Not Dead

Wow so I really dropped that list of prompts and then dipped for two weeks huh.  Sorry about that. I was not expecting to drop off the face of the closet-earth but sometimes life gets chaotic and you just gotta go with the flow.

My anxiety has been all over the place with this pandemic and a lot of the time that manifests in hyper-fixation on a thing to the exclusion of all else. The day after my last post, I was listening to the radio on my way home from work, as I usually do, thinking about the prompt for the night and what direction I wanted to go with it, when a song came on that seized me and sparked an entirely different idea. I was possessed with a new story idea for a fanfic in a fandom I’d never written for before.

I was just going to shelve it, put it on the back burner, let it simmer, but it was too hot. It boiled over and I could not get it out of my head. The more I thought about how to work it, the deeper I fell until I had to start writing something, anything, for it. I kept thinking “just a little bit, to get it out of my head, outline it so I can go back to it when I have more time.” But outlining it wasn’t enough. I had to write it. And the more I wrote the more I saw the threads weaving through it.

I spent the next 10 days writing and editing almost 10k words of heartbreak, recovery, and finding true love. It is probably one of the greatest pieces I have ever written. The feedback I’ve gotten on it over the past couple days would certainly indicate so. I’m not used to people telling me my writing is “powerful” or that I made them “[fall] in love [with one of the characters] even deeper thanks to [my] writing.” It really helps put the Imposter Syndrome Monster in its place.

It was also refreshing. I love the prompts I do here, but sometimes working in other established universes with other people’s characters is easier/more fun for me. I just feel kinda weird writing fanfiction here on the blog, with the exception of the prompts I use to explore my OCs more.

Anxiety and burnout are a dangerous tandem. I need to write to keep myself sane, especially the longer the quarantine goes on. I was excited when I finally got my VPN approval last week and was able to start working from home. I had hoped I would be able to shift my focus back to the blog and the prompts now that I wasn’t stressing as much about going to and from work every day.

So far it’s been pretty chill. I get to do all my morning updates in my pajamas while working on my coffee. I get dressed around lunch time and then mostly just wait around all afternoon, more or less on call for my customer to request any more updates. Mostly though I don’t hear from him after 12 so I have all this time to be outlining or plotting and yet I haven’t been doing that. (Though that’s due in no small part to my brain being taken over by the fic, that whole anxious hyper-fixation thing I mentioned at the beginning.)

I’m just tired, though. I want to be able to move on and start something new. I want to get back into my novels and write my OCs and develop their worlds. I think I’m getting close to that point. I’m hoping I can get back to the prompts this week. Trying to kick my brain out of fic writer mode and back to original content mode but there’s a part of me that says “if it’s making you happy why force yourself to stop?”

Well, I guess I’m not gonna force myself to stop if I get another fic idea, but I am still going to try to get back into the prompts in the meanwhile. Also that whole time management thing which is the bane of my existence. 30 years and I still haven’t found a method that works for me. Having a schedule was sort of working but time isn’t real anymore so what’s a schedule LOL.

Anyway, I’m still alive, I have not caught the bug, I am self isolating as best as I can, and writing fanfic and watching anime to keep myself sane. I will do my best to write more prompts for you so you have the content I promised two weeks ago. And if you’re at all interested in the “powerfully emotional” volleyball bros story you can read that here.

Thanks for sticking with me through all this! You guys are the best! See you soon!