I have been dealing with some burn out and uncertainty with what my income and health insurance is going to look like next year, which has been making it harder to focus on writing. I shouldn't be having to seriously consider if self pay is a better option than my shitty health insurance options, but there it is.
Anyway, this weekend I took the train down to visit a writing friend and got a good amount of words done at a coffee shop while hanging out and chatting. Body doubling continues to be the best way for me to get things done. I also visited the absolutely fantastic bakery next door and got bagels and a seeded loaf. I wish this place was closer, but perhaps it's a good thing for my wallet that it is not.
FOCUS: Today I got 385 words done of MAGE WILLOW. My progress has slowed a bit on this project, more than I would like, but I think this is multi-factorial: post-release drop, some personal life uncertainty and I'm not entirely sure how I want to approach this next section of story.
PROCESS & SUCH: I decided to change things up a bit by letting myself skip ahead in the story to a part I knew I wanted to write, instead of continuing to bash myself against an earlier section that I don't know what I want from yet. This worked! The writing came much easier once I changed tracks.
WATCHING: Continuing my rewatch of Parks & Rec. I feel like some of this aged...fairly poorly.
LISTENING: Today, Tidal's daily shuffle sent me the song, The Dream Was the Cure, by Jonathan Hultén. I immediately had to stop what I was focusing on to listen, and then promptly added the song to my MAGE WILLOW playlist. I then proceeded to listen to the album Eyes of the Living Night all day. Gothic, haunting, and beautiful stuff. Definitely going on my regular playlist rotation.
READING: I finished reading THE SPACE BETWEEN WORLDS by Micaiah Johnson (Kobo, Bookshop, Amazon, Waterstones) over the weekend. A very satisfying scifi book set in a dystopian world where people known as traversers travel between dimensions. I loved the twists in this, and found the romance subplot threaded throughout to be a bittersweet delight. I'm now about 40% of the way through THE POET EMPRESS (Bookshop, Amazon, Kobo) and...I'm obsessed. OBSESSED with this book. It's so good.
LINK: This beautiful music video of Where Devils Weep by Jonathan Hultén.
UP NEXT: Tomorrow I hope to continue with the method I tried today, which was letting myself write out of order. That might end up being what this book needs.