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Fleur Blüm

~ writer, performer, musician

Fleur Blüm

Tag Archives: Rest

Post-wrimo comedown

01 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

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Inspiration, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, perspiration, Reinvigorate, Rest, Travel, Writing

Yesterday I successfully completed my seventh NaNoWriMo challenge! Woohoo!! I did my first in 2012, and have completed at least 50k words each November since then. It’s a little mind boggling; my NaNoWriMo site stats are in the image below.

stats

A ‘lifetime’ word count of over 350k words. It seems absurd. That’s not counting anything that I’ve written outside of November. It’s nice to know that I can keep up my output for a whole month, even with everything else that goes on: working, other projects, travel. I can find time to write under almost any circumstances, with the right motivation.

At the end of November, after finagling and rearranging everything to hit the 1700 word daily target, I’m tired. I need a few days off before starting on the next thing. The story is not finished, I estimate I’m about 75% through. I’ve volunteered to help judge an RWA contest, and I have a manuscript returned from my editor. And I’m taking the weekend off.

NaNo-2018-Winner-Badge

NaNoWriMo is a sprint, it’s not a sustainable pace for me. I can keep up a pretty high output for a little while, then I need to have a break. I know some authors who write every day without fail; that’s not my strength. I prefer a variety in my projects, and I need to allow time for things like music, poetry, and theatre as well as working on my prose. November is the month for prose drafting.

December and January are likely to be reasonably quiet, a lot of people go on holiday and my day job should be less hectic (although it seems unlikely). I hope that these months will allow some rest and re-invigoration. Travel while invigorating, is not particularly restful.

For now, I’m going to bask in the glow of having achieved my goal. Or try to, my brain isn’t very good at celebrating achievements, it likes to move straight onto the next project. Have you got summer projects you’re looking forward to?

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The Fallacy of Idleness

29 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

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Burn out, Dances With Cucumbers, Inspiration, Magazine, Motivation, Music, Netflix, Rest, Writing, Writing Gig

I’m starting to think that I have a skewed idea of what ‘not doing much’ means. Since the start of the year I’ve been feeling the frustrating and conflicted combination of being both bored and overly busy. It’s a very strange feeling and it also means I’ve felt like I’m not really doing much, or progressing with projects.

This feeling has not been helped at all by the fact that I have recently subscribed to Netflix, so I feel like I’ve been watching a lot more tv than in the past. To be honest it’s probably just replaced stupid YouTube rabbit holes.

Anyway, as a colleague at work commented to me earlier today, I do actually have my fingers in a lot of pies. I’ve got practicing and rehearsing with my band, writing (and re-writing) various projects, Dances with Cucumbers, life modelling, exercise, socialising, and working in recruitment. I manage to fill up my time pretty effectively. So maybe what I’m actually feeling is some sort of misplaced guilt. As though every moment of the day should be utilised for some sort of productive end. There’s no rule that says you must book yourself back to back with stuff or you fail at being an adult. In fact I’m pretty sure there are arguments against it.

I’ve been looking into opportunities to submit to online magazines, either as once off submissions or as a staff writer. One which seems interesting requires one blog post per week, and one long article per month, which seems totally doable on the surface. But I worry that some weeks I’d struggle to have the time, and other weeks I’d have plenty of time. I guess everything in life is like that; a balancing act of compromise and negotiation. I’m going to go for it, and try to make it work. It’s not a paid gig, but it would definitely look good on my writing resume.

I wonder how other people manage to get the right balance between being productive and having enough rest that you don’t burn out. I need to tell my brain to settle down and just accept there will be weeks when not much happens, and other weeks when you’re jam packed. That’s life. I’m pretty sure it won’t change.

Well, I just wanted to write that all out and tell myself aloud that I am not being a slacker. It’s also a bit of an update. I haven’t started editing the Choose Your Own Adventure novel from NaNoWriMo 2015, but I have started some major rewrites for the novel from NaNoWriMo 2014, which are coming along nicely. This weekend is hideously flat out for me, so hopefully I get through it without exploding/imploding. I’ll catch you all on the flip side!

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Melbourne, Australia
fleurblum@hotmail.com

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