What am I working on? Just got back from a wonderful long weekend in Connecticut visiting good friends, so I’m still playing a little mental catchup to get my ducks in a row. Right now, my plan for this week is to pick away at Irene’s story (subplot #2) and see where I get it. I’m also going to review a story I wrote last week on the fly–one of those blissful “Your brain has decided to dump this out on the keyboard, so keep up, okay?” kind of stories that happen so rarely but come in hot and complete like a story comet–and it’s maybe not half bad? There’s something I really love about composing a rough draft in a single sitting, despite its challenges. For one, it limits word count almost inherently–that kind of energy can’t sustain me much past three hours, and while I’m a pretty fast writer anyway (and extra so when in that kind of flow state), I can’t really write more than 4.5k in a single session like that. Secondly, it feels like the single sitting enforces a clearer arc of completion–it has to pick its own final moment and be satisfying, and sometimes I find that easier than breaking it up into smaller chunks and punching away at it until it kinda feels done-ish. I also like doing single sittings for whole chapters for the same reason–natural arc and natural length of attention-span. Someday in the magical future when I have blocks of uninterrupted writing time (come on, September, baby!), I may try to structure my projects to single-sitting sessions more often. And some stories are single-sitting stories, and some are meandering, pick at it slowly, see where it goes kind of stories, so there’s that, too.
So TL;DR: I’m going to edit that on-the-fly story and see about submitting it, because MAN it’d feel good to have something new out. Then I’ll hopefully start picking at Irene’s story and seeing if I can get that ball rolling.
What’s inspiring me this week? Gardens. Or specifically, shrubs and small trees and how some people have this magical touch for making a magical space bloom. Our friends’ house that we stayed at is one of those places–the previous owners were masters at terraced gardens spaced up through idyllic tree scapes. Just lovely. I find myself beginning to scheme. This year’s garden got a bit short-shrift, given the construction going on constantly, but I’ve got so many ideas, we’ll just have to see what happens.
Picked up a Dick Francis book to read for fun and pleasure, because I’ve been doing a lot of work-ish reading and think-y reading, which is fun in its own right, but not always super relaxing. Well, not that Dick Francis is particularly relaxing, either, given how intense Enquiry is! Talk about helpless frustration! It’s lovely, though, and I enjoy escaping into his world.
Oh! The other thing I’ve been playing around with is the time-management app Motion, to see if it’ll help me pull my brain together and get done the things I actually need to get done day-to-day. I’ve only just completely the free week trial (it’s not especially cheap–it’s more in the YNAB range of long-term subscription apps), but even just the past week made me feel a LOT more in control and like I wasn’t just dropping things left and right. I love having the ability to add a task with a deadline in the future and let the app itself schedule my time. I like being able to isolate my writing hours vs. “working” hours so my writing projects get scheduled during the one, and my other routine/home tasks like making appointments and getting other household things done gets fitted into the general working hours. And if I miss something/something just doesn’t get done, the app reschedules it for me. I’m still hashing out how best to use the app for myself, but so far, it’s been very helpful. I’m kind of delighted. Let’s see if we can keep it going.
What’s challenging me this week? Just the usual getting-back-from-vacation madness and trying to get myself back into gear. The time-management app is helping, just because I feel like otherwise I’d (justifiably, perhaps) feel like just vegging out and relaxing today after traveling, but I *do* have a ton to do, and putting it off until tomorrow really won’t help me even if it feels good for today. So I’m trying to just focus on one task at a time and getting our usual routines re-established.