Writing surprise

After a lot of self-reproach, and a little motivational help from this, I seem to have found my writing groove again.

It is even fun. It is even about discovery.

I can't believe it. The last couple of weeks have seen me produce over 8000 words with little angst and no sweaty, painful effort - not my usual deal. I've even seen myself work while on "vacation" - like last week, in Dad City, where I grabbed 30-minute chunks of time a couple of times.

That's the key - I've finally given in to the writing experts, with their "you don't need to be precious about your time" shtick. I've finally seen that it's true that I don't need five uninterrupted hours in which to sit down and write. No. I can work in 45-minute blocks of time, and actually think intelligent thoughts and get some momentum going. I never thought it possible. I always thought I needed to be the tortured artiste in order to write well, but I don't - and this doesn't mean I'm uncreative. In a sense, it is as if I'm finally giving in to my own creativity, and am more in touch with it than I have been when I've been buying the tortured artiste thing.

Part of what has been helping, too, has been working at the library. Not every day, but at least half of my writing days. Free from the distractions of the Internet right there in my laptop.

I feel returned to what writing was for me before graduate school ruined it. I never thought that would happen.

I do feel this might have negative consequences for my blogging - because I do still get exhausted of my own writing, and so it's much less tempting to compose blog posts at the end of a day. And I am no longer afraid of what will happen when I sit down to write - so I am not as likely to use blogging as procrastination.

But the important thing is, I'm writing (a book - I can finally say I'm writing a book, and feel like I mean it). And I'm enjoying it.