Hey, gang! I'm not feeling great. Haven't been for the past few days. Not sure if it's a reaction to new medication or just the simple fact that the sunscreen I switched to doesn't work as well and I've been getting sunburned on my walks. Time to bust out the aloe vera and rest.
TWO THINGS I AM GRATEFUL FOR (SPECIFIC)
1. I am grateful for Chuck Wendig's new book, "Gentle Writing Advice". I can't say it contained any radical new concepts. That's not its strength. It gave me permission to look at my writing through the lens of self-care. As such I will endeavor to take Sundays off moving forward.
2. I am grateful for this blog and my bullet journal. It's been hard to keep up the past few days and it's such a relief to know that I can jump back in when I feel more myself. There's no failing, just picking the pencil back up again, y'know?
ONE THING THAT WENT WELL DURING THE DAY
Yesterday, like today, wasn't a personal best but I still managed to rewrite a chapter and write another, giving me a total of new words written of 634. So ... about two and a half pages? That's nothing to snuff at, even if I'd like it to be higher. Slow and steady, gang, slow and steady.
ONE ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL ACTION ITEM FOR THE DAY
Alright, so, the biggest thing that needed doing today was taking my wife's car to the mechanic to hunt for a power draw. They didn't find any. So ... damn. Otherwise, I just want to get a few words written today. Honestly, the end of the month feels a bit like a wash.
If I were to reach my end-of-month goal I'd have to write 1,573 words every day for the next four days. In the spirit of self-care, yeah, I'm not even trying for that cause right now? It ain't happening. I remember the one time I did NaNoWriMo and I couldn't write for over two weeks.
Also, interestingly (for me at least), this section of the book is a little more intense and a little less exploratory. It's a little more thriller, which tends to be my comfort zone. But it also means that the chapters are shorter. Shorter chapters means, paradoxically, more work for me.
Anyone can work in all the necessary detail if you take a couple hundred thousand words (looking at you Stephen King ..., George R.R. Martin ..., Patrick Rothfuss ...). It takes some genuine out-of-the-box thinking to say, "How the fuck can I make this work in 2 pages?"
WHATEVER IS ON MY MIND
Oh, y'know, stuff, things, existential <waves> y'know? It's been nice reconsidering my approach to writing in the wake of reading Wendig's new book. So many things I'd learned to take for granted are open for renegotiation. Some crutches I'm not quite ready to let go of, but maybe sooner rather than later. Whatcha think?
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