Defender Draft 3 has started. I'm working with 94,000 words and it'd be nice to whittle that down to under 90K, but I won't weep if it doesn't.
What disappoints me is my reading. I used to love reading, but now it feels like I'm reading just to get the books done. Just to diminish the "to-read" list on Goodreads or claim that I've read "a classic". But through the list, I just haven't found anything that reminds me of why it's so good to read. The last one I remember is Eleanor & Park, and before that Looking for Alaska.
And there are days when I feel like, huh, gotta write again. Man, I wish I was doing something other than this. I wish I was doing something fun. It could be because I'm revising, not composing, and I'm more in the cleaning up phase than the creating phase. But it's not like I'm sick of the story. Not yet. So that's not the issue. It's just being back into the groove. My lunch hours dedicated to this instead of going out to eat or taking a walk around the lake or watching TV.
Some days I have to resist turning into a slug. Some days I just want to forget about the writing I want to accomplish, the goals that seem so far away, and just play video games and drink whiskey. Then I become a consumer, not a producer. Like a caterpillar that just eats and eats and eats leaves and only serves as food for some higher-up animal. One that never turns into a butterfly to help pollinate the flowers it would previously destroy.
So it's a struggle. It's like trying to stay away from alcohol after going through the steps. It looks so good, so easy to fall into, but you have to resist it because there are bigger things than personal indulgence.Labels: books, defender
