Here we are again
The wisdom of the wider writing community is this: to be a writer, one has to write. It's true. You need to write something, anything every day. It's the only way to get into a routine, to make it a habit. It's the only way to practise your craft. You have to do it every day, and you'll get better at it every day.
But what of days like today? You have a couple of writing projects with a few hundred or a few thousand words written but you just can't face adding a chapter to any of them. The previous chapter you wrote on one of them took the story so far away from your outline that you're struggling to figure out how to continue the story. The tangent is good enough that you don't want to scrap it and take another pass at the chapter in the hope it plays nice and sticks to the plot, but perhaps that's what needs to happen. It might double the length of the story to try and get it back on track and it's supposed to be a fucking short novel to begin with!
Meanwhile, you're blocked on another project - a satire of motivational books - as the chapters for that tend to come fully blown into one's mind while out walking and you were too busy on your walk today pondering what you were going to write to actually formulate anything meaningful.
So, what does that leave? A blog post! Of course! Why not? So here we are, typing verbatim into a text entry box whatever nonsense comes to mind. It's writing, I tell you! I'm a fucking writer!
So, dear blog, how have you been? Oh? That's nice of you to say, but I can tell from your tone that you feel a bit neglected. I'm sorry.
Let me catch you up on my life. Earlier this year (2018), I quit my job and in July I moved to France to take care of my (then 94, now) 95 year old grandmother. She's in pretty good form for a 95 year old, but she had a bit of a turn and a fall down last year and since then her memory and concentration isn't what it was.
She was preyed upon by an unscrupulous scammer who was writing himself cheques from her cheque book to do "house improvements" that, of course, never eventuated. Fortunately, a nurse who visits her daily figured out what was going on and cancelled the cheques, but it was the catalyst for me to get off my arse and get over here to help her out.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that she lives in the south of France. In provence. On the riviera.
I've got enough squirrel away to take care of myself (frugally) for a couple of years and I now have the time to work on a side hustle or two and my writing in the hope that I can make some kind of income and not have to go back to full time being chained to a desk in an air conditioned office trading my time for money.
Frankly, I don't intend to go back to that life regardless of whether the writing or side hustles work out. What will I do if I run out of money? Walk into the sea, I guess. Who knows? All I know is that I'm much happier doing my own thing than being stuck working for others. Not happy. But happier.
So there we are. All caught up. What's more, I managed to get some writing done today!
But what of days like today? You have a couple of writing projects with a few hundred or a few thousand words written but you just can't face adding a chapter to any of them. The previous chapter you wrote on one of them took the story so far away from your outline that you're struggling to figure out how to continue the story. The tangent is good enough that you don't want to scrap it and take another pass at the chapter in the hope it plays nice and sticks to the plot, but perhaps that's what needs to happen. It might double the length of the story to try and get it back on track and it's supposed to be a fucking short novel to begin with!
Meanwhile, you're blocked on another project - a satire of motivational books - as the chapters for that tend to come fully blown into one's mind while out walking and you were too busy on your walk today pondering what you were going to write to actually formulate anything meaningful.
So, what does that leave? A blog post! Of course! Why not? So here we are, typing verbatim into a text entry box whatever nonsense comes to mind. It's writing, I tell you! I'm a fucking writer!
So, dear blog, how have you been? Oh? That's nice of you to say, but I can tell from your tone that you feel a bit neglected. I'm sorry.
Let me catch you up on my life. Earlier this year (2018), I quit my job and in July I moved to France to take care of my (then 94, now) 95 year old grandmother. She's in pretty good form for a 95 year old, but she had a bit of a turn and a fall down last year and since then her memory and concentration isn't what it was.
She was preyed upon by an unscrupulous scammer who was writing himself cheques from her cheque book to do "house improvements" that, of course, never eventuated. Fortunately, a nurse who visits her daily figured out what was going on and cancelled the cheques, but it was the catalyst for me to get off my arse and get over here to help her out.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that she lives in the south of France. In provence. On the riviera.
I've got enough squirrel away to take care of myself (frugally) for a couple of years and I now have the time to work on a side hustle or two and my writing in the hope that I can make some kind of income and not have to go back to full time being chained to a desk in an air conditioned office trading my time for money.
Frankly, I don't intend to go back to that life regardless of whether the writing or side hustles work out. What will I do if I run out of money? Walk into the sea, I guess. Who knows? All I know is that I'm much happier doing my own thing than being stuck working for others. Not happy. But happier.
So there we are. All caught up. What's more, I managed to get some writing done today!
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