Tuesday 2.0

So, even without caffeine, my body's on this thing of not wanting to sleep for more than four or five hours at a time and having abbreviated "days" between periods of sleep. It's almost like things are moving at double speed... four hours asleep, eight hours awake. Five hours asleep, ten hours awake. I'm trying to just roll with it instead of fighting it... I'll gradually stretch out my periods of wakefulness and hope the sleep periods stretch with it. Melatonin can be useful in establishing a new rhythm, but on the other hand waking up from melatonin-aided sleep after only four hours generally means spending a few hours of being absolutely useless. I woke up at 2:00 a.m. or so and even now I can't seem to break 200,000 points on Zuma Blitz, which is something I use to both gauge and increase my mental alertness.

I am alert and awake enough to resume my workday, though. And I've had a bit of a breakthrough on the last chapter of TOMU volume 1. Actually, it's a bit of a personal breakthrough: I've realized that I have an immense talent for figuring out what works for me, figuring out how I work, and then coming up with excuses not to use that information. I've been struggling to get this last chapter done and done right and as I opened it up a minute ago I thought to myself, "Maaaan, I can't wait until I'm done with this end of volume nonsense and I can go back to doing the construction posts. That worked much easier."

Now, the next thought that passed through my head probably should have been something like "Wait, why am I not doing a construction post for this?" I know why I made the decision not to... for the same reason I didn't with some of the more pivotal chapters leading up to it. Don't want to spoil things. But you know what? Volume 1 has already had its climax and denouement. This is just like the capstone. The wind-up. It's important but it's not DUN! DUN!! DUN!!! important.

But no, an examination of my reasons for not doing a construction post was not what happened next. What happened next was me thinking, "Wait, am I sure I want to start construction posts again immediately in volume 2? Those early chapters are going to be so important in establishing..." and you know, I'm not sure why this connection exists in my brain between a chapter being important and me abandoning the technique that lets me produce the best work in the most efficient manner possible. If it's important, I should be playing to my strengths.

Luckily the wail of despair that welled up in my soul at the idea of putting off the return to the construction posts any longer knocked the rest of the thought out of my head and made me examine what I'm doing with this last chapter. And I also realized that in the process of giving up the construction posts, I also left behind the rest of the process that went into them... the split of time between "prep time", when I let my mind wander over possibilities and construct moments and bits of dialogue in my head, and "writing time", when I am absolutely certainly sitting at the computer with my headphones on and a document in front of me and I'm typing. This is the method of my madness. This is what works for me. This is how I get things done.

So, yeah. It's 5:15 now. I've taken a few minutes out of what will roughly be an hour of preparation to write this post, and then I'm going to spend an hour working on the last chapter, and then I'm going to make a construction post for it. With that start, I'll check off the work on TOMU action item from my workday list, then answer the emails, then start Workday 2, where I'll continue to update the progress post. Anybody who wants to see the last chapter as it takes shape can watch there. There may be some details I hold back until publication, of course.

Anyway... off I go.

Magic Under Construction: TOMU #496

Started: 6:00 a.m., 3/30/2011
Status: In progress.
Last updated: 2 a.m.
Word Count: ~5300
Hours writing: 2.75


Note: This is what will be the last chapter of the first volume of Tales of MU. It's intended to do three things. Two of those things are to wrap up the first year and set the stage for the second year, but more so than either of those is the third thing: being a bridge from "now" to "then".



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Preliminary Status Post - Wednesday

So, Livejournal's been up and down so much that I'm not going to take chances with a long post. I'm still doing the "short sleep" thing I mentioned in the previous post. But now that sleep in general isn't so big a problem, I'm starting to get a handle on what else needs attention.

Diet's a big one. I'm not getting enough protein. This is largely a function of having been too tired to do any real grocery shopping. We have meat in the house... a freezer full of it, really... but I need stuff I can just eat at need during the day. Beef hot dogs, sandwich meat, etc. I'll get that taken care of soon.

The last chapter of volume 1 has been going well today. Ish. Livejournal's decided to misbehave on the day I decided to make Livejournal integral to my work process again, and I had to go have a lie-down in the middle of the day already. Technically I can write even if I can't view and update the construction post, but... well, the whole thing is psychological anyway. Knowing I can't get to Livejournal is a distraction when I'm trying to write. I'm fortunate that my first hour of work was so productive.

If Livejournal goes down again, I'll deal with it... I'll put up further draft revisions as a note on Facebook or something, as a preliminary.

And just so I don't forget it: this morning I had a dream that was a very Heinlein-esque space story involving a hand-built custom bicycle shop on the moon. Details are sketchy at this point.

Things to do today:

• Chapter 496!
  
• Send out orders for The Gift of the Bad Guy... they've been fairly brisk the past two days.
  
• Pick a second writing task when done with 496, depending on what appeals as a palate cleanser.
  
• Do two more chapters of MU classic.