Adventures du jour!
To sum up: rough patch but it got better.
Yesterday I got what felt like inextricably stuck on the book and decided to write a letter to a friend instead, about Bad Ex Stuff to someone it felt okay to tell it to and who’d said okay. (Thank you!)
It took a long time. I avoided thinking about the fact that I wasn’t writing fiction while I was writing the letter, felt pretty good when I got it done, and sent it so I wouldn’t have to deal with it today.
Then I got caught up on webtoons, watched a video, went to sleep.
Woke up about four hours later wrecked that I’d sent the email.
UFF DA.
Logically it’s fine. I trust the friend. But just the visceral experience of not being able to Take It Back was rough. Something bad will happen; it will come out of the blue; it will hurt people I care about because that’s what hurts the worst. That’s exactly how this used to work. Just because I don’t actually have people in my life who do this now doesn’t mean I’m not waiting for it to happen.
It was hard not to swerve away from the thoughts this morning: I hate this, I hate feeling like this, I hate remembering this feeling of waiting for something dreadful to happen, knowing it’s a WHEN and not a WHETHER. Cried it out, sticky, sludgy tears, then got up and went out for a walk.
I tore up my feet yesterday on the long walk (which I only noticed late last night), so I bandaged stuff up, grabbed a different pair of shoes, and PUT ON SOCKS. Even though I didn’t have to be at a place of business that required them. The horror!
The few days where it was chilly enough to want a sweater were here and gone; I came back to the apartment drenched in sweat, as usual.
While I was out walking, I figured out what Mr. Assassin had to do. WHEW. I got back, ditched the socks, took a shower, discovered that my feet were quite painfully sticking to the floor and have finally broken down and put on another pair of socks. These have flowers all over them, though, so they’re at least moderately acceptable.
Then I went through the scene I was stuck on. It was mostly good. I didn’t get Mr. Assassin to do the thing he was supposed to do, but I got him most of the way there. I left him on a question and am switching POVs to another character so it will feel like Mr. Assassin has time to “think” about things off-camera.
While I was writing books for clients, they never really wanted me to write anything too complex (although the guy who originally wanted the sf/noir stories was okay with it). It’s really nice to be able to go, “Hey! If I switch POVs while character A is subconsciously processing something, then when he has insight after I get back to his POV, it’ll feel more like a genuine insight.”
Got done with the chapter, suddenly felt like taking a nap. Slept like a rock. Woke up: face hurts, feet hurt, everything hurts. I know it’s a good thing–I’ve regained the ability to feel low-level pain, which means I’m not feeling like I’m in an emergency situation–but mehhhhhh. I should do yoga but today I would rather whine. Drinking lots of fluids, wearing the damn socks, taking headache meds, eating the foods. (Ray’s making Korean fried rice because I begged her and because we have leftovers.)
I’ll start the next scene here in a minute, back to the Goob. I’m leaving Goth Girl in my back pocket for now.
Yikes! Time for fried rice. My work here is done.