Today had word count in The Dark Craptastic (July 2019)

That’s the benchmark for success, lately. Did You Write Today. And I did.

Sure, it’s stupid fluffiness, but fuck you, I guess, if you’re going to use that as a point. I’m FEMALE. I LIKE fluffiness. The touch of romance in a plot? That’s the bit I’m interested in. So what if it’s trite?

People, I haven’t had sex since the last Bush administration. I can at least live vicariously through well-written romance.

So, what was different about today?
1 - I Got Out. I left early, had a little money on me, and I had all my equipment. It’s amazing how often one or more parts of that equation are false.

2 - I found an in. Sure, it was just a Burger King, but they have decent-ish iced coffee (and it’s a dollar) and for the price of a coffee, some chicken nuggets, and a soda, they hosted me all afternoon.

3 - I had a “deadline.” Yes, I crawled back to That One Friend Who RPs. I know we keep rubbing one another the wrong way, but well, I work best when I know someone wants something I’m writing. That was NOT the piece I wrote, but just knowing SOMETHING I wrote was going to be wanted was enough to grease the birth canal for the words.

So I was reading articles on “why writers don’t write.”

My biggest drawbacks to writing regularly are:
-Space/noise - I do NOT have a designated writing space. I DO have a house full of kids and cats and noise. I can screen out some noise, yes, but I cannot ignore the “you should do this later” feeling and still write. Yes, laundry is great. SO IS WRITING. And everyone’s over 12 and knows how the damn machine works. Why am I the Source of Clean Clothes and Food now?

Then, yes, I can see why I was, then. But back then, these kids napped and I had that time....to write. Look, in 2009, when I dropped into Nanowrimo for the first time, I had three kids under 5. (Three under three if you count the autism as being several years behind, skillwise and self-entertainment-wise.) I wrote my first novel - that first 50k - twice. In a month. How? I had writing time and writing space - naptime and the family computer. In 2010, I wrote another one, and in 2011, I think I wrote two. In 2012 and 2013, I think I wrote four a year. The kids were in full day school, the potted plant (Spouse) worked out of the house.

It was the happiest time in my life. Seriously. My life’s sucked, but the regularity of it, the cash flow, the personal creativity and the housekeeping, that was the golden age of standard housewife shiz.

And then he exploded my life, bit by bit.

1. Withdrew Kitty from school, started homeschooling because she was so behind and doing so poorly socially. Writing time dwindled. Still wrote two books that year. One is my favorite. The other…is good. As in, I would pay for it, good. And I’m a picky fucking bitch.

2. All three kids at K12. He gives up working (hah, “gives up.” He got deliberately fired. Absenteeism. He racked ‘em up and then he dared them to let him go. They dared. I got fucked on that.)

First year of the Wait For It Blues (which is what I named the long ass wait for disability trials and acceptance.)

2016 was the worst year of my life. I didn’t write in 2016. I started a novel, but it blew up when Trump took over. The only good thing to come out of 2016 was ME. I rose up. I took myself back to school. I drafted the Get out of Hell Plan, which is basically “get a car, get a degree, get a job, take the kids, get an apartment, and tell your spouse to get bent.”

1. 2017 I wrote. One. Part of one, more like it. It was like crawling into the sunshine after a long time in a cave or a tunnel. I felt like I was taking the fucking benediction at church every time the words moved on the page. My life was still falling apart, but I had writing. The kids headed back to public school. (He couldn’t keep up with sending them to pre-arranged classes, nor could he be BOTHERED to get up and grade their tests - and then he was surprised that they were straight up copying answers out of the test checking section. Yep.) He got disability. I realized that I can’t turn back on the GOOH plan.

Not and live. And even when I injure myself, I…want to live.

1. I graduated from community college (nobody came, nobody gave a shit) and I got into university, which surprised the shit out of me. I wrote one novel part, my first sequel, and it got me through my dad’s death, Stan Lee’s death (weirdly difficult, possibly because Daddy died the same week) and university finals, which were not terribly stressful, actually, although I sure as fuck stressed about them.

It’s 2019. I tried for an April camp novel, but I couldn’t rise to it. I let it go. Finals came like a wave, I had like eleven papers from April til mid-May.

And now it’s summer. Summer is traditionally the worst season here, because Spouse has literally gone to the hospital psych ward because he happened to be sweating. * Yes. Really. *I have no fucking knives in my kitchen (fine I have a paring knife) because they called home from St. Joe’s and asked if I could please get rid of the knives so my husband would stop “having dreams he’s cutting himself.” (This was 2016. I STILL have just the one decent knife.)

(And a Cuisinart.) (Which I bought in 2006.)

Most summers, Spouse spends at least a week in the psych ward. USUALLY, this leaves me stranded at home, with special needs children, and whatever the fuck is in the freezer and fridge for food. For a week. While he calls and tells us how much he misses us, which is possibly code for “Damn I love air conditioning and food brought to my bed.”

This year, I have a motherfucking Ford. Vroom vroom, motherfucker. YOUR MOVE BITCH.

Strangely, he’s doing “fine.” Damn. And I was looking forward to having the tv to myself for a week. I’d like to see Good Omens.

Where was I? I wrote today, I guess.

And tomorrow’s The Last Day of the Month, which means it looks like we survived another one (and it was bad in places.)
It’s about time to lay on my little floorcot and think my happy thought:

Someday I’ll be motherfucking free of you. But for right now, you aren’t taking the best part of me.