The Daily Report

So, first thing: a close family member is in the hospital with a painful but not likely life-threatening condition. Any predictions about the trajectory of this day must be somewhat guarded. The fact that I do not drive means I’m the least likely to be called on to help in times like this, but I must be prepared nonetheless. That said, my goal for the day is to still keep things normal as possible.

Another submission for Ligature Works has arrived. So far it’s heavily slanted towards prose, which is sort of the opposite of what I’d expected. It was kind of a bare afterthought that I made the venue poetry and prose instead of just poetry. Ah, well. There is still more than a month left in the window, and it might be that interested poets are taking more time polishing their works.

I have not had the same feeling of absolutely kicking backside in July that I did in June, though I think this is more appearance/feelings than anything else. June was a very heavily “front loaded” month for me, as it started directly after WisCon. July started with a family vacation. I keep catching myself feeling like I’ve accomplished nothing except for posting a short story I actually wrote in June, and while it’s true that there have been a lot of days where I’ve set immediate goals I did not reach, I have crossed more items off my monthly goal list than that.

I still have a lot left to do in the last week of the month, but I’ve done a lot in a week before.

Financial Status

Basically unchanged. My Patreon pledge total been hovering just below 400, sometimes with two steps forward, one back. It went down yesterday by enough that I noticed. I’m not sure if that was a response to me tweeting about Black Lives Matter and police violence, or because the $10 benefit is right now kind of contingent on people buying the $25 benefit, or just someone no longer has the financial ability to give that kind of support. I’m not saying this to call the person out and ask them to account for themselves; truth is that they don’t owe me an explanation any more than they owe me money.

There’s actually an “exit survey” thing that I never look at. If I had a few thousand supporters, maybe that would feel like anonymous data from which I could gauge general trends. With just over a hundred (and less than that, in all previous months), it feels kind of creepy and invasive to be scrutinizing individual motivations for leaving. I’m grateful people pledge any amount of money for any amount of time. In general terms, I would rather not be told when they leave, or why.

It does slightly change the odds on hitting the $400 mark before the end of the month, though. I really hope I make it back.

The State of the Me

Doing okay. I think for July and August I just might have to build a two hour nap into my afternoon schedule. It tends to happen anyway. I think my days would be more productive and better ordered, and my mental health better, if I just counted on it happening.

Plans For Today

Ideally what will happen is I’ll finish and post the chapter of Tales of MU that I started yesterday.