Not Nanoing

As Nanowrimo passes me by this year, and my prescription for my SSRI has run out without refills because I don't have a doctor locally yet, I am struggling with inertia, frustration, and feeling a little lost.

Kauai is not an easy place to live, despite being a wonderful place to have an amazing time. I have had more fun in the months since we moved here--more unadulterated joyous fun--than I had in the last ten years, easily. I love the ocean, I love waves, and I (newly) love boogie boarding. It's heaven, in that respect.

Yesterday there was a sea turtle sunbathing on the beach. It's the third one we've seen doing that since August. I mean, flipping AMAZING.

It's the most beautiful place I've ever lived. And I've lived in some beautiful places, and I even feel disloyal to those places saying it, but let's be real. There are flowers everywhere. In the bushes, in the grass, on the trees, in people's hair, everywhere. Rainbows are almost a daily occurrence. I'm not even exaggerating, I think it might actually be daily. I love the wild chickens, trailing chicks behind them peeping, and the flamboyant roosters everywhere. Geckos--some bright green--on the walls. People don't dress as tacky. I mean, I'm not the fashion police (like, at all). But give me Hawaiian prints over hot pink zebra stripes any day.

But everything you heard about it being expensive is true. It's oddly not the way I expected, somehow, though I didn't have a clear idea anyway. But Jeff and I are both working full time, and we borrowed several thousand dollars from family to move, and now I'm really stressing because we barely make ends meet and we have to pay these people back. I cannot live with not paying them back in a timely manner, I just can't deal with it. They were so generous to help us and we're eating ramen and quesadillas most nights and we are overdrawn in one bank account. It's overwhelming.

Getting a new driver's license is going to be a mountain to climb because I'd let my CA one expire so now I have to go through the whole process--road test, learner's permit, the works.

I have yet to get all my paperwork in to the Hawaii DOE for my job and I'm afraid that when I do they'll dock my salary because of sticky details that shouldn't make a difference but probably will.

My job has these wonderful aspects and these super annoying and stressful aspects that I won't go into detail about. All I'll say is that I'm very grateful to be working with the co-teacher I'm with. He's awesome.

And Jeff is seriously considering applying for PhD programs so it's likely we'll move at the end of this year. Which, considering all the things that make living here hard, is probably going to be the best thing in the long run. But it's more uncertainty and another hella expensive and challenging move... my three year old regressed on potty training with the Kauai move--will he be in diapers in Kindergarten if we move again?

I'm venting. I started out writing this post as a way to feel like I am writing even though my WiP is sitting in a digital drawer gathering binary dust instead of moving along in the Nanowrimo flow. I miss the Nanowrimo flow. I miss having more than a half an hour to write once a week when I should be lesson planning.

Anyway... are you doing Nano this year?
What uncertainties are you staring down these days?

Exhaustion, Fear, Sorrow and Rage

All getting in the way of my writing.

What can I say, the election was certainly historic.

A personal friend was the victim of a Trump-fueled hate crime.

I am swinging between each of the titular emotions I listed at any given time. It's definitely getting in the way of my ability to concentrate. But today I am going to write a paragraph into the first chapter of Masks in the Glow that is directly inspired by the election. And I will continue to work on this WiP with this election in mind. After all, The City Darkens didn't come out of nowhere. I just didn't think we'd have our own dystopia unfolding within a couple of years of its publication.

I don't know what this means for the future of my writing--I had plans for the next novel(s), and they were not dystopic. And I may still go forward with the main idea--I was going to try to create a beautiful world, one that I would enjoy escaping to. Which was actually the plan with The City Darkens but then it didn't work out that way at all! But maybe now my readers need it more than ever, and I certainly will be seeking out such worlds to immerse myself in, as I choose the novels I will be reading.

"Escaping the Dome," by yumikrum on wikicommons

But I also feel like dystopia may well be the way to go. I only have so many ways to try to warn the world, to try to stop the tide--and it may be futile. Hell, it might be like painting a target on my back. I know this comes off as melodramatic, but the man asked multiple times why we don't just use our nukes. We are in a melodramatic age.

I plan to join some progressive groups locally and I have another plan I'm following through on but it's going to be a few months before I get a sense of whether it's likely to come to fruition.

No matter what, I have to get back to writing. I am not really well unless I'm writing--at least not in times like these.

Getting the momentum going...

...is hard! Hard, I tell you! Gah.

"What in the world is she yelling about?" you wonder.

I'm trying to start book three in the Raud Grima trilogy. I've done a bunch of brainstorming and I've written the first 1600 words, but today I had several hours to write and instead I used them to participate on a debate forum I enjoy.

But there were people disparaging trans* folk, man. I had to call them out!

Not that I was alone in doing so... and it is possible that the other posters had it covered...

The real issue is I have this large scale habit when it comes to writing. It's a seasonal thing. I write the most in November-December. Then it tapers off for like six weeks to two months. But then it picks back up in March-May. Then in the summer, when usually the most I do is editing, and my writing dies down again, and it doesn't really get going until the following November.

The pattern has been that way for years--since 2006, I think.

NaNoWriMo is a big factor. I gear up for it and in years where I'm not overwhelmed by other stuff I do the 50K words in November, always with a new WiP. Then I keep going for a while, usually stalling a bit around 75K words. I have a hiatus, and then drive myself crazy thinking, "Come on, Sophia, you're so close to being done!" Which is not entirely true, as most of my novels have anywhere from 15K to 30K more words to go after 75K. But compared to the work that led to the production of 75K words, it's still a lot less.

So anyway, my point is it's September. This is not, historically, a productive month for me. I'm trying to buck the old system but my lazy self is just like, "Noooo.... writing is work and work hurts my brain..."

The next time I will probably have some uninterrupted time for writing is Monday, so really, what needs to happen is for me to not go on that forum at all. No checking for updates, nothing. Just sit down at the computer and write.

Do you have seasons when you are more productive? How do certain habits help or hinder you?

I'm not writing.

Not at the moment anyway. I blame this. With some luck things will go back to normal(ish) soon and I'll find the motivation. The first time around I didn't do any writing, though, so I'm not sure I'll get the urge to even if my body does find some kind of happy place soon. Of course, come January I'm not going to have any time, and I doubt that will change for quite a while, so it would be nice if I could get back into it and at least finish Veronica 4 and do the editing on my sequel to The City Darkens. Fingers crossed.