Laughter Through Tears

I was so productive yesterday despite waking up pretty late and having trouble getting the morning going. And a random nap at 5:30 in the afternoon. But today I slept even later? And that leaves me in an awkward place where I'm not really sure how to get the day started. Plus I have an important thing this afternoon which I just realized is in only about four hours. Routine is hard. I only got to sleep at about two thirty last night, for no good reason whatsoever, and didn't even have the good sense to feel guilty about it. And I am beyond behind on my schoolwork.

I have a doctor's appointment, both for general checkup and to try and deal with my assorted medication-related issues. Doctor's business is getting complicated again the past few months and it's been seriously messing with the routine I had so carefully cultivated, it's a mess. At least I'm writing and editing and refining ideas, and I have a pretty good idea of how I want to move forward with my creative stuff even if it requires a level of patience that's preternatural for me. I've had a good long think and I'm considering the idea that I might need to narrow my sights creatively, instead of chasing after everything at once. Basically decide whether to focus on pure prose, text games or visual novels.

And ICYMI I finally wrote up my response to a discussion on last year's NaNoWriMo boards, on nonbinary gender representation in fiction and associated tropes. This blog post took a good long while to complete, and I'm really pretty proud of it.

It helps me think. But there always seems to be too damn much going on, and I always seem to be criminally behind on something.

I took my one and only exam for the semester and it went remarkably well. I am cautiously optimistic about my grade, which I won't find out for a while yet. My next semester starts in late March, a little more than two weeks from now. Much more intimidating, because it's one of the more notorious branches of mathematics. It's a CS requirement, though, and I think a face-to-face class will force me to pay more attention to the lectures, compared to sitting on my sofa and watching the lecture through the computer. Still, it's another shot for my "get ahead of the material in case you fall behind later" plan, which has never yet quite succeeded as intended.

Work-wise I have deadlines and more responsibilities and I'm sitting with the rest of my team instead of in a separate cubicle, so there's progress there. I work hard to get in enough hours a month, not only to stay on top of my workload but also because I get paid by the hour. Working in an office is still a struggle because at a certain point the fluorescent lights and over-exposure to smells etc. starts to wear me down. Bug generally I'm keeping up and getting good feedback.

Writing is exciting. I submitted a short story today. I've been trying to put it together from an idea that surfaced unexpectedly, part-way into outlining a totally different piece for the same deadline. That other piece is partly drafted but still languishing. I also have a rejected piece that I need to decide whether/to whom to submit next. In game writing I did FFS Jam and it was pretty great, but ow I'm losing momentum in the journey to polish the alpha to perfection. And now March is starting and I'm on a team doing NaNoRenO.

More on that last part, probably tomorrow.

I have to remember that writing down everything I'm doing not only reminds me of everything I'm behind on, but also everything I've accomplished. When I describe my life to other people, it sounds a lot better than it does in my head.

Last week: first half of the week (and the second half of the previous) was dominated by the exam I had to take for the OU, fortunately my only one of the season (since I tanked badly on linear algebra). I didn't study quite well enough, but the exam went decently and I came out of it after an hour and a half feeling okay. And was able to put the matter out of mind and spend the evening and the following day decompressing in the extreme.

Then I went back to work and readjusted to routine, after a week of feeling weirdly detached from my own life and the schedule I built for myself. This is still a work in progress, I suppose. On Thursday they held a kind of team event which took us out of the office. I enjoyed it, but it was hot and I came home exhausted. On Friday my sister pointed out that I had been sunburned, a little bit, around the collar and on the back of my neck. Dedicated nerd, vampire jokes etc. etc. My doctor also says that my vitamin D is critically low again.

This week: work. On Sunday night I went to see the new Ghostbusters with my brother and found it delightful. Laughed out loud more than once, a rarity for me with comedies. Today is my first dedicated writing day in a while and I'm finding it hard to get back in the rhythm. Probably because sometime in the last week or so I sank back into The Sims 2 of all things, and last night I stayed up much later than I had intended.

I actually realized several times that I forgot to cross-post my review of Martha Wells' dragon shapeshifter books, but I kept forgetting to do something about it. I'm posting it now, back-dated. And I need to think on what my next blog post should be. I mean, I could review Ghostbusters, but I really don't have anything intelligent to say that hasn't been said a billion times already.

I made some writing-related business decisions re: Patreon and itch.io, but since I haven't properly implemented anything, it's soon to concern with that. I am making inroads with Ren'py, though, I can say that much. And with the script of my in-progress game taking on a distinct shape, I think I could make a decent visual novel out of it, if I can find the right assets. And then I would have something to put on my itch.io, and to link to when I say grandiose things like "I am a game writer".

What happens is, I think I’m leaving work at a reasonable hour because I’m keyed up and I feel pretty energetic. I go home and on the way I think of all the things I’ll Do. Then I get home and feel myself fading. Feel, in fact, that I had been fading for a while and didn’t notice. And now it’s quarter to six. I have a homework assignment due tonight. If I don’t send it in my life will become Very Complicated Indeed. I am so very tired, but nervous to lie down in case resting/napping will just make me groggy and irritable. There is precedent for this.

At least, I can remind myself, there is always an option of just cutting my losses on this semester and moving on.

"There's no reason why I can't work, study and write at the same time."

Later: "I can't work, study and write at the same time."

Since I'm not blabbing details or intending to talk (type?) anyone's ears off, this is a public game progress post, not a filtered one. (If you want in on my game-writing filter now's the time to comment and ask.)

I wrote on the ongoing game last week and today. I hope to keep working on it later this week, even as I step up the studying for exam period. Studying entire solid days didn't so much for me last time I tried it.

This game is, to remind, a "skeletal" text only version of the story in question, with much of the potential features left undeveloped or left out altogether. The idea being, if I can complete a fully-formed narrative branching story that makes sense, and people play it, and enjoy it... then I can consider making it into a visual novel.

Because visual novels require art, and music, and other assets. And that requires more work, and work of different kinds. And probably hiring an artist, since that's what most game writers seem to do. At least, as far as I can tell. And I can't risk doing any of that unless I know that I'm capable of creating a branching story.

So I am writing in Twine, because that requires only the skills that I have. Although the style of writing needed is different from most of what I've done so far, so there's still a lot to develop and learn. What I've done on Twine so far is much lighter, smaller and more humorous, not counting an unfinished story that I started on a whim and never did any planning for.

My twines are stored here on philome.la, the great fee Twine repository. So far they consist of two simple games that operate exactly like programming homework assignments -- which is good news! Basically looping game algorithms with very little writing or code. I have a longer (humorous) story that I created for workshop, which I am in the process of translating into English. When I'm done I will put up both versions, if only so that my page looks less lonely.

If there is an intermediate between the unicorn games and the size of game I'm working on now, I don't know what it is. Yet.

Officially signed up for linear algebra next semester. Starting early March.

Not sure what I'll do in the summer "semester" (intro to logic?) but next year is infy. Which I am so looking forward to.

I'm not saying I'm not scared, but so far it doesn't look like I'm going to fail discrete. So it's possible it won't be a disaster?

I wrote today, and all else is secondary.

"You have class in four hours and you didn't do the reading."

Secondary.

"Have you eaten today?"

Secondary!

"Are those dirty dishes from last Friday?"

Completely secondary.

"It's the apocalypse! Oh no!"

...secondary.

Logic homework: check.

Now all I need to do is... everything else.

It's rainy today and I neglected to pick my raincoat up from cleaning last week. An anthology I want to submit to has a deadline at the end of the week. I'm not very comfortable with the timeline. I have to ought to really want to read my femslashex gift. And I need to sweep the floor. Especially in the entrance and the corners of the bedroom.

Things are going pretty much okay. And I got an extra hour of sleep for free this morning, because of the clock change.

A question standing before me now is: not should I pursue an open university education, but when I should pursue it. Spring semester discrete math is a wash. Even if I could catch up to the material ( I might do, with combinatorics) I doubt I'd be able to fulfil the hand-in assignment requirement.

I could sign up for the same course in the summer semester (early sign-up closes this week). I already have the material, after all. It's brick-sized altogether so why not put it to good use. I could sign up for another course, of which they have at my level just this, and linear algebra OH NOES. Or I could give myself a break and hold off until the fall semester.

Or I could forget about all this and go write some fanfic. Make a decision by way of letting the decision-making time window pass me by. It is my specialty, after all.