Leave it to me…
I get on a really good writing kick and then everything else falls by the wayside… well, at least in bloggy terms.
I have actual posts planned on issues I’m currently dealing with at this stage of the game, but on days when I have nothing planned, I simply forget.
No, that’s not quite right – I don’t forget. I feel dueling pangs of guilt. Lemme ’splain:
On the one hand, I feel bad about the progress I’m making (or not making) by spending any time doing any leisure-type activity that does not involve my current WIP… especially blogging. I feel that if I have the energy to blog, I should be putting that energy toward the writing. Intellectually, I know this is craziness. When my mind wanders away from the project, I know from past-history that forcing myself to keep writing will only result in annoying tension headaches and shoddy writing. If I’m staying on target with the writing, there’s nothing wrong with me taking a bit of a step back for a few hours to unwind, recharge my batteries and BLOG about it.
On the other hand, I feel bad that I set the goal to blog daily and I’m not hitting it because I really am on a roll right now. I hate interrupting myself when I’m on a roll to do something tedious (like blog daily just for the sake of blogging daily – if I actually had something of substance to say every single day, this would be moot). So, I’m feeling guilty that I’m not hitting the daily blogging goal, but also guilty if I step away from the writing to blog about writing.
I am vitally aware of the fact that I over-think things, thank you.
At any rate, immersing myself into a sci-fi/fantasy novel really kick started me. I’m getting great ideas and incorporating those into my first draft… not plot-related ideas, mind you. I’m talking about the basic mechanics of writing. How to structure a sentence, for example, or how to handle lengthy bits of dialog. As I mentioned, I can write first person perspective pretty well and am most comfortable with it.
My first few pages (the ones that were causing me angst) sounded to me like they were straight out of a Dick and Jane story book. Now, further along, the sentences are developing some depth and complexity (and believe me, this is NOT a bad thing – my initial paragraphs were on par with “She went to the store. She picked up a loaf of bread. When she saw that the price was $3.95, she was glad she remembered her coupon.”). I’ll have to drastically rewrite once I’m done, but I’m actually pretty proud of the fact that I’ve made as much headway as I have in a matter of just a few pages.
At any rate, I am realizing now that I will have to block out time to blog as well as time to write as it has become perfectly clear to me that they are completely separate activities that refuse to share the same time slot. We’ll see how this goes over the next few weeks. Scheduling may have to wait till mid February since we have an InLaw visit in two weeks and a possible Mom attack soon thereafter. For now, I’ve decided not to beat myself up about choosing writing before blogging… if I don’t make the daily post, I will be pleased as punch to know it was for a good cause (you know, the whole reason this blog exists!).
Again!
Yep, I missed again… AGAIN! This time I don’t even have an excuse – I just plain forgot/ignored the blog calling me.
Instead I watched Chuck and House and I will not be apologizing for that any time soon.
I’ll get back on the wagon later this afternoon.
Oops!
I skipped a day… that’s just… well.. I haven’t decided whether or not that’s a bad thing yet.
I ended up writing some notes – not enough to say that my full attention was on actually writing, but more than I have during the whole rest of the week – and reading, which I’m counting as part of the writing process. Also, relaxing because I just ended one hell of a week and am looking down the barrel of another hell of a week. A girl needs her beauty rest, ya’ know? Also, she needs to do her laundry and get her house “In-law Visit Clean” – which is, as everyone should know, the highest level of clean known to man.
I’m aiming to get my handwritten notes transcribe into doc format this week so I can finally stop having to dig in several different sources (2 separate notebooks and a folder full of docs on a thumb drive). Honestly, I don’t know how I’ll be able to do away with the notebooks completely because I simply do not carry my laptop with me everywhere I go. There’s always iPhone notes, I suppose, but I write faster than I iPhone type and the times I’ve tried to write notes on my phone were not exactly productive.
Still contemplating the purchase of a SmartPen. I think that’s just the gadget girl in me speaking, though. I mean, really? Over $150 for a PEN? Absolutely ridiculous! And yet… there’s still part of me kinda drooling about it.
At any rate, I’m getting closer to finishing up the Pre-writing phase and getting in to actually writing. I have 2 more outlines to finish after I transcribe the handwritten notes and then it’s all rough-draft writing from there. I’m setting up the goal to be done with it all and starting up on Chapter 1 by the beginning of February.
YAY!
The week from hell is OVER!! Next week, of course, will still be a rough week at work, but at least I’ll have help in the office.
As far as the writing goes, my morning routine next week will be jostled a bit due to transportation issues, giving me a huge swathe of uninterrupted time (about 1.5-2 hours) where I’ll be out of the house with nothing to do but write. Kinda makes me wish I had a SmartPen (if only for the ability to upload my notes to my puter a little easier), though I’ll admit, this is just me geeking out.
This weekend will be spent largely in recover mode, but I’ve found that usually in times of stress (like this week has been), my imagination tends to go wild to make up for it. Not quite sure what the word count is, but since I got home from work and a Friday night movie date with the hubz, I’ve written (by hand) quite a few pages of notes that couldn’t wait for me to reboot the system.
Maybe the “es muss sein” was never gone at all…
Dunno how he did it
Anthony Bourdain wrote Kitchen Confidential during his down time while he was working long, strenuous hours as a chef. If you read his book (or others about the horrors of working in the food industry), you’ll know how insane his hours were and how grueling his work day was.
And still, he wrote.
Me? This week has just about had me in tears. There is a bright spot tomorrow in that I will finally have help on the front lines (which means I’ll be able to play catch-up on all of my “behind the scenes” work that’s been slacking this week), but I don’t expect tomorrow to be any less tear invoking than today was (I would LOVE to be proven wrong).
During weeks like this, I don’t take the time to write. Mentally, I’m far too spent. However, the more I think about it, the more I’m realizing that this MUST be an excuse. Anthony Bourdain did it. There are others (their names escape me) who have done it as well. I made the goal to update every day (which I have done thus far) and I have made good on reading more sci-fi/fantasy novels. Given that, I must have SOMETHING left in me to make that kind of progress… It’s just a matter of re-prioritizing and finding the “es muss sein*” that urges me relentlessly to write this story.
It won’t be tonight, though.
* This concept is from Milan Kundera’s novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” He speaks about Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 16 in which he asks the question “Muss es sein?” (must it be?), which is met with an abrupt reply “Es muss sein!” (It must be!). In a nutshell, Kundera asserts that there is something in everyone’s life that just must be – it is an inescapable blessing and curse rolled into one.