Working. Just working

I will admit that it was a relief to finally sit back down in my office chair this week.  I've been working all through the break, admittedly not hardcore about it but still getting things done.  I called the rough draft of the book I started for NaNo finished, and yesterday I started over with chapter one, knowing far more about the story now than I did back on the third of November.  It's changed, evolved, and I've found a lot of the things I knew I needed when I started, but not where they actually were.  It was very much a seat of the pants run-through–even if I had my chapter outlines at all times.  (They changed almost weekly, but that worked well.) I wasn't surprised, and it was easy to shift from my highly regimented outline technique I've been working with the last five years or so to a freer style.  I have no idea if this is going to be my next series, but I like it, and it speaks to me.  As I go deeper, it connects more to a new set of ideas and less to the whispers of Rachel still drifting in the back of my techniques.  All good.

But getting back to my office . . .  That was and is a relief.  Though I've cultivated the skill of being able to work anywhere, having a place to work that is one's own is surprisingly important.  It's ugly outside, but inside I've got a slew of orchids re-blooming and some weird succulent plant I picked up at a plant sale this summer is sending up a three ft tall spike that I think is going to turn into a leaf. Mr Fish has become aggressive over the last few months, meaning he is about a year from the great mud puddle in the sky.  The print on my keyboard is slowly being worn off, and I've begun to try to save the individual keys with a silver pen.  The sun travels a slowly shifting arch each day from extreme to extreme, the pattern familiar and reassuring.

Everything before me as I sit at my desk changes slowly over time, growth and decline happen gradually, with no surprises.  It's very much like the process of writing.  The mind falls into an easy drift of pattern recognition, and it's comforting knowing that though change, like progress on the book, is slow, it does occur.

or maybe I just need a new keyboard and a new set of blinds . . .

 

P.S.  I've updated the event's schedule.  Times and places are now listed, but as before, please check back a few days before going to an event as things often, er, change.  Click for event's page