I get twitchy. Out of sorts. Ideas feel like they are going to explode out of me if I don’t get them down on the screen. It’s just not pretty.
There have been a few times when I stopped writing regularly. Once was after my first ankle surgery, where I didn’t touch the computer for a week. Another, which I’ve talked about at great length, was due to the trigeminal neuralgia attacks and not being able to concentrate. I could write around 100 words a day (and I did, resulting in this) but while it felt good, it also felt like not enough. I need to be able to immerse myself in the world and characters of a story. I need momentum. I depend on it, actually, to keep me moving. I can rack up quite a few words even at 500 words a day if I do it every single day.
Let’s talk about the last time I wrote anything regularly. That was the Fireborn revision back in December, which required some rewrites, but not a whole lot. There was my antho story, Of Poison and Promises. The anthology released in March. I’ve also finished my online serial, Sun Touched, and I just need to revise the last installment before posting it on May 1st.
I did write a bit on Oubliette, an older novel, but for only two days. And last week, I started book #3 of my Reaper Girl Chronicles, The Vanishing.
The muse/right brain/writer brain is excited about The Vanishing and Oubliette. I’m supposed to be publishing Oubliette this year. But I haven’t been able to get any decent momentum on either one.
One, I had surgery March 1st and made the decision to start working soon after my surgery (my choice—my clients were great about it. I’m just insane) and then things got crazy busy, then got crazy-busy again, and here we are. Because I was working 12-hour days (and longer sometimes), I literally had no brainpower or spoons left to write. I could have squeezed it in somewhere, but the fatigue was an absolute killer. I am just now starting to get back into the writer mindset.
Freelancing and working from home is awesome, but there’s a downside. For me, currently, I don’t have a set quit time. I’d thought about working ten to five like my previous job, or even eleven to six, but haven’t been able to actually implement it due to deadlines. I needed more time than that allowed, so I worked over. I also broke my No Sundays rule several times. And on Easter? Yep, I was working up until my in-laws arrived.
What this boils down to is that my schedule needs work. It’s crappy. I’ll admit that freely. I’m not a morning person, and I don’t truly perk up till eleven at the earliest. I’ve thought about it, and I did start at eleven a few times last week for an editing job. It’s not bad. I just need to keep doing it.
Momentum.
If I could get my end time to be five or six, I’d have the whole night to myself. There are other things clamoring for my attention—house tasks I let go due to the surgery, gaming, reading. So that’d be great. I just need to DO IT.
So I’m going to try this for the rest of the week and see what happens. Because I need to write, and I need downtime, and I just need a mental break between work and personal time. I’m somewhat caught up on work stuff, so now’s a great time.
Wish me luck!