Weekly Round Up - Sept. 25
Welcome to my second weekly round up! If you're interested in reading what kicked this whole thing off, you can read my writing confession and take a look at my inaugural round up here.
My Writing Week
It's not been the most productive writing week in the world. I started the week off strong but a couple of last minute work curveballs meant that Tuesday was a wash. I woke up not feeling the best on Wednesday and it could have been very easy to just say, "Oh, I'll write tomorrow." But I know that pattern and it would have easily turned into a no writing session on Thursday and Friday, too, if I let it. So I buckled down, wrote about 300 words on Wednesday and woke up Thursday feeling refreshed before getting confirmation Thursday evening that the 18M will need to be home from daycare on Friday. Truth is it threw me for a loop to start. Here I am, trying to get into some sort of rhythm but life keeps throwing curves. As I sat with it though, I flipped it on its head. Yes, I have a lot going on with work and working on this, but seeing how my 4-year-old has grown so quickly, days spent snuggling my sick toddler will be over before I blink, so I'm choosing to soak it up while I can. I've kept going through planning and I feel really good about where the story is going, so there's always next week! In total, I got about 800 new words done this week. Not a lot, but not nothing either. Moving forward, my goal is to aim for about 500+ words a day. We'll see how that goes.
Life will Life
With a Delta companion pass to burn before it expired at the end of the month, last weekend, my wife and I had the privilege of getting away to New York for three days. We didn't plan much, just wandered, enjoyed the time together, and ate our way through the city. Unfortunately, she came down with a cold on day one and it passed over to me. She was such a trooper and I already feel on the up, so all and all, it passed quickly. Here are just a few photos from the trip.
It's been a long work week as I prepare to leave for Belgium the first full week of October, the culmination of months of planning and work coming to a head. I'm carrying around both a feeling of anxiety, wondering what else I could be doing, what I am missing, and calmness, knowing even now that I have done literally all I can, to prepare. Will report back how that goes.
What I'm Enjoying
As referenced in my confession post, I recently devoured Harlan Coben's PLOT TWIST, his new pseudo-memoir craft book. There was something refreshing about his no bullshit approach to writing and the process of creating a book. "If it generates pages, great. If it doesn't, not great."
My wife and I, like so many others, have been watching the newest season of TED LASSO and are enjoying it. Is it the same as the first three seasons? No, but it has more hits than misses and that to me was epitomized in this weeks episode where Ted just goes and sits with Alice. Doesn't give her a speech, doesn't try to make it okay, just sits there. Lets her know she's not alone. Powerful stuff.
I'm debating starting the newest season of SLOW HORSES or building it up. This has been my favorite book series since before it blew up, having first read Slow Horses back in 2014 and the TV show is a one of the greatest examples of adaptation out there. Maybe as good as the books in its own right because it doesn't try to be exactly like the books, instead being its own thing with all of the classic Mick Herron in there. So glad that this show and book series has found such an audience because everything I have read/heard about Mick Herron, couldn't have happened to better person.
What's Next
More plotting! I have a firm sense of the first half of the book and a clear idea of where the ending will go, but I'd like to be able to shore up the second half before I dive in. The week in Belgium will most likely prove to be a writing wash as I'll be so focused on work, starting most days as early as 7 AM and going late into the night with client dinners most nights that it will be difficult to sneak anytime to write. That said, on my Friday flight home I will have almost 10 hours of undisturbed writing time and I plan to make the most of it. How often can I say that I get 10 hours of uninterrupted time from work, life, all of it, and can just write? I'm looking at it almost like a day long writing retreat and I can't wait!