Dragging Myself Over the Finish Line

Another Thursday meant I was back in the studio after a sleepy train ride. I think I nearly dozed off on the ride in. Everyone was nice and quiet so the slow rocking of the train and the click clacking of the wheels on the tracks made a perfect lullaby.

I stopped at the No Frills grocery store on the walk from the station to pick up some Sweet & Low. For some reason our company doesn’t stock it. They have honey and sugar but no artificial sweetener. So, I remedied the situation.

After seeing the price of the smallish box, I think I can see why it is missing from studio coffee station. It cost me around $8 for the individually packaged version. Granted the bag of the stuff floating free was cheaper, but I thought the packets made more sense for a community setting like our studio kitchen.

I made myself a cortado, with sweetener, and then headed to my desk. Only one other person was there already, my production manager, show we had a quick chat before my supervisor came in bearing chocolate chip cookies.

It was a peace offering for, as she put it, being grumpy on Tuesday. Not that any of us could blame her. The cookies were from a local coffee shop called the Rooster which is popular with the employees of our studio. It has good coffee and tasty treats.

To be honest she offered the cookies as a bribe. And I can easily be bribed with cookies. It’s surprising I wasn’t abducted by a suspicious looking black van as a child. I would have happily accepted their candy.

The artwork I was working on yesterday was given a cursory review from our Art Diirector and had mostly positive notes. At this point in the process we are still finding are feet and anything we can lock down is a win.

But today was mostly about that. Locking things in and bringing all the teams up to speed with each other and making sure everyone as aware of the others needs.  This is to make sure the people at the beginning of the process are working on the assets we need to move forward. Our painting team is starting on Monday morning, so the more assets we have ready for them the more they can get going on the work.

I spent most of the day revising two backgrounds based on the new feedback from both our art director and from the client notes that we also passed down to us this morning.

And considering I only had about six hours of sleep I am feeling pretty good. This may be because I had a cortado first thing in morning and then another one about a hald hour before leaving work.

I brought a lunch today from home to save money and time. I didn’t get the chance to do any writing during the day, but I did have a nice lunch with a few other collegues. Its always enjoyable to sit and chat with work friends over some good food. I brought leftover pork and chicken from last night’s dinner along with leftover vegetables. I added a single serving of basmati rice to round the meal out. And of course, I brought a Dr. Pepper Zero to wash it all down.

At the end of the day, we had a good talk with one of the other team supervisors and because we had some work finished, we could pinpoint issues and what we needed as priority from his team. This will make next week a little more efficient when our crew starts.

And that is what this week felt like, getting things in order, making a little more sense out of the chaos that a new project inherently brings to the table.

I decided to walk to the station again tonight to catch my train instead of jumping on a streetcar. The weather was nice and the sun was shining brightly. The CN Tower was beautifully lit with a soft golden light that diffused as it hit the streets as if it was passing through a mist as thin as a gossamer’s wings. Sometimes the city is a shining jewel and you forget about the homeless and all the other people milling about trying to get to their destinations.

We have our night out at our friends tonight to watch the season premiere of Survivor. And of course, pizza and a hot tub. I think my wife will have organized the pizzas and such as I am commuting tonight from Toronto. Then again, she might wait until I get home. She was busy ferrying the kiddo around to a doctor’s appointment and then shopping to get a new laptop. He old one isn’t powerful enough to run all the video editing software he uses for his film course at college. I think he was able to buy out of his RESP, so it didn’t clobber his bank account too badly. Even though he has more money in his account than either of us.

I looked at my writing teacher’s website today, as I do most days, to read what interstin gthings he might talk about on his blog. Recently, he has been revamping the covers of his wive’s books because the previous people working for him had not done the greatest job with not only the covers but also making sure the books were actually up for sale. Which isn’t the greatest when you are independently published author. And so is your wife1

You can learn a lot by seeing the before and after pictures he posts on his site. It’s at deanwesleysmith.com, if you are interested.

I took their covers 101 course as well as two of their sales copy classes. It great to see what they teach with real world examples. I like that he tells when he deviated from his own advice and why he did it. This all part of becoming a writer in this day and age. You have to be able to multitask if you hope to make it.

I managed to catch an express train home and luckily there were plenty of seats again. I am used to the train being packed to the gills on the way in and on the way home. It’s making it easier from me to get some writing in on my in-studio days. Tonight, I had four seats all to myself and plenty of elbow and laptop room.

I managed to get in about 1,100 words on the forty-minute ride in.

Whoo hoo! That is a win.

Okay train is coming up to my stop I have to run.

Made it home and stopped to grab my swim trunks, a couple of drinks and my wife. She hadn’t ordered our pizza, so I ordered one from Uber Eats to be delivered to our friend’s house. We arrived at their place fifteen minutes later to warm smiles.

They had ordered five different personal pizza turning them into a mini pizza buffet. Our pizza was still on the way, so we put on Survivor and started with the pizza buffet.

I ordered a margherita from Justino’s, my favourite pizza place and waited patiently for it to arrive. An over cooked frisbee of a pizza arrived. It looked completely different from every other time I had ordered it. The fresh basil was sparse and there was no sign of the traditional buffalo mozzarella chunks. The crust was a little overcooked and the flavor was not as I remembered. Very disappointing. Was this just a bad day at the pizzeria or did they sell the restaurant to new owners? Maybe they left the new cook on his / her own for the first time? Who knows, but I don’t know if I’ll order from them again unless I forget how crappy this pizza was tonight.

This season of Survivor has returning players from season one all the way to season 49. The big change up this year is that the fans have made decisions about how the game is going to be played. This means the players and the viewers don’t know what to expect, the rules might be the same or they could have untold twists and turns.

My wife seems to be enjoying it anyways. I am typing while we watch, my full belly trying to push the laptop of my legs. Why did I eat so much shitty pizza? Because it’s pizza, that’s why. I remember my friends and I having survivor parties when the first season aired. Back then, the big player who ended up winning the whole thing was Richard Hatch. He’s the one person I would be interested to see playing this game again. But from what I heard he wasn’t the least bit interested in playing again. Although, if I was planning to blindside the audience, I would have Hatch appear as a surprise guest at some point in the season.

The other day my friend sent a group of a photo of his two sons with birthday balloons behind them. There were the large silver numbers, one, two, and three. We all congratulated our friend because it was a cute picture and the kids were making rockstar poses. And that was the end of it.

Until last night when he texted us asking why we hadn’t said more about his picture. We were all naturally confused by this. What did else did he want us to say? It’s not like he’d never sent us pictures of kids before.

And then he asked us to look at the picture again, and it dawned on us. They were pregnant with another child. Of course, we offered are congratulations and expressed our happiness for him and his wife.

And then… we started in on him. Couldn’t have sent a clearer picture. He complained that because we were so old now, we couldn’t see the picture properly. We returned with, where did you get this reveal idea from, Pinterest.

So, he followed up with a photo of the ultrasound. And that was clear! I would have led with that picture pal!

Anyways, congratulations to Jeff and Melissa! We wish you all the best.

And we hope in the future your baby news game improves.

We are at the break part of the evening where the ladies get some fresh air and the boys take a hot tub. The tub was a near perfect 103 degrees Celsius, only 104 would have been better. As always we had a good chat and afterwards our backs thanked us.

Strawberry frozen short cake was served when the ladies returned and Survivor was resumed. The show resumed at the first tribal council vote. It’s always interesting to see what the new set will look like. They get more and more elaborate every year.

This year it has an abandoned temple look to it. Very cool.

Before the show resumed, we got a preview of our friend John’s newest song. A heavy metal number with chunky driven guitars and thumping drums. Some cool alien sounding sonics and plenty of variety in the tempos and themes. I am no connoisseur of this type of music, but as I listened and drums pounded and the guitar’s picked up like a locomotive, I could imagine a band surrounded by adoring fans nodding their heads in time to the beat, the band doing the same. It’s a cool sounding song. I’ll be fascinated to hear any lyrics he comes up with as well as the lead guitar he is still planning to add.

This song is a bit different that some of his others as he used a new seven string electric guitar that adds a deeper bass sound to the music. Perfect for that chunky metal sound that is a mainstay of the genre.

I haven’t worked on my knight story today. I think I am going to abandon it. Start something new, still about a knight, but a different situation. The story I was writing had two knights, the only ones that survived, come to fight to the death on the field of battle. Both are tired and haven’t got much fight left in them. The only other person left is a lowly squire who is now forced to serve both men. But it’s boring to me. I think it could be more interesting if it told it from the perspective of young squire instead of one of the knights.

I had to stop typing for fifteen minutes as my friend’s cat, Wizard, decided to come over and sit on my lap. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was the only one eating that strawberry short cake. Nothing I say. He came over because of the bond we share. And he likes chin and ear scratches. My wife is giving me side eye as the cat’s purrs are so loud that no one can’t hear the television. She just finished telling me she wanted a cat again. My cat free days are numbered.

I am really struggling tonight to get my word count done. I was up at 7 am and its now 11:43pm. I took an hour to rest while watching an episode of Hijack with my wife. I sighed a great deal. A clear sign of my waning energy levels.

There are more adverts and trailers coming out for TheHail Mary Project movie. It was one of my favourite books for the year when it was releases. It has the perfect blend of humor, science, science fiction and problem-solving that was in the Martian. I think it will be another blockbuster movie, if those even exist anymore.

I just down and AG1 drink supplement because of how crappy I am feeling right now. But I am determined to complete this challenge no matter what. If I hadn’t signed up for this challenge, I would be in bed right now and not writing. I do believe I could be doing this challenge in a better way. Writing fiction is how I should be spending most of my writing time with a little nonfiction sprinkled in here and there. These blog posts have ballooned to 3000 words. I used to struggle to write a blog of more than 300 words. But I don’t lkelthat I am mostly just blogging. It’s a short cut, a cheat for now. The blog post count as far as the rules of the challenge go, but I would rather end the month with a stable of new stories that a pile of soggy old blogposts.

Tomorrow, we have dinner plans with two other couples around 6:30pm. Tha means my writing time will start late at night. I’ll be up late again, yawning as I try to get my word count completed. I don’t think that is the best day to start trying to write a story. And on Saturday my main focus will be on writing the mentor assignment that is due after midnight. I’ll be sleeping in for sure to make sure I have the energy to so the assignment.

And then on Sunday I am likely going to do some overtime hours for work to get ready for our team starting on Monday. And then all the craziness will start for the next week at work as the team acclimates to the new show and the return to work.

So, when is the best time to start writing short stories instead of blog posts. Or even another novella?

I’m not sure. I’m thinking Sunday would be the best day.

I also need time to read through the novella I finished writing at the beginning of the month. I can’t seem to find a good time to get that done. Maybe on the train rides in?

I’m finding it hard to find time to read anything if I am being honest.

And here I am whinging on about how little free time I have for this and that. Whah! Whah! Whah!

Stop watching so much tv I hear you screaming at me. All you talk about are the shows you watched all week.

And that would be a fair point. Something is going to have to give.

Or get up earlier, you lazy fool, I hear you saying. The propensity for me to stay up late working tells me that getting up early just isn’t in the cards anytime soon.

I’ve just noticed that after drinking the AG1 I am not feeling as crappy as I was a few minutes ago. I wonder if that is the high doses of all 8 vitamin B’s kicking in.

There seems to be some controversy about the effectiveness of AG1, but I have found it settles my digestive track a fair bit and I do notice a boost after drinking it. I usually only have it in the morning for that reason. I think the last time I had it this late at night I couldn’t fall asleep.

I hope that is not the case tonight, as I am shattered.

Luckily, I don’t have to commute to work tomorrow, so I should get an extra two hours of sleep. And I hope to get a quick nap in right after work and before we head out to dinner, but the likelihood of that is slim at best.

I am looking forward to seeing friends’ tomorrow night and very happy that the month is nearly over, mostly because the word count starts over again in March. This gives me a bit of breathing room again. Breathing room, I should not take!

But the 3100 words I need to write each night changes back to the 2026 it is supposed to be if you are keeping to the schedule.

Which I didn’t this month or last month. I wrote enough words by the last day, and I expect to do the same again this month as well.

Well, I just tilted my head back for a moment and closed my eyes. I nodded off for jst a few minutes. It felt really good. I’m going to take that as a sign I should head upstairs and get myself into bed.

I’ll probably lie there for hours now. If stay here on the couch I’ll likely nod off again, because life has a dark sense of humour sometimes. I am rally looking forward to being unconscious for a few hours.

So, I bid you all a fond farewell!

Good night!

See you back here where I will continue the ramble until I am all rambled out.

Maybe I will post a story on the blog next week as a small gift for your patience as I continue the ups and downs of the writing journey.