Thursday 20th April 2017

Today was a tiring day
Despite a late night, I needed to be in an office early.  This did nothing for my mood.  It doesn’t take a lot of make me grumpy:  lack of sleep, lack of food, lack of anything.  I had two bowls of porridge in the hope it would give me energy and got yesterday’s The Climb quickly edited.
I really wasn’t in the mood for this project I’ve been assigned to with the day job.  I came to the conclusion that my problem isn’t the work but the way it’s been assigned.  Now I know that with the issues with my leg, stomach and skin I rank very low on the disabilities chart.  There are many people worse off than me but my own issues have made me develop a new level of appreciation for the shit disabled people have to go through.
My disabilities don’t stop me doing things, thankfully… but they do make me have to do things in a certain way.  There’s a hundred different things I have to consider when going out or doing any activity.    I double pad my legs for swordfighting, I plan my food for when I go away, and prepare to suffer when I come back, I exercise a lot to keep my stomach and legs healthy.  If someone wants something, I can get the result needed.  I just have to do it my way.  And that’s not me being special or precious, that’s me working around all my various ailments.
I know these best.  I’ve never had to say that no I can’t do something, and yet people still insist on trying to dictate how I should manage my injuries.  As a friend said on Facebook, it’s the same issue as mansplaining – where someone with no knowledge thinks they have all the answers.
And so I’m a bit pissy with how this project has been dumped on me by senior people without any real considerations on the micro details.  I mean, it would have been nice to actually have been asked, rather than told.
But that’s day jobs for you.  And day jobs on days when you’ve only had a few hours sleep.
On the plus side, whereas the project was just confusing yesterday, today I completely worked out how to deliver the result they need.  Yep, hold my beer, I’ve got this covered!  This pretty much means ripping up what they’ve done and doing it a different way.  The people I’m working with agree, so I feel that I’ve hopefully already demonstrated my worth – which I have to ask myself why, given that my focus is doing the job to a competent level so I can focus on book 2 and the editorial changes on book 1
I went into town this afternoon.  I’ve done something to my back.  I seem to ache either under my left shoulder or the left side of my lower back.  I’ve had it for a couple of weeks now and it seems one gets better only for the other to hurt.  I might need to get a physio to check it out, especially as I’ve been taking it carefully to try and aid recovery.
I was so tired tonight that I got home and spent most of the evening watching Youtube Videos.  I’m at that tired stage where I feel exhausted but not sleepy and so I got home and pretty much comatosed in my office chair for a few hours.
Which was annoying as given that I got no writing done yesterday, I needed to get a lot done today.  It was about 10pm before I started (which feels like an annoying waste of an evening – I wasn’t even playing games).
As I’ve previously mentioned the chapter I’m working on is the greatest swordfight ever.  Someone suggested a really cool way to end the fight, based on a movie they’d seen. That gave me the idea on how to end it.  However, I checked out the movie clip they’d mentioned only to find that it was different to what I imagined.  As a result, it’s a bit of a nuts ending but it’s original and I think it could be awesome.
I want the swordfight to be exciting and dynamic but also feel accurate.  There’s a balance to be found.  Actual swordfighting is a bit boring to watch.  It’s little twirling and dancing and a lot of standing there sussing out your opponent’s body posture.  But, I think I came up with a fight that has the right mix of accurate and flourishes.
I sat down and wrote it this evening, all some 2800 words of it.
I think it’ll need some polish but as a first draft it’s OK.  Not as good as the car chase but I suspect with a bit of work I can take it to that level.  I suspect my level of tiredness probably hasn’t helped.
Is it the greatest Swordfight ever?  Still not sure but I think I’ve made it exciting and accurate which is more than can be said for a lot of literary swashbuckling.
Now I need to start pulling threads together.  I have 7 chapters left, which if they are 3k long means this book will be around 25k words short.
I have extra chapters to add in to boost some secondary characters and give them a bit of a story arc, and I suspect that some of the chapters at the end will run higher than 3k, but then I suspect a chapter or two might be less than 3k – so it evens out.
I’d like to get the book done by the weekend, but I suspect that’s very unlikely.  I should still get it finished around the time my editorial notes on book 1 are due so it should work out well.
If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels.  Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.

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