Basement Follies

Blog No. 89

July is coming to an end, which comes to a surprise every time. I know that it is bound to happen, I just don’t seem to be ready for it. The year is more than half over. Crazy. On a good note, Adventure Worlds had its most views ever in July. It’s a nice feeling, seeing your hard work start to make a mark. If only I was getting the same kind of views on this blog. I think I’m going to have to come up with a strategy for that some time in the future. In the mean time, my writing is moving along quite well. I’m going to give Christian another shout out for that. He’s helped me stay on track (and hopefully I’ve helped him too). You should give his blog a look: christianlaforet.com, there have been some big changes. Even though I’ve been keeping up on my writing, there are distractions (or more specifically, roadblocks) that are sending me for a loop.

I’ve been living at my brother’s place for the last few years. It’s a decent situation. I get to save money on rent and he gets some extra help around the house. Last year we had some issue with water in the basement which, if anyone has dealt with that kind of problem, you know how devastating it can be. I had to vacate my room in the basement and the priority became – fix the basement. Holy cow, that’s a huge job. Moving all the stuff upstairs, trying to find a place for it, living under, over, and between boxes. It’s all a distraction. Then we started to demo the place. It was a fully finished basement, with several rooms. All the drywall and framing and everything had to come down and, like the stuff before it, had to be carted up the stairs and binned. The place had to be completely gutted. It’s the kind of job I wouldn’t wish on many people and I can see why those who do it get paid well so well.

As it is, the basement is soaking up all my time in the obvious ways, like spending my evenings trying to be more of a help than a bother (hacking away with the back end of a hammer and dragging debris up the stairs), but there are other things I didn’t think of. I am currently wearing my last pair of clean underwear. That’s not even a joke. I have to go out tonight and do many loads of laundry, away from the house. I know people do that all the time, but it’s new to me and unplanned for, and I am going to have to miss another writing session because of it. Sure, I’m going to try to get some work done while I wait for the machines to do their work, but I doubt I’ll be as productive as usual. Even this blog post is evidence of the all consuming job. It’s rare that I post so late in the day, and, though it’s usually all my fault and technically I could have used my limited time more wisely, I feel like I should get a pass on this one.

We have made tremendous progress and in less than three weeks we got to the place where we are rebuilding. It may seem like a small victory with all the work we still have ahead of us, but building rather than tearing out, is a good feeling. I wish I was making this much progress with my writing, and if I’m smart, I will try to keep the same schedule when this is finally over. Thankfully there has been a lot of help from very hard working people. It’s another example for me that surrounding myself with the right people is paramount. When I don’t have the motivation to start, having someone raring to go gets me on board. From there my guilt keeps me working. On the rare day that I’m the one eager to tackle the mountain, I can rally the others too. Accountability, enthusiasm, and encouragement can go a long way. We still have a few more weeks of hard labour, but it’s going to get much more fun when we are actually building the walls and trying to bring some grandiose ideas to life. Hopefully by then I’ll get my writing back in order too. For now I’m going to try to fit it into the cracks.