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Day Nine: Writing Through the Crap (And Getting Pretty Flowers!)

6/5/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
Today was a Friday. It was the first day since I quit my job that I had absolutely nothing to do. No weddings, no receptions, no outreach workshops, nada. And so what did I do? I called up my mom and scheduled some hanging out time, because I don't know what to do with my day when there's nothing to do.

The morning started strong. I read a couple of workshop pieces for my Ireland residency, which is coming up. And then I struggled through a scene. Oh it was awful. It hurt so much. But I've been stuck in this mud for two months, and it's either write crappy and then come back, or just sink into the pit of despair. And no one wants that. ... Poor Atreyu ...

So I finished a chapter, started working on the next chapter ... and fell asleep.

Heading back into the chapter, I meditated on some fanart that looks like my characters (because who doesn't go "Hmm, which HP characters can I pretend are actually my characters in a picture to find inspiration?" ... totally not me), and then I had to go hang with Mom.

Turns out tomorrow is their 34th wedding anniversary, so I asked them if they wanted to go out to eat. And we did. And then Alex bought Lilo & Stitch, and we drove around the lake to Johnny Cash. Good night, but not a lot of writing.

The other non-related writing thing that happened today were the above flowers. Mardra Sikora sent me lovely flowers for a project her son and I worked on, and it was very sweet of her.

Now to writing.

I'm disappointed in myself I'm not writing hour after hour after hour. I'm learning now in a peaceful environment how to delegate my time so I'm still living life with my loved ones, but I'm also forcing myself to write, even when it's crap I'm coming up with. Tonight my parents wanted to go see a cheapie movie, and I told them I had a deadline, which I think I'm going to use as Muggle-talk for "I have to force myself to write and I cannot spend quality time with you right now. I understand you're a real person and the people I'm going to be hanging out are not real people, but they're more important right now ... okay fine you don't understand, okay ... I have a deadline."

I think I'm being too hard on myself, I mean, I wrote like 3.5 hours today and I"m planning on writing more after getting off here, but another part of me is like "This is your job now. Get it together, woman. 3.5 hours? This is not part time. This is ALL THE TIME."

Lots of lessons to learn this year.

I'm also instilling the importance of music into my writing. I started working on a playlist for my heroine, and while I always thought of this as procrastination, I've learned in the recent years that I can't write without music and my best writing comes when I'm "procrastinating." So music away, o weary souls.

Not all the words are perfect, but at least I'm not sitting still in one place anymore.

Tomorrow is Saturday. I have nothing to do but get groceries. I'd like to get through this chapter before the end of the night. I'd like to at least start the battle scene tomorrow.

I also have all these little chores to do. Rescheduling a dinner, making bachelorette party reservations, making b-party invitations, learning a song to sing at the wedding ceremony, buying European outlet adapters for the trip, physical therapy for the leg, lesson planning for the outreach, and somehow brushing up on my French in the course of three weeks.

But you know what? Still happier than I was two weeks ago.
1 Comment
Mardra link
6/7/2015 05:24:01 am

Here's a bit of hard learned wisdom from my writing years. Writing for 8 hours a day, a full time job, does not equal pen to paper 8 hours a day. It means walking, and thinking, and driving, and looking at art, and staring out the window and cussing and walking and more staring, 8 hours a day.
It IS a full time job, but I used to think it meant pen to paper 8 hours and, well, I've learned it's not. It's just not. Most great successful writers we've heard of and speak to us and the masses will tell you , they pen to paper 3, maybe 4 hours a day. Tips Some even less and a barely few more. DO not discount thinking time as part of writing time and part of your schedule. That's my tip to you for the day - hard learned and still tricky - but there ya go. :)

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