Focus

Okay, I go through stages. In fact, being the observant types you are, you probably have noticed it.

1. Exhausted and/or ill. (Frequently following a heavy push to complete a book on deadline.) Depressed. Practically incapable of coherent thought. I not only don't have ideas, I don't know if I'll ever GET another idea---and I'm not sure I care.

2. Feeling a little better. Grumpy, still not myself, but I am capable of tying my shoelaces, posting blogs, and doing some of the businessy stuff. Still no ideas, but I know they'll come.

3. Feeling a little bit better than that, but not close to normal. I start getting ideas. BOY do I start getting ideas. All over the place. My imaginary friends are all glad to see me again and clamoring for attention, waving their hands shouting "pick me, pick me!" Unfortunately there's not enough focus and brain function to write anything other than dreck and I hop from project to project looking for the "right" one. Of course when I can't write well there isn't a right one, but that doesn't seem to keep me from trying.

4. I am myself. WOO HOO. The brain is working. The fingers are working. Focus is on. And I'm probably behind on my deadlines because I spent so long in steps 1-3 above. ARGH!! I pick a project (generally the one that's um, well, DUE. But if there isn't one of those I pick one.) Since they all appeal to me, it's kind of random which I pick. Sometimes it's "well this one seems marketable" or "I've always wanted to finish this one, and it is more than half done." Whatever. I pick one. And I write, and write and write.

And then I get interrupted.

Edits come in. Life intervenes. Conferences come up.

And I finish it anyway. Because I'm STUBBORN.

But to do it I have to push. Hard. And my body rebels (because I have all this chronic crap that isn't all that serious, but isn't any fun either). And if it's contracted work, I turn it in. If it's not, I send it to the agent for a look-see. But any way you slice it. I push until I'm done. Toast. Incapable of complex thought and somewhat ill.

and we're back to step 1.

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Today I am right on the borderline between 3 and 4. I've been idea hopping. Some of the ideas are pretty damned dark. (Okay, more than pretty damned dark. Remember that short story I wrote where the war hero is stuck in his own mind in complete sensory deprivation as a form of torture. Yeah, that kind of cheery stuff. I can do light and fluffy. Most of the time I'm pretty cheerful. But when I go dark, it doesn't get much darker.) Some of them are so light they could float. But nothing is really coming together at this moment. BUT I think they might be in the next couple of days. Which would be really, seriously cool since I have several days off for Christmas holiday and am stuck in town anyway because the transmission hasn't arrived for the truck.

So maybe, just maybe, I'll get the calendars done and out AND get something written. Wouldn't that be cool?

Holly happidays everybody.

Cie