A Writer's Notebook, Day Ninety-Eight

I've had another sub-optimal writing day, but am feeling alright with that, to be honest.  It is going to be a bit of a slog to finish up, but it is definitely not an unrealistic goal.  I just have to actually spend the time on it, and now I am at the point where I am feeling the pressure to do just that.  In some ways, that pressure is quite a good thing, and useful, even if it is a bit of a pain at the time.

Really, this is about motivation, and about getting myself back into a focused state.  The past several days have been very much focused upon non-writing parts of my life, which is probably a good thing in general, but I am feeling rather upset about a number of personal things that I won't go into here.  Suffice it to say that these issues are certainly distracting from my attempt to focus on the work itself.

As well, I still have a lot of fears around my work.  For one thing, while I've had a modicum of positive news of late, I am still waiting on some more significant news that I expects is coming soon, and do not think will be in my favor.  I do hope to learn from it, and hope to be able to handle it well, but waiting to find out can be even more frustrating.

In part, as I am waiting, what happens in my mind is playing out the reactions that a person might have to my work, and I am setting myself up for the worst outcome because I want to be ready.  So, some part of my mind is imagining that I have horribly embarrassed myself.  I don't think that will be real, but I do have that in my head.  Perhaps, if my work were more straightforwards, I might have more sense that the amount of labor comes across.  Still, I am very nervous and that does not help the creative process right now.

However, the ironic truth is that the answer to all of that is to do the work.  Feeling a lack of creative energy as a result of these things is not enough that it should stop me.  I have to keep in mind that I am able to do the work, and that doing the work is what matters.  It is not a matter only of the work, of course, but the work is what I am in control of.

I do see that my current project is a strange one, and I am not certain how much sense it will make to others.  For me it is an important piece, I think, and I am gaining more understanding of the technical challenges it presents.  I feel it is definitely making me a better writer, which is more important than anything else it can do.  It may not be a great book itself, though I can't judge that, but it is certain to me that I will be far more equipped to work on the next story as a result.

Now, the current issues in the story are ones that come from it taking a bit of a new shape at the moment in certain ways, and I am not sure if that is something that will really be a problem.  It is a shift, but that does not make it wrong.  The audience may see it very differently than I do, and the book is something that comes together from more than my conscious intent.  I don't really know that these ideas and the new elements are not things which will make the book work even more for a reader, and that they won't see the book leading towards this from the start.

I also am getting to a particular moment in the story, and that moment is a very central pivot in the book, and I am not certain how to handle it entirely right now.  I think it is going to be easier once I get there, as I trust the process, but getting there is hard and I need to do that.  I also am not as certain where the book will go after that, except in a general sense.  I think it is going to happen fairly soon and I think, when it does, that will create changes in the story I am not even aware of yet.  So, I am just writing and letting it happen, and when it does, well, I have to see what that means and what the result is.

The end result, though, is that I am keeping myself on task.  I have to do more work tomorrow, and I am hoping to get it done early and to offer an update on the blog about that.  It is a good way to keep honest, for me, and I am glad to have that as a way of committing to the work.  So, I am going to sign off for now, but hopefully will be back early tomorrow with news of my progress afters some dedicated writing time.