Hello hello hello!
May was sure…a month. They all seem to blur together right now. I’m stressed, depressed and under-dressed. School has eaten my brain, I caught a cold, I still work with the best kids on the planet, and time is continuing. Saskatchewan is finally starting to warm up and I’m looking forward to being able to go outside and do some gardening. We have maybe a 3 month growing season here, and this year…I’m going to be able to grow something. I have belief in myself.
And yes, I know it’s late. June has also been…a month.
Onto the round-up.
I’ve been obsessively following two cases: The Johnny Depp defamation trial and the Sienna Mae/Jack Wright situation. As a domestic abuse survivor and sexual assault survivor, I’m very interested to see how these situations end. While the Depp trial is messy and it’s hard to say what the truth is and what it isn’t (I have my own opinions but I don’t want to share them until everything is over), I am firmly on Jack Wright’s side. One creator, SWOOP has been covering both situations, and her channel is here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqHZdrDcZhhRO11m67Tgz4A
I’ve also been watching Sonic X while I do homework. It’s loud, it’s bright, and it doesn’t need me to pay attention, so it’s perfect to have on to keep me awake and engaged. Controversial, but this show is amusing. I enjoy that Sonic is an absolute a-hole to pretty much everyone, that some of the dialogue sounds like cursing, and that Rouge the bat has a girlfriend. It’s bonkers, it makes no sense, and half the time I have Snap Cube lines in my head, but it’s a suitable distraction.
Articles. Articles and articles and articles. So much academic stuff. Some of it is really helpful, like this idea of “Brain Weasels”, and most of it would be really, really boring unless you’re into academic writing. So that’s what I’ve been reading.
And fanfiction.
Let’s start with the area of writing I’ve been the least productive in: my scripts. The scripts are coming along. Slowly. Finding the time to rehearse my poetry video scripts and then to watch videos to do commentary on that I can’t stand more than a few seconds of at a time is difficult.
This month I finished a bunch of flashbacks detailing backstories for one of my WIPs, Cytosine Gods and Palladium Monsters (working title). I’d worked on a few here and there, but I finished some unfinished threads, moved some pieces from the idea phase to a draft phase, and put them all in a coherent order. The finished document is 287 pages long, 141, 739 words, and I can’t brag about that to anyone in my life because they’ll just ask me why I’m not doing my homework and if they can see it. I’m just going to take this time to be proud of myself, because it was a lot of work and I am very tired. I thought it would be a good way to get back into this WIP after working so hardcore on What Big Teeth last month.
Speaking of…
With the help of my editor/critique partner/husband I’ve pushed past a block in What Big Teeth. I took a break from it due to writing pretty much it and only it for fiction in April, and started working on it in the later weeks of May. I’ve also been working on my fanfiction, which I won’t go into too much detail on other than to say I quickly becoming a Canadian history expert and I’ve learned how little I actually know about technology.
I also wrote some more poetry and short fiction this month. The short fiction is the surprise for me, because I’ve been really struggling to write short since starting to seriously work on my novels and longer work. It is a really personal piece but one of my best, in my opinion. I might go back into short fiction again, maybe make myself a challenge to get stuff done and milk my own suffering for content.
On The Blog:
If you haven’t, please read this month’s post, a lot of work went into it: https://elkascott.wordpress.com/2022/05/24/for-whom-the-pencil-scribbles-on-writing-irl-people/
There will be a post in June. I don’t know what it will be yet, but expect it mid-month.
On YouTube:
A new poetry video is up on the channel, check it out here: https://youtu.be/XUYPZTAjP6U
Expect a new video in June. Not sure when, but it will be put up.
Writing:
I’m going to try to write more of the main story line of Cytosine, and work towards finishing my Camp project…so I can finish my other Camp project. Sigh. I’m also hoping to edit some of my work that is already done and look at how to improve it. I’ve also started submitting work again, so if I get any acceptances I’ll be talking with you fine folks about it. If I get rejections, I’ll be whining to you fine folks about it.
Projects:
My projects have been put largely on hold or slowed down while I work on school.
Personal:
I’m back at school and it’s really stressful. It’s a pass or fail course and I’m not enjoying it, even though the focus is writing. Academic, but still. I’m still trying to find a balance between that course and the rest of my life, encompassing my social life, self-care and health, creative projects and just…doing the things I need to do to survive, like working. My mental health is in the toilet. You might hear about that in June via a blog post. We’ll see. I’m not just hanging on anymore, which is nice, but I’m still pretty close to the edge and threatening to fall back over. There’s also the issues around Pride Month looming, my own struggles with my identity and ugh.
I’m not sharing this because I want pity. I’m sharing it because the more people talk about mental health and the realities of living with chronic mental illness, the less of a stigmatized thing it becomes. It’s just an illness. It’s an illness that affects my life every day, but there are a lot of illnesses like that. It’s just a part of life, as miserable as that is. Mental health being bad needs to be a topic of non-judgmental conversation for everyone, not just people with mental illness. A lot of people who don’t have a diagnosis of anything have bad mental health days, or periods where their mental health is in the toilet. We’re all going through the sewers, folks. Let’s just hang on and hope the ride ends soon.
See you all again next month, beasties. Follow me on my socials if you want more of me in between these posts.
Yours,
Elk A. Scott 