What I’m working on: Friday has finally rolled around, and at least this week–despite interruptions, I got pretty close to my weekly word count goal. We’re in the thick of the 20k slump here at Chez Slater, that dubious moment in a novel project when everything creeps to a halt and you start wondering, “Yeah, but where was I going with this?!” Thankfully, I think I just broke through it today with 2,200 new words, so we’re getting there. I’m planning to do a backtrack here next week to try to get the momentum back up to speed (and pick up any loose threads that may have been dropped along the way), and from there on, I’m hoping we get back to a steady flow of new words. I’m happy with where the book is at the moment, at least, so that’s serving as something of a buoy to my spirits.
What’s inspiring me this week: This week has been all about horror fiction. I’ve signed up for Brian Keene Presents: Christopher Golden’s House of Last Resort Weekend, which I’m quite excited about attending, but it’s also got me thinking about all the likely attending authors I know whose books I haven’t yet read. SO I’M READING HORROR. Lots of horror. Right now, I’m about a quarter of the way into Christopher Golden’s All Hallows, and I’ve got a slew of others lined up and ready to go next. It’s a bit tricky, because I honestly can’t read them before bed without freaking myself out, so that means daylight hours reading, which is…challenging? To come by? Yeah, not the easiest thing with a 3yo underfoot who can’t bear the idea of quiet for more than two and a half seconds at a time. So I’m squeaking in reading while waiting for appointments, or waiting for pickup times, or even while putting Thing 2 to bed at night. I’m making progress anyway.
I also started reading Scarcity Brain by Michale Easter, about our constant craving for MORE, which so far is focused a lot on gambling and how advertising uses our natural instincts against us, but I’m looking forward to how he digs deeper into these ideas. I finished his book The Comfort Crisis last week, which was very interesting and on which I have THOUGHTS, which I may or may not hash out here eventually. We shall see.
And of course, I’m plowing through Daphne Du Maurier’s The Birds and Other Stories, which is lovely. There are probably other things I’m reading, too (like Organized Living by Shira Gill, if you’re into extremely tidy eye-candy and a re-tread of Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg), but they’re more sporadic pick-up-when-I-feel-like-it reads.
The family has been plowing through the first season of Fargo (TV), which has been delightfully fun and evil and hair-tearing, but in a good way. We’re hoping to wrap it up tonight, and I’m hoping for some righteous vindication in blood.
What’s challenging this week: Shifting schedules, protecting writing time at all costs, coping with the myriad Halloween-related school events and other things. Our local Lego League has started up, so that’s been a nice little reading time, too. I’ve got half a mind to try something for a new anthology call I just heard about, but I worry about my creative capacity to juggle multiple ideas/stories right now. We’ll see if something manifests. If I get bit with a really great idea and can’t NOT write it, then so be it, but we’ll see, we’ll see…
Have a great weekend!