Down In Atlantis

If I haven't been blogging as much as I want to lately, it's only because I'm trying to break out of my weird writer's block. I have plenty of projects to work on, but I'm not sure if I'm in the right place, so I have to force myself to sit down and hammer out words every day, and most days I'm only hitting 500 or so before I call it quits. For comparison, I usually hit 4k a day at least while I'm in the middle of a project.

But that's not what's really depressing me. The fact that nothing ever changes has been what's depressing me. The fact that I live in the middle of nowhere with little human contact is what's been depressing me.

At least now it's summer. I deactivated my Facebook the other night, and I think I'm going to spend a lot of the next two months taking daily walks down to the river or other nice little areas around my house.

Back in summer 2015 me and Kuma were out running the roads a lot, and it felt like where I was supposed to be and everything was okay and the future looked good, so I'm trying to get back to that, because lately most days when I picture my future there's nothing but suicide or a big black blur. We walked to a nearby lake one day back then, and it took three hours but it was so worth it.

And now I can't believe it's been two whole years, that it's 2017, and I'm in the same place. We were planning so many big things back then that never happened, and I'm worried to let myself start living or planning things again when I know that those hopes might just crumble too.

I'm trying to keep my head down and work my way through whatever this funk is, and at least come out on the other side of it with a heightened wordcount. But it's been hard.

Which is why this blog has been drying up.

That, and I spend most of my days inside, sitting at the same spot, and don't have much to talk about. Like I said, though - winter is gone, and with the nice weather here maybe I won't be such a hermit.

Another big problem that keeps me from, you know, being me, is that every day I convince myself I'm dying of a terrible disease. I wake up like, "Oh my god, I think I have bone cancer!" And everybody else is like, "Kai, shut the fuck up."

And they are probably right.

But logic does not apply to the mass of writhing black gunk, toxins, and mental illness that is my brain. Meaning I spend my day imagining symptoms and worrying for nothing.

Or maybe I'm right, and one day soon I'll keel over of some undiagnosed monster tumor or something and you'll all be like, "We should have listened!" Either way, we're all cool. I am at peace with the void. Or if not peace, then like, a level of familiarity where the void and I could go shopping together without a third friend to be the buffer and it wouldn't be awkward, you know?

#TightWithTheVoid

Outside of all the gross personal stuff, I've been drinking as much coffee as I was before I said I wanted to try quitting caffeine. I'm still sleeping weird hours. I'm still outlining more projects than I can possibly write.

My brother really wants me to go see his new house, to the extent that he's holding my birthday gift hostage there, but I honestly never get a chance to go. I probably won't go until he gets a dog, and then I'll never go back again because I'm not welcome, because I tried to steal his dog, even though I have three of my own.

Although we may have to put our dog, Kota, down--she's really old, and her back legs are going and have been getting worse and worse for months.

Honestly, once I move out on my own I don't think I'll own pets. If I do, it will be like, a goldfish or two. That's it. Animals get too close to you and then they die. And they shed all over your house and keep you sneezing daily.

I'd love a little puggle, but I don't think I'd be a good pet owner on my own. Especially in the city...I wouldn't want to walk a dog at like 3 in the morning in the winter months. Plus I have strings of days where I don't shower, or brush my teeth, and I can't get out of bed, and I walk around in three-day-old pajamas with tangled hair and hiss at anybody who tries to talk to me. I don't know if the responsibility would be great for me, and I'm not one of those people who thinks the mere presence of a furry body is going to magically induce a cure for my mental illness or personal problems.

I think most animals are a lot of work, and I'm still trying to work out how to exist as a human, let alone a responsible adult. So. No pets. If I can show the self-restraint not to impulse buy a rabbit or some shit...

Aside from the threat of me someday coming home with a tortoise or a hamster I don't know how to properly care for, the most pressing issue for me has been my lack of finished work. We're just under halfway through the year and I still haven't finished a single book. I've barely done any work on the new edition of Iceblood, I just realized that Deadheart is going to be a four book saga instead of a duology (if I want to do the story justice, at least) and I'm feeling overwhelmed.

I also haven't been reading much at all, because nothing can catch my attention. Last night I finally gave up and started rereading Switched by Amanda Hocking, which is an old comfort read. (I think I've read the Trylle Trilogy six times since the first time I finished them in eighth grade, honestly.)

There really is never enough time. Especially not when I spend it blogging instead of peeing, making more coffee, or writing a chapter, all of which I have to do right now. So that's that.

Later :)