Weekly Update #70

First off, sorry for not posting TTE nor EDO this week. I feel like a piece of shit for not being able to get them done, but my brain is just... not cooperating. This is the most blocked I've probably ever been, but don't worry, it's only temporary. I just need to give myself a few days to mentally recharge. Everything will be back to normal next week.

As for why I'm blocked, that's easy.

Some of you might remember me talking about this before, but my grandma lives with us now. Nobody else in the family wanted to take care of her, and she was going crazy on her own and borderline incapable of independent living, so now she's down here. As for what I mean when I say that she's going crazy - well, we feared for years that she was developing dementia, and that was officially confirmed last week by a neurologist after her previous doctor told her that nothing was wrong and suggested her to speak to her pastor about the "demons" she kept on seeing.

Anyways, that's not what created my writing block. We already expected that and it was only a matter of time until it was officially confirmed. If anything, that was a relief because it meant she could finally start on medication. What started my writer's block is how she's been acting the past couple of days.

I have never seen her have a mental episode like she's had in the past few days. I don't know if it's because of the medication or what, but it was bad. It started with her standing over my mum's jacket, claiming that it was covered in filth, and scrubbing it with a tooth brush and bleach for over an hour to get all of the "dirt" out. Then she started doubting that my mum, her daughter, was really who she said she was because there was "no way" she raised a daughter who would ever be alright with having such a filthy jacket. Have I mentioned that the jacket was perfectly clean? During this time, I couldn't even talk in a normal, calm, indoor voice without her claiming that I was shouting at her. After taking the jacket away from her, she decided to 'investigate" my mum's room to see what was wrong with her. This led to my grandma discovering... a messy closet. Supposedly, a messy closet is proof that my mum is having a nervous breakdown and that I need to get help for her and watch her to make sure that she doesn't do anything stupid.

Now, this led to my mum actually almost having a nervous breakdown. And I've mentioned this before I think, but I'm almost too empathetic when it comes to my mum. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but if I know that my mum isn't in a good mood, I'm not in a good mood. When I know that my mum is going through as much shit as she is dealing with her mother going insane, and there's not really anything that I can do to help, it fucks with me hard. All I really get to do is try to mediate between my mum and my grandma since my mum is extremely emotional and doesn't handle my grandma's dementia well at all. Then seeing my mum cry and be upset made my grandma cry and be upset, because my grandma doesn't understand that she's losing her mind (believes spirits keep going through walls to steal her belongings, thinking demons walk on the roof to mess with her, constantly hides things and then forgets where she hid them minutes later and blames it on evil spirits). My grandma doesn't understand that she's losing her mind but she knows that she's causing my mum extreme stress, so it's like a negative feedback loop of everybody feeling like shit. I'm the guy, so I take on the role of the stoic one who always keeps a straight face and bottles everything up and tries to calm everybody down, but it's hard. I don't want to bottle things up, which is probably why I'm rambling so much right now, but if I don't keep playing the role of somebody who can easily handle everything and be calm while everybody else is crying and upset, then things are only going to get even worse. I don't want anybody feeling responsible for my emotions.

>claims to have a writer's block

>rambles for paragraphs about my feelings

smh @ myself.

Anyways, that night with my grandma's mental episode combined with some other feelings I've been bottling up lately has just... affected my ability to write. Hard. I was able to finish CORE since I already had 1/3 of it done before it happened, but it still took me practically 7 hours to finish what should normally only take me 2 to 3 hours. Then with TTE, I had one page done before it happened, and I tried for the past 12 hours to finish the chapter, and only got... another 2 pages done. It didn't help that just a couple of hours into trying to finish the TTE chapter that my grandma came to me upset about her social security payment being lower this month than usual by $150. Even though I explained to her that there are many reasons for why it could have been lowered (and that it was randomly raised by $150 a few months ago for no apparent reason), she's worried that something is wrong because she talked to her (insult very big slur here) sister who has nothing better to do than fuel my grandma's delusions and worries with her uninformed bullshit. Unfortunately, my grandma's sister is just "so smart" and "always right" that she totally knows what she's talking about and is suggesting suing the government because of a decreased social security payment. According to my great aunt, it's "impossible" for those payments to be lowered and it has never happened to anybody else in the family. So, because my great aunt has decided to make my grandma paranoid that either somebody is stealing from her somehow (???) or that the government is illegally ripping her off, I had to have a long (and futile) talk with my grandma earlier that wasn't exactly beneficial to my ability to write.

And now we have to visit the social security office. This is in addition to checking the storage unit my grandma is renting almost every weekend because she's paranoid that people are going into her locked, secure storage unit and stealing from her.

Have I ever mentioned that my grandma used to think I was genuinely possessed when I was a little kid and wanted a pastor to "save" me? She's still scared of me sometimes. I can't even pour myself a small glass of anything alcoholic without her going into her room and shutting her door, because I'm totally a raging alcoholic.

Wanna know what kind of drunk I am? I giggle and start hugging everybody and telling them how much I love them. Super violent and horrible, right? And I don't even get drunk more than 2-3 times a year at most. I rarely ever even get tipsy.

Man, this update is just a full on TED talk at this point, ain't it? I have to admit that I'm feeling better the more I write down, though. Part of my brain is telling me to delete all of this and never let anybody read it. I'm worried that people are going to unpledge because I haven't posted TTE and EDO, I'm worried that people are going to unpledge because I sound like a whiny little bitch, I'm worried that people are just going to roll their eyes and not give a shit, etc.

But at the same time... I don't know, I feel like just posting this and being honest and open and all of that lame stuff is going to help me get into a healthier place mentally, and that's the most important thing for me and my stories. I feel lame as fuck right now for writing all of this and posting it, but fuck me if it isn't a big relief at the same time.

It's times like this when I wish I had a "normal" job. No matter how shit or depressed I might have felt back when I worked normal jobs, I was always able to go to work, smile, and do what needed to be done. I didn't need to think about anything. All I had to do was turn my brain off and go through the motions. Unfortunately, that doesn't really work in a creative job which is honestly the biggest con that there is when it comes to this sort of career, I think. Heck, I used to want to join the military to serve for 20 years and then retire. I couldn't because I have active asthma, but do you get what I'm trying to say here by saying I wish I could just shut my brain off and follow orders? At least that way I could still actually do my job and not feel like a (self depreciation intensifies).

You know, I know that people don't like when others are self-depreciative. I don't like it when people are overly self-depreciative, either. However, it really does make me feel better to just call myself a worthless piece of shit. Maybe I'm a masochist into being degraded? Who knows.

Anyways, I think that's about it for now. I don't really know what else there is to say even though I feel like I could continue writing for hours and hours about me and what I've been going through, but my life isn't hard enough to justify that. This is just one little bump that I got stuck on. Next week, everything is going to be back to normal, and I'm going to get everything done.

Speaking of which, I'm going to start writing again on Monday. I need to take the weekend off to recharge, so don't be surprised when no chapters get posted over the weekend like usual. I'm going to try to switch to a Monday-Wednesday/Thursday schedule. That way I can actually have the weekends off again to do fun things with people which should further benefit my mental state.

Also, thank you. One, thank you for your support. I don't think I can express just how extremely appreciative I am of all my supporters. You are literally helping me make my dream a reality. I wouldn't even be here getting to ramble at you if it wasn't for all of your support in the first place. So, seriously, thank you. Two, if you actually read all of that, thank you part 2. I guess I'm not the only masochist here if you read all of that.

And now for some memes or something.

https://youtu.be/bAojxWZRVKk

https://youtu.be/6f5ys8VU2ek

https://youtu.be/Mt6ylg1x9_c

https://youtu.be/M7w986ni7_g This one isn't really a meme, but damn if I haven't been watching this series. It's just... I can't stop watching it.

Weekly Worksheet: https://drive.google.com/open?id=17BEy9Xm2-PlJjgzyBngGg2OpcOInQDR1

I'm not counting all the hours that went into CORE and my attempt at TTE because I'd feel dirty putting down, probably, about 20 hours or so total when I got shit done during them.

And as depressing as it is to feel like I've failed this week, I just have to remind myself that not only am I far more consistent in my overall rate of uploading than most, but that I have written over two million fucking words in a year and a half. That's about thirty books worth. In under two years. I might feel like being even more self-depreciative, but when I really feel down, I just have to look at what I've fucking managed to accomplish and be proud. Even if I don't feel like being proud, I'm going to force myself to feel proud.

Non-consensual patting-self-on-the-back for the win.

The True Endgame

There obviously isn't much to say here. What I can, however, say is that the plot is supposed to start kicking up again this chapter with some important things happening, and that's part of why I just can't bring myself to finish this next chapter. Even if I could finish it, I don't want it to be a "meh" chapter.

Ero Dungeon Online

Again, not much to talk about for obvious reasons. There was probably only a 1% chance of me being able to write this chapter considering how I've been feeling. I mean, this next chapter is a sex one. I'm not going to be writing any good sex scene while I'm feeling like this.

The Queen's Hound

There's not really much to talk about for this, either, but that'd be because I'm talking about major spoilers for people who aren't at the $10 tier. I am happy that the latest chapters have been getting more likes than usual, though. I'll use that to assume that people have been happier with the latest chapters than those before them. Anyways, this next chapter is going to be the second volume's finale, and then we'll be moving onto the third chapter! The third chapter is also going to be the start of the long-term story arc I have planned, so it will be much less writing-with-the-flow and more sticking to a plan.

Lazy Dragon Queen

Personally, I'm happy with what happened in the latest chapter. I know that there are others who are really happy with certain developments and I also know that there are others who aren't super happy about it, but I'm happy with it, and I think that it's been hinted at for a pretty long time now. Without spoiling anything for the lower tiers, let us not forget that Drake chained himself to his greenhouse to protest going, fought back every step of the way, and then had no issue shouting all sorts of profanities at the cameraman so that the news station would get in trouble.

Drake has always had a bit of a defiant bad boy inside of him.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

CORE

Lots of things have been set up, and now it's time for those things to start getting explored. That's uh, all I really have to say this time around. It's time to make use of all the plot hooks that I've set up. 

In Closing

Thank you once again for your continued support. Sorry once again for not being able to write TTE and EDO this week. I'm going to do my best to make sure that all of my chapters are high quality next week! Furthermore, I'm officially getting the cover for LDQ's first volume started. I'm also going to reach out to TTE's artist within the next couple of days to see about getting a new cover for the first volume and then covers for volumes 2-6. I'm also going to talk to ehrrr about modifying EDE's cover into being EDO's cover. So, no writing for the next few days, but I'm still going to be getting stuff done for my stories.

Thank you once again, and I hope that you all have a wonderful rest-of-the-week!