500 word count? Yup...

Apart from not really embracing the change NaNoWriMo.org went with this year with the new site, I realized that with this long brutal cold came the realization that 50K was no longer realistic at this stage in my life. Although altering the end of a scene, about 500 words of it, to bridge into a whole new section of the story? That's feasible.

The stress of work and family, though something I try to keep separate, is still rather poorly bottled. I get this annoying tick in my left eye when stress is rearing its ugly head and my heart has been racing more than is healthy. Meds are... Helping, but they aren't a cure-all against the confusion, selfishness, anger and frantic tug of war going on around me.

I'd like to make it until the last two weeks of the year with this job. Make Christmas fun by accumulating thoughtful gifts, making some of them through craft and crochet. This has meant putting creative projects lower on the priority scale but not dashing them away altogether.

Honestly, don't know how the full timers fit writing in. I can't ever seem to get enough rest to get my mind in the right place even with working part time. I admire it. Maybe the scarcity even makes it all the more precious.

But I've always done better when I have at least a solid four hours to create, nothing else competing for that time. And that will come again, so I'm not going to demand of myself what will only endanger my well-being. Creativity is work. A glorious kind but no less demanding of its own criteria. It doesn't exist the same for everyone. For me, it's fragile and I know that's part of its charm even if I'm not so fond of its fickle nature.

Reading what I have invigorates me. Maybe it's a bit of narcissism but I love to reread my writing, to feel the pull in a more engrossing way than when I first wrote it even. Perhaps that marriage is how we know our words are right for our story. When we allow a little visceral enjoyment, can't help but feel even as we go clinical with the edit, maybe that's when we're fine tuning our intuition.

And sure, maybe that's a little bit our downfall. Where we can get too sensitive or precious with a moment that may fall flat for other readers. But maybes are a silly thing to fret too much about. I understood from the moment I wrote my first book that I don't want to be constantly impressing an audience. Sometimes I make it awkward or embarrassing or disgusting, but at the very least, I hope it's not boring!

So I'm enjoying a relaxing weekend of healing and sleeping and maybe gaming or small project tweaking. No grand plans, just rolling with what can be handled. I'm determined to press on the next few weeks with as much optimism as I can muster. In this way, I'll face the now, but look forward to a freer space with my time where the piling projects can start becoming completed. It would be easy to get frustrated if I were to demand too much just now. I already know how clutter can make a living space unlivable; the same goes for cluttering your mind with too much aspiration. We're all given internal mechanisms to measure what is best for us. It can be wrong and broken at times, but on the chance that it's right, pushing too much is a deal breaker. Whatever we promise ourselves, sometimes spinning our wheels too much just obliterates desire. I've fixated myself into absolute boredom at times, a word I thought no longer applied to me. But no, boredom is sometimes recovery from overloading with fixation. Just as there is a marriage, there is sometimes a divorce with passion.

Just don't sign those papers. When it comes to loving what you do, the marriage revives in time.