Crud . . . I was going to edit before scheduling this post.  Well, I’m here and my brain is steadily falling into disarray.  Best to do what requires more thinking.  I should have a chapter of edits typed in before I go to bed though.  Leaves me with 3 to go for Darwin & the Beast Collector.

It’s possible that I will finish typing in the edits this weekend, but I will probably come up one chapter short.  I can do that during the week, which means I’m practically done.  I’ll use the rest of my summer school and following week with my son to tinker with my notebooks.  Darwin & the Joy Path can be started after my son is with his mom and I get some Pokemon time in.  There isn’t going to be much to do that weekend, so I will have the prologue done by the following Monday.  Chapter 1 should be completed before I start the school year.  After that, I’m not sure how I’m going to make progress beyond using every other weekend.  This is why I’m afraid to get back into writing.  My schedule and energy are chaotic at best.

The rest of the week was exhausting due to work, parenting stuff, and the general weather punishing us for existing.  The week started with high 90’s/low 100’s and I tried to get some walking time in.  Going to a coastal park helped since it was cooler, especially during the evening.  Still, I had my son and didn’t want to expose him to bad weather.  By the time I found a day where I was only putting myself at risk, the weather turned to nasty storms that I narrowly avoided.  Not even joking since it started as I reached my block with dinner and I had to rush into the house.

Wish I had more to report in terms of writing, but it was a dry week.  I couldn’t even get to my notebook since I didn’t get to work early enough to tinker.  I’m needing to create 6 characters for one of the ‘Phi Beta Files’ stories and one might become a repeating ally/frenemy/lover.  This is where I realize I can’t get any inspiration from my old baby naming book.  Thought about using groups of six from mythology, but nothing has caught my eye.  Probably another reason why it might be good to take a week to work on these things.  I’m bringing the notebook along on the father/son trip, so I’ll be doing that when my son is doing his own thing.

Been doing a few Lego sets that you can see on my Instagram.  Probably getting a bunch of big ones in the next week or so.  I won’t tackle those until the school year starts though because I don’t want distractions from starting a new book.  It’s nice to a low energy hobby since writing drains me pretty badly these days.  Ever since my first bout with Covid in 2021, I don’t have the mental and physical stamina to crank out chapter sections.  I still find myself becoming fatigued after writing for 10 minutes.  It’s like I attempted a marathon while doing mental calculous.  It’s frustrating to be reminded how damaged and weak I’ve become with no way of full recovery.  The days of being highly productive in a short span of time are over.

Speaking of health, I keep getting told to look into prebiotic/probiotic stuff.  Anybody know about these things?  Found some gummies that have them.  It’s from the same company that makes my stress gummies, which help me fall asleep.  Staying asleep is still an issue and all medications taken to help have might with horrifying failure.  I question how I can be so messed up that I can’t even get sleeping right.  That’s a basic function of an organism and I epically fail.

Goals of the week?  (At this point, time with son is a given unless he’s away for the entire time.)

1. Finish typing in edits for Darwin & the Beast Collector.
2. Get car checked for trip.
3. Do food shopping for trip.
4. Make packing list and start packing for trip.
5. Tinker with notebook.
6. Sleep better.
7. Finish the October blog posts.  Maybe start the November ones, but I can’t think of many topics.  Any writing topics going around latey?