Slowing Down

So first I would like to say that I am very glad this semester is over. I did not get the straight As I had been hoping for, but I think I did pretty well for a new father.

Now, somewhere in my psyche I figured that I would have tons of time with school being out. The day after my last final, I went to my brother-in-law's Commissioning and Graduation ceremonies. I did not even have the chance to get a Mother's Day gift for my wife!!
When we got back, my wife's maternity leave was up. I had to become the primary caretaker of Adelaide so she could work. And I will remain this way when she goes back to school to pursue her PhD. So far, taking care of her has taken most of my time. The time I haven't spent taking care of her has usually been spent doing various chores. Two days ago, we started a garden next to our house, and now we will have to put a fence to keep it safe from the rabbits that frequent our yard. This has taken a lot of time away from my writing.

Another thing that has taken time away is looking for work. I applied to about 13 jobs recently and had an interview for one of them last week, but no one has yet to call me back again. Hopefully, I will find something soon.

Admittedly, I have been distracted. I've been watching a specific anime whenever I feed Adelaide or find that, for some reason, I do not have access to both of my hands. And since it is a rather addictive storyline, I have sometimes found that I am watching it instead of writing. Likewise, I am still very interested in getting back to my gaming, which I haven't done in some time. These distractions all take away from my writing. So, I am going to have to learn to discipline myself.

Finally, I have hit what has been called the "Muddy Middle." This is the part of the story that is difficult to get through. If you don't have everything perfectly planned it, this is where you get stuck. Essentially, before things start heading towards the climax, and after all the characters and plot have been introduced, there is a dead man's land. You can't just jump straight to the downturn, or else you'll leave the audience too confused. A great way to deal with this literary swamp is to change gears and go into another storyline, a subplot. In my case, I have jumped into the love story. However, in writing this subplot, I have found holes I did not see before. And I have had to fill them in. This has also slowed me down.

So in essence, I have been trudging through the mud, slowly getting through these hardships. In a week I went from about 22k words to about 24k. That is my update. Next week I am going to try to finish the middle and get into the downturn. I'm close. I'm just one scene away to the downturn, but I have to be careful with how I put it together. Wish me luck.