Happy to announce I should be done my first draft of my novel in six days. Or less if I’m on a roll! My goal is 50,000 words and I should easily reach that by the end of this week. I am going to write every day until it’s done, it’s just so exciting to be near the finish line! It will be my first real novel I’ve written. I’ve written beginnings of novels but never finished, or wrote outlines. But this is going to get to a proper end. It still needs a lot of work, I don’t think anyone will read this first draft except for me. There’s some places I want to linger in more in the second draft. But I’m excited! Plus it has a cis-trans gay romance in it which is super cute and was fun to write. The romance is not the main plot line though, or at least I never really thought of it as the focal point of the whole story. More of “if two dudes spent all their time together they probably would fuck at some point.” BUT there’s way more going on than that.

I am going to put it away after that and focus on a film I’m acting in this month. But then when I come back to Toronto I will be reading through it again and starting the second draft. The second draft I might let a few people read for feedback.

People have been asking me why I’m making it into a book and not a film and there’s a couple reasons. One is that too much happens in it and it wouldn’t fit in a film. But the other part is also just that I haven’t had a lot of financial support in my film work the last few years, and writing a book comes with fewer barriers. So that’s what I’m doing. I do like film and I can see parts of it that would have been amazing represented cinematically. BUT that’s not really something that is available to me right now, for whatever reason. I can do experimental videos until the cows come home, but I can’t pull off a project like this with my phone and no money. So yeah it’s a book. But also I did always want to write a book, so it’s not the worst thing to spend my time doing a project like this. I’m not getting paid for it though, but like, at least I have a little bit of time right now and for now I am housed still.

I’ve been doing some of my writing completely alone and some with friends who are also working on their own projects, and the parallel working really got me invested in finishing. After this I also have to write a script, so I’m sure that will happen too. But I just wrote the final confrontation with the villain and next is the rush to the ending. So I’m excited, I know where it’s going and I know how it will end. So I think the writing is just going to flow now. It’s so exciting! I’ve written feature films but never a novel. So I’m pretty stoked. Also I have had compliments on my writing (except for people who say I write bad grants) so that’s nice.

I’m really tired. I’m so relieved my music lessons are paid for for a little bit still, but I’m still looking for work for the fall and still feeling discouraged. I also haven’t heard back from the neurologist about giving my skull a faucet, I’m really hoping it happens soon because I would like to know a time frame to expect my health to be worked on. Plus I am just getting worse until I get patched up and siphoned out. So yeah.

Which is also why I’m trying to write this stuff out now.

I saw someone made a gofundme for someone who needs a shunt and it made me wonder if I should do that too. I don’t want to if I can help it. I would like to just be paid for what I do so I can carry on and take a little time off to get my shunt. But I don’t know how I will get paid. I’ve been putting in applications but so far only secured one teaching gig and it’s in the Winter semester. BUT maybe I can get my shunt this fall? I still need to get money though, it’s so stressful, and I’m pretty sure I can’t get disability. I have been constantly turned down here. I know my disability is more specific now, but it feels like they didn’t care before why would they care now? I don’t know.

I practiced guitar today and it was super fun. I went for dinner with a friend. I wrote and wrote and wrote. Tomorrow I am going to write too. I’m just trying to keep working on my art/writing stuff and carry on I guess. Until I get an appointment with the hospital. I guess I’m scared my brain will do some fucked up stuff after I get my shunt. Like, maybe I will have a manic episode? Or something that looks like a psychiatric episode. I haven’t gone manic in Toronto, although I have lived on and off with low level depression. Depression doesn’t really bother others though, and mania does. But also I’m worried what about if my depression does finally go away after my shunt and people think I’m manic when I’m really just finally genuinely content with life? I don’t know, my outcome is undecided by the gods. Or maybe it is decided. That voice told me I would be normal in the end, so maybe I really will be fine after.

It’s weird because NPH is progressive, BUT it can be reversed with treatment. It’s like, there’s hope, but only if a surgeon operates on me. Other than that there’s not a lot they can do. And I’ve accepted that I might have to get brain surgery, like I am prepared. But I just don’t know when.