Get Your Words Out

Well… here we are, another month down… and not so much in the way of writing to show for it.

The year got off to a rough start. I had started the year a bit aimlessly, not really sure what I wanted to do beyond just trying to plod forward through the plan I’d already created for myself. My inspiration was a little low, but I really wanted to find and recapture some of the “spark” in terms of creative writing. Getting through some of the outlining seemed like the biggest necessity: trying to get some ideas down in enough detail that I’ll be able in the future to jump back into those projects without lamenting that I’ve forgotten too much about them. Also, pushing through the slightly boring outlining seems like a good idea for what to do when I’m not feeling super excited. At least in theory, once I do feel a bit more inspired, then I’ll be able to turn to the actual writing, with all the prep work out of the way.

I wasn’t off to a swimming start in January, but I’d started to at least poke at a few things. Then my appendix died and tried to take me with it, and that pretty much destroyed the rest of January.

Tragically, both January and early February were also marred by grief. Two dear friends of mine, one an in-person friend from the goth scene, and one an online fandom friend here, both passed away. Both were people who were extremely creative in their own ways, whether that was writing music or writing fic. I miss them both terribly.

Still, I had tiny, small hopes that February would get better. Even as it got closer to mid-month, I wasn’t managing much, but I did at least start to feel a bit more interested in the idea of writing, which was an improvement!

And then I got smacked down by a pretty nasty cold (I don’t think it was flu, but it sucked.) That knocked me out for about a week or ten days, and then has lingered. While I should be mostly healed from the appendectomy, I think the illness set me back a little bit. I'm just now getting to about 90% better from the cold, and so I'm hoping I'm getting closer to healthy again.

My goals for February were to:
- Resume working on my WIP outline

…That’s it.

How did that go?

It did not!

I did not work on my WIP at all in February. :(

I did write some, but it was non-fiction writing, mostly writing up reviews of books I read, though I didn’t do as much reading as I’d hoped to, either!

The back to back suck of the first couple months of the year really did pretty much kick my ass. This is partially just an excuse: if I was feeling super excited and motivated, I probably would have pushed through to do more. In the absence of that enthusiasm, I didn’t have it in me to push through the illness and the sadness.

So, uh… maybe this month?

My goals for March:
- Reorient myself in the WIP outline (at this point, it’s been sitting there for a couple months, and I will need to reread the pieces I have to remember where I needed to go from there.)
- Work on the WIP outline (even if it’s just a little bit! I won’t even try to pretend I’m trying to finish it this month! I just want to work on it a little bit!)

I’ve started feeling… ‘wistful’ might be the best word. And a bit restless. I usually refer to it myself as the “biannual transitional season wanderlust.” (I do get it most years during the spring season change and the autumn season change.) It’s a sort of aimless feeling, like I really am longing for… something. I don’t know what it is, but I wish I could attain it! One aspect of it is the desire to do something creative, but sadly it rarely comes with any specific inspiration or idea on what creative thing I want to do. Just… something. It also makes me feel really wistful and nostalgic, ha. Or like I want to pack up and move.

That to say, I do hope that I can turn it to some actual work on the outline.

Although I am again bumping into the time management struggle, and the “what do I put my free time toward” question. I have got to get more reading done, because at this pace, I’ve got some twelve+ years worth of reading on my TBR and I am just not okay with that!