gankylosaurus

Day 3 Thanks guys It's really hard to figure out what to write about in these things anymore. I just wrote a new blog post for my personal blog (which may or may not be done) after writing a bit in my novel. Now I'm kind of done with writing lol. I'm planning on getting about a month's worth of material for my blog ready and then I'm going to see about releasing bi-weekly posts. Having a month ready in advance gives me three advantages: First, I can write a bunch ahead of time if I feel like I'm going to fall behind later; second, if I do fall behind, I have a month to catch up; and third, I can sit on posts and decide to change or remove them when it comes time to promote them. Sometimes distancing yourself from your writing really helps you gain some perspective.

Day 1 I'm feeling more energized again today. It was the first day of writing on my "new" work station, and I have to admit, I forgot how weird it was writing on a screen that was centered with the keyboard tray but not the keyboard itself. Took me way too long to realize that that was an easy fix. I felt like I was writing at an angle until I simply slid the monitor a few inches to the left. Anyway, the reason I feel more energized is because I just took a look at the numbers on my novel. When I finished the first draft, it was only 57,000 words long, which is really lean for a novel. I want to hit right around 90-100k. So I read through the first draft and made a ton of notes, then wrote up a new outline, put the draft 1 scenes where they're supposed to go (so I can edit them or completely rewrite them) and then starting from the beginning, worked my way through the scenes. When I got to a scene that didn't exist and was only part of the new outline, I wrote it from scratch. When there was a chapter that just needed editing, I copied it (so I'd have the original for comparison if I remove something I want to put back) and went through changing it--adding, removing, correcting, etc. A good rule of thumb (at least from what I've read) for how long each act of your book should be is simple: 25% Act 1, 50% Act 2, 25% Act 3. So, that means that my act 1 should be about 25k. My first draft's act 1 was only about 10,000 words long. Yeesh. As of today, I've added 13,000 words to this novel, all in the first act so far. I'm at 70k now, and it's starting to look like I may actually end up having to cut from the second draft. I'm not worried about having to cut, but man, I wasn't expecting that. I under-write a lot. But then again, I've never edited a full novel before. I never really thought about how much actually goes into it. How much can change, how much can be made so much better. And now I'm seeing it for myself in action, surprising myself by taking the story to the next level. And I'm not just adding words to add words. I'm actually adding to and refining the story. I had characters in draft 1 that appeared out of nowhere, so I needed to give them a purpose earlier on in the story. So that on its own generated a lot more story for me to write. And it's awesome. I'll probably get back to writing more tonight, maybe. I still have some more cleaning to do, and then I'll decide if I want to write or read. Or maybe finally get back to my blog which hasn't seen any action in months.

Day Zero Today, I started to disassemble my desktop computer. It's been an empty shell for a long time, ever since the motherboard fried and I moved all the working parts to a box. I've been using my fiance's old laptop ever since. It gets the job done. So I decided to clear off the desk of both monitors, the speakers, and every unnecessary wire. It would be my new work space, since my usual space gets shit piled on it daily. Then I got an idea. One of the monitors is really nice, even for its age. And all it needs is an HDMI cable. I decided to run the laptop to the monitor and see what happened when I closed the lid on the laptop. And the screen went immediately black. Well, shit, I thought. But I found the fix pretty easily, thanks to being at least a little bit tech-savvy. I set the laptop settings to "do nothing" when the lid is closed. I did that and not only did the screen stay up, it automatically corrected the resolution to the higher settings of the dedicated monitor. I moved out anything unnecessary but left the monitor, speakers, and keyboard. I plugged it all in, put the laptop in the desktop's old cabinet, and set it up. And it runs beautifully. I hadn't planned to do that today. Not even the initial plan of just moving everything out because looking at the unused equipment was making me sad. I'd decided to do that out of an almost bipolar kind of urge, where I didn't want to do anything, so I figured I'd be productive and put my mind to a project. Somehow, I ended up having fun. And not only did I move my work station to my old desk, I can use my old hardware and never notice the difference unless I try to run a game (which play a bit sub-par on this laptop.) And after all that was done, I actually had more energy than before. I played around with a couple of games on it just to see them on a bigger screen again, and then I went back to reading with a new perspective. See, I found that I've been looking for something satisfying for a long time. I feel completely unfulfilled every day. I'm Ahab looking for my white whale. But putting my mind to something that should be difficult actually energized me somehow. I feel fulfilled today. I don't expect to get the same feeling every day, but it's encouraged me to go back to what I used to do a while back where I got all my tasks done first thing in the day, so I can do "fun stuff" for the rest of the time (if there's any time left). Besides, school starts in three weeks. What better way to get prepared than starting my reboot now? Especially since I have no idea how much time I'll have to write this semester with 17 credits and classes that will probably require a lot of writing. The only question I have to consider now is whether this reboot deserves a new thread. I don't want new members to feel they have a burden to catch up on this journal.

Heh. I can typically write over 1,000 words in a half hour if I don't get distracted, @hycniejsy. And since I write for 30 minutes every day, I'm doing at least that much on a regular basis. I don't think this post will be as long. Anyway... I've been here before. I'm at that point where nothing is fun. Everything just pacifies as time moves around me. I go to turn on a game and turn it off shortly after I reach the main menu. I have to make myself do even fun things now. I pass the time watching Youtube and sleeping. Reading is still good, but it just makes me more tired. I think it's because I'm starting to truly recognize how economical I have to be about the hours in the day. The games I want to play could have me on the couch for hours at a time. But at the end of it, what have I really accomplished? Probably less than I would have watching a movie--because at least then I would have absorbed a whole story end to end in that time. The average book of about 100,000 words takes me about ten hours total to read at a normal pace. Some games have taken me upwards of sixty hours. I have fond memories of both, but those sixty hours didn't have six books worth of story or entertainment. Yesterday when I couldn't sleep and I was alone, yet I didn't want to read, or play a game, watch a movie, or even write, I sat down with a notebook. At the top I wrote the word "Simplify." I've done this before in various degrees. Clutter has come up a lot in this journal, both in the literal sense and in the figurative, mental, sense. This is about a little bit of both. I decided I need to declutter my digital world. Reorganize bookmarks, delete old ones, eliminate my old email address... But that old address has a lot associated with it, so I had to list out every account that I have attached to it so I can transfer them to a different email. There were way more than I remembered. And when I'm done with that, I still have to go through my two current "main" email addresses (one is more professional than the other) and unsubscribe from annoying things and organize certain senders into their own categories. Et cetera et cetera. I don't know why I'm going on about that other than to get it sorted out in my own head. Point is, I was bored enough to find pleasure in something boring. I don't like watching TV anymore by myself, unless I'm just finding something to fall asleep to (Futurama usually does the trick with the number of times I've seen it). And I've encountered a strange drawback to my 30 minutes a day writing regimen: Now I only write 30 minutes a day. Don't get me wrong here, that's way better than before. Before starting this Write Chain challenge (in which I recently hit day 100) I rarely wrote more than 10,000 words of new fiction in a month. At just 30 minutes a day, I managed to get 30,000 words done in a month. And then I went on to finish the first draft of this book at 57,000 words. But now that progress seems too slow. I want to finish this project by the end of August when school starts. I already mentioned my editing plans up above, and right now I'm still working on the new summary for the whole story. I think it's over 4,000 words already, partly due to the new scenes that I spent more words detailing. And I'm barely halfway through summarizing the story. At this pace, I'll have the new outline done within a week, which isn't bad, but... But I could be working much faster. I was looking at my blog recently and I stumbled upon this passage: I don't write like that anymore. Those 3,000 words may have taken me an hour and a half that I didn't notice passing because I was having so much fun with the story. All because I told myself I just need to write for five minutes and see how I feel. Well, five minutes was never enough to feel like I had progressed the story, so I'd keep going, and going, until I either ran out of material, found a good stopping point, or had to stop. Now I just tell myself I have to write or edit for 30 minutes. But instead of reevaluating after that half hour I just stop. Sure, I've gone on for 45 minutes once or twice, but nothing like the multi-hour marathons I've written for in the past. And I can only blame myself. I've always said that I don't want to write when I'm not feeling it, and maybe I'm just burning myself out. But maybe I just need to challenge myself a bit more. Those half-hour writing sessions didn't turn out crappy writing after all, so my mood didn't affect it most of the time. Maybe I need a better place to write, a shrine of sorts meant for writing, where only writing and editing happen. My train of thought just got interrupted by a phone call and I'm not sure where I was going now. Or at least, I don't have the energy to write out all these jumbled thoughts. Plus, this one's long enough as is.

I appreciate that sentiment, Cam. I have no problem sticking around here, though my posts may be more sporadic. Maybe I'll only post when I have something to post. Daily update posts are kind of lame unless every day is actually pretty interesting. So I tried something new. I went outside my comfort zone and got a new job in a field I'd never tried before. So for five days, I was a valet driver. It was interesting, to say the least. And as a writer, it was actually really good story fodder. But it's not for me. I'm going to avoid giving actual numbers here, but the number they gave me for hourly pay after tips on an average day was about 150% what I made at my other job. So that was pretty good. Turned out I was consistently making closer to 120% of my other job's pay, which was not significant enough to warrant the extra gas and stress involved. Not to mention the one boring job they put me at for eight hours where I was a parking lot attendant making just over minimum wage with no tips. So it kind of evens out. It was fun, I'll give it that. And if it weren't for the fact that I have another job that pays decently, I'd definitely stick with it. They say it's largely a customer service job but that's bullshit unless you're a manager. I was a "runner" which meant I'd literally run to and from cars. Someone pulled up and paid us, I parked it and ran back. Someone came to claim their car, I took the key and ran to get it and brought it back to them. The most customer service I did was opening the doors for people and saying "Here's your car, sir" and thanking them for the tips. The job kicked my ass so hard I lost three pounds in two days (190 lbs now, down from 215 in May) and the new shoes I bought for it made running a breeze since my normal running shoes have almost no padding--this is by choice, btw; training in more difficult shoes makes running in easier shoes that much better. I started training Wednesday. On Thursday I had another training shift, but they asked me to stay and work a full shift. Then on Friday I had the boring parking lot attendant job where I basically just read and talked to people on Facebook. Saturday I had a 2 to 11 shift, and Sunday noon to 11. On Saturday I'd decided I wasn't staying there. Part of this has to do with the fact that I simply fucked up. I lost someone's keys in a really embarrassing situation. A new car pulled up just as someone came to claim their car, so for convenience, they gave me both keys and had me park the new one, then bring the other one back. Well, when I brought the other one back, I left the keys to the car I'd just parked in there. And then that car went home. So when the angry Russian man started threatening people's lives and asking me if I parked his car (I wasn't sure at the time if it was me) I had to reconsider my position within the company. The boss later told me that they found the keys (in the other person's car) and got them back to their owner, and that I shouldn't worry about it, and that those guys were just assholes. But I'd already made up my mind when I realized the pay wasn't what I'd expected (or what the boss had told me it would be). Funny thing is, when I told my fiancee Friday that I wasn't sure I wanted to keep the job, she got upset and cried. I told her I'd stick it out through the weekend for the rest of my scheduled shifts. Saturday, after all that went down and the pay hadn't increased at all, she totally agreed with me. So I worked my Sunday shift and told my manager it was my last day. Sad thing there is that I actually kind of liked that manager. But nah, I'm content with my decision. After all of that, I think I have a new perspective. On going outside my comfort zone, on working, on my current job, on people even. I went back to the pool and I felt like a different person. I felt much more detached. And I think that's because I feel less like the job rules me now, and I feel like I have more control over my fate. I'm more of a superior now than a peer. Which sounds arrogant, but I'm a supervisor, and it's been hard for me to make that jump from peer to superior. I'm still fair, and I always will be, but I don't back down from telling someone to do their job. Plus, now I have more of a drive to look for other jobs outside my comfort zone. Maybe I'll finally become a bartender, like I've wanted to do for a long time. Oh, and before I go, I guess I should comment on my story: The editing process is going slowly but steadily. I've been bouncing around trying different things to take notes about the story so I can edit more thoroughly. I've summarized each scene and made notes on every one of them, and today I finished summarizing each character's individual storyline within the novel. The next step is rewriting each of those storylines into what the story should look like after the edit. From there, I can figure out what scenes need to be added, which ones need to be change/moved around, and which ones are fine as is. Then I'll be able to move into editing for continuity and finally the line edit. Then I'll send it out to some trusted beta readers (maybe even a couple new ones as well) and I'll see where to go from there. I really like this story and I'm glad I finally got around to writing it. To think, all I had was a title, and now I have a novel.

I'm not numbering today's post. It's been 85 days since I started this challenge and yet I've gone completely off the rails. I feel like unplugging for a bit. From everything. Not having Internet access on the road has been a little bit of an issue when I need to find store hours or something, but it's mostly been a good thing. Less distraction in my life. I feel like I need to do that at home, too. YouTube, forums, etc. I used to be the kind of guy who'd go to forums every day. I was highly active on a writing site where I later became a moderator. I loved it there, until I didn't anymore. I learned a lot from being there and it actually distracted me from gaming. I talked to people, read their stories, banned a few people. It was fun. It's become not an addiction but a crutch. I rely on it too much. I go to forums for advice and support, and I'm often disappointed. GameQuitters has been the most positive experience of all of these, but I have to wonder how long that will last. I have a feeling that the small size of the community is mostly to thank for this, and if it grows too large, it might just become another Reddit. I mindlessly browse the Internet sometimes, and it becomes numbing and depressing. Videos and Facebook posts and anonymous comments piss me off. Problem is I need Facebook messenger to communicate with my fiance. Luckily, I discovered that messenger is a separate app that can be used at www.messenger.com The only other forum I've been to in recent times that's been a positive experience is the AbsoluteWrite forum. I really haven't been there enough lately. I don't know what else to say here. I don't know what this means for my future here. All I know right now is that I need to get off the Internet, remove myself from it as much as possible. Who knows, this may ironically be what gets my blog back in gear (though I may have to beef up my social networking skills if I do). Thanks for everything, guys.

Day 70 It's a bit embarrassing how far I've fallen behind and I feel like I should be changing that back to Day 1. I'm a mix of emotions. I feel overwhelmed and uninspired and I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I write, I work, and now I wait for school to start back up. So far all our attempts to start a D&D campaign have been derailed (the latest one being because I forgot I work until close tonight.) As far as the good things go... I'm still writing every day. And I wrote a blog post about it. I started a new kind of diet. After telling my fiance I need to count calories or something, she told me all I needed to do was count carbs. I did some research and found that if you keep your carbs under 50 grams a day, your body goes into ketosis, which basically means your body stops getting as hungry and you start burning off more fat. It's actually a really cool diet, though I have to be careful about what I eat. Turns out a banana has about 27 carbs, but bacon has none. And before you say bacon's probably just as bad, low-carb diets suggest that fat is fine to eat, and that you need plenty of protein. Turns out the body burns carbs first, then fat, then protein. So if you have fewer carbs, you start burning the fat sooner. And if you have some fat in your diet, you won't burn off too much protein. Insert "Science, bitch!" meme here. So basically I've had to cut out bread, pizza, beer, and wine. Fruits are limited, veggies are fine, and bacon, eggs, and cottage cheese are an excellent breakfast. I even scooped the innards of a taco bell taco out into a salad earlier. As long as I don't eat the shell (especially the soft kind, which are loaded with lard to keep them soft) I'm still good. I'm also back to working out regularly. I'm not doing the Ab Ripper X video anymore, but I am doing that routine, still. I printed out each workout, then added pushups and pullups between each move. I did it yesterday and went at my own pace. Today I feel fine, and I'll be ready to do it again tomorrow (since I ran today). So now I'm down to 199 lbs (in the morning). First time I've been under 200 in a while. I was 215 for about a month, but 205 had become my new normal, and it was hard to break out of. I want to get down to 180, and we'll go from there. And if it's a semi-muscular 180, even better. And the bad things... Gaming and porn are still my vices. But they've left me more and more unfulfilled lately, and I'm back to wanting to quit entirely. I don't think "entirely" is the right word, though. Basically, I want to leave them to later in the day after I've done everything I needed to do and I've gotten a substantial amount of reading done. Then if I'm bored and a game feels right at the time, I'll go for it. I feel like I game and watch porn whenever I can't handle reality. It's supposed to be a reprieve from the bullshit, but it doesn't always work out that way. Especially when I'm done and I just feel hollow, and the weight of everything I need to do comes rushing back. And the depression comes with it. And then there was the really shit thing that happened last week that has me so fucked up now... Last week we adopted a dog. Within four hours, we decided to return the dog. And now everything resulting from that appears to be snowballing. It was my fiance's idea to get another dog. She'd been wanting to have a second dog for a while, but was waiting until we (ie. she) had the money. Well, she makes a lot more money at her current job than she used to. The dog cost $130 to adopt overall. He was a five year old boxer mix, really friendly. Got along with our dog, though she very quickly made it clear whose territory it was, and he ceded dominance. We even had people over that night, and he was super friendly with everyone. Then we took him out and saw a neighbor we knew walking her dog. We asked if they could say hi, and seconds later, this new dog had the neighbor's dog pinned to the ground. It took a couple minutes to get him off. A tip if you get in this situation: Pull their ear. It worked for me though I could have easily been bitten as a result. That would have been a small price to pay. By the end of it, the other dog ended up with three puncture marks, but he was quickly back to his happy-go-lucky puppy self. Our new dog acted like nothing odd had happened. He even seemed like he wanted to play. We talked to the neighbors and they said they've been through this kind of thing before, and that we should just get him into classes and get to know him better before he meets any more new dogs. Back inside, I was beating myself up while everyone else went back to talking. I felt like I'd failed as a dog owner. The new dog came over and lay by my feet, so I moved to the bedroom because I didn't want to be near him. I didn't want him reading my body language. He kept walking into the bedroom as if he were looking for me, and after a little bit, I started crying uncontrollably. Later, when we tried to get everything back to normal (this was one of the failed attempts to play D&D) the new dog was chewing a bone by the water bowls when my dog went to get water. We heard the new dog make a noise and he bared his teeth at my dog. My fiance and I looked at each other and without any hesitation said he had to go back. We even drove my dog to my dad's place to keep her safe for the night. This was all over the course of four hours. There's no way we fucked a dog up in four hours enough to make him aggressive like that, so we figure there was something the shelter didn't disclose (or else just didn't know about him). They said he wasn't aggressive about food and gave up toys easily. He had no bite history and showed no aggression toward other dogs. The man who'd surrendered him to the shelter had raised him from a puppy and couldn't care for him any more because he was going through a divorce. Someone else adopted him and brought him back because he was too strong for her and that he "wasn't a good guard dog." This was listed as "Unrealistic Expectations" on his card, and should have been a red flag to us, but we saw it as he was just too damn friendly to be a good guard dog. We didn't think about the fact that the last owner could have been training him to be aggressive. We took him back in the morning and found out that when they do these tests with the dogs, they don't test for anything with other dogs present. The only thing they do with other dogs is make them walk past each other to see if they react. It's a no-kill shelter (otherwise we would have found another place to bring him) and they said that they'd just update his information to note that he should be the only dog in the home. A couple days later, the dog who was attacked got an infection. The side of his neck swelled up and was leaking, so the owners took him to the vet. They said it cost $260 and they would like us to help out. We have no choice but to agree. Just for starters my fiancee got $200 in prepaid debit cards and a bottle of wine. We haven't given it to them yet, and I objected to the $45 in restaurant gift cards she bought them. Figured that seemed a little insulting, and she agreed saying she hadn't thought about that. They said they have to take him back in a couple days to make sure they aren't going to need more work done, and if they do, we're going to have to give them even more money. I'm just worried now that the next thing I'll hear from them is that the dog died. I don't know what I'd do then. Probably move out of embarrassment. Money can't solve that problem, and it'll weigh on me for the rest of my life probably. The whole thing's already weighing pretty heavily on me, and I don't think I can take much more. I just want to forget it. My fiance keeps trying to talk to me about it to reassure me but I just tell her I don't want to talk about it and she just keeps trying to bring it up. She won't accept the fact that this could get worse and we need to be prepared for the worst. I don't know how to be prepared for that, though, other than to steel myself against the possibility and accept that it could happen and then we'll have to do a lot more than get some prepaid debit cards and wine. UPDATE: Isn't it funny how things can just turn around in such a short time? I saw the owner of the dog who got attacked as I was leaving for work. He said the swelling has gone down a lot, which probably means that there won't be any more money to deal about - or at least not much. Also, he's alive, so that fear has been quashed. Then I got to work and learned that I wasn't working after all! Another coworker had offered to take it and I forgot, thinking that it must have been a different Wednesday night I got off. So D&D is back on as long as people are still available for it. Good times.

Hey, man. I may end up trying that video at some point, but for now, I think I'll try the Ab Ripper again. I admit I used to be in much better shape where I could do it more easily and see results, but as long as I don't push myself from now on, I think I'll be fine. I let myself recover for several days, and I'm going to start back up again tomorrow, alternating back and forth between running and core. That's my six days. I'm not crazy enough to do the Ab Ripper six days a week lol. And you're right, it's part of a split routine, sort of. In the full P90X program, it comes after every resistance workout. This is a double-edged sword, though. On the one hand, you're warmed up already and less prone to injury; on the other, those resistance workouts are an hour long each and fifteen more minutes is killer. I'll at least make sure I stretch properly next time I do the video. Day 59 Unfortunately, I don't have much more to report. Yesterday was fun. Worked the early shift until 1, then slept for awhile, woke up, wrote, cleaned really quickly, got beer, and then a bunch of friends came over. It's funny, though. Apparently they all thought we were doing the D&D thing, when that hadn't been discussed at all. One person mentioned we should hang out again, and then when I told the rest of the group, I told them "We'll just hang out." For us that usually means board games and bullshitting. So D&D will start up next week. It's actually a system called Fantasy AGE which is pretty easy for newcomers to tabletop roleplaying (which is why I picked it) but with a lot of customization. I'm excited for it, and I'm really glad my friends are into it already. In other news, I'm having a pretty lazy day. Just reading mostly. About to get my writing done shortly. Right after I take a shower...

Day 57 Time to level with you good folks. I haven't quit gaming. I've certainly pulled back on it quite a lot, but I've far from quit it. I just haven't talked about it in either a positive or negative connotation. I've kept the same day count because it's still part of my journey. Without this, I wouldn't have stuck to Write Chain (Day 52 of that btw, with no cheating whatsoever). Unfortunately, that's where the benefits kind of stop. Porn, drinking, dieting, exercise. Those things have only improved just slightly. I think I made a big mistake with porn. I had decided that if I didn't think about it, I wouldn't have to worry about it. But whenever I'm alone, the cravings kick in. That's my trigger, and it's the most real trigger I've ever had. I think, now, that I need to take it day by day. I need to acknowledge every day that I am an addict, and that I only have to hold out for one more day, every day. Like I mentioned before, I'm down about ten pounds. Unfortunately, that was by accident. I forgot to eat more than a little meal here or there over the course of a weekend, and that was sandwiched (mmm sandwiched) in between days where I was actively watching what I was eating. I've managed to keep it off, at least, but now I have to be even more driven to hit my goals. Can't just lie around and waste away. I have been working out, but it's been a very strange schedule. I decided to do some core work because my back hurts when I run now, so I pulled out P90X's Ab Ripper X. It's only fifteen minutes long and I felt like I was dead by the end of it. Like "Oh, this is how it ends" kind of feeling dead. The next day I felt a little worse, and today (when I expected to do it again) my hip flexors are in such pain that I naturally lean forward when I stand. I'm going to wait for that pain to subside before I get back to it. The way I see it, any progress is just that--progress. As for drinking... I had friends over, and one of them made a beer run. He left the remainder here, and there was a lot. So I had a few. Got a more than decent buzz going around mid-afternoon... again largely because I forgot to eat. I'm done now. I'm going to save the rest for the next time we hang out, which will either be tomorrow night or Wednesday. Speaking of Wednesdays, I got a group of friends interested in playing a D&D type game. I had everything ready to go, and I'd just been biding my time, so I decided, what better time than now. They were all over last night and we created their characters. There are two left to create (my fiance's character and that of a player who couldn't show up due to an emergency) and the rest just need their equipment. I admit I was a bit nervous having them over to do this. None of them have ever played a game like this before and some were even confused, asking if I, as the person running it, was trying to beat them. I was like, "If I wanted to beat you, I'd just send a dragon to your village while you're all still level 1, but that's no fun." As the night went on, and they created their characters, while there was still some confusion and there were a lot of questions, by the end, everyone seemed excited. That made me really happy, because I'd been worried that people would start rolling their characters and be like, "Ugh this is dumb," and then I would gauge everyone else's reaction and decide if this would be a continuous thing. In fact, the person I'd expected to be the least into it said she wished we could do it two nights a week (especially since this is going to be a summer thing for us). The funniest part is that we never even actually played the game. We just created their characters and I gave them a little exposition into the world they were about to enter. That was enough to get them excited, and I hope that at least part of that was due to my own enthusiasm and ability to make it exciting. So I've got that to look forward to at least weekly now. In other news, I've decided that I need to be more positive. I like to think I'm pretty realistic and level-headed about things, but language is powerful. Even replying to "how are you?" with "not bad" is negative in its own way. I should just say I'm good. I think I need to take another look at my personal vision of my ideal future as well, and come up with something a bit more realistic, and a bit more "me." Ideally, I would like to be a generally positive person who drinks socially, works out six days a week, writes every day, and is responsible about taking downtime. That last part covers a lot of things. I've already got the writing every day part down so far, and that's taught me a lot about myself (and about my writing). Now it's time to tackle the next bit. I'd say the next goal is exercise, but with the way I reacted to that last workout, I'm going to be easing myself into that. Whenever I recover I'll be back at it, though. Sorry I haven't been posting regularly. I'll try to correct that.

Day 50 I'm feeling a little better today and maybe even a little embarrassed by yesterday's post. I was overwhelmed and a little drunk. I got some good advice from a coworker on where I could work when school starts (valet tips well and is near the college I plan on attending). In the meantime, still gotta set up my class schedule for the next couple of years. Today was actually kinda fun, despite being kinda stressful. We had a ton of middle-schoolers come to the pool, and I've hated middle-schoolers since the last time I was one of them. We have a few areas (steam room, sauna, spa) that are restricted to fifteen and up. I figured none of them would be fifteen, but one kind was pretty convincing because he had his birthday ready before I even asked (April 30, 2001). I decided to believe him for three reasons: First, he had it ready and didn't have to think about it; second, it was a date near the end of the school year; third, he could have been held back a year, and the second point would strengthen that. Then when we let him into the tub, everyone followed him into the hot tub and of course when I asked if they were all fifteen they all said yeah. There's no way for me to check. Luckily, one of the teachers was nearby and asked if they were okay and I said they have to be fifteen. She said none of them were fifteen, and I just waved them all out. I made the executive decision that none of the middle-schoolers were allowed in the hot tub because it would get crowded and there was no way of policing it. If that first kid was lying to me, though, I gotta hand it to him: He's good. One more funny moment when I was checking the steam room and sauna. I told them they have to be fifteen and one of them was like "What if I'm fifteen? I was born, uh, nineteen... uh..." and I just started snapping my fingers going, "Math, math, math." I think he figured out he wouldn't get away with it then because he just laughed and didn't try to argue any more. So now I'm reading through a rulebook for a tabletop RPG that I plan on getting friends into. Three friends and my fiancee already agreed to it, and I'm actually really excited for it. I haven't had any D&D type friends since I moved here, so it'll be nice getting some of my friends into it Oh, and I guess I should mention writing. I'm still pushing through, and the more I do so, the more I find the scenes that intrigue me more, that make me want to write more. I'm learning a lot as I go, despite all these years of practice. It's actually kind of uplifting, though, since now I can see which scenes/plots to focus more on and how I can change others to strengthen the narrative, as well as characters and scenes I can add in and develop more on later drafts.

Day 49 (I think) I feel like I'm halfway out of breath all the time now. I don't know if I'm stressing myself out, or if others are stressing me out, or what. I think it all comes back to anxiety. It comes back to the person I used to call my best friend who my fiancee hates and who I'm not really sure I want to be friends with anymore. It comes back to my mom. To drinking. To gaining weight. I'm not going to go into the "best friend" scenario right now. That'd be a novel in itself and I've already got one of those on my plate. Suffice it to say (actually now I hate that expression...) The gist of it is that we've been friends since I was ten, he got me through a lot of shit because I had a shitty stepmom; I got him through some shit because he had a shitty father (who, I think, came to respect my manners and basically stopped beating his kid after the one time I was witness to it, then cried when I moved away). So, we each played a role in the other's life, a role that I wouldn't take back. I don't know how I would have ended up without his influence in my life, and I don't care. I'm more well-rounded overall from that experience. (This is a long "gist of it" explanation, isn't it?) Anyway, I grew up; he didn't. I went to college, he became a FedEx driver. I got engaged to the love of my life despite never even proposing to the woman I was with for five years, and he had two kids out of wedlock (after two failed engagements). So, the gist of it is, he's a lot more short-sighted than me, and he needs me more than I need him (which is to say, like I need a hole in the head). Guess I have a lot more to vent on that issue than I thought. Maybe one day I'll go into more detail. I've gotten into it at length in a writing forum at one point, during/after which I ended up not talking to him for a full year. He ended up making me the namesake for one of his kids, and honestly, fuck him for that. On the bright side, I'm down ten pounds. Back to the actual topic at hand... I feel like I've been having anxiety off and on for the past week or two. I just want to shut everything out. I go to work and I just shut down when I get stressed. I work with one guy who I don't know if I even like because he's almost too complimentary and a little bit two-faced. Then the seventeen-year-old girl I often work with in the morning who's like the only person I've ever seen as sort of a "little sister" ends up liking that guy, then not liking him, then going back and forth on it, and I'm like, here's my opinion, but I really can't give a shit tbh. I hate most of the high schoolers I work with. They fuck around too much. Even one who they want to promote to being a supervisor, when I asked him to do something, he said, "Oh, yeah, I'll do that in a few minutes," which, honestly, is fine, until I have to come back in and tell him he has five minutes to do it because his break is ending and he's going to hold everyone else up. I'm a pretty fucking good supervisor to work with, but I take note of those who abuse my leniency. I'm the only head guard who isn't afraid of getting yelled at. I give extra breaks where the bosses would be putting extra guards up, and I let them start closing duties early so much so that we end up sitting around doing nothing for a while to make sure when we clock out that it doesn't seem suspicious. I'm not going to change my ways in that respect. I'm generally a pretty chill guy. But this summer, I may have to be more of a hardass. And by the end of it, I may hear more whispers of those who don't like me. I already had a couple people come and tell me about someone who complained about me giving extra break to another guard. Ironic thing there is that both the guard who got "extra break" (she was cleaning) and the person who complained were older than me. I think it's a good sign, though, that people will come to me and tell me these things. I don't do anything to try to manipulate people to my whim. I just try to be fair, I explain why I'm doing things when I do them, and I just generally take a very relaxed approach to everything. I think people respect me for those reasons. Ugh, what am I driving at here. I had six days off from work. I saw that on the schedule and thought it would be a magical break. Not so much. I came back not relaxed, but more annoyed. And I don't know why. I can't tell if it's the job or me. I'm just getting more bitter, I think, and I need to find a different job. I just don't know where I can start and have comparable pay. In the meantime, I have college to look forward, and the potential of becoming a teacher thanks to that.

Thanks, @Ed. All good points. I didn't realize Fight Club was that short. I'm largely going off the advice of successful writers, editors, and agents here. They all agree on that number, often pointing out that fantasy has a bit more leeway (up to 120-140k unless you're someone like George R R Martin, Robert Jordan, or anyone else who can prove they can get away with an engaging and long narrative). A major difference with those shorter books you pointed out is that they don't exactly fit into genre fiction. They're closer to literary novels, which often have a harder time finding success, but are definitely worth reading. I haven't read Slaughterhouse-Five, though, so I'm not sure if that one's also literary. For now, I'm working with commercial genre fiction, particularly Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and for those, right now, publishers are looking for stories around that word count. Plus, I'm pretty sure the reason most of my stories have been so much shorter is because I've had rather thin plots. I'm not going to beef up the word count with long-winded description. Instead, that word count goal is a challenge to cram in more story and make the grand scheme of it bigger and more powerful. I read both longer and shorter novels as well, and the third book in A Song of Ice and Fire was more engaging to me than some books I've read that are only around 100k. I'm just trying to clarify my reason for that number here. It's more about adding story than it is about just adding more words. This is why I think I should finish writing what I've outlined so I can go back and see where I could weave in more plot threads, maybe make it a little more intricate and meaningful.

Thanks, guys. I read through that post and I admit I fell off of my exercise routine. Getting back into that would help. I think, also, that I need to read more - in a way, it works like meditation for me, as long as I don't let my mind wander too much. I'll get it under control, don't worry. Day 45 I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but my mood is very closely tied to my writing. If the writing is going well, then I feel better. If I feel better, I write better. But the opposite is also true. If I feel shitty, the words are hard to find, and the story feels like a chore to write. And if the writing isn't going well, then I just feel crappy. It's a cycle. One or the other has to improve drastically for me to see the results, or to feel progress. Sometimes, I just get lucky, and what I expected to be a crappy writing day ends up going a lot smoother. By the end, if I'm satisfied with what I've written, then my mood picks up. (Sorry if any of the following repeats any of my writing woes I've said before. I'm just trying to get everything out there to detail the issue.) Right now, my story's in a bit of a crisis. Today was a good writing day, and that helped, but I still have a pretty big decision. I'm seeing now that I need more buildup before the end of Act I, where the story enters its first point of no return. I need to introduce the characters better, let them live in their world a little first and establish their inner conflicts before I rock that world with external conflict. I also kind of half-assed the outlining, and I hadn't noticed that before. On my last project, I was pretty good at making sure I hit all the important points: POV, the central conflict, how the scene changes the story, etc. So I thought that I could handle all of those things intuitively since I had paid so much more attention in that project. I thought my outline was detailed, filled with conflict, and enough to ensure that my story would be long enough. Then I moved the end of Act I to make sure Act I was as long as I needed to be. I felt a little dirty doing that, like I was trying to justify to myself that, no, the first point of no return is here. I think I was lying to myself now, and as I said above, I just need to go back and flesh out the beginning of the story. I even realized, during one of the most important scenes, that I forgot to include characters in the outline. That was the real wake-up call that I didn't have this all as under control as I thought. Going back to the story's length, I know if I were writing this on a writing forum, people would tell me "the story is as long as it has to be!" and it's hard to tell if they're trying to berate me (and others they repeat this to) or they're just naive. It actually bugs the shit out of me. When you're actually trying to sell a novel, it needs to be a certain length, usually 80-100k. This allows for enough space to tell the main story along with its supporting subplots, to get everything out there, but not too long so that you get tired of the story and just want it to end already. So I'm only about 25k into this story. If I keep it up, I think I'd be lucky if I hit 60k by the end. I know now what I must do, and probably what I should do for future stories that I write. I need to create an outline of 100 scenes, and make sure that each of those scenes has all the details it needs. 100 scenes may end up with a story that's longer than I need it to be, but that makes it easier to cut and condense. I like being able to have a lot of story in a small space (as opposed to dragging out a little story over a larger space) so this works for me. Plus, it allows me to have short scenes when they're called for. In my last project I had a scene that was only like 130 words, but it was what the story needed at that time. Sometimes that works. I think a large issue right now is that this story is too linear. There's one main protagonist and a couple other protagonists either working with the MC or going off independently of the MC; and then there's the antagonist, who gets her own POV scenes. But everyone's story follows the same plot right now. There's no one else doing their own thing and maybe even accidentally getting in the way of the other protagonists. Everything is building up to the same moment that I've planned out for the ending. The subplots are all really small, and basically just part of the overall plot. I'm not saying I want to create totally irrelevant scenes/subplots, but characters have inner conflicts to deal with too, and that deserves some time in the story. As to that decision I alluded to up top and never explained... I have two options: 1 - Pause now, re-outline the whole thing, then go back and add to the beginning or just keep moving through the rest of the story knowing I can go back to the beginning later on. To be honest, getting Act I back to where I wanted it to be sounds pretty appealing. It's weighing on my mind that I messed that up. 2 - Keep writing, get to the end, and then re-outline, knowing that I have the finished project to work with and add to. Plus, over the course of writing it, I may end up creating characters out of the blue that will have to be added in to earlier scenes anyway for the sake of continuity. I know option 2 is the wiser course. But damn if the first option doesn't sound appealing. I went into this project with the peace of mind that I did everything I could do in the planning stages to make a story that would both be full and allow for the occasional improvisation. Now that peace of mind is gone, and I'm long past the smooth sailing portion of the writing. For now, I'm just keeping up with writing it. I need the guidance of other writers to figure out what I can do to make this into a bigger, better story in the outlining stage. I recently bought The Breakout Novelist by Donald Maass, and I've been reading through that. It's got exercises in it I can do to grow the story, but I'm going to wait until I finish the book to do that. I've used various methods to make sure a scene is actually a scene and not just a waste of time that doesn't actually develop the story further, and I'll have to go back and do all of that. Plus, once I have the first draft done, I'll be able to write a one-liner for each scene in my outline and figure out where new scenes fit between those. Whenever I figure out what I'm doing, I'll probably take the laptop down to the library where I can force myself to work on the outline for a few hours. Might not be within the next week, and it might not be for another month. I'm actually considering just plowing through the the rest of this story so I can work on that. Would have to up my writing time, and with the way it's been going lately, after those thirty minutes have passed, I've just been emotionally drained, feeling like I'm just dragging my feet through the story with nothing to show for it but a ton of work ahead of me.

Day 42 I decided yesterday not to post. I was still in a funk. Thing is, I know I'm in total control of my anxiety, but I can't just make it go away when it's with me. I have to stop it in its tracks. When it's building up, I have to stymie it. Because once it gets rolling, that shit's a bitch to stop. There's a physical aspect to it, in a weird way. It makes every part of my body just want to shake the tension out of it. I just want to be away from people, and every tiny thing that I see as an inconvenience bothers me immensely. Perfect example: Fiancee brought some groceries home last night while I was making tacos for us. She put the bags right where I was about to prepare the tacos themselves instead of putting the groceries away. I grabbed what I needed from the bags and all but threw the rest of them into the hallway. I can say there's no controlling it, but I know no one will believe me. Partly because I can't believe myself. Since I was a teenager, I've always had a way of imagining my anxiety that's helped me control it. I visualize a bottle. Every little bit of tension that I don't deal with up front (ie. if I'm in a discussion and I just need to say something because I disagree or some other burning reason and I don't say anything) gets added to the bottle, never to be resolved. It can be tiny, or it can be big. Eventually, the bottle builds up too much pressure, and it explodes, and I take it out on anyone and everyone around me, whoever or whatever's closest. And before you get worried, I only get physical with walls. Still got the scars, though they've healed nicely over the years. So the past few days were filled with that tension. Until I went off of my "no drinking during the week" plan and had some wine. By bedtime, even though I'd forgotten to tell my fiancee I was working at 4:30 in the morning and she was out on the phone until almost eleven, I felt fine. Perfectly calm. It was nice. And a part of me hates admitting that, because it's like I self-medicated with alcohol. But the honest truth is it helped a lot, at least in that moment, and I can't deny that. Anyway, today was a long day, and I have a long break ahead of me. Got my writing done, and even jumped ahead to a future chapter because I had a somewhat artful idea of how to start it. My focus in writing is not usually on art. I just want to deliver a powerful story that's written in a way that's easy to imagine. But sometimes, getting a little artistic just amps it up a little. In fact, I think it makes it more powerful when the art doesn't overwhelm the story. A little art in the right place can go a hell of a long way.

lol @Jeremias it's not like that. Her days off are very lazy days. Nothing but Netflix, Hulu, and asking me to get things for her. My part was to take a power nap while she watched Netflix. That was when she suggested I take the night off from writing. No lovin' involved. Just cuddling. And honestly, I hate having the TV on. Just feels like noise. Thought about going for a walk just to get away from it at one point. Day 40 Finished with my writing. Kind of a stressful day so far. Started it off with an argument which was caused by and then exacerbated my anxiety issues. The argument was with my mom, on a topic that will never die. I'm not going to go into it here, but I just wish both of us would realize it's not worth it to fight. Also, my elbow hurts for some reason, and I work from 3 to 10 today. So... not going to be the best day overall. Log today as one that I just kinda got through. I'm trying to make the best of it, but it's hard to see today as a positive experience right now. We're allowed some of those days from time to time, right? The bad days make the good days better, after all.

Day 39 Went for a run today and just finished up my writing. The run kind of sucked. I think I should have backtracked more in this running program than I did. I mean, I can do it, but it's really hard. I should probably go back to an easier week to train my body back up to being used to it. Then again, I'm used to doing things the hard way. I'm just worried I'm going to injure myself (though I've been lucky so far). Fiancee decided to have a lay on the couch and watch Netflix day, so I got Chinese food then fell asleep. When she recommended I take a night off from writing my eyes shot open and I said, "No!" in a "How could you even suggest such a thing?" kind of way. So I got up and did it right away. Now I'm done with Act I. I can definitely see more I could do with this part of the story on its own, but it's long enough at least. We'll see what I decide to do when the time comes. Since I've created some new characters and subplots, I'll probably have plenty to work with when I go back to edit.

Escapism isn't a bad reason to game, to be honest. It's the same reason people read books or watch movies. However, 6+ hours a day isn't simply addiction: That's conditioning. An old roommate explained to me the purpose behind boot camp usually being about six weeks long. It takes three weeks to break habits, and three more weeks to establish new ones. So, six total, with a bit of overlap in those three weeks. Try to set a routine, or something you have to do every day. If you can ignore your gaming habit, and keep up with something you promise to do for yourself, then you'll build up that new habit while breaking the old one. So shoot for at least six weeks, rather than just 30 days. I know your main concern is school for now, but you also like to read (which is another great way to escape) so do more of that when you're not studying anymore. Personally, about four days into this challenge, I set a challenge to write for 30 minutes a day. I'm now on day 33 of that challenge, and it's been the best decision of my life. So find what you truly need to do for your life and make that a priority. Good luck! I'll probably be following closely.

Totally agreed, @Dannigan. Having a clean space to live and work makes everything so much easier. In this case, it wasn't so much that there was physical clutter (other than the notebooks that I had piled nearby that I planned on organizing) but that the unseen contents of the filing cabinet needed organized. It's so much better now, and I even pulled out some old D&D campaign notes that I'm going to try to put together in a Scrivener document. Been meaning to run a campaign with friends for a long time, but those plans fell through. You wouldn't believe how hard these things are to plan. Day 38 Speaking of "Write drunk, edit sober," I forgot how freeing it was to get a little buzz going before writing. It's possible that while editing this last chapter, I'll end up cutting a lot of it, but right now, I like what I did. There's a lot of reflection, but I think it might have been necessary to the situation. It also built up to what the character was actually planning, which is a huge crux in the plot. And can I say, I think I'm doing quite well at having these characters drive the plot. This story, at first, seemed kind of shallow with the lack of supporting characters built into the outline, but I'm free to add them in where needed. If a certain aspect of a character needs to be shown, I can create a foil character for them to spar with, either literally or verbally or even subtly. Mostly these come off as competitive friendships. I've also been pretty good at exploring different concepts of this story's world as I've gone along. For instance, the secret militia of teenagers struggles with what they'll have to do if they need to kill someone. Only one of them decides to be that cruel, since few else had ever expected to be needed. It was all supposed to be fun and games, in a way. Then there's the world-building. I didn't do much beforehand. I knew I wanted the story's main setting to have an Eastern feel to it. And I'm using that as a very broad term. Of course, I haven't alluded to much of that in the way of architecture thus far, but the weapons and maybe even the clothing have been leaning toward that heavily. But other than that, I'd only come up with three main locations. Then as I was writing it, I decided that they were in a part of the world referred to as the basin, and that everything outside of the basin is wildly different. I'll explore that in a later book, though. However, that also gave me ideas for the nature of the "ancient magic war" that kind of caused everything indirectly, and I think it's a pretty cool idea. One that might even come with some moral struggles. Anyway, I'm feeling better about this story now. The layers are becoming more apparent, and they'll be easy to work into the earliest parts of the story when I go back to edit. Maybe my friend who thought the outline was a little lackluster will be blown away by it, or maybe he'll end up a bit underwhelmed like he had been originally. I know he likes my writing style, so I have that going for me. Now I just have to make sure this story delivers. And I'm well on my way to making Act I last 20-21k words. As long as I can get Act II to 40-50k and Act III to 20-25k, I'll be golden. I have a feeling I'll have to add quite a few scenes to get there, though, unless the level of detail on those later scenes actually results in longer chapters. Then again, it's possible this will just be another learning experience. The bottom line is that this story is coming along really nicely now and I'm getting my excitement for it back. Big perk to forcing myself to write every day, even on the bad days. The bad days just get you through to the good days, after all. Now I'm making writer's block my bitch.

Day 37 It's only 1 in the afternoon and I'm pretty much done with everything I planned to do today. Got my writing done earlier and I just got back from a run. I was supposed to be going to a friend's house, which is why I did everything early. He ended up cancelling, though. Still, now that means I can get back to cleaning and reorganizing. The office supplies are going to be a real doozy to get through. Gonna relax my legs for now then get back to cleaning in a bit.

I only listen to one at a time, and exclusively fiction. My favorites so far have been The Martian for its great narration and the Magic 2.0 series, which I wrote about before in my old blog. Currently I'm listening to The Fold by Peter Clines. It's about a guy who's sent to basically keep tabs on and investigate a company who's discovered a way to teleport. It's pretty good, though I'm not sure I like how this narrator voices the female characters. He does fine with all of the male characters, but seems to try too hard with women, and they all end up sounding the same. I love it when an audiobook narrator can give every character a distinct voice so I know who's talking without getting the "so-and-so said" bit. That was a huge plus with Magic 2.0. Day 36 Early shift again and only had a small cup of coffee. So of course I came home and slept. But not before writing, which resulted in a new feeling. I've never nodded off while writing. While reading it's normal, and I usually just put my finger in the book and pass out for about ten minutes then wake up refreshed and continue reading again. But with writing... Man. I realized later that I was actually asleep with my eyes closed while finishing the ends of sentences. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. When I get tired while reading, sometimes I start to "dream" with my eyes open, reading the page and yet reading totally different words, and still the story makes sense. Maybe this is just an extension of Hemingway's old adage, "Write drunk, edit sober." Anyway, looks like it's going to be a fairly uneventful and lonely weekend. I'm back on top of the dishes already, and now I just need to get everything else sorted out. Got a few areas of the apartment that need special attention. Tomorrow's a running day too.

Day 35 Not much new to report. Got my writing done. Legs hurt from yesterday's run. Took a nap. You know, boring stuff. Plus I kind of just get very blah when I start to worry about money. I get paid tomorrow, but today just thinking about dinner is making me worry about how much I can afford.

Day 34 Final update for the day. Today was a good writing day. Created a new character on the spot for the Antagonist to verbally spar with. Like I said, I really need to work on including a good supporting cast in my stories. Had I not done that, I wouldn't have been able to reveal as much as I did about her character and her goals. It was a fun writing day, and I did it in a white heat, because my fiancee was only going to be gone for a little while. So it's actually kind of silly that I wrote so quickly since my goal is a time goal, not a word count goal. I guess it helped in the end anyway. Like I mentioned above, I achieved #WriteChain mastery by hitting 30 straight days of writing. And I checked out the word count again on Act 1 and it's at about 13-14k now, so between 6 and 11k more will be perfect, and that's certainly within reach. Wasn't the best running day, though. I do better running in the morning, particularly after I've eaten some scrambled eggs. Instead today I went running at about 4:30 after having coffee. And the worst part: I can't find my compression sleeves. I can already tell my legs are gonna hurt like hell, soon. In light of my thoughts of turning back to Let's Playing when I'm done with this detox, I've had an idea for an intro, as well as a format for how I would present one of the games. I won't go into detail, but I did come across a free copy of Adobe Premiere, and I'm thinking of playing with it to create that intro. Consider it a creative project, one that I won't be able to get out of my head until I at least attempt it. So, I'm off to go mess with that. Fiancee and I are kinda cleaning together tonight, as well, so it won't all be fun and games. Especially not games. That comes much later.

Update: I just achieved Write Chain Master status on the Write Chain Leaderboard. Come at me. My run's gonna have to wait until after I do this little project thing with my fiancee. It's for her internship and we'll probably be done by five.

I haven't gotten to the point of running every day yet. I should probably just start alternating between runs and walks with my dog. I'm following the Couch to 5K program currently, which is a three times a week program. It starts out easy, then over the course of nine weeks it works you up to being able to run a 5K (or 30 minutes straight, depending on how you're calculating it). Once I get to the end of it, I plan to run every day, alternating what kind of day it will be: All running, running with walk breaks, short sprints with long walk breaks, etc. I usually run with an audiobook, though. It helps me tune out how shitty I'm feeling sometimes during a run, as well as gives me a reason to run. So if my mind wanders to focusing on story problems, then I end up missing part of the book. Not to say I haven't tried running without the audiobook, but every time I have, I've just found it so much shittier. It's less meditative than you might think, at least for me. Plus, I'm getting better at not focusing on writing outside of my writing time. I "leave work at the door" as they say. Writing time is writing time. The exception is when an idea pops into my head and I need to write it down right then and there. Today looks like it might be a long, stressful day. Not sure if I'll post an update later. I plan to run and I plan to write and that's all I can say for sure right now.

Thanks, @Cam Adair. I started thinking about it and I'm not actually all that into the idea of going back to gaming right now. Like I said, my desktop is out of commission. I was looking at motherboards online and I can replace mine for $70. I brought it up to my fiancee and she told me to wait. We have three other laptops including the Chromebook. I use the repaired laptop for writing and the Chromebook for pretty much everything else. She pointed out that I only used the desktop to play games. So I figured that not repairing it right away was a good way to keep myself off of gaming since the laptop isn't quite as good as I'd like it to be right now. So, we'll see where it stands this summer. I considered my progress with writing and all my false starts with working out. I'm sticking with just running for right now. Then when I'm comfortable with that I'll add the upper body workouts in. But I need to build up that habit just like I built up the writing habit. Keeping gaming out of the equation should help I think. Day 33 Got my writing done, and it was a pretty productive day there. Fiancee's home taking a day off after four days of really long days, so I limited my writing to spend time with her. I left this chapter off partway through, but it was going pretty smoothly. Hopefully I didn't make a mistake stopping when I had a good head of steam going. Otherwise, I'm really distracted now. TV's on. Tiny apartment. Peace.