I have about four more hours while Oscar is at work to keep trying, and if I put on the ol' headphones and 'nature sounds' I can write when he's here, too.
Analyzing the problem is better than drooling while staring at the open document, and writing this blog entry may prime the pump and help me get started.
Problem the first: not enough sleep last night
Problem the second: we have a touch of flu in the house this week (nausea, irritated nose, cough etc)
Problem the third: Fibro is also visiting, meaning high pain levels, foggy brain etc.
Yesterday and the day before I had two out of the three each day but today is the trifecta.
Most likely because I was desperate to get out of the house and went shopping with Oscar yesterday afternoon. It got me out of the house, but the flu symptoms worsened and even the application of my medicine soup only helped so much. I always end up with a Fibro day after such an outing. It takes anywhere from two to eight days to recover, depending on how long I push myself and how many stops we make. Yesterday was about a 40 minute shopping expedition, so I should be mostly over it by Monday if I don't go out and do it again.
So. I don't plan to waste the day, I will write, even if all I write are questions yet to be answered in the story line, or a list of necessary scenes for moving the story along, or even synopses of the characters. When I am having such days, I usually seem to be able to work more strongly with one side of my brain than the other. Some days I am creative but can't add three numbers together, other days I can think from one point to another logically but infusing a scene with creativity is beyond me.
Today I feel uncreative AND illogical, but I should be able to think of some questions or research points as long as I am not shooting for a complete list.
Huh, maybe I can look at Lynn Viehl's site for a link to different methods of organizing stories, interviewing your characters and writing exercises. working through one of those may give me enough structure to keep going and improve my story, maybe even give me some starting points for writing in the days ahead. Cool, a brilliant idea made it through the fog. I count that a victory :-}
Working within my limitations is a hard-won skill. Pushing the envelope on days when I am less than optimal has almost always resulted in a longer recovery period with lashings of guilt.
Oscar's blog today discussed not 'shoulding' on oneself. I think I will take his council and just do what I can do. Who knows? I might reach the magic number of 1800 words again today, even if it happens in ten-minute increments. If not there is always tomorrow. To write 50,000 words in 30 days means writing about 1,667 words per day. I have been purposely writing more than that to cover days when I might not meet the 1,667 word goal. My total before starting today was 3,571.
4 comments:
I'm sitting here relating to the housebound cabin fever and the need to get out--and sometimes it's just plain worth it to go anyway. Recover quickly, and sorry you had to go through that side effect, but I'm glad you got out.
Do what you can do! That's a line I can live with. My own way of writing, which isn't much, is to write SOMEthing to get it down on 'paper' (read as computer screen) and if I dn't like it, go back and correct it. I'm a better editor than writer.
They say people who succeed have more failures than most people. :-) And, thanks for generously sharing your strategies.
It really sucks when it takes day to recover from a simple outing I know from experience. There are days when I feel like all I do is battle my own body. The good news is we usually do recover even when it takes a few days.
Good luck with the writing and I love the idea of writing more for days when you may not beable to write as much its good to plan ahead, remember it wasn't raining when ole Noah built that Ark. :-)
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