Well, I held out for as long as I could, but I just gotta blog. Screw this “must save all my writing energy for the NaNoWriMo book” bullshit. Frankly, that doesn’t take up that much of my creative energies.

Maybe it should. I dunno. But it doesn’t.

So first, the book. It’s going quite well. I am up to around 32K words, which is a gnat’s pube under 2K ahead of schedule. What can I say, some days I go over.

I am having one problem,and that’s the one I anticipated : it might not be a book-length idea. I find myself casting about for things to expand upon because right now, I could probably finish the thing in 40K words, and that is nobody’s idea of a book.

But it is also way too long to be a short story. It would be that dreaded white elephant of publishing, the novella, and good luck getting one of those published.

Then again, it might not matter in the world of eBooks, which is where I am headed with this thing. Mainstream publishing success would be great, especially in the ‘becoming famous’ department, but I am increasingly wary of subjecting my works to unnecessary gatekeepers.

I could do the practical thing, I suppose, and try the traditional dead tree publishing world first, and if I get no takers, then put it on Amazon or whatever. That would be a very time-consuming process, seeing as the turnaround time on books can often be measured in years (madness, I know), but it would probably be the smartest strategy in the long term.

Kinda like Isaac Asimov’s strategy of sending short stories to the people in order of pay rate, from the highest to the lowest. What a simple and sensible strategy for making the most money with your pen!

Still, the idea of waiting years before even having a chance to reach readers depresses me. So who knows. Maybe I will eBook my previous two novels and save the current one for the full treatment.

Because I think this current one is my best yet. It’s hard to describe why, it just feels right. Like I have evolved to a new stage as a writer and everything is just so more solid and exciting now.

And I am actually looking forward to Dec 1 (or whenever, maybe earlier) when I start editing the damned thing. I know that I can make it even better and that what I am writing is just the rough skeleton of what the book can be, if I just invest the effort in it.

And at this point, I don’t feel like going back to a blog post and a video a day. I want to do something more substantial. It’s only just over half way through the month, and it already seems like everything I have done in the year between this NaNoWriMo and the last was pointless.

I could have been writing books and stories the whole time! Duh.

But I didn’t decide to blog tonight (just) to brag. I also want to vent.

See, I feel I am on the downswing of my mood cycle, and that means this would be a good time to write one of my emotional emesis entries where I get a lot of the bad stuff out.

So here it is : while the writing is going well, I have felt the depression building in my mind. All those little fragments of suppress anxiety, anger, and irritation are starting to weigh very heavily on me, and I am learning to get rid of that poison sooner rather than later.

Mostly what is pissing me off lately is being ill. I have a cold that is now ten days old (and gee, I didn’t get it anything) and long term illness always weighs down the soul. You can keep it together for a while when you are sick, but when it drags on and on like this, you start to feel like it will never end.

And it’s not a very severe cold. Mostly what it is doing is draining my energy, plus give me a heavy feeling in my chest and a scratchy feeling in my throat.

I have had far worse. Its the persistence that is wearing me down and making me want to scream and leap. I am just so god damned tired of feeling kinda crappy and scuzzy all the time. I feel disgusting, basically, and it is really getting me down.

So despite my cold, I am probably going to go to Safeway tomorrow afternoon. If it’s raining, no, or super windy, or very very cold, but if it’s an average fall day for this region, I will bundle up and go over and get myself some comfort food.

The process of realizing I can actually afford to indulge myself now continues apace. I was planning to have $150 in my pocket when I get my next cheque this Wednesday, but that didn’t work out. Now it looks like it will be a lot more like $120.

Fine, whatever. It’s not healthy for me to take these little goals for myself too seriously, especially now that I am richer. It’s just a way to set myself up for tension and worry and self-loathing.

The important thing is to have enough to put on the card so I can buy gifts for all the important people in my life. Yes, actual gifts! Not just cards! Yay!

And that includes something nice for me, although I might have to wait until the new year before I have the money together to get myself the Chromebook of my dreams.

I have been thinking about it, and even if all the Chromebook does is give me the option of writing while sitting on the couch in the living room instead of at this computer here, it will be worth it.

Anything that gets me away from my bed is a good thing at this point.

Of course, in the New Year, I will also get a bus pass, so ideally, I would have the laptop with me as I go off in search of contacts in the local arts scene and so on.

Baby step, though. Baby steps.

That’s it from me for now, folks. Seeya soon, prolly.