natsinator

I'm moving these to Fridays b/c I'm always too wiped out and miserable to actually get anything done on Monday nights lol. I think it's best if I recognize this and adapt my lifestyle haha. Anyway. Happy New Year! I'm going to try to be more consistent with these because I like having a formal-ish log of my week.

Alright. Pretending 2022 doesn't exist and that this week has been a completely fresh slate.

Posting Update

Serpent's Mouth, Serpent's Teeth - Chapter Twenty - The Battle of Valhalla - 9,160 words

This one was a bit of a struggle to write, mainly because I'm never confident writing action scenes in general, and logh style spacebattles more specifically. It's hard to translate something that works really well on screen in a "god's eye view" of the camera to a very narrow limited third perspective. It's a tough balance to strike, and I think in this chapter i effectively refused to try to strike it, since I had people explain what their plans were going to be, and then I let all the action actually "happen" offscreen. It's a little cheating but whatever. I think tonally it does work for the emotional vibes I struck in the chapter so. Eh. I really am going to have to get more comfortable with writing spacebattles though, b/c the back half of WIAW is going to be lousy with them.

General Writing Status
Decent! Honestly! I think admitting that I need to be setting my daily goal these days at 1k rather than 1.5k is like. helpful. It's an ego blow to admit that I'm probably not going to bust out 600k words this year unless my life situation radically changes, but idk. Comparing myself to my past self is helpful in some ways because it's good to know what I am capable of, but I'm a very different person than I was two years ago. And a better writer. And I guess just a slower one. Gotta make that a value neutral statement, even if I do attach way too much of my self worth to this shit lol. When all you've got is the numbers...

I've been doing the illegal thing and toying around with a bunch of ideas, but I think I have the self restraint to not let any of those go anywhere at the moment. I need to get SMST /done/ done.

Anyway since the first I've written 5.5k words, all of which went into SMST.

Media
Watched Glass Onion. It was fine? Definitely not as good as the first movie, could have been half an hour shorter, the political message felt meh, and Benoit Blanc doesn't have enough to him to be a sympathetic "main character". But idk it was alright. I don't watch enough movies and I'm trying to change that.

Reading the Iliad again. Fitzgerald translation. I have a stack of books I need to get through before I am allowed to order more lol but I also have a mental stack that I'm planning to order so. Such is life.

Currently listening to Khun Narin's album II. I'm trying to listen to a lot more instrumental music b/c I need something to block out noises with at work, but having vocal music really taxes my brain in a bad way. So even though I've never been much of an instrumental person I'm trying new things 👍

Life Update
I know I said I'd pretend like 2022 didn't exist but I do briefly want to mention that in December I got to hang out with both Galvin and Chief and go to Boston. That was all extremely fun.

Other than that idk. I need to get out and go ice skating this weekend but tbh I kinda hate the local indoor rink b/c it's always so extremely crowded. If the weather is nice I might drive to PVD just to escape that. Fingers crossed that it's cold and not raining or snowing or whatever.

I haven't been swimming this week b/c tbh I want to avoid the new years resolution gym people lol. They'll probably be gone soonish. I need to get back on the horse though and not let myself stay off it 😅

Oh I had a kinda bad hookup on Monday. It wasn't like bad bad but it was like ???????? why are you doing this. I should have realized when she couldn't turn off Therapist Voice on me that I was going to have a weird time. Like girl you are not here to solve all the life issues that you imagine me having and tell me to use a kanban board you're here to [redacted] can we just [redacted]. Anyway that was strange and the sex was like 4/10 at best. But still I guess better to do something interesting than not. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Idk not much else going on. Somewhat miserable at my job still but I'm trying to #cope. My vacation didn't feel like even time off b/c I spent most of it sick lol. rip noodle. Constantly having stress dreams about this shit etc. Whatever. Whatever.

What's On the Docket
Keeping this confined to /just/ the next week and not a ton of nebulous future tasks that I really should get done