November 9, 2022
Week 109
Emotional State: Unsettled in the space between
Limbo, Limbo, Limbo
I’m cheating a bit on this one. I’m writing it the day before because all my stuff comes tomorrow and I’ll be a bit busy trying to cram a full house’s worth of stuff into a smaller house without losing my mind.
Who am I kidding? The house will be unpacked in two days. Whatever’s leftover goes in the garage because this isn’t our final destination. We have one more move to go… eventually. And that brings me to something I’ve been thinking and feeling recently.
The space between. The holding pattern. The pause between two larger changes. That moment when you can’t go full throttle forward, but can’t slide back into the comfort of the past, either.
It’s an uncomfortable place to be, at least for me. I can easily move from one place to the next as long as I have a plan. And we have a plan, but it’s too nebulous. We’ll find a house. We’ll find a neighborhood. We’ll stay. We’ll go if we don’t like it.
I can do all those things, but I also need an anchor of some sort. A bit of stable ground to cling to, a bit of normalcy. The thing is, I have both of those. I’m working the same jobs I always have. I’m writing a book. I’m staying at this really fun AirBnB and about to move semi-permanently into our rental house. And yet, I don’t feel that I have any stability at all. Isn’t that an interesting thought?
I also find myself using the words ‘space between’ a lot in my writing. It shows up in my urban fantasy series because it’s about that, but it also shows up in my cozy mystery series as well. It’s like there’s something I need to do, explore, process, about that space between so I can settle. And maybe, just maybe, this is that time and space.
Woudn’t that be a trip?
On Writing
Nanowrimo has kicked off with a flurry of activity for most writers. I’ve missed a few days and expect to miss a few more, but I’m catching up on the days I missed where I can. Will I hit 50k? Maybe, but I’d rather get most of this book written instead.
I spent a solid week outlining and refining my outline. I felt good about it. And then…. my pantser brain derailed the plot once I wrote chapter two. TWO! So of course I’m trying to go with it while also not rewriting my entire outline. Maybe it will work or maybe it won’t.
I was worried at the beginning. I thought I’d lost the mojo. Sitting down to write felt stilted, stiff, forced. But then I just allowed it to happen and it worked. I got out of my own way, got out of my head, and just relaxed into it.
Now if only I could say the same for my plot…