A BRIEF INTRODUCTION: Hello there! I’m Tess, and you’re about to read an experiment of mine. The experiment is to see how long I can keep a decent log of my writing life, and to see whether that log has any entertainment value. It’s sort of like a captain’s log, but almost definitely less exciting. Hope you enjoy!
10/5/2019
1229
Gonna go ahead and give myself extra props for hitting this number, because I also managed to go to a party today! Wrote 800 before and another 400 after. Said party involved some EXCELLENT “Beyond” veggie sausage, along with spatzle and soft pretzels. And a couple of doggies, and a few rounds of MarioKart, which I am quite terrible at!
Weekly total: 4,551
Surplus: 551
Where the magic happens. God that chair is so old.
10/6/2019
1406
Hell yeah, coming in strong! Definitely feeling revitalized at the moment! And I’m looking at next weekend, which looks pretty full in terms of social activities, so I’m happy to start off strong.
I don’t know who (other than me) needs to hear this, but--you can fuck around all morning and still have a productive day, I promise you. I almost never start writing in the morning. I was going to add “on the weekend” to that, but seeing as I have a 9-to-5 during the week, it’s literally always true. I almost never write in the morning. I am just not a morning person. Never have been. I feel like my brain has trouble turning on in the morning, particularly when it comes to anything creative--and that goes triple for writing in the extra long-form that is this novel series.
Every one in awhile, I still run into a click-bait article trying to tell me that my success depends on doing everything just like everyone else, in particular “successful people.” As in: “What’s the one thing all successful people have in common? They start work early!” These articles are everywhere, and they are complete bullshit, but a part of me still incorporates them into my inner shaming voice anyway.
If that’s a problem for you, too, then I’ll just go ahead and repeat myself: I almost never write in the morning, and that is perfectly okay. And to be honest, if I forced myself to go against my nature because some internet article tried to shame me into some ad dollars...who’s to say that the work I churned out wouldn’t be absolute crap? Random internet articles don’t know you. You know you.
End sermon.
Fantastic local coffee place, showing their Halloween spirit.
10/8/2019
1,444
Y’ALL THIS TUESDAY THO. Did you see my sermon up there? Because ALL THESE WORDS WERE WRITTEN AFTER 9PM. To be clear, if you *are* a morning person, and you get your best work done then--good for you! You don’t have to write after 9pm to be good/successful/perfect/actualized. You also don’t have to write before 9pm to be any of those things.
In this case, prior to 9pm, I had a full work day, got in a decent workout, and spoke to a long-distance BFF (whom I hadn’t spoken to in a few months) for about 2 hours.
And then I sat down and wrote some words. Some days, I really do have the energy for all these things. Some days, I don’t. Today was the former.
Roof coffee.
10/10/2019
905
Not as astronomical as the last two, but still a damn decent day. And I actually got a much bigger workout in today, to boot. I’ve mentioned this before, but exercise is always this weird balance between trying not to spend all my extra time and energy for the day on working out, and thus having nothing left over for writing...and the fact that the more I work out, the more energy I have to go around in general.
And of course, there’s the fact that I just...enjoy being strong. I really do wish I had a little more time to devote to exercise than I currently do, because I find very few things quite so satisfying as moving up to a higher weight in strength training, or even just the surprise on an unsuspecting face when this chubby 5’3 lady-person lifts a giant air conditioner by herself and carries it out to her car (making sure to lift with the knees, of course.)
It’s the little things, ya know?
10/11/2019
Other Words: 312
Just had one of those restless-creative moments and decided I had to write in something else for a while. This is one of those projects that I have a lot of ideas for, but probably won’t be able to write in earnest for a while. Current working title is “Dryad Epic Fantasy with Greek Lesbians.” Catchy, no?
After that, went to the grocery store to prep for an upcoming group trip on Sunday, then went to Taco Bell and made sure that despite all my workouts, I will remain #foreverchubby.
10/12/2019
1,009
Finishing out the week strong! Which is good, because I was hoping to carry a surplus into my word count goal for next week, since I already know that tomorrow will be either a low- or no-word-count day.
Did a co-working session with a friend today, and we actually got stuff done! I really love the concept of co-working with friends, because is sounds nice and un-lonely, but the reality of it is often that I don’t actually get much done. But today was a good step toward that co-working dream!
Aaaand the stuff I got done today was interesting and fun. I feel like I’m honing the heart of this book right now.
Kitty love box.
Weekly total: 4,764
Surplus: 764
-Tess
Hey, thanks for reading! If you’re new here, and you’d like to hear updates on my writing, including these blog posts and my ongoing novel series, The Choronzon Chronicles, then click below to sign up for my email list!
Alternately, if you’ve never heard of The Choronzon Chronicles before, but you think you might check it out, you can find the first book right here: Shadow Summoner.