Azu is Talking — Some Days Are Good. Some Days Are a Nightmare

That’s, actually, the hormonal life of a girl. It’s a cycle.

After ten years one should assume we would be better prepared. We are not. I am not. If anything, even though I’m getting to know myself a little bit better with each passing period, I still feel myself a mess.

And the mess hasn’t started yet (it hasn’t at the moment I started writing this at least).

Weekly Quests Overview

Monday: Publish weekly.

Tuesday: Edit [Project Name Placeholder].

Wednesday: English homework.

Thursday: New backstage section.

Friday: Friend’s birthday gift.

Saturday: New solo TTRPG.

Creative Monday

Quest of the Day: Publish weekly.

I think that, since I started this, I’ve been faithfully respecting the schedule. That of posting every Sunday.

I mean, it’s not like I wasn’t the one making the rules, but one needs some routine in their life to thrive, you know? And having a specific day for certain things has been such a help to me.

I didn’t believe I was gonna sit to finish last week’s weekly and post it. I didn’t exactly saw myself doing that at all. But I’m glad I did.

That’s not all I did ☺️

Can you feel my happiness? I hope you get to understand this. It’s just that it’s been so long since I last wrote to my heart’s content. And I’m not talking to the lengths within which my heart would feel content, that’s an unreachable impossible. I’m just happy I got to write. For myself.

By some sheer spur, I sat to muse a bit about my game and I got so excited. I didn’t even get any progress, if so, I went back by creating a prior inexistent step. But I’m so happy. It was so invigorating. It felt like rekindling a dwelling flame. I had to let the creativity go when I occupied the day with classes, but since I withdrew from that particular one, I finally can breathe again.

I believe all kinds of artists feel this. Writing is like breathing to me. If I can’t write, I’m not really living. Writing is freedom. So being able to be back felt like fresh air. And I’m having so many ideas, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself.

Review Tuesday

Quest of the Day: Edit [Project Name Placeholder].

To be honest, I don’t have the slightest idea what Project Name Placeholder was supposed to be. It was the one with the cool and friendly boss? (I’m changing my opinion about them already, what stress does to people…) Was it the new editing work that appeared? Was none of the above? Beats me.

I did got back to the first one anyway, and if I hadn’t needed to take some time to rest, I would have finished with that project by now. Soon. October is the last month to work on it actually, so yeah, pretty soon.

October is also the month in which my [REDACTED] adventure is published in a magazine, so that chapter should be ending soon as well. I’ve been wanting to close it for a few days already, but the editor had a tech problem while handing in the editions, so we have to wait for a redo. And after knowing how such a loss feels, it might take a little time. Not too long because the month is already here, but some. It didn’t happen to me this time, I’m just involved, but it still stings.

Iron Valley, Personal Campaign, is being live every Tuesday.

Celeste finally arrived at Iron Valley and already met the creature with which she would be living. I was out of scheduled posts already, so I have to make sure the day doesn’t end without me scheduling the next one. It’s a job because I also have to write the backstage post for Patreon, but now that the story is going out, kind of, I’m feeling lighter.

Read this week’s review, Welcome to Potion Con.

I finished the ARC that was released on September 20 just a day after, but it took me a few days more to sit and write my review. It’s only on GoodReads at the moment, I’m still a mess to post it on Tumblr and Instagram as well. I will see how it goes.

Also, Welcome to Potion Con couldn’t have arrived at a better moment. With the next book in the Side Quest Series coming out in a week, it just served me as a refresher about the very same convention I couldn’t have imagined opening the story. I’m so excited and so happy to see how it goes on, it’s one of my favorite indulgences. I’m writing a bunch of notes to release on my reading Patreon when I’m up to date there.

Wednesday

Quest of the Day: English homework.

I started reading that new ARC, did my homework, and edited some.

I’m glad I decided to choose that as my daily task because Working Wednesday was nothing of work. Or it was, just not the one I had in mind.

Since I finally finished drafting and posting my workshops on Patreon, I haven’t had the opportunity to make a proper Instagram post about it. And I still have that task on my to-do. I actually feel ashamed, but I’m also so damn busy, I mean, how? So I’m not even trying that hard.

After those days before my period started (this day, actually), I have had to go back to “let’s survive the day one task at a time”. So going through my whole list beforehand wasn’t going to work. If I had time, or energy, I would discern if I could go through a new or different task, but it didn’t happen then. I was busy enough juggling my body and surfing the whiplash of emotions my brain was throwing at me.

And I started reading that new ARC, did my homework, and edited some. I did great.

Backstage Thursday

Quest of the Day: New backstage section.

I remember that last week I postponed starting with that one task before I saw a whole list I had to the side, to stuff to add to what I was about to start, and deemed too much of a work for the time or the mood I was into.

I saw wrong and felt silly, but I did start it already. Even when I just did the first action, my partner started robbing my attention. That was fun.

The not-so-fun part was that, feeling strongly as I was, I was considering skipping my virtual class. It’s just a virtual meeting to answer questions and to that day I had already submitted my homework, if I had questions they would be long answered, so it was a waste of my time. It managed to be a disagreement with my partner and I ended up showing.

In an attempt to ease my mood, I used the time to repaint two nails that were already empty. I had painted one hand baby blue and the other baby pink for my partner’s birthday (he requested a particular one being baby blue), and they had already wore off, so I decided to sneak the opposite color into the hand. Having a whole hand with the same color wasn’t helping me, I needed them to be mixed, and it would have an instant hit if I hadn’t ruined one of them by the time I was back in my room and in a call with my partner for our coffee break.

I have such a small amount of patience when I can’t distract myself, so the task of painting my nails grows quickly annoying and arduous because I can’t keep my hands quiet. (I repainted my nails today with a slightly higher success rate in between writing this. Maybe I found the way.)

Friday

Quest of the Day: Friend’s birthday gift.

I’m going to start with it soon, I swear! Especially because it’s on this month, so I will have to kick it off and start. It just has been a nightmare, actually.

The worst sleep wasn’t just one night, but every night of the period, which is a drag. With not enough energy, I started being annoyingly sleepy. So I tried to sleep it off.

I successfully had a nap, but it definitely wasn’t enough. I couldn’t focus on anything, so I was growing annoyed. My partner gave me some of his time, and it helped a bit. And he fixed the day right at the end somehow, fulfilling his word of watching Inside Out 2 that night (before he could watch it with his family because I’m an animation movies lover and I can’t have him watching them with his family first, I’m not even sorry).

I mean, I knew he said it with all his seriousness, but somehow I wasn’t expecting it to actually happen. At least that night? I don’t know, I was already out of it, so it was nice to have the night for us.

Playful Saturday

Quest of the Day: New solo TTRPG.

After a few weeks, I could finally start this game!

Not before spending some time with my partner and editing a few things, but I got to play! Well, to start.

My character is a witch during the witch trials in Salem, and right off the bat I had already tweaked some details to better customize my playthrough. I’m so excited about this because the start was so promising, and the character linked itself with one I’ve had forever which brings it a lot of sense and more complexity.

I’m happy with the discovery. This is one of the things I love the most about story and character creation, I could believe I know something or I could be making things up “without reason”, and they all end up clicking by themselves in the end. I’m here for this exact moment, so satisfactory and fulfilling. I can’t wait to start talking about this witch and that character!

Sunday

Two weeks in a row, I have failed to have this ready for the day proposed by myself. But I woke up with the wrong feet, it seemed.

I wanted the day to pass me by, but it was going so slowly. I wasn’t comfortable with myself and my body was certainly not comfortable with me. Everything seemed to be wrong, everything seemed to feel wrong.

My partner is the best man ever. Even though I wasn’t up for it when he asked me for a call first, he took me up when I called. To just be there with me (I’ve called him for a particular reason he prompted, but I guess he got shy — never challenge me to anything, I’m a chaotic creature).

After his lunch, we went back in a call again to watch The Owl House (rewatch for me, first watch for him) and I may have pushed myself past my limits because my headache became unbearable even though I puppy-eyed my partner to watch more episodes he thought we should.

I’m a danger even to myself, but this one I knew already. I’m always busting my head binge-watching and I binge-watch when I’m feeling bad to start with, so even though I’m successfully distracting myself, I’m also hurting myself.

So that’s part of why I’m finishing this today instead.

After a few hours of sleep, my head decided to give me a rest, which I’m grateful for, but I’m still not off the hook. I have to thread carefully still. So I’m actually hoping to survive this day.

Before the end of the week, hopefully, I will be handing in the final edit of the [REDACTED] adventure. I was called by the editor yesterday, but my head wasn’t having it and I was going to wait until today, but my boss was back today and said he was going to look at it first, so I’m back at waiting. My favorite activity, yay!

Also, if I keep the editions steady, I should be finishing the project of my friendly-not-sure-if-still-friendly boss. Which is another huge milestone (to me, to restore the distance again and try to salvage the image of them I have in my head before it’s stained forever).

I also have coffee tasting event on the weekend which I’m excited about, my next coffee bag could be waiting for me there!

But apart from that (and my celebration day with my partner tomorrow), I’m not sure if there’s something else this week. I don’t want to check. One day at a time, one step at a time kind of thing. Hopefully I will recover soon from this one.