somewhere deep inside of these bones

What? I can't believe October is over. :( I was looking forward to this month for ages, and it has drained away from under my feet so fast.

I spent most of the month writing. Joy! Joy! Joy!!! Writing is the thing I treasure the most in my life. I would choose it over every other hobby I have. But it also the most difficult hobby I pursue, and the most touch and go even when I am at my best. I haven't written in over a year, and not seriously in a couple of years. So I'm shocked that I've been managing some hardcore writing when my state of mind feels so diminished and my energy levels at an all-time low and have just been limping through everything in life. In some way, it is like a safety net that has caught me at the bottom of this months-long freefall, I think. Or maybe it's like one sense growing stronger when all the other ones have been lost.

After thirty days of this business, my brain feels like a stripped tire. A scooped melon. A mere husk. This is pretty normal around the 30k words mark for me. I've taken a couple of days off here at the tail end of October in the hopes I can recharge a bit, because in November, I'm participating in a writing challenge on Habitica alongside my party, some of whom are writing for NaNoWriMo. I'm not doing NaNoWriMo myself, but a daily goal is very helpful for me at this point in my story.

Realizing that my ability to write will eventually click away again, as per usual, is excruciatingly sad a thought for me right now, but I'm grateful that I wrote even once this month, let alone so many days in a row with such dedication and concentration. It is a gift that I have been treasuring.

This month, I have also a) temporarily joined my mother's church choir because they are singing for an Evensong service "Cantique de Jean Racine," which I sang in high school and still know, and b) taken a knitting lesson. Still rubbish at knitting. Still barely an alto.

Anyway, here's a picture of Drew.

Drew has been wearing this little periwinkle-ish number Anne made me for a few weeks, and I made this hat in August, or something like that. All this purple is quite unusual for any of my girls to be decked out in!

When I took her outside earlier, I saw that her RIT-dyed hair is starting to really fade a lot. I think I may contact the woman who customized her (who lives in the same city as me! Last I checked, anyway) to get it fixed, because I don't know that I feel up to re-dyeing it myself. But it will have to wait till 2017, I think. I already know my budget is going to be tight as can be this holiday season.

Now I'm going to spend the remainder of my Halloween evening by singing "Jack's Lament," finishing this hat, and perhaps watching some Supernatural.