When last I wrote, I was in the midst of gridlock. I've begun clearing space.
I just finished the bulk of Don't Throw Baby Out with the Bathwater, the professional credentials project, so I have the mental space to tackle further fiction. I needed the space between projects. I'd been hard-traveling, one project after another, for a year and a half, and I had planned to keep going, but I knew I needed a pause. I always have those. It was easier to tell when I was writing novel-length manuscripts a decade ago, but I had started doing shorter projects, and only recently started building back up the bulk.
Now I quibble with myself: this one or that one? I don't want to make the decision immediately. It's okay. It's fine. I actually just submitted In the Leviathan somewhere. I even had pay (it's a contest, not a vanity publisher). I'm currently telling myself I'm not going to lose my mind when I find out I didn't make the cut. It is what it is. I know this one was worth writing. I'll see how it goes. I don't want to publish this one myself. But you never know.
I'm trying to relax more, as a writer.
I took the last week off from writing just because I didn't feel like it, so whatever. People who decree you have to write every day or have to write 1000 words or whatever are just full of it. That might be necessary for beginners but people who have been doing it for a while don't really need that. If anything, they need time off every so often. It's like why a baseball pitcher doesn't pitch every day: they get worn out after a while.
ReplyDeleteI read your reviews of The Flash, Asteroid City, and Marlowe though I haven't seen any of them. I'd definitely watch the first two at some point. Not sure about the third. I'd rather see Neeson play Matthew Scudder again; the last few books of that series would be perfect for him at this point in his career as is it's about the character's old age.