Facing Facts

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
— Mark Twain

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
— Soren Kierkegaard

People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.
— Andy Rooney

It’s a funny thing. When I first came up with the title for this post, I was facing the fact that I was in a writing slump. However, since then I kinda pulled myself out of it. Go figure, eh?

It wasn’t that I was lacking in ideas, I was just lacking in the motivation to do anything with them. One of the reasons for that was that I was in another of my reading binges. While a writer should do a certain amount of reading, I was doing an excessive amount. Not quite as bad as last year where I spent the first couple of months doing nothing but read, but bad enough.

And once again I put the blame squarely at the feet of Nora Roberts. I don’t know what it is about her books, but there are about a dozen of them that I have read and reread and I still can’t seem to put them down once I pick them up. But I’ve been trying to force myself to slow the reading down. The books aren’t going anywhere and I have all the time in the world to read them.

I actually made it three whole days without picking up a Nora Roberts book. Of course I made up for it by spending a little more time with my Kindle, but it was easier to pull myself away from. One thing for sure, I will be staying away from the Nora Roberts trilogies for now. My binging resistance is pretty low as it is, I’d never be able to resist binging on the trilogies.

The other reason for the writing slump is that I was fighting off some kind of bug that was making me super tired and head-achy. It was really hard to focus. It didn’t matter if I was writing long hand or on the computer, I just couldn’t seem to concentrate on what I was doing.

So, thinking the tiredness might be a blood sugar thing, I paid better attention to what I was eating (ie, controlling the snacking). I also cut out coffee, not that I take sugar in my coffee, but I’ve had issues with it in the past.

I don’t know if it was that or the bug just ran its course, but whatever it was, I’m finally feeling a little more alert – less tired and better able to focus. So while the first half of the week was a write-off (no pun intended), I did much better for the last half of the week.

Of course maybe it was all just mind over matter. :-)

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Wordage Report

I probably still did more reading than anything else, but the good news is that I did get other things accomplished. And this included a time-consuming family obligation and dealing with a sick cat.

I got Monday’s post done, but still nothing on Wednesday yet. To be honest, I didn’t even give Wednesday a passing thought. And if you look at the word counts on my three minute words you’ll notice one of them is more like a ten minute word. I really wanted to end Friday’s post on a cliff hanger so I just kept going.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 878+506+1024=2,408

Three minute words – 121+106+100+262+101+119+118=927
Total words: 2,408 words

EDITING:
Be still my heart. I actually took a long look at An Elemental Spirit, and I was surprised to see that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. I guess I must have done a bit of editing on it after it was done. And I included lots of notes in the folder as well. The only downside is that I forgot this is one of the books where I was going to start each chapter with a journal entry. Or maybe I didn’t forget, maybe I just blocked it out.

At any rate, that’s where I’m going to start, with the journal entries. Both An Elemental Fire and An Elemental Water start each chapter with journal entries, and I remember spending as much time on them as I was on the actual chapters, just so they’d fit. But these will be a little different because they’re not journal entries per se, but excerpts from historical documents.

MARKETING MONDAY:
I received numerous links through my email from groups I belong to or newsletters I’ve signed up for and I checked out several only to find that for one reason or another, my work does not suit their publications. I might be able to tweek one or two of them to fit, but that’s still no guarantee.

In any case, one of the markets was a call for stories about monsters. I recalled one of my NaNo stories was about a were-alligator, but unfortunately I had no idea which one. My stories all had titles like: Story 1, Story 2, Story 3, etc. So I spent considerable time making a list of what these stories were about, which will be helpful going forward.

TECHNO TUESDAY:
Tuesday I checked out some online courses. Does that count? That was also the day I had to deal with the sick cat. Hopefully, next Tuesday will be more technically successful.

WHAT I’M READING:
I read Sacred Sins and Brazen Virtue, by Nora Roberts, and just started Carnal Innocence, also by Nora Roberts. See? Slowing down.

On the Kindle I finished Wings of Stone, by J.D. Monroe, and started A Mate For the Christmas Dragon, by Zoe Chant.

GOALS
Last Week’s Results:
For crafting I got about a foot done on my afghan, and I’m ready to start the second set of stripes. I actually did take a look at my Christmas story and moved a few things around so I can start expanding, but that’s as far as I got. Still no Wednesday post. While I didn’t get any of the edits/rewrites done on Elemental Spirit, I did get things organized so I can dive right in.

Goals For the Week Ahead:
1. Spend time crafting every day.
2. Work on the Christmas story
3. Come up with a Wednesday post
4. Start the edits/rewrites on Elemental Spirit

Have a happy writing week.