I’m fairly certain that this school year is one where students, teachers, and parents are all happy to wave goodbye to.  Covid-19 made it a nightmare on so many levels.  The stress, fear, and frustration soaked into everything.  Had to keep going though and our reward is to reach the light at the end of the tunnel.  Doesn’t matter if a person crawled to the finish line either.  It’s done.

My body and mind are sure of that.  Writing this Friday around 6 PM and I’m barely staying conscious.  My son is full of energy, so I don’t have the luxury of going to bed until he says I can.  Well, I could go to sleep, but then I know he’s not going to do what he has to and I’ll stir at midnight to find him bouncing around.  We both need rest for a busy weekend.  A fun celebration with a zoo trip, old friends we haven’t seen for nearly a year, bowling, and being able to sleep in.  That last one is going to be so glorious.

Writing was nothing more than finishing the ‘Slumberlord’ outlines and tinkering with another idea.  Exhaustion was my friend this week, which meant the only writing I did was in my head.  Trying to figure out a few things too.  My mind has been a mess after hearing a few statements about what I should do in regards to ownership rights.  Things like:

• At your age, you should just sell off whatever you’ve written to get some money.
• Just sell it for money and who cares about the connected stories.  Just make money.

I understand both of these mentalities, but it’s tough.  I need to think more because nearly all of my series connect to each other.  If I sell one then can I no longer use the characters and setting for future stuff?  If I can’t then that means most, if not all, of my future ideas are useless.  I can’t design another fantasy world when Windemere is created by everything I have.  Remove one block and the whole thing crumbles, which is why I can’t do things solely for money.  What’s the point if I sell a book for immediate money and sacrifice long-term stability?

Think another issue is that it reminds me how odd I am even among authors.  People don’t seem to get that I’ve connected my stories so thoroughly.  So, I get advice that treats all of my series as if they’re individual rules.  No, I can’t kill Mab off in ‘Nytefall’ because she shows up in ‘Legends’, which takes place afterwards.  I can’t change the aura system of one book when it’s the same world.  It’s like I’m speaking an unknown language when I try to explain my dream of creating a vast world of stories.  Is it that they don’t get it or think it’s impossible and I’m an idiot for trying?  This has been gnawing at me for years too because I keep wondering if it means I don’t have nearly as much support as I thought.  This felt really true when I lost most of my audience from ‘Legends’ because nobody wanted to jump over to ‘Nytefall’.  People saw ‘vampires’ and jumped to conclusions instead of realizing that they’ve seen Dawn Fangs before and it was the same world.

Obviously, my head isn’t in the best place.  I won’t be doing much writing next week, but I might start editing War of Nytefall: Anarchy.  If I can do that in July then I can start writing Tales of the Slumberlord: Darwin & the Fate Bracelet.  I’ve got 2 months before the next school year when I can get some work done.  Not sure when I’m going to publish again though, so we’ll see what happens.  I still have to contact someone about the pictures of Do I Need to Use a Dragon? (Fantasy Writing Tips) too.  So many pokers in the furnace, but I lack the energy to pull any of them out right now.  Heck, I got dizzy from a sneeze just now.  That might have to be the big focus, especially since I have my son.

Nothing else I can really think of happening.  Finished the blog posts for July and August as well as Teaser Tuesdays going through October.  I need to figure out what to do for Sunday posts.  That’s always a fluid day.  Might be whatever whim I get at some point during the week.  Tomorrow is a funny one.  I might pick a random topic and get funny pictures for it.  I was thinking of future idea posts, but I don’t know if I have it in me to do those.  The doubt and confusion is acting like a shield, which is another reason editing might help.

Television . . . I know I watched ‘The Devil is a Part-Timer’ and enjoyed it.  Could have sworn there was another series before that, but I was really tired.  So, I might have gone slow on those 13 episodes.  After that I began watching the animated ‘Devil May Cry’ show.  It’s not bad.  I’m enjoying the characters and how Dante eats nothing more than pizza and strawberry sundaes.  Just biding time until the series finale of ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’ debuts on Monday.  Oh!  I watched ‘Demon Slayer: Mugen Train’, which is a movie sequel of an anime series.  It was really good and I was impressed that it took place entirely on a train.  Ending makes me excited for the the next season.

Goals?

1. Rest and ease into summer break
2. Time with son
3. Get sleep
4. Try to get back into biking
5. Editing War of Nytefall: Anarchy
6. Notebook if I need a screen break
7. Dentist appointment
8. Puzzle time
9. Lego time
10. Write a few Sunday posts