The War On Apathy
Sat 2005-01-01 22:46:26 (in context)
- 50,304 words (if poetry, lines) long
- 0.00 hrs. revised
- 49,118 words (if poetry, lines) long
- 25.00 hrs. revised
I have managed to take an inadvertent couple of days off. I am not sure at all of the feasiblity of getting 25 more hours in by the Greeley meetup Jan 5, or even - stopping to think about all that's wrong with this draft of the novel - finishing a full cycle of revision by that date.
Gonna keep trying, of course, which will make the next four days rather demanding. Part of my problem is how easy it is to just procrastinate starting. Starting at all. Stopping whatever else I'm doing and just putting in one more hour...
Oh, just one more game of Atomica. Just one more try at Katamari Damacy "Make Star 6." Oh, just another few pages of this forum thread that's making my eyes glaze over.
There are even productive procrastination tasks, like working on the FAQ for the Neverending Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Story Engine, which has reopened for general use this morning. Or putting in a few more hours' work on my latest Little Bull Creations assignment, which is much easier to push myself on given that the deadline has teeth and the pay is guaranteed (neither of which can be said about writing one's first saleable novel).
Anything other than writing!
So, I've got a new strategy in my constant war against apathy. The thing causing me the most angst - in this case writing - will be the thing I do last thing at night and first thing in the morning. And I shall be ruthless. "Last thing" means no reading myself to sleep, however the omission pains me. "First thing" means not even getting out of bed. Just roll over, grab the laptop and open the document.
I've been rereading Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Black And Blue Magic, which I'd been threatening to do ever since NaNoWriMo 2004 began, and it's been really a useful reminder that my YA unicorn novel really isn't as much like Snyder's lovely book as I'd thought. For one thing, Harry Houdini Marcos is twelve, and my main character is sixteen, and that difference isn't just a number. It explains a lot about why my plot got a bit more sexual than I realized it was going to, for one thing. But. I am not allowed to finish rereading it until I've finished rewriting the mermaid novel. Sorry, me. Consider the resulting discomfort mere withdrawel pangs. Take the lumps and move on.
At times like this, I sometimes find this thought helpful: "What will you regret more in 10 years - not having slept more/reread that book one more time/caught up on reading newsgroups, or not having finished writing your novel?" And then sometimes I find it as useful as a clinically depressed patient finds the advice, "Just think happy thoughts!"
At those times, I find it's best to pretend that it's actually one of the other times.