I’ll dive into the writing part of the week, which didn’t go beyond last Sunday. I did manage to get one chapter of Darwin & the Beast Collector written. Not a glorious victory because I merged 2 of the 4 sections. Due to errands and our regularly scheduled Saturday rain giving me sinus issues, I couldn’t write for very long before I started to lose focus. To be fair, I expected this to happen, so I met my low target. Just means 4 chapters or 14 sections left for this book. Maybe late November will be the finish and I spend the rest of 2023 fiddling with my Phi Beta notebook.
Really wish I had more excitement to report. The section I wrote was the beginning of ‘Act 3’ where everything went haywire. Not only within the story, but I stumbled onto a bunch of plot holes. This adventure has so many strange mysteries that keep popping up out of nowhere. For example, an important item in the most recent chapter that was never mentioned prior to its appearance. That might be another reason why I took so long because I kept having to stop and think. There’s supposed to be a lot of things that don’t make any sense, but Darwin isn’t paying enough attention to see it like the readers. So, there’s no way to know what’s going on until the final confrontation. Editing Darwin & the Beast Collector is going to be a pain.
Once the week started, I had to go into parenting and TA mode. My school had a special event on Thursday where people sign up for events to help the community. I ended up having to leave early though because my son got his lower braces on, which meant chocolate shakes and Pokemon Go to distract. Scattered about the week was the usual homework, quizzes, tests, and the life event. This is why I couldn’t fit any biking in and had to depend entirely on Pokemon Go outings for exercise. That’s going to be the same this weekend and I hope to stop the slight gaining of weight I’m seeing. Why does it always happen around this time of year?
Of course, there was the big event of the week, which was the CPAP machine. I’ve been on it for a week and it’s been interesting. I’m starting to get used to sleeping with the full face mask, which is connected to a tube. That took some time because I fiddled with the settings the following ways:
- Second night I took the machine off auto and manually upped the humidity to avoid dry mouth. Even one level higher and I ended up getting water in the mask.
- Fourth night, I thought the mask was too loose because it leaked a little. Ended up making it leak a lot and spent 15 minutes fighting to adjust it during the test function, which basically blasts you in the face with air.
Those were the big ones, but the really challenge is that the CPAP machine records and transmits my numbers. Insurance uses these to gauge if I’m using it often enough to get free replacement parts or something. So, I have to use it at least 4 hours a night and 21 nights a month. Not sure why anyone would do less or even that amount when it should be a nightly thing. They record the time you slept, mask leak level, times you take the mask off, and sleep apnea events per hour. It results in a grade from 1-100 and you even get video game like achievements . . . This might be why I tinkered with the thing in the hopes of improving my numbers. Stupid part is I was already in the 98-100 range after the first night. Apnea events went from 199/hour to 0.8/hour.
The real question here is how do I feel. Well, sinus issues and head cold weren’t doing me any favors. It was a few days into using it when I noticed that I wasn’t feeling as gross in the morning as I used to. My energy still fades fairly quickly at the end of the day, but it doesn’t feel as severe. I used to feel like I was coming down with something and freaking myself out. Now, I can tell that I’m just regular tired. Things can only get better as long as I use the machine. Morning maintenance on school days is a bit of a pain, but I got some special wipes to make it go faster.
This coming week is set to be a normal one. I have no holidays, appointments, or other events beyond the usual. The ‘life event’ may still take a few swings at me, especially as certain dates come closer. It might not be enough to lay me out though. It’s even possible that the CPAP will give me the energy to do some writing during the week. I won’t hold my breath there though. The next few chapters of Darwin & the Beast Collector are complicated with a lot of strings to tie together. I might use the time to finish December blog posts, which clears my path for the last 2 months. I don’t know if I’ll be writing much next weekend either because I might have to get involved in a few things. Not being a career author means I can’t say ‘I need to write’ and expect people to give me the time and space. It’s back to being a hobby that nobody takes seriously. Actually, it’s even worse these days since I don’t have anyone to discuss story ideas with any more. All alone with my thoughts now.
Goals of the week?
- Continue using the CPAP machine and getting used to it.
- Time with son.
- Write Darwin & the Beast Collector when time permits.
- Exercise.
- Grumble about how it keeps raining on the weekends.
- December blog posts.
- Make penne with vodka sauce tomorrow.
- Remember the other goals after this post goes live.
Legends of Windemere 
CPAP machines are a challenge. My son-in-law has one. Have you investigated Inspire? It’s something implanted that obviates the need for a CPAP.
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I’m getting used to the CPAP. Insurance wouldn’t cover Inspire. Not sure I like the implant idea either.
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I think many people would have reservations.
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The machine sounds like a pain, but it also sounds really helpful. I hope you can get it right soon. As for the story also being a pain, when it all comes together it sounds like it will be great.
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I’ve let the machine go automatic now. Only thing I control are the face mask straps. Overall, the machine isn’t too bad as I get used to it. The lingering issues might stem more from the bad weather giving me sinus pain.
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Sounds like progress on the sleep front. Those things have to be a pain with all the maintenance, but if it helps – it helps.
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I’m getting used to it. Cleaning out the 6 foot hose is the hardest part.
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I hope the CPAP machine works as well as finding a way to sleep without having to use one in the future with the apnea-related aspects. I hard relate to the issue of not being a career writer since I’ve been struggling to write fiction again like I used to. It doesn’t help that NaNoWriMo is only weeks away which I used to do a bunch. I do have ideas and various pieces of inspiration have helped, but I need to find a cohesive story to write.
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I’ve pretty much resigned myself to a lifetime of it. Weight loss could help, but I’d need to drop at least 60 pounds. That’s tough when I don’t have a lot of exercise time and healthy food is expensive. Even then, the overall structure of my mouth apparently causes some apnea. I’d need surgery to change that. Never did NaNoWriMo. Saw it a bunch, but the word count thing always made me iffy on joining.
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I’m sorry to hear that about your situation. I didn’t realize it was that lasting of an effect. Healthy food being expensive is so inconvenient even before the inflation stuff happened. I was curious if you ever did NaNoWriMo or not. It was surprising that I was able to beat the challenge even during the times where I worked 2 jobs.
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Way back, I’d be able to trounce the challenge. I was writing a chapter a day since I was a stay-at-home. These days I’d fail miserably. Maybe even worse with certain things going on. Not enough days off in November to succeed.
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Wow, that’s great when you tried writing a chapter a day back then. It would feel weird for me to really focus on a book given how much screentime I use at work, and I don’t want my eyes to be zonked out or not exercise to get this done.
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Change of priorities stopped me. Weekdays are for work and parenting. Too tired to even try to write after all that. Might change as the CPAP takes affect. I pretty much get alternating weekends to try and write now. It’s something.
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That’s understandable. My weekdays are jam packed with work and that’s not even counting my online language classes. Learning has definitely inspired ideas for stories and potential character names, but I don’t know how I can pull that off just yet.
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Sometimes all you can do is make notes on ideas and hope to use them later.
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I definitely have with certain words and concepts. I don’t want to be accused of using fake names like other examples while also showing I do my research as well as contacting people I know who are native speakers.
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Fake names? I thought fiction was filled with names that don’t really exist.
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To be specific, I mean fake names involving real languages for human characters taking place on earth. That or having names for the wrong gender, misspelled names, or names with meanings that don’t mean what people think they mean. I get that you have space aliens or monsters having made up names which I have no issues with. One example that randomly came to mind was the villain Silver Samurai from X-Men since his real name is Kenuichio Harada and his first name is fake Japanese. Interestingly enough, the Japanese version of those comics address him as Kenichirou most likely as a correction.
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I think they gave Silver Samurai a different name in the 80’s. Shingen Yashida, I believe. It’s funny how people get upset about ‘fake’ names in American fiction. Other cultures go with made up names all the time without getting crucified.
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Shingen Yashida is actually the 2nd Silver Samurai and is the son of the first. To be fair, at least he has a real Japanese name. Is there really that much outrage for American authors and creators with fake names involving different ethnicities though? I don’t see that backlash unless I’m missing it. However, I don’t want to be a laughingstock if I used fake, misspelled, or wrong names for specific ethnic groups when I make characters though.
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I don’t think there’s much in the way of backlash outside of people who want to stir the pot. Most of the horribly fake names you find come from much older works when that was the norm.
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Stir the pot like people trying to make fun of something with fake names or the fans of said thing with characters like that? That’s true about much older works when they didn’t have the internet (not that it’s always an excuse). I don’t know about how many languages you’re fluent in or have knowledge in, but I’ve noticed in learning other languages I realize that certain words or names aren’t right. With Japanese for example, you don’t see too many errors maybe because of the internet and how anime is in the mainstream. However, I do notice some double standards with other language groups though.
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Stir the pot as in trying to start a fight and get an artist to publicly explode. I don’t know other languages. Just naturally bad at them.
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Thanks for clarifying. It does annoy me when I can catch fake names or misspellings in Japanese or Swahili for example. I was only curious if you had some knowledge about other languages. It’s something I got even more interested in even though I wouldn’t call myself a polyglot. It’s fascinating learning, doing comparative linguistics, and in the case of Swahili, finding a way to connect to the heritage I didn’t know I had until a few years ago. Oddly enough, Japanese is my 2nd best language after English even though I struggle with Kanji since I took classes at a community college when I was in high school and I’m re-learning it.
It has also been mind-blowing just with the stuff I researched this year about loan words in English or stuff I’ve learned in my classes. For example, ketchup is originally a Hokkien Chinese word of all things, but the name is anglicized (even someone at my work who is Chinese didn’t even know that), penguin is Welsh, and banana is originally a Wolof word (that’s a major language from Senegal and The Gambia).
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Considering American English is born from the convergence of many languages and cultures, I’m not surprised about loan words. Nearly everything comes from some other place. As far as character names being fake, I really don’t see many complaints unless it’s supposed to be real world. Even then, most just ignore it and pay attention to story.
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That is the case for both positive and negative reasons such as interacting with other cultures. I have no issue with loan words because every language has some, so I hoped I didn’t sound like I was against them. Sometimes I wonder if whatever complaints are there are a result of selective outrage or if they involve languages that don’t get questioned about the meaning the creators say if they are wrong. It is cool when they do get something right like Uhura from Star Trek’s first name being Nyota which is the Swahili word for Star for example.
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I’m going with selective outrage combined with ignorance. The thing people seem to forget with languages is that they have always evolved through cultures interacting. That’s how cultures and society grow in the first place. Otherwise, you get stagnation and division.
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It can be annoying when you have selective outrage about one thing having fake or misspelled names, but something else gets a free pass depending on the language. We’re in a globalized society, and I’d be ignorant to ignore all of that, so I hope you weren’t implying that I don’t know about that in regards to cultures interacting with each other.
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I wasn’t implying anything. I was talking in a general sense. I tend to be direct when calling a person out. So, I was simply talking about what I see in a general sense these days. Many people see cultural diffusion as evil and lash out at any mixing, which is a natural thing for human society.
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Okay. I was only checking because I feel like I have to be on alert around so many people. Truth is I resisted talking about other examples earlier (especially the fake or misspelled names) even though I had people of different ethnic groups/nationalities thanking me for bringing up several examples from several stories, movies, TV, anime, etc in a post I did earlier this month. It can be very frustrating if I sense that someone (not saying you) tries to question my evidence or trying to slight me trying to learn about part of my heritage, getting interested in languages, or just other ethnic groups in general.
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So glad you are getting relief from using the machine. Let’s hope it continues to produce benefits.
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Hope so. Seems like I picked a rough time of year to start though. Weather is whacky and makes sleeping tough in general.
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True
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