Waiting for the other ball to drop

Honestly, 2023 is a year I’m not sorry to see the end of (hence my actually writing my year-end post before the calendar turns, for once). This was the year my health took a nosedive. The cancer was only the most dramatic issue; I had plenty other concerns that ranged from inconvenient to frustrating to affecting daily life.

But you’re not here to read me whinging about medical concerns, so let me move on to the rundown of this year.

Reading: I met my goal of reading 30 books this year in early October and have reached 38. Read several fun books, checked off a few that had been on the TBR for a while, and finally read books from some author friends I’ve met over the years. I also started diving into the many ebooks I’ve collected over the years. Mostly, the free downloads from authors I’m not familiar with have not grabbed me; I DNFed fourteen books on Kindle alone, mostly quite early in, but a few between 50-75% completed. No five-star reads this year. Top book: I’ll call it a tie between Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse and Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan.

Writing: The big news here is that I completed the Sisters of Chaos trilogy with the release of Elderra’s Champion in June. While there are still a few short stories and a novella or two from the same world that I wouldn’t mind getting out, I’m quite happy to move on. That said, radiation tanked my motivation and I haven’t done much writing in the second half of this year. I did start a new (standalone) novel, but haven’t quite gotten traction on it yet, nor have I managed to finish some of the short stories I started or have been developing. I’ll have to just sit down and make myself write at some point, but I’ve been focusing on other hobbies of late.

Art: Although I did very little art for fun, I did enjoy the excuses I had to play with new/rarely-used media. I’ve also finally cleaned off my art table so it can once more be used for its intended purpose, and picked up some supplies that I’ve considered for a long time. (In other words, I may finally be a kneaded eraser convert.) I’ve been more into art the last month or so of this year, particularly since I got an early Christmas gift of an iPad, an Apple Pencil, and Clip Studio Paint Pro. I have really been enjoying that combination and hope to have a rather fancy new piece to share before end of day tomorrow.

Video games: The stress/exhaustion of radiation had me enjoying these a bit more this year, particularly The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which I sank over 270 hours into, more than any other game I’ve played. I think I still added more games than I completed, but I did play (or at least attempt) a couple I’ve been considering for a while and have delved into the Kingdom Hearts universe. Working on KH2 at the moment and am interested enough to spend the money to add the games I don’t have. As a fan of Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, and other non-connected/non-linear game series, I’m finding the ongoing storyline quite interesting. Top game: Tears of the Kingdom, of course.

Music: Another hobby that suffered the lack of time and motivation from the cancer treatment. I’ve even cancelled my subscription to the app I was using to learn guitar, piano, and ukulele. Still interested in learning them, but not prioritizing it.

TV/Movies: …yeah, I think I’m done with these. Attempted to watch a couple shows but just not interested enough to sit down and do it. Watched a couple new movies at others’ behest and felt very meh about them. I don’t even want to re-watch the movies and shows I used to enjoy all the time. I’d rather spend my time doing one of the above instead.

Photography: Continues to fall off, with possibly the fewest pictures taken this year since I first got a digital camera twenty years ago (with its all of 2 megapixel resolution and maybe 64 MB memory card). That said, if I don’t need the telephoto lens, my phone camera does a pretty fine job with photos, getting crisp colours, higher resolution photos than my DSLR, and some fantastic picture modes including portraits, panoramas, slow motion and time-lapse video, and built-in 3X optical zoom. So I am still flexing my photography skills (beyond funny cat pictures). I’m just terrible at sharing them.

In a nutshell? Well, cancer defined a significant portion of my year. While some interests did languish and perhaps I did more passive hobbies like reading and playing video games, I’m not disappointed with my productivity this year.

As for 2024, well. I swore off resolutions years ago, but I think I’m even going to eschew goals for most endeavours this year. I will indulge playing instruments, watching TV, baking, and more if I feel like it. It would be nice to have a new book ready by the end of the year, but I’ll let inspiration with writing, and art, flow as it will.

I do these things for fun, after all. Perhaps that should be my goal for 2024: just enjoy myself.

…although I’ll still set another goal of reading 30 books this year.

Is he strong? Listen, bud…

I’ve had people requesting updates on my cancer treatment, so I thought I’d give one here.

For those who only follow this blog, I spoke prematurely when I said that my diagnosis was not going to be a significant impact on my health: shortly after I made my previous post, the doctors decided that I needed radiation.

There’s… a lot I could say about it. (I got a “So you have cancer” packet of pamphlets and information from the hospital. It’s half an inch thick. I summarized the important parts in a notes file on my phone, which is still three pages long.) Side effects, things I have to do, measures (and medicines) I might need to take, what I need to have on me at all times, how to cope physically and mentally, and on and on.

However, I doubt most people are interested in the minutiae, so I’ll just paint a picture of what radiotherapy looks like.

When I’m called back from the waiting room in the second basement, I take a brief walk to the treatment room, which doesn’t look much different from any other hospital procedure room. I don’t change into a gown; an open-collared shirt suffices for where I’m getting the radiation. I recite my birth date, the radiation therapists ask how I’m getting on, if I have any new side effects, I take off my mask and glasses and such, and lie down on the treatment table, which, in the way of hospitals, is about the size and comfort level of an ironing board.

About a month ago, I had a CT scan during which a mesh mask was custom-fitted to me, by heating it up and having nurses press it down to conform it to my face and neck. It now has holes cut out for my eyes and mouth, as well as the treatment area, and the radiation therapists strap me down to the table with it. (It both prevents one from moving during the treatment and helps to pinpoint the location of the radiation.)

A gel pack is positioned over the treatment area to catch any stray ions, gaps between that and the mask are stuffed with paper, and after the therapists trade some medical jargon, they leave the room to the sound of an extremely digital clock tone. (You know, the classic bell song, like Big Ben makes on the hour?) Sometimes, the therapists need to come back in to make some adjustments to the gel pack or padding. Then, the large machine that dominates about a third of the room, all plastic and indecipherable screens, rotates a couple arms around me while I lie there. I feel nothing.

They play music in the room, usually oldies (as I begrudgingly admit the songs of my childhood are now). The actual treatment time takes about as long as “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

That’s it. The full session takes fifteen minutes, and the radiation department operates like a well-oiled machine. My appointments have never been late, and even when I am, I’m taken in quickly.

I started treatment two weeks ago, every weekday, and have now completed 1/3 of the course. So far, I haven’t had much in the way of side effects. I had a sore throat for a little while last Saturday, terrible dry mouth the following day, and had a headache after getting home from today’s treatment. I’m also getting quite tired at least once during the day, but it’s difficult to tell whether that’s new fatigue or the same that I’ve been fighting for the past few years. I haven’t needed the medicated mouthwash I was given for pain, let alone the liquid morphine.

However, the side effects are supposed to worsen as treatment progresses, and will continue to worsen or at least remain as bad for a few weeks after the treatment has ended, so I’m bracing myself for worse. On the bright side, radiation treatment has come a long way even in the last twenty years, so some aspects shouldn’t be as bad. I shouldn’t lose my hair, as an example.

The good news? It’s critical to maintain one’s weight during radiation therapy, so even if it becomes hard to eat, I have full permission to subsist on ice cream and add calories to other easy-to-swallow foods. Also, on a more personal level, I’ve been given a lot more leeway to play video games.

Ten days down, twenty to go. I got this.

The Big News

^{* This is just a stock photo. My blood pressure tends to be on the low side.}

UPDATE June 29: It seems I spoke too soon when I said that this wouldn’t be a significant impact on my health.

It’s been an interesting spring. But let’s start a little earlier than that.

When I moved to Canada eighteen years ago, I’d had a lump in the base of my neck for a few years. I’d managed to ask a nurse at Planned Parenthood about it before I left the States, but there wasn’t much else I could afford to do about it. So, I anxiously awaited the day I attained permanent residence and could then get a health card.

The family doctor I got examined the lump and figured it wasn’t anything to worry about, but since I was concerned, he went ahead and referred me to a specialist who removed it. The biopsy afterwards identified it as a myxoma, a benign tumour that usually appears in the heart—in fact, I couldn’t find any information online about myxomas that weren’t in the heart. Weird, but it was gone.

Fast forward ten years or so. Another lump formed in the same place, right next to the scar from the previous surgery. I dawdled on getting our current family doctor to look at it. When I pointed it out, however, she immediately referred me to an ENT. Last December, I finally saw said specialist, who ordered a biopsy.

The fine needle biopsy was inconclusive. A bigger needle biopsy was ordered, with local freezing and an incision to try and get deeper into said lump. At the time (while I cringed from the pressure being put on the area beneath the freezing), the doctor performing the aspiration said that it just looked like scar tissue to him.

Great.

However, a couple weeks later, the ENT confirmed that there was evidence it was another myxoma, and I had it surgically removed… again.

Two weeks later, I had my follow-up, everything looked good, though the pathologist who biopsied the removed tissue found the myxoma strange (because yes?) and wanted permission to send a sample to Mt. Sinai hospital in Toronto for a second opinion. I could only smirk at that, especially after researching myxomas fresh and the only mention I could find of them appearing outside the heart was in a scholarly article published several years after my surgery which stated that those happened primarily in seniors and once removed didn’t recur.

How fun! I’m so special I’m a case study!

9:00 that night I get a phone call from the ENT. The pathologist called her back to let her know that it was not, in fact, a myxoma.

It was cancer.

Insert record scratch noise here. And cue the longest week of my life.

To be clear: this is a slow growing, very treatable type of cancer. It is not a countdown timer on my life, it’s not even a significant impact on my health (this type of cancer doesn’t really respond to chemotherapy so that’s not in the cards at all; surgery is the primary treatment method).

That said, the words you have cancer hit like a sledgehammer.

It’s like depression: it colours everything you do; it’s always lingering at the back of your mind, ready to tear apart your happiness at the worst moment; everything suddenly seems so much more urgent, yet so much more difficult; it makes it hard to sleep and even eat; it jumps in with intrusive thoughts no matter what’s on your mind (yes, but you have cancer). Reading about how treatable and non-aggressive this type of cancer is is very different from knowing from a single phone call that it’s sitting in there, doing its best to eat away at my body.

Over the twelve weeks since then, I’ve come to understand, on a fundamental, subconscious level, that it’s not anything to worry about. (And I don’t mean because there isn’t anything else I can do about it; it’s really not a serious health risk to me.) It’s just meant a lot of appointments, tests, and general trips into downtown Toronto.

Along with another surgery. That happened May 30 and tomorrow I can finally pick up my cat again (well, one of them; I’ve been giving the petite eight-pound girl more cuddles than she can handle). This week I’ll find out if radiation is necessary (or recommended), though the otolaryngologist is pleased with the results from the second surgery and thinks we can merely monitor it for now. I figure it’ll mean continuing follow-up appointments for probably at least a few years to come, and it may require another surgery to remove every last trace of it.

For the curious, it is a low grade fibromyxosarcoma. A sarcoma is a soft tissue cancer (that of fat, muscles, nerves, etc., and apparently also bone somehow?) and low grade means slow growing. As far as I can tell, the fibromyxo part has no relation to anything other than this particular type of cancer (although it’s hard to miss the similarity to myxoma, which these types of cancers are often confused with). It also has an incidence of one in eight million. I am probably the only person currently being treated at Princess Margaret, one of the top five cancer centres in the world, for this particular type of cancer.

I really am special!

Whether the original tumour removed some twelve to fifteen years ago was misdiagnosed as a myxoma (and which would mean I have been living with untreated cancer for my entire adult life) or whether the myxoma became malignant, I may never know. The doctor hasn’t been able to obtain the slides from that biopsy. Given that it took four biopsies to identify this one properly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the first one was in fact the same thing.

I mainly wanted to write this to let people know why I’ve had to cancel plans or haven’t been able to get to some tasks as quickly as I would like, or why my output in general hasn’t been as high recently (well, that and the other health problems I’ve been dealing with concurrently, but that’s another story). I’ll be fine, and I wasn’t fishing for outpourings of empathy or assistance getting things done. (But hey, if you feel like buying a book, you’ll make my day.) I certainly have it far better than many, possibly most, people getting treated at Princess Margaret. I’ll get through this.

So, hi. My name is Catherine Fitzsimmons, and I have cancer.

New Year 2023

As usual, after months of silence, I return to this blog for my annual new year post. Maybe it’s my ongoing health issues, New Year’s Eve messing up my entire week so far, or coming up on the fourth year of the pandemic, but I’m not feeling particularly hopeful about 2023. I do, however, have good things to look forward to, including another 11 great books I’m going to publish this year.

First, a wrap-up of 2022:

• Books: While I didn’t read nearly as many as I did in 2021, I did surpass my goal of 30 to reach 35 books last year. I read more middle grade novels and graphic novels, but I also read some nonfiction and general audience novels. My TBR pile has built up again from a couple book sales and from my first trip to Gen Con since 2019, and I’ve also just dipped my toes into the many ebooks I’ve collected over the years. Top book from the year remains Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
• Video games: I added more than I completed and had a fairly long break throughout summer and autumn, but I did start and finish a handful of games. I enjoyed Metroid Dread. I played the original Legend of Zelda for the first time. Two things that struck me about it was how the future games are very much a continuation/extrapolation of it, and how open-world the first game is. I haven’t officially pulled the plug on God of War (2018), but I beat the storyline and there’s one optional boss I’m going to try one more time (after which is another optional boss that will probably murder me). Top game: Spider-Man (2018).
• TV/Movies: Disney+ was our only streaming service until a month ago, so any new media was focused there. Watched most of the new Marvel and Star Wars series and finally started getting burned out on both. Heard good things about Andor and She-Hulk but just haven’t dredged up the interest; same with the newest Marvel movies. I’d rather read or just watch YouTube. However, we got Netflix in December and I’ve started watching a few series there. That said, we are not binge-watchers and Netflix’s tendency to encourage it annoys me. It’ll probably be a few months before I finish these. Top show: Stranger Things.
• Writing: Eventually finished initial edits on Elderra’s Champion, the third book of my Sisters of Chaos trilogy, and got feedback from both beta readers. Some fairly significant edits still to do, but I’ve tried to ramp up my production on them. I also somewhat spontaneously wrote a short story, the first >1,000-word story I’ve written in a few years, and particularly original one that’s not a tie-in to one of my novels. I also started writing a new novel while Elderra’s Champion was off with beta readers.

Other endeavors fell off a bit this year. While I did a new acrylic painting for the first time in years, I otherwise haven’t really done any drawing in months. I’m slowly continuing to learn/practice guitar and piano, recording some of the latter for collaborations with a couple musicians. Also, at the very end of the year, I decided to try out my child’s ukulele, and it turns out I love it. I also started seeing people and doing events again this year, both of which have been so nice, even if I still mask up every time I go out.

So, what’s ahead for 2023? I don’t have goals for most of the above; I don’t care about watching more TV, even if I am enjoying some series, and video games are too varied to make goals for completion there. I miss reading when I’m focused on video games and I miss gaming when all I do is read. So, I’m going to continue setting a goal of 30 books this year, and I will likely get more into my ebook TBR as well.

As for writing, finishing Elderra’s Champion is not a goal anymore; as of Friday, it will be officially coming in June. I was hoping to be finished with my edits by the end of 2022, and may honestly be continuing to tweak down to the first printing (publisher privilege). Beyond that, as mentioned, I already have another novel on the go, though I also have several short story ideas that have been percolating for a few years that I’d love to get down as well. It would be nice to start releasing stuff more regularly, but hey, as long as I make that June release, I met my goal of halving the release time between books 1 and 2.

Once again, I’d like to practice my instruments more regularly (and perhaps try not to be too intimidated by those lessons). Art I will continue to let come as it comes. As for visiting people/attending events more often? It sure would be nice.

For now, I’m just hoping to recover from that one late night soon. Happy new year and I hope 2023 brings you all the joy and luck you deserve.

March update: video games

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been escaping into video games a bit more so far this year. First, I finished off the original Final Fantasy VII, after starting it before the 2020 release of the remake. As one of the snooty teens who rejected the idea of Final Fantasy games moving into futuristic settings when FF7 originally released – and who has since absorbed a fair bit of lore and spoilers from the game – playing the original game was an interesting experience.

For one thing, my original impression that it was moving away from its roots was unfounded. It is very much a classic Final Fantasy game; plus, the creators really did an excellent job translating the style of game into 3D, for being the first example of it. The story was interesting, but somewhat less than I expected. I suppose the amount of lore that has built up around the story raised my expectations of what was present in the original game. Still, it was an enjoyable game, and I can see why it became a classic.

After that, I started up Spider-Man. While it looked kind of neat from videos/commercials, I wasn’t particularly interested in playing it, mainly because it’s not the type of game I normally seek out. However, a friend loaned it to me (*cough* last summer…) and I finally started it up late January.

And, if you’ll forgive the pun, it was amazing. The game play was crazy fun and the huge number of side quests were all terribly compelling. The story was fantastic with top-notch voice acting, and reminded me exactly why I love Spider-Man as a character so much. Manhattan was brought to life so beautifully I feel like I know it even though I’ve never been there. And the ending brought me to tears. It is, perhaps objectively, one of the best games I’ve ever played. 10/10. It was enough to make me immediately buy Spider-Man: Miles Morales, though I probably won’t get to that one soon with all the other games I have to play.

I tried to convince myself to start the 2018 God of War after that, since it was also loaned to me, and I even installed it on the PS4 to do just that. However, before I managed to make myself start up the game, I stopped resisting the call of Metroid Dread.

I was as much a fan of Super Metroid as anyone else, same with Metroid Fusion, but after playing Metroid Prime and (most of) Metroid Prime 2, I wasn’t as stoked about returning to a 2D platformer as so many people seemed to be. But I couldn’t own the latest Nintendo console and not get the new Metroid game, and I didn’t doubt it would be fun.

It took about five minutes of game play to get sucked in. I should’ve known better, of course; there’s a reason these games (along with Castlevania) became their own genre. There’s barely enough plot to support the action and little of it really makes sense, but none of it matters because it’s just so fun. It’s the perfect balance of puzzle-solving and dexterous button pressing with very little story getting in the way of running around, exploring areas, pew-pewing aliens, and collecting as many artifacts as I can find. I die a lot, though unlike with Spider-Man and other games, I’m actually playing on the harder (read: normal) difficulty setting.

I’m a decent portion through the game at this point, though I do keep getting sidetracked looking for new items as soon as I gain a new ability. Still, I don’t anticipate playing this too much longer. As for what’s next? I’d better get started on God of War, and hope none of my other recent acquisitions (like Horizon: Forbidden West or any of the Kingdom Hearts games) grab my attention too much first.

The future is now

I’ve been doing new year posts for a few years now. The novelty has perhaps worn off a little, and due to various reasons I’m feeling a bit cynical about celebrating the new year. But I don’t really want to get into it and I’m sure you don’t want to read it either, so I’ll move on to the whole point of these posts: goal-setting.

First, the wrap-up from last year. Writing wasn’t quite as successful as I’d hoped, as I haven’t quite gotten the draft of the final book of my Sisters of Chaos trilogy ready for beta readers yet. I have, however, completed fairly significant edits over the text from the first draft I finished at the end of 2020. In early December, after finishing the initial edits I marked out back in last January, I did another complete reread and noted just a few smaller areas of concern I still need to work on. At that point, however, the novel went on the back burner as other projects took precedence.

I rediscovered joy in art in 2021 in a way I haven’t in many years, and even used up the last page in the sketchbook I’d been drawing in since 2012. I also tried out/revisited media I hadn’t experimented with in a long time, and tried some new techniques that visibly improved my art even in the few drawings I did last year. In fact, I have some other artwork, from as far back as last summer, that I’ve yet to share here. Obviously, adding posts to this blog hasn’t been a priority for me of late.

Music also became a stronger focus this year as I worked on learning both piano and guitar (and even got a fantastic new guitar as a birthday/Christmas present). I even recorded and shared a few covers and started composing an original song. I’m slowly making progress on both my instruments and with singing.

I ended up reading 52 books last year. 12 of them were graphic novels and 45 were middle grade (four of the remaining are classified as teen/YA books, all of those graphic novels). I’d been wanting to delve into middle grade books and found some absolute treasures among the selections I read.

I didn’t end up playing through as many video games as I wanted to this year – in fact, I fear I may have added more acquisitions than I completed. But, I had the opportunity to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Horizon: Zero Dawn and am making my way through the original Final Fantasy VII.

For this year, I want to say I want the third Sisters of Chaos book to be completed and ready for publication by the end of the year. I don’t have much editing left to do on it and hopefully I can have it out to beta readers by the end of this month. What transpires past that point is difficult to predict, but it shouldn’t be a stretch to have the manuscript finished within twelve months.

Art I’m going to indulge whenever the mood strikes me. While I am enjoying both the act of drawing and improving my work, I have no goals.

The same goes for music, though I’d like to be more consistent with my guitar and piano lessons. Much as I’m enjoying recording new video game songs, I want to focus more on just playing instruments rather than trying to learn arranging, mixing, and mastering as well. I say that, of course, as I continue working on my most ambitious song yet.

I don’t have any specific goals I’m trying to achieve with reading, so I’m going to once again set my reading goal to 30 books and see where it goes from there. My TBRs have started to collect again after some purchases last year, though it’s only a handful left after reading the graphic novels this week. I’d like to expand my scope a little, perhaps start getting into some of the many ebooks I’ve purchased/downloaded. That said, there are still at least eleven middle grade books I can think of off-hand that I’d quite like to read (two of them scheduled for release this month).

As for video games, I’d just like to get into new ones quicker. I’m finding anymore that it takes me a while to get truly invested in and comfortable with new RPGs. Case in point: I just reached the second disc of Final Fantasy VII yet have only really gotten emotionally/intellectually involved with the story and game play in the past handful of play times. I like the story – liked it from the beginning – but it took me so long to get the hang of the game play and trying to figure out what’s going on and what I should be doing that it’s taken months for me to feel like I’m really playing it; the same was certainly true of Horizon: Zero Dawn, and was a large part of why I didn’t play more games last year. Considering how many games I have to play for so many different systems, I don’t think I have the luxury to take my time each time I start up a new game. I don’t really know how to overcome that, but I’ll have to figure it out somehow.

If nothing else, writing, art, reading, making music, and playing video games help to distract the mind. On that note, I think I’ll go start up the Playstation Classic.

July update

Here we are, halfway through the year. School is out and summer weather is upon us. And it’s time for my (mostly) monthly update.

Didn’t progress quite as much with book three of the Sisters of Chaos trilogy as I had wanted to, but as might be evidenced from the last few posts, I’ve been engaged with art lately. I’m also working on a few bigger pieces at the moment, much as I would like to continue doing quicker sketches. I’ve really been enjoying doing art over the past month plus and it’s a lot easier to sink into when I’m not feeling writing, as I have been a bit of late.

I didn’t accomplish much else in June. Failed to keep myself off YouTube videos. Rarely touched the video game I was playing or either piano or guitar. Still haven’t finished the miniatures I was trying to finish painting. I’ve mentioned before about how I have too many hobbies, but lately, they’ve all been clamoring for my attention more than usual.

On the bright side, my plants are growing well. Last year’s jalapeno plant sprouted a flower that hung on long enough to become a full pepper, which is ready to harvest any day now. The tomatoes that a month ago were maybe four-inch seedlings have now surpassed the height of the tomato cage, and have bloomed their first flowers. The bell peppers are a little behind them, but love the hot weather we’ve had of late and continue to grow as well. One lettuce container is crammed full and has made a few delicious meals already. The other is much more sparse of plants, but those growing in it are quite happy with the additional space.

In the garden, of the seeds I planted, only the zucchini took off, but boy did it. Each plant has several eight-inch leaves and is sprouting a lot more. A little bummed that I won’t be getting pumpkins again this year, but not overly surprised that nothing else grew.

I didn’t quite reach my yearly goal of reading 30 books by halfway through this year, but I’m only one short, and I certainly want to start reading more. Summer holiday means checking out plenty of books from the library for my daughter, and as they’re middle grade books, I’m quite interested in reading them as well. Perhaps one of these days I’ll also get back to the many ebooks I’ve downloaded or least sampled.

For this month, I’d really like to kick my perfectionism to the curb. It’s been taking time out of everything I want to do. I can’t just do something; I have to do it well. I have to do it right. This makes everything feel intimidating – such as the video game I’ve been playing, which feels like a huge time commitment, yet when I sit down and play it, it’s just a fun story to sink into, and there’s even frequent enough save points that I don’t have to devote an hour or more to play. The end result of feeling so intimated, however, is it’s easier to just watch videos than do something productive.

I’m tired of doing that. I can just sit down and play a few minutes of my video game. I can open up a book and read a few pages without having to devour the entire thing in a night. I can pick up the guitar or sit down at the piano and just practice a few bars of a song. And even if I only write two sentences in an evening, at least it’s progress.

And I really want to finish this novel. I’ve almost finished my first edit of the third POV character’s scenes. That only leaves two to fix up afterward, one of which is only going to have an handful of scenes. If I actually sit down and work on it, maybe I could even have my edits done by the end of this month.

So, here we go again with the same goal from last month: just do more. I’ve seen plenty of memes and threads and inspirational quotes about perfectionism, but right now, taking a cue from Disney’s Luca, perhaps a simpler message would help me just do the things I want to do: Silenzio, Bruno.

May update

Writing:

• Finished initial edits on two characters’ scenes in book 3 of the Sisters of Chaos trilogy. (Not as big an accomplishment as it may sound, as one of those characters only had a handful of scenes.) Still have some edits to do on one character’s scenes because another character I haven’t tackled yet is going to affect them. I do, however, feel vindicated in my approach of editing one POV at a time, as the one I’m working on now had a timing issue I might not have noticed doing the entire draft in order.

Art:

• I’m doing it. More importantly, I’m enjoying the process of making art and proud of my results, more than I have been in many years. Also really enjoying trying out new techniques and media that I haven’t touched in years. I mentioned in my last art post that I recently watched a video about the benefits of keeping a sketchbook and have been inspired to do more casual art/art for its own sake/just experimenting of late. My recent drawings have brought me within ten pages of the end of my current sketchbook, which I have been using since 2012. I’m looking forward to filling up those last pages and looking for a new sketchbook, one better suited to mixed media so I can continue to experiment with watercolour and other media.

Reading:

• Slowing down; only read two more books this month, both middle grade. Still greatly enjoying those. I am, however, getting back into the habit of spending at least part of most evenings watching YouTube videos, rather than reading or doing something else productive. Although, said videos have inspired the motivation to do art lately, and I have watched a few tutorials on art as well, so I guess it’s not a total waste. Still, some of those videos could be time better spent.

Video games:

• Avoiding commitment. Tried to overcome that by starting Horizon Zero Dawn last week, though I haven’t touched it since after realizing that game is definitely a commitment, not just in time but in play frequency.

Music:

• Fell by the wayside with the increased interest in art. Need to just sit down and practice more.

Garden:

• A cool month had things going slow and a few plants spending quite a bit of time inside. While the progress of late came after the end of May, a few hot days had my tomatoes and peppers springing up. Last year’s jalapeño plant has even bloomed several flowers now. The first fell off at the stem before it could create a pepper, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed on the next ones.

Goals for June? Just do more rather than resort to YouTube. Perfectionism keeps making me think things are harder/more work to do than they are and I need to take my recent accomplishments as proof that it’s wrong.

April wrap-up

Been a while. What’s been going on? A bit, and I don’t feel like going into details, so I’ll summarize.

• After over 140 hours of game play, I finally beat The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. While I don’t anticipate wanting to play it again anytime soon, I dare say it beats out Ocarina of Time as my favourite Zelda game. It was an absolute joy in so many ways and terribly addicting.
• Editing on book three of the Sisters of Chaos trilogy progresses, if not quite as quickly as I had wanted. Had a bit of writer’s (editor’s?) block in the past two months, but I’m finally starting to get some momentum again. I am close to the end of the first character’s scenes.
• I’ve been completely absorbed in reading middle grade books, and as a result I have now read 26 books of my 2021 goal of 30. My belief has also been proven that they are my favourite type of book to read.
• I played and recorded music. After many years of following Dwelling of Duels, a monthly themed video game cover competition, as well as s l o w l y learning guitar, I finally talked myself into submitting to April’s Free Month contest. It turned out to be one of the biggest and highest quality entry months in DoD’s history, and I got third from last place, which was honestly better than I expected. The encouraging comments from the community have also inspired me to work harder at music, and my pattern of the last few days has been alternating days of practice on guitar and piano.
• Japanese lessons have been a little less productive, in a way. As I drew near to level 5 on Duolingo, I found myself increasingly frustrated that I haven’t seemed to be retaining anything for quite some time. So I went back to the beginning of level 3 and have been re-taking lessons to try to actually learn the words being taught, rather than just get it good enough to pass Duolingo’s multiple choice method and moving on. It hasn’t been easy, as I often find I max out the levels in a lesson before I fully retain everything it taught me. It’s also slow going, as I go back to previous finished lessons every few days to ensure I still remember everything. However, it feels better knowing that I am learning these words now. It’ll just be a while before I actually progress with my knowledge.
• Planting has begun. The tomatoes I started have taken off very quickly and need to be transplanted into their final home; bell peppers have sprouted nicely; and I started broccoli seeds, though they haven’t been doing quite as well and I’m still not sure if I should restart them. I picked up other seeds from the grocery store and after the frost we got yesterday morning, I’m hoping we’re in the clear enough to start planting the outdoor garden. Also, the tulips I planted out front last autumn are coming up and that makes me happy.
• Art? What’s that?

I think that’s pretty much my last two months in a nutshell. That and waiting, Disney princess-style, for my COVID-19 vaccine to come…

February wrap-up

I meant to write more blog posts about my endeavours in January, but, well, now it’s March.

First, of course, is writing. I didn’t make a lot of progress with the third Sisters of Chaos book in January, as I spent much of the month rereading my draft from last year and making notes on how to begin my edits. I also cut fully a third of last year’s writing, 30,000 words, from the draft. By the end of the month, I had just finished rewriting the opening scene of the book.

By the end of February, I rewrote the next three scenes from that character’s POV and then reviewed them again. Despite the trouble the same strategy left me with the second book, I’ve decided to focus on one character’s scenes at a time for the time being. (And really, the problems with doing it this way with the second book mainly equated to fitting all the scenes together, and I’m going to have some reshuffling to do with this book anyway.) While I have plenty of editing to do on following scenes, I at least don’t have to completely rewrite these next ones.

I still wish I had made more progress in February, though I have been fighting seasonal affective disorder in the first part of this year, which has affected my motivation for writing. It’s also had me throwing myself into media escapes—namely, reading the Wings of Fire books and continuing to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Of the former, I’ve read the first eight books, and of the latter, after more than forty hours of game play, I’m not halfway through yet. Both have proven incredibly addicting, so after deleting my latest mobile time-waster game, I tend to spend free time when I’m not feeling writing or don’t want to get completely lost in a book or game watching YouTube videos.

I want to spend more time working on my book, however. I know it needs a fair bit of work still, but I don’t want this first round of edits to take as long as writing 120,000 words did.

As for updating this blog more often… well, we’ll see.