Oh, that's how it works
Today, having hit my word count and conquered the mighty BAS (bleh tax, bleh) and done at least one more thing from my List O Doom, home with a sick child (eyes child suspiciously, for a given value of 'sick', anyway) I spent the afternoon decadently reading The Wiscon Chronicles, a series of books from Aqueduct Press containing much of the wit, wisdom and complicated politics of Wiscon, the feminist SF convention.
While feeding my brain with such lovely crunchy stuff as an academic paper by Catherynne M Valente comparing Alice, Dorothy and Clara of the Nutcracker with Inanna and Persephone's journeys through the underworld... I came up with some marvellous mythic ideas to make my slightly-flagging Book 2 into something Much More Clever, Feminist and Delicious. All of which are good things in a book.
When you're churning out a daily wordcount, just trying to get more more more on the page (and this method does work for me since I came to it last year - have never been a speed drafter before) and you have a whole list of chores that HAVE to be done because they have deadlines whether that be 'publisher needs it by xxx' or 'friends coming to dinner tonight and we will need clean plates' it's so easy to forget that a writer also needs to have quiet contemplating time, and reading crunchy things to feed the brain time, and that when you actually DO take time to rest, relax and read books about feminist SF conventions, good things happen to the part of your brain that does the writing.
Or something.
In a few weeks my priorities are going to change - I'll be on self-declared maternity leave from the novel in progress after Friday, and after that my main priority will be feeding my brain crunchy books and the like in order to stop it melting into a baby-induced puddle, keeping it intact until I come out the other end of baby haze, needing my wits sharp enough to keep the novel train going. Hopefully the writing break will not be too detrimental if I can keep reading actively and letting that clever part of my brain soak up the good stuff.
That's the plan. Hush. Let me keep my illusions.
While feeding my brain with such lovely crunchy stuff as an academic paper by Catherynne M Valente comparing Alice, Dorothy and Clara of the Nutcracker with Inanna and Persephone's journeys through the underworld... I came up with some marvellous mythic ideas to make my slightly-flagging Book 2 into something Much More Clever, Feminist and Delicious. All of which are good things in a book.
When you're churning out a daily wordcount, just trying to get more more more on the page (and this method does work for me since I came to it last year - have never been a speed drafter before) and you have a whole list of chores that HAVE to be done because they have deadlines whether that be 'publisher needs it by xxx' or 'friends coming to dinner tonight and we will need clean plates' it's so easy to forget that a writer also needs to have quiet contemplating time, and reading crunchy things to feed the brain time, and that when you actually DO take time to rest, relax and read books about feminist SF conventions, good things happen to the part of your brain that does the writing.
Or something.
In a few weeks my priorities are going to change - I'll be on self-declared maternity leave from the novel in progress after Friday, and after that my main priority will be feeding my brain crunchy books and the like in order to stop it melting into a baby-induced puddle, keeping it intact until I come out the other end of baby haze, needing my wits sharp enough to keep the novel train going. Hopefully the writing break will not be too detrimental if I can keep reading actively and letting that clever part of my brain soak up the good stuff.
That's the plan. Hush. Let me keep my illusions.