Yawn

Are you tired? I'm tired. I spend a lot of time tired. Sigh.Don't know if it's this metabolic system crap starting up again or the winter blue settling in. Either way, I haven't much to report. On the writing front, I'm scraping my way out of a rut. I've found myself about 2/3 of the way through the first draft of this supposed novel I'm writing and hitting a bit of a brick wall, plot-wise. Had to go back to the drawing board recently and rework my outline for the last third of the draft. I'm still not entirely sure how things fall into place, but I've got enough of a vision to keep moving forward, I think. And I believe I've identified some holes that will need to be plugged.

This is a daunting and humbling project, my friends.

I definitely need a little accountability to keep me on task. It's too easy to get distracted, to let my fear talk me into sitting on the couch and knitting rather than tapping out some more sentences. I'm going to follow a friend's suggestion and ask a couple of my writer friends to enter into a contract of sorts with me. I'm going to identify some deadline goals and ask them to help keep me accountable, to encourage me and stay in contact with me along the path so this doesn't feel like such a lonely endeavor with a fuzzy grey ending.

Here's what I'm thinking: first draft done by the end of January. That would require me to pick up the pace substantially. Otherwise, at the rate I'm going currently, dragging my feet, it would be a lot longer before I wrap up the first draft. And I can't stand the thought of that.

On an unrelated note, I dragged out and dusted off my sewing machine yesterday. It's been a long, long time since I sewed. Just another thing that fell victim to health problems. But it feels good to have it out. I've a couple of brave projects I want to get done for Christmas, which involve drafting my own pattern which is difficult and sometimes confusing. And I'm really kind of excited about it. Yeah, I said it. Excited.