Yesterday was NOT a productive day. I managed to get a couple of absolutely critical things done, but mostly I caught up on the sleep I lost on Wednesday night/Tuesday morning and moped about how the fire had gone out.

It went out about the time I took my car in to be fixed and they told me I couldn’t have it back until the end of the day. Suddenly my schedule was off, and my body said “well, since THAT schedule won’t work, let’s try the one where you sleep all day.”

I don’t know if I’m manic right now. I’m working, though. I’ve got about 21 rows’ worth to get done today in order to stay on track, and I do mean to finish them. The goal between now and the end of Saturday is 30 rows of work, which would put two complete weeks of strips in the can.

Then I can take Sunday off, like a good Mormon boy is supposed to.

And then Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday I need to get ANOTHER week of strips done.

I’m not turbo-charged right now, but I’m planning to get my game on nonetheless.

There’s this old saw, “work while the sun shines,” that you may or may not have heard. As with most old saws, it can be applied and/or misapplied in numerous ways.

Yesterday I pounded through better than half of a full week’s worth of Schlock Mercenary work. I worked pretty much non-stop from 10:00am to 11:30pm. Yes, I did some gaming, and yes, I took “think breaks” where I paced around, yammered about stuff, or sat on the couch and pondered, but I was ON for almost 14 hours straight.

Then I came home and couldn’t sleep. I guess I finally dropped off around 2:00am.

Then I bounced awake this morning at 5:50am. I’ve already been to the church-house and back (on foot) to poke the accounting stuff I need to poke for the local congregation.

Sandra looked at me this morning and said “Just so you know, you’re in a manic phase right now.” She counseled me to take my vitamins, and pointed out that we’d just come off of a depressive phase. We talked about the crap I’ve been eating (pizza last night… I still have “pizza tummy” this morning) and how it seems that when I get my diet under control my swings are less dramatic, and I spend more time up.

Fine, fine, fine. I’m manic right now. Well… work while the sun shines. I’m taking my car in to be fixed in a couple of hours (engine thermostat is broken, it’s covered under warranty), and while I’m there I’ll do some pencilling. I’m going to need a patch of nap today to cover last night’s sleep debt, but I’ll be headed down to the Keep to see about inking a week of Schlock. In short, I might as well get as much done as I can before the sun goes down and my metaphorically reptilian blood cools to the point that all I can do is sit on a rock and hope nothing eats me before the sun comes back up.

I’m sure there are other ways to manage manic/depressive cycles. I’m not convinced that I’m even clinically diagnosable with a disorder, what with the fact that I’m actually functional (albeit only marginally, and then only with kicking and whining) on the down sides, but thinking about “how I am” in these terms is helpful.

–Howard

I plowed through twenty-one rows today.

For the uninitiated, a “row” is one row of Schlock comics taken through one of the four stages of creation — scripting, pencilling, inking, or coloring.

I scripted 8 rows (seven days – one week), pencilled 8 rows, and inked 5 rows.

That’s more than double (well… BARELY more than double) my “ideal” daily output of 10 rows. It takes this week’s output to 39 rows, which is an average of 13 rows per day so far, and is the equivalent of a full week of buffer (9*4=36… a full week of comics completed is 36 rows of work). Sure I still need to color stuff, but I’m happy with my output.

Sadly, I cranked the engine so hard that I’m wide awake and it’s almost 1:30am. I finished the last of the pencilling just under two hours ago. *sigh*. This probably means that I’ll be lucky to get six rows tomorrow… but I’m going to push anyway. The buffer has languished for too long in the single digits.

–Howard

Michelle at Dragon’s Keep had her iPod in the “we all get to listen” slot, and something came on that I liked.

(not that I hated the rest of the stuff… it’s just that something came on that I really LIKED)

She told me it was “Plumb.” I went home and checked out some Plumb on iTunes and on the Plumb website.

Wow. I’m enjoying this as much as I enjoyed my discovery of Evanescence three years or so ago.

Thanks, Michelle!