Going to try to do more embroidery this month to distract me from NaNo approaching.

Haven't done any more icons, but I'm doing embroidery again after many years. Counted cross stitch, a white water lily. It's going well, although I've got one section that's off by a line so I'm having to compensate for that. And my frame isn't quite wide enough so I'll have to start working in the hand sooner or later. Then of course there's the issue of not having all of the colours I need, not being confident enough to do the stitches that have two different colours, and various other things.
It's worth it though. The focus of it blocks everything else out, but it's not intense or difficult.

Tags: embroidery
Current Mood: content

(Text: lyrics from Mistakes and Ladders - Gyroscope; Image: Julia from Cowboy Bebop)

Tags: iconing
Current Music: Mistakes and Ladders - Gyroscope

Made more Necrology progress, this time more than just its concept. Changes will occur in the timeframe and the level of zombie activity, and other stuff. Distraction occurred before I could work out details, but tomorrow will be soon enough for that.

Also, I need more icons. That can wait till the weekend though.

Making some progress with the Necrology planning, though mostly just in the way I'm approaching it. I realised that the dreams are the constant in one way or another with everything else causing or being caused by them. So now I'm working my outline so each chapter starts with a dream or the aftermath of one. May get reworked in the edit, but for the time being it gives me some sort of structure to work with. And some idea of when I'm trying to make too many things happen.
Hopefully I'll be ready for NaNo on the planning side of things. Still waits to be seen how I'll go wtih the actual prose. I suppose between now and then I should be working on that as well, probably with prompt responses.

Been a looong time.

Since my last post I've gotten a job (full-time admin) which I'm loving to death. Very small office (6 staff, only 3 full-time) and everyone's great to work with, plus because of the bus I need to get there I'm almost always first there by about 40 minutes, which I use to read or write. Money's good enough that I can contemplate moving out on my own, although I'm going to save up for another year to cover set-up costs and emergency buffer.

In writing news, I've been as unfaithful to my stories as ever, although I'm proud to say that Necrology (previously known as Death Dreams) is still alive and kicking. At the moment actual writing is on hold in favour of planning, since I plan to use this year's NaNoWriMo to get it written start to finish. I'm hoping that between the planning and the pressure to write through I'll be able to get an editable draft.

I'm also finally cleaning my room, which has been rearranged a number of times in the last seven months. There'll be a couple of slight changes when the cleaning is done, but I think this time I have it.

All in all, life is good.

I'm tired. Technically I woke up 12 hours ago, but considering the 6 hours or less before that were spent falling asleep and waking up repeatedly, I'm inclined to say I've been up since... um... possibly the day before that, sometime in the afternoon. Over 24 hours. With a patch of varied consciousness to make it more fun. I should be asleep now, but I'm worried about insomnia, so I keep procrastinating. I figure it doesn't count as not being able to sleep if you don't try in the first place.

The stories are going well in the sense that I'm working on one or both every day. Not so well in the sense that I keep struggling to get more than a hundred words written each time. Though that's largely because the weather is throwing my sleep pattern off and my usually great writing times are also the times I start to fall asleep at the desk.

Icons have been neglected in the general lack of awakeness.

Current Mood: drained

Comment if taking, credit nice but not required.

My first batch for my obsessive100. It was meant to be my second batch, but I got distracted from the other one, so meh. I'll get to it sooner or later.

I'm not sure if not much has been happening or if I've just been too lazy to post here. I know I went to the city the other day with my sister-in-law, which was great fun despite my freak-outs at leaving the house, and I've been writing.

The writing hasn't been as much as I'd like, and I had several days of stalling because Soulmates refused to get off the starting line properly. However it's going okay at the moment, and I had some ideas to get Death Dreams going again. Here's hoping I can stay focussed on them. Or at least get enough done that losing focus doesn't hurt too much.

Anyway, here's a snip from Soulmates.

PLEASE NOTE: The following is copyrighted. Don't repost or quote anywhere or in any format. Do feel free to send others here to read it if you like. Thanks.

( Soulmates )

Tags: icons, writing
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: The Siren - Nightwish

Slept from midnight to midday, napped from 2-3pm, and slept from 8-11.30pm. That's what, 7 hours awake? I'm impressed. I don't think I've ever slept that much in a single 24 hour period.

Didn't manage to get much done while I was awake of course. Mostly just pottered around on the forums and pretended to do things. Resisted the urge to go back to bed for the most part. Did clean my desk though, all but the lowest level, dusting and everything. Need to remember to not make it messy so often to begin with.

If I'm going to stay up though I should probably get something done. I'm just not sure what. Probably not writing, since I tend not to write well when tired. Iconing perhaps. Want to finish my first set of icons for my Obsessive100 sooner rather than later.

Current Mood: calm

I cleaned the study today. Like, really cleaned it. Stopped myself dusting every inch or anything like that, but almost.

I went through the stacks of papers that my mother had dumped against one wall in the theory that she'd get to it eventually. Dusted each piece (seriously, it had to be done) and restacked them neatly. Somewhere between 7 and 10 stacks all up, some loose, some already boxed. Boxed up one of the stacks, since boxes are easier to deal with. Then I swept up the dust that had gathered. Then it occurred to me that I could drag my spare cupboard in and shove the boxes in there. First though I had to do some rearranging. So I moved the stacks from where they were, and dragged the filing cabinet over to that spot, sweeping as I went. Then my desk moved closer to the corner to make room for the cupboard, and the boxes went into that spot. Since I have to clean my own room enough to get the cupboard out. More sweeping with that part. Then I took the dog's bedding down to be washed, and came back to sweep properly.

It took about 5 hours.

Technically I'm going out tomorrow, but I think I might bail since it'll be in the afternoon and I'll either be wanting to go to bed or be exhausted from having slept. I do want to go, but if I'm going to be half-collapsing I'd rather do it at home.

I'd like my sleep patterns back please.

If I don't go out there's a good chance I'll clean my room. We'll see.

Tags: cleaning
Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Pure Morning - Placebo