I'm afraid I have to report another pretty weak work week. I unfortunately am still sick 😩
I started being able to sleep again on Tuesday, and since I hadnt slept for 3-4 days I basically spent the next 36 hours sleeping or fighting sleep. Wednesday was the first day I could walk around and do stuff, but I needed to catch up on chores, cleaning, and cooking really bad so all my energy went to that. On Thursday I thought I was well enough to write again, but I kept feeling 'floaty' and had bad brain fog. I didn't feel like I was getting enough oxygen even though my airways were finally clear. I did write a tiny bit though. Then yesterday I had to do my usual 20 min post box walk in -30C and that apparently completely fucked up my lungs again [ I have screwed up lungs to begin with from medical history unfortunately ] so I had to take a break AGAIN before getting another little bit of writing done.
I've been told on my last post not to apologize for being sick, and I agree that it would be setting a bad example for other artists, so I'll just say my feelings instead of a reflexive apology:
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I'm very frustrated with my lack of progress recently, and it bothers me a lot to be falling behind in my schedule/plans.
I know that I still attach too much of my self worth to my productivity, but it doesn't stop the emotions. It's hard for me to show up to a Saturday update with so little.
I'm also frustrated that I'm still sick. I can't believe it's lasting this long, and I'm tired of feeling this way. It feels unfair, like I am being consciously maligned somehow, despite how obviously illogical that is.
I'm frustrated about what I'm seeing in the news. It's sickening, and all the lies and gaslighting are reopening old wounds in me. I find myself feeling bitter about things that happened a long time ago. I know this is just transference from being unable to process my fear in this moment, yet it keeps happening. It embarrasses me.
My body, my mind, and even my sense of identity are fragile right now. I feel weak and ashamed.
All of this spills over into my work and makes me second guess everything. I worry constantly about my writing quality. After writing nearly 40 death scenes in the YKMET series, I worry about being repetitive and unoriginal. I worry that I'm bringing the 'same old thing' to the table, when I want so badly for this script to be good.
What if I am spending so much extra time writing this script and it turns out to be bad anyway? Rational or not, the fear haunts me.
All this is to say... these are my feelings. This is what's going on in my head.
It's a lot, but thankfully the solution is simple. All I have to do is show up on Monday and keep trying. My health is still improving and I know I will be fully healthy again eventually.
Whether or not my work is bad is actually irrelevant. I know I'm doing my best, and if it isn't good work then it isn't. I already know I'd rather suffer the consequences of underwhelming work than giving up. I will not give up.
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I did technically write out two floating endings, but I want to be honest here and say that they're really quite short, and there is actually an argument that they are 'the same ending'. I had to think hard about whether they should be counted as one or two in the endings list, and barely settled on 'two'. The experience of playing them will be significantly different so I figured that should be the deciding factor.
I still have three floating endings left to write, but the main serious work I need to do is invisible on this graphic- which is the major editing pass that will involve a lot of new writing for alternate scenarios. There is still a significant amount of script work to be done.
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I'll try to find some nice Willow stuff to lift the spirits of this post a bit.
I like this one because it looks like a school portrait 😂
I also found two videos, attached. [ A note about threepeeemm.mov - she has dry food all the time, she was not starving! she just wants her wet food dinner ]
Anyway, I'm running out of time, so I'll cut it off here. I'm getting better so I think my next update will have more progress at least.
Keep fighting, stay safe. See you next week!