Maintaining an Even Strain in Life and in Writing (Until it’s lost)

I haven’t gotten much writing done lately for various reasons: busy with other things, this and that cropping up and demanding attention. Nothing you can do about it, really, but try and muddle through. As I mentioned recently I am also letting my subconscious work through some tricky problems in the next scene, but that’s coming along nicely.

Next Tuesday I also have to go to the doctor for a regular medical thing. They have to put me under to do it. I am not looking forward to that. Not so much the procedure as being put under. I don’t like that idea. I don’t like the idea of not being in control. I guess the last time I was put under at the hospital was when I was six or seven and had my tonsils out. As you can see this was a long time ago. Now they just snip-snip and send you back home. But back in the day it was an overnight stay at the hospital.

This procedure isn’t overnight but I still have to be knocked out for it. And that’s the part I don’t like and that’s the part that is starting to weigh on me. Because of my past, because of how I grew up, I have come to depend on one person more than any other: myself. So when I am put under for this procedure suddenly for the first time in decades I will be completely out of control of my life. I don’t like that at all. Not at all.

In other news I am still super-excited about the novel I am working on. I was thinking about what I have done on it so far. I’ve got about 100 pages. It’s hard to judge how long these things will be, but let’s say 100,000 words. (It probably won’t be that long, and if it is will most likely end up being longer than that. Make sense?) So if I have 100 pages so far that’s 25%. Of course, this is rough draft stuff. Some will be tossed and some will be expanded. Maybe it will all even out.

My point being I am not obsessing over the length of the novel. I never do that. I let the story be as long (or as short) as it needs to be. I don’t dictate that, the story does. It’s another reason I never write for the market. Now it’s true I have been invited to write for an anthology a time or two. Obviously in those cases I have to be aware of word length and genre and so on. But that aside I never write for the market. I write the story. It means little to me if there is not a market available for said story. In fact, given today’s dynamic, whether there is an available market for a story means very little.

It’s not like the old days when writers had to go begging to publishers with hat in hand. We are in control of our own success and our own destiny now. I have always said I want writers to be treated with respect and empowered. We may never get the first, but we now have the second (empowerment) in our grasp. I like that. I like that a lot. I like having that power and being in control.

Which is why I am not looking forward to next Tuesday when in one aspect of my life I will (albeit for a short time) lose that control.