Okay, I totally stole that from the Candlebox (band) Fan Club Newsletter – I was a big fan back in the ’90s.
Well, I’ve done a little housekeeping around here, and I think the blog is starting to take on the kind of look I’d like to achieve. I have helluva lot more drawing to do to gain the kind of expertise I wish I had, but at least I can slap something together with what skills I have. I guess I can say the same for my writing … and my mothering. It’s all about surviving with what you’ve got, huh?
So, this week has been was pretty slow on the writing front. I’ve hit that bit in the middle where I’m just about finished my set-up and am ready to tackle the big End of Act 1 event … I’m excited about it – have been for weeks – but I just want to feel like I have things set up right. It has paid to take some time getting there – several weeks ago I just hadn’t thought about all the players that could potentially be involved at the upcoming “big event”. But, last week I guess I had a wee bit of inspiration tap me on the shoulder to say “What about these guys? You think they’re just sitting there passively waiting for the story to hit their borders later? Why not bring them into play earlier?” (I’m talking about a country, here … ). Anyway, it was an eye-opening thought. Sometimes, the best ideas just don’t have the habit of hitting me in the face the first time. I need to stew.
That wasn’t the only reason it was slow. Daylight Savings ended here in NZ last weekend, so I had to deal with the toddler adjusting to the new timetable. He actually did really well. It only really messed up his Sunday day time sleep, which did me out of a decent bit of writing time, but so be it. And then because he’s had a cold, and I’ve had a cold, I was up several time in the night over the next few nights, and that led me to giving up more writing time to attempt to catch up on sleep while he slept (fool … sleeping during the day is almost impossible! Esp with roadworks going on outside …)
Another thing I’ve realized is that because my available time to write is straight after lunch – you know, that time when the brain naturally goes into a slump – I do struggle to get anywhere vaguely productive. So, yeah, I’m going to pat my back when I get a mere 500 words down. That’s a triumph given the circumstances.
This long weekend I’m asking my husband to help me use more productive times of the day by getting him to take the toddler and have quality time with him, preferably in the mornings. It helped yesterday. I wrote over 1000 words in the morning. Okay, so then I deleted all of them and re-wrote about 500 more during the toddler’s sleep, but, sometimes, you have to write trial scenes to decide for sure if they are going to work or if they just make you feel a little bit ill to put your name to them. It was one of those scenes, so it had to go.
The other thing I gave up my writing time for was to finish reading The Black Prism by Brent Weeks. And then I reviewed it, too … and then I kept thinking about it … I want to read it again. I’m missing the characters. Well, one in particular, but they were all kind of cool in their own way.
And, now I am updating my blog when I ought to be writing. I shall go do that. But, first, I’d like to point you to this blog I found this week. Jayrod Garrett blogs intelligently and with an open mind. I will add his site to my blogroll.
Happy internetting, writing or whatever-ing you wish to be doing, and if you happened to read this, thanks for taking the time to read some random thoughts that add nothing to the world. I hope that the links I have provided are useful to you.
Deb E. 