November 29th, 2004

It’s good to be back in the business of writing. It’s a relief,
almost. It’s kind of strange, because I did manage to write both on
Thursday and on Friday, so the only two days I didn’t write this week
were Saturday and Sunday, exactly the same two days that I didn’t
write on last week. However, both Thursday and Friday were strange writing
days, not the usual setting I set for myself to write, so only today
do I feel truly back into my routine, with the house empty, at the regular
time and sitting at my desk. And it feels like it’s been a while.

Even though being back in my place and time to write is
comforting, it’s also a little painful. Physically, I mean. I suffered
from a few aches and pains all weekend. I think my seating arrangement
is not as ergonomic as it was at work. Even though I’m only putting
in about two writing hours a day, which seems like nothing at all
compared to an eight hour workday, or even the five hour workday that
I was on before I quit my job, I come away from the desk achy and
hurting. I try to get up at least once while I’m writing but the
hard chair I’m using is so uncomfortable (not that I notice at the
time, only after I get up) that my tail-bone is killing me. Even the
cushions I’ve added on have not helped so far. I don’t know if it’s
because this is too little too late or because I’m using throw pillows
and not cushions designed for sitting on or what. Since I can’t sit back
in my seat because it hurts, I think I’ve been compensating by leaning
forward slightly and scrunching my shoulders, and that’s given me the most
neck pain I’ve had in ages and ages. I need some yoga to unkink, and a
better writing station. I’m also doing plenty of writing in bed and on
the couch, which are probably not helping. Although it’s possible
they are helping by varying my writing position, but I’m already so messed
up I don’t notice any improvement. Maybe the couch and the bed are more
ergonomic arrangements than the chair, I don’t know. I’ve got to figure
out some way to sit for long periods with good posture, without having my
hands or feet go numb. I’m getting old. Soon I’ll be one of those people whom
everyone avoids because all she does is talk about her rheumatoid
arthritis and how the rain makes her joints hurt.

OK, so to review. On Thursday I wrote 840 words on Egghead
Kingdom to reach a total of 4033. Then, on Friday I wrote an
additional 313 words on Egghead Kingdom and found myself at the end,
so I stopped. I didn’t have anything planned to write next. I’m
still shaky on what to write next. I think that if I want
to have something to submit for Viable Paradise in January
(and I really, really do) that I need to get started on a longer work,
but I don’t feel like I know enough about any of the longer works currently
brewing to get started on them. So while I had time on Saturday to write,
I needed the time off to let my brain idle and hopefully have some of the
ideas coalesce and decide which direction to go in next. The stories have
been pretty easy, because I can almost always see the ending from the
beginning. A longer work raises many more dangers. What if I get halfway
through and then realize it won’t work? Or what if I can’t finish it? What if it stalls out on me? I don’t know if I’m ready, but without another
handy idea for a shorter work, I need to face some of the bigger ones,
I suppose.

Any way, the only way to write is to write. So I will have to
pick some words, start, and see where it goes.

I’m going to sit in a lower chair at this desk. I just swapped
them. My hands are a little uncomfortable in this new arrangement, but
I’m no longer looking down at the monitor, so it may help my neck issues.
Maybe I should take up writing with pen and paper some of the time
too, instead of always type type typing.

Kurt says that I’ve really written quite a lot. He says three
stories in two weeks is pretty amazing. It doesn’t feel amazing. It
feels much more like plodding.

Plod, plod, plod. This morning I began the work on what I am
hoping will sustain a novel’s length. It is thus far bereft of a
title, without any recognizable characters, consisting of a handful
of unrelated scenes of which only one is outside my brain and on the page,
and merely 276 words long. We shall see. Also this morning, in that business
of writing that is not the writing itself, I downloaded and installed CocoAspell,
which is Aspell for Cocoa, and
my preferred spell-checker. I spell-checked all three of my stories
and this entry. I apparently have consistent problems with the word
“judgement” which I spell judgement, as well as with “toward” when I
consistently use towards. I also routinely smoosh together words that should
be either separated or hyphenated (dog-sit, chess-player, spell-checker are
examples). And, last but not least, in the writing that doesn’t
truly count as writing, I wrote this entry, which is 932 words
long.

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