Managed to write Chapter 14 (3,509 words). Puts me at a total of 36,425 words not including chapter titles/headings, table of contents, and cover page (including those it's 39,366 words. there's a surprising amount of words in those categories).
I've had to push through my anxiety to write. Once I get writing I'm fine, but I've got to start. It's more than the anxiety. When I don't have a set schedule (classes or work) it's harder to get up in the morning, to eat, to shower, to get dressed, to feel motivated enough to write. I had gotten an interview for a job just before COVID-19 hit. Now I'm on the student version of financial aid relief that my country has set up to help students who don't qualify for the other forms of relief during this pandemic. While it's nice to have the money to pay for my phone bill and cat food, I'd rather be working. However my health won't allow for me to work a front line job right now. So I'm going to keep looking for work from home type jobs until things let up. If I don't find anything by September I'm just going to be writing until school starts back up.
I'm also worried about school. Online learning is not easy, it's also definately not my learning method. I learn best when I can hear, see, and do. When I can ask questions if I'm confused, or can just listen and take notes (or follow along with instructions on how to do something), that's when I learn best and actually remember things. I've done online learning before, it's painful. I've been working really hard for my grades and am worried they're going to drop (brought my GPA back up in the fall semester, and surpassed where it had ever been in the winter one).
Writing is helping me stay sane. I'm thankful I took to tracking my progress and posting on here. It's giving me a little more motivation to continue, it's also helping me feel like I'm actually accomplishing something. For someone with mental health struggles at the best of times this is vital to keeping my mental health up. I'm generally worst in winter, but I'm having nights where I have to fight harder than I did this last winter. I had to give away my pocket knife yesterday. I'd had too many nights where I just wasn't rational.
Everything I have been through has made me a great writer as I can empathize so much. I've been through trauma, I've had to pave my own way to getting better mental health. I've been through more than people would think upon meeting me. I still carry emotional and mental scars. I've been trying to use what I've been through, how hard I've had to fight, to be a better writer. I've been told by those I've let read what I write that it worked. I'm hoping to use what I go through and what I hear about others going through at this time with COVID-19 to continue to be a better writer. You can't write what you don't know. So I expect that one day I will have a character that I wouldn't have been able to write if I hadn't lived through what we're going through now.
Stay safe, stay hopeful, as long as we reach out to each other (even if it's just electronically) we can make it through this.
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