Convalescence

Several people mentioned on "I Don't Think I'd Know How to Dabble" how glad they were to hear that I am not 100% productive 100% of the time.  I don't mean to come across as inhuman, though one always makes an attempt to show one's best side in public, but several of you seemed to visibly relax in your seats when you learned that.  No, naturally I am not on-the-go all the time.  Sometimes I push ahead into the manuscript and feel my way in the dark as I go; but sometimes I have to "run from the manuscript." Sometimes the last thing I want to do is sit down and write, often for various reasons.

pinterest
Sometimes I feel like I don't know where I'm going.  Usually I can push through that, but sometimes that sensation lasts too long and I fall back in a huff of melodrama.  Sometimes I get burnt out.  I've been blazing on too long and I need to rest.  I flog myself and the horse has nothing more to give.  Sometimes I am overcome by the scourge of the artist - I believe that my writing is complete rubbish and will never amount to anything.  Of course there are people who are vastly better than myself, and I don't believe that my writing will never need editing, but when I am really tired and really depressed, I tell myself that it is all for naught and everything I have written today, yesterday, tomorrow, is junk.  I had one of these wretched moments just last night, squeezed in between exhaustion and twenty-four hours' worth of tension headache due to the stress of going to Scotland - I even had a bit of a cry over it.  I know the moments pass, but they are never fun while the last.

On top of that, Ethandune has completely broken out of the corner.  I don't dislike that fact too much, especially since my husband is enjoying every bit of it and I have the pleasure of writing a section and showing it to him, and that helps relax him.  But it does tear my resources between Gingerune and Ethandune, and at this juncture I have little energy to give.  These moments always pass.  Eventually I will be settled in my flat in Glasgow and I won't be stressing over getting there, but this next week or so could be very painful if I do not play my game very carefully and admit to myself that I can't give 200% of myself to two novels all the time every day.

Each and all cannot do better than be found doing his duty, but doing it as a Christian, and with a heart packed up and ready to be gone.j.c. ryle
I have Gingerune open on my desktop, a cup of tea to hand, and some music playing in the background.  I will try to write 500 words, but not in a plunk: today I am taking it easy because that is what my brain and my body needs.  I'm not a Super Penslayer, just a penslayer, and even I weary in the way.

reorientation

Where am I?  Perhaps it will help if I give myself a little perspective.   I started Gingerune in January (2013) and I am 146,986 words into the plot.  I think it is moving faster than Plenilune, but I wasn't paying attention to that aspect of Plenilune so I could not swear to that.  Ethandune has its own notebook, a main Word document, and several scenes written.  I have fifteen pages to the middle of Practical Religion, which I told myself I would reach before I get on the plane.  I have already said that I have several more novels in my head - that's cheering!  Not too shabby a collection of facts.

opening a vein

I'm told there is nothing to writing: you have only to sit down and open a vein.  This is probably true.  I've also noticed that sharing one's work is rather like the medicinal practice of blood-letting: it does seem to get the bad humours out, whatever else it does.

In the end she had not been sure how to do that, so she clung to the great shadow which was like the back of a god hiding its splendour and stood with the sensation of one about to be martyred upon the seaward threshold of the Temple of the Rammerowt. gingerune
"It is a worm in my soul which eats at me that the Earth-Master would not bend down his head to accept my light and momentary yoke.”“It is like the Earth-Master,” she pointed out, “to not bend down his head for anyone’s yoke.”gingerune
“If I told you that you could do it, not merely that you had to do it, but that you could do it, and not to shrink back, you would have dug in your heels and resisted, and the despair would have lasted much longer than a night. But if I agreed with you, that you were not raised to this and that you would find it difficult, almost impossible, then you would chalk up your hands and grasp the bull by the horns."gingerune
Mazelin had dropped his staff and had both hands around [the other's] neck, squeezing until the muscles in his shoulders could be seen in relief through his tunic. White-hot light seared through the cracks between his fingers.gingerune
Thera is hollow-rotten. In what manner does one make the dead to live?gingerune
“A man loves his life and will do much to spare it. Much, Mazelin, as you well know."gingerune
"I hung my scarlet thread for you.""And the warlords of Israel have come."ethandune
“By the twelve houses!” he swore up one side, “you abominable girl, why didn’t you mention that before?” He crossed the distance between the two of them and grabbed her by the shoulders, giving her a violent shake. “Did it not occur to you that perhaps my father and I might care to know that? The devil take you!” he swore down the other side, still shaking her. “I could wring your neck!” ethandune
"Why is it that every time I see that man, I feel as though I've just been caught with my trousers down?"ethandune
"We are not doing a ten-penny romance novel!"She hit him again.ethandune