Hello Me? Where Are You?

11/09/2010

 Physically, I'm sitting right here, working on putting little plastic eyes on snowballs for David. Not exactly lost, but something's off, and it's been off for a while. It's November. I have three day weekends every weekend from now, until I have every day free when I lose my job. Normally, I would be squishing writing in to every available minute, ignoring my family, letting the house go to chaos, and enjoying the hell out of a good writer-bation* month.

Except, none of those things have happened. Okay, the floor in the dinning room area really, really needs to be vacuumed because David got snow all over it, but the rest of the house is clean, the laundry isn't being neglected, everyone is getting fed well rounded, Ramen-noodle free meals... and I don't feel like myself this November at all. In fact, I'm so far behind this NaNo, that I don't think I'm going to finish.

I've received two checks in the past few weeks, totaling $1700, far more than I need to replace Laptop Jack and have my own computer, just for doing creative things on. I haven't spent a cent of it yet. I have a computer in mind, and I know where I can get it for an incredible price (like $100 cheaper than the cheapest online price), but I just haven't bought it yet. Part of why it's hard to write is that Laptop Jack is dead. The other part is that I just don't seem to have it in me to write the way I used to. My story this November has barely any plot, it's basically whatever I can think of that could go in there. It's filled with sock monkeys named after fonts, a guy named Marvin who all of a sudden decided that Mr. Ward Smith is kind of hot (which Mr. Smith totally is... but I was imagining the Chrestomanci when I wrote him), Mr. Eevyl makes more than a brief appearance, and there are tiny little pirates that  may or may not be mice.

This is not a story that would Ever sell in a million years, but it's cute, it's fun, and honestly, it's mindless and easy to write. Which is good, because I'm just having issues with writing. It's not the actual act that I'm having a hard time with. When I sit down and do it, I have no problem with it. The ideas have been coming at a pretty steady clip, and the Dr. Wicked Writing Lab punishment noise hasn't gone off too many times. The problem is that I'll be sitting on my bed, knowing that right at that moment, I should either be writing or making monkeys, and then I just sit there. Or, I fall asleep. Either way, I end up accomplishing nothing. Sure, 10 hour days at work are exhausting, but they're not so bad. Not bad enough that they would keep the normal me from getting the whole novel done well under the normal deadline.

Except this year, I'm not the normal me. I just can't seem to be myself lately, and that's kind of sucking. I've been basically on autopilot since... well, probably since last year, and after some Very Intense discussions with David, I think that's probably a big piece of the problem. Except, there's nothing I can do about the issue to solve it beyond sucking it up and doing what needs to be done. I've been doing that for so long, that now autopilot is actually starting to feel like normal. It's NaNo that made me realize that it's not. That no matter how hard I try to pretend that everything is completely fine, and that I'm back to my normal self... it just *isn't*, and it won't be, and I don't know how to make things better.

To top that off, I only have about six weeks of my job left. The extended Other John again, but not me. David said that's because Other John didn't ask for anything at all and just said "sure", where I know that if I stayed it would only be to do them a favor, and would thus be asking for more money. The other reason, he said, was that I'm actually capable of doing my job, and doing it well so I'll actually be done with what I need to do in time, where Other John's products are all still failing. Honestly, I think it's just because Mr. Evil hates me.

Mr. Evil, and the job I have now is really the issue I think. I used to be so much... I don't know, so much More... before I started this job. I had goals, I had plans, I had motivation, and I didn't have this feeling that really, everything just sucks and will always suck, so I should just throw in the towel now while the damage is minimal. Except, I have David, and the kids, and the cats that are all depending on me, so I really can't just give up, even though more than anything, I really want to. I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep all day the way that Isis does**.

Instead, I've been putting the energy that I can muster into monkey making, and now helping David out with the snowballs. We've got a plan for the craft fair, and after that, David's mother is going to take a bunch of monkeys for a craft fair on the island that's after Thanksgiving. The day after the craft show that we're doing is another Craftopia (wish I knew about that to apply) which David and I are Very Excited about going to, because this time around, they're going to have Japanese food! Yay!

I have to go help David with his balls now.

John

Snowballs perverts.