Taken: March 28, 2010, approx. 7 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca
Another shot taken during the "magic hour," this one out in our "backyard". It's two straight days of my nightly separation from my iPhone. So far, so good. I find I'm sleeping more, dreaming more and dreaming more about writing. Now the thing is to figure out how to translate my (very) weird dreams into something I can use on paper.
It's also been more than two weeks since my tumble down my front stairs. Almost all the scars are gone (the ones you can see anyway) and today I spent an hour carting boxes of books from my storage locker to my office. Despite having to navigate up a big flight of stairs with each box (there were seven -- though a friend helped carry one), my knee seems to have stood up fine. I took a short walk in the late afternoon and tomorrow, I plan on getting on my bike again. Baby steps, I remind myself.
If you're like me, that's hard. I'm one of those people who think it can all be done yesterday. I have somehow romanced myself into thinking that I have much more time in the day than I actually have. This is one reason why I have been known to be late for appointments. Some part of me just can't tell time very well. But when I was younger, I wrote like that all the time. I could write spec scripts in days -- four days is my record -- and they were good. My hands couldn't keep up with my brain, the writing flowed like water -- all the time. I was unstoppable.
Who knows what happened? Am I older and wiser or just older and slower? Whatever. My Mom told me recently that I didn't lose my talent, I just lost my way. I'm thinking to myself I never thought that. But maybe I did. Maybe this whole self-discovery thing is about understanding myself better?
Whoa.
I have been getting better at planning, about saying yes and more importantly, saying no more often. I'm trying to be more reasonable about time constraints but even now as I plan out the next week of work, I realize I am behind schedule on a couple of things I hoped to finish. I don't love this about myself but I also won't begrudge it either. I believe creative things take time -- it's just a matter of making sure you put the work in. Still, in my experience I've noticed the hardest thing for writers isn't the doing, it's knowing when you're done. Being a good editor of yourself means understanding when you have rewrites left and when it's time to just walk away.
I'm getting close to that point on my latest novel, which is now in it's fourth draft, I think (I've lost count). I'm knee deep in it though and enjoying writing it for the first time in forever. But I can feel the footsteps. I know The End is near. And a part of me cannot wait to get there but still ... well, if you're a writer you know.
If not, well, lucky you.
I shot this with my K100D and edited very lightly in Photoshop.
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