It can be hard, when you’re out of a day job and the only “people” you speak to throughout your day are small and furry . . . it can be hard to feel like you’re accomplishing anything. Especially with a novel; especially with a novel that’s Mostly-Written. Everything is now fine-tuning, but it’s an odd fine-tuning: poke it in one place and another place suddenly pops out of whack; change a phrase and a whole chapter suddenly becomes disjointed. And meanwhile there are All The Other Things you were going to do with this little window of unemployment, and the days just keep sliding past.
It all makes me want to take a nap. Or, barring that (because let’s face it, the nap will not help productivity issues), it makes me want to find some kind of higher ground to see where the heck I am, where the **** I might be heading, and what are my chances of finishing a piece of writing ever again ever ever ever.
(A friend of mine has floated the idea that in my newfound freedom, and the pressures I’ve put on myself about using this time to the utmost, my inner censor might have taken the opportunity to break out of her cage. This may well be possible.)
This week was a good reminder to let go of all that. Let go of the view from above, let go of the need to finish and submit and publish:
–”Littoral Drift” had to be bumped from Lackington’s issue 4 for copyright reasons: let’s just say that it involves a character quoting an old poem, but Not Quite Old Enough, and we are right on the cusp of public domain freedom. So it’s bumped now to issue 6, with fingers and toes crossed that we’ll have everything sorted by then. This story is dear to me; it was also a hard one to place, being neither fish nor fowl, and quite frankly if it doesn’t work out with Lackington’s it will have to be put aside for now.
–I have word, finally, that there is a good chance of another story getting picked up . . . and published in May. Which was great news until the inner censor helpfully pointed out that if this happens it will be eighteen months from writing to publication, and how many other stories have I written since then? Which I am trying to turn into the more positive reminder that a) publication takes time and b) obsessing about publication is pointless; it’s the work that matters.
And some writing has happened in these last few weeks. Two flash-y length things got written and the first two chapters of Talassio are now pristine. Plus the conlang is shaping up beautifully, research is happening, and yes, even a few things got done around the house. If I could only feel a bit more in control of my time, a bit more energetic about it all, life would be smashing. Must work on that.