mass effect

Christmas!

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment

1495562_10153653886625444_1461600750_n

Hey, blogosphere. Merry belated Christmas! How was it for everyone? Full of joy and festivity and family fun?

Me, I had two Christmases. First time ever for that. On Christmas morning, I went to my mother’s and had family time, then today for Boxing Day I went to James’ family’s house after some very brief deal shopping (all I bought were ski pants so I don’t have to wear tearaways or snowboard pants whenever I want to go cross country skiing). I’ve always wanted to own the Tudors tv show, ever since watching it a few years ago and that bastard, Netflix, removed it from the stream. So my mother got me all four seasons in a box set. James got me a house coat that’s designed like R2-D2, because, hey, turns out I really like Star Wars. My brother got me a hardcover compilation of the Mass Effect comics, as well as a bottle of Grey Monk wine. Grown up gifts!

1546376_10153653885745444_38830750_n

1511387_10153653886130444_1063531408_n

It didn’t feel like Christmas this year to me. It was a green, foggy Christmas – and I grew up with white Christmases, where we had so much so we could build tunnels through it. We had a bit of snowfall this year, but then it rained and melted most of it, then iced over. And we were hardcore pea soup fogged in this year, which I’ve never encountered before. I think that, and that my house wasn’t decorated, nor was James’, had something to do with the fact that it didn’t feel like Christmas. And besides, Christmas is more for kids than it is adults.

I guess that means I’m an adult now.

Hm.

Something to ponder.

How was everyone else’s Christmas (or other holiday they might celebrate!)?

Sometimes, the most difficult part of being a writer is pushing past procrastination

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment

And procrastination is a son of a bitch, let me tell you.

Maybe the problem is that I’m trying to do too much at once – rewrite Of the Arbour, write Abomination, edit Changeling and The Time Between, edit Purity, write When Gods Descend – or maybe it’s because the STEAM SUMMER SALE just started and I’m a sick human being.

In one day, I managed to buy everything on my wish list: Mass Effect 1 and 2, and the Sims 3 Seasons and University expansions. Mass Effect and the Sims have been dominating my life for the past week; I bought them last Saturday.

That being said, ME is a really good source of inspiration, if only for When Gods Descend (which, by the way, if I forgot to mention, is the working title of the sci-fi story I started).

Writers, though, generally speaking, are an anxious bunch riddled with self-doubt and pitiful isolation. We have a tendency to get caught up in our own worlds and this has a tendency to shut down our brains for a while. Hence, writer’s block. I don’t necessarily have that at the moment – I technically know where I want everything to go – but I’m so distracted by other things I’m having a hard time getting there.

I think my best option would be to cut myself some slack and only focus on one project at a time for a while. Picking one will be hard (probably Abomination, though) and just ignoring all else but that for the time being. Jumping around between so many is getting impossible.

Writer problems, amirite?

Does anybody else have this problem? It’s always so tempting to start something new, and so easy to bail partway through when life gets in the way.