Knowing When and How to Pace Yourself

I've recently learned that it's wise to post in your writing blog every week, to keep folks in the loop, and... I've been seriously remiss in this, something I intend to rectify, starting today. The problem is, I've been a bit... not burned out, but after my last marathon of writing and revising, I've been taking it easy. Add to that, I had some minor health trouble over the weekend (nothing serious, just over-tiredness from two very busy days on top of That Time of the Month), and so I decided it was best to lay down my pen for a few days and take it easy. No shame in that, though it's something that I sense a lot of writers struggle with. We're compelled by our inner drive to create and share our creations with our readers, and at the same time, we are compelled by forces from without (read: deadlines, etc.) to produce as much as we can in the time we have. Nothing wrong in and of itself, but the problem emerges when it goes on too long, when one tries to produce when you haven't quite enough energy to write well. Sure, one can revise things, but I've had it happen that when I've written while I wasn't feeling well, it can make a story especially wonky, and results in Things That Don't Work Very Well, something which dismays me and, at times, has lead to me questioning my creativity. I admit it, creative anxiety and a touch of imposter syndrome plague me from time to time, to say nothing of my general health which can be rocky at times due to chronic conditions.

But despite this, I keep plugging on. Sometimes I suspect the weird wiring in my head and elsewhere in my self causes me to be defiant, to find ways around all the obstacles that my health throws at me and Keep On Writing. That's lead me to have three active projects going at this very moment:

- A back story (or part of it anyway) for Irena Stamos, the larger-than-life earth momma witch who appears in "The Witch Who Blew In On The Storm", in FunDead Publications's One Night in Salem

- A kind of tongue-in-cheek take on Lovecraft fans and the ones who have a thing for Deep Ones... and what those fishfolks make of it (spoiler: some of them are creeped out by the more aggressive would-be fishkissers)

- A crossover between Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and H.P, Lovecraft's Herbert West: Reanimator which you can find in Legacy of the Reanimator: The Chronicles of Dr. Herbert West, which I'm setting after the events of ye Lovecraft story.

And I've set up a new shelf containing the books that feature my work, this time in our living room, right over a chair where I usually sit when I'm having a quiet evening with the folks. Here there are, bookended, literally, the work of H.P. Lovecraft: