SquarePeg Books

I never know when the brain is finally going to kick back into gear. It’s one of the joys of long term mental health issues–when the brain decides “I’m on sabbatical,” there’s pretty much not a damn thing I can do about it. I can take my meds regular. I can review and tweak my diet (for the 18th time that day). I can ping a friend for encouragement.

None of it helps. When the creative writing brain has checked out, Elvis has left the building.

Which is intensely frustrating. One cannot make a career out of “whenever I feel like it.”

But the brain started to (maybe) kick into gear a few mornings back. At 530am. While I’m dealing with hour 14 of a headache and listening to a documentary about Mary Queen of Scots because the headache is enough to keep me from doing anything else.

I say “maybe” because I’ve had false starts before. I’ve had sudden insights to writing problems that demand I write NOW, time of day be damned, usually in the wee hours of the morning.

But, a lot of times, they don’t last, despite my best efforts. The house, the family, work–all these things scritch and scratch at the back of mind, demanding attention, making me feel guilty for trying to put myself first. “How dare I try to write for even 1 hour a day when there are so many adulting things that MUST come before my goals and my little hobby?”

Perhaps this particular kick happened because I entered week 3 of being physically unable to tend to any of my typical distractions. I’m forced to go through my To-Be-Read stack of books (Oh, the HORRORS!) about history. some first-hand, some speculative, some very well written and engaging, some *ahem* quite dry.

The joys of recovering from foot surgery.

On the plus side, this little jump resulted in 1860 words.

For someone whose daily goal is 500 words (and I haven’t touched a keyboard in FOREVER to make that happen), that isn’t half bad. I do hope I can hit 500 tomorrow. And the next day. And, you know, the day after that.

It would be nice to maintain even 200 words per day after I get my cast off, and I pick up my adulting duties again.

Perhaps I’m actually an early morning, pre-dawn, kind of writer.

Ewwwwww…..