My head is still spinning from the week because it was a wild ending.  Can’t go into details with what happened yesterday.  Just a bunch of craziness from beginning to end, which is why I had anxiety itching all over my body by the evening.  A few nights of sleep apnea issues didn’t help, but I made it to Saturday . . . Now what?

On the plus side, I managed to finish chapter 6 of Darwin & the Deadlands Queen.  It was touch and go though.  I spent two hours writing last Sunday only to hate what I did and junk the entire thing.  Can’t remember the last time I erased so much on purpose, but it did a number on my confidence.  Spent Monday staring at the outline to figure out where things went wrong.  I ended up merging two sections and do my best when I was sick on Tuesday and then Wednesday night. I finished it right before my son came home, so I didn’t get to go over it much.  It works though.

Exhaustion and plans are going to make it a challenge to get through chapter 7 this weekend.  I might be able to start it today.  I might be able to work on it tomorrow afternoon even with family coming over.  This chapter is crucial, but it isn’t as messy as the previous one, which was designed to get the group to the next area without wasting time on ‘traveling’.  There’s a little action, but it’s simplistic.  If I can utilize my time and not get distracted, I could finish this chapter by Wednesday night.  Hard to really say because the lore and foreshadowing continues to shift now that this is the penultimate book instead of the third to last.  Guess we’ll see how it goes.

One of the big challenges lately is simply having a high school senior.  My son has so much to do for college, senior year, senior project, and learning how to be independent.  I never know what is going to come at us from that arena.  Doesn’t help that I have to coordinate with my ex-wife and we aren’t very good at communicating with each other.  So, every new event comes with a lot of stress from various sources.  I want my son to succeed and get into the college he wants, so that always takes priority.  There are also social services he gets due to having autism, which we are navigating.  It’s all interwoven, so my brain is mush from that complication by the time I step back into Windemere.

I’m also scrambling to get the December posts set up since November is ready.  I’m still doing the revisiting posts for now because I’ve found a lot of topics that should be given another chance.  My hope is to write up new posts for January or February after I make more progress on Darwin & the Deadlands Queen.  There are plenty of breaks throughout November and December, which will give me time.  The life event might be further along to conclusion by then too.  Part of that sucks up my evenings, which is when I used to prep a few blog posts at a time.

This coming week is busy at the start, but will get easier once I reach Thursday.  It’s mostly appointments on Monday and Tuesday.  Trying to make another one for myself on Wednesday, which might push the writing back.  It’s a minor medical thing that’s been bugging me for years, so it’s worth it.  At the very least, I can write on Halloween since my son has his own plans.  That’s good though because he needs independence.  Anyway, I’m hoping to squeeze in some writing where I can.  I really need to find a way to tinker with my notebook ideas when at work, but there’s no privacy during my breaks.  I tried in my car, but it’s not comfortable.

Goals of the week?

1. Work more on Darwin & the Deadlands Queen
2. Help son with college stuff if he needs it.
3. Prepare for next stage of life event.
4. Work on December blog posts.
5. Set up appointments.
6. Rest up to prevent burnout and physical crash.
7. Time with family.
8. Catch Pokemon as usual.
9. Tinker with notebooks.