Fantasy! Science fiction! Adventure and mayhem!
I didn’t used to get excited about writing more than one day in a row. But oh, how the might have fallen. Because I am excited that I’ve written at least a little bit for two days running, and that’s two more days in a row than I’ve done in longer than I’d care to think about. Thank God for sisters: they make awesome motivational speakers/writing coaches/literary border collies.
Can I just say that I have some writing related regrets? Well, just the one, really. The one where I let myself fall out of my daily writing habit. Even though I know it’s so much harder to start again than it is to just keep going; static friction versus kinetic friction and all that. And even though I had perfectly sensible–and possibly even responsible–reasons for focusing on other parts of life. And even though I know that I’m human, and therefore possessed of only finite capabilities, and that burnout is a real thing.
But as I sit here and stare at my painfully blank screen, it’s hard not to think that maybe I should have just slogged through. And kept writing every day. Because maybe it would be easier to be writing right this moment.
But, hey. I’ve been here before. Maybe all I need to do is just start writing again. And to start doing it every day again. It can’t hurt, that’s for sure!
Let it here be recorded that sisters are dangerous. Sisters, you see, talk you into things like Camp NaNoWriMo. Which, come to think of it, is just another way of saying that sisters are the sort of people who keep you responsible.
In other words, one of my own dear sisters convinced me to try my hand at Camp NaNo again this year. On the one hand, I didn’t need that much convincing. But even if I had been disinclined to try for it again, that would have required me to say no to the challenge put forth to me in a letter written in invisible ink. And you just don’t say no to something like that.
Check back in next time to see just how much this endeavor is kicking my butt! Ha!
So, apparently, I’ve had this blog for about three years now. Which catches me by surprise, because for some reason, I’m dead certain it’s been more like two. And honestly, I’m actually kinda proud that it’s still going– that I’m still going with it. Because as I think I’ve mentioned before, this is not the first blog I’ve tried to keep. It’s just the first one that didn’t vanish into oblivion within a matter of months, if not weeks. Chalk one up for having an actual goal in mind, however vague.
Hey, all. Despite my quietness here, including a skipped post last week, I’ve still been writing. Slowly, but writing nonetheless. And in true form, I’ve been having trouble sticking to one project. In a first, though, I haven’t been jumping from one novel/short story project to the next, but rather I found myself doing my best to put together what amounts to an epic poem.
You see, as often happens, I got a new idea. But as not so often happens, this one wouldn’t fit with prose. At all. Just flat out refused. So, in between yelling at Tanner and Miranda and trying to get them to do what I want them to do– a losing proposition at the best of times– I’m trying to remember how to write poetry, complete with meter and rhyme schemes and a whole lot more structure than I usually need to worry about. And you know what? It’s really fun.
So, the other day I was chatting with my sister/writing buddy, and I started explaining my general premise for The Dalton Job. And, to my surprise, I found that I actually did a relatively good job at explaining it, complete with a few details and the basic gist of the plot. And to my even greater surprise, I didn’t finish and feel like the whole thing was more plot hole than actual plot.
It’s a high bar, I know. But honestly, I’m really excited. Because a bunch of what I was talking about was stuff I’d been grappling with for some time that didn’t seem to quite make sense. I’ve still got a long ways to go, of course, and a basic plot treatment that doesn’t shriek inconsistencies is a long, long way from a complete book, but it’s definitely progress. And that’s nice to see.
I am not a morning person.
You’d think I would be, by now. Goodness knows I’ve had more than enough opportunity for it. Heck, even as far back as high school, we got up at 5am five days a week so we could do our chores and then go into town with our dad. And these days, I work shifts that start at 4am (or 5am when I’m lucky), which means my body has resigned itself to believing that 3am is a sensible wakeup time.
But I’m still not a morning person.
The truth of the matter is that despite the blatant impracticality of it, I still prefer staying up late as opposed to getting up early. Late night tends to be when my brain is most happy to be doing things like writing, and I haven’t managed to get it to work quite as effectively in the early morning. But perhaps I have a chance. Perhaps it just has to do with practice, and maybe I just need to retrain my mental habits.
Or maybe I’m just not a morning person.
Perhaps we’ll never know.
So, I suppose I should officially mention that the story that went up last week was absolutely an April Fool’s joke. Which I’m sure you’ve all figured out, but for those of you who– like me– may not always remember to check the date, allow me to reassure you that Tanner and Miranda’s adventures are not over. In the slightest.
Other than that, not much going on here. I hope you’re all doing well and staying safe amid this insanity that is currently our everyday life.
Funny how one can simultaneously wish for more interaction and less. Perhaps we all have a little of the cat in us– wanting in as soon as we’ve been let out and wanting out as soon as we’ve been let in. Or maybe that’s just me. Either way, it’s hard not to feel a little stuck, as so many of us are. And my day job is considered essential, so I’m even getting out of the house.
It’s also funny to note that my day to day schedule hasn’t actually changed all that much, as I’m an introverted homebody by nature, so this whole “staying in” thing is pretty much business as normal. Apparently I just don’t like being told to do it.
… so that could be something I need to work on. At least I’ve got the time for it!
Some crazy times we live in, no?
There’s a lot of good information out there from a lot of good sources (like https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/a-message-from-one-of-our-doctors-to-his-family-about-covid-19 and https://www.howardluksmd.com/sports-medicine/covid-19-update-3-14-2020-concerned-physicians-unite/), so I’m not going to go to try to rewrite what other people have already done better. Instead, I’m just going to share a couple of thoughts that I found interesting.
The first is that since we are creatures built for community, and that God often gives us the support we need in the form of each other, the social distancing thing is particularly painful. While in other times of crisis we can and often do spend more time in each other’s company, we can’t and shouldn’t be doing that right now. At least not physically.
Which brings us nicely to my second thought, which is this: We have never before been able to remain so connected while isolating ourselves. And that’s a huge mercy. We have video chats. We have Facebook. We have phones. We have multiplayer videogames. If anything, the irony in this is that in some ways, we feel more connected than we usually do. Thank God for the Internet, my friends.
F.A. Hakimian 