This entry, unlike my last one, is just pure writing gripe. First of all, I’m glad to be writing again, period. After my last entry I had to take a few days off to fully absorb the news. It’s not like I have cancer or anything (knock on wood!), but it is a condition that requires some life adjustment. Or at least expectation adjustment. I thought I just needed a day or two, but that didn’t turn out to be enough. Anyway, I tried to work yesterday and somewhat succeeded. I felt more trepidations on starting everything and was not concentrating as well. But today I feel totally energized. And I think I’m ready to jump back in.

So what am I working on in my planning document? Settings. Again. Yep. I really thought I had gotten it all figured out, but nope, turns out there are some major contradictions and plotholes in my overall setting – I’m talking about the whole trilogy’s background, rathe than this singular book’s – that I didn’t even realize were an issue until I talked to my s.o., and he was like, waitaminute, some of the initial premise doesn’t make any sense. So yeah, back to the drawing board I go! Fortunately, the plot of the novel itself is not really affected, so at least I don’t have to reorganize that whole spiel. Until the outline phase, that is, but that’s Far Future Me’s problem. Today and Tomorrow Mes will be focused on making the setting fit the novel properly.

It is my fault, I know, in the grand scheme. I have been obsessing over some details while ignoring others, and it just happened that some of the parts I ignored are actually quite important, and definitely should’ve been settled early on. Oops. Guess that’s just how the writing process works, eh? Nothing else to do but trudge on. So my hope of actually putting words down by second week of February will probably have to be scrapped. But I’m not really working the full 4 hours yet, so maybe reaching that daily goal would offset the setback. That will be my February goal, I suppose. Work full time and try to start actual writing before the month ends.

I do NOT want to work today. Nope. I think the past three tough days kind of drained me, and today is Friday, so I’m like, wow, I have no motivation to open up my document and work on it. Zero. But, you know, too bad! So many people are exhausted and are forced to work in dangerous conditions right this minute. They make do. What’s my privileged excuse?

Anyway, yesterday I took a good look at the rest of the Snowflake Method, and realized I actually did a lot of steps in one step by accident. I think this method is great if you’re just starting to think about your novel, but is a bit slow for me who’s been ruminating on this novel for literally years. I already know a lot of the advanced stuff because I’ve thought through all those, but I still needed to use the method to really work out some of the major kinks that were keeping my story from being cohesive and whole. Not to say I won’t have issues when it comes to actually writing it, but at least the overall goal is much clearer per chapter. (Or I hope – because I haven’t done the detailed outline part yet, and that’s when things can all fall apart.) So like I said yesterday, I’ve added a step for detailed setting sheets. I’ve also put minor character sheets as its own step because I also have some very important minor characters, who’re going to be the major characters in the next book, so I need to get their stories straight too. And of course the all important outline. Although the method calls for an Excel sheet for that step, I think Scrivener does a good enough job. I’m not afraid of Excel sheets, okay? Hell, I’ve worked in data entry before, so yeah, very familiar. I just like keeping everything I have in one program, and I paid for Scrivener so I’m going use it, dammit. lol.

So when it’s all said and done there’s going to be only 9 steps in my adjusted method. (Eight if you don’t count the review step, but I think a final look at the whole thing before I start writing in earnest is important.) I think at the pace I’m going, I will be done with the whole process by the first week of February. So right after Chinese New Year week I can legitimately tackle my novel again. Wow. So scary to think about. So I’m NOT going to think about it right now. Today Me’s problem is definitely trying to work on the settings sheets. At least get one done, you know? Gotta get over that laziness and lack of motivation to keep going!

I was so tired yesterday, y’all. You wouldn’t believe. First of all I haven’t been sleeping well because I was having my period, so I took a whole lot of pain pills before I went to bed. Well, turns out that heats me up so I was very uncomfortable. I mean it’s either pain or hot, and I think being hot distresses my sleep less than pain. So I already woke up groggy for three days straight. Also add in the fact that there’s very loud construction right outside my window for the past two weeks. I didn’t realize how damn hard it is to concentrate on writing when there’s incessant, loud clanking all throughout the afternoons. So I was focusing so hard trying to work, while being sleep-deprived and annoyed, while also being anxious about the usual how-much-I-suck. I was so exhausted yesterday, that when I was finally done with the portion of my work I pretty much passed out immediately after dinner.

But. The good news is that I did get Step 4 done! Just finished editing it today and will start on Step 5! I’m going to have to make some changes to the steps to tailor it to my novel, though. For example, in addition to character sheets I also have place sheets, and for this novel the setting is very important. The desert that a lot of the plot takes place in is almost like a character itself, so I’m going to take some time out to work on those. Either way, I’m pretty surprised that I actually am steadily making progress. I did not think I’d be able to make it this far. In fact, I have never made it this far with planning before. You know that horrible Tuesday I had with that one character setup? Yeah, Previous Me’s would have given up and scrapped the thing altogether already. But not Current Me! No, sir, Current Me is determined and more motivated than I had ever been in a long, long time. So yes, onto step 5, even though I’m still ridiculous tired from it all. At least today I slept okay.

Okay, so here’s something really weird going on with me. Oh, and it’s work related not baking related, so yeah curb your expectations please haha. Anyway, as I said before, I’ve finally started to do a huge overhaul of my novel, because it desperately needs it before I can continue writing. And it’s hard. Ho boy I’m still on only step 3 of the Snowflake Method and it’s making me stressed as hell. I have 4 major characters and I’m supposed to write an overall plotline for them along with physical descriptions, internal struggles, the works. Cool. Should be able to drum that out in a day or two, right? NOPE! I started last week and only just now finished with 2 characters. Pathetic, I know, although the first character took longer to finish than the second one, which I mark as progress.

But during this process, I discovered something that’s kept me going despite me wanting to shut down the document and run away every few minutes. (Yes, I legitimately panic whenever I write a sentence or two, because I feel like everything sucks and I suck the worst, and I have the urge to close everything and go to bed and watch mindless youtube videos forever.) And that is, oddly, a small web-based game called cookie clicker. I’m sure you’ve heard of it, from like a decade ago? Anyway, it used to be that I would write a few sentences, maybe some paragraphs on a good day, and then I’d feel panic at how bad I am and go on reddit, and then boom, 2 hours have passed by and I only wrote like 100 words. Then I’d feel bad about wasting all that time, and then I’d just give up altogether. And that’s how I made no progress on anything for years. I mean it, YEARS. The more depressed I got the worse progress I made, and the lack of progress made me more depressed, and hence a ridiculous cycle of doom was born. Well, on a whim last week, instead of going to reddit, I decided to play cookie clicker. I don’t know why; I just did. And I discovered that I could write a couple of sentences, click on a bunch of cookies, and return to writing after just a few minutes! It’s still slow and dumb, I mean imagine after every sentence you type you take a two-to-five-minute break clicking things. But it’s vastly shorter than 2 hours on reddit, npr, whatever, and I did not freak out and feel useless afterwards, because after a bit of cookie clicking I somehow am ready to write again! No, I don’t understand why. I would love to, but I don’t. But all I care about is that, as slow as it is, it. Is. Working.

And getting better. Because I definitely feel like sorting out my second character went faster than my first. Plus I didn’t give up after a tough spot, or rather, many, many tough spots, and kept going. Even now, as I’m typing this entry, I took a few breaks to click on the cookies. Only a few seconds later and I’m good at continuing! Sure, I cannot make the four hours a day deadline yet, but I feel like I can reach it, you know, instead of it being something completely impossible. All thanks to an ancient, idle web-browser game. What a weird discovery.

I’ll keep you updated if there are more weird changes. I feel like I’m jinxing it or something. Seriously, I’d like an explanation for this phenomenon. If I knew this’ll be the stupid trick to get my brain going I’d have done it a long, long time ago.