Really, America? Again?

 I don't think I have anything useful I can say. I certainly don't have any insights on how this could have happened, or what the next four years are going to be like. My heart goes out to all the people who will be harmed - the trans folk, the disabled people, the people of colour, the women, the immigrants, the poor, the otherwise marginalised. Yes, even those that voted for him. I'm a strong believer in people's faces not being eaten by leopards even if they did vote for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party. 

I really should have stayed off the social internet today, but among all the despair there were reminders that there are still communities that care deeply and therein lies hope. I just spent the last hour or so listening to John Green read and line edit his forthcoming book "Everything is Tuberculosis" on a youtube livestream while reading the chat. I might blog tomorrow about my struggles to find online community, but for now I'll just say that generally the people that crop up in those livestream chats seem to be caring and thoughtful, and that does help restore my faith in humanity a little. All we have is each other, after all. 

Story ideas that aren't going anywhere

An incomplete list of ideas and hooks, both old and new, that I just can't seem to make into anything.

• Swarm of drones rescue someone lost at sea, told from the point of view of one drone (inspired by this skeet)
• A pair of black shoes are found abandoned by the cemetery gates
• "The Reality Generator is malfunctioning."
• A person has several lives of very different people in very different universes that they switch between whenever they fall asleep.
• Middle aged man struggles to cope in the aftermath of his wife's sudden death (a screenplay for some reason)
• Boy finds a hidden staircase in his grandparents' attic that takes him to an infinitely large library filled with fantastical residents
• PhD student recovering from breakdown house sits for their uncle, various magical things happen (like a doll that makes wishes come true)
• Former teen superheroes try to find a place in society, then aliens invade
• A sister tried to look after her younger brother in the aftermath of a war where society has pretty much collapsed
• Twenty-something spends weekend at sprawling family estate with highly dysfunctional family and tries to rescue his niece
• Werewolves running society so they can keep humans under control, small pockets of resistance try and fight back

The last one is probably the furthest along (19478 words!) but hasn't been touched in years. Some of these I'd forgotten all about until I delved into the files. There are other snippets of writing that I don't  remember doing and have no idea what the intent was. As an example, one file named "vampire" contains only the following: 

                The sun was still an hour or so from setting and the air was starting to get cool. I had time to kill before meeting my parents for dinner and was feeling restless. I just started walking, trying to stick to the side streets away from the crowds.

I'm guessing the person meets a vampire? Is a vampire? Who knows.

I start way, way more stories than I finish, and my inability to plan may be to blame. But if I outline a plot I know where the story is going and it becomes 100% less interesting to me immediately. I think that's why I love GMing so much instead - I can have ideas about what's going on in the world, set up a cool scenario, but what actually happens isn't all down to me and often ends up going in directions I would never have thought of. My players do the writing for me. 

Struggling already

 I knew this "blog every day" thing would be a challenge, I just didn't expect to run out of ideas four days in. There's still a couple of short story ideas spinning around my head but I can't quite get them in focus enough to write them down. 

Today generally has been a bit of a blur - took the dog for a six month check-up at vet and was filled with anxiety all the way there. He's an old dog now, and I know he desperately needs dental work doing but it isn't currently causing him noticable issues, so I keep putting it off. And it's a long walk for him, too much time for my brain to get worked up about having to interact with strangers. I made it without tears but on the way I was worried I wouldn't. So anxiety over that, and having sent off work to be reviewed, and having a meeting tomorrow about that work...I have other projects to work on but I couldn't focus enough on them either to get much done. 

I managed a short run this evening, having completed Couch to 5K previously I'm cycling through the "Beyond Couch to 5K" runs, and then just felt sad and cried a bit in the shower. It's hard not to feel like I'm wasting my life because I waste so many days but also because I don't know what I should be doing with my days, or rather, because how I wish I was spending my days just doesn't seem to be possible most of the time. As always, John Green has some wise words on a related subject, and I think I better stop there before I start crying again.