Well, I made good progress, but I’m out of steam for now. 3 rows colored, 5 rows inked, and week’s worth of inking is queued up for coloring now.

My goal is to get it all colored today. I’m feeling a little brain-fried, though, so I’m taking a break.

Maybe until tomorrow.

chalain tells me that when you’re manic the best thing you can do is cut yourself off early and get some sleep, even if you need to medicate. That way the day after a solid manic episode doesn’t end up being a total loss.

Friday I was reasonably productive. I got 13 rows worth of work done — coloring, pencilling, and inking. Unfortunately, in order to hit my goal of adding a week to the buffer before leaving for Penguicon, I have to get at least 17 rows done TODAY. No way can I afford a repeat of Thursday, when I slept most of the day and got nothing done. So… last night at around 8pm I popped a couple of Excedrin PM and a handful of melatonin (Yes, this is a dosage I’ve taken before. No this is not something I do often. Relax, please. I know I did.) and drew myself a bath. I had a nice meal, a hot bath, and then read 60 pages of the latest Star Risk book. And then I rolled over and went to sleep at about 9:00pm.

I got roughly 11 hours of sleep. I’m ready to rock this morning.

–Howard

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