Ugh.
February is kicking my ass.
I'm still not totally over my cold (I had a sinus headache all weekend). My annual midwinter urge to hibernate is kicking in (I went to bed at 8:00 on Saturday night). The Son-- normally a pretty easygoing kid-- is having a hard week with lots of limit-testing and meltdowns, and I feel sucked dry every night when I put him to bed. I'm exhausted and burnt out, I can't concentrate, I have practically no free time, and I've been dicking around trying to write the same goddamn sentence for three days. All I feel like doing is watching Top Chef and playing this ridiculously addicting flash game.
The word count situation is bleak: I'm at 4,009/15,000 for the month.
But! There is a teeny ray of hope: tonight I applied my butt to the chair and managed to get PAST the sentence of doom. I only wrote about 200 words, but any forward motion feels like a triumph right now. Tomorrow my friend/childcare provider L and I are going to swap childcare, which should leave me with an hour or so to write before the tutoring gig. Later in the week The Son will have a total of 4 hours of gymnastics camp. And mother-in-law #1 will almost definitely take him for an afternoon. If I can use that time wisely, I'll be back on track by the end of the week.
Every time you write, it's an accomplishment, even if you're not exactly meeting your goals. At least you're still propelling yourself forward. Sometimes, I find that it helps if on the days that I don't have time to physically sit down and write, I work on my story in my head. As I'm laying down getting ready to sleep, I work on that one sentence that I can't figure out and start to imagine the next scene. This will not only help you write quicker when you have time to write, but it will give you ideas that you'll feel like you need to put down. Good luck. :-)
ReplyDeleteSometimes, it's a victory to just get a sentence a day. What bothers me more than not having the time to write is when "real life" takes over my brain to the extent that I can't even daydream about the story. My head's just too far out of it. That's a tricky time for me, because if I don't keep pushing, I'll put the book aside and not look at it again until inspiration hits, which for me could easily be a year.
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