I got my funk on this evening, and not in a boogie down productions fashion, neither.
It's a spinning my wheels evening, where I feel as though everything I read on the internet only reminds me how much I have been neglecting what I should be focusing on. I read through things written by friends, or by people whose work I admire, and to be honest I find myself kind of daunted by it. I sit down and try to write something, but find myself struggling to organise my thoughts into cohesive structures. Irritating, since it was always structure that I prided myself on the most in my essay-writing days. A good structure, however spurious your argument, guaranteed at least a B in those heady university days. Or those heady post-university, writing-essays-for-a-middle-aged-real-estate-agent-who-was-doing-sports-psychology-through-Massey's-extramural-program days.
But I look over things I've done recently, and they just aren't coming together in the same way that things used to. I know practice is a big part of it. Too much writing stream-of-consciousness dithers, to little structured thought. The NaNos are great in some ways for that, but to be honest I've only had at best a skeletal idea when going into them (and no idea at all in the first one). The first two came out by fluke, but are dreadful as is. On the third one, although I finished it, I came a cropper on the lack of structure, completely devolving into silly nonsense by the final third. Oh sure, it was fun silly nonsense, but nonsense is what it was. Let me tell you this: the next time I write a novel about satanists sacrificing a shipload of passengers to their dark master, I'll treat it with the seriousness it deserves.
I'm tired of being stuck in our current living environment as well. We've been surrounded by boxes for months now, after our initial burst of packing enthusiasm. We've been involved in the buying of our new place for four months now, and looking likely to stretch to five, at least. Our initial packing burst, as glad as I'm sure I'll be of it come the moving date, feels a bit silly. I'm not one much for feng shui and the like, but our current flat feels increasingly like some kind of prison-cum-warehouse, where we get to go on day release for work.
Anyway, just having a little moan. If not here, then where? The good news is, I know what I need to do. Just as soon as I get all my novel revision stuff out of that box. Tomorrow.
Somebody give me three words and I'll write a (very) short story. Go on. I'll do it by the end of my next weekend (next Monday). I can't even vaguely suggest it'll be any good, but I'll crank out something.
There you go. Proactive action. I feel better already! Time to reward myself with a computer game.
