We got hit by Tropical Storm Isaias on Monday night into Tuesday. It was not the worst storm to come through here, but we did lose power for 11 hours, and part of our fence came down. The fence will be relatively easy to fix (the nails just pulled out of the support post), and the power is back on. Thankfully the past couple of days have not been as dangerously hot as the past few weeks. Many in the area are still without power, with estimated times of return as late as Saturday. I hope they get it back sooner.
Inside my head was pretty stormy during the blackout, too. Everything had been building up on me and the blackout was the final straw. I retreated to my room for a good cry. After a cathartic amount of wallowing in “life sucks” and “I’m a failure at everything,” I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and went back downstairs. I’m still a bit fried today, but pushing onward.
The hard thing is trying to figure out how to shake this all off and get back to something that feels more like “me”. So much is out of my control, and the things I do control I seem incapable of controlling. I think I just need to pick something and do it. When I used to travel to VA from NJ once a month, packing myself and my then-infant up, there was always a moment when I felt so completely overwhelmed with packing I would just stand in the middle of the room, paralyzed. The only way to overcome it was to just do something. Anything. Just start with one thing, complete it, and move on to the next. Maybe that’s the key here. Life can feel overwhelming. So I should just pick one thing, even a small thing, and get it done.
On the good news side, I am happy that my mother’s back surgery went well and she is a week post-op today. She is recovering nicely and keeping my dad hopping with chores to do. I wish I could go over to visit, but the coronavirus makes that dicey, especially as cases are rising in both our areas.
I have no idea how much longer all this will last. It will be on the order of months, for certain. I am rather surprised it took me 5 months to reach a crash point. If I last another 5 months before the next crash, it will be January 2021, and hopefully the new year will be a new direction for all of us, and we may see light at the end of the tunnel.
I hope everyone impacted by Isaias is recovering, and that power is restored soon. We all could use some light in the darkness about now.
Moving Forward – CoronaLife Day 152
So last week was a bad week. I felt so completely stuck in so many areas of my life, I was quite down about it. This week has been better because I had a plan and I actually followed it!
I have been avoiding returning to my YA sci-fi Veritas. I did a major rework of it last year, and managed to make it worse instead of better. So back to the drawing board, but I have been struggling with the lack of energy and motivation that comes with anxiety and prolonged stress.
I have sporadically reworked the opening chapters since January, ending up with about 14,500 words done. But then I ground to a halt, because I wasn’t quite sure where to go next. So I returned to the notes given to me by my trusty developmental editor Kathryn Craft, looking for clues as to how to move forward.
Kathryn did not let me down! She suggested I use Lisa Cron’s Story Genius book and Jennie Nash’s Inside Outline to zero in on motivation and connecting all the emotional/psychological beats that would make the story compelling. I was already familiar with Story Genius, having read it and used it for another story, and knew I would find it useful for this one. After I looked at the Inside Outline, I knew I couldn’t use it at this point. I am not an outliner, and just looking at it made the enthusiasm drain right out of me. But it will definitely be a tool I will use after I complete the new draft I am working on.
I didn’t want to set myself up for failure. So I decided to set a goal of doing one step in an exercise from Story Genius a day. If I wanted to do more, fine. But one was the goal. And I have been doing that. Walking through Story Genius, I am getting a handle on the inner conflict that drives my protagonist and the misbelief that must be resolved by the end of the story. I am getting more excited as I see thing more clearly. I finally feel like I am making progress.
Granted, it’s not actual writing yet. But I think once I get all this straight in my head, the manuscript words will come more easily. And even though I haven’t added words to my manuscript with these exercises, I have written 1,500 words of exercises. Which is something.
So I am finally moving forward with my writing, and it feels good.
What have you done lately to get yourself moving forward?