Early Morning and Plenty of Bubbles

I slept until about 11 am this morning. There was a family text group ranting about some sports show down between America and Canada, probably Olympic related. The families involved are both Canadian and American, so who do you root for?

I voted for no family text messages at 8 o’clock in the morning, rolled over and went back to sleep until the next message binged.

The next thing I know, Robyn is carrying in a tray of eggs, bacon and toast with a steaming cup of vanilla Earl Grey. There is nothing better than waking up to the smell of cooked bacon. We paired the meal with the inappropriate show, Forensic File: New Era. Blood and guts and bacon.

After two or three episodes, a package arrived from Amazon. It was a bath bubbler mat for using in a tub. Its as close to getting a jacuzzi tub I am likely to get. I purchased the item with a great deal of skepticism, but to my surprise the air blower was not overly loud and it produced more than adequate bubbles even in its lowest setting. It has a little cotton filter you can add essential oils to that will scent the air as well. I have some sandalwood beard oil that might fit the bill. I stayed in the bath much longer than I would have regularly and my muscles were nice and loose.

After my relaxing bubble bath, with real bubbles, I did some work on a background for work that is needed first thing in the morning for an animation test on the new show. It took my two to three hours to complete the work and now I won’t feel stressed first thing Monday morning.

About the time I finished up working Robyn had made us spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. And that was a nice treat after working on the weekend.

After dinner I made a test batch of butter toffee cookies baking them at 325 F for 22 minutes instead of the recommended 350 F for 15 minutes. The cookies cooked much better resulting in a crispy exterior and a chewy interior. An improvement over the recommended instructions from the cookie dough factory.

I made a second batch, because why not the oven was already up to temperature, but this time I put the cookie dough in a silicon muffin tray. The cookies without the tray spreadout too much, with the muffin tray the rose up and then the middle sank as it cooled. It would be a great way to do it you wanted to add a cream, jelly or pudding. It would be like a little cookie cup.

Robyn went on a walk with the kiddo and I watched some YouTube videos in the livingroom. Waste of time but I was still tired from the day before, watching our niece and nephew, and doing the painting work. Did I mention I was up late working on short story the night before?

Then I roused myself and flipped the laundry and printed out the final pages of my latest novella. It was great to see how thick the stack of paper had become. It’s a good way to visualize your progress and effort.

We are currently watching the movie Begonia, and I am also typing out this blog post. It’s another odd movie that maybe had Oscar hopes. But it is enjoyable so far, if not a little quirky.

I haven’t got much reading done this last week. Something I shall have to remedy. There has been to much doom scrolling on my phone of late. Getting back to working for a living, commuting and a busy weekend might have something to do with the fatigue, the desire to flip through the phone. Or maybe its dopamine addiction?

Begonia turned out to be pretty good. I enjoyed it.

After that I put on ‘A Kight of the Seven Kingdoms’. It was the season finale, and things were getting wrapped up and ready for season 2. The only thing to complain about is the lack of episodes per season. Not sure I like all these 6-episode seasons that the streamers seem to prefer. Having said that, I did appreciate all the work that went into this show from the sets, the costumes and armor and all the little details for people who love Westeros.

It’s amazing to compare the way StarFeet Academy treats its easter eggs versus AKOTSK. No over long camera holds, or characters making sure you saw the names on the wall. I have no interest in continuing with StarFeet Academy, but I will probably watch AKOTSK again to see what things I missed the first time. And that is something many of the show runners and writers don’t seem to understand about these franchises. Keep a bit of the mystery is crucial. Remember when they explained how the force worked by introducing the concept of midichlorians. Wasn’t it better when we weren’t told that?

I think so anyway.

I’m expecting to have a very busy week at work. I have quite a few backgrounds to start thanks to the hard work of our layout team. The push at the start is going to play havoc with my writing goals, mostly due to the fact that I am too far behind. The chance of getting to the end of the month with a high enough word count still exists but it is going to take a big effort on my part. And that effort will need to be sustained until the end of the month, starting tonight. My excel sheet tells me I am about 8000 words behind as of this sentence.

All it would take is for me to write a longer short story to make up the difference. Or may be two short stories at around 4000 words each. All still possible at this point. But boy, am I going to be exhausted. This is the pattern that keeps happening. I exhaust myself getting to the finishing line, then take a couple of days to recover and then I get behind and stay behind all the way to the end where I cross the finish line exhausted once more.

I need to break the cycle.

That means tonight I have to stay up late continuing where I left off on the Knight story. I’ll need to write 1500 – 2000 words of that story to keep in the running. I’m not sure I have that kind of energy tonight, but maybe this is the whole point of doing a challenge like this, pushing yourself past your self-imposed limits. Breaking out of the confines of what you think is possible. In moments like these I am reminded of the feats of writing that my instructor routinely achieves just to because he wanted to see if he could do it.

And I endeavour to follow in those footsteps, to push myself out of my comfort zone and see what I am truly capable of, even if it means I’ll be a bit groggy all day. That’s wat naps are for aren’t they. And I am reminded that my writing instructor often goes on about the power of a good nap for his writing. So maybe it will work for me as well. I have tried an alternative method of restoration by doing what is called Deep Rest Non-Sleep meditation. It’s very similar to regular meditation, you focus only on your breath while lying down or sitting comfortably in a chair. I have only used the guided meditation I found on YouTube and found it to be very effective. The claim is that is equivalent to getting REM sleep.

So, you finish the meditation feeling refreshed and renewed with revived energy levels. And that sounds about what I need this week. I will add a reminder into my phone to take a few DRNS meditations.

I have pancake Tuesday at work this week followed by our Pizza Wednesday get together and hot tubbing. On Friday we are getting together with two other couples to eat at a restaurant chain we all love that has a new location. And I need these outings and social engagements to be happy and be human. It does mean I have ot be extra anal retentive about my writing. Sneaking in some short sessions whenever possible this week will be key, the short bursts don’t drain me in the same way as the longer sessions that require extended periods of concentration.

I am going to get up at least an hour before I need to log in to work to get a start on my writing earlier in the day. It is normal for me to write in the evenings, even when I was off work I tended to wait until the night to get started. Part of this is procrastination and the other is I am, by nature, a night owl.

Another change I have noticed since returning to work is where I am choosing to write. I have barely been down to my writing cave at all this week and that was where I was doing the majority of the work in January.

These days, I find myself sitting on the living room couch with my laptop after 11 pm. Before that I have my computer within reach of the bed and while type a bit with the TV on our while a youtube video is playing. I kind of like the idea of writing wherever I happen to be. My teachers and other writers all suggest you only write in one spot to train your mind that when you are there it is creative time. It’s supposed to make the writing easier and increase the chances of you getting into a flow state.

I hope to do this as well but train my brain that when the laptop is out, it’s writing time. I only really use the computer for writing and watching writing course videos. So far it seems to be working. And I do like writing while in bed with a show on. I don’t feel like I am missing out that way or excluding myself from being with my wife.

But the writing cave was effective. I wrote more words than ever in January, and I am sure the space I created helped with that. Joining the 2026 word per day challenge helped for sure!

And there has been a shift in my mind from writing everyday. I can feel the transformation in me. It is something I just do now, somedays more successfully than others. But it is a daily occurrence now. It never used to be this way for me. Writing was something I did in mad bursts to meet a deadline. And the deadline was king. Yet, because the deadlines were months or weeks apart, I always waited until the last day to complete the writing. Now the deadline is the end of everyday. Nothing needs to be completed, but the word count.

I do feel lucky to be in this position though. There are people out there who can’t even imagine writing two or three thousand words a day. And there are those who write two and three times as much per day who might see my struggles and laugh at it. Look at that poor guy struggling to reach 2000 words a day, I did that before my breakfast.

Maybe that will be me one of these days, so used to massive word counts that I find other peoples efforts amusing.

But alas this blog post has rambled on far too long.

Time to live in the medieval world of knights.

Until tomorrow.