End of the Break and a Discovery about Stephen King

 I wish I could have said I spent the time I had off reading and writing and playing games, but I think at least half of it was spent sleeping. It's hard to be focused when you struggle with depression. You just want the next day to come. Not all bad stuff happened. I got the first four chapters of my first draft/ outline written for the KIY story. And I got my second short story written about the tooth pain I was experiencing. So that was also good. And I've kept up with my writing despite it being VERY late in the day. Most importantly, I have my mind back, most of it. I can still feel that anxiety fog building below the floor my medicine is giving me. It waits for me to let my guard down. I'll need more than medicine, I'll need techniques to calm myself when I'm at work. Speaking of which, I've got my job back and I start monday. It'll be good to be back in the groove after being away for such a long, long time. I wonder what I'll tell my coworkers. They probably thought I quit or something. I need to do better. I'm not going to use my autism as an excuse to get away with stuff, that's the weak man's strategy. I'll be better, at least until I get a new job that isn't thirty minutes away. I've been there for almost four years and I think I'm done. I don't get paid enough, and I don't have enough hours. I just want to do something that really means something to me. Something better. That's a lot of "something"s. 

Part of me can't wait to get back to work but part of me is afraid. I don't want to answer questions about my whereabouts. Maybe I can direct them to this blog I've been making. That should clear up...nothing. Absolutely nothing. But being mostly back to my old self without the constant drag on my soul has helped a lot. There isn't a pit inside of me that needs to be fulfilled. Now I can play those dark games that were on my list.

I forgot to mention that I met with my mentor today. She was so impressed with my tooth story that she wanted to get it published. She sent my some links to online magazines that deal with dark horror stories like my tooth story. I had the main character pull out all his teeth at the end and slash his dentist's throat, a feeling I think we can all sympathize with. Dentists are evil people sometimes. The mouth is the last area that it is legal to torture. 

Tomorrow I'm going to the library with my folks and I'll work on the tooth story. There's some weak areas I need to fix but it feels like trying to pull out a crooked nail with a wrench. Technically, it can work but it's not the right tool for the job. I guess this is a good time to practice. Especially since I've put KIY on such a high pedistal. The more I work on it the more perfect I want it to be and that makes it impossible to write. I remember my mantra "I'm not Stephen King," and it helps a bit to know that I'm not at that level yet. I can be but writing my tooth story has helped me understand a lot about writing and I think something about Stephen King. I think he writes these short stories so he doesn't become overwhelmed by his longer stories. For each five hundered page story he puts out, he writes a short story to get something accomplished so he doesn't burn out. It makes sense, to me at least, that someone would write this way. I wonder how many short stories I'll write as I'm doing KIY? After this I'm going to try out that Black Souls game everyone is saying I shouldn't play. It's amazing how dark the indie game industry is becoming while how boring the AAA gaming sphere is. If I play another open world game I'll pull out my broken tooth myself. 

Anyway, I ramble too much. It's amazing how much you learn by doing something rather than planing something. You think things will go a certain way inside your head but life doesn't turn out that way. Instead you have to learn to adapt your plan and go with whatever opportunities pop up for you. That's what I'm going to do tomorrow. But I better take my own advice and go with the flow rather than make a perfect plan. If what normally happens to me happens, I'll end up spending half that time in fear of writing and too frozen to write. I'll have to get over that somehow.