Maria's Art ​and Words

I haven't felt very productive in the past weeks. Ever since Hapax and my adoption piece in |tap|, I've accumulated a feeling of exhaustion that won't go away despite trying to push through. However, I don't have anything to show for my struggles except for a few key things:

1. The guild is stable.
2. I am stable.
3. I feel in my bones that a storm of productivity is coming.

(1) was the item on the list that plagued me in early July, as Aisthesis suffered its worst setback in a long time. I'm going to write a series of posts about the guild and its history, inspired by a post on our forums asking for reminiscences, but the truth is that when something is not quite history yet, it is often too painful and divisive to write about without stirring up drama or hurt feelings.

(2), of course, should need no explanation. After a lot of time spent on intellectual pursuits, the emotional worry of a very personal piece coming out in |tap| and a literary journal curated by me personally, along with a vast underestimation of the ins and outs of putting together a literary magazine, drained me. That this all occurred at the same time as (1) should speak to the vast absorption of my emotional, physical, and mental self in the odd way that life likes to stack peaks and troughs. 

(3) is just a feeling I have, but it's often a correct one. I know the pressure has been piling up, but I also feel that creatively I am just gathering resources for my creative output. However, at the end of each day, I am not satisfied by what I have done during that day, even if I know that lightening up is good for me. 

So, today is the time to turn the page and start writing, start creating, check in on those photographs I never post-processed, and try to do the best I can for this month.

Cheers! I hope everyone is having a good month.

50k words, no excuses this time. Let's all get up and BITCH (butt in the chair, honey!) 

I have:

• a whole slew of short works to edit
• a thesis novel to continue revising after some inspiring Write by the Lake feedback
• two other novels to like, write
• I'm taking Kathy Fish's flash workshop this month, so I have no excuse for not writing...

My goals are:

• Get at least ten short pieces written or revised
• Revise past the first fifty pages of BDD
• Generate as much content on other novels (TM) as possible with the assumption that I'm human and easily distracted
• Keep up with blogging and other interests this month.

Whereas June was always going to be a mess with commitments, travel, and moving, July is free. It's my month, and I need to use it to my best advantage. I'm sure I'll have some commitments and maybe some travel this month as well, but it'll be a lot clearer--should be!

​There's that literary journal I need to publish, still, and I'd like to have that done before the flash workshop begins on July 11th, but now I think it'd be better to publish it after the 4th. Likewise, I have some important guild meetings this month ahead of WoW's Legion expansion. So, it's never not nothing.

Please let me know if you are doing Campnano this month, and good luck to all my fellow writers.

Writing last month didn't go as planned. However, the deadline and format encouraged me to delve into my thesis novel and a second novella that I had been working on. I've made some deep improvements on those, and identified problems that should keep me busy until the next Camp session.

In retrospect, had I chosen a slightly easier goal than the November 50k, I would have made it. I managed to write 35k words despite a terrible week-long migraine that I'm still battling and a host of other commitments. However, even though being a "winner" would have made me feel accomplished, I had to confront the fears that prevented me from working on these revisions in the first place. Doing that is more valuable than any "winning" that Nano could have given me.

I decided to do Camp this April quite late. I think that if I had had more time to plan in March, my word count goals would have been more achievable. Although NaNoWriMo encourages you to dive in and just spew words everywhere, I'm never comfortable with that, and I found myself needing to spend time planning that could have otherwise gone to writing. (Yes, the point is to produce words, but I felt naked without some of that groundwork, like a person lost in a cave without a map.)

My goal for May and June--besides to survive some tumultuous personal issues--is to have a working blueprint in hand for further revisions once I have gone through both works.

If anyone needs an eager Camp cabin-mate in July, I'd be happy to group up with people. Often, cabin camaraderie starts out tentative and then fizzles out after the first few days. I'd like a cabin full of encouragement, activity, and inspiration.