Fictions!?

Now it's starting to look like the WFJ of old!  You know, the one that produced literary content sometimes.  Not only that, but I even managed to update all the inventory pages.  Not that it was hard, but you know...so lazy.  I'll do my level best to keep them updated as new content appears.

A word now on The Secret Egg, yesterday's first new short story post in like...eighty years?  Seems that long.  It's also the first one that I've broken into parts for a long time, I think since I did The Wolf of Albright.  I could check, obviously.  But I won't.

I got the idea and started working on The Secret Egg in early 2014, while I was living in South Korea.  Not having my own computer during that time, and being otherwise busy wrangling children and dealing with grown-ups, I did not work on it very much.  Up to the other day I had only written about two thirds of what exists of the story as of now.  Life got in the way, including the mighty depressive spell I entered into.  But when I started blogging on here again last month, getting to work on The Secret Egg was a high priority.  This story is very meaningful to me, even as it is still undergoing evolution.

I am not sure how many parts the story will consist of, but right now I anticipate four, with the option of going to five.  In an attempt to be realistic, I will try to release a new installment once a month, and thereby be done with the project in relatively short order, without burning myself out or neglecting my other responsibilities.

Now, some notes on myself.  I remain depressed, no need to go over all the reasons why.  But today I feel good, and I'll tell you why.  I am starting to feel some of the effects of exercize, as my daily running has yielded new insights about the capabilities of my body.  I feel stronger and fitter than I did a few weeks ago.  Most importantly, running around the trail has offered me a few moments of peace that I found difficult to create through seated meditation.  Focusing on the state of my body, analyzing and controlling my breath, and being entirely in the present moment, are so much easier when the body is in motion over a long distance and the lungs have to work hard. 

There are other promising developments in my life.  For example, I have begun taking an anti-depressant: Sertraline, a generic Zoloft.  The little blue pills scared the crap out of me when I first brought them home a week ago, but I've been taking them for a week now and have not experienced any major side effects.  I understand it will take a few more weeks before I begin to feel any significant mood improvement.  Right now, the fact that they haven't robbed me of my sex drive or sent my other bodily functions haywire has made me warm up to the pills quite a bit.

But as I said, I am still depressed.  I still have problems with motivation, and I am often troubled by invasive thoughts that make me sad, and some that make me very frightened and distressed.  But today is a good day.  I'm working on it. 

Part of coming to terms with all that is making peace with the idea that nobody cares about my blogging activities but me.  Nobody!  On a bad day, that seems like a dreadful loneliness, that not one word I've written has moved anyone one way or another.  Even on Tumblr, I hardly get any kind of reader response for my poetry or other original posts.  But right now, it feels liberating.  I can say whatever I want, write what pleases me, and be entirely for myself.  This blog is my space, and anyone can come and look at it if they like, but it's not for them.  I don't even have to be any good!  I'd like to be good, but I don't have to be.

Some of you may object "David, I totally read you blog.  I even like what you do sometimes".  And that's really sweet of you.  But for the sake of my sanity, it's easier to think of your numbers as 0, even as I acknowledge what support I do get.  

So that's the state of myself these days.  Doing OK.  Hopefully, doing better later.