m not paying attention, I’m just saying.

But all I want to do is write stories on the paper. The blank pages are taunting me, which they haven’t done in over a decade because I no longer deal with paper. It’s a lot harder for me to ignore that pull than it is to ignore the pull for a new story on the computer. At least the computer, I have to put in the effort to open the processor, whereas when I’m sitting in class with a blank page before me, trying to pay attention but I just end up staring at a blank page?

It’s worse than the clickety clack, it’s actually triggering my hypergraphia. That part where not writing has started to hurt and I hate that, but that’s how it goes when I resist impulses to write. So, I need to figure something out because writing The Others hasn’t helped take the mean edge off that need of mine.

All because she wants us to hand write everything!

I mean, I could hand write a story, just out on all that paper I have. I don’t actually need five hundred sheets of paper for school ,do I? I might use a hundred total, leaving just enough to write an actual book.

Oh god. Now I’m thinking about it.

Computer Skills and Math were kind of cancelled for this week as the instructor is out. He did assign work, I had the Computer work done the day he assigned it, I think, and the Math I finished yesterday about twenty minutes into the class that’s regularily scheduled for Computer Skills. I spent my remaining two hours reading the book for Interpersonal Communications.

The only class for that for this week happens this afternoon and we’ll have a speaker. No computer because she wants us to take notes and make sure the speaker feels like our full attention is on them. I get that. I suppose.

I swear, I’ll take actual notes and not write a story.

Although, now the idea of the pen scratching across the paper…

It’s like scratching a mosquito bite. It feels so good to think of that, but I know it’s dangerous and I shouldn’t do it.

What would I even write, right? I don’t have a story that could be done on paper!

There, matter settled.

Oh, but that scritchety-scratch of pen on paper.

Where was I?

Keyboarding?

The test yesterday was out 15% one, not the 5% one that I thought it was. Great, I feel like I did good, but I have this weird thing sometimes with proofing. I could proof until the cows come home. Then a book launches and I find a typo in the description.

I’m looking at you, His Grace.

Don’t worry, I fixed that one.

Anyhow, it took me about twenty minutes and for the timed writings in there, I actually met and exceeded my average words with no errors. Heck, I even had to go back and fix some stuff because I’m a silly goose.

My fingers are trying to say different words than I’m actively thinking to them. It’s like they’re trying to link to my unconscious mind which is kind of running in circles in the background going, “It’s almost NaNoWriMo and we haven’t settled on a story!”

Not participating in that this year, what with school and work and all.

Shoot, where was I? School update.

Accounting has been simple for this chapter. Doing the extra work took about ten minutes, and then I went back to reading the book for Interpersonal Communication. When I finished, I still had an hour or so of class left (this was ‘free’ time and many left during or even before the class started). I was going to work on The Others but there was a nagging voice at the back of my mind.

So, I wrote the rough draft of my book report yesterday in Accounting class.

Except, I can’t tell anyone except you, dear reader, because the other students have begun to resent me for always having everything done and never having a bother with the assignments. Or a complaint about the teachers. There appears to be some unrest starting and I don’t understand why everyone is getting so upset about sitting in class when it’s the perfect time to do that homework you’re behind on, or practice in that class you need help in.

Instead, they talk about wanting to go home and how a class or day is a waste. It’s not a waste, it’s a practical gift.

Besides what might be assigned today, I am going into the fifth weekend without any homework, because I took the free time I had at school and put it to work.

Pat on my back, right? It’s something to be proud of because I know me.

Normally by October, I throw my hands in the air and basically shout, “I quit!” and homework starts lagging. I know if I don’t do it here, I will struggle with it at home because that’s my time. And I won’t do it at work because some Nosey Nelly shoves her face into my business as I’m trying to do homework. They start asking about school and homework and what am I struggling at?

Oh, nothing? So, you’re just bored all the time? No, oh yes, of course you’re upset you missed 1% on your Accounting test.

No, I’m not upset because I didn’t get a hundred. I’m not beating myself up over it. I normally score in the 70% range for tests. When it came up to 99% it bothered me because I was so close and it’s a thing of pride to finally cross that threshold and have a 100% on a test.

I missed the dollar signs. She could have docked 3-6% for missing all the freaking dollar signs but she only took off a percent. For all she knew, I was dealing in ounces of crack, or bananas!

Ah well.

I don’t have lunch today. Yup, I went and blanked on freaking lunch. I’m not going to go hungry, I’ve got a debit card and got paid yesterday. It’s just that I’m one of those people who tends to look at the price of fast food/pre-made meals and turning up my nose because I could make something that tastes much better for that price or less.

Let that be a lesson to me!

If I had realized ahead of time, I might have been able to ask for leftovers, as it was, I didn’t find out until I was about to leave my room.

Next week I want to try to make loaded cauliflower casserole. I think is what it’s called. It’s going to be a little weird, but it’ll have cheese… and more cheese. I’m hoping it can pass for an “adult” macaroni and cheese because suddenly that’s what I’m craving.

Week Three (Saturday)

I’m feeling a little troubled and want to talk a bit, or write but don’t have anyone at the moment. They’re on normal people time.

I’m on “fuck you and die” time.

Suppose, I could talk to my cousin, since I know he’ll be up but we don’t really have conversations and he’s drunk and you can’t get a word in edgewise.

Today I worked with the woman who violated my privacy. I didn’t yell, I didn’t shout, or give attitude over it. I didn’t even bring it up. I have no idea if she’s realized yet, but I also found myself not caring if she had.

I also realized that I’ve never really, like really paid attention to her. She used to work my current position, but not all the other management positions I’ve worked, just mine, just in this location. She hasn’t expanded beyond the management skillset they taught her, which was probably nothing really, let’s face it. But, because she’s held my position in the past, I have left her alone and it wasn’t until today that I realized that was a mistake.

I cannot account for anything she did. There was one thing, one little group of things which is a task the area has to complete. That got done but… when? Hours before closing, I’m sure.

The thing that I had a strip taken off me for, by the other co-worker? She didn’t start it until after 8:30, at which time I’m almost certain she returned from a half hour break since she said she was going just after 8 and then said she was returning after 8:30. At about 8:15 I walked past her area and saw the lights were out and assumed she was or had been doing the other task on the floor.

It’s retail. You take the items moved by customers and put them back where they belong.

If you’re reading this and you’re one of those people who moves entire shelves of stuff, for the love of god, stop it.

The way our company is set up, there are three areas and one person responsible for fixing an entire third of the store. We all have other things we need to do on top of that responsibility. An entire third of the store, every night, no exceptions.

It takes me two hours to go through the whole thing, but I’m told I’m a special fairy of a fuckin’ princess and no one else can do that. So when I hear someone say, “I’m starting now,” when I ask half an hour before close how that job is going…

It’s a frustration.

But. I’m supposed to leave that area to be and do that area. They know the expectations, I even had the previous person go over the expectation with her to reiterate: it has to be done.

And it didn’t get done.

I’m only saying this as the most glaring example of Aya not doing her fucking job.

Me, I’m Aya. My name is right up at the top of the page.

I should have been paying more attention to her. I just should have, this entire time, I should have. That’s on me.

I’d be all “dumbass” on myself, but I’m still human, I make mistakes.

After we closed, customers kept trying to come in because the doors are broken, so I did announcements, which admittedly we aren’t supposed to do and I almost never do them. I think this is the third time in as many months and the second time was last night when a group of hipsters were wandering up and down the aisles talking loudly as the lights were about to go out overhead.

So, the person in question mosies to the front with what appears to me (but might not be) to be absolutely no get up and go, like she doesn’t care how long she takes. She walks up to the cash and leans on it, putting her butt in the way of customers who have to walk around her to get out of the store as she starts gossiping with the mother of one of the workers.

And I’m like, “Guys, I want to go home.”

And she says, “Oh, you guys. What are you going to do when Christmas comes and you have to be here until ten, cleaning everything.”

“Then we will be here until ten. But right now, I want to go home. I’m exhausted and my bed is calling me and this is day twenty-nine.”

“I’ve done that before. Oh well.”

Then she proceeded to mosie out of the store with the worker’s mother and talk at the doors, keeping them from closing for several minutes.

Which is against policy.

I stood and watched rather than approach her because I knew I was angry and I knew my tone of voice would convey that.

I was upset, she upset me, I’m allowed to have negative emotions toward someone.

Of course, I’m the crazy person who gets upset because she was leaning on the counter rather than working, gossiping and getting in the way of customers, and making my other bodies tonight do her work because (near as I can tell, but again, it might not be the case) she can’t be bothered.

And she dismissed what I was thinking or feeling, how I felt because in the past she’s worked many days straight.

Therefore fuck me.

Oh no, there’s not but or maybe tacked onto the end of that. She is un-empathetic toward my working so many days in a row against my will and against my wishes and protests. She knows, because I’m certain I told her last week, that I had said no, but that it was made out to me like I had no option and that none of the other managers could be bothered to rearrange their schedules.

Yeah… so that’s probably also out and about in teh store.

Fuckin’ stupid Aya.

Soft skills are important, you nitwit.

Swearing at myself makes me feel better, don’t question it too much, just roll with it.

As we left the store, she immediately walked off. That won’t be happening again, each night I will call them back and they will wait with me. The doors didn’t quite want to close but, poof. All of a sudden she had a speed faster than a mosie!

There’s a word for people like that.

Frustrating.

So, I get in the car waiting for me and my cousin is wearing his school dress code so I get super confused, think it’s Friday, and ask him why he was at school so late.

And he starts talking.

At first I was bitterly annoyed, I’m tired, I just got passively aggressively walked over by someone who just a week ago was claiming we were friends. I didn’t want to hear about how someone else had a good day.

But he was excited, and full of energy. And… maybe full of alcohol as well because part of his day was taste testing drinks.

And I just sat there, trying to remember the last time I sounded like that. Just so fucking excited about something. And then I thought about my day, because I was really upset when I got into the car, like on the point of tears because I was tired to the point of tears and then that happened.

And I got to thinking.

Today… wasn’t a bad day. I had an extra body that I don’t usually have. In fact, I had a literal person who I don’t normally work with. And despite how exhausted and worn out I was, she still made me laugh.

Because I asked her to do something and she responded with, “Sure, doll, whatever you want.” with all the assurance of a man twice her age, and I could almost hear her wink at me even though it was said over a radio.

Everything but that person’s (the one who violated my privacy) area looked great. Better than it has in a while. Customers were happy and not mean at all, not rude. Messy as all hell.

Who the hell makes a mountain out of baking supplies, honestly? Don’t you have a phone? Play on that while your girlfriend shops, don’t make more work for us!

This morning, I got some edits done, did some driving practice.

Today was not a bad day.

But because I’m so wrung out already, an unempathetic body brought me right down when she had no right to.

Being made to work for more than a month in a row is not okay, and it is not something to talk down to that person about. I’m doing work a favour by working through this. If I wasn’t there, if I was just my position, if I was the one who talked down to me even, the co-worker or the one who violated my consent, I would not be working through the course of the month.

Because none of them are capable of doing what I can do. And that’s really the kick in my pants, isn’t it? The fact that I’m in this situation because I’m reliable and hard working. When not overly tired I’m super stable and don’t gossip or whine or anything.

When I am tired and worn out, I eat a piece of apple pie and a bun and two pieces of chick and then just feel ick because my stomach would now like me to die.

I’m also impulsive, whiny, bitchy, bitter, and can sometimes have mental breakdowns for like an hour before I pick myself up, dust myself off, and act like nothing happened.

However.

I tell people that. In fact, going into school, I told my boss that if I get too tired or worn out, if I don’t get the time off I need, then I will get lippy. Which was the closest word to bitchy and crazy I could use given where we were standing at the time.

I know this about me, I know how I act and I’m not determined to change how I act when I’m tired. Instead, I’m determined not to find myself in those positions. I go to sleep on time, I feed myself, I leave positions that would expect too much of me or relationships that are batshit crazy.

But I never want to change how I act when tired. I’m a human fucking person. We aren’t built to be rational when tired. We don’t have control over our moods when we’re tired, our emotional intelligence drops to that of a two year old and we do things we wouldn’t normally do.

Like cry because someone was a meany head.

What we do have control over is our compassion and empathy toward our fellow humans. And as of tonight, I feel as if these two women who I have now had issues with, are lacking that key component.

Empathy.

Everyone else I work with understands. This is day twenty-nine, I’m tired and I’m not built for this. I didn’t ask for this. I certainly didn’t want this. I went into my school year with a promise for a day off every two weeks.

Then someone quit. And the boss had vacation booked from months before.

I actually can’t list anyone besides those two who have put their noses in the air because They did just fine when they had to work such and such and so on.

So… how does one deal with the un-empathetic when one must see them often and speak with them?

I’m supposed to be bright and open, but not a doormat, so I can’t just go to pretending like nothing happened, as that would make them feel like it’s all right to speak to me like that and I’ve decided it’s not.

I know I’m at the end of what I can sustain. End of rope, or cliff, or road, or whatever metaphor you want to use. I know this is a limit for me. But all they think is I’m some stupid little girl who doesn’t know how the world actually works.

Except, in our country, that’s not how the world actually works. So, you know, there’s that.

Where’s that magic lottery ticket when I need it?

Anyway, I’m not even quite sure what the point was, besides to get the words out of my head so they’d stop swirling around.

Now I’m just left with the question: how do you deal with un-empathetic people without starting a fight, but also without becoming a doormat?

 

Week Two (Day Three)

Oh, no.

I feel that manic thrum through my bones, like the clickety clack of keys is my very heartbeat.

Hypergraphia wouldn’t be a disorder if it didn’t interfere with your quality of life or hinder you in some way, I suppose.

I don’t have the time or energy for this nonsense. I noticed the change during keyboarding, which frankly I love. Sure, it tends to hurt my hands a bit to learn the new method, but she allows us to use headphones and to try to cut out the clacking and the anxiety it causes me, I play music in the background. I get to be in my separate little world for a little while. It’s almost like a break for me, so I hope she never asks about the music because I feel like I desperately need it and I know it’s only for one semester.

Anyhow… My wordcount changed from 40/wpm to 62wpm and The Last Prophet started cycling at the back of my mind, it’s on the backburner for additions and slight changes to things, but this was the sort of skittering I recognized as soon as my fingers started flying over the keyboards.

Dear Lord, I’m screwed.

There are a couple of options, of course. The first is to devote the time between school and work to writing. That could be cathartic but if one person at work comments on my speed, I’m liable to snarl at them and then say or do something else that is very nasty.

If interrupted during one of my episodes, I either grunt because I didn’t actually notice, or I start snarling because someone is trying to take my bone from me.

Because there’s a mania to it, my energy level feels like it’s gone up. But it’s also connected to my attention. Guess what I can’t pay attention to? Anything else.

And yet at the same time, it won’t leave me alone. I can’t just ignore the words that are trying to get out. That’s not how this works.

But, as I said. If hypergrapia didn’t interfere with your life or make things more difficult for you, they wouldn’t call it a disorder. It’d be a blessing or just another skill. Like being good at math or something.

I don’t have the time for this, but I am trying to redirect that manic energy into school and just staying on my feet. I almost feel alert for the first time in a week or so, which is both insane and beautiful at the same time.

Hera

Last week my hypergraphia flared up.

As I’ve stated before, I have hypergraphia. This means that every once in a while I have these episodes where I have to write. It’s linked to obsessive compulsive disorder and let me tell you.

There is no option.

When these moods hit me, I often start projects but then as the mania passes the project tapers off and never gets finished.

So last week when I started writing Hera I didn’t tell anyone except those in my immediate life.

Over the course of eight days I wrote about 97k words. Just a couple of hours ago, I finished the first draft.

Because of the mania which fueled this story, I have no idea if it’s any good. I know (from reading articles and the like) that the stories written during the mania of hypergraphia can seem like the best idea during but then once the mood has passed it makes no sense.

I quite hope it is good, and barring that, salvageable.

The first Elders book is written. I think my mania has passed and now I can get back to other work.

“I’m Allergic to Stupid.”

That’s what I’m going to say going forward until I get a diagnosis. I’m allergic to stupid. Not because it amuses me, though it kind of does, but because that bitterly sarcastic ‘stupid’ is actually the fastest way to describe what triggers my episodes.

I had one Monday morning. I then proceeded to continue working for several hours like the moron that I am, before I told someone. Then I worked a couple more hours before I tried to call someone in because I’m a freaking idiot.

I’ve been having these episodes since about the time I was fifteen. They started in or around my being struck in the head with a pot. The only reason I remember that is because I called my friend sobbing and told her something was wrong but couldn’t tell her what besides I got hit and she chastised me for it.

Which is… oddly the only bits I can actively remember about any other episode.

I know someone called my mother during my (I think) first episode and she probably came and picked me up. I remember her arguing with my father, though this was a later date, about whether it was a migraine or diabetes. Neither of them took me to a doctor. My mother, I think, insisted that my symptoms were exactly her symptoms and therefore it was a migraine but I don’t know if she was ever diagnosed and I don’t actually remember her ever having a migraine.

But she did self medicate with pot for dreams, sleep problems, and headaches so it’s possible given current studies that she inadvertently treated herself for years.

The thing is, I don’t remember my episodes. Not during, not after. There are flashes here and there.

Like I remember my workplace calling my father, back when I still lived with him, and forcing him to come pick me up. I remember being told by him on the drive home that it was my own fault, I had no one to blame but me and that I was doing it to myself. But I don’t remember anything else. I think part of my face went numb. Think being the keyword there.

I’ve had episodes for the past fifteen years. I am struggling to remember any of them. I know last year, I think it was, I walked into the breakroom and sat down as others of my job-level were sitting around gossiping. I remember being asked if I was all right and saying no. Don’t know how I made it home. Pretty certain they didn’t drive me.

That was about the time that I started saying, “I taste static.” How does static taste? Well, it tastes the way it looks and that white noise sound it makes on a television set, that’s how it tastes. Not like pop rocks. A co-worker suggested it might be like pop rocks but I’ve had those and that’s not it.

Since uttering those three little words, I have been able to pick up on several more episodes. Not all are as bad, but I’ll just be standing around doing my job or at home, frown and think, “I taste static,” which is now followed an hour later by, “Oh shit. I taste static.”

Tuesday morning I felt completely hollowed out. The anxiety was high, I was exhausted, and sitting on a bus with an old man with a cane who was thumping it on the floor. Every thump of his cane felt like he was beating me with it and I knew I had to find something to distract myself so I decided to look into Hypergraphia.

I have it, I’ve known for years that I have it, but research has always been spotty at best. Imagine my surprise that there is more research being done on the phenomenon.

Hypergraphia is currently viewed as a compulsion disorder that doctors want to medicate the shit out of because if your brain isn’t normal fuck you and take some medicine. By itself, and if controlled, hypergraphia isn’t a bad thing. There are a list of authors who have had hypergraphia or thought to have had it. Being hypegraphic is like having a wild imagination, or being a rambunctious child. You don’t need to immediately medicate it into submission.

Just shut up and let it do its thing unless it’s interfering with your life. Treat it like you do anxiety. Grunt and say there’s nothing wrong unless they’re screaming and refuse to leave their bed because you shouldn’t treat anxiety unless it’s seriously encroaching on a life and you certainly shouldn’t believe someone has it just because they’re high functioning most of the time.

I also have anxiety. My anxiety prevents me from speaking with my doctor about my anxiety. But then I can’t get her to do a test for my joint pain and that’s supposed to be easy, relatively inexpensive, and possible to spot any day of the week.

Try telling a doctor you have a neurological disorder and you’re told to come back when you have it on video tape, or have a grand mal in front of the doctor. Or your mother yells at the doctor until he gives in…

Sorry. It’s… hahha… it’s actually a symptom of … oh, I’m a broken little toy.

Hypergraphia has been found to coincide, but not always, with a couple of other symptoms. One of them is this one where you talk in circles, or write in circles, but eventually get back to the main point. Your brain takes all these little bits like a jigsaw puzzle and crams the pieces together until it makes a whole that makes sense to you but not always to other people. When it’s really bad, it’s bad.

Shortly before and after an episode, I’m suspecting mine is much, much worse. Like right now. Urgh.

The hypergraphia and spiraling are symptoms that have in the past been linked to temporal lobe epilepsy. I don’t have a diagnosis, my freaking doctor won’t even test my joint pain. Getting her to test for what is still often an “invisible” illness is going to be impossible.

I want to get tested, I do not want to be told I have epilepsy. I wouldn’t be able to drive unless I was proven to have gone six months without an episode. That’s pretty hard to prove from my understanding, and my episodes are caused by undo stress from people who continue to poke me when I repeatedly tell them to stop.

I am perfectly willing to tell you how to handle me, but if you ignore that, the snide tone of voice is going to come out and I’m going to start talking like a crazy person so you go away before you trigger an episode.

For the past couple of years I’ve been noticing days where some objects appear larger than they actually are. It was probably happening before, but I’m now in charge of an area that deals with measurements so I’m just noticing it now. There have been several occasions where I looked down and went, “oh! A quarter!” and it was a dime.

Know what those are?

… signs of temporal lobe epilepsy and possibly of me having a waking seizure.

Gaps in my memory might not be a traumatic childhood… they could be signs of temporal lobe epilepsy.

I’m a freaking broken toy.

I also suffer from generalize and social anxiety. Possible PTSD, the pot to the head wasn’t the only instance. Depression on and off, though to be fair that’s to be expected with everything else. Oh, and mal-adaptive day dreaming disorder. Is it a disorder or a syndrome? I can’t remember.

I like to sum all that up as “I’m an author who is allergic to stupid.” But people think I’m trying to start a fight. I’m just trying not to share my mental health with the world because I know the world doesn’t care.

But what does that really mean?

Well, the hypergraphia means that this post has been swirling around inside my mind for the past three days and wouldn’t go away. As hypergraphia is a compulsion, I can sometimes resist, I am not the worst case scenario by far and have diverted that condition into writing my books. But because of the episode and anxiety that followed, I had to write the post or it wouldn’t leave me alone and would start to physically hurt.

The swirled writing bit, where you talk in circles, is how I got to such a long post without actually making a point. At least I don’t think I did.

That all ties into the mal-adaptive day dreaming disorder which means that I’m really great at creating worlds and have taken to writing about them. But the hypergraphia paired with creativity does not mean talent. I could write a hundred thousand books and I could still die a second rate author unless I attempt to control my compulsions and fix my writing style going forward.

But I didn’t know about the swirled writing before. I read about it, then I went into work and read some of my notes and realized that my “communication problem” was a symptom of my disease.

So now, verbally anyhow, I’m trying to resist doing the swirls but because I keep interrupting my own thoughts I can’t finished what I was trying to say and things are both disjointed and a little slurred because I feel like I don’t exist behind my eyes which is something a normal person isn’t even going to understand.

I’m not crazy, I’ve never been tested, and once this passes I’ll read that sentence and wonder if I was on something at the time.

Because I had an episode, I’m unable to focus on more than one thing. It’s either watching a video or reading, I can’t do both at once because it hurts to try. When I’ve mentioned this to people in my past, and that it frustrates me because I feel like half of me is gone, I have been laughed at.

“Now you know what it feels like to be normal.”

The only people I think less of for not being able to do what I can do, is people who talk like that. It is not normal for me to feel like this. It is absolutely terrifying to be stuck inside my own head and unable to see any patterns. It causes anxiety because it’s just taken me more than my entire morning to do some receiving which normally takes me twenty minutes.

But, haha, normal people do it every day.

I think less of those people because they’re jerks and they should feel bad about how they treat others.

What this all means in the present is that at the beginning of the week I had an episode. The fallout of that episode was that I read up on hypergraphia because it is something I’m slightly familiar with, the new research was a distraction. But reading up on it triggered my compulsion which I can’t distract myself from because I’m unable to distract myself from compulsions. I have nothing but compulsions.

Mainly to weep and hide, but that part is really besides the point.

It all resulted in having to write this blog entry because the words had to be let out before they started aching and because I’m sick of listening to them swirl around inside my head. And I do, I feel better, I feel lighter and just a little unburdened at getting it out.

I’m still pooched for at least a week though. Guess I’m playing video games and drinking like I don’t have deadlines looming. Because sometimes you have to just give in to the crazy. You can’t fight it all the time, especially when your doctor doesn’t believe you have a problem so you can’t seek out proper medication.

When the Words dry up

Bad words, bad, bad words.

Normally I use that sentence in place of a curse word, but this time around, I’m chastising the words that I’ve been chasing around for the past week. 

Some people call it writer’s block, I call it hypergraphia. 

I’m not just prolific, I have a need to write nearly everything down, otherwise it becomes painful. I physically ache when I can’t write when I need to. I’ve learned to offset it over the years, manipulating myself to keep from going completely mad and writing on the walls.

For me, it swings like a bipolar. There are periods of lots and lots of writing, then periods of nothing. At some point over the next couple weeks I’m going to hate anything to do with words. Mainly the written word, but verbal communication will fall drastically as well.

I’ve been trying to push through and finish Death Mask in the mean time. There’s a period of time after, as it’s coming back, that I read everything I can get my hands on. Last year during such a period, I did editing on the Contracted series. 

One of my bosses, years ago, said something that has always stuck with me: use your people to their strengths. Don’t put someone in sales who isn’t great at sales, put them on setup where they can achieve more and are happier.

When it comes to managing yourself, it’s the same thing. Know your strengths and weaknesses, know when you’ve reached your limit and when you need to wear a different hat for a little bit. I could just try and try and try to write. Just do that for the next year and end up maybe completing Death Mask in the next twelve months. 

That would be a chapter every two months for those who may be counting.

Or I can take a break and recharge my batteries. I know the fastest way to swing myself back around is to basically look like someone with no attention span. My favourite way of doing this is to watch something on the television while playing a game and reading a book at the same time. After a day of that the thrum starts up again, but it takes about six days straight for me to start that twitch and to rage quit all the things and go back to writing. 

I didn’t write while in Cuba, but it’s time for a break. I can’t just walk away from all this for a month. For starters, that’s a bad thing to do. It’s also just not possible for me to shut down the indie author in me, not without a bunch of alcohol. I’d rather not do that.

But I don’t want to market and I don’t have a book to edit. 

Do I? 

Oh, I could edit Contract Signed. That’s a thought that could work out. 

I will still have Death Mask with me and available to write. I will even look at it every day and on each commute. This time around I just wanted to huck my phone across the room. I wanted to play a game or something. 

I don’t have a game. Writing a blog post instead, just because I can’t handle that but I feel guilty for not working on it. I had such a great start yesterday before work. Then my day just killed my brain.

In the mean time, as I struggle with finishing a book that should have been done two weeks ago, I’m going to see about a website. Maybe pre-made covers and graphics as well. Maybe even the cover for Death Mask, that needs to be done and I can do it all without doing the words. 

So much for two trilogies in six months. Stupid, broken brain. 

I realize that without that brain being damaged the way it is, I wouldn’t be the author that I am. I get that, I do. And I know there needs to be balance, but I want to write. I have ideas this time, I have the plot written out! 

But my words have failed me. I stare mutely at my blinking cursor and just want to cry because I can see it, I can hear it, but it won’t come out of my head. 

So I have to wait. I have to sit on my stories and hold my own hand even though I want to shout and scream at myself. I know it’s not because I’m lazy, I know it’s not because I’m not ambitious enough or don’t have the time. It’s simply because I’m broken and it’s not the kind of broken that I can piece back together. 

That frustration isn’t going to help me any. 

Sometimes it’s hard to be kind to yourself, because you have plans and want to go places and do things but you just can’t. I’m more forgiving of other people’s mental health than I am of my own. I shouldn’t be surprised by that fact, but I am. 

And I know I need to take care of myself before I look outward on the world and try to make a change in what I see. That’s what I’ll do, but in that conflicted, “I’m upset because I’m crying because I’m angry with you because you worried me,” sort of way.