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Wednesday, January 11th
Jan. 11th, 2012 09:20 amTHE DAILY REPORT
I have been writing up a storm lately. Not all of it is my best work or stuff I can sell, but I think you have to be willing to sit down and write absolute gibberish or garbage or self-indulgent crap when that's what's in the pipeline if you want to get to the good stuff. I do have a couple of short stories in the pipeline that I'm excited about... the ones I mentioned earlier this month, not new ones. But still.
I haven't been doing much non-writing work, or much work on Dangerous Instrumentality because that requires structure that I can't muster while I'm sleepy/sleep-deprived. But I'm pleased to have found a way to be so productive even when I'm so far from my best.
My sleep really has been fucked lately. I haven't been talking about it as much as I usually do when it's this bad because it's been interfering with my writing less than it normally does, and because writing is balm for my soul. We've been having a very pleasantly warm and mild January so far, which is nice in a lot of respects but it means we're not getting the deep freeze nights where I can pile on the blankets, which is the best way I know to kill my insomnia.
We're expected to have a cold snap starting Thursday night, which might be enough to get my sleep schedule righted, especially as I got a good start on that last night.
STATE OF THE ME
Last night I got tired at a reasonable hour, took my pills, was on the floor before midnight and slept more or less for eight hours. I woke up a few times (not sure how many, because I also kept dreaming about waking up), but time-release melatonin is a wonderful thing.
DREAMS FROM LAST NIGHT
I kept waking up in all these different places and then tried to find my way around them. Also at one point I dreamed I was in Madison and there was an awesome bakery hidden in the top level of a parking garage... like, it had been built inside the garage and tables and chairs and things had been set up across several spaces. There was an old English man who was harassing me in various ways.
PLANS FOR TODAY
The flipside/dark underbelly/evil opposite to the fact that I have been practicing sprint-writing is that I have been basically gone back to writing everything the day it goes up again. This wasn't intentional... it's a side effect of how chaotic things have been due to external factors. They've been settling down, though, so it's time to start working ahead again... and trying to find some kind of "best of both worlds" balance between my on-demand speed-writing and my more reflective multi-day writing cycle.
Yesterday I got a 500 word start on the next chapter of Tales of MU. Today, according to the four-day plan, should be the day I do the bulk of the writing. I'm convincing myself that means the story is due today so I can thrash it out this afternoon, then I'll be able to reflect on it a bit and polish it up before posting it tomorrow.
I have been writing up a storm lately. Not all of it is my best work or stuff I can sell, but I think you have to be willing to sit down and write absolute gibberish or garbage or self-indulgent crap when that's what's in the pipeline if you want to get to the good stuff. I do have a couple of short stories in the pipeline that I'm excited about... the ones I mentioned earlier this month, not new ones. But still.
I haven't been doing much non-writing work, or much work on Dangerous Instrumentality because that requires structure that I can't muster while I'm sleepy/sleep-deprived. But I'm pleased to have found a way to be so productive even when I'm so far from my best.
My sleep really has been fucked lately. I haven't been talking about it as much as I usually do when it's this bad because it's been interfering with my writing less than it normally does, and because writing is balm for my soul. We've been having a very pleasantly warm and mild January so far, which is nice in a lot of respects but it means we're not getting the deep freeze nights where I can pile on the blankets, which is the best way I know to kill my insomnia.
We're expected to have a cold snap starting Thursday night, which might be enough to get my sleep schedule righted, especially as I got a good start on that last night.
STATE OF THE ME
Last night I got tired at a reasonable hour, took my pills, was on the floor before midnight and slept more or less for eight hours. I woke up a few times (not sure how many, because I also kept dreaming about waking up), but time-release melatonin is a wonderful thing.
DREAMS FROM LAST NIGHT
I kept waking up in all these different places and then tried to find my way around them. Also at one point I dreamed I was in Madison and there was an awesome bakery hidden in the top level of a parking garage... like, it had been built inside the garage and tables and chairs and things had been set up across several spaces. There was an old English man who was harassing me in various ways.
PLANS FOR TODAY
The flipside/dark underbelly/evil opposite to the fact that I have been practicing sprint-writing is that I have been basically gone back to writing everything the day it goes up again. This wasn't intentional... it's a side effect of how chaotic things have been due to external factors. They've been settling down, though, so it's time to start working ahead again... and trying to find some kind of "best of both worlds" balance between my on-demand speed-writing and my more reflective multi-day writing cycle.
Yesterday I got a 500 word start on the next chapter of Tales of MU. Today, according to the four-day plan, should be the day I do the bulk of the writing. I'm convincing myself that means the story is due today so I can thrash it out this afternoon, then I'll be able to reflect on it a bit and polish it up before posting it tomorrow.