I've been terribly sick for the past five days. I've got one heckuvva virus doing a number on my lungs. The past two days were the worst. I simply laid on the couch and died. I'm not eating much, but I've gained eight pounds. I'm blowing up like a balloon over here.
I don't really want to blog, but I want to track my progress because there are less than 90 days to go before I need to have some big projects finished. That includes the off days as well as the on days. Therefore I must declare that I haven't been drawing. I haven't been exercising. I haven't been cleaning. I haven't worked on my client's logo. I haven't gone over the latest Scenic Route Paper contract. I even canceled home school yesterday. I've been lucky if I've been breathing.
Fortunately, I have been working on my children's picture book. I may not have mentioned it before, but I've been kicking around an idea for a few months. I had already finished the first draft but I felt it was not powerful enough. Not resplendent enough with vivid imagination.
The story is a simple one. It is about a kid's cat and what it gets up to when it's not around him. There is what he thinks it gets up to and what it really gets up to. I want the reality to make his imaginings seem almost tame in comparison, and he imagines some fairly wild ideas.
Anyway, the story is at an impasse while I struggle with a dilemma: writing without a muse. Anybody can write WHEN they have a muse, but to be truly successful one needs to be able to work whether one's muse is around or whether she has wandered off to market for a cute pair of shoes. The problem with muses is that they are great at grand ideas, but lousy at details. They wander off a lot when the story needs, I don't know, a plot or something. Piddly details like that. So I have decided I need to finish this picture book before I resume work on my novel. If I can't learn to work through a writer's block with a simple fairy tale then how am I going to plow through the difficult chapters of a middle grade novel?
To be fair, I'm really sick, but you know me. I never cut myself a break. Now my head feels clearer. I think I may go for a short walk or roll as it were. I really have bloated quite a bit. But getting out at 2am to talk out loud to myself while I work on this story may be what I need at the moment.
I don't really want to blog, but I want to track my progress because there are less than 90 days to go before I need to have some big projects finished. That includes the off days as well as the on days. Therefore I must declare that I haven't been drawing. I haven't been exercising. I haven't been cleaning. I haven't worked on my client's logo. I haven't gone over the latest Scenic Route Paper contract. I even canceled home school yesterday. I've been lucky if I've been breathing.
Fortunately, I have been working on my children's picture book. I may not have mentioned it before, but I've been kicking around an idea for a few months. I had already finished the first draft but I felt it was not powerful enough. Not resplendent enough with vivid imagination.
The story is a simple one. It is about a kid's cat and what it gets up to when it's not around him. There is what he thinks it gets up to and what it really gets up to. I want the reality to make his imaginings seem almost tame in comparison, and he imagines some fairly wild ideas.
Anyway, the story is at an impasse while I struggle with a dilemma: writing without a muse. Anybody can write WHEN they have a muse, but to be truly successful one needs to be able to work whether one's muse is around or whether she has wandered off to market for a cute pair of shoes. The problem with muses is that they are great at grand ideas, but lousy at details. They wander off a lot when the story needs, I don't know, a plot or something. Piddly details like that. So I have decided I need to finish this picture book before I resume work on my novel. If I can't learn to work through a writer's block with a simple fairy tale then how am I going to plow through the difficult chapters of a middle grade novel?
To be fair, I'm really sick, but you know me. I never cut myself a break. Now my head feels clearer. I think I may go for a short walk or roll as it were. I really have bloated quite a bit. But getting out at 2am to talk out loud to myself while I work on this story may be what I need at the moment.
