Master List of Progress Reports - 2005

2005: Year In Review

This is even more painful than 2003, but here it is: I didn't post anything at all for the entire year (and subsequent years, but there are other reasons for that).

On a bright note, starting back in 2004, though it was a little hit-or-miss at first, I had instituted the practice of saving individual files with the working day's date, so that by 2005, I had a much more accurate record of when I'd worked on any particular story (certain stories still didn't get that treatment until later: A Bondage Primer and The Enchanted Queendom started in 2006, New Gaia in 2008, and I still don't do that for notes/research files, so there are still gaps).

This year was kind of all over the place. For the first six months, I was trying to get over my medical issues that had carried over from the previous year. I'd lost a lot of weight from being so ill all the time and was quite weak.

For the second half, my wife and I decided to renovate the house we were renting (it hadn't been updated since being built in the mid 80s). I think we both wanted to do something positive and life-affirming, especially after starting off our marriage with a serious illness (at one point, due to the weight loss, one of my doctors mentioned the possibility of cancer, which understandably scared the crap out of my wife). The house was also the same one her and her ex had occupied and we both wanted a change, something we could make 'ours,' but we couldn't afford to move (and neither of us really wanted to). So, we convinced our landlord to pay for the materials and we did all the work, which helped me slowly rebuild my strength.

There were of course new life crises to deal with, as well, like when my mother-in-law ended up having hernia surgery, which was supposed to be routine, but nearly ended in her death when the doctors accidentally punched a dime-sized hole in her stomach, leaking acid into her abdomen and causing all kinds of problems, so she ended up spending months in recovery instead of days.

Throughout all of that, though, I continued to work on my stories, but I didn't get much done, in my opinion. I didn't feel like I was creating much that was new. I was just rehashing what I'd already done, mostly working on revisions. And the little bit that was new, like Fallen Angel, was to a large part just another editing/revising job.

On the one hand, I'm annoyed at how little I felt I accomplished, but I try to temper that with the knowledge of how ill I was at the time, and then being preoccupied with the renovations. The fact that I was able to work on my stories at all, let alone get anything done, is probably a big achievement (but it doesn't feel like it).

On the other hand, when I was working on converting the old Progress Reports tables to the calendar format, it was when I got to this year that I started to feel more confident that I wasn't just fucking around; I really was working. Nearly all the months show I worked on my stories at least a couple days every other week, with most months showing weeks with at least 4 or 5 days worked in a row (the end of March to the beginning of April shows I worked 9 days in a row).

Moral of the Story

Sometimes you have to please yourself first, since you can never be sure of pleasing anyone else.

This was the first year since opening the site that I didn't post at least a little something. That hit me hard and I think I lost some of my confidence. I was starting to feel like the need to produce outweighed my need to create. I know they probably sound like the same thing, but they're not.

The need to produce is an expectation I place on myself to give something to others. My need to create is the joy I find in playing with my imagination and coming up with something interesting, whether I share it with anyone else or not. The need to produce is an external activity and the sense of accomplishment comes only at the end. The need to create is an internal activity and I feel a sense of accomplishment throughout as I use my mind. The second need is why I write, while the first is simply the by-product of me enjoying myself. :)