June wasn’t the most productive month, even by pandemic standards.
But I’m ok with that. I needed the time to regroup and reset so I can get out of the weird holding pattern of the last few months and get back to work.
Tag: writing life
Retreat / Advance
Before COVID-19, I’d occasionally think about renting a vacation cottage somewhere, or booking a hotel room on the other side of town, and locking myself away for a few days to write. I’d daydream about another (quasi-)spontaneous weekend away, getting lost and taking photos and not thinking about anything else. A DIY creative retreat, with nothing to do but make art.
Snapshot #155 | 10 Things for 14 June 2020
The last two weeks in a nutshell: making | hoping | falling | doing | figuring | loving | thinking | feeling | hitting | starting
Sketchbook #54
For the first time since March, I was able to start thinking about fiction again, and start taking photos again, and in the last two weeks or so I’ve even been able to concentrate for more than ten minutes at a time. This was the month that I started to feel like an actual, functional, creative, human being again.
That doesn’t mean it’s been easy.
Snapshot #154 | 10 Things for 31 May 2020
The last two weeks have been… weird. I’m: trying | feeling | giving | spotting | ordering | waiting | getting | remembering | starting | taking
Sketchbook #53
Over the last few weeks, one of my writing friends and I have been talking (emailing) about trying to do creative work right now, in this world. About how difficult it is to get into the flow of it, and how deep work is almost impossible. Routines are shot to hell; writing time is being swallowed up by new chores. Money’s tight, and art feels a bit frivolous. Tempers are fraying, ennui is setting in, and it’s just really hard to think of good stories right now, ok?
Inspired | March 2020
Every month, I share the articles and sites that I found most interesting. Here’s what caught my attention in March: permission to keep writing, overcoming creative obstacles, the history of murder ballads, and more.
Sketchbook #52
“I’m looking forward to March,” I said. “It’s going to be a good month,” I said.
Wow. So… I should know better than to tempt fate like that, I guess?
On writing, anxiety, and COVID-19.
I finished a draft of Violet Lane last week. (I say ‘a draft’ because at this point, I honestly don’t know how to number the drafts of this thing. Is it the first draft? The third? Yes and yes.)
Sketchbook #51
Is it just me, or is the year moving really quickly? But in a weird way: there’s part of me that feels like January and February took forever, but then I freak out because how is it March already?
It’s probably just me.
Anyway. February.
