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[Willfor]

I have some good news, and some bad news.

The bad news is that I'm not going to hit 50,000 words in November.

The good news is that I'm going to hit 120,000 at some point. I'm hoping February. Actually, I'm hoping January, but that seems a little optimistic unless things change. Mostly: I've had a rough week when it comes to writing, and to make up for it would require more time and energy than the presumption of this being a running thing allows for. But I am still in love with what this book is supposed to be, and it's still the best thing I've ever written. I can't keep working until I'm burned out, and then writing until I'm burned out on my days off. This is a perfect recipe for throwing the book away after the month is over.

Still going to use November as a motivation tool for reaching toward 50,000, just being realistic in the fact that I am not actually going to hit it. I'm thinking 40,000-45,000 right now.

[EnigmaticHat]

Being a professional is doing it whether or not you're inspired. Casuals only do it when they're inspired. It applies to writing and other forms of art, and pretty much everything.

Pretty sure professional means you get paid.

[Sappho]

Didn't write yesterday. I've hit a new problem and today I need to find a way to overcome it. Before I was fighting depression, and now I seem to be fighting mania.

I'm not officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder but I've suspected for years that I have it. Most of the time I tend to be depressed, but then I get these periods, usually not longer than a week or so, when instead of depressed, I go the opposite direction. Some days I get euphoric, but mostly I get terribly anxious, nervous, irritable. My heart rate goes through the roof and I jump at everything. My energy levels go up, but my focus goes way down. All week I have hardly slept, even when I try drinking, smoking cannabis, or drinking sedative tea to knock myself out. I can't stop moving, but I can't really control my movement. Yesterday I had several hours set aside for writing, but instead I pulled up a bunch of karaoke videos on YouTube and started singing and dancing around like I was on stage. For hours. It felt good, but in the back of my mind was always that voice going "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE WRITING RIGHT NOW, WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" But I couldn't focus on that. I also spent a lot of time thinking about, shall we say, carnal pleasures, even going so far as to make tentative plans to go out and take a strange girl home on the weekend, though I hope I maintain enough rationality and control that I DON'T do that. For anyone who has experienced MDMA (ecstasy), the feeling is very similar. Teeth grinding, rocking back and forth, eyes bugged out, jumping around, talking really fast, but unable to focus on anything or relax.

So now I'm a full day behind, feeling even more jittery than yesterday. Somehow I have to get a double word count done after work later. Trying to focus on preparing my lessons for today - I have parents observing my first grade class - but so far I've just got a head full of amazing ideas and no actual plans. I'm writing this as a sort of stepping stone, hoping it will focus me on doing one task for long enough to write down my plan for the day.

I hope this doesn't last too long. I don't want to be depressed again, but at least when I am, I can usually get things like writing and lesson planning done. Maybe I'll cross my fingers and hope for a happy middle ground where I can just be a person.

[Willfor]

I'm not officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder but I've suspected for years that I have it.

Real talk from someone with undiagnosed-but-very-likely-anxiety-issues, get your mentals evaluated by the pros as soon as reasonable. These are the sorts of things you want to know positively, especially when help is available. I'm definitely going to be taking my own advice on this.

At some point.

Okay, this isn't a very good advice session, imma go to bed.

[Sappho]

Yeah, I know. But I just have this feeling like there can't possibly be this much wrong with one person. Whenever I start telling people I think I might be bipolar they just roll their eyes and call me a hypochondriac. I have autism (100% official) and I'm about 85% sure I have narcolepsy (I have ALL the symptoms, including a history of falling asleep at inappropriate times, such as at work, but diagnosis of that is complicated and expensive). It seems very likely I also have bipolar disorder, but for pete's sake, how can I have all of these things? On the other hand, these three together would explain almost all of my problems. Even when I'm in this "manic" phase, I still suddenly get attacks of sleepiness as well as the other symptoms of narcolepsy. People tell me it can't be mania if I'm getting sleepy in the middle of the day, but if I have both narcolepsy and bipolar disorder, it would make sense. I wish I could find someone who has both of those things, officially diagnosed, so I could find out what it's like for them.

I was in therapy for 14 years when I was younger and they never helped me. They misdiagnosed me with depersonalization disorder, completely missed the (very obvious) autism, and never paid any heed to my sleep issues because "smart people often have trouble sleeping" (same thing they used to dismiss my autism symptoms). Several times I was put on antidepressant medication, but it always only made me worse, so I vowed I'd never take pills again... : / Basically, "professionals" completely failed me in every way, and I'm reluctant to trust them again.

Now, as I'm writing this, I should be eating something and getting ready for work. That's another thing, I'm hardly eating lately. : ( ARG

[Skyrunner]

The age of having to compare multiple doctors' opinions has come. Especially when it's a psychological syndrome. Doctors seem to have physiological diagnosis nailed down pretty well.

[Darkmere]

I wish I could be more helpful than the usual "put one word after the other" but for writing that's what it's going to take to catch up. The other issues sound like things you will have to decide on your own terms. I would recommend at least trying to get an opinion at some point, though.


In NaNo news, I hit 39,200 words today. in 800 words I'll be down to triple digits away from victory, and I still have a ton of novel to go.

[Sappho]

The age of having to compare multiple doctors' opinions has come. Especially when it's a psychological syndrome. Doctors seem to have physiological diagnosis nailed down pretty well.

It is also the age of me having shitty insurance that only covers one hospital, living in a country where I don't speak much of the language. Sadly, my options are limited, and every time I decide to see a doctor for something, it's an ordeal that takes at least one full day out of my life, often several, which always means missed work (and missed pay). So yes, ideally you are right, but it's not really an option for me to shop around for the right doctor. : /

The mania paid off today. I wrote a completely original lesson plan, including a whole story with illustrations, in about an hour, and the classes were brilliant. My boss came to me afterwards and said the parents who had come to observe us were amazed by how great the lessons were.

I also walked most of the way home (about 45 minutes) to try to burn off some energy. I still can't stop singing and moving around. I don't know if I'll be able to focus on writing. The creativity is there, but the ability to sit still and focus is not. But I have been doing SO WELL this month. I don't want to fall behind so much. One day is already terrible... Two days would take a while to catch up on. I will have to try just sitting in front of the manuscript and see if I can get my brain to do it. If I can get started, maybe I can even catch up quickly, since I have so much energy.

I can feel my body screaming inside though. Hardly any sleep, hardly any food. I know I'm exhausted, but I just can't rest, can't stop moving...

[monk12]

Being a professional is doing it whether or not you're inspired. Casuals only do it when they're inspired. It applies to writing and other forms of art, and pretty much everything.

Pretty sure professional means you get paid.

Exactly, and the thing is, if you want to make a living at writing, you have to write basically constantly forever. Because, y'know, if you don't turn out a completed product at regular intervals, you don't get paid. So while you might luck into the next Harry Potter or Song of Ice and Fire where you can make a go of living off of a mini media empire, the vast, vast majority of professional writers have to perpetually produce books, short stories, blogs, and/or magazine articles to keep afloat (and really, the and is far more likely than the or.) Maybe they save their creative juice for their pet projects, but they still have to write all the rest whether they are inspired or not.



Also oh hey, I haven't posted in here in a while. That's because I failed due to lack of inspiration and planning, and also because I made the mistake of reading what I had written before and actually liked it, in stark contrast to the bloat I was turning out this month for the sake of word count. Next year I'll do more planning and start with a fresh concept. Hopefully I'll get my shit together and finish this one someday, though...

[EnigmaticHat]

Being a professional is doing it whether or not you're inspired. Casuals only do it when they're inspired. It applies to writing and other forms of art, and pretty much everything.

Pretty sure professional means you get paid.

Exactly, and the thing is, if you want to make a living at writing, you have to write basically constantly forever. Because, y'know, if you don't turn out a completed product at regular intervals, you don't get paid. So while you might luck into the next Harry Potter or Song of Ice and Fire where you can make a go of living off of a mini media empire, the vast, vast majority of professional writers have to perpetually produce books, short stories, blogs, and/or magazine articles to keep afloat (and really, the and is far more likely than the or.) Maybe they save their creative juice for their pet projects, but they still have to write all the rest whether they are inspired or not.

Yes, but the opposite of professional is not casual.  There are plenty of casual writers who write constantly and can force themselves to write whenever (most of them write fanfic).  Professional also means a whole bunch of other things besides writing frequently. Skill, luck, connections, marketability, having the free time to learn to write well.  It takes a whole lot of things to write professionally, which is why its a hard field to break into.

Sorry, I'm just annoyed because the word "casuals" has no real meaning or common usage outside of videogame elitism.  It bothers me to see that word applied to art.

[monk12]

This is true. The proper term would be "amateur," or perhaps "dilettante" to get closer to the correct connotation, but hell, do you  know how many times I misspelled dilettante before I got it right? Casual is an easier way of saying "I do it for love, not money," since as you pointed out doing it for money necessitates a bunch of other things not connected to the art itself.

Of course, now I'm not sure if we're talking about the term Casual or the term Professional, but then I remembered that it doesn't really matter, so I can go play videogames. Actually wait no, I'll go write something, even if it isn't NaNo.

[Lectorog]

Probably just because you're both casuls.

[Digital Hellhound]

1615 words done today, so far. I fully intend to breach 40 000 and have just 455 words to go. It's a shame most of my Writing Buddies appear to have given up; it was nicer to see them keeping up (trailing behind, though once or twice bypassing) with me. But by Jove, I won't let them slow me down. Victory or death!

EDIT: And that was easier than I thought. 10k words remaining, and I shall endeavour to continue this after 50k too, because I'm maybe at the midpoint right now. OH WELL, EVER ONWARDS!

[inEQUALITY]

Heh, I'm at 44,000+ now. My average is officially over 2k per day. That's with a day I wrote 0 words and two days I remember not making 2k. Honestly didn't think I would today, but I kept pushing on and it just kind of got there. I blinked a few times when I realized that and said to myself, "Oh. Well this is nice."

[Sappho]

Today is my third day in a row of writing absolutely nothing. I'm disgusted with myself. I was doing SO GOOD and now I'm falling so far behind I'm not sure I'll be able to catch back up. I have lots of plans for the whole weekend and I'm still manic. I managed to get myself a little under control by smoking just insane amounts of cannabis. It's enough to stop me from running around like a lunatic, but I'm still high-anxiety and fidgety, and now I'm drowsy on top of that. Focus is out of the question. I can't even focus on video games, let alone writing.

My only hope is that I can calm down before the end of the month and spend a whole day just writing to catch up.