I’m having another good day today. That makes two in a row, and three days so far this year that have been good. Total. The rest of the days have not been good. Leading up to the first of January was also not good, starting about the 26th, when I came down with strep.

I’m hoping that I’ve gotten the bad times out of the way and that now I can have some weeks of really good stuff, you know? Though for the last few months, the longest streak of good days that I managed was 12 days. I haven’t had good weeks, plural, in a long time.

Sometimes not having good weeks bothers me, more than others, today being one of those days. Looking out and seeing everything covered in snow doesn’t help. It’s currently raining, so I’m hoping that all the snow melts before we get hit with more next week.

One of the things that I tell other people is to be gentle with themselves, to give themselves grace. Of course, I don’t do that with myself. I know that if I don’t push, nothing will get done on those days. I have a business to run. Sometimes I can’t really take another day off. 

Due to the snow, I have SO many birds at the feeders. For the first time since I put my feeders up I have bushtits. I have heard them in the trees, so I knew they were around. I’d never seen them at the suet feeder before yesterday however.

Went to the gym last night for the first time in a month or so. Iced my knee afterward. This morning it feels fine again, just a little stiff. But it doesn’t hurt like it did.

Yesterday I added more mythology to the novel. Normally, when I world build for a fantasy, I start with the creation myths. I didn’t do that with this novel – I started with the death myths, as that’s much more important in terms of the plot. (There’s a reason why the subtitle is “Houses of the Dead: Book One” etc.)

I’d gotten to a point though where I really needed to explain the existence of a type of creature and I could only do that by figuring out the start of the world. So I spent time yesterday writing that up, and then I did a hard pass through the novel adding in more of that information where appropriate.

I have a feeling that this novel is going to be really clean by the time it goes to my first reader as I keep going through it. (^_^)

But I think I need to remember to always start with the creation myths, particularly when I’m building a world and more than one magic system from scratch.

That’s all for today. Time to go make more forward progress on the novel. I may finish it this weekend or early next week. Depends on whether or not I have several more good days in a row or not.

What do you tell yourself to keep yourself going? I tend to be an optimist, which helps. I stay focused on what I can do, what I have done, so I don’t get depressed over all the things I’m not doing. I have a lovely spouse who supports me, and that really helps too.