Up too early

Woke up at 5AM after a rather restless six hours of sleep. Apparently, I forgot to reset my inner alarm clock in line with my 'no, I don't need to start at 5AM' plan. I got up at 5:30AM when it became obvious I wasn't getting back to sleep, and ate breakfast. I'm still tired, though, and I'm not wild about starting at 6AM. I'm gonna take one more stab at getting back to sleep. If that doesn't work, I'll say heck with it and start scripting.

No idea what I'm gonna do yet. 's fine. It'll come when I start the clock ticking.

Guess This Is It

Spent another fifteen minutes trying to get back to sleep, but couldn't. I've got various things -- art supplies, reference books, inspiration material -- racked up next to my seat in the living room. Even shelled a bunch of edamame for snacks later. I'm tired but running out of excuses not to start. Right now, I'm waiting for Lut to get out of the shower so that I can give him a hug before I begin. I expect to start around 7AM, maybe a little later. Not the ideal start time, but what is?

Seventh hour

Finished page 6 at six hours twelve minutes, putting me at close to on schedule.

Then took a break to eat lunch and write this, putting me behind schedule again. Sigh.

On the good side:

• I like the writing


• The pages make me smile


• Art is not horrible


• Lunch cooked by Lut (thank you, Lut!)


• I'm not that far behind schedule, especially given that I took time to work out the plot in advance.
  

Bad things:

• I'm seriously dispirited and started out dispirited. Thoughts keep echoing through my head: I wish I hadn't bought all these art supplies so that I'd feel obligated to go through with it. It's nice that I'm amused by the story, but I keep wishing I was using the time to do something other people would enjoy, like write Silver Scales.


• I'm very tired. Very very tired. My right hand hurts, although it's just doing the normal "too much time holding pen" thing, rather than the random pain spasms I got yesterday.


• Inking. O how I hate inking. Going for lots of solid blacks was a mistake, it's taking too long. Switched process to write & do rough pencils for multiple pages at a time, and that seems to have helped. At the least, I went from two pages at the three-hour mark to six at the six hour one, so that's something. But the inks still take too long and the results don't look that good for how much time it's taking. And my fat black marker that I got two weeks ago is dying.


• Frustrated. Tired. And it's only six and a half hours in. No idea how I'm gonna make it seventeen more, much less finish.

But I'm going back to work at it anyway.

There are jokes in it. The jokes make me smile.

Ninth hour

Working on page nine. Did a quick page after lunch, escaped from the land of Endless Black Background, feeling much better.

One third of the way through sounds much better than one quarter.

Go, caffeine go

Didn't have any caffeine until the seventh hour, so that may also be doing wonders for my mood and enthusiasm. Finished 10th page. Going to get a drink, then start eleven.

Right hand giving the pain twangs again. Rats. I'll massage it a bit before I start the next.

Got my game on! I feel like Howard Tayler. :)

Edit: Oh, and thank you for all the encouragement, and to whomever(s) is pointing the challenge out to their friends for additional support. I'm going to save some of these for the wee hours when I flag again and no one is awake to offer immediate encouragement. :)

Running a little ahead

Just enough that I felt comfortable taking a break for dinner (oh yeah, it's suppertime) and figured I'd update while I'm at it. Page 14.

Ten more to go. 10 hours 21 minutes to go. Less by the time I get this posted. I can do this. I'm sure I can do this.

Head hurts. Drinking water now in case it's from dehydration rather than caffeine deprivation, will have Diet Coke afterwards and probably alternate the two for the rest of the night.

Ten hours.

I can do this.

I like the story.

That's huge for me. If I didn't like the story I'd've given up by now. But I do, so I think I can pull it off.

Still hoarding comments and emails for the long dark hours to come. If you see this before tomorrow morning, encouragement will be much appreciated. By hour 20, I know I'm gonna need it.

Now Comes the Hard Part

It's not very late yet, but this is still my bed time. I've scripted and penciled pages 16 and 17. Gonna try doing a bunch of scripting/penciling now, because I think the writing will get harder to do the later it gets. Inking and even drawing I can do on autopilot, if not well. Writing requires conscious thought. I need to form the words.

Poured a glass of Diet Coke. Hopefully the caffeine will help.

Also, if I have the pages ready for drawing and inking, I think it'll be easier to resist the temptation to crash.