Not A Bot

I get 2 hours each morning (9-11am) to work. Those are my most productive hours. I'm caffeinated and my ADHD meds are fresh and my dog is happy to cuddle her lamb chop and give me peace.

I get another 45-90 minutes in the afternoon. That session is post-workout with no caffeine in my system and my ADHD meds are long gone (I refuse to take an afternoon dose because of the frequent shortages and my lack of health insurance. It's cheaper to take less than I need and give myself a slight cushion in the event that I can't get my rx filled immediately.) and my dog is off her nut because her anxiety meds haven't yet kicked in and she's barking and racing around and doing her best to get us a noise complaint.

I do a lot of thinking during my evening walk with my dog. I will typically have some insights that I dictate once my dog is in my car so that I don't lose them as we travel. I will then translate that garbled Siri bit and add it to my draft or outline. I might expand on it a bit. So that's usually another 10-15 min before I cook dinner.

Sometimes I have insights as I cook and I ruin my food. Sometimes I will stay up late dictating stuff from my bed because I have thoughts as I'm trying to sleep. Sometimes I will wake up in the middle of the night and leave more dictation that makes even less sense.

After dinner I will typically watch whatever media that I need to watch for my WIP(s). I suffered through tons of Audrey Hepburn movies for the sake of the last one. I have more suffering to do for this next one. The next Pluribus fic is on hold because I'm trying to read an entire book for that series. I haven't had time to do that recently because the world is burning down around me. But that usually happens between breakfast and the start of my 9 am writing session.

I spend each of my 4 meals reading every damn thing I can about the military and the US's endless involvement in dumb as fuck wars. I am sooooooooooooooo deep in the weeds by this point, it's scary. Half of that shit isn't even relevant anymore because the terrorist plot business is over, but there's still so much left to learn and I do keep finding useful tidbits to round out my understanding of Cruz's military years and the cultural stuff is helpful for getting Aaliyah down.

Adding that all up in an exact way isn't possible. But let's say I average 1 hour for that afternoon session. That's three writing hours per day, seven days a week. Which puts me at a minimum of 21 hours per week week. I have taken a grand total of 3 full days off since my DC trip in October of 2024 and I wasn't so happy about the lost time. Writing is what's keeping me going. I love it. I'm happy to take this time. But it's hard work and I'm doing a lot of it and yeah... I'll stop here...