I have a good life. I have a lot of things to look forward to in the next year.
However, when people were asking me about how I felt 2010 was going to be, I was hesitant. Unwilling to be excited. Unwilling to comment on things.
All this changed when I finished the novel, and got a handle on the rewrites. Suddenly, I was really looking forward to the new year, I was really excited about my life again. I had no idea that not finishing the novel was weighing so heavily on me. I’d recognized I was depressed, yes, and so I did something about it. That the not finishing had such far reaching consequences was a surprise to me.
I’ve always been careful about setting goals, generally giving myself an “out”. (Like I’ve always told myself that if I finished the novel by the end of January that still counted as finishing by the end of 2009.) I guess this is why.
Between now and The Big Push (Jan 20 – April 30) I need to finish typing up the existing chapters, and do as much as I can of a cleaning polish on Novel #2. (I did the make it not broken draft, but not the polish draft, and every time I open up that file I end up just polishing.) I’m going to be in San Francisco for a week between now and The Big Push, which makes life a little more complicated, but I’ll figure it out. This will kind of be my “dry run” as it were, for more focused writing while in SF.
Then comes TBP. That’s the next goal — working diligently on rewriting the novels for 100 consecutive days. I keep thinking about the rewrite, taking notes on what I want to do, so I think it’ll be okay.
My other writing goals — finish the trilogy and send it out this year. And start the next novel. I’m keeping these pretty broad and not tying hard dates to either of them, for my sanity’s sake. In an ideal world I’ll send off the trilogy before I move to New Orleans. But I don’t live in Ideal, but in Seattle, and things happen sometimes.
Right now I don’t have any other big goals. I have a list of things that I need to do before I move, but it’s a pretty short list and a pretty long time between now and then, so I’m not worried. I’m going to keep up the things that have been successful so far — like the calendar with gold stars and the same general goals. (I was ridiculously pleased when I realized how many gold stars I was earning while on vacation!) I may try to do another month of blogging. I will try to finish updating my website sooner rather than later. But right now, it’s time to go grocery shopping, time to buy healthy food for the week.
But I don’t live in Ideal, but in Seattle, — this reminds me of a Firesign Theater line, which I always found funnier than it deserved: “Abraham Lincoln didn’t die in vain — he died in Washington, DC.”
Also: I’m beginning to think that depression plays an important role in creativity. Sometimes, when I’m feeling depressed, it’s a sign that my mind is really occupied with a learning or creative struggle. Realizing this I can put more conscious resources to the creative struggle, if that works. Or I can just ride the “depression” until the brain solves its problem and the depression lifts. Maybe it’s like cursor lag. The computer gets taken up with a big problem, and sometimes routine functions suffer. Or something.
I think they’ve actually studied this — that depression didn’t develop to make us depressed, but because it allows us to focus more deeply. Or something.