Weekly Update - 10th of February

Hey friends,

Sorry again, didn't get round to posting this update yesterday!

To be very blunt, things haven't gotten better. I get fits and starts and then it just tumbles again, but so far my approach has been to establish a good healthy "nourishing" routine for the mind and I don't think that's entirely enough.

I've come to realise, through some research into this whole situation, that I've probably got ADHD burnout. I think I'm prone to getting positive and excitable and then taking on loads of work, which wouldn't by itself be so bad, but I'm really self-punishing with stuff like deadlines and targets.

Take my "10k words a day" for instance. It's a good target to have! But what it means is that any day I slip up - be it from stuff in or out of my control, a bad night's sleep, a real-life issue of some kind - then I get to feel bad for not having done 10k words. And I get to look at my weekly targets and realise I either miss some of them or have to work extra hard the following day.

And this just means that unless I do everything perfectly I speak down to myself, not so much consciously as just part of the psyche, and it's a fucking cumulative process of ravaging my happiness and it needs to go away.

So from now on, I'm going to pretty much abandon targets and such. Stuff will be done when it's done, and I won't aim to do a certain amount of words per day. I'll work my designated hours, and that'll be that.

This won't overnight fix my mental health right now, I have to recover, but I managed my best day's writing in weeks yesterday - sadly, just the stuff I need to do for a regular income, as I am poor as fuck now, yay - but I think it's a good start. I'm also testing out certain things to help with my focus, to make focussing easier, and also trying out things to make starting work easier. (ADHD and getting started is like hell on earth, fucking hell.)

I will keep you all updated, and hopefully this month will see some good progress. Ultimately, the main thing I've learned from this is that in future, I simply can't let it get this bad. Nothing really matters. Nobody is putting pressure on me but myself. And this will also ultimately carry across to my charging monthly on here, because while I'm not going to start charging until I've finished my backlog, I also can't punish myself if I have a less than perfect month or whatever. And people are simply free to stop subscribing if their £3 or whatever requires me to be on perfect form month after month.

After all, as much as I like writing, I started this up as a means to make money, and I think I offer up very good stories at a reasonable price, so...yeah. I just need to get back to actually offering them up, first. Haha.

Anyway, I hope this ramble is useful. No progress on words, but progress on self. Good.

Have a great weekend, and hopefully I have something more concrete for you next week.

Big love,

Thalaxian

xoxox