Writing

For the last few months, I’ve been thinking about what to do for my next novel. Last time I counted up all the novel ideas I hadn’t either ruled out, written, or permanently lost crucial notes for, I came up with 16. I think I’ve added some to the list. I know I added one yesterday.

With American politics, I’ve found myself vacillating between two or three of my oldest. If I had written them when I had the ideas, they would seem prescient. Now, they’re just timely.

I had a pretty bad writing week last week. I got plenty of sleep though. Lots of unscheduled naps. There’s only so much you can do emotionally and physically. I guess I did all I could do in and between commutes.

I didn’t update this blog either. 🎉 In a way, I’ve had a bad few weeks on a lot of fronts.

In the past, a dry spell of a week (or even a few days) could turn into a quitting point pretty easily. Lately, I’ve been better about not quitting when I break a streak. Did I accidentally learn some secret? I kind of doubt it. If I did, it’s totally subconscious and I don’t have any useful way of communicating it.

Maybe it’s just something I picked up as a part of getting older.

Again, not useful.

But maybe what is useful is this: No one has all the answers. Even on a single, very specific topic, no one has all the answers.

I obsess about word counts. I think a lot of writers do. If you’ve done NaNoWriMo, you’ve probably got 1667 words per day drilled into your head (the exact number of words you have to do to finish 50K in 30 days without breaks).

(Note: This post has a lot of adult language in it.)

Beyond the every day concerns we all face during potential disasters, if you’re a writer or artist who works with computers, you also think about the work you’d lose if you have to leave your computer behind. My immediate area made it through the hurricane without much damage. I personally got very lucky. It reminded me I needed to talk about backups. I have two projects I’m working on where I don’t even have one backup.

When I work too hard for too long, I can end up with a bit of a crash. Sometimes it means I don’t have energy to do anything else. Sometimes it means I have a lower threshold before I cry at the drop of the hat or let anger show more easily.

And sometimes it means taking a nap. Naps are bad because I have insomnia and a nap can throw me into a two or three week cycle of disrupted sleep.