My writing progress stunk last week. We’ll get to that in a minute.
I actually had a lot of fun signing and shipping books. I gave away more paperback copies than ever this time and that was exciting for me. There is nothing I love more than knowing my crazy stories are out there in the world.
The truth is, though, that I can distract myself from actually writing words with many different things and all of those hours spent creating mailing labels, signing, packaging and shipping books was a fabulous distraction. It had to be done, right? Of course it did. There were people waiting.
Justifying all of the busy work that I create is pretty easy to do.
Then the week got hot and I got stubborn. I was NOT turning the air conditioner back on. No way. So, I quit sleeping well at night, figuring I could just as easily take a nap during the day and be awake to write late at night. Naps didn’t happen either. Night after night of no sleep crept up on me and I’ve discovered that there is no creative focus with no sleep.
Here’s hoping that with the onset of fall and winter, my sleep habits return to days of yore. The cat will sleep soundly and consequently, so will I.
The last night of the horrible heat (nights around here aren’t supposed to have a low of 70 degrees in September), I pulled my Kindle out to try to lull my brain back to sleep and encountered a wacky screen. Huh. I re-started the thing, re-set it, anything to make the screen clear up. It only took seconds for me to realize I was fighting a losing battle. Bright and early Friday morning (4 am), TB had been fighting off the heat, was wide awake and playing. He knocked it to the floor and I didn’t even think about it. The drop was less than eighteen inches onto carpet. No big deal. Until it was a big deal. Apparently, I hadn’t wrapped the cover around the front, it must have hit a corner of something and damaged the e-ink underneath the glass. What a mess. There was no reading on the Kindle.
I got out of bed, ordered a new one and read my book on my phone’s screen … a tolerable response to an intolerable situation. I was right in the middle of a good book.
My new Kindle showed up today and I’m giddy. With several thousand books in my account, I’m going back to the beginning and start reading favorites, things I’ve missed and will fill it up as fast as I can.
Does any of this help my writing progress? Nope. Not at all.
Well … good sleep does. I slept eleven hours Saturday night and Sunday, voila … chapters unfolded at my fingertips. Now, trust me, even when I’m not physically typing words into the computer, the stories flutter around my mind, strengthening connections and plot lines, fleshing out characters, developing the path and keeping me awake. When I take those days off from writing, I return to my keyboard with a stronger foundation as well as fresh ideas.
So … progress.
I’m still looking for creative word count progress bars. Heck, at this point, I just need to figure out how to create a few of these Excel. And I will. But for today – here’s where I am:
Bellingwood Book 8. Goal: 90,000 words. Written: 21,082
Andrew’s Short Story. Goal: 12,000 words. Written: 2,693
TB’s Short Story. Goal: 12,000 words. Written: 2,218
Naomi’s Story: Goal: 17,000 words. Written: 5,908
Time for me to get busy. I need to make those numbers crawl up a little faster. Turtle … hare … I’m turtling right now.
