It's the last day of July, and man, I wish I had something inspiring and profound to say. I wish I were a bigger person* and had one of those personalities that delights and encourages others. I wish I were somebody else . . . but since I can't be, I wish I could be the best me possible.
It's not that I'm particularly sad or anything right now. I'm just aware of my many shortcomings and the fact that, when it's all said and done, I've been unhappy more than I've been happy. If it all ended tomorrow, I doubt they'd kick up any fuss. Not for an old crook like me.
My three year old nephew insisted on "helping" me mow the lawn tonight, and then wanted to tell me goodnight just now, and honestly, that is something.
Two things, writing-wise: 1) I have to write just over 1400 words to make a thousand words a day average for July and 2) If I write today, it will have been fully half the year of writing every single day.
Well, it's ten pm, and I have only 334 words done. Quite a whimper to go out on.
Luckily, I stay up until two every night (and maybe later, if I have to). We'll see what I manage (Big said he's done twelve hundred words today, and that he won't die alone and unloved).
I talked to somebody today who revealed to me that they got COVID-19 back in March, and didn't tell anybody. "Yeah, my whole family got it." It was, anecdotally bad-ish, but not as bad as we've all been fearing ("My mom has asthma, and she was fine").** Now, every day since then is apparently Disneyland (but hey, between you and me, it already was--and I love Disneyland). "There was no throwing up. I'd rather have COVID again than the flu." The conversation was brief, but the point of it was that now that the disease is in the rear-view, it's a tremendous load off the mind, and having the antibodies are kind of like a superpower.
That conversation has echoed around in my head for the last nine hours. I cannot believe that I am jealous of somebody for having gotten sick.
I went on my evening run, and I decided not to stop or slow down, and though it made me a sweaty mess when I got back to the house, for those few minutes, I was the pilot of my own destiny.
Sit-ups In July: 4967
I considered sitting down and starting a new audio version of one of my stories tonight, but I made the mistake of looking at my word count for the month again, and thought I'd at least try to reach a thousand words today. I took a break at nearly two am, because I felt like everything I was writing (I somehow created a new potential lesbian love interest for Rick with absolutely no idea why or where it might be going--except as an excuse to break up Rick and Talia as a couple, which makes no sense because that's not what "Hatchling" was supposed to be about) was pointless and probably deserved to be cut out of the manuscript.
Writing can be hard, whether you plan out your stories or make them up as you go along like this one.
So I decided to write a scene that definitely WOULD be in the finished product, where Talia and Rick decide to let Kimono go, like the ending of every single boy-makes-wild-animal-his-pet movie you've ever seen. I wrote until two-thirty, pretty pleased with myself, and found I was only a hundred words away from making my goal. So, I wrote a couple more lines of dialogue, including the line "He agreed, deferring to her superior intellect," which sounds like I stole it from WRATH OF KHAN. And that took me over my thirty-thousand word goal.
So now, I can sleep.
Words Today: 1643
Words In July: 30,187
Oh, shit . . . there were thirty-one days in July. I still fail.
But only barely.
*Right, right, I'm eighteen pounds smaller than a year ago, but that's not what I mean.
**For some reason, I felt somehow slighted that I didn't know about this--since I could have had months of telling people someone I knew had contracted the virus, instead of waiting for my Cousin Jacob to get it in June and my Cousin Starlynn to get it in July.
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