Peopling is Hard

Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing? I’m still stuck in a procrastination rut. I start projects, it goes well for a few days, then I just hit a wall. I try to work through it for a couple of days, but after staring at the same pages for a while, I get disgusted with it and take a few days off. It’s an endless cycle. I need to break it, but I can’t figure out how. So, I decided to try being social instead. Change up the routine. Maybe getting out of my comfort zone would help get the writing muscles going again. That was the hope, anyway. It’s not going too well.

It’s me!

I randomly joined some Facebook groups a week or so ago, mostly for pretty pictures of bats and cephalopods. Apparently, I also decided to join a couple of groups for people who are pansexual and their supporters (happy Pride!), which I never do because… well, people. One of the current fads in one of those groups are those stupid friendship application posts where newbies basically introduce themselves. I don’t do that stuff. I am horrible at peopling. Everyone knows this. I make no secret of it. But I did the thing despite my aversion to socializing.

All of the comments on the post were super sweet and accepting. Yes, I even included pictures. And, instead of being self-deprecating like I usually am, I tried very hard to just say thank you to the handful of folks who said I was pretty or whatever. It was weird. And I admit that I met a couple of people who are cool and I’ve enjoyed our conversations and will definitely keep talking to them. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t get like twenty DMs from douchenozzles (you know the ones, those who expect cyber sex or whatever it’s called nowadays without even attempting to hide it behind getting to know you) who ended up blocked. It totally reminded me of the Yahoo chat days, and not in the good way. Sifting through the asshats to find the interesting people is just not my thing anymore. I’m too lazy for all that. And way too comfortable with being alone (or talking to my current peoples) to make that effort.

Or I can be alone by myself. Either way works.

It doesn’t help that I have a lot of social anxiety. I can’t even make doctor appointments over the phone without freaking out unless I practice the conversation in my head fifty times. Goddess forbid they go off script. And even if it goes perfectly, I still feel like I screwed something up with the interaction. I’m not as bad with text based exchanges, because I can see and edit what I’m saying. Especially when it comes to professional correspondence. That, I have no problem with. As long as I can write it out, I’m okay. I really only have issues with socializing like a normal human being. I know people who I only knew by screen names for the first ten years of our friendship. That’s how horrible at peopling I am. I didn’t even think to ask for names until we’d run into each on Facebook or something. Peopling is hard.

Maybe.

But that’s enough about my lack of humaning skills. I probably should’ve thought of a better topic instead of rambling about nothing. But there you have it. As always, feel free to leave your comments or questions or whatever here or on my social media pages!

May Is Here!

Howdy, howdy!  Apparently, May decided to arrive when I wasn’t looking.  I don’t really have anything worth talking about this week (feel free to send me suggestions for topics), so I’ve decided to make my goals for the month public again.  Motivation has been really hard to find lately.  I have no idea why.  But, hopefully this will help!

cc41ac16d8e8143edc6116ddcc9eb46b
Because Snoopy and Woodstock!

Here are my May goals, in no particular order:

1. Submit stuff 8 times (2 every Monday).  This is the one goal that I haven’t failed at yet this year.  I’ve gotten a bunch of rejections.  One of my stories has been shortlisted, so I’ve got my fingers crossed for that one.  And I have a bunch still floating in the slush pile limbo.  Hopefully, I can keep up the submissions this month!

2. Write 1 flash piece OR short story.  I’m super behind on this one.  So far this year, I’ve only written one short story and revised a couple of flash pieces.  I was hoping to have at least three new pieces to shop around by this point, but I don’t.  Soon, though.  I hope.

3. Read 2 books.  I’m currently reading an ARC of The Oddling Prince by Nancy Springer to review this month.  The book club I’m in will be reading The Wicked Deep by Shea Earnshaw, so I’ll probably also read that.  If I have time, I also want to read the third book in the Howl’s Moving Castle trilogy, but I don’t know if I will or not.

35297394
It looks pretty interesting!

4. Make time for people.  My recluse skills have been on point lately.  I avoid chatting on Facebook.  I only text one person regularly.  Can’t remember the last time I talked to someone on the phone.  And I really shouldn’t be that way.  I should randomly message people and try to make new friends.  The problem is, I’m comfortable not bothering people.  That’s a hard habit to break.  I’m trying, though.  I sent a few messages out yesterday.  I’ll try to send out a few each week.  We’ll see how it goes.

5. Finish revising short story.  I’m still working on fleshing out and revising the short story I wrote a couple of months ago.  It’s a bit more sci-fi than I’m comfortable writing, but I’m enjoying it.  I actually took a character from a novel I haven’t finished and threw her in a new world as a younger version of herself.  I think this world might be the key to all the problems that made me quit that novel.  But that’ll have to wait until I finish everything else I want to do this year.  For now, the short story comes first.

6. Submit story to critique group.  It’s been a while since I’ve submitted anything to my critique group, so hopefully some of them will be up to checking the story out when I finish revising it.

7. Begin revisions on LR.  I decided to go back to the second novel attempt and work on revising it first.  I miss my dragons and shifters and everyone else in that book.  It’ll be nice to get back to them.

d2738480aa3b3d960f3041110f72287c
A pretty sea dragon by Carlos Herrera.

Those are my goals for the month!  What about you?  Feel free to share your goals here or on my social media pages!

Writing Challenge Q&A: Improvement Needed

Hello, hello!  Welcome to the final installment of the Writing Challenge Q&A.  I must admit that it’s been really nice knowing what I’m going to write about these last few weeks, but I’m kind of looking forward to just randomly picking a topic next week.  This week’s ramble is courtesy of the lovely Morganna Williams.  She chose number 26 (“write about an area in your life that you’d like to improve”).  So, I suppose I’ll be talking about self-improvement for a little while.

self-care-in-addiction-recovery
Self-care is important if you want to improve yourself.

Honestly, there are a lot of areas in my life that could be improved upon, just like there are areas that are great just the way they are.  It’s hard to pick one.  I could definitely use less procrastination.  I could be more optimistic.  I could be more adventurous (rather than sticking to the “plan”).  And I could definitely work on not overthinking everything.  But this is all stuff that I’m relatively okay with.  It’s stuff that I’m slowly working on.  I’ve found a way to overcome procrastination with my writing at least.  I try to steer myself away from worst case scenarios.  I’m saying “yes” a little more to last minute plans (only once or twice so far, but baby steps).  Overthinking is still my downfall.  So what would I like to improve?  I guess I’m still not that great at socializing, which is something I’m okay with, but I know it’s not a good habit to nurture.

07bc08c777cb4508dcb751159aaade31
This!  So much this.

 

I fully admit that it’s me when I lose touch with people.  I suck at remembering to text or message people unless they get in contact first.  It’s really weird because I never had this problem when I was online with people at four in the morning.  I was always the person to initiate chats back then.  Adulthood has changed that.  I’ve fallen victim to the “I talked to them first last time, so it’s their turn” mentality, which eventually warped into “I’ll talk to them tomorrow,” and we all know tomorrow never comes.  I’m also super bad about thinking of texting someone while I’m in bed, then forgetting about it when I wake up.  Socializing and I just don’t get along.

It also doesn’t help that most of my friendships are long distance.  I hate the phone and always forget to email people back in a timely manner if it isn’t business type stuff.  Hell, I can’t even write letters to my oldest sister (the jailbird) on anything like a regular basis.  And yes, I realize this is all on me.  I apologize for it repeatedly with different people.  I just don’t know how to break myself of my reclusive habits.

Forever-Alone-Meme-1
Also, when I do talk to people, this kind of stuff happens.

 

I’m sure my hermit habits impact other areas of my life besides friendship too.  After all, how am I supposed to meet a potential significant other if I’m never talking to people?  How am I supposed to network for business connections if I don’t want to bother people (another big reason I hesitate when texting or messaging: I don’t really want to pester them, I just say I do)?  I need to be more sociable.  As much as it pains me to admit that, it’s true.

So, what about you?  What area could be improved in your life?  Do you have any suggestions for overcoming reclusive tendencies?

See you all next week!