Eight Months in a Time Vortex

Once upon a time there was a young woman who was planning an epic novel of epicness. It was going to follow a master plot and be high fantasy. It was going to be amazing and the dragon was going to cooperate.

Zap.

Yeah, it didn't quite go as planned.

My last post was on November 18th. Just days after an intial diagnosis and confirmed diagnosis for my sister. Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Yes, that type of leukemia. The one that requires a bone marrow transplant. And chemo. And radiation. And blood transfusions and immunosuppressants and steroids and tremors and rashes and blood clots.

That cancer.

That C word.

The type of leukemia that typicallys trikes those under the age of five or over the age of 64.

The type of leukemia that doesn't have 10 year survival statistics because it usually affects those under the age of five or over the age of 64.

The type of cancer that the treatment is just as likely to kill you as the disease itself.

The type of cancer that, more than a few times, almsot tool the life of my sister this year.

We made it through Christmas. And I can barely remember those first few weeks of my job. Aside from the random outbursts of tears while standing in the bathroom inside my boss's house. Every day I told myself to go to work just one more day. Because learning a new job while jumping every time your phone buzzes is an impossible task.

I now have the bad habit of sleeping with my phone under my pillow because fever spikes and respiratory problems made me too afraid to sleep without it literally next to my face.

We spent months and months planning a giant fundraising effort which is now, finally, over.

I feel like I can breathe again, maybe just a little.

Everything has different meaning now, though. I watch Fantastic Beasts and I remember brushing my sister's hair because she was too tired to do it herself. Crying because she would lose that beautiful hair. Crying at the Warner Brothers logo because I thought, "what if this is the last time she and I get to do Harry Potter stuff together."

Bawling in the book store because the last time I had visited was for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child's book release party and she was the person I could convinvce to go with me.

Crying at songs on the radio.

Sobbing when it all just seemed too unfair.

I stopped writing. First I stopped my pleasure writing because everything that came out of me was just too heavy and depressing. I was too close to a real life crisis to be able to put effort into a fantasy world.

Then I stopped content writing because I couldn't make deadlines. My sister's health changed on a whim and If ound myself too distracted and too busy (sometimes just sitting at the hospital) to give it the attention it deserved.

I don't know when, or if, I will start content writing again, but yesterday, after an 8 month hiatus, I wrote. Today I will again.

My sister is cancer free and on the mend. We can only help it continues this way.

NaNo On Hold

I don't think I have many readers. That's ok. This is a good place for me to get my feelings and thoughts out anyway. We are 12 days away from the end of NaNo and the likelihood of me "winning" is pretty slim. I am at just under 18,000 words. I haven't written more than 800 words in the past week because my sister was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. She spent the past week at The James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, which is about a two hour drive from her home (about the same for me too). They think they caught it early. She's home for the next 12 days to take a clinical trial pill and then back to The James for four weeks (maybe three if everything goes well) for chemotherapy. Then home to rest and try to stay healthy. If she goes into remission after one round of chemo, she needs a bone marrow transplant in March or April. This is the only way to cure her cancer right now. She has an abnormality or a mutation on her 11th chromosome, which is why she qualifies for the clinical trial. They have seen great success with the trial in the past year, but since they don't have 5-7 year outlooks yet (it's too new of a drug) they have to do the chemo and transplant too.
She's being really tough. She's hanging in there. We are all trying to as well. She will be home for Thanksgiving but not Christmas, which will be unbelievably hard.
So I may have time to write just to take my mind off things, but right now my free time is spent decompressing, working on fundraising efforts, helping my parents with the dogs or whatever else they need as they care for her, support her or take her to the doctor...and of course, just spending time with my sister and the rest of the family. I will take another NaNo challenge some other time, but right now it just has to fall by the wayside.  

World Building to World Crashing

I've been busy world-building this week. It's going ok, but I find myself struggling with my plot (and I had so many great ideas too). But the past week or so I have been a little distracted. My sister has been under the weather for a few weeks. Colds and general malaise. Then sores on her body that turned out to be a staph infection. Then her blood counts were all much too low.
We knew that it was probably something scary. We were just hoping it wasn't the big scary C word.
Unfortunately it is.
Today my mom called me at work to tell me that my sister had been given an initial diagnosis of leukemia. She's already down in Columbus at the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University. It's one of the best places to seek cancer treatment, so she's in good hands.
It's crazy how fast it all happened. Yesterday I was world building. At 12:30 p.m. my own world felt like it was crumbling. By 5:30 my sister was situated in completely different world in the cancer hospital. Her room has a great view of the campus and the horseshoe (go Bucks). I will go down and see her tomorrow, but it's all a little surreal still.
I want to continue NaNo as an outlet for my stress, fears and anxiety, but it may be hard to reach my 50,000 words now.

A Strange October and the Start of NaNo

So I haven't updated you in a while. That's because on top of being a Harry Potter nerd and a NaNoWriMo nut, I'm also an avid Cleveland Indians fan. I've been pretty confident all season that they would make the playoffs. They did.
They've also won big.
So I spent all of October watching them win. First against Kansas City to clinch homefield in the divisional seasons. Then I watched them sweep Boston. Then I watched them take down Toronto in five games. Now the post season is bleeding into October. I wanted the Indians to win it on Sunday in Chicago. They've won everything else on the road, why not the World Series. Plus Sunday was October 30th, meaning it would give me one last day of prep for NaNo if I was done watching baseball. Nope. Then last night the Indians lost game 6. Which means I got behind on day one of NaNoWriMo. So today while my nephew kind of sort of napped (read: he didn't want to nap) I caught up on my writing. I managed to get 3,669 words down in Scrivener so I am on track to finish the 50,000 on time.
As you know I am also following the Master Plan over at Better Novel Project. That fine site also released some NaNo tips so I'm working on them as well. Today I tackled chapter one, which was supposed to include introducing and describing the hero and introducing the villain. I also introduced the wise one and the herald and I wasn't supposed to do either of those things until chapter 2. I also messed up some of the other elements and have about 300 words with strikethrough already. So rewrites will happen without even really getting started (next month of course).
Overall it was a strange start to a November.
And that's without mentioning the 77 degree weather!
The good news is, tonight is the last night of baseball (I said good news, I meant it's tragic, even if my Tribe wins the trophy). So that means the rest of November is mine to tackle!

Transforming the Back Bedroom

All right guys. I did it. Well, I almost did it.
What I mean is the back bedroom is almost ready to be my very own writing space. My sister came over yesterday to help me clean out and clean up our back bedroom. This is the rom we put things we don't want to deal with. This is the room that old Christmas boxes or wrapping paper go to collect dust. When I have packaging to a small appliance or similar object, the paperwork and container go to live here until the next time I clean out the room.
As such the room becomes a disaster area. I probably last cleaned out that room at Christmas? So we are 10 months into operation look like a hoarder.
My sister and I took a box of large trash bags and threw away junk we didn't need or that was broken. We also sorted many things into a garage sale pile. Goodwill or another thrift store will also be receiving a hefty donation.
Also, last summer my parents' basement flooded and some boxes of keepsakes were thrust upon me. I guess I can't store my stuff at my parents' house forever. Those items finally found homes and were stored properly.
Here is what the room looked like as a disaster zone. Please don't judge me.

 Half of this was empty boxes. The other half were clothes that needed donating. Some of it was also three or four very large items surrounded by empty boxes and clothese that needed donating.
Several hours later we were left with a space that looked more like humans live there.

As you can see the space is much, much better. I still need to oragnize my desk (the cream colored one in the corner) and our printer cart. My husband's desk is the wood one against the wall next to the closet. It's a hopeless mess of Transformers figurines and Mustang magazines. I am not even going to bother with it. But now I can access all of my pretty books (not pictured ona a huge floor to ceiling bookcase on the opposite wall) and soon I will have my writing space ready to go! Bring on NaNoWriMo 2016

What do you think of my progress? Please don't judge my pre-cleaning disaster area photos!

Gearing up for NaNoWriMo

The first day of autumn is this Thursday and all of the changing leaves, Halloween candy and clear blue skies make me think of NaNoWriMo. I am erally excited about this year's novel. It's probably the most prepared I have ever felt for a NaNo event. I haven't planned too much about the plot yet, but I have lots of ideas jotted down in journals and Google sheets and documents full of links, names and stray thoughts. 

There is other prep work happening too. When NaNo comes around I tend to get too busy to eat correctly or do important things like laundry and dishes. I am slowly making the time and effort to clean out the fridge and cupboards to stock with easy to make foods, snacks and fresh new tupperware containers just waiting for my leftovers. 

Don't ask me about the back room, however.

It still looks exactly like it did three weeks ago when I declared I would spend the next 60 days cleaning it out and organizing it.

That will hopefully happen in September.

Yours truly,

The Procrastinating Hufflepuff Writer

When Your Writing Doesn't Cut It

Hello fellow writers! If you have ever written creatively, or for a living in less creative outlets, then you know where there are some days when your writing just doesn't make the cut. When none of the words come easy and none of it is very good.

I have those days when I'm writing creatively. I usually just mark it up to writer's block. But sometimes it's just me fighting where the story is taking me. When it happens in my content writing, however, it's a whole other issue. Writer's block typically doesn't affect my content writer because the company I work for provides the topics. What does happen, however, is writing fatigue.

When I spend eight or nine hours in a day writing articles that all feel the same, it's can be difficult to  keep my writing up to standard. My hands start to hurt. My eyes start to hurt. My back begins to ache and I'm usually hungry. None of this is conducive to quality writing. Sometimes what I write is boring and mundane, but that doesn't always bother me.

This week it bothered me. And my writing scores showed that it bothered me. It's frustrating, but it's understandable and it happens to everyone and anyone who writes for a living. If you lose focus and get bored, you make mistakes or miss important steps.

So here are some tips for avoiding fatigue that I need to do a better job of following too:

Take a break at least once every hour.

This is important because it's good to give your eyes, wrists and back a break when you're sitting at a computer. Even if it's just five minutes of standing and stretching or going to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Stay hydrated.

Writing might not be a sport, but you would do well to take a page out of an athlete's book. Staying hydrated while writing is important because it is a) good for you and b) helps you avoid cramps. It's easy to fall into a rhythm and forget to drink any water while you're writing for an hour, two hours or eight hours.

Change up what you're writing.

This can be a tough one when you write content like me. So write a couple similar articles then move on to one of a different length, with a different tone or on a different topic. This breaks up the monotony and helps you see mistakes later on when your eyes are more fresh.

I know I need to be better about following these tips myself when I'm writing for work. It can be easy to ignore my growling stomach or throbbing head when I have "just one more article to write."

What are some things you do to avoid writing fatigue when you're writing boring stuff for work?