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Week two of my March challenge has flown by; at this point I am in the middle of the challenge (and in the Ides of March!) and one book is currently sitting at roughly half done (the story itself is done but now I am going back and patching up any inconsistencies, filling in details and scenes and editing as the mood hits since every now and again I think "I want to change this to this...and oh, what if THIS happened instead?!" which has led me down some interesting paths) and the other is getting there. It's on schedule while the other is way ahead of schedule.

For me that is pretty good. heart

I am going to finish my pages for the day, email my tidbits to Nanu and then crash because I have an extra-early shift in the morning (but I get out earlier than usual so it evens out); my apologies for not being on and active more these past two weeks. I've had tunnel vision these past few weeks but it has done me a world of good.

I see no reason why I can't make my goal a book a month at this point; at least get the roughest outline down and then flesh it out as the month goes along. If I can do TWO in a month it makes one seem too easy. xD

My only concern is after doing this for two weeks I don't like the idea of certain things going back to the way they were; already at the end of the first week I was thinking how much better things are for me and now at the end of the second week I am finding it harder to think about just throwing the gates back open the way they were before I took this challenge on.

I like my primary focus being this. It has relaxed me and soothed me far more than I can express. An introvert left to focus on recharging and doing fulfilling things with her free time is a happy introvert. I haven't had a cell phone in nearly a week now and I love it! I know I will have to eventually get it working again (and I am excited about that for certain reasons since I have a new one) but right now I am really enjoying this sense of being able to focus guilt-free on my writing.

I was going to say this in last week's entry but I don't think things will be the same for me going into April; it's not a bad thing, either. It has been refreshing and nice to work on my stories and shut the world out. I've spent my entire life focusing on other people and their needs and this has reinforced how I feel now: maybe it's time I close the blinds on the window for as long as I need. Those who understand will understand and those who can't are just proving I don't need to be concerned with them.

I wouldn't have to shut people out if they could just listen in the first place when I say I need time and space; to their defense it does not take a lot to send me into overload. I get one email and one text a day about how I am ignoring someone- passive or not- and that is my definition of too much. Before I started blocking emails and numbers it was around ten a day of messages like that, not counting how many people would come into my work and try to talk to me there because it was the only place that I could not get away from them. Not my words, either. I had more than one person say that they knew they could corner me at work- again, not my words- and that got not only super-old super-quick but damn super-stressful. I put my big meany foot down and told people to stay out of where I worked while I was there; not always in such nice terms, either.

So this mini-break has been a big deal for me. The longer I go into the month the harder I find the idea of letting things revert back.

The longer I go the more I don't think I will.