Tuesday, February 7th

THE DAILY REPORT

My financial situation's looking up and upper all the time. I don't expect my e-book library to become a major income stream until I finish building it up and transforming it into one, which is going to be an ongoing project for this year. But my basic needs are being met once again by Tales of MU, my expenses are going down, and I've got a new laptop on its way that I didn't have to pay for. Absolutely no complaints there.

...but there is one area of expense that is large and in theory optional but not really.

As regular readers know, I am in a long-distance relationship with a man named Jack. Jack is officially responsible for moderating comments on the Tales of MU page, which largely means moderating me. Unofficially, he's been a moderating influence on me in other ways. When he came into my life, I was kind of drifting and lacking any motivation or focus. He gave me something to work towards, and the discipline needed to work towards it. He's the reason that my writing and my productivity are as good as they are right now, and getting better.

We're going to live together some day not too far off. We're lucky enough to have a house that belongs to family already lined up for us, though our possession of it depends on outside factors that are taking longer than anticipated. So for now we're limited to visits a few times a year.

The last such visit was in October and November of last year. As things stand, we're both going to have to save very carefully to actually meet our goal of seeing each other at WisCon at the end of May, and hopefully I will have enough money for a trip back to Maryland before coming back to Nebraska.

But 2011 was a year that hit Jack hard in more way than one, and while even the dim and distant prospect of a visit gives him something to look forward to, something a little brighter and nearer would be better.

What I would like to do is get to Maryland sometime in May so we can spend time together, then fly to the con with him, then fly back with him and hang out for a few more weeks before flying back to Nebraska. This adds a couple of extra flights to the bare minimum of two that would be needed just to get me to WisCon. Since this might be the only time we see each other before Halloween it'd be better if I could afford the trip to Maryland on one side or the other of it.

So we're going to need help to make this happen. I'm setting up a donation button that I'm earmarking for a travel fund... any money that comes in on this is going to be set aside first for airfare and then for WisCon lodging and food expenses, but the flights are going to be between $100-200 (more if I can't book far enough in advance) so I think we'll be lucky to get those.

Jack means the world to me, and he needs me. And yes, my productivity does tend to go down a bit when I'm visiting him, but my current writing regimen has been aimed at making that less of an issue. I've been practicing writing when people are in the room, for instance, and at grabbing smaller chunks of time to get things done in. I did a fairly good job of keeping on top of things during our last visit, and I know that I could do a better one now. Three months from now, it could be a walk in the park.

I'll post the button more between now and May, including in some more permanent and prominent places than a blog post. I just wanted to get it made and get the code now.

STATE OF THE ME

Doing okay.

DREAMS FROM LAST NIGHT

Many and varied, but fairly indistinct and now largely obliterated.

PLANS FOR TODAY

I've got an Other Tale to finish and post and a newsletter to put out

End of day wrap.

Okay, after finding conflicting information from Amazon it turns out that I am able to track the originally wishlist'd computer order, which is going to do a lot to quell my anxiety for the rest of the week. Yeah, not knowing when a new free computer is going to arrive is not exactly the worst problem in the world to have, but writing can be a very mood-sensitive endeavor. That and it helps to know when it's relatively safe to wear headphones and block out the outside world. So that's good.

Today was another pretty middling day, like yesterday. Right around 2,000 words of fiction, plus some newsletter stuff. I actually was home alone for a lot of it, but the first time I opened up a blank document today I stared at it for half of the timer and realized that after (checks) five whole weeks of write, write, write I needed to spend a little time recharging and reflecting.

Don't get me wrong, I am not near to burning out. That's the beauty of this. I end my work day feeling refreshed and revitalized because I am doing the most relaxing and rewarding thing I could do with my time. But no one's a bottomless well of ideas, and so I needed to spend some time today just sort of spacing out and letting ideas come, and also doing a bit of a mental inventory of what's on the table, what I have to work with that I may have been ignoring, etc. So I think it was a productive day even before the word count.

And the word count? 2,000 words is a decent haul for a professional writer.

I'm still not fully satisfied with the Other Tales I wrote, though I posted it. It's decent. It's passable. It gets the job done. It doesn't pop like the other things I've written recently pop. This might be a symptom of the need for recharge, or it might just be the latest exemplar of "They can't all be the best thing ever." I don't think it's bad.

I wouldn't have posted it if I did, even with nothing else to post in its place. It just reminds me of an earlier stage in my writing.

One of the things I decided during my mental inventorying is that I need to start using my free writing time to just start spinning out MUniverse stories, so that I'm not cooking up the OTs from scratch... so when I have one that doesn't sparkle I can save it until it does, or recycle the important information into something else, or use it as a bonus feature or something.

There is no cure for the fact that some stories shine brighter than others, and there is always the little matter of taste... the story I'm least proud of is going to be someone else's favorite.

But I'd like to give myself options.

Anyway, as usual: I had a good day.