Each day brings us closer to autumn. At this point I’m waiting for the rains, longing for them with every parched fibre. Maybe soon I’ll have dragged myself out of this hole of “both books I’m working on are awful, I am a terrible writer, this will never end and I should just walk into the sea now.” The instant water starts falling from the sky I’ll feel revived.
I just have to hold on that long.
The summer hasn’t been as bad as others in recent memory, far from! I’m just…tired. And being at exactly the same place with two different books is a recipe for the doldrums. Right now I’m telling myself “this can all be thrown out in revision”, but it’s not been the panacea or the spur I’ve hoped for. Suspect I’ll have to cut some things rather savagely–the pole-dancing class scene in Gamble, much of the initial intrigue in Highlands War–but that’s a question for when the zero drafts are finished and have rested a bit.
I’m also telling myself this artistic discomfort is a sign that I’m about to make a leap forward. Generally, one tends to plateau, feel increasingly uncomfortable, then break the surface with a shattering jump like a moon-silvered fish. I’m also refocusing stuff in other areas, a rather unpleasant duty even if it does lead to a feeling of liberation when the shift is done.
Technically neither book is bad, or if it is, it’s the type of bad that’s fixable once I get the damn zero done. I simply can’t see the forest for the trees and I can’t use them to jostle each other. If I added a third book to the working schedule I could probably swing it, but if I am to be Responsible and Adult the only prospect is a finishing volume to a trilogy everyone hates and I don’t feel like swimming against that additional tide at the moment.
I just want to write my weird little stories and not have to worry about rancid ebook thieves, is that so much to ask? Apparently it is.
Anyway. The only real cure for this is buckling down, letting spite take the wheel, and finishing something. Whether it’s a short story (the Pocky one really needs more attention than I’ve given it) or an actual-factual book (Gamble will be done first, since Highlands shows every sign of becoming rather a 150k-word beast), something has got to be pinned to the wall of “that’s a wrap.” And maybe I could be a right snot and give the third slot on the schedule–assuming I can scrape together enough energy for said third slot, which will mean something like livestreaming will have to give–to something written just for me, since I don’t want to deal with certain pressures at the moment.
We’re back to spite as the only real fuel for getting through *waves hands* all this. You’d think I’d learn, and stop trying to make joy or even honour the main impetus. When either runs out, when both abandon me, there will still be spiteful stubbornness, lo unto the end of the world. It’s just how I’m made; time to work with the grain instead of against it.
At least, for a little while.