(Stolen from Tumblr just because it’s such a neat photo.)
Bad Joke Friday
Something for Thursday
Yipes! Sorry to be so late with this. Ever notice how missing a day or two of work totally throws off your sense of what day it is? Today’s Thursday, but my head keeps saying: “This is our second day of work this week, dear, so it’s actually Tuesday.” My head is, of course, completely full of it, but anyway….
An opera overture today, by Carl Maria von Weber. The opera Der Freischutz has such a quintessential German plot, involving shooting contests and magic bullets and the sale of one’s soul to the Devil and haunted forest glens and hunters’ choruses and, well, just about everything you’d expect from a German opera without getting into the whole Teutonic Gods thing. It’s actually one of my favorite operas, full of lyric beauty and German legend. It appeals to em especially right now by virtue of its forest settings, and right now the novel I’m working on is in an extended portion set within a great forest. The overture itself is a masterpiece that stands well on its own, but as an overture it’s especially effective, establishing the sound world and drawing us into a world of nature and beauty and also darkness.
Enjoy!
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On “Forcing It”
I’m a firm believer in writing every day, even on the days when the mere thought of sitting down at the computer to write makes me want to stick my head in an oven. There are times when we just don’t want to do what we’re supposed to do, and when we face with a distinct lack of enthusiasm things that usually fill us with joy. It’s just too easy to let one “I’ll write tomorrow” become a sequence of them; once we lower the bar just a little, it’s all too easy to keep on lowering it. Next thing you know, you’re one of those “I only write when the Muse strikes me” folks, and except for the ones that are brilliant prodigies, those people usually don’t come to much in the writing world.
However, there are times when you simply can’t write. Maybe you’re traveling and you’re away from your computer all day. Maybe you’re going in for surgery. Or…maybe a very fast-moving bout of the flu comes along and knocks you completely on your ass for two days.
Guess which one of those happened to me this past weekend!
Yeah. Here’s how I documented my high degree of irritation in my Productivity Log:
The symptoms started manifesting Saturday evening, and through Sunday it was clear that I was going through a wringer. That was the first day I didn’t write, because it was getting harder and harder to focus on anything other than avoiding coughing (by this time my throat was so raw that any cough felt like being stabbed in the neck). By Monday morning…oy. I spent most of Monday either in bed or on the couch, and by the time I dragged myself in front of the computer in the evening, nothing made sense and I couldn’t summon the energy to touch the keys. I quite literally couldn’t even force a few words out.
Hence the zeroes.
I was still quite sick on Tuesday, but by then I knew that I was recovering — this was a really fast-moving and fast-burning flu, as I’ve noted — so late Tuesday night, I took a go at it. Part of me was thinking “Dude, we’re not ready, don’t make us do this,” but the other part vetoed that part and so the struggle started. It wasn’t the easiest writing session I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t as hard as I had feared, either, and I got 700 words. Which is over my quota.
Today I went back to the Day Job, and I continue to mend, which is nice. I had my usual 6:00 am writing session as usual, for the first time since last Friday, and I hit quota again there, too. The only hiccup, really, is that I can’t do any editing work tonight on Forgotten Stars III because I did some editing work today during my lunch break and left the friggin’ editing notes on the current chapter there. But that might be a good thing, because you’re getting this post! I keep intending to post more frequently here. I have to get better at that…
…but now, I’m gonna go upstairs and watch some teevee with The Wife.
Situation returning to normal, though, and soon, all systems should be functioning!
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Welp….
I was actually going to try and post stuff here over the last few days…but the flu had other plans for me. Yuck.
Anyway, I’m still here. And hey, I’m no longer running a fever or coughing constantly, so that’s something! Now my temperature’s normal, I’m coughing very intermittently, and I’m starting to have my sense of smell return. Baby steps, baby steps.
Onward and upward. Zap, pow. (Sorry, I’m not up for exclamation points yet.)