Themeattics

Well, I can’t be anything but who I am

Blue October, The Feel Again (Stay)

I’d forgotten how much I can lean on song titles for my own titles. My owned library is sitting at 3,895 songs and 11 days worth of run time, so there’s, ah… plenty to pull from.

Anyway, here we are. Another week gone, one step closer to closing out the year, a (hopefully) small shunt forward on the rail toward death. It was, well, certainly a week. Depending on your outlooks and / or political persuasions, I imagine there are a lot of variances in how the week felt. Today, however, that’s not on the menu. As important as politics is, and as impactful as these sorts of things may be on our lives, I’ve come to find it all boring as I get older. The same arguments, the same yelling, all over symptoms, never about root causes. We’ve talked about this before, and while it’s been long enough I could certainly go through a rehash, to be honest I just don’t have it in me right now.

What I do have – finally – is the drive to push through this Residuum edit. We got there, Dwellers. 12 is a wrap for this rewrite and, as I hoped / expected, closing the page on that allowed me to burn through a high-level outline of what remains for the rewrite of what I’ve come to call “Guilt.” Can’t remember if I’d mentioned how I’m thinking of the book as 4 parts, but Guilt is the second of those parts, running from chapter 10 to 18. 12 was a bit of a lynchpin in its build, which is odd given that it’s more of a transitionary chapter than one with any real consequence. Things have been running hot for a few chapters, and it was a bridge into the new world Delen is going to be living in. An avenue to what his life will become.

12 is by no means a perfect chapter. It’s probably not even that good in comparison to some of the others I’ve written, but given how much of a monster it’s been for me to get around, just being able to say it’s content-complete is a blessing. And motivating. A bit like coming over a hilltop and starting to head downhill. Now, I don’t want to make the claim the rest will be easy – my outline of what’s to come is packed in ways I’m not sure I can deliver – but the gears of the creation train are feeling a little more oiled now. There’s an ease of motion where before there was little besides force. And, beyond that, the feel’s back.

The feel of doing what I ought to be doing. Of creating. I can’t begin to overstate how freeing it is to be back at the desk and letting words fly, and to be doing it so early in the day, so that when I head out to work I know that anything that arises up through the end of the day won’t be a conflict. The power of killing procrastination, I suppose.

Only a little ironic to say that when I’m writing this article almost 30 minutes past when I should be asleep, but hey, baby steps.

I’m excited for tomorrow. Excited to get more progress on 13. Excited to keep moving. Thank God for that.

One week of hitting my goals by doing what I’m supposed to be doing certainly isn’t a habit, though, and I won’t get ahead of myself. Still a lot of work to do to drill this into a standard part of my life. This is just the first of the exercises in building up the muscle of creation. As it strengthens and I get my words per minute numbers to a more respectable ratio, I’ll need to start expanding that time. Sneaking in a night session here and there. Opening the brain up to more than one project at a time. That sort of stuff. But – Chris, I see you about to shake your head, hold that thought – all of these things are distant goals. Ones waiting for me over the horizon. The primary goal here is not to bite off more than I can chew again, as that’s one of my longstanding faults. For now, I must accept the limitations I have. And I am, finally. So, 13 is the plan. 13, and nothing else. The rest can wait.

Until next week, friends, when I have another chapter (at least) behind me. Then, maybe, I can stop all these posts only being about progression and can get back to more abstract ideas.