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I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even know what day it is half the time, but I’m trying. I’m putting in the effort to plaster my wall with post-it notes. I need visual reminders that writing—MY writing—should be as important to me as yours is.
I didn’t make progress this week… not in the quantifiable, “hey, look at my amazing word count!” sense, anyway. What I did instead was write down every nugget of dialogue that popped into my head. I’ve talked before about my idea notebook, the one I keep for situations like this, where I lack the mental stamina to string two words together but the ideas still find me. I’ll never run from them but I do tend to keep them on hold for extended periods of time. Honestly, if they were a bit more respectful of the fact that time and I do not get along, they’d probably be happier. They’d probably stop raging in my head, screaming at me as if I owe them some debt. I did not sacrifice a lamb.
I’m up to page 84 of story ideas and snippets. While I thumbed through my notebook, even more ideas introduced themselves; thoughts for other projects, new notes for existing ideas, dialogue I don’t know where to use yet. It’s chaotic but it’s organized. Guessing keeps me interested.
I did the unthinkable this week. For a whole four hours, I did not work. Instead, I did research on no topic in particular. I typed in random selections of syllables and learned some pretty interesting stuff, thanks to autocorrect and predictive text. Some stuff I’d like to never think about ever for the rest of my life but let’s not speak of that. I learned a thing that actually fixed a major issue in a novel I’d love to work on, come the “off-season” for Writer’s Games. I also found out that if I sit on my foot for four hours, I can’t walk at all.
Fiction projects: 5-ish?
Fiction words this week: just notes and stuff
About the author: Theresa Green is the co-founder of The Writer's Workout and a crime fiction writer.