An apology...And another rambling update. (Patreon)

TL;DR: There's a reason they say write drunk, edit sober. And don't mix teas and cold medicine.

Duuuuuude...I just got a message from my editor who said and I quote..."No offense, but were you high when you wrote this?" in reference to my Ranger epilogue. At first, I thought she meant my flowery prose, which isn't my thing but which I admit I did thinking it might make it feel more like a fantasy like the Paladin game itself. BUT she was like "Yeah, that a little but...no. I meant all of it."

I went back and read it and she was right, I was rambling like a lunatic. The fact that my epilogue was 6k words should have been my first clue that I maybe needed to do another pass with a clearer head. Even my unedited/unbeta'd stuff that i give to you guys usually gets run through my spell check software though it often misses a ton of shit because its a stupid computer. This time I wrote it and when I woke up yesterday posted it without a second thought, just happy to have it done and ready for Liam.

Now, for the explanation none of you need or asked for but I feel I must explain for my own ego and also as a cautionary tale. I have been sick as fuck with a sinus thing for almost ten days now. I'm talking dizziness, massive sinus pressure, teeth and gums aching, tension headaches where you feel like your head is being squeezed in a vice. The works. I have been living on DayQuil and NyQuil just to keep functioning even though I'm technically not supposed to take it with my other meds and my BP issues (but I'm a former nurse and we never listen to med labels. YOLO).

I don't have time to be sick, ever. And because I've been behind on every project, I've been working through it. This week alone I've written close to 30k words and edited about half of that. That said, because I've been sick and exhausted, I've been drinking a lot of hot tea. I have my own tea station both in my bedroom and in my office, that is how much hot tea I drink. And I was excited because I just restocked my little tea display.

Which leads to Friday night. I had a migraine, was super burnt out, had projects stacking up but I just couldn't face any of it so I was like, I'll go to bed hella early, wake up at 5am and just start working. I decided that I would just mix two teas together to get sleepy. So I mixed my tension ease (lemon balm verbena) and my calm tea (ashwaghanda and honeybush) so I would be relaxed enough to shut my brain off. No sooner had I finished my tea than my child and her wife asked if they could go out for the night and if i would listen for my grandbabies until they got home.

The kids were already asleep, they just wanted to go walk around downtown. The kids father had agreed to listen for them until 11pm but they asked if I could just open the monitor from 11-1 just on the off chance they cried so he could get up with them in the morning. I said yes (because of course I did). I can't sleep with the monitor open because every movement wakes me up because I'm paranoid I'll sleep through an emergency. So I opened my laptop and started writing, figuring I would just work until they got home.

About an hour in I felt like I'd been hit with a sledgehammer. My eyes felt like sandpaper, but I was on a roll thinking that I was being hella productive. I couldn't believe how easy the words were flowing. (This should have been my first clue I was not okay) When they walked in at 12:40 I was just typing the end on the Paladin epilogue. I was asleep ten minutes later and woke up at noon the next day feeling like I'd been run over.

Yesterday, I put the chapter up (without rereading it first. Oof) and worked on that days newsletter. Which leads me today and a video call with my editor where she walked me through the fucking chapter pointing out all the random ass fucking shit i wrote that I don't even remember. Now, it wasn't that the chapter was bad exactly. Like this was how I wanted it to go. I had pictured that scene almost from the second Seven mentions the show but it was like I was drunk. I cannot believe some of the random shit in this chapter. I'm like waxing poetic about granola for an entire paragraph. The fragmants, the weird analogies. Molly (my editor) and I were cry laughing while I was dying of embarrassment.

All that to say, this is why I have an editor. Again, it wasn't that the chapter was trash but I am cringing just rereading it. I may replace it with the edited version just out of pure ego. In the future, I will stick to one tea bag, not two and I'll skip writiing on NyQuil entirely. Oh and I've also been informed that yesterday's newsletter didn't autosend like it was supposed to so I'm just batting a thousand on that end. I'll get that out today too.

TL;DR: There's a reason they say write drunk, edit sober. And don't mix teas and cold medicine.