I keep telling myself I’m almost done.
With what? Excellent question.
Nobody Asked Judy is up and running, which means I can spend time writing things like this instead of only fixing things behind the scenes. Moonlit Hub is ready for clients. Perry Venue, my web design and hosting client project, has a site and booking system built and tested. I’m waiting on signed paperwork, payment, and a plan for better photos before we launch.
You would think having a project that close to finished would make me relax.
You would be wrong.
There’s Silent Whispers, where I’m building an entire adventure so people can sit down and read a book. There’s Publisher Whatnot, the publishing tool I’m developing alongside it. NAJ Themes and Whatknots are waiting for me to come back. And I’ve come up with a project time tracker, because apparently my list of projects needed its own project.
Every one of these has an ending in theory. In practice, I get near the end and say, “Let me just do this one thing before I wrap it up.”
Then I say it about the next project. Somewhere between those two things, I get an idea for a third. Sometimes I go back and add something to a project I thought was basically done. Finishing something apparently gives me ideas.
For about a month, I’ve averaged six to eight hours of sleep a week. I was awake for 24 hours, took a two-hour nap yesterday morning, and haven’t slept since. One stretch of working ran over 34 hours straight.
Eating has become its own problem. Most times I try, I get sick, so I’ve barely been eating. Am I in ketosis? Is this diabetes? What the hell am I doing to myself? My care team knows, and they moved my procedure up. It’s tomorrow, and I’m nervous.
I can’t even say I lie awake worrying, because that would require me to lie down. I sit and work. Sit and work. I haven’t kept up with my shows—thank goodness Dead City is done for the season—and I haven’t even been listening to music, which is not like me.
Just silence and code. Silence and art. Silence and another bajillion projects nested inside the projects I already had.
My AI partner in crime has been pointing out, in increasingly humorous ways, what happens every time I announce that a project is almost done: I invent something else it needs. She keeps calling me out. I keep giving her fresh material.
I know I need to stop. I can see the candle burning. I’m the one holding it. I just keep thinking I can finish one more thing before I put it down.
Why can’t I stop?
And then I had to have another idea.
Jerome and I have been talking about making a story-driven mystery game. Maybe in a browser. Maybe in Ren’Py. We haven’t even started it, and somehow it’s already found a spot on my to-do list.
Apparently, I looked at both ends of the burning candle and thought, Could this thing use a third wick?