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Tracking got a bit off at the end of the last challenge, but I actually did pretty well for myself overall. Got some things cleaned, did a bunch of fasting, and am feeling a bit more in control of myself. In fact, I was feeling so halfway decent that I decided to pick up a new book series for the first time in a long time (on my wife's recommendation). MISTAKE. My brain immediately went into red alert. See, I haven't actually read any books in a long time (barring a few non-fiction here and there, couple of biographies, etc). I've been avoiding fiction, telling myself it's just because I was enjoying other media (TV, games) for my stories, and so it wasn't necessary. I was wrong. I've been avoiding reading fiction for one simple reason: it causes my fiction-writing mind to engage. And my fiction-writing mind is still badly, badly burned by my flameout on the final book in my series. The manuscript has been trapped at 33,000 words (somewhere around halfway done) for two and a half years... I checked. Hadn't been touched since July 2017, and it had already been a struggle before that. With some distance, I finally sat and considered solutions to this problem. I could unpublish the existing books and try to put the whole thing behind me; I could just try to distance myself from it, accept my failure, and move on OR I COULD JUST SIT DOWN AND FINISH THE $#&@^$*@# BOOK So I'm going to do it. Over the next five weeks, I am going to FINISH THE BOOK. This thing has been haunting me for literal years. It's so close that I can taste it. I've known the ending since I finished book 2 back in 2013. It's just a matter of actually putting the words on the digital paper and bringing this chapter (ha) of my life to an end. I also bought GMB's Elements so I'm going to work on that, too. But honestly, I just need to write the book. There's no reason I can't finish it in five weeks. I have about an hour on most nights between when Bubbles goes to bed and when my evening hobby stuff starts. An hour, 4 days a week, for 5 weeks is 20 hours. Add a couple few on the weekends if I need it, and this can happen. It's time to banish the demon, get the monkey off my back, and free myself of this yoke hanging around my neck. I'd like to be able to read for pleasure again, and if this is what it takes, then so help me I WILL DO IT.