I sometimes abuse ampersands

At 33K words, zugzwang is finally finished. It's the longest thing I ever wrote, so, while there are parts of it that I'm less than happy with, I'm still proud of having committed that many sequential words. 33K is nothing to frown at, y'know:) Posting it as a WIP was not the best idea, because it definitely could have benefited from a revision or two, but then, I would have dropped it like a hot potato after the 10K mark if not for the guilt trip factor of posting it as a WIP, so, all in all, it worked out fine in the end.

It's far beyond my comfort zone in terms of both length and several thematic things, so it was an instructive experience. For one, I now have a far better grip, I think, on what I can or cannot do well. So, it was fun, I'm glad I did it, I'm glad it's done.

*

Went out with friends Friday night, which deteriorated into a discussion of porn, genocides, contemporary Polish lit, more porn, indie documentary scene in Ukraine, and abortion legislation. It was fun at the time, we went to a movie festival & hung out till 3AM, but I've been stuck in a not-good mental place of the social anxiety sort ever since then. It's that stage where I get short but intense flashbacks to whatever my brain helpfully classified as "ahaha, you suck, everybody knows just what kind of a horrible misfit you are," and then I cannot breathe for several seconds, so, basically, it's like a short panic attack every several minutes or so. (I do know that my brain is dishing up a really skewed evaluation of me; hard evidence suggests that I'm entertaining and likable enough.) I know it will go away eventually, but it's barely this side of tenable at the moment. I could really do without these adventures with chronic social anxiety, especially since my therapist is now a continent away, and will remain so till January:( Well, every second of dealing with that brings me a second closer to that thing going away, so.