Counterproductive & Necessary

Woke up with Jackson Wang’s 100 Ways in my head. It’s a legit bop, and mashes very nicely with Paul Simon whenever I take a sip of coffee. It could even be an office dance track; yesterday all my dance breaks were Dolly Parton and Beyoncé.

Today we might get some of the storm wrack cleared, and I have already suffered being on the phone. You’d think “email is the best way to get hold of me” would be music to an insurance company’s ears, but apparently they prefer jabbering over the cell waves. At some point I might well insist on email communications, partly because I suspect the institutional preference for phone calls is to set up a “he said, she said” dynamic if there are later troubles. For all its faults, email does provide a record of precisely what was said, and for that reason I often insist upon it.

In any case, tinkering with the werelion book’s zero draft proceeds. The serial will stay up until June, I think, and that should give me plenty of time to get editing and the like turned around. I should take more time to recover from the massive effort of producing a zero, but apparently I am in a mood to get a second push out the door and then collapse. Which surprises precisely nobody around these parts, being my usual preference anyway. I tend to try staving off burnout with more work, which is counterproductive in the larger sense but necessary (to some degree) for my process.

The trick is in getting just enough of it to satisfy the urge and scratch the itch, but not enough to damage me or end up making other work late. It’s all a balance.

Miss B knows I was on the phone, and that is so unusual she senses more hijinks afoot. She also knows I finished a zero, because one of my recovery methods is just stretching out on the floor and letting the dogs nose at me until satisfied that I am indeed not dead, merely resting, and feel like I might go for a walk.1

Anyway, I should probably get said furry brats walked before the crew arrives to get the massive limbs off our roof and fences and and and. Miss B is expressing her distaste for any break in the daily routine at all, informing all and sundry that change is always bad and should be accompanied by treats. She’s a very elderly dog by now, and I suppose she has a point. Boxnoggin, of course, is taking his cue from her, with the effect that both are becoming rather insufferable. Consequently, I suppose I should finish the dregs of my coffee and stick something breakfast-like in the toaster.

I keep meaning to tell you about Boxnoggin vs the Windchimes, mostly because there was a squirrel2 involved and I ended up screaming3. Maybe once we get all this debris sorted it will be easier.

I also have to get the unedited ebook for Season One of Hell’s Acre sorted, which will be somewhat of a relief to get out the door. The deadline for that is tomorrow, so the more work I get out of the way today, the better that will go.

Everything is terrible and I’m taking refuge in work. I only pray the end product will provide a little relief for others feeling as burned-out, low, and generally hopeless as I currently am.

It’s all I can do. Gods grant it ends up being enough.

  1. Or visit Miracle Max, I’m not sure.
  2. Mayberry the Polite is said arboreal rodent’s name, for reasons it would take too much time to explain…
  3. But not, let it be said, shoeless.