This pandemic has slowed me down in more ways than one. My writing has almost come to a complete halt.
And I had hoped it wouldn’t. I mean, I’ve had all this time at home so you would think I would have written many words—possibly even a book by now.
Nope. Nada. Not one word toward a book.
It’s like all the words except those for journaling have escaped me. And I don’t like it one bit.
Have you had a similar experience during the pandemic? It may not be about writing like me, but I bet you’ve experienced different things during this time.
What has the pandemic done to me?
Being an empty nester, things had slowed down for me before the pandemic. Several years ago, my daughter had moved out and cut ties with me and the rest of the family. A couple of years ago, my son finished up high school early and moved out within a month.
With this situation we’re in now, I’ve slowed down even more. Some days, I can get a lot done and am full of energy. Other days, I’m on the struggle bus.
But we all deserve a lazy day now and again, right?
My daily schedule is out of whack, though. Since I’m not as active during the day, I’m having trouble winding down at night so I can sleep.
Bedtime has gone from 10 or 10:30 to midnight. Then my nights are short because my dogs or cat wake me at 6 a.m.
Have I done any writing?
I have done some writing but not as much as I had hoped. I’ve started journaling a little bit each day in my new planner. It’s getting me back to writing at least a little each day.
This is the second blog post other than the book features I’ve written, so I’m glad to be getting back to that. I would like for my blog to take off.
As far as my books go, I’m not writing anything, but I am thinking about them. Thinking is a good thing, right?
I’ve actually been doing a lot of thinking about the direction of my books. While I enjoyed writing the young adult contemporary romance short story for the anthology, I’m not sure that’s what I want to write.
Where has my focus been?
When I have thought about my writing, my main focus on writing has been my blog and newsletter. In the past, I’ve wanted to monetize my blog, and I had signed up for a blog course the beginning of March. I got sick and hadn’t felt like doing much.
So, the pandemic gave me the opportunity to finish that course up and get going on my blog again. I’ve got topics lined up for the next couple of weeks.
Will I write a book this year?
I’m still hoping at the very least to write and publish the third book of the trilogy. I know I keep saying this, but this book has been such a struggle for me.
And I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s the perfectionist in me. It’s the last book of the trilogy so maybe I want to end it on a great note. I have a rough draft, which has the ending I want, but the other parts aren’t what I want.
It’s why I’m rewriting it for hopefully the final time.
In July, Camp NaNoWriMo happens. In case you don’t know what this is, it’s for authors to set a goal and try to hit that goal. It’s different that the regular NaNoWriMo in November when authors have to write 50,000 words in 30 days.
With Camp NaNo, we can set whatever goal we want. I usually set it around 10,000 words.
I have today and tomorrow to finish up the outline for Second Chances—tenative title at this point—and be ready to write on Wednesday.
Can I do it? I’m hoping so!
Final thoughts
When I started this blog post, I wasn’t planning on using questions as my subheadings. Overall, I think it worked out pretty good.
I’ll be doing the progress thing for the last Monday blog post each month, so if you have a question you would like me to answer, feel free to comment below or email me!