Infirm of Purpose

[desperance]

Oooh. *holds head*

Slept crap last night, and feel crap this morning. Spent my usual hour sitting here trying to work, by the end of which I'd read a lot of LJ and I think deleted one punctuation mark.

Then I had to go into town (bread! must buy bread! - what morbid paranormal creature is it, whose existence is dependent on baked goods?), so I thought maybe I'd declare this a day off and spend my home-time reading, cooking, resting, maybe a little desultory cleaning...

And yet, and yet. Here I am back home again, back at my desk again, trying again. Thing is, I have Momentum, and I really don't want to give it up. I haven't been talking metrics over here much, because I've been posting daily totals over on novel_in_90, but I'm just coming up on three-quarters of a book here, and those major waymarkers are really useful as an incentive. 'Specially here, at the back end of the middle, just coming into the final bend. See, when you start a book, you pass a whole lot of markers rat-a-tat: 10%! 20%! 100 pages! A quarter! A third! - which feels like a whole lot of book already. But then it's a wearisomely long uphill drag from a third to the great peak of the halfway point, with nothing useful to alleviate it - nobody gives any credence to two-fifths, and 40% just means "damn, still a long way short of the half..."

And then of course it's just exactly as far from the half to two-thirds, which is (one reason) why the middle of a book is such a gruelling strain. But then, rat-a-tat: two-thirds! Three-quarters! Only a hundred pages to go! And so on, the great canter home.

And I really don't want to lose that sense of rush, now that I've hauled this sledge through the vast and bitter landscape of the mid-book; so not a day off, seemingly.

Except of course that I'm sitting here writing LJ, rather than writing book. Hrrmph...

Comments

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

There are official rounds? Oh. I missed that. Let me know if something can be arranged. I started working on my outline and notes today.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Well, certainly for this time round, it was decreed that we-all started on June 1 and ran to the end of August. But, hell, even if nobody else is playing after August, the journal'll still be there. We can shame a few of 'em into joining in, maybe; or if not, two is still a party...

[cinderberry.livejournal.com]

Three.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yay! I shall go and post a query-assertion in the comm, see what other interest we can stir up...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Just to let you both know, we'll be fielding a regular team on Sept 1st; you can watch it growing at http://community.livejournal.com/novel_in_90/183572.html

[cinderberry.livejournal.com]

Great! What a perfect excuse to post to LJ instead of writing up the thesis motivation technique. :)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Works well for me. Can't promise its efficacy for others, of course; but there's something about public humiliation encouragement that keeps me going and going. And it is actually a pleasure to watch others' progress, too (so long, of course, as one is oneself progressing well or better...).

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It's on. See here: http://community.livejournal.com/novel_in_90/183572.html

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Now, I just have to do this. I'm starting with the easy one, shouldn't be too hard, right?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Damn right. It'll be a doddle.

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

Then why do I feel moments of panic?