Bad Blogger, no donut...

And I was doing so well...

I started this blog more than 3 1/2 years ago as a way to keep my writing chops up while I geared up for a new project. The blog has definitely had its ups and downs. I used to be a lot better at multi-tasking than I am now, and even with the sudden influx of unstructured time in my life ( some would call this "unemployment," but I prefer a more positive frame), I have a hard time splitting my attention (See this post for further insight into the sad state of my once formidable intelligence. Hey, really - I used to be smart!).

Anyway, I'd been getting back into the blogging swing of things, constantly finding articles that intrigued me that I wanted to share, and then I got immersed in rewriting an old screenplay, something I'd always thought had potential but could never quite make work. It was a fun thing to revisit. After all the agonizing over my last novel, the one which is out to publishers, working on something that was just sort of...fun...was, well...fun! Suddenly, I wasn't procrastinating till close to midnight before I'd sit down and make myself work. I was actually writing while the sun was out! I'd forgotten what that felt like.

Even though I've written after work for most of my life, the last few years doing this has felt really really hard. Just exhausting, and soul-killing. I know that sounds incredibly melodramatic. Writing novels isn't like, I dunno, working in a coal mine. But what I used to be able to do when I was younger, and hey, I was not a happy person when I was younger, I was bitter and angry and depressed, but I did my work, dammit...

Now I'm happier but I don't have the energy, I guess. Or I'm not willing to drive myself to the point of misery to manufacture the energy.

So, anyway, here I am. I wake up when I feel like waking up, and the whole day stretches in front of me. Figuring out how to use this time has been a challenge. I've tried to set goals every day: small things, much of the time. Hang up that picture. Arrange new health insurance. Walk to the gym. Walk to Santa Monica and buy a bread knife. Stuff like that.

But telling myself, okay, you're a writer, here's your time - that's been an adjustment.

I'm working on a new novel. I started it a few months ago and am about 4 chapters in. I like the prose a lot. I have the setting and the characters and the basic situation. I don't really have a story, yet. It's the kind of thing that I need to research.

So, today. I got up. Checked my email. Tidied some ends on a free-lance project I've been doing. And got to work on my novel. I have three books to read for it. Read about 100 pages of one. Did a bunch of internet research, really valuable stuff. Started getting a better sense of how I could shape this story.

Thought to myself, this is a life I could have. This is a life that works for me.

Now if only someone would pay me for it...

All of which is a long, roundabout way of saying that I've been focused on other stuff, and the blogging kind of falls apart.

I'll try to do better.