Weekly Update #169

Blagh, I say. I fucked up by not taking a couple days off, instead writing every day for the past 12 days without giving my brain a chance to rest. I wanted to try and get back on track, and I was doing really good (in my opinion), but then some more drama related to my grandma happened around Thursday. Basically, my mum's workplace is making her go back to work on the 1st of next month when she's been working from home for over a year now. Unless she can somehow get permission to work from home, I'm going to be on solo fulltime caretaker duty for my grandma, and she was nowhere near as bad as she is now the last time I had to take care of her by myself. The last time I had to take care of my grandma by herself, all I really had to do was make sure she took her pills and help her whenever she got confused. But now, she's constantly losing time and getting confused, can't go to the bathroom on her own anymore, has to be checked on every single time she makes even a little bit of noise to make sure she's not doing anything she shouldn't be doing, can no longer feed herself or even get water for herself, etc. We can't afford to put her in a home, nobody else will help us, and we can't even hire a part-time "babysitter" for her or anything because that would still be too expensive.

My mum is currently working with the HR department at her work to try and get permission to stay working from home, and we've also got an appointment with a social worker who specializes in the elderly with mental illnesses and stuff to try and resolve the situation with my other grandparents having that trust for my grandma but not releasing it. But the news of all this kind of killed my creative mood for a couple of days, which really fuckin' sucked since I felt like I was on a really good streak and on track to get everything done by Friday while also writing more than usual. But of course, something new had to pop up to ruin things.

I'm sure things will work out. I don't know how they're going to work out, but I'm doing my best to stay positive. I do want to say, though, that I'm not like... depressed or anything. So please don't worry about me. I'm fine. I'm still overall happier now than I have been. It's just that I'm struggling with the creative side of things. It's times like this when I miss having a non-creative job. When I worked in fast food or that one factory job I had (which only lasted for a short time since I was hired for the holiday rush and then laid off without that ever being part of the plan), those jobs were way fucking worse for my mental health. Fast food in particular made me depressed from how much I hated that job and hated waking up every day to go and deal with its bullshit. But, I was still damn good at my job, did it with a smile without ever making mistakes, and just had to follow simple orders for 8 hours a day. No matter how shitty I felt, I was still able to excel at my job because I didn't need to think about it. I just had to do it. I miss that sometimes. Just being able to turn my brain off to focus on simple tasks no matter how bad I felt or how uninspired I was. But with writing, I seriously struggle to do it unless I'm in a good mood without anything mentally distracting me.

But yeah. Between not taking a day or two off and and then the situation related to my grandma, I got burnt out for the week. I tried writing TTT last night and now I've had it open all day just... sort of staring at it on the screen, but I haven't been able to write more than a few sentences for it. I'll make sure it's the first thing I write once I take a couple of days off to give my brain a chance to rest. Then again, by the time I'm done resting is when we'll hopefully get some news about the remote work stuff and also when we'll be dealing with the social worker. But even if the outcome of those tries to lower my spirits, I'll at least have a rested brain to write with.

Anyways, if you bothered reading that, thanks! I know it might sound weird, but venting about all this stuff serves as like... not just me trying to be transparent about why my schedule is the way it is, but it also makes me feel better about everything. I don't like to bottle stuff up until it explodes on its own. So, I appreciate you for putting up with me and letting me vent to you like this as if you're my therapist.

Now! Time for memes 'nd things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZmB5ABV0aI

https://youtu.be/0TNCYsMrvGo

https://youtube.com/watch?v=AP1d1mOCLsI&feature=share

Weekly Worksheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1adwz_Ad9CW-H4egvbpAIqNumnH45x9tl/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110960644416608383305&rtpof=true&sd=true

16,862 words and 18 hours.

The True Endgame

Saya's seduction arc has begun and has already failed to go according to plan! As for how Saya handles Serra on all on her onw, we'll see with the next chapter! Meanwhile, Fenrir will be putting up with Tabitha's demanding orders as he's the one giving her such a tall request to construct.

I should also mention the ferrets next chapter so that people are reminded that they exist.

Ero Dungeon Online

Only one more chapter to finish up this volume and to settle things with Akorya's bully arc! Though, the conflict has already been settled. Now it's just time for the aftermath of it. And by the aftermath of it, I mean time for Damian, Lily, and Akorya to be cute together.

Lazy Dragon Queen

Writing a Valkyria chapter is nice in the same way that writing a Thera in EDO chapter is nice. They're not really similar characters at all, but they still sort of give the same feeling to me. An important character who steals the spotlight whenever she's brought up, but isn't always around. Anyways, I'm sure she'll be properly joining the harem before much longer!

The Dungeon Hound

Ah, how I couldn't resist bringing back some of the discussions on social issues that the first attempt at the series had. These are always fun to write. It's also fun to write Woofen getting to just relax in bed with naked women around him. The only thing missing is even more naked women, right? Gotta make sure that he has a whole harem to fill up the bed with.

The Tentacles' Tavern

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4X

The only reason I don't feel worse about not posting more 4X chapters this week to do them daily was because I posted a dump of 3 chapters that would have lasted until the end of the week had I spread them out. So, I released as much as I wanted to at the minimum, just at once rather than spreading them out. That's fine by me.

That aside, Humankind came out! I've been looking forward to this game for a long time. It... was a huge disappointment at first. Now, after trying to relax by playing it for over twenty hours, I'm beginning to really get into it and enjoy it. It has its issues and has required me getting into a completely different mindset than what I had going into it, but I like it now, and it's giving me lots of ideas for how I can refine some of this story's systems!

In Closing

I'm going to go to sleep here in a little bit. In fact, I just was asleep. I got on the bed with my dogs to take a quick break from typing this up back when it was still yesterday. But now, here I am, it's no longer yesterday. So, when I wake up, my little break begins. Just two days. Today and tomorrow. Then I'm going to do my best to bust my ass writing starting on Wednesday. But until Wednesday comes around, I'm giving my brain a chance to relax and restore its creative juices. It's not a hentai girl who needs mindbroken. Gotta treat it with a bit more care than that.

That being said, you know this is the part where I thank you for your continued support, apologize again for missing TTT, and tell you to look forward to this week's chapters.

Thank you once again for your  continued patronage! Also thanks for being my therapist by letting me vent to all of you--or rather, to whoever of you actually read this. I'm sorry for missing TTT last week, but I'll do my best to make it up to you this week! With that, please look forward to this week's chapters, and I hope that you all have a great week in general!