Dear Blog,
So I opened my book today to get some words down and try to find the voice of this book in my head again. Some two or three hours later I had 300 new words. That's it. That's only about three paragraphs since none of it was dialog.
I hate days like today. I knew it was going to be hard to get back into the groove of this book having taken four months off (I try not to think about the fact that if I hadn't walked away to proof read and edit my other manuscripts this one would be done by now), but I can usually bang out a least 1000 words in a day. That's about 4 pages depending on whether or not you have any dialog in there. It can be as much as 10 pages if its 1000 words of conversation. For a while there it was normal for me to get 2000 or more words a day. There were even those shining days that had 5000 words done. And today I managed to force out 300. I'd like to say that I'll get the other 700 words done, but its a gym day after work and I have to cook dinner after that and then spend time with the hubby and the dog. I don't like to write at night anymore. I used to when I was in college, that was the only time I had to write, but now that I'm a "grown up" I have to fit it in whenever I can and that's usually in the morning.
Because I work for my dad as an office manager I'm in front of a computer all day long when I'm not pouring over building plans. I don't take breaks and I usually don't take a lunch so I take that hour and a half to work on my writing when the phone's not ringing and the paperwork and bills are caught up. I don't feel any guilt about that because I'm not stealing company time. If my dad comes in from the field and spends the day in the office, he doesn't take breaks for anything so those days I can't even eat lunch at my desk while I pound on the keys.
Now there are those times when the book is alive in my head and the characters are running through a scene or a chapter and they don't care if it's the middle of the night and I have to get up at 6am. I've been known to get out of bed when the house is quiet and dark and walk out to my laptop and write a few thousand words so that my mind will go quiet and let me sleep. If I don't, I'll either lay awake in bed for hours - and as an insomniac I try not to cause this behavior for myself - or in the morning when I go to try and remember what I was thinking about and hearing in my mind will be gone. There could have been a pivotal moment in there for the story or some beautiful prose just waiting for a blank page and it'll be lost to me forever. Oh I'll get the gist of it, but the gist of something is never as remarkable.
I will say this about my 300 words, it finished the chapter and I finally got to see my main character perform a bit of magic I knew was inside of her all along. I just have to find that bit of magic inside of me again to get this book moving. My goal is to have the first draft finished by Christmas as sort of a little birthday present to myself.
Here's hoping.
P.S.
In case you're wondering, this post was 630 words, over twice as many as I was able to do creatively. Bitches.
I hate days like today. I knew it was going to be hard to get back into the groove of this book having taken four months off (I try not to think about the fact that if I hadn't walked away to proof read and edit my other manuscripts this one would be done by now), but I can usually bang out a least 1000 words in a day. That's about 4 pages depending on whether or not you have any dialog in there. It can be as much as 10 pages if its 1000 words of conversation. For a while there it was normal for me to get 2000 or more words a day. There were even those shining days that had 5000 words done. And today I managed to force out 300. I'd like to say that I'll get the other 700 words done, but its a gym day after work and I have to cook dinner after that and then spend time with the hubby and the dog. I don't like to write at night anymore. I used to when I was in college, that was the only time I had to write, but now that I'm a "grown up" I have to fit it in whenever I can and that's usually in the morning.
Because I work for my dad as an office manager I'm in front of a computer all day long when I'm not pouring over building plans. I don't take breaks and I usually don't take a lunch so I take that hour and a half to work on my writing when the phone's not ringing and the paperwork and bills are caught up. I don't feel any guilt about that because I'm not stealing company time. If my dad comes in from the field and spends the day in the office, he doesn't take breaks for anything so those days I can't even eat lunch at my desk while I pound on the keys.
Now there are those times when the book is alive in my head and the characters are running through a scene or a chapter and they don't care if it's the middle of the night and I have to get up at 6am. I've been known to get out of bed when the house is quiet and dark and walk out to my laptop and write a few thousand words so that my mind will go quiet and let me sleep. If I don't, I'll either lay awake in bed for hours - and as an insomniac I try not to cause this behavior for myself - or in the morning when I go to try and remember what I was thinking about and hearing in my mind will be gone. There could have been a pivotal moment in there for the story or some beautiful prose just waiting for a blank page and it'll be lost to me forever. Oh I'll get the gist of it, but the gist of something is never as remarkable.
I will say this about my 300 words, it finished the chapter and I finally got to see my main character perform a bit of magic I knew was inside of her all along. I just have to find that bit of magic inside of me again to get this book moving. My goal is to have the first draft finished by Christmas as sort of a little birthday present to myself.
Here's hoping.
P.S.
In case you're wondering, this post was 630 words, over twice as many as I was able to do creatively. Bitches.
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