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Called in because of this pulled muscle in my back. I'd left early yesterday-- well, I left at 3:30. And that was great, because I could go to the frozen custard place and buy ice cream sandwiches to have in the house, and then I could go to the butcher's shop and get stuffed pork chops so we could have them for dinner tonight, and then I still could get home before traffic was bad, and then I could get sat on by the cat.
The muscle in my back is fine, unless I sit in an office chair, basically. Or lift anything, or stand for too long. Actually, or lie in bed in any comfortable position; I woke up pretty miserable because I don't like to lie flat on my back but if I did anything else it hurt, so I'd go to sleep lying on my back and wake up folded like a pretzel, no matter what I did.
Anyhow.
I insisted on pizza and wings last night, because even though I'd bought stuffed pork chops I was not going to stand and cook them. Dude had a rough day yesterday too; someone somewhere in their network of companies they work with had gotten hacked, but they didn't know if it was them, it was all very secretive, so they spent the whole day painstakingly auditing all their security, and they still don't know who it was but they've established there's no way it was them, so at least they know that. It was exhausting and stressful, though.
Oh, it turns out, sitting on this couch hurts my back. I'd been in the Ikea Pöang chair and that was fine, and then the sun was in my face and I was enjoying it but decided I'd get more done if I moved, and now I'm discovering that no, I'm not just being a goldbricker, I have to go back and sit in the Pöang again. I guess that's good to know. :/
I've decided I'm going to spend today in a last-ditch effort to make the Mammoths novel work. The pacing is terrible but I"m going to ignore that. I'm just going to skip ahead to the next Action Section, and I'll have to go back and fix earlier parts but like. Whatever. Go on, write the action, then figure out if it's going to cohere into a real novel or not. I spent all of yesterday afternoon feeling terrible about it and thinking I'd have to throw the whole thing out, and like, whatever, maybe I do. At least I should write the climax of it.
I made myself feel better by reading the abandoned novel I wrote from about September thru November, set in the same world but featuring whole other characters, which is how I figured out my whole arc about citizenship rights and such. It's also badly paced but it could be something too, and it's only about 35,000 words so far, but I stopped because I had no idea where I was going with the plot.
Sigh. What I need is like. I don't know what you call it. It's not a beta-reader, I need someone who can help me figure out where to go with my plots. But I don't know how to ask the right questions to get the answers I need, and I don't know how to tell what answers I need anyway, and I just-- I dunno, I read the acknowledgements of other people's novels and think maybe if I had these people I could have a novel done by now but I don't know where to start. I've written whole novels, fanfic ones, I should have the hang of this by now, but I don't. I have no shortage of ideas, I have no problem coming up with them, the problem is I have too many, and it's really hard to tell which ideas are actually going to sustain the story through to an ending, and which ones I could spend six months writing long rambling descriptions of but never figure out how to wind it up, and I don't know if an idea I have is good on its own merits or I'm just somehow mentally horny for it and want to make it a thing that it's not. I don't know how to tell, I don't know how to decide. I have too many ideas, I have too many possibilities, I have too much vision and too little discernment.
It's tiring, and I don't have any answers, and I don't know how to proceed. So I guess I'm just going to try to push through anyway. "Keep going" is the best answer, but all it's meant so far is that I keep going farther and farther and still don't get anywhere.
The muscle in my back is fine, unless I sit in an office chair, basically. Or lift anything, or stand for too long. Actually, or lie in bed in any comfortable position; I woke up pretty miserable because I don't like to lie flat on my back but if I did anything else it hurt, so I'd go to sleep lying on my back and wake up folded like a pretzel, no matter what I did.
Anyhow.
I insisted on pizza and wings last night, because even though I'd bought stuffed pork chops I was not going to stand and cook them. Dude had a rough day yesterday too; someone somewhere in their network of companies they work with had gotten hacked, but they didn't know if it was them, it was all very secretive, so they spent the whole day painstakingly auditing all their security, and they still don't know who it was but they've established there's no way it was them, so at least they know that. It was exhausting and stressful, though.
Oh, it turns out, sitting on this couch hurts my back. I'd been in the Ikea Pöang chair and that was fine, and then the sun was in my face and I was enjoying it but decided I'd get more done if I moved, and now I'm discovering that no, I'm not just being a goldbricker, I have to go back and sit in the Pöang again. I guess that's good to know. :/
I've decided I'm going to spend today in a last-ditch effort to make the Mammoths novel work. The pacing is terrible but I"m going to ignore that. I'm just going to skip ahead to the next Action Section, and I'll have to go back and fix earlier parts but like. Whatever. Go on, write the action, then figure out if it's going to cohere into a real novel or not. I spent all of yesterday afternoon feeling terrible about it and thinking I'd have to throw the whole thing out, and like, whatever, maybe I do. At least I should write the climax of it.
I made myself feel better by reading the abandoned novel I wrote from about September thru November, set in the same world but featuring whole other characters, which is how I figured out my whole arc about citizenship rights and such. It's also badly paced but it could be something too, and it's only about 35,000 words so far, but I stopped because I had no idea where I was going with the plot.
Sigh. What I need is like. I don't know what you call it. It's not a beta-reader, I need someone who can help me figure out where to go with my plots. But I don't know how to ask the right questions to get the answers I need, and I don't know how to tell what answers I need anyway, and I just-- I dunno, I read the acknowledgements of other people's novels and think maybe if I had these people I could have a novel done by now but I don't know where to start. I've written whole novels, fanfic ones, I should have the hang of this by now, but I don't. I have no shortage of ideas, I have no problem coming up with them, the problem is I have too many, and it's really hard to tell which ideas are actually going to sustain the story through to an ending, and which ones I could spend six months writing long rambling descriptions of but never figure out how to wind it up, and I don't know if an idea I have is good on its own merits or I'm just somehow mentally horny for it and want to make it a thing that it's not. I don't know how to tell, I don't know how to decide. I have too many ideas, I have too many possibilities, I have too much vision and too little discernment.
It's tiring, and I don't have any answers, and I don't know how to proceed. So I guess I'm just going to try to push through anyway. "Keep going" is the best answer, but all it's meant so far is that I keep going farther and farther and still don't get anywhere.
