Quote of the Moment

"It's never wrong to hope, Byx," said my mother. "Unless the truth says otherwise."
- from Endling #1: The Last, by Katherine Applegate

Monday, March 29, 2010

Slipping Gears

Ergh... Be forewarned, this is another pointless, potentially whiny post intended to allow me to procrastinate rather than do something useful.

Well, March is almost over already. I can't say I accomplished much more this month than I did last month. Unfortunately, I can't use the February Bug as an excuse this time. Just can't seem to get my brain to lock into a gear.

Story editing has hit another lull, as I grind back and forth between actually editing my rough draft and simply rewriting it in scattershot, first-draft style. I keep telling myself that it's a necessary evil, to patch up serious plot structure and pacing issues, and not me falling back into old habits as a crutch, but I'm not at all sure that's the case. I want a finished second draft by November at the absolute latest, but the more I waver on whether or not I'm progressing, the less actual progress I'm making.

My sketchbook's stagnating, with barely a page a day getting filled; I want to be drawing more from my mind, maybe nail down a few book scenes and characters, but once again I find myself wavering between teach-yourself-to-draw studies and lousy-crud-from-the-imagination thumbnails. Neither seems to be getting me far. Right now, I've given priority to a project that has an actual deadline (it's for someone else; the annual camp logo - a.k.a. my annual skirting of potential copyright infringement hell.) Unfortunately, the theme is nothing to make the ol' pencil leap and dance across the paper. Sometimes, I wonder if the staff deliberately picks ideas without a smidgen of inherent interest. But, a job's a job, a theme's a theme, and like it or not it needs doing. Once it's done, I tell myself I jump back into my sketchbook with a vengeance, to make up for time lost wrestling with a theme that makes "Watching Paint Dry" seem fascinating and dynamic.

As for my other hopeful March projects - sprucing up my websites, rearranging my room, fooling with my budget program, researching Etsy, and so forth - well, somehow they all ended up piled on the back burner. How they got there, I don't know, as I honestly can't say I see anything significant on the front burner to displace them. But there they sit, cold and congealed, frosted with dust and specks of mold.

Hmm... maybe I ought to move cleaning the kitchen up a notch on the priority list...

1 comment:

PeppyPilotGirl said...

If it's any consolation at all, I have a novel well underway blocked out and I just can't bring myself to actually start writing. :(

And, yeah, the kitchen's usually a good place to start... um, what with congealing and all - LOL!

coling: the combination of languages for the purposes of making characters sound multi-cultural.