Writing When It's Hard

So, a confession that most experienced NaNos will maybe relate to: sometimes the writing is hard.  Sometimes, you sit down to get your daily words written, and it's just a grind to get them all done.

But sometimes, you can let yourself get psyched out about it also.

Today was a case in point for that.  Yesterday was tough.  Today I wasn't feeling it; I was sure it was going to be a slog just to get the bare minimum of words in.  I wasn't sure how I was going to face tomorrow and the ISU write-in, other than by hoping that, somewhere in those 6 hours of writing, I'd manage to get a couple thousand words.

BUT, I sat down tonight to write anyway.  I hooked into the UStream link for a virtual presence at the write-in, and I made myself write.  And do you know what?

I did my two highest word-count sprints so far this month.

Not only that, but I also figured out what happens next, other than what I had planned, which just won't cut it anymore because now I know something worse to do to my protagonist.  (That's the beauty of having your protagonist think "I have to avoid this because there's no recovering from it."  Then you know what they think the worst that could happen is, and you can do it to them.)



So, what's the moral of the story?  I admit that some days are still a bit of a slog, but don't just give up because you think it's going to be rough.  Actually sit down and type.  You never know when good things might happen.

Writing and Tiredness and Pain

I continuously find myself surprised by how much being tired saps my desire to write -- or to do anything, really.  If I didn't sleep well, I may be able to fake things for a few hours, but by the end of the day I'm ready to crawl into a corner and cover myself, not make myself spend some of my extra time writing.

Not to my surprise, I've also discovered that pain makes me tired.  Certain types of pain, especially so, like those sore backs or aching shoulder muscles.  I've done a number of things to try and keep myself healthy (which occasionally cause those aching muscles), but sometimes the pain just comes in and wears on me.

Key in that is wearing on me... wearing the body down.  Pain can wear someone's physical energy down as the body fights to right what's wrong, but it can also wear someone's mental energy away as they fight to ignore the pain, to struggle on with what they feel they should be doing rather than just concentrating on the pain and how to manage it.

I've not made the direct connection like this before, but this means if I want to do well at writing, or at least if I want to continue to consider it a hobby and not a chore, I should try to make sure I'm as well-rested and pain-free as I can be.  Some of this might involve changing when I do my writing -- mornings perhaps instead of evenings -- but a lot of it has to do with two things.

First, I need to pay more attention to those small pains when they are small, and at a minimum do something to keep them from growing if I can't eliminate them entirely.

Second, I need to stop my bad spiral where I stay up too late to write, so I'm tired the next day, which  means it's hard to get the energy to write, which means I stay up too late in order to get the writing in.  That's just not good.