I’m tired. Tired on the inside, worn out from pushing myself so hard, drained to the point where I simply don’t feel anything creative inside me. Consider — between January 2nd and March 31st, I finished the first draft of LAST GIRL DANCING, plus the type-in, plus a massive rewrite, and then the copyedit corrections; wrote the entire 179,000-word first draft of HAWKSPAR; and, did three complete new proposals plus numerous rewrites of each in pitching my next Onyx project for Claire. Plus I wrote two complete proposals for the Work-For-Hire book. And wrote the first 3000+ words of WFH1.
I got a nice burst the first day of writing WFH1, but yesterday I got just over 300 words. Not even enough to tick the meter over on my WIP graph. And I can’t even LOOK at that pile of HAWKSPAR on my desk yet.
I need a vacation, and I can’t have one. But for the sake of sanity and the quality of my work, I can take a couple of days to give my full attention to the proofs of LAST GIRL DANCING. This is utterly un-creative work. Nothing cool, nothing fun — it’s just reading and looking for mistakes, and it’s something I can handle right now. Along with that, I’ll exercise, breathe and focus, and meditate. I’ll use my work time to do these things, and give them my full attention, and hope that a couple of days of focused down-time will let my well refill enough to allow me to move on with the writing without it being a constant, thrashing struggle.
I don’t do well when I thrash. For the next couple of days, then, I’m going to focus on being water. I may drop in here. I may not. I don’t know yet. The best I can offer is that I’ll see you when I see you.
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