Restless – The Climb #961

Sunday 10th October 2021

Whilst I feel I started this week with a bang, I also felt like I ended it with a whimper. A large part of that is because I finished a few projects. The Accursed has a couple more scenes but it’s pretty much done. And a novella I was working on, got its first draft completed.

Consequently towards the end of the week I was working on other things: training, plotting other novels, research. I would say that things like Pokemon Go screwed me over this weekend, but in truth I think my discontentment comes from something else.

I’m always restless at the end of a first draft. You put so much focus and energy into them and then… they’re done. You have all that momentum and then… nothing. It’s a bit like walking off the end of a travel escalator at the airport. Your feet have stopped but your body still wants to go forward.

I’ve yet to find a cure for it yet. Like a death, you have to grieve for the end of your story. Your life feels a little emptier and you don’t know what to do with yourself.

I have plenty of things to do. I still have a ton of projects, but not all of them are writing. Whereas I’ve not heavily leaned on my systems these past few weeks, I suspect come tomorrow, I’m going to have to get back in the habit of using them more stringently.

And with it comes a big worry. The pandemic was a battle productivity-wise. I had to use the tricks I use for super-productivity to get the regular stuff done. I got plenty done, but I didn’t feel like it was easy. It’s only been in the last 2 – 3 weeks that I’ve felt more like my old self. By Wednesday I was over 20,000 words written without even really trying.

Yet, that 20k could have been 50k if I had the projects at the stage where I could take advantage of it. I’ve tried to get a few things ready to write but it’s a different skill and I’ve ended up feeling restless that I’m not writing as much as my body will allow.

I don’t expect next week to be a big writing week. There will be words, but I need to get a few more projects completed, which means a bit of editing. I’ve also told myself that I’m going to do a bit of training, taking notes as I go.

And so, I suspect my next big writing week won’t be until November. My next first draft likely co-incides with the start of NaNoWriMo, so it’ll be my NaNo novel this year. That gives me about 3 weeks to plan and outline it.

Hopefully by then, I’ll be in a less unsettled mood, especially if I can be productive in the meantime.