We've been having an absolutely awful week of rain and super-humidity - let me tell you, that kind of weather makes your muse and/or inspiration take a huge beating.
But I braved through, people! I sat down and wrote, and moved my word count by 4,908 words these past 2 days!
March went by me in a huge blur, and I have no clue what I've gotten done (except, if that makes sense, I know what I've not gotten done!). Should've been finished with the first draft of Transient Hearts this week, but I'm still way behind the half-way mark on this story. It doesn't help that I've had other stuff beating down my door (yes, freelance work. It pays some of my stuff, all right, but it's not something that easy-breezy. By the time I'm done with work, I barely have enough time or energy to dedicate to writing).
Speaking of, check out this amazing article a friend of mine sent me the other day - my life is about counting spoons too, though I do happen to have way more in my hands than someone suffering from something as restricting as Lupus. Do read this one.
So I knew it all came down to prioritizing, and as from Wednesday when I finished with the last of March's contracted work, my priorities moved to the WIP, and I've stuck to that. With 2.5 hours writing both yesterday and today, I managed to clock down nearly 5K (and I need to mention, it's 5K that actually makes sense! LOL).
Planning, hoping, that next week, I'll be able to dedicate at least 2.5 hours every day to the story, which should see me moving forward by some 12-13K, and well beyond the halfway mark.
I had a good idea it was the amount of contracted work on my shoulders that was blocking me from work - both literally and figuratively, because I no longer had any juice in the brain to come up with scenes, and so glad I'm over this at the moment.
Okay, and today I decided that, instead of rambling aaaaall the way about my writing and word count and all, I'll actually start posting a snippet of what I got written during the week.
So here's a little bit from Transient Hearts; from our hero's POV. This born-cowboy but turned-New Yorker is back home on his ranch, and has dug a hole for himself: he now has to go ride with the ranch hands, because that's the excuse he gave to escape his cousin's clutches when she wanted to rope him into another bickering argument between herself and the heroine. :)
'...
Should he be ecstatic that, at thirty-two, he could
still get into the jeans he’d worn at seventeen? Years of hard partying with
tequila, vodka, and beer, and he didn’t have any more of a belly than when he’d
been a kid. An achievement? Probably not, given how he’d failed at everything
else where his aunt and Aurelia were concerned...
Not
for here and now, he told himself as he closed his eyes,
and pressed his forehead to the mirror on the front panel of his closet. He’d
have to take all this one moment at a time. Like getting used to those jeans
again. He opened his eyes, turned around, then took a step, and another.
At first, after he’d taken a deep breath and pulled
the pants on, the denim had chafed at his skin, sending an itch like the patrol
of a hundred red ants down his limbs. He’d stopped counting how many times he’d
had to fiddle with the back of the pants, in moves that weren’t far from Rafael
Nadal’s signature shorts-in-butt-crack adjusting. But the more steps he took,
the more the fabric smoothed over his skin and merged with his movements in a
flow that came naturally, like instinct. He’d worn jeans in New York, but here,
in cowboy country, wearing denim was a different, almost life-altering,
experience.
It’s
in your blood. The thought, once again, came through in his father’s voice. ...'
Hope you all have a lovely weekend, peeps!
From Mauritius with love,
Zee
