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Writing Journey: Journal Entry 63

March 23, 2022

Week 76

Emotional State: I am a Zombie

Books & Writing

I’ve got a manuscript full of scribbles to enter into Scrivener and move on to draft 3 (revision 4) and do you know how far I’ve gotten? Three chapters. That’s it. Why?

Because I just don’t want to do it right now. I’m in that zone, that zombie zone. I know it well. I faced it in my first book’s editing process also. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want to look at it anymore. It just needs to go away. Or edit itself. It can do that, right?

I’m not even feeling writing this post and I seriously considered not writing this week at all. Speaking of writing I’m not doing… I have blog posts half-finished. Book reviews left in gobbley-gook status with some notes written down so I don’t forget why I liked or didn’t like the book. Thoughts around other posts I need to write. Oh, and loads of notes on the promotional material I need to create for my big April birthday month extravaganza.

For which, I’ve done nothing.

I thought I could work on the cozy mystery during this downtime. Change it up, work on something not fantasy, not Seraphina and Angwyndith. I sat down, cracked open my laptop… and promptly forgot what the book was about and why I was even writing it. The will to focus on it left me as quickly as it took to boot up on my screen.

It could have something to do with long workdays. My current stable of writers are writing – a lot – and great stuff too, but that means a lot of reviewing and revising and commenting. It could have something to do with other life factors, like the yardwork is looming and I hate gardening. Or that my stepkid is here from Australia and I need to spend as much time with them as I can before they leave in 10 days.

Or it could just mean I need a break. A real break. That could be it.

While I’ve not been writing or doing all of the things I should be doing, I have been reading. Voraciously. I plowed through a book on Sunday in two hours and am midway through three others right now. I also spent eight hours on Saturday watching a pretty decent show on Netflix, Pieces of Her, while cross-stitching. I haven’t cross-stitched in a year. I only managed in those eight hours to do two colors because I just had to pick a hard design, but it was nice and reminded me why I like doing it.

And I’ve sort of lost my thought now. Because zombie. I’m hoping my will to resume writing and editing comes back and soon. Zombie brain or not, I have a schedule to keep. But, if it doesn’t, at least I’ll make more progress on my cross-stitch.

That’s something, right?