I’ve decided to have another go at getting a proper blog post done today even though, due to sickbrain, I don’t have the focus to edit the post I’d drafted for this week ages ago. So this will be short. As well, I’ve deleted a more ranty replacement post because it was absolutely useless to anyone. With a cooler head, if not clearer one, I just have this to say: saying screw it is sometimes ok.
You can draft and outline, plan everything in advance, and otherwise prepare yourself for failure, but sometimes you crash anyway. Sometimes you miss a deadline, and even under the pressure to get it in anyway, can’t manage because (for example) you’re legitimately ill and there’s not enough energy to get the job done. Sometimes you have to take a sick day, or sick week, or whatever. Sit back and read a book or watch a movie instead. And save that energy to say tomorrow, or next week, or whatever will be better.
So I’m going to check this couple paragraphs off as another blog post done, because short can be useful as long as the words have a point. Also, I’ve almost reached my 20k word count on the novel this month, so I figure I’ve done enough of my writerly duty to not beat myself up about this little thing.
by 
Rest. Drink plenty of water. You get to be sick sometimes. Heck, I do it all the time.
Nobody is chasing you – you don’t have to prove anything (though you may have to pay bills).
Besides, I think the subconscious keeps working.
If it makes you feel any better, I just spent a MONTH straightening out a small timeline problem that I didn’t realize I had – I thought with all my planning and calendars and everything I was not going to run into plot holes.
What I found out was I had no system in place to deal with them. I write scenes, based on a very detailed Dramatica ‘storyform,’ and I thought the calendar I also kept up (sort of) would keep me from doing what I did.
Well, I just learned that when the whole quilt is put together out of squares, THAT’S when you learn you put too many green pieces next to each other. Not before.
I think I can avoid SOME of it next time. But I had to learn ‘en carne propia’ – in my own flesh – how to deal with things that readers MIGHT not even notice. Eh, it’s done. Mostly.
It’s easy to forget in all our planning that we can never forsee everything, so we have to learn to forsee the unforseen and make allowances. It’s why I went for a 20k goal for a 30 day month. I was secretly trying for 25k+, but knew 20k was more reasonable because it accounted for the many under-500 days I expected, but also the faith I could make them up in the time given to an average of 750/day.
At 17.5k words, with half a week to go, the crowd of cheerers in my head is yelling, “Go go go!” But those voices are getting pushy. I want to sit down and write that last 2500 words in one go, but know I don’t have the mental endurance given the headache I’ve strained under the last few days—and it’s infuriating. Telling those voices to lay off in writing seems to shut them up and give me some peace for a while, because the voice we commit to physical words tends to be the strongest.
Edit: 1500 words to go. Reminding myself I don’t have to get them all done in one day really does help.
Yup. Always talk back to the voices in your head IN WRITING.
I think they feel acknowledged then, and recorded for all time, and that satisfies them.
Otherwise they refuse to stop circling around in there, not letting you do anything else, but also not resolving anything.
Oddly, once I give them physical form, they shut up. They lie a lot.