friday.

[sunfright]

Although I've been hit by hormones, cramps and some more general triggered-ness since visiting my parents last week, overall I've been better than I have been in a while. Things are just quietly rolling along and I'm keeping up as best I can. A lot of stuff is happening on the roleplay front, as well as in terms of writing. More about that in a moment.

I've been suffering from insomnia the past two weeks. Not that I don't sleep at all, but my sleep is interrupted, sporadic and I feel restless trying to stay in bed, when I'm awake. I intend to try and turn it around next week, but for now I'm just living with it. Luckily, I haven't had any actual plans this week, so I have been able to nap throughout the day and just do whatever to exist at night.

I have accumulated, like, 30 books from the library, the various strings of research I'm doing for various writing projects. I really need to turn some of them in, because I've not using all of them anymore, but it takes some spoons, dragging what feels like half a ton worth of books half a kilometer down a steep hill. I might take some of them later today, if I feel like I need the walk and the breath of fresh air.



I currently have two main characters active in memes on bakerstreet and in personal storylines, one being Stede from Our Flag Means Death, with whom I'm doing a nice PSL with my GF. It's just at a slow pace, exploring Stede and Ed's relationship post-season 2. Something nice to do in the evenings. I'm really enjoying it. I don't read fanfic for the fandom, but I do this as my way of consuming the material, it's really nice - and something to share with K., too!

The other character is my MC from Lest They Leave, Sylvie, who I've started playing on memes a bit more regularly and also apped to a sandbox, which is like an RPG but with looser requirements for activity, which is all I have spoons for at the moment, but it's working really well so far, I've had some great threads and am enjoying myself more RP-wise than I have for at least a few months, maybe more.

And it's just a hobby that helps me focus on something else than the anxiety and issues I encounter mental health-wise in all other aspects of my life. So, I'm clinging to it.



I just heard from my last remaining beta that they'll get to my novel next week, so within the next couple of weeks, I should be able to finish up the last edits of Lest They Leave. I've been setting up a printable layout for it in Word over the past week, because my parents kinda sprung on me while I was home, that they'd fund me having a small batch of the book printed professionally for my birthday. And since I'll be getting a cover from my friend's brother, I actually have the components to make it a "real" book. Right now I'm aiming for printing 20 copies, once we get that far, so let's see how long it'll take for me to get to that point. I'm working on chapter 9 right now, editing and formatting, so there's still a few chapters to go, but I hope to be done by the beginning of next week.

I have a lot of ideas for things I wanna write, just yesteday I got the idea for a really cute cat-centric story, and I'm saving that one in the idea bank, but I've come to the conclusion that I need to stay in this part of the process with Lest They Leave - the editing and formatting part, the non-writing part, because I need to practice actually finishing things as well as learning to be in a non-writing state of processing life, just in general. So, I'm trying to maintain my focus and just get the work done here, for now.

There are aspects of the Lest They Leave universe I still want to explore, too. Maybe not a sequel as much as some scenes from before, during and after the novel itself that I'd like to write out. If nothing else, then for my own benefit. I might still do that in between, if it's nothing too comprehensive. Just little bits and pieces.

Speaking of which, I found the perfect art deco notebook downtown yesterday. It wasn't particularly expensive either, so I might return to the store next week and pick one up. Not that I don't already have, like, two art deco notebooks for this project, LOL, but I've almost filled them completely with notes already. I've worked with handwritten notes a lot for this project, it's been very nice.



Next week, I'm seeing both my social worker and my therapist, before it's finally March and officially spring and my birthday month, so I'm really just looking to survive February this time around, get to the end of it and not feel too miserable while doing so.

Usually, I begin feeling better on the other side of my birthday. That's the usual cycle. Hoping the same's gonna be the case this year.