I actually sat down and wrote a couple of pages the week before last. Not an astonishing amount, I know, but actual writing, so I’m good with it. Then school started last week, and my “free time” dwindled to “none”. I didn’t work on The Fall at all last week. However….
Did I mention I’m taking Creative Writing this session? I’m less than thrilled about it, as I knew it would involve writing short stories and poetry—a.k.a Things I Hate to Write—but it’s required, so what are you going to do? So I actually did two writing assignments last week, of a couple of pages each, plus discussion board postings. So I wrote. It just wasn’t fiction.
This week, I totally intend to remedy that Lack of Fiction Writing in my life…starting today.
I haven’t talked about writing in a while. I haven’t written in something like 15 months. To be honest, I’ve barely managed to do anything besides work the day job, do school stuff, and try to rest and recuperate from both those things. Writing…has more than fallen by the wayside. It’s dropped completely off the radar.
I had started to wonder if the Muse inhabited that part of my brain that was damaged by my stroke. I’m happy to report that it doesn’t! Yesterday, I was at work, and walked by my boss’s office. He had Enya playing, and I felt the Muse sit up, take a deep breath, and stretch. It was like she’d been resting for a long time. (Apparently, she moonlights as Rip Van Winkle.) Now she’s awake, and ready to play. And all it took was some Enya to shake her up and get her moving again (I’ve written to Enya a lot in the past.)
Now I can feel her in there, tinkering with the edges of The Fall, teasing it with her tiny, ever-moving hands as she searches out the bits that no longer fit, so she can rip them to shreds and build something new and shiny. She likes shiny, and at this point, The Fall is pretty much new and pristine, so it counts. Plus, she knows we have a lot of work to do to get it into shape for our new vision of it. It’s no longer going to be the same old dystopian zombie tale. It will still have zombies and be dystopian. But now it will be more.
So, I know I said I was going to do some writing-related work every week and post about it here to keep myself accountable, but…that just didn’t happen last week. At first I felt guilty. I had an entire week, why couldn’t I carve out some time for writing? Then I thought about it: I was busy last week. Really busy. It wasn’t like I did nothing last week. I just didn’t have enough hours to fit in everything I had to do, much less the things I wanted to do. I have valid reasons for not getting to the writing. I may not be happy about the situation, but it is what it is, and I’m in the process of making my life more conducive to doing things I want to do, instead of merely what I have to do.
My (excellent list) of (valid) reasons I didn’t have time for writing last week:
1) I worked an extra day at the day job.
2) School. (And registering for summer classes, which I wasn’t planning on taking.)
3) I started packing my apartment in preparation for moving in 3 weeks or so. (Blech. I HATE packing.)
4) Pre-vacation planning and packing (I leave on Thursday.)
5) Extra schoolwork so I don’t have to do it while on vacation.
To me, those are excellent reasons (not excuses).
I did just sign up for a webinar Thursday with Holly Lisle and Booknook.biz about e-book formatting, so I’m counting that as writing-related for next week…
Also, I took a few hours out to go see Divergent. I haven’t read the book, but I loved the movie. I thought it was really well-done. Also, since my WIP (which currently stands for Work I’ve Paused) is dystopian, the movie got me thinking about the genre, which seems to have gotten big with the success of things like The Hunger Games and The Walking Dead (yes, I’m counting that here).
So, I’d really like to know: why do you like (or dislike) dystopian stories?
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, there hasn’t been much going on around here except for the occasional book review. That is mostly true of my life of late, too. It’s been 9 1/2 months since my stroke, and I’m still not 100% yet. To be fair, I may never be 100% of what I was, so I just need to adjust to my new normal. That has been…harder…than I thought it would be.
Yes, I still work three days a week (3 days that are 11-16 hours each), on my feet in a fast-paced environment. I love my patients, but it’s overwhelming at times. Plus, I go to school full-time (online at Regent University now). I’m taking some great classes, but it is a teensy bit exhausting at times. I’m trying to start working out again (right now, “working out” means some light walking and strength training). Writing hasn’t sorted itself completely yet.
I’m trying to blog on something like a consistent schedule (which, let’s face it, right now, that’s once a week, if I’m lucky). I’m also trying to work my way through Holly Lisle’s Create a World Clinic to get the writing juices flowing again. But it’s hard. So hard, sometimes. Some days, dragging myself out of bed is a monumental task. On my days off, I should be able to sleep in a bit (where “sleep in” means staying asleep until after 6 a.m.). But no. This morning, I was awake before 4 .m. Seriously?
But yes, that’s my goal: one blog here a week, and I intend to have some sort of writing progress to report weekly. And, if anyone has any sort of suggestions at all….I’m all ears.
So, in case you are wondering where I’ve been, let me tell you, I’ve kind of been wondering the same thing. Here’s the short version: last Saturday, June 1st, I had a stroke. I barely survived. I’ll try to tell you in the details—what I remember—later. For now, I’m alive, my left side is fine. My right side, on the other hand, has limited mobility currently. Of course, I’m right-handed. But my woes are a story for another day.
Right now, I’m grateful to be alive and (mostly) intact. Thank You, God.
So, after the chaos that has been my life for the past….9 or 10 months or so–work, school, break-up, depression, recovery–I finally, finally got serious about my writing again today. I’ve been doing pretty good about blogging lately, both here, on my environmental blog, and on Writing in a Dead World (if you haven’t checked that out yet, you SHOULD), but apart from writing a few pages in The Fall a few months ago, I haven’t really written consistently in…a long, long time. That sucks. And I’m tired of it. So I started doing the HTTS Ultra lessons again today. It’s been on the to-do list for a week or two now, but the procrastination monster sort of ate that list…
I had forgotten how detailed and helpful Holly’s lessons are. The results I got for the Shadow Room technique surprised me and might have generated another story idea (assuming I ever get this one written…and some others revised…and the other partially-finished MS written…). So, yeah. I’m dedicating this summer to getting my life to where I want it to be. A big part of that is writing. Game on.
…okay, not really re-thinking. Let’s just say I’m going to try something new (or, actually, old). Confused yet? Let me explain. Have you heard of Holly Lisle? If you haven’t, well, you don’t know what you’re missing out on. Holly is a rarity: a mid-list author who actually makes a living with her writing. She’s smart, she’s a great writer, she knows what she’s doing, and, more importantly, she’s really big on paying it forward (she did start Forward Motion, after all). She spends a lot of her time helping her fellow writers out. To that end, she has created lots of helpful things, from the smaller workshops like How to Create a Language, How to Create a Character, How to Write Page-Turning Scenes…and she has also created huge, incredibly detailed classes Like How To Revise Your Novel and How To Think Sideways.
I was in the original HTTS class, as well as the original HTRYN class, and I can’t even begin to tell you how much difference these two classes made in my writing. The way Holly thinks, the way she breaks things down using plain language, worksheets, examples…well, it got me thinking in ways I’d never thought before (which was the point, right?). Since I don’t have much done on The Fall–in reality, I have only a handful of pages written, basically no pre-work, and haven’t touched it in weeks–I’ve decided that I’m going to take it through HTTS. I know the end result will be much closer to the story I have in my head, much more true to the vision I can see for the story. It will just be better. Yeah, it’ll be a lot of work and it will take me a while, but in the end, it’ll be worth it.
I’m a huge fan of Holly’s writing in general, and I know her courses can really get results–if you’re willing to do the work. I am. I haven’t been published, but I’ve gotten some partial manuscript requests because of her courses, and I want to give everything I can to The Fall. I’ve also decided to become one of Holly’s affiliates. I do believe whole-heartedly in her methods, her teaching, and her results, and if you have any interest in checking it out for yourself, go here. If you aren’t a writer, but you’d like to read a great book, you can check those out as well.
I have become a zombie. It’s true. Several months ago, I noticed that most of the people on campus at my university can’t seem to go anywhere without headphones on. It takes what, three minutes to walk between classes, and they can’t go that long without listening to music? And some of them would sit in the classroom/auditorium/lecture hall with their headphones on, until the professor would come in and actually start talking before they’d take them off. Then they’d act like it was a huge inconvenience to be without them. It was like all these people were withdrawing from the world, wanting to live in their own little bubble, with no contact with anyone outside of it. On one hand, it irritated me greatly. On the other, my Muse thought it had great potential to be used in a dystopian story, and that turned into The Fall.
Today I realized I’m guilty of this as well. I don’t know when it happened. I don’t know how. But I rarely go anywhere on campus now without my headphones on.
It’s not because I don’t want contact with the people around me–although sometimes that’s the last thing I want. Have you seen how annoying teenagers are now? (Suddenly, I feel very old.) Plus, there are inevitably people who decide to talk to me, even though I am clearly wearing my “Please Don’t Talk to Me” face (Seriously, people? Can you NOT see the look I’m giving you? Get a clue.). But even that’s not the real reason.
The real reason is because I find myself in desperate need of inspiring and uplifting music to get through the day. My priorities have shifted drastically over the last six months, and one of the things that has changed is the music I listen to most of the time. It keeps me on an even keel. And considering the stress in my life, I need an even keel (and, possibly, a life preserver). Hence the ever-present headphones. But I do take them off when I go into a classroom. And I can’t listen to words with music when I’m writing–not that I’ve done much writing lately–so I don’t use them there, either.
I haven’t written in a couple of weeks, but I did some background work on The Fall this weekend, filling in some details. I also worked on the revision outline for the zombie story, AND the revision on the werewolf story. I also spent an hour or so starting the Scrivener tutorial. I’ll try to finish that up this week, and start actually using it this weekend.
In case you’re wondering where I’ve been (you know, all three of you that are reading this), I need to make a confession: I tend to over-commit myself. Basically, I need about 5 extra hours in every day to get everything done I need and/or want to do. Here’s a list of things I need to be doing on a weekly basis (some of which I’m failing miserably at):
1) Work (2 15-hour days, 1 13-hour day). On my feet….
2) School: 17 hours this semester (5 class, one lab, WTF was I thinking?)
3) 3 blogs (my writing blog, my personal blog, my environmental blog)
4) Write the first draft of The Fall (My Muse thinks I’ve gone on strike.)
5) Revise the zombie story
6) Revise the werewolf story
7) Write book reviews for Examiner.com (assuming I have actual time to read)
8) Keep up with my writing crit circle (I’m trying.)
9) Church (This has become a necessity in my life. Period.)
10) Keep up with all my home projects (the green-friendly ones that are now my priority)
11) Hang out with family and The Diva (so she doesn’t have a complete breakdown. I love you, sister-wife!).
12) Work out. (Ha. Hahahaha. Yeah. With what free time? I’m pretty sure the 5-7 miles I walk at work 3 times a week count for something.)
13) I’m taking a 6-week Nutrition class on Coursera (halfway through), with a Philosophy class starting in 2 weeks…
14) I’m pretty sure I’m missing something, but I can’t remember what just now…
You’ll notice this list does not include things like, oh, sleep, relax, hang out with friends. All of which are things I do try to do, too. I’ve had some stuff going on with the Sierra Club and Environment Texas. This past weekend, I had a membership class at church. I have another one next weekend.
Watching TV…sigh. It’s a good thing I have a DVR. That’s all I’m saying. Actually, I did watch two shows I had recorded on Sunday, while I was doing other things. A friend of mine called while I was watching. He asked what I was doing. When I said “Watching TV,” there was dead silence on the line for a good ten seconds, then “REALLY?!” Yeah. Before that, it had been…oh, probably a month, since I had my TV on. Money well spent on the cable bill, huh?
In short, I’d show you my daily planner, but I’m too embarrassed. It’s probably confusing to everyone but me. Plus, I’m severely OCD when it comes to my planner and it might be color coded…
…is hard for me. I try to do too much. I know this, but I continue to do it anyway, until I’m so mentally and physically exhausted that I just can’t take it anymore. I’m tired today. So tired. I need to write, revise, blog…but I’m tired. So I’m giving myself permission to NOT do anything constructive (much) for the rest of the day. I’m going to do this:
Tomorrow Is Another Day 