Bassitone's Journal

[Cam Adair]

Great job! To avoid slipping stay focused on the new standards and habits you have for yourself. That's the key!

[bassitone]

Day 49

Timestamp: Thursday 17th November at 23:09

I called it.  

I want to backslide.

I just... I need a mental break from everything.  NaNoWriMo stress, this relentless semester, the cluster.... that was and is my country since a bit more than a week ago.  

I think I’m in a place where I want to keep forging ahead, keep writing, keep telling my story, without the added pressure of NaNoWriMo.  1,667 words per day just wasn’t fun anymore - the events that made it awesome don't really line up with my schedule here.  Writing this story is an Ultra-marathon, not a sprint (though word sprints against others are fun as heck), and I've been getting burned out on the frenetic pace this month.

I think I’ve found an online community of writers that may prove to be just the sort of creative energy I need to keep it going throughout the year.  They plan on watching all of Alfred Hitchcock’s corpus over the next year for inspiration, enough said.  Plenty of classics in there I haven’t seen.  Maybe next year when I’m in a bigger city that I love I’ll revisit actually doing nanowrimo.  For now?  I’ll just take it easy.  Take some time to do my digital forensics work, read the book that apparently is waiting for me in the office overnight because Amazon decided a $10 paperback was signature required, and do whatever.  

Part of that includes that I want to get that new Pokémon game literally everybody around me is talking about.  I even had a conversation about it at church last Sunday, for God's sake...  Y'all know.  Y'all understand my predicament.  I've made a good deal of progress in these 49 days, soon to be 50 by the time y'all read this, but not to the point where it doesn't feel like I'm depriving myself of games for my own sake.  Not yet.  I'm still trying to get there.  I haven't been able to write like I have been on my novel since about Monday night, and even then it's been sporadic since last week's events took place.  I need a relief valve of sorts, but I'm terrified.

Terrified of losing all the progress I've made.

Terrified I'll be right back here in a month or three at square 0.

And yet, Thanksgiving is next week.  Oh God.  Going to need all the inner strength I can find to get through that...

[WorkInProgress]

HEy man. SOunds like you are in a tough spot at the Moment. Just remember that only on Thing in life is secure. Everything fades away. This Situation will go away too adn thigns will look up again. Stay strong adn endure and you will be proud of yourself in a few days/weeks if the worst part is over and you see the light again.

[Cam Adair]

Important to find a way to relax that doesn't come with the baggage that gaming does. Relaxing isn't the problem, gaming is.

[Mad Pharmacist]

Tried NaNoWriMo this year.

Maybe I'll write 50k words, but I hadn't done this regularly so it doesn't count

How about NaNoWriMo 2017? Are you willing to take this challenge with me?

Greetings, Mad Pharmacist

[Simon E]

Hi, I'm new to your journal. Came snooping and stayed when I saw you're a writer too. 

I've been thinking about participating in NaNoWriMo, but I couldn't get my head around on how I would be able to puzzle all that writing together with all the other (unfortunate) stuff that has to be taken care of in life. 

Tried NaNoWriMo this year.

Maybe I'll write 50k words, but I hadn't done this regularly so it doesn't count

How about NaNoWriMo 2017? Are you willing to take this challenge with me?

Greetings, Mad Pharmacist

I might join the challenge too, then. It probably would be easier with the encouragment (and the competition) from friends.

Stay strong - it'll get better. You know it will. Take all the pain the addiction is giving you and transform it into words. 

[bassitone]

Yes!  If we're all around here still next November I'm totally down for a Nano group forming from here!

 

It's definitely a challenge, fitting all that in.  I was actually ahead of the game until the election results came in...  Since then it's been a struggle, but what isn't in life?  Hell, "a struggle" is why we're all here after all.  Sort of a problem is a futuristic game is a centerpiece of my story this year - I've held it in check, but the temptation to go for it in the name of "inspiration" has been there...

 

Important to find a way to relax that doesn't come with the baggage that gaming does. Relaxing isn't the problem, gaming is.

I actually decided to take your lead and try my hand at mixing, creating electronic music, etc.  I...tried.  Student technology store here still hasn't gotten me my copy of ProTools yet even though I bought it Friday >.<.  Figured that I'm a creative type anyway (most of the time, when I'm not burned out as I was on writing this week), might as well revisit the idea of composing.  Also, the world needs more Mozart remixes, just saying.

As for this weekend, I made it through Pokèmania...so far.  The temptation is still there, but I found a new distraction: when I went to Friday Night Magic I was told that, yes, people play another format of the card game that's much more casual and social at the same place I already was frequenting the following evening.  (EDH/Commander for those of y'all in the know).  Drove home, built a deck, spent my Saturday night playing with them.  Magic two nights a week may be a little much, but it was fun nonetheless.  I just hope I can find a regular, steady group for it when I move next year...  That's one of the good things about gaming as I look back - no matter where I went I could find somebody who played <insert popular video game here> with little effort.  A quick look from afar indicates that this may be difficult for EDH where I'm going, but it has to exist, if a city this size has it...right?

 

[bassitone]

Day 53.  Timestamp Monday, 21 November 2016 at 23:05 UTC -0500

 

Putting the timestamps is a bit of a relic at this point, yes, but it's my thing in the journal for some reason - been doing it since the beginning.  Going to be getting back on track with productivity and building myself up - what I think of as Phase 2 of this project.  I think I've got the urge to game more or less under control, though there are still those desires floating around, ready to strike at any moment.

And yet, I have to wonder.  Most of my success thus far has been simply because I'm so busy with grad school that I just haven't had the time to game aside from some very specific moments that have been easy to resist.  I can only see there being a ton of dead time that I will be tempted to actually break this streak...especially since, as I'm sure is true for many of y'all, Thanksgiving isn't the best of times ever.  Already I can feel it calling to me, to be my refuge from whatever nonsense or boredom may show up.  I've come too far to slip up now, but this week may be the biggest test of all of them - apparently I'm going to be discouraged from going to Magic even (still bringing my decks though, just in case)  If I'm going to get through to two months, I'm going to need to figure out this whole "idle time" thing - without the distractions of daily life, or even Magic - and I'm going to need to figure it out fast.

Oh boy...

[Cam Adair]

Love that idea! DJing is one way I relax.

[bassitone]

Well, that was interesting.

 

This final semester is proving to be something else entirely.  Haven't had much time for anything other than schoolwork, worrying about schoolwork, and the basics of getting my life in order.  Started cooking a little (as much as my weird grad student schedule can handle with getting home at weird hours and just wanting to go to sleep), sleep is a bit of a struggle still to put it lightly, but I think I'm starting to figure out the secrets, and starting to feel more aware of things - I had an urge to game on Thursday night and instead started on a productive thing.

 

Then Friday happened.

 

After some combination of stress and being mentally exhausted from the nonstop madness of this semester I had just had enough.  I needed something brainless on Friday night, even more so than going to play Magic with the guys, and... I don't think I need to finish that sentence.  Ended up regretting it all weekend (and unrelated: really, really wasn't in a good place mentally this past weekend in general, but I think I've come out the other side of it for now).  I was meaning to come back and be more active here since the first of the year, so why not now?

This actually hits on my biggest problem so far: what do I do when I need something just completely disengaged from work, life, etc.?  Watching movies/tv never quite sat well with me, and it was my hockey team's bye week anyway.  Everything I've found so far requires at least a bit of effort toward being productive, creative, or active; a situation I just did not have the energy for last Friday.  And yet, the obvious answer is one I'm trying my best to cut out of life...

[Simms]

Welcome back! Who's your team? I'm an Oilers guy and they're starting to worry me... Losing skid and they're missing out on all the deadline deals. Urgh

[Cam Adair]

Welcome back brother. Go Flames go!

[bassitone]

My favorite team is the Blues (Army, why'd you have to do this to me?!), followed closely by the Stars - fell in love with hockey when I lived in STL, have to support what the Stars organization is doing for the game in my state though.

 

It...has not been a fun deadline