Sick leave

Last week I had strange sensations, especially in one leg. Numbness, tingling. And I hadn't even sat much that day. Couldn't sit at the computer at all anymore. I woke up at 4:30 at night, my heart was pounding and I couldn't sleep anymore, I had to take another melatonin. Of course, I was scared of the possibility of a blood clot, but at least there was no swelling, redness or heat.

I couldn't and didn't dare to be on the computer much the next day either. Luckily, the next day was better. Of course, I had taken aspirin and pycnogenol to help the blood circulate better.

And it all started when I wrote a page and a half of a new short story. Then, when I continued after a day's break, I realized that these two scenes can't exist in the same universe at the same time, so I had to divide the short story in two. When I already have almost dozens of short stories in progress, it's horrible if one short story idea turns into two. Exponential growth! Soon there are about a million of them!

 

 

I then got to visit the library when I even dared to go for a walk. A bird pooped just a few meters away from me. And it wouldn't even be the first time a bird pooped on me.

Well, now my 25-year-old cell phone (Nokia 1100) is about to break down. It won't start charging. I can't tell if it's the phone or the charger that's at fault.

I've been watching the Ice Hockey World Championships. It was great when Norway beat Sweden. And Czech, although it's been terrible in this tournament, like USA. My favorites are the Slovenian cats, Danish metal (because the coach is a David Coulthard lookalike), my idol Jalonen's Italia (Clara is my hero). I'd like this Leijonat store shirt, but without the text and a crown on Jalonen's head, so I need AI and Temu?

 

 

The mystery of the object moving on its own

When an item has been moved to another location in the middle of the night and no one admits their guilt... Either they are lying, sleepwalking, or a third person has been there at night. I can't think of any other possible explanation. Even the ghosts of cats would hardly do that.

 

 

What good came from changing the graphics card and monitor? The new monitor has its own speakers, so the computer couldn't detect the existence of other sound sources, for example my headphones.

I also got anxious when suddenly there was only 5 gigabytes of free space on the C drive when there should have been 15 gigabytes more. I always have trouble with that C drive when nothing fits there. Somewhere a huge amount of hibernation files was found, which my spouse managed to delete.

 

I worked on my short stories for a couple of weeks. My second novel hasn't progressed as fast as I had hoped. The goal was to edit a short story a day, and I managed to do that pretty well, even though my body couldn't handle it. I was already working on the last, or 13th, short story when we went on the cruise. Working through those short stories one after the other has made me realize how bad and repetitive they are.

I had only been working on the short stories for the fifth day when my left arm started hurting. It just couldn't stand it when it has to be bent over while writing. The worst risk is blood clots, which I'm always afraid of anyway.

 

 

 

Bacon's revenge

How many ways can the decision to buy bacon and fry it in the oven bite a person in the ass?

For the second time in a while, I bought pork loin slices with the intention of making them in the oven because I can't bear to fry them in a pan in so many batches. The internet is full of instructions for making bacon in the oven, and each one has a different temperature and baking time. Well, they didn't come out cooked even though I probably cooked them for twice as long. My bacon should be crispy, or burnt.

It left a nice mess, the baking paper was rippled in grease and the baking sheet as well. I don't know how to clean it.

And then my mouth hurt because I chewed that meat for three days. My mouth has never been so sore. Just in time for a visit to the dental hygienist and my gums shouldn't be swollen. Eating was difficult, and so was living. My face and lymph nodes hurt too. One day I wanted to cry when the electric shock-like pains in my ear and face terrified me. I can't stand this shitty body anymore, where something is always wrong.

 

 

Yet somehow, gritting my teeth (literally), I managed to edit my first novel. I can't believe what mistakes I still found in it: for example, an unfinished sentence, and a great continuity error where first they are in a hotel and the next second they are at home. D'oh! What the hell was I thinking? Answer: nothing. I would have thought I had noticed that years or decades ago.

So the sandals broke and I started using new ones, almost identical ones. Too bad they cause pain and blisters on my feet and if I wore them for longer, the skin would probably break. I can't understand. The previous ones were so good. If I bought new sandals, there was no way I could know if I could walk longer distances in them. It's hard to find good and cheap shoes. I really need wide fit shoes.

An interesting phenomenon. I come home from a run sweaty, but my hands are so frozen that they can't work. Of course, 20 degrees Celsius, windy and cloudy weather is a reason for the hands to react like that.

Big mistake

I was getting upset about the constant heat and the fact that it was preventing me from going to the library. I reserved a few books. Big mistake.

Then I started feeling nauseous, and my heart was beating too fast. Next came the endometriosis pains.

 

 

And again one of the shoes broke, sandals. They lasted well from Siilinjärvi and Lidl all the way home and finally broke in the stairwell. The soles of both shoes cracked, and pieces of the soles fell into the hallway.

When it was time to go to the library I woke up with a sore throat and despite the heat I was cold. Only one of the three books I had reserved had arrived. But I still had to go because I knew I would be even worse in the coming days. When I returned home from the library I had received notifications that the other two books had arrived. I was  a bit upset. I reserved more books. I also almost reserved the same book again...

A new attempt in a couple of days, only in the evening when it's colder, almost 32 degrees Celsius... I thought a bird had shit on me when something cold kept dripping down my neck so that I was startled, but no, just my own sweat.

I can't do anything, I'm tired. The decision to quit my studies as useless and unprofitable has begun to mature. I just can't continue this torture, even in the summer my income is 0 euros. It was absurd to even start.

 

Writing

I don't think I'll ever finish my second novel, not even if I live 50 more years. The word count only increased by 4,000 in a month, so it's now 31,000. And that story doesn't even interest me, I'm completely bored. I used to think that was my best story, but I don't agree anymore.

I still need to get my first novel ready for publication, as I already booked an ISBN number when I started the book project on Books on Demand, and there's a three-month deadline. I wanted to cry with happiness when BoD's cover tool EasyCover finally accepted my cover. I did everything the same way as before, and this time it worked. It's hard to know what is wrong, especially when the error messages are in German.

It feels so bad to send your child out into the world, after decades. The thought of never being able to make a single change to the text again... And of course, every sentence I've ever written makes me ashamed.

 

 

 

Writing rush

Nobody is interested in these stories about writing, but someone could argue that this whole blog is not interesting either. I still want to document the progress of my writing here.

Writing has always been a beloved hobby of mine. I have loved writing since I was a child. The stories I write are mostly romantic nonsense.

 

 

I actually decided to focus on writing instead of studying for a while. I gave myself one week at the end of January, and with that excuse I whipped myself into writing. Right at the beginning I finished 2 short stories, and the following week the third. And then when I was supposed to focus on finishing the fourth, I did two more.

In a couple of weeks I finally finished 5 short stories, and put them on sale on Amazon. And at the moment I have 6 short stories actively in the works.

I have been writing surprisingly much now, although the hardest thing about writing is always opening the text file. It can easily take years before I have the energy to do it. But then once I start writing, it is often really hard to stop.

 

 

It's annoying how much time goes into things other than writing. That is, making covers. And even coming up with names for the characters. I had to create my own file listing the names of the characters used in my short stories, because I was about to use the same name in two of them. I wondered why that name sounded so familiar.

No wonder I'm getting confused when I counted that there were 9 short stories in the works at one point. In addition, there are at least 3 ideas that I haven't even started, and 1 that I've started that I don't know if it will become a short story or something longer (I didn't even remember it existed).

The most annoying thing is one particular short story. I got the idea for it on New Year's Eve. I wrote a lot of it in my head at the time, but I didn't "have time" to write anything down because I had to play Friday. And even after the new year, I still didn't get to write it. And I forgot almost everything. But it's okay, I finished writing it now anyway, and it became the longest of these short stories. Certainly a little different than originally intended, but the basic idea is the same.

Mutts (affiliate link)

 

I am happy that I have now been able to advance my writing. This is quite rare if not unique for me. The most surprising thing has been that I have been able to continue writing even after I started doing those studies again.

I live in the hope that I will finish certain writing projects before I die. These current short stories are just snacks.

J.R. Ward: Lassiter (affiliate link)

 

 

 

I found myself from the internet

It was absolutely shocking to find myself as an author on Goodreads. I've obviously been there unknowingly for a long time. So some years ago I made the mistake of publishing my short stories through Amazon, but I soon removed them from there. How could I have ended up on Goodreads when I didn't put myself there? Well, I found out now that Amazon bought Goodreads already 10 years ago, so that explains why I'm there, because it has to be some automatic thing. And I guess there's no way I can get myself out of there... Someone once claimed that everything you put on the internet stays there forever?

 

And now I would like to self-publish my writings through Books on Demand, because through them you can get your books to Finnish bookstores and libraries. But the problem is that their website is terrible and there are no answers to my questions. It seems that certain things could only be solved by publishing through them for the first time.

I was supposed to focus on editing my first novel during November, but I didn't get it done. I started to think about my collection of short stories, because I should "test" Books on Demand with something. But even though I removed my short stories from Amazon, they seem to still be hanging on Goodreads, perhaps forever.

So now I was searching my computer for my short stories and other files related to them, such as cover images, but I couldn't find those images. I thought that I must have them because I once published them on Amazon. So this is how I somehow I ended up searching for "myself" on the internet.

One of the big problems with self-publishing is precisely the cover photos, when you have to make them yourself if you want them for free. And I'm definitely not a graphic artist or visually talented. I'm not talented in writing either, but I don't let that stop me.

 

 

Nowadays, it's wonderful not to have to depend on publishers. Anyone can publish anything at their own cost or even completely free.