Status Update

Hey guys, it's time for me to touch base again since I haven't done so in a while now. There is a reason for that and it's not a great one- I haven't gotten much done at all since I last said anything. Part of it is my mental state and the rest is because that mental state was affecting the way I was writing the chapter itself. I felt like I fell victim to circular thinking and kept making things more and more unnecessarily convoluted just to fit more things from my original outline that don't necessarily fit the current direction.

As a result, I decided today to restart 92. I was only 1.5k words in but I spent several days just rewriting the same bits over and over again in vain. While it's too early to say if this is helping, I have managed to get several paragraphs done today after the restart, which is more than I was pulling off beforehand. I will let you guys know before too long if I get trapped again because I'm obviously not happy with my current pace.

As for my mental condition itself, I don't know what's going on with it. I thought I was seeing big progress last month but then this last stint hit me after finishing 91. What I do know is that I've been working really hard to improve things even a little bit. Rather than lying around feeling useless, I've gotten into the habit of using my treadmill once a day for 20 to 30 minutes (sending pics of my time each day to Milly for her to verify) and have been feeling a lot better from that. I don't know if it'll help in the specific way I need it to, but it's not like exercising will hurt my mental health in the long run.

Other than that, I've been forcing myself to read a lot more in the hopes that running all these words through my head will fire the right neurons to get me going again. It's helped, but again, no real results to show as of yet. I've even done some figure drawing sketches to practice getting into my old flow state.

When I sit down to write, the front of my brain feels hazy and trying to push words out from there feels like trying to grind meat out with a jammed meatgrinder. I know it sounds weird, but it's the best analogy I can come up with. Mood wise, I've been very stable, very peaceful, and the brain fog continues to be the only symptom I'm still suffering from the withdrawal. It's annoying. I would've gladly taken the constant depression and headaches if it meant I could still write at my peak, but it is what it is, and I just have to take hope from knowing that since everything else cleared up, this should, too.

Hopefully getting a fresh start on 92 will help me actually get something out in a week or two, because every second of this volume remains unreleased as another second I spend in a hell of my own making. Fucking sucks, man. If nothing else, I have some special art to post soon, so look forward to that.

Lastly, I've gotten a lot of new subscribers in the last few weeks. Thank you for any and all support. I won't be offended if you decide my current update pace is too slow for you to stick around long., I just want you to also know that I'm trying to get back to where I was and I appreciate your patience. Hopefully I'll have more positive things to say next time.