…and sometimes the depression gits you.

That’s the thing about depression, really: it makes everything seem worthless. It brings everything down to a level and that level is awful. It’s like being in a world where everything is that terrible food you have to keep eating in nightmares sometimes: tasteless and cloying and you just can’t stop. It’s horrible, and you know it’s horrible, but that doesn’t make a difference.

And then, of course, there’s the additional problem that the more you don’t do the things you should be doing, the worse you feel about it and the less you want to go back and get caught up or fill in the blanks because you feel so badly about it, so you don’t do it, and the list of things you haven’t done keeps getting longer and the cycle keeps getting longer because there are more things you have to be ashamed of and–

Even writing this post is hard: I keep finding other things that I just have to do right now. I haven’t gotten to cleaning the bathroom yet, but it’s possible that will happen. (I’ve never gotten so desperate as to scrub the floor, but I imagine it’s only a matter of time.)

And while I have been able to keep myself doing research reading — sporadically — posting here has been more than I can do. IRL, I work two jobs and both of them are very chaotic right now; this helps my general mental state not at all because it’s sort of like standing on one of those roll’y boards physical therapists put you on to help you regain balance, but all the time and with both feet.

Honestly, news out of Romancelandia hasn’t exactly been encouraging either. I realise that the 2010s are more or less one huge unmitigated garbage fire but the whole mess around the RITAs and far too many “Nice White Ladies” ™ pointing out that “They’re not racist but–” and “but everyone gay was miserable in the past” was just more than I could deal with this month.

So, yeah. It’s been a bog. An unpleasant bog. (If you’re a child of the ’80s, you’re thinking of that bog right now and you’re probably not far off.)

But I promised myself I would pursue this and I’m bloody well going to do it so here we are again.

So here’s the thing.

I have a quarter-written M/M historical romance sitting in my Google Drive and I want to finish it. So why don’t I, you ask? Well, I have a condition called Jerkbrain™ which makes it difficult for me to do things that aren’t work. In real world terms, I have clinical depression and some accompanying executive function issues that make it hard for me to give myself permission to do things that aren’t paid, contracted, 9-to-5-style work.

My plan is to use this site (blog, mostly, to start with, I imagine) as an accountability tool to keep me moving ahead from research reading list to (I hope) completed story. I intend to give you access to whatever I’m doing: putting together the aforesaid reading list, research process thoughts, drafts, editing, whatever comes up, you get to see. My plan is to start with a bi-weekly posting schedule starting on January 18, 2019. I don’t know what that January 18th post will be, mind you, but it will be something!

And just to give you a taste of what’s coming… The story as it currently stands is two twenty-something British young men on an educational tour of the Middle East in the early 1920s. One thing leads to another and a relationship and sexy times result.

Please leave any questions, comments, chocolate chip cookies you may have lying about the place — if nothing else, I’ve had this idea in my head for so long, I imagine I’ve left out the interesting bits.

In any case, I’ll definitely see you on January 18th!