Well, here we are again—I’ve gone for quite some time without updating, and for that I apologize. I do have a good reason, however.

I have spent the last two weeks or so working on dropping a class—specifically, my Computer Science and the attached lab. It hasn’t been an easy process (lots of heartache at home over the lost money, having to gather all the opinions of my professors and friends, etc, having to do a lot of thinking about what I was doing and where I was going), but I came to the decision that it’s time to change my major—Computer Science was joyless.

But now, here I am, low on money, low on motivation, and I haven’t updated Strange Bedfellows in two weeks or so, even a little more than that. I haven’t been able to pull down commissions, and the pressure to find a job is on and it’s hotter than ever, to say the least. But I’m trying to push it through, trying to make sure that I can work and trying to keep playing LoL in my spare time.

Strange Bedfellows, Chapter 15 is being worked on—it’s about 3500 words at this point, and I’m not finished yet, so know that I’m bringing you something that is quality and that is going to be of such a length that it will be more satisfying than the others. But hey, it might not—we’ll see.

So thanks for sticking with me, readers, and all that jazz—I’m trying. I don’t like to make excuses for being late with my posts and with my work, but I just wanted to let you all know what’s going on. Realistically, I may have to put the story on hold once more—I really don’t want to, but things are extremely hectic right now, and it’s tough to continue finding the motivation to write something hot-blooded and passionate and optimistic when I feel so down.

But I’m working to change things for the better, and knowing that you’re all there is what I’m going to draw strength from—that and knowing that I really can live up to my dreams. After all, there’s no time to be sad and depressed and whatever when you have to deliver, like I do—when you have to keep putting out and trying to do better. Put simply, I don’t really feel that being sad at this point is worth it—there’s too much for me to do.

So if there’s anything you want commissioned from me, anything you need from me, please feel free to let me know—my rates are pretty low, and I can work things out with you. If you’re a fan (I don’t really like to say ‘fans’, but whatever) you know what I can do/have done, and if you’re not, I have plenty of material. It would really help me out.

And hey, if you like my work or you follow this blog or just happen to find this post and end up liking it, please tell your friends, reblog etc. Dissemination of information is the fastest and best was to grow and gain more of a base, and there’s nothing I’d like more. Thanks.

Later.

I think that, for some time now, I’ve needed a day more to myself than anything else. And yes, I get those on a fairly consistent basis, from Friday to Sunday, and yes, I’m aware of the fact that there are people out there who get literally no time to themselves. But I think there’s been something interesting in my thought patterns here recently.

I don’t think I really ‘enjoy’ much anymore, in the traditional sense. By that I don’t mean that I don’t enjoy anything I do, or that I hate everything I do. I don’t dislike or find myself disinterested in what I do—but I don’t find the sense of fulfillment in the things I do that other people tend to talk about. A ‘job well done’, they call it. In other cases, it’s the factor of catharsis, the factor of making yourself feel better or working out some kind of anger or anxiety. 

I don’t really feel much of that right now. I guess I don’t feel too much any way, but I really don’t want to whine here, anymore than I have before. I don’t like those people who talk about how terrible their lives are despite being perfectly fine, and I am in the exact same boat. I don’t try to look for sympathy—I just try to state things as they are, objectively, though how much objectivity could I really exert when it comes to my own life? But I try. 

I guess if anyone has any tips for actually enjoying your work, writing or gaming or school or whatever, share them with me. I’m sure that enjoyment is supposed to be inborn and that you’re supposed to feel a measure of pride in the things that you do as opposed to just doing them. I write a chapter of Strange Bedfellows and post it: One or two years, even eight months ago I’d have cared about what people thought and the ratings and the comments and whatever and whatever. Now? I can only think about how much less amazing it is than other works—remember that post a little while ago where I spoke about that? I guess it’s coming to fruition—I can’t take pride in my own work because of the works of others overshadowing my own, in my own eyes. The small victories have dried up. So what’s all this mean in a nutshell?

I guess I feel really inadequate and insecure. I hate to say that, and I guess it’s really not a matter for the internet, but them’s the facts. Which is fine—I’ll just try harder until I can garner that kind of interest. I’ll continue grinding away until I produce a Past Sins, some magnum opus, or until I become a Conner Cogwork, where every work is a magnum opus. It may sound silly and animeish, but I think that even if I felt so insecure that I wanted to quit writing altogether because my works are for the most part niche, which if you haven’t guessed by now by my articulation of this thought is exactly how I feel, I couldn’t stop. I’m in too deep, so deep in fact that instead of swimming strongly I’ve resigned myself to keeping my head above water. I don’t think I care too much anymore, but I’ll keep going.

I don’t really want sympathy for all this—it’s merely self-indulgence in the interest of helping me articulate my feelings to myself. And no, this isn’t all about my writing—it’s also that I never feel improvement in LoL and that I constantly feel outclassed when I try, but I keep trying in the interest of someday being the one to do the outclassing. But really, if any of you out there want to weigh in, if you want to tell me some secret trick about enjoying the things you do in a simpler sense, I’m all ears.

Maybe it’s just that clinical depression creeping back in—for the interested, I was diagnosed when I was about 13 and it’s never been…uh…I guess undiagnosed? Rescinded? All the same, it hasn’t gone away.

Later.

Normally I’d follow proper naming conventions for the title (not using ‘And’ at the start of the title, not capitalizing ‘the’, etc) but I feel it’s at least semi-appropriate here, sort of like a faux-pretentious title that doesn’t really mean anything.

Let me start off by saying that I woke up this morning to find that my left eye seemed to have gotten salt poured into it when I was asleep because the goddamn thing is lit up bright red like a garish Christmas light. I could see the signs of it turning bloodshot last night (my eyelid stung a little, the eye felt slightly dried out, and when I looked in the mirror right before bed, alongside my very red and very irritated acne scars pitting my face I could see red veins encroaching on my iris), but as I never really get bloodshot eyes, I had no reason to believe I was going to wake up with a ruby embedded in my skull.

Speaking of rubies embedded in my skull, I also have a pretty nasty headache—must be the fact that I was up until1 in the morning last night. Thanks, friends, for managing to royally screw my face, chest, back, shoulders, eye and head in one fell swoop of irresistible fun—something I’m probably going to have to start avoiding like a recovering smack addict if I want my at-risk body to recover and look healthy and ‘sexy’ and whatnot. As it stands I look like Two-Face except with one side of my face only slightly less ruined.

But hey, there’s good news to go along with all of my incessant whining, too. I finished up Chapter 8 of Strange Bedfellows, did a little more commission work, and I’m lined up for an interview with GameStop in the neighboring town next week. Now, of course, a job isn’t inherently a good thing, but at least this one is at a game store, where I have a deep and varied knowledge base right off the bat to honey my interview with, unlike Murphy USA where I plunked into everything and taken off register detail because my sausage fingers couldn’t keep up.

I’ve also been noticing that, regarding the latest patch that Riot is issuing to the North American League of Legends servers, it’s apparently made of concentrated evil or something. They’ve tried to patch this shit twice and both times it’s caused a complete and total crash of the North American servers. I won’t blame Riot for this entirely of course—they probably are just as upset as we, the players, are, but I will admit that I’m beginning to lose my patience with the whole ordeal.

At least I have Street Fighter, which I’m slowly getting better at, and Skyrim, which I’m hoping I’ll learn to appreciate, to distract me.

Later.