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It's Wednesday already? The weird diminished hours I've been getting at work lately have definitely screwed with my sense of what day it is, especially since I've been spending the last couple of them trying to get over what is either allergies or a cold! And now it's flipped a bit more because today I'm doing what is not quite a midshift but isn't quite closing either (12:30 - 9pm) (yeah, I'm not thrilled about it, but I'm hoping that I'll be sent to the floor to do upstock rather than get chained to the register). Then I have one more day off...then my two Friday-Saturday shifts.

Not too much else to report other than I'm doing my best to get my writing in despite the allergies and the day job schedule weirdness!

What's up

Oct. 20th, 2025 08:40 am
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Not much, really. I'm currently dealing with what's either a head cold or allergies that's been leaving me congested and tired. Which is bad timing, considering I have a few days off to do whatever I want or need! Bleh.

Sunday was a bit on the lazy side, as we didn't really do anything until almost noon when we went out for a walk, checked out the dahlia garden in GGP, then had quite a tasty lunch at the Velo Rouge Cafe on Arguello. We'd been meaning to go there for ages, and it was definitely worth it! Once back home, we ended up lazing around, and I got to finally watch the first three episodes of The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity, an anime whose manga version I've been obsessing over lately. 

Still, by the time I sat down at the desk, I was just too tired to get any work done or even write any blog posts. Bleh, I say! So yeah, that's why you're seeing this on Monday morning. I have very few plans today other than to rest up and catch up. Hopefully I'll be back up to speed soon!
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Despite my ongoing daily frustrations at the Day Job, I will at least be proud of the fact that I'm doing pretty good with working on Theadia! I still have a long way to go, but this current go-round is looking a hell of a lot better than I'd hoped. I'm hoping I'll be close to done by the end of the year, or early into the next, depending on how much more work I need to do. There's the final chapters to write, and the 'WRITE THIS LATER' scenes to write.

That, and I've been doing some thinking about what other creative outlets I want to work in in the next few months. More on that soon...
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On the non-Day-Job front, we spent most of today up in Petaluma, visiting the in-laws. A and I were getting rid of a smallish freezer (about the size of one of those dorm fridges you're not supposed to have in a dorm) that we figured they'd like to have so we made a day of it by visiting to drop it off and then go out to brunch. Said brunch was QUITE tasty at a family restaurant that looked to be quite the destination for the post-church crowd on Sundays. I ended up getting the chorizo hash which was extremely filling and very generous.

But that's not all! I had another reason to be up there, and that was to sell off three of the acoustic guitars I've had for the last several years that have been gathering more dust than play. [These are the guitars that were in front of the window at our old place, and when the cats saw birds out said window they would get all excited and their tails would hit the guitar necks, letting out an amusing twang.] I got about what I'd expected from the exchange, and this is a REALLY good guitar store that would fix them up and sell them off relatively quick. 

All in all it was a very nice and warm day, and the traffic was surprisingly not at all stressful. I was worried I'd be a bit exhausted but so far I'm not doing too bad. [That's another story entirely...I've been feeling exhausted for the last few weeks, most likely due to Work Stuff, to the point where maybe I should see a doctor. It's probably nothing, but it wouldn't hurt considering I'm getting old and not running on all cylinders like I used to.]

Anyhoo...I have a few days off this week, so I'm going to spend those days enjoying myself and getting things done.

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It may have been a very weird and stressful couple of weeks at the Day Job for me, and there may have been a few very low points of self-doubt where I felt like I was digging myself deeper, but thankfully those have been balanced out by much higher points of creativity and calm. I will soldier on one way or another, and I still have my writing to keep me centered. I've learned from past experience when I feel like I'm about to spiral into constant frustration and/or anxiety and know well enough to retreat to safer mental ground. 

So where do I stand right now, creativewise? I'm doing pretty good with Theadia, though I do seem to be piling up the multiple 'WRITE THIS LATER' chapters and scenes that I'll need to work on. I don't do that very often, but then again this book isn't quite like the others I've written, and like Diwa & Kaffi, I'd like to get it right the first time. I'm also tentatively restarting the 750 Words sessions, though I've already missed a few this month due to prior plans and/or personal stuff going on. I'm not too worried about that, however, as I figure this will be a trial restart this month, just to get back into the habit and to get it up and running again.

Other than that, I've just been very tired from the Day Job nonsense and and ongoing strain in my left elbow for some reason (though I'm sure that's just from overuse and bad posture). I'm going to take the few days I have of this week and relax physically and mentally because I think I need it right now.
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It seems calling out on Monday was a good idea, because I was extremely burned out. I stayed at home and didn't do much of anything other than a bit of writing and reading, and by the afternoon I felt a lot better. I also had a good rethink about why I was feeling so exhausted, and I'm pretty sure it was day job related. There's been a few things happening that I was letting get to me in a rather unhealthy way and it just kind of all came to a head over the weekend. Long story short, I've decided I'm going to just stop getting angry about the consistent lack of assistance and the frequent assumption of managerial status from a certain coworker. I'm still annoyed that they've fucked with my pay and I'm hoping it will be rectified very soon, but I'm not going to ragequit or let it eat at me as much.

More to the point, I've decided that I need to reapproach the day job the same way I did during my years at Yankee Candle. The day job is the day job and I should only put in what I feel I want to put into it. My main focus should always be with the writing -- the day job is the day job, the writing is the career, after all. It's time to dial it back a little and rebalance my priorities here.

In other news, I've resurrected the longhand journal and the 750 Words sessions again, and the poetry/song writing might make a reappearance in the near future as well. Why? Well, because I want to, which is a fine enough reason. I'm sort of giving myself a trial run during these last few days of the month with the aim to be more consistent about them in October. We'll see how that pans out...
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Not worked-too-hard exhausted, just...tired. Low on gas. Going at a slow speed and deciding not to accelerate any faster for a while. Perhaps it's that I've been waking up a lot during the night, perhaps it's the RL political fuckery, or maybe it's closer to home with the day job drama. [Definitely not because of the day job getting busier for Q4, though...that won't happen for another month or so.] Or a little of everything finally piling up. I just don't have it in me to give any more fucks right now. Maybe a few spoons left that I'm keeping as backup, just in case.

Which is frustrating, because this is happening just as I want to start giving myself more ability to focus on my creative endeavors. But I'm not going to let it get to me all that much, because sometimes it's just not worth the added stress and anxiety. Figure out a workaround instead. Figure out what really matters and put most of my energy into that instead of trying to keep a sinking boat afloat.

Mind you, I'm still happy that I'm not nearly as full of stress and anxiety as I was with the bank job, that's for sure. I'm just more aware of it when it does arise, and I just need to do my best to divert it when and where I can.


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I have today off so this morning I headed over to Kaiser and got my combo flu and Covid shots. I figured I'd get it out of the way early this year so I don't need to worry about it! I've always had a bit of a bad habit of putting things off (not a terrible habit, just one that I've used more often than I'd like and mostly out of laziness and/or distraction), so lately I've been making sure I'm a bit more aware of it. 

Speaking of fixing habits, I'm still trying to get myself back into the daily writing thing -- I mean, other than working on my current revision projects. I really should go back to the journaling, at least. Doing that often got me into the mindset for writing each day, not to mention it being a bit of therapy to get my thoughts in order and lighten the mental or emotional burden.

Still, the only downside to wanting to do that is the near-inability to do that during work hours. I just do not have enough downtime, unless I take major steps to work on such things outside of the store. I mean, I'd really like to return to sketching out ideas during quiet moments on scratch paper, but there's more to it than just that -- I've also got to unf*ck my other terrible habit of Overthinking My Notes. I don't even remember where or when that started (I'm thinking it was at some point around the end of my time at the bank). And that's been a hard one to break.

Maybe what I need is a main focus. Decide on one specific project to work on and filter all my creative thoughts while I'm at work towards that one point.

Something to think about, anyway.
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Everything is back to semi-normal here (though there is some IRL fuckery going on that I'd rather not get into here on the blog just yet). The day job is the day job, the writing is the writing. Everything seems to be in a state of movement, which is always better than a state of stall, yeah? I'm back to almost forty hours at the day job again, and Theadia is coming along quite nicely.

Speaking of which, this current go-round is including my inserting a few [INSERT NEW SCENE/CHAPTER HERE] placeholders. There are a few secondary characters I never got around to expanding on who I think could be useful for the grander plot, so I'm giving the novel a bit of breathing room to give them a bit of stage time. I'm taking my time with this one, so if I don't quite get it out on schedule, I'm not going to worry. I really don't want to do this one half-assed.

OH! And speaking of writing, I finally got the rough POD ARC for A Division of Souls (the remaster), and it looks REALLY good! I'm quite glad Draft2Digital is providing this -- and via a much easier process than Amazon/Createspace, I should add -- so once I give it a final go-over (and fix any last-minute issues), I'll have it up and available to buy in print! Woo! 

And following up on that, I've also prepped a new copy of The Persistence of Memories for remastering, which I definitely want to have out by 2026. I think this one will need a bit less polishing than ADoS did, but considering it's my favorite in the trilogy, I'd like to make sure it's also just as tight and up to current standards! More on that soon enough...
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This always happens around this time of year. The season changes, the days get shorter, the day job gets busier, and a new cycle begins. A few things have been nagging in the back of my mind. Surprisingly it's not entirely about better time management at work! No, I've been pretty good about that these days. I'll still scroll the socials, but at least half my break time at work is about playing Squaredle. I play that game a little bit throughout the day just to keep it fun and light.

No, once again it's about creativity. I mean, I'm doing pretty good lately, working on Theadia and whatnot, but that hankering to do more when I have the outlets and the ability is finally returning. I'm going to assume that I've finally settled into the New Digs enough that I can allow myself to add to my creative workload. I'm still hesitant to do that at work as I don't have nearly enough time (or physical space) to do so, but on the other hand I've also decided that maybe I don't need to put so much daily work-related stress on myself every single shift. [This is mostly my own fault, having a terrible habit of approaching jobs as 'I'd better do it myself because no one else will/because I'll do it right the first time' and never shifting them to others.]

I've got a notebook and a journal (and a work search magazine) in my satchel that are slowly gathering dust from disuse, and a 750Words sign-in that hasn't been used in some time, so perhaps it's time to make that change once and for all. I've been thinking about a few ideas that I haven't really let myself expand on for quite some time, and it's been a LONG time since I've started something this new.

Curious to see where this goes...
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For someone who pretty much had five days off in a row, I'm feeling a bit exhausted. I'm pretty sure it's because we had something going on all of those days! Shopping, walking, gardening, cleaning, playing with the cats, driving, visiting the in-laws (twice!), and actually going outside on warm days! It's been a full schedule these last couple of days.

I made the slight mistake of not following up on a very minor mistake in uploading the remastered edition of A Division of Souls so the drop date WAS MISSED AND EVERYTHING IS RUINED FOREVER no, I just fixed it late yesterday and properly it's up and running now. I've also pulled the old edition from the Smashwords site so the new one will take its place. Here's the link of you're so interested!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1838502

And yes, I do plan on 'remastering' my older books (at least the trilogy and probably Meet the Lidwells and In My Blue World) over the course of the next couple of years, because they're my books and why the hell not? :)

Anyhoo, I'll be doing my usual Friday-Saturday stupid-early shifts the next couple of days (and wondering what drama unfolded in my absence) and everything will be back to normal. Back to the grind!

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See, now this was the week where I actually planned to take multiple days off so A and I could frolic and relax for a few days before Q4 nonsense kicks in. [Read: we weren't planning on going on any vacation trips this year, so instead we take various days off throughout the year like this. One, the current political nonsense going on, and two, cats.] We do have a few destinations in mind, including an olive farm up in Petaluma and some shopping down the peninsula. Other than that, I had very little on the docket other than sleeping in a bit later than usual and enjoying the company of Juli and Cali! :)

Speaking of days off, I'm still getting used to not having to worry about wondering if I'll be working on Sundays or not, and not knowing until the last minute. It's a weight off my mind, and there's a much better chance of us deciding to visit a neighborhood we haven't visited in ages, or heading up to A's parents' house, or just a fun day trip somewhere. I don't feel the least bit guilty about having won that particular battle at work, though it is wild that I'm having to adjust my head around it still.
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Good question, considering I've had the last several days off! It feels weird having this many off in a row, but I've been keeping busy-ish. I've gotten a lot of house cleaning done! I still have a few things to do here and there, but the laundry is finished, dusting and swiffering have been done, groceries have been purchased, the garden has been watered, and the cats have been given more than enough attention throughout the day. I've also gotten a significant amount of revision done for this go-round for Theadia, which includes making much more detailed notes in the few "write this later" chapters I need to insert!

Mind you, I have most of next week off as well (this time on purpose, we're taking a few personal days off), so it feels kind of weird to not be at work so much. I'm pretty sure I'll be exhausted again once I'm back to full time hours again.

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So long story short, I'm only working 24 hours this week instead of the usual 38-40. I'm not entirely thrilled about it, but I'm at least a lot less annoyed by it than I was when I first saw it on the schedule board. The boss informed me that the latest version of the scheduling software got wonky and dropped hours of several people, and unfortunately I was one of them and even more unfortunately he didn't catch it until I texted him with a slightly miffed 'WTF' on Friday. He did say that he'll ensure that won't happen again in the future.

On the sort of plus side, this will give me the next three days off in which I can catch up sleep, get a lot of writing done, do several house errands that need doing, and play with the cats! And I am definitely taking a few days off the week after this coming one, days I'd put in for and will be using some of my remaining vacation/floater days for. A's taking those days off as well so we can have fun doing little day trips and neighborhood walks. Woo!

*

Meanwhile, check it out: the Remastered Edition of A Division of Souls is now available for preorder at Barnes & Noble! Here's the link:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-division-of-souls-j-chaisson/1148097942?ean=2940182462112

 

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So following up from the previous post, on Monday I was informed that while I was at lunch, the local high school's principal came in and told all the kids that they are now banned from our store! This is actually quite a surprise turnaround, as they'd only done that once for one semester a few years ago. [Previously they'd shrugged and said 'our hands are tied' as some parents had probably complained.] Come to find out, Head Boss had done the right thing in making a very long and detailed list with receipts of all the trouble they'd caused (mostly stealing, being super noisy and blocking the aisles, but also tagging the men's bathroom and the outside elevators and possibly breaking them) over the last couple of semesters. And yes, even the cops were called once or twice, both for kids stealing and starting fights outside.

Sure, it was only thirty to forty kids out of however many go to that high school, but the line was consistently crossed with such regularity that it was finally agreed that said kids ruined it for everyone else. WELP! Mind you, as far as I can tell they can still come in after school and after-school activities let out, but by that time we have more coverage. The fact that they can no longer inundate us for half an hour, five days a week at precisely 12:15pm is definitely worth it. Not having to dread that half hour of chaos every day takes a lot of stress off everyone else's shoulders.
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Not much going on this weekend other than we did our occasional Costco run today to pick up household needs, and to head over to the garden to plant the several things we bought at Sloat Gardens the other day. I've been trying to keep up with my new habit of truly having a day off where I don't have to pile it up with several events, errands or whatever. Just do what needs doing and relax.

The storm, by the way, is that school is starting back up this coming week. As I've said before, our local high school is just a few short blocks away from my store, and over the last several years, five days a week and often twice a day, we'll get hit with thirty to forty noisy teenagers coming in to buy chicken tenders and sour gummies. It only lasts for about twenty minutes, but it's the most stressful part of the day, especially when we happen to be short-staffed. Each year I keep hoping that the next class will be a bit less obnoxious (and stop stealing) (and stop standing in the middle of the aisles in complete obliviousness), but we shall see. For a very brief time the school's principal kept them from coming over by citing the rule that they're not supposed to cross the major boulevard to get here. [They can always walk a few blocks in a different direction to a different shopping area to buy food.]

Alas, I'm not looking forward to it, but I'm going to try to keep an even calm about it.
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I have been SO exhausted lately, and I'm not sure if it's allergies and the change in the weather (SF is suddenly experiencing warmth and sun for the first time in ages) or that I've just been spreading myself far too thin lately at work. A bit of both, perhaps. I won't bother you with the details, just that I left early today as I was pretty much running on fumes. Thankfully I have tomorrow off so I will spend the day chilling. [I have my two bookkeeper opens Friday and Saturday, but those don't tire me out even though I wake up early...I'm too busy sitting at a computer processing things!] I have no other plans except heading over to PetSmart to pick up some litter and check out a replacement cat tree for the older one that's falling apart. Oh, that and continue doing a bit of writing work!

Meanwhile, Outside Lands is this weekend, so I've a feeling there will be all sorts of nonsense going on. The volume at the Day Job wasn't too bad last year, as it was mostly people buying stuff for home partying or pre-show get togethers, but we shall see. I'm more concerned about some idiot parking in front of my garage door (which we will gladly have towed at the owner's expense) blocking me in or out. The sound might be a bit louder I think, considering the performers that will be there, but we shall see. Thankfully they still stick to the 10pm shutdown, and that's right about the time we finally turn out the lights.


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 I'm kind of in an interstitial space right now creatively, I think. I've mentioned before that I've stopped performing a lot of the habits I'd had over the last several years in Spare Oom -- the whiteboard schedule, the logging of the word count, writing at 750Words, and so on. The main reason I stopped is that I wanted a fresh start here at the New Digs. For the most part it's been a positive choice as I haven't felt the stress of not hitting scheduled goals. It's helped me focus on current projects with more clarity.

Not that I'm complaining, however. I like being here at this time, because it means that I'm breaking away from old habits and yet to forge new ones. I'm allowing myself to try new things and approach current projects in a slightly different way. Perhaps this is why I'm also allowing myself to indulge in a wave of comic reading on Hoopla these last several weeks...I get to try something new, see what inspires me.

I suppose if this stage is anything like the one I had during the Belfry Years, this will (hopefully) mean that a lot of positive creativity will come out of it.
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Okay, so I think I can finally sign off the Remastered Edition of A Division of Souls (a month early! yay!), which means I can now get back to working on Theadia. Woo! I'm still a bit nervous that I may have forgotten something important like proper formatting or missing a really stupid and obvious typo, but I think I've caught all the ones I'm going to catch this time out. More important however is that I fixed a few minor continuity and clarity issues that had always bothered me.

This of course is going to mean that I'll have to figure out how I'm going to promote this thing. I don't want to just throw it out there and say 'have at it' and get nothing in response. Which means I'll be spending most of August creating different possibilities. I've also pulled the physical copies from Amazon as I no longer want them available there when I can have them done POD through Draft2Digital where all my other novels are. That'll be something for 2026: how to make my works available in physical form through that platform.

Anyhoo, I'm crawling back to normal creativity once again, and that's good enough for me!
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As you may have seen in the news (or not), Safeway has come to a tentative agreement with my union and there will be no strike! We kind of expected them to blink first, we just didn't expect them to take so dang long! Anyway, I don't know the full details yet of what we'll now be getting but hopefully it will be positive.

Semi-related, it looks like the Day Job has been able to follow through with my request to not assign me Sundays, and I hope it stays that way. Head bookeeper is currently on vacation but we managed to get a third-stringer to fill in so I don't need to worry about it. I am kind of surprised that I'm not filling in for him elsewhere in the week, but I'm not too concerned at the moment. 

In the meantime, I've got a few days off in which I'm hoping to both get a lot done and also chill out. I have no major plans as I've already taken care of most of our weekend errands -- wash is running, home is vacuumed (and cats temporarily traumatized by it), things put away and other things cleaned. It's been extremely damp and misty these last several days so we're not too worried about our garden plot drying out, though we might head over there at some point later in the week.

I'll also be honest, I've been feeling my age the last couple of weeks, partly because of the stress of moving and partly the weird work schedule (and also doing the job of at least two people due to budget constraints), so I'm thinking it's high time I start doing something about that. I was doing really good for a while doing my stretches and whatnot, but that fell by the wayside and now my joints are aching. Perhaps it's also time to go see the doc for a checkup just to make sure I'm not actually falling apart, but I'd like to think that right now I'm just at the 'wear and tear' part of my life and just need to be better at taking care of it, heh.

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