Wicked Girl Saving Myself

We had to go to the mainland to get this year's heating assistance. This required rounding up all our IDs, paperwork, etc.

• I haven't seen my Social Security card since last year's appointment.
• I almost couldn't get my seat belt on because I'm so big.
• I forgot my wallet.
• We got the time wrong, and showed up at 11:00 instead of 1:10 then had to wait. 
• Innoq didn't have the correct pay stubs.
• We have just fifteen days to get our shit together or we're out of luck this year.
• This involves driving over 200 miles to get a new Social Security card.
• Which we can't do for a week, because that's how long it will take us to arrange a ride.
• And the card has to be mailed, which might take longer than a week.
• Which will mean no heating assistance this year.
• Which will fuck our already precarious finances right in the ear.

And I'm definitely in a slump. I keep hitching my wagon to somebody else's star only to find out their "star" is a street lamp.

• I figured if I did MyFitnessPal with Innoq we could keep each other motivated and accountable. But he doesn't do it anymore because logging food is tedious. Now I feel abandoned, like I'm struggling alone and flailing. I don't like to go to MyFitnessPal now because I see he hasn't been logging in and it bums me even more than my own failure. But this is my goddamn body. It's one thing to need support, another to fail because someone else quits.
• I figured if I ordered my lennán to write for 20 minutes a day -- no less, and only more if he chooses -- I'd feel like a hypocrite for not writing and get back on the ball. But there have been quite a few times when I ordered him to, and he did, and I couldn't. And more times when he wasn't in the right mental/emotional state and I gave him leeway, and I didn't write either. As much as I love feeling that my wonderful, dangerous pet is also my writing partner, I shouldn't depend on him to that degree. I need to figure out what my deal is and fix it for myself. (Note: You're not off the hook, Drake. Drop and give me twenty.)

Working with Black this go-around is evidently kicking up a lot of shit. And I have to face the fact that not all of it is due to illness and poverty. Some of it is on me.

It's been almost a month since I've written a goddamn thing.

I failed out of NaNoWriMo because of my health, for the first time in six years. I've always "won" it but at great cost and with almost nothing usable at the end. Plus I'm so stressed and ill during it that I'm not fit to live with. Friends, family, and lovers have begged and bribed me not to do it yet I've done it anyway. Conceding hurt. Conceding that meant giving this disease another piece of myself.

Besides that, I buckled under the pressure of what's expected of an Indie Author for success. Everything I've read about it jumps up and down on the topic of platform. I've got to tweet. I need a nice website. Blogging is essential. I have to e-mail market. I have to get my "brand" out there. All before I even finish and try to sell my first book. Or I'll fail.

Jesus fucking Christ, people. I can barely feed myself and keep the house halfway sanitary most of the time. I'm goddamn chronically ill. The only reason I haven't ended up in the hospital is that the doctors admit they don't know much about CFS and wouldn't know how to treat me. 

And I'm supposed to what?!

So I've been really discouraged and my anxiety has kicked into high gear. I'm ace at not showing it, but those who really know me have noticed I'm not myself. I'm breaking. I don't break. I crack, sometimes, but I don't break. I can't let myself break.

I've got to shove this all aside. I've got to quit freaking out about it. 

I've got to just... write.

I've been in the middle of a bad flare. Exhausted to the point of tears, aching, dizzy, occasionally nauseous. All the fun flu-like symptoms of CFS. 

Spiritually I'm at a point of... well, not throwing everything out the window over my left shoulder with a pinch of salt, but feeling like I need to loop around to the beginning, examine my foundational stuff, and maybe replace a few stones that are crumbling underneath me. I definitely need to simplify and streamline a lot of things to accommodate my disabilities.

Writing came pretty much to a skidding halt a couple weeks ago when I let myself get overwhelmed and brain-fried. The first draft of Spirit's Calling is finished (!) but instead of celebrating and taking a break as planned I succumbed to NaNoWriMo and tried to go straight into the second draft. Of course, I can no longer maintain the 1,667 word per day pace and I fell behind, which stressed me out, which made me ill, which caused me to fall further behind, which... etc. (Damn, I spend a lot of time chasing my tail...)  And the story isn't ready to go into the second draft. This is the stage where I need to research time period and setting, nail down the characters and timeline, start the "story bible" etc. Add to that, I'm freaking myself out because all the writing advice I'm reading is telling me that I Need A Platform Right Now or I Won't Sell Much. Then I calculate the number of spoons the recommended platform is going to take out of me and freak worse. Gyah, can't I just tell the goddamn story?

Innoq (my husband -- not his actual name) had a massive seizure at the library where he works. I had to be matter-of-fact and deal with that, and deny even to myself how stressed out I was. He was fine, but really tired and shaky afterward so I did all the cooking and what housework I could even though I should have been in the bed resting next to him.

Then there were appointments with dentists, social workers, councilors, doctors, and everybody and their cousin's hamster fuck my life. *thud*

But now I have five days where I'm not scheduled to do anything but basic housekeeping or go anywhere unless there's an emergency. *quickly knocks thrice on wood* These five days (Thursday - Monday) are mine. I will spend them nurturing myself in whatever way is right for me at any given moment. I may work on Spirit's Calling. I may work on Night Market. I may knock a couple books off the TBR Pile That Ate the Northeast Coast. If I'm feeling steady and the weathah isn't too bad I may take a mosey in the woods behind the housing units. I may practice on my Celtic harp, which I haven't done for a while. 

The thing I'm definitely doing is cleansing, grounding and centering, and recharging. With all that's been going on, a lot of energetic gunk has built up. That's making everything probably twice as bad as it has to be.