March Madness Indeed

I survived to the end of the month! I’m surviving the lockdown. Sorta.

This month has been crazy to say the least, is it possible to live an entire year in just 28 days? I feel as though I have.

Let’s start with the events of the month. I released two books, Mechanical Dragons: Air and Mechanical Dragons: Reunion. Both went off without a hitch. Mechanical Dragons: Fire and Water did extremely well in a steampunk themed bundle and has since been marked down to perma-free.

That is of course unless you go to Amazon; those greedy bastards won’t let me put anything up for perma-free.

“What indie author? You own all the rights to the book and want to give it away for free? Well we say heck no! Why tiny little indie author if we let you do that we won’t get our pound of flesh!”

Or so the conversation goes.

So if you do happen to drop in to pick up your free copy and it’s still marked at .99cents, just hit that price match button forcing Amazon to give it away for free and I will shout.

“You shall bend to my tiny indie author will you big money grubbing ass monkeys!”
Then the last thing this month was the live event I ran on the 27th with six other authors. It went much better than I thought it would, I’m very pleased. Huge learning curve and will make adjustments for the next launch.

The one thing that was supposed to be done by the 30th, I could actually say the single most important thing that needed to be done was the completion of the next book. Tor, book three in Blood Magic, was supposed to go to the betas on Monday. But two weeks ago I had to push it back because I was about 50k short for words.

Well I didn’t get any writing done and I’m still 50k short and it goes to the betas on the 6th of April. I can’t ask for more time, it highly unprofessional and its old habits creeping back in and it not only angers me, but it saddens me.

Here’s the thing, there has never been a moment in my writing career where I said, “I don’t want to write. I just don’t want to.” Yes there are days where I don’t write a word, and there are days where I just can’t write a word. Those days are normally because I’m stuck.

Call it writers block if you like, but the fact is I just didn’t know where to go next. But I have NEVER said, “I don’t want to write.”

At the beginning of the month we were put on lockdown. The funny thing is isolation never bothered me. I would joke that I had been training for this for my entire life. Because I really lived as though I was on lockdown. I enjoy my time to myself. Yes, I’m social, but most days I don’t leave the house.

It has been an absolute unexpected surprise to me that this has happened. The lockdown has caused an extreme side effect with me. I feel more isolated now than I have ever in my life. I feel trapped and it has made me unable to concentrate. I don’t believe I’m coping very well and it’s showing in everything I do or rather don’t do.

I have tried to sit and write, and I have spent my time staring at the page not able to. All I want to do is sleep. That’s it just sleep. It’s not that I don’t want to write, I do, very much. It’s not that I’m stuck, I’m not, I know exactly where the story is going. I just can’t seem to get my brain to move forward. I just want to sleep.

This entry is the longest thing I have written in weeks. Weeks! But I can’t muster enough to even feel nervous about not getting the book done, because all I want to do is sleep.

You see, here is the just of it all. There is a difference between being isolated because you want to be and because you have to be. I’m sure everyone is feeling the same thing.

We’ve all had those weekends were we didn’t get off the couch and we had no problem with it. But now we’re told we have to, and it’s pure hell. There are so many people out there that aren’t listening. So many people that are making things so much worse for the rest of us.

I’m risking slipping into a depression because I’m doing as I’m told by staying inside, limiting my contact with others to the bare essentials. I’m not going to crowded dog parks, crowded elbow to elbow Walmart’s, or having fucking dinner parties! Because I want all this to be over. I need all this to be over.

If we all just do our parts and stay home for two weeks, two weeks! Then we can get back to real life that much quicker and I can go back to just my regular old anti-social self-isolation, with the option of leaving my house.

That’s all I got.
 
Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay INSIDE!