Emotionally depleted

I’m trying something incredibly counterintuitive right now.

I am suffering in a lot of areas in my life, I am hugely stressed and growing in apathy for almost everything and I am finding it hard to get the get up and go.

I am losing my fight.

So, usually, when under so much tension and uncertainty and sickness, people tell me to rest, take it easy, don’t overthink things, don’t do this and don’t do that and most certainly don’t start anything new – you need to calm down and rest up.

It would be natural to think I am crazy because I am going to do the opposite.

It’s based on an idea by Mel Robbins called “Bluewater”.

She took a glass of water and filled it to the brim and put dirt in the cup, lots of dirt and she mixed it up to show how a person looks when they’re feeling overloaded and stressed out.

She then explained how people then try to deal with each individual problem they have at a time, to try and lessen the load, she did this by demonstrating how people try to spoon out the dirt little by little and over a time, their cup gets emptier and emptier and this emptiness is representing the persons emotional health. 

Over a time, as you’re spooning out the dirt, you are becoming more and more emotionally depleted and burned out and the idea of doing anything becomes so exhausting you just can’t bear to do anything anymore and you lose yourself and you feel that you might never be happy again.

A dangerous situation for anyone!

She said the simplest thing to do at a time like this is to make yourself do something for yourself, something that you think you’d enjoy or if your apathy is so bad, go back to something you once enjoyed – force yourself to have some time in the week to yourself to do it and gradually ease more and more things that you like into your life – make the time to do some self-care and find yourself again!

So she showed what happens when you start adding more water into the dirty cup, it eventually cleans up, not entirely, there will always be a little bit of dirt, but as you add more and more back into your life that you enjoy, that makes you feel like you have some kind of purpose or soul again, your cup is going to get cleaner and cleaner and you will stop feeling so depleted in yourself and you will be stronger and healthier in the long run for it.

I’m trying to force myself right now into going into autopilot and doing some of the things I used to enjoy from the past, whether I am tired or not, whether I feel like it or not, whether I am currently enjoying it or not and no matter how bad the physical pains are in my body – I must do them. 

Because, maybe that’s what I am missing right now?

I’ve been encouraged to take it easy, stop and relax so much over the years that I have come to a virtual stop and any notion of doing anything makes me have this kind of feeling of MEH!

I’ve allowed peoples advice to make me lazy and I don’t like it!

I actually started about a couple of weeks ago.

I started to force myself to read 30 pages of a book again per day, like I used to a year back. 

I am forcing myself to write anything, no matter what it is, whether it intends to be published or not.

I am forcing myself to do some kind of exercise again.

I am practising art at least once every couple of days. 

I am forcing myself to take an interest in thinking about my future again and start planning things and maybe even start thinking about chasing dreams again, because around four years ago I gave them up.

So I am thinking about creating an inspiration or dream board again, I used to be a big fan of those but got out of the habit of it because Paul started pinning his things onto MY board!  He wouldn’t get his own.

I completely forsook any dream because I was convinced I was about to die at any moment!

Along with this I have been trying to remember to do the “High five habit” Mel Robbins also spoke about, but I need more practise with that and I am also trying to remember to count down from five when I am about to go back into a negative habit.

My memory has issues because I have been on survival mode and doing practically nothing with my life for the last eight years, because I have been recovering from bed bound sickness.

I have also had a scare recently.

I know as I am getting older, certain health problems, particularly mental health problems are getting much worse.

I came across a video online purely by accident, I wasn’t looking for anything in particular when I came across a video titled “loneliness is dangerous for your physical health”.

I knew it was dangerous for mental health, but not physical health.

It turns out people who have been isolated or lonely most of their lives have a hugely high risk of developing auto-immunity issues as well as memory loss.  Now that woke me up, because my memory is unreliable and scary at times and I have four different types of auto-immune disease.

Much of the abuse and neglect I had as a child was due to isolation, my mum refusing for me to socialise outside of tight family and friendship circles, even home educating me most of the time!

So I never really had a healthy social life that lasted, it always came in dribs and drabs.

Knowing this and knowing that people who have lived in isolation a lot are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s or dementia before they are 60yrs old, worried me a lot!

They did say though that reversing this can be very quickly done actually and socialising for at least 30 minutes week outside of your home regularly or more can put you back on the right track in not getting that type of dementia, as it’s a specific type apparently.

So there is a lot going on in my life and according to the Bluewater technique there really should be a lot more going on too.

But right now, I am trying to concentrate on solving a mystery in my life and getting my passion for writing back.  Because I haven’t felt passionate about anything for a long time!

Tell a white lie, I have, but then I quickly felt, what’s the point someone will ruin it…

So, yeah, that’s what’s up lately!

Thanks for reading!

Flux to Fluck?

I am in a flux today.

I am experiencing deep depression and high motivation and there is no real in-between.

On one hand I feel extremely down and tearful and struggling to even think that I’d get to April and on the other I feel pumped to exercise and morph my body over a time into how I really want it to be.

I’ve been staring in a mirror for months trying to see myself through other people’s eyes and occasionally I see something, but then I move my head a certain way and the ugly comes back to haunt me.

So, exercise raises endorphin levels when you do it after a time, but it’s getting the will to get up and just move today that’s eating at me.  Because I just want to hide under my fleece blanket and cry about things, cry deeply – I’m wearing hoodies a lot lately to hide the fact I’m crying so much to other members of the household.

They really haven’t noticed, perhaps my friend is right – I’d be a good actress?  Who knows!

When I have got used to never dreaming because things never happen for me, someone comes along and tells me that life is soon to be great and it’s like another tease.  More disappointment for the future and more broken dreams and an even more shattered heart – that’s the forecast for me I think.

I used to be a positive person, a Pollyanna and I used to tick people off with my ray of sunshine and words of encouragement – it’s like someone was bothered by it so much they’ve cursed me!

I’m told regularly, I will have great things because I have a great talent and this person and that person likes you – it’s all bullshit really, because I haven’t seen these people tell me things.

There are lots of talented people in the world who don’t have those great things – I’m not the only one and it’s not things that I want.  It’s love.

A few rich men haven’t got that into their thick heads yet – they think they can seduce me with things, but they can’t.

Why are the simplest things in life so hard to obtain?  A persons time, snuggles; words of love, support and encouragement, a good time and a laugh without judgement?

A tactile relationship that feels real and not based on lies and broken promises, a relationship where we encourage each other, instead of one of us being a sponge and draining the life out of the other in order to make the other one feel better?

I know I have had a life of abuse, but it sounds strange to roll this off the tongue, but I was always a happy kind of person, known for being bubbly and friendly and since I’ve moved here slowly and steadily I am being drained of life.

I remember before I moved here that I could never imagine the day I’d die, I was scared of death and wanted to be immortal – but now I crave death.  It’s so contrast!

My willpower for survival is weakening.

Paul told me the other day that when a problem used to occur when I first moved in and I wasn’t moved by it and stayed relaxed and the same, that it bothered him, frustrated him even.  Now, whenever there is a problem I am at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, where a problem can become a huge drama quite quickly and it’s a big contrast and he thought that I’d be more supportive and take it more seriously, but instead it’s made me fall apart.

I know why.

When I lived with my parents, emotions were not tolerated if it made a person loud or unmanageable and unproductive. 

When I came here, it’s ok to be loud, shouting, ranting and raving at the slightest problem and to not let go.

I’m a huge empathic sponge, I soak up the energies of people around me and become like them – I’m a spiritual chameleon of sorts.  This is why it’s essential I remove myself from this environment somehow, but it’s difficult when the energies around me are apathetic, depressed, defensive and aggressive.

On the rare occasion a visitor comes who is of lighter energy, it rubs off me quickly and I feel like the old me again – their energy can boost me for a couple of days in fact, but it never lasts.

I remember having such high energy when I first moved in that I drained Paul instead.  Paul looked awful and exhausted all the time.  Because I was always on my feet, being bubbly, finding joy in the smallest thing like a child in a candy store, no matter what happened in life – everything was like a novelty to me and it was.

Because I rarely got to choose anything and go out when I lived with my parents.

I had comments from Paul that I looked at the world in childlike wonder and innocence and that I was so excitable, he kept telling me to slow down, calm down, sit down, lie down, everything had to come down.

Till I emotionally fell down and can barely get up with the weight of it all.

Words can’t describe how I truly feel – all of this feels like intense whining of a bitter heart who hates the world for the joy it has because she hasn’t got it.  Jealous slurs, that’s probably what you’re thinking about this post right now.

If you aren’t thinking that, then I apologise.

Art would show the world more of what I feel inside, but then again I can’t use my art table right now can I?

I really miss doing art.

I think the reason why I look younger than forty is because as tragic as it sounds I cry so much my tears sometimes dry on my face and make it feel taut after a while.  Like now, my face feels tight because the tears have dried.

I try to keep my sense of humour and find something to laugh about, which is part of the manic depression I have.  One minute extremely low and playing with sharp objects near my wrists and then the next moment cracking jokes about my darkness.

I might be depressed but with the tear treatment at least it keeps me young.  It’s a little light, but still gloomy and incredibly pitiful.

But that’s where I am today.

No in between – motivated to exercise and cry my heart out at the same time whilst being at my most deeply creative. 

Lack of sleep, slept four and a half hours again last night, my average for the past few weeks actually.

Motivated to exercise because I saw a glimmer of hope in the mirror the other day that I could look exactly like Diana Dors (Diana Mary Fluck) my main idol after all!  Just dye the hair, tone up and lose around forty pound and yes, I can see its possible I could be like her…

Maybe someday I will get myself out of this dump and sell my work and get myself a red dress covered in rubies and diamonds and wear a pretty wine coloured faux fur shrug with a silk ribbon?  Maybe someday I can walk in high heels without looking like a rookie tranny and actually be elegant and swan like?

Or maybe someday I will be found in a pile of my own poems covered in blood and white as snow, cold and still like ice and maybe my finders will publish my work for me and I will become posthumously famous?

Sods law that.

Thanks for reading…

Dystopian 1

This idea has been around almost forever with me!  This idea originated when I was fourteen years old, back in 1996!  It was only really thought of seriously though from 2003, after I had made friends who loved wrestling and were training to become wrestlers themselves!

It was originally thought to be a planned gimmick by my group of friends, but they abandoned this idea as many of them didn’t make it into wrestling professionally.  They all gave me permission to run with it still if I wanted to, but I changed a lot of their plans to create this story to make it feel more unique and mine.

What will you find in this story?

Gender identity challenges

Wrestling

Fight for survival

War

Bio-punk themes

Anarchy

Fallen Civilisation

Close female relationships

Mother and child relationship

Martyrism

Freedom fighters

Coliseum style fighting

Cage fighting

Animalism

Feral children being shown humanity

What influenced this story?

My friends had a huge part to play in the basics of the story.

Various professional wrestling companies, characters and their gimmicks

Mad Max beyond the thunderdome

The cage fighting scene in X-Men with wolverine

The hunger games (eventually influenced later drafts and adaptions to the plot)

The movie Amazons and gladiators!

In particular the female wrestlers Luna Vachon and Chyna, as well as the WWF/WWE wrestling stable Legion of Doom!

The movie – Escape from New York

Spartacus stories

World war Z (in later drafts and adaptions)

I have been slowly working towards chopping this story down a lot as it became a huge series of books and I am unsure I really want this to be a series after all, not deleting anything, but chopping it down into becoming a standalone with potential to then expand later on, if the publisher wants it.

I have a passion for wrestling shows and dystopia and so this is a longstanding love affair and it’s going to be difficult for me to finalise the edited version.

Happy reading everyone!

Anthropomorphic dystopian 1

Anthropomorphic dystopian 1

The above is a mouthful, but that is not its real name, aren’t you relieved?– its real title will give away too much about what is in the story and we don’t want to do that this early on!

The general themes in the story are as follows;

Cyberpunk

Anthropomorphic animals

War

Revenge

Dystopian

Survival

Imprisonment

Inventions

And last but not least – comedy

The above story has been inspired by;

The animals of Farthing Wood

Wind in the Willows

Watership Down

Mad Max beyond the thunderdome

Secret life of pets

The hunger games

Nuclear warfare

Rude dog and the dweebs

Frankenweenie

And very much Tim Burton inspired

The above is the work that is likeliest to be sent out first and it is only really a couple of months away from being perfected to its final draft!  However, with the upcoming surgeries I am going to be having, it is best that this work should not be sent any sooner than mid-autumn, potentially before winter – though November to the second week of January is not the best time to send anything to an agent – it’s their busiest time of the year!

So unless it’s polished before NaNoWriMo 2022, it may not be sent until late January 2023, but I am working on it being sent out by early October!

This book will be a series, so this is only book one that will be polished by then and I know that agents are not keen on new writers sending in series as a first approach, but I think this is something special and I am sure they will see it too?

I have spoken to a handful of very close friends about this story and I have several people excited over it – this is why this story became my primary focus and I dropped my original first novel whilst I do this one.  Because, the other story I think should be my first novel – is actually less exciting to my friends than this project.

Some friends think I should ditch it as a novel and make it a comic, but I have had other friends suggest that my prose like writing does better as a novel and that to write it as a comic may actually kill the story’s effect overall.

Time will tell – it may be a case that it may turn into a comic a few years down the line, I don’t know if that sort of thing happens, but I suppose it’s possible?

Anyway – happy reading!

When the bell of life rings

Even the kindest of people can be unthinking and careless with your needs

Never be dependent upon another and their kind deeds

For one day they might go away, walk away or die

They say you mustn’t think of such things, but when you are in need – why?

It is essential to think the worst for what will happen if it does?

You can’t underestimate the power of fate, that even the strongest die

Although many can’t help being needy, like me

It is a scary concept to be in

But you can’t brush it all away under a carpet verbatim

What will happen if I am alone?

Who will care for me?

I can’t rely on charity, to always rescue me

It is a selfish thought I know, but what will happen, where could I go?

Nobody really cares or knows

We are not to talk of such things

No matter how close we are to when the bell rings

Sunday Word Count 4

Sunday word count four – I’m not on The Wall of Shame huzzah!

This week’s word total is…

12382

And possibly more as I have written approximately six pages of stuff by hand and haven’t typed them up on the computer yet!

It is good but I have written nothing at all for three of the days this week and my only excuse for that is I was exhausted and had gastric flu.  Yes, sorry for the TMI (too much information).

The days break up as this;

11^th August – nothing and that’s because our internet is still tetchy, in fact it has been tetchy again today too. 

12^th August – 1584 words, which is usually considered a low average for me.

13^th August – 7483 words, that is amazing and I wish most days were like this!  Especially as it is still the school summer holiday!

14^th August – 637 words, quite low and not at all good in my opinion!

15^th August – nothing, because I was busy with other things, mostly reading and calming Henry down and having what seems to be gastric flu.

16^th August – nothing again because of the gastric flu!

17^th August – 2678 words, which is my good average amount for daily writing.  It is something I would do usually when Henry is at school; it is still the summer holidays so it is amazing I did my average word count for the day whilst he was home!

The writing I have done this week has been mostly notes towards my leprechaun fantasy, including a title change and rewriting certain weak characters to make them have more of a part in the plot of the story, because there was a lot of weak characters, some of which I will be deleting entirely once this fourth or fifth draft is complete. 

I have not included the words towards new story ideas I have had this week, there has been three new novel ideas I have had, but I can’t start work on them until all this other work is finished.  I am not bragging or anything but I really do have a huge backlog of ideas piled up in a corner of this room and it is getting ridiculous because I know that more than half will never ever be started, let alone finished as there is just too many!  I think I must be the only writer in the history of the world who has her own slush pile for what ideas might work and what are weak!

I am also weighing up something in my mind a lot recently.  I love reading and writing fantasy, horror, sci-fi and dystopian stories – I especially love and am addicted to my vampire stories, my saga I am doing.  But I am reading a lot about how a writer shouldn’t really have too many genres under their belt and this is disheartening to me because I love them all.  I can’t release my vampires or my fantasy in particular and there are at least four dystopian stories I really want to write; it seems to me that there are only really two horrors I have planned, so I can release the horror I guess?  Though I have been told by so many people that horror is more of my strength than other types of fiction I write.

I thought I could just write anything and be appreciated just as much, but the more I research the more I am finding that this isn’t the case, I could be found unprofessional and disloyal to my original fan base.  Even to have just the three genres could be too many.  I don’t really know what genre vampires can be put into, because I have found them in so many different sections at the bookstore and in the libraries that they have confused me – they are put into the dark romance, dark fantasy, horror, gothic and erotica sections – so which is it?  Dystopian novels can be put into science fiction, horror or thriller sections too.  Fantasy also has about three sections, dark fantasy, adult fantasy, family fantasy. 

I am struggling to decide which ones to say goodbye to.  My fantasies tend to be comedy family fantasies and some of them are dark, very dark and borderline horror again sometimes with small interjections of dark comedy. 

My Dystopian stories have links with science fiction ideas, new fictional type sciences and leans towards some religious or mythological ideologies or prophecies. 

My vampires are more complexed as the sagas cross into so many genres, science-fiction, horror, romance and fantasy as even my vampires mingle with fairies and so forth.

It is apparently great to be different, but not so different that you can’t define your genre.

If I can’t define my genre right now, how can any of my future agents and publishers?

It is both a depressing and eye opening reality of being a writer.

It makes me feel so caged.

I really love and adore my vampire novels so much and they are a huge part of who I am, but I am not ready to kiss goodbye my leprechauns, mermaids, giants and dragons either.  Nor am I willing to kiss goodbye my ripped up worlds full of warlords and surviving citizens and their struggle for salvation and freedom.

So who is going to take me seriously when I post out my stories to agents in a year or two?

Do you think I worry too much?  Please post what you think in comments below.

Thank you for reading.

Stop trying to synchronise with me

Stop trying to synchronise with me, because if you do I will always change my vibration

I will leave you without a clue

I turn and twist in impossible ways, impassable ways, it’s true

It’s true

I don’t want to synchronise with you

I want to find my own truth

Stop following me, my path won’t make you happy

You’re not like me

You’re not resilient enough, you’re not passionate enough

You mope too much, to be me

You won’t survive being me

So set yourself free

Be yourself, not me

NaNoWriMo Survival Kit

I fully intend to do NaNoWriMo next month; I have a novel fully planned for the occasion.  Whether or not the actual novel will be completed by the end of the month remains to be seen, but I hope that at least half of the story would be done by the end of it. 

I have entered the NaNoWriMo giveaway from the website www.thewritepractice.com to win the NaNoWriMo survival kit, please click the link below to help me gain more entries.

http://thewritepractice.com/giveaways/nanowrimo/?lucky=42129

 

I was an essayist and didn’t know it

Sitting back and reviewing my own life, I’ve realized I’ve wasted a lot of time not only living with my mother and worrying about her reactions I’ve actually discovered that in the past I had a lot of talent for writing essays that I didn’t know about.

How I came to this conclusion is simple; I remember reading and researching a lot of subjects and writing up long reports of what I’ve found and how I feel about it to forums (outside of the writing category) and doing a good job of it.  Readers found my posts informative and this lead me to become one of the most popular members on two particular sites; one being a spiritual and occultist site and the other being a gardening and survival site. 

I didn’t get paid for these opinions, didn’t think it was anything great; but after researching what an essayist actually is I realized this is what I was when I was living with my mum, bored to tears writing up anything from cosmological theory, theological history, social sciences, bio-science and what was on TV last night, thinking that I was simply wasting my time – I was, but I could have wasted it in a more productive way, by being a paid essayist.

I’ve actually found out my love for writing up information and opinions on my favorite subjects can and have been profitable for many writers in the past; how I sell these essays, I haven’t a clue but I love doing this, I love sharing my knowledge with other people amongst writing fiction as well.

With this being said, I will start to write up essays here on my blog to show you what I used to be like and to also ask the question “am I an essayist or is there something I’m missing in those posts”?

Thank you for reading and your comments are necessary for my fine tuning.

What have we done?

This world is our home, a wonderful dome, filled with such diverse beauty oh what have we done?

Our home chokes to death on invisible black flames of carbon, oh what have we done?  What have we done?

Trees falling all around us, a great infestation of greed pulls them to the ground, oh what have we done?  What have we done?

What do we need so badly that we’re destroying the things we need the most?  Air, land, sea, sky, oh why, oh why, oh why?  What have we done?  Look what we’ve done!

The big brains say we’re progressing, but what is progression?  To die before we’ve lived?  We’ve no other place to go, so why are we cutting the world away like there’s an alternative?

There is no alternative

Oh what have we done?  What have we done?

We’re progressing towards mass extinction, mass end of life, mass death run rife. 

What have we done?

We can stop…

Small changes mean a lot

Giving up comforts for survival maybe our only revival – look what we’ve done, stop this… everyone?

Ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s death…