Finger guns, and archaic words Grammarly can pry from my cold, dead hands
Image by @paulterrell
Heyo, lovely people. I hadn’t necessarily intended to do this post before my one among the Arthurian mythos’ most enduring figures, but as that character has so much flux in his history, I require more time than I initially set myself to chronicle it. That said, I’m pretty happy to be sharing my happy news in the world of my project. But first!
What I’m Reading: The Hollow Hills (Mary Stewart — Peerage Books); The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, + Henry Lincoln — Century Books)
What I’m Watching: Still trying to watch Cursed (Netflix); outside of that, I’m on a bit of a Nordic bender with Beforeigners (HBO Nordic) and Vikings (History)
Life’s pretty solid at the moment. The D&D campaign in which I’m partaking is finally wrapping up after over a year, which is exciting! I’ve only had… four character deaths? To be fair, three of them were of the same character. Meanwhile, I’m trying to be more active, going on walks several days a week, which is a pretty big deal for me. See, the main issue with my mental illness is that when it flares, my brain goes into really low power mode. And while it hasn’t flared yet (that’s usually a September-February shindig, gotta love them six-month depressive episodes), I’m taking the initiative while my depression is only moderate and my anxiety and stress are only severe.
I figured I should add here, with that last statement, I accompanied it with a pair of finger guns. Cos, you know, I’m hip.
I also finished The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart, which was so good. There was heartache at the end, I’m still dealing with that, it’s lovely. Anyway, I would highly recommend it, it was a solid four-star read.
The only real downside at present is not knowing when The Green Knight is showing up in Australia. I’m hearing positive prospective reviews — though some are comparing it to Excalibur, which concerns me, though I’ll wait to see it before I judge — but Australia… please tell me when I can watch it. I’m standing outside, it’s cold and raining and why is it so humid? and I’m all alone.
Of course, all of it is made better in the fact that I’m writing! Cue the festival with no one there, because this party’s full of anxious introverts and they all preferred to stay home.
After this, I’m presently only six chapters and roughly a week in; while the past few days have been quiet (though I did figure out how to fix chapter six, so I’m diving back in today), I slammed out a solid 10k on day one, and another 8k in the following two days thereafter.
A side-note here: Grammarly, my best friend and my editor for all these posts, keeps trying to insist I change thereafter to after that because thereafter is “archaic”. Well, you know what, Grammarly? You can pry my archaic words from my cold, dead hands. Still love you, but leave my thereafters alone.
But good golly gosh, actually writing this manuscript has been a breath of fresh air. Watching characters and storylines come to life on the page, even if this first draft is gonna be shit, the truth of the matter is, all first drafts are shit. As Neil Gaiman said, “The 2nd draft is to make it look like you know what you’re doing.”
Genuinely, though, I have been daydreaming and cultivating this story for years, though it’s only formed end to end in this researching saga. The reading is still going on, as I’m still reading The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (it’s a big book), and I need to get back into my one-chapter-a-day method for The Hollow Hills. That said, both are fantastic. But it would be wrong to get to the point of writing and thinking, “Yep, that’s all I need. No more. I know everything now. Obviously.”
Right now, I’m in love with this story and all the reading I’m doing for it. I’m seeing where I’m going, and I can’t wait. Even if there are slower days and days where I’m not having the time of my life, every day is one closer to finishing this project.
The fun part is ahead: keeping my perfectionism out of my business. If it can stay locked out of my house while I’m drafting, we’ll be all good. On top of that, and I will encourage everyone to do the same for them, I’m going to do what I can to be kind to my mental health. I find a good thing for that is leaving my familiar space — my room, where my desk and, thus, all my work lives — and relocating to a new one. Music is a big one, and I’ll often listen to music, albeit louder than I know I should. I usually go for music outside of my writing playlist, be it under my all-time favourites playlist or the songs I think are semi-objectively the best of the best. That said, I’ve taken to using my walks as a means of unstucking myself.
As well, as this is my bloggering, unstucking shall remain regardless of its Englishing quality and lack thereof. It is now in my Grammarly dictionary.
But while I’m working, I have a few playlists I work under: one is of all the ambience (so much rain, it’s terrific), but my main one is of songs both instrumental and vocal in a vague order. If you’re curious, you can listen to the rough vibe of my book here. The opening four songs currently living as my playlist’s thumbnail are Hans Zimmer, Billie Eilish, a Cathar hymn, and David Bowie. Shoutouts to Zyrah’s I See Fire, Juice Newton’s Angel of the Morning, Daddy Cool’s Eagle Rock, and all the music from Battlestar Galactica. Bear McCreary’s run of All Along the Watchtower, AKA the best version, fight me, but its preceding song is Heeding the Call and is almost as fantabulous. I’m not at all biased, but it’s a pretty solid listen.
The moral of this post? I would be dead in the water without Grammarly, and I would genuinely recommend it if you write on the regular, but it can fuck right off and leave my archaic words alone. Just stop. They’re mine. Like Zuko with honour, thereafter is all mine.
— Charis.
