I had a rough morning today. I sat down to write, and I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t do it. I tried, I sat in my chair for a good couple hours before I finally gave up.
I did end up writing, actually, about 1100 words…but I’d hit a wall. I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t know what I wanted, and I was too anxious about it to continue. And so, I stepped away, and I tried to get some perspective by doing some outlining. It worked. I feel much better tonight. I still have more work to do…but the ideas are flowing once more.
I realized there was a central question to my story that I wasn’t asking right off the bat and addressing in the very beginning of the arc of a main character. And so as I was about to enter the second half of the story, where that question really heats up and gets some answers…I had nothing. I didn’t know where I was going. Just had to write some of my ideas tonight.
So…yeah, new strategy instead of writing first thing tomorrow might just be to have the morning times to chill. The past few days I’ve been much happier in the afternoon and evening than in the morning, so perhaps we’ll roll with that. More outlining will happen at least. Gonna fill these holes, yo! I have faith again that this novel is going to be fun and compelling…I didn’t earlier today 😛 But that’s when things were feeling very dramatic.
The Ho and I finished our night by watching a couple things on Netflix, the last being the Black Mirror episode “Nosedive” with Bryce Dallas Howard, and daaaaammmnnnn. That shit hit really close to home, and not in the social media aspect, per se. For me, it really was the desperation that resonated; how stifling it is, how much pressure it puts on us, and how stressful it is to feel like that, holding on so tight, trying to keep everything together. THAT IS HOW I FELT THIS MORNING. Like I was holding on so tight to something I didn’t need to hold onto like that. It was killing me, and killing my work.
So, damn, but taking a day easy today…which is still a day in which I worked for a good four hours or so…it was exactly what I needed. It was not a “failure” day. It was a reminder to not hold on so tight. Let go. Take my time. Take the time necessary to get it right.
It’s always a balance, right? Between getting it right and getting it done. I’d tipped too far over into the “git er dun” side of that equation. I’ve tipped too far before in the opposite “work-forever-until-its-perfect” side, too…it happens to the best and the least of us.
One last though for the night: Max Richter is a goddamn genius. He did the score for that Black Mirror episode, and there’s a track called “On Reflection” on it that is everything tonight! Listen to it, if you have ze Spotifies. If I were a film director, I would be hiring Max Richter for EVERYTHING I EVER MADE HE’S THAT GOOD.
That is all. Night night.