Although I am still getting up and writing my 1,000 words every day (and fulfilling the goal of my challenge) I am being less strict about the planning and editing aspect of things and accepting that there are some days when I can’t do those.
That’s working out pretty well for me. Today I sat down and worked on planning The List (that title is going to change really soon) for a lot longer than 20 minutes. I got a lot done and now think I’ll probably be ready to start work on it when I finish the first draft of The Storm (which will probably also have a title change).
It’s not working out so well on the editing side because I don’t love doing that so it’s easier to put off. I might need to figure out a daily goal for that again, just so I can keep publishing stories.
Giving myself more flexibility around this stuff is really helping in a lot of ways. Most importantly though is I’m feeling less stressed out about it all. That’s important because there are a lot of other things going on in life at the moment and although I am still trying to follow my five lessons and the sixth I have to accept that writing is an entirely voluntary thing right now so it can’t be the number one priority every day.
Another thing that’s probably contributing to my sense of calm is that I have decided to do a digital detox. Basically that means that I am avoiding all non-essential online activity. So no reading the news, no scrolling Reddit or any other social media, no YouTube, nothing. I’m only a couple of days into that, but it is already making a big difference to the amount of time I have for things like reading and writing.
I think a relaxed approach is generally better. A bit like driving 5mph under the speed limit. Over the course of a whole journey, it doesn’t make that much difference to the time you arrive, but it’s way less stressful and more enjoyable.
In retrospect, it was stupid to think it was over. The kidney stone is still inside me. Yesterday was a bad day, I ended up going to the GP and then working from home. I felt rough all day but I managed to get some things done.
I feel better today, and I appreciate that, but I don’t know what tomorrow will be like.
I guess I have to take each day as it comes until this thing is finally out of me. It’s frustrating, to say the least, but it could be worse. At least the pain isn’t as bad as it was when I ended up in hospital. At least I am able to focus for more than a few minutes at a time.
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Latest release: [The Last Outpost][1]
Currently Writing:
The Storm: a cozy apocalypse novella. Today’s progress: 1,127 / 11,342
The List: a dark fantasy novella. PLANNING
Son of Mars: a science-fiction short story about the construction of a colony on Mars. EDITING
My latest release, The Last Outpost, is available to buy now on Kindle.
Alex is the navigation officer aboard The Calico, a colonial supply ship. He’s far from home and can’t shake the feeling that he doesn’t belong. After dropping out of university on Mars, Alex joined the ESDC, hoping to find purpose among the stars. Instead he found himself on The Calico, in love with Eden, the XO, and desperate for a place to call his own.
Life in deep space isn’t what he imagined.
When The Calico arrives at a remote colony on Enceladus for what should be a routine supply drop, the crew discovers something far more troubling: there’s no one there.
Alex, Eden and a pilot called Jack descend to the icy colony and the mystery deepens. Where did the colonists go? What strange secrets lie beneath the surface of the moon?
Caught between his sense of longing, and a growing sense of danger, Alex must confront his most deeply held beliefs. Can he find his place in the vastness of the solar system, or is he doomed to wander, forever searching for something he can never reach?
A few days ago I wrote about the five lessons that I have started using. Today I am starting a sixth that I learned about in a YouTube video by Alexis Kingsley which is well worth watching if you have three minutes to spare.
The lesson is to create an environment where success is inevitable. She describes it like planting a seed and providing all the water, soil, and sunlight it needs in order to bloom. That’s what I am trying to do for writing. As yet, I don’t have any practical idea for what that means, but it’s such an interesting idea that I want to keep coming back to it and seeing if it is something that I can put in place.
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On the writing side of things, I am making good progress with The Storm, and I have really turned a corner with my planning for The List. I have come up with some changes that are going to have a big impact on that story. The Last Outpost has now been submitted to Amazon, and I’m just waiting for it to be approved. Hopefully it will be available from tomorrow.
An very early start today. I woke up before 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep so at 0430 I got up and started writing. I managed to get a decent amount done, altough it remains to be see whether those 1,000 words are worth anything.
I am making good progress with planning The List, although it is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. I like the core idea, but I need to get under the surface of the characters and the world before I can actually put it all together. Still thinking it is a novella and potentially the start of a series.
Almost done with publishing The Last Outpost. That should be available to buy from Monday.
I went back to work today for the first time in almost two weeks. It was good to be back in that environment and to have a block of time in the day that is spoken for. I like all the people I work with as well, which really helps.
Without really meaning to, I have found myself spending a lot less attention on the news and things. It is probably doing my mental health a lot of good. I’m not giving myself any official rules or restrictions around it, but I am enjoying some time away from all the terrible things in the world that I can’t do anything about.
Obviously, I recognise that I am extremely lucky to be able to take that break because the people that are impacted don’t have that option. On the other hand, me being depressed and anxious all the time isn’t going to do them any good either.
I’m still not feeling great. My side twinges and it’s difficult to get comfortable. Sleeping isn’t easy; I regularly wake up several times in the night and find it difficult to get back to sleep.
But I’m over the worst of it, I hope, and tomorrow I’m going back to work.
It has really thrown me. I didn’t know I could feel so much pain. Now I wonder when it will come back.
My dad suffered from kidney stones and there’s no reason to think this will be a one and done.
There are lifestyle changes I can make, and I intend to. I need to drink more water and eat less processed food. Citrus fruit is supposed to be good for parenting kidney stones.
The drugs I was prescribed were great for stopping the pain, but they didn’t leave me unscathed. I had weird palpitations in my abdomen. The antibiotics have wrecked my gut.
But it’s time to go back out into the world and try to hold onto these lessons. To take better care of myself.
My current medical situation has given me a lot of time to think. Unsurprisingly, one of the things I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about is writing. I have come up with what I am thinking of as five lessons to make writing fiction work:
1. Read fiction
It seems like the most obvious thing in the world but it’s easy to get slack at it. I used to read a lot more than I do now but if I want to write well, then I have to read well.
2. Read about writing
Another obvious one but it has been a long time since I read a book about writing. I think it’s important to keep learning about the craft and it keeps me in the right mindset. So I am making an effort to read more writing books.
3. Take it seriously
Since I went back to work, and probably even before that, I have been in the habit of speaking dismissively about my writing. On more than a few occasions I have referred to it as my “hobby” or “something I do just for fun”. Which on a practical level might be true, but it also isn’t. I write for more than just to pass the time. I write because I feel like I’m called to do it and it’s the only way I know to truly express myself.
Talking about writing like it’s not important makes it harder for me to treat it like it’s important. It makes it more difficult to justify waking up early every morning and get the words down. So from now on I am going to take it seriously: whether or not I ever make big bucks from writing it is important to me.
4. Reduce distractions
There are a million things easier to do than sit down and write. But that’s not the most difficult thing to deal with. Writing is an activity that I sit down and do and then tick it off my list for the day. What is much harder to deal with is filling every moment of the day with activities.
I can write, I have proven that, but I also need time to think. Time when I’m not browsing the internet or listening to podcasts or music. Time when I’m not even reading. It’s far too easy to fill up every moment of the day with content and I can’t afford to keep doing that.
5. Have fun
Most important and the easiest to forget: writing is fun. I love it. But sometimes I need to remind myself to enjoy it and that means doing some of the extra stuff that doesn’t really count as writing but contributes to the fun of it. The added extras like making logos for upcoming books and stuff like that.
So those are my lessons. There may be more to add in the future, but I think I’m going to get a lot of benefit from learning these ones.
It has been about ten days since my last daily blog post and I did not expect it to take so long for me to get back to things. On 22nd November, I thought I had a case of food poisoning and would be back to writing the next day, or at the latest, Monday. On Saturday, I was feeling well enough to take Oscar skating, and on Sunday morning I got up and started prepping food for his birthday party later that day.
Then the pain hit. Pain like I have never felt before. It started as a general ache in my lower back and I took painkillers and rubbed some gel on it. I got on with making food and the pain just kept getting worse and worse. I had to keep stopping to stretch my back, kneel, or lie on the floor in an effort to relieve the pressure, but nothing worked.
By the time I’d finished cooking, all I could do was lie in bed. Tamzin brought me a hot water bottle, but nothing would stop it from getting worse. I had no idea what was wrong with me and eventually all I could do was tell Tamzin I needed to go to the walk-in clinic, which I really didn’t want to do because we had all the family coming for Oscar’s birthday party in a few hours.
We dropped Oscar off with Tamzin’s mum and went to the hospital. Every bump in the road was agony to me. There was a short queue, but I got through triage quickly and they put me in a bed for examination where they thought it might be my appendix. Whatever it was, they couldn’t help me there, other than to give me some strong painkillers and book me into the surgical assessment clinic at the nearest big hospital. By this point, the pain was so bad I couldn’t even walk, so had to get taken to the car in a wheelchair.
The painkillers kicked in halfway to hospital and I could walk inside. Thus began a series of tests to determine what was actually wrong with me.
I have always thought a burst appendix (as one theory of what I might have) was an absolute medical emergency. That scene from The Simpsons where they remove an appendix and throw it away moments before it explodes is imbedded in my memory. But there was no rush or urgency. Not that they didn’t do a great job and everyone there was awesome, but they weren’t rushing me through anything.
Tamzin and I sat in the waiting room and every so often I got called out to have people prod me, inject me, or scan me. Then back to the waiting room.
Anyway, once all the tests were back, they told me I had a kidney stone, and the pain was it coming through the uretera (the tube that connects the kidney to the bladder). They kept me in hospital overnight so I could get more pain relief and see a doctor in the morning.
They were expecting me to need surgery so I couldn’t eat breakfast, but one of the people who had been in to check my vitals during the night (every four hours) was awesome and brought me a black coffee. Then I just had to wait for the doctor.
By the time he arrived, I was on more painkillers (including morphine) so wasn’t really thinking straight. He told me they could go in and get the stone with a laser, but in his opinion, they should send me home with a load of pain relief and see if I could pass it by myself. Looking back at it now, I didn’t ask the right questions and there are still a load of things I’m unclear about, but he was the doctor so, rightly or wrongly, I took his advice.
As I was no longer facing surgery, Tamzin brought me breakfast, and we waited for them to sign me out. By about one o’clock I was back at home.
Which is where I have been since. Taking loads of medicine and waiting. Tamzin has been taking great care of me and I haven’t been able to do very much. My days have consisted of laying in bed, laying on the sofa, and laying in bed again. I have watched a lot of YouTube.
If it hasn’t passed by Friday, I have to go back to the hospital and get the surgery anyway. That wouldn’t be great, but at this point I just want it over so I can get on with things.
Today was my first day behind the keyboard in almost two weeks. It was slow and uncomfortable and continually interrupted by discomfort and other things.
I got 1,000 words written, along with some editing and planning, but it’s going to be a while before it feels properly comfortable again.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have had a lot of time to think when not in agony and I need to make some changes. You will see a different layout to my project tracking from today.
While I am still doing the 1,000 word a day challenge, there is going to be less emphasis on it here. It is more of a target for myself and, as my goals for the year change, other things have as well. I have already written a lot more than usual today so I won’t go into the details yet, but stay tuned to learn more.
