Coming up for air

Sorry I haven’t posted for a while. The reason is that I’ve been deeply immersed in writing Rise of the Federation Book 4. I started out a bit over three months ago with a plan to write 25,000 words per month, and I only just managed to meet that goal for the first month; but then my website disappeared and I had to reconstruct it here, so that distracted me for a while and I fell behind. I ended my second month 9,000 words behind my target, then managed to get a fair amount done in the following week, but then got stuck and fell even further behind. At six weeks to deadline, I had the novel only half-written.

But then something changed. I think it has to do with the fact that I recently started drinking coffee. I actually had my first cup back in March to help me with my drive to Detroit, and it was only after that point that I started to fall behind; but I only gradually started experimenting with drinking more coffee, investigating and sampling possibilities. Note that this was specifically because I hoped it would help improve my focus and alertness for my writing. I can’t say I actually like the taste of coffee. I need it really, really sweetened. I found an instant mix at the store that had sugar and creamer pre-mixed into it, and that was okay, but a bit too sweet, and hardly good for me. It actually has more sugar and corn syrup by weight than actual coffee. So I tried getting regular instant coffee — I know the brewed stuff is better, but I don’t intend to drink it regularly enough, just when I need it, so instant works better. The kind I got was pretty foul at first, but I’ve gotten a bit acclimated to it, and I’ve found that it’s not bad if I mix the coffee crystals into a cup of hot milk and honey. I wish I could find a sweeter, milder variety, though, so I don’t need quite as much honey and can cut a few calories. Though honey is better for me than processed sugar.

Anyway, I’ve been having coffee and tea pretty regularly for the past three-odd weeks, and though I can’t be sure there’s a causal correlation beyond the placebo effect, in that time, I’ve had the most amazing burst of productivity I can ever remember having. The coffee didn’t seem to help immediately, i.e. when I got stuck in early May, but I was still trying to feel my way through a subplot, do some complicated worldbuilding. Once I started to get some momentum three weeks ago, I just kept going and going and couldn’t stop. I’ve had creative surges like that before, but it’s been years at least since I had one last so long, and without the pressure of a looming deadline.

And my word counts per day have been impressively high as well. In just over three weeks, I’ve written more than 50,000 words, more than half the novel. Yesterday, three weeks before my deadline, I wrote the climactic scenes and part of the denouement, and I was up to 6,900 words written by the end of the day (or actually early the next morning), which is at least close to a career record. And today, I wrote the last few scenes and completed the first draft. I now have a comfortable 20-day window for revisions. And it feels wonderful to be so unrushed.

Still, I do feel I overdid it. Even though I haven’t had that much coffee — usually just one cup a day, plus a cup or two of tea — I think the combination of the caffeine and my own creative adrenaline surge made me a bit too wired toward the end there. A couple of nights ago, I lay awake almost all night, even though I’d tried going to bed early to catch up on lost sleep. Hopefully in the future I can find a happy medium between falling horribly behind and having a surge like this. Honestly, I’m not even sure I needed the coffee that much; when I get into an up period like this, I tend to work pretty fast and stay pretty wired anyway. The problem is the down periods where I have to force myself to write anything. Maybe I should save my coffee consumption for those times, in the hopes that it’ll level me out more.

Anyway, I should get going now. I have a couple of library books due today, and I don’t want to forget. And tomorrow I need to deal with my dead car battery. Yes, it’s still dead (see previous post). I’ve just been making so much progress on the novel the past few weeks that I didn’t want to deal with the distraction of car repairs (since I need to ask about some other repair issues besides the battery) and risk losing focus. So I’ve been getting my groceries on foot every few days for the past two weeks, although I made one trip with my bicycle last week and used its hook-on pannier bags to carry groceries for the first time in years. Which is not an experience I’m eager to repeat, since I got a bit carried away and got a heavier load than I should have.

But yeah, I really need to stop writing stuff now. Really, Christopher. You can stop. Anytime. Just…