Cael's Session 0 Transcribed

What a wild work week. By all accounts, I shouldn't have finished transcribing Cael's Session 0 material in the least. We had the scare with Salad, which persisted into Thursday (8.6) and Friday (8.7) before she really started to recover; my partner and I then had a 3-day weekend because of the way his work schedule aligned for this next week; and then yesterday was his once-a-month odd workday, so he got off at 11:00 instead of the usual 15:00.

Between Session 139 from last week, Session 140 on Sunday (8.9), and the remainder of Session 0, I had a whopping ~18 hours left to transcribe, 11 of which were for Session 0 alone. If I remember correctly, even during a good week, I only manage to transcribe upwards of ~12 hours across the board, so there was simply no way I was going to cross the finish line. I had already accepted it. Eleven hours was going to take me at least 20-22 hours spread across the week. Eighteen hours...yikes.

Well, on Sunday I couldn't sleep. I flipped there (no good) and flopped there (still not comfortable) for a solid hour before sighing in defeat and climbing out of bed to transcribe Session 140.

I don't know about any of you, but I would say 3/5 times I can't sleep after a gaming session. My mind comes alive, replaying exciting or dramatic moments from the story discovered that day, and no matter how many sheep I count — 1...2...3...ooo, if Cael refuses to kill another person just to save their own life, how could they get out of that situation? — my mind whimsically skips down every detour and overturns every marginally interesting looking thought pebble.

Cool, what was my main task for Tuesday (8.11) I batted out of the park by 1:00 Monday (8.10) morning. I could knock out the last 4 hours of Session 0 on Tuesday —

Except...wait, no, I'm feeling antsy. It's Monday afternoon, and I'm looking at all I have and want to do, and I am going nowhere fast, and is this story really going to be worth it in the end? Because hell if I know as of yet how I'm actually going to tell it, and while I haven't been idle, it has been 5 years since we started playing....

You know, the typical woes of the creative.

I had to do something to dampen those thoughts, but it wasn't until my partner suggested, "If you feel like you need to go be productive, why not go transcribe for a little bit? You don't have to do the rest of it right now, but maybe getting a little bit done will help."

I, uh. I finished transcribing the remainder of the 4 hours for Session 0 that night, whereupon I promptly passed out.

Listless

Between my workout and then running errands most of Tuesday, I didn't have an opportunity to mull over my accomplishment, but as I sit here writing this post, I feel that same listlessness that almost always plagues me after I complete a major milestone or project, that question of, "Now what?" staring me down.

Where do I go from here? What do I focus on during that morning block of time? Do I dive headlong into summaries now? Do I catch up on Cael's journals, since those have been niggling at me? Do I, as a palette cleanser, focus on some unrelated tasks I'd been procrastinating on just to finally check them off my list? Do I — etc., etc.

I wouldn't say I'm experiencing post-achievement depression. More that it's a brief period of uncertainty toward where I should direct my focus. However, I am in no rush to fill that time with the next Big Thing^TM merely to continue riding the momentum in the rat race toward productivity. While my mind never sits idle for long, I can spare a day or two to consider my next immediate steps.

I do oh-so-enjoy building my road maps after all. 

Summary of Notable Accomplishments:

• Salad is eating normally again and has regained much of the weight she lost

• Transcribed ~18-hours' worth of material

  • Really, at some point I should calculate just how many hours our collective pre-campaign scenes amounted to

    • Okay, actually, hold on...I've got time.

      • 82 hours and 80 minutes transcribed across all of Cael's Session 0 scenes

        • I'll go through the main campaign sometime and calculate the totals there, too, but not today

• Built with Science, trying a 5-day split in the hopes it'll take me between 30-60 minutes instead of 3 days at 90 minutes:

  • Arms Day

  • Chest Day

  • Back Day

• Pilates

• Saw Spiderman: Brand New Day on Saturday! It was pretty good but wasn't my favorite of the series. I was wanting the mutation to be a bigger problem than a gimmick preventing him from sensing the primary antagonist.

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Salad

Yeah, she's doin' alright now.