Today was a productive day of writing, though sometimes I feel like a little bit of a slug. For me, writing is not a process of sitting down and spending 9-5 working on the book. Today, I did things like finishing up some edit requests for the paid gig, writing an email to an old friend, doing some laundry, cooking (I made hot wings), visiting with my mom this morning, and taking a long nap when I realized my cough was still bad from Covid. I slept for shit last night.
I watched some TV. Took some pictures of the sunset. Tomorrow I’ll have to clean my kitchen and wait out the snow that is supposed to smack us for a couple days. It will give me a reason to hunker down and get some paid writing done.
At about 9pm I sat down to write and after reading a few sections of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art I let myself fall into the story. I worked on two very uncomfortable chapters. Sometimes in writing, you realize what an absolute shit-head your character has been, and other times, you understand how far they have come and what they have surivived. It was a little bit of both tonight. In just a couple hours, I had 5k words written.
I’m still a little bit wired from my 9pm coffee and I have breakfast with my mom at 8:30am in the morning. No matter how much I fight the writing, when I do get going, even if it isn’t the best, I usually feel fulfilled and satisfied with what I’ve got. Tonight is such a night. I am happy to have made progress, like finding the pieces to a puzzle you’ve been looking for and all sorts of stuff just starts to fall into place.
I got two rejections this week for travel stories, which always sucks. It’s just part of the process. The best luck I have had is when I have had personal communication with the editor, rather than try the slush pile.
At any rate, today I feel content with the work I have gotten done. I hope I can actually sleep well. Last night was miserable with coughing half the night and waking up with weird dreams whenever I did sleep.
Wendigo Mountain 