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This week has been a wild ride.
We met some wonderful people in our interviews, made tons of awesome plans (wish I could share those now but they’re still in progress), and I finally found the emotional courage to consider another writing project. Did I make any progress on it? Heck no.
By Wednesday, I felt so strongly inspired to try a very specific new idea that I had my whole Sunday Evening Post written before I fell asleep. I was excited, motivated. I had a goal that provided me with enough general direction that I didn’t have to plan too heavily (I’ve never been a pantser) but that wasn’t so strict I’d get bored.
I woke up Thursday with the worst migraine I’ve had in years. My head was pounding, my ears whirred; I could feel the contraction of each sinus cavity. Light pulsed. Even with my eyes closed, even with my office lights off, it pulsed. I fell asleep on an ice pack and woke up hugging a heating pad.
We met some more great people on Friday. Migraine downgraded to a throbbing headache: totally manageable. I’m used to that. I felt like I could breathe again and I have to say, this portion of Writer’s Games is going to ROCK.
Today is Saturday and I finished at least half my week’s errands. Time to write! But Sarah has a deadline too and I promised not to miss it. As I sat down to reread the post I wrote on Wednesday evening, I realized the new direction I was previously so blinded by no longer worked for me.
That’s okay.
Sometimes we think we need something and then we manage without it for so long that we realize we didn’t really need it in the first place. I’ve been deluded into thinking I needed the flashy new methods and styles and gimmicks because I wasn’t writing daily the way some of the famous authors suggest. I’ve finally come to accept that I am not a daily writer. That pace doesn’t work for me: it’s mentally/emotionally/physically exhausting and I have other things I still need to accomplish. I need my faculties so I don’t snap at the woman at Costco for forcing her lavender-scented cleaning wipes on my cart and rendering it untouchable as lavender gives me hives.
I need to be able to drink my coffee, open my eyes, and focus on my day.
I’ll start fresh, just as I did with the writing of this second Sunday issue. If you’d like to follow along, I’m starting the Prompt Series 1. This series was part of the 2019 Fall Internship program Special Project and is available year-round. You can find all thirty prompts on the Prompt Series page here. I won’t be doing them daily.
Fiction projects: 2
Fiction words this week: does a title count?
About the author: Theresa Green is the co-founder of The Writer's Workout and a crime fiction writer.