Each new novel I write teaches me things. While this one is still too far from finished to know the full extent of these lessons, I have learned one thing already. I need to plan Writing and Real Life around each other better than I do. For example, it’s probably not a good idea to try and write a novel draft in the busiest month of the year. I should have known June = craziness, so don’t be writing a novel at that time. Revising, sure. Short stories, sure. But I haven’t had the mental space or the energy to sustain the kind of addictive writing that a novel brings with it.
For the past fornight I have managed to write and revise a short story. But that’s it. So now I have to get addicted to the novel again.
June 21st, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Hmm - I tend to have nightmares about my characters.. that keeps my addiction up, if I don’t have time to write I’ll just nightmare about them for a few nights until I struggle out fo bed at 3am one morning to get them out of my head… If you have no nightmares perhaps it’s time for some more cheese??
June 21st, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Any theory that includes eating more cheese *must* work
June 21st, 2009 at 8:28 pm
It’s odd, but I find I actually write more when work is trying to suck my time away. It makes me fight more viciously for writing time, and it makes me respect the time I can cobble together even more.
June 21st, 2009 at 10:36 pm
*nods* yeah I get that. I just struggle with tiredness and too-much-looking-at-a-computer-screen-itis :p
June 27th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Yeah, those side-effects are bummers.