Zzzzzzzzzz

Not much writing the last three days--for assorted reasons, I didn't write anything last night or the night before. Part of that was stress, part of it was the story being difficult (though it does occur to me that this might well also have been at least in part attributable to stress), and part was just too many other things going on for me to really have the time to sit down and work on more words.

solarbird gave me a lot of hugs this afternoon and helped me let out some of that stress, and once that happened I felt prepared to face going over to another session of poker at kathrynt and llachglin's house. However, while the others played I opted to sit out and just write. I wanted the companionship aspect of the evening, but I also wanted to write. Fortunately, my computer is portable, so this was doable. Kathryn and Erik even had a wireless network, so I had Internet, though I had to try to keep myself focused on the writing.

I wound up getting 717 words out, which was good... that got me the daily quota and helped make up a bit for not writing at all yesterday. That helped the stress level a lot--I really need to write at least a little every day, I think. Especially now that we're not doing the jamming group anymore.

Of course, the two Mike's (one hard lime, one hard cranberry lemonade) and the Gran-Marnier-laced hot chocolate Kathryn gave me also likely contributed to easing off the stress, too.

Very groggy now. Bedtime.

Written tonight: 717
Chapter 2 total: 2,624
Story total: 13,204

Household chores, bills, sunshine, and more words

Quiet day today, thankfully; I needed one of those. Started it off with something I was long overdue for: a workout. I keep forgetting that the basic physical activity of a workout is a really good way to try to get stress out of my muscles. I need to remind myself of this more often.

The rest of the morning consisted of random household chore-type activities: laundry, kitty litter, that kind of thing. I went to deposit my paycheck and found it surprisingly warm and gorgeous outside, a good indicator that spring is not far off. I still find this kind of weather in February startling, even after having been in Seattle since 1991.

Bills were paid this afternoon, with some relief for slowly beginning to climb out of the hole dug by last year's huge stint of unemployment in the first half of the year and broken arm in the latter. Changing health insurance providers should help in that area, too. I just hope that when this contract runs out this summer, I won't have another big stint of unemployment after; I'd like to enjoy having a few extra dollars again for a while longer.

And, I wrote. 859 words, which means that between last night's work and tonight's, I made up for not writing on Friday. If I have a few more days like this, I should make up for not writing this past Thursday, too. I did come up with a point of research that I'm going to have to deal with for the second draft, though--and that'll be the kinds of grounds it's reasonable to expect to have around the immediate vicinity of a huge mansion-type house owned by someone extremely wealthy, in a setting akin to the late 1700's. Questions like these I find coming up in my brain when I ask myself stuff like "Okay, so it's the middle of an extremely dark, cold, rainy, and generally icky night, and somebody's just tried to kill the Duke and every guardsman in the place has been ordered out to find the assassin who just somehow managed to survive a fall after being shot. Is the ground going to hold tracks, and if so, how well are a bunch of guardsmen carrying torches who might not necessarily be trained in the fine art of tracking since they're mostly there to beat up intruders who break into the house going to be able to FIND said tracks?"

Written tonight: 859
Chapter 2 total: 3,483
Story total: 14,063