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saxbrightwellWhile I have continued to make progress on book 4, it's not last year's thrilling outpouring of words I enjoyed while writing book 1.
Some of that is the subject matter: knowing there would be a "war" at the end of book 1 but taking 2 entire books to properly start it was a warning sign that I would struggle with the content, and I am. But it's too important to skip. I owe it to the story I'm telling and the world I've built to not flinch away from the grisly details. And once I get to it, said grisly details are frightfully easy to write. My career in healthcare and my abiding enthusiasm for smut collide here; bodies are bodies at the end of the day. Everything before and after and around the gore, though, that's much harder. I have to nerve myself up to take the plunge every time.
Another aspect of the slowdown is the fading of that first blush of hyperfixation. I wouldn't qualify for an ADHD diagnosis but I do have a partial set of its subtraits, and patterns of hyperfixation and hyperfocus are absolutely among them. A year is a good run for one of my fictional obsessions, historically - although as I've said before, Secrets of Sleipnir broke containment from a fanfiction idea for a fandom where I broke all my previous patterns of fannish behaviour. And I don't think it was the fandom that did it. I think it was a change inside myself. I learned I am capable of longer-lasting engagement with a world and its characters, and that is still true. I think every day about Fiyevret's story, where I want it to go, where I want to end it for a time, what other characters are demanding stories of their own once I've finished the setup in the form of the main arc. I'm not done, and I'm not moving on... but some degree of my attention has. I've found myself gaming a lot and reading even more, especially fanfiction for the AMC Interview With The Vampire show. I'm not even remotely tempted to write for it, but my time is still divided.
The third factor is work. I have had to work many more shifts than usual in the last couple of months. While the frustration of some aspects of work, and the need for a distraction, has led to some very good writing sessions during shift breaks, it also leaves me very drained and less-productive when I have more time off. Hence all the gaming, TV-watching, and reading. I'm looking forward to a week off soon, and hope to get more words out in the back half of that once I feel more rested.
My goal is not to write in great glorious blitzes like I do when first infatuated with a subject. It's to train my attention until I really accept that I am capable of steady work on a project, putting in at least a minimum wordcount every day. I've had a few streaks of that this month, although making it stick is still a challenge. But it's still beneficial, because already the little insidious voice that says, "That's it, you've lost the fire and you'll never get it back, too bad" feels almost rote, like it doesn't even believe itself, because I've proved it wrong too many times by just sitting down, firing up a playlist and a pomodoro timer, and cranking out some words. The fire will come back around.
Some of that is the subject matter: knowing there would be a "war" at the end of book 1 but taking 2 entire books to properly start it was a warning sign that I would struggle with the content, and I am. But it's too important to skip. I owe it to the story I'm telling and the world I've built to not flinch away from the grisly details. And once I get to it, said grisly details are frightfully easy to write. My career in healthcare and my abiding enthusiasm for smut collide here; bodies are bodies at the end of the day. Everything before and after and around the gore, though, that's much harder. I have to nerve myself up to take the plunge every time.
Another aspect of the slowdown is the fading of that first blush of hyperfixation. I wouldn't qualify for an ADHD diagnosis but I do have a partial set of its subtraits, and patterns of hyperfixation and hyperfocus are absolutely among them. A year is a good run for one of my fictional obsessions, historically - although as I've said before, Secrets of Sleipnir broke containment from a fanfiction idea for a fandom where I broke all my previous patterns of fannish behaviour. And I don't think it was the fandom that did it. I think it was a change inside myself. I learned I am capable of longer-lasting engagement with a world and its characters, and that is still true. I think every day about Fiyevret's story, where I want it to go, where I want to end it for a time, what other characters are demanding stories of their own once I've finished the setup in the form of the main arc. I'm not done, and I'm not moving on... but some degree of my attention has. I've found myself gaming a lot and reading even more, especially fanfiction for the AMC Interview With The Vampire show. I'm not even remotely tempted to write for it, but my time is still divided.
The third factor is work. I have had to work many more shifts than usual in the last couple of months. While the frustration of some aspects of work, and the need for a distraction, has led to some very good writing sessions during shift breaks, it also leaves me very drained and less-productive when I have more time off. Hence all the gaming, TV-watching, and reading. I'm looking forward to a week off soon, and hope to get more words out in the back half of that once I feel more rested.
My goal is not to write in great glorious blitzes like I do when first infatuated with a subject. It's to train my attention until I really accept that I am capable of steady work on a project, putting in at least a minimum wordcount every day. I've had a few streaks of that this month, although making it stick is still a challenge. But it's still beneficial, because already the little insidious voice that says, "That's it, you've lost the fire and you'll never get it back, too bad" feels almost rote, like it doesn't even believe itself, because I've proved it wrong too many times by just sitting down, firing up a playlist and a pomodoro timer, and cranking out some words. The fire will come back around.
