This week was another wild one with appointments, high humidity, and general chaos that I should accept as the norm.  Most of that isn’t interesting though, especially the appointments.  I am trying to get something settled for my son before the end of the summer, but that’s not looking possible.  Now, my goal is to simply get it set up to cause the least amount of impact on his schooling.  Fingers crossed there.

As far as writing goes, I did finish chapter 3 of Darwin & the Deadland Queen.  I was having a little trouble getting two characters settled, especially since I had a note mentioning a third who isn’t in the outline.  I don’t have any information on this person aside from a name and rank, but another one has that rank also.  For now, I’m just tossing the mystery character away.  This is an issue with a ruler having multiple queens and me not being sure who is the alpha at which point.  Probably shouldn’t use alpha either since the wolf pack theory is false.

I wasn’t able to tackle chapter 4 like I had hoped.  The evening where I thought I could get the time resulted in me not being able to use my laptop.  My son needed to use my room and the rest of the house hadn’t been cooled off enough for me to be comfortable with writing.  I ended up dozing off on the couch with the note app open on my phone and nothing writing.  The weather and constant activity is taking it’s toll, so probably best that I not push myself.  Small chance of tackling chapter 4 this week and next weekend, but we’ll see.  If I can get 4 and 5 done before the father/son trip, I’ll be happy.  My son plans on doing some drawing on the lazy day, so I’ll try to do some writing.

There was a near disaster this week.  I kept trying to get to work early to tinker with Coven of the Gray before people arrived.  I wasn’t getting out of the house as quickly as I wanted and had to do errands beforehand at times.  One morning, I attempted to tinker while getting the room set up and nearly knocked a water bottle onto my notebook.  That would have destroyed Phi Beta Files and Coven of the Gray.  Caught the bottle fast, but that was too close.  I should stop trying to squeeze things in and just do them when I have time.  There’s only one week of summer school left, so I need to focus on making it through that.

Family is coming over this weekend and today is a Pokemon event that my son wants to participate in.  If the weather holds, we’ll be going out to the beach or something before it gets too dark.  I’ve basically accepted that I don’t own this summer and am at everyone’s beck and call.  Not the plan, which was originally getting enough writing time to finish a third of Darwin & the Deadland Queen.  It isn’t a total impossibility, but it really depends on how things go after this coming week.  There’s been major changes to scheduling and activities that got in the way.  This involves the life event and fallout from the continuing chaos, so I couldn’t have predicted it.

Maybe I should focus on resting after work and other stuff this week.  Pushing myself to do writing could result in mediocre quality.  Doesn’t help that I got a bout of imposter syndrome after every page.  Still not sure why I feel so terrible about myself, which wasn’t the situation when I began Darwin’s adventures.  Think it really kicked in around 2024 after custody schedule and work situation changed to create more stress.  I’m still trying to make the best of it, but I don’t get to write very often.  Maybe that’s it.  Feel out of practice even though I still try?

Totally off-topic, but I have no idea how I cut my toe.  Just looked down and saw it was covered in blood.  Must have happened with I went . . . somewhere.  For some reason, I feel like this is the only way this week of chaos could have ended.  Off to the goals:

1. Bandage big toe.
2. Handle setting up future appointments.
3. Time with son.
4. Work on Coven of the Gray.
5. If possible, work on Darwin & the Deadland Queen.
6. Last week of summer school.
7. Lego time when I need to relax.
8. Sleep better to reduce exhaustion.
9. Get pizza at some point.