The Sweetest Thing – Part 3
I have begun keeping the weekends to myself.
In the long run, this may prove a significant detractor to my career. Weekends are powerful tools. There isn’t any real distraction from work (currently unemployed, but that is rapidly changing). It’s personal time, and in reality any freelance worker uses that time to make money.
Yet my writing doesn’t make enough for me to consider it my job. So really, what writing has become for me, is a hobby that I am attempting to monetize. The position it now occupies is exactly parallel to my streaming career; nascent, at best. It’s not that either hobby is bad, nor is it that either career will never make any money. It is simply the fact that at this stage, I do not bankroll enough from either to push aside more time for them than I already do. I write for approximately thirty hours every week. Some weeks less, some weeks more. Streaming is in the same boat, and while the time for both tends to overlap, the mental power drained for both activities is still just as spent regardless of the double-dipping.
So when it comes time for Saturday and Sunday to roll around, I’m left in a bit of a pickle. Those hours are ripe for me to go ahead and try to make money with them. It’s the perfect opportunity, and the research also proves that out. Most blogs get their most significant traffic days on Saturdays. Evidence here. While I haven’t dug into the depths of twitch stats enough to know if there is the same overlap, it still remains that it is prime time for viewing because of the same reason it is prime time for streaming: no work.
Part time dreamers such as myself are always best served by substituting hustle for numbers.
So why on Earth would I turn down such a ripe opportunity? Why would I dial myself back on a day when it is almost inarguable that I should be working as hard as I possibly can? It seems that I’m going out of my way to hamstring the opportunities that can be gained with these days, instead of knocking on as many doors as I possibly can at every possible moment.
The reality for that decision is rather simple; writing is who I am, down to the marrow in my bones, but those around me share different passions. My wife and son, while interested in my pursuits, aren’t at the same level of passionate involvement I am. Trying to force them to deal with me walling myself off from any human interactions just so I can squeeze out a few hundred more words does a disservice to both my family and to myself. Those words aren’t the end of the world for me; as an indie publisher I operate under no deadlines but those I impose upon myself.
That goes into what I want writing to do for my life. I want it to be an avenue into increasing my meaningful human interactions. To tell those closest and most dear to me that they matter less than the one or two potential readers I might sweep up by aggressively pursuing them on a Saturday undermines both my marriage and my goals.
So I’ve stepped back. I turn off the twitter posts, I shutter the streaming videos. No Microsoft Word documents to thump along in. Just a chance for me to disconnect and interact with friends and family.
Am I costing myself potential opportunities to make mulah? Without a doubt. There’s more to life than money and possessions however, and I refuse to sacrifice the things that matter most for window dressing.
On with the story!
The Sweetest Thing – Part 3
“DON’T JUST STAND THERE. MESS HALL, ON THE DOUBLE! ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!”
Sargent McDowell’s sudden barking shout brought us all out of our own personal misery and back to harsh reality. I started guiltily, gripping the metal disk drained of the meager supply of magic kept within, and cocked back my arm. I flung it forward with the mindless effort of daily practice, and it zipped gracefully through the air into the collection bin hanging on the side of the Armament tent seven meters away from me. I was no kinesiopath, but with my morning ration of magic flowing through me, I was more than equal to such a small challenge.
I took my spot in the line that would lead towards the mess hall. The line was now razor straight, each woman spaced equally, standing at military attention as we waited for everyone to finish. I wore a small, sad smile as I took my place at the back of the line. Oh, what good soldiers even a small dose makes us, eh McDowell?
No one broke discipline on the double-time march towards the mess hall. McDowell would have full license to beat us now, and he gripped the long leather strop he carried with knuckle cracking force as he went along with us. If we had set so much as a toe out of line on the journey, we would pay for it in blood. Not one toe was set out of line, and we made it through breakfast with the same efficiency of motion we always did. No one wanted to waste on iota of energy they could have spared. The less we worked, the more time we could spend with the power pumping through us.
I sat next to Agnes as I always did. She barely even bothered chewing her food as she ate. Given the extremely low quality of the slop we were served every day, I didn’t blame her. All she cared about was getting the food in her as quickly as possible, so that she could begin tearing it down and putting the nutrients where they needed to go before she was too battered and bruised to focus on such things any longer. Kinesiopaths were amazing women, all of them. Capable of full control over every single aspect of their body, Agnes could fully digest a meal in a matter of minutes. She could direct the energy gained from each meal towards whatever area of her body she wished, forcing it to heal completely from any injury, forcing the muscular tissue to increase in both density and elasticity. It was why she could lift six hundred kilos without batting an eye, and why she wore a one hundred kilo combat suit for half a day at a time without noticing. It also meant she was required to eat, a lot. She was one of three kinesiopaths in our thirty woman battalion. All three of them had already finished their meal, and were at the small service line getting seconds. Not one of the twenty seven remaining women even attempted to go back in line. None of us needed the extra nutrition.
Agnes downed the second plate with the same mindless eye towards getting the food into her stomach as swiftly as possible. It was… disgusting, but I didn’t mind. I was a sensiopath after all. Sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell were my entire world. I would never tell Agnes, as it would just embarrass her, but sitting there watching her eat was nearly a pornographic experience. All the sensations of her meal washed over me in luxurious waves, and for a time all my worries and pain were lost in the rush of stimuli. I ate my own food slower than Agnes wolfed hers, but it wasn’t nearly as slow as I would like. The taste of the sludge was almost too much for me to bear, but even the sour tastes of stale and lightly rotten food was a thousand times better than the muted gray wool which covered the world when I wasn’t empowered to view it properly.
Our fifteen minutes for breakfast were over,and by the time McDowell showed up we were all waiting in yet another perfect line which would take us out to the staging grounds. We had a battle to win, after all, and we needed to suit up if we were going to survive it, let alone win the thing.
To be continued….
Powerfully,
Justin
