Day 362: Stress and Writing

The last couple of weeks have been stressful, mainly because of emotions.  When this happens, my muse runs for the hills.  Valli is her name.  She hates drama off the page.  My body also hates drama off the page.  With all the chaos of my head and heart added to the fall weather, I have been aching all over with some brain fog added in to boot.  I had to rest a bunch.  Uck.  Last week, I found myself struggling to write even a word.  Thus, I slogged along at the writing.

Saturday, a couple of things changed.  My emotions shifted a bit.  I decided to put things I can’t fix aside.  I started feeling better.  I have had some ups and downs.  Yesterday, I was very angry when I realized none of the situation is my making; plus, I have no power to fix any of it.  The best thing I can do is what is best for me.  I still feel the emotions lingering.  They will probably come back, but for the time being, all systems for me are a go.

I hit the words harder.  I reconfigured my word numbers to get this third book for my challenge finished by the 22nd of this month.  I have a conference that I have paid for last year, along with plane tickets, and a room.  I don’t want to miss the conference, but I also don’t want to fail at the book challenge.  This has been a stress as well.

Today, I looked at my numbers and outline.  I have only four to five scenes to write to finish the book which is about 6000 words.  I do have a bit of a job to do in the editing.  I have sixteen or seventeen scenes to work through.  Oh, and I have a book cover to create.  Small details.  Unless a huge disaster hits, I am going to get this book finished by the 22nd and fly away on the 24th!!!  Yes!!!  And better yet, I will start working on my next book while I am at the conference, a whole week early.  Outstanding.

This morning, I looked at my overall numbers for the year.  I was amazed.  I have written 205,497 fiction words.  Spectacular.  I am easily going to beat my best year of writing in 2017.  If I add my nonfiction words to that, I have written 448,495.  Holy moly, that is almost half a million words.  Fantastic.