Target is getting more and more under control, which is a good sign. I wish I could say the same for my sleep, which yesterday took over two hours to manifest and was not a full night by the end of it. Less than ideal, but inevitable when you consider I always get back to work anxiety I guess. It doesn’t seem anything caught fire, but there’s still an appreciable queue for me to work through. Still, I know that now, and I would always rather have tasks to do than not have tasks to do. That is after all, the definition of ‘a job’.
So I started writing The Malcolm Effect (MAL), and it’s so weird after working on one book every day for six months to be on a brand new project. Ok sure it’s conencted, but even so the shift from looking at a close to hundred-thousand word Google Doc to a blank one was a bit freaky. I don’t ‘fear the blank page’ or anything but it’s still bizarre to jump like that. I’m glad I do jump like that all the same though, as life working on a story is so much nicer than life not working on one, so I think I’ll always chain novels. I mean heck, the more I write, the better I should in theory get, so long as I reflect and get feedback as I do.
Writing a new book also means writing from new perspectives, and that’s a tough one to get into the swing of. I feel a lot of my characters in early drafts talk and act in ways that are too similar, not enough eyepatches and peglegs – with one notable exception on the latter. I’m someone who far prefers to leave stuff like that for the rewrite, but I am trying to be better about not leaving flaming garbage piles for future me to fix as often as I do. As fun as they are, I leave enough of those for myself everywhere else in my life, so I should be making a teensy bit more of an effort. That reminds me I really need to tidy the flat.
On a brighter note, I did manage to get my desk close to perfect. The cacti were a nice touch but a bit too in the way and stabby, so I’ve evicted them to hang out with the Aloe Vera that I totally know how to keep alive. I cannot stress enough how much difference having desk space makes to my mental wellbeing, and how much easier I find it to think with empty open and nice to look at spaces. Just makes me all the more hyped for the new desk. There is, however, an uncomfortable elephant in the room I need to address, one that cost as much as the desk and isn’t an elephant at all it;s the rowing machine.
I think, when I get the flat tidy, I am going to leave it out on the floor and only put it away when I’m hosting – which won’t be for a while. I have two reasons for this: I need to get back into rowing even if my ankle is fractured, and if it’s down and in use, I’m less likely to acrew mess in that space of the floor, which is the messiest part of the flat right now. But that’s a tomorrow thing I think. I just need to sleep right now…
samshuttleworth.com 