Accepting Limitations

Yesterday and today were a busy few days at Chez Skyla’s–instead of scrambling to hold onto the ledge at the end of this month financially, I have a little extra to play with (shifting me from Crushing Poverty to Able-to-Breathe-a-Little-as-Long-as-I-Don’t-Move-Too-Much Poverty), so I promptly went out and bought new cleaning supplies and have been mopping floors and scrubbing the tub and cleaning the cupboards and and and–

Yes, I realize this makes me a grownup now, and it is UTTERLY TERRIFYING.

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So I sat down the other day and made a list of everything I want to write this year, both my stuff and for-pay writing projects.

It was…lengthy.

So from there I broke it down to what I NEED to write, starting with for-pay writing at the top (because PAY, duh), then the Skyla projects I’m committed to, both for Readers and My Own Happiness.

“It’s doable!” I thought. “I got this!”

Then my brain did this little rewind thing, and I actually wrote down the first draft projected word counts of everything. Which changed it all a bit.

In a good year, I can write about 450-500K words. If I push it beyond that, my brain burns out. Literally. I will sit there and words do not come out. So that right there is a limitation. And with everything coming up this year personally, my more comfortable target is going to be 350-400K. I’ve already written about 150K words the past couple of months, which gives me maybe 250K more to play with, if I take care of myself.

Right off the bat, 100K of that goes to for-pay writing. So I have another 100-150K to play with. 75K for Wolfe comes out of that. So, max, I have another 75K to play with, a chunk of which will go to Amends since that funded.

Then I blinked up at my list and made a little sad face.

This is exceptionally hard for me but it actually took a physical illness and worrying about my health to accept: I have limitations. Real, actual ones. The primary reason I have trouble accepting this is due to mental illness–a large part of my disorder insists there are no limitations! I can do everything! I don’t need sleep! I don’t need rest! I am magical! To carry the spoon metaphor over to this, my brain chemistry actually makes me genuinely overestimate the number of spoons I have available and it takes dropping dead of exhaustion to realize I’ve done so.

It’s why this year I’ve had to be careful about time commitments, being clear about work commitments (little by little, I’ve been extending my turn around times for clients–hospital visits and rest days have eaten into a chunk of my time), and now accepting writing limitations means fewer of those commitments too.

Since y’all paid for Wolfe last year with the River campaign, it gets top priority. Which likely means bumping Oblivion to early next year at the earliest. This pisses me off to no end because I want nothing more than for the series to be done with and no longer plaguing me, but it’s going to take a tremendous amount of mental, emotional, and physical energy, because I refuse to end the series with a half-assed book.

And so it waits.

It also means I probably won’t finish another Livi book this year. EXTRA SAD FACE.

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Also in book news, you can get the Demons of Oblivion Bundle–that’s three novels plus short stories–for 30% off at Kobo this weekend by entering the code GET30 at checkout. Next month, there is going to be a 99c sale for Bloodlines to celebrate Patreon reaching the Amends milestone, and I’d appreciate it if y’all could spread the word then. (I’ll remind you with next week’s quarterly book state of the union.)

Finally, I am a little…irritated that the dumb bint responsible for this is after Damaged now too (which has not been posted, and I’ll admit I have Theories as to who posted Exhumed back then, though insufficient evidence). And you know what? Fuck that. I do not have the energy to police the illegal downloads of this book as well, so it’s coming down from sale everywhere but my site (where I will have your real name and absolutely will come after you if you post it for illegal download). I am also going to do a print edition of the book this weekend so at least I’ll keep all those lovely reviews you guys posted on Amazon, which meant a lot to me.

“But Skyla, you’re punishing all the legit readers–”  

Listen, I wrote Damaged for my friend Danni’s birthday. I almost didn’t make it for sale elsewhere because it was a story for HER, not a story for some cheap bitch who enjoys violating me.

It’s not a huge seller so, like 9 Crimes and Dial V for Vampire, if you want it, you can get it here.

But I do not have the energy for people’s fuckery, and if it saves me some spoons, I absolutely will take my toys and go home. There are limitations on my physical and mental health, and I will do what I have to in order to protect that, including making it more difficult for people to steal from me.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a refrigerator to scrub.