Warning: this is a bit all over the place. It’s pretty much a very rambling free-write.

So, I (obviously) didn’t post a short story this weekend. I’d like to apologize. I offer no excuse, but instead I give you an explanation. When I woke up Saturday morning, I realized I had absolutely no plans whatsoever for the entire weekend, and I don’t know when the last time that was. I doubt it’s happened at all in 2018, (cancelled plans excepting).

As happened, I decided to spend it doing nothing productive at all and see where that got me, and I succeeded. I wrote a tiny bit and went to go buy groceries, but that’s about it. Beyond that, I played a ton of Heroes of the Storm and NieR: Automata. I’ll tell you what though, doing nothing was hard. It’s not as though I had to make a conscious effort not to be productive—I’m sure I’m not more or less lazy than anybody else—but I can’t let myself relax without feeling bad about it. I would play a few hours of something, get bored and stop. Make food and then struggle to find something else to do.

The heat certainly doesn’t help. It’s going to be over 100° for a good chunk of the work week again, which will be tough. I find it hard to be comfortable when it’s over 80°, even if I’m not doing anything.

So no, I didn’t have a great time relaxing. I got a lot done in the games I’ve been playing, but other than that it’s hard not to feel like I threw the weekend away. And it’s not as though I have a shortage of things to write. Beyond the two or three small personal projects I’ve been touching on here and there, I want to work on that Xelfure story I brought up recently. I realized that the two-layer narrative is unnecessary, and while I do want to keep it, the “story” is complete in itself, so I shouldn’t need to worry about the flashback part. Honestly, it’s just been difficult to get started because it’s not going to be a simple 2,000 word flash fiction. I don’t know how long it would end up being, but it’s a good length. Multiple weekends worth of writing for sure, and it scares me.

I’ve been thinking about my resources a lot lately. My time and money is generally stretched pretty thin, and gaining one means losing the other, when I’d love to have more of both. I’m sure that’s the case with the vast majority of people though, eh? Struggling to find that balance.

In any case, don’t expect me to stop writing those weekly short stories. Next weekend’s is bound to be interesting. If nothing else, I think I need to write these little stories for my own personal sanity if nothing else. I have this irrepressible need to be productive in everything I do. Heck, even all the games I play I have specific long-term goals in mind.

Time grows short. The fall semester starts in about a month, and I have plans for pretty much every waking moment during the work week throughout the semester, which means any and all things that could possibly be considered “free time” must all be done on the weekends. Oh boy.