{"id":7170,"date":"2012-04-08T15:18:45","date_gmt":"2012-04-08T20:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=7170"},"modified":"2012-04-08T15:18:45","modified_gmt":"2012-04-08T20:18:45","slug":"q1-2012-or-what-writers-angst-looks-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/q1-2012-or-what-writers-angst-looks-like\/","title":{"rendered":"Q1 2012, or what writer’s angst looks like"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Actually, this last quarter wasn’t quite so bad as the title might make it seem. \u00a0For the first part, I was on roll, writing almost 25k new words a week. \u00a0But then I finished that project, started a new career, moved to the other side of the world…yeah, my writing took a hit. \u00a0Or at least, that’s how it feels.<\/p>\n

In January, I was working on Stars of Blood and Glory<\/strong>, and was really on a roll. \u00a0The application process for TLG was still pending, but I pretty much knew I was getting in, and since I was staying with my parents until it went through, I didn’t have to worry much about money issues. \u00a0With lots of writing time, I finished SBG in about 6 weeks and published\u00a0Journey to Jordan<\/strong>. \u00a0Life was good.<\/p>\n

After Stars of Blood and Glory<\/strong>, I went back to Star Wanderers<\/strong>, finishing up Part II and starting Part III. \u00a0However, something felt wrong, and I didn’t really know what it was. \u00a0With my TLG departure date imminent, it was really hard to focus, and I wasn’t in much of a position to move on to anything else. \u00a0That’s when the angst began.<\/p>\n

I flew out to Georgia on February 15th, did a week of training in Tbilisi, and then was whisked about 220 kilometers away to Kutaisi. \u00a0As a consequence, I didn’t get any real writing done for almost a month. \u00a0However, I didn’t have any major challenges navigating the new culture, and was soon settled pretty comfortably.<\/p>\n

The trouble was, nothing was working. \u00a0Star Wanderers<\/strong>\u00a0was broken, and I was too close to the project to fix it. \u00a0But after putting it on the back burner, I didn’t know what to do. \u00a0For most of March, I switched from one project to another. \u00a0Nothing seemed to stick, though, and by the end, I was getting pretty antsy.<\/p>\n

What if I’d made a mistake to come to Georgia? \u00a0What if that was the reason nothing was working? \u00a0It sounds silly now, but that was what was going through my mind. \u00a0I still worry about it a little, but I think it has to do more with my creative process than anything here in Georgia.<\/p>\n

I have a very non-linear way of writing first drafts. \u00a0After starting the revision for Heart of the Nebula<\/strong>\u00a0and making some good progress on that, I got an idea for Star Wanderers<\/strong>\u00a0and moved back to that. \u00a0At this point, I think the only way to get productive again is to finish that project, even if it sucks. \u00a0I’ve got a lot of great ideas for other stories, but until I can close the book on this one, I don’t think I’ll be able to make much progress.<\/p>\n

So that’s where things stand right now. \u00a0All in all, it wasn’t a bad quarter, but I’ll be happy when I’ve actually finished something for a change. \u00a0Hopefully, that’ll only be a couple of weeks. \u00a0In the meantime, I’ll keep writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Actually, this last quarter wasn’t quite so bad as the title might make it seem. \u00a0For the first part, I was on roll, writing almost 25k new words a week. \u00a0But then I finished that project, started a new career, moved to the other side of the world…yeah, my writing took a hit. \u00a0Or at… Continue reading Q1 2012, or what writer’s angst looks like<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[460,857,569,650,1],"tags":[42,383,155,697,201],"class_list":["post-7170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hn","category-sw","category-sbg","category-sk","category-uncategorized","tag-frustrations","tag-quarterly-reports","tag-rough-drafts","tag-teach-and-learn-in-georgia","tag-writers-block","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1RE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7170"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7175,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7170\/revisions\/7175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}